The Yutu-2 rover is on a roll. It's been exploring the far side of the moon since early 2019 as part of China's Chang'e-4 lunar lander mission. It now has its eyes set on a strange-looking cube-shaped object it spotted in the distance. From a report: Andrew Jones, a journalist who covers the Chinese space program for SpaceNews and Space.com, highlighted a new rover update in a series of tweets Friday. The nickname for the cube-shaped object translates to "mystery house." The rover team is planning to drive over and get a closer look at the object. As with Yutu-2's intriguing discovery of a "gel-like" substance inside a crater in 2019, don't get too excited for aliens. That substance turned out to be glassy-looking rock. And as far as I know, Stanley Kubrick never planted a monolith on the real moon, and those metal sculptures that were once all the rage on Earth haven't made the trek across space. Yutu-2's view of the cube is fuzzy and far-off, so the object's true nature should become clearer as the rover gets closer. The most likely explanation is a boulder. This part of the moon is pockmarked with impact craters, which can feature quite a bit of chunky debris.

An indestructible "black box" is set to be built upon a granite plain on the west coast of Tasmania, Australia, in early 2022. Its mission: Record "every step we take" toward climate catastrophe, providing a record for future civilizations to understand what caused our demise, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. From a report: The project, led by marketing communications company Clemenger BBDO in collaboration with University of Tasmania researchers, is currently in beta and has already begun collecting information at its website. The structure is designed to be about the size of a city bus, made of 3-inch-thick steel and topped with solar panels. Its interior will be filled with "storage drives" that gather climate change-related data such as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and average temperatures. In addition, using an algorithm, it will scour the web for tweets, posts, news and headlines.

The developers estimate that storage will run out in 30 to 50 years, according to the ABC. There are plans to increase the storage capacity and provide a more long-term solution, but it's unclear how the structure will be maintained -- how its solar panels might be replaced before the end of civilization, how well those drives hold up after decades and how impervious the vault will be to vandalism or sabotage. Its remote location, around four hours from the closest major city, is one deterrent -- but will that be enough?

Smithsonian magazine explores the many Mars simulation facilities around the world, including the Mars Desert Research Station — which is located in Utah, four hours south of Salt Lake City, "but everyone spoke and acted as though they were actually on Mars." A group of six people lived in a two-story cylindrical building. The commander, a former member of the Army National Guard, kept the participants on a strict schedule of fixing electrical systems, taking inventory, tidying up the facilities and sampling the soil. Everyone was assigned a special role: [photographer] Klos' was to prepare reports to share with the public. The health safety officer kept tabs on the crew's well-being, and the engineer monitored levels of carbon dioxide and solar power. Before stepping outside in a spacesuit, Klos and the others had to get permission from mission control back on "Earth" (actually a coordinator stationed in a nearby town). That person would send information about the winds and weather, and determine how long each person could stay outside the base. Sometimes dust storms rolled in, cutting off the solar power supply just as they would on Mars...

There are about a dozen such habitats around the globe, hosting simulations that run anywhere from two weeks to a full year. One of these is run by NASA's Human Research Program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. But other facilities are funded by private organizations. The Mars Society, established by Brooklyn-born aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin, operates the habitat in Utah, where Klos returned for another mission in 2017, and another in the Canadian Arctic. Klos also took part in a mission at the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, or HI-SEAS. The facility is run by the International MoonBase Alliance, a group founded by the Dutch entrepreneur Henk Rogers.

HI-SEAS is located on Hawaii's big island at 8,200 feet above sea level, on top of the active volcano Mauna Loa. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is collaborating with the facility to gather information about volcanic caves and the microbes that live in those Mars-like conditions. HI-SEAS is also studying the limitations of doing that kind of work while wearing heavy spacesuits. It's hard enough for astronauts to hold a screwdriver in a gloved hand while repairing the International Space Station, but if people are going to be clambering on Martian rocks looking for microbes, they'll need the right gear.
The article notes these missions "are open to people who have no background in science, engineering or astronaut training. After all, the goal is to send ordinary folks into space, so it's worth finding out whether ordinary folks can coexist in Mars-like conditions here on Earth." (Some are even recruited off the internet.) "Sometimes people make the critique that we're role-playing too much," the photographer tells the magazine. "But the goal is to really live the way people are going to live on Mars so scientists can figure out how to make it work when we get there."

