Hygiene theater: All the hand sanitizer in the world is kinda beside the point.
The Atlantic looks at the problem with the way public responses to the pandemic have evolved into rituals that look “disinfecting” but really aren’t nearly […]
epidemiology
New COVID hypothesis: not bat meat, but bat mines.
Guano mining is a real thing, and a really fascinating thing. And sometimes a really dangerous thing, too. The Bioscience Resource Project revisits the case […]
Best COVID outcomes were where people stayed home on their own, cell phone data shows.
The Lancet looks at pandemic spread in the U.S. and finds that the places that seem to respond the best took precautions and stayed home […]
The world’s second-deadliest Ebola outbreak just ended.
Nature has some good news about an infectious disease – the outbreak that had killed 2,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo appears to […]
New York’s coronavirus outbreak came from Europe, not China.
The New York Times looks at two different batches of genetic data which both indicate that shutting down travel from China didn’t actually affect the […]
China’s “Bat Woman” is a virus-hunting hero.
Or something like that. Scientific American looks at how Shi Zhengli’s kind of obscure area zoological research – looking at how bats contract viral diseases […]
COVID-19 Resource List
Rather than the usual excerpt of recent research, I thought I’d start collecting some decent sources of info on the ongoing pandemic. * Vetted and […]
Some COVID-19 answers from Science News.
Science News has started a vetted Frequently Asked Questions page about the virus that’s on everyone’s mind now. It’s located here, but the most fun […]
Closing in on the virus behind China’s new pneumonia outbreak.
Scientific American and STAT (with the help of the World Health Organization) inch us a little closer to identifying the microbe behind the mysterious outbreak […]
Lyme disease shot to be tested next year
WBUR Boston reports on new hope against a nasty tick-borne ailment, now that Massachusetts researchers are developing an injection against Lyme disease: In their latest […]
Measles makes your immune system forget what it’s defeated before.
Nature reveals research in Science and Science Immunology that describes a one hidden risk of measles – that by catching it, you’ll also become more […]
A genetically weaponized fungus is getting used against malaria.
PhysOrg has a report on a genetically modified fungus that is capable, if released into the wild, of using spider venom to eliminate the mosquitoes […]
U.S. measles outbreak keeps breaking….
Science News tracks the new outbreak of a disease we’d formally “eliminated”: The viral disease has sickened at least 555 people in 20 states, according […]
SONG: Let Them In (Voluntary Schistosomiasis)
SONG: “Let Them In (Voluntary Schistosomiasis)” [Download] . ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: Science, 21 Feb 2018, “Seventeen volunteers let this worm live inside them to help […]
So these folks infect themselves with this parasitic worm to figure out how to cure this disease….
Science revisits one of my childhood nightmares (one of many blessings from frequent family visits to South Africa) with news of researchers infecting volunteers with […]