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Additionally, some reports have suggested that then-President Woodrow Wilson downplayed the virus, but that is a “wrong and a false trope of popular history,” Markel said. Wilson, who would later contract the virus, was organizing and commanding the U.S. effort in World War I and once the war ended, he sailed for Paris, where he stayed until April of 1919 organizing a peace treaty and the League of Nations, Markel said.

“The federal government played a very small role in American public health during that era. It was primarily a city and state role and those agencies were hardly downplaying it,” he said.

Unlike today, there was no CDC or national public health department. The Food and Drug Administration existed but consisted of a very small group of men. Additionally, there were no antibiotics, intensive care units, ventilators, IV fluids or vaccines. “You got a bed or maybe nursing care,” Markel said.

From the Science of Beer to learning about the benefits of GMOs; Saskatchewan is celebrating science with exciting online events and activities that showcase the province’s bioscience sector. Ag-West Bio, Saskatchewan’s bioscience industry association, coordinates events with the help of a local committee.

Ag-West Bio President and CEO Karen Churchill says amid the COVID-19 pandemic, biotechnology is in the spotlight. “Saskatchewan organizations in our research cluster have joined the global effort to develop vaccines as well as preventative and treatment solutions to deal with the virus. As a community, we should take note of the achievements of our local scientists and companies. Global Biotech Week gives us an opportunity to give them a (virtual) pat on the back!”

The Government of Saskatchewan and the Cities of Regina and Saskatoon have proclaimed September 28 to October 4 as Global Biotech Week.

Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, Data Science Impacting the Pharmaceutical Industry, finds that data science tools are promising technologies transforming drug discovery costs, speed, and efficiency. When combined with other emerging tech areas, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies move…


Pharmaceutical companies and hospitals are adopting data science rapidly, and its application is going to be established in all branches of healthcare

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 29, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, Data Science Impacting the Pharmaceutical Industry, finds that data science tools are promising technologies transforming drug discovery costs, speed, and efficiency. When combined with other emerging tech areas, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies move to the next phase of advancements. Hence, they are expected to witness adoption by pharma and biotech companies in the next four to five years. Further, with the COVID-19 pandemic, AI and machine learning (ML) can be used for drug research and clinical trials against the coronavirus to screen large databases and perform docking studies to identify existing potential drugs or design new drugs using advanced learning algorithms.

For further information on this analysis, please visit: http://frost.ly/4l2.

WOODS HOLE, Mass. — The dialogue between neurons is of critical importance for all nervous system activities, from breathing to sensing, thinking to running. Yet neuronal communication is so fast, and at such a small scale, that it is exceedingly difficult to explain precisely how it occurs. A preliminary observation in the Neurobiology course at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), enabled by a custom imaging system, has led to a clear understanding of how neurons communicate with each other by modulating the “tone” of their signal, which previously had eluded the field. The report, led by Grant F. Kusick and Shigeki Watanabe of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, is published this week in Nature Neuroscience.

In 2016 Watanabe, then on the Neurobiology course faculty, introduced students to the debate over how many synaptic vesicles can fuse in response to one action potential (see this 2-minute video for a quick brush-up on neurotransmission). To probe this controversy, they used a “zap-and-freeze” imaging technology conceived by co-authors M. Wayne Davis, Watanabe and Erik Jorgensen, and built by Leica for testing in the Neurobiology course. They zapped a neuron with electricity to induce an action potential, then quickly froze the neuron and took an image. They saw multiple vesicles fusing at once at many synapses, the first novel finding of this Nature Neuroscience report.

But there was more. Back at Johns Hopkins, Kusick and Watanabe decided to walk through the neurotransmission process with zap-and-freeze, taking images every 3 milliseconds after the action potential. That’s when they found an answer to an even larger question — how do neurons change the tone of their neurotransmission signal?

It doesn’t appear staff or patient information was compromised.


Health care provider Universal Health Services, one of the largest chains in the US, has been hit by an apparent ransomware attack, TechCrunch reported. UHS facilities in California, Florida, North Dakota, Arizona, and other locations began noticing problems early Sunday, with some locations reporting locked computers and phone systems.

Some UHS hospitals had to use pen and paper to file patient information as a result, according to NBC News.

The hospital system, which has more than 400 locations in the US and the UK, said in a statement on Monday that its IT network across several facilities was offline “due to an IT security issue.” No patient or employee data appears to have been compromised, according to the statement, which did not mention malware or ransomware.

SLAC invention uses terahertz radiation to power a miniscule copper accelerator structure.

Particle accelerators generate high-energy beams of electrons, protons and ions for a wide range of applications, including particle colliders that shed light on nature’s subatomic components, X-ray lasers that film atoms and molecules during chemical reactions and medical devices for treating cancer.

As a rule of thumb, the longer the accelerator, the more powerful it is. Now, a team led by scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has invented a new type of accelerator structure that delivers a 10 times larger energy gain over a given distance than conventional ones. This could make accelerators used for a given application 10 times shorter.

Researchers identified five unapproved drugs in dangerous combinations and doses in over-the-counter cognitive enhancement drugs. Side effects of the unapproved drugs include increases and decreases in blood pressure, agitation, and sedation.approved drugs in dangerous combinations and doses in over-the-counter cognitive enhancement drugs. Side effects of the unapproved drugs include increases and decreases in blood pressure, agitation, and sedation.approved drugs in dangerous combinations and doses in over-the-counter cognitive enhancement drugs. Side effects of the unapproved drugs include increases and decreases in blood pressure, agitation, and sedation.