There will potentially be an alternative method of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, and other vaccines, thanks to a team of researchers in the U.K.
The team at Swansea University in Wales is developing the first coronavirus vaccine in the form of a smart patch. The device is disposable and administers the vaccine through microneedles, which simultaneously monitor its efficacy by measuring each individual s immune response.
The first prototype is set to be ready in March, which would then hopefully move onto clinical trials before becoming commercially available within three years.
The researchers hope is that this smart patch won t only prove useful to treat people against the coronavirus, but also other diseases.
“Many regions in the tropics are heating up particularly rapidly and substantial areas will become warmer, on average, than approximately 25°C”
So the latest harvest of research is simply further confirmation that the global heating to which the world is already committed is going to change the nature of those habitats that have − until now − kept the planet at an even temperature.
That means that restoring forests is not just a matter of planting trees: foresters will need to identify the right trees for climate regimes that have yet to be established.
Tropical rainforests cover only 7% of the planet’s land surface, but they shelter and nourish around half of all the planet’s plants and animal species. Around half of the Earth’s stocks of sequestered carbon are locked in the trunks, branches, leaves and roots.
Photograph by Andia, Universal Images Group/Getty Images
Rivers in Europe are more fragmented meaning their natural flows are interrupted by man-made barriers than any other continent’s rivers, new research shows.
In a four-year study spanning 36 European countries, scientists surveyed almost 1,700 miles of river by foot and found at least 1.2 million obstacles preventing European rivers from flowing freely. That’s more than one barrier for every mile of river (or 0.74 barriers per kilometre).
“The numbers we found are higher than expected, and show that European rivers are broken,” says Barbara Belletti, a river geomorphologist who led the study at the Polytechnic University of Milan.