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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 13, 2020 at 5:26am

Experimental COVID-19 treatment given to Trump found to relieve symptoms in macaques and hamsters

A team of researchers with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., working with the Texas Biomedical Research Institute, has found that the antibody cocktail given to President Trump was effective in reducing COVID-19 symptoms in rhesus macaques and golden hamsters. 

The US president had received an experimental antibody cocktail along with doses of vitamin D, zinc and a heartburn medicine. The experimental antibody cocktail he was given was provided courtesy of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a company that has been conducting research into the use of such antibody cocktails as therapies for a host of viral infections, including COVID-19. In this new effort, the researchers tested the antibody cocktail with rhesus macaques and golden hamsters.

In the first part of the study, the researchers administered the cocktail (which they call REGN-COV2) to healthy rhesus macaques. Prior research had shown that they can infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but typically exhibit only mild symptoms. Three days after receiving the cocktail, the monkeys were injected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus and then monitored to see if the treatment had any impact. They found that monkeys who had received the treatment prior to infection exhibited far fewer symptoms than a control group and had a much lower viral load.

The researchers also injected some of the monkeys with the cocktail after they were infected and found that doing so also reduced symptoms and resulted in faster viral clearance. The researchers next repeated the same experiments with golden hamsters. They, too, have been found to be susceptible to COVID-19, but have much more severe symptoms, including major weight loss. They found that giving it to them two days before they were infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus resulted in greatly reduced symptoms and they did not suffer weight loss. And giving it to the hamsters after an infection had set in also resulted in reduced symptoms and faster viral clearance.

The researchers suggest that REGN-COV2 may offer therapeutic benefits both as a treatment and as a preventative measure for COVID-19.

Alina Baum et al. REGN-COV2 antibodies prevent and treat SARS-CoV-2 infection in rhesus macaques and hamsters, Science (2020). DOI: 10.1126/science.abe2402

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-experimental-covid-treatment...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 13, 2020 at 5:18am

New virtual reality software allows scientists to 'walk' inside cells

Virtual reality software which allows researchers to 'walk' inside and analyse individual cells could be used to understand fundamental problems in biology and develop new treatments for disease. The software, called vLUME, was created by scientists. It allows super-resolution microscopy data to be visualised and analysed in virtual reality, and can be used to study everything from individual proteins to entire cells.

Super-resolution microscopy, which was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2014, makes it possible to obtain images at the nanoscale by using clever tricks of physics to get around the limits imposed by light diffraction. This has allowed researchers to observe molecular processes as they happen. However, a problem has been the lack of ways to visualise and analyse this data in three dimensions.

vLUME is revolutionary imaging software that brings humans into the nanoscale. It allows scientists to visualise, question and interact with 3-D biological data, in real time all within a virtual reality environment, to find answers to biological questions faster. It's a new tool for new discoveries. Viewing data in this way can stimulate new initiatives and ideas.

vLUME: 3D virtual reality for single-molecule localization microscopy, Nature Methods (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41592-020-0962-1

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-10-virtual-reality-software-scient...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 12, 2020 at 5:49am

Scientists May Be Able to Treat Tinnitus With Electronic Music And Tongue Buzzing

People who experience tinnitus (the perception of noise or ringing in the ears) might finally have some hope for alleviating their symptoms, after an experimental device that stimulates the tongue was found to ease the condition in a sample of 273 volunteers with a chronic case of it.The tongue buzzing is combined with a carefully prepared audio stream fed through headphones, sounding a little like ambient electronic music. The combined treatment caused an improvement in symptoms for 86 percent of the participants, with an average drop of around 14 points on a tinnitus severity ranking scored from 1 to 100. Even better, the improvements lasted for up to a year for many of the individuals involved. These are promising signs for the 10-15 percent of people worldwide who live with the phantom sounds and ringing ears caused by tinnitus.

