Science news for curious people of all ages
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have put out recommendations for how to protect students and school staff from COVID-19 and slow its spread. Even though school is canceled for many students through the rest of the school year, it’s important for school officials to plan for how schools will be differentContinue reading “What Will Schools Be Like When They Reopen?”
Some people on social media obsessively replace all their plastic belongings with stuff made from stainless steel, ceramic, or glass. Other environmentalists rail against fossil fuel companies and say regular people don’t need to change their behavior to stop climate change; we just need to put rich oil company heads in prison. But what doContinue reading “How Exactly Do We Stop Climate Change? Plus a Summer Forecast for COVID-19”
On Monday a company reported promising first signs for a vaccine against COVID-19. What made this news exciting was that, so far, the candidate vaccine looks safe, and taking two shots of it seems to give people as strong an immune response as found in people who have recovered from COVID-19. While this is encouragingContinue reading “Tantalizing Steps Toward a COVID-19 Vaccine. And How Does an mRNA Vaccine Work?”
Scientists around the world are racing to make a vaccine to protect against COVID-19. Scientists are also trying to figure out if people who get COVID-19 are safe from getting it again. Both of these things depend on how our immune systems respond to the new virus. Studying 20 people who had recovered from COVID-19,Continue reading “A Strong Immune Reaction Gives Hope for a Future COVID-19 Vaccine”
In April, zoo keepers at the Bronx Zoo noticed that some of their lions and tigers were coughing. They tested the animals for COVID-19 and found that eight had caught the virus that was causing the coronavirus outbreak in New York City. It seems that the lions and tigers caught the virus from a zooContinue reading “Cats Can Get COVID-19 and Pass it to Other Cats”
In about 4 months, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has killed more than 285,000 people around the world. But, to everyone’s relief, extremely few of those people have been children. When COVID-19 first struck in China, it wasn’t even clear that children could catch the virus. By March, researchers figured out that children were justContinue reading “Coronavirus Symptoms in Children May Not Start With a Cough”
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