scientificamerican--2020-10-08--Nobel Prize Work Took Black Holes from Fantasy to Fact

As the carnage of the Eastern Front raged around him , a German lieutenant in World War I digested Albert Einstein ’ s new theory .
Less than two months after Einstein published his general theory of relativity , Karl Schwarzschild , who had enlisted despite being older than 40 and a physicist , found a way to use it to describe the spacetime of a spherical , nonrotating mass such as a stationary star or planet .
Hidden inside Schwarzschild ’ s work was an implication that hinted at the ultimate warpers of spacetime : black holes .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ later , in May 1916 .
But the quest Schwarzchild started has continued for a century , eventually leading to this year ’ s Nobel Prize in Physics .
The 2020 prize was awarded to mathematical physicist Roger Penrose for his “ discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity ” and to astrophysicists Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel “ for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy.
” It is the first Nobel given specifically for black holes—an acknowledgement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hedging in the language of the second half of the award ) .
“ Nowadays we take these things for granted , ” says Leo Stein , a physicist at the University of Mississippi .
“ We 've come so far that , at least within our astrophysical community , we think , ‘ Of course there are black holes.
’ ” But it was not always so .
For decades the concept of black holes was no more than a mathematical aberration .
In the years following 1916 , Schwarzschild ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mathematicians and physicists .
His work predicted a “ Schwarzschild radius ” —a radius that denotes how compact an object would need to be to prevent light from escaping its gravitational pull .
The sun , for example , has a real radius of nearly 700,000 kilometers , but its Schwarzschild radius is only three kilometers .
Spacetime curves by an amount relative to an object ’ s Schwarzschild radius divided by its actual radius .
The closer the two values are , the more spacetime bends .
So what happens when the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its Schwarzschild radius ?
And what happens if an object ’ s radius is zero ?
The answers to those questions were known as singularities—undefined solutions equivalent to dividing by zero on a calculator .
At a singularity , spacetime seems to bend to a breaking point .
In the next few decades , physicists made some progress , but the search was mostly a mathematical diversion with no ties to the real world .
The exotic—and , at the time , entirely theoretical—objects suggested by Schwarzschild ’ s work could be as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Central Park or , stranger yet , contain a star ’ s mass within a radius of zero .
“ People thought , ‘ Okay , this is just fanciful .
We 're completely outside of the realm of where our physical theory should apply , ’ ” says Frans Pretorius , a physicist at Princeton University .
In the 1960s Schwarzschild ’ s solutions started to seem more relevant .
Astronomers began to observe extreme phenomena , such as distant galaxies spewing jets of particles at energies and amounts impossible for a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ —short for “ quasi-stellar objects ” —these energetic eruptions were eventually traced to feasting supermassive black holes ) .
At the same time , theorists began to model the dynamics of ultracompact cosmic bodies , finding clever ways to avoid the pitfalls associated with singularities .
Penrose , then a young mathematician with a keen interest in astrophysics , was in an optimal position to help scientists stymied by the math .
“ [ Physicists ] would argue .
They would get answers that did n't agree with each other , ” says @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of science at the University of Arkansas .
“ It turned out the reason was that they didn ’ t really understand the structure of infinity , and Penrose solved that problem.
” To deal with the complexities of general relativity where spacetime curved in the extreme , as with objects the same size as their Schwarzschild radius , Penrose came up with a set of mathematical tools .
In particular , he introduced the mathematical notion of “ trapped surfaces ” that allowed physicists to confidently pinpoint an event horizon—the point at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inexorable tug of gravity .
( The event horizon of a nonrotating black hole is located at its Schwarzschild radius . )
Event horizons helped deal with the trickiness of singularities by putting an inescapable barrier around them .
“ We really don ’ t like having singularities , ” Stein says .
“ In fact , we could cut out the inside of the black hole spacetime and replace it with ... pink elephants or what have you .
And from the outside , you would never be able to tell the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hidden behind the horizon.
” Penrose ’ s idea of “ cosmic censorship ” was that there could be no “ naked ” singularities : all of them would have to be “ clothed ” by an event horizon .
Even when black holes crashed together and merged , the singularities—or pink elephants—would remain hidden by their event horizons , preventing their existence from throwing the outer cosmos into chaos .
A fascination with geometry and artists such as M. C. Escher also led Penrose to develop powerful , intuitive diagrams that captured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of reach .
His diagrams compacted space and time , placing infinities on the page instead of having them stretch off into the distance .
“ Once it ’ s on the page , you can study it , ” Kennefick says .
“ Penrose was a tool maker par excellence .
He invented many of the tools that were used in that period to understand black holes and that we still use today.
” By the end of the 1960s , the term “ black hole ” had become the accepted nomenclature @ @ @ @ @ @ @ improbable—consequences of general relativity .
It is hard to pinpoint exactly when a majority of physicists became believers , but by the mid 1990s , black holes were taken for granted even without direct observations of them .
Some of the most concrete evidence would come from Ghez ’ s and Genzel ’ s separate work on Sagittarius A* , the then suspected supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way .
“ Often , when we ’ re interpreting astronomical observations , there ’ s some wiggle room for some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , an astronomer at the University of Maryland , College Park .
“ What 's so beautiful about our galactic center is that the measurements do n't allow for any other possibility than a four-million-solar-mass black hole.
” To arrive at that level of precision , Ghez and Genzel each independently led teams that spent more than a decade following the path of S02 , a star with a short elliptical orbit around Sagittarius A* .
In the 16 years it took for S02 to orbit the galactic center , the researchers dramatically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ technology called adaptive optics , which uses lasers to correct for blurriness caused when light travels through Earth ’ s atmosphere .
By the time S02 made a complete orbit around a dark patch of nothing , the existence of black holes could not have been clearer .
Since then , astronomers have made other direct observations of black holes .
In 2012 Gezari led a team that observed , with unprecedented detail , a tidal disruption event—a tame name for a black hole ripping apart the entrails of a star that got @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another galaxy looks a bit like a brighter , longer supernova , thanks to the rest of the star being flung apart .
“ I used to call it the ‘ fingerprints ’ of the victim—which , in this case , is the star , ” Gezari says .
More events , such as the merger of two black holes and the ensuing gravitational waves captured by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory ( LIGO ) and the Virgo experiment , have given further proof that these objects exist .
But perhaps the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Horizon Telescope ’ s ( EHT ’ s ) image of a supermassive black hole with billions of solar masses at the center of the galaxy Messier 87 ( M87 ) .
The now iconic image of a black circle ringed with the intense light of an accretion disk the size of our solar system has eliminated any room for doubt .
These observations of black holes and their shadows are more than just confirmations of Einstein ’ s theory .
As the EHT ’ s resolution increases , it will test the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Black hole shadows are a good test in that alternative theories predict something different than what general relativity predicts , ” says Feryal Özel , an astrophysicist at the University of Arizona and the EHT .
* Earlier this month , by carefully scrutinizing the shape of the shadow seen by the EHT , Özel and her colleagues made some of the most precise measurements of general relativity .
So far those measurements agree with predictions , but it is possible that with more precision , deviations from general relativity that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ show up .
For astronomers , astrophysicists and mathematicians , black holes are , by turns , monstrous and beautiful ; they are extraordinary in their physics but ordinary in their ubiquity .
They continue to attract researchers hoping to unlock new secrets of the universe .
For a watching public , there is some appeal , too .
Evolutionary biologist “ Stephen Jay Gould famously wondered , ‘ Why have dinosaurs become so popular ?
’ and argued that it isn ’ t obvious that they should be , ” Kennefick says @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have some of the same features as dinosaurs : they seem big , they eat things , and they ’ re a little terrifying—but comfortably far away .
*Editor ’ s Note ( 10/8/20 ) : This sentence has been edited after posting to correct Feryal Özel ’ s affiliation .

