Delthia Ricks

Delthia Ricks

@dricks.bsky.social

291

Posts

Science writer, author, essayist & avid gardener.

Posts Replies Media

How, precisely, does #SARSCoV2 enter your cells to cause infection? While scientists have a good idea what happens during the course of that process, a team of researchers in Hong Kong has identified novel factors in human cells that facilitate viral entry phys.org/news/2024-07...

Study identifies novel host factors that facilitates SARS-CoV-2 entryphys.org A research team led by Prof. Guo Yusong, Associate Professor of the Division of Life Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), recently made a novel discovery related to t...

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#H5N1: The CDC has confirmed the 4th human case of #birdflu, and it's also linked to dairy cows. The infection occurred in Colorado. The person had only eye symptoms, was given antiviral medication & has since recovered. The 1st human case was in Texas; 2 others in Michigan phys.org/news/2024-07...

US reports fourth human case of bird flu linked to cowsphys.org US officials on Wednesday reported the country's fourth human case of bird flu linked to the current outbreak of the virus in dairy cattle.

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Scientists are developing a monoclonal antibody to neutralize Nipah virus, one of the deadliest zoonotic pathogens known to science. By Delthia Ricks medicalxpress.com/news/2024-06...

Scientists developing a monoclonal antibody to neutralize Nipah virus one of the deadliest zoonotic pathogensmedicalxpress.com An experimental monoclonal antibody has been engineered to target the deadly Nipah virus, an emerging zoonotic pathogen with a human mortality rate ranging as high as a staggering 90%.

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Why do you keep your house so cold? Or maybe your house is toasty, even in summer. New research from the Univ of Maryland & the Nat'l University of Ireland suggests your childhood home temperature can predict adult thermostat settings phys.org/news/2024-07...

Why do you keep your house so cold? Study suggests childhood home temperature can predict adult thermostat settingsphys.org Childhood home temperature and community connectedness can help predict how U.S. residents set their thermostats, offering new ways to encourage energy conservation and combat climate change, accordin...

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Dexamethasone & Covid MOA "We observed a reversal of transcriptional hallmark signatures in monocytes associated with severe COVID-19 and the induction of a monocyte substate characterized by the expression of glucocorticoid-response genes." #Covid #Covid19

The life-saving benefit of dexamethasone in severe COVID-19 is linked to a reversal of monocyte dysregulationwww.cell.com Dexamethasone was used as an effective drug for severe COVID cases during the pandemic. A study integrating single-cell and bulk transcriptomics in clinical cohorts reveals the molecular basis of its ...

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"These data suggest that viral persistence and sustained immune activation are linked to Long COVID" -Amazing. How could we ever have foreseen this possibility? No, I mean apart from all the early data showing SARS-CoV-2 persistence. Sorry, I mean 'pieces of RNA' www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Tissue-based T cell activation and viral RNA persist for up to 2 years after SARS-CoV-2 infectionwww.science.org Total-body PET imaging and microscopy analysis of rectosigmoid biopsies reveal prolonged T cell activation and SARS-CoV-2 RNA persistence following COVID-19.

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We have learned so much about how viruses transmit over the past four years & yet none of the passive yet effective measures (better ventilation, HEPA filtration) have been adopted as new standards. An opportunity to future proof our buildings & workplaces let slip away. www.rte.ie/news/2024/07...

Covid rates were a third higher in deprived areas - ESRIwww.rte.ie A new report has found that Covid-19 infection rates were more than a third higher in the most deprived areas of Ireland, relative to more affluent areas.

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FIREWORKS explode like magnified gunfire in the exquisitely sensitive ears of all creatures. Many: Bees don't go back to their hives; Birds have panic attacks; Wild animals abandon dens; Fish perish eating debris; Companion animals have anxiety; Humans have PTSD. Please be aware. Thank you :-)}

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Newborn babies are starving to death in #Gaza hospitals and camps. Their mothers are so malnourished that they can't breastfeed them while Israel deliberately withholds formula, food, and clean water from entering the Gaza Strip news.sky.com/story/newbor...

Newborn babies now have little chance of survival in Gaza, hospital director warnsnews.sky.com Mothers are so malnourished they cannot breastfeed, so their babies are dying - literally starving to death - because they cannot get the vital nutrition they desperately need.

