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Lydia Morley believes her diagnosis of alopecia was triggered by this. 'My immune system has just been dampened and dampened,' she says.

January 7, 2026 The letter below (a button to download it as a .pdf file is at the bottom of this page) was sent to seven top officials at the World Health Organization on Wednesday 7 January. Press c...

The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated a surge in neurocognitive dysfunction, with long-term implications for global health systems and socioeconomic stability. Despite growing clinical recognition of post-COVID cognitive deficits (“brain fog”), the molecular mechanisms driving these impairments remain poorly understood. Our study addresses this critical gap by identifying SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein (SARS-CoV-2 N protein), a core structural component of the virus, as a novel etiological factor in senescence-mediated cognitive decline. We observed that SARS-CoV-2 N protein caused microglial senescence both in vivo and in vitro. Mechanistically, SARS-CoV-2 N protein-induced metabolic shifting toward glycolysis initiated a cascade of microglial senescence, which propagated cognitive impairment. We found that glycolysis inhibition reduced SARS-CoV-2 N protein-triggered microglial senescence and attenuated cognitive impairment in mice. Disrupted mitochondrial dynamics impaired oxidative phosphorylation capacity, forcing glycolytic reprogramming that ultimately triggered cellular senescence activation. We found that the SARS-CoV-2 N protein promoted excessive mitochondrial dysfunction in microglia, resulting in mitochondrial fragmentation. Inhibition of mitochondrial fission effectively rescued SARS-CoV-2 N protein-induced microglial senescence. In conclusion, our study suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 N protein induces senescence-mediated cognitive impairment by promoting glycolysis in microglia. Therapeutic targeting of glycolysis in SARS-CoV-2 N protein-triggered microglial senescence could be beneficial for treating or preventing cognitive impairment.

Lidia Morawska, an internationally renowned expert in air quality and its impact on human health, has won Australia's most coveted prize for scientific research.

We downplay the virus at our peril, warns Yaneer Bar-Yam. And children are more at risk than we thought.

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If you’ve got kids in schools, you might be interested in this pic. There’s an awful lot of what is often called the lurgy being shared around in schools, and also being taken home into families. But it doesn’t have to be this way. See link in tweet below. @CleanAir4KidsUK https://t.co/KqtFOZGOmh