Science and Technology

Saturday, 23 May 2020 05:06

The science of gossip (and why everyone does it)

People feed off gossip. It's one reason why, in the 1960s, the National Enquirer swapped the gory, gruesome headlines they were known for with celebrity scoops and scandal. The switch gave the tabloid access to supermarket checkout lines and the "enquiring minds" in them. But it's not just tabloid readers who love to dish. Social scientists have found that everyone is hardwired to pay attention to gossip, and to participate in it. In fact, it's an evolutionary adaptation -- it's become human nature to spill the tea. "We're the descendants of people who were good at this," said Frank McAndrew,…

Thursday, 21 May 2020 05:10

Apple-Google contact tracing tech draws interest in 23 countries

Authorities in 23 countries across five continents have sought access to contact tracing technology from Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google, the companies announced on Wednesday as they released the initial version of their system. But authorities would have to stop requiring phone numbers from users under the companies’ rules, one of several restrictions that have left governments fighting the novel coronavirus frustrated that the world’s top two smartphone software makers undercut the technology’s usefulness by prioritizing user privacy. Apple and Google said several U.S. states and 22 countries have sought access to their technology, but it is unclear how…

Wednesday, 20 May 2020 05:12

Covid-19: Remote controlled mask invented to allow eating

A face mask with a remote controlled mouth has been invented in Israel, allowing diners to eat food without taking it off. The mask can be opened mechanically by a hand remote or automatically when the fork reaches the mask. BBC

Thursday, 14 May 2020 05:35

Artificial intelligence can’t yet learn common sense

Mary Shackleton Machines can learn a lot of things--probably more than you can imagine. But can they learn common sense? David Ferrucci, the builder of IBM's original Jeopardy!-playing version of Watson, recently discussed his latest AI effort: An attempt to instill common sense knowledge from the everyday world into the automated reasoning that takes place with artificial intelligence (AI). At his company, Elemental Cognition, Ferrucci described how his AI team gave an advanced language program the sentence, "Zoey moves her plant to a sunny window. Soon …". The AI program was tasked to complete the second sentence. A human would…

Wednesday, 13 May 2020 05:03

Four-legged robot enforces Coronavirus social distancing

Spot is a 4-legged machine being deployed in parks in Singapore. The robo-dog is armed with a camera, sensors and a speaker. Its mission: to seek out groups of people who are violating social distancing recommendations, and to remind them to cut it out. Spot joins a pack of other high-tech machines in the fight against the Coronavirus. It’s all hands on deck against this pandemic, and sometimes those hands aren’t even human. Yahoo News

Tuesday, 12 May 2020 05:37

Twitter to add warning labels to coronavirus misinformation

Twitter will soon begin adding labels and warning messages on some tweets with disputed or misleading information about Covid-19, the company said on Monday, as part of a new approach to misinformation that will eventually extend to other topics. Twitter's new labels will provide links to more information in cases where the risk of harm from the tweet is not severe enough to be removed, but people could be confused or misled, Twitter said in a blog post. The company said that depending on the propensity for harm and type of misleading information in the tweet, warnings may also be…

Monday, 11 May 2020 06:10

Men are more likely to contract coronavirus than women. Scientists have discovered why

Men’s blood has higher levels than women’s of a key enzyme used by the new Coronavirus to infect cells, the results of a big European study showed on Monday — a finding which may help explain why men are more vulnerable to infection with Covid-19. Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is found in the heart, kidneys and other organs. In Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel Coronavirus, it is thought to play a role in how the infection progresses into the lungs. The study, published in the European Heart Journal, also found that widely-prescribed drugs called ACE inhibitors or…

Sunday, 10 May 2020 04:23

Combining these three drugs helps Coronavirus patients recover quickly, study finds

