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Kirk Cousins and Dak Prescott aren’t playing like MVPs, but they’ve done enough to make Vikings, Cowboys playoff contenders

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FRISCO, Texas — Dak Prescott’s pronouncement was hardly hyperbole.

Sure, at face value, the Dallas Cowboys’ visit to the Minnesota Vikings this weekend predates the postseason slate.

But when the Cowboys quarterback said the contest between a 6-3 squad (Dallas) and an 8-1 powerhouse “is a playoff game,” he wasn’t simply hyping up the environment or the stakes. Rather, this November game of conference foes indeed features two currently postseason-eligible squads. And the teams share a telling trait: They’re winning without a likely MVP quarterback.

Entering Week 11 of the NFL season, clarity is emerging on the teams in playoff position across the league. Ten have won at least two-thirds of their games, five of which are quarterbacked by the players with the five best odds to win this season’s NFL MVP honor, per BetMGM.

The Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes (+125), Buffalo Bills’ Josh Allen (+500), Philadelphia Eagles’ Jalen Hurts (+500), Miami Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa (+500) and Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson (+1200) top the list. No other player’s chance is better than +2500.

While none of those five players are operating in isolation, their passing efficiency correlates closely with their path to the playoffs. Tagovailoa leads the league with a 118.4 passer rating, a measurement that factors in pass attempts, completions, yards, touchdowns and interceptions. Hurts ranks third, Mahomes fourth, Allen seventh and Jackson tied for eighth.

Cousins and Prescott, meanwhile, post the 20th and 24th best passer ratings, respectively.

Which begs the question: What role has each quarterback played in his team’s fast start? And how will that impact their face-off this weekend?

A touch of clutch

Cousins has been consistent if not elite. He has thrown one to two touchdowns per game, averaged just under an interception per contest and produced 261.8 yards per game in the air, eighth most among league quarterbacks.

His touchdown-to-interception ratio has dipped from last year’s impressive 4.7 multiple (33-to-7), to his current 1.75 (14-to-8). But Cousins has executed when it matters most as the Vikings prevailed in seven of eight games by a nail-biting one score or less. No quarterback has guided more game-winning drives this year than Cousins’ five. No passer, either, has surpassed his five comebacks. After the Vikings dropped eight of their nine losses last season by a one-possession margin, the swing is staggering.

Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins isn’t putting up eye-popping numbers this season, but he’s getting the job done when it matters. (AP Photo/Daniel Kucin Jr.)

“It’s finding those inches,” Cousins said. “I prefer not to have to rely on that play at the end of each game, but you understand in this league, they do tend to come down to the final drive. And that’s just the way these games are. Being battle-tested, I think is a good thing for us.

“It will help us going forward.”

The Vikings have mounted the seventh-most explosive passing attack with a deep stable of weapons. Receivers Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen offer Cousins consistently reliable targets. Minnesota has also immediately integrated tight end T.J. Hockenson in two games since acquiring him at the trade deadline. Jefferson’s acrobatics wowed the league last Sunday when he stole back a fourth-and-18 target from the grasp of a Bills defender. His 1,060 receiving yards trail only the Miami Dolphins’ Tyreek Hill (1,148). Jefferson’s route-running instincts, speed and elite body control would likely produce success with most passers. But Cousins deserves credit for his connection with the third-year skill player.

“Both of them have been highly, highly critical for our success this year and continue to prove to me that they’re huge parts of not only what we are now but what we’ll be moving forward,” Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell said this week. “They’ve come together in a way where I’ve seen their relationship grow. I’ve seen both Justin’s maturation as a professional here in Year 3 as a premier player in this league but also Kirk Cousins’ in Year 1 of an offense where he’s played a lot of football.”

With a bottom-five defense and a below-average rushing attack, the Vikings’ passing attack has so far been the most reliable element of their season. O’Connell’s philosophies on game-plan specific packages, personnel groupings, disguises and tempo help maximize his talent. Still, Cousins has spearheaded execution of the plan.

“He’s had a lot of success in his career, but some elements of this year have been new and different and we’re asking a lot out of him,” O’Connell said. “He’s striving to be at his best when it’s required and I think you can’t say enough about the quarterback position.”

‘Not as clean or as good as I want it’

Prescott, meanwhile, has competed in only four of Dallas’ nine games. He missed Weeks 2-6 after fracturing the thumb of his throwing hand in Dallas’ season-opening loss. With a bye week in between his past two starts, his schedule and performance have each been inconsistent.

When the Packers upset the Cowboys last Sunday, that was on full display.

Prescott opened the game 0-for-4 as the Cowboys put up a couple of three-and-outs, head coach Mike McCarthy later attributing the slow start to footwork rust in Prescott’s first outdoor game of the year. The next series: Prescott completed 10 of 11 attempts (albeit some short ones), while also rushing for three first downs, in a 17-play, 83-yard drive capped by a Prescott to CeeDee Lamb touchdown.

It has been an up-and-down stretch for Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott in the four games since he returned from a thumb injury. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

Prescott finished the game with 265 yards and three touchdowns — but he also completed just 58.7% of attempts and threw two interceptions on anticipatory throws that the Cowboys said his receivers didn’t run crisply.

