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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>Public Procurement and Corruption in South Africa</strong> -
<div>
Like many other countries, South Africa depends heavily on its public procurement system and faces persistent issues of corruption within that system. Its regulatory regimes for public procurement and for anti-corruption are nonetheless distinct. Despite knowledge of significant corruption in the final decades of apartheid, anti-corruption was treated as a secondary rather than a primary objective in the initial phase of post-apartheid reform and design of public procurement. Rules against corruption in public procurement have largely taken the form of criminal offences in the anti-corruption regime, and the form of administrative rules internal to government within the public procurement system, neither of which has been effective. The lack of attention to the overlap of these two regimes has created the potential for continued growth of corruption in public procurement. As a reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as to the grand corruption termed ‘state capture’, the South African government has recently introduced several measures and strengthened institutions to address corruption linked to public procurement; these are more investigative and ad-hoc than systemic and preventative. Finally, we briefly describe and then examine the place of information technology in South African public procurement, particularly in advancing the anti-corruption goal.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/bej9z/" target="_blank">Public Procurement and Corruption in South Africa</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Online Credibility of National Health Institutions: Infodemiological Analysis of Facebook Users’ Reactions in Eight Countries Worldwide</strong> -
<div>
Public trust in physicians, health-related websites, and medical institutions is one of the main determinants of health behaviour. This paper aims to examine the online credibility of the leading national health authorities in various countries worldwide in order to estimate the extent of the reputation damage during the COVID-19 crisis and evaluate the countermeasures to be undertaken. Specifically, users’ reactions to Facebook posts related to vaccine development and administration were studied. From 2021 to 2022, a sharp deterioration in the online credibility of the leading national health institutions worldwide has been observed. Infodemic reactions such as derision and anger, which already represented a health issue in 2021, have reached alarming percentages (i.e., between 30 and 50%) in England, France, Italy, Spain, and the USA during 2022. Such reactions reached a disproportionate 90% in Germany, where the online infodemiological situation appears incredibly serious. Conversely, the situation seemed more moderate in Argentina and Brazil (below 20%). Regardless of the sample size and its suitability for representing the global situation, these findings reveal a rising global security threat. Future research should focus on verifying how much of this online infodemic directly translates into dangerous health behaviours (e.g., vaccine hesitancy) and what were the main causes for these communication crises.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/8ftnu/" target="_blank">Online Credibility of National Health Institutions: Infodemiological Analysis of Facebook Users’ Reactions in Eight Countries Worldwide</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Music for hedonia and eudaimonia during pandemic social isolation</strong> -
<div>
The pandemic spread of the novel coronavirus and associated COVID-19 disease in 2020 prompted governments around the world to pursue strict containment protocols to minimize contagion risk. Although restrictions were interpreted more strictly in some countries than in others, widespread social isolation resulted on an unseen scale, leading to severe negative mental health consequences such as loss of hope, increased anxiety, stress, depressive symptoms, and sleep disturbance. During this time, while governments were battling the health crisis, musical engagement provided key, individualized coping strategies for laypeople. This was first demonstrated anecdotally in captivating balcony music videos from Italy and Spain and later substantiated in large scale, multi-country survey studies. This chapter reviews the emerging research literature on music listening and making during pandemic lockdown to establish how music became a compensatory source of hedonic pleasure and how it satisfied the need for eudaimonic meaning in life during socially and psychologically impoverished times.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/s9jf6/" target="_blank">Music for hedonia and eudaimonia during pandemic social isolation</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Mapping OHDSI OMOP Common Data Model and GA4GH Phenopackets for COVID-19 disease epidemics and analytics</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 crisis demonstrates a critical requirement for rapid and efficient sharing of data to facilitate the global response to this and future pandemics. Our project aims are to enhance interoperability between health and research data by mapping Phenopackets and OMOP schemas, and representing COVID-19 metadata using the FAIR principles to enable discovery, integration and analysis of genotypic and phenotypic data. Here, we present our outcomes after one week of BioHacking together 17 participants (10 new to the project), from different countries (CH, US and in EU), and continents.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://biohackrxiv.org/ep3xh/" target="_blank">Mapping OHDSI OMOP Common Data Model and GA4GH Phenopackets for COVID-19 disease epidemics and analytics</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Viral Tunes: Changes in musical behaviours and interest in coronamusic predict socio-emotional coping during COVID-19 lockdown</strong> -
<div>
Beyond immediate health risks, the COVID-19 pandemic poses a variety of stressors, which may require expensive or unavailable strategies during a pandemic (e.g., therapy, socialising). Here we asked whether musical engagement is an effective strategy for socio-emotional coping. During the first lockdown period (April-May 2020), we surveyed changes in music listening and making behaviours of over 5000 people, with representative samples from 3 continents. More than half of respondents reported using music to cope. People experiencing increased negative emotions used music for solitary emotional regulation, whereas people experiencing increased positive emotions used music as a proxy for social interaction. Light gradient-boosted regressor models were used to identify the most important predictors of an individual’s use of music to cope, the foremost of which was, intriguingly, their interest in the novel genre of “coronamusic.” Overall, our results emphasise the importance of real-time musical responses to societal crises, as well as individually tailored adaptations in musical behaviours to meet socio-emotional needs.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/7mg2v/" target="_blank">Viral Tunes: Changes in musical behaviours and interest in coronamusic predict socio-emotional coping during COVID-19 lockdown</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>CovidTube: Mapping information segregation on YouTube</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 pandemic set the stage for a range of new conspiracy theories and extreme beliefs. Social media in general, and YouTube in particular, play a decisive role in the spreading of fringe content by not suppressing or even boosting the spread of such information. Users are predisposed to consume extreme content, creators prey on the emotions of users and game the algorithm to increase their popularity, and recommendation algorithms create feedback loops of progressively extreme content or ‘radicalization pipelines’. All three forces together may create information ‘bubbles’ that bias individual beliefs. We know, however, very little about the degree of information segregation and the structure of recommendation flows on YouTube, despite the platform’s position as the second most visited website in the world. This study maps the structure of COVID-19 information as a network of videos connected by inter-video recommendations. We collected nearly 10,000 videos and up to 20 recommendation links per video using COVID-related search terms on the YouTube API. To understand the structure of the graph we employed a mixed methods approach, using, a combination of quantitative graph analysis techniques and qualitative descriptions. We manually labeled the content of over a third of all videos and enriched the data further by merging with ideological labels from the Recfluence dataset. We then mapped these labels to pockets of videos that are well-connected to each other, as revealed by a community detection algorithm. Descriptive analyses of topical homogeneity within clusters of videos are supplemented with qualitative characterizations of the communities and the most important ‘bridging’ and ‘switching’ nodes within them. Contrary to popular beliefs about YouTube’s tendency to create informational ‘rabbit holes’ or ‘radicalization pipelines’, we find no evidence for algorithmic bias that would push users towards the consumption of fringe content.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/5u2zk/" target="_blank">CovidTube: Mapping information segregation on YouTube</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Substance use, psychiatric symptoms, personal mastery, and social support among COVID-19 long haulers: A compensatory model</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: Substance use has become a critical health concern during the COVID-19 pandemic, and emerging attention has been paid to people with the persistent symptoms of COVID-19 (COVID-19 long haulers) due to their high vulnerability. However, scant research has investigated their substance use and relevant psychosocial factors. The current study was to (1) examine substance use behaviors (i.e., legal drug use, illicit drug use, and non-medical use of prescription drugs); and (2) assessed their associations with psychiatric symptoms (i.e., depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder) and psychosocial factors (i.e., personal mastery and social support) among COVID-19 long haulers. Methods: In January to March 2022, 460 COVID-19 long haulers (50% female), with an average age of 32, completed online surveys regarding their demographics, substance use, psychiatric symptoms, and psychosocial factors. Results: In the past three months, the most commonly used or non-medically used substances were tobacco (82%) for legal drugs, cocaine (53%) for illicit drugs, and prescription opioids (67%) for prescription drugs. Structural equation modeling suggested that psychiatric symptoms were positively associated with substance use behaviors (bs = .38 to .68, ps &lt; .001), while psychosocial factors were negatively associated with substance use behaviors (bs = -.61 to -.43, ps &lt; .001). Conclusion: Substance use is common in COVID-19 long haulers and psychiatric symptoms are the risk factors. Personal mastery and social support appear to offer protection offsetting the psychiatric influences. Substance use prevention and mental health services for COVID-19 long haulers should attend to personal mastery and social support.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.23.22282679v1" target="_blank">Substance use, psychiatric symptoms, personal mastery, and social support among COVID-19 long haulers: A compensatory model</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>PARA-DIPLOMACY IN TIME OF COVID-19: JAKARTA REGIONAL GOVERNMENT’S OBJECTIVES IN HOSTING INTERNATIONAL YOUTH CHAMPIONSHIP</strong> -
