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<title>13 April, 2024</title>
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<title>Covid-19 Sentry</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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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>Widespread exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in wildlife communities</strong> -
<div>
Pervasive SARS-CoV-2 infections in humans have led to multiple transmission events to captive animals. While SARS-CoV-2 has a potential broad wildlife host range, most documented infections to date are found in a single species, the white-tailed deer. The extent of SARS-CoV-2 exposure among wildlife species and the factors that influence wildlife transmission risk remain unknown. We sampled 23 wildlife species for SARS-CoV-2 and examined the effects of urbanization and human use on seropositivity. Here, we document positive detections of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in six species, including the deer mouse, Virginia opossum, raccoon, groundhog, Eastern cottontail, and Eastern red bat. In addition, we found that sites with high human activity had three times higher seroprevalence than low human-use areas. We detected SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences from nine individuals of six species which were assigned to seven Pango lineages of the Omicron variant. The close match to variants circulating in humans at the time suggests at least seven recent human-to-animal transmission events. Our data support that exposure to SARS-CoV-2 has been widespread in wildlife communities and suggests that areas with high human activity may serve as points of contact for cross-species transmission.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.04.515237v3" target="_blank">Widespread exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in wildlife communities</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Impact of crisis communication strategies on people’s attitudes toward behavioral guidelines regarding COVID-19 and on their trust in local officials</strong> -
<div>
Introduction: The communication patterns of commercial organizations are generally guided by Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), but the impact of different crisis communication strategies for public messaging on COVID-19 has not been thoroughly examined. As such, we test how crisis communication strategies affect trust in mayors and the acceptance of behavioral measures, specifically regarding the buffering effect of a mayor’s pre-crisis reputation as well whether trust mediates the link between crisis communication strategies and acceptance of behavioral measures. Methods: A total of 561 participants (53% female; mean age 50 yrs) took part in an online experiment in which we systematically manipulated the mayor’s crisis communication strategy (deny vs. diminish, vs. rebuild, vs. bolstering, vs. no response) and pre-crisis reputation (good past crisis management, bad past crisis management). Age, gender and education served as covariates. In an exploratory analysis, we also tested the predictive power of personal concern regarding the COVID-19 pandemic as well as internal and external control convictions. Results: In our pre-planned analysis, we found that crisis communication strategies and pre-crisis reputation had no significant effect on participants’ ratings of acceptance of certain behaviors or their behavioral intentions. However, the different communication strategies did affect participants’ trust in the mayor and intention to vote for him. Specifically, we found that while the strategy of denying was overall unsuccessful, all other strategies fared similarly when the mayor’s pre-crisis reputation was high. When his pre-crisis reputation was low, differences emerged between the other strategies. The exploratory analysis corroborated earlier findings about the importance of individual concern and trust as predictors of behavioral measures. Discussion: Overall, SCCT seems to be an adequate description the effects of communication strategies on reputation in local officials during a pandemic. Yet, neither direct effects of communication strategies on acceptance of behavioral measures nor indirect effects on behavioral measures could not be shown. Since trust is an important aspect, we advise local officials to carefully choose their communication style.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/qmcs6/" target="_blank">Impact of crisis communication strategies on people’s attitudes toward behavioral guidelines regarding COVID-19 and on their trust in local officials</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Evaluation of The New Student Candidates admission Information System Using ISO/IEC 25010 Model</strong> -
<div>
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it is very important to pay attention to the evaluation of the quality of higher education information systems because most of internet users were only accessed from home. So it is necessary to evaluate to produce a quality system. This study aimed to evaluate the information system for the candidate of new student admissions at the Muhammadiyah University of Education Sorong. This evaluation was conducted to find out that SIPMB Unimuda Sorong was designed according to the wishes, and how high the level of user satisfaction was. This study used five characteristics that exist in ISO/IE 25010. The results showed that the usability characteristic test obtained a percentage value of 77% in the Very Eligible category. Meanwhile, in testing the functional suitability characteristics, it obtained a score percentage of 98% in the Very Good category. In testing the performance efficiency characteristics, it has met the standard because the average time used is 3.1 seconds for page load, page size is 866 kb, page speed is in Grade C (72%), and Yslow is in grade A (93%) so that we get very good category. The maintainability characteristic test is carried out by taking into account the three test criteria. The test results showed that the system has met the three categories they were instrumentation, consistency, and simplicity, so that SIPMB has met the maintainability test. And testing the reliability characteristics obtained a percentage value of 100%, this shows that SIPMB has met the Telcordia standard. Based on the results of testing and analysis, it can be said that SIPM UNIMUDA Sorong has product quality in accordance with ISO/IEC 25010 Software Product Quality standards.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/e8znx/" target="_blank">Evaluation of The New Student Candidates admission Information System Using ISO/IEC 25010 Model</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Educational Technology in Higher Education on Pandemic Covid-19 Experiences</strong> -
<div>
The educational technology is very important in the world of education because it can facilitate the process of learning activities both in the classroom and learning activities at home as it is now when learning online or online because of the covid-19 pandemic that spreads throughout the world, including in Indonesia. of learning and learning, the history of the development of educational technology and knowing the meaning of educational technology. The research method used is sourced from secondary data. Secondary data is data obtained from information or knowledge obtained indirectly, among others, includes official documents, books, and research results in the form of reports. The results of this study explain that educational technology has developed steadily where each stage in its development creates a new discovery that facilitates learning activities. The emergence of educational technology makes it easier for educators and students to learn independently and can create the latest innovations in the world of education so that a learning and learning innovation will emerge that makes educators and students able to learn easily and fun.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/e9cx7/" target="_blank">Educational Technology in Higher Education on Pandemic Covid-19 Experiences</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Cardiovascular symptoms of PASC are associated with trace-level cytokines that affect the function of human pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes</strong> -
<div>
Globally, over 65 million individuals are estimated to suffer from post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC). A large number of individuals living with PASC experience cardiovascular symptoms (i.e. chest pain and heart palpitations) (PASC-CVS). The role of chronic inflammation in these symptoms, in particular in individuals with symptoms persisting for &gt;1 year after SARS-CoV-2 infection, remains to be clearly defined. In this cross-sectional study, blood samples were obtained from three different sites in Australia from individuals with i) a resolved SARS-CoV-2 infection (and no persistent symptoms i.e. Recovered), ii) individuals with prolonged PASC-CVS and iii) SARS-CoV-2 negative individuals. Individuals with PASC-CVS, relative to Recovered individuals, had a blood transcriptomic signature associated with inflammation. This was accompanied by elevated levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-12, IL-1beta;, MCP-1 and IL-6) at approximately 18 months post-infection. These cytokines were present in trace amounts, such that they could only be detected with the use of novel nanotechnology. Importantly, these trace-level cytokines had a direct effect on the functionality of pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes in vitro. This effect was not observed in the presence of dexamethasone. Plasma proteomics demonstrated further differences between PASC-CVS and Recovered patients at approximately 18 months post-infection including enrichment of complement and coagulation associated proteins in those with prolonged cardiovascular symptoms. Together, these data provide a new insight into the role of chronic inflammation in PASC-CVS and present nanotechnology as a possible novel diagnostic approach for the condition.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.11.587623v1" target="_blank">Cardiovascular symptoms of PASC are associated with trace-level cytokines that affect the function of human pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>scPanel: A tool for automatic identification of sparse gene panels for generalizable patient classification using scRNA-seq datasets</strong> -
<div>
Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) technologies can generate transcriptomic profiles at a single-cell resolution in large patient cohorts, facilitating discovery of gene and cellular biomarkers for disease. Yet, when the number of biomarker genes is large the translation to clinical applications is challenging due to prohibitive sequencing costs. Here we introduce scPanel, a computational framework designed to bridge the gap between biomarker discovery and clinical application by identifying a sparse gene panel for patient classification from the cell population(s) most responsive to perturbations (e.g., diseases/drugs). scPanel incorporates a data-driven way to automatically determine the minimal number of selected genes. Patient-level classification is achieved by aggregating the prediction probabilities of cells associated with a patient using the area under the curve score. Application of scPanel on scleroderma and COVID-19 datasets resulted in high patient classification accuracy using a small number (&lt;20) of genes automatically selected from the entire transcriptome. We demonstrate 100% cross-dataset accuracy to predict COVID-19 disease state on an external dataset, illustrating the generalizability of the predicted genes. scPanel outperforms other state-of-the-art gene selection methods for patient classification and can be used to identify small sets of reliable biomarker candidates for clinical translation.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.09.588647v1" target="_blank">scPanel: A tool for automatic identification of sparse gene panels for generalizable patient classification using scRNA-seq datasets</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Microgliosis, astrogliosis and loss of aquaporin-4 polarity in frontal cortex of COVID-19 patients</strong> -
<div>
