April 1st, But Not Foolish

Things of which to be aware in regard to our health.

A new covid variant called Cicada, ticks and a new Lyme vaccine, common cold, and good news

The Dose (March 31)

Good morning!

Spring is here, and so is a shift in what’s circulating. Flu season is officially behind us, tick season is just getting started, and a new Covid-19 variant is making the rounds in the news and on social media (but has not yet been felt in hospitals). And with Lyme disease season upon us, the news of a long-awaited vaccine couldn’t be more timely, though there are some real caveats worth understanding.

Here’s what’s going on and, more importantly, what it means for you.

Disease “weather” report: what’s spreading right now?

Good riddance, flu season. We are officially out, as rates have now fallen below the “epidemic threshold.” Some states are still high, like New Mexico, but the trend is the same. The other main fall/winter viruses, including RSV and Covid-19 are all decreasing, too.

Odds are that if you get sick in the next month or two, it will be the common cold (the gray line below). This will continue to increase until May/June.

*Percent of positive tests for respiratory viruses. Source: NREVSS; Annotated by Your Local Epidemiologist*

Enter tick season. Emergency department visits for tick bites are low but climbing, which is normal for this time of year. Expect two waves: one peaking in May and another in mid-October. By year’s end, more than 500,000 people will likely be diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease.

Source: CDC Tick Bite Data Tracker; Annotated by Your Local Epidemiologist.

Ticks thrive in warm, lush spring environments and can carry pathogens responsible for over a dozen diseases. Lyme is the most well-known. It can cause flu-like symptoms and, if untreated, serious complications including neurological and cardiac issues.

Not all ticks carry disease. Risk depends on the species, geography, and duration of a tick’s attachment. Currently, tick-borne illnesses are most concentrated in the Northeast, with emergency department (ED) visits at 13 per 100,000 people.

What this means for you: You can take several steps to protect yourself from ticks, including applying DEET or picaridin, treating clothing and gear with products containing 0.5% permethrin, and conducting thorough tick checks after engaging in outdoor activities. Here is a YLE deep dive on tick threats.

A new Covid-19 variant is getting attention. What’s going on?

Covid-19 continues to mutate, and the latest variant attracting attention is BA.3.2 (nicknamed “Cicada”), a descendant of Omicron that has been circulating globally for some time.

BA.3.2 now accounts for 11% of U.S. cases, but it’s too early to tell how quickly it’s growing. What is clear is that it has yet to trigger a surge. Wastewater levels, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations all remain low. Historically, a variant doesn’t drive a significant new wave until it reaches ~50% of cases.

% of circulating variants for Covid-19. Source: CDC; Annotated by Your Local Epidemiologist.

What’s drawing attention is the spike protein, which has 75 mutations compared with the strains included in last fall’s Covid-19 vaccines. The spike protein acts like a key that unlocks our cells, and when that key changes enough, existing antibodies struggle to recognize and block it. Lab studies confirm this is happening, but antibodies are just one layer of defense. The immune system has other tools that protect against serious illness, and current immunity is expected to hold up.

One thing researchers are actively tracking: early signals suggest BA.3.2 may be infecting kids at higher rates than previous variants. It’s hard to know whether this is real or just random chance, but if it is real, it’s likely due to a combination of many factors. For example, younger kids might not have seen as many Covid-19 variants or had as many coronavirus infections as adults, so they might be less immune to it.

Q: Could this cause a spring/summer wave? A: We have very little data on how fast this is growing, so time will tell. My guess is this will cause a spring/summer wave, but not a nothing burger or a tsunami.

Q: Should people over 65 get a spring Covid-19 shot? A: If it’s been at least three months since your last dose, a spring shot is a reasonable call. Timing it around May or June tends to align well with how Covid-19 seasons typically play out.

Q: Is a second shot within a year a booster? Or is it only a booster if the formulation is different? A: The term gets thrown around loosely. Generally, a booster means a repeat dose of the same vaccine, not necessarily a new formulation. The strains for the next updated Covid-19 vaccine haven’t been selected yet, so there’s no new version available right now. If a pharmacist tells you there’s no booster available, they may be thinking specifically of an updated formulation. A repeat dose of the current vaccine is still an option worth asking about.

