Noted

Alex Eben Meyer

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The giant iridescent clams of the Western Pacific may be the planet’s most efficient solar-energy system. Vertical cylinders of single-celled algae grow on the clams’ surfaces, absorbing sunlight after the light has been scattered by cells called iridocytes. The algae’s arrangement in vertical columns enables very efficient absorption of sunlight. Researchers developed a model to calculate the clams’ quantum efficiency: the ability to convert photons into electrons. Factoring in fluctuations of sunlight, they found a quantum efficiency of 42 percent. Changes in sunlight cause the clams to stretch, moving algae columns further apart. With this information, quantum efficiency reached 67 percent.  By comparison, a green leaf system’s quantum efficiency in the tropics is only about 14 percent.

Why were kids—who are much more susceptible to common colds than adults—less likely to suffer severe COVID-19? Yale researchers may have found the answer.

Children have stronger nasal activation of their innate immune response—a broad anti-infection defense system—than do adults. Innate immunity protects against many different pathogens, while adaptive immune responses, such as antibodies, develop over time and protect against specific pathogens we have been exposed to. Over their lifetimes, adults have developed many antibodies that prevent specific infections. But children have had fewer prior exposures. Common cold viruses cause more infections in young children, leading to nasal innate immune responses being triggered more often.

However, no one had had prior exposure to SARS-CoV-2. Researchers hypothesize that heightened nasal innate immune responses in children, due to other common childhood infections, helped protect them from severe COVID.