A Cousin Of Viagra Reduces Obesity By Burning Fat

Newswise — Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine have found that a drug first developed to treat Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia and sickle cell disease reduces obesity and fatty liver in mice and improves their heart function — without changes in food intake or daily activity.

These findings, published online Oct. 7 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, reveal that a chemical inhibitor of the enzyme PDE9 stimulates cells to burn more fat. This occurred in male mice and in female mice whose sex hormones were reduced by removing their ovaries, thus mimicking menopause. Postmenopausal women are well known to be at increased risk for obesity around their waist as well as at risk for cardiovascular and metabolic disease. Inhibiting PDE9 did not cause these changes in female mice that had their ovaries, so female sex hormone status was important in the study.

“Currently, there isn’t a pill that has been proven effective for treating severe obesity, yet such obesity is a global health problem that increases the risk of many other diseases,” says senior investigator David Kass, M.D., Abraham and Virginia Weiss Professor of Cardiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “What makes our findings exciting is that we found an oral medication that activates fat-burning in mice to reduce obesity and fat buildup in organs like the liver and heart that contribute to disease; this is new.”

This study follows work reported by the same laboratory in 2015 that first showed the PDE9 enzyme is present in the heart and contributes to heart disease triggered by high blood pressure. Blocking PDE9 increases the amount of a small molecule known as cyclic GMP, which in turn controls many aspects of cell function throughout the body. PDE9 is the enzyme cousin of another protein called PDE5, which also controls cyclic GMP and is blocked by drugs such as Viagra. Inhibitors of PDE9 are experimental, so there is no drug name yet.

Based on these results, the investigators suspected PDE9 inhibition might improve cardiometabolic syndrome (CMS), a constellation of common conditions including high blood pressure; high blood sugar, cholesterol and triglycerides; and excess body fat, particularly around the waist. CMS is considered a pandemic by medical experts and a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, cancers and COVID-19.

While PDE9 inhibitors remain experimental, they have been developed by several pharmaceutical companies and tested in humans for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and sickle cell. The current mouse study used a PDE9 inhibitor made by Pfizer Inc. (PF-04447943) that was first tested for Alzheimer’s disease, though eventually abandoned for this use. Between the two reported clinical trials, over 100 subjects received this drug, and it was found to be well tolerated with no serious adverse side effects. A different PDE9 inhibitor is now being tested for human heart failure.

To test the effects of a PDE9 inhibitor on obesity and cardiometabolic syndrome, the researchers put mice on a high-fat diet that led to doubling their body weight, high blood lipids and diabetes after four months. A group of female mice had their ovaries surgically removed, and most of the mice also had a pressure stress applied to the heart to better mimic cardiometabolic syndrome. The mice were then assigned to receive either the PDE9 inhibitor or a placebo by mouth over the next six to eight weeks.

In female mice without their ovaries (a model of postmenopause), the difference in median percent weight change between the drug and placebo groups was -27.5%, and in males it was -19.5%. Lean body mass was not altered in either group, nor was daily food consumption or physical activity. The PDE9 inhibitor lowered blood cholesterol and triglycerides, and reduced fat in the liver to levels found in mice fed a normal diet. The heart also improved with PDE9 inhibition, with ejection fraction (which measures the percentage of blood leaving the heart each time it contracts) relatively higher by 7%–15% and heart mass (hypertrophy) rising 70% less compared with the placebo. An increase in heart mass is evidence of abnormal heart stress. However, having this lowered by the inhibitor indicates stress on the heart was reduced.

The investigators found PDE9 inhibition produces these effects by activating a master regulator of fat metabolism known as PPARa. By stimulating PPARa, levels of genes for proteins that control fat uptake into cells and their use as fuel are broadly increased. When PPARa was blocked in cells or the whole animal, the effects from PDE9 inhibition on obesity and fat-burning were also lost. They found estrogen normally plays this role of PPARa on fat regulation in females, but when its levels fall like they do after menopause, PPARa becomes more important to regulate fat and so PDE9 inhibition has a greater effect.

“The finding that the experimental drug did not benefit female mice that had their ovaries shows that these sex hormones, particularly estrogen, had already achieved what inhibiting PDE9 does to stimulate fat-burning,” notes Sumita Mishra, the research associate who performed much of the work. “Menopause reduces sex hormone levels, and their control over fat metabolism then shifts to the protein regulated by PDE9, so the drug treatment is now effective.” According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 40% of people living in the U.S. are obese; and 43% of American women over the age of 60 — long past menopause — are considered obese. Kass notes that if his lab’s findings in mice apply to people, someone weighing 250 pounds could lose about 50 pounds with an oral PDE9 inhibitor without changing eating or exercise habits.

“I’m not suggesting to be a couch potato and take a pill, but I suspect that combined with diet and exercise, the effects from PDE9 inhibition may be even greater,” says Kass. The next step would be testing in humans to see if PDE9 inhibitors produce similar effects in men and postmenopausal women. “PDE9 inhibitors are already being studied in humans, so a clinical obesity study should not be that far away,” Kass says. The other researchers involved in the study include Nandhini Sadagopan, Brittany Dunkerly-Ering, Susana Rodriguez, Dylan Sarver, Sean Murphy, Hildur Knutsdottir, Vivek Jani, Deepthi Ashok, Christian Oeing, Brian O’Rourke and G. William Wong from Johns Hopkins Medicine; Ryan Ceddia and Sheila Collins from Vanderbilt University; and John Gangoiti and Dorothy Sears from the University of California San Diego.

The Johns Hopkins University has filed a patent on behalf of investigators Kass, Mishra and a prior member of the Kass laboratory, D.I. Lee, for the use of PDE9 inhibitors to treat cardiometabolic syndrome.

Covid Symptoms Last Longer Than Previously Thought

One in three people infected with the coronavirus has had Covid-like symptoms persist or recur for three to six months after diagnosis, a new study says, suggesting the so-called “long Covid” is afflicting more people than previously thought.

The study, led by University of Oxford scientists, used anonymized data from millions of electronic health records, primarily in the United States, to compare 273,618 patients with Covid-19 with 114,449 patients with influenza. The researchers looked at such symptoms as chest/throat pain, abnormal breathing, abdominal symptoms, fatigue, depression, headaches, cognitive dysfunction and muscle pain over a period of time.

It found that about 36% of Covid patients still reported disease symptoms three and six months after diagnosis. Most previous studies estimated the so-called long-haul Covid to afflict 10% to 30% of patients. The researchers also found that of those who had long COVID three to six months after diagnosis, roughly 40% had no record of such symptoms in the prior three months.

There was a higher incidence of long-Covid features in the elderly, in more severely affected patients, and in women, the study notes. But long-Covid features were also recorded in children and young adults, and in more than half of non-hospitalised patients, confirming that they occur even in young people and those who had a relatively mild illness.

They say: “The results confirm that a significant proportion of people, of all ages, can be affected by a range of symptoms and difficulties in the six months after Covid-19 infection,” said Dr. Max Taquet, who led the analysis at the University of Oxford. The findings were published in the journal PLOS Medicine

A Phase 3 safety and efficacy trial, conducted in the US, Chile and Peru, of AstraZeneca’s AZD1222 Covid-19 vaccine — which is available as Covishield in India — said the vaccine “was safe, with low incidences of serious and medically attended adverse events and adverse events of special interest” demonstrating an “overall estimated vaccine efficacy was 74.0%.”

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was conducted on more than 32,000 participants and found that in the age group of 65 years and above, the “estimated vaccine efficacy was 83.5%.”

The study, conducted between August 28, 2020 and January 15, 2021, reported that “119 serious adverse events occurred among 101 participants (0.5%)” who were administered the vaccine. In addition, “a total of 7 adverse events leading to death occurred in 7 participants in the AZD1222 group and 9 adverse events leading to 7 deaths occurred in the placebo group.”

However, the study does not attribute any of the deaths “to be related to the vaccine or placebo” and adds that while there were no deaths due to Covid-19 in the group administered the vaccine, there were two deaths due to the pandemic in the group that was given a placebo.

While it has been a long wait for AstraZeneca to get approval for use in the US, the company had in July said that rather than seeking emergency use authorisation, it would go in for a full approval from the USFDA. It is also exploring the possibility of supplying booster doses to people administered its own vaccine as well as those who have been administered either Pfizer-BioNTech’s or Moderna’s vaccine

Morality Demonstrated In Stories Can Alter Judgement For Early Adolescents

Newswise — BUFFALO, N.Y. – An important lesson in the moral education of children could be as close as the book in their hands. Stories matter. And they can play a role in shifting the importance of particular moral values in young audiences, according to the results of a new study. “Media can distinctly influence separate moral values and get kids to place more or less importance on those values depending on what is uniquely emphasized in that content,” says Lindsay Hahn, PhD, an assistant professor of communication in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences.

Hahn is first author of the new study, which adds critical nuance to a body of literature that explores how media content affects children. While many previous studies have focused on broad conceptualizations, like prosocial or antisocial effects that might be associated with specific content, Hahn’s study looks at how exposure to content featuring specific moral values (care, fairness, loyalty and authority) might influence the weight kids place on those values.

Do children reading about particular moral characteristics absorb those traits as a building block for their own morality? The findings, which appear in the Journal of Media Psychology, suggest so, and further support how this indirect approach to socializing children’s morality can supplement the direct teaching of moral principles kids might receive through formal instruction.

“Parents, caregivers and teachers are often wondering how media can be used for good,” says Hahn, an expert in media psychology and media effects. “How can it be used for good things? How can it discourage bad habits? How can it educate?”

Answering those questions begins with a better understanding about how to use media.

“When parents are considering what media they might want to select for their children, they can take into account what particular moral value is being emphasized by the main character, and how the main character is treated because of those actions,” she says.

For the study, Hahn and her colleagues took the main character from a young adult novel and edited the content to reflect in each version the study’s focus on one of four moral values. A fifth version was manipulated in a way that featured an amoral main character. Those narratives were shared with roughly 200 participants between the ages of 10 and 14. This is a favorable range for media research because it’s more difficult to introduce narrative comprehension in younger kids, while equally challenging to hold the attention of older adolescents, who become bored with rudimentary storylines, according to Hahn. The team then created a scale designed to measure the importance kids place on moral values to determine how participants might be influenced by specific narratives.

“Measuring these effects can be difficult,” says Hahn. “That’s why, in addition to testing our hypothesis, another purpose of this research was to develop a measure of moral values for kids. Nothing like that exists yet, that we know of.” That measure, notes Hahn, can facilitate future research on media effects in young audiences. Paper co-authors include Ron Tamborini, Michigan State University (MSU) professor of communication; Sujay Prabhu, an MSU affiliate; Clare Grall, Dartmouth College postdoctoral researcher; Eric Novotny, University of Georgia postdoctoral researcher; and Brian Klebig, Bethany Lutheran College associate professor of communication.

Is A Variant Worse Than Delta On The Way?

Somewhere in India last October, a person—likely immunocompromised, perhaps taking drugs for rheumatoid arthritis or with an advanced case of HIV/AIDS—developed COVID-19. Their case might have been mild, but because of their body’s inability to clear the coronavirus it lingered and multiplied. As the virus replicated and moved from one cell to another, parts of the genetic material copied itself incorrectly. Maybe the person lived in a crowded home or went out to buy food in a busy market, but wherever it happened, the altered virus was spread to others. Experts believe this singular situation in one individual is likely how the Delta variant now wreaking havoc in the U.S. and around the world was born.

In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of variants have been identified, four of which are considered “variants of concern” by the World Health Organization—Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta, all closely tracked by scientists on websites such as GiSAID and CoVariants. Delta is by far the most contagious—some 97 percent more sothan the earliest circulating virus, according to European researchers. But is it the worst the world might see? Understanding how mutations develop can help us grasp whether more concerning versions may yet appear.

That turn of events in India—or others that may come in other places—was expected by microbiologists who study viruses, although they could not have predicted where it would happen, exactly when, and which lines of genetic code would shift inside the germ. “Every single time the virus gets in a cell it replicates its genome so it can spread to other cells, and this has the potential to make an error,” says Bethany Moore, chair of the microbiology and immunology department at the University of Michigan.

Mutations generally appear randomly and spontaneously, rather than in a systematic way.

Most mutations either kill the virus or they die out from lack of spread, victims of an infected person isolating or passing the germs to a small number of others who then stay home. But when enough mutations are created, some will get lucky (from the virus’s perspective) and catch hold, perhaps when an infected person attends a crowded sporting event or a large indoor gathering such as a wedding. “It’s like there’s an evolutionary windstorm over many smoldering embers of little hopeful mutants that might normally go extinct, but when you have rampant infection, natural selection gains the upper hand,” says Vaughn Cooper, professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Coronaviruses more prone to mutations than other germs

Scientists always expected to see variants with SARS-CoV-2 because coronaviruses inevitably copy their genomes more sloppily than humans and animals, or even some other pathogens, replicate their own genetic codes. Rather than a double-helixed deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) carrying their genes, coronaviruses contain single-stranded ribonucleic acid (RNA). “Due to very ancient accidents of history, the enzymes that make new copies of RNA are more error-prone,” Cooper says, although he notes that coronaviruses don’t spin out as many mutations as other RNA viruses such as influenza because of a proofreading enzyme tasked with double-checking its work. “The majority of viruses that go into a patient and come out from that patient is the same,” Cooper says. For coronaviruses, the estimate is that one mistake happens in a million or more replicated units of RNA, Moore says.

But it doesn’t take many slipshod copies of a virus to wreak havoc on the world. “There’s a reason health professionals have always worried about pandemic respiratory threats,” says Sten Vermund, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health. Germs transmitted when we breathe or talk spread faster than those requiring touch or sex or bad sanitation. The threat from this coronavirus is compounded by the fact that we can pass it, and its mutated versions, before we even know we have it.

So far, the genome, or complete set of genetic material, of more than a million SARS-CoV-2 viruses have been sequenced by scientists, who are keen to stay on top of how the virus is evolving in order to determine how best to protect people from it. Earlier this year the United Kingdom, a leader in this endeavor, launched a $3.5 million effort to study the effects of emerging mutations. Sequencing got off to a slow start in the U.S., but in fall of 2020 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched the National SARS-CoV-2 Strain Surveillance (NS3)  program that contracts with universities and private laboratories to sequence the coronaviruses circulating here. Hundreds of thousands of genomes have already been sequenced under this program.

Sets of the random mutations found in a virus are classified as variants only when they give the pathogen an advantage, Moore says. Within each variant are subvariants (as indicated in the alternative naming system known as Pango, where Delta is known as B.1.617.2, the later numbers indicating sub-lineages). Still, the overall blueprint of the genome remains the same. Were SARS-CoV-2 to mutate in a way that changes its essential nature, it could become a new species, perhaps SARS-CoV-3, she notes.

Convergent evolution

Mutations that take hold survive for a reason, Cooper says, such as by helping the virus increase transmissibility, infectivity, virulence, or the ability to escape our immunity. But scientists are less concerned about any specific mutation than about similar changes arising in multiple independent variants, Cooper says, “because that suggests they make the virus more evolutionarily fit.” This phenomenon is known in evolutionary biology as convergent evolution.

For example, in all of the variants of concern, a common mutation occurs in one section of the spike protein, the protrusions dotting the surface of the virus that help it infect human cells. In position 614, one type of amino acid (called aspartic acid) has been swapped for another (glycine). This mutation, known as D614G, makes the virus more transmissible and infectious.

Another common mutation, L452R, flips the amino acid leucine to arginine, again on the spike protein. The fact that mutations in L452 are seen in more than a dozen separate lineages indicates that this mutation confers an important advantage to the coronavirus, researchers recently noted after sequencing hundreds of virus samples around the U.S. In addition to providing the virus with a stronger attachment to our cells, it may be that L452R helps infect people with some immunity.

Because the spike protein has been critical for developing vaccines and treatments, more research has gone into studying mutations there compared with other proteins in the coronavirus. But it’s important to pay attention beyond this area, says Nash Rochman, an evolutionary virology expert at the N.I.H.’s National Library of Medicine. Rochman coauthored a recent paper that concludes that while the spike protein is an important site, so is another part of the virus called the nucleocapsid protein, which makes up the coating that surrounds the virus’s RNA genome.

In fact, the two areas might be working together, Rochman says. “A variant with a mutation in the [spike protein] without any change in the nucleocapsid protein might behave very differently than another variant that has mutations in both regions.” Groups of mutations working in concert is a concept known as epistasis, and modeling by Rochman and colleagues show that a small group of mutations in various spots could collectively have the major impact of helping the virus evade antibodies and thus making vaccines less effective.

The mutations that appeared in the U.S. this year are the reason the pandemic is not under control. “Just as we were making progress with vaccination, Delta comes along,” Vermund says, and rather than the expected case reductions from the vaccine, rates rose because of Delta’s increased transmissibility. “If we had only circulation of Alpha at that time, the rise in cases would not have occurred,” he says.

That the virus could obtain mutations that help it escape vaccines is of course everyone’s biggest concern. Currently, all three vaccines authorized in the U.S. remain protective. (Mu, the newest “variant of interest” does seem to weaken vaccine effectiveness, but it is not widely spreading at this time.) Some people think the small percentage of vaccinated people testing positive or developing symptoms is a sign the virus is outsmarting the shots, but Vermund says that’s not so. “I hate the term ‘breakthrough infection,’ because it’s misleading on the science,” he says. Vaccines are not like power shields that deflect the Klingons, he says. Instead, they allow the enemy to get on the ship (hence the positive tests) but they are immediately surrounded by a well-armed crew.

With such a small part of the world’s population vaccinated (some 43 percent have gotten at least one shot, but only 2 percent of those in low-income countries have), the virus doesn’t yet have much incentive to outwit the immune system of those who’ve been innoculated. “Vaccine evasion isn’t what the virus is looking for right now,” Cooper says. It’s easier for the germs to seek new and improved ways to infect the billions of people who don’t yet have this immunity.

Still, no one knows what mutations lie ahead and how much damage they might do. Vermund points out that 95 percent of people on Earth can visit another place within 48 hours—within the incubation period of COVID-19—which is why a variant emerging even in a remote, low-population area can become a global problem.

“Mutations happen when there is viral replication. So the best way to stop future variants is to severely limit the amount of viral replication that is occurring in the world,” says David Peaper, a Yale Medicine pathologist who directs the Yale New Haven Hospital Clinical Microbiology Laboratory. That’s why getting everyone in the U.S. and the world vaccinated is the most important thing we can do, he says. “As long as there is SARS-CoV-2 anywhere in the world, there’s an opportunity for dangerous variants to emerge.”

Human Footprints Thought To Be Oldest In North America Discovered

New scientific research conducted by archaeologists has uncovered what they believe are the oldest known human footprints in North America. Research done at the White Sands national park in New Mexico discovered the ancient footprints, with researchers estimating that the tracks were between 21,000 and 23,000 years old, reported Science.

The prints were buried in layers of soil in the national park, with scientists from the US Geological Survey analyzing seeds embedded in the tracks to calculate the age of the fossils. Researchers also determined that the dozen footprints found belonged to a variety of people, mostly children and teenagers. Previously, scientists had widely assumed that the earliest appearance of humans in the Americas was 11,000 to 13,000 years ago because of stone spears found throughout North America and associated with what is known as the Clovis culture.

“The evidence is very convincing and extremely exciting,” says Tom Higham, an archaeological scientist and radiocarbon-dating expert at the University of Vienna to Nature. “I am convinced that these footprints genuinely are of the age claimed.” The new research was conducted by experts from White Sands national park, the National Park Service, US Geological Survey, Bournemouth University, University of Arizona and Cornell University.

“The paper makes a very compelling case that these footprints are not only human, but they’re older than 20,000 years,” said Spencer Lucas, a palaeontologist at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science in Albuquerque to Nature. “That’s a gamechanger.”

Pfizer Vaccine Has “Robust” Immune Response Among 5-11 Year Olds

While it’s true that younger kids generally don’t suffer serious illness from COVID-19, anything we can do to protect our kids—and help prevent them from spreading the virus to others—is a good thing. So far, about 5 million U.S. children have tested positive, per the American Academy of Pediatrics, while nearly 500 have died.

The US, where Covid-19 is now officially the deadliest epidemic since the Spanish Flu of 1918 with over 675,000 deaths, has also seen a rather high number of infections among children. For the week ended September 9, new infections among children totaled 243,000 and constitute 30% of all new infections in the country. Up until January this year, children made up just 15% of new Covid-19 infections in the US.

Some of that long-awaited good news arrived this morning: After several months of waiting, Pfizer has announced that the Covid-19 vaccine by Pfizer and BioNTech generates a “robust” immune response among 5-11 year olds, according to data released by the company on September 20th — moving a step closer to start of vaccination of sub-12 year olds by the end of next month.

Pfizer said today that the vaccine it makes alongside BioNTech is safe and effective in kids aged 5-11, and it will soon seek approval from U.S. regulators to start doling out shots for that age group. The pediatric version of the shot contains just one-third the dose of the adult version, but still generates a strong antibody response with only minor, if any, side effects, Pfizer Senior Vice President Dr. Bill Gruber told the Associated Press. “I think we really hit the sweet spot,” Gruber said. (Vaccine maker Moderna is also testing its shot in children, and data from studies on kids as young as six months could be available before year’s end.)

There are limitations to Pfizer’s data. For one thing, the company only studied about 2,300 kids. That’s enough to show vaccinated kids were producing similar antibody levels as inoculated teens and adults—which is seen as a decent proxy for performance—but there weren’t enough cases among the participants to judge performance directly. Furthermore, the data has yet to be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.

Still, Pfizer plans to formally submit its 5-11 year-old vaccine for U.S. approval by the end of September. It will then take regulators at least a few weeks to make a decision. But if all goes well, kids aged 5-11 could be eligible for their first dose by Halloween—a treat, indeed.

The results, which were based on a clinical trial of over 2,200 children, involved administering 10 microgrammes of the vaccine — which is one third of the amount of dose administered to teens and adults — three weeks apart.

However, even as the company claims the side effects observed in children were similar to those observed in adults, such as fatigue, headache, muscle pain, chills, fever and nausea, it has not yet made public all details of side effects experienced by children in the trial, including whether or not they experienced myocarditis, a rare heart condition affecting some teens and adults.

The final nod from the US FDA is expected to take four to six weeks after it receives and reviews all the data submitted by Pfizer and BioNTech, whose vaccine is already approved for use in children above 12. Pfizer also expects to submit data for clinical trials among children between the ages of 6 months to 5 years by the end of next month.

Dr. Bellamkonda K. Kishore-Led Team Releases Summer Edition of JAAPI

The summer edition of the peer-reviewed scientific Journal of the AAPI (JAAPI) has been released in September 2021. Dedicated to Edward Jenner, FRS, Father of Immunization, the 2nd ever issue of JAAPI, has been acclaimed as among a leading journal with a variety of articles benefitting the larger section of physician community around the world.

Dr. Anupama Gotimukula, President of AAPI while congratulating the Editorial Team of JAAPI said, “This is the fruit of our teamwork and it’s a good opportunity for the members of AAPI to contribute scientific articles, and make it better as we move on. JAAPI is a peer-reviewed medical and health journal published by the AAPI. In line with the vision and mission of AAPI, JAAPI is dedicated to facilitate physicians to excel in patient care, teaching and research, and thus pursue their aspirations in professional and community affairs. JAAPI is open to contributions from physicians and scientists of all backgrounds and from all over the world.” In his introductory note, the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed JAAPI, Dr. Bellamkonda K. Kishore, who is an outstanding academician, innovator, and entrepreneur, writes, “ We are pleased to present you the Summer issue of peer-reviewed JAAPI. It is made possible with the unconditional support of AAPI President Dr. Anupama Gotimukula and the Executive Committee Members, the relentless work of Members of the JAAPI Editorial Board, Editorial Advisors, and Reviewers as well as Ms. Vijaya Kodali, the Chief Operations Officer of AAPI.”

The summer issue of JAAPI has “excellent contributions by eminent physicians and scientists, and has come out in an outstanding manner. We are committed to maintain the same standards in the future. Excellence and thoroughness are our motto,” says Dr. Kishore. Acknowledging that JAAPI has only made a small beginning, Dr. Kishore says, “Our goal is to make JAAPI as the passport of AAPI, and thus to elevate AAPI on par with other premier medical associations such as AMA, AHA, ASN, ADA, ACP etc.”

“This is a historical milestone in the annals of AAPI. The foundation for this milestone was laid one year ago in February 2020 by our visionary leaders, Drs. Sudhakar Jonnalagadda and Suresh Reddy,” said Dr. Kishore, said.  Describing the vision and the efforts that have given shape to the launching of JAAPI, Dr. Kishore said, “A Peer Review Journal needs group synergy and cultivation of the culture of peer-review process and publication. It is like agriculture – crop after crop. But the very fact that we are able to assemble a passionate and diligent team of editorial board members, and developed the required group synergy and culture bringing out the journal as planned, itself is a sign that AAPI has reached a level of academic maturity, capability and perfection.”

Describing the importance of JAA{I, Dr. Kishore says, “The doctors who save lives of their patients are not always made in medical schools. They often create themselves through diligent practice of Evidence-based Medicine in the community. The real test a doctor faces is not the one administered in the medical school, but the one s/he has to face when standing between the life and death of patients. What empowers a doctor in those critical moments is right knowledge, despite technological superiority of modern medicine – Knowledge is Power of the Noble Profession that has the potential to elevate a
Nation.”

JAAPI has already found recognition among leading physicians community. “The American Association of Nephrologists of Indian Origin (ANIO) has shown interest in using JAAPI as a platform for publishing synopsis of their webinar on Kidney Disease and Vascular Risk in South Asian Populations. Like wise JAAPI has the potential to cater publication needs of the specialty societies of Indian American physicians,” Dr. Kishore points out.

After one or two years of publication, JAAPI will be registered with MEDLINE so that it will be indexed in PubMed and other databases. JAAPI is a fully Open Access journal with no manuscript submission or publication charges. And we welcome articles by authors from all over the world without any restrictions. We are also open to eminent academicians wishing to join the editorial board. Details are provided in the journal. JAAPI follows next generation peer-review model by which it discloses the identity of editors and reviewers after publication, but the review process itself is blind. This will give due credit to editors and reviewers, and also ensures fair review process. The cover page is designed to reflect the heart of AAPI, an association of Indian American Physicians – with colors of the flag of India, our motherland, on top and the red and white stripes of American flag, over which the AAPI emblem rests, indicating the way we adopted this Great Land.

In order to achieve the lofty goals, on behalf of Editorial Advisors, Deputy Editors, Editorial Board Members of JAAPI, Dr. Kishore urges the AAPI fraternity to help and support JAAPI by doing one or more of the following. (1) Submit your own articles or solicit articles from experts in your field and circle; (2) Promote JAAPI by forwarding its PDF copies and sharing them with your colleagues and friends; (3) Display hard copies of JAAPI at your meetings and conventions (contact us for hard copies); (4) Submit synopsis of your CME programs to JAAPI; and (4) Solicit advertisements from the pharma industry or organizations and businesses that cater the interests or needs of physicians. “Together we can reach new heights,” he promises AAPI members. For more information on AAPI and to read, contribute and sponsor JAAPI, please visit: www.aapiusa.org

Students From India Develop Plant-Based Air Purifier

In a development that may help in addressing the issue of indoor air purification amid the ongoing pandemic, an Indian startup has developed the world’s first ‘Plant based’ smart air-purifier “Ubreathe Life” that uses breathing plants for the filtration of contaminants. Young scientists at the Indian Institutes of Technology, Ropar and Kanpur and Faculty of Management Studies of Delhi University have developed the living-plant based air purifier “Ubreathe Life” that amplifies the air purification process in the indoor spaces. “These indoor spaces can either be hospitals, schools, offices and your homes,” says a scientist.

The IIT Ropar’s startup company, ‘Urban Air Laboratory’ claims the air purifier to be the world’s first, state-of-the-art ‘Smart Bio-Filter’ that can make breathing fresh. It has been incubated at IIT Ropar, which is a designated iHub – AWaDH (Agriculture and Water Technology Development Hub) by the Department of Science and Technology. A World Health Organization (WHO) report points out that indoor air spaces are five times more polluted than outdoor air spaces. That is a cause of concern, especially in the present Covid pandemic times. Research, recently published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), calls upon the governments to alter building designs by fixing air changes per hour (a measure of room ventilation with outdoor air). The ‘Ubreathe Life’ can be a solution to this concern.

Sanjay Maurya, CEO, Ubreathe claims, “The product has certain biophilic benefits, such as supporting cognitive function, physical health, and psychological well-being. Thus, it’s like having a bit of Amazon forest in your room. The consumer need not water the plant regularly as there is a built-in water reservoir with a capacity of 150ml which acts as a buffer for plant requirements,” he explained. He further said that the device supplies water to the roots whenever it gets too dry. Explaining the working of the device Maurya further said, “‘Ubreathe Life’ effectively improves indoor air quality by removing particulate, gaseous and biological contaminants while increasing the oxygen levels in the indoor space through specific plants, UV disinfection and a stack of Pre-filter, Charcoal filter and HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter fitted in a specially designed wooden box. There is a centrifugal fan that creates a suction pressure inside the purifier, and releases purified air, formed at the roots, through the outlet in a 360degree direction. The specific plants tested for air-purification include Peace Lily, Snake Plant, Spider plant etc. and all have given good results in purifying indoor air.”

The product has already been tested. Scientists said that ‘Ubreathe Life’ can be a game-changer for maintaining clean air indoors. They argued that the new research had suggested that Covid-19 vaccination by itself may not guarantee safety at workplaces, schools and even closed fully air-conditioned homes unless air filtration, air purification and indoor ventilation becomes part of the building design. “The results of testing, conducted by National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories and the Laboratory of IIT Ropar maintains that the AQI (Air Quality Index) for a room size of 150sqft drops from 311 to 39 in 15 minutes after using ‘Ubreathe Life,” Director, IIT, Ropar, Professor Rajeev Ahuja said.

Dr Vinay and Dr Deepesh Agarwal from AIIMS, New Delhi said that the ‘Ubreathe Life’ infuses oxygen in the room making it conducive to patients with breathing issues, a department of science note said. Budding Indian scientists have developed a living plant-based air purifier named ‘Ubreathe Life’, which amplifies the air purification process in indoor spaces. These indoor spaces can be hospitals, schools, offices or even people’s homes. The state-of-the-art ‘Smart Bio-Filter’ can make breathing fresh, claimed Urban Air Laboratory, a startup incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Ropar. The budding scientists are from IIT Ropar, IIT Kanpur and the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University.

“The technology works through the air-purifying natural leafy plant. The room air interacts with leaves and goes to the soil-root zone where maximum pollutants are purified. The novel technology used in this product is ‘Urban Munnar Effect’ along with patent-pending ‘Breathing Roots’ to exponentially amplify the phyto-remediation process of the plants. Phyto-remediation is a process by which plants effectively remove pollutants from the air,” said a release from the Ministry of Science and Technology. ‘Ubreathe Life’ effectively improves indoor air quality by removing particulate, gaseous and biological contaminants. It also increases the indoor space’s oxygen levels through specific plants, UV disinfection, and a stack of pre-filter, charcoal filter and HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter fitted in a specially designed wooden box.

A centrifugal fan creates a suction pressure inside the purifier and releases purified air, formed at the roots, through the outlet in a 360-degree direction. The specific plants tested for air purification include peace lily, snake plant, spider plant etc., and all have given good results in purifying indoor air quality, the release added.

COVID-19 Vaccines Are Effective At Reducing Severe Illness And Hospitalization

New evidence on breakthrough infections indicates people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 after 1 or 2 vaccine doses had significantly lower odds of severe disease, hospitalization, or Long COVID than unvaccinated. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00460-6/fulltext

  • After two vaccines doses, the odds of hospitalisation were reduced by more than two-thirds and breakthrough infections were almost two times more likely to be completely asymptomatic.
  • The odds of long COVID-19 (symptoms continuing for 28 days or more after testing positive) were also reduced by more than half for people who received two vaccine doses.
  • People over age 60 who were frail or had underlying conditions had higher odds of a breakthrough infection, especially after only one dose.
  • The findings could have implications for health policies around timing between vaccine doses, potential COVID-19 vaccine booster shots, and for continuing personal protective measures, including mask-wearing and social distancing.

People who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 after one or two vaccine doses had significantly lower odds of severe disease or hospitalisation than unvaccinated people, according to a large-scale study investigating COVID-19 breakthrough infections published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.   Researchers also found that the odds of experiencing long COVID (illness lasting 28 days or more after a positive test) were cut in half for people who received two vaccines doses.

People most vulnerable to a breakthrough infection after their first vaccine dose included frail older adults (60 years and older), and older adults living with underlying conditions such as obesity, heart disease, kidney disease, and lung disease. In all age groups, people living in deprived areas, such as densely populated urban settings, were more likely to experience a breakthrough infection. These factors were most significantly associated with a post-vaccination infection after receiving the first vaccine dose and before receiving a second dose.

“We are at a critical point in the pandemic as we see cases rising worldwide due to the delta variant. Breakthrough infections are expected and don’t diminish the fact that these vaccines are doing exactly what they were designed to do—save lives and prevent serious illness. Other research has shown a mortality rate as high as 27% for hospitalised COVID-19 patients.

We can greatly reduce that number by keeping people out of the hospital in the first place through vaccination. Our findings highlight the crucial role vaccines play in larger efforts to prevent COVID-19 infections, which should still include other personal protective measures such as mask-wearing, frequent testing, and social distancing,” says study co-lead author Dr Claire Steves of King’s College London, UK. [1]

Stellar Collision Triggered Supernova Explosion

Newswise — Astronomers have found dramatic evidence that a black hole or neutron star spiraled its way into the core of a companion star and caused that companion to explode as a supernova. The astronomers were tipped off by data from the Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS), a multi-year project using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). “Theorists had predicted that this could happen, but this is the first time we’ve actually seen such an event,” said Dillon Dong, a graduate student at Caltech and lead author on a paper reporting the discovery in the journal Science.

The first clue came when the scientists examined images from VLASS, which began observations in 2017, and found an object brightly emitting radio waves but which had not appeared in an earlier VLA sky survey, called Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty centimeters (FIRST). They made subsequent observations of the object, designated VT 1210+4956, using the VLA and the Keck telescope in Hawaii. They determined that the bright radio emission was coming from the outskirts of a dwarf, star-forming galaxy some 480 million light-years from Earth. They later found that an instrument aboard the International Space Station had detected a burst of X-rays coming from the object in 2014.

The data from all these observations allowed the astronomers to piece together the fascinating history of a centuries-long death dance between two massive stars. Like most stars that are much more massive than our Sun, these two were born as a binary pair, closely orbiting each other. One of them was more massive than the other and evolved through its normal, nuclear fusion-powered lifetime more quickly and exploded as a supernova, leaving behind either a black hole or a superdense neutron star. The black hole or neutron star’s orbit grew steadily closer to its companion, and about 300 years ago it entered the companion’s atmosphere, starting the death dance. At this point, the interaction began spraying gas away from the companion into space. The ejected gas, spiraling outward, formed an expanding, donut-shaped ring, called a torus, around the pair.

Eventually, the black hole or neutron star made its way inward to the companion star’s core, disrupting the nuclear fusion producing the energy that kept the core from collapsing of its own gravity. As the core collapsed, it briefly formed a disk of material closely orbiting the intruder and propelled a jet of material outward from the disk at speeds approaching that of light, drilling its way through the star. “That jet is what produced the X-rays seen by the MAXI instrument aboard the International Space Station, and this confirms the date of this event in 2014,” Dong said. The collapse of the star’s core caused it to explode as a supernova, following its sibling’s earlier explosion. “The companion star was going to explode eventually, but this merger accelerated the process,” Dong said.

The material ejected by the 2014 supernova explosion moved much faster than the material thrown off earlier from the companion star, and by the time VLASS observed the object, the supernova blast was colliding with that material, causing powerful shocks that produced the bright radio emission seen by the VLA. “All the pieces of this puzzle fit together to tell this amazing story,” said Gregg Hallinan of Caltech. “The remnant of a star that exploded a long time ago plunged into its companion, causing it, too, to explode,” he added. The key to the discovery, Hallinan said, was VLASS, which is imaging the entire sky visible at the VLA’s latitude — about 80 percent of the sky — three times over seven years. One of the objectives of doing VLASS that way is to discover transient objects, such as supernova explosions, that emit brightly at radio wavelengths. This supernova, caused by a stellar merger, however, was a surprise. “Of all the things we thought we would discover with VLASS, this was not one of them,” Hallinan said. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

Arctic Warming Can Cause Severe Winter Weather

A new study has now pointed out that these changes in the Arctic region induced by anthropogenic global warming have disrupted a wind system called Stratospheric Polar Vortex (SPV). In the recent past, the Arctic region has warmed rapidly and studies have shown that the temperatures in the region have risen about twice as fast as global temperatures. This phenomenon is termed Arctic amplification and multiple factors including increased greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric transport of heat to the region play important roles. Recently, researchers from India and Brazil noted that this Arctic warming was behind the heatwaves in India. The warming was found to have an impact on the frequency and intensity of heat waves. Though very counterintuitive, there have also been a few studies stating that this Arctic warming has propelled the cold winter spells in North America.

A new study has now pointed out that these changes in the Arctic region induced by anthropogenic global warming have disrupted a wind system called Stratospheric Polar Vortex (SPV). This stretching of SPV can lead to extreme cold events in parts of Asia and North America. The report published Friday in Science adds that this SPV disruption was behind the February 2021 Texas cold wave. “The SPV consists of strong westerly winds from 10km to 50km above the surface. It peaks at around 50 m/s on average near 50km and is strongest in mid-winter, however, on occasion it can weaken, and sometimes the winds reverse direction entirely,” explains one of the authors Prof. Chaim Garfinkel in an email to indianexpress.com. He is the Head of the Graduate Program in Atmospheric Science at Hebrew University, Israel. He adds that these stretching events almost certainly occurred before greenhouse gas emissions began increasing, but the current emissions are leading to an increase in the occurrence of these types of events.

Lead author Judah Cohen told theguardian.com: “When the polar vortex is nice and circular, that’s a sign all the cold air is bottled up over the Arctic…When it stretches like this, a piece of it goes into Asia and a piece of it goes towards eastern North America. So that’s what we’re seeing. And that was what happened with the Texas cold wave.” A reversal of the polar vortex is known to bring warm winter temperatures in Southern Asia. When asked if the disruption can have an effect on India, Dr Cohen told indianexpress.com that the polar vortex stretching events are associated with relatively cold temperatures in Central and East Asia but there are no strong signals in India. “If anything these events might slightly favour relatively mild temperatures,” he adds.

The team is currently studying the various dynamics of this disruption. “Our modelling work needs to be elaborated to explore stronger forcings that might occur by the end of the century,” adds Prof. Garfinkel. The team writes that by identifying the precursor pattern to these stretching events, we can extend the warning lead time of cold extremes in Asia, Canada, and the United States. “Preparing for only a decrease in severe winter weather can compound the human and economic cost when severe winter weather does occur,” concludes the report.

 

Dr. Vemuri S. Murthy: A Global Champion Of Resuscitation Medicine

World Heart Day is being observed on September 29th this year with the objective of raising awareness of heart disease and promoting “Healthy Heart” lifestyles. “Human heart disease is the number one Global Public Health problem,” says Dr. Vemuri S. Murthy. He is an advocate of Community and Physician resuscitation education. And training for more than three decades in the USA and India. “It is disheartening to see patients with reversible health conditions die suddenly due to lack of both Community Health Awareness and Timely Emergency Care based on Evidence-based Resuscitation Practices”.

An alumnus of Guntur Medical College, Guntur and All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi (General Surgery), and a former Chairman of Anesthesiology Department at West Suburban Medical Center, Oak Park, Illinois, as a “Pioneer of Resuscitation Medicine in India” Dr. Murthy hailed. Also the reputed leader of organized medicine in the USA, Dr. Murthy has served as the President of the Chicago Medical Society and the Indian American Medical Association, Illinois.

Heart disease Indian CPR ProjectAffiliated with various US medical organizations and institutions, the soft-spoken Dr. Murthy is a Resuscitation Educator and Researcher, Advisor to Resuscitation Training Centers, Champion of Community Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), and a Leader of US Organized Medicine.  His Mission has been “Saving Lives” in Sudden Cardiac Arrests and common heart issues.

Global evidence-based and heart disease newspaper articles information has proven that Bystander CPR is life-saving in sudden cardiac arrest. The latter can be recognized by the sudden collapse of the person without any breathing, pulse, or consciousness.   According to the articles about the heart of the American Heart Association, there are more than 356,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests annually in the U.S. Nearly 90% of them are fatal. Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), if performed immediately, can double or triple a cardiac arrest victim’s chances of survival. Heart attack news articles say that in the majority of cases, immediate Hands-only CPR may have similar survival outcomes. And it is comparable to the conventional CPR performed with both chest compressions and breaths.

Dr. Murthy is a guide and co-investigator of a ground-breaking Indian Resuscitation Research Project and Cardiac Arrest Registry, Warangal Area Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest Registry 2018, based on an international format. He contributed to “CPR” and “Women’s Heart Health” videos and educational articles in news media and actively involved with Indo-US collaborated comprehensive Cardiac Care Projects.