Q: Could BA.3.2 spark the next pandemic? A: No. In fact, researchers have argued that another coronavirus pandemic is now less likely, not more, precisely because Covid-19 and the vaccines that followed built widespread, robust immunity across the global population.

A Lyme disease vaccine may finally be on the horizon

Ticks spread Lyme disease, one of the most common and debilitating infections in the country, and for the first time in over two decades, a vaccine to prevent it may finally be on the way. The only vaccine we had before, LYMErix, was pulled from the market in 2002. Not because it was unsafe (the FDA found no real problems) but because rumors about arthritis side effects, amplified by bad press and lawsuits, scared people.

Now Pfizer and French vaccine company Valneva have announced their new vaccine candidate worked in more than 70% of cases in a large late-stage trial of 9,400 people aged five and older.

How does the Lyme disease vaccine work?

The vaccine works differently from most other vaccines in a very cool way. Instead of just protecting you, it actually works inside the tick:

The vaccine trains your body to make antibodies against a protein (called OspA) found on Lyme-causing bacteria.
When a tick bites you, it drinks your blood along with those antibodies.
The antibodies neutralize the bacteria in the tick’s gut, stopping it from ever reaching its salivary glands and getting into you.

Graphic from Janet Loehrke at USA TODAY. Annotated by Your Local Epidemiologist.

But there are a few things worth understanding

The trial hit a statistical snag. The trial had fewer Lyme disease cases than expected, making the results too uncertain to be conclusive. Researchers had planned two ways to measure the vaccine’s effectiveness before the study began: one starting 28 days after the final dose, which fell just short of the required confidence threshold, and one starting the day after the final dose, which cleared it. Pfizer cited both results in deciding to seek regulatory approval.
The regulatory path is murky. The manufacturer will seek FDA approval, and if granted, the vaccine will go to ACIP for a policy recommendation. The problem: ACIP currently has no members. What happens next is genuinely unclear.
The bigger question is whether people will actually use it. The vaccine requires four doses over about a year, plus what looks like an annual booster before tick season. That’s a real commitment. Lyme disease is far better known today than it was in 2002, which gives people more reason to seek protection. But wanting a vaccine and completing every dose are two very different things.

Good news

Big Tech’s Big Tobacco moment. Last week, a Los Angeles court found Meta and YouTube negligent in the design of their platforms, ruling that features like infinite scroll and autoplay deliberately built addiction into the apps, and that executives knew it and failed to protect young users. The decision could set a precedent for more than 1,500 similar pending cases.
TB rates are falling after years of post-pandemic rise. New CDC data show that last year, 10,260 TB cases were reported, representing a 2% decline in the national rate compared with the year before. Cases fell across 26 states and Washington, D.C.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/tb-data/aboutprovisionaldata/2025-provisional-data.html

Birthday celebration! Remember that infant botulism outbreak? Amy Mazziotti, mother of Hank, who was hospitalized for 12 days for botulism after drinking ByHeart baby formula, just celebrated Hank’s first birthday. She received a letter from the public health response team that helped her. Each year, this public health team mails roughly 200 cards to babies who recovered from botulism. Program assistant Robin Hinks decorates them with drawings, like frogs in party hats and penguins with balloons. A small, loving, above-and-beyond act. Read more about this from Matt over at YLE CA.

Bottom line

The seasonal transition brings real shifts in disease risk, and a little awareness goes a long way. Have a wonderful week!

Love, YLE

Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) is founded and operated by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, MPH PhD—an epidemiologist, wife, and mom of two little girls. YLE reaches over 425,000 people in over 132 countries with one goal: “Translate” the ever-evolving public health science so that people will be well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions.

