HEALTH AND SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS
April 23,, 2020 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future—including the latest on COVID-19.
HEALTH
- A mysterious blood-clotting complication is killing coronavirus patients (MSN)
- Covid-19 is rapidly becoming America’s leading cause of death (Washington Post)
- The next coronavirus crisis is what happens after the ICU (Daily Beast)
- Americans at World Health Organization transmitted real-time information about coronavirus to Trump administration (Washington Post)
- Adding A Nylon Stocking Layer Could Boost Protection From Cloth Masks, Study Finds (NPR)
SCIENCE AND TECH
- ‘Hydrologists should be happy.’ Big Supreme Court ruling bolsters groundwater science (Science)
- Possible Dinosaur DNA Has Been Found (Scientific American)
- Apple’s built-in iPhone mail app is vulnerable to hackers, new research says (Washington Post)
For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.
HEALTH
A mysterious blood-clotting complication is killing coronavirus patients (MSN)
Blood clots are turning up in a high percentage of COVID-19 patients and may be responsible for many of the sudden deaths at home, studies are finding; pregnant women with COVID-19 are also at risk of blood clotting during delivery.
Covid-19 is rapidly becoming America’s leading cause of death (Washington Post)
The U.S. surgeon general had warned that last week would be like Pearl Harbor as he attempted to create context for the threat — but it turned out that more than five times as many Americans died from covid-19 last week than were killed in the World War II raid..last week, covid-19 killed more people than normally die of cancer in this country in a week. Only heart disease was likely to kill more people that week.
The next coronavirus crisis is what happens after the ICU (Daily Beast)
… Decades of research shows many of the sickest ICU patients will never return to their former selves. An ailment called Post-Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS) causes cognitive, physical, and psychological problems in up to 80 percent of all critical-care survivors. About a third never return to work. Now physicians say they are witnessing many of these effects in COVID-19 survivors, at a scale they’ve never seen before.
Americans at World Health Organization transmitted real-time information about coronavirus to Trump administration (Washington Post)
More than a dozen U.S. researchers, physicians and public health experts, many of them from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were working full time at the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization as the novel coronavirus emerged late last year and transmitted real-time information about its discovery and spread in China to the Trump administration, according to U.S. and international officials... The presence of so many U.S. officials undercuts President Trump’s charge that the WHO’s failure to communicate the extent of the threat, born of a desire to protect China, is largely responsible for the rapid spread of the virus in the United States.
Adding A Nylon Stocking Layer Could Boost Protection From Cloth Masks, Study Finds (NPR)
During World War II, nylon stockings disappeared from store shelves as the valuable synthetic material was diverted to make critical wartime supplies such as parachutes, flak jackets and aircraft fuel tanks. Now, new research suggests that nylon stockings could once again play a critical role in a national battle — this time by making homemade cloth masks significantly more protective.
SCIENCE AND TECH
‘Hydrologists should be happy.’ Big Supreme Court ruling bolsters groundwater science (Science)
A new U.S. Supreme Court ruling puts groundwater science at the center of decisions about how to regulate water pollution. Today, in a closely watched case with extensive implications, the court ruled 6 to 3 that the federal Clean Water Act applies to pollution of underground water that flows into nearby lakes, streams and bays, as long as it is similar to pouring pollutants directly into these water bodies.
Possible Dinosaur DNA Has Been Found (Scientific American)
New discoveries have raised the possibility of exploring dino genetics, but controversy surrounds the results
Apple’s built-in iPhone mail app is vulnerable to hackers, new research says (Washington Post)
Apple's built-in iPhone email app has a major security flaw, according to new research, allowing hackers to exploit an iPhone without victims knowing or even clicking on anything. The discovery raises new questions about whether iPhones are safe to use, especially for people who may be targets of deep-pocketed hackers.