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Category: Science/mathematics

The CDC needs social science

The CDC needs social science

By Robert A. Hahn, Sapiens, December 11, 2020 The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as the primary agency in the United States that monitors, predicts, and responds to chronic disease, injury, outbreaks, and pandemics, should have social science at its heart. It does not. Despite decades of trying to get the agency to take the social sciences more seriously, and some movement on its part, insights from anthropology, along with other social sciences, have yet to penetrate the…

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The Covid-19 vaccines were designed almost a year ago

The Covid-19 vaccines were designed almost a year ago

David Wallace-Wells writes: You may be surprised to learn that of the trio of long-awaited coronavirus vaccines, the most promising, Moderna’s mRNA-1273, which reported a 94.5 percent efficacy rate on November 16, had been designed by January 13. This was just two days after the genetic sequence had been made public in an act of scientific and humanitarian generosity that resulted in China’s Yong-Zhen Zhang’s being temporarily forced out of his lab. In Massachusetts, the Moderna vaccine design took all…

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Drug reverses age-related mental decline in mice within days

Drug reverses age-related mental decline in mice within days

University of California, San Francisco: Just a few doses of an experimental drug can reverse age-related declines in memory and mental flexibility in mice, according to a new study by UC San Francisco scientists. The drug, called ISRIB, has already been shown in laboratory studies to restore memory function months after traumatic brain injury (TBI), reverse cognitive impairments in Down Syndrome, prevent noise-related hearing loss, fight certain types of prostate cancer, and even enhance cognition in healthy animals. In the…

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‘Absolutely remarkable’: No one who got Moderna’s vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

‘Absolutely remarkable’: No one who got Moderna’s vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

Science reports: Continuing the spate of stunning news about COVID-19 vaccines, the biotech company Moderna announced the final results of the 30,000-person efficacy trial for its candidate in a press release today: Only 11 people who received two doses of the vaccine developed COVID-19 symptoms after being infected with the pandemic coronavirus, versus 185 symptomatic cases in a placebo group. That is an efficacy of 94.1%, the company says, far above what many vaccine scientists were expecting just a few…

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Eschewing Occam’s razor, China seeks to change Covid origin story

Eschewing Occam’s razor, China seeks to change Covid origin story

The Observer reports: Nearly a year after doctors identified the first cases of a worrying new disease in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the country appears to be stepping up a campaign to question the origins of the global Covid-19 pandemic. State media has been reporting intensively on coronavirus discovered on packaging of frozen food imports, not considered a significant vector of infection elsewhere, and research into possible cases of the disease found outside China’s borders before December 2019. The…

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How Einstein reconciled religion to science

How Einstein reconciled religion to science

Brian Gallagher writes: Not long ago, I heard an echo of Albert Einstein’s religious views in the words of Elon Musk. Asked, at the close of a conversation with Axios, whether he believed in God, the CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla paused, looked away from his interlocutors for a brief second, and then said, in that mild South African accent, “I believe there’s some explanation for this universe, which you might call God.” Einstein did call it God. The…

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After admitting mistake, AstraZeneca faces difficult questions about its vaccine

After admitting mistake, AstraZeneca faces difficult questions about its vaccine

The New York Times reports: The announcement this week that a cheap, easy-to-make coronavirus vaccine appeared to be up to 90 percent effective was greeted with jubilation. “Get yourself a vaccaccino,” a British tabloid celebrated, noting that the vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, costs less than a cup of coffee. But since unveiling the preliminary results, AstraZeneca has acknowledged a key mistake in the vaccine dosage received by some study participants, adding to questions about whether…

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Scientists uncover the universal geometry of geology

Scientists uncover the universal geometry of geology

Joshua Sokol writes: On a mild autumn day in 2016, the Hungarian mathematician Gábor Domokos arrived on the geophysicist Douglas Jerolmack’s doorstep in Philadelphia. Domokos carried with him his suitcases, a bad cold and a burning secret. The two men walked across a gravel lot behind the house, where Jerolmack’s wife ran a taco cart. Their feet crunched over crushed limestone. Domokos pointed down. “How many facets do each of these gravel pieces have?” he said. Then he grinned. “What…

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Evolutionary adaptations to viruses have made us what we are

