After originating in Wuhan, China in late 2019, the latest form of coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and its third pandemic of the last 17 years, has spread COVID-19 across the globe. Some countries claim fewer cases, like China, while some can't know figures, like Brazil, but one thing is clear; the half the world that interacts with China even indirectly has it, and it has mutated along the way. The California version which came from Asia is different than the New York version that came from Europe.

Fortunately, none of the mutations have increased transmissibility, according to a new paper which looked at virus genomes from over 46,000 people with COVID-19 from 99 countries.

Fifth generation (5G) wireless communication networks are being deployed worldwide and promise mass connectivity, ultra-reliability, and guaranteed low latency.

It sounds great for 2020 but people of 2030 are likely to want that, plus enhanced spectral/energy/cost efficiency, better intelligence level, and security - all over the world.

For that, they will need 6G air interface and transmission technologies and novel network architecture, such as waveform design, multiple access, channel coding schemes, multi-antenna technologies, network slicing, cell-free architecture, and cloud/fog/edge computing. 

In humans, if we spend time beneath the ocean and then travel to the surface, we can suffer decompression sickness, known as "the bends" - when the nitrogen in compressed air that dissolved into our blood during a dive does not have time to clear and forms bubbles in tissues. 

While the world recovers from the third coronavirus pandemic of the last 17 years, it's important to be mindful that nature is always evolving new ways to kill. It's why scientists need to create a new influenza vaccine each year.

A lot of environmentalists raise money talking about climate change, but their energy recommendations - mitigation, rationing, high cost - are regressive.

Scientists are interested in progress, and nothing has exemplified that like genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which optimize nature in order to speed up organic processes that may take centuries to happen naturally. From insulin to watermelon to any number of other foods, GMOs have made it possible to grow more produce on less land using less water and energy and chemicals per calorie than ever before.
Now a team believe GMOs can fix climate change, by reducing the amount of CO2 plants put into the atmosphere.

A new study found that natural selection, a key mechanism in biological evolution, favors pathogens with more virulence - how much harm they cause - at the point the disease emerges in a new host species.

Not too much, or else everything will be dead, but not too weak to matter either. 

Virulence and transmission are linked, with virulence arising because pathogens need to exploit hosts to persist, replicate and transmit. Low virulence will be detrimental for pathogens if they cannot transmit while virulence that is too high will also be a disadvantage if infection kills hosts so fast that the pathogen does not have time to transmit.