Air and Space: The Museum That Fell From the Sky

By Jerry Copas

    In 1923, the USS Shenandoah was christened as the Navy's first rigid airship. It was intended to provide airborne surveillance and was sent on test flights across the nation. On September 3, 1925, during a flyover in Ohio, a morning squall destroyed the ship, killing 14 crewmembers. The wreckage was scattered for miles, and before officials could arrive, thousands looted the scene. It took officers four truckloads to recover everything, and even then, pieces were displayed on parlors and windows.

    Theresa Rayner and her late-husband Bryan run a museum-on-wheels commemorating the USS Shenandoah.

Time: The Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Approval May Be the Most Globally Important Yet

By Michael Zennie

    The vaccine developed in the UK by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca has been approved by the UK health regulators, shortly after Pfizer's. It's slightly less effective at 70% but its other features may have profound implications for the pandemic.

"It’s especially big news for the developing world because it’s cheaper and easier to handle and store. Countries from India to Brazil to South Africa have made big bets on the shot from the celebrated British university and the U.K.-Swedish drugmaker. The U.K. was the first country to allow use of the vaccine, but India is expected to follow suit within days. Trials are ongoing in the U.S. and in multiple other countries."

    Although Pfizer and Moderna will produce billions of doses combined, a few wealthy countries have already claimed much of that. AstraZeneca will be able to produce as much as the other two combined and has promised to make no profit off of a vaccine, meaning it will be much cheaper. It also uses a different technology from Pfizer and Moderna, which are the first vaccines approved that use mRNA. However, it must be stored in freezers and have short lives, while AstraZeneca's can be stored in regular refrigerator temperatures for months.

National Geographic: What we’ve learned about how our immune system fights COVID-19

By Fedor Kossakovski

    Over the past year, scientists have been studying the coronavirus and developed a vaccine at a record pace. During an infection, our immune system develops a healthy response, leaving us with antibodies. But in severe cases, it can end up going overboard or not working at all.

    First, the good news:

Immune responses fall on a spectrum. Our bodies develop lifelong immunity to viruses like hepatitis A or measles, while HIV, on the other end, can evade our bodies’ defenses for as long as we live. 'Fortunately, SARS-CoV-2 is closer to the hepatitis A end of the spectrum,' says Andrea Cox, a viral immunologist at Johns Hopkins University. 'It's not the easiest virus, but it's nowhere near HIV.'"

Air and Space: NASA Photographer Bill Ingalls Has One of the Coolest Jobs on the Planet

By Mark Strauss

    Bill Ingalls has been a contract photographer for NASA for 30 years, and in that time, he's been almost everywhere.

"How Ingalls has approached the task of documenting the U.S. space program is reflected in a comment about the end of the space shuttle era...After taking one photo after another of the spacecraft, he realized the real story was the “people on the ground pointing and looking up with their jaws dropped. I was like, ‘There’s the emotion, there’s the tie-in.’ ” Portraying the emotions of the space program...has made Ingalls only the second photographer ever to receive the prestigious National Space Club Press Award."

    In 2011, he photographed astronauts returning after 5 months on the ISS in Kazakhstan, apparently getting lucky when another photographer's flash happened to backlight his scene.

The Help

By Kathryn Stockett

    Set in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s, it follows the story of Skeeter Phelan and some maids working for white families in the city, commonly called "the help" (hence the title of the book).

    Aibileen has begun to work for Mrs. Elizabeth Leefolt after resting for months after her son's death. She takes care of Mrs. Leefolt's baby, Mae Mobley, and develops a strong love for her. Her friend, Minny Jackson, is an excellent cook, but she can't hold a job because she blabs at her employers. Her most recent job was for Mrs. Walters, Hilly Holbrook's mother. Skeeter Phelan, a young white woman, has just graduated from the University of Mississippi. She sticks out and is very tall, so her mother worries she will never get married.

    One day, Hilly suggests an initiative that would create segregated bathrooms for the help in white people's homes. Skeeter, as editor of the Jackson newsletter, is supposed to put this in, but she can't do it. She begins to see the injustices the white people put upon their Black servants, and wonders what happened to her childhood maid, Constantine.

    Minny has landed a new, high paying job, but her employer is odd. Mrs. Celia Foote is nervous that her new husband will realize that she's worthless at being a housewife, and refuses to let Minny and him cross paths. Minny agrees to teach her things on the condition that she eventually tell's Johnny (her husband).

Time: Georgia Polling Site Closures Reducing Access to Early Voting Among Working Class and Minority Voters, Civil Rights Groups Say

Sanya Mansoor

    Several counties in Georgia have closed a few in-person polling stations that were open during the general election, much to the disdain of civil rights advocacy groups. This is because the closed stations were ones nearby factories with minority groups. 

