Fewer phones and tablets come with USB-C chargers in the box than ever before. It's better for the planet, sure, but it could leave you in need of a charger that you simply don't have. For that reason, it's worth making sure that you pick one up whenever there's a deal to be had and right now Amazon will sell you a popular 20-watt USB-C charger for just $8. It's a deal that saves you 69% off the original $26 asking price, and you don't even need to enter any codes or clip any coupons.See at AmazonThis deal is only available on the white version, but you can get a black one if you don't mind paying an extra dollar. We suggest just choosing the cheapest one, but we'll let you make that decision for yourself.Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.No matter which of these colors you choose you'll get a USB-C charger with a 20-watt rating which is enough to charge the latest iPhones and more, not to mention tablets and wireless earbuds and headphones as well. This one features GaN technology which allows it to be smaller than traditional chargers of this power rating, and the USB-C port is as ubiquitous as can be.They might not have plugs in the box anymore, but buying a new phone hasn't exactly gotten cheaper. If it's time to upgrade yours be sure to check out our collection of the best phone deals before you order a new smartphone. Top deals available today, according to CNET's shopping experts Curated discounts worth shopping while they last Apple AirTag, 4-pack: $70 (save $29)Costco 1-year Gold Star membership + $20 gift card: $65 (save $20)Anker 20-watt USB-C charger, 2-pack: $12 (save $7)Levoit LVAC-200 cordless vacuum: $160 (save $40)Peloton Bike: $1,145 (save $300) Why this deal mattersThe humble USB-C charger can be used to power just about anything these days, but the lack of one in the box of new phones and tablets means you might need to provide your own. This 20-watt charger has more than enough power for most devices, and with a massive 69% discount why not buy a few and never be charger-less again?

January 8, 202523 min readKatalin Kariks Nobel PrizeWinning Work on mRNA Was Long IgnoredAnd Led to COVID VaccinesDespite decades of doubt and dismissal, biochemist Katalin Karik never gave up on the research that gave us mRNA COVID vaccines in record time Lily Whear (composite); Crown Publishing Group (image)Katalin Karik, a Hungarian-born biochemist, dedicated her lifes work to messenger RNA (mRNA), which she always believed had the potential to change the world. After decades of being ignored, she persisted with the research that eventually revolutionized the field of medicine and enabled the development of lifesaving vaccines in record time during the COVID pandemic. Karik tells her story in her memoir Breaking Through: My Life in Science, sharing her journey from young researcher in Hungary to Nobel Prizewinning biochemist.In this conversation, she reflects on the challenges and breakthroughs that defined her career, her resilience and the scientific curiosity that fueled her passion for mRNA research.LISTEN TO THE PODCASTOn supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.TRANSCRIPTAnnouncer: I invite you now to step forward to receive the Nobel Prize from the hands of His Majesty the King.Announcer: And first to receive the medicine prize is Katalin Karik, born in Hungary, affiliated to Szeged University in Hungary and University of Pennsylvania in the United States.Deborah Unger: Welcome to this latest episode in our series, Lost Women of Science Conversations, where we talk about authors and artists who've discovered and celebrated female scientists in books, poetry, film, theater, and the visual arts. My name is Deborah Unger, and I am a Senior Managing Editor at Lost Women of Science. Today, we're going to do something a bit different. In all our conversations so far, we've talked about people in the pastforgotten female scientists from the 19th and 20th centuries who are no longer with us.Our subject today is very much with us. That clip at the beginning is from the Nobel Prize Ceremony in 2023, but Dr. Katalin Karik was essentially forgotten for almost her entire career. That is until she shared the Nobel Prize with her colleague Dr. Drew Weissman. Now everyone knows her as the COVID vaccine lady, even if they don't quite recall her name.Her science made the production of a COVID vaccine possible in record time. And it was because she spent her whole life working on something that nobody thought was worthwhile. She writes about this in her memoir, Breaking Through: My Life in Science.It's a story that resonates so strongly with Lost Women of Science that our co- founder and co-host today, Katie Hafner, who's right here with me. Hello, Katie.Katie Hafner: Hello, DeborahDeborah Unger: Sat down with Katalin recently to have a conversation about her book. So Katie, let me just ask you, how did you feel talking to a lost woman who actually is really not all that lost.Katie Hafner: It was so wonderful to talk to a scientist who actually isn't lost. Um, and it was inspiring to meet Kate. That's what she said I could call her. And I'd read her book. I thought it was exceptional. It was exceptional for its rigorous science, but also it was exceptional because of how she went about doing that science throughout her career, she faced indifference, skepticism, and sometimes just outright dismissal of her work for years and years and years.So she was ignored, she was belittled, she was demoted, and then as if that wasn't bad enough, she was even threatened with deportation back to Hungary. But she never gave up on her belief in the potential of something called messenger RNA.Deborah Unger: So before we hear from Kate herself or go more deeply into the science that made the COVID vaccine possible, can you tell us a little bit about where she comes from? How did her life in science actually start?Katie Hafner: So, Dr. Katalin Karik is a Hungarian American biochemist and she was born in 1955 in what was then communist Hungary. She was the daughter of a bookkeeper and a butcher. The next year was the year of the Hungarian uprising, 1956, and her father got caught up in activities that the Soviets deemed anti-communist, and he lost his job.He'd had his own business as a butcher, and then he was forced to become a day laborer. The family was poor, but it wasn't until later that Kate realized how poor they were. She writes beautifully about her early years, and here she is describing the village.Katalin Karik: We didn't have even at the beginning television. I was first 10 years, I didn't see television. But I didn't know because my neighbors, nobody had refrigerator, nobody had running water. So, you know, that's how we live. Um, we were very happy there.Katie Hafner: She went to a good primary school and she was always curious. She tells a story that her parents told her about watching her father work and how she explored around her village.Katalin Karik: My parents told me that I watched my father opening the pig. I wanted to see something, what is inside. My mom and my older sister, they didn't want to see any part of it, but I was want to see what is inside. You know, I could climb the tree so quickly. And I checked out the nest, whether the eggs are there, whether the little birds are out, and everything was, you know, just my curiosity.Deborah Unger: So it makes sense that she described