scientificamerican--2020-12-11--Arecibo's Collapse Sends Dire Warning to Other Aging Observatories

The U.S. ’ s famed Arecibo Observatory survived all manners of threats since its construction in a bowl-shaped natural sinkhole in the forested hills of Puerto Rico in 1963 .
It persisted through everything from hurricanes and earthquakes to wild swings of the federal budgetary scythe .
That history made it all the more shocking last week when the catastrophic failure of multiple massive suspension cables sent a 900-ton ( 817-metric-ton ) equipment platform plummeting straight through the 305-meter radio dish that was Arecibo ’ s heart , shattering it beyond repair .
As news of the observatory ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ globe—many professional astronomers among them—mourned almost as if they had lost an old friend .
That loss , however , was most keenly felt by the generations of Puerto Ricans who saw in Arecibo something more than a cultural fixture akin to the island ’ s rain forest and rum .
“ As a world-renowned scientific facility that provided invaluable data to the defense of our entire planet , Arecibo was the gateway to science for many Puerto Ricans , ” says Edgard Rivera-Valentín , a planetary scientist at the Lunar and Planetary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ career , like many , was shaped by the observatory .
“ It took me a while to even be able to look at the video of the platform falling.
” In the aftermath , an uncomfortable question remains : What happens now ?
As officials hover over the observatory ’ s grisly remains , they must decide whether to rebuild and upgrade it , no matter the cost , or to abandon all hope of any resurrection , channeling money that might otherwise be spent financing Arecibo ’ s reconstruction into new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fill the gaps that this legendary facility leaves behind .
The dilemma is emblematic of an existential question looming over the entire astronomy community , especially in the U.S. : Is it really possible to strike a balance between maintaining existing observatories and building innovative new ones in an era of flat or shrinking federal funding ?
In other words , must we grind up the old to make way for the new ?
The death and attempted resuscitation of Arecibo is a distilled encapsulation of this conflict and perhaps one that provides @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nation ’ s legacy observatories .
Arecibo , This Is Your Life Until China ’ s Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope , or FAST , was completed in 2016 , Arecibo boasted the largest radio dish in the world—capable of hearing the feeblest whispers of radio waves emanating from all kinds of astrophysical things that go bump in the cosmic night .
And unlike FAST and every other radio telescope in the U.S. ( save for California ’ s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex , notes Megan Bruck Syal , a planetary defense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , Arecibo was not only capable of receiving radio waves from the great beyond but also transmitting them .
This made the observatory one of the few facilities able to bounce radar beams off planets , moons and asteroids to make remarkably high-resolution measurements of their shapes and surfaces .
Across the decades , researchers used Arecibo ’ s superlative capabilities to perform one stunning feat of space-science strength after another .
These included providing the first piece of evidence for the presence of gravitational waves , as well as detecting the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ facility played a key role in confirming one of the very first known exoplanets .
And it was the source of the Arecibo message , a cosmic communiqué beamed into intergalactic space in 1974 that , at its specific wavelength , briefly outshone the sun .
But as time passed , technology progressed , and the need for new observatories with breakthrough capabilities became clear , Arecibo ’ s chief funder and steward , the National Science Foundation ( NSF ) , began to perceive the observatory as being past its prime .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ unless another entity stepped in to fund it , Arecibo should be decommissioned after 2011 .
Pressure from the scientific community , as well as from politicians and locals , saved the observatory from this fate , but the NSF has been draining it of annual operational funds and threatening it with decommissioning ever since .
By 2017 the NSF paid about two thirds of Arecibo ’ s $ 12-million annual budget , with NASA making up the remaining third .
But by federal fiscal year 2019 the facility ’ s annual funding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about $ 7 million .
NASA ’ s level of support at that time was around $ 4 million .
( That year the NSF also gave more than $ 12 million to Arecibo for hurricane-related repairs through a congressional act . )
This funding decline was set to continue into the 2020s , a clear signal that , one way or another , the NSF was going to rid itself of Arecibo eventually .
The problem , says Casey Dreier , senior space policy expert at the Planetary Society , is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s budget for basic research that funds Arecibo ( and much else ) has remained relatively flat over the past 10-plus years .
This funding is essentially determined by Congress , and the NSF has to do what it can to achieve the most pertinent scientific goals of the moment with whatever it is given .
So what is a cash-strapped agency with lots of aging but scientifically capable observatories to do ?
Because of its singular capabilities and shocking demise , the case of Arecibo is particularly extreme , but it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many other legacy astronomy facilities : Do we keep them going for as long as possible or , at some point , accept that they are not worth it anymore ?
The case for Arecibo ’ s reconstruction , now championed by many in the astronomy community both within and outside Puerto Rico , leans on the uniqueness of its capabilities .
What , exactly , could Arecibo do that others could not ?
Chiara Mingarelli , a gravitational-wave astrophysicist at the Flatiron Institute , is part of the NANOGrav project , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ variations they should induce upon the arrival times of metronomelike radio pulses from large numbers of pulsars scattered across the heavens .
Such waves—which have yet to be conclusively seen via this “ pulsar timing array ” method—are thought to come from merging pairs of supermassive black holes .
Arecibo had been monitoring half of NANOGrav ’ s targeted pulsars .
“ We can still do [ pulsar timing ] .
It ’ s just that Arecibo was really good at it , ” Mingarelli says .
“ We lost our star quarterback.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ elsewhere in the world—in Europe and Australia , for example—will help make up for that shortfall a little , she adds .
Newer players able to study pulsars—such as China ’ s FAST , South Africa ’ s MeerKAT and India ’ s Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope—are all capable of helping .
But the loss of Arecibo is not trivial .
“ We don ’ t only need one of those telescopes , ” Mingarelli says .
“ We need lots of those telescopes so we can look at the whole sky.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn , Germany , hunted pulsars using Arecibo from 2001 to 2009 .
At the time , it was the world ’ s most sensitive telescope for such work .
Other telescopes do not yet compare , he says .
FAST is more sensitive , but for now at least , it can ’ t act as a perfect replacement for Arecibo because of various issues .
For one thing , any international collaboration with the telescope requires navigating a complex political gauntlet , a series @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be a flex of China ’ s growing soft power .
Conversely , Arecibo ’ s policy was very open .
“ You submit a proposal .
If it has merit , it gets time on the telescope .
That ’ s it .
They don ’ t care where you come from , ” Freire says .
Fortunately , MeerKAT can help out in the pulsar hunt .
“ For pulsars , the location where you want to see is in the Southern Hemisphere because the center of our galaxy is in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the sky is full of pulsars , ” he says .
“ But still , [ MeerKAT ] has about a third of the sensitivity that Arecibo has—or had.
” FAST also has a bit more of a restricted frequency range , compared with Arecibo .
And unlike the latter facility , it does not have multiple transmitting radar systems .
“ For the U.S. at the moment , there ’ s no facility that ’ s going to replace the capabilities of Arecibo—not in terms of high-sensitivity astronomy , ” Freire says @ @ @ @ @ @ @ activity of nearby stars .
Such observations gave scientists such as Abel Méndez , director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo , an idea of how hostile or harmless a planetary neighborhood ’ s stellar furnace was likely to be .
If a world around one of our sun ’ s neighboring stars had potent auroras or perhaps even a technological civilization , Arecibo ’ s sensitivity was sufficient to give it a chance of detecting the resulting radio chatter .
The FAST facility should offer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he worries about logistics—particularly the difficulty of traveling to China for potential on-site work .
Arecibo was also one of our foremost sentinels monitoring dangerous space rocks .
Although ill-suited for searches for such objects , the observatory excelled at characterizing individual specimens : if another telescope spotted an asteroid or comet on a possible collision course with Earth , Arecibo could take a closer look .
“ In planetary defense , Arecibo has unparalleled capabilities to characterize the detailed shapes of near-Earth asteroids , ” Bruck Syal says .
Knowing a threatening @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , helps to predict how it might react to deflection attempts using nuclear explosives or kinetic impactors .
Arecibo could also nail down the position of near-Earth asteroids very precisely so that their orbital paths could be more accurately predicted .
“ That ’ s essential for driving down the uncertainty on whether an asteroid might impact Earth in the future or not , ” Bruck Syal says .
