Category: Science

Scientists Design Rotation Profile Of The Sun Based On Century-Old Sunspot Images

Staff ReporterScience 0

A team of international solar researchers, led by Bibhuti Kumar Jha, a PhD scholar from Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES) in Nainital, has designed a rotation profile of the Sun after studying the varying behaviours of sunspots observed over 100 years. Sunspots are small and dark but cooler areas on the solar surface having strong magnetic forces.

The solar rotation profile is based on the fact that the bigger sunspots rotate at a slower rate in comparison to the smaller ones. “The presence of strong magnetic fields around bigger sunspots prevents them from having a faster rotation rate. This, as opposed to smaller sunspots which possess a comparatively less intense magnetic field allowing it to rotate faster,” Jha said.

Researchers at ARIES, in collaboration with their counterparts at Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Germany and Southwest Research Institute, US, studied several thousand digitised images of sunspot images retrieved from older photographs and films. The images were generated by the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory (KoSO) between 1923 and 2011.

Run by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, KoSO has a repository of about 4 lakh images of the Sun recorded since 1904. All of them have been digitised in the recent years.

Unlike Earth — a solid mass of body having uniform rotation, the Sun has differential rates of rotation. This means, the solar equator rotates faster than its poles. The scientists have attempted to precisely track sunspots at various latitudes of the Sun in order to understand the rotational behaviours at different latitudes.

Besides, sunspots and solar cycles have helped scientists understand the Sun’s behaviour from the past. These continue to remain observable characters to predict the Sun’s future. However, what makes the tracking of sunspots challenging is the time and the position on the Sun’s surface. Generally, they start appearing at higher latitudes and later shift towards the equator as the solar cycle (which spans 11 years) progresses.

“We do not see sun spots across all latitudes at all times. As sunspots do not appear beyond 45 degrees latitude, sunspots are not formed around the poles,” Dipankar Banerjee, director, ARIES, and a collaborator in the study, told The Indian Express.

Due to limited camera resolution at the time of image capturing during telescope observations, results from several past studies were based only on larger sun spots. But the KoSO image data-set featured sun spot images captured in all sizes. “Even using the dynamo models, the rate of differential rotation still remains unestablished,” Banerjee added.

Contrary to what is believed, no variation in rotation rates was noted between solar activity extremes, that is, between a solar maxima and minima, the researchers confirmed.

If one can understand solar dynamo, it can give a better insight into the solar cycle which in turn, will help predict how the Sun will behave in future, Jha said.

 

UAE’s Historic Mission To Mars

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The UAE has become the fifth country after the US, Russia, China, the EU, and India, to reach the Martian orbit. The primary objective of the mission is to study Martian weather dynamics.

The United Arab Emirates’ first mission to Mars entered the orbit of the red planet on Tuesday, seven months after the Emirati-built ‘Hope Probe’ was launched from Tanegashima in Japan. With this, the UAE has become the fifth country after the US, Russia, China, the EU, and India, to reach the Martian orbit.

Relieved ground controllers at the UAE’s space station in Dubai broke into applause after the unmanned spacecraft called ‘Al-Amal’ — the Arabic word for hope — executed a ‘burn’ on its braking engines to reduce speed and successfully slipped into Mars’ gravity.

“What you have accomplished is an honour for you, and an honour for the nation. I want to congratulate you,” said Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed after entering the control room, AFP reported. The historic event was timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the unification of the UAE’s seven emirates.

What is the UAE’s Hope Probe?

First announced in July 2014, the Emirates Mars Mission was developed and operated by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in collaboration with the University California, Berkeley, Arizona State University and the University of Colorado-Boulder in the United States.

In July 2020, it was launched from the Tanegashima Space Centre in Japan aboard a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ H-II A rocket and its launch became the 45th for H-II A. Carrying three instruments, including a high-resolution camera and a spectrometer, the spacecraft is on an orbital mission to collect data on Martian climate dynamics and help scientists understand why Mars’s atmosphere is decaying into space.

Hope is the UAE’s fourth space mission and first interplanetary one. The previous three were all Earth-observation satellites. Once it is successfully able to reach the planet, it will start orbiting the planet. Its overall mission life is one Martian year, which is about 687 days on Earth.

