The great pandemic: a quick update

• First the numbers: India reported 343,535 new cases—a rise of 30% from last week.   
• Early data from Calcutta, Delhi and Mumbai show that less than 5% patients require hospitalisation compared with 20-23% during the second wave. Also: According to government released data, 65 million of Indians never bothered to show up for their second jab. Experts suspect the large proportion of people already infected—nearly 70% as of July 2021—may also be offering protection from severe disease.
• India already does a poor job of genome sequencing the virus—which is key to identifying existing and emerging variants. The rates are down by 40% compared to last month—which makes our estimates of Omicron cases laughable. Now, five of the 38 labs that do this work have shut down due to lack of funds for chemical reagents—used in tests to cause a key chemical reaction.
• Last week, Downing Street announced that a member of Boris Johnson’s family had tested positive—and he would self-isolate. We now know the family member is none other than his six-week old daughter Romy—who came down “quite badly” with the virus but is “on the mend.”

Tonga tsunami: The latest update

We’re finally getting a sense of the extent of destruction caused by the eruption of an underwater volcano in the South Pacific. The consulate has posted photos of the damage:

Trees and buildings have been entirely flattened, but the bigger worry is the lack of drinking water—since water supplies have been contaminated with volcanic ash and dust: “Water is really the biggest life-saving issue. Water sources have been polluted, water systems are down.” The other worry: delivering foreign aid and assistance without bringing Covid back to the island. (The Guardian)

In related news: Peru is dealing with a massive oil spill also caused by the tsunami. Its largest oil refinery has leaked over 6,000 barrels of oil after a tanker was hit by giant waves. The government is demanding compensation from the Spanish company that runs the refinery—and has accused it of not having a contingency plan for a spill. The oil is spreading along Peru’s Pacific coast affecting seabirds, seagulls, terns, sea lions, otters and dolphins. (BBC News)

Farewell, Amar Jawan Jyoti

The eternal flame at India Gate in Delhi—lit to pay tribute to the soldiers who died in the 1971 Bangladesh war—will be snuffed out. It will be merged instead with the flame at the National War Memorial inaugurated in 2019 by the government. That flame recognises the deaths of over 26,000 Indian soldiers who have died in the wars and conflicts of independent India. And government leaders have ever since been laying their wreaths there—and not at India Gate. (Indian Express)

Cool Runnings: The real-life sequel

The 1993 movie was based on the true story of a four-man Jamaican bobsled team that competed in the 1988 Calgary Olympics for the very first time—training with a slapped-together sled on a concrete track on their tropical island. Now, another team will compete at the Winter Olympics in Beijing after decades! In fact, Team Jamaica has made history by qualifying in three different bobsled events for the first time: the four-man and the two-man events and the new women’s monobob event. If any of them do well, can a Netflix flick be far behind? (NBC News)

An AI girlfriend to abuse

Just when you think tech misogyny can’t get any nastier, we now have an app that men are using to create chatbots that are on-demand romantic and sexual partners. Replika was originally created to offer an AI version of a friend or mentor. But Reddit is now full of posts from users who create these partners—and post their abusive interactions with them online:

“The results can be upsetting. Some users brag about calling their chatbot gendered slurs, roleplaying horrific violence against them, and even falling into the cycle of abuse that often characterizes real-world abusive relationships.”

Futurism has more on the troubling ethics and implications of this behaviour.

Three key studies of note

On marijuana: A new review of the research confirms what most of us suspect about weed—but no longer want to admit now that it’s considered legit. 

“The newly published review looked at studies on over 43,000 people and found a negative impact of tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, the main psychoactive compound in cannabis, on the brain's higher levels of thinking. Those executive functions include the ability to make decisions, remember important data, plan, organize and solve problems, as well as control emotions and behavior.”

This is especially a problem for adolescent brains that are still developing. As for adults, these effects may ease after they stop smoking, but that depends on the amount, frequency and years of marijuana use. (CNN)

On chemical pollution: A new study concludes that the levels of chemical pollution across the planet have crossed a “planetary boundary”—i.e reached a stage that threatens the stability of global ecosystems that have endured for 10,000 years: “There has been a fiftyfold increase in the production of chemicals since 1950 and this is projected to triple again by 2050.”

On pollination: A new UK study shows that common air pollutants significantly interfere in the ability of bees and butterflies to smell flowers—which has a huge impact on pollination: “Diesel exhaust and ozone pollution can react with the chemicals that make up the floral odors that insects use to find flowers… It can just make them not smell anything at all.” That’s sad in itself, but dropping pollination levels also have a huge impact on farming—especially of cocoa beans, brazil nuts and fruits. (Wall Street Journal)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s child named Indira

We now know that the legendary Colombian novelist had an affair with a much younger woman—and a daughter with her. They named her Indira after our very own Indira Gandhi—“whom García Márquez admired and who was reported to have been the first person to congratulate him when he was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1982.” The original Times UK story is behind a paywall, but The Print has a curation.

Clone that cute Insta puppy!

Star moms and dads get a bad rep for living their lives through their famous kids. But they aren’t a patch on Instagram influencers who’ve attained fame thanks to their pets—who unfortunately don’t live as long as humans who profit from them. The solution:cloning. By replicating their dogs, they get to keep the Insta handle going long after the pooch is dead. Wait, it gets creepier: some even market copies of their dogs. (Futurism)

Everyone’s talking about Wordle Absurdle

It was only a matter of time until someone did a spin-off of the wildly successful game. Made by an anonymous coder, this one is called Absurdle and has a perverse twist:

“Instead of starting with a secret word that players work their way towards, Absurdle doesn't have a single word up its sleeve. The game starts with 2,315 possibilities and responds to each of your guesses by keeping the maximum number of potential secret words in its back pocket, forcing you to narrow its options down until you essentially trap the AI into only having one word left.”

Yeah, it sounds confusing, but it makes sense once you play it (available here). (Mashable)

Two things to see

One: Actor Bill Murray gave a surprise musical performance at the Washington Square Park in New York—accompanied by cellist Jan Vogler, violinist Mira Wang, and pianist Vanessa Perez. Here he is singing ‘I Feel Pretty’. (Page Six)

Two: It is snowing in the Sahara desert—as temperatures plunged below freezing in parts of Algeria. BBC News has more of these astonishing pics.