Category: Tech

Six African countries, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia are selected to receive the technology needed to produce mRNA vaccine against the COVID-19 infection.

On Friday, the European Union and African Union have chosen these six countries in a summit meeting. These six countries will build their own vaccine in factories as part of a bid The World Health Organization launched last year. The bid replicated what is believed to be the most effective licensed shots against the coronavirus.

WHO’s Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told in the Brussels summit meeting that despite 10 billion vaccine doses having been administered worldwide, billion of people are still unvaccinated.

As per the WHO data, only 11% of the population in Africa is fully vaccinated as compared to the world’s global average of 50%. Only 1% of the vaccine against the virus was produced in Africa.

He called out for an urgent increase in the local production of shots in poor countries. He added that the tragedy is that billions of people are yet to benefit from this life-saving vaccine.

This is the first time WHO has supported efforts to reverse-engineer a commercially-sold vaccine, circumventing a pharmaceutical industry that prioritizes providing drugs to rich states over those living in poverty.

On Tuesday, as part of a push to reduce Europe’s reliance on foreign companies and secure key communications services and surveillance data against outside interference, the European Commission unveiled a $6.8 billion satellite communications plan.

The aim of the EU proposal was to build and operate a space-based state-of-the-art connectivity system, improve the resilience of EU telecommunication infrastructures, and help counter cyber and electromagnetic threats. The program is set to be launched next year by the EU.

In a statement, EU industry chief Thierry Breton said, “Our new connectivity infrastructure will deliver high-speed internet access, serve as a back-up to our current internet infrastructure, increase our resilience and cyber security, and provide connectivity to the whole of Europe and Africa”.

In the aftermath of the Russian and Chinese advances in outer space and an increase in satellite launches, this step was taken. The exponential growth of satellites and debris caused by commercial operators like SpaceX and its Starlink network has also contributed to a fast-growing satellite population.

Six billion euros will be provided by a 2.4 billion euro contribution from the EU from 2022-2027, as well as by countries in the EU, the European Space Agency, and private investments.

Meanwhile, NASA raises concerns regarding the SpaceX satellite deployment plan.

Researchers found new antibodies that can directly interfere with and block the cell-to-cell transmission of SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19. FuG1 is the antibody that targets the enzyme furin that is used by the virus for its efficient chain of infection in cells of the human body.

In the journal Microbiology Spectrum, this approach was described recently that could be added to existing SARS-CoV-2 antibody cocktails. It can help for greater functioning against the emerging variants.

From the University of California, the senior author of the study Jogender Tushir-Singh said, “We developed an approach that interferes with the transmission chain of SARS-CoV-2. The Covid-19 vaccines are a great lifesaver in reducing hospitalizations and severe illness. Yet, we are now learning that they may not be as effective in controlling the transmissibility of the virus”.

Specifically, they found that engineered FuG1 antibody interfered with the SARS-CoV-2 virus’ ability to become highly transmissible by competitively interfering with its furin function.

Cellular functions are affected by furin, which is found in every cell in the body. The enzyme breaks down proteins into smaller parts. According to the researchers, furin does this by cutting or cleaving the polybasic peptide bonds in the proteins.

On Monday, The Indian Space Research Organisation successfully stationed its earth observation satellite EOS-04 along with two other satellites in the intended orbit. this was the first launch mission in 2022. It followed a smooth countdown of 25 hours and 30 minutes in early morning skies with the workhorse launch vehicle, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C52) along with three satellites onboard. it blasted off at 5:59 towards the sky amid the dark.

According to ISRO, the important flight events took place exactly as planned- stage and strap-on ignition, heat shield separation, stages, and strap-on separation and satellite injection. The three satellites- EOS-04, INSPIREsat-1, and INST-2TD- post-flight of 17 minutes, and 34 seconds were injected successfully into a sun-synchronous polar orbit of 529km. ISRO said the orbit achieved for the three satellites was “very close” to the intended orbits.

At Bengaluru, the two solar arrays of EOS-04 deployed automatically and the ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) assumed the control of the satellite after its separation. Satellites will begin transmitting data in the coming days after they are brought up to their final operational configuration.

PM Modi congratulated space scientists on the launch of the PSLA C52 mission

On Thursday, a $5billion plan was unveiled by the Biden administration to build thousands of electric vehicle charging stations. In November, the congress party approved the funding to staters as part of a $1 trillion infrastructure.

Although efforts to win substantial funding for electric vehicles have stalled by Congress, the White House is trying to encourage Americans to shift away from gasoline-powered vehicles. $615 million will be made available by the administration in 2022. However, the states must first submit plans and win approval from the federal.

U.S Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a press conference, “We are not going to dictate to the states how to do this, but we do need to make sure that there are meet basic standards, it is going to be customized, which is exactly why we have the states coming to us with plans rather than the other way around”. He said that the US faces different EV network challenges in rural and urban areas.

