There’s a technological revolution underway that’s making it faster and easier for scientists to see the molecules that undermine human health — and possibly fight the problem.

The “resolution revolution” involves cryo-electron microscopes, whose ever-improving detectors and software are producing three-dimensional images in unprecedented detail, aiding drugmakers.

They reveal detail so precise that biologist Andrew Ward, of Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, was able to spotlight the Achilles’ heel of several types of coronaviruses in images that he produced in 2016-17.

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The weaknesses he called out? Spike proteins — the now-familiar elements that allow such viruses to infect cells.

This helped drugmakers to know exactly what to target when SARS-CoV-2 — the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 — emerged in late 2019.

Ward produced an even clearer snapshot of the proteins in 2020, further helping scientists create vaccines.

With additional help from him, effective vaccines were quickly produced.

“That was just the beginning,” said Ward. “Now, this technology is opening doors that help us understand the roots of diseases like cancer and neurodegeneration, including Alzheimer’s.”

“It routinely lets us see life’s tiniest machines — proteins, viruses and the atoms they combine — with breathtaking clarity,” he added.

The research isn’t widely known to the public, partly because it’s hard to conceive of how any microscope — let alone one that’s 10 feet tall — can flash-freeze moving molecules, exposing their structure and purpose.

Ward offered a simple analogy to explain the matter.

“Imagine walking into a dark room,” he said. “You can roughly tell where the furniture is, and see shadowy outlines of a couch or a table. But once the lights are on, you can visualize color, texture, size and fine details.”

That’s what cryo-electron microscopes do — and with great speed.

Ward could only produce about 200 images per day when he was earning his doctorate at Scripps from 2003 to 2008, when he was using a far less powerful type of cryo-electron microscope. And he had access to it only a day or two each month.

Today, he can generate 1,500 images per second on Titan Krios, the largest and most powerful of Scripps’ seven cryo-electron microscopes.

If you were able to stack up the images he takes during a six-hour period, they would rise as high as Mount Everest, said Ward, who has been collaborating with institutes on SARS-CoV-2, Lassa, HIV, malaria and the H5N1 bird flu.

Lab manager Hannah Turner shows the Titan Krios electron microscope at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, on Friday, April 11, 2025. (Hayne Palmour IV / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)

To the unfamiliar eye, the images look bizarre. Some resemble bumpy, frozen lava, others crinkly Christmas wreaths. Still others look like the knotty cords on old landline telephones.

But their importance is understood by scientists, especially those focused on preparing the world for whatever pandemic could come next.

It’s a bit of a fluke that Ward is a rising star at an institute that has helped develop more than 15 FDA-approved drugs and treatments, including Humira, which is used by people who suffer from arthritis.

He was interested in science growing up outside Boston — less so when he entered Duke University as a freshman.

Things quickly changed when he took a work-study job in a campus lab, where cell biologists Michael and Mary Reedy let him tinker. Before long, Ward was helping build the components of microscope cameras and detectors, and was dazzled by what they could do.

“I began to see molecules and atoms,” said Ward, now 46. “It kind of blows your mind to follow things at that resolution.”

Electron microscopes have existed since the 1930s, and they’ve played a vital role in revealing the structure of proteins and viruses and how they work. But the instruments didn’t start to enter their current golden age until roughly 2001, the year Ward arrived at Scripps as a lab technician.

The advancements have come especially quickly over the past decade, starkly improving image resolution and enabling scientists to see individual atoms. Software has also made it easier to see molecules interact with prospective drugs, helping determine which ones should go on to large-scale clinical trials.

The boom, locally and worldwide, didn’t go unnoticed. In 2017, three European scientists won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for helping transform cryo-electron microscopes into indispensable tools to explore the life sciences.

Ward says he’s happy to be in the background. But he has emerged as a leader in the field — mostly through his use of Titan Krios.

“Big Daddy,” as Ward calls it, is highly sensitive. The towering microscope sits on stabilizers to prevent something as simple as a slammed door from producing vibrations that could mess up image-taking. It operates in silence for the same reason.

