Apr 14, 2021 07:08 AM
(This post was last modified: Apr 14, 2021 06:54 PM by C C.)
Researchers want to talk to spiders
https://gizmodo.com/mit-researchers-want...1846665150
Researchers search for answers in the puzzle of blood clots and Covid vaccines and see some clues
https://www.statnews.com/2021/04/13/rese...ome-clues/
EXCERPT: . . . This is the side effect, known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, that has caused a week of worries around the Covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca. On Tuesday, the U.S. government said that it had seen the same effect six times among the 6.8 million people given a dose of a similar vaccine, from Johnson & Johnson, and that it recommended a pause on use of that vaccine “out of an abundance of caution,” while researchers investigated.
[...] Most tellingly, both the paper from Norway and the second paper, which looked at patients from Austria and Germany, found that blood clots were seen in people who had high levels of antibodies to platelet factor 4, the same types of antibodies reported, infrequently, after treatment with heparin. That doesn’t explain why a vaccine is causing the immune system to produce those antibodies, or whether other vaccines might do the same. But it provides a first step toward explaining the side effect, which experts say is extremely rare, and to looking into whether the same types of rare clots could occur with other shots.
“It’s now a recognized syndrome, a recognized disorder, and most importantly there is a combination of tests that can establish if a patient has this or not,” said Theodore Warkentin, a professor at McMaster University, a co-author of one of the papers and an expert on the rare clots that can be caused by heparin.
The new discovery still raises questions about what, exactly, is going on. The challenge for public health officials is that these deadly clots occur without vaccines. It’s possible that some people who developed clots after being vaccinated would have developed them even without being vaccinated. So officials have to compare the vaccines against each other, and to try and model the normal rate of clots with low levels of platelets... (MORE - details)
First GMO mosquitoes to be released in the Florida Keys
https://undark.org/2021/04/12/gmo-mosqui...rida-keys/
INTRO: This spring, the biotechnology company Oxitec plans to release genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes in the Florida Keys. Oxitec says its technology will combat dengue fever, a potentially life-threatening disease, and other mosquito-borne viruses — such as Zika — mainly transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
While there have been more than 7,300 dengue cases reported in the United States between 2010 and 2020, a majority are contracted in Asia and the Caribbean, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Florida, however, there were 41 travel-related cases in 2020, compared with 71 cases that were transmitted locally.
Native mosquitoes in Florida are increasingly resistant to the most common form of control — insecticide — and scientists say they need new and better techniques to control the insects and the diseases they carry. “There aren’t any other tools that we have. Mosquito nets don’t work. Vaccines are under development but need to be fully efficacious,” says Michael Bonsall, a mathematical biologist at the University of Oxford, who is not affiliated with Oxitec but has collaborated with the company in the past, and who worked with the World Health Organization to produce a GM mosquito-testing framework.
Bonsall and other scientists think a combination of approaches is essential to reducing the burden of diseases — and that, maybe, newer ideas like GM mosquitoes should be added to the mix. Oxitec’s mosquitoes, for instance, are genetically altered to pass what the company calls “self-limiting” genes to their offspring; when released GM males breed with wild female mosquitoes, the resulting generation does not survive into adulthood, reducing the overall population.
But Oxitec has been proposing to experimentally release GM mosquitos in the Keys since 2011, and the plan has long been met with suspicion among locals and debate among scientists. Some locals say they fear being guinea pigs. Critics say they are concerned about the possible effects GM mosquitoes could have on human health and the environment. In 2012, the Key West City Commission objected to Oxitec’s plan; in a non-binding referendum four years later, residents of Key Haven — where the mosquitoes would have been released — rejected it, while residents in the surrounding county voted in support of the release. With the decision left up to the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, officials approved the trial to be conducted elsewhere in the Keys.