NASA ’ s Deep Space Network , a collection of radio telescopes used to speak to spacecraft across the solar system that includes the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , says Alessondra Springmann , a planetary science doctoral student at the University of Arizona , who spent two years at Arecibo .
That makes it suitable for various planetary radar observations , including asteroid characterization .
“ However , you can look at 20 times more asteroids , I believe , with Arecibo , ” she says .
“ Arecibo is 18 times more sensitive than Goldstone .
And Arecibo has a degree of scheduling flexibility that Goldstone and the Deep Space Network lacks.
” Even the telescope ’ s location is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for strong earthquakes and hurricanes .
But in the island ’ s favor is its large limestone sinkholes , a great fit for giant radio dishes .
And unlike most other potential sites for hosting an ultralarge observatory , Puerto Rico also offers preexisting infrastructure , from roads to power lines .
Reconstruction would be tough and costly , Springmann says .
But it would still be easier than making a big new radio telescope elsewhere .
The most compelling argument to rebuild Arecibo , however , may come down to its connection @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the observatory was a nexus for science education and outreach , and it reliably boosted the local economy by bringing in well-paid jobs and a steady flow of tourists .
“ When we work to build scientific facilities toward that endeavor and engage the public through that facility , we enter into a social contract and incur those responsibilities , ” Rivera-Valentín says .
In other words , the harm from abandoning Arecibo could reach well beyond the rarefied realm of astronomy .
Even in death , Arecibo demonstrates that the NSF has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Tony Beasley , director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory , headquartered in Charlottesville , Va. , says that our society supports astronomy for four main reasons : conducting science to find our place in the universe ; learning fundamental physics by comparing astrophysical phenomena to local events ; producing new generations of scientists , engineers and savvy members of the lay public ; and sparking technological advances .
“ When you think about Arecibo , it was still doing three of those fantastically .
It was doing pretty good on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says .
“ That ’ s the quandary the NSF has with these facilities .
All of them are doing great at looking at weird places in the universe , producing fantastic people and technology , and all that kind of stuff , ” Beasley says .
“ The science may or may not be New York Times front-page [ material ] , but it ’ s fantastic .
They ’ re all bricks in the wall.
” And while , in recent years , optical and infrared astronomy have been the hotbeds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the radio telescope community alive and well , Freire says .
Further , he adds , despite the observatory ’ s advanced age , its many upgrades over the years almost made Arecibo a new telescope over and over again .
But there are limits to telescopic add-ons , Beasley says .
It is a bit like adding improved lenses to the camera on your smartphone : eventually , the phone ’ s immutable architecture will limit the type and quality of the photographs you can take .
Arecibo was a literal and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its vast dish size and associated astounding sensitivity .
But the trade-offs for that massive dish will not be fixed by upgrades : a limited frequency band in which it could observe and a reduced view of the sky , for example—nested in its sinkhole , Arecibo ’ s dish can not be steered to point anywhere in the heavens .
Such restrictions mean that even upgraded with wondrous new bells and whistles , its sensitivity will not significantly change .
Sadly , Arecibo ’ s implosion now makes the argument for its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ repairs and upgrades are far cheaper than rebuilding something from a pile of debris .
“ The bottom line is : if you ’ ve already got it , and it ’ s working , you can do an upgrade of the electronics and key systems and start doing your science , ” Beasley says .
“ That ’ s always worth looking for .
But if it collapses , and you have to rebuild it , that ’ s a different discussion .
You could be talking about two-orders-of-magnitude-different investment.
” New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might otherwise go into rebuilding Arecibo .
But let the buyer beware : “ The problem with the new , shiny things is that they can break down , they can take longer than you think , they can go overbudget , and the thing you end up with in the end isn ’ t really the thing you wanted in the beginning , ” Mingarelli says .
“ You could close a lot of telescopes and still not be able to pay for the operations of one of these new telescopes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the old versus the new , there are no easy answers .
In a media briefing , Ralph Gaume , director of the NSF ’ s astronomy division , seemed to say that the agency is treating the situation with the Arecibo telescope as firmly postmortem .
Any decision to rebuild the radio dish or return the site to its natural state would be a “ multi-year process that involves Congressional appropriations and the assessment and needs of the scientific community , ” he said .
Already , though , others are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the future .
Francisco Córdova , director of the Arecibo Observatory , says that the dish ’ s destruction shines a light on potential problems newer telescopes may encounter .
Arecibo ’ s saga , in which it was slowly exsanguinated of funds over time , should be a cautionary tale for other facilities .
Nickel-and-diming a legacy observatory may help balance budgets , but the associated operational uncertainties and inefficiencies the practice introduces can be profoundly disruptive for actually doing scientific research—perversely reducing the benefits of keeping an aging facility ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
One solution the NSF pursued—transferring ownership of Arecibo to private entities or consortiums to reduce the agency ’ s responsibilities—offers “ another way of doing things well , ” Córdova says .
Auctioning aging sites close to their peak scientific performance years would give them the best chance at a second life .
Such efforts , however , are not guaranteed to work : For years , NASA sought to “ save ” its aging Spitzer Space Telescope by handing it off to the private sector for a hefty but fair sum @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deals were struck , and Spitzer was shut down earlier this year .
In any event , Arecibo ’ s tragic decline suggests that slowly siphoning away funds from preexisting facilities to support new projects is treacherous and not at all guaranteed to lead to net positive outcomes .
“ I think in the view of many , the NSF has just not adequately funded the facility over the years , ” Bruck Syal says .
“ And that ’ s apparent now .
[ The dish ’ s collapse ] is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that .
You can ’ t keep it going on a shoestring budget forever.
” Money , however , can not solve everything .
In Arecibo ’ s case , Córdova says , some of the facility ’ s structural degradation was difficult , if not impossible , to see using nondestructive technology .
That situation meant that even if a well-funded consortium had been managing the observatory and doing the same checks using the same maintenance technology , it would not have caught the fatal cable degradation either .
Speaking for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Central Florida , Córdova adds that the team “ never at any point stopped performing maintenance tasks on the structure because of the lack of funding.
” Like Córdova , Freire , who worked at Arecibo back when Cornell University managed the site , does not believe the collapse arose from direct neglect .
“ I think nature was especially unkind to the structure , ” he says , referring to recent earthquakes and 2017 ’ s Hurricane Maria .
“ I think this might have been the main reason why the strength @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was expected.
” But declining funds certainly did not help .
Although maintenance on Arecibo did not stop , it was triaged .
“ A lot of the money that [ the observatory ] had , spare money for maintenance , was then with tasks that were perceived to be more urgent , ” Freire says .
In recent years , corrosion from airborne salts had been a constant worry for the facility ’ s managers .
“ People were not so worried about the cables , ” Freire adds .
If you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ workhorses and novel projects , representation also matters .
“ I think it ’ s easier to ignore or underfund facilities that are off the U.S. mainland ” and hope that no one notices , Bruck Syal says .
“ The fact that Puerto Rico doesn ’ t have senators , for example , to advocate for it more aggressively might have hurt the facility ’ s funding.
” Ultimately , though , the reason for the tension between the NSF ’ s upkeep of old observatories and its plans for new ones @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That arrangement is “ kind of insane , right ?
” the Planetary Society ’ s Dreier says .
“ We ’ re talking about fractional , single-digit millions that Arecibo had to fight to keep out of an annual U.S. budget of approximately $ 4.5 trillion .
That ’ s how squeezed our sciences are .
All of our basic R & D—that includes the [ National Institutes of Health ] , that includes NASA , that includes the NSF—we ’ re still only talking about $ 80-ish billion a year , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The situation strikes some as senseless : As others , such as China and Europe , seek scientific ascendancy on the international stage , Beasley says , his colleagues are asking , “ Why are we just rolling over on this ?
” “ In astronomy , we are right at that moment , that sort of inflection point , where we have to make a very clear decision about world leadership and what the benefits to the U.S. are of being a world leader in a field like this , ” he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a reflection of values.
” Considering the complicated saga of Arecibo , then , what Americans are really confronting is a fundamental question of what sort of country they wish the U.S. to be .

