New Scientist - USA (2022-04-16)

16 April 2022 | New Scientist | 7

News

Far, far away

The most distant

object astronomers

have ever seen p

Space racers

The speediest stars in

the galaxy may have

exotic origins p

Extra genitals

The bizarre sex life

of a cricket-like insect

in New Zealand p

Post-workout glow

Male crossbills

get redder feathers

after exercise p

Crypto bandwagon

The UK government

is launching a

range of NFTs p

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AU

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AG

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DOCTORS are investigating a

mysterious outbreak of liver

disease in young children in the

UK. So far, there have been 60 cases

in England and 11 in Scotland of

unexplained hepatitis, or liver

inflammation, since the start of

the year, most of them in children

who are 2 to 5 years old. Case

numbers in Wales and Northern

Ireland haven’t been released.

Although no child has died,

a “small number” have needed

a liver transplant, said the UK

Health Security Agency (UKHSA)

on 8 April. This means they will

have to take drugs that suppress

the immune system for the rest

of their lives, which will leave

them at risk of infections.

Hepatitis is often associated

with specific pathogens, such as

the hepatitis C virus, but it can be

triggered by many other things.

There have previously been small

clusters of cases caused by the

hepatitis A virus, which can be

spread by faecal contamination of

food or water. The hepatitis viruses

A to E have all been ruled out in

the current outbreak, though.

Finding the cause will require

carefully investigating every

case to see if they have factors

in common, says Graham Cooke,

an infectious disease specialist

at Imperial College London.

The outbreak might have

been caused by a rare delayed

reaction to covid-19 infection,

or by a different infection

spreading after pandemic-related

lockdown restrictions were lifted.

“There is probably a group of

children who won’t have been

exposed to all those viruses they

would normally be exposed to in

early life,” says Cooke. “With the

easing of restrictions, a lot of

other viruses are circulating that

weren’t able to circulate before.

The covid-19 vaccine can’t

be the cause, because it isn’t

being offered to children

under the age of 5 in the UK.

Family doctors have been asked

to watch out for children aged 16

and under who have symptoms

of hepatitis, which include a

yellow tinge to the skin known

as jaundice, discoloured urine

or faeces, itchy skin, fever,

nausea and abdominal pain. ❚

An unexplained rise in liver disease among young children

is being investigated in the UK, reports Clare Wilson

Child hepatitis mystery

Health

HIGH levels of radiation seen

during the Russian capture

of the Chernobyl nuclear

power plant in Ukraine on

24 February were initially

put down to tanks stirring

up radioactive dust, but

researchers now believe

this contamination may

never have happened.

Instead, interference

between wireless radiation

sensors and unidentified

military equipment may

have been to blame.

Mike Wood at the

University of Salford, UK,

and his colleagues extracted

data from automatic

wireless monitoring systems

at Chernobyl. He says the

pattern of radiation spikes

rules out a rolling convoy

of military vehicles as it

wasn’t clustered around

any particular route.

The team also calculated

whether the radioactive

material left in the soil

from the plant’s meltdown

in 1986 was strong enough

to cause the spikes and

concluded that, even with

conservative estimates,

it wasn’t (arXiv, arxiv.org/

abs/2204.03157).

“We’ve hypothesised

that the cause may well be

to do with electromagnetic

frequencies being used by

the military, and it could be

Russian or Ukrainian military

around that time, actually

interfering with the reception

of data,” says Wood.

The idea is plausible, but

there is no way to verify the

findings directly due to the

war, says Bruno Merk at the

University of Liverpool, UK. ❚

Nuclear safety

Chernobyl spikes

called into doubt

Matthew Sparkes