Back when Andy Rivkin was in college, he had a few friends in medical school. “I was like, oh man, I don’t want do anything that has too much responsibility,” he says. Instead, he looked to the stars. “Astronomy seemed pretty safe.” And, for a while, it was. Rather than […]
Month: November 2021
Lost Women of Science, Episode 3: The Case of the Missing Portrait
From the COVID vaccine to pulsars to computer programming, women are at the source of many scientific discoveries, inventions and innovations that shape our lives. But in the stories we’ve come to accept about those breakthroughs, women are too often left out. Each season at Lost Women of Science, we’ll […]
COVID Can Cause Strange Eye and Ear Symptoms
Red eyes, ringing ears, sensitivity to light, trouble hearing: although a loss of taste and smell have become well-known sensory symptoms of COVID, accumulating research suggests that vision and hearing are also frequent targets of SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes the disease. More than 10 percent of people who get […]
An Experiment Using Human Stem Cells Ended Up Reversing Diabetes in Mice
A technique capable of converting human stem cells into insulin-producing cells could hold huge promise for future diabetic treatments, if results seen in a recent experiment with mice can be successfully replicated in humans. In a 2020 study, researchers figured out a new way to coax human pluripotent stem […]
Scientists Discover Unknown Plant Species Growing on Australia’s Sacred Uluru
Scientists have made what is being described as a once-in-a-lifetime discovery, finding a new plant species on the giant rock of Uluru in Australia. What’s more, the fig has been hiding in plain sight for years. Ficus desertorum, or the desert fig, is the name that’s been given to the […]
Experimental mRNA Vaccine Not Yet Tested in Humans Protects Against Lyme Disease
A new laboratory-stage mRNA vaccine that teaches the immune system to recognize the saliva from tick bites could prevent these bugs from feeding on and transmitting tick-borne diseases to people, according to a recent study my colleagues and I conducted in the Fikrig Lab at the Yale School of Medicine. […]
Toxic Signature of Poisoning in 5,000-Year-Old Bones Is Oldest Evidence of Its Kind
The earliest evidence of mercury poisoning has been found in 5,000-year-old bones of humans buried in Spain and Portugal, according to a new study. Exposure to the naturally occurring heavy metal may have toxic effects on the body including on the nervous, digestive, and immune systems, according to The World Health Organization (WHO). […]
Antibody Breakthrough in Mice Could Lead to a Vaccine For Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia, impacting roughly 44 million people worldwide. In some nations, those numbers could triple in the next fifty years, and scientists are desperately trying to find ways to protect our aging populations. Now, a novel method for treatment has been […]
Wildfires Are Spurring Wandering Tree Species to Move Faster, Study Finds
Plants and trees choose where to put down their roots based on the surrounding environment, and as the world’s climate shifts, trees and other vegetation are on the move: movements which are accelerated by the spread of wildfires, according to a new study. Both tree and animal species alike […]
New research models the relationship between carbon impacts and market factors in the oil industry — ScienceDaily
Predicting the behavior of any market is a slippery thing. Energy markets are changing especially quickly, and this is most clearly seen in the oil industry. With decreasing demand during the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of electric vehicles, the market has experienced a shock, and it probably won’t be […]
Outcomes for hospitalized COVID-19 patients taking immunosuppressive medications similar to non-immunosuppressed patients, study finds — ScienceDaily
A large, nationwide study of COVID-19 cases led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has found that people taking medications that suppress the immune system — for example, to prevent transplant rejection or to treat cancer — overall do not have a higher risk of […]