it as a very happy time.Katie Hafner: Oh yeah, but she also talks about the difficult moments too. And one thing about this book, Debra, and Kate in general, is that she's not a whiner. The book is filled with life lessons that she learned from adversity. So, here she is describing her experience at school and university.Katalin Karik: In elementary school, I remember that some of my classmates could remember the What the teacher said exactly, and I had no special memory. I had to study, and when I went to the university, others already could speak English, you know, I couldn't. Others already had chemistry class. They knew how to use the pipettes and burettes and other equipment, and I have never seen in my life. And then I always had to kind of catch up extra, uh, classes I had to take to be at the same level. And, you know, I just enjoyed and doing and finally, you know, I did more and more and studied more and then I, I enjoyed studying.Katie Hafner: And you know how it's often one great teacher early in your life who could make a huge difference?Deborah Unger: Oh, yes. I remember mine. Sister Mary Anne, my English literature teacher in high school. Oh, gosh. She was something.Katie Hafner: That's funny. Sister Mary Anne. Yeah, I had one in high school who, um, Mr. Langiza, I remember. I liked him a lot. Anyway, Kate, she had a high school teacher and his name was Mr. Tth.Katalin Karik: Mr. Tth. actually lived across the street where my father grew up, and then he knew my father.So he was, um, sometimes visited our home, and my father respected very much. And he was talking about, you know, that I have a talent to be a scientist. I was like 15 years old, and he said, you could be a scientist.Deborah Unger: You could be a scientist.Katie Hafner: Yes! Kate believed she could too. She started competing in local chemistry and biology competitions and winning them.So this, the winning of these things, allowed her to travel to a national biology competition in Budapest. And there she won third place. But just as her father had run afoul of the authorities, it looked like the same thing would happen to Kate.Deborah Unger: Oh dear. Like father, like daughter.Katie Hafner: Mhm. She tells a story about her Russian language teacher, Mr. Bitter. I love this sense of irony she has because that was obviously not his real name, Mr. Bitter.But anyway, he felt that Kate had disrespected and disobeyed him. Her high school class was enlisted to pick corn outside of her town one day, and groups of students were given rows to complete. And because her family had cornfields, she was used to the work, and she had reached her quota before the end of the day and before all the other students.So while she was sitting there relaxing and taking in the sun, having completed her job, Mr. Bitter came along and told her to keep going. But she said she'd done all the work she needed to do, so she pushed back. And because of this, she wrote in her book, and told me, he threatened her and tried to block her from getting into university.Katalin Karik: He gave me some notification about that I am against the community and whatnot. And then eventually when I get my last exam at the high school, after it, you know, I get straight A, I was valedictorian. He came to me and he said that he knows somebody at the university and make sure that I will be not accepted.When he said I was just shocked, but, uh, you know, retrospect, that's why I say always, uh, thanks to all of those people try to make my life difficult. Because, you know, if he says, I know somebody and I will arrange that you will be accepted. Maybe I will spend less time at the book during the summer, you know, now that he, he said that he will try to prevent me, I, I realized I have to be the best.And so I have to know everything.Deborah Unger: That's a terrible story.Katie Hafner: I know, right?Deborah Unger: Kind of encapsulating all that is bad about petty tyrants.Katie Hafner: I know, right?Deborah Unger: But there she is again, making the best of the situation and working even harder. So what happened next?Katie Hafner: Well, Mr. Bitter failed in his mission and Kate got into university anyway, and in the book she writes, and I'm quoting here, I learned something important from him.Not everyone is rooting for me. Not everyone wants good things for me. Not everyone wants my contributions. Some people may even choose to hate me.Deborah Unger: That sounds like a bit of foreshadowing.Katie Hafner: Indeed. In any case, in 1973, she starts at the University of Zaged, and this is where her fascination with messenger RNA begins.Deborah Unger: And this is where we need to pause to explain what messenger RNA actually is.Katie Hafner: Okay, I'll try to summarize passages from the book because when Kate got going talking about it, I could not keep up. So deep breath. Essentially, messenger RNA is a messenger molecule that transports genetic information or instructions from DNA to the ribosome, which is a structure found in all cells.The messenger RNA instructions get translated to form a protein. DNA is the blueprint of what everything in the world becomes. It stays inside the nucleus of a cell. So in order for things to happen, the DNA has to send instructions outside the nucleus. And the molecule that does this is called messenger RNA, or mRNA for short.Katie Hafner: And the important part of the process is that the mRNA delivers its message to the ribosome, where proteins are constructed. This could ultimately be used to derail a virus's ability to use the cell to replicate itself. Kate writes in her book that in the five years she was doing her undergraduate degree, genetic sciences were advancing really quickly. And what scientists knew about mRNA was developing and changing.And to place us in time, mRNA was discovered in 1961, so a good decade before she was at university. But it wouldn't be until 1984 that it was synthesized in a tube.Deborah Unger: And why was that important?Katie Hafner: Well, it's important because if you can make a messenger in a lab that tells cells what to do, and you can be specific about what message it sends, then you have a way to influence what goes on inside the body.Kate began to understand how that could be important in fighting diseases when she was working with lipids or fats in Hungary. So here's how she put it. It's a little complicated, but for her, it was a real kind of aha moment.Katalin Karik: This is a process, you know, it is not like one day you just go to the lab and realize, oh messenger RNA is important. As another graduate, I started to work in the lipid team.Katie Hafner: Okay, just a little bit more biology instruction here. Lipids are a class of biomolecules that are insoluble in water. Lipids are used as building blocks for the formation of cellular membranes and they play a really important role as signaling molecules.So they're key to research in a variety of areas including diseases and in agriculture and the food industry. Liposomes are artificial membranes that act as messengers and they're used in the research for vaccines.Katalin Karik: Eventually, one team needed the lipids, and then we delivered DNA, and we made liposomes. And then, because we have to map through the nucleic acid, through the membrane, and I was undergraduate, I, I didn't know, I don't, I am not a visionary, and said, okay, I, I will do RNA. And then how I started my