Plague reappears in China
Three people in China have been diagnosed with the most dangerous form of plague, the pneumonic plague. Unlike its deadly cousin, the bubonic plague, which wiped out one-third of Europe in the Middle Ages, the pneumonic plague spreads from person to person like other infectious diseases — primarily through coughing. The three cases were diagnosed in Beijing but are from the Inner Mongolia region. Authorities have assured on the Chinese social network Weibo that there won’t be an outbreak, but citizens are accusing the government of not providing accurate information. Over 28 people who’ve come in contact with the infected patients have been quarantined. More on NPR.
Tesla unveils Cybertruck, an electric pickup truck
Elon Musk’s Tesla unveiled a prototype of the futuristic Cybertruck, an electric pickup truck. The Cybertruck goes from 0 to 95 km per hour in 2.9 seconds, and the vehicle’s design enables it to reduce drag and resistance while moving. It will move a whopping 800 kilometres on a single charge and the entry model pricing starts at $39,000, or about Rs 28 lakh. The unveiling ceremony did have a gaffe when the supposedly unbreakable glass windows broke when an iron ball was thrown at them. The Cybertruck looks nothing like what we’ve seen before, and is set to hit the markets in 2021. More on BGR.
Sugars essential to life found in meteorites
An international team of researchers has discovered sugars that are essential to life in meteorites. These are the building blocks for life and lend more credence to the theory that meteorite bombardment of the earth millions of years ago supplied us with life’s ingredients. The bio-essential sugars they found were present in two carbon-rich meteorites. The discovery of these two sugars closes a loop in the hunt for life’s building blocks on asteroids and meteorites. Other essential components, such as those needed for building DNA, RNA, and amino acids, which form proteins, were previously discovered. Only sugars had been missing. More on Phys.org.
Humans placed in suspended animation for the first time
US doctors have placed humans in suspended animation for the first time as a part of a trial. The process involves rapidly cooling a person to 10 to 15 degrees Celsius by replacing all their blood with salt-water solution. Brain activity stops completely and they are considered to be clinically dead. The process, officially called emergency preservation and resuscitation (EPR), is being carried out on people who arrive at the University of Maryland Medical Centre in Baltimore with an acute trauma like gunshot wound or heart attacks. Patients are immediately operated on, in under two hours, and then warmed up again and their hearts restarted. Results from the clinical trial will be out a year from now. More on New Scientist.
Machine learning reveals which parts of Shakespearean plays were written by others
Literary analysts have long suspected that another author contributed to Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, since James Spedding postulated it in 1850. Now, a neural network has revealed exactly which parts were not penned by Shakespeare, by identifying patterns in the writing style of his original work. Further, the machine-learning algorithm also identified who the other author who contributed to the play is: John Fletcher, who replaced Shakespeare for The King’s Men, a company that performed these plays. Spedding had originally thought Fletcher had added material to the original works too. More on MIT Technology Review.