Higher indoor humidity inactivates flu virus particles

Infectious capacity of influenza virus particles reduced at relative humidity of 40 percent or higher

2013-02-28

(Press-News.org) Higher humidity levels indoors can significantly reduce the infectivity of influenza virus particles released by coughing, according to research published February 27 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by John Noti and colleagues from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The researchers tested the effect of relative humidity on the capacity of flu virus released in a simulated 'cough' to re-infect cells. They found that an hour after being released in a room at a relative humidity of 23% or less, 70-77% of viral particles retained their infectious capacity, but when humidity was increased to about 43%, only 14% of the virus particles were capable of infecting cells. Most of this inactivation occurred within the first fifteen minutes of the viral particles being released in the high-humidity condition. The study concludes that maintaining indoor relative humidity at levels greater than 40% can significantly reduce the infectious capacity of aerosolized flu virus.

### Citation: Noti JD, Blachere FM, McMillen CM, Lindsley WG, Kashon ML, et al. (2013) High Humidity Leads to Loss of Infectious Influenza Virus from Simulated Coughs. PLoS ONE 8(2): e57485. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0057485

Financial Disclosure: This work was supported by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interest Statement: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

PLEASE LINK TO THE SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT (URL goes live after the embargo ends): http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0057485

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Heading a soccer ball may affect cognitive performance

2013-02-28

Sports-related head injuries are a growing concern, and new research suggests that even less forceful actions like 'heading' a soccer ball may cause changes in performance on certain cognitive tasks, according to a paper published February 27 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Anne Sereno and colleagues from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. The researchers tested the effects of non-injurious head-to-ball impacts on cognitive function using a tablet-based app. They found that high school female soccer players were significantly slower than ...

Wii-playing surgeons may improve performance on laparoscopic procedures

2013-02-28

Laparoscopic surgeons may improve certain aspects of surgical performance by regularly playing on a Nintendo® Wii, according to research published February 27 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Gregorio Patrizi and colleagues from the University of Rome, Italy. Considering the technical skills required to perform laparascopic procedures, several studies aim to evaluate and improve training for surgeons outside the operating room. Previous studies have assessed the effect of playing video games on hand-eye coordination and spatial attention. In the current research, ...

Children with autism show increased positive social behaviors when animals are present

2013-02-28

The presence of an animal can significantly increase positive social behaviors in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), according to research published February 20 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Marguerite E O'Haire and colleagues from the University of Queensland, Australia. The authors compared how 5-13 year old children with ASD interacted with adults and typically-developing peers in the presence of two guinea pigs compared to toys. They found that in the presence of animals, children with ASD demonstrated more social behaviors like talking, looking ...

Nut-cracking monkeys use shapes to strategize their use of tools

2013-02-28

VIDEO: This video shows two episodes in which a bearded capuchin monkey places and strikes a nut with the Stop meridian marked with a black line or a black-hatched line, and... Click here for more information. Bearded capuchin monkeys deliberately place palm nuts in a stable position on a surface before trying to crack them open, revealing their capacity to use tactile information to improve tool use. The results are published February 27 in the open access journal PLOS ...

Ectopic eyes function without connection to brain

2013-02-28

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. (February 27, 2013) – For the first time, scientists have shown that transplanted eyes located far outside the head in a vertebrate animal model can confer vision without a direct neural connection to the brain. Biologists at Tufts University School of Arts and Sciences used a frog model to shed new light – literally – on one of the major questions in regenerative medicine, bioengineering, and sensory augmentation research. "One of the big challenges is to understand how the brain and body adapt to large changes in organization," says Douglas ...

Infusion of stem cells and specially generated T-cells from same donor improves leukemia survival

2013-02-28

SEATTLE – In a significant advance for harnessing the immune system to treat leukemias, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center for the first time have successfully infused large numbers of donor T-cells specific for a key anti-leukemic antigen to prolong survival in high-risk and relapsed leukemia patients after stem cell transplantation. Both the stem cells for transplant and the T-cells came from the same matched donors. Reporting results of a pilot clinical trial in the Feb. 27 issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine, researchers describe ...

Risk of heart attack death may increase after adult sibling's death

2013-02-28

Your risk of dying from a heart attack may increase after your adult sibling dies, according to new research in the Journal of the American Heart Association. "Death of a family member is so stressful that the resulting coping responses could lead to a heart attack," said Mikael Rostila, Ph.D., lead author of the study and associate professor at Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. "But our results suggest that this association between the loss of a sibling and having a heart attack is more likely to occur some years after bereavement." The ...

Researchers look to breath to identify stress

2013-02-28

The perennial stress-buster – a deep breath – could become stress-detector, claims a team of researchers from the UK. According to a new pilot study, published today, 28 February, in IOP Publishing's Journal of Breath Research, there are six markers in the breath that could be candidates for use as indicators of stress. The researchers hope that findings such as these could lead to a quick, simple and non-invasive test for measuring stress; however, the study, which involved just 22 subjects, would need to be scaled-up to include more people, over a wider range of ...

Modified protein could become first effective treatment for vitiligo

2013-02-28

MAYWOOD, Il. – Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine researchers have developed a genetically modified protein that dramatically reverses the skin disorder vitiligo in mice, and has similar effects on immune responses in human skin tissue samples. The modified protein is potentially the first effective treatment for vitiligo, which causes unsightly white patches on the face, hands and other parts of the body. Loyola University Chicago has submitted a patent application for the protein, and researchers are seeking regulatory approval and funding for a ...

Spinal cancer: Guidelines for diagnosis unsupported in patients with lower back pain

2013-02-28

A new systematic review published in The Cochrane Library has raised doubts as to the effectiveness of "red flag" indicators at both identifying and excluding cancer in patients with lower back pain. The authors of the review concluded that most individual red flags were poor at diagnosing spinal malignancies and call for further studies focused on combinations of red flags. Lower back pain is a common complaint, often with no obvious cause. In around 1-5% of patients with lower back pain, the condition results from a more serious underlying problem, such as a tumour. ...

TF-rs1049296 C>T variant modifies the association between hepatic iron stores and liver fibrosis in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease

ASH publishes clinical practice guidelines on diagnosis of light chain amyloidosis

SLAS receives grant from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop lab automation educational guidelines

Serum interleukin-8 for differentiating invasive pulmonary aspergillosis from bacterial pneumonia in patients with HBV-associated acute-on-chronic liver failure

Higher indoor humidity inactivates flu virus particles

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: