Week #5 Articles {December 14, '20}

Articles written by Ananya Nayar and Misaki Tomiyama, Website edited by Misaki Tomiyama

Articles for this week-

• UK rolled out first set of vaccine

• Vaccine documents hacked

• Pfizer Vaccine in North America

• Pygmy Possums ended up surviving Australia Bushfires

• Artemis programme; Astronauts picked for the moon mission

• Facebook Accused of Breaking Antitrust Laws

• The Starship Prototype

• Mystery Illness

• Does Google affect children’s intelligence?

• This Week In History

• This day signifies

UK rolled out first set of vaccine

The first person received the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine as part of the mass vaccination programme. Margaret Keenan, 91 years old, was the first to receive the vaccine. They are aiming to test the vaccine on people above 80, and people working in the health departments. Around 800,000 doses are expected to be injected, and around 4 million doses by the end of this month.

Many are thrilled to have seen a vaccine come out, but the government and the media still encourage people to follow safety precautions, as the pandemic is not over yet. Boris Johnson, Prime minister of the UK says, “It will gradually make a huge huge difference, but I stress gradually, because, you know we are not there yet. We haven’t defeated this virus yet”

Image by Foreign and Commonwealth Office is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Vaccine Documents Hacked

Documents about the submission of the BioNTech and Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines for approval which were on The European Medicines Agency (EMA) server were hacked. Despite the cyber attacks, it seems like the dates for the approval of the vaccine will not be affected.

“Today, we were informed by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) that the agency has been subject to a cyber attack and that some documents relating to the regulatory submission for Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, BNT162b2, which has been stored on an EMA server, had been unlawfully accessed. It is important to note that no BioNTech or Pfizer systems have been breached in connection with this incident and we are unaware that any study participants have been identified through the data being accessed.” -BioNTech

According to the website, there is an investigation regarding this cyber-attack, and both BioNTech and Pfizer are waiting for EMA’s response.

Pfizer Vaccine in North America

After the UK approved and rolled out the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine it seems to have triggered other countries to look deeply into the vaccine. Canada authorised this vaccine and is looking to start providing the immunity shot to the most vulnerable and front-line workers this week, preferably Wednesday. The doses will be given twice, a couple of weeks apart to immunise. America, Europe and other countries around the world are now considering the BioNTech German vaccine.

Trump has also ordered vaccines enough to inoculate around 15% of the US Population.

Pygmy Possums ended up surviving Australia Bushfires

Last year wild and dangerous bushfires raged around Australia, killing and injuring millions of animals. A tiny species of Possums had allegedly been wiped out after the harsh fires and the animal was feared extinct. After over a year, the species were spotted and rediscovered for the first time after the fires. Pygmy possums are herbivores, and they are very small, around the size of our thumbs and only grow up to 11 cm! Male pygmy possums live up to 5 years, unlike females who can live for 12 years but most only tend to live for 1-3 years due to their size and the fact that they are prey for many other mammals and birds.

-Image by 80 trading 24 is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

-Image by Photo by Phil Spark is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Artemis programme; Astronauts picked for the moon mission

NASA has recently announced the 18 astronauts who are going to the moon in the Artemis program.

The Artemis programme is a lunar exploration programme, aiming to get to the south pole of the moon by 2024.

“NASA is committed to landing American astronauts, including the first woman and the next man, on the Moon by 2024. Through the agency’s Artemis lunar exploration program, we will use innovative new technologies and systems to explore more of the Moon than ever before.”-NASA

The astronauts who will be going for the programme include 9 women and 9 men, and some of these astronauts have been to the International Space Station before, while some of them haven’t.

The members of the program includes- Joseph Acaba, who was selected as NASA astronaut in 2004 and has spent 306 days in space, Kayla Barron who was chosen as an astronaut in 2017, Raja Chari, Matthew Dominick, Victor Glover, Warren Hoburg, Jonny Kim, Christina Hammock Koch, Kjell Lindgren, Nicole A.Mann, Anne McClain, Jessirca Meir, Jasmin Moghbeli, Kate Rubins, Frank Rubio, Scott Tingle, Jessica Watkins and Stephane Wilson. The astronauts will be travelling in an Orion vehicle, similar to the Apollo capsule, but bigger and better.

The aims of the Artemis Programme are to use the research done during the mission to help with the research of Mars, and launching a future crewed mission, create a habitable Moon Base and building a new space station in Lunar orbit.

Facebook Accused of Breaking Antitrust Laws

Facebook was accused of surveilling users’ personal information and buying their rivals to maintain its dominance over other social media platforms. More than 40 states have accused Facebook for breaking Antitrust laws.

Antitrust laws are laws enforced by the government regarding the competition between companies. These laws ensure that there is fair competition between companies in businesses and question the business activities such as monopoly, price fixing, market allocation etc.

Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2-12, and Whatsapp for $19 billion in 2014. Facebook is the most prominent social media platform which controls the most popular and significant social media apps. Many accuse Facebook of buying these companies so that they won’t face any rivalry between these social media apps. Instagram and Whatsapp have been extremely popular recently; Instagram has around 1 billion users, and Whatsapp 2 billion.

Lawsuits regarding these accusations were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In these lawsuits, voices that Facebook should divest both Instagram and Whatsapp, and that news restrictions should be made regarding these antitrust laws were heard. Facebook has denied all of these accusations.

Many believe that this lawsuit will be going on for a long time, and even if Facebook is guilty, it might take some time for this argument, as long as the accusations of Facebook violating users’ privacy to completely transition and make these accusations come to an end, but it will definitely change the competition of social media apps and platforms.

