Today Is for Nachos

Good morning. How are you? You getting enough sleep, or sleeping all the time? You eating enough, not enough, too much? How’s your stress level? You feeling optimistic? Or the opposite? I watched the sun rise the other morning and asked myself those questions. I found I could not answer them. And I can’t be…

The Hidden History Baked Into a Cooking Pot

Sure, astrophysicists have big telescopes, and oceanographers use underwater robots, but some researchers get to cook venison, lots of it, in the name of science. Last month in the journal Scientific Reports, a team of archaeologists and organic chemists described how they had spent a year cooking a variety of meals in clay pots and…

Vivid Street Scenes From Salvador, Brazil

At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, with travel restrictions in place worldwide, we launched a new series — The World Through a Lens — in which photojournalists help transport you, virtually, to some of our planet’s most beautiful and intriguing places. This week, Stephanie Foden shares a collection of images from Brazilian state of…

Do Masks Impede Children’s Development?

Nothing about masks and masking has come easily in the United States, it seems. There were mixed and confusing messages back at the beginning of the pandemic, then political discussion that got in the way of sane public health decision-making, as well as circulating disinformation, anger, and a certain amount of shaming and finger-pointing, by…

‘A World in Disorder’

14 September 2020, GENEVA – COVID-19 has taken advantage of a world in disorder, causing catastrophic health, social, and economic consequences and irreparable harm to humanity. The virus has killed close to a million people and many more may die as a result of its impact on health systems, food supplies, and the economy. The…

Guidance balances staph infection prevention in critically ill infants with family contact

NEW YORK (September 14, 2020) — Neonatal intensive care units (NICU) should balance prevention of Staphylococcus aureus infections in critically ill infants with the need for skin-to-skin contact with parents and siblings, according to a Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) white paper published in the journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology. The paper…

New $5.4 million study to advance understanding of severe coronavirus infection

The University of Liverpool is leading a major new international project to improve our understanding of severe coronavirus infection in humans. Researchers will sequence and analyse samples from humans and animals to create profiles of various coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. The results will help inform the development of new treatments and vaccines to…

BU researchers awarded NIH grant to create new framingham heart study brain aging program

(Boston)–Since 1976, the Framingham Heart Study (FHS)–the longest running multi-generational epidemiological study in the world–has followed participants for incident dementia. The findings have helped to analyze the differences between normal, age-related changes in thinking and disease-related pathological alterations. In addition, the inclusion of many of the original participants’ children and grandchildren (known as the second-…