SCOTUS Strikes Down Colorado Ban On ‘Conversion Therapy’ For LGBTQ Youths

Important Words From Rev. William Barber

Rev. William Barber: Why the Midterm Election is So Important

Rev. Barber: We have to start teaching people that when we talk about politics, there is not an aspect of your life—from your birth to your death—that is not impacted.

By Rev. William Barber II

Published March 30, 2026

When we look at the midterm elections, we have to start with the basics. We are electing every member of the United States House of Representatives and one-third of the United States Senate. In most places, we are electing their entire state general assemblies, and many are electing governors, attorney generals, and so forth. We are electing the very people who impact every aspect of our lives. These elections determine whether we will have people in office who want to ensure everyone has health care or who want to take health care away; whether we want people in office who will vote to make sure everyone is paid a living wage versus just giving more money to corporations; whether they will care about poor and low-wage voters and the resources for people to afford a basic life, or whether all they will care about is giving more wealth to the already wealthy. That is what’s on the line.

Rev. Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign speaks at the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival Rally at the US Supreme Court on October 27, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Repairers Of The Breach)

What is at stake is whether or not you have a Congress that will demand that the President, whoever that President is, cannot just act unilaterally, but must get congressional approval for war; whether or not we have a budget; whether or not TSA agents are paid; whether or not government employees are paid; whether or not we have a Congress that will stand up and not just be a rubber stamp to what an authoritarian President wants to do or will just “go along to get along.”

We have to start teaching people that when we talk about politics, there is not an aspect of your life—from your birth to your death—that is not impacted. You’re not officially recognized without a birth certificate, which is the result of a political decision. You can’t guarantee your Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security without political decisions. Even as you die, people must understand that politics is not just about personality; it’s about people being put in place and the kinds of policies and vision they will enact.

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, is a Professor in the Practice of Public Theology and Public Policy and Founding Director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. He serves as President and Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign

Yeah, Another One Of Those Posts

Not about bathrooms, but about testing women. Either test everyone, or take people’s word for it, when reporting is required. And all should prepare for the consequences of this. Women will need more protection from molestation than before, and transpeople need to specifically have that protection, as well. I think the XY carriers will be fine, of course, but they should be tested, too. I mean, who knows, right? And this should not happen in US communities at all, but the door will be wide open.

Under New Olympic Sex Testing Policy, A Cis Woman Who Gives Birth Could Be Considered Male

History is set to repeat itself after the IOC announced a trans ban and mass sex testing for the 2028 Olympics.

Erin Reed

On Thursday, the International Olympic Committee announced that it would ban transgender women and many cisgender women athletes from competing in women’s events and institute mandatory genetic screening of all female athletes. The decision is significant—the Olympics has allowed transgender women to compete since 2004, yet none has ever won a medal, and only a single transgender woman has ever competed: weightlifter Laurel Hubbard of New Zealand, who failed to place at the 2021 Tokyo Games. The ban applies to all sports, including those where no male performance advantage exists, and will require every woman to undergo a genetic test to participate. It will also exclude many cisgender women who produce elevated testosterone due to genetic or medical conditions, such as two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya. And it is not the first time the Olympics has subjected women to mass sex testing—the last time it did, from 1992 to 1999, the results were disastrous, with cisgender women discovering they had intersex conditions they never knew about, leading to public humiliation, career destruction, and at least one suicide before such testing was abolished.

Under the new policy, every woman seeking to compete in a female event at the Olympics or any IOC competition must undergo a one-time SRY gene screening—a cheek swab or blood test that detects the presence of a gene on the Y chromosome associated with male sex development. The test is similar to the one the IOC abolished 27 years ago after it produced disastrous human consequences. Because the screening identifies the presence of XY genetics, it will target not only transgender women but also intersex people—including cisgender women who carry a genetic condition that some argue makes them “male” despite having been born with a vagina and uterus, raised as girls, and having lived their entire lives as women. In at least 15 documented cases, women with 46,XY karyotypes—the same genetics this test screens for—have successfully carried pregnancies to term and given birth, including women with XY karyotypes that naturally produce testosterone. Under the IOC’s new framework, a woman who has been pregnant and delivered a child could be classified as male and barred from competition for failing this test.

