Blood Tests Show a ‘Nordic Diet’ Improves Key Health Markers – Even Without Weight Loss

A new study adds support to the idea that eating better foods is beneficial even without obtaining weight loss – with the Nordic diet reducing blood sugar and cholesterol even when no weight was lost.   “It’s surprising because most people believe that positive effects on blood sugar and cholesterol are solely due to weight loss,” … Read more

Covid-19 news: Rush for covid tests before England starts charging

By Michael Le Page, Clare Wilson, Jessica Hamzelou, Sam Wong, Graham Lawton, Adam Vaughan, Conrad Quilty-Harper, Jason Arunn Murugesu, Layal Liverpool, Carissa Wong and Alex Wilkins A sign advising customers that a pharmacy is out of stock of lateral flow antigen tests, Cheadle, England Nathan Stirk/Getty Images Latest coronavirus news as of 12pm on 23 … Read more

Mysterious Skull Implanted With Strange Metallic Object Divides Experts

An elongated, cone-shaped skull with a possible metal implant could represent some of the earliest evidence from Peru of an ancient surgical implant. Or it could be a modern-day fake.   The fact that the skull, which was donated to the Museum of Osteology in Oklahoma City, has a cone shape is nothing too unusual, … Read more

World-First Experiment That Infected People With Coronavirus Shares Early Results

Scientists deliberately infected young, healthy volunteers with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 – and now, they’ve shared their first results from that experiment.      The new study, published Tuesday (Feb. 1) in Springer Nature’s preprint database, In Review, has not yet been peer-reviewed, but it could provide insight into how mild COVID-19 unfolds, from the moment … Read more

Biden’s ‘reignited’ Cancer Moonshot would develop blood tests to detect cancer and vaccines to prevent it | Science

To scientists’ relief, the “reignited” Cancer Moonshot to be formally announced today by President Joe Biden will not offer an unrealistic deadline for wiping out cancer. It instead sets a long-term goal of gradually reducing cancer deaths. The plan would focus research in several areas, including preventive vaccines and blood tests that screen for multiple … Read more

Swab Your Throat First? Rapid Tests May Need Saliva to Detect Omicron, Early Data Find

Rapid COVID-19 tests that use nose swabs alone might not pick up Omicron in the early days of infection, a new study suggests – but experts don’t agree on whether you should also swab your throat.   A small study from a group of US researchers, published Tuesday, found that rapid tests with nasal swabs didn’t detect Omicron … Read more

North Korea tests another new hypersonic weapon: reports

North Korea’s hypersonic weapons program appears to be ramping up. The rogue nation claims that it conducted a successful test of a new hypersonic vehicle on Wednesday (Jan. 5), its second such trial in just over three months.  The vehicle aced a 75-mile (120 kilometers) lateral maneuver and “precisely hit” a target 435 miles (700 … Read more

FYI, Rapid Antigen Tests May Give More False Negatives With Omciron

Rapid Covid home tests are more likely to give a false negative with the heavily-mutated Omicron variant compared to earlier strains, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Tuesday.   The news comes as the country is facing a massive surge in cases that experts say is being under-captured as a result of a … Read more

A Weird Paper Tests The Limits of Science by Claiming Octopuses Came From Space

A summary of decades of research on a rather ‘out-there’ idea involving viruses from space raises questions on just how scientific we can be when it comes to speculating on the history of life on Earth.   It’s easy to throw around words like crackpot, rogue, and maverick in describing the scientific fringe, but then … Read more