An anonymous reader shares a report: The pandemic is helping Japan’s demon slayers, monsters and robots make the leap to the global market. Animated video in the Japanese style — aka anime — has long been a niche taste for fans in the U.S. and elsewhere, and some anime films such as those by Hayao Miyazaki have become mainstream hits. Now,…
Tag: contagion
In Brazil’s Amazon a COVID-19 Resurgence Dashes Herd Immunity Hopes
Anthony Boadle, reporting for Reuters: […] In April and May, so many Manaus residents were dying from COVID-19 that its hospitals collapsed and cemeteries could not dig graves fast enough. The city never imposed a full lockdown. Non-essential businesses were closed but many simply ignored social distancing guidelines. Then in June, deaths unexpectedly plummeted. Public health experts wondered whether so many…
A Utah Company Claims It Invented Contact Tracing Tech
In the fight against Covid-19, contact tracing apps have so far largely been disappointments — in the United States, at least. Proposed in the spring as a way to help quickly stifle viral outbreaks by tracking down potential exposures using smartphones, they were stunted by technical glitches, concerns over privacy, and the US’s fragmented, haphazard pandemic response. Now, they may become…
Should We Plan For a Future With Fewer Cars?
The New York Times ran a detailed piece (with some neat interactive graphics) arguing “cities need to plan for a future of fewer cars, a future in which owning an automobile, even an electric one, is neither the only way nor the best way to get around town…” It asks us to imagine a world where there’s suddenly more room for…
200 Scientists Say WHO Ignores the Risk That Coronavirus ‘Aerosols’ Float in the Air
“Six months into a pandemic that has killed over half a million people, more than 200 scientists from around the world are challenging the official view of how the coronavirus spreads,” reports the Los Angeles Times: The World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintain that you have to worry about only two types of transmission:…
Uber Loses $2.9 Billion, Offloads Bike and Scooter Business
Uber lost $2.9 billion in the first quarter as its overseas investments were hammered by the coronavirus pandemic, but the company is looking to its growing food delivery business and aggressive cost-cutting to ease the pain. Tech Xplore reports: The ride-hailing giant said Thursday it is offloading Jump, its bike and scooter business, to Lime, a company in which it is…
Italy Working On Coronavirus Tracing App To Help Lockdown Exit
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Italian authorities are working on introducing a smartphone app that would help health services trace the contacts of people who test positive for the coronavirus as the government looks at ways of gradually lifting a lockdown imposed a month ago. Innovation minister Paola Pisano acknowledged that launching the app would raise major issues…
How realistic is Contagion? The movie doesn’t skimp on science
Contagion was a film released in 2011 about a fictional pandemic of a virus called MEV-1 which kills between 25 and 30 per cent of those it infected. Here is our review of the film originally published in September 2011, now that it’s on Netflix Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2239913-how-realistic-is-contagion-the-movie-doesnt-skimp-on-science/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Elon Musk Shares a Video: Making Ventilators From Tesla Parts
Elon Musk shared a new video today from Tesla Engineering. “We’re trying to make some ventilators from some car parts, so we can help the medical industry without taking away from their supply,” it begins. (All three people who appear in the video are wearing a face mask.) It ends with a demonstration of a prototype using a touchscreen display from…
White House Told Federal Health Agency To Classify Coronavirus Deliberations
The White House has ordered federal health officials to treat top-level coronavirus meetings as classified, an unusual step that has restricted information and hampered the U.S. government’s response to the contagion, Reuters is reporting, citing four Trump administration officials. From the report: The officials said that dozens of classified discussions about such topics as the scope of infections, quarantines and travel…