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A range of common household items – including mouthwash, nasal rinses, and even diluted baby shampoo – have been found to inactivate a form of human coronavirus in new research, highlighting another potential avenue to reduce transmission rates amid the ongoing COVID–19 pandemic. Before we go any further, it's worth pointing out that nobody is suggesting mouthwash is some kind of silver bullet that can protect you from a virus that has killed over 1 million people so far, as that's not what this research is demonstrating, nor recommending. For starters, nobody gargled oral rinses as part of these new...

The diabolical ironclad beetle (Phloeodes diabolicus) of North America doesn't have the visual pizzazz of some of its more shiny beetle cousins, looking more like a small piece of gnarly bark or stone. But what it lacks in dazzle, it makes up for in durability: its exoskeleton is one of the toughest materials in the natural world. Now scientists might have finally figured out its secrets - and are starting to apply them to new materials. Not only is it incredibly difficult for predators to attack, the diabolical ironclad beetle has been known to survive not just human stompings, but...

A team of geologists at the University of Houston College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics believes they have found the lost plate in northern Canada by using existing mantle tomography images—similar to a CT scan of the earth's interior. The findings, published in Geological Society of America Bulletin, could help geologists better predict volcanic hazards as well as mineral and hydrocarbon deposits. "Volcanoes form at plate boundaries, and the more plates you have, the more volcanoes you have," said Jonny Wu, assistant professor of geology in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. "Volcanoes also affect climate change. So, when...

When news broke last week that a man living in Hong Kong had been infected with the coronavirus again, months after recovering from a previous bout of COVID-19, immunologist Akiko Iwasaki had an unusual reaction. “I was really kind of happy,” she says. “It’s a nice textbook example of how the immune response should work.” For Iwasaki, who has been studying immune responses to the SARS-CoV-2 virus at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, the case was encouraging because the second infection did not cause symptoms. This, she says, suggested that the man’s immune system might have remembered its previous...

Places with highest daily reported cases per capitaSeven-day average of daily new reported cases per 100,000 residents

While it might seem like the coronavirus is never going away, people are still working hard to find a way to treat it. That includes one Texas teen, who just won $25,000 for her work on a possible solution for the virus. 14-year-old eighth-grader Anika Chebrolu of Frisco has won the 2020 3M Young Scientist Challenge for her study on COVID-19. Anika started working on ways to fight the flu for her project, but when the pandemic hit, her focus shifted to figuring out COVID-19. Her breakthrough could mean the beginning of a viable treatment for the virus.

Imagine parallel parking a 15-passenger van into just two to three parking spaces surrounded by two-story boulders. On October 20, a University of Arizona-led NASA mission 16 years in the making will attempt the astronomical equivalent more than 200 million miles (320 million kilometres) away. A NASA mission called OSIRIS-REx will soon attempt to touch the surface of an asteroid and collect loose rubble. OSIRIS-REx is the United States' first asteroid sample return mission, aiming to collect and carry a pristine, unaltered sample from an asteroid back to Earth for scientific study. The spacecraft will attempt to touch the surface...

An international group of researchers believe there is enough evidence that anti-malarial drugs could be repurposed to treat COVID-19 and that they should be assessed for efficacy in clinical trials. The review article, published online in Trends in Parasitology, outlines the evidence for the antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties of certain anti-malarial drugs that could play a role in tackling COVID-19. The research group, from institutions across Europe, Asia and Africa, point to a combination of the drugs artesunate and pyronaridine as the most promising. Both drugs have demonstrated antiviral effects on the SARS-CoV-2 virus in human lung cells in laboratory...

Fusion power is the technology that is 30 years away, and always will be, according to skeptics, at least. Despite its difficult transition into a reliable power source, the nuclear reactions that power the sun have a wide variety of uses in other fields. The concept fusion drive, called a direct fusion drive (or DFD), is in development at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). Though still under development, the engine itself exploits many of the advantages of aneutronic fusion, most notably an extremely high power-to-weight ratio. The fuel for a DFD drive can vary slightly in mass and contains...

Places with highest daily reported cases per capitaSeven-day average of daily new reported cases per 100,000 residents

It’s more than fair to say that we are experiencing a pandemic, but not the one you hear about ad nauseum. No, the pandemic is not a virus, it is a pandemic outbreak of Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy which focuses its obsessions on the virus. Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy is a mental illness in which the sufferer fantasizes that others–usually people in their charge, such as children–are suffering from serious illness and require drastic medical intervention. Observe what has happened over the last 7 months, and what if anything is increasing in intensity today. The obsession with Covid-19. The monomaniacal...

