Today’s children are tomorrow’s leaders. Cultivating curiosity and recognizing its value in those kids might be what cures today’s incurable diseases in the future, or prevents them altogether. So what drives and inspires a 12-year-old to think about researching a cure for cancer when he’s picking a science fair project? Bronwyn Benito has the story.
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Month: August 2017
London Matisse Exhibit Shows Objects That Inspired His Art
The art of French painter Henri Matisse is enough to draw a visitor to any gallery. The painter was drawn to art himself and during his lifetime gathered a collection of objects from around the world that inspired his art. London’s Royal Academy of Arts has staged a unique exhibit showing Matisse’s art collection along with the paintings it inspired. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Paris Olympics Aims to Regenerate Poor, Northeastern Suburbs
One of the most deprived suburbs in Paris is expected to be a big winner now the French capital is in line to host the 2024 Olympics with thousands of homes and a new swimming center to be built in Seine-Saint-Denis for the games.
The poorest of France’s 101 mainland departments, Seine-Saint-Denis sprawls east and north from Paris, much of it a drab expanse of grey buildings, abandoned factories and poverty.
Paris learned on Monday that it was a near certainty to be the IOC’s chosen host for the 2024 games when its only remaining rival, Los Angeles, agreed to wait another four years. Budapest, Boston, Hamburg and Rome had all pulled out of the race.
“La Joie est Libre! (Joy Ahead!),” said the front-page headline of L’Equipe sports newspaper, welcoming the news with a play on words. A series of Islamist militant attacks frightened away many visitors from the French capital and city officials hope winning the bid will boost tourism.
Organizers of the games say their aim to lift Seine-Saint-Denis’s fortunes helped their case with the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
“Bearing in mind the symbolic and real divides which there sometimes still are between Paris and its suburbs, this young, working class place, with young people of all colors and all origins allows us to say to the IOC that these games are a wonderful opportunity to show that Paris is bigger than Paris,” Stephane Troussel, president of Seine-Saint-Denis, told Reuters.
Tony Estanguet, co-chair of the Paris bid, said: “We looked at the success of the games in London and for sure, the fact that London succeeded in leaving a strong legacy, a physical legacy in the east of London, was very important for us.”
Not Convinced
Not all locals are sure of the benefits however. Some have half an eye on Stratford, a swath of east London that was redeveloped for the 2012 games, but where rising rents have pushed locals out of similarly created new housing there.
“When there is a lot of investment landlords will also take advantage by adding a bit, increasing the rents,” said Fode Abass Toure, a 45-year-old resident of Bobigny.
“And even the restaurants will try to increase prices of products because a lot of tourists will come,” he said.
Seine-Saint-Denis has a reputation as a Socialist bastion where the French Communist Party and hard-left have a strong presence. It was in the area where the deaths of two youths who were hiding from police in a power station set off 2005 riots.
Unemployment in and around its main towns of Saint-Denis and Bobigny is approaching double the national average at more than 18 percent. Three out of 10 of its 1.5-million-strong population are immigrants, or the children of immigrants, mostly from Africa, a similar proportion are classed as living in poverty.
The Paris games – which have a relatively modest budget by recent standards at around 7 billion euros ($8.27 billion), will leave behind two permanent new developments, both of them in Seine-Saint-Denis.
They are the Olympic Village itself, which will be converted after the games to provide more than 3,500 homes, and a swimming center to stand alongside the Stade de France stadium, built for the 1998 football World Cup, now to be reborn as the Olympic Stadium where track and field athletes will compete.
“Same in Sport”
At a run-down local pool that will be transformed into a water polo venue, children splashed as they played during a visit by Reuters.
“Sport brings people together,” said sports activity leader Jose Defaria, aged 22.
“Even if we don’t come from the same social background, I think we’re the same in sport, we are brought closer together and we make links and it’s good for everyone. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.”
Paris 2024 – enthusiastically backed by the country’s tennis-playing new President Emmanuel Macron – plans to make the most of the city’s existing sports facilities and take full advantage of its landmarks.
Boxers will compete alongside tennis players at the clay court French Open tennis venue, Roland Garros, on the city’s western fringe, while the nearby clubs Paris Saint Germain and Stade Francais will host respective sports of soccer and rugby.
Distance races on foot and bicycle will start and finish at the Eiffel Tower, in whose shadow the ever-popular beach volleyball competition will play out.
Fencing and taekwondo will be held under the majestic steel and glass of the Grand Palais near the Champs Elysees, and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has bet her reputation on the Seine river being clean enough for open water swimming in time for the games.
Attacks Scared Tourists
Official confirmation due in September would mean one of the world’s most visited cities can mark the centenary of the 1924 Paris Olympics with a repeat showing. Amongst the stars of those games was U.S. swimming gold medalist Johnny Weismuller who later became known for his role in the Tarzan films.
Hoteliers are keen for a much-needed shot in the arm.
Although hotel occupancy rates are rising, up 7.2 percent at 76.9 percent in the first half of this year, they are short of the 80 percent rate hoteliers enjoyed in 2014 before Islamist militant attacks scared off tourists.
