Laurie Garrett, the prophet of this pandemic, expects years of death and “collective rage.”

US police say Bing Liu was shot dead by his lover, but conspiracy theorists have other ideas.

Indeed, the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on research around the globe, shuttering laboratories, aborting field projects, and costing scientists months—if not years—of work. Even as labs contemplate reopening—if and when federal and local governments ease lockdown restrictions—the challenges will be enormous. Most will have to operate with just a few individuals at a time, working in shifts. All large gatherings, including lab meetings and lectures, are likely to be prohibited. And there will be stark differences in strategy between fields—and sometimes even within the same building. At the same time, many institutions are still trying to figure out how and whether to test employees for SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus causing the current pandemic, and what to do if infections resurge.

Institutions struggle with—and differ on—the best way to restart science.

An international research team has identified the mechanism behind one of science’s most enduring mysteries: what makes the 100-year-old tuberculosis (TB) vaccine so effective at preventing newborn deaths from diseases other than TB?

The ability of Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)—one of the oldest, safest and cheapest vaccines available—to provide protection to newborns beyond its intended purpose of fighting off TB has been known since at least the 1940s, but until now no one has been able to explain why or show how it works.

In a new study, published today in Science Translational Medicine, researchers reveal how they identified a dramatic and rapid increase in neutrophils— white blood cells that patrol the body and destroy invading bacterial pathogens—in mice and babies within three days of BCG vaccination.

“Vaccines have to be given a month or two before infection to provide protection,” McLellan said in the statement. “With antibody therapies, you’re directly giving somebody the protective antibodies and so, immediately after treatment, they should be protected.”

“The antibodies could also be used to treat somebody who is already sick to lessen the severity of the disease,” McLellan added.

“There is still a lot of work to do to try to bring this into the clinic,” Xavier Saelens, a molecular virologist at Ghent University in Belgium and co-author, told the Times. “If it works, llama Winter deserves a statue.”