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There’s “currently no specific drugs or vaccines for Nipah virus infection,” Linfa Wang, a bat-borne virus expert at Duke University’s Global Health Institute and conference co-chair, told Reuters this week. Wang and other experts are currently gathered in Singapore for the first-ever Nipah virus conference. At the two-day event they’re talking about everything from the history of Nipah outbreaks to ways forward for containing the disease. They’re also hoping to raise its profile....

Since the pandemic began, researchers have been investigating using ivermectin to treat COVID-19, as very early and preliminary data hinted that the drug might kill viruses. In June of last year, researchers reported in the Journal Antiviral Research that ivermectin was successful in stopping the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in cells in a petri dish. But, importantly, the dosage necessary to achieve this was extraordinarily high, and if given to humans would likely have dangerous, if not deadly side effects....

A new study shows that Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine is much less effective than its Moderna or Pfizer counterparts at producing virus-neutralizing antibodies against the COVID-19 Delta variant, the most contagious variant yet that is now responsible for 83 percent of all new sequenced cases in the US. The laboratory study, published without peer review in bioRxiv, compared blood samples from 17 individuals who received two doses of an mRNA vaccine and from 10 individuals who received the one-shot J&J jab....

During a recent renovation of the Rotunda, one of the oldest buildings at the University of Virginia, archeologists came across a piece of the University’s early history, a chemical lab constructed in the early 1800’s. The brick alcove has been boarded up since at least the 1840’s, but in its heyday, students used the primitive workbench to carry out many chemical experiments. There were only five workspaces, but, like modern chemical labs, there were also heat sources (one with a wood fire and one with a coal fire) as well as ventilation to carry away fumes....

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently tried to extend the national mask mandate for commercial flights and public transportation settings, which was set to expire on Monday, until at least May 3. In her 59-page ruling, District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of the Middle District of Florida said the health agency failed to adequately justify its decision, and that the mandate was an overextension of health officials’ authority....

A recent study published in the journal Frontiers in Zoology describes a mysterious new nighttime behavior from these invertebrates: the researchers found that a population of European jumping spiders rest at night by hanging from a solitary thread of silk, like a miniature bungee cord. Based on these preliminary findings, as well as previous anecdotal observations from researchers on other continents, the authors suggest that in the dark, when their extraordinary eyes aren’t of much use, these spiders may have another trick up their sleeve to get through the night safely....

Though theory has long predicted that quasars this powerful should exist, the newly-discovered object, known as SDSS J1106+1939, is by far the most energetic ever observed. The quasar is powered by a supermassive black hole that lies at its center. Scientists made the discovery using the X-shooter spectrograph instrument attached to ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The spectrograph split light coming from the quasar into its component wavelengths, allowing astronomers to observe the movement of material close to the quasar....

OK! With that done, let’s dig into the biggest tech stories that popped up last week while you were busy wondering if it’s OK to put your snow shovel away yet (it’s not). 25 million people played Apex Legends in a week A new battle-royale-style game has started stealing some of Fortnite‘s seemingly unstoppable momentum. Apex Legends is a more mature version of Fortnite‘s cartoony nonsense. It’s free to play on most of the big platforms right now, which helps explain its speedy growth....

Leather is difficult to mimic without animals, which use up lots of land and water. Instead, we engineer yeast cells that produce collagen proteins as they ferment. We purify what comes out and turn it into a material that tries to imitate a hide. Our team helps companies that want to make leatherlike vegan products. But communication can be difficult. Designers speak about materials based on their instincts about texture and sense of touch—two very subjective things....

“If you want to keep getting a better angular resolution, then either you have to build bigger and bigger telescopes—or you have to switch to interferometry,” says Scott Gaudi, an astronomer and exoplanet hunter at the Ohio State University. Nulling interferometry is an observation technique that gathers data on astronomical objects by mixing light from multiple simultaneous views of the same target. Nulling refers to how this light can be combined to block out the overwhelming background from an object, such as a star, to enhance the signals originating from a much fainter target, such as the orbiting planet that basks under the star’s glare....

