Don’t panic, but there is another virus out there that could cause a pandemic.  This one is an influenza strain circulating in pigs and their caretakers in China.  It is not currently causing widespread illness, and it may never do so. But it has “all the essential hallmarks of a candidate pandemic virus,” according to the authors of a new study in the FILE – A patient receives a flu vaccination in Mesquite, Texas, January 23, 2020.‘Good news, bad news’ “There’s good news and bad here,” Pavia said. “I think the bad news is that once again, it looks as if we’re identifying strains of flu that are emerging in populations with the potential to jump to humans.”However, only a handful of serious cases have been reported.”The severity remains low. That’s good news,” Pavia said, adding, “there’s no guarantee that it’s going to stay that way.”Other factors also must change before …

A new study published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests weightlifting affects a person’s brain weeks before there is a noticeable change in muscles. The study, conducted by researchers at New Castle University in northeast Britain, used macaque monkeys, whose brain systems are similar to humans in regard to movement.   The researchers trained the monkeys to pull a weighted handle with one arm by rewarding them with food. Over the course of three months, researchers increased the resistance of a weighted handle week by week. The monkeys completed daily strength training sessions, including 50 weighted pulls (moving the handle at least 4 centimeters). FILE – Russia’s Andrey Demanov competes during the men’s 94kg group A weightlifting event of the London 2012 Olympic Games at The Excel Centre in London on August 4, 2012.The experiment revealed that weightlifting strengthens the nervous system through a motor tract called the reticulospinal tract, and this …

Something data crunchers have noticed during the coronavirus pandemic: countries with recent outbreaks of measles have fewer deaths and serious illnesses from the coronavirus. Is this a coincidence? Or is there something about the measles mumps and rubella vaccine that protects against the worst outcomes of the coronavirus? We learn more from VOA’s Carol Pearson.Produced by: Barry Unger …

Scientists in China have identified a new strain of a flu virus in pigs that has the potential to infect humans and lead to a new pandemic.   In a paper published in the U.S.-based journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists say the new “G4” strain was discovered during a surveillance program of pig farms and slaughterhouses across 10 provinces between 2011 and 2018.      The new virus is a variation of the H1N1 swine flu virus that killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world in 2009.      The scientists discovered the G4 virus has already infected workers at various farms and slaughterhouses throughout China.  The new H1N1 strain can grow and quickly multiply in the cells that line the airways of humans, although there is no current evidence the illness can spread through human-to-human contact.      But the researchers also …

Researchers in China have discovered a new type of swine flu that is capable of triggering a pandemic, according to a study published Monday in the U.S. science journal PNAS. Named G4, it is genetically descended from the H1N1 strain that caused a pandemic in 2009. It possesses “all the essential hallmarks of being highly adapted to infect humans,” say the authors, scientists at Chinese universities and China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention.  From 2011 to 2018, researchers took 30,000 nasal swabs from pigs in slaughterhouses in 10 Chinese provinces and in a veterinary hospital, allowing them to isolate 179 swine flu viruses.   The majority were of a new kind, which has been dominant among pigs since 2016. The researchers then carried out various experiments including on ferrets, which are widely used in flu studies because they experience similar symptoms to humans, principally fever, coughing and sneezing.   G4 was observed to be highly infectious, replicating in human cells and causing …

The Trump administration says it has locked down nearly the entire supply of one of the only available anti-COVID-19 drugs from the manufacturer for the next several months. That raises questions about access to one of the few treatments available for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, for much of the rest of the world. Remdesivir is the first drug shown to help patients with COVID-19, though its impact is modest. Hospitalized patients given the drug recovered four days faster than those given a placebo. FILE – Vials of the drug remdesivir are seen at a hospital in Germany, April 8, 2020.FILE – Gilead Sciences pharmaceutical company is seen during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in La Verne, California.The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, the drug pricing watchdog, said Gilead’s price is “reasonable,” provided the drug ultimately shows it can save lives.Gilead donated the first 1.5 million doses worldwide. …

