As COVID-19 spreads into more and more countries, it’s tempting to compare it to another pandemic that happened not too long ago: The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918.

On the face of it, they look similar. Both are caused by viruses (though not of the same type), and both appear to be very infectious. The Spanish flu eventually infected 1/3 of the entire population of the Earth, and COVID-19 appears to be well on its way to do the same.

But that’s where the similarities end. The Spanish flu appeared while the Great War¹ was still going on. A lot of young men were already weak due to spending weeks inside the trenches, making them easy victims for the virus. Wartime censors suppressed news of the disease² in order to keep up morale, which also prevented potentially lifesaving information to become known. Doctors didn’t even know the disease was caused by a virus, and many of the drugs we enjoy today had yet to be discovered (In fact, one of the most striking differences between then and now is how far medicine has come). And while most flu strains kill older people or those with compromised immune systems, the Spanish flu killed mostly young people with strong immune systems because it caused a cytokine storm, turning the immune system against the body.

Another major difference is that we live in a global economy, where you can travel halfway around the earth in less than a day³. Goods are produced and transported all over the world. But we also have global institutions like the WHO (established in 1948) that manage and coordinate the fight against the pandemic.

So comparing the Spanish flu to our current pandemic should only be done carefully. Some of the measures taken back then make sense today (like closing down schools and limiting social contact), but a lot of other things are no longer valid in our modern world.

So stay safe, and wash your hands regularly and thoroughly.

(Ars Technica has a comprehensive and regularly updated guide to the COVID-19 epidemic)

Size Matters

Neutron stars are weird, to say the least. When a massive star is nearing the end of its live, and goes supernova, only the outer layers explode outwards. The core, on the other hand, starts to collapse. If it has enough mass, the gravitational forces will collapse into a black hole. If it doesn’t, then instead gravity crushes the atoms in the core down so much that it forms a neutron star. These are small spheres, weighing in at up to twice the mass of our Sun, and made up of extremely tightly packed neutrons. And we know that they are not very big (in terms of stars), but we still aren’t sure how small they really are: How big is a neutron star?

Best of Times, Worst of Times

The 20th century saw growth for humanity on all levels - as a species, we got richer, healthier, and developed new technologies at a pace unseen before. But those same developments have costs we are now starting to pay. And yet, there is a glimmer of hope: The great paradox of our time: everything is both better and worse than ever before

Bee Buddies

Without bees, we humans would be in trouble. It’s not just the honey that we would miss. A lot of other food we eat relies on bees to pollinate in order to grow the produce. So much so that a large portion of a beekeepers income is not from honey, but from renting their hives to farms in order to pollinate. But modern agriculture poses a new problem for the beekeepers: Their bees are dying by the millions. ‘Like sending bees to war’: the deadly truth behind your almond milk obsession.

Back to School

Multiplication is one of these things that you’re taught early in school. And you might think that the way you learned it in school is also the best way to do it. Except it’s not, by a long way. Computers, who have to multiply large numbers all the time⁴, have long used different algorithms than what you learned in school. And now mathematicians have discovered the perfect way to multiply.

📖 Weekly Longread 📚

‘Against all odds’: The inside story of how scientists across three continents produced an Ebola vaccine

🦄 Unicorn Chaser 🦄

Simply Stunning Aerial Photos of Oceans and Beaches