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To process information, photons must interact. However, these tiny packets of light want nothing to do with each other, each passing by without altering the other. Now, researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have coaxed photons into interacting with one another with unprecedented efficiency — a key advance toward realizing long-awaited quantum optics technologies for computing, communication and remote sensing.

The team, led by Yuping Huang, an associate professor of physics and director of the Center for Quantum Science and Engineering, brings us closer to that goal with a nano-scale chip that facilitates photon interactions with much higher efficiency than any previous system. The new method, reported as a memorandum in the Sept. 18 issue of Optica, works at very low energy levels, suggesting that it could be optimized to work at the level of individual photons — the holy grail for room-temperature quantum computing and secure quantum communication.

“We’re pushing the boundaries of physics and optical engineering in order to bring quantum and all-optical signal processing closer to reality,” said Huang.

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Can you be reinfected with Covid-19?

I’m skeptical as to whether reinfection is possible or not from Covid-19. However studies have shown that the virus lasts longer than 2 weeks within the human body:

10 days: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.05.

More than 2 weeks: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762452

37 days: https://www.thelancet.com/…/PIIS0140-6736(20)30566…/fulltext

We need to consider the possibility of faulty testing. As we learn more about Covid-19 we will develop better methods for testing. The other more likely scenario is something South Korean infectious disease experts stated, that the virus lies dormant within the human body and becomes active again.

Continue reading “Clinical presentation and virological assessment of hospitalized cases of coronavirus disease 2019 in a travel-associated transmission cluster” | >

Inadequate ventilator settings may cause overwhelming inflammatory responses associated with ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI) in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Here, we examined potential benefits of glutamine (GLN) on a two-hit model for VILI after acid aspiration-induced lung injury in rats. Rats were intratracheally challenged with hydrochloric acid as a first hit to induce lung inflammation, then randomly received intravenous GLN or lactated Ringer’s solution (vehicle control) thirty min before different ventilator strategies. Rats were then randomized to receive mechanical ventilation as a second hit with a high tidal volume (TV) of 15 mL/kg and zero positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) or a low TV of 6 mL/kg with PEEP of 5 cm H2O. We evaluated lung oxygenation, inflammation, mechanics, and histology. After ventilator use for 4 h, high TV resulted in greater lung injury physiologic and biologic indices. Compared with vehicle treated rats, GLN administration attenuated lung injury, with improved oxygenation and static compliance, and decreased respiratory elastance, lung edema, extended lung destruction (lung injury scores and lung histology), neutrophil recruitment in the lung, and cytokine production. Thus, GLN administration improved the physiologic and biologic profiles of this experimental model of VILI based on the two-hit theory.

Keywords: acid aspiration, ARDS, glutamine, ventilator-induced lung injury.

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a catastrophic syndrome among critically ill patients. One of its major causes is acid aspiration as an initial pneumonitis that may be complicated by subsequent bacterial pneumonia after inhaling low pH gastric fluid [1, 2, 3, 4]. Gastric fluid aspiration frequently occurs in trauma or critical patients with head trauma, alcohol or cerebrovascular accidents, and is also a complication of general anesthesia that occurs in 1 in 2000–3000 cases when anesthetics are used [3, 4].

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Okay now I agree that Hyroxychloroquine works. Ventilators have a mortality rate of 80% yet people keep trashing this drug, while people like that French doctor say it works.

Doctors at nursing home: “It’s actually going well. People are getting better,” Armstrong told NPR, adding that after just a handful of days, some of the 39 patients on the medication are showing signs of improvement.”

“Paid Professionals:

But scientists argue that relying on observational, uncontrolled evidence can be misleading and that the only way to truly prove a drug is working is through carefully controlled clinical trials. And, contrary to Armstrong’s assertion that hydroxychloroquine “has virtually no side effects,” it is known to have serious negative health impacts. That is why so many in the medical community worry about prescribing it without such proof.

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Featured Image Source: NASA

NASA has been highly dependent on booking Russian spacecraft for almost a decade. Ever since the Space Shuttle fleet was grounded in 2011, the United States has not conducted manned flights to space. Amid the Coronavirus pandemic, a final Russian Soyuz rocket launched a NASA Astronaut for the last time to the International Space Station (ISS). On April 9, the Soyuz-2.1 rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Russia, at 4:05 a.m. Eastern time. Then the Soyuz MS-16 spacecraft was deployed into orbit about 9 minutes later. After a 6-hour trip, the spacecraft docked to the orbiting laboratory. Onboard the Soyuz spacecraft were American Astronaut Chris Cassidy, and Russian Cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner. They all makeup Expedition 63, the crew will stay at the orbiting laboratory for 6 months. Due to the coronavirus, staff during the launch was limited in order to avoid spreading the COVID-19 respiratory illness. Governments from across the world have issued ‘stay at home’ orders to avoid straining healthcare systems. NASA and Roscosmos took extra precautions by limiting contact with Astronauts so they would not take any illnesses to ISS. “I knew I was going to be in quarantine these two weeks, but what’s really different is everybody else around us is in quarantine, too,” Cassidy said in a prelaunch interview on NASA TV. “It’ll be a really, really skeletal crew in the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which will be quite different.”

After the successful Soyuz launch, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine stated:

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