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In 2018 — nearly two years before the start of the global coronavirus pandemic — U.S. officials in China sent warnings to Washington expressing safety concerns over a Wuhan facility's research into coronaviruses in horseshoe bats, adding weight to the theory that the novel virus originated in a lab and not at a Wuhan wet market. The news broke in a report Wednesday by Josh Rogin of the Washington Post, who said that he obtained access to the first of two diplomatic cables sent from State Department officials who had visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology in January and March...

The theory that COVID-19 might be the result of scientific experiments has thrown a spotlight on the work of the world's most secure biolabs. While the evidence linking SARS-CoV-2 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China is strictly circumstantial, a number of experts want tougher controls on such facilities over fears that accidental leaks could touch off the next pandemic. Advertisement Here's what you should know: 59 TOP FACILITIES The Wuhan lab belongs to the most secure class, commonly referred to as biosafety level 4 or BSL4. These are built to work safely and securely with the most dangerous...

The French government has been notably restrained in their criticism of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for unleashing a pandemic upon the world.  One possible reason for their reticence is a single, highly embarrassing fact: They essentially built the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s P4 lab in which the coronavirus now sweeping the world was being researched, and from which it escaped.  That the French delivered the turn-key, high-containment biolab to China has long been public knowledge, but now a German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, has added riveting details to the story.  The insider information comes from interviews with French...

Wuhan (China) (AFP) - As China's coronavirus epicentre Wuhan awakens from its long nightmare, formerly locked-down citizens are beginning to reemerge, but for many, their first outdoor act in more than two months is grim: burying loved ones. At the Biandanshan Cemetery, downcast groups of masked residents filed quietly past hazmat-suit-wearing security personnel and police on Tuesday to lay friends and relatives to rest under a leaden sky, a scene repeated in recent days at Wuhan's graveyards. Whether from coronavirus or other causes of death, Wuhan's gradual re-opening in recent days has offered the first chance in weeks for the...

Explanation: A fifth moon has been discovered orbiting Pluto. The moon was discovered earlier this month in images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in preparation for the New Horizons mission's scheduled flyby of Pluto in 2015. Pictured above, the moon is currently seen as only a small blip that moves around the dwarf planet as the entire system slowly orbits the Sun. The moon, given a temporary designation of S/2012 (134340) 1 or just P5 (as labeled), is estimated to span about 15 kilometers and is likely composed mostly of water-ice. Pluto remains the only famous Solar System body...

Explanation: Nix and Hydra were first introduced to human eyes in Hubble Space Telescope images from May 2005, as Pluto's second and third known moons. Now Hubble images have revealed a fourth satellite for the icy, dwarf planet. Provisionally designated P4, it completes an orbit of Pluto in about 31 days. Presently Pluto's smallest and dimmest known moon, P4 is estimated to be 13 to 34 kilometers across. The newly discovered satellite was first spotted in Hubble observations from June 28, and later confirmed in a follow-up on July 3 and July 18. These two panels are composites of both...

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a fourth moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The tiny, new satellite -- temporarily designated P4 -- was uncovered in a Hubble survey searching for rings around the dwarf planet. The new moon is the smallest discovered around Pluto. It has an estimated diameter of 8 to 21 miles (13 to 34 km). By comparison, Charon, Pluto's largest moon, is 648 miles (1,043 km) across, and the other moons, Nix and Hydra, are in the range of 20 to 70 miles in diameter (32 to 113 km). "I find it remarkable that...

Three years ago, the IAU decided to draw up the first scientific definition of the term planet. After days of stormy arguments at its general assembly in Prague, the delegates voted for a definition that excluded Pluto, downgrading it to the new category of dwarf planet. The decision caused outrage among many members of the public who had grown up with nine planets, and among some astronomers who pointed out that only 4 per cent of the IAU's 10,000 members took part in the vote. The governors of Illinois saw the decision as a snub to Pluto's discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh,...

According to a strict interpretation of the IAU definition of a planet we're stuck with eight major planets in the entire galaxy. No, wait, the entire freaking universe! No more, no less. Not ever, not never. Why? Because the IAU definition ignores the over 400 planets to date that have been found orbiting other stars. This month alone 25 new exoplanets were announced at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington D.C. The dirty little secret is that the Pluto-antagonists needed the vote of the exoplanet research community to pass their Pluto-is-not-a-planet resolution. Therefore they steered clear of...

The International Astronomical Union has decided on the term "plutoid" as a name for Pluto and other objects that just two years ago were redefined as "dwarf planets."

