The antiviral was authorized in December for people at high risk of becoming seriously ill from COVID-19. Unfortunately, despite these promising developments, Paxlovid and other COVID-19 treatments are still in short supply across the country. Half of the 20 million Paxlovid treatment courses purchased by the US aren’t expected to be delivered until June, and the other half by September. However, experts are optimistic that Paxlovid and other oral antivirals could become an integral weapon against the novel coronavirus....

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also announced efforts to boost biofuels earlier this month through a proposed package of actions for increasing the volume of biofuels in production, despite retroactively making cuts for biofuel volume in the fuel mix for 2020 and 2021. Additionally, new regulatory changes have been placed to enhance the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a program created in 2005 to reduce emissions from fossil fuels in transit....

In our culture, we pick dates according to the way the sun and moon are moving. We have prioritized a calendar that matches with the solar year. Our months are made of lunar cycles, and we restart the year after the Earth has made one full rotation around the sun. But sometimes these cycles don’t sync up. If the sea worms didn’t show up at the usual lunar cycle period, the Trobrianers would say that the “moon has gone silly,” according to Kevin Birth, a professor of anthropology at Queens College and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY)....

Zayner’s company, The ODIN, offers several different kits designed to teach users the basics about biohacking equipment and processes so that they can start to innovate beyond it. Engineering kits range from $75 to $5,000 (the cheapest one containing CRISPR is $130), and each contains a micropipette, pipette tips, a microcentrifuge rack and tubes, and petri dishes with growing media. Hackers can choose whether they want to edit prokaryotes (such as bacteria) or eukaryotes (yeast), and the kits will contain step-by-step written and video instructions for how to edit the genes of the organism....

“This is the first [stepping] stone of a long process that now can start,” says study author Alessandro Pezzella, a University of Naples Federico II organic chemist. Humans and other organisms don’t react to eumelanin, which means it could be used to coat medical implants or other devices meant to go inside the human body. But Eumelanin in its natural form is too untidy on a molecular level to conduct electricity with much efficiency....

As Engadget put it succinctly this morning, “Basically, every listing on the ‘Who’s Watching?’ screen is going to cost you extra money if they don’t also live with you.” As to how much that actually will cost people, the number is currently unclear. That said, if it mirrors the pilot program’s “one quarter of the basic rate,” that will put the penalty fee at between $3 and $4 extra per month....

From shooting amazing photos in the middle of the night to getting your new Google phone to wake you up gently in the morning, there are a lot of cool things you can do with your new gadget. All these tips cover both the Pixel 4 and the Pixel 4 XL, so wherever you see the Pixel 4 mentioned below, we’re talking about the XL, too. 1. Take photos of the night sky The Pixel 4 phones really can take photos of the stars in the night sky—provided you leave the exposure to run for four minutes....

Moto camping is as basic or deluxe as you want it to be. Sometimes we like to pack just the essentials on our motorcycles and rough it. But most of the time when camping with family and friends for a few days of riding motorcycles and having fun, we like to have good tools and a few nice creature comforts. Here’s a packing list of items we have used in the field and found to be good quality and to make the camping experience easier and better....

As you read through our list of products below, be sure to pay close attention to our recommendations for purchasers. We have included a few reasons why you should buy certain items instead of others if they meet your needs better than other ones do. While not all customers may agree with what we say about these products in this article, it is important that buyers know their options before making any purchases which could potentially be damaging for their health in the long run....

The warning from climate scientists has been clear and consistent for decades: Man-made greenhouse-gas emissions, which increase every year, are causing the planet to warm, and that will have dire consequences—the specifics of which (timing, intensity, location) aren’t completely understood right now. Unfortunately, the steadiness of that message is also its undoing in the media; more often, the rare scientific dissenter gets the limelight. “Because it’s been pretty much the same for 25 years, it almost never gets reported,” says Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies....

Its final resting place is about 57 feet below the water’s surface 20 miles off the coast of Galveston, Texas, in an area administered by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The ship is protected by the Sunken Military Craft Act as a war grave. But it is not protected from the force of hurricanes, which recently removed some of the sediment that encased the Hatteras in its watery grave....

The researchers hope to better understand how gut bacteria protect their insect hosts. This could eventually lead to developing probiotics for wild honeybees, other animals, and even people who are at high risk of coming into contact with dangerous pesticides. Researchers narrowed in on a specific pesticide, a chemical called atrazine, which is the second most commonly sold pesticide globally. It’s often used in the Midwest to clear plants from areas where corn will grow and is less toxic to animals and people than other chemicals....

But researchers at Michigan State University may have figured out a way to help plants withstand attacks by both insects and certain pathogens simultaneously. The work published earlier this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. One of the major defense mechanisms in plants is jasmonate, a stress hormone. When an insect bites the plant, it triggers the jasmonate pathway, which causes the plant to release compounds that discourage the insect from eating more....

“Have you tried turning it off and back on again?” This phrase, repeated by weary IT specialists the world over, had pos­sibly never prompted such horror. First of all, it was one in the morning, and I was sitting in a chilly control room on top of the highest mountain in Hawaii. I was nearly fourteen thousand feet above sea level, twenty-four years old, and desperately fighting through sleep and oxygen deprivation to salvage several hard-won hours of PhD thesis research time on a piece of broken equipment....

But soon the tides turned in their favor; on March 30th, they worked out a plan to shift women and children to a nearby motel, then ended up securing permanent housing for over a third of the clients. Now, no longer needing the extra capacity of the hotel, they have resumed operating solely out of the main shelter. Yet this may just be the relative calm before a much larger upheaval in the coming months as the hurricane season, a pandemic, and mass evictions all potentially collide....

Turns out, your guess might be more educated than you think. Across cultures, we write different songs for different purposes, say, to start a religious procession, get your groove on, or hush a crying baby to sleep. But in the end, there’s more diversity within cultures than outside of them. A new study published in Science breaks down how the purpose of music is universal across the world, despite the incredible variety within each cultural bubble....

Transitioning from home to campus comes with its own set of unique challenges; college students must negotiate entirely new environments, and simultaneously build new networks of friends. Isolation and depression often result. Those students who owned either a cat or dog, or both, reported fewer feelings of isolation, and were, in general, less overwhelmed with the changes that characterize life’s college stage. Those surveyed stated that pet ownership contributed to their overall health....

Even modern smartphones with all of their processing power and meticulously molded lenses can’t effectively replace a true macro lens add-on. Luckily, there are lots to choose from and they span a range of magnification, image quality, and price. Here are some tips for picking the right accessory and then getting the best shots once it’s up and running. Choose the right macro lens Macro lens attachments are typically ranked by magnification—the higher the number, the closer your subject will appear when you take the photo....

If you own an Echo device, its light ring will turn yellow and it will let you know when a product you’re interested in is about to go on sale. You’ll also get a notification on your phone, even if you don’t have an Echo device.