Music: Tom Misch & Yussef Dayes — ‘Festival’
Charting changes in a pathogen’s genome yields clues about its past and hints about its future
A virus’s genes hold a record of where it’s traveled, and when. imaginima/E+ via Getty Images By Claire Guinat, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich; Etthel Windels, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, and Sarah Nadeau, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich More than 250 million people worldwide have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, usually after a diagnostic nose swab. Those swabs aren’t trash once they’ve delivered their positive result, though. For scientists like us they carry additional valuable information about…
Omicron risks infecting vaccinated people but may not cause them severe illness
The Wall Street Journal reports: The Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus could lead to more infections among vaccinated people, according to several scientists, but some said there were reasons to believe the shots would protect against severe disease. While the new variant might evade the antibodies generated in reaction to the vaccines, the virus will likely remain vulnerable to immune cells that destroy it once it enters the body, said Ugur Sahin, co-founder of BioNTech SE, which sells a…
Raid the Republican Party to save the party
Martin Skladany wrote in March (and his argument is just as strong now): Democrats’ instinct after winning the White House and Congress in 2020 might be to stand back and let the Republican Party slowly self-destruct. Such inaction would not necessarily preserve democracy. A Trumpist GOP would continue to win elections, maintain power over certain states, and could regain control of the Senate or House in 2022. The responsibility of saving the Republican Party — and the rule of law…
Why the discredited dossier does not undercut the Russia investigation
Charlie Savage writes: Former President Donald J. Trump and his allies have stepped up an effort to conflate the so-called Steele dossier with the Russia investigation following the indictment of a researcher for the document on charges that he lied to the F.B.I. about some of its sources. Mr. Trump and his supporters have long sought to use the flaws of the dossier to discredit the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election — and the nature of…
Trump’s Iran policy has become a disaster for the U.S. and Israel
Tom Friedman writes: The judges have voted and the results are in: President Donald Trump’s decision to tear up the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 — a decision urged on by his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu — was one of the dumbest, most poorly thought out and counterproductive U.S. national security decisions of the post-Cold War era. But don’t just take my word for it. Moshe Ya’alon was the Israeli defense minister when…
How one society rebounded from ‘the worst year to be alive’
Michael Price writes: It was the worst time to be alive, according to some scientists. From 536 C.E. to 541 C.E., a series of volcanic eruptions in North and Central America sent tons of ash into the atmosphere, blocking sunlight, chilling the globe, and destroying crops worldwide. Societies everywhere struggled to survive. But for the Ancestral Pueblo people living in what today is the U.S. Southwest, this climate catastrophe planted the seeds for a more cohesive, technologically sophisticated society, a…
How animal uses of fire help illuminate human pyrocognition
Ivo Jacobs writes: In the beginning, there was no fire. People were cold, lean and hungry. Like baboons, they gathered food and ate it raw. But one day, a group of children began playing with arrows by twirling them against a log, and were surprised to find that the tips became hot and smoke appeared. Sparks jumped and landed on the dry grass nearby, making it smoulder. The kids added more grass to the flames and, as the bonfire grew,…
Music: Bob James Trio — ‘Bulgogi’
It looks like Omicron causes milder illness – is this how COVID becomes endemic?
AP Photo/Denis Farrell By Hamish McCallum, Griffith University These are very early days in terms of our understanding the Omicron variant. What is known is that it has a large number of mutations, particularly in the spike protein and it appears to be rapidly spreading in specific parts of the world. Very early indications from Africa suggest it does not cause particularly severe disease (though the World Health Organization has urged caution given the limited data available). At this point,…
What shape society must take in a post-pandemic world
Jill Lepore writes: In March 2020, Boris Johnson, pale and exhausted, self-isolating in his flat on Downing Street, released a video of himself – that he had taken himself – reassuring Britons that they would get through the pandemic, together. “One thing I think the coronavirus crisis has already proved is that there really is such a thing as society,” the prime minister announced, confirming the existence of society while talking to his phone, alone in a room. All this…
At COP26, a consensus that developing nations need far more help countering climate change
Inside Climate News reports: When the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference ended in overtime two weeks ago, there was recognition that developing nations—which have contributed least but suffer most from climate change—need far greater funding to adapt. At COP15, held in 2009 in Copenhagen, the world’s wealthiest countries pledged to give poorer nations yearly climate funding, to reach an amount of at least $100 billion a year from 2020 through 2025. The $100 billion figure was a nice, round…
Calling climate change a ‘crisis’ doesn’t do what you think
Grist reports: The way people talk about our overheating planet has been getting pretty spicy. Bland, neutral-sounding phrases like global warming are out; evocative words like crisis and emergency are in. Some activists have argued that more urgent language will jolt people into realizing that climate change is already here, prompting a speedier effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions. As an opinion piece in the Guardian once put it: “Our planet is in crisis. But until we call it a…
Nurdles — the worst toxic waste you’ve probably never heard of
The Guardian reports: When the X-Press Pearl container ship caught fire and sank in the Indian Ocean in May, Sri Lanka was terrified that the vessel’s 350 tonnes of heavy fuel oil would spill into the ocean, causing an environmental disaster for the country’s pristine coral reefs and fishing industry. Classified by the UN as Sri Lanka’s “worst maritime disaster”, the biggest impact was not caused by the heavy fuel oil. Nor was it the hazardous chemicals on board, which…
New study links major fashion brands to Amazon deforestation
The Guardian reports: New research into the fashion industry’s complex global supply chains shows that a number of large fashion brands are at risk of contributing to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, based on their connections to tanneries and other companies involved in the production of leather and leather goods. The report, released Monday, analyzed nearly 500,000 rows of customs data and found that brands such as Coach, LVMH, Prada, H&M, Zara, Adidas, Nike, New Balance, Teva, UGG and Fendi…
Interesting research, but no, we don’t have living, reproducing robots
John Timmer writes: Scientists on Monday announced that they’d optimized a way of getting mobile clusters of cells to organize other cells into smaller clusters that, under the right conditions, could be mobile themselves. The researchers call this process “kinematic self-replication,” although that’s not entirely right—the copies need help from humans to start moving on their own, are smaller than the originals, and the copying process grinds to a halt after just a couple of cycles. So, of course, CNN…