Contributor

B. David Zarley

Senior Staff Writer

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B. David Zarley is a senior staff writer for Freethink, where he covers health and medicine, including infectious disease, psychedelic research, mental health, and the brain. A graduate of SUNY Fredonia, his work has also appeared in The Atlantic, The Verge, Jezebel, Frieze, Sports Illustrated, VICE, Paste Magazine, and numerous other publications. He lives in Chicago and can be reached via Signal by request. Send him story ideas!

Virology

MIT's AI predicts new strains of HIV, coronavirus

As coronavirus mutations pop up around the world, researchers at MIT are using language-recognizing AI to try and predict what could be next.

B. David Zarley

Drugs

Mount Sinai is opening a psychedelic research center

A pacesetting institution, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is opening a psychedelic research center focusing on MDMA and trauma.

B. David Zarley

Public Health

Predicting which birds can cause Lyme disease spread

Lyme disease spreads via infected ticks, some of whom pick it up from birds. But which birds may carry the disease to new places?

B. David Zarley

Robotics

Bots can now swim like a school of real fish

Bluebots, robotic fish developed at Harvard, are the first to demonstrate complex swarm behaviors underwater.

B. David Zarley

Virology

New discovery could stop dengue’s “breakbone” fever

Making a dengue vaccine is difficult. It’s early, but a new antibody that targets a protein the virus makes instead of the virus itself may be a solution.

B. David Zarley

Autonomous trucks are taking to the highways

Self-driving cars get all the love, but autonomous trucks are already hitting the road, with a “driver-out” demonstration scheduled for 2021.

B. David Zarley

Coronavirus

Should we delay the second doses of COVID-19 vaccines?

As vaccination campaigns begin, researchers are divided over whether the two-dose strategy should be delayed to get more people’s first dose done quicker.

B. David Zarley

Medicine

Cancer cells can hibernate to escape chemotherapy

A new study has found evidence that cancer cells hibernate, slowing down their division and waiting out the harsh environment of chemotherapy.

B. David Zarley

Animals

Scientists observe cells reacting to a magnetic field for the first time

Scientists aren’t sure how animals sense magnetic fields — magnetoreception. New observations of living cells reacting to magnetic fields may hold a clue.

B. David Zarley

Clean Energy

Transparent solar windows could be coming soon

Solar power is abundant, but the dark panels pose a design problem. A new generation of transparent solar panels could make house-powering windows and phone screens a reality.

B. David Zarley