Ph.D. studies with RNA, and then I synthesized RNA, and then we tried to use it for antiviral, as a short RNA to inhibit viruses.And then I had to set up a antiviral screening laboratories, you know, all, all of these things from scratch.Katie Hafner: So Kate was still in Hungary.Now working at the Biological Research Center in Zagreb, pursuing this new antiviral compound. And she writes in her book that it was her dream job. But as all scientists know, science can be slow and tedious, and her team was not making the progress that the funders had hoped for. So the funding for her position was pulled.So it's 1984, and at this point Kate and her husband, Bella, were new parents to a daughter named Susan. And around that time, her father died unexpectedly. So it was a really, really difficult time for her. And she found herself thinking, why me? But then she stopped herself. She remembered a book that her high school teacher, Mr. Tth, had introduced her to, and the book was called The Stress of Life by Hans Selye, and it had a huge impact on her. It, it still does to this day. And she brings it up in her book a lot as a guide for when she was dealing with difficult situations.She remembers, in particular, this one line: Do not blame, focus on what you can control, transform bad stress into good stress.Deborah Unger: Good stress. That almost sounds like an oxymoron, don't you think?Katie Hafner: Yes.Deborah Unger: But I think I understand what shes getting at. It's the kind of stress that helps you rise to an occasion, or jump higher, or run faster.Katie Hafner: Yeah, that's what I gleaned from it too. I mean, I'd have to read the book, which actually now I really want to, but what she learned from that was that what she needed was to find a new place to work.Katalin Karik: I was very happy in Hungary. I had my daughter, I had my little family, and then no job. And then I tried to find job first in Hungary, didn't even responded my letters. Then I tried in Europe, closer to home. Everybody responded there from London, from Madrid, and Montpelier.They were the one that using this short RNA for antiviral compound. So they were similar things. They did what I was doing in Hungary, but they want me to bring the money with me. So I had to realize that I have to maybe go to the United States. And then I applied for a couple of place. Everybody responded, and the quickest was in Temple University. In a couple of months, they say that I can start.Katie Hafner: So in 1985, really quickly, Kate moved her family all the way to Philadelphia to work as a postdoc in a lab in the biochemistry department at Temple University under a boss who was doing similar work to what Kate had been doing before in Hungarylooking into this short RNA molecule that held promise as an antiviral.So at first, Kate writes that her new boss was charismatic and helpful and picked her up from the airport, and was a great host. But soon, she learned that this same guy had an explosive temper. He would yell, he would slam doors, and he would berate students. And she found herself wondering, is this how things are done in America?Katalin Karik: I think most of the people, they are not black and white or bad or, you know, they are, can be nice and sometimes is not. He liked me and Id work very hard and that's what he wanted, me to work in his lab forever.Katie Hafner: But when it looked like that might not happen, his dark side surfaced.Katalin Karik: But when I mentioned that I get a job offer from Johns Hopkins, then he got very angry.I spent there already three years and we had the many good publication, and, uh, in Lancet and Biochem, good papers. In one issue of Biochemistry, we had three papers. And, but he, he wanted this to continue and, uh, you know, he threatened, uh, because he thought that I will be afraid if he say that, you know, he will deport me and I will rush back, but he didn't know me that you can reach the opposite.Deborah Unger: That's a horrible way to treat anyone.Katie Hafner: Yes, but even facing the threat of deportation, Kate never felt sorry for herself. After the break, well hear how Kate manages.Katie Hafner: So before the break, we heard about Kates situation with a boss who threatened to have her deported for leaving his lab. In our interview, I asked Kate what she learned from that experience.You say in the book that you learned a really important lesson, which is that it was really about him and not about you, that your work and the science that you were doing was for him.Katalin Karik: Yes, yes. And, uh, looking back, I, I also concluded that what, uh, suggests to everybody, when you are terminated, you don't start to agonize on why you, and feel sorry for yourself, immediately focus on what next, what I will do next. And here this was, I had no recommendation letter.Katie Hafner: Kate's boss was successful at getting her offer withdrawn from Johns Hopkins, but she had a plan. She decided to write to people who didn't like her boss and they would understand her predicament.Deborah Unger: And the plan worked?Katie Hafner: Yes, and no. She got a job, but that complicated her life. The job was in Bethesda, Maryland, and her family was in Philadelphia.So for a year, she commuted back and forth until she finally got back to Philly in 1989. And in her book, Kate pauses is here, and she mentions that we've reached the part of her story that journalists have characterized as a series of unfortunate events.Deborah Unger: I'd say they've already been a series of unfortunate events.Katie Hafner: Well, we would need a much longer podcast to get into every single incremental twist and turn that happened during Kate's time at the University of Pennsylvania, which is where she ended up. So, let's summarize. In her book, she writes, My time at Penn would span decades. These decades split into three distinct episodes involving two different departments and three very different physician partners.My three Penn episodes, for all their differences, followed a similar pattern, a series of setbacks punctuated by moments of extraordinary breakthrough. The breakthroughs, for the most part, remained almost entirely invisible. The setbacks, though, were on full display.Deborah Unger: Oh, I'm guessing, Katie, that this is the time when she experienced some of those things you listed in the intro: being ignored, belittled, demoted, et cetera, et cetera.Katie Hafner: Correct. She applied for grant after grant, and she never received funding, which in academia is crucial because it's the way academics pay themselves and prove that they should actually be there. So this was a challenge for Kate who told me she liked writing grants despite never getting any.In the book, and in our interview, she attributes a lot of this lack of interest and, and skepticism to the fact that mRNA is really difficult to work with.Katalin Karik: They said that, I hate to work with RNA. When I run it, everything is a smear, is always degraded. I said, because your laboratory is contaminated, your apparatus is contaminated.But the people did not, they thought that, no, no, no, it's just the RNA is such.Katie Hafner: Penn tells her in no uncertain terms, you need to get funding or you are out. And well, she basically takes a demotion to continue her work on mRNA. That is how devoted she was to this. She just continued to believe in its potential.And this is what she told me.Katalin