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May 10, 2020

Bodies of Covid-19 victims lie in the streets of Ecuadorian city

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Bodies of coronavirus victims have been seen lying in the streets of the Ecuadorian capital amid warnings the pandemic is yet to peak across Latin America.

Forensics experts were seen attending to the corpse of a 65-year-old man suspected of contracting COVID-19 in Quito on Tuesday. Funeral home workers later arrived to load him into a coffin and drive him away.

Continue reading “Bodies of Covid-19 victims lie in the streets of Ecuadorian city” »

May 10, 2020

As COVID-19 Deaths Rise, Makeshift Morgues Go Up in New York

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

‘I still can’t believe what I’m seeing.’ One couple’s apartment overlooks the street where a morgue was erected.

May 10, 2020

Train Like An Astronaut: Kelly Marie Tran and Naomi Ackie

Posted by in category: space travel

#MayTheFourthBeWithYou!

Perhaps they have what it takes to face the First Order, but do Kelly Marie Tran and Naomi Ackie have what it takes to train like astronauts?

The Star Wars duo spent the day at Johnson Space Center training like astronauts and learning about NASA’s plans to explore the Moon with the new #Artemis program, which includes landing the first woman and next man on the lunar surface by 2024. Follow Tran and Ackie – used to traveling through galaxies far, far away – through their training with NASA Astronauts Megan McArthur and Jessica Watkins!

May 10, 2020

Door-to-door tests help track COVID-19’s spread in one Oregon town

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Surveying neighborhoods directly may give a more accurate view than mail-in tests and other methods, researchers say.

May 10, 2020

Cannabis shows promise blocking coronavirus infection: Alberta researcher

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

“Cannabis extracts are showing potential in making people more resistant to the novel coronavirus, says an Alberta researcher leading a study.

After sifting through 400 cannabis strains, researchers at the University of Lethbridge are concentrating on about a dozen that show promising results in ensuring less fertile ground for the potentially lethal virus to take root, said biological scientist Dr. Igor Kovalchuk.”


But the absence of clinical trials remains a barrier, and funding from an increasingly cash-strapped cannabis industry isn’t there to fuel that, said Kovalchuk.

Continue reading “Cannabis shows promise blocking coronavirus infection: Alberta researcher” »

May 10, 2020

Facebook’s new oversight board is cover for censorship, critics say

Posted by in category: futurism

A new oversight board will govern Facebook content in an attempt to decentralize its policing of user posts. But is it just cover for further censorship?

May 10, 2020

Fiber imaging beyond the limits of resolution and speed

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, nanotechnology

Researchers at ARCNL and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam have developed a compact setup for fast, super-resolution microscopy through an ultrathin fiber. Using smart signal processing, they beat the theoretical limits of resolution and speed. Because the method does not require any special fluorescent labelling, it is promising for both medical applications and characterization of 3D structures in nanolithography. On May 7th, the results were published in Light: Science & Applications, a scientific journal in the Nature family.

“Imaging at the nanoscale is limited by the wavelength of the light that is used. There are ways to overcome this diffraction limit, but they typically require large microscopes and difficult processing procedures,” says Lyuba Amitonova. “These systems are unsuitable for imaging in deep layers of biological tissue or in other hard-to-reach places.”

Amitonova recently started a research group on Nanoscale Imaging and Metrology at ARCNL. She is also connected to VU Amsterdam where she works on ultrathin fibers for endomicroscopy in the group of Johannes de Boer. Amitonova and de Boer have developed a way to overcome the in small systems to enable deep-tissue imaging with super-resolution.

May 10, 2020

How 5G Will Unleash AI

Posted by in categories: internet, robotics/AI

The next-generation networks will provide major strides in latency, speed and localized access to AI.

May 10, 2020

Antibodies from llamas could help in fight against COVID-19, study suggests

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

The researchers linked two copies of a special kind of antibody produced by llamas to create a new antibody that binds tightly to a key protein on the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. This protein, called the spike protein, allows the virus to break into host cells. Initial tests indicate that the antibody blocks viruses that display this spike protein from infecting cells in culture.

“This is one of the first antibodies known to neutralize SARS-CoV-2,” said Jason McLellan, associate professor of molecular biosciences at UT Austin and co-senior author, referring to the virus that causes COVID-19.

The team is now preparing to conduct preclinical studies in animals such as hamsters or nonhuman primates, with the hopes of next testing in humans. The goal is to develop a treatment that would help people soon after infection with the virus.

May 10, 2020

Dragon astronauts wrap up training, prepare to enter quarantine

Posted by in category: space travel

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley completed their final training sessions in Houston this week before their scheduled May 27 liftoff on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft from the Kennedy Space Center, the first launch of humans from the Florida spaceport since 2011.

The two veteran space fliers participated in their final full-up launch simulation Monday, strapping into a Dragon simulator at the Johnson Space Center in Houston and tying in with SpaceX and NASA teams at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

Behnken tweeted Thursday that the crew’s formal training activities were complete. The astronauts were expected to have a few days of off-duty time before preparing to travel from their home base in Houston to the Kennedy Space Center on May 20.