Recessions are often accompanied by a drop in carbon dioxide emissions. Then comes the rebound. In 2009, the Great Recession pushed global emissions down almost 1%. The next year CO2 levels rose by roughly 5%, as governments around the world enacted stimulus measures to prop up their economies. The economic devastation wrought by the novel […]
The first wave of patients in Brooklyn were what we call the worried well, who arrived at the emergency room with cough, fever and flulike symptoms, concerned they had coronavirus. We would perform a nasal swab, or not, depending on whether we had COVID-19 tests available that day, and send them home with isolation precautions […]
As lawmakers in the United States turn their focus to fighting the scourge of COVID-19, they will need to come up to speed quickly on the science behind the virus that causes it; the ongoing challenges around testing; and the dynamics of spread. That is going to be difficult, because lawmakers and their staff tend […]
About four months ago, in December 2019, the interstellar comet known as 2I/Borisov made its closest approach to our sun. After its initial discovery by Crimean amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov in August 2019, astronomers raced to observe the object—only the second known visitor from another star since the asteroidlike ‘Oumuamua in 2017—before it drifted out […]
Originally published in March 1911 Credit: Scientific American Advertisement “Venus is nearly as large as the earth and, as it is much nearer the sun, its temperature must be higher than that of the earth. The average temperature is estimated to be about 140 degrees F. Various phenomena appear to indicate that the planet is […]
In the event of any infectious disease outbreak, our minds turn to vaccines—and they do so for good reason. They’re safe, relatively expensive and have worked well for diseases including smallpox, polio, yellow fever, and, most recently, Ebola. Will a vaccine come as easily for the novel coronavirus? The answer is maybe yes, maybe not. […]
With much of the country grinding to a halt in a desperate attempt to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, many people are wondering when the U.S. will be able to “reopen.” The American Enterprise Institute, a public policy think tank, recently released a report co-written by former U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner […]
A couple of years ago, my family arrived on the island of Maui in Hawaii for a vacation, providing me with the opportunity to visit the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) on Mount Haleakalā (a name which fittingly means in Hawaiian, “house of the sun”). This unusual telescope—which produced its first images of the […]
While the focus of the COVID-19 pandemic has been on respiratory problems and securing enough ventilators, doctors on the front lines are grappling with a new medical mystery. In addition to lung damage, many COVID-19 patients are also developing heart problems—and dying of cardiac arrest. As more data comes in from China and Italy, as […]
Introduction Call of the Wildby Andrea Gawrylewski Section 1: Innovative Thinking, Sustainable Living 1.1 Sponge Cities by Erica Gies 1.2 Fuel from an Artificial Leaf by Javier Garcia Martinez 1.3 High-Flying Microbes by David Schmale & Shane Ross 1.4 Water Made by the Sun […]