Biden government aims to sell 50% of vehicles that are electric or plug-in hybrid electric models by 2030. He also wants to install 500,000 new EV charging stations. However, he has not supported an end to new gasoline-powered vehicle sales by 2030.

On Tuesday, the European Union announced that the supply of semiconductors will quadruple by 2030. By supplying a key component used in electric cars and smartphones, the bloc hopes to limit its dependence on Asia.

After the impact of the pandemic, chips have become a key strategic priority in Europe and the United States, as factories have come to a halt and stores have been emptied.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that they have a goal to have 20% of the global market share of the production chips in Europe. They are getting to a level that basically quadrupling their efforts has provided them a huge increase in global demand.

EU plans could generate a total of €43 billion through existing budget money and by easing existing rules on public subsidy from member states if approved.

China, Taiwan, and South Korea produce the bulk of semiconductors, and the European Union wants factories and companies in the bloc to play a larger role.

The European Commission said, “The highly anticipated EU Chips Act will mobilize more than 49.1 billion of public and private investment and enable the EU the EU to reach its ambition to double its current market share to 20% in 2030”.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will pay up to $1 million prize money to people who will come up with innovative and sustainable food production ideas to feed the astronauts in Space.

The US space agency gears up to send astronauts further into the cosmos than ever before. As long as future explorers are able to prepare nutrient-rich, tasty, and satisfying food during long-term space missions, they will have the necessary energy to discover the great unknown.

Food loses its nutritional value over time the period of time. To bring the pre-packaged food on a multi-year mission to Mars will not meet all of the needs for astronaut health.

As part of its Deep Space Food Challenge, NASA is working with the Canadian Space Agency to develop, build, and demonstrate prototypes of food production technologies that will provide tangible nutritional products.

NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington DC, associate administrator Jim Reuter said, “Feeding astronauts over long periods within the constraints of space travel will require innovative solutions. Pushing the boundaries of food technology will keep future explorers healthy and could even help people here at home”.

Food loses its nutritional value over time the period of time. To bring the pre-packaged food on a multi-year mission to Mars will not meet all of the needs for astronaut health.

China is set to blast its ambitious ‘mega constellation’ of up to 13,000 satellites that will operate in low Earth orbit, akin to SpaceX Starlink. China is said to be rolling out 5G mobile internet via this network.

The mega constellation plan was dubbed the “Guowang” (GW) when it was first announced in 2021. It was designed in a way that it can complement satellite-based internet services.

This project is a high-level project for the Chinese government which is likely to disturb the internet and communications services around the globe.

Initially, the contracts were awarded to enterprises to commence the development work in China’s city Chongqing. Operation and the network coverage are unclear, however, the project aims to fill the gaps in service rural areas and terrestrial communications. It will be made up of hundreds to thousands of satellites that will work together to cover the entire globe, most of which will operate just a few hundred miles above the Earth’s surface to provide better internet services.

According to an article published by Observer Research Foundation, providing internet service via low-Earth orbit (LEO) has posed a number of challenges, with China emerging as the newest participant along with American corporations and EU nations. This has raised snooping concerns in the west.

A low-cost smartphone was developed by US researchers based on the diagnostic tool for COVID-19 which combines the speed of over-the-counter antigen tests with the accuracy of PCR tests. Researchers at the University of Washington in the US developed the Harmony COVID-19 test by detecting genetic material from the SARS, CoV-2 virus.

The Harmony kit provides results in less than 20 minutes while the conventional PCR tests take several hours. An associate professor at the University of Washington Bary Lutz said, “We designed the test to be low-cost and simple enough that it could be used anywhere. We hope that low-cost will make high-performance testing more accessible locally and around the world”.

Most of the at-home antigen kits earlier detected pieces of protein created instead of the generic material which led to 80-85 percent accuracy. However, PCR tests are usually 95% accurate that need expensive equipment and a long wait for the results. Meanwhile, the Harmony kit is said to be 97% accurate for nasal swabs. The kit detects three different regions of the virus genome.

According to the research, the new test will still be able to detect other mutations, even if a variant has many mutations in one region.

Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU) scientists have developed a computer program that can detect those people who are at a higher risk of developing depression. Like Fitbit watches, the predictive program analyses a person’s sleep patterns, physical activity, and circadian rhythms through data from wearable devices.

In 2019, for three months, 290 adults carried a trial that showed the program has an accuracy of 80 % in detecting those with depression. It also shows people who are at a high risk of developing depressive symptoms/depression when compared to healthy individuals. The adults wore a tracking device for two weeks, aged between 21 and 69 years with an average age of 33 years.

Director of the Centre for Population Health Sciences at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Professor Josip Car said that to fine-tune and improve the machine-learning algorithm, his team is planning for larger studies of more than 1,000 participants and monitoring them for two years.

According to the World Health Organisation’s website, 264 million people are affected with depression globally, out of which there are half of the cases that are undiagnosed and untreated.