Why this is important:

Given what we see in the cosmic microwave background, the first light we can detect after the inflation of the universe, structures can only grow so large within our current models. Yet this, and other similar discoveries, appear to be larger than our current models predict.

This is so cool, look at how the head and body are a single stroke! Starts at the bottom of the head then ends at the top of the body - they must have done that to preserve ink or something?

Interesting how the tools we have access to affect the art we make.

which is not even remotely true or accurate, but that’s another story

Why do you say that? My understanding is that “only two choices” is true and accurate because of how the electoral college works.

…kinda.

The interviewer goes on to ask: “Does that risk add up, or does each roll of the dice stand alone?”, referring to whether subsequent COVID infections increase the risk of long covid. To which Ziyad Al-Aly replies: “That’s really hard to answer.”

He goes on to speculate (his word, not mine) that there can be two outcomes of COVID infections:

• One, that each infection causes some sort of subclinical damage that increases the odds of bad outcomes during new infections OR
• Two, that the immune system may “learn” the disease and lead to milder outcomes in the future.

So in a broad sense, the above TLDR is true because your lifetime odds of getting long covid go up in a way that is vaguely proportional to your number of infections.

But it is NOT proven to be true that number of infections correlates to your odds of getting long covid during any one particular infection.