In four games, Prescott has completed 63.8% of attempts for 865 yards, six touchdowns and four interceptions. He has flashed on some series, but also thrown picks at the highest clip of his seven-year career.

Prescott was asked Thursday whether his performance this season has been erratic.

“Erratic? That’s a good question,” he said. “I can’t necessarily say that. Obviously as you said it’s five games in for me, some things are just getting on the same page, making sure guys understand, and they do … But obviously not 5-0 in those games so damn sure not as clean or as good as I want it.”

Prescott insisted that he believes in his arm and his targets so he intends to continue to “let it rip.” McCarthy said Prescott’s “best days are ahead of him” but he has “zero concerns.”

The reality: The Cowboys’ 4-1 record without Prescott, versus their 2-2 record with him, doesn’t imply backup quarterback Cooper Rush is a superior option. But it does point to the formula that has powered the Cowboys’ wins, namely a dominant run game complementing an initially stingy defense with a vicious pass rush.

When Rush played, the Cowboys didn’t ask too much from their quarterback. In the Cowboys’ four wins, Rush threw four touchdowns with no interceptions. (He threw one touchdown and three picks at Philly.) The run-first attack bled the clock and kept Cowboys defenders fresh, while the clean football reduced the opportunities for opponents to capitalize. The defense rose to the occasion and prided themselves on carrying the team in Prescott’s absence. Since his return, some defenders admit that sense of urgency has slipped. Each of the past two games, opponents have burned the Cowboys for more than 200 rushing yards in an alarming game-plan trend. The Cowboys ceded a 14-point, fourth-quarter lead against the Green Bay Packers.

“S***, it won’t happen again,” linebacker Micah Parsons said. “If Dak go out there and give me that lead again, I promise we ain’t going to do that again.”

So what can fans expect between the Cowboys and Vikings?

Who has the edge?

The Cowboys have won at Minnesota each of the past two seasons. They’re favored by 1.5 points on the road despite the Vikings’ superior record.

Perhaps that stems in part from general biases about the Cowboys, but it also likely reflects the team’s relative strengths. The Cowboys’ pass defense could faze Cousins and tempt mistakes. If running back Ezekiel Elliott (knee) returns from a two-week absence as expected, the Cowboys can wear down the Vikings with Elliott and shifty back Tony Pollard.

“They have so many rushers,” O’Connell said. “I mean, they just have so many guys up front that can really wreak havoc. They get 1-on-1s a lot of different ways, and … I’ve told our team: ‘You cannot let one snap go by [without] fundamentally, technique, understanding of the assignment, what the call is, being 100 percent dialed in. Because if you let one play go, that can be the play that changes the game.”

The Cowboys, similarly, must defend against outside-zone runs and Jefferson heroics or risk their playoff chances in a loaded division taking a hit.

“They’re going to find a weak link and attack,” Cowboys safety Jayron Kearse said. “They’re going to get you in mismatches.”

Individual mismatches may arise. But these two teams, at the sport’s most impactful position, are well-matched.

The NFL is about to learn a little more about this pair of postseason contenders — and how serious a threat their quarterbacks pose now and in the playoffs.

Follow Yahoo Sports’ Jori Epstein on Twitter @JoriEpstein



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Science

Scientists Think They’ve Cracked The Mystery of This Cute Octopus And Its ‘Shell’ : ScienceAlert

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Long after its ancestors deleted their genetic code for a tough coat of armor, a seafaring octopus has reinvented a recipe for making a shell.

A recent genetic analysis of the paper nautilus or greater argonaut (Argonauta argo) has revealed a surprising origin for its protective casing, one that doesn’t resemble the shell of its closest relatives.

Instead of wearing their shells on the outside like sensible snails, most cephalopods (which are also mollusks), have done away with their tough outer garment. Many, like octopus and squid, have either lost their shells entirely or have only vestigial remnants left.

Others, like cuttlefish and the ram’s horn squid (Spirula spirula), wear their shells on the inside. The ram’s horn squid has an internal chambered spiral shell that acts like a skeleton of sorts. Buoyant and surprisingly durable, it’s often found washed up on beaches.

A rare exception among cephalopods is the nautilus (Nautilus belauensis), which still has an external shell – complete with air chambers that it uses to regulate its buoyancy as it floats through the open oceans. Its shell, and those of the now-extinct cephalopod ancestors, comprise of proteins incorporating minerals such as aragonite and calcite in intricate microscopic structures.

Having originated sometime in the Ordovician period, at least 440 million years ago, ancestors of all modern cephalopods are thought to have had these protective structures.

In spite of being commonly referred to as paper nautili, argonauts are actually a genus of octopus. In this unusual group, only the females produce a protective spiral casing, by secreting calcifying proteins from their arms. Argonauts wear these shells externally like a nautilus does, and their shapes are almost identical, yet this shell has a completely different microscopic structure.

What’s more, instead of being attached to their mantle, argonauts grip onto their shell homes with several of their arms.

Shells of the six still-living argonaut species. (Mgiganteus1/Wikimedia commons/CC BY-SA 3.0)

As most octopuses lost their external casings long ago, researchers have wondered how and why a single group reclaimed a shell.

Working with a team of researchers from across Japan, marine biologist Masa-aki Yoshida from Shimane University sequenced the DNA of Argonauta argo. They compared the argonauts’ genome to other mollusks, including the California two-spot octopus (Octopus bimaculoides) and the nautilus.

