A Philadelphia-based pharmaceutical company is helping to fast-track a vaccine to help quell the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Backed by a fresh $9 million grant from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which receives money from public and private funding, Inovio Pharmaceuticals will begin developing the vaccine along with University of Pennsylvania-based research facility, the Wistar Institute, to ensure that it is available within the next few months. Officials for Inovio said that they already have developed a sequence to produce the vaccine through new technology that involves digital mapping of DNA sequences. “Now that the Chinese government posted what’s…
Author: mediahitman
Some 200 US citizens are due to be quarantined in California after arriving from Wuhan, China amid the coronavirus oubreak. The passengers, mostly diplomats, were evacuated via a chartered flight that landed on US soil on Wednesday. They will be quarantined for at least 72 hours, but could be kept isolated for up to two weeks if they have any symptoms, officials said. The flight landed at a US air base near Riverside, California. Earlier, the flight stopped in Anchorage, Alaska, to refuel while the 201 were given an initial screen for symptoms. None exhibited any signs of the coronavirus,…
Imagine this: You’re out with your family in one of the parks in New York state where you can actually see the stars when it gets dark. You look up in the sky, see a constellation, and you point upwards to show your kids. Along comes a park ranger demanding to see your Stargazing Permit, and issues you a citation because you didn’t know you needed such a permit. This is totally a real thing, as it shows up on the state’s permitting for “Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation” schedule: STARGAZING PERMIT – Requirements: Fee of $35.00, $60-Out of State…
US President Donald Trump has formally signed a new trade pact with Mexico and Canada, bringing his campaign promise to replace the three countries’ existing deal closer to fruition. The US Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) is set to replace the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). Mr Trump has described Nafta as America’s “worst” deal and blamed it for a decline in manufacturing jobs. Canada has yet to ratify the pact but is expected to do so. The three countries announced they had reached a deal in 2018 after more than a year of negotiation. The accord has been…
ABC News suspended its reporter who inaccurately suggested Sunday that all four of Kobe Bryant’s children were on the helicopter that crashed and killed the NBA legend and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna. The Disney network’s chief national correspondent Matt Gutman said amid the breaking news Sunday that Bryant’s daughters Natalia, 17, Bianka, 3, and Capri, seven months, were “believed” to have been involved in the deadly accident. “You know, we grew up with Kobe, and the fact that four of his children are believed to be on board that helicopter with him, all daughters, one of them a newborn, is simply…
Your lungs have an almost “magical” ability to repair the cancerous mutations caused by smoking – but only if you stop, say scientists. The mutations that lead to lung cancer had been considered to be permanent, and to persist even after quitting. But the surprise findings, published in Nature, show the few cells that escape damage can repair the lungs. The effect has been seen even in patients who had smoked a pack a day for 40 years before giving up. The thousands of chemicals in tobacco smoke corrupt and mutate the DNA in your lung cells – slowly transforming…
U.S. authorities discovered the longest smuggling tunnel ever found along the southwest border. The tunnel originates in Tijuana, Mexico, near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry and extends a total of 4,309 feet long — more than three-quarters of a mile. The next longest tunnel in the U.S., discovered in San Diego in 2014, was 2,966 feet long. “While subterranean tunnels are not a new occurrence along the California-Mexico border, the sophistication and length of this particular tunnel demonstrates the time-consuming efforts transnational criminal organizations will undertake to facilitate cross-border smuggling,” Cardell Morant, acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations…
The head of San Francisco Public Works, which is in charge of cleaning up the city’s feces-filled streets, has been arrested by the FBI on suspicion of public corruption. San Francisco Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru was arrested Monday alongside Nick Bovis, the owner of a popular sports bar in Fisherman’s Wharf, Lefty O-Doul’s. Sources told NBC Bay Area that Nuru was arrested on suspicion of accepting bribes for airport concession contracts. Both Nuru and Bovis were released on bond following their arrest. As the top official in charge of the $312 million city public works budget since 2012, Nuru…
The Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) has announced an independent inquiry into the ongoing bushfires, promising to “leave no stone unturned”. The six-month inquiry will examine the causes of the fires, as well as how the state prepared and responded to them. State Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the inquiry would consider how climate change, human activity and other factors had contributed to the blazes. Bushfires have killed 25 people in NSW and damaged thousands of homes. Ms Berejiklian said she hoped the inquiry would allow the state “to learn from this season and the catastrophic conditions we’ve faced,…
