Science

Scientists around the world are building up their knowledge about the coronavirus, as they frantically search for a cure and vaccine.

Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE announced on Wednesday, May 6, 2020, that the first participants have been dosed in the U.S in the Phase 1/2 clinical trial for the BNT162 vaccine program to prevent COVID-19. The trial is part of a global development program, and the dosing of the first cohort in Germany was completed last week.

China’s new prototype spacecraft “successfully landed” on Friday, marking an important step in its ambitions to run a permanent space station and send astronauts to the moon.

According to tests carried out at Rome’s infectious-disease Spallanzani Hospital, a single shot of the vaccine generates antibodies in mice.

NASA is working with Tom Cruise to film the first movie shot in space, according to NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine. The details of the project aren’t clear, but Bridenstine says the film will take place aboard the International Space Station.

China said Tuesday it will launch a new rocket at 6pm (1000 GMT), in a test of its ambitions to operate a permanent space station and send astronauts to the Moon.

“The research was funded with international partners in the U.S. with a grant from the National Science Foundation; but I was the one that did the local research,” he said.

Hundreds of South African health workers were given a century-old tuberculosis vaccine on Monday in a trial to see whether the venerable formula can protect against coronavirus.

The cocoa-zobo-ginger beverage with high antioxidant potential was developed by the FUTA researchers from blends of Hibiscus sabdariffa (zobo) and ginger blends and natural cocoa powder.

Health workers have deployed a robot in a Tunisian hospital caring for coronavirus victims to limit contact between staff and infected patients, in a first for the North African country.

The experimental drug remdesivir has been authorized by US regulators for emergency use against COVID-19, President Donald Trump announced Friday.

Gilead Sciences's remdesivir would be the first treatment to pass such a test against the virus, which has killed more than 218,000 people since it emerged late last year. Having a treatment could have a profound effect on the global pandemic, especially because health officials say any vaccine is likely a year or more away.

The Pentagon has declassified three previously leaked top-secret U.S. Navy videos that show “unexplained aerial phenomena” and that some believe could show Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) in an effort “to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real or whether or not there is more to the videos,” said a Pentagon spokesperson.

U.S. billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates, said a vaccine for the rampaging COVID-19 disease may come between 18-24 months.

The race is on to produce a vaccine against COVID-19 but it is not certain that one can be found, the head of the global vaccines alliance said Friday.

The experimental antiviral drug remdesivir has failed in its first randomized clinical trial to treat the COVID-19 illness, reports said Thursday, quoting draft documents that were accidentally published by the World Health Organization.

Oxford University is launching a human trial of a potential coronavirus vaccine, with the daunting aim of making a successful jab available to the public later this year.

The federal government has disclosed that researchers in the country’s universities are working on vaccine and cure for COVID-19.