A successful Olympic legacy is far from assured for any city, with recent hosts enjoying contrasting fortunes.
The legacy of the Athens Games left derelict, run-down arenas and unused stadiums. Four years earlier, Sydney used the Games to develop an Olympic Park which is now a thriving commercial, residential and sporting suburb.
Four years after Athens, Beijing aimed to use the games to showcase itself as a progressive world power. London’s 2012 evoked a feelgood factor before domestic politics reversed that optimism. In 2016, while Rio’s games lacked a certain luster they underlined the South American nation’s ability to deliver in the face of economic and social adversity.
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Satellite Images Could Identify Slave Labor in India
Researchers in England are hoping to help root out modern-day slavery in northern India by using detailed satellite imagery to locate brick kilns — sites that are notorious for using millions of slaves, including children.
A team of geospatial experts at the University of Nottingham use Google Maps and dozens of volunteers to identify potential sites of exploitation and report them to authorities.
“The key thing at the moment is to get those statistics right and to get the locations of the brick kilns sorted,” said Doreen Boyd, a co-researcher on the “Slavery from Space” project.
“There are certainly activists on the ground that will help us in terms of getting the statistics and the locations of these brick kilns to [government] officials.”
Anti-slavery activists said the project could be useful in identifying remote kilns or mines that would otherwise escape public or official scrutiny.
“But there are other, more pressing challenges like tackling problematic practices, including withheld wages, lack of transparent accounting … no enforcement of existing labor laws,” said Jakub Sobik, spokesman at Anti-Slavery, a London-based nongovernmental organization.
Millions of people in India are believed to be living in slavery. Despite a 1976 ban on bonded labor, the practice remains widespread at brick kilns, rice mills and brothels, among others.
The majority of victims belong to low-income families or marginalized castes like the Dalits or “untouchables.”
Nearly 70 percent of brick kiln workers in South Asia are estimated to be working in bonded and forced labor, according to a 2016 report by the International Labor Organization. About a fifth of those are underage.
The project relies on crowdsourcing, a process where volunteers sift through thousands of satellite images to identify possible locations of kilns. Each image is shown to multiple volunteers, who mark kilns independently.
The team is currently focused on an area of 2,600 square kilometers in the desert state of Rajasthan — teeming with brick-making sites — and plans to scale up the project in the coming years.
Researchers are now in talks with satellite companies to get access to more detailed images, rather than having to rely on publicly available Google Maps.
The project is one of several anti-slavery initiatives run by the university, which include research on slave labor-free supply chains and human trafficking.
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French Oysters Go on Sale in Vending Machines
In a change from chocolates and fizzy drinks, the French are starting to offer fresh oysters from vending machines in the hope of selling more of the delicacy outside business hours.
One pioneer is Tony Berthelot, an oyster farmer whose automatic dispenser of live oysters on the Ile de Re island off France’s western coast offers a range of quantities, types and sizes 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
French oyster farmers are following in the footsteps of other producers of fresh food who once manned stalls along roadsides for long hours but now uses machines.
“We can come at midnight if we want, if we have a craving for oysters. It’s excellent; they’re really fresh,” Christel Petinon, a 45-year-old client vacationing on the island, told Reuters.
The Ile de Re’s refrigerated dispenser, one of the first and with glass panels so customers can see what they are buying, is broadly similar to those that offer snacks and drinks at railway stations and office buildings worldwide.
Customers use their bank card for access, opening the door of their choice from a range of carton sizes and oyster types.
Berthelot, 30 years an oyster breeder, sees it as an extra source of revenue rather than an alternative to normal points of sale like food markets, fishmongers and supermarkets.
“We felt as though we were losing lots of sales when we are closed,” he said.
“There was a cost involved when buying this machine, of course, but we’re paying it back in installments … And today, in theory, we can say that the calculations are correct and it’s working.”
Selling oysters from a machine bets on more than just open-mindedness among consumers. Live mollusks not kept cool enough or stored too long out of seawater can cause food poisoning when opened.
The Berthelots say the machine has an appeal to a younger generation accustomed to buying on the internet and unperturbed by the absence of a shopkeeper.
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Norman Leer, LL Cool J Among Kennedy Center Honorees
This year’s Kennedy Center honorees will include two singers, a television writer, a dancer — and for the first time, a hip-hop artist.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday announced the recipients of the 2017 Kennedy Center Honors. They are: hip-hop artist LL Cool J, singers Gloria Estefan and Lionel Richie, television writer and producer Norman Lear and dancer Carmen de Lavallade. It’s the 40th year of the awards, which honor people who have influenced American culture through the arts.
The honorees will be celebrated at a gala Dec. 3, featuring performances and tributes from top entertainers and attended by President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump.
It’s tradition for the president and first lady to host a reception for honorees at the White House before the gala and sit with them at it. This year’s event will be the first for President Trump, who proposed cutting arts funding in his budget plan earlier this year.
