Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 195

YouTube is getting serious in banning any and all content that goes against the recommendations of, or contradicts the World Health Organization (WHO) when it comes to coronavirus recommendations.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki herself explained the news to CNN when she was on their segment 'Reliable Sources' with host Brian Stelter, where she said YouTube will be "removing information that is problematic". This includes "anything that is medically unsubstantiated".

Wojcicki continued: "So people saying 'take vitamin C; take turmeric, we'll cure you', those are the examples of things that would be a violation of our policy. Anything that would go against World Health Organisation recommendations would be a violation of our policy".

If you thought it was bad with COVID-19 now, it could get much worse -- with the chief of the United Nations food relief agency warning that the world is facing widespread famine of "biblical proportions" over coronavirus.

David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme warns that over 30 countries in the developing world could be plunged into widespread famine -- with 10 of those countries already there, and 1 million people on the edge of starvation.

Beasley explained: "We are not talking about people going to bed hungry. We are talking about extreme conditions, emergency status - people literally marching to the brink of starvation. If we don't get food to people, people will die".

So, if you've got coronavirus -- I have some advice for you: don't fart. Especially if you're not wearing pants.

Australian doctors have discussed whether people with COVID-19 can spread it by farting, with the discussion happening during the Friday episode of ABC podcast 'Coronacast'.

Dr. Norman Swan is the producer and host of the Coronacast podcast, and told his listeners "No bare-bottom farting", with an amused tone. Swan said that "Luckily, we wear a mask, which covers our farts all the time" and by masks for our butts, he means your jeans, pants, shorts, dresses, and probably most important of all -- your underwear.

Scientists have made some progress in understanding the Sun's surface, and as technology advances, humans can begin to take more high definition images of the surface - unlocking more knowledge about how it all works.

Now, astronomers have released some of the sharpest images yet taken of the sun's atmosphere, and as you can see in the above image, the sun's is covered in extremely hot plasma threads. These fine threads of plasma aren't tiny, in fact, the smallest of the strands measure in at 200km wide, and some of the biggest being recorded to be roughly 513km in diameter. Up until now, scientists couldn't view inside the solar corona, so they didn't know that these fine filaments were there.

Amy Winebarger, a solar physicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, "We're seeing threads pop out where we see nothing in other instruments." These extremely sharp images were taken using NASA's High-Resolution Coronal Imager, or Hi-C for short. NASA sends this small telescope up into space aboard a rocket, and then it floats around in space taking photos of the sun for about 5 minutes, then it falls back to Earth. If you are interested in checking out a close-up video of the Sun's surface, check out this link here. An extremely high-resolution image can be found here too.

President Donald Trump has just tweeted that he will be signing a new Executive Order (EO) that will "temporarily suspend immigration" into the United States over the coronavirus outbreak.

President Trump tweeted: "In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!" We don't know what the US government will do in the form of halting immigration for now, but I'm sure that will be detailed very shortly.

We should expect some big backlash over his new move, and some more details on the actions that President Trump's upcoming Executive Order will bring.

If you thought the future of controlling your smartphone, TV, thermostat or car with just thoughts, was far away -- think again, it's far closer than you think.

According to new work by researchers from Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, the issues surrounding the brain-computer interface (or BCI) in order to control and use prosthetic devices with their thoughts.

The researchers have created a new AI algorithm that stops devices from needing to be re-calibrated in order to understand the human brain and its ever-changing neuronal activity. A normal BCI would have to be calibrated to a specific body part -- in most cases, a limb that is missing -- but now scientists and researchers have worked out how to use those same brainwaves to control virtually any device in the world.

We are all aware of the number of people in hospital that are using, or require respiratory support is high right now over the coronavirus outbreak, with many companies changing their manufacturing output into helping out in any way they can with COVID-19.

This has now seen engineers from both the Formula 1 engine maker Mercedes-AMG HPP and the University of London working out a way to make continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices in bulk. CPAP machines are used to help treat patients with sleep apnea, but it can help people who are experiencing severe breathing problems -- which then free up the valuable ventilators for those who are quite ill.

In just 10 days the team were able to make it happen, where they reverse-engineered an original product -- and then making a new design, getting it tested and thrown through regulatory approval right into full-scale production all in under 10 days. Impressive stuff.

A new class action lawsuit has been brought on by Florida-based law firm Berman Law Group against the Chinese Communist Party, with over 10,000 people signing the class action lawsuit seeking $4 trillion -- yes, trillion with a T.

