scientificamerican--2020-12-24--The U.K. Coronavirus Mutation Is Worrying but Not Terrifying

A new mutated form of the novel coronavirus that appears more transmissible than the original has raised alarm in the U.K. and around the world .
It does not appear to cause more severe disease , and the newly available vaccines do seem to protect people against it .
Yet on December 19—after an announcement that the variant , dubbed B.1.1.7 , had suddenly accumulated 17 mutations and was spreading rapidly in the U.K.—the nation ’ s prime minister Boris Johnson announced stricter lockdowns there .
And numerous European countries have halted travel from that nation .
The response from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political figures such as New York State governor Andrew Cuomo first calling for suspending airline flights from the U.K. , then shifting to ask for mandatory testing of travelers .
But scientists such as Anthony Fauci , director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases , say that flight bans are probably too late to stop the variant spreading to the U.S. “ I would not be surprised at all if it is already here , ” he told Good Morning America on December 22 Based on mathematical models , calculations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that B.1.1.7 might be up to 70 percent more transmissible than the original virus .
“ It ’ s a shocking valuation , clearly something new that ’ s circulating , ” says Ali Mokdad , a population health expert at the University of Washington .
“ Any mutation out there is a concern for us .
This is a stubborn and opportunistic virus.
” Some researchers , however , doubt that the rapid spread of the new variant in the U.K. necessarily means it is more transmissible .
“ I do agree @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But until we have some data , we should really be careful about what we say , ” says Vincent Racaniello , a virologist at Columbia University .
The best information on transmissibility will come from studies of animals that look at whether this variant moves more easily from one creature to another , and that work has not yet been published .
Because the majority of COVID-19 outbreaks are caused by superspreaders , Racaniello says , it is conceivable that one person or a few individuals spread the new variant widely .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the variant has been increasing steadily over time , not suddenly as would be expected following a superspreader event , says Scott Weaver , an immunologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch ( UTMB ) .
Furthermore , eight of the B.1.1.7 variant ’ s 17 new mutations are on the spike protein : the portion of the coronavirus ’ s shell that allows it to bind to receptors on cell surfaces and infect cells .
One of the spike protein mutations , called N501Y , appears in another new variant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the virus ’ s binding ability .
Better binding could , in theory , lead to more transmission .
Michael Farzan , an immunologist at the Scripps Research Institute , says that the fact that the N501Y mutation appears to have appeared independently several times in different geographical areas is further evidence that it does give the virus some sort of advantage .
Other spike protein mutations , including one called D614G that has been seen in the U.S. , allow the virus to replicate better in the upper respiratory tract of mice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This arrangement could allow the virus to more easily spread through sneezing and coughing .
The D614G variant has been circulating for some time , however , and it has not been shown to be more infectious in people or to create more serious symptoms .
The mutations may not help this version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus evade all of the cells and proteins that our immune systems use to neutralize it .
Initial data from the lab of Vineet Menachery , a microbiologist at UTMB , suggest that the N501Y variant is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the original virus .
But these genetic alterations might spell bad news for monoclonal antibody treatments against the virus .
A December 1 preprint study found that the mutations drove changes to a segment of virus that lies very close to the regions recognized by monoclonals made by the pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly and Regeneron , making it more difficult for the antibodies to bind and neutralize the pathogen .
The most pressing question , Farzan and others say , may be how the new variant will affect existing COVID-19 vaccines and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not appear that B.1.1.7 can resist the authorized vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna , respectively , or those made by other companies that are still being tested .
Still , the fact that mutations are accumulating in the spike protein could mean that vaccines may , after an extended period of time , become somewhat less effective .
That problem would force vaccine developers to adapt their products to ensure they can target new versions of the virus .
“ A lot of people think this is going to be like flu @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Weaver says .
He and others say that mutations in the virus are no reason for people to skip one of the vaccines because they are still very effective .
They protect more than 90 percent of people against COVID illness .
And there have been no signs in clinical trials that the virus—including any new variants—is resisting vaccination efforts .
The new U.K. mutant does makes it even more important for people to use public health measures such as physical distancing and mask wearing , Racaniello says .
These strategies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ While the vaccines should still work , we ’ re at even more risk of overwhelming our hospitals and health care workers , ” says epidemiologist Lisa Gralinski of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill .
“ We ’ re already pretty stretched thin in health care in the U.S .
The last thing we need is more cases coming in more quickly.
” Like Fauci , Gralinski says the variant is probably already in the U.S. She says the U.K. likely detected the mutation first because of its strong viral @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sequences of 10 percent of all cases and compare them to spot any changes .
The U.S. , by contrast , has no such centralized effort .
“ We ’ re flying a little bit blind right now , ” Gralinski says .
“ We have to assume the variant is here.
” Mokdad ’ s group and others are now working over the December holidays to sequence existing U.S. samples of the virus .
A more transmissible variant might explain , for instance , the recent spike in cases in California .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ version , he says , and assumed that the rapid rise in COVID-19 cases occurred because of increased travel around Thanksgiving .
“ It ’ s a wake-up call for all of us to find out as early as possible in order to make sure we know what ’ s circulating—especially how it will impact the vaccine , ” Mokdad says .
“ It ’ s a race against time.
” Read more about the coronavirus outbreak from Scientific American here .
And read coverage from our international network of magazines here .

Editor's Note (12/30/20): Today health officials in Colorado confirmed the first case of a new mutated form of SARS-CoV-2 in the U.S., and said the state had a potential second case as well. Scientists, as noted in our story below, continue to find evidence this new variant appears more transmissible than the original form. Yet it does not appear to cause more severe disease. And the newly-authorized vaccines seem very effective against it.
A new mutated form of the novel coronavirus that appears more transmissible than the original has raised alarm in the U.K. and around the world. It does not appear to cause more severe disease, and the newly available vaccines do seem to protect people against it. Yet on December 19—after an announcement that the variant, dubbed B.1.1.7, had suddenly accumulated 17 mutations and was spreading rapidly in the U.K.—the nation’s prime minister Boris Johnson announced stricter lockdowns there. And numerous European countries have halted travel from that nation.
The response from the U.S. has been mixed, with political figures such as New York State governor Andrew Cuomo first calling for suspending airline flights from the U.K., then shifting to ask for mandatory testing of travelers. But scientists such as Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, say that flight bans are probably too late to stop the variant spreading to the U.S. “I would not be surprised at all if it is already here,” he told Good Morning America on December 22.
Based on mathematical models, calculations by the COVID-19 Genomics UK consortium suggest that B.1.1.7 might be up to 70 percent more transmissible than the original virus. “It’s a shocking valuation, clearly something new that’s circulating,” says Ali Mokdad, a population health expert at the University of Washington. “Any mutation out there is a concern for us. This is a stubborn and opportunistic virus.”
Some researchers, however, doubt that the rapid spread of the new variant in the U.K. necessarily means it is more transmissible. “I do agree we should look into these things. But until we have some data, we should really be careful about what we say,” says Vincent Racaniello, a virologist at Columbia University. The best information on transmissibility will come from studies of animals that look at whether this variant moves more easily from one creature to another, and that work has not yet been published. Because the majority of COVID-19 outbreaks are caused by superspreaders, Racaniello says, it is conceivable that one person or a few individuals spread the new variant widely.
But others disagree. In the U.K., the variant has been increasing steadily over time, not suddenly as would be expected following a superspreader event, says Scott Weaver, an immunologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB).
Furthermore, eight of the B.1.1.7 variant’s 17 new mutations are on the spike protein: the portion of the coronavirus’s shell that allows it to bind to receptors on cell surfaces and infect cells. One of the spike protein mutations, called N501Y, appears in another new variant from South Africa and seems to improve the virus’s binding ability. Better binding could, in theory, lead to more transmission.
Michael Farzan, an immunologist at the Scripps Research Institute, says that the fact that the N501Y mutation appears to have appeared independently several times in different geographical areas is further evidence that it does give the virus some sort of advantage. Other spike protein mutations, including one called D614G that has been seen in the U.S., allow the virus to replicate better in the upper respiratory tract of mice rather than the lower tract. This arrangement could allow the virus to more easily spread through sneezing and coughing. The D614G variant has been circulating for some time, however, and it has not been shown to be more infectious in people or to create more serious symptoms.
The mutations may not help this version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus evade all of the cells and proteins that our immune systems use to neutralize it. Initial data from the lab of Vineet Menachery, a microbiologist at UTMB, suggest that the N501Y variant is just as susceptible to our defenses as the original virus. But these genetic alterations might spell bad news for monoclonal antibody treatments against the virus. A December 1 preprint study found that the mutations drove changes to a segment of virus that lies very close to the regions recognized by monoclonals made by the pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly and Regeneron, making it more difficult for the antibodies to bind and neutralize the pathogen.
The most pressing question, Farzan and others say, may be how the new variant will affect existing COVID-19 vaccines and the development of new ones. It does not appear that B.1.1.7 can resist the authorized vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna, respectively, or those made by other companies that are still being tested. Still, the fact that mutations are accumulating in the spike protein could mean that vaccines may, after an extended period of time, become somewhat less effective. That problem would force vaccine developers to adapt their products to ensure they can target new versions of the virus. “A lot of people think this is going to be like flu, with a new vaccine every year,” Weaver says.
He and others say that mutations in the virus are no reason for people to skip one of the vaccines because they are still very effective. They protect more than 90 percent of people against COVID illness. And there have been no signs in clinical trials that the virus—including any new variants—is resisting vaccination efforts.
The new U.K. mutant does makes it even more important for people to use public health measures such as physical distancing and mask wearing, Racaniello says. These strategies will slow down the spread. “While the vaccines should still work, we’re at even more risk of overwhelming our hospitals and health care workers,” says epidemiologist Lisa Gralinski of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “We’re already pretty stretched thin in health care in the U.S. The last thing we need is more cases coming in more quickly.”
Like Fauci, Gralinski says the variant is probably already in the U.S. She says the U.K. likely detected the mutation first because of its strong viral surveillance program—the nation tries to analyze genetic sequences of 10 percent of all cases and compare them to spot any changes. The U.S., by contrast, has no such centralized effort. “We’re flying a little bit blind right now,” Gralinski says. “We have to assume the variant is here.”
Mokdad’s group and others are now working over the December holidays to sequence existing U.S. samples of the virus. A more transmissible variant might explain, for instance, the recent spike in cases in California. Health officials could have missed the new version, he says, and assumed that the rapid rise in COVID-19 cases occurred because of increased travel around Thanksgiving. “It’s a wake-up call for all of us to find out as early as possible in order to make sure we know what’s circulating—especially how it will impact the vaccine,” Mokdad says. “It’s a race against time.”
Read more about the coronavirus outbreak from Scientific American here. And read coverage from our international network of magazines here.


