scientificamerican--2020-08-25--India Is in Denial about the COVID Crisis

The Indian monsoon season is in full swing , drenching the streets of Mumbai and flooding the plains of Bihar .
But dark clouds of another kind—disease , hunger and death—are also gathering fast .
India is now ahead of all other countries in terms of the number of new recorded COVID-19 cases per day—close to 70,000 in mid-August .
That ’ s about one fourth of world-wide new cases .
Only two countries are anywhere close : Brazil and the United States ; and India has lagged behind those two countries in achieving a reduction in daily cases .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely to be a small fraction of all COVID-19 infections .
That could be true in many countries , but the ratio of infections to recorded cases seems particularly large in India—at least 20:1 , judging from two recent serological surveys , in Delhi and Mumbai respectively .
This would mean that India already had more than 50 million COVID-19 infections , compared with a recorded figure of 2.5 million .
The silver lining is that , for reasons that are as yet unclear , COVID-19 mortality in India seems relatively low .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ rate ( IFR ) may be as low as one per thousand .
If so , India may not be heading towards a major mortality crisis , or rather a major crisis of COVID-19 mortality , at least relative to normal levels of mortality .
COVID-19 deaths so far add up to less than 1 percent of annual deaths from all causes in India .
Per million population , there have been just 38 so far , compared with more than 500 in the US .
Overall mortality may spike , however , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health services have been massively displaced by COVID-19 .
So far , COVID-19 infections were heavily concentrated in large cities located in India ’ s more prosperous states : Delhi , Mumbai , Chennai , among others .
The preparedness of the health system is much higher there than elsewhere .
But recorded cases are now rising fast in India ’ s poorer states , where health services are very fragile .
As the COVID-19 crisis absorbs their meager resources , many public health centers have stopped providing routine services .
Even child @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many states .
Consider the state of Bihar .
If Bihar were a separate country , it would be one of the very poorest countries in the world , with a population of more than 100 million .
About half of all children in Bihar are stunted .
COVID-19 was late to reach Bihar , but recorded cases have recently crossed 100,000 and are now rising at 3 to 4 percent per day .
The state has fewer than 40 doctors per 100,000 population , compared with 90 in India and more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of life in Bihar ’ s public hospitals paint a grim picture of missing doctors , unattended patients , broken equipment and stray dogs .
Where are people with routine health problems supposed to go ?
The other reason for a possible mortality spike is that India ’ s prolonged national lockdown ( from late March until unlock phases began in June ) has destroyed millions of people ’ s livelihoods .
Local lockdowns continue in many states and are likely to persist off and on for months .
Unlike affluent countries , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way of a social security system , except for food subsidies and some relief work under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act .
The employment crisis has already hit poor households really hard : recent surveys by Dalberg , Azim Premji University , the Center for the Study of Developing Societies ( CSDS ) and others reveal extreme food insecurity during and after the lockdown .
Just to cite one , 78 percent of the 25,000 respondents in the nationwide CSDS survey said that they had found it “ quite difficult ” or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ families during the lockdown .
Acute food insecurity is very likely to translate into higher mortality .
For children , it also means lasting damage from malnutrition .
To invoke Bihar again , more than half of the workforce there consists of casual laborers who live on the margin of subsistence at the best of times .
A recent survey of some 20,000 returning migrant workers found that 60 percent were unable to ensure two square meals for all members of the family .
With the local economy in the doldrums , except @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a prolonged period of underemployment and hunger .
For good measure , Bihar is affected by devastating floods , as often happens at this time of the year .
Yet the state government seems more preoccupied with the coming assembly elections than with these multiple crises .
The situation is not much better in other poverty-stricken states of India such as Jharkhand , Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal .
With tax revenue a fraction of normal levels , state governments are finding it difficult to provide more than symbolic relief .
Alas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to help them .
It did launch some limited relief measures during the national lockdown , such as free food-grain rations of five kilograms per person per month for two thirds of India ’ s population .
But now it seems to have lost interest and left it to the state governments to handle the crisis .
In this as in other domains , the Indian government seems more focused on public relations than enlightened action .
For a long time , it forcefully denied any “ community transmission ” of COVID-19 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ millions .
When an early analysis of official data exposed the disruption of routine health services , the central government retracted the data .
Doctors and nurses critical of the government ’ s crisis response have been muzzled or harassed , as have many journalists .
Muddled statistics are routinely invoked to reassure the public that all is well : the Ministry of Health recently boasted , for instance , that COVID-19 recoveries had “ crossed the historic peak of 1.5 million ” —a meaningless achievement since COVID-19 has a recovery rate of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In its hurry to turn India into a viswaguru ( world leader ) , the Modi government seems to have little patience for a humanitarian crisis .
Yet denying a crisis is the surest way to make it worse .

The Indian monsoon season is in full swing, drenching the streets of Mumbai and flooding the plains of Bihar. But dark clouds of another kind—disease, hunger and death—are also gathering fast.
India is now ahead of all other countries in terms of the number of new recorded COVID-19 cases per day—close to 70,000 in mid-August. That’s about one fourth of world-wide new cases. Only two countries are anywhere close: Brazil and the United States; and India has lagged behind those two countries in achieving a reduction in daily cases.
Further, recorded cases in India are likely to be a small fraction of all COVID-19 infections. That could be true in many countries, but the ratio of infections to recorded cases seems particularly large in India—at least 20:1, judging from two recent serological surveys, in Delhi and Mumbai respectively. This would mean that India already had more than 50 million COVID-19 infections, compared with a recorded figure of 2.5 million.
The silver lining is that, for reasons that are as yet unclear, COVID-19 mortality in India seems relatively low. The same surveys suggest that the infection-fatality rate (IFR) may be as low as one per thousand. If so, India may not be heading towards a major mortality crisis, or rather a major crisis of COVID-19 mortality, at least relative to normal levels of mortality. COVID-19 deaths so far add up to less than 1 percent of annual deaths from all causes in India. Per million population, there have been just 38 so far, compared with more than 500 in the US.
Overall mortality may spike, however, for two reasons. First, routine health services have been massively displaced by COVID-19. So far, COVID-19 infections were heavily concentrated in large cities located in India’s more prosperous states: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, among others. The preparedness of the health system is much higher there than elsewhere. But recorded cases are now rising fast in India’s poorer states, where health services are very fragile. As the COVID-19 crisis absorbs their meager resources, many public health centers have stopped providing routine services. Even child immunization has been discontinued for months in many states.
Consider the state of Bihar. If Bihar were a separate country, it would be one of the very poorest countries in the world, with a population of more than 100 million. About half of all children in Bihar are stunted. COVID-19 was late to reach Bihar, but recorded cases have recently crossed 100,000 and are now rising at 3 to 4 percent per day. The state has fewer than 40 doctors per 100,000 population, compared with 90 in India and more than 250 in the US. Firsthand accounts of life in Bihar’s public hospitals paint a grim picture of missing doctors, unattended patients, broken equipment and stray dogs. Where are people with routine health problems supposed to go?
The other reason for a possible mortality spike is that India’s prolonged national lockdown (from late March until unlock phases began in June) has destroyed millions of people’s livelihoods. Local lockdowns continue in many states and are likely to persist off and on for months. Unlike affluent countries, India has very little to show by way of a social security system, except for food subsidies and some relief work under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The employment crisis has already hit poor households really hard: recent surveys by Dalberg, Azim Premji University, the Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and others reveal extreme food insecurity during and after the lockdown. Just to cite one, 78 percent of the 25,000 respondents in the nationwide CSDS survey said that they had found it “quite difficult” or “very difficult” to feed their families during the lockdown. Acute food insecurity is very likely to translate into higher mortality. For children, it also means lasting damage from malnutrition.
To invoke Bihar again, more than half of the workforce there consists of casual laborers who live on the margin of subsistence at the best of times. A recent survey of some 20,000 returning migrant workers found that 60 percent were unable to ensure two square meals for all members of the family. With the local economy in the doldrums, except for farming, casual workers are heading for a prolonged period of underemployment and hunger. For good measure, Bihar is affected by devastating floods, as often happens at this time of the year. Yet the state government seems more preoccupied with the coming assembly elections than with these multiple crises.
The situation is not much better in other poverty-stricken states of India such as Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. With tax revenue a fraction of normal levels, state governments are finding it difficult to provide more than symbolic relief. Alas, the central government is doing little to help them. It did launch some limited relief measures during the national lockdown, such as free food-grain rations of five kilograms per person per month for two thirds of India’s population. But now it seems to have lost interest and left it to the state governments to handle the crisis.
In this as in other domains, the Indian government seems more focused on public relations than enlightened action. For a long time, it forcefully denied any “community transmission” of COVID-19, even as recorded cases were counted in millions. When an early analysis of official data exposed the disruption of routine health services, the central government retracted the data. Doctors and nurses critical of the government’s crisis response have been muzzled or harassed, as have many journalists. Muddled statistics are routinely invoked to reassure the public that all is well: the Ministry of Health recently boasted, for instance, that COVID-19 recoveries had “crossed the historic peak of 1.5 million”—a meaningless achievement since COVID-19 has a recovery rate of more than 99 percent in India.
In its hurry to turn India into a viswaguru (world leader), the Modi government seems to have little patience for a humanitarian crisis. Yet denying a crisis is the surest way to make it worse.


