The items below are highlights from the free newsletter, “Smart, useful, science stuff about COVID-19.” To receive newsletter issues daily in your inbox, sign up here. Here’s how you should think about your immunity to SARS-CoV-2 after you receive your first shot of a two-dose vaccine, according to a 1/14/21 BBC Futures story: “Pretend it didn’t happen.” In other words, assume you have acquired no immunity to SARS-CoV-2 after that first dose....
The items below are highlights from the newsletter, “Smart, useful, science stuff about COVID-19.” To receive newsletter issues daily in your inbox, sign up here. Antibodies acquired by survivors of SARS-CoV-2 infections who never showed symptoms [asymptomatic people] “may last only two to three months,” reports Apoorva Mandavilli at The New York Times (6/18/20). The finding, based on measures of the immune responses of 37 asymptomatic people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, was published 6/18/20 in Nature Medicine....
When Robb Willer looks back on the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic—when leaders still had a chance to stop the virus from bringing the world to a halt—there’s a fateful moment that stands out. In February 2020, global health authorities spoke in one voice, advising the public not to wear masks to prevent infection. “Seriously people—STOP BUYING MASKS!”, tweeted the then US surgeon general Jerome Adams, stressing that masks would not protect the general public from the virus....
It can bend, it can twist, it can suck, it can cup. The tongue is an essential, often playful part of human anatomy. Many of us grew up believing the assertion that the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body. But is it really? The short answer is no. But the explanation is not as straightforward as you’d think. We asked a few tongue experts (yes they do exist) why the myth has been so easy to swallow....
Men or women who have been unfaithful to their romantic partners feel better after watching stories about infidelity on television. Robin Nabi of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her colleagues showed people with a history of cheating two TV programs featuring adultery, one in which the unfaithful spouse expresses regret and one in which the spouse rationalizes the behavior. Whereas the cheaters preferred programs in which the behavior was rationalized, either storyline reduced the viewer’s own regret for past indiscretions....
HONOLULU — NASA’s next flagship space telescope is still on track for a launch in March 2021 despite long-standing scheduling concerns, according to agency personnel. The James Webb Space Telescope has been notoriously prone to delays and cost overruns, but during two town hall meetings held here at the 235th American Astronomical Society meeting, NASA leaders emphasized that the launch date set in June 2018 still holds. A second major telescope is also continuing to meet its timeline, targeting a launch in the mid-2020s....
A and C will form a coalition together. A prefers C because A will then receive the most money. C also prefers A to any other coalition, because C will get the most money in that case and is involved in a smaller alliance. 2. 67 percent would be best for B. Then B would be part of the {A, B, E} coalition and B would get the fraction 25/70 of the money....
A crooked tooth. That funky mole. A pimple on your chin. When you stare into the mirror and pick apart the little imperfections, you’re doing more than being too hard on yourself. In fact, that behavior—understanding that your reflection is you, and seeing how you differ from other people—is often taken as a demonstration of some complex cognitive gymnastics that not all species can pull off. Since the 1970s psychologists have used mirrors to search for signs of self-awareness in both humans and animals....
Mid-pandemic, Texas resident Marilyn Santiesteban came down with a bad cold. The illness left her severely dehydrated, and at the suggestion of a friend, she received an intravenous infusion from a local concierge medical practice. Santiesteban was so happy with the convenience and personalized experience, she switched from her traditional health care provider to concierge care, which allows patients unusually unfettered access to a physician for a fee. The practice she uses charges an annual membership fee ranging from $600 to more than$1,000, depending on the plan, but patients will still be on the hook for certain medical services that are not covered by the fee....
Not far from a range of giant ice mountains on Pluto lies a vast stretch of icy plains whose surface is broken into cell-like blocks by snaking troughs, new photos by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveal. The engimatic region—which the mission team is calling “Sputnik Planum,” after the satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1957—also features isolated hills of uncertain height, mysterious pitted terrain and dark streaks of material that may have been deposited by Plutonian winds....