The “whole world needs to be on alert” to fight the coronavirus, the head of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme has said. Dr Mike Ryan praised China’s response to the deadly outbreak, saying: “The challenge is great but the response has been massive.” The WHO will meet on Thursday to discuss whether the virus constitutes a global health emergency. The Chinese city of Wuhan is the epicentre of the outbreak. But the virus has spread across China and to at least 16 countries globally, including Thailand, France, the US and Australia. More than 130 people have died in…
Starbucks has closed half of its outlets in China to protect its staff and support government efforts to contain the coronavirus. The coffee shop chain warned that the rapidly expanding infection is likely to affect its financial performance. Starbucks has almost 4,300 outlets in China, making it the company’s largest market outside the US. The number of deaths from the virus has risen to more than 130 and almost 6,000 confirmed infections. Starbucks chief executive Kevin Johnson said the firm was “navigating a very dynamic situation”. The firm told Wall Street analysts that it had been planning to upgrade its…
Ring doorbells are providing customer data to companies such as Facebook and Google, an investigation suggests. The Electronic Frontier Foundation found the Ring app was “packed” with third-party tracking, sending out customers’ personally identifiable information. Five companies were receiving a range of information, including names, IP addresses and mobile networks, it said. Ring said it limited the amount of data it shared. The company told Gizmodo: “Like many companies, Ring uses third-party service providers to evaluate the use of our mobile app, which helps us improve features, optimise the customer experience and evaluate the effectiveness of our marketing.” But the…
Scientists in Australia have become the first to recreate the new coronavirus outside of China in what they have called a “significant breakthrough”. The discovery will be shared with the World Health Organization (WHO) in the hope it may help efforts to diagnose and treat the virus. Scientists in China have also recreated the virus and shared its genome sequence, but not the virus itself. The outbreak has killed 106 people in China and infected more than 4,500. There are at least 47 cases confirmed in 15 other countries, including in Thailand, France, the US and Australia. No deaths have…
The US has charged a Harvard professor and two Chinese researchers based in Boston with assisting the Chinese government. Harvard department chair Charles Lieber is accused of lying about his connections, while the researchers were charged with being foreign agents. Mr Lieber allegedly accepted more than $1m in grant money from the Chinese government. Harvard University called the charges against him “extremely serious”. In a statement, the university added: “Professor Lieber has been placed on indefinite administrative leave.” Prosecutors said Yanqing Ye, a Boston University robotics researcher, concealed the fact that she was in the Chinese army. Ms Ye is…
Democrats hoping their party learned from its 2016 failure have been horrified to discover many of those behind Hillary Clinton’s losing campaign – including John Podesta of hacked email fame – have major Convention posts. Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez has unveiled a 2020 Democratic Convention lousy with Clinton loyalists – Podesta merely the most notorious among them – alongside former Obama administration officials and corporate lobbyists. Democrats hoping the centrist old guard had relinquished its death-grip on the party are livid, and at least one campaign is pushing back. “If the DNC believes it’s going to get away…
Gold is once again proving its reputation as the traditional safe haven during times of uncertainty. The price of the precious metal has been rising amid continuing worries over the spread of the coronavirus. Bullion has gained $20 an ounce to reach a 7-year high of $1,585 this week, before easing to around $1,578 per ounce on Tuesday. It has led the rally of other metals, including silver and platinum. Analysts say gold will continue to gain and could top $2,000 in the not-too-distant future. The safe-haven metal last hit an all-time high of just above $1,900 in 2011 in…
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng stock market index fell 3% when it re-opened on Wednesday as investors feared the economic impact of the coronavirus. Almost all of the 50 Hong Kong-listed Chinese companies that make up the Hang Seng Index were in the red. Travel and casino operators were hit the hardest as traders assess the economic impact of the deadly virus. Coronavirus has already claimed more than 130 lives with more than 9,000 suspected cases. China’s main stock markets, the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, will only reopen on 3 February after Chinese authorities extended the Lunar New Year break…
US scientists have developed a “Trojan Horse” nanoparticle that eats away at the fatty deposits which cause heart attacks and strokes from the inside out. These fatty deposits, or plaques, are made up of cholesterol, fatty substances, cellular waste and other material. The new nanoparticles are designed to selectively target a particular immune cell type and then deliver a drug payload which causes the cells to engulf and consume this accumulated material on blood vessel walls, thus removing the diseased or dead cells at the core of the plaque. In other words, they cause the plaques to eat themselves from the…