Disease

Covid-19

The countries with the 10 greatest number of Covid-19 cases:

Ill Winds

A new study describes how bacteria can travel thousands of miles on airborne dust before settling in new locations, altering the environmental chemistry and possibly threatening the well-being of people and animals. Writing in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, researchers say these airborne bacteria make up aerobiomes, which attach to dust particles.

Israeli scientists used DNA to identify the likely source of the dust-borne bacteria in the country and found that about one-third of them came from far-off locations. It’s not yet known if wind-blown antibiotic-resistant genes could affect human and livestock health, or if traveling on the dust lessens or eliminates that threat.