Dear visitors and students ! Here is a story I would like to share with you all.
Its about Forensic analysis of Wood. The story was Published in Hindustan Times on 26th of july.
I am sharing the link ...
https://m.hindustantimes.com/chandigarh/pu-devises-promising-method-for-forensic-analysis-of-wood/story-b4YFB6oaFiaDsZOB4yxdSJ.html
Corona Virus Disease COVID 19 that was initially discovered in Wuhan China is now-a-days talk of the town. As per the reports it has been now found to have entered Indian provinces. It’s an infectious disorder that affects respiratory tract and is fatal as more than 3000 deaths have been reported so far. Why we need to talk about it more is because we sometimes misinterpret the things and add fuel to the fire by creating chaos and confusions panic. Another important issue that we have to deal with simultaneously is our superstitious misbelieves. For instance a couple of days ago I found someone propagating a new superstitious practice. It was being told that in the Holy Quran we can find a hair which is to be immersed in drinking water as it is sacred and can prevent the disorder (Astagfirullah).
I found it necessary to discuss in detail what COVID 19 is and how can it be prevented and even managed if found in the community. COVID 19 as named during 2019-2020 outbreak is caused by SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus 2). This virus is closely related to already known SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus which caused an outbreak in 2002 and 2003. There are hundreds of other strains of Corona virus other than these two recently discovered species but most of the corona viruses have been found to infect non-human hosts like bats. Before coming to the present scenario of disease and related Doe’s and Don’ts let’s have the elementary information about COVID 19.
Means of spread:
COVID 19 infection is spread through respiratory droplets produced during cough and sneeze. It can also spread through contaminated utensils and direct contact with the patient. Incubation period is 2-14 days i.e if a person is exposed to corona virus, symptoms of disease may develop within 14 days.
Signs and symptoms:
An infected person may develop symptoms like fever, severe dry cough and difficulty in breathing. Upper respiratory tract is generally not affected which means runny nose is not common in this case. In rare cases Diarrhea has also been seen in COVID 19 patients. Therefore general symptoms are; Fever, dry cough, fatigue, difficulty in breathing, pain in the muscles and joints, sore throat, headache, chills, nausea or vomiting, nasal congestion, diarrhea (rarely), haemoptysis or blood strained mucus(very rare). Finally patient develops pneumonia and multi organ failure.
Diagnosis: WHO has confirmed and approved certain tests for COVID 19 one among which is rTF-PCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) which is done on sputum or nasal swab. This test shows results within few hours but may sometimes take even 2 days. Tests like antibody assays can also be done on the blood samples. CT scan can even be helpful in finding the pneumonic state of lungs.
Mechanism of action and genetics of CORONA viruses: Corona virus is an RNA virus that means Corona Viruses have RNA as their genetic material. They have about 29.7 kilobasepairs long genome which is largest among all RNA viruses. Researchers have identified 13 genes in a SARS Corona virus and have also reported about 14 proteins produced by SARS Corona virus.
Corona virus is enveloped by a spike envelop covering that possess special proteins termed as M proteins, E proteins and S proteins. It is because of protein spikes that give it an appearance crown, therefore the name corona.
S proteins bind themselves with receptors present on the surface of host cells creating confusion in the cellular system so that cells don’t recognize the virus as a stranger. Viral genome therefore easily enters the cell. Genome released in the host cell cytoplasm acts as a messenger RNA and hijacks the cellular machinery and ribosomes to produce two important proteins termed as “pp1a” and “pp1ab” which are later broken to form various non structural proteins. Meanwhile viral RNA is replicated to make multiple copies. All the proteins produced by virus using cellular machinery are then assembled in Endoplasmic reticulum of host cell along with newly formed RNA which helps the virus to make multiple copies. Finally the newly formed progeny leaves the host cell by exocytosis and invade other tissues and cells of respiratory tract.
Vaccines and treatment:
Scientists all over the globe are trying their best to develop a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 which include National Institutes of Health (NIH) United States, Chinese center for disease control and prevention, university of Hong 0Kong etc. however no effective vaccine has been developed so far. According to a US health official, it will take at least a year or more to develop an effective vaccine for corona virus.
Coming to the treatment there is no specific drug that could be effective in treating COVID 19. However many antiviral drugs have been tested for efficacy till date. These anti viral drugs include galidesivir, chloroquine, interferon beta and ritonavir etc. moreover china recently included Actemra (Roche Arthritis drug) in drugs used against COVID 19.
