Lifeboat Foundation

Okay now this vaccine thing is just comedy:

Russia intends to be the first in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine, in less than two weeks — despite concerns about its safety, effectiveness and over whether the country has cut essential corners in development, CNN has learned.

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The plan will include options to lease new breakers or build new nuclear-powered ships as Russia and China leap ahead of US capabilities in the Arctic.

CHINA could face a huge natural disaster in the future after scientists warned a volcano — thought to be extinct — “appears to be recharging” after discovering two magma chambers deep below the surface.

Crop yields for apples, cherries and blueberries across the United States are being reduced by a lack of pollinators, according to Rutgers-led research, the most comprehensive study of its kind to date.

Most of the world’s crops depend on honeybees and wild bees for pollination, so declines in both managed and wild bee populations raise concerns about food security, notes the study in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

“We found that many crops are pollination-limited, meaning crop production would be higher if crop flowers received more pollination. We also found that honey bees and wild bees provided similar amounts of pollination overall,” said senior author Rachael Winfree, a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. “Managing habitat for native bee species and/or stocking more honey bees would boost pollination levels and could increase crop production.”

TORONTO — In a lab at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, scientists went on a hunt through the DNA of some 10,000 families — many whom have children with autism.

Through this research, they identified something they call “genetic wrinkles” in DNA itself, a breakthrough they believe could explain why some individuals find themselves on the autistic spectrum.

The hope is that this could be an important new clue into how to diagnose autism spectrum disorder (ASD) early, or even treat it.

An Artificial Intelligence tool to help funders identify specialists to peer-review proposals for emergency research has been developed by Frontiers. It aims to help fast-track the allocation of funding, and in turn, accelerate the scientific response.

An Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool to help funders identify specialists to peer-review proposals for emergency COVID-19 research has been developed. It aims to help fast-track the allocation of funding, and in turn, accelerate the scientific response to the virus.

The open-access publisher Frontiers has specifically developed the recommendation tool to aid funders during the crisis by helping them identify new reviewers. Under normal circumstances, the review process for research funding typically takes place by committee and can take a matter of months. However, since the COVID-19 outbreak, experts have become less available, and the urgency of this situation commands a tighter timeframe.

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More great news:

The 10th graders were working on a school project when they discovered the asteroid, which is slowly shifting its orbit and moving towards Earth.

Two Indian schoolgirls have discovered an asteroid which is slowly shifting its orbit and moving toward Earth.

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A car-sized asteroid discovered over the weekend made a close flyby of Earth today (July 28), passing our planet at a range that rivals the orbits of some high-flying satellites.

The asteroid 2020 OY4, which was first detected on Sunday (July 26), made its closest approach today at 1:31 a.m. EDT (0531 GMT) when it zipped by Earth at a speed of about 27,700 mph (44,600 km/h), according to the European Space Agency. The asteroid is just under 10 feet (3 meters) wide and posed no impact risk to Earth, but did approach the flight paths of geosynchronous satellites.

Materials scientists studying recharging fundamentals made an astonishing discovery that could open the door to better batteries, faster catalysts and other materials science leaps.

Scientists from the University of California San Diego and Idaho National Laboratory scrutinized the earliest stages of lithium recharging and learned that slow, low-energy charging causes electrodes to collect atoms in a disorganized way that improves charging behavior. This noncrystalline “glassy” lithium had never been observed, and creating such amorphous metals has traditionally been extremely difficult.

The findings suggest strategies for fine-tuning recharging approaches to boost battery life and—more intriguingly—for making glassy metals for other applications. The study was published on July 27 in Nature Materials.