Life

Watch: Filipino kids in Spain show their appreciation for COVID-19 frontliners

  These Filipino kids from Spain send their warm greetings and heartfelt thanks to all COVID-19 frontliners. Spain is one of the countries with more than a hundred thousand confirmed coronavirus infections.  As of the latest tally from the Johns Hopkins University as of Wednesday, April 8, Spain already has almost 142,00 cases (141,942), with more than 14,000 recorded COVID-19 related deaths, and more than 43,000 recoveries. It is only second to the US with […]

Deprived of customers, UK farmers throw away milk

by Jean-Baptiste OUBRIER Agence France Presse Deprived of customers such as supermarkets, restaurants and schools due to the coronavirus outbreak and resulting lockdown, British farmers are throwing away thousands of litres of milk. Coffee shops and office blocks, also shut because of COVID-19, are no longer receiving their early morning deliveries, although there has been a hike in the amount of milk being dropped off at people’s homes in time for breakfast, according to the […]

TikTok’s time: video platform sees appeal growing during lockdowns

  by Thomas URBAIN Agence France Presse This is TikTok’s time. The social video platform which was already a favorite of teens is increasingly being used by adults looking for ways to pass the time during coronavirus lockdowns. Users post short videos — no longer than 60 seconds but often as short as 15 — to showcase their bite-size dance skills or share relatable experiences with a humorous twist. The application, owned by Chinese tech […]

World short of six million nurses, WHO says

  by Robin MILLARD Agence France Presse As COVID-19 captures global headlines, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned Tuesday that the world needs nearly six million nurses. The UN’s health agency along with partners Nursing Now and the International Council of Nurses (ICN) underscored in a report the crucial role played by nurses, who make up more than half of all health workers worldwide. “Nurses are the backbone of any health system,” WHO chief Tedros […]

Great Barrier Reef suffers worst-ever coral bleaching: scientists

BRISBANE, Australia (AFP) — Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has suffered its most widespread coral bleaching on record, scientists said Tuesday in a dire warning about the threat posed by climate change to the world’s largest living organism. James Cook University professor Terry Hughes said a comprehensive survey last month found record sea temperatures had caused the third mass bleaching of the 2,300-kilometre (1,400-mile) reef system in just five years. Bleaching occurs when healthy corals become […]

March 2020 among hottest on record: EU

PARIS, France (AFP) — Temperatures last month were among the hottest on record for March, the European Union’s satellite monitoring service said Monday, with particularly extreme warm weather over Russia, home to much of Earth’s permafrost. The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said March 2020 was 0.68 degrees Celsius warmer than the average March from 1981 to 2010, and on par with March 2017 and 2019 — currently the second hottest on record after March […]

Bronx zoo tiger tests positive for coronavirus

NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — A tiger at New York’s Bronx Zoo has tested positive for COVID-19, the institution said Sunday, and is believed to have contracted the virus from a caretaker who was asymptomatic at the time. The four-year-old Malayan tiger named Nadia along with her sister Azul, two Amur tigers and three African lions all developed dry coughs and are expected to fully recover, the Wildlife Conservation Society that runs the city’s […]

How does 3D printing work?

https://youtu.be/riy7E4ehldM 3D printing is revolutionizing industry and medicine, and inspiring designers and DIY enthusiasts. The main drawback is how long it takes… Printing an object the size of a tennis ball can take up to 12 hours. New developments could reduce this to just six or seven minutes. At present, printers use a layer-by-layer technique The simplest method is known as filament printing, and tends to be used in mass-market 3D printers. A thread of […]

After the virus: What world will we live in?

by Didier LAURAS Agence France Presse One day, the battle against the novel coronavirus will be won. But the world that emerges may look very different from the one we lived in before the pandemic began. Over 60,000 people have lost their lives to COVID-19 and there are a more than a million confirmed cases with the outbreak yet to reach its peak across the developed and emerging world. But on top of the tragic […]

Italy’s doctors look for help from sleek new robots

  by Miguel MEDINA Agence France Presse VARESE, Italy (AFP) — The shiny new robots gently check the pulses of highly infectious patients on life support in the Italian epicentre of COVID-19. The doctors and nurses love them because they also help save their own lives. Italians have seen the world around them turn unrecognisable from the various lockdowns and social distancing measures used to fight the new coronavirus outbreak. But little appears to have […]

Untouchable: the baby born to a mom with coronavirus

by Benjamin BOULY RAMES Agence France-Presse MADRID, Spain (AFP) — For 10 days after giving birth to her first child, the mother was not allowed near him after she tested positive for coronavirus, for fear of infecting her newborn. And even though she has since been reunited with her son, neither she nor her husband have been allowed to physically touch him without gloves as they undergo an extended period of quarantine. “It’s hard,” says Vanesa […]

Google to publish user location data to help govts tackle virus

PARIS, France (AFP) — Google will publish location data from its users around the world from Friday to allow governments to gauge the effectiveness of social distancing measures put in place to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the tech giant said. The reports on users’ movements in 131 countries will be made available on a special website and will “chart movement trends over time by geography,” according to a post on one of the company’s blogs. […]