Scientific American - USA (2020-05)

4 Scientific American, May 2020

FROM

THE EDITOR

BOARD OF ADVISERS

Leslie C. Aiello

President, Wenner-Gren Foundation

for Anthropological Research

Robin E. Bell

Research Professor, Lamont-Doherty

Earth Observatory, Columbia University

Emery N. Brown

Edward Hood Taplin Professor

of Medical Engineering and of

Computational Neuro science, M.I.T.,

and Warren M. Zapol Prof essor of

Anesthesia, Harvard Medical School

Vinton G. Cerf

Chief Internet Evangelist, Google

Emmanuelle Charpentier

Scientific Director, Max Planck Institute

for Infection Biology, and Founding

and Acting Director, Max Planck Unit

for the Science of Pathogens

George M. Church

Director, Center for Computational

Genetics, Harvard Medical School

Rita Colwell

Distinguished University Professor,

University of Maryland College Park

and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School

of Public Health

Kate Crawford

Director of Research and Co-founder,

AI Now Institute, and Distinguished

Research Professor, New York University,

and Principal Researcher,

Microsoft Research New York City

Drew Endy

Professor of Bioengineering,

Stanford University

Nita A. Farahany

Professor of Law and Philosophy,

Director, Duke Initiative for

Science & Society, Duke University

Edward W. Felten

Director, Center for Information

Technology Policy, Princeton University

Jonathan Foley

Executive Director, Project Drawdown

Jennifer Francis

Senior Scientist,

Woods Hole Research Center

Kaigham J. Gabriel

President and Chief Executive Officer,

Charles Stark Draper Laboratory

Harold “Skip” Garner

Executive Director and Professor, Primary

Care Research Network and Center for

Bioinformatics and Genetics, Edward Via

College of Osteopathic Medicine

Michael S. Gazzaniga

Director, Sage Center for the Study of

Mind, University of California,

Santa Barbara

Carlos Gershenson

Research Professor, National

Autonomous University of Mexico

Alison Gopnik

Professor of Psychology and

Affiliate Professor of Philosophy,

University of California, Berkeley

Lene Vestergaard Hau

Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and

of Applied Physics, Harvard University

Hopi E. Hoekstra

Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology,

Harvard University

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

Founder and CEO, Ocean Collectiv

Christof Koch

President and CSO,

Allen Institute for Brain Science

Morten L. Kringelbach

Associate Professor and

Senior Research Fellow, The Queen’s

College, University of Oxford

Robert S. Langer

David H. Koch Institute Professor,

Department of Chemical Engineering,

M .I.T.

Meg Lowman

Director and Founder, TREE Foundation,

Rachel Carson Fellow, Ludwig Maximilian

University Munich, and Research

Professor, University of Science Malaysia

John Maeda

Global Head, Computational Design +

Inclusion, Automattic, Inc.

Satyajit Mayor

Senior Professor,

National Center for Biological Sciences,

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research

John P. Moore

Professor of Microbiology and

Immunology, Weill Medical College

of Cornell University

Priyamvada Natarajan

Professor of Astronomy and Physics,

Yale University

Donna J. Nelson

Professor of Chemistry,

University of Oklahoma

Robert E. Palazzo

Dean, University of Alabama at

Birmingham College of Arts and Sciences

Rosalind Picard

Professor and Director,

Affective Computing, M.I.T. Media Lab

Carolyn Porco

Leader, Cassini Imaging Science Team,

and Director, CICLOPS,

Space Science Institute

Lisa Randall

Professor of Physics, Harvard University

Martin Rees

Astronomer Royal and Professor

of Cosmology and Astrophysics,

Institute of Astronomy,

University of Cambridge

Daniela Rus

Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor

of Electrical Engineering and Computer

Science and Director, CSAIL, M.I.T.

Eugenie C. Scott

Chair, Advisory Council,

National Center for Science Education

Terry Sejnowski

Professor and Laboratory Head of

Computational Neurobiology Laboratory,

Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Meg Urry

Israel Munson Professor of Physics

and Astronomy, Yale University

Michael E. Webber

Co-director, Clean Energy Incubator,

and Associate Professor,

Department of Mechanical Engineering,

University of Texas at Austin

George M. Whitesides

Professor of Chemistry and Chemical

Biology, Harvard University

Amie Wilkinson

Professor of Mathematics,

University of Chicago

Anton Zeilinger

Professor of Quantum Optics, Quantum

Nanophysics, Quantum Information,

University of Vienna

Curtis Brainard is acting editor in chief of Scientific American.

Follow him on Twitter @cbrainard

Diseases

and Deadlines

Magazine issue closes are always hectic. We spend months
working on each edition, but then for one week, roughly six weeks
before publication, we have to triple-check each of the some 100
pages in the book and get them out the door in time to meet our
monthly printer deadline. This close is different.
As I write this letter, it’s 10 p.m. on Sunday, March 15. Last
Tuesday our parent company, Springer Nature, told everyone in
the New York City office that they could work from home because
of the spread of coronavirus, and nearly everyone has availed
themselves of the opportunity. On Wednesday the World Health
Organization announced that the outbreak was a global pan-
demic. On Friday—the day we started sending pages for this issue
to the printer—President Donald Trump declared a state of emer-
gency in the U.S. And today New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said
that public schools would close citywide.
So we’re putting this issue to bed remotely—for many of us,
with our kids running around wildly in the background. At the
same time, we must keep up the daily news operation online,
where you can find ongoing coverage of the coronavirus crisis, how
it’s impacting our lives and what’s being done to stop it (visit sciam.
com/coronavirusoutbreak for the latest). I’m not worried, because
we have an amazing staff and because it’s been done before. When
Hurricane Sandy battered New York in 2012, our office building

near the Holland Tunnel (we’ve since moved) was closed for a week.

Also, while coronavirus is the scourge of the moment, it’s

important to not lose sight of the perennial maladies that afflict

us. Between 40  million and 50  million people around the world

currently live with Alzheimer’s and related dementias, with more

than two million deaths annually. And unlike COVID-19 (“corona-

virus disease, 2019”), there’s no “flattening the curve” here. Ther-

apies for Alzheimer’s, let alone a cure, have proved elusive in the

more than 100 years since the ailment was first recognized. But as

we reveal in this year’s Future of Medicine report, “A New Era for

Alzheimer’s,” starting on page  26, scientists are at long last reas-

sessing the basic physiology and biology of the disorder to find

new paths forward ( page  30 ). Along the way, they are taking a close

look at the “amyloid hypothesis” that has dominated research in

the field for decades ( page 34 ) and paying more heed to under-

appreciated risk factors such as the ways that menopause may

explain the higher prevalence of dementia in women ( page  37 ) and

the role of air pollution in driving the disease forward ( page  42 ).

Will this ostensible inflection point finally lead to effective

treatments? It’s too soon to tell, but with guarded optimism we

carry on hoping for a breakthrough.

At least with coronavirus, we all have some agency over the

blight. Governments are enacting civic restrictions, and people

are undertaking “social distancing.” I hope these measures will

help, but current predictions suggest the pandemic will continue

for many months. Whatever the future may hold, stay safe and

trust in science, not fear, to guide the way. And remember, sub-

scribers have access to every issue online: visit sciam.com/digital-

access for more information.

Illustration by Nick Higgins