<div>
The Novel Corona Virus Disease or COVID-19 has caused unprecedented huge impacts and affected all aspects of governance including the relations among countries. Amid the crisis, sub-national governments have demonstrated their international engagements and innovations in order to respond to the pandemic. Jakarta as the largest city and the capital city of the Republic of Indonesia became the national attention in early of the pandemic due to its functional position as the main gate of international mobility. However, the region held an international event called the International Youth Championship while the pandemic still existed. This research aimed to describe the region’s objectives to carry out the event as a para-diplomacy practice. This research applied the qualitative research method with a descriptive analysis. In addition, the research utilized para-diplomacy concept as a theoretical tool to help describe such objectives. This research found that the regional government had a number of objectives in hosting the event; promoting the success of handing the COVID-19, promoting sports tourism in the post-pandemic, and introducing a new ‘green’ icon of the region. Those objectives belong to the economic and cultural dimension of para-diplomacy. This paper argues that Indonesian para-diplomacy is an asset inasmuch as the national government can harvest benefits from sub-national governments’ para-diplomatic activities.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/ncwe2/" target="_blank">PARA-DIPLOMACY IN TIME OF COVID-19: JAKARTA REGIONAL GOVERNMENT’S OBJECTIVES IN HOSTING INTERNATIONAL YOUTH CHAMPIONSHIP</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The dynamic relationship between COVID-19 cases and SARS-CoV-2 wastewater concentrations across time and space: considerations for model training data sets</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
During the COVID-19 pandemic, wastewater-based surveillance has been used alongside diagnostic testing to monitor infection rates. With the decline in cases reported to public health departments due to at-home testing, wastewater data may serve as the primary input for epidemiological models, but training these models is not straightforward. We explored factors affecting noise and bias in the ratio between wastewater and case data collected in 26 sewersheds in California from October 2020 to March 2022. The strength of the relationship between wastewater and case data appeared dependent on sampling frequency and population size, but was not increased by wastewater normalization to flow rate or case count normalization to testing rates. Additionally, the lead and lag times between wastewater and case data varied over time and space, and the ratio of log-transformed individual cases to wastewater concentrations changed over time. This ratio increased sequentially in the Epsilon/Alpha, Delta, and Omicron BA.1 variant surges of COVID-19 and was also related to the diagnostic testing rate. Based on this analysis, we present a framework of scenarios describing the dynamics of the case to wastewater ratio to aid in data handling decisions for ongoing modeling efforts.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.23.22282684v1" target="_blank">The dynamic relationship between COVID-19 cases and SARS-CoV-2 wastewater concentrations across time and space: considerations for model training data sets</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>An Early SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Outbreak in a Dormitory in Saint-Petersburg, Russia</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has rapidly spread globally in late 2021 - early 2022, displacing the previously prevalent Delta variant. Before December 16, 2021, community transmission had already been observed in tens of countries globally. However, in Russia, the majority of reported cases at that time had been sporadic and associated with travel. Here, we report an Omicron outbreak at a student dormitory in Saint Petersburg between December 16 - 29, 2021, which was the earliest known instance of large-scale community transmission in Russia. Out of the 465 sampled residents of the dormitory, 180 (38.7%) tested PCR positive. Among the 118 residents for whom the variant has been tested by whole-genome sequencing, 111 (94.1%) carried the Omicron variant. Among these 111 residents, 60 (54.1%) were vaccinated or had reported previous COVID-19. Phylogenetic analysis confirmed that the outbreak was caused by a single introduction of the BA.1.1 sublineage of Omicron. The dormitory-derived clade constituted a significant proportion of BA.1.1 samples in Saint-Petersburg and has spread to other regions of Russia and other countries. The rapid spread of Omicron in a population with preexisting immunity to previous variants underlines its propensity for immune evasion.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.23.22282648v1" target="_blank">An Early SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Outbreak in a Dormitory in Saint-Petersburg, Russia</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Assessment of Attitude and Hesitancy Towards Covid-19 Vaccine among Hepatitis B and C Patients in Pakistan</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
OBJECTIVE: The research aimed to evaluate the attitude and perceptions towards the covid-19 vaccine among Hepatitis B and C patients in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. METHODS: A survey-based study was adopted to evaluate the attitude of Hepatitis B and C patients towards immunization against covid-19 in Peshawar (KPK) and Muzaffarabad (AJK) cities of Pakistan. The study continued from January 2020 to February 2021. Participants were also assessed for their perception towards covid-19 vaccination. RESULTS: A total of 839 (33.6%) individuals participated in the study. About 52 % of Hepatitis B patients were immunized against Covid-19, whereas the number of Hepatitis C patients was recorded at around 48%. About 53.7 % of participants refused to get the vaccine without any reason. About 63.2% of patients showed concern about the insufficient data available on the vaccine safety and efficacy published by the Public Health Department. Individuals with higher education were observed to be more open towards vaccination then those without a formal education. More than half of the participants (61.5 %) were concerned about the interference of the vaccine with their hepatitis treatment whereas 54.7 % patients refused vaccine because of a poor liver condition. CONCLUSIONS: The data indicated that limited data availability regarding the vaccine efficacy in viral hepatitis patients and negative attitudes of people toward covid-19 vaccination is the main cause of Covid-19 vaccination refusal among hepatitis B and C patients. DESCRIPTORS: Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, covid-19, immunization, vaccine refusal, Pakistan.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.23.22282686v1" target="_blank">Assessment of Attitude and Hesitancy Towards Covid-19 Vaccine among Hepatitis B and C Patients in Pakistan</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>An FcRn-targeted mucosal vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 infection and transmission</strong> -
<div>
SARS-CoV-2 and its variants cause COVID-19, which is primarily transmitted through droplets and airborne aerosols. To prevent viral infection and reduce viral spread, vaccine strategies must elicit protective immunity in the airways. FcRn transfers IgG across epithelial barriers; we explore FcRn-mediated respiratory delivery of SARS-CoV-2 spike (S). A monomeric IgG Fc was fused to a stabilized S protein; the resulting S-Fc bound to S-specific antibodies (Ab) and FcRn. A significant increase in Ab responses was observed following the intranasal immunization of mice with S-Fc formulated in CpG as compared to the immunization with S alone or PBS. Furthermore, we intranasally immunize adult or aged mice and hamsters with S-Fc. A significant reduction of virus replication in nasal turbinate, lung, and brain was observed following nasal challenges with SARS-CoV-2, including Delta and Omicron variants. Intranasal immunization also significantly reduced viral transmission between immunized and naive hamsters. Protection was mediated by nasal IgA, serum-neutralizing Abs, tissue-resident memory T cells, and bone marrow S-specific plasma cells. Hence FcRn delivers an S-Fc antigen effectively into the airway and induces protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection and transmission. Based on these findings, FcRn-targeted non-invasive respiratory immunizations are superior strategies for preventing highly contagious respiratory viruses from spreading.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.23.517678v1" target="_blank">An FcRn-targeted mucosal vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 infection and transmission</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Mapping the content of comments on bioRxiv and medRxiv preprints</strong> -
<div>
Introduction: Preprints have been increasingly used in biomedical sciences, providing the opportunity for research to be publicly assessed before journal publication. With the increase in attention over preprints during the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to assess the content of comments left on preprint platforms. Methods: Preprints posted on bioRxiv and medRxiv in 2020 were accessed through each platform’s API, and a random sample of preprints that had received between 1 and 20 comments was analyzed. Comments were evaluated in triplicate by independent evaluators using an instrument that assessed their features and general content. Results: 7.3% of preprints received at least 1 comment during a mean follow-up of 7.5 months. Analyzed comments had a median size of 43 words. Criticisms, corrections or suggestions were the most prevalent type of content, followed by compliments or positive appraisals and questions. Most critical comments regarded interpretation, data collection and methodological design, while compliments were usually about relevance and implications. Conclusions: Only a small percentage of preprints posted in 2020 in bioRxiv and medRxiv received comments in these platforms. When present, however, these comments address content that is similar to that analyzed by traditional peer review. A more precise taxonomy of peer review functions would be desirable to describe whether post-publication peer review fulfills these roles.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.23.517621v1" target="_blank">Mapping the content of comments on bioRxiv and medRxiv preprints</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>SARS-CoV-2 evolves increased infection elicited cell death and fusion in an immunosuppressed individual</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The milder clinical manifestations of Omicron infection relative to pre-Omicron SARS-CoV-2 raises the possibility that extensive evolution results in reduced pathogenicity. To test this hypothesis, we quantified induction of cell fusion and cell death in SARS-CoV-2 evolved from ancestral virus during long-term infection. Both cell fusion and death were reduced in Omicron BA.1 infection relative to ancestral virus. Evolved virus was isolated at different times during a 6-month infection in an immunosuppressed individual with advanced HIV disease. The virus isolated 16 days post-reported symptom onset induced fusogenicity and cell death at levels similar to BA.1. However, fusogenicity was increased in virus isolated at 6 months post-symptoms to levels intermediate between BA.1 and ancestral SARS-CoV-2. Similarly, infected cell death showed a graded increase from earlier to later isolates. These results may indicate that, at least by the cellular measures used here, evolution in long-term infection does not necessarily attenuate the virus.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.23.22282673v1" target="_blank">SARS-CoV-2 evolves increased infection elicited cell death and fusion in an immunosuppressed individual</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Rapid Real-time Squiggle Classification for Read Until Using RawMap</strong> -
