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Category: Science

Virus variant first found in Britain now spreading rapidly in U.S.

Virus variant first found in Britain now spreading rapidly in U.S.

The New York Times reports: A more contagious variant of the coronavirus first found in Britain is spreading rapidly in the United States, doubling roughly every 10 days, according to a new study. Analyzing half a million coronavirus tests and hundreds of genomes, a team of researchers predicted that in a month this variant could become predominant in the United States, potentially bringing a surge of new cases and increased risk of death. The new research offers the first nationwide…

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Mutated virus may reinfect people already stricken once with covid-19, sparking debate and concerns

Mutated virus may reinfect people already stricken once with covid-19, sparking debate and concerns

The Washington Post reports: A trial of an experimental coronavirus vaccine detected the most sobering signal yet that people who have recovered from infections are not completely protected against a variant that originated in South Africa and is spreading rapidly, preliminary data presented this week suggests. The finding, though far from conclusive, has potential implications for how the pandemic will be brought under control, underscoring the critical role of vaccination, including for people who have already recovered from infections. Reaching…

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Scientists for the people

Scientists for the people

Deborah R Coen writes: In the 1930s, as Jewish and dissident scientists were forced from their posts in Nazi Germany, many found refuge at universities in the United States. At the time, American scientists were trying to shield themselves from the winds of politics by honing arguments for the value of ‘pure’ science. It was in this spirit that Abraham Flexner had founded the hermetic Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey in 1930, expressly to pursue research for its…

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Covid-19 rarely spreads through surfaces. So why are we still deep cleaning?

Covid-19 rarely spreads through surfaces. So why are we still deep cleaning?

Nature reports: When Emanuel Goldman went to his local New Jersey supermarket last March, he didn’t take any chances. Reports of COVID-19 cases were popping up across the United States, so he donned gloves to avoid contaminated surfaces and wore a mask to prevent him inhaling tiny virus-laden droplets from fellow shoppers. Neither gloves nor masks were recommended at the time. Then, at the end of March, a laboratory study showed that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 can persist on plastic and…

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The hard lessons of modeling the Covid-19 pandemic

The hard lessons of modeling the Covid-19 pandemic

Jordana Cepelewicz writes: For a few months last year, Nigel Goldenfeld and Sergei Maslov, a pair of physicists at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, were unlikely celebrities in their state’s COVID-19 pandemic response — that is, until everything went wrong. Their typical areas of research include building models for condensed matter physics, viral evolution and population dynamics, not epidemiology or public health. But like many scientists from diverse fields, they joined the COVID-19 modeling effort in March, when the response…

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The unified cosmic vision of Alexander von Humboldt

The unified cosmic vision of Alexander von Humboldt

Algis Valiunas writes: The presiding scientific genius of the Romantic age, when science had not yet been dispersed into specialties that rarely connect with one another, Alexander von Humboldt wanted to know everything, and came closer than any of his contemporaries to doing so. Except for Aristotle, no scientist before or since this German polymath can boast an intellect as universal in reach as his and as influential for the salient work of his time. His neglect today is unfortunate…

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The day we let Covid-19 spin out of control

The day we let Covid-19 spin out of control

Daniel P. Oran and Eric J. Topol write: Jan. 24 marks the one-year anniversary of a momentous but largely unnoticed event in the history of the Covid-19 pandemic: the first published report of an individual infected with the novel coronavirus who never developed symptoms. This early confirmation of asymptomatic infection should have set off alarm bells and profoundly altered our response to the gathering storm. But it did not. One year later we are still paying the price for this…

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Emerging coronavirus variants may pose challenges to vaccines

Emerging coronavirus variants may pose challenges to vaccines

The New York Times reports: The steady drumbeat of reports about new variants of the coronavirus — first in Britain, then in South Africa, Brazil and the United States — have brought a new worry: Will vaccines protect against these altered versions of the virus? The answer so far is yes, several experts said in interviews. But two small new studies, posted online Tuesday night, suggest that some variants may pose unexpected challenges to the immune system, even in those…

