Two major breakthroughs in solar cell technology could vastly improve the way energy is harvested from the sun. The two studies, published in Nature Energy and Nature Photonics, will transform the efficiency and significantly reduce the cost of producing solar cells, scientists say. The first breakthrough involves “upconverting” low energy, non-visible light into high energy ... Read More »
Private As the coronavirus cases record double and triple digits with an increase in untraceable cases, the Lebanese government is not ready to impose a full lockdown or to tighten restrictions yet. Lebanon’s public health minister Dr. Hamad Hassan said Tuesday that the country which has so far managed to ... Read More »
After almost five days of sometimes bitter negotiations in Brussels, European Union leaders finally agreed on a massive €750bn ($859bn) post-coronavirus recovery package. The summit began on Friday morning and saw more than 90 hours of talks, making it the longest summit since the meeting held in the French ... Read More »
Two studies offered new hope of a potential vaccine for the novel coronavirus on Monday, seven months after the disease was first identified in China and spread rapidly across the globe. The positive news came as alarm grows over fresh outbreaks of the disease that has killed more than 600,000 ... Read More »
Private The UK’s foreign secretary Dominic Raab is expected to suspend the country’s extradition treaty with Hong Kong on Monday over China’s moves against the city-state. The extradition treaty means that, if someone in Hong Kong is suspected of a crime in the UK, then the British authorities can ask ... Read More »
British scientists analysing data from a widely-used COVID-19 symptom-tracking app have found there are six distinct types of the disease, each distinguished by a cluster of symptoms. A King’s College London team found that the six types also correlated with levels of severity of infection, and with the likelihood of ... Read More »
Solar Orbiter images shot from between Venus and Mercury orbits show ‘campfires’ in corona The closest ever images of the sun reveal its surface is speckled with “campfires”, miniature versions of the dramatic solar flares visible from Earth. The observations, beamed back from the Solar Orbiter spacecraft, which is ... Read More »
A rocket carrying the unmanned probe, known as Al-Amal in Arabic, joins China and US in race to red planet The first Arab space mission to Mars has blasted off aboard a rocket from Japan, with its unmanned probe – called Al-Amal, or Hope – successfully separating about an hour after liftoff. ... Read More »
China has approved an early-stage trial in humans of German firm BioNTech’s experimental coronavirus vaccine, its local partner Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical said on Thursday. The potential vaccine is one of the two most advanced candidates that BioNTech is working on with its partner Pfizer and they received “fast track” status this week from the U.S. Food and Drug ... Read More »
Exclusive: best analysis to date indicates significant increases in infections, hospital admissions and death There is “compelling” evidence that air pollution significantly increases coronavirus infections, hospital admissions and deaths, according to the most detailed and comprehensive analysis to date. The research indicates that a small, single-unit increase in people’s ... Read More »
Lebanese Ministry of Information