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United States: Donald Trump wants to strip social networks of their protection

On Thursday, the US President signed an executive order aimed at limiting the protection afforded to services such as Twitter and Facebook.

Donald Trump took action on Thursday 28 May. Upset by Twitter's decision to add a link to two messages published on Tuesday stating that it was advancing untruths about the reliability of postal voting, the President of the United States signed an executive order inviting the federal agencies concerned to re-examine the cornerstone on which social networks have developed. This is section 230 (c) of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law, which states that sites and services that allow Internet users to publish messages are not directly responsible for these messages.

"They have the unchecked power to censor, edit, conceal or alter any form of communication between individuals and large public audiences. There is no precedent in American history for such a small number of companies to control such a large sphere of human interaction", the US President railed against the social networking behemoths. The charge is paradoxical, given that the former businessman built part of his political career on his unbridled use of Twitter. His account now has over 80 million followers.

Source: Le Monde

Trump and Twitter: they loved each other so much.

Nothing is going well between the President and the social network, which - for the first time - reported a tweet from Trump. @realDonaldTrump has promised revenge.

Donald Trump has been on a rampage in recent days. Using his favourite weapon, the tweet, he has accused the host of a political programme of murder - without a shred of evidence, he has mocked Joe Biden for wearing a mask, he has retweeted the rantings of a right-wing extremist who called Hillary Clinton a "whore", he has mentioned conspiracy theories accusing Obama of espionage... He has been saying anything and everything to his 80 million followers for years. With the blessing of Twitter, which has always defended his freedom of expression.

Source: Le Point.fr

Llama antibodies could help defeat coronavirus

The plasma of a young Belgian llama contains special little antibodies. These are capable of neutralising infection by coronaviruses responsible for SARS, Mers and Covid-19.

Winter is a lama grazing peacefully in the meadows near the city of Ghent in Belgium. The young camelid could also play a key role in the search for a new animal. treatments for Covid-19.

Indeed, Winter has been immunised with a infusion containing proteins surface protein (protein S) of two coronavirus the Mers-CoV and the Sars-CoV-1. Scientists have identified the plasma du lama des petits antibodies neutralising agents that proved effective against two pseudotyped viral particles (a lentivirus modified to express coronavirus surface proteins) mimicking the two strains of coronavirus against which Winter has been immunised, as well as the Sars-CoV-2.

The results of this study will be published in the journal Cell. A preliminary, peer-reviewed version is available from already available.

Small neutralising antibodies

These particular antibodies are a subclass of camelid-specific IgG called VHH. They have only one heavy chain, whereas conventional IgGs have a light chain and a heavy chain. VHHs therefore have only one variable domain, located on the heavy chain.

Crystallographic analysis was used to determine which part of the virus reconstituted HHV from Winter's plasma bind: the receptor binding domain (RBD) of protein S. Several studies have demonstrated their neutralising action against Sars-CoV-1 and Mers-CoV in cell cultures in vitro. One of them, VHH-72, is capable of neutralising infection by the viral pseudoparticle mimicking Sars-CoV-1, as well as that mimicking Sars-CoV-2.

Smaller than conventional IgGs, VHHs are stable and could be administered via a spray to be inhaled, in particular to treat respiratory infections. Scientists hope that the neutralising capacity of llama HHVs makes them serious candidates for treating Covid-19.