"The next closest voting location is more than seven miles away and there’s no easy way to access it via public transportation. Alarmed civil rights advocates expressed concern that four of the eight locations in Hall County that were open during the general election will not be open for the runoff election despite similarly large turnout figures across the state and the pandemic still raging. ...these closures would make it 'difficult, if not impossible, for many Latino and Black voters' to cast their ballot at advance voting locations...'"

    Not only will it make it harder for minorities to vote, but closing polling stations will also contribute to longer lines at the remaining areas, increasing health risk as well. All the accused counties maintain that stations were closed due to a lack of workers from the pandemic and holidays overlapping. This is especially important because the Georgia senate race will determine who controls the upper chamber and will likely be decided by a tiny margin.

"'The number of early voting locations was not reduced for the runoff; rather they were expanded for the presidential election given our expectation of turnout.'"

    Regardless, many minority group members work long hours and lack cars. Even if they do, the prospect of long lines and higher risk of infection may keep them away from the polls.

National Geographic: Why new coronavirus variants 'suddenly arose' in the U.K. and South Africa

By Maya Wei-Haas

    In early December, COVID-19 cases started going up in Kent in the UK. Researchers with the COIVD-19 Genomics Consortium in the UK started looking toward mutations in the virus for clues as to what was happening.

"For SARS-CoV-2, these mutations—the small errors made naturally when genomes are copied—develop at a steady pace of one or two each month, says Loman, a professor of microbial genomics and bioinformatics at the University of Birmingham. Yet among the Kent cases, scientists found a large cluster that was remarkably different, with a total of 23 mutations arising without prior notice and faster than anyone expected."

The New Yorker: Trump Directs His Wrecking Ball At The COVID-19 Relief Bill And Mitch McConnell

By John Cassidy

    Until Tuesday evening, President Trump was relatively quiet as he brooded over Mitch McConnell's concession that Biden had won and the Senate's confirmation. He made few public appearances and stayed a the White House with the few who were still on his side. He repeatedly tweeted that the Democrats had stolen the election and met with some of his pardoned officials to think up more ways to undermine democracy.

    But on Monday, something happened on Capitol Hill to drag him out of his stupor. Congress passed a $900 billion COVID relief bill and sent it to his desk.

    On Tuesday, Trump sent out another 20 pardons to his buddies and took to Twitter to berate the bill. He called for the relief checks to be increased to $2000 from the planned $600, implying that he wouldn't sign until it was done.

A Taxi Driver

    Based on a true story, this film captures the events of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising. It is centered around German journalist Jürgen Hinzpeter and his taxi driver, Kim Sa-bok (real identity unknown, he told Hinzpeter his name was Kim Sa-bok).

    In 1980, widowed father Kim Man-seob (fictional name) returns home after a day driving around Seoul in his taxi. On the radio, he hears about protests by university students in Gwanju. He, like the majority of the populace, is being fed censored news that says more damage is being done to the military "protecting" the city than the protestors. He believes that the students should just study instead of doing all of this.

    The next day, he overhears a corporate taxi driver talking about a foreigner who is paying 100,000 won for a trip to Gwangju and back before curfew. Man-seob slips away to steal the passenger, who is Jürgen Hinzpeter, a reporter from Germany who wants to know more about the uprisings in Gwangju. Because foreign media was restricted in Korea at the time by the military dictatorship of Chun doo-hwan, he pretends to be a missionary to get in.

    Because the government has declared martial law, all the roads into and out of Gwangju are blocked, and the taxi driver tries to get Hinzpeter to go back to Seoul. He refuses to pay 100,000 unless he is taken to Gwangju, so they lie that he is a businessman to get in. Inside, all the roads are empty and littered with posters promoting democracy. Hinzpeter starts recording, and Man-seob repeats that the students shouldn't do this, Korea is a great place to live (in part due to government propaganda). They meet a truck full of students, and it is revealed that Hinzpeter is a reporter for ARD in Germany. The boys let him onto their truck, and Man-seob attempts to leave, afraid his taxi will be damaged in protests. However, he sees an old woman begging him to take her to the hospital; her youngest son has disappeared, and she fears that the police have beat him up. At the hospital, he runs into Hinzpeter, who scolds him and refuses to pay until the trip is over.

    Hinzpeter and Man-seob take Jae-sik, one of the students, as a translator, and go to the site of the protests. The military fires tear gas into crowds of protestors, and mayhem breaks loose. While filming, Hinzpeter is spotted and they are nearly arrested. The taxi breaks down and is taken in for overnight repair by one of the local taxi drivers. Man-seob realizes that his young daughter will be at home alone and gets into a brief scuffle with Hinzpeter.

    That night, the local TV station is blown up. When they go to record footage, a plainclothed security guard spots them, and they run into an abandoned building. Hinzpeter drops his film, and when Jae-sik goes to get it, he runs into a guard and gets killed while trying to buy time for Hinzpeter and Man-seob. He pleads with Hinzpeter to get the footage aired to the world before taking several blows. Man-seob is caught in a dead-end street, and the guard accuses him of being a Communist. Luckily, Hinzpeter is able to save him. In the morning, a taxi driver gives him a Gwangju license plate because the police are looking for a taxi from Seoul. He also gets a map of hidden passages out of Gwangju and gets away, stopping briefly at a bus station. There, he hears on the radio that protestors are causing chaos, and feeling guilty for leaving, he returns to Gwangju.

