A 23-year-old man who returned from Abu Dhabi on a repatriation flight, has tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. The district now has two positive recorded

The teacher was posted at a primary school in Wazirabad under the North Delhi Municipal Corporation.

‘Earlier, he tested negative thrice’

Birds do it. Bees do it. And in a laboratory in northern California, scientists using bumblebees recently figured out the best way to measure it--vertical lift!

The post Laboratory tests reveal precise way to measure vertical lift in bumblebees and other small insects and birds appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Scientists at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo detected a secondary rise in urinary progesterone levels in the Zoo’s female giant panda Mei Xiang (may-SHONG). This hormone rise indicates that it should be 40 to 50 days before Mei Xiang either gives birth to a cub or comes to the end of a pseudopregnancy, or false pregnancy, which is common in giant pandas.

The post Hormone tests show Mei Xiang, the National Zoo’s female giant panda, may be pregnant appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Tucked into the wooded landscape and rolling hills of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md., is a new forest. Six months ago, a […]

The post Century-long Smithsonian experiment tests forest diversity appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A series of secret tests conducted by the U.S. Army in the 1950s and 1960s did not expose residents of the United States and Canada to chemical levels considered harmful, according to a new report from a committee of the National Research Council.

Potentially useful biomarker tests for molecularly targeted therapies are not being adopted appropriately into clinical practice because of a lack of common evidentiary standards necessary for regulatory, reimbursement, and treatment decisions, says a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

When Sara Altschule took a 23andMe ancestry test, the results confirmed what she already suspected - She is 77 percent Ashkenazi Jewish.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wears a mask on Capitol Hill on April 30. Members in the House will not return over coronavirus fears but the Senate is scheduled to return on Monday.; Credit: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in a rare joint statement on Saturday, declined an offer from the White House to make rapid COVID-19 tests available for Congress.

"Congress is grateful for the Administration's generous offer to deploy rapid COVID-19 testing capabilities to Capitol Hill, but we respectfully decline the offer at this time," Pelosi and McConnell said. "Our country's testing capacities are continuing to scale up nationwide and Congress wants to keep directing resources to the front-line facilities where they can do the most good the most quickly."

McConnell, R-Ky., plans to bring the Senate back into session on Monday, while Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said this week the House would not bring representatives back over coronavirus fears.

On Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said on Twitter that the Trump administration would send three Abbott "point of care testing machines and 1,000 tests for their use" to Capitol Hill.

President Trump on Saturday tweeted: " No reason to turn it down, except politics. We have plenty of testing. Maybe you need a new Doctor over there. Crazy Nancy will use it as an excuse not to show up to work!"

Pelosi and Hoyer said they made the decision based on advice from the Capitol's attending physician, Brian Monahan. "The House physician's view was that there was a risk to members that was one he would not recommend taking," Hoyer said Tuesday.

So far, Rand Paul of Kentucky is the only senator to have tested positive for the coronavirus. In the House, seven members have tested positive or presumed to be positive for the coronavirus.

On Friday, McConnell shared guidelines from Monahan urging lawmakers and staff to maintain six feet of distance, limit the number of people in offices and to wear masks when possible.

Monahan has told Republican leaders that his office does not have the capacity to proactively test all 100 senators and can only test those who are ill, Politico reported.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Deputy Chief Patricia Cassidy of the Jersey City Police Department has blood drawn to test for coronavirus antibodies in Jersey City, N.J., on Monday.; Credit: Seth Wenig/AP

The Food and Drug Administration is stiffening its rules to counteract what some have called a Wild West of antibody testing for the coronavirus.

These tests are designed to identify people who have been previously exposed to the virus. The FDA said more than 250 developers have been bringing products to the market in the past few weeks.

In a rush to make antibody tests available as quickly as possible, the FDA had set a low standard for these tests. Manufacturers were supposed to submit their own information about the accuracy of their wares, but the agency had no standards for what would be acceptable. Companies weren't allowed to claim the tests were authorized by the FDA, under initial guidance issued in mid-March.

Now the FDA is telling manufacturers that if they want their tests to remain on the market, they must meet minimum quality standards and submit a request for emergency use authorization, a temporary route to market for unapproved products when others aren't available. The EUA involves a lower standard than the usual FDA clearance or approval.

The FDA said 12 manufacturers have already opted to request EUA's for their products. More than 100 other producers have been talking to the agency about using this process, said FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn. He spoke on a press call Monday. Companies have 10 days to submit that request.

"Our expectation is that those who can't [meet the new standard] will withdraw their products from the market and we will be working with them to help them do that," he said.

These tests are now so widespread that people can order them from lab giants Quest or LabCorp. The tests can cost more than $100. Though the FDA's original guidance calls for these tests to be run by a certified lab, the kits themselves are simple to use and have been readily available.

Despite the enthusiasm surrounding these tests, they have substantial limitations. Though people who test positive for antibodies have in most cases been exposed to the coronavirus, scientists don't know whether that means those people are actually immune from the coronavirus, and if so for how long.

