<em>The Atlantic Daily</em>: Should Colleges Reopen This Fall?

And when inevitable outbreaks do occur, schools may try to blame students.

But they won’t be the main ones at fault, argue Julia Marcus and Jessica Gold, professors who teach epidemiology and psychiatry, respectively. “Students are not solely—or even primarily—responsible for keeping campuses safe.”

College kids are part of Generation C.

That’s C as in coronavirus—the 2020 outbreak of which may derail their careers and financial futures, Amanda Mull warned back in April.  

Further reading: Does a college degree lead to greater life satisfaction? Not necessarily, Arthur C. Brooks writes in his “How to Build a Life” column.

One question, answered: What’s with all the preprint studies showing up in news reports? Is the pandemic changing science?

James Hamblin and Katherine Wells discussed the potential shift on our Social Distance podcast:  

Katherine Wells: Am I right that there’s been much more news about preprint, non-peer-reviewed studies? It feels like there’s been much more news. Like, I’d never heard the word preprint before. Are we getting a lot more news about more tenuous studies right now? Or am I just paying attention more?

James Hamblin: Yes, by its nature, news wants to focus on the hot new thing, and people are not waiting to report on early reports of findings. It’s becoming more like “These scientists are saying …” and not always waiting to go through the peer-review process. It’s not just you. That is something new, and I think science is potentially changing forever by accommodating that. Journalists used to never report on preprints. We waited until something was published.

For their reflection on what that means, listen to the full installment, aptly titled “This Episode Has Not Been Peer-Reviewed.”

What to read if … you just want practical tips:

What to read if … you’d like to read about something—anything—other than the coronavirus:

In a cruel twist, forest fires now threaten the ruins at Chernobyl. Or, as Jane Braxton Little puts it, “the devastation left by the world’s worst nuclear disaster is colliding with the disaster of climate change.”

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Caroline Mimbs Nyce is a senior associate editor at The Atlantic.