Wanda Johnson’s son was shot and killed by a police officer in Oakland, California, 11 years ago, she has watched video after video of similar encounters between Black people and police.  Each time, she finds herself reliving the trauma of losing her son, Oscar Grant, who was shot to death by a transit police officer. Most recently, Johnson couldn’t escape the video of George Floyd, pinned to the ground under a Minneapolis officer’s knee as he pleaded that he couldn’t breathe.  “I began to shake. I was up for two days, just crying,” she said. “Just looking at that video opened such a wound in me that has not completely closed.”  Johnson’s loss was extreme, but, for many Black Americans, her grief and pain feels familiar. Psychologists call it racial trauma — the distress experienced because of the accumulation of racial discrimination, racial violence or institutional racism. While it can …

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed abortion-rights advocates a victory, striking down a restrictive abortion law in Louisiana that would have left the southern state with only one abortion clinic.The vote was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the court’s four-member liberal contingent. The decision struck down a law that would have required doctors performing abortions to gain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, even though abortion-rights activists say patients rarely need to be hospitalized after the procedure.The White House deplored the ruling. Spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said it “devalued both the health of mothers and lives of unborn children. Instead of valuing fundamental democratic principles, unelected justices have intruded on the sovereign prerogatives of state governments by imposing their own policy preference in favor of abortion to override legitimate abortion safety regulations.”  In their first abortion case rulings, conservative justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s appointments, …

—People on six continents already are getting jabs in the arm as the race for a COVID-19 vaccine enters a defining summer, with even bigger studies poised to prove if any shot really works — and maybe offer a reality check.Already British and Chinese researchers are chasing the coronavirus beyond their borders, testing potential vaccines in Brazil and the United Arab Emirates because there are too few new infections at home to get clear answers.The U.S. is set to open the largest trials  30,000 people to test a government-created shot starting in July, followed about a month later with another 30,000 expected to test a British one.Those likely will be divided among Americans and volunteers in other countries such as Brazil or South Africa, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health told The Associated Press.While he’s optimistic, “we’ve been burned before,” Fauci cautioned.Multiple successes, in multiple parts of …

As the world waits for a COVID-19 vaccine, scientists are testing whether shots already in use for other diseases might provide some protection from the worst impacts of the disease caused by the coronavirus. Vaccines containing living but weakened organisms, including those against tuberculosis, polio and measles, may provide a boost to the immune system that would help fight the coronavirus.  While they probably wouldn’t provide protection as good as a purpose-built vaccine, research has already shown that these immunizations help ward off diseases other than the ones for which they were designed.  Plus, these shots have a proven safety record stretching back decades.  “And not only that, it’s something we can put out almost immediately,” said Jeffrey Cirillo, director of the Texas A&M University Center for Airborne Pathogen Research and Imaging. The manufacturing facilities are already up and running, delivering hundreds of millions of doses every year, he noted. Vaccine bonus Cirillo and …

A spacewalking astronaut on Friday added a small mirror to the millions of pieces of junk orbiting the Earth, as he lost the small object from his space suit, while stepping out of the International Space Station. U.S. Commander Chris Cassidy said the mirror floated away at about 0.3 meters per second. Mission Control said the mirror somehow became detached from Cassidy’s spacesuit. Spacewalking astronauts wear a wrist mirror on each sleeve to get better views while working.  The mirror is just 12 centimeters by roughly 8 centimeters and came loose as the ISS was in darkness. Once he was in sunlight, Cassidy inspected his sleeve for clues that might explain how the mirror came off but told Mission Control he found no evidence of thread damage. Cassidy and fellow astronaut Bob Behnken have conducted the first of at least four spacewalks to replace the last in series of old nickel-hydrogen batteries …

The U.N.’s weather agency, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), says it has verified two “megaflashes” of lightning in South America that set records for longest distance and longest duration.The WMO says on its website Friday its Committee on Weather and Climate Extremes used new satellite lightning technology to verify that an October 31, 2018 lightning bolt that started in southern Brazil traveled just over 709 kilometers.   The WMO says the longest recorded duration for a lightning flash was 16.73 seconds set on March 4, 2019 by a flash that developed over northern Argentina.The agency notes both records are more than double the previous records for distance and duration, set in the U.S state of Oklahoma and in France.The committee maintains official records on global, hemispheric and regional extremes. The committee’s Professor Randall Cerveny called the records “extraordinary” for single lightning flashes, and just examples of what nature can do. He …

