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<title>03 May, 2023</title>
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<title>Covid-19 Sentry</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="covid-19-sentry">Covid-19 Sentry</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-preprints">From Preprints</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-pubmed">From PubMed</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-patent-search">From Patent Search</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-preprints">From Preprints</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Palestinian Attitudes Towards Settlers in the West Bank</strong> -
<div>
We present survey data from 1,573 West Bank Palestinians with which we estimate that the average Palestinian lives 14 km (UI 11 to 18 km) from the closest Israeli settlement. We also show with this data that while Palestinians in general hold negative attitudes towards settlers in the West Bank, Palestinians living in closer proximity to a settlement report more neutral attitudes towards settlers. Multivariate analysis shows that this effect appears to be driven by social and professional contact: Palestinians who have interacted with a settler or worked in a settlement present more positive attitudes towards settlers while distance loses its ability to predict attitudes. Since the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic, the majority of respondents stated that they have lost either a job or a business from COVID-related restrictions, suggesting that this positive contact effect could dissipate as Palestinians have less reason to interact with Israelis.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/nv35r/" target="_blank">Palestinian Attitudes Towards Settlers in the West Bank</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>CoronaNet: A Dyadic Dataset of Government Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic</strong> -
<div>
As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads around the world, governments have implemented a broad set of policies to limit the spread of the pandemic. In this paper we present an initial release of a large hand-coded dataset of more than 4,500 separate policy announcements from governments around the world. This data is being made publicly available, in combination with other data that we have collected (including COVID-19 tests, cases, and deaths) as well as a number of country-level covariates. Due to the speed of the COVID-19 outbreak, we will be releasing this data on a daily basis with a 5-day lag for record validity checking. In a truly global effort, our team is comprised of more than 190 research assistants across 18 time zones and makes use of cloud-based managerial and data collection technology in addition to machine learning coding of news sources. We analyze the dataset with a Bayesian time-varying ideal point model showing the quick acceleration of more harsh policies across countries beginning in mid-March and continuing to the present. While some relatively low-cost policies like task forces and health monitoring began early, countries generally adopted more harsh measures within a narrow time window, suggesting strong policy diffusion effects.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/dkvxy/" target="_blank">CoronaNet: A Dyadic Dataset of Government Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Getting Off the Gold Standard: A Holistic Approach to Causal Inference with Entropic Causal Graphs</strong> -
<div>
While many classify studies as either descriptive or causal, I argue that causality is a continuous construct, and different inference modes–experimental, observational and mechanistic–can at best provide only partial causal information. To discriminate between the relative value of different inference modes, I employ statistical entropy as a possible yardstick for evaluating research designs as different operations on causal graphs. Rather than dichotomize studies as either causal or descriptive, the concept of entropy instead emphasizes the relative causal knowledge gained from a given research finding. I employ this theory to clarify why and when researchers relied on divergent modes of inference to determine the efficacy of vaccines over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/a492b/" target="_blank">Getting Off the Gold Standard: A Holistic Approach to Causal Inference with Entropic Causal Graphs</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Relationship Satisfaction in the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-National Examination of Situational, Dispositional, and Relationship Factors</strong> -
<div>
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a large impact on various aspects of life, but questions about its effect on close relationships remain largely unanswered. In the present study, we examined changes in relationship satisfaction at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic by using a sample of 3,243 individuals from 68 different countries. Participants responded to an online survey that included questions about relationship aspects (e.g., shared time, housework division), special circumstances (e.g., exit restrictions), and enduring dispositions (e.g., insecure attachment). A decline in time shared with one’s partner was the strongest predictor of decreases in relationship satisfaction, resulting in a different pattern of findings for cohabiting and non-cohabiting individuals. Among the most influential moderators were lockdown policies and insecure attachment. Differential involvement of men and women in household duties remained largely unchanged. The findings offer insights into aggravating and/or protecting factors in couples’ responses to pandemic-related stressors.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/b5c8g/" target="_blank">Relationship Satisfaction in the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-National Examination of Situational, Dispositional, and Relationship Factors</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Did knowledge, attitudes, and practices matter during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh? Results from a web-based cross-sectional study</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Globally, health promotion measures have been undertaken in preventing the emergence and spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, whether these measures influence public awareness and behaviors is unclear and evidence is limited in particular in low-and-middle income country. We conducted an online survey among internet users in Bangladesh to understand the status and attributes of their knowledge, attitudes and practices towards COVID-19 during second wave of the pandemic when COVID educational information was more accessible to the public. Survey data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Chi-square tests, and multivariate logistic regression analysis. Of 964 respondents, 40.2%, 51.5%, and 64.3% had good knowledge, confident attitudes, and proper practices towards COVID-19, respectively. The multivariate regression analysis found that the knowledge and practice scores were associated (p&lt;0.05) with gender, age, and occupation. Females had better knowledge and practices compared to males (p&lt;0.05). There were major gaps in awareness, attitudes, and practices among internet users in particular males and elders that needs to be addressed to control the further spread of COVID-19 infections before at least COVID-19 vaccine become accessible at population level in Bangladesh.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.02.23289398v1" target="_blank">Did knowledge, attitudes, and practices matter during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh? Results from a web-based cross-sectional study</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Becoming A Resilient Scientist Series: An Intervention Program</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Compared to the general population, science trainees experience significant challenges and stressors that increase negative mental health outcomes. With COVID-19, the stressors of social distancing, isolation, truncated lab time, and uncertainty about the future have all likely exacerbated the effect. Now, more than ever, practical and effective interventions are vitally needed to address the core causes of science trainee stress and to increase resilience amongst trainee populations. This paper discusses a new resilience program targeted to biomedical trainees and scientists - Becoming a Resilient Scientist Series (BRS), a 5-part workshop coupled with facilitated group discussions dedicated to increasing resilience, specifically focusing on academic and research environments. Results show that BRS increases trainee resilience (primary outcome), with reductions in perceived stress, anxiety, and work presenteeism, and increases in ability to shift and persist, self-awareness, and self-efficacy (secondary outcomes). Furthermore, participants in the program reported high level of satisfaction, would highly recommend the program to others, and perceived positive changes in their resilience skills. To our knowledge, this is the first resilience program explicitly targeted for biomedical trainees and scientists, catering to the unique professional culture and environment in which these individuals work.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.02.23289388v1" target="_blank">Becoming A Resilient Scientist Series: An Intervention Program</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Sex and age-dependent alterations of drug consumption during the COVID-19 lockdown in Spain: Lessons learned for the future</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
In order to reduce the spread of COVID-19, lockdown has been one of the most implemented measures worldwide. Spain had one of the harshest lockdowns in Europe, impacting the social and psychological health of the population. The aim of this paper is to study how the lockdown has affected drug consumption patterns and the extent to which age and sex are influential factors. We have developed an online survey in which people were asked about their consumption of alcohol, marihuana, cocaine, and sedative and tranquilizers before and during the COVID-19 lockdown. Data revealed a general reduction in the consumption of all the drugs surveyed. Interestingly, when data was analysed by sex or age, we detected alterations in the consumption patterns depending on these variables that were of special relevance in the case of alcohol, marihuana and non-prescription sedatives and tranquilizers. Our data revealed a general decrease in the use of these drugs in the case of young adults, revealing that their use is strongly linked to social life, whereas the middle-aged population has experienced alterations in their consumption patterns, whereby their use has increased to daily. In addition, the use of non-prescription sedatives and tranquilizers has increased in specific populations. In conclusion, our data reveals important alterations during the lockdown in the consumption pattern of both legal and illegal drugs (sex and age dependent) in the Spanish population, and these alterations might be considered for future national strategies of preventative actions.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.02.23289404v1" target="_blank">Sex and age-dependent alterations of drug consumption during the COVID-19 lockdown in Spain: Lessons learned for the future</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Hear my Voice: Understanding how community health workers in the Peruvian Amazon expanded their roles to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic through Community-Based Participatory Action Research</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic led to the collapse of the Peruvian health system, which disrupted healthcare access for indigenous communities in the Amazon. We aimed to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic transformed the responsibilities of community health workers (CHWs) from indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon so policymakers can support indigenous health efforts. Methods: Fourteen CHWs from Loreto, Peru participated in a community-based Participatory Action Research (CBPR) project using Photovoice, a technique that encourages vulnerable groups to take photos and develop stories illustrating their lived experiences. Participants were recruited from Mamás del Río, a local university-based program, through purposive sampling. CHWs were trained in Photovoice and asked to photograph how the pandemic affected their lives and work. Participants met four times over five months to share photos and develop action items. Data were organized into key themes using a general inductive method. Final photos and action items were shared with policymakers during galleries in Iquitos and Lima. Results: CHWs took a total of 36 photos with 33 accompanying texts highlighting their roles during the pandemic. Four core themes emerged: (1) the collapse of social infrastructure, (2) the use of medicinal plants versus pharmaceuticals, (3) the community adaptations and struggles, and (4) the importance of CHWs. CHWs expanded their responsibilities or leveraged their leadership across these themes to support COVID-19 patients, vaccination, and mandates without training or resources from the government. CHWs asked policymakers for formal integration into the health system, standardization of CHW training, and better management of community pharmacies. Conclusion: CHWs, who work on a voluntary basis, took on additional roles during the pandemic with little to no training from the government. CHWs demonstrated how their roles could be better supported by the government to ameliorate future health catastrophes in the Peruvian Amazon.