A universal flu vaccine?
The holy grail of flu research is a universal vaccine that would provide lasting protection against all forms of the virus, but it remains elusive. There have been clinical trials in the past, with the National Institutes of Health beginning a new round of tests on humans this year. The hope is to train the immune system by targeting the stem of a protein on the virus, which varies little from strain to strain.
However, our bodies don’t generate many antibodies to target this part of the virus, instead focusing on the frequently changing head. Because of a process called “imprinting--in which the immune system learns how to fight viruses based on the first encounter--it’s difficult to teach the body new habits. “I don’t think we’re that close at all,” says Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. “I think the kind of work that’s gone on has been critical and important, but it’s only the first 5 feet of what would need to be a 100-foot rope.”
--The Week
Corruption that’s legal is still corrupt
When did “whatever federal law allows” become the standard for ethical behavior among the D.C. elite? Hunter Biden didn’t break any laws in taking a lucrative sinecure with a Ukrainian natural gas company, but he obviously traded on his position as the son of a U.S. vice president. Unfortunately, his behavior is typical of circles in which America’s leading lights use their connections and access to insider policy information to enrich themselves.
Cofer Black, George W. Bush’s CIA counter-terrorism chief, joined Biden on Burisma Holdings’ board. Paul Manafort worked for Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, a Moscow-linked kleptocrat ousted from power in 2014.
So did Gregory Craig, President Obama’s White House counsel. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright founded a hedge fund that took a stake in an energy company that does business with a U.S. government entity closely linked to the State Department. In fact, scratch into the bios of many former U.S. officials who were in charge of foreign or security policy in administrations of either party, and you will find "consulting" firms and hedge-fund gigs monetizing their names and connections. How did we ever convince ourselves that this was not corruption?
--Sarah Chayes, TheAtlantic.com
The backlash to the techlash
It’s fashionable to complain about technology, but the evidence suggests we love our devices as much as ever. Smart-home tech such as the Ring video-doorbell system continues to fly off shelves; Amazon says it has sold 100 million Alexa devices. Last quarter, Twitter added 5 million new daily users, while Snapchat grew by 7 percent. Even Facebook added 8 percent to its daily user base, growing it to 1.59 billion people worldwide, even though it’s hard to imagine a more backlashable company. The fact is that we really, really like much of what technology has to offer, and most of us are willing to overlook significant potential downsides in exchange for rather trivial payoffs.
--Rob Walker, New York Times
Court packing: A good or bad idea?
Democrats might beat President Trump at the ballot box in 2020, but unless something changes, they’re going to lose to Trump in the courtroom for decades to come. Thanks to the hardball tactics used by Senate Republicans in blocking President Obama’s appointments, Trump has already appointed more than 150 lifetime federal judges and two Supreme Court justices. Most Americans, not incidentally, voted against Trump in 2016. Even if Democrats regain the White House and Senate in future years, his judges will entrench minority rule for a generation because they’re almost certain to overturn ambitious progressive legislation. That’s why Democrats should play hardball back by expanding the number of federal and Supreme Court justices—yes, packing the courts. All it takes to change the number of federal judges is an act of Congress. We are a democratic republic, not a judge-ocracy.
--Jamelle Bouie, New York Times
The imperial Trump presidency
President Trump’s lawyers want the courts to declare that the president is above the law. Trump [recently] asked a court to block New York prosecutors from requiring an accounting firm to turn over his personal and corporate tax returns. Trump’s lawsuit claims the president is constitutionally protected “not just from indictment but also from investigation.” That’s squarely at odd with the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in U.S. v. Nixon, which rejected President Nixon’s claim that he was protected by absolute privilege and ordered him to comply with a subpoena in the Watergate probe.
Now, though, Trump has revived Nixon’s argument and seems to be using this case to ask the Supreme Court to nullify U.S. v. Nixon. The newest justice may well be on board: In 2009, Brett Kavanaugh urged Congress to enact a law overruling Nixon, thereby shielding sitting presidents from investigation. Should Kavanaugh and the other four conservative justices take that matter into their own hands, Nixon’s long-mocked claim that when the president does something, that means that it is not illegal would actually become true.
--David Lurie, Slate.com
A lost continent in the Mediterranean
Geologists have discovered the location of a long-lost continent, the remnants of which can still be seen throughout the Mediterranean today. The continent of Greater Adria formed some 240 million years ago when a Greenland-size chunk of continental crust broke off from North Africa. That new continent was mostly covered by shallow seas and was shortlived—about 100 million to 130 million years ago, tectonic shifts caused it to slide beneath Southern Europe.
Most of Greater Adria disappeared into the Earth’s mantle, but its top layers of sedimentary rock were scraped off, creating Italy’s Apennine Mountains, parts of the Alps, Turkey’s Taurus range, and mountains in the Balkans and Greece. The only remaining intact piece of the lost continent is a strip of land running from Turin, in northern Italy, to the heel of Italy’s boot in the south—a strip that geologists had already named Adria.