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2), causing human coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), not only affects the respiratory tract, but also impacts other organs including the brain. A considerable number of COVID-19 patients develop neuropsychiatric symptoms that may linger for weeks and months and contribute to "long-COVID". While the neurological symptoms of COVID-19 are well described, the cellular mechanisms of neurologic disorders attributed to the infection are still enigmatic. Here, we studied the effect of an infection with SARS-CoV-2 on the structure and expression of marker proteins of astrocytes and microglial cells in the frontal cortex of patients who died from COVID-19 in comparison to non-COVID-19 controls. Most of COVID-19 patients had microglial cells with retracted processes and rounded and enlarged cell bodies in both gray and white matter, as visualized by anti-Iba1 staining and confocal fluorescence microscopy. In addition, gray matter astrocytes in COVID-19 patients were frequently labeled by intense anti-GFAP staining, whereas in non-COVID-19 controls, most gray matter astrocytes expressed little GFAP. The most striking difference between astrocytes in COVID-19 patients and controls was found by anti-aquaporin-4 (AQP4) staining. In COVID-19 patients, a large number of gray matter astrocytes showed an increase in AQP4. In addition, AQP4 polarity was lost and AQP4 covered the entire cell, including the cell body and all cell processes, while in controls, AQP4 immunostaining was mainly detected in endfeet around blood vessels and did not visualize the cell body. In summary, our data suggest neuroinflammation upon SARS-CoV-2 infection including microgliosis and astrogliosis, including loss of AQP4 polarity.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.10.588851v1" target="_blank">Microgliosis, astrogliosis and loss of aquaporin-4 polarity in frontal cortex of COVID-19 patients</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Coatomer complex I is required for the transport of SARS-CoV-2 progeny virions from the endoplasmic reticulum-Golgi intermediate compartment</strong> -
<div>
SARS-CoV-2 undergoes budding within the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum-Golgi intermediate compartment (ERGIC) and delivers progeny virions to the cell surface by employing vesicular transport. However, the molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood. Using three-dimensional electron microscopic analysis, such as array tomography and electron tomography, we found that virion-transporting vesicles possessed a coated protein on their membrane and demonstrated that the coated protein was coatomer complex I (COPI). During the later stages of SARS-CoV-2 infection, we observed a notable alteration in the distribution of COPI and ERGIC throughout the cytoplasm. Depletion of COPB2, a key component of COPI, led to the confinement of SARS-CoV-2 structural proteins in the perinuclear region, where progeny virions were accumulated within the ERGIC. While the expression levels of viral proteins within cells were comparable, this depletion significantly reduced the efficiency of virion release, leading to the significant inhibition of viral replication. Hence, our findings suggest COPI as a critical player in facilitating the transport of SARS-CoV-2 progeny virions from the ERGIC. Thus, COPI could be a promising target for the development of antivirals against SARS-CoV-2.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.10.588984v1" target="_blank">Coatomer complex I is required for the transport of SARS-CoV-2 progeny virions from the endoplasmic reticulum-Golgi intermediate compartment</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A narrow ratio of nucleic acid to SARS-CoV-2 N-protein enables phase separation</strong> -
<div>
SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid protein (N) is a viral structural protein that packages the 30kb genomic RNA inside virions and forms condensates within infected cells through liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS). N, in both soluble and condensed forms, has accessory roles in the viral life cycle including genome replication and immunosuppression. The ability to perform these tasks depends on phase separation and its reversibility. The conditions that stabilize and destabilize N condensates and the role of N-N interactions are poorly understood. We have investigated LLPS formation and dissolution in a minimalist system comprised of N protein and an ssDNA oligomer just long enough to support assembly. The short oligo allows us to focus on the role of N-N interaction. We have developed a sensitive FRET assay to interrogate LLPS assembly reactions from the perspective of the oligonucleotide. We find that N alone can form oligomers but that oligonucleotide enables their assembly into a three-dimensional phase. At a ~1:1 ratio of N to oligonucleotide LLPS formation is maximal. We find that a modest excess of N or of nucleic acid causes the LLPS to break down catastrophically. Under the conditions examined here assembly has a critical concentration of about 1 micromolar. The responsiveness of N condensates to their environment may have biological consequences. A better understanding of how nucleic acid modulates N-N association will shed light on condensate activity and could inform antiviral strategies targeting LLPS.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.10.588883v1" target="_blank">A narrow ratio of nucleic acid to SARS-CoV-2 N-protein enables phase separation</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Reduced selection during sweeps lead to adaptive momentum on rugged landscapes</strong> -
<div>
Evolutionary theory seeks to explain the remarkable diversity and adaptability of life on Earth. Current theory offers substantial explanatory power, but it overlooks important transient dynamics that are prominent only when populations are outside equilibrium, such as during selective sweeps. We identify a dynamic that we call "adaptive momentum" whereby lineages with a selective advantage can temporarily sustain more deleterious mutations. This reduction in the strength of purifying selection allows populations to explore fitness valleys that are usually too costly to enter, potentially leading to the discovery of otherwise inaccessible fitness peaks. Using mathematical and agent-based simulations, we demonstrate adaptive momentum and show how periods of disequilibrium become windows of enhanced adaptation. Genetic exploration can occur during these windows without requiring mechanisms such as changing environments or complex landscapes. Adaptive momentum provides a simple potential explanation for bursts of rapid evolution observed in nature, including in pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 and cancers.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.08.588357v1" target="_blank">Reduced selection during sweeps lead to adaptive momentum on rugged landscapes</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Deep Learning in Drug Repurposing: A Review of the CoV-DrugX Module within the CoV-DrugX Pipeline</strong> -
<div>
A comprehensive overview of the integration of deep learning techniques in drug repurposing, particularly focusing on the CoV-DrugX module within the CoV-DrugX Pipeline. The paper highlights the significance of drug repurposing in accelerating treatment discovery, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It discusses the emergence of deep learning methods, such as recurrent neural networks (RNNs), graph convolutional networks (GCNs), and long short-term memory (LSTM) networks, in predicting drug-target interactions and identifying repurposable drugs. The review emphasizes the role of deep learning in extracting informative features, improving drug discovery, enhancing drug repositioning, and handling large-scale data effectively. Additionally, it explores the applications and advantages of deep learning in drug repurposing, showcasing its potential to revolutionize the field by learning complex relationships from extensive datasets. The abstract sets the stage for a detailed examination of the DrugX module’s capabilities within the CoV-DrugX Pipeline, shedding light on its contributions to drug discovery and repurposing efforts, particularly in the fight against COVID-19.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/m8f3c/" target="_blank">Deep Learning in Drug Repurposing: A Review of the CoV-DrugX Module within the CoV-DrugX Pipeline</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>AI-Driven Drug Repurposing for COVID-19: Revolutionizing Therapeutic Discovery and Treatment Strategies</strong> -
<div>
In March of 2020, a deadly disaster caused a global pandemic all across the globe. This paper elucidates the concept of drug repurposing, a strategy that harnesses existing drugs for new therapeutic purposes. Leveraging drugs already approved for other indications offers a promising avenue for rapid deployment against COVID-19, circumventing the lengthy and costly process of drug development from scratch. Central to the drug repurposing approach is the utilization of sophisticated computational tools one such development is in the form of CoV-DrugX DL-200 which helps integrate over 200 chemoinformatics properties to analyze drug structures and characteristics and whether or not the drug can be repurposed or not. By accepting input in the form of SMILE structure, canonical SMILE structure, drug name, or DrugBankID, the database employs advanced algorithms to predict the potential candidates. This data-driven approach enables researchers and clinicians to expedite the identification of candidate drugs for clinical trials, accelerating the search for effective therapeutics for the pandemic that was caused and for any other catastrophe that we might face.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/69rek/" target="_blank">AI-Driven Drug Repurposing for COVID-19: Revolutionizing Therapeutic Discovery and Treatment Strategies</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The Challenges of Engaging African American Communities During a Public Health Crisis: The Role of Government Information, COVID-19 Discourse, and Emotional Content on Social Media</strong> -
<div>
[Forthcoming in International Journal of Strategic Communication] During a public health crisis, social media platforms play a pivotal role in circulating information and influencing public reactions. This research investigates the dynamics of public engagement with COVID-19-related content and government information sources within African American online communities, a population that has experienced significant health risks and inequities. Using advanced computational research methods, we analyzed 199,542 posts from 1,152 communities created between January 2020 and December 2022. The present research focused on the presence of COVID-19-related content, government information sources, the emotions of anger and fear in these posts, and their associations with user engagement metrics. The results indicated that posts discussing COVID-19 and those incorporating government information sources tend to receive lower levels of engagement. On the other hand, posts with higher levels of anger generated more shares and comments. The findings suggest a “triple disadvantage” in user engagement for social media messages that reference government sources and discuss public health risks without delivering strong negative emotions. These patterns are crucial not only for understanding the challenges faced by the at-risk population but also for aiding researchers and practitioners in developing more effective communication strategies during public health crises.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/4kzru/" target="_blank">The Challenges of Engaging African American Communities During a Public Health Crisis: The Role of Government Information, COVID-19 Discourse, and Emotional Content on Social Media</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A cultural-historical study of affordances for agency when children play in the city environments in Rome</strong> -
<div>
Children in the Antique Rome showed their agency when playing in the city environment, in other words, the environment afforded them to play and develop their agency. Today, the city is still the same, but childhood is different. We investigated how children play and perform their agency in the city environment today, after the restrictions of Covid19. 60 play episodes were observed by naturalistic observation and analyzed qualitatively. The results show that affordances for agency realized by three distinctive ways, and it also was not performed. The results are useful for childhood and play researchers, educators and playground designers.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/edarxiv/ftuec/" target="_blank">A cultural-historical study of affordances for agency when children play in the city environments in Rome</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Unravelling the Brexit-COVID-19 Nexus: Assessing the Decline of EU Student Applications into UK Universities</strong> -
<div>
