Covid-19 can break marriages. The numbers coming out of the epicenters of the disease, though early and tentative, are dramatic. In Wuhan, applications for divorce have doubled from pre-outbreak levels, overwhelming the bureaucracy. But even for marriages that are not collapsing, Covid-19 is increasing the pressure. We’ve never spent so much time face-to-face with each…
When I was training in pediatrics, back in the 1980s, we spent a lot of time working in the newborn intensive care unit, where relatively new — and rapidly evolving — technologies made it possible to save extremely premature infants. A full-term pregnancy lasts for 40 weeks, and we were often taking care of babies…
More than half of pregnant women recently admitted to a UK hospital with covid-19 infection were from black or other ethnic minority groups, finds a national surveillance study published by The BMJ today. Most women had good outcomes, and transmission of covid-19 to infants was uncommon, but the researchers say the high proportion of women…
LOS ANGELES (June 5, 2020) – An innovative effort launched in April and led by a fellow in the UCLA Biodesign program has yielded positive results, solving the health system’s shortage of nasopharyngeal swabs – a key element in COVID-19 testing – at a time when Southern California is seeing a rise in new cases…
Distinct from virus transmission patterns identified elsewhere, analysis of SARS-CoV-2 genomes from a small number of California-based patients suggests the virus arrived in northern California through a complex series of introductions, not only from state to state but also from international travel. These results, say the authors, emphasize the need for social distancing and travel…
Advances in the Production of Minor Ginsenosides Using Microorganisms and Their Enzymes – BIO Integration https://bio-integration.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/bioi20200007.pdf Announcing a new article publication for BIO Integration journal. In this review article the author Almando Geraldi from the Universitas Airlangga, Indonesia considers the advances in the production of minor ginsenosides using microorganisms and their enzymes. In this review,…
A team working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) found evidence to support a long-debated mode of evolution, revealing how evolution captures environmental variation to teach old genes new tricks: Sweat bees switch from solitary to social behavior, repurposing ancient sets of genes that originally evolved to regulate the development of other traits. Honeybees,…
Durham, NC – A new study released today in STEM CELLS addresses a significant problem that has been confronting human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) therapy. While hundreds of clinical trials involving thousands of patients are under way to test hMSCs’ ability to treat everything from heart disease to brain injury, there has been no way…
An educational video about hospice care can provide valuable information for patients with advanced cancer and their caregivers, improve perceptions of this quality form of care at the end of life, and increase its use. These are the findings of a study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society…
The Food and Drug Administration on Sunday changed its policy on decontamination for some N95 masks mainly used by health professionals, saying certain masks made in China should not be reused. Shortages of N95 masks in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic have prompted loosening of some rules by the F.D.A. in the form of…