Banksy tackles domestic violence with Valentine’s Day piece

Feb 15 2023

Mysterious British graffiti artist Banksy has returned to unveil his latest UK street artwork, and this time he is taking aim at the issue of domestic violence on Valentine’s Day.

The artwork shows a stereotypical 1950’s housewife with a black eye and missing tooth as she disposes of her abusive husband’s body in a freezer.

The artwork appeared in Margate, south-east England, earlier this week. Speculation circled about who was the originator of the art before Banksy confirmed it himself on his social media.

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One of the close-up images of the artwork was also captioned with ‘Valentine’s day mascara’.

Banksy is well known for tackling controversial or massive social issues through his graffiti work. Prior to this, Banksy travelled to Ukraine to create some protest pieces against the war-waging Russia whilst raising money for the NHS in the process.

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First look at Bolt’s small taxis as they take to Maltese roads

Feb 15 2023

It was announced earlier this week that Bolt, in collaboration with Buzzz Electric, will be testing the three-wheeled Carver Electric on Maltese roads.

The 100% electric vehicle is just 98cm wide and is expected to carve through gaps in traffic. The Carver boasts more stability than a motorcycle due to its three wheel structure.

According to ZAG Daily, Bolt aims to offer customers the best use-case for ‘every purpose a personal car serves, while solving traffic problems and the pollution that comes with it.’

Bolt informed ZAG Daily that the testing phase will last for a couple off months, with the vehicles only made available in smaller geo-fenced areas with Malta.

As more vehicles enter the market, the services will expand it accordingly. Ryan Mahoney, Country Manager for Bolt in Malta, told Zag that given how cities were built for cars, the collaboration will offer locals and visitors a ‘more effective and environmentally friendly transportation option.’

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380,000 passenger movements in January for Malta International Airport

Feb 15 2023

Malta International Airport’s traffic has, after several months off registering strong recovery rates, surpassed 2019’s passenger numbers for the first time since February off 2020 in January.

January’s traffic amounted to 379,335 passenger movements. This marks an increase of 3.6% when compared to the same month in 2019.

Despite being a big improvement in terms of pandemic recovery, the busiest start still remains a record held by January 2020’s passenger movements at 418,096.

Almost 77% of the available seats operated to and/or from Malta’s airport were occupied in January, which indicates a demand for travel. However, demand is expected to start levelling off as the year progresses.

Out of the 31 markets connected to in January, Italy remained at the top spot with 85,618 passenger movements. The UK followed close in second place with 58,836, with France, Poland and Germany following suit.

The German market lost the top spot it occupied for several months to Poland. While more seat capacity was deployed on German routes, a significant difference in the seat load performance of 92% for Poland and 77% for Germany, resulted in the former overtaking the latter by 695 passenger movements.

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Male contraceptive pill 100% successful in first mice trials

Feb 15 2023

A contraceptive pill designed for men has just proved to be a whopping 100% successful and effective in mice trials, getting us closer to the pharmaceutical becoming a reality.

The drug reportedly inactivates an enzyme called soluble adenylyl cyclase (sAC), which allows the mice to still produce sperm.

However, the sperm were rendered incapacitated as it was unable to propel itself forward and thus could not locate any eggs during reproduction.

The study, published on the 14th of February 2023 by Nature Communications research journal, showed that once injected into male mice, the contraceptive was 100% effective in preventing pregnancy for two and a half hours after it was applied.

Success dropped to around 91% after around 3 and a half hours, with the mice returning to full fertility the next day.

It is unclear whether the drug would offer protection to users or their partners from sexually transmitted infections. The drug also needs to get over another hurdle, namely the differences between mouse and human reproduction which, the study says, lays in the female anatomy.

“In mice, there is no physical barrier between the vagina and uterus, and semen deposited in the vagina advances unimpeded into the uterus. In humans, ejaculated sperm must be motile to cross the cervix to escape the normally inhospitable environment of the vagina and enter the permissive environment of the uterus. Once sperm cross the cervix, they can persist for days, allowing human conception to occur days following copulation” reads the study.

However, this phase of trials means that the contraceptive can move forward to more elaborate testing so that, one day, it may become another pharmaceutical on the market.

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Read the full study here.