Lifeboat Foundation

There may be hope yet for a universal flu vaccine — one powerful dose of immunisation that can provide long-lasting protection for multiple influenza strains, all in a single shot.

A discovery like that would be a holy grail for public health, and after more than a decade of careful research, a specific version called FLU-v is now moving into the last rounds of clinical testing.

So far, researchers say the results have been “very encouraging”, and the vaccine has successfully passed phase I and phase II clinical trials. Although trials in these phases are limited to assessing the safety of the vaccine, there’s also evidence it might be effective.

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An international consortium found a remarkable global spread of strains of a multi-resistant bacterium that can cause severe infections—Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. The study, published under the supervision of the Research Center Borstel Leibniz Lung Center (FZB), provides for the first time a systematic understanding of the global phylogeny of S. maltophilia strains and shows ways to efficiently monitor the pathogen using a genomic classification system. DZIF scientists from Lübeck, Borstel and Braunschweig are involved in the study.

S. maltophilia strains occur in several natural and human associated ecosystems. The bacterium was long regarded as relatively unproblematic but is now considered to be one of the most feared hospital pathogens, as it frequently causes infections and is resistant to a number of antibiotics. This can be particularly dangerous for immune-compromised patients or for patients with underlying inflammatory lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis. Although almost any organ can be affected, infections of the respiratory tract, bacteraemia or catheter-related infections of the bloodstream are the most common. In view of the increasing importance of this pathogen and the often-severe clinical consequences of an infection, knowledge about the virulence factors and about the local and global transmission of S. maltophilia bacteria is urgently needed.

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What it is, where it comes from, how it hurts us, and how we fight it.

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• Neel V. Patel archive page

Buckyballs are geometric shapes previously only seen in nature at the molecular scale. Scientists recently found them in marine animals dating to the Cretaceous.

The present paper addresses the high Reynolds number, two-dimensional, steady laminar flow separation phenomenon near an interior (concave) corner. A very fast Alternating Direction Implicit finite difference approach is used to solve the Interacting Boundary Layer approximation to the Navier Stokes equations in a conformal plane. Solutions are presented for corner angles up to 18° for Reynolds numbers (based on forebody length) up to 10⁸. Convergence properties and accuracy levels are identified in order to provide reliability estimates of the results. Limitations to the numerical algorithm for large separation regions at high Reynolds numbers are identified.

But none of the creations were brought to term.

Almost a millennium ago, a major upheaval occurred in Earth’s atmosphere: a giant cloud of sulphur-rich particles flowed throughout the stratosphere, turning skies dark for months or even years, before ultimately falling down to Earth.

We know this event happened because researchers have drilled and analysed ice cores — samples taken from deep within ice sheets or glaciers, which have trapped sulphur aerosols produced by volcanic eruptions reaching the stratosphere and settling back on the surface.

Ice can thus preserve evidence of volcanism over incredibly long timescales, but pinpointing the precise date of an event that shows up in the layers of an ice core is still tricky business.

Ira Pastor, ideaXme life sciences ambassador, interviews Dr. Mark Wolff, Morton Amsterdam Dean, and Professor, Division of Restorative Dentistry, at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Dental Medicine.

Ira Pastor Comments:

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Drug trio allows patients with milder symptoms to recover quicker than those treated with single drug, new study says.