Whilst the numbers of international students attending UK universities has been increasing in recent years, the 2021/22 and 2022/23 academic years saw a decline in applications from EU domiciled students. This decline is hypothesised to represent a direct result of the end of free movement due to the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU), with varying impacts across institutions and study subjects. However, the extent of this decline remains to be estimated and disentangled from the impacts of the COVID-19. Using difference-in-differences in a hierarchical regression framework and Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) data, we aim to quantify the decline in the number of student applications post-Brexit. We find evidence of an overall decline of 65 per cent in the 2021 academic year in successful applications from EU students. We note that this decline is more severe for non-Russell Group institutions, and for Health and Life Sciences and Arts and Languages. Further, we explore the spatial heterogeneity of the impact of Brexit across EU countries of origin; seeing the greatest effects for Poland and Germany but that this varies depending on institution type and subject. We are also able to show that higher rates of COVID-19 stringency in the country of origin led to greater applications for UK HE. Our results hold importance for government and institutional policymakers seeking to understand where losses are occurring and how international students respond to external shocks and policy changes. By quantifying the distinct impacts of Brexit and COVID-19, our study offers valuable insights to guide strategic interventions aimed at sustaining the UK’s attractiveness as a destination for international students.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/8bcq5/" target="_blank">Unravelling the Brexit-COVID-19 Nexus: Assessing the Decline of EU Student Applications into UK Universities</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>Effects of Unsupervised Inspiratory Muscle Training on Ventilation Variability in Post-covid-19 Patients.</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: Experimental Group <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte <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>A Phase IV Vaccine Study Under the National Cohort Study of Effectiveness and Safety of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Vaccines.</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS CoV 2 Infection <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: Johnson &amp; Johnson <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Jens D Lundgren, MD; Ministry of the Interior and Health, Denmark <br/><b>Completed</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>Detoxification From the Lipid Tract</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 Vaccine Adverse Reaction <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: electroencephalogram biofeedback; Device: electrical brain stimulation; Device: ultra-low frequency transcranial magnetic stimulation; Drug: Sertraline Hydrochloride; Drug: Clonazepam; Drug: Alprazolam; Drug: Metoprolol; Drug: Olanzapine; Drug: Pravastatin Sodium 20 MG; Drug: Sacubitril Valsartan Sodium Hydrate <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Pachankis, Yang I., M.D.; First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University <br/><b>Completed</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>Covid-19 and Influenza Oral Vaccine Study</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: covid19 Infection; Influenza, Human <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: Covid-19 vaccine; Biological: Influenza vaccine <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Vaxine Pty Ltd; Australian Respiratory and Sleep Medicine Institute 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 Study of an Investigational mRNA-1273.815 COVID-19 Vaccine in Previously Vaccinated Adults</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS-CoV-2 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: Investigational mRNA-1273.815; Biological: Licensed Spikevax Vaccine <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: ModernaTX, Inc. <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 of the Efficacy of Troxerutin in Preventing Thrombotic Events in COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID 19 Associated Coagulopathy <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Troxerutin; Drug: Placebo; Drug: placebo + low molecular weight heparin; Drug: troxerutin + low molecular weight heparin <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Westlake University; Shaoxing Central Hospital <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>The Use of Isatidis Root and Forsythia Oral Liquid for the Treatment of Mild Cases of COVID-19: A Trial Clinical Study</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Treatment of Mild Cases of COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Langenlianqiao; Drug: LianhuaQingWen; Other: placebo control group <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Central South University <br/><b>Completed</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>Fascial Tissue Response To Manual Therapy: Implications In Long Covid Rehabilitation</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Guidebook; Other: Guidebook and Myofascial Reorganization® (RMF). <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of the State of Santa Catarina; Larissa Sinhorim <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>Effect of Probiotic Strain Lactobacillus Paracasei PS23 on Brain Fog in People With Long COVID</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID; Brain Fog; Cognitive Change <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Dietary Supplement: Lactobacillus paracasei PS23; Dietary Supplement: microcrystalline cellulose <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan <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>Evaluation of the Impact of Rehabilitation Strategies and Early Discharge After Respiratory Failure</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Acute Respiratory Failure <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Standard of Care; Behavioral: Rehabilitation <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein <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>Ivermectin: A Multifaceted Drug With a Potential Beyond Anti-parasitic Therapy</strong> - Ivermectin was first discovered in the 1970s by Japanese microbiologist Satoshi Omura and Irish parasitologist William C. Campbell. Ivermectin has become a versatile pharmaceutical over the past 50 years. Ivermectin is a derivative of avermectin originally used to treat parasitic infections. Emerging literature has suggested that its role goes beyond this and may help treat inflammatory conditions, viral infections, and cancers. Ivermectin’s anti-parasitic, anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, and…</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>Interleukin inhibitors and the associated risk of candidiasis</strong> - Interleukins (ILs) are vital in regulating the immune system, enabling to combat fungal diseases like candidiasis effectively. Their inhibition may cause enhanced susceptibility to infection. IL inhibitors have been employed to control autoimmune diseases and inhibitors of IL-17 and IL-23, for example, have been associated with an elevated risk of Candida infection. Thus, applying IL inhibitors might impact an individual’s susceptibility to Candida infections. Variations in the severity of…</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>New meroterpenoids and polyketides from the endophytic fungus Paraphaeosphaeria sp. C-XB-J-1 and their anti-inflammatory and SARS-CoV-2 M(pro) inhibitory activities</strong> - Seven new meroterpenoids, paraphaeones A-G (1-7), and two new polyketides, paraphaeones H-I (8-9), along with eight known compounds (10-17), were isolated from the endophytic fungus Paraphaeosphaeria sp. C-XB-J-1. The structures of 1-9 were identified through the analysis of ¹H, ^(13)C, and 2D NMR spectra, assisted by HR-ESI-MS data. Compounds 1 and 7 exhibited a dose-dependent decrease in lactate dehydrogenase levels, with IC(50) values of 1.78 μM and 1.54 μM, respectively. Moreover, they…</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>Development of a fluorescent scaffold by utilizing quercetin template for selective detection of Hg<sup>2+</sup>: Experimental and theoretical studies along with live cell imaging</strong> - Quercetin is an important antioxidant with high bioactivity and it has been used as SARS-CoV-2 inhibitor significantly. Quercetin, one of the most abundant flavonoids in nature, has been in the spot of numerous experimental and theoretical studies in the past decade due to its great biological and medicinal importance. But there have been limited instances of employing quercetin and its derivatives as a fluorescent framework for specific detection of various cations and anions in 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>Storytelling and Deliberative Play in the Oregon Citizens’ Assembly Online Pilot on COVID-19 Recovery</strong> - This article draws on the deliberative play framework to examine empirical examples of storytelling in an online deliberative forum: The Oregon Citizen Assembly (ORCA) Pilot on COVID-19 Recovery. ORCA engaged 36 citizens in deliberation about state policy through an online deliberative process spanning seven weeks. Drawing on literature on small stories in deliberation, we trace stories related to a policy proposal about paying parents to educate children at home. Our analysis demonstrates that…</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>Computational identification and experimental verification of a novel signature based on SARS-CoV-2-related genes for predicting prognosis, immune microenvironment and therapeutic strategies in lung adenocarcinoma patients</strong> - CONCLUSION: Our research has pioneered the development of a consensus Cov-2S signature by employing an innovative approach with 10 machine learning algorithms for LUAD. Cov-2S reliably forecasts the prognosis, mirrors the tumor’s local immune condition, and supports clinical decision-making in tumor therapies.</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>The fatal contribution of serine protease-related genetic variants to COVID-19 outcomes</strong> - INTRODUCTION: Serine proteases play a critical role during SARS-CoV-2 infection. Therefore, polymorphisms of transmembrane protease serine 2 (TMPRSS2) and serpine family E member 1 (SERPINE1) could help to elucidate the contribution of variability to COVID-19 outcomes.</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>Developing nucleoside tailoring strategies against SARS-CoV-2 via ribonuclease targeting chimera</strong> - In response to the urgent need for potent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) therapeutics, this study introduces an innovative nucleoside tailoring strategy leveraging ribonuclease targeting chimeras. By seamlessly integrating ribonuclease L recruiters into nucleosides, we address RNA recognition challenges and effectively inhibit severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 replication in human cells. Notably, nucleosides tailored at the ribose 2’-position…</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>Interleukin-6 drives endothelial glycocalyx damage in COVID-19 and bacterial sepsis</strong> - Damage of the endothelial glycocalyx (eGC) plays a central role in the development of vascular hyperpermeability and organ damage during systemic inflammation. However, the specific signalling pathways for eGC damage remain poorly defined. Aim of this study was to combine sublingual video-microscopy, plasma proteomics and live cell imaging to uncover further pathways of eGC damage in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) or bacterial sepsis. This secondary analysis of the prospective…</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>Laboratory approach for vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia diagnosis in the Netherlands</strong> - CONCLUSION: Our study shows that only a small proportion of clinically suspected VITT patients with thrombocytopenia and thrombosis have anti-PF4-inducing, FcɣRIIa-dependent platelet activation, suggesting an HIT-like pathophysiology. This leaves the possibility for the presence of another type of pathophysiology (‘non-HIT like’) leading to VITT. More research on pathophysiology is warranted to improve the diagnostic algorithm and to identify novel therapeutic and preventive strategies.</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>Human surfactant protein A inhibits SARS-CoV-2 infectivity and alleviates lung injury in a mouse infection model</strong> - INTRODUCTION: SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infects human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2)-expressing lung epithelial cells through its spike (S) protein. The S protein is highly glycosylated and could be a target for lectins. Surfactant protein A (SP-A) is a collagen-containing C-type lectin, expressed by mucosal epithelial cells and mediates its antiviral activities by binding to viral glycoproteins.