<div>
ReadUntil enables Oxford Nanopore Technology’s (ONT) sequencers to selectively sequence reads of target species in real-time. This enables efficient microbial enrichment for applications such as microbial abundance estimation and is particularly beneficial for metagenomic samples with a very high fraction of non-target reads (&gt; 99% can be human reads). Read-until, however, requires a fast and accurate software filter that analyzes a short prefix of a read and determines if it belongs to a microbe of interest (target) or not. The baseline Read Until pipeline uses a deep neural network-based basecaller called Guppy and is slow and inaccurate for this task (60% of bases sequenced are unclassified). We present RawMap, an efficient CPU-only microbial species-agnostic Read Until classifier for filtering non-target human reads in the squiggle space. RawMap uses a Support Vector Machine (SVM), which is trained to distinguish human from microbe using non-linear and non-stationary characteristics of ONT’s squiggle output (continuous electrical signals). Compared to the baseline Read Until pipeline, RawMap is 1327X faster and significantly improve the sequencing time and cost, and compute time savings. We show that RawMap augmented pipelines reduce sequencing time and cost by 23.79% and computing cost by 22%. Additionally, since RawMap is agnostic to microbial species, it can also classify microbial species it is not trained on. We also discuss how RawMap may be used as an alternative to the RT-PCR test for viral load quantification of SARS-CoV-2.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.22.517599v1" target="_blank">Rapid Real-time Squiggle Classification for Read Until Using RawMap</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>A Study on Voluntary Routine COVID-19 Self-testing in Mizoram, India.</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Diagnostic Test: COVID-19 Self testing and related messaging<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   PATH;   UNITAID;   Zoram Medical College (ZMC);   Pacchunga University College;   Association for Leprosy Education Rehabilitation &amp; Treatment India (ALERT India);   Government of Mizoram<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Study to Evaluate EDP-235 in Non-hospitalized Adults With COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: EDP-235;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Inc<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study of RAY1216 Tablets Compared With Placebo in Patients With Mild to Moderate COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Mild to Moderate COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: RAY1216;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Guangdong Raynovent Biotech Co., Ltd<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The LAVA (Lateral Flow Antigen Validation and Applicability) 2 Study for COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   SARS-CoV-2 Infection<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Diagnostic Test: Innova Lateral Flow Test<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust<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>Q-POC SARS-CoV-2 Assay COVID-19 Clinical Evaluation</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Diagnostic Test: RT-PCR Test;   Diagnostic Test: Real-time PCR Test<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   QuantuMDx Group Ltd;   EDP Biotech;   Paragon Rx Clinical;   PathAI;   PRX Research and Development<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>Acute Rehabilitation in Patients With COVID-19 Pneumonia</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Rehabilitation;   Physical Medicine<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Procedure: Acute rehabilitation program<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Institut za Rehabilitaciju Sokobanjska Beograd<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>Enhancing Protection Against Influenza and COVID-19 for Pregnant Women and Medically at Risk Children</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Influenza;   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: Nudge<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Adelaide<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 Trial Evaluate the Immunogenicity and Safety of Recombinant COVID-19 Omicron-Delta Variant Vaccine (CHO Cell)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Omicron-Delta Recombinant Novel Coronavirus Protein Vaccine (CHO cells);   Biological: Recombinant Novel Coronavirus Protein Vaccine (CHO cells)<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biologic Pharmacy Co., Ltd.<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>COVID-19 Antibody Responses in Cystic Fibrosis</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Cystic Fibrosis<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Biological: Blood sample<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Hospices Civils de Lyon;   Queen’s University, Belfast<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>Message Communicating Latest Data on COVID Transmission in Patient’s Area</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: COVID Booster text messages<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Pennsylvania<br/><b>Enrolling by invitation</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>Message From Local Pharmacy Team</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: COVID Booster text messages<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Pennsylvania<br/><b>Enrolling by invitation</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Safety, Tolerability, and Immunogenicity of Trivalent Coronavirus Vaccine Candidate VBI-2901e With E6020 Adjuvant</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Coronavirus Infections<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Biological: VBI-2901e<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   VBI Vaccines 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>Dietary Modulation of Gut Microbiota in Overweight/Obese Adolescents and COVID-19 Infection</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Health Behavior;   Child Development;   Adolescent Obesity<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Dietary Supplement: Probiotics;   Behavioral: Counselling on healthy eating, physical activity, and psychosocial stimulation;   Dietary Supplement: Placebo probiotics<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Indonesia University;   Gadjah Mada University;   Universitas Airlangga;   University of Melbourne;   The Indonesia Endowment Funds for Education, Ministry of Finance Indonesia<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>Phonation Therapy to Improve Symptoms and Lung Physiology in Patients Referred for Pulmonary Rehabilitation</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: Tonation Breathing Techniques;   Behavioral: Music Driven Vocal Exercises;   Behavioral: Silent Breathing<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   MetroHealth Medical Center<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>Canadian Adaptive Platform Trial of Treatments for COVID in Community Settings</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Paxlovid;   Drug: Other;   Other: Other<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Unity Health Toronto;   Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR);   Health Canada<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>Safety and immunogenicity of a third dose of COVID-19 protein subunit vaccine (Covovax<sup>TM</sup>) after homologous and heterologous two-dose regimens</strong> - CONCLUSION: The protein subunit vaccine (Covovax^(TM)) can be proposed as a booster dose after two different priming dose regimens. It has strong immunogenicity and good safety profiles.</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 14-3-3 proteins site-selectively bind the mutational hotspot region of SARS-CoV-2 nucleoprotein modulating its phosphoregulation</strong> - Phosphorylation of SARS-CoV-2 nucleoprotein recruits human cytosolic 14-3-3 proteins playing a well-recognized role in replication of many viruses. Here we use genetic code expansion to demonstrate that 14-3-3 binding is triggered by phosphorylation of SARS-CoV-2 nucleoprotein at either of two pseudo-repeats centered at Ser197 and Thr205. According to fluorescence anisotropy, the pT205-motif,presentin SARS-CoV-2 but not in SARS-CoV, is preferred over the pS197-motif by all seven human 14-3-3…</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>Antiviral activity of amiodarone in SARS-CoV-2 disease</strong> - Amiodarone seems to exhibit some antiviral activity in the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. Here we have examined the SARS-CoV-2 disease course in the entire population of the Czech Republic and compared it with the course of the disease in patients treated with amiodarone in two major Prague’s hospitals. In the whole population of the Czech Republic SARS-CoV-2 infected 1665070 persons (15.6 %) out of 10694000 (100 %) between 1 April 2020 and 30 June 2021. In the same time period only 35 patients…</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>Treatment of Advanced Systemic Mastocytosis with Midostaurin: Practical Guidance for Optimal Therapy and Management</strong> - Systemic mastocytosis (SM) is a rare disease with a range of clinical presentations, and the vast majority of patients have a KIT D816V mutation that results in a gain of function. The multikinase/KIT inhibitor midostaurin inhibits the D816V mutant and has a well-established role in treating advanced SM. Even if considered the standard of therapy, some open questions remain on optimizing midostaurin management in daily practice. The current review presents the opinions of a group of experts who…</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 search for potential COVID-19 drugs from ayurvedic medicinal plants to identify potential inhibitors against SARS-CoV-2 targets</strong> - CONCLUSION: Molecular ADMET profile estimation showed that the docked phytochemicals were safe. The present study suggested that active phytochemicals from medicinal plants could inhibit RdRp and spike protein of SARS-CoV-2.