scientificamerican--2020-08-25--'Warp Speed' COVID-19 Vaccine Efforts Aim for Diverse Volunteers and Long-Lasting Protection

In late July , volunteers began receiving doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine in the latest stage of a clinical trial at NYU Langone Health in New York City .
The more than 1,000 names on the waiting list suggest the local response to the trial “ has been outstanding , ” says Mark Mulligan , an infectious disease specialist who directs NYU Langone ’ s Vaccine Center .
“ People are fed up with this disease and very motivated to help.
” The vaccine , which was co-developed by the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and the German company BioNTech , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ develop immunizations for COVID-19 that are currently conducting or preparing to start phase III clinical trials—late-stage studies that test for efficacy and safety .
Six of these efforts are backed by Operation Warp Speed , a Trump administration program with the optimistic goal of beginning mass inoculations against the disease in the U.S. by January .
During the trials , enrolled subjects will get experimental shots or a placebo , and investigators will observe whether those who received the vaccine develop infections and illness at lower rates .
These assessments “ will ultimately @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vaccines can be used , ” says Penny Heaton , CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute .
The institute is not directly involved in the efforts to develop a vaccine against COVID-19 , but it is working on vaccines for other viral diseases around the world .
Phase III clinical trials often take years to reach their conclusion .
But vaccine developers now plan to test their candidates on rushed schedules that have sparked concerns over political meddling .
( The concerns are not without merit : on August @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vaccine despite the fact that the drug has not been tested in large-scale trials . )
U.S. officials have insisted their own vaccines will be thoroughly vetted before approval .
Experts say such trials should also include adequate representation from vulnerable subgroups at high risk from COVID-19 , including the elderly , minority racial groups and individuals with underlying health problems .
Adding to the challenge , a growing number of people have shown skepticism toward an eventual vaccine .
And the trials have to answer key questions about how well human immune @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus behind the disease .
Results from animal tests and early human safety studies look promising : vaccines generate encouraging immune responses , and the side effects they trigger—usually headache , arm pain , fatigue and fever—resolve quickly in most people .
Yet only phase III clinical trials can show which vaccines—if any—will actually provide protection .
The trick to delivering fast answers on vaccine safety and efficacy is to enroll large numbers of people , says Peter Gilbert , a biostatistician at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center .
Bigger study populations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a shorter amount of time than smaller ones , which are followed for longer periods .
Each of the phase III clinical trials in the U.S. aims to enroll 30,000 individuals .
This number is the lowest needed to rigorously show that 50 percent of people are protected from getting COVID-19 over six months—the Food and Drug Administration ’ s minimum bar for approval .
Investigators will monitor the vaccinated and placebo , or control , groups until the number of symptomatic infections between them reaches 150 .
If the researchers can show @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that cases in the vaccinated group add up to half of those in the control group or fewer , the vaccine will have met its primary target .
“ Still , none of us will really be happy with 50 percent , ” says Gilbert , who leads the statistical center for the federal government ’ s COVID-19 Prevention Trials Network , an organization that is trying to recruit volunteers for the phase III studies .
“ We all want 90 to 95 percent protection.
” Should a vaccine prove far more protective @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he adds , there may be no need to wait for 150 cases .
“ We might look at 50 cases , and if the vaccine reduces disease rates by 80 percent , we might declare it successful and [ apply ] for approval within three to four months , ” Gilbert says .
Crucially , FDA guidelines for COVID-19 vaccine developers call for ideally monitoring participants over an additional one to two years after approval to assess how long protection lasts in the general population and whether vaccinated people who become @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also encourage—but do not require—that vaccine developers enroll subpopulations most affected by COVID-19 , such as Black and Latino people , who are far more likely to become infected and die of the disease .
Doing so may not be easy .
Black Americans , in particular , have reason to be distrustful of clinical research , partly as a consequence of the Tuskegee study .
( That 40-year experiment was as an investigation of untreated syphilis .
When an effective penicillin treatment became available , the researchers unethically withheld it . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ we have to engage them by reaching out to community-based organizations , such as churches , neighborhood groups , barbershops and stylists , and Black colleges , ” says Patricia Whitley-Williams , a pediatrician who specializes in infectious diseases at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School .
“ It ’ s essential that we tell our people of color that they ’ ve been sufficiently represented in the COVID-19 clinical trials.
” Kathrin Jansen , who leads vaccine research and development at Pfizer , agrees on the need to increase the representation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s ongoing vaccine trial , which is enrolling people between the ages of 18 and 85 at sites across the U.S. , Europe and South America .
“ This is something we ’ re actively looking into , ” she says .
Most of the people enrolled during Pfizer and BioNTech ’ s earlier-phase trials were white , NYU Langone ’ s Mulligan says .
“ But we ’ re hoping to significantly change that for the phase III , ” Jansen says .
The study does not set quantitative targets for minority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ monitored centrally , and feedback will be provided to each of the participating locations , '' Mulligan says .
“ We are committed to enrolling those most affected.
” Trial investigators will not only assess whether vaccines lower COVID-19 disease rates ; they will go a step further by probing the specific “ correlates of protection ” in blood samples that show if someone is , in fact , immune to the disease .
Preliminary research suggests that so-called neutralizing antibodies play outsize roles in protection .
These roving molecules deflect SARS-CoV-2 from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ preventing infection .
A July study reported that another Warp Speed vaccine contender , co-developed by Johnson & Johnson , elicited neutralizing antibodies that were detected at high levels in macaque monkeys .
When the researchers then exposed the animals to COVID-19 , they were totally protected after a single vaccine dose .
The company plans to launch its phase III clinical trial in September .
Among the other Operation Warp Speed companies , Moderna and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases are already conducting a phase III trial of their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one in the fall .
Legal agreements with each company stipulate how many millions of vaccine doses , at a minimum , the U.S. government will buy ( it aims to deliver 300 million by January ) .
The government has the option to purchase millions of additional doses , but it is not obligated to buy them if a vaccine is not approved .
Questions remain about the durability of the protection any vaccine will afford people , however .
Antibody levels can fall off soon after recovery , and that possibility @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wane quickly in those who have recovered from the illness or been vaccinated .
Yet Heaton strikes a more positive tone .
“ Ideally , you ’ ll get immunological memory , so that even if your antibodies wane , they ’ ll shoot back up when you ’ re reexposed to the virus , ” she says .
Phase III studies will monitor antibodies over time , Heaton adds , along with the actions of another key immune component , T cells , which might provide reinforcements .
Killer T cells , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ destroying their viral invaders in the process .
But the response can cut two ways : these cells might also contribute to hyperactive immune reactions that are deadly for some patients .
“ We still need a much better understanding of how T cells respond to SARS-CoV-2 infection , ” says Avery August , an immunologist at Cornell University ’ s College of Veterinary Medicine , who studies T cell responses to COVID-19 infections .
“ But overall , I ’ m optimistic about the vaccine candidates going into phase III .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but the immune responses so far look promising.
” Read more about the coronavirus outbreak from Scientific American here .
And read coverage from our international network of magazines here .