Venus and asteroids have emerged as top destinations for NASA’s future planetary exploration. On September 30, the agency announced a short list of five contenders for its US$450-million Discovery-class of planetary missions. Two of the five proposed missions would target Venus, which NASA has not visited in more than two decades. A Venus radar orbiter would map the planet’s cloud-enshrouded surface from above, while an atmospheric probe would descend directly through the layers of haze....
“Have you seen your body in x-rays? It looks completely different,” says Rashid Sunyaev. “We will do the same with the universe.” Sunyaev, an eminent Soviet-born cosmologist at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany, could be about to get his long-held wish. On June 21, a joint German–Russian mission called Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma (SRG) will launch into space to chart an unprecedented map. It won’t be the first space telescope sensitive to high-energy “hard” x-rays, which offer astrophysicists a window into otherwise faint objects in the universe....
The universe is a stupendously vast and puzzling place. Millennia of scientific advances have incrementally increased our understanding of it, but every now and then, scientists still spy something shrouded in almost inexplicable mystery. Now such a puzzle has come in the form of filaments of electromagnetic radiation hundreds of thousands of light-years long—the likes of which have never before been seen. Using the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa, astronomers were taking a peek at a bright galaxy near to the center of Norma, a merging galaxy cluster 230 million light-years from Earth....
Adapted from Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, by Peter Godfrey-Smith. Copyright © 2016 by Peter Godfrey-Smith. Published by arrangement with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC (U.S.), HarperCollins (U.K.) Someone is watching you, intently, but you can’t see them. Then you notice, drawn somehow by their eyes. You’re amid a sponge garden, the seafloor scattered with shrublike clumps of bright orange sponge. Tangled in one of these sponges and the gray-green seaweed around it is an animal about the size of a cat....
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. The winter Olympics conjure up images of snowy mountain ranges, frozen ice rinks and athletes in cold-weather gear. And for good reason. Winter Olympic venues have often been in places that receive an average snowfall of 300 inches per year or more. However, barring some extremely anomalous weather patterns, the mountains surrounding the snow events for the Beijing Winter Olympics will be tones of brown and green and nearly devoid of snow....
When dinosaurs roamed Earth, pterosaurs ruled the skies. The largest of these ancient reptiles had wingspans of 10 metres or more. But fossil fragments unearthed in western Canada suggest that these giant flying reptiles co-existed with a more diminutive form — closer to the size of an albatross. The finding is preliminary, but if it holds, it could upend scientists’ view of pterosaurs’ evolution, and their eventual extinction 66 million years ago....
Key Concepts Mathematics Probability Fractions Percentages Introduction Have you ever heard anyone say the chance of something happening is “50–50”? What does that actually mean? This phrase has something to do with probability. Probability tells you how likely it is that an event will occur. This means that for certain events you can actually calculate how likely it is that they will happen. In this activity, you will do these calculations and then test them to see whether they hold true for reality!...
NBC Learn’s “The Science of NFL Football” episode about geometric shapes explores the differences between spheres, ellipses and prolate spheroids, and their impact on the game. The unique shape of the football, for example, contributes the dynamic nature of the ball itself, which can be thrown long distances in a tight spiral or bounce unpredictably on the field of play. Baseballs, basketballs and many other sports balls rely on a spherical, uniform design that makes them easy to shoot, throw and hit....
Antidepressant medications can be hugely helpful—even life-saving—for those who suffer from certain types of mood disorders. But they can also sometimes cause people to gain a significant amount of weight. Not so helpful. Studies indicate that about 25% of the people who take antidepressant medications report significant weight gain. This is seen more commonly in those who take these drugs for six months or more, but it’s not uncommon for people to report gaining 8-10 pounds within just a few weeks of starting drug therapy....
There is a striking gender gap in leadership positions across our society. Women represent 5 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs, only 15 percent of executive officers at those companies, less than 20 percent of full professors in the natural sciences, and only 6 percent of partners in venture capital firms. Scholars of the gap suggest that some of the explanation relates to how people perceive and react to women – the gender-based discrimination we so often read about in the news, which is perpetuated by both men and women....
