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(credit: City of Columbus)

Vaccination has improved health and lengthened life spans over the last two centuries, but it takes time to develop vaccines in response to emergent health threats. A paper published in PNAS presents a new type of nanoparticle vaccine technology using RNA to encode proteins that trigger immune responses. This new vaccine technology could allow us to respond more quickly to new threats, potentially saving many lives during future outbreaks.

Currently, four types of vaccines are commonly used. Inactivated vaccines contain bacterial cells or viruses that are killed or inactivated—they can’t replicate, but they can produce an immune response. Attenuated vaccines contain live bacteria or viruses that have low virulence, so they will evoke an immune response, but won’t cause a full-fledged infection. Virus-like particle vaccines contain the shell of a virus, but lack any genetic material. Finally, subunit vaccines contain proteins derived from the infectious agent, which can provoke an immune response without introducing the pathogen.

The new vaccine technology presented in this paper relies on what’s called “replicon mRNA,” which is based on a deactivated virus. It can make copies of itself and trigger the production of the proteins it encodes but can’t make new viruses, so it never escapes beyond the cells it first gets into. Replicon mRNA can be used to produce large quantities of specific proteins within the body, which in turn can provoke an immune response against those proteins.

They're everywhere! (credit: Pokemon Go)

Sometime over the weekend, Niantic's Pokémon Go went from being a fun time waster for nostalgic Nintendo fans to a bona fide viral hit that's drawing mainstream media coverage and questions from well-meaning but confused parents. The humble geolocation game has shot to No. 1 on the iTunes App Store download and earnings lists and is already threatening to surpass Twitter in daily users on Android devices. Nintendo stock is up about 25 percent today on news of the game's success, and Spotify says all five of its most-streamed songs over the past week have been Pokémon-related.

This is officially a phenomenon.

In the wake of the game's stratospheric success, you could already sense a few embryonic media storylines brewing over the weekend. Here are some of the major angles we can already see developing around Pokémon Go and some instant, skeptical analysis you can break out when you want to show off your industry smarts at your next dinner party.

(credit: Simon Fraser University - University Communications)

The European Union's proposal for a chapter on energy and raw materials in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement was leaked on Monday, just as the fourteenth round of talks between the EU and US got underway in Brussels.

However, the EU's plans have been criticised by the European wing of Friends of the Earth. Its economic justice programme coordinator Paul de Clerck said: "The EU's leaked proposal on TTIP and energy is in complete contradiction with Europe's commitments to tackle climate change, and the Paris agreement. It will flood the EU market with inefficient appliances, and consumers and the climate will foot the bill. The proposal will also hinder measures to promote renewable electricity production from wind and solar."

Green MEP Claude Turmes told the Guardian: “These proposals are completely unacceptable. They would sabotage EU legislators’ ability to privilege renewables and energy efficiency over unsustainable fossil fuels. This is an attempt to undermine democracy in Europe.”