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<title>28 December, 2023</title>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="covid-19-sentry">Covid-19 Sentry</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-preprints">From Preprints</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-pubmed">From PubMed</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-patent-search">From Patent Search</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-preprints">From Preprints</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Associations between COVID-19 and putative markers of neuroinflammation: A diffusion basis spectrum imaging study.</strong> -
<div>
COVID-19 remains a significant international public health concern. Yet, the mechanisms through which symptomatology emerges remain poorly understood. While SARS-CoV-2 infection may induce prolonged inflammation within the central nervous system, the evidence primarily stems from limited small-scale case investigations. To address this gap, our study capitalized on longitudinal UK Biobank neuroimaging data acquired prior to and following COVID-19 testing (N=416 including n=224 COVID-19 cases; Mage=58.6). Putative neuroinflammation was assessed in gray matter structures and white matter tracts using non-invasive Diffusion Basis Spectrum Imaging (DBSI), which estimates inflammation-related cellularity (DBSI-restricted fraction; DBSI-RF) and vasogenic edema (DBSI-hindered fraction; DBSI-HF).We hypothesized that COVID-19 case status would be associated with increases in DBSI markers after accounting for potential confound (age, sex, race, body mass index, smoking frequency, and data acquisition interval) and multiple testing. COVID-19 case status was not significantly associated with DBSI-RF (all |B|&lt;0.28, pFDR &gt;0.05), but with greater DBSI-HF in left pre- and post-central gyri and right middle frontal gyrus (all B&gt;0.3, all pFDR=0.03). Intriguingly, the brain areas exhibiting increased putative vasogenic edema had previously been linked to COVID-19-related functional and structural alterations, whereas brain regions displaying subtle differences in cellularity between COVID-19 cases and controls included regions within or functionally connected to the olfactory network, which has been implicated in COVID-19 psychopathology. Nevertheless, our study might not have captured acute and transitory neuroinflammatory effects linked to SARS-CoV-2 infection, possibly due to symptom resolution before the imaging scan. Future research is warranted to explore the potential time- and symptom-dependent neuroinflammatory relationship with COVID-19.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.20.549891v3" target="_blank">Associations between COVID-19 and putative markers of neuroinflammation: A diffusion basis spectrum imaging study.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The double bind of communicating about zoonotic origins: Describing exotic animal sources of COVID-19 increases both healthy and discriminatory avoidance behaviors</strong> -
<div>
Many novel diseases are of zoonotic origin, likely including COVID-19. Describing diseases as originating from diverse exotic animals can increase risk perceptions and protective avoidance behaviors, but may also activate stereotypes, increasing discriminatory behaviors and disease stigma. Data from the first several weeks of the US COVID-19 pandemic tested how communications about zoonotic disease origins affect people’s risk perceptions, health behaviors, and stigma. Participants (N = 677) who read news articles describing exotic animals (e.g., snakes) as sources of COVID-19 viewed the virus as riskier and reported stronger intentions to engage in preventative behaviors (e.g., handwashing), relative to those who read about a familiar source (pigs). Reading exotic origin descriptions was associated with stronger intentions to avoid Asian individuals and animal products, both of which contributed to greater stigma for COVID-19. Results have implications for public health communicators who aim to increase risk perceptions without activating stigma or prejudice.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/948qn/" target="_blank">The double bind of communicating about zoonotic origins: Describing exotic animal sources of COVID-19 increases both healthy and discriminatory avoidance behaviors</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Discovery of 2-amide-3-methylester thiophenes that target SARS-CoV-2 Mac1 and repress coronavirus replication, validating Mac1 as an anti-viral target</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus has made it clear that further development of antiviral therapies will be needed to combat additional SARS-CoV-2 variants or novel CoVs. Here, we describe small molecule inhibitors for SARS-CoV-2 Mac1, which counters ADP-ribosylation mediated innate immune responses. The compounds inhibiting Mac1 were discovered through high-throughput screening (HTS) using a protein FRET-based competition assay and the best hit compound had an IC50 of 14 M. Three validated HTS hits have the same 2-amide-3-methylester thiophene scaffold and the scaffold was selected for structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies through commercial and synthesized analogs. We studied the compound binding mode in detail using X-ray crystallography and this allowed us to focus on specific features of the compound and design analogs. Compound 27 (MDOLL-0229) had an IC50 of 2.1 M and was generally selective for CoV Mac1 proteins after profiling for activity against a panel of viral and human ADP-ribose binding proteins. The improved potency allowed testing of its effect on virus replication and indeed, 27 inhibited replication of both MHVa prototype CoV, and SARS-CoV-2. Furthermore, sequencing of a drug-resistant MHV identified mutations in Mac1, further demonstrating the specificity of 27. Compound 27 is the first Mac1 targeted small molecule demonstrated to inhibit coronavirus replication in a cell model. This, together with its well-defined binding mode, makes 27 a good candidate for further hit/lead-optimization efforts.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.08.28.555062v2" target="_blank">Discovery of 2-amide-3-methylester thiophenes that target SARS-CoV-2 Mac1 and repress coronavirus replication, validating Mac1 as an anti-viral target</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Synthesis and Assembly of mRNA-Bifunctional Lipid Nanoparticle (BLNP) for Selective Delivery of mRNA Vaccines to Dendritic Cells</strong> -
<div>
The fight against COVID-19 pandemic has gained a strong consensus about the importance of developing mRNA vaccines to rapidly respond to an outbreak. Several studies have shown that mRNA vaccines formulated as mRNA-lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) for vaccination can elicit a robust and efficient immune response. In this study, we report the preparation of mRNA-bifunctional lipid nanoparticles (mRNA-BLNPs) as vaccines for targeted delivery to dendritic cells (DCs) to improve safety and enhance immune response. Using this DC-targeted delivery system, mice immunized with SARS-CoV-2 spike mRNA-BLNP vaccine elicited a stronger immune response with higher titer of neutralizing IgG antibody response than the LNP-formulated vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. In addition, the spike mRNA-BLNP vaccine with deletion of glycosites in the stem elicited a broadly protective immune response against SARS-CoV-2 and variants. These findings suggest the importance and potential of developing DC-targeted mRNA vaccines to elicit broadly protective immune responses against human viruses.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.26.572282v1" target="_blank">Synthesis and Assembly of mRNA-Bifunctional Lipid Nanoparticle (BLNP) for Selective Delivery of mRNA Vaccines to Dendritic Cells</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The base media formulation impacts the efficiency of ex-vivo erythropoiesis of primary human hematopoietic stem cells</strong> -
<div>
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a disruption in the supply of the widely used erythroid differentiation media product, Iscove’s Modified Dulbecco’s Medium, manufactured by Biochrom AG. IMDM is a critical component of ex vivo erythropoiesis protocols used to generate genetically modified red blood cells for the study of malaria host factors. Therefore, we set out to identify the best alternative IMDM product for efficient erythroid differentiation of hematopoietic stem cells into enucleated red blood cells for use in our research. We tested other IMDM products, including I2911 (from Millipore Sigma), P04-20450 (from Pan Biotech) and EP-CM-L0216 (from ElabScience Technologies) which are all marketed specifically as replacements for the Biochrom AG product. We found that while FG0465, I2911, and P04-20450 were all sufficient for ex-vivo erythropoiesis, FG0465 IMDM was superior to other products tested in supporting maximal erythroid cell proliferation and enucleation.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.24.573281v1" target="_blank">The base media formulation impacts the efficiency of ex-vivo erythropoiesis of primary human hematopoietic stem cells</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Motorhomes as a Housing Alternative for the Indonesian Millennial Generation</strong> -
<div>
Motorhomes/campervans are a long-standing fad that is currently making a resurgence in all parts of the world. Because of the versatility of the motorhome, this lifestyle has grown in popularity, not only among hippies, but also among families who wish to have fun or live a nomadic (moving) existence, especially with the rapid rise of the Internet of Things. We can learn from the Covid-19 pandemic that work and study can be done anywhere, whether at home, in recreational spaces, in third rooms, and so on. Motorhomes can now be purchased at reasonable costs. Furthermore, the motorhome can be customized to meet your specific demands and functions. Motorhomes can be created from simple automobiles using any car foundation, such as an MPV, Van, SUV, Middle Size Bus, Full Size Bus, or even a sedan, rather than full size RVs with big proportions and luxurious equipment. The purpose of this study is to define the motorhome/campervan concept and its potential as an alternative housing type. Furthermore, the potential is fairly large for Indonesian millennials, who appear to have a lot of issues on housing ownership mostly because the affrodability (economic) aspect and also considering the raising on nomadic and flexible lifestyle. Motorhomes are an excellent option to economical housing since they are mobile, have flexible layouts, and provide a comfortable living space especially for Youth Indonesia’s Millenial who’s carving for a unique experience.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/x4zgq/" target="_blank">Motorhomes as a Housing Alternative for the Indonesian Millennial Generation</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>CompHEAR: A Customizable and Scalable Web-Enabled Auditory Performance Evaluation Platform for Cochlear Implant Sound Processing Research</strong> -
<div>
Objective: Cochlear implants (CIs) are auditory prostheses for individuals with severe to profound hearing loss, offering substantial but incomplete restoration of hearing function by stimulating the auditory nerve using electrodes. However, progress in CI performance and innovation has been constrained by the inability to rapidly test multiple sound processing strategies. Current research interfaces provided by major CI manufacturers have limitations in supporting a wide range of auditory experiments due to portability, programming difficulties, and the lack of direct comparison between sound processing algorithms. To address these limitations, we present the CompHEAR research platform, designed specifically for the Cochlear Implant Hackathon, enabling researchers to conduct diverse auditory experiments on a large scale. Study Design: Quasi-experimental. Setting: Virtual. Methods: CompHEAR is an open-source, user-friendly platform which offers flexibility and ease of customization, allowing researchers to set up a broad set of auditory experiments. CompHEAR employs a vocoder to simulate novel sound coding strategies for CIs. It facilitates even distribution of listening tasks among participants and delivers real-time metrics for evaluation. The software architecture underlies the platform's flexibility in experimental design and its wide range of applications in sound processing research. Results: Performance testing of the CompHEAR platform ensured that it could support at least 10,000 concurrent users. The CompHEAR platform was successfully implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic and enabled global collaboration for the CI Hackathon (www.cihackathon.com). Conclusion: The CompHEAR platform is a useful research tool that permits comparing diverse signal processing strategies across a variety of auditory tasks with crowdsourced judging. Its versatility, scalability, and ease of use can enable further research with the goal of promoting advancements in cochlear implant performance and improved patient outcomes.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.22.573126v1" target="_blank">CompHEAR: A Customizable and Scalable Web-Enabled Auditory Performance Evaluation Platform for Cochlear Implant Sound Processing Research</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Long Covid Perspectives: history, paradigm shifts, global challenges</strong> -
<div>