As the carnage of the Eastern Front raged around him, a German lieutenant in World War I digested Albert Einstein’s new theory. Less than two months after Einstein published his general theory of relativity, Karl Schwarzschild, who had enlisted despite being older than 40 and a physicist, found a way to use it to describe the spacetime of a spherical, nonrotating mass such as a stationary star or planet. Hidden inside Schwarzschild’s work was an implication that hinted at the ultimate warpers of spacetime: black holes. He was just 42 when he died months later, in May 1916. But the quest Schwarzschild started has continued for a century, eventually leading to 2020’s Nobel Prize in Physics.
The prize was awarded to mathematical physicist Roger Penrose for his “discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity” and to astrophysicists Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel “for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy.” It was the first Nobel given specifically for black holes—an acknowledgment of their unmistakable existence (notwithstanding the hedging in the language of the second half of the award). “Nowadays we take these things for granted,” says Leo Stein, a physicist at the University of Mississippi. “We’ve come so far that, at least within our astrophysical community, we think, ‘Of course there are black holes.’”
But it was not always so. For decades the concept of black holes was no more than a mathematical aberration. In the years following 1916, Schwarzschild’s solution caused interest and some consternation among mathematicians and physicists. His work predicted a “Schwarzschild radius”—a radius that denotes how compact an object would need to be to prevent light from escaping its gravitational pull. The sun, for example, has a real radius of nearly 700,000 kilometers, but its Schwarzschild radius is only three kilometers.
Spacetime curves by an amount relative to an object’s Schwarzschild radius divided by its actual radius. The closer the two values are, the more spacetime bends. So what happens when the object’s radius is equal to its Schwarzschild radius? And what happens if an object’s radius is zero? The answers to those questions were known as singularities—undefined solutions equivalent to dividing by zero on a calculator. At a singularity, spacetime seems to bend to a breaking point.
In the next few decades physicists made some progress, but the search was mostly a mathematical diversion with no ties to the real world. The exotic—and, at the time, entirely theoretical—objects suggested by Schwarzschild’s work could be as heavy as the sun but smaller than Central Park or, stranger yet, contain a star’s mass within a radius of zero. “People thought, ‘Okay, this is just fanciful. We’re completely outside the realm of where our physical theory should apply,’” says Frans Pretorius, a physicist at Princeton University.
Monstrous Math
In the 1960s Schwarzschild’s solutions started to seem more relevant. Astronomers began to observe extreme phenomena, such as distant galaxies spewing jets of particles at energies and amounts impossible for a normal star (dubbed “quasars”—short for “quasi-stellar objects”—these energetic eruptions were eventually traced to feasting supermassive black holes). At the same time, theorists began to model the dynamics of ultracompact cosmic bodies, finding clever ways to avoid the pitfalls associated with singularities. Penrose, then a young mathematician with a keen interest in astrophysics, was in an optimal position to help scientists stymied by the math.
“[Physicists] would argue. They would get answers that didn’t agree with each other,” says Daniel Kennefick, an astrophysicist and historian of science at the University of Arkansas. “It turned out the reason was that they didn’t really understand the structure of infinity, and Penrose solved that problem.”
To deal with the complexities of general relativity where spacetime curved in the extreme, as with objects the same size as their Schwarzschild radius, Penrose came up with a set of mathematical tools. In particular, he introduced the mathematical notion of “trapped surfaces” that allowed physicists to confidently pinpoint an event horizon—the point at which even light can never escape the inexorable tug of gravity. (The event horizon of a nonrotating black hole is located at its Schwarzschild radius.) Event horizons helped deal with the trickiness of singularities by putting an inescapable barrier around them. “We really don’t like having singularities,” Stein says. “In fact, we could cut out the inside of the black hole spacetime and replace it with ... pink elephants or what have you. And from the outside, you would never be able to tell the difference, because it’s all hidden behind the horizon.” Penrose’s idea of “cosmic censorship” was that there could be no “naked” singularities: all of them would have to be “clothed” by an event horizon. Even when black holes crashed together and merged, the singularities—or pink elephants—would remain hidden by their event horizons, preventing their existence from throwing the outer cosmos into chaos.
A fascination with geometry and artists such as M. C. Escher also led Penrose to develop powerful, intuitive diagrams that captured dynamics of spacetime that were previously out of reach. His diagrams compacted space and time, placing infinities on the page instead of having them stretch off into the distance. “Once it’s on the page, you can study it,” Kennefick says. “Penrose was a toolmaker par excellence. He invented many of the tools that were used in that period to understand black holes and that we still use today.” By the end of the 1960s the term “black hole” had become the accepted nomenclature to describe these hypothetical—but now much less improbable—consequences of general relativity.
Astrophysical Jump Scare
It is hard to pinpoint exactly when a majority of physicists became believers, but by the mid-1990s black holes were taken for granted even without direct observations of them. Some of the most concrete evidence would come from Ghez’s and Genzel’s separate work on Sagittarius A*, the then suspected supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. “Often when we’re interpreting astronomical observations, there’s some wiggle room for some other possibilities,” says Suvi Gezari, an astronomer at the University of Maryland, College Park. “What’s so beautiful about our galactic center is that the measurements don’t allow for any other possibility than a four-million-solar-mass black hole.”
To arrive at that level of precision, Ghez and Genzel each independently led teams that spent more than a decade following the path of S02, a star with a short elliptical orbit around Sagittarius A*. In the 16 years it took for S02 to orbit the galactic center, the researchers dramatically improved their telescopes’ measurements with a technology called adaptive optics, which uses lasers to correct for blurriness caused when light travels through Earth’s atmosphere.
By the time S02 made a complete orbit around a dark patch of nothing, the existence of black holes could not have been clearer. Since then, astronomers have made other direct observations of black holes.
In 2012 Gezari led a team that observed, with unprecedented detail, a tidal disruption event—a tame name for a black hole ripping apart the entrails of a star that got too close. A stellar homicide in another galaxy looks a bit like a brighter, longer supernova, thanks to the rest of the star being flung apart. “I used to call it the ‘fingerprints’ of the victim—which, in this case, is the star,” Gezari says.
More events, such as the merger of two black holes and the ensuing gravitational waves captured by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo experiment, have given further proof that these objects exist. But perhaps the most stunning evidence thus far is the image taken by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) of a supermassive black hole with billions of solar masses at the center of the galaxy Messier 87. The now iconic image of a black circle ringed with the intense light of an accretion disk the size of our solar system has eliminated any room for doubt.
These observations of black holes and their shadows are more than just confirmations of Einstein’s theory. As the EHT’s resolution increases, it will test the very theories that first predicted their existence. “Black hole shadows are a good test in that alternative theories predict something different than what general relativity predicts,” says Feryal Özel, an astrophysicist at the University of Arizona and the EHT.
In 2020, by carefully scrutinizing the shape of the shadow seen by the EHT, Özel and her colleagues made some of the most precise measurements of general relativity. So far those measurements agree with predictions, but it is possible that with more precision, deviations from general relativity that hint at a deeper underlying theory will show up.
For astronomers, astrophysicists and mathematicians, black holes are, by turns, monstrous and beautiful; they are extraordinary in their physics but ordinary in their ubiquity. They continue to attract researchers hoping to unlock new secrets of the universe. For a watching public, there is some appeal, too. Evolutionary biologist “Stephen Jay Gould famously wondered, ‘Why have dinosaurs become so popular?’ and argued that it isn’t obvious that they should be,” Kennefick says. Black holes, he suggests, have some of the same features as dinosaurs: they seem big, they eat things, and they’re a little terrifying—but comfortably far away.


scientificamerican--2020-10-08--Our Brain Is Better at Remembering Where to Find Brownies Than Cherry Tomatoes

The human brain is hardwired to map our surroundings .
This trait is called spatial memory—our ability to remember certain locations and where objects are in relation to one another .
New findings published today in Scientific Reports suggest that one major feature of our spatial recall is efficiently locating high-calorie , energy-rich food .
The study ’ s authors believe human spatial memory ensured that our hunter-gatherer ancestors could prioritize the location of reliable nutrition , giving them an evolutionary leg up .
In the study , researchers at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands observed 512 participants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where either eight food samples or eight food-scented cotton pads were placed in different locations .
When they arrived at a sample , the participants would taste the food or smell the cotton and rate how much they liked it .
Four of the food samples were high-calorie , including brownies and potato chips , and the other four , including cherry tomatoes and apples , were low in calories—diet foods , you might call them .
After the taste test , the participants were asked to identify the location of each sample @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They were nearly 30 percent more accurate at mapping the high-calorie samples versus the low-calorie ones , regardless of how much they liked those foods or odors .
They were also 243 percent more accurate when presented with actual foods , as opposed to the food scents .
“ Our main takeaway message is that human minds seem to be designed for efficiently locating high-calorie foods in our environment , ” says Rachelle de Vries , a Ph.D. candidate in human nutrition and health at Wageningen University and lead author of the new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s findings support the idea that locating valuable caloric resources was an important and regularly occurring problem for early humans weathering the climate shifts of the Pleistocene epoch .
“ Those with a better memory for where and when high-calorie food resources would be available were likely to have a survival—or fitness—advantage , ” she explains .
“ This looks like a nice piece of work , ” says James Nairne , a cognitive psychology professor at Purdue University , who was not involved in the new research .
“ Memory evolved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aid our survival or reproduction—hence , it ’ s not surprising that we remember fitness-relevant information particularly well , [ including ] high caloric content.
” We tend to think of primates such as ourselves as having lost the acute sense of smell seen in many other mammals in favor of sharp eyesight .
And to a large degree , we humans have developed that way .
But the new findings support the notion that our sniffer is not altogether terrible : “ These results suggest that human minds continue to house a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ erratic food habitats of the past , and highlight the often underestimated capabilities of the human olfactory sense , ” the authors wrote .
One drawback of our spatial skills , as they relate to sustenance , is our modern taste for junk food .
With a life span of not much more than 30—as was the case for humans until relatively recently—chronic diseases such as diabetes were not a concern for our ancestors .
If you came across a rich grove of fruit trees , you consumed all the sugar you could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our taste for sweets and fats contributes to a global obesity epidemic and has us reaching for candy over kale .
“ In a way , our minds ( and bodies ) may be mismatched to our current ‘ obesogenic ’ food-rich circumstances , ” de Vries says .
“ We have reason to suspect that the high-calorie spatial memory bias could stimulate people to choose high-calorie foods by making high-calorie options easier or more convenient to find and obtain.
” “ We ’ re more likely to remember sweet things , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our evolutionary history , ” Nairne adds .
“ But this is problematic in today ’ s world ... .
We ’ re still walking around with Stone Age brains .
”

