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Students masking in a biology class last fall in Morse Auditorium. Masks are “strongly recommended” for use in classrooms and other crowded indoor spaces this winter, due to rising COVID and flu infections.
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Masking “Strongly Recommended” in Crowded Indoor Spaces as COVID, Flu, Other Viruses SurgeCOVID-19, the flu, RSV, and other respiratory illnesses like the common cold are peaking after the holidays, so do yourself and everyone else a favor by masking in crowded spaces and keeping yourself healthy.
Masks are now “strongly recommended” in crowded indoor spaces on campus, such as classrooms, common areas, and on the BU shuttle, says Judy Platt, chief health officer and director of Student Health Services. Masking is also recommended inside your home if you or others are not feeling well. Wearing one is the best way to keep from getting sick—or spreading an illness to others. Students, faculty, and staff are required to mask in all healthcare spaces on campus.
“Please just wear your masks, so you’re not miserable,” says Platt, who sent a memo to the University community on January 12 updating campus health protocols at the start of the semester. “We are seeing so much illness.”
And it’s by no means just COVID.
“It is the common cold, the usual winter viruses, the upper respiratory illnesses that are literally plaguing Student Health Services, and every urgent care and emergency department around the country,” she says. “You witness that when you try to go to an urgent care, and there are no appointments today, right? Or you go to the emergency department and people are lining the hallways, because, again, there are too many people coming in, and the system is just being backed up. I won’t say overwhelmed, but it’s being backed up.”
So, wear a mask when you’re around others indoors. Stay home when you’re not feeling well. Keep to date on your immunizations. Avoid contact with people who are sick and wash your hands frequently. And did we say wear a mask?
While many people have relaxed their precautions—because they’re vaccinated and boosted, or have already had the disease, or are just fatigued with it all—COVID still kills hundreds of Americans every day and sends many more to the hospital.
But even as vaccines and treatments lessen the threat of severe illness from COVID, the common cold and other relatively mundane respiratory illnesses seem to be affecting people differently after the pandemic.
“The common cold viruses used to be like, you got pretty sick for three or four days, but by the fifth or sixth day you were kind of on the mend. Now people are really down and out for at least 7 to 10 days and not feeling well, and it’s just a miserable start to the academic year,” Platt says.
Why this is happening is not entirely clear, Platt says, and scientists are still studying how isolation, other COVID protocols, and actually getting infected with COVID has affected our individual and collective immune systems. But everyone needs to do what they can to keep themselves physically and mentally healthy at this time of year, including getting enough rest, eating nutritious foods, engaging in regular physical activity, and sleeping seven to eight hours nightly. Look for ways to stay well throughout the semester by checking out resources on employee wellness and student wellness.
“Your health, your well-being, are important, and we should prioritize that from an individual perspective,” Platt says. “When I’m not feeling well, I should take the time to rest, because it’s the best thing for me, and then, collectively, it’s the best thing for my community.”
There is some good news to report, as well. Last year’s concerning new virus, mpox (formerly known as monkeypox), was met aggressively by public health officials and an alert public, and its threat has diminished considerably, to the point where it has little or no presence on campus, Platt says.
Platt’s memo contains updates on a variety of other campus protocols for COVID and other respiratory illnesses:
You’re encouraged to test upon returning to campus if you are experiencing any symptoms and/or have recently been exposed. Depending on your travel over intersession, you may be required to test prior to traveling to the United States. Please review the new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) requirements that went into effect on January 5 here.
Boston University’s free PCR testing for those with symptoms or exposures resumed on January 3 at the Health Services Annex in the rear of 925 Commonwealth Ave., and is open Monday through Friday, 9 am to 5 pm. For more information, students can visit the Student Health Services COVID-19 website and faculty/staff can visit the Occupational Health Center COVID-19 website.
Student Health Services will be offering flu shots Monday, January 23, through Friday, January 27, from 9 am to 3 pm. Students seeking an appointment can schedule online via Patient Connect.
Occupational Health Center is now offering additional flu shots for faculty and staff by appointment only. Call the Occupational Health Center at 617-353-6630 to schedule.
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Is Khaby Lame Endorsing Lynqyo, As Other Influencers Invest In Shiba Inu And Bitcoin
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The Us May Be In For A Brutal Flu Season
Flu season is making a comeback. In the past two years, influenza and other respiratory viruses took a backseat to the more contagious COVID-19 variants. Pandemic precautions caused flu cases to drop to so low that at least one strain of the pathogen may have gone extinct. However, as restrictions loosen and kids return to school in-person, infectious disease experts are predicting high infection rates this year. Currently, there have been two confirmed reports of influenza in Delaware.
