New COVID-19 related genes are helpful and harmful, found in massive screen

Researchers at Yale University and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard screened hundreds of millions of cells exposed to the COVID-19 and MERS viruses and identified dozens of genes that both enable the viruses to replicate in cells and also those that seem to slam the door on the virus.

The pro-viral and anti-viral role of these genes will help guide scientists in development of new therapies to combat COVID-19, the researchers say.

The findings were reported Oct. 26 in the journal Cell.

Scientists have previously identified how the SARS-CoV-2 coronovirus, which causes COVID-19, attaches to and invades cells, but less is known about why some cells are more susceptible to infection. Understanding the genetics behind the host cells’ susceptibility to infection may help explain why some people exposed to the virus experience few or no symptoms and others become extremely ill or die.

https://news.yale.edu/2020/10/26/new-covid-19-related-genes-helpful...

Get the latest information from the MoHFW about COVID-19.

Neuropilin-1 drives SARS-CoV-2 infectivity

Scientists develop genetic 'monitors' that detect when genes are active
Genetic sensors that can detect the activity from genes, rather than just the genes themselves, have been developed by a team of scientists.

Based on the CRISPR gene editing system, the scientists have developed microscopic machines that use these sensors to detect when genes are ‘on’ or ‘off’ inside a cell, and react to those changes dynamically - making them a potentially ideal monitoring system.

These genetic sensors are detailed in a new paper published in The CRISPR Journal, where the scientists demonstrate a genetic device based on the CRISPR system inside a bacterial cell. The work is the first step in scientists developing genetic devices that can make changes to gene expression after sensing the existing gene activity within a cell.

Cells contain a number of genes that are expressed to perform numerous functions, from sensing their environment and processing food. By having a sensor that can detect when those genes are active, scientists could program a machine to react to a specific process, such as when the cell digests its food.

To generate these novel genetic devices, the scientists used as a scaffold the programmable part of CRISPR which is also responsible for sequence recognition and binding, called guide RNA sequence (gRNA). They were able to redesign the gRNA sequence by introducing in it a sensor so that the CRISPR complex would be able to bind the DNA target only after being activated by a trigger signal, such as short segments of viral RNA sequences. The sensor can be triggered by any chosen RNA sequence and in this way it activates a CRISPR system at any point of the life cycle of a cell or virus.

https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/scientists_develo...

The experimental demonstration of entanglement between mechanical and spin systems

Quantum entanglement is the basic phenomenon underlying the functioning of a variety of quantum systems, including quantum communication, quantum sensing and quantum computing tools. This phenomenon results from an interaction (i.e., entanglement) between particles. Attaining entanglement between distant and very different objects has  proved highly challenging till now.

Researchers  have recently generated entanglement between a mechanical oscillator and a collective atomic spin oscillator. Their work introduces a strategy for generating entanglement between these two distinct systems.

To generate entanglement between a mechanical and a spin system, Polzik and his colleagues leveraged a key feature of spin oscillators, namely that they can have an effective negative mass. When it is excited, a spin oscillator's energy is reduced, which allows it to become entangled with a more conventional mechanical oscillator that has a positive mass. The researchers experimentally generated this entanglement by performing a joint measurement on both oscillators.

Entanglement between distant macroscopic mechanical and spin systems. Nature Physics (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-020-1031-5.

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-experimental-entanglement-mechanical....

Vampire bats social distance when they get sick

 Wild vampire bats that are sick spend less time near others from their community, which slows how quickly a disease will spread.

As a pathogen spreads across a population, changes in social behaviour can alter how the disease spreads. Transmission rates can increase when parasites change host behaviour or decrease when healthy individuals avoid sick ones. In certain social insects, sick ones might self-isolate voluntarily or be excluded by their colony mates. A simpler mechanism causing reduced transmission is that infected animals often show sickness behaviour, which includes increased lethargy and sleep, and reduced movement and sociality. This sickness-induced social distancing does not require cooperation from others and is probably common across species.

 "Tracking sickness effects on social encounters via continuous proximity-sensing in wild vampire bats" Behavioral Ecology (2020). DOI: 10.1093/beheco/araa111

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-vampire-social-distance-sick.html?utm...

Why do certain chemotherapies increase the likelihood of blood cancer?

One rare complication of cancer treatment is the development of a secondary blood cancer—therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia or myelodysplastic syndrome. These blood cancers are very aggressive and do not respond well to treatment. Historically, doctors thought that cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation caused an accumulation of mutations in the blood that led to these therapy-related cancers.

In recent years, however, researchers have found that these mutations in the blood can also occur spontaneously with increasing age. This phenomenon is called clonal hematopoiesis (CH), and it's found in 10 to 20% of all people over age 70. The presence of CH increases the risk of developing a blood cancer. Using data from MSK-IMPACTTM, Memorial Sloan Kettering's clinical genomic sequencing test, researchers have shown that CH is also frequent in cancer patients.

Focusing on a subset of patients on whom they had more detailed data, the investigators observed increased rates of CH in people who had already received treatment. They made specific connections between cancer therapies such as radiation therapy and particular chemotherapies—for example certain platinum drugs or agents called topoisomerase II inhibitors—and the presence of CH.

Unlike the CH changes found in the general population, the team found that CH mutations after cancer treatment occur most frequently in the genes whose protein products protect the genome from damage. One of these genes is TP53, which is frequently referred to as "the guardian of the genome."

This finding provides a direct link between mutation type, specific therapies, and how these cells progress towards becoming a blood cancer.

 Kelly L. Bolton et al. Cancer therapy shapes the fitness landscape of clonal hematopoiesis, Nature Genetics (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41588-020-00710-0

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-chemotherapies-likelihood-bl...

Asymptomatic virus sufferers lose antibodies sooner: study

Asymptomatic coronavirus sufferers appear to lose detectable antibodies sooner than people who have exhibited COVID-19 symptoms, according to one of the biggest studies of its kind

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-asymptomatic-virus-antibodie...

