Mythbusting: Five common misperceptions surrounding the environmental impacts of single-use plastics

Five misperceptions surrounding the environmental impacts of single-use plastic.

• Plastic packaging is the largest contributor to a product's environmental impact. In reality, the product inside the package usually has a much greater environmental impact.
• The environmental impacts of plastics are greater than any other packaging material. Actually, plastic generally has lower overall environmental impacts than single-use glass or metal in most impact categories.
• Reusable products are always better than single-use plastics. Actually, reusable products have lower environmental impacts only when they are reused enough times to offset the materials and energy used to make them.
• Recycling and composting should be the highest priority. Truth be told, the environmental benefits associated with recycling and composting tend to be small when compared with efforts to reduce overall consumption.
• "Zero waste" efforts that eliminate single-use plastics minimize the environmental impacts of an event. In reality, the benefits of diverting waste from the landfill are small. Waste reduction and mindful consumption, including a careful consideration of the types and quantities of products consumed, are far larger factors dictating the environmental impact of an event.

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-mythbusting-common-misperceptions-env...

Five misperceptions surrounding the environmental impacts of single-use plastic, Environmental Science & Technology (2020). pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.0c05295

Microplastics in groundwater (and our drinking water) present unknown risk

Microplastics (plastics <5mm) and their negative health impacts have been studied in oceans, rivers, and even soils, and scientists are beginning to grapple with the myriad human health impacts their presence might have. One understudied, but critical, link in the cycle is groundwater, which is often a source of drinking water.
While microplastics in groundwater likely affect human health, only a handful of studies have examined the abundance and movement of microplastics in groundwater. This gap means the potential for adverse health effects remains largely unknown.
Microplastics pose multiple physical and chemical risks to the ecosystems where they're present, and those risks are exacerbated by plastics' longevity in natural environments. Since they're plastic, they're very durable which is why plastic is great. But it doesn't degrade easily. Microplastics' ability to linger in their environments for decades or longer likely has cumulative detrimental effects on both the organisms and quality of the ecosystem. Their chemical threat stems largely from their ability to transport harmful compounds on their surfaces; when organisms at the base of the food chain ingest microplastics, they ingest the toxins, too. As larger organisms consume the smaller ones, the toxins can build up (a process called bioaccumulation), eventually resulting in responses like organ dysfunction, genetic mutation, or death. Cave ecosystems are known for being super fragile to begin with. All the cave organisms—salamanders, blind fish—are sensitive, so any contaminants that are introduced could damage those ecosystems.
Groundwater can stay in the same aquifer for tens to hundreds of years, or even longer. Combining that long residence time with plastics' resistance to degradation means that those chemical effects could effectively build up in the water and in any organisms within it, increasing the likelihood of toxic bioaccumulation. Together, these could result in long-term contamination of water sources with poorly-understood health effects and ecosystem damage.
Researchers found that while microplastics do increase in groundwater during a flood event, there's also a second peak in microplastics after the flooding has begun to wane. Their explanation is that there are two sources of microplastics for groundwater: those that are already in the subsurface, and those that are newly delivered from the surface. Finding so much plastic later on in the flood, thinking that it could be coming from the surface... is important to understand the sourcing of microplastics in the groundwater. Knowing where the plastic is coming from could help mitigate future contamination.

Paper 23-1: Quantifying microplastic debris sourcing and transport for a karst aquifer
Abstract Link: gsa.confex.com/gsa/2020AM/meet … app.cgi/Paper/355066

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-microplastics-groundwater-unknown.htm...

**How to figure out what you don't know

Increasingly, biologists are turning to computational modeling to make sense of complex systems. In neuroscience, researchers are adapting the kinds of algorithms used to forecast the weather or filter spam from your email to seek insight into how the brain's neural networks process information.

Testing various computational models of the nervous system, researchers have found that just because a model can make good predictions about data does not mean it reflects the underlying logic of the biological system it represents. Relying on such models without carefully evaluating their validity could lead to wrong conclusions about how the actual system works.

By building and comparing several models of neural signaling, Engel and Genkin found that good predictive power does not necessarily indicate that a model is a good representation of real neural networks. They found that the best models were instead those that were most consistent across multiple datasets. This approach won't necessarily work for all situations, however, and biologists may need alternative methods of evaluating their models. Most importantly, Genkin said, "We shouldn't take anything for granted. We should check every assumption we have."

Genkin, M., Engel, T.A. Moving beyond generalization to accurate interpretation of flexible models. Nat Mach Intell (2020). doi.org/10.1038/s42256-020-00242-6

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-10-figure-dont.html?utm_source=nwl...

Researchers Decipher The Secret Ingredients of Ancient Egyptian Ink

An analysis of 12 ancient papyrus fragments has revealed some surprising details about how the Egyptians mixed their red and black ink – findings which could give us a lot more insight into how the earliest writers managed to get their words down on the page.

Ancient Egyptians were using inks to write at least as far back as 3200 BCE. However, the samples studied in this case were dated to 100-200 CE and originally collected from the famous Tebtunis temple library – the only large-scale institutional library known to have survived from the period.

Using a variety of synchrotron radiation techniques, including the use of high-powered X-rays to analyse microscopic samples, the researchers revealed the elemental, molecular, and structural composition of the inks in unprecedented detail.

The red inks, typically used to highlight headings, instructions, or keywords, were most likely coloured by the natural pigment ochre, the researchers say – traces of iron, aluminium, and hematite point to this being the case.

More intriguing was the discovery of lead-based compounds in both the black and the red inks, without any of the traditional lead-based pigments used for colouring. This suggests the lead was added for technical purposes. Lead-based driers prevent the binder from spreading too much, when ink or paint is applied on the surface of paper or papyrus.

As well as explaining how the ancient Egyptians kept their papyrus smudge-free, it also suggests some pretty specialised ink manufacturing techniques. The fact that the lead was not added as a pigment but as a drier infers that the ink had quite a complex recipe and could not be made by just anyone.

