Month: August 2022

Today’s sharks have nothing on their ancient cousins. A giant shark that roamed the oceans millions of years ago could have devoured a creature the size of a killer whale in just five bites, new research suggests. For their study published Wednesday, researchers used fossil evidence to create a 3D model of the megalodon — one of the biggest predatory fish of all time — and find clues about its life. At around 16 meters from nose to tail, the megalodon was bigger than a school bus, according to the study in the journal Science Advances. That’s about two to three times the size of today’s great white shark. The megalodon’s gaping jaw allowed it to feed on other big creatures. Once it filled its massive stomach, it could roam the oceans for months at a time, the researchers suggest. The megalodon was a strong swimmer, too: Its average cruising speed was faster than sharks today and it could have migrated across multiple oceans with ease, they calculated. “It would be a superpredator just dominating its ecosystem,” said co-author John Hutchinson, who studies the evolution of animal movement at England’s Royal Veterinary College. “There is nothing really matching it. It’s been tough for scientists to get a clear picture of the megalodon, said study author Catalina Pimiento, a paleobiologist with the University of Zurich and Swansea University in Wales. The skeleton is made of soft cartilage that doesn’t fossilize well, Pimiento said. So the scientists used what few fossils are …

A federal judge in Cleveland awarded $650 million in damages Wednesday to two Ohio counties that won a landmark lawsuit against national pharmacy chains CVS, Walgreens and Walmart, claiming the way they distributed opioids to customers caused severe harm to communities and created a public nuisance. U.S. District Judge Dan Polster said in the ruling that the money will be used to abate a continuing opioid crisis in Lake and Trumbull counties, outside Cleveland. Attorneys for the counties put the total price tag at $3.3 billion for the damage done to the counties. Lake County is to receive $306 million over 15 years. Trumbull County is to receive $344 million over the same period. Polster ordered the companies to immediately pay nearly $87 million to cover the first two years of the abatement plan. In his ruling, Polster admonished the three companies, saying they “squandered the opportunity to present a meaningful plan to abate the nuisance” after a trial that considered what damages they might owe. CVS, Walmart and Walgreens said they will appeal the ruling. It is unclear whether the companies will have to immediately pay the nearly $87 million during their appeals. Trumbull County Commissioner Frank Fuda praised the award in a statement, saying “the harms caused by this devastating epidemic” can now be addressed. Lake County Commissioner John Hamercheck said in a statement: “Today marks the start of a new day in our fight to end the opioid epidemic.” A jury returned a verdict in November in …

Studies are underway to see whether genetic changes in the monkeypox virus are driving the rapid spread of the disease, the World Health Organization told AFP on Wednesday. The two distinct clades, or variants, of the virus were called the Congo Basin (Central African) and West African clades, after the two regions where they are each endemic. On Friday, the WHO renamed the groupings as clade I and clade II respectively, to avoid geographic stigmatization. It also announced that clade II had two sub-clades, IIa and IIb, with viruses within the latter identified as being behind the current global outbreak. On Wednesday, the U.N. health agency specified that clades IIa and IIb are related and share a recent common ancestor, therefore IIb is not an offshoot of IIa. Research into mutations Clade IIb contains viruses collected in the 1970s, and from 2017 onward. “Looking through the genome, indeed there are a few genetic differences between the viruses from the current outbreak and the older clade IIb viruses,” the WHO told AFP. “However, nothing is known about the significance of these genetic changes, and research is ongoing to establish the effects (if any) of these mutations on transmission and disease severity. “It is still early on in both the outbreak and laboratory studies to tell if the rise in infections could be driven by the observed genotypic changes in the virus or are due to host (human) factors.” There is also no information yet on what the mutations mean in terms …

The head of the top U.S. public health agency on Wednesday announced a shake-up of the organization, intended to make it more nimble. The planned changes at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — CDC leaders call it a “reset”— come amid ongoing criticism of the agency’s response to COVID-19, monkeypox and other public health threats. The changes include internal staffing moves and steps to speed up data releases. The CDC’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, told the agency’s staff about the changes on Wednesday. It’s a CDC initiative, and was not directed by the White House or other administration officials, she said. “I feel like it’s my my responsibility to lead this agency to a better place after a really challenging three years,” Walensky told The Associated Press. The CDC, with a $12 billion budget and more than 11,000 employees, is an Atlanta-based federal agency charged with protecting Americans from disease outbreaks and other public health threats. It’s customary for each CDC director to do some reorganizing, but Walensky’s action comes amid a wider demand for change. The agency has long been criticized as too ponderous, focusing on collection and analysis of data but not acting quickly against new health threats. But public unhappiness with the agency grew dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts said the CDC was slow to recognize how much virus was entering the U.S. from Europe, to recommend people wear masks, to say the virus can spread through the air, and to ramp up systematic …

