The German company CureVac hopes its RNA vaccine will rival those made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. It could be ready next month. From a report: In early 2020, dozens of scientific teams scrambled to make a vaccine for Covid-19. Some chose tried-and-true techniques, such as making vaccines from killed viruses. But a handful of companies bet on a riskier method, one that had never produced a licensed vaccine: deploying a genetic molecule called RNA. The bet paid off. The first two vaccines to emerge successfully out of clinical trials, made by Pfizer-BioNTech and by Moderna, were both made of RNA. They both turned out to have efficacy rates about as good as a vaccine could get. In the months that followed, those two RNA vaccines have provided protection to tens of millions of people in some 90 countries. But many parts of the world, including those with climbing death tolls, have had little access to them, in part because they require being kept in a deep freeze.

Now a third RNA vaccine may help meet that global need. A small German company called CureVac is on the cusp of announcing the results of its late-stage clinical trial. As early as next week, the world may learn whether its vaccine is safe and effective. CureVac's product belongs to what many scientists refer to as the second wave of Covid-19 vaccines that could collectively ease the world's demand. Novavax, a company based in Maryland whose vaccine uses coronavirus proteins, is expected to apply for U.S. authorization in the next few weeks. In India, the pharmaceutical company Biological E is testing another protein-based vaccine that was developed by researchers in Texas. In Brazil, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam, researchers are starting trials for a Covid-19 shot that can be mass-produced in chicken eggs. Vaccines experts are particularly curious to see CureVac's results, because its shot has an important advantage over the other RNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. While those two vaccines have to be kept in a deep freezer, CureVac's vaccine stays stable in a refrigerator -- meaning it could more easily deliver the newly discovered power of RNA vaccines to hard-hit parts of the world.

President Biden threw his support behind a World Trade Organization proposal earlier this week to waive intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines, clearing a hurdle for vaccine-strapped countries to manufacture their own vaccines even though the patents are privately held. From a report: "This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures," U.S. trade representative Katherine Tai said in a statement. "The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines." The pace of vaccinating against COVID-19 in the U.S. is slowing down. In some places, there are more vaccine doses than people who want them. Meanwhile, India is now the epicenter of the pandemic, and just 2% of its population is fully vaccinated. The WTO is considering a proposal to address that inequity, as India, South Africa and over 100 other nations advocate to waive IP rights for COVID-19 vaccines and medications, which could let manufacturers in other countries make their own.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: There remains "little association" between technology use and mental-health problems, a study of more than 430,000 10 to 15-year-olds suggests. The Oxford Internet Institute compared TV viewing, social-media and device use with feelings of depression, suicidal tendencies and behavioral problems. It found a small drop in association between depression and social-media use and TV viewing, from 1991 to 2019. There was a small rise in that between emotional issues and social-media use. "We couldn't tell the difference between social-media impact and mental health in 2010 and 2019," study co-author Prof Andrew Przybylski. said. "We're not saying that fewer happy people use more social media. We're saying that the connection is not getting stronger." The paper is published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science.

The Apple Watch may gain the ability to measure blood pressure, blood glucose, and blood alcohol levels, according to newly-revealed information about one of Apple's chosen business partners. MacRumors reports: Apple has been revealed to be the largest customer of the British electronics start-up Rockley Photonics, The Telegraph reports. Rockley Photonics has developed non-invasive optical sensors for detecting multiple blood-related health metrics, including blood pressure, blood glucose, and blood alcohol levels, many of which are only normally detectable with more invasive dedicated medical equipment. Rockley's sensors beam infrared light through a user's skin, much like the existing sensors on the back of the Apple Watch for detecting heart rate and blood oxygen levels.

Rockley's disclosure that its biggest client is Apple came about as the company prepares to go public in New York. The company's filings said that Apple accounted for the majority of its revenue over the last two years and that it has an ongoing "supply and development agreement" with the company, under which it expects to continue to heavily rely on Apple for most of its revenue. Given the growth of Rockley Photonics and the scale of Apple's partnership with the company, it seems to be virtually inevitable that the company's health sensor technology will be coming to the Apple Watch sooner rather than later.

