In late April 2020, a team from the University of Oxford said that they had developed a COVID-19 vaccine. The United States National Institutes of Health tested it in rhesus monkeys, and it worked. Because they had already been working on a vaccine against a different coronavirus, they had a head start working on one for SARS-CoV-2. They would try to test their vaccine on 6000 people by the end of May 2020, and that their vaccine could be ready for people to use in September 2020.
The team took the spike protein from SARS-CoV-2 and put it on an adenovirus. Then they injected that virus into test patients. The idea is that the patients' immune systems will learn to attack the spike protein no matter what virus it is on. This vaccine completed phase I trials and as of July 2020 is entering phase III trials. The vaccine is called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19.
The Chinese company CanSino Biologics is making a viral vector vaccine. This vaccine uses an adenovirus that has the spike protein from SARS-CoV-2 on it. Then the immune system learns to recognize the spike protein. As of July 2020, this vaccine is in phase II trials, but the Chinese government gave CanSino Biologics permission to give it to people anyway. They are allowed to give it to people in the Chinese military.
The Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine is made from the Johnson & Johnson company. Unlike many vaccines, it doesn't need special, unusual refrigeration.
The company Sinovac in China and Bututan research center in Brazil worked together. This is an inactivated virus vaccine. This means the team took SARS-CoV-2 and changed it to make it harmless. The patient's body learns to recognize the harmless virus and then it can recognize the harmful, wild virus too. The company got permission to start phase III trials on July 3. This virus is called CoronaVac.
The company Sinopharm belongs to the government of China. It is an inactivated virus vaccine.
This vaccine started phase III trials in the middle of July 2020. This vaccine does not have a name.
The University of Melbourne and Murdoch Children's Research Institute are studying a vaccine that works against tuberculosis, the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccine. It is a live-bacterium vaccine. That means weak but not dead "Mycobacterium tuberculosis" bacteria are injected into the patient. Then their immune system learns to fight it. Over the years, scientists saw that the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccine did not only protect people from tuberculosis. It protected them from other diseases too. The scientists at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and University of Melbourne are studying the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccine to see if it will protect people from COVID-19. Because this vaccine has already been used for other diseases for more than one hundred years, doctors already knew it was safe to use. As of July 2020, this vaccine is in phase III trials to see if it works on COVID-19.
Scientists believe a vaccine that doctors spray into the patient's nose would work better than a vaccine injected into the patient's veins. After a nasal vaccine, the body's immune cells look for the virus in the nose and mouth. The nose and mouth are where most people are infected with SARS-CoV-2. Scientists are not sure why this works. As of July 2020, teams in the Netherlands, the United States, and Canada are making nasal vaccines.
As of January 27th, Israel is currently the leader in percentage of people vaccinated, followed by the USA and then the United Kingdom. Israel has reportedly vaccinated about 20% of it's population, or 2 million people.
Arthur's Nose
Arthur's Nose is the popular first book of the book series, written and illustrated by Marc Brown. It was published in 1976. Arthur is an aardvark. The character of Arthur inspired several other picture books and was also made into an animated television series.
In this first book, Francine the monkey teases Arthur for having a big nose. As a result, Arthur decides to get his nose cut shorter. However, instead, he leaves his nose the same and his friends are happy, except Francine.
Prey Veng Province
Prey Veng is a province in Cambodia. The capital city is also named Prey Veng.
It is on the east bank of the Mekong river. The Bassac River is also in the province.
There are 12 districts and 1 municipality:
Pursat Province
Pursat is a province in Cambodia. The capital city is also named Pursat.
It is between the Tonlé Sap and the Cardamom Mountains. The Pursat River bisects the province. It is one of the nine provinces that are part of the Tonlé Sap Biosphere Reserve. Pursat is home to Wat Bakan, considered to be among the oldest active pagodas in Cambodia.
The province is divided into 6 districts and 1 municipality:
Ratanakiri Province
Ratanakiri is a province in Cambodia. The capital city is Banlung. Ratanakiri Province was created in 1959 from land that had been the eastern area of Stung Treng Province.
The Annamite Range of mountains is in the north. There are the Tonle San and Tonle Srepok rivers. Lomphat Wildlife Sanctuary and Virachey National Park are both in the province.
There are 8 districts and 1 municipality:
Siem Reap Province
Siem Reap is a province in Cambodia. Its capital and largest city is Siem Reap.
It is one of the nine provinces of the Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserve. It is the site of Angkor and the Angkor Wat temple ruins, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Phnom Kulen National Park is also in the province.
The province is divided into 12 districts:
Sihanoukville Province
Sihanoukville Province or Preah Sihanouk Province is a province in Cambodia. The capital city is also named Sihanoukville. It has the only deep water port in Cambodia.
First established as Kampong Som, the province was later renamed in honor of former King Norodom Sihanouk. The province has Ream National Park, which includes the islands of Koh Thmei and Koh Seh.
Validated numerics
Validated numerics (or reliable computation) is a numerical analysis with mathematically strict error evaluation. In order to do so, a technology called interval arithmetic is used. Validated numerics is needed for the following reasons.
One of the most known implementation of validated numerics is INTLAB (Interval Laboratory). INTLAB was used to create other numerical libraries, and it was also used to solve the Hundred-dollar, Hundred-digit Challenge problems.
Yūtokutaishi Akiyama
From 1999 until 2003, Akiyama was a professor at Sapporo University. From 1992 until around 2009, Akiyama joined Genpei Akasegawa and Yutaka Takanashi in the informal group Raika Dōmei.
Akiyama died on April 3, 2020 in Tokyo at the age of 85.
Stung Treng Province
Stung Treng is a province in Cambodia. The capital city is also named Stung Treng.
The Mekong River bisects the province. It one of the few provinces where you can see the rare and endangered Irrawaddy dolphins.
There are 5 districts and 1 municipality:
Ira Einhorn
Ira Samuel Einhorn (May 15, 1940 – April 3, 2020), known as "The Unicorn Killer", was an American convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Holly Maddux. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
On September 9, 1977, Maddux disappeared following a trip to collect her belongings from the apartment she and Einhorn had shared in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Eighteen months later, police found her partially mummified body in a trunk in Einhorn's closet.
After his arrest, Einhorn fled the country and spent twenty-three years in Europe before being taken back to the United States. He said that his ex-girlfriend had been killed by CIA agents who framed him for the crime because he knew too much about the agency's paranormal military research.
He was convicted and served a life sentence at a prison in Pennsylvania until his death in prison in April 2020 of heart disease, aged 79.
Synoptic Gospels