The mission is one of three launched to Mars from Earth in July. The other two — China’s Tianwen-1 dual orbiter-rover and Perseverance from NASA — are expected to reach the red planet later this month. While Hope was the first to arrive, Tianwen-1 will reach on February 10, followed by Perseverance on February 18.

he timing of the mission is crucial as it was launched at a time when Earth and Mars were aligned at their closest points around the Sun, the Verge reported.

What is the objective of the mission?

The primary objective of the mission is to study Martian weather dynamics. By correlating the lower atmosphere and upper atmosphere conditions, the probe will look into how weather changes the escape of hydrogen and oxygen into space.

By measuring how much hydrogen and oxygen is spilling into space, scientists will be able to look into why Mars lost so much of its early atmosphere and liquid water. Over the next two months, the spacecraft will continue to move into its final orbital position — around 20,000-43,000 kilometres about the planet. The distance is calculated in a way that allows the craft to use all three instruments to capture a complete view of the Martian atmosphere every nine days for the next two years.

It is expected to create the first complete portrait of the planet’s atmosphere. With the information gathered during the mission, scientists will have a better understanding of the climate dynamics of different layers of Mars’ atmosphere.

Al-Amal will be the first “true weather satellite” orbiting around the planet. But the UAE also wants the mission to inspire the country’s youth to take up careers in the sciences. The government also hopes that the mission will boost the UAE’s science and technology sector.

 

Age-Related Macular Degeneration: Poised For A New Treatment Era

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Newswise — SAN FRANCISCO – For more than a decade, ophthalmologists have treated wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) with eye injections given every month or two, and dry AMD with antioxidant vitamins. These treatments were groundbreaking when introduced, offering hope for the first time that this sight-threatening disease could be slowed, and in some cases stopped or even reversed. As we mark February as AMD Awareness Month, the American Academy of Ophthalmology is highlighting what the next decade may hold for the 11 million Americans suffering from AMD.

The good news is that AMD treatment continues to evolve to the benefit of patients. Ophthalmologists expect to soon have more effective options to protect people from going legally blind from AMD.

“While our current treatments have made a huge difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, new treatments offer hope to patients whose AMD previously could not be treated,” said Sunir J. Garg, MD, FACS, a retina specialist and clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. “New treatments will also help patients receive beneficial treatment more conveniently than ever before.”

The following is a review of the most promising research.

Dry AMD

Dry AMD can be divided into three forms: early, intermediate, and late. For those with intermediate disease, a formulation of antioxidant vitamins called the AREDS2 formula can help many patients reduce their risk of vision loss. But for those with late-stage disease, also called geographic atrophy, there is no treatment available. However, there are several promising clinical trials underway.

  • Targeting the immune system A part of the immune system called the “complement cascade” has long been identified as a culprit in AMD. Two new drugs that target the complement cascade and stop it from attacking the retina have recently advanced to late-stage clinical trials. One (pegcetacoplan, APL-2) targets a complement protein called C3, the other drug candidate (Zimura, avacincaptad pegol) targets a different protein in the cascade, C5. Like currently available treatments for wet AMD, these drugs are injected directly into the patient’s eye. Already proven safe in people, researchers are now investigating whether they can substantially improve vision. Results are expected in about a year.
  • Replacing vision cells Another concept under investigation is the possibility of replacing some cells that begin to die in late dry AMD. These retinal pigment epithelial cells can be produced from stem cells and then placed under the retina during a surgical procedure. Trials have shown that cell replacement did not have unexpected side effects. Additional trials are now evaluating whether it can actually improve vision. Even though intriguing investigations are progressing, stem cell treatments still have a long way to go before approval.

Wet AMD

Before anti-VEGF treatments were introduced about 15 years ago, people with wet AMD were almost certain to develop severe vision loss or blindness. While clinical trials show that anti-VEGF injections have allowed more than 90 percent of patients to keep their vision, in the real world the percentage is closer to 50 percent. That’s because people aren’t being treated as regularly as they should. The problem is most people need an injection every four to eight weeks to keep their vision. This can be a difficult schedule to maintain for many elderly patients struggling with other maladies and reliant on others to get them to their ophthalmology visits.

Some of the most exciting research today is looking at better alternatives to frequent injections. It’s not just about convenience; the hope is that a more consistent treatment will also help people keep more of their vision.

  • New delivery methods One promising approach that could be available soon is a refillable drug reservoir. The device, about the size of a grain of rice, is surgically implanted in the eye, just under the eyelid. After the device is filled with a concentrated version of the anti-VEGF drug Lucentis, it delivers drug to the back of the eye over time. Instead of an injection every six to eight weeks, patients might get a fill up once or twice a year at the doctor’s office. The device can be refilled using a special needle. The latest studies show many people treated this way were able to go 15 months in between treatments.
  • Gene therapy Gene therapy offers the hope of a potential “one-and-done” treatment. Researchers are using already proven gene therapy methods to deliver a treatment that enables the eye to make its own anti-VEGF medicine. Two different methods are under investigation: One injects the gene therapy underneath the retina in a surgical procedure; the other injects it into the eye just like a routine anti-VEGF treatment is done in the doctor’s office. There are four different drug candidates under investigation for wet AMD and one for dry AMD. Despite the promise of gene therapy, the long-term effectiveness remains to be seen. Among the challenges it faces is the likely sky-high cost of such a treatment.
  • New targets Anti-VEGF treatments are effective because they target one key factor that contributes to wet AMD, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). But what if a drug could target two key contributing factors to the development of AMD? That’s the idea behind the drug faricimab. It targets both VEGF and the protein angiopoietin-2. It’s injected into the eye like a standard anti-VEGF treatment, but it lasts longer. The latest research shows patients could go up to four months in between treatments. However, this data is so new that it has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

“This is an exciting time for clinical research for age-related macular degeneration that gives hope to many of our patients,” said Rahul N. Khurana, a retina specialist and clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. “For dry AMD patients suffering from vision loss, there may be treatments on the horizon. For wet AMD, there are new delivery options with longer duration of action and new molecular targets that may lead to more effective therapies.”

The American Academy of Ophthalmology is the world’s largest association of eye physicians and surgeons. A global community of 32,000 medical doctors, we protect sight and empower lives by setting the standards for ophthalmic education and advocating for our patients and the public. We innovate to advance our profession and to ensure the delivery of the highest-quality eye care. Our EyeSmart® program provides the public with the most trusted information about eye health. For more information, visit aao.org.

Dr. Mathai Mammen, J&J’s Global Head Of Research And Development, Is Confident Of Its Covid Vaccine

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A third Covid-19 vaccine, one made by Johnson & Johnson, could be authorized for use in the United States in the near future. The vaccine was made through a collaboration of J&J’s Belgium-based vaccine division, Janssen Pharmaceutical, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and it works a bit differently.

The company will apply for an EUA “middle to late next week,” Dr. Mathai Mammen, Janssen’s global head of research and development, said during a call with reporters last week. The call was held along with officials from the National Institutes of Health. Janssen is the vaccine arm of Johnson & Johnson. If the vaccine is authorized for emergency use, Mammen said, “Our plan is to have supply immediately upon launch.” 

Once an application is submitted, “The FDA really looks very, very carefully at the data in each age group and in each demographic group,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during the call.

 

Data about the single-shot vaccine released, and the company is now collating its data to apply to the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization. Here’s what’s known about how it works and how it will fit into the mix of vaccines.

How effective is it?

Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 single-shot vaccine was shown to be 66% effective in preventing moderate and severe disease in a global Phase 3 trial, the company announced Friday.

The vaccine is 85% effective overall at preventing hospitalization and death in all regions where it was tested.

Its efficacy against moderate and severe disease ranged from one country to another: 72% in the US, 66% in Latin America and 57% in South Africa. This was measured starting one month after the shot.

In South Africa, 95% of cases in the trial were due to a variant known as B.1.351, which is known to be more contagious and carries mutations that may make the virus less susceptible to the antibody immune response — including antibodies prompted by vaccination.

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, Janssen’s global head of research and development. From one month after the shot, all hospitalizations and deaths occurred in the placebo group.

