SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk said the company was "fixing" the brightness of his company s satellites. Stargazers around the world and including many Britons have witnessed unusual constellations made up of the low earth orbit spacecraft. SpaceX has been launching large batches of satellites as part of its Starlink project to improve global internet coverage. The most recent launch took place on Wednesday. Responding to a question about the brightness of the Starlink satellites on Twitter, Mr Musk said it was due to the angle of the satellites solar panels and the company was "fixing it now". A fix could make them less visible from Earth. SpaceX s Starlink project aims to eventually create a network of 12,000 satellites that beam broadband internet access back to Earth. Many of the satellites that are visible now were sent up in March but their current orbital position has made them easier to see over the past few days. These satellites are also particularly bright because of their size and the proximity to Earth. Large satellites are usually sent into higher orbit. Low orbit satellites are usually smaller. Starlink satellites also have wide flat panels, which reflect light. SpaceX is working on a "sunshade" that will reduce reflection of satellites sent in future launches. According to astronomers, the visibility of the satellites now is less of a problem for them than it will be as the constellation grows and becomes operational. Currently, the spacecraft are in a parked orbit, but over the next few months, the craft will use on-board engines to move slighter further from the Earth and rotate their solar panels towards the Sun. That will make them less visible to the naked eye but could mean they cause light pollution for astronomers trying to take pictures of the farther reaches of space. "Astronomers cameras are designed to take pictures of really faint thing and bright light could ruin data," explained Dr Jonathan McDowell an astronomer at the Centre for Astrophysics, a research centre at Harvard University. "I applaud the fact that [SpaceX] has really been trying to find ways to make them less bright," he said. But Dr McDowell added that there is another problem with the launch of so many new low orbit satellites - increased traffic. The growing number of low orbit craft increases the possibility of crashes between objects which could damage machines or send materials falling back to earth. SpaceX launches have continued despite Covid-19 lockdown across the United States, where SpaceX is based. Wednesday s launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida was the fourth for Starlink this year and the seventh time it has sent a large batch of the spacecraft into orbit.

Epic Games has released Fortnite on Google s Play app store after a long-running dispute with the tech giant. The title had previously only been available to Android users outside of the marketplace. It means Google will get a cut of in-game purchases. Google introduced opt-in security measures which block apps distributed via other means in March. Epic said the move pushed it to release the game on Google s platform. Experts suggest the move will benefit players. Fortnite is one of the world s most popular video games, attracting millions of players and viewers. As a "free-to-play game", its creators make money by selling dance moves, "skins" to change the look of the player s character, and access to pre-release game modes. Apple and Google both take a 30% cut of transactions made within apps distributed via their online stores - a fee that Epic chief executive Tim Sweeney had previously described as "disproportionate". In the case of Apple s mobile iOS platform, Epic had no option but to agree, as there is no other easy way to let users install software. But it had held out against Google until now. "Google puts software downloadable outside of Google Play at a disadvantage through technical and business measures such as scary, repetitive security pop-ups for downloaded and updated software, restrictive manufacturer and carrier agreements and dealings," said Epic Games. "New efforts such as Google Play Protect outright block software obtained outside the Google Play store. Because of this, we ve launched Fortnite for Android on the Google Play Store." "Epic has bitten the bullet and released Fortnite on Google Play because there remains a partially untapped audience on Android, especially in markets where smartphone adoption is still increasing," said Piers Harding-Rolls, games research director at Ampere Analysis. "Also, the user experience of downloading and updating the game will improve through Google s first-party services." He added that the game had already been downloaded over 50,000 times on the Play Store since its release on Tuesday. Epic announced last week that it had delayed the release of its third season of Fortnite until June. It has not explained why, but there has been speculation it could be caused by delays caused by the firm s staff having to work from home due to the coronavirus pandemic.

France is pressing Apple to let its forthcoming coronavirus contract-tracing app work in the background on iPhones without building in the privacy measures the US company wants. The country s digital minister confirmed the request in an interview given to Bloomberg. France s system would let it glean more information about participating smartphone owners than Apple and its partner Google want to allow. Privacy experts view it as a test case. "Apple has no reason to agree to this demand and it would open the door to many other requests from other countries and entities," Prof Olivier Blazy from the country s University of Limoges, told BBC News. "As a Frenchman, I think it would be useful to avoid being dependent on the Google-Apple solution but I think it s strange that the government strategy relies on trying to convince Apple to do something that is against its interest, with no incentive to do so." Apple and Google announced on 10 April they were working together to provide a software building-block - known as an application programming interface (API) - that will let authorised Covid-19 contact-tracing apps work more efficiently. Contact-tracing apps work by logging every time two or more users are close to each other for a substantial period of time. If one device owner is subsequently diagnosed as being likely to have the virus, an alert can be sent to those they could have infected, who might be asked to self-isolate. By using such an app in conjunction with other measures, it would in theory be possible to end wider lockdowns and still suppress the disease, so long as enough people take part. Apple and Google s method relies on using Bluetooth signals to detect matches. But they have deliberately designed it so neither they nor the apps creators can see who has been given a warning. The companies have said this is to guarantee "strong protections around user privacy", which in turn should encourage adoption. By contrast, Inria - the French institute developing its StopCovid app - has developed a system of its own, called Robert (robust and privacy-preserving proximity tracing protocol). It published details about it on Sunday on the code-sharing site Github. Why are there doubts over contact-tracing apps? NHS contact-tracing app to target 80% of smartphone users UK confirms plan for its own contact tracing app And although the French government has promised adoption of the app will be voluntary and involve anonymised data, the document reveals there would be ways to "re-identify users or to infer their contact graphs" if desired. "It s a misnomer to call it a privacy-preserving protocol," said University of Oxford computer scientist Prof Max van Kleek, who prefers the Apple-Google design. "It does preserve privacy between users but not between the user and the government. "And that leads to the risk that the government later repurposes the system to make sure that people obey a quarantine or other kinds of things the state might want to know." The problem for Inria - and other countries developing their own contact-tracing apps - is Apple currently will not allow Bluetooth-based track-and-tracing to be carried out in the background. So to work, the apps would have to remain active and on screen, limiting what else owners could do with their handsets and taking an extra toll on battery life. The developers of Singapore s TraceTogether app attempted to get round this problem by offering a Power Save mode, which dims the display. But users have still complained of being unable to make calls or use other apps at the same time and having accidentally bumped the app into the background when their handset was in their pocket. And this has discouraged people from using it. "We re asking Apple to lift the technical hurdle to allow us to develop a sovereign European health solution that will be tied to our health system," France s Digital Minister, Cedric O, told Bloomberg. A spokesman for Apple referred BBC News to its earlier comments about privacy. NHSX - which is testing an app of its own for the UK - faces a similar quandary and remains in discussions with Apple and Google about the matter. "Apple and Google have a vested interest in protecting the privacy of their end-users," Prof Van Kleek said. "That s not just from governments but also from potentially malicious adversaries. "If you collect sensitive data, then it becomes more likely that that data will be leaked at some point, so from a cyber-security perspective there s lots of good reasons not to do so." French lawmakers will vote on whether to proceed with the app, after the country s government backed down from an original plan to let MPs only debate but not decide the measure. Assuming they support the initiative, Mr O has said he hopes to launch the tool on 11 May.

