Month: September 2023

It’s lunchtime at the Salt Lake City Mosquito Abatement District and a colony of sabethes cyaneus — also known as the paddle-legged beauty for its feathery appendages and iridescent coloring — find their way to Ella Branham. “They’re not very aggressive and they’re kind of picky eaters,” said Branham, a technician, as she exhaled into a glass tank to attract the insects to the carbon dioxide in her breath. “So I’ll be feeding them with my arm.” Branham had volunteered to let the South American mosquitoes feed on her blood so they can produce eggs and maintain the colony for education and research at the lab in the Salt Lake City district. It’s one of the many mosquito control districts around the United States that seek to hold in check one of the world’s deadliest animals — one well-positioned to thrive as climate change fosters a warmer and wetter environment. Mosquitoes can carry viruses including dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya and Zika. They are especially threatening to public health in Asia and Africa but are also closely monitored in the United States. Local agencies reported more than 1,100 cases of West Nile virus in 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most humans who contract West Nile show no symptoms. But for some, it can cause vomiting, fever and in rare cases seizures or meningitis. Over roughly the last 25 years, nearly 3,000 deaths and more than 25,000 hospitalizations linked to West Nile were reported throughout the …

As young children went back to school across Sweden last month, many of their teachers were putting a new emphasis on printed books, quiet reading time and handwriting practice and devoting less time to tablets, independent online research and keyboarding skills. The return to more traditional ways of learning is a response to politicians and experts questioning whether the country’s hyper-digitalized approach to education, including the introduction of tablets in nursery schools, had led to a decline in basic skills. Swedish Minister for Schools Lotta Edholm, who took office 11 months ago as part of a new center-right coalition government, was one of the biggest critics of the all-out embrace of technology. “Sweden’s students need more textbooks,” Edholm said in March. “Physical books are important for student learning.” The minister announced last month in a statement that the government wants to reverse the decision by the National Agency for Education to make digital devices mandatory in preschools. It plans to go further and to completely end digital learning for children under age 6, the ministry also told The Associated Press. Although the country’s students score above the European average for reading ability, an international assessment of fourth-grade reading levels, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, highlighted a decline among Sweden’s children between 2016 and 2021. In 2021, Swedish fourth-graders averaged 544 points, a drop from the 555 average in 2016. However, their performance still placed the country in a tie with Taiwan for the seventh-highest overall test score. In …

The death toll from flash floods that have inundated central Greece due to Storm Daniel has risen to 12 with the number expected to rise. The clean-up task in the Thessaly area comes as health officials warn of infectious diseases that are breaking out as a result of dead livestock scattered across devastated sections. Hara Petropoulou pleas for assistance after Storm Daniel caused widespread flooding in central Greece. “Help,” she shouts to the anchor of a Sunday morning show. “Please help.” “We may have survived the floods that drowned our towns and homes… but the stench of decomposing animal carcasses …. Our chickens, our goats, rabbits and sheep… It is horrific and it is going to kill us,” she adds. The wife of a farmer in the farming heartland of Greece, Petropoulou says she is left with no other option than to clean up the debris herself. “I have a bottle of chlorine in my hand… and I’m ready to head out into a meter of mud and floodwaters to clear out our chicken coop and to drag away the dead sheep the storm left behind.” “I have no other choice,” she says. Petropoulou is not alone. Thousands of other farmers are following suit. But that is exactly what health authorities are warning against. Dysentery, diphtheria, and malaria are just some of the infectious diseases resulting from the floods that ravaged Thessaly, the farming heartland of Greece, and livestock for much of the past week. On Sunday, state health and …

Mosquito-borne dengue fever is taking a heavy toll on South Asian nations this year as Bangladesh grapples with record deaths and Nepal faces cases in new areas, with disease experts linking worsening outbreaks to the impacts of climate change. Authorities in the two countries are scrambling to contain and treat the disease – which is also known as “breakbone fever” for the severe muscle and joint pains it induces. Entomologists and epidemiologists say rising temperatures and longer monsoon seasons are providing ideal breeding conditions for mosquitoes. The threat is not restricted to South Asia as dengue rates are rising globally with 4.2 million cases reported in 2022 — up eightfold from 2000 — the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Earlier this year, WHO said dengue is the fastest-spreading tropical disease worldwide and represents a “pandemic threat.” In Bangladesh, at least 691 people have died so far in 2023, and more than 138,000 have been infected, official figures show, making this the deadliest year since the first recorded epidemic in 2000. The previous record toll was 281 deaths last year. A lack of proper prevention measures has allowed the dengue-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito to spread across almost all of Bangladesh, said Kabirul Bashar, an entomologist and zoology professor at Jahangirnagar University in the capital of Dhaka. He said this raised the risk of more infections occurring during September. Dengue is common during the June-to-September monsoon season, when mosquitoes thrive in stagnant water. “This climate is favorable for the breeding of Aedes …

