Month: July 2018

NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope is almost out of fuel and has been forced to take a nap.   Flight controllers placed the planet-hunting spacecraft into hibernation last week to save energy. It will remain asleep until early August, when controllers attempt to send down the data collected before observations were interrupted.   Kepler has been searching for planets outside our solar system for nearly a decade. Considered the pioneer of planet hunting, it’s discovered nearly 3,000 confirmed worlds and as many potential candidates.   Launched in 2009, Kepler has endured mechanical failures and other mishaps. But there’s no getting around an empty fuel tank. The fuel is needed for pointing the telescope.   Kepler’s antenna must be pointed toward Earth to get the most recent observations back. For now, that’s the team’s highest priority. …

Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra’s government is planning to create an ocean reserve in the first quarter to protect feeding and breeding grounds for humpback whales and other marine species, the environment minister said Monday. The reserve would span more than 400 square miles (1,040 square km) and overlap with four offshore oil blocks, according to a government document on the proposal. Environment Minister Fabiola Munoz said oil drilling and fishing would still be allowed in the protected area, but that extra care would be taken to ensure they do not threaten marine ecosystems, with resources allocated for government oversight. “The goal of creating this reserve isn’t to ban economic activity. It’s to create the conditions so that species can reproduce in the time of year they need,” Munoz said in a news conference with foreign media. Munoz said she expects the proposed reserve to be created via a presidential decree in the first quarter of 2019, after information meetings are held with stakeholders this year. The proposed area includes feeding and breeding grounds for turtles, humpback whales, seals, seahorses and commercial fish species, according to the document. The companies that have exploration or drilling rights inside the borders of the proposed reserve include Savia Peru — a joint venture of Ecopetrol and Korea National OilCorp — BPZ Exploracion & Produccion, Karoon Gas Australia Ltd. and China National Petroleum Corporation. …

The United States is disputing a newspaper report that it bullied and threatened nations in an effort to water down a World Health Assembly resolution supporting breastfeeding. A State Department official said, “Reports suggesting the United States threatened a partner nation related to a World Health Assembly resolution are false.” Health and Human Services spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley also described as “patently false” attempts to portray the U.S. position as anti-breastfeeding. A New York Times report Monday said the U.S. delegation at the assembly in Geneva this spring embraced “the interest of infant formula manufacturers” and “upended the deliberations.”  The resolution had been expected to be approved “quickly and easily,” the newspaper said. Instead, the U.S. delegation “sought to wear down the other participants through procedural maneuvers in a series of meetings that stretched on for two days, an unexpectedly long period.” A State Department official said the U.S. believed “the resolution as originally drafted called on states to erect hurdles for mothers seeking to provide nutrition to their children.” The official said the United States “recognizes that breastfeeding and provision of breast milk is best for all babies,” but also recognizes that “not all women are able to breastfeed for a variety of reasons.” The official said, “Women should have access to full and accurate information about breastfeeding,” as well as “full information about safe alternatives when breastfeeding is not possible.” Oakley said, “The issues being debated were not about whether one supports breastfeeding.” “Many women are not able to …

A recent study demonstrates that India can grow more nutritious food and decrease water use simply by switching the cereals farmers produce. Currently, 7.3 billion people live on Earth, and the world population is expected to rise to 9.7 billion by 2050. Technological innovations have helped keep up with population growth in the past, but new research shows we might not need fancy tech for nutritional purposes. Lead researcher Kyle Frankel Davis from Columbia University told VOA, “A lot of my research interests stem from trying to better align food security and environmental goals. And the Green Revolution is a good example of how we haven’t been able to do that historically.” The Green Revolution is the name given to the development of high-yielding rice and wheat in the 1960s. These crops dramatically boosted food supplies in India and elsewhere; however, they required large amounts of water and fertilizer. With water supplies being strained and fertilizer pollution problems growing in many parts of the world, experts are encouraging farmers to consider less needy crops. Davis and his co-authors wanted to test whether a shift from rice and wheat to maize, sorghum or millet could lead to better nutritional balance and less water use. Working district by district, they used computer models to replace rice and wheat with other cereals that were grown in the district, but on a smaller scale. That ensured there was local agricultural knowledge about the alternative grain, and that the shift would be feasible. The authors …

Bradford Smith, a NASA astronomer who acted as planetary tour guide to the public with his interpretations of stunning images beamed back from Voyager missions, has died. Smith’s wife, Diane McGregor, said he died Tuesday at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, of complications from myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune disorder. He was 86. Smith led the NASA team that interpreted pictures taken by Voyager space probes as they passed Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and then presented the images to the public. He was a retired professor of planetary sciences and astronomy at the University of Arizona and research astronomer at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. At NASA press conferences on Voyager discoveries following their launch in 1977, Smith was a star, and known for a certain dry wit. At a press conference showing a multicolored, pockmarked moon of Jupiter called Io, Smith quipped, “I’ve seen better looking pizzas than this.” A video of the conference ran on national broadcast news and his quote was on front pages around the world, said Ellen Hale, a former Associated Press communications director and friend of Smith’s. A 1981 People magazine profile called Smith “the nation’s tour guide” who showed the public active volcanoes on Io, violent hurricanes on Jupiter, thousands of complex rings around Saturn and other space oddities that constituted “a very bizarre world,” as Smith put it, “that goes beyond the imagination of science fiction writers.” Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco who worked with Smith at NASA called him …

