Hundreds of Scientists Scramble to Find a Coronavirus Treatment

Posted on by Lori Jia

The New York Times, March 17, 2020

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Working at a breakneck pace, a team of hundreds of scientists has identified 50 drugs that may be effective treatments for people infected with the coronavirus.

Many scientists are seeking drugs that attack the virus itself. But the Quantitative Biosciences Institute Coronavirus Research Group, based at the University of California, San Francisco, is testing an unusual new approach.

The researchers are looking for drugs that shield proteins in our own cells that the coronavirus depends on to thrive and reproduce.

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Friday’s Elk, March 7, 2020

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

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” →

Nuclear Tests Marked Life on Earth With a Radioactive Spike

Posted on by Lori Jia

The Atlantic, March 2, 2020

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On the morning of March 1, 1954, a hydrogen bomb went off in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. John Clark was only 20 miles away when he issued the order, huddled with his crew inside a windowless concrete blockhouse on Bikini Atoll. But seconds went by, and all was silent. He wondered if the bomb had failed. Eventually, he radioed a Navy ship monitoring the test explosion.

“It’s a good one,” they told him.

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Ghost DNA Hints at Africa’s Missing Ancient Humans

Posted on by Carl Zimmer

The New York Times, February 12, 2020

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Scientists reported on Wednesday that they had discovered evidence of an extinct branch of humans whose ancestors split from our own a million years ago. The evidence of these humans was not a fossil. Instead, the researchers found pieces of their DNA in the genomes of living people from West Africa.

Arun Durvasula and Sriram Sankararaman, two geneticists at the University of California, Los Angeles, described this so-called ghost archaic population in the journal Science Advances. Their discovery may shed light on human genetic diversity in Africa, which has been hard to chart until now because the fossil record is sparse.

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