Astronomers discover 83 supermassive black holes 13 billion light-years away

London, Feb 21: Scientists have discovered a new species of land snail, and have named it Craspedotropis Greta Thunberg in honour of the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg for her efforts to raise awareness about climate change.

According to the study, published in the Biodiversity Data Journal, the newly discovered species belongs to the so-called caenogastropods -- a group of land snails known to be sensitive to drought, temperature extremes, and forest degradation.

The scientists, including evolutionary ecologist Menno Schilthuizen from Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands, said the snails were found very close to the research field station at Kuala Belalong Field Studies Centre in Brunei.

They added that the snails were discovered at the foot of a steep hill-slope, next to a river bank, foraging at night on the green leaves of understorey plants.

The effort aided by amateur scientist J.P. Lim, who found the first individual of the snail said, "Naming this snail after Greta Thunberg is our way of acknowledging that her generation will be responsible for fixing problems that they did not create."

"And it's a promise that people from all generations will join her to help," Lim said.

The researchers said they approached Thunberg who said that she would be "delighted" to have this species named after her.

The study work including, fieldwork, morphological study, and classification of identified specimen was carried out in a field centre with basic equipment and no internet access, the scientists said.

According to the study, the work was done by untrained ‘citizen scientists’ guided by experts, on a 10-day taxon expedition.

"While we are aware that this way of working has its limitations in terms of the quality of the output (for example, we were unable to perform dissections or to do extensive literature searches), the benefits include rapid species discovery and on-site processing of materials," the researchers wrote in the study.

Riyadh, Apr 27: The government of Saudi Arabia has signed a SR995 million (approx. Dh972m) contract with China to provide Covid-19 tests for nine million people in the Kingdom.

The Saudi Press Agency, SPA, reported that the decision came "as a result of a phone call made today (Sunday) between the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Chinese President Xi Jinping."

The contract includes providing necessary equipment and supplies, making available of 500 Chinese specialists and technicians who are specialised in performing tests, establishing six large regional laboratories throughout the Kingdom; including a mobile laboratory with a capacity of performing 10,000 tests per day. Saudi cadres will also be trained to conduct daily tests and comprehensive field tests, under the new agreement

The contract was co-signed by the National Unified Procurement Company and Chinese company Huo-yan Laboratories by Dr. Abdullah Al Rabeeah, Advisor at the Royal Court, on behalf of the Government of Saudi Arabia, and Chinese Ambassador to the Kingdom Chen Weiqing, as a representative of the Chinese Government.

The contract is one of the largest contracts that will provide diagnostic tests for the novel Coronavirus.

Tests were also purchased from several other companies from the United States, Switzerland and South Korea, bringing the number of available tests to 14.5 million, covering around 40 percent of Saudi Arabia's population, SPA added.

New Delhi, Jun 3: India registered its highest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases on Wednesday with 8,909 more cases reported in the last 24 hours, taking the country's tally to 2,07,615, while the death toll rose to 5,815 according to the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry.

The number of active COVID-19 cases stood to 1,01,497 while 1,00,303 people have been cured/discharged/migrated.

According to the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry, out of all the states, Maharashtra has recorded the highest number of coronavirus cases with 72,300 patients followed by Tamil Nadu with 24,586 cases.