Hurricane Lee is rewriting old rules of meteorology, leaving experts astonished at how rapidly it grew into a goliath Category 5 hurricane. Lee could also be a dreadful harbinger of what is to come as ocean temperatures climb, spawning fast-growing major hurricanes that could threaten communities farther north and farther inland, experts say. “Hurricanes are getting stronger at higher latitudes,” said Marshall Shepherd, director of the University of Georgia’s Atmospheric Sciences Program and a past president of the American Meteorological Society. “If that trend continues, that brings into play places like Washington, D.C., New York and Boston.” Hyper-intensification As the oceans warm, they act as jet fuel for hurricanes. “That extra heat comes back to manifest itself at some point, and one of the ways it does is through stronger hurricanes,” Shepherd said. During the overnight hours on Thursday, Lee shattered the standard for what meteorologists call rapid intensification — when a hurricane’s sustained winds increase by 56 kph in 24 hours. “This one increased by 80 mph (129 kph),” Shepherd said. “I can’t emphasize this enough — we used to have this metric of 35 mph (56 kph), and here’s a storm that did twice that amount and we’re seeing that happen more frequently,” said Shepherd, who describes what happened with Lee as “hyper-intensification.” With super-warm ocean temperatures and low wind shear, “all the stars were aligned for it to intensify rapidly,” said Kerry Emanuel, professor emeritus of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Inland threats Category …

Novak Djokovic considers his mental state just as important as his physical condition when it comes to being prepared to play his best at age 36. “Mentally there is probably a lot more that I’m dealing with in my private life than was the case 10 years ago. But that’s the beauty of life. Things are evolving, moving on,” said Djokovic, who will try to take another step toward what would be a 24th Grand Slam title when he faces Ben Shelton in the U.S. Open semifinals Friday. “I just feel that there is always, I guess, an extra gear that you have inside of you and you can find when you dig deep to handle and manage energy levels, on and off the court,” Djokovic said, “if you’re really devoted to that and if you care about it, if you pay attention to that mental aspect as much as physical, of course.” By the time players arrive at Flushing Meadows for the last major tournament of a long season — one that began in late December and will carry on into November — the ailments and injuries that are part of any professional athlete’s existence can make things tough. Some competing at the U.S. Open, which concludes this weekend, say the wear and tear on the mind can be just as hard to deal with as whatever might be wrong with one’s body. “We’re already smashed. Completely,” said Daria Kasatkina, a 26-year-old from Russia who reached the fourth round …

SpaceX must take a series of steps before it can launch its mega rocket again after its debut ended in an explosion, federal regulators said Friday. The Federal Aviation Administration said it closed its investigation into SpaceX’s failed debut of Starship, the world’s biggest rocket. The agency is requiring SpaceX to take 63 corrective actions and to apply for a modified FAA license before launching again. FAA official said multiple problems led to the April launch explosion, which sent pieces of concrete and metal hurtling for thousands of feet (meters) and created a plume of pulverized concrete that spread for miles (kilometers) around. SpaceX founder Elon Musk said in the accident’s aftermath that he improved the 394-foot (120-meter) rocket and strengthened the launch pad. A new Starship is on the redesigned pad, awaiting liftoff. It will fly empty, as before. During the initial test flight, the rocketship had to be destroyed after it tumbled out of control shortly after liftoff from Boca Chica Beach. The wreckage crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX said fuel leaks during ascent caused fires to erupt at the tail of the rocket, severing connection with the main flight computer and leading to a loss of control. That flight “provided numerous lessons learned,” the company said in a statement. NASA wants to use Starship to land astronauts back on the moon in another few years. Musk’s ultimate goal is to build a fleet of Starships to carry people and supplies to Mars. …