Karik: So the messenger RNA is not something that the scientists created. They discovered and it is present in our cells. And that's the information for making the protein. And it seemed that if we could deliver this information to a cell, the cell will do that protein, which we want to investigate.And it seemed like so logical, it will be good for something.Katie Hafner: And of course, it was good for something, but it would still be years before Kate understood exactly what. A lot changed when she met Dr. Drew Weissman, the man she would later go on to share a Nobel Prize with.Deborah Unger: Oh Katie, I think I've heard this story before. It involves a photocopier, doesn't it?Katie Hafner: Yes, yes, correct. Their first meeting was a chance encounter at a copy machine at Penn in 1997. So Kate did a lot of photocopying. She liked to make copies of interesting articles from journals like Nature and Science. And there was one photocopier in particular that she sort of considered hers.And then one dayKatalin Karik: I could see this guy who I have never seen before, and he was copying also, and so I, you know, tried to brag about a little bit that, you know, I am doing, I am here, I'm doing RNA.Katie Hafner: So she meets Drew, an immunologist who had just started his own lab at Penn. He was looking into new vaccines for infectious diseases like HIV.Kate writes that in those days she was a bit of a street vendor for mRNA, selling it to anyone who might want it, and Drew was a buyer. Here's how she described it in her book. Drew and I were very different, but each of us had exactly the knowledge and skills that the other needed. I was an RNA scientist who didn't know much about immunology, and he was an immunologist without RNA experience.So let's fast forward here to Kate's next aha moment. She ends up working with Drew and they make a pivotal discovery. Their experiments showed that mRNA was actually causing inflammation. which was bad. It meant that it would not be able to deliver a useful message, a useful vaccine.Katalin Karik: It was inflammatory.I mean, I, I was shocked that I was already at that point, I was working like 10 years developing messenger RNA for therapy.Katie Hafner: So they needed to figure out why the mRNA was causing inflammation. And that took time.Katalin Karik: As a scientist, you always have something that nobody did that, and somehow you think that, oh, maybe we can do it, and try this, and try that, and try many, many different things, and maybe something will work.But you just so believe, you know, you just, somebody would say, oh, cannot be done, you know, even you feel stronger that you will do it. And so that's eventually how we could make our messenger RNA, which was modified and was not immunogenic. And we were so elated.Deborah Unger: So in this case, they found that modified mRNA was not immunogenic, meaning it didn't work against the virus?Katie Hafner: Correct. Unmodified mRNA created an inflammatory response, but when they modified mRNA, there was no inflammation. Kate says that this breakthrough in 2005 was the one they'd been waiting for. It was amazing news, and it meant that the world could begin developing safe mRNA therapies.Deborah Unger: So did the world take notice this time? Did Penn finally recognize Kate and Drew for their work?Katie Hafner: Well, no. The crazy thing is that Kate and Drew's big discovery didn't get much attention at all at the time. Okay, now fast forward eight years to 2013. She's still a researcher. It's basically a dead end, and so she finally decides to leave Penn and academia behind for the private sector.One day, she's told about a company called BioNTech. The founder, Uga Zahin, tells her about all the work they've been doing with RNA.Katalin Karik: I wanted a company who can make clinical grade RNA. Uh, for cancer, they injected the RNA in a patient already. They had a small clinical trial ongoing in 2013.And then when I went there and I talked to Ugur, I want to say that I would just stay if I work on nucleoside modified RNA. That's what, you know, I believed that it will be, you know, the solution. And he said, okay. And that's how I was hired.Katie Hafner: This was your moment. Your moment, yeah, that's amazing. I mean, you must have thought, okay, finally, finally, finally.Katalin Karik: Yeah, I have to say that in the age of 58, the old lady get two job offers. One from BioNTech and other is Moderna. Uh, both of them is vice president, but now that looking back, you know, old lady, oh, still wanted. That's how I felt.Deborah Unger: Oh, that's almost heartbreaking. Old Lady Still Wanted, and she's worked so hard all her life because she believed that her insight into mRNA would be useful.Katie Hafner: I know, kind of heartbreaking, but inspiring. Kate didn't see it as heartbreaking, and the rest, I guess, is history. So it's early 2020.Katalin Karik: The CEO and the founder of BioNTech was reading in January about in China, this mysterious disease occurred and he realized that some people get infected and not having symptoms.He was worried that it will be spread and it will be all over because you know, if there is a infectious disease and you know, you drop dead, you are not traveling, but you know, if you have no symptoms, you'd spread. And then he decided that we have to do something. That's how it happened.Deborah Unger: So they'd been working on mRNA for vaccines for years for flu, and then they realized that it could also be used for COVID.Katie Hafner: Right. You'll remember that the COVID vaccines were called the fastest vaccines ever developed. Well that's in many ways thanks to Kate and Drew and their work on mRNA in all those years preceding. Kate didn't develop the COVID vaccine itself, but her discoveries made its development possible.Deborah Unger: It must have been remarkable to finally get some recognition after all those years of skepticism and dismissal.Katie Hafner: You know, Kate is extremely humble and she's careful not to take any credit for the actual making of the COVID 19 vaccine. But when I interviewed her, she did describe the deeply emotional moment of her and Drew going to Penn to get their vaccines alongside the frontline healthcare workers.Katalin Karik: I arrived there and, and the hallway already in the other room, line of people every, you know, six feet apart, getting the vaccine.And then the new chairman of neurosurgery just said that, you know, these are the people who created this vaccine. And everybody started to clapping there, you know. And then I was like, you know, that was the effect I got. Oh my God, you know, these people, how happy that they have this vaccine because they go home to their family and they didn't know how they could might infect.And those are the real heroes in my eyes, all of the healthcare workers, you know, taking care of the patient and risking their own lives and then their families. I never risk my life, you know, I just have fun in the lab. But those people were the ones that are the real heroes.Deborah Unger: Well, I might beg to differ here. I really do think she is a hero.Katie Hafner: Oh yeah, and if you think that's humility at work, when I asked her about the Nobel Prize, she said she didn't really put a whole lot of value on awards like that, but just knowing that she had helped people, real people, now that made her happy.Katalin Karik: I have to say that, uh, getting