Medical researchers have estimated some of the impacts of this summer’s bushfire smoke and air pollution on Australians’ health.

Engineers have created a tiny device that can rapidly detect harmful bacteria in blood, allowing health care professionals to pinpoint the cause of potentially deadly infections and fight them with drugs.

The virus that causes COVID-19 remains for several hours to days on surfaces and in aerosols, a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found.

For decades, public health officials have directed the containment of emerging pandemics – perhaps most notably – the worldwide eradication of smallpox starting in the early to mid-1960s. 

University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers have invented a portable surveillance device powered by machine learning – called FluSense – which can detect coughing and crowd size in real time, then analyze the data to directly monitor flu-like illnesses and influenza trends.

Though COVID-19 so far appears to be largely sparing children, researchers are cautioning that it is critical to understand how the virus affects kids to model the pandemic accurately, limit the disease’s spread and ensure the youngest patients get the care they need.

In the electronic Framingham Heart Study presented at ACC.20/WCC, people who took more steps daily, as tracked by their smartwatch, had lower blood pressure on average than those taking fewer steps.

Rates of deaths related to hypertension have risen by 72 percent and 20 percent in rural and urban areas of the U.S., respectively, according to research presented during ACC.20/WCC and published online in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 

Social distancing requires only a two-week supply of items, a Texas A&M Agrilife expert says.

Behavioral changes like social distancing are an often-missing factor in disease outbreak models, a Texas A&M expert says.