It is highly likely that children can transmit the new coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, but several factors suggest that children are unlikely to be the main drivers of the pandemic. Opening up schools and kindergartens is unlikely to impact COVID-19 mortality rates in older people, according to a systematic review that spanned 47 publications and was conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. The paper is published in the scientific journal Acta Paediatrica.

Globally to date, there are around five million confirmed cases of COVID-19, and more than 300,000 deaths from the disease. Many countries have implemented lockdowns to stop the spread of the disease, and closed kindergartens and schools. Opening up schools and kindergartens raises questions about the role of children in COVID-19 transmission. Now, a paper published in Acta Paediatrica summarises the findings of a systematic literature review on the current knowledge of COVID-19 transmission in children.

The ongoing situation and school closures as result of Covid-19 have a number of different implications for the education sector. Dr Emily Mann and Dr Jackie Shinwell of Northumbria University’s Healthy Living Lab explored the impact of the coronavirus crisis in terms of learning loss in this blog for Schools North East.

Since the World Health Organisation declared the Covid-19 outbreak as a global pandemic on 11 March 2020, the UK government announced school closures for all children, with the exception of vulnerable children and children of key workers, from 20 March 2020 and introduced social distancing measures on 23 March 2020, to reduce the spread of the virus. Most children have now been at home for seven weeks, approximately the same length of time of the school summer holidays. The UK government has recently announced that schools may extend their opening to nursery, reception, Year 1 and Year 6 pupils in England from June 1st..

We acknowledge that the safeguarding of children and the health of children, teachers and all school staff are paramount, however we will not debate the public health considerations regarding the proposed reopening of schools. Instead, we will reflect on the impact of school closures, particularly for disadvantaged children, and, drawing on our research on holiday provision and summer learning loss, will consider the potential implications for research informed short-, mid- and long-term strategies to address this issue.

Hundreds of new links have been found between people’s DNA and the heart’s electrical activity, according to a study of almost 300,000 people led by researchers at Queen Mary University of London and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

The results could one day lead to advanced screening methods to discern who is at greatest risk of developing disease, and could help reveal new genetic targets for research and drug development. Over the past 10 years, researchers have identified many genetic factors that contribute to—or protect against—the onset of specific heart diseases. However, it has been difficult to find genetic factors associated with arrhythmias - one of the most common forms of heart disease where the heart beats abnormally.

The team of scientists from more than 140 institutions looked at data from 293,051 people across the world, studying their individual genomes and their measurements on an electrocardiogram - one of the oldest and most widely used heart diagnostic tests.

A new review discusses the findings from over 40 studies on coronavirus immunity and what they could mean for the Covid-19 pandemic.

Written by top UK virologists, the article discusses the existing knowledge about immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses, and how this could be used to inform virus control strategies. The review, which is free to read in the Journal of General Virology (JGV), collates the available scientific evidence in a number of key areas, including how long immunity to coronaviruses lasts and the prospect of antibody testing.

In the review, Professors Paul Kellam and Wendy Barclay from Imperial College London examine what is so far known about immunity to coronaviruses including SARS, MERS and the four strains of seasonal coronaviruses that circulate in humans every winter. The article goes on to suggest that SARS-CoV-2 could become the fifth seasonal coronavirus with epidemics of the virus occurring over the next several years.

Scientists from the UK, Europe and the USA, including experts from the University of Birmingham, have published a vitamin D consensus paper warning against high doses of vitamin D supplementation.

According to the study, there is currently insufficient scientific evidence to show vitamin D can be beneficial in preventing or treating Covid-19. Its authors advise that the population adhere to Public Health England guidance on supplementation.

Following unverified reports that high doses of vitamin D (higher than 4000IU/d) could reduce the risk of contracting Covid-19 and be used to successfully treat the virus, the new report published in the journal BMJ, Nutrition, Prevention and Health, investigated the current scientific evidence base on the vitamin and its use in treating infections. Vitamin D is a hormone, produced in the skin during exposure to sunlight, and helps regulate the amount of calcium and phosphate in the body, which are needed to keep bones, teeth and muscles healthy.

Scientists have collected plenty of evidence linking exercise to brain health, with some research suggesting fitness may even improve memory. But what happens during exercise to trigger these benefits?

New UT Southwestern research that mapped brain changes after one year of aerobic workouts has uncovered a potentially critical process: Exercise boosts blood flow into two key regions of the brain associated with memory. Notably, the study showed this blood flow can help even older people with memory issues improve cognition, a finding that scientists say could guide future Alzheimer’s disease research.

“Perhaps we can one day develop a drug or procedure that safely targets blood flow into these brain regions,” says Binu Thomas, Ph.D., a UT Southwestern senior research scientist in neuroimaging. “But we’re just getting started with exploring the right combination of strategies to help prevent or delay symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. There’s much more to understand about the brain and aging.”

