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Category: Science

No safer from Covid indoors at 6 feet or 60 feet, MIT researchers say

No safer from Covid indoors at 6 feet or 60 feet, MIT researchers say

CNBC reports: The risk of being exposed to Covid-19 indoors is as great at 60 feet as it is at 6 feet — even when wearing a mask, according to a new study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers who challenge social distancing guidelines adopted across the world. MIT professors Martin Z. Bazant, who teaches chemical engineering and applied mathematics, and John W.M. Bush, who teaches applied mathematics, developed a method of calculating exposure risk to Covid-19 in an indoor…

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India’s massive Covid surge puzzles scientists

India’s massive Covid surge puzzles scientists

Nature reports: The pandemic is sweeping through India at a pace that has staggered scientists. Daily case numbers have exploded since early March: the government reported 273,810 new infections nationally on 18 April. High numbers in India have also helped drive global cases to a daily high of 854,855 in the past week, almost breaking a record set in January. Just months earlier, antibody data had suggested that many people in cities such as Delhi and Chennai had already been…

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Sleeping too little in middle age may increase dementia risk, study finds

Sleeping too little in middle age may increase dementia risk, study finds

The New York Times reports: Could getting too little sleep increase your chances of developing dementia? For years, researchers have pondered this and other questions about how sleep relates to cognitive decline. Answers have been elusive because it is hard to know if insufficient sleep is a symptom of the brain changes that underlie dementia — or if it can actually help cause those changes. Now, a large new study reports some of the most persuasive findings yet to suggest…

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Doctors hone in on cause of blood clots potentially linked with Covid-19 vaccines

Doctors hone in on cause of blood clots potentially linked with Covid-19 vaccines

CNN reports: Doctors say they are honing in on the cause of blood clots that may be linked with certain coronavirus vaccines, and add their findings have important implications for how to treat the condition, regardless of whether vaccines cause it. Even though the link is not firm yet, they’re calling the condition vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia or VITT. It’s characterized by unusual blood clotting combined with a low number of blood-clotting cells called platelets. Patients suffer from dangerous clots…

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The blood-clot problem is multiplying

The blood-clot problem is multiplying

Roxanne Khamsi writes: For weeks, Americans looked on as other countries grappled with case reports of rare, sometimes fatal blood abnormalities among those who had received the AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19. That vaccine has not yet been authorized by the FDA, so restrictions on its use throughout Europe did not get that much attention in the United States. But Americans experienced a rude awakening this week when public-health officials called for a pause on the use of the Johnson &…

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The mRNA vaccines are looking better and better

The mRNA vaccines are looking better and better

Sarah Zhang writes: A year ago, when the United States decided to go big on vaccines, it bet on nearly every horse, investing in a spectrum of technologies. The safest bets, in a way, repurposed the technology behind existing vaccines, such as protein-based ones for tetanus or hepatitis B. The medium bets were on vaccines made by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, which use adenovirus vectors, a technology that had been tested before but not deployed on a large scale….

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Why would a Covid vaccine cause rare blood clots? Researchers have found clues

Why would a Covid vaccine cause rare blood clots? Researchers have found clues

STAT reports: A week after receiving the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, a 37-year-old woman in Norway went to the emergency department with fever and persistent headaches. A CAT scan of her head showed a blood clot in blood vessels involved in draining the brain, but her levels of platelets, involved in clotting, were low. She was treated with platelet infusions and a blood thinner, but had a bleed in her brain the next day. She underwent surgery to relieve the pressure…

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Kati Kariko helped shield the world from the coronavirus

Kati Kariko helped shield the world from the coronavirus

The New York Times reports: She grew up in Hungary, daughter of a butcher. She decided she wanted to be a scientist, although she had never met one. She moved to the United States in her 20s, but for decades never found a permanent position, instead clinging to the fringes of academia. Now Katalin Kariko, 66, known to colleagues as Kati, has emerged as one of the heroes of Covid-19 vaccine development. Her work, with her close collaborator, Dr. Drew…

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Has the era of overzealous cleaning finally come to an end?

