Lifeboat Foundation

But by the start of December, the developers of several vaccines had announced excellent results in large trials, with more showing promise. And on 2 December, a vaccine made by drug giant Pfizer with German biotech firm BioNTech, became the first fully-tested immunization to be approved for emergency use.

That speed of advance “challenges our whole paradigm of what is possible in vaccine development”, says Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida in Gainesville. It’s tempting to hope that other vaccines might now be made on a comparable timescale. These are sorely needed: diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and pneumonia together kill millions of people a year, and researchers anticipate further lethal pandemics, too.

The COVID-19 experience will almost certainly change the future of vaccine science, says Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. “It shows how fast vaccine development can proceed when there is a true global emergency and sufficient resources,” he says. New ways of making vaccines, such as by using messenger RNA (mRNA), have been validated by the COVID-19 response, he adds. “It has shown that the development process can be accelerated substantially without compromising on safety.”

Although no list like this can be definitive, we polled dozens of researchers over the past year to develop a diverse line-up of ten software tools that have had a big impact on the world of science. You can weigh in on our choices at the end of the story.

From Fortran to arXiv.org, these advances in programming and platforms sent biology, climate science and physics into warp speed.

How fast do you think an unmanned aircraft can go? What about an *unpowered* unmanned aircraft? Would you believe 548 mph? It’s true.

Astronomers propose new estimate of Earth-like planets in the Milky Way galaxy.

Our internal systems showed no evidence of unauthorized access or compromise in any on-premises and production environments.

Our software remains safe to use, Kleczynski added.

After today’s disclosure, Malwarebytes becomes the fourth major security vendor targeted by the UNC2452/Dark Halo threat actor, which US officials have linked to a Russian government cyber-espionage operation.

We’re *so* close to flying cars 🚁.

In grafted plants, shrunken chloroplasts can jump between species by slipping through unexpected gateways in cells walls.

VC investor Tim Draper has invested in start-ups developing human jetpack suits and flying motorcycles via VTOL technology enabling human propulsion.

This is the third installment in a three-part series. Read parts one and two.

In the third and final part of our series, Fusion Industry Association director Andrew Holland tells Asia Times’ correspondent Jonathan Tennenbaum how the private sector is leap-frogging government programs in the race to develop commercial fusion power plants.

Andrew Holland: So now the private sector is coming in. You mentioned high-temperature superconductors. That’s an important new thing. There’s a whole range of new developments that come from outside of the fusion space that are now being applied.