“Given his indifference or worse regarding the arts and humanities, I don’t even know he’ll be there,’’ Lear said of the gala, though a Kennedy Center spokeswoman confirmed the president’s attendance. Lear told the Kennedy Center he won’t attend the White House reception.
Estefan, who once hosted a Democratic fundraiser attended by President Barack Obama but says she and her husband are not affiliated with a political party, said her personal politics will be on hold in accepting the honor. But she said the image of a Cuban immigrant being honored is important when Latino immigrants in particular have “taken a beating in the recent past.’’
“I’m happy to be a very clear example of the good things that immigrants have done in this country,’’ she said.
The awards gala will be recorded and broadcast Dec. 26 on CBS.
Here’s a look at this year’s honorees:
LL Cool J
“Yo, this is amazing.’’ That was LL Cool J’s reaction to being the first hip-hop artist awarded a Kennedy Center Honor.
“To be able to go from the corner in Queens beatin’ on a garbage can to getting a Kennedy Center Honor with this type of company and to be first is just an amazing feeling. You know, it just adds another level of legitimacy to hip-hop culture,’’ he said in a telephone interview.
LL Cool J, born James Todd Smith, began his rap career as a teenager. His debut album, “Radio,’’ was released in 1985 and more albums soon followed. In 1992, he won his first of two Grammy awards for best rap solo performance for “Mama Said Knock You Out.’’ He earned a second for “Hey Lover’’ in 1997.
Beyond music, he has branched out to working in television. Since 2015 he has hosted Spike TV’s reality show “Lip Sync Battle.’’ The show was nominated for an Emmy in 2016 and again in 2017. He also currently stars in the CBS drama “NCIS: Los Angeles,’’ where he plays special agent Sam Hanna.
Still, he says his “first love is hip-hop.’’
The 49-year-old is tied with Stevie Wonder, who was honored at the same age in 1999, for being the award’s youngest honoree.
Gloria Estefan
Singer Gloria Estefan was in a car on the way to the airport when she learned she’d be honored by the Kennedy Center. Her husband got the news first, she said, and before announcing it told her to prepare herself. “Buckle your seatbelt,’’ he said, even though she was already strapped in.
The Cuban-American artist has won three Grammy awards and four Latin Grammy awards and sold more than 100 million records worldwide. These days there’s little the 59-year-old hasn’t done. She’s acted, written two children’s books, and she and husband Emilio Estefan own businesses including restaurants and hotels as well as a minority share in the Miami Dolphins. The couple was honored by President Barack Obama with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.
“I’d be greedy if I wanted anything else in life,’’ she said in a telephone interview.
Estefan shot to fame as the lead singer of the Miami Sound Machine, a group formed by the man who would become her husband. Her hits include: “Conga,’’ “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You,’’ “Get on Your Feet’’ and “1-2-3.’’ A musical based on the couple’s lives and music opened on Broadway in 2015 and closes later this month. Estefan called the show’s closing bittersweet. But a national tour of the show begins in the fall, what Estefan called a “new beginning.’’ The show will also make its international premiere in the Netherlands in October.
What hasn’t she done that she’d like to? “Take an extended vacation,’’ Estefan joked in an interview before adding that she’d like to write a book about how she got through a 1990 tour bus crash in which her back was broken. And, she said, she’d like perform in a “free Cuba,’’ one not led by Fidel or Raul Castro.
Lionel Richie
Lionel Richie could be forgiven for being tired by the time of the Kennedy Center Honors in December. The four-time Grammy winner is in the middle of his “All the Hits’’ tour and still has more than two dozen scheduled performances in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand before the tour ends in late October. Mariah Carey is joining the singer-songwriter on tour, and Richie says “so far she has killed it.’’
As for Richie, fans are there to see him perform some of his most popular songs including: “Three Times a Lady,’’ “Hello,’’ “All Night Long,’’ “Dancing on the Ceiling’’ and “Say You, Say Me,’’ which won him a Golden Globe award and an Oscar. Then there’s “We Are The World,’’ which he wrote with Michael Jackson.
Outside of music, Richie is involved in other ventures. He has a homeware line and is an investor in an app that lets people request a doctor come to their home. He’s also producing a movie about entertainer Sammy Davis Jr.
Richie, 68, says it’s good to be busy.
“I always say that the word ‘busy’ in show business is the most important word. You want to be busy,’’ he said in a telephone interview.
Richie said there’s no better word than “honored’’ to describe how he feels about being given a Kennedy Center Honor: “Lionel Richie just had to stop and go ‘oh my God,’’’ he said.
“You’re just going to catch a guy who’s going to just sit down and enjoy the show and from time to time kind of restrain myself from crying,’’ he said.
Norman Lear
At 95, Norman Lear ties the record for oldest honoree. Born in 1922 in New Haven, Connecticut, Lear served in World War II before beginning his career in television writing. In the 1970s and 1980s he produced “All in the Family,’’ “Good Times,’’ “One Day at a Time’’ and “The Jeffersons,’’ among other shows.
Ask him for television recommendations these days, though, and he’s at something of a loss.
