pandemics
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Scientists Discover Vampiric Viruses That ‘Bite’ Other Viruses for Survival
Viruses are somehow even weirder than we thought. In a recent study published last month, scientists say they’ve discovered two new viruses that hijack the machinery of other bacteria-infecting viruses in order to replicate themselves. One of these vampiric viruses even acts the part, appearing to “bite” and latch onto their helper virus so that…
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China Reports Record Number of COVID Cases With More Than 80 Million Locked Down
China reported 5,370 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, according to the country’s National Health Commission, the biggest one-day increase of the entire pandemic. The high case count comes as the province of Jilin and its 24 million people were placed into lockdown on Monday, with millions more in China under harsh restrictions.
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A Highly Virulent Variant of HIV Has Been Discovered in the Netherlands
Researchers in a new paper this week say that a highly virulent variant of HIV has been silently circulating in the Netherlands, likely for decades. Thankfully, the variant still responds to conventional treatments and its spread appears to have declined in recent years. But the discovery may offer a timely lesson about the nature of…
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Latest Science on Omicron: Vaccine Effectiveness, How It Multiplies, and More
The COVID-19 pandemic is once again resurging throughout the U.S. and elsewhere, and while now we have many more tools available against the viral illness than we did last winter — namely, a full armada of preventive vaccines and soon-to-debut treatments — the emergence of the Omicron variant around Thanksgiving tossed a spanner in the…