Health News Technology

Safa and Marwa, the rare conjoined twins from Pakistan were successfully separated in Great Ormond Street Hospital, London. The twins were born by caesarian section in early January 2017 in Peshawar, Pakistan.

The two year old twins had undergone three major operations to separate their heads at the Great Ormond Street Hospital.


Safa and Marwa

They had their first operation at the age of just 19 months in October 2018.

This was a very rare case where the girls were craniopagus twins, with their skulls and blood vessels fused together. Craniopagus twins are those who will be fused at the cranium.

According to Britain’s National Health Service, one in every 2.5 million births produces conjoined twins and only 5% of them are fused at the head.

The hospital had previously separated craniopagus twins in 2006 and 2011, which was all successful.

The technology of virtual reality and 3D printing had been used in the surgery, for creating an exact model of the girls’ anatomy. This helped the doctors to view the complex structure of their skulls as well as the positioning of their brains and blood vessels.

Four major operations with a total time of 55 hours had been done in this medical case with about 100 medical staff included. Reports said that all the amount was funded by a private donor.

The girls were discharged from the hospital and sent with their mother Zainab and their grandfather Mohammad Sadat Hussain.

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News Robotics Technology Video

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has came up with the Dragonfly mission to search for the presence of life in Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. The mission is estimated to cost $1 billion.

NASA said that the Dragonfly mission will be launched in 2026 and will land in 2034. The rotorcrafts which will be sent by the Dragonfly drone will be flying to various locations across the icy moon, and this will be viewed by the scientists. Nasa said that there will be 8 rotors in this spacecraft.

Titan, the largest moon of Saturn and the second-largest natural satellite in the Solar System is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere. Titan is thought to be a prebiotic environment rich in complex organic chemistry, with a possible subsurface liquid ocean serving as a biotic environment.

Since Titan has lakes of methane, the scientists doubts the presence of methane based lives there. No presence of water has been detected in Titan.

Titan

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said, “Visiting this mysterious ocean world could revolutionize what we know about life in the universe”. About the Dragonfly mission, he said, “This cutting-edge mission would have been unthinkable even just a few years ago, but we’re now ready for Dragonfly’s amazing flight”.

WATCH THE VIDEO ON DRAGONFLY MISSION – BY NASA

Image / video courtesy: parman .blogspot .com, nature .com, news. stanford .edu, YouTube / images / videos are subject to copyright

News Technology

The remains of the giant Morandi bridge in the Italian city of Genoa has been demolished in a dramatic controlled explosion. The structure had collapsed almost an year ago and 43 people had been killed.

The bridge has been blown up by the demolition experts. Thousands of people, residing near the bridge has been evacuated before performing the explosion, for safety.

Two large towers consisting of about 4,500 tonnes of concrete and steel had been demolished. The dramatic demolition happened just after 9:30 a.m. local time (3:30 a.m. ET). Reports said that a new structure is being planned to be built there.

As this process of demolition produces an enormous dusty atmosphere, water tanks had been placed around the towers for controlling dust. The legs of the bridges were connected with explosives. The explosion occurred within just a few seconds.

The Interior Minister of Italy and Deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini reported their presence at the time of explosion. A huge crowd were present who viewed the explosion from a safe distance.

A replacement bridge designed by Renzo Piano has been in construction since 25th June 2019, and is planned to be opened in the 1st half of 2020.

Watch the video here !!

Image / video courtesy: cnn .com, AFP news agency (YouTube) / images and videos are subject to copyright

News Technology

The tech giant Facebook has announced the details of its cryptocurrency, Libra. This feature allows you to buy things or transfer money with nearly zero fees.

Libra cannot be actually termed as a product of Facebook alone. It is supported by the Geneva, Switzerland-based Libra Association, a non-profit organization with a long list of founding members who will jointly make decisions over Libra.

Apart from Facebook, the list has Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, Stripe, eBay, Uber, Lyft, Spotify, Coinbase, Xapo, Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, Mercy Corps, and Women’s World Banking.

Libra is a stable coin. It is a special type of cryptocurrency that remains fairly stable compared to the value of another fairly stable real-world asset, such as the U.S. dollar.

Image courtesy: theverge .com / images are subject to copyright

Entertainment News Technology

A Siberian start-up has launched its own more modest motor satellite to the space. This happens just after an year when Elon Musk sent his Tesla car into space.

Tesla’s was a space-suited Starman mannequin whereas the ToSky start-up sent up a smaller dummy in the likeness of Dmitry Rogozin. The users of Internet picked Mr Rogozin over other candidates. This includes a dummy of the late Stephen Hawking or a cactus, Radio Liberty’s Siberian news site reports.

