Contact languages have been with us for centuries, but it’s only recently that their fragile state has attracted interest
When groups of people who speak different languages come together, they sometimes inadvertently create a new one, combining bits of each into something everyone can use to communicate easily. Linguists call such impromptu tongues “contact languages” – and they can extend well beyond the pidgin and creole that many of...
Inside Latin America’s $500b loot: We’re not suffering from just one pandemic, we’ve others within Covid context
Transparency International estimates that an average of more than $500 billion a year is lost to corruption in the public health sector globally. Ravages wrought by coronavirus has made it even worse. Jonathan Cushing, head of global health at Transparency International said reports of corruption have increased around the world...
Latin America’s Covid millionaires: How narcotics and corruption feed the pandemic in the region
After coming down with Covid-19 in December, Vinicio Sánchez visited three health centres in a single day. At the first, a clinic in the south of Ecuadorian capital, Quito, he was told he needed oxygen but they had none left to give him. He was referred to a specialist Covid-19...
Bilingualism and brain power: Multiple-language use helps delay onset of Alzheimer’s disease
Even when you’re fluent in two languages, it can be a challenge to switch back and forth smoothly between them. It’s common to mangle a split verb in Spanish, use the wrong preposition in English, or lose sight of the connection between the beginning and end of a long German...
Gene therapy gives researchers ammunition needed to find cure for sickle-cell disease at its molecular roots
Seventy years ago, sickle-cell disease was at the cutting edge of biomedical research as the first medical condition to be linked to a molecular cause. But the ensuing decades saw little progress in terms of clinical care, leaving patients afflicted with severe pain and dramatically shortened life expectancy. “There was...
Covid vaccines don’t harm fertility or sexual function, medics allay fears, rumours and myths about the jab
Rumours and myths about Covid-19 vaccine effects on all aspects of reproduction and sexual functioning have spread like a Delta variant of viral misinformation across social media platforms, where people swap rumours of erectile dysfunction and fertility disruptions following vaccination. Yet studies so far have not linked the vaccines with...
Possible cause of Covid vaccine blood clots: Drug is injected and enters bloodstream directly
Haematologist Mitesh Borad at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona, and his colleagues have analysed the structure of the chimpanzee adenovirus used in the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and determined that it has a strong negative charge. Molecular simulations suggest that this charge, combined with aspects of the virus’s shape, could allow...
Covid vaccines and blood clots: Why do some people develop mysterious clotting disorder after Covid jab?
It was when the second person with unusual clots came in that Phillip Nicolson knew something was wrong. Blood clots are uncommon in young people, and it’s even rarer to see a combination of blood clots and alarmingly low levels of platelets – cell fragments that help to form clots....
Inventor teams with women claim 16 per cent of patents in US, yet females hold half of life-science PhDs
When Rembrand Koning’s wife was giving birth to their first child in 2017, the couple was dismayed by the lack of technology for new mothers who were recovering from pregnancy complications. Baby scales were hard to use one-handed, breast pumps were frustrating and there were few resources to help Koning’s...
Do genes predispose people to gayism or it’s social deviancy that becomes habitual?
To evolutionary biologists, the genetics of homosexuality seems like a paradox. In theory, humans and other animals who are exclusively attracted to others of the same sex should be unlikely to produce many biological children, so any genes that predispose people to homosexuality would rarely be passed on to future...
