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Lots of universities and communities knew that the best way to control Covid was pre-symptomatic testing. But UC Davis is a world-class agricultural research institution, and so it had an advantage they didn’t: expertise in pandemic testing — for plants. While the leap between plant and human disease might sound like a stretch, it wasn’t to Richard Michelmore, a plant geneticist who directs the university’s Genome Center. Michelmore had spent decades doing cheap, mass-scale pandemic testing — for plant pathogens like wheat rusts and downy mildew on spinach.“SARS-CoV-2 is just a virus, right?” Michelmore said. “And there are plenty of viral diseases in plants that cause havoc.” (Colliver, 9/25)

It took a long time and numerous instances of nearly fainting for Renee Schmidt to figure out what was going on. Her symptoms became really noticeable as she headed to college at age 18, she recalled. About once a month, when she turned her head, she would feel herself start losing consciousness or experiencing momentary memory loss. On a few occasions, she fully passed out. Over time, the episodes occurred more frequently, sometimes 20 to 40 times per day. Schmidt had to drop out. “I couldn’t do school anymore. I was pretty much in bed all day for six months at least,” she said, “which was not ideal.” Three years after her symptoms emerged, Schmidt was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. EDS is a cluster of often rare, poorly understood, inherited diseases that impact connective tissues. (Johnson, 9/26)

Terrell Carter remembers one prisoner in particular. They had both been seeking commutations of their life sentence so they could eventually apply for parole. But Carter says that in the midst of the process, his fellow inmate became so debilitated with dementia that the man could no longer function well enough to complete the paperwork. Within a few months, Carter says, this prisoner was incapacitated, lying in bed with arms outstretched over his head, calling for help. Carter, an inmate who volunteered in the hospice ward of State Correctional Institution Phoenix in Collegeville, Penn., says that his fellow prisoner languished and eventually perished in prison because he was too mentally impaired to file for forgiveness. “By the end, he didn’t know the crime he was charged with committing,” Carter says. (Novak, 9/27)

“Americans’ mental health is at the lowest point in history,” said David H. Rosmarin, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. “People are feeling more isolated than ever. They are less connected to each other and also to something spiritual. It’s a big problem.” Rosmarin is one of a growing number of psychologists who believe that religion and spirituality have tools that can help in today’s mental health crisis. In recent years, there has been an increase in training opportunities to integrate faith and spirituality into psychotherapy as well as articles and research papers about it published in professional journals. But Rosmarin says that convincing others in a profession, who are statistically less religious than those they serve, is still a hard sell. (Schiffman, 9/23)

The concept of having a “body clock” is a familiar one, but less widespread is the awareness that our body contains several biological clocks. Understanding their whims and functions may help us optimize our lives and lead to better overall health, according to scientists. Every physiological system is represented by a clock, from the liver to the lungs, and each one is synced “to the central clock in the brain like an orchestra section following its conductor,” writes Kim Tingley, a New York Times journalist who explored the effect this knowledge has on how conditions are treated, and spoke to scientists about how misalignment or deregulation of these clocks can have a profound effect on our health. (Tingley, 9/25)

For seven years, a daily pill has been available in South Africa to protect people from getting H.I.V. But when Victoria Makhandule, a community health worker, counsels the young women in her township about the medication, they tell her it doesn’t work for them. These young women are among the most vulnerable in the world to H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, but they say the daily pills, known as PrEP, bring their own challenges. The women may spend an unexpected night away from home and miss a dose, or forget for a day or two. Or their mothers or cousins snoop through their drawers, find the pills and know their business. Or their boyfriends see them taking the drug and get suspicious: Is that really for prevention, or do you have H.I.V.? Lots of young women here start PrEP (short for pre-exposure prophylaxis). Few stay on it. (Nolen, 9/27)

It has been more than 17 months since Unilever PLC-owned deodorant brand Degree said it had created a concept for what it called the “world’s first inclusive” deodorant for people with disabilities. The prototype, which was designed with customers who have limited sight and arm mobility in mind, and the campaign unveiling it won multiple advertising, design and innovation awards for Unilever and its marketing agency. But the deodorant never appeared on shelves. Further testing found that users wanted customizable solutions for their particular mobility and dexterity needs, not a single product that tried to accommodate a wider range of disabled people. (Deighton, 9/28)

For people who already wear hearing aids, most contemporary aids come with Bluetooth compatibility, says Lindsay Creed, associate director of audiology practices at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. That means you can connect them to your audio source without any cords. Check with your audiologist or the manufacturer to find out whether your hearing aids are Bluetooth enabled and how to “pair” them with an audio source like a cellphone, computer or MP3 player. (Hunter, 9/23)