"The Global Consciousness Project, also known as the EGG Project, is an international multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others continuously collecting data from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites worldwide. The archive contains over 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second."
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, April 3, 2020
“How can I know if I’m FULLY recovered from COVID-19 novel coronavirus?” is a question that gets asked by many, particularly by those who have been infected by COVID-19.
Unfortunately – to this point, at least – the answer to that question has been “We don’t know.”
Fortunately, however, researchers have rapidly doubled-down on their research, intensified their efforts, and are becoming fruitful.
Pedestrians cross the street as they leave Mayo Clinic’s Gonda Building in Rochester, Minn., in 2016. Mayo researchers say they’re close to releasing tests that would tell whether a person has had and recovered from COVID-19.Alex Kolyer for MPR News file (Minnesota Public Radio)
Researchers at Mayo Clinic expect to release a test that would tell whether a person has had and recovered from COVID-19 on Monday. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports the University of Minnesota is also narrowing in on an antibody test.
The tests would help public health officials understand the scope of the outbreak and identify people who could safely be in public to help with relief efforts. They would also help in an effort to treat critical COVID-19 patients with plasma from individuals who have recovered.
Elitza Theel is director of the Mayo Clinic lab testing COVID-19 antibody tests. She spoke with MPR News host Tom Crann Wednesday.
You can listen to the interview by clicking on the audio player above, or read the transcript below, which has been edited lightly for clarity and length.
Q: Tell us first, what is an antibody?
A: Antibodies essentially recognize the virus and can help inactivate and kill it.
It’s important to know that these types of tests are different than all of the molecular tests that are being done off of nasal swabs or throat swabs. Those tests detect viral genetic material [to show whether the coronavirus has infected that person].
These [blood serum] antibody tests are detecting a person’s immune response to that virus. It takes, in some cases, 10 to 11 days for a person to mount an immune response and produce these antibodies, so these tests aren’t going to be used as a diagnostic in patients that are presenting with two or three days of symptoms.
Q: Tell us how soon they’ll be ready
A: At Mayo, we hope to have it available as early as next week. We will be doing kind of a slow roll out because, similar to the situation with molecular tests, there’s a limited supply of these tests. We’re hoping that commercial manufacturers will ramp up here in the next few weeks so that we can make it available much more widely.
Q: Then it can go straight to to doctors, public health departments, or is FDA approval needed? How does that work?
A: FDA approval is not needed at this time. However, laboratories that are offering these tests have to go through a very rigorous verification process to make sure that the tests they’re offering provide the right results.
Clinicians will be able to order this in individuals who they think having are a result for would be helpful to either guide return to work [decisions] or further quarantining.
Also, you may have heard about the convalescent plasma treatment trials. As we wait for antivirals and vaccines to be developed and deployed, we need some sort of bridging therapy. So, the idea here is to identify individuals who have recovered from COVID-19, collect their plasma, make sure that it has the antibodies, and then use that plasma to treat acutely ill patients. We’re basically providing somebody else’s antibodies to ill patients who maybe don’t have an immune response mounted yet, and these antibodies would essentially help to fight off the virus.
Q: How close are we on plasma treatment?
A: Clinical trials are starting very soon, both here at Mayo Clinic as well as many other locations across the U.S.
Q: Why is it important to have this information about how many people have been infected, even if they are recovered?
A: There’s a couple of reasons. One, we know there’s a significant number of individuals who have been infected without symptoms. So, knowing the true number, the true denominator of individuals who have been infected with COVID-19, would allow us to determine the true case fatality rate. And then the other reason this is important is identifying when, as a community, as a region, as a nation, we’ve reached herd immunity status.
An alternate title for this entry might be: Walnuts, Pies, Strippers & Experts
Of course, that makes no sense. And for some, it makes neither cents, nor dollars.
But never you mind.
Pie and ice cream.
Who doesn’t like it?
Sounds dee-lish… right?
