A host of celebrities and scientists including Madonna, Robert de Niro and a clutch of Nobel Prize winners have called for radical change in the world rather than "a return to normal" after the coronavirus lockdowns.

China said Tuesday it will launch a new spacecraft at 6pm (1000 GMT), in a test of its ambitions to operate a permanent space station and send astronauts to the Moon.

A Russian cargo capsule with 2.5 tons of supplies docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday after the fastest such trip yet from earth, the national space agency Roscosmos said.

Oxford University is launching a human trial of a potential coronavirus vaccine, with the daunting aim of making a successful jab available to the public later this year.

Whether it came from a bat or a pangolin is not certain, but one thing is: the coronavirus outbreak that has killed tens of thousands and turned the world upside down comes from the animal world.

Two NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut on Friday made a safe return from the International Space Station to find the planet transformed by the coronavirus pandemic.  

A three-man crew blasted off to the International Space Station on Thursday, leaving behind a planet overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic.

It will be at least another year before a vaccine against the new coronavirus will be ready for approval and available in sufficient quantities, the EU medicines agency said Tuesday.

Johnson & Johnson said on Monday it had selected a lead candidate vaccine for the new coronavirus that would move to human trials by September and could be ready for emergency use by early next year.

A senior U.S. scientist issued a cautious prediction Sunday that the novel coronavirus could claim 100,000 to 200,000 lives in the United States.