James' World 2

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• Ocrelizumab (Ocrevus): This drug treats relapsing forms of MS and primary progressive MS (PPMS). It’s the first DMTTrusted Source to be approved to treat PPMS and the only one approved for all four types of MS.
• Fingolimod (Gilenya): This drug treats pediatric MS. It was already approved for adults and, in 2018, became the first DMT to be approved for childrenTrusted Source.
• Cladribine (Mavenclad): This drug is approvedTrusted Source to treat relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) and active secondary progressive MS (SPMS).
• Siponimod (Mayzent): This drug is approvedTrusted Source to treat RRMS, active SPMS, and clinically isolated syndrome (CIS). In a phase 3 clinical trialTrusted Source, siponimod effectively reduced the rate

• of relapse in people with active SPMS. Compared with a placebo, it cut the relapse rate in half.
• Ponesimod (Ponvory): This FDA-approvedTrusted Source drug has been shown to reduce annual relapses for relapsing types of MS by 30.5%Trusted Source when compared with teriflunomide (Aubagio).
• Ublituximab (Briumvi): This drug was approved by the FDATrusted Source to treat RRMS, SPMS, and CIS. It is a monoclonal antibody given as an infusion.

While new treatments are continually being approved, some medications are being removed from pharmacy shelves. In March 2018, daclizumab (Zinbryta) was withdrawn from markets around the world due to reports of the drug potentially causing inflammatory brain disorders. This drug is no longer available to treat MS.

Experimental therapies

Several other medications are moving through the research pipeline. In recent studies, some of these medications have shown promise for treating MS.

• The results of a phase 2 clinical trial suggest that the drug ibudilast might help reduce the progression of MS. To learn more about this medication, the manufacturer plans to conduct a phase 3 clinical trial.
• The findings of a small 2017 studyTrusted Source suggest that clemastine fumarate might help restore the protective coating around nerves in people with relapsing forms of MS. This oral antihistamine is currently available over the counter but not in the dose used in the clinical trial. More research is needed to study its potential benefits and risks for treating MS.
• Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation therapy is a promising new treatment for MS that’s currently being studied. It’s not currently approved in the United States, but interest is growing in the field, and it’s being evaluated in clinical trials.

Data-driven strategies to target treatments

Thanks to the development of new medications for MS, people have a growing number of treatment options to choose from.

To help guide their decisions, scientists are using large databases and statistical analyses to try to pinpoint the best treatment optionsTrusted Source for different people.

Eventually, this research might help those with MS learn which treatments are most likely to

work.

Progress in gene research

To understand the causes and risk factors for MS, geneticists and other scientists are combing the human genome for clues.

Researchers have identified more than 200 genetic variantsTrusted Source associated with MS. For example, a 2018 studyTrusted Source by the International Multiple Sclerosis Genetics Consortium identified 4 new genes linked to the disease.

Eventually, findings like these might help scientists develop new strategies and tools to predict, prevent, and treat MS.

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Disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) are the main group of medications used to treat MS. To date, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved more than a dozen DMTs for different types of MS.

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Most astronomers would love to find a planet, but Mike Brown may be the only one proud of having killed one. Thanks to his research, Pluto, the solar system’s ninth planet, was removed from the pantheon—and the public cried foul. How can you revise our childhoods? How can you mess around with our planetariums?

About 10 years ago Brown’s daughter—then around 10 years old—suggested one way he could seek redemption: go find another planet. “When she said that, I kind of laughed,” Brown says. “In my head, I was like, ‘That’s never happening.’”

Yet Brown may now be on the brink of fulfilling his daughter’s wish. Evidence he and others have gathered over the past decade suggests something strange is happening in the outer solar system: distant subplanetary objects are being found on orbits that look sculpted, arranged by an unseen gravitational force. According to Brown, that force is coming from a ninth planet—one bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune.

Nobody has found Planet Nine yet. If it’s really out there, it’s too far and too faint for almost any existing telescope to spot it. But that’s about to change. A new telescope, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, is about to open its mechanical eyes. When it does, it should catch millions of previously undetected celestial phenomena, from distant supernovae to near-Earth asteroids—and, crucially, tens of thousands of new objects around and beyond Pluto.

If Brown’s hidden world is real, Rubin will almost certainly find it or strong indirect evidence that it exists. “In the first year or two, we’re going to answer that question,” says Megan Schwamb, a planetary astronomer at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland—and, just maybe, the solar system will once again have a ninth planet.

Pluto was discovered in 1930 and always seemed to be a lonely planet on the fringes of the solar system. But in the early 2000s skywatchers found out that Pluto had company: other rime-coated worlds much like it were popping up in surveys of that benighted frontier. And in 2005, using California’s Palomar Observatory, Brown—an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology—and two of his colleagues spied a far-flung orb that would change the way we perceive the solar system.

