(CNN)The novel coronavirus pandemic could lead to a wave of brain damage in infected patients, warned British researchers in a new study released Wednesday.
Experts at the University College London (UCL) were the latest to describe that Covid-19 could cause neurological complications including stroke, nerve damage, and potentially fatal brain inflammation — even if the patients didn’t show severe respiratory symptoms associated with the disease.
“We should be vigilant and look out for these complications in people who have had Covid-19,” said joint senior author Dr. Michael Zandi in a UCL press release, warning that it remains to be seen “whether we will see an epidemic on a large scale of brain damage linked to the pandemic.”
Follow-up studies will be necessary to understand the potential long-term neurological consequences of the pandemic, they…
The “Triaxus” towing platform breaks through the choppy surface of the ocean during a storm. By towing such a platform with monitoring instruments through the water, changing its depth in a ‘yo-yo’ pattern as it traveled, scientists created high-resolution snapshots of how a dye released upstream evolved across the Gulf Stream front. Credit: Craig M. Lee, UW APL
New research provides the first direct evidence for the Gulf Stream blender effect, identifying a new mechanism of mixing water across the swift-moving current. The results have important implications for weather, climate and fisheries because ocean mixing plays a critical role in these processes. The Gulf Stream is one of the largest drivers of climate and biological productivity from Florida to Newfoundland and along the western coast of Europe.
The multi-institutional study led by a University of Maryland researcher revealed that churning along the…
There’s an electrical hum in most animals, including ourselves. No one knows where it came from or why exactly it exists. Now, new research suggests this electric hum came from primordial lightning.
In most vertebrates and invertebrates, there is constant background cellular electrical activity, often coursing through the nervous system, with a small frequency range from 5 to 45 Hertz — well below the range of human hearing for sound waves. A new study, published in the journal International Journal of Biometeorology, notes this extremely low frequency (ELF) range overlaps with natural vibrations in the atmosphere caused by lightning.
James Shulmeister receives funding from the Australian Research Council and is part of a National Science Foundation grant from the US. As well as being Professor and Head of School at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, he is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland, Australia and an associate investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH)
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.
If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz
Last week, Yellowstone National Park released a statement explaining that a 72-year-old woman from California had been gored by a wild bison after she approached it multiple times to take its picture. Now, footage of the lead-up to the attack, captured by fellow campers, has made its way online.
The update came from local Minneapolis CBS affiliate WCCO, who acquired footage captured by the Larsen family camping near the 72-year-old and her husband. According to the Larsen family, the woman approached the wild bison multiple times, ignoring warning signs like the bison “making noises and blowing steam out.”
This confirms Yellowstone’s version of events. The park originally said that the woman “approached within 10 feet of a bison multiple times to take its photo.” In fact, based on the footage below, 10 feet may have been an exaggeration. In the news report below, you can see the woman approaching within arm’s reach of the bison at one point, as her husband took photos:https://www.youtube.com/embed/C-dbUvcPZdY
“The lady got way too close, she just kept provoking the bison,” says Jake Larsen in an interview. “She was trying to reach her hand out and pet the thing.”https://eb50a01626b9b39201beb0cfa25c9ad7.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
Shortly after this, the bison lost patience and charged, throwing the woman 10 to 15 feet, and then attacking her again when she regained consciousness and tried to get up. Fortunately, Jodi Larsen is a nurse, and was able to tend to the lady while they waited for park rangers to arrive. The woman was eventually airlifted to an Idaho hospital, and we now know that she has been released.
In situations like this, the wild animal is sometimes put down because they’re not sufficiently fearful of humans, to many wildlife photographers dismay. As Yellowstone conducts its investigation into the incident, the footage above should be proof enough that the animal was repeatedly provoked before acting out.
Every second, a star dies in the universe. But these stellar beings don’t just completely vanish, stars always leave something behind.
Some stars explode in a supernova, turning into a black hole or a neutron star, while the majority of stars become white dwarfs, a core of the star it once used to be. However, a new study reveals that these white dwarfs contribute more to life in the cosmos than previously believed.https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
The study, published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy, suggests that WHITE DWARF STARS are the main source of carbon atoms in the Milky Way, a chemical element known to be crucial to all life.
White dwarf stars are a primary source for one of the building blocks of life. NASA and H. Richer (University of British Columbia)
When stars like our own Sun, a yellow dwarf star, run out of fuel, they turn into a white dwarf. In fact, 90 percent of all stars in the universe end up as white dwarf stars.
White dwarfs are hot, dense stellar remains with temperatures that reach 100,000 Kelvin. Over time, billions of years, these stars cool and eventually dim as they shed their outer material. However, right before they collapse, their remains are transported through space by winds that originate from their bodies.
These stellar ashes contain chemical elements such as carbon.
Carbon is the fourth most abundant chemical in the universe and is a key element in the formation of life as it is the basic building block to most cells.
All of the carbon in the universe originated from stars, therefore the phrase that we are made of stars is not only poetic but rather accurate. However, astronomers could not agree on which type of star is responsible for spreading the most amount of carbon across the cosmos.
The scientists behind the new study used observations of white dwarfs in open star clusters, groups of a few thousand stars formed around the same time, in the Milky Way by the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii in 2018.
They measured the stars’ initial-final mass relation, which is the relationship between the stars’ masses when they first formed and their masses as white dwarfs.
Usually, the larger the star was, the more massive a white dwarf will be. However, the study found that the stars’ masses as white dwarfs were larger than the scientists had anticipated considering their initial mass when they first formed.https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
“Our study interprets this kink in the initial-final mass relationship as the signature of the synthesis of carbon made by low-mass stars in the Milky Way,” Paola Marigo, a researcher at the University of Padua in Italy, and lead author of the study, said in a statement.
The team of scientists concluded that stars bigger than 2 solar masses also contributed to the galactic enrichment of carbon, while stars of less than 1.5 solar masses did not.
“Now we know that the carbon came from stars with a birth mass of not less than roughly 1.5 solar masses,” Marigo said.
The new study suggests that carbon was essentially trapped in the raw material that formed the Solar System 4.6 billion years ago.
Abstract: The initial–final mass relation (IFMR) links the birth mass of a star to the mass of the compact remnant left at its death. While the relevance of the IFMR across astrophysics is universally acknowledged, not all of its fine details have yet been resolved. A new analysis of a few carbon–oxygen white dwarfs in old open clusters of the Milky Way led us to identify a kink in the IFMR, located over a range of initial masses, 1.65 ≲Mi/M⊙≲ 2.10. The kink’s peak in white dwarf mass of about 0.70−0.75 M⊙ is produced by stars with Mi ≈ 1.8−1.9 M⊙, corresponding to ages of about 1.8−1.7 Gyr. Interestingly, this peak coincides with the initial mass limit between low-mass stars that develop a degenerate helium core after central hydrogen exhaustion, and intermediate-mass stars that avoid electron degeneracy. We interpret the IFMR kink as the signature of carbon star formation in the Milky Way. This finding is critical to constraining the evolution and chemical enrichment of low-mass stars, and their impact on the spectrophotometric properties of galaxies.
WASHINGTON – Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Monday that the U.S. handle on the coronavirus outbreak is “really not good” and that action is needed to curb the spread.
In an interview via Facebook Live, the nation’s top infectious disease expert said, “We are still knee-deep in the first wave of this. And I would say, this would not be considered a wave. It was a surge, or a resurgence of infections superimposed upon a baseline.”
New cases in the USA have reached record highs, climbing to about 50,000 a day. Nearly 3 million Americans have contracted the virus, and more than 130,000 have died, according to data from John Hopkins University.
Fauci, speaking online with the National Institutes of Health, linked the surge in part to cities and states that may have reopened too quickly.
“A series of circumstances associated with various states…
WARNING: SOME IMAGES ARE GRAPHIC. Courtesy: Idaho Humane Society<p>{/p}
BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — A cat is healing after being found by Humane officers with a trap caught on its leg, Idaho Humane Society says.
