Month: August 2017

President Donald Trump vowed Tuesday that the U.S. would “win” the battle against the heroin and opioid plague, but he stopped short of declaring a national emergency as his handpicked commission had recommended. Trump spoke at an event he had billed as a “major briefing” on the opioid crisis during a two-week “working vacation” at his private golf club in New Jersey. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, senior counselor Kellyanne Conway, senior adviser Jared Kushner and first lady Melania Trump were among the attendees. “The best way to prevent drug addiction and overdose is to prevent people from abusing drugs in the first place,” the president said at his golf club in Bedminster. “I’m confident that by working with our health care and law enforcement experts, we will fight this deadly epidemic and the United States will win.” He said federal drug prosecutions had dropped but promised he would “be bringing them up rapidly.” Last week, the presidential opioid commission, chaired by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, urged Trump to “declare a national emergency” and noted that “America is enduring a death toll equal to September 11th every three weeks.” It recommended, among other things, expanding treatment facilities across the country, educating and equipping doctors about the proper way to prescribe pain medication, and equipping all police officers with the anti-overdose remedy Naloxone. Trump did not address any of the recommendations. Instead, the president repeated that his administration was “very, very tough on the Southern border, where much …

A call by Republican Governor John Kasich for scientific breakthroughs to help solve the opioid crisis is drawing interest from dozens of groups with ideas including remote-controlled medication dispensers, monitoring devices for addicts, mobile apps and pain-relieving massage gloves. The state has received project ideas from 44 hospitals, universities and various medical device, software and pharmaceutical developers that plan to apply for up to $12 million in competitive research-and-development grants. The grant money is being combined with $8 million for an Ohio Opioid Technology Challenge, a competition similar to one spearheaded by the National Football League to address concussions. Research grant-seekers in Ohio, which leads the nation in opioid-related overdose deaths, proposed solutions aimed at before or after an overdose. Tactus Therapeutics, for example, seeks $2.2 million to develop an improved tamper-resistant opioid, while other applicants seek money to pursue technological advances in the administration of naloxone, a drug used as an overdose antidote. One is a “rescue mask.” Other grant-seekers propose migrating away from pills altogether to find new ways of fighting pain. In the Ohio city known for innovations in rubber and plastics, the University of Akron is looking to polymers. It seeks $2 million to advance development of implantable therapeutic meshes loaded with non-opioid pain medications capable of alleviating postsurgical pain for up to 96 hours. Another company, Cleveland-based Innovative Medical Equipment, seeks $810,000 to make engineering improvements to a medical apparatus that uses heat to fight head pain, headaches, muscle and joint pain, and pain after …

The U.S. State Department is advising its diplomats to sidestep questions from foreign governments about the Trump administration’s stance on the Paris climate deal. The Reuters news agency reported Tuesday that a cable sent Friday to U.S. embassies by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson provided prospective questions foreign government officials could ask diplomats and suggested answers. For example, according to Reuters, if asked, “What is the process for consideration of re-engagement in the Paris Agreement?,” the diplomat should give a generalized response, such as, “We are considering a number of factors. I do not have any information to share on the nature or timing of the process.” Tillerson’s cable came a little more than two months after Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the landmark Paris climate deal and on the day that the administration was reviewing a climate change report prepared by 13 federal agencies, the conclusions of which conflict with administration perspectives. The document, which was leaked ahead of publication and reported by The New York Times on Tuesday, said Americans were seeing more heat waves and rainfall as a result of climate change. The report found human activity was “extremely likely” the cause of more than half the Earth’s temperature increase since 1951, a position at odds with the administration’s belief that the cause of global warming is uncertain. The report said human impact caused an increase in the global temperature of 0.6 degree to 0.7 degree Celsius between 1951 to 2010 and that heat-trapping …

