"There will be no social distancing in place," union rep wrote to city leaders.

Consumers are starting to see meat shortages after thousands of workers fall ill.

Just 1,000 light years from Earth, its two companion stars are visible to the naked eye.

Posts from high-profile accounts tout questionable virus therapies and cures.

Dr. Joseph Allen studies where building design meets health—he took our questions for 30min.

A new paper analyzes what we know about the sample the probe grabbed last year.

Trump admin allegedly told CDC its reopening guide would "never see the light of day."

A solar-driven hydrogen-producing machine that makes more copies of itself.

LauncherOne to cap eight years of development with upcoming flight.

China now has a capsule potentially capable of returning from the Moon.

YouTube, Facebook crack down on two viral videos for spreading medical misinformation.

Caddis fly larvae typically construct protective cases out of sand grains and silk.

Eric Newby, former travel editor of the Observer, became hooked on travellers’ tales when he was eight. Here he recalls his favourite anecdotes and lists his top travel books

Just as top men in Levi Strauss are said to wake up in San Francisco wondering whether anyone is going to want to buy their jeans any more, so booksellers must have begun to wonder whether the apparently insatiable demand for travel books will suddenly end, never to return.

It is unlikely. Travel is one of the principal activities of the human race. If the sales of travel books falter, it will be because the sale of books generally is in decline. There are so many reasons for travelling, so much to record: commercial travellers selling arms to the Iraqis, Pepsi plants to the Chinese, Protestant Bibles to Catholics, as Borrow did in Spain, Catholic Bibles to Protestants, then wondering why they get put on the rack, or fried; commercial travellers such as I was - now known as reps - tottering up the back stairs of stores with armfuls of large-size dresses, only to find that the buyer had 'gone to coffee'. All worth a book if the travellers know how to write.

In this age of mobile phones, cybercafes and satellite links, it's harder than ever to truly escape ... but not impossible. Dervla Murphy, who has ventured to the ends of the earth with only the most basic provisions, explains how

The individual traveller's "age of adventure" has long since been ended by "S&T" (science and technology: an abbreviation that dates me). Now our planet's few remaining undeveloped expanses are accessible only to well-funded expeditions protected by mobile phones and helicopters - enterprises unattractive to the temperamental descendents of Mungo Park, Mary Kingsley et al. Happily, it's still possible for such individuals to embark on solo journeys through little-known regions where they can imagine how real explorers used to feel.

Reviewers tend to describe my most exhilarating journeys as "adventures", though to me they are a form of escapism - a concept unfairly tainted with negative connotations. If journeys are designed as alternatives to one's everyday routine, why shouldn't they be escapist? Why not move in time as well as space, and live for a few weeks or months at the slow pace enjoyed by our ancestors? In recent decades everything has become quicker and easier: transport, communications, heating, cooking, cleaning, dressing, shopping, entertaining. "S&T" have reduced physical effort to the minimum - but are we genetically equipped to cope with our effortless new world? The stats show increasing numbers of us developing ulcers, having nervous breakdowns, eating too much or too little, taking to drink and/or drugs, retreating from our own reality in plastic surgery clinics. It's surely time to promote the therapeutic value of slow travel.

Ahead of a new Patrick Leigh Fermor biography, our writer visits the Mani peninsula, home of the great man and unsung resting place of another British travel writing giant, Bruce Chatwin

To read an extract from Leigh Fermor's book, Mani, Travels in the Southern Peloponnese, click here

Old Mr Fotis turned my question over in his mind while sipping his morning coffee. Below the veranda some youths had been playing noisily on the harbour wall, but now they all dived into the turquoise sea and set off on the long swim to the rocky island in the bay. It had a fragment of crenellated wall on top of it, the ruins of a Venetian fortress. Fotis watched them go, half-smiling.

"We do seem to attract a lot of writers," said the old man eventually. "But that's a name I don't remember."

The author of The Miniaturist on the beguiling blend of tradition and modernity (and pancakes) in a city that provided the inspiration for her 17th-century-set debut novel and Waterstones Book of the Year 2014

• Top 10 free things to do in Amsterdam
  
• A new Amsterdam – and a new Rijksmuseum

Amsterdam is classically romantic but is also funky, forward-thinking and citizen-friendly. In the old centre, around the southern canal belt, there are these beautiful 17th-century merchants’ houses that 21st-century Amsterdammers still live in. I’ve always thought it wears its historical cloak quite casually and doesn’t just dwell in the past.