How it works

The J&J vaccine is what is known as a non-replicating viral vector vaccine, using a common cold virus called adenovirus 26. Scientists made this vaccine by taking a small amount of genetic material that codes for a piece of the novel coronavirus and integrating it with a weakened version of adenovirus 26. J&J scientists altered this adenovirus so it can enter cells, but it cannot replicate and make people sick. 

AstraZeneca uses a similar platform, but its adenovirus comes from a chimpanzee. The adenovirus carries the genetic material from the coronavirus into human cells, tricking them into making pieces of the coronavirus spike protein — the part it uses to attach to cells. The immune system then reacts against these pieces of the coronavirus.

“So you’re not being infected with the virus that can give you Covid-19 when you get this vaccine. It just has some of the harmless Covid virus proteins on its surface,” explained Dr. William Schaffner, an internist and infectious disease specialist with Vanderbilt University’s Department of Health Policy. “So essentially it’s a sheep in wolf’s clothing, and when your immune system sees it, it responds to it and creates protection against it and in the future, against the real virus that causes Covid-19.”

The technology used in the Covid-19 vaccine has worked with the Ebola vaccine by Janssen.

How is it different from the other Covid-19 vaccines?

Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said the Moderna, Pfizer and J&J Covid-19 vaccines all take a similar approach, but there is a small difference with the J&J approach.

“In the case of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine you’re just giving the gene in a lipid nanoparticle or a fat droplet,” Offit said. “In the case of J&J you’re giving the gene in a virus that can’t reproduce itself.”

The J&J vaccine is the only Covid-19 vaccine so far to be given in a single dose. Moderna and Pfizer’s use two. Like Moderna’s, it can also be kept at regular refrigerated temperatures and does not need a deep freeze like Pfizer’s.

How does a single-dose shot affect the rollout?

A single dose and would be much easier to administer and would mean more people could be vaccinated, as none would need to be set aside to give someone a second shot. 

“This advantage goes up in neon,” said Schaffner who believes adding a vaccine like this would “really accelerate” vaccination efforts in the US and around the world.

“If it’s a single-dose vaccine, then a billion vaccine doses would translate into a billion people vaccinated,” said Dr. Dan Barouch of Harvard Medical School, who helped develop Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine candidate on CNN’s Coronavirus Fact vs. Fiction podcast.

The cold-chain advantage 

J&J’s other advantage is that it can be stored at regular refrigerator temperatures, unlike the Pfizer vaccine, which needs special deep freezers. The vaccine is stable for up to three months at 36 degrees F to 46 degrees F, the company said. That means health care facilities would not have to buy extra equipment to safely store the vaccine.

“If they’re successful, these vaccines would especially be popular in the developing world, because they would be easy to store and administer,” said Dr. Rafi Ahmed, the director of the Vaccine Center at Emory University.

The vaccines would also be popular in rural communities in the US and regular doctor’s offices that may not have access or the budget to afford specialized equipment.

“In other words, we could bring the vaccine to the people,” Schaffner said, “rather than bringing the people to the vaccine.”

What happens next?

The company will request what’s known as an emergency use authorization, or an EUA, from the FDA in early February. The data will get a close look from the FDA and advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While the FDA is reviewing the data, it schedules a public meeting of its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. The committee is made up of independent science and public health experts who will discuss the J&J data and make a recommendation to the agency.

Once an application is submitted, “The FDA really looks very, very carefully at the data in each age group and in each demographic group,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a call on Friday.

After the meeting, FDA staff members consider the committee input along with the agency’s evaluation of the company’s data and will make a decision about whether the vaccine should by authorized.

Shortly after an EUA, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, also known as ACIP, goes through the data, too.

Once the CDC committee has made a recommendation and it has been approved by the CDC director, the company plans to ship the vaccines immediately and it can go into arms right away.

How long does the authorization process take?

The process for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should be about the same as it was for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, according Offit, who is a member of the FDA’s VRBPAC.

With the Pfizer vaccine, it took a little over three weeks from the time the company submitted its data to an EUA. With the Moderna vaccine, it took a little more than two weeks.

If the vaccine is authorized for emergency use, “our plan is to have supply immediately upon launch,” Mammen said.

How many doses are there?

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.

Dr. Mammen’s mission is to work with the best research and development professionals in the world to make meaningful medicines that impact the lives of patients, their families and communities.

