Today your science show on t w. On sunday there were more reported new cases of coke at night see for months now the coronavirus pandemic has dominated the News Coverage 1000 has spread all over the world and changed our lives but how many people have actually come into contact with the virus and will that be a 2nd wave of infections in those countries where the numbers have gone down for scientists to gauge that properly as many people as possible need to be tested for the virus so what tests are available and how do they work. The standard genetic test involves taking a swab from the back of your throat or alternatively from up your nose. The sample is then checked for the presence of viral d. N. A. Which would indicate an active infection when the virus a stove replicating. The tests are highly accurate and can detect infection or. But the downside is that the samples have to be taken to a Specialized Lab for analysis meaning it can take up to 2 days to get a result. A much faster option is the Antibody Test it involves taking a sample of your blood it only takes a few minutes and theres no lab required but this test doesnt actually detect the virus per se instead it checks whether the bodys immune system has produced antibodies in response to it but that immune reaction only takes place around 7 days after infection so if youre just been infected the test wont detect it Antibody Tests arent suitable for diagnosing active cases but they can be helpful in showing who has already have the virus and may have developed immunity theyre especially useful for finding out how widely the virus has spread in a population. Finally there is the antigen test this method uses antibodies to check for socalled antigen proteins in a sample these are molecules that kick start the bodys immune response. These tests are fast and simple and can detect new infections but because there need to be a lot of virus proteins to stick to the antibodies the accuracy rate is lower than in the standard diagnostic test. Them and that is commonly employed to test for influenza and hiv and antigen test of covert 19 was introduced in may 2020. More than 600000 people have died of the corona virus so far and more than 15000000 people have been infected worldwide we spoke to thomas come hard from the German Society for immunology and i asked him are people who recover from coverage 1000 immune to the disease. Millions of people have suffered from covert 19 and on to very recent be there were no reports on reemergence of the disease until in a paper was published in the lancet Infectious Diseases from who han in china where. Hospital workers followed people that had been ill discovered 19 were cured have been released from the hospital and were followed up and out of 600 such people are coalescing people some where positive again on virus test thats not unexpected but 8 of these where it sick again and some of these needed hospitalization that is to say that a small percentage in the range of one percent of people who have recovered from the disease may be reinfected very soon after they have recovered the cells are an important part of our immune system what role do these helpless cells play in coronavirus immunity. We know very little about t. Cells in the defense a good against kobe 1000 but we do know that theyre extremely important for other respiratory viruses so we can assume that they are also important for sauce cove too and we know from sars the earlier variant off the sauce go far asis that t. Cells set are detectable in the new kozel in the respiratory tract a much more long lived and probably more important than the antibody responses in these patients so the t. Cells extremely important to protect us against respiratory viruses like of 2 to defeat the covert 1000 pandemic we need a vaccine scientists all over the world are working around the clock to meet the challenge as of late july the w. H. O. Says there are 25 vaccine candidates currently in clinical evaluation the Research Teams are pursuing various strategies. More than 160 Research Groups around the wells a Company Working on a potential could. Virus facts seem most in the early stages. The research is involved deploying a variety of strategies. Some are working with coronavirus cells that they friended homeless other teams are focusing on individual molecules generally taken from the shell of the virus. Another approach is to take viruses that are harmless to humans and out of her own a virus shall part. The idea common to all of these methods is for substances to and to the body that will activate the immune system. Which will in time. To the vaccine. So if the actual virus infects the body those antibodies are immediately dispatched to its hard to neutralize the invaders. But producing vaccines on a large scale takes time something thats in short supply with the ongoing pandemic. But there is a promising alternative strategy. In this case Scientists Use em r. N. A. A single strand element of the viruses genetic. The body then build spiral small accused based on that code effectively creating its own vaccine. The virus molecules activate antibody production. A number of m. R. N. A. Vaccines are now in Clinical Trials involving humans with several approaching the final stage of testing. Which one of the candidates gains approval for us remains to be city. Hall living organisms communicate through fragrance animals through noises and behaviors elephants communicated frequencies