Random effects key to containing epidemics

To control an epidemic, authorities will often impose varying degrees of lockdown. In a paper in the journal Chaos, scientists have discovered, using mathematics and computer simulations, why dividing a large population into multiple subpopulations that do not intermix can help contain outbreaks without imposing contact restrictions within those local communities.

The key idea is that, at low infection numbers, fluctuations can alter the course of the epidemics significantly, even if you expect an exponential increase in infection numbers on average. 

When infection numbers are high, random effects can be ignored. But subdividing a population can create communities so small that the random effects matter.

When a large population is divided into smaller communities, these random effects completely change the dynamics of the full population. Randomness causes peak infection numbers to be brought way down.

"Stochastic effects on the dynamics of an epidemic due to population subdivision," Chaos (2020). DOI: 10.1063/5.0028972

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-random-effects-key-epidemics.html?utm...

60-year-old limit to lasers overturned by quantum researchers

A team of Australian quantum theorists has shown how to break a bound that had been believed, for 60 years, to fundamentally limit the coherence of lasers.

The coherence of a laser beam can be thought of as the number of photons (particles of light) emitted consecutively into the beam with the same phase (all waving together). It determines how well it can perform a wide variety of precision tasks, such as controlling all the components of a quantum computer.

Now, in a paper published in Nature Physics, the researchers from Griffith University and Macquarie University have shown that new quantum technologies open the possibility of making this coherence vastly larger than was thought possible.

It 's shown now that  the true limit imposed by quantum mechanics is that the coherence cannot be greater than the fourth power of the number of photons stored in the laser.

 Travis J. Baker et al. The Heisenberg limit for laser coherence, Nature Physics (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-020-01049-3

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-year-old-limit-lasers-overturned-quan...

**'Fireball' meteorite contains pristine extraterrestrial organic compounds

O n the night of January 16, 2018, a fireball meteor streaked across the sky over the Midwest and Ontario before landing on a frozen lake in Michigan. Scientists used weather radar to find where the pieces landed and meteorite hunters were able to collect the meteorite quickly, before its chemical makeup got changed by exposure to liquid water. And, as a new paper in Meteoritics & Planetary Science shows, that gave scientists a glimpse of what space rocks are like when they're still in outer space—including a look at pristine organic compounds that could tell us about the origins of life.

This meteorite is special because it fell onto a frozen lake and was recovered quickly. It was very pristine. Researchers could see the minerals weren't much altered and later found that it contained a rich inventory of extraterrestrial organic compounds. These kinds of organic compounds were likely delivered to the early Earth by meteorites and might have contributed to the ingredients of life.

Scientists aren't sure how the organic (carbon-containing) compounds responsible for life on Earth got here; one theory is that they hitched their way here on meteorites. That doesn't mean that the meteorites themselves contain extraterrestrial life; rather, some of the organic compounds that help make up life might have first formed in an asteroid that later fell to Earth.

As soon as the thing lands, it gets covered with microbes and life from Earth. We have meteorites with lichens growing on them. So the fact that this meteorite was collected so quickly after it fell, and that it landed on ice rather than in the dirt, helped keep it cleaner.

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-fireball-meteorite-pristine-extraterr...

Researchers break magnetic memory speed record

Spintronic devices are attractive alternatives to conventional computer chips, providing digital information storage that is highly energy efficient and also relatively easy to manufacture on a large scale. However, these devices, which rely on magnetic memory, are still hindered by their relatively slow speeds, compared to conventional electronic chips.

Now an international team of researchers has reported a new technique for magnetization switching—the process used to "write" information into magnetic memory—that is nearly 100 times faster than state-of-the-art spintronic devices. The advance could lead to the development of ultrafast magnetic memory for computer chips that would retain data even when there is no power.

In the study, the researchers report using extremely short, 6-picosecond electrical pulses to switch the magnetization of a thin film in a magnetic device with great energy efficiency. A picosecond is one-trillionth of a second.

 Kaushalya Jhuria et al. Spin–orbit torque switching of a ferromagnet with picosecond electrical pulses, Nature Electronics (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41928-020-00488-3

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-10-magnetic-memory.html?utm_source...

Researchers link poor memory to attention lapses and media multitasking

Scientists are now able to predict whether an individual will remember or forget something based on their neural activity and pupil size.

As we navigate our lives, we have these periods in which we're frustrated because we're not able to bring knowledge to mind, expressing what we know. Fortunately, science now has tools that allow us to explain why an individual, from moment to moment, might fail to remember something stored in their memory.

To monitor attention lapses in relation to memory, 80 study subjects between the ages of 18 to 26 had their pupils measured and their brain activity monitored via an electroencephalogram (EEG) - specifically, the brain waves referred to as posterior alpha power—while performing tasks like recalling or identifying changes to previously studied items.

Increases in alpha power in the back of your skull have been related to attention lapses, mind wandering, distractibility and so forth. Constrictions in pupil diameter—in particular before you do different tasks—are related to failures of performance like slower reaction times and more mind wandering.

This work demonstrates a correlation, not causation. You can't say that heavier media multitasking causes difficulties with sustained attention and memory failures, though we are increasingly learning more about the directions of the interactions. 

one direction that the field as a whole has been heading in is a focus on what happens before learning or, as in this case, before remembering even occurs. That's because memory heavily depends on goal-directed cognition—we essentially need to be ready to remember, have attention engaged and a memory goal in mind—in order to retrieve our memories.

"While it's logical that attention is important for learning and for remembering, an important point here is that the things that happen even before you begin remembering are going to affect whether or not you can actually reactivate a memory that is relevant to your current goal.

conscious awareness of attentiveness, readiness to remember and limiting potential distractions allow individuals to influence their mindsets and alter their surroundings to improve their memory performance."Hacking" memory. While these relatively straightforward strategies can be applied now, the researchers note that there may eventually be targeted attention-training exercises or interventions that people can employ to help them stay engaged. These are referred to as "closed-loop interventions" and are an active area of research.

 advances in measuring attentional states and their impacts on the use of goals to guide remembering also hold promise for a better understanding of disease or health conditions that affect memory.

More information: Memory failure predicted by attention lapsing and media multitasking, Nature (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2870-z , www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2870-z

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-link-poor-memory-attention-l...

