India
India has had one large surge in 2021 so far, occurring in spring and associated with the Delta variant (which was first identified there; in dark green). It has had no summer surge, and no new variant since.
© CoVarients.org
India
India
Science & Technology
India
India has had one large surge in 2021 so far, occurring in spring and associated with the Delta variant (which was first identified there; in dark green). It has had no summer surge, and no new variant since.
In Uttar Pradesh, India, 33 districts have been declared "Covid-free." With a combined population of 241 million there are only 199 active cases and the positive test rate is 0.01% - statistically zero. It is a poor state and worse, the most-populous in the nation and has extremely high-density cities — the most-fertile environment imaginable for a pandemic virus — yet they defeated Covid with a cheap, widely-available drug.
Last year, India developed a "miraculously" effective and safe Covid treatment kit - containing zinc, doxycycline and ivermectin - costing merely $2.65 (£1.93) per person. As early as March 2020, India recommended hydroxychloroquine ("HCQ") in its national guidelines affirming it "should be used as early in the disease course as possible." But following the June 2020 discovery of ivermectin's efficacy in treating the virus, Uttar Pradesh announced in August 2020 that it was replacing their HCQ protocol with ivermectin for the prevention and treatment of Covid.
While it hasn't been confirmed this was the cause, satellite images seem to coincide with theory of the gear collapse/wing down aspect of the incident
Sources said the B-2 experienced a hydraulic failure during a routine training and had its port main landing gear collapse during landing. As a result, the B-2 was sent off the runway with its wing dug into the ground.
While it hasn't been confirmed this was the cause, satellite images seem to coincide with theory of the gear collapse/wing down aspect of the incident.
© davidope
In the 1960s, the charismatic physicist Geoffrey Chew espoused a radical vision of the universe, and with it, a new way of doing physics. Theorists of the era were struggling to find order in an unruly zoo of newfound particles. They wanted to know which ones were the fundamental building blocks of nature and which were composites. But Chew, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, argued against such a distinction. "Nature is as it is because this is the only possible nature consistent with itself," he wrote at the time. He believed he could deduce nature's laws solely from the demand that they be self-consistent.
Scientists since Democritus had taken a reductionist approach to understanding the universe, viewing everything in it as being built from some kind of fundamental stuff that cannot be further explained. But Chew's vision of a self-determining universe required that all particles be equally composite and fundamental. He conjectured that each particle is composed of other particles, and those others are held together by exchanging the first particle in a process that conveys a force. Thus, particles' properties are generated by self-consistent feedback loops. Particles, Chew said, "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps."
© REUTERS/DADO RUVIC/ILLUSTRATION
Vials with Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine labels are seen in this illustration picture taken March 19, 2021.
Vials with Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine labels are seen in this illustration picture taken March 19, 2021.
Why current studies (for or against vaccination) cannot be trusted and what we can do about it
The randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to establish the safety and effectiveness of Covid19 vaccines produced impressive results (Polack et al., 2020) but were inevitably limited in the way they assessed safety (Folegatti et al., 2020)[1] and are effectively continuing (Ledford, Cyranoski, & Van Noorden, 2020; Singh et al., 2021). Ultimately, the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines will be determined by real world observational data over the coming months and years.
However, data from observational studies on vaccine effectiveness can easily be misinterpreted leading to incorrect conclusions. For example, we previously noted the Public Health England data shown in Figure 1 for Covid19 cases and deaths of vaccinated and unvaccinated people up to June 2021. Overall, the death rate was three times higher in the vaccinated group, leading many to conclude that vaccination increases the risk of death from Covid19. But this conclusion was wrong for this data because, in each of the different age categories (under 50 and 50+), the death rate was lower in the vaccinated group.
Figure 1 Data from Public Health England, June 2021
The specific norms Ioannidis has in mind are, he says, "the Mertonian norms of communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism." The reference is to an influential account of scientific method proposed by sociologist Robert Merton. Science should be communal in the sense that research ought to be communicated to and shared with all scientists. It should be universal in the sense of being judged by objective and impersonal criteria. It should be disinterested in the sense that research should be pursued for its own sake rather than for the purpose of promoting some political agenda or personal aggrandizement. It should be skeptical in the sense that scientists should make testable claims and welcome critical evaluations of their research.
