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Category: health – Page 328

Putting the Tesla HEPA Filter and Bioweapon Defense Mode to the Test

Circa 2016

Air pollution has a significant and pervasive impact on public health. According to the World Health Organization, it is now considered “the world’s largest single environmental health risk,” with more than three million people dying every year as a result. This is more than twice the number of people that die in vehicle accidents each year.

Health and safety are important to us. Just as we’ve designed Model S and Model X to avoid collisions or protect their occupants when one happens, we felt compelled to protect them against the statistically more relevant hazard of air pollution*. Inspired by the air filtration systems used in hospitals, clean rooms, and the space industry, we developed a HEPA filtration system capable of stripping the outside air of pollen, bacteria, and pollution before they enter the cabin and systematically scrubbing the air inside the cabin to eliminate any trace of these particles. The end result is a filtration system hundreds of times more efficient than standard automotive filters, capable of providing the driver and her passengers with the best possible cabin air quality no matter what is happening in the environment around them.

The air filtration system was put to the test in real-world environments from California freeways during rush hour, to smelly marshes, landfills, and cow pastures in the central valley of California, to major cities in China. We wanted to ensure that it captured fine particulate matter and gaseous pollutants, as well as bacteria, viruses, pollen and mold spores.

Immunization against Potential Biological Warfare Agents

Circa 2000

The intentional release of biological agents by belligerents or terrorists is a possibility that has recently attracted increased attention. Law enforcement agencies, military planners, public health officials, and clinicians are gaining an increasing awareness of this potential threat. From a military perspective, an important component of the protective pre-exposure armamentarium against this threat is immunization. In addition, certain vaccines are an accepted component of postexposure prophylaxis against potential bioterrorist threat agents. These vaccines might, therefore, be used to respond to a terrorist attack against civilians. We review the development of vaccines against 10 of the most credible biological threats.

Clinical trials may begin next week in New York for coronavirus treatments: Health official

Officials are working out final details in plans to begin clinical trials next week for a malaria drug combination that appears to hold some promise for confronting the coronavirus pandemic.

New York state Health Department officials are making arrangements to determine what patients at which hospitals will be allowed to participate in trials with hydroxychloroquine, Zithromax and chloroquine, a senior official at the department with knowledge of the plan told ABC News. The bulk of the patients are expected to be in the New York City metro area because the region has the biggest cluster of cases.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced earlier this week that he was eager to get the trials started. By Tuesday, the drugs were in New York and officials were working to identify who could participate.

The medications, originally developed to fight malaria, have raised hope among many that they could aid in treating coronavirus. The core of the medical therapy is chloroquine, closely related to hydroxychloroquine, which has been used to treat malaria since 1944. It can be given before exposure to malaria to prevent infection, and it can also be given as treatment afterward. It’s also currently used to treat autoimmune diseases like lupus. Doctors are adding the antibiotic Zithromax to the cocktail.

Former Taiwan Premier Offers Lessons on How the U.S. Should Deal With COVID-19

The last point is that Taiwan has a very good healthcare system, especially compared with the U.S. Taiwan’s health insurance system is affordable for the general public, which means everyone can get a medical examination or hospital treatment when necessary. It is also a scientific one: The health insurance system collects personal data and medical records, so hospitals and doctors can make good judgments about every patient’s condition. The quality of the national health system is quite important in the healing of patients and the containment of coronavirus.

Taiwan’s coronavirus response so far has been exemplary. Other nations, especially the U.S., should take note, says former Taiwan Premier Jiang Yi-huah.

UK Plans to Roll Out 15-Minute Home Coronavirus Test Kits This Week

Healthcare professionals and infectious disease experts around the world agree that extensive testing is the best way to combat coronavirus. However, the extreme shortage of COVID-19 testing kits has made that impossible. The Public Health England (PHE) just announced it was planning to begin rolling out at-home COVID-19 testing kits in the coming days. These tests could tell people if they’ve been infected with COVID-19 in as little as 15 minutes.

Current coronavirus testing is time-consuming and expensive because it requires healthcare practitioners to collect samples from the patient and have them processed in a laboratory. The test promised by the UK government would look like a pregnancy test and needs just a drop of blood to diagnose the individual.

Several companies are working on at-home COVID-19 tests, but PHE didn’t say which test it planned to deploy. According to PHE, the unnamed test takes 15 minutes to work, and it will be available at pharmacies and online via retailers like Amazon. The test will detect antibodies in the user’s blood that indicate they have been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It works with both Immunoglobulin M and Immunoglobulin G (IgM and IGG) type antibodies. IgM peaks early in an infection and IgG remains even after the infection has subsided.

Mapping the cannabis genome to improve crops and health

:ooooo.

Unlocking the full potential of cannabis for agriculture and human health will require a co-ordinated scientific effort to assemble and map the cannabis genome, says a just-published international study led by University of Saskatchewan researchers.

In a major statistical analysis of existing data and studies published in the Annual Review of Plant Biology, the authors conclude there are large gaps in the scientific knowledge of this high-demand, multi-purpose crop.

“Considering the importance of genomics in the development of any crop, this analysis underlines the need for a co-ordinated effort to quantify the genetic and biochemical diversity of this species,” the authors state.

Biowarfare Experts On Coronavirus (COVID19)

Excellent interview:

Dr. Gerald Parker Associate Dean for Global One Health at Texas A&M and Professor Andrew S Natsios Executive Professor at The Bush School and Director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs have a sit down with Patrick Bet-David about the Coronavirus Pandemic. About our guests Dr. Gerald Parker https://bit.ly/2IZPRAl Professor Andrew S. Natsios https://bit.ly/2UkWBy6

Tweet your thoughts to PBD https://www.twitter.com/patrickbetdavid

PBD Instagram: /redirect?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fpatrickbetdavid%2F&v=lWOYj8hjjjM&redir_token=F900JIQb371zn1RNf9UmzkpNQ3d8MTU4NTI2NjEzMEAxNTg1MTc5NzMw&event=video_description

PBD Twitter: https://twitter.com/patrickbetdavid

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A nanoscale device to generate high-power terahertz waves

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.

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