'They all lost reelection'

'The claim is false. According to EnviroPolitics, the image shows trash left behind after a 2020 Trump rally in Wildwood, New Jersey'

Calling all Patriots!

'Exploitation and abuse of the Uyghur people'

A video shared on X claims to show the King of Denmark waving the Palestinian flag. King of Denmark ?? Frederik X waves the Palestinian flag from his balcony as he greets hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Copenhagen in solidarity with the people of Palestine ?? pic.twitter.com/zWWfdUC0mc — S p r i n t e r F […]

'The message was clearly inappropriate for a public account'

'To ease sanctions now seems ludicrous'

California Public College Surrenders to Students for Justice in Palestine

Recently, we reported on the new family of COVID-19 variants that looked set to start overtaking the pack to become the most widespread. Now, surveillance data from both the US and UK show that the FLiRT variants, as they’re called, seem to be living up to these predictions, as UK COVID cases tick up by 21 percent in just a week.The FLiRT variants are named after the specific mutations they’ve picked up compared with earlier strains of the virus. In one location of the spike protein, an amino acid labeled “F” is switched for an “L”, and in a second location an “R” is swapped for a “T”. They’re all offshoots of JN.1, itself part of the Omicron lineage, which became dominant on both sides of the Atlantic at the beginning of this year. Some early unpublished data posted to preprint server bioRxiv suggested that the extra mutations picked up by the FLiRT variants might make them more resistant to prior immunity from vaccines and infections, and better able to spread through the population.According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one FLiRT variant called KP.2 was responsible for the greatest proportion of COVID-19 infections (28.2 percent) in the US in the two-week period ending on May 11. This means it has now overtaken JN.1, as suspected.Granular data on which COVID-19 variants are dominating in the UK right now are not available, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). However, the most recent surveillance data for the week ending April 30 showed a 21.2 percent increase in COVID cases, which the authority speculates is partly down to JN.1 subvariants, including KP.2.Further afield, KP.2 was also recently detected in Australia and India.So, should we be concerned?According to Andy Pekosz, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, an infection with JN.1 should still provide you with “pretty strong protection against all the FLiRT variants.” So, if you’ve had COVID once already this year, you might still have a decent level of protection.As for vaccines, Pekosz says the updated shots that were reformulated to target other variants in the Omicron lineage should produce some cross-reactive antibodies that may give some protection against KP.2. However, specific lab tests for this have not yet been done, and in any case, your immunity from vaccines is likely to be waning if it’s been some time since your last shot. The CDC recommended that adults aged 65 and over receive a booster in February 2024, and continues to stress that regular booster vaccines are the best way to prevent serious illness and death from COVID-19.In the UK, only certain groups of people are eligible to receive a vaccine under the country’s National Health Service. At the time of writing, people aged 75 and over, children and adults with compromised immune systems, and care home residents are able to book a spring booster. Paying privately for a vaccine only recently became an option, but the popularity of this service has led to the recent news that the rollout is being expanded to more pharmacies. Masks are also making a comeback in some healthcare settings in the UK – but this time, COVID is not the reason. A surge in cases of the highly contagious bacterial infection pertussis, also known as whooping cough, has reportedly led some clinics to reinstate mask mandates for patients.Will we see a summer wave of COVID?“It’s certainly possible,” says Pekosz. But a wave driven by the FLiRT variants is very unlikely to send us back to the levels of infection and hospitalizations we were seeing in the early years of the pandemic.Still, it’s important that authorities continue to monitor what COVID is up to. The virus continues to pose a significant risk to vulnerable groups, and understanding when new variants are coming to the fore empowers us all to make choices that can help protect them.

Why are dozens of Egypt’s ancient pyramids found in an unremarkable strip of barren desert, far from the shores of the modern River Nile? Perhaps, new research suggests, it’s because they were built along a branch of the river system that’s since been lost to time.Not only does this theory explain the obscure location of the pyramids, but it might also shed some light on how these mysterious structures were built over 4,500 years ago. Over 30 pyramids are situated along a vertical strip between Giza and Lisht along the edge of the inhospitable Western Desert, part of the Sahara. This includes the Great Pyramid of Giza, perhaps the most famous ancient Egyptian pyramid and one of the only Seven Wonders of the Ancient World to remain standing. The pyramid field is a fair distance from the Nile River we see today. However, it’s known that the river has changed significantly over the millennia and likely had much higher discharge in the past, as well as branches that no longer exist. The research team stands in front of the pyramid of Unas’s Valley Temple, which acted as a river harbor in antiquity.Image credit: Eman GhoneimIn a new study, scientists looked at satellite imagery to search for the possible location of a former river branch running near the foothills of the Western Desert Plateau alongside the pyramid fields. Upon finding a promising candidate, they headed to the area to carry out geophysical surveys and collect sediment samples. They claim this revealed evidence of a 64-kilometer (40-mile) ancient branch of the River Nile that has since disappeared. They propose naming the long river “Ahramat,” which means “pyramids” in Arabic.“The length probably was really, really long, but also the width of this branch in some areas was huge. We're talking about half a kilometer or more in terms of width, which is something that is equivalent to today's Nile course width,” Dr Eman Ghoneim, lead study author from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, told IFLScience in 2023 after presenting the research at the 13th International Congress of Egyptologists.“So it wasn't a small branch. It was a major branch.”The water course of the ancient Ahramat Branch borders a large number of pyramids dating from the Old Kingdom to the Second Intermediate Period, spanning between the Third Dynasty and the 13th Dynasty.Image credit: Eman Ghoneim et al.It seems the river branch started to become swallowed up around 4,200 years ago in the centuries after the pyramids were constructed. Following an intense drought, the strip became caked in windblown sand, burying the river beneath a desert blanket.“As branches disappeared, Ancient Egyptian cities and towns also silted up and disappeared, and we have no clue actually where to find them,” added Dr Ghoneim.Before it vanished, such a river branch would have been an invaluable tool to help build the pyramids.Rather than lugging huge quantities of stone across the sand, the waterway would smoothly allow tons of material and workers to be shipped along Egypt like a system of veins.“If there are pyramids everywhere in this specific area, there must have been in the past water bodies that carried or facilitated the transportation of rocks and large numbers of workmen to these sites,” Dr Ghoneim concluded. The study is published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.