On dream sharing and its purpose

On dream sharing and its purpose

Matthew Spellberg writes: Among certain philosophers it is a commonplace that dreams are radically private, that no one can follow you into them. A fragment from Heraclitus distills the problem: “The universe for those who are awake is single and common, while in sleep each person turns aside into a private universe.” Hegel, commenting on this same fragment, says that “the dream is a knowledge of something of which I alone know.” Consider how you might teach a child to…

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Where did the coronavirus come from? What we already know is troubling

Where did the coronavirus come from? What we already know is troubling

Zeynep Tufekci writes: There were curious characteristics about the H1N1 influenza pandemic of 1977-78, which emerged from northeastern Asia and killed an estimated 700,000 people around the world. For one, it almost exclusively affected people in their mid-20s or younger. Scientists discovered another oddity that could explain the first: It was virtually identical to a strain that circulated in the 1950s. People born before that had immunity that protected them, and younger people didn’t. But how on earth had it…

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When a good scientist is the wrong source

When a good scientist is the wrong source

Thomas Levenson writes: Six weeks ago, a reporter, Nicholas Wade, published what seemed to be a blockbuster story, one that, if true, would expose the greatest scandal in recent history. SARS-CoV-2, he wrote, or SARS2 for short, the virus that has driven the global COVID-19 pandemic, had likely been modified in a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, from which it then escaped into the wild. “Neither the natural emergence nor the lab escape hypothesis can yet be ruled…

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Before condo collapse, rising seas have long pressured Miami coastal properties

Before condo collapse, rising seas have long pressured Miami coastal properties

The Washington Post reports: The 12-story condo tower that crashed down early Thursday near Miami Beach was built on reclaimed wetlands and is perched on a barrier island facing an ocean that has risen about a foot in the past century due to climate change. Underneath its foundation, as with Miami Beach, is sand and organic fill —over a plateau of porous limestone — brought in from the bay after the mangroves were deforested. The fill sinks naturally and the…

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Government report can’t explain UFOs, but offers no evidence of aliens

Government report can’t explain UFOs, but offers no evidence of aliens

Politico reports: A new intelligence report sent to Congress on Friday concludes that virtually all of the 144 sightings of unidentified flying objects documented by the military since 2004 are of unknown origin, in an extremely rare public accounting of the U.S. government’s data on UFOs that is likely to fuel further speculation about phenomena the intelligence community has long struggled to understand. The report — the government’s first unclassified assessment in half a century — does not offer any…

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They seemed like Democratic activists. They were secretly conservative spies

They seemed like Democratic activists. They were secretly conservative spies

The New York Times reports: The young couple posing in front of the faux Eiffel Tower at the Paris hotel in Las Vegas fit right in, two people in a sea of idealistic Democrats who had arrived in the city in February 2020 for a Democratic primary debate. Large donations to the Democratic National Committee — $10,000 each — had bought Beau Maier and Sofia LaRocca tickets to the debate. During a cocktail reception beforehand, they worked the room of…

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Justice Department is suing Georgia over voter suppression law

Justice Department is suing Georgia over voter suppression law

Mother Jones reports: In its first major action to combat GOP voter suppression laws, the Biden Justice Department announced on Friday that it is suing the state of Georgia over its new voting restrictions. The lawsuit was first reported by Mother Jones. “Today the Department of Justice is suing the state of Georgia,” Attorney General Merrick Garland announced at a press conference at the Justice Department headquarters. Gov. Brian Kemp has said “there is nothing Jim Crow” about the Georgia…

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Discovery of ‘Dragon Man’ skull in China may add species to human family tree

Discovery of ‘Dragon Man’ skull in China may add species to human family tree

The New York Times reports: Scientists on Friday announced that a massive fossilized skull that is at least 140,000 years old is a new species of ancient human, a finding that could potentially change prevailing views of how — and even where — our species, Homo sapiens, evolved. The skull belonged to a mature male who had a huge brain, massive brow ridges, deep set eyes and a bulbous nose. It had remained hidden in an abandoned well for 85…

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Nearly all Covid deaths in U.S. are now among unvaccinated

Nearly all Covid deaths in U.S. are now among unvaccinated

The Associated Press reports: Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. now are in people who weren’t vaccinated, a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been and an indication that deaths per day — now down to under 300 — could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine. An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that “breakthrough” infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 853,000 COVID-19…

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Why is there such a gender gap in Covid vaccination rates?

Why is there such a gender gap in Covid vaccination rates?

Angelica Puzio writes: For months, local, state and federal officials have been consumed with how to persuade Americans who are wary of the COVID-19 vaccine to get the shot anyway. The conversation has focused in large part on specific demographic groups and how to overcome certain cultural factors to get the vaccines into people’s arms. Experts worried about low turnout among women, who reported significantly more vaccination hesitancy than men prior to the vaccine rollout. And public health officials warned…

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Lab leaks happen, and not just in China. We need to take them seriously

Lab leaks happen, and not just in China. We need to take them seriously

David A. Relman writes: If we scientists are not forced to confront the issues of laboratory safety and risky research in a serious and sustained manner, history suggests that we will not do so. In 2012, controversy erupted when it transpired that two sets of researchers — at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands — were altering highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses to enhance their transmissibility among mammals (to understand their potential…

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‘Lean into the culture war’: White conservatives in House push fight against critical race theory

‘Lean into the culture war’: White conservatives in House push fight against critical race theory

Politico reports: The head of Congress’ largest conservative caucus is encouraging Republicans to embrace anti-critical race theory rhetoric, as the GOP looks to lean into the nation’s culture wars ahead of the looming battle for the House. In a memo sent to members of the Republican Study Committee, its chair Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana said the “backlash against Critical Race Theory is real.” Banks framed the GOP’s opposition to the ideology “as an effort to renew American patriotism and…

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House investigates possible shadow operation in Trump’s Justice Department

House investigates possible shadow operation in Trump’s Justice Department

The Guardian reports: Top Democrats in the House are investigating whether Trump justice department officials ran an unlawful shadow operation to target political enemies of the former president to hunt down leaks of classified information, according to a source familiar with the matter. The House judiciary committee chairman, Jerry Nadler, is centering his investigation on the apparent violation of internal policies by the justice department, when it issued subpoenas against Democrats Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell in 2018. The use…

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Afghan government may collapse six months or sooner after U.S. withdrawal

Afghan government may collapse six months or sooner after U.S. withdrawal

The Wall Street Journal reports: The U.S. intelligence community concluded last week that the government of Afghanistan could collapse as soon as six months after the American military withdrawal from the country is completed, according to officials with knowledge of the new assessment. American intelligence agencies revised their previously more optimistic estimates as the Taliban swept through northern Afghanistan last week, seizing dozens of districts and surrounding major cities. Afghan security forces frequently surrendered without a fight, leaving their Humvees…

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