The Covid-19 pandemic is one of the most devastating health disasters in recorded history. In addition to the significant death toll, the pandemic is leaving behind a long tail of prolonged disease and disability. The long-term symptoms, clinical signs and sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection are collectively known as Long Covid – a patient-made term that was created and gained consistency in just a few months in Spring to Summer 2020. Long Covid was openly recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) in August 2020, following intense advocacy by Covid-19 survivors. Long Covid has been described as the first illness identified, named and defined by patients finding one other on social media such as Twitter. As a disease entity named and defined collectively by patients, Long Covid has the potential to change knowledge building in medicine, while centring patient expertise within the biomedical community. This paper will, first, explore the rise of Long Covid as patient-made term, clinical entity and collective, grassroots, international advocacy–research movement in early 2020 and beyond. This happened while people with Covid-19 suffered abandonment and lack of care in the pandemic’s disaster context. Second, I will discuss some key paradigm shifts triggered by this ground-breaking patient-driven, collective advocacy–research, while sketching links with earlier patient movements, such as around HIV/AIDS. Then, I will explore the role of Long Covid advocacy–research in our digital era. This advocacy took place during a pandemic when digital spaces such as Twitter and Facebook were often the only arenas available to Covid-19 survivors. Moreover, I will raise some pressing issues around epistemic injustice in relation to the use of patient-produced data and the recognition of patient contributions to knowledge. Finally, I will address the need to fully acknowledge the nature, scope, and severity of Long Covid, which are detailed in thousands of scientific publications, including in relation to the ongoing spread of SARS-CoV-2.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/u3bfy/" target="_blank">Long Covid Perspectives: history, paradigm shifts, global challenges</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Genomic analysis of Staphylococcus aureus isolates from bacteremia reveals genetic features associated with the COVID-19 pandemic</strong> -
<div>
Genomic analyses of bacterial isolates are necessary to monitor the prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes and virulence determinants. Herein, we provide a comprehensive genomic description of a collection of 339 Staphylococcus aureus strains isolated from patients with bacteremia between 2014 and 2022. Nosocomial acquisition accounted for 56.6% of episodes, with vascular catheters being the predominant source of infection (31.8%). Cases of fatality (27.4%), persistent bacteremia (19.5%) and diagnosis of septic emboli (24.2%) were documented. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we observed a 140% increase of the episodes of S. aureus bacteremia per year, with a concomitant increase of the cases from nosocomial origin. This prompted us to investigate the existence of genetic features associated with S. aureus isolates from the COVID-19 pandemic. While genes conferring resistance to {beta}-lactams (blaI-blaR-blaZ), macrolides (ermA, ermC, ermT, mphC, msrA) and aminoglycosides (ant(4')-Ia, ant(9)-Ia, aph(3')-IIIa, aph(2'')-Ih) were prevalent in our collection, detection of the msrA and mphC genes increased significantly in pandemic S. aureus isolates. Similarly, we observed a higher prevalence of isolates carrying the genes encoding the Clumping Factors A and B, involved in fibrinogen binding. Of note, macrolides were extensively used as accessory therapy for COVID-19 and fibrinogen levels were usually elevated upon SARS-CoV-2 infection. Therefore, our results reveal a remarkable adaptation of the S. aureus isolates to the COVID-19 pandemic context and demonstrates the potential of whole-genome sequencing to conduct molecular epidemiology studies.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.22.572975v1" target="_blank">Genomic analysis of Staphylococcus aureus isolates from bacteremia reveals genetic features associated with the COVID-19 pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Virion morphology and on-virus spike protein structures of diverse SARS-CoV-2 variants</strong> -
<div>
The evolution of SARS-CoV-2 variants with increased fitness has been accompanied by structural changes in the spike (S) proteins that are the major target for the adaptive immune response. Single-particle cryo-EM analysis of soluble S from SARS-CoV-2 variants has revealed this structural adaptation at high-resolution. The analysis of S trimers in situ on intact virions has the potential to provide more functionally relevant insights into S structure and virion morphology. Here, we characterized B.1, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Kappa, and Mu variants by cryo-electron microscopy and tomography, assessing S cleavage, virion morphology, S incorporation, "in-situ" high-resolution S structures and the range of S conformational states. We found no evidence for adaptive changes in virion morphology, but describe multiple different positions in the S protein where amino acid changes alter local protein structure. Considered together, our data is consistent with a model where amino acid changes at multiple positions from the top to the base of the spike cause structural changes that can modulate the conformational dynamics of S.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.21.572824v1" target="_blank">Virion morphology and on-virus spike protein structures of diverse SARS-CoV-2 variants</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) era impact on incidence of sudden deaths due to Myocardial Infarction (Heart Attack) in States and Union Territories of India- A cross-sectional comparative study (2018-2022)</strong> -
<div>
Background-COVID-19 pandemic increased the risk of CVD (cardiovascular disease). There is lack of comparative assessment on the incidence of sudden death due to MI during and before COVID-19. This study aimed to quantify this assessment. Another quest to start this study is that several studies have reported COVID-19 vaccine-associated myocarditis/cardiomyopathy. Methods and results-This study was based on NCRB data from all states and UTs of India who died suddenly due to MI between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2022. 5 coastal states of India accounts for about 70 % of all MI cases related sudden death. The base year 2018 is having least whereas the last year 2022 is having the largest number of total new MI cases related mortality detected in one individual year. The largest and noteworthy percent change in sudden death due to MI in males is found in 2022 when it increased by 14.26% (is it due to delayed cardiomyopathy due to COVID-19 or its due to Vaccine? This will be a matter of research in coming era). This study revealed that there is 25.80 percent increase in total number of new MI cases related mortality in 2022 in comparison to pre-COVID-19 year of 2018. There is an overall increase of 11.24 percent in sudden death due to MI cases in males during the COVID-19 period. The Male-Sudden death due to Myocardial Infarction increased during COVID-19 year 2022 by 26.71 percent in comparison to 2018 pre- COVID-19 year. Conclusion-Sudden death due to MI increased during COVID-19.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/dcr9a/" target="_blank">The SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) era impact on incidence of sudden deaths due to Myocardial Infarction (Heart Attack) in States and Union Territories of India- A cross-sectional comparative study (2018-2022)</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>MixOmics Integration of Biological Datasets Identifies Highly Correlated Key Variables of COVID-19 severity.</strong> -
<div>
BackgroundDespite several years since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, challenges remain in understanding the factors that can predict the severity of COVID-19 disease and complications of SARS-CoV-2 infection. While many large-scale Multiomic datasets have been published, integration of these datasets has the potential to substantially increase the biological insight gained allowing a more complex comprehension of the disease pathogenesis. Such insight may improve our ability to predict disease progression, detect severe cases more rapidly and develop effective therapeutics. MethodsIn this study we have applied an innovative machine learning algorithm to delineate COVID-severity based on integration of paired samples of proteomic and transcriptomic data from a small cohort of patients testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection with differential disease severity. Targeted plasma proteomics and an onco-immune targeted transcriptomic panel was performed on sequential samples from a cohort of 23 severe, 21 moderate and 10 mild COVID-19 patients. We applied DIABLO, a new integrative method, to identify multi- omics biomarker panels that can discriminate between multiple phenotypic groups, such as the varied severity of disease in COVID-19 patients. ResultsAs COVID-19 severity is known among our sample group, we can train models using this as the outcome variable and calculate features that are important predictors of severe disease. In this study, we detect highly correlated key variables of severe COVID-19 using transcriptomic discriminant analysis and multi-omics integration methods. ConclusionsThis approach highlights the power of data integration from a small cohort of patients offering a better biological understanding of the molecular mechanisms driving COVID-19 severity and an opportunity to improve prediction of disease trajectories and targeted therapeutics.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.14.557558v2" target="_blank">MixOmics Integration of Biological Datasets Identifies Highly Correlated Key Variables of COVID-19 severity.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern in wastewater: an assessment of nine computational tools using simulated genomic data</strong> -
<div>
Wastewater-based surveillance (WBS) is an important epidemiological and public health tool for tracking pathogens across the scale of a building, neighbourhood, city, or region. WBS gained widespread adoption globally during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic for estimating community infection levels by qPCR. Sequencing pathogen genes or genomes from wastewater adds information about pathogen genetic diversity which can be used to identify viral lineages (including variants of concern) that are circulating in a local population. Capturing the genetic diversity by WBS sequencing is not trivial, as wastewater samples often contain a diverse mixture of viral lineages with real mutations and sequencing errors, which must be deconvoluted computationally from short sequencing reads. In this study we assess nine different computational tools that have recently been developed to address this challenge. We simulated 100 wastewater sequence samples consisting of SARS-CoV-2 BA.1, BA.2, and Delta lineages, in various mixtures, as well as a Delta-Omicron recombinant and a synthetic novel lineage. Most tools performed well in identifying the true lineages present and estimating their relative abundances, and were generally robust to variation in sequencing depth and read length. While many tools identified lineages present down to 1% frequency, results were more reliable above a 5% threshold. The presence of an unknown synthetic lineage, which represents an unclassified SARS-CoV-2 lineage, increases the error in relative abundance estimates of other lineages, but the magnitude of this effect was small for most tools. The tools also varied in how they labelled novel synthetic lineages and recombinants. While our simulated dataset represents just one of many possible use cases for these methods, we hope it helps users understand potential sources of noise or bias in wastewater sequencing data and to appreciate the commonalities and differences across methods.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.20.572426v1" target="_blank">Tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern in wastewater: an assessment of nine computational tools using simulated genomic data</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Deciphering Abnormal Platelet Subpopulations in Inflammatory Diseases through Machine Learning and Single-Cell Transcriptomics</strong> -
<div>
Introduction: The transcriptional heterogeneity of activated platelets, play a significant role in contributing to negative outcomes in sepsis, COVID-19, and autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Despite this, our understanding of these heterogeneous platelet responses remains limited. In this study, we aim to investigate the diverse transcriptional profiles of activated platelets in these diseases, with the goal of deciphering this platelet heterogeneity for new therapeutic strategies to target abnormal and pathogenic platelet subtypes. Materials and methods: We obtained the single cell transcriptional profiles of blood platelets from patients with COVID-19, sepsis, and SLE. Utilizing machine learning algorithms, Deep Neural Network (DNN) and eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGB), we discerned the distinct transcriptomic signatures indicative of fatal versus survival clinical outcomes. Our methodological framework incorporated source data annotations and platelet markers and used SingleR and Seurat for detailed profiling. Additionally, we implemented Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP) for dimensionality reduction and visualization, aiding in the detection of various platelet subtypes and their correlation with disease status and patient outcomes. Results: Our study identified distinct platelet subpopulations that are associated with disease severity. We demonstrated that alterations in platelet transcription patterns can exacerbate endotheliopathy, potentially heightening the risk of coagulation in fatal patients. Moreover, these changes can also influence lymphocyte function, indicating a more extensive role for platelets in inflammatory and immune responses. Conclusions: Enhanced transcriptional heterogeneity in activated platelets is linked to adverse outcomes in conditions such as sepsis, COVID-19, and autoimmune diseases. The discovery of these unique platelet subpopulations paves the way for innovative therapeutic strategies targeting platelet activation, which could potentially improve patient outcomes.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.20.572680v1" target="_blank">Deciphering Abnormal Platelet Subpopulations in Inflammatory Diseases through Machine Learning and Single-Cell Transcriptomics</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Persistence of an infectious form of SARS-CoV-2 post protease inhibitor treatment of permissive cells in vitro</strong> -