Editor’s Note (9/4/20): The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just alerted states to prepare for a novel coronavirus vaccine as early as November. In this story, Scientific American describes how the fast-track vaccine trials work and how they measure effectiveness and safety.
In late July, volunteers began receiving doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine in the latest stage of a clinical trial at NYU Langone Health in New York City. The more than 1,000 names on the waiting list suggest the local response to the trial “has been outstanding,” says Mark Mulligan, an infectious disease specialist who directs NYU Langone’s Vaccine Center. “People are fed up with this disease and very motivated to help.”
The vaccine, which was co-developed by the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and the German company BioNTech, is among front-runner efforts worldwide to develop immunizations for COVID-19 that are currently conducting or preparing to start phase III clinical trials—late-stage studies that test for efficacy and safety.* Six of these efforts are backed by Operation Warp Speed, a Trump administration program with the optimistic goal of beginning mass inoculations against the disease in the U.S. by January. During the trials, enrolled subjects will get experimental shots or a placebo, and investigators will observe whether those who received the vaccine develop infections and illness at lower rates. These assessments “will ultimately support regulatory approval and recommendations for how vaccines can be used,” says Penny Heaton, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute. The institute is not directly involved in the efforts to develop a vaccine against COVID-19, but it is working on vaccines for other viral diseases around the world.
Phase III clinical trials often take years to reach their conclusion. But vaccine developers now plan to test their candidates on rushed schedules that have sparked concerns over political meddling. (The concerns are not without merit: on August 11 Russia announced it had approved a vaccine despite the fact that the drug has not been tested in large-scale trials.) U.S. officials have insisted their own vaccines will be thoroughly vetted before approval. Experts say such trials should also include adequate representation from vulnerable subgroups at high risk from COVID-19, including the elderly, minority racial groups and individuals with underlying health problems. Adding to the challenge, a growing number of people have shown skepticism toward an eventual vaccine. And the trials have to answer key questions about how well human immune systems protect against SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus behind the disease. Results from animal tests and early human safety studies look promising: vaccines generate encouraging immune responses, and the side effects they trigger—usually headache, arm pain, fatigue and fever—resolve quickly in most people. Yet only phase III clinical trials can show which vaccines—if any—will actually provide protection.
Strategizing for Speed
The trick to delivering fast answers on vaccine safety and efficacy is to enroll large numbers of people, says Peter Gilbert, a biostatistician at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Bigger study populations capture more incidences of viral exposure in a shorter amount of time than smaller ones, which are followed for longer periods. Each of the phase III clinical trials in the U.S. aims to enroll 30,000 individuals. This number is the lowest needed to rigorously show that 50 percent of people are protected from getting COVID-19 over six months—the Food and Drug Administration’s minimum bar for approval.
Investigators will monitor the vaccinated and placebo, or control, groups until the number of symptomatic infections between them reaches 150. If the researchers can show, with 95 percent statistical confidence, that cases in the vaccinated group add up to half of those in the control group or fewer, the vaccine will have met its primary target. “Still, none of us will really be happy with 50 percent,” says Gilbert, who leads the statistical center for the federal government’s COVID-19 Prevention Trials Network, an organization that is trying to recruit volunteers for the phase III studies. “We all want 90 to 95 percent protection.” Should a vaccine prove far more protective than the FDA’s minimum bar, he adds, there may be no need to wait for 150 cases. “We might look at 50 cases, and if the vaccine reduces disease rates by 80 percent, we might declare it successful and [apply] for approval within three to four months,” Gilbert says.
Crucially, FDA guidelines for COVID-19 vaccine developers call for ideally monitoring participants over an additional one to two years after approval to assess how long protection lasts in the general population and whether vaccinated people who become infected develop worse symptoms.
Enrolling a Diverse Group
The guidelines also encourage—but do not require—that vaccine developers enroll subpopulations most affected by COVID-19, such as Black and Latino people, who are far more likely to become infected and die of the disease. Doing so may not be easy. Black Americans, in particular, have reason to be distrustful of clinical research, partly as a consequence of the Tuskegee study. (That 40-year experiment was as an investigation of untreated syphilis. When an effective penicillin treatment became available, the researchers unethically withheld it.) To recruit more people of color, “we have to engage them by reaching out to community-based organizations, such as churches, neighborhood groups, barbershops and stylists, and Black colleges,” says Patricia Whitley-Williams, a pediatrician who specializes in infectious diseases at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. “It’s essential that we tell our people of color that they’ve been sufficiently represented in the COVID-19 clinical trials.”
Kathrin Jansen, who leads vaccine research and development at Pfizer, agrees on the need to increase the representation of racial minorities in the company’s ongoing vaccine trial, which is enrolling people between the ages of 18 and 85 at sites across the U.S., Europe and South America. “This is something we’re actively looking into,” she says. Most of the people enrolled during Pfizer and BioNTech’s earlier-phase trials were white, NYU Langone’s Mulligan says. “But we’re hoping to significantly change that for the phase III,” Jansen says. The study does not set quantitative targets for minority recruitment, “but it will be monitored centrally, and feedback will be provided to each of the participating locations," Mulligan says. “We are committed to enrolling those most affected.”
Defining Markers of Protection
Trial investigators will not only assess whether vaccines lower COVID-19 disease rates; they will go a step further by probing the specific “correlates of protection” in blood samples that show if someone is, in fact, immune to the disease. Preliminary research suggests that so-called neutralizing antibodies play outsize roles in protection. These roving molecules deflect SARS-CoV-2 from attaching to its host cell receptor, preventing infection. A July study reported that another Warp Speed vaccine contender, co-developed by Johnson & Johnson, elicited neutralizing antibodies that were detected at high levels in macaque monkeys. When the researchers then exposed the animals to COVID-19, they were totally protected after a single vaccine dose. The company plans to launch its phase III clinical trial in September. Among the other Operation Warp Speed companies, Moderna and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases are already conducting a phase III trial of their vaccine, and Novavax is set to start one in the fall. Legal agreements with each company stipulate how many millions of vaccine doses, at a minimum, the U.S. government will buy (it aims to deliver 300 million by January). The government has the option to purchase millions of additional doses, but it is not obligated to buy them if a vaccine is not approved.
Questions remain about the durability of the protection any vaccine will afford people, however. Antibody levels can fall off soon after recovery, and that possibility has raised fears that COVID-19 immunity might wane quickly in those who have recovered from the illness or been vaccinated. Yet Heaton strikes a more positive tone. “Ideally, you’ll get immunological memory, so that even if your antibodies wane, they’ll shoot back up when you’re reexposed to the virus,” she says. Phase III studies will monitor antibodies over time, Heaton adds, along with the actions of another key immune component, T cells, which might provide reinforcements. Killer T cells, in particular, eliminate infected cells, destroying their viral invaders in the process. But the response can cut two ways: these cells might also contribute to hyperactive immune reactions that are deadly for some patients. “We still need a much better understanding of how T cells respond to SARS-CoV-2 infection,” says Avery August, an immunologist at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, who studies T cell responses to COVID-19 infections. “But overall, I’m optimistic about the vaccine candidates going into phase III. We have a lot more to learn, but the immune responses so far look promising.”
Read more about the coronavirus outbreak from Scientific American here. And read coverage from our international network of magazines here.
*Editor’s Note (8/25/20): This sentence was edited after posting to correct a reference to the number of front-runner efforts.


scientificamerican--2020-08-28--End of 'Green Sahara' May Have Spurred a Megadrought in Southeast Asia

Ten thousand years ago , the Sahara had extensive grasslands , and was dotted with lakes and trees .
But some 5,000 years ago , that `` Green Sahara '' dried up , to become the enormous desert we know today .
And scientists now think that this climate shift had effects far away—including causing a megadrought in southeast Asia .
Kathleen R. Johnson , a paleoclimatologist and geochemist at the University of California Irvine , says the key to that discovery were stalagmites , collected in a cave in northern Laos .
`` Stalagmites are really amazing archives of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ familiar with things like tree rings and ice cores or ocean sediment cores .
Well , stalagmites work in a similar way , in that they 're deposited over time . ''
Johnson 's team analyzed trace elements and carbon and oxygen isotopes in the hardened cave drippings .
That information enables researchers to determine rainfall patterns over the millennia .
And Johnson and colleagues discovered signs of a thousand-year-long drought in Laos , which began around the same time the Sahara dried up—about 5,000 years ago .
As for WHY the two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ simulated the drying out of the Sahara using climate models — and they included a couple things we know happened , including the subsequent disappearance of vegetation , and a connected increase in airborne dust — and found those variables would have been capable of cooling down the Indian Ocean .
`` And so those cooler ocean temperatures led to less moisture being brought by monsoon circulation in the summertime , when that region gets most of its rainfall . ''
The details are in the journal Nature Communications .
[ Michael L. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sahara amplified mid- to late Holocene megadroughts in mainland Southeast Asia ] One of Johnson 's co-authors is Joyce White , a consulting scholar at the Penn Museum .
She studies the HUMAN history of southeast Asia .
And her reaction when she first heard about the drought : `` I said , oh my god , that 's the missing millennia . ''
The 'missing millennia ' because she says archaeological data is scant in that part of southeast Asia , from four to six thousand years ago .
White says it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hunter-gatherers gave way to farmers .
`` And there are a lot of debates about how the two periods related to each other , but we lacked the evidence in the area I 'm most interested in , which is the Mekong Valley . ''
White says this study does n't answer that question directly—but the megadrought is a tantalizing new clue for archaeologists , as they continue to investigate those 'missing millennia . '
[ The above text is a transcript of this podcast . ]

