President-elect Joe Biden has nominated Michael Regan, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, to head the Environmental Protection Agency, according to the transition team. Regan has two decades of experience in environmental policy and positions at the Environmental Defense Fund as well as the EPA, and would be the first Black man … Continue reading "10 ways Biden should fix the EPA"

TYRONE’S FIRST WIN of the Division 1 campaign arrived against Kildare on Sunday despite the absence of a number of established players.  There were minus the services of the four (Peter Harte, Kieran McGeary, Padraig Hampsey and Michael McKernan) that shipped red cards in round 2 against Armagh plus injured pair Ronan McNamee and Mattie Donnelly. … Continue reading "Rookies, injuries and squad depth – what football teams have experimented most?"

In the United States, there have been 17 million reported cases of Covid-19 — about 5 percent of the population. Millions more have been infected and either did not get tested or didn’t have symptoms to begin with. Vaccines are slowly rolling out — first to front-line health care and high-risk people, and next, likely … Continue reading "Yes, people who’ve had Covid-19 can still benefit from the vaccine"

Americans have spent much of the Covid-19 pandemic blaming one another for the coronavirus’s spread. Don’t go to that beach or park. Don’t go to that bar or restaurant. Don’t do anything for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Wear a mask! You don’t want to kill Grandma, do you? Public officials have joined in. Increasingly, they are … Continue reading "Why America can’t rely solely on individuals to stop Covid-19"

Jupiter and Saturn are due to converge in their orbits on Monday, appearing as a double planet in the night sky — the first such occurrence in almost 800 years. The two planets have been near one another throughout the year, according to Rice University astronomer Patrick Hartigan. They will reach their closest approach, passing … Continue reading "For the first time in 800 years, you can watch a “great conjunction” of Jupiter and Saturn"

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday issued an emergency use authorization for Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine, clearing the way for it to be the second vaccine distributed in the United States. The decision follows a vote on Thursday by an advisory committee to the FDA which found that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh its … Continue reading "A second Covid-19 vaccine has received FDA emergency use authorization"

Many of us dread being alone. We find isolation uncomfortable or downright scary. If you want to know just how eager we are to avoid it, consider a scientific study that offered people a choice between giving themselves electric shocks or being alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. Believe it or not, many chose … Continue reading "How to be alone"

Fourteen thousand years ago, a star called Vela died. Its core collapsed first and then, in a violent burst, propelled the shattered star’s body out into space. Vela’s death bled into the interstellar medium, blasting cosmic radiation out in every direction. For 800 years, the guts of this star traveled from its location in the … Continue reading "2020 was a time warp"

“I am seeing tons of hair loss,” Mona Gohara says. Patients come to Gohara, a dermatologist and professor at the Yale School of Medicine, for all kinds of reasons from skin cancer screenings to cosmetic procedures. But this year more than ever, they’re worried about their hair. It’s not a coincidence. Stress — like, say, … Continue reading "The isolation of 2020 is doing weird things to our bodies"

Winter and the holidays can be hard even in typical years: short days, cold winds, and family stress, to name a few. But the ongoing US Covid-19 surge, with more than 200,000 new virus cases reported every day since December 7 (about double what they were a month before), is putting the hallmark activities that … Continue reading "You can survive winter and not spread Covid-19. Here’s how."