Tag Archives: survival

Technology

Blizzard is building a survival game for PC and consoles

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Blizzard, the studio behind Overwatch, Diablo and World of Warcraft, is getting into a new genre with the announcement that it’s working on a survival game. It seems the project is in the early stages of development, so don’t expect a finished product (or even a splashy trailer) any time soon, but it’s notable that the publisher is playing around with fresh mechanics and new worlds.

Blizzard’s job post about the survival game says it will be “a place full of heroes we have yet to meet, stories yet to be told, and adventures yet to be lived. A vast realm of possibility, waiting to be explored.” So, yeah, they’re keeping things vague for now.

The studio has confirmed one detail about the project: It’ll be available on “PC and console.” It’s hard to say if the use of the singular “console” is prophetic — after all, Microsoft just announced plans to purchase Activision Blizzard, and the cross-platform future of its games is uncertain. Operating as a subsidiary of Microsoft, it’s possible that Blizzard would build a game just for Xbox consoles, leaving PlayStation and Switch players in the lurch.

It’ll likely be at least a year before we hear platform details and concrete information about the game, but Blizzard is looking to hire a handful of people in art, design and engineering to fill out the team. 

Activision Blizzard is currently facing a lawsuit and several investigations into allegations of systemic gender discrimination and sexual harassment at the studio, where CEO Bobby Kotick has been in charge for the past 30 years. One Blizzard employee went public with her experience, saying she was “subjected to rude comments about [her] body, unwanted sexual advances, inappropriately touched, subjected to alcohol-infused team events and cube crawls, invited to have casual sex with [her] supervisors, and surrounded by a frat-boy culture that’s detrimental to women.” 

Blizzard head Mike Ybarra last week promised to rebuild trust in the studio and establish “a safe, inclusive and creative work environment” as it transitions to Microsoft’s roster.

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Technology

Blizzard announces ‘brand-new survival game’ set in new universe

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Blizzard Entertainment, the home of StarCraft, World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch, is making a “brand-new survival game for PC and console,” the developer announced Tuesday. The untitled survival game will be set in an all-new universe, unrelated to Blizzard’s existing fantasy and sci-fi properties.

Blizzard’s survival game was revealed in the form of a developer recruitment news item on the company’s website. Here’s how Blizzard describes its new game:

Blizzard is embarking on our next quest. We are going on a journey to a whole new universe, home to a brand-new survival game for PC and console. A place full of heroes we have yet to meet, stories yet to be told, and adventures yet to be lived. A vast realm of possibility, waiting to be explored.

The announcement is accompanied by two pieces of artwork. One shows what appears to be an ax-wielding ranger wearing an animal skull-shaped helmet and light armor crouching in a forest. A window or mirror across from her appears to show a portal to another, more-modern world. The other piece of artwork shows something of the inverse: a pair of teenagers in a modern-day city environment stumbling upon a fantasy world, complete with a floating castle in the distance.

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

A title, release platforms, and release date were not specified, but the project sounds well into development. Shortly after the news was posted, Blizzard Entertainment head Mike Ybarra said on Twitter, “I’ve played many hours of this project with the team and I’m incredibly excited about the team’s vision and the brand-new world it presents for players to immerse themselves in together.”

The “Unannounced Survival Game” will be Blizzard’s first new original property since the launch of Overwatch in 2016. It’s also Blizzard’s first foray into the survival genre popularized by games like Minecraft, DayZ, Don’t Starve, and Rust.

Blizzard’s surprise (and surprisingly low-key) announcement of an all-new game and an all-new property comes shortly after Microsoft announced plans to acquire parent company Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. The developer has a slew of previously announced projects in the works, including Diablo 4, Diablo Immortal, and Overwatch 2, but only one of those — the Diablo mobile spinoff — is expected this year.