    At the hospital, he finds Hinzpeter and the other taxi driver slumped next to Jae-sik's body. Man-seob reminds Hinzpeter of his promises to show the world what is happening and gets him to keep filming. Suddenly, more taxi drivers rush in, screaming that the military will kill them all. They are using real bullets this time, killing people on a closed-off street, and even those trying to get the wounded. Man-seob and the other taxi drivers create a blockade, helping the wounded get away. Afterward, they attempt to leave, but find even the hidden exits blocked by the military. Man-seob lies that Hinzpeter is a businessman trying to get away, and during a search of the taxi, a soldier finds his Seoul license plates in the trunk. However, he says nothing, letting them leave. The moment they leave, the head of national security gives an order to stop all foreigners, and several jeeps start chasing and shooting at the taxi. However, the local drivers intervene from a side road, sacrificing themselves to help Hinzpeter and Man-seob escape.

    At the airport in Seoul, Hinzpeter asks for Man-seob's name and phone number, intending to return and pay him. After deliberation, Man-seob writes "Kim Sa-bok" and the phone number of a cigarette company. Hinzpeter thanks him for the ride, and leaves the terminal. He is later shown in Germany, airing the footage, while Man-seob returns home to his waiting daughter. When Hinzpeter returns and tries to find Kim Sa-bok, he realizes no such person exists.

    Years later, Hinzpeter receives an award in Korea for his work in recording the Gwangju Uprising, and in his speech, thanks "Kim Sa-bok", saying that he has been searching for him and that he would really love to meet him again. In a newer taxi, Man-seob reads a newspaper article about Hinzpeter and says he feels the same.

    As the final part of the movie, the real Jürgen Hinzpeter is shown thanking "Kim Sa-bok". Hinzpeter passed away in 2016, never seeing "Kim Sa-bok" again.

Time: What She Brings

By Anne Deavere Smith

    Many have noted how, in January, Kamala Harris will become the first woman,  first Black person, and first Indian American to become vice president. But beyond that, we need to look at who she is.

"it is her mother, a noted cancer researcher, who is frequently evoked as Harris’ influence and inspiration. 'When she came here from India at the age of 19, she maybe didn’t quite imagine this moment,' Harris said in her victory speech on Nov. 7. 'But she believed so deeply in an America where a moment like this is possible.'"

    Her grandfather was a civil servant whose passion for democracy in India's independence movement inspired her. She is not the only one in her family to be highly educated.

National Geographic: Bites That Kill

By Thomas Nicolon

    More than a hundred thousand people die from snakebites in rural communities every year, and many more end up with amputations and other disabilities. An important factor is a shortage of antivenom and storage facilities with reliable electricity, as well as a lack of money and a fear of Western medicine.

    In 2017, the WHO added snakebite envenomation to its list of neglected tropical diseases, and in 2019 announced a slashing in the number of deaths and disabilities from envenomation by 2030. Not only is it difficult for rural residents to get to a hospital, but the hospital is often too expensive or doesn't have enough equipment and expertise to treat the wound.

"Once the victim is at a treatment center, survival depends on two vital points: Is a reliable antivenom available? And if so, does the medical staff know how to administer it? Often in sub-Saharan Africa the answer to both is no."

The New Yorker: Cartoon Saloon and the New Golden Age of Animation

By Mark O'Connell

Today, most animated films are made entirely digitally.

"But Moore believes that computer graphics are subject to a built-in obsolescence. 'Computer animation is moving so fast that ‘Toy Story’ looks really ropy now,' he said. 'Whereas there are hand-drawn films from the nineteen-forties that still stand up. 'Bambi' still looks really timeless. And that’s because its language is the language of painting and illustration, rather than the language of the latest technology.'"

In the late 70s, as Disney studios went into a state of decline after Walt Disney's death, one of its animators, Don Bluth, opened Sullivan Bluth Studios, the first rival to Disney. He industrialized the film animation process, and as it began to see competition, Disney produced a string of hits from "Aladdin" to "The Lion King". Sullivan Bluth eventually went out of business, but not before it set up an animation course at a nearby university. That's where Tomm Moore, a director and founder of Cartoon Saloon, enrolled in 1995. There he met Paul Young and Nora Twomey, who went on to found the animation studio with him.

Welcome to Dongmakgol

    It's the 1950s during the Korean War, and a US Navy pilot crashes nearby the village of Dongmakgol. At the same time, North Korean soldiers trying to get back up north are ambushed by Allied forces, who kill most of them. The remaining three head into the mountains. In the woods, one lost Korean soldier finds another one. All three of them are headed for the peaceful village of Dongmakgol, lost in time.

