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Reviewed by Lily Ramsey, LLM Aug 18 2023

A new study, 'Sensitive poliovirus detection using nested PCR and nanopore sequencing: a prospective validation study', published today (17 August 2023) in Nature Microbiology, proves that using DDNS to detect polio outbreaks can save public health authorities crucial time and money.

This research was jointly conducted by researchers at the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale in Kinshasa who implemented DDNS in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for the detection of polio outbreaks in collaboration with the MHRA, Imperial College London, the University of Edinburgh and various laboratories of the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Polio Laboratory Network (GPLN), with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

This is the first time that this type of scientific technique has been used to detect polio. Similar techniques have previously been used to detect COVID-19, Ebola, measles and monkeypox.

By enabling samples to be tested in the country where the outbreak originated rather than being sent to specialist laboratories abroad, the costs and delays of transport and testing can be reduced from an average of 42 days to an average of 19 days.

Currently, stool samples from countries with active polio outbreaks such as the DRC must be shipped around the world for lengthy, complex laboratory tests to confirm a polio case. Faster detection of polio in the regions where outbreaks still occur allows for a faster response by authorities through targeted, localised vaccination campaigns, minimising the opportunity for the virus to spread.

Javier Martin, Principal Scientist in Virology at the MHRA said: We are standing at a delicate and pivotal moment for the eradication of polio. While vaccination programmes have seen polio disappear in many countries, the delayed detection of outbreaks poses a major threat to those efforts.

By implementing detection methods such as DDNS, we can identify where outbreaks are and which polio strain is present much more quickly, allowing us to act at the earliest opportunity.

This is the result of years of work, collaborating with our partners. Together, we will continue to build on this research and support countries at risk of outbreaks to implement DDNS testing to help make polio a disease of the past."

This research showed that DDNS tests done locally in the DRC over a six-month period were an average of 23 days faster than the standard method, with over 99% accuracy.

Researchers also tested this technique in the UK and detected poliovirus in London in 2022, leading to the recent drive to ensure children under the age of 12 are vaccinated through the London polio catch-up campaign 2023.

Professor Placide Mbala-Kingebeni, Medical Doctor and Virologist at the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale said: This is the perfect example of collaboration, where combining and sharing knowledge together with all our partners has supported the vital work of the INRB in the DRC where poliomyelitis remains a serious public health problem.

Collaboration and training with our partners has empowered the local team not only to master and confidently carry out this new technique but also to transfer the knowledge and skills to other African countries where poliovirus outbreaks are reported regularly.

The support and guidance of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the GPLN, who make these collaborations possible, enables the application and expansion of DDNS across Africa for the rapid detection of poliovirus and outbreak response, helping us move closer towards polio eradication."

Dr Alex Shaw, Research Fellow in the School of Public Health at Imperial College London said: This method allows the rapid confirmation of polio strains, facilitating swifter vaccine responses that can reduce the number of polio cases stemming from an outbreak. Development and validation of the method has been the result of fruitful collaboration between a consortium of many partners.

As a consortium we look forward to the training of additional national laboratories in this method, with prior trainees, including members of INRB, now taking on the role of trainers.

The sequencing technology used in this method is easily adapted for the detection and typing of other organisms. This rollout will therefore provide a foundation of skills and experience that can be redirected to the genomic surveillance of other pathogens as needed." Related StoriesCutting-edge research: machine learning identifies early predictors of type 1 diabetesBibliometric analysis reveals research trends connecting Alzheimer's disease and the gut microbiomeResearch uncovers new insights into post-COVID-19 syndrome (PCS) phenotypes and impact on quality of life

Polio is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus, most commonly transmitted through contact with infected feces via contaminated food and water.

While many people may never show symptoms, in extreme cases, especially for babies and children under the age of five, polio can lead to permanent paralysis or death.

The WHO has identified delays in detection as one of the major challenges facing their Polio eradication strategy 2022-2026.

While faster detection methods such as DDNS cannot eradicate polio on their own, they play an essential part in managing outbreaks.

Scientists at the MHRA will continue to support the testing and validation of DDNS as a polio detection technique and training WHO laboratories around the world in how to use it. Source:

GOV.UKJournal reference:

Shaw, A. G., et al. (2023). Sensitive poliovirus detection using nested PCR and nanopore sequencing: a prospective validation study. Nature Microbiology. doi.org/10.1038/s41564-023-01453-4.

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Entertainment

The 1975 star Matty Healy warns of musical ‘silence’ without small stages as he backs new UK-wide festival

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The 1975 star Matty Healy warns of musical 'silence' without small stages as he backs new UK-wide festival

The 1975 frontman Matty Healy has warned of a musical “silence” that would come without the pubs and bars that give UK artists their first chance to perform.

Fresh from headlining Glastonbury in June, Healy is backing a new UK-wide festival which will see more than 2,000 gigs taking place across more than 1,000 “seed” venues in September.

The Seed Sounds Weekender aims to celebrate the hospitality sector hosting bands and singers just as they are starting out – and for some, before they go on to become global superstars.

Healy, who is an ambassador for the event, said in a statement to Sky News: “Local venues aren’t just where bands cut their teeth, they’re the foundation of any real culture.

“Without them, you don’t get The Smiths, Amy Winehouse, or The 1975. You get silence.”

Oasis, currently making headlines thanks to their sold-out reunion tour, first played at Manchester’s Boardwalk club, which closed in 1999, and famously went on to play stadiums and their huge Knebworth gigs within the space of a few years.

Liam and Noel Gallagher on stage for the first Wembley night of the Oasis reunion tour. Pic: Lewis Evans
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Oasis stars Liam and Noel Gallagher, pictured on stage at Wembley for their reunion tour, started out playing Manchester’s Boardwalk club. Pic: Lewis Evans

GigPig, the live music marketplace behind Seed Sounds, says the seed sector collectively hosts more than three million gigs annually, supports more than 43,000 active musicians, and contributes an estimated £2.4bn to the UK economy.

“The erosion of funding for seed and grassroots spaces is part of a wider liberal tendency to strip away the socially democratic infrastructure that actually makes art possible,” said Healy.

“What’s left is a cultural economy where only the privileged can afford to create, and where only immediately profitable art survives.”

He described the Seed Sounds Weekender as “a vital reminder that music doesn’t start in boardrooms or big arenas – it starts in back rooms, pubs, basements, and independent spaces run on love, grit, and belief in something bigger.”

Read more from Sky News:
Oasis photographers recall the early days
Heavy metal to reality TV: The wild life of Ozzy Osbourne

The importance of funding for grassroots venues has been highlighted in the past few years, with more than 200 closing or stopping live music in 2023 and 2024, according to the Music Venue Trust. Sheffield’s well-known Leadmill venue saw its last gig in its current form in June, after losing a long-running eviction battle.

In May, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy announced the £85m Creative Foundations Fund to support arts venues across England.

And last year, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee called for a levy on tickets to large concerts at stadiums and arenas to help fund grassroots venues, which artists including Coldplay and Katy Perry, and venues including the Royal Albert Hall, have backed.

But most seed venues – the smaller spaces in the hospitality sector that provide a platform before artists get to ticketed grassroots gigs or bigger stages – won’t qualify for the levy. GigPig is working to change this by formalising the seed music venue space as a recognised category.

“The UK’s seed venues are where music careers are born,” said GigPig co-founder Kit Muir-Rogers. “Collectively, this space promotes more music than any other in the live music business, yet it has gone overlooked and under-appreciated.”

The Seed Sounds Weekender takes place from 26-28 September and will partner with Uber to give attendees discounted rides to and from venues.

Tickets for most of the gigs will be free, with events taking place across 20 UK towns and cities including London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Leicester, Newcastle and Southampton

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Technology

Samsung backs South Korean AI chip startup Rebellions ahead of IPO

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Samsung backs South Korean AI chip startup Rebellions ahead of IPO

The Rebel-Quad is the second-generation product from Rebellions and is made up of four Rebel AI chips. Rebellions, a South Korean firm, is looking to rival companies like Nvidia in AI chips.

Rebellions

South Korean artificial intelligence chip startup Rebellions has raised money from tech giant Samsung and is targeting a funding round of up to $200 million ahead of a public listing, the company’s management told CNBC on Tuesday.

Last year, Rebellions merged with another startup in South Korea called Sapeon, creating a firm that is being positioned as one of the country’s promising rivals to Nvidia.

Rebellions is currently raising money and is targeting funding of between $150 million and $200 million, Sungkyue Shin, chief financial officer of the startup, told CNBC on Tuesday.

Samsung’s investment in Rebellions last week was part of that, Shin said, though he declined to say how much the tech giant poured in.

Since its founding in 2020, Rebellions has raised $220 million, Shin added.

The current funding round is ongoing and Shin said Rebellions is talking to its current investors as well as investors in Korea and globally to participate in the capital raise. Rebellions has some big investors, including South Korean chip giant SK Hynix, telecommunication firms SK Telecom and Korea Telecom, and Saudi Arabian oil giant Aramco.

AI chip startup Rebellions looks to raise up to $200 million ahead of IPO

Rebellions was last valued at $1 billion. Shin said the current round of funding would push the valuation over $1 billion but declined to give specific figure.

Rebellions is aiming for an initial public offering once this funding round has closed.

“Our master plan is going public,” Shin said.

Rebellions designs chips that are focused on AI inferencing rather than training. Inferencing is when a pre-trained AI model interprets live data to come up with a result, much like the answers that are produced by popular chatbots.

With the backing of major South Korean firms and investors, Rebellions is hoping to make a global play where it will look to challenge Nvidia and AMD as well as a slew of other startups in the inferencing space.

Samsung collaboration

Rebellions has been working with Samsung to bring its second-generation chip, Rebel, to market. Samsung owns a chip manufacturing business, also known as foundry. Four Rebel chips are put together to make the Rebel-Quad, the product that Rebellions will eventually sell. A Rebellions spokesperson said the chip will be launched later this year.

The funding will partly go toward Rebellions’ product development. Rebellions is currently testing its chip which will eventually be produced on a larger scale by Samsung.

“Initial results have been very promising,” Sunghyun Park, CEO of Rebellions, told CNBC on Tuesday.

South Korean AI startup Rebellions says tariffs could delay IPO by 'a little bit'

Park said Samsung invested in Rebellions partly because of the the good results that the chip has so far produced.

Samsung is manufacturing Rebellions’ semiconductor using its 4 nanometer process, which is among the leading-edge chipmaking nodes. For comparison, Nvidia’s current Blackwell chips use the 4 nanometer process from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Rebellions will also use Samsung’s high bandwidth memory, known as HBM3e. This type of memory is stacked and is required to handle large data processing loads.

That could turn out to be a strategic win for Samsung, which is a very distant second to TSMC in terms of market share in the foundry business. Samsung has been looking to boost its chipmaking division. Samsung Electronics recently entered into a $16.5 billion contract for supplying semiconductors to Tesla.

If Rebellions manages to find a large customer base, this could give Samsung a major customer for its foundry business.

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Science

NISAR Launches July 30: A NASA-ISRO Satellite to Track Earth’s Changes

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NISAR Launches July 30: A NASA-ISRO Satellite to Track Earth’s Changes

The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite, a joint Earth science mission, is now set for launch from India’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre. The pickup-truck-sized spacecraft was encapsulated in the nose cone of an Indian Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle and is scheduled to lift off on Wednesday, July 30 at 8:10 a.m. EDT (5:40 p.m. IST). Once in orbit, its dual-frequency radars will circle Earth 14 times a day, scanning nearly all of the planet’s land and ice surfaces every 12 days. It will provide data to help scientists monitor soil moisture and vegetation, and better assess hazards like landslides and floods.

International Collaboration and Launch Readiness

According to the official website, NISAR reflects a significant NASA–ISRO partnership. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) built the long-wavelength L-band radar, and India’s Space Applications Centre built the shorter-wavelength S-band radar. This dual-frequency design makes NISAR the first Earth satellite to carry two radar systems, underscoring the mission’s unique collaboration.

The spacecraft is now integrated into its launch vehicle at India’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre. On July 28 NASA announced NISAR had been encapsulated in the payload fairing of an ISRO Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle on the pad. The GSLV is scheduled to lift off at 8:10 a.m. EDT (5:40 p.m. IST) on Wednesday, July 30.

Advanced Dual-Frequency Radar

NISAR carries a novel dual-frequency radar system. The satellite’s instruments operate at L-band (25 cm) and S-band (10 cm) wavelengths. The longer L-band waves can penetrate forests and soil to sense moisture and land motion, while the shorter S-band waves pick up fine surface details like vegetation moisture and roughness. This combination lets NISAR detect both large-scale and fine-scale changes.

From orbit, NISAR will circle Earth 14 times per day, scanning nearly all land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days. Its data will track changes like the advance or retreat of polar ice sheets and slow ground shifts from earthquakes, and will also aid agriculture and disaster planning by helping monitor crops and prepare for floods and hurricanes.

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