The developer is also still contending with turmoil and turnover at the company as Activision Blizzard faces multiple lawsuits and federal investigations over wide-ranging allegations that it maintained a toxic workplace environment that was hostile to women. Those allegations and Activision Blizzard’s handling of the accusations have led multiple corporate sponsors and licensing partners to distance themselves from Activision Blizzard, and to numerous developers leaving the company.



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Technology

Battlefield 2042 Pulls Zombie Survival Mode After It Breaks XP

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Image: Battlefield 2042

Last week DICE launched a new game mode for Battlefield 2042 called Zombie Survival, which would pit a small team of human players against a horde of the undead. It lasted about a day before it had to be removed, for reasons that had nothing to do with Zombie Survival itself.

Justin Wiebe is senior design director at Ripple Effect Studios, formerly known as Danger Close Games and DICE LA, a studio that these days mostly helps out on Battlefield with stuff like game modes and expansions. He took to Twitter over the weekend to explain why the mode was pulled so quickly:

“We’ve removed the Zombie’s mode and replaced with Gun Game”, he wrote. “Hopefully we can fix it in the future and keep it in alignment with standard game progression. We’ve also tightened our review process to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Thanks for your patience and understanding.”

Then, responding to a player saying that the mode had been seeing a “a mixed bag of reactions” from fans, Wiebe added “I think there was potential for the mode but needs to go back into the workshop for a bit. Regardless, we need to be focusing on more important issues like improving core XP progression for BF Portal.”

“I’m not going to lie, this one shouldn’t have gotten through our review process” he says in another, later tweet. “I think our desire to create a fun zombies mode clouded our ability to see such a simple thing like the impact it would have on progression. I’m very sorry for the hardship this has caused.”

The issue here is the Battlefield 2042, for better and mostly worse, is built around the idea that as you play it you gain XP, which lets you unlock new weapons, vehicles, skins and equipment in the main game modes. That makes it one of the most important things for the team to have to get right, and introducing fan-made modes in Portal—the game’s creation suite—that break that progression threatens to undermine the whole system that the main game modes are relying on.

This of course sucks, regardless of whether you enjoyed Zombie Survival or not, because it reminds us that the progression system itself is deeply unsatisfying for anyone playing the game for a serious amount of time, and to see interesting game modes like this nuked to preserve it shows that this game’s priorities are wrong at their most fundamental levels.



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Health

AI Machine Learning Tool Predicts COVID-19 Survival From Blood Sample From Critically Ill Patients

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As the Omicron variant rages across the U.S. and the rest of the globe, we’re seeing hospitals everywhere maxing out their capacity to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients—not all of whom have an obvious risk factor. In the ICU, it’s often difficult to determine who might survive and beat the infection, and who might end up succumbing to the disease.

That could change very soon thanks to a new AI tool that can predict the survival outcome of severe cases of COVID weeks in advance—all from a single blood sample. The new model, described in a peer-reviewed paper published in PLOS Digital Health on Tuesday, could help doctors make more informed treatment plans for COVID patients during initial hospitalization, to minimize the odds of mortality and improve patient care down the road.

“The clinical picture of COVID-19 is exceptionally diverse, ranging from asymptomatic infection to very severe disease and death,” Florian Kurth, a clinical researcher at Charity-University Medicine in Berlin and a lead author of the new study, said in a statement. “For physicians, it is difficult to estimate the individual risk for a patient of deterioration and/or death from COVID-19.” The new AI model “can fairly well predict the probability that an individual patient will die or survive COVID-19.”

The new study can be split into two parts. First, the researchers studied hundreds of blood samples from 50 critically ill COVID patients treated in Germany and Austria, to learn how the levels of 321 different proteins changed over the course of infection. All patients were in intensive care, requiring ventilation and additional organ replacement therapy. Fifteen patients died and 35 survived.

The researchers learned that there were 14 proteins that were most strongly associated with either COVID survival or death, and that these protein levels were altered early by the disease. The most important were proteins involved in blood coagulation and antibody function.