The $4 trillion lawsuit has family members that have contracted, and died of COVID-19 as well as healthcare workers who have gotten sick and died from COVID-19, as they didn't have personal protective equipment. 60 Minutes Australia talked with the chief stategist behind the lawsuit in Florida, Jeremy Alters.

Alters said that China should take accountability for the human loss and economic destruction that has knocked the world onto its knees, telling a 60 Minutes reporter: "We are now in the depth of this economic and human crisis that could have been mostly prevented, if not all prevented".

In space, no one can hear you scream -- from finding out you've tested positive for COVID-19 coronavirus, that is.

There are now concerns that coronavirus might have spread to the International Space Station (ISS) after a senior Russian official was at last week's launch to the ISS has tested positive for COVID-19.

Deputy head of Energia Rocket and Space Corporation Evgeniy Mikrin has tested positive for COVID-19, after being present at the launch of the Soyuz MS-16. He was in-person at the launch in Baikonur Cosmodrome, southern Kazakhstan, just under two weeks ago on April 9.

COVID-19 coronavirus detection might be getting easier, with a new project in the works that is training dogs to sniff out coronavirus.

The new project is the only one in the world training dogs to sniff out coronavirus, with the Medical Detection Dogs charity, the London School of Hygiene, as well as the Tropical Medicine and Durham University. The dogs will be given clothes and fabric worn by coronavirus patient, to see if the dogs can pick up a particular odour that would eventually be able to sniff out and identify someone with coronavirus.

Dr Claire Guest, CEO and founder of the Medical Detection Dogs charity explained: "There have already been so many fantastic achievements in the dogs' work to detect human disease, and I believe they can be trained to sniff out Covid-19. When resources and testing kits are low, hundreds of people can't be tested in one go. But the dogs can screen up to 750 people really quickly. By identifying those who need to be tested and self-isolate, they can stop the spread".

You probably would have guessed that one of NASA's goals is to get some samples of Mars back on Earth for further examination, but how is the space exploration company going to do that exactly?

Well, it won't be easy, that's for sure, and it also will take quite a lot of time - years in fact. According to the projects lead scientists who discussed the plan in a virtual meeting that was reported by Nature, NASA, and the European Space Agency (ESA) are planning on landing a second spacecraft next to the first spacecraft (Mars Perseverance) to hand off the samples.

This is how it will work. Mars Perseverance will land in the Jezero crater on Mars, February 2021. Perseverance will perform sampling by using a drill to dig into the soil and retire enough samples to fill thirty small tubes. Once the samples are collected, it will store them on the rover.

If you thought 4-6 weeks of social distancing and shelter-in-place quarantine laws over the spread of coronavirus was bad, the United States might need to keep its social distancing orders in place right into 2022.

The news is coming from researchers out of the Harvard School of Public Health, with researchers explaining: "Intermittent distancing may be required into 2022 unless critical care capacity is increased substantially or a treatment or vaccine becomes available".

The massively extended duration of social distancing in the United States would have "profoundly negative economic, social and educational consequences" according to the study, but it would reduce the strain on the US health care system, and start contact tracing and quarantines. The cost? Virtually everything else it seems.

The thought of someone being able to influence your dream while you are asleep is an unsettling one, but it's completely possible regardless of how you feel about it.

In fact, MIT researchers and scientists have already successfully done it. According to OneZero's Tessa Love, who revealed that MIT scientists are currently working on a Dream Lab that can "hack" people's dreams through sounds and smells. The MIT scientists are concentrating on hypnagogia, which is the experience of the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep. The scientists believe through their research that they can influence our sleeping minds so that when we wake up, we feel we are "better".

Dream Lab researcher Adam Horowitz said, "People don't know that a third of their life is a third where they could change or structure or better themselves. Whether you're talking about memory augmentation or creativity augmentation or improving mood the next day or improving test performance, there are all these things you can do at night that are practically important."

If you thought the fear of coronavirus was bad, think again: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that coronavirus can travel through the air by at least 13 feet -- twice as far as current social distancing guidelines.

The research was conducted by a team from the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, and was recently posted in the CDC's own Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal. The report reads: "The aerosol distribution characteristics ... indicate that the transmission distance of [COVID-19] might be 4 m (more than 13 feet)".