There are a few clear-cut indicators that this season will spell trouble for the US, infectious disease scientists say. In most years, flu seasons are a guessing game for those experts. Because the virus is constantly mutating, it’s hard to say for certain whether or not it’ll be a severe one. “We’ve been saying for the last few years to expect bad flu seasons, and that didn’t pan out,” explains Andrew Handel, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Stony Brook University. “I think the public gets very frustrated with our predictions about flu seasons, but it’s all a prediction based on the best information we have available.”
This time, however, a bad flu season abroad and low US vaccination rates for the flu are ominous forecasts for a rough winter ahead.
Australia’s tough flu seasonJennifer Lighter, a pediatric infectious disease doctor at NYU Langone Health explains that flu seasons typically start in the southern hemisphere and move north. For this reason, the US turns to places like Australia to glimpse what we should expect to see in the fall and winter. Australia’s 2023 flu season was one of the worst in five years, according to a report from Australia’s Department of Health and Aged Care. Children between 5 to 9 had the highest flu case rates followed by children younger than 5 and people between 10 to 19 years old.
[Related: The back-to-school guide for fighting common viruses]
Fortunately, there’s some good news. Another reason virologists closely follow Australia’s flu season is to identify which strains are circulating in the region. These strains are then considered in the final design of the annual flu vaccine, increasing the chances it will be highly effective. Lighter says that scientists don’t really have the estimates of how effective this year’s vaccine is until after cases emerge, but “we know that the current vaccine is matching well with what’s circulating in communities in the southern hemisphere.”
Low vaccination ratesFew people get their flu vaccines, and the COVID-19 pandemic made a flu shot less of a priority. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports only 57 percent of children were immunized against influenza during the 2023-2023 season—a 5.6 percent drop from the pre-pandemic 2023-2023 season. The vaccine rates for adults were even lower; coverage for 2023-2023 ranged from 35.9 percent to 60 percent.
“It’s always been a struggle to get a large portion of the population vaccinated against the flu,” explains Handel. “And over the last couple of years, fewer and fewer people have gotten flu vaccines, and that’s one more hole in the layer of protection against infections.”
There are many factors that go into a person’s decision not to get a vaccine. More recently, Handel says the discussions over COVID vaccine safety may have made Americans more hesitant about getting another shot in their arm. What’s more, people are experiencing vaccine fatigue—feeling burned out after constant immunizations and vaccine news.“People don’t want to spend time getting all of these vaccines, when they feel it’s not really all that beneficial or necessary,” Handel adds, even when the best evidence shows a flu shot helps.
Waning immunityAt the start of the pandemic, the flu and other respiratory viruses hit an all-time low. Public health practices including masking in public, online school, and social distancing prevented the influenza virus from spreading from person to person.
While experts incorrectly predicted an enormous surge for 2023-2023 flu season as places opened back up, there is cause for concern for this upcoming season. To start, this will mark the third year in which most of the population’s immune systems have not been exposed to the flu virus. Both experts say it’s likely everyone’s immunity against influenza has waned. Waning immunity could lead to a greater chance of getting infected and having more severe illness.
[Related: A viral descendent of the deadly 1918 flu is probably still going around]
Winter respiratory viruses that normally circulate in the cold season, such as RSV, have also been running rampant in the last few months and overwhelming children’s hospitals. Young children are at especially high risk for severe flu because of their developing immune systems. “It might be their first time getting infected or because they’re getting exposed to multiple respiratory viruses all at once,” Handel explains. Even if your child has had a past flu case, he says it’s been a long time so there’s a chance their immunities are not as strong as it once was.”
Other people at high risk for severe flu are people with asthma, COPD, older adults, and immunocompromised individuals. “The problem with kids not having a lot of immunity, and we’ve seen this with a lot of infections, is that these viruses are the ones that tend to pass on to grandparents and other adults who then spread it within the community,” says Handel.
How to protect yourselfBoth experts agree the best way to stay protected this season is to get vaccinated. They recommend getting the flu vaccine now and scheduling it at the same time as your COVID boosters, which are already available in pharmacies. Besides achiness and fatigue, Lighter says you should not feel concerned about getting a shot in each arm on the same day. The flu shot will protect you as well as your family and community from the worst cases, she emphasizes.
