Japanese researchers have found new evidence for the need for regular hand washing in the fight against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This survives on the skin for 9 hours, according to their research results.
The new coronavirus survives on human skin five times longer than an influenza virus, 9 hours versus 1.8 hours, according to the study published in the scientific journal Clinical Infectious Diseases Journal. “The 9 hour lifespan of SARS-CoV-2 on human skin increases the risk of transmission by contact with respect to the influenza virus, accelerating the pandemic”, state the Japanese researchers.
They studied the resistance of the virus on the skin of recently deceased people.
Both the coronavirus and the flu virus are “deactivated” within 15 seconds when using ethanol, contained in hand gels. The longer the new coronavirus stays on the skin, the greater the risk of spreading, the researchers point out. “Hand hygiene can reduce this risk,” they add.
The amount of oro on planet Earth it is declining more and more due to human extraction. However, in the Universe, this precious metal is abundant and scientists continue to investigate to understand its origin.
According to a report published this week in The Astrophysical Journal, there is a theory that the source of the element is neutron star collisions, but does not turn out to be completely convincing to explain the comparison of quantity between the planet and outer space.
“Gold and other heavy metals are produced after processes where there is a lot of energy in the Universe. However, according to current models, these processes they are not enough to produce all the gold that we see in the Universe today”Chiaki Kobayashi, of the University of Hertfordshire and leader of the research, told the BBC.
The researcher points out that the purpose of the studies is to obtain information to get closer to the true origin of gold. “It is not only about gold, which is part of many things in our lives. But also calcium, for example, which was also created from starbursts “, sustained the aforementioned media.
How is there so much gold in the Universe?
The formation of a particle of this metal requires the composition of atomic nuclei made up of 79 protons and 118 neutrons for each.
“That means that a nuclear fusion must be done that goes beyond the capacity of the human being. And although it does occur in the Universe, it doesn’t happen very often, and above all, it does not happen nearby “, indica Chiaki Kobayashi.
Why is there gold on Earth?
The theory that scientists maintain is that meteorites that contained this element impacted the planet when it was in full formation. Kobayashi believes there must be other sources.
“Another possibility may be when a supernova is extinguished. It is known that this extinction can create a large amount of gold for a short time, but even so, it is still insufficient “, he complemented.
“When supernovae explode they become black holes, which end up absorbing much of what has been produced”he added.
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The coronavirus remains active on human skin for nine hours, five times longer than the flu virus, according to a group of Japanese researchers, a discovery that demonstrates the need for frequent hand washing to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
Compared, the flu-causing pathogen survives on human skin for about 1.8 hours, according to the study published this month in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
“The nine-hour survival of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes covid-19, on human skin may increase the risk of contact transmission compared to IAV (influenza A virus), thus accelerating the pandemic“, indicates the study.
The research team examined the skin obtained from autopsies, approximately one day after death.
The study supports the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations to regularly wash your hands thoroughly to limit transmission of the virus, which has infected nearly 40 million people worldwide since it first appeared in China. late last year.
Tied with a leash, Lead he lies on caged chickens. This little black and white fox, the fruit of a long scientific experiment carried out in Siberia to domesticate his species, has not lost all his instincts.
“Yes, he has already tried to eat our chickens and run away”says Sergey Abramov, 32, owner of Plombir. He lives with his wife Tatiana and their two children in the suburbs of Novosibirsk, the third largest city in Russia.
A year and a half ago, his family adopted this fox, born in a farm-laboratory where, for 61 years, an exceptional experiment has been carried out to better understand the domestication of animals.
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Tatiana Abramova (33 years old), a biologist by profession, affirms that she had always dreamed of living with a fox. His is caressed, paws and plays with his masters. He is “friendly” and “joker”.
But, nevertheless, he is not too obedient: “He jumps on the tables, he can open the refrigerator and get inside. He steals things and hides them everywhere ”.
It is impossible to have such an animal inside the house, so Plombir lives in a fairly large house built in the garden.
The origin of the dog
Still, this fox is far from being an ordinary animal. Both he and his ancestors were selected and raised to be social.
To understand this, one must go back to 1959, when this Soviet experiment officially began, by geneticists Dmitri Baliayev and Liudmila Trut, on a farm in Akademgorodok, Siberia’s pole of scientific excellence.
The first objective they set was to tame foxes to understand how the ancestor of wolves, another canid, evolved into a loyal and friendly dog. And to see to what extent the genetic evolution of the species can be better understood from this domestication.
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For 61 generations, scientists have chosen the friendliest foxes every year and made them reproduce with each other. The rest are slaughtered or sold – although not to many – as domestic animals.
This artificial selection “Totally changes your body”, says Yuri Guerbek, a member of the team, made up of about fifteen scientists. The farm they work on has almost 1,000 foxes.
