Tiger snakes living in Perth’s urban wetlands are accumulating toxic heavy metals in their livers, suggesting that their habitats – critical, local ecosystems – are contaminated and the species may be suffering as a result. Lead researcher PhD Candidate Mr Damian Lettoof, from the Behavioural Ecology Lab in the School of Molecular and Life Sciences…
Favipiravir Observational Study Group (principal investigator: Dr. Yohei Doi, Fujita Health University) released a preliminary report of the Favipiravir Observational Study in Japan on the Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases website. URL: //www.kansensho.or.jp/uploads/files/topics/2019ncov/covid19_casereport_en_200529.pdf Favipiraivr (brand name Avigan) is an anti-influenza drug which was developed by FUJIFILM Toyama Chemical Co., Ltd. Favipiravir can be administered to…
The Center for International Health, Education and Biosecurity (Ciheb) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Institute of Human Virology was awarded $4 million from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to support coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) response activities in Botswana, Nigeria, Malawi, and Mozambique. “Low-resource regions in Africa are vulnerable…
We don’t really know when the novel coronavirus first began infecting people. But as we turn a page on our calendars into June, it is fair to say that Sars-Cov-2 has been with us now for a full six months. At first, it had no name or true identity. Early in January, news reports referred…
A new analysis of 172 studies, funded by the World Health Organization, confirms what scientists have said for months: N95 and other respirator masks are far superior to surgical or cloth masks in protecting essential medical workers against the coronavirus. The results, published on Monday in The Lancet, make it clear that the W.H.O. and…
As some parts of the country “open up” and families venture beyond their households, parents are faced with hard decisions about what children can do. There are no official guidelines, so I asked smart and experienced pediatricians from around the country what questions they are getting from parents, and how they’re answering them. Spoiler alert:…
In the time since the world’s scientists and public health officials first became widely aware of the new coronavirus in January, they’ve had six months to learn about it. They’ve reached many conclusions about the virus and the illness it causes, from the importance of wearing masks to contain it, to the unusual range of…
We are in the midst of a mass extinction, many scientists have warned — this one driven not by a catastrophic natural event, but by humans. The unnatural loss of biodiversity is accelerating, and if it continues, the planet will lose vast ecosystems and the necessities they provide, including fresh water, pollination, and pest and…
An international team of scientists, including a prominent researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has analyzed all known coronaviruses in Chinese bats and used genetic analysis to trace the likely origin of the novel coronavirus to horseshoe bats. In their report, posted online Sunday, they also point to the great variety of these viruses…
Loss of a pregnancy may increase a woman’s risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, Danish researchers report. Their study, in Diabetologia, included 24,774 women who developed diabetes after pregnancy and 247,740 controls who did not. Compared with women who had been pregnant without losing a baby, those who lost one were at an 18 percent…