My 1st grader's homework had a problem about the number of sides on a circle. I have a BS in Math and never thought about it, my initial thought was 1. Turns out there are multiple correct answers: 2 sides: Outside and inside 1 side: There is only one line 0 sides: A circle has no sides. ∞ (infinite) sides: Each point in a circle would be a separate side (yes, way too egghead for 1st grade)

Neandertal babies had chests shaped like short, deep barrels and spines that curved inward more than those of humans, a build that until now was known only for Neandertal adults, researchers say. Neandertals must have inherited those skeletal features rather than developing them as their bodies grew, says a team led by paleobiologist Daniel Garcia Martinez of the National Research Center on Human Evolution in Burgos, Spain. Stocky, big-brained hominids such as Neandertals needed chest cavities arranged in this way from birth to accommodate lungs large enough to meet their energy needs, the scientists contend October 7 in Science Advances....

An elegant summer palace once belonging to the Minoan aristocracy at Zominthos on Crete, first discovered in 1982, has yielded many more of its priceless secrets in a recent dig. It was found in this summer's dig that the original structure may have been up to three stories high and to date back to 2,000 BC. This year's excavations of the building, measuring 1,600 square meters, or 17,222 square feet, have also shown that the edifice contained ramps, a series of apartments and even religious altars. ...the aim of the new dig was to clarify what served as the access...

An actual ancient gold earring which can be seen depicted in some of the so called Fayum Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt has been discovered in Southeast Bulgaria by archaeologists excavating the Ancient Roman colony Deultum near the town of Debelt, Burgas District, close to the Black Sea coast. Deultum was a Roman colony, which according to Roman law signified a status equal to that of the city of Rome itself. In today's Bulgaria, there are only three Roman cities which enjoyed this status - Deultum (Colonia Flavia Pacis Deultensium) near Burgas, Ratiaria (Colonia Ulpia Traiana Ratiaria) near Archar, Ulpia...

They used clay tablets to keep records of state treaties and decrees, prayers, myths, and summoning rituals, using a language that researchers were only able to decipher around 100 years ago. Now, the Hittites' texts, which were written in cuneiform, are being made fully accessible online. The collection will be based on around 30,000 documents, most of which are written in the Hittite language, but other languages such as Luwian and Palaic will also be represented to a lesser extent. Participating in the joint project are researchers from the universities of Mainz, Marburg, and Würzburg, as well as of the...

Archaeologists working in the ancient Greek city of Soli Pompeipolis in the southern Mersin province in Turkey have unveiled the memorial tomb of the Greek poet and astronomer Aratus, who was born in 315 BC. The city, located in the ancient region of Paphlagonia, was still prominent during Roman times but was only rediscovered in the 1800s with the unearthing of the ruins of Zimbilli Tepe in the Black Sea region of the country. Soli Pompeipolis, lying just across the river from Tasköprü, in the Gökirmak (Greek: Amnias) Valley, in ancient times stretched as far as the Küre and ilgaz...

An ancient limestone weight, dating to the First Temple period, was discovered in an archaeological excavation conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Western Wall Heritage Foundation under Wilson's Arch, adjacent to the Western Wall (the Kotel) in Jerusalem... Mordechai (Suli) Eliav, director of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, said: "How exciting, in the month of Tishrei, whose symbol is the scales of justice, to find a souvenir from the First Temple period. Now, when coming to the Western Wall is so restricted due to the coronavirus pandemic, this finding strengthens the eternal connection between the Jewish nation, Jerusalem,...

Elon Musk spoke at The Mars Society on making Starlink for Mars and Moonship on October 17, 2020 and highlights (recap) are here. Within this online conference Elon announced many interesting things. Self sustaining city on Mars is the core aim for Elon Musk's SpaceX and Starship spacecraft prototype. Elon Musk speaks that humanity have to made self sustaining city on Mars before the World War III start. The goal is to put enough people to Mars and enough tonnage. Metane is the general propellant. When the Starship will make stratosphere flight is currently secret. Elon said that Starship will...

Even as the search for the coronavirus vaccine continues, there is a lot of confusion and contradictory views regarding usage of drugs to fight against COVID-19. Some health officials, including specialists from Melbourne, recently suggested to the doctors in India to prescribe Ivermectin, a drug used to treat lice and other parasites, to treat coronavirus. Dr Shashikant Manikappa, specialist cardiac anesthetist of Monash Health, Melbourne (Australia), said that medications like Hydroxychloroquine, and more recently Ivermectin, had shown some promising results against coronavirus. But despite some promising results, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) hasn't included Ivermectin in its treatment...