Disease
In OneZero. More on Medium.
The technique rejuvenated six damaged lungs
Donated lungs have a short shelf life. After they’re removed from a donor, it’s a race against the clock to get them to a lucky recipient. The delicate, spongy organs are viable for only six to eight hours at most — if they’re suitable for transplant at all.
After a person dies, the lungs are often damaged, inflamed, or filled with fluid. As a result, only about 20% of donated lungs are deemed acceptable for transplant, a lower percentage than other organs, like the kidneys. More than 1,000 people in the United States are currently waiting for a lung transplant…
Negative perception and costs pose obstacles to a promising technology
As the coronavirus pandemic continues, a technology that has existed for over 100 years is getting renewed attention as a promising disinfection tool. Ultraviolet germicidal radiation, which uses short-wavelength UV rays to kill bacteria and viruses, is already used to disinfect air, water, and surfaces in limited settings. In May, a report by the Illuminating Engineering Society, an authority on lighting technology, showed that UV-C germicidal radiation can play a key role in inactivating the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19. Now some companies whose products use this technology are seeing heightened interest.
“The manufacturers can’t keep up with the demand…
EEE kills almost half of its victims, and cases are on the rise
In springtime, when the swamps behind the Mosman’s family home filled with fresh water, Keith, the eldest son, and Scott, his younger brother, would tramp barefoot through vernal pools in search of turtles, snakes, and frogs, returning hours later dotted with mosquito bites from the scourge that bred among the red maple tree roots. It was the 1970s, and Raynham, Massachusetts, where the Mosmans lived, was still a rural town. As the boys grew older, paddocks gave way to strip malls, apple orchards to housing developments. …
New evidence suggests rising temperatures are giving drug-resistant pathogens an upper hand
The new coronavirus outbreak may have caught some public officials by surprise, but infectious disease specialists have been anticipating this worst-case scenario for decades. And they warn that the same gaps in our health care system that allowed Covid-19 to flourish could give a window for other types of pathogens to overwhelm us.
One long-standing threat is antimicrobial resistance (AMR), or when so-called superbugs evolve abilities to evade our best germ-killing drugs, whether they be antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals, or anthelmintics (which rid bodies of parasites). An AMR outbreak has some similarities to a viral outbreak like Covid-19: There aren’t many…
The EPA has given permission to test a controversial pest control method — using engineered mosquitoes to reduce the population of wild ones
Genetically engineered mosquitoes could be released in the United States later this year, after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it approved field tests for them in southern Florida.
On Friday, the EPA said it had granted Oxitec, a British company that specializes in genetically engineered insects, a permit to experiment with using modified mosquitoes to prevent the spread of the Zika virus and dengue fever. The company still needs to get state and local approval; if it does, the trials will start this summer in Monroe County, home of the Florida Keys. Field tests were also approved for Harris…
Proof of a prior infection could come with more freedom
In one version of the future, a new type of test that measures antibodies would help restore a sense of normalcy for some people even as the coronavirus pandemic drags on. With the right antibodies, some may be immune to the virus, unable to get sick or spread the virus to others. Widespread testing for these antibodies could pave the way for so-called immunity certificates, which would allow people who have already been exposed to the virus to return to public life.
But the hope may be dashed by significant scientific and ethical concerns. For starters, diagnostic testing is already…
Sewage surveillance could help scientists predict new outbreaks
We won’t have to shelter from the new coronavirus forever. In fact, we may be able to briefly return to public life this summer, according to The Atlantic. But several predictors of Covid-19 outbreaks suggest the virus could be seasonal, returning with fury in the fall. It is likely that several periods of social distancing will be necessary for containing the virus until a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is widely available, which could take a year or more.
How will folks know when it’s safe to come out and when to go back indoors? …
ProMED had previously spotted outbreaks of MERS, Zika, and Ebola
The rumors first surfaced on WeChat and Weibo. Users of the Chinese social media platforms were saying a pneumonia-like illness had hit Wuhan — and that it was killing people. Staff at EcoHealth Alliance, a global nonprofit that monitors emerging diseases, noticed this chatter in late December 2019.
Peter Daszak, president of the organization, combed through the material himself, popping paragraphs into Google Translate and getting back imperfect translations. Colleagues who spoke Chinese also helped him figure out what was going on.
“Clearly something was out there,” he told OneZero. …
As Congo’s deadly outbreak rages, two new tools show promise for the future
More than 2,000 people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo since an Ebola outbreak was declared last August, the second largest such outbreak ever recorded. The number of such outbreaks has ballooned since the disease was discovered in 1976. One reason it’s been so difficult to control is that Ebola is hard to track.
Karin Huster, a nurse who worked with Doctors Without Borders on the front lines of the record-breaking Ebola outbreak of 2014–2016, says that medical professionals often lack the tools to know whether an outbreak is happening and contain it when it is. …
End Times
New technologies like gene editing could vastly improve human life. They also just might end it.
Asteroids, supervolcanoes, nuclear war, climate change, engineered viruses, artificial intelligence, and even aliens — the end may be closer than you think. For the next two weeks, OneZero will be featuring essays drawn from editor Bryan Walsh’s forthcoming book End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World, which hits shelves on August 27 and is available for pre-order now, as well as pieces by other experts in the burgeoning field of existential risk. But we’re not helpless. It’s up to us to postpone the apocalypse.
In the darkened ballroom of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C…
