MAY_21

Mucormycosis (previously called zygomycosis) is a serious but rare fungal infection caused by a group of molds called mucormycetes. These molds live throughout the environment. Mucormycosis mainly affects people who have health problems or take medicines that lower the body’s ability to fight germs and sickness. 

Lancet–high possibility of Covid being AIRBORNE
March, 2021- WHO–> “The
lack of recoverable viral culture samples of SARS-CoV-2
prevents firm conclusions to be drawn about airborne
transmission”
If an infectious virus spreads predominantly through
large respiratory droplets that fall quickly, the key control
measures are reducing direct contact. Maintaining physical distancing, use of masks within
droplet distance, respiratory hygiene, and wearing highgrade protection only for so-called aerosol-generating
health-care procedures.

But if an infectious virus is mainly airborne, an individual could potentially be infected when they inhale aerosols produced when an infected person exhales,
speaks, shouts, sings, sneezes, or coughs.
higher-grade protection for health-care staff and
front-line workers.

We propose that it is a scientific error to use
lack of direct evidence of SARS-CoV-2 in some air samples
to cast doubt on airborne transmission while overlooking
the quality and strength of the overall evidence base

Airborne transmission of respiratory viruses is difficult to demonstrate directly.

  1. superspreading events account for substantial SARS-CoV-2 transmission; indeed, such events may be the pandemic’s primary drivers. They have shown patterns— eg, long-range transmission and overdispersion of the basic reproduction number (R0), discussed below— consistent with airborne spread of SARS-CoV-2
  2. Long-range transmission of SARS-CoV-2 bw people in adjacent rooms but never in each other’s presence has been documented in quarantine hotels.
  3. Asymptomatic or Presymptomatic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from people who are not coughing or sneezing is likely to account for at least a third, and up to 59%, of all transmission globally and is a key way SARS-CoV-2 has spread around the world,8 supportive of a predominantly airborne mode of transmission. Direct measurements show that speaking produces thousands of aerosol particles and few large droplets.
  4. Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is higher indoors than outdoors and is substantially reduced by indoor ventilation.
  5. Nosocomial infections have been documented in health-care organisations, where there have been strict contact-and-droplet precautions and use of personal protective equipment (PPE) designed to protect against droplet but not aerosol exposure.
  6. viable SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in the air. In laboratory experiments, SARS-CoV-2 stayed infectious in the air for up to 3 h with a half-life of 1·1 h.
  7. SARS-CoV-2 has been identified in air filters and building ducts in hospitals with COVID-19 patients; such locations could be reached only by aerosols.
  8. studies involving infected caged animals that were connected to separately caged uninfected animals via an air duct have shown transmission
  9. No study to our knowledge has provided strong or consistent evidence to refute the hypothesis of airborne SARS-CoV-2 transmission.
    1. cannot be airborne because the virus has a lower R0 (estimated at around 2·5)21 than measles (estimated at around 15),22 especially since R0, which is an average, does not account for the fact that only a minority of infectious individuals shed high amounts of virus. Overdispersion of R0 is well documented in COVID-19.
  10. Close-proximity transmission in most cases along with distant infection for a few when sharing air is more likely to be explained by dilution of exhaled aerosols with distance from an infected person.

India continues to label itself as NO Community Transmission (CT)
Labelled itself= cluster of cases
190 MAJOR COUNTRIES HAS LABELLED THEMSELVES AS CT
CT happens when new cases in the last 14 days cannot be traced to those who had international travel history.
WHO has 4 categories.CT1 to CT4= very high incidence of locally aquired…

Alternative for Li ion batteries made in IIT Hyderabad.

The 3 banded Rosepinch bird in Arunachal Pradesh becomes India’s 1340th species.

New frog species found in Peru’s Amazon jungle with belly without spots. new species of marsupial frog. . The new species belongs to the Gastrotheca genus of tailless frogs found in South and Central America

2 tornadoes devastates China
1 in Wuhan.. 2nd in town of Shengze, in the Suzhou
12 killed + >300 injured

CAIRN ENERGY to get a sum of $1.2Bill+ interests+ costs that British firm was awarded by Tribunal in Dec from Indian Govt.
India breached an investment treaty.
The case was filed in Southern District of New York seeking to make Air India liable for the judgement. Air India is legally indistinct from the state itself.