Ioannidis notes several respects in which these norms have been violated over the last year and a half. I want to call attention to two of his points in particular: the deleterious role that social media have played, and the damage that the politicization of science has done to science itself and to public health.
© Creative Commons
An exciton is a quasiparticle, an auxiliary object of quantum theory, that describes the behaviour of a bound state of a pair of carriers of opposite charges - an electron and a hole. The concept of the exciton, as explained by MEPhI scientists, allows us to describe with high precision, for example, the electrical properties of organic semiconductors during interaction with light.
© FBN
A calf enters the latrine.
A calf enters the latrine.
On farms, cows graze freely, but that also means they poo and pee freely too. Unfortunately, this waste often contaminates the soil and waterways.
On the other hand, keeping cows in barns causes their urine and faeces to combine. This releases ammonia, which leaches into the soil where microbes convert it to nitrous oxide - the third most impactful greenhouse gas after methane and carbon dioxide.
To get around this, researchers from the Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN), Germany, and the University of Auckland, came up with a novel solution: a potty-training program for cows.
"It's usually assumed that cattle are not capable of controlling defecation or urination," says co-author Jan Langbein from FBN.
"[But] cattle, like many other animals or farm animals, are quite clever and they can learn a lot. So why shouldn't they be able to learn how to use a toilet?"
"People's reaction is, 'crazy scientists,' but actually, the building blocks are there," says Lindsay Matthews of the University of Auckland.
"Cows have bigger urinations when they wake up in the morning, which demonstrates they have the ability to withhold urination. There's nothing in their neurophysiology that radically differentiates them from animals, such as horses, monkeys and cats, that show latrine behaviour."
© Xinhua
China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US are jointly working on the ITER project.
China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US are jointly working on the ITER project.
Researchers at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) debuted the first part of the magnet on Thursday when they received it from its American manufacturer, according to The Associated Press. When fully assembled, the magnet stands at a staggering 60 feet tall and is 14 feet in diameter; it's also powerful enough to lift an aircraft carrier.
First-of-a-Kind
The magnet itself is actually known as a "central solenoid." It'll be used as a superconductor to attain the incredible amounts of heat and pressure necessary to produce nuclear fusion. The solenoid can generate a magnetic field roughly 280,000 times stronger than Earth's magnetic field, according to New Scientist.
Comment: China currently holds the record for creating the hottest and longest lasting plasma in their 'artificial sun'
China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) has set a new record in the latest experiment, where it achieved a plasma temperature of 216 million Fahrenheit (120 million C) for 101 seconds. Not just that, the scientists working on the "artificial sun", also achieved 288 million Fahrenheit (160 million C) for 20 seconds, according to state media reports.See also: Why the sun's atmosphere is hundreds of times hotter than its surface
© Harald Paleske on September 13, 2021 @ Langendorf Germany
Jupiter impact
Jupiter impact
Last night, German astronomer Harald Paleske was watching the shadow of Io create a solar eclipse in the atmosphere of Jupiter when something unexpected happened. "A bright flash of light surprised me," he says. "It could only be an impact." Follow the arrows to the fireball. [see image above]
Reviewing his video frames, Paleske quickly ruled out objects such as airplanes and satellites, which might be crossing Jupiter at the time of his observation. The fireball was fixed in Jupiter's atmosphere. It first appeared at 22:39:27 UT on Sept. 13th and remained visible for a full two seconds. The most likely explanation is a small asteroid or comet striking the giant planet; an asteroid in the 100m size range would do the trick.
Comment: Interestingly, a recent study revealed that Jupiter is actually flinging space rocks in the direction of Earth.
See also:
- Volcanoes, Earthquakes And The 3,600 Year Comet Cycle
- Hubble spots comet near Jupiter
- Coma sighted on megacomet situated beyond Saturn
- Behind the Headlines: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?
- Adapt 2030 Ice Age Report: Interview with Laura Knight-Jadczyk and Pierre Lescaudron
- Behind the Headlines: The Electric Universe - An interview with Wallace Thornhill
Comment: It's not a good sign, and it certainly doesn't seem like the bomber would be much match for the latest technology coming out of Russia. Although, the Pentagon did just get another hike in its budget, this time an eyewatering $24 BILLION, so it could waste even more taxpayers money on these kind of projects should it wish: