The rise of a COVID subvariant. Plus, why spiders flee after mating
|  | Monday, April 25, 2022 | | | | |
 | SPL/AGE FOTOSTOCK
| | By David Beard, Executive Editor, Newsletters
The U.S. has a habit of prematurely declaring victory over deadly diseases--and then a new wave roars back and kills hundreds of thousands more Americans. At least that was the cycle more than a century ago with the Spanish flu (which actually began at an Army camp in Kansas, pictured above). Back then, there was some opposition to health experts and mask mandates; applause when the mandates ended; surprise when the killing resumed.
These days, Americans face conflicting mask rulings and guidance, signs of a gathering variant, and the approaching milestone of one million documented COVID-19 deaths. Researchers studying the Spanish flu found death rates varied widely by city, based on how early, stringent or prolonged the public health precautions were. (Here’s a look at which cities were able to flatten the curve in 1918-20.)
A century later, drugs and public hygiene have improved dramatically, but the world has become a more crowded, interconnected place, Toby Saul wrote for Nat Geo’s History magazine. And humans still are wired to be impatient, gravitating toward the easy thing—wanting, powerfully, to believe they’ll be fine. History and baseball great Yogi Berra tell us this: It ain’t over till it’s over.
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PHOTOGRAPH BY JIM RICHARDSON, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION | | Heather on the moor: A Scottish moor is an uncultivated landscape of shrubs and grasses, often punctuated in late summer by a royal cloak of purple heather (pictured above). That’s Nat Geo’s description in this 2017 story on the breakup of Scottish estates—with plans to re-forest some of Scotland’s signature moorland and to subdivide others. This image was recently featured in our Photo of the Day archival collection.
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY GILLES PERESS, MAGNUM | | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL NICHOLS, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE | | The movement to save old forests: Ancient forests have cleaner water, provide homes for sensitive species, and hold more carbon than younger forests. That’s why scientists have been lobbying for their protection. For Earth Day on Friday, President Biden visited a Seattle park to sign an executive order mandating an inventory of the country’s mature and old-growth forests like the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California (pictured above). Old-growth forests, some of which are thousands of years old, are at higher risk of pest invasions, wildfires, and drought, Craig Welch writes.
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| EARTH MONTH: ARTICLE OF THE DAY | |
| PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIAN SKERRY | | | |
 | LEFT: ERIKA LARSEN/NG IMAGE COLLECTION;
RIGHT: NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION | | Frozen in time: Archaeologists have retrieved 100,000 artifacts from Nunalleq, in southwestern Alaska. Everything from ivory tattoo needles and a belt of caribou teeth to wooden ritual masks. Most artifacts are well-preserved, having been frozen underground since 1660. Now archaeological sites such as Nunalleq are threatened by climbing temperatures and rising seas. (Pictured above, Yup’ik masks depicting a half-human, half-walrus face, and one from the 19th century resembling an animal with a seal in its jaws.)
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Today's newsletter was curated and edited by David Beard, Jen Tse, and Monica Williams. Have an idea or feedback for us? Let us know at david.beard@natgeo.com. Thanks for stopping by!
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