Daily Archives: March 12, 2021

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Ebola Survivor Infected Years Ago May Have Started New Outbreak – The New York Times

An Ebola outbreak now occurring in Guinea was almost certainly started by someone who survived West Africa’s historic 2014-16 epidemic, harbored the virus for at least five years and then transmitted it via semen to a sex partner, researchers reported on Friday.

The finding, based on genetic sequencing of virus samples taken from patients in the current outbreak, shocked researchers. Until now, the longest the virus had been known to persist in a survivor was 500 days.

“It’s a stunner,” Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious-disease expert at Vanderbilt University who was not involved in the research, said in an interview. “This is an extraordinary phenomenon.”

The current outbreak in Guinea was first recognized in January and has infected at least 18 people and killed nine.

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Sniffing out Parkinson: A UK innovation offers early detection hope – The Jerusalem Post

The Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB) is looking into the possibility people suffering from Parkinson may omit a unique scent because of sebum, an oily material found in human skin.

Thanks to the generous support of the Michael J. Fox Foundation and Parkinson UK, scientists took to heart the observation by the wife of a Parkinson patient by the name of Les Milne who complained his scent changed – six years before he was officially diagnosed. She described the smell as woody and musky.

Source: Sniffing out Parkinson: A UK innovation offers early detection hope – The Jerusalem Post

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Doctor Train

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Remember riding the commuter train in Chennai… lol

Weekend Stories by Trishikh

Srikant anxiously glanced at the time displayed on the HMT Sona strapped on top of a sweaty handkerchief wrapped around his left wrist. People all around him squeezed and pushed each other in a pile of obnoxious human fumes, sweat, and breadth. Beads of perspiration trickled down his forehead and nostrils falling on the shoulder of an old man stuck in front of him like a siamese twin. Travelling on a local train of the Kolkata Suburban Railway system at peak office hours was a daunting task and Srikant was one of the 3.5 million passengers who did it every day.

Well, not every day, Srikant took the Lakshmikantapur Sealdah local at around 7:30 AM from the Baharu station five days a week and after around two hours of jostling with fellow passengers in the locomotive, which travelled fastest at a snail-speed of around thirty-six kilometres an hour, he would…

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Déjà vu as palm oil industry brings deforestation, pollution to Amazon

  • Palm oil, a crop synonymous with deforestation and community conflicts in Southeast Asia, is making inroads in the Brazilian Amazon, where the same issues are playing out.
  • Indigenous and traditional communities say the plantations in their midst are polluting their water, poisoning their soil, and driving away fish and game.
  • Scientists have found high levels of agrochemical residues in these communities — though still within Brazil’s legal limits — while prosecutors are pursuing legal cases against the companies for allegedly violating Indigenous and traditional communities’ rights and damaging the environment.
  • Studies based on satellite imagery also disprove the companies’ claims that they only plant on already deforested land. 

Source: Déjà vu as palm oil industry brings deforestation, pollution to Amazon