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>CD147 contributes to SARS-CoV-2-induced pulmonary fibrosis</strong> - COVID-19 patients can develop clinical and histopathological features associated with fibrosis, but the pathogenesis of fibrosis remains poorly understood. CD147 has been identified as a universal receptor for SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, which could initiate COVID-19-related cytokine storm. Here, we systemically analyzed lung pathogenesis in SARS-CoV-2- and its delta variant-infected humanized CD147 transgenic mice. Histopathology and Transmission Electron Microscopy revealed inflammation,…</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>Rational Design and Synthesis of D-galactosyl Lysophospholipids as Selective Substrates and non-ATP-competitive Inhibitors of Phosphatidylinositol Phosphate Kinases</strong> - Phosphatidylinositol phosphate kinases (PIPKs) produce lipid signaling molecules and have been attracting increasing attention as drug targets for cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and viral infection. Given the potential cross-inhibition of kinases and other ATP-utilizing enzymes by ATP-competitive inhibitors, targeting the unique lipid substrate binding site represents a superior strategy for PIPK inhibition. Here, by taking advantage of the nearly identical stereochemistry between…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inhibition of p38 signaling curtails the SARS-CoV-2 induced inflammatory response but retains the IFN-dependent antiviral defense of the lung epithelial barrier</strong> - SARS-CoV-2 is the causative agent of the immune response-driven disease COVID-19 for which new antiviral and anti-inflammatory treatments are urgently needed to reduce recovery time, risk of death and long COVID development. Here, we demonstrate that the immunoregulatory kinase p38 MAPK is activated during viral entry, mediated by the viral spike protein, and drives the harmful virus-induced inflammatory responses. Using primary human lung explants and lung epithelial organoids, we demonstrate…</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>Nanobody derived using a peptide epitope from the Spike protein receptor-binding motif inhibits entry of SARS-CoV-2 variants</strong> - The emergence of new escape mutants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has escalated its penetration among the human population and has reinstated its status as a global pandemic. Therefore, developing effective antiviral therapy against emerging SARS-CoV variants and other viruses in a short period of time becomes essential. Blocking SARS-CoV-2 entry into human host cells by disrupting the Spike glycoprotein-angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) interaction has already been exploited for vaccine…</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>Xuanfei Baidu formula alleviates impaired mitochondrial dynamics and activated NLRP3 inflammasome by repressing NF-κB and MAPK pathways in LPS-induced ALI and inflammation models</strong> - CONCLUSION: In this study, we demonstrate that XBF exerts anti-ALI and -inflammatory effects by recovering mitochondrial dynamics and reducing inflammasome activation, providing a biological illustration of the clinical efficacy of XBF in treating COVID-19 patients.</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 investigation of natural compounds as potential main protease (M<sup>pro</sup>) inhibitors for SARS-CoV-2 virus</strong> - The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is significantly impacting human lives, overburdening the healthcare system and weakening global economies. Plant-derived natural compounds are being largely tested for their efficacy against COVID-19 targets to combat SARS-CoV-2 infection. The SARS-CoV-2 Main protease (M^(pro)) is considered an appealing target because of its role in replication in host cells. We curated a set…</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>IFITM3 Inhibits SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Is Associated with COVID-19 Susceptibility</strong> - SARS-CoV-2 has become a global threat to public health. Infected individuals can be asymptomatic or develop mild to severe symptoms, including pneumonia, respiratory distress, and death. This wide spectrum of clinical presentations of SARS-CoV-2 infection is believed in part due to the polymorphisms of key genetic factors in the population. In this study, we report that the interferon-induced antiviral factor IFITM3 inhibits SARS-CoV-2 infection by preventing SARS-CoV-2 spike-protein-mediated…</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>Prevention and Treatment of Monkeypox: A Systematic Review of Preclinical Studies</strong> - The outbreak of monkeypox, coupled with the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic is a critical communicable disease. This study aimed to systematically identify and review research done on preclinical studies focusing on the potential monkeypox treatment and immunization. The presented juxtaposition of efficacy of potential treatments and vaccination that had been tested in preclinical trials could serve as a useful primer of monkeypox virus. The literature identified using key terms such as…</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>Antiviral activity of nano-monocaprin against Phi6 as a surrogate for SARS-CoV-2</strong> - The COVID-19 pandemic involving SARS-CoV-2 has raised interest in using antimicrobial lipid formulations to inhibit viral entry into their host cells or to inactivate them. Lipids are a part of the innate defense mechanism against pathogens. Here, we evaluated the use of nano-monocaprin (NMC) in inhibiting enveloped (phi6) and unenveloped (MS2) bacteriophages. NMC was prepared using the sonochemistry technique. Size and morphology analysis revealed the formation of ~ 8.4 ± 0.2-nm NMC as measured…</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>Antiviral Properties of <em>Pennisetum purpureum</em> Extract against Coronaviruses and Enteroviruses</strong> - Many severe epidemics are caused by enteroviruses (EVs) and coronaviruses (CoVs), including feline coronavirus (FCoV) in cats, epidemic diarrhea disease virus (PEDV) in pigs, infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) in chickens, and EV71 in human. Vaccines and antiviral drugs are used to prevent and treat the infection of EVs and CoVs, but the effectiveness is affected due to rapidly changing RNA viruses. Many plant extracts have been proven to have antiviral properties despite the continuous mutations…</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>Is the Nancy Pelosi Era Really Ending?</strong> - The Speaker of the House is stepping aside, but her school of politics isn’t going anywhere. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/12/05/is-the-nancy-pelosi-era-really-ending">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Are We Doomed to See a Biden-Trump Rematch in 2024?</strong> - One thing’s sure: the early betting is often wrong—ask President Rand Paul. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/are-we-doomed-to-see-a-biden-trump-rematch-in-2024">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sam Bankman-Fried and the Long Road to Taking Crypto Mainstream</strong> - The disgraced founder of FTX played on the vanities of the establishment, reassuring V.C. firms and the media that smart-guy insiders like him could save the world. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/sam-bankman-fried-and-the-long-road-to-taking-crypto-mainstream">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Meaning of the Colorado Springs Attack</strong> - The essential precondition for mass violence is not guns or hate but a culture of terror, a common imaginary that includes the possibility of a mass shooting. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-meaning-of-the-colorado-springs-attack">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Dimming the Sun to Cool the Planet Is a Desperate Idea, Yet We’re Inching Toward It</strong> - The scientists who study solar geoengineering don’t want anyone to try it. But climate inaction is making it more likely. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/dimming-the-sun-to-cool-the-planet-is-a-desperate-idea-yet-were-inching-toward-it">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>How to become a truly excellent gift giver</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A drawing of hands tying a ribbon on a present." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4Dm0DrSTyXbqNxXNUxXVr0BCXn0=/240x0:1680x1080/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71675406/giftgiver.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A great present should have at least one of these three qualities. Here’s what they are.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WIMFyr">
It’s a special kind of agony to realize, while exchanging gifts with someone, that they got you something way, way better than what you got them. A few years ago, I bought for my partner what I thought was a perfect anniversary gift: a bulk order of astronaut ice cream. In many ways, I nailed it. He loves freeze-dried ice cream, which you rarely see in the wild outside of science museums, and I had gotten a comical number of packages.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NAUo7e">
The problem is that his gift for me was an all-timer, a miniature painting that he had commissioned from an artist who specializes in painstakingly detailed watercolors. He had worked on it for months, and the image illustrated my favorite Google search: “<a href="https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/wild-little-owls-kissing-two-owl-old-fence-post-yellow-background-58270051.jpg">owls kissing</a>.” (Saccharine, I know, but I dare you to find me anything cuter.) Astronaut ice cream would have been an amazing present if given on a random Tuesday, but the occasion and the wild discrepancy between our gifts was hilarious and vaguely horrifying. I do believe that intention matters more than execution with gifts — that it doesn’t really matter what you give someone, as long as you put thought and love into it — but sometimes it would be nice to get a do-over.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="C8Rcbj">
This holiday season, I am out for blood, and by blood, I mean really good presents. Is transforming myself into the best gift-giver of all time too much to ask? Probably. In the interest of merely learning how to give better presents, I turned to several experts in the arts of gift-giving and etiquette, who shared their tactics and frameworks for gathering ideas and getting in a creative mindset.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p0PGC9">
“I’ve always believed that literally anything on earth, any object, any piece of trash, anything you find in a store, can be a perfect gift,” says Helen Rosner, a New Yorker staff writer who publishes an annual <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-and-off-the-avenue/give-your-loved-one-an-oyster-iou-a-food-themed-holiday-gift-guide">food-themed gift guide</a> that is somehow both deranged and genuinely useful. “It can be a Tootsie Pop or a $10,000 diamond-encrusted cocktail shaker. What’s important is matching the right thing to the right person.”
</p>
<h3 id="cDhK19">
Not every gift has to be life-changing, and a meaningful gift doesn’t have to cost a lot of money
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3oPDSu">
Whether or not you’re in a position to buy a $10,000 cocktail shaker, it’s remarkably easy to start spiraling about finding the perfect gift for someone. Before you open a single browser tab, take a minute to remember that a gift doesn’t have to cause absolute emotional devastation (in a good way) in order to be successful.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tg7oEm">
“We often give ourselves this challenge of being like, ‘What is the gift that only I could give them? What is the gift that proves I know them so well?’ And that’s kind of impossible,” says Erica Cerulo, who runs the recommendation-filled <a href="https://www.athingortwohq.com"><em>A Thing or Two</em></a> podcast and newsletter with her business partner, Claire Mazur. (Cerulo and Mazur previously co-founded the retail destination Of A Kind, which shut down in 2019.) A great gift doesn’t have to change someone’s life, Cerulo says: It can just be something that’s fun and nice and comforting.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TjNexu">
Similarly, you don’t have to spend a certain amount of money for a gift to feel meaningful. Rosner did a book swap with family last winter, wherein each person had to choose a title from their own shelf that they thought another person in the group would enjoy. “Part of the gift was explaining: ‘I have read this, I loved it, and I think you would love it,’” Rosner says. “It involved spending zero dollars, it created amazing conversations, and it felt really personal and deep.”
