World News

Losing your sense of smell with COVID | Simple steps to better sitting posture

Posted by: The Conversation Global

Date: Tuesday, 23 June 2020

 

From very early in the pandemic, people who tested positive for COVID-19 reported an unusual symptom: loss of the sense of smell. It took a while for this symptom – formally known as anosmia – to be included among the official symptoms, and it has taken even longer to unravel why it happens.

Coronaviruses – aside from causing deadly diseases such as Sars, Mers and COVID-19 – also cause about a third of all cases of the common cold. And everyone who has had a cold knows that you get a stuffy nose and so your sense of smell (and taste) goes. However, people with COVID-19 who’d lost their sense of smell didn’t have a blocked nose – which made this problem particularly baffling.

Now, CT scans have revealed what is actually happening, and Simon Gane, an ENT surgeon, and Jane Parker, a flavour chemist, are here to explain the details.

Thanks to lockdown, many of us now have a bad back. After all, your dining room chair is probably not as ergonomic as the one you have in the office. You might find it odd that a couple of aerospace scientists are giving us their top tips for avoiding back pain, but poor desk posture is very similar to the posture astronauts adopt during spaceflight in zero-gravity. So they know all about sorting spines out.

Clint Witchalls

Health + Medicine Editor (UK edition)

Syda Productions/Shutterstock

Coronavirus: scientists uncover why some people lose their sense of smell

Simon Gane, City, University of London; Jane Parker, University of Reading

The good news is: you'll probably get it back.

The advice we give to astronauts can be helpful to people working from home. NASA Johnson/flickr

Back pain: four ways to fix bad lockdown posture – by copying astronauts

Andrew Winnard, Northumbria University, Newcastle; Nick Caplan, Northumbria University, Newcastle

Poor desk posture is pretty similar to the posture astronauts naturally adopt during spaceflight.

Politics + Society

Coronavirus: narco gangs could see big popularity boost from helping residents in Latin America

Camilo Tamayo Gomez, University of Leeds

Coronavirus is serving Latin American organised crime well.

Sierra Leone faces coronavirus as rainy season hits – local disaster planning will be key

Lee Miles, Bournemouth University

Overlapping disasters of COVID-19 and flooding could be a serious threat for Sierra Leone's capital Freetown.

Energy + Environment

How forest loss has changed biodiversity across the globe over the last 150 years

Maria Dornelas, University of St Andrews; Gergana Daskalova, University of Edinburgh; Isla Myers-Smith, University of Edinburgh

New findings show how changes in land use have complex effects on animal and plant species.

The death of the open-plan office? Not quite, but a revolution is in the air

Andrew Wallace, University of South Australia

Even in the time of COVID-19, strong forces pull us back to the office.

 
 
 
 
 
 

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