Quoting evidence-based studies done, Dr. Murthy, a past President of the Chicago Medical Society and current adjunct faculty in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, points to the fact that South Asians are at a four-times greater risk of heart disease than their Western counterparts and have a greater chance of having a heart attack before 50 years of age. Heart attacks strike South Asian Men and Women at younger ages. As a result, both morbidity and mortality are higher among them compared to any other ethnic group. They tend to develop heart disease ten years earlier than other groups.

Heart disease Dr. VemuriThe Founder of Chicago Medical Society’s Community CPR Project Saving More Illinois Lives through Education (SMILE,) Dr. Murthy, takes upon himself the life-long mission of saving lives through effective preventive measures. He says, “Almost one in three among South Asians may die from heart disease before 65 years of age.”

What causes heart problems in India? Heart disease remains the number one cause of death. Common risk factors are smoking and a diet high in sugar, salt, refined grains, and fat. A large number of South Asians appear to have “insulin resistance”, a condition in which the body does not utilize insulin efficiently, resulting in Diabetes, which leads to a significant number of heart-related problems and serious heart conditions. Lack of adequate exercise, stress, and genetic predisposition are also contributing factors,” adds Dr. Murthy, a distinguished Chicago Physician.  Illinois offers Project SMILE programs at various community events. International dignitaries, Members of the US Congress, Illinois Governor, and Legislators, and Indian Consul Generals commend it by.

A Visiting Professor of Indian Medical Universities, Dr. Murthy has been promoting resuscitation courses for nearly three decades in India. Indian Instructor Faculty trains thousands of physicians, medical students, and nurses with his guidance. He pioneered an “Indian Medical University Resuscitation Education and Training Model” at Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences, Andhra Pradesh (2012). He conducted simulation-based advanced Resuscitation Workshops with international faculty and guided mass community CPR events. He chaired several Resuscitation Conventions in India and organized workshops at prestigious Indian Medical Institutions such as AIIMS, New Delhi.

Heart disease Vemuri S MurthyDr. Murthy served the American Heart Association in different capacities. Such as National and International Faculty, Member of the International Committee, and Advisor to AHA International Training Centers, Also as  AHA Liaison to Medical Organizations in the USA too. He co-chaired programs at the AHA Scientific Sessions and delivered Resuscitation-based lectures at prestigious US medical institutions.

He also contributed to AHA’s “Saving Children’s Lives” project in Gujarat, India.  AHA leadership recognized his decades of service: “For Volunteer Leadership in Support of Lifesaving Mission of the AHA and its Emergency Cardiovascular Care Programs”. Dr. Murthy has been actively involved with AAPI as the Chairman of the “AAPI-AHA Liaison Committee”, “Global Resuscitation Committee”, and “Editorial Board Advisor” of the peer-reviewed Journal of AAPI (JAAPI). He also initiated an International AAPI Webinar Continuing Medical Education (CME) program (2020), an IAMA, IL Community CPR Project (2015), and an Indo-US CPR Research Project involving Resident Physicians from US Medical Universities (2016).

In a recent interview for a heart health article 2020, Dr. Vemuri Murthy shared his thoughts and concerns regarding the current status of the out-of-hospital cardiac arrests and diminishing bystander resuscitation help during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Bystander CPR with Defibrillation is a Blessing of Contemporary Medicine enhancing the survival of Sudden Cardiac Arrest Victims. Saving Lives with Best Practices should be the top Healthcare Priority for every Nation,” says Dr. Murthy, who hails from the state of Andhra Pradesh. He has devoted his entire life towards learning and sharing his knowledge and expertise with the noble cause of Heart Education.   Dr. Vemuri Murthy’s contributed to Global Health, Resuscitation Medicine, and Community Service. And this have been widely recognized through the numerous awards and recognitions that have been bestowed on him.

Dr. Murthy was honored with a Medal from US Congressmen as “Global Champion of Resuscitation,” “Lifetime Achievement Award” and “Distinguished Physician Award” from the Indian American Medical Association, Illinois.”

Chicago Medical Society gave the “Henrietta Herbolsheimer Public Service Award” and “Leadership Award” to Dr. Murthy. Also, the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin bestowed on him the “Pioneer of Resuscitation Medicine in India” and “Most Distinguished Service” Awards. And, he received the “Global Champion of Health Award” from the Global Health Consortium, USA and the “Paul Harris International Service Award” from the Rotary Club and “Global Humanitarian Award” from The Institute of Medicine of Chicago “for providing voluntary, longstanding, and International Humanitarian Health Services” along with commendations from Indian Medical Universities and Medical Societies such as Indian Medical Association and Cardiological Society of India.

Indeed, Dr. Vemuri S. Murthy is truly a “Global Champion of Resuscitation Medicine!”

Dr. B.K. Misra First Indian Receives Lifetime Achievement Award from American Association of Neurological Surgeons

Well-known Mumbai-based neurosurgeon Dr. B.K. Misra has been conferred the prestigious American Association of Neurological Surgeons’ ‘International Lifetime Achievement Award in Neurosurgery’, an official said here Aug. 26. Misra is the head of the Department of Surgery and Division of Neurosurgery and Gamma Knife Radiosurgery at the P.D. Hinduja Hospital here. He received the International Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) at its Annual Scientific Meeting 2021, Orlando. He is the first Indian ever to be bestowed with this award. The felicitation ceremony was conducted through an online event amidst the pandemic. AANS is the world’s apex body of neurosurgeons. “We have the best of tech, infrastructure and skills at par with the best in the world to treat the most complex neurosurgical conditions and even have the potential to become the destination for neurological treatment,” Misra said on receiving the award.

The hospital’s CEO, Gautam Khanna, lauded Misra’s medical accomplishments and accolades as a testament to his dedication and treating thousands of patients under his care. Misra, president of the Asian Australasian Society of Neurological Surgeons and the World Federation of Skull Base Societies, is also first vice president of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies. AANS, the world’s most prestigious apex body of neurosurgeons, has bestowed its highest international distinction honoring Dr. Misra’s lifetime of achievements in neurosurgery in India and globally. Dr. Misra is Honorary President of Asian Australasian Society of Neurological Surgeons (AASNS), is the 1st Vice President of World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies (WFNS), and President of the World Federation of Skull Base Societies, all leading international neurosurgical societies.

Dr. Misra has a long list of “firsts” to his name. He was the first to execute Image-Guided Aneurysm Microsurgery globally and the first in South Asia to perform Gamma Knife Radiosurgery. Acoustic Neuroma Surgery, Vascular Neurosurgery (Aneurysm, AVM), Skull Base Surgery, Pituitary Surgery, Gamma Knife Radiosurgery, Awake Craniotomy, Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery, and Surgery of Complex Brain and Spine Disorder are among Dr. B. K. Misra’s areas of expertise in neurosurgical patient care. He was the first neurosurgeon to do Awake Craniotomy for brain tumours in India. He’s also the recipient of the prestigious Dr. B C Roy National Award as Eminent Medical Person of the Year, 2018 (the Highest Medical Award in India).

On the occasion of receiving the award, Dr. B K Misra said, “It’s my privilege and honor to receive the International Lifetime Achievement award from AANS. A recognition like this, from peers, means a lot to me personally and professionally and inspires me further. I would like to express my gratitude to my family and P.D Hinduja Hospital for their constant support and to my patients for having bestowed their trust on me. Today in India, we have the best of technology, infrastructure and skills, at par with the best in the world, to treat the most complex neurosurgical conditions. We have the potential to become a destination for neurological treatment .” With a long string of credits and firsts, he was the first in the world to execute an Image-Guided Aneurysm Microsurgery, first in South Asia to perform a Gamma Knife Radiosurgery, and first in India to perform an Awake Craniotomy for brain tumors. Earlier, Misra received the Dr. B.C. Roy National Award-2018, and contributes through numerous publications to improve the quality of education in neurosurgery and facilitate spreading the treatment for neurosurgical patients in poor countries globally.

US Unsure On Covid Origins

The US intelligence community has failed to reach a consensus on the origin of Covid-19 disease, while ruling out the possibility that China developed the virus as a biological weapon, according to key takeaways from a classified report delivered to President Joe Biden this week. Biden had, in May, ordered the country’s intelligence community “redouble their efforts” and report the origins of the pandemic within 90 days. Their report was delivered to the White House on Tuesday. While most of the new information gathered remains classified, some was released this week as an unclassified summary of assessment on Covid-19 origins.

The intelligence community “assesses that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, probably emerged and infected humans through an initial small-scale exposure that occurred no later than November 2019,” said the unclassified summary, compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “We judge the virus was not developed as a biological weapon,” it added. Majority of agencies also assessed with low confidence that SARS-CoV-2 probably was not genetically engineered; however, two agencies believe there was not sufficient evidence to make an assessment either way.

One intelligence agency said it assessed with moderate confidence that the first human infection with SARS-CoV-2 most likely was the result of a laboratory-associated incident, while four agencies noted with low confidence that the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection was caused naturally. The report did not name the agencies. “After examining all available intelligence reporting and other information, the IC remains divided on the most likely origin of Covid-19. All agencies assess that two hypotheses are plausible: natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident,” the report said.

The report also noted that China’s officials did not have foreknowledge of the virus before the initial outbreak of Covid-19 emerged. At the same time the agencies also noted a lack of clinical samples or a complete understanding of epidemiological data from the earliest Covid cases. “If we obtain information on the earliest cases that identified a location of interest or occupational exposure, it may alter our evaluation of hypotheses,” the agencies added in the report. The agencies asked for more cooperation from China to reach a conclusive assessment of the origins of Covid-19. Beijing, however, continues to hinder the global investigation, resist sharing information and blame other countries, including the US.

“These actions reflect, in part, China’s government’s own uncertainty about where an investigation could lead as well as its frustration that the international community is using the issue to exert political pressure on China,” the agencies wrote in the report. Meanwhile, China’s foreign minister has dismissed the report as “anti-science”. In a statement after the report was published, Biden criticized China for not cooperating with the investigation. “Critical information about the origins of this pandemic exists in the People’s Republic of China, yet from the beginning, government officials in China have worked to prevent international investigators and members of the global public health community from accessing it,” Biden was quoted as saying. “The world deserves answers, and I will not rest until we get them,” he added.

Want To Connect Diaspora To Indian Researchers: Science And Tech Ministry

Stressing the important role that the Indian diaspora could play in connecting with Indian academia and Industry, a top official said the government is determined to connect them with Indian researchers. “Given the constraints and cultural differences in research ambience of two countries, we can work through mutual collaborations with the help of government initiatives such as VAJRA, SPARC etc. particularly in futuristic technologies like cyber-physical system, quantum, hydrogen, electric mobility, in which several Indian scientists are also doing substantial work,” Science and Technology Secretary, Professor Ashutosh Sharma, said during his recent interaction with several Indian origin presidents of US-universities.

The Science and Technology Ministry is determined to connect the Indian diaspora with Indian researchers, and DST has had several dialogues with the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Energy on the development of bilateral scientific cooperation, he said, as per an official release. Sharma has been periodically interacting with Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) in Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine, and Mathematics (STEMM). On August 20, 2021, he, along with University Grants Commission Chairman, Professor D.P. Singh had interacted with 11 Presidents/Chancellors of US Universities in which India’s Ambassador in the United States Taranjeet Singh Sandhu had also participated.

DST’s Head, International Cooperation, S.K. Varshney pointed out that in STEMM areas, the first significant step was taken by organising the Vaishwik Bharatiya Vaigyanik (VAIBHAV) summit in 2020, and now an online portal, Pravasi Bharatiya Academic and Scientific Sampark (PRABHASS) has also been launched to connect Indian diaspora with Indian academic and research institutes. Prof Singh shared his insights on the new National Educational Policy. During the interaction, Indian diaspora suggested that frequent actions need to be taken on collaborations along with a set timelines and defined focus areas. They proposed upgrading the healthcare system and promotion of medical sciences along with technical education so as to develop cooperation in certain focus areas like health care, artificial intelligence machine learning, agriculture, and so on, the release added.

The meeting was attended by Prof Satish K Tripathi of the State University of New York, Buffalo, Prof Pradeep Khosla of the University of California, San Diego, Prof Michael Rao of the Virginia Commonwealth University, Prof Kumble Subbaswamy of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Prof Ashish Vaidya of the Northern Kentucky University, Prof Renu Khator of University of Houston, Prof Neeli Bendapudi of the University of Louisville, Kentucky, Prof Venkat Reddy of the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Prof Mauli Agrawal of University of Missouri, Kansas City, Prof Mantosh Dewan of the Upstate Medical University, SUNY, and Prof Mahesh Daas of the Boston Architectural College, Boston.

Dr. Vivek Murthy Defends US Booster Shot Plan

By now, many public health experts, and the public for that matter, have accepted that vaccinated people may need another dose (US Booster Shots) of whichever COVID-19 shot they received in order to better protect against new variants of COVID-19.

US Booster Shot COVID-19U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has defended the Biden administration’s plans to begin rolling out vaccine boosters shots for Americans as early as next month, despite criticism from the World Health Organization and others that the U.S. should not offer shot boosters to Americans while many countries lag in vaccine access.”We have to protect American lives and we have to help vaccinate the world. Because that is the only way this pandemic ends,” Murthy told ABC “This Week” co-anchor, Martha Raddatz.

Murthy conceded that — assuming vaccine supply does not change — “taking more vaccines for Americans in the form of boosters will take away from the rest of the world,” but said the focus has been on increasing the supply and pointed to the U.S. donation of more than 120 million vaccine doses to other countries and its 500-million-dose commitment.

It is recorded the highest daily COVID-19 America active case count in nearly seven months last week, with just over 163,000 new cases reported, according to the CDC.

While only US booster shots of Pfizer and Moderna have been announced, Murthy said they are waiting on efficacy data for a second Johnson & Johnson shot. “We anticipate the people who receive J&J will likely need booster shots as well,” Murthy said.

Asked about the safety of taking a third US booster shot. Murthy emphasized that the booster vaccine shots distribution plan is “contingent on the (Food and Drug Administration). And the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Advisory Committee doing their full and independent evaluation”. “Safety is absolutely essential in this process. And we would not execute a plan if the FDA did not weigh in. And say that that third booster shot was. In fact, safe,” Murthy said. “But again, keep in mind this — that we have a tremendous amount of experience with these vaccines so far.”

Amid the surge, U.S. vaccination rates have also increased. White House COVID-19 data director Cyrus Shahpar said Saturday marked the third day in a row. And that the U.S. has administered more than 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses.

The White House announced the news on Friday. It is that at least 200 million Americans can vaccinate with at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose. The FDA has yet to determine that US booster shots are both safe and needed. But Fauci stressed that staying ahead of the virus as well as preparing for booster shots is the best way to tamp down the growing threat of the Delta variant. “If you wait for something bad to happen before you respond to it. Then you find yourself considerably behind in the full capability of your response,” he said. “You don’t want to find yourself behind and playing catch up. Better to stay ahead of it than chasing after it.”

The data on which health officials based their updated US booster shot recommendation included results from a New York City study that showed the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines in preventing infection with SARS-CoV-2 dropped from 91.7% in May to 79.8% by the end of July, by which time the Delta variant was the dominant strain in the area.

In another national study of nursing home residents conducted by the National Healthcare Safety Network, researchers found that vaccine effectiveness in protecting people from getting infected with SARS-CoV-2 was 74.7% prior to the emergence of the Delta variant, but dropped to 53.1% by the end of July. In addition to the data generated within the U.S., health officials have also been poring over information from Israel, which has been serving as a vaccination bellwether for the world. Since health officials, there were able to quickly vaccinate a significant percentage of the population.

The idea of the US booster dose is to bring people’s immune defenses—specifically antibodies—back up to the level generated soon after the last vaccine dose. It’s a well-established principle in immunology that antibodies tend to decline in number over time. Whether it is after people get vaccinate or get naturally infect with a virus. The vaccines has never designed to protect completely against the virus. It is only for from getting severely ill after get infect.

The FDA is pushing to issue full approval for Pfizer-BioNTech’s two-dose COVID-19 vaccine, further expediting an earlier timeline for licensing the shot. Dr. Murthy said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the FDA issue a full approval of the Pfizer vaccine soon. Even that approval may convince some individuals on the fence about vaccination. And this is for getting the shot and encouraging companies and schools to implement vaccine mandates.

“I think you’ll see more universities and workplaces. Those were considering putting in requirements for vaccines to create safer places to learn and work. You’ll see more of them likely moving forward on their plans to require vaccines in the workplace and school,” Dr. Murthy said.

On rising pediatric cases and hospitalizations, Dr. Murthy encouraged adults to get vaccinated to protect children who are ineligible and highlighted measures schools can take to limit the likelihood of COVID transmission. “I really feel strongly that it is our moral responsibility. As this society to do everything we can to protect our children,” Murthy responded.  “And that means that number one, all of us got vaccinate as adults and adolescents is important because kids who are too young to get vaccinate. But it’s also why making sure we are taking every measure possible in schools. And to ensure that our kids are safe is so important,” Murthy added. “Those include masks, improving ventilation, doing regular testing, and ensuring that our children are outdoors as much as possible.”

India To Sign Mou With Florida International University On Himalayan Geology

The Government of India have given approval for signing of a MoU between the Geological Survey of India (GSI) and Florida International University, the US, for cooperation in the field of geology.

Chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Cabinet gave its approval for signing the MoU between the GSI, under the Ministry of Mines, and the varsity’s board of trustees on behalf of its Department of Earth and Environment, a government statement said. The identified area of cooperation between the two participants would include development of geological knowledge, research regarding geologic and tectonic environment of post collisions magmatism in India-Asia collisional margin, geologic history and tectonics of the Eastern Himalayan Syntaxis and developing cooperative projects in the fields of regional geological, geochemical, petrological and multi-isotopic studies related to the evolution of post collisional magmatic belts.

The MoU will provide an institutional mechanism between Geological Survey of India (GSI) and the Florida International University (FIU) on cooperation in the field of Geology.The objectives of the MoU are to understand the geologic and tectonic environment of the generation and emplacement of post-collisional magmatism in India-Asia Collision margin in particular and to construct a model of post-collisional magma genesis in continental collision zones in general and to construct the geologic and tectonics of the Eastern Himalayan Syntaxis.

The identified area of cooperation between the two Participants will be as follows:

  • Development of the geological knowledge, research regarding geologic and tectonic environment of post collisions magmatism in India-Asia collisional margin, geologic history and tectonics of the Eastern Himalayan Syntaxis.
  • Developing cooperative projects in the fields of regional geological, geochemical, petrological and multi-isotopic studies related to the evolution of post collisional magmatic belts.

“Food Without Fear,” A Book By Dr. Ruchi Gupta Presents A Groundbreaking Approach To Food Allergies And Sensitivities

One in five people in the United States have food intolerances or sensitivities, and while these can be debilitating, they are chronic and can also be life-threatening in the long-term. Every day, more than five hundred people in the US go to the emergency room following a bad allergic reaction to food; 1 in 10 people have food allergies — and they are acute, alarming, and can be life-threatening. These are just a few of the statistics that prove what most of us know anecdotally. Food allergies are on the rise. But allergy itself is just the tip of the iceberg — and it’s not just a problem for kids. There is a whole spectrum of food-related conditions, including sensitivities, intolerances, and challenges.

The spectrum of these ailments is wide and deep, with many tricky “masqueraders” in the mix creating confusion, potential misdiagnoses, and faulty or poor treatment, and causing immeasurable suffering for millions of people. Dr. Ruchi Gupta, a world-renowned researcher and physician on the front lines of this silent epidemic, in her first book, shares revolutionary research from her lab to address the entire spectrum of food-related health conditions.

“FOOD WITHOUT FEAR: Identify, Prevent, and Treat Food Allergies, Intolerances, and Sensitivities,” a newly released book by Dr. Ruchi Gupta, an young and talented Indian American, illuminates what she has coined the food reaction spectrum—a revolutionary way to look at food-related conditions—and offers a new approach to managing adverse responses to food with a practical plan to end the misery and enjoy eating with ease.

Considered as the very first book to identify the entire spectrum of food-related health conditions, from allergy to sensitivity, and what we can do about it, Dr. Gupta, a professor of pediatrics and medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a clinical attending at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, promises hope, help, and food freedom to the individuals and their families who so need it. In FOOD WITHOUT FEAR you’ll learn the STOP method, a way for families to track their symptoms and gain the tools to identify, manage, and treat their unique condition to prevent future reactions.

With more than 17 years of experience as a board certified pediatrician and health researcher and currently serving as the founding director of the Center for Food Allergy & Asthma Research (CFAAR) at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine and Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Dr. Gupta known to be a curating revolutionary researcher, this young Indian American’s panoramic view debunks common myths, such as the misconception that an allergy and an intolerance are the same thing, but both can have life-threatening consequences, and she empowers you to know what questions to ask your doctor to get the correct diagnosis.

In the book, Dr. Gupta details: The differences between an allergy and an intolerance or sensitivity; What “masqueraders” are and how to identify them; Which health conditions are mistaken for food allergies—or can be triggered by them; The surprising allergies on the rise (think red meat and exercise; and, The issues with allergen labeling on food and drugs FOOD WITHOUT FEAR’s assessments, information on the most up-to-date treatments, and practical tips will help welcome anyone suffering from food-related health conditions back to the table.

The book has won excellent reviews from well-known authors. David Perlmutter, MD, Fellow, American College of Nutrition, author, #1 New York Times bestseller Grain Brain and Brain Wash, wrote of the book:  “Food Without Fear explores how our individual uniqueness plays into how we respond to the information that our food choices purvey. And the dichotomy between “good” and “bad” foods is explored through the lenses of both leading edge science as well as our food-related responses. Both these data sets empower the reader with tools to optimize food choices and pave the way for a healthier life.”

Dr. Gupta is world-renowned for her groundbreaking research in the areas of food allergy and asthma epidemiology, most notably for her research on the prevalence of pediatric and adult food allergy in the United States. She has also significantly contributed to academic research in the areas of food allergy prevention, socioeconomic disparities in care, and the daily management of these conditions. Dr. Gupta is the author of The Food Allergy Experience, has written and co-authored over 150 peer-reviewed research manuscripts, and has had her work featured on major TV networks and in print media.

Kristin Loberg has a lengthy list of successful collaborations with multiple New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers to her credit. Kristin earned her degree from Cornell University, and lives in Los Angeles. She is a member of the Author’s Guild, PEN, and teaches an intensive proposal-writing workshop at UCLA annually.

Published by Hachette Books, (ISBN-13:92 78030684650) “FOOD WITHOUT FEAR: Identify, Prevent, and Treat Food Allergies, Intolerances, and Sensitivities” is available on all major bookstores and online, including at Amazon and Barnes And Nobles. For more details, please visit: https://foodwithoutfearbook.com/

Scientists Warn Time Of Reckoning Has Come For The Planet

Heatwaves and the heavy rains that cause flooding have become more intense and more frequent since the 1950s in most parts of the world, and climate change is now affecting all inhabited regions of the planet. Drought is increasing in many places and it is more than 66% likely that numbers of major hurricanes and typhoons have risen since the 1970s.

“If there was still a need for a proof that climate changes is caused by human activities, then this is the report that provides it,” said Prof Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia. And the consequences of humanity’s massive act of atmospheric interference are now clear: what is hot today will become hotter tomorrow; extreme floods will become more frequent, wildfires more dangerous and deadly droughts more widespread. In short, things can only get worse.

“Our future climate could well become some kind of hell on Earth,” said Prof Tim Palmer, of Oxford University. Or, as Prof Dave Reay, executive director of Edinburgh University’s Climate Change Institute, put it: “This is not just another scientific report. This is hell and high water writ large.”

Certainly the numbers outlined in the report were stark and strikingly emphatic in comparison with past, far more cautious, IPCC offerings. As it makes clear, humans have pumped around 2,400bn tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since 1850, creating concentrations of the gas that have not been seen on Earth in the last 2 million years.

And the consequences of humanity’s massive act of atmospheric interference are now clear: what is hot today will become hotter tomorrow; extreme floods will become more frequent, wildfires more dangerous and deadly droughts more widespread. In short, things can only get worse.

Indeed, by the end of the century they could become threatening to civilisation if emissions are allowed to continue at their present rate. “That might seem like a long way away but there are millions of children already born who should be alive well into the 22nd century,” added Prof Jonathan Bamber of Bristol University, another report author.

In fact, they could become utterly catastrophic with the occurrence of world-changing events – such as continent-wide forest die-backs or collapsing Antarctic ice sheets, says Prof Andrew Watson of Edinburgh University. “The IPCC report gives a comprehensive update on the knowns of climate change, and that makes for grim reading. But it also makes the point that climate models don’t include ‘low probability-high impact’ events, such as drastic changes in ocean circulation, that also become more likely the more the climate is changed. These ‘known unknowns’ are scarier still.”

The new IPCC report is certainly a very different, uncompromising document compared with previous versions, as meteorologist Keith Shine of Reading University pointed out. “I was heavily involved in IPCC’s first assessment report back in 1990. We weren’t even sure then that observed climate change was due to human activity. The IPCC now says the evidence is ‘unequivocal’. That means there is no hiding place for policymakers.”

A Crucial Ocean Circulation’s Instability Would Have Serious Impacts On Our Weather

A crucial system of currents in the Atlantic Ocean that helps control temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere and has implications for the entire planet’s weather systems is showing signs of instability due to human-made climate change, scientists say.  Its collapse would have dire consequences for our weather and life on Earth.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) — which the Gulf Stream is a major part of — helps maintain the energy balance in the Atlantic Ocean. It is often described as a “conveyor belt” that takes warm surface water from the tropics and distributes it to the north Atlantic. The colder, saltier water then sinks and flows south.

A study, published Thursday in Nature and Climate Change, warned of “an almost complete loss of stability of the AMOC over the course of the last century. Researchers say it could be close to a collapse from a strong circulation to a weak circulation, though the threshold for such a collapse is still uncertain.

Scientists have warned for years that the circulation is weakening. Heavy rain and melting ice sheets are making the water in the North Atlantic Ocean less salty, which makes it lighter and less likely to sink. If the water in this region becomes too light, the entire circulation could be disrupted.

Global weather patterns are critically linked to the circulation and its transport of heat and nutrients around the planet. A collapse of this system would result in significant and abrupt changes, including fast sea level rise, more extreme winters in Western Europe and disruptions to monsoon systems in the tropics.

It could also have a cascading effect and destabilize other components of the Earth’s climate system, including the Antarctic ice sheet and the Amazon rainforest.

This scenario was the premise for the 2004 climate science fiction film “The Day After Tomorrow,” in which a series of extreme weather disasters strike after climate change caused the AMOC to collapse.

The circulation is weaker than it has been in around 1,000 years, scientists had previously said, but they did not know whether it had actually been destabilized or undergoing natural changes. This week’s study used eight datasets looking at surface temperatures and salinity in the North Atlantic over a period of 150 years, and found global warming was driving the destabilization.

“The difference is crucial,” the study’s author, Niklas Boers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told CNN in an email.

“Imagine a chair, which can be either shifted (with all four legs remaining on the ground) or tilted. Both change the position of the chair (corresponding to the change in mean AMOC strength), but in the first case the stability of the chair won’t be affected, while in the latter case there exists a critical point. If we tilt the chair just slightly further, it will fall down. My results suggest that what is happening to the AMOC is more likely to be a tilting than only a shifting, so the AMOC has moved toward the critical threshold at which it may collapse,” he said.

Boers added that he himself was surprised by his findings that the AMOC had been destabilized and was “moving toward its critical threshold, at which it could abruptly collapse.”

A collapse of the circulation would mean significant cooling in Europe, Beors said, “but maybe more concerning is the effect of an AMOC collapse on the tropical monsoon systems of South America, Western Africa, and India; especially in Western Africa, an AMOC collapse could lead to permanent drought conditions.”

Boers recognizes in his study that he and other scientists still don’t know if and when the current might collapse, but he called on the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions “as much and as quickly as possible.”

“Every gram of extra greenhouse gas in the atmosphere will increase to the probability of an AMOC collapse in the future, so emitting as little as possible, both on individual but of course also on collective and international level, is the key.”

The study comes ahead of a major report by the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change on Monday, which has been years in the making and is expected to provide the most conclusive look yet at the extent of human-made climate change. It will also likely paint a picture of what the future could look like, depending on what action the world takes to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

Potential Dangers of Cannabis

The stigma encompassing marijuana has been steadily declining with states legalizing it for both medical and recreational use. On March 31st, New York became the 15th state to legalize cannabis. There are currently 18 states in the U.S. that legalized recreational cannabis and the number of states are only expected to increase with time. As cannabis continues to grow in popularity, it’s important to understand the potentially harmful consequences that come along with the drug.

According to Fiona Clement, a health-policy researcher at the University of Calgary’s Cummings School of Medicine, multiple studies have shown associations between marijuana and possible adverse effects. These side effects include the risk of impaired driving, increased chance of stroke and testicular cancer, brain development changes that may affect learning and memory, and mental illnesses involving psychosis.

After the legalization of marijuana in Colorado, cases of acute injuries and various illnesses linked to cannabis use began to rise. Research shows that cannabis-related visits to hospitals in Colorado increased around 40%, from 824 per 100,000 visits to 1,146 per 100,000, in the years between 2012 and 2014. Many of those cases were related to mental illnesses, which were found to be diagnosed in individuals who use cannabis five times more than those who choose to abstain.

Mental illnesses were not the only concerning cases related to cannabis use that the Colorado hospitals had to handle. Unfortunately, cases of marijuana use leading to cyclic vomiting syndrome also increased, with some hospitals doubling in these diagnoses. There have also been several occurrences where children, under the age of 10, were accidentally poisoned by cannabis. These incidents of marijuana-related visits to the children’s hospital nearly doubled after the legalization of cannabis, suggesting that there are real risks even to individuals who are not consuming the drug.

The potential adverse outcomes have evidently not abated the popularity of cannabis. However, the age restriction for the use of marijuana should be strictly adhered to. Minors are prone to sustaining long-term damage as their brains are still in the process of developing. THC binds to cannabinoid receptors in the brain, which play an important role in neurotransmitter release. These receptors should increase during adolescence, as they are vital for the genetic expression of neural (brain) development. Regular use of marijuana could significantly alter these neurodevelopmental systems, leading to poor cognitive and emotional outcomes in adulthood.

There are clear risks with cannabis use and it’s important to be transparent about these consequences. “Cannabis is not the root of all evil, nor is it the cure for all diseases,” Monte says. “You’ve got to understand what the good is and what the bad is, and then make a balanced decision.”

Decline In CO2 Cooled Earth’s Climate Over 30 Million Years Ago, Scientists Find

Newswise — New research led by the University of Bristol demonstrates that a decline in the concentration of atmospheric CO2 played a major role in driving Earth’s climate from a warm greenhouse into a cold icehouse world around 34 million years ago. This transition could be partly reversed in the next centuries due to the anthropogenic rise in CO2.

Between 40 and 34 million years ago, Earth’s climate underwent a major climatic transition. Before 40 million years ago, during the Eocene, Antarctica was covered by lush forests, but by 34 million years ago, in the Oligocene, these forests had been replaced by thick continental ice sheets, as we know Antarctica today. The main driver of this greenhouse to icehouse transition is widely debated, and little information is available about how climate changed on land. An international team led by Dr Vittoria Lauretano and Dr David Naafs at the University of Bristol used molecular fossils preserved in ancient coals to reconstruct land temperature across this transition.

The team used a new approach based on the distribution of bacterial lipids preserved in ancient wetland deposits. It was developed as part of the ERC-funded project, The Greenhouse Earth System (TGRES), which also funded this study. The TGRES PI and paper co-author Rich Pancost, from the University’s School of Chemistry, explained: ‘These compounds originally comprised the cell membranes of bacteria living in ancient wetlands, with their structures changing slightly to help the bacteria adapt to changing temperature and acidity. Those compounds can then be preserved for tens of millions of years, allowing us to reconstruct those ancient environmental conditions.’

To reconstruct temperature change across the greenhouse to icehouse transition, the team applied their new approach to coal deposits from the southeast Australian Gippsland Basin. These remarkable deposits span over 10 million years of Earth history and have been extensively characterised by collaborators on the study from the University of Melbourne, Dr. Vera Korasidis and Prof. Malcolm Wallace.

The new data show that land temperatures cooled alongside the ocean’s and by a similar magnitude of about 3C. To explore causes of that temperature decline, the team conducted climate model simulations, Crucially, only simulations that included a decline in atmospheric CO2 could reproduce a cooling consistent with the temperature data reconstructed from the coals.

These results provide further evidence that atmospheric CO2 plays a crucial role in driving Earth’s climate, including the formation of the Antarctic ice sheet.

J&J’s COVID-19 Vaccine Works Well Against Delta Variant

Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine helps prevent severe disease among those infected with the Delta variant, according to a trial involving almost 480,000 health workers in South Africa. The study, known as Sisonke, provides the first large-scale evidence that the J&J vaccine works against this dominant variant, according to trial co-lead Glenda Gray. It’s probably more protective against Delta than it was with the earlier beta strain, she said in a presentation Friday.

The single-dose shot was 71% effective against hospitalization and as much as 96% effective against death, she said. It also demonstrated durability of eight months. “These results show there is no need for a booster yet,” said Gray, who is president of the South African Medical Research Council.

While the J&J vaccine is a key element to South Africa’s vaccination plan, the country temporarily paused its use in April after the U.S. decided to suspend the shot because of its link to rare blood clots. Other data have raised questions about how well the shot holds up against the highly contagious strain that has driven renewed outbreaks in countries including the U.S. and China.

One U.S. study released last month showed the J&J shot produced relatively low levels of antibodies against Delta. J&J said that analysis, which hasn’t been published in a peer-reviewed journal, had examined only one aspect of protection and didn’t consider long-lasting responses among immune cells stimulated by the vaccine. The drugmaker’s researchers have said their own data indicated that the vaccine neutralizes the variant and that additional doses weren’t needed.

Africa’s Rollout

Earlier this year J&J agreed to supply as many as 400 million vaccines to the African Union through the end of 2022, delivering a boost to a continent trailing most of the world in the race to inoculate. The dose’s requirement for just a single shot is seen as beneficial for Africa, where vaccine distribution to more than 1 billion widely dispersed people is likely to present a challenge.

In the study, the vaccine was administered to the health workers at 120 sites in both urban and rural areas from Feb. 17 to May 17. Analysis of a third data set is expected in coming days. There were two cases of the rare clotting disorder thrombocytopenia thrombosis syndrome among participants, with both making a complete recovery, Gray said.

 

What The Delta Variant Means For COVID-19 Spread And Vaccines

News wise — If you check the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 data tracker, which tracks cases in each state, much of the country is colored bright red, indicating a high rate of transmission of COVID.

A large chunk of the population is still unvaccinated against COVID-19, fewer people are wearing masks, and more people are getting together—all while the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus continues to spread.

Last week, the CDC recommended that even vaccinated people wear masks indoors in areas with substantial or high rates of transmission to try to turn the tide and reduce cases. That recommendation was based in part on data gathered from a July 4th holiday COVID outbreak in Provincetown, MA that seemed to indicate that even vaccinated people could spread the virus. The news left many confused and concerned about just how well they are protected.

There is danger in reading too much into this case, however, said Adam Lauring, M.D. Ph.D., an infectious disease specialist at Michigan Medicine.  “While this is clearly something to pay attention to, in the CDC report, they are pretty clear in the discussion about the limitations and what they are saying and not saying. Of course, not everyone made it that far,” noted Lauring. For example, as more people are vaccinated, it follows that more cases detected will be in vaccinated individuals.

Lauring also noted that a nasal swab COVID test measures how much viral RNA is present in a person’s nose but can’t measure how much of that virus is infectious. “The amount of genome present is a marker, but it is not the same thing as saying these people are equally as infectious,” said Lauring.

Another important point is that a swab is taken at one moment in time. “You could picture a situation where vaccinated people with Delta have a really steep rise and then a really steep fall in the amount of virus shed, whereas an unvaccinated person would have a steep rise that would remain high for longer.”

Even with all the unknowns, what was true before Delta is true now: the majority of cases will be in unvaccinated people. But, he added, “the big change is before, we were thinking vaccinated people would not transmit that often, whereas it appears that vaccinated people with the Delta variant will transmit more often than with other variants,” said Lauring.

What does this mean practically? This means that it will take additional measures, like wearing masks in certain situations—such as indoor spaces with a lot of local cases—in addition to vaccines to stop the spread of COVID.

Early data show that the vaccines are still more than 80% effective at preventing severe illness and death and are still reducing transmission. As far as boosters go, said Lauring, “I’m more concerned about people who have not been vaccinated at all.” And in the U.S., case counts continue to be highest in areas with low vaccination rates, evidence that the vaccines are working against all variants.

What about kids under 12 who don’t yet have an approved COVID vaccine?

Lauring noted that the risk of severe illness and death is low for children and that hasn’t changed, even with Delta. But as more adults become vaccinated, more of any future cases will be in unvaccinated people, including kids.

“The more transmissible the virus is, the higher the percentage of immune people you’ll need to shut down transmission.”

The best thing to do to protect kids, immunocompromised individuals and to reduce the chance for the emergence of even more transmissible variants remains to get as many people vaccinated against COVID-19 as possible to safely approach herd immunity.

Lauring noted that COVID is probably here to stay.

“My sense is people are coming to grips with what that means. From a policy level, we’ll have to figure out what level of circulation and hospitalization we are comfortable with,” he said.

Back To School: FSU Center Offers Resources For Families To Help Young Learners

News wise — As children across the country prepare to go back to the classroom — some for the first time since the COVID-19 global pandemic began — the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) at Florida State University has launched a resource section specifically for families navigating those crucial early years of learning.

The “For Families” section of the FCRR website contains a diverse array of videos, instructional materials and even a comic book series to give parents, caregivers and families resources to support their children’s reading.

“The pandemic continues to present so many challenges to children’s learning in school and at home,” said FCRR Director Nicole Patton Terry. “The picture that is emerging is distressing, especially among our students who were already more vulnerable to experiencing difficulty in school. Now more than ever, teachers and families are searching for solutions. The very least we can do is make sure they have access to evidence-based resources and support to help their children.”

As researchers across the country are still trying to understand how the pandemic has impacted student learning, emerging evidence suggests that many students did not experience the learning gains that schools would have hoped for last year. The disparities between student groups are pronounced, with reports of many students with disabilities, students who are growing up in poverty, and students in race-, ethnic-, and language-minority groups experiencing even greater challenges to learning.

FCRR was established in 2002 by the Governor’s office and the Florida Legislature to improve reading — and thus learning — through the latest research. Over the past two decades, they have produced evidence-based resources for children, families, schools and communities.

As more families supported their children’s learning at home over the past 18 months, FCRR created and adapted materials geared toward that learning environment. The “For Families” page is an extension of that work and includes resources developed by faculty-sponsored projects and initiatives including the Regional Education Laboratory Southeast, the National Center on Improving Literacy and more.

FCRR faculty and students also have been actively involved in helping support educators.

The FCRR website features additional resources specifically geared toward educators and provides activity pages, screening assessments and the latest research on different educational issues.

On a local level, this summer, FCRR faculty and students offered sessions at the Florida Department of Education’s Summer Literacy Institute and provided training in reading instruction for teachers in Leon County Schools.

“We’re working with Leon County Schools to connect the dots so that educators, families and communities have access to the evidence-based tools and resources they need and so that we can develop new solutions that can address the needs they’ve identified for their students,” Patton Terry said.

The Florida Center for Reading Research is an interdisciplinary research center at Florida State University. Drawing from multiple disciplines, FCRR investigates all aspects of reading and reading-related skills across the lifespan. Through rigorous and robust research, innovation and engagement, FCRR advances the science of reading to improve learning and achievement from birth through adulthood.

When Will FDA Give Full Approval of Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine as Delta Variant Surges?

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has begun accelerating the process to fully approve the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, facing pressure to add resources from those who believe the lack of full approval is hampering efforts to get more Americans vaccinated.

“We recognize that for some, the FDA approval of COVID-19 vaccines may bring additional confidence and encourage them to get vaccinated,” Abigail Capobianco, a spokeswoman at the FDA, said in a statement on Aug. 4. “Acknowledging the urgency related to the current state of the pandemic, we have taken an all-hands-on-deck approach, including identifying additional resources such as personnel and technological resources from across the agency and opportunities to reprioritize other activities, in order to complete our review to help combat this pandemic surge.”

President Joe Biden said last week he expects a fully approved vaccine by the early fall, but the FDA would not comment on the time frame.

Data show that being vaccinated dramatically reduces the risk of hospitalization or death following a COVID-19 infection. More than 192 million Americans have gotten at least one dose of the three vaccines that have been given emergency use authorization (EUA) in the U.S., made by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Janssen/Johnson & Johnson, without widespread side effects, data show. But now the number of Americans fully vaccinated against COVID-19 has begun to stall with about 92 million people over age 12 still unvaccinated, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data. Meanwhile, the more contagious Delta variant of the virus is spreading rapidly among the unvaccinated population.

The spike in COVID-19 cases in states that have low vaccination rates has threatened to claw the U.S. back into the worst of the pandemic, and it creates a looming political liability for Biden. On Aug. 3, Biden gave a sober speech from the East Room of the White House, saying the country’s “best line of defense” against the virus “is the vaccine.” “It’s as simple as that. Period. The vaccine,” he said.