The human brain is hardwired to map our surroundings. This trait is called spatial memory—our ability to remember certain locations and where objects are in relation to one another. New findings published today in Scientific Reports suggest that one major feature of our spatial recall is efficiently locating high-calorie, energy-rich food. The study’s authors believe human spatial memory ensured that our hunter-gatherer ancestors could prioritize the location of reliable nutrition, giving them an evolutionary leg up.
In the study, researchers at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands observed 512 participants follow a fixed path through a room where either eight food samples or eight food-scented cotton pads were placed in different locations. When they arrived at a sample, the participants would taste the food or smell the cotton and rate how much they liked it. Four of the food samples were high-calorie, including brownies and potato chips, and the other four, including cherry tomatoes and apples, were low in calories—diet foods, you might call them.
After the taste test, the participants were asked to identify the location of each sample on a map of the room. They were nearly 30 percent more accurate at mapping the high-calorie samples versus the low-calorie ones, regardless of how much they liked those foods or odors. They were also 243 percent more accurate when presented with actual foods, as opposed to the food scents.
“Our main takeaway message is that human minds seem to be designed for efficiently locating high-calorie foods in our environment,” says Rachelle de Vries, a Ph.D. candidate in human nutrition and health at Wageningen University and lead author of the new paper. De Vries feels her team’s findings support the idea that locating valuable caloric resources was an important and regularly occurring problem for early humans weathering the climate shifts of the Pleistocene epoch. “Those with a better memory for where and when high-calorie food resources would be available were likely to have a survival—or fitness—advantage,” she explains.
“This looks like a nice piece of work,” says James Nairne, a cognitive psychology professor at Purdue University, who was not involved in the new research. “Memory evolved so that we can remember things that aid our survival or reproduction—hence, it’s not surprising that we remember fitness-relevant information particularly well, [including] high caloric content.”
We tend to think of primates such as ourselves as having lost the acute sense of smell seen in many other mammals in favor of sharp eyesight. And to a large degree, we humans have developed that way. But the new findings support the notion that our sniffer is not altogether terrible: “These results suggest that human minds continue to house a cognitive system optimized for energy‐efficient foraging within erratic food habitats of the past, and highlight the often underestimated capabilities of the human olfactory sense,” the authors wrote.
One drawback of our spatial skills, as they relate to sustenance, is our modern taste for junk food. With a life span of not much more than 30—as was the case for humans until relatively recently—chronic diseases such as diabetes were not a concern for our ancestors. If you came across a rich grove of fruit trees, you consumed all the sugar you could to help ensure your survival. Now our taste for sweets and fats contributes to a global obesity epidemic and has us reaching for candy over kale. “In a way, our minds (and bodies) may be mismatched to our current ‘obesogenic’ food-rich circumstances,” de Vries says. “We have reason to suspect that the high-calorie spatial memory bias could stimulate people to choose high-calorie foods by making high-calorie options easier or more convenient to find and obtain.”
“We’re more likely to remember sweet things, which was a real plus for most of our evolutionary history,” Nairne adds. “But this is problematic in today’s world.... We’re still walking around with Stone Age brains.”


scientificamerican--2020-10-09--A Running List of Record-Breaking Natural Disasters in 2020

So far 2020 has been a standout year for all the wrong reasons , including its devastating natural disasters .
Wildfires have ravaged the western U.S. , and tropical cyclones have popped up left and right , with several causing significant damage to coastal areas .
The latest storm , Hurricane Delta , is headed for the Gulf Coast .
Though they are called natural disasters , the toll they take comes in part from human actions .
The buildup of communities in vulnerable areas , such as along the coasts and fire-prone areas of the West , means more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Climate change , fueled by greenhouse gas emissions from energy use and industrial processes , has also upped the ante .
Hotter weather dries out the grasses and forest debris that can ignite , fueling bigger and longer-lasting wildfires .
And rising seas and heavier downpours mean higher flood risks during storms .
These factors have helped push some of this year ’ s disasters to surpass—and in some cases , shatter—previous records .
This is a running list of all the ones that have been set this year .
The 2020 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doozy , and it does not even officially end until November 30 .
Here are some of the records it has already achieved : • This is only the second time that the official alphabetical list of hurricane names has been used up , meaning forecasters have had to move to the supplementary list of Greek letter names .
• If three more storms form , 2020 will tie 2005 as the season with the most named storms on record : 28 .
( Named storms are those that reach at least tropical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to 73 miles per hour . )
If four more form , this year will set a new record .
• Twenty-two of the 25 storms that formed so far this season were the earliest of their storm number to do so .
For example , Delta was the earliest 25th named storm of any season , beating out Tropical Storm Gamma , which formed on November 15 , 2005 .
• If Hurricane Delta makes landfall as expected , it will be the first time 10 named storms have hit the U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Delta landfall will also be the first time a Greek alphabet named hurricane has made landfall in the U.S. • September , which falls within the peak of the hurricane season , saw a record 10 named storms form within the month .
( The previous record was eight . )
• In mid-September , there were five storms churning around the Atlantic Ocean simultaneously for only the second time on record .
• September 18 marked the second time on record that three named storms—Wilfred , Alpha and Beta—all formed on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this was known to happen was on August 15 , 1893 , before hurricanes received official alphabetical names .
Wildfires have taken an enormous toll on western U.S. communities , both from flames and harmful smoke .
California has borne the worst of it .
Here are some of the records that have been set : • Fires have so far burned more than four million acres across California , about doubling the previous record of nearly two million acres set in 2018 .
Quality records of fires size in California go back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fire alone has burned more than one million acres , by far the largest in California ’ s history .
The previous record of more than 459,000 acres was set in 2018 by the Mendocino Complex Fire .
• Five of California ’ s six largest fires are burning this year .
• Colorado ’ s Pine Gulch Fire was the largest in state history , burning more than 139,000 acres .
Heavy rain sent water levels in the Tittabawassee River to record highs in May , causing the failures of the Edenville @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Some 10,000 residents had to evacuate because of the subsequent floods .
So far this year , the U.S. has had 16 natural disasters ( including wildfires , hurricanes , tornadoes and drought ) that each caused at least $ 1 billion in damage , tying the record set in both 2011 and 2017—with several months left to go .
Such statistics have been compiled since 1980 .