Full Transcript
Ten thousand years ago, the Sahara had extensive grasslands and was dotted with lakes and trees. But some 5,000 years ago, that “Green Sahara” dried up to become the enormous desert we know today. And scientists now think that this climate shift had effects far away—including causing a megadrought in Southeast Asia.
Kathleen R. Johnson, a paleoclimatologist and geochemist at the University of California, Irvine, says the key to that discovery were stalagmites collected in a cave in northern Laos.
“Stalagmites are really amazing archives of past climate variability. People are more familiar with things like tree rings and ice cores or ocean sediment cores. Well, stalagmites work in a similar way, in that they’re deposited over time.”
Johnson’s team analyzed trace elements and carbon and oxygen isotopes in the hardened cave drippings. That information enables researchers to determine rainfall patterns over the millennia. And Johnson and colleagues discovered signs of a 1,000-year-long drought in Laos, which began around the same time the Sahara dried up—about 5,000 years ago.
As for why the two events might be connected? The researchers simulated the drying out of the Sahara using climate models—and they included a couple things we know happened, including the subsequent disappearance of vegetation and a connected increase in airborne dust—and found those variables would have been capable of cooling down the Indian Ocean.
“And so those cooler ocean temperatures led to less moisture being brought by monsoon circulation in the summertime, when that region gets most of its rainfall.”
The details are in the journal Nature Communications. [Michael L. Griffiths et al., End of Green Sahara amplified mid- to late Holocene megadroughts in mainland Southeast Asia]
One of Johnson’s co-authors is Joyce White, a consulting scholar at the Penn Museum. She studies the human history of Southeast Asia. And her reaction when she first heard about the drought:
“I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s the missing millennia.’”
The “missing millennia” because she says archaeological data is scant in that part of Southeast Asia, from 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. White says it’s a critical period in which hunter-gatherers gave way to farmers.
“And there are a lot of debates about how the two periods related to each other, but we lacked the evidence in the area I’m most interested in, which is the Mekong Valley.”
White says this study doesn’t answer that question directly—but the megadrought is a tantalizing new clue for archaeologists as they continue to investigate those “missing millennia.”
—Christopher Intagliata
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]


scientificamerican--2020-08-27--Antarctica's Ice Shelves May Be at Growing Risk of Collapse

Antarctica ’ s Larsen B ice shelf—a large ledge of ice , jutting out from the edge of the continent into the ocean—captured international attention in 2002 .
Over the course of just a few weeks , the ice shelf splintered , broke into pieces and collapsed entirely into the sea .
Nearly 20 years later , it ’ s still one of the most dramatic events that scientists have observed in Antarctica .
But it may not be the last .
New research suggests some of the same factors that caused the demise of Larsen B could threaten dozens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coast .
It doesn ’ t mean they ’ re in immediate danger of collapse .
But as the Southern Hemisphere warms—and the ice sheet melts at faster rates—the risk could be rising .
Scientists believe surface melting on the Antarctic ice sheet was a major contributor to the collapse of Larsen B .
The process goes something like this : As the ice melts , liquid meltwater flows along the surface of the continent and seeps into cracks in the ice .
The water then refreezes inside these cracks , expanding as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expansion widens the cracks , putting more stress on the ice .
Eventually , the pressure becomes too much and the ice splinters and breaks into pieces .
In extreme situations , this process can cause entire ice shelves to disintegrate .
It ’ s a process known as “ hydrofracturing.
” And a new study , published yesterday in Nature , suggests that more than half of Antarctica ’ s ice shelves could be at risk .
The study takes a unique approach to the question .
The researchers , led by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a neural network—a kind of machine learning algorithm—to recognize fractures in Antarctic ice shelves on satellite images .
They used this information to determine where these kinds of cracks were most likely to form and which ice shelves might be at risk of crumbling if enough meltwater flowed across them .
The biggest concern about collapsing ice shelves is how they may affect the rest of the ice sheet .
Many ice shelves help to stabilize the glaciers behind them .
If they break apart , they can unleash an unstoppable deluge of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ global sea-level rise .
With that in mind , the researchers mapped out which vulnerable ice shelves are also key stabilizers of the ice sheet .
They found that about 60 % of all the ice shelves around Antarctica meet both criteria : They ’ re holding back large volumes of ice behind them , and they ’ re potentially vulnerable to hydrofracture .
The study doesn ’ t suggest they ’ re in danger of collapse any time soon .
Hydrofracturing doesn ’ t happen until enough liquid water is flowing over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it warns that enough future melting could put them at risk .
For now , most of the ice loss in Antarctica is happening from the bottom up , not the top down .
Warm ocean waters are lapping against glaciers at the edge of the continent , seeping underneath the ice shelves and thinning them from below .
But as the climate continues to warm , more melting may happen on the surface of the ice sheet .
The new study doesn ’ t include any estimates on how soon these ice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it highlights the locations that scientists should keep an eye on , according to Jeremy Bassis , a scientist at the University of Michigan .
In published commentary on the new research , he noted the findings “ show that large sections that are currently stable could collapse as atmospheric temperatures continue to rise.
” And the combination of warming ocean waters and rising atmospheric temperatures could be a dangerous pair , he added .
Antarctic ice shelves may increasingly be at risk of a double whammy : simultaneous weakening of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ understanding of the effects of both the ocean and the atmosphere is needed to accurately predict the fate of ice shelves in a warming climate , ” he wrote , “ because ice shelves are vulnerable to attack from above and below.
” Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E & E News .
E & E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net .

Antarctica’s Larsen B ice shelf—a large ledge of ice, jutting out from the edge of the continent into the ocean—captured international attention in 2002. Over the course of just a few weeks, the ice shelf splintered, broke into pieces and collapsed entirely into the sea.
Nearly 20 years later, it’s still one of the most dramatic events that scientists have observed in Antarctica.
But it may not be the last. New research suggests some of the same factors that caused the demise of Larsen B could threaten dozens of other ice shelves around the Antarctic coast.
It doesn’t mean they’re in immediate danger of collapse. But as the Southern Hemisphere warms—and the ice sheet melts at faster rates—the risk could be rising.
Scientists believe surface melting on the Antarctic ice sheet was a major contributor to the collapse of Larsen B. The process goes something like this: As the ice melts, liquid meltwater flows along the surface of the continent and seeps into cracks in the ice. The water then refreezes inside these cracks, expanding as it turns back into ice.
The expansion widens the cracks, putting more stress on the ice. Eventually, the pressure becomes too much and the ice splinters and breaks into pieces. In extreme situations, this process can cause entire ice shelves to disintegrate.
It’s a process known as “hydrofracturing.” And a new study, published yesterday in Nature, suggests that more than half of Antarctica’s ice shelves could be at risk.
The study takes a unique approach to the question.
The researchers, led by Ching-Yao Lai of Columbia University, trained a neural network—a kind of machine learning algorithm—to recognize fractures in Antarctic ice shelves on satellite images.
They used this information to determine where these kinds of cracks were most likely to form and which ice shelves might be at risk of crumbling if enough meltwater flowed across them.
The biggest concern about collapsing ice shelves is how they may affect the rest of the ice sheet. Many ice shelves help to stabilize the glaciers behind them. If they break apart, they can unleash an unstoppable deluge of ice into the ocean, contributing to global sea-level rise.
With that in mind, the researchers mapped out which vulnerable ice shelves are also key stabilizers of the ice sheet.
They found that about 60% of all the ice shelves around Antarctica meet both criteria: They’re holding back large volumes of ice behind them, and they’re potentially vulnerable to hydrofracture.
The study doesn’t suggest they’re in danger of collapse any time soon. Hydrofracturing doesn’t happen until enough liquid water is flowing over the top of the ice.
But it warns that enough future melting could put them at risk.
For now, most of the ice loss in Antarctica is happening from the bottom up, not the top down. Warm ocean waters are lapping against glaciers at the edge of the continent, seeping underneath the ice shelves and thinning them from below.
But as the climate continues to warm, more melting may happen on the surface of the ice sheet.
The new study doesn’t include any estimates on how soon these ice shelves may be at risk.
Still, it highlights the locations that scientists should keep an eye on, according to Jeremy Bassis, a scientist at the University of Michigan.
In published commentary on the new research, he noted the findings “show that large sections that are currently stable could collapse as atmospheric temperatures continue to rise.”
And the combination of warming ocean waters and rising atmospheric temperatures could be a dangerous pair, he added. Antarctic ice shelves may increasingly be at risk of a double whammy: simultaneous weakening of the top and bottom.
A “deeper understanding of the effects of both the ocean and the atmosphere is needed to accurately predict the fate of ice shelves in a warming climate,” he wrote, “because ice shelves are vulnerable to attack from above and below.”
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.


scientificamerican--2020-08-27--Hurricanes and Wildfires Are Compounding COVID-19 Risks

With the Hurricane Laura hitting Louisiana and Texas as an “ extremely dangerous ” Category 4 storm and wildfires menacing the western U.S. , millions of Americans are facing the complex risks of a natural disaster striking in the middle of a pandemic .
The steps people normally take to prepare for a severe storm or to evacuate can contradict the public health recommendations for protecting themselves and others from COVID-19 .
That ’ s what millions of people were facing as Hurricane Laura intensified in the Gulf of Mexico .
More than half a million people were under evacuation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Beaumont and Port Arthur , Texas .
My urban resilience lab at Texas A & M University has been examining interactions between urban infrastructure , systems and people in disasters .
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic , we launched a study into the effect of the pandemic on urban systems during a natural disaster , applying similar methods we used during extensive research on Hurricane Harvey , which flooded Houston in August 2017 .
Our research shows that compound disasters have complex ramifications .
At the intersection of a natural hazard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fraught with contradictions .
During the three days before Hurricane Harvey hit , the number of grocery store and gas station visits in the Houston area increased by 50 % to 100 % .
People didn ’ t think twice about running to the store .
As Hurricane Laura headed for the Louisiana and Texas coasts , residents were in very a different situation .
The rise of COVID-19 illnesses and deaths across the South during the summer meant people were encouraged to self-quarantine and limit their social contact to prevent transmitting the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in stores , but keeping the recommended six feet apart gets harder when stores get crowded .
It means spending more time waiting with others in lines and jostling in the aisles .
Research shows that both the amount of virus and the amount of time a person is exposed to it have an impact on whether they get infected and how severely .
An even more onerous complication – for both authorities and residents – is evacuation .
The decision to evacuate in the face of even a single hazard , whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ difficult .
Sheltering in place can mean life-threatening conditions , prolonged power outages and disrupted access to critical facilities .
Evacuating means leaving behind one ’ s house and possibly animals to an uncertain fate .
That ’ s complicated further when an emergency shelter is the best choice , but staying in one can mean a higher risk of being exposed to someone infected with the coronavirus .
Which areas are most vulnerable ?
Authorities assess many variables when deciding between mandatory and voluntary evacuations .
In the face of a pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about disease transmission – and not just in individual emergency shelters but also on a larger scale .
When a large population moves from an area with a high rate of disease spread to a less affected area , it can put the local population at higher risk .
Using data on social vulnerability , pandemic risk and hazard probability , my lab created an interactive map that pinpoints sources of vulnerability .
The goal is to enable disaster response managers and decision makers to recognize the compound risks posed by the confluence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The compound hazard risk index takes into consideration the social , physical and pandemic risks at the local level , enabling each county or community to make informed decisions .
It also raises warnings about vulnerable groups , such as the elderly and low-income communities , which may suffer a disproportionate risk of infection .
We found several counties with significantly high levels of compound risks .
For example , Harris County , Texas , home to Houston , has a large number of COVID-19 cases and is also vulnerable to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heads for the region , the index can help raise red flags , particularly for local health officials and hospitals , about the risks of exacerbating the pandemic there and in counties where people may go in an evacuation .
Conversely , a county with low hurricane and flooding risks might normally be seen as a suitable location for evacuation , but if it has a high rate of COVID-19 , that raises the risk for evacuees who would need to spend time in shelters , hotels , restaurants and stores .
Getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a natural disaster .
Hospitals may see an influx of injuries , and wildfires and flooding can block access to critical health care facilities , damage the buildings , cut power to homes and care facilities and shut down pandemic testing locations .
Other researchers have also explored the potential for an evacuation spreading COVID-19 .
In a recent study of evacuation patterns and COVID-19 cases in Florida , researchers at the Union of Concerned Scientists estimated that if a Category 3 hurricane hit Southeast Florida , the difference in that region between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus transmission rates versus those with high rates could be as high as 50,000 new COVID-19 cases .
As our research shows , preparing for and responding to the compound disaster of a natural hazard in the midst of a pandemic is an undertaking more complicated than the sum of its parts .
This story was updated Aug. 27 with Hurricane Laura making landfall .
Ph.D. students Jennifer Dargin and Qingchun Li and undergraduate students Gabrielle Jawer , Sara Garcia , Xin Xiao , and Bora Oztekin contributed to the research on compound @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jan Gerston contributed to this article .
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license .
Read the original article .

With the Hurricane Laura hitting Louisiana and Texas as an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm and wildfires menacing the western U.S., millions of Americans are facing the complex risks of a natural disaster striking in the middle of a pandemic.
The steps people normally take to prepare for a severe storm or to evacuate can contradict the public health recommendations for protecting themselves and others from COVID-19. That’s what millions of people were facing as Hurricane Laura intensified in the Gulf of Mexico. More than half a million people were under evacuation orders, including the cities Galveston, Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas.
My urban resilience lab at Texas A&M University has been examining interactions between urban infrastructure, systems and people in disasters. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we launched a study into the effect of the pandemic on urban systems during a natural disaster, applying similar methods we used during extensive research on Hurricane Harvey, which flooded Houston in August 2017.
Our research shows that compound disasters have complex ramifications. At the intersection of a natural hazard and a pandemic is a decision process fraught with contradictions.
Storm prep and evacuations raise the risks
During the three days before Hurricane Harvey hit, the number of grocery store and gas station visits in the Houston area increased by 50% to 100%. People didn’t think twice about running to the store.
As Hurricane Laura headed for the Louisiana and Texas coasts, residents were in very a different situation. The rise of COVID-19 illnesses and deaths across the South during the summer meant people were encouraged to self-quarantine and limit their social contact to prevent transmitting the coronavirus. They could still wear masks in stores, but keeping the recommended six feet apart gets harder when stores get crowded. It means spending more time waiting with others in lines and jostling in the aisles. Research shows that both the amount of virus and the amount of time a person is exposed to it have an impact on whether they get infected and how severely.
An even more onerous complication – for both authorities and residents – is evacuation.
The decision to evacuate in the face of even a single hazard, whether a wildfire or a hurricane, is difficult. Sheltering in place can mean life-threatening conditions, prolonged power outages and disrupted access to critical facilities. Evacuating means leaving behind one’s house and possibly animals to an uncertain fate.
That’s complicated further when an emergency shelter is the best choice, but staying in one can mean a higher risk of being exposed to someone infected with the coronavirus.
Which areas are most vulnerable?
Authorities assess many variables when deciding between mandatory and voluntary evacuations. In the face of a pandemic, they now also have to think about disease transmission – and not just in individual emergency shelters but also on a larger scale. When a large population moves from an area with a high rate of disease spread to a less affected area, it can put the local population at higher risk.
Using data on social vulnerability, pandemic risk and hazard probability, my lab created an interactive map that pinpoints sources of vulnerability. The goal is to enable disaster response managers and decision makers to recognize the compound risks posed by the confluence of the pandemic and any natural hazard.
The compound hazard risk index takes into consideration the social, physical and pandemic risks at the local level, enabling each county or community to make informed decisions. It also raises warnings about vulnerable groups, such as the elderly and low-income communities, which may suffer a disproportionate risk of infection.
We found several counties with significantly high levels of compound risks.
For example, Harris County, Texas, home to Houston, has a large number of COVID-19 cases and is also vulnerable to the impacts of hurricanes. When a hurricane heads for the region, the index can help raise red flags, particularly for local health officials and hospitals, about the risks of exacerbating the pandemic there and in counties where people may go in an evacuation.
Conversely, a county with low hurricane and flooding risks might normally be seen as a suitable location for evacuation, but if it has a high rate of COVID-19, that raises the risk for evacuees who would need to spend time in shelters, hotels, restaurants and stores.
Getting health care can also become harder during a natural disaster. Hospitals may see an influx of injuries, and wildfires and flooding can block access to critical health care facilities, damage the buildings, cut power to homes and care facilities and shut down pandemic testing locations.
Other researchers have also explored the potential for an evacuation spreading COVID-19. In a recent study of evacuation patterns and COVID-19 cases in Florida, researchers at the Union of Concerned Scientists estimated that if a Category 3 hurricane hit Southeast Florida, the difference in that region between evacuees taking shelter in communities with low coronavirus transmission rates versus those with high rates could be as high as 50,000 new COVID-19 cases.
As our research shows, preparing for and responding to the compound disaster of a natural hazard in the midst of a pandemic is an undertaking more complicated than the sum of its parts.
This story was updated Aug. 27 with Hurricane Laura making landfall.
Ph.D. students Jennifer Dargin and Qingchun Li and undergraduate students Gabrielle Jawer, Sara Garcia, Xin Xiao, and Bora Oztekin contributed to the research on compound natural hazard and pandemic. Technical writer Jan Gerston contributed to this article.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.


scientificamerican--2020-08-27--Could Carbon-Foam Probes Sail to Nearby Stars?