</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>Elderberry interaction with pazopanib in a patient with soft‑tissue sarcoma: A case report and literature review</strong> - Elderberry flower extract is marketed as an herbal supplement with purported benefits in boosting the immune system. The use of elderberry increased during the coronavirus pandemic. However, the interaction of elderberry with cytotoxic medicines has remained elusive. Pazopanib is a multikinase inhibitor approved for patients diagnosed with soft-tissue sarcoma. The present study reported on the case of a middle-aged woman diagnosed with localized intermediate-grade sarcoma of the left sartorius…</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>Efficacy of host cell serine protease inhibitor MM3122 against SARS-CoV-2 for treatment and prevention of COVID-19</strong> - We developed a novel class of peptidomimetic inhibitors targeting several host cell human serine proteases, including transmembrane protease serine 2 (TMPRSS2), matriptase, and hepsin. TMPRSS2 is a membrane-associated protease that is highly expressed in the upper and lower respiratory tracts and is utilized by SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses to proteolytically process their glycoproteins, enabling host cell entry, replication, and dissemination of new virus particles. We have previously shown that…</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>Discovery of 2-Amide-3-methylester Thiophenes that Target SARS-CoV-2 Mac1 and Repress Coronavirus Replication, Validating Mac1 as an Antiviral Target</strong> - 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. Here, we describe small-molecule inhibitors for SARS-CoV-2 Mac1, which counters ADP-ribosylation-mediated innate immune responses. Three high-throughput screening hits had the same 2-amide-3-methylester thiophene scaffold. We studied the compound binding mode using X-ray crystallography, allowing us to design…</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>Discovery of Novel Natural Inhibitors Against SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease: A Rational Approach to Antiviral Therapeutics</strong> - CONCLUSION: These findings highlight the effectiveness of combining computational and experimental approaches to identify potential lead compounds for SARS-CoV-2, with C1-C5 emerging as promising candidates for further drug development against this virus.</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>Inside Israel’s Bombing Campaign in Gaza</strong> - The Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham on his investigations of the I.D.F.’s use of A.I.-backed targeting systems and the dire cost to Palestinian civilians. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/inside-israels-bombing-campaign-in-gaza">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Is This Israel’s Forever War?</strong> - Foreign-policy analysts whose careers were shaped by the war on terror see troubling parallels. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/is-this-israels-forever-war">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Jessica Tisch, the Ex-N.Y.P.D. Official Trying to Tame New York’s Trash</strong> - The city has lived in filth for decades. Can Jessica Tisch, a scion of one of the country’s richest families, finally clean up the streets? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/15/the-ex-nypd-official-trying-to-tame-new-yorks-trash">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Battling Under a Canopy of Russian and Ukrainian Drones</strong> - The commander of one of Ukraine’s most skilled units sent his men on a dangerous mission that required them to elude a swarm of aerial threats. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/15/battling-under-a-canopy-of-drones">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Maggie Rogers’s Journey from Viral Fame to Religious Studies</strong> - The singer-songwriter’s sudden celebrity made her a kind of minister without training. So she went and got some. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/15/maggie-rogers-profile">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Life is hard. Can philosophy help?</strong> -
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<img alt="An illustration of a man floating in the air on his back encircled by several floating objects: a chair, a wall clock, a turtleneck sweater, a potted plant, a curtain and rod, a book, and two plates." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/PkLvLHBqZyUr8gdklYGn_ADJFtc=/107x0:1814x1280/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73276138/Crop2_GettyImages_1339615764.0.png"/>
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Jorm Sangsorn for Getty Images
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
What philosophy has to say about midlife crises.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XzP9CA">
What’s the point of philosophy?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nRXpDS">
It’s an old question, maybe one of the oldest in the history of philosophy, and there has never been a consensus answer. Some people think the point of philosophy is to make the world make sense, to show how everything hangs together. For others, philosophy is a practical tool that ought to tell us how to live.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8pGorY">
If you’re in the latter camp, then it’s fair to say that you think of philosophy as a form of self-help. It’s a tradition of thought that — in theory, at least — can guide you to a better life, or something like that. And I don’t think that’s too much to ask of philosophy. What good is all that ruminating if it can’t offer you something useful when you’re anxious or depressed or mired in one of those dreaded midlife crises?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Mz02oc">
Kieran Setiya is a philosopher at MIT and the author of several books, most recently <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/700441/life-is-hard-by-kieran-setiya/"><em>Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way</em></a><em> </em>and <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691173931/midlife"><em>Midlife: A Philosophical Guid</em>e</a>. Setiya’s work is uncommonly accessible and a great example of philosophy that really tries to wrestle with the concrete problems of everyday life.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oUwToQ">
I recently invited Setiya on <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-gray-area"><em>The Gray Area</em></a> to talk about the perils of middle age and how philosophy has helped pull us out of the dark. Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to and follow <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-gray-area"><em>The Gray Area</em></a> on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/vox-conversations">Stitcher</a>, or wherever you find podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.
</p>
<div id="eeJhgc">
</div>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="6BN4Us"/>
<h4 id="PIHq4M">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PlKUjs">
You wrote a book called <em>Life Is Hard</em>. Not that your philosophy of life can be summed up in three words, but if you had to sum it up in three words, is that it?
</p>
<h4 id="e5cCXt">
Kieran Setiya
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Yx35FX">
I think it is. Ancient philosophers like Plato and Aristotle thought about the ideal life and they tried to provide a blueprint for — and a map toward — it. And that can be both unrealistic and in a certain way self-punitive. Often the right way to approach the ideal life is to think, “That’s not available. I shouldn’t beat myself up about the fact that that’s not available.” Really living well, or living as well as you can, is about dealing with the ways in which life is hard.
</p>
<h4 id="GdZxOt">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X3NUTG">
How do you define a midlife crisis?
</p>
<h4 id="4G3NzU">
Kieran Setiya
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Dn7ZLl">
The midlife crisis is one of those funny cultural phenomena that has a particular date of origin. In 1965, this Canadian psychoanalyst Elliott Jaques writes a paper, “<a href="https://pep-web.org/search/document/IJP.046.0502A">Death and the Midlife Crisis</a><em>,</em>”<em> </em>and that’s the origin of the phrase. Jacques was looking at patients and the lives of artists who experienced midlife creative crises. These were mostly people in their 30s and it doesn’t really fit the stereotype of the midlife crisis today.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uPBJvd">
There’s been a shift in the way people think about the midlife crisis. The idea now is that people’s life satisfaction <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7529452/">takes the form of a gentle U-shape</a>, that basically, even if it’s not a crisis, people tend to be at their lowest ebb in their 40s. This is true for men and women, and it’s true around the world to differing degrees, but it’s pretty pervasive.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bJvlTG">
So when people like me talk about the midlife crisis, what they really have in mind is more like a midlife malaise. It may not reach the crisis level, but there seems to be something distinctively challenging about finding meaning and orientation in this midlife period.
</p>
<h4 id="l6ppqF">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4KUKUn">
What is it about this period that generates all this anxiety?
</p>
<h4 id="zBMB87">
Kieran Setiya
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x6cHnY">
There are many midlife crises; it’s not just one thing. I think some of them are looking to the past. There’s regret. There’s the sense that your options have narrowed. Whatever possibilities might’ve seemed open to you earlier, whatever choices you’ve made, you’re at a point where there are many kinds of lives that might have been really attractive to you, and now it’s clear in a vivid, material way that you can’t live them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pfN7cX">
There’s also regret that things have gone wrong in your life, you’ve made mistakes, bad things have happened, and now the project is, “How do I live the rest of my life in this imperfect circumstance?” The dream life is off the table for most of us.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wNUVwR">
People also have a sense that most of life is occupied by this daily grind. Rather than things that make life seem positively valuable, it’s just one thing after another. And then death starts to look like it’s at a distance that you can measure in terms you really palpably understand. You have a sense of what a decade is like, and there’s only three or four left at best.
</p>
<h4 id="Db2bEn">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kp4f9o">
I’m 42 and I can feel all of that. When you’re young, the future is pure potential. Ahead is nothing but freedom and choices. But as you get older, life shrinks, responsibilities pile up, and you get trapped in the consequences of the decisions you’ve made. That’s a hard thing to wrestle with.
</p>
<h4 id="cdnEZm">
Kieran Setiya
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FAB24q">
I think that’s exactly right. Part of what’s philosophically puzzling about this is that it’s not news. Whatever your sense of options was when you were 20, you knew you weren’t going to get to do all of those things. What this suggests is that there’s a profound difference between knowing that things might go a certain way, well or badly, and knowing in concrete detail how they went well or badly.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sCzeVZ">
Part of the sense of missing out has to do with what philosophers call “incommensurable values.” The idea that if you’re choosing between $50 and $100, you take the $100 and you don’t have a moment’s regret. But if you’re choosing between going to a concert or staying home and spending time with your kid, either way you’re going to miss out on something that is irreplaceable. One of the things we experience in midlife is all the kinds of lives we don’t get to live that are different from our life, and there’s no real compensation for that, and that can be very painful.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SsXrT1">
On the other hand, I think it’s useful to see the flip side. The only way you could avoid that kind of missing out is if the world was suddenly totally impoverished of variety. Or you were so monomaniacal, you just didn’t care about anything but money, for instance. And you don’t really want that.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="W5WHns">
There’s a way in which the sense that there’s so much in the world we’ll never be able to experience is a manifestation of something we really shouldn’t regret, and in fact should cherish, namely the evaluative richness of the world, the diversity of good things. And there’s a consolation in that.
