Anti-vaccine advocates just wont go away. If anything, the COVID-19 pandemic has seen their views further entrenched. A writer in Nature suggests it’s time to take the gloves off. “I have a long-standing disagreement with many of my US public-health colleagues. I admire their commitment to disease prevention, but when I ask for a more direct way to counter anti-vaccine aggression, I’m told, ‘that’s not our approach; confrontation gives them a platform and oxygen.’ In my opinion, this attitude reflects a time when we had dial-up modems. Today, the anti-vaccine empire has hundreds of websites and perhaps 58 million followers on social media. The bad guys are winning, in part because health agencies either underestimate or deny the reach of anti-science forces, and are ill-equipped to counter it.” Here, here. http://go.nature.com/32WPrVo

Japan continues to struggle to get its efforts introducing the Olympic Games moving in the right direction. Holding the event during a pandemic Is proving trickier than first thought. According to the Associated Press, “The Tokyo Olympics open in under three months and there are still more questions than answers despite the rollout Wednesday of new rule books to explain how the games will take place in the middle of a surging pandemic in Japan. The 60-page, second version of the “Playbooks” for athletes was released by the International Olympic Committee and the the local organizers. Versions for other non-athlete groups are to be released later. And a third version will come out in June, just weeks before the Olympics open on July 23.” Heaven closed off the games to foreigners, it’s hard to imagine how much more they can do. http://bit.ly/3u0xQYF

“Using high-resolution imagery from NASA’s Terra satellite from between 2000 and 2019, a group of international scientists found that glaciers, with the exception of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets which were excluded from the study, lost an average of 267 gigatonnes of ice per year. A gigatonne of ice would fill New York City’s Central Park and stand 341 meters (1,119 feet) high.” http://reut.rs/2PuklBi

Trees don’t get the respect they deserve. Well, at least not among most people. The New Scientist has an interview with one of the champions of tree science. “Few scientists make much impact with their PhD thesis, but, in 1997, Suzanne Simard did just that. She had discovered that forest trees share and trade food via fungal networks that connect their roots. Her research on “the wood wide web” made the cover of Nature. What was then a challenge to orthodox ideas is today widely accepted.” it’s really worth the few minutes read. Check it out. http://bit.ly/3dXjceW

Thanks for reading. Let’s be careful out there.