How Accurate Are Rapid COVID Tests?

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May 20, 2022

Public Health How Accurate Are Rapid COVID Tests? Two testing experts explain the latest data on how well the assays perform By Nathaniel Hafer,Apurv Soni,The Conversation US

Policy The Antiscience Supreme Court Is Hurting the Health of Americans Justice Alito’s leaked opinion signaling an end to Roe v. Wade is the latest in a broad trend of rejecting science and expertise By Wendy E. Parmet

Medicine The Weight of Stigma: Heavier Patients Confront the Burden of Bias Research shows that antifat bias lowers the quality of care for higher-weight patients. Here is one patient’s story By Kelso Harper

Neuroscience How the Brain Tells Apart Important and Unimportant Sensations Several recent studies point to a small, long-overlooked structure in the brain stem as a crucial gatekeeper for the body’s signals By Eiman Azim,Sliman Bensmaia,Lee E. Miller,Chris Versteeg

Inequality Discrimination Is Breaking People's Hearts Heart attacks, strokes and other consequences of cardiovascular disease are particularly dangerous for people who face inequity By Jyoti Madhusoodanan

Medicine A Deluge of New Drugs for COVID Two years into the pandemic, the COVID-19 drugs pipeline is primed to pump out novel treatments—and fresh uses for familiar therapies. By Heidi Ledford,Nature magazine

Paleontology How Mammals Conquered the World after the Asteroid Apocalypse They scurried in the shadows of dinosaurs for millions of years until a killer space rock created a new world of evolutionary opportunity By Steve Brusatte

Reproduction How Medication Abortion with RU-486/Mifepristone Works A step-by-step look at how these drugs end pregnancy By Megha Satyanarayana

Pollution Living with Lead Creates Antibiotic-Resistant 'Superbugs' People are infected by bacteria that, after contacting heavy metals, develop drug-resistant traits By Allison Parshall

Climate Change 'Reef Balls' Gain Traction for Shoreline Protection Structures first deployed as artificial reefs are being used in the Northeast to combat the force of waves as ocean levels rise By Daniel Cusick,E&E News

Medicine Mars Mission Could Bring Health Benefits on Earth Flying to space takes its toll on the human body, and this has spurred new research on radiation and microgravity, as well as advances in remote medicine and telehealth, all of which have potential benefits for people on Earth By Marion Renault,Nature Medicine

Public Health What Does 'Protection' against COVID Really Mean? To answer that question, expanded testing is needed that can determine levels of T immune cells By Esther Landhuis

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Volume 326, Issue 6

BRING SCIENCE HOME Energetic 2-Ball Bounces Blast off! Harness the energy of two balls bouncing at once to send one flying in this simple physics activity.  Credit: George Retseck How many ball sports can you name? How many of those have several balls at once in the game? Almost none, right? Games that do use several balls at a time most likely use balls of the same mass, volume and material. Would having two balls of different masses make a game very difficult? In this activity you will explore what might happen if you were to add a tennis ball to a basketball game or a tiny ping-pong ball to a tennis game or any other combination. Ready to be surprised? Try it out!

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