too low for humans to hear. And manta rays make sounds in the water. But as far as we know only human beings have developed a complete language system so how did we do it. So you. Can talk approximately 7000 languages are spoken around the world today there are 24 official languages in the European Union alone and over 100 minority languages on the continent but how did language originate how did it develop. Thats what the experts at the Leipzig Research Center for Early ChildhoodDevelopment Want to explore using real life specimens discovered years ever for then we know relatively little about the roots of the language we use today because we cant travel back in time so we have to rely on finding alternative languages that we can study. Sign language for example examining it in depth can provide the researchers with some interesting insights. Would be obvious but this into if you. Sign language can be understood instinctively. Its pretty clear that we could communicate and express ourselves using sign language quite easily so it was a good starting point for us one thing we wanted to find out for example was even if they cant speak or if they cant use the language they know. What can children intuitively do to communicate with a playmate say pop and beautifullest and. The researchers therefore examine how simple gestures can give rise to a new form of sign language. When you send them to study shows us what components are required for a language to develop be it a spoken language or a sign language. For the study the children were put in different rooms and could communicate via webcam but without sound they could see each other but not talk to each other. Their 1st task was to communicate what was on the pictures in front of them. Using a hammer for example. When the most common solution the children came up with was directed out if i want to convey using a hammer then i make a gesture thats what we call an iconic gesture in a sign whose form resembles its meaning without. The 2nd test. It was harder the children had to convey a blank sheet of paper so there was nothing and such to convey the girl on the right isnt getting it but. The other girl isnt sure what to do and tries showing a flat hand. Then all of a sudden the girl on the turquoise shirt has an idea she points to a white spot on her t. Shirt and eventually the penny drops the sponge whats exciting is what happens next when the 2 girls switch roles even though the other girl doesnt have anything white on her t. Shirt she does the same thing so they spontaneously come up with a word a gesture for an abstract concept nothing nothing. The final task was even more complex. The children had to convey for example the difference between a smaller and bigger dog. And seen such as a monkey chasing an elephant. The researchers were surprised by the children solutions. The 3rd showed the children arent limited to thinking up just choose to represent something they can also use these signs to construct a mini grammatical system when they want to convey a more complex meaning. And as the scenes they wanted to convey became more complex the children became more inventive in creating and combining science. But what does that have to say about the origins of language. Believe that your stablish ing of science in the form of gestures is a plausible starting point for language but basically the 1st step is to establish a sign that directly represents what it expresses an action say the 1st these signs are established and in the 2nd step combined then you have a set of rules that can be widely used and on. The life that researchers are still only in the 1st phase of their study a study they hope will lead them back to the. Origins of human language. For more stories from the world of science go to our website find us on twitter at d w underscore science. And now were off to the coldest part of the antarctica where germany runs a research station called knowing my own 3. As these webcam pictures suggest scientists working at the research station need to be made of tough stuff but several teams of scientists are up for the challenge seeking answers in the ice we join one group who are investigating the effect of Climate Change on emperor penguins. Setting out from the new my own 3 research station in antarctica the snowmobiles of the german scientists are driving over a sheet of ice 200 meters thick. Its the extreme ice shelf which ends a few kilometers further on with the frozen ocean begins. The winter landscape offers nothing but icebergs and emperor penguins. A life in bitterly cold conditions at the tip of the world. Has spent several months observing the penguin colony emperor penguins breed and rear their young on the sea ice. That is one of. Their never at a stage when the chicks are relatively big. They can stay on their own for quite a while allowing both parents to go off in search of food. And so you slowly have the 1st kindergartens forming to come together in groups of them so that they have a bit more protection than. This here the penguin researchers have. Drones with them partly because they want to map out the colony but also to test how the birds respond to the noise. Reason. We hear on the half of the German Environment Agency and because more and more drones are being used here they want to have a basis on which to draw up guidelines covering when theyre not what height drones can be used above animal populations. In addition to testing the impact of the