There are growing tensions over the best approach to coronavirus contact-tracing apps and whether or not the technology can live up to its promise. Smartphone software is being developed to alert users when someone they were recently near becomes infected. But the Ada Lovelace Institute has said there is "an absence of evidence" such tools are practical, accurate or technically capable. Others stress the initiative must be backed up by an army of human checkers. To further complicate matters, a schism has emerged among technologists working together to develop a pan-Europe solution. And hundreds of scientists and researchers have signed a statement warning "mission creep" could eventually lead to "unprecedented surveillance of society at large". What are the concerns? Contact-tracing apps try to log every instance a person is close to another smartphone-owner for a significant period of time. If any user is later believed to have become infected and records the fact, a cascade of alerts could instantly be sent to others. Those deemed to be at high risk could be told to stay at home, while others could continue to live outside of a lockdown. They employ a variety of methods, including keeping logs of users Global Positioning System (GPS) location data and asking them to scan Quick Response (QR) codes. But earlier in the month, the American Civil Liberties Union said: "We have spoken with engineers and executives at a number of the largest US companies that hold location data on Americans movements and locations and generally they have told us that their data is not suitable for determining who was in contact with whom for purposes of Covid-19." And many nations are now focused on using another technology - wireless Bluetooth signals - to detect contact matches. This still offers a way to log close encounters but not where they occurred. since some phones detect signals from up to 30m (98ft) away without being able to determine the distance. Interference can also prevent two phones noticing each other when within 2m. As a result, the Ada Lovelace study says, many matches would be missed while others would be recorded by mistake. "Digital contact tracing will be less able to control for variables such as ventilation, direction of wind or environment, factors that are normally central to manual contact-tracing efforts," it says. "[And] digital contact tracing will be vulnerable to all forms of fraud and abuse - from people using multiple devices, false reports of infection, to denial-of-service attacks by adversarial actors." Nevertheless, researchers at the University of Oxford s Big Data Institute have previously suggested even if false and missed alerts were common, the spread of the virus would still be slowed and people would have to spend less time in quarantine. How could manual trackers help? An effective automated system should be quicker and more accurate than relying on human memory. But since the app won t be 100% reliable or used by everyone, experts say manual contact tracing still has a role to play. "If you ask me whether any Bluetooth contact-tracing system deployed or under development anywhere in the world is ready to replace manual contact tracing, I will say without qualification that the answer is no, not now and, even with the benefit of [artificial intelligence], not for the foreseeable future," blogged Jason Bay, who led development of Singapore s TraceTogether app. Manual contact tracing requires the recruitment of a multitude of people. One organisation in Germany said it had already received more than 10,000 applications. And last week, England s Health Minister, Matt Hancock, said he was committed to building up the country s ranks. "They should already be putting out a call to medical and veterinary students, people who have lost their jobs and others want to volunteer and help," Prof Devri Sridhar, from the University of Edinburgh, told BBC News. "This can be used to build a large database... to start training individuals in how to do contact tracing and link into the government s existing systems." Why are there still privacy concerns? For the most part, governments are promising to anonymise users data and restrict use of information gathered to tackling the pandemic. But in many cases, where apps have yet to launch, they have yet to explain how they would do so. "I would say the details really matter, and we have no details," said Prof Vanessa Teague, from the University of Melbourne, about Australia s forthcoming app. "One obvious risk is that a person s close physical contacts could be accidentally or deliberately extracted from their phone and used for purposes unrelated to disease control." Prof Teague is one of more than 300 researchers to have signed the statement warning of "mission creep". The group applauded an initiative by Google and Apple that would make contact tracing easier on iOS and Android handsets but severely limit what information could be gleaned from it by the authorities. But they warned some "are pressuring" the two companies "to open up their systems to enable them to capture more data".

Facebook (FB) is canceling all of its planned physical events with 50 or more people through June 2021 due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. Some of those events will be held virtually instead, wrote CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a post on his Facebook page on Thursday. Zuckerberg also said the "vast majority" of Facebook employees will work from home through at least the end of next month. The company is extending its policy of no business travel through at least June. "A small percent of our critical employees who can t work remotely, like content reviewers working on counter-terrorism or suicide and self-harm prevention, and engineers working on complex hardware, may be able to return sooner, but overall, we don t expect to have everyone back in our offices for some time," Zuckerberg said. Covid-19 has infected more than 2 million people and killed at least 137,000 worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University. Zuckerberg also said employees who feel they can t return to the office for reasons such as lack of childcare can work remotely through at least the summer. In February, Facebook canceled F8, its biggest annual event, due to concerns over the coronavirus. At F8, which is aimed at developers, the company typically shares its future vision and teases new features and products. Facebook also canceled a large advertising conference in San Francisco. Apple (AAPL) moved its annual developer conference to online only. Google (GOOGL) initially moved its developer conference to online, but later canceled it completely.

Apple has announced a new iPhone SE, reviving a mid-market brand it had discontinued in 2018. It resembles the form of 2016 s iPhone 7 with a 4.7in screen, and a fingerprint ID sensor but not a depth camera for facial recognition. It is powered by the same processor as the flagship iPhone 11 Pro, but lacks multiple rear cameras. The handset costs the same as the original SE in the US, but is more expensive in other markets. The iPhone SE is priced at $399 in the US and £419 in the UK. One analyst said that having a mid-range phone again could help Apple compete for new customers against rivals such as Samsung and Google, which have a strong presence in that market sector. "Once you buy an iPhone you are more likely to buy another one," said Dan Iver from Wedbush Securities. Single camera Despite Covid-19 causing lower demand, smartphone makers continue to release models. Earlier this week, OnePlus unveiled new models, and last month Huawei launched its flagship P40 range. In February, Apple warned that the coronavirus lockdown in China would impact iPhone production and lower sales. Physical stores, including Apple s, remain closed in many countries. Apple warns coronavirus will hurt iPhone supplies Samsung unveils S20 flagship and folding Flip phone But Mr Iver expects the phone to sell between 20 million and 25 million units in the first six to nine months. "Apple s hands are almost being forced to bring this out because from a supply chain perspective it was ready," he said. But he added that while competitors might be similarly priced, "Apple is this golden brand". The device supports wireless charging. Its rear-facing camera s resolution is 12 megapixels and can still create background blur in portrait photos, despite lacking a second lens. The selfie camera is 7MP. Mobile analyst Carolina Milanesi also said Apple s brand appeal would help it in this price range. "The second-hand market is pretty vibrant for Apple so are there users who have never have a new iPhone that will want one, and can afford it at this price," said the Creative Strategies consultant. But she also warned: "I think the phone has to have some compromises. It can t be too close to the iPhone 11 or a iPhone10R - or what is the point?" The iPhone SE goes on sale on 24 April.