Researchers examine the decline in average body temperature among healthy adults over the past two decades

Why human body temperatures are decreasing among healthy adults over the past two decades

In the nearly two centuries since German physician Carl Wunderlich established 98.6°F (37 C) as the standard "normal" body temperature, it has been used by parents and doctors alike as the measure by which fevers—and often the severity of illness—have been assessed.

In more recent years, lower body temperatures have been widely reported in healthy adults. A 2017 study among 35,000 adults in the United Kingdom found average body temperature to be lower (97.9°F / 36.6 C), and a 2019 study showed that the normal body temperature in Americansis about 97.5°F (36.4 C). Several similar reports from around the world have been noticed in recent times.

In less than two decades we're seeing about the same level of decline as that observed in the U.S. over approximately two centuries. Researchers’ analysis is based on a large sample of 18,000 observations of almost 5,500 adults, and adjust for multiple other factors that might affect body temperature, such as ambient temperature and body mass.

Declines might be due to the rise of modern health care and lower rates of lingering mild infections now as compared to the past. It could be that people are in better condition, so their bodies might be working less to fight infection. Or greater access to antibiotics and other treatments means the duration of infection is shorter now than in the past. Consistent with that argument, Researchers found that having a respiratory infection in the early period of the study led to having a higher body temperature than having the same respiratory infection more recently.

It's also possible that greater use of anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen may reduce inflammation, though the researchers found that the temporal decline in body temperature remained even after their analyses accounted for biomarkers of inflammation.

Another possibility is that our bodies don't have to work as hard to regulate internal temperature because of air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter.

While Tsimane body temperatures do change with time of year and weather patterns, the Tsimane still do not use any advanced technology for helping to regulate their body temperature. They do, however, have more access to clothes and blankets.

The researchers were initially surprised to find no single "magic bullet" that could explain the decline in body temperature. "It's likely a combination of factors—all pointing to improved conditions.

 M. Gurven el al., "Rapidly declining body temperature in a tropical human population," Science Advances (2020). advances.sciencemag.org/lookup … .1126/sciadv.abc6599

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-decline-average-body-temperature-heal...

Judges' decisions in sport focus more on vigour than skill

Judges' decisions are an integral part of combat sports, from boxing and wrestling to mixed martial arts (MMA). However, a new study suggests the rate at which competitors fight is more likely to result in judges awarding victory than the skill with which they attack their opponents.

They analysed almost 550 men's and women's mixed martial arts contests, taking place between February 2019 and March 2020, using data collated for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).

That data included the percentage of significant strikes landed that land firmly on the target (a measure of skill), the number of strikes attempted per second (a measure of vigour), the outcome of the fight and whether it was determined by knockout or judges' decision.

The results showed that in all fights, winners fought more vigorously than losers but this performance trait was more important for fights resolved via judges' decisions compared with those ending as a result of a knockout or technical knockout.

Fighting skilfully (landing more significant strikes) also increased their chance of winning—with skilful fighting even enhancing the effect of vigour on success—but despite this, the rate of attack was consistently the dominant factor determining success in fights evaluated by judges.

Perceived and actual fighting ability: Determinants of success via decision, knockout or submission in human combat sports, Biology Letters (2020). royalsocietypublishing.org/doi … .1098/rsbl.2020.0443

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-decisions-sport-focus-vigour-skill.ht...

Researchers develop artificial cell on a chip

Researchers have developed a precisely controllable system for mimicking biochemical reaction cascades in cells. Using microfluidic technology, they produce miniature polymeric reaction containers equipped with the desired properties. This 'cell on a chip' is useful not only for studying processes in cells, but also for the development of new synthetic pathways for chemical applications or for biological active substances in medicine.

In order to survive, grow and divide, cells rely on a multitude of different enzymes that catalyze many successive reactions. Given the complexity of processes in living cells, it is impossible to determine when specific enzymes are present at what concentrations and what their optimum proportions are relative to one another. Instead, researchers use smaller, synthetic systems as models in order to study these processes. These synthetic systems simulate the subdivision of living cells into separate compartments.

developed a new strategy for producing these synthetic systems. Writing in the journal Advanced Materials, the researchers describe how they create various synthetic miniature reaction containers, known as vesicles, which—taken as a whole—serve as models of a cell.

"Unlike in the past, this is not based on the self-assembly of vesicles. "Rather, we've developed efficient microfluidic technology in order to produce enzyme-loaded vesicles in a controlled manner." The new method allows the researchers to tweak the size and composition of the different vesicles so that various biochemical reactions can take place inside them without influencing one another—like in the different compartments of a cell.

In order to manufacture the desired vesicles, the scientist feed the various components into tiny channels on a silicon-glass chip. On this chip, all of the microchannels come together at a junction. If the conditions are configured correctly, this arrangement produces an aqueous emulsion of uniformly sized polymer droplets that are formed at the point of intersection.

 Elena C. Santos et al. Combinatorial Strategy for Studying Biochemical Pathways in Double Emulsion Templated Cell‐Sized Compartments, Advanced Materials (2020). DOI: 10.1002/adma.202004804

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-artificial-cell-chip.html?utm_source=...

Physicists circumvent centuries-old theory to cancel magnetic fields

A team of scientists including two physicists has found a way to circumvent a 178-year old theory which means they can effectively cancel magnetic fields at a distance. They are the first to be able to do so in a way which has practical benefits.

The work is hoped to have a wide variety of applications. For example, patients with neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's might in future receive a more accurate diagnosis. With the ability to cancel out 'noisy' external magnetic fields, doctors using magnetic field scanners will be able to see more accurately what is happening in the brain.

"Earnshaw's Theorem" from 1842 limits the ability to shape magnetic fields. The team were able to calculate an innovative way to circumvent this theory in order to effectively cancel other magnetic fields which can confuse readings in experiments.

Rosa Mach-Batlle et al, Tailoring Magnetic Fields in Inaccessible Regions, Physical Review Letters (2020). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.177204

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-physicists-circumvent-centuries-old-t...

