Tag: Covid-19

It’s the Biden vs. Trump Economy—and Hell No, It’s Not Even Close

The second issue is the broader comparison of the two economies. Trump’s pre-pandemic economy, as I’ve written before, was good. Trump haters can’t deny it. It wasn’t because of anything he did. He passed a tax cut for the rich. It goosed demand a little, and it did help the stock market. Median household income […]

Read More

Elise Stefanik Shredded for Idiotic Comments about 2020

The latest charge claims that Menendez and his wife, Nadine, accepted bribes to help the government of Qatar itself, engaging in a corrupt relationship with Dabies and two other New Jersey businessmen, Wael Hana and Jose Uribe. Senator Menendez faces a dozen new counts, and 16 charges total, including obstruction of justice, bribery, and extortion. […]

Read More

MIT scientists use a new type of nanoparticle to make vaccines more powerful

Many vaccines, including vaccines for hepatitis B and whooping cough, consist of fragments of viral or bacterial proteins. These vaccines often include other molecules called adjuvants, which help to boost the immune system’s response to the protein. Most of these adjuvants consist of aluminum salts or other molecules that provoke a nonspecific immune response. A […]

Read More

Noubar Afeyan PhD ’87 to deliver MIT’s 2024 Commencement address

Noubar Afeyan PhD ’87, an inventor and parallel entrepreneur with a penchant for bold ideas, will deliver the address at the OneMIT Commencement Ceremony on Thursday, May 30. Afeyan is the founder and CEO of the venture creation company Flagship Pioneering, which founds companies that build biotechnology platforms to transform human health and sustainability. Since […]

Read More

DNA particles that mimic viruses hold promise as vaccines

Using a virus-like delivery particle made from DNA, researchers from MIT and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard have created a vaccine that can induce a strong antibody response against SARS-CoV-2. The vaccine, which has been tested in mice, consists of a DNA scaffold that carries many copies of a viral antigen. This […]

Read More

Analysts are calling 2023’s decline in PC shipments ‘unparalleled in the industry’s recorded history’ but suggest the only way now is up

There’s nothing like a bit of heart-warming, cheery news to start a new year but the PC shipment estimates for 2023, from market analysts IDC and Gartner, are anything but cheery. The total number of units shipped varies between the two groups, with IDC estimating just under 260 million, whereas Gartner puts it at around […]

Read More

Turning history of science into a comic adventure

The Covid-19 pandemic taught us how complex the science and management of infectious disease can be, as the public grappled with rapidly evolving science, shifting and contentious policies, and mixed public health messages. The purpose of scientific communication is to make the complexity of such topics engaging and accessible while also making sure the information […]

Read More

The Covid-19 Virus Isn’t Done With Us—or Our Politics

The normalization of Covid reinfections has made talking about the pandemic, or, God forbid, taking precautions, feel like a social taboo, making it increasingly difficult to expect or ask for any level of mitigations in work and social settings. As Julia Doubleday wrote in her excellent Substack post in December, “The political project of normalizing […]

Read More

Democrats Can’t Keep Ignoring Covid in 2024

The normalization of Covid reinfections has made talking about the pandemic, or, God forbid, taking precautions, feel like a social taboo, making it increasingly difficult to expect or ask for any level of mitigations in work and social settings. As Julia Doubleday wrote in her excellent Substack post in December, “The political project of normalizing […]

Read More

Department of Health urges flu, COVID-19 and RSV vaccines

An Alaska Public Health Alert delivered by the State Department of Health on Monday “urges” an increase in vaccination against the flu, COVID-19 and RSV, citing low coverage rates nationwide and below average rates in Alaska. According to information included with the release, only 18.5% of Alaskans have received a flu vaccine as of last […]

Read More

Five high schoolers awarded MIT OMEGA scholarships for intergenerational efforts

The MIT AgeLab awards annual scholarships to high school students who lead or develop intergenerational programs — initiatives designed to bring together younger and older people — in their communities. On Sept. 29, five $5,000 OMEGA scholarships were given to high school students across the United States, with support from AARP Massachusetts. An additional $1,000 […]