In the second part, the new AI model was built and trained to make prognoses of COVID patients based on the levels of these 14 proteins in a single blood sample. Kurth and his colleagues tested this model on samples from a new cohort of 24 critically ill patients. Of that cohort, 19 patients survived and five died—and the model was able to accurately predict the outcomes for all but one of these patients. These prognoses were “far better” than ones used in current clinical care risk assessments, said Kurth.

The current study is based on an extremely small sample size, so the authors want to run the model through much wider testing to prove it could be a valuable predictor of COVID-19 outcomes in real-world hospital settings.

That will take quite a bit of time, but they also hope the findings of the paper can help other researchers better understand the mechanisms behind COVID and what kinds of treatments should be advanced to halt disease progression in general. Kurth said there’s a hope the lessons here could throw the doors open to a new future for medicine, where we make early predictions of an illness based solely on a blood test.

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US

Tales of survival: Mayfield residents waited, panicked, prayed

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MAYFIELD, Ky., Dec 12 (Reuters) – Until the power went out on Friday night, Rick Foley was closely tracking the storm system with the help of radar and television news. But when his house in Mayfield, Kentucky, went dark, all he could do was sit tight and wait. Finally he heard the roar.

“My ears popped, and debris started coming through the doorway and I just dropped down on my knees, covered my head, and it was gone in 30 seconds,” the 70-year-old retired boat carpenter said of the moment one of the most powerful tornados in Kentucky history slammed into his home.

In what felt like less than a minute, the facade of the house was completely gone, leaving his living room fireplace exposed and surrounded by a field of rubble.

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Stunned and having nowhere else to go, Foley stumbled to his bedroom. There he was shocked to see a framed oil painting of his late wife, Mary Ellen, lying on the ground nearly untouched, illustrating the randomness of the destruction. She died 38 years ago in childbirth, Foley said, tearing up.

He spent the rest of the night lying awake in his bedroom, its wall blown out, fully exposing the room to the street. But the roof overhead was hanging on, protecting him from the rain.

“I kept hearing noises in the debris, hoping it was my cats,” he said. But the cats have not returned home.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said dozens of people in his state were dead from the tornadoes that tore through the U.S. Midwest and South on Friday night, killing people in at least five states.

As with Foley, many residents of Mayfield were notified about the approach of the deadly weather system by television news. But many of those who survived said they were still powerless to defend themselves against its sheer force as it ripped through their little community on Friday evening.

NBC affiliate WPSD-TV in Paducah, Kentucky, about 25 miles (40 km) north, pre-empted regular programming starting at 7:30 p.m. with meteorologists on the air live for the next five hours issuing tightly targeted alerts as the storm closed in. The warnings also went on social media and to the cellphones of the station’s app users.

“I can’t tell you the number of people and emails I received that parroted: ‘You saved lives tonight,'” station manager Bill Evans told Reuters by telephone.

The National Weather Service’s Paducah office also issued a series of escalating social media alerts. A 9:03 p.m. Twitter post warned that tornadoes could hit Mayfield by 9:30. At 9:27 p.m., it said: “TORNADO EMERGENCY FOR MAYFIELD. A VIOLENT TORNADO IS MOVING INTO THE CITY OF MAYFIELD. TAKE SHELTER NOW!”

PANIC ATTACK

Despite the warnings, many residents had nowhere to hide from the twister’s killer force.

Bridget Avery embraces her friend Derrick Starks after helping him retrieve family mementos and a photo album from the destroyed home of Starks’ uncle, in the aftermath of a tornado in Mayfield, Kentucky, U.S. December 12, 2021. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

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Laurie Lopez, 53, got an alert on her phone at 9:06 p.m. that said to take cover from the incoming tornado. She, her 19-year-old daughter and their two huskies took cover in the hallway between their kitchen and her bedroom.

“We got down in the hallway and it wasn’t 20 minutes before our whole house started shaking. She was screaming, she went into a panic attack,” Lopez said of her daughter.

“We heard the rumbling and the whole house started shaking,” she said.

