Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists say they have discovered the first evidence of a “significant” mutation of the coronavirus — raising concerns that strides made toward a vaccine so far could become “futile,” according to a new study.

The researchers, who isolated a strain of the virus from a sample collected in India in January, said the mutation appeared to make the bug less able to bind to a receptor on human cells called ACE2, an enzyme found in the lungs.

The discovery of this mutation “raises the alarm that the ongoing vaccine development may become futile in future epidemic if more mutations were identified,” the researchers said, according to Newsweek. The study, which was published on biorxiv.org on Saturday, has not yet been peer-reviewed.

Students from Australia have unearthed a trove of rare treasures at a site in Israel and may have solved the mystery to King David’s long-lost city of Ziklag.

Circa 2015

Coupling electromagnetic waves to mechanical waves has led to a remarkable miniaturization of wireless communication technologies. Now, spin waves could provide us with technologies that are small and reprogrammable.

When you’re deployed to Iraq and your stomach starts to gak, diarrhea.

O.,o circa 2007.

The scales of the Arapaima, an Amazonian freshwater fish that can weigh up to 440 pounds, possess all the best attributes of a bulletproof vest, but the elements are better integrated into one solid piece combining imperviousness and flexibility, researchers say. The Air Force is funding a study of the fish for potential body armor development.

This armored BMW X5 is a bombproof fortress on wheels.

The fossilised skulls of dinosaur embryos that died within their eggs about 200m years ago, have been digitally reconstructed by scientists, shedding new light on the animals’ development, and how close they were to hatching.

The rare clutch of seven eggs, some of which contain embryos, was discovered in South Africa in 1976, with the developing young found to be a species of dinosaur called Massospondylus carinatus.

The plant-eaters were ancestors of sauropod dinosaurs like diplodocus and, as fully-grown adults, would have walked on two legs, measured about five metres from nose to tail, and had long necks with small heads.

LONDON might be 3,000 years older than previously believed.