More than a decade after a tsunami destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station on Japan’s Pacific coast, the country has begun releasing the treated wastewater that has been accumulating on the site of the disaster, sparking anger in the region despite assurances by scientists that the process will not be harmful to the environment. The water being released into the Pacific has been largely decontaminated of most dangerous elements, but contains small amounts of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that cannot be extracted through any existing treatment method. Water releases began in late August and will continue sporadically for decades as Japan works to reduce the amount of treated water on the site of the power plant. That water is currently stored in more than 800 tanks. Japanese officials say that it is necessary to drain and remove some of the tanks so that facilities necessary for the decommissioning of the plant can be built. Japanese officials have gone to great lengths to demonstrate their confidence in the safety of the water surrounding Fukushima. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida appeared on television eating sashimi prepared from fish caught in the area after the water releases began. Despite such displays, as well as assessments from experts, including the International Atomic Energy Agency, that the release of water will not cause harm to the environment, protests have arisen. Japan and South Korea have been the sites of large demonstrations against the release. The Chinese government has been among the most vocal …

Chinese scientists have succeeded in growing kidneys containing human cells in pig embryos, a world first that could one day help address organ donation shortages.     But the finding, published Thursday in a study in the journal Cell Stem Cell, raises ethical issues — especially since some human cells also were found in the pigs’ brains, experts said.    The researchers from the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health focused on kidneys since they are the most commonly transplanted in human medicine.    “Rat organs have been produced in mice, and mouse organs have been produced in rats, but previous attempts to grow human organs in pigs have not succeeded,” senior author Liangxue Lai said in a statement.    “Our approach improves the integration of human cells into recipient tissues and allows us to grow human organs in pigs.”    This is a different approach to the recent high-profile breakthroughs in the United States, where genetically modified pig kidneys and even a heart have been placed inside humans.    The new research paper “describes pioneering steps in a new approach to organ bioengineering using pigs as incubators for growing and cultivating human organs,” said Dusko Ilic, a professor of stem cell sciences at King’s College London who was not involved in the research.    Ilic cautioned there would be many challenges to turning the experiment into a viable solution, but “nevertheless, this captivating strategy warrants further exploration.”    Gene editing    A major challenge in creating such hybrids has …

Hurricane Lee whirled through open waters on Thursday as forecasters warned it could become the first Category 5 storm of the Atlantic season.  Lee was not expected to make landfall while on a projected path that will take it near the northeast Caribbean, although forecasters said tropical storm conditions were possible on some islands. Meteorologists said it was too early to provide details on potential rainfall and wind gusts.  The Category 4 hurricane was about 1,260 kilometers east of the northern Leeward Islands. It had winds of up to 215 kilometers per hour and was moving west-northwest at 24 kph.  The storm was expected to grow even more powerful late Thursday and remain a major hurricane into next week.  “Lee continues to strengthen at an exceptional rate,” the National Hurricane Center said.  U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday was given the hurricane’s latest trajectory and details of preparations underway by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, which deployed unidentified assets to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the White House.  Life-threatening surf was expected to hit the Lesser Antilles on Friday and reach the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, the Bahamas and Bermuda this weekend, the center said.  “We will see waves between 10 and 15 feet [3 and 5 meters], so we don’t want anyone on the beaches,” said Ernesto Morales with the National Weather Service in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  The National Hurricane Center said dangerous surf and rip currents were forecast …

As delegates gather in Kenya for the inaugural Africa Climate Summit, seeking ways to combat the effects of climate change, activists are screening films illustrating the impacts of global warming in Africa and calling for climate justice for the continent. Juma Majanga reports from Nairobi. Camera — Amos Wangwa …

Japan launched a rocket Thursday carrying an X-ray telescope that will explore the origins of the universe as well as a small lunar lander. The launch of the HII-A rocket from Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan was shown on live video by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, known as JAXA. “We have a liftoff,” the narrator at JAXA said as the rocket flew up in a burst of smoke and then flew over the Pacific. Thirteen minutes after the launch, the rocket put into orbit around Earth a satellite called the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, or XRISM, which will measure the speed and makeup of what lies between galaxies. That information helps in studying how celestial objects were formed, and hopefully can lead to solving the mystery of how the universe was created, JAXA said. In cooperation with NASA, JAXA will look at the strength of light at different wavelengths, the temperature of things in space and their shapes and brightness. David Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute at Rice University, believes the mission is significant for delivering insight into the properties of hot plasma, or the superheated matter that makes up much of the universe. Plasmas have the potential to be used in various ways, including healing wounds, making computer chips and cleaning the environment. “Understanding the distribution of this hot plasma in space and time, as well as its dynamical motion, will shed light on diverse phenomena such as black holes, the evolution of chemical …

