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About 15 hours into the Apollo 7 mission, Cmdr. Walter Schirra Jr. came down with a head cold, and before long, all three mission astronauts were sick. Mucus collected in their heads without any gravity to weigh it down, which made the astronauts extremely uncomfortable. They even refused to wear their helmets during landing. The … Read more
When aquatic plants first transitioned onto land, their success may have been due to genes they got from bacteria and fungi that let them take up nutrients from soil Life 1 March 2022 By Jake Buehler Plants may have taken root on land thanks to genes from bacteria Shutterstock/daniilphotos Around 500 million years ago, aquatic … Read more
Scientists have released three studies that reveal intriguing new clues about how the COVID-19 pandemic started. Two of the reports trace the outbreak back to a massive market that sold live animals, among other goods, in Wuhan, China and a third suggests that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 spilled over from animals—possibly those sold at the market—into … Read more
Wild animals sometimes found on the menu in Asian countries harbor a bewildering panoply of viruses, a new study has found—including many that can infect humans. Although none is closely related to the coronavirus that touched off the COVID-19 pandemic, the study sends a clear warning that other viral threats are lurking in the animal … Read more
By Michael Marshall Melting permafrost in Russia’s Yamal peninsula (pictured) has exposed nomadic reindeer herders (below) to anthrax Elena Shchipkova/Alamy IN NOVEMBER 2019, the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine held a workshop to discuss an emerging disease threat. Not covid-19: they were a couple of months too early for that. Instead, they … Read more
An existing cancer drug has been found to also wake up dormant HIV, and it could eventually work with an HIV medicine in a “kick and kill” strategy Health 26 January 2022 By Clare Wilson The pembrolizumab monoclonal antibody drug protein molekuul.be / Alamy Stock Photo Today, HIV can be kept under control, but for … Read more
It took just one virus to cripple the world’s economy and kill millions of people; yet virologists estimate that trillions of still-unknown viruses exist, many of which might be lethal or have the potential to spark the next pandemic. Now, they have a new—and very long—list of possible suspects to interrogate. By sifting through unprecedented … Read more
Not every human disease can be tackled with a pill or shot. Some disorders would ideally be treated by delivering molecular payloads—like modified viruses carrying gene-editing tools—into defective cells, where they could rewrite target genes. Despite some early successes, researchers are still struggling to get this approach to work. Now, researchers say they have found … Read more
By Michael Le Page Universal Images Group via Getty LISTERIOSIS kills hundreds of people every year in Europe alone. The bacterium that causes it, Listeria monocytogenes, can contaminate all kinds of foods and keeps growing even in fridges. But if you live in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or Israel, you probably have … Read more
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