According to the CDC, 101 children age 0 to 14 have died from influenza, while 31 children have died from COVID-19.
No evidence exists to support the theory that children pose a threat to educational professionals in a school or classroom setting, but there is a great deal of evidence to support the safety of in-person education.
According to the CDC, 131,332 Americans have died from pneumonia and 121,374 from COVID-19 as of July 11th, 2020.
Had the CDC used its industry standard, Medical Examiners’ and Coroners’ Handbook on Death Registration and Fetal Death Reporting Revision 2003, as it has for all other causes of death for the last 17 years, the COVID-19 fatality count would be approximately 90.2% lower than it currently is.
Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott rise to his current post is about as unlikely as you will find. He grew up in Gladys, Virginia, a town of a few hundred people. He loved his family and his hometown to such an extent that he did not aspire to leave. He caught the technology bug in the 1970s by chance, and that passion would provide a ticket to bigger places that he did not initially seek.
The issue was one of opportunity. In his formative years, jobs were decreasing in places like Gladys just as they were increasing dramatically in tech hubs like Silicon Valley. After pursuing a PhD in computer science at the University of Virginia, he left in 2003 prior to completing his dissertation to join Google. He would rise to become a Senior Engineering Director there. He left Google for LinkedIn in 2011. He would eventually rise to become the Senior Vice President of Engineering & Operations at LinkedIn. From LinkedIn he joined Microsoft three and a half years ago as CTO. He is deeply satisfied with the course of his career and its trajectory, but part of him laments that it took him so far from his roots and the hometown that he loves.
As he reflected further on this conundrum, he put his thoughts to paper and published the book, Reprogramming the American Dream in April, co-authored by Greg Shaw. As he noted in a conversation I recently had with him, “Silicon Valley is a perfectly wonderful place, but we should be able to create opportunity and prosperity everywhere, not just in these coastal urban innovation centers.”
Scott believes that machine learning and artificial intelligence will be key ingredients to aiding an entrepreneurial rise in smaller towns across the United States. These advances will place less of a burden on companies to hire employees in the small towns, as some technical development will be conducted by the bots. He also hopes that as some of these businesses blossom, more kids will be inspired to start their own businesses powered by technology, creating a virtuous cycle of sorts.
K-12 students have been educated online since March, and parents fear they are falling behind.
With most schools across the US closed since March to slow the spread of the coronavirus, some ultrawealthy parents are hiring private educators to make sure their kids don’t fall behind.
Some of these educators are former teachers or people who have degrees in education, and they charge between $25 and $60 an hour for their services.
Some parents may continue to employ these professionals to homeschool their kids even after schools reopen in the fall in case the US experiences a second wave of the coronavirus, as some experts expect.
Educators are concerned that lower-income families’ lack of internet access will further widen the achievement gap between rich and poor students when schools eventually reopen.
One-in-ten eligible voters in the 2020 electorate will be part of a new generation of Americans – Generation Z. Born after 1996, most members of this generation are not yet old enough to vote, but as the oldest among them turn 23 this year, roughly 24 million will have the opportunity to cast a ballot in November. And their political clout will continue to grow steadily in the coming years, as more and more of them reach voting age.
With the president pushing for children to return to the classroom and a number of states intent on pursuing phased reopenings, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released guidance for reopening schools. But a new Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of USA Today has found that if schools reopen in the fall, they may find attendance down as many parents will likely continue at-home learning.
While more than half of Americans polled, just more than 2,000, said they supported a range of suggested proposals for reopening schools for in-classroom learning in the fall, a majority of the parents surveyed appeared hesitant to return their children to school before a vaccine had been found. A total of 59% of parents surveyed who had at least one child in a K-12 grade said they would “likely” pursue at-home education options such as homeschooling or remote learning instead of sending their children back into the classroom. Another 30% said they were “very likely” to continue to pursue at-home learning.
Lisa Selin Davis is the author of “Tomboy: The Surprising History and Future of Girls Who Dare to Be Different.” She has written The New York Times, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and many other publications. She The views expressed here are hers.
(CNN)”Stay out of Google Classroom,” the administrators of my daughter’s Brooklyn elementary school cautioned parents in their first official communique about remote learning. To peer over their shoulders while sitting at their laptops and look at their work would be akin to bursting into the real-life classroom uninvited, they said.