A  device – called the Lenire – aims to heighten the sensitivity of the brain, effectively crowding out the overactive parts of the brain that would otherwise cause tinnitus symptoms.

https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/12/564/eabb2830

https://www.sciencealert.com/audible-tones-and-tongue-buzzing-could...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 11, 2020 at 9:07am

 Fertiliser use is fuelling climate-warming nitrous oxide emissions: study

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-no2-idUSKBN26S35W

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Life in the Clouds

High above our heads, even beyond 120,000 feet up, scientists have found tiny organisms called microbes. These high-flyers were swept up from the ground by winds and storms, or spewed out through volcanic processes. While most of these high-altitude microbes are dead, some are still alive, or have produced material called spores that could activate in the future. David J. Smith, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, uses airplanes to collect these microbes, analyze them in the laboratory, and expose them to even higher altitudes with balloon experiments to see how they will respond. If microbes can inhabit our clouds, what about other planets? While more research is needed, Smith and others are fascinated by the possibility that airborne microbes could also be found elsewhere in the solar system, and beyond.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 10, 2020 at 10:35am

Cheese Preservative Slows Oral Cancer Spread in Mice: Study

The results add to mounting evidence of microbes’ roles in tumor growth and point to the possibility of impeding malignancies by inhibiting bacteria.

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/cheese-preservative-slow...

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How media algorithms try to manipulate your decisions and how to overcome them

https://theconversation.com/do-social-media-algorithms-erode-our-ab...

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Astronomers Are Using Black Hole Echoes to Help Map The Universe

https://www.sciencealert.com/echoes-from-black-holes-could-be-the-n...

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Chemists create new crystal form of insecticide, boosting its ability to fight mosquitoes and malaria

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-chemists-crystal-insecticide-boosting...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 10, 2020 at 8:21am

How SARS-CoV-2 disables the human cellular alarm system

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-sars-cov-disables-human-cellular-alar...

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How gut bacteria manipulates your immune system – by mimicking it

Scientists are discovering how microbes ‘speak’ with the body

https://massivesci.com/articles/gut-bacteria-immune-system-protein-...

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What do we really know about the safety of probiotics?

Messing with our gut microbiome could hurt us

https://massivesci.com/articles/probiotics-microbiome-supplements/

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Initiative pushes to make journal abstracts free to read in one place

Publishers agree to make journal summaries open and searchable in single repository.

In a bid to boost the reach and reuse of scientific results, a group of scholarly publishers has pledged to make abstracts of research papers free to read in a cross-disciplinary repository.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02851-y?utm_source=Natur...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 10, 2020 at 7:17am

Finding the Best Hot Pepper Cures Using SCIENCE

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 10, 2020 at 7:13am

4-D nanoparticles open new perspectives in safer treatment of tumor...

In the context of nanomedicine, nanoparticles are effective because they can be endowed with multiple functions and are able to hit their target without the need for extremely high doses, which are associated with dangerous side effects. However, they tend to remain in the body for an indefinite time, with important risks to the health of patients. Ideally, nanomedicines should behave like a 4-D material, developing nanoparticles for diagnosis (for example by magnetic resonance imaging or CT scan) and cancer therapy that have as their main requirement the ability to biodegrade, not to accumulate in the body, limiting it in this way the side effects.

inorganic nanoparticles based on an alloy of gold and iron, two biocompatible elements, which are therefore particularly suitable for applications in the biomedical field, are able to biodegrade spontaneously in living organisms.

 how the possibility of capturing these "4-D nano-comets" is fundamental in the field of nanomedicine, and especially for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, showing that metastable gold-iron-based nanoalloys could be ideal candidates for the purpose.

The research, which started with a theoretical-computational investigation, has shown how the atoms of gold and iron, two biocompatible elements that are particularly suitable for applications in the biomedical field, must be arranged inside the nanoparticles so that the latter biodegrade spontaneously in living organisms. The key to the whole study was to find a way to "force" iron and gold to coexist in proportions that are not practicable in nature. For this purpose, laser synthesis techniques in liquid were used to produce bi-metallic Au-Fe nanoparticles capable of biodegradation. These metastable nanoparticles have also been tested in vivo, where they have been shown to leave the organism after a not excessively long period, as opposed to other nanoparticles based only on gold or only on iron oxide, which instead tend to persist for much longer times.

