A woman eight months pregnant covered head to toe with skin damage. Small children suffering with fevers and painful sores. A father asking for money to buy medicine for his affected five-year-old son after he’d buried two other small children infected with monkeypox.

Monkeypox, a smallpox-related viral disease with two known variants (变种), was named in 1958 after it was identified in a group of research monkeys in a laboratory in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Clade II, also known as the West African variant, is mild. Meanwhile, another variant — ten times deadlier — exists in Central Africa. The Africa Centers for Disease Control reports that the majority of the 3,500 suspected Clade I (or Congo Basin strain) cases this year, including more than 120 deaths, are in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Nigeria, where the Clade II outbreak began, has had about 700 suspected cases, with fewer than 10 deaths. Health experts from National Geographic referred to the steady rise of the Clade I variant in Central Africa, saying countries should be concerned about its threat to global communities and take stronger action to prevent it and other animal-borne diseases from bursting around the world.

“If the West African variant can spread to Europe, America, and other parts of the world, the more harmful and pathogenic (致病的) Congo Basin variant can also go there,” says infectious disease expert Dimie Ogoina at Niger Delta University, in the southern part of Nigeria. “International health organizations must be thoughtful to help address monkeypox and other diseases in Africa. Because if we don’t do this, it will come back to haunt us.”

Some disease experts say we missed an important opportunity to stop the outbreak before it took off. “Monkeypox should be considered a canary (金丝雀) in the coal mine, so that we should do much better disease surveillance (监管) in high-risk populations,” says Anne Rimoin, an infectious disease researcher. “The hardest and most expensive places to do this are in rural, remote parts of Africa,” she says. “But with growing human populations, mobility, and trade, these viruses can just as easily land on our doorstep.” Rimoin says, “Monkeypox cases have continued to increase over the past 12 years in the DRC, as well as other countries in Central and West Africa.” If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything,” she says, “it’s that an infection anywhere is potential for an infection everywhere.”

A new study suggests the Apple Watch was able to identify abnormal heart rates that could be linked to a serious heart condition.

More than 400,000 Apple Watch users volunteered for the study. It was a project of researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Apple, the American teleology company, provided money for the study. Results were recently presented at a major conference on heart health in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The researchers looked for signs of atrial fibrillation, also, called ”a-fib”, the most common form of irregular heartbeat. Some people with a-fib feel changes in their heartbeat, while others do not. Because of this, many people do not know they have the condition. People with untreated a-fib are about five times more likely to suffer a stroke (中风). In the United States, a-fib causes an estimated 130,000 deaths and 750,000 hospitalizations each year.

People taking part in the study wore the Apple Watch for extended periods. The devices contain an app that continuously gathers information without users having to do anything. It uses the watch’s light sensor technology to measure blood flow. The system is designed to identify changes that might show an irregular heartbeat.

The researchers said that out of those taking part, about 2,000 subjects (实验对象)received a warning from the device that they might have a problem. Those individuals were then asked to contact a doctor, who decided whether they should receive more close watch for a possible irregular heartbeat.

Lloyd Minor, head of Stanford’s School of Medicine, said in a statement that the results show great promise in using technology to create “more predictive and preventive health care”. Doctor Minor added that a-fib is just one example of a condition devices can help identify in the future. “This study opens the door to further research into wearable technologies and how they might be used to prevent disease before it strikes” he said.

But some health researchers warned against making any general judgements based on the Apple- financed study. They have called for much more research to measure the effectiveness of wearable devices to identify signs of disease. Richard Kovacs, who was with the American College of Cardiology and was not involved with the study, told the Associated Press that despite the results, the Apple Watch system “is not perfect.” He noted that since the study did not have a comparison group getting regular ECG measurements, there is no way of knowing if the device missed heartbeat problems. This could give users a false sense of security, he said.

Other experts agreed that more studies are needed before similar device-based health observation systems are widely recommended.

Snoring (打鼾) is noisy breathing during sleep. It is a common problem among all ages and it influences about 90 million American adults. People most at risk are males and those who are overweight, but snoring is a problem of both genders, although it is possible that women do not present this complaint as frequently as men.

Snoring is often the loud or harsh sound that can occur as you sleep. You snore when the flow of air makes the tissue in the back of your throat vibrate (颤抖) as you breathe. The sound most often occurs as you breathe in air, and can come through the nose, mouth or both two organs. It can occur during any stage of sleep.

About half of people snore at some point in their lives. Snoring is more common among men, though many women snore. It appears to run in families and become more common as you get older. About 40 percent of adult men and 24 percent of adult women are habitual snorers. Men become less likely to snore after the age of 70.

Sleeping on your back may make you more likely to snore. You may snore when your throat or tongue muscles are relaxed. And substances (物质) that (an relax these muscles may cause you to snore. These include alcohol, muscle relaxants and other medicine.

Snoring can be a nuisance to your partner and anyone else nearby. You may even snore loudly enough to wake yourself up. Though, in many cases people do not realize that they snore. Snoring can also cause you to have a dry mouth when you wake up.

Light snoring may not disrupt your overall sleep quality. Heavy snoring may be connected with a risk factor in the heart disease, stroke and many other health problems. So never take it lightly.