Hot on the heels of its proposal to lower nicotine levels in cigarettes, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced plans on Tuesday for an education campaign to discourage use of electronic cigarettes among youth. The plan follows the agency’s proposal last month to both lower nicotine in combustible cigarettes and extend by four years the date by which e-cigarette manufacturers will be required to apply for authorization to sell their products. Its new policy “aims to strike a careful balance between the regulation of all tobacco products, and the opportunity to encourage development of innovative tobacco products that may be less dangerous than combustible cigarettes,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement. Gottlieb is walking a tightrope between satisfying the interests of tobacco control advocates, who like the idea of lowering nicotine levels in cigarettes, and e-cigarette companies that have been lobbying for a lighter regulatory hand. But while they welcomed the proposal to lower nicotine content in conventional cigarettes, public health experts disapprove of the proposal to extend the deadlines by which e-cigarette companies will be required to seek authorization for new and existing products. The plan means products with flavors that appeal to children will be available longer than they would have been without the extension. The new education campaign could go some way towards mitigating those concerns. More than 2 million middle- and high-school students in the United States were current users of e-cigarettes and other vaping devices in 2016 and half of all middle …

The penguins at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California have something in common with Sara Mandel’s cats. “I had actually purchased this game in the app store for my cats,” said Mandel, birdkeeper at the Aquarium of the Pacific. She wanted to see if these penguins would like the game as much as her cats did and asked her boss. “He laughed at me. He kind of was like, ‘Well, you can try this if you want. Are you sure you want to give them your iPad? Go for it, but I’m not expecting a big result with it.’” Mandel continued, “I showed him, and he was pretty shocked.” The tablet computer with the cat game intrigued the penguins right away, said Mandel. WATCH: Animals like video games too! Exercise for animals’ brains The game has the option of a mouse, butterfly, or laser that moves around the screen. When an animal paws or pecks at the object, it scores points and the tablet makes a sound. Mandel said the penguins enjoy playing with the tablet as much as people do. It is an enrichment exercise for the animals’ brains as well as their bodies. “While they’re kind of hanging out there, I can look at their flippers. I can make sure everything is good and healthy, and I can even sneak a scale right underneath where Lily’s standing, so I can get a weight on her,” Mandel said as she pointed at Lily the penguin. Penguins …

It’s not just people who like playing computer games. Animals of different species also seem to be fascinated with video games and touch screens, as researchers and zoos try this technology on animals. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California. …

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram allow us to share aspects of our lives with our friends, family and the world. But what does what we are sharing say about our state of mind? Some new research suggests that it may be telling the world a lot more than we think. Kevin Enochs reports. …

Rocket Lab, a Silicon Valley-funded space launch company, said a contractor’s error was to blame for its maiden flight failing to reach orbit in May, but that the problem had been fixed ahead of another planned launch in the next two months. The Los Angeles and Auckland-based firm, which is aiming to build to weekly commercial launches, had to terminate its first flight four minutes in when equipment on the ground lost contact with the rocket, the firm said in a statement late on Monday. After trawling through thousands of pieces of data, Rocket Lab said in an emailed statement that an unnamed contractor’s equipment had a glitch that stopped it conveying important information from the battery-powered rocket to safety officials monitoring the launch. “It was disappointing to see the flight terminated in essence due to an incorrect tick box,” said Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck in the statement, adding that the rocket’s failure to reach orbit had nothing to do with the rocket itself. The successful launch of a low-cost rocket is an important step in the commercial race to bring down financial and logistical barriers to space while also making New Zealand an unlikely space hub. The rocket had soared 224 km (139 miles) high, reaching space, before Rocket Lab ended the flight and the vehicle burnt up when re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. Rocket Lab said the equipment problem had been fixed and it was preparing for its second of three test launches before starting commercial operations …

The Interior Department on Monday unveiled a plan to protect the threatened sage grouse that gives Western states greater flexibility to allow mining, logging and other economic development where it now is prohibited.   Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced the strategy for the ground-dwelling bird that has suffered a dramatic population decline across its 11-state range. Zinke insisted that the federal government and the states can work together to protect the sage grouse and its habitat while not slowing economic growth and job creation.   While the federal government has a responsibility under the Endangered Species Act to protect the bird, officials also have an obligation “to be a good neighbor and a good partner,” Zinke said. The new plan ensures that conservation efforts “do not impede local economic opportunities,” he said.   The plan comes after a 60-day review Zinke ordered in June of a 2015 plan imposed by the Obama administration. The plan set land-use policies across the popular game-bird’s 11-state range that were intended to keep it off the federal endangered species list.   Mining companies, ranchers and governors in some Western states — especially Utah, Idaho and Nevada — said the plan ordered by former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell would impede oil and gas drilling and other economic activity.   Environmental groups said Jewell’s plan did not do enough to protect the sage grouse from extinction.   The ground-dwelling sage grouse, long associated with the American West, has long pointed tail feathers and is known for …

