44 articles from SATURDAY 8.2.2020

Storm targets Northeast US, threatens slick conditions for Monday's morning commute

A storm system racing through the northern U.S. this weekend and into the beginning of the week will bring a quick accumulation of snow to parts of the Northeast, before the Monday morning commute.A quick-hitting storm system will spread accumulating snow to parts of the Upper Midwest this weekend, before taking aim at the Northeast to start the workweek.A strong west- to east-oriented jet stream...

Coronavirus: Brazil evacuates 34 nationals from Wuhan

Group will be held in quarantine on an airbase in the mid-western state of GoiásBrazilian nationals evacuated from Wuhan, the city at the centre of the coronavirus crisis, will land shortly in national territory and will be taken to an airforce base where they will be quarantined for 18 days.The rescue comes after a video plea made to the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro last week. One of those...

Wintry conditions may return to northern Texas early next week

A potent storm tracking across the southern half of the country through the beginning of next week will open the door for snow to return to parts of the southern Plains.The storm system that moved through the Northwest on Saturday will be the main culprit for the winter weather spreading across parts of the nation through the beginning of the week.On Sunday the storm will begin to break into two...

Physicist Brian Greene: ‘Factual information is not the right yardstick for religion’

The theoretical physicist on distinguishing between fact and opinion, why he’d travel forward in time instead of back, and the value of religionBrian Greene, 56, is director of Columbia University’s centre for theoretical physics. His work on string theory has focused on the forms that extra dimensions may take. His latest book is Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter and Our Search for Meaning...

Madonna in full meltdown a moment to be cherished | Rebecca Nicholson

The Palladium paid a ripe price for bringing down the curtain on her showMadonna’s Madame X era is the gift that keeps on giving. On Wednesday night, her residency at the London Palladium descended into the kind of chaos that turned it into one of those gigs you can only have dreamed of being at, like Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival or the Sex Pistols at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade...

Fear in Mexico as twin deaths expose threat to monarch butterflies and their defenders

The deaths of two butterfly conservationists have drawn focus to a troubling tangle of disputes, resentments and violenceThe annual migration of monarch butterflies from the US and Canada is one of the most resplendent sights in the natural world – a rippling orange-and-black wave containing millions of butterflies fluttering instinctively southward to escape the winter cold.The spectacle when...

Helping discover the diversity in soil

Microbiological communities reveal a great deal of information about the state of soils. A lot of research is being performed on this biodiversity at a genetic level but third parties are not always able to put these results to the best possible use. The reason: The information varies in terms of quality.

'Contact is limited': inside the world's coronavirus quarantines – video

People who are being held in facilities in dozens of countries explain what daily life is like and their hopes for returning home soon. China's Hubei province, where the coronavirus originated from, is under lockdown to limit spreading. The death toll has risen to 724, with 86 more people dying in mainland China, according to officials. This is the highest one-day jump so farCoronavirus: two...

If China valued free speech, there would be no coronavirus crisis

Country could have contained spread of disease if only it had learned lessons from Sars outbreak The death of the whistleblower Chinese doctor Li Wenliang has aroused strong emotions across China. Social media is awash with posts mourning the death of a martyr who tried to raise alarm over the coronavirus but was taken into a police station instead for “spreading false rumours” and...