The U.S. needs stronger policies and guidance to combat Legionnaires’ disease, a form of pneumonia caused by inhaling air contaminated with Legionella bacteria from water systems, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine announced today the recipients of its 2019 Early-Career Research Fellowships.

Imagine giving one recipe to 10 different chefs and getting 10 completely different results. This inconsistency could be due to any number of factors — variables that cannot be controlled, omission of details, or shortcomings in design and execution.

The National Academy of Medicine today announced Daniel Weinberger is the recipient of the 2019 Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health, for his fundamental role in elucidating the biological origins and genetic expressions of schizophrenia, and for transforming how clinicians, researchers, and the public understand mental illness.

The Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine today announced $10.7 million in grant awards for four new projects focused on enhancing community resilience in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico region.

Nearly 14,000 people – including industry leaders, policymakers, administrators, and researchers from government, industry, and academia – are expected to gather for the Transportation Research Board’s 99th Annual Meeting, taking place at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., from Jan. 12-16, 2020.

The U.S. is a clear leader in the global bioeconomy landscape, but faces challenges from decentralized leadership, inadequate talent development, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, stagnant investment in fundamental research, and international competition, according to Safeguarding the Bioeconomy, a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The Gulf Research Program (GRP) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine today announced $7.25 million in grant awards for eight projects focused on strengthening safety culture in the offshore oil and gas industry.

The Gulf Research Program (GRP) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine today announced $2 million in grant awards for seven new projects through its Understanding Gulf Ocean Systems (UGOS) Grants 2 competition.

The opioid epidemic in the U.S. is driving a simultaneous epidemic of infectious diseases — including HIV, hepatitis C virus (HCV) and bacterial infections, and sexually transmitted infections — but workforce shortages, stigma, and financial and policy barriers are preventing the integration of opioid use disorder (OUD) and infectious disease services, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

NASA should collaborate with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), industry, academia to research the full effects that increased unpiloted air vehicle traffic would have on society, including ramifications to sound, privacy, environmental matters, and cybersecurity, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

WASHINGTON — In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to establish a Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats.

Formed earlier this month, the National Academies’ Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats was assembled at the request of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The recently formed National Academies Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats, assembled at the request of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, has been providing rapid expert consultations on several topics, such as social distancing and severe illness in young adults.

The recently formed National Academies Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats, assembled at the request of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, has been providing rapid expert consultations on several topics, such as social distancing and severe illness in young adults.

A new rapid expert consultation from a standing committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine responds to questions from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) regarding survival of the COVID-19 virus in relation to temperature and humidity and potential for seasonal reduction and resurgence of cases.

A new rapid expert consultation from a standing committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new rapid expert consultation from a standing committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine responds to questions from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) regarding the effectiveness of homemade fabric masks to protect others from the viral spread of COVID-19 from potentially contagious asymptomatic or presymptomatic individuals.

Over the next five years, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program (BTRP) should encourage and be among co-leaders in the federal government’s development of an enduring interagency mechanism to address an array of biological threats – including natural disease outbreaks, accidental releases, and intentional attacks -- to deployed U.S. forces and to the nation itself, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

At colleges and universities around the nation, scientists and graduate students are seeking out ways to bring their knowledge, skills, and resources to bear in the struggle against COVID-19.

From N-95 masks that are protecting health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic to food packaging found in every aisle of the grocery store, plastics play an essential role in our lives.

One of the features of the Windows 10 Start Menu is a built-in Bing search when a local search fails to find anything. Whether it be due to privacy reasons, bugs, or just personal dislike, this article will explain how to disable Bing search in the Start Menu. [...]

People sit on a hill overlooking Dodger Stadium on what was supposed to be Major League Baseball's opening day, now postponed due to the coronavirus, on March 26, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. ; Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Had the 2020 MLB season started at the end of March like it was scheduled to, at this point we’d be starting to see divisions shape up, star pitchers and position players separating themselves from the rest of the league and a first look at who this year’s contenders and pretenders really would be. Sadly, the COVID-19 outbreak forced the league to postpone the start of the season, and now the question has become if there will be a season, not when. 

Not to be dragged down by the idea of no baseball, Wall Street Journal sports writer Jared Diamond took a recent proposal the league floated for an abbreviated 2020 campaign and gamed out how that might look in real life. The league’s idea would do away with the National and American Leagues and divide all 30 MLB teams into three divisions of 10 teams separated by region, and those teams would play in empty stadiums and only against other teams in their geographic division in the interests of reducing travel. But how viable is this, really? And what other considerations would the league and players union have to take with regards to testing and protocol for what happens if someone were to contract COVID-19? Is there a world where baseball still happens this year?

