Month: June 2021

There has been renewed discussion and interest into understanding the biological origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that has caused the COVID-19 pandemic. Similar viruses before it have been shown to have jumped from animals to humans; yet this link has not yet been definitively found for SARS-CoV-2. Caltech's David Baltimore, president emeritus and Distinguished Professor of Biology, is a virologist who received the Nobel Prize for his research into viral genetics. Baltimore was an organizer of the first Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA held in 1975 to discuss ethics and regulation of biotechnology. We sat down with him to discuss the debate over the origins of SARS-CoV-2. What are the arguments that suggest SARS-CoV-2 is a naturally evolved virus? What is the evidence that sug...

A new study brews up some good news for avid coffee drinkers. Consuming three to four cups of joe a day may reduce the risk of liver cancer and other alcohol-related liver diseases, according to findings released Monday in the peer-reviewed medical journal BMC Public Health. Researchers studied the coffee habits and liver health of nearly a half-million Brits in a biomedical database over 11 years. The subjects of the study were men and women between the ages of 40–69. About 385,000 of them were heavy coffee drinkers. The study found that the daily grinders were 21 percent less likely to develop chronic liver disease, 20 percent less likely to develop fatty liver disease and nearly half as likely to die from liver ailments, compared to those that ab...

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