How Did Lysol ‘Know’ About the Coronavirus Before it Happened?
Hundreds of Americans evacuated from China as coronavirus infections increase+ MORE secret videos
The coronavirus that’s been making headlines was not known to science before late 2019. And yet, people are posting photos of old bottles of Lysol and Clorox wipes that claim their contents can kill coronavirus. What gives?
This isn’t evidence of a conspiracy. It’s just confusion about a name. This coronavirus is new, but there have been plenty of coronaviruses before it, both human and animal. For example, here is a paper from 1970 describing three different strains of human coronavirus. Heck, the photo we ran with yesterday’s coronavirus article was taken in 2008.
You have heard of coronaviruses before, even if you don’t recognize the name. SARS, the respiratory virus that caused an international outbreak in 2003, was a coronavirus. MERS, another respiratory virus first identified in 2012, is a coronavirus too.
You may have also had a coronavirus. Of common colds, about a third are caused by rhinoviruses. Other culprits include respiratory syncytial virus, adenovirus, and … yep. Coronaviruses. “Most people get infected with these viruses at some point in their lives,” the CDC says on their coronavirus page, and they list four of the strains known to cause colds.
Lysol tested its product against viruses “similar to” 2019-nCoV, their website says. Factcheck.org states that it was tested specifically against the 229E strain, one of the ones that cause the common cold.
Article via LifeHacker
Scientists discovered a weed compound that may be 30 times more powerful than THC
A newly discovered cannabis compound has been shown in the lab to potentially be 30 times more potent than THC, the most studied psychoactive compound in marijuana. Whether the new cannabinoid, named tetrahydrocannabiphorol, or THCP, will deliver 30 times the high of THC — or any high at all — is unclear.
Italian scientists also discovered a second previously unknown compound they named CBDP. It appears to be a cousin of CBD, the medicinal compound known for its anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and anticonvulsant activity.
The discoveries were recently published in the journal Nature, Scientific Reports.
Discovering the compounds
The compounds were isolated and identified from the Italian medical cannabis variety known as FM2 using mass spectrometry and metabolomics, processes used to find the basic chemicals of a sample or molecule. The authors assessed the ability of THCP to bind to human cannabinoid receptors found in the endocannabinoid systemby sending the compound to a lab to be tested in a tube.
The endocannabinoid system’s job is to keep our body in homeostasis, or equilibrium, and it regulates everything from sleep to appetite to inflammation to pain and more. When a person smokes marijuana, THC overwhelms the endocannabinoid system, latching on to cannabinoid receptors and interfering with their ability to communicate between neurons.
THCP bound strongly to both receptors — 33 times more than THC does, and 63 times more than another compound called THCV. The finding led the authors to wonder if THCP might explain why some particularly potent cannabis varieties have a stronger effect than can be explained by the presence of THC alone.
“This means that these compounds have higher affinity for the receptors in the human body,” said Dr. Cinzia Citti, lead author of the research and post-doctoral fellow in life sciences at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy. “In cannabis varieties where THC is present in very low concentrations, then we can think that the presence of another, more active cannabinoid can explain those effects.”
The role of alkyl side chains
The alkyl side chain is the driving force behind a cannabinoid’s effects on humans. For most of the nearly 150 cannabis compounds, including THC, the chain is only five atoms long, the authors said. However, THCP has a seven-atom chain, meaning that in its natural form it has surpassed the potency of THC.
A cannabinoid with more than five atoms has never been previously reported as naturally occurring, according to the authors. Additionally, most of them have neither been isolated nor characterized because of how challenging it is. “The challenge is that it can take a long time to isolate, especially with rare sources,” said Dr. Jane Ishmael, associate professor in Oregon State University’s College of Pharmacy. “I get the impression that these products were present in small amounts, so it’s a surprise to find the natural products from a cannabis plant that we’ve known about for a long time.”
Potential effects in humans
CBD has mostly been the focus of studies on the health benefits of cannabis, but because THCP appears to show stronger binding abilities and potency, the authors think there is potential for health benefits. The findings could enable the production of cannabis extracts for targeted physical effects; more testing with the study’s methods could further the discovery and identification of new compounds, the authors said.