Prior to joining Janssen in June 2017, Dr. Mammen was Senior Vice President at Merck Research Laboratories, responsible for research in the areas of Cardiovascular, Metabolic and Renal Diseases, Oncology/Immuno-Oncology and Immunology. Jointly with his team, he initiated numerous new programs and progressed eight into early clinical development. He also nucleated a new discovery site in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Prior to Merck, Dr. Mammen led R&D at Theravance, a company he co-founded in 1997 based on his work at Harvard University. Under his leadership, the Theravance team of 200 scientists nominated 31 development candidates in 17 years, created three approved products (Breo®, Anoro®, Vibativ®), two additional assets that have successfully completed Phase 3 studies and a pipeline containing 11 further development-stage compounds in 2016. In 2014, he and the Theravance Leadership Team separated Theravance into two publicly traded companies: Innoviva (INVA) and Theravance Biopharma (TBPH).

Dr. Mammen has more than 150 peer-reviewed publications and patents and serves on various boards and advisory committees. He received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts Institute of Technology (HST program) and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry, working with George Whitesides. He received his BSc in Chemistry and Biochemistry from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

(Courtesy: CNN’s Amanda Sealy, Jacqueline Howard and Maggie Fox)

The Rate Of The Universe’s Expansion Explained

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Newswise —A combination of astrophysical measurements has allowed researchers to put new constraints on the radius of a typical neutron star and provide a novel calculation of the Hubble constant that indicates the rate at which the universe is expanding.
“We studied signals that came from various sources, for example recently observed mergers of neutron stars,” said Ingo Tews, a theorist in Nuclear and Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology group at Los Alamos National Laboratory, who worked with an international collaboration of researchers on the analysis to appear in the journal Science on December 18. “We jointly analyzed gravitational-wave signals and electromagnetic emissions from the mergers, and combined them with previous mass measurements of pulsars or recent results from NASA’s Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer. We find that the radius of a typical neutron star is about 11.75 kilometers and the Hubble constant is approximately 66.2 kilometers per second per megaparsec.”
Combining signals to gain insight into distant astrophysical phenomena is known in the field as multi-messenger astronomy. In this case, the researchers’ multi-messenger analysis allowed them to restrict the uncertainty of their estimate of neutron star radii to within 800 meters.
Their novel approach to measuring the Hubble constant contributes to a debate that has arisen from other, competing determinations of the universe’s expansion. Measurements based on observations of exploding stars known as supernovae are currently at odds with those that come from looking at the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), which is essentially the left over energy from the Big Bang. The uncertainties in the new multimessenger Hubble calculation are too large to definitively resolve the disagreement, but the measurement is slightly more supportive of the CMB approach.
Tews’ primary scientific role in the study was to provide the input from nuclear theory calculations that are the starting point of the analysis. His seven collaborators on the paper comprise an international team of scientists from Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, and the United States.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is managed by Triad, a public service oriented, national security science organization equally owned by its three founding members: Battelle Memorial Institute (Battelle), the Texas A&M University System (TAMUS), and the Regents of the University of California (UC) for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration.
Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.

Biden Leads the Way with Receiving COVID-19 Vaccine

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President-elect Joe Biden received his first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on December 21st in front of cameras to help build confidence in the vaccine across the country.
Biden joined a list of high-profile politicians and millions of other font line healthcare workers and Seniors across the nation, vaccinated Dressed in a navy blue mock turtleneck and wearing two masks, Biden pushed up his left sleeve for the vaccination at ChristianaCare’s Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware.

“I’m doing this to demonstrate that people should be prepared, when it’s available, to take the vaccine. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m looking forward to the second shot,” Biden said shortly after receiving his vaccination.

“We owe these folks an awful lot. The scientists and the people who put this together and frontline workers, the people who were the ones who actually did the clinical work, it’s just amazing,” Biden said. “We owe you big, we really do.”

Biden’s vaccination comes as a second coronavirus vaccine, produced by Moderna, has begun to be distributed across the country, and as the death toll from the virus nears 320,000 Americans.
As the number of Covid-19 cases reported in the United States passed 18 million, the second vaccine given emergency authorization was being administered Monday for the first time outside of clinical trials.

