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Category: Science

How we got herd immunity wrong

How we got herd immunity wrong

David Robertson writes: Herd immunity was always our greatest asset for protecting vulnerable people, but public health failed to use it wisely. In March 2020, not long after Covid-19 was declared a global public health emergency, prominent experts predicted that the pandemic would eventually end via herd immunity. Infectious disease epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, who advised President Biden, opined in the Washington Post that even without a vaccine, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, would eventually “burn itself out as the…

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What is the new Covid variant BA.2, and will it cause another wave of infections in the U.S.?

What is the new Covid variant BA.2, and will it cause another wave of infections in the U.S.?

BA.2, one of three main omicron sublineages, is sweeping the world. BlackJack3D/iStock via Getty Images Plus By Prakash Nagarkatti, University of South Carolina and Mitzi Nagarkatti, University of South Carolina A new omicron subvariant of the virus that causes COVID-19, BA.2, is quickly becoming the predominant source of infections amid rising cases around the world. Immunologists Prakash Nagarkatti and Mitzi Nagarkatti of the University of South Carolina explain what makes it different from previous variants, whether there will be another…

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A large solar storm could knock out the power grid and the internet – an electrical engineer explains how

A large solar storm could knock out the power grid and the internet – an electrical engineer explains how

Typical amounts of solar particles hitting the earth’s magnetosphere can be beautiful, but too much could be catastrophic. Svein-Magne Tunli – tunliweb.no/Wikimedia, CC BY-NC-SA By David Wallace, Mississippi State University On Sept. 1 and 2, 1859, telegraph systems around the world failed catastrophically. The operators of the telegraphs reported receiving electrical shocks, telegraph paper catching fire, and being able to operate equipment with batteries disconnected. During the evenings, the aurora borealis, more commonly known as the northern lights, could be…

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New research points to Wuhan market as pandemic origin

New research points to Wuhan market as pandemic origin

The New York Times reports: Scientists released a pair of extensive studies on Saturday that point to a market in Wuhan, China, as the origin of the coronavirus pandemic. Analyzing data from a variety of sources, they concluded that the coronavirus was very likely present in live mammals sold in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in late 2019 and suggested that the virus twice spilled over into people working or shopping there. They said they found no support for an…

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Understanding planetary intelligence

Understanding planetary intelligence

Adam Frank, Sara Walker, and David Grinspoon write: Almost a century ago, the revolutionary idea of the biosphere gained a foothold in science. Defined as the collective activity of all life on Earth—the tapestry of actions of every microbe, plant, and animal—the biosphere had profound implications for our understanding of planetary evolution. The concept posits that life acts as a potent force shaping how the planet changes over time, on par with other geological systems like the atmosphere, hydrosphere (water),…

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Weird ‘superionic’ matter could make up Earth’s inner core

Weird ‘superionic’ matter could make up Earth’s inner core

Science News reports: A quirky material that behaves like a mishmash of liquid and solid could be hidden deep in the Earth. Computer simulations described in two studies suggest that the material in Earth’s inner core, which includes iron and other, lighter elements, may be in a “superionic” state. That means that while the iron stays put, as in a solid, the lighter elements flow like a liquid. The research gives a potential peek at the inner workings of an…

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Heart-disease risk soars after Covid — even with a mild case

Heart-disease risk soars after Covid — even with a mild case

Nature reports: Even a mild case of COVID-19 can increase a person’s risk of cardiovascular problems for at least a year after diagnosis, a new study1 shows. Researchers found that rates of many conditions, such as heart failure and stroke, were substantially higher in people who had recovered from COVID-19 than in similar people who hadn’t had the disease. What’s more, the risk was elevated even for those who were under 65 years of age and lacked risk factors, such…

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Did Omicron come from mice?

Did Omicron come from mice?

