A note from...
Maggie Villiger
Senior Science + Technology Editor
Biology experiments are usually done under very clean conditions, with scientists carefully observing what happens when they infect one species of animal with one kind of bacteria, for example. The artificial ecosystems that Richard Bowen and Alan Rudolph write about are way messier, with animals like ducks, chickens, pigeons, blackbirds and rats all living together and interacting.
And that’s the point. The Colorado State biologists aim to emulate the barnyards and live-animal markets where new pathogens – like the coronavirus currently spreading outward from Wuhan, China – emerge. They hope these more chaotic and realistic lab environments will yield important insights into disease transmission, and how to stop it.
Richard Bowen, Colorado State University; Alan Rudolph, Colorado State University
In the real world, new diseases emerge from complex environments. To learn more about how, scientists set up whole artificial ecosystems in the lab, instead of focusing on just one factor at a time.
Immigrants experienced stigma and blame during the Ebola crisis when in fact many were instrumental in stopping the spread of the disease. A scholar who studied that response offers insights.
President Trump's impeachment defense that the will of the president is no different from the will of the state and the good of the people has echoes in the decline of ancient Rome's democracy.
The self-references and superlatives used by President Trump made his State of the Union much more excessive linguistically than this speech’s tone typically is.
Charles Kurzman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Immigrants from Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania constitute less than 1% of terrorism cases in the United States, and none of the cases in the last two years.
In some ways, many of America's CEOs are like closet socialists whose corporations offer a working model for what a socialist United States could look like.
Eric M. Anderman, The Ohio State University; Dorothy Espelage, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Linda A. Reddy, Rutgers University; Ron Avi Astor, University of California, Los Angeles; Susan McMahon, DePaul University
From being subjected to harassment and threats to getting assaulted or having their cars keyed, many American teachers are being victimized.
Jocelyn Lavallee, Colorado State University; Francesca Cotrufo, Colorado State University
Storing more carbon in soil helps slow climate change and makes croplands more productive. But there are two kinds of soil carbon that are both important, but function very differently.
Haitao Guo, University of Pittsburgh; Guangxiang “George” Luo, University of Alabama at Birmingham; Shou-Jiang Gao, University of Pittsburgh
A new coronavirus related to SARS and MERS has now traveled from China to the United States. A genetic analysis reveals that this deadly pathogen may have originated in snakes.
The Trump administration has cut funding for infectious disease research and reduced high-level staffing for global health security, leaving the nation less prepared for major outbreaks.
