ANALYSIS AND COMMENTS

March 2021 lshtm; The B.1.1.7 variant is very likely to cause more severe illness than pre-existing SARS-CoV-2 variants, according to new research published in Nature. The research team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine analysed the results of more than two million COVID-19 community tests in England between …

March 2021 YahooNews; A number of technologies and tools got a chance to prove themselves for the first time in the context of COVID-19. Three researchers working in gene-based vaccines, wearable diagnostics and drug discovery explain how their work rose to the challenge of the pandemic, and their hopes that …

March 2021 TheConversation; Artificial intelligence holds great promise for improving human health by helping doctors make accurate diagnoses and treatment decisions. It can also lead to discrimination that can harm minorities, women and economically disadvantaged people. The question is, when health care algorithms discriminate, what recourse do people have? A …

March 2021 medicalnewstoday; Personality traits make up how a person navigates through life, with some characteristics having a more positive effect than others. Conscientiousness, or the tendency to be organized, control impulses, and delay gratification, is one of the “Big Five” personality attributes included in the Five Factor Model. This model …

March 2021 theConversation; A year ago, when U.S. health authorities issued their first warning that COVID-19 would cause severe “disruption to everyday life,” doctors had no effective treatments to offer beyond supportive care. There is still no cure, but thanks to an unprecedented global research effort, several treatments are helping patients survive …

February 2021 NYTimes; Dr. Kristy Cromblin knew that as the descendant of Alabama sharecroppers and the first person in her family to go to college, making it to medical school might seem like an improbable dream. Her parents watched in proud disbelief as she inched closer to that goal, enrolling …

February 2021 BBC; As a young man, Stephen Crohn could only watch helplessly as one by one, his friends began dying from a disease which had no name. When his partner, a gymnast called Jerry Green, fell desperately ill in 1978 with what we now know as Aids, Crohn simply …

February 2021 HavardBlog; Do all kids spy? Just me? When I was a child, I spent hours snooping in my parents’ nightstands, Granny’s pocketbook, my older brothers’ dresser drawers. I’m not sure what I was looking for, exactly, other than validation of my suspicion that the teenagers and adults in …

February 2021 MedicalnewsToday; A range of factors influences health, including genetics, lifestyle, environmental factors, and diet. Unraveling the complex relationships between these factors is a challenge. For many reasons, it is incredibly difficult to investigate the role of nutrition in health and disease. For instance, no two people eat the …

February 2021 the Standard; Some of the table salt sold in Kenya is contaminated with tiny plastic particles, which may be a health risk to consumers. Salt bought from open markets and supermarkets in eight African countries, including Kenya, was tested, and found to contain plastic particles. “It is obvious …