Month: June 2017

A new study by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies says that safe burial practices may have helped prevent the transmission of thousands of cases of Ebola during the epidemic in West Africa between 2013 and 2016. More than 11,300 people died from Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea before the epidemic was stopped in those countries in 2016. Ebola is highly contagious and spread by direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids. Symptoms include a sudden fever, aching muscles, diarrhea and vomiting.  Red Cross study A co-author of the Red Cross Federation study, Amanda McClelland, says the traditional burial practice of washing and touching the dead was a major mode of transmission of Ebola during the outbreak in all three countries. While isolating patients is key to preventing the spread of the disease, she says early burial is crucial to keeping Ebola in check. “They can really produce super-spreading events where we get very large chains of transmission well beyond what a live case would cause in the community,” she said. “So, the infectiousness of the bodies increases. The virus is at its peak when a person dies. So, we see a much higher transmission from a body than we do from a live person.” McClelland says the Red Cross had to change its approach in dealing with communities that adhered to traditional burial practices. Aid workers stopped talking about management of the remains and instead spoke about safe and dignified burials, she …

Farming on empty land in one of America’s biggest cities used to be discouraged. But urban gardeners in Los Angeles spent years pressing local politicians to let them grow food in vacant lots, and now their efforts are bearing fruit. Mike O’Sullivan reports on the people planting food forests in the middle of the city. …

One of the challenges to designing prosthetics, or exoskeletons for the disabled, is that everyone is different. Technology designed to help a person walk or get around doesn’t work very well when it is built to be one-size-fits-all. But scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have figured out a quick, easy way to make each prosthetic different. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

Grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park will be stripped of Endangered Species Act safeguards this summer, U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced on Thursday in a move conservation groups vowed to challenge in court. Dropping federal protection of Yellowstone’s grizzlies, formally proposed in March 2016 under the Obama administration, was based on the agency’s findings that the bears’ numbers have rebounded sufficiently in recent decades. The estimated tally of grizzlies in the greater Yellowstone region, encompassing parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, has grown to 700 or more today, up from as few as 136 bears in 1975 when they were formally listed as a threatened species through the Lower 48 states. At that time, the grizzly had been hunted, trapped and poisoned to near extinction. Its current population well exceeds the government’s minimum recovery goal of 500 animals in the region. Lifting the bears’ protected status will open them to trophy hunting outside the boundaries of Yellowstone park as grizzly oversight is turned over to state wildlife managers in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, as well as to native American tribes in the region. Hunters and ranchers, who make up a powerful political constituency in Western states, have strongly advocated removing grizzlies from the threatened species list, arguing the bears’ growing numbers pose a threat to humans, livestock and big-game animals such as elk. Environmentalists have raised concerns that while grizzlies have made a comeback, their recovery could falter without federal safeguards. They point to the fact that …

The United Nations reports about 250 million people, or 5 percent of the global adult population, used drugs in 2015, and of those, about 29.5 million suffered from drug-use disorders, including addiction. The World Drug Report 2017  launched Thursday by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said that opioids were the most harmful drug type, accounting for 70 percent of drug-linked health problems worldwide.   It said opioids, including heroin, legal painkillers, such as morphine, and synthetic drugs like fentanyl were responsible for many premature drug deaths.  “In many parts of the world, we observe an increasingly complex relationship between the use of heroin and synthetic opioids,” Aldo Lale-Demoz, deputy executive director of UNODC, said. Lale-Demoz said that poly drug use — the use of two or more psychoactive drugs — a common feature of both recreational and regular drug users, “as well as the cross-over between synthetic and traditional drugs pose increasing public health challenges and produce highly negative health and social consequences.” Injecting drugs Of the 12 million people who inject drugs worldwide, the report found that 1-in-8, or 1.6 million people, is living with HIV and more than half or just over 6 million are living with hepatitis C, while around 1.3 million are suffering from both diseases. Despite the many health problems afflicting drug users, the report noted that only 1-in-6 people seeking help have access to drug treatment programs. Lale-Demoz observed that many countries preferred to deal with drug problems by throwing users …

