217 articles from MONDAY 12.10.2020

Making disorder for an ideal battery

The lithium batteries that power our electronic devices and electric vehicles have a number of drawbacks. The electrolyte is a flammable liquid and the lithium they're made of is a limited resource. Specialists have now developed a non-flammable, solid electrolyte that operates at room temperature. It transports sodium - which is found everywhere on earth - instead of lithium.

Age and likelihood of SARS-CoV-2 infection

Scientists have estimated that the age of an individual does not indicate how likely they are to be infected by SARS-CoV-2. However, development of symptoms, progression of the disease, and mortality are age-dependent.

Using robotic assistance to make colonoscopy kinder and easier

Scientists have made a breakthrough in their work to develop semi-autonomous colonoscopy, using a robot to guide a medical device into the body. The milestone brings closer the prospect of an intelligent robotic system being able to guide instruments to precise locations in the body to take biopsies or allow internal tissues to be examined.

COVID-19 antibodies last at least three months; so do symptoms for many

People infected with COVID-19 develop antibodies targeting the new coronavirus that last for at least three months, according to two reports published on Thursday in Science Immunology. The two studies, together involving nearly 750 patients, both point to immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies, which start showing up well after an infection begins, as the longest-lasting. Researchers found IgG...

Carnivores living near people feast on human food, threatening ecosystems

Ecologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found that carnivores living near people can get more than half of their diets from human food sources, a major lifestyle disruption that could put North America's carnivore-dominated ecosystems at risk. The researchers studied the diets of seven predator species across the Great Lakes region of the U.S. They gathered bone and fur samples for...

Scientists engineer bacteria-killing molecules from wasp venom

A team led by scientists in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has engineered powerful new antimicrobial molecules from toxic proteins found in wasp venom. The team hopes to develop the molecules into new bacteria-killing drugs, an important advancement considering increasing numbers of antibiotic-resistant bacteria which can cause illness such as sepsis and...

Tetrahedra may explain water's uniqueness

Researchers at the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo sifted through experimental data to probe the possibility that supercooled water has a liquid-to-liquid phase transition between disordered and tetrahedrally structured forms. They found evidence of a critical point based on the cooperative formation of tetrahedra, and show its minor role in water's anomalies. This work...

WHO chief says herd immunity approach to pandemic 'unethical'

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cites lack of understanding of virus and lasting health effectsCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThe head of the World Health Organization has warned against deliberately allowing coronavirus to spread in the hope of achieving so-called herd immunity, saying the idea is unethical.“Herd immunity is a concept used for vaccination, in which a...

As genome-editing trials become more common, informed consent is changing

As public interest and expanded research in human genome editing grows, many questions remain about ethical, legal and social implications of the technology. People who are seriously ill may overestimate the benefits of early clinical trials while underestimating the risks. This makes properly understanding informed consent, the full knowledge of risks and benefits of treatments, especially...

As genome-editing trials become more common, informed consent is changing

As public interest and expanded research in human genome editing grows, many questions remain about ethical, legal and social implications of the technology. People who are seriously ill may overestimate the benefits of early clinical trials while underestimating the risks. This makes properly understanding informed consent, the full knowledge of risks and benefits of treatments, especially...