Deadly Superbug Identified on Sandy Beach in Remote Tropical Archipelago
RACHAEL RETTNER, LIVE SCIENCE
17 MARCH 2021
A deadly hospital superbug has been discovered on a remote island beach, marking the first time researchers have seen this multidrug-resistant organism in the wild .
The findings, published Tuesday (March 16) in the journal
mBio, may provide clues to the origins of this superbug,
Candida auris, which mysteriously popped up in hospitals around the world about a decade ago.
It s a medical mystery, where did it come from, said Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chair of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study.
(Ecofin Agency) - Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi announced last March 15 his intention to increase the minimum wage for civil servants. The information was relayed by the spokesman of the Egyptian presidency, Bassam Rady, in a statement issued the same day.
The announcement follows a meeting with PM Dr. Mostafa Madbouly, and the Minister of Finance, Dr. Mohamed Maait, which saw the authorities discuss the draft budget for the next fiscal year 2021-22. According to the statement, the minimum salary for Egyptian public administration staff will increase from EGP2,000 to EGP2,400 ($153); up 20%.
The president also ordered the implementation of some provisions for workers, whether or not they are subject to the civil service law. These include the increase in pensions by 13% and the promotion of employees who meet the conditions for promotion on 6/30/2021.
Coronavirus Infections in US May Be Twice as High as Official Figures, Study Warns
17 MARCH 2021
When it comes to figuring out the impact the global pandemic has had on the human population, there s a big area of uncertainty: how many people have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 without realizing it?
We know that people who ve caught the coronavirus don t necessarily show any signs of it – around 40 percent of cases are thought to be asymptomatic – and that puts a question mark over the official numbers that have been gathered so far.
To try and establish how many unreported infections we might have missed, researchers looked at the blood test results of 61,910 people who didn t think they d ever caught the virus, to see if any antibodies were linked to fighting SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the COVID-19 illness.
The menagerie of bacterial and fungal species living among us is ever growing - and this is no exception in low-gravity environments, such as the International Space Station (ISS).
There s a Reason Giant Sinkholes Keep Swallowing Things, But We Can Make It Stop
ARYA ASSADI LANGROUDI, THE CONVERSATION
16 MARCH 2021
First, it swallowed a car. A few hours later, two terraced buildings. At 9pm on January 20, a crater measuring 4 sq. meters appeared in Walmer Street, Manchester.
Another sinkhole shocked local Scottish walkers, swallowing a section of coastal path between Dysart and West Wemyss on February 4. And, in early March, a sinkhole in Cumbria opened up beneath a farmer riding a quad bike. He was rescued by firefighters and taken to hospital.
These are only recent examples from the UK. The ground opening up and engulfing whatever lies in its path is a pretty common occurrence. Globally, for every 0.1℃ rise in temperature, the number of sinkholes increases by 1-3 percent.