Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 195

There are millions of people stuck at home with the stay-at-home coronavirus quarantine lockdowns right now, with Ashley Madison -- an online website dedicated to those seeking something outside of their marriage or relationship, reporting huge spikes in online affairs.

Ashley Madison's new report says that they've been adding 17,000 new members per day during the coronavirus lockdown, which is compared to 15,500 new members per day in 2019. A spike of 1500 new people per day is pretty big, which makes up 45,000 people per month looking for something outside of their marriage -- while stuck inside with their spouse.

Paul Keable, chief strategy officer for Ashley Madison, explained: "We've spoken to members, and they're saying they're using the site as a release valve for the tension that's built up at home during the pandemic. They're looking to have needs met that aren't being met at home".

Covidsafe has now launched Down Under, with the Australian government unleashing its coronavirus tracking app -- which is powered by Bluetooth, and millions of Australians who will download it.

How does it work? Covidsafe is an app that you can download from the Australian Apple App store and Google Play store, and once installed it'll use Bluetooth to record anyone else (that has the Covidsafe app installed) that gets too close to you. Covidsafe will be scanning Australians that are within 1.5 meters (5 feet) of you, for 15 minutes or more.

Covidsafe will transfer anonymized IDs between Australians' phones over Bluetooth, gets cycled every 2 hours, and then the government promises that the data is encrypted on your phone and deleted after 21 days.

The first ever geologic map of the Moon's surface has just been released, showcasing what kind of structures are on the Moon's surface.

United States Geological Survey (USGS) in partnership with NASA and the Lunar Planetary Institute have posted the first detailed map of what the Moon's surface looks like from a geological standpoint. The map is was created using data from satellites such as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Japan's SELENE as well as some Apollo-era maps.

The idea behind this map is double headed. Firstly, it can definitely influence future Moon missions as scientists and the astronauts will have a much more thought out and accurate representation of the Moon. Secondly, releasing the geologic map to the public will allow for scientists and the general public around the world to further study the surface of the Moon.

In news that began spreading nearly 3 weeks ago now, it has been confirmed that hospitals are indeed getting paid more if they list patients with COVID-19... and up to 3x that amount if the patient is placed on a ventilator.

The news was reported by The Spectator on April 9, and "fact checked" by USA Today on April 26 -- where it was said that hospitals are being paid a lump sum payment of $5000 if they have a patient with COVID-19. If the patient has COVID-19 pneumonia then the payment increases to $13,000 --- but if that COVID-19 pneumonia patient gets put on a ventilator, that payment skyrockets to $39,000.

Senator Scott Jensen, R-Minn, who is a physician in Minnesota, was interviewed by The Ingraham Angle by host Laura Ingraham on April 8 on Fox News. He claimed that hospitals were being paid if they listed patients with COVID-19, where he said:

We all know that cruise ships are petri dishes at the best of time, and as someone who has been on two lengthy cruises in the last few years -- I can only imagine how fast COVID-19 spreads on a ship.

Well, according to Florida-based newspaper the Miami Herald, it seems it is really bad. At the moment, there is no global organization that keeps tabs on COVID-19 cases on cruise ships, so the Miami Herald took it upon itself to find out just how bad coronavirus has been on cruise liners across the world.

The Miami Herald found that at least 3582 people tested positive for COVID-19 either during, or right after their cruise. The death toll is "at least 65 people" because of it, while COVID-19 cases were discovered on a huge 54 cruises around the world. 54 might not sound like much, but that represents 1/5 of the global cruise ships in the oceans. Yeah 1 out of 5 had COVID-19 on-board. Yikes.

There's evidence that coronavirus may have been in the United States much earlier than thought. A man who attended the annual CES convention in Las Vegas in January has just learned that he was infected with coronavirus at the time. The attendee was Michael Webber, a 49-year-old who divides time between Texas and France. He learned this week that he had been infected with the virus and recovered.

A confirmed infected CES attendee should give pause to the 170,000 people who attended the annual technology conference between January 7th and the 10th in Las Vegas. The four-day event is huge in the technology realm and attracts people from all around the world. Coronavirus could've incubated during CES and spread globally when attendees went home. That is still conjecture at this time, but Webber's disclosure that he had coronavirus while attending the annual conference is the first direct confirmation that the virus was likely circulating at the show.

Officials are beginning to see that the virus may have been spreading around the world before previously believed. Health officials in Northern California recently confirmed a coronavirus death that happened in early February. For that person to have died in February, they're believed to have likely contracted the disease in January. Health officials in the area are still investigating and expect additional confirmed cases in the Santa Clara County area.

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".