EurekAlert December 11, 2020 Food system innovations will be instrumental to achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). According to an international team of researchers (Australis, Kenya, Germany, Denmark, UK, USA – Johns Hopkins, Stanford University, Cornell University, Colombia, Switzerland, France, Austria, the Netherlands, University of Minnesota) major innovation breakthroughs can trigger profound and disruptive changes, leading to simultaneous and interlinked reconfigurations of multiple parts of the global food system. The emergence of new technologies or social solutions, therefore, have very different impact profiles, with favorable consequences for some SDGs and unintended adverse side-effects for others. Stand-alone innovations seldom achieve positive […]
Tag Archives: National security
Startling Case Study Finds Asymptomatic COVID-19 Carrier Who Shed Virus For 70 Days
Science Alert November 5, 2020 An international team of researchers (USA – NIH, Washington University, industry, UK) have observed long-term SARS-CoV-2 shedding up to 70 days, and genomic and subgenomic RNA up to 105 days past initial diagnosis from the upper respiratory tract of a female immunocompromised patient with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Several weeks after a second convalescent plasma transfusion, SARS-CoV-2 RNA was no longer detected. They observed marked within-host genomic evolution of SARS-CoV-2, with continuous turnover of dominant viral variants. Their data indicate that certain immunocompromised patients may shed infectious virus for longer durations than previously recognized. They recommend […]
Sea-level rise will have complex consequences
Science Daily November 4, 2020 According to an international team of researchers (UK, Canada, Hong Kong, the Netherlands) while the change from land to sea represents a dramatic and permanent shift for preexisting human populations, the process of change is driven by a complex set of physical and cultural processes with long transitional phases of landscape and socioeconomic change. The team used reconstructions of prehistoric sea-level rise, paleogeographies, terrestrial landscape change, and human population dynamics to show how the gradual inundation of an island archipelago resulted in decidedly nonlinear landscape and cultural responses to rising sea levels. Interpretation of past […]
Keep Focus on Emerging Infections, Disease X: Analysts
Global Biodefense October 24, 2020 According to the latest G-Finder report, compiled by global health think tank Policy Cures Research despite rapid growth of global spending to tackle emerging infectious diseases, which largely impact the developing world, much of the basic research and development takes place in industrial countries. Funding is very much driven by epidemics. It does not square with a forward-looking approach. According to the researchers will never be prepared for the next pandemic if we only invest in R&D targeting diseases grabbing headlines at the time. US share of overall emerging infectious disease research funding was 85 […]
Targeting the shell of the Ebola virus
Science Daily October 20, 2020 As the world grapples with COVID-19, the Ebola virus is again raging. Researchers at the University of Delaware are using supercomputers to simulate the inner workings of Ebola, observing the way molecules move, atom by atom, to carry out their functions. In the team’s latest work, they reveal structural features of the virus’s coiled protein shell that may be promising therapeutic targets, more easily destabilized, and knocked out by an antiviral treatment. They found that single-stranded viral RNA (ssRNA) is essential for maintaining structural integrity of the nucleocapsid. Other molecular determinants observed to stabilize the nucleocapsid […]
Atmospheric dust levels are rising in the Great Plains
Science Daily October 13, 2020 In the 1920s Midwestern farmers had converted vast tracts of grassland into farmland using mechanical plows. When the crops failed in the drought the open areas of land that used to be covered by grass, which held soil tightly in place, were now bare dirt, vulnerable to wind erosion. In a study covering years from 1988 to 2018 a team of researchers in the US (University of Utah, University of Colorado) found that atmospheric dust levels are rising across the Great Plains at a rate of up to 5% per year. The trend of rising […]
Chemists create new crystal form of insecticide, boosting its ability to fight mosquitoes and malaria
Phys.org October 12, 2020 A team of researchers in the US (New York University, University of Puerto Rico) heated the commercially available form of deltamethrin to 110°C/230°F for a few minutes and let it cool to room temperature; this resulted in a new crystallized form of deltamethrin, composed of long, tiny fibers radiating from a single point. When mosquitoes step on insecticide crystals, the insecticide is absorbed through their feet and, if effective, kills the mosquitoes. In tests the new form was up to 12 times more effective against mosquitoes than the existing form. The new form also remained stable—and […]
Chilling Report Suggests 1 Out of 5 Countries Could Be Headed For Ecosystem Collapse
Science Alert October 15, 2020 The world’s wealth is built on our planet’s natural ecosystems, and if those collapse, so too might our global economy, experts warn. The Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Index published by the Swiss Re Institute has found just over half of all global GDP – nearly 42 trillion US dollars – is dependent on goods and services provided by the natural world. The index was designed to give governments and businesses a benchmark for the state of local ecosystems important to their economies, in the hope that the data can help inform relevant insurance solutions for […]
The Big 3 Infectious Diseases Besides COVID-19 Scientists Are Trying to Find a Vaccine For
Global Biodefense October 5, 2020 Researchers in Australia regard malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS as the “big three” infectious diseases. Together they are responsible for about 2.7 million deaths a year around the world. Although anti-malarial drugs are routinely used to treat and prevent malaria infection, the emergence of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis is a major cause of death and a serious public health concern. Since the discovery of HIV in the 1980s, the disease has caused 33 million deaths. Some 38 million people have HIV/AIDS worldwide. There is currently no cure or protective vaccine. The current pandemic highlights the need for […]
A step toward a universal flu vaccine
MIT News October 7, 2020 Most flu vaccines consist of inactivated flu viruses coated with a protein called hemagglutinin (HA), which helps them bind to host cells. After vaccination, the immune system generates squadrons of antibodies which almost always bind to the head of the HA protein which mutates rapidly. Parts of the HA stem very rarely mutate. The immune system is intrinsically not good at seeing the conserved parts of these proteins, which if effectively targeted would elicit an antibody response that would neutralize multiple influenza types. A team of researchers in the US (MIT, Harvard University, industry) describe […]