Month: September 2020

NASA on Thursday launched an effort to pay companies to mine resources on the moon, announcing it would buy from them rocks, dirt and other lunar materials as the U.S. space agency seeks to spur private extraction of coveted off-world resources for its use. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote in a blog post accompanying the announcement that the plans would not violate a 1967 treaty that holds that celestial bodies and space are exempt from national claims of ownership. FILE – NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine talks to multiple media outlets at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, Nov. 26, 2018.The initiative, targeting companies that plan to send robots to mine lunar resources, is part of NASA’s goal of setting what Bridenstine called “norms of behavior” in space and allowing private mining on the moon in ways that could help sustain future astronaut missions. NASA said it views the mined resources as the property of the company, and the materials would become “the sole property of NASA” after purchase. Under NASA’s Artemis program, President Donald Trump’s administration envisions a return of American astronauts to the moon by 2024. NASA has cast such a mission as a precursor to a future first human voyage to Mars. “The bottom line is we are going to buy some lunar soil for the purpose of it demonstrating that it can be done,” Bridenstine said during an event hosted by the Secure World Foundation, a space policy organization. Bridenstine said NASA eventually would buy more types of resources such as …

U.S. weather officials announced Thursday that a La Nina climate pattern has developed in the Pacific Ocean, possibly exacerbating an already busy hurricane season and setting up a colder, wetter winter for North America.U.S. Climate Prediction Center Deputy Director Mike Halpert said in a press release that La Nina can contribute to an increase in Atlantic hurricane activity by weakening winds over the Caribbean Sea and tropical Atlantic Basin. He said that can enable storms to develop and intensify.Halpert said the potential for La Nina development was considered when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) updated its Atlantic hurricane season outlook last month.In a statement on its website, NOAA describes La Nina — translated from Spanish as “little girl” — as a natural ocean-atmospheric phenomenon marked by cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator.In the winter, La Nina typically brings above-average precipitation and colder-than-average temperatures along the northern tier of the U.S., along with below-average precipitation and above-average temperatures across the South. NOAA says that raises concern for the U.S. Southwest, which saw a weak summer rainy season and is already experiencing a severe drought.The opposite effect, El Nino — “little boy” in Spanish — is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. That can often result in increased rainfall across the southern tier of the U.S., which, in the worst case, can cause destructive flooding, and drought in the western Pacific.NOAA says the most recent La Nina appeared …

Our home planet has got a lot going on.  Fires in California turned the skies orange.  Flooding in Senegal and Sudan has farmers worried about the future.  And fires have broken out in Beirut’s port, following last month’s massive explosion. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us a special Week in Space with eyes on Mother Earth. …

A report released Thursday by the nonprofit conservation group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said the world’s wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 68% in just four decades, with human consumption behind the decline.FILE – In this Nov. 23, 2019 photo, a burned area of the Amazon rainforest is seen in Prainha, Para state, Brazil.However, wildlife populations are not the only ones who are in danger as a result of species decline and deforestation. Scientists say that the rapid destruction of the environment plays a dramatic role in the spread of zoonotic diseases, which are passed from animals to humans, such as COVID-19.Forests act as buffers to keep zoonotic diseases away from humans, environmentalists say, and the more that are destroyed, the greater the risk of exposure for people.’Russian roulette’”The longer the wildlife stay in supply chains with other humans and people, the greater the risk of spillover of a wildlife disease to humans,” said Rebecca Shaw, chief scientist at WWF. “We are playing Russian roulette with the threat of pandemics, and in the end, we will lose … big. And COVID-19 is only the beginning.”The authors of the report say that regions of Latin American and the Caribbean faced the biggest impacts, with an average decline of 94% in wildlife populations in the area. Price believes large-scale commercial production of palm oil, soy and beef in the area has contributed substantially to the drop.FILE – A truck transporting cut trees sits parked for inspection at a government checkpoint …

More dengue, less malaria. That may be the future in parts of Africa on a warming planet, depending on where you live. FILE – A doctor tests a child for malaria at the Ithani-Asheri Hospital in Arusha, Tanzania, May 11, 2016.Using mosquito optimal temperature data and population density, the researchers predicted the risk of malaria and dengue in Africa under “worst-case, business-as-usual” climate projections. The dengue mosquito — which also spreads a lot of viruses that cause diseases such as chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever — is expected to expand its range, increasing the risk of these diseases throughout sub-Saharan Africa by 2080.   In contrast, the areas of greatest risk for malaria are predicted to shrink, shifting further south and into high-elevation regions. The researchers say that rising urbanization in Africa may further enhance the risk of dengue. Malaria is often more of a problem in rural areas because the mosquito breeds in natural bodies of water such as ponds and streams. But the dengue mosquito prefers to breed in tiny, human-made containers “as small as a bottle cap” that are common in cities, said Mordecai. FILE – An Indian woman walks with a child along an open drain filled with plastic and stagnant water, which act as a breeding ground for mosquitoes in New Delhi, India, Sept. 20, 2016.Urban areas also tend to be warmer than surrounding rural regions, providing more suitable habitat for the heat-loving dengue mosquito. “We’re predicting that dengue is going to become a much bigger problem in Africa. And I …

