Music: Pat Metheny — ‘Pathmaker’
The pattern that epidemics always follow
Karl Taro Greenfeld writes: You are reading this because of your ancestors’ immune system. The odds of your predecessors surviving the myriad microbes that have stalked humanity every step of its march toward becoming Earth’s dominant species were incalculably long. More Homo sapiens have probably died from infectious disease than all other causes combined. Only in the past 150 years, owing to nutritional and medical advances, have we emerged from living in constant worry that a cough or fever or…
As coronavirus spreads to 18 states, Trump minimizes the health threat
The Hill reports: Patients in 18 states have tested positive or are presumptively positive for the spreading coronavirus as public health officials race to get ahead of the growing worldwide epidemic. Officials in Nevada, New Jersey, Tennessee and Texas said they had identified new cases in the last 24 hours, adding to an outbreak that has infected at least 162 people nationwide. There are worrying signs that the number of cases is poised to grow. [Continue reading…] Politico reports: President…
Elizabeth Warren could never escape the baggage of being a ‘female candidate’
Amanda Terkel writes: Elizabeth Warren wasn’t trying to be the first female president. She wanted to be president. She wanted to cut banks down to size and relieve student debt. Root out the corrupt influence of money in politics and go after monopolies. Warren didn’t focus on how she’d be breaking a glass ceiling. She didn’t shy away from her gender, but when she talked about feminism, it was most often centered on female organizers and the movements they’ve led…
What can the coronavirus teach us?
Bill McKibben writes: There’s nothing good about the novel coronavirus—it’s killing many people, and shutting millions more inside, with fear as their main companion. However, if we’re fated to go through this passage, we may as well learn something from it, and it does strike me that there are a few insights that are applicable to the climate crisis that shadows all of our lives. Some of these lessons are obvious: giant cruise ships are climate killers and, it turns…
The rich turn to concierge doctors, yachts, and chartered planes in the hope of avoiding the coronavirus
The New York Times reports: The new coronavirus knows no national borders or social boundaries. That doesn’t mean that social boundaries don’t exist. “En route to Paris,” Gwyneth Paltrow wrote on Instagram last week, beneath a shot of herself on an airplane heading to Paris Fashion Week and wearing a black face mask. “I’ve already been in this movie,” she added, referring to her role in the 2011 disease thriller “Contagion.” “Stay safe.” Ms. Paltrow did not pose with just…
Why hand-washing really is as important as doctors say
U.S. Surgeon General Vice Admiral Jerome M. Adams, center, demonstrates hand-washing to U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, left, and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, right, in Rocky Hill, Conn., March 2, 2020. AP Photo/Jessica Hill By Michelle Sconce Massaquoi, University of Oregon As the threat from the coronavirus grows, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health officials are stressing the importance of hand-washing. Prevention becomes essential to stopping the spread of the virus because there is no vaccine…
The consciousness of rats has ethical implications for humans
Kristin Andrews and Susana Monsó write: In the late 1990s, Jaak Panksepp, the father of affective neuroscience, discovered that rats laugh. This fact had remained hidden because rats laugh in ultrasonic chirps that we can’t hear. It was only when Brian Knutson, a member of Panksepp’s lab, started to monitor their vocalisations during social play that he realised there was something that appeared unexpectedly similar to human laughter. Panksepp and his team began to systematically study this phenomenon by tickling…
Music: Pat Metheny — ‘You Are’
Tropical forests losing their ability to absorb carbon, study finds
The Guardian reports: Tropical forests are taking up less carbon dioxide from the air, reducing their ability to act as “carbon sinks” and bringing closer the prospect of accelerating climate breakdown. The Amazon could turn into a source of carbon in the atmosphere, instead of one of the biggest absorbers of the gas, as soon as the next decade, owing to the damage caused by loggers and farming interests and the impacts of the climate crisis, new research has found….
Biden’s Super Tuesday
The Atlantic reports: For the past several months, Bloomberg has been the wild card. He made the risky move of skipping all four early nominating states to bet it all—or at least half a billion dollars of his personal fortune—on Super Tuesday. For a brief moment, the strategy seemed to be working. He rose to the top tier in polling for many of the contests. Then came a miserable Nevada debate and a reconsideration of how he would actually perform…
Republicans lean into Biden probe as he surges in Democratic primary
Politico reports: Just hours after Joe Biden surged to the top of the Democratic presidential pack, Senate Republicans announced a new phase of their investigation targeting the former vice president and his son Hunter. Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told reporters on Wednesday that he is likely to release an interim report within one to two months on his panel’s probe of Hunter Biden’s ties to a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma. “These are questions that Joe Biden…
Coronavirus pummels Iran leadership as data show spread is far worse than reported
The Washington Post reports: The coronavirus outbreak sweeping through Iran has delivered a jarring blow to the senior ranks of its government, infecting about two dozen members of parliament and at least 15 other current or former top figures, according to official reports. Among those sickened have been a vice president, a deputy health minister, and an adviser to the head of the judiciary, and the virus has struck at the pinnacle of power, killing an adviser to Supreme Leader…
Italy to close all schools and universities through March 15 as coronavirus death toll rises
NBC News reports: Italy’s government on Wednesday announced it will temporarily close the nation’s schools and universities due to the coronavirus outbreak. State-run RAI radio and the ANSA and LaPresse news agencies reported earlier Wednesday that Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte had agreed on the closure during a Cabinet meeting. Education Minister Lucia Azzolina later said the school closures would be in effect from March 5 through March 15. Earlier Wednesday, Italy had the dubious honor of being the worst-affected country…
How profit makes the fight for a coronavirus vaccine harder
Stephen Buranyi writes: Coronavirus appears to be with us for the long haul. Despite the unprecedented attempts at isolation and containment, with about 50 million people locked down and economic activity virtually halted in China, cases have spiked in recent weeks. Sixty-seven countries are now reporting a total of more than 8,000 infections outside China. The World Health Organization has been wary of using the word pandemic, but last week it advised countries to prepare as if one were imminent….
Coronavirus is what you get when you ignore science
Farhad Manjoo writes: Let us pray, now, for science. Pray for empiricism and for epidemiology and for vaccines. Pray for peer review and controlled double-blinds. For flu shots, herd immunity and washing your hands. Pray for reason, rigor and expertise. Pray for the precautionary principle. Pray for the N.I.H. and the C.D.C. Pray for the W.H.O. And pray not just for science, but for scientists, too, as well as their colleagues in the application of science — the tireless health…