220 articles from FRIDAY 16.4.2021

What are the new Covid variants and what do they mean for the pandemic?

From Doug to Nelly and Eeek, we look at how mutations are affecting the battle against the virusCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageFrom the moment public health officials started to track new variants of coronavirus, it became clear that the same mutations were cropping up time and again and making the virus more troublesome. What are these mutations, what do they do,...

NASA has selected SpaceX’s Starship as the lander to take astronauts to the moon

Later this decade, NASA astronauts are expected to touch down on the lunar surface for the first time in decades. When they do, according to an announcement made by the agency, they’ll be riding inside SpaceX’s Starship vehicle. NASA’s award of a $2.9 billion contract to build Starship, first reported by the Washington Post on April 16 and later confirmed by NASA, is a huge achievement...

Tarantula's ubiquity traced back to the cretaceous

Tarantulas are among the most notorious spiders, due in part to their size, vibrant colors and prevalence throughout the world. But one thing most people don't know is that tarantulas are homebodies. Females and their young rarely leave their burrows and only mature males will wander to seek out a mate. How then did such a sedentary spider come to inhabit six out of seven continents?

On the pulse of pulsars and polar light

Faced with the tragic loss of the Arecibo observatory in Puerto Rico and the often prohibitive cost of satellite missions, astronomers are searching for savvy alternatives to continue answering fundamental questions in physics.

Simulations reveal how dominant SARS-CoV-2 strain binds to host, succumbs to antibodies

Large-scale supercomputer simulations at the atomic level show that the dominant G form variant of the COVID-19-causing virus is more infectious partly because of its greater ability to readily bind to its target host receptor in the body, compared to other variants. These research results from a Los Alamos National Laboratory-led team illuminate the mechanism of both infection by the G form and...

New analysis finds Spotted Owls harmed by post-fire logging, not fire

Are forest fires a threat to the imperiled Spotted Owl? For years, different groups of scientists assumed so, but a new study turns this assumption on its head. Researchers from the John Muir Project, Pennsylvania State University, and Wild Nature Institute found that these previous studies consistently had a serious methodological flaw: they failed to take into account the impact of post-fire...

The future of particle accelerators is here

A new accelerator and detector will serve as a kind of camera, taking 3D images and movies of electrons colliding with polarized protons and ions. Like a CT scanner for atoms, the EIC will let scientists see how force-carrying gluon particles hold together quarks, the internal components of protons and neutrons. It will also offer insights into the spin of fundamental particles. Cutting-edge...

Tarantula's ubiquity traced back to the cretaceous

Tarantulas are among the most notorious spiders, due in part to their size, vibrant colors and prevalence throughout the world. But one thing most people don't know is that tarantulas are homebodies. Females and their young rarely leave their burrows and only mature males will wander to seek out a mate. How then did such a sedentary spider come to inhabit six out of seven continents?

On the pulse of pulsars and polar light

Faced with the tragic loss of the Arecibo observatory in Puerto Rico and the often prohibitive cost of satellite missions, astronomers are searching for savvy alternatives to continue answering fundamental questions in physics.

COVID-19: Scientists identify human genes that fight infection

Scientists have identified a set of human genes that fight SARS-CoV-2 infection, the virus that causes COVID-19. Knowing which genes help control viral infection can greatly assist researchers' understanding of factors that affect disease severity and also suggest possible therapeutic options. The genes in question are related to interferons, the body's frontline virus fighters.