news 2020

California's 2018 wildfires cost the US economy $148.5bn (£110bn) (0.7% of the country's annual GDP), of which $45.9bn was lost outside the state, according to researchers from universities including UCL. More than 8,500 separate fires burned during 2018 in California, making them the deadliest and most destructive of any year in the state's history.

Scientists have tracked the very early stages of human foetal gut development in incredible detail, and found specific cell functions that appear to be reactivated in the gut of children with Crohn's Disease. Our results indicate there might be a reprogramming of specific gut cell functions in Crohn's Disease Matthias Zilbauer The results are an important step towards better management and treatment of this devastating condition.

Researchers are the first to create a version of COVID-19 in mice that shows how the disease damages organs other than the lungs. Using their model, the scientists discovered that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can shut down energy production in cells of the heart, kidneys, spleen and other organs. "This mouse model is a really powerful tool for studying SARS-CoV-2 in a living system,' said Dr. Arjun Deb, a co-senior author of a paper about the study and a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA.

Stress increases the risk of physical and emotional problems, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, anxiety disorders, depression and burnout. Millions of people are on anxiety-reducing medication to diminish stress, but they can have nasty side-effects or even be addictive. Fortunately, there are alternatives, such as music therapy.

A new wastewater testing approach developed by researchers at the University of Michigan and Stanford University is capable of better detecting viral infection patterns in communities, and could prove a crucial step forward in an informed public health response as the pandemic continues. Their new study published in Environmental Science & Technology identifies a method that not only detects the virus in wastewater samples but also tracks whether the infection rates are trending up or down.

By inhibiting a particular family of enzymes, it may be possible to develop new therapies for treating neurodegenerative diseases from glaucoma to Alzheimer's Many neurodegenerative conditions, from glaucoma to Alzheimer's disease, are characterized by injury to axons — the long, slender projections that conduct electrical impulses from one nerve cell to another, facilitating cellular communications.

By studying the genomes of hundreds of thousands of people, scientists from UNIGE, HUG and the University of Utrecht discovered the genetic basis of intracranial aneurysms. Nearly three percent of the world's population is at risk of developing an intracranial aneurysm, a localized dilation of a blood vessel forming a fragile pocket.

Researchers from the University of Basel have developed a sensitive testing system that allows the rapid and reliable detection of resistance in bacteria. The system is based on tiny, functionalized cantilevers that bend due to binding of sample material. In the analyses, the system was able to detect resistance in a sample quantity equivalent to 1-10 bacteria.

A new wastewater testing approach capable of better detecting viral infection patterns in communities could prove a crucial step toward an informed public health response to diseases like COVID-19. Accurately identifying changes in community COVID-19 infections through wastewater surveillance is moving closer to reality.

Researchers at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and Dr. Maximiliano Cuevas had a discussion about the impact of COVID-19 on California farmworkers. California is the leading agricultural state in the U.S., generating more than $50 billion in agricultural annual revenue and employing 800,000 agricultural workers.

With the help of so-called pooling procedures, samples from different people can be combined into a pool and tested for Covid-19 collectively in a single test kit. An interdisciplinary team of mathematicians, computer scientists and medical doctors from the Junge Akademie, the Technische Universität Braunschweig, the Universität Stuttgart and the company Arctoris has developed a decision support tool that calculates which method is most effective in identifying all Covid-19 patients in a positive sample pool.

Researchers from Cardiff University have been testing the feasibility of using microwave ovens and dry heat to decontaminate crucial PPE being used to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Reporting their findings in the Journal of Hospital Infection , the team have shown that certain types of respirators can be effectively decontaminated in just 90 seconds using an industrial-grade microwave oven and a baby bottle sterilizer containing water.

Repurposed antiviral drugs - remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir and interferon - to treat COVID-19 appear to have little or no effect on patients hospitalised for the disease, in terms of overall mortality, initiation of ventilation and duration of hospital stay. The interim findings from the WHO Solidarity trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), followed 11,266 adults at 405 hospitals in 30 countries.

DeepChest and DeepBreath, new deep learning algorithms developed at EPFL that identify patterns of COVID-19 in lung images and breath sounds, may help in the fight against other respiratory diseases and the growing challenge of antibiotic resistance. For Dr Mary-Anne Hartley, a medical doctor and researcher in EPFL's intelligent Global Health group (iGH), 2020 has been relentless.

The last two decades have seen a 54% increase in heat-related deaths in older people linked to worsening climate change, a new international report led by UCL researchers has revealed. The 2020 Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, published in The Lancet , shows a record 2.9 billion additional days of heatwave exposure affecting over-65s in 2019 - almost twice the previous high.

What makes the elderly and people with underlying conditions more vulnerable to COVID-19? According to a new study led by McGill University researchers, clues can be found in the proteins involved in initiating infection, as the virus binds to host cells of different animals. Greater cellular oxidation with aging and sickness may explain why seniors and people with chronic illness get infected more often and more severely.

Genetics of mother and baby contribute to most cases where babies are born very large or very small, according to new research. Genetics of mother and baby contribute to most cases where babies are born very large or very small, according to new research. A large scale study, led by the University of Exeter and Cardiff University, has found the strongest evidence to date that genetics play a major role in most cases when babies born at full term are in the top or bottom 10 per cent of the weight spectrum.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) has awarded $1m (£750,000) to a team from UCL and the European Synchotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), as part of a global initiative to advance deep tissue imaging to provide new insights into health and the nature of diseases such as COVID-19. Professor Peter Lee (UCL Mechanical Engineering) and Professor Rebecca Shipley (UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering) together with Dr Paul Tafforeau (ESRF) are leading the imaging research project, which will enable cellular-level imaging anywhere in whole organisms, including human organs.

Developing a "lung-on-chip" model, EPFL scientists have uncovered new insights on the body's response to early tuberculosis infections. The findings reveal the early events that take place during tuberculosis infection, and provide a model for future research into respiratory and other infections. Scientists have developed a lung-on-chip model to study how the body responds to early tuberculosis (TB) infection, according to findings published in eLife.

A large-scale study by Cardiff University and the University of Exeter has found the strongest evidence to date that genetics play a major role in most cases when babies born at full term are in the top or bottom 10% of the birth-weight spectrum. However, in the 3% of babies with the smallest birth weights, genetics seemed to play a less important role, the researchers found, indicating that other factors may be contributing to the babies' small size.