Maybe you’re itching to start a garden or relax on your lawn. Or, perhaps you can’t wait to hit the hiking trails or go camping. All fun things! But any time you relish in the great outdoors you also risk exposing yourself to some pesky little buggers: ticks. So, it’s crucial to know how to […]
In case you missed it, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is currently recommending that all Americans wear face masks in public to slow the spread of COVID-19. As a result, face mask sales have surged and recently they’ve been so hard to find that many people are making their own face masks at home […]
White blood cells are known to circulate through the entire body through blood vessels, acting as a surveillance system. However, a specialized group of these cells are permanently present in tissues like the skin, intestine and lungs, protecting against external invaders such as microbes. But it is largely unknown how these cells are generated. A […]
Although no one yet knows what the future holds for COVID-19, most experts seem to agree that it isn’t going away anytime soon. Indeed, a new report estimates that the pandemic will likely last about two years. The report, from researchers at the University of Minnesota, draws on information from eight previous flu pandemics going […]
For all the anticipation around new COVID-19 tests, therapeutics and vaccines, public health experts know that the end of the pandemic will depend also on a low-tech, tried-and-true tactic—contact tracing. Contact tracing sounds simple: alert anyone who has been in contact with an infected person and prevent them from spreading the disease to others. Yet […]
Researchers at Aalto University and Turku PET Centre have developed a new method for simultaneous imaging brain activity from two people, allowing them to study social interaction. In a recent study, the researchers scanned brain activity from 10 couples. Each couple spent 45 minutes inside the MRI scanner in physical contact with each other. The […]
For more than a decade, researchers at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education and Human Development have been developing, testing and disseminating a set of practices called “Banking Time” that builds positive relationships between teachers and their students. Amanda Williford, an associate professor and a member of that team, believes these practices can […]
Government-enforced social isolation may help relatively affluent populations limit the spread of COVID-19, but these measures can be devasting for the nearly 1 billion people around the globe currently dwelling in urban slums, where physical space is scarce, and many rely on daily wage labor for survival. To help the urban poor weather the COVID-19 […]
Hailed as one of the most important medical advances, the discovery of general anesthetics—compounds that induce unconsciousness, prevent control of movement and block pain—helped transform dangerous and traumatic operations into safe and routine surgery. But despite their importance, scientists still don’t understand exactly how general anesthetics work. Now, in a study recently published in the […]
It is not surprising to hear that sales of alcohol are rising during this COVID-19 pandemic. Retail sales data for the United Kingdom reported an additional £104 million was spent in the last week of March, which is when lockdown measures were introduced, compared to the week before. Lager is where the greatest spend was […]
