Month: April 2017

Another “Great Spot” has been found at Jupiter, this one cold and high up. Scientists reported Tuesday that the dark expanse is 15,000 miles (24,000 kilometers) across and 7,500 miles (12,000 kilometers) wide. It’s in the upper atmosphere and much cooler than the hot surroundings, thus the name Great Cold Spot. And unlike the giant planet’s familiar Great Red Spot, this newly discovered weather system is continually changing in shape and size. It’s formed by the energy from Jupiter’s polar auroras. A British-led team used a telescope in Chile to chart the temperature and density of Jupiter’s atmosphere. When the researchers compared the data with thousands of images taken in years past by a telescope in Hawaii, the Great Cold Spot stood out. It could be thousands of years old. “The Great Cold Spot is much more volatile than the slowly changing Great Red Spot … but it has reappeared for as long as we have data to search for it, for over 15 years,” the University of Leicester’s Tom Stallard, lead author of the study, said in a statement. Stallard said Jupiter’s upper atmosphere may hold other features. Scientists will be on the lookout for them while also studying the Great Cold Spot in greater detail, using ground telescopes as well as NASA’s Juno spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter, he said. The study was published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. …

Climate change could cause stronger turbulence for airline passengers, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Reading in England say “turbulence strong enough to catapult unbuckled passengers and crew around the aircraft cabin” could become two or three times more common. “For most passengers, light turbulence is nothing more than an annoying inconvenience that reduces their comfort levels, but for nervous fliers even light turbulence can be distressing,” said Paul Williams, who conducted the research. “However, even the most seasoned frequent fliers may be alarmed at the prospect of a 149 percent increase in severe turbulence, which frequently hospitalizes air travelers and flight attendants around the world.” Specifically, researchers used supercomputer models to look at how wintertime transatlantic clear-air turbulence at an altitude of 12 kilometers will change when there is twice as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which could happen by the end of this century. The models show light turbulence could increase by 59 percent, light-to-moderate turbulence could jump by 75 percent, moderate-to-severe turbulence could rise by 127 percent and severe turbulence could bounce a whopping 149 percent. The reason, according to the researchers is that climate change “is generating stronger wind shears in the jet stream.” “Our new study paints the most detailed picture yet of how aircraft turbulence will respond to climate change,” said Williams. The study is published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. …

An independent U.S. panel of experts has changed course on its recommendation against routine PSA screening of men for prostate cancer. In a draft recommendation, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said men between the ages of 55 and 69 should be screened using the prostate-specific antigen test on an “individualized” basis. The panel concluded, in its new guidance, that the potential benefits of screening slightly outweighed the harm. The new draft guidelines echo those of several leading medical groups, but they don’t make the decision any easier for men: With their doctor’s help, they have to decide whether to take an imperfect PSA test that carries a small chance of detecting a deadly cancer and a larger chance of triggering unneeded worry and treatment with serious side effects.   “This isn’t a one-size-fits-all” recommendation, said the panel’s chair, Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, a San Francisco internist who already follows the advice and discusses the potential pros and cons with her patients. Men whose greatest concern is reducing their chances of dying from cancer are sometimes willing to face the consequences and choose testing. “Other men will realize the likely benefit is small and aren’t willing to risk the harms,” she said. Controversial call In a 2012 recommendation that caused controversy within the medical community, the task force expressed concern that routine use of the PSA test was leading to unnecessary biopsies and other tests in men suspected of having prostate cancer. Critics of that recommendation worried that as a result …

Industrial air pollution causes nearly 3.5 million deaths a year, and international trade is shifting some of the harmful effects from consuming nations to producing nations, according to a study in the journal Nature.   The authors say high consumption in the United States and Western Europe harms health in manufacturing countries such as China, and the pattern is continuing among developing nations in Asia. “Take an example of a toy,” says Steve Davis, an Earth system scientist with the University of California, Irvine, and one of the report’s authors.  He explains that toys sold in America are most often made in China, displacing the emissions that would otherwise be released in the United States.   “We’re effectively outsourcing the pollution that comes from the manufacture of that product,” he said. 750,000 premature deaths Worldwide, the scientists estimate air pollution produced by exported goods and services caused more than 750,000 premature deaths in the baseline year of the study, 2007. The report by Davis and his colleagues at Beijing’s Tsinghua University and other institutions found the cross-border effects of trade-related pollution is greater than the cross-boundary impact of industrial pollution caused by weather patterns. Particulate matter from China was linked to 65,000 premature deaths outside of China, largely in Japan and the Korean peninsula, and including 3,100 deaths in the United States and Western Europe.  But U.S. and European consumption of goods produced in China was linked to nearly 110,000 premature deaths in China. The researchers say that as China …

