Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 196

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.

It feels like we're in an altered reality right now, but this is real -- a World Health Organization (WHO) official has said that they may have to "enter homes and remove family members" because of the novel coronavirus. Watch it with your own eyes:

Carlson says: "In response to the spread of coronavirus, authorities may have to enter peoples' homes and remove family members -- presumably, by force". On March 30, Dr. Michael Ryan who is an Executive Director at the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, said something that I'm not seeing much coverage of.

The WHO official said: "in most parts of the world, due to lockdown, most of the transmission that's actually happening in many countries now is happening in the household, at family level. In some senses, transmission has been taken off the streets and pushed back into family units, now we need to go and look in families and find those people who may be sick and remove them, and isolate them, in a safe and dignified manner".

China is leading the way in pushing out new technologies amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic bringing the world to its knees, with a new robotic 5G car that scans faces, checks for a fever, and it even makes deliveries.

In a world where we're all pretty much forced to stay inside of our homes, the Beijing Institute of Technology has deployed a robotic 5G monitoring car that is roaming its campus. Remote operators then control the 5G-powered car from a facility, while remotely driving the car to make deliveries and check your temperature.

When it's in basic delivery mode, the robotic 5G car can carry packages from one location to another -- with 1 out of its 4 side-mounted locker doors opening up so people can collect their packages. But wait, because there's a top-mounted camera that will turn around and identify you through facial recognition, and thermally scanning you to see if you have a temperature.

UK prime minister Boris Johnson has been moved to intensive care, shortly after being admitted to hospital in London on Sunday night with "persistent symptoms" of coronavirus. These symptoms have now worsened.

The Queen herself is being updated on Johnson's health, with BBC political correspondent Chris Mason saying he had been given oxygen on late Monday afternoon before he was taken into intensive care. A No 10 statement explains: "The prime minister has been under the care of doctors at St Thomas' Hospital, in London, after being admitted with persistent symptoms of coronavirus".

The statement continues: "Over the course of [Monday] afternoon, the condition of the prime minister has worsened and, on the advice of his medical team, he has been moved to the intensive care unit at the hospital. The PM is receiving excellent care, and thanks all NHS staff for their hard work and dedication".

Iceland lab testing is suggesting that 50% of coronavirus cases have absolutely no symptoms at all.

The 360,000 people in Iceland has seen around 5% of its population tested so far, with 17,900 people tested for coronavirus. Out of these 17,900 people, Icelandic officials noticed around 50% of them had no COVID-19 coronavirus symptoms whatsoever.

Nearly half of Iceland's tests for coronavirus have been completed by biopharma company deCODE Genetics, where their screen program "accepts everybody who is not showing symptoms and not currently in quarantine".

It was barely a week ago that I reported that the first pet cat had been infected with coronavirus in Belgium, and now a Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York has tested positive for coronavirus.

The 4-year-old Malayan tiger is called Nadia, the first tiger to test positive for COVID-19 coronavirus -- is the first known infection in an animal in the US, or a tiger anywhere. 6 other tigers and lions have also been struck down with coronavirus, with a zoo employee (who isn't showing signs yet) reportedly infecting the tigers and lions at the Bronx Zoo.

Zoo Director Jim Breheny said in a statement: "These are extremely hard days for all of us -- no matter where we live and work". The US Department of Agriculture confirmed Nadia's test results at its veterinary lab, adding that there were no other known cases of coronavirus in US pets or livestock, yet.

I thought this was an April Fools Day joke before I wrote it, but it's not -- there are real coronavirus action figures that have been on the market for weeks now, shown off on Death by Toys on Facebook.

Yeah, there's real coronavirus action figures and I'm pretty sure I'm still in this reality and haven't skipped over a few hertz. It all started with the 'coronavirus action figures' in some Novelty Sick Action Figures, which you can buy from Death by Toys right here.

The Novelty Sick Action Figures let you "recreate the classic global pandemic" with "custom made Action Figures". You will get a set of 3, which are mounted on a single-sided cardback. Death by Toys notes that covering the puff balls with tiny red dots was a "complete pain".

President Trump has said that the US government is expecting up to 240,000 deaths in relation to COVID-19, with Bloomberg now reporting that the Pentagon has placed an order for 100,000 body bags for FEMA.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has requested 100,000 body bags, requesting the "Human Remains Pouches" as their known, from the Pentagon. The Pentagon will provide 50,000 body bags from its stockpiles right now, while 50,000 more will be acquired in the coming weeks.

The Defense Logistics Agency's Troop Support unit handles the stockpile of body bags for the Pentagon, with the 94-inch by 38-inch body bags normally deployed into war zones. During his speech at the White House on Tuesday, President Trump said: "This is going to be a painful two weeks. Our strength will be tested, our endurance will be tried".