The benefits of a Mediterranean diet are widely chronicled, but new research shows extra-virgin olive oil, a key part of the diet, may protect “against cognitive decline.” Specifically, researchers at Temple University in Philadelphia say extra-virgin olive oil “protects memory and learning ability and reduces the formation of amyloid-beta plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain – classic markers of Alzheimer’s disease.” Researcher say olive oil reduced inflammation and triggers a process called autophagy, which helps broken down cells to flush intracellular debris and toxins. This includes amyloid plaques and tau tangles, the latter of which is associated with memory loss in Alzheimer’s. “Brain cells from mice fed diets enriched with extra-virgin olive oil had higher levels of autophagy and reduced levels of amyloid plaques and phosphorylated tau,” said senior investigator Domenico Praticò. For their study, the researchers looked at mice with three traits of Alzheimer’s: memory impairment, amyloid plaques, and neurofibrillary tangles. The mice were put into two groups, one group got a diet enriched with extra-virgin olive oil, while the other group received a normal diet. The olive oil was given to the mice when they were only six months old and before any symptoms of Alzheimer’s set in. While there was no difference in the appearance of the mice, at age 9 months and 12 months, the mice in the olive oil group “performed significantly better on tests designed to evaluate working memory, spatial memory, and learning abilities.” An analysis of the brain tissue of the mice revealed …

Simplice Lenguy told his wife to leave him behind as people fled when fighting broke out in Central African Republic’s capital.   “I said, ‘Take the children. You go to the camp. I am handicapped. I can’t flee like the others. If something happens to me, at least my family will be safe,’” Lenguy, who is disabled from polio, recounted in an interview with The Associated Press. His wife refused and forced him to come with her, even when he lost consciousness because of the pain.   For years Central African Republic has seen widespread violence that has displaced more than 500,000 people. This week at least 100 people were killed in fighting in the town of Bria. Those with disabilities are a “forgotten people within a forgotten crisis” at high risk during attacks and forced displacement, facing neglect in an ongoing humanitarian crisis, according to Lewis Mudge, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, which released a report this week on their challenges.   The country has faced deadly violence since 2013, when predominantly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power in the capital, Bangui. Mostly Christian anti-Balaka militias fought back, resulting in thousands of people killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.   It is not known how many of the displaced are people with disabilities, but Human Rights Watch said conditions at camps are not conducive for them. Some have trouble getting food during distributions, while others have challenges using showers and toilets that lack ramps.   The new report said …

An estimated 8-12 million Americans have a medical condition called Peripheral Artery Disease or PAD. The condition is caused by plaque buildup in the arteries and can be extremely painful. But some space age technology could provide relief. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports, and Faith Lapidus narrates. …

Researchers at a British University have embarked on a decade-long experiment that will pump a forest full of carbon dioxide to measure how it copes with rising levels of the gas, a key driver of climate change. The Free Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (FACE) experiment at the University of Birmingham’s Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR) will expose a fenced-off section of mature woodland in Norbury Park in Staffordshire, West Midlands, to levels of CO2 that experts predict will be prevalent in 2050. Scientists aim to measure the forest’s capacity to capture carbon released by fossil fuel burning, and answer questions about their capacity to absorb carbon pollution long-term. “[Forests] happily take a bit more CO2 because that’s their main nutrient. But we don’t know how much more and whether they can do that indefinitely,” BIFoR co-director Michael Tausz told Reuters. Carbon dioxide record The apparatus for the experiment consists of a series of masts built into six 30-meter-wide sections of woodland, reaching up about 25 meters into the forest canopy. Concentrated CO2 is fed through pipes to the top of the masts where it is pumped into the foliage. Last year the U.N World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced that the global average of carbon dioxide, the main man-made greenhouse gas, reached 400 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere for the first time on record. “The forest here sees nearly 40 percent more CO2 than it sees normally, because that’s what it will be globally in about 2050; a value …

The first total solar eclipse across the continental United States in a century is expected to spark watching parties and traffic jams as it darkens skies from Oregon to South Carolina, authorities said Wednesday. During the August 21 eclipse, the moon will pass between the sun and Earth, blocking the face of the sun and leaving only its outer atmosphere, or corona, visible in the sky. It will be the first coast-to-coast total eclipse since 1918. Weather permitting, people can watch as the moon’s 70-mile-wide (113 kilometers) shadow crosses through 14 states from 10:15 a.m. PDT (1715 GMT) around Lincoln Beach, Oregon, to 2:49 p.m. EDT (1849 GMT) in McClellanville, South Carolina. ‘Be prepared’ With 200 million Americans within a day’s drive of the path, national parks and highways officials are bracing for a travel surge. “Be prepared,” Martin Knopp of the Federal Highway Administration said at a news conference, cautioning drivers against simply showing up. “It’s not the time to pull over and be on the side of the road.” Travel groups and many scientists will be heading to Oregon’s northwest desert seeking favorable weather for viewing, according to the website eclipsophile.com. Total solar eclipses occur somewhere on Earth every year or so, but most cast their shadows over oceans or remote land. The last total eclipse over part of the contiguous U.S. was in 1979. All of North America will experience a partial eclipse, though the difference between a full and partial eclipse is “literally the difference between …

Girls’ school attendance in East Africa almost doubles when students of both sexes are taught about sex, relationships and money, a charity said on Monday, highlighting how the attitudes of boys influence the educational success of girls. Asante Africa Foundation said girls’ attendance increased by 80 percent in Kenyan and Tanzanian schools where its project taught about 9,000 adolescent girls, 3,000 mothers and 500 boys about problems like teenage pregnancy and domestic violence. “If we want to ensure that the next generation of women are given the chance to receive a quality education then we must train our boys to be champions for girls’ equality,” Erna Grasz, founder of the U.S.-based charity, said in a statement. Boys start listening Two-thirds of the countries with the greater gender gap between boys and girls in school are in sub-Saharan Africa, largely due to culture and poverty. Poor girls in rural East Africa often drop out of school when their periods start, as their families regard this as a sign that they are old enough to be married off, or have sex to pay for basic needs. After taking part in the program, boys started listening to girls more and helped them come up with income-generating ideas, like making jewelry and rearing chickens, the charity said. Change in attitudes “The boys of today are the husbands and fathers of tomorrow,” the report said, highlighting the need to change boys’ attitudes towards traditions like female genital mutilation to end such practices. Mothers were brought …

A new study suggests a link between breast-feeding and a lowered risk of heart disease in older women. The research by Chinese investigators found that women who breast-fed may have lowered their risk of heart disease or stroke by an average of 10 percent when they became older. Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking University and the University of Oxford analyzed data on 289,573 women whose  average age was 51.   They found that those who breast-fed had a 9 percent lower risk of heart disease and an 8 percent decreased risk of stroke, compared with women who had never nursed. The benefit was even greater for women who breast-fed their babies for two years or more. Their heart disease risk was 18 percent lower and the risk of stroke 17 percent less. Each additional month of breast-feeding was associated with a 4 percent and 3 percent lower risk of heart disease and stroke, respectively, researchers said. The findings of the study, the first to look at the long-term health benefits of breast-feeding for women, were published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Hormone’s possible role Cardiologist Nieca Goldberg, who was not involved in the study, said the cardiovascular benefits could have been related to the release of oxytocin during breast-feeding. “Oxytocin is a hormone that helps the flexibility of our blood vessels,” she said. “And flexible blood vessels are resistant to the buildup of plaque or cholesterol in the walls of the arteries.” Breast-feeding …