“There’s too much of everything and I can’t keep up with it all,’’ he said in a telephone interview before mentioning “Orange is the New Black,’’ “Black-ish,’’ and the work of Jill Soloway, creator of “Transparent’’ and “Six Feet Under.’’
He said it was a “thrill of thrills’’ to be honored by the Kennedy Center but he was skeptical about meeting the president.
“I have absolutely no idea at this moment what I would say to the president, but whatever I feel passionate about at the moment I have no hesitation saying,’’ he said.
Lear’s work extends beyond television. In 1981, he joined with the late Texas congresswoman Barbara Jordan and others to found People for the American Way, a nonprofit founded to “to fight right-wing extremism and defend constitutional values under attack.’’
Lear, the winner of four Emmy awards, was honored with the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton in 1999 and a Peabody Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.
Playwright and director George Abbott, who was honored by the Kennedy Center in 1982, was also 95 when he was honored.
Carmen de Lavallade
Dancer, choreographer and actress Carmen de Lavallade has been going to the Kennedy Center for 30 years and performed a solo show on its stage in 2014. She was still “a little speechless’’ when told she’d be honored there, she said.
Now 86, the Los Angeles native made her dancing debut at 17. She has appeared on and off Broadway and in films, and was one of the first African-Americans dancers with the Metropolitan Opera.
Over her career she worked with a range of influential choreographers including Alvin Ailey, John Butler, Lester Horton and Glen Tetley. She also taught movement for actors at Yale. Most recently she has toured a work about her life called “As I Remember It.’’
De Lavallade met her late husband Geoffrey Holder in the cast of “House of Flowers,’’ her Broadway debut. Like his wife he was a multi-talented dancer, choreographer and actor. Their marriage was portrayed in the 2005 documentary “Carmen & Geoffrey.’’ He died in 2014.
De Lavallade says these days she’s doing a lot of mentoring of other performers. She said her advice is always: “Don’t compete. Be yourself.’’
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Researchers Explore Science of Gender Identity
While President Donald Trump has thrust transgender people back into the conflict between conservative and liberal values in the United States, geneticists are quietly working on a major research effort to unlock the secrets of gender identity.
A consortium of five research institutions in Europe and the United States, including Vanderbilt University Medical Center, George Washington University and Boston Children’s Hospital, is looking to the genome, a person’s complete set of DNA, for clues about whether transgender people are born that way.
Two decades of brain research have provided hints of a biological origin to being transgender, but no irrefutable conclusions.
Now scientists in the consortium have embarked on what they call the largest study of its kind, searching for a genetic component to explain why people assigned one gender at birth so persistently identify as the other, often from very early childhood.
Researchers have extracted DNA from the blood samples of 10,000 people, 3,000 of them transgender and the rest cisgender (people whose gender identity matches the sex that they were assigned at birth). The project is awaiting grant funding to begin the next phase: testing about 3 million markers, or variations, across the genome for all of the samples.
Knowing what variations transgender people have in common, and comparing those patterns to those of cisgender people in the study, may help investigators understand what role the genome plays in everyone’s gender identity.
“If the trait is strongly genetic, then people who identify as trans will share more of their genome, not because they are related in nuclear families but because they are more anciently related,” said Lea Davis, leader of the study and an assistant professor of medicine at the Vanderbilt Genetics Institute.
Political arena
The search for the biological underpinnings is taking on new relevance as the battle for transgender rights plays out in the U.S. political arena.
One of the Trump administration’s first acts was to revoke Obama-era guidelines directing public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms of their choice.
Last week, the president announced on Twitter he intends to ban transgender people from serving in the military.
Texas lawmakers are debating a bathroom bill that would require people to use the bathroom of the sex listed on their birth certificate. North Carolina in March repealed a similar law after a national boycott cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in lost business.
Currently, the only way to determine whether people are transgender is for them to self-identify as such. While civil rights activists contend that should be sufficient, scientists have taken their search to the lab.
That quest has made some transgender people nervous. If a “cause” is found, it could posit a “cure,” potentially opening the door to so-called reparative therapies similar to those that attempt to turn gay people straight, advocates say. Others raise concerns about the rights of those who may identify as trans but lack biological “proof.”
“It’s an idea that can be wielded against us, depending on the ideology of the user,” said Kale Edmiston, a transgender man and postdoctoral scholar at the University of Pittsburgh specializing in neuroimaging.
Dana Bevan, a transgender woman, psychologist and author of three books on transgender topics, acknowledged the potential manipulation of research was a concern but said, “I don’t believe that science can or should hold back from trying to understand what’s going on.”
No genetic test sought
Davis stressed that her study does not seek to produce a genetic test for being transgender, nor would it be able to.
Instead, she said, she hopes the data will lead to better care for transgender people, who experience wide health disparities compared with the general population.
One-third of transgender people reported a negative health care experience in the previous year, such as verbal harassment, refusal of treatment or the need to teach their doctors about transgender care, according to a landmark survey of nearly 28,000 people released last year by the National Center for Transgender Equality.
About 40 percent have attempted suicide, almost nine times the rate for the general population.
“We can use this information to help train doctors and nurses to provide better care to trans patients and to also develop amicus briefs to support equal rights legislation,” said Davis, who is also director of research for Vanderbilt’s gender health clinic.
The Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee has one of the world’s largest DNA data banks. It also has emerged as a leader in transgender health care with initiatives such as the Trans Buddy Program, which pairs every transgender patient with a volunteer to help guide the person through a health care visits.
The study has applied for a grant from the National Institutes of Health and is exploring other financial sources to provide the $1 million needed to complete the genotyping, expected to take a year to 18 months. Analysis of the data would take about another six months and require more funding, Davis said.
The other consortium members are Vrije University in Amsterdam and the FIMABIS institute in Malaga, Spain.
Probing the brain
Until now, the bulk of research into the origins of being transgender has looked at the brain.
Neurologists have spotted clues in the brain structure and activity of transgender people that distinguish them from cisgender subjects.
A seminal 1995 study was led by Dutch neurobiologist Dick Swaab, who was also among the first scientists to discover structural differences between male and female brains. Looking at postmortem brain tissue of transgender subjects, he found that male-to-female transsexuals had clusters of cells, or nuclei, that more closely resembled those of a typical female brain, and vice versa.
Swaab’s body of work on postmortem samples was based on just 12 transgender brains that he spent 25 years collecting. But it gave rise to a whole new field of inquiry that today is being explored with advanced brain scan technology on living transgender volunteers.
Among the leaders in brain scan research is Ivanka Savic, a professor of neurology with Sweden’s Karolinska Institute and visiting professor at the University of California-Los Angeles.
Her studies suggest that transgender men have a weakened connection between the two areas of the brain that process the perception of self and one’s own body. Savic said those connections seem to improve after the person receives cross-hormone treatment.
Her work has been published more than 100 times on various topics in peer-reviewed journals, but she still cannot conclude whether people are born transgender.
“I think that, but I have to prove that,” Savic said.
A number of other researchers, including both geneticists and neurologists, presume a biological component that is also influenced by upbringing.
But Paul McHugh, a professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, has emerged as the leading voice challenging the “born-this-way” hypothesis.
He encourages psychiatric therapy for transgender people, especially children, so that they accept the gender assigned to them at birth.
McHugh has gained a following among social conservatives, while incensing LGBT advocates with comments such as calling transgender people “counterfeit.”
Last year he co-authored a review of the scientific literature published in The New Atlantis journal, asserting there was scant evidence to suggest sexual orientation and gender identity were biologically determined.
The article drew a rebuke from nearly 600 academics and clinicians who called it misleading.
McHugh told Reuters he was “unmoved” by his critics and said he doubted additional research would reveal a biological cause.
“If it were obvious,” he said, “they would have found it long ago.”
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Meet Vogue’s Latest Model — London’s First Female Police Chief
Upmarket fashion magazine Vogue has featured an unexpected new model in its latest edition — London’s first female police chief.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has posed in her uniform for the glossy magazine as part of a feature that celebrates women at the top of their game.
Dick, 56, is the first female commissioner in the London police force’s 188-year history and began leading the organization of 43,000 officers and staff in April this year.
Dick, an experienced counterterrorism officer, had a turbulent start to her new role with London’s emergency services, having to cope with a devastating fire which engulfed the Grenfell tower block in central London, killing about 80 people.
“There is something about putting the uniform on. You’ve got a role to play, to be calm, to lead other people, to go forward when everyone else is running away. It gives you a sense of, not of courage but, ‘It’s my job,'” Dick told Vogue.
Dick joined the London force, known as Scotland Yard, in 1983 as a constable and made her way up the ranks to become Britain’s most senior counterterrorism officer and national director for security during the 2012 London Olympic Games.
In the Queen’s 2015 New Year Honour’s List, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
Dick said the Grenfell fire and recent fatal attacks in Westminster and by London Bridge had meant long working hours, but the police force’s morale has stayed high.
“It’s brought the public supporting the police, even more than before. You can’t walk down the road without people coming up to you and shaking your hand and saying thank you for what you’re doing. All the staff say the same,” she said.
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Google Street View Cars Map Methane Leaks
Finding underground gas leaks is now as easy as finding a McDonalds, thanks to a combination of Google Street View cars, mobile methane detectors, some major computing power and a lot of ingenuity.
When a city’s underground gas lines leak, they waste fuel and release invisible plumes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. To find and measure leaks, Colorado State University biologist Joe von Fischer decided to create “methane maps,” to make it easier for utilities to identify the biggest leaks, and repair them.
“That’s where you get the greatest bang for the buck,” he pointed out, “the greatest pollution reductions per repair.”
Knowing that Google Maps start with Google Street View cars recording everything they drive by, along with their GPS locations, von Fischer’s team thought they would just add methane detectors to a Street View car. It turned out, it was not that simple.
“Squirrelly objects”
The world’s best methane detectors are accurate in an area the size of a teacup, but methane leaks can be wider than a street. Also, no one had ever measured the size of a methane leak from a moving car.