Industrial air pollution causes nearly three-and-a-half million deaths a year, and international trade is shifting some of the harmful effects from consuming nations to producing nations, according to a study in the journal Nature. Mike O’Sullivan spoke with one of the authors of the report, who says that high consumption in the U.S. and Western Europe affects the health of people in manufacturing countries such as China. …

A U.S. astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts made a parachute landing in Kazakhstan on Monday, wrapping up a nearly six-month mission aboard the International Space Station, a NASA TV broadcast showed. The Russian Soyuz capsule, which left the station shortly before 4 a.m. EDT (0800 GMT), touched down southeast of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 7:20 a.m. EDT (1120 GMT). Seated in the capsule were returning station commander Shane Kimbrough of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko from Russian space agency Roscosmos. “It’s really neat to be part of something this big, something bigger than ourselves … even bigger than a nation,” Kimbrough said during a change-of-command ceremony on Sunday. “We get the ability up here to interact with things that actually benefit all of humanity. It’s really humbling.” Three crew members remain aboard the station, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth. In command is NASA’s Peggy Whitson, who on April 24 will break the 534-day record for the most time spent in space by a U.S. astronaut. Whitson, a veteran of two previous missions on the station, is the first woman to hold the post of commander twice. Whitson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and France’s Thomas Pesque will be joined by two new crew members on April 20. The U.S. and Russian space agencies agreed last week to extend Whitson’s mission by three months. Russia is reducing its station cadre to two from three members until …

Researchers are reporting a link between a climate phenomenon know as El Nino and the number of cholera cases in eastern Africa. Predicting when there’s going to be an El Nino event could improve public health preparedness. El Ninos are a global climate phenomenon that occurs at irregular times, approximately every two to seven years. During an El Nino, surface ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific off the coast of South America become warmer than usual. The warming trend begins around Christmas time. The following year, in the fall, sea surface temperatures also warm, if somewhat less, in the western Pacific, leading to extreme weather events like flooding and droughts, conditions that are ripe for cholera outbreaks. Approximately 177 million people reside in areas where the incidence of cholera increases during El Nino. But there’s been scant evidence of El Nino’s health impact in Africa. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found the incidence of cholera increased in countries in East Africa. “Because they can either lead to surface flooding that washes contamination into drinking water in areas where there’s open defecation,” said epidemiologist Sean Moore, who led the study. “It also can lead to overflowing of sewer systems in urban areas which again can lead to contamination of drinking water.” There are approximately 150,000 cases of cholera per year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Moore, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore. But during El Ninos, researchers found …

Nearly five million children under age five have been successfully vaccinated against polio in war-torn Yemen almost two-months after a nationwide immunization campaign was launched by the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank. The campaign, which began on February 20, has taken much longer than usual to complete because of security challenges.  The logistics involved in reaching millions of children with life-saving vaccines in war-torn Yemen are immense and complicated. WHO spokesman, Tarik Jasarevic, told VOA different parts of the country are controlled by different warring parties.  He said informing them of the campaign, organizing health teams and transporting the polio vaccines takes a lot of time. “For this campaign, more than 5,000 vehicles have been rented, more than 40,000 health workers were mobilized…. This is a big operation, obviously.  But, with the support of local religious leaders, political leaders, that element is absolutely crucial that it is being accepted by the population and that vaccination teams are being trained and prepared in advance,” he said. Jasarevic said health workers only recently were able to bring the campaign to Yemen’s Sa’ada governorate.  Despite intensifying violence, he said more than 150,000 children under age five were vaccinated against polio and nearly 370,000 children between the ages of six months and 15 years were immunized against measles there. He said the war has made routine immunizations in Yemen impossible, making nationwide immunization campaigns against polio and other killer diseases necessary. “We have seen for example …