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.01.23289307v1" target="_blank">Hear my Voice: Understanding how community health workers in the Peruvian Amazon expanded their roles to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic through Community-Based Participatory Action Research</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Association of SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Cardiopulmonary Long COVID with Exercise Capacity and Chronotropic Incompetence among People with HIV</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: Long COVID has been associated with reduced exercise capacity, but whether SARS-CoV-2 infection or Long COVID is associated with reduced exercise capacity among people with HIV (PWH) has not been reported. We hypothesized that PWH with cardiopulmonary post-acute symptoms of COVID-19 (PASC) would have reduced exercise capacity due to chronotropic incompetence. Methods: We conducted cross-sectional cardiopulmonary exercise testing within a COVID recovery cohort that included PWH. We evaluated associations of HIV, prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, and cardiopulmonary PASC with exercise capacity (peak oxygen consumption, VO2) and adjusted heart rate reserve (AHRR, chronotropic measure) with adjustment for age, sex, and body mass index. Results: We included 83 participants (median age 54, 35% female). All 37 PWH were virally suppressed; 23 (62%) had prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, and 11 (30%) had PASC. Peak VO2 was reduced among PWH (80% predicted vs 99%; p=0.005), a difference of 5.5 ml/kg/min (95%CI 2.7-8.2, p&lt;0.001). Chronotropic incompetence more prevalent among PWH (38% vs 11%; p=0.002), and AHRR was reduced among PWH (60% vs 83%, p&lt;0.0001). Among PWH, exercise capacity did not vary by SARS-CoV-2 coinfection, but chronotropic incompetence was more common among PWH with PASC: 3/14 (21%) without SARS-CoV-2, 4/12 (25%) with SARS-CoV-2 without PASC, and 7/11 (64%) with PASC (p=0.04 PASC vs no PASC). Conclusions: Exercise capacity and chronotropy are lower among PWH compared to SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals without HIV. Among PWH, SARS-CoV-2 infection and PASC were not strongly associated with reduced exercise capacity. Chronotropic incompetence may be a mechanism limiting exercise capacity among PWH.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.01.23289358v1" target="_blank">Association of SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Cardiopulmonary Long COVID with Exercise Capacity and Chronotropic Incompetence among People with HIV</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Discovery and characterization of highly potent and selective covalent inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 PLpro</strong> -
<div>
Coronavirus infections, such as the global COVID-19 pandemic, have had a profound impact on many aspects of our daily life including working style, economy, and the healthcare system. To prevent the rapid viral transmission and speed up recovery from the infection, many academic organizations and industry research labs have conducted extensive research on discovering new therapeutic options for SARS-CoV-2. Among those efforts, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) inhibitors such as Remdesivir, Molnupiravir and 3CLpro inhibitor such as Nirmatrelvir (PaxlovidTM) have been widely used as the therapeutic options. Given the recent emergence of several new variants that caused a resurgence of the virus, it would be beneficial to discover more diverse therapeutic options with novel anti-viral mechanisms. In this regard, PLpro has been highlighted since it, along with 3CLpro, is one of the two most important proteases that are required for SARS-CoV-2 viral processing. While 3CLpro inhibitors were extensively investigated in the light of Emergency Use Authorizations of Nirmatrelvir, PLpro inhibitors have not been thoroughly investigated even preclinically. Thus, discovery efforts on antivirals acting against PLpro will be valuable. PLpro inhibitors may exert their activity by inhibiting viral replication and enhancing the host defense system through blocking virus-induced cell signaling events for evading host immune response. In this study, we report the discovery and development of two covalent irreversible PLpro inhibitors, HUP0109 and its deuterated analog DX-027, out of our quest for novel anti-COVID 19 therapeutic agents for the past two and half years. HUP0109 selectively targets the viral catalytic cleft of PLpro and covalently modifies its active site cysteine residue (C111). Promising results from preclinical evaluation suggest that DX-027 can be developed as a potential COVID-19 treatment.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.02.539082v1" target="_blank">Discovery and characterization of highly potent and selective covalent inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 PLpro</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Diverging maternal and infant cord antibody functions from SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination in pregnancy</strong> -
<div>
Immunization in pregnancy is a critical tool that can be leveraged to protect the infant with an immature immune system but how vaccine-induced antibodies transfer to the placenta and protect the maternal-fetal dyad remains unclear. Here, we compare matched maternal-infant cord blood from individuals who in pregnancy received mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, were infected by SARS-CoV-2, or had the combination of these two immune exposures. We find that some but not all antibody neutralizing activities and Fc effector functions are enriched with vaccination compared to infection. Preferential transport to the fetus of Fc functions and not neutralization is observed. Immunization compared to infection enriches IgG1-mediated antibody functions with changes in antibody post-translational sialylation and fucosylation that impact fetal more than maternal antibody functional potency. Thus, vaccine enhanced antibody functional magnitude, potency and breadth in the fetus are driven more by antibody glycosylation and Fc effector functions compared to maternal responses, highlighting prenatal opportunities to safeguard newborns as SARS-CoV-2 becomes endemic.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.01.538955v1" target="_blank">Diverging maternal and infant cord antibody functions from SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination in pregnancy</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Computational fitness estimates of SARS-CoV-2 mutations affecting spike protein binding to antibodies and ACE2</strong> -
<div>
Predicting the impact of new emerging virus mutations is of major interest in surveillance and for understanding the evolutionary forces of the pathogen. The SARS-CoV-2 surface spike-protein (S-protein) binds to human ACE2 receptors as a critical step in host cell infection. At the same time, S-protein binding to human antibodies neutralizes the virus and prevents interaction with ACE2. Here we combine these two binding properties in a simple fitness model, using structure-based computation of all possible mutation effects averaged over 10 ACE2 complexes and 10 antibody complexes of the S-protein. The ACE2-antibody selectivity change caused by mutation (i.e., the change binding to ACE2 minus the change in binding to immunity-inducing antibodies) is proposed to be a key metric of virus fitness, which furthermore enables substantial systematic error cancelation when evaluated. In this model, new mutations become fixated if they increase the selective binding to ACE2 relative to circulating antibodies, assuming that both are present in the host in a competitive binding situation. We use this model to categorize viral mutations that may best reach ACE2 before being captured by antibodies. Our model may aid the understanding of variant-specific vaccines and molecular mechanisms of viral evolution in the context of a human host.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.01.538902v1" target="_blank">Computational fitness estimates of SARS-CoV-2 mutations affecting spike protein binding to antibodies and ACE2</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Repeated Omicron infection alleviates SARS-CoV-2 immune imprinting</strong> -
<div>
The continuous emergence of highly immune evasive SARS-CoV-2 variants, like XBB.1.5 and XBB.1.16, highlights the need to update COVID-19 vaccine compositions. However, immune imprinting induced by wildtype (WT)-based vaccination would compromise the antibody response to Omicron-based boosters. Vaccination strategies that can counter immune imprinting are critically needed. In this study, we investigated the degree and dynamics of immune imprinting in mouse models and human cohorts, especially focusing on the role of repeated Omicron stimulation. Our results show that in mice, the efficacy of single Omicron-boosting is heavily limited by immune imprinting, especially when using variants antigenically distinct from WT, like XBB, while the concerning situation could be largely mitigated by a second Omicron booster. Similarly, in humans, we found that repeated Omicron infections could also alleviate WT-vaccination-induced immune imprinting and generate high neutralizing titers against XBB.1.5 and XBB.1.16 in both plasma and nasal mucosa. By isolating 781 RBD-targeting mAbs from repeated Omicron infection cohorts, we revealed that double Omicron exposure alleviates immune imprinting by generating a large proportion of highly matured and potent Omicron-specific antibodies. Importantly, epitope characterization using deep mutational scanning (DMS) showed that these Omicron-specific antibodies target distinct RBD epitopes compared to WT-induced antibodies, and the bias towards non-neutralizing epitopes observed in single Omicron exposures due to imprinting was largely restored after repeated Omicron stimulation, together leading to a substantial neutralizing epitope shift. Based on the DMS profiles, we identified evolution hotspots of XBB.1.5 RBD and demonstrated the combinations of these mutations could further boost XBB.1.5’s immune-evasion capability while maintaining high ACE2 binding affinity. Our findings suggest the WT component should be abandoned when updating COVID-19 vaccine antigen compositions to XBB lineages, and those who haven’t been exposed to Omicron yet should receive two updated vaccine boosters.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.01.538516v1" target="_blank">Repeated Omicron infection alleviates SARS-CoV-2 immune imprinting</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Death, Inequality, and the Pandemic in the Nation’s Capital</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Abrupt changes in mortality rates and life expectancy allow us to understand how shocks like COVID-19 can exacerbate health inequalities across groups. We look at Washington, D.C., a major city with a diverse population and long-standing socio-economic divisions, to describe the all-cause mortality trends from 2015 to 2021 by age, sex, race, and ward of residence. We report differences in cause-specific mortality pre- and post-COVID-19 outbreak and estimate the Years of Life Lost (YLL) attributable to COVID-19. We compute death rates using information from death certificates and the Census, and we calculate YLL using the life table approach, comparing the life expectancy of people with and without COVID-19. We find that in 2020 and 2021, there were respectively 1,128 and 629 excess deaths (158 per 100K and 94 per 100K) compared to the annual average over the previous five years, and 689 and 363 deaths in 2020 and 2021, respectively (97 per 100K and 54 per 100K) listing COVID-19 as a cause of death. Death rates in 2020 and 2021, compared to the five previous years, were higher for men than women by about 12pp and 5pp and occurred almost entirely among residents 45 and older. Excess deaths between 2020 and 2021 were higher for Black and Hispanic residents by about 286 and 97 per 100K, respectively–with the highest proportional increase (almost twofold) for Hispanics in 2020. YLL was highest for Hispanic males and lowest for White females.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.12.02.22283039v2" target="_blank">Death, Inequality, and the Pandemic in the Nation’s Capital</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Too WEIRD, Too Fast? Preprints about COVID-19 in psychology</strong> -
<div>
