Dating During the Pandemic: Can You Trust an 'Antibody Positive' Claim?

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November 13, 2020

Dear Reader, Searching for love can be a challenge even in the best of times, but looking for it during a pandemic is something truly complex. As COVID-19 cases surge again nationwide, many wonder whether it is safe to even consider meeting new people in any social context. Does an antibody-positive test result translate to a pandemic dating hall pass? Read our lead story to find out. Also featured in today's roundup is piece about what may have gone wrong with polling for the 2020 election—and what bugs remain to be sorted out. Plus, take a look at a new cell map of the human heart.

Sunya Bhutta, Senior Editor, Audience Engagement @sunyaaa

Public Health Dating During the Pandemic: Can You Trust an 'Antibody Positive' Claim? Testing positive for COVID antibodies is not a pass to date freely By Michelle Konstantinovsky

Medicine For COVID Drugs, Months of Frantic Development Lead to Few Outright Successes There have been mixed results as researchers try to stop a disease they are still trying to understand By Sara Reardon

Behavior & Society Why Polls Were Mostly Wrong Princeton's Sam Wang had to eat his words (and a cricket) in 2016. He talks about the impacts of the pandemic and QAnon on public-opinion tallies in 2020 By Gloria Dickie

Energy Biden and Electric Utilities Are Split on Emissions Goals Though many power companies have set ambitious long-term targets, more immediate action is needed By Benjamin Storrow,E&E News

Chemistry A Butterfly's Brilliant Blue Wings Lead to Less Toxic Paint A phenomenon known as structural color could be translated to a range of commercial products By Meg Wilcox

Energy Green Hydrogen Could Fill Big Gaps in Renewable Energy A zero-carbon supplement to wind and solar By Jeff Carbeck

Biology Whole-Genome Synthesis Will Transform Cell Engineering A big advance in synthetic biology By Andrew Hessel,Sang Yup Lee

The Body A New Cell Map of the Human Heart Scientists have created an atlas of cardiac cells in six regions that could help chart what goes awry in heart disease By Tanya Lewis

Policy & Ethics Scientists and Health Experts Need to Be Advocates Amid multiple crises, science and medicine cannot stand aloof from politics By Gaurab Basu

Public Health Divide and Conquer Could Be Good COVID Strategy COVID might be fought efficiently with fewer shutdowns by restricting activities only in a particular area with a population up to 200,000 when its case rate rises above a chosen threshold.   By W. Wayt Gibbs | 02:49

Public Health Coronavirus News Roundup, November 7-November 13 Pandemic highlights for the week By Robin Lloyd

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