Editor’s Note (12/22/20): This story has been updated to reflect new records set through the November 30 end of the hurricane season.
This year has been a standout year for all the wrong reasons, including its devastating natural disasters. Wildfires have ravaged the western U.S., and tropical cyclones have popped up left and right, with several causing significant damage to coastal areas.
Though they are called natural disasters, the toll they take comes in part from human actions. The buildup of communities in vulnerable areas, such as along the coasts and fire-prone areas of the West, means more people are in harm’s way. Climate change, fueled by greenhouse gas emissions from energy use and industrial processes, has also upped the ante. Hotter weather dries out the grasses and forest debris that can ignite, fueling bigger and longer-lasting wildfires. And rising seas and heavier downpours mean higher flood risks during storms.
These factors have helped push some of this year’s disasters to surpass—and in some cases, shatter—previous records. This is a running list of all the ones that have been set this year.
Hurricanes
The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was a doozy. Here are some of the records it achieved:
This is only the second time that the official alphabetical list of hurricane names has been used up, meaning forecasters have had to move to the supplementary list of Greek letter names.
The 2020 season surpassed 2005 as the one with the most named storms on record: 30. (Named storms are those that reach at least tropical storm strength, with winds of 39 to 73 miles per hour.)
Twenty-seven of the 30 storms that formed this season were the earliest of their storm number to do so. For example, Delta was the earliest 25th named storm of any season, beating out Tropical Storm Gamma, which formed on November 15, 2005.
When Tropical Storm Eta made landfall on Florida’s island of Lower Matecumbe Key on November 8, it became the only 12th named storm to hit the U.S. in a single season. It broke the record set just weeks earlier by Hurricane Zeta and Hurricane Delta before it. Prior to 2020, the season with the most landfalls was 1916, which had nine.
Hurricane Zeta was the sixth hurricane to hit the U.S. this year, tying 1886 and 1985 for the most continental U.S. hurricane landfalls in a single season.
Zeta was the record fifth named storm to hit Louisiana in a single season.
Delta’s landfall was the first time a Greek-alphabet-named hurricane has made landfall in the U.S.
Hurricane Iota was the latest known category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic, reaching that status on November 16. The old record, for November 8, was held by the Cuba Hurricane of 1932.
This November was the first on record to have two major hurricanes, Eta and Iota.
This was the record fifth consecutive year to see a category 5 storm form.
September, which falls within the peak of the hurricane season, saw a record 10 named storms form within the month. (The previous record was eight.)
In mid-September, there were five storms churning around the Atlantic Ocean simultaneously for only the second time on record.
September 18 marked the second time on record that three named storms—Wilfred, Alpha and Beta—all formed on the same day. The only other time this was known to happen was on August 15, 1893, before hurricanes received official alphabetical names.
(The Atlantic hurricane database, managed by the National Hurricane Center, extends back to 1851. The lists of alternating male and female hurricane names have been in use since 1979.)
Wildfires
Wildfires have taken an enormous toll on western U.S. communities, both from flames and harmful smoke. California bore the worst of it. Here are some of the records that were set:
Fires burned more than four million acres across California, about doubling the previous record of nearly two million acres set in 2018. Quality records of fires size in California go back to 1932.
The August Complex Fire alone burned more than one million acres, by far the largest in California’s history. The previous record of more than 459,000 acres was set in 2018 by the Mendocino Complex Fire.
Five of California’s six largest fires burned this year.
On October 14 Colorado’s Cameron Peak Fire surged to become the largest in state history, burning more than 208,000 acres and surpassing the record set less than two months prior by the Pine Gulch Fire.
Rain and Flooding
Heavy rain sent water levels in the Tittabawassee River to record highs in May, causing the failures of the Edenville and Sanford dams near Midland, Mich. Some 10,000 residents had to evacuate because of the subsequent floods.
Heat
Heat, especially over prolonged periods, can exacerbate existing health conditions and is one of the leading causes of weather-related deaths in the U.S. The Phoenix area saw notable heat this year.
Phoenix set a record for the most days with temperatures of 100 degrees Fahrenheit or higher with 144 days.
On Nov. 16, the city saw its latest 90-degree day on record, beating the previous record of Nov. 15.
Overall
Through September, the U.S. had 16 natural disasters (including wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes and drought) that each caused at least $1 billion in damage, tying the record set in both 2011 and 2017—with several months left to go. Such statistics have been compiled since 1980.


scientificamerican--2020-10-09--On November 3, Vote to End Attacks on Science

Instead of thinking about whether to vote Democratic or Republican in the upcoming U.S. election , think about voting to protect science instead of destroying it .
As president , Donald Trump ’ s abuse of science has been wanton and dangerous .
It has also been well documented .
Since the November 2016 election , Columbia Law School has maintained a Silencing Science Tracker that records the Trump Administration ’ s attempts to restrict or prohibit scientific research , to undermine science education or discussion , or to obstruct the publication or use of scientific information .
By early @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than 450 cases , including scientific bias and misrepresentation ( 123 instances ) , budget cuts ( 72 ) , government censorship ( 145 ) , interference with education ( 46 ) , personnel changes ( 61 ) , research hindrances ( 43 ) and suppression or distortion of information ( 19 ) .
The Union of Concerned Scientists ( UCS ) also keeps a tracker of the administration ’ s attacks on science .
It details antiscience rules , regulations and orders ; censorship ; politicization of grants and funding ; restrictions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ collection or data accessibility ; sidelining of science advisory committees ; and studies that have been halted , edited or suppressed .
The fact that so many types of abuse have occurred , and so often that they each warrant their own category , is scary .
Alarmingly , many of the attacks involve the most immediate and long-term threats to people on earth : the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change .
In September , for example , Politico reported that Trump ’ s political appointees in the Department of Health and Human @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) about the pandemic prior to publication .
Ten days later , U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette asserted that “ no one knows ” whether human activities are causing climate change—a refrain that is so tired it has become silly .
Such declarations parrot Trump ’ s own words and actions .
As was widely reported , when the president was touring the California wildfires in mid-September and was asked about the role of climate change , he said , “ It 'll just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Wade Crowfoot , California 's secretary for natural resources , replied , `` I wish science agreed with you.
” To which Trump retorted : `` Well , I do n't think science knows , actually.
” Moves by Trump Administration officials to block or alter scientific information have been particularly egregious .
In 2016 National Park Service leaders deleted language about climate change in a report done by an agency scientist , Maria Caffrey .
She filed a whistleblower complaint , the language was reinstated—and later she was terminated .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ordered employees to use climate change models that only project impacts through 2040 , cutting off consideration of severe consequences that are likely in the years beyond .
In June 2019 Politico reported that Department of Agriculture officials buried dozens of climate change studies , including one that revealed how rice worldwide growing in an atmosphere with more carbon dioxide would provide less nutrition .
The next month , a State Department scientist resigned after the White House blocked him from submitting written testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on the national security @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2020 the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office revealed how the Trump administration artificially lowered estimates of climate damages to justify weakened climate policies , failing to listen to experts from the National Academies of Sciences , Engineering and Medicine .
Undercutting science has dangerous repercussions .
New York Times contributor David Leonhardt , analyzing COVID-19 data from the World Bank and Johns Hopkins University , found that as of September 1 , if the U.S. had the same rate of COVID-19 deaths as the world average , 145,000 fewer Americans would have died from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of medical science is one reason for the awful excess .
As Ben Santer , a researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a member of the National Academies , wrote in a Scientific American article in June : “ It was scientifically incorrect for Donald Trump to dismiss the coronavirus as no worse than the seasonal flu , as he did on February 26 .
It was incorrect to advise U.S. citizens to engage in business as usual , which he did as late as March 10 .
It was incorrect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a press briefing on March 19 , that the malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are promising remedies for COVID-19.
” ( There was already evidence that the medications did not help , and additional findings soon led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to revoke authorization for their use . )
“ Dissemination of such inaccurate information helped to spread the novel coronavirus in America faster by delaying the adoption of social distancing.
” Even after Trump became ill with COVID , he continued to mislead the public about the danger of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the experimental treatments he received—while the White House has declined to do the sort of extensive contact tracing public health experts consider vital .
The administration has also been “ suppressing CDC reports on how to safely operate businesses , schools and houses of worship during the pandemic , ” according to UCS research analyst Anita Desikan , in an August blog post on the organization ’ s Web site .
Disregard for science threatens people in other ways .
Desikan noted that the EPA has discounted the human health effects of particulate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contributes to asthma , lung damage and birth defects , and has ignored the dangers of asbestos , a known human carcinogen , raised by its own scientists .
The EPA , she noted , has even downplayed harm from a chemical that damages the hearts of human fetuses .
EPA ’ s leaders , appointed by Trump , have rolled back numerous regulations affecting endangered species , clean air , clean water and toxic chemicals—even the neurotoxin mercury—which will increase hazards to human health as well as emissions of greenhouse gases .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Latinx and Indigenous communities , which suffer disproportionately from pollution as well as COVID-19 .
Science , built on facts and evidence-based analysis , is fundamental to a safe and fair America .
Upholding science is not a Democratic or Republican issue .
There are plenty of people in red and blue states across the country who respect and need science .
Industrial innovation , profitable farming , homeland security , a competitive economy and therefore good jobs , all depend on it .
But politicians of different stripes have to get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demise .
In May , for example , the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Scientific Integrity Act as part of the Heroes Act .
It would require science-based federal agencies to have a scientific integrity policy that ensures that no one at the agency will “ suppress , alter , interfere , or otherwise impede the timely release and communication of scientific or technical findings.
” But the bill sits idle in the Senate .
On an individual basis , the most powerful action you can take to protect science is to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is trying to gut it—and to encourage people you know to do likewise , especially in the battleground states .
The same applies to the November elections for key U.S. Senate races .
Most senators and representatives do prize facts and evidence-based thinking , yet too many of them remain silent about Trump ’ s abuse of science .
Their silence is complicity .
For that reason , the November 3 election should be a day of reckoning .