And the article also points out that "The data we're gathering now about surviving on solar power, conserving water and growing plants in arid conditions could be useful here at home as our climate changes."

Last week researchers at Northwestern University calculated that one week after a Covid-19 booster shot, median antibody levels were 23 times higher than before the shot.

This Thursday the Times of London reported that another study found similar results: Booster jabs "massively" strengthen the body's defences against Covid, according to key results that have raised hopes of strong protection from the Omicron variant. A third dose not only increased antibody levels thirtyfold, but roughly tripled levels of T-cells, a part of the immune system that experts believe could be the critical weapon against the heavily mutated Omicron strain.
Professor Saul Faust, who led the study, emphasized to the Guardian that "These are remarkably effective immunological boosters, way above what is needed to prevent hospitalisation and death."

And speaking to The Week, Faust also added that "This T-cell response gives us hope," because although Omicron was not specifically analysed during the research, their data suggested the triggered T-cells "are recognising a much broader range of antigens that might... be common to all of the variants."

And earlier this week long-time Slashdot reader destinyland shared more booster/Omicron news from The Hill: On Sunday, former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who sits on Pfizer's board of directors, said vaccine developers have "a pretty good degree of confidence" that people who have received booster doses on top of their initial COVID-19 vaccinations are protected against omicron. "If you talk to people in vaccine circles, people who are working on a vaccine, they have a pretty good degree of confidence that a boosted vaccine, so three full doses of vaccine, is going to be fairly protective against this new variant," he said.
Meanwhile, new Omicron-specific vaccines are also just months away, Business Insider reports: Pfizer said it will be able to manufacture and distribute an updated version of its COVID-19 vaccine within 100 days if the new variant Omicron is found to be resistant to its current vaccine... "Pfizer and BioNTech have taken actions months ago to be able to adapt the mRNA vaccine within six weeks and ship initial batches within 100 days in the event of an escape variant," the company said in a statement...

"We expect more data from the laboratory tests in two weeks at the latest. These data will provide more information about whether B.1.1.529 could be an escape variant that may require an adjustment of our vaccine if the variant spreads globally," a spokesperson told Reuters.

Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are also preparing to respond to the Omicron's possible threat. Moderna on Friday said it plans to test a variant-specific booster in the event that its current vaccine is found to be ineffective against the Omicron.
And The Hill also reports: Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Monday he has "a very high level of confidence" that his company's COVID-19 treatment pills are effective against the omicron variant... Bourla said Paxlovid was designed in anticipation of future possible mutations. "So that gives me very, very high level of confidence that the treatment will not be effected, our oral treatment will not be effected by this virus."

"The International Space Station dodged a fragment of a decades-old rocket body early Friday morning," reports Space.com, "continuing a stretch of space debris threats to the orbiting laboratory." On Friday (Dec. 3) at around 3 a.m. EST (0800 GMT), a Russian cargo ship docked to the International Space Station fired for a little under three minutes to lower the facility's orbit and ensure that it would pass safely by the debris, according to statements from NASA and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos....

In a tweet posted on Wednesday (Dec. 1), Roscosmos flagged the risk posed by the rocket fragment, which it said was estimated to pass as close as 3.4 miles (5.4 kilometers) to the space station. Just the day before the alert was posted, on Tuesday (Nov. 30), NASA had been forced to delay a spacewalk scheduled for later in the day due to concerns about debris. The agency has not specified what that debris represents, but NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron were able to conduct their excursion on Thursday (Dec. 2).
NASA identified Friday's debris was part of a 1994 U.S. Pegasus rocket, which later broke up in space 1996.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Israel said on Thursday it was halting the use of mobile phone tracing to curb the spread of the new coronavirus variant Omicron, a practice that had been challenged by privacy watchdogs. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's government authorized the surveillance technology, which matches virus carriers' locations against other mobile phones nearby to determine their contacts, to be used for Omicron cases on Nov. 27. That authorization will not be renewed after it lapses at midnight between Thursday and Friday, Bennett's office said in a statement, citing "up-to-date situational assessments."

