Lifeboat Foundation

China is no stranger to far-reaching plans with massive price tags that appear to achieve little. There is no guarantee this programme will deliver the economic rejuvenation its proponents promise. Unlike previous efforts to resuscitate the economy with “dumb” bridges and highways, this newly laid digital infrastructure will help national champions develop cutting-edge technologies.

The tech investment push is part of a fiscal package waiting to be signed off by China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress, which convenes this week.

The Italian government had one of the early invasive experiences of the covid-19 pandemic. Scientists in Italy responded to the global crisis with serious research into the concern. Perhaps results of these inquiries and related information have affected policy makers. Italian homeowners now have new opportunities to put clean energy on the top of their roofs.

A United Arab Emirates research institute has developed a coronavirus treatment using stem cells “which could be a game-changer in the global fight” against the outbreak, a government official announced on Friday.

Read the latest coronavirus updates in our dedicated section.

The Abu Dhabi Stem Cell Center has developed a treatment method that regenerates lung cells and prevents the immune system from overreacting, Hend Al Otaiba, Director of Strategic Communications with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a Twitter thread.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The two astronauts who will end a nine-year launch drought for NASA arrived at Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, exactly one week before their historic SpaceX flight.

It will be the first time a private company, rather than a national government, sends astronauts into orbit.

NASA test pilots Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken flew to Florida from their home base in Houston aboard one of the space agency’s jets.

Samsung has a hardened version of the Galaxy S20, but don’t reach for your credit card — it’s not what you were expecting, and you probably can’t get one. The company has introduced a Galaxy S20 Tactical Edition that, as the name suggests, is designed to meet the needs of the US military and federal government. It touts two layers of encryption strong enough to handle top secret data and connects to tactical radios and mission systems out of the box.

There are combat-related conveniences, too. One mode can turn the display on and off while you’re wearing night vision goggles, while a stealth mode turns off LTE and and mutes all RF broadcasts to eliminate even the slightest chance of eavesdropping. It’s also easy to unlock the phone in landscape mode so that you can quickly launch an app while the device is mounted to your chest.

This is otherwise a run-of-the-mill Galaxy S20 with a 6.2-inch, 1440p display, a Snapdragon 865 processor, 12GB of RAM, 128GB of expandable storage, a 4,000mAh battery and the usual arrays of front and rear cameras. Although Samsung shows the Tactical Edition in a rugged casing, there’s no mention of the phone itself being rugged.

After biomedical scientists demonstrated that they could make dangerous viruses like influenza even more dangerous, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) implemented a three-year moratorium on funding such research. But a couple of months ago, in December, the moratorium was lifted, and a tight set of rules were put in its place, such as a mandate for oversight panels.

The prospect of engineering a deadly pandemic virus in a laboratory suggests that only a fool would wish away government regulation entirely.

However, as a whole, regulation has done more harm than good in the arena of scientific innovation. The reason is that the sort of person who thinks like a bureaucratic regulator isn’t the sort of person who thinks like a scientist. The sad fact of the matter is that those most interested in the regulatory process tend to be motivated by politics and ideology rather than scientific inquiry and technological progress.

“The number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in Austria dropped from 90 to 10 cases per one million people, two weeks after the government required everyone to wear a face mask on April 6.”

Austria managed to slow down the rate of coronavirus cases in the country by 90% after requiring everyone to wear a face mask. Meanwhile, other countries are struggling to keep the number of cases and fatalities low.

GM will power its largest site, which is in Tennessee, with solar energy from the TVA; The Mexican government rolls back renewables growth.

U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci called the vaccine’s preclinical data “impressive” and told National Geographic this week that a vaccine could be ready for general use as early as January.

The Phase I trial has dosed 45 healthy adults. Phase II trials are about to start, enrolling around 600 adults. Pivotal efficacy trials would follow soon thereafter, bankrolled in collaboration with the government office BARDA (Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority).

Today, the chief medical officer of Moderna, Tal Zaks, answered burning questions from the public in a webinar hosted by STAT. Here’s an edited and condensed summary of his answers.