a letter from Meadowbrook, uh, elderly home where they described that they received the vaccine, and one week later people started to get positive and nobody died.And then they celebrated and how happy they were and they sent me pictures that now that the children can visit their elderly parents in that home. For me, that was more important. It's more influence on me than getting any kind of prize. I have to say honestly that. People would say, yeah, because you get it.No, even before it, at 40 years, I didn't get anything, not even a grant. And I still could go with all of the enthusiasm, feeling that, okay, what I'm doing is important. And that's what you have to, and it is fulfilling to know that, okay, I was part of it helping others.Deborah Unger: Helping others. And after such a long and difficult journey.Katie, what's your sense of why she wrote the book?Katie Hafner: Well, for starters, to tell the story, of course, but also to let the story, I mean, this is what I think, serve as a lesson about resilience.Katalin Karik: You know, when I am invited, uh, different, uh, places, and then there, there is an option to talk to students, I will talk to the students, because, you know, they need, uh, some, some guidance.And, uh, so you know, if my book helped scientists to get somebody like me just through the book, be a cheerleader for them, you know, come on, you, you can do it. They feel that they work for it and then they will be very proud and uh, you need that.Deborah Unger: You know, we all need cheerleaders like Kate.Katie Hafner: Yeah. I mean, you can say that again. And you know, at the very beginning of our conversation, I asked her about a particular thing she wrote in the book about being a scientist. One thing that you start out with is that you write: To understand my story, you must understand that what may look like stillness is sometimes the complete opposite.What did you mean by that?Katalin Karik: You know, I have to mention that writing the, uh, this book was never in my mind. And when I was writing, I thought that everything is so boring for an outsider. Scientists, what they are doing is just nothing. They just sit there, you know, maybe something they are doing with their hands.And, you know, there is no drama to show them the excitement, uh, the, process of discovery, you know, it is very difficult. How can I explain that? You know, and an outsider can see me as unsuccessful, you know, for years, but I myself, I felt that I am very successful every day. I solve the technical problems there and many questions were there and I could answer some.And then, of course, I get more questions with the experiments and it was full of excitement. How many times I told myself, oh, I wish I would be a week older? So by that time I would know the outcome or a month older, you know, I always ask to be older. It is so many excitement there, but it is difficult to present it.And then that's what I thought that somehow I have to explain it.Deborah Unger: And the book does exactly that. And thank you, Katie, for sharing your conversation with Kate with us.Katie Hafner: My pleasure.Deborah Unger: This has been Lost Women of Science Conversations. Dr. Katalin Kariks book, Breaking Through: My Life in Science, is now out in paperback.This episode was hosted by me, Deborah Unger.Katie Hafner: And me, Katie Hafner. Gabriela Saldivia was our producer and our sound engineer for this episode, thanks to my co executive producer, Amy Scharf, and to Eowyn Bertner, our production manager.Lexi Atiya was our fact checker, Lizzie Younan composes all our music, and Lily Weir designed our art. We had help with the science from Dr. Ellen Lyon.Deborah Unger: Thanks also to Jeff DelViscio at our publishing partner, Scientific American.Lost Women of Science is funded in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Anne Wojcicki Foundation. We're distributed by PRX.Katie Hafner: If you've enjoyed this conversation, please go to our website, lostwomenofscience.org, and subscribe so you never miss an episode.That's lostwomenofscience.org. Oh, and don't forget to click on that donate button. And wherever you listen to your podcasts, please share it and give us a rating. See you next time.HostsKatie HafnerDeborah UngerProducerGabriela SaldiviaGuestKatalin KarikDr. Katalin Karik is a Hungarian-American biochemist and winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, alongside Dr. Drew Weissman. Her pioneering research was the foundation of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.Further ReadingBreaking Through: My Life in Science. Katalin Karik. Crown, 2023Naturally Occurring Nucleoside Modifications Suppress the Immunostimulatory Activity of RNA: Implication for Therapeutic RNA Development, by Katalin Karik and Drew Weissman, in Current Opinion in Drug Discovery & Development, Vol. 10, No. 5; September 2007Nobel Prize Winners Dr. Katalin Karik and Dr. Drew Weissman: The Story Behind mRNA Vaccines. Penn Medicine, October 2, 2023Katalin Kariks banquet speech upon accepance of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on December 10, 2023

Amazon reveals 16 titles heading to Prime Gaming in JanuaryIncluding Zombie Army 4 and BioShock 2.Image credit: 2K Games News by Matt Wales News Reporter Published on Jan. 9, 2025 If you thought 2025 might finally be the year you get through that pesky games backlog, signs aren't looking good. You can now chuck more onto the pile, with Amazon having announced it's bringing 16 more titles to Prime Gaming in January.This month's offerings - as is customary for Prime Gaming - arrive over the course of several scheduled content drops. That starts with acclaimed undersea shooter sequel BioShock 2 Remastered, side-scrolling action-RPG Eastern Exorcist, surreal puzzler The Bridge, 2D hack-and-slasher Spirit Mancer, aeronautical arcade game SkyDrift Infinity.Then, as January continues, Prime Gaming subscribers can look forward to the likes of likes of deck-building fantasy RPG SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech, acclaimed stealth FPS Blood West, Zombie Army 4: Dead War, Super Meat Boy Forever, and Deus Ex: Game Edition. The full list of incoming titles can be found below.Available now:Eastern Exorcist [Epic Games Store]The Bridge [Epic Games Store]BioShock 2 Remastered [GOG Code]Spirit Mancer [Amazon Games App]SkyDrift Infinity [Epic Games Store]16th January:GRIP [GOG Code]SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech [GOG Code]Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader [Epic Games Store]23rd January:Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition [GOG Code]To The Rescue! [Epic Games Store]Star Stuff [Epic Games Store]Spitlings [Amazon Games App]Zombie Army 4: Dead War [Epic Games Store]30th January:Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights [Epic Games Store]Blood West [GOG Code]Super Meat Boy Forever [Epic Games Store] Additionally, Prime Gaming subscribers in the UK, US, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, and Poland get access to a rotating selection of titles via Amazon's cloud gaming service, Luna.January's Luna titles include Guacamelee! 2 Complete, Metro Exodus, Super Meat Boy, Airhead and The Magical Mixture Mill. That's alongside service regulars Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition, Fallout New Vegas: Ultimate Edition, Fortnite, and Trackmania.