“The flu shot is analogous to the COVID shot. There may be breakthroughs but they’re both preventing severe disease and keeping you out of the hospital,” Lighter says. “And that’s really the main purpose of a vaccine—to keep you from getting significantly sick.”
How To Protect Android From Trojan Viruses
If not removed from your device the Trojan poses a lot of risk including loss of data or even invasion and theft of personal information. A common malware in your android phone mimics the Trojan: Win32/Occamy.C. Trojan: Win32/Occamy.C is a Windows specific Trojan that collects private information from the host device. Similar is the case with Android malware which intrudes user’s privacy.
Luckily, there are ways you can protect your device from such attacks. And if they have already invaded your phone, there are ways to locate and remove them.
Shut Down The Device And Do Your Due Diligence
The moment you notice or realize that your device is under attack, shut it down. Whilst this action may not remove the malware attack, it prevents the spread as well as the lethal repercussions of the attack. This means that although the malware attack will still be in your device system, it will be inactive whilst the device is turned off.
Turning off your device gives you time to figure out what kind of malware attack is under. It also gives you the time you need to conduct proper research on how to address the problem. The research shouldn’t only be limited to finding a way to get rid of the malware. It should also allow you to reflect on your activities to prevent future attacks. Think of what app you installed? What sites did you visit? Did you hand over your device to anyone?
Switch To Safe Or Emergency Mode
As easy as it may sound, it is not that easy in practice, especially for a non-tech savvy. Thus, if the malware attack seems too serious or uncontrollable, it always better to seek help from a professional. There may be well versed in finding a solution to the device – sometimes, it may even require a full wipe of your device.
Find The Perpetrating App
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It is also not as easy for everyone to note which app is actually responsible for the malware attack. The best way to figure this information is to access the settings of your Android device. Once in the settings, go to the apps section to which you will have access to a list of all the installed apps in your device. Look for the app that has infected your device and immediately disable it. You can choose to install, force close or force stop the app, depending on what the device will let you do.
Delete Suspicious Apps
Additionally, malware developers spend time to design these attacks making some smart enough to manipulate your device settings. This malware tends to invade your device administrator to protect itself. Thus, make it a point to also audit your phone setting and administrator. If manipulated, you can overturn your device administrator and enable the ability to remove android malware. This should then allow you to uninstall unwanted and suspicious apps.
Install Malware Protection
Malware protection should, in fact, be installed even before a malware attack to ensure that your phone is always protected. Antimalware apps and programs work by scanning any downloaded or installed programs and weeds out any suspicious or malicious ones.
Thus, after deleting the infected app, immediately download antimalware protection to start protecting your device instantaneously. There are many good and popular malware protection programs to choose from. You can access reputable malware protection apps easily from your Google Play Store. Simply do your due diligence to ensure they are legitimate.
Although it is proven that they are ways to detect and remove malware threats from your Android device – by the time, you are addressing this issue, the attacks would’ve already made even at a small level, some damage. Thus, it is better to simply be smart and protect yourself. Always do some reasoning before installing an app or accessing a new site.
Scrutinize and audit apps before you install them into your device, and never leave or “borrow” your device to anyone. As much as updating the apps in your device is important, this process also exposes it to potential malware attacks – thus, make the right judgment.
Designing Spaces With Marginalized People In Mind Makes Them Better For Everyone
In the 1940s, hundreds of thousands of World War II veterans returned home with disabilities. Frustrated by the difficulties they faced, Jack Fisher of Kalamazoo, Michigan, petitioned his city commission to install an experimental curb cut—a gentle slope that brings the end of a sidewalk down to meet the level of the street—at the corners of several blocks downtown. A few months into the pilot project, Fisher reported that even residents without wheelchairs were enjoying the impact of the little ramps: Older adults leaning on canes, parents pushing strollers, and kids pulling wagons benefited from the human-made hills, too.
Today, these shallow slants are an essential feature of the pedestrian landscape across the United States. They’ve also spurred a titular design concept: the “curb-cut effect,” which refers to the fact that supporting marginalized groups of people often ends up helping much larger swaths of society. Whether it’s applied to accessible design, investments in social welfare, or pioneering legislation, study after study shows the effect has the power to uplift us all.
Pictograms: Painting a pictureThe human brain processes images faster than letters, likely because alphabets and other writing systems have only been part of our lives for a few millennia. That’s why the pictogram—a symbol standing in for a word or phrase—is a common tool for helping people with intellectual disabilities. But they can also ease the way for any sighted traveler. People can recognize an image in as little as 13 milliseconds, compared to around 300 milliseconds for a word. Now many of us take for granted that we’ll be able to quickly identify the nearest emergency exit or bathroom in a mall, or determine when it’s safe to cross a busy street, anywhere—even if we don’t speak the local language.