    Dongmakgol is a place where people still live in their traditional ways, and no one has a clue about the war raging outside of their quiet home. So when Captain Neel Smith of the US Navy crashes, they take care of him and try to talk to him, and bring in the lost soldiers. Later, the North Korean soldiers show up and walk into the village, threatening a man called Teacher Kim. They and the South Korean soldiers face off for several days. The North Koreans have no ammo, so they hold up grenades instead. None of the villagers know what is happening or what the weapons are because they are removed from the world and don't even know that there is a war. A crazy girl pulls the pin on a grenade. When it doesn't blow, one of the South Koreans thinks it's a dud and throws it behind him into a storage room, where it blows.

    The next morning, they all wake up, and the leader of the North Koreans has promised not to fight and help refill and rebuild the storeroom. The others agree, and they start to learn to get along, even killing a boar that had been ravaging the town's harvests. Two of them form a very close bond, one calling the other "elder brother". The American frequently returns to his downed plane to send out a distress signal to no avail - or so he thinks. The US command in Korea receives the signal and plans an attack to get him out. A lot of their planes have been disappearing in the area around Dongmakgol and they believe it's an enemy anti-aircraft base.

    During a party one night, US/South Korea allied forces break-in and start yelling for the Communists to come out. Of course, the villagers have no idea what that means, and the North Korean soldiers stay hidden. But when the soldiers start harming people, both the South and North Koreans retaliate and take them out. They learn that the next night, the US fleet will be bombing the area, so they create a plan to decoy the bombers. They have Smith stay back as a last line of defense if it doesn't work. During the initial assault, they get the planes' attention and actually manage to take out a few. But later on, one of them is killed, and in a rage, another begins firing a machine gun and gets shot down. Satisfied that they have protected the village, the remaining three soldiers, despite being on opposite sides of a war, stand together as the bombs rain down.

Air and Space: The Weirdest Objects in the Universe

By Damond Benningfield

    Often, we are tempted to believe that unexplained astronomical phenomena are the work of intelligent aliens. And just as often, there are scientific, albeit unexpected explanations. More recently, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has been looking for alien-made signs in the universe.

"NASA recently awarded a grant to a SETI project that will seek out signs of alien “technosignatures,” such as solar panel arrays on distant exoplanets. Breakthrough Listen, the largest SETI initiative to date, is thinking even bigger, searching for sophisticated engineering projects that span entire star systems or even galaxies"

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World—and Why Things are Better Than You Think

By Hans Rosling

    Most people today have an incorrect view of the world. They think the world is constantly getting worse. But it's not. While the world is still not perfect, it is constantly getting better. This book outlines 10 instincts that give us these misperceptions, and ways to control them.

    The first one is the gap instinct. It's most obvious in the way Westerners like to classify people into "Us" and "Them". We like to pretend that we are better than the rest of the world, but a more accurate classification is the 4 level system. The levels represent different income levels, and Level 4 is modern society while Level 1 is extreme poverty with high child mortality and low average life span. Most of the world lives in between, on levels 2 and 3. And yet we erase all of those billions of people and put a gap in between. This gap instinct can be triggered by a number of things, ranging from comparing extremes to looking at averages.

    Next is the negativity instinct, or the urge to notice the bad more than the good. Part of this is due to evolutionary history. We had to be on guard against the bad. Another reason is the media. Reporting good news will almost never result in headlines, and when we're constantly being fed negative news, it's no wonder we feel this way. Finally, even if the general trend is going up, we can feel it is heartless to say so if things are still bad. One key thing to remember is that things can be both bad and getting better at the same time. We also have a tendency to make the past look better, which can result in feeling that the present is worse.

    The third is the straight-line instinct. This happens when we look at a chart about world statistics, seeing heading up now, and assume it will continue straight up. In reality, most actual curve into an s-shape.

    The fear instinct makes us overestimate the dangers that we are most afraid of, even if they're unlikely. Even though the world is safer than ever, we are constantly bombarded with bad news about natural disasters, terrorism, and other things we often see on the news. As mentioned before, only this type of stuff is sensational, but the fact is, fewer people are being killed by natural disasters. This is because it mostly kills those in Level 1, and that sector is rapidly shrinking.

    The size instinct causes us to disproportionately inflate isolated numbers. We have to compare them to previous years or other numbers in order to get them into perspective. We can also use the 80/20 rule. 20% of something often accounts for 80% of the total.

    The generalization instinct is used when a category is used to define something. For example, entire groups can be generalized using the majority rule - even if it is just a 51% majority. Europeans also tend to generalize the continent of Africa into something hopeless. They believe only 20% of children are vaccinated when 88% are. This is a huge investment opportunity because transporting vaccines requires massive infrastructure in developing places like Africa.

