Covid-19, a disease with tricks up its sleeve, hasn’t fallen into a seasonal pattern — yet | Making babymaking better | Cells from discarded placentas may help to treat heart attacks

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Covid-19, a disease with tricks up its sleeve, hasn’t fallen into a seasonal pattern — yet - STAT

To most people on the planet, the Covid-19 pandemic is over. But for many scientists who have been tracking the largest global infectious disease event in the era of molecular biology, there is still a step that the virus that caused it, SARS-CoV-2, hasn’t yet taken. It has not fallen into a predictable seasonal pattern of the type most respiratory pathogens follow.

Influenza strikes — at least in temperate climates — in the winter months, with activity often peaking in January or February. In the pre-Covid times, that was also true for RSV — respiratory syncytial virus — and a number of other bugs that inflict cold- and flu-like illnesses. Some respiratory pathogens seem to prefer fall or spring. Even measles, when that disease circulated widely, had a seasonality in our part of the world, typically striking in late winter or early spring.

To be sure, you can contract these viruses at any time of the year. But transmission takes off during a particular pathogen’s season. (The Covid pandemic knocked a number of these bugs out of their regular orbits, though they may be heading back to more normal transmission patterns. The next few months should be telling.)

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Making babymaking better - The Economist

After Louise brown was born in Manchester in July 1978, her parents’ neighbours were surprised to see that the world’s first “test-tube baby” was “normal”: two eyes, ten fingers, ten toes. In the 45 years since, in vitro fertilisation has become the main treatment for infertility around the world. At least 12m people have been conceived in glassware. An IVF baby takes its first gulp of air roughly every 45 seconds. IVF babies are just as healthy and unremarkable as any others. Yet to their parents, most of whom struggle with infertility for months or years, they are nothing short of miraculous.

In a world where one person in six suffers from infertility, such successes are rightly celebrated. Less discussed are the problems of ivf. Most courses of treatment fail. That subjects women and couples to cycles of dreaming and dejection—and gives the fertility industry an incentive to sell false hope. The obstacle is a lack of progress in understanding the basic mechanisms that determine fertility. At last, however, the science is making headway, holding out more promise and less heartache for generations of parents to come.

Over the years ivf has become better at making babies and safer for the women who bear the brunt of the treatment. The rate of twin and triplet deliveries has plummeted, reducing the number of risky pregnancies. Hormone treatments are safer. Combined with egg and sperm freezing, donation and surrogacy, IVF has given many, including same-sex couples and singletons, a path to parenthood where they had none.

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Cells from discarded placentas may help to treat heart attacks - New Scientist

After noticing that some heart problems resolve during pregnancy, researchers have shown cells in the placenta can turn into functioning heart cells in the lab

23 August 2023

An MRI scan of a section through the chest and heart of someone who had a heart attack showing damage and swelling (yellow, centre)ZEPHYR/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

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