You could flip to any news channel and all you would see is coverage on the coronavirus (Covid-19), but what else is happening in the world right now, because the news has been really silent lately.  There are a lot of groundbreaking discoveries and new information going on that we don’t know about because the news isn’t covering it.

One of the small discoveries is that scientists recently found a species of bird dinosaur smaller than the size of a hummingbird in a 99 million-year-old piece of amber.  Its scientific name is Oculudentavis khaungraae which means “eye tooth bird”. The difference about this bird is the fact that it had teeth unlike similar birds of the same size. It was a predator. 

A second person was cured of HIV in the UK through a stem cell transplant. Timothy Ray Brown was the first person to be cured in 2007, to the public he was called the “Berlin Patient”.  He was diagnosed with HIV in the 1990s and later on he was also diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia which would later have him need a stem cell transplant.  When the time came the doctors wanted to try an experiment where they looked for a stem cell donor with a special type of genetic mutation which made them [practicaly]  immune to HIV.  In the end, it cured his acute myeloid leukemia and his HIV.  “The Lancet” show was also doing a study on stem cell transplants and another person on the show was cured of HIV.

Whales were spotted in Antarctica for the first time since 1980.  Whys this amazing?  60 years ago humpback whales, blue whales, fin whales, and southern right whales were nearly extinct due to whaling which led to a 97% loss of their species, but with the new laws and restrictions, their species were able to bounce back. In 2018 only one whale was spotted but recently there was 33 sighting and 55 individual whales! 

Harvey Weinstein who was a movie producer that sexually assaulted his actresses was finally found guilty and he will be sentenced to jail for 23 years which is essentially a life sentence due to his bad health and his age(67).  Before he went to jail he hired someone to tell him how life was going to be like in prison, which is a popular thing that white-collar criminals do now.

Last but certainly not least Cancer has seen a 20% decrease in 20 years. What does this mean?  Fewer people are dying from cancer.  It is estimated that “in 2019, 1,762,450 new cancer cases and 606,880 cancer deaths will occur in the U.S.” which is less than 1991 which is when cancer reached its peak “215.1 deaths per 100,000 population. It has been steadily decreasing by 1.5% every year since then which is approximately 27% this year.

There has been a lot going on with the world other than the Coronavirus and this is just a few to name.