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New research article in The Lancet Microbe Evaluation and validation of a PrintrLab-based LAMP assay to identify #Trypanosoma cruzi in newborns in Bolivia: a proof-of-concept study www.thelancet.com/journals/lan... #Chagas #IDSky #OpenAccess #OA

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“people who eat more white rice, coffee, eggs and seafood typically showed more of the toxic chemicals in their plasma and breast milk.” www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Coffee, eggs and white rice linked to higher levels of PFAS in human bodywww.theguardian.com US study that researchers say highlights chemicals’ ubiquity also shows PFAS association with seafood and red meat

#H5N1: The CDC has confirmed the 4th human case of #birdflu, and it's also linked to dairy cows. The infection occurred in Colorado. The person had only eye symptoms, was given antiviral medication & has since recovered. The 1st human case was in Texas; 2 others in Michigan phys.org/news/2024-07...

US reports fourth human case of bird flu linked to cowsphys.org US officials on Wednesday reported the country's fourth human case of bird flu linked to the current outbreak of the virus in dairy cattle.

Why do you keep your house so cold? Or maybe your house is toasty, even in summer. New research from the Univ of Maryland & the Nat'l University of Ireland suggests your childhood home temperature can predict adult thermostat settings phys.org/news/2024-07...

Why do you keep your house so cold? Study suggests childhood home temperature can predict adult thermostat settingsphys.org Childhood home temperature and community connectedness can help predict how U.S. residents set their thermostats, offering new ways to encourage energy conservation and combat climate change, accordin...

Scientists are developing a monoclonal antibody to neutralize Nipah virus, one of the deadliest zoonotic pathogens known to science. By Delthia Ricks medicalxpress.com/news/2024-06...

Scientists developing a monoclonal antibody to neutralize Nipah virus one of the deadliest zoonotic pathogensmedicalxpress.com An experimental monoclonal antibody has been engineered to target the deadly Nipah virus, an emerging zoonotic pathogen with a human mortality rate ranging as high as a staggering 90%.

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It's worth googling the Great Smog of London to see how far we've come. Images like this from the 1950s. It was caused in part from burning coal

Burning coal is the most dirty, polluting, and inefficient way to get electricity. As early as 1306, Edward I banned Londoners from burning it, due to its noxious smog. So which countries are phasing it out the fastest now? Greece and the UK lead the way! Source: www.wri.org/insights/cou...

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Nasal vaccine: Researchers are enrolling volunteers for a Phase I clinical trial of a #Covid nasal vax. Adult volunteers are being sought for study sites nationwide. The candidate vax is expected to have enhanced protection against a range of emerging #SARSCoV2 variants www.nih.gov/news-events/...

NIH-sponsored trial of nasal COVID-19 vaccine openswww.nih.gov Candidate vaccine could provide enhanced breadth of protection against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants.

#H5N1: Colorado now has the worst outbreak of #birdflu among dairy cattle in the United States. The state has seen nearly one-quarter of its herds affected, most of them in the past month coloradosun.com/2024/07/02/c...

Colorado now has the worst outbreak of bird flu among dairy cattle in the countrycoloradosun.com Colorado has seen nearly 25% of its dairy herds infected by bird flu, also known as avian influenza. Most have occurred in the past month.

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Beware of cucumbers: Untreated canal water used by a Florida cucumber grower is linked to salmonella-tainted cucumbers that have sickened 450 people in 30 states. Inspectors found salmonella in canal water used by the grower matching the strain tied to the illnesses medicalxpress.com/news/2024-07...

Untreated water tied to salmonella outbreak in cucumbers that sickened 450 people in USmedicalxpress.com Untreated water used by a Florida cucumber grower is one likely source of salmonella food poisoning that sickened nearly 450 people across the U.S. this spring, federal health officials said Tuesday.

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The FDA has approved another drug for early Alzheimer's, a monoclonal antibody—donanemab—an anti-amyloid therapy. It's sold under the brand name Kisunla. Amyloid damages neurons in Alzheimer's. Kisunla has a black-box warning bc of possible bleeding in the brain www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/al...

FDA OKs Another Drug for Early Alzheimer's Diseasewww.medpagetoday.com Decision gives patients a second anti-amyloid treatment option

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Older patients experiencing delirium during #Covid hospitalization are at higher risk of disability & cognitive impairment in the 6 months after discharge. New study. While patients may have had delirium they often aren't tested for cognitive issues after release www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdi...

