Chinese scientists have injected a person with CRISPR/Cas9-edited cells, marking the first time cells altered with the technique have been used in humans. Researchers used the powerful gene editor to alter immune cells to fight lung cancer, Nature reports November 15.

Immune cells called CAR-T cells have already been engineered using other gene-editing technologies. A baby’s leukemia was successfully treated in 2015 with CAR-T cells engineered with gene editors known as TALENs.

Chinese researchers led by oncologist Lu You of Sichuan University in Chengdu got approval to conduct the new trial this summer. U.S. researchers have gotten clearance to begin similar clinical trials.

You’s team removed immune cells from a patient with lung cancer. They then used CRISPR/Cas9 as molecular scissors to cut and inactivate the PD-1 gene in T cells. That gene’s protein usually holds immune cells back from attacking tumors. The hope is that the edited cells will now go on the offensive and help the patient fight cancer. Researchers plan to give the patient a second dose of engineered cells, Nature reports.

The researchers’ progress with the technique could spark a space race–style biomedical competition between the United States and China, Carl June, an immunotherapist at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told Nature. “I think this is going to trigger ‘Sputnik 2.0,’” he said, hopefully improving the end product.

In the early 1880s, Harvard Observatory director Edward Pickering put out a call for volunteers to help observe flickering stars. He welcomed women, in particular — and not just because he couldn’t afford to pay anything.

At the time, women’s colleges were producing graduates with “abundant training to make excellent observers,” Pickering wrote. His belief in women’s abilities carried over when he hired staff, even though critics of women’s higher education argued that women “originate almost nothing, so that human knowledge is not advanced by their work.”
Pickering and his “harem” sure proved the critics wrong.

In The Glass Universe, science writer Dava Sobel shines a light on the often-unheralded scientific contributions of the observatory’s beskirted “computers” who helped chart the heavens. By 1893, women made up nearly half of the observatory’s assistants, and dozens followed in their footsteps.

These women toiled tirelessly, marking times, coordinates and other notations for photographic images of the sky taken nightly and preserved on glass plates — the glass universe. These women’s routine mapping of the stars gave birth to novel ideas that advanced astronomy in ways still instrumental today — from how stars are classified to how galactic distances are measured.

Using diaries, letters, memoirs and scientific papers, Sobel recounts the accomplishments of these extraordinary women, going into enough scientific detail (glossary included) to satisfy curious readers and enough personal detail to bring these women’s stories to life.

Sobel traces the origin of the glass universe back to heiress Anna Palmer Draper. The book opens in 1882 with her exulting in hosting a party for the scientific glitterati under the glowing and novel Edison incandescent lights. Her husband, Henry Draper, a doctor and amateur astronomer, had pioneered a way to “fix” the stars on glass photographic plates. The resulting durable black-and-white images revealed spectral lines that could provide hints to a star’s elements — and eventually so much more. Henry’s premature death five days after the party launched Anna’s philanthropic support of the Harvard Observatory and the creation of the glass universe.
Other women featured in the book had a more hands-on impact on astronomy. For instance, Williamina Fleming came to the United States as a maid. But Pickering soon recognized her knack for mathematics. At the observatory, she read “the rune-like lines of the spectra,” Sobel writes, noticing patterns that led to the first iteration in 1890 of the Draper stellar classification system. That system, still used today, was later refined by the observations of other women.

Henrietta Leavitt, a promising Radcliffe College astronomy student slowly going deaf, joined the staff in 1895. While meticulously tracking the changing brightness of variable stars, she noticed a pattern: The brighter a star’s magnitude, the longer it took to cycle through all its variations. This period-luminosity law, published in 1912, became crucial in measuring the distance to stars. It underpinned Edwin Hubble’s law on cosmic expansion and led to discoveries about the shape of the Milky Way, our solar system’s place far from the galactic center and the existence of other galaxies.

The story belongs, too, to Pickering and his successor, Harlow Shapley. Perhaps partly motivated by economics at a time of shoestring budgets — in 1888, women computers earned just 25cents per hour — these men not only recognized, but also encouraged and heralded the women’s talent.

Sobel takes readers through World War II and a myriad of other moments starring women: first woman observatory head; first woman professor at Harvard (of astronomy, of course); discoveries of binary stars, the prevalence of hydrogen and helium in stars, and the existence of interstellar dust. In some cases, it took male astronomers to make those findings stick — the glass universe had a glass ceiling.

