Learning

School choice sounds good, but is it really? Suitts says that understanding its racist roots illuminates its monochrome consequences. The Court eventually ruled that it was not permissible to create racially specific schools, even though they were technically private, not public. The schools switched to virtual segregation, which is another name for token integration. A few non-whites (not always black) were allowed in. Private schools remained overwhelmingly white, and not just in the South. Suitts concludes that shifting more resources from public to private schools, by whatever rationale, won’t result in a better education for those who need it most. To find out more about what happened and why, read this book. more »

Can we really tell male and female dinosaurs apart? Scientists worldwide have long debated our ability to identify male and female dinosaurs. Researchers analysed skulls from modern-day gharials, an endangered and giant crocodilian species, to see how easy it is to distinguish between males and females using only fossil records. Male gharials are larger in size than females and possess a fleshy growth on the end of their snout, known as a ghara. The research teamstudied 106 gharial specimens in museums across the world. They found that aside from the presence of the narial fossa in males, it was still very hard to tell the sexes apart. more »

"I earned my PhD in Immunology and Molecular Pathogenesis from Emory University in Georgia My dissertation was focused on pandemic avian influenza. I have spent my entire career leading teams of scientists in drugs, diagnostics and vaccine development -- in the government with CDC and BARDA, for a global non-profit organization and also in the biotechnology industry. Regardless of my position, my job and my entire professional focus has been on saving lives." more »

"Typically when a virus develops mechanisms to evade immune responses, it loses its potency to infect people," said Li. "However, SARS-CoV-2 maintains its infectivity using two mechanisms. First, during its limited exposure time, the tip of the viral key grabs a receptor protein on human cells quickly and firmly. Second, the pre-activation of the viral key allows the virus to more effectively infect human cells." Li says that recognizing the evasiveness of SARS-CoV-2 is important for designing antibody drugs and vaccines. Antibody drugs would need to overpower the tip of the hidden viral key by latching onto it very quickly and tightly during its limited exposure time.   SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is highly in… more »