One of the first people to get a public dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine was a doctor in Texas who has gone to work, fighting the virus for 277 consecutive days. “This is like having gold,” Dr. Joseph Varon told CNN as he held a box of doses shortly before he was vaccinated. “I don’t cry, but I came very close … You know how many lives you can save with this?”

The president-elect said the Trump administration “deserves some credit” for getting the vaccine and distribution off the ground with Operation Warp Speed, but stressed that while the vaccines marked progress, the country needs to continue taking precautions to slow the spread of coronavirus, particularly around the upcoming holidays.

“I don’t want to sound like a sour note here, but I hope people listen to all of the experts and the Dr. Faucis on … talking about the need to wear masks during this Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Wear masks, socially distance. And if you don’t have to travel, don’t travel. Don’t travel. It’s really important because we’re still in the thick of this,” Biden said

Biden, 78, had long promised to take the vaccine if advised by Dr. Fauci to do so. In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” last week, Fauci recommended Biden receive the vaccine as soon as possible.

“Dr. Fauci recommends I get the vaccine sooner than later. I want to just make sure we do it by the numbers, and we do it — but when I do it, you’ll have notice and we’ll do it publicly. Thank you,” Biden told reporters last Tuesday.

Vice President-elect Harris and her husband, incoming second gentleman Doug Emhoff, are also expected to receive the vaccine at a later date.

“Consistent with security and medical protocols, the Vice President will not receive the vaccine at the same time as the president. We expect she and Mr. Emhoff will receive their first dose of the vaccine the following week, and we will have additional details on that next week,” the incoming White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said Friday.

Biden joins several political leaders who have received the vaccine, including Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and several members of Congress.

One politician yet to take the vaccine is President Donald Trump, who has largely been out of public sight since the two COVID-19 vaccines have received emergency use authorization from the FDA.

As of Monday morning more than 614,000 Americans have received a vaccine shot, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Covid Data Tracker.
Most Americans will have to wait months before getting their inoculations.

In the meantime, new infections, hospitalizations and deaths keep soaring, prompting health experts to urge the public to stay home this Christmas week.
“This is really not the time to be traveling,” epidemiologist Dr. Celine Gounder said.
But millions of airline passengers ignored such advice and traveled over the weekend.
Now travelers risk getting infected with a variant of coronavirus that might be even more contagious.

‘Christmas Star’ Brightens Up The Sky As Jupiter And Saturn Come Closer Than They Have In Centuries

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If popular culture has taught us anything about the holidays, it’s that this is a season of reunions: a time when people conquer great distances and lengthy separations just to be together again. Usually, though, such stories involve cross-country trips — not the orbits of the two largest planets in our solar system.

This year is different.

On Dec. 21, Jupiter and Saturn — which are actually separated by more than 400 million miles —appeared closer to each other in the night sky than they have for centuries. Seen at the right hour, whether by telescope or the naked eye, the gas giants are separated by roughly a fifth of the diameter of the typical full moon. At this proximity, the planets will appear to touch or even form one large, brilliant star in the sky.

The spectacle is a curious effect of their orbits. Since Jupiter takes a little less than 12 years to circle the sun and Saturn takes more than 29, the planets appear to earthlings to meet roughly every 20 years, in what astronomers call a “great conjunction.” The last great conjunction occurred in May 2000, though its position in the sky at the time meant the average stargazer likely lost it in the glare of the sun.

But you’ll need to reach much further into the past to find the last instance such a conjunction was this close and this visible to stargazers. The Perth Observatory in Australia says that Jupiter and Saturn last approached this closely to each other in July 1623, but as with the conjunction in 2000, it was hard to spot.

“You’d have to go all the way back to just before dawn on March 4, 1226, to see a closer alignment between these objects visible in the night sky,” Patrick Hartigan, an astronomer at Rice University, explained in a statement last month.

There’s still another holiday connection at work here, beyond a simple coincidence of timing. Some astronomers, dating back to Johannes Kepler in the 17th century, have conjectured that the Star of Bethlehem that guided the three wise men to Jesus Christ’s birthplace in the Bible was a conjunction like the one set to appear later this month — although likely one involving different planets.