Having a 4-D nanomaterial exploitable as a multimodal imaging agent is particularly important at a clinical level because it allows reducing both the dose administered to the patient and the waiting time before the imaging itself, which are crucial in the treatment of tumors. The next step will be the investigation of the theranostic (i.e., diagnostic and therapeutic) potential of these 4-D nanomedicines.

Veronica Torresan et al. 4D Multimodal Nanomedicines Made of Nonequilibrium Au–Fe Alloy Nanoparticles, ACS Nano (2020). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.0c03614

https://sciencex.com/news/2020-10-d-nanoparticles-perspectives-safe...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 10, 2020 at 7:00am

Bacteria-fighting cells in the airways boost infection risk from viruses

Having more bacteria-fighting immune cells in the nose and throat may explain why some people are more likely to be infected by respiratory viruses.

researchers found that volunteers who succumbed to infection from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) had more specialized white blood cells called neutrophils in their airways before exposure to the virus, compared to those who staved off infection. According to the researchers, this type of neutrophil-driven inflammation in the nose and throat—typically associated with fighting off bacterial infections—may compromise our ability to fight off invading viruses and make us more susceptible to viral infections. The findings could help researchers to understand why people respond differently to the same viral threat, predict who is more at risk of infection, and even lead to preventative treatments to protect against RSV and potentially other respiratory viruses, including influenza and coronaviruses. when they analyzed samples from participants' airways taken before they were exposed to the virus, the team found evidence of neutrophil activation in the nasal mucosa—the cells lining the inside of the nose—in those who became infected with the virus. These immune cells are known to release proteins which help create an antibacterial environment in response to a threat. But the researchers believe this antibacterial immune response may come at a cost, making a host more susceptible to viruses by effectively switching off the early warning system, letting them slip through the net to cause infection.

 Neutrophilic inflammation in the respiratory mucosa predisposes to RSV infection. Science, science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi … 1126/science.aba9301

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-bacteria-fighting-cells-airw...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 10, 2020 at 6:26am

**Do cloth masks work? Only if you machine wash them after every single use

A new publication from researchers  advises daily washing of cloth masks to reduce the likelihood of contamination and transmission of viruses like SARS-CoV-2. Cloth masks must be washed daily at high temperatures to be protective against infection, a new analysis shows. It was found that if cloth masks were washed in the hospital laundry, they were as effective as a surgical mask.

It is important to note that given the study was conducted over five years ago, the researchers did not test for SARS-CoV-2—instead, they included common respiratory pathogens such as influenza, rhinoviruses and seasonal coronaviruses in their analysis. It is based on self-reported washing data and was conducted by health workers in high risk wards in a healthcare setting.

"While someone from the general public wearing a cloth mask is unlikely to come into contact with the same amount of pathogens as healthcare worker in a high risk ward, we would still recommended daily washing of cloth masks in the community. COVID-19 is a highly infectious virus, and there is still a lot that we don't know about it, and so it's important that we take every precaution we can to protect against it and ensure masks are effective.

According to the analysis, handwashing the masks did not provide adequate protection. Healthcare workers who self-washed their masks by hand had double the risk of infection compared to those who used the hospital laundry

The WHO recommends machine washing masks with hot water at 60 degrees Celsius and laundry detergent, and the results of our analysis support this recommendation.

Washing machines often have a default temperature of 40 degree or 60 degrees, so do check the setting. At these very hot temperatures, handwashing is not possible. The clear message from this research is that cloth masks do work—but once a cloth mask has been worn, it needs to be washed properly each time before being worn again, otherwise it stops being effective.

There is much research on the design, fabric and construction of masks, but washing is also key for protection.

Chandini Raina MacIntyre et al. Contamination and washing of cloth masks and risk of infection among hospital health workers in Vietnam: a post hoc analysis of a randomized controlled trial, BMJ Open (2020). DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-042045

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-masks-machine.html?utm_sourc...

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