Insights into the composition of ancient Egyptian red and black inks on papyri achieved by synchrotron-based microanalyses

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/10/22/2004534117

https://www.sciencealert.com/chemical-analysis-has-revealed-the-adv...

The Mystery of The Platypus Deepens With The Discovery of Its Biofluorescent Fur

Scientists are seeing the  platypus in a whole new light. Under an ultraviolet lamp, this bizarre-looking creature appears even more peculiar than normal, glowing a soft, greenish-blue hue instead of the typical brown we're used to seeing.

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-australian-platypus-is-the-latest-...

Doubts over a ‘possible sign of life’ on Venus show how science works

Further searches for reported hints of phosphine have been turning up empty

It was one of those “big, if true” stories. In September, scientists reported that Venus’ atmosphere seems to be laced with phosphine, a possible sign of life.

Now there’s increasing emphasis on the “if.” As scientists take fresh looks at the data behind the Venus announcement, and add other datasets to the mix, the original claim of inexplicable amounts of phosphine is being called into doubt. And that’s a good thing, many scientists say.

It’s exactly how science should work.

On September 14, astronomer Jane Greaves of Cardiff University in Wales and colleagues reported that they had seen signs of phosphine in Venus’ clouds using two different telescopes (SN: 9/14/20). The phosphine seemed to be too abundant to exist without some kind of source replenishing it. That source could be strange microbes living in the clouds, or some weird unknown Venusian chemistry, the team said.

Greaves and colleagues first spotted phosphine with the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii and followed up with the powerful ALMA telescope array in Chile. But those ALMA data, and particularly the way they were handled, are now being called into question.

The key Venus observations were spectra, or plots of the light coming from the planet in a range of wavelengths. Different molecules block or absorb light at specific wavelengths, so searching for dips in a spectrum can reveal the chemicals in a planet’s atmosphere.

Phosphine showed up as a dip in Venus’ spectrum at about 1.12 millimeters, a wavelength of light that the molecule was thought to be absorbing. If Venus’ spectrum could be drawn as a straight line across all wavelengths of light, phosphine would make a deep valley at that wavelength.

But real data are never that easy to read. In real life, other sources — from Earth’s atmosphere to the inner workings of the telescope itself — introduce wiggles, or “noise,” into that nice straight line. The bigger the wiggles, the less scientists believe that the dips represent interesting molecules. Any particular dip might instead be just a random, extra-large wiggle.

That problem gets even worse when looking at a bright object such as Venus with a powerful telescope like ALMA

“The reason those bumps and wiggles are here at all is because of the intrinsic brightness of Venus, which makes it difficult to get a reliable measurement,” Cordiner says. “You could think of it as being dazzled by a bright light: If there’s a bright light in your vision, then your ability to pick out fainter details becomes diminished.”

So astronomers do a few different things to smooth out the data and let real signals shine through.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/venus-phosphine-possible-sign-l...

I.A.G. Snellen et al. Re-analysis of the 267-GHz ALMA observations of Venus: No statistic.... arXiv:2010.09761. Posted October 19, 2020.

T. Encrenaz et al. A stringent upper limit on the PH₃ abundance at the cloud top of Venus. Astronomy & Astrophysics, in press, 2020. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202039559.

**Nylon finally takes its place as a piezoelectric textile

Saleem Anwar et al. Piezoelectric Nylon‐11 Fibers for Electronic Textiles, Energy Harvesting and Sensing, Advanced Functional Materials (2020). DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202004326

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-nylon-piezoelectric-textile.html?utm_...

New insight into how brain neurons influence choices

When you are faced with a choice—say, whether to have ice cream or chocolate cake for dessert—sets of brain cells just above your eyes fire as you weigh your options. Animal studies have shown that each option activates a distinct set of neurons in the brain. The more enticing the offer, the faster the corresponding neurons fire.

Now, a study in monkeys by researchers has shown that the activity of these neurons encodes the value of the options and determines the final decision. In the experiments, researchers let animals choose between different juice flavours. By changing the neurons' activity, the researchers changed how appealing the monkeys found each option, leading the animals to make different choices.

A detailed understanding of how options are valued and choices are made in the brain will help us understand how decision-making goes wrong in people with conditions such as addiction, eating disorders, depression and schizophrenia.

Values encoded in orbitofrontal cortex are causally related to economic choices, Nature (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2880-x , www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2880-x

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-insight-brain-neurons-choice...

Bats can predict the future, researchers discover

Bats are quite skilled at predicting one thing: where to find dinner ( in the future). 

Bats calculate where their prey is headed by building on-the-fly predictive models of target motion from echoes researchers find. The models are so robust, bats can continue to track prey even when it temporarily vanishes behind echo-blocking obstacles like trees.

Although predicting object motion paths through vision has been extensively studied, these findings, published today in the journal PNAS, are the first to examine the comparable process in hearing. The work enhances the understanding of auditory-guided behaviours in animals and humans, including sight-impaired people who use listen to sounds to track objects in their surroundings.

Just the way a tennis player needs to find out when and where they will hit the ball, a bat needs to anticipate when and where it will make contact with the insect it's hunting. The insect is flying. The bat is also flying. In this very rapidly changing environment, if the bat were to just rely on the information it got from the most recent echo, it would miss the insect.

The bat uses the time delay between each echolocation call and the resulting echoes to determine how far away prey is. They tilt their heads to catch the changing intensity of echoes to figure out where the prey is in the horizontal plane. Bats must put together echo information about object distance and direction to successfully track an erratic moving insect.

But because bats are such good hunters, the research team thought that in addition, the bats must also be somehow using this information to predict where they prey is headed.

Researchers hypothesized that bats use both the velocity information from the timing of the echoes and further adjust their head aim. When they tested this model with their data, they saw it fit very well.

The question of prediction is important because an animal must plan ahead to decide what it's going to do next. A visual animal or a human has a stream of information coming in, but for bats it's remarkable because they're doing this with only brief acoustic snapshots.

Although bats are studied here, the findings apply to any animals that track moving sounds, and even to people, like the blind, who use clicks and cane taps to help them navigate while avoiding obstacles.

