Science News for Students

In the rush to find drugs against COVID-19, researchers are exploring myriad possibilities, even drugs used to save feline lives.

Cats can contract an almost always fatal disease that’s caused by a coronavirus that infects only felines. Now preliminary research suggests that two experimental drugs that can cure that disease in cats, called feline infectious peritonitis, might help treat people infected with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus behind the pandemic.

In lab experiments, one of the drugs, called GC376, disables a key enzyme that some coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, use to replicate. The other, called GS-441524, is an antiviral cousin of remdesivir, the first drug found to speed people’s recovery from SARS-CoV-2 in clinical trials (SN: 4/29/20).

“Both drugs have been highly effective in curing cats with feline infectious peritonitis, and usually without any other form of treatment,” says Niels Pedersen, a veterinarian who studies the feline coronavirus at the University of California, Davis. Neither drug, however, has yet been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in cats, much less humans.

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While most animals with feline infectious peritonitis don’t show symptoms, some cats can develop severe illness if the virus mutates to infect a specific type of immune cell. When that happens, the coronavirus spreads throughout the cat’s body, sparking a deadly inflammatory reaction that can cause paralysis or fluid to accumulate in the lungs.

When COVID-19 hit the United States, the numbers just seemed to explode. First, there were only one or two cases. Then there were 10. Then 100. Then thousands and then hundreds of thousands. Increases like this are hard to understand. But exponents and logarithms can help make sense of those dramatic increases.

Scientists often describe trends that increase very dramatically as being exponential. It means that things don’t increase (or decrease) at a steady pace or rate. It means the rate changes at some increasing pace.

An example is the decibel scale, which measures sound pressure level. It is one way to describe the strength of a sound wave. It’s not quite the same thing as loudness, in terms of human hearing, but it’s close. For every 10 decibel increase, the sound pressure increases 10 times. So a 20 decibel sound has not twice the sound pressure of 10 decibels, but 10 times that level. And the sound pressure level of a 50 decibel noise is 10,000 times greater than a 10-decibel whisper (because you’ve multiplied 10 x 10 x 10 x 10).

An exponent is a number that tells you how many times to multiply some base number by itself. In that example above, the base is 10. So using exponents, you could say that 50 decibels is 104 times as loud as 10 decibels. Exponents are shown as a superscript — a little number to the upper right of the base number. And that little 4 means you’re to multiply 10 times itself four times. Again, it’s 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 (or 10,000).

Logarithms are the inverse of exponents. A logarithm (or log) is the mathematical expression used to answer the question: How many times must one “base” number be multiplied by itself to get some other particular number?

For instance, how many times must a base of 10 be multiplied by itself to get 1,000? The answer is 3 (1,000 = 10 × 10 × 10). So the logarithm base 10 of 1,000 is 3. It’s written using a subscript (small number) to the lower right of the base number. So the statement would be log10(1,000) = 3.

At first, the idea of a logarithm might seem unfamiliar. But you probably already think logarithmically about numbers. You just don’t realize it.

Walking around on the surface of the Earth every day, it’s easy to forget that a superhot pool of melted rock lies deep beneath our feet. Volcanoes are here to remind us.

Volcanoes are channels where melted rock, ash and gas can rise to the surface.

See all the entries from our Let’s Learn About series

The Earth has around 1,500 potentially active volcanoes. Many of them are found along the edge of the Pacific Ocean, an area called the Ring of Fire. This is where many of the planet’s tectonic plates meet. These huge slabs, which make up Earth’s outer layer, crash into and slide over each other in extreme slow motion. When they do, they can raise up mountains, cause earthquakes — and open up volcanoes.

Huge volcanic explosions can wipe out ecosystems. They can build new land. And the biggest ones can change the Earth’s climate. The clouds of ash they throw up can cool the whole planet for years at a time. Some scientists thought that huge volcanic explosions might have cooled the planet and helped kill off the dinosaurs. But new evidence suggests that probably wasn’t true.

Volcanoes aren’t just on Earth. Other planets — such as Venus — might have them too.

