Meet the robots that can reproduce, learn and evolve all by themselves

By Emma Hart Ruby Fresson ROBOTS have come a long way in the century since Czech writer Karel Čapek used the word to describe artificial automata. Once largely confined to factories, they are now found everywhere from the military and medicine to education and underground rescue. People have created robots that can make art, plant … Read more

Omicron: How did the coronavirus variant evolve to be so dangerous?

Omicron has become a global threat to public health thanks to a particularly dangerous set of mutations, but where did it come from? Health 17 December 2021 By Michael Le Page A technician at the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine in Durban, South Africa New York Times / Redux / eyevine We do not know … Read more

COVID Variants Hint at How the Virus Will Evolve

As the world sped towards a pandemic in early 2020, evolutionary biologist Jesse Bloom gazed into the future of SARS-CoV-2. Like many virus specialists at the time, he predicted that the new pathogen would not be eradicated. Rather, it would become endemic—the fifth coronavirus to permanently establish itself in humans, alongside four ‘seasonal’ coronaviruses that … Read more