    Similarly, destiny instinct causes us to determine the destinies of people based on their ethnicity or religion. However, the perspectives of people and cultures can change, and leaders of certain groups have less authority than they think. Even though Christian leaders say that contraceptives shouldn't be used, use is still high, and birthrates are low. In addition, even though changes in developing countries seem slow, they can actually build up to a substantial number over time.

    The seventh instinct is single perspective. This can happen with experts. They try to apply their knowledge of one thing to everything in life, which can cause them to miss different ways to do things. Instead of using the same hammer on every nail, get a toolbox.

    The next one is something everyone will recognize. The blame instinct. We always try to find a reason for bad things, and this leads to pointing fingers. But often, there are other explanations, and blaming stops future progress. For example, China and India are often blamed for the world's CO2 emissions because they are rising countries. But many Western, Level 4 countries produce more CO2. Similarly, people will immediately try to claim responsibility for good things.

    Lastly, the urgency instinct. We make bad decisions when we think something is urgent because we are overloaded by the pressure of having to pick fast. This is due to our evolutionary history. We evolved to quickly assess and respond to dangers in the wild. This is used by politicians, marketers, and activists alike to get us to do something. But stepping back and looking at the facts and data can often help make better decisions.

    

"...a new discovery can be generalized too far. In the 1960s, the success of the recovery position inspired new public health advice, against most traditional practices, to put babies to sleep on their tummies...sleeping babies, unlike unconscious soldiers, have fully functioning reflexes and turn to the side if they vomit...But on their tummies, maybe some babies are not yet strong enough to tilt their heavy heads..." (164).

"Factfulness is...recognizing when a category is being used in an explanation, and remembering that categories can be misleading" (165).

"The destiny instinct is the idea that innate characteristics determine the destinies of people, countries, religions, or cultures...they have always been this way and will never change" (167).

"I have never heard anyone in Sweden say anything close to that. Even highly educated Swedes seem completely unaware of the changes that have taken place. The improvements. The modernity. They think Iran is on the same level as Afghanistan" (174).

"Values change all the time" (176).

"Factfulness is...recognizing that many things (including people, countries, religions, and cultures) appear to be constant just because the change is happening slowly..." (184).

"Being intelligent-being good with numbers, or being well educated, or even winning a Nobel Prize-is not a shortcut to global factual knowledge. Experts are experts only within their field" (188).

"Just as Cuba is the poorest of the healthy because of its commitment to a single idea, the United States is the sickest of the rich" (198).

"Factfulness is...recognizing that a single perspective can limit your imagination, and remembering that it is better to look at problems from many angles to get a more accurate understanding and find practical solutions" (202).

"Reflecting reality is not something the media can be expected to do. You should not expect the media to provide you with a fact-based worldview any more than you would think it reasonable to use a set of holiday snaps of Berlin as your GPS system to help you navigate around the city" (212).

"Factfulness is...recognizing when a scapegoat is being used and remembering that blaming an individual often steals the focus from other possible explanations and blocks our ability to prevent similar problems in the future" (222).

"Relax. It's almost never true. It's almost never urgent, and it's almost never and either/or. You can put the book down if you like and do something else" (227).

"When you are called to action, sometimes the most useful action you can take is to improve the data" (232).

"Factfulness is...recognizing when a decision feels urgent and remembering that it rarely is" (242).

National Geographic: How a Virus and Social Unrest Became a Test of Our Humanity

Phillip Morris

    The coronavirus has killed thousands, but it has also affected their loved ones in a different way. Cultures that used to have elaborate funeral traditions have had to scale down or remove those, and even then, it can be a comfort to have many people with you, which is also not possible. It makes it harder to deal with grief.

"The year 2020 has brought unimaginable change to the way we live, and the way we die. The dying die alone. Survivors grieve in solitude. The death ritual has changed beyond recognition."

     The pandemic is also exposing long-standing social rifts. Those who are in poverty, more than half the world population, have been hit the hardest, either due to loss of jobs, an essential job that could be dangerous, or heightened exposure to the virus. In Brazil, many infections occurred among the most vulnerable of the population, and in the US, a simultaneous battle occurred with the "Black Lives Matter" movement. 

The New Yorker: When a Virus is the Cure

By Nicola Twilley

    Antibiotic resistance is a growing problem around the world. In fact, the creator of penicillin, Alexander Fleming, predicted that people would take the wrong doses of the new medicine and make bacteria resistant to it. And he was right. It was actually beginning to occur within his own lifetime.

"In 2016, the United Nations pronounced antibiotic resistance 'the greatest and most urgent global risk.' Without reliable antibiotics, even relatively routine surgery—Cesarean sections, hernia repair, appendix or tonsil removal—could be deadly."

    Millions of people today are dying from antibiotic resistance because the drugs that doctors prescribe aren't working. But a new solution is bacteriophages. They are a type of virus, but they do not infect humans, like more well-known types of viruses. Instead, they attack bacteria - hence the name. 

"...scientists estimate that phages cause a trillion trillion infections per second, destroying half the world’s bacteria every forty-eight hours."