Carolyn Kormann writes: Last Thanksgiving, Rilu, an eleven-year-old snow leopard and father of seven, began sneezing and wheezing. Snow leopards are native to the Himalayas, but Rilu was born in a zoo in Oklahoma City, then moved to the Miller Park Zoo, in Illinois, in 2011, to form part of the Species Survival Plan—the zoos’ matchmaking effort to maintain a genetically diverse “insurance” population of endangered animals. A PCR test in early December confirmed that Rilu had Covid-19. He developed…

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Will Omicron end the pandemic? Here’s what experts say

Will Omicron end the pandemic? Here’s what experts say

Nature reports: On 11 January, just seven weeks after the Omicron variant was first reported, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned of a “tidal wave” of infection washing from west to east across the world. Fifty of the 53 countries in Europe and central Asia had reported cases of Omicron, said Hans Henri Kluge, the WHO’s regional director for Europe. Countries would have to cope as best they could, he said, guided by their individual epidemiological situation, available resources, vaccination-uptake…

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When fact checking goes wrong: Facebook versus the British Medical Journal

When fact checking goes wrong: Facebook versus the British Medical Journal

The BMJ reports: On 3 November Howard Kaplan, a retired dentist from Israel, posted a link to a BMJ investigation article in a private Facebook group. The investigation reported poor clinical trial research practices occurring at Ventavia, a contract research company helping to carry out the main Pfizer covid-19 vaccine trial. The article brought in record traffic to bmj.com and was widely shared on Twitter, helping it achieve the second highest “Altmetric” score of all time across all biomedical publications.3…

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Will brains or algorithms be sovereign in the kingdom of science?

Will brains or algorithms be sovereign in the kingdom of science?

David C Krakauer writes: A schism is emerging in the scientific enterprise. On the one side is the human mind, the source of every story, theory and explanation that our species holds dear. On the other stand the machines, whose algorithms possess astonishing predictive power but whose inner workings remain radically opaque to human observers. As we humans strive to understand the fundamental nature of the world, our machines churn out measurable, practical predictions that seem to extend beyond the…

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Americans’ trust in science now deeply polarized, poll shows

Americans’ trust in science now deeply polarized, poll shows

The Associated Press reports: Republicans’ faith in science is falling as Democrats rely on it even more, with a trust gap in science and medicine widening substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic, new survey data shows. It’s the largest gap in nearly five decades of polling by the General Social Survey, a widely respected trend survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago that has been measuring confidence in institutions since 1972. That is unsurprising to more than a dozen…

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Doctors find ‘antibody signature’ for patients most at risk for long Covid

Doctors find ‘antibody signature’ for patients most at risk for long Covid

The Guardian reports: Doctors have discovered an “antibody signature” that can help identify patients most at risk of developing long Covid, a condition where debilitating symptoms of the disease can persist for many months. Researchers at University hospital Zurich analysed blood from Covid patients and found that low levels of certain antibodies were more common in those who developed long Covid than in patients who swiftly recovered. When combined with the patient’s age, details of their Covid symptoms and whether…

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Covid will continue but the end of the pandemic is near

Covid will continue but the end of the pandemic is near

Christopher J L Murray writes: The world is experiencing a huge wave of infection with the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. Estimates based on Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) models suggest that on around Jan 17, 2022 there were 125 million omicron infections a day in the world, which is more than ten times the peak of the delta wave in April, 2021. The omicron wave is inexorably reaching every continent with only a few countries in eastern Europe,…

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Scientists target PR and ad firms they accuse of spreading disinformation on climate change

Scientists target PR and ad firms they accuse of spreading disinformation on climate change

Reuters reports: More than 450 scientists on Wednesday called on the executives of major advertising and public relations firms to drop their fossil fuel clients and stop what the scientists said was their spread of disinformation around climate change. They sent a letter to the executives of major global public relations and advertising firms, including conglomerate WPP, Edelman and IPG, as well as the CEOs of their clients who tout sustainability goals including Unilever, Amazon and Microsoft. “As scientists who…

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Omicron has changed the shape of the pandemic. Will it end it for good?

Omicron has changed the shape of the pandemic. Will it end it for good?

CNN reports: The world feared the worst when a worrying new coronavirus variant emerged in late November and ripped through South Africa at a pace not seen before in the pandemic. But two months later, with Omicron dominant across much of the globe, the narrative has shifted for some. “Levels of concern about Omicron tend to be lower than with previous variants,” Simon Williams, a researcher in public attitudes and behaviors towards Covid-19 at Swansea University, told CNN. For many,…

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