Earth has sweltered through its hottest Northern Hemisphere summer ever measured, with a record warm August capping a season of brutal and deadly temperatures, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Last month was not only the hottest August scientists ever recorded by far with modern equipment, it was also the second hottest month measured, behind only July 2023, WMO and the European climate service Copernicus announced Wednesday. August was about 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial averages. That is the threshold that the world is trying not to pass, though scientists are more concerned about rises in temperatures over decades, not merely a blip over a month’s time. The world’s oceans — more than 70% of the Earth’s surface — were the hottest ever recorded, nearly 21 C, and have set high temperature marks for three consecutive months, the WMO and Copernicus said. “The dog days of summer are not just barking, they are biting,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “Climate breakdown has begun.” So far, 2023 is the second hottest year on record, behind 2016, according to Copernicus. Scientists blame ever warming human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas with an extra push from a natural El Nino, which is a temporary warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide. Usually an El Nino, which started earlier this year, adds extra heat to global temperatures but more so in its second year. Climatologist Andrew Weaver said the …

Green hydrogen is being touted around the world as a clean energy solution to take the carbon out of high-emitting sectors like transport and industrial manufacturing. The India-led International Solar Alliance launched the Green Hydrogen Innovation Centre earlier this year, and India itself approved $2.3 billion for the production, use and export of green hydrogen. Global cooperation on green hydrogen manufacturing and supply is expected to be discussed by G20 leaders at this week’s summit in New Delhi. What is green hydrogen? Hydrogen is produced by separating that element from others in molecules where hydrogen occurs. For example, water — well known by its chemical symbol of H20, or two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom — can be split into those component atoms through electrolysis. Hydrogen has been produced and used at scale for over a century, primarily to make fertilizers and plastics and to refine oil. It has mostly been produced using fossil fuels, especially natural gas. But when the production is powered by renewable energy, the resulting hydrogen is green hydrogen. The global market for green hydrogen is expected to reach $410 billion by 2030, according to analysts, which would more than double its current market size. However, critics say the fuel is not always viable at scale and its “green” credentials are determined by the source of energy used to produce it. What can green hydrogen be used for? Green hydrogen can have a variety of uses in industries such as steelmaking, concrete production and manufacturing …

Israeli archaeologists on Wednesday displayed four Roman-era swords and a javelin discovered inside a cave in the Judean desert, where they had been preserved for nearly 1,900 years. The archaeologists said the ancient weapons were believed to have been used during the Bar Kokhba revolt of Jews against the Romans in the second century. “It’s a very unique and important discovery, which is unprecedented in Israel,” Eitan Klein, director of Israel Antiquities Authority, told journalists at an event showcasing the weapons. “We suppose that Jewish rebels took the weapons as booty from Roman units or they were collected in the battlefield and they were hidden in a cave as a cache of swords to be used or reused in future battles.” The weapons were found in June, deeply wedged behind a wall of stalactites and preserved in wood and leather scabbards. Without specifying the location for fear of lootings, Klein said the discovery was made on Israeli territory in an area close to the Ein Gedi natural reserve. “We are just beginning to understand what these could be,” said Guy Stiebel, professor at the Tel Aviv University who specializes in the Roman empire. “It’s not just about the Jews: it’s about the Romans; it’s about the whole Roman empire.” Stiebel said the weapons were well preserved with their iron blades, sheaths and handles still intact. “The fact that the climate is so arid and dry in the Judean desert enables us every now and then to discover such discoveries,” he …

Bangladesh is experiencing its most severe dengue outbreak on record, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, partly blaming climate change for contributing to the spread of such mosquito-borne diseases.  Since the outbreak began in April, more than 135,000 dengue cases and 650 deaths have been recorded in the world’s eighth most populous country, the U.N. agency said.  More than 300 deaths from dengue were reported last month alone, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an online news conference.  “The outbreak is putting huge pressure on the health system,” he said.  While cases were beginning to decline in the capital Dhaka, they were increasing in other parts of the country, he added.  The WHO said it has deployed experts on the ground in Bangladesh, and is supporting authorities to strengthen surveillance, boost laboratory capacity and increase communication with affected communities.  Dengue is a disease endemic to tropical areas that causes high fevers, headaches, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain and, in the most serious cases, bleeding that can lead to death.  The WHO has warned that dengue — and other diseases caused by mosquito-borne viruses such as chikungunya, yellow fever and Zika — are spreading faster and further due to climate change.  The agency’s alert and response director Abdi Mahamud told the conference that such outbreaks were a “canary in the coal mine of the climate crisis.”  He said that a combination of factors including climate change and this year’s El Nino warming weather pattern had contributed to severe dengue outbreaks in several …

Researchers at Oregon State University have developed a process that uses polluted water to produce hydrogen while purifying the water at the same time. VOA’s Julie Taboh reports on advances in the fossil fuel alternative. …