The Rijksmuseum is stunning and I love it as a fascinating, cool, accessible museum, as well as for the part it played in inspiring The Miniaturist. I came across Petronella Oortman’s doll’s house there by chance. It’s an exact scale replica of her real home, and Oortman spent a fortune having it created. I thought at the time it was an interesting story, but I didn’t think I was going to write a novel about it. I’m in its debt, really.

From Tashkent to Samarkand and Bukhara, travel writer Caroline Eden believes Uzbekistan offers a dazzling mix of traditional style and a modern outlook

Twenty five years after the fall of the USSR, it’s interesting how the Soviet-era hangover lingers in Uzbekistan. Hulking apartment blocks are gradually being upgraded, and while you won’t spot statues of Lenin (they’ve been replaced by the nomadic conqueror Tamerlane and celebrated medic Ibn-Sina) you will see plenty of samovars (Russian kettles) and Soviet military medals for sale in the markets. But you will also see master ikat weavers reviving weaving traditions, and many musicians and artists are now turning to their Islamic heritage for influence. This mix of Soviet legacy and Uzbek Islam is one of the things that makes the country so fascinating.

Despite much change, the Nepalese capital’s staggering views and warm memories are as vivid as ever for the veteran mountaineer and leader of 19 Himalayan expeditions

My first sight of Kathmandu and the Himalayas was in 1960 as part of Lt Col Jimmy Roberts’s expedition – we made the first successful ascent of Annapurna II. At 7,937 metres, it’s a superb peak that’s just short of what mountaineers see as the magical height: 8,000 metres.

Arriving in Kathmandu was extraordinary. There was only one hotel, the Royal, an old palace run by a wonderful, eccentric Russian called Boris. There was also just one guesthouse, and practically no tourists.

The oldest national park ranger in the US tells us why she’s proud of the second world war home front park in Richmond, just across the bay from San Francisco

I settled in the greater Bay Area as a six-year-old in 1927. When I graduated from high school in 1938, my two opportunities for employment were working in agriculture or being a domestic servant. At that time, labour unions weren’t racially integrated and, during the war, I worked as a clerk for the segregated boilermakers’ union.

The 89-year-old naturalist and broadcaster is brimming with enthusiasm for his latest TV series, Great Barrier Reef, and the wonder of filming underwater in a submarine. The first of three shows starts on BBC1 on 30 December

The first time I visited the Great Barrier Reef was in 1957 when I was on my way to New Guinea. In those days, television didn’t have a lot of money so, when you got to the other side of the world, you took advantage of it as you never knew when you were going to get back again, and so I took in the Barrier Reef on the way.

It was right at the beginning of the era of underwater swimming. There had been a Viennese pair, Han and Lotte Hass, who had a show underwater called Diving to Adventure. Those of us who had television sets – our jaws dropped! This wonderful girl in this white costume just knocking sharks on the head with the camera. Amazing!

From Fair Isle to German Bight, Charlie Connelly has visited all 31 sea areas, but still finds the poetry of the daily radio odyssey mesmerising

The shipping forecast is probably the closest thing we have in the modern age to a national epic. The institution’s rhythms and rituals have changed little since it was first broadcast on New Year’s Day 1924: there is poetry in the daily litany and mystery in its terminology. “The radio’s prayer,” Carol Ann Duffy called it. For Seamus Heaney it was “a sibilant penumbra”.

The forecast reminds us we’re a maritime nation and its map binds us to our continent, covering not only our own coasts and waters but an area extending from Norway to Portugal to Iceland. There is democracy in its geography, where tiny Fair Isle carries as much heft as mighty Biscay while Lundy, a sliver of rock in the Bristol Channel, is equal in importance to the Irish Sea. And from the salty old seadog in his brine-encrusted fishing boat to the merchant banker on his yacht, the shipping forecast, all seafarers are equally reliant on it.