“We try to understand which genes change and how they change,” adds Yuri Guerbek.
The experiment, of exceptional duration, has consequences on the physical characteristics of the foxes: their pigmentation is modified, their snouts are shortened …
Scientists compare the behavior of these trained foxes with that of others, aggressive and not domesticated, explains the expert.
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But, as is often the case in Russia, the farm does not have sufficient means for maintenance, and the cages are rusty and some infrastructure very dilapidated.
Love hormone
After the death of Dmitri BeliayevIn 1985, the experiment was about to disappear with the fall of the Soviet Union and the economic crisis of the 1990s.
But, in the end, it survived and even gained importance as new technologies, such as genetic sequencing techniques, represented a real window of opportunity for the “Beliayev foxes”.
“The interest of the international scientific community in this experiment continues to be very strong”, confirms to AFP Adam Wilkins, an American geneticist.
And even more so considering that the Russian team studies the changes caused by domestication in the brain of foxes but also the relationship between these changes and the levels of oxytocin, nicknamed “the hormone of love.”
Several studies suggest that the latter favors protective behaviors, empathy, and loving feelings. Thus, its secretion could play a key role in the domestication of the fox.
Trained foxes could also facilitate a better understanding of human evolution, under the theory that humans domesticated themselves to survive and limit violence within the species.
This comparison “is pertinent, as many of the changes that domesticated foxes experience will resemble some changes in human evolution,” says Adam Wilkins, happy that “There are many things to discover”.
Loss of smell and taste, chronic exhaustion, heart and brain damage: A new episode of the coronavirus is now known.
It remains to be seen whether he will ever be able to hear again: In the specialist journal “British Medical Journal”, doctors report on a man who lost his hearing in the course of his illness with the novel Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus.
After the 45-year-old suffered from Covid-19 symptoms for ten days, he was admitted to the hospital, where he was immediately admitted to the intensive care unit and was intubated for 30 days. At the same time he received remdesivir, steroids and numerous other drugs.
In addition, his blood plasma had to be replaced. Treatment was made more difficult by the sudden occurrence of pulmonary embolism, pulmonary hypertension (pulmonary hypertension), anemia and pneumonia caused by ventilation.
Not an isolated case
The treatment worked and the patient could soon be transferred to a normal ward. But then he noticed left-sided tinnitus, then sudden hearing loss. The doctors checked his ear – but they could not find any blockages or inflammation.
He was treated with steroid pills and injections, after which his hearing partially recovered, but not completely, the medics said.
The differences between flu and corona infectionpicturedesk.com
“This is the first reported case of sensorineural hearing loss after Covid-19 infection in the UK,” the researchers note. However, it is not the first in the world, as Kevin J. Munro from the Manchester Center for Audiology and Deafness reported in July 2020 in the “International Journal of Audiology”. Accordingly, hearing impairment occurs in 13.2 percent of former Covid 19 patients.
According to the study, which included the data from 138 ex-corona patients between 44 and 82 years of age, men in particular have to struggle with tinnitus or hearing loss after their supposed recovery.
Does not depend on the severity of the course
The case of the American Meredith Harrell shows, among other things, that women are not immune to these long-term consequences and that even symptom-free Covid-19 courses can lead to it. The Sars-CoV-2 infection was only detected in her because the doctors were looking for the cause of the sudden ringing in the ear.
“It was like flicking a switch,” CNN.com quoted Harrell, whose hearing has not yet been restored. “I hope people finally understand that Corona is not a joke.”
Worse than other viruses
Even in their case, doctors cannot say with certainty that the virus is affecting the inner ear because there is a risk of tissue damage when performing a biopsy of the inner ear. But studies of people who have died as a result of a Covid 19 infection speak for themselves.
The virus could be detected in two of the three corpses in the middle ear and the mastoid bones in the skull, which is located directly behind the ear. The study was published in the journal “Jama Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery”.
Matthew Stewart of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, who performed the autopsy, told CNN that viruses like measles, mumps, and meningitis are known to cause sudden hearing loss. “But I think Sars-CoV-2 has the potential to be worse.” We all know that it triggers blood clots in other areas of the body and is obviously no exception to the “extremely small blood vessels” in the inner ear.
Kevin Munro agrees: “The capillaries in the inner ear are the smallest in the human body, so it doesn’t take much to block them.”
Even completely healthy people without previous illnesses can have a strong coronavirus course. A study found a possible reason.
In the past few months it has been observed that young, healthy people without previous illnesses also get seriously ill with the coronavirus, while people from a risk group can have a mild course.
Researchers have now found a possible answer to this. The individual immune response should play an essential role in the severity of the disease.