scientificamerican--2020-12-24--What's Your Risk of Catching COVID? These Tools Help You Find Out

As an emergency physician , Megan Ranney is used to dealing with hard questions about injury and illness .
But during the COVID-19 pandemic , she has found herself scrambling for answers .
“ I kept getting asked by people whether it was safe to do certain activities , ” says Ranney .
“ ‘ Is it safe to go to the beach , or to an outdoor party or a restaurant ?
’ ” Millions have struggled with the same questions throughout 2020 .
Scientists and clinicians are still learning about the epidemiology and pathology of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can be difficult to understand how to maintain some semblance of normality while minimizing the risk of infection .
As co-director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health in Providence , Rhode Island , Ranney saw an opportunity to use her expertise in developing online tools for public health .
Working with her Brown-Lifespan colleague Elizabeth Goldberg , she developed MyCOVIDRisk , a simple , questionnaire-based web app that gives users a sense of their infection risk on the basis of their planned activity in a specific place or situation .
Launched in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ several apps developed to communicate the risks of COVID-19 to the public ( see ‘ COVID risk calculators ’ ) .
These tools are filling important gaps in public-health messaging , particularly in the United States , where an uneven response to the pandemic has exacerbated its severity .
“ This type of app is something that could have been developed very early in the pandemic by the [ US ] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or another national entity , ” says Ranney .
“ But unfortunately , that wasn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ approached risk assessment from different angles .
Perhaps the most straightforward approach is the web-based COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool developed by scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta .
The site estimates the probability ( as a percentage ) that a person will encounter someone with COVID-19 at a gathering , on the basis of the size of the group and where the event takes place .
For example , as of 14 December , the tool predicted that at a gathering of 10 people in Boston , Massachusetts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chance of at least one attendee having the virus .
The 19 and Me calculator , developed by Mathematica , a policy-research company in Princeton , New Jersey , draws on demographic and health information as well as user behaviours such as hand washing and mask use to determine relative risk of exposure , infection and serious illness .
And in December , a team led by biostatistician Nilanjan Chatterjee at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore , Maryland , released the COVID-19 Mortality Risk Calculator , which estimates an individual ’ s relative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ basis of their location , pre-existing conditions and general health status .
MyCOVIDRisk takes a more situational approach , estimating the risks associated with specific errands or recreational activities .
The estimate is based on the location and duration of a gathering , and the number of masked or unmasked people attending .
This can help users to avoid activities that are likely to be high risk in a pandemic hotspot , such as spending an hour in an indoor gym , in favour of safer alternatives — a masked meet-up in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ predictions , these tools require the latest data and models that accurately capture the current levels of infection and the likelihood of transmission in various scenarios .
The New York Times runs a coronavirus database that has become a popular resource , and both MyCOVIDRisk and the Georgia Tech tool use it to assess local disease activity .
These calculators are currently focused on the United States , although the Georgia Tech team has extended its tool to cover ten European countries .
Researchers are still teasing out the factors that predispose some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and they continue to study how distance , ventilation and masks mitigate the spread of virus-laden droplets .
For 19 and Me , Xindi Hu — the data scientist at Mathematica who led the tool ’ s development — and her colleagues regularly comb through the latest peer-reviewed literature to refine their infection models , relying heavily on reports from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) .
For MyCOVIDRisk , the team turned to an aerosol-transmission estimation model developed by atmospheric chemist Jose-Luis Jimenez and his colleagues at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ simulates how far viral particles are likely to travel in various indoor and outdoor scenarios .
The researchers then have to come up with ways to wrangle this information into a format that is easy for non-experts to understand , without it being intrusive or frustrating .
To build a simple and engaging app that balances depth with usability , the Brown-Lifespan team relied on user testing and guidance from behavioural scientists .
“ In an ideal world , you ’ d ask how big of a room are you in and what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” says Ranney , “ But if you asked me , I wouldn ’ t even know the answer.
” This need for simplicity also motivated the Georgia Tech team .
Its tool solicits only two pieces of information : a user ’ s location and the size of the expected crowd .
Initially , this ranged from 10 to 10,000 people .
“ Those upper bounds were useful when political rallies were occurring over the summer , ” says Andris .
But as the holidays drew closer , the team decreased the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the tool ’ s level of detail at the lower end of the scale to deliver estimates for relatively modest gatherings of 10 , 15 or 20 people .
To convey risk , MyCOVIDRisk opts for a simple , 5-tier continuum scale of green to red , whereas the 19 and Me team devised an abstract numerical readout ranging from 0 to 100 , which Hu likens to a credit score .
“ That is a compromise we ’ ve made to keep the rigour of the calculation while making it into a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ general public , ” she says .
“ And we couple it with a text explanation and an interactive risk gauge.
” This explanation summarizes the potential for exposure and infection , along with the likelihood of serious health consequences and hospitalization if infection occurs .
However , developers caution that the apps provide estimates intended to assist in decision-making , and are not definitive indicators of the likelihood of contracting disease .
Quantifying and mapping COVID-19 risk has been challenging from the start , because scientists and physicians have struggled to understand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the disease .
This has been exacerbated by national and regional policies that have limited people ’ s access to testing on the basis of symptoms that might not fully reflect the prevalence of infection .
Online surveys are now helping researchers to get a better handle on the clinical manifestations of the disease .
As part of the Coronavirus Pandemic Epidemiology ( COPE ) consortium , Andrew Chan , an epidemiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston , and his US and UK colleagues launched the COVID Symptom Study .
This effort @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the United States and United Kingdom who were already participating in clinical studies ; it has subsequently been opened up to the public in those two countries .
In parallel , a team led by computational biologist Eran Segal at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot , Israel , has deployed its own online symptom questionnaire in that country .
“ We built an algorithm that basically allows self-assessment testing that integrates all the symptoms you report , and tells you the likelihood of testing COVID-positive , ” says Segal .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ on willing users , and by access to the Internet .
To bolster participation , Segal ’ s team used a phone survey in the Israeli cities that were hit hardest by COVID-19 .
The data have revealed valuable insights that can distinguish the disease from colds and other common maladies .
“ These surveys contributed a lot to identifying loss of taste and smell as a symptom that is the most distinctive for COVID-19 , ” says Segal , noting that Israel has now changed its testing practices to recognize the diagnostic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are also informing maps of the pandemic .
Segal says that initial data from his questionnaire suggested there were two to three times as many active COVID-19 cases in Israel as were represented in official clinical reports at the time .
Signals generated from these surveys could , therefore , offer a real-time red flag for emerging hotspots where testing and personal protective equipment are needed , giving public-health authorities a valuable head start in responding .
In the United Kingdom , the National Health Service is supporting further development of the COVID @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also been deployed in Sweden .
Chan is enthusiastic about additional data in the United States , as well .
“ We have been interested in aligning what we ’ ve been finding on the app with publicly available information on testing results or hospitalization rates , ” he says .
But equally enthusiastic , if not more so , is the public .
Ranney says that MyCOVIDRisk has been used more than one million times since it launched , and the Georgia Tech team says that its tool had delivered more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ November , with a particular surge around the US Thanksgiving holiday .
And despite several vaccines entering the clinic , the public is likely to remain hungry for these data well into 2021 .
“ There are going to remain some very high-risk activities for months or even a year to come , ” says Ranney .
“ So I think this kind of informational and behavioural change-motivating programme will unfortunately remain relevant.
” This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on December 21 2020 .

