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'We're Out There' So Protect Us, Protesting Workers Tell Amazon, Target, Instacart

Workers at Amazon, Target and other companies walked off the job on Friday to demand safer working conditions and transparency about how many front-line workers have gotten sick during the pandemic.




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Airbnb Cuts 1,900 Jobs, 25% Of Its Workforce, As Pandemic Freezes Travel

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky described the global pandemic as the "most harrowing crisis of our lifetime" and said the coronavirus has cut the company's anticipated revenue in more than half.




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Uber Cuts Thousands of Jobs, Citing Coronavirus Pandemic

The ride-hailing company is cutting 3,700 jobs. It's the latest U.S. tech company to turn to layoffs to deal with fallout from the coronavirus crisis.




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Karissa Sanbonmatsu: What Can Epigenetics Tell Us About Sex And Gender?

We're used to thinking of DNA as a rigid blueprint. Karissa Sanbonmatsu researches how our environment affects the way DNA expresses itself—especially when it comes to sex and gender.





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Indo-American Sister Duo LULLANAS Drop Debut EP ‘Before Everything Got Real’

Twin sisters Nishita and Atisha Lulla talk about recording a previous single in Mumbai, the country-folk influence and more

The post Indo-American Sister Duo LULLANAS Drop Debut EP ‘Before Everything Got Real’ appeared first on My Site.





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Caddis fly larvae are now building shelters out of microplastics

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




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What to Know About Studies Using Antibody Tests

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





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Tsunami risk identified near future Indonesian capital

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





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Antarctica's A-68: Is the world's biggest iceberg about to break up?

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





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Far out! Xplore teams up with JPL and Aerospace Corp. on gravity-lens telescope

NASA has awarded a $2 million grant to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, The Aerospace Corp. — and Xplore, a Seattle-based space venture — to develop the design architecture for a far-out telescope array that would use the sun's gravitational field as a lens to focus on alien planets. The Phase III award from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, or NIAC, would cover two years of development work and could lead to the launch of a technology demonstration mission in the 2023-2024 time frame. Xplore's team will play a key role in designing the demonstration mission's spacecraft, which would be… Read More





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NASA puts Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX on the list for lunar lander development program

NASA has selected teams led by Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX to develop lunar landing systems capable of putting astronauts on the moon by as early as 2024. "We want to be able to go to the moon, but we want to be a customer," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told reporters today during a teleconference. "We want to drive down the costs, we want to increase the access, we want to have our partners have customers that are not just us, so they compete on cost and innovation, and just bring capabilities that we've never had before." Fixed-price contracts totaling… Read More





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Study spotlights the Allen Institute’s latest 3-D reference atlas of the mouse brain

The third time's the charm for the Allen Institute for Brain Science's 3-D atlas of the mouse brain. Version 3 of the atlas, known as the Allen Mouse Brain Common Coordinate Framework or CCFv3, is the subject of a research paper published today in the journal Cell. It builds on a partial brain map that focused on the mouse cortex and was released in 2016. Previous versions of the atlas were rendered with lower-resolution 3-D maps. The latest high-resolution maps are fine enough to pinpoint the locations of individual brain cells — which is crucial for interpreting datasets that contain thousands… Read More





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Should we edit our DNA? An imagined future of gene editing – video

There are decisions being made right now that could have an effect on global populations for generations to come. As part of this project, we commissioned an artist to investigate some of the themes raised in the podcasts. This work of fiction imagines a future where gene editing has become mainstream and discusses the moral, ethical and political divides that this might create

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Covid-19: what role might air pollution play? – podcast

After a string of studies that highlight the possible link between air pollution and Covid-19 deaths, Ian Sample hears from Prof Anna Hansell about the complicated relationship between pollution, health and infection with Sars-CoV-2

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Heathrow to carry out temperature checks on passengers

Airport’s boss says global standard for screening is crucial to restoring confidence

Heathrow will start using thermal cameras to carry out temperature checks on passengers within the next fortnight, as it called for common health screening standards around the world for air travellers.

The UK’s busiest airport said it would trial thermal cameras capable of monitoring the temperature of people in the immigration halls, initially in Terminal 2.

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Man used a semi-automatic, tactical-style shotgun in confrontation with RCMP, ASIRT says

Alberta's police watchdog have released new details about an armed confrontation that left one person dead and a police officer seriously injured.



  • News/Canada/Edmonton

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COVID-19 outbreak linked to Canada Post main plant in Calgary, health officials say

There is now an outbreak of COVID-19 linked to Canada Post's main plant in Calgary, according to Alberta Health Services.



  • News/Canada/Calgary

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US objects to UN resolution on virus in dispute with China

The United States on Friday objected to a proposed U.N. resolution on the coronavirus pandemic after diplomats said it had agreed to compromise language with China that didn’t directly mention the World Health Organization, an issue of growing dispute between the world’s two major economic powers. The U.S. objection to the Security Council resolution drafted by France and Tunisia reflects rising tensions between Washington and Beijing. It also leaves the U.N.’s most powerful body impotent on reacting to the greatest crisis facing the world — and unable to back Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ March 23 call for global cease-fires to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, which diplomats said all 15 Security Council members agree on and is the main point of the resolution.