</p>
<h3 id="0YNGqD">
Try to tick one of three gift-giving boxes
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nVmbp6">
Because creativity thrives with constraints, Cerulo offered the following three-point framework for thinking about gift-giving: “Can I introduce someone to something they might not otherwise know about? Can I get them a nicer version of something than they would buy for themselves? Or can I make them feel seen?” If you can check one of those three boxes, you’ve probably got a good present on your hands.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IbYIMq">
Last summer, Cerulo and Mazur went to stay with some friends who were very generous hosts, cooking every meal. “All weekend we were running out for seltzer water, so afterward I sent them a really nice seltzer maker,” Mazur says. “We came back, and it was in use all weekend, and the kids had learned how to use it.” She describes this as a particularly satisfying gift-giving experience that ticked several of the boxes Cerulo laid out. It was something their hosts probably weren’t going to buy for themselves (and was luxurious in a way that only infinite seltzer can be), and it demonstrated that she was paying attention to their habits.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KpmeOy">
Making someone feel seen gets to the reason why we give people gifts in the first place. “The way that we express love to people through gift-giving is by reflecting who they are back to them, and also by showing them who we see them as,” says Rosner. You could get someone a $70 cut-crystal glass for their whiskey, for instance, but you could also track down the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Flintstone-Betty-Tumbler-Pizza-Hut/dp/B002W9Q57O">Pizza Hut <em>Flintstones Kids</em> glasses</a> from the 1980s that they loved as a child.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="47cGiu">
So how do you make someone feel known? Unlock your phone and …
</p>
<h3 id="kyPxCh">
Keep a running list of gift ideas
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ryEdLJ">
Almost universally, great gift-givers are doing legwork throughout the year, not just in the weeks leading up to a birthday or major holiday. Many keep lists of potential gifts for their friends and loved ones, which they update every time someone mentions an item they’d love or when their internet travels turn up a particularly great present idea. You can do this in any way that suits you: Cerulo has a single note in her phone dedicated to gift ideas, Mazur keeps individual notes for individual people, and Rosner uses friends’ contacts as a place to log food preferences, birthdays, and present ideas.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iI4o3w">
If a friend mentions an interest that lends itself well toward vintage or handmade products, you may also consider setting up alerts on that subject on sites like Etsy and eBay. In the earlier years of their relationship, Cerulo’s husband used eBay to hunt down a vintage Vogue cover from the 1940s that was designed by Salvador Dalí. It was a long con that took him several years, but it was incredibly meaningful to Cerulo when she received it: She worked in magazines at the time and was obsessed with that particular cover, having seen an exhibit of Dalí’s art while studying abroad in college. “It just really felt like, ‘Right<em>.</em> You get it,’” Cerulo recalls.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qn5IS2">
Incidentally, devising systems for gathering gift ideas can help you steer clear of asking your loved ones what they want — something that Crystal L. Bailey, director of the <a href="https://www.washingtonetiquette.com">Etiquette Institute of Washington</a>, suggests avoiding. “It puts the onus on them to kind of figure out their own gifts, right? So if we can, in our relationships, really try to take notice of what someone appreciates and what they enjoy,” she says.
</p>
<h3 id="rXlW21">
Write a mini-bio of the recipient, even if you know them well
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PnOF5w">
Our closest confidantes are sometimes the most challenging people on our list. How are you supposed to distill your sister’s marvelous and unique essence into a single package? First, step away from the grandiose thinking. Second, get some perspective with a tactic that Mazur and Cerulo figured out while creating gift guides: Write a three-sentence description of the person you have in mind, paying close attention to their enthusiasms, obsessions, and interests. “I might say, ‘My dad is obsessed with sports, he thinks most kitchen gadgets are pretentious, and he’s been a lawyer his whole life,’” says Mazur. “Then there’s a little bit more room to get imaginative.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zlkavc">
If you’ve spent a lot of time looking at gift guides, this exercise can also help you break out of thinking about your loved ones in terms of consumer profiles. (I like gift guides, but they do have a tendency to, say, boil men’s interests down to whiskey stones and beard oil.) “It’s better to give something that’s like, ‘This is a gift for <em>you</em>’ — like you as a person, not you as some demographic category,” says Rosner. “I know you love Nutter Butters, so here are 17 packages of Nutter Butters.”
</p>
<h3 id="QLmFr5">
Don’t stress about gifts for people you don’t know well
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="K7ECtc">
From an etiquette standpoint, Bailey advises personalizing gifts to people you don’t know very well, without getting too personal. For a co-worker, a signed greeting card and a gift card aligned with their interests can be a good option. Perfumes, scented items, and clothing, on the other hand, can be a little too intimate.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dXCQSR">
This philosophy gets at a fundamental truth about buying a gift for your boss or your brother’s new honey: You’re not close friends, and that’s actually fine. “When it’s someone you don’t know super well, you don’t have to go through this crazy dance of trying to reflect themselves back at them and also the way you see them, because you don’t have that yet,” says Rosner. “This is a totally different type of gift communication where it’s just like, ‘I’d like to give you something that makes you a little bit happy.’”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iBwVud">
In this situation, you just need to know one personal fact about the recipient. “It could be as deep as, ‘She’s really into pre-Prohibition cocktails,’ or it could be as shallow as, ‘I know her favorite color’s lilac,’” Rosner says. Avoid giving someone “the gift equivalent of mansplaining” — i.e. an entry-level item pertaining to their interest, like the <em>Joy of Cooking</em> for an amateur chef — or buying them something so esoteric that it looks like you’re trying to one-up them. For the cocktail aficionado, you might just find them the best ice cube mold, according to cocktail experts — a little gesture to show that you care to buy them something of quality.
</p>
<h3 id="YRxcCL">
When in doubt, turn to one of these categories
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NSx3se">
Several kinds of presents kept coming up in my interviews, so I’ve compiled them here. Consider this your cheat sheet to buying a reliably good present.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="58ToQR">
<strong>Books</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hT020h">
Like Rosner, Cerulo and Mazur see books as an opportunity to bond with the recipient, whether or not you already know them well. You can give someone a book that you’ve read and loved, or you can buy them one that’s in line with their interests (a cookbook, a mystery novel, a birdwatching tome). “It creates longer-term relationship building that other things don’t,” says Cerulo.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KWpclg">
<strong>Food, beverages, and other consumables</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tXNLjB">
Etiquette-wise, Bailey is a big fan of gifts that avoid encumbering the recipient with clutter. Food is a great version of that. It can be personal and nostalgic (Skyline Chili shipped to a Cincinnati ex-pat via Goldbelly), decadent but not ridiculously expensive (special salt or olive oil), or lovingly made at home (Cerulo’s husband prepares eggnog every year and bottles it for friends).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dsSXC6">
<strong>The biggest version of the thing possible</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="abrWrv">
Here’s a shortcut to a great gift: If you know that someone loves a particular item, just get them a ton of it. Absurd volume is funny, knowing, luxurious, and a little bit teasing. It could be a huge box of pink Starbursts, or, as Cerulo once bought for Mazur, a “several-gallon jug” of Red Boat Fish Sauce.
</p>
<p class="c-end-para" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ag0NUx">
“One pair of socks is tragic. Five pairs of socks feels dutiful. Ten starts to be a little interesting,” Rosner says. “But 100 is ludicrous. And that’s what makes it a great gift. You have to cross that line.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7ApIIz">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/authors/eliza-brooke"><em>Eliza Brooke</em></a><em> is a freelance journalist covering design, culture, and entertainment.</em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VkY0EM">
<a href="http://www.vox.com/even-better"><em>Even Better</em></a><em> is here to offer deeply sourced, actionable advice for helping you live a better life. Do you have a question on money and work; friends, family, and community; or personal growth and health? Send us your question by filling out this </em><a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfiStGSlsWDBmglim7Dh1Y9Hy386rkeKGpfwF6BCjmgnZdqfQ/viewform"><em>form</em></a><em>. We might turn it into a story.</em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h4wdPC">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="w1RxPD">
</p></li>
<li><strong>How independent voters saved Democrats</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="An image of a hand holding a pen, from which big red squiggles are emerging." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/95VHFeLNjyQlyg6CJPcZ57obR7c=/296x0:2963x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71675293/independent_.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Amanda Northrop/Vox
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
In several battleground states and competitive districts, these key swing voters put Democrats over the edge.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TSN7uA">
Democrats would not have had such a good election night without the support of independent voters.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3yWkmt">
These mystical swing voters don’t affiliate themselves with a specific party, tend to be more ideologically moderate, and represent <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx">a plurality</a> of voters in the United States. But they are also hard to reach, often less politically engaged, and <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756223/obo-9780199756223-0338.xml">frequently confused</a> with “weak partisans” (less energetic Democrats or Republicans) because they can have ideological leans.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="neCXW0">
They also tend to swing elections — and this year’s dissipation of the much-hyped “red wave” is partially a result of independent voters picking the Democratic candidate in competitive contests in swing states and districts.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6Axn60">
Despite plenty of polling this year showing that independents were, like Republicans, primarily concerned with the state of the economy and inflation, they ended up making nuanced decisions in key statewide races — and that worked to benefit Democrats.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FThzwg">
“This was a really complicated election with complicated issues, and for anyone to say this election was about the economy or this election was about abortion doesn’t really know what they’re talking about because [the issues] played different cross-pressures with different types of voters,” Bryan Bennett, the chief pollster at the progressive Navigator Research firm, told me. “With independents in particular, the economic record of the Biden administration was necessary, but not sufficient, and for a lot of voters, the <em>Dobbs</em> decision ultimately played a fairly decisive role in at least getting independents to a place where overall they were split, as opposed to overwhelmingly favoring Republicans for Congress.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zKnFwE">
State by state, those numbers come through in news networks’ exit polling (which provides an incomplete but early look at how an electorate behaved during an election) and other post-election surveys. In Arizona, for example, Sen. Mark Kelly’s win over Blake Masters in the state’s US Senate contest was boosted by the support of 55 percent of independents — who made up the largest share of the electorate (about 40 percent). The Associated Press’s <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-different-groups-voted-in-the-2022-midterm-elections-11667955705">midterm survey</a> also found that independents broke in favor of Democrats by nearly 20 points.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qLfsnJ">
In Nevada’s Senate race, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto was able to win the support of 48 percent of independents, compared to the 45 percent of independents who supported Republican Adam Laxalt, exit polls show. That included strong independent support in the swing Washoe County, which Cortez Masto won in this contest (she lost it during her first election in 2016). The AP VoteCast survey shows a nearly 10 percent gap in favor of Democrats.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="otFeot">
In Georgia, Sen. Raphael Warnock won 53 percent of independents according to exit polls, though they made up a smaller share (24 percent) of that electorate. That contest is headed to a December runoff. Sen. Maggie Hassan, the Democrat who won reelection in New Hampshire, meanwhile, won a similar share of independents: 54 percent of the group that made up a plurality of voters. And John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, who won his race by a 5 percent vote margin, garnered the support of 58 percent of independents.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="K7Q1yg">
In most polling leading up to Election Day, the numbers of independent support did not look as good as the exit polls, and vote totals, would end up being. A few factors led to that shift in support.