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration on Thursday urged the Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care Act.The administration’s latest high court filing came the same day the government reported that close to half a million people who lost their health insurance amid the economic shutdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus have gotten coverage through HealthCare.gov.The administration’s legal brief makes no mention of the virus.Some 20 million Americans could lose their health coverage and protections for people with preexisting health conditions also would be put at risk if the court agrees with the administration in a case that won’t be heard before the fall.In the case before the Supreme Court, Texas and other conservative-led states argue that the ACA was essentially rendered unconstitutional after Congress passed tax legislation in 2017 that eliminated the law’s unpopular fines for not having health insurance, but left in …

Until this March, machines at the Broad Institute in Massachusetts were decoding the equivalent of an entire human genome every 10 minutes.The automated DNA sequencing facility is among the world’s largest genomics labs. Its technology descends from that which produced the first working draft of the human genome 20 years ago Friday.When COVID-19 started taking hold in the United States, scientists at the institute, affiliated with Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, realized its genome-reading machines could be repurposed to test patient samples for the coronavirus that causes the disease.Over the course of two weeks in March, the lab retooled. At a time when testing for the virus has been a critical failing in the U.S. response to the pandemic, Broad says it now has the capacity to run 35,000 tests per day.Broad is one of several genomics labs across the country that have reinvented themselves as COVID-19 testing …

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory is known historically as an important nuclear research center. But as VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, a critical present-day mission at the suburban Chicago facility is using some of the world’s most sophisticated technology to combat COVID-19. Video editor: Barry Unger …

Eastern Congo marked an official end Thursday to the second deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, which killed 2,280 people over nearly two years, as armed rebels and community mistrust undermined the promise of new vaccines.Thursday’s milestone was overshadowed, though, by the enormous health challenges still facing Congo: the world’s largest measles epidemic, the rising threat of COVID-19 and another new Ebola outbreak in the north.”We are extremely proud to have been able to be victorious over an epidemic that lasted such a long time,” said Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, who coordinated the national Ebola response and whose team also developed a new treatment for the once incurable hemorrhagic disease.The announcement initially was set for April but another case emerged just three days before the Ebola-free declaration was expected. That restarted the 42-day waiting period required before such a proclamation can be made.The epidemic, which began in August 2018, presented an unprecedented …

Hannah Gjerde starts her day at her hot-mat yoga class on the front lawn of her parent’s home, right before settling onto the couch for the rest of the day. “Being home makes it hard because my dad will be in the kitchen working, or it’s too crowded in my room to do it,” says Gjerde.   Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many gyms have been deemed non-essential businesses and are not allowed to open. Closing fitness centers has created a sedentary lifestyle for many people.  So more people are moving their fitness routines online.  Gjerde, a Californian, also uses the backyard for her workout space, completing workouts online with an instructor at her usual yoga studio. Gyms and gym-goers alike are finding innovative ways to keep moving while practicing social distancing to thwart the spread of the coronavirus.Photo of Hannah Gjerde working out. (Courtesy of photo/Hannah Gjerde)In a pre-pandemic world, Yo Dinh, who works in investments in Australia, found that the most effective way …

A massive cloud of Saharan dust darkened much of Cuba on Wednesday and began to affect air quality in Florida, sparking warnings to people with respiratory illnesses to stay home.The dust cloud swept across the Atlantic from Africa over the past week, covering the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico since Sunday and hitting south Florida in the United States on Wednesday, authorities there said.Conditions over the Cuban capital, Havana, are expected to worsen on Thursday, specialists on the Communist-run island reported.Francisco Duran, head of Epidemiology at the Ministry of Health, said the cloud is likely to “increase respiratory and allergic conditions.”Air quality in Miami is currently “moderate,” the city’s health department said, asking people with respiratory problems to stay home.Powered by strong winds, dust from the Sahara travels across the Atlantic Ocean from West Africa during the boreal spring.But the density of the current dust cloud over Cuba “is well …