The first lunar eclipse of 2021 is will go down during the early hours of May 26. This, however is rare lunar event, as we stand to witness a supermoon, a lunar eclipse and a red blood moon all at once!  Sounds like something out of a fantasy book right? Let me break it down for you.

Supermoon

The term  refers to either a new or full Moon that occurs when the Moon is within its closest approach to Earth. The Moon’s orbit around Earth is not perfectly circular which means the Moon’s distance from Earth varies as it goes around the planet. The closest point on the orbit is called perigee and the Moon tends to appear bigger and brighter due to its proximity to earth. Normally its very hard to differentiate between the supermoon and the regular moon with our naked eye but a close inspection will tell you otherwise.

Lunar Eclipse

A lunar eclipse is when the earth comes between the Sun and the Moon forming a straight line, blocking the sunlight from falling directly on the Moon. There are two kinds of eclipse -partial and total, depending on how much earth’s shadow has covered the Moon. On May 26, we have a total lunar eclipse which happens only twice a year.

Red Blood Moon

When the Moon is completely covered by Earth’s shadow it will darken, but doesn’t go completely black. Instead, it takes on a red color, which is why total lunar eclipses are sometimes called red or blood moons.

According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the US, the total lunar eclipse would start at 4:47:39 am EDT. In India, it will be visible at around 2:17 pm and will end at 7:19 pm.

So keep your eyes peeled !

Google has announced a new ‘dermatology assist’ tool in the Google IO 2021 that will reform the diagnosis of skin conditions for the future.

 “People are coming to Google to ask questions about skin conditions. We get about 10 billion annual skin condition queries,” says  Karen DeSalvo, the chief health officer at Google Health.

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool will have the user take multiple images of their hair, skin and nails from various angles, and will be asked a list of question concerning the condition. After which the tool gives a possible list of results from a total of 288 conditions stored data and Google claims it has an accuracy rate of 84%. This technology will by no means substitute an in-person examination with a dermatologist or a biopsy test, although it does help aid the process.

Google says the tool is for everyone. “Our model accounts for factors like age, sex, race, and skin types — from pale skin that does not tan to brown skin that rarely burns. We developed and fine-tuned our model with de-identified data encompassing around 65,000 images and case data of diagnosed skin conditions, millions of curated skin concern images, and thousands of examples of healthy skin — all across different demographics,”

2 billion people globally suffer from skin conditions. Our CE-marked AI-powered dermatology tool will help people research common skin conditions. https://t.co/Z9bwC3f6AO #GoogleIO pic.twitter.com/gMWP3dIV3z

— Google Health (@GoogleHealth) May 18, 2021

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) recently approved  CoviSelf – India’s first self-use Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) kit manufactured by the Pune-based company Mylab. The test priced at Rs.250  per unit can be bought without a prescription and will be available in pharmacies all over the country starting next week.

The kit comes with an instruction manual, a nasal swab, a pre-filled extraction tube, a test card and a biohazard bag. The test works on the same principle as a pregnancy test, taking two minutes to conduct the test and 15 minutes to get the result. As per ICMR “This test is for self-use. If you test positive via this there is no need for RT-PCR test.” The  CoviSelf test results have to be uploaded on the Mylab CoviSelf mobile app that is available in the Play Store and the Apple Store. Since the app is centrally linked to the government’s server, the test results, if uploaded by the user, will be taken in account with the national database.