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Jordana Cepelewicz

Senior Writer

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Latest Articles

Photo of crows.
cognitive science

Animals Count and Use Zero. How Far Does Their Number Sense Go?

By Jordana Cepelewicz
August 9, 2021
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Crows recently demonstrated an understanding of the concept of zero. It’s only the latest evidence of animals’ talents for numerical abstraction — which may still differ from our own grasp of numbers.

Micrograph of archaeal cells.
genomics

Plasmid, Virus or Other? DNA ‘Borgs’ Blur Boundaries.

By Jordana Cepelewicz +1 authors
Allison Whitten
July 21, 2021
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Scientists have reported large DNA structures in some archaea that defy easy categorization.

Electron microscopy of T4 bacteriophages.
molecular biology

DNA Has Four Bases. Some Viruses Swap in a Fifth.

By Jordana Cepelewicz
July 12, 2021
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The DNA of some viruses doesn’t use the same four nucleotide bases found in all other life. New work shows how this exception is possible and hints that it could be more common than we think.

neuroscience

Secret Workings of Smell Receptors Revealed for First Time

By Jordana Cepelewicz
June 21, 2021
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Researchers have finally seen how some smell receptors bind to odor molecules. The work yields new insights into one of the most mysterious and versatile senses.

Artistic representation of water radiolysis supporting life below ground.
microbiology

Radioactivity May Fuel Life Deep Underground and Inside Other Worlds

By Jordana Cepelewicz
May 24, 2021
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New work suggests that the radiolytic splitting of water supports giant subsurface ecosystems of life on Earth — and could do it elsewhere, too.

A drawing of a mouse, with lines representing sensory data rotating 90 degrees to become lines of memory data.
neuroscience

The Brain ‘Rotates’ Memories to Save Them From New Sensations

By Jordana Cepelewicz
April 15, 2021
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Some populations of neurons simultaneously process sensations and memories. New work shows how the brain rotates those representations to prevent interference.

Illustration of researchers trying to reconstruct the shape of an epidemic curve from its distorted shadow on the floor.
COVID-19

Chasing the Elusive Numbers That Define Epidemics

By Jordana Cepelewicz
March 22, 2021
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Most modeling efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic have sought to address urgent practical concerns. But some groups aim to bolster the theoretical underpinnings of that work instead.

Looping video shows a constantly shifting set of curves and a moving keyhole view of the pandemic coronavirus.
COVID-19

The Hard Lessons of Modeling the Coronavirus Pandemic

By Jordana Cepelewicz
January 28, 2021
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In the fight against COVID-19, disease modelers have struggled against misunderstanding and misuse of their work. They have also come to realize how unready the state of modeling was for this pandemic.

Cells being injected with a microneedle.
Abstractions blog

Nobel Chemistry Prize Awarded for CRISPR ‘Genetic Scissors’

By Jordana Cepelewicz
October 7, 2020
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Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna have been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their development of CRISPR/Cas9 genetic editing.


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