Weak equivalence principle violated in gravitational waves

The Weak equivalence principle (WEP) is a key aspect of classical physics. It states that when particles are in freefall, the trajectories they follow are entirely independent of their masses. However, it is not yet clear whether this property also applies within the more complex field of quantum mechanics. In new research published in EPJ C, James Quach at the University of Adelaide, Australia, proves theoretically that the WEP can be violated by quantum particles in gravitational waves—the ripples in spacetime caused by colossal events such as merging black holes.

James Q. Quach, Fisher information and the weak equivalence principle of a quantum particle in a gravitational wave, The European Physical Journal C (2020). DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-08530-6

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-weak-equivalence-principle-violated-g...

Scientists discover 500-meter-tall coral reef in the Great Barrier ...

Scientists have discovered a massive detached coral reef in the Great Barrier Reef–the first to be discovered in over 120 years, Schmidt Ocean Institute announced today. Measuring more than 500m high–taller than the Empire State Building, the Sydney Tower and the Petronas Twin Towers–the reef was discovered by Australian scientists aboard Schmidt Ocean Institute's research vessel Falkor, currently on a 12-month exploration of the ocean surrounding Australia.

Solved: the mystery of how dark matter in galaxies is distributed

The gravitational force in the Universe under which it has evolved from a state almost uniform at the Big Bang until now, when matter is concentrated in galaxies, stars and planets, is provided by what is termed 'dark matter." But in spite of the essential role that this extra material plays, we know almost nothing about its nature, behavior and composition, which is one of the basic problems of modern physics. In a recent article scientists have shown that the dark matter in galaxies follows a 'maximum entropy' distribution, which sheds light on its nature.

To say that the distribution of dark matter is organized according to maximum entropy (which is equivalent to 'maximum disorder' or 'thermodynamic equilibrium') means that it is found in its most probable state. To reach this 'maximum disorder' the dark matter must have had to collide within itself, just as gas molecules do, so as to reach equilibrium in which its density, pressure, and temperature are related. However, we do not know how the dark matter has reached this type of equilibrium.

Unlike the molecules in the air, for example, because gravitational action is weak, dark matter particles ought hardly to collide with one another, so that the mechanism by which they reach equilibrium is a mystery. However if they did collide with one another this would give them a very special nature, which would partly solve the mystery of their origin.

The maximum entropy of dark matter has been detected in dwarf galaxies, which have a higher ratio of dark matter to total matter than have more massive galaxies, so it is easier to see the effect in them. However, the researchers expect that it is general behavior in all types of galaxies.

The study implies that the distribution of matter in thermodynamic equilibrium has a much lower central density that astronomers have assumed for many practical applications, such as in the correct interpretation of gravitational lenses, or when designing experiments to detect dark matter by its self-annihilation.

The central density also is very important for the experiments which try to detect dark matter using its self-annihilation. Two dark matter particles could interact and disappear in a process which is highly improbable, but which would be characteristic of their nature. For two particles to interact they must collide. The probability of this collision depends on the density of the dark matter; the higher the concentration of dark matter, the higher is the probability that the particles will collide.

"For that reason, if the density changes so will the expected rate of production of the self-annihilations, and given that the experiments are designed on the prediction of a given rate, if this rate were very low the experiment is unlikely to yield a positive result," says Sánchez Almeida.

Finally, thermodynamic equilibrium for dark matter could also explain the brightness profile of the galaxies. This brightness falls with distance from the center of a galaxy in a specific way, whose physical origin is unknown, but for which the researchers are working to show that it is the result of an equilibrium with maximum entropy.

Jorge Sánchez Almeida et al, The principle of maximum entropy explains the cores observed in the mass distribution of dwarf galaxies, Astronomy & Astrophysics (2020). DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202039190

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-mystery-dark-galaxies.html?utm_source...

Apple developing search engine to compete with Google: report

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-10-apple-google.html?utm_source=nw...

Electronic skin patches could restore lost sensation and detect disease

Researchers across Europe are making rapid progress towards developing elastic membrane patches that mimic the human  either in looks, functionality, or both.

Electronic skin (e-skin) is categorised as an 'electronic wearable' – that is, a smart device worn on, or near, the surface of the skin to extract and analyse information relating to the wearer. A better-known electronic wearable is an activity tracker, which typically senses movement or vibrations to give feedback on a user's performance. More advanced wearables collect data on a person's heart rate and blood pressure.

 E-skins developers' aim is to produce stretchy, robust, flexible membranes that incorporate advanced sensors and have the ability to self-heal. The potential implications for medicine and robotics are immense.

Already in circulation are skin-like membranes that adhere to the surface of the body and detect pressure, strain, slip, force and temperature. Others are being created to recognise biochemical changes that signal disease. A number of projects are working on skins that will envelop robots or human prosthetics, giving these machines and instruments the ability to manipulate objects and perceive their environments with a high degree of tactile sensitivity. And the dream, of course, is to develop an e-skin that can connect with the central nervous system of the wearer (someone who is paralysed, for instance), thereby restoring sensation that has been lost through disease or trauma.

https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/875586

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-10-electronic-skin-patches-lost-se...

Scientists who talk up their own expertise risk undermining their influence, one of the world's best known science communicators says.

Scientists who talk up their own expertise risk undermining their influence, while they must also “speak persistently” to politicians “based on the science” rather than altering their message in pursuit of impact, according to  Anthony Fauci.

The purpose of your communication is not to impress people about how smart you are. The purpose is to get them to understand what the heck you’re talking about. Scientists sharing podiums with politicians “should never be afraid to tell somebody something that they may not like to hear”, added Dr Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Maryland. “One of the traps that some scientists get into is that they like the idea of having impact…and sometimes they might hesitate to say something that is not popular to the politician.
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/anthony-fauci-scientists-...

Immuneering: Silencing gene expression to cure complex diseases

Immuneering is applying bioinformatics to forge a new approach to drug discovery, develop transformative medicines and help others make the most of their data.

