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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,241

Two Genetic Regions Linked with Severe COVID-19

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It’s not yet clear why some people infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, get really sick, while others have only mild symptoms. There’s some evidence that chronic health conditions—such as hypertension and diabetes can play a role, and scientists know that people’s genes can influence how their bodies react to other viruses. In a preprint posted to medRxiv on June 2, researchers describe a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of from 1,610 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and 2,205 healthy controls. The authors identified variants in two regions—the locus that encodes blood type and a multi-gene cluster on chromosome 3—that were linked to respiratory failure during SARS-CoV-2 infection.

In a genome-wide association study, variants in both the ABO blood group locus and a cluster of genes on human chromosome 3 are more common among COVID-19 patients with respiratory failure than in the general population.

Lab-grown sperm could let infertile men have gene-edited children

The first reliable way of isolating sperm stem cells from the testes and growing them outside the body could help infertile men have genetic children of their own.

A few teams have claimed to have isolated sperm stem cells before, but haven’t been able to repeat the results. “The general feeling is that there is no reliable method,” says Miles Wilkinson at the University of California, San Diego.

The Pandemic Has Accelerated Demands for a More Skilled Work Force

In the coronavirus economy, companies are adopting more automation, as they seek to cut costs and increase efficiency. There is debate about which jobs are most at risk and how soon. But climbing up the skills ladder is the best way to stay ahead of the automation wave.

Even groups that regularly disagree on labor issues said there should be significant public investment in programs that can upgrade the skills of American workers.

Regeneron Stock Hits Another Record High On Coronavirus Treatment Potential

Regeneron rose as much as 2.4% in the stock market today, touching a record high of 655.93. Shares seesawed in a small range Thursday before ending the day up a small fraction, at 640.63. The peak price topped Regeneron stock’s previous high of 653.53, touched on Tuesday. Regeneron is part of the IBD Biomed/Biotech group, which ranks No. 14 out of 197 industry groups tracked. The group is just off its all-time high, which it hit on June 23.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN) jumped to an all-time high Thursday, its second of the week, as analysts remain bullish on Regeneron stock due to its coronavirus treatment and other businesses.

Volcano That Spews Blue Lava? Mesmerising Sight of Indonesia’s Kawah Ijen Volcano at Night Will Leave You in Awe of Nature

According to a Paris-based photographer, Olivier Grunewald, it is when the sulphuric gases come out of the vents or cracks in the volcano and get in contact with the oxygen-rich atmospheric air that the light is produced. This is the reason behind the blue flame which flows down the slope as burning hot liquid sulphur, after the sulphur gases condense, giving the illusion of lava flowing after a volcanic eruption.

Since Grunewald has been documenting the rare phenomenon for over several years, he reportedly suggests sighting the blue lava during the night or after sunset. German videographer and volcano explorer Marc Szeglat filmed the sight of the eerie blue flames at night which is breathtaking enough to enter the bucket list of travel enthusiasts and photographers whenever the COVID-19 lockdown lifts.

Check out the video here:

Spinning chemicals for faster reactions

Cardiff University scientists have devised a new way of making reactions up to 70 times faster by using state-of-the-art equipment to spin chemicals around.

They found that efficient mixing within a chemical reaction could be achieved by spinning chemicals and catalysts around in a small tube, causing the reactions to happen much quicker.

The new findings could have a profound influence on the way that chemicals are made in a wide variety of industries, from drug development to agriculture and fragrances.

Self-Powered Tiny Liquid Metal Motors

Liquid metal machine can also be made as tiny motors. In fact, the micro- or even nanomotors that could run in a liquid environment is very important for a variety of practices such as serving as pipeline robot, soft machine, drug delivery, microfluidics system, etc. However, fabrication of such tiny motors is generally rather time and cost consumptive and has been a tough issue due to the involvement of too many complicated procedures and tools. This lab had discovered a straightforward injectable way for spontaneously generating autonomously running soft motors in large quantity Yao et al (Injectable spontaneous generation of tremendous self-fuelled liquid metal droplet motors in a moment, 2015 [ ]). It was demonstrated that injecting the GaIn alloy pre-fuelled with aluminum into electrolyte would automatically split in seconds into tremendous droplet motors swiftly running here and there. The driving force originated from the galvanic cell reaction among alloy, aluminum, and surrounding electrolyte, which offers interior electricity and hydrogen gas as motion power. This finding opens the possibility to develop injectable tiny-robots, droplet machines, or microfluidic elements. It also raised important scientific issues regarding characterizing the complicated fluid mechanics stimulated by the quick running of the soft metal droplet and the gases it generated during the traveling. Our lab Yuan et al (Sci Bull 60:1203–1210, 2014 [ ]) made further efforts to disclose that the self-powered liquid metal motors takes interiorly driven macroscopic Brownian motion behavior. Such tiny motors in millimeter-scale move randomly at a velocity magnitude of centimeters per second in aqueous alkaline solution, well resembling the classical Brownian motion. However, unlike the existing phenomena where the particle motions were caused by collisions from the surrounding molecules, the random liquid metal motions are internally enabled and self-powered, along with the colliding among neighboring motors, the substrate, and the surrounding electrolyte molecules. This chapter illustrates the typical behaviors of the self-powered tiny liquid metal motors.

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