COVID-19 by any other name...

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COVID-19 nicknames get a makeover By Haley Weiss Health Reporter A lot about COVID-19 has been divisive, including the names we call it and its subvariants. In January, you might have heard people referring to the then-dominant U.S. strain as Kraken, and like me, wondered where that name came from. My colleague Jamie Ducharme looked into it at the time, and found a Canadian scientist named Ryan Gregory at the head of a team of Twitter academics giving COVID-19 variants nicknames. Since then, their operation has matured, and in February, the team published a formal proposal for nicknaming variants. Rather than monster names like Kraken, which some worried could be a tad dramatic, the new system uses the names of celestial objects like planets, moons, and stars—like Arcturus. It also includes a handy lettering structure that can tell you about a variant based on the spelling of its nickname. Despite its popular appeal, mainstream public health agencies have not embraced the system. Just this weekend, one of the World Health Organization's top COVID-19 officials explicitly asked that people refrain from using nicknames for strains like XBB.1.5 (Kraken, from Gregory's team's first naming convention) and XBB.1.16 (Arcturus, from the team's latest nomenclature). Still, it seems increasingly likely that the practically DIY naming system that is clearer and catchier may overtake the official Dewey Decimal system-like approach. READ MORE   Share This Story

What Else to Read Column: How America Lost the COVID-19 War By Philip Zelikow The U.S. is no better prepared for future pandemics than it was in early 2020 Read More » Column: Animals Can Save Us—If We Let Them By Keggie Carew History is all too human. Yet, it is our relationship to animals that has changed the face of the planet. Read More » Congress Re-Introduces Bill to Protect Kids From Online Sexual Abuse By Solcyre Burga This marks the third time this bill has been introduced in the last three years Read More » Column: Our Age of Cynicism and Cynicism Over Age Are the Only Things Holding Biden Back By Jeffrey Sonnenfeld The Presideny's record of achievements speak for itself—whatever his age. Read More » What Science Really Says About Grilled Meat and Cancer Risk By Markham Heid The research on is much less clear than many believe. (Originally published in 2019.) Read More »

ONE LAST READ Cry not? Consider the last time you cried—what triggered the waterworks, where you were, who you were with, and how you felt afterwards. Often, those tears signal powerlessness or a request for aid; as Allie Volpe writes in Vox, carefully considering the context can help lead to powerful realizations about yourself. Read More »

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