The U.S.’s famed Arecibo Observatory survived all manners of threats since its construction in a bowl-shaped natural sinkhole in the forested hills of Puerto Rico in 1963. It persisted through everything from hurricanes and earthquakes to wild swings of the federal budgetary scythe. That history made it all the more shocking last week when the catastrophic failure of multiple massive suspension cables sent a 900-ton (817-metric-ton) equipment platform plummeting straight through the 305-meter radio dish that was Arecibo’s heart, shattering it beyond repair. As news of the observatory’s ignominious end spread, people around the globe—many professional astronomers among them—mourned almost as if they had lost an old friend.
That loss, however, was most keenly felt by the generations of Puerto Ricans who saw in Arecibo something more than a cultural fixture akin to the island’s rain forest and rum. “As a world-renowned scientific facility that provided invaluable data to the defense of our entire planet, Arecibo was the gateway to science for many Puerto Ricans,” says Edgard Rivera-Valentín, a planetary scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Tex., whose career, like many, was shaped by the observatory. “It took me a while to even be able to look at the video of the platform falling.”
In the aftermath, an uncomfortable question remains: What happens now? As officials hover over the observatory’s grisly remains, they must decide whether to rebuild and upgrade it, no matter the cost, or to abandon all hope of any resurrection, channeling money that might otherwise be spent financing Arecibo’s reconstruction into new projects that, just maybe, could fill the gaps that this legendary facility leaves behind.
The dilemma is emblematic of an existential question looming over the entire astronomy community, especially in the U.S.: Is it really possible to strike a balance between maintaining existing observatories and building innovative new ones in an era of flat or shrinking federal funding? In other words, must we grind up the old to make way for the new? The death and attempted resuscitation of Arecibo is a distilled encapsulation of this conflict and perhaps one that provides a window into the future of the nation’s legacy observatories.
Arecibo's catastrophic collapse, as captured by on-site cameras. Courtesy of Carlos Perez/Adrian Bague/NSF.
Arecibo, This Is Your Life
Until China’s Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope, or FAST, was completed in 2016, Arecibo boasted the largest radio dish in the world—capable of hearing the feeblest whispers of radio waves emanating from all kinds of astrophysical things that go bump in the cosmic night. And unlike FAST and every other radio telescope in the U.S. (save for California’s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex, notes Megan Bruck Syal, a planetary defense researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Arecibo was not only capable of receiving radio waves from the great beyond but also transmitting them. This made the observatory one of the few facilities able to bounce radar beams off planets, moons and asteroids to make remarkably high-resolution measurements of their shapes and surfaces.
Across the decades, researchers used Arecibo’s superlative capabilities to perform one stunning feat of space-science strength after another. These included providing the first piece of evidence for the presence of gravitational waves, as well as detecting the first repeating fast radio burst. The facility played a key role in confirming one of the very first known exoplanets. And it was the source of the Arecibo message, a cosmic communiqué beamed into intergalactic space in 1974 that, at its specific wavelength, briefly outshone the sun.
But as time passed, technology progressed, and the need for new observatories with breakthrough capabilities became clear, Arecibo’s chief funder and steward, the National Science Foundation (NSF), began to perceive the observatory as being past its prime. A 2006 senior review report recommended that unless another entity stepped in to fund it, Arecibo should be decommissioned after 2011. Pressure from the scientific community, as well as from politicians and locals, saved the observatory from this fate, but the NSF has been draining it of annual operational funds and threatening it with decommissioning ever since.
By 2017 the NSF paid about two thirds of Arecibo’s $12-million annual budget, with NASA making up the remaining third. But by federal fiscal year 2019 the facility’s annual funding for operations and maintenance was down to about $7 million. NASA’s level of support at that time was around $4 million. (That year the NSF also gave more than $12 million to Arecibo for hurricane-related repairs through a congressional act.) This funding decline was set to continue into the 2020s, a clear signal that, one way or another, the NSF was going to rid itself of Arecibo eventually.
The problem, says Casey Dreier, senior space policy expert at the Planetary Society, is that when adjusted for inflation, the NSF’s budget for basic research that funds Arecibo (and much else) has remained relatively flat over the past 10-plus years. This funding is essentially determined by Congress, and the NSF has to do what it can to achieve the most pertinent scientific goals of the moment with whatever it is given.
So what is a cash-strapped agency with lots of aging but scientifically capable observatories to do?
One of a Kind
Because of its singular capabilities and shocking demise, the case of Arecibo is particularly extreme, but it still aligns with the shared plight of many other legacy astronomy facilities: Do we keep them going for as long as possible or, at some point, accept that they are not worth it anymore?
The case for Arecibo’s reconstruction, now championed by many in the astronomy community both within and outside Puerto Rico, leans on the uniqueness of its capabilities. What, exactly, could Arecibo do that others could not?
Chiara Mingarelli, a gravitational-wave astrophysicist at the University of Connecticut, is part of the NANOGrav project, which looks for nanohertz-frequency gravitational waves via subtle variations they should induce upon the arrival times of metronomelike radio pulses from large numbers of pulsars scattered across the heavens. Such waves—which have yet to be conclusively seen via this “pulsar timing array” method—are thought to come from merging pairs of supermassive black holes. Arecibo had been monitoring half of NANOGrav’s targeted pulsars.
“We can still do [pulsar timing]. It’s just that Arecibo was really good at it,” Mingarelli says. “We lost our star quarterback.” International collaborations with other radio telescopes elsewhere in the world—in Europe and Australia, for example—will help make up for that shortfall a little, she adds. Newer players able to study pulsars—such as China’s FAST, South Africa’s MeerKAT and India’s Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope—are all capable of helping. But the loss of Arecibo is not trivial. “We don’t only need one of those telescopes,” Mingarelli says. “We need lots of those telescopes so we can look at the whole sky.”
Paulo Freire, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, hunted pulsars using Arecibo from 2001 to 2009. At the time, it was the world’s most sensitive telescope for such work. Other telescopes do not yet compare, he says.
FAST is more sensitive, but for now at least, it can’t act as a perfect replacement for Arecibo because of various issues. For one thing, any international collaboration with the telescope requires navigating a complex political gauntlet, a series of checks and bureaucratic barricades that may be a flex of China’s growing soft power.
Conversely, Arecibo’s policy was very open. “You submit a proposal. If it has merit, it gets time on the telescope. That’s it. They don’t care where you come from,” Freire says. Fortunately, MeerKAT can help out in the pulsar hunt. “For pulsars, the location where you want to see is in the Southern Hemisphere because the center of our galaxy is in the Southern Hemisphere. And there, the sky is full of pulsars,” he says. “But still, [MeerKAT] has about a third of the sensitivity that Arecibo has—or had.” FAST also has a bit more of a restricted frequency range, compared with Arecibo. And unlike the latter facility, it does not have multiple transmitting radar systems. “For the U.S. at the moment, there’s no facility that’s going to replace the capabilities of Arecibo—not in terms of high-sensitivity astronomy,” Freire says.
Arecibo could tune in to the activity of nearby stars. Such observations gave scientists such as Abel Méndez, director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, an idea of how hostile or harmless a planetary neighborhood’s stellar furnace was likely to be. If a world around one of our sun’s neighboring stars had potent auroras or perhaps even a technological civilization, Arecibo’s sensitivity was sufficient to give it a chance of detecting the resulting radio chatter. The FAST facility should offer similar sensitivity, Méndez says, but he worries about logistics—particularly the difficulty of traveling to China for potential on-site work.
Arecibo was also one of our foremost sentinels monitoring dangerous space rocks. Although ill-suited for searches for such objects, the observatory excelled at characterizing individual specimens: if another telescope spotted an asteroid or comet on a possible collision course with Earth, Arecibo could take a closer look.
“In planetary defense, Arecibo has unparalleled capabilities to characterize the detailed shapes of near-Earth asteroids,” Bruck Syal says. Knowing a threatening asteroid’s shape, in turn, helps to predict how it might react to deflection attempts using nuclear explosives or kinetic impactors. Arecibo could also nail down the position of near-Earth asteroids very precisely so that their orbital paths could be more accurately predicted. “That’s essential for driving down the uncertainty on whether an asteroid might impact Earth in the future or not,” Bruck Syal says.