CNN 10 12/14/2020 ~ 12/18/2020

Go to cnn.com/cnn10 for the latest video

LAST WEEK THIS YEAR (Holiday break)

Monday, December 14, 2020

In just 8 months, the first US COVID-19 vaccine is preparing to ship. The vaccine by the American company Pfizer was given emergency approval (not full approval, which is a longer, separate process) by the FDA on Saturday. It hoped that the vaccine could be made available starting Monday, and asked the CDC to confirm the authorization. A vaccine from Moderna is also going through FDA approval. The Pfizer vaccine requires two shots with a 21-day wait in between, and the company says that it has a 95% effectiveness rate. Healthcare workers and high-risk people will be prioritized. However, there is currently not enough data supporting the safety of this vaccine for pregnant women and children under the age of 16, so those groups will have to wait. Some healthcare workers in the UK also had allergic reactions to ingredients in Pfizer's vaccine, so make sure that if you get it, you do not have allergies to the ingredients. The Pfizer vaccine is also the first of its kind to be approved - it uses mRNA. Most traditional vaccines involve injecting someone with an antigen, a watered-down version of a virus, in hopes that the body antibody proteins protecting against the virus. mRNA is messenger RNA, which carries the genetic information to create proteins and is naturally created by our bodies. In this case, the mRNA in the vaccine codes for the spike protein on COVID-19, which allows it to enter our cells. By doing this, our bodies will also make antibodies against that protein so that it could repel the actual virus if it were to enter our body. Desertification occurs when fertile soil becomes desert. A new company called Desert Control believes it has the solution to this problem around the world. Clay is often mixed into the sand in order to help it retain water. But this process can take years. Desert Control turns clay into Liquid NanoClay by combining it with water, and it can be sprayed onto desert soil. This makes the land sort of like a sponge, dramatically increasing water retention and crop yields. Although the product is currently very expensive - it could cost millions to cover an average-sized US farm - Desert Control believes costs will go down as the company gets bigger. Scientists believe that the total mass of everything humans have created may actually outweigh biomass - the things that exist naturally. Both are estimated at around 1.1 tons, and researchers say that the lesson is to consider what things we actually need.

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Yesterday, electors in states across America cast their votes for the next president. This is because in the electoral college system, US citizens don't directly vote for president, but for electors who cast their votes depending on their state's results. Some electors vote against the popular result, and they are called faithless electors. And even though there were as many as 10 in 2016, they have never influenced the outcome of an election. 33 states have laws that impose fines, remove electors, or charge criminal offenses on faithless electors. States were expected to certify the results on Monday (they did, with Biden passing the 270 vote threshold), and they will be sent to Congress for a formal count next month. President Trump still has not conceded the election, even though all of his legal suits in various states have failed. Archaeologists have discovered cave paintings in Colombia depicting humans living with large herbivores, indicating that they are very old. They have been estimated at around 12,000 years ago. Back when we were all sent home, most people probably believed they'd be back at the office in a few months at the latest. But now, the new hybrid/distance forms of school and work might become more permanent. As people get used to it, more of them are wanting to work from home even when the pandemic is over.

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

So far over 1.6 million deaths have been blamed on the coronavirus and tens of millions of infections. Experts estimate that over 40% of those infected do not have symptoms, so the total number is probably higher. Many areas of guidelines in place to try to curb the spread of the disease, and as the situation changes, the rules change as well. Some states and countries are on full lockdown, while others are just coming out of them. In the US, rules can even vary across county lines as neighboring counties have different levels of infection. A nor'easter is forming in the US northeast and could impact as much as 13% of the population. As a low-pressure system from the Rockies combined with one from the south, they formed a storm that could have winds up to 40 mph and feet of snow - more than every storm last year combined for some areas. The Hubble Space Telescope cost $1.5 billion - and at first, it didn't work. It took blurry photos because of a fault in its mirrors, which was fixed a few years later. It has received other upgrades over the years, and it just turned 30. So NASA and other agencies released photos taken by Hubble of 30 different celestial objects that had previously been for research only. Currently, silicon is used in solar panels, but it only converts around 22% of the Sun's energy. Perovskite is a better alternative that can absorb up to 28% of the Sun's energy. It's also translucent, printable, and flexible, so its applications are far more diverse.