Reading machines: Getting the messageIn 1976, technologist Ray Kurzweil released a device for the blind and visually impaired that converted images into text it then read aloud—he called it, simply, “the reading machine.” That gadget combined several new tools his eponymous company devised, including one of the first text-to-speech synthesizers, which evolved into an essential part of virtual assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant; smart speakers with those voices are now in roughly one-quarter of US homes. The machine also featured an important component of computer vision called optical character recognition, which, by detecting street signs and house numbers, is helping build the maps that self-driving cars use to navigate the world.
A warm welcome starts with a door that everyone can open—and some designs are more accessible than others. The Voorhes
Lever-style knobs: Opening new doorsTraditional doorknobs often end up keeping people out. Rounded ones, for example, can be hard for those with arthritis to grasp—and not everyone has hands with which to do the grasping. As of 1990, when the Americans with Disabilities Act became law, doors in public areas must require less than five pounds of force—and only one hand—to open. That often means installing automatic options or broader, lever-style handles that folks can operate without twisting their wrist (or lifting a finger, as an elbow or hip will often do the trick). These regulations increased and eased access for the one in seven Americans with a mobility disability. But they’ve also been a boon to older adults, young children, and people with their hands full. Touch-free ways to enter or exit a building can help keep germs from spreading, too.
Closed captions: Following the conversationSears launched the first TV with a built-in decoder that allowed deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers to read along with their favorite programs in 1980. Previously, only open captions—which producers burn directly onto video and appear no matter what—were available. In the 1990s, text became increasingly ubiquitous as DVDs and, later, streaming services embedded the ability to switch the words on at will. A 2006 survey found that only around 20 percent of the people using subtitles had auditory impairments. Today, most people who switch on captions are watching sports in loud bars, making sure the kids stay asleep, learning new languages, or just trying to parse the thick Irish accents on Derry Girls.
[Related: The office will never be the same]
Telecommuting: Balancing work and lifeIn 1979, in an effort to reduce traffic on the office mainframe, IBM installed computer terminals in the homes of five employees, helping to usher in the era of remote work. The development of increasingly small and inexpensive personal computers made the end of the office seem attainable. By 1983, some 2,000 IBMers were logging on from home; in 2009, 40 percent of the firm’s 386,000 employees worked remotely. The extra flexibility can make it easier to pick children up or take elderly relatives to doctor appointments. For those with injuries and physical disabilities, having a home office can remove many hurdles to a simple commute and productive workday. COVID-19 has shown just how many can get the job done in their sweatpants: In the spring of 2023, at least one-third of all employed Americans were WFH, with some companies eyeing long-term arrangements to reduce office overhead and lower disease transmission risk.
Sound-dampening materials such as mossy plants can help reduce annoying ambient noise—and look darn good doing it. The Voorhes
DeafSpace design: Keeping things quietThere are more than 150 design elements that can make offices and public facilities better suited to the specific needs of people with auditory impairments. Those suggested tweaks come thanks to research by the DeafSpace Project, a universal design effort from architect Hansel Bauman and Gallaudet University, the world’s only higher education institution specifically for the deaf and hard of hearing. One aim is to eliminate distracting ambient noises, which can make it difficult for people to use their limited auditory abilities or perceive vibrations, and can even distort the sounds coming from hearing aids. To achieve this, designers can incorporate dampening materials such as rubber or mossy plants into structures and décor to reduce echo. By keeping conversations and other aural disturbances from traveling and bouncing around the room, these tactics also make it easier for all sorts of students and workers to focus.
Bike lanes: Sharing the street[Related: The pandemic could make cities more bike-friendly—for good]
All-gender restrooms: Welcoming everyoneArchitects and business owners initially promoted family-style restrooms—which typically feature a single toilet instead of many stalls—for people requiring more space, including those with physical disabilities or kids in tow. By the early 2010s, it became clear these commodes could also benefit the 1.4 million or more transgender individuals in America. In a 2023 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality, the majority of respondents reported avoiding public restrooms for fear of being denied access, verbally harassed, or physically assaulted; many recounted painful instances where other patrons perceived them as being in the wrong space. As all-gender toilets have begun to proliferate in certain spaces like college campuses, it’s become clear that they can afford everyone more privacy.
This story appears in the Winter 2023, Transformation issue of Popular Science.