Rather than focusing on the DNA and proteins involved in a disease, Immuneering focuses on disease-associated gene signaling and expression data. Researchers are trying to cancel out those signals like a pair of headphones blocks out unwanted background noise.
The approach is guided by Immuneering’s decade-plus of experience helping large pharmaceutical companies understand the biological mechanisms behind some of their most successful medicines.

Researchers started noticing some common patterns in terms of how these very successful drugs were working, and eventually they realized they could use these insights to create a platform that would let them identify new medicine. The idea is to not just make existing medicines work better but also to create entirely new medicines that work better than anything that has come before.

In keeping with that idea, Immuneering is currently developing a bold pipeline of drugs aimed at some of the most deadly forms of cancer, in addition to other complex diseases that have proven difficult to treat, like Alzheimer’s. For instance some leading drug candidates target a protein signaling pathway associated with many human cancers. trials will begin in an year in this direction.

It’s the first of what Immuneering hopes will be a number of clinical trials enabled “disease-canceling technology,” which analyzes the gene expression data of diseases and uses computational models to identify small-molecule compounds likely to bind to disease pathways and silence them.
Immuneering uncovered some of the mechanisms behind an early cancer immunotherapy. In another, the workings of Teva Pharmaceuticals’ drug for multiple sclerosis were studied.

Today the drug pipelines focuses around oncology, immune-oncology, and neuroscience. Its disease-canceling technology allows Immuneering to launch new drug programs about twice as fast and with about half the capital as other drug development programs.

As long as scientists have a good gene-expression signature from human patient data for a particular disease, they will find targets and biological insights that let them go after them in new ways. It’s a systematic, quantitative, efficient way to get those biological insights compared to a more traditional process, which involves a lot of trial and error. Therefore , the success rates can be very effective.

https://news.mit.edu/2020/immuneering-gene-expression-1026

https://researchnews.cc/news/3273/Silencing-gene-expression-to-cure...

SOFIA Discovers Water on a Sunlit Surface of the Moon

Cancer cells mediate immune suppression in the brain

Cancer cells mediate immune suppression in the brain
Scientists have long thought that the brain protects itself from an aggressive immune response to keep down inflammation. However, that evolutionary control may work against it when a cancer cell attempts to spread to the brain, researchers have discovered.

In newly published research in the journal Cell, researchers showed that one type of cell important for immunity, called a myeloid cell, can suppress the immune response which has the effect of allowing breast cancer cells to metastasize to the brain to form secondary tumour cells there.

https://news.nd.edu/news/cancer-cells-mediate-immune-suppression-in...

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Better “artificial bone” coating to make implants safer and more effective

Superior coating performance achieved compared to existing clinical products, allowing better artificial bone synthesis and coating on the surface of metal and polymer materials.

Seung‐Hoon Um, et al. Robust Hydroxyapatite Coating by Laser‐Induced Hydrothermal Synthesis, Advanced Functional Materials (2020). DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202005233

https://www.advancedsciencenews.com/better-artificial-bone-coating-...

Would Your Dog Eat You if You Died? Get the Facts.

Directly observing intracellular nanoparticle formation with nano-computed tomography

It is currently challenging to directly observe the formation of intracellular nanostructures in the lab. In a new report, a research team in chemistry, life sciences, medical engineering and science and technology, used a rationally designed small molecule abbreviated NBC-Iod-CBT (short for 4-nitrobenzyl carbamate–Cys(SEt)-Asp-Asp-Phe(iodine)–2-cyano-benzothiazole) and directly observed intracellular nanoparticle formation with nanocomputed tomography (nano-CT).

During the experiments, the glutathione (GSH) reduction and nitroreductase (NTR) cleavage mechanisms caused NBC-Iod-CBT molecules to undergo a click condensation reaction and self-assemble nanoparticles (NPs) as Iod-CBT-NPs. When the team conducted nano-CT imaging of NBC-Iod-CBT treated, nitroreductase-expressing HeLa cells in the lab, they showed the existence of self-assembled Iod-CBT-NPs in their cytoplasm. The new strategy is now published on Science Advances and will assist life scientists and bioengineers to understand the formation mechanisms of intracellular nanostructures.

Miaomiao Zhang et al. Directly observing intracellular nanoparticle formation with nanocomputed tomography, Science Advances (2020). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aba3190

Hak Soo Choi et al. Design considerations for tumour-targeted nanoparticles, Nature Nanotechnology (2009). DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2009.314

Xiaohu Gao et al. In vivo cancer targeting and imaging with semiconductor quantum dots, Nature Biotechnology (2004). DOI: 10.1038/nbt994

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-intracellular-nanoparticle-formation-...

New 'epigenetic' clock provides insight into how the human brain ages

While our circadian body clock dictates our preferred rhythm of sleep or wakefulness, a relatively new concept—the epigenetic clock—could inform us about how swiftly we age, and how prone we are to diseases of old age.

People age at different rates, with some individuals developing both characteristics and diseases related to aging earlier in life than others. Understanding more about this so-called 'biological age' could help us learn more about how we can prevent diseases associated with age, such as dementia. Epigenetic markers control the extent to which genes are switched on and off across the different cell-types and tissues that make up a human body. Unlike our genetic code, these epigenetic marks change over time, and these changes can be used to accurately predict biological age from a DNA sample. Now, scientists at the University of Exeter have developed a new epigenetic clock specifically for the human brain. As a result of using human brain tissue samples, the new clock is far more accurate than previous versions, that were based on blood samples or other tissues. The researchers hope that their new clock, published in Brain and funded by Alzheimer's Society, will provide insight into how accelerated aging in the brain might be associated with brain diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.

Recalibrating the epigenetic clock: implications for assessing biological age in the human cortex, Brain (2020). academic.oup.com/brain/article … 0.1093/brain/awaa334

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-epigenetic-clock-insight-hum...

**Identifying biomolecule fragments in ionising radiation

When living cells are bombarded with fast, heavy ions, their interactions with water molecules can produce randomly scattered 'secondary' electrons with a wide range of energies. These electrons can then go on to trigger potentially damaging reactions in nearby biological molecules, producing electrically charged fragments. So far, however, researchers have yet to determine the precise energies at which secondary electrons produce certain fragments. In a new study published in EPJ D, researchers in Japan led by Hidetsugu Tsuchida at Kyoto University define for the first time the precise exact ranges in which positively and negatively charged fragments can be produced.