Thursday, December 17, 2020

The commercial airlines United and Delta are planning to ask for customers' names, email, phone numbers, and places that they plan on going to upon landing in an effort to expand contact tracing. It's intended to identify the places that infected people have been so that people who might have gotten the virus from them can be notified and self isolate. Proponents say that it is critical to tracing and preventing the disease; critics say that the data could fall into the wrong hands or become a way of mass surveillance. South Korea has received praise for its use of contact tracing; its process involves identifying infected people, figuring out who they might have infected, then contacting and quarantining those individuals. In the nation's most recent outbreak, officials say that the rise in cases in multiple areas makes it harder to track. China's most recent mission to the Moon is returning to Earth after 23 days, set to land in Inner Mongolia. It's the first probe sent to the Moon in decades, and it brings the first lunar samples since the US-Soviet Space Race of the '70s. This is part of China's aerospace ambitions, and the samples were collected from a previously unexplored lava plain known as the Ocean of Storms. The Autobahn is a highway system connecting all of Germany's cities. It's famous for the stretches of road that have no speed limit whatsoever. The first part of it was completed in 1931 between the cities of Cologne and Bahn, and Hitler actually tried to claim credit for building it. However, it was actually started by Konrad Adenauer, former mayor of Cologne and the first chancellor of postwar Germany. It has expanded to more than 8000 miles long, making it one of the world's longest highways.

Friday, December 18, 2020

For the last show of 2020, we'll recap everything that's happened this year. At the beginning of the year, as people in Times Square celebrated the start of a new decade, Australia was experiencing its worst-ever bush fire season, and a virus that we now know as COVID-19 first appeared in China. It ended up causing a paper shortage, record stimulus spending, and new ways of working. Civil unrest exploded across America with police brutality and killings of African Americans, and just 11 months after the first COVID case in America, Pfizer's vaccine was given emergency approval - the fastest ever. The weather also broke records in 2020 - the biggest ever Atlantic hurricane season along with 4 million acres burned across California. President Trump initiated a drone attack on Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, and Iran retaliated by firing missiles at US bases. President Trump also did manage to make peace in the Middle East with the Abraham Accords, but has still yet to concede the election to President-elect Biden. In January, former Laker Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna died in a helicopter crash (he has now been inducted to the Hall of Fame). Many women made history; Kamala Harris became the first woman and woman of color to be elected Vice President, and trailblazing jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away from pancreatic cancer. SpaceX completed its first manned mission to the ISS in a partnership with NASA and took 4 more a few months later. TikTok became a popular app, and President Trump attempted to ban it over privacy concerns. On a different note, a white Christmas occurs when more than an inch of snow falls on December 25th, and it inspired the popular holiday song in the 1940s.

Happy Holidays!

Air and Space: The Space Force Turns One

By Joe Pappalardo

"Russia launched the spacecraft on November 25, 2019, as a small 'inspector' satellite designed to check on the country’s own satellites in orbit."

    Then a few weeks later, it had detached from its mother ship and headed up into the orbital area of a US reconnaissance satellite. The satellite, Kosmos 2543, closed in on USA 245 before heading away toward one of Russia's own satellites. It appeared to fire a projectile that had its own rocket system and jetted past the satellite. The US government accused Russia of launching an "anti-satellite weapon" and protested it. However, Russia's test left no debris and allowed it to truthfully deny such a thing, all while gathering data. It also sent a clear message to the US: We now have a military presence in space.

    So last December, the Space Force was created with General John "Jay" Raymond as its Chief of Space Operations. He and the majority of the new branch are recruits from other existing branches who had already been working with something space-related. Among the 2,000 members are the 527th Space Aggressors, a special team of 30 or so who conduct training missions with other teams in the Space Force and Air Force. The Space Force is expected to 16,000 personnel, which will make it the smallest branch by far - even smaller than the Coast Guard.

Time: 2020 Person of the Year: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, President-elect and Vice President-elect of the United States

By Charlotte Alter 

    The President-elect has been frequently criticized for his message of unity and not fighting hate with hate. But in the end, "As Biden sees it, trusting his instincts and tuning out the nay sayers is a big reason why he’s going to be the next Commander in Chief." He also recognized the generational and racial challenge provided by his area of the demographic and selected Kamala Harris to fill that space.

    Now that they have won, the two have lots to do. They have to stop the damage done by the pandemic, repair a faltering economy, and if the Democrats do not win both Georgia Senate seats, reconcile with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. They'll also have to take on the entire Republican party, which still refuses to acknowledge his victory and has started looking into his tax records.

    Before becoming running mates, Harris and Biden were rivals in the Democratic primary. Biden's message seemed to be lost in a sea of candidates arguing that Trump must be met with a "clenched fist" and Harris, who has never fit into a single political message, was also lost. But in the first debate, she had her iconic moment where she attacked Biden's record on equality. 

