President-elect Joe Biden named John Kerry to the newly created role of climate czar, a move that underscores the incoming administration’s commitment to an international-focused approach to the issue and recognition of its strategic importance. Kerry, the former secretary of state, is a diplomatic heavyweight who helped piece together the landmark Paris climate agreement during the Obama...
China launched its Chang’e 5 mission to the moon early Tuesday morning local time from the country’s launch site on Hainan Island in the South China Sea. The country is seeking to bring soil and rock samples from the lunar surface back to Earth for the first time in its history, for scientific study. What’s going to happen: Chang’e 5 should make it to the moon on November 27. The...
Many countries launched contact tracing and exposure notification apps early in the pandemic to help slow the spread of covid-19. Now some of the most prominent are beginning to change their approach to privacy and transparency, according to MIT Technology Review’s covid tracing tracker. The tracker, which launched in May, looks at the policies and safeguards around contact tracing apps...
The news: Oxford University and AstraZeneca have reported that their covid-19 vaccine is up to 90% effective, according to interim data from the Phase III trial. The trial found that the vaccine was 70% effective when the data of two different dosing regimes was combined, one of which was 90% and the other 62%. The 90% effective dosing regime used a halved first dose and a full second dose,...