A combination of three antiviral drugs plus an immune system booster seemed to help patients recover more quickly from coronavirus infections, doctors in Hong Kong reported Friday. They said the approach needs more testing but it could offer another treatment possibility for Covid-19 patients. Currently the only authorized treatment is the experimental antiviral drug remdesivir, which also shortens the duration of illness but is limited in supply. Dr. Kwok-Yung Yuen at Hong Kong University and colleagues tested the HIV drug combination of ritonavir and lopanivir along with the general antiviral drug ribavirin and a multiple sclerosis drug called beta interferon.…

Friday, 08 May 2020 05:31

New study suggests Coronavirus spreads through sex

Chinese researchers who tested sperm of men infected with Covid-19 found that a minority of them had the new Coronavirus in their semen, opening up a small chance the disease could be transmitted sexually, scientists said on Thursday. A study by doctors at China’s Shangqiu Municipal Hospital of 38 men hospitalised with the disease found that six of them, or 16%, tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in their semen. The researchers said that while the findings were preliminary and based on only a small number of infected men, more research is needed to see whether sexual transmission might play a role…

Thursday, 30 April 2020 05:54

Jumping the gun: An Indian firm starts mass-producing an unproven Covid-19 vaccine

On April 21st Adar Poonawalla, boss of the Serum Institute of India, one of the world’s largest producers of vaccines, arrived at work full of optimism about a new vaccine for covid-19, created by the Jenner Institute at Oxford University. In normal times the products that Mr Poonawalla manufactures are proven, effective vaccines. They have regulatory approval, and an order has been placed for them. These are not normal times. That morning Mr Poonawalla made a short phone call to his father, Cyrus, who founded the firm in 1966. The pair agreed that the Serum Institute would start mass-manufacturing the…

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Thursday, 30 April 2020 05:53

US study finds Gilead drug works against coronavirus

For the first time, a major study suggests that an experimental drug works against the new coronavirus, and U.S. government officials said Wednesday that they would work to make it available to appropriate patients as quickly as possible. In a study of 1,063 patients sick enough to be hospitalized, Gilead Sciences’s remdesivir shortened the time to recovery by 31% — 11 days on average versus 15 days for those just given usual care, officials said. The drug also might be reducing deaths, although that’s not certain from the partial results revealed so far. “What it has proven is that a…

Tuesday, 28 April 2020 04:56

Scientists develop spray that protects surfaces from Covid-19 for 90 days

An antiviral coating which could protect surfaces from coronavirus for 90 days has been developed by scientists. The coating, called MAP-1, has taken 10 years to develop and can be sprayed on surfaces frequently used by the public, such as handrails and lift buttons to protect against coronaviruses, researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) say. “These places are frequently touched, and, at the same time, serve as a very effective medium for transmission of diseases," said HKUST adjunct professor, Joseph Kwan, one of the chief researchers. “The spray-on coating is created from millions of nano-capsules…

Saturday, 25 April 2020 04:17

Facebook rolling out free video calling for up to 50 people

Facebook on Friday announced a slew of new video calling features. The new features include Messenger Rooms, which will allow Facebook and Messenger users to create group video calls of up to 50 people. Previously, Messenger video calls were limited to eight people. Between WhatsApp and Messenger, more than 700 million accounts participate in calls every day, said Stan Chudnovsky, vice president of Messenger. Facebook on Friday announced a slew of new video-calling features including Messenger Rooms, which allows users to host video calls of up to 50 people. Messenger Rooms poses an immediate threat to Zoom and Houseparty, two…

Friday, 24 April 2020 04:40

Coronavirus patients’ eyes could be contagious for weeks - Study

Coronavirus can linger in the eyes for weeks on end, according to a newly-published case report. Researchers at the National Institute for Infectious Diseases in Italy found that virus persisted in the eyes of one 65-year-old woman for 21 days after she first developed symptoms. Reports have emerged of people getting pink eye with coronavirus across the globe - but the number of patient affected by the symptom remains quite low. Although coronavirus primarily spreads from person-to-person via droplets of saliva and mucus from coughing and sneezing (and possibly talking and breathing), the new study underscores why avoiding touching your…

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