US Weekly COVID update: Aug 10, 2026 🔸1 in 156 Actively Infectious 🔸315,000 Daily Infections 🔸2,020,000 Infections In The Past Week 🔸92,000,000 Infections in 2026 🔸101,000 to 400,000 Weekly Long COVID Cases 🔸500 to 900 Weekly Excess Deaths Source: pmc19.com

🚨 BREAKTHROUGH: Waterloo scientists Dr. Brian Ingalls, Dr. Sara Sadr, and Dr. Marc Aucoin have engineered “tumor-eating” bacteria that can invade and destroy cancer from within. A potential breakthrough in cancer treatment research.

Rare Complete Restoration of Intraepidermal Nerve Fibre Density by Immunoglobulins in Post-COVID Vaccination Syndrome-Associated Small Fibre Neuropathy: A Case Report and Literature Review www.cureus.com/articles/512... After IVIG, nerve fibre density & symptoms improved.

Rare Complete Restoration of Intraepidermal Nerve Fibre Density by Immunoglobulins in Post-COVID Vaccination Syndrome-Associated Small Fibre Neuropathy: A Case Report and Literature Review

This report describes the rare complete restoration of reduced intraepidermal nerve fibre density (IENFD) following the administration of intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIG) in a patient with post-acut...

cureus.com

According to Flickr 10 years ago, my uncle (with the car he custom'd) is a COOL DUDE 😆 www.flickr.com/photos/34313...

Fun fact: mosquitos have a receptor that helps them find humans by detecting both the carbon dioxide we breath out, and our natural human-ly body odour (yum) nih.gov/news-events/...

Fun fact: some reports suggest pets may sense low blood sugar, esp in owners with type 1 diabetes. Its not clear how they do this, but may be due to a chemical called isoprene thats exhaled with low blood sugar liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1... diabetesjournals.org/care/article... youtu.be/RviXtGe487I

Canine Responses to Hypoglycemia in Patients with Type 1 Diabetes | The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine

Abstract Objective: Anecdotal evidence suggests that domestic dogs may be able to detect hypoglycemia in their human caregivers; scientific investigation of this phenomenon, however, is sorely lacking. This study thus aimed to investigate how pet dogs respond to the hypoglycemic episodes of their owners with type 1 diabetes. Methods: Two hundred and twelve dog owners (64.2% female) with medically diagnosed type 1 diabetes participated in the study. All participants owned at least 1 dog. Each person completed a purpose-designed questionnaire developed to collect information on their dogs' responses (if any) to their hypoglycemic episodes. Results: One hundred and thirty-eight (65.1%) respondents indicated that their dog had shown a behavioral reaction to at least one of their hypoglycemic episodes, with 31.9% of animals reacting to 11 or more events. Canine sex, age, breed status, and length of pet ownership were unrelated to hypoglycemia-response likelihood. Thirty-six percent of the sample believed that their dogs reacted most of the times they went “low”; 33.6% indicated that their pets reacted before they themselves were aware they were hypoglycemic. Dogs' behavioral responses to their owners' hypoglycemic episodes varied. Most animals behaved in a manner suggestive of attracting their owners' attention, for example, vocalizing (61.5%), licking them (49.2%), nuzzling them (40.6%), jumping on top of them (30.4%), and/or staring intently at their faces (41.3%). A smaller proportion showed behavioral responses suggestive of fear, including trembling (7.2%), running away from the owner (5.1%), and/or hyperventilating (2.2%). Conclusions: The findings suggest that behavioral reactions to hypoglycemic episodes in pet owners with type 1 diabetes commonly occur in untrained dogs. Further research is now needed to elucidate the mechanism(s) that dogs use to perform this feat.

liebertpub.com

Fun fact: snakes used to have legs. Some extinct snakes even grew their legs again, & some snakes like pythons still have remnants of legs cell.com/current-biol... Easy read: scientificamerican.com/article/how-... amnh.org/exhibitions/... Sonic Hedgehog has a role in this: bsky.app/profile/angr...

Loss and Re-emergence of Legs in Snakes by Modular Evolution of Sonic hedgehog and HOXD Enhancers

Leal and Cohn show that hindlimb development arrests in pythons due to mutations in an enhancer that controls Sonic hedgehog transcription in limb buds. In contrast, HOXD limb enhancers and distal exp...

cell.com

Fun fact: poison dart frogs are colourful little frogs 👇🏻 who sometimes wee on their eggs to keep them moist ingentaconnect.com/content/aala...

Fun fact: babies have suppressed inflammatory responses & dont produce antibodies for a few months. This may help them not overreact—eg. to their new microbiome—but is also why theyre vulnerable pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC... pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC... www.gosh.nhs.uk/conditions-a...

Understanding Antibody Responses in Early Life: Baby Steps towards Developing an Effective Influenza Vaccine

The immune system of young infants is both quantitatively and qualitatively distinct from that of adults, with diminished responsiveness leaving these individuals vulnerable to infection. Because of t...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

A lot of politicians try to ape Mamdani by doing ticktock dances but this is the real innovation

Richard M. Nixon@dicknixon.bsky.social · 4d ago

I have just been told that Mamdani's social media is monitored for quality of life requests. A pothole was filled the day it was posted. They also responded to a request for park water fountains in the heat.