A new study suggests that if you find yourself annoyed by seagulls at the beach or, more increasingly, urban areas, the best way to discourage them is to make eye contact.Researchers at Britain’s University of Exeter observed 155 herring gulls – the most common variety of seagull, and a variety, they say, that is becoming more common in urban areas.The gulls tend to be seemingly fearless around people in either setting when it comes to stealing food. They have been known to fly off with whatever a person might be eating if it is left unguarded.For their study, the researchers approached the seagulls while either looking directly at them or facing toward them, while keeping their eyes to the ground.  They found when their eyes were locked with the gulls, the birds tended to flee.  The gulls reacted the same way in both beach and urban areas.  A similar 2019 study led by University of Exeter PhD student Madeleine Goumas, examined how the gulls reacted when people looked at them or looked away. The study found looking directly at birds while they ate prompted them to fly away sooner.Goumas is lead author on the new study, which refined the methodology by having experimenters only move their eyes as they approached the gulls. She said the study shows the gulls responded specifically to human eye direction. It was as true in young gulls as it was mature ones, indicating it was innate behavior, not the result of any one gull’s negative …

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Thursday called for $35 billion in additional funding for the World Health Organization’s Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator program, designed to develop and equitably distribute COVID-19 vaccines and treatments worldwide.   The funding includes $15 billion in the next three months.     Guterres spoke Thursday at a virtual inaugural meeting of the ACT Facilitation Council, an international collaboration of leaders looking to use the program as a mechanism to speed the development of COVID vaccines and treatments.   In his remarks, the U.N. chief told the group the nearly $3 billion that has been contributed so far is “seed funding” and is less than 10% of what WHO wants for the program.      “We now need $35 billion more to go from startup to scale up and impact,” he said.     In his remarks, WHO General Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said bilateral vaccine deals and what he calls “vaccine nationalism”— the hoarding of treatments and vaccines by individual nations — could “compromise equitable access and hold up progress for all countries.”   Financial support for the ACT program has lagged behind its goals, as nations or governments, including the European Union, Britain, Japan and the United States, reach bilateral deals for vaccines.   European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged the commissions backing. In August, the commission pledged $474 million to WHO’s cooperative vaccine access program COVAX, which is part of the ACT program.   Tedros renewed calls for scaling up …

America’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Wednesday that AstraZeneca’s suspension of final global trials of its COVID-19 experimental vaccine points to the effectiveness of the safeguards that have been incorporated into the trials.“It’s important to point out that that’s the reason why you have various phases of trials, to determine if, in fact, these candidates are safe,” Fauci said in an interview with “CBS This Morning.”“It’s really one of the safety valves you have on clinical trials such as this.”The British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant paused the trials because a volunteer participant became ill after receiving the experimental drug.“It’s unfortunate that it happened, and hopefully they’ll be able to proceed along with the remainder of the trial,” Fauci said. “But you don’t know. They need to investigate it further.”The company issued a statement Tuesday saying the pause in testing is a “routine action, which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials, while it is investigated, ensuring we maintain the integrity of the trials.”AstraZeneca developed the vaccine, AZD1222, in cooperation with Britain’s University of Oxford. The vaccine is being tested in large-scale Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials in several nations, including the United States, Britain, Brazil, South Africa and India. AZD1222 is one of three COVID-19 vaccines in late-stage Phase 3 trials in the United States.Watch related video by Henry Ridgwell:Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can People queue to take a COVID-19 test at …

Amid busy construction crews racing to build an airport in Mexico, scientists are unearthing more and more mammoth skeletons in what has quickly become one of the world’s biggest concentrations of the now-extinct relative of modern elephants.More than 100 mammoth skeletons have been identified spread across nearly 200 excavation sites, along with a mix of other Ice Age mammals, in the area destined to become the Mexican capital’s new commercial airport.Lead archeologist Ruben Manzanilla explained on Tuesday that around 24,000 years ago mammoth herds reached this spot where sprawling grasslands and lakes would have enticed them to reside.”This place was like a paradise,” he told Reuters, noting that as the last glaciers melted a wide range of mammals — including ancient species of camels, horses and buffalo — lived along what would have been an extremely muddy shoreline.”Then over many years the same story repeated itself: The animals ventured too far, got trapped and couldn’t get their legs out of the muck,” said Manzanilla.Ruben Manzanilla Lopez of the National Anthropology Institute shows the skeleton of a mammoth that was discovered in the construction site of Mexico City’s new airport, Sept. 3, 2020.He speculates that most of the mammoths died this way, though he adds that there is some evidence that around 10,000 years ago early humans may have also hunted the 20-ton beasts with flint arrows and spears, or dug rudimentary shallow water pits to snare them.But the sheer amount of bones, including long, curling tusks — technically the animal’s …