Concentration of messenger substances in the blood
A research team led by Jérome Hadjadj from the University of Paris studied immune messenger substances such as interferons and regulating genes. Some messenger substances play an important role in combating viral and bacterial pathogens. They examined the gene activity and messenger substance concentrations in the blood in 50 coronavirus patients and 18 healthy people.
They discovered that patients with a severe course had inflammatory messenger substances in their blood. The production of the messenger substances was highly regulated. There was also a deficiency in the messenger substance interferon-alpha, which is important for virus defense.
“Based on our study, we suggest an IFN deficiency [Interferon-Mangel] Type I is an indicator of severe Covid-19, “the researchers conclude in their study.
According to the Regional Development Index (Idere), five regions of Chile are among the 10 most developed in Latin America.
The analysis, prepared with the participation of various study houses -among them the Autonomous University of Chile- measured the performance of 182 zones in areas such as security, health, economic activity, education, among others.
In this context, according to Pulse, at the regional level Montevideo was the best evaluated area.
Locally, the five regions in the top 10 were the Metropolitana, Antofagasta, Valparaíso, Magallanes and Atacama.
In the top 20, meanwhile, the regions of Aysén, Bío Bío, Tarapacá and Los Lagos.
According to the aforementioned medium, the regions of Chile that had worst evaluation in the Regional Development Index were Maule (place 31), Coquimbo (33), La Araucanía (36) and Los Ríos (38).
Camilo Vial, vice-rector for Relations with the Environment at the Autonomous University of Chile, commented to Pulso that in general the regions of Chile had a good evaluation in the analysis, but that there are indicators that are in the must in terms of gender dimension, activity economic or institutional robustness.
In educational matters, for example, Argentina achieved the first position with 10 of its regions well evaluated on this topic.
The coronavirus uses signaling pathways to multiply, as researchers found. These could be blocked by cancer drugs.
Scientists all over the world are looking for a vaccine as well as a substance to treat coronavirus. In an experiment, researchers at Goethe University Frankfurt have now succeeded in stopping the spread of coronaviruses and, as a result, the Sars-CoV-2 disease.
Kevin Klann and his colleagues have for the first time created an overall picture of the communication of a cell that is infected by Sars-CoV-2. They analyzed what changes a virus attack causes. In this way they found a possible way of treatment.
If signal pathways are interrupted, the virus cannot multiply
“The host cell’s signaling pathways in particular, in which a growth signal is passed into the cell from outside, are apparently used by the Sars-CoV-2 virus. If these signaling pathways are interrupted, the virus can no longer multiply “, called it in a communication from the Goethe University Frankfurt. “The signal pathways of growth factors can be blocked directly where the signal from outside the cell docks to a signal receiver – a growth factor receptor,” explains Christian Münch from the Institute for Biochemistry II at Goethe University.
That means cancer drugs that disrupt growth factor signaling pathways could be used in coronavirus treatment. “We tested five of these active ingredients on our cells, and all five led to a complete stop of Sars-CoV-2 replication,” said the researcher.
These five active ingredients are as in study listed, Pictilisib, Omipalisib, RO5126766, Lonafarnib and Sorafenib.
Doctors talked about a symptom that may indicate the development of type 2 diabetes.
According to scientists, this “invisible” feature plays a cruel joke with people, because it is simply ignored. And the later you start treatment, the worse for the body.
If the patient does not come to the hospital on time, then his vessels, kidneys and cardiovascular system will be severely damaged.
This symptom is weight loss. For example, a person did not change his diet and did not play sports, but he lost significant weight. This is a reason to get tested.
The fact is that with diabetes at the initial stage, the blood sugar level does not reach a critical level. Therefore, the diagnosis is difficult.
The appearance of this disease is associated with disturbances in the production of the hormone insulin or loss of sensitivity of the body cells to it.
Researchers from the Japanese University of Kyoto focused on testing the resistance of SARS-CoV-2 virus and influenza. Subsequently, the coronavirus was shown to last more than nine hours on human skin under ideal conditions. In contrast, influenza A virus lasts less than two hours on the skin.
“Our discovery proves that SARS-COV-2 does indeed have a higher risk of contact transmission than influenza, not only because of the longer survival of the virus, but also because of its greater stability on the skin,” the authors warned in a study published in the journal. Clinical Infectious Diseases.
In addition, the study showed that when coronavirus was mixed with mucus in the upper respiratory tract, which was supposed to release the virus during coughing and sneezing, the virus even survived for 11 hours.
However, according to research, both viruses can be destroyed within 15 seconds using disinfection with 80% ethanol. Therefore, regular hand washing and disinfection can be considered a very effective weapon.
According to experts, the persistent maintenance of coronavirus on human skin increases the risk of infection transmission through contact and thus exacerbates the whole pandemic. For this reason, doctors and experts around the world are urging that hand hygiene is extremely important at this time.
