Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed

The Atlantic: How Science Beat the Virus
In fall of 2019, exactly zero scientists were studying COVID‑19, because no one knew the disease existed. The coronavirus that causes it, SARS‑CoV‑2, had only recently jumped into humans and had been neither identified nor named. But by the end of March 2020, it had spread to more than 170 countries, sickened more than 750,000 people, and triggered the biggest pivot in the history of modern science. Thousands of researchers dropped whatever intellectual puzzles had previously consumed their curiosity and began working on the pandemic instead. In mere months, science became thoroughly COVID-ized. (Yong, 12/14)

AP: Scientists Focus On Bats For Clues To Prevent Next Pandemic
Night began to fall in Rio de Janeiro’s Pedra Branca state park as four Brazilian scientists switched on their flashlights to traipse along a narrow trail of mud through dense rainforest. The researchers were on a mission: capture bats and help prevent the next global pandemic. A few meters ahead, nearly invisible in the darkness, a bat made high-pitched squeaks as it strained its wings against the thin nylon net that had ensnared it. One of the researchers removed the bat, which used its pointed teeth to bite her gloved fingers. The November nighttime outing was part of a project at Brazil’s state-run Fiocruz Institute to collect and study viruses present in wild animals — including bats, which many scientists believe were linked to the outbreak of COVID-19. (Larson, Ghosal and Silva de Sousa, 12/14)

The Washington Post: A Pandemic Side Effect: Used Masks Polluting California Coastal Waters 
Since the pandemic began early this year, masks have become a go-to item of the national wardrobe, especially here along the California coast where mask-wearing rates are high. But many are careless with the new accessory and, in windy places like many along this state’s 840-mile coast, the masks and other products are ending up on sidewalks, skittering into storm drains, blowing onto beaches and ending up in the Pacific Ocean and its bays. (Wilson, 12/11)

The New York Times: Alzheimer's Researchers Study A Rare Brain 
Aliria Rosa Piedrahita de Villegas carried a rare genetic mutation that had all but guaranteed she would develop Alzheimer’s disease in her 40s. But only at age 72 did she experience the first symptoms of it. Her dementia was not terribly advanced when she died from cancer on Nov. 10, a month shy of her 78th birthday, in her daughter’s home on a hillside that overlooks the city. Neurology investigators at the University of Antioquia in Medellín, led by Dr. Francisco Lopera, have followed members of Ms. Piedrahita de Villegas’s vast extended family for more than 30 years, hoping to unlock the secrets of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. In that time they encountered several outliers, people whose disease developed later than expected, in their 50s or even 60s. But none were as medically remarkable as the woman they all knew as doña Aliria. (Smith, 12/11)

Stat: Picturing The 'Patience, Love, And Devotion' Of Alzheimer's Care 
Alzheimer’s disease runs in photographer Jalal Shamsazaran’s family: his aunt, grandfather, and father, Majid, all have been diagnosed. So as he documented the final years of his father’s life, Shamsazaran recognized his own potential future. (Ambrose, 12/15)

The New York Times: Hearing Aids Could Use Some Help 
By now, we were supposed to be swiftly approaching the day when we could walk into a CVS or Walgreens, a Best Buy or Walmart, and walk out with a pair of quality, affordable hearing aids approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Hearing aids, a widely needed but dauntingly expensive investment, cost on average $4,700 a pair. (Most people need two.) So in 2017, Congress passed legislation allowing the devices to be sold directly to consumers, without a prescription from an audiologist. The next step was for the F.D.A. to issue draft regulations to establish safety and effectiveness benchmarks for these over-the-counter devices. (Span, 12/14)

