Dear Commons Community,

The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) announced yesterday that it has cancelled the Oct. 15 debate between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden after Trump declined to go along with the plan to hold it virtually.

In the wake of Trump’s positive test for COVID-19, the CPD opted to move the second debate to an online format out of safety concerns.

Trump, however, was quick to say that he would not participate if the debate in Miami was not held in-person.

“I am not going to do a virtual debate,” Trump said in a Thursday night interview with Fox Business.

The Trump campaign put out a statement saying that Trump’s doctor Sean Conley had cleared him to participate in the Oct. 15 event, but held fast to the president’s insistence that the two candidates appear alongside one another onstage in Miami.

With Trump hedging on participating in a virtual debate, Biden made other plans, booking a town hall event with ABC News for the scheduled date.

A third debate is scheduled for Oct. 22 at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., and Biden’s campaign made clear that they intend to honor that date.

“We look forward to participating in the final debate, scheduled for October 22” Biden deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said in a statement. “Donald Trump can show up, or he can decline again. That’s his choice.”

Good.  If the 2^nd debate turned out anything like the first, it would be another embarrassment for the American presidency with a lying Trump continually crying and interfering in front of a world audience.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Throughout its 208-year history, The New England Journal of Medicine has remained staunchly nonpartisan. The world’s most prestigious medical journal has never supported or condemned a political candidate.

Until now.

In an editorial signed by 34 editors who are United States citizens and published on Wednesday, the journal said the Trump administration had responded so poorly to the coronavirus pandemic that they “have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.”

The journal did not explicitly endorse Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee, but that was the only possible inference, other scientists noted.  As reported by The New York Times.

“The editor in chief, Dr. Eric Rubin, said the scathing editorial was one of only four in the journal’s history that were signed by all of the editors. The N.E.J.M.’s editors join those of another influential publication, Scientific American, who last month endorsed Mr. Biden, the former vice president.

The political leadership has failed Americans in many ways that contrast vividly with responses from leaders in other countries, the N.E.J.M. said.

In the United States, the journal said, there was too little testing for the virus, especially early on. There was too little protective equipment, and a lack of national leadership on important measures like mask wearing, social distancing, quarantine and isolation.

There were attempts to politicize and undermine the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the journal noted.

As a result, the United States has had tens of thousands of “excess” deaths — those caused both directly and indirectly by the pandemic — as well as immense economic pain and an increase in social inequality as the virus hit disadvantaged communities hardest.

The editorial castigated the Trump administration’s rejection of science, writing, “Instead of relying on expertise, the administration has turned to uninformed ‘opinion leaders’ and charlatans who obscure the truth and facilitate the promulgation of outright lies.”

The uncharacteristically pungent editorial called for change: “When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.”

Scientific American, too, had never before endorsed a political candidate. “The pandemic would strain any nation and system, but Trump’s rejection of evidence and public health measures have been catastrophic,” the journal’s editors said.

The N.E.J.M., like all medical journals these days, is deluged with papers on the coronavirus and the illness it causes, Covid-19. Editors have struggled to reconcile efforts to insist on quality with a constant barrage of misinformation and misleading statements from the administration, said Dr. Clifford Rosen, associate editor of the journal and an endocrinologist at Tufts University in Medford, Mass.

“Our mission is to promote the best science and also to educate,” Dr. Rosen said. “We were seeing anti-science and poor leadership.”

Mounting public health failures and misinformation had eventually taken a toll, said Dr. Rubin, the editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine.

“It should be clear that we are not a political organization,” he said. “But pretty much every week in our editorial meeting there would be some new outrage.”

“How can you not speak out at a time like this?” he added.

Dr. Thomas H. Lee, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a member of the journal’s editorial board, did not participate in writing or voting on the editorial.

But “to say nothing definitive at this point in history would be a cause for shame,” he said.

Medical specialists not associated with the N.E.J.M. applauded the decision.