Mappa globale della scarsità idrica. In verde e blu sono riportate le zone che presentano scarsità idrica di tipo fisico dovuta alla mancanza di precipitazione (verde) o di acqua di irrigazione (blu), in fuxia sono rappresentate le zone che presentano una scarsità idrica di tipo economico.

Un recente studio mostra che l’espansione sostenibile dell'irrigazione su terreni agricoli con scarsità d'acqua economica potrebbe produrre cibo per 800 milioni di persone.

Un gruppo di scienziati italiani del Politecnico di Milano, della University of California di Berkeley e dell'Università di Amsterdam ha pubblicato ieri sulla prestigiosa rivista Science Advances uno studio sulla geografia globale della carenza idrica per agricoltura che rileva come ci sarebbe abbastanza acqua disponibile localmente per espandere l'irrigazione su 140 milioni di ettari di terreni agricoli ad oggi non irrigati per ragioni di natura socio economica, e che l'espansione sostenibile dell'irrigazione su queste terre potrebbe aumentare la produzione di cibo per alimentare 800 milioni di persone.

Lo studio è disponibile qui:
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/18/eaaz6031/tab-pdf

Lo studio, condotto da un team di ricerca del Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche (Ibe, Ismn), è pubblicato su Processes. Se saranno confermate le indagini preliminari sul ruolo di tali molecole contro il Covid-19, la metodologia per cavitazione idrodinamica sviluppata dal Cnr potrebbe renderle disponibili su vasta scala.

 Uno studio coordinato da ricercatori del Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche del HCT-Agrifood Laboratory dell’Istituto per la bioeconomia (Cnr-Ibe) e dell’Istituto per lo studio dei materiali nanostrutturati (Cnr-Ismn) - dal titolo “Review of Evidence Available on Hesperidin-Rich Products as Potential Tools against Covid-19 and Hydrodynamic Cavitation-Based Extraction as a Method of Increasing Their Production”- pubblicato dalla rivista Processes, oltre a passare in rassegna gli studi sul ruolo dei flavonoidi presenti nelle bucce degli agrumi rispetto all’insorgenza dell’infezione causata dal virus Sars-Cov-2 e delle sovra-reazioni del sistema immunitario, propone un metodo per la produzione su vasta scala di estratti liquidi e compresse ricche in esperidina, naringina e altri flavonoidi e oli essenziali degli agrumi.

I giovani ricercatori del QuantumLab, coordinato da Fabio Sciarrino, hanno realizzato la prima rete quantistica in grado di generare correlazioni non-locali tra cinque laboratori distinti. L’articolo è stato pubblicato su Nature Communications.

Dodici giovanissimi ricercatori, cinque laboratori da coordinare e una rete da formare. Così l’esperienza interdisciplinare del gruppo del Quantum Information Lab della Sapienza, guidato da Fabio Sciarrino e composto da un laureando magistrale, sei studenti di dottorato, un tecnico elettronico, un assegnista e un ricercatore, con il supporto del fisico brasiliano Rafael Chaves, ha portato alla realizzazione di una rete quantistica formata da cinque diversi nodi, che ha permesso di mostrare correlazioni quantistiche condivise da più di tre parti distinte, il massimo mai raggiunto finora.

Le tecnologie basate sulle leggi della meccanica quantistica sono sempre più diffuse ed i potenziali vantaggi legati al loro utilizzo sono ormai riconosciuti in tutti i campi, dalla comunicazione alla protezione dei dati. “Ciononostante – commenta Gonzalo Carvacho, assegnista senior del QuantumLab – test di non-località multipartita sono stati limitati ai casi più semplici. Qui andiamo oltre, verso la realizzazione di reti quantistiche più grandi”.

Con la Strategia Farm to Fork presentata oggi la Commissione Europea avvia il percorso per una transizione ecologica dell’agricoltura europea in sintonia con il Green Deal, la riforma della PAC post 2020 dovrà essere coerente e sostenere obiettivi ambientali e sociali più ambiziosi per una maggiore sostenibilità della nostra agricoltura.

La Commissione Europea ha reso nota oggi la sua Strategia “Farm to Fork” (F2F) [dal campo alla tavola]. La Coalizione #CambiamoAgricoltura plaude all’iniziativa della Commissione UE per avviare la transizione verso un sistema agro-alimentare più sostenibile. Adesso è necessario concentrare gli sforzi sugli strumenti per la sua concreta applicazione, a partire dalla riforma della Politica Agricola Comune post 2020.

Il documento “A Farm to Fork Strategy” presentato oggi a Bruxelles dalla Commissione Europea è il primo vero tentativo di politica agroalimentare integrata, un fatto positivo perché si colloca, giustamente, al centro del Green Deal accogliendo il principio che alimentazione, ambiente, salute e agricoltura sono materie strettamente connesse. Il documento, con approccio certamente innovativo, dichiara che “i sistemi alimentari devono urgentemente diventare sostenibili e operare entro i limiti ecologici del pianeta” e che “la sostenibilità deve ora diventare l'obiettivo chiave da raggiungere”.