Spacecraft made of carbon-foam bubbles could zoom from Earth to Alpha Centauri in 185 years , driven solely by the power of the sun , a new study finds .
A swarm of these probes might help discover and study our solar system ’ s mysterious Planet Nine , if this hypothesized world exists , scientists added .
Conventional rockets driven by chemical reactions are currently the leading form of space propulsion .
However , they are not anywhere close to efficient enough to reach another star within a human lifetime .
For example , Alpha Centauri , the nearest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 4.37 light-years away—more than 25.6 trillion miles ( 41.2 trillion kilometers ) , or about 276,000 times the distance from Earth to the sun .
It would take NASA ’ s Voyager 1 spacecraft , which launched in 1977 and reached interstellar space in 2012 , about 75,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri if the probe were headed in the right direction ( which it is not ) .
The problem with all conventional spacecraft thrusters is that the propellant they use has mass .
Long trips require a lot of propellant , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turn requires more propellant , making them heavier and so on .
This problem becomes exponentially worse the larger a spacecraft gets .
Previous research has therefore suggested that “ light sailing ” might be one of the only technically feasible methods to get a probe to another star within a human lifetime .
Although light does not exert much pressure , scientists have determined that what little it does apply could have a major effect .
Indeed , numerous experiments have shown that “ solar sails ” can rely on sunlight for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a spacecraft that is light enough .
The $ 100 million Breakthrough Starshot initiative , which was announced in 2016 , aims to launch swarms of microchip-size spacecraft to Alpha Centauri , each of them sporting extraordinarily thin , incredibly reflective sails .
The plan has these “ starchips ” flying at up to 20 % the speed of light , reaching Alpha Centauri in about 20 years .
A drawback of the Starshot project is that it requires the most powerful laser array ever built to propel the starchips outward .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ this array currently not exist , the project ’ s estimated total costs may reach $ 5 billion to $ 10 billion .
In the new study , astrophysicists suggested that a cheaper option could involve bubbles made of carbon foam .
Probes made of this stuff could make interstellar journeys faster than any rocket while powered solely by sunlight , without the need for a giant laser array , the researchers found .
In order to develop a way for sunlight to propel a light sail to useful interstellar speeds , researchers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , lightweight materials .
They settled on aerographite , a carbon-based foam 15,000 times lighter than aluminum .
The scientists calculated that a hollow aerographite sphere about 3.3 feet ( 1 meter ) in diameter with a shell 1 micron thick ( about 1 % the width of an average human hair ) would weigh just five millionths of a pound ( 2.3 milligrams ) .
If such a sphere carrying 0.035 ounces ( 1 gram ) of payload were released about one astronomical unit ( AU ) from the sun , sunlight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up to about 114,000 mph ( 183,600 km/h ) —three times that of Voyager 1 .
Such a sphere would take about 3.9 years to reach the orbit of Pluto .
( One AU is the average Earth-sun distance , which is about 93 million miles , or 150 million km . )
If such a sphere were released about 0.04 AU from the sun—the closest that NASA ’ s Parker Solar Probe gets to our star—the more intense sunlight there would accelerate the spacecraft to nearly 15.4 million mph ( 24.8 million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 4.2 light-year distance between Earth and Proxima Centauri , the closest star to our solar system , in 185 years , the researchers said .
The larger the sphere , the faster it could go , or the more payload it could carry .
( Proxima Centauri is one of the three stars in the Alpha Centauri system . )
“ What I find amazing about our results is the fact that the power output of a star , in our case the sun , can be used to propel an interstellar probe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of an additional onboard power source , ” study lead author René Heller , an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen , Germany , told Space.com .
“ We don ’ t need a billion-dollar ground-based laser array to shoot at a sail in space , ” Heller said .
“ Instead , we can use green energy , so to say.
” The researchers noted that a few grams of electronics or other payload is not a lot to bring aboard a mission .
Still , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would be 10 times the mass of the spacecraft , whereas the payload on chemical interstellar rockets would typically be one-thousandth the weight of the rocket .
The researchers suggested these spacecraft could potentially carry a 32-watt laser weighing only two-thousandths of a pound ( 1 gram ) .
Analyzing any disruptions from this laser beam might help researchers detect gravitational effects , which might in turn help reveal the presence of worlds otherwise too dark and cold to spot , such as the hypothetical Planet Nine , Heller said .
The scientists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might cost $ 1 million .
They calculated each foam ship might then be built for about $ 1,000 or less , and a rocket launch to deploy and test these craft might cost $ 10 million .
The biggest caveat of this work right now “ is that no one has ever built an aerographite structure larger than a few centimeters , while we need something that ’ s a few meters in size , ” Heller said .
Still , the researchers are in contact with experimentalists who suggest that creating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he noted .
Another point of caution about this concept is that there is currently no way to control the trajectory of the spheres once they are deployed .
“ In order to reach a certain target , this needs to be rectified , ” Heller said .
If onboard electronics and equipment could enable active maneuvering , “ then it might be possible to transport small masses—1 to 100 grams—between Earth and Mars within weeks , ” Heller said .
The scientists envision conventional rockets bringing the bubble craft to space @ @ @ @ @ @ @ propel .
It remains uncertain how well these bubbles would survive transport .
“ One good thing about aerographite is its compressibility , ” Heller said .
“ Even after extreme compression , a sample of aerographite can reinflate to its initial state .
So if we compress a meter-sized aerographite sail in the laboratory , maybe we can ship it into space and reinflate it there prior to launch .
The question is , what happens to its onboard electronics ?
” The scientists are now running experiments to test how well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ detailed their findings online July 7 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics .
Copyright 2020 Space.com , a Future company .
All rights reserved .
This material may not be published , broadcast , rewritten or redistributed .