That orb was Eris. It was remarkably distant—68 times as far from the sun as Earth. But at roughly 1,500 miles in diameter, it was just a little larger than Pluto. “The day I found Eris and did the calculation about how big it might be, I was like, ‘Okay, that’s it. Game’s up,’” Brown says. Either Eris was going to become a new planet, or Pluto wasn’t what we thought.

Finding a ninth planet would be huge. Such a discovery could change what we know about our solar system’s past.

In 2006 officials at the International Astronomical Union decided that to qualify as a planet, a body must orbit a star, must be sufficiently massive for gravity to squish it into a sphere, and must have a clear orbit. Pluto, which shares its orbital neighborhood with a fleet of other, more modest objects, failed to overcome the third hurdle. Pluto became a “dwarf planet”—but its demotion didn’t make it, or its fellow distant companions, any less beguiling to astronomers.

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Ron Miller

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If you’re concerned about ecosystem collapse and climate displacement, you might look to a One Health approach for possible solutions. Techquity could provide a roadmap for countering any of the potential ills that AI may bring, despite all the good that its disciples promise. And if the troubles on our planet have you feeling unmoored, try seeking out belonging and even some enchantment.

These are the buzzwords that global health and development experts say we’ll hear more of in 2025 — a vocab mix of pending global catastrophe and possible remedy.

Belonging

It’s something of a paradox. Our planet is filled with a dizzying number of humans (8 billion and counting), many of whom are connected to one another electronically. And yet more and more people are lonely. Dr. Vivek Murthy, the current U.S. Surgeon General, has spoken of an epidemic of loneliness and isolation..

“Loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling,” he wrote in an advisory in 2023. “It harms both individual and societal health. It is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety and premature death.” Loneliness is a global concern, as evidenced by the World Health Organization creating an international commission to address it as a public health crisis in late 2023.

Murthy invites us to “build a movement to mend the social fabric” by deeply listening, sharing a meal or volunteering. “The keys to human connection are simple but extraordinarily powerful.”

In Kenya, Sitawa Wafula, an independent mental health advocate, has developed her own approach. She launched and ran a support line that connected more than 11,000 people with mental health resources in its first year. “Many users shared that simply being heard by someone who understood their struggles created an immediate sense of connection,” Wafula says.

That’s why she believes that belonging will be a global buzzword this year. “For those facing stigma and alienation,” says Wafula, “belonging acted as a protective factor, encouraging them to seek further support and adopt healthier coping mechanisms.”

Wafula has also facilitated storytelling workshops among those in the African diaspora, many of whom face challenges surrounding identity and disconnection in their new homes. “Through sharing and affirming each other’s experiences,” she says, “they developed a shared sense of belonging that not only reduced isolation but also fostered resilience.”

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Leif Parsons for NPR

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About 170 million people use TikTok in the U.S., but that number could abruptly plummet toward zero if a law signed by President Joe Biden goes into effect on January 19. The law forces a choice for ByteDance, the China-based company that owns TikTok: it must either sell the app to a non-Chinese company or face a ban. ByteDance has repeatedly said the app is not for sale.

Instead, the company sued to keep the TikTok app available in the U.S.—and that case has now made its way before the Supreme Court. In oral arguments on Friday, Noel Francisco, attorney for ByteDance’s U.S. subsidiary TikTok, Inc., argued that the new law violates the First Amendment rights of that subsidiary, likening TikTok’s curation algorithm to editorial discretion. U.S. solicitor general Elizabeth Prelogar, arguing on behalf of the nation’s government, countered that China does not have a First Amendment right to manipulate content in the U.S. And she claimed that “the Chinese government could weaponize TikTok at any time to harm the United States.”

The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision within the next nine days.

Why is the clock ticking for TikTok?

Congress, which passed the TikTok law with bipartisan support, says China’s influence over the platform poses a national security threat. The Department of Justice has raised concerns as well, including the potential collection of personal data from the app’s millions of American users and the potential “covert manipulation” of its content. (Although there is evidence that ByteDance shared non-U.S. user data with China, the U.S. government has not provided direct proof that the company or its subsidiary have meddled with American users.)

What might happen?

If TikTok loses its case, “as I understand it, we go dark,” Francisco told the Supreme Court on Friday. Americans would no longer be able to download or update TikTok from Google’s or Apple’s app stores. Internet service providers, too, would face severe penalties if they permitted TikTok access to U.S. users.

Americans may react in similar ways as former TikTok users elsewhere. After India banned the app in 2020, users flocked to other forms of short-form video, such as Instagram reels and YouTube Shorts. It is also possible to access blocked content via virtual private networks, or VPNs, which could disguise traffic to make it appear to originate from a country where TikTok wasn’t banned.

President-elect Donald Trump, meanwhile, has asked the Supreme Court to delay interpreting the law until he takes office. An amicus brief filed on his behalf claims his “consummate dealmaking expertise” could save the platform while addressing the national security concerns. Last September Trump promised to save the app, posting on his social media network Truth Social, “FOR ALL OF THOSE THAT WANT TO SAVE TIK TOK IN AMERICA, VOTE TRUMP!” Legal scholars have criticized Trump’s request for a delay.

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Last month I peeked my head into my son’s bed cave at 9:15 AM and whispered to him that I was off to a meeting, then to a friend’s house. When I squeezed his foot as I zipped him back in, his pre-teen body making the twin bed look tiny, I felt happy. I immediately thought of the word freedom.

And then I thought, as I often do, of a photo from 2021. In the picture, it’s also winter, and I’m hiding under that same son’s bed. We are in our tenth month of no childcare, no school, no daycare. My ear is pressed to my shoulder and my knee is in my armpit. I look like I’m playing 2-dimensional Twister, and losing. I remember the moment my daughter took the picture with her iPad, delighted because she’d found me in our game of hide and seek. In the photo, I look contorted and trapped. I am, of course, smiling.

During those lockdown months, my children were 2, 3, 4, 5. And I don’t know if you have been around any 3-year-olds lately, but there was a physical and emotional intensity to parenting during this time that is beyond any description; if you have ever been furious with a child, imagine being locked in a room with them and unable to leave for a year. Imagine how much you would want to be alone.

And so there is a part of me, emotionally but physically too, that is constantly bracing, as if I’m still alone in the house with my kids. And I can’t stop thinking about that photo because in some ways I’m still in it. I think, I know, it’s the reason that, in the years since, what I always wanted — what I still want, need, more than anything — is space. Time alone so I can breathe; unclench.

My husband, thankfully, works long days out of our house. He takes the kids out to breakfast on weekend mornings so I can have a few hours to myself; they have regular dad and kids dinners at restaurants while I exist alone in our house. A friend described herself as Gollum, the way she guards her time alone, and I felt seen. I guard my girls’ trips, my book club times, my silent baths. I curl around my precious snatches of time like Gollum with his ring, too, hissing at social obligations or even another hour of snuggles (please say I’m not the only one?).

But something has changed, and I’m only just starting to notice it. I don’t feel trapped in the same way. I don’t know if it’s that (for better or worse) social supports are back and running post-pandemic, or if it’s just my kids getting older. I do know any sliver of community care —playdates, shared pickups — still feels extraordinary.

And I know the feeling of freedom can go away at any time — a medical diagnosis, job loss, even relationships. There are many ways mothers can be trapped, and just because I feel some freedom now doesn’t mean I always will.

But still: yesterday I came out of hiding in my bedroom, where I’d holed up to get some writing in, only to find the house was quiet. I had come out into the living room, dreading the immediate dive into the what was for dinner debate, but my kids were off running around the neighborhood. My house was empty, but I was still hiding.

Who, exactly, am I hiding away from?

This possibility, this perspective, that motherhood doesn’t have to mean feeling trapped feels something like a secret. I wonder if I might be alone in this feeling, or if I’m just a selfish mother (another thing to discuss in therapy this week), or if many lockdown parents feel this way.

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romper

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CLIMATEWIRE | As historic fires rip through the Los Angeles area, President-elect Donald Trump is demanding Gov. Gavin Newsom “open up the water main” and allow “beautiful, clean, freshwater to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA!”

At first glance, it seems to make sense. Why wouldn’t the leader of a state whose northern regions are currently enjoying above-average winter precipitation redirect water south to quench the burning metropolis as its fire hydrants run dry?

To start, there isn’t some central spigot nestled in the Sierra foothills that Newsom can just use a giant wrench to turn on. Then there’s the fact that firefighters were more hamstrung by the raging Santa Ana winds than empty hydrants due to a lack of water from Northern California.

Read on for a detailed explanation from our resident California water expert of the state’s complex water system and a brief history of Trump’s fixation with the issue.

What’s up with the ‘water restoration declaration?’

On Wednesday, Trump posted on Truth Social: “Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way.”

Newsom’s communications director shot back: “There is no such document as the water restoration declaration — that is pure fiction.”

Is it? Not quite. Trump was referring to a real document, even if he used an unknown name for it that left even the most astute California water officials scratching their heads. Karoline Leavitt, the president-elect’s press secretary, explained the reference by pointing to a five-year-old legal showdown between Newsom and Trump over how to manage the state and federal systems of pumps, reservoirs, and canals that move water around California.

In short, the two disagree about how much water should be pumped out of the state’s main rivers, which combine in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, to the much drier farms of the Central Valley and cities of Southern California and how much water should be kept in the ecosystem to keep declining fish populations alive, including the Delta smelt, a frequent Trump target. Their separate plans for the pumps make only marginal differences in actual water deliveries but have taken on a political life of their own.

The conflict peaked in 2020 when Trump unveiled the “record of decision” cementing his version of the rules at a rally in the Central Valley — only to be sued by Newsom, citing harm to the environment

“That was the last significant water policy decision made during his first term in which both President Trump and Gov. Newsom took a personal interest,” said Tom Birmingham, the former general manager of Westlands Water District, the largest agricultural irrigation district in the country that sided with Trump in that battle.

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