As an emergency physician, Megan Ranney is used to dealing with hard questions about injury and illness. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, she has found herself scrambling for answers. “I kept getting asked by people whether it was safe to do certain activities,” says Ranney. “‘Is it safe to go to the beach, or to an outdoor party or a restaurant?’”
Millions have struggled with the same questions throughout 2020. Scientists and clinicians are still learning about the epidemiology and pathology of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and, for the public, it can be difficult to understand how to maintain some semblance of normality while minimizing the risk of infection.
As co-director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health in Providence, Rhode Island, Ranney saw an opportunity to use her expertise in developing online tools for public health. Working with her Brown-Lifespan colleague Elizabeth Goldberg, she developed MyCOVIDRisk, a simple, questionnaire-based web app that gives users a sense of their infection risk on the basis of their planned activity in a specific place or situation.
Filling the gaps
Launched in October, MyCOVIDRisk is just one of several apps developed to communicate the risks of COVID-19 to the public (see ‘COVID risk calculators’). These tools are filling important gaps in public-health messaging, particularly in the United States, where an uneven response to the pandemic has exacerbated its severity. “This type of app is something that could have been developed very early in the pandemic by the [US] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or another national entity,” says Ranney. “But unfortunately, that wasn’t done.”
Individual research teams have approached risk assessment from different angles. Perhaps the most straightforward approach is the web-based COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool developed by scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. The site estimates the probability (as a percentage) that a person will encounter someone with COVID-19 at a gathering, on the basis of the size of the group and where the event takes place. For example, as of 14 December, the tool predicted that at a gathering of 10 people in Boston, Massachusetts, there would be a 30% chance of at least one attendee having the virus.
The 19 and Me calculator, developed by Mathematica, a policy-research company in Princeton, New Jersey, draws on demographic and health information as well as user behaviours such as hand washing and mask use to determine relative risk of exposure, infection and serious illness. And in December, a team led by biostatistician Nilanjan Chatterjee at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, released the COVID-19 Mortality Risk Calculator, which estimates an individual’s relative risk of death from COVID-19 on the basis of their location, pre-existing conditions and general health status.
MyCOVIDRisk takes a more situational approach, estimating the risks associated with specific errands or recreational activities. The estimate is based on the location and duration of a gathering, and the number of masked or unmasked people attending. This can help users to avoid activities that are likely to be high risk in a pandemic hotspot, such as spending an hour in an indoor gym, in favour of safer alternatives — a masked meet-up in the park, for instance.
To make predictions, these tools require the latest data and models that accurately capture the current levels of infection and the likelihood of transmission in various scenarios. The New York Times runs a coronavirus database that has become a popular resource, and both MyCOVIDRisk and the Georgia Tech tool use it to assess local disease activity. These calculators are currently focused on the United States, although the Georgia Tech team has extended its tool to cover ten European countries.
Researchers are still teasing out the factors that predispose some individuals to infection and severe disease, and they continue to study how distance, ventilation and masks mitigate the spread of virus-laden droplets. For 19 and Me, Xindi Hu — the data scientist at Mathematica who led the tool’s development — and her colleagues regularly comb through the latest peer-reviewed literature to refine their infection models, relying heavily on reports from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). For MyCOVIDRisk, the team turned to an aerosol-transmission estimation model developed by atmospheric chemist Jose-Luis Jimenez and his colleagues at the University of Colorado Boulder, which simulates how far viral particles are likely to travel in various indoor and outdoor scenarios.
The researchers then have to come up with ways to wrangle this information into a format that is easy for non-experts to understand, without it being intrusive or frustrating. To build a simple and engaging app that balances depth with usability, the Brown-Lifespan team relied on user testing and guidance from behavioural scientists. “In an ideal world, you’d ask how big of a room are you in and what’s the rate of ventilation,” says Ranney, “But if you asked me, I wouldn’t even know the answer.”
This need for simplicity also motivated the Georgia Tech team. Its tool solicits only two pieces of information: a user’s location and the size of the expected crowd. Initially, this ranged from 10 to 10,000 people. “Those upper bounds were useful when political rallies were occurring over the summer,” says Andris. But as the holidays drew closer, the team decreased the upper bound to 5,000 people and increased the tool’s level of detail at the lower end of the scale to deliver estimates for relatively modest gatherings of 10, 15 or 20 people.
To convey risk, MyCOVIDRisk opts for a simple, 5-tier continuum scale of green to red, whereas the 19 and Me team devised an abstract numerical readout ranging from 0 to 100, which Hu likens to a credit score. “That is a compromise we’ve made to keep the rigour of the calculation while making it into a number that is easily understood by the general public,” she says. “And we couple it with a text explanation and an interactive risk gauge.” This explanation summarizes the potential for exposure and infection, along with the likelihood of serious health consequences and hospitalization if infection occurs.
However, developers caution that the apps provide estimates intended to assist in decision-making, and are not definitive indicators of the likelihood of contracting disease.
Casting a wider net
Quantifying and mapping COVID-19 risk has been challenging from the start, because scientists and physicians have struggled to understand the complex range of symptoms associated with the disease. This has been exacerbated by national and regional policies that have limited people’s access to testing on the basis of symptoms that might not fully reflect the prevalence of infection. Online surveys are now helping researchers to get a better handle on the clinical manifestations of the disease.
As part of the Coronavirus Pandemic Epidemiology (COPE) consortium, Andrew Chan, an epidemiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and his US and UK colleagues launched the COVID Symptom Study. This effort initially recruited hundreds of thousands of volunteers in the United States and United Kingdom who were already participating in clinical studies; it has subsequently been opened up to the public in those two countries. In parallel, a team led by computational biologist Eran Segal at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, has deployed its own online symptom questionnaire in that country. “We built an algorithm that basically allows self-assessment testing that integrates all the symptoms you report, and tells you the likelihood of testing COVID-positive,” says Segal.
Such surveys are constrained by their dependence on willing users, and by access to the Internet. To bolster participation, Segal’s team used a phone survey in the Israeli cities that were hit hardest by COVID-19. The data have revealed valuable insights that can distinguish the disease from colds and other common maladies. “These surveys contributed a lot to identifying loss of taste and smell as a symptom that is the most distinctive for COVID-19,” says Segal, noting that Israel has now changed its testing practices to recognize the diagnostic importance of this symptom.
Symptom surveys are also informing maps of the pandemic. Segal says that initial data from his questionnaire suggested there were two to three times as many active COVID-19 cases in Israel as were represented in official clinical reports at the time. Signals generated from these surveys could, therefore, offer a real-time red flag for emerging hotspots where testing and personal protective equipment are needed, giving public-health authorities a valuable head start in responding.
In the United Kingdom, the National Health Service is supporting further development of the COVID Symptom Study app, which has now also been deployed in Sweden. Chan is enthusiastic about additional data in the United States, as well. “We have been interested in aligning what we’ve been finding on the app with publicly available information on testing results or hospitalization rates,” he says.
But equally enthusiastic, if not more so, is the public. Ranney says that MyCOVIDRisk has been used more than one million times since it launched, and the Georgia Tech team says that its tool had delivered more than 40 million risk estimates as of late November, with a particular surge around the US Thanksgiving holiday. And despite several vaccines entering the clinic, the public is likely to remain hungry for these data well into 2021. “There are going to remain some very high-risk activities for months or even a year to come,” says Ranney. “So I think this kind of informational and behavioural change-motivating programme will unfortunately remain relevant.”
This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on December 21 2020.