Has the era of overzealous cleaning finally come to an end?

The New York Times reports: When the coronavirus began to spread in the United States last spring, many experts warned of the danger posed by surfaces. Researchers reported that the virus could survive for days on plastic or stainless steel, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised that if someone touched one of these contaminated surfaces — and then touched their eyes, nose or mouth — they could become infected. Americans responded in kind, wiping down groceries, quarantining…

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Test flight for sunlight-blocking geoengineering research is canceled

Test flight for sunlight-blocking geoengineering research is canceled

The New York Times reports: A test flight for researching ways to cool Earth by blocking sunlight will not take place as planned in Sweden this June, following objections from environmentalists, scientists and Indigenous groups there. The Swedish Space Corporation said this week it had canceled plans for the flight, in which it would have launched a high-altitude balloon, on behalf of researchers, from its facility in the Arctic. It would have been the first flight of a long-planned experiment…

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Sunlight inactivates coronavirus eight times faster than predicted. We need to know why

Sunlight inactivates coronavirus eight times faster than predicted. We need to know why

Science Alert reports: A team of scientists is calling for greater research into how sunlight inactivates SARS-CoV-2 after realizing there’s a glaring discrepancy between the most recent theory and experimental results. UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineer Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz and colleagues noticed the virus was inactivated as much as eight times faster in experiments than the most recent theoretical model predicted. “The theory assumes that inactivation works by having UVB hit the RNA of the virus, damaging it,” explained Luzzatto-Fegiz. But…

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Rediet Abebe tackles inequality through algorithms

Rediet Abebe tackles inequality through algorithms

Rachel Crowell writes: When Rediet Abebe arrived at Harvard University as an undergraduate in 2009, she planned to study mathematics. But her experiences with the Cambridge public schools soon changed her plans. Abebe, 29, is from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital and largest city. When residents there didn’t have the resources they needed, she attributed it to community-level scarcity. But she found that argument unconvincing when she learned about educational inequality in Cambridge’s public schools, which she observed struggling in an…

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U.K. vaccination approach puts U.S. to shame

U.K. vaccination approach puts U.S. to shame

Marty Makary writes: The U.S. will soon achieve herd immunity against the novel coronavirus, but the U.K. will get there sooner. That’s because medical leaders across the pond put the priority on first-dose vaccination, delaying booster shots so that more people could get the initial shot. Fifty-nine percent of British adults are now vaccinated with one dose, vs. only 38% in the U.S. Far more Americans are fully vaccinated—21% have received either a booster or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson…

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Biden task force to probe science manipulation under Trump

Biden task force to probe science manipulation under Trump

NBC News reports: A new White House task force will examine instances where the Trump administration may have distorted or suppressed science in critical government decisions, with an eye toward creating fail-safes to prevent it from happening again, the White House said Monday. In a letter to federal agencies, obtained by NBC News, the White House said the task force’s mandate would include identifying whether current policies effectively “prevent improper political interference in the conduct of scientific research” and “prevent…

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A Biden administration strategy: Send in the scientists

A Biden administration strategy: Send in the scientists

The New York Times reports: More than a decade ago, a woman at a bar near the Columbia University campus turned to Gavin Schmidt and asked if he knew the main component of air. “Yes, nitrogen,” he replied. His answer lost her a bet about whether the average stranger at the bar would know anything about atmospheric chemistry. Two years later, they were married. Sometimes the nerds win. Today Dr. Schmidt is one of the most prominent scientists warning the…

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New data helps clarify how plate tectonics drove the evolution of complex life

New data helps clarify how plate tectonics drove the evolution of complex life

Howard Lee writes: In 2016, the geochemists Jonas Tusch and Carsten Münker hammered a thousand pounds of rock from the Australian Outback and airfreighted it home to Cologne, Germany. Five years of sawing, crushing, dissolving and analyzing later, they have coaxed from those rocks a secret hidden for eons: the era when plate tectonics began. Earth’s fractured carapace of rigid, interlocking plates is unique in the solar system. Scientists increasingly connect it to our planet’s other special features, such as…

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