Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together. I had covered wars before, in the Balkans and Afghanistan. They were shooting wars where journalists — often foolishly — convinced themselves that they had a chance of identifying and sidestepping danger. But in Britain’s…
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Spending more time inside has accelerated any number of trends that existed before the pandemic, including bingeing of all kinds. But here’s one that’s actually good for you: Bringing nature indoors. The appeal of interiors draped in greenery is no mystery: Houseplants are a natural salve for spaces filled with artificial materials and products, reminders…
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In just a matter of weeks, two variants of the coronavirus have become so familiar that you can hear their inscrutable alphanumeric names regularly uttered on television news. B.1.1.7, first identified in Britain, has demonstrated the power to spread far and fast. In South Africa, a mutant called B.1.351 can dodge human antibodies, blunting the…
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When Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine won emergency use authorization on Saturday from the Food and Drug Administration, the move augmented the nation’s vaccination effort with a third major tool — one that differs markedly from the first two authorized vaccines, made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Most notably, it is administered in a single dose instead…
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A new paper in Oxford Open Materials Science, published by Oxford University Press, presents low cost modifications to existing N95 masks that prolongs their effectiveness and improves their reusability post disinfectants. The COVID-19 crisis has increased demand for respiratory masks, with various models of DIY masks becoming popular alongside the commercially available N95. The utility…
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In a world first, an international team of researchers has read an unopened letter from Renaissance Europe – without breaking its seal or damaging it in any way. The research, published in Nature Communications, describes how an X-ray scanner used in dental research and ‘virtual unfolding’ allowed the interdisciplinary team to read the contents of…
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Peer Reviewed Experimental Animals Consumption of a high fat diet may be activating a response in the heart that is causing destructive growth and lead to greater risk of heart attacks, according to new research. In a paper published in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, researchers looked at the effect of feeding mice a high…
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While natural disasters and economic recessions traditionally unleash an uptick in child abuse, a new study suggests that cases may have declined in the first months of the pandemic, compared with the same timeframe in previous years. In the study, led by UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals and Children’s Mercy Kansas City, researchers tracked the number…
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Rodney Scott, the James Beard award-winning chef and pitmaster from South Carolina, called Mr. Jones’s son, James Jr., to offer advice on how to rebuild a safer, wood-fire barbecue restaurant. The Scott family’s original restaurant, in Hemingway, S.C., was badly damaged by a fire in 2013, and the pit at Rodney Scott’s Whole Hog BBQ,…
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Lady Gaga’s dog walker recounted in a vivid Instagram post on Monday his frantic thoughts in the moments after he was shot in Los Angeles last week by two men who stole two of the singer’s French bulldogs and left him in a pool of blood. Referring to Asia, a third dog owned by the…
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