On the trail of QAnon: How Trump turned conspiracy theory research upside down
For people around the world, the now-iconic images of a man in a horned headdress roaming the US Capitol during the January 6 insurrection came as a shock. For Kate Starbird, the images were frighteningly familiar. ‘QAnon Shaman’ – the online persona of Jacob Anthony Chansley, or Jake Angeli –...
Covid’s mental-health toll: How scientists are tracking a surge in depression
As the Covid-19 pandemic enters its second year, new fast-spreading variants have caused a surge in infections in many countries, and renewed lockdowns. The devastation of the pandemic — millions of deaths, economic strife and unprecedented curbs on social interaction – has already had a marked effect on people’s mental...
Report: Vaccines helping curb infections, admissions among older people in Israel
Good news from Israel. Researchers are seeing signs that Covid-19 vaccines are helping to curb infections and hospitalisations among older people, almost six weeks after shots were rolled out in that group. The country is the first to release data showing vaccines working in such a large group of people,...
Jeff Bezos, world’s second richest man retires from his company to ‘fix the Planet’
What happens when the world’s second wealthiest human suddenly switches careers? If you’re Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos, you can now spend more time with your Rich Person Pursuits. On Tuesday, Bezos announced that he’s stepping down as Amazon’s boss and will focus on The Washington Post, which...
Pumping the body with diabetes, atherosclerosis, heart attacks and strokes
The world is getting fatter. It is a general trend, but one that’s especially well illustrated in the United States. As of 2018, 42 per cent of US adults were obese – almost three times more than in 1980 and prior decades, according to government statistics. With that comes rising...
Coronavirus: Fomite transmission is possible, but it just seems to be rare
In 1987, researchers at the University of Wisconsin – Madison put healthy volunteers in a room to play cards with people infected with a common-cold rhinovirus. When the healthy volunteers had their arms restrained to stop them touching their faces and prevent them transferring the virus from contaminated surfaces, half...
Coronavirus rarely spreads through surfaces; so why are we still deep cleaning?
When Emanuel Goldman went to his local New Jersey supermarket last March, he didn’t take any chances. Reports of Covid-19 cases were popping up across the United States, so he donned gloves to avoid contaminated surfaces and wore a mask to prevent him inhaling tiny virus-laden droplets from fellow shoppers....
Risky: Retracted studies still routinely cited in fight against coronavirus
In June 2020, in the biggest research scandal of the pandemic so far, two of the most important medical journals each retracted a high-profile study of Coovid-19 patients. Thousands of news articles, tweets, and scholarly commentaries highlighted the scandal, yet many researchers apparently failed to notice. In an examination of...
Although concussions heal, some patients struggle at times to remember tasks
Italian physician Paolo Mascagni created a detailed atlas of the lymphatic system – including this drawing from his 1787 Vasorum Lymphaticorum Corporis Humani Historia et Ichnographic. Mascagni depicted the vessels in the meninges around the brain, but other scientists dismissed the idea, arguing that the lymphatic system was separate from...
Research suggests mild head knocks can damage vessels that clear debris from brain
On a crisp September day, Zoe Aldrich walked onto a rugby pitch on a college campus in upstate New York. With her teammates surrounding her, she got ready for the kick-off and the pitch became a blur of coloured jerseys. A teammate passed Aldrich the ball and she started running,...
