Moderna Inc. announced Tuesday that an updated COVID booster shot that combines Moderna’s original vaccine with protection against the Beta variant appears more effective than current booster shots against Omicron and a number of other variants. Before the highly transmissible Omicron variant surfaced, Moderna was tweaking its original vaccine to provide added protection against the… read on > read on >
Fitness trackers can tell you how well you’re sleeping, how fast you’re walking and, of course, how many steps you’ve taken. But during the pandemic, researchers have also investigated the ability of smart watches to help detect COVID-19 or provide data on recovery. The latest study uses several measures of heart rate data to help… read on > read on >
When you eat mussels or other seafood, you might also be getting a serving of microplastics, a new study suggests. Demonstrating that plastic trash is everywhere, researchers discovered microplastics from plastic pollution in edible blue mussels from 10 of southern Australia’s most popular and more remote beach areas. The findings imply that microplastics are now… read on > read on >
Artificial intelligence (AI) may be able to identify alcoholics at risk of relapsing after treatment, researchers say. Patients often return to heavy drinking during and after treatment, and may require multiple tries before they can achieve long-term abstinence from unhealthy alcohol use. AI may allow care providers and patients to predict drinking relapses and adjust… read on > read on >
The heart inflammation that followed COVID-19 shots in some teens and young adults is rare and a new study affirms that your risk is extremely low. Inflammation of the heart muscle (myopericarditis) is most often caused by viruses but can also occur after vaccination in rare cases. Safety concerns arose after reports of myopericarditis in… read on > read on >
Preschoolers can learn reading skills in a virtual classroom, University of Washington researchers say. “Children are ready to learn to read at the age of 5. But the pandemic robbed children of the opportunity for in-person reading instruction,” said Patricia Kuhl, co-director of the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS), in Seattle. “What we’ve… read on > read on >
People with substance abuse disorders, depression and other mental health conditions may be at higher risk for COVID-19 — even when they are fully vaccinated, new research suggests. “Individuals with psychiatric disorders, and especially older adults with psychiatric disorders, may be particularly vulnerable to breakthrough infections,” said study author Kristen Nishimi, a postdoctoral fellow at… read on > read on >
Americans who are over 60 should get a second COVID-19 booster shot, the White House’s new COVID-19 response coordinator recommended Sunday. Dr. Ashish Jha noted that data from Israel has found significantly reduced rates of infection and death among older individuals who received a fourth dose of a COVID vaccine. “The data out of Israel… read on > read on >
Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine may have some slight advantages over the Pfizer shot, new research suggests. For the study, researchers tracked antibody levels in 234 people for 10 months after they received either the two-dose Pfizer (114 people) or Moderna (114 people) mRNA vaccines, or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson (6 people) shot, which uses a… read on > read on >
U.S. health care workers were most likely to be infected with COVID-19 at work during the pandemic’s first year, according to a new study that challenges previous research suggesting their risk was highest off the job. Researchers said their findings could help guide efforts to better protect health care workers during future infectious disease outbreaks.… read on > read on >
