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Can Google Searches Help Spot Measles Outbreaks in Real Time?
Tracking infectious disease outbreaks early is crucial to stopping them before they spread widely. But traditional disease surveillance systems can be slow or incomplete, especially during disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic, when measles vaccinations and reporting were affected worldwide. A recent study by Wang et al. asks an exciting question: Can Google Trends, a free tool that shows what people are searching online, be used to monitor outbreaks of diseases like measles
Owen Coggins
Nov 103 min read
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Editing Evolution: How Scientists Are Reprogramming Mosquitoes to End Malaria
If you’ve ever been bitten by a mosquito, you probably brushed it off as an annoying itch. But for millions of people around the world, a single mosquito bite can be deadly. That’s because some mosquitoes carry Plasmodium , the parasite that causes malaria, a disease that still kills hundreds of thousands every year. We’ve tried insecticides. We’ve tried mosquito nets. We’ve tried medications. But mosquitoes and parasites are incredibly good at adapting. So scientists are ask
Owen Coggins
Oct 113 min read
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The Fascinating World of Axolotls and Regeneration
Why Humans Struggle With Aging In humans, regeneration ability fades as we age. Stem cells become sluggish, the immune system goes haywire with chronic inflammation, and fibroblasts produce stiff collagen fibers that turn into scars. This is why wounds heal slowly in older adults. Age-related diseases like arthritis and heart failure often come with tissue damage that the body can’t properly repair. So the big question is: how do axolotls keep their regenerative toolkit switc
Owen Coggins
Sep 233 min read
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Can AI Invent Viruses to Fight Superbugs?
Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to human health today. Many bacteria are becoming resistant to the drugs we normally use to kill them. This makes once-treatable infections dangerous or even deadly. One promising alternative is phage therapy, which uses bacteriophages—viruses that naturally infect bacteria—to infect and kill them. But there’s a catch: bacteria can evolve resistance to phages just like they do with antibiotics. This raises a big question: co

Owen Coggins
Sep 203 min read
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Would You Trust AI to Diagnose Cancer?
Artificial intelligence is starting to change how doctors look at cancer. A new study published in Nature introduces a powerful AI tool that could make cancer diagnosis faster, more accurate, and more personalized. Let’s break it down in plain English. What is the problem addressed in this study? Cancer is usually diagnosed by examining tissue samples under a microscope, a process called histopathology. Pathologists look at cells to determine if they are cancerous, what type

Owen Coggins
Sep 64 min read
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