That behavioral sciences are overrepresented by some countries, in terms of samples and authors, is a well-documented finding. Considering the immediate policy implications, the present study aimed to scope whether this is true in the context of understanding the effects of the coronavirus as well. We assessed relevant preprints with “coronavirus” or “COVID-19” as keywords published on PsyArxiv between March-April, 2020, as well as between May-December, 2020 in terms of samples, participants, and authors. We found that some countries, such as the US, were overrepresented in both waves; papers based on authors from such countries, and employing samples from such countries were also more likely to be published in journals with higher impact factors, and were also more likely to be cited more. Implications, especially regarding a reductionist bifurcation of research as “WEIRD” or “non-WEIRD,” are discussed.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/jeh84/" target="_blank">Too WEIRD, Too Fast? Preprints about COVID-19 in psychology</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>Long COVID-19 Syndrome Lifestyle Intervention Study</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Long COVID-19 Syndrome<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Dietary Supplement: Low carbohydrate diet intervention<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Southern California<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 Coping and Resilience Intervention for Adolescents</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Pandemic<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: Coping and Resilience Intervention for Adolescents;   Other: Printing materials of Coping and Resilience Intervention for Adolescents<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Taipei Medical University<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>Effectiveness of Modified Diaphragmatic Training for Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease Post Covid-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   GERD;   Post COVID-19 Condition;   Diaphragm Issues<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: modified diaphragmatic training;   Other: standard diaphragmatic training<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Indonesia University<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Safety, Tolerability and Pharmacokinetics Study of RAY1216 in Healthy Adult Participants</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019)<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: RAY1216 dose 1;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 2;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 3;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 4 &amp;ritonavir   Drug: RAY1216 dose 5;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 6;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 7;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 8;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 9;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 10<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Guangdong Raynovent Biotech Co., Ltd<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>Computerized Training of Attention and Working Memory in Post COVID-19 Patients With Cognitive Complaints</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Cognitive Impairment;   Cognition Disorder;   Memory Disorders;   Attention Deficit;   Memory Impairment;   Memory Loss;   Attention Impaired<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Device: RehaCom<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Erasmus Medical Center<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>Strategies and Treatments for Respiratory Infections &amp;Amp; Viral Emergencies (STRIVE): Immune Modulation Strategy Trial</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: abatacept infusion;   Drug: Placebo group<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Minnesota<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Evaluation of the Efficacy and Safety of Nano-S1</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Pneumonia<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: NANOS1 , argent colloïdal ,<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   General Administration of Military Health, Tunisia<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>Digital Mental Health Care for COVID-19 High-Risk Populations - Phase 2</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Stigma, Social;   Help-Seeking Behavior<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: Adjusted Content Intervention;   Other: Non-Adjusted Intervention Video<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene, Inc.;   Columbia University<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Vaccine Hesitancy in Black/African Americans With Rheumatic Diseases</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Rheumatic Diseases;   COVID-19 Vaccine;   COVID-19;   SLE<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Behavioral: COVID-19 vaccine and booster training, and importance<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Northwestern University;   Brigham and Women’s Hospital;   Boston Children’s Hospital;   Boston Medical Center<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Study of mRNA-based Influenza and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Multi-component Vaccines in Healthy Adults</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   SARS-CoV-2;   Influenza<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Fluarix;   Biological: mRNA-1083.1;   Biological: mRNA-1083.2;   Biological: mRNA-1083.3;   Biological: mRNA-1010.4;   Biological: mRNA-1283.222;   Biological: mRNA-1273.222;   Biological: mRNA-1010;   Biological: Fluzone HD<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   ModernaTX, 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>imPROving Quality of LIFe In the Long COVID Patient</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Post-COVID-19 Syndrome;   Long COVID;   Long Covid19;   COVID-19;   POTS - Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome;   Post COVID-19 Condition;   Post-COVID Syndrome;   Post COVID-19 Condition, Unspecified;   Postinfectious Inflammation;   Postinfectious Disorder<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Nirmatrelvir/ritonavir;   Drug: Placebo/ritonavir<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Karolinska Institutet;   Karolinska University Hospital;   Pfizer<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Study to Learn About How Itraconazole Affects the Blood Level of Study Medicine (PF-07817883) in Healthy Adults.</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Healthy<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: PF-07817883;   Drug: Itraconazole<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Pfizer<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Obesity, Insulin Resistance, and PASC: Persistent SARS-CoV-2</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Long COVID;   Insulin Resistance;   Insulin Sensitivity<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Procedure: Adipose Tissue Biopsy;   Diagnostic Test: Steady State Plasma Glucose (SSPG) Test<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Stanford University<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>Impaired potency of neutralizing antibodies against cell-cell fusion mediated by SARS-CoV-2</strong> - The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariants have dominated the pandemic due to their high transmissibility and immune evasion conferred by the spike mutations. The Omicron subvariants can spread by cell-free virus infection and cell-cell fusion, the latter of which is more effective but has not been extensively investigated. In this study, we developed a simple and high-throughput assay that provides a rapid readout to quantify cell-cell fusion mediated by the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins without using live…</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>In silico Study of Antiviral Activity of Polyphenol Compounds from <em>Ocimum basilicum</em> by Molecular Docking, ADMET, and Drug-Likeness Analysis</strong> - CONCLUSION: Based on the data obtained, Apigenin-7-glucuronide and dihydrokaempferol-3-glucoside are compounds that have more potential to have an antiviral effect on the main protease enzyme than aesculetin. Based on pharmacokinetic parameters and drug-likeness, three compounds can be used as lead compounds for further research.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Targeting the vital non-structural proteins (NSP12, NSP7, NSP8 and NSP3) from SARS-CoV-2 and inhibition of RNA polymerase by natural bioactive compound naringenin as a promising drug candidate against COVID-19</strong> - The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2-induced respiratory infections is now a major challenge worldwide. There is currently no specific antiviral drug to prevent or treat this disease. Infection with COVID-19 seriously needs to find effective therapeutic agents. In the present study, naringenin, as a potential inhibitor candidate for RNA Polymerase SARS-CoV-2 was compared with remdesivir (FDA-approved drug) and GS-441,524 (Derivative of the drug remdesivir) by screening with wild-type and mutant…</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 single inactivating amino acid change in the SARS-CoV-2 NSP3 Mac1 domain attenuates viral replication and pathogenesis <em>in vivo</em></strong> - Despite unprecedented efforts, our therapeutic arsenal against SARS-CoV-2 remains limited. The conserved macrodomain 1 (Mac1) in NSP3 is an enzyme exhibiting ADP-ribosylhydrolase activity and a possible drug target. To determine the therapeutic potential of Mac1 inhibition, we generated recombinant viruses and replicons encoding catalytically inactive NSP3 Mac1 domain by mutating a critical asparagine in the active site. While substitution to alanine (N40A) reduced activity by ∼10-fold,…</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>An <em>in vitro</em> experimental pipeline to characterize the binding specificity of SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies</strong> - The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has led to over 760 million cases and &gt;6.8 million deaths worldwide. We developed a panel of human neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) targeting the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein using Harbour H2L2 transgenic mice immunized with Spike receptor binding domain (RBD) (1). Representative antibodies from genetically-distinct families were evaluated for inhibition of…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>An <em>ex vivo</em> human precision-cut lung slice platform provides insight into SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis and antiviral drug efficacy</strong> - COVID-19 has claimed millions of lives since the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, and lung disease appears the primary cause of the death in COVID-19 patients. However, the underlying mechanisms of COVID-19 pathogenesis remain elusive, and there is no existing model where the human disease can be faithfully recapitulated and conditions for the infection process can be experimentally controlled. Herein we report the establishment of an ex vivo human precision-cut lung slice (hPCLS) platform for studying…</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>Ruxolitinib as an Effective Treatment for Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis Secondary to SARS-Cov-2 Infection: A Case Report</strong> - CONCLUSION: Clinicians should be aware of the possibility of HLH secondary to mild SARS-CoV-2 infection and take timely therapeutic measures to inhibit an inflammatory factor storm. Ruxolitinib is a potential choice for COVID-19 related HLH.</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 SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease suppresses type I interferon responses by deubiquitinating STING</strong> - The SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease (PLpro), which has deubiquitinating activity, suppresses the type I interferon (IFN-I) antiviral response. We investigated the mechanism by which PLpro antagonizes cellular antiviral responses. In HEK392T cells, PLpro removed K63-linked polyubiquitin chains from Lys^(289) of the stimulator of interferon genes (STING). PLpro-mediated deubiquitination of STING disrupted the STING-IKKε-IRF3 complex that induces the production of IFN-β and IFN-stimulated cytokines…</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>Mucin-Inspired Single-Chain Polymer (MIP) Fibers as Potent SARS-CoV-2 Inhibitors</strong> - Mucins are the key component of the defensive mucus barrier. They are extended fibers of very high molecular weight with diverse biological functions depending strongly on their specific structural parameters. Here, we present a mucin-inspired nanostructure, produced via a synthetic methodology to prepare methacrylate-based dendronized polysulfates (MIP-1) on a multi gram scale with relatively high molecular weight (MW = 450 kDa) and thiol end-functionalized mucin-inspired polymer (MIP) via RAFT…</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>Effectiveness of estrogen and its derivatives over dexamethasone in the treatment of COVID-19</strong> - Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and dexamethasone is a glucocorticoid widely used for its treatment. Dexamethasone is not used in non-severe cases due to its immunosuppressant action. So, considering this, Estrogen and Estetrol were tested for the treatment of COVID-19 as they all possess a common steroid ring and dislike dexamethasone, they are immunoenhancer. Virtual screening of test ligands was performed through molecular docking,…</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>Oridonin inhibits SARS-CoV-2 replication by targeting viral proteinase and polymerase</strong> - COVID-19 has become a global public health crisis since its outbreak in China in December 2019. Currently there are few clinically effective drugs to combat SARS-CoV-2 infection. The main protein (M^(pro)), papain-like protease (PLpro) and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) of SARS-CoV-2 are involved in the viral replication, and might be prospective targets for anti-coronavirus drug development. Here, we investigated the antiviral activity of oridonin, a natural small-molecule compound,…</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>Advanced Nitric Oxide Generating Nanomedicine for Therapeutic Applications</strong> - Nitric oxide (NO), a gaseous transmitter extensively present in the human body, regulates vascular relaxation, immune response, inflammation, neurotransmission, and other crucial functions. Nitrite donors have been used clinically to treat angina, heart failure, pulmonary hypertension, and erectile dysfunction. Based on NO’s vast biological functions, it further can treat tumors, bacteria/biofilms and other infections, wound healing, eye diseases, and osteoporosis. However, delivering NO is…</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>Identification of diphenylurea derivatives as novel endocytosis inhibitors that demonstrate broad-spectrum activity against SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A virus both in vitro and in vivo</strong> - Rapid evolution of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and influenza A virus (IAV) poses enormous challenge in the development of broad-spectrum antivirals that are effective against the existing and emerging viral strains. Virus entry through endocytosis represents an attractive target for drug development, as inhibition of this early infection step should block downstream infection processes, and potentially inhibit viruses sharing the same entry route. In this study,…</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 Role of Mitochondria in Phytochemically Mediated Disease Amelioration</strong> - Mitochondrial dysfunction may cause cell death, which has recently emerged as a cancer prevention and treatment strategy mediated by chemotherapy drugs or phytochemicals. However, most existing drugs cannot target cancerous cells and may adversely affect normal cells via side effects. Mounting studies have revealed that phytochemicals such as resveratrol could ameliorate various diseases with dysfunctional or damaged mitochondria. For instance, resveratrol can regulate mitophagy, inhibit…</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>Fighting cytokine storm and immunomodulatory deficiency: By using natural products therapy up to now</strong> - A novel coronavirus strain (COVID-19) caused severe illness and mortality worldwide from 31 December 2019 to 21 March 2023. As of this writing, 761,071,826 million cases have been diagnosed worldwide, with 6,879,677 million deaths accorded by WHO organization and has spread to 228 countries. The number of deaths is closely connected to the growth of innate immune cells in the lungs, mainly macrophages, which generate inflammatory cytokines (especially IL-6 and IL-1β) that induce "cytokine storm…</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>The Limits of Joe Biden’s Calls for Press Freedom</strong> - After decades of exposing corruption in Guatemala, the journalist José Rubén Zamora has been jailed. Why can’t the U.S. help him? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-limits-of-joe-bidens-calls-for-press-freedom">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Deregulating Banks Is Dangerous</strong> - As First Republic Bank is sold to JPMorgan, the Federal Reserve relearns some important lessons. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/deregulating-banks-is-dangerous">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Renewed Importance of the Texas Gay Rodeo</strong> - As conservative politicians try to control expressions of gender and sexuality, a rural haven from hostility offers competition and comfort. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-southwest/the-renewed-importance-of-the-texas-gay-rodeo">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Curious Side Effects of Medical Transparency</strong> - When we peer into our patient portals, we don’t always see ourselves more clearly. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/essay/the-curious-side-effects-of-medical-transparency">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Risky Gamble of Kevin McCarthy’s Debt-Ceiling Strategy</strong> - In the face of a catastrophic default, the House Speaker has pitted his most extreme members against the President. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/the-risky-gamble-of-kevin-mccarthys-debt-ceiling-strategy">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Loneliness is killing Americans. It’s time to do something.</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A person sitting on an unmade bed, looking out the window." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/QN-ITLf6QruoUtmLk1rNw_4euE8=/576x0:5184x3456/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72244806/GettyImages_1440229538.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
A new US Surgeon General’s report warns America’s loneliness crisis is making people sicker. | Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
3 takeaways from a landmark Surgeon General’s report on the US loneliness crisis.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qVovmb">
The US Surgeon General is sounding an <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf">alarm</a>: Americans are <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/11/21245087/america-loneliness-epidemic-coronavirus-pandemic-together">more lonely and socially disconnected than ever</a>, and it’s a serious threat to their <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/1/30/14219498/loneliness-hurts">physical and mental health</a> that demands urgent policy action.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="91UhTU">
A <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf">new report</a> from the Surgeon General says that social isolation’s effects on mortality are equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes every day. Social isolation (an objective measure of lacking connection to families, friends, and community) and loneliness (a subjective measure of feeling disconnected) contribute to a person having a higher risk of heart disease, stroke, anxiety, depression, and dementia, and make people more susceptible to infectious diseases.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LSlUL5">
Those individual health effects ripple out into the broader community. Communities with more social cohesion have less disease and lower all-cause mortality than those with less so-called social capital. They are better prepared for natural disasters and experience less violence.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xUOT2o">
Reports from the surgeon general are reserved for urgent public health issues that require immediate action — and the nation’s top public health official argues that loneliness and isolation qualify.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pqKez4">
“Given the profound consequences of loneliness and isolation, we have an opportunity, and an obligation, to make the same investments in addressing social connection that we have made in addressing tobacco use, obesity, and the addiction crisis,” Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wrote in the opening of the report.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4y4HmJ">
The advisory breaks down the measures of social isolation and loneliness in the US, how they can affect people’s health, and introduces recommendations about how to being to alleviate this epidemic of loneliness. Here are the report’s main takeaways.
</p>
<h3 id="w8NTX6">
<ol type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Americans are lonelier and more isolated than ever
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ubWAUi">
Americans are experiencing more loneliness and isolation than at any time in recent memory. Those trends were already underway well before the Covid-19 pandemic, though living through three years of a public health crisis has likely accelerated them, at least for some people.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NYfd0I">
Half of Americans say they experience loneliness, according to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31203639/">several</a> recent <a href="https://newsroom.thecignagroup.com/loneliness-epidemic-persists-post-pandemic-look">surveys</a>: Less than 40 percent <a href="https://www.gallup.com/analytics/402911/state-of-social-connections-study.aspx">said</a> in a 2022 study that they felt very connected to others.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XwtNa1">
Loneliness is subjective, and the report notes that a certain amount of solitude, even undesired solitude, can help people become more resilient. But more objective measures also reveal a country in which people are increasingly isolated from one another.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wVfcIa">
In the 1970s, almost half of Americans (45 percent) said they could generally trust other people, according to the surgeon general’s report. Today, less than a third <a href="https://gss.norc.org/Documents/codebook/GSS%202021%20Codebook%20R1.pdf">say</a> the same. The amount of time that Americans <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235282732200310X">say</a> they spend alone every day had risen by nearly 30 minutes from 2003 to 2019 and increased another 20-plus minutes in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, which amounted to almost an additional full day of solitude over the course of a month. The amount of time that young people (ages 15-24) spend with their friends in person <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235282732200310X">dropped</a> by nearly 70 percent from 2003 to 2020, as long-running trends got worse when the pandemic set in. Half of the country <a href="https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-american-friendship-change-challenges-and-loss/">says</a> they have three or fewer close friends, double the number from 1990. Just 16 percent of Americans <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/what-unites-and-divides-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/">say</a> they feel very attached to their local community.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8tjoAM">
The causes for this increasing isolation are complex. People are <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/families-and-living-arrangements.html">less likely</a> to get married and are having fewer children. Americans are <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/">much less likely</a> to belong to religious organizations, a historical source of community connection. These are legitimate lifestyle choices. But, as the report notes, people need to be aware of the risks that loneliness brings to their health in order to better appreciate the need to seek out social connection.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tVrv5I">
Other risk factors for loneliness include being a racial or ethnic minority or identifying as LGBTQ, experiencing discrimination, having a lower income, and living alone. Being in poor physical or mental health is also associated with more isolation, suggesting a feedback loop in which loneliness not only contributes to poor health but perpetuates it. The percentage of households that comprise a single person living by themselves has <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/families-and-living-arrangements.html">doubled</a> from 1960 to 2022, to the point that now nearly one in three Americans lives alone.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uco1p2">
The role of technology in fostering loneliness has been scrutinized lately, but the report notes that the relationship is complex. Social media can create opportunities for people to connect with others, but it can also exacerbate loneliness. People who spend more than two hours a day on social media or who are the targets of online harassment <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28279545/">report feeling more isolated</a> from other people.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nZ0tpf">
The pandemic likewise had a mixed effect on people’s connection to other people. About one in four Americans <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/09/01/the-internet-and-the-pandemic/">said</a> they felt less close to their family at the beginning of Covid-19, but one in five said they felt more connected, an indication that perhaps “the pandemic exacerbated existing family dynamics of connection or disconnection,” according to the report.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RllG6F">
What’s clear from the surgeon general’s report is that neither the pandemic nor technology should be seen as unique causes of this loneliness epidemic, but instead as accelerants. The broader social infrastructure — both cultural and physical — must be addressed in order to alleviate people’s isolation. Because it is quite literally killing them.
</p>
<h3 id="d9eqzb">
<ol start="2" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Loneliness and social isolation negatively affect a person’s and a community’s health
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ydX1HE">
How does isolation affect a person’s physical and mental health? The relationship is once again multifold: physical, psychological, and behavioral.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9nl7Dq">
Isolation can lead to a person experiencing a higher amount of stress, which affects mental well-being as well as causing the body to release stress hormones. Those hormones can contribute to higher levels of inflammation, which is associated with a wide spectrum of health problems. People with stronger social connections are also more likely to behave in ways that lead to better health: more physical activity, better nutrition, and even better management of chronic diseases.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PswTIL">
The empirical evidence is consistent: More social connection is linked with better health outcomes and vice versa. The surgeon general’s report notes that <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/425958/">one of the first large-scale epidemiological studies</a>, conducted in the late 1970s, found that people with a low amount of social connection were more than twice as likely to die during the study period as people with high social connection, even after adjusting for age, health, and economic status. A more <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316">recent systemic review of the available research</a> also found that a high level of social connection led people to be 50 percent more likely to survive over a long follow-up period, which averaged 7.5 years across the nearly 150 studies included in the review.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jRVmzP">
As the report concluded in one of its most striking passages:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LV0z0D">
Indeed, the effects of social connection, isolation, and loneliness on mortality are comparable, and in some cases greater, than those of many other risk factors including lifestyle factors (e.g., smoking, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity), traditional clinical risks factors (e.g., high blood pressure, body mass index, cholesterol levels), environmental factors (e.g., air pollution), and clinical interventions (e.g., flu vaccine, high blood pressure medication, rehabilitation).