"Whether this is the ticket for someone to go back to work [based solely on an antibody test result], my opinion on that would be no," Hahn said.

The tests may be more useful when combined with information from a standard coronavirus diagnostic test, or in someone who has symptoms, or if the results have been confirmed with a different antibody test. That "would dramatically increase the accuracy of those tests," said Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health

Antibodies are a potentially valuable research tool, and can be used to determine the prevalence of a disease in a population. In that circumstance, individual false results are less important. New York State used antibody tests to determine that about 20 percent of people in New York City have already been exposed to the coronavirus.

In California, researchers have attempted to measure the prevalence of the coronavirus in Los Angeles County and Santa Clara County in the Bay Area. Those unpublished results have garnered criticism because even a test that's more than 99 percent accurate can produce many false positive results when used to survey hundreds or thousands of people.

In the face of this criticism, the authors of the Santa Clara study have posted revised results acknowledging the high degree of uncertainty in their findings. Those findings haven't been peer-reviewed.

The emergency use authorization is only valid during the time of the national emergency. "Once the national emergency ends, the EUA authorizations end as well," Shuren said. Companies that want to keep marketing these tests will need to get them approved through the regular, more stringent FDA process.

FDA officials say they will continue to crack down on companies that falsely claim their tests are approved by the FDA, or that market them for home use, which isn't currently allowed.

You can contact NPR Science Correspondent Richard Harris at rharris@npr.org.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Vehicles sit in a near empty parking lot outside the Tyson Foods plant in Waterloo, Iowa, on May 1.; Credit: Charlie Neibergall/AP

A meat-packing plant in Waterloo, Iowa, where a coronavirus outbreak exploded a few weeks ago, resumed operations on Thursday after a two-week closure.

The reopening of Tyson Foods' largest U.S. pork plant came the same day that health officials in Black Hawk County, where the plant is located, announced that 1,031 of the plant's estimated 2,800 employees have tested positive for the virus. That's higher than previous estimates by state officials.

Tony Thompson, sheriff of Black Hawk County, was among the public officials who called for the Waterloo facility to shut down temporarily. His call to close the plant came after he first toured the facility on April 10.

Thompson says that when he toured the plant then, he "fully expected" to see barriers, masks and other personal protective equipment in place. That wasn't the case.

"What I saw when we went into that plant was an absolute free-for-all," he says. "Some people were wearing bandannas. Some people were wearing surgical masks. .... Most people weren't wearing anything. People working on the line were working elbow to elbow, sometimes reaching over each other, processing the meat that was coming down the line.

"There was absolutely no opportunity for social distancing," he says. "We left the plant thinking, 'oh, my gosh, we've got a huge problem here.'"

Health officials say 90% of the cases of coronavirus in the county are linked to the Tyson facility.

During the closure, Tyson installed clear plastic mats to divide workstations and hand sanitizing stations. The plant has also instituted temperature checks and provides workers with surgical masks when they arrive and when they leave.

After touring the facility last week, Thompson is in cautious support of the reopening, saying he feels "reserved encouragement" after seeing the new safety measures.

If, however, the outbreak continues at this facility, Thompson says he would support a second shutdown.

Thompson's primary focus is on the safety and security of the roughly 131,000 citizens of Black Hawk County — and he says he feels especially responsible for the Tyson workers.

"We like our bacon, but we don't want to think about how it's actually done. When you got a carcass hanging there, bleeding on the floor, you don't want to think about that ... a byproduct of that is the people that actually do that work," he says.

"Unfortunately, these are oftentimes marginalized citizens because they are refugees, because they don't speak English, because they do a job that not many people want to do," he continues. "So there's something inherent there that was not right that I hope that they have corrected. And I'll hold my breath and pray that that is true. If it's not, we'll back up, regroup and go at this again."

Listen to the full interview with NPR's Ailsa Chang at the audio link above.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Harbour sediments should be tested for their toxic effects on living organisms in addition to being subject to the chemical, physical and biological tests usually conducted to assess water quality, according to recent research from Portugal. This would provide a better environmental assessment of dredged material to help guide port authorities’ decisions on its disposa

Because natural conditions in the environment, such as temperature, can significantly affect the toxicity of pollutant chemicals on living organisms, the effects of pollutants can differ according to region. Ecological risk assessment should therefore include environmental characteristics relevant to each region, according to recent research.

The official criteria used to assess how easily a chemical is taken up by biological organisms, known as the bioaccumulation potential, are considered reliable for most types of chemical. However, according to a new analysis, the criteria need updating to include uptake from contaminated sediment and food in order to reflect the realistic bioaccumulation risk for all chemicals.

Herbicides in aquatic environments can have negative consequences on local plant life. This study investigated the effects of glyphosate, one of the most widely used herbicides in the world, on a marine plant species. The herbicide caused significant changes to the plant, reducing the number and chlorophyll content of leaves, and high concentrations were lethal. The authors say use of this chemical may be dangerous to plants in estuaries.