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**Study shows comets impacted start of life on earth

The Big Bang may have started the universe, but it's likely that littler bangs played a key role in life on Earth, say Albion College Physics Professor Nicolle Zellner and Chemistry Professor Vanessa McCaffrey. They (along with former student Jayden Butler, '17) share their fascinating findings on the interspace dispersal of glycolaldehyde (GLA) in an article recently published by the journal Astrobiology.

CRISPR turns normal body fat into a type that burns energy

Metabolic conditions linked to obesity could be treated by removing fat from a person, turning it into energy-burning “beige fat” using CRISPR gene editing and then implanting the altered fat back into the body, animal studies suggest.

It would be a personalised therapy for metabolic disease

 https://www.newscientist.com/article/2257655-crispr-turns-normal-bo...

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The spooky and dangerous side of black licorice

Black licorice may look and taste like an innocent treat, but this candy has a dark side. On Sept. 23, 2020, it was reported that black licorice was the culprit in the death of a 54-year-old man in Massachusetts. How could this be? Overdosing on licorice sounds more like a twisted tale than a plausible fact.

The unfortunate man who recently succumbed to excessive black licorice consumption is not alone. There are a smattering of similar case reports in medical journals, in which patients experience hypertension crisis, muscle breakdown or even death. Adverse reactions are most frequently seen in people over the age of 40 who are eating far more black licorice than the average person. In addition, they are usually consuming the product for prolonged periods of time. In the most recent case, the Massachusetts man had been eating a bag and a half of black licorice every day for three weeks.

Glycyrrhizin (also called glycyrrhizic acid) is the chemical in black licorice that gives the candy its signature flavor, but it also leads to its toxic effects.

https://theconversation.com/the-spooky-and-dangerous-side-of-black-...

New system uses floor vibrations to detect building occupants

Many buildings, manufacturing sites, shopping malls and other public spaces are equipped with occupant detection systems. These systems generally rely on cameras or occupants’ mobile phones. Such technologies infringe on privacy and may not function in emergencies such as fires. Scientists at ENAC’s Applied Computing and Mechanics Laboratory (IMAC) have developed an alternative approach. By installing sensors in a building’s floor slabs, we can measure the vibrations created by footsteps. That lets us calculate the number of people in the building as well as where they are located and their trajectory. The signals the sensors record can vary considerably depending on the person’s anatomy, walking speed, shoe type, health and mood.

This method uses advanced algorithms – or more specifically, support vector machines – to classify the signals recorded by the sensors. Some interpretation strategies were inspired by the convolutional neural networks often employed in pixel-based image recognition, and can identify the footstep characteristics of specific occupants.

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-10-floor-vibrations-occupants.html...'%20mobile%20phones.

https://researchnews.cc/news/3304/New-system-uses-floor-vibrations-...

A Triple Threat Against Cancer
A three-in-one approach combining immune checkpoint inhibition, tumor microenvironment targeting and chemotherapy drugs could help tackle difficult-to-treat tumors.

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Tube-dwelling anemone toxins have pharmacological potential, mappin...

Researchers based in Brazil and the United States have completed the first-ever mapping exercise to profile the toxins produced by tube-dwelling anemones, or cerianthids, a family of marine animals belonging to the same phylum (Cnidaria) as sea anemones, jellyfish and corals. The analysis revealed that the toxins that can act on the nervous system, cardiovascular system, and cell walls, among other functions, paving the way to the discovery of novel medications.

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Scientists explain the paradox of quantum forces in nanodevices

Researchers from the Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) have proposed a new approach to describe the interaction of metals with electromagnetic fluctuations (i.e., with random bursts of electric and magnetic fields). The obtained results have applications in both fundamental physics, and for creating nanodevices for various purposes. The article was published in the European Physical Journal C.

Explaining dark matter without hypothetical undiscovered particles and without changing physical laws

https://sciencex.com/news/2020-10-dark-hypothetical-undiscovered-pa...

To survive asteroid impact, algae adopted Mixotrophy

Modern relatives of the ancient algae also have chloroplasts, which enable them to use sunlight to make food from carbon dioxide and water. This ability to survive both by feeding on other organisms and through photosynthesis is called mixotrophy. Examples of the few land plants with this ability include Venus flytraps and sundews.

Mixotrophy was both the means of initial survival and then an advantage after the post-asteroid darkness lifted because of the abundant small pretty cells, likely survivor cyanobacteria. Tiny, seemingly harmless ocean plants survived the darkness of the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs by learning a ghoulish behaviour—eating other living creatures.

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Vast amounts of debris, soot, and aerosols shot into the atmosphere when an asteroid slammed into Earth 66 million years ago, plunging the planet into darkness, cooling the climate, and acidifying the oceans. Along with the dinosaurs on the land and giant reptiles in the ocean, the dominant species of marine algae were instantly wiped out—except for one rare type.

Researchers found that once the post-asteroid darkness cleared, these mixotrophic algae expanded from coastal shelf areas into the open ocean where they became a dominant life form for the next million years, helping to quickly rebuild the food chain. It also helped that larger creatures who would normally feed on these algae were initially absent in the post-extinction oceans.

Only much later did the algae evolve, losing the ability to eat other creatures and re-establishing themselves to become one of the dominant species of algae in today's ocean.

"Algal plankton turn to hunting to survive and recover from end-Cretaceous impact darkness" Science Advances (2020). advances.sciencemag.org/lookup … .1126/sciadv.abc9123

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-survive-asteroid-impact-algae.html?ut...

Researchers develop a new way to create a spectrum of natural-looking hair colours

We been warned of the risks of dyeing hair at home and in salons. Products used can cause allergies and skin irritation—an estimated 1% of people have an allergy to dye. Furthermore, repeated use of some dyes has been linked to cancer.

But there soon may be a solution for the growing list of salons and hair colour enthusiasts searching for natural alternatives to dyes and cosmetics.