“If you’ve ever seen a plume of smoke, it’s sort of a lumpy, irregular object,” von Fischer said. “Methane plumes as they come out of the ground are the same, they’re lumpy squirrelly objects.”
The team had to develop a way to capture data about those plumes, one that would be accurate in the real world. They set up a test site in an abandoned airfield near campus, and brought in what looked like a large scuba tank filled with methane and some air hoses. Then they released carefully measured methane through the hose as von Fischer drove a specially equipped SUV past it, again and again.
They compared readings from the methane detectors in the SUV to readings from the tank.
“We spend a lot of time driving through the plumes to sort of calibrate the way that those cars see methane plumes that form as methane’s being emitted from the ground,” von Fischer explained.
With that understanding, the methane detectors hit the road.
Turning data into maps
But the results created pages of data, “more than 30 million points,” said CSU computer scientist Johnson Kathkikiaran. He knew that all those data points alone would never help people find the biggest leaks on any map. So he and his advisor, Sanmi Peracara, turned the data into pictures using tools from Google.
Their visual summaries made it easy for utility experts to analyze the methane maps, but von Fischer wanted anyone to be able to identify the worst leaks. His teammates at the Environmental Defense Fund met that challenge by incorporating the data into their online maps. Yellow dots indicate a small methane leak. Orange is a medium-size one. Red means a big leak – as much pollution as one car driving 14,000 kilometers in a single day.
Von Fischer says that if a city focuses on these biggest leaks, repairing just 8 percent of them can reduce methane pollution by a third.
“That becomes a win-win type scenario,” he said, “because we’re not asking polluters to fix everything, but we’re looking for a reduction in overall emissions, and I think we can achieve that in a more cost effective way.”
After analyzing a methane map for the state of New Jersey, for example, the utility PSE&G has prioritized fixing its leakiest pipes there first, to speed the reduction of their overall pollution.
“To me that was a real victory, to be able to help the utility find which parts were leakiest, and to make a cost effective reduction in their overall emissions,” von Fishcher said.
Von Fischer envisions even more innovation ahead for mapping many kinds of pollution… to clean the air and save energy.
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WannaCry Hero Arrested in US After Hacking Conference
U.S. security agents have arrested the British hacker known for discovering a “kill switch” that nullified a widespread ransomware attack earlier this year.
Marcus Hutchins, a 23-year-old malware researcher who uses the name Malware Tech, was detained by the FBI on Wednesday at the Las Vegas airport, where he was preparing to return to Britain after attending two hacking conferences in the city.
Court documents unsealed on Thursday indicated Hutchins was arrested on hacking charges unrelated to the ransomware attack known as WannaCry.
Reuters news agency reports Hutchins is accused of advertising, distributing and profiting from malware code known as Kronos that stole online banking credentials and credit card data between July 2014 and July 2015.
Hutchins has not made a public statement, but his mother told London’s Telegraph newspaper that she expected to be “rather busy tonight,” trying to find out where her son is being held.
Hutchins became an overnight hero in May after disabling the WannaCry worm, which infiltrated software in hundreds of thousands of computers in hospitals, schools, factories and shops in more than 150 countries. Parts of Britain’s National Health Service were infected, as well as the FedEx delivery company, German rail Deutsche Bahn and Spain’s Telefonica.
The attack first became evident May 12, 2017, and continued over the weekend. By May 15, Hutchins had discovered a so-called “kill switch” that disabled the worm.
The malware operators demanded the owners of the computers pay a fee of $300 to $600 to regain control of their computers.
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Facebook to Step Up Fact-Checking in Fight Against Fake News
Facebook is to send more potential hoax articles to third-party fact checkers and show their findings below the original post, the world’s largest online social network said on Thursday as it tries to fight so-called fake news.
The company said in a statement on its website it will start using updated machine learning to detect possible hoaxes and send them to fact checkers, potentially showing fact-checking results under the original article.
Facebook has been criticized as being one of the main distribution points for so-called fake news, which many think influenced the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The issue has also become a big political topic in Europe, with French voters deluged with false stories ahead of the presidential election in May and Germany backing a plan to fine social media networks if they fail to remove hateful postings promptly, ahead of elections there in September.
On Thursday Facebook said in a separate statement in German that a test of the new fact-checking feature was being launched in the United States, France, the Netherlands and Germany.
“In addition to seeing which stories are disputed by third-party fact checkers, people want more context to make informed decisions about what they read and share,” said Sara Su, Facebook news feed product manager, in a blog.
She added that Facebook would keep testing its “related article” feature and work on other changes to its news feed to cut down on false news.
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Mexico Sees End 2018 as Best Case for Implementing New NAFTA
Under a best-case scenario, a newly negotiated North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would not be implemented before the end of next year or the start of 2019, Mexico’s economy minister said Thursday.
Among other issues, NAFTA talks would focus on how to provide more certainty in dispute resolutions, Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said in a radio interview.
“According to the possible calendars of approval, the best of the scenarios that we could have … would be the start of implementation almost at the end of 2018 or the start of 2019,” Guajardo said.