“Alignments between these two planets are rather rare, occurring once every 20 years or so, but this conjunction is exceptionally rare because of how close the planets will appear to one another,” said astronomer Patrick Hartigan, a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University in Houston, in a statement.

Saturn and Jupiter began appearing close to each other this past summer, but this spectacle of proximity will be clearest beginning in mid-December.

“Look for them low in the southwest in the hour after sunset. And on December 21st, the two giant planets will appear just a tenth of a degree apart — that’s about the thickness of a dime held at arm’s length!” NASA explained earlier this month. “This means the two planets and their moons will be visible in the same field of view through binoculars or a small telescope. In fact, Saturn will appear as close to Jupiter as some of Jupiter’s moons.”

After the winter solstice, the two planets will appear to begin moving apart again.
Now, this sentimental holiday reunion is no Hallmark movie; if you miss it this year, don’t expect to see it again next December. Astronomers say there won’t be another great conjunction this close until 2080. (Courtesy: NPR.COM)

Thirumala-Devi Kanneganti led Team Develops Potential Strategy to Deal with COVID-19 Symptoms

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A team led by Thirumala-Devi Kanneganti, vice chair of the St. Jude Department of Immunology, identified a previously unknown interaction between two messenger proteins that can unleash a cascade of inflammatory cell death, leading to tissue damage and multiple organ failure. The team also reported that two existing drugs based on neutralizing antibodies appear to disrupt this deadly process.

The study, published online in the journal Cell, comes as researchers around the globe race to develop therapies and vaccines to staunch a pandemic that, in less than one year, has killed some 1.2 million people and sickened millions more. With effective treatment options currently limited, doctors often rely on supportive care, including supplemental oxygen and mechanical breathing assistance, in their efforts to save patients.

“Understanding the pathways and mechanism driving this inflammation is critical to develop effective treatment strategies,” said Kanneganti, who was corresponding author of the study. “This research provides that understanding.”

The scientists, led by Thirumala-Devi Kanneganti, vice chair of immunology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, identified the drugs after discovering that the hyperinflammatory immune response associated with Covid-19 leads to tissue damage and multi-organ failure in mice by triggering inflammatory cell death pathways, the report said.

“Understanding the pathways and mechanism driving this inflammation is critical to develop effective treatment strategies,” Kanneganti, who was born in Telangana and earned her undergraduate degree at Kakatiya University in Warangal, said in the report.

“This research provides that understanding. We also identified the specific cytokines that activate inflammatory cell death pathways and have considerable potential for treatment of Covid-19 and other highly fatal diseases, including sepsis,” she said in the report.

Kanneganti worked with Bhesh Raj Sharma, Rajendra Karki and others at her lab for the research that helps increase understanding of the pathways and mechanism that drives COVID-19 inflammation so researchers can develop effective treatment strategies, it said.

The infection is marked by increased blood levels of multiple cytokines. These small proteins are secreted primarily by immune cells to ensure a rapid response to restrict the virus. Some cytokines also trigger inflammation, the release notes.

Kanneganti’s team focused on a select set of the most elevated cytokines in COVID-19 patients. The scientists showed that no single cytokine induced cell death in innate immune cells, it said.

The investigators showed that blocking individual cell death pathways was ineffective in stopping cell death caused by TNF-alpha and IFN-gamma, according to the report.

“The findings link inflammatory cell death induced by TNF-alpha and IFN-gamma to COVID-19,” said Kanneganti. “The results also suggest that therapies that target this cytokine combination are candidates for rapid clinical trials for treatment of not only Covid-19, but several other often fatal disorders associated with cytokine storm,” she said.

The work by Kanneganti’s team focused on cytokines, tiny proteins secreted primarily by immune cells. Infections involving SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 — can lead to increased blood levels of cytokines.

These proteins sometimes cause inflammation, and when they flood the bloodstream in dramatically increased levels, lead to what researchers call a “cytokine storm.” Other life-threatening disorders such as sepsis and hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) can lead to the same immune system overreaction. But the exact pathways initiating the cytokine storms and subsequent inflammation have remained a mystery.

