The WHO warns that more people in Gaza could die from disease than from bombings.

NEW YORK Florida is bracing for Tropical Storm Idalia as it intensifies into a major hurricane on Monday

The 35-year-old New Jersey attorney has now been reportedly accused by eight women in total

SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Brazil's federal police said on Wednesday they were carrying out fresh raids and arrests as part of

Bats could hold the key to unlocking new ways to combat cancer, a new study suggests. A paper published by Oxford University Press, looks at the rapid evolution of bats for their abilities to both host and survive infections such as Covid-19 as well as cancer. The animals are known to have a strong immune system which helps fight off many viruses and diseases. These mammals are also thought to have played a role in the emergence of Covid-19 and scientists say such characteristics are interesting to investigate due to the implications it might have on human health. According to the research, understanding the mechanisms of the bat’s immune system that allows these animals to fight off viral infections – may pave the way to understanding how to prevent disease outbreaks from animals to people. To conduct the study, researchers sequenced the genomes of two bat species - the Jamaican fruit bat and the Mesoamerican mustached bat. The team used advanced technology from Oxford Nanopore Technologies and bat samples collected by the American Museum of Natural History in Belize. They then compared the bat genomes to those of other mammals. The results revealed that bats possessed genetic adaptations in proteins which are related to DNA repair and cancer suppression. It was found that bats had adaptations in six DNA repair-related proteins and 46 cancer-related proteins. The study also found that bats had more than double the number of altered cancer-related genes compared to other mammals, which provided further evidence that they have the ability to suppress cancer. “By generating these new bat genomes and comparing them to other mammals we continue to find extraordinary new adaptations in antiviral and anticancer genes,” said the paper’s lead author, Armin Scheben. “These investigations are the first step towards translating research on the unique biology of bats into insights relevant to understanding and treating ageing and diseases, such as cancer, in humans.” The results open up new paths for understanding and studying the links between cancer and immunity, which offers hope that these insights from bats might possibly lead to new treatments for human illnesses. According to the United States Department of the Interior, there are over 1,400 species of bats worldwide and are mostly found in extreme deserts and polar regions. In the US and Canada, there are about 45 species of bats. Read More British bats ‘can help identify coronaviruses with potential to infect humans’ Coronavirus origins still a mystery 3 years into pandemic Groundbreaking migraine treatment offers ‘new hope’ for patients World Sepsis Day: What is the condition and its symptoms? Duran Duran’s Andy Taylor says he’s ‘asymptomatic’ after end-of-life diagnosis

There were rumors that PewDiePie had embraced veganism, but that is not true as he consumes fish

The US Supreme Court appeared inclined on Tuesday to uphold a federal law prohibiting a person subject to a domestic violence restraining...

'1000-lb Sisters' star Amy Slaton showed off a dark full glam makeup look as she sported purple lipstick

President Joe Biden has spent decades as a stalwart supporter of Israel, a connection rooted in long-ago dinner table conversations with his father about the Holocaust

Scientists believe they have discovered the cause of the megalodon's extinction – and no, it’s not Jason Statham. Experts have been conducting research on fossils of teeth from the biggest species of shark the world has ever seen, which went extinct around 3.6 million years ago and measured at least 15 metres long. Research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explains that the animal was actually partially warm-blooded. Unlike most cold-blood sharks, the body temperature is thought to have been around 27 degrees. The temperature is higher than the sea temperatures around the time. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Study co author Robert Eagle, who is professor of marine science and geobiology at UCLA, said [via CNN]: “We found that O. megalodon had body temperatures significantly elevated compared to other sharks, consistent with it having a degree of internal heat production as modern warm-blooded (endothermic) animals do.” They were able to prove that the animals were warm-blooded by analysing how carbon-13 and oxygen-18 isotopes were closely bonded together in the fossilised teeth. Senior study author Kenshu Shimada is a paleobiologist at DePaul University in Chicago, who said: “A large body promotes efficiency in prey capture with wider spatial coverage, but it requires a lot of energy to maintain. “We know that Megalodon had gigantic cutting teeth used for feeding on marine mammals, such as cetaceans and pinnipeds, based on the fossil record. The new study is consistent with the idea that the evolution of warm-bloodedness was a gateway for the gigantism in Megalodon to keep up with the high metabolic demand.” The fact it was warm-blooded means that regulating body temperature could have been the cause of its eventual demise. The Earth was cooling when the animal went extinct, which could have been a critical factor. “The fact that Megalodon disappeared suggests the likely vulnerability of being warm-blooded because warm-bloodedness requires constant food intake to sustain high metabolism,” Shimada said. “Possibly, there was a shift in the marine ecosystem due to the climatic cooling,” causing the sea level to drop, altering the habitats of the populations of the types of food megalodon fed on such as marine mammals and leading to its extinction. “One of the big implications for this work is that it highlights the vulnerability of large apex predators, such the modern great white shark, to climate change given similarities in their biology with megalodon,” said lead study author Michael Griffiths, professor of environmental science, geochemist and paleoclimatologist at William Paterson University. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

'This is just another part of my already very colorful story, and I’m going to use it to inspire others to keep pushing through,' said Amanza Smith

The Republican leaders of two national security committees called for dramatic action to overcome the standoff in the