scientificamerican--2020-12-24--The Pandemic Is Delaying Cancer Screenings and Detection

After the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March , the scans that Josh Mailman relies on to keep tabs on his pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors were postponed three times , until July .
For Mailman—who says he had considered delaying the scans even longer to reduce unnecessary hospital visits during the pandemic—the results were shocking .
“ Several of my tumors had doubled in size , ” says Mailman , who leads one of the largest U.S. support groups for patients with his type of cancer .
Neuroendocrine tumors , with which he was diagnosed in 2007 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ felt fine prior to the scans , and his routine bloodwork had showed no cause for concern .
“ I spent three months in the dark , ” he says .
The rate of routine cancer screenings plummeted from January through April , according to an analysis by the Epic Health Research Network .
Screenings for breast and cervical cancers dropped by 94 percent .
Colon cancer screenings were down by 86 percent .
“ We had a backlog of over 5,000 colonoscopies alone from the spring shutdown , ” says John Carethers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ University of Michigan .
Some people had to have their appointments deferred because of the continuing backlog , Carethers says .
Others were reluctant to come in at all for fear of contracting COVID .
Screening rates began to rebound after the first wave of COVID but continue to fall short of 2019 levels , says William Cance , the American Cancer Society ’ s chief medical and scientific officer .
And while the pickup in screenings is a good sign overall , it does not reveal the full picture .
“ It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people who didn ’ t get screened during the pandemic have actually come back to screening , ” says Monica Morrow , the breast surgical service chief at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City .
Regular screening is associated with reduced mortality from various cancers including colorectal and lung cancers .
Missed screenings are especially worrisome because of the increasingly younger age of diagnosis observed in several cancers , such as colorectal cancer , in recent years , Cance says .
It is also dangerous for cancers that tend to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And screening is not the only way cancers are noticed .
Some diagnoses may begin with a routine appointment with a primary care physician , or with unrelated blood tests or scans .
“ The most common way a thyroid cancer is detected is that somebody goes to their physician and gets a physical exam and they stumble across a bump in the neck , ” says endocrinologist Bryan McIver , the deputy physician-in-chief of the Moffitt Cancer Center in Florida .
Skin cancers and cancers involving the lymph nodes are also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Physician burnout and the financial strain on primary care practices as patient volumes drop during the pandemic may lead to the loss of tens of thousands of primary care physicians—and there was already a shortage before the pandemic began .
Alongside the decrease in screenings and biopsies , cancer diagnosis rates now appear to be in decline .
A study in JAMA Network Open that compared weekly incidence reports from January through April of six common cancers , such as lung and colorectal cancer , to the same time period in 2019 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ incidence of breast cancer dropped by up to 51.8 percent .
Another study , in the U.K. , found that new cancer diagnoses were down 65.2 percent in April 2020 compared with the same month the previous year .
“ I am seeing some patients who have had symptoms , who delayed going to see a doctor , and have had a delay in diagnosis of leukemia or other related disorders , ” says Mikkael Sekeres , the chief of the division of hematology at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University @ @ @ @ @ @ @ detection opportunities may result in patients being diagnosed with more advanced , harder-to-treat stages of cancer in the future .
“ There ’ s a hint that some patients are presenting later than they otherwise would have—with more advanced breast cancer , with more advanced prostate cancer , ” McIver says .
“ The iceberg still has to show itself in that regard.
” The National Cancer Institute predicts 10,000 excess deaths from breast and colorectal cancers alone over the next decade in the U.S .
Similarly , a Lancet study estimates that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deaths as a result of diagnostic delays over the next five years , ranging from 4.8 percent for lung cancer to 16.6 percent for colorectal cancer .
Delayed treatment , which can raise the risk of death , may be a contributing factor—an American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network survey of more than 2,000 cancer patients and survivors found that 32 percent of respondents actively undergoing cancer treatment reported delays in their care as of September .
An analysis of health care service use from March through July found a decrease in some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experts agree that the pandemic ’ s impact on cancer diagnoses , treatment and patient health will be felt for years to come .
The delays will likely have a disproportionate effect on underserved communities , including Black , Native American and Hispanic people who are already bearing the brunt of COVID .
Even before the pandemic , screening rates were lower and mortality rates were higher for some cancers in these communities because of barriers to health care access such as a low income , being underinsured or uninsured , and food @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during the pandemic have exacerbated these challenges .
“ I think that if we see 10,000 excess [ cancer ] deaths over 10 years , the proportion of minority communities affected will be greater unless something is done , ” Carethers says .
At-home cancer screening tools , such as fecal DNA tests for colorectal cancer , are being used in an attempt to bridge the gap .
But the most accessible such test—fecal immunochemical testing—is not as effective as a colonoscopy in detecting disease .
Moreover , there are no easy solutions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not access follow-up care , Carethers says .
As COVID cases have risen throughout the country once more , Sekeres says patient volumes at his cancer center have started to drop again .
He and other doctors are encouraging people to avoid putting off routine screening , especially if they have risk factors such as a family history of cancer , and to seek medical care immediately if they are having symptoms .
As for Mailman , he says he is glad he did not delay his scans further .
“ I was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even if it was delayed three months , ” he says .
“ It kept me in a place where I could fight another day.
” Read more about the coronavirus outbreak from Scientific American here .
And read coverage from our international network of magazines here .

