Category Archives: Biology

‘We’re the poo crew’: sleuths test for Covid by reading signs in sewage

Posted on by

Scientists in Exeter are identifying Covid through human faeces – this could be be expanded to monitor other diseases

They call themselves the “poo crew” – a team of health detectives who are tracking down and heading off Covid outbreaks by reading the signs in our sewage. And they are expanding. Earlier this month, the Environmental Monitoring for Health Protection Programme opened a purpose-built laboratory on the fringes of Exeter, its sterile interior in stark contrast to the unsanitary subject of its investigations.

The opening of the laboratory marks a dramatic expansion of what was, until less than a year ago, just a soil pipe dream: testing sewage for coronavirus to understand where it is circulating and get an early warning of future potential spikes in infection. In the future, this network could be expanded to monitor other infectious diseases including flu.

Continue reading...

A creature of mystery: New Zealand’s love-hate relationship with eels

Posted on by

Native species have been revered, feared, hunted and tamed. Now experts hope revulsion can give way to fascination

For many years, the top-rated attraction in the Tasman district of New Zealand was a cafe famed for its rural setting, seafood chowder – and tame eels.

For a few dollars you could buy a pottle of mince and a wooden stick to take down to the stream, where a blue-black mass was shining, writhing, waiting.

Continue reading...

Children of Chernobyl parents have no higher number of DNA mutations

Posted on by

Study was one of the first to evaluate alterations in human mutation rates in response to manmade disaster

For decades popular culture has portrayed babies born to the survivors of nuclear accidents as mutants with additional heads or at high risk of cancers. But now a study of children whose parents were exposed to radiation from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 suggests they carry no more DNA mutations than children born to any other parents.

The study, published in Science, is one of the first to systematically evaluate alterations in human mutation rates in response to a manmade disaster, such as accidental radiation exposure.

Continue reading...

‘That’s a lot of teeth’: 2.5 billion T rex walked the earth, researchers find

Posted on by

Experts calculate the total number of the dinosaurs that lived over 127,000 generations

One Tyrannosaurus rex seems scary enough. Now picture 2.5 billion of them. That’s how many of the fierce dinosaur king probably roamed Earth over the course of a couple of million years, a new study finds.

Using calculations based on body size, sexual maturity and the creatures’ energy needs, a team at the University of California, Berkeley, figured out just how many T rex lived over 127,000 generations, according to a study in the journal Science on Thursday. It’s a first-of-its-kind number, but just an estimate with a margin of error that is the size of a T rex.

Continue reading...

Human cells grown in monkey embryos reignite ethics debate

Posted on by

Scientists confirm they have produced ‘chimera’ embryos from long-tailed macaques and humans

Monkey embryos containing human cells have been produced in a laboratory, a study has confirmed, spurring fresh debate into the ethics of such experiments.

The embryos are known as chimeras, organisms whose cells come from two or more “individuals”, and in this case, different species: a long-tailed macaque and a human.

Continue reading...

Brazilian Covid variant: what do we know about P1?

Posted on by

What threat does variant that is causing devastation in Brazil pose, and how is it different?

The P1 variant is causing devastation in Brazil, where an uncontrolled Covid pandemic is raging. P1, behind the terrible scenes of hospital overload in Manaus with patients’ relatives pleading for oxygen cylinders, is now the dominant form of coronavirus in many of Brazil’s cities and partly responsible for the high death toll. Other Latin American countries have closed their borders and restricted travel to and from Brazil but P1 is now in at least 15 countries in the Americas, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

Continue reading...

Ancient human migration into Europe revealed via genome analysis

Posted on by

Genetic sequencing dating back 45,000 years shows intermixing with Neanderthals more common than previously thought

Genetic sequencing of human remains dating back 45,000 years has revealed a previously unknown migration into Europe and showed intermixing with Neanderthals in that period was more common than previously thought.

The research is based on analysis of several ancient human remains – including a whole tooth and bone fragments – found in a cave in Bulgaria last year.

Continue reading...

