JPR News Focus: Science

Continued from previous page grid, but it’s been difficult to create a version that recharges efficiently.

The OSU researchers have developed a new electrolyte (the liquid or paste-like solution in batteries) that allows the battery to charge and recharge with virtually no loss of energy. The electrolyte also solves some of the common safety issues related to zinc batteries.

The scientists say the breakthrough represents a critical step forward in getting zinc-based batteries on the market.

Read the article in the journal Nature Sustainability.

Yellow fever cure?

Yellow fever is a pretty nasty disease spread by mosquitoes in the tropics of Africa and South America. As the name suggests, sufferers can start to appear yellow with jaundice. There’s a vaccine, but no cure if someone gets infected. And the impact of the disease is only expected to get worse with climate change.

But a team including researchers at Oregon Health and Science University are testing a new treatment that is showing great promise. They’re using a medical technology called monoclonal antibodies, lab-made proteins that help your immune system ward off infection (and probably best known for their role as a COVID treatment).

In animal tests, hamsters and monkeys infected with yellow fever showed no signs of infection after receiving the treatment. Two different strains of monoclonal antibodies were tested with similar success.

Mabloc, the company leading the development of the treatment, will use these results to inform a future clinical trial on humans.

Read the paper in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Untangling the ocean

Over the past few years, hundreds of whales have been found tangled in commercial fishing gear off the West Coast. Scientists believe the actual number of entanglements is much higher. Steps have been taken to reduce this number, but whales are still getting caught up.

Now researchers at Oregon State University and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife are looking to science in hopes of reducing the chances of entanglement. The scientists overlaid 10 years of population data for humpback and other whales off the Oregon coast with Dungeness crab fishery logbook data. They then looked at when and where the two groups were most likely to cross paths.

Climate conditions (like marine heat waves and upwelling season) seemed to drive the most risk of conflict as whales looked for food closer to shore.

ODFW says it will use the new analysis to (possibly) tweak commercial crabbing rules to reduce the chances of that much larger — and decidedly unwanted — catch.

Read the paper from the journal Biological Conservation.

GRACE GEDYE