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jL0ueg">
Social isolation is associated with higher rates of heart disease, stroke, hypertension, and diabetes. People with stronger social connections are correspondingly <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28087811/">less likely</a> to be readmitted to a hospital after being treated for heart failure and they are generally <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28578632/">better at managing chronic conditions like diabetes</a> than people who are more isolated.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="K2xi6p">
Loneliness also comes with the expected effects on a person’s mental well-being. More isolation is linked to higher rates of anxiety, depression, and self-harm, even if once again the report cautions that these outcomes have complicated origins. But the connection is unavoidable: One study <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33096330/">found</a> that men who live alone are twice as likely to die by suicide.
</p>
<aside id="4QS9hN">
<div>
</div>
</aside>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tao3HK">
These trends apply not only at the individual level, but also to entire communities. Communities with higher social capital — which can be linked to family structure and involvement, trust in community institutions, popularity of volunteerism, levels of participation in political discussions and voting efforts, and cohesion among community members — experience better health.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gWfZt0">
One study <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9314802/">found</a> that a 10 percent increase in the number of people in an area who say they feel connected to others was associated with an 8 percent drop in all-cause mortality. A county-level analysis of deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0245135">found</a> that “lower levels of social capital were associated with a higher number of cases and deaths from COVID-19 infection,” the report noted.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VLdmfS">
Those population-level effects trickle down to communities with more social cohesion having better experiences during natural disasters (in part because of better preparation) and seeing less violence.
</p>
<h3 id="VpiPlP">
<ol start="3" type="1">
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">How the US can begin to address its loneliness epidemic
</li></ol></h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pIukzP">
So the problem is clear. Objectively and subjectively, Americans are more isolated and lonely than ever. That isolation leads to worse health outcomes at both the individual and community level.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hpFw9D">
So what do we do about it? The Surgeon General’s office sketches out the principles upon which a successful strategy to alleviate the US loneliness epidemic could be built.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cAaANJ">
The underlying causes here span from the individual (chronic diseases, personality, socioeconomic status) to the relational (household, quality of interpersonal relationships) to the community (outdoor spaces, community organizations, health systems) to the societal (norms and values, civic engagement, historical inequities).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pidb1B">
The report includes a long appendix with recommendations targeted to specific organizations at different levels of society, from the government (federal, state, and local) to individual physicians, academics, schools, employers, and even the media.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WGDFjv">
But in broad strokes, the report recommends six pillars for making Americans feel more connected and less isolated from one another:
</p>
<ol>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="brmI1d">
Strengthen the social infrastructure: more communal spaces, more social activities, and better infrastructure to help people access them
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="t6OStD">
Develop “pro-connection” public policies that account for the need to foster connection when passing laws or formulating regulations, from transportation to education to housing
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qUu8uv">
Mobilize the health sector: train health care providers to identify people at risk of isolation and better equip providers to connect patients with the other forms of social support they may need
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WhLgBT">
Reform digital environments: require more transparency from large tech companies and establish safeguards (such as restrictions for young people) that could ameliorate the worst effects of social media on vulnerable populations
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IizxRJ">
Deepen our knowledge: support academic research and public information campaigns to improve our understanding of the connections between isolation and health and make people more aware of the problem in the first place
</li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BpbVAj">
Cultivate a culture of connection: use all of the vectors available, from politics to entertainment, to reinforce the values of connection and reduce the polarization that can lead to people feeling more isolated in our modern age
</li>
</ol>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mQjcmd">
These are enormous and daunting undertakings. But they are necessary, given the scale of the challenge before the country.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zX9ZAY">
“We are called to build a movement to mend the social fabric of our nation,” Murthy wrote. “It will take all of us … working together to destigmatize loneliness and change our cultural and policy response to it.”
</p></li>
<li><strong>How “enlightened selfishness” can lead to a more fulfilling marriage</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="An illustration of a couple walking hand-in-hand on a beach. On one of their shoulders rides a child." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1D2rwyH7CJviKWTgH9nSiJ9wM7E=/164x0:4735x3428/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72244727/GettyImages_1264127517.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Getty Images/fStop
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The philosopher Agnes Callard on pushing the boundaries of modern relationships.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TjgIOT">
If I asked you to imagine the stereotypical philosopher, who’s the first person that springs to mind? If it’s a historical figure, there’s a decent chance it’s Socrates. Which makes sense, since he’s arguably the founder of the entire tradition of western philosophy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PPWhfS">
And even if you don’t know much about Socrates, you probably know at least one thing he said: “An unexamined life is not worth living.” That was the guiding principle of his life and it got him into all kinds of trouble in ancient Athens — most famously, leading to his public execution.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="faCuYf">
It would be way too much to call any current figure a modern-day Socrates, but when I think of public philosophers carrying out his legacy in their own way, I think of Agnes Callard. She teaches at the University of Chicago and is constantly writing for mainstream publications like the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/philosophy-profundity-purpose-limits/673471/">Atlantic</a> and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/21/opinion/cancel-culture-friendship.html">New York Times</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="POydWN">
Most recently, Callard was — how shall we put it? — “in the news” after <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/13/agnes-callard-profile-marriage-philosophy">the New Yorker’</a>s Rachel Aviv published a profile of her and her highly unconventional marriage. If you’re interested in the details of that — including the fact that Callard lives with both her husband and ex-husband, all three of whom are philosophers — the piece is worth a read. But I saw it as a fascinating example of Callard’s willingness to think publicly and put herself out there.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eVq6US">
She’s currently working on a book about Socrates (her philosophical role model), so I invited her onto <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-project-of-socratic-love-with-agnes-callard/id1081584611?i=1000611288941"><em>The Gray Area</em></a> to talk about her approach to public philosophy in general and her thoughts on love and marriage in particular. Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="n0c49i">
As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, so listen and follow <em>The Gray Area</em> on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/search/vox%20conversations">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/vox-conversations">Stitcher</a>, or wherever you find podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday.
</p>
<div id="DtkB6b">
</div>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="dXybHc"/>
<h4 id="HYlYaf">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HlzCzm">
Do you think that we expect too much from our relationships? Is it unfair or unreasonable to expect one person to be enough for anyone?
</p>
<h4 id="Xbw4wP">
Agnes Callard
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zy5I6v">
I think the question, do we expect too much, and the question of expecting one person to be enough, seems separate to me.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dUxMX2">
I think we don’t expect enough. I’m a Socratic about romance and romantic relationships, and Socrates’ theory of romance is that the way that we behave in connection with romance, is, he uses the Greek word <em>maniae, </em>Mania. It’s like we’re crazy. We become crazy. This kind of craziness, nobody actually thinks, “Oh, the person should be institutionalized or they need to get help.” We think, “Oh yeah, of course, they’re in love, so that’s normal.” We’ve decided that crazy is normal in a certain kind of context. And to show you how twisted that is, we could substitute another kind of motivation for romance. Like, say the thing that people do where, they keep calling their ex and they keep texting them and they hate this person now. And they don’t wanna get back together with them, but they can’t stop themselves texting them. Totally familiar phenomenon, right?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zs7Vh1">
Imagine somebody did that with a restaurant. They wanted to go to a certain restaurant and the restaurant’s closed. So they stand outside the door of the restaurant and they’re banging on the door and you walk up to them and you’re like, “You know, this one’s closed. There’s all these other open ones. Do you want to go to one?” “No, I can only go to this one.” “Is it because the food is so good?” “No, I hate the food.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9RhiO1">
If somebody did that with respect to food, we’d be like, there’s something wrong with you. You need help. But when we do it about romance, we’re like, yeah, that’s how it goes. So Socrates thinks this needs interpretation. We need a theory of why it is that this certain kind of craziness starts to take over us.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IzJXty">
And his theory is that it’s a sign that we didn’t come from this place that we’re in now. We’re here, but our home is in another world. And in that other world, the rules are different and things are perfectly beautiful.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G1jacH">
But of course the other person whom you’ve gotten this glimpse of perfection isn’t themselves perfect, and so what is it to hold onto that glimpse of perfection? I think Socrates thought that what it is to hold onto it is to try to reconcile yourself to the thought that it’s not actually in that person, but that that person could be a way of getting at it together with you.
</p>
<h4 id="bWGjDI">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XyzXHB">
I had an excerpt from Plato’s Symposium read at my wedding — <a href="https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-eng-102-college-writing-ii/chapter/aristophaness-speech-in-platos-symposium/">the famous speech from Aristophanes</a>. Aristophanes is this comic figure, but in the Symposium, he’s being super serious about love. And he has this idea that at some point in our past, each pair of lovers were one whole and we were separated. And our great quest is to find that person again and reunite. That’s obviously not true, but it’s beautiful. And while I still think that speech is fantastic, I’m not sure it’s the right way to think about love anymore.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LahUkp">
It sounds a lot like this notion that the person you love should complete you or help you complete yourself, which sounds a little bit like what you’re saying, unless I’m wrong about that?
</p>
<h4 id="8epNri">
Agnes Callard
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bgVayh">
So the way the Symposium was structured is it was a bunch of speeches and then there’s Socrates’s speech and then Alcibiades’s speech.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="C1XX0A">
Socrates says, “I once heard a story about how lovers love their other half?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UxHEyl">
He doesn’t name Aristophanes. It’s like a subtweet. “I once heard a story about how lovers love the other half. That story is wrong. That’s not what love is.”
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="University of Chicago philosopher Agnes Callard" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/17yF_pK2rCW0nwcIl4ZYlbNZfo0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24627887/Faculty_Photo_Callard.png"/> <cite>Courtesy of the University of Chicago</cite>
<figcaption>
University of Chicago philosopher Agnes Callard
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="W1lh9g">
So Socrates explicitly comes out against Aristophanes and he says Aristophanes is wrong, don’t interpret my speech as saying the same thing as Aristophanes’s speech. Because Aristophanes’s speech suggests that all you gotta do is find your other half and then that’s it. You’re complete. And I think Socrates would say you’ve confused the beginning of the story for the end of the story.<strong> </strong>
</p>
<h4 id="jDuCDU">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1ZtGIU">
When talking about your divorce, you describe that feeling of losing the initial intoxication that comes with love. We all know what that’s like. I guess my question to you is, where does that leave you in the end? That feeling is never sustainable, right?
</p>
<h4 id="1QUoEF">
Agnes Callard
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JvcJfc">
There’s certain feelings like when you first arrive at campus in your first day of classes or when your kid is born and you see them for the first time.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NtXqAO">
There are these kind of transformative moments that can’t last. And romance just gives us a big, strong version of that. That sudden experience of everything being possible, it doesn’t last. But I don’t think that’s the same thing as saying it’s not sustainable.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7muTwi">
The feeling isn’t sustainable, that kind of excitement dissipates over time. But hopefully it doesn’t dissipate so quickly as for you to try to grab onto what is going to be this project that you’re going to engage in with this person.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2bLDJQ">
I see falling in love as your chance to hook onto it, and in a way, that experience has to go away. Because that experience is the Aristophanic experience. It’s the experience of, “This person completes me, I’ve found my other half, I’m done.” It’s the experience of being done and in order to have the other experience of just getting started, that has to somewhat fade.
</p>
<h4 id="r259K4">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eIVSKG">
If I understand correctly, the Socratic model of a good life is this attempt to get closer to our ideals. And when someone enters our life and helps us in that aspiration, that’s love and that’s great. And when someone doesn’t do that for us anymore or we don’t do that for them, maybe that’s the time to part ways. And that doesn’t necessarily make your marriage a failure or anyone’s marriage of failure. But let me push back a little bit on this.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NEmAlW">
You poke fun at your own selfishness in that<em> </em>New Yorker profile. And I wonder if you think it’s possible that this is too self-centered, a way of thinking about marriage and family and maybe even life itself? Maybe the point of these experiences is precisely to give ourselves over to other people to care less about ourselves.
</p>
<h4 id="nuGx8y">
Agnes Callard
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1L0DQh">
There are bad kinds of selfishness. Let’s say, there’s a narrow kind of selfishness that is born from an impoverished sense of what yourself is, but there’s bad kinds of selflessness that are just born from conformity and a narrow set of expectations as to what other people want. I think what’s enticing about another person in the context of love and also in some other kinds of philosophical context is that they bring out possibilities for yourself that you didn’t know were there before. In that sense, it can also be selfless because it’s also directed toward their self, but there are many forms of selflessness that are very unromantic and that people don’t really want from us.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="L2GZnY">
So I think it is a bit selfish, but as long as it’s a kind of enlightened selfishness, I’m okay with that. And at that point, I’m not sure that it is so different from at least one kind of selflessness.
</p>
<h4 id="999Bo0">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qFqQGD">
What role is there in this model of love and marriage for sacrifice?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Vo43LY">
Like what role is there for the other? And I don’t mean the other merely as a vehicle for our own philosophical growth, but the other, for the sake of the other? If we live entirely or too much for ourselves following our own passions, then I think we can end up bulldozing over the lives of the people we love. But there are higher and deeper forms of love, right?
</p>
<h4 id="d5SCvW">
Agnes Callard
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="78bTvQ">
I think that love involves something known as sacrifice. It involves unpleasantness. It’s a package deal and part of the package is suffering. It’s true of just about every attachment that you have to another human being — it comes with suffering. But, I guess the reason to stick with it and to continue is the good things that are to be gotten for you. I want to be with someone where they’re getting incredible value out of this relationship.
</p>
<h4 id="7EQcb8">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oL8Yyx">
What should we be expecting of our lovers that we don’t?
</p>
<h4 id="4qnWBY">
Agnes Callard
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6h2IXN">
When you fall in love with someone, you see something divine in them, and the expectation would be that that gets realized. Because the thing you see is only a possibility, and that they have the same expectation of you.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nGCD7z">
Now, I want to acknowledge something, which is one reaction that this [New Yorker] piece got from a lot of people is like, wow, she seems really exhausting.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xdT5Sa">
And I think that that’s sort of true about me, and maybe there’s just different modes of living. One thing I think philosophers are insufficiently sensitive to is the fact that people are different from other people. There’s just a huge amount of variance among human beings.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QLmLsb">
One way to think about it is, there are two kinds of people. Some people think the worst thing in life is stress and suffering and the world making too many demands of you, and then other people think the worst thing in life is boredom and nothingness and having an insufficient number of demands being made on you.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aMsUQT">
I am definitely in the second category. I just always want there to be more. I want everything to happen faster. So I guess the question is, which danger are you more worried about? The thought that failing at this really big task is going to be so dispiriting that you’ll just give up and won’t try at all? Or the thought that not putting a big enough task in front of you is just going to leave you demotivated and think, ah, is this even worth trying?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IK1Xbi">
I’m just more in the second category. Just because something is an infinitely large task, I don’t think that means that it’s too big to ask of someone. But keep in mind, I don’t have to persuade everyone. I just have to persuade the person I’m with. So if most people are like, “Hey, that’s not for me,” that’s okay because I’m not romantically involved with them.
</p>
<h4 id="8W9MKB">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LMRmEU">
When I think of Socrates, I think of someone who’s just poking holes in what we think we know. I wonder what you think we need most from philosophers today. What other sorts of questions do you think we should be asking right now of philosophers in particular?
</p>
<h4 id="ZNg025">
Agnes Callard
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Dk1V2E">
I would agree with the description of Socrates as poking holes in things. But the way that I would put that is that he’s opening a bunch of inquiries. He’s saying, “Hey, here’s a bunch of stuff you’re just sort of doing. You’re just sort of going through your day with it, but you could ask about it.” I think the really interesting thing about marriage and romance is just that it’s a place where we will tolerate this, because we are all interested in having philosophical discussions about our romantic lives. And I never realized this so strongly until this piece came out.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tFW50O">
I’ve had people report on me and describe me as someone, most of whose work is about romance or my own romances or whatever and none of my academic work is about this and very little of my public philosophy is about this, but people have this impression that’s who I am. Why? Because it’s really gripping to people. And I think this might be the thin edge of the philosophical wedge. If we philosophers want to get people to be interested in their own lives, the place we have to start is romance and marriage, because they will tolerate it there.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MqLw5I">
People will have long, involved conversations about ideas if those conversations are about romance.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IMM1uU">
<em>To hear the rest of the conversation, </em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5A0IlKC5zLFhc1iF8nj7US?si=jNJlEL7QSa-Ut9JMAsb41g"><em>click here</em></a><em>, and be sure to follow </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/thegrayarea">The Gray Area</a><em> on </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611"><em>Apple Podcasts</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://podcasts.google.com/search/vox%20conversations"><em>Google Podcasts</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP"><em>Spotify</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/vox-conversations"><em>Stitcher</em></a><em>, or wherever you listen to podcasts.</em>
</p></li>
<li><strong>The most mysterious forests on Earth are underwater</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A scuba diver in a kelp forest." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Mqb-B2m3e_V1wWUwIs5YwLfx0g0=/0x0:1779x1334/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72244641/adler_4710.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Photographer and oceanographer Anne De Souza photographs a forest of giant kelp near Monastery Beach in Carmel, California. | Jennifer Adler
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Kelp forests are majestic, life-sustaining ecosystems. Climate change imperils them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pQuRfN">
A few miles west of San Diego is a stretch of ocean that’s rather unremarkable from the surface. The water is cold and blue. There’s some green seaweed peeking out.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6jnbhp">
Sink below the waves, however, and a whole other realm appears. Under the sea here, near Point Loma, is a forest as beautiful as any other. It’s made not of trees but of strands of giant kelp, a species of algae that can grow taller than a 10-story building.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bBOmPa">
Tethered to the seafloor and buoyed by air-filled chambers, the kelp strands undulate with the current, moving in slow motion. Schools of fish, seals, and other aquatic critters weave through the stalks like birds through a forest canopy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4XhSOP">
“Diving into a forest is like descending into a cathedral,” Jarrett Byrnes, a marine ecologist at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said of kelp forests. Light from the surface filters through blades of kelp as if they’re stained glass, said Byrnes, who’s been diving kelp forests for more than 20 years. “It’s just amazing.”
</p>
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Kelp forest seen from the seabed, looking up." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hu-f8L2lhmo97rJaCYdi9_OijXA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24627702/adler_5409.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
A forest of bull kelp near Carmel-by-the-Sea in California in the fall of 2022.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4AGDm6">
Our planet has a number of great forests — the Amazon, for example, or the boreal forest of Canada and Russia. These iconic ecosystems not only support an incredible diversity of wildlife but store vast amounts of carbon that might otherwise heat up the planet. It’s not hyperbole to say that our existence depends on them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eA14Pj">
But equally important are the forests of the sea. Found in cold waters across roughly a quarter of the world’s coasts, kelp forests are the foundation of many marine ecosystems. They underpin coastal fisheries, helping sustain the seafood industry. They also absorb enormous amounts of pollution and <a href="https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2019/how-kelp-naturally-combats-global-climate-change/">help sequester</a> planet-warming gases. A <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37385-0">recent study</a> valued these benefits at roughly $500 billion a year, worldwide.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oNtDSJ">
Yet for all they are worth, scientists know surprisingly little about kelp forests. Globally, data on how they’re responding to climate change and other threats, such as the spread of non-native species, is incomplete. Conservation efforts — which have been ramping up in recent years, especially on land — have largely overlooked these marine environments.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yvLnh7">
What biologists do know suggests that many of these forests are in trouble. And a lengthy <a href="https://wedocs.unep.org/handle/20.500.11822/42255;jsessionid=1E1DF0AB468F4ECD07D00C9DE59F5F91">new review</a> published this week by the United Nations indicates that kelp forests have declined globally. “Kelp have suffered widespread losses across much of their range,” the report states — and climate change stands to make things worse.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dLHKqZ">
The full story, however, is much more complicated.