After the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March, the scans that Josh Mailman relies on to keep tabs on his pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors were postponed three times until July. For Mailman—who says he had considered delaying the scans even longer to reduce unnecessary hospital visits during the pandemic—the results were shocking.
“Several of my tumors had doubled in size,” says Mailman, who leads one of the largest U.S. support groups for patients with his type of cancer. Neuroendocrine tumors, with which he was diagnosed in 2007, usually grow slowly. Mailman says he felt fine prior to the scans, and his routine blood work had showed no cause for concern. “I spent three months in the dark,” he says.
The rate of routine cancer screenings plummeted from January through April, according to an analysis by the Epic Health Research Network. Screenings for breast and cervical cancers dropped by 94 percent. Colon cancer screenings were down by 86 percent. “We had a backlog of over 5,000 colonoscopies alone from the spring shutdown,” says John Carethers, chair of internal medicine at the University of Michigan. Some people had to have their appointments deferred because of the continuing backlog, Carethers says. Others were reluctant to come in at all for fear of contracting COVID.
Screening rates began to rebound after the first wave of COVID but continue to fall short of 2019 levels, says William Cance, the American Cancer Society’s chief medical and scientific officer. And while the pickup in screenings is a good sign overall, it does not reveal the full picture. “It doesn’t tell us how many people who didn’t get screened during the pandemic have actually come back to screening,” says Monica Morrow, breast surgical service chief at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
Regular screening is associated with reduced mortality from various cancers, including colorectal and lung cancers. Missed screenings are especially worrisome because of the increasingly younger age of diagnosis observed in several cancers, such as colorectal cancer, in recent years, Cance says. It is also dangerous for cancers that tend to grow quickly, such as lung cancer. And screening is not the only way cancers are noticed. Some diagnoses may begin with a routine appointment with a primary care physician or with unrelated blood tests or scans. “The most common way a thyroid cancer is detected is that somebody goes to their physician and gets a physical exam, and they stumble across a bump in the neck,” says endocrinologist Bryan McIver, deputy physician-in-chief of the Moffitt Cancer Center in Florida. Skin cancers and cancers involving the lymph nodes are also often detected during a routine physical exam. Physician burnout and the financial strain on primary care practices as patient volumes drop during the pandemic may lead to the loss of tens of thousands of primary care physicians—and there was already a shortage before the pandemic began.
Alongside the decrease in screenings and biopsies, cancer diagnosis rates now appear to be in decline. A study in JAMA Network Open that compared weekly incidence reports from January through April of six common cancers, such as lung and colorectal cancer, to the same time period in 2019 found these rates declined significantly; the incidence of breast cancer dropped by up to 51.8 percent. In the U.K., another study found that new cancer diagnoses were down 65.2 percent in April 2020 compared with the same month the previous year. “I am seeing some patients who have had symptoms, who delayed going to see a doctor, and have had a delay in diagnosis of leukemia or other related disorders,” says Mikkael Sekeres, chief of the division of hematology at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami.
Doctors worry that missed detection opportunities may result in patients being diagnosed with more advanced, harder-to-treat stages of cancer in the future. “There’s a hint that some patients are presenting later than they otherwise would have—with more advanced breast cancer, with more advanced prostate cancer,” McIver says. “The iceberg still has to show itself in that regard.”
The National Cancer Institute predicts 10,000 excess deaths from breast and colorectal cancers alone over the next decade in the U.S. Similarly, a Lancet study estimates that there may be an increase in cancer deaths as a result of diagnostic delays over the next five years, ranging from 4.8 percent for lung cancer to 16.6 percent for colorectal cancer. Delayed treatment, which can raise the risk of death, may be a contributing factor—an American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network survey of more than 2,000 cancer patients and survivors found that 32 percent of respondents actively undergoing cancer treatment reported delays in their care as of September. An analysis of health care service use from March through July found a decrease in some cancer procedures, including mastectomies.
Many experts agree that the pandemic’s impact on cancer diagnoses, treatment and patient health will be felt for years to come. The delays will likely have a disproportionate effect on underserved communities, including Black, Native American and Hispanic people who are already bearing the brunt of COVID. Even before the pandemic, screening rates were lower and mortality rates were higher for some cancers in these communities because of barriers to health care access such as a low income, being underinsured or uninsured, and food and housing insecurity. Soaring unemployment rates during the pandemic have exacerbated these challenges.
“I think that if we see 10,000 excess [cancer] deaths over 10 years, the proportion of minority communities affected will be greater unless something is done,” Carethers says.
At-home cancer screening tools, such as fecal DNA tests for colorectal cancer, are being used in an attempt to bridge the gap. But the most accessible such test—fecal immunochemical testing—is not as effective as a colonoscopy in detecting disease. Moreover, there are no easy solutions if a patient tests positive and cannot access follow-up care, Carethers says.
As COVID cases have risen throughout the country once more, Sekeres says patient volumes at his cancer center have started to drop again. He and other doctors are encouraging people to avoid putting off routine screening, especially if they have risk factors such as a family history of cancer, and to seek medical care immediately if they are having symptoms.
As for Mailman, he says he is glad he did not delay his scans further. “I was very fortunate to take that scan, even if it was delayed three months,” he says. “It kept me in a place where I could fight another day.”
Read more about the coronavirus outbreak from Scientific American here. And read coverage from our international network of magazines here.


scientificamerican--2020-12-25--Could Floating Cities Be a Haven as Coastlines Submerge?

By century ’ s end , tens of millions of U.S. coastal property owners will face a decision embodied in the popular exhortation , “ Move it or lose it.
” But there ’ s an option for people who can ’ t imagine a home without an ocean view .
It ’ s called “ seasteading , ” and it could be a 21st-century antidote to the nation ’ s disappearing shorelines .
“ Floating cities ” could become climate havens for people whose lives and livelihoods are tethered to the sea or nearby coast , according to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases , floating colonies would be populated by people whose homes are rendered uninhabitable by rising seas and storm surges that chew away at the edge of the continent .
Residents would live in modern homes built atop modular platforms that rise and fall with the tides .
Some communities could be linked to the mainland by bridges and utility lines .
Others could exist miles offshore as semiautonomous cities or even independent nations .
“ Nearly half the world ’ s surface is unclaimed by any nation-state , and many coastal nations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” says the Seasteading Institute , which has embraced floating cities with a near-religious fervor .
A few would occupy converted cruise ships flying under independent flags .
Others would look like condominium complexes built atop ocean freighters or barges .
All will provide offshore refuge from traditional seaside communities where climate hazards are becoming a part of daily life .
As an added benefit , floating cities could enjoy a limitless supply of desalinated water , while homes and businesses would be powered by microgrids pulsing with wind and solar energy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two feet or two wheels , and be entirely carbon-free .
In deeper water , floating cities could rely on aquaculture , hydroponics and rooftop gardens .
Other essentials could be delivered by barge or ship .
“ The thing I usually hear when I first talk about this is , ‘ Oh , you want to build ‘ Waterworld , ’ ” said landscape architect and seasteading advocate Greg Delaune , referring to the 1995 postapocalyptic film starring Kevin Costner as a kind of Mad Max of the sea .
“ You @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the image we want people to conjure up , but it ’ s often the first thing that comes to their minds .
I get it , ” added Delaune , who recently co-founded the Deep Blue Institute , a Louisiana-based organization dedicated to building marine-based resilient communities .
Delaune is convinced that southeast Louisiana—one of the fastest-sinking coastlines in the world—could be a U.S. prototype for such a community , where floating structures—homes , businesses , parks and marinas—would offer a more stable life than a sinking marsh .
When hurricanes and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the fast-warming Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico , modular floating cities could be partly disassembled and moved into safe harbor or to calmer waters , proponents say .
The details of how that would happen remain sketchy .
But ship-based communities already have the luxury of movement , and back-bay communities would garner some protection from the ocean shore .
Futuristic as it sounds , seasteading is not new , and its adaptability to the United States is already being tested through other human-inhabited offshore infrastructure .
Oil and gas platforms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a time .
And as energy companies migrate into deeper water , floating platforms are becoming the norm .
For proof , cross the Atlantic Ocean to the Netherlands , a climate-threatened country whose fate is tied to the sea .
“ The Dutch have been doing this for 400 to 500 years .
Now they ’ re selling their ideas around the world , ” Delaune said .
“ I see no reason why we can ’ t design and build sustainable , resilient sea-based communities right here , borrowing on some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the United States a leader in these other offshore activities.
” Experts say the origins of floating cities also lie in the Netherlands , where Dutch engineers have spent centuries adapting to life at the ocean ’ s doorstep .
Much of the western half of the country is below sea level , and Amsterdam , with a population of 1.1 million , is nearly 7 feet below the adjoining North Sea .
The Dutch way of coastal adaptation , distilled in the phrase “ living with water , ” has informed urban @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , notably its use of highly engineered infrastructure like dikes , dams and floodgates .
The Army Corps of Engineers incorporated such approaches into the redesigned Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project built after Hurricane Katrina .
Lesser known but gaining notoriety are the floating homes developed over the last two decades around Amsterdam , one of the lowest-lying cities in the world .
They include IJburg , a planned residential district east of Amsterdam where more than 120 floating homes will make up “ Waterbuurt West , ” a floating suburb on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ When fully developed , IJburg will support 18,000 floating homes for 45,000 people .
But what of the United States , where cities like Boston , New York , Miami , Houston and New Orleans are equally threatened by storm surges and rising seas ?
Experts say it ’ s a slow process , in part because much of the coastal adaptation conversation has focused on shoreline protection , home elevations and coastal retreat .
“ The Dutch have this mentality that we can experiment .
The U.S. mentality is we can ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Morris , director of strategic partnerships at the Water Institute of the Gulf , a national nonprofit based in Baton Rouge , La.
, that provides research and technical support to communities preparing for sea-level rise and other climate change impacts .
For eight years after Katrina , Morris worked for the Dutch government as a liaison to Louisiana and other coastal states facing challenges around water management , flood control and climate adaptation .
Morris is an advocate for floating cities in the United States , but he is also a realist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ floating cities are impeded by social , political , economic and cultural barriers .
Among them are the long-standing American ideals of abundant land and natural resources , and the notion that people can spread out as cities become denser , dirtier and more expensive .
That hasn ’ t happened .
Today , 95 million Americans , nearly 30 % of the U.S. population , live in coastline counties , according to the Census Bureau , compared with roughly 80 million people in 2000 .
Coastal cities also experience some of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as evidenced by the frequency of tropical storms like Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Harvey , which hit two of the nation ’ s largest urban areas .
Other hazards include peak rain events , or “ rainbombs , ” that quickly overwhelm urban infrastructure .
And while storm surge flooding from hurricanes is catastrophic and occasional , king tides and sunny-day flooding can occur daily and are equally damaging to low-lying cities , experts say .
“ There are visionaries who are investing in these important ideas , and the technology that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ improving all the time , ” Morris said .
“ But the economic components of these ideas have to be addressed .
There ’ s an iterative process between vision and reality.
” But , Morris noted , “ it ’ s also true that without inspiration or vision , there is no progress.
” That ’ s where advocates have their work cut out for them .
In the United States , much of the enthusiasm for floating cities is channeled through the Seasteading Institute , which was founded by Patri Friedman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman , also a libertarian .
Friedman and colleague Joe Quirk , the institute ’ s president , wrote the bible of floating cities , titled “ Seasteading : How Floating Nations Will Restore the Environment , Enrich the Poor , Cure the Sick , and Liberate Humanity from Politicians.
” In it , they say “ seasteaders are radically misunderstood by landlubbers.
” Quirk did not make himself available for an interview , but in an email to E & E News , he said , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cheapest solution to sea-level rise , we will increase the amount of life on the ocean with every seastead we build.
” While not a developer , the institute is a portal for information and advocacy materials , including research papers , blogs , podcasts and YouTube videos explaining and extolling the virtues of floating human habitation .
Its website also provides a list of “ active ” seasteading projects .
Quick also co-created Blue Frontiers , a company that worked with French Polynesia in 2017 to establish a semiautonomous floating city off @ @ @ @ @ @ @ costs estimated at between $ 30 million and $ 50 million , the project gained significant momentum before it was postponed indefinitely by the government for political reasons , according to the firm .
Most floating cities are overseas , but the institute ’ s list includes Delaune ’ s effort—called the “ Louisiana Opportunity Zone Initiative , ” or “ Blue Tech Delta ” —as well as several projects that remain under development or did not materialize .
One in California called Ventive SeaTech aims “ to build permanent ocean communities for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to make ocean living safe , comfortable and affordable.
” Its primary product , the “ floathouse , ” is shaped like a capsule with windows .
It ’ s described as “ a finished home , ready to move in , and is intended to be a year-round home for individuals or a family ” by Ventive SeaTech .
Another long-awaited project , conceived in 2011 by a California firm called Blueseed , would establish a floating city on a cruise ship parked in international waters about 12 miles offshore from San @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ entrepreneurial incubator ” and “ the Googleplex of the sea , ” where international tech startups could collaborate on projects near Silicon Valley without obtaining visas to enter the United States .
It raised several million dollars in seed money , including from the well-known tech financier Peter Thiel , but it has been mothballed for six years .
Where Blueseed stumbled early , another cruise ship city that was set to sail this month imploded days before leaving dry dock .
The MS Satoshi , conceived as a Bitcoin-based technology hub @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was rerouted to a scrap yard in India after its owner , Ocean Builders , could not find an insurer to underwrite the floating city .
In a statement , Ocean Builders said it had “ hit the roadblock of having no insurance company willing to insure the MS Satoshi upon dropping anchor in the Gulf of Panama .
The closest we came was a company toying with us with a million dollar premium for a maximum of $ 5 million in coverage , nothing close to the coverage we would need to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it will issue refunds for 100 cabins it auctioned last month for between $ 50,000 and $ 100,000 each .
For U.S.-based seasteaders like Delaune , the bridge to a floating city could be years , or even decades , away .
But he is not discouraged .
Since arriving in New Orleans , he has been canvassing the region for receptive audiences .
He has found a few , including at the Tulane University School of Architecture , where a primary research effort is focused on implementing ideas that emerged a decade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ management planning process called the “ Dutch Dialogues.
” “ I have my pitch deck , and I ’ ve been rolling it out down here over the last few months , ” Delaune said .
“ The big spin is the dying wetlands east of New Orleans , the buffer areas , the barrier islands : People can not live in these places anymore.
” Delaune says the project could take years to materialize .
But as Louisiana undergoes a multibillion-dollar restoration of its coastline , floating communities can be a part @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t want a Silicon Valley or NASA project to drop into their backyards , ” he said .
“ But when your people are leaving and your economy is dying , there is no plan B except to move away.
” Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E & E News .
E & E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net .