In a Facebook post, IHS says Animal Care and Control officers found the cat walking around a neighborhood off Pine Avenue near Cloverdale Road. The cat gave chase, but an officer was able to capture it and bring it to the shelter.
Staff at Idaho Humane Society sedated the cat to remove the trap. “Thankfully, this cat’s injuries were limited to its paw and we were able to provide medical care and reunite it with its owners,” the post says.
Idaho Humane Society is encouraging those in the neighborhood to keep a watchful eye on children. IHS also recommends keeping pets inside whenever possible, and checking…
A NEW swine flu strain has been identified as a possible human pandemic threat as scientists say that it has “all the essential hallmarks” of a future pandemic virus.
A study published by the National Academy of Sciences claimed the virus was a worsening issue in pig farms. Alexandru Niculae, Communication Officer Media and Risk Communication at European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), told Express.co.uk: “The data have been already presented in earlier meetings where the issue of the circulation of >30 different reasserted swine flu viruses with different compositions in the pig population in China and most of them contained H1pdm09 segments were mentioned. Therefore these findings are well known.
“The study highlights important findings to monitor swine influenza closely; however, the findings described due to the low sample size in a growing pig population of >60 mil pigs during a study period over several years in the past might not represent the actual situation in the Chinese pig population.
“In addition, the epidemic of African Swine Fever had a great impact in and caused high mortality in the pig population across South-east Asia including China over the last years, which might have contributed to a different situation.
“Although a relatively high rate of seropositivity of 10% is mentioned, positive serological findings could also indicate cross-reactivity to closely related viruses which might have a different gene composition.
“No international notification through IHR of any human case and in particular a severe human case has been reported from China or elsewhere related to this virus.”
New swine flu strain could be the next pandemic (Image: Getty)
“Comparable (or even higher) seropositivity results have been seen in Live Bird Market workers for avian flu (e.g. against H9), which underline the overall threat of influenza viruses to transmit from birds, swine or other animals to humans.
“Therefore, continuous monitoring of influenza viruses in animals is required to understand the evolution and be able to identify viruses with a zoonotic potential early.”
Of the transmission of the disease he said: “Influenza viruses can transmit through droplets but also direct contact between animals and humans.”
“Influenza viruses are entering the body through entry in cells in the respiratory tract, however, the mainly affected organs of newly emerging viruses are not known.”
While the virus can potentially infect humans, no mild or severe infections have been reported within the human community.
Mr Niculae said: “No mild or severe human cases infected with these viruses have been reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) according to Integrating the Healthcare
Enterprise (IHE) although serological findings might identify seroreaction against the described or similar viruses. The symptoms are not known.”
The authors of the study said the capability of the new pathogen – named G4 EA H1N1 – to acclimate would raise “concerns for the possible generation of pandemic viruses”.
Coronavirus: The vital importance of social distancing (Image: Express)
Asked about the report at a briefing in Geneva today, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said: “We will read carefully the paper to understand what is new.
“It also highlights we cannot let our guard down on influenza and need to be vigilant and continue surveillance even in the coronavirus pandemic.”
Between 2011 and 2018, the research team observed about 30,000 nasal swabs taken from pigs in abattoirs in 10 Chinese provinces.
They also analysed 1,000 swabs from pigs with respiratory symptoms that had received treatment at CAU’s veterinary teaching hospital.
Between 2011 and 2018, the researchers observed about 30,000 nasal swabs taken from pigs in abattoirs in 10 Chinese provinces (Image: Getty)
![First direct evidence of ocean mixing across the gulf stream](https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/800/2020/firstdirecte.jpg "The "Triaxus" towing platform breaks through the choppy surface of the ocean during a storm. By towing such a platform with monitoring instruments through the water, changing its depth in a 'yo-yo' pattern as it traveled, scientists created high-resolution snapshots of how a dye released upstream evolved across the Gulf Stream front. Credit: Craig M. Lee, UW APL")
Exposing the Big Game 