Kai Kupferschmidt

1 week ago | science.org | Kai Kupferschmidt

The U.S. government has announced new, stricter policies on federally funded experiments that could make pathogens or toxins more dangerous. An executive order signed yesterday by President Donald Trump promises more transparency on such research, stiffer penalties for scientists who violate the rules, and a ban on federal funding for this type of research in countries of concern, such as China.

2 weeks ago | science.org | Kai Kupferschmidt

On 28 March, Briony Swire-Thompson began seeing reports online that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) might cancel grants for research on misinformation. At first, she didn’t think she would be affected. Swire-Thompson, a psychologist at Northeastern University, studies misinformation—but not the political lies that get most of the attention. She’s interested in false information about cancer, and why people fall for it.

4 weeks ago | science.org | Kai Kupferschmidt

It took an extension to the extension of the extension, but after more than 3 years of negotiations, governments around the globe—but notably, not the United States—have finally agreed on a treaty to improve how the world prevents, prepares for, and responds to future pandemics, including the basics of a system to share vaccines and drugs more equitably than during the COVID-19 pandemic.

1 month ago | science.org | Kai Kupferschmidt

It started with one baby monkey. On 27 January 2023, researchers noticed that an infant mangabey in Taï National Park in Ivory Coast had developed nasty lesions on its skin. Two days later, it was dead. Soon, the team saw other individuals fall sick and die. The diagnosis: mpox. For the scientists who had been observing animals in the forest for years, the find presented a unique opportunity to investigate how an mpox outbreak starts, and where in nature the virus that causes it might lurk.

1 month ago | m.farms.com | Kai Kupferschmidt

By Kai KupferschmidtBut 10 months later, on 31 January, USDA said it had detected another jump to cattle, this time in Nevada. And 2 weeks later, another one, in Arizona. One year into the United States’s cow flu outbreak, many important questions remain unanswered, including how the virus is spreading from one farm to the next. But perhaps the most basic one is how it manages to get into cattle in the first place—and how often that happens.