After World War II, radio astronomy emerged, and “the days of the human computer were numbered — by zeros and ones,” Sobel writes. Using film to photograph the stars ended in the 1970s. But the glass universe is far from obsolete. The roughly half-million plates hold the ghosts of pulsars, quasars and other stellar phenomena not even imagined when the plates were made. They also offer the promise of more discoveries to come, perhaps by the next generation of women astronomers.

SAN FRANCISCO — Earth may have been a water world for much of its history, a new proposal contends. Just like in the Kevin Costner movie, the continents would have been mostly submerged below sea level. Previous proposals have suggested that Earth’s land area has remained comparatively unchanged throughout much of geologic time.

But geoscientist Cin-Ty Lee of Rice University in Houston proposes that Earth’s continents didn’t rise above the waves until around 700 million years ago, when the underlying mantle sufficiently cooled. Though many scientists are unconvinced, that continental rise may have contributed to the rapid diversification of life known as the Cambrian explosion. “The Earth is cooling and that actually has manifestations that dictate how life goes,” Lee said December 15 at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting.
Earth’s first continental crust formed billions of years ago. Slabs of this crust “float” above the underlying mantle like icebergs, with relatively cold roots than can extend tens of kilometers into the mantle. A continent’s elevation depends, in part, on the size of its root and the density of the mantle.

Earlier in Earth’s history when the mantle was hotter and less dense, the continents sat largely below sea level with only mountains peeking above the water’s surface, Lee proposed. The cooling of the mantle over time increased the relative buoyancy of the continents and lifted the landmasses above sea level. Considering mantle cooling rates and Earth’s topography, Lee proposes that this expansion of Earth’s dry land took place around 1 billion to 500 million years ago and lasted about 100 million years.

The new land would have altered carbon and nutrient cycles, Lee suggested. These effects could help explain large shifts in Earth’s climate around this time and might have nourished the Cambrian explosion. During that time, around 540 million to 500 million years ago, forerunners of the major groups of animals — from insects to mammals — first emerged.

This tale of rising continents may be overly simplistic, said Laurent Montési, a geodynamicist at the University of Maryland in College Park. Other factors such as the mass of the continents, the amount of water in the oceans and the rate of new crust formation on the seafloor could affect sea levels relative to the continents. The idea is worth considering, he said, “but the evidence is not completely there yet.”

Warning: Furry Logic is not, as the title might suggest, a detailed exploration of mammals’ reasoning skills. Instead, it’s a fun, informative chronicle of how myriad animals take advantage of the laws of physics.

Science writers Matin Durrani and Liz Kalaugher cite a trove of recent (and often surprising) research findings. They draw on their backgrounds — Durrani is a physicist, Kalaugher a materials scientist — to explain how animals exploit sound, light, electricity and magnetism, among other things, in pursuit of food, sex and survival. These creatures don’t consciously use physics the way that humans design and use tools, of course, but they are evolutionary marvels nonetheless.
Peacocks, for example, produce low-frequency sounds while shimmying their tail feathers (SN Online: 04/27/16). The birds use these sounds — and not just the sight of those colorful plumes — to impress females and fend off competing males. At the other end of the sonic spectrum, some bats use stealth echolocation to track down their preferred prey. Moths targeted by these bats have sensors that can pick up these ultrasonic calls, but the bats squeak so softly that a moth can’t hear its stalker until it is less than a half-second’s flight away.

Durrani and Kalaugher let readers know when the science isn’t settled. Researchers aren’t quite sure how peahens pick up males’ infrasonic signals, for example. Scientists also haven’t figured out how the archerfish spits so precisely (SN: 10/4/14, p. 8), knocking prey off low-hanging branches above the water as often as 94 percent of the time. The submerged fish must somehow gauge the angle at which light bends as it enters the water and then accurately compensate for refraction while spewing a stream of water. Amazingly, this feat may be innate rather than learned via trial and error.

Readers need not understand the intricacies of polarized light, Earth’s magnetic field or surface tension to enjoy Furry Logic. Nor is this book an exhaustive account of the characteristics and behavior of every animal that uses such phenomena in interesting ways. There should be plenty of material for a sequel to this fascinating book.

Earthquake-powered shifts along the seafloor that push water forward, not just up, could help supersize tsunamis.