Game Boy is the next Nintendo console officially getting the Lego treatmentAnd it's coming later this year.Image credit: Nintendo/Lego News by Matt Wales News Reporter Published on Jan. 9, 2025 Nintendo's determined streak of announcing absolutely anything but Switch 2 continues today with the news its beloved Game Boy handheld is getting the Lego treatment later this year.This is far from the first time Nintendo has partnered with Lego, of course; the companies have already released an extensive range of interactive Mario-themed sets, and The Legend of Zelda's Great Deku Tree was also Lego-ised last year. Nor is it the first time a Nintendo console has been immortalised in little plastic block form; a Lego version of the original Nintendo Entertainment System launched back in 2020 - and a lovely thing it was too.And now it's the Game Boy's turn, as revealed in the briefest of video teases shared on Nintendo's social media channels. As the teaser unfolds, we see various Lego pieces glide in seductive soft-focus across the screen, but there's sadly no reveal of the full Lego build just yet. To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Not that it should be too hard to imagine. Fans have been creating their own Game Boys out of Lego for quite some time now, such as this delightful effort from video editor and Lego Masters Australia finalist Nick Lever, which was shared online last year.Should more details surface following today's Lego Game Boy tease, I'll update this story. But for now, all we know for sure is that it'll be arriving sometime this October.

Assassin's Creed Shadows delayed again as Ubisoft explores company sale optionsNow launches in March.Image credit: Ubisoft News by Tom Phillips Editor-in-Chief Published on Jan. 9, 2025 Ubisoft has said it is delaying Assassin's Creed Shadows again, as the company explores sale options.The highly-anticipated next Assassin's Creed game will now launch on 20th March. Previously the game was set to arrive on 14th February, after its initial delay from November 2024.Ubisoft said today that it was currently "taking decisive steps" to reshape the company and had now appointed advisors to "review and pursue various transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders". In plain English, it sounds like Ubisoft is indeed investigating options for a sale, as suggested by several reports late last year. In December, news agency Reuters reported that Ubisoft was discussing buyout options with Chinese giant Tencent, already a major shareholder, that would take the company private.Assassin's Creed Shadows gameplay trailer.Watch on YouTubeGoing forward, Ubisoft expects to it will "continue to drive significant cost reductions, together with ahighly selective approach to investments". The suggestion seems to be of a continued narrowing of the company's focus, teams and output. Ubisoft's statement notes the recently-confirmed end of shooter XDefiant in December, and the subsequent closure of three studios "in high-cost geographies". "We learned a lot, of course, from this journey," Ubisoft said in a conference call this evening attended by Eurogamer, discussing the end of XDefiant, "but we believe it was the difficult but right decision".In terms of investments, Ubisoft's statement points to the additional five weeks given to Assassin's Creed Shadows, whose developers will now have more time to incorporate additional changes."This additional time will allow the team to better incorporate the player feedback gathered over the past three months and help create the best conditions for launch by continuing to engage closely with the increasingly positive Assassin's Creed community," Ubisoft said. During this evening's call, Ubisoft added that it would begin giving some players access to Shadows next week, though the suggestion here was this referred to limited hands-on oppurtunities granted to select individuals.Ubisoft additionally said it has suffered "lower than expected holiday sales, mainly for Star Wars Outlaws" and had also lowered financial expectations due to the discontinuation of XDefiant."We made good progress on the strategic and execution reviews initiated a few months ago and are confident that this will position Ubisoft for a stronger future," Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot said in a statement. "We have taken decisive steps to reshape the Group in order to deliver best-in-class player experiences, enhance operational efficiency and maximise value creation. We also recently appointed leading advisors and are actively exploring various strategic and capitalistic options to unlock the full value potential of our assets. We are convinced that there are several potential paths to generate value from Ubisoft's assets and franchises."Additionally, we are all behind our teams' efforts to create the most ambitious Assassin's Creed opus of the franchise and made the decision to provide an extra month of development to Shadows in order to better incorporate the player feedback gathered over the past three months that will enable us to fully deliver on the potential of the game and finish the year on a strong note."Assassin's Creed Shadows is a pivotal project for Ubisoft. It is the company's biggest blockbuster in development and its most-anticipated release since 2020's Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Its launch also heralds a new era for Assassin's Creed as a core focus for the company, with other projects of various shapes and sizes set to follow on an annual basis, all tied together via a new software hub.But its road to release has not been easy, something that recently prompted the franchise's boss Marc-Alexis Cot to issue an impassioned defence of the project and its many staff. "We only have one shot," Cot said of Ubisoft's decision to delay Assassin's Creed Shadows for the first time. "Ubisoft's portfolio has faced criticism in recent years for a perceived inconsistency in quality. "Players expect more polish, more innovation and deeper engagement from the games we release, and they're not shy about letting us know when they feel we have fallen short. This environment pushes us to do better and to be better."Assassin's Creed Shadows represents our opportunity to change that narrative, not just for Assassin's Creed, but I think for Ubisoft as a whole."

