Evidence is mounting that Omicron’s new sister variant, known as BA.2, is more transmissible than the original strain but at this stage does not appear to be more vaccine-evasive. The subvariant BA.2 is one of at least three sub-lineages of Omicron, the strain of COVID-19 first spotted in Africa in late November and now [...]
In a potential game changer for COVID-19 pandemic control efforts, a new cell phone app and lab kit have transformed a smartphone into a COVID-19 / flu detection system. The detection system is among the most rapid, sensitive, affordable and scalable tests known—and can be readily adapted for other pathogens with pandemic potential including [...]
To understand how the coronavirus keeps evolving into surprising new variants with new mutations, it helps to have some context: The virus’s genome is 30,000 letters long, which means that the number of possible mutation combinations is mind-bogglingly huge. As Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, told me, that number far, [...]
A robot has successfully performed "keyhole" intestinal surgery on pigs without any aid from humans, according to a study from John Hopkins University (published in Science Robotics). What's more, the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR) handled the tricky procedure "significantly better" than human doctors. The breakthrough marks a significant step towards automated surgery that could one day [...]
It's called the "stealth" variant, but there's nothing particularly stealthy about it. Researchers are working to parse whether it is a new threat. As coronavirus case numbers in the U.S. show early signs of tapering, scientists are keeping a watchful eye on a newly identified version of the omicron variant, nicknamed "stealth omicron," that is [...]
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Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and the University of Basel have developed a rapid test for COVID-19. Its novel functional principle promises reliable and quantifiable results concerning a patient's COVID-19 disease and its course—as well as evidence concerning other diseases and COVID variants that may be present. Before it can go into [...]
A group of researchers proposed an optimized electroforming strategy to achieve a bioinspired nano-holed TiO2 coated Ti6Al4V alloy, according to a study published in the journal ACS Applied Material Interfaces. Near-infrared (NIR) energy plays a critical part in directed exterior stimulation treatments, and it is increasingly used in spine treatments. As a result, biomaterials with NIR-activated characteristics [...]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 2.8 million Americans experience antibiotic-resistant infections each year; more than 35,000 die from those infections. To address this critical and worldwide public health issue, a team of researchers led by Hongjun (Henry) Liang, Ph.D., from the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) [...]
Scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Northwestern Medicine have identified natural extracellular vesicles containing the ACE2 protein (evACE2) in the blood of COVID-19 patients that can block infection from broad strains of SARS-CoV-2 virus in preclinical studies. The study was published today in Nature Communications. The evACE2 act as decoys [...]