The CDC's new report is also pretty scary, warning that coronavirus can linger on shoes and acts like a carrier for COVID-19. Researchers talked about samples taken from the Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, China -- where they said: "Furthermore, half of the samples from the soles of the ICU medical staff shoes tested positive. Therefore, the soles of medical staff shoes might function as carriers".

A social media post that has been doing the rounds showed Italian medical scrubs dead on the operating room floor, mid-operation, killed by COVID-19.

The social media post has a caption that reads: "some bodies among the 200 doctors in Italy who died yesterday of coronavirus". Italy has been slammed by coronavirus, so it has caused quite the stir... except its a total fabrication. The photo was reverse image searched and found to be a still from Grey's Anatomy.

Yeah, the COVID-19 death photo was from a 2007 episode (S3E14) called 'Wishin' and Hopin'. On the left of the image is the Italian medical scrubs that "died from COVID-19" on the ground, the right is the still image from the Wishin' and Hopin' episode of Grey's Anatomy.

If you want to stay up-to-date with COVID-19 in the United States, then you'll want to check out John Hopkins University's recently updated COVID-19 dashboard.

The new COVID-19 dashboard focuses on the United States, and packs huge amounts of data including county-level data and infographics that you can't see in the global version. You can click into county-specific infographics that provide huge amounts of details like deaths, fatality rates, and more that are provided next to state-level data on testing, cases, deaths, and fatality rates of COVID-19.

John Hopkins University also includes information on county-level healthcare resources, with details like staffed hospital beds and ICU beds, as well as mitigation policies for COVID-19. There is an easy-to-read bar graph that shows the health insurance status of Americans by age group, with basic data for the local population and its size, race, and ethnicity breakdowns -- hell, there's even poverty status, and the number of Americans aged over 65.

NASA is working hard towards the Mars 2020 mission, and every day the space agency is making progress. Now, a new announcement has come out regarding what will be aboard the Mars 2020 rover.

A new announcement on NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory blog has shined a light on NASA completing one of the more critical steps towards the Mars 2020 mission, the Mars Helicopter. NASA has successfully constructed a helicopter that will mark the first time humans have flown an object on another planet besides Earth. NASA states on their blog that the helicopter will be deployed roughly two and a half months after Perseverance lands.

If you thought that the helicopter couldn't be full-sized, you thought right. NASA's Mars Helicopter weighs in at just four pounds (1.8 kilograms) and features propellers 4 feet (1.2 meters) in diameter. The helicopter is also cocooned within the rover's delivery system, and on April 6th, NASA engineers made 34 electrical connections between the rover and the delivery system located on the rover's stomach. If you are interested in reading more about the NASA's Mars Helicopter, check out the blog post here.

The world is scrambling to find the magic bullet for COVID-19 coronavirus, and it seems that researchers may have just found what they're describing as the Achilles heel of COVID-19 coronavirus.

In a statement from Scripps Research, researchers said that they have found a specific portion of COVID-19 that could be targeted with vaccines after the team mapped a human antibody's interaction with SARS-CoV-2 at "near-atomic-scale resolution". The antibody itself was secured from a SARS patient from many years ago, but it also reacts to SARS-CoV-2.

Dr. Ian Wilson, the study's lead author, said in a statement: "The knowledge of conserved sites like this can aid in structure-based design of vaccines and therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2, and these would also protect against other coronaviruses-including those that may emerge in the future".

The US government is classifying the deaths of any and all patients with coronavirus, as COVID-19 deaths -- no matter the underlying health conditions that killed them.

The news is coming directly from Dr. Deborah Birx, the response coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force. She said that the federal government is still counting suspected COVID-19 deaths, even though nations around the world are doing the opposite of this.

Dr. Birx said during a Tuesday news briefing at the White House: "There are other countries that if you had a pre-existing condition, and let's say the virus caused you to go to the ICU [intensive care unit] and then have a heart or kidney problem. Some countries are recording that as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death".

The South Korean government looks to be taking the spread of COVID-19 a little more seriously, and a little more painful to citizens, as it considers the use of an electronic wristband to enforce quarantine measures across the country.

Yoon Tae-ho, the Director General for Public Health Policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, explained the electronic wristbands being used to stop the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus. He said: "Most of those who are in quarantine are following protocols well but there have been some violations. We will come up with the most efficient measure after further discussions".

But South Korean residents shouldn't fear electronic wristbands just yet, as he added that the South Korean government is well aware of the negative connotations that come using electronic wristbands -- and to add, a government forcing that on its citizens is very Orwellian.