“Consistent with previous results, most of the proteins are apparently not shared with the shell matrix proteins of [cephalopods and relatives], including those of Nautilus,” the team writes in their paper.

Some of the genes and the proteins they express have, however, been found in other shelled mollusks like the limpet (Lottia gigantea) and Japanese pearl oyster (Pinctada fucata). Other sequences were found in shell-less octopuses – suggesting the argonaut cobbled together their protective casing using proteins unrelated to ancestral shell formation.

Unlike other octopuses, argonauts aren’t benthic – they don’t live near the sea floor or other structures. Instead, they’ve taken on the life of drifters, floating amidst the tropical and subtropical open seas their entire life. This is the same pelagic lifestyle shared by the nautilus.

To achieve this, argonauts needed techniques to allow easy floating too, Yoshida and team explain. While their shell lacks the nautilus’ more complicated internal structure of air chambers, it can still trap some air.

This shell is also known to be the argonaut’s egg case, which would explain why only females develop them. The females brood their eggs within the shell’s protection, eliminating the need to hide their eggs away on a substrate like the sea floor as most other octopus do.

Argonauts appear to have completely reinvented the shell from scratch to aid its transition from substrate dweller to water drifter, mimicking the nautilus in a remarkable example of convergent evolution.

This research was published in Genome Biology and Evolution.

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Health

COVID symptoms aren’t what they used to be. Here’s how they’ve changed over time, and what they look like now

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Losing the ability to taste and smell is no longer common among COVID patients, according to a new study that highlights the virus’s ever-changing nature.

Sore throat, runny nose, nasal congestion, persistent cough, and headache are now the most common symptoms of COVID among the fully vaccinated, the Zoe Health Study found. The study, run by scientists at Harvard and Stanford universities, is based on data submitted by U.S. and U.K. participants logging in their symptoms via an app for research purposes.

The new symptom list stands in contrast with classic, more severe COVID-19 symptoms such as persistent cough, loss of smell, fever, and shortness of breath that were common at the pandemic’s outset. Such symptoms now rank as No. 5, 6, 8, and 29, respectively, according to the study.

Symptoms that are common presently among those who had one vaccine dose include headache, runny nose, sore throat, sneezing, and persistent cough. Symptoms among the unvaccinated are very similar but include fever instead of sneezing, and a sore throat more often than a runny nose.

Interestingly, those who have been vaccinated and have COVID are more likely to report sneezing than those who have not been vaccinated and have COVID. 

“If you’ve been vaccinated and start sneezing a lot without an explanation, you should get a COVID test, especially if you are living or working around people who are at greater risk from the disease,” the authors wrote.

While COVID patients requiring hospitalization during the Delta wave in late 2021 tended to have pneumonia-like symptoms, COVID patients during the Omicron era more often have symptoms similar to the common cold, according to a June article in Infectious Disease Reports. The four commonly circulating human coronaviruses aside from COVID usually present as common colds.

The shift likely occurred because the Delta variant tended to thrive in the lower respiratory system of those infected, while the Omicron variant, especially more recent strains, tends to thrive in the upper respiratory system. That’s subject to change, however, as the virus evolves.

It’s impossible to say whether Omicron is less severe than Delta, experts say, because the population has continued to build its immunity as the virus evolves. When people are infected or vaccinated, it boosts their immune systems—and while antibody immunity lasts only a few months, T-cell immunity, which can make infections milder, lasts for much longer. 

It’s possible that COVID is becoming more akin to the seasonal flu, experts say, with milder, cold-like symptoms and cases that are more common during winter. But it’s too early to tell, they caution, adding that the virus could change course at any point.

Researchers are keeping an eye this fall on strains of COVID that appear similar to Omicron-Delta hybrids, and one, XBC, that’s an actual hybrid of the two, Raj Rajnarayanan, assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology campus in Jonesboro, Ark., recently told Fortune.

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Sports

The Phillies have marched within two wins of the World Series — and there’s nothing routine about the way they’ve done it

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PHILADELPHIA — There are brothers competing against each other in the National League Championship Series. You’ve probably heard about this. The Nola parents have become well-deserved media darlings as their sons, Austin of the San Diego Padres and Aaron of the Philadelphia Phillies, have progressed deeper into the postseason through a couple of upset series to find themselves here: a pitcher and catcher on the last two NL teams standing. It’s cute.

In the seventh inning of Game 3 of the NLCS, the infamous Phillies fans considered this familial connection and saw an opportunity to stunt on the opposition, jeering at Austin Nola, “Aaron’s better” over and over until he struck out.

They’re not wrong, per say — I hope existing in perpetual contrast to your more successful, younger brother doesn’t sour the experience of being a major league baseball player in the postseason — but the Padres did just even the series at a game apiece by scoring six off Aaron Nola on Wednesday in San Diego.

The point is, that hardly matters to a fanbase that’s a little feral by nature and rabid from waiting. Eleven years without postseason baseball in Philly has given way to a team that frustrates as often as it delights, a team that has made it here, to the precipice of a pennant, playing only two games at home in practically a month. They ended the season with a 10-game road trip, snuck into a newly expanded postseason and haven’t had home-field advantage since. They knocked off the NL Central-winning Cardinals in a couple of games in St. Louis, clinched the division series at home against the reigning Braves after splitting the first two in Atlanta, and finally returned home to Citizens Bank Park this weekend with the NLCS knotted up at a game apiece after playing two on the west coast.