</p>
<h3 id="KFaUVR">
Republican extremism on abortion rights turned off many independents
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f74G6B">
Perhaps the most confounding result for pundits across the spectrum was how the negative perception voters, and especially independents, had of President Joe Biden’s job performance and the state of the economy did not translate into a massive swing for Republicans. But voters weren’t viewing their Election Day options through a single lens. Independents, especially, were weighing specific candidates’ stances on abortion rights against Democrats’ record on the economy as well.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yVjyO6">
Bennett told me that Navigator’s <a href="https://navigatorresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Navigator-Post-Election-Survey-Release-11.16.2022.pdf">midterm polling</a> (conducted before and after Election Day, of voters who voted early or in-person) shows a strong split in how independent men and women were thinking of candidates, with more independent women choosing to support Democrats than independent men.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pnUtXe">
In data provided to Vox from Navigator’s midterm voters survey, those numbers show that for independent men, inflation was a top concern for half of them, while abortion was the top concern for 23 percent. Among women, inflation was the top concern for 46 percent of respondents, while abortion was close behind at 34 percent. Though the numbers differ slightly between Navigator’s finding and exit polls, the same 17-percent gender gap shows up: Independent men supported Republicans slightly more than Democrats, but independent women backed Democrats by a much bigger margin.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oAiYyI">
“That’s a very important piece of the story — the way that abortion played particularly with independent women,” Bennett said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VhRNbO">
Daniel Cox, a pollster and director of the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute, made a similar argument last week, about the influence of young women, who skew liberal, on Democrats’ success.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XwWebQ">
“When it comes to abortion and Trump-style politics, many swing voters were turned off by extreme Republican candidates, but this combination proved uniquely repellant to young women,” <a href="https://storylines.substack.com/p/how-young-women-saved-the-democratic?utm_source=direct&amp;r=6g7j2&amp;utm_campaign=post&amp;utm_medium=web">he wrote</a> while synthesizing pre-election polling, early estimates on youth turnout from Tufts University, and exit polls.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gtTmhJ">
Add to that the popularity of different elements of the Biden economic agenda, like the <a href="https://navigatorresearch.org/after-passage-two-in-three-americans-support-the-inflation-reduction-act/">high popularity</a> of the Inflation Reduction Act, and you get more of a picture of a <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/sept-6-a-referendum-or-a-choice/">choice</a> election, where voters were not driven primarily by anger at the party in power, but by candidates and policy. Voters who were driven primarily by economic concerns appear to have voted for Republicans in congressional races, while those who were driven by mostly abortion rights, or a mix of issues, seem like they <a href="https://navigatorresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Navigator-Post-Election-Survey-Release-11.16.2022.pdf?emci=2ee0525a-1566-ed11-ade6-14cb65342cd2&amp;emdi=3c8809e6-6466-ed11-ade6-14cb65342cd2&amp;ceid=1528541">tended to vote</a> for Democrats in those contests.
</p>
<h3 id="TUab9R">
<strong>And another motivator: threats to democracy, and the vibes</strong>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bmXdMS">
The “vibes” were also off. Plenty of independent voters felt off put by Trump-aligned Republican candidates. Some disliked GOP candidates’ positions on abortion; others were repelled by other social and economic stances.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Mw0jAo">
“We did see some movement, particularly among independents, over the course of the summer and fall, in terms of the perception that Republicans were too ‘radical’. That may very well be tied predominantly to Republicans’ association with being against abortion rights,” Bennett said. “Some combination of the <em>Dobbs</em> decision and the push for abortion bans — that being perceived as pretty extreme, and the January 6 hearings and conversation around political violence.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HANBFA">
That was a bet plenty of Democrats were willing to make. “It was all tied together,” Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette, who leads the Pro-Choice Caucus in Congress, told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/us/politics/abortion-midterm-elections-democrats-republicans.html">New York Times</a>. “People were thinking, ‘I’m worried about the economy. I’m worried about freedoms being taken away,’ and they were worried about democracy, too.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3usSWl">
Talking with successful candidates for secretary of state, who won independents by significant margins and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23465033/democrats-secretary-of-state-strategy-election-deniers">beat back a wave</a> of election deniers and Republican candidates trying to oversee election administration, another theme emerged: Many independents and Republicans were frustrated with candidates who seemed to care little about the integrity of elections, and who questioned the results of the 2020 election.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lILLQJ">
Kim Rogers, the executive director of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, told me that the advantage Democrats had this cycle was the wide swath of people in the middle of the political spectrum who just didn’t buy the outlandish claims many Republican candidates were making.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4dDVRu">
“There are a lot of independents and there are still Republicans that believe in the promise of democracy, in our electoral structures, and that they should be preserved,” she said. “When you’re talking to those folks, across the board, voters want somebody who will respect the will of voters. When you have people who are running to oversee elections that say they’re doing it so they can pick and choose the winners and determine outcomes, that is a natural ‘in your face’ to voters.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XZhZHJ">
Election denying candidates, and candidates aligned with Donald Trump, might have actually turned independents off from other Republican candidates on the ticket.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="btJ7NK">
In Pennsylvania, for example, Attorney General Josh Shapiro won the gubernatorial race by winning independents (by 29 points) and political moderates (by 40 points) <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/youth-voters-independents-boosted-democrats-midterm-exit-polls/story?id=92993573">by historic margins</a> against the far-right, election-denying, Christian fundamentalist Republican Doug Mastriano. Mehmet Oz, the more moderate Republican candidate for US Senate, was dragged down both by Mastriano and his own poorly run campaign, losing independents by 20 points and moderates by 30 points. Those varying levels of support also suggest a degree of split-ticket voting, which meant that independent and Republican voters were even more selective in the Republican candidates they did end up supporting.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZOVhGh">
In that way, poor Republican candidate quality hurt other Republicans, especially with independents and moderates, as my colleague <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/11/16/23458896/republicans-senate-candidate-quality-trump">Andrew Prokop has reported</a>. Trump’s affiliation also weighed these candidates down, analysts at <a href="https://www.economist.com/united-states/2022/11/17/quantifying-the-trump-effect">The Economist</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/16/upshot/trump-effect-midterm-election.html?campaign_id=29&amp;emc=edit_up_20221117&amp;instance_id=77804&amp;nl=the-upshot&amp;regi_id=91355523&amp;segment_id=113444&amp;te=1&amp;user_id=cc948bfd6283fad6910fd67087982e54">the New York Times</a> argue, and combined, you get a picture of a winning coalition: independent voters, and <a href="https://twitter.com/jacobdotgov/status/1591303742606823424?s=20&amp;t=DAKKHR_kUrP3571v43Su6w">even some Republicans</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/Luky_BB/status/1591310091315445761?s=20&amp;t=DAKKHR_kUrP3571v43Su6w">feeling</a> uncomfortable supporting Republican candidates and going with a safer, Democratic option.
