Many researchers from all around the world have joined forces to fight the ongoing coronavirus outbreak that very recently originated in Wuhan, China. As always, nanotechnology does have a solution for almost every problem we face, including now-struggling global health: a nanoparticle-based coronavirus vaccine was successfully developed.
“If a severe pandemic materializes, all of society could pay a heavy price for decades of failing to create a rational system of health care that works for all of us.”–Irwin Redlener.
Hemp seeds are small, brown seeds from the Cannabis sativa plant. They have a rich nutritional profile, with high concentrations of protein and healthful fatty acids. Wide-ranging research suggests that the seeds may reduce symptoms of specific ailments. Learn more about the benefits of hemp seeds here.
Posted in biotech/medical, food, genetics, health
Humans and all other living things have DNA, which contains hereditary information. The information in your DNA gives your cells instructions for producing proteins. Proteins drive important body functions, like digesting food, building cells, and moving your muscles.
Your DNA is the most unique and identifying factor about you—it helps determine what color your eyes are, how tall you are, and how likely you are to have certain health problems. Even so, over 99% of DNA sequences are the same among all people. It is the remaining 1% that explains much of what makes you, you!
DNA is arranged like two intertwined ropes, in a structure called a double helix (see figure 1). Each strand of DNA is made of four types of molecules, also called bases, attached to a sugar-phosphate backbone. The four bases are adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine ©, and thymine (T). The bases pair in a specific way across the two strands of the helix: adenine pairs with thymine, and cytosine pairs with guanine.
Posted in biotech/medical, business, economics, finance, government, health, policy, security
Talk being ahead of the curve;
Event 201 was a 3.5-hour pandemic tabletop exercise that simulated a series of dramatic, scenario-based facilitated discussions, confronting difficult, true-to-life dilemmas associated with response to a hypothetical, but scientifically plausible, pandemic. 15 global business, government, and public health leaders were players in the simulation exercise that highlighted unresolved real-world policy and economic issues that could be solved with sufficient political will, financial investment, and attention now and in the future.
The exercise consisted of pre-recorded news broadcasts, live “staff” briefings, and moderated discussions on specific topics. These issues were carefully designed in a compelling narrative that educated the participants and the audience.
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, World Economic Forum, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation jointly propose these recommendations.
Of the spread of COVID-19 aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and the subsequent relief of its Commanding Officer has highlighted the tension that exists between maintaining military readiness and the need to safeguard the health of members of the armed forces in the face of a pandemic.
The disease has been a feature of war for the vast majority of human history – from the plague that ravaged Athens early in the Peloponnesian War, killing the Athenian strategos Pericles; to the diseases that European settlers brought with them to the New World, devastating local populations; to the host of tropical diseases that caused appalling casualties in the China-Burma-India and Southwest Pacific theaters in World War II. The fact that we were surprised by the emergence, growth, and spread of COVID-19 reflects the false conceit of 21st century life that we have “conquered” disease.
In fact, pandemics are but one class of low-probability but high-impact contingencies that we could face in the coming years, including an earthquake or other natural disaster in a major urban area, regime change in an important state, and the collapse of financial markets leading to a global depression. When I served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning between 2006 and 2009, we explored a series of such “shocks” as well as the role the Defense Department could play in responding to them as a way of helping the Department’s leaders address such contingencies. During my time in the Pentagon, we also held a series of wargames with members of Congress and their staff, governors of several states and their cabinets, and the government of Mexico, to explore in depth the consequences of a pandemic. Much of what we found then resonates with what we are experiencing now.
Networks are at the heart of everything from communications systems to pandemics. Now researchers have found that a unique type of network also underlies the structures of critical cellular compartments known as membraneless organelles. These findings may provide key insights into the role of these structures in both disease and cellular operations.
“Prior to this study, we knew the basic physical principle by which these protein-rich compartments form — they condense from the cytoplasm into liquid droplets like dew on a blade of grass,” said David Sanders, a post-doctoral researcher in Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University. “But unlike dew drops, which are composed of a single component (water), cellular droplets are intimidatingly complex. Our work uncovers surprisingly simple principles that we think are universal to the assembly of liquid organelles, and opens new frontiers into studying their role in health and disease.”
Sanders is the lead author in an article in the journal Cell describing a blueprint for the assembly of these liquid structures, also called condensates. The researchers looked closely at two types of condensates, stress granules and processing bodies (“P-bodies”). In the Cell paper, researchers directed by Clifford Brangwynne, a professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, combined genetic engineering and live cell microscopy approaches to reveal the rules underlying the assembly and structure of stress granules, and why they remain distinct from their close relatives, P-bodies.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, aims to send human missions to Mars in the 2030s. But scientists are still trying to learn more about the potential cancer risks for astronauts due to radiation exposure. Cancer risk from galactic cosmic radiation exposure is considered a potential “showstopper” for a manned mission to Mars.
A team led by researchers at Colorado State University used a novel approach to test assumptions in a model used by NASA to predict these health risks. The NASA model predicts that astronauts will have more than a three percent risk of dying of cancer from the radiation exposures they will receive on a Mars mission. That level of risk exceeds what is considered acceptable.
The study, “Genomic mapping in outbred mice reveals overlap in genetic susceptibility for HZE ion- and gamma-ray-induced tumors,” was published April 15 in Science Advances.
A version of this story was first published by COVID-19 Waterblog. Read the original.
There has been quite some talk about SARS-CoV-2 shedding in faeces and what that might mean for the water industry. Here, Susan Petterson provides a snapshot of the current data.
As I see it, there are two aspects to this conversation: the first is a concern that sewage may contain infectious SARS-CoV-2 viruses; and the second relates to the more theoretical potential of using SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentration in sewage as a public health surveillance tool.
Editor’s note: The story has been updated.
Japan could see some 850,000 people seriously sickened by the coronavirus and almost half of them dying if no social distancing or other measures are followed, according to an expert estimate released Wednesday.
Japan has the world’s oldest population, which is a particular concern since COVID-19 can be especially serious and fatal in the elderly. And there are concerns that Japan’s government has done too little and acted too late to stave off high numbers of seriously ill patients.
