Bling Nature For Life

Archives, libraries, photo agencies and publishers need to do better to reflect science’s true past and present. Unlike many other Black scientists from history, high-quality images of agricultural scientist George Washington Carver — shown here with students at the Tuskegee Institution in Alabama — are readily available. Credit: …

Fossil discovered in northwestern Canada could rewrite the early history of animal life — but some palaeontologists are not convinced it’s real. Most major groups of animals — including arthropods, molluscs and worms — first appear in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion, 541 million years ago. But according to a paper …

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the week’s best science picks. The Painful Truth Monty Lyman  Penguin  (2021) Why is pain, a universal experience, so poorly understood by both doctors and patients, asks clinician-researcher Monty Lyman. He relieved his irritable bowel syndrome through self-hypnosis, including visualizing his bowel…

Scientists are unpicking the life cycle of SARS-CoV-2 and how the virus uses tricks to evade detection. The coronavirus sports a luxurious sugar coat. “It’s striking,” thought Rommie Amaro, staring at her computer simulation of one of the trademark spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2, which stick out from the virus’s surface. It was swat…