To find them, Kanneganti and her team examined the cytokines most often present in elevated levels in COVID-19 patients. After finding that no single cytokine caused cell death, the scientists tested 28 combinations of the proteins and discovered that just one pair, working together, did induce inflammation and tissue damage mirroring the symptoms of COVID-19.

Researchers further concluded that existing drugs, Remicade and Gamifant, which are used to treat such inflammatory diseases as Crohn’s disease and colitis prevented COVID-19 complications in laboratory models.

“The results also suggest that therapies that target this cytokine combination are candidates for rapid clinical trials for treatment of not only COVID-19, but several other often fatal disorders associated with cytokine storm,” Kanneganti said.

The study’s co-first authors are Rajendra Karki, PhD, and Bhesh Raj Sharman, PhD, of the Kanneganti laboratory. The other authors are Shraddha Tuladhar, Parimal Samir, Min Zheng, Balamurugan Sundaram, Balaji Banoth, R. K. Subbarao Malireddi, Patrick Schreiner, Geoffrey Neale, Peter Vogel and Richard Webby, of St. Jude; and Evan Peter Williams, Lillian Zalduondo and Colleen Beth Jonsson, of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

The research was supported in part by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH); and ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude.

Moderna Seeking US, European Regulators To Approve Covid-19 Vaccination

Staff ReporterHealth, Science 0

Moderna Inc, which has reported its Covid-19 vaccine is 94 per cent effective, on Monday announced it is filing with US and European regulators for emergency use authorization. Moderna follows barely a week after Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech filed for US regulatory approval. By the end of 2020, Moderna expects to have approximately 20 million doses of its mRNA-1273 vaccine available in the U.S and is “on track to manufacture 500 million to 1 billion doses globally in 2021.

Moderna created its shots in collaboration with the U.S. National Institutes of Health and got a final batch of results over the weekend which show the vaccine is more than 94% effective. Moderna’s efficacy results are based on 196 Covid-19 cases in its huge U.S. study with more than 30,000 participants. Of the 196 cases, 185 were in participants who received the dummy shot and 11 who got the vaccine. Severe cases and one death were reported in participants who got the dummy shot.

Moderna expects to present its data to the US Food and Drug Administration on December 17. First up will be Pfizer and BioNTech, on December 10. Both Pfizer and Moderna are two-shot vaccines.

The US government’s vaccine management chief has said all systems are ready to deliver the vaccines to priority groups within 24 to 48 hours of FDA approval.  Government Model Suggests U.S. COVID-19 Cases Could Be Approaching 100 Million

The actual number of coronavirus infections in the U.S. reached nearly 53 million at the end of September and could be approaching 100 million now, according to a model developed by government researchers.

The model, created by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, calculated that the true number of infections is about eight times the reported number, which includes only the cases confirmed by a laboratory test.

Preliminary estimates using the model found that by the end of September, 52.9 million people had been infected, while the number of laboratory-confirmed infections was just 6.9 million, the team reported in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

“This indicates that approximately 84% of the U.S. population has not yet been infected and thus most of the country remains at risk,” the authors wrote.

Since then, the CDC’s tally of confirmed infections has increased to 12.5 million. So if the model’s ratio still holds, the estimated total would now be greater than 95 million, leaving about 71% of the population uninfected. The model attempts to account for the fact that most cases of COVID-19 are mild or asymptomatic and go unreported.

Scientists used studies looking for people who have antibodies to the coronavirus in their blood – an indication that they were infected at some time — to estimate how many infections went undetected. Some of these antibody studies have suggested that only about one in 10 coronavirus infections is reported.

The goal in creating the model was to “better quantify the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the healthcare system and society,” the authors wrote. The model also estimated that official counts do not include more than a third of the people hospitalized with COVID-19.

NPR (11/26, Hamilton) reported “the actual number of coronavirus infections in the U.S. reached nearly 53 million at the end of September and could be approaching 100 million now, according to a model developed by” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers. The model “calculated that the true number of infections is about 8 times the reported number, which includes only the cases confirmed by a laboratory test.” NPR added, “Preliminary estimates using the model found that by the end of September, 52.9 million people had been infected, while the number of laboratory-confirmed infections was just 6.9 million, the team reported in…Clinical Infectious Diseases.”

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