Facebook unveiled a remarkable piece of internal infrastructure in the spring of 2020. Called Web-Enabled Simulation (WES), the platform is a detailed replica of Facebook, with artificial user accounts ranging from simple bots that browse the site to machine-learning-based agents that mimic social interactions. The sophistication of the platform is astonishing. Going far beyond traditional realms of…

Scott Gottlieb also expressed concern about U.K. study showing brain-tissue shrinkage after covid-19 The transmission of the more contagious delta variant in the United States could spur a fall surge in coronavirus infections if only 75 percent of the country’s eligible population is vaccinated, former Food and Drug Administration chief Scott Gottlieb said Sunday. Although Gottlieb cited…

In the earliest days of the pandemic, it was the small, long-underfunded coterie of dedicated coronavirus researchers answering almost all of the world’s questions about the emerging threat. But as SARS-CoV-2 took off, researchers from other specialties flooded in, drawn by the scale of the emergency, a desire to put their skills to use, and the competitive…

New research: Sweeteners could cause gut bacteria to invade the intestine New research has discovered that common artificial sweeteners can cause previously healthy gut bacteria to become diseased and invade the gut wall, potentially leading to serious health issues. The study, published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, is the first to show the pathogenic effects…

Research can tell us only so much. The rest is a waiting game. Midway through America’s first mass-immunization campaign against the coronavirus, experts are already girding themselves for the next. The speedy rollout of wildly effective shots in countries such as the United States, where more than half the population has received at least one…

During the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic when diagnostic tests were scarce, the spread of the coronavirus reached far further than initially known—with the official count potentially missing the mark by millions to tens of millions of cases, according to a new antibody study conducted by the National Institutes of Health. Researchers estimate…

Persistent hype around mRNA vaccine technology is now distracting us from other ways to end the pandemic. At the end of January, reports that yet another COVID-19 vaccine had succeeded in its clinical trials—this one offering about 70 percent protection—were front-page news in the United States, and occasioned push alerts on millions of phones. But when the…

Highly infectious variant is creating new waves of cases in Europe, the U.S., Israel and Australia The delta variant of the coronavirus causing COVID-19 has now been detected in 85 countries, according to the World Health Organization, and remains a variant of concern with evidence suggesting it may reduce vaccine protection against infection and disease.…

June 21 (Reuters) – GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK.L) and Vir Biotechnology (VIR.O) said on Monday final results from a late-stage study of their monoclonal antibody confirmed it significantly reduced hospitalization and death among high-risk COVID-19 patients when given early in the disease. The treatment, sotrovimab, received an emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in May, while…