Abstract Rapid pathogen identification is a critical first step in patient isolation, treatment, and controlling an outbreak. Real-time PCR is a highly sensitive and specific approach commonly used for infectious disease diagnostics. However, mismatches in the primer or probe sequence and the target organism can cause decreased sensitivity, assay failure, and false negative results. Limited…

RESEARCH BRIEFINGS 01 November 2023 How accurately a person recalls the COVID-19 pandemic is affected by motivational factors, including how they feel about their vaccination status. The recollections of vaccinated and unvaccinated people are skewed in opposite directions, leading to different retrospective narratives about the pandemic. This distorted recall influences how individuals evaluate past political…

The protoplanet Theia, which was roughly the size of Mars, slammed into proto-Earth 4.5 billion years ago (artist’s impression).Credit: Hernán Cañellas For decades, scientists have been baffled by two large, mysterious blobs in Earth’s mantle. These rock formations are thousands of kilometres long and slightly denser than their surroundings, hinting that they are made of…

Starfishes are weirdly shaped animals. Scientists have long puzzled over how a starfish body equates to the more typical animal arrangement of a head on one end and trunk or tail on the other. Humans wear trousers on the bottom of their trunks, so you could extrapolate out from that to suggest solutions to the…