In the winter of 2006, biologists in New York State got a gruesome surprise. As they surveyed colonies of hibernating bats, they discovered heaps of dead animals on the floors of caves and abandoned mines.

The culprit was a fungus new to science. It caused white-nose disease, named for the fuzzy pale tendrils that sprouted from the nostrils of its victims. (The disease was originally known as white-nose syndrome, but was renamed in recent years.) The fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, or P. destructans, has spread from New York to 40 states and nine Canadian provinces.

Continue reading “A Fungus Devastated North American Bats. A New Species Could Deliver a Killer Blow.” →

In April, a team of astronomers announced that they might — just might — have found signs of life on a planet over 120 light-years from Earth. The mere possibility of extraterrestrial life was enough to attract attention worldwide. It also attracted intense scrutiny from other astronomers.

Over the past month, researchers have independently analyzed the data, which suggested that the planet, called K2-18b, has a molecule in its atmosphere that could have been created by living organisms. Three different analyses have all reached the same conclusion: They see no compelling evidence for life on K2-18b.

Continue reading “New Studies Dismiss Signs of Life on Distant Planet” →

In the early 2000s, a coronavirus infecting bats jumped into raccoon dogs and other wild mammals in southwestern China. Some of those animals were sold in markets, where the coronavirus jumped again, into humans. The result was the SARS pandemic, which spread to 33 countries and claimed 774 lives. A few months into it, scientists discovered the coronavirus in mammals known as palm civets sold in a market at the center of the outbreak.

Continue reading “Genetic Study Retraces the Origins of Coronaviruses in Bats” →

President Trump signed an executive order on Monday evening to further restrict experiments on pathogens and toxins that could make them more harmful.

For over a decade, scientists have debated the risks and benefits of so-called “gain of function” research. They’ve long tinkered with viruses and bacteria to endow them with new functions like producing insulin for people with diabetes. Some researchers have modified bird flu viruses in order to figure out which mutations might be crucial for producing pandemic strains that could spread among people.

Continue reading “Trump Executive Order Restricts ‘Gain of Function’ Research on Pathogens” →