The technology, originally developed by Israel's Shin Bet security agency for counter-terrorism and counter-espionage, had "contributed over the last week to the effort to break the chain of infection", the statement said. Israel has confirmed at three cases of the new variant and at least 30 others are suspected of having contracted it, the Health Ministry said. Earlier on Thursday, Israel's Supreme Court rejected a petition by four rights groups seeking to repeal the measure. "Considering the uncertainty around the Omicron variant and its effects..., it has not been proven that the Shin Bet authorization poses a disproportionate infringement on the right to privacy which would justify its striking down," the ruling said.

Criminals have been selling fake vaccine certificates online and may be able to fool an EU system designed to verify the certificates' validity, researchers warn. BankInfoSecurity reports: [A] report released last week, "COVID-19 Vaccination Certificates in the Dark Web," which has not yet been peer-reviewed, notes that some darknet markets continue to sell supposed vaccine certificates for use in multiple countries. Four researchers - Dimitrios Georgoulias, Jens Myrup Pedersen, Morten Falch, Emmanouil Vasilomanolakis - who are all part of the Cyber Security Group at Aalborg University in Copenhagen, Denmark, reviewed vaccination certificate offerings from 17 marketplaces and 10 vendor shops. The researchers found that at least one vendor appears to be selling digital certificates, registered in Italy, that are being read as valid by mobile COVID-19 certificate-checking apps developed by both France and Denmark.

The Aalborg University researchers, however, note that many darknet markets forbid any listing containing any items related to COVID-19. But others, they say, do allow both physical and digital vaccine certificates to be offered for sale, and in some cases also "yellow vaccination cards" or other vaccination record cards that can be used as proof of vaccination, albeit only inside the country in which they were supposedly issued. "The listings are heavily focused on European countries and the United States, but there are also listings from other continents and countries, such as Brazil, Canada, Mexico and Australia," as well as Russia, the researchers write. "The pricing differs greatly between the different listings, with the cheapest certificate starting at $39 and the highest price reaching almost $2,800, which included both a physical and a digital certificate, registered in the United Kingdom," they write. Most markets accept bitcoin and monero cryptocurrencies as payment, they add, while a smaller number also take such digital coins as ethereum, cardano, litecoin and zcash. [...] The Aalborg University researchers note that buying a fake digital certificate gives the seller ample opportunity to scam a buyer.

If these fake COVID-19 certificates can indeed pass for valid ones, then one unanswered question remains: How? Many of the sites claim to have access to the systems used to issue certificates, either by hacking into them remotely, or having insiders who work at a healthcare or other health organization, the researchers say. "In the specific case of a listing on the Russian marketplace Hydra, the description even mentioned the exact location and hospital that the system was accessed from," they say. Another possibility, however, is that criminals have somehow stolen one or more private keys for the European system, which were issued to participating health organizations. If so, it would be difficult to revoke these keys, the researchers say, since doing so would invalidate what might be a large quantity of legitimate certificates too.

Australians have been named the heaviest drinkers in the world after spending more time drunk in 2020 than any other nation. The Guardian reports: An international survey (PDF) has found Australians drank to the point of drunkenness an average of 27 times a year, almost double the global average of 15. Almost a quarter of Australians reported feeling regret for becoming intoxicated. The Global Drug Survey asked more than 32,000 people from 22 countries what their drug and alcohol consumption was last year. On average, Australians drank alcohol in line with the global average of two nights a week, and became heavily drunk about once every two weeks. The French topped that metric, drinking around three times a week. Australian participants also tripled the global average on seeking emergency care for their drinking (3.9% compared with the global average of 1.2%). "Global Drug Survey researcher Dr Monica Barratt said Australia's high rate of drunkenness might be related to most of the country avoiding Covid lockdowns in 2020," the report adds. "Bar Victoria, most states and territories only went through short and sharp lockdowns, with relatively few cases or deaths, allowing hospitality venues to remain open and events to continue."

On the opposite end of the spectrum were New Zealanders, who became intoxicated "fewer times than almost any other country in the survey, getting drunk about 10 times a year," reports the Guardian. "Danes and Finns spent the most time drinking to excess after Australians, tied at 23.8 times a year. Americans came in third place, becoming intoxicated an average of 23 times in 2020, followed by the British (22.5 times)."

To better understand the coronavirus's journey from one person to another, a team of 50 scientists has for the first time created an atomic simulation of the coronavirus nestled in a tiny airborne drop of water. From a report: To create the model, the researchers needed one of the world's biggest supercomputers to assemble 1.3 billion atoms and track all their movements down to less than a millionth of a second. This computational tour de force is offering an unprecedented glimpse at how the virus survives in the open air as it spreads to a new host. "Putting a virus in a drop of water has never been done before," said Rommie Amaro, a biologist at the University of California San Diego who led the effort, which was unveiled at the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis last month. "People have literally never seen what this looks like."

How the coronavirus spreads through the air became the subject of fierce debate early in the pandemic. Many scientists championed the traditional view that most of the virus's transmission was made possible by larger drops, often produced in coughs and sneezes. Those droplets can travel only a few feet before falling to the floor. But epidemiological studies showed that people with Covid-19 could infect others at a much greater distance. Even just talking without masks in a poorly ventilated indoor space like a bar, church or classroom was enough to spread the virus. Those findings pointed to much smaller drops, called aerosols, as important vehicles of infection. Scientists define droplets as having a diameter greater than 100 micrometers, or about 4 thousandths of an inch. Aerosols are smaller -- in some cases so small that only a single virus can fit inside them. And thanks to their minuscule size, aerosols can drift in the air for hours.

Scientists have raised concerns about a proposed overhaul of newborn screening that could lead to the UK becoming the first country to offer whole-genome sequencing for every baby. From a report: Speaking before the publication of plans for an NHS pilot study in which up to 200,000 babies' genomes will be sequenced and analysed, scientists suggested the initiative appeared designed to create a valuable health dataset rather than an effective method of improving the diagnosis of rare diseases. Anneke Lucassen, director of the Centre for Personalised Medicine at the University of Oxford, said that if the primary objective were improving newborn screening, there were alternative, more targeted tests that would be cheaper and potentially more reliable.

"If it was really all about [diagnosing more conditions], you could do that through other means," she said. "It's about helping to build the genomics industry in the UK and it's about creating a research resource so we can study people as they grow older." Lucassen said she was not opposed to the pilot, or even necessarily to these objectives, but wanted more transparency, "because otherwise it's sold as something that is not the full picture. The public needs to know that," she added. Sequencing the genomes of all newborns would represent a hugely ambitious upgrade to the routine "heel prick" test that all babies receive at about five days to detect nine serious health conditions including cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease and various metabolic diseases.

schwit1 shares a report from ScienceAlert: The comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein (BB) -- the largest our telescopes have ever spotted -- is on a journey from the outer reaches of our Solar System that will see it flying relatively close to Saturn's orbit. Now, a new analysis of the data we've collected on BB has revealed something rather surprising. Digging into readings logged by the Transient Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) between 2018 and 2020, researchers have discovered that BB became active much earlier, and much farther out from the Sun, than was previously thought.

A comet becomes active when light from the Sun heats its icy surface, turning ice to vapor and releasing trapped dust and grit. The resulting haze, called a coma, can be useful for astronomers in working out exactly what a particular comet is made out of. In the case of BB, it's still too far out for water to sublimate. Based on studies of comets at similar distances, it's likely that the emerging fog is driven instead by a slow release of carbon monoxide. Only one active comet has previously been directly observed at a greater distance from the Sun, and it was much smaller than BB. "These observations are pushing the distances for active comets dramatically farther than we have previously known," says astronomer Tony Farnham, from the University of Maryland (UMD). "We make the assumption that comet BB was probably active even farther out, but we just didn't see it before this. What we don't know yet is if there's some cut-off point where we can start to see these things in cold storage before they become active."