According to Oxitec, the release was delayed due to a transfer of jurisdiction over the project from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The company reapplied for approval to release a new version of the mosquitoes, called OX5034, in the Keys. In May, the EPA granted a two-year experimental use permit, which the agency can cancel at any time. State and local sign-off soon followed — finally giving the project the greenlight.... (MORE - details)
https://gizmodo.com/mit-researchers-want...1846665150
Researchers search for answers in the puzzle of blood clots and Covid vaccines and see some clues
https://www.statnews.com/2021/04/13/rese...ome-clues/
EXCERPT: . . . This is the side effect, known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, that has caused a week of worries around the Covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca. On Tuesday, the U.S. government said that it had seen the same effect six times among the 6.8 million people given a dose of a similar vaccine, from Johnson & Johnson, and that it recommended a pause on use of that vaccine “out of an abundance of caution,” while researchers investigated.
[...] Most tellingly, both the paper from Norway and the second paper, which looked at patients from Austria and Germany, found that blood clots were seen in people who had high levels of antibodies to platelet factor 4, the same types of antibodies reported, infrequently, after treatment with heparin. That doesn’t explain why a vaccine is causing the immune system to produce those antibodies, or whether other vaccines might do the same. But it provides a first step toward explaining the side effect, which experts say is extremely rare, and to looking into whether the same types of rare clots could occur with other shots.
“It’s now a recognized syndrome, a recognized disorder, and most importantly there is a combination of tests that can establish if a patient has this or not,” said Theodore Warkentin, a professor at McMaster University, a co-author of one of the papers and an expert on the rare clots that can be caused by heparin.
The new discovery still raises questions about what, exactly, is going on. The challenge for public health officials is that these deadly clots occur without vaccines. It’s possible that some people who developed clots after being vaccinated would have developed them even without being vaccinated. So officials have to compare the vaccines against each other, and to try and model the normal rate of clots with low levels of platelets... (MORE - details)
First GMO mosquitoes to be released in the Florida Keys
https://undark.org/2021/04/12/gmo-mosqui...rida-keys/
INTRO: This spring, the biotechnology company Oxitec plans to release genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes in the Florida Keys. Oxitec says its technology will combat dengue fever, a potentially life-threatening disease, and other mosquito-borne viruses — such as Zika — mainly transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
While there have been more than 7,300 dengue cases reported in the United States between 2010 and 2020, a majority are contracted in Asia and the Caribbean, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Florida, however, there were 41 travel-related cases in 2020, compared with 71 cases that were transmitted locally.
Native mosquitoes in Florida are increasingly resistant to the most common form of control — insecticide — and scientists say they need new and better techniques to control the insects and the diseases they carry. “There aren’t any other tools that we have. Mosquito nets don’t work. Vaccines are under development but need to be fully efficacious,” says Michael Bonsall, a mathematical biologist at the University of Oxford, who is not affiliated with Oxitec but has collaborated with the company in the past, and who worked with the World Health Organization to produce a GM mosquito-testing framework.
Bonsall and other scientists think a combination of approaches is essential to reducing the burden of diseases — and that, maybe, newer ideas like GM mosquitoes should be added to the mix. Oxitec’s mosquitoes, for instance, are genetically altered to pass what the company calls “self-limiting” genes to their offspring; when released GM males breed with wild female mosquitoes, the resulting generation does not survive into adulthood, reducing the overall population.
But Oxitec has been proposing to experimentally release GM mosquitos in the Keys since 2011, and the plan has long been met with suspicion among locals and debate among scientists. Some locals say they fear being guinea pigs. Critics say they are concerned about the possible effects GM mosquitoes could have on human health and the environment. In 2012, the Key West City Commission objected to Oxitec’s plan; in a non-binding referendum four years later, residents of Key Haven — where the mosquitoes would have been released — rejected it, while residents in the surrounding county voted in support of the release. With the decision left up to the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, officials approved the trial to be conducted elsewhere in the Keys.
According to Oxitec, the release was delayed due to a transfer of jurisdiction over the project from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The company reapplied for approval to release a new version of the mosquitoes, called OX5034, in the Keys. In May, the EPA granted a two-year experimental use permit, which the agency can cancel at any time. State and local sign-off soon followed — finally giving the project the greenlight.... (MORE - details)