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Scientists are sending the U.S. a warning: What's happening right now in the United Kingdom with the new coronavirus variant could likely happen in the U.S., and the country has a short window to prepare.

"I think a lot of countries are looking at the U.K. right now and saying, 'Oh, isn't that too bad that it's happening there, just like we did with Italy in February.

"But we've seen in this pandemic a few times that, if the virus can happen somewhere else, it can probably happen in your country, too."

some scientists have raised questions about one of the two vaccines the country of 1.4 billion people has authorized for emergency use against COVID-19.

More than 5 million vaccine vials arrived early Wednesday at hundreds of hospitals and clinics across India.

The shipments consist of two formulas: One developed by Oxford University and the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, and another vaccine developed by an Indian company called Bharat Biotech

Why do so many of us hide our heads in the sand when faced with the possibility of a catastrophic future event?

we are governed by two cognitive systems: one that is more automated and drives instinctual decisions—like quickly moving away from danger—and another that involves more considered thought and drives deliberate decisions—like deciding what house to buy.

In these cases, we tend to rely on six biases that can lead us to misperceive our situation and potentially take wrong action (or avoid action altogether). These are nicely described in The Ostrich Paradox, as follows: Myopia: The tendency to focus more on the short-term costs than the future potential benefits of investments. Amnesia: The tendency to forget the lessons of past disasters. Optimism: The tendency to underestimate the likelihood of future hazards. Inertia: The tendency to maintain the status quo or adopt the default option when uncertain about the future benefits of investing now. Simplification: The tendency to selectively consider only certain factors when making choices involving risk. Herding: The tendency to follow the “wisdom” of the crowd.

(CNN)"Have smartphones destroyed a generation?" Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, asked in an adapted excerpt of her controversial book, "iGen."In the book, she argues that those born after 1995 are on the "brink of a mental-health crisis" -- and she believes it can be linked to growing up with their noses pressed against a screen.

For those who responded 10 to 19 hours per week, that number was about 18%. For those who spent 40 or more hours a week using social media, that number approached 24%.

By the twelfth grade, however, the negative correlations between screen time and teen psychology had somewhat dissipated. In addition, less is not always more: Teens with zero hours of screen time had higher rates of unhappiness than their peers who logged in a few hours a week.

You're missing a potentially vital opportunity to practice essential survival skills.

That's the theory explored by a recent report from Nautilus, which focuses on the science of dreaming. For a long time the general consensus has been that dreams, be they delightful or terrifying, are useless: a mish-mash of experiences, impulses, memories, and that random episode of The Walking Dead that you watched just before bedtime, all distilled into a surreal nightmare in which you're being chased through the halls of your old high school by zombies … and for some reason, you're not wearing pants.

Though not formally researched, anecdotes abound from people who've dreamed of a frightening experience only to then live through it in real life

Trump broke with Fauci, who has served under six presidents, on Wednesday over the infectious disease expert's warnings that getting businesses and schools back open too quickly would lead to unnecessary suffering and death.

The delicate dynamic between Fauci and Trump has been watched for months. Its latest fraying marks the most pronounced clash yet in the tussle between science and politics that has long plagued the administration's fight against the coronavirus.

He has yet to initiate a serious national conversation about the vital need to get the economy firing again balanced against the level of death and illness that is acceptable to the country given that the pandemic could worsen if states open up too quickly.

LLast Saturday afternoon, Kristina Moy decided to swing by her local supermarket in the US city of Seattle to pick up some weekly groceries and supplies for her son’s upcoming baseball tournament. What started as a quick errand turned into a three-hour ordeal, navigating checkout lanes packed with hundreds of shoppers stocking up amid the outbreak of coronavirus.

Moy isn’t the only one to experience long queues and empty shelves. Mass demand for rice and instant noodles in Singapore prompted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to assure the public there was enough to go around. In Auckland, New Zealand, supermarket spending shot up 40% last Saturday compared to the same day a year ago. And shoppers in Malaysia wanting to pad “pandemic pantries” – grocery hoards to fill people’s kitchens until the crisis dies down – have driven an 800% increase in weekly hand sanitiser sales. (All of those places have confirmed cases of Covid-19.)

