the legend that there is a baby boom nine months after any natural disaster has been debunked, repeatedly

If we do the testing of every single case, rapid isolation of the cases, you should be able to keep cases down low. If you simply rely on the big shut down measures without finding every case, then every time you take the brakes off, it could come back in waves. So that future frankly, may be determined by us and our response as much as the virus.

“If 30% of the population has already been exposed to this then that number will go to 70% in two weeks,” James said. Assuming that having the disease left you with immunity to it, the crisis would then be as good as over

If you have a smartphone, you’re probably contributing to a massive coronavirus surveillance system. And it’s revealing where Americans have — and haven’t — been practicing social distancing. A company called Unacast that collects and analyzes phone GPS location data launched a “Social Distancing Scoreboard” that grades, county by county, which residents are changing behavior at the urging of health officials. It uses the reduction in the total distance we travel as a rough index for whether we’re staying put at home. Comparing the nation’s mass movements from March 20 to an average Friday, Washington, D.C., gets an A, while Wyoming as a whole earns an F. [Washington Post]

A new study of the inner workings of our muscles finds that if muscles have been trained in the past, they seem to develop a molecular memory of working out that lingers through a prolonged period of inactivity, and once we start training again, this “muscle memory” could speed the process by which we regain our former muscular strength and size. [NY Times]

3D printed adapter to turn snorkeling mask into a non-invasive ventilator

How did such a simple thing as soap and warm water — and alcohol-based sanitizers — obtain such power over these parasites?

in other news:

Keeping a smartphone in hand and frequent checking is associated with extraversion and poorer performance on tests of sustained attention and general intelligence, particularly semantic reasoning.

according to a new study, many people will reject their own arguments - if they’re tricked into thinking that other people proposed them

we argue that, at times, the desire to appear honest can actually lead people to lie.

The Liar’s Walk: Detecting Deception with Gait and Gesture

Switzerland has voted as many times as all of the other countries in the world put together in the past century.

Things you can do with a browser in 2020

Where Did “Tibetan” Singing Bowls Really Come From?

Warhol’s Photo of a Painting of a Photo

The World vs. SARS-CoV-2, every day the same again, germs | March 25th, 2020