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The search for a replacement for the US Navy's "little crappy ship" is over. On April 30, the US Navy announced that Fincantieri Marinette Marine, the US shipyard subsidiary of Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri, had beaten out the rest of the field to take on the FFG(X) frigate program, the shipbuilding effort that will replace the Navy's Littoral Combat Ship (LCS).

Frigates were once the workhorses of the Navy—small, fast escort ships that hunted submarines, acted as part of the air defense ring around carriers and other big combatants, and could patrol the seas on their own when necessary. The Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7) class of frigates, the first US Navy ships with gas turbine engines, were worked far beyond expectations during their service; they survived attacks by errant Iraqi anti-ship missiles (in the case of the USS Stark) and Iranian sea mines (the USS Samuel B. Roberts) during the US Navy's confrontation with Iran in the 1980s.

Enlarge / A cluster of Trump supporters, sporting Q-emblazoned T-shirts and the campaign's signature red MAGA hats, waiting in line to get into a rally in Tennessee in 2018. (credit: Sean Rayford | Getty Images)

Twitter is removing thousands of accounts and tweets that support the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory from its platform, citing the movement as "coordinated harmful activity" that leads to harassment and other harms.

"We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm," the company announced in—naturally—a series of tweets. "In line with this approach, this week we are taking further action on so-called 'QAnon' activity across the service."

In addition to suspending more than 7,000 accounts so far—and possibly as many as 150,000 before all is said and done—Twitter says it will no longer include anything associated with QAnon in trends or recommendations, make sure not to highlight it in search, and block certain URLs associated with Q from Twitter.

Enlarge / A nurse at the Miami Beach Convention Center Community Based Testing Site conducts a COVID-19 antibody test. The Florida Guard is providing support at the Miami Beach hybrid CBTS and Hard Rock Stadium CBTS to allow the state and local partners to conduct antibody testing for first responders at both facilities. (US Army photo by Sgt. Leia Tascarini) (credit: Army Sgt. Leia Tascarini)

It's been clear from quite early in the COVID-19 pandemic that a substantial number of people who get infected by SARS-CoV-2 don't experience significant symptoms. This simple fact has enormous public health consequences, as these asymptomatic individuals can still pass the infection on to others. That means that even if we were able to get everyone with symptoms to self-isolate, we may still be unable to check the spread of the pandemic. It also makes it much harder to find out the true spread of the virus, since many people won't bother to get tested if they aren't feeling unwell.

Most of the data on the spread of the pandemic within the US comes from tests that pick up the presence of the virus' genome, which indicates the presence of an active infection. But you have to catch the person while the infection is happening for this to work. The alternative is to look for an indication of a past infection: the presence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. While the immune response to the virus is complex and isn't present immediately after an infection, most people have at least some antibodies a few weeks after the virus is cleared.

This allows widespread antibody testing to provide a clearer picture of the virus' past spread through a population. On Tuesday, the CDC started releasing lots of data from past antibody testing. While it was from a period where the virus was relatively rare in the US, the data provides a sharp contrast to the RNA-based tests from the same time, showing that lots of infections have gone undetected.