NASA’s Deep Space Network, a collection of radio telescopes used to speak to spacecraft across the solar system that includes the Goldstone observatory, also has transmitting capabilities, says Alessondra Springmann, a planetary science doctoral student at the University of Arizona, who spent two years at Arecibo. That makes it suitable for various planetary radar observations, including asteroid characterization. “However, you can look at 20 times more asteroids, I believe, with Arecibo,” she says. “Arecibo is 18 times more sensitive than Goldstone. And Arecibo has a degree of scheduling flexibility that Goldstone and the Deep Space Network lacks.”
Even the telescope’s location is unique. Puerto Rico is a hotspot for strong earthquakes and hurricanes. But in the island’s favor is its large limestone sinkholes, a great fit for giant radio dishes. And unlike most other potential sites for hosting an ultralarge observatory, Puerto Rico also offers preexisting infrastructure, from roads to power lines. Reconstruction would be tough and costly, Springmann says. But it would still be easier than making a big new radio telescope elsewhere.
The most compelling argument to rebuild Arecibo, however, may come down to its connection to everyday Puerto Ricans. For decades the observatory was a nexus for science education and outreach, and it reliably boosted the local economy by bringing in well-paid jobs and a steady flow of tourists. “When we work to build scientific facilities toward that endeavor and engage the public through that facility, we enter into a social contract and incur those responsibilities,” Rivera-Valentín says. In other words, the harm from abandoning Arecibo could reach well beyond the rarefied realm of astronomy.
A Grim Reality
Even in death, Arecibo demonstrates that the NSF has an intractable problem with its aging observatories.
Tony Beasley, director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, headquartered in Charlottesville, Va., says that our society supports astronomy for four main reasons: conducting science to find our place in the universe; learning fundamental physics by comparing astrophysical phenomena to local events; producing new generations of scientists, engineers and savvy members of the lay public; and sparking technological advances. “When you think about Arecibo, it was still doing three of those fantastically. It was doing pretty good on the science one as well,” he says.
“That’s the quandary the NSF has with these facilities. All of them are doing great at looking at weird places in the universe, producing fantastic people and technology, and all that kind of stuff,” Beasley says. “The science may or may not be New York Times front-page [material], but it’s fantastic. They’re all bricks in the wall.”
And while, in recent years, optical and infrared astronomy have been the hotbeds of research activity, Arecibo helped keep the radio telescope community alive and well, Freire says. Further, he adds, despite the observatory’s advanced age, its many upgrades over the years almost made Arecibo a new telescope over and over again.
But there are limits to telescopic add-ons, Beasley says. It is a bit like adding improved lenses to the camera on your smartphone: eventually, the phone’s immutable architecture will limit the type and quality of the photographs you can take. Arecibo was a literal and figurative giant in radio astronomy thanks to its vast dish size and associated astounding sensitivity. But the trade-offs for that massive dish will not be fixed by upgrades: a limited frequency band in which it could observe and a reduced view of the sky, for example—nested in its sinkhole, Arecibo’s dish cannot be steered to point anywhere in the heavens. Such restrictions mean that even upgraded with wondrous new bells and whistles, its sensitivity will not significantly change.
Sadly, Arecibo’s implosion now makes the argument for its enduring worth much harder to make because repairs and upgrades are far cheaper than rebuilding something from a pile of debris. “The bottom line is: if you’ve already got it, and it’s working, you can do an upgrade of the electronics and key systems and start doing your science,” Beasley says. “That’s always worth looking for. But if it collapses, and you have to rebuild it, that’s a different discussion. You could be talking about two-orders-of-magnitude-different investment.”
New projects could certainly use the money that might otherwise go into rebuilding Arecibo. But let the buyer beware: “The problem with the new, shiny things is that they can break down, they can take longer than you think, they can go overbudget, and the thing you end up with in the end isn’t really the thing you wanted in the beginning,” Mingarelli says.
“You could close a lot of telescopes and still not be able to pay for the operations of one of these new telescopes,” Beasley says. When it comes to the old versus the new, there are no easy answers.
Arecibo’s Autopsy
In a media briefing, Ralph Gaume, director of the NSF’s astronomy division, seemed to say that the agency is treating the situation with the Arecibo telescope as firmly postmortem. Any decision to rebuild the radio dish or return the site to its natural state would be a “multi-year process that involves Congressional appropriations and the assessment and needs of the scientific community,” he said.
Already, though, others are applying the lessons of Arecibo to planning for the future. Francisco Córdova, director of the Arecibo Observatory, says that the dish’s destruction shines a light on potential problems newer telescopes may encounter. Arecibo’s saga, in which it was slowly exsanguinated of funds over time, should be a cautionary tale for other facilities. Nickel-and-diming a legacy observatory may help balance budgets, but the associated operational uncertainties and inefficiencies the practice introduces can be profoundly disruptive for actually doing scientific research—perversely reducing the benefits of keeping an aging facility’s lights on in the first place.
One solution the NSF pursued—transferring ownership of Arecibo to private entities or consortiums to reduce the agency’s responsibilities—offers “another way of doing things well,” Córdova says. Auctioning aging sites close to their peak scientific performance years would give them the best chance at a second life. Such efforts, however, are not guaranteed to work: For years, NASA sought to “save” its aging Spitzer Space Telescope by handing it off to the private sector for a hefty but fair sum. Yet in the end, no deals were struck, and Spitzer was shut down earlier this year.
In any event, Arecibo’s tragic decline suggests that slowly siphoning away funds from preexisting facilities to support new projects is treacherous and not at all guaranteed to lead to net positive outcomes. “I think in the view of many, the NSF has just not adequately funded the facility over the years,” Bruck Syal says. “And that’s apparent now. [The dish’s collapse] is the consequence of underfunding an iconic observatory like that. You can’t keep it going on a shoestring budget forever.”
Money, however, cannot solve everything. In Arecibo’s case, Córdova says, some of the facility’s structural degradation was difficult, if not impossible, to see using nondestructive technology. That situation meant that even if a well-funded consortium had been managing the observatory and doing the same checks using the same maintenance technology, it would not have caught the fatal cable degradation either. Speaking for the current management team at the University of Central Florida, Córdova adds that the team “never at any point stopped performing maintenance tasks on the structure because of the lack of funding.”
Like Córdova, Freire, who worked at Arecibo back when Cornell University managed the site, does not believe the collapse arose from direct neglect. “I think nature was especially unkind to the structure,” he says, referring to recent earthquakes and 2017’s Hurricane Maria. “I think this might have been the main reason why the strength of the cables was far below what was expected.”
But declining funds certainly did not help. Although maintenance on Arecibo did not stop, it was triaged. “A lot of the money that [the observatory] had, spare money for maintenance, was then with tasks that were perceived to be more urgent,” Freire says. In recent years, corrosion from airborne salts had been a constant worry for the facility’s managers. “People were not so worried about the cables,” Freire adds.
If you are striving for a balance between reliable workhorses and novel projects, representation also matters. “I think it’s easier to ignore or underfund facilities that are off the U.S. mainland” and hope that no one notices, Bruck Syal says. “The fact that Puerto Rico doesn’t have senators, for example, to advocate for it more aggressively might have hurt the facility’s funding.”
Ultimately, though, the reason for the tension between the NSF’s upkeep of old observatories and its plans for new ones lies in the funding it receives. That arrangement is “kind of insane, right?” the Planetary Society’s Dreier says. “We’re talking about fractional, single-digit millions that Arecibo had to fight to keep out of an annual U.S. budget of approximately $4.5 trillion. That’s how squeezed our sciences are. All of our basic R&D—that includes the [National Institutes of Health], that includes NASA, that includes the NSF—we’re still only talking about $80-ish billion a year, out of a $4.5-trillion budget.” The situation strikes some as senseless: As others, such as China and Europe, seek scientific ascendancy on the international stage, Beasley says, his colleagues are asking, “Why are we just rolling over on this?”
“In astronomy, we are right at that moment, that sort of inflection point, where we have to make a very clear decision about world leadership and what the benefits to the U.S. are of being a world leader in a field like this,” he says. “Where the money goes is a reflection of values.” Considering the complicated saga of Arecibo, then, what Americans are really confronting is a fundamental question of what sort of country they wish the U.S. to be.