Mexico has set out the goals of prioritizing free access for goods and services, greater labor market integration and a strengthening of energy security.
Last week, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said during a visit to Mexico that he hoped farm business with Mexico would not suffer due to President Donald Trump’s drive to get a better deal for manufacturers.
Speaking in Japan on Thursday, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said the best way to calm Trump’s worries about commerce with Mexico were through more trade, not less.
Videgaray said negotiators would need to be careful not to tweak trade rules on sourcing components too much or they could risk driving up the costs of goods like electronics.
“The important thing that we are not going to do is hurt the region’s competitivity, and much less the region’s consumers,” Videgaray said, according to a transcript.
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Top 5 Songs for Week Ending Aug. 5
We’re in the mix with the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending August 5, 2017.
Lo and behold, we get a new song this week to supercharge our lineup. It happens in fifth place, where French Montana and Swae Lee jump four slots with “Unforgettable.”
Number 5: French Montana & Swae Lee “Unforgettable”
French Montana is Karim Karbouch – born in Morocco, he was 13 when his family immigrated to New York City. French made his first mix tape in 2007, and three weeks ago dropped his sophomore studio album “Jungle Rules.” This marks French Montana’s first appearance in the Top Five. Swae Lee is one-half of the rap duo Rae Sremmurd. You probably know them best from last year’s huge chart-topper “Black Beatles.”
Number 4: Dj Khaled Featuring Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance The Rapper & Lil Wayne “I’m The One”
Our next artist is a first-generation citizen of the United States. While DJ Khaled was born in New Orleans, his parents had immigrated from Palestine.
Khaled backtracks a slot to fourth place with his former champ “I’m The One” featuring Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance the Rapper, and Lil Wayne. On August 5, Chance will be in his hometown of Chicago for the annual Lollapalooza festival. In fact, all of the artists have concerts booked, except for Bieber.
Number 3: Bruno Mars “That’s What I Like”
Bruno Mars and DJ Khaled keep trading places in the Top Five, and this week, Bruno re-takes third place with “That’s What I Like.”
Bruno is currently on the North American leg of his world tour. In November, he and DNCE visit South America for six dates, and then next year it’s on to New Zealand and Australia. May 3, 2018, will also see Bruno perform at the Mall of Asia in the Philippines. It will be his third visit to his ancestral homeland.
Number 2: DJ Khaled Featuring Rihanna and Bryson Tiller “Wild Thoughts”
DJ Khaled remains in the runner-up slot with “Wild Thoughts” featuring Rihanna and Bryson Tiller. On July 26, Rihanna met with President Emmanuel Macron of France. They met in Paris to discuss educational initiatives. Rihanna is the global ambassador for the Global Partnership for Education.
Number 1: Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee Featuring Justin Bieber “Despacito”
Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber hold the Hot 100 title for an impressive 11th week with “Despacito.”
Justin recently canceled the remaining dates of his world tour and days later hit a photographer with his truck. The man wasn’t seriously injured. Justin’s biological father, Jeremy, flew from Toronto to Los Angeles to spend some quality time with his boy.
That’s it for now — we hope you’ll join us for next week’s lineup.
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HBO: Email System Likely Not Affected in Monday Hack Attack
In an email to HBO staff Wednesday, CEO Richard Plepler said the company’s email system likely was not affected in Monday’s hacking of the cable network.
“We do not believe that our email system as a whole has been compromised,” Plepler wrote, warning his staff to be wary of media speculation about the breach.
A script outline for the next episode of Game of Thrones, along with episodes of Ballers, Barry and Room 104, were published online Monday.
A company called IP Echelon reportedly submitted a request to Google on behalf of HBO to take down the leaked material.
HBO has not publicly commented on specifically what material has been hacked, but the request claimed that “thousands of Home Box Office [HBO] internal company documents” had been leaked in addition to the video content.
According to Variety, the initial leak was much larger than first reported, and personal information about one senior HBO executive, as well as access information to dozens of online accounts, have been published since Monday.
The hackers, who claimed to have accessed 1.5 terabytes of information,
said more is coming.
If the claim is true, it would make this hack even larger than the crippling cyberattack on Sony in 2014, which the FBI has blamed on the North Korean government. North Korea denied the allegation.
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More Women Starting Businesses in US
Women in the United States are starting bushiness at one and a half times the rate of their male peers. Effective entrepreneurship could help cut the economic gap between women and men, which the World Economic Forum says could otherwise take decades to close around the globe. As VOA’s Jim Randle reports, experts say more than one-third of U.S. businesses are headed by women and they expect that percentage to grow.
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Trump May Boost Pressure on China Over Trade, North Korea
U.S. President Donald Trump may soon attempt to increase pressure on China to change its trade practices and do more to stop North Korea’s weapons programs.