</p>
<h4 id="0uLO4E">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x7buAN">
One of the arguments you make is how easily we can delude ourselves when we start pining for the roads not traveled. “What if I really went for it? What if I tried to become a novelist, or a musician, or what if I joined that commune?” Or whatever life fantasy you had when you were younger.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Yuo7Wd">
But if you take that seriously and consider what it really means, you might not like it, because the things you might value the most in your life now, like your children, they don’t exist if you had zigged instead of zagging 15 or 20 years ago. That’s what it means to have lived that alternative life.
</p>
<h4 id="s04FRq">
Kieran Setiya
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gmdwct">
Philosophy can lead us toward this kind of unhelpful abstraction, but it can also tell us what’s going wrong with it. The thought, “I could have had a better life, things could have gone better for me”: It’s almost always tempting and true, but when you think through what it would mean in concrete terms — what would have happened if your failed marriage had not happened?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D27rwE">
Often the answer is that you would never have had your kid, or wouldn’t have met these people. And you might think, “Yeah, but I would have had some other unspecifiable friends who would have been great, and some other unspecifiable kid who would have been great.” But I think we rightly don’t evaluate our lives just in terms of those kinds of abstract possibilities, but in terms of attachments to particulars.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="m8LgGc">
So if you just ask yourself, “Could my life have been better?” you’re throwing away one of the basic sources of consolation, a rational consolation, which is attachment to the particularity of the good things in your own life, even if you acknowledge that they’re not perfect and that there are other things that could have been better.
</p>
<h4 id="KSlX6n">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oXHWeE">
I will say, though, that when real pain strikes, it’s not always easy to find relief in abstract arguments. Two of the hardest moments of my adult life were the sudden loss of my mother a few years ago and the unexpected loss of a baby last year.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A6VTpV">
Like a lot of people, I did that thing where I felt victimized, like the world’s conspiring against me. But then you go through the anger of all that and realize that you’re not uniquely unlucky, that this happens to people every day. Pain and loss are part of life, as central to life as anything else, and good philosophy, whether it’s in academic books or novels or films, can help remind us of that, and I guess it helped me in that way.
</p>
<h4 id="Th2VOu">
Kieran Setiya
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3s8i7U">
I’m sorry to hear about both of those losses. I think what philosophy has to do is what human beings have to do when faced with those kinds of difficulties, which is not switch too rapidly into what I call assurance advice mode, which is saying, “It’s all going to be fine. Or here’s what you do.” Those are things we do in personal interaction, but they’re also versions of philosophical approaches to the difficulties of life.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LjPmJy">
There’s the kind of theodicy where philosophers argue that all is for the best. They’ve got some proof that although this seems bad, it’s going to work out well. Or they have some theory where they say, “My philosophical principle is this, I’ll just apply it to your situation.” And those are rarely good philosophical tactics for dealing with the kind of difficulties you’re describing, for reasons that are not unrelated to the fact that they’re rarely good interpersonal ways of approaching difficulty.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="misFOq">
The starting point is sitting with difficulty, acknowledging it, trying to take in what’s really happening, really describing the particularity of it. It’s connected with a kind of philosophical methodology that I have come to embrace. And it’s a shift from thinking, “Well, philosophy is going to be about coming up with really cool arguments to prove you should think this or that,” to thinking, “There’s a real continuity between the literary and human description of phenomena like grief and philosophical reflection.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jJCHdc">
Because often what philosophical reflection provides is less a proof that you should live this way and more concepts with which to articulate your experience and then structure and guide how you relate to reality. And seen that way, we can understand how philosophy can operate as self-help.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Tfejcd">
<em>To hear the rest of the conversation, </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/life-is-hard-can-philosophy-help/id1081584611?i=1000651758938"><em>click here</em></a><em>, and be sure to follow </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/thegrayarea">The Gray Area</a><em> on </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611"><em>Apple Podcasts</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP"><em>Spotify</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://www.pandora.com/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/PC:30793"><em>Pandora</em></a><em>, or wherever you listen to podcasts. </em>
</p></li>
<li><strong>Don’t sneer at white rural voters — or delude yourself about their politics</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Several pro-Trump yard signs are displayed in the grass, printed with slogans like “Gun Owners 4 Trump,” “Defend Our Liberty,” and “Stop Election Fraud.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ckdoP7hkc_57mRXRe1WP4b-Y87M=/167x0:2834x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73276104/1541870515.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Signs supporting former President Donald Trump are displayed at a Second Amendment rally in Ionia, Michigan, on July 19, 2023. | Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
What the debate over “white rural rage”<em> </em>misses.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E3joQR">
White rural Americans <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/-white-rural-rage-looks-at-the-most-likely-group-to-abandon-democratic-norms-204922949864">are</a> a “racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-gay” authoritarian fifth column that poses an existential threat to our republic.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9BHn9Z">
Unless they are actually a downtrodden people who rightly resent the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/white-rural-rage-criticism/677967/">condescension of liberal elites</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/05/white-rural-rage-myth-00150395">wish for little more</a> than “to preserve a sense of agency over their future and a continuity of their community’s values and social structures.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lbLhap">
These are the twin poles of blue America’s current debate over why rural white folks vote the way they do.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1M0SUC">
This argument is as old as the urban-rural divide itself. But the latest round was triggered by <em>White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy</em>, a bestselling book from the political scientist Tom Schaller and journalist Paul Waldman.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mtLC1z">
Schaller and Waldman argue that rural white voters are exceptionally reactionary, racist, and anti-democratic. In their telling, these retrograde impulses turn this group into easy prey for a Republican Party that shutters rural hospitals, denies workers’ health insurance, erodes labor rights — and then says, in so many words,<em> </em>let them eat hate<em>.</em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xvVWfD">
Many commentators and political scientists have taken exception to this argument. The Atlantic’s Tyler Austin Harper<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/white-rural-rage-criticism/677967/"> argues</a> that <em>White Rural Rage</em> “illustrates how willing many members of the U.S. media and the public are to believe, and ultimately launder, abusive accusations against an economically disadvantaged group of people that would provoke sympathy if its members had different skin color and voting habits.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nr82TR">
In his account, the real threat to American democracy “is not white rural rage, but white <em>urban and suburban</em> rage” — a fact that would be plain to Waldman and Schaller, Harper says, if they’d only paid more careful attention to the studies their book cites.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p2lVNG">
Colby College political scientist Nicholas Jacobs, meanwhile, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/05/white-rural-rage-myth-00150395">insists</a> that <em>White Rural Rage</em>’s “simplistic” and inaccurate thesis amounts to little more than “an outpouring of frustration with rural America that might feel cathartic for liberals, but will only serve to further marginalize and demonize a segment of the American population that already feels forgotten and dismissed by the experts and elites.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gtlxbS">
In my view, this debate has gotten a bit muddled, with each side dancing around inconvenient facts. The argument between <em>White Rural Rage’s </em>champions and its critics would generate more light (and perhaps less heat) if all involved grappled with five important truths:
</p>
<h3 id="XO4hQy">
<ol type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Rural white people are more supportive of right-wing authoritarianism than are urban or suburban ones
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DrXm02">
Harper’s central claim — that rural white people actually pose less of a threat to American democracy than urban and suburban ones — rests on faulty reasoning.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5PJ1U8">
His case can be boiled down into three points:
</p>
<ul>
<li id="PTKRzs">
A 2021 paper in<a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-rise-of-political-violence-in-the-united-states/"> <em>Journal of Democracy</em></a> found that “political violence” in the US “has been greatest in suburbs where Asian American and Hispanic American immigration has been growing fastest.”
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uzQtYO">
Several high-profile right-wing extremists, including the “pizzagate” gunman, came from areas that aren’t rural, at least by certain definitions of that term.
</li>
<li id="sHbS3k">
The vast majority of Americans who believe that the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election">2020 election</a> was stolen — and that Trump would therefore be justified in reclaiming the presidency by force — <a href="https://d3qi0qp55mx5f5.cloudfront.net/cpost/i/docs/Pape_AmericanInsurrectionistMovement_2022-01-02.pdf?mtime=1641247264">live in urban areas</a>.
</li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SNjf4X">
These facts establish that white rural Americans are not uniquely right-wing or authoritarian; supporters of Trump and the January 6 Capitol riot can be found in nearly every category of municipality. Harper is right to object to the singling out of white rural voters writ large, when the problem is illiberal reactionaries in every part of the country.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="reeem4">
Nonetheless, his evidence doesn’t contradict the premise that rural white people are unusually supportive of <a href="https://www.vox.com/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a> and January 6.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1tzBVr">
This is a fatal problem for his argument, since Trump is the fundamental threat to American democracy today. All political violence is lamentable, but individual militants cannot undermine the independence of federal law enforcement, the integrity of the electoral process, or the peaceful transfer of power; an insurrectionary president plausibly can.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UWc4UY">
And there is no question that white voters from low-density areas support Trump by much larger margins than their counterparts in high-density places.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TciEID">
In the 2020 election, rural white voters backed Trump over Biden by 42 points, while suburban white voters favored him by just 7, according to the Democratic data firm <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/ka9n5gzxwotfu1a/wh2020_public_release_crosstabs.xlsx?dl=0">Catalist.</a> Urban white voters, meanwhile, supported Biden over Trump by a 32-point margin.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QgEbmU">
If rural white Americans voted the same way that suburban white Americans do, then Trump would never have been elected president and his brand of authoritarianism would not be competitive in national elections. If all white Americans voted like those who live in cities, meanwhile, then Trump’s party would have negligible influence over the federal government.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QNxjLM">
What’s more, Harper acknowledges that rural white Americans are “overrepresented” among those who support restoring Trump to power by force.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uvjuGu">
Given these facts, it’s silly to argue that urban and suburban white people are doing more to imperil American democracy than their rural counterparts. Harper’s only real counter is that more supporters of January 6 live in cities than in rural areas. But this is a trivial point: Roughly 80 percent of Americans live in non-rural areas. Name any ideological group under the sun and you’re almost certain to find that a majority of that group lives in high-population municipalities, rather than in places that, by definition, have few people.
