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Robots at Work and Play

Advancements in robotics are continually taking place in the fields of space exploration, health care, public safety, entertainment, defense, and more. These machines—some fully autonomous, some requiring human input—extend our grasp, enhance our capabilities, and travel as our surrogates to places too dangerous or difficult for us to go. Gathered here are recent images of robotic technology, including a machine built to draw portraits, battle robots, a dance performance, an autonomous mobile vending machine, an art installation, an agri-bot, a robotic priest, a Mars rover, a grocery-store bot, and much more.

Indian Scientist In Australia Is Close To Developing Vaccine For Coronavirus And Save Lives

Coronavirus-cure-indian-scientists-team-is-very-close-to-developing-vaccine-for-coronavirus.


In a major breakthrough that can lead to a quick Coronavirus vaccine, a team of scientists led by an overseas citizen of India, Professor SS Vasan of CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) Dangerous Pathogens Team has successfully mass produced the novel Coronavirus strain outside China in sufficiently large number to begin clinical trial of medicine.

According to reports, last week Australia’s Doherty Institute had managed to isolate the Coronavirus sample from an infected human in Australia, but what Prof SS Vasan and his team has done at CSIRO is significantly better for getting to a Coronavirus vaccine quickly.

Prof SS Vasan
Public Health England.

Aloe Polysaccharides Inhibit Influenza A Virus Infection-A Promising Natural Anti-flu Drug

Front Microbiol. 2018 Sep 27;9:2338. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2018.02338. eCollection 2018.

Influenza A virus causes periodic outbreaks and seriously threatens human health. The drug-resistant mutants have shown an epidemic trend because of the abuse of chemical drugs. Aloe polysaccharides (APS) extracted from Aloe vera leaves have evident effects on the therapy of virus infection. However, the activity of APS in anti-influenza virus has yet to be investigated. Here, we refined polysaccharides from A. vera leaf. In vitro test revealed that APS could inhibit the replication of a H1N1 subtype influenza virus, and the most obvious inhibitory effect was observed in the viral adsorption period. Transmission electron microscopy indicated that APS directly interacted with influenza virus particles. Experiments on PR8 (H1N1) virus infection in mice demonstrated that APS considerably ameliorated the clinical symptoms and the lung damage of the infected mice, and significantly reduced the virus loads and mortality.

Cuba’s rivers run clean after decades of sustainable farming

Thoughts?


Despite centuries of colonization and agriculture, Cuba’s rivers are in good health.

Sugarcane and cattle farming on the island date back to the late fifteenth century. To measure water quality in Cuba’s rivers today, Paul Bierman at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Rita Hernández at the Cienfuegos Center for Environmental Studies in Cuba and their colleagues sampled water in 25 river basins in central Cuba. This is the first time in more than 60 years that scientists from Cuba and the United States have joined forces to study the island’s hydrology.

More than 80% of the samples had levels of Escherichia coli bacteria that exceeded international standards for recreational use. The bacteria are indicators of faecal contamination, and probably came from the cattle that graze on many riverbanks.

80% of coronavirus victims are over 60, Chinese health official says

80% of victims were over the age of 60 and 75% had some form of underlying condition, according to China’s National Health Commission.


The death rate from the Wuhan coronavirus across mainland China stands at 2.1%, China’s National Health Commission said in a press update on Tuesday.

In Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, the rate is 3.1%, said Jiao Yahui, deputy director of the National Health Commissions State Health Administration.

Hubei province accounts for 97% of all deaths.

Oxybreath Pro — Breakthrough Face Mask to Protect You and Your Family

The World Health Organization has recently declared the China coronavirus a global health emergency. 1 What’s worse is that cases of the coronavirus have jumped tenfold. The death toll is 304 and rising. 2

It would be an understatement to say that there is a growing sense of panic. The best advice I’ve heard is to stay calm and take pratical measures to protect yourself.

Early Life Experiences Biologically and Functionally Mature the Brain

Experiences early in life have an impact on the brain’s biological and functional development, shows a new study by a team of neuroscientists. Its findings, which centered on changes in mice and rats, reveal how learning and memory abilities may vary, depending on the nature of individual experiences in early life.

“The implications of this are many, including environmental influences on mental health, the role of education, the significance of poverty, and the impact of social settings,” says Cristina Alberini, a professor in New York University’s Center for Neural Science and the senior author of the paper, which appears in the journal Nature Communications.

“These results also offer promise for potential therapeutic interventions,” add Alberini and Benjamin Bessières, an NYU postdoctoral researcher and the paper’s co-lead author. “By identifying critical time periods for brain development, they provide an indicator of when pharmaceutical, behavioral or other type of interventions may be most beneficial.”

The scent of a rose improves learning during sleep

Fragrance helps learning even during sleep!


Effortless learning during sleep is the dream of many people. The supportive effect of smells on learning success when presented both during learning and sleep was first proven in an extensive sleep laboratory study. Researchers at the University of Freiburg—Medical Center, the Freiburg Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health (IGPP) and the Faculty of Biology at the University of Freiburg have now shown that this effect can be also achieved very easily outside the lab. For the study, pupils in two school classes learned English vocabulary—with and without scent sticks during the learning period and also at night. The students remembered the vocabulary much better with a scent. The study was published in the Nature Group’s Open Access journal Scientific Reports on 27 January 2020.

“We showed that the supportive effect of fragrances works very reliably in and can be used in a targeted way,” said study leader PD Dr. Jürgen Kornmeier, head of the Perception and Cognition Research Group at the Freiburg-based IGPP and scientist at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University of Freiburg—Medical Center in Germany.

The smell of roses when learning and sleeping

For the study, first author and student teacher Franziska Neumann conducted several experiments with 54 students from two 6th grade classes of a school in southern Germany. The young participants from the group were asked to place rose-scented incense sticks on their desks at home while learning English and on the bedside table next to the bed at night. In another experiment, they also placed the incense sticks on the table next to them during a vocabulary test at school during an English test. The results were compared with test results in which no incense sticks were used during one or more phases.