From the #FutureTenseFiction archives: The protagonist of Annalee Newitz’s “When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis” is a friendly disease-detecting robot, developed by the CDC to collect data on potential outbreaks in hard-to-reach communities. But when the CDC is defunded, Robot has to assemble its own team to fight a dangerous virus.

“Fungi are amazingly resilient, adaptive, and persistent,” write Angel N. Desai and George R. Thompson III, and fungal pathogens such as valley fever are “disturbingly effective” at exploiting a changing environment.

Today marks five years since the the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a #pandemic. Artist James Gouldthorpe documented the early days of the pandemic in his paintings: “I discovered that painting in my studio kept me from spinning out. It started to really help my mental health.”

“Infrastructure is essential for scaling interventions effectively,” writes Daniel Max Crowley, “because it helps programs adapt to variability in policy and economic contexts while maintaining program fidelity.”

What are the public health implications of current cannabis policy? On the latest episode of #TheOngoingTransformation, Yasmin Hurd, PhD talks with Sara Frueh about the complex landscape of modern #cannabis products, what’s known about their public health impacts, and strategies policymakers could use to minimize harms.

“As fires, floods, and other weather events exacerbated by climate change become more frequent and intense,” write University of California, Davis’s Angel N. Desai and George R. Thompson III, “the spread of fungal pathogens ... are likely to become increasingly common and harmful to public health.”

How did NASA worked to generate public and political support for the space shuttle?

John Logsdon reviews Amy Kaminski’s recent book about the space shuttle program: “Kaminski’s extensively researched and well-written book tells the story of how NASA sought to engage both specific groups outside NASA and the public in general ... in the process making the shuttle ‘the people’s spaceship.’”

The physician-humanist and writer Lewis Thomas provided Barry Coller with a lesson in humility that he never forgot: “Here I was thinking these were singular technological achievements, when in reality, Thomas was telling me, they were proof of our ignorance.”

#STEM education produces narrow, uncritical thinkers, argues Sergio Carbajo. ”In order to truly ‘open up’ the STEM pipeline to a broader group of people, the field must embrace deeper diversification of thought and ways of knowing.”