aliencackle: 2020

Monday, June 22, 2020

(o\_!_/o)

INTP 67% INFJ 64% INTJ 66% ISTP 64% INFP 62% ISTJ 60% ISFP 59% ENTP
58% ENTJ 57% ISFJ 57% ENFP 56% ESTJ 53% ESTP 52% ENFJ 52% ESFP 50% ESFJ
49%
INFP 68% ISFP 67% INTP 66% ISTP 65% INFJ 61% INTJ 60% ISFJ 59% ISTJ
58% ENFP 58% ENTP 57% ESFP 56% ESTP 55% ENFJ 51% ESFJ 50% ENTJ 49% ESTJ 48%

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(o\_!_/o)

Sunday, June 14, 2020

Defense Mechanisms: Test Your Unconscious Coping Techniques | Psychologia

http://psychologia.co/defense-mechanisms/#.XuaHWkv_iuo.email

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Friday, February 28, 2020

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Search speeds up for vaccine against the new coronavirus →

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A mystery illness emerged in China late last December. As word of its spread got out, researchers at Inovio Pharmaceuticals paid close attention. This was even before anyone knew what was making people sick — a new coronavirus.

Inovio, based in San Diego, Calif., is no stranger to such viruses. A different novel coronavirus had emerged in 2012. It, too, caused potentially deadly infections. This disease would come to be known as MERS. (That’s short for Middle East respiratory syndrome.) Inovio became one of the first companies to develop a vaccine against MERS. (That vaccine is still experimental.)

Early in the latest outbreak, Chinese researchers posted details of the genetic makeup of the virus that was making so many people sick. The disease, which causes fevers, pneumonia and other serious symptoms, is now called COVID-19. The virus responsible has just been named SARS-CoV-2. Based on Inovio’s work on the MERS vaccine, its scientists sprang into action. They thought they might be able to roll out a version of the MERS drug to tackle COVID-19.

Kate Broderick is Inovio’s senior vice president for research and development. “We’d all hoped that there would be enough overlap that our previously developed MERS vaccine would be helpful in this case,” she recalls. Like MERS and another severe coronavirus — one that causes the disease SARS — the new virus uses RNA as its genetic material.

But in the end, Inovio’s researchers found, SARS-CoV-2 was too different for its vaccine against MERS to take down this virus. So the scientists set to work on creating a new vaccine.

Its design relies on a relatively new approach. Vaccines usually are made from weakened or killed forms of viruses or parts of viruses. Those viral parts may include some proteins that serve as building blocks of the germ. When injected into somebody new, their immune system recognizes these viral bits as an invader. It now makes antibodies. These should help to fight off future invasions by the whole, live virus. But to make enough vaccine for millions of people, it can take months or even years to grow enough disabled virus or to purify enough viral proteins.

So for their SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, Inovio scientists took a different approach. They converted the virus’s RNA into DNA. They also selected pieces of the virus that computer models suggested would prod the immune system into making antibodies. Then they inserted selected bits of the DNA into bacteria. Those bacteria now used instructions in the bits of DNA to make large quantities of the viral protein. And it’s those proteins that will be used in the vaccine.

This approach drastically shortens how long it takes to make a vaccine, Broderick says. Normally, it might take two to three years. For Inovio’s product, it took three hours to design. Then it took roughly a month to make, Broderick reports.

The company started testing the vaccine in animals at the beginning of this month. It hopes to begin safety tests in people by early summer.

Even so, Inovio’s vaccine is still at least a year away from widespread use. As the number of cases of COVID-19 continues to rise, several other research teams are also racing to develop vaccines and treatments. They, too, are using unusual ways to fight the new virus.

Novel vaccines for a novel coronavirus

#science #scied #sciblr #health #medicine #vaccine #coronavirus #covid-19 #virus #infectious disease #longread #long reads

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did-you-know

There’s a university in Sweden where students let out primal screams at 10pm every night.

The ‘Flogsta Scream’ occurs when students in Uppsala’s Flogsta neighborhood keep up tradition by stopping what they’re doing at exactly 10pm and collectively screaming from their balconies, windows, and rooftops to help blow off steam and ease the stresses of college exams.

(Source, Source 2, Source 3)

#SWEDEN #UNIVERSITY #SCHOOL #WEIRD #DID YOU KNOW