The model was Mr Rogozin’s figure, seated at the wheel of the Lada. This has reached an altitude of 20km (12.5 miles) before landing 150km from the launch site with the help of a parachute.

The Tomsk-based start-up says that they can learn more about automatic stratostats. This can spend a long time in the stratosphere.

Nikita Cheban, the project director told the Interfax Siberia news agency that the test flight gathered data that will allow ToSky to design vessels that can “spend more time in the stratosphere, carry heavier payloads, and develop better manoeuverability”.

A promotional video was released by the group. The video was called “We sent Rogozin into near space!”. This featured a smiling Rogozin cardboard cut-out flying above the clouds in a bright-red Lada before making a flawless landing in a field.

Image courtesy: bbc .com / images are subject to copyright

News Technology

The social media giant WhatsApp faced a surveillance attack which targeted a “select number” of users, and was orchestrated by “an advanced cyber actor”.

WhatsApp recommended its users to upgrade to the latest version of its app. It is confirmed that the hackers could install surveillance software on user’s phones and other devices, using a vulnerability on WhatsApp.

The security attack has been identified and rectified. But they said that this has targeted some of the users. A new upgrade for fixing this issue had been released on Friday.

Reports said that an Israeli security firm named NSO Group, has developed the attack. WhatsApp urged all of its 1.5 billion users to update their apps as an added precaution, on Monday.

A spokesman said, “WhatsApp encourages people to upgrade to the latest version of our app, as well as keep their mobile operating system up to date, to protect against potential targeted exploits designed to compromise information stored on mobile devices”. “We are constantly working alongside industry partners to provide the latest security enhancements to help protect our users”, he added.

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Crime News Technology

German police have shut down one of the major illegal websites of online market. The police have arrested 3 men on this case, who were illegally running this ‘dark web’.

The website named ‘Wall Street Market’ (WSM) was dealing with the trade in cocaine, heroin, cannabis and amphetamines as well as stolen data, fake documents and malicious software.

Over 5,000 registered sellers and more than 60,000 sales offers were found on the website platform with more than 1m customer accounts.

US prosecutors said, “WSM operated like a conventional e-commerce website, such as eBay and Amazon. However, its sole existence was geared to the trafficking of contraband”.

Image courtesy: securityboulevard. com / images are subject to copyright

News Technology

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had revealed some changes to the portfolio of FB’s social platforms. The changes includes Instagram and WhatsApp also.

Facebook had been facing criticisms over the leakage of user’s privacy issues. The new designs and features for its apps are providing a direct solution for this widespread privacy criticisms.

Zuckerberg said that the company is aiming to make the users privacy concerns on top priority. The Facebook boss also acknowledged that there was much to do to rebuild trust.

Zuckerberg, in a speech said that Facebook’s new features focus on privacy as “a major shift” in how the company is run.

“The future is private. I know we don’t have the strongest reputation on privacy right now, to put it lightly”, said Mark Zuckerberg.

Image courtesy: The economic times/ images are subject to copyright

News Technology

On Wednesday, Facebook Inc blew past Wall Street profit estimates in the first quarter and set aside $3 billion to cover a settlement with the US regulators calming investors who had worried about the outcome of a months-long federal probe, reports Reuters.

In after-hours trade, shares of Facebook jumped more than 10 percent to $200.50 . A large part of the ground lost last year was regained by Facebook. They had set the settlement accrual at $3 billion but said could rise as high as $5 billion. This had cut the company’s net income in the first quarter to $2.43 billion, or 85 cents per share.

According to IBES data from Refinitiv, if the charges are excluded, Facebook would have earned $1.89 a share, up from $1.69 in the year-ago quarter and easily beating analysts’ average estimate of $1.63 per share.

The senior analyst at financial markets platform Investing.com, Haris Anwar said, “This is a strong report suggesting that advertisers still see value in Facebook’s platform, as they did before the controversies and scandals erupted”.

Image courtesy: techcrunch. com / images are subject to copyright

Entertainment News Robotics Technology

Rossiya 24, the Russian state news channel has introduced a robot presenter for some of its bulletins.

The robot News presenter ‘Alex’ has already excited the viewers. But, some viewers are complaining about his appearance and accusing him of peddling political propaganda.

‘Alex’ was developed by Promobot in the city of Perm. The silicon head of the robot is made similar to the face of the company’s co-founder Alexei Yuzhakov.

The present features of this robot can only move his facial features and neck. The developers are hoping that the final robot will have fully mobile limbs as well. According to the makers, the robot’s construction had started in 2017 and should be fully complete later this year.

Image courtesy: digitaltrends .com / images are subject to copyright