CNN 10 12/7/2020 ~ 12/11/2020

Go to cnn.com/cnn10 for the latest video

Monday, December 7, 2020

There are still two weeks left until the official start of winter, but the East Coast is already being hit by its first Nor'easter storm. It cut electricity to hundreds of thousands of homes and released more than a foot of snow in some areas. It also met the criteria for a bomb cyclone, which occurs when a storm's pressure drops by over 24 millibars in 24 hours. Nor'easters are most common between September and April. It starts as a low-pressure front in the southeast that gradually moves northeast. The warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico and around Florida warm the air, which clashes with colder air coming down from the north. This causes heavy winds, beach erosion, coastal flooding, and rough beach conditions. Not all of them have snow, though. "A date which will live in infamy". That's what President Franklin D. Roosevelt said 79 years ago on this day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, drawing the US into World War II. During the surprise attack, which lasted just over an hour, dozens of ships were damaged and thousands of soldiers were injured or killed. The USS Arizona, which has a memorial over it, burned for 2 days and just over a fifth of its crew survived. Although the US did not see a record fire season, California did. Over 4 million acres burned in the state, and that leaves the problem of reforestation. Currently, growing new saplings and planting them is a very long, grueling process. But a company called Drone Seed believes it has an answer. It employs drones that drop seed packets with fertilizer and pest repellant onto the ground in which the plant can survive. It's significantly faster than human planting, and at a large scale, it could speed up the regrowth of burned forests.

Time: Grave new world: How Trump’s disruptions could be Biden’s opportunity

By Kimberly Dozier and W.J. Hennigan

    Although much of the world and even some Republicans were relieved by Biden's election to the presidency, they all know that things cannot go back to normal after what President Trump has done. The NATO alliance is the weakest it's ever been, and relations with enemies are also bad. And to top it off, Biden has to prove to the world that the United States can handle a pandemic. However, this does give Biden a unique chance to completely alter US foreign policy after Trump's "America First" presidency.

    First, Biden must refill all the state and defense level positions that Trump has left empty. Then he has the problem of everything Trump left behind. The trade war with China, handing Jerusalem to Israel, and the floundering NATO alliance. He'll likely have difficulty with many strategies. China has been growing steadily, and Russia took advantage of the Trump area to expand its influence in Europe. One key tool he does have, though, is empathy. Even his biggest rivals recognize it as his strongest point.

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

By Matthew Walker

    Humans and many other animals sleep. A lot. But why? This puzzle has confounded scientists for decades. When we sleep, we cannot forage, hunt, or reproduce, all of which were essential to our cavemen ancestors. And yet Mother Nature decided that sleep is an essential and complex part of our biology.

    It turns out that sleep has a variety of mechanisms that are essential to health, promote cognitive abilities, and improve memory. Unfortunately, many modern societies are sleep deprived without realizing it because we have gotten used to sleeping less. But that doesn't mean it's any less necessary.

    Every night, your brain starts off in NREM sleep and transitions over to REM sleep in the early hours of the morning. NREM stands for non-rapid eye movement. There are 4 phases of NREM sleep, each of which is deeper than the preceding one, and your brain slows down to a fraction of its waking activity. The thalamus blocks all input to your sensory cortex, which is why you might not wake up even with noise around you. During this period of sleep, the memories you have made during the day are selectively transferred to your long-term storage.

Air and Space: The Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornet Gets Even More Super

By Mark Phelps

    In 1990, the US Navy canceled orders for the new fifth-generation stealth jets from Northrop Grumman and McDonnell Douglas. They would have replaced fourth-generation combat jets, but the Navy ended up being stuck on legacy F/A-18E and F Super Hornets while the Air Force got the new F-22s.

    At the time, there was significant grumbling among Navy pilots about not having the latest technology. Today, that has changed. The F/A-18 has been reconfigured with new engines and systems to become a 4.5 generation fighter jet. They have greater range, payload, and can land without firing all their missiles. In addition, these aircraft are significantly cheaper to manufacture and maintain than similar fighters like the F-35C.

    Boeing is upgrading all of its Block III Super Hornet aircraft to Block III. This includes an upgraded radar, a better computer processor to transmit/receive more information, infrared tracking capability, a touch-screen, and longer airframe life. The engine is are also what is called "conformal", meaning they blend aerodynamically into the frame.

    Foreign countries are also upgrading their fleets. Several are buying F/A-18s and similar EA-18Gs. Despite all these stealth upgrades, the maneuverability of the F/A-18 hasn't been compromised. It is, after all, an F (fighter) class plane. In fact, one of these planes scored the first air-to-air kill since 1999 in 2017. No matter how stealthy a plane is, it can still get into a fighting situation, and pilots need to be prepared.

The New Yorker: The Race to Make Vials for Coronavirus Vaccines

Since ancient times, people have wanted to strengthen a fragile yet useful material: glass. And as more vaccines are created for the coronavirus pandemic, this is becoming more important. Many medicine vials crack while they are being filled or during transit, and this can ruin a whole batch. Currently, standard medicine vials are made of borosilicate - a mix of boron and silicon. However, a new company called Corning in upstate New York is making a new, stronger type of glass. Valor Glass uses aluminum instead of boron. The vials are put into a tub of molten salt, which causes potassium to switch with sodium atoms, increasing surface tension and strength. It is then coated with a polymer to prevent degradation on filling lines.

Even though companies like Corning are working around the clock to churn out these new vials and old-fashioned vials, many still worry that there may not be enough. Billions of doses need to be sent around the world, and hopefully, glass vial manufacturers will be able to keep up with the vaccine makers.