</p>
<h3 id="luo75N">
<ol start="2" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Millions of rural white Americans support the Democratic Party
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AJLgUc">
All this said, rural white voters are not a monolith. In fact, such voters were an indispensable part of Biden’s 2020 coalition.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="C4ZKwV">
Yes, the president won only 28 percent of that voting bloc, but that adds up to more than 9 million votes. In 2020, Biden won nationally by roughly 7 million ballots and took many swing states by tiny margins. Subtract all rural white Democrats from Biden’s column and Trump almost certainly would have won reelection.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LPFc9K">
Waldman and Schaller’s rhetoric does a disservice to this small but significant segment of the public, which has held the line against Trumpism in places where doing so entails significant social penalties and risks.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SFxwEV">
More importantly — as Harper and Jacobs emphasize — demonizing white rural voters is a luxury that urban liberals can scarcely afford. Yes, the median white voter in rural America is never going to support Biden. But rural white swing voters exist. And in a close election, even a small reduction or increase in Biden’s share of that bloc could prove decisive.
</p>
<h3 id="I6KmKX">
<ol start="3" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Rural white Republicans are not New Deal Democrats who got confused
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5ADry1">
Liberals and leftists have long debated the root causes of rural America’s support for the Republican Party. Some<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-America/dp/080507774X"> point</a> to the fact that rural white Americans supported the New Deal and conclude that many in the demographic would back Democrats again today if only the party offered more ambitious economic reforms. Others argue that rural white people are simply too racist to support a minimally progressive political party.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZRsKGu">
By my lights, it is unwise to base your theory of American political behavior in 2024 on voting patterns in 1932. A lot has happened in the last 92 years. When FDR was first elected,
</p>
<ul>
<li id="Hfu046">
<a href="https://www.iowadatacenter.org/datatables/UnitedStates/urusstpop19002000.pdf">43 percent of Americans</a> lived in rural areas
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HK3soa">
the entire South was controlled by a white supremacist faction that was briefly, improbably tethered to a coalition with northern liberals
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7A420m">
the unemployment rate was stuck above 20 percent
</li>
<li id="CqyD8m">
personal income per capita in the US was <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/sep/07/isabel-brown/are-americans-today-making-less-than-at-the-height/">roughly one-seventh</a> as high as it is today
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vCee0N">
the sexual revolution had not yet occurred
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rp7Ig6">
conservative mass media barely existed, and
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mowUmJ">
there was, more or less, no federal welfare state.
</li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OQkbR9">
There is no reason in principle to assume that rural voters’ political priorities and inclinations have not changed along with their country.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="agERhh">
As Schaller and Waldman demonstrate, the argument that many rural white people are motivated by<a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/04/06/top-democrats-are-wrong-trump-supporters-were-more-motivated-by-racism-than-economic-issues/"> racial resentments</a> is significantly more robust.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3rS31K">
But, as Nicholas Jacobs suggests, it is almost certainly true that not all white rural Republicans are motivated by racism. Yet Jacobs’s essay for Politico dances around the other primary explanation for rural white support for Trump: They simply have many conservative beliefs and policy preferences.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GXndcD">
After all, rural voters are <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/02/the-urban-rural-culture-war-has-gone-global.html">more conservative than urban ones</a> in virtually every developed country, including those where race plays a smaller role in politics than it does in America.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KEQTZF">
You don’t need to be racist to believe a fetus is a person. And rural Americans are <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/what-unites-and-divides-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/">disproportionately supportive</a> of <a href="https://www.vox.com/abortion">abortion</a> restrictions, which likely influences their partisan preferences. Many rural areas also depend<a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/quitting-fossil-fuels-and-reviving-rural-america/"> on extractive, carbon-intensive industries</a> for economic growth. Likely as a result, rural Americans<a href="https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Rural-Attitudes-on-Climate-Change-Midwest_1.pdf"> are less supportive</a> of climate action than urban or suburban ones, even when controlling for partisanship and demographics.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XSMLmw">
Jacobs suggests that rural Americans’ opposition to liberal immigration policies is rooted less in racism than a desire to preserve their sense of “place.” This premise is debatable, at best. Yet Jacobs doesn’t merely wish to argue that rural Americans’ desire for community preservation has little to do with racism but also that it has little to do with conservatism:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s0rntR">
Taken as a whole, rural voters are not merely reacting against change — be it demographic or economic. They are actively seeking to preserve a sense of agency over their future and a continuity of their community’s values and social structures. Some might call this conservatism, but I think it is the same thing motivating fears of gentrification in urban areas, or the desire to “keep Portland weird.”
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ust20X">
It is true that rural Americans aren’t the only ones who try to protect their communities from outsiders and cultural change. Urban and suburban liberals do this through housing policies that make their municipalities less affordable for newcomers, while rural conservatives do it by supporting anti-immigration politicians. In both cases, the political impulse driving voter behavior is a conservative one: Prizing stasis over change and insiders over outsiders is, more or less, the antithesis of progressivism, properly understood.
</p>
<h3 id="S6EJsS">
<ol start="4" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">The economic challenges facing many rural areas are inherently difficult to solve.<strong> </strong></li>
</ol></h3></li>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6tbKfB">
Both sides in the <em>White Rural Rage</em> debate agree that Democrats have done more to help rural America materially than Republicans have. In addition to saving many rural hospitals with Medicaid expansion, Democrats have also directed a disproportionate share of<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/23/red-states-are-winning-big-from-dems-climate-law-00078420"> federal job creation dollars</a> toward low-density areas.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lFQO3u">
But Jacobs emphasizes that these are inadequate to address rural areas’ problems. Such communities often suffer from limited employment opportunities, fiscal shortfalls, and teacher shortages — all of which are partly a function of falling populations.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fGX4f3">
Yet the causes of rural America’s depopulation are structural. High-population areas inherently offer greater opportunities for workers to specialize and complement each other’s labor. This translates into higher productivity, which generally translates into higher wages. It would take an enormous amount of social engineering to stop ambitious young people born into declining rural areas from migrating to cities and suburbs. Making rural life sufficiently appealing to retain around 20 percent of the US population already requires massive subsidization of inefficient rural infrastructure and health care systems.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZZHKyX">
Given that rural ways of life are also<a href="https://climateadaptationplatform.com/who-has-the-bigger-carbon-footprint-rural-or-urban-dwellers/"> more carbon intensive</a> than high-density living, attempting to engineer an increase in the rural population through <a href="https://www.vox.com/social-policy">social policy</a> seems ill-advised. Meanwhile, many important policy initiatives — such as<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/04/yimbys-housing-crisis-austin-public-developers.html"> increasing housing abundance</a> in thriving metro centers — would likely have the side effect of accelerating rural depopulation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kkLPhK">
One measure that plausibly could<a href="https://www.fwd.us/news/rural-decline/"> arrest the decline</a> of many economically depressed rural communities would be place-based immigration policies, which offer visas to immigrants willing to work in low-density areas. But this is the exact opposite of what rural white voters are demanding from their representatives.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oprXAb">
There is a lot more that Democrats can do to help working-class people writ large. But the party lacks a great, politically viable answer for reviving shrinking rural communities because there isn’t one.
</p>
<h3 id="K92zhI">
<ol start="5" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Most people inherit the politics of their families and communities
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WAMaje">
Finally, however one interprets the politics of white rural America, I think it’s a mistake to treat ordinary Trump voters with contempt or as bad human beings by definition. (I don’t think Waldman and Schaller necessarily do this, but some on their side of the argument do.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TC0GsQ">
In <a href="https://www.salon.com/2024/03/05/-the-media-should-stop-treating-rural-people-like-children/">Salon</a>, Amanda Marcotte applauds <em>White Rural Rage</em> for treating its subjects as “functioning adults who have agency” and not “the childlike ciphers of Fox News.” This is an understandable sentiment. Marcotte is herself a product of white rural America who rejected the reactionary politics of her parents. Her impatience with apologias for Trump supporters in “the Heartland” — which often attribute their lamentable voting behavior to everything but their own failures of good citizenship — is well-founded.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Zz8iDE">
At the same time, Marcotte is an exception from the general rule: Most voters inherit the politics of the families and communities they were born into. According to a<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/10/most-us-parents-pass-along-their-religion-and-politics-to-their-children/"> 2023 Pew survey</a>, more than 80 percent of American teens support the same political party as their parents.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VG80MK">
I believe that my politics are more moral than those of a Trump voter, but I don’t think that says much about my moral character. I was born to liberal parents in a left-leaning suburb of a blue state. If I’d grown up in a rural town where everyone I knew and loved believed that Democrats were the Godless servants of corrupt elites and shiftless poor people, then I’d probably have voted for Trump; the data admits no other conclusion.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d0DG5B">
Awareness of how thoroughly accidents of birth and experience shape our selves and life outcomes should make us more supportive of income redistribution and more opposed to<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/09/radically-reform-prisons-and-policing-dont-abolish-them.html"> retributive criminal justice policies.</a> But it should also make us a bit more patient with Trump voters.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Iio7M1">
This does not mean that liberals shouldn’t harshly criticize reactionary beliefs or candidates. But we should hate the vote, not the voter. Rage is rarely the most politically productive emotion — whether it’s of the “white rural” or urban liberal variety.
