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In 2014, a vibrant and well-traveled patient I will call Alice, whom I (Berman) was treating for bipolar disorder, began refusing to leave her home after a prolonged course of physical rehabilitation for a spinal injury. None of the usual diagnoses—depression, anxiety or agoraphobia—explained her withdrawal, which continued after medications stabilized her mood. Patients with … Read more
By Michael Le Page, Clare Wilson, Jessica Hamzelou, Sam Wong, Graham Lawton, Adam Vaughan, Conrad Quilty-Harper, Jason Arunn Murugesu and Layal Liverpool Stewards check covid-19 passes at a football match in Manchester, England AFP via Getty Images Latest coronavirus news as of 12pm on 17 January A fall in coronavirus cases and plateau in hospital … Read more
The underwater Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption has already triggered a tsunami, a sonic boom and thousands of lightning bolts, and could now lead to acid rain Earth 17 January 2022 By Alice Klein Satellite photo of the eruption CIRA/NOAA/Handout via REUTERS The massive explosion of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in Tonga on Saturday was its … Read more
Ever since scientists made the first detection of gravitational waves from a pair of colliding black holes in 2015, evidence has been growing that the Universe ought to be full of them. Every massive event – every black hole or neutron star merger, every supernova – should have sent gravitational waves ringing out across … Read more
To health care workers in the COVID era, holidays mean death, and we knew Omicron was coming before it had a name. The wave caused by this variant has barely begun, rapidly gathering steam, and we are exhausted, attempting to pull from reserves badly drained by earlier surges. Back in August, the beds of my … Read more
In a near rerun of early 2020, when dozens of meetings were canceled on short notice because of the pandemic, a handful of scientific societies are once again canceling their in-person meetings as the ultracontagious Omicron variant sweeps across the globe. Although many societies were better prepared for the latest wave because they planned hybrid … Read more
As this year begins, the Omicron variant is smashing COVID-19 infection records across Europe, North America, Africa, and Australia. With massive numbers of people infected or in quarantine, tens of thousands of flights and trains have been canceled, and work and schools disrupted. Earlier in the pandemic, the frightful, near-vertical rise in cases would have … Read more
Although the jungles of southern Mexico seem like an ideal spot for fieldwork, the region’s sulfur springs are far from a tropical getaway. In addition to the area’s stifling heat, the pools reek of rotten eggs. Their milky, turquoise water is even more inhospitable: it is laced with toxic levels of hydrogen sulfide and contains … Read more
Some of the most stunning examples of animal behavior seem to be driven by predators. A massive cloud of starlings darting away from a hawk that looks like swirling plume of smoke, for example. Or a shiny school of sardines twirling as dolphins circle around. Biologists have long believed such behavior confuses predators, giving each … Read more
Two doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine shot offered about 70 percent protection against hospitalization during a recent surge in Omicron cases in South Africa, preliminary real-world data found. This was a drop from about 92 percent in a previous Delta wave, the researchers from Discovery Health, South Africa’s largest insurer and South Africa’s Medical Research Council, said … Read more