Researchers say the economic costs of a deadly pathogen affecting olive trees in Europe could run to over €20 billion. They ve modelled the future worst impacts of the Xylella fastidiosa pathogen which has killed swathes of trees in Italy. Spread by insects, the bacterium now poses a potential threat to olive plantations in Spain and Greece. The disease could increase the costs of olive oil for consumers. Olive tree killer still threatens EU Revealed: The secret life of the spittlebug Olive killer disease reaches Spain Xylella is considered to be one of the most dangerous pathogens for plants anywhere in the world. At present there is no cure for the infection. It can infect cherry, almond and plum trees as well as olives. It has become closely associated with olives after a strain was discovered in trees in Puglia in Italy in 2013. The organism is transmitted by sap-sucking insects such as spittlebugs. The infection limits the tree s ability to move water and nutrients and over time it withers and dies. In Italy, the consequences of the spread of the disease have been devastating, with an estimated 60% decline in crop yields since the first discovery in 2013. "The damage to the olives also causes a depreciation of the value of the land, and to the touristic attractiveness of this region," said Dr Maria Saponari, from the CNR Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection in Italy. "It s had a severe impact on the local economy and jobs connected with agriculture." As well as in Italy, the Xylella bacterium has now been found in Spain, France and Portugal. Tackling it at present involves removing infected trees and trying to clamp down on the movement of plant material and the insects that spread the disease. But if these measures fail, what will be the financial impact of the infection? In this new study, researchers modelled different scenarios including what would happen if all growing ceased due to tree death. They also compared this worst case with a scenario where replanting with resistant varieties occurred. The team made projections for Italy, Spain and Greece, which between them account for 95% of European olive oil production. In Spain, if the infection expanded and the majority of trees became infected and died, the costs could run to €17 billion over the next 50 years. A similar scenario in Italy would amount to over five billion, while in Greece, the losses would be under two billion. If the rate of infection is slowed down, or resistant varieties are planted instead, then these costs would be significantly reduced. However, the authors believe, whatever happens, there will likely be a knock-on impact on consumers. "The expected effect could be that there would be a shortage of supply," said lead author Kevin Schneider from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. "And I would expect that if prices go up, consumers will be worse off." The authors say that while their analysis looks at economics, there are also potentially large touristic and cultural losses caused by the bacterium that can t be ignored. "You really hear devastating stories of infected orchards that were inherited over generations," said Dr Schneider. "It s the same orchard that their grandparents were once working on. So how do you put an economic number on the loss of something like this. The cultural heritage value would be far larger than we could compute." There are a growing number of scientific initiatives to try and take the fight to the bacterium, including using insect repelling clays, vegetative barriers and genetic analysis to determine why some plants are more susceptible to the infection than others. Ultimately, the researchers believe that beating the pathogen will require trees that are resistant to the disease. "Seeking resistant cultivars or immune species is one of the most promising, and environmentally sustainable, long-term control strategies to which the European scientific community is devoting relevant research efforts," said Dr Saponari, "Sustainable strategies to reduce the population of the insects is the other pillar for the control of the vector-borne disease, in this regard, mechanical intervention to remove weeds in spring is one of the most efficacious applications to reduce the populations of the insect, indeed several other strategies are also being studied to implement the control of the insects," she added. While two varieties of olive tree have been found to have some resistance, the authors are calling for research in this area to be significantly boosted. The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Fifty years ago, the craft suffered an explosion that jeopardised the lives of the three astronauts aboard. Unsurprisingly, given they were locked in a fight for survival, relatively few onboard images were taken. But imaging specialist Andy Saunders created sharp stills from low-quality 16mm film shot by the crew. One of the techniques used by Mr Saunders is known as "stacking", in which many frames are assembled on top of each other to improve the image s detail. Crewed by Nasa astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise, Apollo 13 was supposed to be the third American mission to land on the lunar surface. During the journey to the Moon, an explosion in the service module allowed some of the spacecraft s oxygen to leak out into space. Astronaut Jack Swigert reported the accident to ground controllers with the immortal, and much misquoted, phrase: "Okay, Houston, we ve had a problem here." The part of the Apollo spacecraft designed to return the astronauts through Earth s atmosphere after the mission - the command module (CM) - had to be shut down to conserve its remaining resources for re-entry. The crew had to use the lunar module (LM) - also known as the lander - as a lifeboat. The lander s life support systems were designed for two astronauts living for two days on the lunar surface. Experts at Nasa s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, had to figure out a way to stretch its resources so that it could support three crew members for four days. Lovell, Swigert and Haise looped around the Moon and back to Earth in a cold, damp module with limited drinking water. Luckily, the improvised plan to get them back was a success, and the three astronauts splashed down safely into the Pacific Ocean. Despite their grave predicament, the crew used a 16mm film camera to record scenes of life aboard the spacecraft. But the footage is of low quality by today s standards. It is this footage that Mr Saunders used as the basis of his enhanced images, which reveal new insights into the crew s fight for survival aboard the damaged spacecraft. A composite panorama of the lunar module "lifeboat" shows Commander Jim Lovell s attempts at normality by selecting some music on a tape player, while command module pilot Jack Swigert takes a nap in the storage area. Another, dubbed "Happy crew" by Mr Saunders, captures Lovell and Swigert in apparent high spirits. "One striking thing about the 16mm footage is how calm the crew appear, given the grave nature of the situation, the conditions, and the critical mission tasks that lay ahead," Mr Saunders told BBC News. "This perhaps belies their true feelings as we know that, in reality, the crew doubted if they would make it home alive." The crew members are eating in the scene. The freeze-dried food relied on mixing it with hot water, but only cold water was available. Lovell later admitted he had eaten little in the days following the accident, losing 6kg (14lb) in weight. A panorama of the dark, powered-down command module was produced from footage shot by Fred Haise when he went to check it out before the rest of the crew moved back in for the risky return through the Earth s atmosphere. In an interview for a new Nasa documentary called Apollo 13: Home Safe, Haise recalls how damp it was in the CM. The astronauts had to wipe down the panels with towels because of a concern that the water could cause an electrical short that could lead to a fire. This would have been catastrophic in the spacecraft s enclosed environment. Two concepts are important for understanding the technique used to process the images: signal - the parts of the image that are desirable to keep - and noise - the unwanted parts of the image. Mr Saunders started by stacking different frames of the same scene on top of one another. "It all hinges on the principle that stacking images improves the signal-to-noise ratio," Mr Saunders explained. He added: "As the noise in each frame is truly random, then stacking multiple frames of the same scene on top of each other and averaging out the levels of each aligned pixel has the effect of identifying and reducing noise whilst maintaining signal (the signal will be present on all frames)." This ultimately boosts the detail, along with overall image quality, making it more "photo-like". But because he was dealing with moving pictures, Mr Saunders had to re-align multiple parts of the image, combining all the results into one final picture. These combined images are made up of more than 20 sections stitched together, with each section consisting of a stack of up to 75 separate processed frames, revealing the crew and spacecraft in unprecedented detail. Using commercial software, he then enhanced the photos; adjusting the contrast, correcting the colour and removing some of the "fish-eye" effect resulting from the wide angle lens that was needed to capture events in such a confined space.