Today on AirTalk, Jared Diamond joins the Triple Play of Larry Mantle, Nick Roman and A Martinez to talk about what a shortened 2020 MLB season might look like, which teams stand to win and lose the most from the realignment and what other precautions the league would have to take against the spread of COVID-19.

Guests:

Jared Diamond, national baseball writer for the Wall Street Journal; his new book is "Swing Kings: The Inside Story of Baseball's Home Run Revolution” (William Morrow, March 2020); he tweets @jareddiamond

Nick Roman, host of KPCC’s “All Things Considered”; he tweets @RomanOnTheRadio

A. Martinez, host of KPCC’s “Take Two”; he tweets @amartinezLA

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

Two tents in Hollywood erected beneath the 101 Freeway during a January rainstorm. (Matt Tinoco/KPCC)

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

COVID-19 Research and Development Sean's pick this week is COVID-19 Research and Development by MathWorks. We were recently introduced to this page which highlights uses of... read more >>

Understanding the impacts of human activities on Marine and Coastal is important to ensure their sustainability. New research has indicated that seafloor ecosystems are less likely to recover from fishing if they are in rocky or reef habitats and if dredging and bottom trawling equipment is used for shellfish and various fish species. When fishing is combined with the extraction of aggregate for mineral resources, the impacts are even more damaging.

Data from studies monitoring the amount of plastic eaten by seabirds suggest that levels in the North Sea are well above targets established for the North East Atlantic Ocean by OSPAR (the Oslo and Paris Convention). For the most recent monitoring period, the target amount was exceeded in well over half the birds studied.

Scientists have produced a list of seafloor characteristics to determine the health status of the ecosystem it supports. These indicators could improve the quality and consistency of marine conservation efforts across Europe, particularly where the impact of human activities is high.

The importance of coral reefs in supporting diverse fish communities has been highlighted in a recent study. However, the effects of damaging fishing techniques were also observed in video footage of the reefs studied, located off the coast of Ireland.

The lack of clear international regulations is putting ???animal forests??? at risk, a recent analysis concludes. The research examined threats to these important seafloor habitats, and suggests that collective responsibility and coherent ecosystem-based management are needed to prevent their loss.

Some Marine and Coastal have been altered over long periods of time, resulting in a loss of knowledge of their true healthy state, new research suggests. In this UK study, researchers used historical records, samples of sediment and present-day diving surveys to reconstruct the true history of shellfish beds on the east coast of Scotland.

The effects of seafloor trawling can extend further than the immediate fishing grounds, affecting delicate deep-sea ecosystems, new research suggests. In this Mediterranean study, the researchers demonstrated that clouds of sediment from trawling reached deeper habitats, increasing water-borne sediment particle concentrations to a hundred times that of background levels.

Seabed fishing grounds in the UK are made up of intensively fished core areas surrounded by more rarely used marginal areas, new research shows. Excluding these margins, which contain only 10% of the total fishing activity, approximately halves the total area of fishing grounds. Thus reducing the fishing footprint by closing the marginal areas will disproportionately reduce the seabed impact of fishing activity.

Source: Streetwise Reports   05/01/2020

Seattle Genetics Inc. (SGEN:NASDAQ) yesterday announced financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2020.

The company also provided an update on commercial results achieved in the quarter for its lead medicines including ADCETRIS® (brentuximab vedotin) and PADCEV^™ (enfortumab vedotin-ejfv) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval and launch of TUKYSA^™ (tucatinib).

The company's President and CEO Clay Siegall, Ph.D., commented, "We have had a remarkable start to 2020, delivering record product sales in the first quarter that are now coming from both ADCETRIS and PADCEV. Notably, strong PADCEV sales in the first full quarter of launch reflect the unmet need among patients with metastatic bladder cancer...With the recent approval of TUKYSA for patients with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer, we have now launched our third product just four months after our second...We are also preparing for European commercial operations and have hired general managers in major European markets ahead of potential ex-U.S. approvals of TUKYSA. With two new products, growing revenues, and an advancing pipeline of novel cancer programs, we have exciting prospects for future growth."

The company highlighted that ADCETRIS net sales in the U.S. and Canada increased by 22% to $164.1 million in Q1/20, compared to $135 million in Q1/19. The firm indicated that PADCEV net sales in the U.S. reached $34.5 million in Q1/20, which was its first full quarter of commercialization. The company added that royalty revenues in Q1/20 were $20.4 million and collaboration and license agreement revenues in Q1/20 totaled $15.6 million.

