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Could dietary supplements become a healthy weapon against COVID-19? Experts have shown that common dietary supplements can protect against the coronavirus as well as several common winter illnesses. Prof. Gazit, who also heads TAU's Blavatnik Center for Drug Discovery, said: "To address the rapid changes of the virus, we decided to develop active vaccines made of safe and easily obtainable dietary supplements that would reduce the viral load in the body and cut down contagion. We have known for years that food supplements containing zinc can enhance immunity to severe, viral and chronic infections and their potentially grave consequences." The...

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will cut import tariffs on textile products and metals, including steel products, to 8.4 percent from 11.5 percent, effective Nov. 1, the finance ministry said on Sunday.

Scientists have found a rapid way of producing magnesite, a mineral which stores carbon dioxide. If this can be developed to an industrial scale, it opens the door to removing CO2 from the atmosphere for long-term storage, thus countering the global warming effect of atmospheric CO2. This work is presented at the Goldschmidt conference in Boston. Project leader, Professor Ian Power (Trent University, Ontario, Canada) said: "Our work shows two things. Firstly, we have explained how and how fast magnesite forms naturally. This is a process which takes hundreds to thousands of years in nature at Earth's surface. The second...

The southeastern United States has been hit by a series of strange unexplained quakes - most recently, the 2011 magnitude-5.8 earthquake near Mineral, Virginia that shook the nation's capital. Researchers have been baffled, believing the areas should be relatively quiet in terms of seismic activity, as it is located in the interior of the North American Plate, far away from plate boundaries where earthquakes usually occur. Now, they believe the quakes could be caused by pieces of the Earth's mantle breaking off and sinking into the planet.

A picture from the Lucara Diamond Corporation of the 1,111 carat gem quality, Type IIa diamond ============================================================================================================================================ A 1,111 carat "high quality diamond" has been discovered at a mine in Botswana, said to be the biggest find in more than a century, according to the mine company. The gem, only second in size to the Cullinan diamond which was unearthered in South Africa in 1905, was mined by Lucara Diamond Corp. "The magnificent stone, which originated from the south lobe of Lucara's Karowe Mine, is the world second largest gem quality diamond ever recovered and largest ever to be recovered...

Another day, another law disregarded by the Obama camp. Colorado Attorney General John Suthers and representatives from nine other states have signed a letter to the Obama Administration demanding the administration pay up on mineral lease revenues owed to the states under the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act. This nearly century-old contract requires a certain percentage of the royalties collected by the federal government to be returned to the states where the minerals were produced. The administration now is trying to trim these payments under the guise of sequestration, saying that these royalties are subject to across the board spending cuts...

The Obama administration sparked outrage when it announced on Monday that it was withholding $110 million mineral royalty payments that are owed to states and counties due to the sequestration. “The Budget Control Act of 2011, passed by Congress, mandates across-the-board, automatic 5.1 percent sequester reductions,” said Office of Natural Resources Revenue spokesman Patrick Etchart. “By law, revenue payments to states are not exempt from the sequester. Cumulatively, approximately $110 million will be withheld from states and counties where energy production occurs on federal lands during the remainder of the current fiscal year.”

Several people claim to own one of the world's largest gemstones The latest in the saga of the Bahia Emerald, an 840-pound gemstone is set to take place in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday to decide its fate. Several people have laid claim to the stone in the nine years since it was dug up in Brazil in 2001. Multitudes of lawyers are expected to fill the courtroom where Judge John Kronstadt will review the case of Tony Thomas, a claimant who says he bought the emerald from Brazilian miners for $60,000. The emerald, one of the largest gems...

Backlash over China curb on metal exports China's draconian export curbs on rare earth minerals needed by the rest of the world for frontier technologies is escalating into a serious diplomatic and trade clash with the United States and other leading powers. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor Japan's foreign minister Katsuya Okada issued what amounted to a formal protest at top-level meeting with Chinese officials in Beijing over the weekend, saying the sudden cut-off was "affecting the global production chain". It is the latest sign of rising pressure after angry complaints by companies outside China that rely on this...

Afghan minerals may be triple original estimate: Mining Minister 17 June 2010, 1:28 p.m. By Daniela Cambone Of Kitco News www.kitco.com Montreal -- (Kitco News) --Afghanistan's mining minister, said Thursday that mineral deposits in his country could be worth up to three trillion dollars, triple the US estimate from earlier this week. "A very conservative estimate has been one trillion. Our estimation is more than that... the idea is it could be up to three trillion dollars," mining minister Waheedullah Shahrani told a news conference today in Kabul. Kitco News interviewed Shahrani back in March on the sidelines of the...

