Science and Technology

Saturday, 05 February 2022 06:04

Combat drones take the world to a new era of warfare. Here's why

The combat drone was once the preserve of military superpowers but no longer. Its use by insurgents and smaller nations is already changing the nature of battle, writes Jonathan Marcus. Often in military history a single weapons system can become emblematic of a whole age of warfare. One thinks of the longbow used by the English archers at Agincourt in the Middle Ages or the heavily armoured tanks that epitomised the ground combat of World War Two. The MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle or UAV became the iconic weapon of that period of counter-insurgency warfare waged by the United States…

Friday, 04 February 2022 06:36

In world first, S.Africa's drug company makes mRNA Covid vaccine using Moderna data

South Africa's Afrigen Biologics has used the publicly available sequence of Moderna Inc's mRNA Covid-19 vaccine to make its own version of the shot, which could be tested in humans before the end of this year, Afrigen's top executive said on Thursday. The vaccine candidate would be the first to be made based on a widely used vaccine without the assistance and approval of the developer. It is also the first mRNA vaccine designed, developed and produced at lab scale on the African continent. The World Health Organization (WHO) last year picked a consortium including Afrigen for a pilot project…

Friday, 04 February 2022 06:27

Electric car transition puts over 70,000 jobs at risk in Italy, unions and lobby say

The transition to electric vehicles will put around 73,000 jobs at risk in Italy, metal workers’ unions and a lobby group said on Thursday, calling on the government to start discussions on measures to support the automotive industry. Analysts say the auto sector in Italy could be hit harder than elsewhere because of the small average size of firms in the country and the scale of investment needed to comply with the European Union’s “Fit-For-55” climate plan phasing out combustion engines by 2035. “This plan, if not accompanied by (government) intervention, could lead to a loss of approximately 73,000 jobs…

Thursday, 03 February 2022 06:03

Gene editing: Pig hearts and the new era of organ transplants

“Pig hearts to be tested in humans” read a headline in the Financial Times in September 1995. The article quoted confident predictions that porcine hearts, genetically engineered to avoid rejection, would be transplanted into patients the following year — helping to ease the worldwide shortage of human organs. More than 25 years passed before that forecast finally came true. Last month surgeons at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore successfully replaced the failing heart of a 57-year-old man with a fresh one from a pig with 10 gene edits. Four weeks later the patient, David Bennett, continues…

Wednesday, 02 February 2022 05:55

What the next 10 years will likely look like for smartphones

Here's how the mobile customer experience will likely evolve in the next decade. Nobody (except for Steve Jobs, maybe) could have predicted the impact of the iPhone when it was introduced in 2007. Countless other smartphones have since been released with exquisite hardware features like advanced cameras, 4K resolution and giant screens. But it wasn't these features that made people rapidly adopt smartphones-- it was the experiences these devices provide, like global social networks, music streaming, online shopping and many others. With the help of evolving technology, smartphones will enable even more groundbreaking mobile experiences in the next decade-- ones…

Saturday, 29 January 2022 06:13

Most popular phone of the last 22 years revealed – and it's NOT an iPhone

The most popular phone since the millennium has been revealed and many will be shocked to find out it’s NOT an iPhone. Despite the Apple handset’s massive success since 2007, not one of the models have been able to topple an earlier giant. In fact, the majority of the top five were all released in the noughties. 2014’s iPhone 6/6+ saw 222.40million handsets sold, making it Apple’s most successful smartphone. But that only puts it at number two. The number one has been revealed as old school favourite, the Nokia 1100. The device, which boasted Snake and a built-in flashlight,…

Thursday, 20 January 2022 06:19

Forget blood - your skin might know if you’re sick

This glowing microneedle test could catalyze a transition from blood-based diagnostics to a stick-on patch. A river of biological information flows just beneath the outermost layers of your skin, in which a hodgepodge of proteins squeeze past each other through the interstitial fluid surrounding your cells. This "interstitium" is an expansive and structured space, making it, to some, a newfound “organ.” But its wealth of biomarkers for conditions like tuberculosis, heart attacks, and cancer has attracted growing attention from researchers looking to upend reliance on diagnostic tools they say are inefficient, invasive, and blood-centric. "Blood is a tiny fraction of…

Wednesday, 12 January 2022 06:06

These electric sockets are made from a surprising material: bone

Humans have found creative uses for bones since prehistoric times. Animal bones have been shaped into spoons, needles, musical instruments, and combs. Meanwhile, bone ash—created by grinding bones to fine powder—has been used in bone china since the 1700s. Now, a designer has brought one of the planet’s oldest raw materials into the 21st century by redesigning the humble electric socket—and fashioning it out of discarded bones from the meat-processing industry. Swiss-Tunisian designer Souhaïb Ghanmi graduated from ECAL, Switzerland’s famed design school, last summer. For his diploma project, he designed Ecol, a range of electric sockets and light switches made…

Tuesday, 11 January 2022 06:10

In medical first, surgeons successfully transplanted pig heart into human patient. This is how they did it

In a medical first, doctors transplanted a pig heart into a patient in a last-ditch effort to save his life and a Maryland hospital said Monday that he’s doing well three days after the highly experimental surgery. While it’s too soon to know if the operation really will work, it marks a step in the decades-long quest to one day use animal organs for life-saving transplants. Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center say the transplant showed that a heart from a genetically modified animal can function in the human body without immediate rejection. The patient, David Bennett, a…

Tuesday, 11 January 2022 06:04

Global spread of autoimmune disease blamed on fast foods, others

More and more people around the world are suffering because their immune systems can no longer tell the difference between healthy cells and invading micro-organisms. Disease defences that once protected them are instead attacking their tissue and organs. Major international research efforts are being made to fight this trend – including an initiative at London’s Francis Crick Institute, where two world experts, James Lee and Carola Vinuesa, have set up separate research groups to help pinpoint the precise causes of autoimmune disease, as these conditions are known. “Numbers of autoimmune cases began to increase about 40 years ago in the…

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Sunday, 09 January 2022 06:27

A medical team has developed a Covid vaccine that could be a global game changer

A vaccine authorized in December for use in India may help solve one of the most vexing problems in global public health: How to supply lower-income countries with a Covid-19 vaccine that is safe, effective and affordable. The vaccine is called CORBEVAX. It uses old but proven vaccine technology and can be manufactured far more easily than most, if not all, of the Covid-19 vaccines in use today. "CORBEVAX is a game changer," says Dr. Keith Martin, executive director of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health in Washington, D.C. "It's going to enable countries around the world, particularly low-income…

Saturday, 08 January 2022 06:02

Introducing the Bus-Train, the world’s first dual-mode vehicle

Japan recently unveiled the world’s first Dual-Mode Vehicle (DMV), a contraption that runs both on roads, like a bus, and on rails, like a train. The unique bus-train hybrid was unveiled last month, in the town of Kaiyo, Japan’s Tokushima Prefecture. The mini-bus-like contraption didn’t win anyone over with its looks, but it definitely made an impression in terms of practicality. It runs with normal rubber tires on the road, but when it needs to switch to train mode, a pair of metal wheels drop down from the vehicle’s underbelly. The front tires are lifted off of the track, while…

Thursday, 06 January 2022 06:25

Do you have a cold, the flu or Covid-19? Experts explain how to tell the difference

Do you have a sore throat, a runny nose and muscle aches? It could be a common cold, a case of the flu — or Covid-19. The illnesses all share similar symptoms, sometimes making it hard to distinguish which is putting you under the weather. Case rates of Covid-19 have been on the rise as the Omicron variant has spread, but hospitalization numbers appear to be staying relatively low. For vaccinated people, evidence suggests that infection with this variant seems less likely to be severe, epidemiologist and former Detroit Health Department executive director, Abdul El-Sayed said. "The important thing to…

Wednesday, 05 January 2022 06:04

Artificial Intelligence can now craft original jokes - and that’s no laughing matter

Don’t you hate it,” says Jon the Robot, gesturing with tiny articulated arms at an expectant crowd, “when you’re trying to solve inverse kinematics equations to pick up a cup and then you get ‘Error 453, no solution found’?” The crowd laughs. “Don’t you hate that?” An experiment billed as a comedy act, Jon is the brainchild of Naomi Fitter, an assistant professor in the School of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Oregon State University. The tiny android performs when a handler (who must also hold the mic) presses a button, then tells the same jokes in the same…

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