What to call physician assistants; replicating robots; the anguished story of Ian Fishback

Plus, omicron origin theories. [View this email online]( [Best of NPR]( Month Day, 2021 This week, we looked [electric car startups]( and the [musical tick, tick... Boom!]( Plus, NPR's Scott Simon has a few recommendations for weekend reading. --------------------------------------------------------------- Scott’s Weekly Weigh-in Scott Olson/Getty Images A good weekend to you. It is sad and maddening that not many weeks of a year seem to go by without a school shooting in the U.S. This week’s school shooting (and how appalling is that phrase alone?) was at Oxford High School in Michigan. Students Tate Myre, Hana St. Juliana, Madisyn {NAME} and Justin Shilling were killed. [Here is the latest in our coverage](. Nicolette Kahn of NPR’s research and archives team tells me that there have been 28 school shootings in 2021 so far — a phrase I cringe to have to add on Dec. 5. Stephen Sondheim, the composer whose works delighted and enthralled, died last week just days after we had been fortunate to see the gender-revised revival of Company, his 1970s musical. This week we aired [our interview, delayed for months by COVID, with the peerless Patti LuPone]( who is vehement not only about Sondheim’s genius but her fervent wish that playgoers just turn off their cellphones, will ya? And my essay on [Sondheim and our opening night from last week is here](. And in an unexpected musical vein, Germany's Angela Merkel left office after 16 years. One of the songs she asked a military band to play in salute was a 1974 punk rock hit "Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen" by Nina Hagen. The song was considered a protest anthem in the East Germany of Merkel’s youth, where dissent about the dull, black and white life behind the Berlin Wall had to be so concealed that, as Nina laments, “you forgot the color film.” [Nina Hagen’s original song is here]( and [Esme Nicholson’s report on the ceremony here](. How do you think the Bundeswehr band plays punk? Would you go to a rave to hear them? Scott Simon Scott Simon is one of NPR's most renowned news anchors. He is the host of [Weekend Edition Saturday]( and one of the hosts of the morning news podcast Up First. Be sure to listen to him every Saturday on your local NPR station, and follow him [on Twitter](. --------------------------------------------------------------- Newsletter continues after sponsor message --------------------------------------------------------------- by Carol Ritchie --------------------------------------------------------------- Stories You May Have Missed [Leslie Clayton, a physician assistant in Minnesota, says a name change for her profession is long overdue. ]( Liam James Doyle for KHN Physician assistants say they want to be called "physician associates," arguing that they do more than just help doctors. “[We provide care as part of a team]( says one PA. But doctors are pushing back, and some suspect it’s just part of a power grab. The omicron COVID-19 variant seems to outcompete delta in South Africa. That's one of several red flags that suggest omicron could become [the most contagious variant yet](. (Don't blame South Africa, though. Omicron was [in Europe for at least a week]( before South African officials raised the alarm.) Researchers are scrambling to discover how omicron came to be. One leading theory: It was evolving for months [in the body of a single person](. Ian Fishback was a Green Beret, a Ph.D. in philosophy and one of Time magazine's most influential people of 2005 for exposing torture by U.S. troops in Iraq. He died broke and virtually homeless as friends and family scrambled to find him mental health care. [This is the story of his final, anguished years](. Scientists say they've witnessed a never-before-seen type of replication in organic robots created in the lab. The robots — shaped like Pac-Man — move around collecting loose stem cells into piles. The scientists were stunned when those piles [organized themselves into robot copies]( and came to "life." ➡️ Among other things, the findings could have implications for regenerative medicine. Rivian and Lucid aren't household names. But, somehow, [these two electric car startups]( are each worth more than Ford — and may have a shot at competing wtih Tesla. --------------------------------------------------------------- Podcasts of the week [Andrew Garfield as Jonathan Larson in tick, tick...BOOM!]( Macall Polay /Netflix The film tick, tick... Boom! is a musical, an adaptation of a musical and a story about a musical. Specifically, it's the story of a show the composer Jonathan Larson wrote a few years before he wrote Rent. And the theater kid energy is strong. ([Pop Culture Happy Hour]( At the heart of every rapper-producer collaboration is a human relationship. Some of hip-hop's rising and most-respected artist-producer duos share their secrets on making a work of art greater than the sum of its parts. ([The Formula]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Stream your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. 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