• Current Southwest Drought Is a Preview of Things to Come

    Scientists found that the record-low precipitation that kicked off the unprecedented drought parching the U.S. Southwest since 2020 could have been a fluke—just the rare bad luck of natural variability. But the drought would not have reached its current punishing intensity without the extremely high temperatures brought by human-caused global warming.

  • We’re Already Barreling Toward the Next Pandemic

    America’s frustrating inability to learn from the recent past shouldn’t be surprising to anyone familiar with the history of public health. Ed Yong writes that many public-health experts, historians, and legal scholars worry that the U.S. is lapsing into neglect, that the temporary wave of investments isn’t being channeled into the right areas, and that COVID-19 might actually leave the U.S. weaker against whatever emerges next.

  • Small Increases in Greenhouse Gases Will Lead to Decades-Long “Megadroughts” in U.S. Southwest

    Recent NOAA-funded research found that even small additional increases in greenhouse gas emissions will make decades-long “megadroughts” – similar to the drought which has descended on the U.S. southwest nearly twenty years ago — more common.

  • Social Distancing in Spring of 2020 Effectively Curbed COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany

    Early contact restrictions and school closures prevented over 80 percent of COVID-19 infections and over 60 percent of deaths in Germany within three weeks, a quasi-experimental economic study finds.

  • Life Expectancy Falls in 27 of 29 Nations amid COVID-19

    According to a study of 29 countries, the magnitude of the dip in life expectancy during the COVID-19 pandemic had not been seen in a single year since World War II in Western Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe.

  • A COVID-19-Driven Desire for “Conformity and Obedience” Could Boost Authoritarianism: Psychologists

    Psychologists say that human beings have a built-in code of conduct which helps us stay disease-free. This code includes a fear and avoidance of unfamiliar – and so possibly infected – people. When infection risk is high, this parasite stress behavior increases, potentially manifesting as attitudes and even voting patterns that champion conformity and reject ‘foreign outgroups’ – core traits of authoritarian politics.

  • Can Better Gun Safety Practices Lower Teen Suicide Rates?

    Forty percent of the teenagers committing suicide used guns. A new study showed that teens who die by suicide using guns may show fewer warning signs like mental health issues than teens who die by suicide using other methods. Gun availability could contribute to this, as gun-owning parents loosen safety practices as children grow up.

  • Two Decades After 9/11: What We’ve Learned About Public Health Preparedness and Leadership

    In the United States, 743,452 “excess” (potentially preventable) deaths occurred from COVID-19 between February 2020 and September 4th, 2021, according to the CDC National Center for Health Statistics. This figure exceeds the number of excess deaths that occurred during the 1918-19 influenza pandemic, which was caused by an even deadlier virus.

  • A Deterrence by Denial Strategy for Addressing Biological Weapons

    The U.S. political failures have loomed large in coverage of the COVID-19 crisis. Christine Parthemore and Andy Weber write that, what is more, a number of analysts have warned that, after watching these failures play out, hostile powers might take a new interest in using biological weapons to target the United States. “This risk is real. Fortunately, the pandemic has also brought into use cutting-edge technologies that can help counter it,” they write.

  • Terrorist Attacks Against Vaccinators

    Since 2010, Islamist terrorists have increased their attacks on vaccinators in the Middle East, south Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. Pakistan has seen the most attacks on vaccinators.

  • Mandates Give Rise to Booming Black Market for Fake Vaccine Cards

    As more organizations demand proof of inoculation against COVID-19, the black market for fake vaccine cards appears to be booming. Legal experts compare phony vaccine cards to counterfeit money or fake drivers’ licenses.

  • Critical Shortcut to Detect, Identify Known and Emerging Pathogens

    Researchers have developed a sophisticated new tool which could help provide early warning of rare and unknown viruses in the environment and identify potentially deadly bacterial pathogens which cause sepsis, among other uses.

  • The Risk of Lab-Created, Potentially Pandemic Pathogens

    In 20212, researchers published studies on making avian influenza contagious through the air among mammals. This debate on developing pathogenic threats for research purposes led the U.S. government to impose a moratorium on funding gain-of-function research. The threat of an accidental release of lab-enhanced pathogens remains high.

  • The Closing of Book Revue and America's Misguided Lockdowns

    Book Revue, a 20-yer old cultural and social institution in downtown Huntington on Long Island’s north shore, will be closing its doors in a few days. It is yet another victim of the policy if business lockdowns, which was a misguided and unnecessary response to the Covid. Other countries chose a different, and more effective, path.

  • Biden Unveils Plan of Attack for COVID-19

    Keep schools open, mandate vaccines for all federal employees, and increase testing—these are three of the goals President Joe Biden outlined Thursday during a briefing on America’s ongoing battle against COVID-19.