Say No to superstition:
Some superstitious believes and rumor mongers are creating a new wave here in our society. It’s quite clear that neither cow urine can treat corona nor can any piece of paper or hair found in the holy Quran treat any disorder. Any such rumor should not be believed or acted upon. However seeking forgiveness from almighty Allah is the only thing what can be done. Moreover prevention and awareness is the need of the hour.
Infection can easily be prevented by few basic precautions as mentioned below:
I.Wash the hands frequently with soap or use a sanitizer as you can be infected by virus through the contaminated utensils.
II.Cover the nose and mouth while sneezing or coughing as respiratory droplets can act as agents of infection.
III.Avoid direct contact with people having common cold and flu like illness.
IV.If you have fever, cough and difficulty in breathing u should seek a medical help.
V.Wearing mask can prevent the entry of virus but it should be disposed properly after use.
This is all what can be done to prevent infections. Besides all these precautions one has to be calm and not to be panic if flu like illness is there. Flu and running nose should not be misinterpreted and considered as a possibility of CIVID 19. People who have international travel history are at greater risk and should be examined soon after emigration.
May Allah bless us all and may you all stay blessed and healthy.
With regards
MUDASSIR MIRCHAL
Dear friends! Today I would like to share an article published on Facebook by someone.
"Four creepy coincidences in coronavirus outbreak
As health authorities scramble to stop the spread of the disease amid fears of a global pandemic, the coronavirus panic has generated a flood of misinformation, dubious claims and conspiracy theories online.
Many, such as the claim that coronavirus was “patented”, have been debunked by websites including Politifact, FactCheck and HealthFeedback – but there’s no denying several strange circumstances surrounding the outbreak.
The official death toll in China now stands at 132 with more than 6000 infected in the country, mainly in Hubei province where the virus is believed to have originated at a controversial seafood market that sold exotic animals.
There have now been five confirmed cases in Australia, and the virus has spread to more than a dozen other countries — the US, Japan, France, Germany, Canada, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, Nepal, Singapore, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Here are four coronavirus coincidences to ponder over a bowl of bat soup:
Bats have been identified as the likely source of the virus.
Bats have been identified as the likely source of the virus.Source:Supplied
NED-1067-Reduce-risk-of-coronavirus - 0
WUHAN SCIENTISTS CREATE ‘HYBRID’ BAT CORONAVIRUSES, SPARKING SAFETY WARNINGS
In 2015, scientists in the US and China revealed they had created a “chimeric” virus by combining a coronavirus found in Chinese horseshoe bats with another that causes human-like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in mice.
The study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, demonstrated that the SHC014 coronavirus – a different strain to the one at the centre of the current outbreak, known as 2019-nCoV – was capable of infecting human airway cells.
The news reignited debate around so-called “gain-of-function” research – essentially taking already dangerous pathogens and making them more dangerous. Experts question whether such research, which is no longer funded by the US Government, is worth the risk.
“If the virus escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory,” Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris told Nature at the time. Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright agreed, telling the publication, “The only impact of this work is the creation, in a lab, of a new, non-natural risk.”
Fuelling conspiracy theories is the fact that two of the paper’s co-authors, Xing-Yi Ge and Zhengli-Li Shi, were based at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, 30km from the suspected epicentre of the outbreak at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.
According to a former Israeli intelligence official, the Wuhan Institute of Virology – one of the only facilities in the world with a biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) certification needed to handle the most deadly diseases – is actually part of a secret biological weapons program.
“Certain laboratories in the institute have probably been engaged, in terms of research and development, in Chinese (biological weapons), at least collaterally, yet not as a principal facility of the Chinese BW alignment,” Dany Shoham told the conservative Washington Times website.
Other experts have dismissed Mr Shoham’s claims as baseless fearmongering. Another way to look at it – the 2015 study correctly identified the risk of bat-borne coronaviruses spreading to humans that is now playing out.
RELATED: Mystery lab next to coronavirus epicentre
OUTBREAK COMES THREE MONTHS AFTER GLOBAL CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC SIMULATION
Late last year, experts from the Centre for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University teamed up with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for an exercise in New York dubbed “Event 201”.
The eight-hour panel brought together leaders in business, government and public health to play a team of presidential advisers modelling the response to a worldwide pandemic of – you guessed it – coronavirus.