Instead of thinking about whether to vote Democratic or Republican in the upcoming U.S. election, think about voting to protect science instead of destroying it.
As president, Donald Trump’s abuse of science has been wanton and dangerous. It has also been well documented. Since the November 2016 election, Columbia Law School has maintained a Silencing Science Tracker that records the Trump Administration’s attempts to restrict or prohibit scientific research, to undermine science education or discussion, or to obstruct the publication or use of scientific information. By early October, the tracker had detailed more than 450 cases, including scientific bias and misrepresentation (123 instances), budget cuts (72), government censorship (145), interference with education (46), personnel changes (61), research hindrances (43) and suppression or distortion of information (19).
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) also keeps a tracker of the administration’s attacks on science. It details antiscience rules, regulations and orders; censorship; politicization of grants and funding; restrictions on conference attendance; rollbacks of data collection or data accessibility; sidelining of science advisory committees; and studies that have been halted, edited or suppressed. The fact that so many types of abuse have occurred, and so often that they each warrant their own category, is scary.
Alarmingly, many of the attacks involve the most immediate and long-term threats to people on earth: the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. In September, for example, Politico reported that Trump’s political appointees in the Department of Health and Human Services were editing weekly reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about the pandemic prior to publication. Ten days later, U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette asserted that “no one knows” whether human activities are causing climate change—a refrain that is so tired it has become silly.
Such declarations parrot Trump’s own words and actions. As was widely reported, when the president was touring the California wildfires in mid-September and was asked about the role of climate change, he said, “It'll just start getting cooler, you just watch.” Wade Crowfoot, California's secretary for natural resources, replied, "I wish science agreed with you.” To which Trump retorted: "Well, I don't think science knows, actually.”
Moves by Trump Administration officials to block or alter scientific information have been particularly egregious. In 2016 National Park Service leaders deleted language about climate change in a report done by an agency scientist, Maria Caffrey. She filed a whistleblower complaint, the language was reinstated—and later she was terminated. In May 2019 the U.S. Geological Survey director ordered employees to use climate change models that only project impacts through 2040, cutting off consideration of severe consequences that are likely in the years beyond.
In June 2019 Politico reported that Department of Agriculture officials buried dozens of climate change studies, including one that revealed how rice worldwide growing in an atmosphere with more carbon dioxide would provide less nutrition. The next month, a State Department scientist resigned after the White House blocked him from submitting written testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on the national security dangers of climate change.
In July 2020 the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office revealed how the Trump administration artificially lowered estimates of climate damages to justify weakened climate policies, failing to listen to experts from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
Undercutting science has dangerous repercussions. New York Times contributor David Leonhardt, analyzing COVID-19 data from the World Bank and Johns Hopkins University, found that as of September 1, if the U.S. had the same rate of COVID-19 deaths as the world average, 145,000 fewer Americans would have died from the disease.
Trump’s dismissal of medical science is one reason for the awful excess. As Ben Santer, a researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a member of the National Academies, wrote in a Scientific American article in June: “It was scientifically incorrect for Donald Trump to dismiss the coronavirus as no worse than the seasonal flu, as he did on February 26. It was incorrect to advise U.S. citizens to engage in business as usual, which he did as late as March 10. It was incorrect to imply, as he did in a press briefing on March 19, that the malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are promising remedies for COVID-19.” (There was already evidence that the medications did not help, and additional findings soon led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to revoke authorization for their use.) “Dissemination of such inaccurate information helped to spread the novel coronavirus in America faster by delaying the adoption of social distancing.”
Even after Trump became ill with COVID, he continued to mislead the public about the danger of the illness and the safety and efficacy of the experimental treatments he received—while the White House has declined to do the sort of extensive contact tracing public health experts consider vital.
The administration has also been “suppressing CDC reports on how to safely operate businesses, schools and houses of worship during the pandemic,” according to UCS research analyst Anita Desikan, in an August blog post on the organization’s Web site.
Disregard for science threatens people in other ways. Desikan noted that the EPA has discounted the human health effects of particulate air pollution, which numerous studies show contributes to asthma, lung damage and birth defects, and has ignored the dangers of asbestos, a known human carcinogen, raised by its own scientists. The EPA, she noted, has even downplayed harm from a chemical that damages the hearts of human fetuses. EPA’s leaders, appointed by Trump, have rolled back numerous regulations affecting endangered species, clean air, clean water and toxic chemicals—even the neurotoxin mercury—which will increase hazards to human health as well as emissions of greenhouse gases. These threats are particularly important for Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities, which suffer disproportionately from pollution as well as COVID-19.
Science, built on facts and evidence-based analysis, is fundamental to a safe and fair America. Upholding science is not a Democratic or Republican issue. There are plenty of people in red and blue states across the country who respect and need science. Industrial innovation, profitable farming, homeland security, a competitive economy and therefore good jobs, all depend on it. But politicians of different stripes have to get on board to protect science from further demise. In May, for example, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Scientific Integrity Act as part of the Heroes Act. It would require science-based federal agencies to have a scientific integrity policy that ensures that no one at the agency will “suppress, alter, interfere, or otherwise impede the timely release and communication of scientific or technical findings.” But the bill sits idle in the Senate.
On an individual basis, the most powerful action you can take to protect science is to vote out of office a president who is trying to gut it—and to encourage people you know to do likewise, especially in the battleground states. The same applies to the November elections for key U.S. Senate races. Most senators and representatives do prize facts and evidence-based thinking, yet too many of them remain silent about Trump’s abuse of science. Their silence is complicity. For that reason, the November 3 election should be a day of reckoning.


scientificamerican--2020-10-09--Why Doubt Is Essential to Science

Why Doubt Is Essential to Science

The confidence people place in science is frequently based not on what it really is , but on what people would like it to be .
When I asked students at the beginning of the year how they would define science , many of them replied that it is an objective way of discovering certainties about the world .
But science can not provide certainties .
For example , a majority of Americans trust science as long as it does not challenge their existing beliefs .
To the question “ When science disagrees with the teachings of your religion , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” 58 percent of North Americans favor religion ; 33 percent science ; and 6 percent say “ it depends.
” But doubt in science is a feature , not a bug .
Indeed , the paradox is that science , when properly functioning , questions accepted facts and yields both new knowledge and new questions—not certainty .
Doubt does not create trust , nor does it help public understanding .
So why should people trust a process that seems to require a troublesome state of uncertainty without always providing solid solutions ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ would argue that it ’ s the responsibility of scientists and historians of science to show that the real power of science lies precisely in what is often perceived as its weakness : its drive to question and challenge a hypothesis .
Indeed , the scientific approach requires changing our understanding of the natural world whenever new evidence emerges from either experimentation or observation .
Scientific findings are hypotheses that encompass the state of knowledge at a given moment .
In the long run , many of are challenged and even overturned .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ impels us towards a better understanding ; certainties , as reassuring as they may seem , in fact undermine the scientific process .
Scientists understand this , but in the dynamic between the public and science , there are two significant pitfalls .
The first is a form of blind scientism—that is , a belief in the capacity of science to solve all problems .
The popular narrative of science is linear , embodied by heroic researchers who work selflessly for the good of humanity .
Indeed , some scientists promote this attractive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this narrative ignores the ubiquity of controversy , conflict and error at the very heart of the scientific world .
Such an idealized representation tends to turn science into an unquestionable set of beliefs .
In fact , however , the power of science lies precisely in its capacity to generate discussion and even discord .
The second pitfall is a form of relativism borne out of a lack of confidence in the very existence of truth .
It develops when science is divorced from method and viewed as just another claim in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Research study shows that 35 percent of Americans think the scientific method can be used to produce “ any result a researcher wants.
” Once the scientific approach has been delegitimized , then all hypotheses , including the most outlandish and irrational ones , can be taken as credible .
So , hidden in this conceit of a democratic “ marketplace of ideas ” is a particularly virulent form of relativism that approaches nihilism .
Such examples of relativism about issues including climate change and , most recently , the COVID-19 pandemic—have significantly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and conspiracy theories .
The diffusion of fake news is facilitated by the difficulty of a large majority of Americans in distinguishing between fact and opinion .
Factual news can be proved or disproved by objective evidence , while opinion is an expression of the beliefs and values of the speaker .
In an effort to combat misinformation , scientists may overcompensate by accelerating their research , or publicizing their findings prematurely .
This can spur dialogue about science but , with serious side effects .
Some scientists have yielded to public pressure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ potential cures for COVID-19 .
In an August article in the Annals of Internal Medicine , for example , Doroshow , et al .
observe that “ Although this boom has already begun to transform our response to the pandemic for the better , medical and scientific responses to past crises suggest that urgency may also result in compromised research quality and ethics , which may in turn jeopardize public faith in government and science , waste precious resources , and lead to the loss of human life.
” The scientific process itself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic in cases where the very institutions and peer review process that were supposed to check scientific results failed to detect scams .
In the words of editor Richard Horton , a study on hydroxychloroquine first published by The Lancet and then retracted within weeks , was a “ monumental fraud ” .
So how to regain public trust in science when the public is looking for certainties and when those who are supposed to impersonate doubt seem to be fickle or dogmatic ?
A more realistic understanding of how science works can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decisive role of doubt and skepticism in the scientific process .
Indeed , science is not a linear path leading from one success to another , but rather a constant reevaluation of hypotheses .
Failures are part of the scientific process and should be taught along with successes .
It is , therefore , not so much the content of scientific discoveries that should be highlighted , but the understanding of the scientific process itself that must be enhanced .
No one expects the public at large to fully understand all discoveries or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ treatments .
But what must be reaffirmed is that in science , doubt is not a vulnerability but a strength .
The scientific approach often leads to dead ends , but sometimes it leads to fundamental discoveries that no other approach has ever achieved .
Author ’ s note : I wish to thank Janet Browne , André Grjebine , Rebecca Lemov for their constant support and critique , Michael Connolly , Thomas Grjebine , David Jones , Juan Palacios , Sara Press , Yvan Prkachin and Sylvia Ullmo for their insightful comments @ @ @

