Feeling the Foundation

This year has started out in a fashion that is sadly similar to the way 2020 unspooled. But the steady pace of scientific discovery helps maintain our sense of hope.

Written byBob Grant

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Although it appears to be trying its damnedest, 2021 has not yet sapped me of my hope that humanity can turn a corner and put the horrors of 2020 in our rearview mirror. As I’ve written in previous dispatches, what anchors me to this hope is science.

Since the calendar turned, the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened; new, more-infectious SARS-CoV-2 variants are cropping up around the globe; vaccine rollout has been slower than anticipated; and political division has reached a fever pitch here in the US. But the steady pace of scientific discovery and development churns on. And even with so many aspects of our lives and work bearing the scars of 2020’s tumult (some wounds are indeed still fresh), we at The Scientist, as well as those in the research community we serve and like-minded members of the general public, continue to look to science, reason, ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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