A common theme of stories we rescued this week—infrastructure and science—makes a 180° turn from last week’s attention to classical literature. Community members spent this final week of February investigating the electric grid and water pipes, plus a niche topic in chemistry and pollution from plastics.

Welcome to my weekly feature covering ways us activists can lead healthier lives. For a full explanation check out the inaugural edition here, but in short, most of us do a terrible job of taking care of our minds and bodies. This is a science-based exploration of how to change that, so we can be around for many years of fruitful activism. You can find other articles in this series here.

You don’t drink enough water.

One incredibly important move to help workers that the Biden administration has signaled didn’t necessarily look like a pro-worker move. Even before President Biden was inaugurated, his incoming White House counsel started asking for suggestions for judicial nominees who would be diverse not just on race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion, but on professional background.

Donald Trump still has a hammer lock on the Republican Party. That was amply demonstrated in the days after all but seven Senate Republicans voted to acquit Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. Of those who joined the bipartisan rebuke of Trump’s conduct and voted to convict, Sen. Richard Burr and Bill Cassidy have been censured by their state parties, while the other five face calls for their censure.

On Friday, the FDA’s team of outside expert sat down in front of their cameras to participate in something that’s becoming almost routine—the review of a new COVID-19 vaccine. This time they were looking at the single-shot vaccine from Johnson & Johnson. At the end of the discussion, the panel voted unanimously to recommend approval of the vaccine’s use in the current emergency.