Category: Features
Why Zoom calls are likely tiring you out, and how to fix it
Video conferencing has become a way of life, but there are psychological consequences of spending hours per day on video chat platforms. Stanford communication Professor Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL), has studied prolonged video chats and identified some consequences of the practice that contribute to a feeling known […]
Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine now stable at warmer temperatures
The mRNA COVID-19 vaccine developed by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech late last year was advised to be kept at ultra-cold temperatures to prevent degradation – the ultra-cold storage requirement has inevitably been a difficult and expensive problem to overcome in many parts of the world. However, new company data from Pfizer suggests its vaccine […]
First shipment of COVID-19 vaccine arrives in Malaysia
The first batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Malaysia on Sunday – 312,390 doses that were flown to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in Sepang are part of a total of 32 million doses Malaysia is procuring from US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc to battle the pandemic. The next batch is scheduled to […]
Playing video games positively correlated with well-being
A first-of-its-kind study from Oxford University using industry data from two popular video games – Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville and Animal Crossing: New Horizons – has revealed a small but significant correlation between time spent playing and positive well-being. Over 3,000 gamers contributed to the study, supervised by the Oxford researchers,alongside objective telemetry […]
US researcher gets to the heart of the problem in sudden cardiac death
A genetic disease called arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM), in which healthy heart muscle is replaced by scar tissue and/or fat over time is a leading cause of sudden cardiac death (SCD) in young athletes. According to Stephen Chelko, an assistant professor of biomedical sciences at the Florida State University College of Medicine,arrhythmias ordinarily are non-fatal if […]
Two new, unrelated Ebola outbreaks detected in Africa
Two new but separate Ebola outbreaks have flared up recently in Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Africa – prompting rapid response from the World Health Organization (WHO). The primary case in DRC was announced on February 7, claimed to be the wife of an Ebola survivor from a prior outbreak; Guinean authorities […]
Inner ear implant restores balance and quality of life to vertigo sufferers
Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Vestibular Neuroengineering Laboratory have modified an existing cochlear implant such that would help reduce vertigo and enable sufferers to return to independent daily living. Bilateral vestibular hypofunction (BVH) is quite a debilitating condition, where the sufferer’s inner ear doesn’t maintain their sense of balance properly. As a result, the person […]
Men more vulnerable to COVID-19 than women, affirms US study
Men, independent of age, are much more likely to contract COVID-19, suffer from severe complications, and die from the disease than women, according to new epidemiological observations. Led by Farhaan Vahidy from the Houston Methodist Research Institute, the study set out to investigate the association between biological sex and COVID-19 in nearly 100,000 subjects in […]
Medical Fair Thailand goes “Phygital”
Medical Fair Thailand 2021 is reimagining the marketplace amid an evolving landscape by going “Phygital”, a portmanteau for “physical” and “digital”. The 10th edition event will be held virtually/on-line on 11-17 Sep 2021 and in-person on 8-10 Sep 2021 at BITEC, Bangkok, Thailand. The new experience – a live 3-day exhibition in Bangkok, and a […]
Tomatoes offer natural alternative to Parkinson’s disease drug
UK scientists have demonstrated the use of tomatoes to compensate for the depleted supply of the neurochemical dopamine in Parkinson’s disease patients. Known as Levodopa or L-DOPA, the amino acid precursor has been the gold standard therapy for Parkinson’s disease since its establishment as a drug in 1967 and is an essential medicine declared by […]
