No vaccine has ever come to market in less than four years, says Gordon Douglas ’55, the former president of Merck’s vaccine division and a doctor with decades of clinical and academic experience. Hear how he recommends speeding up the process.
http://weroar.princeton.edu/15-developing-a-vaccine-why-18-months-is-miraculously-fast-but-24-is-possible

More Faculty and Research News:

• The Washington Post: The strongest, most dangerous hurricanes are now far more likely because of climate change, study shows
www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/05/18/hurricanes-stronger-climate-change/

• Woodrow Wilson School: For People in Diverse Areas, Community Identity Supersedes Racial, Ethnic Differences (Susan Fiske, Xuechunzi Bai, and Miguel Ramos)
http://wws.princeton.edu/news-and-events/news/item/people-diverse-areas-community-identity-supersedes-racial-ethnic

• Princeton University News: Double helix of masonry — researchers uncover the secret of Italian Renaissance domes
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/05/21/double-helix-masonry-researchers-uncover-secret-italian-renaissance-domes

• The Guardian: Legendary Paris bookshop reveals reading habits of illustrious clientele (Joshua Kotin)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/15/legendary-paris-bookshop-reveals-reading-habits-ernest-hemingway-gertrude-stein-shakespeare-and-company

• Physics World: If ‘Planet Nine’ is a primordial black hole, could we detect it with a fleet of tiny spacecraft? (Edward Witten)
https://physicsworld.com/a/if-planet-nine-is-a-primordial-black-hole-could-we-detect-it-with-a-fleet-of-tiny-spacecraft/

In her latest book, “Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code,” Ruha Benjamin offers a detailed, critical and sobering view of the ways in which bias is infused into technology.
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/05/15/benjamins-race-after-technology-speaks-growing-concern-among-many-tech-bias

The New York Times examines Conway’s legacy of numerical gamesmanship.

“All of this gaming could be classified as serious research, of course; as both player and spectator, Dr. Conway was analyzing games, observing strategy and classifying the moves available to each player. He noticed that games behaved like numbers, and numbers like games. This led to his theory of surreal numbers — a huge new number system containing not only all the real numbers, but also a boggling collection of infinites and infinitesimals, like π minus 1 divided by the cube root of infinity.“
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/science/john-conway-math.html?referringSource=articleShare

Voices in the News:

• Rachel Baker: What happens to the coronavirus when it gets warmer? (WHYY)

• Meg Jacobs: What FDR’s Job Program Can Tell Us About Putting Young People Back To Work During Hard Economic Times (WBUR)

• Angus Deaton: Economy in crisis: more virus aid or wait and see? (Associated Press) and What did eight weeks and $3 trillion buy the U.S. in the fight against coronavirus? (Reuters)

• Sam Wang: Inside the surreal Twitter world of Steak-umm, a frozen-meat company that’s become an unlikely crusader against coronavirus conspiracies — and a darling of the scientists looking for the cure (Business Insider)

Local variations in climate are not likely to dominate the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Princeton University study published May 18 in the journal Science.
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/05/18/local-climate-unlikely-drive-early-covid-19-pandemic

Another new study, from researchers at Princeton University and the National Institutes of Health, found that our lack of immunity to the coronavirus will overwhelm any tempering influence that warm, humid weather may have on the virus’s spread. Only in future years, if the virus transitions to an endemic illness that flares up in smaller outbreaks each year, will climate be a more important factor, the study found. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/summer-weather-could-help-fight-coronavirus-spread-but-wont-halt-the-pandemic/2020/05/15/70ee90e2-95f6-11ea-9f5e-56d8239bf9ad_story.html

In a joint op-ed, leading academics around the world say we need to heed the lessons of the coronavirus crisis and rewrite the rules of our economic systems in order to create a more democratic and sustainable society. Signed by Princeton’s Jan-Werner Müller.
https://thewire.in/economy/covid-19-crisis-3000-researchers-600-universities-op-ed

Scientific studies continue to produce new and sometimes varying findings on the fast-spreading coronavirus — scientists at Princeton University, UCLA and the National Institutes of Health reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that the virus could survive for up to three hours in the air “post aerosolization.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/19/coronavirus-spread-by-talking-can-remain-in-air-researchers-find.html

A National Science Foundation grant will support Princeton researchers studying how COVID-19 may be spread by people without symptoms through everyday social interactions involving breathing and speaking.
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/05/18/princeton-engineering-team-use-nsf-rapid-grant-investigate-asymptomatic-spread

Spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, Princeton researchers have developed a diagnostic tool to analyze chest X-rays for patterns in diseased lungs. The new tool could give doctors valuable information about a patient’s condition, quickly and cheaply, at the point of care. Jason Fleischer, professor of electrical engineering and the project’s principal investigator, said he was inspired to create the tool after reading about COVID-19’s devastating range of attacks.
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/05/21/ai-tool-gives-doctors-new-look-lungs-treating-covid-19

Through May 31, the Princeton University Art Museum is offering free six-month memberships. While the galleries are temporarily closed, enjoy six months of exclusive virtual programming; a subscription to the museum’s weekly e-newsletter; a mailed copy of the spring issue of the museum’s magazine; and a discount at the museum store, which currently offers personal phone and email shopping and, soon, a new online store. https://centraljersey.com/2020/05/20/princeton-university-art-museum-offers-free-six-month-membership/

Related from Princeton Info: Cezanne at Princeton: A Glimpse into a Shuttered Exhibition

How might one visually represent the experience of going to a Princeton University Concerts event? Thirty-two Princeton University students, both undergraduate and graduate, signed up to take on this challenge as part of the sixth annual Creative Reactions Contest, one of several programs sponsored by the concert series to engage students in classical music.
The contest submissions were due at the beginning of April, after students transitioned off campus to a remote curriculum. As a result, the contest took on a new role: a respite from the stress of adapting to this new environment.
https://centraljersey.com/2020/05/21/princeton-university-students-share-love-of-music-through-creative-reactions-contest/

Physicist Cristiano Galbiati shifted focus from the search for dark matter to the shortage of ventilators for COVID-19 patients. The collaboration he began created an easy-to-manufacture ventilator in less thantwo months.
https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/physicists-put-expertise-toward-ventilator-shortage

Additional coverage: 

• Town Topics: Princeton Professor Pivots To Develop Life-Saving Ventilators

• ZDNet: When Italy went into lockdown, scientists from all over the world came together as friends to fight COVID-19

From The Charlotte Observer: [Christopher St. Hilaire] just learned that Princeton University — one of America’s oldest and most prestigious institutions, an Ivy League school with an acceptance rate of less than 6 percent — was giving him the opportunity to join its class of 2022 as a 25-year-old junior. When he begins the fall semester, this former high school dropout will be among an elite group of 13 students who were invited to transfer to Princeton from community colleges across the country (out of 905 who applied), and he’ll attend free of any financial burden.
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article242834461.html

Dr. Melissa Marks, a Class of 1986 graduate with over 20 years of experience in pediatric, adolescent and adult medicine, will become the next director of medical services at Princeton’s University Health Services (UHS). She will start June 8.https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/05/20/dr-melissa-marks-named-next-director-medical-services-princetons-university-health

Nicholas Johnson, a Canadian-born operations research and financial engineering major will address the Class of 2020 in a virtual graduation. https://www.bet.com/video/news/bet-buzz/princeton-names-first-black-valedictorian-in-school-history.html

Additional coverage:

• BET: BET BUZZ: Michelle Obama Congratulates Princeton’s First Black Valedictorian

• CBC: Father of Princeton’s 1st black valedictorian reflects on ‘major milestone’

• Caribbean Life: 2020 Caribbean valedictorian – 1st black at ivy league university

• News One: Nicholas Johnson Becomes First Black Person To Hold Princeton University’s Valedictorian Honor

• Narcity: Canadian Who Is Princeton’s First Black Valedictorian Got A Shout Out From The PM

President Christopher L. Eisgruber is asking Princeton’s incoming class to explore the concept of the nation, American civil ideals, and historical truth-seeking in his selection for this year’s Pre-read, “This America: The Case for the Nation,” by historian Jill Lepore.
Reflecting on the current crisis, Lepore said: “What it means to belong to a place always matters, but a global catastrophe calls upon each of us to think harder about the consequences of belonging to a nation, in a suffering world.”
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/05/19/america-historian-jill-lepore-selected-princeton-pre-read

John M. Murrin, Princeton professor of history, emeritus, a scholar of American colonial and revolutionary history and the early republic, died May 2 at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Hamilton, New Jersey, of complications from COVID-19.
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/05/11/john-m-murrin-scholar-early-american-history-dies-84