The President’s Backup Band

In August, Kerry Washington, Eva Longoria, Tracee Ellis Ross and Julia Louis-Dreyfus took turns as M.C.s at the Democratic National Convention. They were picked seemingly for their ability to reach different groups of women voters and represented exactly what Hollywood and the party hoped to telegraph about itself: classy, inclusive, empathic. Donald Trump never had…

Examining impact of a point mutation in SARS-Cov-2 spike on virus transmission and pathogenicity

The current dominant variant of SARS-CoV-2, containing a D614G substitution in the spike protein, appears to have evolved to enhance transmissibility, according to a new study in human cells and animal models. Its results address concerns that have been raised about how this emergent mutation could enhance transmissibility, antigenicity, and/or pathogenesis, with implications for therapies…

Hearing test may detect autism in newborns

For years, researchers have known through numerous studies that hearing and other sensory systems of adults and children who have autism differ from children or adults without autism. Now, University of Miami and Harvard Medical School researchers who explored responses to the standard hearing test administered to millions of newborns around the world, are closing…

San Diego zoo global biobanking advances wildlife conservation and human medicine worldwide

In a study that has unprecedented implications to advance both medicine and biodiversity conservation, researchers have sequenced 131 new placental mammal genomes, bringing the worldwide total to more than 250. The results of the mammal genome project, published in the Nov. 12 issue of the journal Nature, catalog and characterize whole branches of Earth’s biodiversity,…

JAMA reports fluvoxamine as potential early treatment for COVID-19

SAN FRANCISCO – Nov. 12, 2020 – The COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund (CETF), today announced that JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association, published the results of a Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis double-blind, randomized controlled clinical trial that investigated whether the antidepressant medication fluvoxamine, if taken within seven days of…