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What do you think of this month’s cover image? We had a bit of a debate about it here at Scientific American’s virtual HQ. The illustration is based on scanning electron microscope images of Aspergillus fumigatus, a ubiquitous fungus that can infect the lungs. The intricate, other-worldly structures look really cool. But some people might reasonably think they’re also kind of gross. After all, we recoil from a moldy piece of fruit or the smell of mildew, and as author Maryn McKenna reports, fungal infections are a terrifying health menace....

A patient with late-stage kidney disease just became the first person to receive a bioengineered blood vessel implant. The operation, performed on Wednesday, June 5 at Duke University Hospital, was the bioengineered blood vessel’s first clinical trial. Researchers at Duke and a spin-off company called Humacyte have been working on bioengineered blood vessels for almost fifteen years. One of the major challenges in bioengineering human tissue for medical purposes is that the human body tends to reject implanted organs; the immune system will often attack these foreign cells as if they were harmful invaders....

The meeting where He Jiankui explained his extraordinary claim to have helped produce the first babies—twin girls—born with edited genomes came to a close with a statement that came down hard on the scientist. “We heard an unexpected and deeply disturbing claim that human embryos had been edited and implanted, resulting in a pregnancy and the birth of twins,” reads the statement released by the organizing committee of the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong on 29 November....

GREENLAND Scientists spotted a 19-mile-wide crater hidden below Hiawatha Glacier in northwest Greenland. They believe it might represent a meteorite impact, but other experts say more evidence is needed to prove that the crater has an extraterrestrial origin. U.S. Rising e-cigarette use, or vaping, among teenagers has prompted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to beef up efforts to combat youth smoking. The agency aims to ban menthol cigarettes, remove flavored cigars from the market and restrict the sale of vape flavors....

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the February 1995 issue of Scientific American. We are reposting it this week because Robert Tijan has just been named president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Asthma, cancer, heart disease, immune disorders and viral infections are seemingly disparate conditions. Yet they turn out to share a surprising feature. All arise to a great extent from overproduction or underproduction of one or more proteins, the molecules that carry out most reactions in the body....

After COVID appeared, a huge number of virologists, biochemists, cell biologists and immunologists shifted their work to the coronavirus, and because of that, the world got what it was desperately hoping for: a vaccine, in record time. Everything worked out better than we could have dreamed—several parallel vaccines, all with high efficacy. We are seeing antiviral treatments roll out, too. Scientists can leverage all this effort to better understand other viruses and diseases....

Fragments of RNA that cells eject in fatty droplets may point the way to a new era of cancer diagnosis, potentially eliminating the need for invasive tests in certain cases. Cancer tumor cells shed microvesicles containing proteins and RNA fragments, called exosomes, into cerebral spinal fluid, blood, and urine. Within these exosomes is genetic information that can be analyzed to determine the cancer’s molecular composition and state of progression. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital discovered that exosomes preserve the genetic information of their parent cells in 2008, however exosomes have not seen widespread clinical testing as a means of cancer diagnosis until now....

Key concepts Language Speech Shapes Sound Psychology Human behavior Introduction Do shapes have certain “sounds” to people, regardless of what language people speak? For example, does everyone associate certain physical characteristics, like sharpness and roundedness, with certain sounds? Understanding such similarities may not only help people better understand how languages develop, but it may also improve people’s ability to communicate, especially when trying to cross language barriers. In this activity you’ll investigate the “Bouba–Kiki effect” to find out how abstract shapes may be linked to sound....

Millennia have passed since humans discovered silk and began harvesting it from silkworm cocoons, but scientists are still finding new uses for this remarkable material. Now researchers say it could help tackle a growing environmental and health concern: microplastics, the minuscule plastic fragments that have been found everywhere from mountaintops to the seafloor—and even in the human bloodstream. Most environmental microplastics form when larger items degrade. But a smaller yet notable portion of the polluting particles is deliberately added to products, according to a report from the European Chemicals Agency....

