In recent weeks, coronavirus led to the shutdown of many university campuses and other institutions for research and learning in the United States and around the world.
There’s always work that you can do from home. But parts of the scientific process can only be completed in the lab, or at another location where fieldwork or other hands-on research occurs. What’s a scientist to do when it’s time to put some of their experiments on the shelf?
Here is a collection of stories from around the world on how professors, graduate students and others in the sciences are coping with the effects of coronavirus on their lives and work.
Throwing away fruit flies
Itai Cohen’s physics lab at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., uses genetically engineered fruit flies to study how insects fly. It turns out that the flapping of wings is an unstable motion that requires constant wing muscle adjustment.
Usually, the flies live the usual life of a fly. But their nervous systems have been genetically booby-trapped. Shine a red light on some, and that will activate a neuron of interest; a green light will turn off a neuron.