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Do We Live in a Simulation? Chances Are about 50–50

It is not often that a comedian gives an astrophysicist goose bumps when discussing the laws of physics. But comic Chuck Nice managed to do just that in a recent episode of the podcast StarTalk. The show’s host Neil deGrasse Tyson had just explained the simulation argument—the idea that we could be virtual beings living […]

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Magic Is (Literally) for the Birds

The magician climbs into the cage to perform a show for one. For this special event, he eschews coins and cards for peanuts. He rolls his sleeves and faces his captive audience: a corvid bird by the name of Stuka. He shows Stuka a peanut and waves it through the air, sweeping it from one […]

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COVID Misinformation Is Killing People

The confluence of misinformation and infectious disease isn’t unique to COVID-19. Misinformation contributed to the spread of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, and it plagues efforts to educate the public on the importance of vaccinating against measles. But when it comes to COVID-19, the pandemic has come to be defined by a tsunami of […]

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Lab-Made ‘Miniproteins’ Could Block the Coronavirus from Infecting Cells

While the world waits for a COVID-19 vaccine, many researchers are focused on developing effective therapeutics that can be rolled out quickly and cheaply. Monoclonal antibodies—a potentially promising laboratory-manufactured therapy modeled on antibodies extracted from the blood of recovering patients—made headlines recently when President Trump received a not-yet-approved antibody cocktail made by the company Regeneron. […]

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How to Get Through This Election

In August, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was interviewed on the New York Times podcast The Daily, where he was asked explicitly what his company will do if President Donald Trump uses Twitter to declare himself the winner of the 2020 election before the results have been decided. Dorsey paused, then provided a vague answer about […]

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Trolling for Truth on Social Media

During the 1999 World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets with banners and puppets to push back against economic globalization. They were met with a violent militarized suppression. At the same time, a small group of artist-activists called the Yes Men created a parody Web site […]

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Eight Persistent COVID-19 Myths and Why People Believe Them

○ 1 The virus was engineered in a laboratory in China. Because the pathogen first emerged in Wuhan, China, President Donald Trump and others have claimed, without evidence, that it started in a lab there, and some conspiracy theorists believe it was engineered as a bioweapon. Why It’s False: U.S. intelligence agencies have categorically denied […]

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When a Journalist Becomes a Disinformation Agent

I am not the editor in chief of a propaganda farm disguised as a far-right breaking news outlet. But one day last February, just before the world shut down, I got to play one. About 70 journalists, students and digital media types had gathered at the City University of New York to participate in a […]

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Why So Many Americans Are Skeptical of a Coronavirus Vaccine

In the face of nearly seven million infections and 200,000 deaths, many Americans refuse to wear masks because they don’t feel the coronavirus is real. Even some of those who believe the virus exists are not concerned about getting sick. How did this happen? Putting political ill will aside for a moment, the conflicting messaging […]