Shows to go that our understanding of reality is only ever a hypothesis based on past experiences. That’s a lesson we seem to learn over and over, and yet never quite fully grasp.

All of this. And I love how Traitors shows how easy it is for most humans to lie and how profoundly bad other humans are at detecting the lying. It’s fascinating.

The sympathetic nervous system and the physiologic consequences of spaceflight: a hypothesis (1994) pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8042655/ (Full text: sci-hub.st/10.1097/0000...) Interesting review all round but the most interesting bit to me was this table 👇 The authors write:...

Traitors is (IMO) a great TV show but even if you don't like that kinda thing i think it demonstrates something important about how people think and form beliefs. 🧵

Fun (shitty) fact: in Hirschsprung's disease, nerves that help us poop are missing causing constipation. This is usually diagnosed as a baby but 1 man didnt get treatment until age 22, resulting in 13 kg of poo being removed nhs.uk/conditions/h... Image: hindustantimes.com/world-news/c...

Today's fun fact: anthropodermic bibliopegy is the binding of books in human skin. There's still some lurking around, such as in a museum in Bristol, and in Harvard's collections blogs.harvard.edu/houghton/bou... www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol...

Fun fact: in simulation studies, it seems rattlesnakes may change the frequency of their rattle when a perceived threat approaches, giving the illusion it is closer than we think cell.com/current-biol... Easy read: the-scientist.com/news-opinion...

Frequency modulation of rattlesnake acoustic display affects acoustic distance perception in humans

Forsthofer et al. demonstrate that the rattling of rattlesnakes is used to convey information about the distance of an approaching subject to the snake and suggest that changes in rattling frequency f...

cell.com

Fun fact: some edible plants contain sharp needles made of calcium oxalate ("raphides"). In combo with other bioactive molecules, raphides might contribute to the burning mouth sensation many report when eating pineapple ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles... Easy read: mcgill.ca/oss/article/...

Synergistic Defensive Function of Raphides and Protease through the Needle Effect

Raphides, needle-shaped calcium oxalate crystals in tissues of many plants, have been thought to play defensive roles against herbivores without detailed bioassays for their defensive roles and modes ...

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Fun fact: most parrotfish species usually grow up to be female with a male in charge. When the male dies, usually the largest female transitions to a male, opposite to clownfish (who transition from male to female) theses.hal.science/tel-02994614...

PSA to certain researchers and doctors: Just because exercise can help a disease does not mean the disease is *caused by* deconditioning I know you know this because many diseases can be improved by exercise (e.g. MS, cancer) & no one claims these are from deconditioning

Harriet Carroll: Long Covid Scientific Consultancy@angryhacademic.bsky.social · 3d ago

It's VERY clear in the paper that the researchers do not think POTS is serious. They overemphasise the gender bias and have lines like this: "we speculated that POTS per se may be a consequence or signature of deconditioning, namely, cardiac atrophy and hypovolemia."

Reliability and validity of the mean flow index (Mx) for assessing cerebral autoregulation in humans: A systematic review of the methodology pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC... "The optimal method for deriving Mx is currently unknown."

Reliability and validity of the mean flow index (Mx) for assessing cerebral autoregulation in humans: A systematic review of the methodology

Cerebral autoregulation is a complex mechanism that serves to keep cerebral blood flow relatively constant within a wide range of cerebral perfusion pressures. The mean flow index (Mx) is one of sever...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Cardiac origins of the postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20579544/ "It seems reasonable to offer POTS a new name..., the “Grinch syndrome,” because in this famous children’s book by Dr. Seuss, the main character had a heart that was “two sizes too small.”"

Parks And Recreation: Excuse Me?

ALT: Parks And Recreation: Excuse Me?

static.klipy.com

'Only One Conclusion': Radical Study Suggests Life on Earth Arose Twice www.sciencealert.com/radical-stud...

Near full eclipse on Wednesday! www.rmg.co.uk/stories/spac... Due around 6pm in London

Fun fact: there are lots of cases of animals getting high. Here is a video of a jaguar enjoying yage, a known hallucinogen in humans www.iflscience.com/jaguar-taste...

Fun fact: featherless chickens exist! Not-so-fun-fact: such a trait is being experimentally bred into factory farm chickens to see if it can improve efficiency (e.g. less temperature control required for maximum growth) newscientist.com/article/dn23... bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Fun fact: what have rattlesnakes and toadfish got in common? They have some of the fastest vertebrate muscles...~200 hz for the toadfish swimbladder, ~90 hz for the tail shaker muscles in rattlesnakes ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles... academic.oup.com/icb/article/... bsky.app/profile/angr...

The whistle and the rattle: the design of sound producing muscles

Vertebrate sound producing muscles often operate at frequencies exceeding 100 Hz, making them the fastest vertebrate muscles. Like other vertebrate muscle, these sonic muscles are "synchronous," neces...

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Fun fact: cacti & other plants (eg. 🍍) have a unique metabolism to reduce water loss—Crassulacean acid metabolism—whereby gaseous exchange *and* CO2 storage occurs at night,& photosynthesis occurs in the day ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles... cell.com/current-biol... en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crassul...

New perspectives on crassulacean acid metabolism biology

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov