Normal and one infected person infected on average 2. 00 others over a 5 day period then after 30 days that one person would be the source of more than 400. 00 infections. Reducing contact with others by 75 percent the total would be just 2 and a half infection. But what effect does isolation have on the mind and body. Lets find out by heading to a research station in one of the worlds loneliest places the ads take. Time out for the expedition members at germanys neumeier research station in antarctica this is the 1st time that theyve seen the sun after 9 months of darkness. This long period in isolation was extremely difficult for everyone here. Our work and routine is what really helps and doing a lot together but at the same time giving everyone enough space. It can get pretty lonely here in the world southernmost continent trying times for station manager and doctor baggage to go back and the 8 other german team members far away from their families. Berlin challis to a hospital is investigating the impact of this isolation the crew have to undergo medical tests and even a cat scan of the brain before their departure and on their return as well as giving all sorts of samples. Were collecting all the bodily substances that we can get our hands on blood urine stool and every few months some hair samples. The scientists and the team themselves have notice changes. Nothing sometimes you have to stop and remember which way is north east and south when youre outside you sometimes think that youve taken the wrong turn even though you actually know the way or this from my 1st things can be a bit more difficult or you forget things for example how to find your way around the station where was that again its strange sometimes. Under these conditions one part of the brain shrinks by around 7 percent. One structure that were interested in is the hippocampus thats an important area for episodic memory for learning and memory. This area of the brain gets smaller during the long months of darkness. Research director Alexander Don has also asked the team to perform computer tests the study financed by the German Aerospace center is also intended to show what kind of changes astronauts might undergo. To complete this docking maneuver successfully we have to guide this green cross with the help of these tools toward the docking pin. Pin have done so and trigger the docking procedure and your time to see how quickly and precisely you can do this is your its an exercise thats intended to test the brains performance during the months of darkness and isolation. Or not we do this once a month during our stay to find out how our ability to concentrate on our precision and our interest in this kind of task changes over time that people. Responses to questionnaires about emotional changes are also sent back to berlin. The impact of this isolated and austere environment on Group Dynamics is also under investigation. And as i said jack you see the classic conflict between the need for intimacy and for space that we know from our own relationships that exists in a group too it can feel constraining at times or you might want more intimacy but its not the right kind of closeness because what you really want is your own family and thats the most difficult part of the berlin researchers are also keeping an eye out for signs of depression thats a distinct possibility when youre alone with the same few people for months on end and he isnt yet one and under the do you feel isolated from the others have you had melancholy or depressive thoughts that might possibly require medical attention and ses i afford im kind. This study could also help us cope with the coronavirus lock down Alexander Done as a piece of advice. You can do simple things like brushing your teeth with your left hand while standing on one leg. The important thing is to avoid getting stuck in a rush. Your brain needs fresh input. The neumeyer station team has created challenges for itself a boot camp to give the brain and the body a thorough workout. Is the driving force behind the exercise team and she and the other expedition members are top fit. And much of it was difficult at 1st we had muscle aches and we cursed but weve come to love her but i did. It on their own its one of the main reasons that weve got through the winter so well now. The researchers say that while the brain does shrink during isolation these changes are not permanent. Year doesnt always does. I assume that all these changes are reversible. Question as to what extent the team managed to reintegrate into everyday life you know your music their resume their usual activities to build their social networks and pursue their normal lives again upon their return. Whether we spend 9 months in the icy wastes of and arctica or weeks in coronavirus locked down in your own home isolation is difficult and it takes a toll on us. He asked our viewers what are your strategies for staying sane during the coronavirus pandemic. Here are some of you are. Philip template. Junior from the philippines rose we are in the 8th week of lockdown my strategy is simple i check the news chap with family and friends work from home. Then i do light exercise after dinner and read books my