Scientific American has published an opinion piece by the principle investigator for a project called SPARK, launched five years ago "to harness the power of big data by engaging hundreds of thousands of individuals with autism and their family members to participate in research."

The article calls autism "a remarkably heterogeneous disorder that affects more than five million Americans and has no FDA-approved treatments," arguing that the more people who participate in their research, "the deeper and richer these data sets become, catalyzing research that is expanding our knowledge of both biology and behavior to develop more precise approaches to medical and behavioral issues." SPARK is the world's largest autism research study to date with over 250,000 participants, more than 100,000 of whom have provided DNA samples through the simple act of spitting in a tube. We have generated genomic data that have been de-identified and made available to qualified researchers. SPARK has itself been able to analyze 19,000 genes to find possible connections to autism; worked with 31 of the nation's leading medical schools and autism research centers; and helped thousands of participating families enroll in nearly 100 additional autism research studies.

Genetic research has taught us that what we commonly call autism is actually a spectrum of hundreds of conditions that vary widely among adults and children. Across this spectrum, individuals share core symptoms and challenges with social interaction, restricted interests and/or repetitive behaviors. We now know that genes play a central role in the causes of these "autisms," which are the result of genetic changes in combination with other causes including prenatal factors. To date, research employing data science and machine learning has identified approximately 150 genes related to autism, but suggests there may be as many as 500 or more...

But in order to get answers faster and be certain of these results, SPARK and our research partners need a huge sample size: "bigger data." To ensure an accurate inventory of all the major genetic contributors, and learn if and how different genetic variants contribute to autistic behaviors, we need not only the largest but also the most diverse group of participants. The genetic, medical and behavioral data SPARK collects from people with autism and their families is rich in detail and can be leveraged by many different investigators. Access to rich data sets draws talented scientists to the field of autism science to develop new methods of finding patterns in the data, better predicting associated behavioral and medical issues, and, perhaps, identifying more effective supports and treatments...

We know that big data, with each person representing their unique profile of someone impacted by autism, will lead to many of the answers we seek.

Artem S. Tashkinov shares a report from Ars Technica: Health regulators in Brazil say that doses of Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine contain a cold-causing virus capable of replicating in human cells. The unintended presence of the virus in the vaccine can "lead to infections in humans and can cause damage and death, especially in people with low immunity and respiratory problems, among other health problems," Brazil's Health Regulatory Agency, Anvisa, said Wednesday in a translated statement. Russia has unequivocally denied the claim, lobbed legal threats at Anvisa, and accused the respected regulators of being politically motivated to reject the vaccine. Still, Brazil's findings raise serious questions about the quality and safety of the vaccine, which is now being used in many countries. The findings also support concerns of Slovak regulators, who said earlier this month that batches of Sputnik V they received did not "have the same characteristics and properties" as the Sputnik V vaccine that was described in a peer-reviewed publication and found to be 91.6 percent effective.

Moreover, quality-control issues weren't the end of Anvisa's concerns. In an overall evaluation of the Russian vaccine, Brazil's regulators found its safety and efficacy were based on insufficient, limited, and sometimes faulty data and analyses. "Flaws... were identified in all stages of clinical studies," Anvisa said. The agency also reported that its inspectors who traveled to Russia to assess the vaccine's production were barred from vaccine facilities at Gamaleya Institute, which developed Sputnik V. Russia touts that "the safety and efficacy of Sputnik V has been confirmed by 61 regulators in countries where the vaccine has been authorized." However, Brazil's regulators said that of the 51 countries it contacted, only 14 were using the vaccine, and most of those countries did not have a tradition of vigilant drug-safety monitoring.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: Since the novel coronavirus began its global spread, influenza cases reported to the World Health Organization have dropped to minuscule levels. The reason, epidemiologists think, is that the public health measures taken to keep the coronavirus from spreading also stop the flu. Influenza viruses are transmitted in much the same way as SARS-CoV-2, but they are less effective at jumping from host to host. As Scientific American reported last fall, the drop-off in flu numbers was both swift and universal. Since then, cases have stayed remarkably low. "There's just no flu circulating," says Greg Poland, who has studied the disease at the Mayo Clinic for decades. The U.S. saw about 600 deaths from influenza during the 2020-2021 flu season. In comparison, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated there were roughly 22,000 deaths in the prior season and 34,000 two seasons ago.