Lab manager Hannah Turner holds grids, a single one used to hold a sample, placed into the Titan Krios electron microscope at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, on Friday, April 11, 2025. (Hayne Palmour IV / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)

In plain terms, the microscope freezes biological samples, then hits them with electron beams that create images.

“Once you see the arrangement of atoms, the connectivity of molecules, you can become an engineer,” Ward said. “You can move things around and manipulate the building blocks of life to make new therapeutics and vaccines that have much higher likelihood of success compared to engineering without blueprints.

“We’ve sped up the process of choosing which one should be a go, or no-go, for clinical trials,” Ward said.

That doesn’t mean scientists are close to flooding the market with new means of prevention.

“The potential vaccines will collectively have to go through five to seven years of trials in humans,” he added. “But we are no longer shooting in the dark or relying on empiricism.

“We can now shine a light — or rather a very powerful electron beam — on the science driving vaccine research.”

By Alex Brown, Stateline.org

ISSAQUAH, Wash. — In the wake of recent natural disasters, state leaders across the country are finding that emergency support from the federal government is no longer a given.

Under President Donald Trump, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has denied federal assistance for tornadoes in Arkansas, flooding in West Virginia and a windstorm in Washington state. It also has refused North Carolina’s request for extended relief funding in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

While it’s not uncommon for the feds to turn down some requests for disaster declarations, which unlock federal aid, state leaders say the Trump administration’s denials have taken them by surprise. White House officials are signaling a new approach to federal emergency response, even as Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem threaten to shut down FEMA altogether.

“The Federal Government focuses its support on truly catastrophic disasters—massive hurricanes, devastating earthquakes, or wide-scale attacks on the homeland,” Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the National Security Council, which advises the president on issues of national security, said in a statement to Stateline.

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Hughes said state and local governments “often remain an impediment to their own community’s resilience.” He called on states to take on a more extensive role.

“States must have adequate emergency management staff, adoption and enforcement of modern building codes, responsible planning and strategic investment to reduce future risk, commonsense policies that prioritize preparedness over politics, disaster reserve funds to handle what should be routine emergencies, pre-negotiated mutual aid and contingency contracts that speed up recovery, and above all, an appetite to own the problem,” the statement said.

State emergency management leaders say the federal retreat from disaster response has upended a long-established system.

“This is very unusual,” said Karina Shagren, communications director with the Washington Military Department, which oversees the state’s emergency management division. “This is the first time in recent memory that we have hit all the indicators to get FEMA’s public assistance program and we’ve been denied.”

Michael Coen, who served as chief of staff at FEMA during the Obama and Biden administrations, said the president has “broad discretion” to approve or deny disaster requests, regardless of whether they meet specified conditions. If Trump intends to curtail federal support, Coen said, he should give states clear guidelines.

“They should have a dialogue with the states, so the states aren’t spinning their wheels making requests that are going to get denied,” Coen said.

He added that states need guidance if they’re expected to build emergency management programs to take on what the feds once handled. Not all states, Coen said, have the capacity to replicate those functions. And disasters are expected to increase in frequency and severity because of climate change.

“Having that capability in every single state instead of having one FEMA is not the best use of tax dollars to prepare for the worst day,” he said.

Historically, FEMA has coordinated the federal response during emergency situations. In the National Security Council statement, Hughes said Trump has promptly authorized “life-saving emergency support to states during and in the immediate aftermath of disasters.”

But the agency’s larger role has focused on recovery after disasters, assessing damage and distributing funding to help communities rebuild. Now, some communities are finding that support is no longer a sure thing.

Issaquah, Washington, was among the cities hit hard by the “bomb cyclone” that ripped through the state last November. Severe winds killed two people in the state, knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of residents and caused millions in damage, state officials said.

A city of about 40,000 residents in the Cascade foothills, Issaquah’s costs from the storm totaled $3.8 million — covering road repairs, removal of 800 tons of tree debris and overtime pay for first responders. Mayor Mary Lou Pauly said the city has seen four events since 2020 that qualified for federal disaster aid, with no previous denials. If Washington is unable to win its appeal with FEMA, she said, Issaquah will take a financial hit to its reserves, leaving it more vulnerable to future storms.