Can you imagine the COVID-19 coronavirus situation getting any worse? Well, let's hope not -- as the Henan province in central China has just gone into full lockdown.

Politico reports that the Henan province in central China is in a full lockdown as "authorities try to fend off a second coronavirus wave in the midst of a push to revive the economy". Starting yesterday were curfew-like measures in Jia county, which is near the city of Pingdingshan.

600,000 residents were told to stay at home, with special approval required for any movmenet outside of your home, a rule forced by the government on the country's official microblog account. But then there's the question that COVID-19 coronavirus is the "worst cover-up in human history" and that it could've originated in a new biosafety lab (BSL-4) in Wuhan -- where the virus began. You can read more on that here.

It looks like the current COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak is about to be blown wide open, with Rep. Michael T. McCaul, Texas Republican and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee saying "This is one of the worst cover-ups in human history, and now the world is facing a global pandemic".

Well, they're some fighting words. It is being reported that the current coronavirus has mutated from bats that reportedly infected animals and people at a wild animal market in Wuhan, China -- but the origin of the virus itself is still unknown.

There were "conspiracy theories" that COVID-19 coronavirus was a bioweapon, and came from an animal that had the disease tested on them and then sold to local Wuhan markets. From there, it began spreading quickly through Wuhan and then eventually, the world. To the point where the entire global economy has come to a grinding halt, and billions of people are in lockdown or quarantined to their homes.

President Trump's coronavirus task force warns that up to 240,000 U.S. citizens could die from coronavirus exposure--and that's part of the best case scenario.

In yesterday's press briefing, the Trump administration delivered some sobering messages. President Trump warned Americans the next two weeks would be "very painful" as coronavirus deaths are expected to peak in mid-April. The best case scenario for total coronavirus deaths is in the hundreds thousands. The task force expects at least 100,000 people to die from the coronavirus in the United States, and deaths are expected to hit over 2,000 on April 15.

Without mitigation guidelines like social distancing, that number skyrockets to the millions.

Astronomers have released a paper revealing that they have discovered the exact diameter of the Milky Way galaxy.

The paper has been released by astronomers from Durham University in England, and more specifically, astrophysicist Alis Deason and her colleagues released the paper on arXiv.org. According to the paper, the Milky Way's exact diameter is 1.9 million light-years, with a margin of error of 0.4 million light-years. Rosemary Wyze, a fellow astronomer at Johns Hopkins University, spoke to ScienceNews in regards to the Milky Way's new diameter measurement.

Here's what was said, "help astronomers tease out other galactic properties." The new measurement of the Milky Way should help astronomers gain a much more precise understanding of how many more galaxies are revolving around the Milky Way. At the moment, there are about 60 known galaxies surrounding the Milky Way, but since this new measurement has been made, that number is likely to grow. If you are interested in reading more on this discovery, check out this link here.

If you thought a couple of weeks being forced to stay inside over COVID-19 coronavirus, then what about 12 months? Yeah, an entire year of social distancing might be the next step worldwide.

According to freshly-released documents, the only real way of controlling the outbreak of coronavirus and preventing intensive care workers and hospitals to be completely overwhelmed, a new push of social distancing will need to happen. The consensus statement released by the UK-based Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling suggests social distancing restrictions will need to last for up to 12 months.

A panel of experts was put together by the Department of Health and Social Care, where they advised on the response by the UK to the coronavirus pandemic -- based on infectious disease modelling and epidemiology. It said: "It was agreed that a policy of alternating between periods of more and less strict social distancing measures could plausibly be effective at keeping the number of critical care cases within capacity".

If you thought you were bored being forced to stay-at-home over COVID-19 coronavirus lockdowns, then you might want to pull out your DVDs of Stargate SG-1.

Air Force General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, who is the head of U.S. Northern Command and NORAD, announced during a recent Facebook Live town hall with others under his command, that they've moved part of the U.S. Army's Northern Command in charge of homeland security in the US into the Cheyenne Mountain bunker in Colorado to be isolated from coronavirus.

O'Shaughnessy explained: "To ensure that we can defend the homeland despite this pandemic, our command and control watch teams here in the headquarters split into multiple shifts and portions of our watch team began working from Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, creating a third team at an alternate location as well".

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, is the leading authority in the United States for COVID-19 coronavirus and he has some scary new estimates.

During CNN's State of the Union Sunday, Dr. Fauci said that they estimate between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths in the US alone from COVID-19. Fauci said that there will be millions of cases, and he has helped out during other crises of viral diseases, leading the federal response of SARS, MERS, Ebola, and now COVID-19.

The warnings of 100,000 to 200,000 deaths over COVID-19 are based on estimates on models, with the most-extreme, worst-case scenario would see COVID-19 killing millions of Americans. Fauci commented on millions of Americans dying over COVID-19, saying that it is "not impossible, but very, very unlikely".