Journalism

Oct

2021

Why does water squirt out of your eye if you blow your nose really hard?

LiveScience, October 9 2021.

The human body is full of quirks. For example, some people can squirt water (or even smoke or milk) from their eyes.

But how can some people spurt unusual fluids from their eyes, and is it dangerous to their health?

It turns out that when someone squirts water out of their eye, they’re putting pressure on a sac in the bridge of the nose (where glasses usually sit) that holds fluid draining from the eyes. This sac is called the lacrimal sac and is a part of the tear duct system. Read More >

Aug

2021

Colds and Other Common Respiratory Diseases Might Surge as Kids Return to School

Science News, August 12 2021.

As U.S. schools resume in-person learning this fall, parents and administrators may have to deal with more outbreaks of colds and other seasonal respiratory illnesses than usual. If so, these outbreaks aren’t likely to be especially dangerous for school-age children, but could be problematic for traditionally more vulnerable younger siblings or elderly relatives, experts say. And because the symptoms of these illnesses often mirror those of COVID-19, it could make having kids back in the classroom — and keeping them there — that much more challenging. Read More >

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Jun

2021

What Are the Different Types of Psychotherapy?

PsychCentral, June 10 2021.

With so many types of psychotherapy available, you may be unsure what’s the best option for you.

This is why a recommended first step toward starting therapy is to learn about what each method is typically used for and how it may help you.

Here’s an overview. Read More >

Apr

2021

Coronavirus Variants—Will New mRNA Vaccines Meet the Challenge?

Engineering, April 18 2021.

On 24 February 2021, a month after announcing the project, the biotechnology company Moderna (Cambridge, MA, USA) sent samples to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) of the updated coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine booster it had created and manufactured to address the B.1.351 variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), first reported in South Africa [1]. The hope is that such quick updates to authorized vaccines will provide—if and as needed—protection against the rapidly spreading new strains of SARS-CoV-2 that have shown troubling signs suggesting immune evasion [2].

These vaccines and boosters highlight the unique advantages of the new, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)-based vaccine development platform. Both Moderna and the partnership of Pfizer (New York City, NY, USA) and BioNTech (Mainz, Germany) tapped this novel technology to create and deliver COVID-19 vaccines in an unprecedented matter of months—in contrast to the typical timetable of years [3]. Now, the technology’s speed and flexibility may prove doubly valuable by helping to meet the challenge of a swiftly evolving virus. Read More >

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Feb

2021

COVID-19 Precautions may be Reducing Cases of Flu and Other Respiratory Infections

Science News, February 2 2021.

Heading into the dead of winter, doctors and scientists have noticed something odd: Missing cases of non-COVID-19 respiratory illnesses, specifically flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.

“We’re seeing very low numbers of both of these infections, even now, while we’re in the peak season,” says Rachel Baker, an epidemiologist at Princeton University. “We really should be seeing cases go up.”

Instead, positive flu tests reported in December are a little less than one one-hundredth of all of those tallied in December 2019, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. RSV’s drop in reported cases — to one two-hundredth of those a year earlier — is even bigger. Read More >

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Nov

2020

Bringing Embryonic Stem Cells to the Blind: Clinical Test Gets FDA Approval

Discover, January 4 2011.

Embryonic stem cell treatments are edging closer to mainstream medicine. An experimental treatment just approved for clinical trials may provide hope to the 10 to 15 million elderly patients in the United States who suffer from a common form of macular degeneration, which causes gradual blindness.

The biotech company behind the treatment, Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., previously won FDA approval to try an embryonic stem cell treatment on patients with a rare, juvenile form of macular degeneration. The new FDA-approved trial will use similar techniques, but targets a much broader patient base. Read More >

Nov

2020

Curious Polar Bears Best Robot Videographers

Discover, January 3 2011.

Even the best-planned documentaries can go wrong, especially when there are curious polar bears involved. In this case, the BBC was spying on the polar bears of the Arctic islands of Svalbard for a documentary called “Polar Bear: Spy on The Ice,” but their spy-tactics could have used a bit of help.

The cameras were “camouflaged” as icebergs and snow drifts, but that didn’t fool these curious bears, who caught on pretty quickly that snow and ice aren’t supposed to move that quickly. Read More >

Nov

2020

Do Chubby Babies Make for Chubby Toddlers and Overweight Adults?

Discover, January 3 2011.

Most children shed their “baby fat.” But researchers say that in more and more cases, chubby babies (which are about 30 percent of all babies) are primed for obesity later in life.

“We are certainly not saying that overweight babies are doomed to be obese adults,” study researcher Brian Moss, PhD, of Detroit’s Wayne State University tells WebMD. “But we did find some evidence that being overweight at 9 months of age is a predictor of being overweight or obese later in childhood.” Read More >

Nov

2020

On New Year’s Eve, 2,000 Dead Birds Rained Down on Arkansas

Discover, January 3 2011.

Like some kind of gruesome confetti, Mother Nature rained down more than 2,000 dead blackbirds on a half square mile of Arkansas on New Year’s Eve. The birds fell over Beebe, Arkansas, but no one is sure what killed them.

At around 11:30 p.m. the reports started coming in from residents of the central Arkansas town–worried citizens described the birds falling, dead, from the sky. The birds showed signs of physical trauma, Arkansas bird expert Karen Rowe told CNN Radio. Read More >

Nov

2020

Russia Will Spend $2 Billion on a Space Drone to Tidy up Orbit

Discover, November 30 2010.

Yesterday, the Russian space agency Roscosmos confirmed news from last week that they are pursuing plans to spend $2 billion cleaning up space debris. In a striking contrast to the secrecy that once cloaked space programs, the confirmation came via an announcement on Roscosmos’s official Facebook page:

Russia will build a special orbital pod that would sweep up satellite debris from space around the Earth. The cleaning satellite would work on nuclear power and would be capable to work up to 15 years. Energia said in a statement that the company would complete the cleaning satellite assembly by 2020 and test the device no later than in 2023. Read More >