scientificamerican--2020-12-12--This Bat Wears a Facemask

This Bat Wears a Facemask

What do you call a bat that only eats fruit , but isn ’ t classified as one of the fruit bats ?
One species that fits that description is thought to live in forests from Southern Mexico to the north end of South America .
But they 're so rarely seen that very little is known about them , apart from their unique appearance—which is why the species is called the wrinkle-faced bat .
“ Many people say that these bats are really ugly , but the word ugly is for bat biologists a forbidden word .
So , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are pretty special looking bats.
” ( Gessinger ) : “ Most bats look like cute little puppies , but they have a very wrinkly face and it 's just a lot of wrinkles everywhere .
But something else about the males may be an even more unusual facial feature .
( Tschapka ) : “ It 's very easy to distinguish between male and female , because the males have this funny face mask.
” Using their little bat thumbs , males can pull up a furry flap of skin to cover @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tschapka ) : “ The bat almost tries to hide its entire face inside of the mask .
And people have suspected for a long time that these masks have something to do with matings.
” But the bats ' courtship is difficult to study because they are so hard to find .
That is , until 2018 , when Tschapka and Gessinger 's colleague , University of Costa Rica biologist Bernal Rodríguez-Herrera , received a tip that a group of males had been spotted in a highland forest .
His team rushed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ video cameras and specialized microphones .
( Tschapka ) : “ The objective was that we get as much information as possible about these animals .
And the bats stayed there for something like six weeks.
” The animals formed what 's called a lek , where a group of males hangs out in a small area , displaying extravagantly to females—an uncommon reproductive strategy in bats .
The males start their display by rubbing their fingers together for hours .
Eventually , they begin to sing , even with their faces covered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they do these trills and echolocation calls on their perches .
The trill sounds something like this : “ brrrrr ” .
( Gessinger ) : “ …and then the echolocation calls in between , and then trills again.
” The ultrasound recordings have been slowed down to be in the range of human hearing .
( Gessinger ) : “ Sometimes they put the mask down and up again , and then they continue singing.
” But if another bat approaches , they start making noise with their wings .
After a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one mating between a male and a female .
They think the raised mask and sounds , along with odor cues , may play an important role in the wrinkle-faced bats ’ courtship .
The study is in the journal PLOS ONE .
[ Bernal Rodríguez-Herrera , et al.
, The masked seducers : Lek courtship behavior in the wrinkle-faced bat Centurio senex ( Phyllostomidae ) ] Many questions remain .
So researchers returned to the site a year later in hopes of learning more about the elusive bats ' courtship behaviors .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ found .
( Tschapka ) : “ So you really need to have a lot of luck to learn more about this .
”

Full Transcript
What do you call a bat that only eats fruit, but isn’t classified as one of the fruit bats? One species that fits that description is thought to live in forests from Southern Mexico to the north end of South America. But they're so rarely seen that very little is known about them, apart from their unique appearance—which is why the species is called the wrinkle-faced bat.
“Many people say that these bats are really ugly, but the word ugly is for bat biologists a forbidden word. So, I think we all agree that they are pretty special looking bats.”
University of Ulm researcher Marco Tschapka. His colleague Gloria Gessinger, agrees.
(Gessinger): “Most bats look like cute little puppies, but they have a very wrinkly face and it's just a lot of wrinkles everywhere.
But something else about the males may be an even more unusual facial feature.
(Tschapka): “It's very easy to distinguish between male and female, because the males have this funny face mask.”
Using their little bat thumbs, males can pull up a furry flap of skin to cover their faces like a mask.
(Tschapka): “The bat almost tries to hide its entire face inside of the mask. And people have suspected for a long time that these masks have something to do with matings.”
But the bats' courtship is difficult to study because they are so hard to find. That is, until 2018, when Tschapka and Gessinger's colleague, University of Costa Rica biologist Bernal Rodríguez-Herrera, received a tip that a group of males had been spotted in a highland forest. His team rushed there to record their behaviors using infrared video cameras and specialized microphones.
(Tschapka): “The objective was that we get as much information as possible about these animals. And the bats stayed there for something like six weeks.”
The animals formed what's called a lek, where a group of males hangs out in a small area, displaying extravagantly to females—an uncommon reproductive strategy in bats. The males start their display by rubbing their fingers together for hours.
(Tschapka): “Which looks really weird.”
Eventually, they begin to sing, even with their faces covered.
(Gessinger): “And they do these trills and echolocation calls on their perches. The trill sounds something like this: “brrrrr”.
(clip: trill)
(Gessinger): “…and then the echolocation calls in between, and then trills again.”
(clip: echolocation and trill)
The ultrasound recordings have been slowed down to be in the range of human hearing.
(Gessinger): “Sometimes they put the mask down and up again, and then they continue singing.”
But if another bat approaches, they start making noise with their wings.
(clip: wing beats)
(Gessinger): “…followed by this super-loud whistle sequence.”
(clip: loud whistle)
After a sequence of sounds, the researchers documented one mating between a male and a female. They think the raised mask and sounds, along with odor cues, may play an important role in the wrinkle-faced bats’ courtship.
The study is in the journal PLOS ONE. [Bernal Rodríguez-Herrera, et al., The masked seducers: Lek courtship behavior in the wrinkle-faced bat Centurio senex (Phyllostomidae)]
Many questions remain. So researchers returned to the site a year later in hopes of learning more about the elusive bats' courtship behaviors. But the bats were nowhere to be found.
(Tschapka): “So you really need to have a lot of luck to learn more about this.”
—Susanne Bard
(The above text is a transcript of this podcast)
Bat recordings courtesy of Bernal Rodríguez-Herrera et al.


scientificamerican--2020-12-12--Pfizer-BioNTech COVID Vaccine Is First to Win U.S. Authorization