“We put a lot of investment in being resilient,” Pauly said. “When you get to a number like $3.8 million, that is too big of a number for us to be able to rebuild without assistance. Our residents pay federal taxes, and this is what they think they pay them for, this is what they expect their national government to do. They do not want me to set property taxes 100% higher.”

Pauly echoed Coen’s view that FEMA should give states a clear outline of the role it will play.

“What we all want to know is what are the rules of the game?” she said. “If the criteria has changed, then why aren’t we getting told about it?”

Washington state leaders said they were shocked when FEMA denied their request for $34 million to help repair roads, utilities and power systems. Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson said the state’s application met all of the “very clear criteria to qualify.” He has vowed to appeal the decision.

“We were really relying on that funding,” said Shagren, of the Washington Military Department. “If the appeal is denied, our local jurisdictions will have to prioritize which projects they can move forward with and which they don’t. They’re going to be impacted greatly. This wasn’t some small storm.”

Other states also have been surprised by FEMA denials. Arkansas suffered 14 tornadoes in March, triggering a request for a disaster declaration from Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. But the feds told state leaders to handle it on their own.

“[I]t has been determined that the damage from this event was not of such severity and magnitude as to be beyond the capabilities of the state, affected local governments, and voluntary agencies,” the federal government’s denial read, according to Arkansas Times.

Sanders has appealed that decision, saying the disaster caused “widespread destruction” that requires federal help.

In West Virginia, state leaders asked for disaster aid to cover 14 counties that were struck by flooding in February. But FEMA denied individual assistance to seven of those counties. Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey said in a statement that he is looking at options to appeal, but praised the Trump administration for its “strong support” following the floods.

Democratic leaders in the state have called on Morrisey to demand more help from the feds, WOWK reported.

Meanwhile, FEMA has said it will no longer match 100% of North Carolina’s spending to recover from September’s Hurricane Helene. Democratic Gov. Josh Stein said the cost share was crucial to the state’s efforts to rebuild.

“The need in western North Carolina remains immense — people need debris removed, homes rebuilt, and roads restored,” Stein said in a statement, according to NC Newsline. “I am extremely disappointed and urge the President to reconsider FEMA’s bad decision, even for 90 days.”

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Today is Friday, May 2, the 122nd day of 2025. There are 243 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On May 2, 1994, Nelson Mandela claimed victory in the wake of South Africa’s first democratic elections.

Also on this date:

In 1863, during the Civil War, Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson was accidentally wounded by his own men at Chancellorsville, Virginia; he died eight days later.

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In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Buck v. Bell, upheld 8-1 a Virginia law allowing the forced sterilization of people in order to promote the “health of the patient and the welfare of society.”

In 1972, a fire at the Sunshine silver mine in Kellogg, Idaho, claimed the lives of 91 miners who succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning.

In 1997, Tony Blair, whose Labour Party crushed John Major’s long-reigning Conservatives in a national election, became Britain’s youngest prime minister in 185 years, at age 43.

In 2011, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who’d been killed hours earlier in a raid by American forces at his Pakistan compound, was buried at sea.

In 2017, Michael Slager, a white former police officer whose killing of Walter Scott, an unarmed Black man running from a traffic stop, was captured on cellphone video, pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges in Charleston, South Carolina. (Slager would be sentenced to 20 years in prison.)

In 2018, in a Fox News interview, attorney Rudy Giuliani said President Donald Trump had reimbursed Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, for $130,000 in hush money paid to porn actor Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election, comments that appeared to contradict Trump’s past claims that he didn’t know the source of the money.

In 2022, a draft was leaked of a Supreme Court ruling throwing out the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling that had stood for a half-century. The court cautioned that the draft was not final. (The decision would be released in essentially the same form the following month.)

