science wire

From today, the UK's national priority platform trial of Covid-19 treatments for recovery at home launches its investigation of the gout drug colchicine, and expands for the first time to include adults of any age.

A clinical trial has commenced this week to test whether a drug called Almitrine can help people who are seriously ill with COVID-19 to recover from the disease.

A team of medical research and statistical modelling experts at Oxford University and the Alan Turing Institute have conducted a joint analysis to assess the impact of the NHS COVID-19 contact tracing app. The research suggests the app stopped between 200,000 and 900,000 infections between 1st October and 31st December 2020, when 1.9 million people were infected with coronavirus in England and Wales.

Parental stress, depression, and anxiety have again increased since new national restrictions have been introduced according to the latest report from the Oxford University-led COVID-19 Supporting Pa

The RECOVERY trial was established as a randomised clinical trial to test a range of potential treatments for COVID-19.

Developmental psychologists at University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University have raised enough money to provide outdoor baby and toddler weather gear for 70 local families.

Mental health difficulties in children increased during the first national lockdown (between March and June 2020), but have decreased since. The latest report from the Co-SPACE study highlights that for participating primary school aged children: Over the course of the first national lockdown (March - June 2020), behavioural and restless/attentional difficulties increased, while most children were not attending school.

The European Space Agency (ESA) have formally adopted Ariel, the first mission dedicated to study the nature, formation and evolution of exoplanets. Professor Neil Bowles , from the Department of Physics , said: 'The team in Oxford have been involved with the Ariel mission since it was originally proposed in 2014 and it's fantastic to see it progress to mission adoption.

The University of Oxford has joined forces with Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world leader in serving science, to ramp up the university's capacity to deliver COVID-19 testing data.   The new rapid testing laboratory and jointly developed Thermo Scientific OmnipathTM Combi SARS-CoV-2 IgG ELISA test detects and quantifies antibodies against the coronavirus and increases the University of Oxford's testing capacity to up to 50,000 tests per day.

In African wildlife conservation, most documented experiences are from southern and south-eastern Africa; countries with well developed 'wildlife industries'. Their voices and perspectives are dominant, but a new paper in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution presents divergent perspectives from West, Central and the Horn of Africa.

A free game launched today allows players to role-play the deployment of a virtual vaccine to help to halt the global spread of a viral pandemic.

New analysis from researchers at the University of Oxford finds that from March to July this year, Europe had a 28 percent lower rate of excess deaths than the U.S. contrary to claims by President Donald Trump that Europe experienced greater excess mortality than the U.S. Dr Janine Aron and Professor John Muellbauer's research suggests that around 57,800 Americans would have survived had the U.S. managed the pandemic as effectively as Europe.

The University of Oxford and King Abdulaziz University (KAU) have partnered to create a new Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Precision Medicine.

Researchers at the University of Oxford are starting a new study to explore the effectiveness of the anti-tumour necrosis factor (anti-TNF) drug adalimumab as a treatment for patients with COVID-19 in the community, especially care homes. The AVID-CC trial, which will be conducted by Oxford Clinical Trials Research Unit (OCTRU), will enrol up to 750 patients from community care settings throughout the UK.

Carbon offsetting is a widespread tool in efforts to achieve net zero emissions.

As COVID-19 infections begin to rise again, a novel testing strategy proposed by researchers at the University of Oxford at the start of the pandemic has become urgent once again. The strategy aims to bring the virus's reproduction number ('R') down to below 1, by concentrating testing resources on particular groups in the population that are most likely to spread the infection to others, rather than testing the general population at random.

A team of mathematical modellers and epidemiologists at Oxford University's Nuffield Department of Medicine release the latest model of a population responding to the coronavirus epidemic.

New University of Oxford research reveals the causes of the consistently spiralling cost overruns associated with the Olympic Games and proposes that cities avoid hosting them altogether.

The University of Liverpool is leading a major new international project to improve our understanding of severe coronavirus infection in humans, together with collaborators from the University of Oxford, Public Health England, the University of Bristol; A*STAR in Singapore; and King Fahd Medical City in Saudi Arabia.

A school-based survey of students in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire examined over 200 key factors in the lives and expectations of young people, aged 8-18 years, helping to shed light on mental health during lockdown.

Emotional difficulties were consistently elevated among children and young people from low income households over a month of lockdown compared to those from higher income households.

One of the world's largest efforts to find effective COVID-19 treatments will evaluate the impact of REGN-COV2 on mortality, hospital stays, and the need for ventilation. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and the University of Oxford today announced that RECOVERY (Randomised Evaluation of COVid-19 thERapY), one of the world's largest randomised clinical trials of potential COVID-19 treatments, will evaluate Regeneron's investigational anti-viral antibody cocktail, REGN-COV2.

The International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC), based at Oxford University, in collaboration with Dr Janet Scott, of the MRC-University of Glasgow's Centre for Virus Research, has launched a longitudinal observational study to measure prevalence and risk factors of long-term health and psychosocial consequences of COVID-19.

Following a five-week clean-up on Aldabra Atoll, one of Seychelles' UNESCO World Heritage Site, where 25 tonnes of marine plastic litter was removed, researchers at Oxford University have estimated t