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Can weed protect you from Covid?

Can weed protect you from Covid?

Slate reports: Fikadu Tafesse wasn’t expecting to wake up on Wednesday to a text in which his former mentor blamed him for his children’s new interest in weed. Earlier this week, Tafesse, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Oregon Health & Science University, published evidence that some compounds found in cannabis plants could prevent the coronavirus from infecting cells. The internet latched onto the idea that weed might protect them from COVID: Twitter users made memes about the…

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How is the pandemic affecting the brains of a generation of children?

How is the pandemic affecting the brains of a generation of children?

Nature reports: Like many paediatricians, Dani Dumitriu braced herself for the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus when it first surged in her wards. She was relieved when most newborn babies at her hospital who had been exposed to COVID-19 seemed to do just fine. Knowledge of the effects of Zika and other viruses that can cause birth defects meant that doctors were looking out for problems. But hints of a more subtle and insidious trend followed close behind. Dumitriu and…

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Romney warns against getting rid of filibuster, citing possible Trump win in 2024

Romney warns against getting rid of filibuster, citing possible Trump win in 2024

The Hill reports: Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Tuesday issued a warning to Democrats about the potential consequences of getting rid of the filibuster and accused President Biden of going down “the same tragic road” of former President Trump. “The United States Senate is one of our vital democratic institutions, and the power given to the minority in the Senate and the resulting requirement for political consensus are among the Senate’s defining features,” Romney said while speaking on the Senate…

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NATO chief warns of ‘real risk of conflict’ as talks with Russia over Ukraine end

NATO chief warns of ‘real risk of conflict’ as talks with Russia over Ukraine end

The Guardian reports: Nato discussions with Russia have concluded with no sign of progress towards narrowing substantial differences or defusing the crisis over Ukraine, and with the alliance’s secretary general warning “there is a real risk for a new armed conflict in Europe”. After four hours of talks, the US delegation leader, the deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman, said she had heard nothing in Brussels that differed from the Kremlin position laid out at bilateral talks in Geneva, demanding…

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A century of quantum mechanics questions the fundamental nature of reality

A century of quantum mechanics questions the fundamental nature of reality

Tom Siegfried writes: Scientists are like prospectors, excavating the natural world seeking gems of knowledge about physical reality. And in the century just past, scientists have dug deep enough to discover that reality’s foundations do not mirror the world of everyday appearances. At its roots, reality is described by the mysterious set of mathematical rules known as quantum mechanics. Conceived at the turn of the 20th century and then emerging in its full form in the mid-1920s, quantum mechanics is…

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News outlets fixate on the negative

News outlets fixate on the negative

Eric Weiner writes: The critics are right. The mainstream media is biased. It is not a political bias, though, no liberal or conservative slant, but something even more insidious: a bad-news bias. During my decades as a daily journalist, at The New York Times and NPR, I knew that reporting on happy people and places wasn’t going to advance my career. No one told me this. They didn’t need to. The bad-news bias is simply understood. “If it bleeds, it…

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The worrisome rise of Non-Fungible Tokens

The worrisome rise of Non-Fungible Tokens

Caleb Scharf writes: Humans are very good at inventing commodities, and we’ve been at it for a long time. See that pebble over there? Well, that’s a better pebble than all these others, and if you give me something in exchange for it, I’ll let you take ownership. It’ll be your pebble, forever. And soon there will be a market in pebbles, a pebble community, pebble exhibitions and auctions filled with pebble speculators, pebble exchanges, and pebble artists. The deeper,…

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Rare, isolated script invented from scratch holds clues to the evolution of writing

Rare, isolated script invented from scratch holds clues to the evolution of writing

Science Alert reports: A rare script from a language in Liberia has provided some new insights into how written languages evolve. “The Vai script of Liberia was created from scratch in about 1834 by eight completely illiterate men who wrote in ink made from crushed berries,” says linguistic anthropologist Piers Kelly, now at the University of New England, Australia. “Because of its isolation, and the way it has continued to develop up until the present day, we thought it might…

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The world we want to live in after Covid

The world we want to live in after Covid

Dhruv Khullar writes: In 1909, the French ethnographer Arnold van Gennep published a book called “The Rites of Passage.” In it, he explored the rituals that cultures use to transition people from one stage of life to the next. Birth, puberty, graduation, religious initiation, marriage, pregnancy, promotions, the seasons—we’re always on the threshold of one phase or another. How do communities shepherd individuals from the pre- to the post-? Van Gennep argued that certain universal principles underlie rites of passage…

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How the speed of climate change is unbalancing the insect world

How the speed of climate change is unbalancing the insect world

Oliver Milman writes: The climate crisis is set to profoundly alter the world around us. Humans will not be the only species to suffer from the calamity. Huge waves of die-offs will be triggered across the animal kingdom as coral reefs turn ghostly white and tropical rainforests collapse. For a period, some researchers suspected that insects may be less affected, or at least more adaptable, than mammals, birds and other groups of creatures. With their large, elastic populations and their…

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Evolution ‘landscapes’ predict what’s next for Covid virus

Evolution ‘landscapes’ predict what’s next for Covid virus

Carrie Arnold writes: In the fall of 2019, the world began one of the largest evolutionary biology experiments in modern history. Somewhere near the city of Wuhan in eastern China, a coronavirus acquired the ability to live inside humans rather than the bats and other mammals that had been its hosts. It adapted further to become efficient at spreading from one person to the next, even before the body’s defenses could rise against it. But the evolutionary chess game didn’t…

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The forgotten medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

The forgotten medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

Zaria Gorvett writes: In the 17th Century, a night of sleep went something like this. From as early as 21:00 to 23:00, those fortunate enough to afford them would begin flopping onto mattresses stuffed with straw or rags – alternatively it might have contained feathers, if they were wealthy – ready to sleep for a couple of hours. (At the bottom of the social ladder, people would have to make do with nestling down on a scattering of heather or,…

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Justice Dept. creating unit focused on domestic terrorism

Justice Dept. creating unit focused on domestic terrorism

The Associated Press reports: The Justice Department is establishing a specialized unit focused on domestic terrorism, the department’s top national security official told lawmakers Tuesday as he described an “elevated” threat from violent extremists in the United States. Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, testifying just days after the nation observed the one-year anniversary of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, said the number of FBI investigations into suspected domestic violent extremists has more than doubled since the spring of…

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Democrats’ filibuster conundrum: It’s not just Manchin and Sinema

Democrats’ filibuster conundrum: It’s not just Manchin and Sinema

Politico reports: A Democratic senator from Arizona is still not sold on changes to the filibuster. And it’s not Kyrsten Sinema. Mark Kelly is not yet committed to a change in the Senate rules that would allow elections reform legislation to pass by a simple majority. A centrist who is up for reelection in November, Kelly said Monday he is still undecided just days before he may have to vote on proposals to weaken the filibuster. “I’ve never been part…

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