World-renowned British primatologist Jane Goodall says the coronavirus pandemic was caused by humanity s disregard for nature and disrespect for animals. Goodall, who is best known for trail-blazing research in Africa that revealed the true nature of chimpanzees, pleaded for the world to learn from past mistakes to prevent future disasters. During a conference call ahead of the release of the new National Geographic documentary “Jane Goodall: The Hope”, the 86-year-old also said everyone can make a difference. – How do you view this pandemic? – Goodall: It is our disregard for nature and our disrespect of the animals we should share the planet with that has caused this pandemic, that was predicted long ago. Because as we destroy, let s say the forest, the different species of animals in the forest are forced into a proximity and therefore diseases are being passed from one animal to another, and that second animal is then most likely to infect humans as it is forced into closer contact with humans. It s also the animals who are hunted for food, sold in markets in Africa or in the meat market for wild animals in Asia, especially China, and our intensive farms where we cruelly crowd together billions of animals around the world. These are the conditions that create an opportunity for the viruses to jump from animals across the species barrier to humans. – What can we do about these animal markets? – It s really good that China closed down the live wild animal markets, in a temporary ban which we hope will be made permanent, and other Asian countries will follow suit. But in Africa it will be very difficult to stop the selling of bush meat because so many people rely on that for their livelihoods. It will need a lot of careful thought on how it should be done, you can t just stop somebody doing something when they have absolutely no money to support themselves or their families, but at least this pandemic should have taught us the kind of things to do to prevent another one. – What can we hope for? – We have to realize we are part of the natural world, we depend on it, and as we destroy it we are actually stealing the future from our children. Hopefully, because of this unprecedented response, the lockdowns that are going on around the world, more people will wake up and eventually they can start thinking about ways they can live their lives differently. Everyone can make an impact every single day. If you think about the consequences of the little choices you make: what you eat, where it came from, did it cause cruelty to animals, is it made from intensive farming — which mostly it is — is it cheap because of child slave labour, did it harm the environment in its production, where did it come from, how many miles did it travel, did you think that perhaps you could walk and not take your car. (Also consider) ways that you could perhaps help alleviate poverty because when people are poor they can t make these ethical choices. They just have to do whatever they can to survive — they can t question what they buy, they must buy the cheapest, and they are going to cut down the last tree because they are desperate to find land on which they can grow more food. So what we can do in our individual lives does depend a little bit on who we are, but we all can make a difference, everybody can.

The joint European-Japanese mission to Mercury reaches a key milestone on Friday when it swings past the Earth. The two-in-one BepiColombo space probe is using the gravity of its home world to bend a path towards the inner Solar System. It will also bleed off some speed. The mission needs to make sure it isn t travelling too fast when it arrives at Mercury in 2025 or it won t be able to go into orbit around the diminutive world. "It would be so nice if we could take an express transfer and then we d be there in a few months, but that doesn t work for this mission," Elsa Montagnon, the flight controller in charge of BepiColombo at the European Space Agency (Esa), told BBC News. As well as this coming flyby of Earth, Bepi will perform two similar manoeuvres at Venus and six at Mercury itself before slotting into position at the "iron planet". The only alternative would have been to give the spacecraft a colossal volume of fuel to use in a braking engine. An impractical solution. Bepi will fly to within 13,000km (8,000 miles) of the Earth s surface. Closest approach is expected at about 05:25 BST (06:25 CEST). It should be visible in darkened skies in the Southern Hemisphere, although not to the naked eye. A small telescope or binoculars will be needed. Anyone who captures a picture is asked to upload the image to this Flickr group, or to post it on Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #BepiColomboEarthFlyby. Esa and its Japanese counterpart, Jaxa, have billed this pass as a "hello - and goodbye" moment. "The flyby has an emotional effect," said Johannes Benkhoff, the BepiColombo project scientist at Esa. "It s the last time that we can see the spacecraft from Earth, so we are inviting amateur and professional astronomers to observe it before it goes." The €3bn (£2.6bn) BepiColombo mission was launched in October 2018. It comprises two scientific satellites - the European Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Japanese Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) - that have been joined to a propulsion module for the long cruise. Not only must the velocity of the spacecraft stack be controlled, but so too must its inclination with respect to the plane of the planets. Mercury s orbit is offset by 6 degrees from that of Earth s. Already since the 2018 launch, the mission has completed one and a half loops around the Sun on its grand odyssey, travelling a distance of roughly 1.4 billion km. By they time it s emplaced at Mercury and ready to begin science observations, Bepi will have completed 18 loops and covered more than 8.5 billion km. Mission scientists plan to switch on a number of the duo s instruments for the Earth pass, to test and calibrate them. Unfortunately, the main camera on Europe s MPO can t operate because of its position in the stack. But engineers did fix small inspection cameras to the side of Bepi and these will be taking some black & white pictures of the Earth and Moon. The next flyby will be of Venus in October. For most of the long journey, controllers on Earth will limit communication with the spacecraft to about one contact a week. "Of course, even when we re in quiet cruise, there are some maintenance operations to be done with the satellite. So, typically, every six months we are doing a thorough check out of the subsystems and the instruments where we activate units that are normally not active just to make sure they are still functioning okay," explained Elsa Montagnon. What science will BepiColombo do at Mercury? The European and Japanese elements of the mission will separate when they get to Mercury and perform different roles. Europe s MPO is designed to map Mercury s terrain, generate height profiles, collect data on the planet s surface structure and composition, as well as sensing its interior. Japan s MMO will make as its priority the study of Mercury s magnetic field. It will investigate the field s behaviour and its interaction with the "solar wind", the billowing mass of particles that stream away from the Sun. This wind interacts with Mercury s super-tenuous atmosphere, whipping atoms into a tail that reaches far into space. It s hoped the satellites parallel observations can finally resolve the many puzzles about the hot little world. One of the key ones concerns the object s oversized iron core, which represents 60% of Mercury s mass. Science cannot yet explain why the planet only has a thin veneer of rocks.