Want to know more? We’ve got some stories to get you started:

After erupting, one volcano sings a unique ‘song’: The low-frequency sound ebbs and flows with the whooshing of air inside the crater (7/25/2018) Readability: 8.6

Giant volcanoes lurk beneath Antarctic ice: The expanse of buried volcanoes raises questions about the future of the ice sheet (1/5/2018) Readability: 7.6

Study appears to rule out volcanic burps as causing dino die-offs: When toxic gases would have been spewed does not match when extinctions occurred (3/2/2020) Readability: 8.2

Explore more

Scientists Say: Ring of Fire

Explainer: The volcano basics

Explainer: Understanding plate tectonics

Cool Jobs: Getting to know volcanoes

Did rain put the Kilauea volcano’s lava-making into overdrive?

World’s biggest volcano is hiding under the sea

Word find

How old is your dog? Maybe it was born four years ago. At that age, a human would still be a kid. Your dog, however, acts like an adult. You might have heard that to get a dog’s “biological” age, just multiply its age in years by seven. That would make your dog equivalent to a 28-year-old human. But that would probably be wrong, a new study shows. Your dog’s actually more like a 53-year-old human.

Multiplying a dog’s age by seven doesn’t really work, says Matteo Pellegrini at the University of California, Los Angeles. He studies bioinformatics — a research field that uses computers to analyze biological data. He was not involved in the study. On the surface, he notes, multiplying by seven makes sense. On average, people live seven times longer than a dog. So, he notes, “It’s just dividing the human lifespan by the dog lifespan.”

But there are problems with that simple computation. After all, a one-year-old baby is just learning to walk. A one-year-old dog is adult enough to have puppies of its own. This is because species develop at very different rates. Aging doesn’t even happen at the same pace over an individual’s life. “When you’re a newborn, your body is changing very quickly,” Pellegrini explains. “It slows down over time.”

Explainer: What is epigenetics?

Fortunately, dogs and humans both hit very similar developmental milestones. We’re babies (or puppies), then kids (or, er, still puppies), then adolescents and then adults. As we go through those stages, our DNA also undergoes a change. The molecule that carries genetic instructions stays the same. But over time, this DNA acquires or loses tiny chemical “tags.” These are called epigenetic changes. The tags, known as methyl groups, act like little switches that can turn on or off particular genes in that DNA.

Explainer: What are genes?

The genome is the complete set of the genes present in an organism’s DNA. “Think of taking a … marker and start drawing in different places in the genome,” says Elaine Ostrander. She studies genetics at the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Md. The marks determine how different genes in the DNA get used to make proteins. A complete set of the methyl marks on DNA is called a methylome (METH-el-ohm).

As an animal ages, so does its methylome. How it changes is very predictable. Most adolescent humans will have DNA marks that are in one pattern, while humans nearing 65 or 70 show a different pattern of DNA marks. The same is true for dogs. If the epigenetic markings of humans and dogs at different ages were compared against one another, would there be “places that were kept getting marked up in the same way?” Ostrander and her colleagues wondered. If there were, would finding that pattern in one species point to an equivalent age in the other? Comparing patterns that way might allow people to get at the “real” age of a dog.

To test this, her team looked at the methylomes from 104 purebred Labrador retrievers. Her team has been collecting DNA samples from dogs around the United States since 1993. “I picked Labs because they can live a long time [for dogs], and we were able to pull [the DNA] out of the freezer,” Ostrander says. “We were able to take DNA samples from Labs that were anywhere from a few months old to 16 or 17 years old.” The researchers compared the dog methylomes to methylomes of 320 people between the ages of 1 and 103.

Cat lovers who sneeze and sniffle around their feline friends might one day find at least partial relief in a can of cat food. This won’t be ordinary cat food, though. It will contain an antibody to the major allergy-causing protein in cats. This protein is called Fel d1. New research suggests that feeding its antibody to cats changes the protein so that the human immune system can’t recognize it. That reduces the allergic response.

Researchers fed the antibody to 105 cats for 10 weeks. After that, the amount of active Fel d1 protein on the cats’ hair dropped by 47 percent on average. Researchers from pet food–maker Nestlé Purina conducted the research. They reported their results in the June 2019 Immunity, Inflammation and Disease.

The playground at Lake County Intermediate School in Leadville, Colo., was in desperate need of a makeover. The schoolyard didn’t offer much — just a few swings, some rusty climbing equipment, a cracked basketball court and a play area of dirt and gravel.