But as Biden attempts to mount more aggressive vaccination efforts to stave off the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant, the fact that the FDA has yet to fully approve any of the vaccines is threatening to slow progress. About 30% of unvaccinated people say they would be more likely to get a shot with full FDA approval, according to recent polls from the Kaiser Family Foundation. While the pollsters warn that may be a “proxy for more general concerns,” some doctors and public health experts in areas with low vaccination rates also say they frequently hear the FDA’s emergency authorization cited as a reason people remain hesitant to get the shot.

The Biden Administration has said all civilian federal employees must be vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit to regular testing, and many hospital systems and universities, as well as a number of large private employers like Walmart, Google, and Disney, have begun to follow suit.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel recently released an opinion saying federal law does not prohibit companies from requiring vaccines even if they are under emergency authorization, and courts have generally upheld vaccine mandates.

But some employers and organizations have been reluctant to make similar requirements while the vaccines are still under emergency authorization. A number of public educational institutions—including the State University of New York and Colorado State University systems—have said they will mandate vaccination for students once a vaccine is fully approved. In other parts of the country, Republican politicians have used the lack of full approval to block vaccine requirements from being put into place. In Texas, for example, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed an executive order on July 29 preventing any organization that receives state funds, including public universities, from requiring vaccines under emergency use authorization.

Health systems have also taken a mixed approach. Mass General Brigham, which employs 80,000 workers in Massachusetts, said it will require employees to get vaccinated once the FDA issues its full approval for at least one of the vaccines, as did Beaumont Health, the largest health care system in Michigan. Other large health systems like Cleveland Clinic, Intermountain Health, and Christus Health have not put in place vaccine requirements and say they are still monitoring the situation.

“We need to see a full approval before we’ll do another evaluation of thinking about a requirement in the future,” says Dr. Sam Bagchi, executive vice president and chief clinical officer at Christus. He notes that the health system is already facing “unprecedented staffing challenges” due to many health care workers quitting or taking early retirement during the pandemic. If his hospitals required workers to get vaccinated now, he fears it would push workers away at a time when they need more staff due to rising COVID-19 cases.

Long-term care facilities are in a particularly precarious position. LeadingAge, the national trade group for non-profit nursing homes and other aging services, recently called for its members to require employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19 as vaccination efforts have stalled in places where the virus devastated residents and staff last year. But Katie Smith Sloan, the group’s president and CEO, says she knows many of her member facilities can’t afford to lose staff who aren’t ready to get vaccinated. “We’re already facing acute shortages, particularly nursing assistants and nurses in long-term care, home health, nursing homes, and assisted living,” she says. She hopes that an FDA approval will make more workers volunteer to get vaccinated and encourage more facilities to require it.

Even the U.S. military is still weighing what to do. It has not yet required that its 1.3 million active duty personnel be vaccinated, and senior military medical officials are watching the FDA approval process closely. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is consulting with medical experts and still weighing whether to request approval from Biden to require vaccines, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Aug. 3.

The FDA typically completes a priority review, like it is conducting for Pfizer, in six to eight months. Pfizer says it submitted a rolling application in May and Moderna—which manufactures one of the other approved COVID-19 vaccines—says it submitted a rolling application in June, meaning both companies could turn in portions of their applications while continuing to collect data. The process is “moving forward as rapidly as possible in keeping with the high-quality complete assessment that the public expects from the FDA,” said FDA spokeswoman Capobianco.

The COVID-19 pandemic was the first time that the FDA granted emergency use authorization to a vaccine for widespread use. The EUA designation was developed after the Sept. 11 attacks and originally intended for potentially lifesaving medicines or other products during an emergency like a terrorist attack or a more acute disease outbreak. To get an EUA for the COVID-19 vaccines, manufacturers had to follow special guidelines that included submitting two months of clinical trial data, along with information about the quality and consistency of the vaccines—and the FDA had to establish that the “potential benefits outweigh the known and potential risks” of the vaccine.

For full approval, the FDA must review significantly more data and make a larger determination that a vaccine is ready to be licensed, according to Dr. Jesse Goodman, former chief scientist at the FDA and a professor at Georgetown University. This involves analyzing hundreds of thousands of pages of material about the clinical trials, manufacturing processes and how the vaccines have functioned in the real world since the agency authorized it for emergency use. Regulators will check the vaccine manufacturer’s data and perform their own analyses to verify the vaccine’s efficacy, how that efficacy might decline over time and any evidence of potential side effects. They will also inspect manufacturing plants to ensure high levels of quality control—a particularly complex job given that these vaccines used new technology, Goodman says. He notes the FDA “has historically been under-resourced” and that there are a limited number of people with the appropriate expertise to review these new vaccines.

While all that can take time, public health experts are calling for more transparency from the agency as the U.S. struggles to convince a significant portion of its population to take the lifesaving shot. “It’s been a black box,” says Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “Particularly since we’re dealing with a pandemic and the taxpayers of the United States are paying for this vaccine, I think having the leadership of the FDA be more explicit about what the process is, and why it’s taking so long, would be at the very least instructive.”

But some worry hastening the approval process could backfire. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the FDA, warned in a letter to the New York Times last month that “any vaccine approval without completion of the high-quality review and evaluation that Americans expect the agency to perform would undermine the F.D.A.’s statutory responsibilities, affect public trust in the agency and do little to help combat vaccine hesitancy.”

Dr. Arnold Monto, a professor of epidemiology at University of Michigan who chairs the committee of outside experts that advises the FDA on vaccines, including for COVID-19, agrees. “They’re trying as hard as they can,” he says, “given the constraints that they’re working under.”

The U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said last week that he was hopeful the Food and Drug Administration will give full approval to the coronavirus vaccine by month’s end and predicted the potential move will spur a wave of vaccine mandates in the private sector as well as schools and universities.

Moderna’s Vaccine Is 93% Effective After 6 Months

Moderna said its COVID-19 vaccine remained 93% effective through six months after the second shot, as it reported second-quarter earnings and revenue that beat expectations. A final analysis of the company’s late-stage study, described in a statement on Thursday, suggests the vaccine’s protection remains stable for long after recipients complete the standard two-dose regimen. The 93% effectiveness level is just short of the shot’s initial efficacy of 94%.

Concern that the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines could wane has stoked talk of booster shots, and some countries have begun to offer vulnerable people third doses. However, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for a moratorium on such measures on Wednesday until more people in the developing world are inoculated. The recommendation could limit the reach of Moderna’s shot, called Spikevax.

The shares fell 2.9% as of 8:28 a.m. before U.S. markets opened Thursday. COVID-19 vaccine-maker Pfizer lost 0.6%, while its partner BioNTech shed 3.8%.

Moderna’s latest efficacy data hasn’t been published in a medical journal and further details weren’t released. Despite the apparent endurance of its vaccine, Moderna is exploring options for supplemental shots that could fend off emerging strains of the virus.

All three of the company’s booster candidates produced “robust antibody responses” against delta and other variants of concern in a phase 2 human study, Moderna said in its statement. The boosters are being tested at a 50 microgram dose, or half what is used in the current shot. That data has been submitted to a journal for publication, the company said.

Seeking Approval

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Moderna also said it expected to complete its submission for full Food and Drug Administration approval for its vaccine this month.

The agency is already reviewing the submission for a rival messenger RNA vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, and is under growing pressure to complete the process quickly. With the delta variant sparking a new wave of cases, advocates say an approval could help convince more people to get a shot.

Moderna, which reported its first profit earlier this year, had net income of almost $2.8 billion in the quarter ending June 30 on revenue of $4.4 billion, almost all of which is from its COVID-19 shot. Diluted earnings per share of $6.46 easily beat analysts expectations, according to a survey of analysts by Bloomberg, while revenue only slightly exceeded expectations.

The company said in the release it has signed $20 billion worth of COVID-19 vaccine purchase agreements for 2021, up from the $19.2 billion it announced in May. For 2022, it already has signed agreements for $12 billion in vaccine sales with options for $8 billion more. Moderna didn’t increase its forecast that it will produce 800 million to 1 billion COVID vaccine doses this year.

Seeking Deals

Moderna’s views for total sales of its COVID-19 vaccine pale in comparison to the Pfizer-BioNTech partnership, which has a higher manufacturing capacity for its shot. Last month, Pfizer boosted its vaccine sales forecast for 2021 to $33.5 billion.

Moderna’s shares have quadrupled since the beginning of the year, and the company hit $100 billion in market value for the first time July 14. The stock was made part of the S&P 500 last month and is the index’s best performer this calendar year.

As the biotech seeks to grow further, it will look opportunities to acquire or license technologies that could enhance its platform. Moderna, which has more than $12 billion in cash and investments, will focus on nucleic acid technologies, such as mRNA, gene editing, and gene therapy, the company said in a presentation.

Moderna has also built out its suite of leaders to double down on its commercial franchise. In the last quarter, the company hired Paul Burton, a former Johnson & Johnson executive, to serve as chief medical officer, and Ogilvy’s Kate Cronin as chief brand officer.

Why WHO Wants The World To Hold Off On Booster Dose?

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called upon wealthy nations to halt their plans for administering booster doses till at least end of September in order to ensure enough vaccine availability for the less developed and poor nations.

The agency said the halt should last at least two months, to give the world a chance to meet the director-general’s goal of vaccinating 10% of the population of every country by the end of September.

“We need an urgent reversal from the majority of vaccines going to high-income countries, to the majority going to low income countries,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press briefing.

The request is part of Ghebreyesus’ plan to vaccinate 40% of the world by December, according to his senior advisor, Dr. Bruce Aylward.

According to WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the world needs “an urgent reversal from the majority of vaccines going to high-income countries, to the majority going to low income countries” in order for at least 10% of each country’s population to be vaccinated by end of September and 40% of the world’s population by December.

While booster doses are now accepted as a reality as most vaccines’ efficacy wanes after some months, very few countries have started administering booster shots given that even the first two doses of double-dose vaccines have not yet been given. Countries that have started administering boosters include Dominican Republic, which is not exactly in the club of wealthy nations and has a population of less than Delhi’s. Israel is another country to have announced its decision to administer booster doses to its geriatric population. In the US, the San Francisco Department of Public Health and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital have said they would allow booster dose of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which is a single shot vaccine.

Experts have blamed cornering of vaccines by high income countries for the vaccine inequity. High-income countries administered around 50 doses for every 100 people in May, and that number has since doubled, according to WHO. Low-income countries have only been able to administer 1.5 doses for every 100 people.

The European Union (EU), with a population of around 448 million, has ordered enough vaccines to inoculate each EU resident with 6.9 doses. The UK has ordered 8.2 doses per citizen. The US, with a population of 328 million, has ordered enough to administer each of its citizens with 4.6 doses. The case of Canada is even more glaring — for a population of around 38 million, it has ordered enough doses to administer each citizen with 10.5 doses.

Contrast that with countries like Haiti, which only recently received its first batch of vaccines, to administer the first dose. The African Union, on the other hand, has ordered just enough to administer 0.4 doses per citizen.

Added to that is the export restrictions that were imposed by several wealthy nations on vaccines, many of which were being manufactured there. In cases like that of India, the country’s prioritization for vaccinating its own population first coupled with production capacity constraints that have still not been resolved has led to India not being able to fulfil its global obligations for vaccine supply.

Was US Money Used To Fund Risky Research Lab In China That Supposedly Is The Origin Of Coronavirus?

As the debate continues over the origins of the coronavirus, a heated political battle is taking place over virus research carried out in China using US funds. It’s linked to the unproven theory that the virus could have leaked from a lab in Wuhan, the Chinese city where it was first detected.

A report released by Republican lawmakers cites “ample evidence” that the lab was working to modify coronaviruses to infect humans and calls for a bipartisan investigation into its origins.

Republican Senator Rand Paul also alleges that US money was used to fund research there that made some viruses more infectious and more deadly, a process known as “gain-of-function”.

But this has been firmly rejected by Dr Anthony Fauci, the US infectious diseases chief. What is ‘gain-of-function’ research? “Gain-of-function” is when an organism develops new abilities (or “functions”).

This can happen in nature, or it can be achieved in a lab, when scientists modify the genetic code or place organisms in different environments, to change them in some way.

For example, this might involve scientists trying to create drought-resistant plants or modify disease vectors in mosquitoes to make them less likely to pass on infections.

With viruses that could pose a risk to human health, it means developing viruses that are potentially more transmissible and dangerous.

Scientists justify the potential risks by saying the research can help prepare for future outbreaks and pandemics by understanding how viruses evolve, and therefore develop better treatments and vaccines.

Did the US fund virus research in China?

Yes, it did contribute some funds. Dr. Fauci, as well as being an adviser to President Biden, is the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the US government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH).

This body did give money to an organization that collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That organization – the US-based Eco Health Alliance – was awarded a grant in 2014 to look into possible coronaviruses from bats.

Eco Health received $3.7m from the NIH, $600,000 of which was given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In 2019, its project was renewed for another five years, but then pulled by the Trump administration in April 2020 following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

In May, Dr Fauci stated that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) “has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology”.

Senator Rand Paul asked Dr Fauci if he wanted to retract that statement, saying: “As you are aware it is a crime to lie to Congress.” Senator Paul believes the research did qualify as “gain-of-function” research, and referred to two academic papers by the Chinese institute, one from 2015 (written together with the University of North Carolina), and another from 2017. One prominent scientist supporting this view – and quoted by Senator Paul – is Prof Richard Ebright of Rutgers University.

He told the BBC that the research in both papers showed that new viruses (that did not already exist naturally) were created, and these “risked creating new potential pathogens” that were more infectious. “The research in both papers was gain-of-function research”, he said.

He added that it met the official definition of such research outlined in 2014 when the US government halted funding for such activities due to biosafety concerns. The funding was paused to allow a new framework to be drawn up for such research.

Why does Dr Fauci reject this charge?

Dr Fauci told the Senate hearing the research in question “has been evaluated multiple times by qualified people to not fall under the gain-of-function definition”. He also said it was “molecularly impossible” for these viruses to have resulted in the coronavirus, although he did not elaborate.

The NIH and Eco Health Alliance have also rejected suggestions they supported or funded “gain-of-function” research in China. They say they funded a project to examine “at the molecular level” newly-discovered bat viruses and their spike proteins (which help the virus bind to living cells) “without affecting the environment or development or physiological state of the organism”.

One of the US scientists who collaborated on the 2015 research on bat viruses with the Wuhan institute, Dr Ralph Baric from the University of North Carolina, gave a detailed statement to the Washington Post.

He said the work they did was reviewed by both the NIH and the university’s own biosafety committee “for potential of gain-of-function research and were deemed not to be gain-of-function”. He also says that none of the viruses which were the subject of the 2015 study are related to Sars-Cov-2, which caused the pandemic in 2020.

Ayurveda Tech Platform Nirogstreet Secures Funding Of $2.5 Million

NirogStreet, India’s first technology-led Ayurveda doctor platform, has secured $2.5 million in Series A funding from a series of investors including DoorDash executive Gokul Rajaram, Raj Mishra of Indea Capital, former Morgan Stanley CEO Ashutosh Sinha and Anuj Srivastava, founder of Livspace, among others.

Ram N Kumar, the founder of NirogStreet, has told the media that he was fortunate to find a clutch of investors from the US, who could not just invest but guide. “For me, if you get a person like Gokul to help you while building a company, it is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Kumar said.

The firm plans to use the funds to strengthen its technology offering for doctors and to start operations in more States. The start-up intends to create an engaging technology platform that will allow ease of access to Ayurvedic healthcare through technological interventions, while creating easy access to high quality medicines, avenues for income generation for doctors, and also helping SME medicine manufacturers to reach out to a larger base of doctors.

“Ayurveda has demonstrated its leadership in the time of Covid-19 and we played an important role in making Ayurveda mainstream. The focus of NirogStreet is to create tech-oriented data and solutions to create better opportunities for both doctors, manufacturers and customers,” NirogStreet founder Ram N Kumar, said in a statement.

“As a B2B2C technology-enabled and doctor-led platform, we are consistently focusing on identifying best practices to improve the supply chain of Ayurvedic services and medicine, giving Ayurveda its due share and the recognition that it deserves by empowering those at the centre of this universe – Ayurveda doctors – to create an experience that patients can trust,” he said.

Gokul Rajaram, top executive at Doordash and currently on the Pinterest and Coinbase boards as member said, “I’m incredibly excited to support Ram and the NirogStreet team in their mission to enable people globally to access and benefit from Ayurveda. He is doing a commendable job in nurturing the Ayurvedic fraternity in India as well as the sustainable healthcare ecosystem by capacity and knowledge building. We’re proud to back Ram and his team at NirogStreet.”

NirogStreet claims to work with over 50,000 doctors on its peer-to-peer learning, Electronic Health Record and B2B e-commerce platform, with a focus on strategic deployment of technology. Since the beginning of the pandemic, NirogStreet’s unique tech platform has also empowered ayurvedic doctors to consult patients across the globe via Tele-Ayurveda and offer solutions that were previously not available to them. It has also enabled doctors to dispatch medicines on time to their patients using NirogStreet.

 

Rajaram reportedly said that he was inspired by Kumar’s journey and compelling founding story. “He contracted hepatitis C and got cured through Ayurvedic treatments,” Rajaram said about Kumar. “As he started researching the space, he learned that there are more than 1.1 million non-allopathic practitioners in India alone, and many more globally. These doctors were poorly served by existing infrastructure, which led him to start NirogStreet, a B2B platform to help non-allopathic doctors order medicines, connect with patients, and overall run their business more effectively and serve their patients better.

“The company is doing well and growing rapidly,” Rajaram said. “What is interesting is how much interest they get from practitioners outside India. They have decided to stay focused on India in the near-term, but this is a global opportunity.”

According to the Confederation of Indian Industry, the Ayurveda product market is at was at $3.5 billion at the end of FY18, pegged to grow at 16 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

NirogStreet [https://nirogstreet.com/], Kumar said, is the only company in India that has brought in 50,000 Ayurvedic practitioners globally to its platform and each doctor associated has the Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) degree. On top of this, the doctors who follow NirogSteet’s protocols and digital practice are also certified by NirogSteet.

“I come from a low middle class family, and so had to leave studies when I was in Grade 11 to look for work,” said Kumar, who traces his roots to Muzzaffarpur in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.

In 2000, he founded his first business Techlus, that helped promote information about computers to people in the smaller towns of India. “I was 15-16 years old and was not even aware what entrepreneur means,” Kumar said over the phone with a hearty laugh.

He said was fascinated with the computer and he approached the computer center in town that had just one PC in a small room. Kumar offered to work there in exchange of lessons in JAVA. He eventually graduated in Computer Science from Sikkim Manipal University.

Kumar said he realized that “Ayurveda in India is an unorganized sector…. Also, what I observed was people have trust in Ayurveda but they don’t trust the medicines. There is no knowledge sharing.” He said that the Ayurvedic doctors are like small entrepreneurs but they are not tech savvy. They are legally allowed to sell medicines but there is no knowledge-sharing platform. Kumar said he saw a business model in that.

“Just an idea that I can create something where doctors can engage among themselves because a knowledge platform is not happening in Ayurveda like it is in western medicine,” Kumar said. He said the Ayurveda market was unorganized but vast. “India has close to 9000 licensed pharmacies but the challenge is enforcement [of rules and quality control] is very weak,” he said.

“When the threat to life is immediate people will go to allopathy and when threat to life is long they go to Ayurveda,” said Kumar. Asked about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Ayurveda, he said: “Pandemic boosted the business, doctors are more open to technology … and actually it was a boost to us. Just in 12 months we grew 300 percent.”

He said: “What we are seeing with the Ayurveda is that at least it brings down the cost of treatment and Ayurveda makes you healthy, wealthy and wise. For better quality of life, Ayurveda is the only answer.”

Immunovant Receives $200 Million Strategic Investment from Roivant Sciences Proceeds will fund continued development of IMVT-1401 in multiple indications

Immunovant, Inc. (Nasdaq: IMVT), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on enabling normal lives for people with autoimmune diseases, today announced that it has received a $200 million strategic investment from Roivant Sciences. Immunovant intends to use the proceeds from this investment to advance the development of IMVT-1401 in multiple indications.

Roivant has purchased 17,021,276 shares of Immunovant’s common stock at a price of $11.75 per share, which purchase has been approved by a special committee of Immunovant directors not affiliated with Roivant. This represents approximately a 15% premium to Immunovant’s 20 trading day volume weighted average price. After giving effect to the investment, Immunovant has a pro forma cash balance of approximately $600 million and Roivant has increased its ownership stake in Immunovant from 57.5% to 63.8%, based on Immunovant’s cash balance and share count as of March 31, 2021.

“We are excited to announce this significant investment by Roivant, which will expedite our development of IMVT-1401 for a wide range of autoimmune disorders,” said Dr. Pete Salzmann, Chief Executive Officer of Immunovant. “Over the next 12 months, we plan to initiate a pivotal trial for myasthenia gravis, resume our trials in WAIHA and TED and initiate at least two additional clinical studies, including another pivotal trial in 2022.”

“Roivant and Immunovant explored a range of possible transactions over the past few months, including a potential acquisition by Roivant of the minority interest in Immunovant, and ultimately agreed on this significant investment in order to support a robust development plan for IMVT-1401 and increase our stake in the company,” said Matt Gline, Chief Executive Officer of Roivant Sciences. “We are incredibly excited about the prospects for IMVT-1401, and we are eager to support Immunovant through this investment. We look forward to continuing to work closely with Dr. Salzmann and the Immunovant management team to help develop IMVT-1401 to maximize benefit for patients with high levels of unmet medical need.”

Immunovant is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on enabling normal lives for patients with autoimmune diseases. Immunovant is developing IMVT-1401, a novel, fully human anti-FcRn monoclonal antibody, as a subcutaneous injection for the treatment of autoimmune diseases mediated by pathogenic IgG antibodies. For more information, visit www.immunovant.com.

Roivant’s mission is to improve the delivery of healthcare to patients by treating every inefficiency as an opportunity. Roivant develops transformative medicines faster by building technologies and developing talent in creative ways, leveraging the Roivant platform to launch ‘Vants’ – nimble and focused biopharmaceutical and health technology companies. For more information, visit www.roivant.com.

Next-Generation Antibodies Could Neutralize Any COVID-19 Variant And Help Prevent Future Pandemics

In late May, The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in the investigational monoclonal antibody therapy sotrovimab. This new therapeutic weapon allows for the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in patients over 12 years of age with positive outcomes. Its widespread use includes patients who are at a higher risk of more severe symptoms of COVID-19 such as individuals who are over 65 years old or those with certain medical conditions.

With a lead over the first-generation monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapies for COVID-19, Sotrovimab is reportedly referred to as super-antibodies due to their broad neutralization capacity when encountered with viral pathogen variants.

Sequencing each version of the virus the patients are suffering from would not only be overly meticulous but also equally painstaking. Therefore, Sotrovimab’s large range in capabilities is enticing to physicians as stated by analysts and researchers.

 

When a person is infected with COVID-19, antibodies are typically produced to fight against the invading disease. These antibodies are unique to each individual, meaning that some antibodies are better than others at combating the virus. Thus, pharmaceutical companies study thousands of these antibodies to take advantage of the most effective ones with the highest barrier to resistance.

Out of these pharmaceutical companies, Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline derived the monoclonal antibody sotrovimab from patients who had SARS in 2003, which targets parts of the COVID-19 virus that it shares with the original SARS virus. By targeting these areas, it lowers the chance for the virus to mutate and should allow for the antibody to work against new variants.

According to data from clinical trials, sotrovimab showed positive results with a 79% reduction in risk of hospitalization or death, appearing to yield activity against the currently known problematic variants of COVID-19.

Sales for these antibody therapies were expected to diminish as vaccination rates continuously rose, however, analysts predict that the market for COVID-19 mAbs will endure to assist in treatments for those who are unable to receive their vaccination shots for medical reasons.

 

India, UK To Conduct Clinical Trials On ‘Ashwagandha’ For Covid Recovery

The Ayush ministry’s All India Institute of Ayurveda in collaboration with the United Kingdom’s London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine will conduct a study on ‘Ashwagandha’ for promoting recovery from Covid-19 in a boost to the traditional Indian medicine system.

Both the institutions signed a Memorandum of Understanding to conduct the clinical trials of Ashwagandha on 2,000 people in three UK cities — Leicester, Birmingham, and London (Southall and Wembley), said the ministry in a statement.

Ashwagandha (Withania Somnifera), commonly known as ‘Indian winter cherry’, is a traditional Indian herb that boosts energy, reduces stress, and makes the immune system stronger.

It is an easily accessible, over-the-counter nutritional supplement in the UK and has a proven safety profile. The positive effects of Ashwagandha have been observed in Covid, which is a multi-system disease with no evidence of its effective treatment or management.

The successful completion of the trial can be a major breakthrough and give scientific validity to India’s traditional medicinal system. While there have been several studies on Ashwagandha to understand its benefits in various ailments, this is the first time the Ministry has collaborated with a foreign institution to investigate its efficacy on Covid-19 patients.

AIIA director Dr Tanuja Manoj Nesari, who is also a co-investigator in the project along with Dr Rajgopalan, Coordinator – International Projects, said that the participants have been randomly selected. Dr Sanjay Kinra of LSHTM is the principal investigator of the study.

The participants will have to take the 500mg tablets twice a day. A monthly follow-up of self-reported quality of life, impairment to activities of daily living, mental and physical health symptoms, supplement use and adverse events will be carried out.

“For three months, one group of 1,000 participants will be administered Ashwagandha (AG) tablets while the second group of 1,000 participants will be assigned a placebo, which is indistinguishable from AG in looks and taste. Both patients and the doctors will be unaware of the group’s treatment in a double-blind trial,” Dr Nesari

 

Climate Change Is Driving Deadly Weather Disasters From Arizona To Mumbai

Heat waves. Floods. Wildfires. It’s been a destructive summer so far, and forecasts for droughts, fires and hurricanes are looking downright bleak.

We know that climate change is to blame. But how exactly is global warming driving dangerous weather?

Lauren Sommer and Rebecca Hersher from NPR’s climate team broke down the details in a conversation with Morning Edition’s Noel King.

The country is experiencing yet another heat wave this week. Is it just us or is this summer unusual?

It’s not just our memories — this past June was the hottest June recorded in the U.S. in more than a century, about four degrees hotter on average. Heat waves (like in the Pacific Northwest) can be deadly, and many cities are just realizing now how underprepared they are to deal with them.

What’s the connection between these extreme heat events and climate change?

There’s been about two degrees Fahrenheit of warming so far worldwide. The number sounds small, but it’s enough to “profoundly shift the statistics of extreme heat events,” according to Dr. Radley Horton, a climate scientist at Columbia University. He says these “dangerous thresholds of really high temperature and high humidity” could potentially happen twice as often as they have in the past.

What does this mean for wildfires?

About 95% of the West is in drought right now, and there’s a clear cycle where heat dries out land and vegetation. So when wildfires do happen, they burn hotter and even create their own weather systems in which huge pyrocumulus clouds can generate lightning strike — in turn causing even more fires.

What does a hotter Earth have to do with flash flooding?

It’s been a wild few weeks for flash flood disasters, from Central China to western Europe to Mumbai to Arizona. These fast-moving waters have killed hundreds of people, but they’re not a surprise to climate scientists, who have been sounding the alarms for years.

Even though these floods happened around their world, their root cause was the same: extreme rain. And it’s getting more common as the Earth gets warmer (hot air + hot water = more moisture in the air).

Plus, as the planet heats up, some climate models show winds in the upper atmosphere slowing down in certain places, which would mean that extreme weather would linger there longer.

Scientists are working hard to predict how common these disasters will be in the years to come. After all, lives are on the line.

 

6 Factors That Will Determine The Severity Of The COVID-19 Surge In The U.S This Fall

Here we go again. The United States is now experiencing a fourth wave of COVID-19, with very rapidly rising infections. The surge in new daily cases is driven by the Delta variant, which makes up 83% of sequenced samples in the U.S. and which is estimated to be twice as transmissible as the original strain. One of the reasons that Delta spreads more easily is that a person infected with this variant has a viral load 1,000 times higher than someone infected with the original version of SARS-CoV-2.

Hospitalizations and deaths are also rising, though more slowly than cases, reflecting the fact that 49% of all Americans are fully vaccinated. Even with Delta, COVID-19 vaccines are extremely effective at preventing severe illness and death. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor on COVID-19, estimates that over 99% of people dying in the U.S. from the illness are unvaccinated. But the levels of vaccination are not high enough in some areas to prevent new surges among those who are not inoculated. And with growing infections among the unvaccinated, some vaccinated people are not surprisingly getting breakthrough infections because no vaccines are 100% effective. So, what happens next? How is the pandemic likely to play out into the fall and winter? Here are six factors that are likely to drive the shape of the pandemic in the coming months.

First, local vaccination rates will continue to be the most important factor in determining what will happen

The U.S. now has a patchwork pandemic, in which communities with low vaccination rates are likeliest to see surges in infection. One recent analysis found that 463 U.S. counties now have high rates of new infection—at least 100 new cases per 100,000 residents in the past week, which is over five times the overall U.S. rate. In 80% of these counties, less than 40% of residents are fully vaccinated. The five states with the lowest rates of full vaccination—Alabama (34%), Arkansas (35%), Louisiana (36%), Mississippi (34%), and Wyoming (36%)—are all experiencing major surges.

In these five states, while 4 out of 5 people aged over 65 have had at least one shot, the vaccination rate is much lower in the 18-65 age group, and lower still in adolescents (those aged 12-17). Few adolescents in these states have had at least one dose: just 24% in Arkansas, 16% in Alabama, 17% in Louisiana, 15% in Mississippi, and 19% in Wyoming. This leaves young people highly vulnerable to the fast-spreading Delta variant. Compare these numbers with a highly vaccinated state like Vermont, where almost 100% of those aged over 65 and 68% of those aged 12-17 have had at least one dose—and cases and hospitalizations are less than 3 and 1 per 100, 000, respectively.

It is also clear that the uptake of vaccines has slowed down and in some places almost stagnated, particularly in the southern states. The U.S. went from administering more than 3 million doses a day in mid-April to only around 500,000 doses a day right now. If you live in a poorly vaccinated community—and especially if vaccination rates are stagnant or barely rising—your community is at an elevated risk of a surge. Data from this week suggest that in some states affected by surges the rate of vaccinations is increasing, but it is unclear if this trend will continue.

In highly vaccinated states, an influx of unvaccinated visitors can also create a potential set up for local outbreaks. We saw this in Provincetown, Mass., where a super-spreader event presumed to be from a large influx of unvaccinated visitors led to a major cluster (430 confirmed cases as of July 23, 2021). Of the Massachusetts residents affected in this outbreak, 69% reported that they were fully vaccinated. And it would have been much worse had the vaccination levels of the Provincetown community not been so high. But the secondary impact of these types of clusters on pockets of unvaccinated children and on high risk or immunocompromised adults will in part depend on the amount of transmission from vaccinated people who have breakthrough infections.

Moving forward, we think a few policy and social aspects will have a huge impact on whether vaccination rates increase in this country—in particular, whether there is a concerted effort to depoliticize vaccines (political affiliation appears to be driving differences in vaccination uptake) and whether more businesses and schools start to require vaccinations for participation and employment.

Second, whether public health measures are reinstated will affect how long those surges continue

In communities facing a surge related to the Delta variant, the right public health response is to restore control measures such as community-wide indoor mask mandates, social distancing rules, scaling up test and trace, and intensifying workplace and school mitigations (including improved ventilation) until vaccination rates increase. Los Angeles county, for example, recently reinstated an indoor mask mandate for everyone, regardless of vaccination status, to help curb its rapid spread of the Delta variant. Similarly, last week San Francisco Bay Area health officials urged residents of seven counties and the city of Berkeley to resume wearing masks indoors. Sound pandemic management requires tailoring measures to the local situation on the ground.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) placed a significant roadblock to such tailored management when it changed its mask guidance in May, saying vaccinated people no longer need to wear masks indoors—this guidance had no nuance to account for community transmission levels or outbreak status. The guidance basically gave local governments and businesses the cover to drop mask mandates and indoor limits for both vaccinated and unvaccinated, leading both to change their behavior and putting other unvaccinated people, including children under 12, at risk. We agree with former Surgeon General Jerome Adams when he says, “the CDC urgently needs to revise its guidance to vaccinate and mask in places where cases are rising yet vaccination rates remain low.” CDC should consider releasing specific metrics for on-ramping and off-ramping public health measures that local and state public health bodies can take into consideration. Such guidance would lead to less confusion and build more public trust. Many schools are reopening in five weeks, and we think there is an urgency for the CDC to provide more specific guidance on masks, testing, and other mitigations against COVID-19 in schools. The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends that all students over 2 years old, and all teachers and staff, wear masks, regardless of whether they have been vaccinated against COVID-19—that could help, though the need for masking should be tailored to local community transmission levels.

University and college campuses will also need to grapple with the challenges that Delta brings. A new study by Yale University researchers David Paltiel and Jason Schwartz found that colleges where over 90% of all students, faculty and staff are fully vaccinated can safely return to normalcy, but campuses below this vaccine coverage may need measures such as distancing and frequent testing of the unvaccinated.

Third, the local pattern of COVID-19 could be influenced by how much protection is provided by past infection.

Research suggests that if you have had COVID-19, you acquire some degree of immunity. In theory this might mean that if your community has low vaccination rates but a high proportion of people were previously infected, the chances of a surge from the Delta variant are lower. But we need to be careful about jumping to any conclusions. The science suggests that the immunity from past infection may be partial and short term, which is why the World Health Organization, CDC, and other public health agencies recommend that people who have been infected by SARS-CoV-2 still get vaccinated. Additionally, a new analysis from Public Health England found that reinfection is more likely with the Delta variant compared to the Alpha variant—further argument for even those who have had and recovered from COVID-19 to get vaccinated.

A fourth factor is whether vulnerable Americans will need booster shots and if some decrease in immunity will lead to seasonal increases in cases, similar to the way influenza rates rise every winter

Last week, Israel’s health ministry released data raising the possibility that the protection that the Pfizer vaccine provides against infection may wane over time. We need to be very cautious about the data: they are preliminary and based on small numbers, and other nations have not seen a similar waning. There are also supportive data based on lab studies that say that for most people, vaccine-induced immunity may last years (at least against the current variants), although such immunity may wane for those who are more advanced in age or have weakened immune systems.

After previously ruling out the need for boosters, the Biden Administration has now signaled that it is looking into recommending a booster (a third shot of either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccine) for people 65 and older or those with weakened immune systems. Experts are also considering whether those who received the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine should get a booster shot of Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna. At a recent senate hearing, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said that her agency is following large cohorts of vaccinated residents in nursing homes as well as cohorts of vaccinated frontline health workers with weekly testing to understand how efficacy against vaccines may be changing over time. Such data will likely help determine whether and when boosters are needed.

Some infectious disease experts, such as the German virologist Christian Drosten, believe that COVID-19 could become a “seasonal epidemic,” with an annual rise in cases in the winter. If it turns out that immunity from the vaccine does decline over time among the elderly and immune compromised and that COVID-19 is seasonal, this combination would provide a strong case for giving these vulnerable people boosters ahead of winter.

Fifth, we don’t know exactly how common it is for vaccinated people to become infected and transmit SARS-CoV-2 to others, though so far it appears to be relatively uncommon

The good news is that all the authorized vaccines greatly reduce your chances of becoming infected (e.g. the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines reduce this risk by 91%)—and reduce the risk of becoming severely ill, hospitalized, or dying from COVID-19 at an even higher rate. But no vaccine is 100% effective. So we would still expect a small proportion of fully vaccinated people to get infected and sometimes transmit the virus to others.

Research is underway to try and determine just how common it is for vaccinated people to transmit SARS-CoV-2 to others and how the Delta variant impacts this risk, and the results will have a bearing on the next phase of the pandemic.

Sixth, another new variant of concern could arise

All viruses change (mutate) over time, and such mutations are more likely when a virus is circulating widely. Most mutations don’t change the ability of the virus to cause infections and disease, but some canThat means that, as long as SARS-CoV-2 is spreading, there’s a possibility that new variants of concern could arise, which could again change the trajectory of the pandemic.

The good news is that COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective against all known variants. Scientists are also confident that if a new variant arises that evades the protection of current vaccines, vaccine manufacturers will be able to quickly reformulate and test vaccines against these new variants. But currently, half of America and most parts of the rest of the world are not vaccinated; in Africa, for example, just 2% of people have received at least one dose of the vaccine. Globally, cases and deaths have gone up by 25% over the last two weeks and these continued surges are giving the virus ample opportunity to evolve. As new variants evolve, it won’t be our ability to create reformulated vaccines that will limit us. Instead, the main hurdle will be to turn those new vaccines into vaccinations here in the U.S. and worldwide.

During the 1918 influenza pandemic, one third of the world’s population was infected and society was vulnerable to consecutive waves with minimal number of tools to combat them. In 2021, we have extremely powerful vaccines in addition to tried and true non-pharmaceutical measures such as masks that can help us shape our destinies to a greater measure than was possible a century ago. But the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that even with these tools, there are significant social and political challenges that are delaying our recovery.

2 Doses Of Pfizer,Astrazeneca Vaccines Effective Against Delta Variant

A full course of two of the most widely available coronavirus vaccines is about as effective against the more contagious delta variant as it was against a previously dominant version of the virus, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine offer 88 percent protection against symptomatic disease caused by the delta variant, compared to 94 percent against the alpha variant that was first discovered in Britain and became dominant across the globe earlier this year, the study said.

A double dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was 67 percent effective against delta, according to the British researchers, down slightly from an efficacy rate of 75 percent against the alpha variant.

Here are some significant developments:

  • China said Thursday that it will not accept the World Health Organization’s suggested plan for the second phase of investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. A senior Chinese health official criticized the agency’s proposal to include the lab-leak hypothesis as a research priority.
  • Officials announced that some 200 million people or more than half of all adults in the European Union have now been fully vaccinated.
  • The United States has extended restrictions on nonessential travel at the borders with Canada and Mexico until Aug. 21. The Department of Homeland Security said the decision was made because of the “continued transmission and spread of [the virus] within the United States and globally.”
  • Australia’s most populous state Thursday reported its highest number of new, locally transmitted cases for the year, even as much of the country remained under lockdown to stem an outbreak of the more contagious delta variant. New South Wales, which includes Sydney, recorded 124 new infections, health authorities said.
  • Tunisia’s president has ordered the military to oversee the country’s coronavirus response as the North African nation battles its worst outbreak of the pandemic. Earlier this week, the health minister was fired for bungling Tunisia’s vaccine rollout as the virus spread.
  • The Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee announced 12 new coronavirus cases among accreditation holders, including two unnamed athletes who were living in the Olympic Village. Eight athletes have tested positive since arriving in Tokyo for the Games.

The authors of the new study said a single dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was significantly less effective against the delta variant than two doses. One dose of the vaccine developed by U.S. firm Pfizer with German partner BioNTech was just 36 percent effective, the study found, while a single shot of the vaccine from Oxford University and British-Swedish company AstraZeneca offered 30 percent protection.

“Absolute differences in vaccine effectiveness were more marked after the receipt of the first dose,” the authors wrote. The research confirmed earlier data released by Public Health England that suggested the two vaccines offered similar levels of protection against the delta variant when administered as a full course. It also offered some hope to those nations struggling to beat back outbreaks caused by the delta variant, which the World Health Organization says has reached at least 124 countries.

The study stood in contrast to preliminary data made public by Israel’s Health Ministry earlier this month that said the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was only 64 percent effective in preventing symptomatic infection caused by the delta variant. Some public health experts warned that the data from Israel was observational and not the result of a controlled study.

Why COVID-19’s Origins Must Be Investigated

The theories vary widely in credibility and likelihood, but no one is really sure how COVID-19 became the world’s worst health crisis. But researchers should dig deeper into the origin of the virus that has caused the world pandemic to prepare for future viral outbreaks, according to Peter Hotez, MD, PhD. He is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for vaccine development in Houston.

COVID-19 is not the first serious viral outbreak in the 21st century and it is unlikely to be the last, he said during a recent episode of “AMA COVID-19 Update.” To be prepared for the next outbreak, medical researchers need to understand the development and growth of current one, he said. Ongoing research over the past 10 years actually helped the medical research community respond quickly to the pandemic with treatment and vaccines, Dr. Hotez said. COVID-19 marks the third “major coronavirus epidemic” of the 21st century, he explained.

“We had SARS, the original coronavirus pandemic/epidemic. Severe acute respiratory syndrome rose out of Guangdong province in South China in 2002 and then spread to Toronto and caused a lot of deaths and havoc in the city of Toronto, shut down the city for a while in 2003. “Then we had MERS, Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome, in 2012 and that has lasted a few years. It went into South Korea and caused a hospital-associated outbreak there. Again, very high mortality and a lot of deaths,” he said.

In aftermath of other epidemics

As a result, researchers expected another coronavirus epidemic or pandemic, though not necessarily one as bad as the COVID-19 outbreak. “This was the worst by far,” he said. Researchers anticipated the initial outbreak from China where the preceding epidemics occurred, but were surprised it came from Central China, not Southern China, as was the case with the 2002 SARS epidemic, he said.

The biggest surprise, however, was the public reaction and the belief that the disease did not arise naturally, but from some sort of laboratory leak or manipulation. He said that charge didn’t make sense because the other similar outbreaks were clearly natural, not the result of laboratory issues. “Look, it’s not impossible, but here’s what we need to do. The most important thing is to uncover the origins and the only way you are really going to do that, whether it’s lab leak or otherwise, is to do an outbreak investigation. And we know how to do this,” he said. Visit the AMA COVID-19 resource center for clinical information, guides and resources, and updates on advocacy and medical ethics.