This Wild Grassland In The Amazon Isn’t As Untouched As It Seems
In the southern edge of the Amazon basin lies a huge grassland, the Llano de Mojos. It’s something in between dry land and water, carved up by rivers and swamps, the entire landscape floods every year during the wet season. But in spite of the power of those waters, new research suggests that the key features of the landscape, from its plants to its floods, were shaped more by humans than the geography, or even the climate.
“What is the Amazon?” says John Walker, an archaeologist at the University of Central Florida. “It’s not just one thing.”
It’s long been clear that the landscape was made by humans, says Walker, who has worked in the region for decades and was an author on the recent study, published in the journal PNAS.
There are three key human structures in the Mojos: long, narrow fields that stick out of the floodplain just a handful of centimeters, fish traps that cut across waterways, and “forest islands” that loom over the flat horizon. Three quarters of those forest islands—which were likely built out of the flat plain by humans—contain unambiguous signs of human habitation, from the remains of fires to ditches and ceramics.
The researchers set out to understand how that landscape had transformed over time.
They took soil cores from two sites in the swamp about 13 miles apart. In each of them, the soil showed the same story: thousands of years ago, the region was relatively dry. Then, traces of wetland plants and aquatic microorganisms showed that regular floods had occurred on the landscape, as they do today. At the same time as the floods, charcoal fragments began to appear. When the fire was most intense, the soil contained traces of crops like corn, squash, and sweet potato.
But that progression happened at different times at the two sites. At one, fire and floods began 6,000 years ago. At the other, those became dominant 1,500 years later. And that suggests to the researchers that the landscape was transformed into a swamp not because of increased rainfall, but because of human management.
Forest islands in the Llano de Mojos. Thomas Lee
“This is really weird,” says Walker. “It’s very difficult to imagine a climate explanation or some kind of geographic explanation. To me, the obvious suspect is all these artificial earthworks that are everywhere.”
The research is the latest in a body of work that suggests that even the “wildest” ecosystems on the planet, like the Australian outback and the Amazon basin, are not the product of untouched nature, but of human cultivation. And often that cultivation has gone on for thousands of years longer than scientists have recognized.
In the case of the Mojos, the researchers believe that the high ground of the forest islands may have been inhabited since at least 8,900 BCE. That’s in line with other research that argues the region was a hub of early agriculture, and may have even been a domestication hotspot on par with the Ganges, Mediterranean, and Papua New Guinea.
When most people think “what is the Amazon,” Walker says, “It’s Nature with a capital N. It’s something that has to exist in the universe because it’s a contrast to culture or the city, or something like that… I think that idea is sometimes more influential than what we really know about the Amazon.”
The Mojos region is now mostly cattle ranches. And the study suggests that those cattle have also shaped the landscape: before they were introduced in the 1600s, the plains were full of shrubs and trees, a bit like Africa’s Serengeti.
Still, Walker cautions, it’s not easy to know how to interpret the earthworks. The first European accounts of the region describe people fishing in the area’s shallow waters, but the existing indigenous society was quickly destroyed by colonization and disease, and many of the landscapes were abandoned or converted to ranchland. Pollen from the soil cores show that the forest islands grew back over with heavy tree cover at that time. (The entire Amazon basin experienced such a catastrophic population collapse that the regrowth of the continent’s forests led to a dramatic dip in global carbon.) The forest islands show clear signs of human use, while the fields look like agricultural land, but without firsthand accounts it would be a step too far to think of them as villages and farms.
[Related: Humans are pushing into animals’ homes, but nature is as rebellious as ever]
“I’m scared of the European-farming-style bucket,” Walker says. “I’m less interested in saying, ‘okay, [the inhabitants] were on this island and nowhere else.’ Those islands might have been useful even when people weren’t living on them.”
For one thing, the islands support plants and animals in surprising ways. While excavating, the team found a burrowing fish living in the mud at the bottom of a ditch on the island. “That’s just to hammer home the point that the things people did are affecting plants and animals today. Those forest islands are great places for all kinds of animals.”
Walker makes the point that pre colonization societies may have farmed, hunted, and fished in ways that wouldn’t be obvious to Europeans. And even if people don’t actively inhabit the forest islands anymore, Walker says that his local research partners who grew up in the area “have all kinds of knowledge of plants and animals and historical changes” at the sites. On one cattle ranch, he remembers, one partner knew that there was a howler monkey living on a forest island alongside several dozen workers.
“The interplay between what we think of as nature, and the people living there, is complicated. And it’s probably been complicated for thousands of years.”
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