During Juno’s 38th orbit around Jupiter, the craft soared around Ganymede and recorded the moon’s electric and magnetic radio waves. Juno sensed the waves, produced in Ganymede’s magnetosphere, with its Waves instrument. NASA scientists shifted the frequencies of those recordings to produce a 50-second track audible to human ears. The result sounds like something from Star Wars, with high chimes and whistles reminiscent of R2-D2. “This soundtrack is just wild enough to make you feel as if you were riding along as Juno sails past Ganymede for the first time in more than two decades,” Juno Principal Investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio said in a statement....

This means that many people in Amarillo must get up before sunrise to get to work on time compared to people in Nashville, who can get up after sunrise. As I reported previously, two studies have shown that breast cancer risk is higher in the western parts of time zones; the first was conducted in European Russia and the second in the U.S. The authors of these two studies suggest it is the chronic disruption of circadian rhythms from getting up in the dark that may be the culprit....

The animals live in the exceptionally dark and cold depths of the Southern Ocean, near the pole. This particular squid was caught in the Ross Sea, just off the coast of Antarctica and a straight shot down from New Zealand. Exceedingly little is known about the colossal squid and its habitat; only ten have ever been brought on to land. The researchers not only hope to learn about its vision, but what it eats and how large it can grow....

What’s so special about the Lyrids? The Lyrids were written about in the year 687 BCE in the Zhou dynasty, making it the oldest reference to a meteor shower that’s continued into modern times. The account read that “in the middle of the night, stars fell like rain.” More than 2,700 years later, people can see the same celestial downpour, knowing it’s slightly distinct from a star in freefall. Why does the meteor shower happen every year?...

When Pettit returned to Earth in July, his body could not endure even minor physical exertion in normal gravity, so the ground crew carried him to a nearby medical tent for routine post-spaceflight examinations. Research has shown that astronauts’ muscle tone improves after a few weeks, but their bone density may never return to pre-spaceflight levels.

Juno snapped this image while orbiting just 8,000 miles from Jupiter’s cloud-tops, according to a NASA press release. This was the spacecraft’s 18th close flyby since it dropped into Jovian orbit in mid-2016. NASA scientists named Juno after the goddess of the same name—in mythology, Juno was one of the oldest and most important Roman deities, and was the wife of Jupiter. As a protector of the nation, and more specifically a protector of married women, she was hotly passionate about loyalty and truth....

The Band also carries many of the same features that was included in like the built-in GPS and support for iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Along with tracking fitness, the new Band will continue to support apps. Externally the new Microsoft Band supports a rounded Gorilla Glass. With a strengthened screen, added durability should protect the screen during workout mishaps. The new Microsoft Band will arrive on October 30 for $249....

This year, the tradition of a kiss under the mistletoe is safe. But the plant’s habitat is in decline, and in the future, people may have to smooch under something else.The theory that no two snowflakes are alike is as much a part of winter as the one about Santa having eight reindeer. Here’s a look at how snowflakes form the way they do.How does Santa get to all those homes?...

The culprits—some of which have already been circulating in the news recently—are phthalates, which can disrupt testosterone, Bisphenol-A, which mimics estrogen, and PBDE’s (Polybrominated diphenyl ethers), a class of flame retardants, which interfere with thyroid hormone. The six studies look at everything from the concentration of plastics in the ocean, to the similarities in the way humans and rodents respond to phthalates. Two articles give some evidence that fetal exposure to Phthalates might affect human male genital development the same way it does developing rat—shortening the distance between the genitals and the anus, while others look at the effect of some of these chemicals on the rodent brain....

Congresswoman Jackie Speier of California brought one of the cases to attention on the House floor Tuesday. The University of Wyoming’s Timothy Slater, endowed chair of science education, was found to have violated sexual harassment policies while teaching at the University of Arizona in 2004, allegedly holding meetings in strip clubs and telling a female graduate student that she would teach better if she did not wear underwear, among other things....