<div>
Reports have described SARS-CoV-2 rebound in COVID-19 patients treated with nirmatrelvir, a 3CL protease inhibitor. The cause remains a mystery, although drug resistance, re-infection, and lack of adequate immune responses have been excluded. We now present virologic findings that provide a clue to the cause of viral rebound, which occurs in ~20% of the treated cases. The persistence of an intermediary form of infectious SARS-CoV-2 was experimentally documented in vitro after treatment with nirmatrelvir or another 3CL protease inhibitor, but not with a polymerase inhibitor, remdesivir. This infectious intermediate decayed slowly with a half-life of ~1 day, suggesting that its persistence could outlive the treatment course to re-ignited SARS-CoV-2 infection as the drug is eliminated. Additional studies are needed to define the nature of this viral intermediate, but our findings point to a particular direction for future investigation and offer a specific treatment recommendation that should be tested clinically.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.20.572655v1" target="_blank">Persistence of an infectious form of SARS-CoV-2 post protease inhibitor treatment of permissive cells in vitro</a>
</div></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>TDCS Stimulation After Covid-19 Infection</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Procedure: Transcranial Direct Stimulation <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Istanbul Medipol University Hospital; Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Safety and Immunogenicity of a Booster Vaccination With an Adapted Vaccine</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS-CoV2 Infection <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: PHH-1V81; Biological: Comirnaty Omicron XBB1.5 <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Hipra Scientific, S.L.U <br/><b>Active, not recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Transcranial Pulse Stimulation (TPS) in Post-COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post-COVID-19 Syndrome; Fatigue <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: Transcranial pulse stimulation Verum; Device: Transcranial pulse stimulation Sham <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Medical University of Vienna; Campus Bio-Medico University <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Study to Evaluate the Safety, Tolerability, and Immunogenicity of a Combined Modified RNA Vaccine Candidate Against COVID-19 and Influenza.</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Influenza; COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: Influenza and COVID-19 Combination A; Biological: Licensed influenza vaccine; Biological: COVID-19 Vaccine; Biological: Influenza and COVID-19 Combination B; Biological: Placebo <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: BioNTech SE; Pfizer <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of “Formosa 1-Breath Free (NRICM101)” in Subjects With the Symptoms of COVID-19 or Influenza-like Disease</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Influenza Viral Infections; COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Formosa 1-Breath Free (NRICM101); Drug: Placebo control drug <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: China Medical University Hospital; Tian-I Pharmaceutical,. Co. Ltd.; China Medical University, China; Qualitix Clinical Research Co., Ltd. <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Phase 3 Clinical Study to Evaluate the Efficacy, Safety and Immunogenicity of Booster Vaccination With Recombinant COVID-19 (XBB) Trimer Protein Vaccine (Sf9 Cell)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: Recombinant COVID-19 (XBB) Trimer Protein Vaccine (Sf9 Cell); Biological: Recombinant COVID-19 Variant Vaccine (Sf9 Cell); Biological: Placebo <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: WestVac Biopharma Co., Ltd.; WestVac Biopharma (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Restoring Energy With Sub-symptom Threshold Optimized Rehabilitation Exercise for Long COVID</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long Covid19; Exercise Intolerance, Riboflavin-Responsive <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Restoring Energy with Sub-symptom Threshold Aerobic Rehabilitation Exercise; Behavioral: Light Stretching/Breathing Exercises <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Columbia University; New York University <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study of Liraglutide (A Weight Loss Drug) in High Risk Obese Participants With Cognitive and Memory Issues</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Multiple Sclerosis; Long COVID; Long Covid19; Obese; Obesity; Obesity, Morbid; Acute Leukemia in Remission <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Liraglutide Pen Injector [Saxenda]; Other: Medication Diary <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of Chicago <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Differential Roles of Interleukin-6 in Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2 Infection and Cardiometabolic Diseases</strong> - Severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection can lead to a cytokine storm, unleashed in part by pyroptosis of virus-infected macrophages and monocytes. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) has emerged as a key participant in this ominous complication of COVID-19. IL-6 antagonists have improved outcomes in patients with COVID-19 in some, but not all, studies. IL-6 signaling involves at least 3 distinct pathways, including classic-signaling, trans-signaling, and trans-presentation…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Excessive daytime sleepiness is associated with impaired antibody response to influenza vaccination in older male adults</strong> - CONCLUSION: Our results provide an additional and easily measured variable explaining poor vaccine effectiveness in older adults. Our results support that gaining sufficient sleep is a simple non-vaccine interventional approach to improve influenza immune responses in older adults. Our findings extend the literature on the negative influence of excessive daytime sleepiness on immune responses to influenza vaccination in older male adults.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Elevated ferritin, mediated by IL-18 is associated with systemic inflammation and mortality in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Ferritin is a clinically useful biomarker in ARDS and is associated with worse patient outcomes. These results provide support for prospective interventional trials of immunomodulatory agents targeting IL-18 in this hyperferritinaemic subgroup of patients with ARDS.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sutimlimab suppresses SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine-induced hemolytic crisis in a patient with cold agglutinin disease</strong> - Cold agglutinin disease (CAD) is a rare form of acquired autoimmune hemolytic anemia driven mainly by antibodies that activate the classical complement pathway. Several patients with CAD experience its development or exacerbation of hemolysis after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection or after receiving the SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine. Therefore, these patients cannot receive an additional SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination and have a higher risk of severe SARS-CoV-2…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Effects of host proteins interacting with non-structural protein nsp9 of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus on viral replication</strong> - Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is a highly pathogenic virus that can cause acute intestinal infectious diseases in both piglets and fattening pigs. The virus encodes at least 16 non-structural proteins, including nsp9, which has been shown to bind to single-stranded RNA. However, its function and mechanism remain unclear. In this study, we aimed to identify potential host proteins that interact with PEDV nsp9 using immunoprecipitation combined with mass spectrometry. The interactions…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>COVID-19 in Dental Practice Is Prevented by Eugenol Responsible for the Ambient Odor Specific to Dental Offices: Possibility and Speculation</strong> - Dental professionals routinely work in proximity to patients even when either or both of them have suspected or confirmed COVID-19. The oral cavity also serves as a reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 because the virus is present in and replicates in oral secretions (saliva and gingival crevicular fluid), oral tissues (salivary gland and periodontal tissue), and oral microenvironments (gingival sulcus and periodontal pocket). Despite a high risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, the prevalence of COVID-19 in…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inhibition of Porcine Deltacoronavirus Entry and Replication by Cepharanthine</strong> - Porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV) is an emerging swine enteropathogenic coronavirus (CoV) that mainly causes acute diarrhea/vomiting, dehydration, and mortality in piglets, possessing economic losses and public health concerns. However, there are currently no proven effective antiviral agents against PDCoV. Cepharanthine (CEP) is a naturally occurring alkaloid used as a traditional remedy for radiation-induced symptoms, but its underlying mechanism of CEP against PDCoV has remained elusive. The…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Does denosumab exert a protective effect against COVID-19? Results of a large cohort study</strong> - CONCLUSION: Our study confirms that denosumab may be safely continued in COVID-19 patients. RANK/RANKL inhibition seems associated with a reduced incidence of symptomatic COVID-19, particularly among the elderly.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Intranasal murine pneumonia virus-vectored SARS-CoV-2 vaccine induces mucosal and serum antibodies in macaques</strong> - Next-generation SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are needed that induce systemic and mucosal immunity. Murine pneumonia virus (MPV), a murine homolog of respiratory syncytial virus, is attenuated by host-range restriction in nonhuman primates and has a tropism for the respiratory tract. We generated MPV vectors expressing the wild-type SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (MPV/S) or its prefusion-stabilized form (MPV/S-2P). Both vectors replicated similarly in cell culture and stably expressed S. However, only S-2P was…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Efficacies of S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) and GSNO reductase inhibitor in SARS-CoV-2 spike protein induced acute lung disease in mice</strong> - The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which initially surfaced in late 2019, often triggers severe pulmonary complications, encompassing various disease mechanisms such as intense lung inflammation, vascular dysfunction, and pulmonary embolism. Currently, however, there’s no drug addressing all these mechanisms simultaneously. This study explored the multi-targeting potential of S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) and N6022, an inhibitor of GSNO reductase (GSNOR) on markers…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Comparative transcriptome analysis of SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and HCoV-229E identifying potential IFN/ISGs targets for inhibiting virus replication</strong> - INTRODUCTION: Since its outbreak in December 2019, SARS-CoV-2 has spread rapidly across the world, posing significant threats and challenges to global public health. SARS-CoV-2, together with SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, is a highly pathogenic coronavirus that contributes to fatal pneumonia. Understanding the similarities and differences at the transcriptome level between SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, as well as MERS-CoV is critical for developing effective strategies against these viruses.