Happy New Year! It’s the simple salutation we exchange as a matter of routine during the first weeks of January. This year, however, it seems like we need to add a question mark to the seasonal greeting. Happy New Year? Let’s hope so.
Our newsroom took a bit of a breather over the last week and I spent part of my break catching up on some reading. I finally finished Bob Woodward’s Rage, his second instalment on the Trump presidency. And then there was The Plague Year, an incredible 30,000-word article by Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker. Both Woodward and Wright explore some key missteps that led to the
coronavirus pandemic: from China’s initial secrecy about the outbreak in Wuhan to conflicts in the U.S. between politicians and health officials that resulted in a failure of leadership at all levels of government. While we Canadians tend to be smug about how we’ve handled the pandemic, rising rates of infection across the country show we have many lessons to learn still. Yesterday, we sent out our list of the Top 10 most read stories of 2020. One of the things that jumped out as we were compiling the list was that three of the top stories involved conspiracy theories. While the pandemic was obviously the top story of the last year, another tragedy of 2020 was the acceleration of the deliberate denunciation of facts and science by a significant number of people (including some political leaders). We warned about this “infodemic” as far back as April. So, will we have a Happy New Year in 2021? It’s likely that by New Year’s Day in 2022, everyone who wants a COVID-19 vaccine will have received one. But how many will deliberately choose not to get vaccinated?
So far, there’s no cure for the infodemic. Regardless, we will continue to fulfil our mission of helping people make informed decisions by publishing research- and evidence-based articles from academic experts. And part of that mission is to offer hope that the next 12 months will indeed lead to better things. With that in mind, I’ve pulled together some articles from around the global network of The Conversation that offer a chance for a better 2021.
So with some hesitancy, but also a lot of hope, I wish all of you a Happy New Year. We return to our normal publishing schedule tomorrow and will be back in your Inbox with new stories on Monday.
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Stories of hope for a new year
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Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian, University of Cambridge; Christelle Langley, University of Cambridge; Jianfeng Feng, Fudan University
The brain is surprisingly changeable.
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Joanne Dickson, Edith Cowan University
When setting a new year's goals, look closely at the reasoning behind it. Is it something you want to do, or think you should? The answer can help predict the outcome.
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Katherine Arbuthnott, University of Regina
New Year's resolutions are usually an opportunity to think about long-term goals. The uncertainty and restrictions of COVID-19 make 2021 a good year to focus on ways to help yourself in the short-term.
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Laurel Mellin, University of California, San Francisco
One medication-free technique uses your emotions to release stress.
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Mariana Lamas, Northern Alberta Institute of Technology
Plant-based diets can be healthy but ingredients matter. Heavily processed meat substitutes can be high in saturated fats and sodium.
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Lauren McWhinnie, Heriot-Watt University
Whales are rediscovering their old haunts in the Arctic and Southern oceans after centuries of hunting.
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Ian Whittaker, Nottingham Trent University; Gareth Dorrian, University of Birmingham
India may land on the Moon this coming year, while Nasa will launch its new, powerful rocket farther into space than any other human rated spacecraft.
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Gary W. Lewandowski Jr., Monmouth University
Psychology studies suggest a variety of ways you can strengthen your bond and increase your satisfaction with your partner.
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