Monthly Archives: January 2021

As many virologists have stated, their expectation was that the evolution of noticeably higher-transmission variants of Cov-19 was quite unlikely. There is solid evidence that this has now happened at least three times (D614G, A222V, and B.1.1.7)  with at least … Continue reading →

Once upon a time, I was talking to a young engineer about some new wrinkle in solar concentrators.  He was enthusiastic: he thought that with a little effort, you could focus sunlight enough to generate a temperature higher than that … Continue reading →

These graphs show the results of evolutionary experiments by Richard Lenski, in which a bacterial species ( e coli) has been evolving under constant conditions for many years: tens of thousands of generations. These bacteria were not perfectly adapted to … Continue reading →

There’s a new variant of cov-19, the UK strain, that is something like 70% more infectious than previous strains. At this point its lethality seems about the same as earlier strains. Virologists, most of them, did not expect this.  I … Continue reading →