By century’s end, tens of millions of U.S. coastal property owners will face a decision embodied in the popular exhortation, “Move it or lose it.”
But there’s an option for people who can’t imagine a home without an ocean view. It’s called “seasteading,” and it could be a 21st-century antidote to the nation’s disappearing shorelines.
“Floating cities” could become climate havens for people whose lives and livelihoods are tethered to the sea or nearby coast, according to the San Francisco-based Seasteading Institute.
In many cases, floating colonies would be populated by people whose homes are rendered uninhabitable by rising seas and storm surges that chew away at the edge of the continent.
Residents would live in modern homes built atop modular platforms that rise and fall with the tides. Some communities could be linked to the mainland by bridges and utility lines. Others could exist miles offshore as semiautonomous cities or even independent nations.
“Nearly half the world’s surface is unclaimed by any nation-state, and many coastal nations can legislate seasteads in their territorial waters,” says the Seasteading Institute, which has embraced floating cities with a near-religious fervor.
A few would occupy converted cruise ships flying under independent flags. Others would look like condominium complexes built atop ocean freighters or barges. All will provide offshore refuge from traditional seaside communities where climate hazards are becoming a part of daily life.
As an added benefit, floating cities could enjoy a limitless supply of desalinated water, while homes and businesses would be powered by microgrids pulsing with wind and solar energy.
Transportation would require little more than two feet or two wheels, and be entirely carbon-free. In deeper water, floating cities could rely on aquaculture, hydroponics and rooftop gardens. Other essentials could be delivered by barge or ship.
It’s a tough sell, often punctuated by eye rolls.
“The thing I usually hear when I first talk about this is, ‘Oh, you want to build ‘Waterworld,’” said landscape architect and seasteading advocate Greg Delaune, referring to the 1995 postapocalyptic film starring Kevin Costner as a kind of Mad Max of the sea.
“You know, that’s not really the image we want people to conjure up, but it’s often the first thing that comes to their minds. I get it,” added Delaune, who recently co-founded the Deep Blue Institute, a Louisiana-based organization dedicated to building marine-based resilient communities.
Delaune is convinced that southeast Louisiana—one of the fastest-sinking coastlines in the world—could be a U.S. prototype for such a community, where floating structures—homes, businesses, parks and marinas—would offer a more stable life than a sinking marsh.
When hurricanes and storms threaten, as is increasingly common on the fast-warming Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, modular floating cities could be partly disassembled and moved into safe harbor or to calmer waters, proponents say.
The details of how that would happen remain sketchy. But ship-based communities already have the luxury of movement, and back-bay communities would garner some protection from the ocean shore.
Futuristic as it sounds, seasteading is not new, and its adaptability to the United States is already being tested through other human-inhabited offshore infrastructure.
The Dutch model
Oil and gas platforms host hundreds of workers for months at a time. And as energy companies migrate into deeper water, floating platforms are becoming the norm. For proof, cross the Atlantic Ocean to the Netherlands, a climate-threatened country whose fate is tied to the sea.
“The Dutch have been doing this for 400 to 500 years. Now they’re selling their ideas around the world,” Delaune said. “I see no reason why we can’t design and build sustainable, resilient sea-based communities right here, borrowing on some of the same marine-resilient infrastructure that made the United States a leader in these other offshore activities.”
Experts say the origins of floating cities also lie in the Netherlands, where Dutch engineers have spent centuries adapting to life at the ocean’s doorstep. Much of the western half of the country is below sea level, and Amsterdam, with a population of 1.1 million, is nearly 7 feet below the adjoining North Sea.
The Dutch way of coastal adaptation, distilled in the phrase “living with water,” has informed urban planning in waterfront cities around the world, notably its use of highly engineered infrastructure like dikes, dams and floodgates. The Army Corps of Engineers incorporated such approaches into the redesigned Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project built after Hurricane Katrina.
Lesser known but gaining notoriety are the floating homes developed over the last two decades around Amsterdam, one of the lowest-lying cities in the world. They include IJburg, a planned residential district east of Amsterdam where more than 120 floating homes will make up “Waterbuurt West,” a floating suburb on an inland bay called the IJ. When fully developed, IJburg will support 18,000 floating homes for 45,000 people.
But what of the United States, where cities like Boston, New York, Miami, Houston and New Orleans are equally threatened by storm surges and rising seas? Experts say it’s a slow process, in part because much of the coastal adaptation conversation has focused on shoreline protection, home elevations and coastal retreat.
“The Dutch have this mentality that we can experiment. The U.S. mentality is we can’t change anything,” said Dale Morris, director of strategic partnerships at the Water Institute of the Gulf, a national nonprofit based in Baton Rouge, La., that provides research and technical support to communities preparing for sea-level rise and other climate change impacts.
For eight years after Katrina, Morris worked for the Dutch government as a liaison to Louisiana and other coastal states facing challenges around water management, flood control and climate adaptation.
Morris is an advocate for floating cities in the United States, but he is also a realist. In an interview, he said floating cities are impeded by social, political, economic and cultural barriers. Among them are the long-standing American ideals of abundant land and natural resources, and the notion that people can spread out as cities become denser, dirtier and more expensive.
That hasn’t happened. Today, 95 million Americans, nearly 30% of the U.S. population, live in coastline counties, according to the Census Bureau, compared with roughly 80 million people in 2000.
Coastal cities also experience some of the most disruptive and costly climate change impacts, as evidenced by the frequency of tropical storms like Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Harvey, which hit two of the nation’s largest urban areas. Other hazards include peak rain events, or “rainbombs,” that quickly overwhelm urban infrastructure.
And while storm surge flooding from hurricanes is catastrophic and occasional, king tides and sunny-day flooding can occur daily and are equally damaging to low-lying cities, experts say.
“There are visionaries who are investing in these important ideas, and the technology that allows us to do innovative things is improving all the time,” Morris said. “But the economic components of these ideas have to be addressed. There’s an iterative process between vision and reality.”
But, Morris noted, “it’s also true that without inspiration or vision, there is no progress.”
Big ideas, big failures
That’s where advocates have their work cut out for them.
In the United States, much of the enthusiasm for floating cities is channeled through the Seasteading Institute, which was founded by Patri Friedman, an entrepreneur and grandson of the Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, also a libertarian.
Friedman and colleague Joe Quirk, the institute’s president, wrote the bible of floating cities, titled “Seasteading: How Floating Nations Will Restore the Environment, Enrich the Poor, Cure the Sick, and Liberate Humanity from Politicians.” In it, they say “seasteaders are radically misunderstood by landlubbers.”
Quirk did not make himself available for an interview, but in an email to E&E News, he said, “Not only is seasteading the quickest, cheapest solution to sea-level rise, we will increase the amount of life on the ocean with every seastead we build.”
While not a developer, the institute is a portal for information and advocacy materials, including research papers, blogs, podcasts and YouTube videos explaining and extolling the virtues of floating human habitation. Its website also provides a list of “active” seasteading projects.
Quick also co-created Blue Frontiers, a company that worked with French Polynesia in 2017 to establish a semiautonomous floating city off the Pacific island nation. With pilot costs estimated at between $30 million and $50 million, the project gained significant momentum before it was postponed indefinitely by the government for political reasons, according to the firm.
Most floating cities are overseas, but the institute’s list includes Delaune’s effort—called the “Louisiana Opportunity Zone Initiative,” or “Blue Tech Delta”—as well as several projects that remain under development or did not materialize.
One in California called Ventive SeaTech aims “to build permanent ocean communities for the masses, using modular structures designed to make ocean living safe, comfortable and affordable.”
Its primary product, the “floathouse,” is shaped like a capsule with windows. It’s described as “a finished home, ready to move in, and is intended to be a year-round home for individuals or a family” by Ventive SeaTech.
Another long-awaited project, conceived in 2011 by a California firm called Blueseed, would establish a floating city on a cruise ship parked in international waters about 12 miles offshore from San Francisco.
Its developers describe it an “entrepreneurial incubator” and “the Googleplex of the sea,” where international tech startups could collaborate on projects near Silicon Valley without obtaining visas to enter the United States. It raised several million dollars in seed money, including from the well-known tech financier Peter Thiel, but it has been mothballed for six years.
Where Blueseed stumbled early, another cruise ship city that was set to sail this month imploded days before leaving dry dock. The MS Satoshi, conceived as a Bitcoin-based technology hub anchored in the Gulf of Panama, was rerouted to a scrap yard in India after its owner, Ocean Builders, could not find an insurer to underwrite the floating city.
In a statement, Ocean Builders said it had “hit the roadblock of having no insurance company willing to insure the MS Satoshi upon dropping anchor in the Gulf of Panama. The closest we came was a company toying with us with a million dollar premium for a maximum of $5 million in coverage, nothing close to the coverage we would need to be legally compliant.”
The company said it will issue refunds for 100 cabins it auctioned last month for between $50,000 and $100,000 each.
For U.S.-based seasteaders like Delaune, the bridge to a floating city could be years, or even decades, away. But he is not discouraged.
Since arriving in New Orleans, he has been canvassing the region for receptive audiences. He has found a few, including at the Tulane University School of Architecture, where a primary research effort is focused on implementing ideas that emerged a decade ago through the city’s water management planning process called the “Dutch Dialogues.”
“I have my pitch deck, and I’ve been rolling it out down here over the last few months,” Delaune said. “The big spin is the dying wetlands east of New Orleans, the buffer areas, the barrier islands: People cannot live in these places anymore.”
Delaune says the project could take years to materialize. But as Louisiana undergoes a multibillion-dollar restoration of its coastline, floating communities can be a part of the solution.
“These people don’t want a Silicon Valley or NASA project to drop into their backyards,” he said. “But when your people are leaving and your economy is dying, there is no plan B except to move away.”
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.