On Sunday, the front of Lopez’s two-story house appeared totally collapsed and part of the roof had fallen onto the front lawn. Lopez’s car was buried somewhere under the mound of debris in front of where the house once stood.

When Timothy McDill got word that the storm was near, he fled to the basement with his family. Once downstairs, he tethered himself, his wife, two grandchildren, a pair of Chihuahuas and a cat to a drainpipe using a flagpole rope. Then they waited.

“They were troopers. They didn’t cry that much,” McDill said of his grandchildren, 12 and 14. “Me and my missus were doing all the crying. We were scared we were going to lose the kids, and they don’t think of that.”

Marty Janes, 59, and his wife, Theresa, 69, were heading to bed on Friday night when he went to the bathroom.

“I just stepped out of the bathroom to go back to the bedroom and the roof came in, walls came in, there was glass flying everywhere.”

Janes ducked under his dining room table and was “bleeding all over,” he said. He and his wife were shouting to each other from across the house but they could not reach each other.

Paramedics arrived and took Janes to the hospital. His wife was uninjured.

On Sunday, Janes was sitting next to his dilapidated house as volunteers removed his belongings to prepare the house for demolition. The roof and walls were gone.

Inside the doorway of what used to be the dining room were handprints in dried blood from where Janes had tried to get back to the bedroom to reach his wife that night.

“I don’t even want to stand out there and watch it,” he said. “I don’t wish this on anyone.”

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Reporting by Gabriella Borter in Mayfield, Kentucky; Additional reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Peter Cooney

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Technology

Square Enix Reveals Canceled Tomb Raider Survival Horror Game

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I hope to one day be as brave as Lara Croft.
Image: Crystal Dynamics

It’s kind of serendipitous that Square Enix is celebrating Tomb Raider’s 25th anniversary in October. Just in time for Halloween, likely unintentionally honoring the spooky season, the publisher has unveiled early development footage of a canceled Lara Croft adventure that saw the British explorer trying to survive the horror.

The project was called Tomb Raider: Ascension. It eventually got scrapped in favor of Crystal Dynamics’ successful 2013 reboot. But based on newly revealed prototype gameplay, Ascension sought to take elements from games such as Resident Evil and Shadow of the Colossus to make a tense, grotesque survival horror experience sorta like The Evil Within.

Read More: Square Enix’s Crystal Dynamics Also Working On The New Perfect Dark Game

And it’s actually frightening! The prototype footage below shows a pre-rendered (and eventually, a lo-fi) Lara Croft roaming around some viney underground cave before encountering a monstrosity with tentacles and stretchy appendages and other weird shit. These enemies are very gross.

But one of the more terrifying parts is a sequence about two minutes into the seven-minute gameplay video. Lara burns her way through what looks like an ornate temple, setting ablaze not just the structure itself, but also a number of creepy, frenzied, spiky-headed enemies with long…fingernails? The music set over the footage is eerie and has plenty of sharp stings to induce a jump scare or two.

Things get stranger when Lara hits more open environments. After some horseback riding, she’s greeted by a big-ass monster that could have been a Dark Souls boss in another life. This horrifying thing initiates a chase sequence that would scare me half to death.

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There are two other, albeit shorter, videos that accompanied the prototype gameplay. One dives into early concept art, showcasing that Lara Croft in Tomb Raider: Ascension would have traveled with a young girl, recalling a core mechanic in Ico. The other highlights Xbox 360 box art and even gives us some voice-over.

According to Video Games Chronicle, Square Enix’s digital book Tomb Raider: The Final Hours reveals that Crystal Dynamics abandoned the project because doubt fomented. Apparently, the team had no faith that Tomb Raider: Ascension would be as good as Batman: Arkham Asylum. This comparison drove the studio to pivot development, ultimately resulting in 2013’s Tomb Raider.

