✔️ The A&P Professor Science & Education Updates - Issue #93

The new omicron variant has lots of mutations and sparked a surge of cases in South Africa, but researchers still don’t know a lot about it.

Scientists have argued for hundreds of years over how to classify viruses, says Luis Villarreal, professor emeritus at the University of California, Irvine, where he founded the Center for Virus Research. In the 1700s, viruses were believed to be poisons. In the 1800s, they were called biological particles. By the early 1900s, they’d been demoted to inert chemicals.

Throughout, viruses have rarely been considered alive.

People who recover from mild COVID-19 have bone-marrow cells that can churn out antibodies for decades, although viral variants could dampen some of the protection they offer.

An inexpensive, easy-to-take pill could be the next weapon in the arsenal against COVID-19. Taking the antidepressant fluvoxamine within days of showing symptoms of an infection can dramatically cut the risk of hospitalization and death, suggests the largest trial to date of this FDA-approved generic drug as a COVID-19 treatment.

What we eat needs to be nutritious and sustainable. Researchers are trying to figure out what that looks like around the world.

Results from neural networks support the idea that brains are “prediction machines” — and that they work that way to conserve energy.

It is considered the key to success. As per neuroscience, reading not only fills our brain with information but also makes it work better.

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