Because each year's flu vaccine is based on strains that have been circulating during the past year, it is unclear how next year's vaccine will fare, should the typical patterns of the disease return. [...] Public health experts are grateful for the reprieve. Some are also worried about a lost immune response, however. If influenza subsides for several years, today's toddlers could miss a chance to have an early-age response imprinted on their immune system. That could be good or bad, depending on what strains circulate during the rest of their life. For now, future flu transmission remains a roll of the dice.

Americans who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can safely do many outdoor activities without wearing a mask, according to updated guidance Tuesday from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, health officials said vaccinated people should continue to wear a mask indoors and at crowded outdoor events, such as concerts, parades and sports events. From a report: "There are many situations where fully vaccinated people do not need to wear a mask, particularly if they are outdoors," said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky during a press briefing. "If you are fully vaccinated and want to attend a small outdoor gathering with people who are vaccinated and unvaccinated or dine at an outdoor restaurant with friends form multiple households, the science shows -- if you're vaccinated -- you can do so safely unmasked."

The CDC released a graphic to help people make decisions about when to wear a mask both outdoors and indoors. For fully vaccinated people, the CDC says these outdoor activities are safe without a mask: Walk, run or bike outdoors with members of your household. Attend a small, outdoor gathering with fully vaccinated family and friends. Attend a small, outdoor gathering with fully vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Dine at an outdoor restaurant with friends from multiple households.

HealthDay reports: There's no evidence of genetic damage in the children of parents who were exposed to radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster in Ukraine, researchers say.

Several previous studies have examined the risks across generations of radiation exposure from events such as this, but have yielded inconclusive results. In this study, the investigators analyzed the genomes of 130 children and parents from families where one or both parents were exposed to radiation due to the Chernobyl accident, and where children were conceived afterward and born between 1987 and 2002.

There was no increase in gene changes in reproductive cells of study participants, and rates of new germline mutations were similar to those in the general population, according to a team led by Meredith Yeager of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, in Rockville, Md.

An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a Science Magazine blog, written by Derek Lowe: Excellent news today: we have word of the most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered. A year-long trial in Burkina Faso has shown 77% efficacy, which is by far the record, and which opens the way to potentially relieving a nearly incalculable burden of disease and human suffering.

This new vaccine (R21) uses a circumsporozoite protein (CSP) antigen -- that's a highly conserved protein of the parasite, involved in several functions as the parasite makes the move from mosquito to human and into different human tissues such as the salivary glands. This has been a vaccine ingredient before, such as in the RTS,S vaccine (the first one ever licensed), but R21 has a much higher proportion of CSP assembled into a virus-like particle. It also uses the exact same adjuvant from Novavax (Matrix-M) that they are using in their coronavirus vaccine -- you can't keep a good adjuvant down, and this Chilean-soapbark-based one seems to really kick the immune system up under all circumstances.

The higher-adjuvant cohort showed 77% vaccine efficacy, and the lower-adjuvant one showed 74% with (as you'd expect) overlapping confidence intervals. The first group had significantly higher antibody levels, though, and they're currently doing an additional year of follow-up to see how long the protection lasts and if these doses differentiate themselves. The antibody levels at the one-year mark in both groups were significantly higher than with the RTS,S vaccine, and in particular, antibodies against the repeat section in the middle of the circumsporozite protein seemed to correlate strongly with protection. No safety problems so far. The team is now planning a larger Phase III at five different African site, with varying seasonality and malaria loads.

India reported a global record of more than 314,000 new infections Thursday as a grim coronavirus surge hits the world's second-most populous country, sending more and more sick people into a fragile health care system critically short of hospital beds and oxygen. From a report: The 314,835 infections added in the past 24 hours raise India's total past 15.9 million cases since the pandemic began. It's the second-highest total in the world next to the United States. India has nearly 1.4 billion people. A large number of hospitals are reporting acute shortages of beds and medicine and are running on dangerously low levels of oxygen. The New Delhi High Court on Wednesday ordered the government to divert oxygen from industrial use to hospitals to save people's lives.