Despite a nationwide vaccination campaign that started in May, Malawi is struggling to contain a cholera outbreak that has infected more than 1,073 people and caused 44 deaths.  The figures from the Malawi Ministry of Health, updated as of Aug. 16, 2022, are triple the numbers recorded when the vaccination campaign was launched three months ago.    The report also says the outbreak has spread to 10 districts from eight in May. The hardest hit districts include Blantyre with 489 cases, Neno with 128 cases, and Nsanje with 289 cases.     George Mbotwa, spokesperson for a health office in Nsanje district, which borders Mozambique south of Malawi, said continued incidents of cholera in the district are largely because of movements of people between the two countries.    “What is worrisome is that we have now continued to record the cases when by now we would have contained the situation,” he said. “It’s because some of these cases we are sharing with Mozambique. So, the cases will be coming from Mozambique and then reporting to health facilities in Nsanje, then being recorded as Nsanje cases.” Mbotwa said the situation is slowly improving, after officials on the Mozambican side agreed during recent discussions to set up cholera treatment sites on their side of the border.   “The Mozambican side by then didn’t have cholera treatment sites, and now they have them there, so people are able to report the cases right there, unlike coming with cases to Malawi,” he said.  Cholera …

China’s dominance in global sector creates supply chain and national security concerns, says US solar manufacturer …

NASA’s gigantic Space Launch System moon rocket, topped with an uncrewed astronaut capsule, is set to begin an hourslong crawl to its launchpad Tuesday night ahead of the behemoth’s debut test flight later this month.  The 98-meter-tall rocket is scheduled to embark on its first mission to space — without any humans — on August 29. It will be a crucial, long-delayed demonstration trip to the moon in NASA’s Artemis program, the United States’ multibillion-dollar effort to return humans to the lunar surface as practice for future missions to Mars.  The Space Launch System, whose development in the past decade has been led by Boeing, is scheduled to emerge from its assembly building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida around 9 p.m. EDT on Tuesday (0100 GMT on Wednesday) and begin the 6-km-long trek to its launchpad. Moving less than 1.6 km per hour, the rollout takes roughly 11 hours.  Sitting atop the rocket is NASA’s Orion astronaut capsule, a pod built by Lockheed Martin Corp LMT.N. It is designed to separate from the rocket in space, ferry humans toward the moon’s vicinity and rendezvous with a separate spacecraft that will take astronauts down to the lunar surface.  But for the August 29 mission, called Artemis 1, the Orion capsule will launch atop the Space Launch System without any humans and orbit around the moon before returning to Earth for an ocean splashdown 42 days later.  If bad launch weather or a minor technical issue triggers a delay from …

A measles outbreak in Zimbabwe has killed at least 157 children, with more than 2,000 infections reported across the country, the government said Tuesday. Cases have been growing rapidly in the southern African nation since authorities said the first infection was logged earlier this month, with reported deaths almost doubling in less than a week. “As of 15 August, the cumulative figure across the country has risen to 2,056 cases and 157 deaths,” Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said, briefing journalists after a weekly Cabinet meeting. Mutsvangwa said the government was going to step up vaccinations and has invoked special legislation allowing it to draw money from the national disaster fund “to deal with the emergency.” She said the government was to engage with traditional and faith leaders to garner their support with the vaccination campaign, adding most victims were not vaccinated. The health ministry has previously blamed the outbreak on church sect gatherings. The measles virus attacks mainly children with the most serious complications including blindness, brain swelling, diarrhea and severe respiratory infections. Its symptoms are a red rash that appears first on the face and spreads to the rest of the body. Once very common it can now be prevented with a vaccine. In April, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Africa was facing an explosion of preventable diseases due to delays in vaccinating children, with measles cases jumping 400%. …

New York health officials announced in July that an unvaccinated adult man from Rockland County had been diagnosed with polio—the first case of the life-threatening disease in the United States since 2013. The virus that causes polio was later detected in New York City wastewater, and city and state health officials now say the virus is probably circulating in the city. The virus identified in New York is a vaccine-derived poliovirus. Wild polioviruses were eliminated from most of the world and now circulate only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But vaccine-derived viruses, which emerge when the weakened viruses in the oral polio vaccine mutate and spread in unvaccinated populations, still occasionally cause outbreaks. VOA spoke with three polio experts about vaccine-derived polioviruses and the oral polio vaccine. Here’s what you need to know. What are vaccine-derived polioviruses? Vaccine-derived polioviruses are related to the active viruses in the oral polio vaccine (OPV). OPV works by infecting cells in the gut with weakened polioviruses, allowing the body to safely develop immunity to polio without the risk of paralysis posed by the real disease. “[The weakened viruses] would still infect you. They would still replicate in your gut. You will develop a lifelong immunity, but you will not get paralyzed,” said virologist Konstantin Chumakov, a Global Virus Network Center of Excellence director and an adjunct professor at The George Washington University. “But the [vaccine-derived] virus will still be able to transmit [from person to person],” Chumakov added. “It was considered a big advantage of …

The widely used tuberculosis vaccine also fends off a slew of unrelated infectious diseases, and its immune boost can protect newborns for more than a year, researchers in Australia have found. The bacillus calmette-guérin (BCG) vaccine for tuberculosis causes front-line immune cells to make long-lasting biological “marks” on their DNA, changing how they read genetic instructions for fighting off viruses, the researchers say. “The DNA is like the manual for the cell. It tells you what it can and can’t do,” study author and molecular immunologist Boris Novakovic of the University of Melbourne told VOA. “You might have a sentence that says, ‘If you see a virus, turn the following genes on.’ And what we’ve done with the BCG vaccine [is] sort of [change] that full stop at the end of that sentence to an exclamation mark.” The findings were published in the Science Advances journal. “What is new here is the durability, the long-lasting imprinting effects of BCG vaccine at birth in these Australian babies, and also [that] they can show [in detail] how that takes place,” vaccine epidemiologist Christine Stabell Benn, of the University of Southern Denmark, said in an interview with VOA. She was not involved in the study. Developed more than a century ago, the BCG vaccine contains live, weakened bacteria. It is one of the oldest vaccines still used and is the most frequently administered vaccine in the world. Decades ago, Benn and her colleagues noticed that children in Guinea-Bissau who received the tuberculosis shot …

Banks along parts of the Colorado River where water once streamed are now just caked mud and rock as climate change makes the Western U.S. hotter and drier.  More than two decades of drought have done little to deter the region from diverting more water than flows through it, depleting key reservoirs to levels that now jeopardize water delivery and hydropower production.  Cities and farms in seven U.S. states are bracing for cuts this week as officials stare down a deadline to propose unprecedented reductions to their use of the water, setting up what’s expected to be the most consequential week for Colorado River policy in years.  The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in June told the states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — to determine how to use at least 15% less water next year, or have restrictions imposed on them. The bureau is also expected to publish hydrology projections that will trigger additional cuts already agreed to.  Tensions over the extent of the cuts and how to spread them equitably have flared, with states pointing fingers and stubbornly clinging to their water rights despite the looming crisis.  Representatives from the seven states convened in Denver last week for last-minute negotiations behind closed doors. Those discussions have yet to produce concrete proposals, but officials close to the negotiations say the most likely targets for cuts are Arizona and California farmers. Agricultural districts in those states are asking to be paid generously to bear that burden.  …

In an effort to boost monkeypox vaccination rates, Los Angeles County is organizing pop-up clinics where eligible individuals can get the shot. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Videographer: Vazgen Varzhabetian …

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday he tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time this year and is experiencing mild symptoms. The Pentagon chief said in a statement that he will continue to work a normal schedule but do so virtually from home. Austin said he would quarantine for the next five days in accordance with CDC guidelines and “retain all authorities.” In January, Austin, 69, also contracted COVID-19. “Now, as in January, my doctor told me that my fully vaccinated status, including two booster shots, is why my symptoms are less severe than would otherwise be the case,” he said. Austin said he would continue to consult closely with his doctor in the coming days. The defense chief urged all Americans to get vaccinated, saying the inoculations “continue to both slow the spread of COVID-19 and to make its health effects less severe.” Austin said his last in-person contact with President Joe Biden was July 29. Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on July 21 and came out of isolation July 27. He tested positive again on July 30 and spent another week in isolation. Some information in this report came from The Associated Press. …

People who live in the poorest regions of England are diagnosed with serious illnesses earlier and die sooner than their counterparts in more affluent regions, according to a new study. The Health Foundation study, published Monday, found that “A 60-year-old woman in the poorest areas of England has a level of ‘diagnosed illness’ equivalent to that of a 76-year-old woman in the wealthiest areas . . . While a 60-year-old man in the poorest areas of England will on average have a level of diagnosed illness equivalent to that of a 70- year-old man in the wealthiest areas.” The Health Foundation is an independent charity dedicated to improving “the health and healthcare of the people in the UK.” The foundation said while previous studies about health inequalities in England have mostly relied on self-reported health outcomes, their study “linked hospital and primary care data to examine socioeconomic, regional and ethnic variations in the prevalence of diagnosed long-term illnesses.” The study also uncovered “significant ethnic disparities in diagnosed illness” in populations of people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and black Caribbean backgrounds.  This group had higher levels of long-term illness than the white population. People from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds also had “the highest rates of diagnosed chronic pain, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.” The Health Foundation, however, also found that the white population “had the highest levels of diagnosed anxiety or depression, and alcohol problems.” “White people are also more likely to be living with cancer,” according to the study’s findings. This may …

NASA researchers are studying “Mars-like” salt lakes in Western Australia in their hunt for extra-terrestrial life. Experts from the United States say the region, with its pink-hued water and distinctive trees, is more like Mars than almost any other location on Earth. The Yilgarn Craton is a vast mineral-rich region about 400 kilometers east of Perth in Western Australia. Yilgarn is a word used by the area’s indigenous people to describe quartz. The region has been the focus of exploration and mining, but scientists believe it could harbor clues about the universe and life on other planets. Western Australia’s acidic lakes are said to mimic conditions on ancient Mars. Three-billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia are some of the oldest on Earth and academics believe they are about the same age as those on the Red Planet. A team of U.S. experts, supported by local Indigenous elders, are investigating how so-called “hyper-saline environments” — or places with lots of salt — are not only present-day ecosystems, but how they preserve a record of the past. Associate Professor Britney Schmidt, from Cornell University in New York state, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the project is funded by NASA, the Washington-based National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “We are members of the Oceans Across Space and Time project, which is a program funded by the NASA Astrobiology Program and we are out here studying analogues, or examples, of what we think ancient Mars might have been like. So, Western Australia’s unique because it …

A measles outbreak has killed 80 children in Zimbabwe since April, the ministry of health said, blaming church sect gatherings for the surge. In a statement seen by Reuters Sunday, the ministry said the outbreak had now spread nationwide, with a case fatality rate of 6.9%. Health Secretary Jasper Chimedza said that as of Thursday, 1,036 suspected cases and 125 confirmed cases had been reported since the outbreak, with Manicaland in eastern Zimbabwe accounting for most of the infections. “The ministry of health and childcare wishes to inform the public that the ongoing outbreak of measles which was first reported on 10th of April has since spread nationwide following church gatherings,” Chimedza said in a statement. “These gathering which were attended by people from different provinces of the country with unknown vaccination status led to the spread of measles to previously unaffected areas.” Manicaland, the second-most populous province, had 356 cases and 45 deaths, Chimedza said. Most reported cases are among children aged between six months and 15 from religious sects who are not vaccinated against measles due to religious beliefs, he added. Bishop Andby Makuru, leader of Johane Masowe apostolic sect, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In Zimbabwe, some apostolic church sects forbid their followers from taking vaccinations or any medical treatment. The churches attract millions of followers with their promises to heal illnesses and deliver people from poverty. With a low vaccination rate and in some cases, no record keeping, the government has resolved …

China’s financial hub Shanghai said on Sunday it would reopen all schools including kindergartens, primary and middle schools on Sept. 1 after months of COVID-19 closures. The city will require all teachers and students to take nucleic acid tests for the coronavirus every day before leaving campus, the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission said. It also called for teachers and students to carry out a 14-day “self health management” within the city ahead of the school reopening, the commission said in a statement. Shanghai shut all schools in mid-March before the city’s two-month lockdown to combat its worst COVID outbreak in April and May. It allowed some students at high schools and middle schools to return to classrooms in June while most of the rest continued home study for the remainder of the semester. The announcement on schools reopening brings great relief to many residents but fears about COVID lockdowns continue to persist, as China vows to stick to its dynamic zero policy which requires all positive cases and their close contacts to undergo quarantine. On Saturday, videos circulating on Chinese social media showed customers pushing past security guards and running out of an IKEA mall in central Shanghai in panic as an announcement blared over its sound system saying the mall was being locked down due to COVID contact tracing. Reuters was not able to independently verify the authenticity of the videos, but IKEA customer service said on Sunday the mall was shut due to COVID curbs. IKEA did not …

Poland’s environment minister says laboratory tests following a mass fish die-off have detected high salinity levels but no mercury in the Oder River. That means the mystery is continuing as to what killed tons of fish in Central Europe. …