By combining laboratory experiments, computer simulations and real-world observations, researchers discovered that the horizontal movement of sloped seafloor during an underwater earthquake can give tsunamis a critical boost. Scientists previously assumed that vertical movement alone contributed most of a tsunami’s energy.

More than half of the energy for the unexpectedly large tsunami that devastated Japan in 2011 (SN Online: 6/16/11) originated from the horizontal movement of the seafloor, the researchers estimate. Accounting for this lateral motion could explain why some earthquakes generate large tsunamis while others don’t, the researchers report in a paper to be published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans.
“For the last 30 years, we’ve been moving in the wrong direction to do a good job predicting tsunamis,” says study coauthor Tony Song, an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “This new theory will lead to a better predictive approach than we have now.”

The largest tsunamis form following earthquakes that occur along tectonic boundaries where an oceanic plate sinks below a continental plate. That movement isn’t always smooth; sections of the two plates can stick together. As the bottom oceanic plate sinks, it bends the top continental plate downward like a weighed-down diving board. Eventually, the pent-up stress becomes too much and the plates abruptly unstick, causing the overlying plate to snap upward and triggering an earthquake. That upward movement lifts the seafloor, displacing huge volumes of water that pile up on the sea surface and spread outward as a tsunami.

These deep-sea earthquakes shift the seafloor sideways, too. The earthquake off the coast of Japan in 2011, for instance, not only lifted the ocean floor three to five meters; it also caused up to 58 meters of horizontal movement. Such lateral motion, however big, is mostly ignored in tsunami science, largely because of a 1982 laboratory study that found no connection between horizontal ground motion and wave height. The experiment used in that study, Song argues, wasn’t a properly sized-down model of the dimensions of the seafloor and overlying ocean. If lateral motion takes place on a sloped segment of the seafloor, he thought, then the shift can push large volumes of water sideways and add momentum to the budding tsunami.

Using two wave-making machines at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Song and colleagues revisited the decades-old experiment. Oarlike paddles pushed water upward and outward in some tests and just upward in others. Adding horizontal motion caused higher waves than vertical motion alone, the researchers found.

By combining the experimental results with a new tsunami computer simulation that incorporates lateral movement, the researchers could account for the unusual size of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. That tsunami, one of the worst natural disasters on record, was bigger than uplift alone can explain.
Using GPS sensors to measure the horizontal movement of the seafloor during an earthquake will enable more accurate tsunami forecasts before the wave is spotted by ocean buoys, Song proposes.

The new work makes a convincing case that horizontal motion contributes to tsunami generation, says Eddie Bernard, a tsunami scientist emeritus at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Center for Tsunami Research in Seattle. But just how much that movement contributes to a tsunami’s overall height is unclear. It could be much less than Song and colleagues predict, he says.

Other seafloor events that can follow a large earthquake — such as huge numbers of water-displacing landslides — could also boost a tsunami’s size. Until all of the factors are known, Bernard says, tsunami forecasters will probably be best off doing what they do now: waiting for a tsunami to form after an earthquake before predicting the wave’s size and trajectory.

Premature babies, who often develop jaundice because of an excess of bile pigment called bilirubin, can be saved from this dangerous condition by the use of fluorescent light.… The light alters the chemistry of bilirubin so it can be excreted with the bile. Exchange transfusion is the usual treatment when jaundice occurs but this drastic procedure carries a … risk of death. —Science News, June 17, 1967

Update
Preemies aren’t the only babies at risk for jaundice. About 60 percent of full-term infants also develop the condition. Severe cases can cause brain damage if untreated. But today, some researchers warn that light therapy, now widely used, may not work for babies whose bilirubin levels are very high. And studies have begun to suggest a link between the therapy and certain childhood cancers (SN Online: 1/30/15). Though the risk of developing cancer is small, doctors should be cautious about prescribing the treatment, researchers wrote in 2016 in Pediatrics.

Brains are like sponges, slurping up new information. But sponges may also be a little bit like brains.

Sponges, which are humans’ very distant evolutionary relatives, don’t have nervous systems. But a detailed analysis of sponge cells turns up what might just be an echo of our own brains: cells called neuroids that crawl around the animal’s digestive chambers and send out messages, researchers report in the Nov. 5 Science.

The finding not only gives clues about the early evolution of more complicated nervous systems, but also raises many questions, says evolutionary biologist Thibaut Brunet of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, who wasn’t involved in the study. “This is just the beginning,” he says. “There’s a lot more to explore.”

The cells were lurking in Spongilla lacustris, a freshwater sponge that grows in lakes in the Northern Hemisphere. “We jokingly call it the Godzilla of sponges” because of the rhyme with Spongilla, say Jacob Musser, an evolutionary biologist in Detlev Arendt’s group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany.

Simple as they are, these sponges have a surprising amount of complexity, says Musser, who helped pry the sponges off a metal ferry dock using paint scrapers. “They’re such fascinating creatures.”
With sponges procured, Arendt, Musser and colleagues looked for genes active in individual sponge cells, ultimately arriving at a list of 18 distinct kinds of cells, some known and some unknown. Some of these cells used genes that are essential to more evolutionarily sophisticated nerve cells in other organisms for sending or receiving messages in the form of small blobs of cellular material called vesicles.

One such cell, called a neuroid, caught the scientists’ attention. After seeing that this cell was using those genes involved in nerve cell signaling, the researchers took a closer look. A view through a confocal microscope turned up an unexpected locale for the cells, Musser says. “We realized, ‘My God, they’re in the digestive chambers.’”

Large, circular digestive structures called choanocyte chambers help move water and nutrients through sponges’ canals, in part by the beating of hairlike cilia appendages (SN: 3/9/15). Neuroids were hovering around some of these cilia, the researchers found, and some of the cilia near neuroids were bent at angles that suggested that they were no longer moving.
The team suspects that these neuroids were sending signals to the cells charged with keeping the sponge fed, perhaps using vesicles to stop the movement of usually undulating cilia. If so, that would be a sophisticated level of control for an animal without a nervous system.

The finding suggests that sponges are using bits and bobs of communications systems that ultimately came together to work as brains of other animals. Understanding the details might provide clues to how nervous systems evolved. “What did animals have, before they had a nervous system?” Musser asks. “There aren’t many organisms that can tell us that. Sponges are one of them.”

Regenerating body parts is never easy. For instance, some lizards can grow back their tails, but these new appendages are pale imitations of the original. Now, genetically modified stem cells are helping geckos grow back better tails.

Tweaking and implanting embryonic stem cells on the tail stumps of mourning geckos (Lepidodactylus lugubris) allowed the reptiles to grow tails that are more like the original than ever before, researchers report October 14 in Nature Communications. These findings are a stepping-stone to developing regenerative therapies in humans that may one day treat hard-to-heal wounds.

A gecko’s tail is an extension of its spine — with the vertebrae to prove it. Regenerated tails, however, are simpler affairs. “It’s just a bunch of concentric tubes of fat, muscle and skin,” says Thomas Lozito, a biologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

That’s because stem cells in adult geckos produce a molecular signal that encourages the formation of cartilage in new tails, but not bone or nervous tissues (SN: 8/17/18). Lozito and his colleagues used embryonic stem cells, which can develop into a wider range of tissues than adult stem cells, modified them to ignore this signal and then implanted them on the tail stumps of geckos that had their tails surgically removed. The tails that grew from these modified stem cells had bonelike grooves in the cartilage and generated new neural tissue at the top of the tail.

These modified tails still lack a spinal cord, making them a far cry from the original. “We fixed one problem, but there are still many imperfections,” Lozito says. “We’re still on the hunt for the perfect tail.”

And then there were three.

Just three races in the 2021 Formula 1 world championship remain, and it looks like Red Bull's Max Verstappen is in the driver's seat to secure his first world driver's championship.
But hot on his tail is still Lewis Hamilton, who took home the victory in the Brazilian Grand Prix to once again tighten the gap at the top between he and Verstappen entering the final three sprints of the season.
To say "hot on his tail" would maybe be a bit of an undersell. Hamilton put together a fantastic trio of drives during the weekend, from qualifying to sprint qualifying to the race, starting in 10th and ending up first, even after taking a five-spot grid penalty for a violation.

It doesn't get much hotter than Qatar — or the 2021 F1 championship.

Here's what you need to know about this weekend's F1 race:

What channel is the F1 race on today?
Race: Qatar Grand Prix
Date: Sunday, Nov. 21
TV channel: ESPN 2
Live stream: fuboTV
The ESPN family of networks will broadcast all 2021 F1 races in the United States using Sky Sports' feed, with select races heading to ABC later in the season.

ESPN Deportes serves as the exclusive Spanish-language home for all 2021 F1 races in the U.S.

