Recent World Events
Chinese authorities block evacuation of British citizens
A military plane will be sent for evacuation, but people will have to get to the place of departure on their own
Chinese authorities blocked the first attempt to evacuate 200 British citizens from Wuhan. About it writes Daily Mail .
The publication expresses fears that the British will be among the last evacuated against the background of how other countries are making successful efforts to remove their citizens. The United States and Japan have already taken hundreds of their people; Portugal sent a plane to pick up about 350 people this afternoon. Turkey, France and Spain are completing plans to evacuate citizens.
At the moment, British citizens are "still in limbo", not knowing when to go to the airport to fly on their morning flight on Friday, and also do not know where exactly the plane will deliver them.
It is reported that Britain sent a military plane to take out 200 people "blocked in China." People will be allowed to take only one backpack weighing 15 kg, and they will have to wait for the plane for six hours after meeting at a collection point 3 km from the place of departure. Chinese family members will not be taken out, nor will people with signs of infection. Upon arrival, passengers will be securely isolated for two weeks.
British citizens will have to get to the airport in Wuhan on their own - through a deserted city with idle public transport and police checkpoints.
About five million residents left Wuhan before the city was closed due to an epidemic.
In Germany, the leader of the far right was deprived of parliamentary immunity
Alexander Gauland is suspected of tax evasion
On January 30, the Bundestag deprived parliamentary immunity of the leader of the faction of the far-right party, Alternative for Germany, Alexander Gauland. This is reported by DW .
The decision was made at the request of the Frankfurt am Main prosecutor's office , which is investigating the case of a possible tax evasion by Gauland.
The prosecutor’s office immediately ordered the searches of his apartments.
A tax suspicion investigation began in March 2019.
- In 2017, Gauland declared that " Crimea will never return to Ukraine, and sanctions (against the Russian Federation - ed. ) Do not matter." He also expressed the view that "Russia is a European state, and its confrontation with NATO should be stopped."
- In 2018, deputies from the party led by Gauland visited the occupied Crimea, saying that "they are not afraid of Kiev’s threat of banning entry into Ukraine."
Scientists have discovered an unexpectedly large source of greenhouse gases
The content of ethane and propane in the air over the northern part of the Red Sea is 40 times higher than predicted
Hydrocarbon gases that rise from the bottom of the Red Sea pollute the atmosphere at a rate equivalent to the emissions of some large fossil fuel exporting countries. This is stated in a study by specialists at the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry, Science Alert reports .
During the 2017 expedition, researchers noticed that the levels of ethane and propane in the air over the northern part of the Red Sea were 40 times higher than predicted.
The team analyzed possible sources of gas emissions and came to an unexpected conclusion: two gases come from natural underground oil and gas reservoirs, and then seep from the seabed.
See also: Global warming. In the Indian Ocean 2 islands went under water
“We spent almost two years working on this dataset to prove with confidence: emissions occur at a depth of about two kilometers underground,” says study lead author Efstratios Bursukidis.
Scientists estimate that the level of ethane and propane leakage was comparable in magnitude to that of several fuel exporting countries such as the United Arab Emirates or Kuwait.
On the surface, they are mixed with emissions from industrial shipping (nitrous oxide) and turn into pollutants, which are very harmful to human health.
Scientists predict that the situation with air purity in the region will only worsen, since the north of the Red Sea and the Suez Canal are busy traffic arteries. It is expected that in the coming decades the movement of vessels through them will continue to increase.
Scientists have warned that 85% of the world's vineyards could die due to global warming.
NASA will send predator viruses with prey bacteria into space
The project developer is Rhodium Scientific, support is NASA. Researchers are from a developer company and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Among the payload that Northrop Grumman's Cygnus unmanned spacecraft will take to the orbital station in February, there will be viruses to infect certain bacteria and archaea.
Biomaterials are held under the Phage Evolution project : the influence of microgravity and radiation on the interaction of bacteriophage viruses and their victims is investigated. Experiments are conducted on the specificity of phages to bacteria and the host resistance to specific phages.
See also: New coronavirus from China: all the main news
In addition, the emergence of antibiotic resistance has sparked interest in developing alternative therapies. Phage therapy is attracting more and more attention as a promising alternative to antibiotics: phages specifically kill harmful bacteria without causing massive damage to the body's microflora.
The result of the research will be a better defense of the health of astronauts in near and distant missions.
Help . Bacteriophages are viruses that selectively infect bacteria and archaeal cells. Discovered in 1915. In size, hundreds and thousands of times smaller than microbial cells. Most often multiply inside bacteria and cause their decay. Typically, a phage consists of a protein coat and genetic material - DNA or, less commonly, RNA. The number of phages in the biosphere is more than 10 30 .
- Against the backdrop of the epidemic of the new coronavirus 2019-nCoV in Australia , its laboratory version was successfully created .
- In China, it was discovered that an antibody for SARS can neutralize coronavirus 2019.