Contributor

Kristin Houser

Staff Writer

Contact

[email protected]

Kristin Houser is a staff writer at Freethink, where she covers science and tech. Her written work has appeared in Business Insider, NBC News, and the World Economic Forum’s Agenda, among other publications, and Stephen Colbert once talked about a piece on The Late Show, to her delight.

Prior to joining Freethink, Kristin was a staff writer for Futurism and wrote several animated and live action web series.

Coronavirus

Moderna COVID-19 vaccine booster targets mutant strain

Moderna is trialing a COVID-19 vaccine booster designed to increase protection against a South African strain of the coronavirus.

Kristin Houser

Healthcare

Total artificial heart approved for sale in Europe

The European Commission has approved the sale of Carmat’s total artificial heart, which is designed for patients with end-stage heart failure.

Kristin Houser

Medicine

Personalized skin cancer vaccine is made from tumor cells

A personalized skin cancer vaccine developed from melanoma survivors’ own tumor cells has shown promise in a small trial.

Kristin Houser

Animals

Can science save the northern white rhino?

The northern white rhino species is down to just two members, both female. Can science bring it back from the brink of extinction?

Kristin Houser

Astronomy

An AI has discovered new craters on Mars

An AI trained to spot signs of fresh craters on Mars in photos of the Martian surface has already discovered dozens of new impacts.

Kristin Houser

3D Printing

Doctors use AR surgery to implant 3D-printed eye socket

Doctors in Israel used a combination of AR surgery and 3D printing to repair a patient’s damaged eye socket quickly and efficiently.

Kristin Houser

AI makes nearly 100% accurate cancer diagnosis from urine

A new AI-based technique can make a nearly 100% accurate prostate cancer diagnosis from a urine sample, potentially saving patients from unneeded biopsies.

Kristin Houser

Cars

New scooter battery can charge in 5 minutes. Can it transform electric cars?

StoreDot's battery fully charges in just five minutes, and it can be manufactured on the same production lines as today's EV batteries.

Kristin Houser

Urban Living

This urban park used to be an airport runway

To provide cities with more green spaces, designers turned a former airport runway into an urban park and an abandoned mall into a recreational lagoon.

Kristin Houser

Citizen Science

Citizen scientists helped NASA map our cosmic backyard

NASA was able to create a highly detailed 3D map of nearby brown dwarfs thanks to the efforts of 150,000 citizen scientists.

Kristin Houser