News in Short

• Scientists have used fossil dating techniques and discovered the world’s oldest bug. They found that 425-million-year-old millipede fossil from the Scottish island of Kerrera is older than any known fossil of an insect, arachnid, or other related creepy-crawlies.
• Scientists discovered that the ancient millipede fossil- Kampecaris obanensis– is 425 million years of age. Or it might be 75 million years younger than the age other estimated oldest millipede to be.
• They used a method known as molecular clock dating, which depends on DNA’s mutation rate. Through this discovery, scientists offered new evidence on the origin and evolution of bugs and plants while suggesting that how these species evolved much more rapidly than previously thought.

• The COVID-19 pandemic may be over in India around mid-September, claim two public health experts from the health ministry who used mathematical model-based analysis to draw this projection.
• The analysis shows that when the number of infected becomes equal to those removed from circulation by recovery and death, the coefficient will reach the 100 percent threshold and the epidemic will be "extinguished”.
• They used Bailey's mathematical model to draw the projection. This stochastic mathematical mode takes into consideration the distribution of the total size of an epidemic, involving both infection and removal.

• China has issued an alert, warning its citizens not to travel to Australia in the latest sign of deteriorating relations.
• The Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism published a statement saying that discrimination and violent behaviour against Chinese and Asians are on the rise due to the Covid-19 epidemic.
• The warning from Australia’s largest trading partner follows the imposition of tariffs on barley shipments after Prime Minister Scott Morrison led calls for an independent probe into the origins of the coronavirus in Wuhan.
• Australia is the most China-reliant economy in the developed world, leaving it vulnerable to diplomatic blowback.

• President Jair Bolsonaro has threatened to pull Brazil out of the World Health Organization after the U.N. agency warned Latin American governments about the risk of lifting lockdowns before slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus.
• Latin America's most populous nations, Brazil and Mexico, are seeing the highest rates of new infections, though the pandemic is also gathering pace in countries such as Peru, Colombia, Chile and Bolivia.
• US President Donald Trump had said last month that the United States would end its own relationship with the WHO, accusing it of becoming a puppet of China, where the coronavirus first emerged.

• Researchers have identified a bunch of districts in India that have the maximum prevalence for diabetes among women.
• At least 50 of the 640 districts studied have high prevalence of diabetes among women aged 35-49 years. Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha have districts with the highest prevalence.
• Previous studies of the incidence of diabetes in men and women in India have thrown up mixed results with some finding greater evidence of the disease in women, in North India, and others reporting men in South India as more susceptible.