“There are other minor cannabinoids and traces in the plant that can be hard to study, but by isolation we can continue to assess the effects they might offer,” Ishmael said. “Historically, many of our medicines have been derived by or inspired by natural products. By having new compounds that bind with very high affinity, that will give scientists a new probe into biological sciences.”
Article via CNN
Wendy Williams is sick of being harassed over her lymphedema
While unwinding during her “Wendy Show” after-show chat with fans, Wendy Williams, 55, decided to call out people who ask negative questions about her looks — rather than opening up to the television personality via more meaningful inquiries.
“Stop asking me about the cankles, I have lymphedema,” she said on her Instagram story Friday afternoon. “Stop asking me why I wear sneakers, I have lymphedema. Stop asking me why my eyes bulge, I’ve got Graves’ disease. Stop asking me, like, dumb mess! Can we connect on a more cerebral level?”
The former radio host added that she would be more than happy to connect with viewers who ask for advice on careers or relationships.
“That’s what the after show is all about,” she went on. “It’s us, just talking, communicating, having fun, being silly but also informative.”
In July 2019, Williams shared that she was diagnosed with lymphedema, which causes swelling in the arms and legs. Soon after, she purchased an at-home machine to help mitigate symptoms.
Article via PageSix
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Lungs ‘magically’ heal damage from smoking
Your lungs have an almost “magical” ability to repair some of the damage caused by smoking – but only if you stop, say scientists.
The mutations that lead to lung cancer had been considered to be permanent, and to persist even after quitting.
But the surprise findings, published in Nature, show the few cells that escape damage can repair the lungs.
The effect has been seen even in patients who had smoked a pack a day for 40 years before giving up.
The thousands of chemicals in tobacco smoke corrupt and mutate the DNA in your lung cells – slowly transforming them from healthy to cancerous.
The study uncovered that happening on a massive scale in a smoker’s lungs even before they had cancer.
The overwhelming majority of cells taken from a smoker’s airways had been mutated by tobacco, with cells containing up to 10,000 genetic alterations.
“These can be thought of as mini time bombs, waiting for the next hit that causes them to progress to cancer,” said Dr Kate Gowers, one of the researchers at UCL.
But a small proportion of cells went unscathed.
Exactly how they avoid the genetic devastation caused by smoking is unclear, but the researchers said they appeared to “exist in a nuclear bunker”.
However, after someone quits smoking, it is these cells that grow and replace the damaged cells in the lungs.
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In people who quit, up to 40% of their cells looked just like those from people who had never smoked.
“We were totally unprepared for the finding,” Dr Peter Campbell, from the Sanger Institute, told BBC News.
He added: “There is a population of cells that, kind of, magically replenish the lining of the airways.
“One of the remarkable things was patients who had quit, even after 40 years of smoking, had regeneration of cells that were totally unscathed by the exposure to tobacco.”
Motivation to quit
The researchers still need to assess how much of the lungs are repaired. The study focused on the major airways rather than the small structures called alveoli, where oxygen crosses from the air we breathe into our lungs.
There are about 47,000 cases of lung cancer in the UK each year. Nearly three-quarters of them are caused by smoking.
Studies have already shown that people cut their risk of lung cancer almost from the day they quit.
The assumption had been that this was simply because any further mutations caused by smoking were avoided.
Dr Rachel Orritt, from Cancer Research UK, said: “It’s a really motivating idea that people who stop smoking might reap the benefits twice over – by preventing more tobacco-related damage to lung cells, and by giving their lungs the chance to balance out some of the existing damage with healthier cells.”
Article via BBC
Americans quarantined after evacuation flight
195 Americans are under quarantine as blood samples and throat cultures get tested by the CDC after the group was evacuated to California from the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in China. 6,000 passengers stuck on cruise ship over coronavirus fears READ MORE: https://abcn.ws/392BsP1
Bat Soup Girl Mukbanger~Accused of spreading Coronavirus As The Number Of Infections Rise #Breakdown
Whole Foods looks like a ghost town after supplier shutters
Whole Foods? More like, um, only some of the food. Thank you, thank you, and for the love of God, please keep reading. Shoppers have reported that the Amazon-owned grocery giant has been woefully understocked of late, leaving huge gaps in the inventory at stores in D.C., New York, Richmond, and more. Check out the photos on Business Insider—it’s so out of stock you’d think there’s a pre-hurricane panic.
