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Pandemics have a way of testing us. Throughout history, societies have responded to plagues by blaming immigration and minority populations. Such approaches usually make matters worse. If pandemics reveal anything, it is that our health depends in no small measure on how we treat the most vulnerable among us. The Covid-19 outbreak is now testing the U.S. Some recent and not-so-recent immigration policies do not put us in a good position to combat it....

In September 1969, as I began ninth grade, a rumor circulated that the Beatles’ Paul McCartney was dead, killed in a 1966 automobile accident and replaced by a look-alike. The clues were there in the albums, if you knew where to look. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’s “A Day in the Life,” for one, recounts the accident: He blew his mind out in a car / He didn’t notice that the lights had changed / A crowd of people stood and stared / They’d seen his face before / Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords....

A viral gene embedded in the sheep genome plays an essential role in the growth of the animal’s placenta, according to a study of impregnated sheep. The result strengthens the case that similar viral genes play the same role in mice and people. Up to 10 percent of a mammal’s genome is made up of DNA captured from retroviruses, which insert their DNA into the host genome and sometimes lose the ability to get back out of the cell....

What factors determine whether a medical emergency is truly an emergency? According to a new study, the answer depends on how well your favorite baseball team is doing. A report published in the October issue of the Annals of Emergency Medicine reveals that the number of visits to emergency rooms in Boston-area hospitals was inversely related to how well the Red Sox performed in the 2004 World Series. Previous studies had suggested a relationship between important sporting events such as the Super Bowl and hospital visits....

The origin of a food allergy usually remains a mystery. Not so for an eight-year-old boy who received a blood transfusion unexpectedly brimming with antibodies against salmon and peanuts—two foods he had routinely consumed in the past. A few weeks after receiving transfusions, when he had a serious allergic reaction within 10 minutes of eating salmon and another after he ate a chocolate peanut butter cup, his doctors soon identified the source of the problem....

Mothers usually set about teaching their offspring the moment they’re born. But the females of one Australian bird can’t wait that long. Superb fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) mothers sing to their unhatched eggs to teach the embryo inside a ‘password’ — a single unique note — which the nestlings must later incorporate into their begging calls if they want to get fed. The trick allows fairy-wren parents to distinguish between their own offspring and those of the two cuckoo species that frequently invade their nests....

Whether it’s deciding what to eat or where to live, we like to have options. And the more options we have, the more varied our choices will be—right? When it comes to picking our friends, perhaps not. A new study published September 21 in Group Processes & Intergroup Relations suggests that when people are able to choose friends from a larger, more diverse group, they pick pals who are most similar to themselves....

If Hurricane Laura shifts west and lands squarely on the Texas coast, it will be the fifth deadly hurricane to strike the Lone Star State since 2000. That’s far too soon for Texas and federal partners to complete a storm surge protection system designed to shield the Lone Star State from major hurricanes. But they’re hoping the multibillion-dollar project might be done in time for a sixth major hurricane. Or maybe a seventh....

We often think of the abstract idea of time in the concrete terms of space, saying we are “looking forward to the weekend” or “putting the past behind us.” These adages may be more than just metaphors. A study published in January in Psychological Science suggests that thinking of space may be a necessity to conceptualize time. When people’s minds are not able to accurately understand space, researchers found, they have difficulty with time as well....

MR. MAGOO, a cartoon regular of early television, was notorious for his hazardous driving. He was a retiree, befuddled and extremely nearsighted, yet he continued to drive despite these obvious failings. In the opening sequence to his long-running show, he had run-ins with a railroad train, a haystack and several barn animals, a roller coaster, a fire hydrant, a mud hole and a high voltage line—all while honking his horn and shouting, “Road hog!...

Practice makes perfect—and it rewires the brain, as many studies have shown. But sometimes hours of practice can take these brain changes too far, as happens in musician’s dystonia, when the boundaries between muscles blur in the brain and precise movements are no longer possible. In pianists, for example, the fingers might clutch inward involuntarily every time they attempt to strike a key. This condition takes years to develop, but new research suggests a treatment that takes only 15 minutes can reorganize the brain and allow musicians to play again....

During the chat, Zivkovic, Ouellette and others involved in the Open Lab anthologies for the past six years will be available to answer your questions about how the finalists were selected from an initial 720 entries, what made the 51 finalists entries stand out and what else is new in science blogging in 2012. It’s not too late to submit entries for considering in Open Lab 2013. The deadline is October 1....

By Alla KatsnelsonEMERYVILLE, CALIFORNIA–Six months since it launched, the world’s first factory for making professional-quality biological DNA ‘parts’ is beginning to stock its shelves.More than 60 people–academic researchers, industry partners and interested members of the community–joined the staff at the International Open Facility Advancing Biotechnology (BIOFAB), at a meeting on July 19 and 20 to discuss the facility’s progress so far and its aims over the next few years.BIOFAB aims to supply synthetic biologists with a collection of genetic parts that they can use in their experiments....

Seizures are like storms in the brain—sudden bursts of abnormal electrical activity that can cause disturbances in movement, behavior, feelings and awareness. For people with epilepsy, not knowing when their next seizure will hit can be psychologically debilitating. Clinicians have no way of telling people with epilepsy whether a seizure will likely happen five minutes from now, five weeks from now or five months from now, says Vikram Rao, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco....

The Science Of The Next 150 Years: 50 Years in the Future It is 2063. you walk into the doctor’s office, and a nurse takes a sample of saliva, blood or a prenatal cell and applies it to a microchip the size of a letter on this page on a handheld device. Minutes later the device reads the test results. The multicolored fluorescence pattern on its display reveals the presence of DNA sequences that cause or influence any of 1,200-plus single-gene disorders....

Scientific American presents Math Dude by Quick & Dirty Tips. Scientific American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan companies. Today we’re going to learn how math makes it easy to estimate things that seem practically impossible to calculate. In particular, since summer is in full swing, we’re going to take math to the beach and think about the age-old question: How many grains of sand are on all of Earth’s beaches?...

For more than 25 years, Richard Youins struggled to find help with his drug addiction. Youins is from New Haven, Conn., home to both Yale University and a number of less affluent neighborhoods—his community has been shaken by murders and drug-related crimes during the pandemic. Substance use clinics and treatment sites were available, but he felt the care they provided overlooked who he was as a person. The needs “of our community weren’t being addressed,” says Youins, who is Black....

By Mari Saito TOKYO (Reuters) - The operator of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant said on Thursday that 100 metric tons of highly contaminated water had leaked out of a tank, the worst incident since last August, when a series of radioactive water leaks sparked international alarm. Tokyo Electric Power Co told reporters the latest leak was unlikely to have reached the ocean. But news of the leak at the site, devastated by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, further undercut public trust in a utility rocked by a string of mishaps and disclosure issues....

Key concepts Physics Geometry Engineering Trusses Introduction Have you ever driven across a bridge or seen a building that is under construction and noticed the large metal support girders? What about wooden beams in a house that is under construction? Did you notice how sometimes the supports form different geometric shapes such as triangles or squares? In this project you will be a structural engineer and make your own “support” shapes out of popsicle sticks....

U.S. cities slowed the spread of the 1918 pandemic flu by measures such as closing schools and churches and banning mass gatherings, thereby reducing the severity of outbreaks in certain locations, according to a pair of new studies. A few cities appear to have reduced flu transmission so well that they lifted the control measures too early and allowed the virus to spread rapidly again. Researchers say that such practices could, in principle, limit the death toll of a future pandemic, but authorities would have to implement them early and long enough....