It’s worth noting that while Tomb Raider: Ascension may have never materialized, much of the prototype’s vibes can be sensed in Tomb Raider. Furthermore, the 2013 game’s plot involves a ceremony called an “ascension.” They may be totally different games, but the DNA of Ascension nevertheless seems present in the reboot.

Read More: Creepypasta Spins The Strange And Unsettling Circumstances Around Cancelled Tomb Raider Game

The reveal of this canceled Lara Croft adventure comes several months after fans uncovered yet another scrapped project. That one, a 10th anniversary PSP remake of Core Design’s very first Tomb Raider game, resurfaced in January and is now playable on PC via direct download.

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Technology

Legends Gets Competitive ‘Rivals’ Horde Mode

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Screenshot: Sucker Punch / Sony

Last October, Ghost of Tsushima received a surprise multiplayer expansion called Ghost of Tsushima: Legends, which pit teams of players against waves of enemies in various cooperative scenarios. Nearly one year on, Legends is on the edge of some big changes, including a new competitive mode and a standalone release, Sucker Punch announced in a blog post today.

Read More: I’m Going To Play The Shit Out Of Ghost Of Tsushima’s New Co-Op Mode

On September 3, Legends will receive a competitive mode called “Rivals.” Rather than a traditional battle—in which you’d straight up fight against your human opponents—Rivals sees two teams of two face off via indirect means, kind of like how Russia and the United States did for several decades last century. As you defeat waves of enemies, you’ll gain an in-game currency called Magatama. You can then burn that to afflict the opposing team with various debuffs. Spending enough Magatama triggers a final wave of enemies. Whichever team defeats their final wave first wins. Here’s a trailer:

Alongside the release of Rivals, Sucker Punch will roll out an update that allows players to level up some of their highest-powered gear to Ki levels of 120, opening up a second perk. And the length of Survival mode sessions will apparently be shortened somewhat, though Sucker Punch didn’t specify by how much. (Hopefully this means Gold runs won’t last an hour anymore!)

What’s more, Ghost of Tsushima: Legends will be made available as a standalone release for $20. The way today’s blog post is worded, a specific release date remains unclear. Sony, Ghost of Tsushima’s publisher, did not immediately respond to a note from Kotaku seeking clarity.

Later this month, Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut comes out on PS4 and PS5, offering PS5-specific enhancements and a new expansion, alongside a baffling PS4-to-PS5 pricing scheme. Through early October, Legends will receive new content based on Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut, including Survival maps based on the forthcoming Iki island region setting for the expansion. You don’t need to own the Director’s Cut to get access to the new stuff in Legends.

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When Legends dropped out of the blue last year, I played…well, let’s just say my headline wasn’t lying. But Legends isn’t designed to be an infinite timesink, as there is a ceiling to how much gear you can earn and level up. The new additions should be as good a reason as any to hop back in. Hell yeah.

 

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Business

NeuroRx Announces ZYESAMI™ (aviptadil, RLF-100) Met the Primary Endpoint of Its Phase 2b/3 Clinical Trial and Also Demonstrated a Meaningful Benefit in Survival from Critical COVID-19

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RADNOR, Pa., March 29, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — NeuroRx, Inc. today reports 60-day results of the Phase 2b/3 trial of intravenously-administered ZYESAMI™ (aviptadil acetate) for the treatment of respiratory failure in critically-ill patients with COVID-19, which is being developed in collaboration with Relief Therapeutics Holding AG (SIX:RLF,OTCQB:RLFTF). Across all patients and sites, ZYESAMI™ met the primary endpoint for successful recovery from respiratory failure at days 28 (P = .014) and 60 (P = .013) and also demonstrated a meaningful benefit in survival (P = < .001) after controlling for ventilation status and treatment site.

