When a SpaceX crewed Dragon launches atop a Falcon 9 carrying the first astronauts launched from American soil by the United States, they will be making history, setting NASA on a trajectory for the Moon and beyond.  For a long time, private companies being able to put humans into orbit has been a dream.  Since 2001 A Space Odyssey, made before the Apollo program landed people on the Moon, sci fi envisioned it being possible to take a Pan Am flight on a Space Shuttle like vehicle up to a space station. One with airliner seating no less.   Then to connect to a flight to the Moon. 

How to scientifically answer questions like wear a mask or not?  Anyone and everyone can think scientifically.  It is thinking systematically and critically about the information and considering the ethics of your choice given that information. It is also being open to new information which can change your mind. The key is knowing that public science is a process of independently assessing information gleaned from reliable sources.  The hard part is being open to that information even if it goes against our own biases or preferences. Lastly thinking ethically about your choices. Could what you do adversely affect someone else?

Dr Fauci is the most trusted public scientist on all matters regarding SARS-COV-2, however he gets his pure logic wrong on the subject of Covid-19’s origin. That scientific research was the transport mechanism for this virus from Southern China to central China is a valid logical hypothesis. Like all scientist he is not an expert on every aspect of a complex phenomenon. He is a public health expert focused on saving lives in the here and now and doing a great job of it. To him discussion of the origin of the virus is irrelevant. He claims that the logic of the hypothesis that a lab was involved in transporting the virus from nature into the city of Wuhan is “circular logic”. “[T]hat means it was in the wild to begin with.

The American Physical Society’s April 2020 meeting is being held as an online event this year due to concerns over Covid-19. This is also true for school and for many people work. Many workers do work which is essential and which cannot be done remotely, and they are very important to the rest of us surviving this situation right now. That said, in 1990  stating that by 2020 a large percentage of the population could work from home, and a majority would have at least a basic ability to communicate face to face while holding productive meetings by computer, you would’ve been writing science fiction.

My tiny mostly Black suburb of Chicago has 446.7 cases of Covid-19 per hundred thousand.  A very disproportionate number of Covid-19 deaths have been of Black people.  Deeply ingrained structural and cultural anti-Blackness has meant that Black people often suffer racial disparities.  The Covid-19 hotspot of Bellwood, Illinois, my hometown shows how complex these issues are.  The Black community of Bellwood IL breaks many of the stereotypes and which has overcome…days ago.  That said the histo

Being shut in can drive people crazy.  Much of the world is or will be under some degree of quarantine, lockdown, shelter in place or social distancing.  Communicating only remotely and in ways that are often sterile and without interaction. In places like Wuhan China, where the various undoubtedly originated, to Italy people sing out the windows as a community.  In the US, and likely other places,  singing out the window in New York only gets you a F bomb . Like something out of an 80’s Eddie Murphy movie.   Watching Netflix, YouTube or other services can get old.