As the spread of the coronavirus is proving difficult to contain, so too is the misinformation surrounding it. One of the most recent, baseless conspiracy theories surrounding the virus is that 5G networks -- the next generation of wireless technology that s steadily being rolled out around the world -- are fueling the global coronavirus pandemic. They are not. Unfounded claims about a supposed link between 5G and Covid-19 began circulating on the fringes of the internet, where New Agers and QAnon followers perpetuated the hoax that global elites were using 5G to spread the virus. Unsophisticated algorithms amplified those voices and ushered unsubstantiated theories into the mainstream. Officials in the United Kingdom have expressed concerns that recent attacks on cell phone towers were motivated by false conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, actor Woody Harrelson and singer M.I.A. are among celebrities and influencers spreading such claims to their millions of followers. There s no evidence to support the theory that 5G networks cause Covid-19 or contribute to its spread. But still, it refuses to die. Here s what to know about 5G networks, how these false theories came about and why they don t hold up. How 5G works There are several theories linking 5G and Covid-19. One simply suggests that 5G networks cause Covid-19, or symptoms of the infection. Another more insidious one is that 5G networks emit radiation that weakens the immune system, making people more susceptible to infection. To break it down, it helps to understand what exactly 5G is. 5G is a next-generation wireless network that is expected to enable a wave of technologies that will change the way that people live and work -- the potential applications include self-driving cars, remote surgeries and automated factories, though it will be a while before we see those kinds of changes. The big differences between 4G and 5G are faster speeds, higher bandwidth and lower lag time in communications between devices and servers. 5G signals run over new radio frequencies, which requires updating radios and other equipment on cell towers. Carriers building superfast 5G networks have to install tons of small cell sites to light poles, walls or towers, often in close proximity to each other. So far, the networks have mostly been deployed city by city. Why people are linking 5G and Covid-19 5G networks began rolling out in cities and countries in 2018, but were more widely adopted in 2019 -- the same year that Wuhan, China, saw the world s first coronavirus outbreak. Conspiracy theorists were quick to link the two, ignoring the ever-relevant adage: Correlation does not imply causation. People on the internet shared two maps of the United States suggesting areas that had been hit hardest by Covid-19 were also places where 5G networks had been installed. Another thing those areas have in common? They re metropolitan areas: large population centers that are more vulnerable to the spread of the coronavirus and are more likely to adopt 5G networks earlier. There are other reasons those suggestions don t hold up. Although Iran has not rolled out 5G, it s one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic. Upgrades to wireless infrastructure have been falsely linked to diseases before, and the same has happened this time around with the coronavirus. Many of the 5G/Covid-19 conspiracy theories are linked to groups that have long claimed that wireless airwaves cause cancer, though there is no credible evidence to support this. Research shows that radiofrequency (RF) waves given off by cell phones do not have enough energy to damage DNA directly or heat body tissues -- their energy levels are lower even than technologies such as microwave ovens and televisions. What s more, 5G signals are actually worse at penetrating objects than 4G signals, which is why 5G networks require many more, smaller cell sites built close together. What s being done to limit the spread Social media and internet platforms have started taking steps to limit the spread of coronavirus misinformation, though some have been slow to act. YouTube videos that drew connections between 5G networks and the coronavirus have racked up hundreds of thousands of views. But the company initially said such videos were not in direct violation of its policies before moving to ban them Tuesday. Twitter said it was increasing its use of machine learning and automation to help take down false information. A quick search for "5G coronavirus" Wednesday mostly showed tweets from people casting doubt on conspiracy theories and links from news organizations in the "Top" results, despite turning up several false theories days earlier. "We will continue to take action on accounts that violate our rules, including content in relation to unverifiable claims which incite social unrest, widespread panic or large-scale disorder," a spokesperson for the company said. "If people see anything suspicious on our service, please report it to us." Similarly, a Facebook search for "5G coronavirus" yielded mostly reliable information from news organizations, hospitals and health organizations, though false theories can still be found through the platform. A spokesperson for Facebook said the company is taking "aggressive" measures to combat misinformation surrounding the virus, and is "starting to remove false claims which link Covid-19 to 5G technology" and which encourage attacks on cellular towers.

Disney has postponed the cinematic release of over 12 movies as a result of the coronavirus pandemic forcing cinema and movie theater closures all around the world. Among the postponed films are the latest additions in the Marvel Cinematic Universe such as “Black Widow” (2020) starring Scarlett Johansson, “The Eternals” (2020) starring Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek and sequels to “Thor” and “Dr Strange”. “Black Widow” was pushed to November, while an unnamed Marvel film set to be released in the summer of 2022 was dropped from the schedule entirely. Officials of the National Theater Owners Association said in an online seminar that theaters should reopen by late May or June, with social distancing policies in place. Disney s 2020 live-action remake of its animated fantasy “Mulan” (1998) will be released in July. Disney has also moved to release its newest film “Artemis Fowl” (2020) on its Disney Plus digital streaming service, completely bypassing a cinema release. No dates been set for its theatrical debut.

Joe Tsai, the billionaire co-founder of Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba, and his wife Clara Wu Tsai, have donated 2.6 million masks, 170,000 goggles and 2000 ventilators to New York — the US epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. The supplies were split into two shipments. The first arrived on Thursday at Newark Liberty International Airport, while the second arrived on Saturday at John F. Kennedy International Airport. "We kept hearing cries for (personal protective equipment) from our community and wanted to help," Clara Tsai told CNN in an interview. The state will allocate the second shipment but "it s our intention to help the most underserved institutions." She cited Jacobi Medical Center and Lincoln Medical Center in the Bronx, and Elmhurst Hospital in Queens as the institutions she and her husband thought might need the supplies the most. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo referenced the donations during a daily coronavirus briefing. "I want to thank Joe Tsai, and Clara Tsai, and Jack Ma from Alibaba," said Cuomo, during a Saturday briefing. "This is a big deal and it s going to make a significant difference for us." Hospitals in New York and across the country have been scrambling to find enough ventilators, masks and other protective gear needed for healthcare workers to battle the virus, which has killed about 60,000 people worldwide. The Tsais have considerable ties to the New York community. Joe Tsai, a Canadian Taiwanese businessman and philanthropist, owns the Brooklyn Nets basketball team and Brooklyn s Barclays Center arena. His co-founder, Jack Ma, made a separate donation of masks and testing kits in March. Clara Tsai runs a charitable organization, the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, which oversees causes including economic mobility in Brooklyn. The Tsais worked with the Greater New York Hospital Association to distribute the items in their first shipment. It contained 300,000 surgical masks that went toward 11 New York City-area nursing homes, 70,000 medical goggles donated to 11 New York City-area nursing homes and Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, and 1000 ventilators that were donated to the Mount Sinai hospital system. The Tsais are letting the state handle the allocation of the second shipment after hearing Governor Cuomo announce that the state would be centralizing resource allocation. The shipment on Saturday contains 1 million surgical masks and 1.3 million KN95 masks, 100,000 medical goggles and 1000 ventilators. KN95 is a mask produced in China that is similar in name as the N95, which is considered the gold standard of respirator masks as it filters out at least 95% of very small particles from the air. The US Food and Drug Administration cleared KN95 masks for use on Friday as long as certain criteria is met, including evidence demonstrating that the mask is authentic.