“Wow,” said Dr. Matthew K. Wynia, an infectious disease specialist and director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado. He noted that the editorial did not explicitly mention Mr. Biden, but said it was clearly “an obvious call to replace the president.”

There is a risk that such a departure could taint the N.E.J.M.’s reputation for impartiality. While other medical journals, including JAMA, the Lancet and The British Medical Journal, have taken political positions, the N.E.J.M. has dealt with political issues in a measured way, as it did in a forum published in October 2000 in which Al Gore and George W. Bush answered questions on health care.

But it is hard to imagine such a deliberative debate in today’s acrimonious atmosphere, said Dr. Jeremy Greene, a professor of medicine and historian of medicine at Johns Hopkins University.

The Trump administration, he said, had demonstrated “a continuous, reckless disregard of truth.”

Reckless disregard for truth is an appropriate description of Trump and company.

Tony

Gretchen Whitmer

Dear Commons Community,

Federal agents foiled a plot to kidnap Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer in an alleged scheme that involved months of planning and even rehearsals to seize her from her vacation home.  As reported by the Associated Press.

“Six men were charged in federal court with conspiring to kidnap the governor before the Novemeber 3 elections in reaction to what they viewed as her “uncontrolled power,” according to a federal complaint. Separately, seven others linked to a paramilitary group called the Wolverine Watchmen were charged in state court for allegedly seeking to storm the Michigan Capitol and seek a “civil war.”

The two groups trained together and planned “various acts of violence,” according to the state police.

Surveillance for the kidnapping plot took place in August and September, according to an FBI affidavit, and four of the men had planned to meet Wednesday to “make a payment on explosives and exchange tactical gear.”

The FBI quoted one of the men as saying Whitmer “has no checks and balances at all. She has uncontrolled power right now. All good things must come to an end.”

Authorities said the plots were stopped with the work of undercover agents and informants. The men were arrested Wednesday night. The six charged in federal court face up to life in prison if convicted. The state terrorism charges the other seven men face carry a possible 20-year sentence.

Andrew Birge, the U.S. attorney in western Michigan, called the men “violent extremists.” They discussed detonating explosive devices — including under a highway bridge — to divert police from the area near Whitmer’s vacation home and Fox bought a Taser for use in the kidnapping, Birge said.

“All of us in Michigan can disagree about politics, but those disagreements should never, ever amount to violence. Violence has been prevented today,” Detroit U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider told reporters.

A few hours later, Whitmer pinned some blame on President Donald Trump, noting that he did not condemn white supremacists in last week’s debate with Joe Biden and instead told a far-right group to “stand back and stand by.”

“Hate groups heard the president’s words not as a rebuke but as a rallying cry, as a call to action,” Whitmer said.

Trump tweeted that the governor “has done a terrible job” and again called on her to “open up your state.” He said he does not tolerate any extreme violence.

Whitmer, who was considered as Biden’s running mate and is nearly halfway through a four-year term, has been widely praised for her response to the coronavirus but also sharply criticized by Republican lawmakers and people in conservative areas of the state. The Capitol has been the site of many rallies, including ones with gun-toting protesters calling for her ouster.

Whitmer put major restrictions on personal movement and the economy, although many of those limits have been lifted since spring. The governor has exchanged barbs with Trump on social media, with the president declaring in April, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”

There is no indication in the criminal complaint that the men were inspired by Trump. Authorities also have not publicly said whether the men were angry about Whitmer’s coronavirus orders.

The criminal complaint identified the six accused in the plot against Whitmer as Adam Fox, Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris, Brandon Caserta, all of Michigan, and Barry Croft of Delaware. All but Croft appeared Thursday in federal court in Grand Rapids. They asked for court-appointed lawyers and were returned to jail to await detention hearings Tuesday.

Fox, who was described as one of the leaders, was living in the basement of a vacuum shop in Grand Rapids. The owner said Fox was opposed to wearing a mask during the pandemic and kept firearms and ammunition at the store.