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Venomous gland transcriptome and venom proteomic analysis of the scorpion Androctonus amoreuxi reveal new peptides with anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity</strong> - The recent COVID-19 pandemic shows the critical need for novel broad spectrum antiviral agents. Scorpion venoms are known to contain highly bioactive peptides, several of which have demonstrated strong antiviral activity against a range of viruses. We have generated the first annotated reference transcriptome for the Androctonus amoreuxi venom gland and used high performance liquid chromatography, transcriptome mining, circular dichroism and mass spectrometric analysis to purify and characterize…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Targeting the tissue factor coagulation initiation complex prevents antiphospholipid antibody development</strong> - Antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) in primary or secondary antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) are a major cause for acquired thrombophilia, but specific interventions preventing autoimmune aPL development are an unmet clinical need. While autoimmune aPL cross-react with various coagulation regulatory proteins, lipid-reactive and COVID-19 patient-derived aPL recognize the endo-lysosomal phospholipid lysobisphosphatidic acid (LBPA) presented by the cell surface expressed endothelial protein C receptor…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Tissue factor binds to and inhibits interferon-α receptor 1 signaling</strong> - Tissue factor (TF), which is a member of the cytokine receptor family, promotes coagulation and coagulation-dependent inflammation. TF also exerts protective effects through unknown mechanisms. Here, we showed that TF bound to interferon-α receptor 1 (IFNAR1) and antagonized its signaling, preventing spontaneous sterile inflammation and maintaining immune homeostasis. Structural modeling and direct binding studies revealed binding of the TF C-terminal fibronectin III domain to IFNAR1, which…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Avian coronavirus infectious bronchitis virus Beaudette strain NSP9 interacts with STAT1 and inhibits its phosphorylation to facilitate viral replication</strong> - Avian coronavirus, known as infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), is the causative agent of infectious bronchitis (IB). Viral nonstructural proteins play important roles in viral replication and immune modulation. IBV NSP9 is a component of the RNA replication complex for viral replication. In this study, we uncovered a function of NSP9 in immune regulation. First, the host proteins that interacted with NSP9 were screened. The immune-related protein signal transducer and activator of transcription…</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Colorado’s Top Court Kicked Trump Off the Ballot. Will the Supreme Court Agree?</strong> - A legal scholar analyzes how the nine Justices are likely to view the blockbuster decision. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/colorados-top-court-kicked-trump-off-the-ballot-will-the-supreme-court-agree">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>When Americans Are the Threat at the Border</strong> - Many people charged with trafficking in Tucson are U.S. citizens, suffering from the same problems of poverty and addiction that plague the rest of the country. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/when-americans-are-the-threat-at-the-border">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How Netanyahu’s Right-Wing Critics See Israel’s Future</strong> - Danny Danon, the former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, believes there’s no path forward for a Palestinian state. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-netanyahus-right-wing-critics-see-israels-future">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>An Unpermitted Shooting Range Upends Life in a Quiet Town</strong> - Residents of Pawlet, Vermont, were accustomed to calm and neighborly interactions. Then a new resident moved in. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/one-mans-war-against-a-small-towns-rules">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Disturbing Impact of the Cyberattack at the British Library</strong> - The library has been incapacitated since October, and the effects have spread beyond researchers and book lovers. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/the-disturbing-impact-of-the-cyberattack-at-the-british-library">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Online daters love to hate on Hinge. 10 years in, it’s more popular than ever.</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="An illustration of three unhappy figures on a carousel with a Hinge logo on the top. It’s decorated with hearts and red and pink ribbons." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/t-x5EyxmKNuoVYnlTwDLR03oKHY=/240x0:1680x1080/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73003710/Hinge_Vox_JessHannigan.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Jess Hannigan for Vox
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Hinge has tried its darnedest to fix online dating. Is the real problem us?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="V8PPLb">
Online dating has taken over our love lives: One in two Americans who’ve never been married — as well as 30 percent of all US adults — <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/02/key-findings-about-online-dating-in-the-u-s/">have used a matchmaking app or site</a>.<strong> </strong>If you’re looking to date, you’re almost certainly looking on your phone, and the app<strong> </strong>Hinge is this massive industry’s darling. Its user base and revenue are growing rapidly, making executives at its parent company, Match Group, speak of it in <a href="https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2023/11/01/match-group-mtch-q3-2023-earnings-call-transcript/">quarterly earnings calls</a> as they would a favorite child (they do, after all, have many, including Tinder, OkCupid, The League, Plenty of Fish, and Match.com).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eoDscU">
Hinge is not the biggest dating app in the US; that crown still belongs to Tinder, with Bumble as the runner-up. While Hinge lacks, uh, penetration in rural areas, experts say, it is hugely popular in large cities. It has reached the top of the app download charts in several European markets, where it launched more recently. For years, those bigger apps have had users endlessly swiping, addicted to their game-like nature, whereas Hinge seems to have found a sweet spot of scale and user-focused approach. This helped it become the go-to place for those seeking relationships online — which these days means people seeking relationships, period. Hinge has been resonant, said longtime industry consultant Mark Brooks, “because they have true integrity, and because their product actually works.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LpKDQQ">
Users almost agree.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
<aside id="Z5XlAi">
<q>“It’s definitely the best of the worst”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Eb6H99">
“It is the everybody app,” said Nahal, a 34-year-old executive at a software company who splits her time between New York and Los Angeles, who has used the app on and off since 2020. When Bryce, a 29-year-old nonprofit director in Kansas City, started using it last summer, “It was the one that everyone was talking about.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lDkAfL">
Being popular, though, isn’t the same as being beloved: Neither Bryce nor Nahal is particularly enthusiastic about Hinge. “You’re not going to find a gem there, but you’ll find something solid,” said Nahal. “It’s still dissatisfying,” said Bryce. “I don’t like it — but it’s interesting, it does work a little bit.” “It’s definitely the best of the worst,” said Shoshana, a 30-year-old who works at a think tank in Washington DC.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="v6bAMv">
Hinge has had a long and winding road to becoming “the everybody app.” 2023 marks 10 years since it officially launched, but it only really <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/07/match-fully-acquires-relationship-focused-app-hinge/">hit its stride around 2018</a>, then exploded after it was acquired by Match Group in 2019 and was boosted even further by a lockdown-era dating boom. In those several years, Hinge acquired a reputation for being an app that works for, in industry lingo, “high-intent” daters, or people who are dating for keeps.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oqz7hB">
So why do users feel so deeply ambivalent about it? Why are so many unhappy with their experience, even though the app is trying to give them what they want? What else could Hinge do, aside from iterating on a dating paradigm that has exhausted so many but is the dominant system of courtship in today’s world?
</p>
<h3 id="18e8oC">
Hinge, a history
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IH6oII">
After some fits and starts as a dating website aimed at a younger demographic than Match.com or Jdate, Hinge, founded and led by Harvard Business School grad Justin McLeod, launched as a mobile app in 2013. It was a swipe app with a simple sign-up process, which connected users via their <a href="https://www.vox.com/facebook">Facebook</a> profiles, creating a “friends of friends” dating network. The app remained buzzy for several years — particularly<a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/3/19/8257357/hinge-explainedhttps://www.vox.com/2015/3/19/8257357/hinge-explained"> among college grads in big cities</a> — but eventually growth started slowing and McLeod was disappointed in the direction the company was heading. From the beginning, he wanted the app to be “wholesome” and relationship-focused, unlike Tinder, which it was increasingly getting conflated with. Hinge was “kind of just this copycat app that has the same interface with a small twist,” McLeod admitted to Guy Raz <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/19/979188827/hinge-justin-mcleod">on the podcast</a> <em>How I Built This</em> in 2021.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4kcJxa">
In a bold move, inspired by his own <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/style/modern-love-when-cupid-is-a-prying-journalist.html">tumultuous story of rekindled love</a>, he decided to take the whole thing apart and rebuild it. The app relaunched in 2016, notably redesigned. Swiping was gone, profiles were more robust. The idea was to force users to slow down and look at potential matches a bit more carefully. At the time, McLeod said all this was meant to make the experience <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/10/hinge-relaunch-swipe-dating-apocalypse">less anonymous</a> and more like being on a social network than a dating app.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wT2YhT">
With its redesign, Hinge was trying to address a problem that was already clear a few years into the mobile dating revolution: Many were deeply frustrated with the app.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XClyTN">
Steve Dean, a dating coach in New York, said he used to steer clients away from Hinge but that the relaunch was “transformative.”
</p>
<div class="c-float-left c-float-hang">
<aside id="pCptbh">
<q>“It’s really the messages that matter because that’s when you prove you’re a human”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ezrh1I">
Instead of having to match with someone to send a message, you could now do that as you were “liking” something about them, be it an answer to a mandatory prompt — conversation starters like “my most irrational fear,” or, since these get updated with the zeitgeist, “my therapist would tell you” — or a particular photo on their profile. “It’s really the messages that matter because that’s when you prove you’re a human, prove you’re not a bot, prove your worth someone’s attention in the first place,” Dean said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aPrkM2">
On many apps and dating sites, you can’t message someone or even know they’ve “liked” you before you’ve both expressed interest — unless you pay for the option. On Tinder, for instance, people try to game the system by buying <a href="https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/auto-swiper/knhjggkkeoamjgogdmmefekofllomhea">auto-swiping bots</a> to do the upfront work for them. All that “liking,” McLeod told Raz, “creates a lot of engagement, but … it frustrates people because a lot of those matches don’t go anywhere.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zB6fwR">
Since people know which piece of their profile others are engaging with on the updated Hinge, they can also see what works and what doesn’t. Bryce, for instance, has experimented with which prompts he answers, turning to the Reddit Hinge forum to see what women actually want to know. When he answered the “I’m looking for” prompt, his match numbers improved.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="w1M8sf">
Shifting away from using metrics such as time spent on the app, the bread and butter of the attention economy, was another key part of Hinge’s big rethink, according to the company. It introduced a “We Met” feature, a little survey that asks users whether they went out with someone and if the date was a “type of person they’d like to see again.” Hinge says it uses those answers to inform further recommendations.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sn8yDP">
“From what I understand, it is one of the first companies that has really looked into the data and reacted to it,” said Brooks, the industry consultant. “This is surprisingly rare.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AA1OU2">
All these bets paid off. The company ended up benefiting from positioning itself as the relationship app, and, effectively, as the anti-Tinder — and attracting big investment. Seeing promise in Hinge’s popularity among “urban, educated millennial women looking for relationships,” and in a clear effort to stave off competition from the female-focused Bumble, Match Group<a href="https://www.theverge.com/tech/2018/6/20/17485750/match-group-acquire-hinge-deal-online-dating"> bought a 51 percent stake in Hinge</a> in 2018, and acquired it in its entirety a year later, giving the up-and-comer access to the enormous resources of the dating behemoth. Match, in turn, got “the missing piece in the portfolio,” according to Brooks: a dating app aimed squarely at users aged between Tinder and Match.com.
