Scientists publish more than 10 million studies and other publications a year. Some of those findings will add to humanity’s storehouse of knowledge. But some will be wrong.

To assess a study, scientists can replicate it to see if they get the same result. But seven years ago, a team of hundreds of scientists set out to find a faster way to judge new scientific literature. They built artificial intelligence systems to predict whether studies would hold up to scrutiny.

Continue reading “Can Science Predict When a Study Won’t Hold Up?” →

In front of Esther Oluwagbenga sits an egg perched on a blue tripod. A tiny triangular window has been cut into the shell. When Dr. Oluwagbenga positions the hole under a microscope, she reveals the chick embryo inside.

In its third day of existence, the embryo has developed into a diffuse cloud, with a pinhead-size heart beating at its core. Cells course through crimson arteries in fits and starts, like rush-hour traffic.

Continue reading “How to Turn a Chicken Egg Into a Drug Factory” →

The Covid pandemic was an extraordinary moment in history. Starting at the end of 2019, a virus new to science swept across the planet, killed more than 25 million people and caused trillions of dollars in economic damage.

But as outbreaks go, Covid was pretty ordinary, a new study finds.

Scientists compared seven viral outbreaks that occurred in recent decades, including epidemics of Covid, Ebola and influenza. For the most part, the researchers found, the outbreaks were not preceded by any unusual genetic changes in the viruses. In all but one case, in 1977, the viruses circulated in animals and gained the ability to spread to and among people only by unfortunate coincidence.

Continue reading “Scientists Get a Glimpse of How New Pandemics Are Made” →

One of the biggest discoveries about human evolution in recent decades is that, tens of thousands of years ago, Neanderthals and modern humans interbred. As a result, most people alive today carry a bit of Neanderthal DNA in their genome — and that residual DNA, in turn, is giving scientists a detailed look at the ancient sexual encounters that put it there.

Continue reading “What Your DNA Reveals About the Sex Life of Neanderthals” →

Look at just about any vertebrate and you’ll see two eyes looking back at you. Falcons circling overhead have two eyes, just like hammerhead sharks roving through the ocean.

Scientists have long puzzled over how the vertebrate eye first evolved. A pair of new studies suggest a strange beginning: Our invertebrate ancestors 560 million years ago were cyclopes, with a single eye at the top of their head, scientists now propose, that only later split in two.

Continue reading “The Rise of Eyes Began With Just One” →