The research has been published in the Planetary Science Journal.

Just two days after officially (and quietly) confirming that it intends to replace the International Space Station with a commercial station by 2030, NASA has awarded over $400 million in agreements to three companies to further develop private station plans. TechCrunch reports: The three companies, which received the awards under the agency's Commercial low Earth orbit (LEO) Destinations program, are: Nanoracks for $160 million; Blue Origin for $130 million; and Northrop Grumman for $125.6 million. NASA received eleven proposals in total, director of commercial spaceflight Phil McAlister said Thursday. He added that of the three chosen proposals, there was a diversity of technical concepts and a variety of logistical and launch vehicle options offered. "This diversity not only enhances the likelihood of success of NASA strategy, but it also leads to a high degree of innovation, which is critical in most commercial space endeavors," he said.

The three companies have already released a handful of details about their proposals. Blue Origin is calling its station concept "Orbital Reef," and it is designing it with Boeing, Sierra Space and others. The team said it wants to launch the station in 2027. Meanwhile, Nanoracks is calling its station, which is being developed with its parent company Voyager Space and aerospace prime Lockheed Martin, "Starlab." While Northrop didn't give its station proposal a flashy name, it's working with Dynetics to deliver a modular design based around its Cygnus spacecraft.

These substantial awards mark the first phase of a two-phase process as NASA seeks to ensure that there will be no gap between the retirement of the ISS and the introduction of a new station. NASA has repeatedly stressed, both to Congress and more recently in a report by the Office of Inspector General, that the overall success of the development of a thriving economy in LEO is dependent upon avoiding this gap. "If there is no habitable commercial destination in low Earth orbit after the ISS is decommissioned, NASA will be unable to conduct microgravity health research and technology demonstrations needed for long-duration human exploration missions to the Moon and Mars, significantly increasing the risk of -- or delaying -- those missions," the agency said in the report.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Drive: U.S. Space Force's General David Thompson, the service's second in command, said last week that Russia and China are launching "reversible attacks," such as electronic warfare jamming, temporarily blinding optics with lasers, and cyber attacks, on U.S. satellites "every single day." He also disclosed that a small Russian satellite used to conduct an on-orbit anti-satellite weapon test back in 2019 had first gotten so close to an American one that there were concerns an actual attack was imminent.

Thompson, who is Vice Chief of Space Operations, disclosed these details to The Washington Post's Josh Rogin in an interview on the sidelines of the Halifax International Security Forum, which ran from Nov. 19 to 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in Canada. The forum opened just four days after a Russian anti-satellite weapon test involving a ground-launched interceptor, which destroyed a defunct Soviet-era electronic intelligence satellite and created a cloud of debris that presents a risk to the International Space Station (ISS). That test drew widespread condemnation, including from the U.S. government, and prompted renewed discussion about potential future conflicts in space.

"The threats are really growing and expanding every single day. And it's really an evolution of activity that's been happening for a long time," Thompson, told Rogin. "We're really at a point now where there's a whole host of ways that our space systems can be threatened." "Right now, Space Force is dealing with what Thompson calls 'reversible attacks' on U.S. government satellites (meaning attacks that don't permanently damage the satellites) 'every single day,'" according to Rogin. "Both China and Russia are regularly attacking U.S. satellites with non-kinetic means, including lasers, radio frequency jammers, and cyber attacks, he said." [...] Thompson's assertion that these kinds of attacks are occurring with extreme frequency is new. It underscores the rapid development and fielding by Russia and China, among others, of a wide variety of anti-satellite capabilities, something the U.S. military has called increasing attention to in recent years. "The Chinese are actually well ahead [of Russia]," Thompson told Rogin. "They're fielding operational systems at an incredible rate." "Thompson could not confirm or deny whether any American satellites had actually been damaged in a Russian or Chinese attack," the report adds. "[H]e told Rogin that even if such a thing had occurred, that very fact would be classified."

He did, however, provide new details about the incident in 2019 where a small Russian satellite released a projectile in one on-orbit anti-satellite weapon test. According to The Drive, "Russia's satellite had first got in very close to a U.S. 'national security satellite' and that 'the U.S. government didn't know whether it was attacking or not.'"

"It maneuvered close, it maneuvered dangerously, it maneuvered threateningly so that they were coming close enough that there was a concern of collision," Thompson said. "So clearly, the Russians were sending us a message."

Long-time Slashdot reader Aighearach shares a report from Reuters: President Joe Biden on Thursday laid out his strategy to fight the coronavirus as the highly contagious Omicron spread across the globe with winter coming and hours after the first known U.S. case of community transmission of the variant was reported. [...] In California and Colorado, the patients had recently returned from trips to southern Africa and had not gotten booster doses. The case in Minnesota is the first known community transmission within the United States. The patient in Minnesota had recently travelled to New York City for an anime convention, prompting the city to launch contact tracing to try to contain the spread.

"We are aware of a case of the Omicron variant identified in Minnesota that is associated with travel to a conference in New York City, and we should assume there is community spread of the variant in our city," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said. The person told state health investigators he attended the Anime NYC 2021 convention at the Javits Center from Nov. 19 to 21 and developed mild symptoms on Nov. 22. How many Slashdot readers were there? Have you had a recent COVID test?

As of this writing, CNBC reports a total of five cases of the omicron Covid-19 variant have been confirmed in New York. "Cases were discovered in Suffolk County, two in Queens, one in Brooklyn and one in New York City," the report states, citing Gov. Kathy Hochul.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Vegan alternatives to leather could save more than just animals. The scientists behind fashion's new latest must-have -- the "mushroom leather" handbag -- believe that mycelium, a material grown from fungi which can be engineered to look and feel like calfskin or sheepskin, could help save the planet. Speaking to the Guardian before a talk at the Business of Fashion Voices conference in Oxfordshire, Dr Matt Scullin, CEO of biomaterials company MycoWorks, forecast that mushroom leather could be a sustainability gamechanger, "unlocking a future of design which begins with the material, not with the object."

Fine Mycelium, a patented material which can be grown from fungi in trays in a matter of weeks, replicates the appearance and feel of leather while outperforming it in strength and durability. The material recently made its high fashion debut as an exclusive HermÃs handbag. "It can give the same emotional response as an animal leather. It has that hand-feel of rarity," says Scullin. On a planet of finite natural resources, Scullin believes both the technology and the mindset of carbon-neutral, grown-to-order mushroom leather could be "revolutionary" -- and have implications for innovation in manufacture beyond fashion.

fahrbot-bot shares a report from Gizmodo: New research this week finds that people hospitalized with severe covid-19 often pay a heavy price afterward. The study concluded that these survivors were more than twice as likely to die in the subsequent 12 months compared to people who had tested negative for the virus. This relatively increased risk of death was even higher for people under the age 65. While there remains much research to be done, studies thus far have made it clear that many covid-19 survivors can experience lingering symptoms even after the infection itself has cleared up. And those who are hospitalized are all the more vulnerable to these aftereffects. Severe covid often seriously damages the lungs and other organs, while life-saving interventions like steroids, ventilators, and life support devices like ECMO can take a toll on the body as well.

Researchers from the University of Florida had already published a study in July showing that hospitalized survivors were significantly more likely to be hospitalized again within six months, compared to those with mild to moderate covid-19. This new study of theirs, based on an examination of anonymous electronic health records, instead looked at the long-term mortality risk of patients up to a year later. Nearly 14,000 patients in the same health care system were studied. These included 178 diagnosed with severe COVID-19 and 246 diagnosed with mild to moderate covid-19, as well as many others who tested negative for the virus but may have been sick for other reasons and received medical care in some way. Compared to covid-negative patients, and even after accounting for other factors like age and sex, those with severe covid were 2.5 times more likely to die in the next 12 months after their illness. Overall, just over 52% of severe covid patients died in a year's time. There was no significant increased risk of mortality for mild to moderate cases, however. "About 20% of the deaths among these patients post-infection were attributed to problems with either the respiratory or cardiovascular system," the report adds. "[A]mong patients in this study, the associated risk of dying was actually relatively greater for survivors of severe covid under age 65 than it was for patients over 65. Compared to similarly aged but non-infected people, they were more than three times more likely to die in the months after their hospitalization."

The findings have been published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine.

Long-time Slashdot reader tlhIngan writes: The AstraZeneca vaccine, one of the few approved vaccines to fight COVID-19, was under fire earlier this year for causing blood clots. While the vaccine is still approved for use, and is being used, scientists have been working hard to figure out the cause. The main trigger appears to be caused by the immune system mistakenly identifying a blood protein as part of the virus. The AstraZeneca vaccine has viral RNA embedded on a normal cold virus. Platelet factor 4, a blood protein, is attracted to the virus and sticks to it. Sometimes, the immune system thinks the protein on the virus is the virus and attacks it, causing red blood cells to clump on it, creating a blood clot. This is a positive hope in helping figure out who may be susceptible to blood clots caused by the vaccine and to offer an alternative to those allergic to components of the mRNA vaccines.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: U.S. health officials have confirmed the country's first case of the new, heavily mutated coronavirus variant called omicron in California, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said the individual, who was fully vaccinated, had just returned from traveling in South Africa to the San Francisco area on Nov. 22 and tested positive on Nov. 29.

"The individual is self quarantining and all close contacts have been contacted and all close contacts, thus far, have tested negative," he announced at a White House press briefing providing more details of the case. "We feel good that this patient not only had mild symptoms, but actually the symptoms appear to be improving." The CDC said genomic sequencing was initially conducted at the University of California, San Francisco and confirmed by the CDC as the omicron variant. On Twitter, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said: "CA's large-scale testing and early detection systems have found the Omicron COVID-19 variant in California. We should assume that it's in other states as well. There's no reason to panic--but we should remain vigilant. That means get vaccinated. Get boosted. Wear a mask indoors."

Further reading: WHO Says Omicron Has Been Found in 23 Countries Across the World

A British man has become the first patient in the world to be fitted with a 3D printed eye, according to Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. From a report: Steve Verze, who is 47 and an engineer from Hackney, east London, was given the left eye on Thursday and first tried it for size earlier this month. Moorfields Eye Hospital said in a press release Thursday that the prosthetic is the first fully digital prosthetic eye created for a patient. The eye is more realistic than other alternatives, and is designed to have "clearer definition and real depth to the pupil," the hospital said. Other prosthetic eyes consist of an iris hand-painted onto a disc that is then embedded into the eye socket. However, their design prevents light from passing into the "full depth" of the eye, the hospital added in the release. As well as appearing more realistic, the procedure is considered less invasive. Fitting traditional prosthetics requires a mold to be taken of the eye socket, whereas in 3D prosthetic eye development the socket is scanned digitally to create a detailed image. Verze's functional eye was also scanned to ensure both eyes look the same.

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that 23 countries across the world have reported cases of the highly mutated omicron Covid-19 variant. From a report: "At least 23 countries from five of six WHO regions have now reported cases of omicron and we expect that number to grow," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters during an update Wednesday in Geneva. "WHO takes this development extremely seriously and so should every country. But it should not surprise us," Tedros continued. "This is what viruses do. And it's what this virus will continue to do, as we long as we allow it to continue spreading."

The new number comes one day after White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said 226 cases of the variant have been detected across 20 countries. Officials have not confirmed a case in the U.S. yet. The variant, which was reported to WHO by South Africa a week ago, has more than 30 mutations to the spike protein alone. Some of the mutations are associated with a decrease in antibody protection and higher transmission, according to the WHO. Tedros said there is still more to learn about the new variant's effect on transmission, the severity of disease and the effectiveness of tests, therapeutics and vaccines. Several WHO advisory groups have met in the last few days to "evaluate the emerging evidence, and prioritize the studies needed to answer these questions," he said.