Coronavirus, mini-moons and the secret to spotting bad guys on film

Unsurprisingly, coronavirus has been dominating the headlines in science and technology this past week, and the impact on business has been massive.

The big five tech companies – Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft – had a bit of a Blue Monday at the stock market last week. Collectively, they lost $237bn in market capitalisation as they each saw share prices drop by more than 4 per cent.

Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, is trying to reassure investors and said in an interview with Fox Business that the factories in China that manufacture Apple’s products are reopening as “China is getting the coronavirus under control”.

And while it’s true that the number of new cases within China is slowing, the virus is officially a global issue and the repercussions of that are ongoing.

Tech reactions to coronavirus

Tech companies are having to react to how their platforms are being abused in this coronavirus crisis. We’ve seen Facebook banning ads that promise cures for coronavirus or just, generally, incite panic about the virus. That includes ads that “imply a limited supply” so any marketers thinking they can up their sales of hand sanitiser with these unethical practices better think again.

Amazon is also warning sellers not to try and capitalise on a crisis by hiking up the price of protective face masks, and has even threatened to kick them off the platform if they do.

More coronavirus cancellations

We already saw Mobile World Congress cancelled after a number of its major tech exhibitors pulled out, and that process was looking to repeat with the Games Developer Conference meant to take place in March. Facebook, Microsoft, Sony and Epic Games (the makers of Fortnite) all pulled out of the event in San Francisco, which has now been postponed.

Meanwhile, the Swiss government has banned all public and private events involving more than 1,000 people as a protective measure. This will affect the Geneva Motor Show, also scheduled for March.

And we’re already seeing events beyond that being affected, as Facebook has cancelled its annual developers conference which was due to take place in May.

The coronavirus ‘infodemic’

Misinformation is spreading with the coronavirus, some of it even trying to make a profit, as mentioned above, and this has spawned the new term: infodemic.

It’s worth remembering that much of the precautions around coronavirus are the same as for any flu season. Wash your hands and use hand sanitiser regularly, cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze, disinfect surfaces and try to keep from touching your face too often.

When it comes to good hand hygiene, scientists say you don’t need special antibacterial soap, just soap with a good lather that you really work into your hands and up your wrists as far as you can. Do that for 20 seconds (which is apparently as long as singing Happy Birthday to yourself twice).

Washing doesn’t kill germs, it moves them along down the drain, so use sanitiser after you wash if you want to be spick and span.

Earth’s second, small moon

According to observances from the adorably named Minor Planet Center, a ‘mini-moon’ entered Earth orbit about three years ago.

It’s a stray asteroid, only about one to six metres across, but it became temporarily bound to an Earth orbit, so we’ve had a bonus ‘quasi-satellite’ for a little while.

It’s not our first mini-moon and it won’t be our last, but they never do last very long. Eventually, gravitational tugs from our permanent moon and the sun will nudge these baby moons out of orbit and our current one is thought to be on its last loop.

Oxygen, who needs it?

From one surprising discovery to another, scientists have found an animal that doesn’t require oxygen.

Some fungi and amoebas live oxygen-free lives, but this is not a treat we see in animals. This tiny creature, though, is a ten-celled parasite that lives in salmon muscle tissue. It’s from the same family as jellyfish and corals, but apparently at some stage in its evolution, it ditched the need to breathe and consume oxygen in order to produce energy. And we only even discovered this by accident.

While sequencing this animal’s genome, scientists noted that there was no mitochondrial data. The mitochondria (for any Junior Cert science student revising the structure of a cell) is where a cell captures oxygen and turns it into energy. So we actually don’t even know how this creature generates energy, but the scientists are looking into it.

How to spot the bad guy in a movie, even if it’s a secret

Sorry if this spoils any plot twists for anyone but Rian Johnson, who directed Knives Out and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, revealed the big secret in a Vanity Fair video.

Johnson claims that Apple will only allow film productions to use its products on-screen as long as villains aren’t seen using an iPhone on camera. (And I’m now tempted to check a lot of films to see if that’s true!)

Tune in to Drivetime on RTé Radio 1 every Friday for a weekly update on the sci-tech news you might have missed.

Image: Jim Strasma/Unsplash