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here Contents hide Warzone continues to attract millions of players despite the game-breaking flaws many experience throughout a match. Whether its invisible Operator skins or hackers running rampant in Urzikstan, fans keep coming back for another chance to be the last one standing in the final circle.Call of Dutys battle royale features several unique mechanics including the ability for players to purchase their preferred loadout. Complete with attachments, perks, and utility, accessing your loadout as fast as possible is a surefire way of gaining the upper hand in the early stages of a match. Although loadouts play an integral role, they can result in a stale meta when Raven Software doesnt apply regular balancing. To combat the issue, one simple suggestion could prevent a stale meta from ever appearing.How to fix Warzones stale metaAs soon as the best loadout is uncovered, everyone flocks to it so they have a fighting chance in the heat of battle. To spice up the meta, one fan believes removing loadouts altogether will make all the difference.Instead of having access to a weapon equipped with the strongest attachment combination, the fan believes adding attachments as ground loot will alleviate the grind players have to endure to unlock the best items.Adding attachments as ground loot wouldnt be the first time Call of Duty has utilised this to create balance. In Blackout, Treyarchs take on a battle royale, players had to loot attachments and equip them to a weapon they find instead of gathering cash to spend at a Buy Station.Why remove Warzone loadouts?Ranking up weaponry can be a tedious task, especially when the developers add at least three new rifles as part of each seasonal update. Adding the strongest attachments and optics across the map gives players a chance to create new combinations alongside having to adapt to whichever weapons theyre able to find.Black Ops 6s integration into the battle royale has been far from smooth sailing, so perhaps a radical change to the structure could inject a new lease of live into the game before Verdansks imminent return.For more Call of Duty, take a look at all of the known error codes and their solutions along with the best controller settings that are guaranteed to keep you shooting straight. Call of Duty: WarzonePlatform(s):PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox OneGenre(s):ShooterRelated TopicsCall of Duty: Warzone Subscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games hereBungies Destiny 2 is suffering. Following the release of The Final Shape, the free-to-play looter shooter has been met with plummeting player counts and disdain towards recent story decisions. While the game still has enough players to maintain a healthy playerbase before the arrival of Marathon.Nevertheless, Destinys fanbase is failing to grow, and one reason is due to the games horrendous introduction for new players. In order to slim the game down, Bungie started removing older content from the game, stripping away old expansions and the original D2 story in the process.Destiny 2 needs un-vault contentWhile the current version of Destiny 2 isnt unfriendly towards new players, it is on the rough side. To on-board players, Bungie re-introduced the opening of the original Destiny while axing the entirety of Red War, the start of D2s storyline before being thrust into the games New Light arc.As it stands, theres no feeling of a straight line within the games current form. While the vaulting of content was supposed to make the New Player Experience easier, it has only resulted in more confusion. Youre plopped into a confusing state of a universe you know nothing about. While Red War could be confusing for those who didnt play the original game, it at least started you off with a strong introduction, motivation and enough on-boarding to keep new players invested.The vaulting of content also means that key storylines and character development is completely locked away for the average player. While watching a My name is Byf video for ten hours can be an entertaining time, its not the best way to learn about a universe. The best way is by experiencing it, which new players cant.Live-service games that continue to grow do so because they make sure to keep themselves open to newcomers. For example, Elder Scrolls Online still has its original main quest despite years of additional expansions. While its not the most important content, and new players can skip it if they want, it allows them to experience the whole world, the whole story, the whole game they paid for.As it stands, Destiny 2 is an outlier in its removal of content, and its proven to be a negative year-after-year. If Bungie wants D2 to grow instead of simply exist, it needs to radically improve its intro, re-introduce cut content and make the entire experience more open for every player.Destiny 2Platform(s):Google Stadia, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Web, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/XGenre(s):Action, Adventure, First Person, Massively Multiplayer, Shooter8VideoGamerSubscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

The primary residence of Pariss grandfather Barron had a palatial feel worthy of a storybook. And though Paris never technically lived there, this home is a huge part of the Hilton family legacy and her personal story as well. Nestled beyond wrought-iron gates, the white brick, English Georgian-style estate sat on 2.5-acres in the heart of Holmby Hills. The 15,000 square foot home was designed by trailblazing American architect Paul R. Williams who also built homes for Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball. Williams originally designed the residence for businessman Jacob Jay Paley and completed the build in 1936.Barron purchased the property following Paleys death for the equivalent of $4 million today. Inside the home were trademark Williams staples such as a circular breakfast room. Other details of the palatial estate included floor to ceiling paneled windows, 13 bedrooms, 17 bathrooms, an executive office, an Olympic-size swimming pool with french tile, and most importantly, the pool house which was designed by Williams. The property was featured in AD in 1938 and again in 1968.The Hilton Estate was known for throwing legendary parties with upwards of 1,000 guests, family Thanksgiving dinners, but more recently, the home was the site of Pariss iconic Grandma Hiltons House photoshoot with Vanity Fair in 2000. The photos were taken when the heiress was 19 and navigating the trauma from her experiences at Provo Canyon School. Maybe inside my mind I was thinking like, what I was doing in the picture was like a big f you, Paris said in her documentary, This Is Paris. I think all my anger just went into my drive for success. It