scientificamerican--2020-12-26--In Case You Missed It

In Case You Missed It

Researchers embedded GPS devices in decoy sea turtle eggs to track poaching patterns .
In their first field test , five of the 101 decoys ( which had similar size , weight and texture to real eggs ) traveled significantly , potentially reaching consumers .
DNA harvested from a 700-year-old public toilet in Riga ( as well as a 600-year-old cesspit in Jerusalem ) will help researchers examine how human microbiomes have evolved over time .
Microbial DNA from both sites matches some species common in modern hunter-gatherers and some in today 's city dwellers .
New analysis suggests a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comes from a species of bird whose wingspan reached 6.4 meters across .
The researchers also attributed part of a large jawbone with toothlike structures to the species .
In a Madagascar garden , researchers found several Voeltzkow 's chameleons—a rare species whose females can change from green to a vivid black , white and blue when excited .
The short-lived species had not been documented for more than 100 years , and no females were previously recorded at all .
New research shows that fluffy but venomous slow lorises frequently bite one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ venomous animals .
An enormous , newfound coral reef off the continent 's northern coast is taller than the Empire State Building , rising more than 500 meters above the seafloor .
Considered part of the Great Barrier Reef , it is the first detached reef structure discovered there in 120 years .

COSTA RICA
Researchers embedded GPS devices in decoy sea turtle eggs to track poaching patterns. In their first field test, five of the 101 decoys (which had similar size, weight and texture to real eggs) traveled significantly, potentially reaching consumers.
LATVIA
DNA harvested from a 700-year-old public toilet in Riga (as well as a 600-year-old cesspit in Jerusalem) will help researchers examine how human microbiomes have evolved over time. Microbial DNA from both sites matches some species common in modern hunter-gatherers and some in today's city dwellers.
ANTARCTICA
New analysis suggests a 50-million-year-old foot bone found on Seymour Island comes from a species of bird whose wingspan reached 6.4 meters across. The researchers also attributed part of a large jawbone with toothlike structures to the species.
MADAGASCAR
In a Madagascar garden, researchers found several Voeltzkow's chameleons—a rare species whose females can change from green to a vivid black, white and blue when excited. The short-lived species had not been documented for more than 100 years, and no females were previously recorded at all.
INDONESIA
New research shows that fluffy but venomous slow lorises frequently bite one another to settle territorial disputes—a rarity in venomous animals.
AUSTRALIA
An enormous, newfound coral reef off the continent's northern coast is taller than the Empire State Building, rising more than 500 meters above the seafloor. Considered part of the Great Barrier Reef, it is the first detached reef structure discovered there in 120 years.


scientificamerican--2020-12-26--The Ethical Challenges of Connecting Our Brains to Computers

