Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.

Novacyt said the FDA’s approval meant that hospitals and laboratories in the United States would be able to use the test for clinical diagnosis of the coronavirus, and that the test was now available for immediate distribution in the U.S. market. “The U.S. FDA EUA authorization is another important endorsement of the performance and quality of our COVID-19 test and demonstrates once again Novacyt’s growing role in tackling this pandemic,” said Novacyt CEO Graham Mullis.
Healthcare group Novacyt wins U.S. approval for coronavirus test.

The Antarctic Sabbatical , as the travel company is dubbing it, will give five people the opportunity to study how widely micro plastics have infiltrated the region. Over a month’s time in December, they’ll be trained in lab work in Chile, collect snow samples in Antarctica, climb key glaciers and even visit the South Pole. Scientist Kirstie Jones-Williams, who will be helping to train and guide the volunteer researchers, says the goal of the program isn’t to create more scientists, but moreso global ambassadors on the dangers of pollution and more. “The science itself that we’re doing isn’t enough,” she told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “Actually, one of the biggest threats to our sort of natural environment isn’t necessarily the lack of information that we have ... but it’s more the disenfranchisement that can occur with policymakers and apathy and eco-fatigue. “One of the main things is to get a bunch of people that can take the messages that we learn back to their respective countries,” she said. It’s the second offering in Airbnb’s sabbatical program, which offers its users a chance to take time to do more than see the sights but actually do some good. Earlier this year, Airbnb selected five people to spend three months in Grottole in southern Italy to help preserve the way of life in the town, which is in danger of disappearing. Airbnb’s Chris Lehane says both sabbaticals are part of the company’s larger goal of more eco-friendly travel and to raise awareness of tourism’s global footprint. “Airbnb is not going to solve climate change, but we all have a responsibility to do what we can and use our capacity to help take steps forward,” said Lehane, senior vice president of global policy and communications. “A lot of travel in the world takes place in and around big events,” he said. “Can we find ways when people are going to travel around these big events, to make them much more sustainable?” No scientific background is required to be selected for the Antarctic trip: However, a love of the environment and the ability to complete some of the physical tasks, such as collecting samples, climbing glaciers and enduring bitter cold, is paramount. “It is hard to work in cold environments so people that ... perhaps work well under pressure, work well when they’re tired, that’s actually quite key,” Jones-Williams said,” and to actually ask questions, and people that are really hungry to get as much as they can out of this experience. “It’s really people that kind of respect the scientific process,” she added. The five will stay in Airbnb’s in Chile for their training for about two weeks and will stay at a camp provided by Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions in Antarctica for about a week or so. Airbnb will partner with Ocean Conservancy to use the research for advocacy. Nick Mallos, a conservation biologist and ocean debris specialist for Ocean Conservancy, called it an “incredible opportunity,” and noted that the group has long worked with “citizen science volunteers” to help clean up the environment. “We’ve seen the power of when you train and empower individuals to perform science, they can generate invaluable information and data that ultimately then can form solutions,” he said. ___ Online: http://airbnb.com/sabbatical
Airbnb to train volunteers for science research sabbatical.

An asthma sufferer wears a paper face mask as she is attended by nurses in this undated file image. REUTERS/Jason Reed The findings were published in the journal Lancet together with two other studies, which found that runny noses and wheezing early on in life may be strong predictors of asthma. In the first study, researchers pored through data provided by parents of more than 205,000 children and found paracetamol use in the first year of life was associated with a 46 percent higher risk of asthma by the time the children were 6 or 7 compared to those never exposed to the drug. Known as acetaminophen in the United States, where it is widely sold under the brand Tylenol, it is used to relieve fever, minor aches and pain, and is used in a liquid suspension for children. Medium use of paracetamol in the past 12 months increased asthma risk by 61 percent, while high dosages of once a month or more in the past year raised the risk by over three times. Medium use was defined as once per year or more, but less than once a month. Suspicions of a possible link between paracetamol and asthma emerged in recent years when experts observed an increased use of the drug to a simultaneous rise in asthma prevalence worldwide. One theory is that paracetamol reduces antioxidants in the body. Some experts think antioxidants, which stop unstable molecules known as free radicals from doing too much damage, can lower the risk of cancer, heart disease and other ailments. “Paracetamol can reduce antioxidant levels and ... that can give oxidative stress in the lungs and cause asthma,” one of the researchers, Richard Beasley at the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand, told Reuters in a telephone interview. As with asthma, monthly use of paracetamol doubled the risk of eczema and trebled that of rhinoconjunctivitis — repetitive sneezing, rhinorrhea, nasal congestion and hay fever — by the time children were 6 or 7, the study found. However, the researchers stressed paracetamol should remain the preferred drug to relieve pain and fever in children because its alternative, aspirin, was linked to the risk of Reye’s syndrome, a rare but serious complication in children. “The findings do lend support to the current guidelines of the World Health Organization, which recommend that paracetamol should not be used routinely, but should be reserved for children with a high fever (38.5 Celsius or above),” they wrote. Another study in The Lancet found that rhinitis, or hay fever and other allergic reactions causing a runny nose, was a strong predictor of asthma that develops in adulthood. Researchers monitored 6,461 people in 14 countries who were free of asthma at the start of study for more than 8 years. Those who suffered rhinitis and were allergic to an assortment of agents like house dust mites, cat, grass and birch were 3.5 times more likely to develop asthma later on compared to those who suffered no allergies nor rhinitis. The third study in Arizona in the United States found wheezing early in life may be an ominous sign of asthma developing in adulthood. Researchers pored through data on 849 people going back 22 years to the time they were babies. Of 181 cases of active asthma, 49 were newly diagnosed, of which 35 were women. “In over 70 percent of people with current asthma and 63 percent of those with newly diagnosed asthma at age 22 years, episodes of wheezing had happened in the first three years of life or were reported by parents at age six years,” wrote the researchers at the Arizona Respiratory Center. In an accompanying comment, Suzanne Lau of Charite University Medicine in Germany, wrote: “These findings identify a population at risk of chronic obstructive airway disease in early adulthood, and they already showed a predisposition during preschool years.” Lau was not involved in the study.

Paracetamol use may raise asthma risk in children.