Good morning, it’s Wednesday! A few of us at STAT thought yesterday might have been Wednesday, but no, it’s today. And in case you’re as confused as us, tomorrow is Thursday. (You would think editing a weekly podcast keeps me aware of what day it is, but you’d be wrong.) There are only 11 weeks left in 2024 … ! Anyway, the news:
Chemistry Nobel goes to three scientists for protein discoveries
Scientists who opened new doors in our understanding of the structure of proteins — the fundamental building blocks of biology — and even came up with ways to create new proteins won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday morning.
The prize went to David Baker of the University of Washington, and to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, who work at Google DeepMind in London. Baker will receive half the 11 million Swedish kronor (just over $1 million) prize, while Hassabis and Jumper will split the other half.
Hassabis and Jumper showed that the structure of a protein — which defines its biological function — could be predicted just from knowing the sequence of the protein’s components. Baker developed tools that enabled researchers to design new proteins.
More here from Drew Joseph.
Kamala Harris proposes new health benefits for older Americans on ‘The View’
In her campaign for the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris has followed in President Biden’s footsteps by calling to expand Medicare’s new drug price negotiation. Now she says she wants to use cuts to the pharmaceutical industry’s profits in Medicare to fund new home care, vision, and hearing benefits for people over the age of 65.
In an election cycle largely devoid of policy details, Harris went on ABC’s “The View” to talk about the proposal. “Here’s how we pay for it,” she said. “Part of what I also intend to do is allow Medicare to continue to negotiate drug prices with these big pharmaceutical companies.” The idea may resonate with older voters — and alarm the drug industry. Read more on the plan from STAT’s Rachel Cohrs Zhang and John Wilkerson.
Discouraging new CDC data on youth mental health as states sue TikTok
More than a dozen states filed lawsuits against TikTok yesterday, claiming that the app’s algorithm is addictive and harmful to youth mental health. The filings dropped on the day that the CDC released data from the latest Youth Behavioral Risk Survey, which is given to a nationally representative set of high school students every other year.
The results on mental health and social media are noteworthy: More than three-quarters of surveyed students reported using social media several times a day or more. Students who used social media more reported being bullied more at school and electronically. Frequent social media use was also associated with having seriously considered suicide and having made a suicide plan.
Other striking statistics from the CDC report:
- Overall, about 40% of adolescents reported persistently feeling sad or hopeless. Twenty percent had seriously considered attempting suicide.
- The survey provides the first set of nationally representative data on the mental health of trans youth. More than a quarter of trans and questioning students reported having attempted suicide in the past year. That’s compared with 5% of cisgender male and 11% of cisgender female students.
- About 32% of students reported having ever experienced racism in school. Those students reported higher rates of considering and attempting suicide than those who had never experienced racism.
Meet the viruses living on your toothbrush & in your shower
Next time you brush your teeth or take a shower, say hello: There are hundreds of viruses teeming over those surfaces, most of which scientists have never seen before. That’s according to a study published today in Frontiers in Microbiomes. Researchers set out to characterize bacteria in the home by analyzing 34 toothbrushes and 92 showerheads — because where there’s water, there are microbes.
“The number of viruses that we found is absolutely wild,” Erica Hartmann, the researcher who led the study, said in a press release. There were more than 600 different viruses in the samples, with basically no overlap between the toothbrush and showerhead.
The researchers emphasized that the viruses they found are not our enemies. They are phages, which target bacteria. Still, the results emphasize what they call “the paucity of information available on bacteriophage in indoor environments.”
(Tangentially related — did you guys see this study from February that found closing the toilet lid does not mitigate your risk of contaminating bathroom surfaces? It haunts me.)
Lead pipes need to be replaced within 10 years, per new EPA rule
Drinking water systems across the U.S. need to identify and replace lead pipes within 10 years, according to a new EPA rule that the Biden administration finalized yesterday. The rule also requires more rigorous testing of drinking water and a lower threshold of exposure to require communities to take action. The action comes a decade after the drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
The EPA estimates the work will cost an estimated $20-30 billion to replace “legacy” (read: old) pipes supporting up to 9 million homes. In addition to previous funding, the agency is making $2.6 billion available to support the work, half of which must be provided to disadvantaged communities. (However, note that the rule does not require utility companies to pay for pipes that are on private property). Another $35 million will be made available in competitive grant funding.
Read more about the rule, which STAT’s Nalis Merelli wrote about last year when it was proposed.
Why Scientific American endorsed a presidential candidate
The editors at Scientific American have inspired controversy twice in recent years for endorsing presidential candidates: President Biden in 2020 and now Vice President Kamala Harris in this year’s election. The publication’s editor-in-chief Laura Helmuth and opinion editor Megha Satyanarayana explain why they went against the magazine’s 179-year history in this week’s episode of The First Opinion podcast.
“We have a lot of knowledge, and we have, I think, the opportunity and the responsibility to explain how science is at stake in the election,” said Helmuth. “And not just science, of course — health care, the environment, education, technology.” Listen to the episode.
What we’re reading
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More than meets the eye: The enigma of being good with faces, Sequencer
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A boy’s bicycling death haunts a Black neighborhood. 35 years later, there’s still no sidewalk, KFF Health News
- Q&A: How the FDA is approaching AI in clinical trials and drug development, STAT
- Her face was unrecognizable after an explosion. A placenta restored it, New York Times
- As U.S. efforts stall, China pushes ahead with CRISPR treatments for muscular dystrophy, STAT