Research Library

On Monday, David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian received the 2021 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology “for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch.” Fellow Kirstin Matthews praises their research on how capsaicin and TRP affect nerve cells as an accomplishment made possible by U.S. federal funding for and support of science.

Our current economic situation is not permanent, and laws should not be altered based on the idea that domestic shutdown will last forever. However, we should remain flexible as our economy recovers.

President López Obrador was skeptical of the coronavirus threat and ignored the recommendations of his own health experts. He downplayed the crisis and relied on his intuition instead of science, with disastrous results. He will be even more distracted in the coming months as he campaigns for re-election.

Political partisanship is strongly influencing the United States’ response to Covid-19, potentially leading to a suboptimal balance between reopening the economy and protecting public health. Read more at the Baker Institute Blog.

Public finance fellow Joyce Beebe explores provisions of the CARES act, Congress' third Covid-19 relief package, that benefit newly minted college graduates. https://bit.ly/3aan8DX

The populist government under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has largely discounted the threat of COVID-19,  and the true extent of the outbreak Mexico may not yet be known. If conditions significantly change for the worse, the president faces not only a public health crisis but also the possible undoing of the country's populist experiment.

In the second of a series of blogs on the coronovirus outbreak, the authors sound a note of cautious optimism: "We hope for a relatively optimistic outlook for the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, with the quick realization of all modifying interventions: earlier and broader testing, strict preventive hygienic and societal measures, a safe and effective vaccine, and effective therapies to treat the virus."  Read more at the Baker Institute Blog.

While the U.S. still maintains the overall lead in Nobel prizes (with the exception of literature), the rate at which American scientists have been awarded the prize has declined since the late 1970s. Fellow Kirstin R.W. Matthews and postdoctoral fellow Kenneth M. Evans explore the state of scientific collaboration in the U.S. in this Baker Institute blog: https://bit.ly/2yiNhzF

Aside from the massive cost of constructing a physical barrier along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, factors such as private and tribal land ownership and the impact on the environment must be taken into account.