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How a vanished ancient Greek city helps us think about disasters

How a vanished ancient Greek city helps us think about disasters

Guy D Middleton writes: One night nearly 2,500 years ago, the people of Helike, a city in the northern Peloponnese, were in their homes. Perhaps they were winding down with a glass of watered wine or already sleeping after spending the day about their business in the bustling town. Some had been busy at the market, selling or buying the produce from the local farms or purchasing goods from further afield. Some might have visited the famous Temple of Poseidon,…

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When did humans start experimenting with psychoactive drugs?

When did humans start experimenting with psychoactive drugs?

Nicholas Longrich, Author provided By Nicholas R. Longrich, University of Bath Humans constantly alter the world. We fire fields, turn forests into farms, and breed plants and animals. But humans don’t just reshape our external world – we engineer our internal worlds, and reshape our minds. One way we do this is by upgrading our mental “software”, so to speak, with myths, religion, philosophy and psychology. The other is to change our mental hardware – our brains. And we do…

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An uncertain new phase of the pandemic in which cases surge but deaths do not

An uncertain new phase of the pandemic in which cases surge but deaths do not

Benjamin Wallace-Wells writes: So many things have gone wrong in the American response to the pandemic, but two important things have gone right: scientists have developed a vaccine, and older Americans have got it. Seventy-six per cent of Americans between the ages of fifty and sixty-four have received at least one dose, according to the Mayo Clinic’s vaccination tracker. Between the ages of sixty-five and seventy-four, it’s ninety-one per cent, and among those over the age of seventy-five it’s eighty-seven….

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Who are the unvaccinated in America? There’s no single answer

Who are the unvaccinated in America? There’s no single answer

The New York Times reports: As coronavirus cases rise across the United States, the fight against the pandemic is focused on an estimated 93 million people who are eligible for shots but have chosen not to get them. These are the Americans who are most vulnerable to serious illness from the highly contagious Delta variant and most likely to carry the virus, spreading it further. It turns out, though, that this is not a single set of Americans, but in…

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As Delta spreads, Pfizer and Moderna get set for a booster shot to profits

As Delta spreads, Pfizer and Moderna get set for a booster shot to profits

The Guardian reports: Praised for preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths and allowing a return to more normal life, Covid vaccines will also substantially benefit some pharmaceutical companies. In June, analysts estimated the global market for the vaccines could be worth $70bn (£50bn) this year, but the figure could be even higher as the Delta variant of coronavirus spreads and scientists debate whether people will need booster shots. On Thursday Moderna, which received US government funding to develop its vaccine,…

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Already distorting January 6, GOP now concocts entire counternarrative

Already distorting January 6, GOP now concocts entire counternarrative

The New York Times reports: In the hours and days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, rattled Republican lawmakers knew exactly who was to blame: Donald J. Trump. Loyal allies began turning on him. Top Republicans vowed to make a full break from his divisive tactics and dishonesties. Some even discussed removing him from office. By spring, however, after nearly 200 congressional Republicans had voted to clear Mr. Trump during a second impeachment proceeding, the conservative fringes of…

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Democratic leaders are betraying Black voters

Democratic leaders are betraying Black voters

Adam Serwer writes: Democratic leaders have a plan for overcoming the Republican Party’s attempts to restrict the franchise: Just vote harder. Civil-rights leaders expressed their frustrations to The New York Times last week, telling the outlet that “White House officials and close allies of the president have expressed confidence that it is possible to ‘out-organize voter suppression.’” Following Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, Republican-led states have engaged in a massive campaign to narrow voting access, spurred on by…

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The return of pro-democracy hypocrisy

The return of pro-democracy hypocrisy

Shadi Hamid wrires: Governments, even democratic ones, are often ineffective or simply bad. Elections sometimes produce uninspiring results, particularly when a patchwork of parties forms an unwieldy coalition government that struggles to get much of anything done. This doesn’t mean it should be overthrown. Nor should the United States ignore coup attempts staged in the name of bypassing the messiness of democracy. Yet in Tunisia, this is what the Biden administration appears to be doing, revealing the widening gulf between…

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‘I will not be silenced’: Women targeted in hack-and-leak attacks speak out about spyware

‘I will not be silenced’: Women targeted in hack-and-leak attacks speak out about spyware

NBC News reports: Ghada Oueiss, a Lebanese broadcast journalist at Al-Jazeera, was eating dinner at home with her husband last June when she received a message from a colleague telling her to check Twitter. Oueiss opened up the account and was horrified: A private photo taken when she was wearing a bikini in a jacuzzi was being circulated by a network of accounts, accompanied by false claims that the photos were taken at her boss’s house. Over the next few…

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The overlooked superpower of mRNA vaccines

The overlooked superpower of mRNA vaccines

Science reports: Individuals facing the threat of COVID-19 may care most about a vaccine’s ability to forestall grave disease that could lead to a hospital bed or worse. And a number of vaccines perform that vital task well, including those from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, which are based on genetically engineered cold viruses, as well as the not-yet-authorized protein vaccine from Novavax. But for public health experts trying to halt a global pandemic, shutting down even the mildest infections…

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They spurned the vaccine. Now they want you to know they regret it

They spurned the vaccine. Now they want you to know they regret it

The New York Times reports: As Mindy Greene spent another day in the Covid intensive care unit, listening to the whirring machines that now breathed for her 42-year-old husband, Russ, she opened her phone and tapped out a message. “We did not get the vaccine,” she wrote on Facebook. “I read all kinds of things about the vaccine and it scared me. So I made the decision and prayed about it and got the impression that we would be ok.”…

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Vaccinated people may spread the virus, though rarely, CDC reports

Vaccinated people may spread the virus, though rarely, CDC reports

The New York Times reports: In yet another unexpected and unwelcome twist in the pandemic, fully immunized people with so-called breakthrough infections of the Delta variant may spread the virus to others just as easily as unvaccinated people, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report published on Friday. The vaccines remain powerfully effective against severe illness and death, and infections in vaccinated people are thought to be comparatively rare. But the revelation follows a series of…

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Breakthrough Covid cases are on the rise among the vaccinated

Breakthrough Covid cases are on the rise among the vaccinated

NBC News reports: At least 125,000 fully vaccinated Americans have tested positive for Covid and 1,400 of those have died, according to data collected by NBC News. The 125,682 “breakthrough” cases in 38 states found by NBC News represent less than .08 percent of the 164.2 million-plus people who have been fully vaccinated since January, or about one in every 1,300. The number of cases and deaths among the vaccinated is very small compared to the number among the unvaccinated….

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Trump pressured DOJ to call election ‘corrupt,’ ex-official wrote

Trump pressured DOJ to call election ‘corrupt,’ ex-official wrote

Politico reports: Former President Donald Trump pressured top Justice Department officials to publicly call the 2020 election “illegal” and “corrupt” and “leave the rest to me,” according to handwritten notes released by a House committee on Friday. The notes, written by former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard P. Donoghue, shine additional light on the Trump’s unprecedented effort to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory during his waning days in office, based on false claims of fraud. Donoghue’s notes detail a Dec….

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