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Hospital Police Have The Power Of Officers But Little Oversight
There is a new kind of police force emerging in America. At first glance it is familiar: Officers carry guns, can make arrests and generally cannot be prosecuted for on-duty actions. But unlike typical police forces, these departments operate largely in secrecy. They don't have to tell the public much about their operations, and there is no public board looking over their shoulder. Where do you find this new kind of police department? At local hospitals in a growing number of states. As concerns simmer over the death of George Floyd and others at the hands of law enforcement, hospital police forces — backed by the powerful health care lobby — are being formed without basic measures long used to hold officers accountable, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation found. (Diedrich, Rutledge and Chen, 12/15)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Hospital Violence Against Nurses Has Raged For Years
Across the nation, hospital violence has been a quiet, growing epidemic. While hospitals have hailed nurses and other medical staff as heroes of the pandemic, for decades they have left them vulnerable to abuse and assaults. Health care workers are at five times greater risk of being injured by violence than employees in any other private sector industry, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Rutledge, Chen and Diedrich, 12/10)

The New York Times: Kids Are Watching Pornography. Here’s How to Talk About It.
The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s recent report on videos of child sexual abuse on the website Pornhub may have parents wondering if their own children are watching Pornhub, or other pornography websites. Others may be appalled by the possibility that their child may view videos of assault and rape, or ask for or send sexually explicit selfies that could end up on social media or a porn site. All kinds of kids come across porn, and some routinely seek it out, younger than parents might expect. Beware of thinking “not my child.” In my experience as a sex education teacher and national consultant on relationships and consent, I talk about sex with lots of kids. It’s a rare teen who hasn’t seen sexually explicit media — for some, even before having a first kiss. Here are some talking points and guidelines to consider. (Zaloom, 12/10)

PBS NewsHour: How To Help Kids Build Resilience Amid COVID-19 Chaos
When bad things happen to children, we might share the comforting words “it’ll be all right” — kids bounce back. But, for many, those reserves of resilience are flagging under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic. Surveys suggest that children are absorbing the same grown-up worries and stress that are driving a surge of anxiety or depression among U.S. adults, while the normal outlets for defusing those tensions have evaporated. (Santhanam, 12/16)

The Washington Post: Suicides Among Teen Athletes Raise Mental Health Concerns 
The sounds in her home can become unbearable some days. Heather Wendling will sometimes hear the footsteps of her sons walking in the dining room and think it’s her daughter. She will hear the front door creak when her husband comes home after work and wonder whether it’s her daughter. She will hear the phone ring and know it’s not her daughter, but perhaps another friend or volleyball parent calling to offer condolences or help. When it all becomes too much, Wendling will sometimes head out to the backyard and sit on the swing set her daughter, London Bruns, used to play on as a little girl. “You can feel her energy there,” Wendling said, and when she is rocking back and forth, she wrestles with the questions of how London could have taken her own life at her home in Ridgefield, Wash., in the early morning hours of Sept. 21. She was 13 years old. (Stubbs, 12/16)

The Washington Post: Taraji P. Henson Wants Black People To Talk More Openly About Mental Health. 'Peace Of Mind,' Her New Facebook Watch Show, Does Just That. 
Taraji P. Henson is here to deliver something that can seem in short supply these days: peace of mind. That’s the name of a new Facebook Watch show the Golden Globe-winning actress and Oscar nominee will debut Monday. A longtime mental health advocate, Henson wants to normalize the conversation around mental health issues, particularly among African Americans who are less likely to seek treatment, and more likely to encounter racial disparities when they do. (Butler, 12/14)

The Washington Post: Composer Molly Joyce Mines Disability As Source Of Creativity 
Molly Joyce is among of the most versatile, prolific and intriguing composers working under the vast new-music dome. She’s composed spectral, searching works for orchestra, choir, string quartet and percussion ensemble; collaborated with ­virtual-reality artists, dancers and poets; and studied with the likes of Samuel Adler, Martin Bresnick and Missy Mazzoli. She also teaches composition at NYU, and this year released her stunning debut album, “Breaking and Entering.”And Joyce has achieved all this not so much despite a severe impairment of her left hand (the result of a childhood car accident) but through it. She has carved a unique sound as a composer by treating disability differently: not as an impediment but as a wellspring of creative potential. (Andor Brodeur, 12/13)