Moody Monday: good news

[mellowtigger]

I had a draft post written for today's Moody Monday blog post. It's just too depressing. Even for me.

So, instead, how about some Good News?

• PET (positron emission tomography) scanning has long been used in HIV health assessments. A new technique now allows it to pinpoint specific areas where HIV persistence occurs. That's right, a non-invasive test for precise virus detection, like something out of Star Trek medicine.  They have used it to detect evidence of HIV in lymph nodes, gut lining, and bone marrow. This audio podcast from BBC gives a nice explanation of its use. The obvious next question... can we use it for SARS-CoV-2? Remote detection of virus in tissue (even if it can't be detected in the bloodstream) is obviously a game changing technological advancement.
   
• A German school is testing a DIY air ventilation measure intended to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 aerosol. If I redesigned buildings, I would put the air intake down low and the air outflow up high, so the flow of air naturally benefits from gravity as well. But any precautionary measure is better than none at all. We know that ventilation matters.
   
• There is cause for hope, I believe, but it does require facing the reality of the difficulties ahead. (I know, apes are not monkeys, but...) Humans are very clever monkeys, the most clever of us are hard at work, and we also have A.I. helping us with both pandemic and climate issues. Remember that we already succeeded in averting global disaster from ozone depletion and nuclear annihilation. Biohazards and climate change are just the next global challenges that our civilization must overcome.

So that's it for today, I guess. Kind of a poison pill "good news" segment. Much better than what I was planning to post, though.

Comments

[wispywillow]

The current state of the world is indeed a very depressing place right now. It's good to see posts like yours that highlight some of the good things going on to help balance the gloom and doom.

[danieldwilliam]

I recall reading (but I can't find it now) about a Japanese office air filter which you can retro to fit. Mounts on the ceiling - air intake, air outflow, shieled UV light in the box in the middle - continuously draws in air and irradiates to kill pathogens. Costs about £6k IIRC.

[mellowtigger]

It sounds like the Soluva Air or UV Angel Air? Obviously, we've had safer office solutions for 2 years already. It's maddening that buildings won't implement them.

[danieldwilliam]

No, neither of those ring a bell but they both look physically pretty similar. The one in the article was boxier.

The bulk of the article was about how they were sold out in Japan.

[zipperbear]

I saw a sensational headline, and went looking for the actual research, which turned out to be fairly interesting. They found "abnormality in the exchange of oxygen across the alveolar membrane into the red blood cells" when they used MRI to study a xenon isotope as a proxy for oxygen in the lungs. Xenon is a noble gas, so you'd think it's inert and doesn't do anything, but it's a surprisingly good anesthetic, possibly because the xenon atom is the right size to fit into nerve gaps when it's dissolved in bodily fluids, but that part is still mysterious so far.

At least this method seems to detect at least one kind of Long Covid, as a first step toward understanding it (and/or treating or preventing).

https://news.westernu.ca/2022/06/innovative-lung-imaging-technique-shows-cause-of-long-covid-symptoms/