The confidence people place in science is frequently based not on what it really is, but on what people would like it to be. When I asked students at the beginning of the year how they would define science, many of them replied that it is an objective way of discovering certainties about the world. But science cannot provide certainties. For example, a majority of Americans trust science as long as it does not challenge their existing beliefs. To the question “When science disagrees with the teachings of your religion, which one do you believe?,” 58 percent of North Americans favor religion; 33 percent science; and 6 percent say “it depends.”
But doubt in science is a feature, not a bug. Indeed, the paradox is that science, when properly functioning, questions accepted facts and yields both new knowledge and new questions—not certainty. Doubt does not create trust, nor does it help public understanding. So why should people trust a process that seems to require a troublesome state of uncertainty without always providing solid solutions?
As a historian of science, I would argue that it’s the responsibility of scientists and historians of science to show that the real power of science lies precisely in what is often perceived as its weakness: its drive to question and challenge a hypothesis. Indeed, the scientific approach requires changing our understanding of the natural world whenever new evidence emerges from either experimentation or observation. Scientific findings are hypotheses that encompass the state of knowledge at a given moment. In the long run, many of are challenged and even overturned. Doubt might be troubling, but it impels us towards a better understanding; certainties, as reassuring as they may seem, in fact undermine the scientific process.
Scientists understand this, but in the dynamic between the public and science, there are two significant pitfalls.
The first is a form of blind scientism—that is, a belief in the capacity of science to solve all problems. The popular narrative of science is linear, embodied by heroic researchers who work selflessly for the good of humanity. Indeed, some scientists promote this attractive public image of their work. But this narrative ignores the ubiquity of controversy, conflict and error at the very heart of the scientific world. Such an idealized representation tends to turn science into an unquestionable set of beliefs. In fact, however, the power of science lies precisely in its capacity to generate discussion and even discord.
The second pitfall is a form of relativism borne out of a lack of confidence in the very existence of truth. It develops when science is divorced from method and viewed as just another claim in the marketplace of ideas. A Pew Research study shows that 35 percent of Americans think the scientific method can be used to produce “any result a researcher wants.” Once the scientific approach has been delegitimized, then all hypotheses, including the most outlandish and irrational ones, can be taken as credible. So, hidden in this conceit of a democratic “marketplace of ideas” is a particularly virulent form of relativism that approaches nihilism.
Such examples of relativism about issues including climate change and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic—have significantly contributed to the proliferation of fake news and conspiracy theories. The diffusion of fake news is facilitated by the difficulty of a large majority of Americans in distinguishing between fact and opinion. Factual news can be proved or disproved by objective evidence, while opinion is an expression of the beliefs and values of the speaker.
In an effort to combat misinformation, scientists may overcompensate by accelerating their research, or publicizing their findings prematurely. This can spur dialogue about science but, with serious side effects. Some scientists have yielded to public pressure by rushing to provide theories about and potential cures for COVID-19. In an August article in the Annals of Internal Medicine, for example, Doroshow, et al. observe that “Although this boom has already begun to transform our response to the pandemic for the better, medical and scientific responses to past crises suggest that urgency may also result in compromised research quality and ethics, which may in turn jeopardize public faith in government and science, waste precious resources, and lead to the loss of human life.”
The scientific process itself has been called into question during the pandemic in cases where the very institutions and peer review process that were supposed to check scientific results failed to detect scams. In the words of editor Richard Horton, a study on hydroxychloroquine first published by The Lancet and then retracted within weeks, was a “monumental fraud”.
So how to regain public trust in science when the public is looking for certainties and when those who are supposed to impersonate doubt seem to be fickle or dogmatic?
A more realistic understanding of how science works can contribute to a better comprehension of the decisive role of doubt and skepticism in the scientific process. Indeed, science is not a linear path leading from one success to another, but rather a constant reevaluation of hypotheses. Failures are part of the scientific process and should be taught along with successes.
It is, therefore, not so much the content of scientific discoveries that should be highlighted, but the understanding of the scientific process itself that must be enhanced. No one expects the public at large to fully understand all discoveries or to be able to arbitrate between possible treatments. But what must be reaffirmed is that in science, doubt is not a vulnerability but a strength. The scientific approach often leads to dead ends, but sometimes it leads to fundamental discoveries that no other approach has ever achieved.
Author’s note: I wish to thank Janet Browne, André Grjebine, Rebecca Lemov for their constant support and critique, Michael Connolly, Thomas Grjebine, David Jones, Juan Palacios, Sara Press, Yvan Prkachin and Sylvia Ullmo for their insightful comments and suggestions.


scientificamerican--2020-10-09--Trump's COVID Case Could Be Entering a Crucial Stage

Early in the morning on October 2 , President Donald Trump tweeted that he had tested positive for COVID-19 .
Only 33 days away from a highly contentious election , the diagnosis plunged the nation into uncertainty .
Doctors , scientists and pundits quickly began speculating on what will happen to the president , and the White House has been both tight-lipped and prone to giving conflicting information about the VIP patient .
But in general , the course of this disease is no longer a complete black box to medicine .
Trump will be at a fork in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ week , say infections disease and critical care physicians who spoke with Scientific American .
He could be heading for a bad stretch in a prolonged illness or he could be on an upward swing to recovery .
Doctors sadly have the experience of treating more than 36 million COVID-19 patients worldwide and more than 7.5 million in the U.S .
Using this clinical history , many now divide the disease into several stages , each with distinct symptoms and treatments .
Based on when he first reported symptoms , Trump appears to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the verge of the next .
Here is the sequence that physicians usually see and how it applies to the president .
Exposure and incubation : A COVID-19 infection begins when the SARS-CoV-2 virus enters cells in the body and begins to replicate .
This period of time , after infection but before symptoms start , is called the incubation period—and it occurs between two and 14 days after contracting the virus .
While people may not know they are sick , they often become contagious two or three days before symptoms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the fifth day after infection for most people , and they include fever , cough , sore throat , fatigue , aches , pains , gastrointestinal issues , and loss of smell or taste .
Taison Bell , a pulmonary and critical care physician at the University of Virginia , says that when symptoms arise , this change signals a person is at “ peak infectivity , ” which means they are shedding lots of virus particles into the air , putting nearby people at risk .
This timing has big implications @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Bell says : “ The most famous person in the world right now has COVID-19 , and one could assume , based on the time line , that he could have been infectious during the presidential debate.
” The televised argument with challenger Joe Biden took place last Tuesday , and Trump began showing symptoms on the following Thursday .
“ He is still infectious now and was when he took his joyride , ” says Bell , referring to short trip Trump took in a car with Secret Service agents on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just outside the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center , where he was being treated .
At this early stage of the disease , most people do not receive aggressive treatment , but Trump was given two experimental drugs : the antiviral medication remdesivir and an infusion of monoclonal antibodies .
He also received an established medication : the steroid dexamethasone .
Bell says that remdesivir and the antibody therapy made sense at that point in the progression of COVID-19 because they aim to slow or stop viral replication .
But dexamethasone is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down immune system overreactions .
Tom Frieden , former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an infectious disease physician , calls early use of an immune-system inhibitor “ puzzling ” because , at the beginning of a COVID-19 bout , the body needs its natural defenses to work to fight the virus .
“ I don ’ t know what to make of it , ” he says .
Frieden also notes that most people do not have access to the experimental drugs , partially because of shortages @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a typical patient probably will not get all three .
But it is not unusual for presidents to get special treatment because of their leadership role .
Immune overdrive : The next phase of the illness , usually occurring between six and 10 days after infection , is when the immune system goes into overdrive .
“ It 's kind of like the gas pedal gets pushed too hard and gets stuck , ” Bell says .
Not all patients go down this path , but the bodies of those who do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cytokines become abnormally hyperactive .
The cytokines trigger a strong inflammatory response that leads to high fevers , immune cells that attack healthy tissues and lungs that fill with fluid .
If this immune reaction is not controlled , patients can suffer organ failure and require mechanical ventilation .
This could be the period Trump is entering , given the timing of the onset of his symptom .
According to Abraar Karan , a physician at Brigham and Women ’ s Hospital in Boston , who specializes in emerging infectious diseases , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his practice , he has seen people recover from the early viral infection—and even go home from the hospital—but then decline suddenly and “ come back feeling much sicker , with even worse oxygen levels and possibly other harm to the body ’ s organs , ” he says .
And when patients go down that path , there can be a lot of problems such as heart attack , organ damage , and more .
Inflammatory complications : Edy Kim , a critical care physician at Brigham and Women ’ s , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ COVID-19 pandemic is how many patients suffer complications from the cytokine storm .
In his practice , he sees a lot of people who are hospitalized with blood clots and secondary bacterial infections , such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus ( MRSA ) .
Some doctors prescribe preventive anticoagulants to manage clotting or preventive antibiotics to halt infection in the intensive care unit .
Clotting complications , which can affect as many as 31 percent of COVID-19 patients in the ICU , can occur in even mild cases .
Kim says all patients with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ given a very low dose of an anticoagulant .
He notes this kind of medication was absent from the list of Trump ’ s treatments that was provided by his doctors .
It is possible that it was not given to Trump because he was feeling well enough to be walking around , and activity reduces the chances of clotting , Kim says .
The long haul : For those patients who eventually fight off the virus and survive the inflammatory assault , an estimated 10 percent are left with months of debilitating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think of this tail end of COVID as another stage .
Patients suffer debilitating headaches , mental fog , deep exhaustion and an assortment of other problems .
G. Marshall Lyon , an infectious disease physician at Emory University , says many of these difficulties look similar to myalgic encephalomyelitis , also called chronic fatigue syndrome , which is a long-term illness that affects a wide variety of body parts and systems .
He says he has seen some success with antidepressants , but doctors are still in the learning phase , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who has treated patients during the 2014 Ebola epidemic says COVID-19 is notoriously unpredictable when the illness begins .
“ It ’ s nearly impossible to tell , in the first few days of infection , who ’ s going to get supersick and who ’ s not , ” he says .
But after a week or so of illness , the prognosis becomes clearer .
For Trump , Kim believes that what happens during the latter half of this week will be key .
Bell agrees and says Trump could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that immune overdrive phase—if he enters it at all .
Kim admits he can not predict the future , but “ that ’ s generally what I ’ d expect.
” Read more about the coronavirus outbreak from Scientific American here .
And read coverage from our international network of magazines here .