The eyes are the window to the soul. That is why we ask people to look us in the eye and tell us the truth. Or why we get worried when someone gives us the evil eye or has a wandering eye. Our language is full of expressions that refer to where people are looking—particularly if they happen to be looking in our direction. As social primates, humans are keenly interested in determining the direction of gaze of other humans....

MY WIFE AND I go to spinning class a couple of mornings a week. It is something we like to do together, and I feel that I benefit from having a regular workout partner. Some days I am just lazy or I do not want to venture out in the predawn cold, but having a supportive partner motivates me. She bolsters my self-discipline when it flags. Or does she? Is it possible that having a supportive partner might create the opposite and paradoxical effect, actually undermining effort and commitment to health and fitness goals over the long haul?...

Anyone with normal hearing can distinguish between the musical tones in a scale: do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do. We take this ability for granted, but among most mammals the feat is unparalleled. This finding is one of many insights into the remarkable acuity of human hearing garnered by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, reported in January in the journal Nature....

In my Scientific American column this month I asked a question that thousands of people have probably asked before: In those aggressive terms of service agreements that bind participation in Facebook, Instagram, Gmail, YouTube and other free services, what am I actually agreeing to? How far can they go in using stuff that I post? What can they do with my stuff? It sure sounds like the answer is, “anything they feel like....

Instead of taking prescription pills to treat their ailments, patients may one day opt for genetic ‘surgery’ — using an innovative gene-editing technology to snip out harmful mutations and swap in healthy DNA. The system, called CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), has exploded in popularity in the past year, with genetic engineers, neuroscientists and even plant biologists viewing it as a highly efficient and precise research tool. Now, the gene-editing system has spun out a biotechnology company that is attracting attention from investors as well....

Childhood is full of little worries, like who you’ll sit next to at lunch, passing this week’s spelling test, or walking past that scary barking dog at the end of the block. But sometimes kids’ worries grow bigger than your teen’s Instagram audience, faster than your tween in a growth spurt, or are more numerous than fidget spinners in the lunchroom. It’s painful to see your kid suffering from anxiety and it’s heartbreaking to watch them do things that set them apart from their peers, like clinging to you at soccer practice, crying at birthday parties, or refusing to participate in school to the point that their grades suffer....

What goes on in the brain of the groom who says “I do,” then has an affair? Or the friend who pledges to repay a loan but never does? Breaking a promise is a complex neurobiological event, a new study shows—and a brain scan may be able to predict those who are making false promises before they break their word. Using functional MRI, scientists at the University of Zurich in Switzerland scanned the brains of subjects playing an investment game....

February is one of the first months since before months had names to boast carbon dioxide concentrations at 400 parts per million.* Such CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have likely not been seen since at least the end of the Oligocene 23 million years ago, an 11-million-year-long epoch of gradual climate cooling that most likely saw CO2 concentrations drop from more than 1,000 ppm. Those of us alive today breathe air never tasted by any of our ancestors in the entire Homo genus....

U.S. EPA will unveil a proposal for the first-ever technology standards to rein in power plant emissions of carbon dioxide today. As rumored, EPA will require that all new natural gas-fired plants emit no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour, and coal plants no more than 1,100 pounds per megawatt-hour. Although a combined cycle natural gas plant could easily meet the standard, even the most efficient coal plant would have to cut about 40 percent of its CO2 emissions....

A recent spate of polio-related news in the U.S. has left the public wondering: Is polio back? The short answer is yes—but a high-profile New York State outbreak is related to unusual factors that don’t apply to the general population. Measures to address pockets of dangerously low polio vaccination rates around the U.S. could extinguish the outbreak and potentially restore the country to a poliovirus-free condition. Experts agree that a vaccinated population is the best defense against poliomyelitis, the technical name for the disease caused by the poliovirus—which can sometimes lead to permanent paralysis....

Allan Savory’s project, titled “Operation Hope,” is an ongoing effort to reverse the desertification that is spreading across the world’s savannas and grasslands like a disease. It is rapidly changing farmland into deserts. What makes the effort unusual for Savory, a biologist, is his use of what he called “the most universally condemned tool in the world” – livestock. Farming is perhaps the oldest means by which humans have affected the world’s climate....