Unesco has named the capital of Rajasthan, India, a world heritage site, partly for its jewellery and artisanal traditions, which continue to thrive on one of its main commercial streets

‘Sir, want precious stones?” a man asks me, quietly. I am on the Johari Bazaar, one of Jaipur’s most notable thoroughfares, a straight colonnade screened above by the facades of adjoining houses. Everything is painted orange, terracotta and burnt pink. The man wears white shalwar kameez, and an air of indifference. He unfolds white paper, revealing colourful stones. “Emeralds, sapphires, rubies …” he says. He is among one of several groups of men gathered in this area; they’re local dealers, discussing prices. The avenue, whose name means gem shop road, is lined with dozens of shops displaying magnificent necklaces, bracelets and rings.

On a 9,288km journey inspired by the centennial anniversary of the railway’s completion in 1916, photographer Annie Ling captures life onboard the Trans-Siberian Railway, and beyond the carriage window

On a climbing trip in Australia – to the rock formations below Mount Wellington near Hobart – Murdo MacLeod gets more drama than he bargained for

Climbing guide John Fischer

Amid the historic quarter’s busy streets, a thousand workshops maintain centuries-old craftmaking traditions. These workers’ ancient skills are celebrated in a new exhibition at London’s Royal Geographical Society

“Whatever manufactured items there are in the world,” wrote the Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi in 1671, “the poor of Cairo get hold of them, set them out and trade in them.” Nearly 350 years later, this tradition lives on in al-Darb al-Ahmar. This neighbourhood of 100,000 people, south-east of central Cairo, is said to be home to a thousand workshops. The place teems with artisans crafting everything from tents, books, boxes and brass lanterns to glass bowls and silk carpets.

This centuries-old teahouse in Sichuan province and its regulars are a world away from China’s modern megacities

Out in the western suburbs of Sichuan’s capital, Chengdu, the town of Pengzhen is home to what’s said to be the oldest teahouse in China. About 300 years old, the Guanyin Pavilion is at the heart of a tiny community of historic streets where, against a tide of rapid modernisation, the local population proudly preserves its heritage and traditional way of life.

Our project to document communities undergoing irreversible change took us to the frozen Zanskar river, which connects Ladakh and Zanskar in northern India.

Michał and I began our Before its Gone project at the start of 2017, with the aim of identifying, visiting and documenting locations and communities that are experiencing rapid (and irreversible) changes. The idea is to notice these changes so they can be remembered – and learned from.

Our first expedition was along the frozen Zanskar river that links Ladakh and Zanskar in the north Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. When the temperature drops to -30C and mountain passes get covered with metres of snow, the Zanskar region becomes inaccessible for the winter, and the frozen river the only route connecting it with the rest of the world. For hundreds of years villagers across the mountains have used Chadar (the ice road trek) to get to school, work or to see a doctor. But that will change soon, as the Indian government plans to build a new road here. However, as our translator Stanzin Tundup told us, the road may not be the biggest engine for change.

A new virtual exhibition, What the Traveller Saw, the first of its kind by the Royal Geographical Society, marks the centenary of the birth of the writer and former Observer travel editor

Map-makers insert fake towns or trap-streets to catch out plagiarists, but Agloe, in New York state, took on a strange life of its own

In 2008, Argleton village in west Lancashire appeared on Google, complete with weather reports, a job site and an estate agent advertising houses for sale. Argleton vanished two years later. While its site was – and still is – a damp field in the middle of nowhere, it’s worth noting that Argleton is an anagram of G Not Real. Although Google never admitted to having created it, Argleton was a phantom settlement, planted as a trap.

In the world of digital mapping and cartography, snares to catch unwary plagiarists take the form of fake roads or places, known as “trap streets” or “paper towns”. For some, such as Lye Close or Noereal Road, the clue is in the name. (A real alleyway in Cardiff that served as a trap street in the 2014 Dr Who episode Face the Raven may, conversely, be the world’s only fictional fictional street.)

From samba to jazz and house, the DJ and founder of radio station Worldwide FM picks 10 tracks to transport you to Brazil

Originally released in 1980, this funky track from solo artist Cristina Camargo is pure “80s vibes”, Peterson says. “I’ve been loving this boogie tune, produced by Lincoln Olivetti and Robson Jorge, of late. It lifts the mood every time.” Olivetti and Jorge crafted Rio’s early-80s boogie sound, and produced classic albums by Brazilian disco legends in the mid-70s. “It reminds me of line dancing in Rio, particularly on a Sunday afternoon in Lapa, where sound systems play a mixture of this and classic British 80s cuts by the likes of Lisa Stansfield and Soul II Soul – very obscure!”