Vaping by U.S. teenagers fell dramatically this year, especially among middle schoolers, according to a federal report released Wednesday.Experts think last year’s outbreak of vaping-related illnesses and deaths may have scared off some kids, but they believe other factors contributed to the drop, including higher age limits and flavor bans.In a national survey, just under 20% of high school students and 5% of middle school students said they were recent users of electronic cigarettes and other vaping products. That’s down from a similar survey last year that found about 28% of high school students and 11% of middle school students had recently vaped.The survey suggests that the number of school kids who vape fell from 5.4 million to 3.6 million in a year, officials said.But even as teen use declined, the report shows a big bump in use of disposable e-cigarettes. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this year barred flavors from small vaping devices like Juul and others that are mainly used by minors. The policy did not apply to disposable e-cigarettes, which can still contain sweet, candylike flavors.”As long as any flavored e-cigarettes are left on the market, kids will get their hands on them and we will not solve this crisis,” Matt Myers of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids said in a statement.CDC surveyThe national survey is conducted at schools each year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and usually involves about 20,000 middle and high school students. It asks students if they …

U.S. President Donald Trump has moved to bar offshore oil and gas drilling in parts of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean, a rare action against the fossil fuel industry from an administration that has made global energy dominance a priority.The order drew skepticism from environmentalists and disappointment from the oil and gas industry, but approval from Republicans in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina who have opposed drilling off their state coasts.Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden places a note card in his jacket pocket as he speaks at a campaign event in Warren, Mich., Sept. 9, 2020.Florida especially is considered critical to deciding November’s presidential election. Polls there find Trump in an extremely close race with his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden.The memorandum Trump signed in Florida on Tuesday adds 10 years to an existing ban on drilling off Florida’s Gulf coast set to end in 2022. It extends the ban to the South Atlantic off Georgia and South Carolina.”This protects your beautiful Gulf and your beautiful ocean, and it will for a long time to come,” Trump said.Extending the moratorium is “the wrong approach at the wrong time,” says Lem Smith, vice president of the American Petroleum Institute, an oil and gas industry trade group.“A ban on responsible energy development in the Eastern Gulf and the South Atlantic puts at risk hundreds of thousands of new jobs, U.S. energy security advancements and billions of dollars in critical revenue for states,” Smith said in …

America’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Wednesday that AstraZeneca’s suspension of final global trials of its COVID-19 experimental vaccine points to the effectiveness of the safeguards that have been incorporated into the trials.“It’s important to point out that that’s the reason why you have various phases of trials, to determine if, in fact, these candidates are safe,” Fauci said in an interview with “CBS This Morning.”“It’s really one of the safety valves you have on clinical trials such as this.”The British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant paused the trials because a volunteer participant became ill after receiving the experimental drug.“It’s unfortunate that it happened, and hopefully they’ll be able to proceed along with the remainder of the trial,” Fauci said. “But you don’t know. They need to investigate it further.”The company issued a statement Tuesday saying the pause in testing is a “routine action, which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials, while it is investigated, ensuring we maintain the integrity of the trials.”AstraZeneca developed the vaccine, AZD1222, in cooperation with Britain’s University of Oxford. The vaccine is being tested in large-scale Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials in several nations, including the United States, Britain, Brazil, South Africa and India. AZD1222 is one of three COVID-19 vaccines in late-stage Phase 3 trials in the United States.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can People queue to take a COVID-19 test at a walk-in test facility in …

Development of a COVID-19 vaccine will not be compromised by outside political considerations, U.S. health experts told lawmakers Wednesday.The nation’s top health officials said the six vaccine candidates currently in large-scale U.S. trials are expected to deliver a result that can be distributed to the most vulnerable populations — including health care workers and first responders — by the end of this year.  “We need to follow the process because the process works,” U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams told Senate lawmakers Wednesday.  Surgeon General Jerome Adams appears before a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing to discuss vaccines and protecting public health during the coronavirus pandemic on Capitol Hill, Sept. 9, 2020.President Donald Trump has made vaccine development an issue in the U.S. presidential election, suggesting his administration’s efforts to fast-track a vaccine could yield results by October. If this happened, it would be the fastest ever development of a vaccine for a novel virus.  “Under Operation Warp Speed, we’re producing a vaccine in record time. This is a vaccine that we’re going to have very soon, very, very soon. By the end of the year, but much sooner than that, perhaps. And this is something that’s incredible. This would’ve taken two or three years by the last administration, and in all fairness, by most other administrations,” Trump said Tuesday.  FILE – Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., speaks about the coronavirus during a media availability on Capitol Hill, March 3, 2020.US Drug Execs Promise COVID Vaccine Safety Before Seeking …