Angeles Salles el al., "Echolocating bats accumulate information from acoustic snapshots to predict auditory object motion," PNAS (2020). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2011719117

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-future.html?utm_source=nwletter&u...

Scientists identify specific brain region and circuits controlling attention

The attentional control that organisms need to succeed in their goals comes from two abilities: the focus to ignore distractions and the discipline to curb impulses. A new study  neuroscientists shows that these abilities are independent, but that the activity of norepinephrine-producing neurons in a single brain region, the locus coeruleus, controls both by targeting two distinct areas of the prefrontal cortex.

 Andrea Bari el al., "Differential attentional control mechanisms by two distinct noradrenergic coeruleo-frontal cortical pathways," PNAS (2020). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2015635117

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-scientists-specific-brain-re...

New way of cooking rice removes arsenic and retains mineral nutrients, study shows

Cooking rice in a certain way removes over 50 percent of the naturally occurring arsenic in brown rice, and 74 percent in white rice, according to new research. Importantly, this new method does not reduce micronutrients in the rice.

This way of cooking rice ( called the "parboiling with absorption method" (PBA)), removes most of the arsenic, while keeping most nutrients in the cooked rice.

The PBA method involves parboiling the rice in pre-boiled water for five minutes before draining and refreshing the water, then cooking it on a lower heat to absorb all the water.

Manoj Menon et al. Improved rice cooking approach to maximize arsenic removal while preserving nutrient elements, Science of The Total Environment (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143341

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-cooking-rice-arsenic-retains-mineral....

**Using radar to detect foreign objects in foods

Foreign objects—glass splinters, for example—that find their way into foods can be hazardous to consumers. Established X-ray techniques detect primarily metals—glass, plastic and wood pose a challenge. SAMMI, a new prototype, fills this gap: using radar, it has already detected glass splinters in sandwich cookies, as well as missing pieces of chocolate in advent calendars.

Any number of things can go awry during manufacture and cause glass splinters, metal shavings, wood splinters or plastic pieces to end up in the product. Product recalls not only damage companies financially, they also result in a loss of consumer confidence. Manufacturers therefore have a keen interest in inspecting their products for foreign objects. Currently, they do this primarily with X-ray machines, but these do not reliably detect all foreign objects. While they can easily identify metals, they often have difficulty with plastics, wood and glass. This means that, despite inspections, there is still a certain residual risk for manufacturers.

SAMMI, a prototype developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR, can now close this gap and provide greater security in food production. "Our system is based on millimeter waves and can augment established X-ray techniques," says Daniel Behrendt, business unit spokesperson at Fraunhofer FHR. "It detects the foreign matter that X-ray techniques can easily overlook—that is, glass splinters, plastics and wood. However, it is not able to penetrate metals, which in return is detected by X-ray techniques." Another advantage of the technology is that the millimeter waves used to inspect the foods pose no health risk.

The inspection works as follows: the food is placed on a conveyor belt and transported through the machine. Above the conveyor, the transmitting antenna rotates and transmits its waves through the product; below it, the receiving antenna receives these waves. The millimeter waves are uniquely attenuated by each of the different food materials and undergo a specific delay in their transit time. This makes it possible to identify not only the structure and composition of the food, but also the slightest deviations from those—such as are caused by foreign objects, for instance. Assigning a pixel to each measurement point and encoding the changes with different colors produces an image of the investigated object on which the foreign matter is immediately evident. Even packaged goods can be inspected in this way, non-destructively and without physical contact.

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-11-radar-foreign-foods.html?utm_so...

Put the baking soda back in the bottle: banned sodium bicarbonate ‘milkshakes’ don’t make racehorses faster

The controversial and banned practice of giving horses baking soda “milkshakes” before a race doesn’t work, according to our analysis of the available research.

Racing folklore says sodium bicarbonate milkshakes can boost racehorses’ endurance because the alkalinity of the baking soda helps counter the buildup of lactic acid in the blood when running.

But our systematic research review, recently published in the Journal of Equine Veterinary Science reveals milkshakes don’t boost horses’ athletic performance.

This means any trainer still tempted to flout the ban on this tactic would be endangering their horses’ welfare and risking heavy sanctions over a practice that is basically snake oil.

https://theconversation.com/put-the-baking-soda-back-in-the-bottle-...

Do I really need this crown? Dentists admit feeling pressured to offer unnecessary treatments

https://theconversation.com/do-i-really-need-this-crown-dentists-ad...

**Studying life at the extremes

Skilled surgeons boost colon cancer survival by 70%

Patients of more technically skilled surgeons, as assessed by review of operative video, have better long-term survival after surgery for the treatment of colon cancer, reports a new  Medicine study. Patients whose surgery was performed by a highly skilled surgeon had a 70 percent lower risk of dying over five years compared to patients with a lower skilled surgeon, the study found.

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2020/10/skilled-surgeons-boos...

https://researchnews.cc/news/3359/Skilled-surgeons-boost-colon-canc...

Small brain device proves big game changer for severely paralysed patients

A tiny device the size of a small paperclip has been shown to help patients with upper limb paralysis to text, email and even shop online in the first human trial. The device, Stentrode, has been implanted successfully in two patients, who both suffer from severe paralysis due to motor neuron disease (MND) also known amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and neither had complete ability to move their upper limbs. Published in the Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery, the results found the Stentrode was able to wirelessly restore the transmission of brain impulses out of the body. This enabled the patients to successfully complete daily tasks such as online banking, shopping and texting, which previously had not been available to them.
https://about.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/news/2020/october/small-brain...

https://researchnews.cc/news/3364/Small-brain-device-proves-big-gam...

Novel biomarker and modelling could help better identify lethal arrhythmias
Researchers at the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences at Kings College London, in collaboration with colleagues at the Royal Brompton & Hartfield NHS Foundation Trust, have identified a novel imaging-biomarker that can be used to help differentiate risk levels of lethal arrhythmias (irregular heartbeat) in patients with problematic left ventricles. For the first time, they have used detailed computational modelling to also understand why this biomarker is important, in the hopes it will help clinical translation and personalise medicine. Published in JACC: Electro Electrophysiology, the researchers also showed that patient-specific computational simulations alone could be used as a predictive tool to identify individual risk of arrhythmias.