When methane and freezing cold water fuse under tremendous pressure, they create a substance as paradoxical as it coveted: burning ice. Earlier in the year, a report from the National Research Council identified the combustible water, also known as methane hydrate, as a potential source of natural gas. Now, according to the Chinese news organization Xinhau, China is joining the US, Japan, and South Korea in the hunt for this weird mineral. Icy Hot : courtesy of NASAAs explained in this comic, there's 85.4 trillion cubic feet of methane hydrate buried under Alaska. That's equivalent to 3 billion tons of...

In North Korea, the military now issues economic orders By Blaine Harden Tuesday, November 3, 2009 SEOUL -- North Korea's military, whose nuclear program vexes the Obama administration, has grabbed nearly complete command of the nation's state-run economy and staked out a lucrative new trade in mineral sales to China to make money for its supreme commander, Kim Jong Il. As it deepens its dominance over nearly every aspect of daily life, the Korean People's Army is also deploying soldiers to take first dibs on all food harvested in the isolated, chronically hungry country, according to the latest assessments of...

N. Korea Cashes In on Mineral Riches By Blaine Harden and Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, February 24, 2008; Page A19 SEOUL -- North Korea's Kim Jong Il has a chronic cash-flow problem. In the 1990s, his Stalinist state nearly capsized -- and millions starved -- for want of subsidies from China and the defunct Soviet Union. Since then, despite arms dealing and the receipt of international aid in return for talking about abandoning nuclear weapons, North Korea has often gone without rice, fuel and medicine. In the past couple of years, though, Kim's government has quietly...

It has always been believed, but never proven that French clay can kill several varieties of bacteria that cause diseases. Today, a researcher at Arizona State University at Tempe is leading a study to show why certain minerals kill certain bacteria. French clay has been shown to kill Mycobacterium ulcerans, or M. Ulcerans, which is so epidemical in Africa. It also treats Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is responsible for deadly infections that are difficult to treat. Furthermore, it has been known for thousands of years that people have used clay for healing wounds, helping indigestion, and killing intestinal worms....

Very definitely not green Kryptonite is no longer just the stuff of fiction feared by caped superheroes.A new mineral matching its unique chemistry - as described in the film Superman Returns - has been identified in a mine in Serbia. According to movie and comic-book storylines, kryptonite is supposed to sap Superman's powers whenever he is exposed to its large green crystals. The real mineral is white and harmless, says Dr Chris Stanley, a mineralogist at London's Natural History Museum. "I'm afraid it's not green and it doesn't glow either - although it will react to ultraviolet light by...

Scottish mineral water 'kills cancer cells' By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent (Filed: 13/09/2006) The water of life – or “uisge beatha” in Gaelic - is a euphemism for whisky, but another Highland drink has been shown to have a more valid claim to the title. The water, sourced from near Balmoral Castle, has been said to possess healing qualities since 1760 A mineral water taken from wells near the Queen’s Balmoral Castle can help to slow the spread of cancer, according to scientists. Tests on Deeside Mineral Water suggest that it inhibits the growth of certain cancerous cells and kills...

/begin my translationNo Future for China's Resource Wasteful EconomyCho Young-haeng2005.07.04 13:06 41'The current structure of Chinese economy, which requires consuming world's resources at an astonishing speed, will keep Chinese economy from sustaining its growth, reported Hong Kong's South China Morning Post(SCMP) on July 4. The paper pointed out that, despite impressive economic growth of China, its economic model is resource-intensive, wasteful of energy, and destructive to its environment.The recent rate of Chinese consumption of raw materials is startling. China now has 30 million automobiles, and its oil import is the second in the world. This year, its oil consumption rate...

President Yoweri Museveni said in a statement that Uganda must become financially independent of donor nations that provide about half its budget but which he said are partly to blame for many if its problems. Museveni has often hit out at donors for giving "unsolicited" advice, and says that by exporting their bountiful raw materials for processing in the West, African nations are the real donors. "The raw materials that we have been donating to the Western countries must be turned into final products," he said in the statement, saying there were international markets for Ugandan coffee, cotton, cereals, beef,...

SHABUNDA, Congo -- Nsimenya Kinyama carried her 3-day-old baby outside bundled in rags and gingerly placed his tiny, jaundiced body in a rusty blue crib. As the first healing rays of the morning sun reached him, he fussed and wriggled and stretched his arms up. Kinyama, 36, stared at her new son with a flat, empty look in her eyes. She was wondering if this child, like the six who had come before him, would die. It is a common prayer in Shabunda, a former trading center in eastern Congo that was ravaged by war, then left poor and isolated...

One of the first questions asked of Condoleezza Rice during her confirmation hearing, came from Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, Richard Lugar. He asked her if the administration would support ratification of the Law of the Seas Treaty. Her answer was an unequivocal "yes." Before he popped the question, with TV cameras running, Lugar said that claims by critics that the treaty would result in the loss of national sovereignty, and that the treaty authorized the UN to collect taxes--were false. Article 2(3) of the treaty says quite clearly, that: "... sovereignty over the territorial sea is exercised subject to this...