At least two research groups in NTU are working on speeding up the process of identifying infected Covid-19 patients with test kits that can show results in minutes, instead of the current day-long wait for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test results....

The technique uses GPS and radio telescopes to detect underground nuclear tests using waves that travel from the blast into the upper atmosphere.

Activists line up for different causes along different U.S. coasts to make sure that politicians know how they feel about methly iodide and a proposed pipeline

Director Josh Fox's follow-up to his 2010 documentary on the natural gas industry sparks drama at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The Hawaiian island has reopened its northern coast to tourists, but with new restrictions meant to protect local communities and wildlife.

Teens with metabolic syndrome — a set of health conditions linked with the development of heart disease and diabetes — perform worse in school than their he

If you have trouble performing these tests, your life could be cut short.

Worlds collide as energy corporations, Fortune 500 CEO's, nonprofit leaders and 60,000 protestors try to make sense of the Copenhagen climate talks.

New Mexico's coyote-killing contest ban does not outlaw the killing of coyotes by hunters or ranchers who are protecting their livestock.

The autonomous aircraft Mars Helicopter heralds the beginning of a new era in our exploration of the red planet.

The FDA would like for 23andMe to prove that their tests are accurate.

Strange tests centered around a military installation in the Mojave Desert could mess with your GPS, warns FAA.

Our society is designed in a way that makes restricting drivers licenses do more harm than good.

Solotoo's Mazel Gold: Driving Progress at an Affordable Price

Personal lubricant manufacturer, SASMAR, kicks off a series of global World Cup contests. In the #DareToWin contests fans can score a full year's supply of personal lubricant with the finalist receiving a 44" television.

EE&G Environmental Services, LLC (EE&G), holds a Microbial Remediation, Asbestos Removal, and Air Clearance Testing Project At The Markham Park – Fox Observatory, Sun

Patients Now Able to Determine If Symptoms Actually Represented a COVID-19 Infection

Tom Stewart, HBR editor, discusses the January 2007 issue of the magazine.

Rachel Botsman, the author of “Who Can You Trust?", talks about how trust works, whether in relation to robots, companies, or other people. Technology, she says, speeds up the development of trust and can help us decide who to trust. But when it comes to making those decisions, we shouldn’t leave our devices to their own devices.

Aaron Lavinsky/Star Tribune via Getty Images

• Diagnostic or polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are currently being used to diagnose patients with COVID-19.
  
  
• Antibody tests allow for more accurate tracking of the spread of the coronavirus. People who test positive for coronavirus antibodies can also donate plasma.
• Antigen testing is not on the market yet, but Massachusetts-based E25Bio is among several companies seeking FDA approval for at-home test kits.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

With new information released all the time, it can be difficult to keep track of how doctors are testing for the coronavirus. 

While identifying and treating infected patients is critical, some tests add to our greater understanding of the pandemic's size, impact, and direction. Here is a breakdown of the differences between diagnostic, antibody, and antigen testing.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

NOW WATCH: 'I'm not going to sit up here and pretend like it's a joke': 3 coronavirus patients share their stories from quarantine

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• Experts weigh in on how much a dose of a successful coronavirus vaccine could cost
• A New Zealand healthcare worker describes the unique stress of waiting for waves of coronavirus cases to hit when so far they haven't

Lisa Larkin MD & Associates

• Ultrawealthy and sometimes asymptomatic Americans are using concierge doctors to access COVID-19 tests amid a nationwide shortage.
• The doctors, whose monthly fees can range up to $10,000 a month and don't accept insurance, can offer coronavirus antibody test results in as little as two hours; results for the general public can take days.
• Even some concierge doctors question the ethics of offering tests to their wealthy clientele that aren't available to the general public.
• Both concierge doctors and their clients told Business Insider that America's health care system is dysfunctional, and that patients are healthier operating outside it.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Jamie Gerdsen, the 46-year-old CEO of Cincinnati-based construction company Apollo Home, wanted his 200 employees to know how seriously he was taking the coronavirus pandemic. To prove it, he decided to get tested in April. 

For Gerdsen, the process was simple. All he had to do was call his doctor, set up an appointment time for him and his wife, and get to his doctor's drive-through testing center. At the center, they showed their IDs, answered a few questions, and got their fingers pricked, all without getting out of their car. The results came into Gerdsen's email inbox two hours later. 

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

NOW WATCH: We tested a machine that brews beer at the push of a button

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• Airbnb has laid off 25% of its staff. Meet CEO Brian Chesky, who cofounded the company in 2008 to help pay his San Francisco apartment's rent and is now worth $4.1 billion.
• Here's how the 1% are getting their booze during the pandemic, from wine concierge services to online premium liquor retailers that sell $10,000 bottles of whiskey
• Elon Musk and Grimes just welcomed their baby boy. Here's how the eccentric CEO makes and spends his $38.2 billion fortune.

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