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...