How the world went from no COVID vaccines to two in under a year

First identified in 1545, smallpox ravaged humanity for centuries, spreading rapidly from India through Europe and into the New World. Smallpox is estimated to have killed 300–500 million people in the 20th century alone. But thanks to an unprecedent...

Scientists revive an extinct virus using off-the-shelf DNA

It's no longer far-fetched to synthesize a basic organism. However, a team of researchers has taken that work one step further. They recently reconstituted and reanimated an extinct virus, horsepox, using DNA they'd ordered via mail. The team stit...