Elena Ferrante’s Naples, Umberto Eco’s medieval mysteries, EM Forster’s Tuscany … Italy comes alive through these great books
• 10 of the best novels about France

Long before Covid-19, there were always bad things in the press about Italy: corruption, mafia, bureaucracy. But, whenever I went, life seemed to work out even so. People may be poor but they still sit in the sun, drink and chat; music and culture are a birthright; the right seems in the ascendant but on the ground it feels blessed with far-seeing idealists – it has almost four times as much land under organic cultivation as the UK, for example. For now, my remedy to the withdrawal symptoms I feel is to visit via the written word. Many writers have set books in Italy – I was sorry to leave out Martin Amis’s The Pregnant Widow (Calabria), and Ali Smith’s How to be Both (Ferrara) – but here are my top 10 romanze italiane.

The travel industry has sifted through the BBC show’s many sex scenes to showcase shots of Ireland’s landscape

Promoting Ireland as a tourism destination used to be straightforward – just showcase the bucolic landscape and put a slogan on the end – but that was before Normal People turned a chunk of the Atlantic coast into Fifty Shades of Sligo.

The television adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel features beautiful shots of Sligo’s beaches and mountains, plus Trinity College Dublin, but there is also sex. Lots of sex.

You may be familiar with these iconic images, but where did the events take place?

Where did this ship dock on 22 June 1948?

Felixstowe

Liverpool

Southampton

Tilbury

Where was this short-lived celebration?

Berlin

Budapest

Paris

Prague

Where did these three famously meet?

Geneva

Nuremberg

Potsdam

Yalta

Prime Minister Harold Wilson, with pipe and sunburnt legs, is on holiday where?

Anglesey

Isles of Scilly

Isle of Wight

Isle of Skye

This Pablo Picasso masterpiece depicts the carnage of the Spanish civil war in which region?

Asturias

Basque Country

Galicia

Catalonia

One of the most famous fights in history took place where?

Kinshasa

Las Vegas

Manila

Mexico City

This didn't end well. Where did it all start?

Belgrade

Sarajevo

Versaille

Vienna

This is somewhere between Ibiza and the Norfolk Broads – but where exactly?

Brixton

Camden

Hackney

Soho

It's a wrap! Where did this take place?

Berlin

Moscow

Paris

Stockholm

Gazza's tears made him the most famous person in the UK for a while, but where was this match played?

Milan

Naples

Rome

Turin

Where are these matchstick men and women?

Birmingham

Liverpool

Manchester

Newcastle

Fidel could always draw a crowd - where was this one?

Havana

Moscow

New York

Rio de Janeiro

Where did the Arab spring begin?

Egypt

Libya

Lebanon

Tunisia

The barefoot runner, the nasty fall ... but in which Olympics did this controversial race take place?

Moscow

Barcelona

Seoul

Los Angeles

Nelson Mandela was freed just over 30 years ago. Where was the jail he walked out of to greet cheering crowds?

Paarl, near Cape Town

Robben Island

Sun City, south of Johannesburg

Pretoria Central

Which English town did Malcolm X visit just nine days before he was assassinated?

Halifax

Northampton

Oldham

Smethwick

13 and above.

Past master!

9 and above.

You're an old hand at this

0 and above.

Best stick to Where's Wally!

5 and above.

You're history!

With no alternative but to explore the nature on their doorstep, three writers describe the joy of enforced slow travel

It is a place I’d discovered before the virus: a left-hand bend in a narrow stream, a couple of steps off the footpath. There is nothing remarkable there, or not at first glance. There are breeze blocks in the stream bed and plastic bags deeply embedded in the roots of an alder tree. With a few variations, it could be anywhere in Britain: the neglected corner of a city park, the back of a private garden, behind a national park cafe. It’s just one of those spots that no one ever thinks to stop at and, if not for Covid-19, I would not have begun visiting daily, pausing for a few breaths before continuing. I saw the first snowdrops appear there, followed by primroses; then they were swamped by wild garlic and wood anemone. One morning a weasel shot out of a hole under a root and sprinted up the opposite bank. It was the first of several surprises.