With events like looming natural disasters, such as a hurricane or flood, people frequently stock up with emergency supplies. “It is rational to prepare for something bad that looks like it is likely to occur,” says David Savage, associate professor of behavioural and microeconomics at the University of Newcastle in Australia, who’s written about the rationality behind stocking up in a crisis. However: “It is not rational to buy 500 cans of baked beans for what would likely be a two-week isolation period.”

Twitter has admitted it amplifies more tweets from rightwing politicians and news outlets than content from leftwing sources.

The study compared Twitter’s “Home” timeline – the default way its 200 million users are served tweets, in which an algorithm tailors what users see – with the traditional chronological timeline where the most recent tweets are ranked first.

The research found that in six out of seven countries, apart from Germany, tweets from rightwing politicians received more amplification from the algorithm than those from the left; right-leaning news organisations were more amplified than those on the left; and generally politicians’ tweets were more amplified by an algorithmic timeline than by the chronological timeline.

if all of those bad presentations really led to broad societal ills, the proof is hard to find.

Some scientists have tried to take a formal measure of the alleged PowerPoint Effect, asking whether the software really influences our ability to process information. Sebastian Kernbach, a professor of creativity and design at the University of St. Gallen, in Switzerland, has co-authored multiple reviews synthesizing this literature. On the whole, he told me, the research suggests that Tufte was partly right, partly wrong. PowerPoint doesn’t seem to make us stupid—there is no evidence of lower information retention or generalized cognitive decline, for example, among those who use it—but it does impose a set of assumptions about how information ought to be conveyed: loosely, in bullet points, and delivered by presenters to an audience of passive listeners. These assumptions have even reshaped the physical environment for the slide-deck age, Kernbach said: Seminar tables, once configured in a circle, have been bent, post-PowerPoint, into a U-shape to accommodate presenters.

When I spoke with Kernbach, he was preparing for a talk on different methods of visual thinking to a group of employees at a large governmental organization. He said he planned to use a flip chart, draw on blank slides like a white board, and perhaps even have audience members do some drawing of their own. But he was also gearing up to use regular old PowerPoint slides. Doing so, he told me, would “signal preparation and professionalism” for his audience. The organization was NASA.

Creating more peace, rather than more polarization

Avoid starting out with “you’re wrong.” The result of starting out that way is rarely that the other person ends up saying “oh, yes, you are totally right and I AM wrong!” Even if it’s true, it’s usually not effective.

If you really plan to get deep into political discussions, I recommend reading up on news sources from the side opposite your views. Really read them closely and deeply. This will familiarize you with the arguments that convince your opposite-side relative and reduce your shock when you hear them repeat those arguments. It will allow you to react with more peace and less anger, and will allow you to prepare your arguments better. Remember, the arguments that convince you (that you read in your news sources) are not the same ones that convince them. Address the arguments that convince them.

Social scientists have identified at least three major forces that collectively bind together successful democracies: social capital (extensive social networks with high levels of trust), strong institutions, and shared stories.

Social media has weakened all three.

gradually, social-media users became more comfortable sharing intimate details of their lives with strangers and corporations. As I wrote in a 2019 Atlantic article with Tobias Rose-Stockwell, they became more adept at putting on performances and managing their personal brand—activities that might impress others but that do not deepen friendships in the way that a private phone conversation will.

In a brazen example of putting ideology ahead of reality, Senate Republicans seem to have pressured the Congressional Research Service to withdraw a report debunking conservative economic orthodoxy. Cutting tax rates at the top appears “to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie,” the report said. “However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.” So charging the rich lower tax rates doesn’t promote economic growth; it merely increases economic inequality.

