CIA bribed, hired Chinese moles; China hit back with mega data theft
In a classic case of the hunter becoming the hunted, Chinese secret service in Africa and Europe turned the tables on United States’ Central Intelligence Agency with the help of stolen data. This was after Chinese spy agency discovered how much Communist country had been infiltrated since 2013, a new...
Billions poured into Covid vaccine facilitated multiple tests at the same time
The slowest part of vaccine development isn’t finding candidate treatments, but testing them. This often takes years, with companies running efficacy and safety tests on animals and then in humans. Human testing requires three phases that involve increasing numbers of people and proportionately escalating costs. The Covid-19 vaccines went through...
Fast quest for coronavirus vaccines and what it means for other diseases
When scientists began seeking a vaccine for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in early 2020, they were careful not to promise quick success. The fastest any vaccine had previously been developed, from viral sampling to approval, was four years, for mumps in the 1960s. To hope for one even by the summer...
Coronavirus origin: ‘Without it, we are flying blind’
It is a big ask. Intensified detection of coronavirus in humans might require doing a thorough evaluation of any patient who comes to any hospital or clinic with the kind of symptoms that are usually dismissed. An unexplained fever or the symptoms of a respiratory infection that has no obvious...
AstraZeneca Covid vaccine: A scientific red flag with flashing lights
Manufacturers of a third coronavirus vaccine announced positive results in clinical trials last week, setting off yet another round of excited news reports. This one, produced by a partnership between a University of Oxford research institute, its spinout company Vaccitech and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca does not need to be...
How Iceland rolled back coronavirus with science
Driving along Reykjavik’s windswept roads on a cold March morning, Kári Stefánsson turned up the radio. The World Health Organization had just announced that an estimated 3.4 per cent of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 would die — a shockingly high fatality rate, some 30 times larger than that for seasonal...
Scientists say dogs can detect coronavirus
Asher is an eccentric, Storm likes sunbathing and Maple loves to use her brain. All three could play a part in controlling the Coid-19 pandemic, but they are not scientists or politicians. They are dogs. And they are not alone. Around the world, canines are being trained to detect the...
Why Oxford’s positive Covid vaccine results are puzzling scientists
A highly anticipated Covod-19 vaccine has delivered some encouraging — but head-scratching — results. The vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, UK, and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca was found to be, on average, 70 per cent effective in a preliminary analysis of phase III trial data, the developers announced in...
Nairobi sucked into ‘fool’s gold’ as the mineral fuels conflict in central Africa
Despite efforts invested licit mineral trade to stifle gold smuggling and money-laundering, East Africa – with Nairobi and Kampala as pivots – still towers other countries in Africa as a major conduit for pirated gold and diamonds from conflict regions in the South and Central Africa. East Africa is in...
As Kenya mulls facial recognition technology, resistance builds up in Europe, US
In Belgrade’s Republic Square, dome-shaped cameras hang prominently on wall fixtures, silently scanning people walking across the central plaza.It is one of 800 locations in the city that Serbia’s government said last year it would monitor using cameras equipped with facial-recognition software, purchased from electronics firm Huawei in Shenzhen, China.The...