noise the scientists will also be able to determine for the 1st time how many emperor penguins are actually here in the colony so far their numbers have only been estimated at more than 20000. The 1st trial runs with the drone run smoothly. So it looked like there was less of a reaction than expected. We thought theyd panic more but the response was relatively small as far as we could observe. The emperor penguins come here every year after their feeding season where they fatten themselves up ready to breed. The Scientists Say that if the climate continues to change the future of the emperor penguins will be in severe doubt. Only its i think theres a grave risk for this penguin colony but the structure of the sea ice on which they read will change. If temperatures increase and the sea ice receives or breaks up earlier and here their breeding season will be shortened or they may have no breeding ground left at all. And that of course could mean they could no longer build up the colony or reproduce here. Such drastic changes have already become reality elsewhere Climate Change and rising temperatures on the antarctic peninsula mean some species of penguin are now disappearing chinstrap penguins have been especially hard hit with population numbers dropping sharply. The declines that weve seen are definitely dramatic now will they continue thats thats the question are there enough krill does the population stable. There are plenty of chinstrap penguins in the world theyre not going to go immediately extinct in the next couple of decades. The number of emperor penguins in this colony has remained stable so far because the temperatures in their area which is the southern part of antarctica havent risen so sharply but scientists are keen to study how things could change in the future and are looking for Early Warning signs. They pick up and. Any of the chicks that are frozen to death in the icy winter winds alexander vento from the German University of advantage as part of the worlds most comprehensive long term study on the project to decide when he saw these birds probably die 2 or 3 months ago you can see that from their size it was. These and theyve been conserved in the ice ever since this but its not so unusual for this species that many of the juveniles die early on the conditions are just very harsh here in a part of you know nevertheless the colony remains stable. Its almost as if nature had factored in the dead chicks the scientists are looking for penguins that they tagged with g. P. S. Transmitters a few years ago and the idea is to see how far individual penguins stray from the colony while hunting using High Resolution cameras for scientists observe the colony throughout the year in winter they huddle together for warmth as quality from humans the number one goal of each penguin is to lose as Little Energy as possible in the cold antarctic winter when they breed to speak so they seek to optimize their position in the colony. Wants to find whats so fascinating about these birds is that they manage without any hierarchical structure where one gives the orders to move collectively in a well organized way. To being but all penguin researchers are worried about Global Warming if the sea ice begins to melt earlier in the season things could look bleak for the penguins us if we keep to the 1. 5 or 2 degree limit of Global Warming set out in the Paris Agreement then we can save this species if not it will be lost by 2100 at the latest poll its not yet clear how things will turn out but what is clear sooner or later Climate Change will threaten the existence of the emperor penguins. Hollywood has love understood the power of lights and lasers star wars and the battle of good against evil would have been a lot less impressive without the light sabers. Dealing jet i worry as many be pure fiction but laser tools made of light of very much a reality and a powerful one at that. In. A beam of light that slices through metal. Laser light has become something of a tool for all kinds of uses. It melts plexiglas cuts through thick steel also underwater and can even be used to diffuse bombs. At the laser tent home hung over or l. V. Age scientists study these ultra thin high powered beams and develop new applications for them like any light a laser beam can be redirected with mirrors or focused on to a target with lenses that laser light transports a lot more energy. To produce laser light a medium like a gas undergoes energetic excitation when light particles are fired at the gas molecules they in turn also emit light this leads to a kind of Chain Reaction further amplified by mirrors the result is a high intensity beam of a single wavelength that can be directed with great precision. Lasers are useful for applications requiring a High Energy Density and a high level of precision as in 3 d. Printing. This metal dust will be used to create a small beer unit the computer controlled laser melts the fine steel granular according to the pattern thats been programmed. For it on the republic you have a bed of powder and a slide bar and then each layer is individually coated or melted by the laser and the component is gradually builds up layer by layer. I can be very flexible with the design im not restricted to certain geometries thats particularly helpful when designing implants or other components for the human body so its very useful in the field of medical technology i can make objects that you couldnt create in a single step using