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Interview

The X chromosome, of which women have two and men have one, is believed to influence immune response. Image credit: Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels
interview | health | coronavirus outbreak
06 August 2020

Q&A: How coronavirus is putting a spotlight on sex differences in medicine

More than six months into the coronavirus crisis, data show that not just age, but also biological sex plays a pivotal role in the manifestation and response to Covid-19, with more men dying from acute infections versus women in the short term. This discrepancy has shined a spotlight on a key theme that has gained traction in recent years: is enough being done to account for sex and gender in disease and medicine? Not enough, says Dr Sabine Oertelt-Prigione, the chair of sex and gender-sensitive medicine at Radboud University in the Netherlands and a member of the European Commission’s expert group on gendered innovations.

Earth’s seven major tectonic plates draw apart from each other, rub together or collide, shaping the world we live in. Image credit - Pixabay/SpecialEventConsulting, licenced under Pixabay licence
interview | frontier research | environment
03 August 2020

Q&A: Plate tectonics is fundamental to understanding Earth’s evolution – but big questions remain

The division of the Earth’s surface into seven major mobile plates is fundamental to our planet’s uniqueness, creating a habitable environment and possibly the conditions under which life itself originated. The theory of plate tectonics is 50 years old, but there are many puzzles left to answer, says Dr Kate Rychert, who studies the geology at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Moving people from cars to other forms of mobility is ‘extremely complex’, partly because there are powerful lobbies resisting change, says Dr Chaix. Image credit - Basile Chaix
interview | health | transport | frontier research
06 July 2020

Q&A: What lockdown air pollution reductions mean for the future of urban transport

People in cities experienced cleaner air during lockdowns, but a permanent shift to greener modes of transport and habits is ‘extremely complex to achieve’ given how much space is devoted to cars and the groups resisting change, says Dr Basile Chaix, who studies the health trade-offs we make as we travel.

interview | coronavirus outbreak | health
26 June 2020

Q&A: ‘We are only at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic’ – Prof. Peter Piot

We’re only at the start of the coronavirus pandemic although the second wave may take a different form to the first one, says veteran virologist Professor Peter Piot, who has spent the past 40 years tracking down and fighting viruses.

The immune system is changing all the time and Dr Aleksandra Walczak wants to distinguish between genuine responses and random fluctuations. Image credit - B. Eymann - Académie des sciences
interview | coronavirus outbreak | health | frontier research
16 June 2020

Q&A: How physics could explain why people respond differently to coronavirus infection

Some people’s immune systems contain pre-existing protection against coronavirus, indicating that they have encountered a similar infection to Covid-19 before, according to Dr Aleksandra Walczak, a physicist at École Normale Supérieure in Paris, France.

Prof. Baldwin says there are still many gaps in our knowledge of how to treat anxiety disorders, especially when therapy and anti-depressants do not work. Image credit - David Baldwin
interview | health
09 June 2020

Q&A: When and how does anxiety become a problem?

Short-term anxiety is a normal response to stress, but more needs to be done to understand and treat longer-term anxiety disorders, which affect the lives of millions of people across Europe and impose a significant economic burden on society, according to Professor David Baldwin, head of the mental health group at the University of Southampton, UK.

Covid-19 has shown us that countries that we thought were well prepared for something like coronavirus, were not, says Prof. McInnes. Image credit - Aberystwyth University
interview | coronavirus outbreak | health | frontier research
04 June 2020

Q&A: Coronavirus has shown the need for a global health system – but revealed its weaknesses too

We are seeing a failure of global health governance in response to Covid-19 because there are too many agencies with different interests, according Professor Colin McInnes, pro-vice chancellor at Aberystwyth University in Wales, UK, who says global institutions such as the World Health Organization and World Bank should stand together in crises.

We will see increasing inequality and serious health implications if we do not change our food systems, says Prof. Peter Jackson. Image credit - Peter Jackson
interview | coronavirus outbreak
04 May 2020

Q&A: Covid-19 pandemic highlights urgent need to change Europe’s food system

Europe urgently needs to make its food system more sustainable – or else face growing food insecurity and health impacts – and the coronavirus pandemic offers us an opportunity to push for change, according to Professor Peter Jackson.

Professor Cecilia Mascolo at the University of Cambridge, UK, hopes her coronavirus sounds app could provide the data needed to build a quick and cheap Covid-19 screening test in the future. Image credit - Salvatore Scellato
interview | health | coronavirus outbreak | ict | frontier research
30 April 2020

Q&A: The sound of your voice could help fight Covid-19

A recording of a cough, the noise of a person’s breathing or even the sound of their voice could be used to help diagnose patients with Covid-19 in the future, according to Professor Cecilia Mascolo, an expert in mobile health at data analysis at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Coronavirus lockdowns have caused air pollution to drop. Science is probing whether air pollution worsens the effects of coronavirus, with recent studies including in Italy suggesting there’s a link between polluted areas and higher fatality risk. Image credit - European Space Agency/ licenced under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
interview | health | coronavirus outbreak
22 April 2020

Q&A: China and Europe likely to see different effect of coronavirus-related air pollution drop

In March, a study revealed that between 50,000 and 100,000 deaths could be avoided this year in China if air pollution stayed at the same level as during the coronavirus lockdown. While other parts of the world have also seen improvements in air quality, the impact in Europe is likely to be less dramatic than for China, according to Dr Kristin Aunan from the Centre for International Climate Research (CICERO) in Norway, who conducted the study.

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