Lifeboat Foundation

British scientists have discovered that an active ingredient found in insect repellent can kill COVID-19, according to a report.

Researchers at the UK’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratory determined that Citriodiol can help fight coronavirus in a preliminary study, Sky News reported.

Insect repellents containing Citriodiol are not believed to be enough alone to protect people from the virus but can be used as an additional layer of defense along with face masks, hand washing and other health recommendations, according to the report.

Nov 2019 NATIONAL HARBOR, MARYLAND

—In a handful of cities around the world, mosquitoes have been armed with a microscopic weapon against disease. The bacterium Wolbachia pipientis blocks the insects’ ability to spread fearsome viruses such as dengue, Zika, and chikungunya. Since 2011, researchers have been injecting Wolbachia into the eggs of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and releasing the hatched insects, which spread this protection to their offspring. But the field has been waiting for evidence that this approach actually reduces disease in people.

Field trials suggest public health benefit to spreading Wolbachia.

Summary: An estimated 13.6% of deaths in the U.S could be attributed to dementia. The number is 2.7 times higher than the official reported dementia-related deaths. The underestimation varies greatly by race, with 7.1 times more older Black adults, and 4.1 times more Hispanic adults, dying from dementia that public records indicate.

Source: boston university school of medicine.

Dementia may be an underlying cause of nearly three times more deaths in the U.S. than official records show, according to a new Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) study.

Families of prisoners declare public health and human rights catastrophes as officials resist calls to evacuate as virus spreads.

Michigan State University researchers have created for the first time a miniature human heart model in the laboratory, complete with all primary heart cell types and a functioning structure of chambers and vascular tissue.

In the United States, heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death. “These minihearts constitute incredibly powerful models in which to study all kinds of cardiac disorders with a degree of precision unseen before,” said Aitor Aguirre, the study’s senior author and assistant professor of biomedical engineering at MSU’s Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering.

Continue reading “Scientists grow the first functioning mini human heart model” »

Health officials have confirmed a case of plague at South Lake Tahoe — the first in California in five years.

El Dorado County officials said Monday that the California Department of Public Health had notified them of the positive test of a resident who is under medical care while recovering at home.

Plague bacteria are most often transmitted by fleas that have acquired it from infected squirrels, chipmunks and other wild rodents. Dogs and cats may also carry plague-infected fleas.

A Christchurch company has invented the world’s first waterproof robotic hand.

Now, they are teaming up with other tech firms in the region to help them all grow.

When drugs to kill microbes are ineffective, host-directed therapy uses the body’s own immune system to deal with the infection. This approach is being tested in patients with COVID-19, and now a team of researchers at Trinity College Dublin has published a study showing how it might also work in the fight against tuberculosis (TB). The findings are published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology.

Although the bacteria that causes TB (called Mtb) has scourged humankind for millennia, we do not fully understand the complexities and interplay of the human immune response to this ancient bug. Worryingly, there are increasing numbers of people with antibiotic resistant TB, which is hard to treat and is becoming a global threat to public health.

Scientists at the Trinity Translational Medicine Institute (TTMI) at St. James’s Hospital are dedicated to understanding the intricacies of the human immune response to Mtb with the aim of finding ways to target and promote the immune response to overcome the infection. Scientists already know that the human immune response can both under or over respond to the bacteria resulting in a difficulty to treat the disease. This complex immune response is analogous to driving with both the accelerator and the brakes fully engaged at the same time.

Technology could enable new health diagnostics and achieve Elon Musk’s goal of integrating with artificial intelligence.