So, yeah, given a chance to gloat a little about their guys, Phillies fans took it.

And besides, they could tell themselves it worked.

That brought up Ha-Seong Kim, the Padres shortstop, who promptly smacked a sinker that sent veteran second baseman Jean Segura diving to stop as it bounced into shallow right field. You couldn’t call it a routine play, and even if you could, routine is exactly the kind of play the Phillies botch all the time. This time, however, Segura snagged the bouncing ball, leapt to his feet, and fired to first to get the final out of the inning.

By that point, he had committed an error (one of two for the team on the night), successfully smothered another sharply hit ground ball to turn two, hit a ball just inches above the dirt to drive in the go-ahead runs, and been picked off first base. Now this? As the game went to commercial, the broadcast marveled that Segura’s “rollercoaster night continues. He’s at the top of the mountain right now.”

PHILADELPHIA, PA – OCTOBER 21: Jean Segura #2 of the Philadelphia Phillies high-fives teammates after winning Game 3 of the NLCS between the San Diego Padres and the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park on Friday, October 21, 2022 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

After a rollercoaster season, the Phillies are approaching the top of the mountain. At the end of May, they were 21-29 before they started June with nine straight wins. They were under .500 for the final month of the season, but managed to finish the season just one game up on the Milwaukee Brewers for the final wild-card spot.

And now, with their 4-2 victory over the Padres on Friday night, they’re just two wins away from their first World Series appearance since 2009. Two just happens to be exactly how many more games they have at home this weekend, where they have yet to lose in the postseason.

“I’m not surprised, just because of the atmosphere,” first baseman Rhys Hoskins said postgame about a stat he’d heard describing the Phillies’ historical playoff success in home games. “I think it’s 100% a factor, probably felt that tonight.”

As amped as the 45,279 fans were before the game even got under way, a leadoff home run from NL home run leader Kyle Schwarber — the first Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove has given up in four games — sent the place into pandemonium. To say the Phillies never fully surrendered the lead from there makes it sound like the game was easy — or at least simple — when it was nothing of the sort.

If you’re bored by the all-too-2022 lack of action punctuated by game-changing homers (and game-not-changing not-quite-homers) in the American League championship series, you’ll love the messiness that made Friday night in South Philly so thrilling. The Phillies and Padres combined to put the ball in play 51 times across 69 plate appearances — that’s 51 opportunities for small-ball scoring, or stellar defense, or costly bobbles.

The Padres had their fair share of each, but I bet their fans don’t hold their breath every time a ball approaches one of their fielders. Will they prove they belong on this stage alongside the other would-be champions, or will they justify the season-long gags about how their power-centric lineup falters when the moment calls for precision?

The Phillies, apparently, contain multitudes, managing to do both in the span of a single game. That’s probably why they spend so much time emphasizing the importance of moving on from mistakes.

“We’ve talked about it; whenever something doesn’t go our way, we can get frustrated about it, but it ends right there,” said Schwarber, who is playing in his seventh postseason with his third different team. “I feel like we’ve been doing a really good job of that throughout this past season.”

The Phillies are hardly scrappy — they have the fourth-highest payroll with only the New York and Los Angeles teams spending more than them this season — but they play like it. Maybe it seeps into the clubhouse from the proudly blue-collar and even more proudly belligerent about their sports city. Or maybe it’s because winning is fun and waiting can make you just happy to be here, or it can make you hungry for more.

When the playoffs started, the Phillies had the top two players with the most regular-season games played without a postseason appearance: J.T. Realmuto at 1,005 and Segura at 1,328.

No matter what, they’ve shed that distinction already, they’ve overperformed in the postseason and lived down whatever mistakes they made in the summer. Last year, the 87-win team wouldn’t even play beyond 162. So maybe it’s a chip on their shoulder, or maybe it’s just the chance they needed.

“I wait 11 years for the opportunity, I’m not going to go back,” Segura said. “I’m going to do the best I can to continue to grind it, to continue to help the ball club, and bring something positive every single day. I just waited too many years for the opportunity, and I don’t want to let it go by.”

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Science

Astronomers Think They’ve Developed an ‘Early Warning System’ For Supernovae : ScienceAlert

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Don’t you just hate it when you’re just minding your own business, and a star suddenly decides to go supernova? Well, good news: Scientists have figured out what these stars look like right before they die.

According to new simulations, the massive stars that are the progenitors of neutron stars dim dramatically in the last few months before they explode. So, if a massive star fades into complete obscurity without fanfare, the odds are good that there’s a supernova on the horizon.

Red supergiant stars clocking in at around 8 to 20 times the mass of the Sun are some of the most interesting to watch. These beasts are at the end of their lifespan, running dangerously low on the fuel they need to support nuclear fusion in their cores.

That fusion provides outward pressure against the inward pressure of gravity. Take the fusion away, and things get violent. The star goes kaboom, star guts explode into space, and the stellar core collapses (for most stars).