</p></li>
<li><strong>What else Qatar has built with its absurd wealth besides the 2022 World Cup</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Workers in orange uniforms stand in front of Qatar’s 2022 FIFA World Cup Al Thumama Football Stadium, which is shaped like a cream-colored dome." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/X6e2H7UmOsQyCKzrODGw80txZ0I=/444x0:4000x2667/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71672262/1241430151.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Workers outside Al Thumama football stadium in Doha, Qatar, on June 20, 2022.  | Christopher Pike/Bloomberg via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The World Cup has exhibited Qatar’s soft power. Look closely to see its constraints.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a43DXi">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uX9vfQ">
Qatar is a player. In the Middle East and across the world, the petrostate of fewer than 3 million people plays an outsized role in<strong> </strong>geopolitics, media, and art. Its cultural diplomacy has established the country’s influence — and now it’s doing the same with sport.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eiZmfb">
The country’s absurd wealth is on display this month: It spent about <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/true-cost-of-the-qatar-world-cup-2022-10">$300 billion</a> on stadiums and groundwork to host the <a href="https://www.vox.com/fifa-world-cup">2022 FIFA World Cup</a>, which kicked off Sunday. That money <a href="https://time.com/6235113/qatar-world-cup-2022-kick-off/">totaled more</a> than all previous World Cups and Olympics combined.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XZFsUR">
Qatar <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-02/qatar-reclaims-crown-from-u-s-as-world-s-top-lng-exporter">exports more liquified natural gas</a> than any other country. Its energy resources have made the royal family among the world’s richest, and with a <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/05/investing/qatar-investment-sovereign-wealth-fund/index.html">$335 billion sovereign wealth</a> fund, it is one of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2022/nov/05/how-qatar-bought-up-britain">biggest landowners in the United Kingdom</a>, and owns a major stake in the Empire State Building.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="phOLpb">
Yet Qatar has arguably been a more strategic spender than <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/04/07/the-real-reason-why-the-salvator-mundi-didnt-make-it-into-the-louvres-leonardo-show">neighboring</a> <a href="https://www.artforum.com/architecture/nasser-rabbat-on-the-louvre-abu-dhabi-73429">oil-rich states</a>. It has focused on successfully constructing domestic cultural and educational institutions for Qataris and creating a national identity. But it’s a national identity presented by the royal family that does not tolerate dissent and does not guarantee human rights.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cchqSg">
The achievement of the first World Cup being convened in the Arab world embodies those tensions: Qatar is a state that uses its immense wealth and power to elevate itself and the region, that cares deeply about culture, and yet has few freedoms.
</p>
<h3 id="Oovuul">
Qatar’s elaborate hosting of the World Cup parallels its art prowess
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PvEZzy">
Doha rapidly developed in recent decades from a small port to a dramatic cityscape in what Qatari artist Sophia Al-Maria describes as “<a href="https://whitney.org/essays/sophia-al-maria">Gulf Futurism</a>.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UT9P4K">
Yet for all its <a href="https://apnews.com/article/world-cup-entertainment-soccer-sports-95c68fcde462922fc7c599e6f26497cb">lavish spending</a> and <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/energy-takes-center-stage-bidens-meeting-qatari-emir-signaling-deeper-ties">foreign-policy influence</a>, Qatar has managed to avoid criticism over the years for restricting rights for women and LGBTQ people and labor violations, including relative silence from its Western allies. (It must help that it’s home to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/as-trump-tries-to-end-endless-wars-americas-biggest-mideast-base-is-getting-bigger/2019/08/20/47ac5854-bab4-11e9-8e83-4e6687e99814_story.html">largest US military base in the Middle East</a>.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hNHTA4">
The incredible development of World Cup arenas mirrors Qatar’s staggering art investments. The sister of Qatar’s emir and the head of its network of museums, Sheikha al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, reportedly spends about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/23/arts/design/qatar-uses-its-riches-to-buy-art-treasures.html">$1 billion annually</a> on art. That’s much higher than any major US museum.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uRLWVg">
Qatar has commissioned epic works by Western artists, like <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/richard-serra-in-the-qatari-desert">Richard Serra</a>’s hulking steel plates in the desert (“East-West/West-East”) and <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/damien-hirst-public-fetus-works-go-back-up-in-doha-1398895">Damien Hirst</a>’s series of large bronze sculptures, some 46 feet high, of human reproduction from conception to embryo (“The Miraculous Journey”). Qatar has also bought some of the most expensive paintings in the world: Rothko’s “White Center” ($70 million), Cézanne’s “The Card Players” ($250 million), and Gauguin’s “When Will You Marry?” ($300 million).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XA9mCO">
There has been a huge emphasis on “<a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2022/02/17/starchitecture-and-the-national-museum-of-qatar-reproducing-the-western-gaze/">starchitects</a>” — largely American and European architects building outlandish structures that few other countries could afford, among them Rem Koolhaas and Jean Nouvel.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Three large bronze sculptures depicting a gestating fetus inside a uterus." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MQ9lYmUlwKlf4T7DnqW21lA4hQY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24222603/1063164338.jpg"/> <cite>AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
“The Miraculous Journey,” an art installation by artist Damien Hirst outside the Sidra Medical and Research Center in Qatar’s capital Doha, on the day of its unveiling, October 10, 2018.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A large white building built on the water’s edge made up of stacked rectangular shapes stands beside a row of palm trees." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GZ9CQNwqZkx-I8BjxOKAk1mxDSo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24222599/1369938057.jpg"/> <cite>Markus Gilliar/GES-Sportfoto via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
The Museum of Islamic Art, seen on December 5, 2021, in Doha, Qatar. It was designed by renowned architect I.M. Pei.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jB18Q1">
But Qatar, importantly, hasn’t only imported from the West.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4aLsXm">
It has created institutions that have helped forge its national identities as a Muslim and Arab country. The breathtakingly minimalist <a href="https://www.archdaily.com/867307/why-im-peis-museum-of-islamic-art-is-the-perfect-building-to-suit-dohas-style">Museum of Islamic Art</a> in Doha’s center, designed by famed Chinese architect I.M. Pei, contains a remarkable international collection. On the outskirts of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereknewton/2021/12/22/qatar-built-a-literal-city-for-education/?sh=57516591f269">Education City</a>, among satellites of universities like Georgetown, Northwestern, and Virginia Commonwealth, is the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, which contains one of the most extensive collections of 20th-century Arab art. (Qatar and the UAE are engaged in a <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-double-game-of-egyptian-surrealism-how-to-curate-a-revolutionary-movement/">cutthroat race</a> to buy up Arab modern art from across the Middle East.) And part of the capital has a new downtown made to look old, called Msheireb, with many cultural museums including one <a href="https://merip.org/2021/08/remembering-slavery-at-the-bin-jelmood-house-in-qatar/">focused on the country’s history of slavery</a>.
</p>
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“Qatar has always been much more connected, if you will, to that sense of their own past and their historical memory,” Kishwar Rizvi, a professor of art history and architecture at Yale University, told me. “There’s this global stage on which they want to present themselves,” she explained, but also a sense that, “We have oil, wealth, and all of that, but we also need cultural capital, because that also is part of what makes a nation.”
</p>
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Perhaps because Qatar’s cultural investments have been so savvy, I’ve been taken aback by the ostentatiousness of its <a href="https://www.dezeen.com/2022/11/15/2022-fifa-world-cup-qatar-stadium-architecture/">World Cup stadiums</a>. One stadium is shaped like a traditional Qatari tent and another is made of shipping containers. Most of the marquee stadiums for world sporting events are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/aug/22/birds-nest-empty-monument-china-magnificence">showy or trying to represent the host country’s culture</a>, but with this year’s, everything looks ornamental or too obvious.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Al Thumama Stadium in Qatar’s Doha, shaped like a large white rectangle with rounded corners, covered in a textile pattern." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VJ3ptW9Zy1d_IJv5CH5RsJlwhrE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24222611/1244601261.jpg"/> <cite>Mohammed Dabbous/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
A view of the Al Thumama Stadium’s facade in Doha, Qatar on October 28, 2022. The stadium’s design was inspired by the ghafiya, a traditional Arab cap worn by men in the Gulf countries.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A stadium that looks like a giant traditional Qatari tent." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0lKPZ0i3HKMhHFyLk6Onyjnt2dA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24222614/1244940384.jpg"/> <cite>Christopher Pike/Bloomberg via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Al Bayt Stadium ahead of the opening match of the FIFA World Cup, built to resemble a traditional Qatari tent.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rMN7n6">
The starchitects’ result in Qatar is the lowest common denominator, a country reduced to stereotypes. “I think it shows a lack of imagination,” says Rizvi. These new stadiums stand in contrast, she says, to <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/middle-east/iraq/articles/le-corbusier-s-gymnasium-in-baghdad/">Le Corbusier’s modernist Olympic Stadium</a> designed for Baghdad in the 1950s.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5zyqJi">
That lack of imagination is so striking because so much of Qatar’s soft-power prowess has had impressive results in art, culture, education, and media.
</p>
<h3 id="3ffSgX">
Can cultural diplomacy thrive without human rights?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VBSVHg">
I visited Qatar in 2016 to attend a blue-chip conference of artists and architects, all presided over by Sheikha al-Mayassa. Conceptual artist Marina Abramović equated her and Qatar’s royal family to modern-day Medicis, with the funds to support artists like Serra in creating <a href="https://qm.org.qa/en/visit/public-art/richard-serra-east-west-west-east/">monumental works</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cppJyR">
That money, it seems, does buy the complicity of powerful people. “To just come and criticize, it’s such an easy way to close the culture forever, but I want to open this culture,” Abramović told me.
</p>
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On the sidelines of the swish confab at the W Hotel Doha, <a href="https://www.jonathanguyer.com/uploads/2/0/2/2/20224295/guyer-mp-2016.pdf">I interviewed Jeff Koons</a>, one of the world’s most expensive living artists and a frequent guest of the royal family. I asked him: Why Qatar? “I would say because of the openness of Qatar to ideas, to education, to the humanities, to psychology and philosophy and all the different things that can stimulate the public for growth and development,” he told me.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7b3wPp">
I pushed Koons to discuss reported labor violations, that his nudes could never be exhibited in the conservative country, and the fact that a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35830372">Qatari poet</a> was imprisoned at the time for a protest song. “Going back to some of the problems here in Qatar and these different things, I’m naïve of some of the aspects,” Koons told me. “I know that internationally there has been a movement to try to make working conditions better for laborers, and I think that a lot of problems, not only here but internationally, have been addressed to try to make situations where, if abuses take place, they’re corrected.”
