While the world was distracted with the rampant spread of a novel coronavirus, 2020 also witnessed an explosion in another deadly pathogen that could pose a threat to global public health.
H5N8, a subtype of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV), was identified decades ago, but during 2020 a series of emerging and ongoing H5N8 outbreaks in avian populations across dozens of countries have led to the death or slaughter of millions of birds worldwide.
“The affected geographic regions have been expanding continuously, and at least 46 countries have reported highly pathogenic H5N8 AIV outbreaks,” virus researchers Weifeng Shi and George F. Gao write in a new perspective article in Science, warning of the dangers of H5N8 if we don’t closely monitor and contain this worrisome trend.
Artificial intelligence tool can be used for long-term tracking and management of chronic gastrointestinal ailments.
An artificial intelligence tool under development at Duke University can be added to the standard toilet to help analyze patients’ stool and give gastroenterologists the information they need to provide appropriate treatment, according to research that was selected for presentation at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2021. The new technology could assist in managing chronic gastrointestinal issues such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
“Typically, gastroenterologists have to rely on patient self-reported information about their stool to help determine the cause of their gastrointestinal health issues, which can be very unreliable,” said Deborah Fisher, MD, one of the lead authors on the study and associate professor of medicine at Duke University Durham, North Carolina. “Patients often can’t remember what their stool looks like or how often they have a bowel movement, which is part of the standard monitoring process. The Smart Toilet technology will allow us to gather the long-term information needed to make a more accurate and timely diagnosis of chronic gastrointestinal problems.”
The continuing miniaturization of electronics is opening up some exciting possibilities when it comes to what we might place in our bodies to monitor and improve our health. Engineers at Columbia University have demonstrated an extreme version of this technology, developing the smallest single-chip system ever created, which could be implanted with a hypodermic needle to measure temperature inside the body, and possibly much more.
From ladybug-sized implants that track oxygen levels in deep body tissues to tiny “neural dust” sensors that monitor nerve signals in real time, scientists are making big steps when it comes to the functionality of tiny electronic devices. The implant developed by the Columbia Engineers breaks new ground as the world’s smallest single-chip system, which is a completely functional electronic circuit with a total volume of less than 0.1 mm3.
That makes it as small as a dust mite, and only visible under a microscope. The tiny chip required some outside-the-box thinking to make, particularly when it comes to the way it communicates and is powered.
If you’ve been to your local beach, you may have noticed the wind tossing around litter such as an empty potato chip bag or a plastic straw. These plastics often make their way into the ocean, affecting not only marine life and the environment but also threatening food safety and human health.
Eventually, many of these plastics break down into microscopic sizes, making it hard for scientists to quantify and measure them. Researchers call these incredibly small fragments nanoplastics and microplastics because they are not visible to the naked eye. Now, in a multiorganizational effort led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), researchers are turning to a lower part of the food chain to solve this problem.
The researchers have developed a novel method that uses a filter-feeding marine species to collect these tiny plastics from ocean water. The team published its findings as a proof-of-principle study in the scientific journal Microplastics and Nanoplastics.
The U.S. Army teased footage of its new night-vision goggles — and it’s straight out of an RPG video game. This is the first-person POV of a soldier participating in a live training exercise.
Scientists said the findings indicated that the virus likely recently jumped from animals to humans, but stressed that additional studies are necessary.
Scientists have reportedly discovered a new kind of coronavirus that is believed to have originated in dogs – in what may be the eighth unique form of the bug known to cause disease in humans.
Researchers in a study published in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal said their findings from patients hospitalized with pneumonia in 2017–2018 underscored the public health threat of animal coronaviruses, Reuters reported.
They said they had tested nasal swab samples taken from 301 pneumonia patients at a hospital in the east Malaysian state of Sarawak.
Pediatrician, Medical Innovator, Educator — Dr. Jamie Wells, MD, FAAP — Director, Research Science Institute (RSI), Center for Excellence in Education, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) — Professor, Drexel University School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems.
Dr. Jamie L. Wells, MD, FAAP, is an Adjunct Professor at Drexel University’s School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, where she has been involved in helping to spearhead the nation’s first-degree program focused on pediatric engineering, innovation, and medical advancement.
Dr. Wells is an award-winning Board-certified pediatrician with many years of experience caring for patients. With her BA with Honors from Yale, and her MD from Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, PA, she has served as a Clinical Instructor/Attending at NYU Langone, Mt. Sinai-Beth Israel and St. Vincent’s Medical Centers in Manhattan.
Dr. Wells is on the leadership council of the Wistar Institute (the USA’s first independent biomedical research facility and certified cancer center), Ambassador of the Healthcare Global Blockchain Business Council, was a grant reviewer for the Susan G. Komen Community Grants Program, judged both the local, district and world robotics championships for Dean Kamen’s F.I.R.S.T. (For Inspiration & Recognition of Science & Technology) nonprofit, as well as the Miss America’s Outstanding Teen scholarship competition (for which she is now a member of its Board of Directors), and is the Chair of the Yale Alumni Health Network (YAHN).
They are linked to cancer, birth defects, liver disease, thyroid disease, plummeting sperm counts and a range of other serious health problems.
The peer-reviewed study, published on Thursday in the Environmental Science and Technology journal, found PFAS at levels in milk ranging from 50 parts per trillion (ppt) to more than 1850ppt.
Toxic chemicals known as PFAS found in all 50 samples tested at levels nearly 2000 times what is considered safe in drinking water.
“Gene editing offers unique opportunities to make food production more sustainable and to further improve the quality, but also the safety, of food. With the help of these new molecular tools, more robust plants can be developed that deliver high yields for high-quality nutrition, even with less fertiliser,” says co-author Stephan Clemens, Professor of Plant Physiology at the University of Bayreuth and founding Dean of the new Faculty of Life Sciences: Food, Nutrition & Health on the Kulmbach campus.
For more sustainability on a global level, EU legislation should be changed to allow the use of gene editing in organic farming. This is what an international research team involving the Universities of Bayreuth and Göttingen demands in a paper published in the journal “Trends in Plant Science”.
In May 2020, the EU Commission presented its “Farm-to-Fork” strategy, which is part of the “European Green Deal”. The aim is to make European agriculture and its food system more sustainable. In particular, the proportion of organic farming in the EU’s total agricultural land is to be increased to 25 percent by 2030. However, if current EU legislation remains in place, this increase will by no means guarantee more sustainability, as the current study by scientists from Bayreuth, Göttingen, Düsseldorf, Heidelberg, Wageningen, Alnarp, and Berkeley shows.