</p>
<li><strong>You probably shouldn’t panic about measles — yet</strong> -
<figure>
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Disease surveillance has so far kept the infection at bay in the US, but the CDC has renewed concerns.
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On April 11, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7314a1.htm?s_cid=mm7314a1_w">report</a> containing new information about this year’s spate of measles cases. As of April 11, 121 measles cases have been <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html">identified so far</a> in the US this year across 18 jurisdictions.
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That number should shock you: In a typical year, the US has only around 5 cases in the first quarter. The total for 2024 so far is more than twice the number of cases the country saw in the entirety of 2023, when 58 cases were reported over the full calendar year.
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The authors of the latest report credited the United States’ effective measles monitoring system as a critical factor in enabling public health officials to catch and contain measles cases when they’ve popped up — at least, so far.
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According to the report, the increase has been so explosive that it threatens to flip the US from being a country where measles is considered eliminated (no longer spread locally) to being one where measles is considered endemic (something that infects people on a regular basis).
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It’s been nearly 25 years since measles was officially eliminated in the US. But the declaration didn’t mean measles could never come back: <a href="https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/75/3/416/6443449">Under certain conditions</a> — lots of cases imported from abroad, not enough people vaccinated against the infection, and not enough tools to fight back — measles could re-entrench itself stateside.
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That’s why <a href="https://www.vox.com/public-health">public health</a> authorities monitor measles cases and vaccination rates against the infection so closely. And why, when cases rise while vaccination rates drop, they fret.
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<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/parents-top4.html">Measles</a> is a viral infection that causes fever, rash, and cough, which can be complicated by severe, life-threatening infections of the ears, lungs, and brain. It’s particularly likely to cause severe disease in children under 5 years old and in immunocompromised people. To make matters worse, it’s one of the most contagious diseases out there: Infectious particles can hang out in the air or on surfaces for <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles#:~:text=Transmission,for%20up%20to%20two%20hours.">hours</a>, and, on average, each infected person infects another <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28757186/#:~:text=For%20measles%2C%20R0%20is,determinants%20of%20measles%20R0.">12 to 18 people</a>.
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When measles turns up in the US, it’s because it was brought to the country from the outside — more often than not, by <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6788396/">US residents</a> returning from travel abroad. There’s a lot of measles in the world; in 2022, the infection caused more than 9 million cases and killed more than <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2813426#:~:text=Yet%2C%20in%202022%2C%20more%20than,World%20Health%20Organization%20(WHO).">136,000 people</a> globally, most of them children. Although countries in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia currently top the list of <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/measles/data/global-measles-outbreaks.html">measles cases globally</a>, there have also been multiple outbreaks in <a href="https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/measles-eu-threat-assessment-brief-february-2024.pdf">Western Europe</a> over the past year.
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There’s a highly effective vaccine to prevent measles — but to protect the youngest babies and immunocompromised people in any population, everyone around them needs to have been vaccinated. In the US, pockets of low measles vaccination are a serious concern: <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7314a1.htm?s_cid=mm7314a1_w">91 percent</a> of patients infected in the US between 2020 and late March 2024 were unvaccinated or of unknown vaccination status. Key strategies for preventing a measles conflagration here include giving unvaccinated people MMR shots (so called because they protect against measles, mumps, and rubella) before they travel and rapidly investigating suspected measles cases, said the report.
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For now, people can do something about the current US measles situation if they know how and understand the stakes.
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Here’s what you need to know.
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<h3 id="b6tLyL">
<ol type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Who’s at highest risk from a measles infection, and what does an infection look like?
</li></ol></h3>
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Unvaccinated children and immunocompromised people — especially those receiving certain <a href="https://www.astctjournal.org/article/S1083-8791(19)30506-3/pdf">cancer treatments</a> — face the highest risk when measles is in circulation.
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“Even an uncomplicated case of measles is really awful,” said Sarah Lim, an <a href="https://www.vox.com/infectious-disease">infectious disease</a> doctor and medical specialist at the Minnesota Department of Health, during a press conference on March 12. Measles infections are so often severe that about <a href="https://www.nfid.org/infectious-disease/measles/#:~:text=Measles%20can%20be%20serious%3A,children%20with%20measles%20gets%20pneumonia">one in five</a> unvaccinated people who get infected are hospitalized, and between <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/measles/symptoms/complications.html">one and three</a> of every 1,000 measles infections end in death.
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In its early stages, measles infection can cause a range of symptoms, including high fevers, cough, runny nose, red eyes, and full-body rash. About <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/meas.html#:~:text=Approximately%2030%25%20of%20measles%20cases,subacute%20sclerosing%20panencephalitis%2C%20and%20death.">one-third</a> of infected kids experience complications, which can include severe diarrhea, ear infections, and pneumonia. Brain infection that can lead to brain damage and epilepsy, called encephalitis, occurs in about <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6788396/">one of every 1,000</a> kids who get infected with measles.
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Measles can also do something else that few other infections are known to do: It can <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/11/1/20943217/measles-outbreak-2019-vaccine">wipe out kids’ immune memory</a>, leaving them unprotected from other bacterial and viral pathogens. That effect, and the increased susceptibility to other infections that comes with it, can last for years after infection.
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Travel to parts of the world where measles circulates widely increases the risk of infection. That makes it important to ensure you and your family are protected from measles — in addition to <a href="https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/travel-vaccines">all the other things</a> — prior to travel.
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<h3 id="vSDiSf">
<ol start="2" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">How is this year’s measles outbreak in the US different from past outbreaks?
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The biggest number of measles cases the US has seen over the past 25 years was in <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6817e1.htm">2019</a>, when nearly 1,300 infections were reported over the course of the year. Nine out of every 10 of these cases occurred among unvaccinated people living in close-knit communities. A single outbreak in an Orthodox Jewish community in New York involved <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1912514">649 cases</a>; another outbreak involving 71 cases occurred in a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/3/19/18263688/measles-outbreak-2019-clark-county">Washington state</a> community of recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
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What’s different so far about this year’s US measles cases is that they’re occurring in “lots of little sparks across the nation,” as epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina put it in a March edition of her <a href="https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affairs-march-12">newsletter</a>. “The more embers, the more likely it is that they find unvaccinated pockets and spread like wildfire,” she wrote.
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The CDC’s April 11 report noted that over the past four years, the typical US measles case has been younger than in previous years — 3 years old compared to <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6817e1.htm">5 years old</a> in the first four months of 2019, the year of that last big outbreak. The report also noted <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7314a1.htm?s_cid=mm7314a1_w">63 percent</a> of index cases — that is, cases imported from measles-endemic countries — had occurred in US residents returning from travel abroad. That’s fewer than in early 2019, when 77 percent of imported cases were in residents.
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This year’s uptick is<strong> </strong>happening at a time when a relatively large proportion of kids are going unvaccinated against measles. In a November 2023 publication, CDC scientists reported that roughly <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7245a2.htm">7 percent</a> of kindergarteners were vaccinated against measles during the 2022–2023 school year. At the same time, vaccine exemptions reached an all-time high, exceeding 5 percent of kids in 10 states.
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To make matters worse, according to recent <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-11/parents-delaying-kids-vaccines-posing-risk-to-toddlers">reporting</a> in the LA Times, a lot of parents are choosing to delay measles vaccination in their infants, which increases vulnerability to the most severe effects of measles in a group that’s already at the highest risk of complications.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/23-11-2022-nearly-40-million-children-are-dangerously-susceptible-to-growing-measles-threat">cautions</a> that the risk of a measles outbreak increases dramatically if more than 5 percent of people in a community aren’t vaccinated, which makes these numbers pretty concerning. What’s even more alarming is that they are averages: In some states, as many as <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/measles-outbreaks-schools-vaccination-rates-decline/">22 percent</a> of people are unvaccinated, and that number is likely much higher in some smaller geographic pockets.
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“That’s where you’re really talking about throwing a match [into a pile of kindling] and having a large fire,” said Jane Zucker, an infectious disease doctor and epidemiologist who retired in 2023 after 30 years in public health, including more than 20 with the New York City health department’s Bureau of Immunization, when I spoke with her in March. “That’s what you’re really most anxious about.”
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<h3 id="WbFxbt">
<ol start="3" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Who should get vaccinated, revaccinated, or tested for immunity?
</li></ol></h3>
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There’s no medicine to treat measles infection once it’s taken hold, which makes prevention the main strategy for avoiding the virus’ worst effects.
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The best news about measles — and the reason most of us have no idea what it looks like — is that the MMR vaccine that prevents it is extremely effective and safe.
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That vaccine is what experts call a “<a href="https://www.hhs.gov/immunization/basics/types/index.html#:~:text=Rabies-,Live%2Dattenuated%20vaccines,and%20long%2Dlasting%20immune%20response.">live-attenuated</a>” vaccine. That means it’s made using a weakened version of the measles virus that can’t actually cause the disease. Because they so closely replicate the actual virus, these kinds of vaccines induce the strongest and longest-lasting response of any type of vaccine — including Covid-19 vaccines. MMR vaccines are <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mmr/public/index.html">97 percent effective</a> at preventing symptomatic measles infections.
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These vaccines can even protect people <em>after </em>they’re exposed to measles if they’re given within 72 hours of exposure, and they’re <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaccines/mmr-vaccine.html">extraordinarily safe</a>.