What does British Prime Minister Boris Johnson have in common with virtual happy hour celebrants and thousands of students around the world? All use the Zoom videoconferencing application to get together while staying apart during the deadly coronavirus pandemic. But amid its newfound fame, the Silicon Valley-based company has come under stepped-up scrutiny over how it handles privacy and security — including allowing uninvited guests to barge in on sessions. Created by engineer Eric Yuan in 2011 and listed on the Nasdaq a year ago, Zoom has seen its market value skyrocket to some $35 billion. Yuan has spoken of a passion for communication technologies that dates back to the 1990s when, as a university student in mainland China, he longed for a way to see his girlfriend without needing to travel hours by train. Zoom hit the market as a tool for people working apart to collaborate on business, competing with offerings from the likes of Microsoft, Facebook, Google and others. – Poker and funerals – As people around the world stay home due to coronavirus risk, Zoom has become a go-to service for remote education, exercise classes, poker games, church services and happy hour celebrations. Couples have gotten married in “zoomed” ceremonies. Birthdays have been celebrated. Funerals have been virtually attended. “It s really easy to use, and free; that s nice,” said US school teacher Justin Minkel, who instructs students remotely using Zoom. “Just click a link.” Home chaos such as dogs barking or outbursts from siblings can be disruptive, but Minkel cures that by “muting” students microphones until he needs to hear them. According to Yuan, the number of people taking part in Zoom meetings daily eclipsed 200 million in March, up from just 10 million at the end of last year. Video calls have surged on all messaging platforms including WhatsApp, Messenger, and Google Hangouts, but Zoom has become a star. It lets as many as 100 people simultaneously attend a video-conference, allowing 40 minutes free and then charging for premium accounts that provide more time and features for $15 monthly. Zoom lifted the 40-minute limit on free accounts for teachers in an array of countries. Among Zoom settings is an option to chose a backdrop image, such as the Golden Gate Bridge or tropical beach, hiding what is really behind a user. – Zoombombing – Digital learning coach Stephanie DeMichele credits the surge in Zoom use to fear of being disconnected from schools, friends, families and others in our lives. “And here comes Zoom saying It s free, available, and you won t feel isolated, ” said DeMichele. “So people grabbed onto it.” A “Zoombombing” phenomenon has sparked warnings about lax security, however. Virtual intruders have interrupted religious ceremonies, remote classes, and other Zoom gatherings. In some cases, pornographic images have been displayed. US media has reported that Zoom shares some data with third parties and questioned how well virtual meeting data is defended. Prosecutors from several US states including Connecticut, New York, and Florida are investigating the company s privacy and security practices. The FBI has warned of Zoom sessions being hijacked. Yuan vowed this week to step up data security, and apologized. “We recognize that we have fallen short of the community s — and our own — privacy and security expectations,” Yuan said in a message posted online. “For that, I am deeply sorry.” Zoom was designed primarily for use by large businesses with their own tech teams to provide support and protection, according to Yuan. “We did not design the product with the foresight that, in a matter of weeks, every person in the world would suddenly be working, studying, and socializing from home,” Yuan said. “These new, mostly consumer use cases have helped us uncover unforeseen issues with our platform.” While encouraged that Zoom is admitting it has security problems, it still has “a ton of work” to do to fix them and restore trust in the platform, according to Electronic Frontier Foundation associate director of research Gennie Gebhart. While tending to its immediate concerns, Zoom would be wise to keep on eye on the future, said Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi. “Replicating what Zoom has is not too difficult,” Milanesi said. “They need to think about what else they want to be.”

China has approved the use of bear bile to treat coronavirus patients, angering activists and raising fears it could undermine efforts to stop the illegal animal trade which is blamed for the emergence of the new disease sweeping the globe. The move comes just weeks after China banned the sale of wild animals for food, citing the risk of diseases spreading from animals to humans. But the National Health Commission in March issued guidelines recommending the use of “Tan Re Qing” –- an injection that contains bear bile powder, goat horn and three other medicinal herbs –- to treat critically ill coronavirus patients. It is one of six traditional Chinese medicine products included in the directive. President Xi Jinping has been keen to promote traditional medicine, calling it a “treasure of Chinese civilization” and saying it should be given as much weight as other treatments. The active ingredient in bear bile, ursodeoxycholic acid, is used to dissolve gallstones and treat liver disease but has no proven effectiveness in treating COVID-19. China has used both traditional and Western medicine in its battle against the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 3,000 and infected more than 82,000. But activists say greenlighting a treatment that uses an animal product is “both tragic and ironic” given that the origin of the deadly coronavirus is linked to the trade and consumption of wild animals. “We shouldn t be relying on wildlife products like bear bile as the solution to combat a deadly virus that appears to have originated from wildlife,” Brian Daly, a spokesman for the Animals Asia Foundation, told AFP. The novel coronavirus is believed to have come from bats, but researchers think it might have spread to humans via an intermediate host mammal species. – Cruel trade – Chinese disease control officials have previously identified wild animals sold in a market in Wuhan market as the source of the coronavirus pandemic. Conservationists have long accused China of tolerating a cruel trade in wild animals as exotic menu items or for use in traditional medicines whose efficacy is not confirmed by science. Scientists say Severe Acute Respiratory System (SARS) — another deadly coronavirus — likely originated in bats, later reaching humans via civet cats. “Promotion of bear bile has the propensity to increase the amount used, affecting not only captive bears, but also those in the wild, potentially compromising an already endangered species in Asia and across the world,” Daly said. There are about 20,000 bears being held in tiny cages under cruel conditions across China to cater to the demand from traditional medicine suppliers, said Kirsty Warren, a spokeswoman for World Animal Protection. “We estimate the entire market value of bear bile pharmaceuticals to be more than $1 billion,” Warren added. Bile farming is legal in China — but exports of the product or treatments made from it are banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which China is a signatory to. “Across Asia, bear bile trade is widespread, although it is illegal in most countries,” said Richard Thomas from animal rights NGO Traffic. “But the active ingredient in bear bile — ursodeoxycholic acid — is readily synthesised in laboratories, so even if it did prove to be popular, there should be no need for bear bile to be included (in medicines).” China in February declared an immediate and “comprehensive” ban on the trade and consumption of wild animals that was welcomed by environmentalists. Beijing implemented similar measures following the SARS outbreak in the early 2000s, but the trade and consumption of wild animals, including bats and snakes, made a comeback. But in signs that the measures are being taken more seriously this time, the southern city of Shenzhen also passed a law this week banning the consumption of wild animals — including cat and dog meat. The move was welcomed by animal rights activists, with Humane Society International saying the trade kills an estimated 10 million dogs and four million cats in China every year.

Haitham al-Badwihy, an engineer working in electronic gates, has invented a self-sterilizing gate that activates as soon as someone passes beneath. He discussed his project with host Ramy Radwan on the DMC channel, stating that it was designed in cooperation with Mansoura University to sterilize everyone entering the Olympic Village. The first gate was made with wood, and underwent multiple developments. Badwihy explained that it works through sterilizing everyone that passes through it through sensors and disinfectant pumps. The disinfects do not include chlorine, so clothing, skin and breathing are not harmed, he added. He added that some government agencies have even contacted him to praise the project. The investor dedicated the gate to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, stressing that he would donate any financial returns to the Tahya Misr (Long Live Egypt) Fund.

