From vaccines being tested around the world to a Nobel prize-winning biophysicist predicting recovery, here are some good updates on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Terahertz (THz) waves fall between microwave and infrared radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum, oscillating at frequencies of between 100 billion and 30 trillion cycles per second. These waves are prized for their distinctive properties: they can penetrate paper, clothing, wood and walls, as well as detect air pollution. THz sources could revolutionize security and medical imaging systems. What’s more, their ability to carry vast quantities of data could hold the key to faster wireless communications.
THz waves are a type of non-ionizing radiation, meaning they pose no risk to human health. The technology is already used in some airports to scan passengers and detect dangerous objects and substances.
Despite holding great promise, THz waves are not widely used because they are costly and cumbersome to generate. But new technology developed by researchers at EPFL could change all that. The team at the Power and Wide-band-gap Electronics Research Laboratory (POWERlab), led by Prof. Elison Matioli, built a nanodevice that can generate extremely high-power signals in just a few picoseconds, or one trillionth of a second, which produces high-power THz waves.
There are no US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs specifically for the treatment of patients with COVID-19. At present clinical management includes infection prevention and control measures and supportive care, including supplementary oxygen and mechanical ventilatory support when indicated. An array of drugs approved for other indications as well as several investigational drugs are being studied in several hundred clinical trials that are underway across the globe. The purpose of this document is to provide information on two of the approved drugs (chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine) and one of the investigational agents (remdesivir) currently in use in the United States.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a virus (more specifically, a coronavirus) identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, China.
The longfin inshore squid can edit the RNA inside its nerve cells, Wired reports, meaning that it can drastically alter the behavior of its biological machinery as needed — perhaps to help the animal rapidly adapt to new environments. It’s a bizarre discovery, and one that could potentially lead to better genetic treatments for humans.
Neat Trick
Researchers from the Marine Biological Laboratory found that the squid alters the RNA within its axons instead of the DNA within its nuclei, according to research published Monday in the journal Nucleic Acids Research. Thus far, it’s the only animal known to do so.
O,.,o.
A passenger who died on a bus in China has tested positive for a completely different virus than COVID-19 — one more fatal that often produces very similar symptoms, according to state-run media.
The unidentified victim from Yunnan province died while on a chartered bus heading to his workplace in Shandong province, the state-run Global Times announced in a tweet Monday.
Continue reading “Man who died on bus in China tests positive for ‘hantavirus’” »
;-; They say now it could be a bioweapon possibly like the chimera virus that is why it spread so fast. Many weird reports from god having a battle with the borg to even an alien entity in London but rationally this was a bioweapon as it spread so fast and evolved so fast. Still undecided the origin bit it seems patient zero was in china originally from a bat.
The COVID-19 coronavirus may be a chimera created from the presence of two pre-existing distinct viruses.
For the first time, scientists have reprogrammed the stem cells of a 114-year-old woman, the oldest donor to date.
After first transforming cells from her blood sample into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), the researchers then generated mesenchymal stem cells, which help to maintain and repair tissues like bone, cartilage and fat.
“We set out to answer a big question: Can you reprogram cells this old?” says stem cell biologist Evan Snyder at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in California.
A Nobel Prize winning biology professor has provided a bit of good news amidst the coronavirus gloom; the US may see a downturn in new cases sooner than some models have predicted.
Michael Levitt, a Stanford University biology professor and a 2013 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, said his models predict the virus is not likely to dwindle on for months or years and – most importantly – is not likely to cause millions of deaths.
Mr Levitt previously predicted – correctly – when China would experience and endure the worst of its coronavirus crisis.