Astrobotic has signed a contract with SpaceX for the launch of its Griffin lunar lander, carrying a NASA lunar rover, on a Falcon Heavy in 2023.
It will deliver the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) spacecraft to the south pole of the moon in late 2023

Newly discovered amphibian Brachycephalus rotenbergae, a type of pumpkin toadlet found in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest.
 Like poison dart frogs, their vibrant color is likely a signal to predators that their skin carries a potentially deadly toxin.

1 of the smallest blackhole= UNICORN found closest to Earth which is 1500ly away from earth. 3X mass of sun.. companion to giant red star.

SpaceX making 1st US crew splashdown in dark since Apollo 8. The capsule carrying Apollo 8’s 3 astronauts—the first men to fly to the moon—splashed into the Pacific near Hawaii before dawn on Dec. 27, 1968.

14 October 2020–> Soyuz MS-17=Soyuz spaceflight was launched
 9 April 2021–> Soyuz MS-18 was launched
MS17-  It transported three crew members of the Expedition 63/64 crew to the International Space Station. Soyuz MS-17 was the 145th crewed flight of a Soyuz spacecraft. The first use of a new “ultrafast” two-orbit rendezvous flight plan with the Soyuz, which saw Soyuz MS-17 arrive at the ISS within approximately three hours after the launch.
 19 March 2021, the crew of Soyuz MS-17 boarded their spacecraft to relocate it from Rassvet to Poisk to make way for the arrival and docking of the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft.
It landed on Kazakhstan.

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, Russian commander Sergey Ryzhikov, and flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov. Credit: NASA/GCTC/Roscosmos

Dr. Kathleen Hallisey Rubins: Over the course of Expeditions 48/49, she became the first person to sequence DNA in space and performed two spacewalks alongside fellow NASA astronaut Jeffrey Williams.

Super-Earths – a class of planets unlike any in our solar system – are more massive than Earth yet lighter than ice giants like Neptune and Uranus, and can be made of gas, rock or a combination of both. They are between twice the size of Earth and up to 10 times its mass.

GJ 740 b is a super Earth exoplanet that orbits a K-type star.
m= 2.96X mearth … 2.4 days to revolve around of its star GJ 740, and is 0.029 AU from its star.
r=1.53X rearth

NASA-Built Instrument Will Help to Spot Greenhouse Gas Super-Emitters
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California is providing the instrument that will enable a nonprofit organization called Carbon Mapper to pinpoint and measure methane and carbon dioxide (CO2) point-sources from space.
The 1ST Carbon Mapper satellite is targeting a 2023 launch. JPL will provide a state-of-the-art imaging spectrometer.
JPL imaging spectrometers will also be aboard upcoming missions to the Moon and Jupiter’s moon Europa.

Methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) are the 2 dominant anthropogenic (human generated) climate-forcing agents. Additionally, CH4 is relevant to air-quality science and applications: CH4 is a precursor for tropospheric ozone and is strongly linked with co-emitted reactive trace gases that can impact human health. The figures here from the Global Carbon Project summarize the global CH4 and CO2 “budgets”.

IEA–> Carbon emission to rise by 1.5bn tonnes in 2021
International Energy Agency — CO2 emission rise by 33bn tonnes which is up by 1.5bn tonnes compared to 2020.

  • Mission Name: Mars 2020
  • Rover Name: Perseverance
  • Main Job: Seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) for possible return to Earth.
  • Launch: July 30, 2020
  • Landing: Feb. 18, 2021, Jezero Crater, Mars.

Perseverance, NASA’s newest six-wheeled robot on the Martian surface 

Feb. 19, 2021— First Audio Recording of Sounds on Mars
by the SuperCam instrument on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover just about 18 hours after landing on the mission’s first sol or Martian day. 
March 2, 2021— 1st acoustic recording of laser impacts on a rock target on Mars from the 12th sol (Martian day).
April 19, 2021— Ingenuity helicopter successfully completed the 1st powered controlled flight by an aircraft on a planet besides Earth.
April 20, 2021— 1st time CO2-rich atmosphere into O2 via Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE).
 April 30, 2021-– 1st time, a spacecraft on another planet has recorded the sounds of a separate spacecraft. Ingenuity helicopter sound was recorded.

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