Some 1,400 3D-printer owners have pledged to use their machines to help make face shields for the NHS. Started by palliative-medicine doctor James Coxon, the 3DCrowd UK group is now looking to recruit more volunteers. It says thousands of its 3D-printed masks have already been made and donated to hospitals, GPs, pharmacies, paramedics and social-care practices. Healthcare workers say they are having to put themselves at risk because of a lack of personal protective equipment. “We are basically asking all the people around the country with 3D printers to join our project to create face shields for hospitals and other health workers,” said Gen Ashley from 3DCrowd UK. “We also need volunteers to help distribute the masks and donations from companies and the public to pay for materials and distribution costs.” Once volunteers have registered on the 3DCrowd UK website, they are sent instructions on how to produce headbands for the masks. These are then bagged up and sent to a hub to be assembled. A clear plastic film is also added at this stage. 3DCrowd UK has launched a GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign to raise £40,000 to help cover the cost of the materials and postage. Donations currently stand at £20,000. Healthcare workers can order the face shields via the 3DCrowd UK website. Some 365 orders have been placed so far, for 110,000 masks. The face shields have not been formally approved by the UK government or the NHS, which have yet to respond to a BBC News request for comment. But Ms Ashley told BBC News 3DCrowd UK they had been approved in the Czech Republic.

What if every window in your house could generate electricity? One Redwood City, California-based startup thinks its technology can achieve that by transforming the way solar power is collected and harnessed. Ubiquitous Energy has developed transparent solar cells to create its ClearView Power windows, a kind of "solar glass" that can turn sunlight into energy without needing the bluish-grey opaque panels those cells are generally associated with. The company, spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2012, hopes to use that tech to turn practically any everyday glass surface into a solar cell. "It can be applied to windows of skyscrapers; it can be applied to glass in automobiles; it can be applied to the glass on your iPhone," Miles Barr, Ubiquitous Energy s founder and chief technology officer, told CNN Business. The company is looking to capitalize on the United States renewable energy boom, with solar and wind energy projected to surpass coal by 2021, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. While several companies are working on similar products, the technology is still in the relatively early stages. It s one of several emerging products that harness solar energy, with others including irrigation pumps and a "solar oven" that can be used to make cement and steel. Ubiquitous Energy s home state of California is one of the first to require that every new home incorporate some form of solar technology. "This is great for ClearView Power because homeowners can install windows just like they would anyways, but they actually produce power to meet this requirement," Barr said. The core of the product is an organic dye that can be used to coat glass surfaces. The dye allows visible sunlight to pass through -- just like normal windows do -- but captures the invisible infrared rays from that sunlight. "Light absorbing dyes are found all around us. They re in paints, they re in pigments for clothing, and they re even in electronic devices," Barr said. "What we ve done is we ve engineered those dyes to selectively absorb infrared light and also convert that light into electricity." That does mean some of the energy is lost. "Their basic drawback is their relatively low efficiency," said Anne Grete Hestnes, a professor of architecture at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology who specializes in solar energy. "However, it is all a question of price. If the transparent cells are cheaper, and if the cells are to cover a relatively large area ... it may be the better solution," she added. Barr said Ubiquitous Energy s transparent panels can produce up to two-thirds of the energy that traditional panels do. And he said they cost about 20% more to install than a regular window, a cost he claims is offset by the electricity they generate. The company wants its solar windows to complement traditional rooftop panels rather than replace them. The combination of both methods, according to Barr, could bring the net energy consumption of large buildings to zero — meaning they produce as much electricity as they consume. Ubiquitous Energy has started installing its solar windows on buildings, including at its headquarters in Redwood City where it manufactures the glass panels. "We are already installing and selling ClearView Power windows in limited sizes, and we re in the planning phase for a facility that we ll be able to produce windows at any size," Barr said. However, the coronavirus outbreak has forced much of the company s production planning to be done remotely. But Barr said it is still making "significant progress." "It s still a bit early to tell what the full effects of the global pandemic will be, including for our business," said Barr, adding that he is "still optimistic we ll be able to begin manufacturing activities in the next two years." By that point, he anticipates Ubiquitous Energy will be closer to justifying its name: "We really see the future of this technology as being applied everywhere, all around us, ubiquitous."

The biggest reputational risk Facebook and other social media companies had expected in 2020 was fake news surrounding the US presidential election. Be it foreign or domestic in origin, the misinformation threat seemed familiar, perhaps even manageable. The novel coronavirus, however, has opened up an entirely different problem: the life-endangering consequences of supposed cures, misleading claims, snake-oil sales pitches and conspiracy theories about the outbreak. So far, AFP has debunked almost 200 rumors and myths about the virus, but experts say stronger action from tech companies is needed to stop misinformation and the scale at which it can be spread online. “There’s still a disconnect between what people think is true and what people are willing to share,” Professor David Rand, a specialist in brain and cognitive sciences at the MIT Sloan School of Management, told AFP, explaining how a user’s bias toward content he or she thinks will be liked or shared typically dominates decision-making when online. Part of the reason is that social media algorithms are geared to appeal to someone’s habits and interests: the emphasis is on likability, not accuracy. Changing that would require Facebook, Twitter and other such companies to alter what people see on screen. Prompts urging users to consider the accuracy of content they are spreading on social networks are needed, said Rand, co-author of a study on COVID-19 misinformation that was published earlier this month. – Deadly consequences – Using controlled tests with more than 1,600 participants, the study found that false claims were shared in part simply because people failed to think about whether the content was reliable. In a second test, when people were reminded to consider the accuracy of what they are going to share, their level of truth awareness more than doubled. That approach — known as “accuracy nudge intervention” — from social media companies could limit the spread of misinformation, the report concluded. “These are the kind of things that make the concept of accuracy top of the minds of people,” said Rand, noting that news feeds are instead filled by users’ own content and commercial advertisements. “There probably is a concern from social networking companies about accuracy warnings degrading the user experience, because you’re exposing users to content that they didn’t want to see. But I hope by talking about this more we’ll get them to take this seriously and try it.” What is undoubted is that misinformation about the novel coronavirus has been deadly. Although US, French and other scientists are working to expedite effective treatments, false reports have appeared in numerous countries. In Iran, a fake remedy of ingesting methanol has reportedly led to 300 deaths, and left many more sick. Dr. Jason McKnight, assistant clinical professor in the Department of Primary Care and Population Health at Texas A&M University, said the sharing of false information has an impact beyond the immediate risk of the virus itself. “I have seen posts related to ‘treatments’ that are not proven, techniques to prevent exposure and infection that are either not proven and/or filled with a lot of misleading information, and instruction for individuals to stock up on supplies and food,” he said. McKnight highlighted two types of danger posed by inaccurate information on the virus: that it “could incite fear or panic,” and “the potential for individuals to do harmful things in hope of ‘curing the illness’ or ‘preventing’ the illness.” – ‘Immediate positive impact’ – Facebook took a hammering over Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election. Having been accused on Capitol Hill of ignoring the allegations, Facebook conceded the following year that up to 10 million Americans had seen advertisements purchased by a shadowy Russian agency. As evidence mounted about how Russia had used Facebook to sow division, company CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized. Facebook has placed authoritative coronavirus information at the top of news feeds and intensified its efforts to remove harmful content, including through the use of third-party fact checkers. Zuckerberg also said earlier this month that a public health crisis is an easier arena than politics to set policies and to take a harder line on questionable content. AFP and other media companies, including Reuters and the Associated Press, work with Facebook’s fact checking program, under which content rated false is downgraded in news feeds so that fewer people see it. If someone tries to share such a post, he or she is presented with an article explaining why the information is not accurate. However, a Facebook spokeswoman declined to comment on the potential for adding accuracy prompts to its platform. A Twitter spokesman, in a statement to AFP, also did not address whether the company might consider using prompts. “Our goal has been to make certain everyone on our service has access to credible, authoritative health information,” he said. “We’ve shifted our focus and priorities, working extensively with organizations like the WHO, ministries of health in a number of countries, and a breadth of public health officials.” The COVID-19 misinformation study mirrored past tests for political fake news, notably in that reminders about accuracy would be a simple way to improve choices about what people share. “Accuracy nudges are straightforward for social media platforms to implement on top of the other approaches they are currently employing, and could have an immediate positive impact on stemming the tide of misinformation about the COVID-19 outbreak,” the authors concluded. Image: AFP/File / Oli SCARFF False information about the novel coronavirus poses a major, life-endangering problem for social media users