Spacecraft made of carbon-foam bubbles could zoom from Earth to Alpha Centauri in 185 years, driven solely by the power of the sun, a new study finds.
A swarm of these probes might help discover and study our solar system’s mysterious Planet Nine, if this hypothesized world exists, scientists added.
Conventional rockets driven by chemical reactions are currently the leading form of space propulsion. However, they are not anywhere close to efficient enough to reach another star within a human lifetime.
For example, Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to Earth, lies about 4.37 light-years away—more than 25.6 trillion miles (41.2 trillion kilometers), or about 276,000 times the distance from Earth to the sun. It would take NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, which launched in 1977 and reached interstellar space in 2012, about 75,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri if the probe were headed in the right direction (which it is not).
The problem with all conventional spacecraft thrusters is that the propellant they use has mass. Long trips require a lot of propellant, which makes spacecraft heavy, which in turn requires more propellant, making them heavier and so on. This problem becomes exponentially worse the larger a spacecraft gets.
Previous research has therefore suggested that “light sailing” might be one of the only technically feasible methods to get a probe to another star within a human lifetime. Although light does not exert much pressure, scientists have determined that what little it does apply could have a major effect. Indeed, numerous experiments have shown that “solar sails” can rely on sunlight for propulsion, given a large enough mirror and a spacecraft that is light enough.
The $100 million Breakthrough Starshot initiative, which was announced in 2016, aims to launch swarms of microchip-size spacecraft to Alpha Centauri, each of them sporting extraordinarily thin, incredibly reflective sails. The plan has these “starchips” flying at up to 20% the speed of light, reaching Alpha Centauri in about 20 years.
A drawback of the Starshot project is that it requires the most powerful laser array ever built to propel the starchips outward. Not only does the technology to build this array currently not exist, the project’s estimated total costs may reach $5 billion to $10 billion.
In the new study, astrophysicists suggested that a cheaper option could involve bubbles made of carbon foam. Probes made of this stuff could make interstellar journeys faster than any rocket while powered solely by sunlight, without the need for a giant laser array, the researchers found.
In order to develop a way for sunlight to propel a light sail to useful interstellar speeds, researchers analyzed previous scientific research looking for strong, lightweight materials. They settled on aerographite, a carbon-based foam 15,000 times lighter than aluminum.
The scientists calculated that a hollow aerographite sphere about 3.3 feet (1 meter) in diameter with a shell 1 micron thick (about 1% the width of an average human hair) would weigh just five millionths of a pound (2.3 milligrams).
A sample of aerographite, a candidate construction material for superfast solar-sailing spacecraft. (Image credit: R. Heller)
If such a sphere carrying 0.035 ounces (1 gram) of payload were released about one astronomical unit (AU) from the sun, sunlight would push it to a speed of up to about 114,000 mph (183,600 km/h)—three times that of Voyager 1. Such a sphere would take about 3.9 years to reach the orbit of Pluto. (One AU is the average Earth-sun distance, which is about 93 million miles, or 150 million km.)
If such a sphere were released about 0.04 AU from the sun—the closest that NASA’s Parker Solar Probe gets to our star—the more intense sunlight there would accelerate the spacecraft to nearly 15.4 million mph (24.8 million km/h). It could travel the 4.2 light-year distance between Earth and Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our solar system, in 185 years, the researchers said. The larger the sphere, the faster it could go, or the more payload it could carry. (Proxima Centauri is one of the three stars in the Alpha Centauri system.)
“What I find amazing about our results is the fact that the power output of a star, in our case the sun, can be used to propel an interstellar probe to the nearest stars without the need of an additional onboard power source,” study lead author René Heller, an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, Germany, told Space.com.
“We don’t need a billion-dollar ground-based laser array to shoot at a sail in space,” Heller said. “Instead, we can use green energy, so to say.”
The researchers noted that a few grams of electronics or other payload is not a lot to bring aboard a mission. Still, they argued the payload for these craft would be 10 times the mass of the spacecraft, whereas the payload on chemical interstellar rockets would typically be one-thousandth the weight of the rocket.
The researchers suggested these spacecraft could potentially carry a 32-watt laser weighing only two-thousandths of a pound (1 gram). Analyzing any disruptions from this laser beam might help researchers detect gravitational effects, which might in turn help reveal the presence of worlds otherwise too dark and cold to spot, such as the hypothetical Planet Nine, Heller said.
The scientists estimated that developing a prototype bubble craft might cost $1 million. They calculated each foam ship might then be built for about $1,000 or less, and a rocket launch to deploy and test these craft might cost $10 million.
The biggest caveat of this work right now “is that no one has ever built an aerographite structure larger than a few centimeters, while we need something that’s a few meters in size,” Heller said. Still, the researchers are in contact with experimentalists who suggest that creating such large structures is possible in principle, he noted.
Another point of caution about this concept is that there is currently no way to control the trajectory of the spheres once they are deployed. “In order to reach a certain target, this needs to be rectified,” Heller said.
If onboard electronics and equipment could enable active maneuvering, “then it might be possible to transport small masses—1 to 100 grams—between Earth and Mars within weeks,” Heller said.
The scientists envision conventional rockets bringing the bubble craft to space and then deploying them for sunlight to propel. It remains uncertain how well these bubbles would survive transport.
“One good thing about aerographite is its compressibility,” Heller said. “Even after extreme compression, a sample of aerographite can reinflate to its initial state. So if we compress a meter-sized aerographite sail in the laboratory, maybe we can ship it into space and reinflate it there prior to launch. The question is, what happens to its onboard electronics?”
The scientists are now running experiments to test how well aerographite absorbs and reflects light. They detailed their findings online July 7 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Copyright 2020 Space.com, a Future company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


scientificamerican--2020-08-27--Blood Test Allows Safer Turtle Sex Determination

Determining turtle hatchlings ' sexes is a challenging but critical task .
For many species the embryo 's sex development @ @ @ @ @ and rising heat is producing overabundances of females and shortages of males .
Unchecked , @ @ @ @ @ species toward extinction .

Determining turtle hatchlings' sexes is a challenging but critical task. For many species the embryo's sex development depends on environmental temperatures, and rising heat is producing overabundances of females and shortages of males. Unchecked, this mismatch could push some species toward extinction.
To save them, “you have to really understand where the problems lie,” says Jeanette Wyneken, a biologist at Florida Atlantic University and senior author on a new study on the topic, published in March in Scientific Reports. Monitoring turtles' sex ratios as hatchlings can help—but species with temperature-dependent sex determination lack sex chromosomes and mature relatively late, making their sexes hard to discover noninvasively.
Wyneken's team developed a blood test that determined the sexes of loggerhead and red-eared slider hatchlings up to two days old with 100 percent accuracy. In older juvenile loggerheads, the results were 90 percent accurate. The test checked a tiny blood sample for a hormone that prevents young males from developing oviducts. (The hormone takes on additional roles as the turtles grow, Wyneken says, which can complicate results for older females.)
The researchers then used two standard techniques to verify results for the turtles they tested. They analyzed tissue samples from gonads of their 10 red-eared sliders, which were sacrificed as hatchlings, and five loggerheads, which were found dead in their nest boxes. They also raised 54 loggerhead juveniles to between 83 and 177 days old before performing laparoscopic surgeries on the live animals. These surgeries cannot be safely performed on hatchlings, Wyneken says.
The group is working to make the blood test field-ready. The researchers hope to use it to monitor sex ratios in easy-to-catch wild hatchlings and perhaps find ways to intervene in the field, such as providing shade or cooling sprinklers when eggs are incubating. Unlike current methods, which require killing hatchlings or estimating sex ratios based on incubation temperature, the new technique “is a nonlethal and reliable method to determine hatchling sex,” says Camryn Allen, a wildlife endocrinologist at the Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center, who was not involved with the study.


scientificamerican--2020-08-27--Medical Education Needs Rethinking

Medical Education Needs Rethinking

As COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations remain high across the country , our weakened public health system has never been more frustrating to front line clinicians .
While it ’ s tempting to blame politicians , it ’ s also insufficient .
To understand why this pandemic has had such deleterious effects , we must examine why the study of diagnosis and treatment of disease separated itself from the study of preventing disease—or , more succinctly , why medicine and public health are considered apart from each other .
Tracing this unfortunate disconnect leads us to a cause from 110 years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In the early 1900s , the length , focus and quality of medical training differed from school to school , resulting in significant variability from doctor to doctor .
Spurred by this disarray , the American Medical Association commissioned the Carnegie Foundation to help reform medical education .
Together they hired Abraham Flexner , founder of a successful prep school and the future founding director of the prestigious Institute for Advanced Study , in Princeton , to assess the state of medical education .
After visiting every medical school in North America , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ report—and the money tied to its implementation—is the medical education system we ’ re familiar with today : competitive admission criteria , traditional pedagogy and the scientific method as its central tenets .
The report established the individual biomedical model , which focuses exclusively on biologic causes of disease , excluding any social and environmental factors , as the gold standard .
It also led to the disproportionate closing of historically Black medical colleges , contributing to physician workforce disparities that still exist today , and effectively cleaved the study of medicine from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over a century later , some modern medical academics cling to this paradigm .
Former University of Pennsylvania medical school dean Stanley Goldfarb propelled this idea to prime time with a 2019 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “ Take Two Aspirin and Call Me by My Pronouns , ” in which he refers to topics such as firearms violence , racial bias , health disparities and climate change as “ progressive causes only tangentially related to treating illness ” and not worthy of inclusion in the curriculum .
Goldfarb hasn ’ t been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ report .
Thomas Huddle , professor of medicine at the University of Alabama , dismissed advocacy for societal good as out of scope in academia in a 2011 article in Academic Medicine , stating : “ Although advocacy may coexist alongside the core university activities of research and education , insofar as it infects those activities , advocacy is likely to subvert them , as advocacy seeks change rather than knowledge.
” But Goldfarb and Huddle and the people who agree with them are a minority in the medical community .
The American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s essay and directed detractors to its public health policy statements .
In its recent position statement , the Society for General Internal Medicine calls for cross-cutting action to address the social determinants of health , declaring that “ direct policy action will have the most far-reaching impact on improving health , equity , and well-being.
” The American Academy of Family Physicians lays out sweeping policy recommendations to promote health equity , and the American Academy of Pediatrics calls for comprehensive work to combat racism as “ health equity is unachievable unless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Medical Association ’ s Principles of Medical Ethics require physicians to actively “ support access to medical care for all people.
” The Physician ’ s Charter recognizes the “ primacy of patient welfare , patient autonomy and social justice.
” Despite these bold calls to action and majority support , the Flexner report still has a grasp on medical education .
To be fair , no one cites the Flexner report in defending the medical status quo , and the biopsychosocial model has supplanted the biomedical model in many settings .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on in this “ tradition of excellence ” that minimizes social and environmental factors and in doing so , undermines our understanding and treatment of disease .
For example , researchers often cite the individual attribute of race as a risk factor for disease without interrogating the associated environmental experience of racism .
Similarly , the lens in medical education is often inclusive of poverty but not oppression , race but not racism , sex but not sexism , and homosexuality but not homophobia .
We can see the biomedical model ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the stark division of labor between the physician who assesses the patient ’ s neurobiology and treats with prescription drugs , and the therapist who assesses psychosocial factors and treats with therapy .
As long as the scientific method exclusively continues to dictate what physicians do , medicine will resist the responsibility to engage in upstream work to dismantle social causes of disease .
Advocacy—defined by physician advocates as activities “ promoting the role of science and evidenced-based medicine in the creation of health and social policy ” —has been treated as if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unworthy endeavor , even though , through their various professional organizations ’ public policy positions , most physicians think it ’ s just the opposite .
While advocacy is taught in some training programs , it is not universal and the curriculum is heterogeneous .
Lack of mentorship , sponsorship and funding for advocacy in academic medicine pose significant challenges to incorporation of it into the physician career .
We ’ re seeing similar conditions that led up to the commission of the Flexner report years ago .
The purpose of the report @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would be uniformly trained .
Advocacy education , while popular , isn ’ t standardized , at least not in the right way ; most support it , but only some get it .
But the U.S. is now at a critical public health turning point , and advocacy in medicine can no longer be optional .
The dual crises of COVID-19 and police brutality have captured our collective attention and exposed our considerable vulnerabilities .
Current COVID-19 statistics show infection and mortality rates in the U.S. to be among the highest in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recently hit 70,000 .
Police brutality is a uniquely American problem ; over 1,000 people are killed by the police each year , while in other G7 nations such incidents are exceedingly rare .
Black and brown communities are disproportionately affected by both COVID-19 and police brutality , crystallizing racism as a fundamental public health problem in America .
The cracks in our nation ’ s health exposed by COVID-19 demonstrate that we still need to evolve from these clearly outdated assumptions of yesteryear .
Medicine as a discipline needs a strong public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health strategies to combat COVID-19— universal masking , test/trace/isolate , and closures—have all been thwarted in the name of politics .
To begin to reintegrate medicine and public health , we must incorporate advocacy as a core competency across the educational spectrum : from medical school to residency to continuing medical education .
Public health is not just for politicians .
We must equip physicians with the necessary skills to effectively advocate for the policies we so desperately need to care for our patients .
The Flexner report needs to be supplanted by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health back together .
A replacement for the Flexner report can catalyze concrete action and may provide cover and justification for those people who ’ ve met resistance while trying to incorporate advocacy into medical education and practice .
Even if it is only a symbolic gesture to indicate abandonment of outdated ways of thinking , the American Medical Association would be wise to commission another report to show that Flexner ’ s thinking , while revolutionary for his time , isn ’ t applicable anymore .

As COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations remain high across the country, our weakened public health system has never been more frustrating to front line clinicians. While it’s tempting to blame politicians, it’s also insufficient. To understand why this pandemic has had such deleterious effects, we must examine why the study of diagnosis and treatment of disease separated itself from the study of preventing disease—or, more succinctly, why medicine and public health are considered apart from each other.
Tracing this unfortunate disconnect leads us to a cause from 110 years ago: the 1910 Flexner report.
In the early 1900s, the length, focus and quality of medical training differed from school to school, resulting in significant variability from doctor to doctor. Spurred by this disarray, the American Medical Association commissioned the Carnegie Foundation to help reform medical education. Together they hired Abraham Flexner, founder of a successful prep school and the future founding director of the prestigious Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, to assess the state of medical education. After visiting every medical school in North America, he produced the report.
The Flexner report—and the money tied to its implementation—is the medical education system we’re familiar with today: competitive admission criteria, traditional pedagogy and the scientific method as its central tenets. The report established the individual biomedical model, which focuses exclusively on biologic causes of disease, excluding any social and environmental factors, as the gold standard.
It also led to the disproportionate closing of historically Black medical colleges, contributing to physician workforce disparities that still exist today, and effectively cleaved the study of medicine from the study of public health.
Even over a century later, some modern medical academics cling to this paradigm. Former University of Pennsylvania medical school dean Stanley Goldfarb propelled this idea to prime time with a 2019 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “Take Two Aspirin and Call Me by My Pronouns,” in which he refers to topics such as firearms violence, racial bias, health disparities and climate change as “progressive causes only tangentially related to treating illness” and not worthy of inclusion in the curriculum.
Goldfarb hasn’t been the only one to echo the Flexner report. Thomas Huddle, professor of medicine at the University of Alabama, dismissed advocacy for societal good as out of scope in academia in a 2011 article in Academic Medicine, stating: “Although advocacy may coexist alongside the core university activities of research and education, insofar as it infects those activities, advocacy is likely to subvert them, as advocacy seeks change rather than knowledge.”
But Goldfarb and Huddle and the people who agree with them are a minority in the medical community.
The American College of Physicians strongly rebutted Goldfarb’s essay and directed detractors to its public health policy statements. In its recent position statement, the Society for General Internal Medicine calls for cross-cutting action to address the social determinants of health, declaring that “direct policy action will have the most far-reaching impact on improving health, equity, and well-being.” The American Academy of Family Physicians lays out sweeping policy recommendations to promote health equity, and the American Academy of Pediatrics calls for comprehensive work to combat racism as “health equity is unachievable unless racism is addressed.”
Even the American Medical Association’s Principles of Medical Ethics require physicians to actively “support access to medical care for all people.” The Physician’s Charter recognizes the “primacy of patient welfare, patient autonomy and social justice.”
Despite these bold calls to action and majority support, the Flexner report still has a grasp on medical education. To be fair, no one cites the Flexner report in defending the medical status quo, and the biopsychosocial model has supplanted the biomedical model in many settings.
But the Flexner report’s legacy wears on in this “tradition of excellence” that minimizes social and environmental factors and in doing so, undermines our understanding and treatment of disease.
For example, researchers often cite the individual attribute of race as a risk factor for disease without interrogating the associated environmental experience of racism. Similarly, the lens in medical education is often inclusive of poverty but not oppression, race but not racism, sex but not sexism, and homosexuality but not homophobia. We can see the biomedical model’s influence in the field of psychiatry in the stark division of labor between the physician who assesses the patient’s neurobiology and treats with prescription drugs, and the therapist who assesses psychosocial factors and treats with therapy.
As long as the scientific method exclusively continues to dictate what physicians do, medicine will resist the responsibility to engage in upstream work to dismantle social causes of disease. Advocacy—defined by physician advocates as activities “promoting the role of science and evidenced-based medicine in the creation of health and social policy”—has been treated as if it’s unscientific and therefore an unworthy endeavor, even though, through their various professional organizations’ public policy positions, most physicians think it’s just the opposite. While advocacy is taught in some training programs, it is not universal and the curriculum is heterogeneous. Lack of mentorship, sponsorship and funding for advocacy in academic medicine pose significant challenges to incorporation of it into the physician career.
We’re seeing similar conditions that led up to the commission of the Flexner report years ago. The purpose of the report was to standardize education so that doctors would be uniformly trained. Advocacy education, while popular, isn’t standardized, at least not in the right way; most support it, but only some get it.
But the U.S. is now at a critical public health turning point, and advocacy in medicine can no longer be optional. The dual crises of COVID-19 and police brutality have captured our collective attention and exposed our considerable vulnerabilities. Current COVID-19 statistics show infection and mortality rates in the U.S. to be among the highest in the world; our daily infection rate recently hit 70,000. Police brutality is a uniquely American problem; over 1,000 people are killed by the police each year, while in other G7 nations such incidents are exceedingly rare. Black and brown communities are disproportionately affected by both COVID-19 and police brutality, crystallizing racism as a fundamental public health problem in America.
The cracks in our nation’s health exposed by COVID-19 demonstrate that we still need to evolve from these clearly outdated assumptions of yesteryear. Medicine as a discipline needs a strong public health foundation. The most effective public health strategies to combat COVID-19— universal masking, test/trace/isolate, and closures—have all been thwarted in the name of politics.
To begin to reintegrate medicine and public health, we must incorporate advocacy as a core competency across the educational spectrum: from medical school to residency to continuing medical education. Public health is not just for politicians. We must equip physicians with the necessary skills to effectively advocate for the policies we so desperately need to care for our patients.
The Flexner report needs to be supplanted by another document that stitches medicine and public health back together. A replacement for the Flexner report can catalyze concrete action and may provide cover and justification for those people who’ve met resistance while trying to incorporate advocacy into medical education and practice.
Even if it is only a symbolic gesture to indicate abandonment of outdated ways of thinking, the American Medical Association would be wise to commission another report to show that Flexner’s thinking, while revolutionary for his time, isn’t applicable anymore.