Month: April 2019

Sweden’s teenage activist Greta Thunberg choked backed tears on Tuesday as she warned of climate disaster and urged Europeans to vote in next month’s elections to press for decisive action on cutting greenhouse gases. In a speech to a packed committee of the European Parliament, Thunberg, 16, warned time is running out to stop the ravages of global warming. “I want you to panic, I want you to act as if the house was on fire,” Thunberg told the environment committee of the assembly in the French city of Strasbourg. Citing scientific reports endorsed by the United Nations and holding back her tears, she warned of accelerating disasters like mass species extinction, erosion of top soil, deforestation, air pollution, loss of insects and the acidification of oceans. She received a warm round of applause before composing herself and continuing her speech. “You need to listen to us, we who cannot vote,” Thunberg said, referring to the tens of thousands of students taking to the streets worldwide to fight climate change. “You need to vote for us, for your children and grandchildren,” she said. “In this election, you vote for the future living conditions for human kind.” Voters in EU countries will elect on May 23-26 a new European Parliament, which will also play a role in chosing the head of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm. Hijacked for political ends During a visit to Brussels in February, Thunberg urged the European Union to double its ambition for greenhouse gas …

Brandenburg has become the first state in Germany to require all children attending kindergarten to be vaccinated for measles and other infectious diseases as fears spread across Europe about the influence of the anti-vaccination movement and lower immunization rates. A decrease in immunization has led to an increase in measles in Germany, France, Italy and elsewhere.   The German government is considering whether to mandate vaccinations across the country.  Authorities there say 2019 is likely to be a record year for measles with cases tripling in three states.  Other European countries have already introduced laws making vaccinations compulsory, including Italy which two years ago passed a law making 10 vaccines obligatory for children who enrolled in Italian schools, including chickenpox and measles. Last week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency with 285 cases of measles confirmed since October.  City health officials have ordered mandatory vaccinations for anybody who’s been in contact with infected people and violators can face fines of up to $1,000. Health officials say a booklet produced by an anti-vaccine group has been widely disseminated through Orthodox Jewish communities, not the first time in the United States an insular community has seen a jump in infection rates as a result of a fall in immunization rates prompted by anti-vaccine campaigners. Under the Brandenburg law children who have not been vaccinated against measles will be excluded from attending kindergartens.  Brandenburg lawmakers say they will examine whether to add other vaccinations. “In the public …

The number of measles cases in the United States has soared to more than 460, the highest number since 1991. More than half of the cases are in New York, where 21 people had to be hospitalized, five of them in intensive care. Last week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared measles a public health emergency, and has ordered mandatory vaccination in parts of the city. VOA Zlatica Hoke reports measles cases are up 300 percent worldwide this year, according to the World Health Organization. …

Scientists on Monday provided the most comprehensive look to date at one of the solar system’s most exotic features: prime lakeside property in the northern polar region of Saturn’s moon Titan — if you like lakes made of stuff like liquid methane. Using data obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft before that mission ended in 2017 with a deliberate plunge into Saturn, the scientists found that some of frigid Titan’s lakes of liquid hydrocarbons in this region are surprisingly deep while others may be shallow and seasonal. Titan and Earth are the solar system’s two places with standing bodies of liquid on the surface. Titan boasts lakes, rivers and seas of hydrocarbons: compounds of hydrogen and carbon like those that are the main components of petroleum and natural gas. The researchers described land forms akin to mesas towering above the nearby landscape, topped with liquid lakes more than 300 feet (100 meters) deep comprised mainly of methane. The scientists suspect the lakes formed when surrounding bedrock chemically dissolved and collapsed, a process that occurs with a certain type of lake on Earth. The scientists also described “phantom lakes” that during wintertime appeared to be wide but shallow ponds — perhaps only a few inches (cm) deep — but evaporated or drained into the surface by springtime, a process taking seven years on Titan. The findings represented further evidence about Titan’s hydrological cycle, with liquid hydrocarbons raining down from clouds, flowing across its surface and evaporating back into the sky. This is …

Doctors from the United States and Venezuela are working together to help patients in Venezuela. Dr. Gabriela Blohm lives in Gainesville, Florida and physician Alberto Paniz-Mondolfi lives 2,000 kilometers away in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. VOA’s Christina Caicedo Smit reports, their team work may save some lives today, and in the future. …

Whooping cranes, common ravens and peregrine falcons are among the celebrities of the sky in the eyes of Americans, even those who’ve never laid eyes them. The ruffed grouse or purple martin? They’re like friends you might chat with. The wrentit and the Abert’s towhee are like the neighbors you don’t talk to much. As for the Hammond’s flycatcher and the Brewer’s sparrow, Americans don’t care much about them at all. That’s the word from a new study that aimed to define “a range of relationships between people and birds” across the United States, said Justin Schuetz, one of the authors. Results appear in a paper released Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Schuetz, a biologist and independent researcher in Bath, Maine, did the work with Alison Johnston, who’s affiliated with Cornell University in Ithaca, New York The project included studying Google searches performed from 2008 to 2017 to learn about what Americans think about 621 bird species. Researchers knew where each search came from. They also knew the natural range of each species and how often it is sighted in specific places, based on a national database. One key question was whether the Google data revealed more interest in each species than one would expect in various locations, based on how often it is sighted in those places. Another question was how much the interest in each species was limited to its natural range, or spilled out beyond it. So birds in the “celebrity” category …