The scenario began three months in with 500,000 cases globally. By the end of the simulation, a mock news broadcast described the carnage. “Twenty months into one of the worst pandemics the world’s ever known, there’s still no vaccine,” the newsreader says.
“The World Health Organisation estimates 150 million people have died, approximately 2 per cent of the global population. The US, along with the rest of the world, is in its worst economic depression in history. The Dow Jones is down 90 cent, GDP down 50 per cent, unemployment running at 20 per cent.”
Speaking to the website Contagion Live at the time, Johns Hopkins scientist Eric Toner said the exercises were “primarily educational tools”. “One of the things we try to demonstrate through these exercises are economic and societal consequences, as well as the public health consequences, of a severe pandemic,” he said.
“We want to show policymakers, business leaders, and global public health organisations that a severe pandemic may be as disruptive to a country as a national security event can be. All these events have led to growing awareness of the potential challenges, but unfortunately we’ve seen that among policymakers and business leaders this awareness waxes and wanes. The response to all the exercises we’ve done have been encouraging.”
Last week, Dr Toner said China’s efforts to contain the current outbreak were “unlikely to be effective” and “the cat’s already out of the bag”. “The point that we tried to make in our exercise back in October is that it isn’t just about the health consequences,” he told Business Insider. “It’s about the consequences on economies and societies.”
NETFLIX DROPS SCARY NEW PANDEMIC DOCUMENTARY SERIES AS CORONAVIRUS SPREADS
Earlier this month, Netflix revealed the first trailer for – as Observer described it – its “frighteningly relevant” upcoming docuseries that speaks to the “heroes on the front lines of the battle against influenza … about their efforts to stop the next global outbreak”.
Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak posits that another large-scale influenza outbreak similar to the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed an estimated 50 to 100 million people, is inevitable.
“When we talk about another flu pandemic happening it’s not a matter of if but when,” Dr Dennis Carroll from USAID says in the trailer. “The result would be hundreds of millions of people that would likely die.”
The show delves into the challenges posed by the rise in anti-vaxxers and follows efforts by researchers developing a universal flu vaccine to attract funding from wealthy benefactors like Bill Gates.
Dr Syra Madad from the New York City Health and Hospitals’ Special Pathogens Program also appears in the show, describing the ease with which a respiratory virus could spread through the city via air travel. “Influenza is very hard to predict. It takes one person – one host – to lead to a pandemic,” she says.
The timing of the show, with its ominous episode titles – “Pandemic Is Now”, “Seek Don’t Hide”, “Prayers Might Work” and “Don’t Stop Now” – has naturally raised eyebrows, with many on Twitter describing it as “creepy” and “suspicious”.
“The timing of this is a little to obvious for me bruh,” one YouTube user said. Another joked, “That moment when Netflix releases a virus to boost the relevance of their new docuseries.”
A Chinese social media user noticed a familiar logo.
A Chinese social media user noticed a familiar logo.Source:Supplied
CHINESE BIOTECH FIRM SHARES LOGO WITH EVIL CORPORATION FROM RESIDENT EVIL
Last year, Chinese fans of the Resident Evil video game series noted a real-life pharmaceutical company based in Shanghai had a nearly identical logo as Umbrella Corp, the fictional bad guys behind the creation of a world-ending zombie virus.
Shanghai Ruilan Bao Hu San Biotech Limited features a turquoise-and-white version of Umbrella Corp’s iconic red-and-white logo. A photo of the company’s headquarters sign was first uploaded by a Chinese social media user.
A screenshot of the company’s official website showed that, yes, that is its real logo. Strangely enough, Lanshan, the web design company that featured the screenshot of Shanghai Ruilan Bao Hu San Biotech’s site in its client portfolio, removed the page shortly after it made headlines.
A cached version is still available via the Internet Archive. It describes Shanghai Ruilan Bao Hu San Biotech as an “industry group with wide influence in the field of life and health”, covering “stem cell storage and clinical applications, tumour immune technology, animal seed industry technology research and development and industrial application, animal commercial cloning, beauty body and anti-ageing, genetic testing and precision medicine, drug development and disease models”.
Although the story is six months old, it has been resurfaced by internet users in light of the coronavirus outbreak. They point out that “corona” is an anagram for “racoon”. And where is Resident Evil set? Raccoon City. Spooky.
credits: https://www.news.com.au @https://bit.ly/37OoSlS
frank.chung@news.com.au"