New to the world of eTextiles is the PreVue pregnancy screen, an abdomen attachment that lets expecting parents see their child’s growth and development as the natal process progresses.
The PreVue is the brainchild of Melody Shiue and has recently won an Australian Design Award – no surprise, given the level of innovation its got going on. Shiue’s idea centers around the concept of pre-birth bonding using “fetal visualization” (a great term, we’ve got to admit) and the fact that this bonding is an essential part of post-birth health of both the mother and child. With post-partum depression a real issue for mothers, the PreVue aims to give both genders of parents the chance to get to know their baby before it ever comes along
Designed to look like a large belt, the PreVue cinches in the back and fits over the abdomen. With the press of a button, a special ultrasonic layer next to the skin images the baby and then places this image onto a stretchable electronic textile that can grow as the mother does. At every stage of the baby’s growth, the parents can see its reaction to stimuli, see it kick, spin, smile and evolve in front of their eyes.
A new study from the University of New Hampshire has troubling news for United States population growth. According to the study, deaths are at a record high, while the number of births are at their lowest since 1986. In almost half of all counties, there were more deaths than there were births, an almost 20% increase from just 10 years ago. Overall, U.S. population growth is at its lowest growth rate in over 100 years. Yet as Ronald Bailey at Reason pointed out, the only reason population growth was so low then, in 1919, was because of the Spanish Flu pandemic, which resulted in a massive population decrease.
The study reports that since the Great Recession, fertility is declining the most among younger women, without knowing if childbearing is being delayed or if they are skipping having children altogether. “This has significant implications for the future incidence of natural decrease,” Kenneth Johnson, the study’s author, said. Despite this, though, people are still encouraging the idea of population control, and arguing that America is too heavily populated. Polling has likewise found that a large number of Americans believe population is growing too fast, even as the population continues to plummet.
Overpopulation is a common excuse for many to push population control, especially in developing countries. People like Prince William, Melinda Gates, Joe Biden, Danish politician Ulla Tornaes, and more have all advocated for increased birth control and abortions, particularly in places like Africa, arguing that the birth rate needs to be decreased.
What if the formula you bought at the store was just bottled breast milk?
First came the prototypes of lab-grown burgers and lab-grown Wagyu beef (or, as the industry calls it, “cultured” meat.) Then came ice cream made with lab-grown dairy proteins. Now, a handful of startups are working on lab-grown breast milk.
Last week, a five-month-old startup called Biomilq announced that it had succeeded in growing two key components found in human milk—lactose and casein—from mammary cells in a bioreactor. They’re looking for a solution to a widespread problem: Breastfeeding is linked to healthy development in children, but the majority of mothers aren’t able to breastfeed for some, if not all, of the recommended six months. Formula, made with nonhuman proteins that can be harder for babies to digest, is an imperfect alternative.
From London to California, architects are helping museums provide interactive learning experiences that can’t be found on screen
State of play: TapeScape, an interactive art installation built in collaboration with artist Eric Lennartson at Brooklyn Children’s Museum.
Last year, the Hoxton-based architecture practice AOC set up the Open Studio at the V&A Museum of Childhood in nearby Bethnal Green, east London. The 147-year-old institution was set to be renovated and initial consultation of local schoolchildren had found that they wanted the space turned into the “most joyful museum in the world”. AOC set up the Open Studio to find out how this could be done. It was a test-lab of forums and workshops for children and families, a space where visitors were encouraged to hold objects from the V&A’s collection and answer questions such as: “What is a museum?”
In 2100, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Egypt and the Democratic Republic of the Congo will be among the world’s largest countries.
In 1950, four European countries were still among the world’s largest
In 2020, half of the 10 most populous countries in the world will be in Asia
By 2100, five African countries will be among the world’s most populous
In the 21st century so far, populous countries and strong population growth were most often associated with Asia – but this view of the world will have to change in the future, data by the United Nations and Pew Research Center shows.
The DNA test claims to let prospective parents weed out IVF embryos with a high risk of disease or low intelligence.
Anxious couples are approaching fertility doctors in the US with requests for a hotly debated new genetic test being called “23andMe, but on embryos.”
The baby-picking test is being offered by a New Jersey startup company, Genomic Prediction, whose plans we first reported on two years ago.
The company says it can use DNA measurements to predict which embryos from an IVF procedure are least likely to end up with any of 11 different common diseases. In the next few weeks it’s set to release case studies on its first clients.
