covid19 Archives - Minerva - Scientific popularization association

Coronavirus and illegal animal trafficking.

Daniele Battilani2021-06-20T17:01:20+02:0020 June 2021|Categories: Nature|Tags: animals, coronavirus, covid19, illegal trafficking|

In this period, the eyes of the scientific community are on SARS-CoV-2, the Coronavirus of the ongoing pandemic. Recall that Coronavirus does not mean only SARS-CoV-2 which is triggering the COVID-19 pandemic, but a whole family of viruses: i “Coronaviridae”. In particular, scientists are also trying to reconstruct the path that the aforementioned virus followed, making the "leap of species". What is meant by "leap of species"? Scientifically termed CTS (Cross-Species Transmission), it is the phenomenon by which a virus introduces itself into an individual of a host species other than the one it usually infects, then succeeds in [...]

Serological tests and swabs: when and why to do them

The pandemic has just begun, we all had heard of tests and swabs before: What are? What are they for? How many must be made, Why? What are false positives? A few months later, we started talking mainly about serological tests, sampling, antibodies and vaccine. A very common mistake has been to confuse the two types of tests: the swab and the serological. But these two procedures are very different from each other and must be done for different purposes, let's see why. First of all, when we talk about serological tests we have to talk about antibodies. Antibodies are "Y" shaped proteins, produced by cells [...]