Year: 2023

Two scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discoveries that enabled the development of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. The award was given to Katalin Karikó, a professor at Sagan’s University in Hungary and an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Drew Weissman, who performed his prizewinning research together with Karikó at the University of Pennsylvania. “Through their groundbreaking findings, which have fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system, the laureates contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times,” the panel that awarded the prize said. Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Assembly, announced the prize and said both scientists were “overwhelmed” by news of the prize when he contacted them shortly before the announcement. Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam, part of the panel that chose the winners, said of their work that “in terms of saving lives, especially in the early phase of the pandemic, it was very important.” The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was won last year by Swedish scientist Svante Paabo for discoveries in human evolution that unlocked secrets of Neanderthal DNA which provided key insights into our immune system, including our vulnerability to severe COVID-19. The award was the second in the family. Paabo’s father, Sune Bergstrom, won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1982. Nobel announcements continue with the physics prize on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize …

The World Health Organization warns that soaring rates of severe malnutrition, acute hunger, and deteriorating health conditions are threatening the lives and well-being of millions of people in South Sudan with the situation set to worsen as the climate crisis kicks in. “South Sudan is a country where you see the overlap and compounding impact of conflict, climate crisis, hunger crisis, and disease outbreaks that have been going on for several years,” said Liesbeth Aelbrecht, WHO incident manager for the Horn of Africa. “Three in four South Sudanese need humanitarian assistance this year; two in three are facing crisis levels of hunger,” she said. “And these numbers are only getting worse.” The United Nations reports 6.3 million South Sudanese are suffering from acute hunger and more than 9 million of the country’s population of 12 million people depend on humanitarian assistance. As conditions continue to deteriorate, the World Health Organization reports 500,000 more people this year will need international aid. Among the most vulnerable are the children. Aelbrecht said, “The numbers of children with severe malnutrition needing medical intervention have been higher this year than at any point in the last four years,” adding that almost 150,000 children had been treated for severe acute malnutrition so far this year. She warned the humanitarian crisis facing South Sudan will worsen with the onset of El Niño, a climate phenomenon that can cause temperatures to rise and excess rains. “Flooding and hunger and drought will increase hunger even further. But it is …

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has tested positive for COVID-19 and will work remotely while isolating, his office said Sunday, just two weeks before a general election in which his Labour party is struggling. The positive test will temporarily sideline Hipkins in the campaign for the Oct. 14 election. Labour has been sliding in the opinion polls, with the center-right National party leading by 31.9% to 26.5% in a recent survey. Hipkins has cold and flu symptoms that began Saturday and will isolate for five days or until he returned a negative test, the prime minister’s office said in a statement. “He will continue with engagements he can undertake via Zoom,” the statement said. Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni would stand in for Hipkins at a Samoan church service in Auckland on Sunday, a spokesperson said. “Thanks to all of Labour’s great volunteers and supporters who I know will keep our campaign going in my absence,” Hipkins said on his official Facebook page. “There’s a lot at stake this election, and I’ll be working doubly hard when I can get back out there to make sure Labour is reelected.” The prime minister’s office said further updates on his schedule “will be provided in due course.” The government removed its last COVID restrictions in August, but health authorities still recommend that people stay home for five days if feeling unwell or if they have tested positive. …

Nine years after a massive waste spill from a copper mine in the northern Mexican border state of Sonora, locals are still suffering from “alarming” levels of soil, air and water pollution, Mexico’s Environment Department said Thursday. Summarizing a 239-page report, officials also confirmed, using satellite images, that the spill was not solely caused by dramatic rainfall, as was initially reported, but by the “inadequate design” of a dam at Buenavista del Cobre mine, owned by the country’s largest copper producer, Grupo México. Locals and environmental advocates say the report offers the clearest view yet of the catastrophic scale of the accident and, with it, new hope that Grupo México may finally be held financially accountable after almost a decade of legal battles and broken promises. “We expect that, with this new document, we’ll have an easy path for getting the money,” said Luis Franco, a community coordinator with regional advocacy group PODER. “At the moment, I’m happy but at the same time I know this is just the beginning for the people of Sonora,” he said. “We have to keep fighting.” On Aug. 6, 2014, after heavy rainfall, 40 million liters of acidified copper sulfate flooded from a waste reservoir at Buenavista mine into the Sonora and Bacanuchi rivers, just under 100 kilometers from the border city of Nogales, Sonora. After the spill, Grupo México first agreed to give 1.2 billion pesos (about $68 million) to a recovery fund, but in 2017 that trust was closed and the remaining …

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday laid out a proposal to begin regulating laboratory medical tests, a multibillion-dollar industry that the agency says poses a growing risk to patients because of potentially inaccurate results. The proposed rule would end decades of regulatory ambiguity and formally bring thousands of tests performed in large laboratories under FDA oversight. FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said the change will help ensure tests used to diagnose cancer, heart disease and many other conditions are safe, accurate and reliable. “A growing number of clinical diagnostic tests are being offered as laboratory-developed tests without assurance that they work,” Califf said in a statement. He added that the agency has long worried that many tests offered by laboratories are not as accurate or reliable as those that undergo FDA review. Here’s a look at the history and background of the testing issue: What are laboratory-developed tests? Most Americans are familiar with medical tests like those used to screen for COVID-19, strep throat and other health conditions. Those tests are developed by a handful of large manufacturers that undergo FDA review before selling their test kits to hospitals, doctors offices or pharmacies. The tests targeted by the FDA’s latest action are developed and used by high-tech laboratories, including those at academic medical centers and companies such as Quest Diagnostics. They include tests for complex diseases like cancer, as well as simpler conditions like high cholesterol and sexually transmitted infections. Over time, laboratory-developed tests have grown into a multibillion-dollar nationwide …

In pockets of Europe’s Alpine mountains, glaciers are abundant enough that ski resorts operate above the snow and ice. Ski lifts, resorts, cabins and huts dot the landscape — and have done so for decades. But glaciers are also one of the most obvious and early victims of human-caused climate change, and as they shrink year by year, the future of the mountain ecosystems and the people who enjoy them will look starkly different. Glaciers — centuries of compacted snow and ice — are disappearing at an alarming rate. Swiss glaciers have lost 10% of their volume since 2021, and some glaciers are predicted to disappear entirely in the next few years. At the Freigerferner glacier in Austria, melting means the glacier has split into two and hollowed out as warm air streamed through the glacier base, exacerbating the thaw. Gaisskarferner, another glacier that forms part of a ski resort, is only connected to the rest of the snow and ice by sections of glacier that were saved over the summer with protective sheets to shield them from the sun. But the losses go beyond a shorter ski season and glacier mass. Andrea Fischer, a glaciologist with the Austrian Academy of Sciences, said the rate of glacier loss can tell the world more about the state of the climate globally and how urgent curbing human-caused warming is. “The loss of glaciers is not the most dangerous thing about climate change,” said Fischer. “The most dangerous thing about climate change is …

The U.S. West Coast produces over 90% of America’s wine, but the region is also prone to wildfires — a combustible combination that spelled disaster for the industry in 2020 and one that scientists are scrambling to neutralize. Sample a good wine and you might get notes of oak or red fruit. But sip on wine made from grapes that were penetrated by smoke, and it could taste like someone dumped the contents of an ashtray into your glass. Wine experts from three West Coast universities are working together to meet the threat, including developing spray coatings to protect grapes, pinpointing the elusive compounds that create that nasty ashy taste, and deploying smoke sensors to vineyards to better understand smoke behavior. The U.S. government is funding their research with millions of dollars. Wineries are also taking steps to protect their product and brand. The risk to America’s premier wine-making regions — where wildfires caused billions of dollars in losses in 2020 — is growing, with climate change deepening drought and overgrown forests becoming tinderboxes. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, grapes are the highest-value crop in the United States, with 1 million acres (405,000 hectares) of grape-bearing land, 96% of it on the West Coast. Winemakers around the world are already adapting to climate change, including by moving their vineyards to cooler zones and planting varieties that do better in drought and heat. Wildfires pose an additional and more immediate risk being tackled by scientists from Oregon State University, …

How do you cook a meal when a staple ingredient is unaffordable?  This question is playing out in households around the world as they face shortages of essential foods like rice, cooking oil and onions. That is because countries have imposed restrictions on the food they export to protect their own supplies from the combined effect of the war in Ukraine, El Nino’s threat to food production and increasing damage from climate change.  For Caroline Kyalo, a 28-year-old who works in a salon in Kenya’s capital of Nairobi, it was a question of trying to figure out how to cook for her two children without onions. Restrictions on the export of the vegetable by neighboring Tanzania has led prices to triple.  Kyalo initially tried to use spring onions instead, but those also got too expensive. As did the prices of other necessities, like cooking oil and corn flour.  “I just decided to be cooking once a day,” she said.  Despite the East African country’s fertile lands and large workforce, the high cost of growing and transporting produce and the worst drought in decades led to a drop in local production. Plus, people preferred red onions from Tanzania because they were cheaper and lasted longer. By 2014, Kenya was getting half of its onions from its neighbor, according to a U.N. Food Agriculture Organization report.  At Nairobi’s major food market, Wakulima, the prices for onions from Tanzania were the highest in seven years, seller Timothy Kinyua said.  Some traders have adjusted …

Many millions of Chinese tourists are expected to travel within their country, splurging on hotels, tours, attractions and meals in a boost to the economy during the 8-day autumn holiday period that began Friday. This year’s holiday began with the Mid-Autumn Festival on Friday and also includes the Oct. 1 National Day. The public holidays end Oct. 6. Typically hundreds of millions of Chinese travel at home and overseas during such holidays. The eight-day-long holiday is the longest week of public holidays since COVID-19 pandemic restrictions were lifted in December. Outbound tourism has lagged domestic travel, with flight capacities lagging behind pre-pandemic levels. Big cities like the capital, Beijing, Shanghai, and southern cities like Shenzhen and Guangzhou are favored destinations. Smaller cities, such as Chengdu and Chongqing in southwest China also are popular. All that travel is a boon for the world’s No. 2 economy: During the week-long May holiday this year, 274 million tourists spent 148 billion yuan ($20.3 billion). “Over the last few years with the pandemic, there’s been really strong pent-up demand,” said Boon Sian Chai, managing director at the online travel booking platform Trip.com Group. Both domestic and outbound travel have “recovered significantly,” but travel within China accounted for nearly three-quarters of total bookings, Chai said. China Railway said it was expecting about 190 million passenger trips during the Sept. 27-Oct. 8 travel rush, more than double the number of trips last year and an increase from 2019, before the pandemic started. In Guangzhou and Shenzhen, …

The streets of cities across Latin America were bathed in green Thursday as tens of thousands of women marched to commemorate International Safe Abortion Day. Latin American feminists have spent decades fighting to roll back strict prohibitions, although there are still few countries with a total ban, like El Salvador and Dominican Republic. In Mexico, marchers celebrated the recent decision by Mexico’s Supreme Court to decriminalize abortions at the federal level. In Argentina, marchers had a more somber tone, worrying that the strength of a populist far-right presidential candidate going into elections in October could signal peril after years of work by feminists. Abortion was the heart of the protests, but crowds of women also raised alarm about the region’s high rates of gender-based violence as well as abuses aimed at LGBTQ+ communities. Green smoke floated over a roaring crowd of thousands of women in Mexico City who waved green handkerchiefs, which have become the symbol of Latin America’s “green wave” abortion movement. Signs reading “It’s my decision” and “Free and safe abortions for everyone” speckled the crowd. The march came just weeks after Mexico’s Supreme Court knocked down all federal criminal penalties for abortion, ruling that national laws prohibiting the procedure are unconstitutional and violate women’s rights. The move will also require federal health institutions to offer abortion to anyone who requests it. “It’s absolutely an achievement,” said Fernanda Castro, an organizer at GIRE, the women’s rights organization that brought forward the lawsuit before Mexico’s high court. “And now …

Federal health advisers voted overwhelmingly against an experimental treatment for Lou Gehrig’s disease at a Wednesday meeting prompted by years of patient efforts seeking access to the unproven therapy. The panel of Food and Drug Administration experts voted 17-1 that drugmaker Brainstorm’s stem cell-based treatment has not been shown effective for patients with the fatal, muscle-wasting disease known as ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. One panel member abstained from voting. While the FDA is not bound by the vote, it largely aligns with the agency’s own strikingly negative review released earlier this week, in which staff scientists described Brainstorm’s application as “scientifically incomplete” and “grossly deficient.” “Creating false hope can be considered a moral injury and the use of statistical magic or manipulation to provide false hope is problematic,” said Lisa Lee, a bioethics and research integrity expert from Virginia Tech who voted against the treatment. The lone positive vote came from a panel member representing patients. Wednesday’s public meeting was essentially a longshot attempt by Brainstorm and the ALS community to sway FDA’s thinking on the treatment, dubbed NurOwn. Brainstorm’s single 200-patient study failed to show that NurOwn extended life, slowed disease or improved patient mobility. But the FDA agreed to convene the panel of outside advisers after ALS patients and advocates submitted a 30,000-signature petition seeking a public meeting. In the last year, the FDA has approved two new drugs for ALS, after a nearly 20-year drought of new options. The approvals followed intense lobbying by advocacy groups. …

Environmental experts are ringing alarm bells, saying decades-long climate and environmental changes in Sudan have exacerbated social and political instability, fueling the monthslong conflict in the country centered around access to land, water and other vital resources. The current conflict in Sudan, rooted in global geopolitics and the historical legacy of the previous leadership of now-deposed authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir, is increasingly being attributed to climate change. In a May report, Practical Action, a Britain-based international development organization, highlighted the impact of climate change in Sudan, which includes the encroachment of the desert southward and a stark reduction in rainfall. Akinyi Walender, Practical Action Africa director, underscored the consequences of climate change in Sudan, including heightened drought, extreme rainfall variability, depletion of water sources and desertification spanning millions of hectares of land. Speaking to VOA via WhatsApp, Walender said the conversion of migratory routes and pastureland into farmland has significantly disrupted “the natural balance” and accelerated desertification. The United Nations says desertification is the persistent degradation of dryland ecosystems by climate change and mainly human activities — unsustainable farming, mining, overgrazing and clear-cutting of land. The U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification says approximately 65% of Sudan’s land is affected by desertification. Walender said climate change and conflict in Sudan are caught in a destructive cycle, potentially worsening the situation in the East African nation. “The effects of war, such as the destruction of infrastructure, displacement of communities, and the use of airstrikes and heavy artillery, intensify the environmental damage in …

India’s moon lander and rover, which made a historic landing on the south pole of the moon, have not “woken up” after being put in sleep mode earlier this month to survive the freezing lunar night temperatures. Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organization have not succeeded in reestablishing communication with the Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover, which were part of India’s pioneering Chandrayaan-3 mission. After the spacecraft soft-landed on the little-explored lunar south pole on Aug. 23 — five days after a Russian spacecraft on an identical mission crashed — the rover spent 10 days traveling more than 100 meters on the lunar surface gathering scientific data. Tasked with “the pursuit of lunar secrets” by the ISRO, the spacecraft transmitted images and scientific data back to Earth and confirmed the presence of sulfur, iron, titanium and oxygen on the moon. Before the sun set on the moon Sept. 2, ISRO scientists switched the rover to sleep mode to hibernate and protect the spacecraft’s sensitive components from the freezing lunar night conditions. The lander was switched to sleep mode on Sept. 4. A lunar day and night each lasts a little over 14 Earth days. During the lunar night, the temperature on the moon can drop between minus 200 degrees Celsius and minus 250 degrees Celsius. After switching the lander and rover to sleep mode, ISRO said in a statement that the rover had completed its first set of assignments — Chandrayaan-3 mission’s primary goal — and they were …

In Goma, a city in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, residents say plastic and other waste is increasingly polluting Lake Kivu. A new initiative is keeping some of that waste out of the lake. Austere Malivika has this report from Goma, narrated by Aida Issa. …

In a grand farewell to its beloved giant pandas, Smithsonian’s National Zoo is hosting “Panda Palooza,” a celebration ending October 1. From their longtime Washington base, the pandas have brought joy to millions of visitors and generations of fans — and now they are being moved to China. Liliya Anisimova has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Sergey Sokolov. …

Half of the world’s children breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke, and about 51,000 children die each year from illnesses related to second-hand smoke. Lisa Schlein reports from Geneva about the World Health Organization’s call to schools to protect children from the harmful effects of tobacco. …

The World Health Organization is calling on schools to protect children from the harmful health impacts of tobacco use by creating nicotine- and tobacco-free zones on their campuses. Tobacco kills more than 8 million people every year, most in low- and middle-income countries, which account for about 80% of the world’s 1.3 billion tobacco users. The United Nations health agency reports that roughly half of the world’s children breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke and that about 51,000 children die each year from illnesses related to secondhand smoke. “Young people are not only threatened by secondhand smoke,” said Kerstin Schotte, medical officer at WHO, “they are also aggressively targeted by the tobacco and related industries and their deadly products.” As more than half of all smokers die prematurely, and in a bid to keep profits high, she said, the tobacco industry “tries to replace all the customers they lose by recruiting new users.” “Given that an overwhelming 90% of smokers pick up the habit before turning 18, teenagers become prime targets,” Schotte said. She said one tactic employed by the tobacco industry to entice young people to become new users is through marketing addictive, sweet and fruity flavored nicotine products. She said, “These products are sold near schools, online and in vending machines, where age verification can be circumvented.” She said the industry also has made its product more affordable for young people “through the sale of single-use vape sticks, as they are called. They usually do not bear any …

Deeply entrenched gender norms, biases and perceptions are affecting the ability of girls and young women to use the internet, influencing their online activity and hurting their access to information and work, a new report has found. A survey of more than 10,000 users aged 14-21, and their parents, in over half a dozen countries including Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and India, found that girls are constantly being monitored and told they are vulnerable and not competent online, “creating a crisis of confidence.” “This is resulting in girls setting up more protections and behaving more conservatively when connecting with others and sharing personal information online,” said the report by nonprofit Girl Effect, the Malala Fund, the United Nations’ children’s agency UNICEF and the Vodafone Americas Foundation. “These attitudes are not just impacting girls’ access and usage, they are influencing their self-confidence and shaping their own perceptions of their ability to use these tools to pursue their social, educational, and intellectual interests,” said the report. The gender digital divide has persisted despite efforts by governments worldwide. A UNICEF study earlier this year showed that in 54 countries, the median gender parity ratio is 71, meaning that for every 100 adolescent boys and young men who use the internet, only 71 adolescent girls and young women do. At the same time, women experience more online abuse, and harassment is driving girls to quit social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, recent studies have found. Among digitally connected youth, 12% more girls …

Sea ice that packs the ocean around Antarctica hit record low levels this winter, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said Monday, adding to scientists’ fears that the impact of climate change at the southern pole is ramping up.  Researchers warn the shift can have dire consequences for animals like penguins who breed and rear their young on the sea ice, while also hastening global warming by reducing how much sunlight is reflected by white ice back into space.  Antarctic sea ice extent peaked this year on September 10, when it covered 16.96 million square kilometers (6.55 million square miles), the lowest winter maximum since satellite records began in 1979, the NSIDC said. That’s about 1 million square kilometers (about 621,371 square miles) less ice than the previous winter record set in 1986.  “It’s not just a record-breaking year, it’s an extreme record-breaking year,” said NSIDC senior scientist Walt Meier.  NSIDC in a statement said that the figures were preliminary with a full analysis to be released next month.  Seasons are reversed in the Southern hemisphere with sea ice generally peaking around September near the end of winter and later melting to its lowest point in February or March as summer draws to a close.  The summer Antarctic sea ice extent also hit a record low in February, breaking the previous mark set in 2022.  The Arctic has been hit hard by climate change over the last decade, with sea ice rapidly deteriorating as the northern region …