The world crossed the one-million mark of confirmed COVID-19 cases this past week. With untold millions more possible in the months to come, scientists are committed to making a vaccine.There’s a lot about COVID-19 that scientists still don’t know. They don’t know entirely how it is spread. And without proven treatments or vaccines, good hygiene and staying away from other people are the only known methods of prevention.Dr. Peter Hotez at Baylor College of Medicine started working on a coronavirus vaccine in 2003, during the outbreak of SARS, but after …

Michael Wells was looking for a chance to use his scientific training to help fight the coronavirus when — on the same day the pandemic forced his lab to temporarily close — he decided to create his own opportunity. “CALLING ALL SCIENTISTS,” he tweeted on March 18. “Help me in creating a national database of researchers willing and able to aid in local COVID-19 efforts. This info will be a resource for institutions/(government) agencies upon their request.” That’s how the 34-year-old neuroscientist at the Broad Institute and Harvard University launched a national effort to …

“Meetings are huge for me,” says Mike S., a 52-year-old web content specialist who has been sober since 2012.When his community began practicing social distancing, some of his usual meetings began offering the option of attending online. Mike went in person as long as he could, but things already felt different.With some regulars attending online through a video conferencing service called Zoom, the number of people physically attending “dropped on average by about half,” he said, “which was disconcerting and felt ominous.”Connection with one another is a key part of …

With the coronavirus pandemic nowhere near its end, for many patients the risk of infection has made seeking treatment in hospitals potentially dangerous. This has led to telemedicine becoming more and more routine. Andrei Dziarkach has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. …