For the red supergiants in question here, that core turns into an ultradense neutron star, something between around 1.1 and 2.3 times the mass of the Sun, packed into a sphere just 20 kilometers (12 miles) across.

However, before the big show kicks off, the star loses a lot of mass. We don’t really understand red supergiant mass loss very well on a theoretical level.

By looking at the light and dust that results from the death of a red supergiant after the fact, scientists have ascertained that the red supergiants shed a lot of gas and dust in the lead-up to the supernova, but the timescale on which this happens is unclear.

Could it be over decades, as past research suggests, or in less than a year, as some other modeling studies predict?

Led by astrophysicist Benjamin Davies of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK, a team of researchers used observational evidence and simulations to reconstruct how a dying red supergiant evolves.

They conducted simulations and found that the immense cloud of material around the star blocks optical light by a factor of 100 and near-infrared light by a factor of 10 just before the star goes supernova.

“The dense material almost completely obscures the star, making it 100 times fainter in the visible part of the spectrum,” Davies explains. “This means that, the day before the star explodes, you likely wouldn’t be able to see it was there.”

To gauge how long the mass loss takes, the researchers went hunting for observational clues. They found several archival images of red supergiant stars that later went supernova, around a year after the image was taken. They say this is evidence that the large-scale, obscuring mass loss occurs at least within a year.

That rules out the imminent demise of Betelgeuse (although we did already know that). The mass loss episode that dimmed Betelgeuse in 2019 seems to be part of a slower process; the latest estimates put the star 1.5 million years away from supernova.

When that day comes, now we’ll know what to be alert for … if we’re still around.

“Until now, we’ve only been able to get detailed observations of supernovae hours after they’ve already happened,” Davies says.

“With this early-warning system, we can get ready to observe them real-time, to point the world’s best telescopes at the precursor stars, and watch them getting literally ripped apart in front of our eyes.”

The research has been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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Health

‘They’ve been an afterthought’: millions of elderly Americans still vulnerable as pandemic caution wanes | Coronavirus

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It was Mother’s Day in May 2020, and an elderly woman lay dying in a Rhode Island nursing home. Her children couldn’t visit because of Covid, and as much as Adelina Ramos, her certified nursing assistant, longed to provide comfort from her bedside, she had to leave, even though she could see the woman was slipping away.

She had 25 other patients to care for that day.

It “really broke my heart,” Ramos said. “Families trust us to care for their loved ones. I can’t describe how painful it feels when we are forced to make those kinds of choices.”

She recounted the devastation wrought by the pandemic in a hearing on Wednesday before the House subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis.

Although Covid causes less panic now, particularly given the protection offered by updated vaccines and treatments, older Americans are still seeing their lives upended – and, tragically, ended entirely – by new outbreaks.

As the rest of the country seeks a new normal, millions of vulnerable Americans still remain at risk and in limbo. They’re now navigating a world ruptured by continued virus surges, shortages in the staff who care for them, and grief over more than a million people lost in two years.

Even so, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday dropped its mask recommendations for hospitals and nursing homes, except during times of high transmission or while providers are caring for moderately and severely immune-compromised patients.

The move could make it even more difficult for those at risk, especially elderly people, to navigate health care settings and long-term care facilities safely.

Prioritizing older Americans during this time is “paramount”, said David Grabowski, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. “It’s the group overall during the pandemic that’s been hit the hardest, and yet in many ways … they’ve been an afterthought.”

People over the age of 50 account for more than 93% of Covid deaths in the US.

“We still are seeing hundreds of deaths a day, and they’re occurring disproportionately among older Americans,” said Theresa Andrasfay, a postdoctoral scholar of gerontology at the University of Southern California.

Coronavirus has dropped life expectancy rates for all Americans, but changes are greater among people of color. Photograph: Yuki Iwamura/Reuters

Life expectancy has dropped for all Americans, but changes are greater among communities of color, Andrasfay said. “The Native American population had by far the largest decline in life expectancy, followed by the Latino population and then the Black population.”

In February 2021, older Americans who caught Covid were 1,000 times more likely to die than teenagers, according to a McKinsey report that predicted the “arrival of safe, effective vaccines makes the pain of that isolation a time-bound problem”.

Yet for many, isolation and stress from the pandemic persist, especially as the protection offered by vaccines wanes without boosters and as new variants emerge.

Relatively high rates of vaccinations among older people helped mortality rates drop slightly in this age group from 2020 to 2021. But the Omicron variant, which is more transmissible and better at evading immunity, brought near-record surges in elderly mortality.

A total of 95% of Americans above the age of 65 have gotten at least one Covid shot. But from there, the coverage begins to drop precipitously. Among those who were fully vaccinated in this age group, 70.8% got their first boosters. But only 40% of that group went on to get second boosters.

That means a total of 14.9 million older Americans are up-to-date on vaccinations, compared with the 57.5 million who were willing to get the first shot. Booster rates are even lower among Americans aged 50 to 64.

This could have dire implications for their safety moving forward, even as remaining precautions disappear across the country.

In nursing homes, only 57% of residents and 43% of staff are up to date on their vaccines. Rates are lowest in Arizona, Florida, Nevada and Texas.