After months of intense anticipation , the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted an emergency use authorization ( EUA ) for the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the companies Pfizer and BioNTech—the first to be approved for use in the U.S .
The news comes as a devastating surge in cases grips the country , with many hospitals approaching capacity and new records for deaths being set weekly .
Immunizations will begin in the next few days and weeks for health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities such as nursing homes .
Other groups will get the shot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ become available .
The authorization was first reported by the New York Times and the Washington Post .
An FDA advisory group , the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee ( VRBPAC ) , voted on Thursday to recommend authorization of the vaccine for individuals age 16 and older .
The committee reviewed data provided by the FDA ’ s own analyses and discussed issues including the vaccine ’ s efficacy in subpopulations , such as the elderly and minority racial groups , and ongoing monitoring of the roughly 44,000 participants in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of VRBPAC members voted that the benefits of granting an EUA outweighed the risks , with 17 voting yes , four voting no , and one abstaining .
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is a completely new type made from messenger RNAs ( mRNAs ) —bits of genetic material that , in this case , instruct cells to produce fragments of the novel coronavirus ’ s spike protein .
The mRNAs are enclosed in lipid nanoparticles .
Pfizer and BioNTech ’ s own analysis of their data showed that the vaccine ( which is given @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) is 95 percent effective at preventing COVID-19 .
Its efficacy was similar across all age , sex , racial and ethnic groups studied , including people with underlying health conditions such as heart or pulmonary disease or obesity .
The companies said their vaccine showed significant efficacy , even just two weeks after a single dose , and the FDA ’ s analysis confirmed these findings .
It remains to be seen , however , how long protection will last , whether the vaccine will protect against severe disease in the small @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and whether the intervention is safe and effective in children younger than 16 or in pregnant women .
Experts greeted the news with enthusiasm .
Nneka Sederstrom , director of clinical ethics at Children ’ s Minnesota , whose work focuses on health equity , is elated .
“ Now we really have a chance of getting things under control , ” she says .
But she notes that the biggest hurdle will be persuading individuals in the most at-risk communities , including people of color , to get the immunization .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ open about the immune response and expected reactions to the vaccine , ” she says , adding that community leaders should lead by example to show their confidence in its safety .
Sederstrom , who is a health care worker and thus in one of the first groups eligible to receive the vaccine , says she would definitely get it herself .
“ As one of the only Black leaders in my institution , I want to be an example to other Black leaders , ” she says .
“ It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gandhi , a professor at the University of California , San Francisco , School of Medicine .
“ Especially in the United States , there is no other way to get out of this pandemic except mass vaccination.
” The vaccine ’ s 95 percent efficacy is “ just incredible , ” she adds .
“ I think many scientists are just sort of giddy , because I think the estimates of efficacy were 70 percent or lower.
” The fact that Pfizer published a full report of its data—showing good representation of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ diverse racial and ethnic groups—was also very encouraging , Gandhi says .
A key question discussed by the advisory committee was what should be done for people in the trial ’ s control group now that the vaccine has been authorized .
Half of the trial participants received the vaccine and half received a placebo .
If the vaccine is now offered to participants in the placebo group , that would limit regulators ’ ability to continue to compare outcomes and assess safety and efficacy over a longer time period .
On the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ethical argument that individuals who volunteered for the trial ( especially those in high-risk groups ) should be given an opportunity to get the vaccine when it is available to them .
“ I think the efficacy is too high not to offer it to them , ” Gandhi says .
William Gruber , senior vice president of vaccine clinical research and development at Pfizer , said in the VRBPAC meeting that the company has an ethical responsibility to inform participants of vaccine availability under an EUA and would offer it to those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and prioritized by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before others .
Participants will have the option of remaining uninformed as to whether they received the placebo and thus continuing in the clinical trial , he added .
Although the vaccine ’ s safety and efficacy appear very promising , some important gaps in information remain .
More data are needed on how well the intervention prevents the rare cases in which individuals develop severe COVID-19 .
There were only 10 cases of severe disease in the study ; nine of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Some speakers at the VRBPAC meeting also noted that there were not enough data on severe disease in Black or Indigenous populations , specifically .
There are also no data yet on the vaccine ’ s impact on asymptomatic infection or transmission of the virus because the trial ’ s primary measure was preventing symptomatic COVID-19 .
The trial also did not evaluate the vaccine ’ s safety and efficacy in pregnant women .
And while it had enrolled some individuals ages 12 to 15 later in the process , there were not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Those are really hard populations to study—and rightly so , ” Sederstrom says .
“ You have to use extra precautions.
” Studying how safe the vaccine is and how well it works in these groups will be important in the coming weeks and months .
Gandhi notes that the FDA had encouraged clinical trials to include pregnant and breastfeeding women unless there was a biological reason not to do so .
Nevertheless , she says she does not see any reason to suspect the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine would be unsafe for pregnant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them to be vaccinated .
The vaccine does cause mild to moderate side effects , which are expected and often a sign of a healthy immune response .
Some people in the vaccine group said they developed redness , pain and swelling at the injection site , as well as fever , headache and fatigue , especially following the second dose .
Side effects were more noticeable in younger participants .
In addition , there were four cases of a type of temporary facial paralysis called Bell ’ s palsy and one case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which may have been related to the vaccine ) in the vaccinated group .
Pfizer and BioNTech say they will continue to monitor clinical trial participants for any serious side effects or death for a period of two years and will report any adverse events to the FDA .
Two people who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the U.K.—where it was approved on December 2—suffered an allergic reaction , the Wall Street Journal and other outlets reported .
Both of them had a history of severe allergies and carried adrenaline autoinjectors .
A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ possibly also had an allergic reaction , but all three fully recovered after treatment .
Allergic reactions to vaccines are not uncommon , and many carry warnings for people with a known history of serious allergies .
As a precaution , the U.K. ’ s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said people should not receive the shot if they have a history of severe allergic reactions to a vaccine , medicine or food .
But some experts disagree with advising people with common food or seasonal allergies against getting the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were people who were hospitalized for [ severe ] allergies , not people who need to take [ over-the-counter antihistamines ] , ” says Gigi Gronvall , a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security .
More data on the vaccine ’ s safety in individuals who have common food or other allergies should be made available so that people are not concerned , she adds .
Nevertheless , Gronvall and others express excitement and relief at the vaccine ’ s authorization .
“ In a very tragic year , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that we have such an effective vaccine , ” she says .
The FDA advisory committee is scheduled to meet again on December 17 to discuss granting an emergency use authorization for another COVID-19 vaccine made by the company Moderna .
Read more about the coronavirus outbreak from Scientific American here .
And read coverage from our international network of magazines here .

After months of intense anticipation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the companies Pfizer and BioNTech—the first to be approved for use in the U.S. The news comes as a devastating surge in cases grips the country, with many hospitals approaching capacity and new records for deaths being set weekly. Immunizations will begin in the next few days and weeks for health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities such as nursing homes. Other groups will get the shot in the coming months as more doses become available. The authorization was first reported by the New York Times and the Washington Post.
An FDA advisory group, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), voted on Thursday to recommend authorization of the vaccine for individuals age 16 and older. The committee reviewed data provided by the FDA’s own analyses and discussed issues including the vaccine’s efficacy in subpopulations, such as the elderly and minority racial groups, and ongoing monitoring of the roughly 44,000 participants in the late-stage clinical trial. The majority of VRBPAC members voted that the benefits of granting an EUA outweighed the risks, with 17 voting yes, four voting no, and one abstaining.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is a completely new type made from messenger RNAs (mRNAs)—bits of genetic material that, in this case, instruct cells to produce fragments of the novel coronavirus’s spike protein. The mRNAs are enclosed in lipid nanoparticles. Pfizer and BioNTech’s own analysis of their data showed that the vaccine (which is given in two doses, three weeks apart) is 95 percent effective at preventing COVID-19. Its efficacy was similar across all age, sex, racial and ethnic groups studied, including people with underlying health conditions such as heart or pulmonary disease or obesity. The companies said their vaccine showed significant efficacy, even just two weeks after a single dose, and the FDA’s analysis confirmed these findings. It remains to be seen, however, how long protection will last, whether the vaccine will protect against severe disease in the small subset of people who might develop it and whether the intervention is safe and effective in children younger than 16 or in pregnant women.
Experts greeted the news with enthusiasm. Nneka Sederstrom, director of clinical ethics at Children’s Minnesota, whose work focuses on health equity, is elated. “Now we really have a chance of getting things under control,” she says. But she notes that the biggest hurdle will be persuading individuals in the most at-risk communities, including people of color, to get the immunization. “We should continue to be transparent and open about the immune response and expected reactions to the vaccine,” she says, adding that community leaders should lead by example to show their confidence in its safety. Sederstrom, who is a health care worker and thus in one of the first groups eligible to receive the vaccine, says she would definitely get it herself. “As one of the only Black leaders in my institution, I want to be an example to other Black leaders,” she says.
“It’s a historic moment,” says Monica Gandhi, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. “Especially in the United States, there is no other way to get out of this pandemic except mass vaccination.” The vaccine’s 95 percent efficacy is “just incredible,” she adds. “I think many scientists are just sort of giddy, because I think the estimates of efficacy were 70 percent or lower.” The fact that Pfizer published a full report of its data—showing good representation of participants across ages, sexes, and diverse racial and ethnic groups—was also very encouraging, Gandhi says.
A key question discussed by the advisory committee was what should be done for people in the trial’s control group now that the vaccine has been authorized. Half of the trial participants received the vaccine and half received a placebo. If the vaccine is now offered to participants in the placebo group, that would limit regulators’ ability to continue to compare outcomes and assess safety and efficacy over a longer time period. On the other hand, there is a strong ethical argument that individuals who volunteered for the trial (especially those in high-risk groups) should be given an opportunity to get the vaccine when it is available to them. “I think the efficacy is too high not to offer it to them,” Gandhi says. William Gruber, senior vice president of vaccine clinical research and development at Pfizer, said in the VRBPAC meeting that the company has an ethical responsibility to inform participants of vaccine availability under an EUA and would offer it to those individuals who are covered by the EUA and prioritized by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before others. Participants will have the option of remaining uninformed as to whether they received the placebo and thus continuing in the clinical trial, he added.
Although the vaccine’s safety and efficacy appear very promising, some important gaps in information remain. More data are needed on how well the intervention prevents the rare cases in which individuals develop severe COVID-19. There were only 10 cases of severe disease in the study; nine of them were in the placebo group. Some speakers at the VRBPAC meeting also noted that there were not enough data on severe disease in Black or Indigenous populations, specifically. There are also no data yet on the vaccine’s impact on asymptomatic infection or transmission of the virus because the trial’s primary measure was preventing symptomatic COVID-19.
The trial also did not evaluate the vaccine’s safety and efficacy in pregnant women. And while it had enrolled some individuals ages 12 to 15 later in the process, there were not enough of them for sufficient data. “Those are really hard populations to study—and rightly so,” Sederstrom says. “You have to use extra precautions.” Studying how safe the vaccine is and how well it works in these groups will be important in the coming weeks and months. Gandhi notes that the FDA had encouraged clinical trials to include pregnant and breastfeeding women unless there was a biological reason not to do so. Nevertheless, she says she does not see any reason to suspect the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine would be unsafe for pregnant women and adds that she would encourage them to be vaccinated.
The vaccine does cause mild to moderate side effects, which are expected and often a sign of a healthy immune response. Some people in the vaccine group said they developed redness, pain and swelling at the injection site, as well as fever, headache and fatigue, especially following the second dose. Side effects were more noticeable in younger participants. In addition, there were four cases of a type of temporary facial paralysis called Bell’s palsy and one case of a shoulder injury (both of which may have been related to the vaccine) in the vaccinated group. Pfizer and BioNTech say they will continue to monitor clinical trial participants for any serious side effects or death for a period of two years and will report any adverse events to the FDA.
Two people who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the U.K.—where it was approved on December 2—suffered an allergic reaction, the Wall Street Journal and other outlets reported. Both of them had a history of severe allergies and carried adrenaline autoinjectors. A third person was later reported to have possibly also had an allergic reaction, but all three fully recovered after treatment. Allergic reactions to vaccines are not uncommon, and many carry warnings for people with a known history of serious allergies. As a precaution, the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said people should not receive the shot if they have a history of severe allergic reactions to a vaccine, medicine or food.
But some experts disagree with advising people with common food or seasonal allergies against getting the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. “What happened in the U.K. were people who were hospitalized for [severe] allergies, not people who need to take [over-the-counter antihistamines],” says Gigi Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. More data on the vaccine’s safety in individuals who have common food or other allergies should be made available so that people are not concerned, she adds. Nevertheless, Gronvall and others express excitement and relief at the vaccine’s authorization. “In a very tragic year, it is a bright, shining light that we have such an effective vaccine,” she says.
The FDA advisory committee is scheduled to meet again on December 17 to discuss granting an emergency use authorization for another COVID-19 vaccine made by the company Moderna.
Read more about the coronavirus outbreak from Scientific American here. And read coverage from our international network of magazines here.