The firm reported a net loss for Q1/20 of $168.4 million, or $0.98 per diluted share, compared to net loss of $13.3 million, or $0.08 per diluted share for Q1/19. The company explained that "the net loss in Q1/20 included a net investment loss of $59.1 million primarily associated with its common stock holdings in Immunomedics, which are marked-to-market, compared to a net investment gain of $38.1 million in Q1/19."

The company advised that its TUKYSA was approved by the FDA for patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer who have received one or more prior anti-HER2 regimens in the metastatic setting. The firm mentioned that it also expects to be able to report topline data in late Q2/20 or Q3/20 for the innovaTV 204 pivotal trial of tisotumab vedotin in patients with recurrent and/or metastatic cervical cancer who have relapsed or progressed after standard of care treatment.

The company noted that it is regularly monitoring the effects of the COVID-19 situation and is maintaining its business outlook estimates for FY/20 that it provided previously on February 6, 2020. For FY/20 it expects ADCETRIS net product sales of $675–700 million, royalty revenues of $105–115 million and collaboration and license agreement revenues of $30–50 million. The firm advised that for FY/20 it expects that R&D expenses will range from $860–950 million with SG&A expenses of $475–525 million.

Seattle Genetics is headquartered in Bothell, Wash., and is a global biotechnology company focused on discovering and commercializing cancer medicines.

Seattle Genetics has a market capitalization of around $23.7 billion with approximately 172.5 million shares outstanding. SGEN shares opened 2.75% higher today at $141.00 (+$3.77, +2.75%) over yesterday's $137.23 closing price and reached a new 52-week high price this morning of $157.00. The stock has traded today between $140.05 and $157.00 per share and is currently trading at $148.51 (+$11.28, +8.22%).

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( Companies Mentioned: SGEN:NASDAQ, )

New research has shed light on how fish respond to marine protected areas (MPAs). It suggests that seascape structure ??? the range of sea depths and habitat types included inside and outside the MPA ??? has a larger influence on changes in the abundance of fish than protection itself.

Hypoxia (low levels of oxygen) is widespread in the coastal waters of the Baltic Sea, according to recently published research. The trend of increasing hypoxia since the 1950 is alarming, although improvements can be seen in some areas as a result of measures to reduce inputs of organic material.

Sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic may be significantly influenced by air pollution, with knock-on effects for climatic events, such as drought and hurricanes, according to a new study. The findings indicate that estimates of man-made aerosol emissions over coming decades should be refined within climate models to improve predictions of future climate change.

A new study reports that fishing depths in the EU have increased, with more deep-sea fish species being harvested. Deep-sea fish populations are often more vulnerable to effects of fishing, and the ecological impact of overfishing may therefore be greater than for shallow-water species.

Using data gathered by satellites, scientists have monitored changes in fishing activity around Italy in the Mediterranean Sea for the period 2007-2010. From this, they developed new ecological indicators that gave a more detailed pattern of fishing activity in the Italian seas. In addition, the new indicators suggest that fish stocks on the seabed around Italy are continuing to decline.

Researchers have discovered high levels of plastic particles and fibres, as well as black carbon (BC), which is formed by the incomplete burning of fossil fuels, in the waters of the Jade Bay, an inshore basin off the coast of Germany in the Southern North Sea. The concentration of suspended particles are of concern because they have the potential to be ingested by fish and other marine life, and enter the food chain.

Marine litter is a major issue in deep sea ecosystems in the Mediterranean Sea, new research confirms. A recent study shows that the total weight of litter found in these sensitive areas often equals, and even exceeds, that of the animals that live there. This work can provide a baseline for assessments of the impact of deep sea marine litter and to inform future policy reforms, the researchers suggest.

Damage caused by boats anchoring in seagrass meadows off the coast of Sardinia continues despite restrictions, new research shows. The study's authors provide a number of recommendations to help protect seagrass. These include creating special anchoring areas in seagrass-free locations, and limiting the number of boats that enter a marine protected area.

The number of overexploited or collapsed fish stocks in the Mediterranean Sea has been increasing at a rate of approximately 38 every 10 years between 1970 and 2010, a new study has shown. In the Black Sea, the equivalent figure is 13 stocks per decade, the researchers found. The study’s authors augmented traditional methods of stock assessments with a variety of other data sources on multiple fish species to give a more accurate overview of these marine ecosystems. These results should be used to improve conservation and management, they recommend.