The immense human and economic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic only underscores the threat posed by pathogens that could be deliberately engineered and released.
Why it matters: New technology like gene editing and DNA synthesis has made the creation of more virulent pathogens easier. Yet security and regulation efforts haven't kept pace with the science.
Amid escalating geopolitical tensions and efforts to trace the origin of the novel coronavirus, experts say an international legal framework is needed for sharing biological samples and genetic data during pandemics.
The big picture: This pandemic is exposing legal gaps for sharing virus samples and sequencing data that could hinder responses to international health emergencies, according to a new paper in the journal Science.
Asteroids are thought to be leftovers from the dawn of our solar system, the debris that didn't get incorporated into the planets as they formed billions of years ago.
Driving the news: A new photo taken by the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft shows what the robotic explorer saw as it descended to the surface of the asteroid Ryugu to collect a sample from the ancient object. That little piece of the asteroid is expected to make it back to Earth by December.