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Who should get vaccinated against measles? Babies (lifelong immunity comes after two shots, the first at 12 months old and the second at 4 to 6 years of age) and almost everyone else who doesn’t have proof that they’ve been vaccinated before should get vaccinated, according to the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mmr/public/index.html">CDC</a>.
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That’s especially true if those people without vaccination proof work in health care or are about to travel to places where there’s lots of measles in circulation — which these days includes Europe, Zucker said. Babies 6 to 12 months should also get an MMR shot if they’re going to be traveling; because their immune systems aren’t mature enough at that age for the vaccine to “take,” they’ll still need another two-shot series after their first birthday.
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Many adults who’ve already been vaccinated won’t ever need another measles vaccine. That’s because all the versions of measles vaccines in use since 1968 have been strong enough to give lifelong protection against infection. So long as you’re certain you’ve had two vaccines in the years since then — that is, it’s documented somewhere in your medical record that you got them — you don’t need a repeat. The exception is for adults who only got vaccinated between 1963 and 1967: Because the version used during those years was too weak to give lifelong immunity, they’re not considered protected unless they’ve gotten at least one dose of a newer version of the vaccine.
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Another group that doesn’t need to worry about vaccination is most adults over 65. Measles was so common before the vaccine was available that experts assume people born in those years were exposed and are immune. So if you were born before 1957, you don’t need a vaccine unless you’re in a high-risk situation — for example, you work in health care or you’re about to travel to a place where there’s a lot of measles in circulation.
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There are some people who should wait to get an MMR vaccine if they’re unvaccinated or if their vaccine history isn’t clear. Live vaccines like this one are typically not recommended for people with weakened immune systems, which include pregnant folks and some immunocompromised people. Some other conditions make it sensible to hold off on vaccination — have a look at the answers to “Who Should Not Get MMR Vaccine?” <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mmr/public/index.html">on the CDC website</a> and talk to a health care provider if you’re not sure what to do.
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A blood test called a measles serology can measure the level of measles antibodies in a person’s blood. If the level is high, it’s safe to assume that person is immune to measles, as a result of either vaccination or past infection. But low scores on these tests may not be very meaningful, said Zucker: Many people with low levels of measles antibodies actually have measles protection due to prior vaccination, making it a bad test for determining whether immunizations documented a long time ago are still providing protection. For that reason, the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/measles/lab-tools/serology.html#:~:text=Serologic%20testing%20for%20measles%20in%20low%20prevalence%20setting,-Ongoing%20measles%20activity&amp;text=Detection%20of%20specific%20IgM%20antibodies,or%20recent%20measles%20virus%20infection.">CDC says</a> a history of vaccination supersedes a serology result when it comes to determining whether a person is protected from measles.
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Health experts sometimes administer these tests in outbreak settings and during pregnancy, but the results are typically used in ways specific to those scenarios. So you don’t need a serology to prove you’re vaccinated if the shots are documented in your medical record — and in any case, it’s harmless to get a repeat vaccination even if you’ve been vaccinated before. “If you don’t know if you’re immune,” said Zucker, “it’s easier to just get yourself vaccinated.”
</p>
<h3 id="lmyJdG">
<ol start="4" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">How bad is this outbreak likely to get?
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3U9Yz2">
Where US measles cases go is really up to us.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J8YfgI">
There’s hope for controlling measles’ damage in the US if more parents opt to vaccinate their babies as soon as they’re eligible, if they keep unvaccinated kids home from school, and if they vaccinate their unvaccinated children as soon as they hear about a potential exposure.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Vxmbxf">
It’ll also help if public health authorities have adequate support and staffing to educate the public about measles, provide and document vaccination — as with <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/iis/index.html">immunization registries</a> — and intervene when outbreaks happen.
</p>
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However, last year’s national debt ceiling deal resulted in <a href="https://www.gpb.org/news/2023/07/06/cdc-reduce-funding-for-states-child-vaccination-programs">cuts to states’ child vaccination programs</a>. Furthermore, the wild nonsense on vaccines that <a href="https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/vaccine-misinformation-outpaces-efforts-counter-it">pervades social media</a> — and, occasionally, official messaging, as in the case of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/23/well/family/florida-measles-outbreak-joseph-ladapo.html?unlocked_article_code=1.cU0.YcRd.P45F3u6Lg7Fr&amp;smid=url-share">Florida’s surgeon general</a> — makes it challenging for many parents to disentangle the common-sense guidance from the crap.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RR67J1">
Joshua Barocas, an infectious disease doctor at the University of Colorado, said during the March 12 press conference that pushing back against measles is a team effort and that removing shame from the equation is key. “Parents are flooded with tons of information, some of that [being] misinformation — and so if you are a parent who’s been on the fence, now is the time to catch up on your kids’ delayed vaccines,” he said.
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“I would also encourage health care workers to welcome people with open, nonjudgmental arms,” Barocas said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gP7haL">
<em><strong>Correction, March 15, 11:35 am ET: </strong></em><em>A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the number of years Jane Zucker worked for the New York City health department’s Bureau of Immunization. </em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s5iyM5">
<em><strong>Update, April 12, 1:40 pm ET: </strong></em><em>This story was originally published on March 13 and has been updated multiple times, most recently to include information from a new CDC report.</em>
</p></li>
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<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 could face defeat in 2024. Here’s how that might look</strong> - With ammo critically low and Western aid stalled, what might Russia attempt in Ukraine this year?</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>BBC Russian journalist branded ‘foreign agent’</strong> - A leading science journalist - Asya Kazantseva - also gets the label used to silence Kremlin critics.</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>Russia floods leave houses almost submerged</strong> - Water levels in Orenburg are 2m above critical levels, as the mayor urges mass evacuations.</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>Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli dies</strong> - The designer, famed for his animal prints on leather and textiles, died at home in Florence.</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 troops arrive in Niger as agreement begins</strong> - The West African country is increasingly turning to Moscow for support after breaking ties with the West.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How new tech is making geothermal energy a more versatile power source</strong> - Geothermal has moved beyond being confined to areas with volcanic activity. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2017050">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>US drug shortages reach record high with 323 meds now in short supply</strong> - The shortages affect everything from generic cancer drugs to ADHD medication. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2017093">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SD cards finally expected to hit 4TB in 2025</strong> - For media pros’ cameras and laptops. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2016986">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>“Highly capable” hackers root corporate networks by exploiting firewall 0-day</strong> - No patch yet for unauthenticated code-execution bug in Palo Alto Networks firewall. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2017043">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Words are flowing out like endless rain: Recapping a busy week of LLM news</strong> - Gemini 1.5 Pro launch, new version of GPT-4 Turbo, new Mistral model, and more. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=2016005">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Wife walks up to her Husband and asks “Do I look Fat in this dress??”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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Husband: “Before I say anything,,, you gotta promise, no matter WHAT I say…. You won’t get mad..”
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Wife: “Ok.. I promise.”
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Husband: “I fucked your sister.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Justtakeitaway"> /u/Justtakeitaway </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2jpn8/wife_walks_up_to_her_husband_and_asks_do_i_look/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2jpn8/wife_walks_up_to_her_husband_and_asks_do_i_look/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>An army sergeant walks into a drugstore and places a ragged condom on the counter.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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“How much to repair this?”, he asks.
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The pharmacist looks over the condom, saying “It’s ripped in a couple of places, and there are several holes in it, but it’s repairable. But honestly, I’d just replace it with a new one”.
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The sergeant said he’d have to go away and think it over.
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Later that day he returned. “After much discussion”, he said to the pharmacist, “The regiment has decided to invest in a new one!”.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/JaggedLittlePill2022"> /u/JaggedLittlePill2022 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2r707/an_army_sergeant_walks_into_a_drugstore_and/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2r707/an_army_sergeant_walks_into_a_drugstore_and/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A plane is about to plummet due to mechanical failure.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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The pilot tells the crew and passengers: “I don’t think I can recover the ship, you have a few seconds to talk to your family or make your last wish”, then a woman stands up and shouts “Is there someone man enough to make me feel like a woman one last time?!”, upon hearing that a man jumps out of his seat and like an animal tears off his shirt, then says: “Here, iron this!”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Kanenaz"> /u/Kanenaz </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2ob06/a_plane_is_about_to_plummet_due_to_mechanical/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2ob06/a_plane_is_about_to_plummet_due_to_mechanical/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>My girlfriend made me wear a condom, but then apologized profusely about it later.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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I guess she’d rather be safe then sorry.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Silentarian"> /u/Silentarian </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2l4oh/my_girlfriend_made_me_wear_a_condom_but_then/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2l4oh/my_girlfriend_made_me_wear_a_condom_but_then/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A honeymooning couple had purchased a talking parrot and taken it to their room, where much to the groom’s annoyance, the bird kept up a running commentary on their love making.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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Finally the groom threw a large towel over the cage and threatened to give the parrot to the zoo if he didn’t quit it. The next morning, packing to return home, the couple couldn’t close a large suitcase. The groom said, “Darling, you get on top and I’ll try.” That didn’t work. Figuring they needed more weight on the lid, she said, “Sweetheart, you get on top and I’ll try.” Still no success. So, he said, “Look. Let’s both get on top.” At that point the parrot pulled away the towel with his beak and said: “Zoo or no zoo. I just gotta see this.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/YZXFILE"> /u/YZXFILE </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2y5v9/a_honeymooning_couple_had_purchased_a_talking/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1c2y5v9/a_honeymooning_couple_had_purchased_a_talking/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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