World update

For more than three decades, China's ruling Communist Party experienced one of the greatest political crises. A rapidly spreading outbreak of the new coronavirus was a "huge danger and threat" to social stability, Chinese President Xi Jinping cautioned top party officials in a later publicly-published internal address. Yet with new domestic infections near zero, China declared victory over a virus that is still struggling to curb. Newly optimistic and prone to criticism that it initially covered up the outbreak, China's leadership is now trying to recast the pandemic as a political victory by claiming that its centralized, top-down government structure made it ideally suitable for controlling and handling the virus; official figures estimate the virus claimed less than 5,000 lives in China. The way the Chinese treated the coronavirus is combined with technology, culture and very efficient policy collaboration, "said Wang Huiyao, president of China and G

See the destiny: attackers can get between brain waves and hospital kit and it will get worse, IOActive senior consultant Alejandro Hernández said. Hernández says that the potential to copy, modify and delete brain waves used in electroencephalography ( EEG) has already emerged, the kit has already been hacked and the healthcare sector has taken little steps to better protect captured brain waves. After decades in laboratories and hospitals, encephalography is introduced in lightweight electronic headphones and other tools that are still largely experimental or gimmicky. Clinically, EEG recording devices are a useful tool for diagnosing seizures and sleeping disorders like narcolepsy. Researchers believe recorded brain waves have the potential to score murderers' mental abilities, create brain-to-brain interfaces where conscious thoughts are transmitted over the internet and unconsciously enacted by another person, or see neural-impulse-flown drones. Before we get the

Food, electricity and water: that's what the UN calls the 'nexus' of sustainable growth. As the world's population has increased and become wealthier, demand for all three has risen rapidly. Not only has demand risen for all three, they are also closely interlinked: food production requires water and energy; conventional energy production needs water resources; agriculture offers a potential source of energy. This article focuses on food's environmental effects. Sustaining access to a nutritious diet by everyone in the world is one of the biggest challenges we face. In various entries, we cover the human aspects of food and nutrition, including hunger and undernourishment, micronutrient deficiency, diet compositions and obesity. Eco-impacts of food and agriculture What are food and agriculture's environmental impacts The visualization shows a summary of some major global impacts: Half of the world's (ice- and desert-free) agricultural land is u

In 2005, the necrology of physicist Asher Peres in Physics Today magazine told us that when a journalist asked him if quantum teleportation could hold a person's soul as well as their body, the scientist replied: "No, not the body, only the soul." More than only a simple joke, Peres' answer gives a perfect description, embedded in a metaphor, of the nature of a phenomenon we've seen. Teleportation in real science started to take shape in 1993, thanks to a theoretical analysis published in Physical Review Letters by Peres and five other researchers, setting the framework for quantum teleportation. Apparently, it was the idea of co-author Charles Bennett to equate the proposed phenomenon with the common concept of teleportation, but there is an essential difference between fiction and reality: in the latter, traveling is not important, but material, which transfers properties from the original matter to that of the destination matter. Quantum teleportation

It seems like the research world launched a full-throttle game recently, "what superpower would you choose? "For those who want invisibility, engineers are developing exotic materials that can bend the light of an object out of sight. For would-be telepaths, neurobiologists are working on ways to read one person's brain wave patterns and transmit them to the head of another. Perhaps my personal favorite is the most insane fantasy force of all: teleportation, the ability to arrive without flying. Imagine being able to dematerialize from your living room and wake up in Venice or the Amazon rainforest or Saturn's rings (wearing a fitting space suit, of course). The idea is so seductive that it has been a staple of science fiction since Star Trek and Doctor Who's early days, but it also seems an affront to common sense. Fortunately, common sense does not govern the rules of quantum physics, as demonstrated by a brief 1993 paper with a mouthful title: "T

WHEN SID KOUIDER appeared at Slush, Helsinki 's annual start-up showcase, wearing an ascot cap and a gadget he said would lead into a new age of technical mind control, nobody thought he was nuts. No, he's just entered the long line of entrepreneurs (see: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg) who think we'll control our computers with our thoughts one day. The quest to combine mind and machine dates back to at least the 1970s, when scientists started drilling into peoples' skulls and implanting the first computer-brain interfaces—electrodes that translate brain cell activity into data. Today, BCIs can control Parkinson's disease tremors and regain some basic movement in paralyzed people. But they're all surgically implanted, but very experimental. Even so, Musk's likes already imagine a future where we'll all have chips in our brains, replacing our need for keyboards, mouses, touchscreens, joysticks, steering wheels, and more. That won't happen

Many wearable devices can now monitor your heart rate, steps, velocity, balance, temperature, and sleep. Smart devices are undoubtedly the future, and will be used in daily lives. NeuroSky has developed a new generation of brain-reading technology, using biosensors from electroencephalography ( EEG). One of the first commercial brain wearables released in 2009 could be used to play a game called Mindflex, where users pushed a ball, attempting to use their "brain power" to go through an obstacle course. MindWave and MindWave Mobile are considered the most portable brain-reading EEG headphones available and can perform a variety of tasks, from holding a brain-wave based meditation journal to intervening in a video. These tools claim to enhance one's concentration and well-being, detect and alleviate stress, and let someone play video games using their brain. Biosensors EEG MindWave and MindWave Mobile headsets use the same hardware and read the same EEG signals. Res

It's a summer night near Germany's forest lake and something strange happens. Beyond the dark waters of the sea, a soft glow emanates from the rings of light above the ocean. Nearby, bobbing red torchlights — the visible spectrum's least-disruptive component — reveal scientists' presence on the shoreline. They 're seeing what happens when they rob their night's lake animals. This experiment near Berlin is the most ambitious of many ventures in dark countryside patches across Europe, set up over the past few years to check what light pollution is doing to ecosystems. Researchers are increasingly concerned about the problem. While several studies have reported how artificial light affects individual organisms, the impacts on entire ecosystems and their services, such as crop pollination, are less evident. Several field studies aim to provide answers by tracking how plant and animal populations react to both direct and more subtle night sky luminance, known a

As Covid-19 spreads around the globe, the knowledge can be overwhelming. Our duty for RNZ is to send you confirmed, up to the minute, trustworthy information to help you make your life and health decisions. We'll also ask officials and decision-makers' questions about how they react to the virus. We strive to keep you updated. She said shopping, malls, cafes, restaurants, cinemas, and other public spaces, including playgrounds and gyms, could reopen Thursday, May 14. From Monday 18 May, schools would return to regular classes, while bars would wait until Thursday 21 to reopen. She warned that groupings — including gatherings, marriages, funerals and group bookings in restaurants or bars — would also be limited to 10 participants. China's Wuhan records coronavirus first since lockdown Wuhan, the focal point of China's novel coronavirus outbreak, declared Monday the first cluster of infections since a month ago a quarantine on central Chinese city was lifted,

Go out, socialize and have fun, South Korea's government told its citizens, announcing the start of "a new everyday life with Covid-19"—while keeping a watchful eye on any indication of backwardness, any need for restrictions to snap back into place. It wasn't long. On Saturday, the fourth day of the new process, Seoul's mayor ordered all the bars and nightclubs in the capital to shut down indefinitely after a cluster of dozens of coronavirus infections was discovered. South Korea initially fought the pandemic with such effectiveness that it became a blueprint quoted internationally, all but avoiding a massive epidemic without strangling nearly as much of its economy as other nations. Now it's trying something just as hard: moving gradually, safely closer to something like everyday life. Policy leaders, health professionals, and most of the public are well aware that, once a vaccine exists, easing restrictions would lead to more illnesses and proba

Efficient investment in wastewater and other sanitation services is vital to achieving public health benefits, improving the environment, and enhancing life quality. Safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programs are important to prevent disease and protect human health during outbreaks of infectious disease, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past two decades, Bolivia has made strong strides in expanding access to water and sanitation facilities. Yet, even though access to piped water and wastewater collection has increased, the quality of those services is still not optimal, particularly for the poorer population. Service interruptions and blockages are normal. Also, water quality and wastewater service delivery remains a challenge, particularly in areas facing water scarcity. Bolivia reports that only 27% of wastewater is treated (WSP, 2016). In cities with over 10,000 inhabitants, wastewater treatment is just 39%. Wastewater treatment facilities need to be