Out today, my feature for @WIRED on the origin of the airborne-droplet dichotomy, how a seemingly small error made decades ago would have massive repercussions on public health policy, and how Covid-19 catalyzed a reckoning with that flawed history.

wired.com/story/the-teen… Thank you to the dozens of aerosol scientists, infectious disease doctors, and epidemiologists who spoke to me over the last 10 months to help me understand the thorny science, politics, and history at play. But especially @linseymarr, @katierandall, and Yuguo Li.

There's emerging evidence that, like other respiratory viruses, dry air makes it easier for the new coronavirus to spread, and harder for our immune systems to stomp out an infection. It also means we can do something about it. My latest for @WIRED :

wired.com/story/covid-wi… Big thanks to @EllenFoxman, @staylorvt, @nanovaccine, @ZfishBio, Carlos Guzman @Helmholtz_HZI, Ariadne Nichol @StanfordEthics, and @Columbia's Jeffrey Shaman for helping me piece together all the various threads.

Droplet? Aerosol? Fomite? What about...aerosolized fomites?

My latest for @WIRED, and a thread:

wired.com/story/a-new-st… Months ago, researchers sampled the air inside two hospitals in Wuhan. They found some of the highest viral loads in the rooms where health care workers took off their PPE. They hypothesized that the act of removing contaminated garments was resuspending SARS-CoV-2 into the air.

So, we need to talk about that neck gaiter study.

Specifically, what it showed: a cool, low-cost way to measure invisible speech droplets.

And what it didn't: neck gaiter = bad.

1/ It couldn't have shown that, because the study was less a study and more a demonstration. Just one guy talking into a box outfitted with a phone and a laser. 2/

I looked at the story behind the study in my latest for @WIRED: wired.com/story/scientis…

Thousands of scientists are suspending their work today to confront and eradicate anti-black racism in academia and STEM.

#ShutDownSTEM #ShutDownAcademia
#strike4blacklives

wired.com/story/across-t… Thank you to @cosmojellyfish @sheydaipek and Tien-Tien Yu for talking to me about the movement, which was pioneered by a coalition of scientists who have long been doing the work of fighting anti-Black racism in academia, including @IBJIYONGI @iamstarnord.

If you were wondering why a coronavirus vaccine isn't going to be ready until next summer (at the very earliest!) I put together a guide for @WIRED about the science and economics of vaccine-making.

wired.com/story/everythi… @WIRED It's also going to be a living document of all the ongoing efforts to make a vaccine for Covid-19. So far, more than 30 companies, startups, and academic groups are in the hunt.