Displaying items by tag: Science

The scientific community is on the hunt for effective, scalable treatments for coronavirus, while at the same time developing a safe and tested vaccine. It took five years to produce an Ebola vaccine. The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation said that human trials with an experimental COVID-19 vaccine have already begun. One of a group of volunteers involved in testing, Jennifer Haller, became the first person to receive one at Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Institute. There is no risk of the volunteers becoming infected, because the shots of the vaccine (named RNA-1273) do not contain the coronavirus itself. WHO says there are over forty potential vaccines and as many as one hundred undergoing development, although only a handful are as yet being clinically tested. There are over thirty companies and academic institutions worldwide trying different approaches to find the silver bullet to beat COVID-19.

5G is widespread in China and being tested in America and Europe. Potentially, it will unleash a tidal wave of smart devices. Doctors will carry out surgery remotely, taking advantage of 5G’s speed to control precision robots. Designers and lawyers will work remotely through shared virtual realities. Scientific experiments will be carried out over long distances, allowing scientists across nations to take part in common research projects. 5G will transform ‘smart cities’, with sensors for gathering, analysing and processing data on public transport and energy consumption. They will improve waste collection, detecting whether bins are full and telling bin-men where those full bins are. 5G will keep traffic flowing by working traffic lights based on traffic volume. Self-driving cars will communicate instantly and avoid crashes. Rural areas will benefit from autonomous drones hovering over plants and spraying sticky ones with pesticides when needed. The most surprising innovations are those that still live in our imaginations.

New research by bioethicist Dr Kevin Smith claims that the risks of gene editing are now low enough to warrant its use with human embryos, arguing that ‘creating designer babies is ethically justifiable and highly desirable’. He said it could kick-start a revolution in producing genetically-modified (GM) people, offering hope to parents at risk of transmitting serious genetic disease to their future children. He said, ‘The human germline is not perfect. Evolution furnished us with minimal protection from diseases including cardiovascular disease, cancer and dementia. GM can protect future people against these and other common disorders.’ Producing GM babies in China last year was criticised by geneticists and ethicists. Smith compared GM people to the advancement of IVF, stating that if such negative attitudes to biomedical innovation had prevailed in the 1970s, the development of IVF would have been delayed and might never have come to fruition. His paper is published in the medical ethics journal Bioethics.

A human-monkey hybrid was created in a Chinese laboratory by injecting human stem cells capable of creating any type of tissue into a monkey embryo. The experiment was stopped before the embryo was born. The scientists were Spanish but held the trial in China to evade a ban on such procedures in Spain. They said a human-monkey hybrid could have been born. The embryo was genetically modified to deactivate genes that control organ growth. Ethical concerns were raised over stem cells migrating to the brain. The scientists said mechanisms were in place for cells to self-destruct if that happened. Thomas Aquinas said that if when doing something morally good there is an unintended side-effect that’s OK as long as the side-effect was not the objective. We can pray for all countries to forbid crossing the physical and spiritual laws separating one species from another. What would happen to the hybrid’s soul, conscience, spirit?

37 experts from farming, climate change and nutrition groups across the world came together as part of the EAT-Lancet commission. They took two years to come up with their findings, now published in the Lancet. The world population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050 and will keep on climbing. Better diet will prevent about 11 million dying from heart attacks, strokes and some cancers. The use of land for farming and forestry accounts for a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions - substantially more than from all trains, planes and automobiles on the planet. The commission will take its findings to governments around the world and bodies such as the WHO, to see if it can bring changes to what we eat. The recommended ‘planetary health diet’ does not completely banish meat and dairy, but it requires an enormous shift in what we put on our plates. We will have to turn to foods that we now barely eat.

Volcanoes are erupting and ground is shaking in Indonesia, Japan, Alaska, the Philippines and eastern Russia. On 23 January, 56,000+ residents in the Philippines were evacuating their homes in anticipation of a major eruption by Mount Mayon volcano. On the same day a volcano north-west of Tokyo also erupted, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake occurred southwest of Jakarta, and another hit Alaska, 173 miles from Kodiak. On 25 January there was a magnitude 6.2 earthquake off Russia's east coast. Indonesia’s Mount Agung continues to spew ash. Pray for all who are currently evacuated or in the process of cleaning up after these events. See also

It is ten years since the Church Times announced its first Green Church Awards. Since then, there have been great advances in scientific understanding and public awareness of environmental issues. Internationally, the new Paris Agreement was ratified in November, with 117 countries signing up. Domestically, recycling is far commoner than it was, and it is now possible to subscribe to clean-energy suppliers. However, globally the outlook is not good, with sixteen increasingly hot years damaging the natural environment and a number of influential voices still denying that there is a problem. The Church needs to play a greater part in this. Its national and global reach put it in a position to influence large numbers of people, even governments and power-brokers. But if its voice is to be heard, its own house must be in order. Fortunately, recent messages coming from the Pope and other faith leaders show how care for God’s planet and our common home is a priority around the world. Organisations such as A Rocha are leading the way in highlighting the issues, and around the country there are thousands of groups and individuals working sacrificially to change the climate - and the climate of opinion.

More than ten million Britons are at a higher risk of dementia because they live near a busy road, scientists have concluded. Those living in big cities are up to 12 per cent more likely to develop dementia as a result of traffic fumes, according to a study of more than six million people in Ontario, Canada. The closer people live to heavy traffic, the higher the risk. The scientists said that their findings were ‘of real public health significance’. They called for homes to be built further away from traffic, and for levels of traffic-related air pollution to be further reduced. Half the population of Ontario lives within 200 metres of a busy road, and 20 per cent within fifty metres: these figures are likely to be higher in Britain.