Science, Space, Health & Robotics News - Page 357

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".