“He was anti-police, anti-government,” Brian Titus told WOOD-TV. “He was afraid if he didn’t stand up for the Second Amendment and his rights that the country is going to go communism and socialism.”

The government said the plot against Whitmer appeared to have roots in a June gathering in Dublin, Ohio, attended by more than a dozen people from several states, including Croft and Fox.

“The group talked about creating a society that followed the U.S. Bill of Rights and where they could be self-sufficient,” the FBI affidavit said. “They discussed different ways of achieving this goal from peaceful endeavors to violent actions. … Several members talked about murdering ‘tyrants’ or ‘taking’ a sitting governor.”

The seven men charged in state court are accused of identifying the homes of law enforcement officers and making violent threats “intended to instigate a civil war,” Attorney General Dana Nessel said.

They were identified as Paul Bellar, 21, of Milford; Shawn Fix, 38, of Belleville; Eric Molitor, 36, of Cadillac; Michael Null, 38, of Plainwell; William Null, 38, of Shelbyville; Pete Musico, 42, and Joseph Morrison, 26, who live together in Munith. According to the affidavit, Musico and Morrison are founding members of the Wolverine Watchmen, which authorities described as “an anti-government, anti-law enforcement militia group.”

At least three of the 13 defendants were among some armed demonstrators who entered the Senate gallery on April 30 following a larger protest outside the Capitol against Whitmer’s stay-at-home order, said Nessel spokeswoman Kelly Rossman-McKinney. At the time, a senator said the men shouted down at senators who were meeting amid debate over extending the governor’s emergency declaration. The identities of the three men were not immediately available.

The Watchmen have met periodically for firearms and tactical training in remote areas “to prepare for the ‘boogaloo,’ a term referencing a violent uprising against the government or impending politically motivated civil war,” state police Det. Sgt. Michael Fink wrote in an affidavit.

Some boogaloo promoters insist they are not genuinely advocating for violence. But the boogaloo has been linked to a recent string of domestic terrorism plots, including the arrests of three Nevada men accused of conspiring to incite violence during protests in Las Vegas.

Boogaloo supporters have shown up at protests against COVID-19 lockdown orders and racial injustice, carrying rifles and wearing tactical gear over Hawaiian shirts.

Michigan became known for anti-government paramilitary activity in the mid-1990s, when a number of loosely affiliated groups began organizing and training in rural areas. They used short-wave radio, newsletters and early internet connections to spread a message of resistance to what they contended was a conspiracy to impose world government and seize guns.

They gained notoriety after reports surfaced that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, convicted in the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, had met with group members, although their connections were murky.

“That old militia world is still there, but kind of long in tooth,” said J.J. MacNab, a fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.

Nonetheless, rallies at the Michigan Capitol against Whitmer’s shutdown orders were recruiting events for such groups, said MacNab, who monitors their social media activity.”

It is difficult to imagine such deranged activity in the United States in 2020!

Tony

Mitch McConnell

Dear Commons Community,

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Thursday that the White House could do a better job of taking precautions against the coronavirus, following a possible superspreader event that may have led to the infections of President Donald Trump, the first lady, several Republican senators and dozens of White House aides last month.

McConnell, who is notoriously loath to criticize Trump or break with him in any way, said he’s personally avoided visiting the White House because of it’s lax virus protocols.

“I actually haven’t been to the White House since August 6th because my impression was their approach to how to handle this is different from mine and what I insisted that we do in the Senate, which is to wear a mask and practice social distancing,” the 78-year-old majority leader said at an event in Kentucky.

“If any of you have been around me since May the 1st, I’ve said, ‘Wear your mask. Practice social distancing.’ … Now, you’ve heard of other places that have had a different view, and they are, you know, paying the price for it,” he added at another event.

In sharp contrast to Trump, McConnell has placed a big emphasis on mask-wearing and social distancing in the Senate and at public events in his home state, touting those steps as the most effective way to slow the spread of COVID-19 and protect vulnerable groups.

