Author: Ranveer Kumar

Abstract Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is used in the treatment of a variety of autoimmune neurological disorders and is generally regarded as safe. We present a case series where IVIG causes transaminitis. The adverse effects are mostly due to the stabilizing agent used to prepare the IVIG (e.g., maltose in this series). While the adverse effects are usually self-limiting, physicians should be cautious in administering an IVIG preparation to these patients. Introduction Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is used as an immunomodulatory agent in many neurological autoimmune disorders, such as Guillain-Barré (GBS) syndrome, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, multifocal motor neuropathy, inclusion body myositis,…

Investigative food journalist Barry Estabrook is best known for his 2011 award-winning book, Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit, and other deep dives into the way our food system works. But when confronted with obesity and maxed out on blood pressure and cholesterol medications, he decided to turn the lens on himself. In his new book, Just Eat: One Reporter’s Quest for a Weight-Loss Regimen That Works, he documents his sometimes funny but very real failures at today’s popular diets. Estabrook talks with diet gurus and sifts through dieting history and the latest nutrition studies. He discovers that unfortunately, these…

A new study has found that people can classify a photo of an unfamiliar politician as either an autocrat or a democratically-elected leader, with an accuracy of almost 70%. The participants also rated the photos of elected leaders as more attractive, likable, and trustworthy than those of the dictators. The research paper, conducted by Canada-based researchers Miranda Giacomin, Alexander Mulligan, and Nicholas O. Rule, was published on February 4 in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. Politicians’ faces influence voters People’s faces offer many clues about their social status, personality, and political leanings. For example, even children can pick the winner of foreign elections based on quick…

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Culture matters more than a leader’s gender in how a nation survives a global pandemic, according to a study I conducted on gender and COVID-19 management, which was published in December in the journal PLOS ONE. My co-authors and I examined COVID-19 cases and deaths in 175 countries, 16 of which are led by women. We identified no statistically significant differences in deaths based on the gender of the country’s leader. Instead, we found that pandemic outcomes hinged primarily on how egalitarian a country is. Countries that…

Johnny Depp has failed in his attempt to challenge the ruling in the U.K. High Court that he was violent to his former wife Amber Heard. Last year, the actor waged a three-week libel case against the publisher of The Sun newspaper over a 2018 article calling him a “wife beater.” Depp claimed that Heard’s allegations of domestic violence were “a choreographed hoax.” However, Judge Andrew Nicol found that Depp had been violent toward Heard on at least 12 occasions, and rejected Depp’s case. Depp sought permission to appeal the ruling, claiming the judge had failed to assess the evidence properly and calling…

The voting machine firm says Fox News pushed the false claims to make a profit. New Trump recording revealed Audio from a phone recording appears to show the former president asking a Georgia state official to help overturn election results. ABC News’ Alex Presha has the details. Dominion Voting Systems on Friday morning filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, alleging that the conservative network pushed false accusations that the voting company had rigged the 2020 election, in order to make a profit and boost ratings. “Fox sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its…

The Energy Department set a goal of achieving 2 cents/kWh by 2030, and announced an initial $128 million in funding to support technology development. The U.S. Department of Energy announced a goal to cut the cost of solar energy by 60% within the next 10 years. It also announced nearly $128 million in funding to lower costs, improve performance, and speed the deployment of solar energy technologies. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said that solar is already cheaper than coal and other fossil fuels in many parts of the country. “With more innovation we can cut the cost again…

Scotland has narrowly missed a target to generate the equivalent of 100% of its electricity demand from renewables in 2020. New figures reveal it reached 97.4% from renewable sources. This target was set in 2011, when renewable technologies generated just 37% of national demand. Industry body Scottish Renewables said output had tripled in the last 10 years, with enough power for the equivalent of seven million households. Chief executive Claire Mack, said: “Scotland’s climate change targets have been a tremendous motivator to the industry to increase deployment of renewable energy sources. “Renewable energy projects are displacing tens of millions of tonnes…

SARS-CoV-2 may be settling into a limited set of mutations No doubt you’ve heard about the novel coronavirus variants that are evolving around the world. There now appear to be more than a dozen versions of SARS-CoV-2, which are of varying degrees of concern because some are linked to increased infectivity and lethality while others are not. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by this diversity and to fear that we’ll never achieve herd immunity. Yet evidence is growing that these variants share similar combinations of mutations. This may not be the multifront war that many are dreading, with an infinite…

Warmer temperatures and higher humidity may be key factors Lightning is relatively uncommon in the Arctic—the air is usually not warm enough for thunderstorms. Now that might be changing, new data suggests. A study recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds that Arctic lightning has tripled in the last decade alone. The researchers, led by Bob Holzworth of the University of Washington, analyzed data collected by the World Wide Lightning Location Network between 2010 and 2020. The network, operated by the University of Washington, has lightning sensors all over the world. The new study focused on summer lightning flashes, or “strokes,” detected…