Pluto has suffered yet another blow to its status. Not only has it been demoted from planet to "dwarf planet", research now shows that it cannot even lay claim to being the biggest of these. A study has confirmed that the dwarf planet Eris - whose discovery prompted Pluto's relegation from planet to dwarf - outranks it in mass. snip

"IAU presented the resolution to its General Assembly on August 16, giving the roughly 2500 attendees more than a week to discuss it. But the committee expected clear sailing...Instead, the '12-planet proposal' went down in flames. Critics objected that planets should also be defined by their orbital dynamics, not just by their size and shape. All eight 'major' planets, they pointed out, were massive enough to sweep up, fling away, or gravitationally control all the debris in their parts of the early solar sys[t]em, but Ceres and Pluto [and other candidate 'planets' among Kuiper Belt Objects] were not... the absurdity...

I understood his travail. When I was a kid, I had a favorite planet. It seemed that all my friends did. Mine, for a reason I can no longer put my finger on, was Venus. I still recall a schoolyard fray in which I faced off against a kid who was ballyhooing the case for Jupiter as the "best" planet. The volume of recriminations rose to the point where a crowd gathered and one of the teachers had to separate us. Who knew that astronomy could stoke such passions? ...The thing is, like that long-ago schoolyard standoff pitting Venus against...

Last month, Catherine Cesarsky became the president of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Cesarsky, the first woman to hold this prestigious position, started her presidency at a time when many scientists are questioning IAU's recent decision to strip Pluto of its planetary status based on a vote of just 424 members at a meeting in Prague. Cesarsky served as the director general of the European Southern Observatory since 1999 and is famed for her research work in central areas of modern astrophysics. She also led the design and construction of the ISOCAM camera onboard the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) of...

News leaks about the planet definition began to spout late this week, as the authors prepared to present a draft resolution to the IAU's executive committee Sunday in Prague. The IAU is the official arbiter of all issues related to astronomical nomenclature. In a story that aired Thursday, unnamed sources told National Public Radio the proposed definition would include Pluto in a new class of small planets. A source also told the Rocky Mountain News on Thursday that a member of the seven-person definition panel said Pluto will remain a planet. IAU Vice President Bob Williams described the reports as...

Earlier this year, the BBC interviewed Mrs Venetia (Burney) Phair, the only living person to have named a planet... The IAU decision was political. Scientists voted to demote Pluto to the status of "dwarf planet." ...In California, of course, the real politicians found a reason for action in Pluto's demotion. While there are many more serious problems--over crowded schools and universities, decayed freeways, and the health care crisis, just to name a few—fifty-four of our esteemed elected officials found the time and energy for a Resolution that supports Pluto's status as a full-fledged planet. They call the IAU "mean-spirited" for...

LOS ANGELES - Scientists say they have confirmed that a so-called 10th planet discovered last year is bigger than Pluto, but that likely won't quell the debate over what makes a planet. The astronomers who spotted the icy, rocky body — informally called UB313 — had reported only a rough estimate of its size based on its brightness. But another group of researchers has come up with what is believed to be the first calculation of UB313's diameter. By measuring how much heat it radiates, German scientists led by Frank Bertoldi of the University of Bonn estimated that UB313 was...

Having Pups Over Pluto And The Planetary Misfits Of The Kuipers Ask any kid how many planets are in our solar system, and you'll get a firm answer: nine. But knock on a few doors in Berkeley's astronomy department, and you'll hear, amid the hemming and hawing, a whole range of numbers. Professor Gibor Basri, who plans soon to propose a formal definition of a planet to the international body that names astronomical objects, argues that there are at least 14 planets, and perhaps as many as 20. To the well-known list of nine he adds several large asteroids and...

Add a 10th planet to the solar system - or possibly subtract one. Astronomers announced today that they have found a lump of rock and ice that is larger than Pluto and the farthest known object in the solar system. The discovery will likely rekindle debate over the definition of "planet" and whether Pluto should still be regarded as one. The new object - as yet unnamed - is currently 9 billion miles away from the Sun, or about three times Pluto's current distance from the Sun. But its 560-year orbit also brings it as close as 3.3 billion miles....

Astronomers announced a contest today to name the two itty-bitty moons of Pluto discovered over the past two years. Three Pluto moons already have names associated with Hades and the underworld: Charon, the ferryman of Hades; the half-human, half-fish spirit Nix; and the multi-headed monster Hydra. The two unnamed moons need similarly shady references. Right now, they go by the bland titles of P4 and P5. They're no more than 15 to 20 miles across. Online voting will last two weeks. Twelve choices are available at plutorocks.com,