World Health Leaders Stress Need For Sharing of Vaccines

Long-time Slashdot reader tomtermite shares a report from The Guardian:
Ministers and officials from every nation will meet via video link on Monday for the annual world health assembly, which is expected to be dominated by efforts to stop rich countries monopolising drugs and future vaccines against Covid-19… The leaders of Italy, France, Germany and Norway, together with the European commission and…

After Trump’s Musing About Injecting Disinfectants, Spike in Calls to Poison Control Centers

America’s generally pro-Trump media site Fox News felt compelled to report today that “Some poison control centers reported a spike in calls following President Trump’s suggestion that injecting disinfectant might help people infected with coronavirus.” The comment alarmed medical professionals around the world. The president subsequently claimed on Friday that he was being “sacrastic,” although at the press conference he was…

Top tips for feeding wild birds

It’s OK to feed wild birds. Here are some tips for doing it the right way from a wildlife ecologist. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/top-tips-feeding-wild-birds…

Why Do Corporations Speak the Way They Do?

An anonymous reader shares a article: Anna Wiener, author of memoir “Uncanny Valley”, writes especially well — with both fluency and astonishment — about the verbal habits of her peers: “People used a sort of nonlanguage, which was neither beautiful nor especially efficient: a mash-up of business-speak with athletic and wartime metaphors, inflated with self-importance. Calls to action; front lines and…

How a flawed mentality led to Silicon Valley’s meteoric rise

In the memoir Uncanny Valley, Anna Wiener examines the collective hyperconfidence that has enabled the tech sector’s meteoric growth Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2232869-how-a-flawed-mentality-led-to-silicon-valleys-meteoric-rise/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

What Went Wrong With Virtual Reality?

An anonymous reader shares a report: “When I put in the earpieces and goggles the first time it was crazy – it feels so believable,” says Anna Taylor, 32, of her visit to a virtual reality (VR) arcade. “The whole experience of being immersed in a compelling virtual world is incredible.” Anna has since visited the east London arcade many times,…

The Human Brain Evolved When Carbon Dioxide Was Lower

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Atlantic: Kris Karnauskas, a professor of ocean sciences at the University of Colorado, has started walking around campus with a pocket-size carbon-dioxide detector. He’s not doing it to measure the amount of carbon pollution in the atmosphere. He’s interested in the amount of CO2 in each room. The indoor concentration of carbon dioxide…

FDA Approves First-Ever Ebola Vaccine

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ABC News: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has for the first time approved a vaccine for the prevention of the deadly Ebola virus disease. The agency announced the approval of Ervebo, a single-dose, injectable vaccine manufactured by American pharmaceutical company Merck. The announcement, made Thursday, comes a month after the European Union and…

Scientists map a pulsar for the 1st time

Using a revolutionary X-ray telescope aboard the International Space Station, scientists have finally created the 1st pulsar surface “map.” It shows odd hot spots and suggests that pulsar magnetic fields are more complicated than anyone had assumed. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/pulsar-surface-map-hot-spots-size-mass-j0030-nicer…