Paris’ top tourists sites, including the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, closed Friday because of the coronavirus, as France said it was banning all gatherings of more than 100 people.
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Another 18 people have died from the coronavirus in France over the last 24 hours, bringing the total deaths from the virus to 79, Health Minister Olivier Veran said Friday.
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Inspired by a tactic cancer cells use to evade the immune system, University of Pittsburgh researchers have engineered tiny particles that can trick the body into accepting transplanted tissue as its own.
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Adaptive immunity is a powerful defense mechanism in vertebrates. A finely tuned interplay of different cell types provides a pathogen-specific immune response to eliminate for example bacteria and viruses. Max Planck researchers now identify the mechanistic basis of antigen receptor gene assembly that more than 500 million years ago independently evolved in one of the two sister branches of vertebrates. The results by the scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg are an important step to answering the question which of the many functions that are carried out by the immune system of living vertebrates are absolutely essential. The findings may help to understand the causes and consequences of failing immune functions and autoimmune syndromes.
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Among the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease are the Alzheimer fibrils, deposits of the tau protein, which accumulate in nerve cells in the form of fibres and disrupt communication between nerve cells. But how does this fibre formation take place? Why do such harmful deposits develop from the originally useful tau protein, which normally stabilizes cells? This question was addressed by a team of researchers from the University of Konstanz and Utrecht University (Netherlands), led by Konstanz chemist Professor Malte Drescher. Using structural analyses, the researchers brought to light a surprising biochemical mechanism in which a molecular chaperone—a helper protein—plays an unusual role. The research results are going to be published on 13 March 2020 in the journal Science Advances and are available as a preprint version at Biorxiv.
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Research published today in Science Advances sheds new light on the molecular machinery that enables the shape, growth and movement of neurons. It is the first time scientists have revealed how the brain shuttles genetic code within its cells, a process believed to be crucial for the formation and storage of long-term memories.
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Britain has adopted a light touch approach to coronavirus measures, opting so far not to shut schools, with the aim of staggering demand on the health service and developing “herd immunity” in the population—but the strategy is controversial.
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Infectious disease researchers at The University of Texas at Austin studying the novel coronavirus were able to identify how quickly the virus can spread, a factor that may help public health officials in their efforts at containment. They found that time between cases in a chain of transmission is less than a week and that more than 10% of patients are infected by somebody who has the virus but does not yet have symptoms.
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Current guidance on coronavirus “largely ignores” the implications for public health and clinical responses in light of those most at risk, according to an international group of global health experts.
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DEAR MAYO CLINIC: Is intermittent fasting for weight loss safe? What are the risks of short-term diets that are very low-calorie?
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