Business Insider visited a store in Richmond, Virginia and found empty shelves where all kinds of groceries should’ve been: prepared foods, dairy, produce, juices, and soup broths. I had a similar experience in Los Angeles in early January, where my nearby Whole Foods 365 was weirdly understocked; I was frustrated to find totally empty shelves in the coffee aisle. (But since I’m a Midwestern woman I just found some way to blame the inconvenience on myself.) Whole Foods says that its supplier of beans, grains, lentils, and rice has suddenly shuttered, and it might take the store months to find a new supplier. And due to unusual weather, its lettuce supply from California has been temporarily affected, too. But those two explanations don’t account for the many other understocked departments encountered by reporters and social media users alike.
Some Twitter users have pointed out that such shortages were never an issue until Amazon bought Whole Foods, aiming their frustrations at Jeff Bezos. And while I can’t confirm whether that allegation is entirely accurate, I’m very comfortable with blaming multi-bajillionaires whenever there’s a dearth of canned beans.
Article via The Takeout
Cobbler’s thumb cut off during shoe accident, replaced by his big toe
Doctors can do amazing things these days.
After losing his thumb in a horrific shoe repair accident, David Lee thought he was going to lose his job. Fortunately, doctors were able to find a replacement… on his foot.
It was his big toe.
Now, after a long recovery, Lee is cobbling like nothing happened.
Lee, a professional cobbler, was trimming the heel of a shoe last January when his hand got snagged in the machine, SWNS reports. The accident reportedly resulted in Lee’s thumb getting severed from his hand.
“I shouted for someone to ring an ambulance, but I couldn’t see how bad it was. I saw my thumb drop on the floor,” he told SWNS. “I had no pain though. I didn’t look initially as I compressed it with my jumper. I calmly turned the machines in the shop off. Straight away, I knew how bad it was and I just worried that I wouldn’t be able to fix shoes again.”
Lee admits that he “cried my eyes out when I thought about it, as I thought I was going to lose my shop. I was more concerned about that than my thumb because this is my passion.”
Amazingly, Lee says that because it happened so fast, he felt “no pain at all” and was able to turn his machines off. He then “went outside for a cigarette while I waited for the ambulance.”
After being taken to a nearby hospital, he was transferred to the Pulvertaft Hand Centre, at Royal Derby Hospital, where doctors suggested using his big toe to replace the thumb. Lee agreed, saying his main concern was his business.
When asked about his new appendage, he said, “It feels heavy having a toe where the thumb should be.”
Now, after recovering from the injury, Lee is back to cobbling and he’s even able to use his toe-thumb to paint shoes, which he says is a hobby of his.
Article via FOXNews
Jessica Simpson goes public with addiction to alcohol and pills: ‘I was killing myself’
Jessica Simpson is sharing long-held secrets in her upcoming memoir, Open Book.
People magazine has the first look at the book, which is chock-full of revelations, including that the singer and actress turned fashion mogul was sexually abused as a child. It also revealed her quiet struggle with addiction — and how she got sober in 2017.
The sexual abuse started when she was 6, when the Simpsons would visit the home of family friends and Jessica would share a bed with their daughter.
“It would start with tickling my back and then go into things that were extremely uncomfortable,” the 39-year-old recalled.
Simpson kept silent about the abuse — and blamed herself, explaining, “I wanted to tell my parents. I was the victim but somehow I felt in the wrong.”
When she was 12 she finally shared her secret with her parents, Tina and Joe Simpson, while on a family road trip. She said her mother reacted by yelling at her dad and slapping him, saying, “‘I told you something was happening.’”
Simpson’s dad, a Baptist minister, who later went on to manage her career, didn’t take his eyes off the road “and said nothing,” she wrote. “We never stayed at my parents’ friends house again but we also didn’t talk about what I had said.”
The star said that the pain from the sexual abuse — coupled with stress of her career and anxiety — led to her self-medicating with alcohol and pills during her time in the spotlight. She got help for her addiction in late 2017 and has been sober since.
