The UK was ill-prepared to deal with a health pandemic, according to a secret Whitehall document produced years before the coronavirus outbreak.

Boris Johnson has paid his respects to fallen soldiers ahead of the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day on a visit to Westminster Abbey.

A single dad who has fostered 12 children has taken in another child who had nowhere else to go during the coronavirus pandemic.

Boris Johnson has said the Government will proceed with "maximum caution" when it comes to easing the coronavirus lockdown, with his spokesman adding that any changes next week will be "very limited".

Stars have paid tribute to Mercury Prize-nominated rapper Ty who has died aged 47 after contracting coronavirus.

Boris Johnson's father has told how he broke Covid-19 lockdown rules to buy a newspaper after the Prime Minister's son was born.

Tensions are growing between the UK's regions over "mixed messaging" on when to lift restrictions, with speculation that rail services are set to be expanded from mid-May but strict lockdown measures could remain in place until June.

Boris Johnson has issued a stirring statement as the UK comes together to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day, calling for Brits to show the "same spirit of national endeavor" during the coronavirus pandemic.

Cabinet Secretary Oliver Dowden admitted on Friday morning that the lockdown is facing a major test from the sunny weekend ahead.

British people should not expect major new freedoms on Monday, with "limited changes" expected to the coronavirus lockdown, a minister has said.

The Government has missed its testing target of 100,000 coronavirus tests a day by the end of April for the sixth day running.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has called for an "all-out effort to end hate speech globally" amid what he called a "tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering" unleashed during the coronavirus pandemic.

Four people have been fined after attempting to drive from Dorset to Milford Haven to look at a boat.

Deputy Irish Premier Simon Coveney has said the Covid-19 pandemic has made the timeline for a UK-EU trade deal "virtually impossible".

A top aide to US Vice President Mike Pence has tested positive for coronavirus, just one day after another White House staff member was diagnosed.

Boris Johnson has asked Vladimir Putin if Russia would help play a more integrated role in global efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine.

Some 140 people were found making their way to Britain by the Border Force and brought ashore at Dover, according to Sky News.

It's not hard-hitting journalism, says Chris Knight, but it gives fans lots of what they want

Comedian takes on air travel, restaurants, ball games and other pastimes of the distant past that was 2019

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.

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.

The track is the Mumbai-based acoustic outfit’s first release this year

The post Exclusive Premiere: See ANC Become One with Nature in New Video For ‘Be Alright’ appeared first on My Site.

The year-old band also called on Zygnema’s Sidharth Kadadi to produce their second release

The post Exclusive Premiere: Mumbai Metallers Targe Call on The Demonstealer for ‘The Cortege’ appeared first on My Site.

Air-burning plasma thruster may be competitive with jet engines.

Peer review moves to Twitter, muddling public health information.

Ex-official alleges cronyism, says warnings about supply shortages were ignored.

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.

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

LauncherOne to cap eight years of development with upcoming flight.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Bill Gates has been big on vaccines since before the start of the coronavirus pandemic, but in a new blog posting, the Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist says the only way to end the pandemic for good is to offer a vaccine to almost all of the planet's 7 billion inhabitants. That's big. "We've never delivered something to every corner of the world before," Gates notes. It's especially big considering that a vaccine hasn't yet been approved for widespread use, and that it may take as long as a year to 18 months to win approval and start distribution. Some… Read More

Mediterranean sediments are shown to have up to 1.9 million tiny plastic pieces per square metre.

The space agency announces the companies that will work on landers to return astronauts to the Moon.

Everything is in readiness for the first mission to send humans into orbit from U.S. soil since NASA retired the space shuttle fleet in 2011 – from the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that will take two astronauts to the International Space Station, to the parachutes that will bring them back down gently to an Atlantic Ocean splashdown, to the masks that NASA's ground team will wear in Mission Control. The fact that the launch is coming in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic has added a weird and somewhat wistful twist to the history-making event. "That certainly is disappointing," NASA… Read More

Two Seattle-area space ventures — Tethers Unlimited and Rocket Propulsion Systems — are among 124 businesses receiving $750,000 Phase II grants from NASA's Small Business Innovation Research program. The two-year grants, announced today, support the further development of technologies that can benefit future space missions as well as life on Earth. All of the recipients, hailing from 31 states in all, received $125,000 Phase I grants during earlier rounds of funding. "We are encouraged by the ingenuity and creativity we’ve seen from these companies in their Phase I work," Jenn Gustetic, NASA's SBIR program executive said in a news release.… Read More

NASA has awarded the University of Washington a $499,864 grant to develop a competition that calls on students to turn a simulated lava tube into a habitat suitable for harboring humans on the moon or Mars. The exploration and habitation skills competition will be funded as part of NASA's Artemis Student Challenges program, which plays off the themes of the Artemis moon program to inspire the next generation of explorers and engineers. The competition will involve navigating a rover through a facsimile lava tube and surface structures, generating maps, identifying valuable resources and deploying an airtight barrier to seal the… Read More

The following is a brief roundup of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. A new antibody test is highly accurate at determining whether people have been infected with the novel coronavirus, according to a study published on Friday in The Journal of Clinical Microbiology. Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine found the test, manufactured by Abbott Laboratories, had a specificity rate of 99.9% and a sensitivity rate of 100%, suggesting little chance of incorrectly diagnosing a healthy person as having been infected and virtually no chance of a false negative readout.