Pivot point: Efforts shift from vaccine to tracking origin of coronavirus
With cases soaring in the United States and elsewhere, the Covid-19 pandemic is nowhere near its end – but with three vaccines reporting trial data and two apparently nearing approval by the US Food and Drug Administration, it may be reaching a pivot point. In what feels like a moment...
Confidence rises upon reports coronavirus vaccines may soon be available
With the news that Moderna has applied for emergency use authorisation for its coronavirus vaccine, and that Pfizer and BioNTech’s shot has been approved in the UK, the US is inching ever closer to having one, if not two, vaccines approved for use. Both are mRNA vaccines, which trigger cells...
Civil liberties union sues US government for snooping on ordinary people
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has sued the US government claiming Homeland Security agents trampled over people’s constitutional rights – by buying phone location data from commercial brokers rather than getting necessary search warrants. “These practices raise serious concerns that federal immigration authorities are evading Fourth Amendment protections for...
Not even Attorney General Barr buys Trump’s election nonsense
President Donald Trump is running out of wrenches to throw at the gears of democracy. Since prematurely and incorrectly declaring victory on the night of the election, Trump and his legal team have launched dozens of lawsuits seeking to overturn the results of the presidential race in pivotal states like...
How coronavirus vaccines are being divvied up around the world
Vaccine developers who have already reported promising phase III trial results against Covid-19 estimate that, between them, they can make sufficient doses for more than one-third of the world’s population by the end of 2021. But many people in low-income countries might have to wait until 2023 or 2024 for...
Firing director of Homeland Security crosses a line – even for Trump
Within minutes of Donald Trump tweeting that he had fired Christopher Krebs as the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency on Tuesday night, Twitter slapped on a warning label that the accompanying claim about electoral fraud “is disputed.” The disinformation warning was, in some ways, a fitting...
Forgetting may make your mind more efficient
Memory palaces provide imaginary architectural repositories for storing and retrieving anything you would like to remember. Sixteen centuries ago, St Augustine spoke of “treasures of innumerable images” stored in his “spacious palaces of memory.” But twenty-first century scientists who study memory have identified an important point to remember: Even the...
‘This is Your Brain on Music’: How human mind and body respond to the beat
Music and dance are so deeply embedded in the human experience that we almost take them for granted. They’re distinct from one another, but intimately related: Music — arrangements of sound over time — causes us to move our bodies in space. Without knowing it, we track pulse, tempo and...
Like it or not, Trump’s election attacks end December 14
Despite the Trump campaign’s fight to overturn the election, the wheels of American democracy keep turning. In the weeks since his loss to Joe Biden, President Donald Trump and his re-election campaign have attempted to cast doubt on the validity of the 2020 election and filed numerous unsuccessful lawsuits in...
Crop irrigation: How dirty water is making us sick
William Whitt suffered violent diarrhea for days. But once he began vomiting blood, he knew it was time to rush to the hospital. His body swelled up so much that his wife thought he looked like the Michelin Man, and on the inside, his intestines were inflamed and bleeding. For...
