The rise of the omicron variant has caused havoc around the world, just as the emergence of the delta and alpha variants did before. A pattern has emerged, with the world scrambling to respond to a new form of the coronavirus every six or so months. How can we reduce the risk of new variants appearing again and again?

Firstly, let’s consider how they emerge. A virus reproduces by making copies of itself. Every time it replicates, there’s a tiny chance that an error occurs in the copying of the virus’s genetic sequence.

Check out your birth certificate and surely you’ll see a designation for sex. When you were born, a doctor or clinician assigned you the “male” or “female” label based on a look at your genitalia. In the U.S., this has been standard practice for more than a century.

But sex designation is not as simple as a glance and then a check of one box or another. Instead, the overwhelming evidence shows that sex is not binary. To put it another way, the terms “male” and “female” don’t fully capture the complex biological, anatomical and chromosomal variations that occur in the human body.

Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation built 109 eye-catching and affordable homes in New Orleans for a community where many people were displaced by damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Now this housing development is in disarray.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has changed its guidelines about masks and respirators a number of times over the past two years and gave its most recent update on Jan. 14, 2022. The update states that cloth face coverings offer the least protection from the coronavirus compared with surgical masks or N95-style masks. Christian L'Orange is a mechanical engineer who has been testing the performance of masks for the state of Colorado since the beginning of the pandemic. He explains the new CDC guidelines and the science of what makes for a good mask.

Around the world, populations of many beloved species are declining at increasing rates. According to one grim projection, as many as 40% of the world’s species may be extinct by 2050. Alarmingly, many of these declines are caused by threats for which few solutions exist.

Numerous species now depend on conservation breeding programs for their survival. But these programs typically do not encourage species to adapt and survive in the wild alongside intractable threats such as climate change and disease.

Several international airlines recently canceled flights into certain US airports over concerns the rollout of 5G mobile communication technology could interfere with some planes’ equipment.

After warnings about the potential problem from aviation bosses and the Federal Aviation Administration, telecommunications companies AT&T and Verizon delayed activating some 5G masts around US airports.