tingilinde

zombies

real zombies for the season

 

up to date video on OSIRIS-REx

Nova edited in the sampling of Bennu.  Pretty darned amazing.  

real time lighting map

for some of the planet

 

the fool's errand of covid-19 herd immunity

Nature weighs in.

 

chilean soapbark trees and making vaccines effective

A fascinating and very relevant piece on adjuvants in The Atlantic.

snip

...

The inner bark of the Chilean soapbark tree, Quillaja saponaria, is the source material for some of these saponins. Pulverized and soaked in water at the Desert King factory in Chile, the bark is transformed into a brown, bitter, bubbly fluid. This precious goo does many things well, and it happens to be the raw material for one of the world’s most coveted vaccine adjuvants: QS-21. Adjuvants are compounds that boost the body’s immune reaction to a vaccine. Owing to their potential risks to human health, however, only a handful of adjuvants have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and QS-21 is one of the newest.

A single gram of powdered QS-21 costs more than $100,000, though only about $5 worth is needed for each shot. Nine years ago, researchers estimated that the global supply of pharmaceutical-grade Quillaja extract was sufficient for just 6 million doses of vaccine. Everyone in the business knew the story of the Pacific yew tree, whose bark was the original source of the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel, and which was threatened by large-scale harvesting in the 1980s. “If you take out all the trees in one shot and deplete the source of saponin, you are in deep shit in the future,” says Garo Armen, whose company, Agenus, helped bring QS-21 to market. Novavax has its own saponin-based adjuvant, called Matrix-M, and warned investors last year that their vaccines could be delayed if they failed to “secure sufficient supplies” of high-quality extract. And the Hileys practically had a monopoly on it.

...

a tip of the hat to Sukie

 

 

 

lowering the transmission and spread of the coronavirus..

with mouthwash and baby shampoo?

a tip of the hat to Sukie

From the Journal of Medical Virology

 

Lowering the transmission and spread of human coronavirus

Craig Meyers PhD Richard Robison PhD Janice Milici BS Samina Alam PhD David Quillen MD David Goldenberg MD, FACS Rena Kass MD

Abstract
The emergence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic has created an unprecedented healthcare, social, and economic disaster. Wearing of masks and social distancing can significantly decrease transmission and spread, however, due to circumstances such as medical or dental intervention and personal choice these practices have not been universally adopted. Additional strategies are required to lessen transmission. Nasal rinses and mouthwashes, which directly impact the major sites of reception and transmission of human coronaviruses (HCoV), may provide an additional level of protection against the virus. Common over‐the‐counter nasal rinses and mouthwashes/gargles were tested for their ability to inactivate high concentrations of HCoV using contact times of 30 s, 1 min, and 2 min. Reductions in titers were measured by using the tissue culture infectious dose 50 (TCID50) assay. A 1% baby shampoo nasal rinse solution inactivated HCoV greater than 99.9% with a 2‐min contact time. Several over‐the‐counter mouthwash/gargle products including Listerine and Listerine‐like products were highly effective at inactivating infectious virus with greater than 99.9% even with a 30‐s contact time. In the current manuscript we have demonstrated that several commonly available healthcare products have significant virucidal properties with respect to HCoV

 

 

covid and overdispersion

A nice description of how much of the pandemic spreads.

snip

...

Overdispersion is not unique to Sars-CoV-2, but it is shaping the current pandemic in important ways, and can both aid and impede control. To the extent that places such as Japan have successfully targeted the sources of high transmission, overdispersion has granted them an efficiency and focus in their control efforts. Cluster investigations, extensive test and trace programmes, and restrictions on the places and activities most conducive to superspreading may be particularly effective for controlling transmission with high levels of overdispersion.

Yet South Korea’s experience shows us how quickly a seemingly controlled outbreak can reignite with just a few unlucky incidents. As we confront new stages of the Covid-19 pandemic over the coming months and years, overdispersion can help us better understand why the disease behaves as it does and sharpen our efforts at control.

...

 

 

very old sports

The oldest balls used for sport in Europe or Asia - so far..

 

 

 

temperature and humidity and SARS-CoV-2 stability

An interesting preprint ..  what are the right conditions to degrade the virus.  .  hint .. Winter is problematic.

 

The effect of temperature and humidity on the stability of SARS-CoV-2 and other enveloped viruses

Dylan H. Morris, Kwe Claude H. Yinda, Amandine Gamble, Fernando W. Rossine, Qishen Huang, Trenton Bushmaker, Robert J Fischer, M. Jeremiah Matson, Neeltje van Doremalen,  ePeter J Vikesland, Linsey C. Marr, Vincent Munster, James O Lloyd-Smith

Abstract

Since emerging in late 2019, SARS-CoV-2 has caused a global pandemic, and it may become an endemic human pathogen. Understanding the impact of environmental conditions on SARS-CoV-2 viability and its transmission potential is crucial to anticipating epidemic dynamics and designing mitigation strategies. Ambient temperature and humidity are known to have strong effects on the environmental stability of viruses, but there is little data for SARS-CoV-2, and a general quantitative understanding of how temperature and humidity affect virus stability has remained elusive. Here, we characterise the stability of SARS-CoV-2 on an inert surface at a variety of temperature and humidity conditions, and introduce a mechanistic model that enables accurate prediction of virus stability in unobserved conditions. We find that SARS-CoV-2 survives better at low temperatures and extreme relative humidities; median estimated virus half-life was more than 24 hours at 10 °C and 40 % RH, but less than an hour and a half at 27 °C and 65 % RH. Our results highlight scenarios of particular transmission risk, and provide a mechanistic explanation for observed superspreading events in cool indoor environments such as food processing plants. Moreover, our model predicts observations from other human coronaviruses and other studies of SARS-CoV-2, suggesting the existence of shared mechanisms that determine environmental stability across a number of enveloped viruses.

 

 

on room temperature superconductors

Most of the popular pieces that appeared yesterday mentioned the high pressures required.  This piece in Ars Technica mentions that is really important - that it's part of a new area of study. 

a tip of the hat to Greg