Name: "Stuff" Now Outweighs Life On Earth? | December 14, 2020
Uploaded: 2020-12-15T22:15:37.000Z
Duration: 10 min 1 s
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This is our last week on the air in 2020.

After this Friday's show, we will be off for Christmas and New Year's, and we'll see you again on January 4th, less than 11 months after the first coronavirus diagnosis was made in America, shipping has begun for the nation's first coronavirus vaccine.

Food and Drug Administration on Saturday.

The vaccine is made by the American drug company Pfizer.

It's received an emergency use authorization, which means the vaccine has gotten special approval from the FDA to be used during an emergency.

Full approval has to be obtained through a separate application process.

The leader of the FDA says he hopes the shot will start being given to the public on Monday.

S Centers for Disease Control had to first, except the FDA is recommendation that it be used.

Ah, second, covert vaccine made by the American drug company Moderna could also get the green light in the days ahead, And U.

S health officials say it's possible that doses for 20 million Americans could be available by the end of the year.

The Pfizer vaccine is given is two shots, the second one coming 21 days after the first.

The drug company says that when it's given this way, it's 95% effective in preventing coronavirus infections.

Health care workers and people who live in nursing homes and other long term care facilities will have priority in getting it.

But the vaccine has not been approved for pregnant women or anyone under the age of 16.

Health officials say there's not enough data to know whether it's safe for these groups.

There are also concerns about allergies to the vaccine.

Two health care workers in the United Kingdom who got it and who had a history of allergic reactions.

Both had a dangerous allergic response to Pfizer's covert vaccine.

So the FDA says people with the history of serious allergic reactions to any of the vaccines ingredients shouldn't get the shots.

Side effects like discomfort or a fever lasting a day or two after getting the shot are also possible.

The covert vaccine is the first of its kind that's been approved for use it's also the fastest.

As health experts say, no other vaccine has ever been developed in less than four years.

Dr Sanjay Gupta explains what makes this shot unique.

248 days from an idea to now applying for the vaccine to be authorized, that's just eight months for context.

Eight years would have been considered speedy.

But the truth is, the story I'm about to tell you actually began more than two decades ago.

And to really understand it, you first have to understand how most vaccines work.

Since the first vaccine for smallpox, back in 17 96 they have all relied on the same basic concept.

Give a little piece of the virus, also known as antigen, to someone not enough to make them sick, and their body will then be taught to make antibodies to it.

Those are the proteins that neutralize the virus.

If it ever tried to invade again, that's what makes you immune.

But what if the body could be taught to do the whole thing, not just make antibodies, but also to make the antigens as well to essentially become its own vaccine making machine?

It's why, in the two thousands, Dr Drew Weissman started focusing on this tiny strand of genetic material that ourselves make all the time it's known as Morena.

Back then, we were thinking of using it for vaccines for therapeutic proteins, for gene editing for lots of different applications.

It carries the instructions for making whatever protein you want.

Once you've got the sequence, it's a one step reaction to make RNA, and that reaction is identical for every vaccine that we make.

If this sounds more like code in a computer rather than medicine from a lab, that means you're getting it.

An entirely New Way of Thinking about Vaccines It's also the basic technology behind Pfizer and Madonna's Covad 19 vaccines.

Vaccines are close by their coming, You know, I said, help is on the way.

It's essentially just a genetic code or a portion of the virus.

Because it's the key the virus uses to enter the human cell.

But if you create antibodies to the spike protein, it's then blocked 12th trivia.

About 33% of the Earth's land area is permanently covered by what desert freshwater rainforests, or ice and snow desert is the answer.

While up to a third of our land mass can be covered by ice and snow, that can change with the seasons.

Desertification occurs when fertile farmland turns into desert.

This can happen when forests or cut down drought settles in or farmland is managed badly.

There's a material called liquid Nana Clay that aims to reverse desertification, turning waste land into fertile soil.

One downside, according to some environmentalists, is that most farmers simply can't afford it.

Covering the average sized farm in America, which is about 444 acres, would cost anywhere between 3.5 and $9 million.

But the soil is more fertile in many parts of the states than it is in the desert of the United Arab Emirates.

This nation has to import more than 90% of its food, and even if it manages to turn barren land into fertile farmland, a soil scientist interviewed by CNN says it could change a fragile desert ecosystem when something that wasn't there before suddenly is But if this technology is funded and managed effectively every year, nearly 30 million acres of fertile soil degrades in tow.

Unusable desert land ah, process known as desertification.

But what if you could turn that desert land back into fertile soil in a matter of hours?

Norwegian startup Desert Control claims it can do just that.

So what's the rial invention here for desert control?

Basically, what we have invented is a way to turn clay into a liquid nearly as thin as water.

Mixing clay into soil has long been used to restore dry farmland, but the process could take 7 to 15 years to complete.

By turning clay into liquid, the process is dramatically shortened.

The company simply sprays what they call liquid nano clay onto dry land.

It seeps below the surface and begins working in just seven hours.

It will just stick to every sand grain that exists throughout that soil and then form this structure that enables this soil to retain water and nutrients just like a sponge.

In early trials run by a nonprofit in Dubai, grain, zucchini and watermelon needed 50% less water to grow.

Really impressive results, but liquid nano clay isn't cheap between 8000 to $20,000 an acre, but desert control expects costs will come down.

There are plans to test the technology in the U.

In dry states like California, Nevada and Arizona with, you know, increasing temperatures, extended drought periods to be able to ensure that the little water that we have actually is retained in that soil is going to be extremely valuable and important for farmers moving forward.

Take the weight of every living thing on Earth and compare it to the weight of everything people have made buildings, roads, plastic.

A new analysis, recently published in the scientific journal Nature, estimates that the stuff people have made may now be heavier than the stuff that's here.

Naturally, both weights are estimated to be somewhere around 1.1 trillion tons.

But researchers at Israel's Wiseman Institute of Science say the combined weight of all of our concrete gravel bricks, asphalt, plastic, metal, paper and glass may now way mawr than the Earth's biomass.

Scientists say this is something to keep in mind as societies grow that people should consider how much stuff we actually need to make toe live.

A good life in the North Atlantic Ocean between Iceland and Norway.

A pretty amazing traffic circle is about to open up in the Faroe Islands, and it's not just amazing because it's pretty.

It's located more than 600 ft beneath the ocean surface.

It's made out of natural rock and illuminated by blue, green and yellow lights, and it will help people get around the 17 inhabited islands there.

It's part of a tunnel network whose estimated cost is around $170 million.

But many residents are glad they got round about to building it, because now that the projects come full circle, it's making people want to both stop and go for a drive and an undersea adventure, keeping their eyes traffic stahn both the road and a head spinning, car spinning, tire spinning intersection of Landon C.

We wanna make a stop today in Dresden, Tennessee, dressed in high school, you guys air fantastic.

 It's great to have you watching on YouTube. 