More investigation in China

“We need to bring in a team of scientists that are working Hubei province—international scientists, U.S. scientists, working with Chinese scientists to collect saliva, blood samples from bats, from other potential secondary animal sources, from humans and really trace the origins of COVID-19.”

Why bats, rather than other common animals?

“We know bats have an important role because coronaviruses are found naturally in bats. Bats are natural hosts to other catastrophic viruses. … So, the point is that understanding how the bat ecology interfaces with other animal reservoirs as a second intermediate host, or how the viruses jump from bats to people or bats to another animal to people,” he said. All of this is critical to evading the next coronavirus pandemic, he said.

“I don’t see how you could think about designing prevention strategies without having some understanding of that,” he said. While Dr. Hotez has pushed back on “outrageous conspiracy theories of sending infected Chinese abroad” to intentionally spread SARS-CoV-2, he added that the role of the Chinese government and its researchers should be examined. The slow flow of information and lack of transparency in the early days of the pandemic may have led to a slower medical response.

Get the latest news on the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines, variants and more reliable information directly from experts and physician leaders with the “AMA COVID-19 Update.” You can catch every episode by subscribing to the AMA’s YouTube channel or the audio-only podcast version.

Largest Known Comet Is Heading Close Enough To Us To Become Visible

Astronomers have discovered the largest known comet, and it’s about a thousand times more massive than others.  Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, so named because it was found by University of Pennsylvania department of physics and astronomygraduate student Pedro Bernardinelli and Professor Gary Bernstein, is between 62 to 124 miles (100 to 200 kilometers) across. The team announced the discovery in June. This unusual comet will make itsclosest approach to our sun in 2031, but you’ll likely need a large amateur telescope to see it.  The giant comet, also known as C/2014 UN271, is from the outskirts of our solar system and has been making its way toward our sun for millions of years. This is also the most distant comet to be discovered on its inbound journey, which will provide scientists a chance to observe and study it for years to come.

Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein was found in six years of data collected by the Dark Energy Camera, which is located on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The data collected by this camera feeds into The Dark Energy Survey, a collaboration of more than 400 scientists across seven countries and 25 institutions. The camera, also known as DECam, is helping to map 300 million galaxies across the night sky — but it also captures glimpses of comets and trans-Neptuinan objects, or icy celestial bodies that reside along the outskirts of the solar system, beyond Neptune’s orbit.

Bernardinelli and Bernstein used algorithms at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to identify trans-Neptunian objects. During their work, the astronomers traced 32 detections to one object. Comets are icy relics that were kicked out of the solar system when the giant planets formed and migrated to their current configurations. As comets approach our sun during their orbits, their ices evaporate, creating their signature appearance.

Comets include a nucleus, or the solid “dirty snowball” at its center. Comas are the gaseous clouds that form around the nucleus as the comet’s ices evaporate. The evaporating gas and dust is pushed behind the comet as well, creating two tails illuminated by sunlight. These tails can be hundreds or even millions of miles in length. Images of the object taken between 2014 and 2018 did not show a cometary tail. But within the past three years, the object grew a tail, which officially makes it Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein.

Observations made using the Las Cumbres Observatory network of telescopes around the globe helped confirm the status of the active comet. “Since we’re a team based all around the world, it just happened that it was my afternoon, while the other folks were asleep. The first image had the comet obscured by a satellite streak, and my heart sank. But then the others were clear enough and gosh: there it was, definitely a beautiful little fuzzy dot, not at all crisp like its neighbouring stars!” said Michele Bannister, astronomer at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, in a statement.

The comet’s journey started over 3.7 trillion miles (6 trillion kilometers) away from the sun, or 40,000 astronomical units. The distance between Earth and the sun is one astronomical unit. For reference, Pluto is 39 astronomical units from the sun. The comet came from the OortCloud of objects, an isolated group of icy objects that are more distant than anything else in our solar system. Scientists believe this is where comets come from, but they have never actually observed an object within the OortCloud.

The OortCloud is located between 2,000 and 100,000 astronomical units from the sun. Eventually, NASA spacecraft like Voyager 1 and 2, as well as New Horizons will reach the OortCloud. But by the time they do, their power sources will have been dead for centuries. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is currently about 1.8 billion miles (3 billion kilometers) away — about the distance of Uranus from the sun– and at its closest point in 2031, it will be just a bit more than Saturn’s distance to the sun.

“We have the privilege of having discovered perhaps the largest comet ever seen — or at least larger than any well-studied one — and caught it early enough for people to watch it evolve as it approaches and warms up,” Bernstein said in a statement. “It has not visited the planets in more than 3 million years.” This unusual opportunity to study an inbound comet will allow astronomers a chance to better understand the origin and composition of the comet. It may be just one of many giant comets originatingin the OortCloud.

Indian Scientists In Antarctica Discover New Species

Biologists from the Central University of Punjab have discovered a new species of moss in Continental Antarctica. The species has been named Bryumbharatiensis after one of the remotest Indian research stations in the desert continent of Antarctica. Coincidentally, the name also pays tribute to the Hindu Deity Bharati, who is the Goddess of learning. Presenting our discovery of Bryumbharatiensis, a new species of moss from Antarctica named after Goddess Saraswati (Bharati)! BBC featured a detailed story on the discovery. @narendramodi@PMOIndia@EduMinOfIndiahttps://t.co/Igbqkf53jW — Felix Bast (@ExaltFibs) July 12, 2021

The plant was first discovered growing on some rocks near the research station by Dr. Felix Bast, a polar and marine biologist who heads the Department of Botany in the Central University of Punjab. He was part of the Indian Antarctic Expedition 2016-17. With the rising earth temperature, Antarctica has been fast losing large amounts of its ice cover. With areas that were once perennially frozen now slowly being thawed and melting away for the first time in millions of years, patches of green have appeared on what was once a frigid wasteland. Thus, increasing the likelihood of discovering new species of plants and microbes that were previously frozen deep under the thick ice sheets. So, in 2017, a team of biologists from Punjab University had gone to the Indian research station as a part of a six month long expedition, specifically to collect samples and examine the plant life.

After it was first discovered, samples were brought back by Dr. Bast to the university, where it was extensively researched upon by a group researchers including Wahid Ul Rahman, a fourth-year PhD student at CUPB and Kirti Gupta, the head of the Botany Department at DAV College in Bathinda. The identification and classifying of new species is a laborious process and it took over five years of careful study of the DNA sequencing of the plant, for scientists to confirm the existence of Bryumbharatiensis. A paper was then published in the journal of Asia-Pacific Biodiversity – a leading international journal by the team, describing the discovery of the moss.

It is yet unknown how the moss survived the rock and ice that makes up close to 99 percent of the Antarctic landmass. Plants require amongst other things, sunlight, water, and several minerals including nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to survive. It was discovered that this moss grows primarily in areas inhabited by large numbers of penguins. Penguin excrement is an excellent source of nitrogen and it has been theorized that it is used by the moss as a form of manure.

Antarctica being at the very bottom of the Southern Hemisphere faces an interesting phenomenon where the entire continent experiences six whole months of continuous sunlight during the summers and the six months of winter are spent in constant darkness. Scientists think that the moss dries up, not entirely unlike a seed and remains dormant during the winter months. And when the sun comes out in September it germinates by absorbing the water from the melted snow. Over a hundred different moss species have been previously been found in the Antarctic. This particular moss is native to Eastern Antarctica and monumentally, the first and only plant species discovered in last four decades of the Indian Antarctic Mission.

A 16-Million-Year-Old Tree Tells A Deep Story Of The Passage Of Time

The sequoia tree slab is an invitation to begin thinking about a vast timescale that includes everything from fossils of armored amoebas to the great Tyrannosaurus rex. PaleobotanistScott Wing hopes that he’s wrong. Even though he carefully counted each ring in an immense, ancient slab of sequoia, the scientist notes that there’s always a little bit of uncertainty in the count. Wing came up with about 260, but, he says, it’s likely a young visitor may one day write him saying: “You’re off by three.” And that would a good thing, Wing says, because it’d be another moment in our ongoing conversation about time.

The shining slab, preserved and polished, is the keystone to consideration of time and our place in it in the “Hall of Fossils—Deep Time” exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. The fossil greets visitors at one of the show’s entrances and just like the physical tree, what the sequoia represents has layers.

Each yearly delineation on the sequoia’s surface is a small part of a far grander story that ties together all of life on Earth. Scientists know this as Deep Time. It’s not just on the scale of centuries, millennia, epochs, or periods, but the ongoing flow that goes back to the origins of our universe, the formation of the Earth, and the evolution of all life, up through this present moment. It’s the backdrop for everything we see around us today, and it can be understood through techniques as different as absolute dating of radioactive minerals and counting the rings of a prehistoric tree. Each part informs the whole.

In decades past, the Smithsonian’s fossil halls were known for the ancient celebrities they contained. There was the dinosaur hall, and the fossil mammal hall, surrounded by the remains of other extinct organisms. But now all of those lost species have been brought together into an integrated story of dynamic and dramatic change. The sequoia is an invitation to begin thinking about how we fit into the vast timescale that includes everything from fossils of armored amoebas called forams to the great Tyrannosaurus rex.

Exactly how the sequoia fossil came to be at the Smithsonian is not entirely clear. The piece was gifted to the museum long ago, “before my time,” Wing says. Still, enough of the tree’s backstory is known to identify it as a massive tree that grew in what’s now central Oregon about 16 million years ago. This tree was once a long-lived part of a true forest primeval. There are fossils both far older and more recent in the recesses of the Deep Time displays. But what makes the sequoia a fitting introduction to the story that unfolds behind it, Wing says, is that the rings offer different ways to think about time. Given that the sequoia grew seasonally, each ring marks the passage of another year, and visitors can look at the approximately 260 delineations and think about what such a time span represents.

Wing says, people can play the classic game of comparing the tree’s life to a human lifespan. If a long human life is about 80 years, Wing says, then people can count 80, 160, and 240 years, meaning the sequoia grew and thrived over the course of approximately three human lifespans—but during a time when our own ancestors resembled gibbon-like apes. Time is not something that life simply passes through. In everything—from the rings of an ancient tree to the very bones in your body—time is part of life.

The record of that life—and even afterlife—lies between the lines. “You can really see that this tree was growing like crazy in its initial one hundred years or so,” Wing says, with the growth slowing as the tree became larger. And despite the slab’s ancient age, some of the original organic material is still locked inside. “This tree was alive, photosynthesizing, pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, turning it into sugars and into lignin and cellulose to make cell walls,” Wing says. After the tree perished, water carrying silica and other minerals coated the log to preserve the wood and protect some of those organic components inside. “The carbon atoms that came out of the atmosphere 16 million years ago are locked in this chunk of glass.”

And so visitors are drawn even further back, not only through the life of the tree itself but through a time span so great that it’s difficult to comprehend. A little back of the envelope math indicates that the tree represents about three human lifetimes, but that the time between when the sequoia was alive and the present could contain about 200,000 human lifetimes. The numbers grow so large that they begin to become abstract. The sequoia is a way to touch that history and start to feel the pull of all those ages past, and what they mean to us. “Time is so vast,” Wing says, “that this giant slab of a tree is just scratching the surface.”

(Riley Black is a freelance science writer specializing in evolution, paleontology and natural history who blogs regularly for Scientific American.)

Tamil Nadu College Student’s Electric Cycle Offers 50 Kms Ride In Just Rs 1.50

When the fuel prices are at an all-time high, a Madurai college student, Dhanush Kumar has designed a unique solar-powered electric cycle.The college student from Madurai in Tamil Nadu who designed a solar-powered electric cycle. His story has now prompted people to share all sorts of appreciative comments. The bicycle is powered by a 24 volt and 26 ampere battery. The bicycle can run for up to 50 km continuously with the help of solar panels. A rider can travel more than a 20 kms after the electric charges reduce to the downline. Dhanush hailing from Madurai, an II-Tier city in Tamil Nadu, claimed that this design is his own and is apt for cities like Madurai as it can be driven in with a maximum speed of 40 Kms.

When asked about the working of the electric cycle, he said, “The cost of electricity used for this battery is very low compared to the price of petrol. It costs Rs 1.50 to travel up to 50 km. This bike can run at a speed of 30-40 km. This speed is enough to drive this bike inside an II-tier city like Madurai.” When the petrol and diesel prices are skyrocketing in the country, an electric designed cycle would be a respite for people finding it tough to commute.

ANI took to Twitter to share about the student named Dhanush Kumar. “Madurai college student, Dhanush Kumar designs solar-powered electric cycle. The bicycle can run for up to 50 km continuously with the help of solar panels. A rider can travel more than a 20 kms after the electric charges reduce to the downline,” they wrote. They also shared a few images of the student and his creation.

While replying to their own post, they shared a quote from the creator talking about the bicycle. “The cost of electricity used for this battery is very low compared to the price of petrol. It costs ₹1.50 to travel up to 50 km. This bike can run at a speed of 30-40 km. This speed is enough to drive this bike inside a city like Madurai, says Dhanush Kumar,” reads the tweet.

Heart Risk ‘Calculators’ Overlook Increased Risk For People Of South Asian Ancestry

Newswise — DALLAS, July 12, 2021 — People of South Asian ancestry have more than double the risk of developing heart disease compared to people of European ancestry, yet clinical risk assessment calculators used to guide decisions about preventing or treating heart disease may fail to account for the increased risk, according to new research published today in the American Heart Association’s flagship journal Circulation. About a quarter of the world’s population (1.8 billion people) are of South Asian descent, and prior research has shown South Asians experience higher rates of heart disease compared to people of most other ethnicities.

To better understand the variables surrounding the heart disease risk for people of South Asian ancestry, researchers evaluated data from a subset of participants in the UK Biobank study who did not have atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease when they enrolled in the study between 2006 and 2010. There were 8,124 participants of South Asian Ancestry and 449,349 of European ancestry included in this analysis. Their average age was 57 and they were followed an average of 11 years. People in the South Asian ancestry group were defined as those who self-reported being of Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin, or who reported other South Asian heritage, such as their country of birth as Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal or Sri Lanka. European ancestry was based on self-identification as being white British, white Irish, or any other white European background.

Researchers compared the rates of developing cardiovascular disease (heart attack, stroke, or a procedure to restore normal blood supply to the heart) among people of South Asian ancestry to the rate among people of European ancestry. They found that 6.8% of participants of South Asian ancestry had a cardiovascular disease event, compared to 4.4% of those who reported having European ancestry. After adjustment for age and sex, this represents a more than two-fold higher risk for people of South Asian descent. The higher relative risk was largely consistent across a variety of age, sex and clinical subgroups. However, this increased risk was not captured by the clinical estimators used in the United States or Europe.

“Based on previous studies, we expected South Asians would have higher rates of heart disease – in fact, the American Heart Association now considers South Asian ethnicity a ‘risk enhancer’ beyond the standard risk calculator,” said senior study author Amit V. Khera, M.D., M.Sc., a cardiologist in the Corrigan Minehan Heart Center and leader of a research group within the Center for Genomic Medicine, both at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

“We were surprised by the magnitude of the increased risk — even within contemporary clinical practice, it was more than double — and how much of it remains unexplained by traditional clinical or lifestyle risk factors,” he said. “Our current tools do not help us predict this extra risk in the South Asian population, likely because no South Asians were included in developing the U.S. tool, so we may be missing opportunities to prevent heart attacks and strokes in this group. Intensive control of risk factors like high cholesterol and Type 2 diabetes are even more important in this population.”

A higher percentage of people in the South Asian study group did have more risk factors for heart disease, including Type 2 diabetes (even in the absence of obesity), high blood pressure and increased central adiposity (belly fat). However, even when researchers accounted for the known risks, the risk for people of South Asian ancestry was still 45% higher than for people of European ancestry.

“We need to dig deeper to better understand why South Asians are having heart attacks and strokes at higher rates even after accounting for these risk factors,” said Aniruddh P. Patel, M.D., lead author of the study and a cardiology fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital. “Our ability to study South Asian and other populations in general in the United States using public databases has been limited because individuals are grouped together by race rather than ancestry. This makes recognizing and addressing these disparities among a fast-growing South Asian population in the U.S. more difficult. In addition to recruiting more South Asians in clinical trials and cohort studies, better reporting of ancestry in addition to race in hospital data systems and electronic medical records would help us better understand and target these disparities.”

The research does have some limitations. The study included adults between the ages of 40 and 69 living in the United Kingdom, thus the results may not be generalizable to younger individuals or those who live in other countries. Additionally, based upon the data, people who volunteered for the UK Biobank study were known to be healthier compared to the general population, thus, there were potentially reduced rates of heart disease in both ancestry groups. Further, medical records of study participants were reviewed electronically rather than manually, so underreporting may have occurred.

Khera and colleagues have assembled a team of international investigators to aggregate data and expertise needed to develop new genetic risk estimators for South Asian individuals as part of an NIH-funded consortium. As for the clinical risk estimator tools, South Asians have been severely under-represented to-date, accounting for only about 1% of studied individuals.

How Does Our Immune System Reacts to COVID-19 Variants

Newswise — Australian scientists researching how our immune system responds to COVID-19 have revealed that those infected by early variants in 2020 produced sustained antibodies, however, these antibodies are not as effective against contemporary variants of the virus.

The research is one of the world’s most comprehensive studies of the immune response against COVID-19 infection. It suggests vaccination is more effective than the body’s natural immune response following infection and shows the need to invest in new vaccine designs to keep pace with emerging COVID variants.  Published today in PLOS Medicine, the study was made possible by a partnership between the University of Sydney, Kids Research, Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network, the Kirby Institute at UNSW Sydney, Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, St Vincent’s Hospital and NSW Health Pathology, as well as other local and international collaborators.

The team analysed the serum of 233 individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 over 7 months and uncovered that the level of immunity over time is dependent on disease severity and the viral variant. They show that antibodies developed during the first wave had reduced effectiveness against six variants, ranging from those observed in the second wave in Australia through to three variants of concern that have driven the global pandemic in the UK, Brazil and South Africa.

How do we study the immune response?

The serum of COVID-19 infected individuals was of interest as it is the part of our blood that contains crucial information about our immune system. Analysis of the serum made it possible to create a detailed timeline of the level of ‘neutralising antibodies’ produced against COVID-19 infection, and so to see if there was long-term immunity. 

Neutralising antibodies are part of our immune system’s frontline arsenal that is triggered during infection and vaccination. Their job is to shield cells that are usually the target of a pathogen (such as the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes the COVID-19 disease) from being infected. The level of neutralising antibody response can be a defining feature of how effectively our body fights off illness.

Interestingly, a rare group of ‘super responders’ was also identified as an exception.  This group of ‘super responders’ had a stable and robust level of antibodies across all COVID-19 variants. The researchers say this group could prove useful for investigating the potential of convalescent plasma (using blood from people who have recovered to treat others) which has so far proven ineffective against severe COVID-19 illness. In addition, key donors could be looked at closely and their antibodies cloned for future therapeutic use.

Why it is important?

Co-senior author Associate Professor FabienneBrilot of the University of Sydney and Kids Research, Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network, and her research team led the analysis branch of the study, using highly sensitive tools they developed to study the antibodies in detail.

“We can learn a great deal from these people who were infected in the first wave in Australia as they were infected with the same variant that our current vaccines are based on,” said Associate Professor Brilot.  “While the approved vaccines are showing good responses, our study highlights the importance of continued vaccine development, especially taking into account the differences in variants.” Co-senior author Associate Professor Stuart Turville of the Kirby Institute said the study was conducted to investigate the level, breadth and longevity of the immunity generated from COVID-19 infection and whether mutation of the virus compromises immunity.

“What this work has shown us is that current observations about vaccines show they offer a much broader protection against COVID-19 and its variants than the body’s natural immune response following infection, which is usually only protective against the variant of the virus that the person was infected with. We, therefore, should not rely on the body’s natural immune response to control this pandemic, but rather the broadly protective vaccines that are available.”

Key findings 

  • SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses are sustained for up to seven months post-infection.
  • The immune response remained stable in some individuals, and while it decreased in others, no individual showed a negative response during the seven-month period.
  • Levels of virus-neutralising antibodies were associated with COVID-19 severity.
  • Antibodies generated after early infection displayed a significantly reduced antibody binding and neutralisation potency to globally emerging viral variants.

Financial Literacy Movement Launched By Sal Khan & Others

A group of business, sports, entertainment and nonprofit leaders, including Khan Academy’s Indian American founder and chief executive officer Sal Khan, has banded together to launch the “Financial Literacy for All” initiative. The initiative, which launched June 21, will support embedding financial literacy into American culture. This 10-year commitment will reach millions of youth and working adults enabling them to achieve greater financial success for themselves and their families, according to a news release.

In addition to Khan, the group includes Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart; Bob Chapek, CEO of The Walt Disney Company; Brian Moynihan, chairman and CEO of Bank of America; Rosalind Brewer, CEO of Walgreens; Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta Air Lines; Roger Goodell, commissioner of the NFL; Adam Silver, commissioner of the NBA; Tony Ressler, executive chair of Ares Management and principal owner of the Atlanta Hawks; and John Hope Bryant, chair and CEO of Operation HOPE. McMillon and Bryant will serve as co-chairs of “Financial Literacy for All,” with expectation that the initiative will expand as additional organizations sign on.

“I believe we are in a moment in history, where the public and private sector can join together to help every American reach their potential and fully participate in the greatest economy on earth,” said Bryant. “With this initiative, we are not just seeking to change America’s relationship with their finances, but to change their mindset on what they can accomplish.” “Financial well-being begins with good pay and benefits, but it also includes real opportunity for career growth and access to tools and resources that help manage daily financial needs, build greater financial resiliency and plan for retirement.” added McMillon. “We are inspired by Operation Hope’s vision and look forward to collaborating with other major employers to discover new and better ways to support and engage our associates along their individual financial well-being journey.”

Underscoring the need for financial literacy, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s current Investor Education Foundation survey found that only one-third of U.S. residents surveyed could answer basic questions about interest rates, financial risk and mortgage rates—down by nearly one-quarter from 2009, according to the release. In addition, the cost of financial illiteracy to U.S. citizens is estimated to be $415 billion for 2020, according to a recent study by National Financial Educators Council.

Given the importance and societal impact of financial literacy and with a goal to expand people’s access to opportunities, these organizations are acting now—leveraging their collective innovative and creative expertise as well as their daily interaction with millions of employees, clients, customers and suppliers to spur a national movement of financial capability, it said. This alignment of vision and mission is supported by making financial literacy easier to understand and generating public awareness of its importance by directly connecting with working adults; and providing targeted outreach to middle and high school students as well as those attending community college and four-year universities with innovative outreach and existing “Best Practices.”

Specific steps include promotion of a recently launched educational video series from Walmart that will reach more than a million of its associates; all 80,000 Delta people in the U.S. will have access to in-person and/or virtual Operation HOPE coaches and curriculum starting July 12; and Bank of America will expand access to its award-winning Better Money Habits platform, the release noted.

With 20% of Covid Cases, “Delta Variant Is Greatest Threat to US”

The Delta variant has emerged as the greatest threat to the efforts of combatting the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. as it now accounts for more than 20 percent of cases in the country, top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci has said. “As was the case with B117 – we seem to be following the pattern with the Delta variant, with a doubling time of about two weeks if you look from the May 8th with 1.2, to 2.7, to 9.9, and as of a couple of days ago, 20.6 percent of the isolates are Delta,” Fauci said at a White House briefing June 22.

“Similar to the situation in the UK, the Delta variant is currently the greatest threat in the U.S. to our attempt to eliminate Covid-19,” he added. President Joe Biden had earlier set a target of vaccinating 70 percent of the country’s adult population with at least one dose by July 4. However, it looks like the country may narrowly miss the target. Currently, 65 percent of the adult population has received at least one shot and 56 percent are fully vaccinated, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At current rates, the U.S. is on track to get to about 67 percent people with at least one shot by July 4.

“Our aspirational goal for July 4th was 70 percent of the adult population receiving at least one dose, but that is not the goal line, nor is it the endgame. The endgame is to go well beyond that, beyond July 4th, into the summer and beyond, with the ultimate goal of crushing the outbreak completely in the United States,” Fauci said. Under-vaccinated people, particularly young individuals between 18 and 26, are the main obstacles for that, said Fauci, who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Further, he said that the Delta variant is a growing threat and is more transmissible than the original Covid virus and Alpha variant.

“The transmissibility is unquestionably greater than the wild-type SARS-CoV-2, as well as the Alpha variant. It is associated with an increased disease severity, as reflected by hospitalization risk, compared to Alpha. And in lab tests, associated with modest decreased neutralization by sera from previously infected and vaccinated individuals,” Fauci noted. However, the good news is that the vaccines Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca are effective against the Delta variant, said Fauci. “The effectiveness of the vaccines – in this case, two weeks after the second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech – was 88 percent effective against the Delta and 93 percent effective against the Alpha when you’re dealing with symptomatic disease.

“When you look at hospitalizations, again, both the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Oxford-AstraZeneca are between 92 and 96 percent effective against hospitalizations,” Fauci said. India-West Staff Reporter adds: According to a PTI report, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy told MSNBC June 23 that the Delta variant, which he said now makes up 90 percent of all new cases, is significantly more transmissible and more dangerous in terms of severity of illness that it causes.

“We have seen how quickly it has taken over in the United Kingdom, where it’s become – getting close to 100 per cent of new COVID cases, Delta. And we have seen a surge here too. So I am worried,” Murthy said. “I’m quite worried about the Delta variant. It is more transmissible, significantly more transmissible. It also may be more dangerous in terms of severity of illness that it causes,” he said.

Making Seawater Drinkable In Minutes

Newswise — According to the World Health Organization, about 785 million people around the world lack a clean source of drinking water. Despite the vast amount of water on Earth, most of it is seawater and freshwater accounts for only about 2.5% of the total. One of the ways to provide clean drinking water is to desalinate seawater. The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) has announced the development of a stable performance electrospun nanofiber membrane to turn seawater into drinking water by membrane distillation process. Membrane wetting is the most challenging issue in membrane distillation. If a membrane exhibits wetting during membrane distillation operation, the membrane must be replaced. Progressive membrane wetting has been especially observed for long-term operations. If a membrane gets fully wetted, the membrane leads to inefficient membrane distillation performance, as the feed flow through the membrane leading to low-quality permeate.

A research team in KICT, led by Dr. Yunchul Woo, has developed co-axial electrospun nanofiber membranes fabricated by an alternative nano-technology, which is electrospinning. This new desalination technology shows it has the potential to help solve the world’s freshwater shortage. The developed technology can prevent wetting issues and also improve the long-term stability in membrane distillation process. A three-dimensional hierarchical structure should be formed by the nanofibers in the membranes for higher surface roughness and hence better hydrophobicity.

The co-axial electrospinning technique is one of the most favorable and simple options to fabricate membranes with three-dimensional hierarchical structures. Dr. Woo’s research team used poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) as the core and silica aerogel mixed with a low concentration of the polymer as the sheath to produce a co-axial composite membrane and obtain a superhydrophobic membrane surface. In fact, silica aerogel exhibited a much lower thermal conductivity compared with that of conventional polymers, which led to increased water vapor flux during the membrane distillation process due to a reduction of conductive heat losses.

Most of the studies using electrospun nanofiber membranes in membrane distillation applications operated for less than 50 hours although they exhibited a high water vapor flux performance. On the contrary, Dr. Woo’s research team applied the membrane distillation process using the fabricated co-axial electrospun nanofiber membrane for 30 days, which is 1 month.

The co-axial electrospun nanofiber membrane performed a 99.99% salt rejection for 1 month. Based on the results, the membrane operated well without wetting and fouling issues, due to its low sliding angle and thermal conductivity properties. Temperature polarization is one of the significant drawbacks in membrane distillation. It can decrease water vapor flux performance during membrane distillation operation due to conductive heat losses. The membrane is suitable for long-term membrane distillation applications as it possesses several important characteristics such as, low sliding angle, low thermal conductivity, avoiding temperature polarization, and reduced wetting and fouling problems whilst maintaining super-saturated high water vapor flux performance.

Dr. Woo’s research team noted that it is more important to have a stable process than a high water vapor flux performance in a commercially available membrane distillation process. Dr. Woo said that “the co-axial electrospun nanofiber membrane have strong potential for the treatment of seawater solutions without suffering from wetting issues and may be the appropriate membrane for pilot-scale and real-scale membrane distillation applications.”

The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) is a government sponsored research institute established to contribute to the development of Korea’s construction industry and national economic growth by developing source and practical technology in the fields of construction and national land management. This research was supported by an internal grant (20200543-001) from the KICT, Republic of Korea. The outcomes of this project were published in the international journal, Journal of Membrane Science, a renowned international journal in the polymer science field (IF: 7.183 and Rank #3 of the JCR category) in April 2021.

Does The Universe Expand?

Newswise — Our universe is expanding, but our two main ways to measure how fast this expansion is happening  have resulted in different answers. For the past decade, astrophysicists have been gradually dividing into two camps: one that believes that the difference is significant, and another that thinks it could be due to errors in measurement. If it turns out that errors are causing the mismatch, that would confirm our basic model of how the universe works. The other possibility presents a thread that, when pulled, would suggest some fundamental missing new physics is needed to stitch it back together. For several years, each new piece of evidence from telescopes has seesawed the argument back and forth, giving rise to what has been called the ‘Hubble tension.’

Wendy Freedman, a renowned astronomer and the John and Marion Sullivan University Professor in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, made some of the original measurements of the expansion rate of the universe that resulted in a higher value of the Hubble constant. But in a new review paper accepted to the Astrophysical Journal, Freedman gives an overview of the most recent observations. Her conclusion: the latest observations are beginning to close the gap.   That is, there may not be a conflict after all, and our standard model of the universe does not need to be significantly modified.

Universal questions

The rate at which the universe is expanding is called the Hubble constant, named for UChicago alum Edwin Hubble, SB 1910, PhD 1917, who is credited with discovering the expansion of the universe in 1929. Scientists want to pin down this rate precisely, because the Hubble constant is tied to the age of the universe and how it evolved over time. A substantial wrinkle emerged in the past decade when results from the two main measurement methods began to diverge. But scientists are still debating the significance of the mismatch.

One way to measure the Hubble constant is by looking at very faint light left over from the Big Bang, called the cosmic microwave background. This has been done both in space and on the  ground with facilities like the UChicago-led South Pole Telescope. Scientists can feed these observations into their ‘standard model’ of the early universe and run it forward in time to predict what the Hubble constant should be today; they get an answer of 67.4 kilometers per second per megaparsec.

The other method is to look at stars and galaxies in the nearby universe, and measure their distances and how fast they are moving away from us. Freedman has been a leading expert on this method for many decades; in 2001, her team made one of the landmark measurements using the Hubble Space Telescope to image stars called Cepheids. The value they found was 72.  Freedman has continued to measure Cepheids in the years since, reviewing more telescope data each time; however, in 2019, she and her colleagues published an answer based on an entirely different method using stars called red giants. The idea was to cross-check the Cepheids with an independent method.

Red giants are very large and luminous stars that always reach the same peak brightness before rapidly fading. If scientists can accurately measure the actual, or intrinsic, peak brightness of the red giants, they can then measure the distances to their host galaxies, an essential but difficult part of the equation. The key question is how accurate  those measurements are. The first version of this calculation in 2019 used a single, very nearby galaxy to calibrate the red giant stars’ luminosities. Over the past two years, Freedman and her collaborators have run the numbers for several different galaxies and star populations. “There are now four independent ways of calibrating the red giant luminosities, and they agree to within 1% of each other,” said Freedman. “That indicates to us this is a really good way of measuring the distance.”

“I really wanted to look carefully at both the Cepheids and red giants. I know their strengths and weaknesses well,” said Freedman. “I have come to the conclusion that that we do not require fundamental new physics to explain the differences in the local and distant expansion rates. The new red giant data show that they are consistent.”  University of Chicago graduate student Taylor Hoyt, who has been making measurements of the red giant stars in the anchor galaxies, added, “We keep measuring and testing the red giant branch stars in different ways, and they keep exceeding our expectations.”

The value of the Hubble constant Freedman’s team gets from the red giants is 69.8 km/s/Mpc—virtually the same as the value derived from the cosmic microwave background experiment. “No new physics is required,” said Freedman.The calculations using Cepheid stars still give higher numbers, but according to Freedman’s analysis, the difference may not be troubling. “The Cepheid stars have always been a little noisier and a little more complicated to fully understand; they are young stars in the active star-forming regions of galaxies, and that means there’s potential for things like dust or contamination from other stars to throw off your measurements,” she explained. To her mind, the conflict can be resolved with better data.

Kicking the tires

Next year, when the James Webb Space Telescope is expected to launch, scientists will begin to collect those new observations. Freedman and collaborators have already been awarded time on the telescope for a major program to make more measurements of both Cepheid and red giant stars. “The Webb will give us higher sensitivity and resolution, and the data will get better really, really soon,” she said. But in the meantime, she wanted to take a careful look at the existing data, and what she found was that much of it actually agrees. “That’s the way science proceeds,” Freedman said. “You kick the tires to see if something deflates, and so far, no flat tires.”

Some scientists who have been rooting for a fundamental mismatch might be disappointed. But for Freedman, either answer is exciting.  “There is still some room for new physics, but even if there isn’t, it would show that the standard model we have is basically correct, which is also a profound conclusion to come to,” she said. “That’s the interesting thing about science: We don’t know the answers in advance. We’re learning as we go. It is a really exciting time to be in the field.”

Collisions Between Neutron Star And Black Hole Discovered

On Jan. 5, 2020, astrophysicists heard a chirp from a distant part of the cosmos, some 900 million light-years away. The fleeting sound was unlike any they’d heard before and was caused by a great ripple in space-time — a gravitational wave — that spread out across the universe from over 900 million light-years away, washing over the Earth and pinging detectors. Chirp.  Then, 10 days later, they heard another, similar sound. A cosmic twin. Gravitational waves had once again pinged Earth’s detectors. Chirp.

After careful analysis, the two signals have been identified as emanating from extreme, never-before-seen events in deep space: the collision between a black hole and a neutron star. The pair of collisions (or, less poetically, “mergers”) are detailed in a new study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters on Tuesday, featuring over 1,000 scientists from the LIGO/Virgo and KAGRA collaborations, a multinational effort to hunt for gravitational waves. The two newly described events are named GW200105 and GW200115, for the dates they were discovered, and provide the first definitive evidence of an elusive merger.

Prior to the dual detection, astronomers had only found black holes merging with black holes and neutron stars merging with neutron stars.”We’ve been waiting and expecting, at some stage, to detect a system with one of each,” said Susan Scott, an astrophysicist at Australian National University and a member of OzGrav and the LIGO collaboration. Now they have. Over the last two years, there had been suggestions that a collision between a neutron star and a black hole may have been spotted — but one of the objects appeared a little unusual. It was too big to be a neutron star and too small to be a black hole. The unknown object remains a mystery, which means GW200105 and GW200115 will go down in history.

“These are the first really confident detections of the merger of a neutron star with a black hole,” adds Rory Smith, an astrophysicist at Monash University in Australia and a member of the LIGO collaboration. There is huge excitement among scientists with the first confirmed detection of a neutron star-black hole (NS-BH) collision being reported. This ground breaking discovery of gravitational waves from a pair of NS-BH mergers was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters on Tuesday. Professor SomakRaychaudhury, Director of Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), told the media that the development was expected for a long time but was not confirmed. A new analysis was done to reconfirm this discovery which has now been published in the international journal, said Raychoudhury.

Until now, the LIGO-Virgo collaboration (LVC) of gravitational waves detectors has only been able to observe collisions between pairs of black holes or neutron stars. For the first time, in January 2020, the network of detectors made the discovery of gravitational waves from a pair of NS-BH mergers. According to the IUCAA director, the technique used here to detect the signal is called matched filtering. “This was also used for the first discovery of gravitational waves. It may be recalled that this was developed at IUCAA in the 1990s by Sanjeev Dhurandhar and others,” he said. “Basically, we have been detecting binary black hole mergers and binary neutron star mergers (until now). This is a hybrid collision,” according to scientists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, India (LIGO-India).

When contacted, DrTarunSouradeep, spokesperson of LIGO-India, said that researchers from LIGO-India have contributed to this major discovery. “This is an ongoing effort and the reason to make the detector network stronger is to discover a newer kind of phenomenon,” said Souradeep. This is a clear indication of neutron star and black hole merger, Prof Rajesh Nayak from the Center of Excellence in Space Sciences, IISER, Kolkata said.

Is One Vaccine Dose Enough If You’ve Had COVID?

Research shows that a previous coronavirus infection plus one dose of vaccine provides powerful protection — but concerns linger. Many people who’ve been infected with the coronavirus might be able to safely skip the second jab of any two-dose vaccine regimen, a growing number of studies suggest. These results could help to stretch scarce vaccine supplies and are already influencing vaccination policies in some countries. But questions remain about whether the findings hold for all individuals and all vaccines — and therefore how policymakers should respond to the findings.

Studies show that people with previous exposure to SARS-CoV-2 tend to mount powerful immune responses to single shots, and gain little added benefit from another injection1,2,3. What’s more, for people with immunity gained through infection, one dose typically boosts antibody numbers to levels that are equal to, or often greater than, those found in individuals who have not been infected and have received double doses4.

France, Germany and Italy, among other countries, now advise only one dose of vaccine for people with a healthy immune system and a confirmed previous diagnosis. Many scientists who have studied immune responses to vaccination say such policies are a sensible way to make the most of limited supplies in countries that are racing to inoculate their populations. “To follow the current two-dose vaccination schedule in previously infected individuals, when there are millions of people waiting for their first dose, simply does not make sense,” says Jordi Ochando, an immunologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, who has advised the Spanish government on vaccination guidelines.

But scientists still don’t know whether one-jab programmes for the previously infected could leave some individuals with suboptimal protection. Nor is it clear that such programmes would be effective for all types of vaccine. “If you have been infected before, then probably one dose is sufficient,” says Giuliana Magri, an immunologist at the Hospital del Mar Research Institute in Barcelona, Spain. But putting that knowledge into practice? “It’s complicated,” she concedes.

Just one jab

There’s ample laboratory-based evidence that people who’ve been infected by SARS-CoV-2 benefit from vaccination, prompting the World Health Organization and other public-health agencies to recommend that such individuals still get vaccinated. There’s less clarity, however, on whether they need to roll up their sleeves twice. A paper published in Nature on 14 June provides some of the most recent evidence that one shot could be all that’s necessary for people who’ve had COVID-195. A team of researchers at the Rockefeller University in New York City and elsewhere studied 26 people who had contracted the virus early in the course of the pandemic. All of them subsequently received at least one dose of either the Pfizer–BioNTech or the Moderna vaccine, both of which are based on messenger RNA.

The researchers analysed participants’ levels of ‘neutralizing’ antibodies, potent immune molecules that can block the virus from entering cells. At the moment, the quantity and vigour of a person’s neutralizing antibodies are the best markers for assessing whether that person is protected from infection and illness — although scientists are still working to confirm that antibody levels can serve as a realistic stand-in for immune protection. The team also assessed participants’ levels of memory B cells, which remember pathogens and can quickly crank out targeted antibodies if they encounter an infectious agent that they’ve seen before. Within a month or two of vaccination, study participants’ levels of memory B cells had risen, on average, nearly 10-fold and their ‘titres’, or levels, of neutralizing antibodies had shot up around 50-fold. Those gains were apparent in previously infected participants whether they’d received one shot or two.

In fact, just one dose of vaccine generated titres equal to — or higher than — than those produced by two doses of vaccine in people without previous infections. “It’s really amazing,” says virologist Theodora Hatziioannou, who co-led the study. “I wish everyone’s titres were like this.”

Memory booster

The findings from Hatziioannou and her colleagues also hint at the biological underpinnings of one jab’s effectiveness in exposed people. In the 12 months after participants were infected, their memory B cells had not been static. Instead, those cells spent the entire year evolving, which left them able to craft antibodies even more potent and versatile than those that they produced immediately after infection. Other studies corroborate that thinking, with some showing that one shot can spur the growth of antibodies and infection-fighting T cells alike6,7. “We’re all seeing pretty much the same thing,” says John Wherry, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia. For people who have recovered from COVID-19, “the second shot doesn’t seem to do a whole lot”.

And although most research on the topic so far has focused on mRNA vaccines, preliminary evidence from studies done in the United Kingdom and India suggests that single-dose strategies could succeed if they rely on using the shot from Oxford-AstraZeneca, which uses an engineered adenovirus to stimulate an immune response against SARS-CoV-28,9. A study published last month, for example, showed that one dose of the AstraZeneca jab produced a much more powerful immune response in health-care workers who’d been infected than in colleagues who’d escaped infection. The results “support a single-dose vaccination strategy for previously infected individuals to increase coverage and protect a larger number of populations”, the authors write9.

A one-jab policy for those who’ve been infected might even help to overcome vaccine apathy, says Stacy Wood of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, a marketing expert who has studied vaccine messaging. She argues that rather than sowing confusion, outreach that accounts for individual characteristics can help convince people who feel that their own circumstances, including infection history, make them unique. Cutting down the number of shots — and all the attendant side effects, anxiety, and time involved — can also be an attractive proposition to some who are on the fence about getting immunized.“The more tailored approach is probably better at this point,” Wood says.

