The furious race to develop a coronavirus vaccine played out against a presidential election, between a pharmaceutical giant and a biotech upstart, with the stakes as high as they could get.

When Logic is a Feeling (an attempt at a sort of "Remedial Trans 101")

Hospitals in the United States chargepatients as much as 1,800% more than their costs amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new study. This article first appeared in Salon. The 100 most expensive hospitals in the United States charge between $1,129 and $1,808 for every $100 of their costs, according to a study by National […]

President Donald Trump has spent the three weeks since he lost the election savaging a pair of GOP governors for not backing his claims he was robbed. Republicans are worried it’s just the start of what’s in store from the soon-to-be-ex-president.

A Hasidic synagogue in Brooklyn planned the wedding of a chief rabbi’s grandson with such secrecy it was able to host thousands of maskless celebrants without the city catching on.

Why didn't the barn-raising model pan out? As Eghbal notes, it's partly that the random folks who pitch in make only very small contributions, like fixing a bug. Making and remaking code requires a lot of high-level synthesis—which, as it turns out, is hard to break into little pieces. It lives best in the heads of a small number of people.

Covid-19 has spread around the planet, sending billions of people into lockdown as health services struggle to cope. Find out where the virus has spread, and where it has been most deadly

Skeletal remains of what are believed to have been a rich man and his male slave attempting to escape death from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago have been discovered in Pompeii, officials at the archaeological park in Italy said Saturday.

But I wondered if, as with Galatea herself, there might be a gap between creator intent and actual outcome in the creation of these stories as well as in their characters. Are the robots that the audience considers sexiest the ones who were created to be sexy? I took to Twitter, with two variations on the same survey. The nuance emerged. Fembot crushes varied widely, but a major theme appeared to be how likely they were to crush you. Fallout 4’s KL-E-0 and System Shock’s SHODAN were popular choices, and among men and women alike GLaDOS was declared “wife city.” On the boys’ side, Transformers like Cheetor were beloved, as were more recent entries like Detroit: Become Human’s Connor. Few if any robots on either side had been originally written with their physical or romantic appeal in mind, and many of the more famous and traditionally attractive female contenders (Blade Runner’s Pris, Halo’s Cortana) appeared to be left out. And then there was Data.

The mantis shrimp is four inches long and throws punches so fast they glow

In the middle of March, while many Americans were panic-buying milk and toilet paper, Michael Redmond had other things on his mind: how to safely house the dozens of people who rely on his organization for a bed to sleep in every night. The executive director of the Upper Valley Haven social service agency in White River Junction, Vermont, had read the reports that the new coronavirus could easily circulate among people living in close proximity — retirement homes, prisons, or homeless shelters like his. So he contacted the state to ask for advice. “‘Don’t worry,’” he recalls an official telling him. ‘“We’ve entered into contracts with local motels. If you feel you can’t operate your shelter, everyone can be given a room in a motel.’” Within days, Redmond was able to cut the number of beds in his shelter to reduce crowding and divert additional clientele to state-subsidized motel rooms. His nonprofit also organized outdoor dining and meal deliveries to further support social distancing. Eight months into the pandemic, Redmond has seen no Covid-19 cases among his patrons. Overall, there have been fewer than six cases in Vermont’s homeless population, according to the state health department. That’s far less than a 1 percent infection rate — a stark contrast with the 25 percent infection rate among the homeless across the US. Vermont has also remained an island of low coronavirus spread generally. Even with a recent surge — from fewer than 10 cases per day in September to 57 on November 18 — it’s consistently had one of the lowest infection rates in the continental US: 14.6 cases per 100,000 in the last seven days compared to 27 in New York, 74 in Georgia, 84 in Colorado, and 185 in North Dakota. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, has called Vermont “a model for the country.”

There were three individuals who developed asymptomatic Covid-19 infections despite having positive antibody tests, compared with 76 in the group without any antibodies. But none of the three became unwell.

“We’re all Mikes, but we all want to be Trents,” Swingers director Doug Liman said in 2016, later adding that Trent’s unsavory qualities — his sexism and racial insensitivity — were his and screenwriter Favreau’s way of “rebelling against the political correctness of our time.” That second quote is cringey, but my younger self understands what he’s getting at because of what he says in the first quote.

The town of Takikawa, on the northern island of Hokkaido, purchased and installed two Monster Wolf robots after bears were found roaming neighbourhoods in September. City officials said there had been no bear encounters since.

Quek had been touring the United States on and off since graduating; dancing at clubs, doing interviews, selling merchandise, and taking on clients for private fetish sessions on the side. One of those clients had introduced her to the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — he had a thing for teacher-student role play. Dressed in a schoolgirl’s uniform, pausing only to deliberately make a mistake or two so that the client could spank her, Quek swiftly built a simple webpage with a button that, when clicked, revealed text that read “hello, world.”

Authorities said the bond was posted around 2 p.m. and was arranged by Rittenhouse's attorney. Stipulations, such as conditions of release, were not released.

A new book shows how the NRA forged an alliance between cops and civilian gun owners.

On Wednesday (18 November) the company asked him to send a self-image for real-time verification of his Uber Eats account. He took a selfie – the image on the right in the picture at the top – but it was flagged by the computer and verification failed. Why? Because it didn’t ‘match’ his original, bearded profile picture (on the left above). He had decided to go clean shaven in anticipation of getting a job interview. The software then started an automatic termination of Cristian’s account. That’s because it assumed he was letting someone else use his account to carry out his deliveries, which is against the rules.

WAUWATOSA, Wis. (AP) — Police searched Friday evening for the suspect in a shooting at a suburban Milwaukee mall that left seven adults and a teenager injured. Wauwatosa Police Chief Barry Weber gave no motive for the attack at the Mayfair Mall in a brief update about three hours after the 2:50 p.m. incident near an entrance to the Macy’s store. He said the extent of the eight victims’ injuries was unknown, but all were alive. He added that the shooter was “no longer at the scene” when authorities arrived. “Preliminary statements from witnesses indicate that the shooter is a white male in his 20s or 30s,” Weber told reporters. “Investigators are working on determining the identity of that suspect.” The chief called the mall an active crime scene and asked people to continue to stay away. He said the mall would remain closed until further notice.

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A 17-year-old from Illinois who is charged with killing two people during a protest in Wisconsin and whose case has become a rallying cry for some conservatives posted $2 million bail Friday and was released from custody. Kyle Rittenhouse is accused of fatally shooting Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounding Gaige Grosskreutz during a demonstration Aug. 25 that followed the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha. He posted bond through his attorney at about 2 p.m., Kenosha County Sheriff’s Sgt. David Wright said.