Inverse - 🦠 Covid-19 boosters are back

Thursday

Sept 08 2022

The long awaited Omicron-specific boosters are finally here. The newly-developed shots target the Omicron subvariant BA.5, which is still the dominant strain of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes Covid-19) in the U.S. right now, and a highly contagious one at that.

If you haven't had a booster shot in a while (for some of us it's been nearly a year), you might be wondering if it's the right time for another jab in the arm. With fall and winter on the horizon, public health specialists anticipate there will be an uptick in cases, especially as the weather cools and people spend more time together inside. So getting vaccinated with this updated booster is the best way to protect yourself from this predicted surge.

The boosters — both Moderna's and Pfizer's — are available now, but knowing when to get them is key. We break that all down for you and every other question you might have about the booster shots.

What's New

PROTECT YOURSELF

Mind and Body

Covid-19 boosters are back

It’s official: Both Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech’s Omicron-specific boosters are a go.

Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the retooled shots, which target the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants, in anticipation of a fall and winter Covid-19 surge and CDC director Rochelle Walensky gave the final okay shortly after. This means that, depending on which vaccine you get, everyone age 12 and older are now able to receive the updated shot.

“As we head into fall and begin to spend more time indoors, we strongly encourage anyone who is eligible to consider receiving a booster dose with a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants,” FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf said in a tweet on Wednesday. “The COVID-19 vaccines, including boosters, continue to save countless lives and prevent the most serious outcomes (hospitalization and death) of COVID-19.”

From our Friends

Tech

Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro trades the notch for animated 'dynamic island'

Apple is adding new sizes to the entry-level iPhone 14 while keeping most of the new features — including a pill-shaped notch — for the iPhone 14 Pro.

As predicted, changes to the iPhone 14 are minor, but not insignificant. The iPhone 14 looks pretty much like the iPhone 13 before it. Flat edges with a mix of aluminum and glass, this time in midnight, starlight, blue, purple, and red color options. Even the notch is exactly the same as on iPhone 13.

Things really get interesting on the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max. The notch is gone and replaced with a pill-shaped cutout that manages to still house the Face ID sensors and selfie camera. The 120Hz high refresh rate display is gaining always-on capabilities, all the better for iOS 16 lock screen widgets. In a change from last year, Apple is also dropping the sierra blue color option for space black, silver, gold, and new deep purple.

Take a closer look

Review

Gaming

Splatoon 3 is a series high point with 2022's most jaw-dropping finale

Even after five years, there’s no shooter that can compete with Splatoon, and the latest entry in the series hones its unique style and frenetic gunplay to a ridiculous sheen.

Splatoon 3 doesn’t deliver any earth-shattering changes compared to the previous entry, but it does provide some vital improvements to the overall experience. Through a host of new features, an utterly bonkers story mode, and some great quality-of-life improvements, Splatoon 3 is the best the series has ever been. It helps that the game’s final act will leave your jaw on the ground (probably covered in paint).

Read our review

Space

Innovation

Humans on Mars could depend on this lunchbox-sized device for survival

A lunchbox-sized module, which currently sits on Mars in the belly of the Perseverance rover, might hold the future of human exploration on the Red Planet. This device has successfully produced oxygen from the brutal Martian atmosphere, according to a recent article published in the journal Science Advances.

The module, also known as the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE), sends Martian air through a HEPA filter, compresses it, and heats it to 1472 degrees Fahrenheit. MOXIE then uses electric current to split the carbon dioxide-heavy Martian air into oxygen and carbon monoxide.

Health

Innovation

This technology listens to your breath to diagnose early-stage Parkinson's disease

In 1817, Jacob Parkinson, an English surgeon and polymath, published a brief, 66-page booklet on a condition that was little known to the medical community. In An Essay on the Shaking Palsy, Parkinson described, in excruciating detail, his observations of six individuals demonstrating varying degrees of the same symptoms: involuntary tremors, difficulty walking, muscle weakness, and slurred speech.

As you may have guessed, Parkinson was describing the disease now bearing his name, a neurodegenerative condition that affects nearly a million U.S. adults. Over the last two hundred years, we’ve since discovered the why behind the disease — destruction of neurons producing the neurotransmitter dopamine — and how to treat it through a variety of innovative means.

But doctors still struggle to diagnose Parkinson’s in the first place, particularly in its early stages. Scientists are aiming to change that with a new AI-powered device that can help diagnose Parkinson’s from breathing patterns, according to a paper published last month in the journal Nature Medicine.

Learn more

Preview

Netflix

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is violent, riveting, and potentially brilliant

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners starts like any Studio Trigger production should: with an action-packed fight scene.

An indestructible man with huge muscles and a chromatic spine takes on an entire police squad, dodging gunfire and throwing cops around like ragdolls. None of the bullets even scratch him until an electric shock forces him to short-circuit. Then, as far as we know, they take him out. Little does the viewer knows what it means for the protagonist, David Martinez.

All I knew about Cyberpunk: Edgerunners before PAX West was that it was set in a gritty, futuristic world based on a game that was known for being such a buggy mess that it changed the games industry forever. I didn’t know any characters, places, or the world’s unique concepts. Thankfully, the anime had no problem teaching me about Night City in the single premiere episode. It’s the perfect way to introduce anime fans to the game and find out how a dumpster fire became such a lovable trash heap.

Meanwhile...

Astronomers explore the Orion Nebula's radiation-scorched cloud

This SpaceX rival is going to Venus to search for alien life

'House of the Dragon's best Easter egg could change 'Game of Thrones' canon

You need to watch the most underrated time-travel movie of the decade on Netflix

Today in history: The first episode of the sci-fi series Star Trek aired on American television September 8, 1966.

Song of the day: "Star Trek Original Theme"

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