Smuggled pangolins have been found to carry viruses closely related to the one sweeping the world. Scientists say the sale of the animals in wildlife markets should be strictly prohibited to minimise the risk of future outbreaks. Pangolins are the most-commonly illegally trafficked mammal, used both as food and in traditional medicine. In research published in the journal Nature, researchers say handling these animals requires "caution". And they say further surveillance of wild pangolins is needed to understand their role in the risk of future transmission to humans. Lead researcher Dr Tommy Lam of The University of Hong Kong said two groups of coronaviruses related to the virus behind the human pandemic have been identified in Malayan pangolins smuggled into China. "Although their role as the intermediate host of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak remains to be confirmed, sale of these wild animals in wet markets should be strictly prohibited to avoid future zoonotic [animal to human] transmission," he told BBC News. Exactly how the virus jumped from a wild animal, presumably a bat, to another animal and then humans remains a mystery. The horseshoe bat and the pangolin have both been implicated, but the precise sequence of events is unknown. Finding the virus in smuggled Malayan pangolins raised the question of where they contracted the virus, said Dr Lam. Was it from bats along the trafficking route to China or in their native habitats in Southeast Asia? Calls to end illegal wildlife trade Conservationists say it would be devastating if the discovery led to further persecution of the endangered mammal. The animal s scales are in high demand for use in traditional Chinese medicine, while pangolin meat is considered a delicacy. "This is the time for the international community to pressure their governments to end illegal wildlife trade," said Elisa Panjang of Cardiff University, a pangolin conservation officer at the Danau Girang Field Centre in Malaysia. China has moved to ban the consumption of meat from wild animals in the wake of the outbreak. Similar moves are being considered in Vietnam. Prof Andrew Cunningham of Zoological Society of London (ZSL) said it was important not to jump to conclusions from the paper. "The source of the detected coronavirus really is unknown - it might have been a natural pangolin virus or have jumped from another species between capture and death." And Dr Dan Challender, of the University of Oxford, said pangolins are known to host various strains of coronaviruses. "Identifying the source of SARS-CoV-2 is important to understand the emergence of the current pandemic, and in preventing similar events in the future," he said.

"I don t normally work from my garage," Adam Mosseri said when asked what it s like to run one of the biggest social media platforms in the world from his San Francisco home. For years, Instagram has been synonymous with travel and experiences. Its users fill their feeds with carefully filtered and cropped photos of exotic locations and colorful venues. But now, from his plywood-lined garage, Mosseri, Instagram s CEO, is telling his users to do what he s doing: stay at home. Over the past week the company launched a dedicated "Stay at Home" tab featured prominently in the Stories section at the top of its feed. As the name suggests, the feature offers a way for users to share updates on their stay-at-home life at a time as people in vast parts of America and across the world have essentially been not to go outside except for essentials to limit the spread of the coronavirus. And it might actually help raise awareness of the need to stay in. Mosseri revealed Tuesday that the "Stay at Home" Instagram stories were so popular it almost crashed the site in the hours after it went live. The fact that a well-intentioned new feature nearly took down the entire service is a reminder of just how many fires Instagram and Mosseri are working to put out at once amid the coronavirus outbreak. Among other pressing issues, he and his team must: keep their servers up and running while much of the world is forced to shift their lives online; try to encourage people on the platform to maintain social distancing; combating inaccurate and potentially dangerous misinformation about the coronavirus at a time when there is apparently an unprecedented amount of traffic on the site; and do all this while working outside the office. "Having our workforce, particularly our moderators, work from home, is creating all sort of challenges that we need to work through," Mosseri said in an interview with CNN Business over Skype on Tuesday from inside the garage that is now his de facto command center. "Just generally, the amount of output we should be able to expect on a per person basis is just going to go down," he said. "There is no way around that, which is why it is so important we get creative and make sure that we continue to make sure we keep people stay safe on the platform." Mosseri added that the company still needs to stay on top of a range of challenges like content related to child exploitation and terrorism. For years, Instagram s parent company, Facebook, has been trying to combat the spread of misinformation on its platforms. The coronavirus presents a whole new challenge as people around the globe are desperate for just about any information. Instagram s struggles in dealing with the anti-vaccine movement might not inspire much confidence in the company s ability to get ahead of false information about the coronavirus. But over the past few weeks and months it has brought in new rules and features specifically for the coronavirus crisis. Some of those features — like not recommending accounts that spread medical misinformation when people search terms related to the virus (which the company says will roll out in the coming days) — are steps critics of anti-vaccine accounts have been calling for for some time. Mosseri said the company s focus has been getting users accurate information about the virus — links to official government agencies have appeared at the top of users Instagram feeds around the world. The company, like other social media platforms, has taken other steps to highlight information from the World Health Organization. "I actually think search in general on platforms like ours gets way too much attention because it is not something people do that often. It is more important that people get good information when they come to the app in the first place," he said. Like other companies, Instagram and Facebook instructed employees to work from home before it became mandatory in many states. "We need to take care of our people if we are going to be able to help address the crisis and live up to our responsibility," Mosseri said. But new rules to tackle coronavirus misinformation and other initiatives, like banning ads for the sale of face masks (to help ensure they are available for medical workers in most need of them), require new protocols, staff training and sometimes new systems to implement, all of which is more difficult to do with staff working remotely. As a result, Mosseri said Facebook and Instagram staff that don t normally work on moderation are volunteering to help. Twitter and YouTube also warned that the shift to working from home and reliance on automated content moderation may lead to more mistakes. The heightened anxiety felt by users will likely only amplify errors. For example, last Tuesday there were widespread reports of Facebook suddenly marking posts from users about everything from the coronavirus to their pets as violating the platform s rules. The problem was fixed within a few hours and Facebook said it had nothing to do with the changes in its workforce With false claims about purported cures and preventative steps that can be take against the virus circulating online, ensuring the spread of accurate information is now literally a matter of life or death.