Public health researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health used computer modeling to reconstruct how the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic unfolded in the U.S. The findings highlight the rapid spread of pandemic respiratory pathogens and the challenges of early outbreak containment. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to comprehensively compare the spatial transmission of the last two respiratory pandemics in the U.S. at the metropolitan scale. 

More than half of the world’s population speaks more than one language—but there is no consistent method for defining “bilingual” or “multilingual.” This makes it difficult to accurately assess proficiency across multiple languages and to describe language backgrounds accurately. A team of New York University researchers has now created a calculator that scores multilingualism, allowing users to see how multilingual they actually are and which language is their dominant one. 

MIT theoretical physicists may have an explanation for the surprising observation that superconductivity and magnetism can co-exist in some materials. They propose that under certain conditions, a magnetic material’s electrons could splinter into quasiparticles known as “anyons,” some of which could flow together without friction — an entirely new form of superconductivity.

New system successfully transforms simple carbon molecules into acetyl-CoA. A building block of life, acetyl-CoA can be used to make a variety of materials. To build the system, scientists screened 66 enzymes and 3,000 enzyme variants. Enzyme screening and system use molecular machinery outside of living cells.