Evolutionary adaptations to viruses have made us what we are

Science Daily (2016): The constant battle between pathogens and their hosts has long been recognized as a key driver of evolution, but until now scientists have not had the tools to look at these patterns globally across species and genomes. In a new study, researchers apply big-data analysis to reveal the full extent of viruses’ impact on the evolution of humans and other mammals. Their findings suggest an astonishing 30 percent of all protein adaptations since humans’ divergence with chimpanzees…

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What human hair reveals about death’s seasonality

What human hair reveals about death’s seasonality

Max G. Levy writes: Each wave of Edith Howard Cook’s reddish-blonde hair tells a story. One segment may chronicle an unusually damp San Francisco summer; another may recall a dry December. But read in their entirety, the strands reveal the season in 1876 when 2-year-old Edith passed away. Archaeologist Jelmer Eerkens helped identify Edith after a construction crew discovered her remains in a backyard in 2016. “I have kids myself,” says Eerkens, an archaeologist at the University of California, Davis….

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Immunity to the coronavirus may last years, new data hint

Immunity to the coronavirus may last years, new data hint

The New York Times reports: How long might immunity to the coronavirus last? Years, maybe even decades, according to a new study — the most hopeful answer yet to a question that has shadowed plans for widespread vaccination. Eight months after infection, most people who have recovered still have enough immune cells to fend off the virus and prevent illness, the new data show. A slow rate of decline in the short term suggests, happily, that these cells may persist…

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Pfizer vaccine: what an ‘efficacy rate above 90%’ really means

Pfizer vaccine: what an ‘efficacy rate above 90%’ really means

F8 Studio/Shutterstock By Zania Stamataki, University of Birmingham There was – rightfully – a lot of excitement when Pfizer and BioNTech announced interim results from their COVID vaccine trial. The vaccine, called BNT162b2, was reported to have an “efficacy rate above 90%”. This was soon translated in the press to be 90% “effective” at preventing COVID-19. Efficacy, effectiveness – what’s the difference? We academics are very precise in our language and it can be a cause of considerable frustration when…

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Chronic Covid can be worse than the initial disease

Chronic Covid can be worse than the initial disease

The Wall Street Journal reports: Nearly a year into the global coronavirus pandemic, scientists, doctors and patients are beginning to unlock a puzzling phenomenon: For many patients, including young ones who never required hospitalization, Covid-19 has a devastating second act. Many are dealing with symptoms weeks or months after they were expected to recover, often with puzzling new complications that can affect the entire body—severe fatigue, cognitive issues and memory lapses, digestive problems, erratic heart rates, headaches, dizziness, fluctuating blood…

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As election nears, Trump administration takes new steps to suppress climate science

As election nears, Trump administration takes new steps to suppress climate science

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration has recently removed the chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the nation’s premier scientific agency, installed new political staff who have questioned accepted facts about climate change and imposed stricter controls on communications at the agency. The moves threaten to stifle a major source of objective United States government information about climate change that underpins federal rules on greenhouse gas emissions and offer an indication of the direction the…

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Universal mask use could save 130,000 U.S. lives by the end of February, new study estimates

Universal mask use could save 130,000 U.S. lives by the end of February, new study estimates

STAT reports: Back in April, President Trump picked out a single computer model of coronavirus spread as his oracle of choice. Unsurprisingly, that simulation initially had rosier estimates than other algorithms, projecting many fewer Covid-19 deaths — and its unconventional calculations and fluctuating estimates drew sharp criticism from epidemiologists. But the statisticians behind it have since changed their methods, and their new numbers, published Friday, bolster what scientists have long been saying: That doing away with social distancing measures could…

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The Trump administration shut down an office dedicated to studying the long-term safety of vaccines

The Trump administration shut down an office dedicated to studying the long-term safety of vaccines

Carl Zimmer reports: As the first coronavirus vaccines arrive in the coming year, government researchers will face a monumental challenge: monitoring the health of hundreds of millions of Americans to ensure the vaccines don’t cause harm. Purely by chance, thousands of vaccinated people will have heart attacks, strokes and other illnesses shortly after the injections. Sorting out whether the vaccines had anything to do with their ailments will be a thorny problem, requiring a vast, coordinated effort by state and…

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