The common cold is the most common human disease in the world. So, why haven’t we found a cure yet?! Called human rhinoviruses, these respiratory viruses measure between 15 to 30 nanometers in diameter, making them some of the smallest types of viruses out there. And it’s partly thanks to the viruses’ genetic makeup that they’re so good at replicating. Human rhinoviruses travel like most other respiratory viruses via nasal secretions, which can be released through sneezing, or through contact with fomites, which are surfaces like a keyboard or a doorknob that can help spread the virus from one person to another. From there, all it takes is for a…

We’ve never been able to journey to the center of the Earth, but thanks to an incredibly innovative experiment, we may not have to go there to understand what it’s like. Historically, we’ve explored our planet’s interior using seismic measurements—basically, measuring vibrations that pass through the Earth to tell us more about what’s going on in there. Thanks to research like this we know the Earth has an innermost, super dense solid core, surrounded by a less dense, liquid outer core But now, an exciting new experiment tells us details about the Earth’s core that we’ve never had access to before by using something called a diamond anvil cell, two…

Thanks to data from NASA’s MAVEN satellite, researchers have created the very first detailed map of the electric currents responsible for shaping the magnetic field that wraps around Mars. Researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder have created the very first detailed map of the electric currents responsible for shaping the magnetic field that wraps around Mars, and the resulting visualizations can provide clues as to how we can maybe make this inhospitable planet, hospitable. Unlike Earth, Mars doesn’t have an intrinsic magnetic field to stop charged particles from stripping away its atmosphere, nor does it have global magnetic field to protect it from the rigors of space weather. The…

We’re now using viruses to make batteries…like the kind you could use in your car. So, how does that work and how close are we to a virus-powered car? After recognizing that we have the ability to insert information into a virus’ genome to make stuff, a pioneering team at MIT is using viruses for their own devices. The team is working with the M13 bacteriophage, which is a kind of virus that only infects bacteria, and whose circular genome is relatively simple and is easy to manipulate. Scientists expose batches of this virus to the material they want it to latch onto, like a specific kind of metal. Then,…

Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, communities of color have been — and continue to be — hit disproportionately hard. Let’s talk about why. When it comes to the racial health disparities that have emerged throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, some have postulated that genetics are the underlying cause. But the data indicates that something else is at play. If we take the U.S. as an example, 13% of the country’s population is Black, but Black people make up 24% of deaths from COVID— that means that Black people in the U.S. are dying at a rate that’s roughly double their population share. So, what accounts for the massive racial…

The Parker Solar Probe and the Solar Orbiter are working hand-in-hand to paint a bigger picture of what’s happening on the Sun. » Subscribe to Seeker!http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker » Watch more Countdown to Launch: http://bit.ly/CTLplaylist » Visit our shop at http://shop.seeker.com For the last year, Parker Solar Probe has broken records in speed, collected unprecedented data, and achieved the closest approaches to the Sun ever. None of the insights though, were detailed images of the Sun directly, and if we’re heading to the only star in our planetary system, we want to see it up close and personal. So, NASA and ESA have another mission: Solar Orbiter. The Solar Orbiter is an…

These researchers paired biology with artificial intelligence to create the world’s first “living” robots. » Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker » Watch more Elements! http://bit.ly/ElementsPlaylist » Visit our shop at http://shop.seeker.com Measuring less than a millimeter wide, these micro-machines are programmable lifeforms that researchers from the University of Vermont and Tufts University believe could one day help clean microplastics from our oceans or even repair organs inside our bodies. But what exactly is a “living” robot?! And should we expect to see them whizzing through our bloodstreams any time soon? By pairing stem cells harvested from the embryos of the African Clawed frog with a sophisticated computer algorithm, researchers generated a…

Deepfakes are spreading fast, and while some have playful intentions, others can cause serious harm. We stepped inside this deceptive new world to see what experts are doing to catch this altered content. »Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker »Watch more Focal Point | https://bit.ly/2s0cf7w Chances are you’ve seen a deepfake; Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and Mark Zuckerberg have all been targets of the computer-generated replications. A deepfake is a video or an audio clip where deep learning models create versions of people saying and doing things that have never actually happened. A good deepfake can chip away at our ability to discern fact from fiction, testing whether seeing is really believing.…

Atomic physicists at NASA are working to create an exotic state of matter…in space. And it turns out, the International Space Station is the perfect home base for these experiments. »Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker »Watch more Focal Point | https://bit.ly/2s0cf7w NASA’s new quantum lab is studying a bizarre and rare form of matter called Bose-Einstein condensates… and it’s doing it in space! We went inside the NASA control room that’s running these experiments to talk to the scientists behind this quest to probe the universe’s biggest mysteries. The Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) is a multi-user facility that is operating aboard the ISS producing Bose-Einstein condensates, which are clouds of ultra-cooled…