The CRS is a highly respected, independent agency that prepares reports for members of Congress and routinely issues findings that disappoint or even irritate their clients, who usually just grin and bear it, or at least bear it. But Congressional Republicans seem to think that the CRS should function like Pravda.

Don Stewart, a spokesman for the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, said Mr. McConnell and other senators “raised concerns about the methodology and other flaws” in the CRS report. Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for the Senate Finance Committee, said the panel had relayed its objections to the CRS. “We had a good discussion,” she said, “Then it was pulled.”

an approach developed at Stanford's Graduate School of Education that's rapidly gaining adherents across the country

trial studies of the Stanford program demonstrated that when high school students engage regularly with challenging primary source documents, they not only make significant gains learning and retaining historical material, they also markedly improve their reading comprehension and critical thinking.

Colglazier builds his thought-provoking classes using an online tool called Reading Like a Historian. Designed by the Stanford History Education Group under Professor Sam Wineburg, the website offers 87 flexible lesson plans featuring documents from the Library of Congress

Last year the Texas G.O.P. explicitly condemned efforts to teach “critical thinking skills,” because, it said, such efforts “have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”

even when giving a speech intended to demonstrate his ope

nness to new ideas, Mr. Cantor felt obliged to give that caucus a shout-out, calling for a complete end to federal funding of social science research. Because it’s surely a waste of money seeking to understand the society we’re trying to change.

our political “debates” seldom deserve the name. For the most part representatives of the rival parties exchange one-liners: “The rich can afford to pay more” is met by “Tax increases kill jobs.” Slightly more sophisticated discussions may cite historical precedents: “There were higher tax rates during the post-war boom” versus “Reagan’s tax cuts increased revenues.”

Such volleys still don’t even amount to arguments: they don’t put forward generally accepted premises that support a conclusion.

Despite the name, candidates’ pre-election debates are exercises in looking authoritative, imposing their talking points on the questions, avoiding gaffes, and embarrassing their opponents with “zingers”

researchers and some start-ups are already preparing the next, even more intrusive wave of computing: ingestible computers and minuscule sensors stuffed inside pills.

some people on the cutting edge are already swallowing them to monitor a range of health data and wirelessly share this information with a doctor

does not need a battery. Instead, the body is the power source. Just as a potato can power a light bulb, Proteus has added magnesium and copper on each side of its tiny sensor, which generates just enough electricity from stomach acids.

“Arabic is a language of memorization,” he said. “You just have to drill the words into your head, which unfortunately takes a lot of time.” He thought, “How can I maximize the number of words I learn in the minimum amount of time?”

Siebert started studying the science of memory and second-language acquisition and found two concepts that went hand in hand to make learning easier: selective learning and spaced repetition. With selective learning, you spend more time on the things you don’t know, rather than on the things you already do

Siebert designed his software to use spaced repetition. If you get cup right, the program will make the interval between seeing the word cup longer and longer, but it will cycle cup back in just when you’re about to forget it. If you’ve forgotten cup entirely, the cycle starts again. This system moves the words from your brain’s short-term memory into long-term memory and maximizes the number of words you can learn effectively in a period. You don’t have to cram

On Planet Cruz, there is a massive outpouring of public support for a government shutdown over Obamacare and it's scaring the hell out of Democrats.

Meanwhile, back on planet earth, the public hates the shutdown, Americans are 20 points more likely to blame Republicans for the shutdown than Obama, the Republican Party is scoring its worst poll numbers on record, Cruz's colleagues in the House and Senate hate him, and they're preparing to cave to the president by reopening the government and funding Obamacare.

When constituencies become aggrieved minorities, seeing themselves as under attack by the establishment, they are vulnerable to hucksters like Cruz, because they disregard outside warnings and evidence that they are being had.

preparing for a series of raids that would target for deportation hundreds of families who have flocked to the United States since the start of last year

first large-scale effort to deport families who have fled violence in Central America

target only adults and children who have already been ordered removed from the United States by an immigration judge