Controlling animal movements with your thoughts alone .
Monitoring a pupil ’ s attention in class with a headset that scans brain activity .
And , of course , the much more familiar cochlear implants that help the deaf hear or deep-brain stimulators that assist people with Parkinson ’ s disease to regain functional mobility .
This is neurotech—new , potentially revolutionary technology that promises to transform our lives .
With all the global challenges of today , we need revolutionary technology to help the world cope .
Neurotech is our , frankly , mind-blowing attempt to connect human brains @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Although brain-computer interfaces ( BCIs ) are the heart of neurotech , it is more broadly defined as technology able to collect , interpret , infer or modify information generated by any part of the nervous system .
Why ?
To develop therapies for mental illnesses and neurological diseases .
Beyond health care , it could soon be used in education , gaming , entertainment , transportation and so much more .
But there are pitfalls : there are no widely accepted regulations or guardrails yet when it comes to neurotech ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them—we need them bad .
We must have principles and policies around neurotech , technology safeguards , and national and international regulations .
WHAT IS NEUROTECH , ANYWAY ?
There are different types of it—some is invasive , some isn ’ t .
Invasive brain-computer interfaces involve placing microelectrodes or other kinds of neurotech materials directly onto the brain or even embedding them into the neural tissue .
The idea is to directly sense or modulate neural activity .
Such technology has already improved the quality of life and abilities of people with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Parkinson ’ s Disease to chronic pain .
One day , we might implant such neurotech devices into paralyzed humans , allowing them to easily control phones , computers and prosthetic limbs—with their thoughts alone .
In 2017 , Rodrigo Hübner Mendes , a paraplegic , used neurotech to drive a racecar with his mind .
Recently , an invasive neurotech device accurately decoded imagined handwriting movements in real time , at a speed that matched typical typing .
Researchers have also showed how invasive neurotech allows users with missing or damaged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cold through their prostheses .
There is also noninvasive neurotech that can be used for similar applications .
For example , researchers have developed wearables to infer a person ’ s intended speech or movement .
Such technology could eventually enable a patient with language or movement difficulties—say , someone with locked-in syndrome—to communicate easier and more effectively .
Noninvasive neurotech is also used for pain management .
Together with Boston Scientific , IBM researchers are applying machine learning , the internet of things , and neurotech to improve chronic pain therapy .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but there is also neurotech that really pushes the envelope .
Not only it can sense or read neurodata but it can also modulate—invasively and noninvasively .
This research is still in early stages , but it ’ s advancing rapidly .
One astounding example is the work of Rafael Yuste , a neurobiologist at Columbia University .
His team has recorded the neuron activity of a mouse that was performing an action , such as licking for a reward .
Later the researchers reactivated these same neurons and got the mouse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if the rodent did not intend to do it at that moment .
Other neuroscientists have used similar technologies to transfer learned tasks between two rodents brain-to-brain and implant false memories into an animal ’ s mind .
It ’ s remarkable .
Still , neurotech is at the very dawn of its technological journey .
As it becomes more commonplace , we must consider the risks it might present , the ethics around it , and the necessary regulation .
We have to anticipate and deal with the implications related to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ technology .
Any neurotech applications should consider potential consequences for the autonomy , privacy , responsibility , consent , integrity and dignity of a person .
What if someone were to face employment discrimination because the algorithms that power a neurotech application used for hiring misinterpret his or her neurodata ?
What if a criminal gets a hold of the previous or current neurodata of the secretary of defense and steals top secret information ?
Ethical concerns increase when we are not just monitoring someone ’ s neurodata but also interpreting it , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for accuracy and mental privacy .
One tricky aspect is that most of the neurodata generated by the nervous systems is unconscious .
It means it is very possible to unknowingly or unintentionally provide neurotech with information that one otherwise wouldn ’ t .
So , in some applications of neurotech , the presumption of privacy within one ’ s own mind may simply no longer be a certainty .
As new , emerging technology , neurotech challenges corporations , researchers and individuals to reaffirm our commitment to responsible innovation .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they lead to beneficial long-term outcomes—on company , national and international levels .
We need to ensure that researchers and manufacturers of neurotech as well as policymakers and consumers approach it responsibly and ethically .
Let ’ s act now to avoid any future risks as neurotech matures—for the benefit of humanity .

Controlling animal movements with your thoughts alone. Monitoring a pupil’s attention in class with a headset that scans brain activity. And, of course, the much more familiar cochlear implants that help the deaf hear or deep-brain stimulators that assist people with Parkinson’s disease to regain functional mobility.
This is neurotech—new, potentially revolutionary technology that promises to transform our lives. With all the global challenges of today, we need revolutionary technology to help the world cope.
Neurotech is our, frankly, mind-blowing attempt to connect human brains to machines, computers and mobile phones. Although brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are the heart of neurotech, it is more broadly defined as technology able to collect, interpret, infer or modify information generated by any part of the nervous system. Why? To develop therapies for mental illnesses and neurological diseases. Beyond health care, it could soon be used in education, gaming, entertainment, transportation and so much more.
But there are pitfalls: there are no widely accepted regulations or guardrails yet when it comes to neurotech’s development or deployment. We need them—we need them bad. We must have principles and policies around neurotech, technology safeguards, and national and international regulations.
WHAT IS NEUROTECH, ANYWAY?
There are different types of it—some is invasive, some isn’t. Invasive brain-computer interfaces involve placing microelectrodes or other kinds of neurotech materials directly onto the brain or even embedding them into the neural tissue. The idea is to directly sense or modulate neural activity.
Such technology has already improved the quality of life and abilities of people with different illnesses or impairments, from epilepsy to Parkinson’s Disease to chronic pain. One day, we might implant such neurotech devices into paralyzed humans, allowing them to easily control phones, computers and prosthetic limbs—with their thoughts alone. In 2017, Rodrigo Hübner Mendes, a paraplegic, used neurotech to drive a racecar with his mind. Recently, an invasive neurotech device accurately decoded imagined handwriting movements in real time, at a speed that matched typical typing. Researchers have also showed how invasive neurotech allows users with missing or damaged limbs to feel touch, heat and cold through their prostheses.
There is also noninvasive neurotech that can be used for similar applications. For example, researchers have developed wearables to infer a person’s intended speech or movement. Such technology could eventually enable a patient with language or movement difficulties—say, someone with locked-in syndrome—to communicate easier and more effectively.
Noninvasive neurotech is also used for pain management. Together with Boston Scientific, IBM researchers are applying machine learning, the internet of things, and neurotech to improve chronic pain therapy.
All of this is already quite impressive, but there is also neurotech that really pushes the envelope. Not only it can sense or read neurodata but it can also modulate—invasively and noninvasively. This research is still in early stages, but it’s advancing rapidly.
One astounding example is the work of Rafael Yuste, a neurobiologist at Columbia University. His team has recorded the neuron activity of a mouse that was performing an action, such as licking for a reward. Later the researchers reactivated these same neurons and got the mouse to perform the same action, even if the rodent did not intend to do it at that moment. Other neuroscientists have used similar technologies to transfer learned tasks between two rodents brain-to-brain and implant false memories into an animal’s mind. It’s remarkable.
RISKS, ETHICS AND REGULATION
Still, neurotech is at the very dawn of its technological journey. As it becomes more commonplace, we must consider the risks it might present, the ethics around it, and the necessary regulation. We have to anticipate and deal with the implications related to the development, deployment and use of this technology. Any neurotech applications should consider potential consequences for the autonomy, privacy, responsibility, consent, integrity and dignity of a person.
What if someone were to face employment discrimination because the algorithms that power a neurotech application used for hiring misinterpret his or her neurodata? What if a criminal gets a hold of the previous or current neurodata of the secretary of defense and steals top secret information? Ethical concerns increase when we are not just monitoring someone’s neurodata but also interpreting it, decoding the person’s thoughts—with implications for accuracy and mental privacy.
One tricky aspect is that most of the neurodata generated by the nervous systems is unconscious. It means it is very possible to unknowingly or unintentionally provide neurotech with information that one otherwise wouldn’t. So, in some applications of neurotech, the presumption of privacy within one’s own mind may simply no longer be a certainty.
As new, emerging technology, neurotech challenges corporations, researchers and individuals to reaffirm our commitment to responsible innovation. It’s essential to enforce guardrails so that they lead to beneficial long-term outcomes—on company, national and international levels. We need to ensure that researchers and manufacturers of neurotech as well as policymakers and consumers approach it responsibly and ethically.
Let’s act now to avoid any future risks as neurotech matures—for the benefit of humanity.