H5N1 – It ’ s All About the Transmission
by Gertrud U. Rey Recent news headlines have been highlighting the global spread of H5N1, the strain of influenza virus that is typically associated with “bird flu.” This outbreak is the largest in recorded history, involving at least 50 million dead birds and countless non-human mammals, including sea lions, otters, mink, foxes, cats, dogs, and […] (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - March 2, 2023 Category: Virology Authors: Gertrud U. Rey Tags: Basic virology Gertrud Rey avian influenza H5N1 bird flu human-to-human transmission lower respiratory tract pandemic sialic acid upper respiratory tract vaccine Source Type: blogs
H5N1 – It ’ s All About the Transmission
by Gertrud U. Rey Recent news headlines have been highlighting the global spread of H5N1, the strain of influenza virus that is typically associated with “bird flu.” This outbreak is the largest in recorded history, involving at least 50 million dead birds and countless non-human mammals, including sea lions, otters, mink, foxes, cats, dogs, and … H5N1 – It’s All About the Transmission Read More » (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - March 2, 2023 Category: Virology Authors: Gertrud U. Rey Source Type: blogs
Updates and an artificial album cover
As regular readers will know, I’ve been running the Sciencebase site since July 1999. Its precursor, Elemental Discoveries, had various homes on the web from December 1995 until that fateful summer. There are almost 4000 articles in the archives, so it’s quite a hefty site for a one-man show.
Anyway, having played around with various website options in the last couple of weeks, I’ve finally done a proper spring clean, got rid of some very out-of-date articles and updated others that were worth keeping. I’ve upgraded security and performance stuff so the site should load much faster than ever before...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 1, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Artificial Intelligence Sciencebase Source Type: blogs
Avian influenza, bird flu, H5N1
A bird flu pandemic has killed thousands of wild birds over the last couple of years. Scientists have now seen infection in mammals, and very recently a person died from avian influenza and several close contacts show signs of infection. The concern is that we might be headed for another H5N1 pandemic. Previous strains of H5N1 that infected people had a mortality rate of 60 percent.
Avian influenza, bird flu, H5N1
There are fifteen known variants of avian influenza. The most virulent, and usually fatal in birds, are the H5 and H7 strains. There are then nine variants of the H5 strain and the type of most concern because ...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - February 27, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Bird Flu Health and Medicine Vaccines Source Type: blogs
Parents Still Poached of Baby Formula While Egg Supply Is Turning Sunny Side Up
Scott Lincicome,Gabriella Beaumont-Smith, and Alfredo Carrillo ObregonReports last Friday broke that the Department of Justice (DOJ) hasopened an investigation into potential criminal conduct at the Michigan factory at the center of the “nationwide infant formula shortage” that lasted for most of 2022. Whether laws were broken at the Abbott Laboratories plant is a matter for the DOJ, but we’re confident that the investigators won’t discover the real source of last year’s problems: federal policy.As we explain in new Catobriefing paper, the Michigan plant closure surely put a major dent in U.S. infant formula p...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 25, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Scott Lincicome, Gabriella Beaumont-Smith, Alfredo Carrillo Obregon Source Type: blogs
My avian photo-processing workflow
You may have caught sight of an earlier post about the beautiful and graceful Short-eared Owls that have arrived on our patch from the far north to over-winter in the slightly warmer climes of the Cambridgeshire Fens. We saw three SEOs hunting in the hour before dusk in mid-January, but I am aware they have been around for several weeks and there are others as well as some Long-eared Owls (LEOs) farther north in Eldernell.
Anyway, it’s tough photographing owls at dusk with a big lens, there’s camera shake to take into account and the need for a fast shutter speed to freeze the action, which means high ISO and s...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - January 17, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Birds Photography Source Type: blogs
My Non-avian Dorset Holiday Snaps
Mrs Sciencebase and myself were celebrating a significant wedding anniversary last week and so took a trip to Dorset. I didn’t carry a proper landscape lens with my birding camera, so these are just a load of highly processed phone snaps. (Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science)
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - September 26, 2022 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Photography Source Type: blogs
Face Mask Detects Respiratory Viruses, Alerts User
Scientists at Shanghai Tongji University in China have created a face mask that can alert the wearer to the presence of respiratory viruses in the surrounding environment, including the viruses behind COVID-19 and influenza. The mask includes aptamers, which are short sequences of DNA or RNA that can bind to protein targets. When viral particles bind to the aptamers, ion-gated transistors boost the signal so that the mask can sensitively detect small amounts of virus. The mask sends a message to the wearer’s smartphone within 10 minutes of detecting the virus. The technology could be very valuable for healthcare staff or...