Brenda Francis settled into the Kingdom Hall in Calhoun, Georgia, in mid-March, surrounded by dozens of familiar faces. Signs cautioning against shaking hands and hugging were posted around the room. It felt weird to her but was certainly understandable with the threat of an outbreak looming. She herself already had stocked up on some masks and gloves.When it came time for members to comment on the Bible readings, Francis noticed the microphones typically passed around the room were now attached to the end of long poles.That was the moment Francis, a 69-year-old widow living in a small, semirural community in the South, realized just how dramatically the coronavirus pandemic was about to reshape her spiritual life, more than anything ever had in the 47 years since she was baptized as a Jehovah's Witness.A few days after the boom mics came out in the Kingdom Hall, word came down from the group's headquarters that, in the interest of safety, Jehovah's Witnesses should stop witnessing, its practice of in-person attempts at converting people to the group."People would be so receptive right now," she said of her ministry, "and we can't knock on doors."Across the country, most religious groups have stopped coming together in large numbers to pray and hold services, in keeping with stay-at-home orders. They have improvised with online preaching and even drive-in services as the faithful sit in cars. Mormons have stopped going door to door in the United States and called home many missionaries working abroad.Jehovah's Witnesses -- with 1.3 million U.S. members who hand out brochures on sidewalks and subway platforms and ring doorbells -- are one of the most visible religious groups in the nation. Members are called on to share Scriptures in person with nonmembers, warning of an imminent Armageddon and hoping to baptize them with the prospect of living forever.The decision to stop their ministries was the first of its kind in the nearly 150 years of the group's existence. It followed anguished discussions at Watchtower headquarters, with leaders deciding March 20 that knocking on doors would leave the impression that members were disregarding the safety of those they hoped to convert."This was not an easy decision for anybody," said Robert Hendriks, the group's U.S. spokesman. "As you know, our ministry is our life."It was for Francis, who became a Jehovah's Witness when she was in her 20s with a newborn and a member knocked on her door in Tennessee and persuaded her to attend a Kingdom Hall meeting. She converted. Her family was angry that she no longer came to holiday gatherings; the group doesn't believe in celebrating holidays or birthdays. Jehovah's Witnesses became her new family.The more she studied the Bible, the more she came to believe it led to eternal life. She needed to spread the word.Showing up cold on someone's doorstep didn't come naturally. She was so shy that once, she recalled, her high school principal -- "this huge Goliath guy" -- stood on her foot in a crowded hallway; she didn't say a word but waited in pain for him to move. She had considered a career going door to door as a Mason Shoes saleswoman, but after receiving a catalog, she never mustered the courage to even try to make a sale.To her, witnessing was different. Her faith had helped her stop smoking. It gave her meaning. She had seen people clean up their lives after attending meetings at Kingdom Hall."By the time I did go to doors, I was so convinced this was the right thing to do that I had no nervousness," Francis said.Through the years, she learned to build her pitch around a theme -- a Bible verse or a current event -- and tried not to sound rehearsed."You don't want to sound like a robot," she said. "You work from the heart. You want enthusiasm."Early this year, Francis had been seeing reports on Facebook about the virus sweeping through Wuhan, China. The host of a show she watched on YouTube, Peak Prosperity, had been warning that the outbreak could spread internationally.She bought masks and face shields, just in case. She started using plastic grocery bags to cover the gas pump handle when she filled up her tank.By early March, the virus still hadn't hit Gordon County, where Francis lives. But the possibility was weighing on her mind. The message on her favorite YouTube show was getting more dire as the host, Chris Martenson, a financial guru-turned-pandemic early warner, ratcheted up his pleadings for viewers to prepare themselves.Francis' 27-year-old granddaughter has a compromised immune system. As a senior citizen, she herself was vulnerable. She did what she always has done and channeled her own feelings into her door-knocking ministry. Do you think, she would ask people as she carpooled with other members to canvass the county, that the virus is a sign of the end of the world?"No one was paying much attention," she said.Elsewhere, in places like New York where infections were starting to climb, Jehovah's Witnesses members were feeling the pinch on their ministries.One of them, Joe Babsky, had been easing into conversations with members of his Planet Fitness gym in the Bronx for weeks. He knew them by first name only: Jerry, who had lost more than 100 pounds; Jason, who seemed to spend an hour on each body part; Bernie, a 78-year-old who was more fit than men half his age. Babsky had shown a few of them Bible verses and had made progress recently with Bernie discussing the logic behind the existence of an intelligent creator.Then the gym closed."All those conversations and others were cut short," Babsky said.Life continued as normal in Francis' town of Calhoun. She was convinced things were about to change, but she was too embarrassed to wear a mask -- until an encounter in Costco when a passing shopper coughed without covering her mouth.In mid-March, her Kingdom Hall meetings went virtual. Members logged into Zoom to share Bible Scriptures. Francis settled on one that she thought would resonate as she knocked on doors in her neighborhood across the county, which had by then registered a handful of COVID-19 cases.At the doorstep, Francis would start her pitch by asking people if they could make one thing in the world go away, what would it be? If the answer had to do with the pandemic, she would recite a couple of verses from the book of Luke:"There will be great earthquakes, and in one place after another food shortages and pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and from heaven great signs."All the signs were clear, she would announce. Armageddon was near. Her message finally seemed to be resonating with people.And then she got word to stop knocking on doors."This has been so much a part of our lives, so it was like, wow," she said. "I have often envisioned in paradise where going door to door would not be a thing because everyone knows God."This was not paradise.But Francis was convinced that the end of the world was not far away. There were just too many signs, she said. And so she and many other Jehovah's Witnesses members were more compelled than ever to witness any way they could. Many began writing letters or making phone calls to anyone whose numbers they had managed to collect before the pandemic hit.Masked and gloved, Francis hands out pamphlets and cards with her phone number on them to fellow shoppers at the grocery store.Last week, she sent a text to a woman in Hawkinsville, Georgia, a few miles away, whom she had been contacting from time to time. The woman said her restaurant had to close because of the pandemic and her brother-in-law was sick with the virus. A couple of days later he died.Francis texted Scriptures to the woman and told her that soon all the sickness on Earth would be over; all sins would be forgiven; paradise was near.The next day she received a written response: "Thank you so much for the information. It was such a comfort."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