In addition to the robust overall significance across all 196 treated patients at all 10 clinical sites, the prespecified analysis of recovery from respiratory failure is clinically and statistically significant in the 127 patients treated by High Flow Nasal Cannula (HFNC) (P = .02), compared to those treated with mechanical or non-invasive ventilation at tertiary care hospitals. In this group, ZYESAMI™ patients had a 71% chance of successful recovery by day 28 vs. 48% in the placebo group (P = .017) and a 75% rate of successful recovery by day 60 vs. 55% in the placebo group (P = .036).  Eighty-four percent (84%) of HFNC patients treated at tertiary medical centers with ZYESAMI™ survived to day 60 compared with 60% of those treated with placebo (P = .007).

To the company’s knowledge, ZYESAMI™ is the first COVID-19 therapeutic to demonstrate advantages in both survival and recovery from critical COVID-19 in a randomized, double-blind multicenter trial. On the basis of these findings, NeuroRx plans to apply immediately to the United States Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) and to subsequently submit a New Drug Application (NDA).

Recovery from respiratory failure (without relapse) with discharge from acute care and survival through the observation period was the prespecified primary endpoint specified by FDA for the study, originally intended to be assessed at 28 days and then extended to 60 days based on recently-published FDA guidance. The above analysis includes all 196 participants who were randomized and treated in the placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial (www.clinicaltrials.gov NCT04311697) conducted at 10 US hospitals. Treatment with ZYESAMI™ or placebo was in addition to standard of care treatment that included steroids, convalescent plasma, antiviral therapy, anticoagulants, and various anti-cytokine drugs.

NeuroRx has announced the commencement of a clinical trial of inhaled ZYESAMI™ for the treatment of patients with moderate and severe COVID-19 with the aim of preventing progression to respiratory failure. NeuroRx has also announced the inclusion of inhaled ZYESAMI™ in the I-SPY clinical trial platform for patients with COVID-19 respiratory failure. The company has signed a clinical trial participation agreement with the National Institutes of Health.

The study’s coordinating committee, including Professors Dushyantha Jayaweera, MD, FACP (University of Miami), Richard Lee, MD, (UC Irvine), and J. Georges Youssef, MD (Houston Methodist Hospital) commented, “The 60-day observation framework implemented last month by FDA for critically ill patients with COVID-19 is more consistent with the clinical course of this lethal disease than the 28-day time frame originally adapted from other conditions that cause respiratory distress. The association of baseline oxygenation status (high flow nasal oxygen vs. ventilation) is not surprising in that patients who require mechanical or noninvasive ventilation in order to maintain blood oxygen are likely to have substantially more damage to the lining of their lungs compared to patients whose blood oxygen level can be maintained with high-flow oxygen delivered to the nose. The finding that patients fared substantially better in tertiary care centers as compared to regional hospitals may be influenced by the intensity of the public health crisis at the regional hospitals that participated in the study, all of which were operating at 200% or higher overcapacity in their intensive care units with implementation of temporary ICU beds and shortages of critical care staff.”

Prof. Jonathan Javitt, MD, MPH, Chairman and CEO of NeuroRx, said, “ZYESAMI has now demonstrated itself in a phase 2/3 trial, conducted under FDA Fast Track Designation, not only to shorten hospitalization (as was previously reported) but also to save lives and increase the likelihood of patients returning safely home to their families. In exactly 12 months, a lifesaving drug has advanced from concept to clinical success in partnership with Relief Therapeutics in the midst of a public health emergency that has claimed the lives of millions. Today’s findings confirm the often dramatic clinical success that has been seen in numerous patients treated in the US and abroad under emergency use protocols. We look forward to working with the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the FDA, and regulators around the world to bring this treatment to patients as quickly as possible.”

An investor conference call will be held today, March 29th at 8:30am EDT. Participants can dial (+1) 866-373-3402 or join via webcast at https://bit.ly/3sqPyDS. Those wishing to ask questions should submit those questions to [email protected].

