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Much like Otto von Bismarck and other nation-builders in Germany, Tsar Alexander II was eager to bolster industrial development throughout his country. Central to those efforts was investing heavily in precision metrology. The tsar found eager and skilful natural scientists such as Mendeleev to help. In the same decade, Japan...

Conceptually, the therapeutic strategies of two front-runner start-ups – Elevian and Alkahest – could not be further apart. On the one extreme is Elevian’s reductionist approach, which attempts to recapitulate the benefits of young blood through supplementation with a single pro-youthful factor. On the other is Alkahest’s plasma formulations, created...

Late in August 1609, the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei wrote excitedly to his brother-in-law, relating the fast-moving events of that summer. A few weeks earlier, Galileo had heard rumours that a spyglass had been invented in Flanders (now part of Belgium). He quickly produced an improved version, setting off a...

In 2010, William Schief, an immunologist at Scripps and executive director of vaccine design at IAVI’s Neutralizing Antibody Center, working with a group of researchers began to work with a class of broadly neutralising antibodies called VRC01, the first to be discovered by the NIH Vaccine Research Center. First, they...

These two statements are uncontroversial: the path of science is more or less determined by the educated curiosity of scientists; the funding of science is sometimes based on condition of usefulness. So, does usefulness affect science’s path? Sometimes it does, especially when the funder has skin in the game. Pharmaceutical...

First, let’s get one thing out of the way: Memes aren’t supposed to be comfortable or nice. Hopefully they induce laughter, but they’re not above doing it at others’ expense. I get all that. And yet, I have got to say, all of these memes about Bill and Melinda Gates’...

Teenagers on Facebook can be targeted by adverts endorsing alcohol, drugs, gambling, smoking and eating disorders, according to a report by a watchdog group. The Tech Transparency Project created six test adverts and submitted them to Facebook, saying it wanted to reach users aged 13 to 17. Facebook approved all...

On April 24, Perth in Western Australia entered a snap three-day lockdown when two people tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 – the first community infections recorded outside hotel quarantine in the state in more than a year. Pubs, gyms and playgrounds shut, remembrance-day services were cancelled and people were confined to...