Getting a vaccine without the shot has always been one of the greatest hopes of medicine. For people in the developed world it means getting a vaccine can be as simple as taking an aspirin. For people in the developing world, or in isolated rural areas, it means they can get vaccines without a doctor or nurse. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

Malaysian customs officials said Monday they have confiscated 18 rhino horns, weighing more than 51 kilograms, and valued at over $3 million. Customs said they found the horns in a crate Friday at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport cargo terminal after receiving an anonymous tip. The haul had been shipped from Mozambique via a Qatar Airways flight with false documentation, classifying the the horns as “obre de arte” — or work of art.   Rhino horn global trade is banned under a United Nations convention.   Malaysian officials say the case is under investigation and no suspects have been arrested. Rhino horns have been used for centuries in traditional Asian medicine, but they have not been proven to cure any illnesses.   The wild rhino population at the start of the 20th century was 500,000, but has since dwindled to 29,000.   …

A cyclone that left a trail of destruction in northeast Australia and New Zealand has also damaged one of the few healthy sections of the Great Barrier Reef to have escaped large-scale bleaching, scientists said on Monday. The natural devastation adds to the human and economic toll of Cyclone Debbie, which killed at least six people in recent weeks and severed rail transport lines in one of the world’s biggest coal precincts. The damage caused when the intense, slow-moving cyclone system struck a healthier section of the reef outweighed any potential beneficial cooling effect, scientists from the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies said. “Any cooling effects related to the cyclone are likely to be negligible in relation to the damage it caused, which unfortunately struck a section of the reef that had largely escaped the worst of the bleaching,” ARC said in a statement. The World Heritage site has suffered a second bleaching event in 12 months, triggered by unseasonably warm waters, ARC added. Higher temperatures force coral to expel living algae and turn white as it calcifies. Mildly bleached coral can recover if the temperature drops, and an ARC survey found this happened in southern parts of the reef, where coral mortality was much lower, though scientists said much of the Great Barrier Reef was unlikely to recover. “It takes at least a decade for a full recovery of even the fastest-growing corals, so mass bleaching events 12 months apart offers zero prospect of recovery for …

More and more Americans are interested in consuming healthy food and products. Retailers are feeding this growing demand by offering new products or introducing old ones in brand new ways. Coconut is currently one of the hottest trends in the U.S. food market. VOA’s Faiza Elmasry has more. Faith Lapidus narrates. …

Most people have likely heard about the dangers of microplastics, the particles less than 5 millimeters in size that deteriorate from larger plastic pieces that have entered the oceans. Scientists are beginning to realize the effect this plastic is having on all kinds of sea life, from the smallest to the largest, and even those that live in the deepest darkest parts of the Mariana Trench. VOA’s Kevin Enochs has details. …

A relatively large asteroid will cross Earth’s orbit around the sun this month. Astrophysicists and astronomers say there is no chance of a collision, but it will be the closest flyby of an asteroid that large for at least another 10 years. Asteroid 2014 JO25, discovered three years ago, is about 650 meters (2,100 feet) in diameter, 60 times as large as the small asteroid that plunged into our atmosphere as a meteor and exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013. That blast was felt thousands of kilometers away and caused havoc on the ground, damaging more than 7,000 homes and offices and injuring 1,500 people. Asteroid 2014 JO25’s pass by Earth on April 19 will be a near miss, cosmically speaking. The U.S. space agency NASA said no one should worry: “There is no possibility for the asteroid to collide with our planet, [but] this will be a very close approach for an asteroid of this size.” The Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union classifies 2014 JO25 as a “potentially hazardous asteroid.” (Astronomers classify asteroids as “minor planets”; when they pass close to Earth they are termed “near Earth objects.”) WATCH: NASA Animation: Asteroid 2014 JO25’s Orbit An animation of the intersection of Earth’s orbit and that of 2014 JO25, prepared by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a unit of the California Institute of Technology, makes it look like an awfully close call, but the hard facts are more reassuring: At its closest point, the asteroid …