In nursing homes, 57% of residents and 43% of staff are up to date on their vaccines. Photograph: Yuki Iwamura/Reuters

Fewer than 1% of Americans live in long-term care facilities, yet about one-fifth of all deaths from Covid-19 are related to nursing homes, with more than 200,000 residents and workers dying from the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.

“Residents, their families and their caregivers have long known that US nursing home care is broken, yet this issue has gone largely unnoticed in the broader population. Covid changed this,” Grabowski testified at the hearing.

The House coronavirus subcommittee outlined the “dire” conditions of for-profit nursing homes during the early months of the pandemic, revealing widespread neglect that led to health deterioration and death.

Nurses and nursing aides cared for as many as 38 patients during their shifts. In April 2020, when only one nurse was covering two entire floors at a facility in Nevada, one resident waited four hours for a sip of water and another resident who vomited on herself was not cleaned for at least two days, according to the House report.

Yet at least 32 states have passed legislation making it harder for residents or their families to sue long-term care facilities for such treatment.

Some of the worker shortages were because of Covid cases among staff, which could have been prevented in part with better precautions. But one nursing home worker alleged that the corporations wanted to save money by not hiring additional workers despite the need for them.

Long-term care facilities were plagued with staffing shortages and low morale before the pandemic started, and Covid sharply amplified the cracks in how America cares for its senior population.

“Nursing homes are already understaffed, under-resourced. So when you’re putting a profit motive on nursing homes to squeeze out a couple extra dollars from these communities, it’s going to compromise care,” said Ashwin Kotwal, assistant professor of geriatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine.

But it’s not only nursing home residents who have been affected by Covid – and damage from the pandemic wasn’t limited to the virus itself.

The pandemic also caused stress and loneliness, which affects both mental and physical health. In 2019, about 1.6 million adults above the age of 70 were homebound, but that number more than doubled to 4.2 million in 2020. Being homebound increases the risks of sickness and death.

Age was the greatest risk factor for severe outcomes from Covid, but loneliness compounded poor health, according to a Commonwealth Fund survey conducted between March and June 2021. Pandemic disruptions limited and delayed health care, and it amplified “considerable” social and economic challenges.

The pandemic caused stress and loneliness, affecting mental and physical health. Photograph: Eric Risberg/AP

“Compared to their counterparts in the other survey countries, older adults in the US have suffered the most economically from the Covid-19 pandemic, with more losing a job or using up all or most of their savings,” the report said. Economic hardships for older Americans were four to six times greater than in other countries surveyed, and they were more likely among Latino and Black adults than among white adults in the US.

Disruption and isolation are likely to continue for those who need to continue taking Covid precautions.

“What’s concerning going forward, as there’s more focus on individual responsibility, is that it makes it more difficult for people who are vulnerable, either because of underlying conditions or because of their age, to feel safe taking part in necessary activities,” Andrasfay said.

Those activities can include taking public transportation, medical visits, returning to work or seeing family and friends.

Weighing these risks is a fraught and exhausting process, Kotwal said.

“It can make even the most simple of social activities something that people really stress over and think about a lot. I’ve seen a lot of anxiety around how people make these decisions to do what are really normal activities, like going to grab coffee with their child or hanging out with their grandchildren.”

Keeping up-to-date on vaccines is an important part of protecting those most at risk, he said. “We can bring this into a place of community – being responsible, trying to protect others – rather than only looking at this from the individual safety lens.”

Vaccination clinics and vaccine mandates in health systems and long-term care facilities were “really effective,” Grabowski said. About 87% of residents and staff in nursing homes were vaccinated because of the clinics and mandates – but those requirements have not been updated to include boosters.

An expanded federal mandate for staff to receive booster doses would help, he said. And more vaccine clinics for facilities, as well as campaigns to reach homebound adults and others facing access problems, could also increase booster rates and protect older adults this winter.

“This is too important,” Grabowski said. “By all means, let’s make this as easy as possible.”

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Health

Scientists Think They’ve Solved The ‘Enigma’ of How Air Pollution Causes Lung Cancer : ScienceAlert

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Scientists said Saturday they had identified the mechanism through which air pollution triggers lung cancer in non-smokers, a discovery one expert hailed as “an important step for science – and for society”.

The research illustrated the health risk posed by the tiny particles produced by burning fossil fuels, sparking fresh calls for more urgent action to combat climate change.

It could also pave the way for a new field of cancer prevention, according to Charles Swanton of the UK’s Francis Crick Institute.

Swanton presented the research, which has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, at the European Society for Medical Oncology’s annual conference in Paris.

Air pollution has long been thought to be linked to a higher risk of lung cancer in people who have never smoked.

“But we didn’t really know whether pollution was directly causing lung cancer – or how,” Swanton told AFP.

Traditionally it has been thought that exposure to carcinogens, such as those in cigarette smoke or pollution, causes DNA mutations that then become cancer.

But there was an “inconvenient truth” with this model, Swanton said: Previous research has shown that the DNA mutations can be present without causing cancer – and that most environmental carcinogens do not cause the mutations.

His study proposes a different model.

A future cancer pill?

The research team from the Francis Crick Institute and University College London analyzed the health data of more than 460,000 people in England, South Korea, and Taiwan.

They found that exposure to tiny PM2.5 pollution particles – which are less than 2.5 microns across – led to an increased risk of mutations in the EGFR gene.