The first known comet to visit us from another star system has an unusual make-up.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says it has forged a new agreement with Vulcan Inc., the Seattle-based holding company created by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, to share data on ocean science and exploration. The memorandum of understanding builds on an existing relationship between NOAA and Vulcan. “The future of ocean science and exploration is partnerships,” retired Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and deputy NOAA administrator, said today in a news release. “NOAA is forging new collaborations, such as the one with Vulcan, to accelerate our mission to map, explore… Read More

On Monday, officials in Los Angeles County released preliminary results of a study that suggest roughly 4.1% of the county's adult population has already had the coronavirus, which translates to between 221,000 and 442,000 people, factoring in adjustments for statistical margin of error.That's a much higher number than confirmed case counts indicate. (As of early Tuesday, the county had 13,816 cases.)"We haven't known the true extent of COVID-19 infections in our community because we have only tested people with symptoms and the availability of tests has been limited," Neeraj Sood, a professor of public policy at the University of Southern California and lead investigator on the study, said in a statement.Dr. Barbara Ferrer, LA County's public health director, said in a statement that the early results pointed to the possibility that many people may have been unknowingly infected.The study relies on rapid antibody tests, which have faced concerns about accuracy.And as The Mercury News reported, a Stanford study that also showed higher rates of infection in Santa Clara County drew criticism, although that was largely from statisticians over the study's methodology.Still, experts have emphasized that more studies will help develop a clearer picture of the virus's true prevalence.In any case, officials say it's crucial to continue to adhere to public health orders for many reasons, including that if more people are infected but asymptomatic, they could unknowingly spread the virus.______A change to the USNS Mercy's assignmentOn Monday, my New York Times colleague John Ismay and I spoke with leaders aboard the Navy hospital ship Mercy. Here's our dispatch about how their assignment has changed:In the weeks since the Mercy arrived at the Port of Los Angeles from San Diego, the hospital ship's mission has been clear: Serve as a crucial relief valve for patients who have not been infected with the coronavirus as hospitals fill up with patients sick with COVID-19.In recent days, the work has shifted, but that underlying goal has remained the same, the commanding officer of the ship's medical facility told us."FEMA, after having made an assessment of the situation and the local needs, has changed our assignment," said Capt. John Rotruck, the medical treatment team's commanding officer.The Mercy has sent 40 medical staff members -- two family practice doctors, 16 nurses and 20 corpsmen, including two respiratory technicians -- to help care for patients who do not have COVID-19 at a state-run skilled nursing facility in Orange County."We're essentially augmenting their staff," Rotruck said, as the anticipated surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations has, for now, been held at bay.The capacity onboard will decrease to 250 beds from 1,000, in large part as a result of that staffing shift -- although officials emphasized that leaves more than enough space at the rate the Mercy has been taking in patients.At the same time, leaders aboard the Mercy said that most of the military crew is moving off the ship to stay at nearby hotels to make it possible for crew members to keep their distance from one another as they work, eat and sleep.Sailors will be bused from their hotels to work their shifts aboard the ship.The move, which will decrease the number of crew members staying aboard the ship to roughly 140 from more than 800, came as the number of crew members who may have been exposed inched upward.By Monday, Rotruck said that nine crew members had tested positive for the coronavirus and that about 130 people were in quarantine because they had come into what federal officials define