made me strong.The home was listed in 2020 by Hilton & Hyland, the real estate brokerage founded by the actors father Rick Hilton and his business partner, Jeff Hyland. We got some decent mileage, and its time to find a new family for this incredible home, Barron II said in an interview with Forbes. The brokerage listed the home in 2020 for $75 million. The Hilton Estate officially sold in 2021 for $61.5 million, making it one of the most expensive homes to trade hands in the history of California real estate, according to Forbes Global Properties.Despite the fact that the home had been sold earlier in the year, Paris and her now-husband Reum held their wedding at the property in November of 2021. The ceremony was as lavish as any Hilton party of yesteryear, with over-the-top floral arrangements and musical performances from Kim Petras and Demi Lovato.Hollywood Hills hideawayThroughout the 2000s, Paris lived in a Spanish-style mansion overlooking Sunset Boulevard. Its where the actor lived while filming five seasons of The Simple Life. The 3,000-square-foot home was built in 1926 and featured four bedrooms and four bathrooms, plus glamorous amenities including multiple poolside cabanas, a bedroom with wall-to-wall mirrors, and a movie theater. The socialite listed the home for $4.8 million, fully furnished. After a 10-day bidding war, the property officially sold in 2007 for $5 million.Slivington manorIt isnt clear exactly when Paris moved into her next pad, but in 2020, she shared a before and after video of the renovation of the home she dubbed Slivington Manor on YouTube. (Sliving, a combination of slaying and living, is a phrase she coined in 2019.) The actor had lived in the home for some time previous to the renovation, and is seen walking through the bare-bones home sharing stories about each room before the gut job began. The now empty rooms once held sprawling shoe closets, as well as Club Paris, the actors personal at-home nightclub. But one thing remainedthe two-story doggie mansion for her collection of pocket-sized puppies. The video fast-forwards to months later, when the home is starting to come together. Inside, the heiress shows almost-finished rooms covered in Beverly Hills Hotelinspired wallpaper, a walk-in marble shower, and multiple walk-in closets. In comparison to the previous design aesthetic of her home, its clear that Paris was eager to take a more refined, timeless approach to the property.Malibu beach houseFive months before Paris and Reum tied the knot, they purchased a three bedroom, three bathroom beachfront home in Malibu for $8.4 million. Contemporary in style, the 3,000-square-foot dwelling, built in 1955, featured floor-to-ceiling glass windows looking out on the Pacific Ocean and numerous balconies for taking in the view. Fans may recognize the homes all-white, airy kitchen from a humorous promotional video for the Netflix show Cooking With Paris, which aired for just one season in 2021. Perhaps the biggest draw of the home was its stairs leading from one of the decks directly onto the beach. After wildfires ripped through the area in early 2025, the residencealong with many neighboring structures and thousands of other homes throughout Los Angeleswas unfortunately burned to the ground. It remains to be seen if Paris plans to build a new house in its place.Tuscan Beverly Park mansionParis and Reum tied the knot in 2021 and share two children, Phoenix and London, both born in 2023.Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic/Getty Images

In BriefPosted:6:05 AM PST January 9, 2025Image Credits:David Paul Morris/Bloomberg / Getty ImagesTesla directors to pay up to $919 million to settle claims they overpaid themselvesA Delaware judge has approved a settlement that will see Tesla directors including Chair Robyn Denholm, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, Kimbal Musk, and James Murdoch return up to $919 million to the automaker, officially resolving allegations that they overpaid themselves, per Reuters.The settlement concludes a 2020 lawsuit by the Police and Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit that challenged director compensation from 2017 to 2020 as excessive. The directors will have to pay back stock and options worth up to $735 million and forgo three years of pay allegedly worth $184 million.Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, the judge overseeing the case, also awarded $176 million in fees and costs to the three law firms that brought the case to court on a contingency basis, meaning they would only be paid if they won. Tesla has asked McCormick to cap the fee at $64 million.McCormick is the same judge who ruled against Tesla CEO Elon Musks exorbitant pay package despite shareholders voting to re-ratify the deal.Topics

Quick MathsThe numbers have been crunched, and PC Game Pass got almost $5,000 in new games during 2024That's not bad value for money for all except those brave enough to sail the digital seas.Image credit: Treyarch, Raven Software, Activision. News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on Jan. 9, 2025 If you're like me, you may at one point have wondered just how much money a PC player with a subscription to PC Game Pass actually saves. It turns out it's quite the substantial figure, with the total dollar worth of games added to the service in 2024 coming to just under $5,000.This was deduced by one Jamie Hore over at PCGamesN, who dropped all 137 games added to the service in 2024, took their dollar value at the time they were added, and found the total sum came to $4,812.63. For clarity, the price of a full year of PC Game Pass is roughly $143. That's a lot of saved cash.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Now obviously, there are caveats. This figure assumes that you, the hypothetical PC Game Pass enjoyer, are snapping up every game added to the service the moment it is available. It also goes without saying that you only really save money on games you play. It doesn't really matter to me if I can play Starfield and save $30, you'd have to pay me a lot more.But, it is a monument to the saving potential of Game Pass that's backed up by data. Interesting data too - we can see how much money you could potentially save by-month in the PCGamesN article. April looks like a big winner with 17 games added to PC Game Pass (five of which were day-one releases). On the other hand, December was kinda a bummer, with only six games added to the service, two of which day-one releases. Still, even on weak months like December, the potential savings come to $214.94. Not shabby at all!Does this make you feel any different about PC Game Pass? Do you feel better about subscribing, or wish you had last year? Or are you a pirate, with naught a care but the salty wind in your hair and a dream in your heart? Let us know below.