Researchers from half a dozen states in West Africa have joined together in a battle against what one expert calls a root crop “Ebola” — a viral disease that could wreck the region’s staple food and condemn millions to hunger. Their enemy: cassava brown streak disease (CBSD), a virus that strikes cassava, also called manioc, which in some of the region’s countries is consumed by as many as 80 percent of the population. The root-rotting disease was first discovered in Tanzania eight decades ago and is steadily moving westward. “In outbreaks in central Africa, it has wiped out between 90 and 100 percent of cassava production — it’s now heading towards West Africa,” Justin Pita, in charge of the research program, told AFP. “It is a very big threat. It has to be taken very seriously.” In Uganda, 3,000 people died of hunger in the 1990s after the dreaded disease showed up, striking small farmers in particular. “You can call it the Ebola of cassava,” said Pita. The West African Virus Epidemiology (WAVE) project, a multi-million-dollar scheme funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, aims to shield the region from the advancing peril. Headquartered at Bingerville, on the edges of the Ivorian economic capital Abidjan, it gathers six countries from West Africa — Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Togo — as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Much is already known about CBSD — the virus is generally believed to be propagated by an insect called the silverleaf whitefly, and …

Dressed in heavy cotton, a helmet and respirator, Jessica Ball worked the night shift monitoring “fissure 8,” which has been spewing fountains of lava as high as a 15-story building from a slope on Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano. The lava poured into a channel oozing toward the Pacific Ocean several miles away. In the eerie orange night scape in the abandoned community of Leilani Estates, it looked like it was flowing toward the scientist, but that was an optical illusion, Ball said. “The volcano is doing what it wants to. … We’re reminded what it’s like to deal with the force of nature,” said Ball, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Scientists have been in the field measuring the eruptions 24 hours a day, seven days a week since Kilauea first exploded more than two months ago. They are a mix of USGS staff, University of Hawaii researchers and trained volunteers working six-to-eight-hour shifts in teams of two to five. They avoid synthetics because they melt in the intense heat and wear gloves to protect their hands from sharp volcanic rock and glass. Helmets protect against falling lava stones, and respirators ward off sulfur gases. This is not a job for the faint hearted. Geologists have died studying active volcanoes. David Alexander Johnston, a USGS volcanologist was killed by the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state. In 1991, American volcanologist Harry Glicken and his French colleagues Katia and Maurice Krafft were killed while conducting avalanche research on …

The Trump administration said Saturday it’s freezing payments under an “Obamacare” program that protects insurers with sicker patients from financial losses, a move expected to add to premium increases next year. At stake are billions in payments to insurers with sicker customers. In a weekend announcement, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the administration is acting because of conflicting court ruling in lawsuits filed by some smaller insurers who question whether they are being fairly treated under the program. Risk adjustment The so-called risk adjustment program takes payments from insurers with healthier customers and redistributes that money to companies with sicker enrollees. Payments for 2017 are $10.4 billion. No taxpayer subsidies are involved. The idea behind the program is to remove the financial incentive for insurers to cherry pick healthier customers. The government uses a similar approach with Medicare private insurance plans and the Medicare prescription drug benefit. Major insurer groups said Saturday the administration’s action interferes with a program that’s working well. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, whose members are a mainstay of Affordable Care Act coverage said it was “extremely disappointed” with the administration’s action. The Trump administration’s move “will significantly increase 2019 premiums for millions of individuals and small business owners and could result in far fewer health plan choices,” association president Scott Serota said in a statement. “It will undermine Americans’ access to affordable coverage, particularly those who need medical care the most.” Serota noted that the payments are required by law, and …

Nano technology researchers at the University of Cambridge are developing an intelligent toilet that might change the nature of medicine. It automatically analyzes a user’s urine to capture valuable medical data. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports. …

Since the 1800s, scientists have marveled at how spiders can take flight using their webbing. Charles Darwin remarked on the behavior when tiny spiders landed on the HMS Beagle, trailing lines of silk. He thought the arachnids might be using heat-generated updrafts to take to the sky, but new research shows a totally different cause may be at play. Erica Morley and Daniel Robert from the University of Bristol in England were interested in exploring a second explanation for the spiders’ ability. They thought spiders might sense and use electrostatic fields in the air. “There have been several studies looking at how air movement and wind can get spiders airborne, but the electrostatic hypothesis was never tested,” Morley told VOA. Some observers suggested electrostatic fields might be the reason the multiple draglines some spiders use to float don’t get tangled with each other. Biologist Kimberley Sheldon from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, who was not involved in the new research, pointed out that “though these spiders will have five or six draglines, those strands of silk do not get entangled. So we’ve known for a while that electrostatics probably [are] at least interacting with the spider, with the silk lines themselves, to keep them from getting tangled.” Morley and Robert created a box with a grounded metal plate on the bottom and a plate on the top that they could pass an electrical current through. The scientists placed spiders in the box and turned on the voltage, watching as …