Herd immunity. What is it? What can it do for us? Or to us?
It can be our best friend and our worst enemy.
Herd immunity—friend or enemy?
Tag Archives: travel
Scientists are zeroing in on how to treat COVID-19 The world needs an effective treatment right away.
COVID-19 may infect much of population in many countries. From its origins in Wuhan, China, it has proven lethal in a small but alarming fraction of cases. The principal risk is pneumonia in elderly or already ill patients. There will be no vaccine for at least a year. The world needs an effective treatment right […]
An amazing birthday present: a universe that allows time travel and helps us understand our existence
In 1949 Austrian-American logician Kurt Gödel gave a friend a strange birthday present: a rotating universe. Gödel is widely regarded as the world’s greatest logician. Albert Einstein, the greatest physicist, was his best friend. For years they walked home from the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study almost every day. The present—for Einstein’s 70th birthday—dealt with […]
Understanding time travel . . . and travel time – Part II
Time is just a tale we tell ourselves to help us manage motion. Last week’s post rocketed you at near light speed to swiftly tour the center of our galaxy. The round trip took you about an hour. Arriving back you found the Earth was 50,000 years older. Time travel— predicted by Albert Einstein in […]
Understanding time travel . . . and travel time
Albert Einstein predicted time travel in 1905. It was demonstrated in 1971 and many times since. The twin paradox provides a dramatic illustration of time travel: You travel to a distant star and return to find you are far into your twin’s future. No-one has done this; but it is a real effect. It has […]
Major sea-level rise is on the way and entire cities will be flooded.
The world’s last great ice sheet is in the process of collapsing. This is not about climate change. It is about gravity and unstable foundations. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) will raise North America’s sea levels ten feet when it goes. It will shift some shorelines inland many miles. A new study sets out […]
Future Travel: The Growing Role of High-Speed Trains
Intercontinental air travel is projected to grow faster than the supply of pilots to fly planes. But the future of regional travel belongs not to the air but to high-speed trains. This has deep implications for economic growth. The four top economies are dealing with this differently. Fans of Murder on the Orient Express or The […]
Is Climate Change Causing Europe’s Refugee Crisis?
Is Bassar al-Assad causing all those Syrian refugees to flee? Well, yes, in a way — but also no. Science now has something to say of this though few have noticed: Chances are that climate change led to the war the refugees are fleeing. They lived in a region that both climate modeling and weather […]
One Hundred Years Old – A Bit Weird
It’s a season for something personal, another kind of time travel, a different kind of history. Here is a guest blog authored by my father, Don, a short sketch of his long life so far (he skips over his M.Sc. and careers in science and management). It is based on an article he published in […]