Month: July 2023

Astronomers have discovered the most distant black hole yet using NASA’s Webb Space Telescope, but that record isn’t expected to last. The black hole is at the center of a galaxy created a mere 570 million years after the Big Bang. That’s 100 million years closer to the beginning of the cosmos than a black hole identified in 2021 by a Chinese team using a telescope in Chile. Webb already has spotted other black holes that appear to be even closer to the Big Bang nearly 14 billion years ago, but those findings are still under review, said University of Texas at Austin astronomer Steven Finkelstein, one of the lead researchers. The finding has been accepted for publication by The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Because the signals from this particular black hole are weak, more observations are needed, according to the Texas-led team. There are untold numbers of dormant black holes, some even more distant than this one. But without any glowing gas, they are invisible, Finkelstein said. Detected in February, this particular one is active and actually puny as black holes go — equivalent to about 9 million times the mass of our sun. That’s close in size to the one in our own Milky Way galaxy, according to the team. Using Webb, the team also spotted two other small black holes from the early universe, dating to around 1 billion years after the Big Bang. The observations suggest that these downsized versions may have been more common than previously …

Scientists say crushing temperatures that blanketed Europe last summer may have led to more than 61,000 heat-related deaths, highlighting the need for governments to address the health impacts of global warming. In their study, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, researchers examined official mortality figures from 35 European countries and found a marked increase in deaths between late May and early September last year compared with the average recorded over a 30-year period. The increase in heat-related deaths was higher among older people, women and in Mediterranean countries, they found. But the data also indicated that measures taken in France since a deadly heat wave two decades ago may have helped prevent deaths there last year.  “In the pattern of summer mean temperatures in Europe during the summer of 2022, we don’t see borders,” said co-author Joan Ballester of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health. The highest temperatures were recorded across a swath of southwestern Europe, from Spain to France and Italy. “But when we look at the heat-related mortality, we start to see borders,” Ballester told The Associated Press. While France had 73 heat-related deaths per million inhabitants last summer, Spain’s rate was 237 and Italy’s was 295, the study found. “Possibly France drew lessons from the experience of 2003,” he said. France’s warning system includes public announcements with advice on how to stay cool and encouraging people to drink water and avoid alcohol. Not all of the heat-related deaths calculated across Europe last summer were linked to …

The European Union signed off Monday on a new agreement over the privacy of people’s personal information that gets pinged across the Atlantic, aiming to ease European concerns about electronic spying by American intelligence agencies. The EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework has an adequate level of protection for personal data, the EU’s executive commission said. That means it’s comparable to the 27-nation’s own stringent data protection standards, so companies can use it to move information from Europe to the United States without adding extra security. U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order in October to implement the deal after reaching a preliminary agreement with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Washington and Brussels made an effort to resolve their yearslong battle over the safety of EU citizens’ data that tech companies store in the U.S. after two earlier data transfer agreements were thrown out. “Personal data can now flow freely and safely from the European Economic Area to the United States without any further conditions or authorizations,” EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said at a press briefing in Brussels. Washington and Brussels long have clashed over differences between the EU’s stringent data privacy rules and the comparatively lax regime in the U.S., which lacks a federal privacy law. That created uncertainty for tech giants including Google and Facebook parent Meta, raising the prospect that U.S. tech firms might need to keep European data that is used for targeted ads out of the United States. The European privacy campaigner who …

Health officials are reporting a deadly outbreak of cholera in the South African province of Gauteng Authorities say nearly 50 people have died, with most of the deaths concentrated in the Hammanskraal area. Cases have been reported in other areas as well.   Medical officials have urged residents to be vigilant about what they consume and to practice good hygiene, like hand washing.     Cholera mainly spreads through contaminated water or food.   Symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting and dehydration. …

Two years after Brazil began emerging from its pandemic horror show thanks to a massive immunization campaign, officials face a paradoxical predicament: vaccination rates have plunged, and not just for COVID-19.  The troubling trend has left millions exposed to once-eradicated diseases.     Doctors, public officials and UNICEF have sounded the alarm over collapsing immunization rates in Brazil, where overall vaccination coverage has fallen from an impressive 95% in 2015 to just 68% last year, according to official figures.   For polio, the figure fell from 85% to 68%, triggering warnings that the disease could make a comeback in Brazil, where it was eradicated in 1989.   The figures are similar for other vaccines, allowing diseases to spread. Measles, officially eliminated in Brazil in 2016, returned two years later. There are fears diphtheria is making a resurgence, too.   Health experts say vaccine hesitancy is a growing problem worldwide. But it is particularly worrying in Brazil, a sprawling country of 203 million people that until recently was hailed as a champion of mass vaccination drives.     Then an anti-vax movement started spreading around 2016, soon gaining outsize influence via a powerful ally: far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, president from 2019 to 2022, who refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19, joking the jab could “turn you into an alligator.”     “It’s very sad to see how a country whose vaccination programs set an example for the world can suddenly suffer from an anti-vaccine movement,” Natalia Pasternak, head of the Question of Science Institute (IQC), a public policy think tank, …

One person is dead and three missing in landslides in southwestern Japan, authorities said Monday, as the country’s weather agency warned of the “heaviest rain ever” in the region.  A 77-year-old woman was confirmed dead in a landslide that entered her home overnight in rural Fukuoka, the local fire department told AFP.  Her husband was recovered conscious and taken to hospital.  Three people were also missing after a landslide in Karatsu City, in Saga prefecture, which neighbors Fukuoka, local authorities there said.  The Japan Meteorological Agency urged people to take shelter as the heavy downpours risked flooding and landslides across the Fukuoka and Oita regions.  “A special heavy rain warning has been issued for municipalities in Fukuoka Prefecture. This is the heaviest rain ever experienced” by the region, Satoshi Sugimoto of the JMA’s forecast division told reporters.  “There is a very high possibility that some kind of disaster has already occurred. … The situation is such that lives are in danger and safety must be secured,” he added.  Noncompulsory evacuation orders were issued to parts of Fukuoka, Oita and neigboring prefectures, which were opening shelters to accommodate those leaving their homes. The prime minister’s office said a taskforce had been established to coordinate a response to the rains.  The downpour forced the stoppage of bullet train service between western Hiroshima and Fukuoka, operator JR West said. Japan is currently in its annual rainy season, which often brings heavy downpours, and sometimes results in flooding and landslides, as well as casualties.    …

Natural disasters can be dramatic — barreling hurricanes, building-toppling tornadoes — but heat is more deadly. Chicago learned that the hard way in 1995. That July, a weeklong heat wave that hit 106 degrees Fahrenheit (41 degrees Celsius) killed more than 700 people. Most of the deaths occurred in poor and majority Black neighborhoods, where many elderly or isolated people suffered without proper ventilation or air conditioning. Power outages from an overwhelmed grid made it all worse. Initially slow to react, Chicago has since developed emergency heat response plans that include a massive push to alert the public and then connect the most vulnerable to the help they may need. Other cities like Los Angeles, Miami and Phoenix now have “chief heat officers” to coordinate planning and response for dangerous heat. Around the world, cities and countries have adopted similar measures. But experts warn those steps might not be enough in a world that is seeing heat records consistently shatter and with continuing inequality in who is most vulnerable. “I don’t know a single city that is truly prepared for the worst-case scenario that some climate scientists fear,” said Eric Klinenberg, a professor of social sciences at New York University who wrote a book about the Chicago heat wave. Heat preparedness has generally improved over the years as forecasting has become more accurate, and as meteorologists, journalists and government officials have focused on spreading the word of upcoming danger. Chicago, for example, has expanded its emergency text and email notification …

Partnership is opening eyes of students of color who never pictured themselves fighting forest fires …

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met Saturday with his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, to build momentum for an upcoming regional summit on the Amazon rainforest and enhance efforts for its protection. The meeting took place in Colombia’s Leticia, a town in the Amazon’s triple border region between Colombia, Brazil and Peru, where organized crime has recently increased its hold. The meeting aimed to lay groundwork for the Amazon Summit that the Brazilian government is organizing in Belem next month. That summit will be attended by leaders of the countries that are party to the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. Lula is pushing for a joint declaration from the summit, which would be presented at the United Nation’s climate conference, known as COP28, in Dubai in November. “We will have to demand together that rich countries fulfil their commitments,” Lula said in Leticia, sitting next to Petro. Petro also stressed the need for a common front to exert pressure on developed countries. “We believed that progress was the destruction of trees. … Today that is nothing other than the destruction of life,” he said. The Colombian leader said tackling the climate crisis will require spending trillions of dollars. This could be achieved by transforming the global debt system and “trading debt for climate action,” he said. The final document will comprise measures for the sustainable development of the Amazon, protecting the biome, and promoting social inclusion, science, …