In the spring of 2014, the community replaced the run-down equipment, installing a spider web–like climbing net, twisting slides and colorful swings. A new basketball court went in, along with a grassy play area and walking paths. Kids got access to balls, Hula-Hoops and other loose equipment.

The overhaul did more than improve how the playground looked; it turbocharged the kids’ recess activity. When researchers observed the playground that November, they found that the share of children participating in vigorous physical activity had tripled. And the changes appeared to last — a year after the overhaul, the students were still more active than they’d been before, the researchers reported in 2018 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

An overnight summer camp in Georgia recently became the scene of a major coronavirus outbreak. At least 260 of the 597 campers and staff tested positive. The finding confirms that even young kids can get the virus. They may also play a key role in spreading it.

Younger children had the highest rate of infection. Just over half of kids ages 6 to 10 tested positive. Christine M. Szablewski works for the Georgia Department of Health in Atlanta. She was part of a team of researchers with the state and the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga., who investigated the outbreak. They shared their findings July 31 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

See all our coverage of the new coronovirus outbreak

The new investigation “adds to the body of evidence demonstrating that children of all ages are susceptible to [the coronavirus],” the researchers write. Most infected people at this camp showed no symptoms. That may have helped the virus spread undetected, Szablewski’s team says.

Campers arrived on June 21. The next day a teenage staff member developed symptoms. They left the camp. on June 23. That teen’s test result came back positive the next day. Right away, officials began sending campers home. The facility was officially closed on June 27.

Overall, 44 percent of people at the camp became infected. Most were campers, who ranged in age from 6 to 19. But some people were not tested or did not have results available to the researchers. So it’s possible, Szablewski and her colleagues note, that more people might have been infected. Camp officials had required anyone at the camp to show proof of a negative coronavirus test. It had to have been conducted within 12 days of arriving.

Campers participated in activities, such as singing, made up of kids staying in the same cabin. Singing is one way to share the coronavirus over distances of more than 2 meters (6 feet). Although all trainees and staff were required to wear cloth masks, campers were not. Masks have been shown to limit the spread of COVID-19, which is caused by this virus. Staff also did not keep windows and doors open to ensure buildings were well-ventilated.

Land surrounding the site of what was once an ancient village in Great Britain turned up a huge surprise: massive underground shafts. Surrounding the town, the formation has a diameter of more than two kilometers (1.2 miles). Each hole has straight sides and is filled with loose soil.

The shafts date to a time known as the Neolithic, or late Stone Age. They were dug more than 4,500 years ago near another ancient site of far greater fame — Stonehenge. Over the millennia, the shafts filled with dirt and became overgrown. From the surface, you wouldn’t know they were there.  

Archaeologists had known since 1916 that some holes lurked underground. They suspected they were small sinkholes. Or maybe they had once been shallow ponds to water cattle. Ground-penetrating radar now has revealed that these were no cattle ponds. Each hole goes down five meters (16.4 feet) and spans 20 meters (65.6 feet) across. So far 20 holes have been found. These are, researchers now think, part of one of the biggest Neolithic monuments in Europe.

Flying snakes float gracefully from tree to tree. But they don’t have wings to guide these travels. Snakes instead get their glide on with some help from the wiggles.

Paradise tree snakes (Chrysopelea paradisi) fling themselves from branches, gliding through the air. They will land gently on the next tree or the ground. They can leap distances of 10 meters (10 yards) or more. In the air, they undulate — wriggling back and forth. That wriggling isn’t a useless attempt to replicate how the reptiles slither across land or swim through water. Instead, those contortions are essential for stable gliding says Isaac Yeaton. He’s a mechanical engineer at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.

“They have evolved this ability to glide,” says Yeaton. “And it’s pretty spectacular.” Physicists already knew that tree snakes flatten their bodies as they leap. That generates lift — upward force that helps an object stay in the air. But scientists weren’t quite sure how the long, slender snakes stayed upright as they flew, without tumbling and landing snout-first.

Millions of years ago, an early relative of modern mammals had a tiny, saddle-shaped bony structure connected to the jaw. Today, that set of bones, called the hyoid, help all mammals to chew and swallow. Now scientists say the mammal hyoid may be one secret to our eventual success. It enabled mammals to spread into all the different ecological niches they occupy today.

