Students at a middle school in China get free health checks from another student trained in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). 

Zhao Tianyu, a grade three pupil at Kailu No. 1 Middle School in Tongliao in the northern Inner Mongolia autonomous region, became known for his TCM diagnosis skill after his teacher posted on social media a video showing him treating a classmate last month, according to South China Morning Post (SCMP), citing a report of China Youth Daily. 

By pressing his fingers on the wrist of a classmate, Zhao determined his ailment and its cause. 

“Your problem is caused by your habit of eating cold and spicy food. They are irritating to your body,” he was heard telling the boy, SCMP reported.

Zhao’s diagnoses are almost exactly what the doctors at hospitals say, his teacher, surnamed Liu claimed. Since then, curious pupils from other classes became queuing up to the “little TCM doctor” for free consultations during breaktime. 

Meanwhile, virologist Chris Buck from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, Maryland, USA has concocted a cure for one of 13 polyomaviruses that he reportedly discovered. 

Polyomaviruses have been linked to various cancers and to serious health problems for people with weakened immune systems, Science News (SN) reported. 

While developing an injectable vaccine for the BK polyomavirus species, Buck and his research team put a gene of the virus’s coat protein into the brewer’s yeast genome and brewed the genetically modified yeast cells into a Lithuanian ale that produced a viral protein, according to Futurism. 

The team fed mice whole, live yeast carrying the viruslike particles mixed with their kibble and they developed antibodies to the BK polyomavirus, according to SN. 

Buck, his brother, and relatives then drank the brewed yeast with the same result, experiencing no side effects. They revealed that the beer vaccine works by publishing the method of making it on the data sharing platform Zenodo.org on 17 December.