Two years before SARS-CoV-2, the Alongshan (ALS) virus emerged in China. It was alarming because it was found to be a member of the flavivirus family along with the devastating tickborne encephalitis  (TBE) virus, which can cause inflammation of the brain and of the linings of the brain and spinal cord, and bacteria leading to the infectious Lyme disease (borreliosis). 

It was discovered after patients bitten by ticks suffered from fever and headaches, the typical symptoms of a TBE infection, but no antibodies against the TBE virus or its genetic material could be detected in the affected individuals. Instead, the researchers found a previously unknown RNA virus, the Alongshan virus.

List most planets, Earth was once a newly formed, sterile planet, so a philosophical and scientific question is, how did that change? Its randomness is the best argument for why we may be the most advanced civilization in this galaxy, if not the universe, and also the best argument for why we are not alone by now.

For the over four billion years that our terra firma has been around, meteorites have been hurtling through the atmosphere at high speeds toward its surface. and some argue that resulting debris may have included carbonaceous chondrites — a class of meteorite whose members contain significant amounts of water and small molecules, such as amino acids - and could have contributed to the evolution of life on Earth. 

The most popular pets are cats and dogs but their origins as human companions are much different. Dogs became domesticated during the ice age 23,000 years ago as humans and wolves co-habitated in tolerable refuge areas. Scavenging and then feeding by humans led to companionship. 

Pet cats (Felis silvestris catus. Felis catus) are much more recent, and evidence shows they were allowed as pest control but gradually became companions as humans migrated and took cats with them. Like dogs, and unlike cattle and horses, there was a nexus for domestication; in the case of cats the Fertile Crescent, the areas of the Middle East surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

To help try and understand the evolution and origins of cell motility, researchers have created the smallest mobile lifeform ever. 

Scientists introduced seven proteins, believed to be directly involved in allowing Spiroplasma bacteria to swim into a synthetic bacterium named syn3—through genetic engineering. syn3 was designed and chemically synthesized to have the smallest genomic DNA possible including the minimum essential genetic information required for growth from the smallest genomes of naturally occurring Mycoplasma bacteria.

A new study shows that supply chain cost increases coupled with inflation due to leaders just creating more currency are not new; they have been happening since ways to trade began.

A recent study revealed how the SARS-CoV-2 Spike (S)-protein interacts with human Estrogen Receptor Alpha (ERα) in lung tissue, which may increase the pro-coagulation activity of endothelial cells, enhancing the risk of thrombosis and shedding new light on the pathogenic mechanisms underlying SARS-CoV-2 infection and on its sex-specific differences.

The authors say it may also lead to the severe coagulopathy observed in some people receiving the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.