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The coronavirus is evolving before our eyes

The coronavirus is evolving before our eyes

James Hamblin writes: In the final, darkest days of the deadliest year in U.S. history, the world received ominous news of a mutation in the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Scientists in the U.K. had identified a form of the virus that was spreading rapidly throughout the nation. Then, on January 4, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a lockdown that began almost immediately and will last until at least the middle of February. “It’s been both frustrating and alarming to see the speed…

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Most patients hospitalized for Covid-19 still have symptoms six months later, China study finds

Most patients hospitalized for Covid-19 still have symptoms six months later, China study finds

STAT reports: Three-quarters of Covid-19 patients still have at least one symptom six months after first falling ill, researchers who followed hospital patients in China reported Friday. The new findings suggest symptoms linger longer and in a higher proportion of patients than previously thought. The largest and longest analysis to date of post-Covid recovery also warns that some patients’ antibody levels fell sharply, raising concern that while waiting for a return to full health, they could be reinfected with the…

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U.S. is blind to contagious new coronavirus variant, scientists warn

U.S. is blind to contagious new coronavirus variant, scientists warn

Carl Zimmer reports: With no robust system to identify genetic variations of the coronavirus, experts warn that the United States is woefully ill-equipped to track a dangerous new mutant, leaving health officials blind as they try to combat the grave threat. The variant, which is now surging in Britain and burdening its hospitals with new cases, is rare for now in the United States. But it has the potential to explode in the next few weeks, putting new pressures on…

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Britain takes a gamble with Covid-19 vaccines, upping the stakes for the rest of us

Britain takes a gamble with Covid-19 vaccines, upping the stakes for the rest of us

STAT reports: In an extraordinary time, British health authorities are taking extraordinary measures to beat back Covid-19. But some experts say that, in doing so, they are also taking a serious gamble. In recent days, the British have said they will stretch out the interval between the administration of the two doses required for Covid-19 vaccines already in use — potentially to as long as three months, instead of the recommended three or four weeks. And they have said they…

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What the San Francisco Bay Area can teach us about fighting a pandemic

What the San Francisco Bay Area can teach us about fighting a pandemic

Jay Caspian Kang writes: On March 10th, the day before Tom Hanks announced that he had tested positive for Covid-19, I drove my three-year-old daughter to her day care in Berkeley, California. The drive took us up College Avenue, where white-haired professors huddled at sidewalk café tables; we passed the fraternity houses where students gathered on the lawns. Just a few blocks from my daughter’s school, there’s a coffee shop with a clientele split equally between students and senior citizens….

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The mutated coronavirus variant is a ticking time bomb

The mutated coronavirus variant is a ticking time bomb

Zeynep Tufekci writes: A new variant of the coronavirus is spreading across the globe. It was first identified in the United Kingdom, where it is rapidly spreading, and has been found in multiple countries. Viruses mutate all the time, often with no impact, but this one appears to be more transmissible than other variants—meaning it spreads more easily. Barely one day after officials announced that America’s first case of the variant had been found in the United States, in a…

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The worst idea of 2020: Natural herd immunity

The worst idea of 2020: Natural herd immunity

Brian Resnick writes: It’s year-end-list season. Usually, the Vox science team has some fun and compiles a year-end list of bad ideas in health and science that ought to die with the end of the year. In the past, we’ve targeted homeopathic medicine, declared it was time to end the relevance of the fatally flawed Stanford Prison Experiment, and dispelled myths about climate change. This year, though, we have only one target for intellectual demolition. With the end of 2020,…

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The mysterious link between Covid-19 and sleep

The mysterious link between Covid-19 and sleep

James Hamblin writes: The newly discovered coronavirus had killed only a few dozen people when Feixiong Cheng started looking for a treatment. He knew time was of the essence: Cheng, a data analyst at the Cleveland Clinic, had seen similar coronaviruses tear through China and Saudi Arabia before, sickening thousands and shaking the global economy. So, in January, his lab used artificial intelligence to search for hidden clues in the structure of the virus to predict how it invaded human…

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