Stretching vaccine doses

The accumulating evidence has been enough to convince many scientists that second doses of precious vaccine should not be allotted to people who’ve been infected. Providing only one dose to those who’ve had COVID-19 “would free up many urgently needed vaccine doses. With the additional available vaccines, there would be no need to delay the second vaccine dose for naïve individuals”, argues a letter published in May in EBioMedicine and signed by eight COVID-19 scientists10. And increasingly, countries and regions that are short of vaccine are following the scientists’ lead, at least for younger adults who do not have compromised immune systems.

But not all governments are on board with this approach. In the United States, for instance, where vaccine is relatively plentiful, officials still recommend two doses for all. Determining prior infection history “is not recommended for the purposes of vaccine decision-making”, says Kate Grusich, a spokesperson for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. Scientists also point out that some people who become infected with SARS-CoV-2 mount a relatively weak immune response. Such a response is especially common in people who don’t develop COVID-19 symptoms. “There’s a huge range of antibody generation and durability in those individuals,” notes Wherry. “Making decisions based on previous PCR-confirmed infections might miss some people.” That’s where diagnostic antibody testing could help.

Screening for antibodies to the hepatitis B virus is already routine in some settings to guide vaccination strategies against that infectious agent — and the same could be done with antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, a marker of both natural and vaccine-induced immunity, says Viviana Simon, an infectious disease specialist at Mount Sinai and a signatory to the EBioMedicine letter.“When in doubt, I’m all for a second dose,” she says. “But I personally hope that we can move eventually to more personalized schedules and recommendations.”

Sumita Mitra Wins European Inventor Award 2021

Indian-American chemist SumitaMitra has won the European Inventor Award 2021, one of Europe’s most prestigious innovation prizes, in the “Non-European Patent Office countries” category for her application of nanotechnology in dentistry. Mitra was the first to successfully integrate nanoparticles into dental materials to produce stronger, durable and more aesthetically pleasing fillings. Her innovation has been successfully commercialised and used in more than 1 billion tooth restorations by dentists around the world.

“SumitaMitra took an entirely new path in her field, and demonstrated how technological innovation, protected by patents, can transform a sector, and in this case bring benefits to millions of dental patients,” said Antonio Campinos, President at the European Patent Office (EPO), on Thursday. “Her invention remains commercially successful nearly 20 years after its launch — another reason why she is an inspiration to the next generation of scientists,” he added.

The 2021 European Inventor Award ceremony was held digitally and, for the first time, was open to the public who tuned in to the event from around the world. The Award, one of Europe’s most prestigious innovation prizes, is presented annually by the EPO to distinguish outstanding inventors from Europe and beyond who have made an exceptional contribution to society, technological progress and economic growth. The finalists and winners in five categories (Industry, Research, SMEs, Non-EPO countries and Lifetime achievement) were selected by an independent international jury.

“Curiosity and exploration are the essential points of starting an innovation. It is something that we really need to cultivate in our children,” Mitra said. SumitaMitra is a partner at Mitra Chemical Consulting, LLC, which advises companies on new technology development, product design, commercialisation, mergers and acquisitions. She was named the American Chemical Society Hero of Chemistry in 2009, inducted into the US National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2018 and elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2021 for her work related to inventions in nanotechnology for use in dental materials. (IANS)

The European Patent Office June 18 honored Indian American chemist SumitaMitra with the European Inventor Award 2021 in the “Non-EPO countries” category. Mitra, who was named among the finalists for the award last month (see India-West article here: https://bit.ly/3gMCvI4), was the first to successfully integrate nanotechnology into dental materials to produce stronger and more aesthetically pleasing fillings, which are now used by dentists around the world.

“SumitaMitra took an entirely new path in her field, and demonstrated how technological innovation, protected by patents, can transform a sector, and in this case bring benefits to millions of dental patients,” EPO president AntónioCampinos said in a statement. “Her invention remains commercially successful nearly 20 years after its launch – another reason why she is an inspiration to the next generation of scientists.”

The 2021 European Inventor Award ceremony was held digitally and, for the first time, was open to the public who tuned in to the event from around the world. The award, one of Europe’s most prestigious innovation prizes, is presented annually by the EPO to distinguish outstanding inventors from Europe and beyond who have made an exceptional contribution to society, technological progress and economic growth, according to a news release. The finalists and winners in five categories — industry, research, SMEs, Non-EPO countries and lifetime achievement — were selected by an independent international jury.

While working in the oral care division of U.S. multinational 3M in the late 1990s, Mitra became aware of the limitations of existing materials used in dental fillings, which were either too weak to be used on biting surfaces, or quickly lost their polish, the release notes of the Indian American winner. At the same time, nanotechnology was emerging as a field of research and Mitra decided to explore how these new developments could be applied to dentistry. She began working on nanotechnology-based solutions for a new dental material, driven by a desire to use her expertise in polymer chemistry and materials science to develop inventions that solve real-life problems, it said.

Mitra and her team developed a technique for creating linked clusters of nanoparticles, which they called nanoclusters. These clusters combine single nanoparticles of varying diameters, resulting in a strong, durable and shiny material. By adding tiny amounts of pigment, and altering the chemical composition of the nanoparticles, the team was also able to create a range of different shades that can be matched to individual teeth, and layered to create a more natural finish, the release noted. “The use of nanotechnology gave me the opportunity to make a new material,” Mitra said in a statement. “It restores people’s smiles and improves the quality of their lives.”

Following this successful development process, Mitra worked closely with 3M’s patent attorneys to draft the patents to protect her ground-breaking research. Although several new generations of the material have been developed since its launch in 2002 as FiltekTM Supreme Universal Restorative, the current line of products is still based on Mitra’s European patents, according to the release. The enduring legacy of Mitra’s work can be seen in the fact that 3M was named as one of the top three manufacturers of global composite fillings in the dental restoration market in 2019.

Although she retired from the company in 2010, the success of her technology continues with products based on her inventions used in over one billion tooth restorations worldwide to date. Mitra herself continues to contribute to research and development through her own consulting company. In addition, she enjoys volunteering at schools and colleges, passing on her enthusiasm for science to young people: “Curiosity and exploration are the essential points of starting an innovation. It is something that we really need to cultivate in our children,” Mitra said in the release.

Mitra is a partner at Mitra Chemical Consulting, LLC, a company she set up with her husband after leaving 3M in 2010, and which advises companies on new technology development, product design, commercialization, mergers and acquisitions. She was named an American Chemical Society Hero of Chemistry in 2009, inducted into the U.S. National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2018 and elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2021 for her work related to inventions in nanotechnology for use in dental materials.

Other awards include a Hollenback Memorial Prize from the Academy of Operative Dentistry (2020); a Peyton-Skinner Award for Innovation in Dental Materials from the International Association of Dental Research (2012); and a Top 25 Women in Dentistry Award (2010). Mitrawas elected to the 3M Carlton Society in 1998 – the highest 3M award given for lifelong contribution to R&D, her bio notes. Mitra is named on 58 European patents, four of which are related to her nomination for the European Inventor Award 2021.

Longest Day In The Northern Hemisphere

Summer’s officially here! Longest day in the Northern Hemisphere is June 21st. Technically, the summer solstice occurs when the sun is directly over the imaginary Tropic of Cancer, or 23.5°N latitude. It’s also known as the northern solstice because it occurs when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere. This year, it occurred at 9:02 am IST on June 21st.Zenith Furthest Away from the Equator. A solstice happens when the sun’s zenith is at its furthest point from the equator. On the June solstice, it reaches its northernmost point and the Earth’s North Pole tilts directly towards the sun, at about 23.4 degrees.

“Solstice” (Latin: “solstitium”) means sun-stopping. The point on the horizon where the sun appears to rise and set, stops and reverses direction after this day. On the solstice, the sun does not rise precisely in the east, but rises to the north of east and sets to the north of west, meaning it’s visible in the sky for a longer period of time. Although the June solstice marks the first day of astronomical summer, it’s more common to use meteorological definitions of seasons, making the solstice midsummer or midwinter.

Solstices in Culture

Over the centuries, the June solstice has inspired countless festivals, midsummer celebrations and religious holidays. One of the world’s oldest evidence of the summer solstice’s importance in culture is Stonehenge in England, a megalithic structure which clearly marks the moment of the June solstice. In the Southern Hemisphere, where the June solstice is known as the shortest day of the year, it marks the first day of astronomical winter, but the middle of winter in meteorological terms.

Midnight Sun or Polar Night?

On the June solstice, the midnight sun is visible (weather permitting) throughout the night, in all areas from just south of the Arctic Circle to the North Pole.

Sunrise and Sunset Times

On the other side of the planet, south of the Antarctic Circle there’s Polar Night, meaning no Sunlight at all, on the June solstice.

Solstice Dates Vary

Even though most people consider June 21 as the date of the June solstice, it can happen anytime between June 20 and June 22, depending on which time zone you’re in. June 22 solstices are rare – the last June 22 solstice in UTC time took place in 1975 and there won’t be another one until 2203. The varying dates of the solstice are mainly due to the calendar system – most western countries use the Gregorian calendar which has 365 days in a normal year and 366 days in a Leap Year.

A tropical year is the time it takes the Earth to orbit once around the Sun. It is around 365.242199 days long, but varies slightly from year to year because of the influence of other planets. The exact orbital and daily rotational motion of the Earth, such as the “wobble” in the Earth’s axis (precession of the equinoxes), also contributes to the changing solstice dates. The 23.4° tilt in the Earth’s axis causes varying amounts of sunlight to reach different regions during its year-long orbit around the Sun. Today, the North Pole is tipped more towards the Sun than on any other day of the year. However, that does not mean more heat or that the Earth is any closer to the Sun, per common misconceptions.

Summer solstices happen twice each year (once in each hemisphere). Summer solstice for the Northern Hemisphere = Winter solstice for the Southern Hemisphere, and vice-versa. Also, during Equinoxes (vernal and autumnal), the Sun shines directly on the Equator and the length of day and night are nearly equal in either hemisphere. More key dates for 2021 (Northern Hemisphere): Autumn Equinox: Thursday, September 23, Winter Solstice: Tuesday, December 21.

U.S. To Invest On Antiviral Pill to Fight COVID-19

We’re not going to vaccinate our way completely out of this pandemic. With epidemiologists around the world increasingly accepting the reality that SARS-CoV-2 and its variants will become endemic viruses—like the seasonal flu—the push is on to develop antiviral medications that can be taken at home to prevent infections from leading to hospitalization and death. Today, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that the Biden Administration has authorized $3.2 billion to accelerate the development of antivirals already in the R&D pipeline, with the hope that at least one will be ready for release before the end of the year.

“The remarkable and rapid development of vaccines and testing technology has shown how agile scientific discovery can be,” said Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in an HHS statement. “We will leverage these same strengths as we construct a platform for the discovery and development of effective antivirals.” The plan will focus on 19 drugs currently being investigated for their antiviral potential, with a goal of accelerating their development to Phase 2 clinical trials. Last week, the Administration already placed a major bet on one of the 19, announcing that it will purchase up to 1.7 million doses of an antiviral being produced by Merck, pending emergency use authorization or full approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Of the $3.2 billion being allocated, $1.2 billion is going to fund the creation of what the HHS calls “collaborative drug discovery groups,” hoping that the push to create a COVID-19 treatment will also create a developmental infrastructure for other antivirals to treat other diseases.

The new drugs could not only fill the breach left by the vaccine-hesitant who are slowing the push in the U.S. and around the world to reach herd immunity, they could also serve as a backstop against breakthrough infections—cases of COVID-19 that occur even among the vaccinated. Late last month, for example, the CDC reported more than 10,000 breakthrough vaccinations in 46 states as of the end of April, at a time when just over 100 million vaccines had been administered in the U.S. In Massachusetts alone, there have currently been a total of 4,000 breakthrough infections recorded, reported the Boston Herald today. That’s still a relatively small number—representing just 0.1% of vaccinated people—but does make the new drugs attractive.

“New antivirals that prevent serious COVID-19 illness and death, especially oral drugs that could be taken at home early in the course of disease, would be powerful tools for battling the pandemic and saving lives,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in the HHS announcement.

New Artificial Heart Shows Promising Results in ‘Auto-Mode’

Newswise — June 18, 2021 – An experimental artificial heart includes an autoregulation control mechanism, or Auto-Mode, that can adjust to the changing needs of patients treated for end-stage heart failure. Outcomes in the first series of patients managed with the new heart replacement pump in Auto-Mode are presented in the ASAIO Journal, official journal of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

The study reports on the response to “pressure sensor-based autoregulation of blood flow” in ten patients for up to two years after implantation of the Carmat Total Artificial Heart (C‑TAH). “The C‑TAH Auto-Mode with built-in pressure sensors effectively produces appropriate physiological responses reflective of changing patients’ daily needs and thus provides almost physiological heart replacement therapy,” according to the new research. The lead author is Ivan Netuka, MD, of the Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague. Auto-Mode may increase independence and quality of life in severe heart failure

Heart replacement pumps can restore cardiac output in patients with end-stage, biventricular heart failure (affecting both sides of the heart) whose only other option is heart transplantation. However, to enable patients to go home from the hospital and return to their usual activities, the pump should emulate normal heart function, with minimal need for adjustment. To meet that goal, the C‑TAH incorporates an Auto-Mode that automatically adapts the pumping action of the right and left ventricles in response to pressure sensors located inside the device, based on parameters set by the physician. The goal is to mimic normal physiological responses to changing needs – particularly physical activity.

Dr. Netuka and colleagues analyzed the Auto-Mode’s performance in the first 10 patients undergoing C‑TAH implantation in early European clinical experience. The patients were all men, average age 60 years. The C‑TAH was used as a bridge to heart transplantation in six patients and as a permanently implanted device in four. In all patients, the artificial heart was successfully switched from manual control to Auto-Mode in the operating room. Auto-Mode led to “an immediate appropriate cardiac output response” to the targeted settings. Hemodynamic data recorded by the C‑TAH showed expected variations in pumping output of the left and right ventricles, in response to changes in pressures and heart rate. Heart rate averaged 78 to 128 beats per minute; blood pressure was normal as well.

Over almost five years of aggregate follow-up, medical teams made changes in the Auto-Mode settings just 20 times. Most adjustments were performed during the first 30 days after device placement. Only four were done after the patient went home from the hospital: a rate of about 1 change per 11 months. “The reduced need for device management changes may contribute to greater autonomy for patients outside of the hospital environment and improvement in their quality of life,” Dr. Netukaand coauthors write. They acknowledge that their study is an initial experience in a relatively small number of patients.

“Nevertheless,” they add, “it represents a significant leap towards the next stage more physiological heart replacement therapy. The overall experience of more than four years of device performance represents a positive and promising outcome for the patients while requiring only minimal intervention from the clinicians.” The researchers plan further refinements based on the preliminary results; future studies will provide data on response to exercise and hospital readmission rates. A US clinical trial of the C‑TAH is scheduled to begin soon.

Click here to read “First Clinical Experience With the Pressure Sensor–Based Autoregulation of Blood Flow in an Artificial Heart.”

Underwater Robot Offers New Insight Into Mid-Ocean “Twilight Zone”

Newswise — Woods Hole, MA — An innovative underwater robot known as Mesobot is providing researchers with deeper insight into the vast mid-ocean region known as the “twilight zone.” Capable of tracking and recording high-resolution images of slow-moving and fragile zooplankton, gelatinous animals, and particles, Mesobot greatly expands scientists’ ability to observe creatures in their mesopelagic habitat with minimal disturbance. This advance in engineering will enable greater understanding of the role these creatures play in transporting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the deep sea, as well as how commercial exploitation of twilight zone fisheries might affect the marine ecosystem.

In a paper published June 16 in Science Robotics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) senior scientist Dana Yoerger presents Mesobot as a versatile vehicle for achieving a number of science objectives in the twilight zone.  “Mesobot was conceived to complement and fill important gaps not served by existing technologies and platforms,” said Yoerger. “We expect that Mesobot will emerge as a vital tool for observing midwater organisms for extended periods, as well as rapidly identifying species observed from vessel biosonars. Because Mesobot can survey, track, and record compelling imagery, we hope to reveal previously unknown behaviors, species interactions, morphological structures, and the use of bioluminescence.”

Co-authored by research scientists and engineers from WHOI, MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute), and Stanford University, the paper outlines the robot’s success in autonomously tracking two gelatinous marine creatures during a 2019 research cruise in Monterey Bay. High-definition video revealed a “dinner plate” jellyfish “ramming” a siphonophore, which narrowly escaped the jelly’s venomous tentacles. Mesobot also recorded a 30-minute video of a giant larvacean, which appears to be nearly motionless but is actually riding internal waves that rise and fall 6 meters (20 feet). These observations represent the first time that a self-guided robot has tracked these small, clear creatures as they move through the water column like a “parcel of water,” said Yoerger.

“Mesobot has the potential to change how we observe animals moving through space and time in a way that we’ve never been able to do before,” said KakaniKatija, MBARI principal engineer. “As we continue to develop and improve on the vehicle, we hope to observe many other mysterious and captivating animals in the midwaters of the ocean, including the construction and disposal of carbon-rich giant larvacean ‘snot palaces.’”

Packaged in a hydrodynamically efficient yellow case, the hybrid robot is outfitted with a suite of oceanographic and acoustic survey sensors. It may be piloted remotely through a fiberoptic cable attached to a ship or released from its tether to follow pre-programmed missions or autonomously track a target at depths up to 1,000 meters (3,300 feet). This autonomous capability will one day enable Mesobot to follow a target animal for over 24 hours without human intervention, which is enough time to observe its migration from the midwater twilight zone to the surface and back. Future studies with Mesobot could provide researchers with valuable insight into animal behavior during diel vertical migration, known as “the greatest migration on Earth” because of the vast number and diversity of creatures that undertake it each night.

“By leveraging the data we’ve collected using Mesobot, and other data that we’ve been curating for 30-plus years at MBARI, we hope to integrate smarter algorithms on the vehicle that uses artificial intelligence to discover, continuously track, and observe enigmatic animals and other objects in the deep sea,” Kakani said. The design, construction, and initial testing for Mesobot was funded by the U.S. NSF program for Ocean Technology and Interdisciplinary Coordination (OTIC). The research in this paper was supported by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and WHOI’s Ocean Twilight Zone (OTZ) Project, funded as part of The Audacious Project housed at TED.

See more Mesobot here: https://youtu.be/5hjZtBvsmVY

6 Things AboutCOVID-19 Vaccine Card

Social media has been flooded with images of people proudly displaying their COVID-19 vaccination cards—and the impetus for doing that is understandable. While that little white card has helped bring a sense of normalcy to people across the country, one question remains: What should your patients do with their COVID-19 vaccination cards? One physician explains what to tell patients to keep in mind after receiving their vaccine card.

Get the latest COVID-19 vaccine updates

Scientific integrity and transparency secures trust in COVID-19 vaccines. Stay informed on vaccine developments with the AMA. More than 140 million people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Whether a person has received the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, everyone should receive a vaccination card. This card includes the data, location and which COVID-19 vaccine the person received. AMA member Purvi Parikh, MD, an allergist and immunologist as well as a vaccine researcher in New York City, shares what patients should know about their COVID-19 vaccination card.

Cover personal information

Many people have already shared photos with their COVID-19 vaccine card. But Dr. Parikh explained that it is important not to take a selfie with a vaccination card “because there’s actually been a lot of counterfeit cards being made.” Instead of taking a selfie with the vaccination card, Dr. Parikh recommends taking a photo while receiving the vaccine, which is what she did.

If a patient does want to take a selfie with their card, she recommends covering up personal information as well as the lot number and manufacturer because “someone could pretend to be you and copy the card—the same way someone can steal your identity for credit cards and other financial information.”

Have a backup copy

People who have received two doses of Pfizer or Moderna, or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, should consider having a backup copy of their vaccination card, says the CDC. One way to keep a COVID-19 vaccination card safe is to “make a copy of it,” said Dr. Parikh, noting that this can be done by “taking a photo on your cellphone—that way you have it easily accessible.” Additionally, “make sure all the information on the card is correct and up to date,” she said. If it is not, inform the vaccine provider of the incorrect information.

Skip card lamination

“We recommend not laminating especially because we don’t know yet if booster shots are going to be needed,” said Dr. Parikh. “We also don’t know if additional shots and information will need to be added either.” Instead, “keep the card in a plastic covering like those plastic holders for IDs at conventions to keep it from getting ruined, because once you laminate it you can’t write anything on it again,” she said.

Replacement can be complicated

“You don’t want to lose your card, but if you do lose it—that’s why the photo is helpful,” said Dr. Parikh. But if a card is lost, “you could always request another one from where you received your vaccine, which can be complicated, especially if you did it in one of those pop-up vaccine sites. “But the best way to go forward is to get another card,” she added, noting that “if you’re in the system they can verify that you did receive a COVID-19 vaccine.”

There’s no easy access to the data

The vaccination card is a patient’s personal proof of immunization. Their information is also recorded in their state’s immunization registry. And while it may currently be difficult to access data on who is vaccinated and who is not, Dr. Parikh is “hoping that improves as we get more people vaccinated.” “Our primary goal is to get people vaccinated—period,” she said. “As more people get vaccinated against COVID-19, we’ll be able to organize the data better, the same way we do for flu shots and other vaccinations.”

“Once we get to a place where infection rates are low enough, where it’s not a public health threat, we may not need to do all of these things,” said Dr. Parikh. “But for the foreseeable future, we will have to be prepared to follow precautions and maintain records of our vaccine cards.”

Share vaccination status with doctor

It is also important for patients to share that they have received a COVID-19 vaccination with their doctor to “enter into the electronic medical record or paper chart in their office,” Dr. Parikh said. This is similar to what “we do with other vaccines, so it becomes part of your medical record as well.” Sharing that you have been vaccinated against COVID-19 and having it entered into the EHR also helps “in the event a card is lost, or documentation is needed,” she said.

 

Memories From Age 2.5 Can Be Recalled

Newswise — On average the earliest memories that people can recall point back to when they were just two-and-a-half years old, a new study suggests. The findings, published in peer-reviewed journal Memory, pushes back the previous conclusions of the average age of earliest memories by a whole year. They are presented in a new 21-year study, which followed on from a review of already-existing data. “When one’s earliest memory occurs, it is a moving target rather than being a single static memory,” explains childhood amnesia expert and lead author Dr Carole Peterson, from Memorial University of Newfoundland.

“Thus, what many people provide when asked for their earliest memory is not a boundary or watershed beginning, before which there are no memories. Rather, there seems to be a pool of potential memories from which both adults and children sample. “And, we believe people remember a lot from age two that they don’t realize they do. That’s for two reasons. First, it’s very easy to get people to remember earlier memories simply by asking them what their earliest memory is, and then asking them for a few more. Then they start recalling even earlier memories -sometimes up to a full year earlier. It’s like priming a pump; once you get them started its self-prompting. Secondly, we’ve documented those early memories are systematically misdated. Over and over again we find people think they were older than they actually were in their early memories.”

For more than 20 years Dr Peterson has conducted studies on memory, with a particular focus on the ability of children and adults to recall their earliest years.This latest research reviewed 10 of her research articles on childhood amnesia followed by analyses of both published and unpublished data collected in Dr Peterson’s laboratory since 1999. It featured a total of 992 participants, and memories of 697 participants were then compared to the recollections of their parents.Overall, it shows that children’s earliest memories come before when they think it happened, as confirmed by their parents.

In some of the research reviewed by Peterson, the evidence to move our potential memory clock is “compelling”. For example, when reviewing a study which interviewed children after two and eight years had passed since their earliest memory they were able to recall the same memory, however in the subsequent interviews gave a later age as to when they occurred.”Eight years later many believed they were a full year older. So, the children, as they age, keep moving how old they thought they were at the time of those early memories,” says Dr Peterson, from the Department of Psychology at Memorial University.And she believes that the finding is due to something in memory dating called ‘telescoping’. “When you look at things that happened long ago, it’s like looking through a lens. The more remote a memory is, the telescoping effect makes you see it as closer. It turns out they move their earliest memory forward a year to about three and a half years of age. But we found that when the child or adult is remembering events from age four and up, this doesn’t happen.”

She says, after combing through all of the data, it clearly demonstrates people remember a lot more of their early childhood and a lot farther back than they think they do, and it’s relatively easy to help them access those memories.
“When you look at one study, sometimes things don’t become clear, but when you start putting together study after study and they all come up with the same conclusions, it becomes pretty convincing.”

It’s this lack of clarity which Dr Peterson states is a limitation of the research and, indeed, all research done to-date in the subject area.”What is needed now in childhood amnesia research are independently confirmed or documented external dates against which personally derived dates can be compared, as this would prevent telescoping errors and potential dating errors by parents,” Dr Peterson says. Such research – using verified dating – is currently ongoing both in her laboratory and elsewhere to further confirm the answer to this long-debated question.

Are UFOs Real? Discussions Ongoing…

After 75 years of taboo and ridicule, serious people can finally discuss the mysterious flying objects, and even skeptics say that’s a good thing.Stephen Bassett and Mick West don’t agree on much. Bassett has devoted much of his adult life to proving UFOs are helmed by aliens, and West has devoted much of his to proving they are not.
But they both agree on one thing: It’s good that, after nearly 75 years of taboo and ridicule going back to Roswell, New Mexico, serious people are finally talking seriously about the unidentified flying objects people see in the skies.

“If you look at the level of public interest, then I think it becomes important to actually look into these things,” said West, a former video game programmer turned UFO debunker. “Right now, there is a lot of suspicion that the government is hiding evidence of UFOs, which is quite understandable because there’s this wall of secrecy. It leads to suspicion and distrust of the government, which, as we’ve seen, can be quite dangerous.”

Later this month, the Pentagon is expected to deliver a report to Congress from a task force it established last year to collect information about what officials now call “unexplained aerial phenomena,” or UAPs, from across the government after pilots came forward with captivating videos that appear to show objects moving in ways that defy known laws of physics.While those who dabble in the unknowns of outer space are hoping for alien evidence, many others in government hope the report will settle whether the objects might be spy operations from neighbors on Earth, like the Chinese or Russians.

The highly anticipated report is expected to settle little, finding no evidence of extraterrestrial activity while not ruling it out either, according to officials, but it will jumpstart a long-suppressed conversation and open new possibilities for research and discovery and perhaps defense contracts.“If you step back and look at the larger context of how we’ve learned stuff about the larger nature of reality, some of it does come from studying things that might seem ridiculous or unbelievable,” Caleb Scharf, an astronomer who runs the Astrobiology Center at Columbia University.

Suddenly, senators and scientists, the Pentagon and presidents, former CIA directors and NASA officials, Wall Street executives and Silicon Valley investors are starting to talk openly about an issue that would previously be discussed only in whispers, if at all.“What is true, and I’m actually being serious here, is that there is footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are,” former President Barack Obama told late-night TV host James Corden.

The omertà has been broken thanks to a new generation of more professional activists with more compelling evidence, a few key allies in government and the lack of compelling national security justification for maintaining the official silence, which has failed to tamp down interest in UFOs.In a deeply polarized country where conspiracy theories have ripped apart American politics, belief in a UFO coverup seems relatively quaint and apolitical.’Truth embargo’Interest in UFOs waxes and wanes in American culture, but millions have questions and about one-third of Americans think we have been visited by alien spacecraft, according to Gallup.But those questions have been met with silence or laughter from authorities and the academy, leaving a vacuum that has been filled by conspiracy theorists, hoaxsters and amateur investigators.

West, the skeptic, thinks the recent videos that kicked off the latest UFO craze, including three published by the New York Times and CBS’ “60 Minutes,” can be explained by optical camera effects. But he would like to see the U.S. government thoroughly investigate and explain UFOs.The government has examined UFOs in the past but often in secret or narrow ways, and the current Pentagon task force is thought to be relatively limited in its mission and resources. In a new, leaked video, an unidentified object flies around a Navy ship off the coast of San Diego.U.S. Navy via Jeremy Corbell West pointed to models from other countries like Argentina, where an official government agency investigates sightings and publishes its findings, the overwhelming majority of which are traced to unusual weather, human objects like planes or optical effects.

“This is something that we could do here,” West said. “But right now we’re left with people like me, who are just enthusiasts.”John Podesta, a Democratic poobah who has held top jobs in several White Houses, has called on President Joe Biden’s White House to establish a new dedicated office in the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, which would help get the issue out of the shadows of the military and intelligence community.
Podesta, who has harbored an interest in UFOs since at least his days as Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, recently told Politico, “It was kind of career-ending to basically talk about this subject. That has clearly switched, and that’s a good thing.”Believers are unsurprisingly thrilled by the culture shift.

“The ‘truth embargo’ is coming to an end now,” said Bassett, the executive director of Paradigm Research Group and the only registered lobbyist in Washington dedicated to UFO disclosure. “I am elated to finally see this movement achieving its moment.”Bassett is convinced the government is covering up proof of extraterrestrial life and that everything happening now is elaborate political theater to make that information public in the least disruptive way possible — a view, of course, not supported by evidence or most experts. “This is the most profound event in human history that’s about to be taking place,” he said.

NASA’s Stunning Image Of The Spiral Galaxy NGC 4680

NASA has shared an image of the spiral galaxy NGC 4680 in all its glory. The image has been taken by the Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3.

NASA has shared a stunning image of the spiral galaxy NGC 4680 in all its glory. The image is said to have been taken by the Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. The NGC 4680 galaxy had earlier made news in 1997, as it played host to a supernova explosion known as SN 1997bp according to NASA. The supernova had been identified by Australian amateur astronomer Robert Evans who is said to have identified  42 supernova explosions.

NASA states that the NGC 4680 is a tricky galaxy to classify. The space agency further states that this is because the galaxy is sometimes referred to as a spiral galaxy, but it is also sometimes classified as a lenticular galaxy. Lenticular galaxies are said to fall somewhere in between spiral galaxies and elliptical galaxies. The NGC 4680 galaxy is said to have distinguishable spiral arms that are not clearly defined, and the tip of one arm appears very diffuse.

NASA says that Galaxies are not static, and their morphologies vary throughout their lifetimes. Over time, Spiral galaxies are believed to evolve into elliptical galaxies. NASA states that this is most likely due to the galaxies merging with one another, causing them to lose their distinctive spiral structures.//www.instagram.com/embed.js

 

US Approves New Alzheimer’s Drug

The first new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease for nearly 20 years has been approved by regulators in the United States, paving the way for its use in the UK. Aducanumab targets the underlying cause of Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, rather than its symptoms.Charities have welcomed the news of a new therapy for the condition. But scientists are divided over its potential impact because of uncertainty over the trial results. At least 100,000 people in the UK with a mild form of the disease could be suitable for the drug if it were to be approved by the UK regulator. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said there was “substantial evidence that aducanumab reduces amyloid beta plaques in the brain” and that this “is reasonably likely to predict important benefits to patients”.

Controversial trial

In March 2019, late-stage international trials of aducanumab, involving about 3,000 patients, were halted when analysis showed the drug, given as a monthly infusion, was not better at slowing the deterioration of memory and thinking problems than a dummy drug.But later that year, the US manufacturer Biogen analysed more data and concluded the drug did work, as long as it was given in higher doses. The company also said it significantly slowed cognitive decline.Aducanumab targets amyloid, a protein that forms abnormal clumps in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s that can damage cells and trigger dementia, including:

Aldo Ceresa, who took part in the trial, first noticed problems differentiating between left and right 10 years ago.After his diagnosis, the 68-year-old, who is originally from Glasgow and now lives in Oxfordshire, close to his family, had to give up his job as a surgeon.MrCeresa took aducanumab for two years before the trial was halted – and then had to wait almost as long for another trial, at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, in London, to begin.

“I’m quite happy to volunteer,” he says. “I really, really enjoy this journey that I’m going through – and obviously the benefits I’m getting from it, which I’m very, very grateful for.”He is convinced the drug has helped him. “I feel like I’m not quite as confused. Although it’s still there, it’s not quite as bad.  “And I’m just getting that bit more confident now.”MrCeresa says his family has noticed improvements too. “Before, if I was going to get something, I couldn’t remember, you know, where to find things in the kitchen.  “That has become less of a problem,” he says. “I haven’t caught up to the level that I was before – but I’m heading in the right direction.”More than 30 million people around the world are thought to have Alzheimer’s, with most aged over 65. For around 500,000 people affected in the UK, those eligible for aducanumab will be mostly in their 60s or 70s and at an early stage of the disease.

This is not a miracle drug, nor a cure for Alzheimer’s but it is the first treatment which tackles the destructive mechanism in the brain that drives the destruction of neurons.And that makes this a landmark moment. But scientific opinion both here and the United States is divided. While some have welcomed approval, calling it a milestone for millions living with Alzheimer’s, others believe the drug will only have marginal benefits.

Alzheimer’s charities say they will be pressing for an early decision in the UK – but that could take another year. Lastly, we don’t know how much aducanumab will cost – it could be tens of thousands of pounds per patient each year. And if approved, access will be limited to those who’ve had specialist brain scans to confirm their diagnosis.Despite all the caveats, this is moment for very cautious celebration.  Prof Bart De Strooper, director of the UK Dementia Research Institute, said the decision to approve aducanumab marked “a hugely significant milestone” in the search for treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.

In the past decade, more than 100 potential Alzheimer’s treatments have flopped.  But while he hoped it would prove a turning point for millions of people with the condition, he said there were “still many barriers to overcome”.Prof John Hardy, professor of neuroscience at University College London, said: “We have to be clear that, at best, this is a drug with marginal benefit which will help only very carefully selected patients.”And Prof Robert Howard, professor of old age psychiatry at UCL, went further calling the drug’s approval “a grave error” that could derail the ongoing search for meaningful dementia treatments “for a decade”.  He said the FDA had ignored data from the trial which showed no slowing of decline in cognition or function.

However, Alzheimer’s Society said the drug was “promising” but added it was “just the beginning of the road to new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease”.Another charity, Alzheimer’s Research UK, said it had written to the Health Secretary Matt Hancock asking the government to priorities the fast-track approval process for the drug in the UK. Chief executive Hilary Evans, said: “People with dementia and their families have been waiting far too long for life-changing new treatments.”It is now essential that regulatory authorities assess the evidence to decide whether they believe the drug is safe and effective for use in the UK.”Although many doctors are doubtful of aducanumab’s benefits, its US approval could be a huge boost to dementia research, which is traditionally underfunded compared with cancer or heart disease.

The Mysterious Origin Of The Northern Lights Has Been Proven

The aurora borealis, or northern lights, could easily be described as Earth’s greatest light show. A phenomenon that’s exclusive to the higher latitudes has had scientists in awe and wonder for centuries.A group of physicists from the University of Iowa have finally proven that the “most brilliant auroras are produced by powerful electromagnetic waves during geomagnetic storms,” according to a newly released study.

The study shows that these phenomena, also known as Alfven waves, accelerate electrons toward Earth, causing the particles to produce the light show we know as the northern light. The aurora borealis lights up the night sky in Iceland. “Measurements revealed this small population of electrons undergoes ‘resonant acceleration’ by the Alfven wave’s electric field, similar to a surfer catching a wave and being continually accelerated as the surfer moves along with the wave,” said Greg Howes, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Iowa and co-author of the study.

This idea of electrons “surfing” on the electric field is a theory first introduced in 1946 by a Russian physicist, Lev Landau, that was named Landau damping. His theory has now been proven.Recreating the northern lights Scientists have understood for decades how the aurora most likely is created, but they have now been able to simulate it, for the first time, in a lab at the Large Plasma Device (LPD) in UCLA’s Basic Plasma Science Facility.Scientists used a 20-meter-long chamber to recreate Earth’s magnetic field using the powerful magnetic field coils on UCLA’s LPD. Inside the chamber, scientists generated a plasma similar to what exists in space near the Earth.

“Using a specially designed antenna, we launched Alfven waves down the machine, much like shaking a garden hose up and down quickly, and watching the wave travel along the hose,” said Howes. As they began to experience the electrons “surfing” along the wave, they used another specialized instrument to measure how those electrons were gaining energy from the wave.

Although the experiment didn’t recreate the colorful shimmer we see in the sky, “our measurements in the laboratory clearly agreed with predictions from computer simulations and mathematical calculations, proving that electrons surfing on Alfven waves can accelerate the electrons (up to speeds of 45 million mph) that cause the aurora,” said Howes.

“These experiments let us make the key measurements that show that the space measurements and theory do, indeed, explain a major way in which the aurora are created,” said Craig Kletzing, the study co-author.Space scientists around the country were ecstatic to hear the news. “I was tremendously excited! It is a very rare thing to see a laboratory experiment that validates a theory or model concerning the space environment,” said Patrick Koehn, a scientist in the Heliophysics Division of NASA. “Space is simply too big to easily simulate in the lab.”

Koehn said he believes being able to understand the acceleration mechanism for the aurora-causing electrons will be helpful in many studies in the future.”It does help us understand space weather better! The electron acceleration mechanism verified by this project is at work elsewhere in the solar system, so it will find many applications in space physics. It will be of use in space weather forecasting as well, something that NASA is very interested in,” Koehn said in an email to CNN.

A long way to goNow that the theory of how the illuminating aurora is created has been proven, there’s still a long way to go in forecasting how strong each storm will be.”Predicting how strong a particular geomagnetic storm will be, based on observations of the Sun and measurements from spacecraft between the Earth and the Sun, remains an unsolved challenge,” said Howes in an email.”We have established the link of electrons surfing on Alfven waves about 10,000 miles above the Earth’s surface, and now we must learn how to predict the strength of those Alfven waves using spacecraft observations,” he added.

Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified the affiliation of the physicists who wrote the study. They are from the University of Iowa.

After 24,000 Years Frozen In Siberia, An Arctic Animal Just Came Back To Life

A microscopic multi-celled organism has returned to life after being frozen for 24,000 years in Siberia, according to new research. Scientists dug up the animal known as a bdelloid rotifer from the Alayeza River in the Russian Arctic.
Once thawed, it was able to reproduce asexually, after spending millennia in a state of frozen animation known as crytobiosis. Previous research said they could survive frozen for up to 10 years.

But the new study, published in Current Biology on Monday, suggested they could last for thousands of years, if not indefinitely. “The takeaway is that a multicellular organism can be frozen and stored as such for thousands of years and then return back to life – a dream of many fiction writers,” StasMalavin, of Russia’s Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science, told the Press Association.He said more research was needed to see how it achieved the feat. The scientists in the study froze and thawed dozens of the animals in a laboratory to examine the process. Radiocarbon dating aged the bdelloid rotifer specimen at between 23,960 and 24,485 years old.Bdelloid rotifers are a class of rotifer found in freshwater environments around the world. The name rotifer comes from the Latin meaning “wheel bearer”.

The creatures are known for their ability to withstand extremes. They are one of the Earth’s most radioactive-resistant animals, according to the New York Times, which reports they can also withstand low oxygen, starvation, high acidity and years of dehydration.There are reports of other multi-celled organisms coming back to life after thousands of years, including a nematode worm, as well as some plants and mosses.

Stems of Antarctic moss were successfully regrown from a 1,000-year-old sample that had been covered by ice for about 400 years, and a living campion flower was regenerated from seed tissue, likely stored by an Arctic squirrel, that had been preserved in 32,000-year-old permafrost. Simple worms, called nematodes, were revived from the permafrost from two places in northeastern Siberia, in sediments that were more than 30,000 years old.Long-dead but well-preserved mammals, including extinct cave bears and mammoths, have also been unearthed from the permafrost, which is thawing in some places as aresult of the climate crisis.

Rising Global Temperatures ‘Inexorably Closer’ To Climate Tipping Point: UN

The WMO report predicts an increased chance of tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean, that Africa’s Sahel and Australia will likely be wetter, and that the southwest of Northern America is likely to be drier.

There is now a 40% chance that global temperatures will temporarily reach 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels in the next five years — and these odds are rising, a U.N. report said on Wednesday.This does not yet mean that the world would already be crossing the long-term warming 1.5-degree threshold set by the Paris Climate Accord, which scientists warn is the ceiling to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. The Paris Accord target looks at temperature over a 30-year average, rather than a single year.

But it does underscore that “we are getting measurably and inexorably closer” to that threshold, said U.N. World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Petteri Taalas in a statement. Taalas described the study as “yet another wakeup call” to slash greenhouse gas emissions.Every year from 2021 through 2025 is likely to be at least 1℃ warmer, according to the study. The report also predicts a 90% chance that at least one of those years will become the warmest year on record, topping 2016 temperatures.

In 2020 – one of the three warmest years on record – the global average temperature was 1.2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial baseline, according to an April WMO report.”There’s a little bit of up and down in the annual temperatures,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City. “But these long term-trends are unrelenting.””It seems inevitable that we’re going to cross these boundaries,” Schmidt said, “and that’s because there are delays in the system, there is inertia in the system, and we haven’t really made a big cut to global emissions as yet.”

Almost all regions are likely to be warmer in the next five years than in the recent past, the WMO said. The WMO uses temperature data from multiple sources including NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).Weather that was once unusual is now becoming typical. Earlier this month, for example, NOAA released its updated “climate normals,” which provide baseline data on temperature and other climate measures across the United States. The new normals — updated every 10 years — showed that baseline temperatures across the United States are overwhelmingly higher compared with the past decade.

Temperatures shifts are occurring both on average and in temperature extremes, said Russell Vose, chief of the climatic analysis and synthesis branch at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. Over the next five years, these extremes are “more likely what people will notice and remember,” he said.Warming temperatures also affect regional and global precipitation. As temperatures rise, evaporation rates increase and warmer air can hold more moisture. Climate change also can shift circulation patterns in the atmosphere and ocean.

