• Visible imagery from NASA’s Terra satellite showed that Post-Tropical Cyclone Fay had moved into eastern Canada by July 11.

  • Antibodies derived from llamas have been shown to neutralise the SARS-CoV-2 virus in lab tests, UK researchers announced today.

  • Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest rose 10.7 percent last month compared to June 2019, the 14th consecutive month of worsening tree loss, according to new data from the country’s national space research agency, INPE.

  • Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have designed a new face mask that they believe could stop viral particles as effectively as N95 masks.

  • As scientists detect plant fluorescence in better detail, they inch closer to helping farmers respond to extreme weather and close in on understanding how carbon cycles through ecosystems.

  • The colossus iceberg that split from Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf on 12 July 2017 is now in the open waters of the South Atlantic near the South Orkney Islands, about 1050 km from its birthplace.

  • New research has identified the specific brain cells that control how much sugar you eat and how much you crave sweet tasting food

  • New research explores how lower-latitude oceans drive complex changes in the Arctic Ocean, pushing the region into a new reality distinct from the 20th-century norm.

  • Lopinavir is a drug against HIV, hydroxychloroquine is used to treat malaria and rheumatism. Until recently, both drugs were regarded as potential agents in the fight against the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. A research group from the University of Basel and the University Hospital Basel has now discovered that the concentration of the two drugs in the lungs of Covid-19 patients is not sufficient to fight the virus.

    In February 2020, a Covid-19 patient cohort was established at the University and the University Hospital in Basel to prospectively monitor a range of diagnostic means and potential treatments for Covid-19, including the off-label use of hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir.

    A research group monitored lopinavir plasma levels in Covid-19 patients. “Considering that substantial inflammation was observed in these patients, and previous studies have shown the inhibition of drug metabolism by systemic inflammation, we had the rationale to investigate the effect of inflammation on lopinavir and hydroxychloroquine plasma levels,” states Professor Catia Marzolini, first author of the study and professor for experimental medicine at the University of Basel.

    Read more at: University of Basel

    Treatment of a patient with Covid-19 in the intensive care unit of the University Hospital Basel. (Photo Credit: University Hospital Basel, Fabian Fiechter)

     

  • A Montana State University professor’s research on plant chemistry in the Northern Great Plains and Northern Rockies has been published in Global Change Biology, a prominent journal that promotes exploration of the connections between biological processes and environmental change.