</p>
<h3 id="41CwSL">
The problems with online dating: 2023 edition
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gpaR27">
I both know personally and have spoken to people for this piece who have had success finding long-lasting relationships on Hinge, some of them very quickly. When Alex, a video editor from New York, downloaded the app in 2018, his first date turned into a four-year relationship. Allison, a copywriter in Kentucky, told me a similar story of meeting her boyfriend on her first online date ever, through Hinge, in 2021. Two days after we spoke, I got a follow-up saying her boyfriend had proposed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cWV7UL">
Dean recommends the app to his clients because, he says, it does get people out on dates. “I don’t know of a better app if you want to <a href="https://www.vox.com/dating">go on a date</a> this week with someone who generally doesn’t suck,” he said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sPVDS7">
Alex admits that, nowadays, “all the apps kind of look the same.” Bumble and Tinder introduced their own versions of prompts. But unlike its competitors, Hinge prompts are mandatory, giving the user at least a “snapshot of somebody’s personality and energy,” Alex said.<strong> </strong>Bryce says he “cannot stand” the other apps he’d tried. He thinks they are “engineered to keep you swiping,” while Hinge “does not seem to do that as much.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QNcelN">
None of this is exactly high praise. A lot of people use the app only begrudgingly, and many complain about their experiences. When Hinge had a service outage in March of this year, the internet was <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adeonibada/iwd-hinge-app-down-dating">brimming with glee</a>. <a href="https://www.vox.com/tiktok">TikTok</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/twitter">Twitter</a>, and Reddit are filled with users’ Hinge grievances: “Hinge is hiding sexy people,” “Hinge is hell,” “Hinge is not where u find ur soulmate”. Users are always “<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=deleting%20hinge&amp;src=typed_query&amp;f=top">deleting</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=delete%20hinge&amp;src=typed_query&amp;f=top">Hinge</a>” out of frustration, while others are trading tips on how to game the algorithm.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RQLzrJ">
Some of the dissatisfaction with Hinge surely stems from its recent rise to one of the biggest players in the game and from the inherent difficulty of delivering on the “relationship app” promise. There are also a number of issues that were diagnosed years ago and haven’t significantly changed, issues that are endemic to online dating and our lives on the internet that no app or site has been able to solve.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
<aside id="EFbLZL">
<q>“That’s partly why it’s exhausting because it’s this constant labor”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iqmUL3">
One key problem across the apps is the slog of self-presentation, or “<a href="https://oxfordre.com/psychology/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.001.0001/acrefore-9780190236557-e-748?d=%2F10.1093%2Facrefore%2F9780190236557.001.0001%2Facrefore-9780190236557-e-748&amp;p=emailAGSLOniZp1SK2">impression management</a>,” said Rachel Katz, a <a href="https://drrachelarielkatz.wixsite.com/info">digital media sociologist</a> who studies online dating at the University of Salford in the UK. “An important aspect of it is knowing your audience,” Katz said. On dating apps, you don’t know who exactly you’re presenting yourself to when picking a profile picture or composing your bio. You also don’t have physical cues that can help you adjust that self-presentation. “You’re trying to come up with something that’s generally appealing to people, but it can’t be too weird. It can’t be too unique,” said Bryce. “That’s partly why it’s exhausting,” Katz explains, “because it’s this constant labor. … You’re not really sure of how to do it, you can’t just fit into a comfortable social role.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XDHXtV">
It seems Hinge’s prompts were introduced in part to help with the labor of impression management. But Dean says they are inadequate for someone who is actually trying to find a relationship. If you add up all the words you can include in your profile, “You only really get 450 characters of meaningful text,” and “that means that users on Hinge, just like on so many other apps, end up stuck in this process of mindlessly swiping because you’re not actually finding people who resonate.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Io2t6p">
It’s not that the app isn’t capable of surfacing people that seem appealing to each user. “They know who you’re attracted to. That’s not the hard-part problem anymore,” Dean said. The big question, especially in an app that’s supposed to be geared toward relationships, is compatibility. And that is hard to assess when there’s so little information to draw from.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xT8VvP">
“Ninety percent of the people in this town are putting on their prompts ‘Kansas City Chiefs, golden retrievers, and Taylor Swift,’” said Bryce.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xk1Nji">
Nahal says the people she matched with were “super random,” like a former football player who was five years younger than her, seemed “kind of funny” but looked “like he’d never read a book.” She said, “These are not people I wasn’t attracted to or didn’t have something to say to,” but they weren’t people she had much in common with. “That randomness was thrilling, but I don’t think that it had as much legs to it as one might hope if they were looking for something real.” (She did date football guy; it didn’t work out).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Le53sv">
The app tries to give its users “most compatible” user suggestions, which many online complain completely miss the mark — whether because it’s “<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8H1pqE9/">humbling</a>,” or (allegedly) <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8H1GbHv/">matches</a> you with … your <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/news/woman-matched-brother-hinge/">sibling</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DKIoC5">
This lack of relevancy makes worse another fundamental and longstanding problem of online dating, known as the “paradox of choice,” a term coined by psychologist Barry Schwartz with regard to consumer behaviors. When dating apps are not delivering on compatibility, Dean said, they are leading you to “believe that there’s a forever volume of people you can always like.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="39zYTw">
Logan Ury, a dating coach and behavioral scientist who has been Hinge’s director of relationship science since 2020, says that, fundamentally, “matching people is really hard,” regardless of who is doing it. There’s no way to optimize for serendipity. What Hinge is trying to do is to make the experience of “looking at a two-dimensional version of someone as close to the real-life version as is possible through technology.” This is why, in the last two years, the company has rolled out <a href="https://mashable.com/article/hinge-polls-video-prompts">profile polls</a>, audio and video prompts, and voice notes, all in an effort to make profiles “richer” and more lifelike. (The company’s research found, for instance, that conversations with voice notes are 48 percent more likely to lead to a date.)
</p>
<div class="c-float-left c-float-hang">
<aside id="E8LMJD">
<q>[Dating apps] are leading you to “believe that there’s a forever volume of people you can always like” </q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="adO3t5">
Ury rejects the notion that apps should be asking people for more about themselves in writing or through extensive questionnaires. Users may match up on paper but end up disappointed in real life. “I would have rather that people understand that sooner by meeting up earlier,” she said. “Use the app as a matchmaker who gives you the matches — and then, as quickly as possible, the two of you should be chatting live to see if you are a match,” she said. “We found that three days of chatting is the sweet spot for scheduling a date.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eGnJZ3">
Katz’s<strong> </strong>research shows that another big issue across dating apps is people’s conflicting goals as to why they are on there in the first place. Their interactions can be very dependent on how they are feeling in a given time or even where they are physically. “Sometimes, even though you generally want a relationship on a dating app, in that particular moment, you might be in line at Chipotle, or you might be at work, and it’s just kind of a quick thing.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X6V6cH">
Even on Hinge, the “relationship app,” Shoshana has been asked by a couple to join them in a threesome. Men, she said, often don’t even seem to want anything in particular. “I think they just want some vague level of approval,” she said. “I’ve even had female friends say to me, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to really meet anyone. I just want guys to tell me I’m hot.’”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ky0czh">
Hinge, for its part, is trying to address the issue, made more pressing by the fluid approach Gen Z has to defining their relationships. In 2022, it introduced two features that let users say upfront what their <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/23/hinges-feature-easier-for-users-be-upfront-about-their-dating-intentions/">intentions</a> and relationship <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/16/hinges-new-feature-is-a-small-win-for-users-in-non-monogamy-relationships/">types</a> are — including for<a href="https://mashable.com/article/hinge-non-monogamy-filters-discourse"> those who are non-monogamous</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="m2OCT7">
But Shoshana doesn’t fault the app itself for the biggest problem she faces while using it. Unless you’re very lucky, she says, Hinge is “a bottomless pit of cruelness and just selfishness.” She blames the men in her city, Washington, DC. “I don’t think Hinge can do much better,” she said. Every time she’s reported someone for inappropriate behavior, Hinge has taken action.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
<aside id="dNM20G">
<q>“Sometimes, even though you generally want a relationship on a dating app, in that particular moment, you might be in line at Chipotle”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IbPmW7">
Harassment is a massive concern <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/02/key-findings-about-online-dating-in-the-u-s/">across the entire online dating industry</a>. And it’s similar to all these other issues: They may not be any individual app’s fault, but they stem from how we’ve learned to use the internet at large. Anonymity has taught people that it’s very easy to be awful online. The ease of signing up for just about anything has proven we barely have to put in any effort to find what we want. The internet’s premium on snark and pithiness makes it that much harder to earnestly fill out an extensive dating profile. You get stuck between appearing cool and being vulnerable.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LyMOoH">
It’s the same thing <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/09/why-dating-apps-can-now-cost-users-hundreds-of-dollars-a-month.html">with paying</a>. So many things on the internet have been free — including online dating, for years propped up by <a href="https://www.vox.com/venture-capital">venture capital</a> funding — that many balk when they are asked to fork out for a regular subscription.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nVQmuO">
There’s a certain stigma attached to paying, an echo of the stigma that used to surround online dating in general. But at the end of the day, the apps are a consumer product and, annoying as it may be, they are designed so that paying works. Bryce upgraded to HingeX, the company’s most premium offering, which costs a steep $50 a month.<strong> </strong>It significantly increased his match rate. Hinge explicitly says that paying for the X version boosts user profiles and their likes. It’s also what many on social media gripe about: They are turned off by Hinge asking them to pay to play.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rp7K7C">
The people I spoke to found Hinge’s “roses,” a digital gift that indicates to a match you are really<em> </em>interested in them, a particularly cringey paid feature. “It automatically makes me feel a little off, it feels like you’re not approaching somebody from the same level,” said Alex. “It’s so cheesy, I hate it,” said Shoshana. Similarly, Hinge’s “Standouts” section — filled with attractive people you need to send a rose in order to interact with — is a notable source of strife; users call it <a href="https://www.instagram.com/lifeofmarinnyc/reel/CzO_3vSJl4A/">“rose jail.”</a>
</p>
<h3 id="hbM7vt">
Could AI fix online dating hell?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nB5YEM">
Emily Stykes, a business analyst at New Street Research, doesn’t think any of the major apps, including Hinge, have solved the basic problem of relevant matches. But, she notes, they are aware of it. “They know there’s a fundamental mismatch between what people want from these apps and what’s being delivered.” At an investor conference in March, McLeod said that “the feeling like this app doesn’t really get me” is one of the biggest issues Hinge is facing.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="g47TpZ">
This is where, according to Ury, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/4/28/23702644/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-technology">AI</a> could help. “AI could do an even better job at letting us know who you’re interested in and what your type is,” she said. The industry envisions that AI will function as a kind of coach for daters. McLeod said during the investor conference that AI could help users not only find “higher quality, fewer quantity matches,” but also help with their interactions, “even potentially going past the first date.” The aim is to have the best “personal matchmaker in the world” who knows “everyone out there.”
</p>
<div class="c-float-left c-float-hang">
<aside id="AL3Mz6">
<q>“AI could do an even better job at letting us know who you’re interested in and what your type is”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ai6OaW">
Brooks said that the value of a human matchmaker is “pre-date prep and post-date feedback” from both sides of the match. “That’s also when dating apps should get to know their customers, based on the feedback,” he said. “That’s what would feed a truly informed AI.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fardBJ">
In some ways, we’re already there. Apps are implementing AI to help users with the labor of impression management: Tinder, for instance, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/02/tinder-tests-new-ai-photo-selection-feature/">has been testing</a> a feature that uses AI to identify your best photos. Bumble’s app for making friends introduced <a href="https://mashable.com/article/bumble-for-friends-ai-generated-icebreakers">AI-generated “icebreakers,”</a> which are questions based on the other person’s profile and can be used in the middle of the conversation. Users themselves are using AI to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/23/dating-ai-automated-online/">make the grind of messaging</a> easier, the Washington Post reported earlier this year.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s2kdjC">
But implementing AI on a large scale to help with romance will be a tricky needle to thread, since the whole point of the endeavor is to find real, authentic connection. The users I spoke to were wary, to say the least. Hinge wouldn’t say how specifically they were planning on employing AI.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8EnQBh">
At the same time, the company seems to be aware that more tech may not solve problems — at least in part — wrought by tech. It announced in December that, <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90992376/hinge-is-spending-1-million-to-get-people-meeting-irl">to combat the generation’s loneliness epidemic</a>, it was instituting a $1 million fund to get Gen-Zers to meet in real life.