Scientists Say: Niche

When your brain stops working — completely and irreversibly — you’re dead. But drawing the line between life and brain death isn’t always easy. A new report attempts to clarify that distinction, perhaps helping to ease the anguish of family members with a loved one whose brain has died but whose heart still beats.  

Brain death has been a recognized concept in medicine for decades. But there’s a lot of variation in how people define it, says Gene Sung, a neurocritical care physician at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. “Showing that there is some worldwide consensus, understanding and agreement at this time will hopefully help minimize misunderstanding of what brain death is,” Sung says.

As part of the World Brain Death Project, Sung and his colleagues convened doctors from professional societies around the world to forge a consensus on how to identify brain death. This group, including experts in critical care, neurology and neurosurgery, reviewed the existing research on brain death (which was slim) and used their clinical expertise to write the recommendations, published August 3 in JAMA. In addition to the main guidelines, the final product included 17 supplements that address legal and religious aspects, provide checklists and flowcharts, and even trace the history of relevant medical advances. “Basically, we wrote a book,” Sung says.

Archaeology (noun, “Ar-KEY-awl-oh-gee”)

This is the study of people and their history through the study of things left behind by humans in the past. People who study archaeology are called archaeologists. They dig up sites where people used to live, or where they left things behind. These include human bones, ancient buildings, ancient trash heaps and more.

The most famous archaeological sites, such as Egyptian tombs, tend to be very old. But the sites don’t have to be all that ancient. Some archaeologists study landfills and other sites that are only a few decades old. Their findings can help us learn new things about our history and our society.

Archaeology is not the study of ancient animals. Most of the time, that’s paleontology. But sometimes, scientists study remains of animals that lived with humans — such as ancient dogs, cats or cows. Then it’s called zooarchaeology.

In a sentence

Archaeology has uncovered evidence that in ancient societies, women could be warriors.

In the ocean’s depths, it might take more than a little light to illuminate some of the planet’s darkest fish.

Their ultrablack skin can soak up almost all light that hits it. That makes these deep sea fish nearly invisible. This camouflage comes from a layer of densely packed, pigmented structures just below the skin’s surface. Researchers described this online July 16 in Current Biology. The skin may hide the fish from predators or prey. It might also inspire new designs for ultrablack materials used in telescopes or fabric.

Little of the sun’s light reaches the deep sea. But bioluminescent organisms can brighten this inky darkness. They create their own light. For creatures at these depths, trying to swim here unseen is “like trying to play hide and seek on a football field,” says Karen Osborn. Explains this marine biologist, “There’s nowhere to hide.” Osborn works at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

The earliest dinosaur eggs were more like leathery turtle eggs than hard bird’s eggs. That’s the conclusion of a new study of fossilized dino embryos.

A mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, last weekend killed at least 22 people. The dead include a teenager and two young adults. The gunman was reportedly motivated by racism. He had apparently posted hateful text online about people of color.

Being the target of racist acts, or even just seeing or hearing about them, can cause unhealthy levels of stress in children and adolescents. That’s the assessment of a new report. It was issued July 29 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

That new policy statement marks the first time the Academy has focused solely on racism. It explains how racism can harm children’s overall health. And it points to what doctors, parents and others can do to help, says Maria Trent. She coauthored the new Academy report. A pediatrician, she works at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. There, in Baltimore, Md., she specializes in adolescent medicine, seeing patients up to age 25.

Chalk up one more way 2020 could be an especially stressful year: The Atlantic hurricane season now threatens to be even more severe than preseason forecasts predicted, and may be one of the busiest on record.

With as many as 25 named storms now expected — twice the average number — 2020 is shaping up to be an “extremely active” season with more frequent, longer and stronger storms, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns. Wind patterns and warmer-than-normal seawater have conspired to prime the Atlantic Ocean for a particularly fitful year — although it is not yet clear whether climate change had a hand in creating such hurricane-friendly conditions. “Once the season ends, we’ll study it within the context of the overall climate record,” Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, said during an Aug. 6 news teleconference.

The 2020 hurricane season is already off to a rapid start, with a record-high nine named storms by early August, including two hurricanes. The average season, which runs June through November, sees two named storms by this time of year.