Source: Medgadget - September 22, 2022 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Medicine Public Health Source Type: blogs
Common-as-muck Buzzards
When you get wind of something unusual in the birding world, the temptation is often to head for the site as quickly as possible binoculars slung around your neck and camera in the rucksack on your back. It’s often not the best strategy, birds fly and even if you think you’re being quick off the mark, often the update you saw may be out of date within minutes or hours of it being posted.
So, when I heard there was a large number of Common Buzzard* (Buteo buteo) gathered in a field not 20 minutes’ drive from home, I didn’t jump into the car and slam the pedal to the metal. I waiting until the next u...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - August 31, 2022 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Birds Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 29th 2022
This study demonstrates that adoptive astrocytic Mt transfer enhances neuronal Mn-SOD-mediated anti-oxidative defense and neuroplasticity in the brain, which potentiate functional recovery following ICH.
First Generation Stem Cell Therapies Remain Comparatively Poorly Understood
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2022/08/first-generation-stem-cell-therapies-remain-comparatively-poorly-understood/
We are something like thirty years into the increasingly widespread use of first generation stem cell therapies. Cells are derived from a variety of sources, processed, and transplanted into patients. Near all...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 28, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Suggesting that the Unguarded X Chromosome is not Important in Gender Longevity Differences
Researchers here discuss the unguarded X hypothesis in the context of gender differences in life span. That these differences exist across species strongly suggests evolutionary, biological origins, rather than the lifestyle and behavioral origins sometimes suggested to explain life span differences in our species. It seems likely that the interaction between evolutionary pressures and mating strategies drives a great deal of the differences between genders, and life span may be included in that list, but exactly how that difference in longevity is produced at the level of cellular biochemistry remains up for discussion, a...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 22, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Mothing in the New Forest
FINAL UPDATE: Back home, checked through the records. 12 species I’d not seen before, at least two of which are usually confined to the South coast and hinterland.
Lesser Swallow Prominent
The list of moths I’d not photographed before our New Forest 2022 trip is as follows: August Thorn, Black Arches, Chequered Fruit-tree Tortrix, Cydia amplana, Hedge Rustic, Lesser Swallow Prominent, Lesser Treble Bar, Light Crimson Underwing, Plain Wave, Dark-barred Twin-spot Carpet, Rosy Footman, Six-striped Rustic.
August Thorn
Records now dispatched to Hampshire County Moth Recorder, Mike Wall.
UPDATE: Seventh Night: A ...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - August 20, 2022 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Lepidoptera Source Type: blogs
Global Warming and Disease
BY MIKE MAGEE
A study eight years ago, published in Nature, was titled “Study revives bird origin for 1918 flu pandemic.” The study, which analyzed more than 80,000 gene sequences from flu viruses from humans., birds, horses, pigs, and bats, concluded the 1918 pandemic disaster “probably sprang from North American domestic and wild birds, not from the mixing of human and swine viruses.”
The search for origin in pandemics is not simply an esoteric academic exercise. It is practical, pragmatic, and hopefully preventive. The origin of our very own pandemic, now in its third year and claiming more than 1 million ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 15, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy Uncategorized Bird Ecology Global Warming Source Type: blogs
Birdlife in Seahouses
Flying visit to my home county of Northumberland with a view to lots of walking, northern ales, and a spot of birdwatching.
Kittiwakes – Rissa tridactyla
Fulmar – Procellaria glacialis
Adult American Black Tern – Third season at Little Nanny, ought to be in northern USA/Canada at this time of year
Male Arctic Tern – Sterna paradisaea – The “Sea Swallow”
Female Arctic Tern
Arctic Tern carrying sand eel to female as nuptial gift
Courting Arctic Terns
Mating Arctic Terns
Third season for a rare adult American Black Tern in Northumberland
Juvenile Stonechat
Daddy Stonechat
Sandwich Ter...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - May 16, 2022 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Birds Photography Source Type: blogs
Moth larval nests
UPDATE: I made the County Moth Recorder, Bill Mansfield, aware of this larval nest and he was working not too far from the site in question and took a look this afternoon. It’s on a type of cherry tree, so he’s narrowed down the moth species, to Bird Cherry Ermine, Yponemeuta evonymella. He points out that the tree is largely defoliated at this point and mostly now covering evergreen fir trees.
Friends often come to me with their lepidopteral and avian queries, it’s often a bird they’ve seen that they imagine is some great rarity, a mega, but often turns out to be something common, a Long-tailed Ti...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - May 10, 2022 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Lepidoptera Source Type: blogs