In laboratory studies on mice, the team showed that the particles caused changes in the EGFR gene as well as in the KRAS gene, both of which have been linked to lung cancer.

Finally, they analyzed nearly 250 samples of human lung tissue never exposed to carcinogens from smoking or heavy pollution.

Even though the lungs were healthy, they found DNA mutations in 18 percent of EGFR genes and 33 percent of KRAS genes.

“They’re just sitting there,” Swanton said, adding that the mutations seem to increase with age.

“On their own, they probably are insufficient to drive cancer,” he said.

But when a cell is exposed to pollution it can trigger a “wound-healing response” that causes inflammation, Swanton said.

And if that cell “harbors a mutation, it will then form a cancer”, he added.

“We’ve provided a biological mechanism behind what was previously an enigma,” he said.

In another experiment on mice, the researchers showed that an antibody could block the mediator – called interleukin 1 beta – which sparks the inflammation, stopping cancer from getting started in the first place.

Swanton said he hoped the finding would “provide fruitful grounds for a future of what might be molecular cancer prevention, where we can offer people a pill, perhaps every day, to reduce the risk of cancer”.

‘Revolutionary’

Suzette Delaloge, who heads the cancer prevention program at France’s Gustave Roussy institute, said the research was “quite revolutionary, because we had practically no prior demonstration of this alternative way of cancer forming.

“The study is quite an important step for science – and for society too, I hope,” she told AFP.

“This opens a huge door, both for knowledge but also for new ways to prevent” cancer from developing, said Delaloge, who was not involved in the research but discussed it at the conference on Saturday.

“This level of demonstration must force authorities to act on an international scale.”

Tony Mok, an oncologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, called the research “exciting”.

“It means that we can ask whether, in the future, it will be possible to use lung scans to look for pre-cancerous lesions in the lungs and try to reverse them with medicines such as interleukin 1 beta inhibitors,” he said.

Swanton called air pollution a “hidden killer”, pointing to research estimating it is linked to the deaths of more than eight million people a year – around the same number as tobacco.

Other research has linked PM2.5 to 250,000 deaths annually from lung cancer alone.

“You and I have a choice about whether we smoke or not, but we do not have a choice about the air we breathe,” said Swanton, who is also the chief clinician at Cancer Research UK, which was the main funder of the research.

“Given that probably five times as many people are exposed to unhealthy levels of pollution than tobacco, you can see this is quite a major global problem,” he added.

“We can only tackle it if we recognize the really intimate links between climate health and human health.”

© Agence France-Presse

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Business

What Remote Work Debate? They’ve Been Back at the Office for a While.

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Gabe Tucker, 26, is a lawyer with Fortif Law Partners in Birmingham, Ala., where the share of job listings that permit remote work is roughly half that of New York’s. Each morning, Mr. Tucker puts on a button-down shirt, drives for 15 minutes and arrives at the office around 8. His routine, in other words, remains identical to the one he had before the pandemic (with the exception of no longer having to wear a tie). In the evenings, he and his colleagues sometimes make a toast to celebrate the closing of a deal. They’ve been back in the office since June 2020, with masks and other Covid precautions.

“It’s work like normal, pretty much,” Mr. Tucker said. “We found it difficult to be working remotely. We all enjoy being around each other.”

San Francisco’s office occupancy is at 39 percent of its prepandemic level, and New York’s is at 41 percent, according to data from the building security firm Kastle. Austin, Texas, meanwhile, is at nearly 60 percent. Then there’s the Huntington Center, a 37-story office tower in downtown Columbus, which now has about 85 percent of its prepandemic occupants on site at some point during the week, according to Hines, the company that manages the building.

Traci Martinez, the office managing partner at Squire Patton Boggs, a law firm with offices on the 20th floor of the Huntington Center, said somebody coming from San Francisco might walk into her office and marvel at the buzz.

“They would come into our building and be like, ‘Wow, this is just normal,’” said Ms. Martinez, 45.

She has a front-row view of the disparities in office returns nationwide. She coordinates with managers in the firm’s numerous offices, and has found that its Ohio locations have filled up faster than many others, particularly its Washington, D.C., location.

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Science

Physicists Say They’ve Built an Atom Laser That Can Run ‘Forever’

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A new breakthrough has allowed physicists to create a beam of atoms that behaves the same way as a laser, and that can theoretically stay on “forever”.

This might finally mean the technology is on its way to practical application, although significant limitations still apply.

 

Nevertheless, this is a huge step forward for what is known as an “atom laser” – a beam made of atoms marching as a single wave that could one day be used for testing fundamental physical constants, and engineering precision technology.

Atom lasers have been around for a minute. The first atom laser was created by a team of MIT physicists back in 1996. The concept sounds pretty simple: just as a traditional light-based laser consists of photons moving with their waves in sync, a laser made of atoms would require their own wave-like nature to align before being shuffled out as a beam.

As with many things in science, however, it is easier to conceptualize than to realize. At the root of the atom laser is a state of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate, or BEC.

A BEC is created by cooling a cloud of bosons to just a fraction above absolute zero. At such low temperatures, the atoms sink to their lowest possible energy state without stopping completely.

When they reach these low energies, the particles’ quantum properties can no longer interfere with each other; they move close enough to each other to sort of overlap, resulting in a high-density cloud of atoms that behaves like one ‘super atom’ or matter wave.