The recent outbreak that has infected at least 30 White House staffers and other GOP officials has directly threatened McConnell’s majority in the Senate, which is racing to confirm a conservative Supreme Court justice before the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Three Republican senators, including two Judiciary Committee members, have announced testing positive for the virus following the Sept. 26 Rose Garden ceremony. Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Thom Tillis (N.C.) and Ron Johnson (Wis.) are all currently quarantining. If any more GOP senators contract the virus, it could derail the confirmation process and postpone a final vote on Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior this week may also threaten the reelection bids of GOP incumbents facing tough fights, which could hand Democrats control of the Senate.

Thank you Mr. McConnell.  It took four years for you to speak some truth about Trump!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

It was announced this morning that the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to combat hunger and food insecurity around the globe.

The organization provided assistance to almost 100 million people in 88 countries around the world last year.

“I think this is the first time in my life I’ve been without words,” WFP’s head David Beasley told The Associated Press from Niger. “I was just so shocked and surprised.”

Beasley said he found out about the award from a WFP media officer who had just been informed by the AP.

The Nobel Committee said that the coronavirus pandemic has added to the hunger faced by millions of people around the world, and called on governments to ensure that WFP and other aid organizations receive the financial support necessary to feed them.

“With this year’s award, the (Committee) wishes to turn the eyes of the world to the millions of people who suffer from or face the threat of hunger,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Nobel Committee, announcing the award in Oslo. “The World Food Program plays a key role in multilateral cooperation in making food security an instrument of peace.”

“The World Food Program contributes daily to advancing the fraternity of nations mentioned in Alfred Nobel’s will,” she said.

Congratulations!

Tony

Courtesy of The Chronicle of Higher Education

Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education had an article yesterday describing the losses in the higher education workforce due to the coronavirus pandemic.  Seven percent or 337,000 individuals have lost their positions since March 2020.  Here is an excerpt:

“The work-force that serves much of higher education in America has shrunk by at least 7 percent since Covid-19 arrived on American shores — a staggering, unprecedented contraction, according to federal data. And like the national economic downturn that is running parallel to this unprecedented viral outbreak, much also remains uncertain about what a “recovery” will actually look like for higher education.

An estimated 337,000 fewer workers were employed by America’s private (not-for-profit and for-profit) and state-controlled institutions of higher education in August compared to February, according to a release by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which calculates industry-specific employee estimates each month. At no point since the bureau began keeping industry tallies in the late 1950s have colleges and universities ever shed so many employees at such an incredible rate.

… The worst month for job losses in higher education was recorded in May 2020, when the bureau estimated that 457,000 fewer people were employed in the sector relative to February. At that point, higher ed’s estimated work force had been reduced by 9.81 percent since February.

But private colleges have mounted a small comeback. Between February and April, private institutions shed a net of 237,000 employees. But since then, the bureau estimates that private institutions have hired or rehired around 100,000 employees. By comparison, state-controlled, public institutions collectively have not posted cumulative month-to-month job losses of less than 200,000 since April.

… It’s impossible to know yet which classes of employees in higher education have been or will be most affected by job losses.

Many colleges have moved to eliminate certain sports programs, like swimming and tennis. Other universities and colleges have cut traditional liberal-arts programs such as language studies and sociology.

Furloughs, layoffs, and contract nonrenewals continue to make the careers of adjuncts and contingent faculty members as perilous as ever. Even the job stability associated with tenure-track and tenured faculty members has been threatened as some institutions, like the University of Akron, invoke clauses within faculty contracts that supersede those protections.

While the industry in the coming months and years may recover the number of jobs it has lost, some of the types of jobs that have vanished are unlikely to return.”

