Ebola outbreak exposes the limits of preparedness

Ebola dominated the week as a widening Bundibugyo outbreak exposed gaps in treatment, surveillance, trust, and available countermeasures. The science story also moved from explaining inheritance to editing it, as mouse data challenged Mendelian assumptions while embryo base editing made precise heritable change more feasible.

Environmental research identified separate threats to natural carbon storage, from nitrogen pollution in forests to rising seas overwhelming mangroves. At the clinical frontier, a KRAS drug produced a major survival gain in advanced pancreatic cancer.