</p>
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Qatar is a monarchy with a large expat and migrant labor population that has very limited rights. Migrant workers <a href="https://theathletic.com/3910236/2022/11/18/trade-union-in-qatar-warns-there-is-no-sign-that-sustainable-change-is-coming-for-migrant-workers/">can’t join labor unions</a>. The Guardian has reported that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/revealed-migrant-worker-deaths-qatar-fifa-world-cup-2022">6,500 migrant workers died</a> over a decade, and a <a href="https://cpj.org/2021/05/qatar-detains-kenyan-labor-rights-blogger-malcolm-bidali-without-charge/">Kenyan blogger</a> who wrote about it was arrested in 2021.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jpLiJS">
Beyond that, women are stifled by <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/03/29/everything-i-have-do-tied-man/women-and-qatars-male-guardianship-rules">guardianship laws</a>, LGBTQ people <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gay-people-living-under-radar-qatar-prepare-warily-world-cup-2022-11-19/">lack rights</a>, and internet activists have been <a href="https://www.gc4hr.org/news/view/3156">imprisoned</a>. The courts are <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2014/01/un-rights-expert-urges-qatar-seize-opportunity-reform-its-justice-system">not independent</a>, the press <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/25/qatar-world-cup-media-journalism-freedom-migrant-labor/">cannot freely cover</a> the country’s politics, and there are no serious elections for leadership and <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/country/qatar/freedom-world/2021">no political parties</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JuI4eB">
“If you’re in Qatar, and your rights are trampled on as a woman or as a queer person or anything, if you don’t like it, you’re just thrown into jail and good luck,” Wafa Ben-Hassine, a human rights attorney based in Washington, DC, told me. “It’s like you have certain rights and freedoms only if you belong to a certain class of protected people” — the wealthy or certain expats — “then they become not human rights.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qBETrx">
Qatar has largely eluded scrutiny over the years. Now that the country is getting so much attention, there have been some articles criticizing a <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/world-cup-2022-qatar-schedule-marred-western-anger-rcna57891">double standard</a> that Qatar is being held to. But Ben-Hassine said that scrutiny is merited.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dO6u0k">
“I’m happy that an Arab nation is hosting one of the most lucrative spectacles in the world,” Ben-Hassine said. “But it can be better, and it should do better. We should be clear-eyed about the state of affairs that this country has and aim to hold it to the highest standards.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="I5ik2t">
And it’s not just about Qatar. It’s about the world systems in which Qatar operates, and the ways in which the tournament serves Western interests, as Guardian columnist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/21/qatar-world-cup-british-double-standards-anger-gifts-property-arms-deals">Nesrine Malik writes</a>, at the expense of those who lack rights in Qatar.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jmFDEA">
Nasser Rabbat, a professor of Islamic architecture at MIT, put it this way: “I don’t want to absolve the patrons, the contractors, and the builders, from the amazing human rights violations they have sustained all these years. I’m not going to come to the defense of any of these countries in saying that their labor treatment is acceptable. It is absolutely unacceptable. But I’m not going to blame them as well.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d6qmTb">
“Because, at the end of the day, those who are making the most amount of money from the construction boom in the Gulf are companies from our part of the world, from the United States and from Europe,” Rabbat told me. “They are responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of workers, but we too are responsible for those deaths. And we too have benefited from those deaths.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1YjuUj">
So the World Cup — with the blitz of global media and the arrival of a million visitors — exposes Qatar to new pressures from the outside. In welcoming teams and fans from around the globe, the cameras may reveal the country’s limitations. Qatar’s deep investments in culture can’t shield it from criticism for the shallowness of rights there.
</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Balenciaga, Ahead Of My Time and Mi Arion impress</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>FIFA World Cup 2022 | Australia edge Tunisia 1-0 to keep knockout hopes alive</strong> - This is Australia’s first victory in 12 years, and third overall, at the World Cups</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>FIFA World Cup 2022 | Germany’s survival on the line against Spain</strong> - After a shock defeat against Japan in their opening encounter, another setback against Spain will mean Germany may be heading home early for the second straight World Cup</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>Renuka Singh, quite the Queen of Swing</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>FIFA World Cup 2022 | Belgium's Lukaku recovering well but will miss Morocco clash: Martinez</strong> - Lukaku has played two club games since August due to thigh and hamstring issues</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Small-scale industrial expo concludes in Kozhikode</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>GST Council to meet virtually on December 17</strong> - “The 48th Meeting of the GST Council will be held on 17th December, 2022 by video conference,” the GST Council said</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>Man kills alcoholic son over harassment, surrenders before police</strong> - According to the police, the deceased was a chronic alcoholic who would come home drunk and harass his parents for money</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>Tiff between the couple leads to infant’s death</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>BJP accuses Nitish Kumar of cultural policing; Bihar Govt hits back</strong> - The controversy erupted after Anamika Jain Amber, a poet from Uttar Pradesh, posted a video on social media alleging that her permission to recite poetry was “withdrawn at the eleventh hour by the administration”</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Italy landslide: Deaths feared after homes swept away in Ischia</strong> - A torrent of mud and debris dislodged trees, engulfed buildings and dragged cars into the sea.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Putin tells Russian soldiers’ mothers he shares their pain</strong> - Given the scale of destruction from Russia’s invasion, his words are certain to infuriate Ukrainians.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Facing a harsh winter on the front line</strong> - With no power or running water, the few remaining residents of Avdiivka have been urged to leave.</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>Swedish brothers face trial on Russia spy charges</strong> - Two brothers are accused of selling state secrets to Moscow in a case “unlike any other in 20 years”.</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>French vote for right to abortion in constitution</strong> - The proposal was prompted by increased restrictions in the US and Poland, but it faces a tough passage.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>[Updated] Here are all the best Black Friday deals live now</strong> - We’re wading through the Black Friday flood so you don’t have to. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1898433">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The best Black Friday deals for Apple devices</strong> - Apple is offering gift cards, and retailers are serving up discounts. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1899376">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Scientists debate the role of a virus in multiple sclerosis</strong> - Recent study offers evidence of link between Epstein-Barr and multiple sclerosis. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1899794">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The best Black Friday laptop deals we can find</strong> - Some favorite and notable laptops are getting solid discounts this week. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1899696">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Oxford scientists crack case of why ketchup splatters from near-empty bottle</strong> - Squeezing more slowly and doubling diameter of the nozzle can help prevent splatter - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1899879">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>A boob, vagina and asshole are debating who is the greatest of the three.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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Boob: I produce milk for babies and I am attractive to the opposite sex.
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Vagina: That’s nothing, I give birth to babies and can accommodate the opposite sex.
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Why are you still scrolling down? It’s your turn to speak.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Buddy2269"> /u/Buddy2269 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z4kxra/a_boob_vagina_and_asshole_are_debating_who_is_the/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z4kxra/a_boob_vagina_and_asshole_are_debating_who_is_the/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A guy with no arms and no legs is lying on a beach… (Warning: dark humor)</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Then this beautiful, voluptuous blonde comes walking by, sees the crippled guy and starts pitying him. So she walks up to him and asks him: “Would you like a kiss?”
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The guy looks up and says a bit hesitantly “Um… yes!”
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So the woman bends down and the two of them make out for a long while.
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Then the woman asks again: “And would you like me to… stroke your balls?”
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The guy immediately perks up and says: “Yes, please!”
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So the blonde starts stroking his family jewels and within minutes, he gets a hard-on.
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The woman smiles and asks: “And have you ever been fucked?”
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Sensing some good times coming, the guy replies: “No!”
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The blonde laughs and says: “Well, you will be – the high tide’s coming.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/TheJacksquatch1992"> /u/TheJacksquatch1992 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z53cfw/a_guy_with_no_arms_and_no_legs_is_lying_on_a/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z53cfw/a_guy_with_no_arms_and_no_legs_is_lying_on_a/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A man walks into a library, goes to the librarian, and says “I’m looking for a book called ’Pavlov’s Dog and Schrödinger’s Cat”.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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The librarian says “That rings a bell, but I’m not sure if it’s there or not”.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MikeNoble91"> /u/MikeNoble91 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z4scpq/a_man_walks_into_a_library_goes_to_the_librarian/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z4scpq/a_man_walks_into_a_library_goes_to_the_librarian/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>What do women and pools have in common?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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They both cost a lot of money to maintain for the amount of time you’re inside of them.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Dc2k4"> /u/Dc2k4 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z4sbyz/what_do_women_and_pools_have_in_common/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z4sbyz/what_do_women_and_pools_have_in_common/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>I wasn’t particularly close to my dad before he died</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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Which was lucky really, because he got hit by a bus
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/AdeptLengthiness8886"> /u/AdeptLengthiness8886 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z4bmdy/i_wasnt_particularly_close_to_my_dad_before_he/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z4bmdy/i_wasnt_particularly_close_to_my_dad_before_he/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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