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/novel-biomarker-and-modelling-could-help...

https://researchnews.cc/news/3361/Novel-biomarker-and-modelling-cou...

Stentrode™: Translating thought into action

Antibiotic study wins research paper of the year

 The paper, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in July 2019 and led by Cardiff University, in collaboration with Kings and the University of Oxford, has been awarded the prestigious honour from the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP). The paper found a finger-prick blood test could help prevent unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The finger prick test measures the amount of C-reactive protein (CRP). This is a marker of inflammation that rises rapidly in the blood in response to serious infections. People who have a low CRP level can receive little benefit from antibiotic treatment. Testing the blood levels can safely reduce the use of antibiotics. 

https://researchnews.cc/news/3362/Antibiotic-study-wins-research-pa...

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Drones Are Being Sent Straight Into Volcanoes, For Life-Saving Science

With an estimated 300 active volcanoes on Earth, the challenge is how to monitor them all to send out early warnings before they erupt. Measuring volcanic gas emissions is also no easy task.

Now researchers have designed specially-adapted drones to help gather data from an active volcano in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

Scientists have a few ways of forecasting when a volcano is going to blow. They can monitor earthquake activity in the area to detect tremors which almost always precede eruptions, and look out for bulging in the volcano's sloping walls as magma builds up underneath.

When clear skies allow, satellites can also rapidly detect and measure volcanic emissions of gases such as sulphur dioxide (SO2). Changes to these gas emissions can signal more activity in the volcano below.

Although volcanoes emit just a fraction of the carbon emissions humans do, researchers still want to be able to estimate what carbon dioxide (CO2) they do emit, to factor this into the carbon budget we have left to limit the effects of climate change.

Travelling to PNG, the international team set about testing two types of long-range drones equipped with gas sensors, cameras, and other devices during two field campaigns.

novel approach - that is, long-range and high-altitude [drone] operations enabling in situ measurements - is presently the only feasible means by which we can characterise gas chemistry at steep, hazardous, and highly active volcanoes like Manam," the research team concluded in their paper.

Future research will take more diligent work from scientists and flying time from drones, since the measurements from this study spanned just 10 days.

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/44/eabb9103

https://www.sciencealert.com/drones-sent-into-degassing-volcanoes-f...

If You Have COVID-19, US Study Shows 50% of Your Household Will Get Sick Within Days

https://www.sciencealert.com/if-you-have-covid-19-us-study-shows-ha...

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Man Almost Dies From an Allergic Reaction to Cold Air After a Shower

Stepping out of a hot shower into a cold bathroom almost killed a Colorado man, who had developed a serious allergic reaction to cold temperatures.

The 34-year-old old man collapsed after getting out of the shower, and his family found him on the floor, according to a report of the case published October 27 in The Journal of Emergency Medicine.

The man was struggling to breathe and his skin was covered in hives. He was experiencing a life-threatening, whole-body allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis.

When paramedics arrived, his family told them that the man had a history of being "allergic to the cold weather", according to the report. He had previously experienced hives as a reaction to the cold, but not anaphylaxis.

These episodes started after he moved from Micronesia, which has a tropical climate, to Colorado, which sees colder temperatures, the report said.

Paramedics treated the man with epinephrine and oxygen, and rushed him to the emergency room. When he got to the hospital, he was sweating profusely and had hives all over his body.

Doctors diagnosed him with cold urticaria, an allergic reaction of the skin after exposure to cold temperatures, including cold air or cold water, according to the Mayo Clinic. People can also develop symptoms after consuming cold food or drinks, Live Science previously reported.

The most common symptom is a red, itchy rash (hives) after exposure to the cold; but in more serious cases, people can develop anaphylaxis, which can cause their blood pressure to plummet and airways to narrow, making breathing difficult.

Your favourite music can send your brain into a pleasure overload

About half of people get chills when listening to their favourite music. Neuroscientists based in France have now used EEG to link chills to multiple brain regions involved in activating reward and pleasure systems. 

Scientists tried to understand why this happens. When the participants experienced a chill, researchers saw specific electrical activity in the orbitofrontal cortex (a region involved in emotional processing), the supplementary motor area (a mid-brain region involved in movement control) and the right temporal lobe (a region on the right side of the brain involved in auditory processing and musical appreciation). These regions work together to process music, trigger the brain's reward systems, and release dopamine—a "feel-good" hormone and neurotransmitter. Combined with the pleasurable anticipation of your favourite part of the song, this produces the tingly chill you experience—a physiological response thought to indicate greater cortical connectivity.

When experiencing musical chills, low frequency electrical signals called "theta activity"—a type of activity associated with successful memory performance in the context of high rewards and musical appreciation—either increase or decrease in the brain regions that are involved in musical processing.

What is most intriguing is that music seems to have no biological benefit to us. However, the implication of dopamine and of the reward system in processing of musical pleasure suggests an ancestral function for music.

This ancestral function may lie in the period of time we spend in anticipation of the "chill-inducing" part of the music. As we wait, our brains are busy predicting the future and release dopamine. Evolutionarily speaking, being able to predict what will happen next is essential for survival.

Why should we continue to study chills?

Researchers want to measure how cerebral and physiological activities of multiple participants are coupled in natural, social musical settings. Musical pleasure is a very interesting phenomenon that deserves to be investigated further, in order to understand why music is rewarding and unlock why music is essential in human lives.

Frontiers in Neuroscience (2020). DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2020.565815 , www.frontiersin.org/articles/1 … ins.2020.565815/full

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-favorite-music-brain-pleasur...

The brain's favorite type of music

Biologists shed light on mystery of how microbes evolve and affect hosts

researchers  have found that as microbes evolve and adapt to their unique hosts, they become less beneficial to hosts of other genotypes.

The findings suggest that there is probably not one universally healthy microbiome. Rather, transplanted microbes might need time to adapt to a new host before they bring benefits. Microbes became better adapted to their hosts through the evolution of more, rather than less, cooperation.