Idaho’s top court on Friday refused to stop a Republican-backed state law criminalizing nearly all abortions from taking effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 decision Roe v. Wade that had recognized a constitutional right to the procedure. In a 3-2 ruling, the Idaho Supreme Court rejected a bid by a Planned Parenthood affiliate to prevent a ban from taking effect on Aug. 25 that the abortion provider argued would violate Idahoans’ privacy and equal protection rights under the state’s constitution. The measure allows for abortions only in cases of rape, incest or to prevent a pregnant woman’s death. The court also lifted an earlier order that it issued in April blocking a separate Idaho law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy enforced through private lawsuits by citizens, allowing it to take effect immediately. Justice Robyn Brody, writing for the court, said given the U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision, Planned Parenthood was not entitled to the “drastic” relief it sought, noting that abortion was illegal in Idaho before the Roe decision. “Moreover, what Petitioners are asking this Court to ultimately do is to declare a right to abortion under the Idaho Constitution when – on its face – there is none,” Brody added. Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a statement called the ruling “horrific and cruel.” Idaho state officials did not respond to requests for comment. About half of the U.S. states have or are expected to seek to …

New York state and city health authorities said Friday that poliovirus, which causes paralytic polio, had been detected in samples of New York City sewage, suggesting the disease likely was circulating in the city. Their statement followed the initial discovery of the virus in wastewater in neighboring counties in May, June and July. A man in Rockland County, north of New York City, was confirmed to have polio last month. Health officials fear that the detection of the poliovirus in New York City could precede other cases of paralytic polio. Polio can lead to permanent paralysis of the arms and legs and even death. In a statement Friday, State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett said, “The detection of poliovirus in wastewater samples in New York City is alarming, but not surprising. … The best way to keep adults and children polio-free is through safe and effective immunization.” The spread of the virus poses a risk to unvaccinated people, but a three-dose course of the vaccine provides at least 99% protection. Health officials are urging unvaccinated adults to get vaccinated and parents to vaccinate their children if they have not done so. The health department reports most adults in New York City were vaccinated as children. Overall, about 86% of children 5 and younger in New York City have been vaccinated, though the city health department said some neighborhoods were lagging. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports polio was once one of the nation’s most feared diseases, …

Talk about hot nights. America got some for the history books last month. The continental United States in July set a record for overnight warmth, providing little relief from the day’s sizzling heat for people, animals, plants and the electric grid, meteorologists said. The average low temperature for the Lower 48 states in July was 17.6 degrees Celsius (63.6 degrees Fahrenheit), which beat the previous record set in 2011 by a few hundredths of a degree. The mark is the hottest nightly average not only for July but for any month in 128 years of record keeping, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climatologist Karin Gleason. July’s nighttime low was more than 5.4 degrees C (3 degrees F) warmer than the 20th-century average. Scientists have long talked about nighttime temperatures — reflected in increasingly hotter minimum readings that usually occur after sunset and before sunrise — being crucial to health. “When you have daytime temperatures that are at or near record high temperatures and you don’t have that recovery overnight with temperatures cooling off, it does place a lot of stress on plants, on animals and on humans,” Gleason said Friday. “It’s a big deal.” In Texas, where the monthly daytime average high was over 37.8 C (100 degrees F) for the first time in July and the electrical grid was stressed, the average nighttime temperature was a still toasty 23.5 C (74.3 F) — 7.2 degrees C (4 degrees F) above the 20th-century average. In the past 30 years, …

A divided Congress gave final approval Friday to Democrats’ flagship climate, tax and health care bill, handing President Joe Biden a back-from-the-dead triumph on coveted priorities that the party hopes will bolster its prospects for keeping control of Congress in November’s elections.  The House used a party-line 220-207 vote to pass the legislation, which is but a shadow of the larger, more ambitious plan to supercharge environment and social programs that Biden and his party envisioned early last year. Even so, Democrats happily declared victory on top-tier goals like providing Congress’ largest ever investment in curbing carbon emissions, reining in pharmaceutical costs and taxing large companies, a vote they believe will show they can wring accomplishments from a routinely gridlocked Washington that often disillusions voters.  “Today is a day of celebration, a day we take another giant step in our momentous agenda,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat. She said the measure “meets the moment, ensuring that our families thrive and that our planet survives.”  Republicans solidly opposed the legislation, calling it a cornucopia of wasteful liberal daydreams that would raise taxes and families’ living costs. They did the same Sunday but Senate Democrats banded together and used Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote to power the measure through that 50-50 chamber.  “Democrats, more than any other majority in history, are addicted to spending other people’s money, regardless of what we as a country can afford,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican. “I can almost …