30 April 2020: A sniff test for consciousness, and how to cut antibiotics use — with vaccines

This week, how the ‘sniff-response’ can help clinicians determine a patient's state of consciousness, and how vaccines could help drive down antibiotic use.

In this episode:

00:45 Sniffing out consciousness Researchers have found that the sniff reflex can indicate whether a patient is in a vegetative state, and even the likelihood that they will recover consciousness. Research Article: Arzi et al.

08:37 Research Highlights The stupefying effect of carbon dioxide, and a chameleon gemstone that tricks your eyes. Research Highlight: Rising carbon dioxide levels will make us stupider; Research Highlight: How a chameleon gemstone changes from red to green

11:12 Vaccination and antibiotic usage Looking at data from low- and middle-income countries, researchers have determined that vaccination could prevent millions of infections currently treated by antibiotics. Research Article: Lewnard et al.

16:49 Pick of the Briefing We pick our highlights from the Nature Briefing, including the forgotten mother of climate change science, and a new global study on insect declines. Chemistry World: Eunice Foote: the mother of climate change; Science: Meta-analysis reveals declines in terrestrial but increases in freshwater insect abundances Subscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.

Other links Shamini’s latest video on a newly discovered Spinosaurus skeleton, which suggests that it had a fin-like tail that would have helped it swim and hunt.

We've been nominated for a Webby award! You can vote for us here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.