The WMO report predicts an increased chance of tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean, that Africa’s Sahel and Australia will likely be wetter, and that the southwest of Northern America is likely to be drier.The projections are part of a recent WMO effort to provide shorter-range forecasts of temperature, rainfall and wind patterns, to help nations keep tabs on how climate change may be disrupting weather patterns.Looking at marine and land heat waves, ice sheets melting, ocean heat content rising, and species migrating toward colder places, “it’s more than just temperature,” Vose said. “There are other changes in the atmosphere and in the ocean and in the ice and in the biosphere that all point to a warming world.”

40% Chance Earth To Be Hotter Than Paris Goal Soon

There’s a 40% chance that the world will get so hot in the next five years that it will temporarily push past the temperature limit the Paris climate agreement is trying to prevent, meteorologists said. A new World Meteorological Organization forecast for the next several years also predicts a 90% chance that the world will set yet another record for the hottest year by the end of 2025 and that the Atlantic will continue to brew more potentially dangerous hurricanes than it used to.For this year, the meteorologists say large parts of land in the Northern Hemisphere will be 1.4 degrees (0.8 degrees Celsius) warmer than recent decades and that the U.S. Southwest’s drought will continue.

The 2015 Paris climate accord set a goal of keeping warming to a few tenths of a degree warmer from now. The report said there is a 40% chance that at least one of the next five years will be 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than pre-industrial times — the more stringent of two Paris goals. The world is already 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial times. Last year, the same group forecasted a 20% chance of it happening.

The doubling of the odds is due to improvements in technology that show it has “actually warmed more than we thought already,” especially over the lightly-monitored polar regions, said Leon Hermanson, a climate scientist at the United Kingdom’s Met Center who helped on the forecast. “It’s a warning that we need to take strong action,” Hermanson said.

Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann, who wasn’t part of the report, said he is “almost certain” the world will exceed that Paris warming threshold at least once in the next few years. But he said one or two years above 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) isn’t as worrisome as when the overall trend of temperatures stays above that level. Mann said that won’t happen probably for decades and could still be prevented.

China Comes Under Scrutiny As Study Backs Lab Theory For Covid Origin

Amid calls for a fresh probe into the origins of Covid-19, a new study has claimed that Chinese scientists created the virus in a laboratory in Wuhan and then tried to cover their tracks by reverse-engineering versions of the virus to make it look like it evolved naturally from bats.The virus has no “credible natural ancestor” and was created by Chinese scientists who were working on a gain-of-function research in a Wuhan lab, The Daily Mail reported on Sunday, citing a research paper compiled by British expert Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Birger Sorensen.

Incidentally, gain-of-function projects, which involve tweaking natural viruses to make them more infectious, were banned in the US during the Obama years.The research claims scientists took a natural coronavirus “backbone” found in China’s cave bats and spliced onto it a new “spike”, turning it into the Covid-19 virus. The researchers also claim to have found “unique fingerprints” in Covid-19 samples that they say could have arisen from manipulation in a laboratory.

The authors claim they had prima facie evidence of retro-engineering in China for a year. The study alleged “deliberate destruction, concealment or contamination of data” at Chinese labs. In the paper that is likely to be published in the journal Quarterly Review of Biophysics Discovery, Dalgleish and Sorensen claim to have concluded how Chinese scientists built the tools to create the coronavirus.

President Joe Biden’s directive to the US intelligence community to redouble their efforts to collect information to facilitate a definitive conclusion on the origin of Sars-CoV-2 has angered China, which said on Thursday that the US is playing politics. The country, where the virus was first detected in late 2019, again dismissed the theory that it could have leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, ground zero of the pandemic.India on Friday backed calls for further investigation into the origin of Covid-19, and sought the cooperation of China and other parties for such studies, days after US President Joe Biden gave intelligence agencies 90 days to submit a fresh report at a time when scientists are seeking deeper examination of a theory that the virus may have originated in a lab.

External affairs ministry spokesperson ArindamBagchi said that a World Health Organization (WHO)-led study into a virus’s origin was an “important first step”, and more studies were needed to reach “robust conclusions”.“WHO convened global study on the origin of Covid-19 is an important first step. It stressed the need for next phase studies as also for further data and studies to reach robust conclusions,” Bagchi said in a statement. Without naming China, he added, “The follow up of the WHO report and further studies deserve the understanding and cooperation of all.”

British intelligence agencies believe it is “feasible” that the pandemic began with a virus leak from the Chinese lab, The Sunday Times reported on Sunday, prompting vaccines minister NadhimZahawi to demand that the World Health Organization must fully investigate the origins of the deadly virus.

Roots Of Major Depression Revealed In All Its Genetic Complexity

Newswise — A massive genome-wide association study (GWAS) of genetic and health records of 1.2 million people from four separate data banks has identified 178 gene variants linked to major depression, a disorder that will affect one of every five people during their lifetimes.

The results of the study, led by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) researchers at Yale University School of Medicine and University of California-San Diego (UCSD), may one day help identify people most at risk of depression and related psychiatric disorders and help doctors prescribe drugs best suited to treat the disorder.The study was published May 27 in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

For the study, the research team analyzed medical records and genomes collected from more than 300,000 participants in the V.A.’s Million Veteran Program (MVP), one of the largest and most diverse databanks of genetic and medical information in the world.These new data were combined in a meta-analysis with genetic and health records from the UK Biobank, FinnGen (a Finland-based biobank), and results from the consumer genetics company 23andMe. This part of the study included 1.2 million participants. The researchers crosschecked their findings from that analysis with an entirely separate sample of 1.3 million volunteers from 23andMe customers.

When the two sets of data from the different sources were compared, genetic variants linked to depression replicated with statistical significance for most of the markers tested.”What is most heartening is we could replicate our findings in independent data sets,” said Daniel Levey, an associate research scientist in the Yale Department of Psychiatry and co-lead author. “Replication is a hallmark of good science, and this paper points to just how reliable and stable results from GWAS studies are becoming.”

Like many mental health disorders, depression is genetically complex and is characterized by combinations of many different genetic variants, the researchers say.”That’s why we weren’t surprised by how many variants we found,” said Joel Gelernter, the Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry at Yale, professor of genetics and of neuroscience, and co-senior author of the study. “And we don’t know how many more there are left to discover — hundreds? Maybe even thousands?”

The size of the new GWAS study will help clinicians to develop polygenic risk scores to pinpoint those most at risk of developing major depression and other related psychiatric disorders such as anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, the authors say.The study also provides deep insights into the underlying biology of genetic disorders. For instance, one gene variant implicated in depression, NEGR1, is a neural growth regulator active in the hypothalamus, an area of the brain previously linked to depression. That confirms research done by the late Yale neuroscientist Ronald Duman on the role of neurotrophic factors in depression, Levey said.

“It’s really striking when completely different kinds of research converge on similar biology, and that’s what’s happening here,” he said.Insights into the functions of the variants can also help identify many drugs that hold promise in the treatment of depression, the researchers say. For instance, the drug riluzole, which is approved for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), modulates glutamate transmission in brain. Several gene variants linked by the new study to depression affect the glutamate system, which is actively being studied for depression treatments.

“One of the real goals of the research is bringing forward new ways to treat people suffering from depression,” added co-senior author Dr. Murray Stein, staff psychiatrist at the V.A. San Diego Healthcare System and Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Public Health at UCSD. Research was primarily funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, including the Million Veteran Program and the Cooperative Studies Program. Levey also received support from a NARSAD Young Investigator Award from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.

What Causes The Deep Earth’s Most Mysterious Earthquakes?

Newswise — Washington, DC– The cause of Earth’s deepest earthquakes has been a mystery to science for more than a century, but a team of Carnegie scientists may have cracked the case.New research published in AGU Advances provides evidence that fluids play a key role in deep-focus earthquakes–which occur between 300 and 700 kilometers below the planet’s surface. The research team includes Carnegie scientists Steven Shirey, Lara Wagner, Peter van Keken, and Michael Walter, as well as the University of Alberta’s Graham Pearson.

Most earthquakes occur close to the Earth’s surface, down to about 70 kilometers. They happen when stress builds up at a fracture between two blocks of rock–known as a fault–causing them to suddenly slide past each other.However, deeper into the Earth, the intense pressures create too much friction to allow this kind of sliding to occur and the high temperatures enhance the ability of rocks to deform to accommodate changing stresses. Though theoretically unexpected, scientists have been able to identify earthquakes that originate more than 300 kilometers below the surface since the 1920s.

“The big problem that seismologists have faced is how it’s possible that we have these deep-focus earthquakes at all,” said Wagner. “Once you get a few tens of kilometers down, it becomes incredibly difficult to explain how we are getting slip on a fault when the friction is so incredibly high.”

Ongoing work over the past several decades has shown us that water plays a role in intermediate-depth earthquakes–those that occur between 70 and 300 kilometers below Earth’s surface. In these instances, water is released from minerals, which weakens the rock around the fault and allows the blocks of rock to slip. However, scientists didn’t think this phenomenon could explain deep-focus earthquakes, largely because it was believed that water and other fluid-creating compounds couldn’t make it far enough down into the Earth’s interior to provide a similar effect.This thinking changed for the first time when Shirey and Wagner compared the depths of rare deep-Earth diamonds to the mysterious deep-focus earthquakes.

“Diamonds form in fluids” explained Shirey, “if diamonds are there, fluids are there.”The diamonds themselves indicated the presence of fluids, however, they also brought samples of the deep-Earth to the surface for the scientists to study. When diamonds form in the Earth’s interior, they sometimes capture pieces of mineral from the surrounding rock. These minerals are called inclusions and they may make your jewelry less expensive, but they are invaluable to Earth scientists. They are one of the only ways scientists can study direct samples of our planet’s deep interior.

The diamond’s inclusions had the distinct chemical signature of similar materials found in oceanic crust. This means that the water and other materials weren’t somehow created deep in the Earth’s interior. Instead, they were carried down as part of a sinking oceanic plate.Said Wagner: “The seismology community had moved away from the idea that there could be water that deep. But diamond petrologists like Steve were showing us samples and saying ‘No, no, no. There’s definitely water down here’ So then we all had to get together to figure out how it got down there.”

To test the idea, Wagner and van Keken built advanced computational models to simulate the temperatures of sinking slabs at much greater depths than had been attempted before. In addition to the modeling, Walter examined the stabilities of the water-bearing minerals to show that under the intense heat and pressures of the Earth’s deep interior, they would, indeed, be capable of holding on to water in certain conditions. The team showed that even though warmer plates didn’t hold water, the minerals in the cooler oceanic plates could theoretically carry water to the depths we associate with deep-focus earthquakes.

To solidify the study the team compared the simulations to real-life seismological data. They were able to show that the slabs that could theoretically carry water to these depths were also the ones experiencing the previously unexplained deep earthquakes.This study is unusual in applying four different disciplines–geochemistry, seismology, geodynamics, and petrology–to the same question, all of which point to the same conclusion: water and other fluids are a key component of deep-focus earthquakes.

“The nature of deep earthquakes is one of the big questions in geoscience,” said Shirey. “We needed all four of these different disciplines to come together to make this argument. It turned out we had them all in-house at Carnegie.”The authors thank the Carnegie Institution for Science and the University of Alberta for continuing support. Diamond research is supported by the Deep Carbon Observatory and the U.S. National Science Foundation.

The Carnegie Institution for Science (carnegiescience.edu) is a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with three research divisions on both coasts. Since its founding in 1902, the Carnegie Institution has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research. Carnegie scientists are leaders in the life and environmental sciences, Earth and planetary science, and astronomy and astrophysics.

Will The Blind Be Able To See Again? There Is Hope For Millions

The darkness descends slowly for people with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a degenerative eye disease that affects 2 million people worldwide. The condition is typically diagnosed in childhood or adolescence, but it can take until middle age before a person’s vision has deteriorated severely enough that they are fully or effectively blind. When the lights finally do go out, however, they stay out.

Or that’s the way things used to be. In a breakthrough study published today in Nature Medicine, investigators report a relatively simple yet remarkably effective way to restore partial vision to RP patients—one that, with further study, may soon have wide application.

The key lies in the rod-shaped photoreceptors that principally govern peripheral vision and the cone-shaped receptors that give us our central view of the world. In people with RP, mutations in more than 70 genes cause slow deterioration of the rods, leading to tunnel vision, and later the cones, leading to blindness. Light still streams into the eye through the unaffected lens, and that light could still make its way to the brain via the optic nerve. But the retina, which lies between the two, no longer works.

A team of researchers, led by Dr. José-Alain Sahel, professor of ophthalmology at Sorbonne University and the University of Pittsburgh, however, thought they might have a way to bring the retina back into the game: ChrimsonR, a protein that opens electrical channels in neurons and makes them reactive to light. The trick was finding a way to deliver the protein—and the answer was to genetically manipulate a harmless adenovirus so that it carried ChrimsonR; the virus was then injected into the fluid-filled portion of the eye behind the lens.

“The ChrimsonR sparks electrical activity,” says Sahel. “It transforms the cells and makes them able to absorb light, though it takes a while—about four months—for the cells to take up the virus and the protein with it.”

Nonhuman primate studies showed that the technique did not harm the eye, and also helped the researchers establish the proper dose of Chrimson4 to sensitize the retinal cells. For the human trial, Sahel and his team worked with a 58-year-old man who had been diagnosed with RP 40 years earlier and whose vision was limited to rudimentary light perception. They treated the poorer functioning of his two eyes—in order to spare the marginally healthier one if anything went wrong with the experiment—and injected it with a single dose of the altered virus.

Assuming the experiment worked, the next steps would not be nearly so simple as waiting the required four months or so until the man’s vision simply returned in the treated eye. ChrimsonR is not remotely sufficient to restore the exquisitely complex interplay of rods and cones that give healthy eyes their rich, colorful, three-dimensional view of the world. Rather, it sensitizes cells mostly in the amber spectrum, making shapes and shadows discernible at that color frequency. What’s more, a healthy retina reacts in real time to the amount and intensity of light striking it, becoming more reactive in low-light conditions and less reactive in bright light, to prevent damage to retinal cells. To see at all through the treated eye, the patient needs to wear a pair of goggles that shifts incoming light to the amber spectrum and regulates it to a safe intensity.

“The eye needs a lot of light, but there is the danger that it could be a toxic level,” says Sahel. “Without the goggles it could be like the patient looking directly into the sun.”

While waiting for the ChrimsonR to take effect, members of Sahel’s team worked with the patient, training him with the goggles and running tests to see if he could distinguish objects placed on a table, point to them, count them, and pick them up. Over repeated trials, there were no results—until finally, as Sahel recalls it, he got a call from one of his team members with a simple message: “He sees.”

At right around the four-month mark, the subject began achieving remarkable results on all of the lab tests. And in the months since that breakthrough, he has become able to navigate his world in new ways: he can detect the crosswalk at an intersection and count the number of white stripes demarcating it; perceive objects like a plate, a mug and a phone; spot a piece of furniture in a room and see a door in a corridor. “He can also,” adds Sahel, “detect where people are.”

Sahel believes the results will be long-lasting, or even close to permanent. “We think this could last at least 10 years or it could be for a lifetime,” he says. “If not, we can always go back and re-inject.”

As to whether the treatment is ready for practical application beyond the one patient, Sahel says the answer is “a small yes and a big no.” The small yes is that the work was merely a feasibility study (but by any measure, it succeeded spectacularly). The big no is that a great deal more research must be conducted to learn more about dosing levels, to improve both the goggles and the training patients go through to use them, and to figure out when in the course of a person’s RP is the right time to begin the treatment—Sahel notes that for now, at least the procedure is only for people with very advanced disease. “People with RP can retain central vision for many years,” he says. “You always have to weigh the benefit versus the risk.”

AAPI’s Premier Academic Journal (JAAPI) Inaugurated By Dr. Susan R. Bailey, AMA President

Many years of meticulous planning, hard work and concerted efforts by several leaders have resulted in American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) launching its own premier academic initiative, Journal of American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (JAAPI) today, Dr. SudhakarJonnalagadda.

“Many years of meticulous planning, hard work and concerted efforts by several leaders have resulted in American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) launching its own premier academic initiative, Journal of American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (JAAPI) today,” Dr. SudhakarJonnalagadda, President of AAPI said in his opening remarks. Describing the inauguration of JAAPI as “a historical milestone for AAPI” Dr. Jonnalagadda said, “We are deeply honored to have Dr. Bailey inaugurate JAAPI tonight.”

Dr. Susan R. Bailey, President of American Medication Association (AMA), who was the Chief Guest and Distinguished speaker at the launch event, inaugurated JAAPI on Wednesday, May 12, 2021 during a solemn virtual ceremony, attended by hundreds of AAPI members and supporters from around the nation.Dr. Susan R. Bailey, while inaugurating JAAPI said, “It’s my pleasure to celebrate the launch of JAAPI. On behalf of AMA we congratulate AAPI for this new initiative, which will be a great source of medical education. We applaud you and looking forward to reading your great contributions in the years to come.”

Dr. Sajani Shah, Chair of AAPI BOT,  while describing the launch of JAAPI as a “Monumental moment for all at AAPI,” said,  “As a second generation physician of Indian Origin, we are excited at AAPI launching its own Medical Journal. I want to congratulate AAPI for launching a scientific journal that will help writers in the US, in India and around the world.”Dr. AnupamaGotimukula, President-Elect of AAPI while congratulating the AAPI family said, “This is the fruit of our team work and it’s a good opportunity for the members of AAPI to contribute scientific articles, and make it better as we move on.”

“This is a historical milestone in the annals of AAPI. The foundation for this milestone was laid one year ago in February 2020 by our visionary leaders, Drs. SudhakarJonnalagadda and Suresh Reddy,” said Dr. Bellomkonda Kishore, the Founding Editor in Chief of JAAPI said.  Describing the vision and the efforts that have given shape to the launching of JAAPI, Dr. Kishore said, “A Peer Review Journal needs group synergy and cultivation of the culture of peer-review process and publication. It is like agriculture – crop after crop. But the very fact that we are able to assemble a passionate and diligent team of editorial board members, and developed the required group synergy and culture bringing out the journal as planned, itself is a sign that AAPI has reached a level of academic maturity, capability and perfection.”

Dr. Kishore is hopeful that the talented and dedicated Editorial Team will be able to “sustain the journal, and take it to new heights over time.” The inaugural issue of JAAPI has “excellent contributions by eminent physicians and scientists, and has come out beyond our expectations and in an outstanding manner. We are committed to maintain the same standards in the future. Excellence and thoroughness are our motto.”

After one year of publication, JAAPI will be registered with MEDLINE so that it will be indexed in PubMed and other databases. JAAPI is a fully Open Access journal with no manuscript submission or publication charges. And we welcome articles by authors from all over the world without any restrictions. We are also open to eminent academicians wishing to join the editorial board. Details are provided in the journal. JAAPI follows next generation peer-review model by which it discloses the identity of editors and reviewers after publication, but the review process itself is blind. This will give due credit to editors and reviewers, and also ensures fair review process. The cover page is designed to reflect the heart of AAPI, an association of Indian American Physicians – with colors of the flag of India, our motherland, on top and the red and white stripes of American flag, over which the AAPI emblem rests, indicating the way we adopted this Great Land, Dr. Kishore explained.

Dr. Vemuri S. Murthy, an Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, an Advisor to the Journal of AAPI, and Chairman of the AAPI Webinar CME Committee and Program Director of the CME Program, introduced Dr. Bailey to the audience.

“Physician Leadership In Times of Crisis & Transition” was the theme of an hour long CME presented by Dr. Bailey at the conclusion of the JAAPI launch ceremony. The insightful and practically oriented CME was organized by American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, in affiliation with Chicago Medical Society and in association with Indian American Medical Association of Illinois IAMA (IL.)

In her address, Dr. Bailey shared with AAPI members as to how the pandemic has “ tested physicians as never been before. My heart breaks for what I see is happening in India,” she said. Describing Covid as a grave threat, Dr. Bailey said, “It needs to be addressed globally. I hope the current US administration can render all possible help to India and other nations.” Acknowledging that physicians “have the power to bring in changes to the delivery of healthcare,” Dr. Bailey thanked all the medical professionals. “Your work has been extraordinary. Many have died serving the sick and worked tirelessly to help the sick. AMA has stood with them every step of the way, by offering evidence based support to all healthcare professionals.

While extending full support for the strengthening of Affordable Care Act, Dr. Bailey said, AMA has advocated for loans and financial help to physicians and for PPE and vaccine development and its distribution.  “Vaccination has helped us but we are still far away. The need is to have maximum people to be vaccinated. This gives us an opportunity to be vaccine ambassadors by advocating for vaccination,” she said.

Dr. SunitaKanumury moderated the Q&A at the end of the presentation by Dr. Susan Bailey. Dr. Kanumury is an AAPI Delegate to AMA and a past President of AAPI. Dr.Kanumury is a practicing Allergy and Immunology specialist in Livingston, New Jersey, with multiple Hospital Affiliations.

Dr. Murthy congratulated the Editor-in-Chief, “Dr. Kishore Bellamkonda, whose vision and energetic leadership resulted in the AAPI’s Academic Emblem, JAAPI.” On behalf of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin and other Medical Societies, and the JAAPI Committee. Dr. Murthy expressed deep appreciation and thanked Dr. Susan R. Bailey, Dr. Peter C. Agre, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 2003; Dr. Mario R.Capecchi, Nobel Laureate in Medicine or Physiology 2007; Dr. Mitchell S.V. Elkind, President, American Heart Association, and Dr. Nageshwar Reddy, Director, Asian Institute of Gastroenterology, for their immense support and help.For more information on AAPI and to read the inaugural edition of JAAPI, please visit: www.aapiusa.org

 

Study Finds, More Nurses Lead To Fewer Patient Deaths, Shorter Hospital Stays

A minimum ratio of one nurse to four patients for day shifts can successfully improve patient care, with a 7 per cent drop in the chance of death and readmission, and 3 per cent reduction in length of stay for every one less patient a nurse has on their workload, according to a study across 55 hospitals in Queensland, Australia.

In 2016, 27 public hospitals in Queensland were required to instate a minimum of one dedicated nurse for every four patients during day shifts and one for every seven patients for night shifts on medical-surgical wards.The study, published in The Lancet, examined more than 400,000 patients and 17,000 nurses in 27 hospitals that implemented the policy and compared with 28 hospitals that did not. The comparison hospitals had no change in staffing, with six patients per nurse in 2016 and the same ratio (1:6) in the follow-up period in 2018.

The findings showed that the chance of death rose between 2016 and 2018 by 7 per cent in hospitals that did not implement the policy, and fell by 11 per cent in hospitals that did implement the policy.The chances of being re-admitted increased by 6 per cent in the comparison hospitals over time, but stayed the same in hospitals that implemented the policy. Between 2016 and 2018, the length of stay fell by 5 per cent in the hospitals that did not implement the policy, and by 9 per cent in hospitals that did.

Further analyses found that when nurse workloads improved by one less patient per nurse, the chance of death and readmissions fell by 7 per cent, and the length of hospital stay dropped by 3 per cent.“Our findings plug a crucial data gap that has delayed a widespread roll-out of nurse staffing mandates. Opponents of these policies often raise concerns that there is no clear evaluation of policy, so we hope that our data convinces people of the need for minimum nurse-to-patient ratios by clearly demonstrating that quality nursing is vital to patient safety and care,” said lead author, Matthew McHugh from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, US. (IANS)

Treatments For Covid-19

The world remains in turmoil over SARS-CoV-2. But, ground-breaking progress in global vaccination has been made in India through Covishield and Covaxin.

Multiple scientific advances in the 21st century have given us a lifeline in nature’s arms race. The world, however, remains in turmoil over SARS-CoV-2, which is continuing to plague even our largest economies, with India being no exception. Ground-breaking progress in global vaccination has been made in India through Covishield and Covaxin. Despite this progress, the country now has the highest per-day rate of positive cases in the world. Furthermore, it is unlikely that vaccines will reach most of the population necessary to stop the spread of the virus. Another major problem in India is for the critically ill with Covid-19, who require mechanical ventilation, as ventilators and trained operators are in short supply in India’s overtaxed hospital system. Beyond this, the mortality rate with invasive mechanical ventilation is at 70%. Both grim facts highlight the overwhelming need to avoid invasive mechanical ventilation. What can India do to combat this? The answer lies within a diversified approach to target treatment of Covid-19 rather than solely addressing infection prevention.

WHAT TOOLS DO WE HAVE TO TREAT COVID-19?
The repurposing of previously used drugs is of great value to patients within our suffocating healthcare systems. Remdesivir, an antiviral treatment previously used for SARS and MERS, has been applied to Covid-19 patients. The efficacy of remdesivir’s five- to ten-day treatment course in hospitalized Covid-19 patients has been globally debated by leading international health care organizations and scientists. The drug demonstrated improvement in recovery in a randomized, double-blind clinical trial versus a placebo group. The US Food and Drug Administration granted the drug emergency use authorization in October 2020 for Covid-19 patients requiring hospitalization. Marketed as Veklury™, remdesivir has recently been approved in India. Manufacture and distributions have been significantly accelerated by scaling up batch sizes, contracting local manufacturers, and adding production facilities. The opportunity exists to curb the damage of SARS-CoV-2 if the region is willing to adapt its current practices to the rapidly changing needs.

Dexamethasone, an inexpensive corticosteroid, is an older drug that has been found most beneficial in hospitalized patients who require invasive mechanical ventilation. Yet, when given too early in Covid-19, for example, when supplemental oxygen is not required, dexamethasone may be detrimental. Dexamethasone may also be inappropriate for use in patients that have co-morbidities such as obesity and diabetes. Dexamethasone has been used to reduce cellular immune responses and treat patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). It is now repurposed to combat severe symptoms of Covid-19 and is one tool in the Covid-19 treatment armamentarium.

With the crisis pushing us to innovate, we are learning about newer drugs that can fight the virus’ effects. One such promising medication is lenzilumab, a drug created by Humanigen, based in the United States. Lenzilumab targets the initiation of “cytokine storm,” the hyper inflammation consequent to SARS-Cov-2 infection that leads to critical illness in many patients. In the LIVE-AIR phase 3 clinical trial, lenzilumab improved the likelihood of survival and/or ventilation by 54%, over and above remdesivir and dexamethasone, in newly hospitalized Covid-19 patients, who required supplemental oxygen but had not yet progressed to invasive mechanical ventilation. The effect of this one-day treatment was most beneficial in patients who were less than 85 years old and had a biomarker of early hyperinflammatory response; in which lenzilumab improved the likelihood of survival and/or ventilation by nearly three-fold.
Other innovative treatments include tocilizumab (Regeneron) and otilimab (Glaxo Smith Kline). Tocilizumab works on a downstream mediator in the cytokine storm. The open-label RECOVERY study showed that tocilizumab improved survival and other clinical outcomes in hospitalized Covid-19 patients who required respiratory support. However, results from other trials are conflicting, including one that found no benefit in clinical status or survival. Otilimab, like lenzilumab, also targets the early steps in cytokine storm. Otilimab failed to achieve its primary endpoint in a clinical trial, but an exploratory analysis found that it provided benefit in hospitalized, ventilated Covid-19 patients who were over 70 years of age—an effect that is being explored in an additional clinical trial.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?
To date, more than 20 million confirmed cases of coronavirus are reported in India, with an exponential increase in cases over the past month. More than 222,408 people have died, but survivors, funeral directors, and scientists say the actual numbers of infections and deaths in India may be many times more than the reported figures. Therapies, which are quick and easy to administer, can help countries struggling to contain SARS-CoV-2. A new urgency to investigate alternative treatments for Covid-19 is imperative, as this pandemic is suspected of remaining present for several years.
Lessons are to be learned from the case of Hepatitis C. While vaccines for Hepatitis A and B are available and frequently used, the Hepatitis C virus constantly mutates and has escaped the development of an effective vaccine. However, Hepatitis C treatment has been successfully developed. So why should approaches to Covid-19 be different?

WHAT IS THERE TO OVERCOME?
A big consideration for our political leaders is the size of the problem. India’s mammoth population is its biggest resource and one of its greatest challenges. The vaccination process is slow and tedious. With our limited understanding of the virus, it will not be long before we see newer mutations arise, which would require boosters to mediate. Once vaccinated, populations will require following up and, given the geographical challenges, will push back recovery many years.
Another significant challenge the country faces is the daily mortality figures. Symptoms of Covid have an uncanny resemblance to that of many common tropical diseases. It is not the system’s failure but the success of a virus that has been baffling epidemiologists at every corner. Our reality may be far worse than what we perceive it to be. Unaccounted deaths from people dying at home, on the way to hospitals, and the streets remain unaccounted in the national statistics as many are untested for Covid due to test shortages. If there is a drug accessible at local pharmacies, it can reduce these unaccounted deaths—these precious lives.

THE WAY FORWARD
Locking down India for Covid-19 is an untenable answer, as this approach previously almost collapsed the economy. Therefore, prevention and treatments are required and need to be delivered to hospitals and the populace. Inefficiencies in the logistical process of drug and oxygen manufacture and distribution should be at the top of the government’s plan.
It is time to reform the Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1940 and Rules 1945. Covid-19 drugs, especially those showing efficacy in phase 3 of trials, under reliable international health authorities, should be given conditional approval in India immediately by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI). Data needs to be collected as done with the NIH in the US and NHS in the UK, and drug efficacy and side effects reported publicly. Manufacturers such as Regeneron, Humanigen, Pfizer, and GSK should be encouraged to produce in India for the local population. We should end this over-reliance on vaccines and focus on treatments. Such open-minded approval processes will decrease dependency on a single solution, give our system more breathing room and drive down prices for life-saving medications.
The biggest democracy in the world needs just as many options when the matter is of saving its own citizens’ lives.

Prof (Dr) Joseph M. Chalil is an Adjunct Professor & Chair of the Complex Health Systems advisory board at Nova Southeastern University’s School of Business; Chairman of the Indo-American Press Club, and The Universal News Network publisher. He recently published a best seller book, “Beyond the Covid-19 Pandemic: Envisioning a Better World by Transforming the Future of Healthcare”.

NOAA’s Observed Warming Trend A Sign Of Global Climate Change

A new report released this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows that the United States is getting warmer and parts of it are getting wetter.

NOAA’s “new normals” set of data tracks changes in the U.S. climate over a 30-year period. The latest report is based on data from 1991 to 2020 and replaces the 1981 to 2010 report. It shows a small, but noticeable warming trend across much of the country, which is consistent with the majority of NOAA’s previous reports over the last 100 years.

“The changes in NOAA’s new report are only a degree or less but can still have a big impact, especially when much of the past century has seen steadily increasing temperatures, with the most pronounced changes occurring in the past several decades,” said Nick Bassill, a meteorologist at the University at Albany. “The unfortunate thing is that this does not make a bigger splash, even though it’s almost universally accepted that the new climate normals were going to come in warmer than the last report.”

“While some may dispute the exact amount the change is related to climate change vs. natural variability, it’s likely that this trend is driven in large part by climate change on a global scale.”

Bassill is the director of UAlbany’s Center of Excellence in Weather & Climate Analytics. He also works closely with the NYS Mesonet, which is headquartered at UAlbany, and includes a network of 126 standard weather observation stations across the state.
This new report will have a direct impact on New York’s weather and climate projections, according to Bassill.

“It’s likely that our NYS Mesonet stations will see a subtle, yet consistent, increase in expected average temperatures. Warmer temperatures, along with precipitation increases, are generally expected for the northeast U.S.”

About UAlbany’s Weather-Climate Enterprise: With close to 120 faculty, researchers and staff, UAlbany hosts the largest concentration of atmospheric, climate and environmental scientists in New York State, and one of the largest in the nation. Led by its Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences and Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, UAlbany is also home to the NYS Center of Excellence Weather-Climate Business Analytics, the xCITE R&D laboratory, and the New York State Mesonet – the most advanced mesoscale weather observation system in the nation.

Catastrophic Sea-Level Rise from Antarctic Melting is Possible with Severe Global Warming

Newswise — The Antarctic ice sheet is much less likely to become unstable and cause dramatic sea-level rise in upcoming centuries if the world follows policies that keep global warming below a key 2015 Paris climate agreement target, according to a Rutgers coauthored study.

But if global warming exceeds the target – 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) – the risk of ice shelves around the ice sheet’s perimeter melting would increase significantly, and their collapse would trigger rapid Antarctic melting. That would result in at least 0.07 inches of global average sea-level rise a year in 2060 and beyond, according to the study in the journal Nature.

That’s faster than the average rate of sea-level rise over the past 120 years and, in vulnerable coastal places like downtown Annapolis, Maryland, has led to a dramatic increase in days of extreme flooding.

Global warming of 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) could lead to catastrophic sea-level rise from Antarctic melting – an increase of at least 0.2 inches per year globally after 2060, on average.

“Ice-sheet collapse is irreversible over thousands of years, and if the Antarctic ice sheet becomes unstable it could continue to retreat for centuries,” said coauthor Daniel M. Gilford, a post-doctoral associate in the Rutgers Earth System Science & Policy Lab led by coauthor Robert E. Kopp, a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences within the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. “That’s regardless of whether emissions mitigation strategies such as removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are employed.”

The Paris Agreement, achieved at a United Nations climate change conference, seeks to limit the negative impacts of global warming. Its goal is to keep the increase in global average temperature well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, along with pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). The signatories committed to eliminating global net carbon dioxide emissions in the second half of the 21st century.

Climate change from human activities is causing sea levels to rise, and projecting how Antarctica will contribute to this rise in a warmer climate is a difficult but critical challenge. How ice sheets might respond to warming is not well understood, and we don’t know what the ultimate global policy response to climate change will be. Greenland is losing ice at a faster rate than Antarctica, but Antarctica contains nearly eight times more ice above the ocean level, equivalent to 190 feet of global average sea-level rise, the study notes.

The study explored how Antarctica might change over the next century and beyond, depending on whether the temperature targets in the Paris Agreement are met or exceeded. To better understand how the ice sheet might respond, scientists trained a state-of-the-art ice-sheet model with modern satellite observations, paleoclimate data and a machine learning technique. They used the model to explore the likelihood of rapid ice-sheet retreat and the western Antarctic ice-sheet’s collapse under different global greenhouse gas emissions policies.

Current international policies are likely to lead to about 3 degrees Celsius of warming, which could thin Antarctica’s protective ice shelves and trigger rapid ice-sheet retreat between 2050 and 2100. Under this scenario, geoengineering strategies such as removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequestering (or storing) it would fail to prevent the worst of Antarctica’s contributions to global sea-level rise.

“These results demonstrate the possibility that unstoppable, catastrophic sea level rise from Antarctica will be triggered if Paris Agreement temperature targets are exceeded,” the study says. Gilford said “it’s critical to be proactive in mitigating climate change now through active international participation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and by continuing to ratchet down proposed policies to meet the ambitious Paris Agreement targets.”

Rutgers coauthors include Erica Ashe, a post-doctoral scientist in the Rutgers Earth System Science & Policy Lab. Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Pennsylvania State University, University of California Irvine, University of Bristol, McGill University, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and University of Wisconsin-Madison contributed to the study.

Global Climate Trend Since Dec. 1 1978: +0.14 C Per Decade

Global Temperature Report: April 2021

(New Reference Base, 1991-2020)

Global climate trend since Dec. 1 1978: +0.14 C per decade

 April Temperatures (preliminary)

Global composite temp.:  -0.05 C (-0.09 °F) below seasonal average

Northern Hemisphere: +0.05 C (+0.09 °F) above seasonal average

Southern Hemisphere: -0.15 C (-0.27 °F) below seasonal average

Tropics: -0.28 C (-0.50 °F) below seasonal average

 March Temperatures (final)

Global composite temp.:  -0.01 C (-0.02 °F) below seasonal average

Northern Hemisphere: +0.12 C (+0.22 °F) above seasonal average

Southern Hemisphere: -0.14 C (-0.25 °F) below seasonal average

Tropics: -0.29 C (-0.52 °F) below seasonal average

 Notes on data released May 3, 2021 (v6.0, with new reference base)

This is the period in the La Niña-induced cooling cycle where the global temperature typically reaches its coolest value.  NOAA again reports that the water temperatures in the tropical Pacific are still below average – about the same as March – but much warmer than last November and December.

The global departure from average of -0.05 °C (-0.09 °F) represents a slight cooling from March led by declines in the atmosphere’s temperature over the Northern Hemispheric land areas.   A key indicator of the next few months’ temperature is the tropical anomaly which in April was essentially the same as March.  This is an indication that this cool episode is likely bottoming-out around 0.4 °C cooler than last August to November.  Will the La Niña return next fall?  Will there be neutral conditions?  We are in the time of year called a forecast barrier beyond which it is difficult to predict what the next winter will see in terms of La Niña/El Niño/Neutral conditions.  The indicators will start showing their hand in the latter part of the northern summer.

The warmest grid cell, in terms of departure from average, was +3.7 °C (+6.7 °F) over the Bering Sea just north of the Rat Islands (part of the Aleutian chain).  Anomalous warmth centered there spread to the western conterminous US and eastward to the Russian coast.  Other areas of anomalous warmth were in NE Canada, western Russia southward to the Caspian Sea, the South Pacific and Argentina eastward into the South Atlantic.

The coldest departure from average was over the Baltic Sea just north of Poland at -3.2 °C (-5.8 °F).  This cool region stretched from the Arctic southward to the Mediterranean Sea.  Additional cool areas were found in north-central Canada, the African Sahel, India to western China, and several regions over the oceans, especially the southern oceans, primarily related to La Niña.

The conterminous US cooled from March’s warmth to -0.02 °C (-0.04 °F), almost exactly at the 30-year average.  As is often the case the average is a small residual of two contrasting areas – the West was warm and the East was cool.  Adding in Alaska’s above average temperature puts the 49-state average at +0.10 °C (+0.18 °F) – still very close to the average.  [We don’t include Hawaii in the US results because its land area is less than that of a satellite grid square, so it would have virtually no impact on the overall national results.]

New Reference Base Jan 2021.  As noted in the Jan 2021 GTR, the situation comes around every 10 years when the reference period or “30-year normal” that we use to calculate the departures is redefined.  With that, we have averaged the absolute temperatures over the period 1991-2020, in accordance with the World Meteorological Organization’s guidelines, and use this as the new base period.  This allows the anomalies to relate more closely to the experience of the average person, i.e. the climate of the last 30 years.  Due to the rising trend of global and regional temperatures, the new normals are a little warmer than before, i.e. the global average temperature for Januaries for 1991-2020 is 0.14 °C warmer than the average for Januaries during 1981-2010.  So, the new departures from this now warmer average will appear to be cooler, but this is an artifact of simply applying a new base period.  It is important to remember that changes over time periods, such as a trend value or the relative difference of one year to the next, will not change.  Think about it this way, all we’ve done is to take the entire time series and shifted it down a little.

To-Do List: There has been a delay in our ability to utilize and merge the new generation of microwave sensors (ATMS) on the NPP and JPSS satellites.  As of now, the calibration equations applied by the agency have changed at least twice, so that the data stream contains inhomogeneities which obviously impact the type of measurements we seek.  We are hoping this is resolved soon with a dataset that is built with a single, consistent set of calibration equations.   In addition, the current non-drifting satellite operated by the Europeans, MetOP-B, has not yet been adjusted or “neutralized” for its seasonal peculiarities related to its unique equatorial crossing time (0930).  While these MetOP-B peculiarities do not affect the long-term global trend, they do introduce error within a particular year in specific locations over land.

As part of an ongoing joint project between UAH, NOAA and NASA, Christy and Dr. Roy Spencer, an ESSC principal scientist, use data gathered by advanced microwave sounding units on NOAA, NASA and European satellites to produce temperature readings for almost all regions of the Earth. This includes remote desert, ocean and rain forest areas where reliable climate data are not otherwise available.  Drs. Danny Braswell and Rob Junod assist in the preparation of these reports.

The satellite-based instruments measure the temperature of the atmosphere from the surface up to an altitude of about eight kilometers above sea level. Once the monthly temperature data are collected and processed, they are placed in a “public” computer file for immediate access by atmospheric scientists in the U.S. and abroad.

The complete version 6 lower troposphere dataset is available here: http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/uahncdc_lt_6.0.txt

Archived color maps of local temperature anomalies are available on-line at: http://nsstc.uah.edu/climate/

Neither Christy nor Spencer receives any research support or funding from oil, coal or industrial companies or organizations, or from any private or special interest groups. All of their climate research funding comes from federal and state grants or contracts.

While Harvard Introduces Covid-19 Vax Requirement For Students, Will Others Follow Soon?

Students at the Harvard University in the US will be required to be vaccinated against Covid-19 at the start of the new term later this year. “To reach the high levels of vaccination needed to protect our community, Harvard will require Covid vaccination for all students who will be on campus this fall,” the elite university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced on Wednesday.

According to the statement, exceptions would only be granted for medical or religious reasons. Previously, a number of other Ivy League universities such as Yale, Columbia and Princeton had already introduced such a vaccination requirement.

Before returning to campus, students must have completed their vaccination with a vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the World Health Organization (WHO).

This means at least two weeks must have passed since the last vaccine dose was administered, the statement added. International students and others who do not have access to a vaccine before the autumn will be offered vaccination by the university upon their arrival.