The ‘elite controllers’ who can naturally suppress HIV

Posted on by

Research into how some HIV-positive people keep the virus at bay promises to yield new treatment possibilities, from vaccines to gene therapies

The year was 1998 when Joel Blankson encountered a patient he would never forget. Blankson was working in the HIV clinic at John Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, when an HIV-positive woman in her mid-40s arrived for some routine tests.

Blankson gave her a PCR test, intending to prescribe a newly developed combination of medicines called antiretroviral therapies to suppress the infection, and prevent her developing Aids.

Continue reading...

Brazil records 70,238 new cases; Netherlands halts AstraZeneca jab for under 60s – as it happened

Posted on by

Country has registered more than 12.9 million cases; 10,000 appointments scrapped, reports Dutch news agency citing Netherlands health ministry

That’s it from the global blog team for now. Thanks for following our coverage, a new blog will be going live in a few hours.

Continue reading...

‘What appointments did these dogs have to keep?’: long lunches and brief liaisons in a radical new dogumentary

Posted on by

To mark National Puppy Day, Elizabeth Lo’s acclaimed film Stray gives humans rare insight into the canine gaze, courtesy of homeless mutts in Istanbul

From the moment Zeytin makes her first appearance in Elizabeth Lo’s feature Stray, there is no doubt you are in the presence of a unique spirit. As she surveys an Istanbul side street at dawn, her features are alert, her gaze is uncompromising and her deep, dark eyes sparkle with intelligence. There’s something of Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen about her, or maybe Brad Pitt in one of his less kempt moments. But non-dog comparisons don’t do her justice. This is one indomitable bitch.

Lo first encountered Zeytin and her friend Nazar on a 2017 casting trip to Turkey, and knew immediately that she had found the star she was looking for – which is to say, a dog who could carry a human film. “We were wandering through a busy underground tunnel filled with people when suddenly these two giant stray dogs streaked past us,” she says. “They were running with such a sense of purpose and it was so intriguing. What appointments did these dogs have to keep?”

Continue reading...

Covid-19: what happens next? – podcast

Posted on by

On 23 March 2020, the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, announced the first lockdown in response to the growing number of cases of Covid-19. At the same time, countries around the world began to close their schools, restaurants, and offices and ask citizens to physically distance from one another. In the 12 months since, more than 2 million people have died, viral variants have emerged, and we have developed safe and effective vaccines.

One year into the pandemic, Science Weekly is asking: what happens next? Ian Sample talks to the professors Martin Landray, Mike Tildesley, and Deborah Dunn-Walters about Covid treatments, vaccines and what the next 12 months may hold

Continue reading...

Can the UK avoid a third wave of Covid?

Posted on by

Analysis: as lockdown restrictions ease, the country now faces a race between vaccination and infection

Britain’s latest lockdown has dramatically reduced cases of coronavirus, and the number of people being admitted to hospital and dying from the disease. What the country faces now is essentially a race between vaccination and infection: can we protect people faster than the virus spreads as restrictions are eased?

This was always going to be a balancing act. The UK vaccination strategy of prioritising the most vulnerable people and moving down the age groups is intended to save lives first and slow transmission second. This means that as the country unlocks, infections are likely to rise, primarily in younger people who have more social contacts and have not yet been vaccinated. Hospitalisations and deaths are expected to rise too, though not as sharply: even though vaccine coverage has been high in vulnerable groups and older people, not everyone has the vaccine and it will not protect all those who do.

Continue reading...

Tardigrades: nature’s great survivors

Posted on by

The microscopic animals can withstand extreme conditions that would kill humans, and may one day help in the development of Covid vaccines. How do they do it?

On 11 April 2019, a spacecraft crashed on to the Moon. The Israeli Beresheet probe was supposed to land gently in the Mare Serenitatis, a huge plain of basalt rock formed in a volcanic eruption billions of years ago. It would have been the first privately funded mission to land on the Moon. But owing to a last-minute instrument failure Beresheet did not slow down enough and slammed into the surface at 500 kilometres per hour.

From the Moon’s point of view, this was a failed alien invasion. Beresheet was carrying animals called tardigrades, which look like stunted, microscopic caterpillars. They may not seem like an obvious candidate for interplanetary travel, but tardigrades are famed among biologists for their ability to survive conditions that would kill almost any other animal. It is possible that some of them survived the crash.