Genetic sex testing was introduced at the Olympics in 1992, but it existed for only a short time. In the two Summer Games it covered—Barcelona in 1992 and Atlanta in 1996—over 20 female athletes who were assigned female at birth, had lived their entire lives as women, and had female anatomy were told they were genetically “male” due to conditions they had never known about. The consequences were disastrous. Dr. Myron Genel, a Yale physician who was a prominent critic of the program, reported that the testing was “highly discriminatory” and caused “emotional trauma and social stigmatization” for women with intersex conditions who had been screened out of competition. For athletes from countries where being labeled male could carry severe social or physical consequences, the disclosure was not merely humiliating—it was dangerous. Indian swimmer Pratima Gaonkar died by suicide after her failed sex verification test became public and she was subjected to blackmail attempts; Indian runner Santhi Soundarajan attempted suicide after being stripped of her Asian Games silver medal. The testing was abolished in 1999.

The ban also applies to sports where a male genetic advantage is dubious or nonexistent. In rifle shooting, ESPN reported that women are “as good as, if not fractionally better than, men” in 10m air rifle, and yet these athletes will still have to prove their femininity with a genetic test. In sailing, the competition was mixed for nearly a century at the Olympics, from 1900 to 1988. In archery, men and women shoot the same 70-meter Olympic distance and the world records are extremely close. In December 2025, women’s Olympic champion An San exactly matched the men’s indoor qualification round record of 599 in Taipei. And outside the Olympics, transgender bans have spread even further—to darts, pool, disc golf, competitive dancing, and even chess.

The scientific evidence, meanwhile, does not support the blanket ban the IOC has imposed. A 2026 meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine—the most comprehensive to date, drawing on 52 studies and nearly 6,500 participants—found that while transgender women on hormone therapy for one to three years retained higher absolute lean body mass than cisgender women, there were no statistically significant differences in upper-body strength, lower-body strength, or aerobic capacity. The researchers concluded that “the convergence of transgender women’s functional performance with cisgender women, particularly in strength and aerobic capacity, challenges assumptions about inherent athletic advantages” and that the current evidence “does not justify blanket bans.” A separate review in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found that after two years of hormone therapy, no advantage was observed for physical performance measured by running time, and that muscle strength corrected for lean mass, hemoglobin, and cardiovascular capacity were no different from cisgender women. No study has demonstrated that transgender women on hormone therapy for more than two years retain a measurable performance advantage in any specific sport.

Some intersex athletes who would be impacted by the decision are already speaking out. Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was assigned female at birth in South Africa and has naturally elevated testosterone levels due to a difference in sex development. On Sunday, she expressed her disappointment with IOC President Kirsty Coventry, a fellow African woman and former Olympic swimmer. “Personally, for her as a leader, she’s an African, I’m sure she understands how, you know, we as Africans, we are coming from, as a global South, you know, you cannot control genetics,” Semenya said at a press conference in Cape Town. “For me personally, for her being a woman coming from Africa, knowing how, you know, African women or women in the global South are affected by that, of course it causes harm.”

“Reintroducing sex testing brings the IOC back to policy that it had discontinued exactly thirty years ago. Back then, they rightfully concluded that sex testing was scientifically inconclusive and caused considerable harm to athletes. Then, in 2021, they approved a Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination to best support trans athletes and athletes with sex variations. Now, they are retreating from their own decisions and ignoring the recommendations of various UN bodies, the World Medical Association, and athletes worldwide. But the evidence is clear: sex testing exposes women and girls to privacy violations, public humiliation, and abuse. And it is profoundly discriminatory, too. No one is asking men and boys to undergo these tests. Women and girls shouldn’t either,” said Gurchaten Sandhu, ILGA World Director of Programmes.

The policy takes effect at the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Games and is not retroactive. Affected athletes are expected to bring challenges before the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, as Caster Semenya has done with previous eligibility rules. Over 100 civil society organizations, including the Sport & Rights Alliance, ILGA World, and Humans of Sport, have called on the IOC to reverse the decision.

Cool Off Topic Thing, If You’re A Puzzler (or even if not!)

Now and then, I post here from NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day. I read there every day; it’s a good way to begin the day online, for me. Anyway, today, there is a link, Jigsaw Galaxy: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day So, being curious, I clicked it, and it’s pretty neat. If you like to do jigsaws, take a look!

My labs from Tuesday

On Monday March 23 I had an epidural in my back. On Tuesday I had to have my blood work done for some upcoming doctor’s appointments. Ron and I went over the results and they don’t look good. They look worse on the computer screen than what came out in print because the print did not have all the colors and marks. But I looked up some of the results. One said it could be an indicator of anemia, which I have had in the past bad enough to put me in the hospital. The other suggestion from looking up the fact that all this dealt with my red and white blood cells was leukemia or kidney disease, and more likely autoimmune issues. I have all the symptoms of lupus, and my immune system has long been compromised. So that is a possiblity. My PSA is elevated and my TSH keeps dipping low. That is my thyroid which means is it going hyperactive. My first endocrinologist said that the thyroid reacts to things happening in the body so it could be dropping due to my other results. Medicare kicked back three tests because of changed codes / incorrct codes / or too early. The tests were PSA, A1C, and lipid panel. The lab wanted over $400 for the tests. I declined to pay for it. Here are the printed labs from the website and then scanned so I could include them. I deleted / covered the sensitive identifying information. Got to go get shots from the allergy clinic, they had to put me back on weekly for 5 weeks. Oh and I am salt wasting. No change it is actually the same from the last test and up from the low of 117. My kidneys don’t get the signal from my brain to stop taking salt out of my blood. At 115 you can start to have seizures. I am one of the few people told to eat as much salt as I can. Hugs

And update on our appointment with the heart doctor and then Ron’s melt down. I am so tired and even more tired of trying to stay reasonable.

OK so we had the appointment with his new heart doctor. I liked him he smiled a lot and was a genuinely happy man even though it was clear he had a bent spine and so was hunched over. When Ron told him I was his spouse the doctor totally seemed OK. I was wearing my white pride hat as usual. He remembered Ron from the ICUs and asked if I was medical as well. I replied no Ron was the doctor in our family which got a smile and chuckle from him as Ron tried to protest that which made the doctor smile more. He said he would talk to both of us on my level, even if it was basic for Ron because he wanted me included. When I had a question he would answer it and totally include me in all the discussion. Ron has one blockage they think is 80% and and at least two that are 70% and one that is just starting.

The plan is to do a heart catheterization. They will go in through the wrist and prep the groin in case. They feed a sleeve into the wrist then thread a wire all the way to the arteries around the heart. They then open the blockage, put a stent surrounded by a balloon where the blockage was. If a part of the blockage breaks they can introduce medication right then to stop it from doing any damage.

Wow Ron and I had a huge argument. I dislike it and he totally blames it on me. But when the surgical center called to schedule him for the heart catheterization, and instead of taking the first appointment he asked for one three weeks later. I interrupted and said no you want it sooner if possible.

He kept the appointment for nearly a month and a week out. When he got off the phone I asked him to explain that. Wellhe replied I have Diane flying in on 3-28, and we are scheduled to fly out april 2nd. I was angry and argued with him that this same thing killed his sister’s husband and if he asked her she would agree he needs the early appointment. Which was when he fucked around and after we had a huge fight where I told him that his sister could get her friends and her husband’s friends to do what she had wanted Ron to do. She wants help with the moving company and then driving from Texas to here. When he calmed down from our argument he called her and she agreed with me. So then he was so angry that we had another exchange. I was trying to stay calm but he was so upset he was almost out of control, throwing things. I asked him to think of us. If he suffered a heart attack on the road or moving around furniture at her house he could easily die. I couldn’t keep or repair this house. I would not be able to keep Tupac and no one else around us will let him live with them or pay the 75 dollars for his thyroid medication every 6 to 7 weeks. He is incontinent and he leaves poops dropping out of his butt because he was hit by a golf cart and it damaged his spine and nerves. So he would have to be set on the rainbow bridge. I told him I would end up having to rent a room at Randy’s as he has offered it. Ron was furious and said I was thinking only of myself and I replied he was thinking only of his sister.