days are quite structured. Midnight gives from through says im one of the few people who enjoy quarantine i love spending time with my family and cooking healthy meals and eating adolescently paste ill be sad when things go back to normal. Owning genie in indonesia says its an opportunity to try new things ive taken up gardening as a hobby and im trying to master hydroponics i hope to be able to eat my own harvest thank you for writing to us. The term social distancing may be new but plates and pestilences and the practice of isolating the sick is thousands of years old but that doesnt make our Current Situation feel any less new and weird. And its all because of a microscopic vicious pathogen the suns corona virus too. But what is a virus thats what our viewers are in sedan wants to know. A lot of viruses. A tick bite can transmit viruses such as a form of and several lighters called t b e v in humans the pathogen can cause a fatal inflammation of the brain. But. Other viral diseases are airborne so there are lots of ways they can spread. Thats clever viruses which consist of just d. N. A. Or r. N. A. In a protective envelope. They dont have their own metabolism so they need a host like humans or other organisms in order to reproduce in the case of an infection a virus hijacks the host cell and injects its genetic material into it and then becomes a factory for making new viruses. Many viruses can spread between species. The pathogens responsible for aids or a bowler may have traveled from apes to humans rodents can transmit hunter viruses for example. Birds some flu viruses a vaccine may prevent infection. Even though as in the case of flu the vaccine constantly has to be adapted as the virus mutates. One type of antiviral vaccine protects against Cervical Cancer and sometimes viruses arent pathogens but helpless. Certainly parvovirus says for example target tumor cells without damaging surrounding healthy cells researchers are hoping to use them to develop a viral therapy to treat glioblastoma highly aggressive brain cancer. Viruses cause many diseases like hiv aids needles and hepatitis but some viruses fight disease the inspecting area thing ages in vain bacteria viruses are made up of the genome within a casing bacteria are more complex and mostly much larger viruses cant reproduce on their own they need to hijack bacteria or other organisms to do so and that is key to their potential role in medicine. These young scientists are reviving an old method biotechnology students i am diner and her team are using bacteria phages known informally as phases to combat bacteria. Fauquier its a little divya that lets say it is a virus and the natural enemy of bacteria. For fate is a naturally occurring and can be found wherever there are bacteria. In the audience of water for example in soil but also in the human body and these phages can only infect specific bacteria not human cells thats why they can be used to treat bacterial infections. A fish only targets a single species of bacteria so the researchers require a whole range of them so far theyve isolated them from the environment in a complex process employ tons in our project weve identified collected and characterized multiple phage variants. Asked that these are going to be used to infect and kill different species of bacteria. And. That then it. Bacteria phages were discovered in 1917 by a french canadian microbiologist felix to. Recognize their potential to fight Infectious Diseases in the 1920 s. International pharmaceutical Companies Began making fades cocktails but the advent of antibiotics which were cheaper to make and more widely applicable soon displaced phage therapy until its recent read discovery but the students here need funding if their work is going to progress and big pharma isnt interested i know. For a start intellectual property is hard to secure faith is over and then to successfully apply phage therapy you have to keep slightly modifying the phages in the course of the sarah pay. What if its that sort of dynamic treatment is impossible given current laws needs new Clinical Trials for every faith variant. Fades therapy is also patient specific and that means that for now at least its not economically viable. Metiria fate is could be used to come back to this tritium difficile and hysteria which can contaminate fish meat and Dairy Products and cause a life threatening disease in humans. Some strains of e. Coli i found in food can also make us sick. Could fate has one day be used safely across the Food Industry to cleanse praties and products of certain bacteria. Scientists involved in in the netherlands are researching how to fight tiny but dangerous organisms with even tinier organisms. 8 the company my crew us develops bacteria phages. 8 they are viruses that target specific bacteria. Cheesemaker wants to find out if ages can help make his products safer. The faces are grown and liquid bacteria cultures that allow them to multiply rapidly. The bacteria are the same as the ones that they want to get rid of and the cheese phage is our natural enemies of bacteria microsoft supplies its customers with fake has to fight listeria and some another bacteria. This is how they do it. The phage latches onto the surface of a bacterium and injects its d. N. A. Into it is a list of bacteria to replicated c. N. A. Producing dozens of new phages eventually they call the bacterial cell to burst releasing new phages that then infect understory more bacteria. When the micro also researchers investigate whether their faces could help improve food manufacturers Safety Standards they always follow the same procedure they take 2 samples of contaminate them with the bacteria they want to destroy. In the u. S. A listeria outbreak linked to apples. And the number of lives. One of these contaminated products is sprayed with water thats the control sample. The other is sprayed with bacteria phages. The scientists take swabs from the products put them on plates containing nutrient. And leaving to incubate for 24 hours. The project leader is impressed by his faith his determination in fact that this big features are brilliant because theyre so specific they only destroy a certain strain of bacteria when you have good bacteria like those in cheese and yogurt they wont be destroyed so phages can be used in a very targeted way thats. Phages are also being used in medicine to treat bacterial Skin Infections for example it takes just a few days for symptoms to improve significantly. After an incubation period of 24 hours the listeria samples are examined by the scientists a lot of bacteria colonies are formed in the control sample and only a few in the face sample a few shouldnt nonform as there are only a 10th as many as in the control sample now you could destroy 10 times more bacteria if you use 10 times as many phases but the question is is that really necessary the Food Industry is extremely hygenic and clean the risk of listeria contamination is minimal if you destroyed 90 percent of the bacteria that risk is even smaller and the food safer. Phages could soon be used in germany too in sausage factories the casings made from animal got could be impregnated with the bacteria killing biases the faces would remain on the surface of the food and act as a line of defense to keep out bacteria that would also be useful in the production of smoked fish. Microbiologist by. Is a researcher at the university of poland got we asked him whether phages could also pose a danger. One type of phage called temperature does not immediately force its bacterial host to produce a new phase generation instead it integrates its genome into the out of the bacterium. When the bacterium reproduces it also replicates the virus genome at the same time its a very elegant method of genetic reproduction but it also makes this sort of phage potentially dangerous because when the viruses are finally released they can also transfer part of the bacterial genome of their host including genes for antibiotic resistance or toxins to other bacteria if you sleep its well known that bacteria phages can spread factors such as virulent genes or resistance genes and that could also possibly happen if they are used in the Food Industry but these kind of pages temperate phages which can integrate their genome into the genome of their host bacterium wouldnt be used in the Food Industry. And that sector would focus on phage is that really only destroy bacteria. And their likelihood of transmission is very very small. So in the future viruses in food could actually be good for us thats an idea that will definitely take some getting used to. Many kinds of bacteria are beneficial some live in the soil and in hans its quantity bacteria are present in most habitats in desert sadness and polar ice. It is thought that they make up 3 courses of all known species of forms of. Plant down realm where they congregate in vast numbers. For the most part theyre very well. Little alexis is just a few hours old he arrived by says arry inception intervention of birth hed have swallowed some of his mothers bacteria as he passed through the birth canal dr fleming is providing the newborn with maternal bacteria an alternative way. Visits the sort of. Odd as we try to do at the request of the parents is to collect federal fluids from the mother in swap the babys mouth with industry into the foster home the idea behind this is to pass good luck tyria from the mother to her infant of skin to bottle. This should only be done when the mother is completely healthy or it could harm the baby studies show that maternal bacteria that colonize the baby during birth are important for the Childs Health breastmilk also plays a key role. The clinic has set up a bank of breast milk donors for mothers who cant breastfeed breast milk contains the bacteria and infant needs for a healthy got micro biome. But as we grow up we eat things that arent necessarily good for us like pizza burgers and fizzy drinks can too much unhealthy fast food impact our gut flora and even our psyche. These researchers think it can i talk farsi and optimate haasan from the Austrian University of droughts are observing the behavior of mice fed on a poor diet theyre giving their test myself either healthy grains in dried grass or the special feed that accounts for 60 percent of its calories similar to fast food after 8 weeks the scientists examine the behavior of the mice i type thats one of the