The Starship Prototype

Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, Tesla and more huge companies had recently launched a ‘Starship’ prototype in Texas. At an uncrewed test outing, they achieved more than expected and the rocket flew a little more than 12.5km before crashing right at touchdown.

The 50m vehicle is looking into launching for SpaceX, and to take people to space and orbit.

The demonstration went better than planned and to prove how successful the display was, Musk tweeted “Mars, here we come!” To further show the public that this model was the potential future of SpaceX.

-Image from twitter

You may ask, ‘What is SpaceX?’ Well, SpaceX is an Aerospace company that designs and provides rockets, satellites and spacecraft. Its means were to provide and accelerate space and mankind interactions as well as transform space technology. The company was founded by Musk in 2002, and has many collaborations with NASA in the past.

Mystery Illness

Hundreds have been hospitalised in Andhra Pradesh, India as an unknown virus has come about. Symptoms for this unidentified illness range from unconsciousness to violent nausea. It has been confirmed that this illness is not related to Corona Virus since all patients have tested negative. The south-Indian state has been badly hit by Covid this year.

Officials are looking and examining roots to find the source of this disease and the contamination. So far, authorities announced that lead and pesticides in plants may be the cause of this infection. The Andhra Pradesh Health Minister said that consumable fruits and vegetables are being examined for exposure. It was also said that patients have received chronic exposure, rather than acute exposure. Acute exposure lasts for little time, not more than a day but can lead to death and severe contamination in your body. Chronic exposure is continuous contact with a substance (in this case chemicals) for even many years, and the toxins are built up in your body gradually. The impact is also seen to be hit in only Andhra Pradesh so far, and will not seem to appear anywhere else as of now.

Eluru, the city in AP that has had 600+ infections of the mystery illness, came up with a theory. Due to Covid-19 sanitation measurements and processes in the past 10 months, there has been excessive exposure to bleach, chlorine and other harmful chemicals that may have entered the water flow. Another theory was put forward, that nickel and lead in the bloodstream along with chemical contaminated water and pesticides may be the possible origin of this mysterious sickness.

-Image by Adityamadhav83 is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Does Google Kill Children’s Intelligence?

Since 1998, people all over the world have had unlimited access to the search engine- Google. There are currently more than 2.7 billion websites on Google, and an endless amount of answers, photos and information. However, many people are wondering if Google is affecting our generation’s (Gen Z’s and Gen X’s) development, memory span and intelligence.

Ever since as early as the 16th century, technology has slowly replaced human efforts- the printing press substituted hand written books. In the 21st century we’re looking at the scary possibility that robots will take over jobs that we do, and can be used against us in the near future.

Our memory span is affected because we no longer require it! We can just google the answer to any doubt, this is also because the internet is a distraction- you can switch your focus to something more enjoyable than what’s happening in real life in less than 5 seconds. Yes, this even impacts our productivity and creativity. Scientists also fear basic life skills are no longer being taught or known, you can just ask Google.

Oxford’s Dr Josh Firth added: "It's clear the Internet has drastically altered the opportunity for social interactions, and the contexts within which social relationships can take place. So, it's now critical to understand the potential for the online world to actually alter our social functioning, and determine which aspects of our social behaviour will change, and which won't."

Still, there’s no changing the perspectives we have now. The use of Google kills creativity and imagination, younger minds are slowly being altered to become just like robots, feeding off others' work and information. There is no longer that much effort to produce your own, valuable content, because why not just take somebody else’s?

MRI scans found differences in the brains of children who used smartphones, tablets, and video games more than seven hours a day. Children who reported more than two hours a day of screen time got lower scores on thinking and language tests. Unlike an adult's brain, children and teenagers' brains are still developing, their brain is more vulnerable to adopt the way Google processes information, instead of critical thinking- they scan and find information that could be used. Face it, we rely and use Google and other search engines on a daily basis- affecting our mental capacity, but there’s not much we can do.

The Internet has become such a huge part of our lives that we can’t see life without it! The success rate in this industry is unbelievably high, which leads to the internet becoming even more popular among younger people and introducing more people to the industry.

This Week In History

On December 8th 1980, former Beatles member, John Lennon was shot and killed by a deranged and obsessed fan in New York. Bleeding, he died en route. The Beatles was one of the most successful and popular Rock and Pop bands of the 20th century and Lennon was the main singer/songwriter.

-Image by Jack Mitchell is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

In 1901, on the 10th of December, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in Sweden. The fields awarded were chemistry, physics, peace, medicine and literature. The Nobel Prizes were awarded on the 5th Death Anniversary of Swedish Alfred Nobel. He invented explosives like dynamite.

-Image by ProtoplasmaKid Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA 4.0

On December 11th, 1936, Edward the 8th renounced his throne as King of England. He abdicated after he was not allowed to marry his lover, an American divorcee. He was the eldest son of King George the 5th, and he was born in 1894.

On December 13th 2000, Al Gore conceded his Presidency position to George W Bush in his bid for Presidency after recounts of votes all over the country.

On the 14th of December, 1911, the Norweigian explorer became the first to reach the South Pole. In June 1910, he sailed for Antarctica.

This day signifies

14th December- National Energy Conservation Day

Did you know? 14th December 2020 is the national Energy Conservation Day!

The National Energy Conservation Day is Celebrated each year in India on 14th December. Energy conservation is the practice of using minimum energy, and not wasting it. This can include turning the lights off in a room when nobody is in it, switching to more energy efficient light bulbs such as LEDs, etc. On this day, people keep in mind the objectives of making an energy efficient country, by spreading the importance of energy conservation, promoting less energy usage, preventing energy loss and organising events such as debates, workshops and competitions, which discuss energy efficiency and conservation.