"You can't have people die because there is no oxygen. Beg, borrow or steal, it is a national emergency," the judges said responding to a petition by a New Delhi hospital seeking its intervention. The government is rushing oxygen tankers to replenish supplies to hospitals. India's Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Thursday that "demand and supply is being monitored round the clock." He said in a tweet that to address the exponential spike in demand, the government has increased the quota of oxygen for the worst-hit seven states. The surge has brought pain, fear and agony to many lives in New Delhi and other cities. In scenes familiar across the country, ambulances are seen rushing from one hospital to another, trying to find an empty bed. Grieving relatives are lining up outside crematoriums where the arrival of dead bodies has jumped several times.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The European Union unveiled strict regulations on Wednesday to govern the use of artificial intelligence, a first-of-its-kind policy that outlines how companies and governments can use a technology seen as one of the most significant, but ethically fraught, scientific breakthroughs in recent memory. The draft rules would set limits around the use of artificial intelligence in a range of activities, from self-driving cars to hiring decisions, bank lending, school enrollment selections and the scoring of exams. It would also cover the use of artificial intelligence by law enforcement and court systems -- areas considered "high risk" because they could threaten people's safety or fundamental rights.

Some uses would be banned altogether, including live facial recognition in public spaces, though there would be several exemptions for national security and other purposes. The108-page policy is an attempt to regulate an emerging technology before it becomes mainstream. The rules have far-reaching implications for major technology companies that have poured resources into developing artificial intelligence, including Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft, but also scores of other companies that use the software to develop medicine, underwrite insurance policies and judge credit worthiness. Governments have used versions of the technology in criminal justice and the allocation of public services like income support. Companies that violate the new regulations, which could take several years to move through the European Union policymaking process, could face fines of up to 6 percent of global sales.

The European Union regulations would require companies providing artificial intelligence in high-risk areas to provide regulators with proof of its safety, including risk assessments and documentation explaining how the technology is making decisions. The companies must also guarantee human oversight in how the systems are created and used. Some applications, like chatbots that provide humanlike conversation in customer service situations, and software that creates hard-to-detect manipulated images like "deepfakes," would have to make clear to users that what they were seeing was computer generated. [...] Release of the draft law by the European Commission, the bloc's executive body, drew a mixed reaction. Many industry groups expressed relief that the regulations were not more stringent, while civil society groups said they should have gone further.

Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill on Friday requiring all Internet service providers in New York to offer affordable high-speed access for low-income families. From a report: The providers can charge those families no more than $15 a month, Cuomo said during a briefing Friday at the Northland Workforce Training Center in Buffalo. He was joined by Eric Schmidt, former chief executive officer of Alphabet, who chairs a 15-member state commission focusing on using technology to help the state reopen better than it was before the virus. Cuomo also said an emergency fund from Schmidt Futures and the Ford Foundation will provide free Internet access to 50,000 students statewide through the 2021-22 school year.