Researchers have developed a new way to create a spectrum of natural-looking hair colours, ranging from blond to black, by using enzymes to catalyze synthetic melanin.

Melanin is an enigmatic and ubiquitous material often found in the form of brown or black pigment. 

In the new process,  researchers dye hair by combining mushroom enzymes with an amino acid, causing a process that mimics reactions that naturally occur in the body. Preliminary studies revealed potential for the coloured layer to persist through several washes.

The research  identifies four key advantages to using synthetic melanin instead of traditional dyes:

• Synthetic melanin avoids the use of ammonia as a base layer.
• The precursors to treating hair with melanin are less toxic.
• The process uses safer, more scalable chemicals.
• There is vast potential in future cosmetic translations of synthetic melanin.

Claudia Battistella et al. Bioinspired Chemoenzymatic Route to Artificial Melanin for Hair Pigmentation, Chemistry of Materials (2020). pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemmater.0c02790

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-spectrum-natural-looking-hair.html?ut...

Mothers pass on allergies to offspring, preclinical study shows

Mothers can pass allergies to offspring while they are developing in the womb, researchers  reported this week .

The research on mice shows that the key antibody responsible for triggering allergic reactions, immunoglobulin E (IgE), can cross the placenta and enter the fetus. When inside the fetus, the antibody binds to fetal mast cells, a type of immune cell that releases chemicals that trigger allergic reactions, from runny noses to asthma. After birth, newborn mice develop allergic reactions to the same type of allergen as their mothers at the time of first exposure—unlike adult mice, which require two exposures. Studies in the laboratory also showed that maternal IgE can bind to human fetal mast cells, indicating they might cross the placenta in humans in a similar way.

Rasha Msallam et al. Fetal mast cells mediate postnatal allergic responses dependent on maternal IgE, Science (2020). DOI: 10.1126/science.aba0864

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-mothers-allergies-offspring-...

First night bees recorded foraging in darkness

 A new study has identified two species of bees that have adapted their vision for night-time conditions for the first time.

The study by a team of ecology researchers has observed night time foraging behaviour by a nomiine (Reepenia bituberculata) and masked (Meroglossa gemmata) bee species, with both developing enlarged compound and simple eyes which allow more light to be gathered when compared to their daytime kin.

James B. Dorey et al, Morphometric comparisons and novel observations of diurnal and low-light-foraging bees, Journal of Hymenoptera Research (2020). DOI: 10.3897/jhr.79.57308

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-australian-night-bees-foraging-darkne...

Research shows whipping horses doesn’t make them run faster, straighter or safe

the use of the whip to “encourage” horses to run faster and straighter has been shown to potentially be both painful and dangerous. It was found whips make no difference to horse steering, jockey safety, or even a horse’s speed.

https://theconversation.com/research-shows-whipping-horses-doesnt-m...

Mapping extreme microbes in the Amazon’s Boiling River

Deep in the Peruvian Amazon, biochemist Rosa Vásquez Espinoza investigates the medicinal properties of microbes flowing in a sacred boiling river.

Scientists gravitate towards microbes living in extreme environments, like the Boiling River, due to their medicinal value. 

Extremophiles are not exclusive to the Boiling River. They exist in other extreme environments, like in the hot springs in Yellowstone National Park. But Yellowstone’s hot springs are highly acidic. The Boiling River has a different geochemical profile, and the mineral composition is also constantly changing—which makes the microbial ecology unique.

https://massivesci.com/articles/amazon-boiling-river-peru-microbes-...

GaToroid: revolutionizing the future of cancer treatment?

Hadron therapy is of great interest to the medical community as a pioneering radiation therapy that makes use of charged particles to deliver a highly localized dose to a tumor. Unlike traditional radiotherapy, because it minimizes radiation to any neighboring tissue, it may cause fewer side effects and avoid the generation of secondary tumors.

However, because a hadron is made up of charged particles, a magnetic field is needed to ensure that it goes to exactly the right place in the patient. This requires a complex assembly of magnets in giant machines. It also needs to rotate around the patient with 0.5 mm (5 human hairs!) of precision, making it an incredibly complex piece of engineering. Currently, there are only two facilities in the world, at Heidelberg in Germany where the machine is around 13 meters tall, 25 meters in length and weighing more than 600 tons, and Chiba in Japan, where it is 11 meters tall, 13 meters in length and 250 tons in weight, because it is superconductive.

Enter GaToroid, which aims not just to reduce the size of hadron therapy machines but also their complexity, using toroidal superconducting magnets, the idea of GaToroid is to have a machine that looks like an MRI, so instead of a gigantic rotating magnetic arm that moves around the patient, we have something circular that is in a steady state with the patient inside. This has enabled us to make the machine much smaller. However, unlike an MRI, the patient is not immersed in the magnetic field, but it is confined by the coils around them. The idea is that this technology will make hadron therapy far more accessible as it won’t require machines the size of a four-story building.

https://actu.epfl.ch/news/gatoroid-revolutionizing-the-future-of-ca...

https://researchnews.cc/news/3310/GaToroid--revolutionizing-the-fut...

Paracetamol poisonings up

Paracetamol is the most widely used painkiller in the world. “It is a very safe drug, but only for short-​term pain relief and as long as the daily dosage does not go above the recommended range. For adults, the recommended maximum daily dosage is 4,000 milligrams (4 grams), which equates to a maximum of four of the high-​dose tablets or eight of the lower-​dose tablets. When overdosed, paracetamol can cause severe poisoning, even resulting in liver failure with fatal outcomes or the need for liver transplantation.

One problem with paracetamol is that it is not effective for all patients or against all forms of pain. If the drug doesn’t help to ease someone’s symptoms, they may be tempted to increase the dosage without consulting a medical professional. That’s the real problem. This is also where the size of the tablets comes into play. It’s very easy to exceed the maximum daily dosage by taking just a few extra of the 1,000 milligram tablets, whereas, with the lower-​dose 500 milligram tablets, the risk of accidental overdose isn’t as great.