It is my opinion that it will take years for the job market in higher education to return to pre-coronavirus levels.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

During the Vice Presidential Debate last night, there were several times when Mike Pence and Kamala Harris played loose with the facts.  Because of the rapid pace of the exchanges, it was difficult to keep track of when one or the other veered from the truth.  A team of reporters from The New York Times fact-checked many of the comments during the debate, and provided analysis and context.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Vice Presidential Debate last night (see video above for highlights courtesy of CNBC) was a much more civilized affair than the Presidential Debate of two weeks ago.  Kamala Harris and Mike Pence showed much more decorum and respect for the event than President Trump did which allowed for less interfering and hearing more about what the two parties had to say.  Susan Page, the debate moderator, controlled the exchanges much better than did Chris Wallace, the Presidential Debate Moderator.  However, Page never followed up any of her questions when the speakers decided to avoid answering them which was often. This was also more of a debate about policy and less about personalities.

I thought Harris landed a couple of blows especially when asked about taking a vaccine for coronavirus and what the Trump Administration knew back in January about its dangers as per Bob Woodward’s book, Rage.   Later on when asked if she would take a vaccine, she said that “..if Anthony Fauci recommended it, I would be the first on line for it.  If only Donald Trump recommended it, I wouldn’t take it.”  She also was strong in criticizing Trump’s comments about our men and women in the military as well as those about white supremacy.  Pence was strong in discussing the economy and in hammering away at Biden’s plan to pack the US Supreme Court.   Harris did not reply to the latter.

Below is a recap of key takeaways courtesy of the New York Times and other media.

I rated the debate a tie.

Tony

—————————————————————-

Kamala kept the focus on the pandemic

As the most important topic in the country, COVID-19 was, predictably, the first question of the night: What would a Biden-Harris administration do to combat the pandemic that a Trump-Pence administration wouldn’t? Just as predictably, Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, answered the way she’s always said she would: by prosecuting the case against Trump.

“The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country,” Harris said. “Here are the facts: 210,000 dead people in our country in just the last several months. Over 7 million people who have contracted this disease. One in five businesses closed.”

Citing the revelatory recordings from the Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, Harris went on to accuse Trump and Pence of knowing “on Jan. 28” that the virus is “lethal in consequence, that it is airborne, that it will affect young people,” but “cover[ing] it up” because they wanted Americans to remain “calm.”

“Can you imagine if you knew on Jan. 28 what they knew … what you would have done to prepare?” Harris asked the audience. “How calm were you when you were panicked about where you were going to get your next roll of toilet paper? How calm were you when your kids were sent home from school, and you didn’t know when they would go back? How calm were you when your children couldn’t see your parents because you were afraid they could kill them?”

During the Democratic primary, Harris was more focused on manufacturing memorable moments than hammering home a message. Remember, she initially captured the national spotlight when her barbed interrogations of Trump’s Cabinet appointees were cut into viral videos highlighting her prosecutorial prowess — and that’s largely how she’s conducted herself on the trail (just as when she launched into Biden on busing).

But Wednesday night was different. Again and again, Harris skillfully dodged questions that it wasn’t in Joe Biden’s best interest to answer: on China, on presidential disability, on expanding the size of the Supreme Court. (Pence did the same when asked if he’d want Indiana to outlaw all abortions.) Instead, whenever the moderator, Susan Page of USA Today, tried to ask about other topics, Harris always pivoted back to the pandemic — and the possible fallout of Trump’s efforts to axe the Affordable Care Act, including the end of protections for pre-existing conditions.

Her mission was clear: Remind voters (as she repeated at least a half dozen times) that “over 210,000” Americans have died from COVID-19. Her message was even clearer: Trump and Pence had their chance to keep you safe — and they failed.

Pence tried to smooth Trump’s rough edges

Pence probably had the more challenging goal on Wednesday: To try to make his divisive boss, who is disapproved of by a majority of Americans and trailing by double digits in the latest election polls, palatable to the remaining persuadable voters who could still tip the election to the Republican ticket.

As usual, the mild-mannered Hoosier devoted himself to the task at hand with all the aw-shucks moxie he could muster, and his smooth affect came in handy as he methodically attempted to sand the rough edges off every controversial aspect of Trump’s record.

The New York Times report that Trump only paid $750 in federal income taxes during his first year as president? Pence countered that it was simply a sign that, as a businessman, Trump had dedicated his life to creating “tens of thousands of American jobs.”

That maskless Rose Garden announcement ceremony for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, which has since been tied to a growing cluster of COVID-19 cases in and around the White House? Just another example of how “President Trump and I trust the American people to make choices in the best interest of their health.”

Trump’s reluctance to condemn white supremacists during the first presidential debate? Nothing but more evidence of how “the media” chooses to “selectively edit” a president who “respects and cherishes all of the American people.”

Trump seemed happy with Pence’s performance. “Mike Pence is doing GREAT!” he tweeted at one point. “Mike Pence WON BIG!” he added later. And it’s not hard to see why: The vice president did his level best to reframe the abnormalities of Trump’s presidency in the ho-hum terms and tone of everyday American politics, while also arguing that Biden would be worse.

But the question now is whether Pence’s efforts will make any difference. Nothing this year has discernibly changed the public’s opinion of Trump — not impeachment, not a racial reckoning in the streets, not even a global pandemic. Instead, those events seem to have solidified the president’s high disapproval rating and low standing in the polls.

It’s unlikely that one measured debate performance by his running mate will shift many votes.

Harris didn’t tolerate Pence’s interruptions 

During last week’s presidential debate, Trump was responsible for more than three-quarters of the interruptions: 71, compared with Biden’s 22.

The event was an unintelligible, chaotic mess because of it.

Harris, however, seemed to arrive in Salt Lake City on Wednesday with a plan: to jump down Pence’s throat the second he made so much as a peep during her turn to talk.

“Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking,” the senator said, when Pence tried to contradict her remarks on COVID-19. “I’m speaking.”

“Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking,” she said when he tried to interject as she was discussing the Supreme Court. “I’m speaking.”

“Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking,” she said when he accused her of lying about the economy.

“It would be important if you said the truth,” Pence snapped.

“If you don’t mind letting me finish,” Harris snapped back, “we can then have a conversation, OK?’

Ultimately, Pence interrupted Harris 10 times — twice as much as she interrupted him, according to CBS News. But the debate never spun out of control, in part because Harris was so swift to call Pence out.

The tactic also had another, subtler effect. One of the most interesting questions heading into the debate was how Harris’s gender and race — she’s the first woman of color on a major-party presidential ticket — would influence the dynamic onstage. Would viewers stereotype her as “an angry black woman” if she was too assertive? According to Axios, Harris’s advisers “studied research about the different ways men and women are judged in public speaking.” They apparently concluded that Harris would look strong if she stuck up for herself — even as she took care to avoid any big rhetorical risks or made-for-TV moments.

Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna

Dear Commons Community,

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was jointly awarded this morning to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for their 2012 work on the development of Crispr-Cas9, a method for genome editing. The announcement marks the first time a science Nobel has been awarded to two women.

Dr. Charpentier, who is French, is the director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin. Dr. Doudna  is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. They are the third and fourth women to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in the 21st century, out of more than 50 recipients.

“This year’s prize is about rewriting the code of life,” Goran K. Hansson, the secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said as he announced the names of the laureates.

Dr. Charpentier and Dr. Doudna, only the sixth and seventh women to receive the chemistry prize, pioneered early work on Crispr-Cas9, a kind of genetic scissors that allows researchers to alter the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with extremely high precision. Since then, it has been used in numerous scientific applications, from genetically modifying crops to developing cures-in-progress for conditions like sickle cell disease and hereditary blindness.

Fast, efficient and economic, Crispr “solves problems in every field of biology,” said Angela Zhou, an information scientist at the CAS at the American Chemical Society.

“This technology has utterly transformed the way we do research in basic science,” said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. “I am thrilled to see Crispr-Cas getting the recognition we have all been waiting for, and seeing two women being recognized as Nobel Laureates.”

Claes Gustafsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said, “There is enormous power in this genetic tool, which affects us all.”

Congratulations to the winners!

Tony