The bill passed by the state legislature caps a basic broadband plan at $15 a month and a higher-speed one at $20. Currently, a basic high-speed plan costs on average more than $50 a month, according to a statement from Assembly member Amy Paulin. Schmidt, who praised the embattled governor for his "extraordinary" leadership during the pandemic, said universal broadband access is the first and most important priority of the commission. Members were concerned about the "hundreds of thousands of people who apparently had no Internet access at all," Schmidt said, an impediment to learning and tele-medicine.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said people will "likely" need a booster dose of a Covid-19 vaccine within 12 months of getting fully vaccinated. His comments were made public Thursday but were taped April 1. From a report: Bourla said it's possible people will need to get vaccinated against the coronavirus annually. "A likely scenario is that there will be likely a need for a third dose, somewhere between six and 12 months and then from there, there will be an annual revaccination, but all of that needs to be confirmed. And again, the variants will play a key role," he told CNBC's Bertha Coombs during an event with CVS Health. "It is extremely important to suppress the pool of people that can be susceptible to the virus," Bourla said. The comment comes after Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky told CNBC in February that people may need to get vaccinated against Covid-19 annually, just like seasonal flu shots. Researchers still don't know how long protection against the virus lasts once someone has been fully vaccinated.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Cases of COVID-19 are extremely rare among people who are fully vaccinated, according to a new data analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among more than 75 million fully vaccinated people in the US, just around 5,800 people reported a "breakthrough" infection, in which they became infected with the pandemic coronavirus despite being fully vaccinated. The numbers suggest that breakthroughs occur at the teeny rate of less than 0.008 percent of fully vaccinated people -- and that over 99.992 percent of those vaccinated have not contracted a SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The figures come from a nationwide database that the CDC set up to keep track of breakthrough infections and monitor for any concerning signs that the breakthroughs may be clustering by patient demographics, geographic location, time since vaccination, vaccine type, or vaccine lot number. The agency will also be keeping a close eye on any breakthrough infections that are caused by SARS-CoV-2 variants, some of which have been shown to knock back vaccine efficacy. [...] The extraordinary calculation that 99.992 percent of vaccinated people have not contracted the virus may reflect that they all simply have not been exposed to the virus since being vaccinated. Also, there are likely cases missed in reporting. Still, the data is a heartening sign. As for the "breakthroughs," the agency says many of them occurred in older people, who are more vulnerable to COVID-19. There are some scattered through every age group, but more than 40 percent were in people ages 60 and above.

"We see [breakthroughs] with all vaccines," top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said in a press briefing earlier this week. "No vaccine is 100 percent efficacious or effective, which means that you will always see breakthrough infections regardless of the efficacy of your vaccine."

Researchers at the University of Washington have partnered with Apple to study how Apple Watch may be used to predict illnesses such as coronavirus, or flu. Apple Insider reports: "The goal of the study is to see if the information collected by the Apple Watch and iPhone can detect early signs of respiratory illnesses like COVID-19," say the organizers on the recruitment page. The study is focusing on the Seattle area because residents "may have higher than normal risk of respiratory illness because of frequent exposure to other people through work or other activities, health conditions, or other factors."

This Apple Respiratory Study is expected to take "up to six months." During the study, participants will be required to periodically answer survey questions in the Apple Research iPhone app. If participants get sick while enrolled in the study, they will be sent an in-home testing kit for COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses. But, this will likely assist the study further, as sick participants will be asked to "take some additional health measurements using your Apple Watch."

If your heart stops en route to Mars, rest assured that researchers have considered how to carry out CPR in space. (One option is to plant your feet on the ceiling and extend your arms downwards to compress the patient's chest.) From a report: Astronauts, because of their age range and high physical fitness, are unlikely to suffer a stroke or have their appendix suddenly explode. That's good because, if it does happen, they're in the realm of what Jonathan Scott -- head of the medical projects and technology team at the European Space Agency -- describes as 'treatment futility.' In other words: there's nothing anyone can do about it. On the ISS, when medical incidents arise, astronauts can draw on the combined expertise of a host of medical experts at Nasa. "The patient is on the space station, the doctor is on the ground, and if there's a problem the patient consults the doctor," says Scott. By the time astronauts reach Mars, there'll be a 40-minute time lag in communications, if it's possible to make contact at all. "We have to begin preparing for not only being able to diagnose things in spaceflight but also to treat them as well," Scott says.

Artificial intelligence is likely to be a part of the solution. If you're imagining the holographic doctor from Star Trek, downgrade your expectations, at least for the next few decades. Kris Lehnhardt, the element scientist for exploration medical capability at Nasa, says: "We are many, many, many years away from: please state the nature of the medical emergency." Emmanuel Urquieta is deputy chief scientist at the Translational Institute for Space Health (TRISH), a Nasa-funded program which conducts research into healthcare for deep space missions. While full AI may be a way off, Urquieta believes some form of artificial intelligence will still play a crucial role. "It's going to be essential for a mission to Mars," he says. While the crew for a mission to Mars will likely include a medical doctor, he explains: "No single physician can know everything." And, of course: "What happens if that astronaut gets sick?" Research projects funded by TRISH include Butterfly iQ, a handheld ultrasound device for use by non-medical personnel to make diagnoses that would otherwise require bulky equipment and a trained operator. VisualDx is an AI diagnostics tool originally developed to analyse images and identify skin conditions. The technology is now being adapted to help astronauts diagnose a wide range of conditions most commonly encountered in space, without an internet connection.

