Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers from Northwest University’s medical school in Chicago believe a mutation in the coronavirus has made it considerably more contagious.

Infection disease special Egon Ozer of the Feinberg School of Medicine has said that upon examining the genetic structure of coronavirus samples, it was evident there was a change in one of the amino acids that allowed a spike in protein on the surface of the virus.

In layman’s terms, this change has allowed the virus to penetrate nearby cells easier, and as a result the virus can replicate faster and be passed on easier.

New research from the University of Colorado Boulder has offered some of the clearest evidence to date showing how the gut microbiome produces a metabolite that, over time, contributes to age-related declines in cardiovascular health.

High blood levels of trimethylamine-N-Oxide (TMAO), a metabolic byproduct of digestion, have been strongly linked to negative cardiovascular health. When one eats red meat, eggs or other animal proteins, certain types of gut bacteria feed on chemicals in those foods and produce TMA, or trimethylamine, which is then turned into TMAO in the liver.

A number of studies have linked TMAO to heart disease, however, until now it hasn’t been clear exactly how this metabolite causes cardiovascular damage. A robust new study, published in the journal Hypertension, is offering one of the first thorough mechanistic investigations illustrating how TMAO damages the cardiovascular system.

A person in Florida has been infected with a rare and usually deadly brain-eating amoeba, according to health officials.

The Florida Department of Health announced Friday that one patient in Hillsborough County has been infected with Naegleria fowleri, a water-borne, microscopic single-celled amoeba that attacks the brain.

“Infections can happen when contaminated water enters the body through the nose,” the health department said.

Rats fed a sugar syrup early in life develop an unusual gut microbiome that seems to worsen the rodents’ memories by changing the way their brains work.

The first black US Drone company has created a new drone training program to help people re-tool their careers in a post-Covid-19 world.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine have found types of cells in the brain that are most susceptible to inherited genetic variants linked to schizophrenia. As a result, their work reveals a shortlist of the variants that most likely impact disease risk.

Details of the scientists’ analysis, published April 17, 2020, in Genome Research, compared human genetic studies with data on how DNA is folded in mouse cells, including a diversity of brain cells.

“Every common disease has a major genetic component at its root,” says Andrew McCallion, Ph.D., professor of genetic medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Studying genomes across human populations helps us find the genetic landmarks that are linked to disease, but these often don’t give us the biological insight that pinpoints the cells in which that variation acts to impact disease risk.”

Summary: Iron accumulation in the brain’s neocortex has been linked to cognitive decline in people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Source: RSNA

Researchers using MRI have found that iron accumulation in the outer layer of the brain is associated with cognitive deterioration in people with Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study published in the journal Radiology.

But for every insight into COVID-19, more questions emerge and others linger. That is how science works. To mark six months since the world first learnt about the disease responsible for the pandemic, Nature runs through some of the key questions that researchers still don’t have answers to.

From immunity to the role of genetics, Nature looks at five pressing questions about COVID-19 that researchers are tackling. Six months into the outbreak, Nature looks at the pressing questions that researchers are tackling.

The rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria presents an ominous threat for humankind, with these so-called superbugs projected to kill millions of people annually by midway through the century. Scientists at the University of Exeter have developed a promising technique that could help us keep these crafty foes in check, by quickly illuminating bacteria when antibiotics have had the desired effect.

Such is the seriousness of superbug dilemma that one UK government report recently found they could kill 10 million people a year by 2050 unless some new solutions are found. These are bacteria that have evolved to become resistant to our very best drugs, and they could possibly cast the world back into the dark ages of medicine if they are simply left to do their thing.

While this resistance occurs naturally as bacteria evolve, one of the major contributing factors to its acceleration is the overuse of antibiotics. Prescribing antibiotics for humans and having them take drugs either for the wrong condition or consume more than they need, creates more opportunities for the bacteria to evolve, ramping up the overall trend.