Science News Roundup: Sobi arthritis drug cuts death risk; heart drugs may help prevent COVID-19 blood clots; NASA rover Perseverance collects first Martian rock sample and more

Arthritis drug cuts death risk in high-risk patients NASA rover Perseverance collects first Martian rock sample NASA's Mars science rover Perseverance has collected and stashed away the first of numerous mineral samples that the U.S. space agency hopes to retrieve from the surface of the Red Planet for analysis on Earth.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Sobi arthritis drug cuts death risk; heart drugs may help prevent COVID-19 blood clots

The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that has yet to be certified by peer review. Arthritis drug cuts death risk in high-risk patients

NASA rover Perseverance collects first Martian rock sample

NASA's Mars science rover Perseverance has collected and stashed away the first of numerous mineral samples that the U.S. space agency hopes to retrieve from the surface of the Red Planet for analysis on Earth. Tools attached to Perseverance and operated by mission specialists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles drilled a rock core slightly thicker than a pencil from an ancient Martian lake bed, then hermetically sealed it in a titanium specimen tube inside the rover.

Virgin Galactic sees delay to space mission with Italian Air Force

Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc on Friday flagged a delay to its first commercial research mission with the Italian Air Force to mid-October due to a potential manufacturing defect. The company also attributed the delay in the mission, named "Unity 23", to the pending resolution of a probe by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

All jokes aside, scientists find talking duck

A Dutch scientist has uncovered old recordings of a musk duck mimicking the phrase, "You bloody fool!" - learnt when it was raised by humans in an Australian bird park. Leiden University scientist Carel Ten Cate said that what was interesting about the vocal expression of the waterfowl, nicknamed "Ripper", was not so much the message, but that he could imitate humans at all.

'Flying Dragon' dinosaur roamed the southern skies too, scientists say

Scientists in Chile's Atacama Desert have unearthed the fossil remains of a so-called "flying dragon," a Jurassic-era dinosaur previously known only to the northern hemisphere. The flying reptile belonged to a group of early pterosaurs that roamed the earth 160 million years ago. It had a long pointed tail, wings, and sharp, outward-pointing teeth.