Early in the morning on October 2, President Donald Trump tweeted that he had tested positive for COVID-19. Only 33 days away from a highly contentious election, the diagnosis plunged the nation into uncertainty. Doctors, scientists and pundits quickly began speculating on what will happen to the president, and the White House has been both tight-lipped and prone to giving conflicting information about the VIP patient.
But in general, the course of this disease is no longer a complete black box to medicine. Trump will be at a fork in the road during the latter half of this week, say infections disease and critical care physicians who spoke with Scientific American. He could be heading for a bad stretch in a prolonged illness or he could be on an upward swing to recovery. Doctors sadly have the experience of treating more than 36 million COVID-19 patients worldwide and more than 7.5 million in the U.S. Using this clinical history, many now divide the disease into several stages, each with distinct symptoms and treatments. Based on when he first reported symptoms, Trump appears to be at the end of one phase and the verge of the next. Here is the sequence that physicians usually see and how it applies to the president.
Exposure and incubation: A COVID-19 infection begins when the SARS-CoV-2 virus enters cells in the body and begins to replicate. This period of time, after infection but before symptoms start, is called the incubation period—and it occurs between two and 14 days after contracting the virus. While people may not know they are sick, they often become contagious two or three days before symptoms begin.
Viral replication: Symptoms start by the fifth day after infection for most people, and they include fever, cough, sore throat, fatigue, aches, pains, gastrointestinal issues, and loss of smell or taste. Taison Bell, a pulmonary and critical care physician at the University of Virginia, says that when symptoms arise, this change signals a person is at “peak infectivity,” which means they are shedding lots of virus particles into the air, putting nearby people at risk.
This timing has big implications for the president and those around him, Bell says: “The most famous person in the world right now has COVID-19, and one could assume, based on the time line, that he could have been infectious during the presidential debate.” The televised argument with challenger Joe Biden took place last Tuesday, and Trump began showing symptoms on the following Thursday. “He is still infectious now and was when he took his joyride,” says Bell, referring to a short trip Trump took in a car with Secret Service agents on Sunday. The vehicle traveled around and just outside the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he was being treated.
At this early stage of the disease, most people do not receive aggressive treatment, but Trump was given two experimental drugs: the antiviral medication remdesivir and an infusion of monoclonal antibodies. He also received an established medication: the steroid dexamethasone. Bell says that remdesivir and the antibody therapy made sense at that point in the progression of COVID-19 because they aim to slow or stop viral replication. But dexamethasone is used at a later stage to tamp down immune system overreactions. Tom Frieden, former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an infectious disease physician, calls early use of an immune-system inhibitor “puzzling” because, at the beginning of a COVID-19 bout, the body needs its natural defenses to work to fight the virus. “I don’t know what to make of it,” he says.
Frieden also notes that most people do not have access to the experimental drugs, partially because of shortages and a lack of FDA approval, and a typical patient probably will not get all three. But it is not unusual for presidents to get special treatment because of their leadership role.
Immune overdrive: The next phase of the illness, usually occurring between six and 10 days after infection, is when the immune system goes into overdrive. “It’s kind of like the gas pedal gets pushed too hard and gets stuck,” Bell says. Not all patients go down this path, but the bodies of those who do get amped up when chemical signals called cytokines become abnormally hyperactive. The cytokines trigger a strong inflammatory response that leads to high fevers, immune cells that attack healthy tissues and lungs that fill with fluid. If this immune reaction is not controlled, patients can suffer organ failure and require mechanical ventilation.
This could be the period Trump is entering, given the timing of the onset of his symptom. According to Abraar Karan, a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who specializes in emerging infectious diseases, it will be a critical moment. In his practice, he has seen people recover from the early viral infection—and even go home from the hospital—but then decline suddenly and “come back feeling much sicker, with even worse oxygen levels and possibly other harm to the body’s organs,” he says. Inflammatory damage to the heart can cause myocarditis, for instance, and when it hits the pancreas, it may lead to type 2 diabetes.*
Inflammatory complications: Edy Kim, a critical care physician at Brigham and Women’s, explains that a striking feature of the COVID-19 pandemic is how many patients suffer complications from the cytokine storm. In his practice, he sees a lot of people who are hospitalized with blood clots and secondary bacterial infections, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
Some doctors prescribe preventive anticoagulants to manage clotting or preventive antibiotics to halt infection in the intensive care unit. Clotting complications, which can affect as many as 31 percent of COVID-19 patients in the ICU, can occur in even mild cases. Kim says all patients with the disease admitted to his hospital are given a very low dose of an anticoagulant. He notes this kind of medication was absent from the list of Trump’s treatments that was provided by his doctors. It is possible that it was not given to Trump because he was feeling well enough to be walking around, and activity reduces the chances of clotting, Kim says.
The long haul: For those patients who eventually fight off the virus and survive the inflammatory assault, an estimated 10 percent are left with months of debilitating symptoms. Some doctors are beginning to think of this tail end of COVID as another stage. Patients suffer debilitating headaches, mental fog, deep exhaustion and an assortment of other problems. G. Marshall Lyon, an infectious disease physician at Emory University, says many of these difficulties look similar to myalgic encephalomyelitis, also called chronic fatigue syndrome, which is a long-term illness that affects a wide variety of body parts and systems. He says he has seen some success with antidepressants, but doctors are still in the learning phase, and research on effective interventions continues.
Lyon, who has treated patients during the 2014 Ebola epidemic, says COVID-19 is notoriously unpredictable when the illness begins. “It’s nearly impossible to tell, in the first few days of infection, who’s going to get supersick and who’s not,” he says.
But after a week or so of illness, the prognosis becomes clearer. For Trump, Kim believes that what happens during the latter half of this week will be key. Bell agrees and says Trump could be on the cusp of heading into that immune overdrive phase—if he enters it at all. Kim admits he cannot predict the future, but “that’s generally what I’d expect.”
*Editor’s Note (10/9/20): This sentence was added after posting to state specific diseases caused by inflammatory damage to the heart and pancreas.
Read more about the coronavirus outbreak from Scientific American here. And read coverage from our international network of magazines here.