 

However, BECs are something of a paradox. They’re very fragile; even light can destroy a BEC. Given that the atoms in a BEC are cooled using optical lasers, this usually means that a BEC’s existence is fleeting.

Atom lasers that scientists have managed to achieve to date have been of the pulsed, rather than continuous variety; and involve firing off just one pulse before a new BEC needs to be generated.

In order to create a continuous BEC, a team of researchers at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands realized something needed to change.

“In previous experiments, the gradual cooling of atoms was all done in one place. In our setup, we decided to spread the cooling steps not over time, but in space: we make the atoms move while they progress through consecutive cooling steps,” explained physicist Florian Schreck.

“In the end, ultracold atoms arrive at the heart of the experiment, where they can be used to form coherent matter waves in a BEC. But while these atoms are being used, new atoms are already on their way to replenish the BEC. In this way, we can keep the process going – essentially forever.”

 

That ‘heart of the experiment’ is a trap that keeps the BEC shielded from light, a reservoir that can be continuously replenished for as long as the experiment runs.

Protecting the BEC from the light produced by the cooling laser, however, while simple in theory, was again a bit more difficult in practice. Not only were there technical hurdles, but there were also bureaucratic and administrative ones too.

“On moving to Amsterdam in 2013, we began with a leap of faith, borrowed funds, an empty room, and a team entirely funded by personal grants,” said physicist Chun-Chia Chen, who led the research.

“Six years later, in the early hours of Christmas morning 2019, the experiment was finally on the verge of working. We had the idea of adding an extra laser beam to solve a last technical difficulty, and instantly every image we took showed a BEC, the first continuous-wave BEC.”

Now that the first part of the continuous atom laser has been realized – the “continuous atom” part – the next step, the team said, is working on maintaining a stable atom beam. They could achieve this by transferring the atoms to an untrapped state, thereby extracting a propagating matter wave.

Because they used strontium atoms, a popular choice for BECs, the prospect opens exciting opportunities, they said. Atom interferometry using strontium BECs, for example, could be used to conduct investigations of relativity and quantum mechanics, or detect gravitational waves.

“Our experiment is the matter wave analogue of a continuous-wave optical laser with fully reflective cavity mirrors,” the researchers wrote in their paper. 

“This proof-of-principle demonstration provides a new, hitherto missing piece of atom optics, enabling the construction of continuous coherent-matter-wave devices.”

The research has been published in Nature.

 

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Entertainment

Twitter users call pasta portions at Kourtney Kardashian wedding the saddest thing they’ve ever seen

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Twitter users call the pasta portions at Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker’s wedding the ‘saddest thing’ they have ever seen

By Deirdre Simonds For Dailymail.com

Published: | Updated:

While Kourtney Kardashian and her new husband Travis Barker’s wedding is estimated to have cost several million, some Twitter users couldn’t help but call out the small pasta portions at the reception.

After the 43-year-old reality star’s younger sister Kylie Jenner shared a snap of her minuscule serving of spaghetti on an otherwise empty plate, fans took to social media to joke about how hungry their guests must’ve been. 

‘The pasta portion size at Kourtney Kardashian’s wedding is the one of the saddest things i’ve ever seen,’ one woman tweeted, while another quipped that was a ‘mouthful, not a portion.’ 

Poking fun: While Kourtney Kardashian and her new husband Travis Barker’s wedding is estimated to have cost several million, some Twitter users couldn’t help but call out the small pasta portions at the reception

Others suggested that the ‘correct adult portion size is what’s in the pan’ and that it ‘had better’ been a ’30 course meal.’ 

Others quipped about feeling ‘personally attacked by this portion size of pasta’ and that portion being ‘offensive, atrocious, and a sin.’

‘It’s like, barely 100 calories. Like how dare you. Is this pasta for ANTS?’ another fired. 

Not enough? After the 43-year-old reality star’s younger sister Kylie Jenner shared a snap of her minuscule serving of spaghetti on an otherwise empty plate, fans took to social media to joke about how hungry their guests must’ve been

‘The pasta portion size at Kourtney Kardashian’s wedding is the one of the saddest things i’ve ever seen,’ one woman tweeted, while another quipped that was a ‘mouthful, not a portion’

Among the haters was an Italian citizen, who explained that the dish was gourmet cuisine, from a luxury restaurant and ‘portions are never as big as they are in the USA.’

Kravis, as they are affectionately called, threw a lavish reception – sponsored by Dolce & Gabbana – at a castle in Portofino Italy.

Guests were ferried to the ceremony and reception space on a fleet of speedboats decked out with D&G pillows and blankets. 

The other side: Among the haters was an Italian citizen, who explained that the dish was gourmet cuisine, from a luxury restaurant and ‘portions are never as big as they are in the USA’

The secret garden ceremony venue is in the grounds of a house which has been hired by the Kardashians along with the medieval Castello Brown fortress next door.

Kourtney defied expectations by opting to skip the traditional wedding gown and, instead, wore a corseted white minidress with a cathedral length veil.

The lavish European wedding is the third time the loved-up couple have tied the knot, following their unofficial nuptials after the Grammys in Las Vegas and their legal ceremony in Santa Barbara.

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