</p></li>
<li><strong>House Republicans’ humiliating year, explained</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/LyNKxDe7vd8i0pBOGFBetMqq7Sg=/650x0:5846x3897/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73000876/1713444259.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks to reporters outside of his office after arriving at the US Capitol Building on October 2, 2023, in Washington, DC. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Even by House GOP standards, 2023 was absurd.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="q99xnX">
There’s nothing quite like <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/3/23537373/kevin-mccarthy-house-speaker-vote">starting the year</a> with <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/7/23543163/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-of-the-house-vote-elected">14 consecutive rounds of failed speaker votes</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ascRwQ">
Just <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/5/23540743/house-speaker-progress-vote-kevin-mccarthy-gop">one week into 2023</a>, House Republicans had already endured a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/4/23539597/kevin-mccarthy-house-speaker-vote-result">humiliating leadership race full of infighting and chaos</a>. And while that was a low point for them, things arguably went downhill from there.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wrlwtM">
Since then, the GOP followed up its first wave of speaker drama with another equally <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/10/25/23931518/house-speaker-race-mike-johnson-winners-losers-analysis-takeaways">tumultuous contest</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/11/28/23979815/george-santos-house-expulsion-vote-ethics-committee">expulsion votes on one of its own members</a>, failed attempts to get much of its <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/12/21/1221040449/118th-congress-to-be-the-most-unproductive-in-decades">policy agenda out the door</a>, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/23659090/house-republicans-hunter-biden-oversight-china-comer-jordan">floundering investigations of President Joe Biden</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bZg9dq">
Spending a year dealing with political and personnel problems left the party with little to show for itself policy-wise ahead of an election year in which Republicans hope to expand on their narrow House majority. And it has given Democrats plenty of ammunition to use in making the case the GOP shouldn’t be trusted to govern.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uckDxs">
According <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/us/politics/house-republicans-laws-year.html">to the New York Times,</a> this is the most unproductive the House has been in years, even compared to other instances of divided government. In 2023, the House passed just 27 bills that became law, a far lower figure than the 72 it passed in 2013 when <a href="https://www.vox.com/congress">Congress</a> was similarly split.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ywmbLH">
It was always going to be difficult for Republicans to leave a mark given Democratic control of the Senate and White House, but in the past, parties in the GOP’s position have stayed better united on their policy priorities and put pressure on the administration while sticking together on their demands. Although there’s still time to turn things around next year, at this point in the term, it seems as though this House will be remembered for being the one in which Republicans were seriously in disarray. Below is a rundown of some of the moments that defined that mayhem.
</p>
<h3 id="OwlP6U">
Speaker drama (round one)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2G3MEC">
For four days, members of the House’s right flank like Rep. Matt Gaetz refused to back Rep. Kevin McCarthy for the role of speaker because, they argued, he hadn’t sufficiently committed to their interests and wasn’t conservative enough.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iihs8U">
That led to round after round after round of failed votes. On the 15th round of voting, McCarthy was finally able to secure the majority he needed to ascend to the role, but not without making some <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/7/23543163/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-of-the-house-vote-elected">serious concessions that greatly diluted his power</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JuemVK">
Those <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/6/23542817/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-deal-congress-debt-ceiling">concessions</a> included putting multiple members of the Freedom Caucus on the Rules Committee, an agreement to curb government spending, and changes to a policy known as the motion to vacate, which would allow any one member to introduce a resolution to remove McCarthy from the job.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Z6YhBp">
That last concession would come back to haunt McCarthy later in the year, when House conservatives would use it to protest his handling of government funding legislation. The whole speakership debacle also foreshadowed the ideological divides that would come to plague Republicans for the duration of this year and make not just keeping a leader, but producing concrete legislation, difficult.
</p>
<h3 id="ggnMyq">
Debt ceiling
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OFXh2e">
A segment of the House Republican conference has long threatened to refuse to raise the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/5/9/23715753/debt-ceiling-limit-default-deal-crisis">debt ceiling</a> — something that could spark economic calamity — if they don’t get the spending cuts they demand.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q679Si">
The debt ceiling is the limit that the US is able to borrow, and if the country defaults on it, it’s unable to pay its bills. Congress has to either raise or suspend the debt ceiling every few years to ensure that the US doesn’t default. If it were to do so, there’d likely be cascading negative effects on the US and global economies: The US could have a lower credit limit, interest rates could go up, and unemployment could surge. Despite these concerns, fiscal conservatives have long suggested they’d be open to defaulting if it meant that they could secure the social spending changes they demand.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Xi7fdJ">
This year, those lawmakers, which include members of the Freedom Caucus, urged then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy to take a hard-line stance in negotiations with Democrats. Specifically, they called for major <a href="https://twitter.com/freedomcaucus/status/1634205313623572480/photo/1">cuts to climate spending and new work requirements for Medicaid</a> in exchange for any willingness to raise the debt limit.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jUFdUD">
McCarthy did take a strong position in negotiations, to the point that <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/5/6/23707949/debt-ceiling-crisis-budget-deal-questions">questions were raised about whether the US</a>, which typically comes down to the wire on debt ceiling deals, might actually default this time. In the end, with days to spare, GOP leaders wound up <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/5/31/23744457/us-debt-ceiling-vote-deal-2023">settling for a debt ceiling deal</a> that didn’t include many of these requests. While they were able to secure some Republican wins — like the repurposing of roughly $20 billion in IRS funding and a cap on non-defense spending — the cuts wound up being far less than what some members had urged. The deal was generally seen as a <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/5/31/23744457/us-debt-ceiling-vote-deal-2023">compromise for all involved</a>; not a loss for the GOP, but not a win, either.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="USHasl">
Conservatives were incensed, setting the stage for later confrontations between the party’s right-most members and the rest of the caucus. “The concessions made by the speaker in his negotiations with <a href="https://www.vox.com/joe-biden">President Biden</a> fall far short of my expectations,” Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), <a href="https://twitter.com/WesleyHuntTX/status/1663514529903304706">a Republican who opposed the deal,</a> wrote on <a href="https://www.vox.com/twitter">Twitter</a>.
</p>
<h3 id="meO7JC">
Investigation flops
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="icnJGl">
One of Republicans’ chief promises when they entered office was that they’d be launching a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/2/11/23594706/house-republicans-investigations-biden-mccarthy-jordan">series of investigations</a>, including many that centered on the Biden administration and alleged biases the federal government has against Republicans.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mdbAwF">
These investigations have focused on everything from Twitter’s handling of a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop to the White House’s withdrawal from <a href="https://www.vox.com/afghanistan">Afghanistan</a> to the purported “weaponization of the federal government.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RJtmBm">
By and large, <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/23659090/house-republicans-hunter-biden-oversight-china-comer-jordan">as Vox’s Christian Paz has reported</a>, many of the investigations have been nothing short of flops. The laptop investigation <a href="https://www.vox.com/22992772/hunter-biden-laptop">failed to find anything incriminating</a> President Biden in misconduct, and the Afghanistan investigation didn’t turn up any <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/12/7/16747712/study-media-2016-election-clintons-emails">useful knowledge to use against Democrats</a> the way the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/10/13/18093516/hillary-clinton-email-scandal">Benghazi investigation</a> did years earlier. Overall, not only have inquiries into President Biden failed to turn up any concrete evidence linking him to wrongdoing, these endeavors haven’t generated a lot of discourse, and the impeachment effort in particular has been unpopular.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p7eSZ7">
According to a <a href="https://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/NPR_PBS-NewsHour_Marist-Poll_USA-NOS-and-Tables_202312081315.pdf">December Marist poll</a>, voters were split on Biden’s impeachment inquiry, <a href="https://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/NPR_PBS-NewsHour_Marist-Poll_USA-NOS-and-Tables_202312081315.pdf">with just 48 percent approving of it</a>. That figure is lower than the percentage of voters who approved of Trump’s two past impeachment inquiries, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/13/gops-impeachment-inquiry-starts-shaky-political-ground/?_pml=1">the Washington Post</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MqsHbO">
Although some of these efforts, like Republicans’ recent launch of Biden’s impeachment inquiry, might help rally the GOP base, they also endanger battleground members given they aren’t especially backed by the broader public. That makes these actions more risky for House Republicans, whose ability to maintain a majority hinges on these battleground members, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4362901-biden-district-republicans-walk-tightrope-on-impeachment/">17 of whom are in districts that Biden also won</a>.
</p>
<h3 id="bibQKQ">
Speaker drama (round two)
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MZoQTM">
As if the January drama wasn’t enough, Republicans had yet another speaker debacle in October when the far-right faction of the GOP conference joined with Democrats to oust <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/10/3/23901751/kevin-mccarthy-house-speaker-vote-jeffries">McCarthy from the speaker’s job</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="C0GVqc">
The trouble began when McCarthy opted to work with Democrats to pass a short-term spending bill that kept the government open. Each year, Congress has to pass 12 appropriations bills, often consolidated into a larger package, to allocate the funds needed to keep the government running. Conservatives had hoped that McCarthy would leverage a potential government shutdown to force Congress to pass individual long-term spending bills that contained the cuts to programs like SNAP and Medicaid they wanted.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nsKPOq">
McCarthy’s decision to avert a shutdown followed other actions that had upset these far-right members, including the concessions he had previously made on the debt ceiling deal.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eRSk1d">
As a result, Gaetz opted to use the motion to vacate to force a vote on removing McCarthy, which was ultimately successful.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zVwyfi">
After McCarthy was booted, Republicans faced even more problems as the far right opposed other speaker options that were proposed, and moderates opposed the conservative options the far right wanted. Multiple people were floated as potential options, including longtime leadership member <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/10/12/23914703/house-speaker-race-steve-scalise-republicans-jim-jordan">Rep. Steve Scalise</a> from Louisiana and former <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/10/20/23925624/house-speaker-jordan-emmer-hern-bergman">Freedom Caucus Chair Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan</a>. None were able to get the support needed to become speaker.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pxCbhZ">
All of this culminated in the election of conservative member, election denier, and relative unknown Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) to the position.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="l18XHh">
The same fault lines that sparked the McCarthy drama, however, haven’t disappeared. Instead, they’re expected to re-emerge in 2024 when the House will have to figure out how to handle the passage of long-term spending bills as another funding deadline approaches in January.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BbM3IL">
Johnson will have to navigate these tensions on those bills — as well as on the Biden impeachment inquiry — as different factions of the party push for competing paths forward.