But by then it was too late to get in touch with the scheduling department. The heart place is huge and they have their own surgical center there. They only do six procedures on an operating day. So he hopes they will call him today. I worry that he will not be able to get a quicker date so I don’t know what will happen. Hugs

An Apt Subject For Any Blog

Plus, AI is a subject of current event interest. (Lookin’ at autocorrect programs…) Meanwhile, I got a great deal of nerdy pleasure reading this, and I hope all who read, do as well!

Typos Have Plagued Us for Centuries. Just Ask the Publishers Who Printed the Seventh Commandment as ‘Thou Shalt Commit Adultery’ in 1631

A new exhibition at Yale Library explores the history of typos across five centuries. Visitors will see corrections that were listed inside copies of works by James Joyce, Upton Sinclair and Nicolaus Copernicus

Sonja Anderson – Daily Correspondent

A 1631 copy of the Bible that includes the text “Thou shalt commit adultery.” Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

James Joyce wrote the manuscript of Ulysses with a steel pen over seven years. By his typists’ accounts, the Irish author’s penmanship was atrocious, and his revisions were overwhelming. When the book was published in 1922, it was full of mistakes. In a letter to his wife, he wrote, “The edition you have is full of printer’s errors.”

The following year, Joyce’s editors compiled a massive list of the book’s errors to be fixed in new editions. Joyce rejected some of the corrections, saying, “These are not misprints but beauties of my style hitherto undreamt of.” Even so, some future printings of the book came with a seven-page errata sheet listing more than 200 mistakes.

Errors like those in Ulysses are the subject of a new exhibition at Yale. “‘Beauties of My Style’: Errata and the Printed Mistake,” which opens at the university’s Sterling Memorial Library on March 30, examines the history of typos across five centuries.

“What we found was that errata sheets were not only spaces for corrections but also sites of humor, legal maneuvering and reinterpretation,” Rachel Churner, a visual studies scholar at the New School and the exhibition’s co-curator, tells Artnet’s Min Chen. “With this exhibition, we wanted to share ways in which even small corrections can reshape meaning and authority.”

According to a statement from the library, “errors committed” lists first appeared in the 15th century. Authors slipped these lists—containing typos, additions and apologies—into the backs of books after publication. The exhibition examines errata lists alongside their companion texts, examining themes of “censorship, misrepresentation, intervention and instability,” per the statement.

An errata slip from an early printing of James Joyce’s Ulysses Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

The exhibition spotlights around 30 artifacts from the collection of Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Items on display include “inaccurate maps, book corrections and religious texts with very grave typographic blunders,” reports Artnet.

In addition to the errata slip from Ulysses, visitors can see several other 20th-century examples, including a self-published copy of Upton Sinclair’s 100 Percent: The Story of a Patriot, in which he “mistakenly identified a founding member of the Communist Party of America as a government agent,” per Fine Books & Collections. Also on view is a fold-out errata from Allen Ginsberg’s 1968 Airplane Dreams. According to the statement, he included the error sheet as a “legal strategy for political resistance.”

Churner and her co-curator Geoff Kaplan, a graphic designer at the Yale School of Art, co-founded the publishing company No Place Press. As they researched errata at the Beinecke, they found “unexpected poetry,” Churner tells Artnet.

Wade & Croome’s Panorama of the Hudson River From New York to Albany, published in 1846, listed Fishkill Village’s population as 11,000 instead of 800. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

The exhibition features an infamous 1631 edition of the Bible, which lists “Thou shalt commit adultery” as the Seventh Commandment. (The omission of the word “not” earned this edition the nickname “the Wicked Bible.”) By the time the mistake was discovered, 1,000 copies had been printed. The British king Charles I reprimanded the publishers, fined them £300 and stripped them of their printing license. In the centuries that followed, rumors circulated speculating that a rival printer had introduced the error. But as Chris Jones, a medieval studies scholar at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, told the Guardian’s Eva Corlett in 2022, the more likely explanation is that the printers hadn’t wanted to spend money on copy editors.

Nearly all the Wicked Bibles were destroyed, and only about 20 known copies survive. In the copy on view at the Beinecke, someone fixed the error by hand, adding “not” to “Thou shalt commit adultery.”

In some cases, corrections have been used to influence public perception. During the Reformation in the 16th century, books were released describing “mistranslations” of Protestant and Catholic Bibles, “mobilizing the errata well beyond a list of typographic corrections,” Churner tells Artnet.

Plat Maps of Appanoose County, Iowa, 1986 Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Visitors will also see two copies of On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543) by astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. They include an anonymous preface that “corrects” the author’s view of heliocentrism—the idea that the Earth revolves around the sun—as a “hypothesis.”

Many other errors, however, are simple mistakes. For example, the exhibition features a 1986 book of Iowa maps with a note correcting a mislabeled township. “Dear Sir, or Madam,” it reads, “We goofed in the Appanoose County Plat Book.”

“‘Beauties of My Style’: Errata and the Printed Mistake” will be on view at Yale University’s Sterling Memorial Library in New Haven, Connecticut, from March 30 to November 29, 2026.

Some serious health news about my husband Ron

Hello all. Ron has been having some issues with memory, thinking, and staying awake. Last year his doctor sent him to a neuro doctor to see if he had dementia or alzhimors. The tests showed no real issues. Ron has been gone for about three months and when he got home a few weeks ago I noticed a huge change in him. He was struggling with remembering anything, he had no energy, and he was falling asleep in the middle of conversations.

So last week he saw his primary care doctor who is a really good doctor who cares. He sent Ron for a heart and artery CT scan. On Monday he saw the doctor for the scan and on tuesday he had the CT scan. Thursday evening Ron’s doctor called my phone. He knew me as I was once his patient and from my working in the ICU. He was trying to contact Ron and apologized for calling me but Ron was not answering his phone and he really needed to talk to him.

Ron has 4 major blockages in and around his heart. One is the left descending artery and is called the widow maker. The others are the arteries that feed the heart. He is at serious risk of a heart attack and death of at least parts of the heart muscle. As it is a serious blockage / narrowing / hardening of the arteries he is not to exert himself or get upset in any way. It took several days to get the medication he needs to help keep the arteries open. Ron read a bunch of stuff on it but failed to send it to me and is talking to his sister so I can’t ask him. When I know more I will share it with you. As I will need to go with him and drive him to appointments posting will be sporadic at best. Hugs

FWIW, All My Very Best

for a fine Spring this year. As I type, the Equinox will occur in 54 minutes. This is a striking photo!

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2026 March 20

Spring Equinox at Teide Observatory
Image Credit & Copyright: Juan Carlos Casado (Starry Earth, TWAN)

Explanation: The defining astronomical moment of the equinox today is at 14:46 UTC (March 20). That’s when the Sun crosses the celestial equator moving north in its yearly journey through planet Earth’s sky, marking the beginning of spring for our fair planet in the northern hemisphere and fall in the southern hemisphere. Then, day and night are nearly equal around the globe. In fact, both day and nighttime exposures from a spring equinox at the Observatorio del Teide in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, are used in this composited skyscape. Over 1,000 images were taken with a fisheye lens and merged in the ambitious equinox project. The apparent motion of the Sun setting along the celestial equator on the equinox date follows the bright linear, diagonal track from the sequence of daytime exposures taken over 6 hours. After sunset, nighttime exposures recorded startrails, with the celestial equator as a linear track and concentric arcs circling the north celestial pole near Polaris at upper right and the south celestial pole beyond the lower left edge (and below the Teide horizon). The foreground includes the distant Teide volcano peak and the observatory’s pyramid-shaped solar laboratory building.

Tomorrow’s picture: NGC 1300 and Friends