The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus has practically guaranteed that the virus, along with the phrases "social distancing" and "flattening the curve," will rank among the top search terms of 2020. USA Today combined the phrases in its latest augmented reality experience, which quizzes your knowledge in the best practices of social distancing.
With the nation facing a shortage of ventilators for COVID-19 patients and no apparent ramp-up in the production of new ones, engineers, medical resistents, and do-it-yourselfers are sharing plans for homemade versions.
You need a break from gloomy coronavirus updates. We all do. The unrelenting stream of doom and negative news is both helpful in terms of keeping ourselves and our families safe, but it also has the unfortunate effect of increasing our anxiety. When will this end? How bad will it get? Is there reason to be hopeful?
One of the scariest things about the COVID-19 virus is that you can show no symptoms but still be infected (and contagious). Naturally, we all want to know whether we're carrying the new coronavirus, but if you're showing signs of COVID-19, how can you be tested to know for sure? Websites are popping up to help with that, screening for symptoms, and directing you to a testing site if needed.
Smartglasses startup Nreal enjoyed some highs and endured some lows this week, as the company landed a product placement with Kevin Bacon but then faced production issues related to the coronavirus outbreak.
While Apple's AR wearables development continues clandestinely, its mobile ecosystem is laying the foundation for the software side of its smartglasses, with Apple Arcade serving as the latest example.
Investment in augmented reality remained robust in 2019. For the third consecutive year, we looked back on the biggest funding deals in the AR industry this week, and a familiar name came out on top.
Over the past year, Magic Leap has teased its cross-platform vision of the AR cloud, which it dubs the Magicverse. While the company shared a timeline for its debut next year, it also served up new developer tools for the present.
Before smartglasses makers can dream of taking smartglasses to mainstream consumers, they must first determine the right mix of form, function, and price that will drive customers to buy into what they're hoping to sell.
While Magic Leap has gained attention for its ability to raise capital, the company (now with an actual product on the market) still faces an uphill climb against the titans of the industry.
When the climate changes, so do all the things that rely on the climate, including people, plants, and pathogens. A European study recently took a broad look at what kind of microorganisms are most likely to be affected as climate change heats, cools, dries, and wets the world around us.
Bacteria, viruses and other germs sometimes set off the immune system to overreact, producing a severe condition called sepsis. Sepsis is so dangerous that it is the leading cause of death of children across the world, killing a million kids every year, mostly in developing countries. Probiotic bacteria might be able to prevent sepsis and infections, but no large research studies have been done to find out whether that actually works. Until now.
Scientists know that bacteria create their own energy, get nutrients to run their cellular processes, and multiply. But, bacteria haven't been shown to respond to external mechanical stimulation or signals in a way that's similar to how our bodies respond to touch, until now.
As if the swollen, painful joints of rheumatoid arthritis weren't enough, the disease is the result of our immune system turning against cells of our own body. Ever since this realization, scientists have worked to find the trigger that sets the immune system off. Scientists believe that gut bacteria may have a role in initiating the abnormal immune response. Now, a team of researchers from Boston has figured out how that might occur.
After years of telling patients to finish any prescribed course of antibiotics completely, a group of researchers in the UK say it is no longer necessary, and could even be harmful if we want to preserve the antibiotics we can still use.
For younger children, a day at the playground is not complete without some sandbox time. Long a favorite of children and parents, sandboxes could also be sheltering dangerous pathogens.
Despite longer live spans, almost half a million people die of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) each year, many of them preventable.
Montezuma's revenge, the runs, the trots, or just diarrhea — everyone gets it sooner or later. What exactly is diarrhea good for, if anything?
Add breathing in your house as another possible danger to your health. If your home is sick, it's possible you could get sick too.
The search is on to find antibiotics that will work against superbugs — bacteria that are rapidly becoming resistant to many drugs in our antibiotic arsenal.
It's not always easy to get to the root of an infection outbreak. Epidemiologists study infected people, contacts, and carefully examine where the infections happened and when. In the case of a 2012 outbreak of pertussis — whooping cough — in Oregon, scientists just published an analysis of how vaccination status affected when a child became infected during the outbreak.
Tesla hopes high-level personnel changes will help it gain an edge in neural network knowhow for its models' self-drive features, following the replacement of its Autopilot chief and the appointment of a recent Stanford grad to head its AI and Autopilot vision research.
Significant strides have been in the race to find antibiotics to treat superbug infections — those caused by bacteria resistant to the antibiotics used to treat them. Now, an international team of scientists has discovered a new antibiotic produced by a microbe found in Italian soil.
With summer just ahead, you, or your children, may be looking forward to some pool time or the water park. When planning water-based fun this year, keep a heads-up for microbes.
Water makes up about 60% of your body weight. Whether you like it plain, flavored, bubbly, or in beverages or food, we all need water daily to avoid dehydration and stay healthy. For communities in need of clean drinking water, new research using bacteria may offer a simplified, lower-cost method for boosting potable water supplies.
Colorado State University scientists have developed new tech that quickly identifies the presence of Zika virus in mosquito populations — and in human body fluid.
Pertussis, or whooping cough, is a highly contagious disease that can be life-threatening for young children. New research backs a recommendation that all pregnant women receive a pertussis booster with each pregnancy, as it can help their infants fight off the infection.
The theme for 2017's World Malaria Day, which is today, April 25, is "End Malaria for Good." For many Americans, this might seem like an odd plea. Especially since Malaria is seemingly an obsolete problem here. However, on World Malaria Day, it's important to remember the danger of malaria is still very much present in the US. And around the world, the disease is at the epicenter of a global crisis.
The search for a cancer treatment that selectively finds and kills only the cancerous cells has just made a giant leap forward.
An outbreak of anthrax from contaminated meat in Tanzania sickened dozens of people and moves the danger of this deadly bacteria back into focus.
The culprit probably wasn't what doctors were expecting when a 57-year-old man in Hong Kong came to the hospital. The patient was admitted to the intensive care unit in critical condition. A clue to the cause of the infection would lie in the man's profession—he was a butcher.
Cholera is rapidly spreading in Mozambique, with over 1,200 people infected. Since the outset of 2017, cholera has spread from the capital city of Maputo (pictured above) to three of its ten provinces. Health officials report other areas in the country are seeing case counts rise, and two deaths have been logged so far.
In the past, infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) commonly led to dementia as the virus made its way to the brain. Even in effectively treated people, HIV can hide out and replicate in places like the brain, where it's tough to detect. That's why it's very concerning that half of all HIV-infected patients still report cognitive problems.
By looking for the mechanism that allows influenza A to invade lung cells, scientists also discovered a treatment that might block the virus from taking hold there.
A new study confirms that antibiotics can prevent surgical intervention if your child's appendix becomes inflamed, potentially saving his or her life.
Every year, 100-200 people in the US contract leptospirosis, but usually 50% of the cases occur in Hawaii where outdoor adventurers are exposed to Leptospira bacteria found in freshwater ponds, waterfalls, streams, and mud. That's why it's so alarming that two people in the Bronx have been diagnosed with the disease and a 30-year-old man has died from it.
Scientists are constantly on the search for new organisms, species, and other types of life. A special group of these researchers, calling themselves "bioprospectors," dive deep into mines to find unique lifeforms with special properties not found anywhere else.
Lighthouses and signal fires may have been the first social media. Without the ability to share language, a distant light meant "humans here." A new study from the University of California, San Diego, finds that bacteria can also send out a universal sign to attract the attention of their own, and other bacterial species.
Responding to the rapid emergence of dangerous pathogens around the world, a new initiative to prevent or contain pandemics was announced in Davos, Switzerland, yesterday. If you ever worried that a highly contagious pathogen could take down your community, or the country, this news is for you.
After California college student Luis Ortiz blacked out and was taken to the hospital in 2015, doctors were startled to discover the reason his brain was swelling—a one-centimeter long, wriggling tapeworm living within a ventricle in the middle of his brain.
