Month: October 2018

A new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns the world is heating up faster than predicted.  If the pace of global warming is not scaled back drastically, the panel says climate-related risks to human well-being, ecosystems and sustainable development will escalate to dangerous, unreversable levels. Scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report global warming since pre-industrial times already has exceeded one degree Celsius.  At the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions, it says the the level of warming will reach 1.5 degrees during the next few decades. The report says the world needs to reach zero net emissions of carbon dioxide by 2050 to prevent a further rise in temperature.     It warns a further increase to two degrees Celsius would greatly escalate the number of natural disasters, accelerate the melting of the Arctic sea ice, cause islands to disappear under rising seas, and make it impossible to produce enough food to feed the world’s growing population. World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas says there is still time for people to change their behavior to keep carbon emissions from rising.  He says preventing the global temperature from going up by one half degree would make a huge difference in the well-being of the planet. “One of the major issues is that there would be 420 million people less suffering because of climate change if we would be able to limit the warming to 1.5-degree level,” said Taalas. “And, we have certain areas in the world, …

Preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people and ecosystems on this fast-warming planet, an international panel of scientists reported Sunday. But they provide little hope the world will rise to the challenge. The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its gloomy report at a meeting in Incheon, South Korea. In the 728-page document, the U.N. organization detailed how Earth’s weather, health and ecosystems would be in better shape if the world’s leaders could somehow limit future human-caused warming to just 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (a half degree Celsius) from now, instead of the globally agreed-upon goal of 1.8 degrees F (1 degree C). Among other things: * Half as many people would suffer from lack of water. * There would be fewer deaths and illnesses from heat, smog and infectious diseases. * Seas would rise nearly 4 inches (0.1 meters) less. * Half as many animals with back bones and plants would lose the majority of their habitats. * There would be substantially fewer heat waves, downpours and droughts. * The West Antarctic ice sheet might not kick into irreversible melting. * And it just may be enough to save most of the world’s coral reefs from dying. “For some people this is a life-or-death situation without a doubt,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, a lead author on the report Limiting warming to 0.9 degrees from now means the world can keep “a …

Large scale agriculture creates large scale pollution, especially from animal waste. The waste from poultry farms, for example, is bad for the environment, but it contains nutrients that are good for fertilizer. Faith Lapidus reports that scientists in Maryland are developing a new technology to separate the good from the bad … and turn a profit in the process. …

Delegates from 148 parties to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control are calling for new heated tobacco products on the market to be regulated in the same way cigarettes and other tobacco products are. Heated tobacco products (HTPs) are not e-cigarettes. They are products that contain nicotine and other chemicals, which are inhaled by users, through the mouth. The tobacco industry markets these devices as being less harmful than regular cigarettes. But the head of the convention secretariat, Vera da Costa e Silva, said there was no evidence that HTPs are less harmful than conventional tobacco products. She said they are tobacco products in the same way as cigarettes and should be subject to the same regulations imposed on standard tobacco products under the treaty. “Governments should implement … a ban on advertisement, promotion and sponsorship” of heated tobacco products, da Costa said. “Parties to the treaty are legally bound to the provisions of the treaty and they should regulate heated tobacco accordingly.” Da Costa told VOA the tobacco industry is marketing heated tobacco products as a harm-reduction strategy. She said many are sold with flavors, which appeal to young people. For now, she said, the products are mainly being marketed in developed countries. “But they are already being marketed very aggressively with high lobbying, and there are many, many concerns,” she said. “Lots of concerns raised by African countries, Latin American countries, Asian countries that do not feel they are prepared for this epidemic of heated tobacco …

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to sign legislation soon that will add a third gender category to birth certificates. The city council passed legislation on the issue in September, and the mayor announced his intention to sign it after a public hearing. Faiza Elmasry reports on that, with an interview by Genia Dulot, the first American to have her birth certificate list a third gender. Faith Lapidus narrates. …

Four more cases of Ebola have been reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the past two days. And the World Health Organization says officials are now concerned the virus will spread beyond the DRC. The total number of cases is now 165, with 106 deaths. But some new drugs are being deployed to fight the deadly virus. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

A new study is blaming 2017’s unusually high number of hurricanes on the Atlantic Ocean’s rising surface temperatures. The report is one of the first to suggest that human-driven global warming is actually causing more hurricanes. The study published in last week’s journal Science also predicts that as warming increases over the next 50 to 100 years, about two more hurricanes on average will form annually than we get now. In addition, those hurricanes will be stronger and wetter. ‘The new normal’ It’s a common refrain in these days to refer to outrageous weather events as “the new normal,” but those claims have been hard to quantify. Scientists do know the Earth is getting warmer, and evidence shows humans are contributing to the problem. But scientists have warned against attributing individual weather events to changes in climate, explaining that weather and climate are two different things. But by any standard, 2017 was a tough year for people living on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States. Hurricane Harvey turned parts of coastal Texas and the city of Houston into a watery mess. And Hurricane Maria battered Puerto Rico so badly, the island only completed its power restoration projects in August of this year. Using a new climate model, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began studying a particular swath of warming tropical Atlantic water near the equator. Speaking to VOA, author Hiro Murakami says water was especially warm last year and their model predicted about two …