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: The New York Times tells the story of Hungarian-born Dr. Kariko, whose father was a butcher and who growing up had never met a scientist — but knew they wanted to be one. Despite earning a Ph.D. at Hungary's University of Szeged and working as a postdoctoral fellow at its Biological Research Center, Kariko never found a permanent position after moving to the U.S., "instead clinging to the fringes of academia."

Now 66 years old, Dr. Kariko is suddenly being hailed as "one of the heroes of Covid-19 vaccine development," after spending an entire career focused on mRNA, "convinced mRNA could be used to instruct cells to make their own medicines, including vaccines."
From the article: For many years her career at the University of Pennsylvania was fragile. She migrated from lab to lab, relying on one senior scientist after another to take her in. She never made more than $60,000 a year... She needed grants to pursue ideas that seemed wild and fanciful. She did not get them, even as more mundane research was rewarded. "When your idea is against the conventional wisdom that makes sense to the star chamber, it is very hard to break out," said Dr. David Langer, a neurosurgeon who has worked with Dr. Kariko... Kariko's husband, Bela Francia, manager of an apartment complex, once calculated that her endless workdays meant she was earning about a dollar an hour.
The Times also describes a formative experience in 1989 with cardiologist Elliot Barnathan: One fateful day, the two scientists hovered over a dot-matrix printer in a narrow room at the end of a long hall. A gamma counter, needed to track the radioactive molecule, was attached to a printer. It began to spew data.

Their detector had found new proteins produced by cells that were never supposed to make them — suggesting that mRNA could be used to direct any cell to make any protein, at will.

"I felt like a god," Dr. Kariko recalled.
Yet Kariko was eventually left without a lab or funds for research, until a chance meeting at a photocopying machine led to a partnership with Dr. Drew Weissman of the University of Pennsylvania: "We both started writing grants," Dr. Weissman said. "We didn't get most of them. People were not interested in mRNA. The people who reviewed the grants said mRNA will not be a good therapeutic, so don't bother.'" Leading scientific journals rejected their work. When the research finally was published, in Immunity, it got little attention... "We talked to pharmaceutical companies and venture capitalists. No one cared," Dr. Weissman said. "We were screaming a lot, but no one would listen."

Eventually, though, two biotech companies took notice of the work: Moderna, in the United States, and BioNTech, in Germany. Pfizer partnered with BioNTech, and the two now help fund Dr. Weissman's lab.

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: Experiments that create tiny brainlike structures from human stem cells or transplant human cells into an animal's brain have made some scientists, ethicists, and religious leaders uneasy in recent years. And the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has restricted some of this research. Now, a U.S. scientific panel has weighed in with advice about how to oversee this controversial and fast-moving area of neuroscience. The panel finds little evidence that brain "organoids" or animals given human cells experience humanlike consciousness or pain, and concludes current rules are adequate for overseeing this work. But they caution that could change, particularly as experiments move into nonhuman primates. "The rationale for the report is to get out ahead of the curve," says Harvard University neuroscientist Joshua Sanes, co-chair of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee that released its report today.

Researchers at the Queen Mary University of London have shown that you can collect "environmental DNA" (eDNA) from the air. Engadget reports: The team used a peristaltic pump combined with pressure filters to grab samples of naked mole rat DNA for five to 20 minutes, and then used standard kits to find and sequence genes in the resulting samples. This method not only pinpointed the mole rats' DNA (both in their housing and in the room at large), but caught some human DNA at the same time.

Lead author Dr. Elizabeth Claire said the work was originally meant to help conservationists and ecologists study biological environments. With enough development, though, it could be used for considerably more. Forensics units could pluck DNA from the air to determine if a suspect had been present at the scene of a crime. It might also be useful in medicine -- virologists and epidemiologists could understand how airborne viruses (like the one behind COVID-19) spread.