Since the 1990s, scientists have known that some people are “supertasters” who experience many tastes with more intensity — sugar is sweeter and broccoli more bitter. As we begin to understand human genetics, scientists are finding biological foundations of different food likes and dislikes, Dr. Sally Robinson explains in her column.

In their Medical Discovery News Column, Drs. Norbert Herzog and David Niesel discuss a Dark Age precedent behind a conspiracy theory that the COVID-19 vaccine would transform people into vampires.

University of Texas Medical Branch researchers have developed a vaccine that could protect against the deadly Nipah virus in just three days. All six monkeys given an experimental jab seven days before being exposed to a lethal dose of the disease survived. Two-thirds of primates given the shot three days in advance lived. Many other international news outlets carried a related story from the Indo-Asian News Service that cited Dr. Thomas W. Geisbert from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at UTMB. The experimental vaccine was found to be “safe, immunogenic and effective at protecting the monkeys from a high dose of Nipah virus given shortly after immunization,” Geisbert wrote in the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

UTMB researchers discovered an increase in mortality rates among Medicare beneficiaries in the 30 days after hospital admission for non-severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (non-SARS-CoV-2) causes during the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2020 through September 2021), according to a study published online March 9 in JAMA Network Open.

Fancy a tipple? Research from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston suggests that light alcohol consumption during later life helped improve people’s episodic memory if they did not have dementia. Needless to say, it’s important to drink only in moderation as you age. If you are concerned about this issue, speak to a doctor first.

“We tend to think children are like small adults in many ways, but in terms of energy utilization, they’re definitely not the equivalent of small adults,” write Drs. Norbert Herzog and David Niesel in their Medical Discovery News column. “They consume more energy than a pregnant person and even more than growing teenage boys. Unbelievable! Scientists have stated that in terms of burning energy, young children are like a different species.”

Vitamin K doesn’t cross the placenta, so babies are born with very little vitamin K in their bodies. To complicate their low levels, breast milk is low in vitamin K, Dr. Sally Robinson writes in her regular column. Since 1961, the standard of care is for newborns to receive one shot of vitamin K to prevent those complications. However, in recent years there has been an increase in the number of parents who refuse the intramuscular shot.

Several studies now show COVID-19 vaccines can affect menstrual cycles, but the effects are minor and short-lived. Drs. Megan Berman and Richard Rupp explain this in their Vaccine Smarts column.

“Now that spring has sprung, get your dose of sunshine daily and keep yourself healthier,” Dr. Victor S. Sierpina writes in his regular column. “Nudist camps often claim to be health-promoting — and we may have something to look at there.”