The arrival of Omicron, the latest and most transmissible COVID-19 variant to date, underscores the tremendous need for updated COVID-19 policy in the U.S. We always knew it would be difficult to contain a highly transmissible respiratory virus before Omicron. The arrival of the Delta variant forced us to abandon our goal of “herd immunity.” With the arrival of Omi…
Read moreWho thought it would be a good idea to move thousands of teenagers and young adults across the country to college campuses, where, unencumbered by parental supervision, many college kids did what college kids do?
Actually, Nigel Goldenfeld and Sergei Maslov, two University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign physics researchers, thought they had it figured out. They created a predictive model…
Read moreIn an Apr. 19 meeting, the vaccine committee of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that people ages 65 and older get a second bivalent mRNA booster. The panel also recommended additional boosters for people with weakened immune systems.
As a result of the new recommendations, the bivalent booster, which targets both the original and Omicron BA.4/5 viruse…
Read moreThe U.S. federal government should adopt a strategy to manage climate change risks, as their cost to the government may rise as much as $35 billion per year by mid-century, a congressional watchdog office report released on Monday said. The report from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office comes as Congress weighs aid packages for U.S. victims of deadly hurricanes and wildfires that…
Read moreIn 2018, Scott McAulay had a “Wizard of Oz moment.” He was a final-year architecture student at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland when the U.N. published a report warning that the world had 12 years to transform society to avoid catastrophic, irreversible climate change. Buildings, the report said, account for 20% of energy-related global greenhouse-gas emissions, and the ar…
Read moreA previously unknown strain of coronavirus has dominated headlines in recent weeks, and alarmed public health officials with its rapid spread and virulent nature. But it’s really no surprise to the scientists who study infectious disease: it’s just one of several pathogens that have the potential to reach calamitous status.
I have no evidence that climate change triggered this…
Read moreKristina Shalashenko, a therapist who lives in Odessa, Ukraine, lives through a nightmare each day, wondering if or when Russia’s invasion will force her to flee her home. “It’s very scary. Everybody’s terrified and in shock,” she says through a translator. “The world [we’re] used to, it’s not there anymore.”
Thousands of miles away, K…
Read moreThere are two schools of thought about pink. One is that it is the color of bubble gum and Barbie. Cindy Eckert’s view is that it is the color of business. It is a dominant presence at the offices of her Raleigh, N.C., venture-capital firm, the Pink Ceiling, a fund that advertises its main goal as “to make women really f-cking rich.” It’s an even more dominant presence o…
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