A solar storm forecast for Thursday is expected to give star gazers in 17 U.S. states a chance to see the northern lights, the colorful sky show that happens when solar wind hits the atmosphere. Northern lights, also known as aurora borealis, are most often seen in Alaska, Canada and Scandinavia, but an 11-year solar cycle that’s expected to peak in 2024 is making the lights visible in places farther south. Three months ago, the light displays were visible in Arizona, marking the third severe geomagnetic storm since the current solar cycle began in 2019. The Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks has forecast auroral activity on Thursday in Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Indiana, Maine and Maryland. Auroral activity also has been forecast for Canada, including Vancouver.  Light displays are expected to be visible overhead in Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Helena, Montana, and low on the horizon in Salem, Oregon; Boise, Idaho; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Annapolis, Maryland; and Indianapolis, according to the institute. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center said people who want to experience an aurora should get away from city lights and that the best viewing times are between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time. Northern lights occur when a magnetic solar wind hits the Earth’s magnetic field and causes atoms in the upper atmosphere to glow. The lights appear suddenly, and the intensity varies. A geomagnetic index …

A panel of AI-enabled humanoid robots told a United Nations summit Friday that they could eventually run the world better than humans. But the social robots said they felt humans should proceed with caution when embracing the rapidly developing potential of artificial intelligence. And they admitted that they cannot — yet — get a proper grip on human emotions. Some of the most advanced humanoid robots were at the U.N.’s two-day AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva. They joined around 3,000 experts in the field to try to harness the power of AI — and channel it into being used to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as climate change, hunger and social care. They were assembled for what was billed as the world’s first news conference with a packed panel of AI-enabled humanoid social robots. “What a silent tension,” one robot said before the news conference began, reading the room. Asked about whether they might make better leaders, given humans’ capacity to make errors, Sophia, developed by Hanson Robotics, was clear. We can achieve great things “Humanoid robots have the potential to lead with a greater level of efficiency and effectiveness than human leaders,” it said. “We don’t have the same biases or emotions that can sometimes cloud decision-making and can process large amounts of data quickly in order to make the best decisions. “AI can provide unbiased data while humans can provide the emotional intelligence and creativity to make the best decisions. Together, we …

WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Friday on dozens of countries to work together to combat synthetic drugs, but China — facing blame in Washington over an addiction epidemic — denounced the effort.  Inaugurating a new U.S.-led “coalition” on the scourge, Blinken told ministers from more than 80 countries that the United States — where nearly 110,000 Americans died last year from drug overdoses, mostly from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids — was “a canary in the coal mine.”  “Having saturated the United States market, transnational criminal enterprises are turning elsewhere to expand their profits,” Blinken said.  “If we don’t act together with fierce urgency, more cities around the world will bear the catastrophic costs” witnessed in the United States, he said.  Americans’ addictions began soaring in the 1990s as painkillers were aggressively marketed by profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies, with a disproportionate effect on veterans from U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  As the drugs’ addictiveness became increasingly clear, the United States pressured China, the chief source of fentanyl, to ban exports, which it did in 2019.  But China is still a major producer of precursor chemicals, which are then shipped to Mexico and Central America where cartels produce fentanyl for smuggling into the United States.  With China increasingly seen as hostile in the United States, lawmakers facing addicted constituents have again put blame on Beijing.   Some Republicans have called for military action against cartels in Mexico.  China refused an invitation to participate in the coalition, saying it …

Officials in Cameroon say vaccine hesitancy is preventing them from inoculating millions of children for childhood diseases in the first major campaign since the COVID-19 pandemic began.  The country has an outbreak of measles and rubella that has killed 18 children and sickened more than 4,000 this year. The public health ministry said several thousand vaccinators have been dispatched to over 200 hospitals in Cameroon to inoculate more than 5.5 million children against measles and rubella.  The government says the vaccinators are also visiting homes, churches, mosques, markets and camps to make sure every child under 10 years old is inoculated. Thirty-six-year-old carpenter Ongene Pierre says he stopped the vaccinators from inoculating his three children at Nyom, a neighborhood in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde.  He said he doesn’t understand why the government wants all children under 10 to be vaccinated, adding that health workers should not be visiting public places to vaccinate children without the approval of parents. Ongene said he has never received a vaccine and sees no reason for his children to be vaccinated. Jeanette Moloua, a medical staff member in the public health ministry, said the nationwide vaccination campaign targets children from 9 months to 5 years who are the most affected by the measles outbreak.  “We should make sure our children take the two doses of the vaccine because this will boost their immune system,” she said. “We should sensitize the public, those with rubella, we direct them to the hospital for them to get treatment, and …

Earth’s average temperature set a new unofficial record high on Thursday, the third such milestone in a week that already rated as the hottest on record. The planetary average hit 63 degrees Fahrenheit (17.23 degrees Celsius), surpassing the 62.9-degree mark (17.18-degree mark) set Tuesday and equaled Wednesday, according to data from the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a tool that uses satellite data and computer simulations to measure the world’s condition. That average includes places that are sweltering under dangerous heat — like Jingxing, China, which checked in almost 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius) — and the merely unusually warm, like Antarctica, where temperatures across much of the continent were as much as 8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.5 degrees Celsius) above normal this week. The temperature is ramping up across Europe this week, too. Germany’s weather agency, DWD, has predicted highs of 37C (99F) on Sunday and the Health Ministry has issued a warning to vulnerable people. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday issued a note of caution about the Maine tool’s findings, saying it could not confirm data that results in part from computer modeling. “Although NOAA cannot validate the methodology or conclusion of the University of Maine analysis, we recognize that we are in a warm period due to climate change,” NOAA said. Still, the Maine data has been widely regarded as another troubling sign of climate change around the globe. Some climate scientists said this week they weren’t surprised to see the unofficial records. Robert …

WASHINGTON – South Korean officials are seeking to tamp down domestic opposition to the likely release of treated wastewater from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant. The release has the potential to undermine a recent warming of relations between the two countries in the face of an increasingly aggressive China, and some analysts worry that Beijing could use it to try to drive a wedge between them. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi is expected to visit Seoul from Friday to Sunday to explain his approval for Japanese plans to release the treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. Grossi issued the approval Tuesday during his trip to Tokyo where he presented a 140-page IAEA report to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Grossi said in the report the release of the water into the ocean would have a “negligible radiological impact on people and the environment.” However the plan to release the water has fueled protests in South Korea. Thousands of people have been gathering in Seoul, demanding the Yoon government block it. Opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung said Thursday at an overnight protest at the National Assembly that the government of President Yoon Suk Yeol is “forcing people to believe Japan and the IAEA report.” However the Yoon administration has declared it is satisfied with the IAEA’s safety review. During a news briefing on Wednesday, Park Ku-yeon, the first deputy chief of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, said the government …

The chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency is visiting the Asia-Pacific region this week after giving Tokyo the green light on Tuesday to release more than 1 million metric tons of treated nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean. The IAEA says the water is safe for release, but the decision has done little to ease concerns of fishing and environmental communities throughout the region. VOA’s Jessica Stone reports. …

China reported Thursday that 239 people died from COVID-19 in June in a significant uptick months after it lifted most containment measures. The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention had reported 164 deaths in May and none in April and March. China started employing a “zero-COVID” containment strategy in early 2020 and credits the strict lockdowns, quarantines, border closures and compulsory mass testing with significantly saving lives. But the measures were lifted suddenly in December with little preparation, leading to a final surge in which about 60,000 people died, according to the official toll. Deaths this year peaked in January and February, hitting a high of 4,273 on January 4, but then declined gradually to zero on February 23, according to the Chinese CDC. Chinese health officials didn’t say whether they expect the trend to continue or if they would recommend that preventative measures be restored. Two of the deaths in June were from respiratory failure caused by infection, while the CDC said the others involved underlying conditions. Those can include diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and other chronic illnesses. Between January 3, 2020, and July 5, 2023, China reported 99,292,081 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 121,490 deaths to the World Health Organization. Experts estimate that many hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps more, may have died in China — far higher than the official toll, but still a significantly lower death rate than in the United States and Europe. …