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Coronavirus forces Russia to hold slimmed down Victory Day in blow to Putin




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Egypt’s president expands powers, citing virus outbreak

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has approved amendments to the country's state of emergency that grant him and security agencies additional powers, which the government says are needed to combat the coronavirus outbreak. An international rights group condemned the amendments, saying the government has used the global pandemic to “expand, not reform, Egypt’s abusive Emergency Law.” The new amendments allow the president to to take measures to contain the virus, such as suspending classes at schools and universities and quarantining those returning from abroad.





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Putin calls for 'invincible' unity as Russians mark Victory Day on lockdown

President Vladimir Putin told Russians they are "invincible" when they stand together as the country on Saturday marked the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in lockdown from the coronavirus. With cases surging and authorities urging Russians to stay in their homes, celebrations of this year's Victory Day were muted after the Kremlin grudgingly postponed plans for a grand parade with world leaders. Instead of columns of military hardware and thousands of troops marching through Red Square as planned, Putin walked alone to lay flowers at the Eternal Flame outside the red brick walls of the Kremlin.





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Putin pays a somber tribute to WWII dead as Russian coronavirus cases skyrocket

Cancellation of the ceremony was the second blow to Putin, who was forced to call off a referendum extending his time in power.





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Putin pays a somber tribute to WWII dead as Russian coronavirus cases skyrocket

Cancellation of the ceremony was the second blow to Putin, who was forced to call off a referendum extending his time in power.






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LockBit, the new ransomware for hire: A sad and cautionary tale

You've probably never heard of LockBit, but that's likely to change.




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Frontier, amid bankruptcy, is suspected of lying about broadband expansion

Small ISPs want investigation as Frontier tries to block FCC funding for rivals.




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Ubuntu 20.04: Welcome to the future, Linux LTS disciples

ZFS gets more accessible, security becomes a bigger priority, and Ubuntu speeds up overall.





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South Korea experts say ‘reinfected’ coronavirus cases appear to be false positives

In some cases, the tests may detect old particles of the virus, which may no longer pose a significant threat to the patient or others, scientists say.






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Nasa and Roscosmos astronauts shot into space after unusual coronavirus quarantine

Astronauts had to stay locked away on their own for longer than usual, with no visits from loved ones




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Coronavirus: Summer heat cannot be expected to slow spread of outbreak, report finds

Received wisdom doesn't hold up in pandemics, experts say




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Flamingos form lasting friendships and 'choose to hang out' with each other, scientists learn

'It seems - like humans - flamingos form social bonds for a variety of reasons,' researcher says




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Science news in brief: From mating flies frozen in time to butterflies in captivity

And other stories from around the world




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Coronavirus app could help stop spread of covid-19 – but many people will need to use it, Oxford experts say

Widespread and quick use would be key to battling spread of virus, study says




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Astronauts return to Earth after watching coronavirus outbreak from International Space Station

'We can tell you that the Earth still looks just as stunning as always from up here, so it's difficult to believe all the changes that have taken place since both of us have been up here,' one astronaut had said before coming back home




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Coronavirus: Areas with worse air pollution have 'significantly higher' death rates, study shows

Latest study on nitrogen dioxide reinforces earlier research linking air pollutants and Covid-19 deaths




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Coronavirus causing doubts among some anti-vaxxers but others doubling down on denial, experts say

Covid-19 could be 'antidote to complacency' among those on the fence about vaccines, scientists say




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Unearthed Ancient British chieftain and probable shaman reveal secrets about old burial rituals

Exclusive: The key evidence for his high status is the unusually fine material buried with him for his journey to the next life, writes David Keys




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Children's computer game Roblox insider tricked by hacker for access to users' data

The hacker had access to personal information, the ability to change passwords and two-factor authentication, and could steal valuable in-game items from some of the 'richest' players in the game




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Coronavirus: Llamas offer hope in fight against the outbreak

Camelids produce antibodies that have been found to neutralise Covid-19





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Runners Across U.S. Pay Tribute To Ahmaud Arbery With #IRunWithMaud

People across the country dedicated 2.23 miles to show solidarity for Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot and killed on Feb. 23 while jogging in Georgia. Two men have been charged with murdering Arbery.




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A Salon Owner Worries About The Lockdown's Impact On Her Business

Christine Maccarone of New Jersey styles hair in nursing homes and hospitals. She's worried about her business surviving the state lockdown, and the well-being of her elderly clients.




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Boris Johnson to act with ‘maximum caution’ in easing Covid-19 lockdown restrictions

Boris Johnson has insisted he will act with “maximum caution” in any measures aimed at easing the lockdown