Any kind of pie, and almost any kind of ice cream. I say “any kind” with a caveat. Any kind EXCEPT Neapolitan. That’s horrid. Truly horrid. Whoever imagined the idea of “Neapolitan” ice cream is probably now suffering eternal punishment – a special torture reserved exclusively for the damned.
And, perhaps somebody should tell those folks.
I mean to refer to the folks that came up with a name like “Georgia Walnut Pie.”
The incidence of genital warts declined by more than 90% in adolescent and teenage girls in the first 4 to 5 years after introduction of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in Australia.
Note that the reductions in wart incidence among girls and women were accompanied by 50% to 80% decreases in the incidence of genital warts among heterosexual boys and young men although no decline in wart frequency was seen in heterosexual women or men older than 30.
The incidence of genital warts declined by more than 90% in adolescent and teenage girls in the first 4 to 5 years after introduction of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in Australia, investigators reported.
Genital warts occurred more than 70% less often among women 21 to 30, as compared with the 3 to 4 years before the vaccine became available. The reductions in wart incidence among girls and women were accompanied by 50% to 80% decreases in the incidence of genital warts among heterosexual boys and young men.
No decline in wart frequency was seen in heterosexual women or men older than 30, Basil Donovan, MD, of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, and co-authors reported online in BMJ.
“In 2011 no genital wart diagnoses were made among 235 women under 21 years of age who reported prior human papillomavirus vaccination,” the authors noted. “The significant declines in the proportion of young women found to have genital warts and the absence of genital warts in vaccinated women in 2011 suggests that the human papillomavirus vaccine has high efficacy outside the trial setting. Large declines in diagnoses of genital warts in heterosexual men are probably due to herd immunity.”
The study provided a glimpse of the impact of HPV vaccination in a real-world community setting as opposed to a clinical trial.
“It actually generated data consistent with what we hoped and predicted would happen,” said Greg Poland, MD, of Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “It showed in a large study that [the vaccine] worked and it worked fabulously.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, July 25, 2012
The Humble Crockpot The crockpot is a ‘set it and forget it’ cooking tool. In fact, when placed on the “high” setting, food is often cooked overnight, and ready the next morning.
Seriously, there is only ONE time-tested way to lose weight.
It has two, very simple steps.
They are:
1.) Eat Less, and;
2.) Exercise More.
Or if you prefer, Step #1 can also be considered a form of exercise – Push Aways.
Push Away from the table.
Now that we have the levity out of the way… let’s look at the news.
Some have promoted various forms of diet as an adjunct to weight loss. Many of the more successful models have revolved around variations upon a theme, that being increased protein intake in conjunction with decreased carbohydrate intake, also more popularly known as the “Atkins Diet.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, June 3, 2012
More exciting news in cancer treatment!
One of the perplexing things about cancer treatment (chemotherapeutics) is that the substances used to kill the tumors are poisonous… even deadly toxic. It has been, in essence, a shotgun approach. That is, while the malignant cells targeted for destruction are killed, so are other, non-cancerous cells throughout the body. It is an imprecise treatment because the intravenous treatment circulates throughout the entire body.
This new approach is – as the story describes – somewhat like the proverbial Trojan Horse.
Fern Saitowitz’s advanced breast cancer was controlled for about a year by the drug Herceptin and a toxic chemotherapy agent. But her hair fell out, her fingernails turned black and she was constantly fatigued.
She switched to an experimental treatment, which also consisted of Herceptin and a chemotherapy agent. Only this time, the two drugs were attached to each other, keeping the toxic agent inactive until the Herceptin carried it to the tumor. Side effects, other than temporary nausea and some muscle cramps, vanished.
“I’m able to live a normal life,” said Ms. Saitowitz, 47, a mother of two young children in Los Angeles. “I haven’t lost any of my hair.”
The experimental treatment, called T-DM1, is a harbinger of a new class of cancer drugs that may be more effective and less toxic than many existing treatments. By harnessing antibodies to deliver toxic payloads to cancer cells, while largely sparing healthy cells, the drugs are a step toward the “magic bullets” against cancer first envisioned by Paul Ehrlich, a German Nobel laureate, about 100 years ago.
Warm Southern Breeze 