SMC Spain

On 4 July 2012, physicists from all over the world celebrated the milestone achieved by CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva: they had found the elusive Higgs boson, described theoretically in 1964 and a key part of the standard model. Among the dozens of scientists who participated in that discovery, with the ATLAS and CMS experiments, there were many Spanish physicists, who ten years later appreciate what it meant.

The rise in cases of asthma, allergies and digestive tract diseases, among others, could be linked to changes in the microbiome. US researchers are propose to combat this trend by having us all save samples of our own gut microbiota when we are young and healthy, for later use in an autologous faecal microbiota transplant.

Communicating outbreaks of infectious diseases is not easy, especially when they affect population groups that may face discrimination. Cases of monkeypox among men who have sex with men remind us of the importance of reporting without stigma.

Lamivudine, a commonly used antiretroviral drug for the treatment of HIV, improves cognitive ability in a mouse model of Down's syndrome, according to a new study published today in the Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine.

British researchers have analysed the extent to which various types of extreme weather events are attributable to climate change. In the case of heatwaves, they find an unequivocal link. They estimate that the 35 worldwide between 2000 and 2020 have caused at least 157,000 deaths and warn that it is very likely that the impact of this phenomenon is being underestimated.

The UK has detected "circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2" in residual samples collected between February and June. Although no symptomatic cases have been found so far, the finding underlines the importance of keeping the population vaccinated.

A genomic analysis of monkeypox viruses from patients in the ongoing outbreak reveals that it most likely has a single origin. This 2022 monkeypox virus diverges from those of 2018-2019 in many more genetic variations than expected for Orthopoxviruses, which may represent ongoing accelerated evolution, according to the authors. The study is published in Nature Medicine.

After the acute phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection, children may develop long covid-19 symptoms. Research published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health examines the prevalence of these symptoms, quality of life, number of sick days, absences from school, and psychological and social outcomes in children aged 0-14 years who had been infected with SARS-CoV-2.

A study published today in Nature says that women are more likely than their male counterparts not to appear in research papers on which they have collaborated.

Castilla-La Mancha has sealed a farm in Toledo after a minor was hospitalised (and later discharged) after drinking water from a tap. Analyses by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III have confirmed that it is not cholera. Although the bacteria consumed is the same, in this case it did not contain the toxins that cause the disease.