Scientists had known for some time that another continent must have existed in the Mediterranean, because of the region’s tangled geology. Researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands untangled that history with advanced software that reconstructs the movement of tectonic plates, reports CNN.com. Using geological data from more than 30 countries, they were able to piece together what the continent looked like and how it had moved away from Africa. “Forget Atlantis,” says lead author Douwe van Hinsbergen. “Without realizing it, vast numbers of tourists spend their holiday each year on the lost continent of Greater Adria.”
--The Week
Democracy? What's that?
The word “democracy” appears nowhere in the two most fundamental founding documents of our nation--the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. The founders had utter contempt for democracy. James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, wrote in Federalist Paper No. 10, that in a pure democracy “there is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.”
John Adams said: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall observed, “Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.”
The U.S. Constitution is replete with anti-majority rule, undemocratic provisions. One provision, heavily criticized, is the Electoral College. In their wisdom, the framers gave us the Electoral College so that in presidential elections, heavily populated states could not run roughshod over sparsely populated states. In order to amend the Constitution, it requires a two-thirds vote of both Houses, or two-thirds of state legislatures, to propose an amendment, and requires three-fourths of state legislatures for ratification.
Part of the reason for having a bicameral Congress is that it places another obstacle to majority rule. Fifty-one senators can block the wishes of 435 representatives and 49 senators. The president, with a veto, can thwart the will of all 535 members of Congress. It takes a two-thirds vote, not just a majority, of both houses of Congress to override that presidential veto.
--Walter Williams, Creators Syndicate
Stuck in the slow lane
Driverless cars are arriving en masse in the streets of Silicon Valley neighborhoods, and residents aren’t pleased. As the tech giants try to sell the rest of the world on self-driving cars, their own neighbors are crowding community meetings to express their concerns. They say the software that controls the cars still needs to be trained on real-life situations: left-hand turns, bikers, children running out into the streets. Residents complain that the slow-moving self-driving vehicles continually clog up traffic. “They drive like either geriatrics or 17-year-olds who have very limited experience,” said one.
--Faiz Siddiqui, Washington Post
China and U.S. businesses: The big sellout
***It’s not just the NBA. Hollywood studios now routinely scrub films of storylines and images that China finds offensive. U.S. airlines and hotel chains edit their maps to avoid describing Taiwan as a separate country. ESPN even ordered its reporters not to criticize China while covering the Morey story. If these craven corporations will self-censor even on U.S. soil to appease China’s autocratic rulers, then Americans owe them nothing but contempt.
--John Daniel Davidson, TheFederalist.com
***It may be too late. Our two economies are so entangled at this point that the U.S. severing ties with China over its human rights abuses would “cause economic devastation to millions of workers,” not just in the U.S. and China but also around the world. Are Americans willing to give up their iPhones, TikTok, and a vast array of inexpensive consumer goods to punish China over its human rights violations?
--Derek Thompson, TheAtlantic.com
The pigs that use tools
Researchers have spotted pigs using tools—a first for this animal, which is known for its intelligence. Many wild animals, such as chimpanzees and dolphins, make use of tools. But until now, neither wild nor domestic swine have ever been seen doing the same. That changed when Meredith Root-Bernstein, an ecologist, observed a wild pig in a Parisian zoo picking up a piece of bark in its mouth and digging in the dirt with it. Root-Bernstein hypothesized that the Visayan warty pig—a critically endangered species from the Philippines—was nest-building, something the animals do every six months to prepare for the arrival of piglets.
Colleagues who returned to the zoo the next spring confirmed her theory. Three of the four pigs in the pen were using tools to create a homey nest: a pit filled with leaves. Subsequent visits yielded the same finding. Root-Bernstein says it isn’t yet clear why the pigs use tools, given that their snouts appear better suited for the task. “Learned things and cultural things work that way,” she tells NationalGeographic.com. “Maybe it just feels like the right thing to do.”
--The Week
Ignoring the national debt
A decade ago, Americans clamored in outrage over the government’s growing mountain of debt. Today, as debt explodes at the rate of $1 trillion a year to a total of $22.6 trillion, outrage has given way to . . . "crickets.” The Tea Party movement that raised such fierce objections to President Obama’s profligate spending has gone silent; pitched battles over the government’s debt limit have ended. President Trump promised to eliminate the national debt, but he and Congress have agreed to spend $4.7 trillion for the coming fiscal year, or $700 billion more than in 2017. No one seems to care.
Democrats seeking to replace Trump, in fact, are promising to add trillions more in spending by wiping out student debt, providing guaranteed income to every American and replacing private insurance with Medicare for All. The interest payments on our debt have soared to $400 billion this year, and when low interest rates inevitably go up, the U.S.’s interest obligations will skyrocket to $700 billion or more per year and probably surpass what we spend on national defense. This is madness. Americans can continue to pretend not to see what’s coming, but sooner or later, the bill for our irresponsible spending will come due.
--Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe
