Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists around the world are tracking at least eight strains of coronavirus around the world, using genetic detective work to show how the virus spreads.

Researchers say the virus appears to mutate very slowly, with only tiny differences between the different strains, and that none of the strains of the virus is more deadly than another.

Continue reading “Map shows how eight strains of coronavirus raced around the world” »

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — At first, the coronavirus was just a fairy tale, a rumor along the dusty lanes of the displaced persons’ camp that Habiba Ali calls home.

It seemed fantastical: an illness sweeping the world far beyond Somalia’s borders, killing thousands of people and sending some of the richest countries into panic.

Then Somalia’s first virus case was announced on March 16, and one of the world’s most fragile nations staggered even more. Nearly three decades of conflict, extremist attacks, drought, disease and a devastating outbreak of locusts have taken a vast toll.

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“And if even the smallest transgression of confinement restrictions ends up being a misdemeanor, how will officials handle tens of millions of them?”

Norris pointed out that if police are expected to enforce the curfews, they too could become stricken with coronavirus.

Though many negative repercussions of human immunodeficiency virus infection can be mitigated with the use of antiretroviral therapy (ART), one area where medical advances haven’t made as much progress is in the reduction of cognitive impacts. Half of HIV patients have HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND), which can manifest in a variety of ways, from forgetfulness and confusion to behavior changes and motor deficiencies.

To better understand the mechanisms underlying HAND, researchers from Penn’s School of Dental Medicine and Perelman School of Medicine and from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) brought together their complementary expertise to create a laboratory model system using three of the types of brain cells thought to be involved. Led by doctoral student Sean Ryan, who was co-mentored by Kelly Jordan-Sciutto of Penn Dental Medicine and Stewart Anderson of CHOP and Penn Medicine, the model recapitulates important features of how HIV infection and ART affect the brain.

“Frankly the models we generally use in the HIV field have a lot of weaknesses,” says Jordan-Sciutto, co-corresponding author on the paper, which appears in the journal Stem Cell Reports. “The power of this system is it allows us to look at the interaction between different cell types of human origin in a way that is more relevant to patients than other models.”

Artificial intelligence has already played a vital role in the outbreak since day 1—a reminder for the first time in a while that it can be a tool for good.

Alumni and supporters look to MIT in time of crisis.

Clinical and design considerations will be published online; goal is to support rapid scale-up of device production to alleviate hospital shortages.

O,.,o.

Latest in flurry of launches draws particular criticism amid coronavirus pandemic.

It is vital that would-be bombmakers be disabused of any notion that they could evade tough international sanctions. We need a country-neutral, reasonably predictable, more-or-less automatic sanction regime that puts all countries on notice, even friends of the powerful.

By Victor Gilinsky Henry Sokolski

Just as we’ve had to discard business-as-usual thinking to deal with the current worldwide health emergency; it’s time to get serious about the spread of nuclear weapons. It doesn’t have the immediacy of the coronavirus, but it will last a lot longer and is no less threatening. In particular, we need to fortify the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which is fifty years old this year and badly needs fixing. The April 2020 Review Conference will likely be postponed, which provides time to develop something more than the usual charade of incremental proposals that nibble at the problem.