The number of coronavirus cases keeps rising, but the death rate of COVID-19 patients in intensive care is going down. New research shows coronavirus ICU mortality decreasing by nearly one-third from March through May.

A Long March-5 carrier rocket lifted off from Hainan Island, south of mainland China, on Thursday to the cheers of onlookers from a beach across the bay. Launch commander Zhang Xueyu confirmed the Tianwen-1, also called “quest for heavenly truth,” entered the scheduled orbit. The spacecraft, which includes an orbiter and a rover, is expected to journey for seven months to Mars, where it will look for underground water and evidence of possible ancient life. 

We all know that if someone with COVID-19 coughs on us, we might catch the disease. But what if we have a conversation with an infected person, or sit in the same restaurant, or pass them on the street?

More than 700 million users downloaded the TikTok app in 2019, but the Beijing-based social media platform is facing increasing criticism. On Friday, Amazon ordered its employees to remove TikTok from mobile devices that access company email addresses. But five hours later, the company said the email was sent out in error. “There is no change to our policies right now with regard to TikTok,” spokeswoman Kristin Brown said in a statement. In March, the U.S. Senate introduced a bill that would ban the app from government-issued phones.

The dizzying pendulum of conflicting information experts have offered during the coronavirus pandemic has revealed the perils of relying too much on computer models for scientific studies.

More than 20 scientists and experts wrote an editorial in the June 24 issue of Nature saying the politicization of COVID-19 research shows the need for change in conducting and reporting computer modeling studies. They also criticized how politicians use the results.

Creation continues to provide models for scientific progress—this time in the behavior of ants. Researchers at the University of Bristol in England investigated how rock ants, living within a vast social complex, forage for food, water, nesting sites, and other needs so efficiently. As they explored the cracks and crevices of rocks, the ants seemed to somehow communicate with one another to indicate which trails were dead ends. The scientists thought the principles underlying the ants’ secret could help with computer sampling techniques.

In the race to produce a coronavirus vaccine, some companies are experimenting with a novel approach using gene therapy. The faster, cheaper method could trigger people’s bodies to produce their own antibodies against the virus more quickly than a traditional vaccine would.