scientificamerican--2020-12-11--Coronavirus News Roundup, December 5-December 11

An independent advisory council ’ s recommendation on Thursday cleared the way for an “ all but certain ” U.S. Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ) approval that would likely result in health care workers and nursing home residents starting to receive Pfizer/BioNTech 's genetic vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 early next week , the Washington Post reported ( 12/10/20 ) .
The council of experts recommended that the agency provide “ emergency use authorization ” for the vaccine in adults age 16 and older .
Ongoing studies will continue to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine .
Following @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will vote on its recommendations for which groups to vaccinate first , the story states .
“ But states have the final say on who gets the first shots and where they are administered , ” write Laurie McKinley and Carolyn Y. Johnson .
Moderna ’ s genetic vaccine is also set for review by the FDA in the coming days .
“ Between the two vaccines , government officials project having…enough [ doses ] to fully vaccinate 2 million people , ” the story @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first nation to give the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 to people who were not enrolled in a research experiment .
Caregivers at nursing homes and people over 80 years old will be first in line in the UK for the genetic vaccine , report William Booth and Karla Adam at The Washington Post ( 12/8/20 ) .
Emergency authorization of the same Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine , a genetic ( mRNA ) vaccine which requires two doses three weeks apart , is expected in Europe by the end of the month , the story @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Russia last weekend , and China “ claims it has already injected a million of its citizens with one of its five experimental vaccines , ” the story states .
Is the “ natural '' immunity you get from surviving a SARS-CoV-2 infection stronger than the immunity you 'd get from a vaccine ?
Researchers don ’ t know , reports Apoorva Mandavilli at The New York Times ( 12/8/20 ) .
But even for young people , taking a chance on getting COVID-19 is far more risky than getting vaccinated , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Nobody is immune to severe [ COVID-19 ] disease , ” says Dr. Yvonne Maldonado , of the American Academy of Pediatrics , who is quoted from the story .
And a large fraction of people who recover from the disease have long-lasting problems afterwards , such as extreme fatigue , mental fog , heart problems , and sometimes symptoms like those found in lupus and rheumatoid arthritis , the story states .
The vaccines “ carry little known risk , ” Mandavilli writes .
Feelings of fatigue , headaches , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ normal after receiving the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines that are engaged in federal approval processes this month in the U.S. , reports Allyson Chiu at The Washington Post ( 12/3/20 ) .
“ There ’ s nothing dangerous or bad about these reactions , ” says Dr. Kelly Moore of the Immunization Action Coalition , who is quoted in the story .
Mark McClellan , a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner , is quoted as saying that the vaccines against the coronavirus are “ likely to be more unpleasant than a flu vaccine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , COVID-19 is a lot worse than the flu.
” The reactions show that the vaccine is working , I ’ ve heard and read in various reports ; in other words , it is prompting an immune response that your system should remember and re-summon if it is exposed to the virus in the near future .
I wrote a story for New York magazine that looked into the troublesome and widely used “ positivity rate ” statistic for the new coronavirus ( 12/7/20 ) .
It often doesn ’ t really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by officials nationwide .
To get a handle on community , city and school outbreaks , we need random testing .
The pandemic has worsened mental health , per three studies rounded up by Claudia Wallis for Scientific American ’ s December issue .
A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report “ found a tripling of anxiety symptoms and a quadrupling of depression ” among a survey of U.S. adults compared with a similar study of adults in 2019 , Wallis writes .
Groups most likely to be affected , per @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in April : those who already had mental health issues , low-income people , people of color , and people close to someone who had COVID-19 or died from it , Wallis reports .
Multiple surveys have found that the pandemic is taking a higher mental toll on young adults than it is on other age groups , the story states .
Solutions include less exposure to the media and keeping in touch with people over Zoom , the phone , or other “ COVID-safe methods , ” according to University of Texas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
You might enjoy , “ The Thing with Feathers , ” by Jenny Allen for McSweeney ’ s ( 12/10/20 ) .

