Category: Science and Tech
A New UV Light May Help Stop Future Pandemics
Infectious Disease Advisor Five years after COVID-19 first hit the United States, scientists are already brainstorming how to stop the next big virus. One possible solution? A special kind of ultraviolet light called far-UVC, CBS News reported. Unlike regular UVC light, which can be harmful to people, far-UVC has a shorter wavelength. That means it can kill […]
Apr 16, 2025
Scientists hope far-UVC light could help stop the next airborne pandemic before it starts
CBS News Five years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic first swept across the U.S., infecting millions and claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. Scientists are already concerned about the next airborne threat, but in the future, a powerful new weapon may be waiting in the wings. Far-UVC light is a form of ultraviolet light that can kill viruses and bacteria […]
Apr 9, 2025
Fast Detection of Airborne Bird Flu with New Biosensor
Ag Connection Washington University researchers have introduced a groundbreaking biosensor that detects airborne H5N1 bird flu in under five minutes. Developed in the Chakrabarty lab, this device marks a significant advancement in monitoring pathogens that threaten poultry and dairy farms. The biosensor utilizes electrochemical capacitive technology to achieve rapid and sensitive detection of viral and […]
Apr 9, 2025
Antiviral Chewing Gum May Prevent Flu and Herpes Transmission
Precision Medicine Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s (UPenn) School of Dental Medicine and their collaborators in Finland report they have developed chewing gum made from lablab beans that was effective at neutralizing both influenza and herpes simplex virus (HSV) transmission. The study, published in Molecular Therapy, shows the promise of this method as a new tool to help mitigate the […]
Apr 8, 2025
What the COVID-19 pandemic tells us about how viruses evolve
NPR arly in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists predicted the coronavirus would mutate slowly. They were wrong. Hundreds of thousands of viral mutations and multiple seasonal waves later, researchers now know why. Turns out, SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes the disease COVID-19 — was making evolutionary leaps and bounds in one specific group of people. “When […]
Mar 25, 2025
Four ways COVID changed virology: lessons from the most sequenced virus of all time
Nature After 150,000 articles and 17 million genome sequences, what has science taught us about SARS-CoV-2? Kei Sato was looking for his next big challenge five years ago when it smacked him — and the world — in the face. The virologist had recently started an independent group at the University of Tokyo and was […]
Mar 19, 2025
America Is Sleeping on a Powerful Defense Against Airborne Disease
The Atlantic Treating clean indoor air as a public good would have protected Americans against more than COVID-19. In the early evening of March 7, 2020, I was on my cellphone in an airport terminal, telling a friend that I was afraid to write an article that risked ruining my journalistic reputation. I had been […]
Mar 11, 2025
The Next Pandemic May Come From Bats
Reuters Humanity is ramping up the risk of global health disasters by intruding deep into the world’s bat habitats, breeding grounds for deadly viruses. In this five-part series, Reuters pinpoints the places where the next outbreaks are likeliest. PART ONE: WEST AFRICA The world’s bat lands are under attack, seeding risk of a new pandemic. […]
Feb 18, 2025
AI approach reveals possible fusion of rare diseases in COVID-19 origins
Medical News Despite extensive research, the origins of COVID-19 remain elusive. In a new study published in the KeAi journal Advances in Biomarker Sciences and Technology (ABST), an AI-driven approach was adopted to examine DNA methylation patterns at 865,859 CpG sites in blood samples from early COVID-19 patients. The study was conducted by Zhengjun Zhang from the Department […]
Feb 12, 2025
How Sudan Virus Infects Human Cells With Greater Efficiency Than Ebola
Technology Networks Sudan virus binds to human cells with nine times more affinity than Ebola, revealing key infection mechanisms. The Sudan virus, a close relative of Ebola, has a fatality rate of 50% but remains poorly understood in terms of how it infects cells. Currently, no approved treatments exist. To address this critical gap in […]
Feb 5, 2025