Experts advocate for a critical review of how the 1,000 milligram tablets are prescribed and dispensed. At the very least, packs of the 1,000 milligram tablets should contain a smaller number of tablets. As evidence grows that paracetamol is not suitable for chronic pain management, there is little need to have pack-​sizes of 40 or 100 tablets.  Physicians should prescribe the lower 500 milligram dose, which can be dose adjusted to reach the 1,000 milligrams by taking two tablets when necessary. This could minimize the risk of accidentally exceeding the daily limit.

By reducing the availability of the high-​dose formulation, experts think that some of the poisoning cases could be avoided. In the meantime, she says pharmacists can help draw attention to the dangers of exceeding the daily maximum when providing these the high-​dose tablets to patients.

https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2020/10/paracetamo...

https://researchnews.cc/news/3306/Paracetamol-poisonings-up#.X5zxQY...

A color-changing material inspired by chameleon skin

Sci-com: What a link between chocolate and Nobel prizes reveals

https://theconversation.com/what-a-link-between-chocolate-and-nobel...

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**Mouth Bacteria Have Been Linked to Severe Forms of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

A genetic analysis of more than a dozen strains of one common bacterium, Campylobacter concisus, has uncovered a short sequence of DNA that might explain why this guy is a law-abiding citizen when at home in the mouth, but a potential terrorist in the gut.

"Oral bacteria enter the digestive system every day when we swallow food or saliva. Most of the bacteria are killed by acids in the stomach, but some can survive and colonise in the intestines. The bacteria might not have colonised for long, but the mouth keeps bringing a constant supply of new bacteria – that's the problem.

Generally speaking, many microbes in the genus Campylobacter are bad news for the human digestive system. If you've ever had a gut-wrenching stomach bug that's sent you running for the bathroom while on an overseas holiday, there's a good chance this tiny horror was behind it.

Since such disease-causing species are typically at home in other animals' intestines, we tend to pick them up by consuming contaminated meat or water.

C. concisus isn't quite like its more pathogenic cousins. This species we can call our own, living happily under an ocean of spit in virtually all healthy humans.

But in recent years, medical researchers have suspected C. concisus might not always be the peaceful citizen we'd expected it to be. Bacterial markers associated with the microbe are suspiciously linked with active incidences of the intestinal condition Crohn's disease, for example.

Together with ulcerative colitis, Crohn's falls into a category of IBD characterised by a serious inflammation of the gut wall and surrounding tissue. The result is anything from diarrhoea and discomfort to blood in the stool, agonising pain, and weight loss.

In the cases where drugs or lifestyle changes do little to help, surgical 

intervention can be necessary, making it one serious illness to contend with.

Exactly what sets these inflammatory bowel diseases off in the first place isn't entirely clear. Diet and stress are thought to merely aggravate symptoms, with genetics, medications, and environment all playing a potential role in their development.

https://www.sciencealert.com/your-mouth-bacteria-might-be-behind-se...

The Science of Nerdiness

It’s a neurotransmitter thing

Do you get excited and energized by the possibility of learning something new and complex? Do you get turned on by nuance? Do you get really stimulated by new ideas and imaginative scenarios?

If so, you may have an influx of dopamine in your synapses, but not where we traditionally think of this neurotransmitter flowing.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-of-nerdiness...

Artificial intelligence model detects asymptomatic Covid-19 infections through cellphone-recorded coughs

Asymptomatic people who are infected with Covid-19 exhibit, by definition, no discernible physical symptoms of the disease. They are thus less likely to seek out testing for the virus, and could unknowingly spread the infection to others.

But it seems those who are asymptomatic may not be entirely free of changes wrought by the virus. MIT researchers have now found that people who are asymptomatic may differ from healthy individuals in the way that they cough. These differences are not decipherable to the human ear. But it turns out that they can be picked up by artificial intelligence.

In a paper published recently in the IEEE Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology, the team reports on an AI model that distinguishes asymptomatic people from healthy individuals through forced-cough recordings, which people voluntarily submitted through web browsers and devices such as cellphones and laptops.

The researchers trained the model on tens of thousands of samples of coughs, as well as spoken words. When they fed the model new cough recordings, it accurately identified 98.5 percent of coughs from people who were confirmed to have Covid-19, including 100 percent of coughs from asymptomatics — who reported they did not have symptoms but had tested positive for the virus.

https://news.mit.edu/2020/covid-19-cough-cellphone-detection-1029

https://researchnews.cc/news/3340/Artificial-intelligence-model-det...

The pseudo-science of phrenology

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/nostalgia/from-the-archives/1668244...

Insects Play a Key (And Also Icky Role) in Decomposition by Turning Corpses Into Bones

Life after death: How insects rise from the dead and transform corpses into skeletons

While skeletons are universally considered symbols of death, the process of turning a newly dead animal into a bony skeleton relies on an explosion of life that ushers in the process of decomposition. Much of this transformative process is performed by wriggling, scuttling, scurrying insects.

Estimating risk of airborne COVID-19 with mask usage, social distancing

The continued increase in COVID-19 infection around the world has led scientists from many different fields, including biomedicine, epidemiology, virology, fluid dynamics, aerosol physics, and public policy, to study the dynamics of airborne transmission.

Employing basic concepts of fluid dynamics and the known factors in airborne transmission of diseases, the researchers propose the Contagion Airborne Transmission (CAT) inequality model. While not all factors in the CAT inequality model may be known, it can still be used to assess relative risks, since situational risk is proportional to exposure time.

Using the model, the researchers determined protection from transmission increases with physical distancing in an approximately linear proportion.

If you double your distance, you generally double your protection. This kind of scaling or rule can help inform policy."

The scientists also found even simple cloth masks provide significant protection and could reduce the spread of COVID-19.

 Any physical activity that increases the breathing rate and volume of people will increase the risk of transmission. These findings have important implications for the reopening of schools, gyms, or malls.

Rajat Mittal et al, A mathematical framework for estimating risk of airborne transmission of COVID-19 with application to face mask use and social distancing, Physics of Fluids (2020). DOI: 10.1063/5.0025476

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-airborne-covid-mask-usage-social.html...