scientificamerican--2020-10-09--Coronavirus News Roundup: October 3-October 9

The items below are highlights from the free newsletter , “ Smart , useful , science stuff about COVID-19.
” To receive newsletter issues daily in your inbox , sign up here .
David Tuller at Kaiser Health News reports that saliva tests for SARS-CoV-2 are catching on in the U.S. , but only represent a “ small percentage of the more than 900,000 tests conducted daily on average at the end of September . ''
A University of Illinois chemist quoted in the 10/6/20 story says of saliva tests , “ You don ’ t need swabs , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , you don ’ t need [ chemicals to stabilize spit-samples ] , and you don ’ t need RNA isolation [ extraction ] kits.
” Meanwhile , two companies have abandoned each of their efforts to develop at-home saliva tests for SARS-CoV-2 antigens ( antigen tests look for viral proteins or structures that provoke an immune response , not for pieces of the virus ’ s genetic material , like the tests in previous item ) , reports Katherine J. Wu at The New York Times ( 10/1/20 ) .
The story @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tests for the virus .
“ There ’ s still no consensus on how well saliva works for detecting the coronavirus compared with the fluids obtained by nose swabs , ” Wu writes .
A project called covidestim out of the the Yale School of Public Health publishes an interactive visualization of new SARS-CoV-2 infections in the U.S. per 100,000 people over time .
A reader drew my attention to a 10/1/20 tweet about the project by Howard Forman of the Yale School of Management .
Updated daily based on a statistical model @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s spread in the U.S. , the dark purple areas on the page ’ s U.S. map show low infection rates , while the brighter orange and yellow areas have higher infection rates .
Forman writes that the map shows “ how small areas matter more than geographic or political boundaries .
There are hot and warm spots in most states.
” The page also features graphs illustrating infections per 100,000 and estimated infection counts for each U.S. state over time , from mid-March to the present .
Adults aged 65 to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ older adults are excluded from more than half of Phase 3 experiments on possible vaccines and treatments for COVID-19 , concludes a study published 9/28/20 in JAMA Internal Medicine that Pratibha Gopalakrishna covered 9/30/20 at STAT .
The analysis focuses on experiments indexed on Clinicaltrials.gov , a registry for experimental drug and treatment studies that are funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health among others .
Results published in the New England Journal of Medicine show that Moderna 's vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 appears to be safe in older adults and provokes an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ younger adults , reports Julie Steenhuysen at Reuters ( 10/1/20 ) .
The safety study , an extension of Moderna ’ s Phase 1 vaccine experiment , involved “ 40 adults aged 56 to 70 and 71 and older , ” Steenhuysen writes .
A high-dose version of the vaccine candidate currently is undergoing a Phase 3 study to assess effectiveness and safety , the story states .
Phase 3 studies can involve tens of thousands of subjects .
Concerns about U.S. political interference in the approval process for eventual vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Health News ( KHN ) , but several U.S. states ’ plans to engage independent panels of experts to assess vaccines “ may be misguided , ” report JoNel Aleccia and Liz Szabo ( 10/7/20 ) .
The District of Columbia plans to convene such a panel , along with New York , California , Colorado , Michigan , Oregon , and West Virginia , according to the story .
Any such work by states ’ panels could undermine confidence in future vaccines , sources in the story state .
The chair of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices told KHN he has “ not felt pressured ” by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control , other government agencies , or pharmaceutical companies to make any particular recommendation .
The story notes safeguards that could ensure that vaccine approvals adhere to standards set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration .
A 10/2/20 essay by Melinda Wenner Moyer for The New York Times explains why a negative test for SARS-CoV-2 does not guarantee that one is not infected .
An incubation period after infection can delay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ several days , Moyer writes .
Ideally , wait three to four days after being exposed to someone with the virus before getting tested , the essay states .
And negative results should be evaluated in the context of whether one has COVID-19 symptoms , how widely the virus is circulating in one ’ s community , and attendance at large gatherings , the story states .
Some research shows that cloth face-masks worn by members of the public reduce the risk of catching and spreading SARS-CoV-2 and possibly even the severity of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( 10/6/20 ) .
But evidence is thin in places , particularly regarding the effectiveness of surgical and cloth masks , and some relevant findings are posted online in reports that have yet to be assessed by experts for flaws , Peeples reports .
Stronger studies are under way , but some researchers disagree about the kind of evidence needed to prove the effectiveness of these face masks and about how the virus spreads , Peeples writes .
The story cites a review of multiple study findings that `` estimates that surgical and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in protecting the wearer.
” A virologist at Columbia University ’ s School of Public Health is quoted in the piece as saying , “ There ’ s a lot of information out there , but it ’ s confusing to put all the lines of evidence together .
When it comes down to it , we still don ’ t know a lot.
” The director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota says people should not trust cloth face-coverings to protect them from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crowded area , ” the story states .
Some good news : the wearing of face masks by members of the public seems to inspire people to do a better job at social distancing , the story suggests .
And they underscore a shared responsibility .
You might enjoy this sped-up video tweeted on 10/8/20 by TJ Cooney of a halftime performance celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing ( the original video can be found here ) .

The items below are highlights from the free newsletter, “Smart, useful, science stuff about COVID-19.” To receive newsletter issues daily in your inbox, sign up here.
David Tuller at Kaiser Health News reports that saliva tests for SARS-CoV-2 are catching on in the U.S., but only represent a “small percentage of the more than 900,000 tests conducted daily on average at the end of September." A University of Illinois chemist quoted in the 10/6/20 story says of saliva tests, “You don’t need swabs, you don’t need health care workers, you don’t need [chemicals to stabilize spit-samples], and you don’t need RNA isolation [extraction] kits.”
Meanwhile, two companies have abandoned each of their efforts to develop at-home saliva tests for SARS-CoV-2 antigens (antigen tests look for viral proteins or structures that provoke an immune response, not for pieces of the virus’s genetic material, like the tests in previous item), reports Katherine J. Wu at The New York Times (10/1/20). The story describes various ongoing efforts to develop saliva tests for the virus. “There’s still no consensus on how well saliva works for detecting the coronavirus compared with the fluids obtained by nose swabs,” Wu writes.
A project called covidestim out of the the Yale School of Public Health publishes an interactive visualization of new SARS-CoV-2 infections in the U.S. per 100,000 people over time. A reader drew my attention to a 10/1/20 tweet about the project by Howard Forman of the Yale School of Management. Updated daily based on a statistical model that yields real-time estimates of the epidemic’s spread in the U.S., the dark purple areas on the page’s U.S. map show low infection rates, while the brighter orange and yellow areas have higher infection rates. Forman writes that the map shows “how small areas matter more than geographic or political boundaries. There are hot and warm spots in most states.” The page also features graphs illustrating infections per 100,000 and estimated infection counts for each U.S. state over time, from mid-March to the present.
Adults aged 65 to 80 are most affected by COVID-19 but older adults are excluded from more than half of Phase 3 experiments on possible vaccines and treatments for COVID-19, concludes a study published 9/28/20 in JAMA Internal Medicine that Pratibha Gopalakrishna covered 9/30/20 at STAT. The analysis focuses on experiments indexed on Clinicaltrials.gov, a registry for experimental drug and treatment studies that are funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health among others.
Results published in the New England Journal of Medicine show that Moderna's vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 appears to be safe in older adults and provokes an immune response similar to that seen in younger adults, reports Julie Steenhuysen at Reuters (10/1/20). The safety study, an extension of Moderna’s Phase 1 vaccine experiment, involved “40 adults aged 56 to 70 and 71 and older,” Steenhuysen writes. A high-dose version of the vaccine candidate currently is undergoing a Phase 3 study to assess effectiveness and safety, the story states. Phase 3 studies can involve tens of thousands of subjects.
Concerns about U.S. political interference in the approval process for eventual vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 are well-founded, health experts tell Kaiser Health News (KHN), but several U.S. states’ plans to engage independent panels of experts to assess vaccines “may be misguided,” report JoNel Aleccia and Liz Szabo (10/7/20). The District of Columbia plans to convene such a panel, along with New York, California, Colorado, Michigan, Oregon, and West Virginia, according to the story. Any such work by states’ panels could undermine confidence in future vaccines, sources in the story state. The chair of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices told KHN he has “not felt pressured” by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, other government agencies, or pharmaceutical companies to make any particular recommendation. The story notes safeguards that could ensure that vaccine approvals adhere to standards set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
A 10/2/20 essay by Melinda Wenner Moyer for The New York Times explains why a negative test for SARS-CoV-2 does not guarantee that one is not infected. An incubation period after infection can delay a positive result on a test for several days, Moyer writes. Ideally, wait three to four days after being exposed to someone with the virus before getting tested, the essay states. And negative results should be evaluated in the context of whether one has COVID-19 symptoms, how widely the virus is circulating in one’s community, and attendance at large gatherings, the story states.
Some research shows that cloth face-masks worn by members of the public reduce the risk of catching and spreading SARS-CoV-2 and possibly even the severity of infections, reports Lynne Peeples for Nature (10/6/20). But evidence is thin in places, particularly regarding the effectiveness of surgical and cloth masks, and some relevant findings are posted online in reports that have yet to be assessed by experts for flaws, Peeples reports. Stronger studies are under way, but some researchers disagree about the kind of evidence needed to prove the effectiveness of these face masks and about how the virus spreads, Peeples writes. The story cites a review of multiple study findings that "estimates that surgical and comparable cloth masks are 67% effective in protecting the wearer.” A virologist at Columbia University’s School of Public Health is quoted in the piece as saying, “There’s a lot of information out there, but it’s confusing to put all the lines of evidence together. When it comes down to it, we still don’t know a lot.” The director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota says people should not trust cloth face-coverings to protect them from the virus when they are “in a crowded area,” the story states. Some good news: the wearing of face masks by members of the public seems to inspire people to do a better job at social distancing, the story suggests. And they underscore a shared responsibility.
You might enjoy this sped-up video tweeted on 10/8/20 by TJ Cooney of a halftime performance celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing (the original video can be found here).