Continue reading...

Scientists form human cell clumps that act like early-stage embryos

Posted on by

Cultured stem cells turn into blastoid ‘balls’, like natural blastocysts after egg fertilisation

Scientists have made clumps of human tissue that behave like early-stage embryos, a feat that promises to transform research into the first tentative steps of human development.

The clumps of cells, named blastoids, are less than a millimetre across and resemble structures called blastocysts, which form within a few days of an egg being fertilised. Typically blastocysts contain about 100 cells, which give rise to every tissue in the body.

Continue reading...

China to only allow foreign visitors who have had Chinese-made vaccine

Posted on by

Move raises questions as China’s vaccines not approved in many countries to which it is opening travel

China is resuming visa processing for foreigners from dozens of countries, but only if they have been inoculated against Covid-19 with a Chinese-made vaccine.

The move has raised questions about the motivations behind the demand, given China’s vaccines are not approved in many of the countries to which it has opened travel and that it will not accept foreign vaccines made elsewhere, including those approved by the World Health Organization.

Continue reading...

For crying out loud: Dutch scientists grow human tear glands

Posted on by

Creation of mini-organs using stem cells will help research into tear-related disorders

Stop your sobbing – because scientists can do it for you. Using stem cells, Dutch researchers have grown miniature human tear glands capable of “crying”.

Initially, when scientists were looking at developing this technology, their first port of call was the inner lining of the gut, because it replaces itself every five days. They took a tiny piece of gut tissue filled with stem cells and fed it proteins called growth factors to stimulate cell growth, expecting the stem cells to rapidly proliferate.

Continue reading...

What price a child’s life? India’s quest to make rare disease drugs affordable

Posted on by

Parents whose only hope was finding foreign sponsorship or a clinical trial are now looking for homegrown breakthroughs

For three years, Vidya tried to find the cause of her son’s recurrent fevers and low cognitive development. When she found out, she was devastated.

Vineeth, 10, has an incurable illness – mucopolysaccharidosis type 2 – that affects his organs. Afflicting just one in a million, the enzyme-replacement medication that can help stop the illness getting any worse costs £100,000 a year, far beyond the reach of even a wealthier Indian parent.

Continue reading...

Covid death on Isle of Man deals a blow after tough lockdown

Posted on by

Manx government has run strict regime to keep island virus-free but isolation exemption for ferry workers causes anger

On Friday, the chief minister of the Isle of Man announced some bad news. A patient in the island’s Noble’s hospital had died from coronavirus, he said, the first Manx Covid death since 5 November.

Howard Quayle said he knew the news would “come as a blow” to the Isle of Man’s 85,000 residents. “The death of a member of our island community is a painful reminder of how dangerous this virus is,” he added.

Continue reading...

Ireland suspends AstraZeneca Covid vaccine over blood clot concerns

Posted on by

Deployment of Oxford vaccine temporarily deferred after latest reports from Norway

Ireland is suspending use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine as a precautionary measure following further reports of blood clots in people who have received it, this time from Norway.

The deputy chief medical officer, Dr Ronan Glynn, said Ireland’s advisory body on vaccines had recommended that deployment of the AstraZeneca jab should be “temporarily deferred” with immediate effect. He stressed, though, that there was no proof that the vaccine had caused blood clots.

Continue reading...

The epic battle with cancer’s ‘Death Star’

Posted on by

Forty years after the mutant genes that cause the deadliest cancers were discovered, drugs that target them could be approved

In the early 1980s, Channing Der was just beginning his career as a scientist at Harvard Medical School when he happened upon a discovery that would change the course of cancer research. At the time, the holy grail of cancer biology was discovering so-called oncogenes – genetic switches that can turn a normal cell into a cancer cell – in the genomes of tumours. But while teams of scientists had thrown everything at it for the best part of a decade, their efforts had proved fruitless. One by one, they were beginning to accept that it might be a dead end.

Der found himself assigned to test 20 different genes that had been identified as possible oncogene candidates. His question was simple: did any of them actually exist in tumours in a form that was different from normal cells?

Continue reading...