The number of measles cases worldwide nearly quadrupled in the first three months of the year compared to last year, the World Health Organization reported Monday. The United Nations agency, citing preliminary data, said that more than 112,000 cases of the preventable but highly contagious disease have been reported across the globe in the January-to-March period. WHO called for better vaccination coverage against measles, which can kill or leave a child disabled for life. Over recent months, WHO said spikes in the disease have occurred “in countries with high overall vaccination coverage, including the United States … as well as Israel, Thailand, and Tunisia, as the disease has spread fast among clusters of unvaccinated people.” “While this data is provisional and not yet complete, it indicates a clear trend,” WHO said. “Many countries are in the midst of sizeable measles outbreaks, with all regions of the world experiencing sustained rises in cases.” The agency said the reported number of cases often lags behind the number of actual cases, meaning that the number of documented cases likely does not reflect the actual severity of the measles outbreaks. For three weeks in a row, U.S. health authorities have added dozens of new reports of measles to its yearly total, now at 555, the biggest figure in five years. Twenty of the 50 U.S. states have now reported measles cases. More than half of the U.S. total — 285 cases — have been reported in New York City. Officials in the country’s largest …

The submersible dropped from the ocean’s surface faster than I had expected. With a loud “psssssss” the air escaped from the ballast tanks and the small craft suddenly tilted forward. Within seconds, aquanaut Robert Carmichael and I were enveloped by a vibrant shade of blue, watching streaks of sunlight pierce the water’s surface. Soon a large manta ray appeared from the darkness below, gently gliding toward our small craft before vanishing into the distance. The dive took place off a coral atoll called St. Joseph in the outer islands of Seychelles on a mission to explore the Indian Ocean. This body of water is poorly studied and few scientists have ever ventured deeper than the maximum scuba depth of 100 feet. For more than a month researchers from Nekton, a British-led scientific research charity, have been using submersibles to dive deep below the waves to document the ocean’s health. We arrived at St. Joseph Island in the early hours of the morning, and this was the first submersible dive at the new site. The sea bed suddenly appeared beneath our craft, a landscape no one had ever seen before. I quickly scribbled down in the mission report the depth and time at which we sighted the bottom: “165 feet, 1144 UTC.” Carmichael, a veteran of the sea, relayed the information to the surface via an underwater telephone. Its loud static noise would be a constant of our dive. We moved across a seabed of rock and sand and scattered soft …

As recently as a half-century ago, young American students would spend many lessons writing curved loops and diagonal lines, as they learned how to write in cursive. Over the years, though, computer keyboards and voice to text programs have replaced pens and pencils, and made handwriting — especially cursive — less relevant.  But it hasn’t disappeared. St. Luke Catholic School in McLean, Virginia, still teaches cursive. Several times a week, students work on their handwriting skills, clutching their pencils and pens as they practice forming neat loops and curls. Teacher Grace O’Connor says eventually, all of them will have a style all their own. “The great thing about cursive is everyone has his own little spin to it, like, you know how to form your letters, but as you get older you, kind of, develop your own flow to your cursive writing, and it’s yours,” she says. “You can take ownership of it, which is really great.” Cursive engages multiple senses Cursive handwriting is emerging as a learning tool for students with dyslexia, a disorder that makes it difficult to read or interpret letters, words and other symbols. Thirteen-year-old Joseph was diagnosed with dyslexia four years ago, when he was in third grade. “It was hard,” he recalls. “At first, I hadn’t known anything about it. So, I thought it was like the end of the world. So, I was, like, scared, but I had also known that eventually there would be a way for me to get past it.” …

As recently as a half-century ago, young American students would spend many lessons writing curved loops and diagonal lines, as they learned how to write in cursive. Over the years, though, computer keyboards and voice to text programs have replaced pens and pencils, and made handwriting — especially cursive — less relevant. But, as Faiza Elmasry discovered, handwriting — especially cursive — can help dyslexic kids improve their reading. Faith Lapidus narrates her report. …

Just 50 years ago, the Aral Sea, which straddles the nations of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, was the fourth largest lake in the world. But today it is mostly desert, and environmental groups are trying to save what is left. VOA’S Kevin Enochs reports. …

Experts meeting in emergency session at the World Health Organization agree the Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo does not constitute a public health emergency of international concern. The experts say the Ebola outbreak does not pose a global threat since the deadly virus has not crossed any international borders.  But they warn this is no time to sit back as the epidemic continues to spread.  It says efforts to contain the disease must be redoubled. The assessment follows a warning issued Friday by top Red Cross official Emanuele Capobianco who expressed concern about a possible regional spread of the Ebola virus after a recent spike in cases in the DRC. The recent spike in Ebola infections has seen the number of cases rise to 1206, including 764 deaths. The current upsurge has occurred in remaining epicenters of the disease in conflict-ridden North Kivu province, notably in Butembo, Katwa, Vuhove and Mandima.   The WHO says these areas have been off limits because of insecurity, seriously hindering the Ebola response.  Because of the lack of access, Executive Director of WHO Health Emergency Program, Mike Ryan, says the WHO has fallen behind in starting vaccination rings. “Vaccination is proving to be a highly effective way of stopping this virus.   But if we cannot vaccinate people, we cannot protect them.  We can also not get people out to Ebola treatment units.  If someone stays in the community with Ebola and begins to have diarrhea or bleeding, they will infect their …