Today’s Birthdays:

Singer Engelbert Humperdinck is 89.
Actor David Suchet (SOO’-shay) is 79.
Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., is 78.
Singer-songwriter Larry Gatlin is 77.
Rock singer Lou Gramm (Foreigner) is 75.
Actor Christine Baranski is 73.
Basketball Hall of Famer Jamaal Wilkes is 72.
Fashion designer Donatella Versace is 70.
Filmmaker Stephen Daldry is 65.
Country singer Ty Herndon is 63.
Actor-wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is 53.
Former soccer player David Beckham is 50.
Actor Kumail Nanjiani is 47.
Actor Ellie Kemper is 45.
Singer Lily Allen is 40.
NASCAR driver Kyle Busch is 40.
Olympic figure skating gold medalist Sarah Hughes is 40.
Musician Lucy Dacus is 30.
Princess Charlotte of Wales is 10.

As the Wild prepared to fight for their life on Thursday night at Xcel Energy Center, winger Marcus Foligno promised the “State of Hockey” that this time was going to be different.

All the adversity that has come to define this season for the Wild had steeled them for this exact moment in time.

This particular group of players wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

“The pesky Wild will persevere,” Foligno said. “I truly believe that we can get back in the series and win it, and so does everybody in that room.”

It proved to be the same old story a little more than 24 hours later as the Wild lined up to shake hands after suffering a 3-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights.

Just like every time they have qualified for the playoffs over the past decade, the Wild had bowed out in the first round once again.

That wasn’t lost on the locker room in the immediate aftermath.

“We hear the noise of getting by the first round,” Foligno said. “We understand it. We really feel like we could’ve done it this season. That’s the disappointing part.”

That doesn’t mean it was all for naught.

The present was the same for the Wild. The future feels different.

Let’s be honest. As tenacious as the Wild proved to be this season, the Stanley Cup was always going to be a tough ask.

The fact the Wild made the playoffs when so many players missed so much time was a testament to their mental fortitude. This was a successful campaign when zooming out and separating the forest from the trees.

It’s the biggest reason that fans actually believed them this time around.

“It stings worse after this game, because I think we all feel that we could’ve won the series,” head coach John Hynes said. “It was coming in against a really good team. Credit to them. They found a way to get it done.”

After consecutive overtime losses in Game 4 and Game 5 put them on the brink of elimination, the Wild spoke like a group that still believed, and they showed up with a mighty push for Game 6.

The first haymaker landed early in the first period when a high sticking penalty from center Marco Rossi resulted in a power play goal from Golden Knights defenseman Shea Theodore to make it 1-0.

The response from the Wild showed that this was going to be a heavyweight bout.

As the final seconds ticked away in the first period, Foligno made an incredible play to keep the puck alive, danced off a check in the corner, then dished the puck off to center Ryan Hartman, who beat the buzzer to level the score at 1-1.

That push continued into the second period, where the Wild got a fearless block from captain Jared Spurgeon that saved a goal, followed by a desperation poke check that also saved a goal.

After sustaining pressure for most of the frame, however, defenseman Brock Faber pinched up in the offensive zone, and Golden Knights star center Jack Eichel took advantage, streaking the other way on a breakaway to make it 2-1.

The knockout blow appeared to come came late in the third period when Golden Knights captain Mark Stone whacked a puck out of midair to make it 3-1.

Not so fast.

Naturally, with their back against the wall, the Wild provided a final gasp, with Hartman stepping up to cut the deficit to 3-2 in the final minutes. Though they couldn’t net the equalizer, fittingly, the Wild refused to go away until the final buzzer sounded.

“We battled,” Hartman said. “We felt like we had what it took to go forward.”

That’s the toughest pill to swallow. They did.

As the Wild turn the page, however, they don’t have to look too far for silver linings.

They have superstar winger Kirill Kaprizov and fellow superstar winger Matt Boldy leading the charge into the future. They have a host of other players that know their role, including Foligno, Faber, and irreplaceable center Joel Eriksson Ek, to name a few. They have the dead cap of former winger Zach Parise and former defenseman Ryan Suter mostly coming off the books this summer.

“We always say the future is bright,” Foligno said. “I really do believe we’re right there.”

If there’s any solace in the sadness, it’s that for the first time in a long time, that statement at least feels like it might be the case.

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