Sarah Zhang
The Last Children of Down Syndrome
Prenatal testing is changing who gets born and who doesn’t. This is just the beginning.
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Sebnem Coskun / Anadolu Agency via Getty A Slimy Calamity Is Creeping Across the Sea
The sea snot blanketing Turkey’s coastline isn’t just gross—it’s also smothering animals underwater.
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Xia Yang / Getty / The Atlantic Expect the Unexpected From the Delta Variant
There’s no way of knowing how bad things will get in the U.S. In a way, that’s a luxury.
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Olympia Valla / Getty; Nurk et al.; Katie … The Human Genome Is—Finally!—Complete
The Human Genome Project left 8 percent of our DNA unexplored. Now, for the first time, those enigmatic regions have been revealed.
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Getty / Paul Spella / The Atlantic The IVF Cases That Broke Birthright Citizenship
The U.S. had to rethink its definition of parenthood, to account for children born abroad to American parents using egg and sperm donors or surrogates.
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Getty / The Atlantic All the Sad, Lonely Pandemic Puppies
How are dogs that have never been apart from their owners going to deal with post-pandemic life?
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Universal History Archive / Universal Images Group / … A Clue to Why the 1918 Pandemic Came Back Stronger Than Before
Three 103-year-old-lung samples hinted at how the flu mutated to become more deadly.
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anisah_priyadi / getty The Surprise Hiding in the DNA of Pet Fish
Domesticated betta fish have evolved a sex gene not found in wild fish of their species.
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Timothy A. Clary / Getty The Era of Mass Vaccinations Is Ending
To reach the remaining holdouts, America’s approach to vaccine distribution is going hyperlocal.
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Getty / The Atlantic A Revolution Is Sweeping the Science of Ancient Diseases
The study of DNA from millennia-old bacteria and viruses is revealing new secrets about the plague and other epidemics.
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H. Armstrong Roberts / Getty / Katie Martin … We Are Turning COVID-19 Into a Young Person’s Disease
Even as cases drop among vaccinated Americans, the coronavirus still can spread among unvaccinated people—who will be disproportionately children.
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Katie Martin / The Atlantic The mRNA Vaccines Are Looking Better and Better
Concerns about blood clots with Johnson & Johnson underscore just how lucky Americans are to have the Pfizer and Moderna shots.
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The Atlantic You Probably Have an Asymptomatic Infection Right Now
No, not COVID-19. Many, many viruses can infect humans without making us sick, and how they do that is one of biology’s deepest mysteries.
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Holly M. Devine / Alamy What Killed These Bald Eagles? After 25 Years, We Finally Know.
A perfect confluence of events created a stealth killer.
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Jooeun Bae You Recovered From COVID-19. Now Your Coffee Smells Like Sewage.
The way back from smell loss is its own strange experience.
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Getty A Gruesome Feeding Frenzy in the Atlantic Ocean
A whale’s blubber is a feast for sharks, a natural end to—in this case—an unnatural death.
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Getty / Paul Spella / The Atlantic We Now Can See a Virus Mutate Like Never Before
Tracking the coronavirus’s evolution, letter by letter, is revolutionizing pandemic science.
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Fox Photos / Getty We’re Just Rediscovering a 19th-Century Pandemic Strategy
The first way to fight a new virus would once have been opening the windows.
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Getty / Mark Harris What If We Never Reach Herd Immunity?
Hitting the threshold might actually be impossible. But vaccines can still help end the pandemic.
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Michael Ciaglo / Getty What’s the Use of a Pretty Good Vaccine?
New vaccines are falling short of the spectacular expectations set by Pfizer and Moderna. The world still needs them.
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Nate Lewis The Victims Left Behind by Genetic Genealogy
An Atlantic analysis of more than 100 cases using this powerful new policing tool found only four involving a homicide with a Black victim.
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