What time does the F1 race start today?
Date: Sunday, Nov. 21
Start time: 9 a.m. ET
The 9 a.m. ET start time for Sunday's race means the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix will start at 5 p.m. local time. Lights out will likely take place just after 9 a.m. ET. ESPN's prerace show usually airs in the hour before the start of the race.

Below is the complete TV schedule for the weekend's F1 events at the Qatar Grand Prix. All times are Eastern.

Date Event Time TV channel
Friday, Nov. 19 Practice 1 5:30 a.m. ESPN2
Friday, Nov. 19 Practice 2 9 a.m. ESPN2
Saturday, Nov. 20 Practice 3 6 a.m. ESPN2
Saturday, Nov. 20 Qualifying 9 a.m. ESPN2
Sunday, Nov. 21 Race 9 a.m. ESPN2
Formula 1 live stream for Qatar Grand Prix
For those who don't have a cable or satellite subscription, there are five major OTT TV streaming options that carry ESPN — fuboTV, Sling, Hulu, YouTubeTV and AT&T Now. Of the five, Hulu, fuboTV and YouTubeTV offer free-trial options.

Below are links to each.
For those who do have a cable or satellite subscription but are not in front of a TV, Formula 1 races in 2021 can be streamed live via phones, tablets and other devices on the ESPN app with authentication.

Formula 1 schedule 2021
In all, there are 23 scheduled races in the 2021 F1 season, with the Portuguese Grand Prix sliding onto the docket the first week in March. The originally scheduled Vietnam Grand Prix was removed after the arrest of Nguyen Duc Chung, while the Chinese Grand Prix is up in the air. It was originally scheduled for April 11 but will likely not take place this season.

The Singapore Grand Prix was also removed from the schedule, with the Turkish Grand Prix returning to the schedule in its stead.

All races will be broadcast in the U.S. on the ESPN family of networks, with the United States Grand Prix and Mexico City Grand Prix both airing on ABC.

Please note: The on-the-hour start times do not include the broadcast start time, which is typically five minutes before the start of the race. Times do not include ESPN's customary prerace shows.

MORE: Live stream F1 races all season on fuboTV (7-day free trial)

Here's the latest schedule:

Date Race Course Start time (ET) TV channel Winner
March 28 Bahrain Grand Prix Bahrain International Circuit 11 a.m. ESPN2 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
April 18 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari 9 a.m. ESPN Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
May 2 Portuguese Grand Prix Algarve International Circuit 10 a.m. ESPN Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
May 9 Spanish Grand Prix Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya 9 a.m. ESPN Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
May 23 Monaco Grand Prix Circuit de Monaco 9 a.m. ESPN2 Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
June 6 Azerbaijan Grand Prix Baku City Circuit 8 a.m. ESPN Sergio Perez (Red Bull)
June 20 French Grand Prix Circuit Paul Ricard 9 a.m. ESPN Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
June 27 Styrian Grand Prix Red Bull Ring 9 a.m. ESPN Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
July 4 Austrian Grand Prix Red Bull Ring 9 a.m. ESPN Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
July 18 British Grand Prix Silverstone Circuit 10 a.m. ESPN Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
Aug. 1 Hungarian Grand Prix Hungaroring 9 a.m. ESPN Esteban Ocon (Alpine)
Aug. 29 Belgian Grand Prix Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps 9 a.m. ESPN2 Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
Sept. 5 Dutch Grand Prix Circuit Zandvoort 9 a.m. ESPN2 Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
Sept. 12 Italian Grand Prix Autodromo Nazionale di Monza 9 a.m. ESPN2 Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren)
Sept. 26 Russian Grand Prix Sochi Autodrom 8 a.m. ESPN2 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
Oct. 10 Turkish Grand Prix Intercity Istanbul Park 8 a.m. ESPN2 Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes)
Oct. 24 United States Grand Prix Circuit of the Americas 3 p.m. ABC Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
Nov. 7 Mexico City Grand Prix Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez 2 p.m. ABC Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
Nov. 14 São Paulo Grand Prix Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace Noon ESPN2 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
Nov. 21 Qatar Grand Prix Losail International Circuit 9 a.m. ESPNews TBD
Dec. 5 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Jeddah Street Circuit 11 p.m. ESPN2 TBD
Dec. 12 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Yas Marina Circuit 8 a.m. ESPN2 TBD

The Washington Wizards got out to as good of a start as any team in the NBA, shocking the masses to take first place in the Eastern Conference through the first month of the season.

Following Thursday's loss to the Miami Heat, the Wizards have surrendered their spot atop of the East, failing to pick up a win in one of their toughest tests early on.
They still own a strong 10-5 record and have some quality wins on their resume – they beat both of last year's Conference Finalists in the Atlanta Hawks and Milwaukee Bucks, the Boston Celtics twice, the Toronto Raptors on the road and a blowout win over the Memphis Grizzlies. But along with the loss to the Heat, they also failed tests against the Brooklyn Nets and Charlotte Hornets.

With almost an entirely new roster following the trade that sent Russell Westbrook to the Los Angeles Lakers, the Wizards pieces have clicked quickly.

Is this team good enough to make the playoffs, though? Three members of our Sporting News staff discuss.
Will the Wizards be a playoff team?
Kyle Irving (@KyleIrv_): I'm a believer. The Wizards will be a playoff team.

Going into the season, I thought this was just a roster of misfit toys. Returning Kyle Kuzma, Montrezl Harrell and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in the trade for Westbrook and signing Spencer Dinwiddie, they brought in four solid players, but I wasn't convinced it was a group who could make any noise in the improving East.

Turns out, I was very wrong. Yes, they've failed a few tough tests, but they've also beaten some good teams.

Harrell looks like the player who won Sixth Man of the Year back in 2018-19, averaging over 17 points and eight rebounds per game with five double-doubles in 15 games. Kuzma is thriving in a new situation with a bigger role, nearly averaging a double-double, and Dinwiddie has complimented Bradley Beal perfectly in the backcourt.

They also have dealt with a handful of injuries and absences, and their starting forward and former lottery pick Rui Hachimura hasn't even taken the floor yet for personal reasons.

The craziest part is after being one of the worst defensive teams in the NBA last season, new head coach Wes Unseld Jr. has this team ranked in the top-five in the league in defensive rating so far.

There's still a lot of basketball to be played this year, but I don't see why Washington can't maintain this hot start and stay in the playoff picture.
Yash Matange (@yashmatange2694): Despite the loss in Miami, which is now three straight for the Wizards, I believe they are a playoff team.

They might not go too far in the postseason but I believe they could make it to the playoffs by avoiding the Play-In Tournament. I see them finishing behind the Heat, Nets, Bulls, Bucks and maybe the Celtics or Hawks (whichever makes the better recovery after their rough start) in the East standings.

Their depth, acquired as a result of the Westbrook trade this past offseason, is a huge reason why they have done so well. Players from that trade like Harrell (bringing it every night off the bench), Kuzma (high-volume rebounding, small-ball big), Dinwiddie (good complementary guard to Beal), Caldwell-Pope (3-and-D wing) and Aaron Holiday (bench guard) have all played key roles in the team's games so far, especially the wins.
Why I believe the Wizards can carry this form all through the regular season is the play of Beal. While the 2021 All-NBA player is scoring 23.4 (through 11 games) on shooting splits of 41.1 percent from the field and 28.0 from beyond the arc, it's nowhere close to his level from last year when he averaged a near league-high 31.3 points on 48.5 percent shooting from the field and 34.9 percent from beyond the arc.

His slump (if you want to call it that) is on track with a few other superstars finding their way with the new ball and officiating rules. So, I see him bouncing back.

Also, I have to give a huge shoutout to Unseld Jr., a coach with 16 years of experience as an assistant, for making this team with tremendous depth click. Of course, GM Tommy Shepherd as well. Having said that, with the East being top-heavy, I don't see them going too far in the postseason. If everything falls their way in a best-case scenario, it could be a Conference Semifinals appearance. Otherwise, I see them bowing out in the first round.
Nick Metallinos (@NickMetallinos): It’s still early in the season, and I will wait until I’ve seen more to make a final call, but the Wizards' loss to the Heat is another example of coming up short against championship level opponents in 2021-22. I think they're a playoff team, but they won't make any noise when they get there.

As mentioned in the intro, two of the team’s five losses have been against the Nets and Heat, two certified powerhouses in the East.

However, they will continue to be steady throughout the regular season because they are getting contributions evenly from their roster. From Beal to Kuzma to Dinwiddie, they’re getting solid offensive numbers, but once the postseason begins they’re going to need more firepower than that.

Their defense is currently fourth-best in the league in terms of defensive rating, but they will definitely need more offense when teams inevitably focus on slowing down Beal on the road to the playoffs.