The South African covid-19 variant is proving to be a vaccine challenge

Covid apps could get a second chance under Biden—but it will take work

Sponsored by Darktrace The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology The vaccine/variant problem 01.29.21 Good morning. Today: the South African covid-19 variant poses a problem for vaccines, and Biden faces an uphill struggle to get Americans to adopt contact tracing apps. I hope you have a pleasant weekend and that you'll consider getting your friends to join us: sign up here to get The Download every day. The South African covid-19 variant is proving to be a vaccine challenge   The news: US company Novavax has announced that its covid-19 vaccine was found to be 89% effective in final-stage clinical trials in the UK. It discovered the vaccine protects people with the UK covid-19 variant, but is less effective against the variant sequenced in South Africa, known as B.1.351. In the South African wing of the trial, where most people had the South African covid-19 variant, the vaccine was just 50% effective. The (concerning) bigger picture: Novavax is not the only vaccine maker to discover its covid-19 shot is less effective against the South African variant. Moderna and Pfizer recently reported that their vaccines don't work as well against this variant either, although manufacturers are confident that they would be able to quickly produce updated versions to combat the changing virus. The US reported its first known cases of the South African variant yesterday in two people in South Carolina. Those people had not had contact with one another, which suggests B.1.351 may already be spreading in parts of the US. Read the full story. Covid apps could get a second chance under Biden—but it will take work What’s happening: The Biden administration is investigating the tools at its disposal to slow the spread of covid-19, and that could include a new national contact tracing app. The app could be based on what’s succeeded at the state level, supporting more states in developing their own apps, or some combination of tactics. This would be a significant departure for the US, which has had a piecemeal rollout of state contact tracing apps, with no support from the federal government. What could work: Rather than building a single app, the government could help more states join the 22 that have already rolled them out, and ensure the technology works across state lines. It makes sense to build technology that works across international borders, too. However, it will face a huge uphill struggle to build trust with the public. Read the full story. —Mia Sato We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet 'em at me.)   + A hilarious and cute method to stop baby goats from hurting each other.   + A good list of cult movies, though the best one is missing.   + This probably isn't "nice" but I enjoyed the episode about how Trent Reznor wrote Hurt.    + Obviously, OBVIOUSLY, someone has turned the GameStop saga into a sea shanty.   + Who can resist a giggling baby?!   + Why are there colorful pools in Utah?   + This cashew nut curry looks very tempting. Sponsor Message Cyber Security is Now a Machine Fight AI is being used to create increasingly customized, targeted, and hard-to-detect cyber-attacks at scale.  Autonomous Cyber AI learns ‘normal’ for your organization and stops advanced threats in their tracks.   Learn more > The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 The game never stops A good guide to what the hell is going on with GameStop shares. (Margins)   + Robinhood might need a name change. The trading app has blocked users from buying or trading certain stocks. (The Verge)   + … and it is being sued as a result. (The Daily Beast)   + Robinhood had to raise $1 billion from investors to shore up its financial position. (FT $)   + A lot of the action has taken the place on Discord. (The Verge)   + How GameStop exposed the market. (Axios)   + It's not a revolution. (FT $)  2 The hard lessons of modeling the pandemic As with so many fields, covid-19 came along and upended epidemiology. (Quanta)   + What if you could borrow someone else's covid-19 immunity? (Wired $)   + The case for opening schools. (The Atlantic)   + What will the summer be like? (Wired UK)  3 Pregnant women get conflicting advice on coronavirus vaccines A snapshot of a huge issue: many drugs are not properly tested in women at all, let alone pregnant ones. (NYT $)   + The yoga world is riddled with anti-vaxxers. (Wired UK)  4 Facebook's oversight board returned its first decisions And they are mostly bad decisions, especially in the case of Myanmar. (Reuters)   + The oversight board is not the answer to Facebook's problems. (Time)   + Facebook ads let you target members of the military. (Wired $)   + Facebook is taking Apple to court over antitrust issues. (The Information)   + Apple hit back. (Engadget)  5 The teens taking on Comcast Access to usable internet speeds should be a right. (Buzzfeed)   6 The factories in India pumping out scam calls And the sleuths turning the tables on them.. (NYT $)   7 Why does Big Tech want us to feel nostalgia? "To drive more engagement" is pretty much always the answer. (New Statesman)   + Spotify wants to suggest songs based on how you're feeling. (BBC)   8 We won't recycle our way out of the climate crisis Keep recycling, but demand much more from companies and governments. (The Atlantic)   9 Science may have solved one of history's greatest adventure mysteries The bodies of nine hikers were found in Russia in 1959. This is probably what happened to them. (National Geographic)   10 What it's like to have your genitals hacked 😬 Some things really don't need to be connected to the internet. (Vice) What happens when the internet of things converges at the speed of 5G with the reasoning of artificial intelligence?  Find out at Future Compute, our virtual conference on intelligent computing, which kicks off in 2 weeks! Register now. Quote of the day “It felt like somebody had opened a window in a stuffy room.” —Kirk Rutter, who suffered from depression, tells Nature how he felt after psilocybin therapy. Top image credit: Getty Please send giggling babies to hi@technologyreview.com. Follow me on Twitter at @charlottejee. Thanks for reading! —Charlotte Was this newsletter forwarded to you, and you'd like to see more? Sign up for free Intelligent computing Join us virtually | February 10-11, 2021   Follow us: MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142

Want to change how you receive these emails?

You can *update your preferences or *unsubscribe from this list. 

Subscription Information

This email was sent to Webmaster220 Bible Study Blog  

*the blog owner has deleted the hyperlink intentionally