Delirium During COVID Hospitalization Raises Disability, Cognitive Riskswww.medpagetoday.com At-risk older adults should be screened, referred early for rehabilitation, researcher urges

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A potential game-changer for emergency medicine: Synthetic platelets developed by two No. Carolina research universities. Platelets are sticky disc-like cells key to blood clotting. Team created them w/ hydrogel nanoparticles—gels formed via H2O & polymer molecules medicalxpress.com/news/2024-07...

A potential game-changer for emergency medicine: Synthetic plateletsmedicalxpress.com Imagine being a paramedic treating a trauma patient who's bleeding severely. You know your patient's life is in danger, but there's not much you can do because the patient needs an infusion of blood c...

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'The High Court in London on Tuesday found that Pfizer and BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine infringed a patent that Moderna filed in 2011 covering a part of the mRNA platform, which was central to the jabs.' www.ft.com/content/c57b...

Moderna secures partial victory in Covid vaccine legal fightwww.ft.com Pfizer and BioNTech infringed pharmaceutical group’s mRNA patent, High Court in London rules

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“Moderna is set to receive $176 million in federal funding to develop a human vaccine against bird flu… The HHS award…will go toward developing an mRNA-based pandemic influenza vaccine. Moderna’s candidate for the vaccine draws from mRNA technology used successfully during the COVID-19 response”

Bird flu vaccine development funds awarded to Moderna amid multi-state outbreakwww.usatoday.com There have been four human cases of bird flu in the U.S., including three in 2024. Over 130 cow herds in 12 states have seen infected cows.

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Inexperienced bumble bees are poor at securely landing regardless of flower orientation or presence of labellum https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.06.27.601070v1

Inexperienced bumble bees are poor at securely landing regardless of flower orientation or presence of labellum https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.06.27.601070v1 www.biorxiv.org The mutualism between bees and flowers creates strong selection on both the structure of the flower

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'The discovery of recombinases that use easily customized RNA molecules to recognize DNA targets could obviate the key challenges of the existing toolbox, just as the reprogrammable guide RNAs of DNA-cleaving CRISPR–Cas enzymes ushered in a new era of genome editing.' www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Programmable RNA-guided enzymes for next-generation genome editingwww.nature.com RNA-guided recombinase enzymes have been discovered that herald a new chapter for genome editing — enabling the insertion, inversion or deletion of long DNA sequences at user-specified genome position...

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Faine Greenwood

This is the first headline I found after looking it up. I mean, what the fuck. edition.cnn.com/2024/07/02/p...

RFK Jr. denies eating a dog while sidestepping sexual assault allegations in Vanity Fair article | CNN Politicsedition.cnn.com Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has denied allegations made in a new Vanity Fair report that he had previously eaten a dog while sidestepping accusations of sexual assault lev...

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In partnership with @UNICEF and the Gaza and Palestine Nutrition Cluster, International Medical Corps is implementing the “Find and Treat” campaign to address growing rates of malnutrition among children under 5 in Gaza. More about the campaign here: internationalmedicalcorps.org/press-releas...

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The science of #protests: how to shape public opinion and swing votes - Demonstrations are on the rise, and scientists are revealing which types work best. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The science of protests: how to shape public opinion and swing voteswww.nature.com Demonstrations are on the rise, and scientists are revealing which types work best. Demonstrations are on the rise, and scientists are revealing which types work best.

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"Record-breaking Category 5 Hurricane Beryl wouldn't be possible without climate change" by Matthew Rozsa for the @salonnewsroom.bsky.social: www.salon.com/2024/07/02/r...

Record-breaking Category 5 Hurricane Beryl wouldn't be possible without climate changewww.salon.com The first hurricane of the 2024 season is already making huge waves — and burning fossil fuels made it possible

Nasal vaccine: Researchers are enrolling volunteers for a Phase I clinical trial of a #Covid nasal vax. Adult volunteers are being sought for study sites nationwide. The candidate vax is expected to have enhanced protection against a range of emerging #SARSCoV2 variants www.nih.gov/news-events/...

NIH-sponsored trial of nasal COVID-19 vaccine openswww.nih.gov Candidate vaccine could provide enhanced breadth of protection against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants.