By Steve Rosenberg
BBC News, Moscow
Let me begin with an admission. So many times, I've thought: "Putin would never do this." Then he goes and does it.
"He'd never annex Crimea, surely." He did.
"He'd never start a war in the Donbas." He did.
"He'd never launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine." He has.
I've concluded that the phrase "would never do" doesn't apply to Vladimir Putin.
And that raises an uncomfortable question:
"He'd never press the nuclear button first. Would...
The European Union has announced that it intends to begin shipping arms to Ukraine, the first time in its history it has taken such a step.
Speaking at a press conference this afternoon, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the move marked a "watershed moment."
She also announced a raft of new sanctions targeting Russia and Belarus, and a ban on Russia using European airspace.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-60542877
The announcement that Russia has placed its nuclear forces on special alert evokes fearful resonances of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 – the time when Washington and Moscow came closest to nuclear war.
In that case, both sides stepped back thanks to a combination of skilful diplomacy, brinkmanship, and fear of the consequences, writes Gordon Corera of the BBC.
But historical parallels are not always exact. At the moment, we are not at the same level...
Both SARS-CoV-1, the virus that caused the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), and SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, originate from a group of betacoronaviruses known as "subgroup 2b." Coronaviruses from this subgroup have been highlighted as having significant potential to cross from animal hosts to humans with deleterious consequences, COVID-19 being the most recent one.
A coronavirus enzyme called papain-like protease, or PLpro, is one of two proteases that are required for the...
Russian assaults on Ukraine capital Kyiv have been met with fierce resistance as the Ukrainian military says it fought off several attacks, the BBC reports.
The military said in a Facebook post early on Saturday that an army unit managed to repel Russian forces near its base on a major city street.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said: "The occupiers wanted to block the centre of our state... We broke their plan."
Meanwhile, fighting continues near several other Ukrainian...
Quantum theory was originally formulated using complex numbers. Nonetheless, when replying to a letter by Hendrik Lorenz, Erwin Schrödinger (one of its founding fathers) wrote: "Using complex numbers in quantum theory is unpleasant and should be objected to. The wave function is surely fundamentally a real function."
In recent years, scientists successfully ruled out any local hidden variable explanation of quantum theory using Bell tests. Later, such tests were generalized to a network with multiple independent hidden...
Russian troops are in northern districts of the capital Kyiv, Ukraine says, and video shows armoured vehicles advancing
U.K. says the "bulk" of Russian troops advancing on the city remain more than 50 km away
Russian President Vladimir Putin tells Ukrainian troops to overthrow their own country's leadership
Meanwhile the Ukrainian government calls on citizens to make Molotov cocktails and defend the city
Ukraine's interior ministry says 18,000 guns have been given to...
Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg has unveiled several ambitious artificial-intelligence projects, describing AI as "the key to unlocking the Metaverse," the BBC reports.
In a livestreamed demonstration, he created a basic virtual world – including an island, trees and a beach – using the AI feature Builder Bot.
Zuckerberg also announced a plan to build a universal speech translator.
"The ability to communicate with anyone in any language is a superpower that was dreamt of forever," he said.
Builder...
The rape and murder of Noor Muqaddam, by a man from the same circle of rich friends, outraged Pakistan – and it highlighted the shocking levels of violence women there face.
In the days after her death, people demanded justice for Noor and an overhaul of the criminal justice system. The BBC's Shumaila Jaffery in Islamabad watched the case unfold.
Warning: This story contains distressing details of violent crime.
On July 20 last year, a phone rang...
Russian forces have launched a military assault on neighbouring Ukraine, crossing its borders and bombing targets near big cities.
In a pre-dawn televised statement, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia did not plan to occupy Ukraine and demanded that its military lay down their arms, the BBC reports.
Moments later, attacks were reported on Ukrainian military targets.
Ukraine said that "Putin has launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine".
Russia's military breached the border in a number of places,...