molding or cutting techniques. That i just got to do. However it takes 14 hours to print the gear mechanism. Merab of blood there is more interested in the destructive power of lasers she shoots down we its within the invisible laser beam the effect is instantaneous and its deadly. Her invention sounds Like Star Wars for farmers a tractor fitted with cameras 1st scans the ground using photo recognition it differentiates between weeds and crops and a ray of laser cannons at the rear then zaps the weeds making them shrivel up and die while they were has already developed the individual components is on the side and thats what were looking for alternatives to chemical we have layers the advantage of this system is that its not a blanket effect unlike with chemicals that kill entire classes of plants and because we actually target each individual plant you could even decide you only want to kill the waves that are competing in the immediate vicinity of the crop plant say within a 10 or 15 centimeter radius and you let the rest go on growing on. The bottom. Unlike in farming lasers have been used for years in the Steel Industry shipyards for example use huge cutting machines with lasers that can slice through thick steel with a High Precision cut here the highly concentrated focused light is melting through this 2 and a half centimeter thick steel plate. The instrument can cut through thinner sheets of steel even more quickly things are not only very precise the power dosage can also be adjusted exactly for this precision set laser can even carve a word into the head of a match without setting it alight. And graving without igniting. Pretty cool. And their High Precision and power makes lasers useful for another task diffusing bombs. During the 2nd world war allied forces dropped around 1600000 tons of bombs over germany not all of them detonated today there are still about 100000 unexploded munitions buried under the ground lasers could help to diffuse them. The boma as a chemical did or later so it could explode at any time but the laser is contactless so i can control and automate it. First the laser cuts a groove into the outer shell of the bomb which will allow the case to give way in a controlled fashion. Then it cautiously heats up the explosive material so that it doesnt detonate but burns quickly the result is a small explosion that expels the detonator and splits open the case. The outer shell is ripped open without causing any further damage. I mean ritually every Street Corner in german cities could have unexploded ordinance lying underground so if i can detonate it safely then i can protect people and for me thats more meaningful than just developing technology. Another laser application recently won a nobel prize here laser light acts like a pair of tweezers scientists all over the world now use the technique to move or fix tiny cells in place under the microscope the green crust marks the focal point of the laser light nearby particles are automatically drawn to it. The laser itself is an electromagnetic field and its focal point has the most powerful electromagnetic field which attracts all the particles or even cells once they fixated there by this field i can move to hold them there all move them around and in the best case even lift. In the meantime the 3 d. Printer is done lasering the stainless steel gear unit. It just needs a bit of dusting off and then its ready for action. Laser tools are set to revolutionize many technologies in the coming years this may well be the dawn of a new era. Thats all for this week im so mara today nice that you could join us next time well have more exciting stories from the fields of science and technology until then good bye. To. Mars a friends like it. Or are they in an amazing ive never bored for raja. Donald trump and a slightly more prove our 2 part documentary and wisest difficult relationship between russia and the us and between their president s how does their arrival rate and their dangerous mutual admiration affect the rest of the more. Fulsome bullies. In 15 minutes on d w. Nico because in germany to learn german i looked in the code why not learn with him d w z learning course because vick. Is a dual with words from. Where i come from you dont want a way from a confrontation. When i was 5 years old my father took me to his friends and i was called on the spot. A sport that you learn so for me until soul. Fencing is a language and a good source for it is a conversation. Must leave your opponent understand the thinking new of the men to get close otherwise you can score a hit. Its not unlike a tough interview really when interviewing politicians or corporate c. E. O. s you have to wait for the right moment just to get around that defensiveness then make your move down feel. You have to take risks to get results. Im going out of those and i work at v. W. Frankford and. International gateway to the best connection self in the road and rail. Located in the heart of europe you are connected to the whole world. Experience outstanding shopping and dining offers and try our services. Biala gassed at Frankfurt Airport city managed by from. This is news live from berlin brought back to earth with a splash 2 u. S. Astronauts make history successfully completing the 1st manned space flight operated by a private company its also the 1st landing for his face craft in 45 years. And kids in germany begin returning to school after the Summer Holidays with maximum caution