“I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills,” wrote Simpson, who was told by her doctor that her dependency was putting her life in danger.
She said her rock bottom was at the annual Halloween party she and husband Eric Johnson hosted in 2017. (Around that time, there were tabloid stories about her drinking “spiraling out of control,” made worse by the anti-anxiety medicine she was taking.) Whatever happened that night led to her telling her closest friends, “I need to stop. Something’s got to stop. And if it’s the alcohol that’s doing this, and making things worse, then I quit.” She said her friends responded by embracing her in a group hug — and supporting her as she got sober.
Getting control of her addiction involved a team of doctors, therapy twice a week and the support of her family, she revealed.
“Giving up the alcohol was easy,” Simpson wrote. “I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb.”
What was harder was therapy, she admitted. However, “With work, I allowed myself to feel the traumas I’d been through.”
Reflecting on that time, she wrote, “When I finally said I needed help, it was like I was that little girl that found her calling again in life. I found direction and that was to walk straight ahead with no fear.”
She added, “Honesty is hard but it’s the most rewarding thing we have. And getting to the other side of fear is beautiful.”
Simpson — who welcomed her third child, 10-month-old Birdie, after getting sober — calls her new life “a continual gift.”
Open Book goes on sale Feb. 4 and will also detail her rise to stardom and her relationships, including with first husband Nick Lachey. She also recorded the audiobook, which will include new songs she says are inspired by her memoir.
Article via Yahoo
Los Angeles teachers sue Delta after jet fuel dump over schools, playgrounds
“Students began screaming and crying because their eyes and skin were burning. Fear, dread, panic, and helplessness ensued,” according to a teacher.
Four Los Angeles teachers sued Delta Airlines less than a week after a China-bound plane dumped fuel over playgrounds and schools, citing emotional anguish and distress and accusing the pilot of failing to follow protocol.
The teachers, who have not been identified, say the airline was negligent by allowing the plane to depart in the first place.
In their suit, the teachers from Park Avenue Elementary School in south Los Angeles County, some 17 miles from Los Angeles International Airport, said they could feel fuel on their clothing, skin and eyes. The exposure caused the women to feel dizzy, nauseated and sick, attorney Gloria Allred said. Young students screamed and cried, she said.
“They also suffered severe emotional distress from the knowledge that they had involuntarily ingested toxins,” Allred said in a statement Friday. “Their severe emotional distress includes the reasonable fear that the exposure to and ingestion of jet fuel might produce serious health consequences in the future.”
The teachers are seeking compensatory damages.
Delta Airlines did not respond to a request for comment Friday, but has previously said the fuel dump was “required as part of normal procedure to reach a safe landing weight.”
On Tuesday, Delta Flight 89, which was headed to Shanghai, experienced engine trouble shortly after takeoff. The pilot declared an in-flight emergency and notified air traffic control personnel that the plane needed to return to LAX. The pilot did not inform the control tower that the plane would need to dump fuel to lighten its load, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The teachers’ lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleged that the Delta pilot “was specifically asked” by air traffic control personnel if he needed to dump fuel and the pilot allegedly replied “negative.”
“We’ve got it under control,” the pilot said, according to the lawsuit.
Allred said that if the pilot had properly alerted air traffic personnel on the ground, the flight would have been directed to a safe location and altitude from which it could dump fuel without posing a risk to the general public.
The pilot dropped fuel at around 2,000 feet, hitting several schools in its path.
One of the teachers in the suit said her fifth-grade students initially thought the jet fuel was rain. The children looked up “only to have noxious liquid then overwhelm [their] eyes, mouths, noses, lungs and skin,” the teacher said in a statement.
“I immediately began to rush my students indoors, as the fumes were stifling,” she said. “Students began screaming and crying because their eyes and skin were burning. Fear, dread, panic, and helplessness ensued.”
Article via NBCNews
Central New York child dies of flu, third confirmed death in New York State
One Central New York child has died of the flu, according to the New York State Department of Health.
This is the third confirmed pediatric flu death in New York State. Two other deaths were confirmed in Western New York.
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For more information, visit the New York State Department of Health website.
Article via CNYCCentral