An Ever-Moving, Unloved Fish Is Stirring Chaos in the North Atlantic
When mackerel started showing up in Iceland, it started a decade-long fight over how to divide the ocean’s riches.
Science
The Body Is Far From Helpless Against Coronavirus Variants
The virus is evolving, but the antibodies that fight it can change, too.
The Pandemic’s Deadly Winter Surge Is Rapidly Easing
Cases are down 57 percent from the country’s all-time peak in early January, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
Leave Your Antibodies Alone
Antibody tests can determine whether your immune system has seen the coronavirus before—and not much else.
The Weekly Planet: Hail! It’s America’s Most Underrated Climate Risk
It’s smashing, in the bad way.
What If We Never Reach Herd Immunity?
Hitting the threshold might actually be impossible. But vaccines can still help end the pandemic.
‘It Seems That I Know How the Universe Originated’
The theoretical physicist Andrei Linde may have the world’s most expansive conception of what infinity looks like.
Humanity Is Flushing Away One of Life’s Essential Elements
We broke phosphorus.
A Super Bowl Ad That the Biden Presidency Made Possible
GM has cast its electric vehicles as normal American cars, in a normal Super Bowl ad. Here are seven ways to think about that.
Mars Doesn’t Look So Dead After All
New discoveries have raised the possibility that the planet’s volcanoes, long assumed dormant, may still be active.