ABOVE: MODIFIED FROM © ISTOCK.COM, DR_MICROBE

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Note: The answer grid will include every letter of the alphabet.
BY EMILY COX AND HENRY RATHvON

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Joe Rogan has repeatedly spread misleading and false claims on his podcast, provoking distrust in science and medicine.

—More than 250 researchers and medical professionals who signed a January 10 open letter calling for the development of a mis-information policy at Spotify, the streaming platform that hosts The Joe Rogan Experience podcast and on December 31 aired an episode with virologist Robert Malone who stated, among other baseless claims, that Americans were being “hypnotized” into getting COVID-19 vaccines and wearing masks

It’s working and it looks normal. We are thrilled, but we don’t know what tomorrow will bring us. This has never been done before.

—Bartley Griffith, director of the cardiac transplant program at the University of Maryland Medical Center, where he and a team of surgeons transplanted the heart of a genetically modified pig into a human patient for the first time ever (The New York Times, January 10)
ACROSS

7. Gastropod shell once used as currency
8. Computer of the ancients
9. Transparent fluid in the eye (2 wds.)
10. State tree of Maine
11. Mass of cells capable of growth
14. Like the speed of light
16. What blue whales may be measured in
17. Metacarpophalangeal articulation (2 wds.)
19. Sodium’s atomic number
20. Canine’s coat

DOWN

1. Morsel for a bluegill or bat
2. Concern for a citrus grower
3. Shaded region around a sunspot’s center
4. Eponym of a flying speed
5. Burrower of the squirrel family
6. Fruit envelope often prickly
12. Resembling reindeer in a way
13. Brain-wrapping membranes
15. Disease fended off by vitamin C
16. Mantis’ midsection
17. Brown alga rich in iodine
18. Hawaiian district known for its coffee

© JONNY HAWKINS