Science

Dear Pandemic Problems,

I'm freaking out about possibly coming down with COVID, despite being vaccinated and boosted. I work as a nanny to two young children. Over the weekend, one of the kids came down with standard cold symptoms; so I was not surprised when I got a mild runny nose on Monday, which alone would not be a reason for concern.

When it comes to climate change, the point of no return has already passed.

This article first appeared at Salon.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is lashing out at the Brooklyn Nets for telling star point guard Kyrie Irving that he can't play or even practice with the team unless he gets vaccinated against COVID-19.

In a tweet posted Thursday afternoon, Greene accused the NBA of hypocrisy because they still let Magic Johnson play even after he'd contracted HIV.

Some have called NASA's James Webb Space Telescope the "telescope that ate astronomy." It is the most powerful space telescope ever built and a complex piece of mechanical origami that has pushed the limits of human engineering. On Dec. 18, 2021, after years of delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns, the telescope is scheduled to launch into orbit and usher in the next era of astronomy.

I'm an astronomer with a specialty in observational cosmology – I've been studying distant galaxies for 30 years. Some of the biggest unanswered questions about the universe relate to its early years just after the Big Bang. When did the first stars and galaxies form? Which came first, and why? I am incredibly excited that astronomers may soon uncover the story of how galaxies started because James Webb was built specifically to answer these very questions.

Satellite data provider Planet announced Tuesday that it plans to launch a new fleet of orbiting eyes so powerful they can distinguish road markings on the ground.

Planet, which already operates 200 Earth observation satellites from space, wants to make the new function available in 2023.

Communities that rely on the Colorado River are facing a water crisis. Lake Mead, the river's largest reservoir, has fallen to levels not seen since it was created by the construction of the Hoover Dam roughly a century ago. Arizona and Nevada are facing their first-ever mandated water cuts, while water is being released from other reservoirs to keep the Colorado River's hydropower plants running.

If even the mighty Colorado and its reservoirs are not immune to the heat and drought worsened by climate change, where will the West get its water?

Any dog owner knows how hard it is to leave their pup for an extended period of time. We wonder: Do they miss us when we're gone? Do they know how long we've been gone for? Or even worse, do they think we've abandoned them?

The way humans are excitedly greeted by their dogs upon return — and the way many whine when we leave — suggests they recognize our absence, and mourn it. However, it's hard to know what is really going on in a dog's brain — perhaps they just miss the food we give them? — partly because we can't really communicate with them.

Three US-based academics on Monday won the Nobel Economics Prize for research on the labour market using "natural experiments", or observational studies, that have revolutionized empirical research in the field, the jury said.

Canadian-American David Card, Israeli-American Joshua Angrist and Dutch-American Guido Imbens shared the prize for providing "new insights about the labour market" and showing "what conclusions about cause and effect can be drawn from natural experiments," the Nobel committee said in a statement.

Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson explained to CNN that the films "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon" came up with terrible ideas for solving the comet and asteroid crisis that the Earth is facing.

Both films deal with a massive body headed toward Earth that could destroy life on the planet. Both also use nuclear bombs to blow them up as a way of saving humanity.

In September, news broke that a new coronavirus mutation — the mu variant, formally known as B.1.621 — could potentially evade vaccine-induced immunity.

"This variant has a constellation of mutations that suggests that it would evade certain antibodies, not only monoclonal antibodies, but vaccine- and convalescent serum-induced antibodies," President Joe Biden's COVID-19 adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci told reporters in September. "But there isn't a lot of clinical data to suggest that. It is mostly laboratory in-vitro data."

Images from Mars reveal how water helped shape the Red Planet's landscape billions of years ago, and provide clues that will guide the search for evidence of ancient life, a study said Thursday.

In February, NASA's Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater, where scientists suspected a long-gone river once fed a lake, depositing sediment in a fan-shaped delta visible from space.

Florida was the only state that failed to submit a plan necessary to qualify for a federal aid program designed to buoy the state's public school system, according to the U.S. Department Education – and the department is struggling to ascertain why.

This article first appeared in Salon.