Read More

A Murder at the End of the World Is Isolation TV at Its Best

The whole thing plays out as a True Detective in the style of Michael Clayton—a prestige whodunit fused with a startling comedy about the nearly occult style of corporate rot. The characters often speak with ethereal poetry, as if they’re mediums channeling spirit voices from beyond the veil. Lee, for instance, telling Darby that the […]

Read More

Kristala Prather named head of the Department of Chemical Engineering

Kristala L. J. Prather ’94, the Arthur Dehon Little Professor, has been named the new head of the Department of Chemical Engineering (ChemE), effective Jan. 1, 2024. “Professor Prather has already demonstrated tremendous leadership in her role as executive officer in ChemE. Her contributions to the department, particularly in navigating challenges throughout the pandemic, have […]

Read More

Germicidal UV lights could be producing indoor air pollutants, study finds

Many efforts to reduce transmission of diseases like Covid-19 and the flu have focused on measures such as masking and isolation, but another useful approach is reducing the load of airborne pathogens through filtration or germicidal ultraviolet light. Conventional UV sources can be harmful to eyes and skin, but newer sources that emit at a […]

Read More

Targeting a coronavirus ion channel could yield new Covid-19 drugs

The genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus encodes 29 proteins, one of which is an ion channel called E. This channel, which transports protons and calcium ions, induces infected cells to launch an inflammatory response that damages tissues and contributes to the symptoms of Covid-19. MIT chemists have now discovered the structure of the “open” state […]

Read More

Practicing mindfulness with an app may improve children’s mental health

Many studies have found that practicing mindfulness — defined as cultivating an open-minded attention to the present moment — has benefits for children. Children who receive mindfulness training at school have demonstrated improvements in attention and behavior, as well as greater mental health. When the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020, sending millions of students home […]

Read More

J-PAL North America and Results for America announce 18 collaborations with state and local governments

J-PAL North America and Results for America have announced 18 new partnerships with state and local governments across the country through their Leveraging Evidence and Evaluation for Equitable Recovery (LEVER) programming, which launched in April of this year.  As state and local leaders leverage federal relief funding to invest in their communities, J-PAL North America […]

Read More

Ex-White House Aide Reveals Why Trump Refused to Wear Mask During COVID

Noelle Dunphy accused Giuliani of promising to pay her a $1 million annual salary but instead raping and sexually abusing her over the course of two years. Her lawsuit alleges that Giuliani was constantly drunk, talked openly about trying to overturn the 2020 election, and even plotted to sell pardons with Donald Trump at the […]

Read More

Future science at the molecular level

Innovating at the intersection of chemistry, biology, and engineering, Professor Brad Pentelute and the Pentelute Lab at MIT invent new chemistry, platforms, and techniques that might revolutionize therapeutics. Their formula in brief: nature-inspired research that begins at the molecular level, infused with state-of-the-art machine learning and automation, aimed at solving real-world problems. Take, for example, […]

Read More

HBCU Reverses COVID-19 Mask Mandate After Off-Campus Backlash

NewsOne Featured Video Source: halbergman / Getty UPDATED: 2:00 p.m. ET, Sept 7, 2023 Morris Brown College has rescinded its temporary mandate requiring students and faculty to wear masks while on campus.  The small Atlanta HBCU received some pushback after it decided to reinstate the mask mandate last month after a rise in positive COVID  cases […]

Read More

MIT engineers design more powerful RNA vaccines

RNA vaccines against Covid-19 have proven effective at reducing the severity of disease. However, a team of researchers at MIT is working on making them even better. By tweaking the design of the vaccines, the researchers showed that they could generate Covid-19 RNA vaccines that produce a stronger immune response, at a lower dose, in […]

Read More

Biden’s Bad Poll Numbers Won’t Turn Themselves Around

Even if voters don’t come around on the economy, they will likely shift their perception in one key area. At the moment, the presidential race has hardly begun; Trump and Biden are not yet in competition with one another. When that competition kicks off, it will color perceptions: a stark choice between two candidates will […]

Read More