Researchers have turned skin cells into blood vessel tissue to save a mouse’s wounded leg. They were able to do that simply by tapping the wound with a chip that uses nanotechnology to inject new DNA into the cells. This step follows a number of significant advances in techniques to turn one type of cell into another. Scientists hope this so-called cell reprogramming can one day be used to regenerate damaged tissue, or cure conditions such as Parkinson’s disease. The research, published Monday in Nature Nanotechnology, combines existing biotechnology and nanotechnology to create a new technique called tissue nano-transfection.  The researchers turned skin cells into brain cells, in addition to demonstrating the therapeutic benefit of turning them into vascular cells. Maintaining blood flow to deliver nutrients around a wound is critical for recovery, so by making more blood vessel cells, researchers found that a mouse’s wounded limb was more likely to survive. A brief electric current causes the chip to eject DNA fragments that reprogram the cells. The particles only enter the very top layer of cells, so L. James Lee, a biomolecular engineer at Ohio State University and study co-author, said he was surprised to find reprogrammed cells deep within the tissue. “Within 24 hours after the transfection, we actually observed the propagation of the biological functions deep inside the skin,” Lee told VOA. “So we were very surprised that it actually works for tissue.” Lee said it wasn’t yet entirely clear why this was possible. Masato Nakafuku, who …

A midday nap is very much part of the Spanish traditional life style. However, having a public place in which to do so is new. Siesta & Go is the first nap bar in Madrid according to reporter Faiza Elmasry. VOA’s Faith Lapidus narrates. …

A fossil found in northeastern Nevada shows a newly discovered fish species that scientists believe looked, and ate, like a shark.   The fossil is what remains of a bony, sharp-toothed fish that would have been about six-feet-long (1.83 meters) with long jaws and layers of sharp teeth.   The type of jaw and teeth on the fish suggest it would have chomped down on its prey before swallowing it whole, like a shark, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported.   “The surprising find from Elko County in northeastern Nevada is one of the most completely preserved vertebrate remains from this time-period ever discovered in the United States,” said Carlo Romano of the University of Zurich, lead author of a Journal of Paleontology article about the find. The fish, which researchers called Birgeria americana, predates Nevada’s most famous fossil, the Ichthyosaur, by more than 30 million years. The Ichthyosaur was a 55-foot-long (16.76 meters) reptile. One of the largest concentrations of Ichthyosaur fossils was found near Berlin, Nevada. The find led to the Ichthyosaur becoming Nevada’s state fossil. The Birgeria americana fossil finding is important because it sheds light on how quickly large, predator species evolved following the Earth’s third mass extinction that preceded the Triassic period about 250 million years ago.   The evidence shows the fish was alive and well about 1 million years after mass extinction 66 million years ago wiped out an estimated 90 percent of marine species.   It also shows a large fish was surviving in …

For more than a decade, Shamil Zhumatov has photographed spacecraft taking off from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur cosmodrome. After dozens of launches, he says the challenge is to find new and better ways of taking pictures. The Soyuz spacecraft which blasted off on July 28 carried NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, Russia’s Sergey Ryazanskiy, and Italy’s Paolo Nespoli to the International Space Station. “Most launches lately have taken place in during the daytime, and this one was special, happening on the edge of day and night, about 20 minutes after sunset,” Shamil said. It was already dark on the ground, but the upper layers of the atmosphere were still lit by sun, which created an unusual contrast — and additional technical difficulties. “I had to change my camera settings from night-time to daylight ones quickly as I shifted from shooting the launch pad to the flying spacecraft,” Shamil says. Photographers don’t have a choice of location at Baikonur — everyone shoots from the same position, about 1 km (mile) from the launch pad. Only remotely controlled cameras can shoot from closer distances — and Shamil’s routinely gets damaged by rocks which fly in all directions during blast-off.   After the rocket lifts off, photographers keep tracking it until it disappears from sight. A few minutes into the flight, the rocket sheds its four boosters as they exhaust their liquid fuel and can no longer propel the craft. In daytime, they can be only seen as four tiny dots. But on July 28, because …