As crazy as the politics have been, this year may be remembered for scientific strides that, in some cases, saved the world (which is not a bad achievement to have on your curriculum vitae). From vaccine creators, to virus hunters, to crisis leaders, to science defenders, here's Nature's list of ten people who helped shape science in 2020. He's not on the list, but it's worth noting the contribution of Dr Li Wenliang who warned the world about the virus and later died of it.

+ "Scientists and investors born outside of the U.S. played crucial roles in the development of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. It's a remarkable vindication for the argument — often made by the biotech industry — that innovation depends on the free movement of people and ideas." NPR: If COVID-19 Vaccines Bring An End To The Pandemic, America Has Immigrants To Thank.

+ "Pfizer makes hundreds of medicines and vaccines and operates at least 40 manufacturing facilities registered with the FDA around the world. Despite being founded a decade ago, Moderna has never had a product win FDA approval. And it only has one factory registered with the FDA — and the registration occurred just this week." Talk about starting off with a bang.

+ "For measles, the booster dose is given years after the first dose. If the booster dose could be given six months or a year after the first dose, while maintaining high efficacy before the second dose, that would allow twice as many people to get vaccinated between now and later next year." Zeynep Tufekci and Michael Mina in the NYT: Can We Do Twice as Many Vaccinations as We Thought?

+ Mike and Karen Pence have received the first dose of the vaccine on live TV. From his comments, we know that the shot doesn't cure obsequiousness (and it sure as hell ain't truth serum).

"Deeply skeptical committee members asked the Sacklers whether, in fact, they subscribed to newspapers or had access to cable television. Addressing the Sacklers, Representative Jim Cooper, Democrat of Tennessee, said: 'Watching you testify makes my blood boil. I'm not aware of any family in America that is more evil than yours.'" NYT: Sacklers Face Furious Questions in Rare Testimony on Opioid Epidemic. Big pharma can kill, big pharma can save. A similar contrast could be seen with big tech and social media this year; lots of monopolistic behavior and not much love for democracy, but also the glue that let us remain connected. Imagine the year of sheltering in place without the internet. (Imagine living with your kids 24/7 without the iPad.) Life is a gray area.

What to Read: I was lucky enough to read an advance copy of We Run the Tides by my friend Vendela Vida. And I've been anxiously waiting for the presale to start so I could tell you about this flat out great novel about friendship and betrayal set in Sea Cliff, where the nostalgia for pre-tech San Francisco is as thick as the fog. You can and should order an autographed copy from San Francisco's beloved Green Apple Books.

+ What to Doc: I really dig the new HBO doc on the BeeGees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart. Their hit-writing skill was supernatural and the bizarre backlash against them, and their genre, has several overlaps with today's political environment. Bonus points for having other members of brother-powered groups comment on their benefits and downsides. Second bonus for Justin Timberlake looking into the camera and saying, "I'm not high," which only confirmed that he was (which, as is often the case, needed no confirmation...)

+ What to Watch: Bryan Cranston's latest series, Your Honor, is an engrossing look at a judge whose son gets himself into a legal mess, and then some.

"It's nearly impossible to live with a conflict between feeling and belief. You end up feeling the way you believe you should, or believing the way you feel you ought to. I have known for a long time — certainly since the murder of my own sister-in-law in our Texas hometown in 2016 — that I had emotions related to the death penalty that had to be reckoned with. I began to think I wouldn't know with certainty what part of me was being honest about capital punishment until I saw it for myself." A remarkably honest and interesting look at the death penalty from Elizabeth Bruenig in the NYT: The Man I Saw Them Kill.

"Those products had been installed as far back as March, meaning that the attackers had been able to observe crucial aspects of our government from the inside for as much as nine months. Government officials found out about the breach only after a private cybersecurity firm, FireEye, realized it had been hacked and alerted the FBI. Hackers planted the malware they used to get into the systems on a patch issued by the software company, SolarWinds, which produces widely used management software. The story is getting worse still." Heather Cox Richardson with a good overview of what know so far about what could be the most damaging hack in US history.

+ The massive SolarWinds hack may force widespread regulatory change.

+ Mitt Romney: "In this setting, not to have the White House aggressively speaking out and protesting and taking punitive action is really quite extraordinary." Getting help in 2016 was really quite extraordinary. Helsinki was really quite extraordinary. Ignoring bounties put on US soldiers was really quite extraordinary. When you look at this way, Trump was really a quite extraordinary president.

"Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of President-elect Biden, shocking officials across the Defense Department, senior administration officials tell Axios." This is fully crazy.

+ Here's Michael Flynn on Newsmax saying that Trump could order "military capabilities" to swing states and "rerun an election in each of those states." Uh, pardon me? (Sidenote: We could get a slew of new pardons before the weekend.)

+ An outraged Gov Brian Kemp blasts pro-Trump conspiracy theorists harassing his family. "It has gotten ridiculous — from death threats, (claims of) bribes from China, the social media posts that my children are getting. We have the ‘no crying in politics rule' in the Kemp house. But this is stuff that, if I said it, I would be taken to the woodshed and would never see the light of day." This is the problem of creating monsters. They don't stop when you say stop.

"The United States Supreme Court on Friday, by a vote of 6-3, said an effort to block President Donald Trump from excluding undocumented immigrants from a key Census count was 'premature,' effectively allowing the administration to move forward with its plans even as the justices left the door open to future challenges." 6-3 votes. Get used to them.

"All around St. Mary Medical Center is a new silence. Fat Jack's Bar & Grill is shuttered, never to reopen. The Chamber of Commerce, featuring a rearing, life-size model of the mid-century movie-star horse Trigger, is empty. 'Intermission,' reads the marquee of the High Desert Center for the Arts, which sits at the edge of this longtime home of antique Hollywood royalty, the singing cowboy Roy Rogers and his co-star wife, Dale Evans. The hospital, though, is alive with the dying." WaPo: Covid patients are treated in parking lots, hallways and lobbies of a California hospital that, like the nation, is struggling to keep pace with the pandemic.

+ As bad as it is on the outside, it's a lot worse on the inside. 1 in 5 Prisoners in the U.S. Has Had COVID-19.

"We recently found out, for example, that Bob Odenkirk almost nabbed the role of The Office's Michael Scott; and Paul Rudd was in the running for Jim Halpert. And as for those centuries-old rumors that Renaissance painter Raphael died of syphilis? A new study explained why they're probably just rumors. 2020 also gave us dazzling, high-resolution photos of the sun, the truth about a massive fossil egg previously known as "The Thing," and intriguing details about Britain's most infamous 19th-century shipwreck." Mental Floss: 100 Interesting Facts We Learned in 2020. (Finding 100 facts in 2020 is a remarkable achievement.)

"President-elect Joe Biden selected New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland as his nominee for interior secretary on Thursday, a historic pick that would make her the first Native American to lead the powerful federal agency that has wielded influence over the nation's tribes for generations."

+ New Zealand will give free coronavirus vaccines to residents, neighboring nations.

+ A great list of thoughtful Christmas presents that people have received.

+ Girl's wish for women toy soldiers granted after viral letter to toymaker.

+ WiredUK: It's not all bad! 20 things that made the world a better place in 2020.

+ "One of President Donald Trump's former Atlantic City casinos will be blown up next month, and for the right amount of money, you could be the one to press the button that brings it down." (This is pretty similar to how policy decisions have been managed over the past four years.)