People who regularly engage in light to moderate physical activity — like walking four hours a week or swimming two hours weekly — might have less severe strokes than individuals who aren’t as active, a Swedish study suggests. Researchers examined data on 925 patients who were treated for strokes at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden, between 2014 and 2016. Overall, four in five of these patients had mild strokes. Slightly more than half of the patients were inactive before their strokes. Compared with this inactive group, people who got at least some exercise before their strokes were twice as likely to have mild strokes, researchers reported in Neurology. “We knew from earlier research that physical activity could reduce stroke incidence,” lead study author Malin Reinholdsson of the University of Gothenburg said by email. “However, whether or not pre-stroke physical activity could also influence stroke severity was not clear.” Patients in the study were 73 years old on average and most of them had what’s known as an ischemic stroke, the most common kind, which occurs when a clot blocks an artery carrying blood to the brain. About 6 percent of patients had hemorrhagic strokes, a less common type that is caused by a ruptured blood vessel in the brain. Surveyed about exercise To assess pre-stroke activity levels, researchers surveyed participants about the duration and intensity of any exercise they got before they were hospitalized. Researchers defined “light” activity as walking at a leisurely pace for at least four hours a week, and classified exercise as “moderate” intensity when people did things like swimming, running or walking briskly for two to three …

Newer birth control for men is beginning to fill the gap between the traditional condoms and sterilization. One new technology involves inserting a hypodermic needle into the scrotum. It is said to decrease libido. For men, contraception had remained fairly stagnant for the past century, primarily limited to condoms (85 percent effective when used correctly) and vasectomy, which is usually permanent. New methods are trying to move beyond centuries-old contraception applications, and some younger men say they are enthusiastic about the prospects. But they want them to be safe. “Contraceptives are necessary regardless of which partner is using them,” said Shane Sullivan, a senior at Colgate University in New York. But, “I’m adverse to solutions that may induce side effects.” But as with contraception for women, methods free of side effects are hard to come by. Nestorone-Testosterone is a hormonal birth control gel for men that’s been in the making for more than a decade. The gel is applied to the arms and shoulders every day and works to shut down hormones responsible for sperm production. But because it drops testosterone levels, reported side effects include a low libido or problems with ejaculation. Meanwhile, scientists at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland have developed a daily birth control pill called DMAU. It lowers testosterone and sperm production, which decreases the likelihood of pregnancy, according to a study by the University of Washington Medical Center and at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California. All participants who tried DMAU noted some …

A scrawny dwarf planet nicknamed “the Goblin” has been discovered well beyond Pluto. A round frozen world just 186 miles (300 kilometers) across, the Goblin was spotted by astronomers in 2015 around Halloween, thus its spooky name. But it wasn’t publicly unveiled until Tuesday following further observations with ground telescopes. Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science, one of the astronomers who made the discovery, said the Goblin is on the small end for a dwarf planet. It is officially known as 2015 TG387 by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center. This is the third dwarf planet recently found to be orbiting on the frigid fringes of our solar system. Goblin’s orbit is extremely elongated — so stretched out, in fact, that it takes 40,000 years for it to circle the sun. At its most distant, the Goblin is 2,300 times farther from the sun than Earth. That’s 2,300 astronomical units, or AU. One AU is the distance from Earth to the sun, or roughly 93 million miles (150 million kilometers). At its closest, the Goblin is 65 times farther from the sun than Earth, or 65 AU. Pluto, by comparison, is approximately 30 to 50 AU. Sheppard, along with Northern Arizona University’s Chad Trujillo and the University of Hawaii’s David Tholen, spotted the Goblin in October 2015 when it was relatively nearby — around 80 AU. The two other dwarf planets are Sedna, discovered in 2003, which is about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) across, and 2012 VP113, …

A study of the African bush elephant’s vast network of deep wrinkles has found it is intricately designed to help the animals keep their cool, fight off parasites and defend against sun damage, scientists said on Tuesday. The fine pattern of millions of channels means the elephant’s skin can retain five to 10 times more water than a flat surface, the scientists said. The research, conducted by scientists at Switzerland’s University of Geneva and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, was published in the journal Nature Communications on Tuesday. “Because of their huge body size, and their warm and dry habitat, African elephants can avoid over-heating only by losing calories through evaporation of the water they collect in and on their skin,” researchers wrote. The scientists found that elephant skin channels are not just folds or wrinkles, but actual fractures in the animal’s brittle outermost layer of skin. The skin grows on a tiny lattice framework, they said, causing it to fracture under mechanical stress when the animals move. African elephants are known to love bathing, spraying and mud-wallowing, and since they have no sweat and sebum glands to keep their skin moist and supple, the tiny crevices trap and hold on to water and mud, helping to regulate body temperature. They also form a barrier against bugs and solar radiation. …