NeuroRx, Inc. has signed an agreement to merge with Big Rock Acquisition Corp. Details may be viewed at http://irdirect.net/filings/viewer/index/1719406/000119312521019278/

About VIP in COVID-19
Vasoactive Intestinal Polypeptide (VIP) was first discovered by the late Dr. Sami Said in 1970. Although first identified in the lung, it was purified from the intestinal tract. VIP is now known to be produced throughout the body and to be primarily concentrated in the lungs. VIP has been shown in more than 100 peer-reviewed studies to have potent anti-inflammatory/anti-cytokine activity in animal models of respiratory distress, acute lung injury, and inflammation. Most importantly, VIP binds specifically to the alveolar type II cell (ATII) in the air sac (alveolus) of the lung. VIP stimulates ATII cells to make the surfactant that must coat the lining of the lung in order for the lung to exchange oxygen with the blood.  Loss of surfactant causes respiratory failure and alveolar collapse, which is a hallmark of COVID-19.

COVID-19-related respiratory failure is caused by selective infection of the ATII cell by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The ATII cells are vulnerable because of their (ACE2) surface receptors, which serve as the route of entry for the virus. Coronavirus infection of the ATII cell shuts down surfactant production, triggers the formation of inflammatory cytokines, and causes cell death (cytopathy). VIP is shown to upregulate surfactant production, block Coronavirus replication in the ATII cell, block cytokine synthesis, and prevent viral-induced cell death (cytopathy). To our knowledge, other than ZYESAMI™, no currently proposed treatments for COVID-19 specifically target this mechanism of action.

About NeuroRx, Inc.
NeuroRx draws upon more than 100 years of collective drug development experience from senior executives of AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, and PPD. In addition to its work on Aviptadil, NeuroRx has been awarded Breakthrough Therapy Designation and a Special Protocol Agreement to develop NRX-101 in suicidal bipolar depression and is currently in Phase 3 trials. Its executive team is led by Prof. Jonathan C. Javitt, MD, MPH, who has served as a health advisor to four Presidential administrations and worked on paradigm-changing drug development projects for Merck, Allergan, Pharmacia, Pfizer, Novartis, and Mannkind, together with Robert Besthof, MIM, who served as the Global Vice President (Commercial) for Pfizer’s Neuroscience and Pain Division. NeuroRx recently announced a plan to complete a business combination with Big Rock Partners Acquisition Corp (NASDAQ:BRPA) (“BRPA”), and intends to apply for listing on the NASDAQ under the proposed symbol “NRXP”.

About Relief Therapeutics Holding AG
Relief focuses primarily on clinical-stage programs based on molecules of natural origin (peptides and proteins) with a history of clinical testing and use in human patients or a strong scientific rationale. Currently, Relief is concentrating its efforts on developing new treatments for respiratory disease indications. Its lead drug candidate RLF-100™ (aviptadil) is being investigated in two placebo-controlled U.S. phase 2b/3 clinical trials in respiratory failure due to COVID-19. Relief also holds a patent issued in the United States and various other countries covering potential formulations of RLF-100™. Relief is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange under the symbol RLF and quoted in the U.S. on OTCQB under the symbol RLFTF. www.relieftherapeutics.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements
Statements contained in this press release that are not historical facts may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or NeuroRx’s future financial or operating performance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “could,” “intends,” “target,” “projects,” “contemplates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential” or “continue” or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions that concern NeuroRx’s expectations, strategy, plans or intentions. Such forward-looking statements may relate to, among other things, the outcome of any discussions or applications for the future use of ZYESAMI, the approvals, timing, and ability to complete the proposed business combination with BRPA, and the combined company’s ability to continue listing on Nasdaq after closing the proposed business combination. Such forward-looking statements do not constitute guarantees of future performance and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties. NeuroRx does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or developments or otherwise.