</p>
<h3 id="nK56Pa">
Failed abortion bills and culture wars
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3BRlbH">
Beyond investigations into Biden, House Republicans kicked off their term with a laundry list of goals they hoped to achieve.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="is5Jzc">
Chief among these were <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy">policies</a> that would restrict <a href="https://www.vox.com/abortion">abortion</a> rights. Like the investigations, however, this goal proved fraught and revealing of the divisions in the caucus. Though some far-right members agitated for a national abortion ban, there was rapid blowback to such harsh proposals —with <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/321143/americans-stand-abortion.aspx">poll</a> after <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/13/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-abortion-should-be-legal-in-all-or-most-cases-2/">poll</a> after <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx">poll</a> showing that Americans are in favor of at least some abortion access. In lieu of considering a national abortion ban, the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/born-alive-bill-passed-house-republicans-require-care/story?id=96389440">House voted</a> on a slate of abortion bills that would <a href="https://rollcall.com/2023/01/09/for-new-gop-house-majority-a-focus-on-abortion-messaging/">put limitations on federal funding</a> for abortions and require care for infants if an abortion failed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ht40VE">
These had no chance of making it through the Democrat-controlled Senate.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xcWL4H">
A similar dynamic played out on legislation <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/7/14/23795178/house-defense-bill-republicans-abortion-trans-rights-culture-war">like the annual defense bill</a>, which lays out the military budget that the US has each year. House Republicans used their version of the bill to restrict funds that the federal government can provide for servicemembers to travel for an abortion, and to limit funding for gender-affirming surgeries for <a href="https://www.vox.com/lgbtq">trans</a> servicemembers. Those amendments did not make it into a final compromise bill with the Senate.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sJhj8V">
While both bills were wins for a chamber that has struggled to pass even basic legislation, they also marked another failure by House Republicans to get their policies into law.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7DtrtB">
“I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing — one — that I can go campaign on and say we did. Anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come down to the floor and come explain to me, one material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), a far-right member said in November during a floor speech criticizing Republicans’ failures on spending cuts.
</p>
<h3 id="lzCS4B">
George Santos and a winnowing majority
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ItEBsW">
After the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23357154/2022-midterm-elections-guide">2022 midterms</a>, the House GOP’s majority was narrow: In those contests, Republicans only won a nine-seat majority, after winning 222 seats to Democrats’ 213.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4CV698">
A combination of circumstance, bad luck, and misconduct have further winnowed that majority thanks to the scandals of former New York Rep. <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23520848/george-santos-fake-resume">George Santos</a> and some lawmakers’ decision to leave the House of their own volition.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MO4lez">
Santos’s expulsion was the latest embarrassment for the GOP, and marked the first time a House lawmaker had been expelled in roughly two decades. His removal followed a 23-count federal indictment, extensive coverage of the lies he told about his work and educational history, and a scathing review by the House Ethics Committee.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A6ZD1Y">
In addition to Santos’s departure, there have been many other resignations on the Republican side. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has said he’ll leave his post before the end of 2023, and Bill Johnson (R-OH) has said he’ll leave his post in 2024, meaning their seats will be vacant until they can hold special elections in their districts (though both are expected to eventually be replaced by Republicans).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SQLInc">
That means Republicans could be operating with <a href="https://apnews.com/article/house-republicans-speaker-92c63abfcc202d86321f5796fdf300dd">fewer votes to spare in the new year</a>. With McCarthy gone, they’re only able to lose three votes to keep their majority. Those narrow margins could give any small group of GOP lawmakers outsize control over policy or force them to keep relying on Democratic votes for key bills. “Hopefully no one dies,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4345522-marjorie-taylor-greene-shrinking-gop-majority/">lamented in a tweet on this issue</a>. (That post also suggested that Republicans will have only a one-vote majority which isn’t the case.)
</p></li>
<li><strong>How 7 scientists feel after the hottest year on record</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Photo of sun setting behind clouds in a blazing orange sky." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XCRYDSeLzrk1grcMlVahfusVecE=/693x0:6240x4160/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73000804/GettyImages_1343480413.0.jpeg"/>
<figcaption>
2023 is now the hottest year on record. | Chuchart Duangdaw/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
What it’s like to study a world facing unprecedented changes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KPjIpA">
2023 is the hottest year in <a href="https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/2023-shatters-climate-records-major-impacts">at least 174 years</a> and recent months have been the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/11/09/earth-hottest-months-climate-warming/">hottest in 125,000 years</a>. All of that warming led to deadly <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/23864998/heat-wave-south-america-brazil-australia-argentina-hemisphere-winter">heat waves</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/23992678/el-nino-south-america-peru-bolivia-flood-drought-dengue-cop28-climate">disease outbreaks, floods, droughts</a>, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/23792828/antarctica-heat-wave-sea-ice-level-record-el-nino">record low ice levels around Antarctica</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h7R7eq">
The extreme weather this year stems in part from natural variability, including a powerful <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/23738846/el-nino-2023-weather-heat-wave-climate-change-disaster-flood-rain">El Niño</a> warming pattern in the Pacific Ocean that reshaped weather around the world. But beneath these cycles, humanity’s ravenous appetite for coal, oil, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/fossil-fuels">natural gas</a> is <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/broken-record-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-levels-jump-again">driving up concentrations of heat-trapping gasses</a> in the atmosphere to levels the Earth hasn’t witnessed for <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide">3 million years</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Dyp67y">
This year may be the first time that annual temperatures have risen <a href="https://www.vox.com/23969523/climate-change-cop28-paris-1-5-c-uae-2023-record-warm">1.5 degrees Celsius, 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above the global average</a> at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Under the 2015 Paris agreement, just about every country in the world agreed to keep the planet’s average temperature from rising more than 2°C, striving to stay below 1.5°C. A single year rising past this level doesn’t mean this target is toast, but if people keep heating up the planet, a year like <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/2023/7/5/23784587/hottest-day-heat-wave-recorded-temperature-climate-change">2023 will become one of the coolest</a> we’ll experience in the rest of our lives.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h2Xpfd">
Earlier this month, leaders from around the world wrapped the largest climate conference in history aimed at preventing this outcome. The <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/24000157/cop28-climate-conference-uae-dubai-winners-losers-fossil-fuels-methane">COP28</a> meeting in the United Arab Emirates produced an agreement that explicitly called on countries to reduce fossil fuel use for the first time and provide more money to countries facing destruction worsened by warming. But the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/08e08334-f637-4a4f-8374-3f6c24ba7dd2">commitments made so far are still not enough</a> to limit warming to 1.5°C, and greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4a4Rsa">
Half a world away, scientists who study this warming and its consequences gathered at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Climate change is not an abstraction for these researchers, and many are observing it in real time, often in areas that have personal stakes for them. Looking back on the hottest year on record and what little humanity has done about it, some are reckoning with how their own work fits in. From the retreat of Arctic ice to rising demand for air conditioning, scientists with their fingers on the pulse of the planet are experiencing a mix of optimism, dread, and urgency as they endeavor to make their research practical in the real world.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="People in a conventional hall with scientific posters. Signs read: “Cryosphere” and “Earth Cover”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7zn2h_2SJFYh7_acFYxT4TrxnlE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25174092/PXL_20231215_010615844.MP.jpg"/> <cite>Umair Irfan/Vox</cite>
<figcaption>
Researchers present their latest results on posters at the 2023 American Geophysical Union annual meeting.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DTLLr2">
I spoke with seven researchers studying Earth’s changes from different angles. Their comments below have been lightly edited.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QOgii6">
<a href="https://fish.uw.edu/faculty/daniel-schindler/">Daniel Schindler</a> at the University of Washington researches how <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate">climate change</a> affects aquatic ecosystems, including Alaska’s sockeye, chinook, and chum salmon. He was one of several scientists presenting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s <a href="https://arctic.noaa.gov/report-card/">Arctic Report Card</a> for 2023 at the conference. The Arctic has been <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00498-3">warming four times faster</a> than the rest of the planet, and this year, the region saw its warmest summer since 1900 (when record-keeping began), with knock-on effects like Canada’s worst wildfire season on record. As negotiators in the United Arab Emirates bickered over the future of the planet, Schindler noted that the effects of climate change are underway now, and it’s already reshaping ecosystems and human communities:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Wj8k98">
I think the reality is, if you look at Western Alaska, climate change is not something that’s coming down the pipe somewhere in the future. It is happening now, it’s been happening for decades. And whether you’re talking about fish or people or birds, there are real impacts that we need to deal with right now.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="M3KzTK">
And when you hear about what’s going on at COP28, there may be a reason to be optimistic. But the reality is, we need action on the ground right now, not to necessarily turn around climate change immediately, but to deal with the fact that we’re going to be challenged by it, now and for decades to come, so we need action now at local scales.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cHfLfb">
<a href="https://www.uaf.edu/experts/rick-thoman.php">Rick Thoman</a>, who studies Alaska’s climate and weather at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, echoed the call for more immediate steps to deal with global warming, noting that the Arctic has been at the leading edge of climate change long before it reached the extremes seen this year. The communities there may have important lessons for the rest of the world:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nBX7zk">
As Alaskans, as peoples in the Arctic, we are living this change every day. And we have no choice, no choice at all, other than to work with what’s happening. We need the big picture solutions, but everyone — Indigenous communities, all the people of the Arctic — are having to adapt right here, right now. It didn’t start today. It didn’t start yesterday. This has been ongoing for years. Listen to the elders. This change has been happening for decades, century-scale changes. And Arctic peoples are still here and we’re still going to be here.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sUrlby">
<a href="https://cas.uoregon.edu/directory/profiles/all/scooley2">Sarah Cooley</a>, an assistant professor at the University of Oregon, is studying how climate change is altering ice in places like coastal Alaska and has found that when you zoom in, the way it affects people can be quite complicated. How ice melts and the impacts it has on communities can vary drastically, even in nearby regions. With COP28 still falling short of global climate goals, Cooley is also looking into the way the success or failure of international negotiations will manifest on the ground:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QBP6u4">
In this broader context of warming climate, loss of ice, thawing permafrost, threats of coastal erosion, and sea level rise, that’s kind of this giant signal that each person experiences differently depending on their interaction with their environment.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eHAn4h">
I get really excited about being able to do research that is locally relevant. One of the things we did in this project is we’re thinking about how Paris climate agreement targets translate to local on-the-ground experiences. If you tell somebody that the Earth is going to warm by 1.5°C or 2°C, that’s an incredibly abstract concept because the difference to us of two degrees doesn’t mean anything. But if you can translate that experience of two degrees warming to an actual on-the-ground experience that’s highly localized — so let’s say a loss of 30 days of ice versus 50 days of ice, which is a huge deal for someone living in the community to lose a month of ice versus losing two months of ice — that to me is really exciting work that we can kind of take large-scale big numbers that are really abstract and bring them down to a local experience.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kFShlZ">
<a href="https://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/people/r_green">Robert Green</a>, a scientist at <a href="https://www.vox.com/space">NASA</a>’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is leading a project to <a href="https://earth.jpl.nasa.gov/emit/">track mineral dust</a> using instruments on the International Space Station. This is an important mechanism that can change <a href="https://www.vox.com/air-quality">air quality</a>, the flow of nutrients across the planet, and the amount of sunlight hitting the Earth, which can cool the planet. Green is also keeping an eye on methane, a greenhouse gas with about 30 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide. At COP28, countries made <a href="https://www.vox.com/23996919/cop28-climate-methane-pledge-oil-gas-emissions-agriculture">new pledges to curb methane</a>, and Green said scientists can help them meet their targets:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kNqZ1R">
We can tell people where the point sources of methane are, where leaks are happening, and give people the information to address those leaks. And that’s something that is just so important to do. Nobody wants to waste money out of a leaking pipeline. Let’s go ahead and fix those leaks, and we also reduce the impact of methane for climate change.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6O3ITx">
I’m excited to be making a difference. I’m an optimistic person, and we can work together to address this problem. It’s not an easy problem, but the pieces are coming together. So I’m going to remain hopeful.
