A dosing error made during an AstraZeneca-University of Oxford COVID-19 vaccine trial has led to a new dosage finding in mice, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study. During the AstraZeneca-Oxford trial, some human participants erroneously received a half dose of their first shot, followed by a full dose for their second shot. Paradoxically, the trial showed that volunteers […]

For decades the auto industry crash tested new models for safety considerations the old-fashioned way: They crashed them – over and over and over again. It was slow and expensive, but it worked. Today those tests have given way to computer simulations that are so reliable that rarely, if ever, are engineers surprised by the […]

Most of us control light all the time without even thinking about it, usually in mundane ways: we don a pair of sunglasses and put on sunscreen, and close—or open—our window blinds. But the control of light can also come in high-tech forms. The screen of the computer, tablet, or phone on which you are […]

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is re-evaluating recommendations on the use of aspirin to prevent colorectal cancer. According to media reports and a review by the agency — charged since 1984 with issuing guidelines on steps that might prevent disease — recent studies have clouded evidence of aspirin’s anticancer benefits. The Gazette spoke with Andrew Chan, director […]

Javier Luque’s first thought while looking at the 100-million-year-old piece of amber wasn’t whether the crustacean trapped inside could help fill a crucial gap in crab evolution. He just kind of wondered how the heck it got stuck in the now-fossilized tree resin? “In a way, it’s like finding a fish in amber,” said Luque, a […]

Between 2.5 and 4 billion years ago, a time known as the Archean eon, Earth’s weather could often be described as cloudy with a chance of asteroid. Back then, it was not uncommon for asteroids or comets to hit Earth. In fact, the largest ones, more than six miles wide, altered the chemistry of the […]

Grafting arrays of molecular pumps onto metal–organic framework (MOF) surfaces has allowed scientists to devise a completely new form of adsorption that they’ve called ‘mechanisorption’. ‘It’s a new phenomenon by which molecules are actively transported to a surface compartment and retained in a non-equilibrium steady state before being released to the bulk in a non-destructive […]

Most elements lighter than iron are forged in the cores of stars. A star’s white-hot center fuels the fusion of protons, squeezing them together to build progressively heavier elements. But beyond iron, scientists have puzzled over what could give rise to gold, platinum, and the rest of the universe’s heavy elements, whose formation requires more […]

With season’s endyou topple to the ground,aching, broken limbsheld aloft by briny handsthat bare you proudlyto their sunken home. Drifting. With hushed reverenceyou plunge into the laminate,embraced in placeby cold and surging tides. Drifting. You sail through crystal watersand mother-of-pearl skies,skimming ragged currentsacross this frozen,breaking kingdom. Drifting. Washed up on frigid shores,your weathered bodyshimmers in […]

Forgetting a child in the car is a parent’s worst nightmare, but some experts say our ability to remember even the most crucial tasks can be hijacked by something as simple as a missing cue. According to Harvard psychologist Daniel L. Schacter, tragic cases of forgotten children started to rise near the turn of the millennium, […]