WHO called “deltacron” a consequence of a laboratory error

She noted that the strain “discovered” by Cypriot scientists is probably the result of contamination of a sample or equipment during sequencing of the coronavirus genome. The specialist urged not to use the word “deltacron”, because it implies a combination of variants of the virus, which, according to her, did not happen. The discovery of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2, which allegedly turned out to be a hybrid of the already known strains “delta” and “omicron”, scientists from the University of Cyprus Leontios Kostrikis said on Saturday. According to them, the strain was found in 25 residents of the island, 11 of whom were hospitalized. The researchers gave their “find” the name “deltacron”, stating that it has the same genetic basis with “delta” and at the same time there are mutations characteristic of “omicron”. Rospotrebnadzor was skeptical about this information: according to the department’s specialist Kamil Hafizov, upon careful examination,

Day in History: January 11

The beginning of the year in Russia postponed to January 1 On January 11, 1700, Russia, on the initiative of Peter I, abandoned the Byzantine calendar and introduced the Julian calendar. According to the Byzantine calendar, September 1 was considered the first day of the year, and the beginning of the chronology was 5509 BC, the estimated date of the creation of the world. With the introduction of the Julian calendar, the chronology began to be conducted from the Birth of Christ, and the beginning of the year was announced on January 1. With the calendar reform after December 31, 7208, January 1, 1700 came. Day of Nature Reserves and National Parks On January 11, 1917, the first nature reserve was created in Russia — Barguzinsky. It is located in Buryatia, on the territory of the North Baikal region. Since 1997, it was decided to declare January 11 the Day of

The world continues to fight the coronavirus

New Year’s holidays turned into a sharp spike in the incidence of COVID-19 all over the planet. According to the Our World in Data resource, since the beginning of last week, more than 2 million new cases of infection have been recorded daily in the world, although, for example, until December 25, this figure did not exceed 1 million. On Friday, amid the rapid spread of the omicron variant, the number of reported cases of COVID-19 in the world exceeded 300 million. Dozens of countries (including the United States, Great Britain, Greece, Italy and France) broke records for the number of cases last week. Healthcare systems are in a difficult situationThe USA and a number of European countries. According to Reuters, due to the surge in morbidity and the fact that many doctors were forced to go into self-isolation, almost half of the American states suspended planned operations in hospitals.

US Undersecretary of State: Russia will prove its desire to de-escalate by returning troops to barracks

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Russia assured the United States that there are no plans to attack Ukraine

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Negotiations between Russia and the United States on security guarantees ended in Geneva

“Negotiations ended about ten minutes ago”, & nbsp; & mdash; said the press secretary of the mission, Joseph Kruzich. The meeting of the parties took place behind closed doors and lasted about 7.5 hours. After negotiations in & nbsp; Geneva, contacts will continue at & nbsp; meeting of the Council of Russia & nbsp; & mdash; NATO on January 12 & nbsp; in & nbsp; Brussels and & nbsp; January 13 & nbsp; in & nbsp; Vienna at & nbsp; meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council. The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly stated that & nbsp; in & nbsp; during the negotiations, the Russian side will seek from & nbsp; American colleagues & laquo; providing solid legal guarantees of the security of the Russian Federation, and & nbsp; namely & nbsp; & mdash; non-advancement of NATO to the & nbsp; east and & nbsp; non-deployment of weapons threatening Russia at

Global warming is gaining momentum. The year 2021 was among the five hottest in history

The last seven years have been the hottest on record, and 2021 ranked fifth, European scientists tracking climate change at the EU’s Copernicus Center have calculated. “The urgency of combating climate change is now more evident than ever,” said program manager Mario Faccini, presenting the report at a press conference on Monday. Despite the cool start of the year, 2021 was among the record holders and continued the disturbing tradition of the past decade, the hottest in 125 thousand years. And warming will continue due to greenhouse gases accumulated in the atmosphere and new emissions, scientists are sure. No matter what humanity does, this trend cannot be reversed in the coming decades — it is only possible to mitigate its consequences, the World Meteorological Organization warned last year. The Copernicus Center confirmed on Monday that the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continued to increase in 2021. Both carbon

Scientists have calculated the formula for the perfect snowman

Doctor of Mathematics James Hind from Nottingham Trent University in the UK, together with colleagues, decided to create the most ideal snowman in the world and for this purpose carried out complex mathematical calculations to find out the necessary proportions of the snow figure. In their calculations, experts used different parameters: from the air temperature outside, the freshness and purity of snow to the number and diameter of snow balls, the location of the eyes, carrot nose and accessories. Thanks to their calculations, mathematicians found out that the ideal snowman should consist of three snow balls with diameters of 80 cm, 50 cm and 30 cm. The height of the figure will be 1.62 meters. The snowman’s eyes should be placed at a distance of no more than 5 cm from each other, and the carrot for the nose should be exactly 4 cm long. Snow for modeling a perfect snowman

“Ice pancakes” appeared on Lake Michigan

View this post on Instagram Publication from Chicago | Life of Chicago (@lifeofchicago) View this post on Instagram A post by Bruce Wu (@bruce.wu999) Severe frosts and a storm that came to the northeastern United States in early January covered the giant Lake Michigan with “ice pancakes”. Due to a rare combination of natural factors, such as strong winds, large waves and unstable air temperature, round thin ice floes the size of a palm were formed on the water surface. “Ice pancakes” near the shore were observed by residents of the states of Illinois and Michigan. Photos and videos of this rare natural phenomenon appeared on social networks. It is known that such round ice floes appear when waves break the ice sheets into small pieces, and the drifting ice is ground in the water. As a result, amazing round “pancakes” are obtained, which can sometimes reach several meters in