Katherine J. Wu
She holds a Ph.D. in microbiology from Harvard University. Before joining The Atlantic in 2021, she was a science and health reporter for The New York Times focused on COVID-19. She won a Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communication in 2022, a Science in Society journalism award in 2021, and the Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award for Young Science Journalists in 2020. At The Atlantic, she covers science.
Eagles Are Falling, Bears Are Going Blind
Bird flu is already a tragedy.
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Sharon Pruitt / Getty The Bivalent Shot Might Lay You Out
But double the spike proteins doesn’t mean double the fevers and chills.
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Getty It’s Gotten Awkward to Wear a Mask
“It’s like showing up in a weird hat.”
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David Sewell / Alamy Pregnancy Is a War; Birth Is a Cease-Fire
Fetuses want more than their mother can safely give.
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Tyler Comrie / The Atlantic; Getty I Was Allergic to Cats. Until Suddenly, I Wasn’t.
No one quite knows why some allergies disappear and others don’t.
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Bettmann / Getty Warning Signs About the First Post-pandemic Winter
It may not be as bad as last year’s … but it certainly won’t be good.
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Nikita Teryoshin The Case for Cats
Cats are a biological marvel. That’s not (the only reason) why I love them.
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Thibaut Brunet Something Strange Happens When You Tear These Creatures Apart
Behold choanoflagellates, tiny creatures that can be one body and many bodies all at once.
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The Atlantic When’s the Perfect Time to Get a Flu Shot?
Experts can’t agree.
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Nature Picture Library / Alamy The Fatal Error of an Ancient, HIV-Like Virus
It got too cozy with its host.
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Shah Marai / Getty Polio Is Exploiting a Very Human Weakness
The world has been so close to eradicating polio for so long—which is exactly why the virus is staging a comeback now.
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Tyler Comrie / The Atlantic; Getty Should Your Flu and COVID Shots Go in Different Arms?
Welcome to the two-vaccine conundrum.
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Erik Carter / The Atlantic; Getty Cats Give the Laws of Physics a Biiiiig Stretch
They can fall from potentially infinite heights and survive. They can pivot off of nothing to land on their feet. Scientists still can’t fully explain why.
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Getty; The Atlantic Purring Is a Love Language No Human Can Speak
Some cats do it, but others can’t—and researchers still don’t fully understand why.
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Salvatore Laporta / LightRocket / Getty The Strongest Signal That Americans Should Worry About Flu This Winter
An unnerving flu season in the Southern Hemisphere bodes poorly for those in the north.
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Arnold Jerocki / Getty America’s Fall Booster Plan Has a Fatal Paradox
New boosters that target Omicron may be our most important COVID vaccines since 2020—but the U.S. may be setting up the new shots to fail.
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Joe Raedle/Getty A Risky Monkeypox Vaccine Is Looking Better All the Time
The administration’s newest vaccine Hail Mary may not be enough to fix the U.S.’s monkeypox immunization problems.
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Tyler Comrie / The Atlantic; Getty Cat Owners Can (Almost) All Agree on One Thing
No one seems to think brushing kitty's teeth is worth the hassle.
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Luis Robayo / AFP / Getty You Have No Idea How Good Mosquitoes Are at Smelling Us
The insects have infinite backup plans for hunting us down.
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Guy Prives / Getty The Pandemic’s Soft Closing
The CDC’s latest COVID guidelines are the closest the nation’s leaders have come to saying the coronavirus crisis is done.
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Getty The Bigger This Fungus Gets, the Worse We’re Doing
Human actions have turned a usually beneficial fungus into a bringer of death.