</p>
<h3 id="cmI3qC">
A spectacular undersea world that we all rely on
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LlekRb">
Kelp forests have a lot in common with their land-based counterparts. They form three-dimensional structures that provide homes to animals. They often have a canopy. And kelp stalks themselves look a bit like trees: They have root-like anchors, a central structure similar to a trunk, and leaf-like blades.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gUwmVi">
Yet there are a few key differences. For example, kelp is not a plant but a kind of algae, a group of aquatic organisms in an entirely different kingdom of life (home to things like pond scum and Florida’s red tide). They also grow far faster than trees — as fast as two feet per day, depending on the species.
</p>
<div class="p-fullbleed-block">
<div class="c-image-grid">
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="The ball-shaped floats and fronds at the ends of kelp stalks, waving in the current." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-6-NncbjTrR-a4aYnSkP0ek_5XY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24627791/adler_5767.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Young bull kelp growing near Carmel-by-the-Sea in April.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A seal swimming toward the camera in a kelp forest." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7vFIkh4nD0b5MTg6IUNcizUQO0M=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24626898/adler_6255.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
A curious harbor seal checks out photographer Jennifer Adler during a dive near Monastery Beach in Carmel.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dFbelO">
Some kelp species, like the giant kelp common off the coast of San Diego, reach the surface to form a canopy. Others top off many feet down, creating an understory. And these forests are quite widespread, covering an area of ocean up to five times greater than that of all coral reefs, according to the new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="48gOGP">
These forests support a stunning diversity of life. Kelp blades and anchors (known as holdfasts, the closest thing they have to roots) provide shelter for young fish, a place for adult fish to spawn, and food for invertebrates like urchins and other creatures. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-marine-biological-association-of-the-united-kingdom/article/abs/species-distribution-and-habitat-exploitation-of-fauna-associated-with-kelp-laminaria-hyperborea-along-the-norwegian-coast/16ECBF25C1F4CCD89680498809A09F95">One study</a> found that a single stalk of kelp in Norway supported roughly 80,000 organisms across 70 distinct species. Over <a href="https://www.nps.gov/chis/learn/nature/kelp-forests.htm">1,000 species</a> of plants and animals are found in some kelp forests in California.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/PWKygp7D3drAnvaz2SQVuWaH1jo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24629353/Fig1.2.jpg"/> <cite>United Nations Environment Programme</cite>
<figcaption>
The distribution of common varieties of kelp (in green) around the world.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gdez6n">
This is especially relevant for people who eat seafood. Research has demonstrated that many popular commercial species including pollack, lobster, and abalone spend at least part of their lives in kelp forests and depend on their existence. A <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37385-0">new study</a> in the journal <em>Nature </em>illustrates just how valuable these environments are to the seafood industry: A single hectare of forest contributes an average of roughly $30,000 a year to fisheries, the authors found.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SpiyVf">
The benefits don’t stop there! As they grow, kelp forests, like those on land, absorb a lot of pollution including fertilizer runoff from farmland and compounds of carbon (much of which enters the ocean from the atmosphere). They’re helping offset much of our planet-warming emissions, for free. The <em>Nature</em> study, which examined a handful of services that kelp provide, conservatively estimates that these habitats sequester at least 4.9 megatons of carbon from the atmosphere each year. “Pound for pound,” kelp remove as much as (or more) carbon than other ecosystems, such as terrestrial forests or mangroves, the study’s lead author, marine scientist Aaron Eger, told Vox.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ADhYTf">
Combined, the services provided by kelp forests globally — supporting fisheries, cleaning up pollution, and sequestering carbon — are worth half a trillion dollars a year, the study found. And that doesn’t take into account other potential benefits, such as coastal protection (kelp forests may tamp down waves, helping limit the impact of storms, the UNEP report found).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pJCDbq">
In short: Kelp help.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="The tops of a kelp forest, seen just below the surface of the water." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/BeuWOwowSGBy1DMw6QypmrRrBc4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24626895/adler_5195.jpg"/> <cite>Jennifer Adler</cite>
<figcaption>
A forest of bull kelp near Carmel-by-the-Sea in the fall of 2022.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<h3 id="5Rbl4m">
Are kelp forests at risk?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GRCkz9">
The simple answer is yes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0DEeYu">
The <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.1606102113">most recent global analysis</a>, based on data through 2012, found that global kelp forests are declining on average at a rate of about 1.8 percent per year. A <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780128050521000036">more recent review</a> that only considers long-term data (which is more reliable; kelp forests can vary a lot from year to year) points to a more troubling trend. It finds that more than 60 percent of the kelp forests scientists have studied over a period of 20 years or more have declined.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ds4ONL">
“On the whole, when we look at kelp forests over a long time period and in temperate latitudes, we’re seeing strong declines,” said Kira Krumhansl, a marine ecologist who led the global analysis and was a co-author of the more recent review. Those declines are most severe in regions closer to the equator where the water is warmer, such as Baja California, Western Australia, and southern New England, said Krumhansl, who works at Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dcpoCM">
This pattern points to a major force behind shrinking kelp forests: climate change.
</p>
<div class="c-float-left c-float-hang">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A kelp frond with multiple floats, underwater." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sLKd6NNk348Kh-PyVVuqe1glHiY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24627740/adler_4594.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Giant kelp can grow up to two feet per day.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AjWwXB">
Kelp like to grow in cold, nutrient-rich water, yet rising global temperatures — fueled by power plants, gas-powered cars, and so on — are making the oceans warmer and fueling epic marine heat waves. That has pushed some kelp forests past their thermal limits, especially if they’re already in the warmer reaches of their range.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wyLFVx">
An added twist is that warm waters tend to hold fewer nutrients, which makes it harder for forests to grow, according to Byrnes, the biologist at UMass Boston.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="k2cyFk">
Another reason why kelp forests have declined is overfishing and the loss of marine predators. Cod, lobster, and sea otters, among other animals, prey on sea urchins. Urchins, in turn, graze on kelp. When fishing nets capture urchin predators, urchins proliferate and mow down kelp forests.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<div class="c-image-grid">
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/asWCqcTn4omOf5Xoa3bR2ShpM10=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24626899/adler_3034.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Purple sea urchins devour stalks of kelp near Portuguese Beach in Mendocino, California.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kGb098nDh0hE9HBi_VUvVjsX87s=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24627744/adler_3604.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
As urchins mow down forests of kelp, they create “urchin barrens.”
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="onOrpV">
This process can create what are called urchin barrens, eerie stretches of sea floor covered in little more than prickly orbs. You can find these barrens all over the world, from California to Tasmania to Japan. (Degraded kelp forests are also increasingly being <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-43536-5">replaced by</a> mats of algae that form a turf on the sea floor and prevent the kelp from recovering.)
</p>
<h3 id="bgl72z">
Two things that make the story of kelp more complicated
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XytoZD">
Although research shows that, on average, kelp forests are declining worldwide, some marine biologists are hesitant to make sweeping conclusions about the global trend.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qih5jL">
One reason why is that kelp forests vary dramatically from place to place. Many forests have eroded or vanished entirely, though some seem to be fine or are even expanding. “Every spot on Earth has a different story,” said Tom Bell, a marine scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Stalks of key and fronds, seen underwater from below." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XccB_52hM5v6LLgXqspC83Hqpzc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24628465/adler_5822.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Stalks of bull kelp grow near Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, in fall of 2022.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="k3rscs">
A <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0271477#pone-0271477-g005">recent study</a> co-authored by Bell documented steep declines in kelp forests along the West Coast, following a spate of intense marine heat waves between 2014 and 2016. While forests in parts of Northern and Central California have yet to recover these losses, some of those off the coast of Oregon have grown substantially.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DjZmoe">
“In some locations, we found jaw-dropping recovery in canopy-forming kelps,” said Vienna Saccomanno, a co-author of the recent study and ocean scientist at The Nature Conservancy, an environmental group. “These places are important glimmers of hope.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xIMB6R">
Kelp forests also appear to be growing in parts of the Arctic. The ocean there is warming, making the water more tolerable for kelp (yet still cold enough for these algae to survive). Melting ice, meanwhile, frees up space for forests to take root. But this trend is not universal or well understood. Melting ice can also make the water cloudier, potentially limiting the growth of kelp forests.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a8GZGT">
Some parts of the ocean, including the coast of South Africa, are also anomalously cooling, causing kelp forests to increase, Byrnes said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pdxTJO">
The other barrier to describing clear trends in kelp forests is a lack of data. Much of the planet’s kelp forests have yet to be mapped, and they’re rarely monitored, according to UNEP. The 2016 global analysis — which remains the most comprehensive assessment to date — only analyzed data for about a third of the regions home to kelp forests. Information is especially limited in places like the tip of South America and in parts of Africa, Byrnes said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ar1tbf">
“The lack of information about certain parts of the world really worries me,” Byrnes said. “We don’t know what’s happening. And sometimes it can be alarming.”
