It’s been another hard month. When I last sent out a newsletter on March 29, the United States had suffered 2,201 deaths from Covid-19. Today the total has reached 64,203.

That is the official count, but the full count is far higher. In cities like New York, the total number of deaths has jumped well above the average rate for this time of year. There aren’t enough tests to go around, so we’re not getting a full count of the sick. Many people are dying at home. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, May 1, 2020” →

Greetings from lockdown.

Four weeks ago, I wrote in shock about 100,000 cases of Covid-19 around the world. As of today, there are 691,867. The United States has overtaken China as the nation with the most cases (125,313), and the exponential curves in states across the country foretell many, many more cases to come. So far, 2,201 people have died of Covid-19. More will die. How many is in part up to us. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, March 29, 2020” →

Things have certainly changed since the last Friday’s Elk. The world has experienced over 100,000 infections of Covid-19, caused by a virus, SARS-CoV-2, that we didn’t even know about till a few weeks ago.

At first, we Americans complacently looked at the news as just another overseas disaster. As of this afternoon, there are 370 confirmed cases in the United States (one just a thirty-minute drive from where I live in Connecticut). Because our testing program is a mess, it’s certain there are many more–and transmission will bring more in weeks to come. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, March 7, 2020” →

Happy Groundhog Day’s Eve!

I wanted to start off with a note to Friday’s Elk readers in the Los Angeles area. On Thursday, February 6, I will be speaking in the Aloud Series at the Library Foundation of Los Angeles. I’ll be in conversation with Sean Carroll, Caltech physicist, author, and podcaster extraordinaire. We’ll be at the Mark Taper Auditorium-Central Library. Hope to see you! You can register here.

This past month, I took a look at evolution’s imprint on us, as well as a great step that took place two billion years ago to our level of complexity. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, February 1, 2020” →

Best wishes to you for the new year and the new decade!

2019 was busy for those of us who write about biology. Human evolution alone took up much of my time. When it comes to human origins, we had an entirely new species of Homo to contend with, new glimpses at our Denisovan cousins from Siberia and (amazingly) Tibet, and an ancient skull of our species in Europe over 210,000 years ago.

Looking to our biology today, scientists made some surprising discoveries. They investigated mysterious rings of DNA in our cells, along with a protein we make that could potentially shield us from dementia or even boost cognition. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, January 3, 2020” →