Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 7531

A major report card on the state of biodiversity gives failing grades to the world’s nations. The United Nations’s Global Biodiversity Outlook 5, released this week, concludes that the world has not met ambitious targets set 10 years ago to protect nature. “The warning lights are flashing. We have to recognize that we’re in a planetary emergency,” Andy Purvis, a biodiversity researcher at the Natural History Museum said in a statement.

Despite glimmers of progress, the world has not achieved decadal targets to protect nature.

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Rolling out in most of its cities starting next year.

Google Fiber will double the maximum internet speed offered to its customers starting later this year from 1 Gbps to 2 Gbps, the company announced this week. The new plan will cost $100 a month, $30 more than the company’s existing 1 Gbps option. However, only downloads will be offered at the new maximum speed; uploads will remain at 1 Gbps. With the new plan, Google says it will provide customers with an unspecified “new Wi-Fi 6 router and mesh extender” to make the most of the new speeds.

Pilots of the new plan are due to kick off in Nashville, Tennessee, and Huntsville, Alabama, next month, with a full rollout in the two cities planned for later in the year. The company says it currently offers Google Fiber and Google Fiber Webpass (which uses over-the-air transmission rather than fiber optic cables) in 19 cities in the US. 2 Gbps pilots are due to start in its other markets later this year, with a rollout in “most” cities in early 2021.

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Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have isolated “the smallest biological molecule” that “completely and specifically neutralizes” the virus that causes COVID-19.

The antibody component is 10 times smaller than a full-size antibody, and has been used to create the drug Ab8, shared in the report published by the researchers in the journal Cell on Monday. The drug is seen as a potential preventative against SARS-CoV-2.

According to the report, the drug has been “highly effective in preventing and treating” SARS-CoV-2 infections in mice and hamsters during tests. The drug also reportedly does not bind to human cells, which suggests it will not have negative side effects in people.

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Gold isn’t just a pretty face – it’s shown promise in fighting cancer in many studies. Now researchers have found a way to grow gold nanoparticles directly inside cancer cells within 30 minutes, which can help with imaging and even be heated up to kill the tumors.

Gold isn’t just a pretty face – it’s shown promise in fighting cancer in many studies. Now researchers have found a way to grow gold nanoparticles directly inside cancer cells within 30 minutes, which can help with imaging and even be heated up to kill the tumors.

In previous work, gold nanostars, nanotubes and other nanoparticle structures have been sent into battle against cancer, but one of the main hurdles is getting the stuff inside the tumors. Sometimes they’re equipped with peptides that hunt down cancer, while others sneak in attached to white blood cells.

For this new study, researchers instead found a way to grow the gold directly inside the cancer cells. The advantage is that it doesn’t require as high a concentration of gold in the cell, and it can be done much quicker than other methods.

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