</p>
<div class="c-float-left c-float-hang">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6uRj6etsx6ydnys0oOa8k-m3bik=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24629347/adler_4763__1_.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Photographer Effie Benjamin freedives in a bull kelp forest near Carmel Point, California, in April 2023.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x1Xxfx">
Kelp forests are harder to monitor than most other ecosystems. Often, marine biologists get in the water and count kelp stands by hand, which is expensive, labor intensive, and requires some special skills. Kelp forests can extend for miles.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aqjb3e">
“It is a challenge to monitor [kelp forests], and that’s partly why they haven’t been as much of a focus for conservation or engagement,” Krumhansl said. “Nobody actually sees them. They’re not like a forest on land that you can walk through and see the changes happening for yourself.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0AsB5G">
To an extent, tech is helping fix this problem. Instead of diving into a forest, scientists can now analyze images of the ocean taken by satellites for subtle changes in color that correspond to kelp forest canopies.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="av18eW">
Bell’s recent analysis was based entirely on this approach. He used satellite-based data from <a href="https://kelpwatch.org/">Kelpwatch</a>, a website he and other scientists designed to make this kind of data freely accessible. (You can do a similar analysis yourself on the website, though for now there’s only data for the west coast of North America.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PM16Xh">
There’s one big caveat to this new era of kelp forest monitoring: Satellites, at least for now, can only detect canopy-forming kelp. And just a portion of kelp species form canopies, Byrnes said. That means we may not have a clear picture of these habitats for decades.
</p>
<h3 id="PRmV8x">
The future of kelp forests
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WFRvDp">
In the years to come, kelp forests may still face a raft of problems including overfishing and the spread of invasive species. But none are likely to be more threatening to their long-term existence than climate change.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6BZJA1">
The oceans are warming, and marine heat waves — extended periods of abnormally hot temperatures — are almost certainly becoming more common. Since the 1980s, the frequency of marine heat waves has doubled, according to a <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/">2021 report</a> by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN group that studies warming.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bS5eZP">
That’s a problem for kelp, Krumhansl said. “They are cold-adapted species,” she said. “So the future doesn’t look great.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Vulilh">
Yet there are things that countries and environmental advocates can do to lessen the damage and give kelp forests a chance at survival.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nOvZKj">
One approach is to protect kelp forests with marine parks. Right now, these ecosystems are underrepresented in the world’s network of protected areas, according to UNEP, yet they’ve been shown to help kelp forests recover. By safeguarding marine predators, such as lobsters and sea otters, parks can keep urchin populations under control.
</p>
<div class="p-fullbleed-block">
<div class="c-image-grid">
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A scuba diver with a mesh collecting bag picks samples off the sea floor." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/E1OMpFuH5q1_EAQ0uT8c9aRcl0w=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24628267/adler_0336.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Marine ecologist Rachael Karm collects bits of bull kelp for a research project at Russian Gulch State Beach in Jenner, California.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A scuba diver removes sea urchins from kelp blades near the ocean surface." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WHzXC8-kpvxGnyxiWLzzLRFXY5c=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24628272/adler_5055.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Iris Flores, a doctoral researcher at the University of California Santa Cruz, collects purple sea urchins at Stillwater Cove off Pebble Beach, California, to study the impacts of coastal upwelling on the grazing behavior of sea urchins.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nOWKKF">
Another approach is to manually remove urchins from a reef — an activity that is oddly satisfying <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GchTAzPh23k">to watch</a> — or kill them en masse with poison, which can be highly effective in restoring kelp forests, according to a <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2022.831001/full">recent review</a>. (There are plenty of other approaches to kelp forest restoration and an <a href="https://kelpforestalliance.com/">entire organization</a> working toward that cause.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q4eSWM">
The good news is that when you take away some of these threats, kelp forests can quickly bounce back, Byrnes said. Kelp is resilient. And again, it grows incredibly quickly. “Kelp is just phenomenal,” Byrnes said. “As long as the conditions are right, it will grow and it will thrive.”
</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>Avondale, Meropi, Gallahad, De Villiers and Serdar please</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sonal overcomes Rachita in three sets</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>Indian girls to play Vietnam for minor placings</strong> - Sports Bureau</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>Olympic silver medallist Nijel Amos gets 3-year ban for doping</strong> - The runner from Botswana tested positive for the banned substance GW1516 last year in the run-up to the track world championships; the ban rules Amos out of 2024 Paris Olympics</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>IPL 2023 CSK vs LSG | Chennai Super Kings win toss, opts to bowl against Lucknow Super Giants</strong> - CSK have brought in pace bowler Deepak Chahar in place Akash Singh, while LSG have included Manan Vohra and Karan Sharma in the playing XI</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>Cinema hall in Assam asked to compensate movie goer five years after rat bite</strong> - The cinema hall authorities declined to offer first aid or any help, the woman had alleged</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>SEWA-Union observes May Day</strong> - Women workers from rural areas visited the stretch from PMG to Palayam in the city and honoured workers in the unorganised sector</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>India to build Harbour for Maldivian Coast Guard, foundation stone laid</strong> - The development of the Coast Guard Harbour and repair facility at Sifavaru is one of the biggest grant-in-aid projects of India</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>In India, people are now getting accustomed to greasing palms of officers even for performing their duty: Madras High Court</strong> - Justice G. Jayachandran says even without an express demand, people know well that their work will not be done unless they pay illegal gratification</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>Pawar is NCP chief till he thinks over his decision; no deliberations on successor yet: Praful Patel</strong> - Speaking to reporters here, Mr. Patel, who is the NCP’s national vice president, also said he himself was not in the running for the top post</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>Belgrade shooting: Huge police operation after Serbia school attack</strong> - A 14-year-old schoolboy is arrested after at least nine killed at an elementary school in Belgrade.</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>Kremlin accuses Ukraine of trying to assassinate Putin</strong> - Moscow said two drones had been used in the alleged attack but they were disabled by defences.</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>Report puts Russian ‘ghost ships’ near pipeline blast site</strong> - A documentary reports Russian naval ships were located near the site of the Nord Stream explosions.</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: Russia scales back Victory Day celebrations</strong> - The traditional Immortal Regiment procession will move online due to security concerns, authorities say.</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>Lionel Messi suspended by Paris St-Germain for two weeks over Saudi Arabia trip</strong> - Argentina captain Lionel Messi is suspended for two weeks by Paris St-Germain for missing training to travel to Saudi Arabia without the club’s permission.</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>I used System76’s Pangolin for weeks, and Linux was not the biggest problem</strong> - A comfy keyboard, weird trackpad, blah webcam, and notably mature Linux desktop. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1928262">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>AI’s chaotic rollout in big US hospitals detailed in anonymous quotes</strong> - Health care systems struggle with each step of AI implementation, study finds. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1936159">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Pornhub shocks Utah by restricting access over age-verification law</strong> - State senator says he “did not expect adult porn sites to be blocked in Utah.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1936192">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>AI-generated beer commercial contains joyful monstrosities, goes viral</strong> - 30-second spot set to “All Star” may inspire awe—or nightmares. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1936137">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Apple and Google introduce standard to combat AirTag and Tile tracker misuse</strong> - Tracker-makers will chime in over the coming months to finalize the standard. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1936023">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>If a pro lifer asks “What if Mary aborted Jesus”?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Replying “it would have sped things along” isn’t the answer they were looking for.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/gee666"> /u/gee666 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1362eva/if_a_pro_lifer_asks_what_if_mary_aborted_jesus/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1362eva/if_a_pro_lifer_asks_what_if_mary_aborted_jesus/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A blonde was speeding when a local police officer pulled her over and walked up to the car</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The officer also happened to be a blonde and she asked for the blonde’s driver’s license.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The driver searched frantically in her purse for a while and finally said to the blonde policewoman, “What does a driver’s license look like?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Irritated, the blonde cop said, “You dummy, it’s got your picture on it!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The blonde driver frantically searched her purse again and found a small, rectangular mirror down at the bottom.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
She held it up to her face and said, "Aha!
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
This must be my driver’s license" and handed it to the blonde policewoman.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The blonde cop looked in the mirror, handed it back to the driver and said,
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
"You’re free to go.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
And, if I had known you were a police officer too, we could have avoided all of this."
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/HelpingHandsUs"> /u/HelpingHandsUs </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1366t2u/a_blonde_was_speeding_when_a_local_police_officer/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1366t2u/a_blonde_was_speeding_when_a_local_police_officer/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>It’s WWII and there’s a little anti-aircraft unit based on the east coast of England. The sergeant has a stutter.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
One dark night they’re playing cards under the glow of their gas lamp, and suddenly they hear the distant sound of aircraft engines. The sergeant barks, “Ggggggggg-ggggg-gggggg-gggg-ggggg-get to the gggggg-ggg-gggggg-ggggg-gggg-ggggggg-ggg-gggggg-ggg-gun.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
All the men throw down their cards and rush over to the gun.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The sergeant says, “Rrrrrrrr-rrrrr-rrrrrrrrr-rrrrr-rrrrrrr-rrrrr-rrrrrrrrr-rrrrr-rrrrrr-ready.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The men are ready with the gun.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The sergeant says, “Aaaaaa-aaa-aaaaaa-aaa-a-a-aaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaa-aaaaaaa-aaa-aim.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Within seconds the men have the gun aimed at the German bomber.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The sergeant yells, “FFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFFF-FFFF…
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“FFFF-FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFFFF-FF-FF-F-F-F-F-FFFFF-FFFFFF-FFFF…
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFF-FF-FFF-FFFF…
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“FFFF-FUCK it lads, we’ll get ‘em on the way back.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/thermidorthelobster"> /u/thermidorthelobster </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/136g74n/its_wwii_and_theres_a_little_antiaircraft_unit/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/136g74n/its_wwii_and_theres_a_little_antiaircraft_unit/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>In Germany, we have a joke.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Sincerely. We do.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/cncpj"> /u/cncpj </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1368blw/in_germany_we_have_a_joke/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1368blw/in_germany_we_have_a_joke/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>My wife just said to me, you’re an eight on a scale of ten.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
I’m confused why did she ask me to Urinate on a Skeleton?
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/4BDUL4Z1Z"> /u/4BDUL4Z1Z </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/136bn6l/my_wife_just_said_to_me_youre_an_eight_on_a_scale/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/136bn6l/my_wife_just_said_to_me_youre_an_eight_on_a_scale/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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