The New York Times, September 21, 2021
For half a billion years or so, our ancestors sprouted tails. As fish, they used their tails to swim through the Cambrian seas. Much later, when they evolved into primates, their tails helped them stay balanced as they raced from branch to branch through Eocene jungles. But then, roughly 25 million years ago, the tails disappeared.
Charles Darwin first recognized this change in our ancient anatomy. But how and why it happened has remained a mystery.
The New York Times, September 21, 2021
A second dose of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine substantially increased its protection against Covid-19, the company announced Tuesday morning.
In a clinical trial, researchers found that two doses of the vaccine delivered 94 percent efficacy against mild to severe Covid-19 in the United States, up from 74 percent conferred with a single shot, the company reported. And two shots showed 100 percent efficacy against severe disease, although that estimate had a wide range of uncertainty.
The New York Times, September 13, 2021
A team of scientists and entrepreneurs announced on Monday that they have started a new company to genetically resurrect the woolly mammoth.
The company, named Colossal, aims to place thousands of these magnificent beasts back on the Siberian tundra, thousands of years after they went extinct.
“This is a major milestone for us,” said George Church, a biologist at Harvard Medical School, who for eight years has been leading a small team of moonlighting researchers developing the tools for reviving mammoths. “It’s going to make all the difference in the world.”
Continue reading “A New Company With a Wild Mission: Bring Back the Woolly Mammoth”
The New York Times, August 25, 2021 (with Sharon LaFraniere)
As vaccine makers set their sights on boosters, new studies unveiled on Wednesday from Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer-BioNTech demonstrated that extra shots can dramatically raise antibodies against the coronavirus.
The companies said they were submitting the new data to the Food and Drug Administration for evaluation, and Pfizer has formally asked the agency to authorize a booster shot. The Biden administration said last week that it wants to provide booster shots for all Americans eight months after vaccination.
Continue reading “Extra Shots from J. & J. and Pfizer Give Immune Boost, Companies Report”
Last month, in an appearance on the Daily podcast, I warned against assuming that the pandemic was over. The Delta variant was poised to potentially sweep across the United States. It might create a surge that might even require that the country return to masking and other measures to slow it down.
I sensed that the Daily host Michael Barbaro did not welcome the news. And I could sympathize. After months of mass vaccination and crashing cases, it was easy to believe that the coronavirus was now behind us. But by early July, there was plenty of evidence that the Delta variant might well push back those gains. It bore mutations allowing it to multiply quickly inside a host and then swiftly spread to new victims. It had already overwhelmed countries like India and the United Kingdom. Vaccines work well against Delta–especially against hospitalization from Covid-19–but only after both doses. Only about half of Americans are fully vaccinated, leaving the rest easy targets for the variant. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, August 13, 2021”