Founded in 1636, Harvard University is considered one of the elite schools in the US, producing several presidents and dozens of Nobel laureates, among others.

More than 23,000 students are currently enrolled at the private university, which is known for its rigorous admissions standards.

Dalai Lama Holds Dialogue With Russian Scientists On Research Into Buddhist Thukdam Meditation

His Holiness the Dalai Lama last week conducted an in-depth online dialogue with Russian neuroscientists to discuss their ongoing research into the Buddhist phenomenon and practice of thukdam meditation (Tib: ཐུགས་དམ་).

The term thukdam, derived from the Tibetan words thuk, meaning mind, and dam, meaning samadhi, describes an advanced type of tantric meditation in the Vajrayana tradition practiced by a Buddhist adept during the intermediate or transitional state of death known as bardo. During this period, when biological signs of life have ceased yet the body remains fresh and intact for several days, the master is described as being absorbed in the primordial “clear light stage,” a process of inner dissolution. In 2018, the Dalai Lama initiated a scientific inquiry into the neurophysiological mechanisms of thukdam.

“We need to undertake more research and investigate more cases of thukdam to establish whether the visions are associated with dissolution of the coarser elements,” His Holiness said during the dialogue on 5 May. “Since it is observed that the body of a person going through this process can remain warm, it may be that the dissolution of the earth, water, and fire elements do not coincide with the three visions.” (His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet)

Meanwhile, reports suggest, in a first scientific evidence, Russian scientists have demonstrated that the body of a person in the rare spiritual meditative state of ‘thukdam’ is in a quite different state from the body of someone undergoing the ordinary process of death.

The scientists have established research laboratories in the Tibetan settlements in Bylakuppe and Mundgod in Karnataka where they have examined 104 monks in meditation. They are carrying out a project of research into ‘thukdam’, the phenomenon that sometimes occurs when an accomplished meditator dies and their subtle consciousness remains in the body, even after clinical death.

Recently the scientists were able to observe a monk who was in ‘thukdam’ for 37 days at Gyuto Monastery. They invited a forensic physician to examine the physical body at various stages after death.

These facts came to light in a virtual conversation between Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and Professor Svyatoslav Medvedev of the Russian Academy of Sciences and founder of the Institute of the Human Brain on Wednesday.

On query of Professor Medvedev that what value the study of ‘thukdam’ could have for humanity in general. The spiritual leader replied Tibetan Buddhists believe that people go through a process of dissolution in the course of death.

Once some accomplished meditators cease breathing, the process of dissolution they go through includes three visions — whitish appearance, reddish increase and black near attainment.

In the course of these three stages 80 different conceptions dissolve, 33 during the vision of whitish appearance, 40 during reddish increase and finally seven during the stage of black near attainment.

“We need to undertake more research and investigate more cases of ‘thukdam’ to establish whether the visions are associated with dissolution of the coarser elements.

“Since it is observed that the body of a person going through this process can remain warm, it may be that the dissolution of the earth, water and fire elements do not coincide with the three visions.

“When an ordinary person dies, there is a dissolution of the elements. Buddhists believe that beings go through past and future lives, so there is some bearing on this too. My own senior tutor Ling Rinpoche remained in ‘thukdam’ for 13 days. Recently, a monk at Kirti Monastery remained in this state for 37 days. “This is an observable reality, which we need to be able to explain.

“There is evidence to see and measure. We can also find a detailed explanation of the inner subjective experience of the process of death in the Guhyasamaja Tantra texts. I hope scientists can take all this into account and come up with an explanation,” His Holiness said.

Professor Alexander Kaplan, Head of the Laboratory for Neurophysiology and Neuro-Computer Interfaces, Moscow State University (MSU), asked what Buddhist ideas could help Western scientists to understand the workings of the brain?

At this, the elderly Buddhist monk replied that in the past, modern science as it had developed in the West had tended to focus on external phenomena, things that can be seen and measured.

“Gradually people have begun to recognize that peace of mind has an important role to play in our day-to-day lives. Consequently, scientists have also begun to show an interest in how to develop peace of mind. Mental afflictions like anger, fear and frustration detract from our good health, so, never mind about our next life or our reaching enlightenment, all seven billion human beings alive today need peace of mind here and now.

“In order to achieve and maintain peace of mind, we need to understand the workings of the mind and the whole system of emotions. Buddhism outlines 51 mental factors in six categories: five ever-functioning mental factors; five ascertaining ones; 11 constructive emotions; six root disturbing emotions and attitudes; 20 auxiliary disturbing emotions and four changeable mental factors.

“On the basis of understanding these we can learn to tackle destructive emotions as they arise, even under difficult circumstances. Peace of mind is within our reach.” Konstantin Anokhin, Director of the Institute for Advanced Brain Studies, MSU, wanted to know about evidence for the existence of past lives.

The spiritual leader told him that he has heard of cases of children who belong to communities that give past and future lives no credence, who apparently describe memories of past lives. Among Indians and Tibetans, people who accept the idea of past and future lives, children with such recollections are not unusual.

“There was a boy born in Tibet, who, once he could talk, insisted to his parents ‘This isn’t where I belong, I want to go to India’. They brought him to India and came to Dharamsala. But even here he said, ‘This isn’t my place’. So, they took him to Mundgod Tibetan Settlement in South India.

“When they reached Ganden Monastery, the boy told them, ‘This is where I belong’ and led them to one of the houses. They went inside and pointing to a drawer, he said, ‘My glasses are in there’. They looked and they were.

“In my own case, as a small boy, I recognised monks in the party searching for the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation. I was able to remember their names. One of the principal procedures employed when seeking to recognize the reincarnation of a Lama is to show the candidate a number of possessions.

“If a child is able to recognize and select those items that had ‘belonged to them before’, it is taken as a positive indication. However, these memories fade as the children grow up.

“Something else that could be regarded as significant is that some children are able to study and learn much more readily than others. This is taken to imply that they are already familiar with the material from their studies in their previous lives.

“In my case I learned easily, which could be a sign of revising what I had learned before.” His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, describes himself as a simple Buddhist monk.

In 1989, the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent struggle for Tibet. He was awarded the US Congressional Gold Medal in October 2007, even in the face of protests by China.

The Dalai Lama now lives in exile in this northern Indian hill station along with some 140,000 Tibetans, over 100,000 of them in different parts of India. Over six million Tibetans live in Tibet.

Sharks Use Earth’s Magnetic Fields To Find Their Way Home

Newswise — Each year, many shark species migrate hundreds of miles, traversing ocean waters to return to the same spot year after year. Now, Florida State University researchers have found that sharks likely use the Earth’s magnetic fields to help guide them on these long-distance journeys.

“Sharks use map-like information from the geomagnetic field as a navigational aid,” said Bryan Keller, a recent Ph.D. graduate who conducted his research at the FSU Coastal and Marine Laboratory. “This ability is useful for navigation and possibly maintaining population structure.”

The research team’s work is published the latest issue of Current Biology.

Researchers have known that some shark species migrate long distances annually in response to seasonal changes in the environment, prey availability or for reproductive functions, such as finding mates or giving birth. They also knew that sharks are sensitive to electromagnetic fields and thought that there may be a connection with their migration patterns.

Keller specifically examined a group of bonnethead sharks that spend the summer off the coast of the FSU Coastal and Marine Laboratory before migrating south for the winter. Other populations of bonnetheads have been shown to undertake migrations over 620 miles roundtrip.

“That’s not bad for a shark that is only 2 to 3 feet long,” said Dean Grubbs, associate director of research for the  laboratory. “Many shark species display similar migration patterns. The question is how do they find their way back to that same estuary year after year.”

Though scientists had theorized about a potential connection between electromagnetic fields and migration, Keller, Grubbs and their colleagues had to find a way to prove it.

Researchers exposed 20 juvenile, wild-caught bonnetheads to magnetic conditions representing locations hundreds of miles away from where the sharks were captured.

Scientists predicted that if the sharks used the magnetic conditions as a directional tool that they would naturally orient north when exposed to the southern magnetic field. They also predicted that the sharks would have no preference in their orientation when exposed to the magnetic field that matched the field of their capture site.

Both predictions were borne out in the experiments.

“For 50 years, scientists have hypothesized that sharks use the magnetic field as a navigational aid,” Keller said. “This theory has been so popular because sharks, skates and rays have been shown to be very sensitive to magnetic fields. They have also been trained to react to unique geomagnetic signatures, so we know they are capable of detecting and reacting to variation in the magnetic field.”

Co-authors of this study are Nathan Putnam from 2LGL Ecological Research Associates, David Portnoy from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and Tim Murphy from the FSU-headquartered National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.

This work was supported by the Save Our Seas Foundation and the FSU Coastal and Marine Laboratory.

Pfizer Says, Covid Oral Pill Could Be Ready By Year-End

US-based pharmaceutical major Pfizer’s Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said that the company’s Covid-19 oral antiviral pill, which is in early-stage trials, could be ready by the end of the year, the media reported.

According to CNBC, the company, which developed the first authorised Covid-19 vaccine in the US with German drugmaker BioNTech, began an early-stage clinical trial for testing a new antiviral therapy for Covid-19 in March.

The drug is part of a class of medicines called protease inhibitors and works by inhibiting an enzyme that the virus needs to replicate in human cells.

“If clinical trials go well and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves it, the drug could be distributed across the US by the end of the year,” Bourla told CNBC.

Protease inhibitors are used to treat other viral pathogens such as HIV and hepatitis C, the report said.

Last month, the pharmaceutical giant asked the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expand the Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) for its Covid-19 vaccine to include children ages 12 to 15.

The request to expand emergency use comes just days after Pfizer released data demonstrating its vaccine was 100 per cent effective and well-tolerated by the younger group.

Pfizer is also working on its vaccine for 6-month to 11-year-old children.

A recent study, published in the journal Science, showed that a single dose of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines against Covid may boost immunity against the Covid-19 variants, only in people who were previously infected with the deadly virus.

In people who have not previously been infected and have so far only received one dose of vaccine, the immune response to variants of concern may be insufficient, the study indicated. (IANS)

At ASEI’s 2021 AI Summit, AI For Social Good, Data & Ethics Highlighted

The American Society of Engineers of Indian Origin (ASEI) convened an AI Summit with a number of researchers, authors, speakers and experts covering Artificial Intelligence  from multiple perspectives: Augmented Intelligence with Data, AI/ML Solutions for social benefit and Artificial Intelligence Applications for the enterprise & AI Ethics on April 24th, 2021.

Opening the summit, Divya Ashok, who serves as VP of Innovation and Strategy at Salesforce, introduced the AI Summit Chair Piyush Malik who has been working in the Data & AI domain for over 25 years, currently as the Senior Vice President at SpringML, a Google partner startup in Silicon Valley. Piyush gave a bird’s eye view of the AI landscape, the real life and enterprise application opportunities as well as set the stage for the plenary segment where the theme was AI for Society. He recognized  the  contributions of AI pioneer technologists and Turing awardees over the past 7 decades including Prof  Raj Reddy, the first Asian and the only Indian origin person to have won the Nobel prize of computing (i.e. Turing Award for AI) in 1994 long before the current euphoria over AI was commonplace.

  Vilas Dhar,  President and Trustee of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation (PJMF), gave a message of support from PJMF to ASEI as we work towards our shared vision for AI – powered yet human-centric ethical endeavor for the benefit of society as we  explore the future of meaningful work through youth empowerment. PJMF is a 21st century philanthropy advancing artificial intelligence (AI) and data solutions to create a thriving, equitable, and sustainable future for all. Vilas, a biomedical engineer by initial training is an entrepreneur, technologist, and human rights advocate with a lifelong commitment to creating more robust, human-centered social institutions. His message of support for AI for social benefit  and data philanthropy fostered through interactions with ASEI leadership was complemented by the next speaker Dr Sundar Sundareshwaran, AI Fellow at the World Economic Forum (WEF) where PJMF is a supporter.

At WEF, Dr Sundar is co-creating a governance framework with a multi-stakeholder community for the use of Chatbots in healthcare amongst other initiatives which he talked about in detail having an impact in the COVID era.  Sundar  represents Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation in his role at WEF’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. He  is a seasoned technologist with research, development, P&L and executive leadership experience. With a Master’s degree in Natural Language Understanding and a PhD in Computer Vision, Sundar has made numerous research contributions in robotics, neural networks, human computer interaction, virtual/augmented reality and autonomous vehicles. His plenary talk at the AI summit gave a broader view of the Policy impact AI is having at the World stage and he welcomed the opportunity for ASEI members to join hands in making the world a better place through fair use of AI rather than fearing from it. On behalf of ASEI, Piyush portrayed the excitement of being able to work with evangelists, policymakers, data and AI professionals and social changemakers at the WEF and PJMF.

In the next section of the summit three  authors spoke about their respective work and the impact each of them are having in the field of AI.  Anyone who has tried to learn GCP or machine learning with Google technologies would have seen Dr Valiappa (Lak) Lakshmanan  in action via his Coursera lessons and courses. Lak as he is popularly known, serves as the Director for Data Analytics and AI Solutions at  Google Cloud. Previously as a Director at the Climate Corporation, he led a team of data scientists building probabilistic estimates of past, current and future weather. Currently with his team he  builds software solutions for business problems using Google Cloud’s data analytics and machine learning products but he is very passionate about AI for Social good on which he spoke at length. Real world proof points and examples in the field of flood control, agriculture, healthcare etc were shared with the summit audience which resulted in a lot of interactive chats and Q&A.

ASEI Michigan chapter president Muthu Sivanantham introduced and facilitated discussion with the next two speakers.  Dr Raj Ramesh, a TEDx speaker who happens to have a doctorate in AI was the next author to speak. He has broad experience with digital transformation and helps  organizations bring together complementary strengths of machines and humans to effect grand change.  His talk featuring interesting doodles and interactive audience participation surveys was patterned on his recent book, “AI & You” and he advised how to co-exist with machines by sharing  how to think, thrive, and transform in an AI driven future.

“AI will present a lot of opportunities in the future.  Sure, some jobs will be replaced, but each of us can leverage our knowledge, passion, and experience to position ourselves at the forefront of this cognitive revolution” – Dr Raj Ramesh at the ASEI AI Summit

The next speaker Ashish Bansal with his cool demeanour brought to light an example of how rubber meets the road in AI though Models in Natural Language Processing. NLP is a topic of increasing attention given the recent popularity of Open AI’s GPT3 model and discussions of “AI creating AI”. Ashish has previously worked in AI/ML  & Recommendation systems  for Twitter and Capital One and currently is a Director at  Twitch. His recent book Natural Language Processing with Tensorflow was discussed in brief as well.

Final section of the AI Summit was the “Women in Data & AI” segment facilitated  by Vatsala Upadhya and featured a lively and colorful “Ethics in AI” discussion between  Dr Sindhu Joseph, CEO of Cognicor with 6 Patents in AI, and Bala Sahejpal, SVP at DataRobot with Piyanka Jain, President and CEO of Aryng moderating

Issues of bias, reproducibility , transparency and equity and inclusion in  data and AI from people of color perspective was discussed as well as importance of governance and building checks and balances in the development and testing of AI systems was deliberated

Bala is an accomplished leader with over 25 years of experience and a proven ability in leading cross functional global teams for building Data and Analytics solutions delivering enterprise success while securing multimillion-dollar savings for diverse business functions. She shared what made her interested in AI infused  automation and drove her towards joining DataRobot after stints at Cisco/Appdynamics, Juniper and Netapp.

Piyanka has two Master’s degrees, with her thesis involving applied mathematics and statistics. Before founding Aryng, she was the Head of Business Analytics at PayPal-North America.She happens to be a bestselling author of “Behind every Good Decision”  and a regular contributor to Forbes, HBR, InsideHR, TDWI, Experian, Modern Workplace, Predictive Analytics World, etc. Her efforts over the years have driven $1b+ in business impact for her clients. Injecting her 20+ years of Data & Analytics experience during the panel discussion, she said “As AI becomes more prevalent, AI literacy for leaders and AI governance are two ‘must-haves’ to truly capitalize on the power of AI to drive significant business value while staying clear of AI fiasco like Tay”

Recounting the challenges that are faced in the adoption of ethical AI, Dr. Sindhu Joseph, founder, and CEO of CogniCor, which provides a digital assistant platform for financial services, said – “AI is not just scaling solutions, but amplifying the historic biases embedded in our society. Given that the most popular branch of AI namely ML/DL learns its models from historic observations, our inherent biases make their way into the data sets, making a small, select, and often homogeneous group of developers, organizations as guardians of fairness.”

 This session underscored the need for diversity in organizations and in startups developing AI algorithms and attention and investment in branches of AI that have the potential to bring about fairness.

The interactive Q&A sessions and chat texts continued to buzz throughout the nearly 4 hour conference with an engaged audience. The most interesting audience questions and some early bird participants won 10 books courtesy the three  authors and publishers. Proposing the vote of thanks, Raju Sreewastava, CEO of Big Data Trunk announced the list of winners.

The AI Summit showed the attendees the depth of AI/ML experience and thought leadership amongst Indian diaspora & ASEI members and gave a glimpse of the richness of  its collaborations with national and international professional bodies.

As is evident from recent events and newsletters, ASEI has had a fantastic 2021 so far with a large number of activities and new programmes such as MentorConnect, UniversityConnect and YouthPrograms to serve its members’ interests and build the next generation of engineers and technologists.

The American Society of Engineers of Indian Origin (ASEI) is a not-for-profitorganization that provides a platform for networking, career advancement,community service, mentoring and technology exchange for professionals,students and businesses in the United States and abroad. Members are guidedby several objectives, including the creation of an open, inclusive, andtransparent organization; providing positive role models, awarding scholarships,and remaining socially responsible. ASEI was founded in 1983 in Detroit,Michigan by a handful of visionaries. Today, the organization  has active chaptersin Michigan, Southern California, Silicon Valley, San Diego, and Washington, DC with more in the pipeline.

Roivant Sciences & MAAC to Combine and Create Publicly Traded Leader in Biopharma and Health Technology

Roivant Sciences, a biopharmaceutical and healthcare technology company, and Montes Archimedes Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: MAAC), a special purpose acquisition company sponsored by Patient Square Capital, today announced that they have entered into a definitive business combination agreement. Upon closing of the transaction, outstanding shares and warrants of MAAC will be exchanged for newly issued shares and warrants of Roivant Sciences, which is expected to be listed on Nasdaq under the new ticker symbol “ROIV.”

The transaction is expected to deliver up to $611 million of gross proceeds to fund discovery and development programs. This includes up to $411 million currently held in MAAC’s trust account, as well as a concurrent $200 million common stock private investment in public equity (“PIPE”) priced at $10.00 per share. New institutional and strategic investors and existing Roivant shareholders have committed to participate in the PIPE, including Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC, Eventide Asset Management, Suvretta Capital, Palantir Technologies, RTW Investments, LP, Viking Global Investors, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma, and SB Management, a subsidiary of SoftBank Group Corp. Proceeds are expected to extend the company’s operating runway through mid-2024.

Patient Square Capital and key Roivant equity holders and management have agreed to long-term lockups, with at least 50% of their holdings locked up for three years. In addition, Patient Square Capital has agreed to convert an additional 30% of its shares of MAAC to earn-out shares subject to performance vesting thresholds: 20% of its shares will vest at $15.00 per share and 10% will vest at $20.00 per share for 20 of 30 trading days within five years of closing.

Jim Momtazee, Managing Partner of Patient Square Capital, will join Roivant’s board of directors. Prior to founding Patient Square Capital, Mr. Momtazee was a 21-year veteran of KKR where he helped form its health care investment team 20 years ago and ran that team for over a decade.

“Roivant is at the cutting edge of using technology to discover and develop transformative medicines for a wide range of serious diseases, and in a very short time they have established a remarkable track record of building subsidiaries that have run successful registrational clinical trials for approved medicines,” said Mr. Momtazee. “I first met the company in 2015 and have watched its growth over the last 6 years with admiration. Based on our extensive due diligence spanning the last 5 months, I look forward to a long-lasting partnership with one of the most exciting and innovative companies in the life sciences industry.”

Roivant will continue to operate under its current management team led by Chief Executive Officer Matthew Gline. Roivant founder Vivek Ramaswamy will continue to serve as Executive Chairman.

“I look forward to the next chapter of Roivant’s growth by beginning our life as a public company with an exceptionally strong and diverse base of long-term investors,” said Mr. Gline. “We look forward to continuing to deliver important medicines to patients through our development engine and our rapidly growing drug discovery capabilities spanning multiple therapeutic areas and modalities.”

The boards of directors of both Roivant and MAAC have unanimously approved the proposed transaction. Completion of the transaction, which is expected in the third quarter of 2021, is subject to approval of MAAC shareholders and the satisfaction or waiver of certain other customary closing conditions. A link to investor presentation materials is included below.

We Know More As To How The Vaccines Work

COVID-19 vaccines teach our immune systems how to recognize and fight the virus that causes COVID-19. It typically takes two weeks after vaccination for the body to build protection (immunity) against the virus that causes COVID-19. That means it is possible a person could still get COVID-19 before or just after vaccination and then get sick because the vaccine did not have enough time to provide protection.  People are considered fully protected two weeks after their second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, or two weeks after the single-dose Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen COVID-19 vaccine, CDC has stated.

Studies have shown that several vaccines are highly effective in preventing people getting seriously ill from Covid-19. Now, early results from a survey in the UK suggest two commonly used vaccines — the Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca shots — can significantly reduce infections.

Twenty-one days after the first vaccine, odds of a new Covid-19 infection were reduced by 65%, according to results from the COVID-19 Infection Survey, coordinated by the University of Oxford, the Office of National Statistics and the Department for Health and Social Care. The largest reductions in odds were seen after a second dose, it said.

The numbers appeared more promising for the prevention of symptomatic infections. The odds of testing positive and self-reporting symptoms were reduced by 90% after the second dose. And vaccination was just as effective in the vulnerable over-75 age group as it was in younger people.

Two studies highlighting the results were posted as pre-prints and have not been peer-reviewed. They analysed 1.6 million test results from nose and throat swabs taken from more than 373,000 people between December and the start of April.

But experts advise people to continue with Covid prevention measures, as some infections will still be transmitted, particularly when large numbers of the population have had just one dose in a two-dose regimen or haven’t been vaccinated at all. Although infections are at a record high, lives are being saved in countries with effective immunization programs.

Although COVID-19 vaccines are effective at keeping you from getting sick, scientists are still learning how well vaccines prevent you from spreading the virus that causes COVID-19 to others, even if you do not have symptoms. Early data show the vaccines do help keep people with no symptoms from spreading COVID-19, but we are learning more as more people get vaccinated.

We’re also still learning how long COVID-19 vaccines protect people. For these reasons, people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 should keep taking precautions in public places, until we know more, like wearing a mask, staying 6 feet apart from others, avoiding crowds and poorly ventilated spaces, and washing your hands often.

CDC Panel Allows J&J Vaccine for COVID-19 To Resume

A committee of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has decided to lift the temporary hold on using the COVID-19 vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson/Janssen as of April 23rd. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and CDC had temporarily halted vaccination with the J&J shot on April 13 after six reports of unusual blood clots in the brain occurred among nearly 7 million people vaccinated with the shot in the U.S.

Within hours, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky accepted the panel’s recommendation and FDA officials said vaccinations could resume immediately. “The American public should feel reassured by the safety protocols we have in place for COVID-19 vaccines,” said Walensky at a briefing following the committee’s decision.

The panel of 15 independent experts was under some pressure to make a decision about the safety of the vaccine, which is the only single-shot vaccine for COVID-19 currently authorized in the U.S. But after an initial meeting on April 14, the group decided it needed more information.

Over the past week, an additional nine cases of unusual blood clots, called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) were reported, bringing the total so far to 15 cases. All 15 have occurred in women, and most were in their 30s. However, since that’s still among several million people who had recently been vaccinated with the shot, CDC vaccine-safety experts still felt the overall risk is very small.

To put those 15 cases in context, Dr. Sara Oliver, from the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and her team presented data from models they constructed to estimate how the 11-day pause in using the J&J vaccine affected COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and death. The models showed that if the vaccine were reinstated for all adults over age 18 years, there would be 26 to 45 additional cases of the rare blood clots side effects over the next six months, but 800 to 3,500 fewer admissions to the ICU and anywhere from 600 to 1,400 fewer deaths. If officials restricted the vaccine only to people over age 50—which might make sense given that younger people are more at risk of the clotting side effect— they would expect two to three additional cases of clotting compared to 300 to 1,000 fewer ICU admissions and 40 to 250 fewer deaths.

J&J representatives at the meeting reiterated that the vaccine starts protecting people against disease within days of administration, and that data from the company’s clinical trials showed it was 85% efficacious in protecting people from severe COVID-19, including against new variants of the virus. The company favored adding a warning label about the risk of clotting, similar to the way the risk of anaphylaxis is now included in the label for the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

Nearly 286.1 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this afternoon, of which 222.3 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME’s vaccine tracker. About 27.5% of Americans have been completely vaccinated. A single dose of either the AstraZeneca-Oxford University or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine may provide protection against COVID-19 for at least 10 weeks, Oxford researchers reported during a press briefing.

World Moving Towards a “Devastating Marriage” of Artificial Intelligence & Weapons of War

STOCKHOLM, Apr 16 2021 (IPS) – Landmines are among the most insidious and cruel weapons of all, because they do not distinguish between armed soldiers, civilians or even children.

According to the Landmine Monitor 2020, explosive devices hidden in the ground killed or injured at least 5,554 people worldwide last year alone — that’s an average of 15 deaths and serious injuries per day.

With her International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), Professor Jody Williams (70) has been advocating a ban on landmines for almost 30 years, and she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her commitment.

Excerpts from the interview:

Professor Williams, thank you for taking the time for this interview with the Faces of Peace initiative. To begin, we would first of all like to ask you: What does “peace” mean for you personally?

WILLIAMS: Peace is not simply the absence of armed conflict. That is the baseline on which sustainable peace can be built. For me, sustainable peace is peace built on human security, not national security. We do not need more, “modernized” nuclear weapons.

We do not need fully autonomous weapons that on their own can target and kill human beings. We need to use our resources so that the needs of people are met, not the needs of arms producers.

People should be able to live dignified lives, with equal access to education, health care, housing, etc. We need to focus on human security for sustainable peace, not national security to protect the infrastructure of the state. Peace and security should be people centered!

On 3 December 1997, 122 states signed the treaty for the banning of landmines. You and your campaign received the Nobel Peace Prize for this. How did you, as an American, come on the topic of landmines?

WILLIAMS: Actually, I was asked by two organizations – the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation and a German humanitarian relief organization, “Medico International” – if I thought I could create an international coalition of nongovernmental organizations to pressure governments to ban antipersonnel landmines.

It was an amazing challenge that totally sparked my interest so I accepted that challenge and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines was born. Today, some 164 nations are part of the Mine Ban Treaty.

Speaking of the Landmine Monitor 2020: With 5,554 dead, the global death toll remains high 23 years after the ban on landmines. Is this a sobering figure? What else can the international community do?

WILLIAMS: It is a very sobering question and demonstrates how long it takes to clean up the mess as chaos caused by war and violence. The international community must maintain its focus on supporting countries still plagued with landmines and that are working on mine-clearance.

The danger of landmines – especially improvised explosive devices – still exists. And the world has not become more peaceful anyway. What are the biggest threats to peace in 2021?

WILLIAMS: To my mind, the global obsession with weapons and violence while at the same time painting people who believe that peace is possible as intellectual “light weights” who don’t understand the harsh reality of the world are the two sides of the double-edged sword that keeps the world believing that only more weapons will keep us safe.

The biggest threats are the “modernization” of nuclear weapons and the new “revolution” of weapons – killer robots. The weapons are fully autonomous and can target and kill human beings on their own. A devastating “marriage” of artificial intelligence and weapons of war!

Bombs do not kill ideology: Just in office, U.S. President Joe Biden ordered an airstrike in Syria – and another was called off at the last minute. What are your thoughts about that?

WILLIAMS: As you point out, bombs cannot kill ideology. In fact, bombing and other acts of violence can strengthen ideological conviction and make recruiting new people easier. I did not support Obama’s extensive use of drone warfare either.

And speaking of Joe Biden: The US has so far not signed the Ottawa Convention. What do you think the chances are of this happening during Joe Biden’s presidency? Does the world need US leadership?

WILLIAMS: I cannot predict what Biden will do regarding the Mine Ban Treaty. But it is very likely he will roll back Trump’s policy and align his administration’s policy with that of the Obama administration, which brought the US very close to compliance with the treaty even if it was not signed.

Professor Williams, you are also chair of the Nobel Women’s Initiative. What exactly does this initiative do and how can one support your important work?

WILLIAMS: The Nobel Women’s Initiative was launched in 2006. It brings together five women recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, who use our influence and access to shine a spotlight on grassroots women’s organizations in conflict areas around the world working for sustainable peace with justice and equality.

*About the Faces of Democracy and Faces of Peace initiatives:

With almost 100 prominent figures from politics, business, the media and society – including the former President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Norway Erna Solberg, the President of the Republic of Estonia Kersti Kaljulaid, the German Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas and OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger – the Faces of Democracy initiative is now in its fifth year of existence.

The first “faces” of the 2019 founded Faces of Peace initiative are SIPRI Director Dan Smith, the Chairman of the Atlantic Brücke e.V. Sigmar Gabriel, the OSCE CiO 2019 and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic Miroslav Lajčák and the Chief of Staff of the 69th Submarine Brigade of the Northern Fleet Vasili A. Arkhipov.

(Sven Lilienström: The writer is Founder of the Faces of Democracy initiative & Faces of Peace initiative.)

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy Says, Additional Funds To Places Hit disproportionately by COVID-19

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has said the U.S. was increasing funding to areas that had been hit disproportionately by COVID-19, including $4 billion in funding to the Indian Health System. Though the IHS has impressively distributed 1 million vaccines in Indian Country, recent data showed that American Indians and Alaska Natives suffered devastating loss when the pandemic was at its worst.

According to a recent CDC report, they were 3.5 times more likely to get COVID than white people and more than four times as likely to be hospitalized as a result of COVID-19.

Murthy said the steady increase in cases over the last month had him more concerned than the J&J pause, which was put into place on Tuesday after the CDC and FDA found that out of the nearly 7 million people who got the J&J shot, at least 6 patients suffered blood clots roughly 6-13 days afterward.

The pause could last at least a few more weeks, according to an independent CDC advisory panel that on Wednesday decided to wait and see if more patients developed symptoms before recommending next steps on the vaccine.

“As much attention as the J&J news has received though, what I’m most concerned about, the numbers which are most on my mind are the rising cases and hospitalizations among those who are not vaccinated,” Murthy said.

He underscored the positive news, however, which is that the U.S. is one of the few countries in the world with three vaccine options and hundreds of millions of doses.

“We’re really fortunate to have highly effective vaccines and a system that’s working day and night to keep us safe. It gives me faith that we will make it through this pandemic together,” Murthy said.

All Americans age 16 and up can now get a Covid-19 vaccine. But the challenge is getting enough people to roll up their sleeves so we can finally quash this pandemic.  “The vaccine is the most important pathway to ending this pandemic. That means we’ve got to get everyone in our country vaccinated,” US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said Monday.

“Now what we’ve got to do is No. 1: Get the vaccine. No. 2: Turn around and look at our family and friends and ask if they’re going to get vaccinated. If they need help, that’s what we’ve got to do.”

About 40% of the US population — more than 132 million people — have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine and about 26% of the population — more than 85 million — are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nearly 212 million doses have been administered in the US, with an average of 3 million shots per day, the CDC said. It’s critical for those age 16 and up to get vaccinated before new, more contagious strains emerge — just like the B.1.1.7 variant did.

2020 Saw 1.2 Degrees Celsius Rise In Global Temperature

The global average temperature was about 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels despite the cooling effect of La Nina ocean-atmosphere phenomenon in 2020, the World Meteorological Organisation confirmed on Monday in its State of the Global Climate 2020 report. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had warned that a 1.5 degree C warming will mark a menacing milestone in the warming of the planet.

UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres who released the report on Monday said the UN is building a global coalition to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. “2020 was 1.2 degrees Celsius hotter than pre-industrial times. We are getting dangerously close to the 1.5-degree Celsius limit set by the scientific community. We are on the verge of the abyss. To avert the worst impacts of climate change, science tells us that we must limit global temperature rise to within 1.5 degrees of the pre-industrial baseline. That means reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. We are way off track. This must be the year for action,” he said adding that all countries should phase out coal by 2040.

Last year was one of the three warmest years on record; the six years since 2015 have been the warmest on record and 2011-2020 was the warmest decade on record, the report highlighted adding that decrease in the annual growth rate of CO2 concentration due to the Covid 19 lockdown will be practically indistinguishable.

Globally averaged carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations have already exceeded 410 parts per million (ppm), 148% of pre-industrial levels, and if the CO2 concentration follows the same pattern as in previous years, it could reach or exceed 414 ppm in 2021, according to the report.

“Developed countries must lead in phasing out coal — by 2030 in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, and 2040 elsewhere. No new coal power plants should be built.” Guterres also called for an agreement among all countries to follow a common direction of travel. “The United Nations is building a global coalition committed to net zero emissions – to cover all countries, cities, regions, businesses and financial institutions. Second, the next 10 years need to be a decade of transformation. Countries need to submit ambitious new NDCs — the nationally determined contributions to the Paris Agreement – which are their climate plans for the next 10 years,” he said.

The report comes ahead of the April 22-23 Virtual Leaders’ Summit on Climate convened by the United States of America. The Summit will have participation from 40 world leaders and one of its aims is “Galvanizing efforts by the world’s major economies to reduce emissions during this critical decade to keep the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degree Celsius within reach,” according to the US department of state.

United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and environment minister Prakash Javadekar earlier this month regarding increasing climate ambition ahead of COP 26 in Glasgow this November. Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France, Jean-Yves Le Drian had also met Javadekar and said all countries should be on track to achieve carbon neutrality and start phasing out coal.

Javadekar had said India will not raise its climate ambition at the behest of or under pressure from developed countries. India has the right to develop and its poor have the right to grow and that countries should respect the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR). (CBDR, a principle under the Paris Agreement requires richer countries to lead and take historical responsibility for the emissions caused in the past by them.)

According to Climatewatch’s net-zero tracker, 59 countries representing 54% of global emissions have announced net-zero targets. Only 6 parties have legislations on net-zero emissions. India is among 6 countries that are compliant with the Paris Agreement’s 2-degree target including Bhutan, Costa Rica and the Philippines according to Climate Action Tracker. 7 countries are “critically insufficient” and their pledges will lead to 4+degree C warming including the US and the Russian Federation.

Temperatures reached 38.0 degrees C at Verkhoyansk, Russian Federation on June 20, the highest recorded temperature anywhere north of the Arctic Circle. The Arctic minimum sea-ice extent in September 2020 was the second-lowest on record. The sea-ice retreat in the Laptev Sea was the earliest observed in the satellite era. Some 9.8 million people were displaced largely due to hydrometeorological hazards and disasters, and were recorded during the first half of 2020. Annual precipitation totals in monsoon in North America, Africa, South-West Asia and South-East Asia were unusually high in 2020. Monsoon seasonal totals in India were 109% of the long-term mean, the third-highest seasonal total after 1994 and 2019.

“2020 was one of the warmest years despite having a La Niña with cool waters in the east Pacific. La Niñas typically has a cooling effect on global temperatures, but this is now offset by global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, La Niña years now are warmer than years with El Niño events of the past,” Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune.

“International agreements on climate change aim to keep global warming within the safe range of 1.5C to 2C, but few people realise that the world’s average temperature is already more than a degree warmer than it was 200 years ago. Parts of the world like the Himalayas are warming even faster. This is a serious concern for India because climate change could have a compounding effect on existing scarcities, stresses and extreme events. For example, in 2020, even as we were fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, we also had to face Cyclone Amphan, which intensified rapidly in a warmer ocean. It is crucial that all countries invest in adaptation to climate impacts, especially to protect those who are most vulnerable to extreme events. At the same time, we need to accelerate policies and technologies to mitigate global greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly as possible,” said Ulka Kelkar, director of climate programme at the World Resources Institute, responding to the WMO report.

First Ever Human-Monkey Embryos Created To Help Produce Organs For Transplants

Scientists have successfully created the first embryos containing both human and monkey cells, an important step in helping researchers find ways to produce organs for transplants. The results of the groundbreaking experiment, published Thursday in the journal Cell, describe the first mixed-species embryos known as chimeras.

The research team in China was led by Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, who has previously experimented with human and pig embryos. The team injected 25 human stem cells into the embryos of macaque monkeys.

“My first question is: Why?” said Kirstin Matthews, a fellow for science and technology at Rice University’s Baker Institute. “I think the public is going to be concerned, and I am as well, that we’re just kind of pushing forward with science without having a proper conversation about what we should or should not do.”

Still, the scientists who conducted the research, and some other bioethicists defended the experiment. “This is one of the major problems in medicine — organ transplantation,” said Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory of the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences in La Jolla, Calif., and a co-author of the Cell study. “The demand for that is much higher than the supply.”

“I don’t see this type of research being ethically problematic,” said Insoo Hyun, a bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University and Harvard University. “It’s aimed at lofty humanitarian goals.”

Thousands of people die every year in the United States waiting for an organ transplant, Hyun noted. So, in recent years, some researchers in the U.S. and beyond have been injecting human stem cells into sheep and pig embryos to see if they might eventually grow human organs in such animals for transplantation.

But so far, that approach hasn’t worked. So Belmonte teamed up with scientists in China and elsewhere to try something different. The researchers injected 25 cells known as induced pluripotent stem cells from humans — commonly called iPS cells — into embryos from macaque monkeys, which are much more closely genetically related to humans than are sheep and pigs.

After one day, the researchers reported, they were able to detect human cells growing in 132 of the embryos and were able study the embryos for up to 19 days. That enabled the scientists to learn more about how animal cells and human cells communicate, an important step toward eventually helping researchers find new ways to grow organs for transplantation in other animals, Belmonte said.

“This knowledge will allow us to go back now and try to re-engineer these pathways that are successful for allowing appropriate development of human cells in these other animals,” Belmonte told NPR. “We are very, very excited.”

Such mixed-species embryos are known as chimeras, named for the fire-breathing creature from Greek mythology that is part lion, part goat and part snake.

“Our goal is not to generate any new organism, any monster,” Belmonte said. “And we are not doing anything like that. We are trying to understand how cells from different organisms communicate with one another.”

In addition, Belmonte said he hopes this kind of work could lead to new insights into early human development, aging and the underlying causes of cancer and other disease.

However, there are several concerns that using human cells in this way could produce animals that have human sperm or eggs. “Nobody really wants monkeys walking around with human eggs and human sperm inside them,” said Hank Greely, a Stanford University bioethicist who co-wrote an article in the same issue of the journal that critiques the line of research while noting that this particular study was ethically done. “Because if a monkey with human sperm meets a monkey with human eggs, nobody wants a human embryo inside a monkey’s uterus.”

Belmonte acknowledges the ethical concerns. But he stresses that his team has no intention of trying to create animals with the part-human, part-monkey embryos, or even to try to grow human organs in such a closely related species. He said his team consulted closely with bioethicists, including Greely.

Greely said he hopes the work will spur a more general debate about how far scientists should be allowed to go with this kind of research. “I don’t think we’re on the edge of beyond the Planet of the Apes. I think rogue scientists are few and far between. But they’re not zero,” Greely said. “So I do think it’s an appropriate time for us to start thinking about, ‘Should we ever let these go beyond a petri dish?’ “

For several years, the National Institutes of Health has been weighing the idea of lifting a ban on funding for this kind of research but has been waiting for new guidelines, which are expected to come out next month, from the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

The notion of using organs from animals for transplants has also long raised concerns about spreading viruses from animals to humans. So, if the current research comes to fruition, steps would have to be taken to reduce that infection risk, scientists said, such as carefully sequestering animals used for that purpose and screening any organs used for transplantation.

Google Earth’s New Timelapse Feature Shows Chilling Effect Of Climate Change

Google Earth users can now see the striking effect of climate change over the past four decades.  Google’s latest feature, Timelapse, is an eye opening, technical feat that provides visual evidence of how the Earth has changed due to climate change and human behavior. The tool takes the platform’s static imagery and turns it into a dynamic 4D experience, allowing users to click through timelapses that highlight melting ice caps, receding glaciers, massive urban growth and wildfires’ impact on agriculture.

Timelapse compiles 24 million satellite photos taken from 1984 to 2020, an effort Google (GOOG) said took two million processing hours across thousands of machines in Google Cloud. For the project, the company worked with NASA, the United States Geological Survey’s Landsat program — the world’s longest-running Earth observation program — the European Union’s Copernicus program and its Sentinel satellites, and Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab, which helped develop the technology behind Timelapse.

To explore Timelapse in Google Earth, users can type any location into the search bar to see it in motion, whether it’s a landmark or the neighborhood in which they grew up. Google said it removed elements such as clouds and shadows from the images, and computed a single pixel for every location on Earth for every year since 1984; ultimatel stitching them together into a timelapse video.

For example, it’s possible to see the Cape Cod coast slowly shifting south, agriculture growth in the middle of a desert in Al Jowf, Saudi Arabia, and the development of Songdo beach, a man-made beach in Busan, South Korea.

“Visual evidence can cut to the core of the debate in a way that words cannot and communicate complex issues to everyone,” said Rebecca Moore, a director of Google Earth, in a blog post on Thursday.

Google also created various guided tours through Voyager, its storytelling platform, around some of the broader changes seen in the imagery.

The company said it hopes governments, researchers, journalists, teachers and advocates will analyze the imagery, identity trends and share their findings.

“We invite anyone to take Timelapse into their own hands and share it with others — whether you’re marveling at changing coastlines, following the growth of megacities, or tracking deforestation,” Moore said. “Timelapse in Google Earth is about zooming out to assess the health and well-being of our only home, and is a tool that can educate and inspire action.”

Molnupiravir New Drug Gives Hope In Trials Against Coronavirus

Over the last year, several drugs have either been developed or tested to treat coronavirus. Now there’s another that’s showing some promise.  Molnupiravir is an antiviral drug in clinical trials.

In an interview with molecular epidemiologist Dr. Jill Roberts says the way that it works is it messes up viral replication. It’s shown some use against other viruses such as SARS and MERS.

Dr. Roberts says during an animal study on ferrets, they tried to get coronavirus to spread, and it wouldn’t. So while it’s a treatment designed to prevent hospitalizations and deaths, it also seems to prevent transmission.

While there is no timetable about when this would be available, it could be promising for future viruses or pandemics.  “This is a great tool to have to be able to know for future viruses maybe if we get a mutant that actually circumvents the vaccines, this drug will still work.”

Dr. Roberts says now that Merck is behind it, it has the resources to do a big enough trial to send to the FDA to get Emergency Use Authorization or even full authorization.

A couple of other positives she pointed out with this drug: it can also be used for people who do not want to get a vaccine or don’t have the resources to get shots. And, this is a pill, unlike other treatments right now that are IVs and have to be given at a treatment center.

It would be a pill, exquisitely calibrated to target SARS-CoV-2, with tolerable side effects and a low price tag. And it would work just as well as those antibody treatments that require an hourlong intravenous infusion, but it would come in a handy packet patients could take home.

“We’re looking for something I could give everyone in an urgent care setting who comes in with exposure or a positive test,” said Nathaniel Erdmann, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital who treats Covid-19. “An easy, oral, safe drug.”

NIH Director Francis Collins called his “dream”: a highly effective pill that can be given immediately after diagnosis.“It’s just a damn long pathway,” Collins said in an interview. First scientists have to find molecular vulnerability in a virus, and then comes the process of screening hundreds of thousands of would-be drugs to find the few that latch onto that target. Then medicinal chemists get to work on honing a Goldilocks molecule that balances power, specificity, and safety, and if everything goes well in the Petri dish, there’s still months of animal testing to do before a single human being can take a pill in a clinical trial.

“But I will tell you that this is an extremely high priority for Tony Fauci and Francis Collins and the Biden administration, to work with these companies to try to make sure that we speed this up,” Collins said. “Because this pandemic is going to be with us — even with great vaccines — and people are going to get sick.”

There is hope, even in the short term. Any day now, Merck is expected to present pivotal data on an oral treatment akin to remdesivir. Behind that is a treatment from Atea Pharmaceuticals, first developed for hepatitis C virus, which could have pivotal results in the coming months. Neither is purpose-built for the virus that causes Covid-19, but experts said the treatments could still tick many of the boxes of a hoped-for antiviral.

Perhaps most promising is a novel antiviral from Pfizer, a drug engineered specifically for the virus SARS-CoV-2 that entered its first clinical trial last month.

New Jersey-based Merck acquired the drug, MK-7110, through its $425 million acquisition of privately held biopharmaceutical company OncoImmune late last year. An interim analysis of clinical trial data suggested the drug improved the chances of recovery for the sickest patients with Covid-19 and reduced the risk of death or respiratory failure.

Sumit K. Chanda-Led Team Spots Genes That Fight Covid Infection

A team of US scientists, led by an Indian-origin researcher at Sanford Burnham Prebys have identified a set of human genes that fight SARS-CoV-2 infection, the virus that causes COVID-19. Knowing which genes help control viral infection can greatly assist researchers’ understanding of factors that affect disease severity and also suggest possible therapeutic options. The genes in question are related to interferons, the body’s frontline virus fighters. The study was published in the journal Molecular Cell

According to Sumit K. Chanda, professor and director of the Immunity and Pathogenesis Programme at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, the scientists have gained new insights into how the virus exploits the human cells it invades.  “We are still searching for its Achille’s Heel so that we can develop optimal antivirals,” Chanda said in a paper published in the journal Molecular Cell.

Knowing which genes help control viral infection can greatly assist researchers’ understanding of factors that affect disease severity and also suggest possible therapeutic options.  The genes in question are related to interferons, the body’s frontline virus fighters.

“We wanted to gain a better understanding of the cellular response to SARS-CoV-2, including what drives a strong or weak response to infection,” says Sumit K. Chanda, Ph.D., professor and director of the Immunity and Pathogenesis Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys and lead author of the study. “We’ve gained new insights into how the virus exploits the human cells it invades, but we are still searching for its Achille’s heel so that we can develop optimal antivirals.”

Soon after the start of the pandemic, clinicians found that a weak interferon response to SARS-CoV-2 infection resulted in some of the more severe cases of COVID-19. This knowledge led Chanda and his collaborators to search for the human genes that are triggered by interferons, known as interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs), which act to limit SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Based on knowledge gleaned from SARS-CoV-1, the virus that caused a deadly, but relatively brief, outbreak of disease from 2002 to 2004, and knowing that it was similar to SARS-CoV-2, the investigators were able to develop laboratory experiments to identify the ISGs that control viral replication in COVID-19.

“We found that 65 ISGs controlled SARS-CoV-2 infection, including some that inhibited the virus’ ability to enter cells, some that suppressed manufacture of the RNA that is the virus’s lifeblood, and a cluster of genes that inhibited assembly of the virus,” says Chanda. “What was also of great interest was the fact that some of the ISGs exhibited control across unrelated viruses, such as seasonal flu, West Nile and HIV, which leads to AIDS.”

“We identified eight ISGs that inhibited both SARS-CoV-1 and CoV-2 replication in the subcellular compartment responsible for protein packaging, suggesting this vulnerable site could be exploited to clear viral infection,” says Laura Martin-Sancho, Ph.D., a senior postdoctoral associate in the Chanda lab and first author of this study. “This is important information, but we still need to learn more about the biology of the virus and investigate if genetic variability within these ISGs correlates with COVID-19 severity.”

This knowledge led Chanda and his collaborators to search for the human genes that are triggered by interferons, known as interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs), which act to limit SARS-CoV-2 infection.

“We found that 65 ISGs controlled SARS-CoV-2 infection, including some that inhibited the virus’ ability to enter cells, some that suppressed manufacture of the RNA that is the virus’s lifeblood, and a cluster of genes that inhibited assembly of the virus,” Chanda explained.

“What was also of great interest was the fact that some of the ISGs exhibited control across unrelated viruses, such as seasonal flu, West Nile and HIV, which leads to AIDS”.

The team also identified eight ISGs that inhibited both SARS-CoV-1 and CoV-2 replication in the subcellular compartment responsible for protein packaging, suggesting this vulnerable site could be exploited to clear viral infection.

“This is important information, but we still need to learn more about the biology of the virus and investigate if genetic variability within these ISGs correlates with Covid-19 severity,” said Laura Martin-Sancho, a senior postdoctoral associate in the Chanda lab.  As a next step, the researchers will look at the biology of SARS-CoV-2 variants that continue to evolve and threaten vaccine efficacy.

Study Finds, Moderna Vax Has More Side Effects Than Pfizer/Biontech

In a first, a new study has pointed out that those taking the Moderna vaccine have reported more side effects than people who get the Pfizer/BioNTech jabs. The study, published in the journal JAMA, analysed reports collected via a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) programme called v-safe that tracks side effects in vaccine recipients. A total of 3,643,918 people were enrolled in v-safe and completed at least one health survey within seven days following their first vaccine dose before February 21, and 1,920,872 v-safe participants reported receiving a second vaccine dose and completed at least one daily health survey within seven days following the second dose. Nearly 70 per cent of those said they had some kind of injection site reaction, like pain or swelling, and half had generalised reaction like fatigue or chills.

“A greater percentage of participants who received the Moderna vaccine, compared with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, reported reactogenicity; this pattern was more pronounced after the second dose,” the researchers noted. Reactogenicity refers to a subset of reactions that occur soon after vaccination. People who got a Moderna shot were more likely to have a side effect — 73 per cent had an injection site reaction, compared with 65 per cent of people who had a Pfizer/BioNTech dose.

Nearly 51 per cent of Moderna recipients had full-body symptoms, compared with 48 per cent of people who got the Pfizer/BioNTech shot. The gap widened after the second dose. Almost 82 per cent of people getting their second Moderna shot had injection site pain versus just under 69 per cent of people with Pfizer/BioNTech, reports The Verge. “Overall, 74 per cent of people said they had general reactions after their Moderna shot, compared with 64 per cent of people getting Pfizer/BioNTech,” the report said on Tuesday.

People over 65 were also less likely to have side effects than people under 65, regardless of which vaccine they received. “Data from millions of v-safe participants indicate that injection site pain is common after both the first and second doses of either mRNA-based vaccine,” the study noted. Systemic reactions, including fatigue, headache, myalgia, chills, fever, and joint pain, occurred in participants after the first dose, although they were more frequently reported after the second dose among both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccine recipients. (IANS)

A 3,000-Year-Old ‘Lost Golden City’ Has Been Unearthed In Egypt

A 3,000-year-old “lost golden city” has been unearthed in the southern city of Luxor, a discovery that could be the most significant find in Egypt since the tomb of the boy king Tutankhamen, an archaeological mission said on April 8, 2021) in a statement.

Archaeologists have hailed the discovery of what is believed to be the largest ancient city found in Egypt, buried under sand for millennia, which experts said was one of the most important finds since the unearthing of Tutankhamun’s tomb. The famed Egyptologist Zahi Hawass announced the discovery of the “lost golden city”, saying the site was uncovered near Luxor, home of the Valley of the Kings.

“The Egyptian mission under Dr Zahi Hawass found the city that was lost under the sands,” the archeology team said. “The city is 3,000 years old, dates to the reign of Amenhotep III, and continued to be used by Tutankhamun and Ay.” It called the find the largest ancient city, known as Aten, ever uncovered in Egypt.

Aten is believed to have been founded by King Amenhotep III, the ninth king of ancient Egypt’s 18th dynasty who ruled the country from 1391 to 1352 B.C., the mission’s statement said. It is believed to be that era’s largest administrative and industrial settlement, nestled on the western bank of Luxor.

“The discovery of this lost city is the second most important archaeological discovery since the tomb of Tutankhamen,” Betsy Bryan, an Egyptology professor at Johns Hopkins University and member of the mission, said in the statement. Its discovery “will give us a rare glimpse into the life of the ancient Egyptians” when the empire was at its wealthiest.

The lost city is the latest in a series of archaeological discoveries unearthed in recent months across the country that are bringing fresh understanding of the dynasties that ruled ancient Egypt. Egypt’s government hopes that such findings will bolster the nation’s all-important tourism industry, battered in recent years by the coronavirus pandemic, Islamist militant attacks and political instability.

Aten promises to be among the most significant of the recent finds.

Archaeologists started excavating in September in the area between the temples of King Ramses III and Amenhotep III. The original goal of the mission was to find King Tutankhamen’s mortuary temple, the statement said.

“Within weeks, to the team’s great surprise, formations of mud bricks began to appear in all directions,” the statement said. “What they unearthed was the site of a large city in a good condition of preservation, with almost complete walls, and with rooms filled with tools of daily life.

“The archaeological layers have [lain] untouched for thousands of years, justify by the ancient residents as if it were yesterday,” it said. “Many foreign missions searched for this city and never found it,” Zahi Hawass, an Egyptian archaeologist and former minister of state for antiquities affairs who led the mission, said in the statement.

The city was active during the reign of Amenhotep III as well as during his co-regency with his son, Amenhotep IV, also known as Akhenaton. The city was later used by Tutankhamen and his successor, King Ay. Hawass said the city’s streets are flanked by houses, some of which have walls nearly 10 feet high.

The archaeological team dated the settlement through hieroglyphic inscriptions found on wine vessels, rings, scarabs, pottery and mud bricks bearing the seals of King Amenhotep III’s cartouche, the statement said.  “Work is underway and the mission expects to uncover untouched tombs filled with treasures,” the statement read.

Does Moon Impact Your Sleep?

Irrespective of geography, bustle and light pollution, the coming of the full moon affects people in the same way, a new study has found. Over the years, the moon has been blamed for mood swings and bad luck, baby booms and spikes in crime. Could it also be keeping us from dropping off at night?

A recent study by scientists at the University of Washington, the National University of Quilmes in Argentina, and Yale University published in the journal Science Advances this January, links the lunar cycle to sleeping patterns and has shown that , irrespective of geography, bustle and light pollution, and no matter where you are in the world, the coming of the full moon affects people in the same way.

Sleep cycles in humans still oscillate in keeping with the 29.5-day lunar cycle. About five days before the full moon, it takes about 30 minutes longer to drop off, and people on average sleep a little less than usual too.

The study analysed the sleep patterns of 98 people from three different indigenous Toba-Qom communities living in Argentina. One group had no access to electricity, a second had limited access such as a single source of artificial light at home, and the third lived in an urban setting with full access.

Researchers expected only those in the rural communities to be affected by the lunar phases, since artificial light has been shown to have such an immediate and powerful impact on sleep cycles in urban areas. But when the findings came in, it turned out that the lunar forces were equally at play across all three groups. A strong pattern emerged, showing that, on average, people took about 30 minutes longer to fall asleep in the three to five nights before the moon reached its brightest phase.

“Access to electric light did tend to delay the timing of sleep and shorten sleep times. However, it didn’t affect the impact of lunar rhythms, which were prevalent in all communities,” Leandro Casiraghi, co-author of the study and a postdoctoral scholar in the University of Washington’s department of biology, said.

These findings were so surprising that the scientists decided to expand their study and also evaluate data from 464 Seattle-area college students who had been enlisted in another sleep study. The lunar patterns found in sleep timings were almost identical in both populations.

“We still don’t have an explanation for the mechanism that drives this,” says Casiraghi. “Our theory is that it is an ancestral adaptation to the extended period of sky illumination on these days, in which after sunset , the moon is already above the horizon and allows for safe outdoor activity. Non-moonlit night skies are very dark and hence being outside without any other light sources would have been difficult and dangerous.”

This corresponds with the fact that the effects are not seen on full-moon nights, when the moon rises with more of a delay after sunset. “It’s interesting that these moonlit evenings seem to mimic what we do with electric light,” Casiraghi says. “We use it to extend our evening activity, but hardly ever use it to wake up before dawn.”

Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine Shows ‘100% Efficacy’ In Adolescents

The COVID vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech appears to work in children as young as 12 years old. That news comes from results from a study the company conducted in volunteers aged 12 to 15, reports here suggest

The vaccine was 100% effective in protecting against symptomatic disease in a study of more than 2,200 children, the companies said. Researchers also didn’t find any safety concerns. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was safe and effective in adolescents as young as 12, the drug companies announced in a joint news release last week.

New clinical trials showed that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine elicits “100% efficacy and robust antibody responses” in adolescents from 12 to 15 years old, the drug company announced last week. The trial included 2,260 participants; the results are even better than earlier responses from participants ages 16 to 25.

Pfizer and its vaccine partner BioNTech said they will submit the results “as soon as possible” to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency, asking regulators to expand their authorizations for the vaccine’s use in young people.

Pfizer will submit the data “in the coming weeks,” Pfizer CEO and Chairman Albert Bourla said in a news release about the trial. Calling the results encouraging, he added that the company is acting “with the hope of starting to vaccinate this age group before the start of the next school year.”

The Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE safely protects children between the ages of 12 and 15, the companies said, results likely to lead to inoculations within that age group before this summer.

Data from a trial of the vaccine in nearly 2,300 people between the ages of 12 and 15 will be submitted to the Food and Drug Administration in the coming weeks, with the hope that vaccinations could begin before the next school year.

“Across the globe, we are longing for a normal life. This is especially true for our children. The initial results we have seen in the adolescent studies suggest that children are particularly well protected by vaccination,” said Ugur Sahin, chief executive of BioNTech, the German company that developed the vaccine in partnership with U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

The findings, though expected, were much anticipated by parents, health authorities and school officials. They have been waiting for signs on when vaccines that adults have been getting could also be made available to children.

Like other authorized vaccines, the Pfizer-BioNTech shot hasn’t yet been cleared for use in adolescents under 16 years of age. Health experts say children will need to be vaccinated for a population to move past pandemic restrictions, like masking and physical distancing.

The vaccine was 100% effective at preventing symptomatic illness within the trial, with 18 cases of covid-19 in the group that received a placebo and none in the group that received the vaccine, the companies said. The vaccine triggered immune responses that were even more robust than those seen in young adults.

The data is the beginning of what many families, eager for normalcy to return, have been waiting to see. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is currently authorized by the FDA for emergency use for people 16 and older. If regulators extend the authorization to younger age groups, Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla said that vaccinations could begin before the school year.

Last week, Pfizer-BioNTech also started a trial in younger children, ages 6 months to 11 years. That trial will step down in age, establishing a safe dose first in children 5 to 11, then in 2- to 5-year-olds and then in children from 6 months to 2 years.

U.S. biotech firm Moderna is also conducting similar trials to test its coronavirus vaccine in teenagers and young children. Its vaccine is authorized by the FDA for emergency use for people over age 18.

Moderna, whose COVID-19 vaccine is authorized for people 18 and older in the U.S., is also testing its vaccine in adolescents; it announced a trial of around 3,000 participants from 12 to 18 years old in December. Moderna also said earlier this month it had administered the first doses of its vaccine to young children in a separate study that involves kids from 6 months to less than 12 years old.

Johnson & Johnson, whose vaccine got U.S. authorization one month ago, has also been moving to include children in clinical trials. The company will test the vaccine in only a small number of adolescents initially, with plans to expand the study if it is shown to be safe, according to a spokesperson at Janssen, the Johnson & Johnson subsidiary that developed the vaccine.

NASA Shares Data Of Mars Mission With India

The U.S. space agency NASA has exchanged data of its current Mars mission with its counterparts in China, India, the UAE and the European Space Agency to lower the risk of a collision as their spacecraft were also currently hovering the red planet, a media report said on March 31.

The purpose of exchanges was to lower the risk of a collision, as their spacecraft are orbiting the red planet, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported, quoting a NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) statement as saying.

“To assure the safety of our respective missions, NASA is coordinating with the UAE, European Space Agency, Indian Space Research Organisation and the China National Space Administration, all of which have spacecraft in orbit around Mars, to exchange information on our respective Mars missions to ensure the safety of our respective spacecraft,” NASA’s statement said.

“This limited exchange of information is consistent with customary good practices used to ensure effective communication among satellite operators and spacecraft safety in orbit,” the report said.

ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission, Mangalyaan, spacecraft remained in Mars orbit since it entered there in 2014.. India is the first Asian country to successfully send a spacecraft to Mars. NASA’s Perseverance has landed on Mars last month and its rover is currently exploring its surface, while China’s Tianwen-1 consisting of an orbiter, a lander and a rover, entered the parking lot of orbit around Mars on February 24 and expected to land there in the next few months.

United Arab Emirates (UAE) spacecraft, Hope, is also orbiting the Mars planet. There are two spacecraft from the European Space Agency in the Martian orbit, the report said. For information exchange cooperation with China, NASA had sought approval from the U.S. Congress and spoke to CNSA, the U.S. space agency confirmed on Monday, the Post report said.

Previously the U.S., Russia, EU besides India have succeeded in sending spacecraft to Mars regarded as the most complex space mission. Indian education success a model for replication, finds UK’s race report

Indian pupils tend to perform well in education and also go on to have high average incomes as a result, a model that needs further research to be replicated across other ethnicities, finds a new review set up by Prime Minister Boris Johnson into the UK’s racial disparities.

The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report released on Wednesday concluded that class differences had overtaken racial disparity as an impact on life chances in the UK and overall found the country to be fairer even though overt racism remained a reality, particularly online.(Shutterstock)

Indian pupils tend to perform well in education and also go on to have high average incomes as a result, a model that needs further research to be replicated across other ethnicities, finds a new review set up by Prime Minister Boris Johnson into the UK’s racial disparities.

The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report released on Wednesday concluded that class differences had overtaken racial disparity as an impact on life chances in the UK and overall found the country to be fairer even though overt racism remained a reality, particularly online.

One of its central recommendations includes discontinuation of the term BAME, which stands for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic, as no longer “helpful” and proposes references such as British Indian instead.

“It is the commission’s belief that educational success should be celebrated, replicated and used as an exemplar to inspire all pupils across the UK. Evidence shows that certain ethnic groups such as Black African, Indian and Bangladeshi pupils perform better than White British group, once socio-economic status is taken into consideration,” reads the report, chaired by education consultant Dr Tony Sewell.

“This outstanding performance is in part due to what is termed ‘immigrant optimism’: a phenomenon where recent immigrants devote themselves more to education than the native population because they lack financial capital and see education as a way out of poverty. In practice, this means there are significant factors at play that can help groups overcome their socio-economic status and succeed,” it reads.

The 258-page report recommends the Department for Education (DfE) must invest in “meaningful and substantial research” to understand and replicate the underlying factors that drive the success of the high performance of pupils from different ethnicities, such as British Indians.

“In fact, as of 2019, the ethnicity pay gap – taking the median hourly earnings of all ethnic minority groups and the White group – is down to just 2.3 per cent and the White Irish, Chinese and Indian ethnic groups are on average earning notably more than the White British average,” it adds.

How Did Covid-19 Originate? WHO Has Possible Answers

Following a month-long fact-finding mission in China, a World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic concluded that the virus probably originated in bats and passed to people through an intermediate animal.

More than a year after Covid-19 touched off the worst pandemic in more than a century, scientists have yet to determine its origins. The closest related viruses to SARS-CoV-2 were found in bats more than 1,000 miles from the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the disease erupted in late 2019. Initially, cases were tied to a fresh food market and possibly the wildlife sold there. Other theories allege the virus accidentally escaped from a nearby research laboratory, or entered China via imported frozen food. Amid all the posturing and finger-pointing, governments and scientists agree that deciphering the creation story is key to reducing the risk of future pandemics.

Following a month-long fact-finding mission in China, a World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic concluded that the virus probably originated in bats and passed to people through an intermediate animal. But fundamental questions remain about when, where and how SARS-CoV-2 first infected people.

To trace the virus’s origin, it’s crucial to pin down exactly when the first cases occurred in people. The WHO team established that the first person known to have COVID-19 was an office worker in Wuhan with no recent travel history, who began showing symptoms on 8 December 2019, says Peter Ben Embarek, a food-safety scientist at the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, who led the investigation. But the virus was probably spreading in the city before that, because it was well-established by later that month, he says.

While the World Health Organization (WHO) report on the origins of the novel coronavirus was released on March 30th, 2020, the draft report has said that the laboratory origin theory of SARS-Cov-2 — that it was leaked from a laboratory — is “extremely unlikely”. According to a report by CNN, which says that it has reviewed the draft report, the virus started spreading probably a month or two before December 2019, when it first came into notice.

Markets that sold animals — some dead, some alive — in December 2019 have emerged as a probable source of the coronavirus pandemic in a major investigation organized by the World Health Organization (WHO).That investigation winnowed out alternative hypotheses on when and where the pandemic arose, concluding that the virus probably didn’t spread widely before December or escape from a laboratory. The investigation report, released today, also takes a deep look at the likely role of markets — including the Huanan market in Wuhan, to which many of the first known COVID-19 infections are linked.Of the four possible scenarios on how Covid-19 spread, the draft says the most likely way the pandemic started would have been through an intermediate wild animal which may have been captured and raised on a farm, via a bat, which is considered the most likely origin. However, the report says “the possible intermediate host of SARS-CoV-2 remains elusive”.

Another way the virus could have spread may have been through direct transmission form an infected animal, such as a bat or a pangolin. The report also considers the possibility of the virus having spread from frozen or chilled food, though it says “there is no conclusive evidence for foodborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and the probability of a cold-chain contamination with the virus from a reservoir is very low”.
The report, prepared by a joint team of Chinese and international researchers, also looked at the role of Huanan seafood market in Wuhan and said that since there’s evidence of the virus circulating even before the outbreak at the market, which may be ascribed to the crowds gathered there, “Huanan market was not the original source of the outbreak”. The report advises more testing of blood samples taken and stored before the first report of outbreak in December 2019 as well as more testing of animals from Southeast Asia.

“We could show the virus was circulating in the market as early as December 2019,” says the WHO’s Peter Ben Embarek, who co-led the investigation. He adds that this investigation is far from the last. “A lot of good leads were suggested in this report, and we anticipate that many, if not all of them, will be followed through because we owe it to the world to understand what happened, why and how to prevent it from happening again”.

Eddie Holmes, a virologist at the University of Sydney in Australia, says that the report does a good job of laying out what’s known about the early days of the pandemic — and notes that it suggests next steps for study. “There was clearly a lot of transmission at the market,” he says. “To me, looking at live-animal markets and animal farming should be the focus going forward.”

Nevertheless, exactly what happened at the Huanan market remains unknown. Genomic analyses and inferences based on the origins of other diseases suggest that an intermediate animal — possibly one sold at markets — passed SARS-CoV-2 to humans after becoming infected with a predecessor coronavirus in bats. But inconclusive doesn’t mean impossible. Analysts say, there will be more work to come. “This report is a very important beginning, but it is not the end.”

What happened to MARS’s water? Is It still trapped there?

Newswise — Billions of years ago, the Red Planet was far more blue; according to evidence still found on the surface, abundant water flowed across Mars and forming pools, lakes, and deep oceans. The question, then, is where did all that water go?

The answer: nowhere. According to new research from Caltech and JPL, a significant portion of Mars’s water–between 30 and 99 percent–is trapped within minerals in the planet’s crust. The research challenges the current theory that the Red Planet’s water escaped into space.

The Caltech/JPL team found that around four billion years ago, Mars was home to enough water to have covered the whole planet in an ocean about 100 to 1,500 meters deep; a volume roughly equivalent to half of Earth’s Atlantic Ocean. But, by a billion years later, the planet was as dry as it is today. Previously, scientists seeking to explain what happened to the flowing water on Mars had suggested that it escaped into space, victim of Mars’s low gravity. Though some water did indeed leave Mars this way, it now appears that such an escape cannot account for most of the water loss.

“Atmospheric escape doesn’t fully explain the data that we have for how much water actually once existed on Mars,” says Caltech PhD candidate Eva Scheller (MS ’20), lead author of a paper on the research that was published by the journal Science on March 16 and presented the same day at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC). Scheller’s co-authors are Bethany Ehlmann, professor of planetary science and associate director for the Keck Institute for Space Studies; Yuk Yung, professor of planetary science and JPL senior research scientist; Caltech graduate student Danica Adams; and Renyu Hu, JPL research scientist. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

The team studied the quantity of water on Mars over time in all its forms (vapor, liquid, and ice) and the chemical composition of the planet’s current atmosphere and crust through the analysis of meteorites as well as using data provided by Mars rovers and orbiters, looking in particular at the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen (D/H).

Water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen: H2O. Not all hydrogen atoms are created equal, however. There are two stable isotopes of hydrogen. The vast majority of hydrogen atoms have just one proton within the atomic nucleus, while a tiny fraction (about 0.02 percent) exist as deuterium, or so-called “heavy” hydrogen, which has a proton and a neutron in the nucleus.

The lighter-weight hydrogen (also known as protium) has an easier time escaping the planet’s gravity into space than its heavier counterpart. Because of this, the escape of a planet’s water via the upper atmosphere would leave a telltale signature on the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen in the planet’s atmosphere: there would be an outsized portion of deuterium left behind.

However, the loss of water solely through the atmosphere cannot explain both the observed deuterium to hydrogen signal in the Martian atmosphere and large amounts of water in the past. Instead, the study proposes that a combination of two mechanisms–the trapping of water in minerals in the planet’s crust and the loss of water to the atmosphere–can explain the observed deuterium-to-hydrogen signal within the Martian atmosphere.

When water interacts with rock, chemical weathering forms clays and other hydrous minerals that contain water as part of their mineral structure. This process occurs on Earth as well as on Mars. Because Earth is tectonically active, old crust continually melts into the mantle and forms new crust at plate boundaries, recycling water and other molecules back into the atmosphere through volcanism. Mars, however, is mostly tectonically inactive, and so the “drying” of the surface, once it occurs, is permanent.

“Atmospheric escape clearly had a role in water loss, but findings from the last decade of Mars missions have pointed to the fact that there was this huge reservoir of ancient hydrated minerals whose formation certainly decreased water availability over time,” says Ehlmann.

“All of this water was sequestered fairly early on, and then never cycled back out,” Scheller says. The research, which relied on data from meteorites, telescopes, satellite observations, and samples analyzed by rovers on Mars, illustrates the importance of having multiple ways of probing the Red Planet, she says.

Ehlmann, Hu, and Yung previously collaborated on research that seeks to understand the habitability of Mars by tracing the history of carbon, since carbon dioxide is the principal constituent of the atmosphere. Next, the team plans to continue to use isotopic and mineral composition data to determine the fate of nitrogen and sulfur-bearing minerals. In addition, Scheller plans to continue examining the processes by which Mars’s surface water was lost to the crust using laboratory experiments that simulate Martian weathering processes, as well as through observations of ancient crust by the Perseverance rover. Scheller and Ehlmann will also aid in Mars 2020 operations to collect rock samples for return to Earth that will allow the researchers and their colleagues to test these hypotheses about the drivers of climate change on Mars.

The paper, titled “Long-term Drying of Mars Caused by Sequestration of Ocean-scale Volumes of Water in the Crust,” published in Science on 16 March 2021. This work was supported by a NASA Habitable Worlds award, a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF) award, and a NASA Future Investigator in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) award.

A Mouse Embryo Grown In An Artificial Womb

Biologists from Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science have grown a mouse embryo — complete with beating heart cells, a head, and greenshoots of limbs — in an artificial womb for 12 days, longer than ever before. That’s about half the animal’s natural gestation period. The human equivalent of the period would be the first trimester.

How: The embryo was not grown in vitro starting from a fertilised egg. Instead, the scientists collected 5-day-old embryos from pregnant mice and moved them into glass vials filled with a special nutrient liquid. The vials were slowly spun and provided with a pressurised oxygen mixture. The mouse embryos grew till Dat 12 and only died after they became too large for the oxygen to diffuse through them, since they lack the natural blood supply a placenta could provide. The findings were published in the journal Nature (paywall).

The significance: Much of what is known about mammalian embryonic development today comes either from observing the process in non-mammals like frogs or fish that lay transparent eggs, or by obtaining static images from dissected mouse embryos (at different stages of development) and adding them together, explains Prof. Jacob Hanna of the Weizmann Institute. Growing an embryo in the lab gives scientists a whole new level of insight.

And marks a step towards… the ethical minefield of developing human embryos in a glass jar. In fact, in the same issue of Nature, two other research groups reported a leap forward in creating “artificial” human embryos, the MIT Technology Review notes.

Guardrails: Scientists currently adhere to a protocol of not developing human embryos beyond 14 days of sterilisation. Some countries have coded that as a law. But there are calls for allowing human embryos to grow longer. Hanna says doing so also would give access to lab-grown embryo tissues required for scientific research — for example, in the development of vaccines — instead of obtaining them from abortions.

(Source: Weizmann Institute of Science)

12 Indian Institutions Among Top 100 In World

This year, 12 Indian institutions have made it to the top 100 of the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2021. These are IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur, IISC Bangalore, IIT Guwahati, IIM Bangalore, IIM Ahmedabad, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Anna University, University of Delhi, and O P Jindal University.

Among these, IIT Madras has been ranked 30th in the world for Petroleum Engineering, IIT Bombay has been ranked 41st and IIT Kharagpur 44th for Minerals and Mining Engineering, and the University of Delhi has been ranked 50th in the world for Development Studies.

Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on Thursday said the reforms made by the government in higher education has improved representation of Indian institutions in globally acclaimed rankings.

“Over the last few years, the government’s continuous focus on improvement and reform in Indian higher education has resulted in significant improvement in the representation of Indian institutions in globally acclaimed and reputed rankings like QS,” the Union education minister said at the unveiling of the QS World University Rankings by Subject (2021).

“India’s higher education system plays a vital role in driving the nation’s competitiveness. Today, India is a leading nation with the highest number of higher education institutions across the globe with significant progress in the last few years in terms of enrolment in higher education which now stands at 37.4 million,” Pokhriyal said.

About the government’s efforts towards minimising the gender gap in higher education, he said women constituted 48.6 per cent of the total enrolment. The minister also said that the ‘National Education Policy’ is aimed at transforming Indian higher education into a knowledge superpower in the 21st century.

“NEP has a forward-looking vision for holistic and multidisciplinary education, eliminating the rigid separation of streams. It paves the way for internationalisation of education and encourages top world-ranked universities to open campuses in India,” Pokhriyal said. He also stressed on the active participation of all stakeholders in the implementation of the policy.

We Need To Foundationally Transform Cloud: Nadella

In order to herald the next generation of innovation in Cloud technology, tech companies need to foundationally transform how Cloud can drive the next level of broad economic growth that everyone can participate in, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has stressed.

Addressing the Microsoft ‘Ignite 2021’ virtual conference, Nadella said that it’s time for us to reflect on how the Cloud will change over the next decade.

“As computing becomes embedded everywhere in our world — transforming how we interact with people, places and things — and as physical and digital worlds converge, we will require more sovereignty and decentralised control. Cloud and edge computing will evolve to meet all of these real-world needs,” he emphasised.

The volume, variety and velocity of data will go through explosive growth in the cloud — and in particular at the edge devices, driving the decentralised architecture of compute.

“In this world, data will be more private, more sovereign. Data governance and provenance will take on new importance. We will develop new methods of federated machine learning to drive the next generation of personalized and yet privacy-preserving services,” the Microsoft CEO added.

At the digital conference, Microsoft unveiled the public preview of Azure Percept, a platform of hardware and services that aims to simplify the ways in which customers can use Azure AI technologies on the edge.

Roanne Sones, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s edge and platform group, said the goal of the new offering is to give customers a single, end-to-end system, from the hardware to the AI capabilities, that “just works” without requiring a lot of technical know-how.

The Azure Percept platform includes a development kit with an intelligent camera, Azure Percept Vision.

There’s also a “getting started” experience called Azure Percept Studio that guides customers with or without a lot of coding expertise or experience through the entire AI lifecycle, including developing, training and deploying proof-of-concept ideas.

Nadella said that in the artificial intelligence (AI) we create using all this enormous power of the cloud, we will look for increasing levels of predictive and analytical power, common sense reasoning, alignment with human preferences –and perhaps most importantly, augmenting human capability.”

“Our economy will find a new balance between consumption and creation. We believe the next decade will require technology advances that radically democratise creation,” he noted. (IANS)

Earth Has Life Span Of Nearly 1bn Years More: Study

The future life span of Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere is approximately one billion years, a new study reveals.

According to the study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, Earth’s surface environment is highly oxygenated — from the atmosphere to the deepest reaches of the oceans, representing a hallmark of active photosynthetic biosphere.

However, the fundamental timescale of the oxygen-rich atmosphere on Earth remains uncertain, particularly for the distant future.

“For many years, the lifespan of Earth’s biosphere has been discussed based on scientific knowledge about the steadily brightening of the sun and global carbonate-silicate geochemical cycle,” said researcher Kazumi Ozaki, Assistant Professor at Toho University.

To examine how Earth’s atmosphere will evolve in the future, the team constructed an Earth system model which simulates climate and biogeochemical processes.

Because modelling future Earth evolution intrinsically has uncertainties in geological and biological evolutions, a stochastic approach was adopted, enabling the researchers to obtain a probabilistic assessment of the lifespan of an oxygenated atmosphere.

The team ran the model more than 400,000 times, varying model parameter, and found that Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere will probably persist for another one billion years before rapid deoxygenation renders the atmosphere reminiscent of early Earth before the Great Oxidation Event around 2.5 billion years ago.

“The atmosphere after the great deoxygenation is characterized by an elevated methane, low-levels of CO2 and no ozone layer. The Earth system will probably be a world of anaerobic life forms,” said Ozaki.

Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere represents an important sign of life that can be remotely detectable. However, this study suggests that Earth’s oxygenated atmosphere would not be a permanent feature, and that the oxygen-rich atmosphere might only be possible for 20-30 per cent of the Earth’s entire history as an inhabited planet, the researchers said.

Oxygen (and photochemical byproduct, ozone) is the most accepted biosignature for the search for life on the exoplanets, but if we can generalize this insight to Earth-like planets, then scientists need to consider additional biosignatures applicable to weakly-oxygenated and anoxic worlds in the search for life beyond our solar system, the team added. (IANS)

Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 Vaccine Approved For Use

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisers voted Sunday, Feb 28th to recommend the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine for the US. It is the first of the three authorized Covid-19 vaccines that comes in a single dose.

In a unanimous 22-0, a panel of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration recommended that the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson be authorized for emergency use in adults during the pandemic.

The vote in favor of the vaccine, which requires only one shot for protection, was taken to answer this question: Do the benefits of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine outweigh its risks for use in people 18 years of age and older. The FDA typically follows the advice of its expert advisers. If the agency agrees, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine would be the third one cleared for use in the U.S.

A quick decision is expected given the state of the pandemic. The FDA authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines one day after the same panel recommended them for clearance during separate meetings last December.

Two weeks ago, Dr. Mathai Mammen, Janssen’s global head of research and development, said if the vaccine is authorized for emergency use, “Our plan is to have supply immediately upon launch.” Even those who got moderate cases of Covid-19 in the trial tended to develop a milder course and fewer symptoms, said Dr. Mathai Mammen. From one month after the shot, all hospitalizations and deaths occurred in the placebo group.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was tested in an international study of about 40,000 people, half of whom got the vaccine and half of whom got a placebo. The study found the company’s vaccine to be 66% effective overall in preventing moderate to severe COVID-19 disease. For disease judged severe or critical, the effectiveness was 85%. The study was conducted in the U.S., South America and South Africa.

The main study included in the company’s application found that 28 days or more after immunization, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine prevented hospitalizations and death related to COVID-19.  The overall efficacy figures are lower than Pfizer’s 95% for preventing COVID-19 disease and 94% for Moderna.

As the pandemic has drawn on, the coronavirus has mutated. Variants first seen in South Africa and Brazil, where the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was tested, mutated in ways that help them evade the immune response prompted by vaccines developed against the original form of the virus.

The vaccine was tested in more than 44,000 people in the US, South Africa and Latin America. Globally, it was 66.1% effective against moderate to severe/critical Covid-19 at least four weeks after vaccination, according to an FDA analysis. In the US, it is considered 72% effective, and offered 86% protection against severe forms of the disease.

Among more than 6,000 study participants who were queried within a week of vaccination, the most common side effects were pain at the site of injection (49%), headache (39%), fatigue (38%) and muscle pain (33%). These side effects were mostly mild or moderate.

The authorization of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine would help expand the supply of COVID-19 shots. The company said 4 million doses of vaccine would be available in the U.S. as soon as the FDA gives its OK. A total of 20 million doses would be ready by the end of March, and Johnson & Johnson has committed to deliver 100 million doses under its contract with the federal government by the end of June.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is a group of vaccine and public health experts that helps set guidelines for the CDC concerning the best practices with vaccinations. Members voted unanimously, with one recusal for a potential conflict of interest, to recommend the vaccine. They did not make any recommendations about specific groups who should receive the vaccine.

“I just want to state explicitly how very grateful I am that we now have three highly effective vaccines,” said ACIP member Dr. Matthew Daley of the Institute for Health Research with Kaiser Permanente Colorado.

The vaccine, made by Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine arm, can be kept at regular refrigerator temperatures, which experts said would make it much easier to distribute than vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech.

“During a pandemic, the data show that the best utilization of resources is to employ all available vaccines with acceptable vaccine efficacy. This will save cost and lives,” the CDC’s Dr. Sara Oliver told the ACIP meeting. A single-dose vaccine has an advantage, particularly in settings where a second dose “would be challenging.” For example, it could be used to help protect the homeless, people in the justice system, and those with limited access to health care like people who are homebound or live in rural areas, Oliver said.

Overall, non-fatal serious adverse events were infrequent, according to the FDA’s analysis, and there were no reported cases of anaphylaxis following vaccination in the trial. There have been a small number of severe allergic reactions with the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines. For example, in the first week of the Pfizer vaccine rollout, there were only 29 cases out of 1.9 million doses administered, according to the CDC. More research is needed to now for sure, but the FDA analysis also hinted that the J&J vaccine may help prevent asymptomatic infections.

“These are three highly efficacious vaccines,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “I can tell you I have been fully vaccinated with one that was available. It was the Moderna. If I were not vaccinated now and I had a choice of getting a J&J vaccine now or waiting for another vaccine, I would take whatever vaccine would be available to me as quickly as possible.”

“We want to get as many people vaccinated as quickly and expeditiously as possible,” Fauci said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “So this is good news because we have another very good vaccine in the mix.”

The US has ordered 100 million doses and the company has been manufacturing it while it has been testing the vaccine. Typically, companies wait to make the vaccine after its been approved, but that changed during the pandemic.  Johnson & Johnson says it can meet its 100 million dose commitment by June.

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