Additional Information and Where to Find It
This press release relates to a proposed business combination and related transactions (the “Transactions”) between NeuroRx and BRPA. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or exchange, or the solicitation of an offer to buy or exchange, any securities, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, sale or exchange would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. BRPA has filed a registration statement on Form S-4 (“Registration Statement”), which includes a preliminary proxy statement for the solicitation of the approval of BRPA’s stockholders, a preliminary prospectus for the offer and sale of BRPA’s securities in the Transactions and a preliminary consent solicitation statement of NeuroRx, and other relevant documents with the SEC. The proxy statement/prospectus/consent solicitation statement will be mailed to stockholders of NeuroRx and BRPA as of a record date to be established for voting on the proposed business combination. INVESTORS AND SECURITY HOLDERS OF NEURORX AND BRPA ARE URGED TO READ THE REGISTRATION STATEMENT, PROXY STATEMENT/PROSPECTUS/CONSENT SOLICITATION STATEMENT AND OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS THAT WILL BE FILED WITH THE SEC CAREFULLY AND IN THEIR ENTIRETY WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROPOSED TRANSACTIONS. Investors and security holders will be able to obtain free copies of the registration statement, proxy statement, prospectus and other documents containing important information about NeuroRx and BRPA once such documents are filed with the SEC, through the website maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov. In addition, copies of the documents filed with the SEC by BRPA can be obtained free of charge on BRPA’s website at www.bigrockpartners.com or by directing a written request to BRPA at 2645 N. Federal Highway, Suite 230 Delray Beach, FL 33483.

Participants in the Solicitation
NeuroRx, BRPA and their respective directors and executive officers, under SEC rules, may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies of BRPA’s stockholders in connection with the proposed Transactions. Investors and securityholders may obtain more detailed information regarding the names and interests in the proposed Transactions of NeuroRx’s and BRPA’s respective directors and officers in BRPA’s filings with the SEC, including the proxy statement/consent solicitation statement/prospectus statement. You may obtain a free copy of these documents as described in the preceding paragraph.

CORPORATE CONTACT
Jonathan C. Javitt, M.D., MPH
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
[email protected]  

INVESTOR RELATIONS
Ryan Sheffield
[email protected]  
(484) 254-6134, ext. 723

MEDIA RELATIONS
Greg Parasmo
[email protected]  
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Falling sperm counts ‘threaten human survival’, expert warns | US news

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Falling sperm counts and changes to sexual development are “threatening human survival” and leading to a fertility crisis, a leading epidemiologist has warned.

Writing in a new book, Shanna Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, warns that the impending fertility crisis poses a global threat comparable to that of the climate crisis.

“The current state of reproductive affairs can’t continue much longer without threatening human survival,” she writes in Count Down.

It comes after a study she co-authored in 2017 found that sperm counts in the west had plummeted by 59% between 1973 and 2011, making headlines globally.

Now, Swan says, following current projections, the median sperm count is set to reach zero in 2045. “That’s a little concerning, to say the least,” she told Axios.

In the book, Swan and co-author Stacey Colino explore how modern life is threatening sperm counts, changing male and female reproductive development and endangering human life.

It points to lifestyle and chemical exposures that are changing and threatening human sexual development and fertility. Such is the gravity of the threats they pose, she argues, that humans could become an endangered species.

“Of five possible criteria for what makes a species endangered,” Swan writes, “only one needs to be met; the current state of affairs for humans meets at least three.”

Swan offers advice on how to protect themselves from damaging chemicals and urges people to “do what we can to safeguard our fertility, the fate of mankind, and the planet”.

Between 1964 and 2018 the global fertility rate fell from 5.06 births per woman to 2.4. Now approximately half the world’s countries have fertility rates below 2.1, the population replacement level.

While contraception, cultural shifts and the cost of having children are likely to be contributing factors, Swan warns of indicators that suggest there are also biological reasons – including increasing miscarriage rates, more genital abnormalities among boys and earlier puberty for girls.

Swan blames “everywhere chemicals”, found in plastics, cosmetics and pesticides, that affect endocrines such as phthalates and bisphenol-A.

“Chemicals in our environment and unhealthy lifestyle practices in our modern world are disrupting our hormonal balance, causing various degrees of reproductive havoc,” she writes.

She also said factors such as tobacco smoking, marijuana and growing obesity play a role.

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