An independent advisory council’s recommendation on Thursday cleared the way for an “all but certain” U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval that would likely result in health care workers and nursing home residents starting to receive Pfizer/BioNTech's genetic vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 early next week, the Washington Post reported (12/10/20). The council of experts recommended that the agency provide “emergency use authorization” for the vaccine in adults age 16 and older. Ongoing studies will continue to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. Following FDA approval, an advisory committee to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will vote on its recommendations for which groups to vaccinate first, the story states. “But states have the final say on who gets the first shots and where they are administered,” write Laurie McKinley and Carolyn Y. Johnson. Moderna’s genetic vaccine is also set for review by the FDA in the coming days.
The UK this week became the first nation to give the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 to people who were not enrolled in a research experiment. Caregivers at nursing homes and people over 80 years old will be first in line in the UK for the genetic vaccine, report William Booth and Karla Adam at The Washington Post (12/8/20). Emergency authorization of the same Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, a genetic (mRNA) vaccine which requires two doses three weeks apart, is expected in Europe by the end of the month, the story states. A mass vaccination effort started in Russia last weekend, and China “claims it has already injected a million of its citizens with one of its five experimental vaccines,” the story states.
Is the “natural" immunity you get from surviving a SARS-CoV-2 infection stronger than the immunity you'd get from a vaccine? Researchers don’t know, reports Apoorva Mandavilli at The New York Times (12/8/20). But even for young people, taking a chance on getting COVID-19 is far more risky than getting vaccinated, according to experts quoted in the story. “Nobody is immune to severe [COVID-19] disease,” says Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who is quoted from the story. And a large fraction of people who recover from the disease have long-lasting problems afterwards, such as extreme fatigue, mental fog, heart problems, and sometimes symptoms like those found in lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, the story states. The vaccines “carry little known risk,” Mandavilli writes.
Feelings of fatigue, headaches, body aches, and arm pain are normal after receiving the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines that are engaged in federal approval processes this month in the U.S., reports Allyson Chiu at The Washington Post (12/3/20). “There’s nothing dangerous or bad about these reactions,” says Dr. Kelly Moore of the Immunization Action Coalition, who is quoted in the story. Mark McClellan, a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner, is quoted as saying that the vaccines against the coronavirus are “likely to be more unpleasant than a flu vaccine,” but also “on average, COVID-19 is a lot worse than the flu.” The reactions show that the vaccine is working, I’ve heard and read in various reports; in other words, it is prompting an immune response that your system should remember and re-summon if it is exposed to the virus in the near future.
I wrote a story for New York magazine that looked into the troublesome and widely used “positivity rate” statistic for the new coronavirus (12/7/20). It often doesn’t really mean what it is taken to mean by officials nationwide. To get a handle on community, city and school outbreaks, we need random testing.
The pandemic has worsened mental health, per three studies rounded up by Claudia Wallis for Scientific American’s December issue. A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report “found a tripling of anxiety symptoms and a quadrupling of depression” among a survey of U.S. adults compared with a similar study of adults in 2019, Wallis writes. Groups most likely to be affected, per a nationally representative survey in the U.S. in April: those who already had mental health issues, low-income people, people of color, and people close to someone who had COVID-19 or died from it, Wallis reports. Multiple surveys have found that the pandemic is taking a higher mental toll on young adults than it is on other age groups, the story states. Solutions include less exposure to the media and keeping in touch with people over Zoom, the phone, or other “COVID-safe methods,” according to University of Texas at Austin psychologist quoted in the piece.
You might enjoy, “The Thing with Feathers,” by Jenny Allen for McSweeney’s (12/10/20).
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scientificamerican--2020-12-11--Pandemic-Driven Drop in CO2 Emissions Imperceptible in Atmosphere

The world will experience a record drop in greenhouse gas emissions this year , but it will be barely perceptible in the atmosphere , according to an analysis released today by the Global Carbon Project .
In their annual examination of the global carbon budget , the team of international climate scientists determined that emissions will likely fall by 7 % in 2020 , a reduction unmatched in history .
But the atmospheric buildup of CO will register around 2.5 parts per million this year , essentially matching growth rates of the last decade .
The dynamic points to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
“ We need to cut 1 [ billion ] to 2 billion tons every year in order to mitigate climate change in line with Paris goals , ” said Pierre Friedlingstein , an author of the report and climate modeler at the University of Exeter .
“ The way to do that is not the way we did it in 2020 .
We don ’ t want to put everyone in lockdown.
” This year ’ s report finds a continuation of previous trends .
Emissions growth slowed over the last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some progress greening the economy .
But emissions have continued to increase in absolute terms every year .
In 2019 , global emissions from fossil fuels were roughly 36 billion tons , up 0.1 % over 2018 levels .
Oceans and land-based carbon sinks like forests have continued to soak up CO at growing rates , capturing about half of what the world emits each year .
But CO concentrations in the atmosphere have also accelerated steadily in recent decades .
Last year , the atmospheric uptake of CO was 2.54 parts per @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of good news in this year ’ s findings , it is that 2020 shows that coordinated changes in social behavior can produce deep emissions reductions , said Corinne Le Quéré , a climate researcher at the University of East Anglia who contributed to the study .
“ Emissions can fall with concerted action , ” she said .
“ They fall straight away and therefore we need concerted action that is planned , that is good for health and good for the environment but involves investment that helps tackle climate change.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ & E News .
E & E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net .

The world will experience a record drop in greenhouse gas emissions this year, but it will be barely perceptible in the atmosphere, according to an analysis released today by the Global Carbon Project.
In their annual examination of the global carbon budget, the team of international climate scientists determined that emissions will likely fall by 7% in 2020, a reduction unmatched in history. But the atmospheric buildup of CO 2 will register around 2.5 parts per million this year, essentially matching growth rates of the last decade.
The dynamic points to the need for sustained emissions reductions, scientists said.
“We need to cut 1 [billion] to 2 billion tons every year in order to mitigate climate change in line with Paris goals,” said Pierre Friedlingstein, an author of the report and climate modeler at the University of Exeter. “The way to do that is not the way we did it in 2020. We don’t want to put everyone in lockdown.”
This year’s report finds a continuation of previous trends. Emissions growth slowed over the last decade, suggesting the world has made some progress greening the economy. But emissions have continued to increase in absolute terms every year. In 2019, global emissions from fossil fuels were roughly 36 billion tons, up 0.1% over 2018 levels.
Oceans and land-based carbon sinks like forests have continued to soak up CO 2 at growing rates, capturing about half of what the world emits each year. But CO 2 concentrations in the atmosphere have also accelerated steadily in recent decades. Last year, the atmospheric uptake of CO 2 was 2.54 parts per million.
If there is a sliver of good news in this year’s findings, it is that 2020 shows that coordinated changes in social behavior can produce deep emissions reductions, said Corinne Le Quéré, a climate researcher at the University of East Anglia who contributed to the study.
“Emissions can fall with concerted action,” she said. “They fall straight away and therefore we need concerted action that is planned, that is good for health and good for the environment but involves investment that helps tackle climate change.”
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.


scientificamerican--2020-12-11--Itsy-Bitsy 3-D Spider Web Is as Strong as Human-Made Materials

Wallabies , kangaroos , koalas—Australia is home to organisms found nowhere else on Earth , a characteristic that extends from furry mammals all the way to the basket-web spider .
Part of what makes this this arachnid so distinct is in its name .
Often called the “ lobster pot spider , ” the species Saccodomus formivorus whips up open-mouthed cocoons that catch prey and swaddle eggs .
Evolutionary biologists think that spiders originally wove webs to protect their unhatched young .
This unusual rendition might be a rare example of an ancestral spider habit that is still alive today @ @ @ @ @ @ @ half an inch wide and about half an inch deep .
The little marvel would fit comfortably on the surface of a penny .
According to new research , the silk the basket-web spider uses is also fairly unique .
Each thread intertwines two chemically distinct fibers , which together offer the stretch and durability needed for the 3-D construction .
“ Nature has created a complex structure that , at first glance , resembles industrially produced composites , ” said Thomas Scheibel , a biomaterials researcher at the University of Bayreuth in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said study co-author Thomas Scheibel , a biomaterials researcher at the University of Bayreuth in Germany , in October press releases from Bayreuth and the University of Melbourne in Australia .
The strands can withstand some forces better than similar fibers ejected by spiders that spin traditional 2-D webs—a serious accomplishment , seeing as the latter silks were already considered nearly as durable as high-tech materials .

Wallabies, kangaroos, koalas—Australia is home to organisms found nowhere else on Earth, a characteristic that extends from furry mammals all the way to the basket-web spider. Part of what makes this arachnid so distinct is in its name. Often called the “lobster pot spider,” the species Saccodomus formivorus whips up open-mouthed cocoons that catch prey and swaddle eggs. Evolutionary biologists think that spiders originally wove webs to protect their unhatched young. This unusual rendition might be a rare example of an ancestral spider habit that is still alive today. Each multipurpose sack is less than half an inch wide and about half an inch deep. The little marvel would fit comfortably on the surface of a penny.
According to new research, the silk the basket-web spider uses is also fairly unique. Each thread intertwines two chemically distinct fibers, which together offer the stretch and durability needed for the 3-D construction. “Nature has created a complex structure that, at first glance, resembles industrially produced composites,” said Thomas Scheibel, a biomaterials researcher at the University of Bayreuth in Germany, who conducted the research, said study co-author Thomas Scheibel, a biomaterials researcher at the University of Bayreuth in Germany, in October press releases from Bayreuth and the University of Melbourne in Australia. The strands can withstand some forces better than similar fibers ejected by spiders that spin traditional 2-D webs—a serious accomplishment, seeing as the latter silks were already considered nearly as durable as high-tech materials.
Science in Images