Slayman, the first pig kidney recipient, was eligible for a human kidney but would have likely waited six to seven years to get one because of his rare blood type. Pisano and the two pig heart patients didn’t qualify for a human organ because of other medical issues. Looney was running out of options. Her…
Editors of the environmental chemistry journal Chemosphere have posted an eye-catching correction to a study reporting that toxic flame retardants from electronics wind up in some household products made of black plastic, including kitchen utensils. The study sparked a flurry of media reports a few weeks ago that urgently implored people to ditch their kitchen…
In September, a man from Montana was sentenced to six months in prison after he trafficked a clone of one of the world’s largest sheep species. Court documents allege that Arthur Schubarth trafficked body parts of a near threatened Marco Polo argali sheep into the US from Kyrgyzstan and in 2015 contracted with a lab…
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. It’s not easy to study quantum systems—collections of particles that follow the counterintuitive rules of quantum mechanics. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, a cornerstone of quantum theory, says it’s impossible to simultaneously measure a particle’s exact position and its speed—pretty important information for understanding what’s going on….
THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Clouds form when water vapor—an invisible gas in the atmosphere—sticks to tiny floating particles, such as dust, and turns into liquid water droplets or ice crystals. In a newly published study, we show that microplastic particles can have the same effects, producing ice…
“You can see an ecosystem change overnight—specifically with hydrilla. You’ll see a normal pond, and then at the end of the growing season, it’s completely full of hydrilla,” said Nicole White, founder of Little Bear Environmental Consulting, which often works with city and state departments to combat invasive species. “Nothing else can survive there. It’s…
When the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, it ended the constitutional right to have an abortion and returned the ability to regulate the procedure to the states. Now, amid a heated presidential election that resulted in a win for Donald Trump, a handful of states have voted to enshrine reproductive…
Nine years ago, a pair of freshly weaned British longhair kittens boarded a private plane in Virginia and flew to their new home in Europe. These kittens were no different than any other, except that they’d been created in a lab. They were clones: genetically identical to their predecessor, now sadly deceased. It had taken…
A new Mayan city, lost in the dense jungle of southern Mexico for centuries, has been discovered from the computer of a PhD student hundreds of miles away. This is the story of how he did it. The settlement, named Valeriana after a nearby freshwater lagoon, has all the characteristics of a classic Maya political…
In 2014, after the disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa normalistas in Mexico, Silván and other CentroGeo professionals joined the scientific advisory board on the case. During the search for the students, different civilian groups and government brigades detected dozens of illegal graves. In less than 10 months, the Mexican Attorney General’s Office counted 60 sites and…