green mice into a cage it hasnt been in before it eagerly explores its new environment. Then comes the fast food mouse whos put on quite a lot of weight it has little desire to move which is a sign of depression the fast food mice are also not very sociable unlike the grain fed subjects they prefer to be alone away from their fellow mice. An examination of their feces reveals drastic changes in the gut bacteria of the fast food mice could this be the reason for their behavior. To suppress and style and i quote by all we will use antibiotics and this is study we are planning to do if the depression like behavior disappears in the mice receiving antibiotics this means that exists. In the micro biome is necessary for that even a mental fiend of depression like behavior. And thats not the only type of food thats thought to affect the gut. Foods and drinks containing artificial sweeteners are popular with people trying to lose weight. Often its not clear if a product contains sugar substitute and there is evidence that the use could harm our microbiome. As part of an experiment i will be a bookie manner and julie vine bag will drink 12 saturates of saccharin every day for a week the israeli study hopes to find out whether or not this sweetener affects our intestinal flora and with our health you never know whats good for you and especially that in my family i know if we have a day of beauty if everyone to know whats good for me think. Both women are examined at the Weitzman Institute in israel. The researchers want to see how their Health Changes over the week including whether or not the sweetener impacts their blood sugar they are fitted with a sensor on the upper arm the device will measure their blood sugar levels throughout the next 7 days. The women are told to eat as they normally would so as not to skew the results and to enter everything they eat into a nap. Dr york times u. S. Believes that sweeteners do have an influence on intestinal bacteria to find out hes asked the test subjects to provide stool samples. He identifies the different types of gut bacteria in the lab and the results show that the diversity decreases in most subjects. When they got the material. They rickly in the guts material we can detect and looked into that are probably killed by the best or there was the confines of that material and theyre going to go up a can guess that maybe theyre using this on the 5th straight day of the 2 women only one saw changes in her gut bacteria. And her blood sugar levels also deteriorated. Before the test her blood sugar was normal but during the sweetener experiment the levels rose dramatically which can cause weight gain and disease more testing is needed to see whether sweeteners have this effect. But both women say they now plan to avoid them. If help what is right why are they borrow money they pay to have it do you have a science question that youve always wanted answered it like were happy to help out yes send it to us as a video text ovoid smell if we also on the show will send you a little surprise as a thank you can all just ask. And for more stories about the world of science visit us on our website on twitter and facebook. Thats all for today and next time on tomorrow today well go exploring one of europes few remaining old growth forests. And will accompany an expedition thats investigating why built in its habitat are so important. Until then good bye. And sing to overcome boundaries. Changing the world with dance. No words required. But full body engagement. With totality journey around the globe. Parts 24. Coming up on w. Its been closed for a year but we can take you inside again. A digital stroll around the Notre Dame Cathedral in paris. Using v. R. Goggles you can take a tour to the now reconstructed house of god a virtual to neutral dom as you never seen it before your own max. In 30 minutes on d w. A z. Morrow a symbol of a long cum flick in the philippines between the muslims and the christian population. Of play as fighters occupied the city center in 2000 the president due to his response was. This is not the kind of freedom that we. Coded morello we become a gateway to islamist terror. An exclusive report from a destroyed city. In the science of virus starts may 20th on d w. Nor did it what do they dream of at night. As cleaners they see the face of horror. Their job censoring for the social media industry. In the uk there are thousands of socalled content monitors day for day they screw up terrifying images from Online Platform or some horrific job for starvation wage the strain is enormous. The cleaners or sworn to secrecy they are not allowed to talk about their work. And no one asks how they are doing. I quit. I need to stop there something warm up to. The cleaners social medias shadow industry starts june 18th on t w. This is d w news and these are our top stories Brazils Health minister has resigned after less than a month in the job nelson ties his office had disagreed with president assad votes on our toes approach to the Coronavirus Crisis mr tosh is the 2nd Health Minister to resign during the pandemic. The German Economy has shrunk by 2. 2 percent in the 1st quarter of this year experts are warning of an even deeper slump