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Brazilian well being regulators haven’t licensed Sputnik V, the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Russia’s state-run Gamaleya Institute. Regulators cited a lack of information guaranteeing the jab’s safety, quality and effectiveness. They additionally flagged quality-control points, together with the presence of un-neutralized adenoviruses that might infect those that get the vaccine. The Russian Direct Investment Fund, which is managing Sputnik V’s world gross sales, mentioned the choice was politically motivated. “The Gamaleya Center, which carries out strict quality control of all Sputnik V production sites, has confirmed that no replication-competent adenoviruses (RCA) were ever found in any of the Sputnik V vaccine batches that have been produced,” it mentioned. Sputnik V has been licensed in Russia and 60 different areas.
The Financial Times | 4 min read
Features & opinion
Brazilian chemical engineers Gidiane Scaratti and Rafael Kenji Nishihora have spent about three of their eight years collectively separated by their careers. Now, each are again in Brazil — albeit in two totally different cities — and so they’ve shared their advice for getting through a long-distance relationship in science.
The strategy of turning a loop of DNA containing the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein into the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine takes 60 days and a jaw-dropping quantity of dry ice. Walk through the process and meet the scientists on this step-by-step recipe.
The New York Times | 8 min read
Gamma-ray indicators may very well be coming from antistars — stars made up fully of antimatter. Astrophysicists analysed 10 years of observations from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and located, amongst almost 5,800 sources, 14 that may match the profile of antistars. Extrapolating from that information, researchers estimate that someplace between one in 10 and one in 400,000 stars could be made of antimatter — if they exist at all. “If, by any chance, one can prove the existence of the antistars … that would be a major blow for the standard cosmological model,” says theoretical astrophysicist Pierre Salati. It “would really imply a significant change in our understanding of what happened in the early universe”.
Reference: Physical Review D paper