COVID Variants Hint at How the Virus Will Evolve

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December 09, 2021

Public Health COVID Variants Hint at How the Virus Will Evolve The rapid spread of new variants such as Omicron offers clues to how SARS-CoV-2 is adapting and how the pandemic will play out over the next several months By Ewen Callaway,Nature magazine

Climate Change Moving CO2 from Air to Oceans May Be Necessary to Slow Warming A major new report from the National Academies examines options to store carbon in the oceans By John Fialka,E&E News

Creativity Spark Creativity with Thomas Edison's Napping Technique Waking yourself from the twilight state just before sleep may help you to solve a challenging problem, a study shows By Bret Stetka

Vaccines Omicron Is Likely to Weaken COVID Vaccine Protection--But Boosters Could Restore It The rapid spread of new variants such as Omicron offers clues to how SARS-CoV-2 is adapting and how the pandemic will play out over the next several months By Ewen Callaway,Nature magazine

Climate Change An International Institute Will Help Us Manage Climate Change A collaborative center will help climate scientists build better models for prevention and mitigation By Sabine Hossenfelder,Tim Palmer

Animals To See Where a Whale Has Been, Look in Its Mouth The baleen that hangs from the jaws of some whale species contains clues about their migrations and diets By Jack Tamisiea

Behavior This Protein Could Boost Brain Function without Exercise An exercise pill might one day produce health gains without the exertional pain. By Emily Willingham

Reproduction Abortion Doesn't Have to Be an Either-Or Conversation Treating the decision with nuance and care is essential to reproductive justice By Amy Alspaugh,Linda S. Franck,Renée Mehra,Daniel Suárez-Baquero,Nikki Lanshaw,Toni Bond,Monica R. McLemore

Climate Change Rich Americans Have Higher Carbon Footprints than Other Wealthy People Those with higher incomes are also responsible for more emissions than those with lower incomes By Sara Schonhardt,E&E News

Astronomy NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Is Fueled for Late December Launch After some two decades of development, the orbital observatory is set to at last reach space on December 22 By Chelsea Gohd,SPACE.com

Cosmology Astronomers Spot Two Dust Bunnies Hiding in the Early Universe The scientists found several previously hidden galaxies that date back to 13 billion years ago—and many more might be missing from our current census of the early universe. By Christopher Intagliata | 02:20

FROM THE STORE Special Editions Volume 30, Issue 5s

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FROM THE ARCHIVE How the Omicron Variant Got So Many Scary Mutations So Quickly The numerous changes in the coronavirus's spike protein could have arisen in an isolated population or an immunocompromised person—or animals By Sarah Wild | December 2021

QUOTE OF THE DAY "A lot of us were expecting the next weird variant to be a child of Delta, and this is a bit of a wild card." Aris Katzourakis, specialist in viral evolution at the University of Oxford

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