Rebecca T. Batstone et al, Experimental evolution makes microbes more cooperative with their local host genotype, Science (2020). DOI: 10.1126/science.abb7222

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-biologists-mystery-microbes-evolve-af...

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When we put microbes from the beginning and the end of the experiment back onto hosts, we found they did best with the same hosts they evolved on, suggesting they adapted to their local host," said Batstone. "The derived microbes were more beneficial when they shared an evolutionary history with their host."

The researchers say the finding suggests that evolution might favour cooperation and that scientists might be able to use experimental evolution in a laboratory setting to make microbes that provide more benefits to their hosts.

"When plants or even animals arrive in new environments, perhaps as invasive species or because they are responding to a changing climate, the microbes they encounter may be initially poor partners. But these microbes might rapidly adapt and develop a more beneficial relationship

Self-watering soil could transform farming

A new type of soil created by engineers  can pull water from the air and distribute it to plants, potentially expanding the map of farmable land around the globe to previously inhospitable places and reducing water use in agriculture at a time of growing droughts.

The team's atmospheric water irrigation system uses super-moisture-absorbent gels to capture water from the air. When the soil is heated to a certain temperature, the gels release the water, making it available to plants. When the soil distributes water, some of it goes back into the air, increasing humidity and making it easier to continue the harvesting cycle.

 Xingyi Zhou et al, Super Moisture Absorbent Gels for Sustainable Agriculture via Atmospheric Water Irrigation, ACS Materials Letters (2020). DOI: 10.1021/acsmaterialslett.0c00439

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-self-watering-soil-farming.html?utm_s...

Two centuries of Monarch butterflies show evolution of wing length

Monarch butterflies are known for their annual, multi-generation migrations in which individual insects can fly for thousands of miles. But Monarchs have also settled in some locations where their favorite food plants grow year round, so they no longer need to migrate.

Researchers now 

took a deep dive into museum collections to see how migration has shaped the species. Monarchs are native to North America, but have also established non-migrating populations in the Caribbean, Central and South America, and islands in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. These island-hopping butterflies may have been blown by storms before being lucky enough to reach dry land.

Monarchs that established new, non-migrating populations also had those larger wings. But over time, the wings of these colonists got smaller.

The shift between longer and shorter wings shows two opposite selection forces at work. Migration selects for longer, larger forewings while non-migration seems to relax this and lead to smaller wings.

Alternatively, wing size could be influenced by other environmental factors depending on where butterflies are hatched and grow up. The non-migrating butterflies retained their smaller wings, showing that the effect is due to genetics and not the rearing environment.

These findings provide a compelling example of how migration-associated traits may be favoured during the early stages of range expansion, and also the rate of reductions in those same traits upon loss of migration.

Micah G. Freedman et al, Two centuries of monarch butterfly collections reveal contrasting effects of range expansion and migration loss on wing traits, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2020). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2001283117

New study confirms that migration leads to larger wings in monarch ...

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-centuries-monarch-butterflies-evoluti...

COVID-19 'super-spreading' events play outsized role in overall disease transmission

There have been many documented cases of COVID-19 "super-spreading" events, in which one person infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus infects many other people. But how much of a role do these events play in the overall spread of the disease? A new study  suggests that they have a much larger impact than expected.

The study of about 60 super-spreading events shows that events where one person infects more than six other people are much more common than would be expected if the range of transmission rates followed statistical distributions commonly used in epidemiology.

Based on their findings, the researchers also developed a mathematical model of COVID-19 transmission, which they used to show that limiting gatherings to 10 or fewer people could significantly reduce the number of super-spreading events and lower the overall number of infections.

Super-spreading events are likely more important than most of us had initially realized. Even though they are extreme events, they are probable and thus are likely occurring at a higher frequency than we thought. If we can control the super-spreading events, we have a much greater chance of getting this pandemic under control, according to this study.

Felix Wong et al, Evidence that coronavirus superspreading is fat-tailed, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2020). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2018490117

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-covid-super-spreading-events...

Hot or cold, weather alone has no significant effect on COVID-19 spread

The link between weather and COVID-19 is complicated. Weather influences the environment in which the coronavirus must survive before infecting a new host. But it also influences human behaviour, which moves the virus from one host to another.

Aa new study finding that temperature and humidity do not play a significant role in coronavirus spread.

That means whether it's hot or cold outside, the transmission of COVID-19 from one person to the next depends almost entirely on human behaviour.

The effect of weather is low and other features such as mobility have more impact than weather. In terms of relative importance, weather is one of the last parameters.

Across scales, the scientists found that the weather had nearly no influence. When it was compared with other factors using a statistical metric that breaks down the relative contribution of each factor toward a particular outcome, the weather's relative importance at the county scale was less than 3%, with no indication that a specific type of weather promoted spread over another.

In contrast, the data showed the clear influence of human behavior—and the outsized influence of individual behaviors. Taking trips and spending time away from home were the top two contributing factors to COVID-19 growth, with a relative importance of about 34% and 26% respectively. The next two important factors were population and urban density, with a relative importance of about 23% and 13% respectively.

Sajad Jamshidi et al, Global to USA County Scale Analysis of Weather, Urban Density, Mobility, Homestay, and Mask Use on COVID-19, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2020). DOI: 10.3390/ijerph17217847

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-hot-cold-weather-significant...

3.2 billion images and 720,000 hours of video are shared online daily. Can you sort real from fake?

Here is how you can do it …..This article explains how you can do it …..

https://theconversation.com/3-2-billion-images-and-720-000-hours-of...

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Physicists hone in on the perfect clock

Physicists have measured the energy of a thorium-229 nucleus’s lowest excited state, called thorium-229m, to the highest precision so far. This tiny nucleus could make for the most accurate clock yet if we could count the tick-tocks of the transition between the ground state of the th... — the lowest of all nuclear excited states. A nuclear clock would be less affected by external electromagnetic fields than today’s atomic clocks are, which lose a frankly unacceptable one second every 13 billion years.

Radical diagnostic could save millions of people at risk of dying from blood loss

In a world-first outcome that could save more than two million lives globally each year, researchers have developed a diagnostic using a glass slide, Teflon film and a piece of paper that can test for levels of fibrinogen concentration in blood in less than four minutes. Fibrinogen is a protein found in blood that is needed for clotting. When a patient experiences traumatic injury, such as a serious car accident, or major surgery and childbirth complications, fibrinogen is required in their blood to prevent major haemorrhaging and death from blood loss. Typically, heavily bleeding patients must be transported to a hospital or emergency centre where they undergo diagnostic tests before being treated. These tests are time consuming and costly as they require expensive equipment, specialised/trained personnel and can take up to half an hour.

When a patient is bleeding heavily and has received several blood transfusions, their levels of fibrinogen drop. Even after dozens of transfusions, patients keep bleeding. What they need is an injection of fibrinogen. However, if patients receive too much fibrinogen, they can also die.

This new diagnostic can eliminate the preparation time, labour and transportation difficulties of traditional techniques used in the hospital. It can diagnose hypofibrinogenemia in critically bleeding patients anywhere in the world, and can drastically reduce the time to treatment needed for fibrinogen replacement therapy. The test can take less than four minutes, about five times faster than the current gold standard methods.

1. Marek Bialkower, Clare A. Manderson, Heather McLiesh, Rico F. Tabor, Gil Garnier. Paper Diagnostic for Direct Measurement of Fibrinogen Concentration in Whole Blood. ACS Sensors, 2020; DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.0c01937

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201029105018.htm#:~:t....

https://researchnews.cc/news/3377/Radical-diagnostic-could-save-mil...

Researchers discover how birds deal with gusty conditions

Baking Soda Boosts T Cells’ Ability to Fight Leukemia

Early big-game hunters of the Americas were female, researchers suggest

For centuries, historians and scientists mostly agreed that when early human groups sought food, men hunted and women gathered. However, a 9,000-year-old female hunter burial in the Andes Mountains of South America reveals a different story, according to new research conducted.

An archaeological discovery and analysis of early burial practices overturns the long-held 'man-the-hunter' hypothesis.

These findings are particularly timely in light of contemporary conversations surrounding gendered labour practices and inequality. Labour practices among recent hunter-gatherer societies are highly gendered, which might lead some to believe that sexist inequalities in things like pay or rank are somehow 'natural.' But it's now clear that sexual division of labour was fundamentally different—likely more equitable—in our species' deep hunter-gatherer past.

During archaeological excavations at a high-altitude site called Wilamaya Patjxa in what is now Peru, researchers found an early burial that contained a hunting toolkit with projectile points and animal-processing tools. The objects accompanying people in death tend to be those that accompanied them in life, researchers said. It was determined that the hunter was likely female based on findings by the team's osteologist, James Watson of The University of Arizona. Watson's sex estimate was later confirmed by dental protein analysis.

 The surprising discovery of an early female hunter burial led the team to ask whether she was part of a broader pattern of female hunters or merely a one-off. Looking at published records of late Pleistocene and early Holocene burials throughout North and South America, the researchers identified 429 individuals from 107 sites. Of those, 27 individuals were associated with big-game hunting tools—11 were female and 15 were male. The sample was sufficient to "warrant the conclusion that female participation in early big-game hunting was likely nontrivial," researchers said. Moreover, the analysis identified the Wilamaya Patjxa female hunter as the earliest hunter burial in the Americas.

Statistical analysis shows that somewhere between 30 to 50 percent of hunters in these populations were female, the study said. This level of participation stands in stark contrast to recent hunter-gatherers, and even farming and capitalist societies, where hunting is a decidedly male activity with low levels of female participation, certainly under 30 percent

R. Haas el al., "Female hunters of the early Americas," Science Advances (2020). advances.sciencemag.org/lookup … .1126/sciadv.abd0310

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-early-big-game-hunters-americas-femal...

Using quantum properties of light to transmit information

Researchers have taken an important step toward developing a communications network that exchanges information across long distances by using photons, mass-less measures of light that are key elements of quantum computing and quantum communications systems.

The research team has designed a nanoscale node made out of magnetic and semiconducting materials that could interact with other nodes, using laser light to emit and accept photons.

The development of such a quantum network—designed to take advantage of the physical properties of light and matter characterized by quantum mechanics—promises faster, more efficient ways to communicate, compute, and detect objects and materials as compared to networks currently used for computing and communications.

Arunabh Mukherjee et al. Observation of site-controlled localized charged excitons in CrI3/WSe2 heterostructures, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19262-2

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-quantum-properties-transmit.html?utm_...

Study finds environmentally-friendly' tableware harms marine animals

A new  study compares the effects of two types of disposable dishes on the marine environment—regular plastic disposable dishes and more expensive bioplastic disposable dishes certified by various international organizations—and determines that the bioplastic dishes had a similar effect on marine animals as regular plastic dishes. Moreover, the study finds that bioplastic does not degrade rapidly in the marine environment.

People buy expensive disposable dishes and utensils with the special bioplastic standard seal of compliance on the assumption that they are being environmentally responsible. This study proves that while this may be good for their conscience, it can still damage the environment.

Bioplastics are made of natural, renewable materials, and biodegrade relatively fast under certain conditions. Disposable dishes and utensils made of bioplastics were granted various international standard seals and are marketed to consumers as environmentally friendly. However, they don't meet these expectations. 

In the short term, both types of plastic have a similar detrimental effect, according tot eh study. Bioplastics are made of natural materials and, in that sense, they are more beneficial environmentally speaking. But they may also contain toxins just like regular plastic dishes and they do not biodegrade quickly in the aquatic habitat. 

Guillermo Anderson et al, Potential effects of biodegradable single-use items in the sea: Polylactic acid (PLA) and solitary ascidians, Environmental Pollution (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2020.115364

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-environmentally-friendly-tableware-ma...

Researchers recover 75,000 'deleted' files from pre-owned USB drives

Highly sensitive tax returns, contracts and bank statements were among 75,000 "deleted" files recovered by cybersecurity researchers as part of an  investigation into the risks of selling used USB drives over the internet.

The team made the startling discovery after purchasing just 100 devices on a popular online auction site and examining them further.

98 of the USBs seemed, at face value, to be empty. However, with publicly available tools it is worryingly easy to retrieve data.

Only 32 of the drives had been properly wiped. Partial files were extracted from 26 devices and every single file was extracted from the remaining 42 USB drives.

Many of the files extracted were determined to be of  high sensivity, and included files named "passwords", contracts, bank statements and tax returns. Other USB drives contained images with embedded location data.

so the researchers say, the way many computers delete files doesn't actually remove them. What happens is that the file is removed from the index so that they are effectively hidden from view. They're still there though and if you know how, you can easily recover them using publicly available forensics tools. Software is freely available that can permanently wipe USB drives, so if you are going to sell a device we would strongly recommend using that. If you're planning to discard a USB device without selling it, you should destroy it with a hammer—make it impossible for a third party to get hold of the data it stores. If you're planning to buy a new USB drive, the best way of mitigating the risks is to buy an encrypted device.

James Conacher et al. Caveat Venditor, Used USB Drive Owner, SSRN Electronic Journal (2020). DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3631441

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-11-recover-deleted-pre-owned-usb.h...

Scientists find harmful chemicals in household dust

Since the 1970s, chemicals called brominated flame retardants (BFRs) have been added to a host of consumer and household products, ranging from electronics and mattresses to upholstery and carpets. While they were intended to improve fire safety, one form—polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs—has proved harmful to human health, specifically our hormonal systems.

the process used to add this chemical to manufactured goods attached the particles very loosely. As a result, the compound tends to shed over time through normal wear and tear.

A growing body of evidence suggests that concentrations of this chemical are higher indoors and that it is present in dust.

It is not feasible for people to rid their homes of all products and materials containing BRFs. But if dust is one source of our exposure, how can you reduce this exposure? Public awareness is very important. Maybe we need more frequent vacuuming of all the dust.

These findings point to the need to identify—and make consumers more aware of—safer alternatives that are free of brominated compounds. 

Peter Blanchard et al. Evaluating the use of synchrotron X-ray spectroscopy in investigating brominated flame retardants in indoor dust, Environmental Science and Pollution Research (2020). DOI: 10.1007/s11356-020-10623-4

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-scientists-chemicals-household.html?u...

Effective science communication

ISS matures as science hub

ISS matures as science hub

Scientists aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have conducted about 3,000 experiments. More than 40% have been biology or biotechnology experiments. The studies have produced various insights into how humans and animals adapt to lengthy spaceflight. Male mice, for example, can still produce healthy offspring after floating in space for 35 days. A comparison of various biological factors of two identical twins — one an astronaut aboard the ISS for a year and the other on Earth showed that being in space changes telomere length, gene expression, the gut microbiome and the dimensions of the artery that brings blood to the brain. Many, but not all, of these reverted to normal levels after the astronaut returned to Earth. A lot of people don’t realize how much research has been done on the International Space Station around human health

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6436/eaau8650?utm_source...

Spontaneous release of neurotransmitters in the brain identified as a culprit of developmental disorders in children

pharmacologists have reported the first evidence that aberrant spontaneous release of neurotransmitters in the brain can cause a range of severe intellectual and neurodevelopmental disorders in infants and children.

Neurons, the billions of cells constantly sharing information within the brain, communicate with each other but do not touch. They release chemicals called neurotransmitters, orchestrated by the SNARE protein complex, triggered by a wave of electrical activity. With this “evoked release” of neurotransmitters, information jumps from one neuron to the next. This neurotransmission enables us to complete basic tasks, process sensory information and move our bodies. Mutations of one of the proteins in the SNARE complex, SNAP25, are known to cause a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders. These can present with recurrent seizures, intellectual disability and autistic features in infants and children.

This discovery marks the first step toward developing specific treatments that can improve cognitive outcomes in youth and adulthood.

By examining the electrical signals of 10 different SNAP25 mutations among 11 patients, the researchers found that mutations of SNAP25 encourage anomalous neurotransmitter release both in response to electrical activity and independent of electrical signaling in the brain. More importantly, they identified the single mutation that causes spontaneous release—neurotransmitter release even in the absence of appropriate electrical activity.

https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2020/11/03/spontaneous-release-of-neuro...

https://researchnews.cc/news/3398/Spontaneous-release-of-neurotrans...

Warmer world linked to poor pregnancy results: study

Women exposed to high temperatures and heatwaves during pregnancy are more likely to have premature or stillborn babies, researchers said Wednesday. Such outcomes -- closely linked to poverty, especially in the tropics -- will likely increase with global warming, especially during more frequent and intense heatwaves, they reported in BMJ, a medical journal. Even small increases "could have a major impact on public health as exposure to high temperatures is common and escalating," the study concluded. 

Associations between high temperatures in pregnancy and risk of preterm birth, low birth weight, and stillbirths: systematic review and meta-analysis, BMJ (2020). DOI: 10.1136/bmj.m3811 , www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3811

https://researchnews.cc/news/3402/Warmer-world-linked-to-poor-pregn...

Whip Spiders | Explorers In The Field

**An Asteroid Trailing After Mars Could Actually Be The Stolen Twin of Our Moon

https://www.sciencealert.com/an-asteroid-that-looks-just-like-the-m...

**Scientists Find Tissue in The Human Eye That Appears Resistant to SARS-CoV-2

While this general advice is repeated by health authorities the world over, there's still a lot we don't know about how the coronavirus might enter the body through the eyes, although scientists suggest it's "biologically plausible".

However, new evidence suggests at least some of the eye may in fact be resistant to SARS-CoV-2 – even while it's susceptible to other kinds of viruses.

In a new study, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that the cornea – the transparent dome at the front of the eye, which covers the iris and pupil – appeared to be resistant to coronavirus infection in experiments, although they're eager to emphasise the findings are only preliminary.

These findings do not prove that all corneas are resistant

"But every donor cornea we tested was resistant to the novel coronavirus. It's still possible a subset of people may have corneas that support growth of the virus, but none of the corneas we studied supported growth of SARS-CoV-2."

In experiments using corneal tissue from 25 human donors and also mice corneas, the researchers exposed the eye tissue to three separate viruses: SARS-CoV-2, Zika virus, and herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1, which produces cold sores).

In the human cornea explants tested (which also contained some conjunctiva tissue, the membrane that covers the rest of the front of the eye), the experiment showed that herpes and Zika virus were able to replicate in the tissue – but tests showed no sign of SARS-CoV-2 replication.

"The cornea and conjunctiva are known to have receptors for the novel coronavirus, but in these  studies, researchers found that the virus did not replicate in the cornea.

A potential molecular inhibitor of viruses in the eye – called interferon lambda – was able to limit virus growth in the human cornea for HSV-1 and Zika virus, but blocking the protein didn't seem to boost SARS-CoV-2's ability to replicate.

Without more to go on, the researchers' best guess for now is that the human cornea's resistance to coronavirus is "likely regulated by a distinct antiviral pathway". Quite what that pathway is we still don't know, and the team says further study is needed to confirm these findings.

https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(20)31328-0?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2211124720313280%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

https://www.sciencealert.com/there-s-a-part-of-the-human-eye-that-s...

Yellow Turtle Found in India

For the second time in just three months the Indian Forest Service has announced the discovery of a golden flapshell turtle.

Like a slice of cheese, a slab of butter, or the yolk of an egg, this zesty creature with its vivid yellow shell, head, and limbs.

While such aberrations of colour are rare in nature, this bizarre phenomenon is more common than many recognise.

Yellow variants of the Indian flapshell turtle (Lissemys punctata) - which typically are brown with yellow spots and a creamy white underside - have been discovered a handful of times over the years in various parts of South Asia, where it is one of the most common aquatic turtle species.

The genetic anomaly doesn't happen often, but when it does, it tends to stand out.

https://www.sciencealert.com/what-s-the-deal-with-this-ridiculous-g...

How Vaccines Train Innate Immunity

A recent study elucidates some of the changes that occur in the body after inoculation with a tuberculosis vaccine.

In the bone marrow post-vaccination, genes are expressed that trigger hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells to differentiate into monocytes, neutrophils, and other so-called myeloid cells. In a separate analysis of the effects of BCG in newborns, the researchers found that the vaccine ramped up the number of neutrophils in babies’ blood compared with unvaccinated infants.

The biggest trees capture the most carbon: Large trees dominate carbon storage in forests

Older, large-diameter trees have been shown to store disproportionally massive amounts of carbon compared to smaller trees, highlighting their importance in mitigating climate change, according to a new study in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change.

 They found that despite only accounting for 3% of the total number of trees on the studied plots, large trees stored 42% of the total above-ground carbon within these forest ecosystems. This study is among the first of its kind to report how a proposed policy could affect carbon storage in forest ecosystems, potentially weakening protections for large-diameter trees and contributing to huge releases of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in the face of a changing climate.

Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, DOI: 10.3389/ffgc.2020.594274 , www.frontiersin.org/articles/1 … fgc.2020.594274/full

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-biggest-trees-capture-carbon-large.ht...

New research traces the origins of trench fever

First observed among British Expeditionary Forces in 1915, trench fever sickened an estimated 500,000 soldiers during World War I. Since then, the disease has become synonymous with the battlefield. But now, new research from an international team of scientists has uncovered evidence challenging this long-held belief.

The research, published this week in PLOS ONE, outlines the discovery of DNA evidence of the disease in civilian remains predating WWI by thousands of years. In total, the team analyzed bone fragments and teeth of 145 individuals alive between the 1st and 19th centuries. Approximately 20% of those remains contained traces of Bartonella quintana, the bacteria responsible for trench fever. 

Epidemiologists and researchers used real-time polymerase chain reaction testing to detect B. quintana DNA within the remains.

Once contracted, there are diseases, like trench fever, that can leave traces within your DNA and can integrate your DNA with further information. This means that once a person dies, even as far back as 2,000 years ago, it is still possible to find traces of the bacterium that infected them.

 The discovery sheds light on the complex history of trench fever and begins answering historical questions about the lives of people in this region during the 3rd and 4th centuries.

While most associate this disease with WWI and WWII, occurrences of trench fever are still reported today, most prominently within homeless populations. The bacteria are spread to humans through contact with body lice (Pediculus humanus corporis), making poor personal hygiene a primary factor in its spread and infection rate. Researchers hope that by tracing the progression of B. quintana through history, they're able to identify ways to better manage the spread of the disease today.

Ba-Hoang-Anh Mai et al, Five millennia of Bartonella quintana bacteraemia, PLOS ONE (2020). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0239526

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-trench-fever.html?utm_source=nwletter...

How Some Vaccines Protect Against More than Their Targets

As researchers test existing vaccines for nonspecific protection against COVID-19, immunologists are working to understand how some inoculations protect against pathogens they weren’t designed to fend off.

https://www.the-scientist.com/features/how-some-vaccines-protect-ag...

Startling Case Study Finds Asymptomatic COVID-19 Carrier Who Shed Virus For 70 Days

A team of researchers and doctors has now reported the case of one woman with leukemia who had no symptoms of COVID-19 but 70 days after her first positive test, she was still shedding infectious SARS-CoV-2 particles.

This result is much longer than previous reports of hospitalised adults found shedding infectious SARS-CoV-2 virus up to 20 days after their COVID-19 diagnosis, plus other accounts of people shedding genetic material from the virus up to 63 days after their symptoms first appeared.

The new report should alert doctors and public health experts alike to the fact that people without symptoms and with weakened immune systems, such as cancer patients, can seemingly shed the SARS-CoV-2 virus for a really long time. In this case, even months.

"Although it is difficult to extrapolate from a single patient, our data suggest that long-term shedding of infectious virus may be a concern in certain immunocompromised patients," the research team wrote in their paper describing the case.

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)31456-2

https://www.sciencealert.com/case-study-reveals-rare-patient-who-sh...