</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Man on stage next to projection of the International Space Station" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0CdKtnJM2cH82aPX4ULhrrWr7Nk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25174086/PXL_20231213_225800412_2.jpeg"/> <cite>Umair Irfan/Vox</cite>
<figcaption>
Scientist Robert Green presents NASA’s project to track mineral dust and other substances from the International Space Station.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VzhZ2C">
<a href="https://s3research.usc.edu/about-us/stepp-mayes/">Stepp Mayes</a>, a doctoral student at the University of Southern California, studies how people use electricity and the ensuing consequences for the climate and for health. Lately he’s been examining the growing <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/23067049/heat-wave-air-conditioning-cooling-india-climate-change">demand for air conditioning as temperatures rise</a> and the stresses that imparts on the <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy">power grid</a>. As temperatures go up, people install more cooling systems, run them longer, and crank them up during the hottest times of day. That’s often when the power grid is struggling the most to provide electricity. The extreme heat this year coupled with <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/23893057/power-electricity-grid-heat-wave-record-blackout-outage-climate">record-high energy demand</a> signals that this work is only going to become more important:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="q8PlfF">
It makes me nervous. There’s a big intersection because we’re all about looking at the relationship between temperature and AC use and AC penetration. I think that people are directly responding to increasing temperature, and I think we are going to see that continue as temperatures continue to rise, where our reliance on AC — as a public health issue, and as a grid issue — becomes larger and larger.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IrVet6">
<a href="https://explorer-directory.nationalgeographic.org/aliyah-griffith">Aliyah Griffith</a>, a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, studies coral reef infrastructure around places like Barbados, from satellites and from the water. Griffith is also the founder and CEO of <a href="https://www.mahoganymermaids.com/about-us">Mahogany Mermaids</a>, a nonprofit that works to encourage women of color to pursue careers in science, particularly in aquatic fields. The extreme temperatures this year, including <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate/23801858/caribbean-heat-wave-dominica-ocean-marine-sea-coral-fish">heat waves in the ocean</a>, have renewed her determination:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MJx6G0">
My family is from Barbados. Not only does that make me feel more driven to answer questions from a scientist’s perspective — how can we help the reefs? How can we understand what they need and what they’re facing? — but also: What do the communities need? How can we interact with their local governments, their local institutions, and understand where they can be elevated? You have to really respect a lot of the work and effort that they’ve already done to see what can change in the future.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="H3FaT5">
<a href="https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/soestwp/about/directory/gordon-walker/">Gordon Walker</a>, a researcher at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, studies paleoclimate, particularly how past shifts in the climate and weather influenced historical events. For instance, changing climate conditions in Africa and the Caribbean were a factor in the slave trade and may have played a part in uprisings. For Walker, the role of the climate in historical periods of unrest is adding urgency for the need to fill in data gaps as the climate breaches records, particularly in regions experiencing the most acute impacts of warming today:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lkGZ2k">
For me — my focus being the Caribbean and Africa, and the transatlantic slave trade, and climate variability associated with those regions and the historical event of the trade — I think that it’s important for us to collect data on regions in the global South — the Caribbean, South America, Africa — because a lot of the science and research is focused on the global North.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hKFcwe">
I think it’s imperative, especially in areas where we don’t have a lot of data, to start collecting data and applying the powers or the tools of analysis that we have for climate to the global South. Because a lot of countries in those regions are not necessarily resource-poor in terms of raw material but resource-poor in terms of economies and having the ability to respond to extreme climate. So I think the greater lead time we have with projections based on studying the past, the better for those countries to be able to respond, especially with limited economies, as compared to countries in the global North.
</p>
</blockquote></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Awakening, Ruling Star, Alexander and Little Wonder please</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Judy Blue Eyes and Misty please</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rieko, Philosophy, Armory and Tehani excel</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SA vs IND first Test | South Africa dismissed for 408 in reply to India’s 245</strong> - The sun is beating down, odd balls are keeping low and survival isn’t an option against a quality Proteas attack.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Government didn’t follow ‘proper procedure’ while suspending WFI, will challenge in court: Sanjay</strong> - “WFI is an autonomous body and we were elected in a democratic way under our (WFI) constitution,” said Sanjay Singh.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Helplines set up for retired employees of SBT</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>To beat price crash, rubber growers take to value addition and marketing</strong> - The initiative will help bring in a profit-oriented approach in the functioning of Rubber Producers’ Societies and relieve them from being at the mercy of high-end industries such as tyre, says sources from Rubber Board</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Women account for approximately 49% of the total Ayushman cards created, says Health Ministry data</strong> - The flagship scheme provides health cover of ₹5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation to 12 crore beneficiary families</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Article 370 | Awami National Conference mulling filing review petition before Supreme Court</strong> - Muzaffar Shah, Awami National Conference’s senior vice-president, expressed hope that those who believe in history and the Constitution will stand together in this legal battle</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Remembering ‘Captain’ Vijayakant (1952-2023)</strong> - This folder is a compilation of The Hindu’s coverage on the demise of actor-turned-politician Vijayakant</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: US releases last military aid for Kyiv for now</strong> - The funds are the final tranche of aid the White House can allocate without fresh approval from Congress.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Russian passenger plane lands on frozen river by mistake</strong> - No-one was hurt when the Polar Airlines plane landed on the River Kolyma, because of pilot error.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Czech mass shooting: Gunman confessed to shooting baby in woods</strong> - A suicide note written by the Prague university attacker confirms the number of his victims as 17.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Does attack on Russian ship make a difference?</strong> - The destruction of the Novocherkassk landing ship was certainly spectacular, but was it significant?</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Russian celebs at ‘almost naked’ party stung by backlash</strong> - Some of Russia’s best-known celebrities apologise as criticism of their behaviour spreads on social media.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>2023 was the year that GPUs stood still</strong> - A new GPU generation did very little to change the speed you get for your money. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1991746">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>NY Times copyright suit wants OpenAI to delete all GPT instances</strong> - Shows evidence that GPT-based systems will reproduce Times articles if asked. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1992911">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Appeals court pauses ban on patent-infringing Apple Watch imports</strong> - Apple pulled the Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 from sale on December 21. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1992857">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>4-year campaign backdoored iPhones using possibly the most advanced exploit ever</strong> - “Triangulation” infected dozens of iPhones belonging to employees of Moscow-based Kaspersky. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1992873">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>You’ll be paying extra for ad-free Prime Video come January</strong> - Subscribers will have to opt-in to a pricier ad-free plan. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1992863">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>3 woman died and go up to heaven.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
God asks the first woman,“were you pure?” “Yes” she replied I was with the same man for all of my life. “You get the keys to the silver room” god said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
God asks the second woman “were you pure?” “Yes” she replied " I was a virgin my entire life. “You get the keys to the gold room” god said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Now god turns to the third woman. “Were you pure?”. “No” answered the girl. “I slept with 3,678 men” “okay” God says " You get the keys to my room ".
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/1HotCanadian"> /u/1HotCanadian </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18sgoxe/3_woman_died_and_go_up_to_heaven/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18sgoxe/3_woman_died_and_go_up_to_heaven/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A dad was putting his daughter to bed, and she said her nightly prayers,</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Good night mum, good night daddy, goodnight grandma, and goodbye grandpa.” Puzzled, he asked why she said goodbye to grandpa instead of goodnight. The girl explained she felt it in her spirit. The next day, grandpa passed away.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Worried, the dad paid closer attention when she prayed. Months later, saying her prayers, the girl said, “Good night mum, good night daddy, goodbye grandma.” Puzzled, the father asked her why she said goodbye to grandma, but the girl said it was the right thing to say in her mind. Sadly, the following day, grandma passed away.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Two months later, when his wife was on a trip, the little girl praying said, “Goodnight mum, goodbye dad.” On hearing this, the dad knew what was coming. Determined to survive, he prayed fervently. He stayed home, didn’t go out, and was very careful throughout the day. He figured out that if he survived past midnight, he would break the spell. And he did survive past midnight, and he was thankful.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Early the next morning, when his wife returned from the trip, as he was about narrating his ordeal, she shared a shocking news, saying, “You won’t believe what just happened—my boss died on our flight back to Florida.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/ademolavictor"> /u/ademolavictor </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18s7mtt/a_dad_was_putting_his_daughter_to_bed_and_she/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18s7mtt/a_dad_was_putting_his_daughter_to_bed_and_she/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I was having a conversation with my wife</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Wife: I have a bag full of used clothing I’d like to donate.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Husband: Why not just throw it in the trash? That’s much easier.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Wife: But there are poor starving people who can really use all these clothes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Husband: Honey, anyone who fits into your clothing is not starving.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/1HotCanadian"> /u/1HotCanadian </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18sio69/i_was_having_a_conversation_with_my_wife/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18sio69/i_was_having_a_conversation_with_my_wife/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Man goes for his annual prostate exam…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Man goes for his annual prostate exam and as he’s laid on the table the doctor walks in and says “now then Steve, don’t worry if you get an erection during the examination, it’s perfectly normal and it happens all the time, don’t get embarrassed” The man turns round and says to the doc, “my name isn’t Steve” then doc replies “I know, I was talking to myself”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/midgegaunt"> /u/midgegaunt </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18s8yha/man_goes_for_his_annual_prostate_exam/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18s8yha/man_goes_for_his_annual_prostate_exam/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A married couple are in bed one morning.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“I had a really good dream last night,” says the wife. “I dreamt that I was at a penis auction. Long dicks were going for $100 each and thick dicks were going for $200.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Really?” says the husband. “What would mine have fetched?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“They were giving dicks like yours away for free,” says the wife.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“That’s funny, actually,” he replies, “because I had a dream that I was at a vagina auction. Juicy cunts were going for $500 and tight cunts were going for a grand.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“How about mine?” asks the wife.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“That’s where they were holding the auction.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/arztnur"> /u/arztnur </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18s6zt4/a_married_couple_are_in_bed_one_morning/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/18s6zt4/a_married_couple_are_in_bed_one_morning/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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