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Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 1517

May 3, 2020

These Bacteria-Eating Sewer Viruses are Saving Lives

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food

O,.o circa 2018.


The world discovered phages before antibiotics, but these lowly sewer viruses are getting renewed attention in the…

May 3, 2020

Purine Repressing Probiotic Might Halt COVID-19, says Korean Researchers

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food

O,.o I used vitamin c and a probiotic it seemed to work well. I also had a flu shot for the year. Besides eating well and staying healthy not much is needed. It is sorta like the flu as much as I can see. I am no doctor but that worked for me.


Korean scientists claim that a lactic acid bacteria from sea buckthorn berries, could potentially inhibit the proliferation of SARS-CoV-2 by repressing purine activation.

Lactobacillus species in the gut microbiota have been found to block pro-inflammatory cytokines to inhibit harmful bacteria like Helicobacter pylori. While studying similar mechanisms against bladder inflammation (cystitis) causing E. coli, a team led by Professor Hana Yoon of Ewha Womans University Medical Center in Seoul, found abundant amounts of Lactobacillus gasseri present in the fermented extracts of sea buckthorn berries.

Continue reading “Purine Repressing Probiotic Might Halt COVID-19, says Korean Researchers” »

May 3, 2020

Fact check: COVID-19 UV light treatment is being studied — not yet in use — in Los Angeles

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Researchers are working on a medical device that uses UV-A as a potential treatment for COVID-19 patients. But a study is in early stages.

May 3, 2020

Deforestation and fires in the Amazon rainforest could bring about the next pandemic

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

The coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, swept the world fast and furiously — and we’re barely starting to experience the first wave of the pandemic. However, to biologists and virologists, the sudden appearance of the coronavirus wasn’t surprising. It is simply a natural consequence of humans disturbing ecosystems in equilibrium and wildlife trade, something that we’ve done at an increasing rate with each passing decade.

Pandemics such as COVID-19 might become increasingly frequent as humans continue unabated on their course to expand their range at the expense of wildlife.

High rates of deforestation in Asia over the last four decades have prompted many scientists to sound the alarm, warning the world of the risk of dangerous microorganisms migrating to humans.

May 3, 2020

Cyber-spies seek coronavirus vaccine secrets

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

An expert warns there is “nothing more valuable” in the world today than a way to prevent the disease.

May 3, 2020

Virus vaccine ‘could be ready by end of the year’

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

AstraZeneca will make and distribute Oxford University’s coronavirus vaccine if it proves effective.

May 3, 2020

Chinese firm ‘ready to mass produce’ experimental coronavirus vaccine

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

A Chinese pharmaceutical company carrying out human trials for a coronavirus vaccine says it’s ready to start producing its product on a mass scale.

May 3, 2020

DARPA Is Creating a Travel Adapter That Will Be Implanted in Soldiers’ Bodies

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, food, military

‘Through advances in medical devices and synthetic biology, DARPA’s new Advanced Acclimation and Protection Tool for Environmental Readiness (ADAPTER) program aims to develop a travel adapter for the human body, an implantable or ingestible bioelectronic carrier that can provide warfighters control over their own physiology. The integrated system will be designed to entrain the sleep cycle – either to a new time zone or back to a normal sleep pattern after night missions – and eliminate bacteria that cause traveler’s diarrhea after ingestion of contaminated food and water,’ reads a DARPA statement on the new device.”


The adapter is meant to regulate sleep patterns and protect against diarrhea.

May 3, 2020

There’s Plenty More Room at the Bottom: Beyond Nanotech to Femtotech

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, engineering, nanotechnology


Not long ago nanotechnology was a fringe topic; now it’s a flourishing engineering field, and fairly mainstream. For example, while writing this article, I happened to receive an email advertisement for the “Second World Conference on Nanomedicine and Drug Delivery,” in Kerala, India. It wasn’t so long ago that nanomedicine seemed merely a flicker in the eyes of Robert Freitas and a few other visionaries!

But nano is not as small as the world goes. A nanometer is 10−9 meters – the scale of atoms and molecules. A water molecule is a bit less than one nanometer long, and a germ is around a thousand nanometers across. On the other hand, a proton has a diameter of a couple femtometers – where a femtometer, at 10−15 meters, makes a nanometer seem positively gargantuan. Now that the viability of nanotech is widely accepted (in spite of some ongoing heated debates about the details), it’s time to ask: what about femtotech? Picotech or other technologies at the scales between nano and femto seem relatively uninteresting, because we don’t know any basic constituents of matter that exist at those scales. But femtotech, based on engineering structures from subatomic particles, makes perfect conceptual sense, though it’s certainly difficult given current technology.

The nanotech field was arguably launched by Richard Feynman’s 1959 talk “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom.” As Feynman wrote there.

May 3, 2020

Pompeo: ‘Enormous Evidence’ Links Virus to China Lab

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said “enormous evidence” shows the novel coronavirus outbreak began in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, but didn’t provide any proof for his claims.

“I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan,” Pompeo said on ABC’s “This Week.” “These are not the first times that we’ve had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab.”

Pompeo stopped short of saying the virus was man-made, noting that he agreed with a report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that ruled out genetic modification or it having been man-made.