as close contact with at least one of those nine. All of those in quarantine tested negative.All nine who have COVID-19 were outpatients as of Monday -- meaning their cases were not severe enough to warrant being hospitalized -- and their conditions are being closely monitored.Rotruck said that moving crew members off the Mercy was unusual but not unprecedented.During a previous mission, for instance, some medical staff members flew to Vietnam to provide medical care to patients on the Mercy, although they did not sleep on the ship.However, Rotruck added, "We have not done it to this scale," with the vast majority of the ship's crew members living ashore.A spokesman said Friday that the crew aboard the Navy hospital ship Comfort, which is docked in New York City, recently moved most of its crew to hotels ashore as well.Rotruck said that the Mercy was ready to care for coronavirus-negative seniors living in nursing homes, as the governor has previously announced, but none had been transferred yet.Such nursing home patients may be moved to the Mercy for care through the typical intake process, if, for example, a facility needed to free up space to care for COVID-19 patients.As of Monday evening, the ship had taken in 65 patients total since it docked in San Pedro, and its crew had performed 22 surgeries. There were 13 patients still being treated onboard, meaning that 52 had been discharged.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

The impact on human health of an invasive ragweed plant may be "seriously underestimated".

Environmental crises must not be forgotten amid the pandemic, says the UN Secretary General.

Last year's failed attempt to locate one of the world's great wrecks has lessons for future efforts.

How the ancient techniques of the world's indigenous people could help to combat climate change.

Swarm Technologies has struck an agreement with California-based Momentus for the launch of a dozen telecommunication satellites, each the size of a slice of bread, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in December. The December rideshare mission is the first of a series that Momentum plans to execute for Swarm, continuing into 2021 and 2022. Swarm plans to have 150 satellites launched over the next couple of years for a communication network in low Earth orbit. The first 12 SpaceBee satellites covered by the agreement announced today will be deployed into orbit from the Falcon 9. The inch-thick satellites fit… Read More

Seattle-based Spaceflight Inc. has signed an agreement to secure most of the payload mass on a Firefly Aerospace rocket that's due to lift off from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base in 2021. The agreement, announced today, establishes Spaceflight as the mission's anchor customer and commits the company to managing the logistics for multiple payloads on the Firefly Alpha rocket. That should help Firefly maximize use of the rocket's 630-kilogram (1,389-pound) capacity for a launch to sun-synchronous orbit. Texas-based Firefly Aerospace is planning to launch the Alpha on its maiden flight from Vandenberg later this year. The company suffered a setback in… Read More

Scientists map ancient underwater landslides in the region chosen for Jakarta's replacement.

The 5,100 sq km behemoth which broke away from Antarctica in 2017 drops its own large chunk of ice.

The health of insect populations globally is far more varied than previous research suggested.

One month after the debut of the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset, or CORD-19, the database of coronavirus-related research papers has doubled in size – and has given rise to more than a dozen software tools to channel the hundreds of studies that are being published every day about the pandemic. In a roundup published on the ArXiv preprint server this week, researchers from Seattle's Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Microsoft Research and other partners in the project say CORD-19's collection has risen from about 28,000 papers to more than 52,000. Every day, several hundred more papers are being published, in… Read More

Surviving trees growing near to an active volcano face an uncertain future for several years after an eruption, a study suggests.

The veteran telescope celebrates three decades in orbit with a colourful image of star formation.