Reports in the financial press say President Trump may sign an order as soon as Friday to start an investigation of Chinese demands that foreign companies share technology secrets in exchange for access to the massive Chinese market. That investigation could, eventually, lead to higher tariffs on Chinese-made products headed for the U.S. market, which is the world’s largest. Trade experts warn the action might violate U.S. commitments under the World Trade Organization.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross recently wrote that China’s trade practices, including forced technology transfer, are unfair, hurt U.S. exports, and contribute to a $347 billion deficit in the trade in goods between the United States and China.
As a presidential candidate, Trump harshly criticized China approach to commerce. He has also said has said China, which is North Korea’s neighbor and major trading partner, could do far more to stop Pyongyang’s efforts to improve nuclear weapons and missiles. U.S. experts warn that North Korean missile and bomb tests show that nation is a growing threat to the United States.
Trump’s tough stance on trade issues helped him win votes from working class voters who believe they have lost jobs due to unfair foreign competition. His approach was a break with the traditional Republican pro-trade and pro-business stance. Earlier this week, Trump’s Democratic party opponents accused Trump of talking tough about trade issues but failing to take effective action.
your ads here!Scientists: Deadly Heat Could Become New Normal
New climate models show that parts of South Asia will become uninhabitable by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are not dramatically reduced.
Under a high emissions scenario, where little action is taken to stop climate change, “the heat wave intensity will reach magnitudes that have not been observed before,” Elfatih Eltahir told VOA. Eltahir is a hydro-climatologist at MIT who co-wrote the report published Wednesday in the open-access journal Science Advances.
Ironically, the water that attracted humans to these regions will be what makes the environment intolerable. These won’t be the hottest places in the world, but the heat, humidity, high population density and poverty combined will make them some of the places with the highest risk for deadly heatwaves.
The researchers wanted their analysis to take both heat and humidity into consideration, so that it would be more relevant to human health. They modeled the so-called “wet bulb temperature,” which takes the actual temperature and subtracts the cooling one could hope to achieve though evaporation.
If the wet bulb temperature rises about 35°C (95°F), just below normal human body temperature, a person has no hope of dissipating heat. Under these conditions, even the healthiest individual in the shade, with water, will die after a few hours.
According to the heat index, a heat-humidity metric often used in weather reports, which adds humidity on top of temperature, a wet bulb temperature of 35°C would “feel like” 72°C (161°F).
The models showed that under the high emissions scenario, these temperatures would likely be met sometime during the last three decades of the century in the Ganges River valley, northeastern India, Bangladesh, the eastern coast of India, the Chota Nagpur Plateau, northern Sri Lanka, and the Indus valley of Pakistan.
That doesn’t mean the heat would regularly surpass these temperatures. “If the wet bulb temperature goes above 35 (Celsius), then everybody that’s outside basically dies so it’s a one-off sort of event that’s pretty terrible,” Alexis Berg, a hydro-climatologist at Princeton University, who was not associated with the study, told VOA.
The report did say that under the high emissions scenario, called RCP 8.5, approximately 30 percent of the world’s population would be regularly exposed to extremely dangerous wet bulb temperatures of 31°C (88°F). Under a lower emissions scenario, only 2 percent of the globe would be regularly exposed to those highs.
“RCP 8.5 is a death sentence for a large fraction of the world. It should be avoided at all costs,” said Matthew Huber, a climate scientist at Purdue University. “It does not require impossible effort to avoid RCP 8.5. The choice is very much ours to make.”
He noted that the study, which he was not associated with, is a much more thorough analysis than previous work. He told VOA via email, “This study explores multiple global climate models, multiple climate change trajectories, and also contains a much finer resolved depiction of the underlying physics.”
Everyone with whom VOA spoke emphasized that this future is very avoidable, but Berg also cautions, it could get worse. “Things don’t stop magically in 2100,” he said. “The world keeps warming.”
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Avon CEO McCoy to Leave Company
Avon’s CEO will leave the company in March as the struggling beauty products maker continues a turnaround campaign.
Sheri McCoy has led the company for five years and sits on the board, but there has been some external pressure from activist investors for a change in leadership.
Avon said Thursday that it has hired an executive search firm to help find McCoy’s successor.
“The platform is in place for a new CEO to continue accelerating the pace of change and take Avon to sustainable profitable growth,” McCoy said in a company release.
Barrington Capital Group had been pushing for significant action at Avon since 2015, when it sent a letter saying that, “significant, immediate changes in leadership and strategic direction are needed.”
In March 2016 Avon announced that it was cutting 2,500 jobs and moving its headquarters from New York to the U.K.
Avon Products Inc. launched a three-year transformation plan last year and so far it has sold its North American business to private investment firm Cerberus Capital Management and realized $180 million in cost savings. But those efforts have been arduous.
The company on Thursday said it had swung to a loss of $45.5 million in the second quarter. It had an adjusted loss of 3 cents per share on revenue of $1.4 billion. Analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research predicted earnings of 6 cents per share on revenue of $1.44 billion.
Shares fell slightly in premarket trading.
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Technology Sniffs Out Underground Gas Leaks
Natural gas is a clean-burning fuel that reaches homes through underground pipes. Unfortunately, older pipes often leak, wasting fuel and releasing unburned methane, a potent greenhouse gas. To find and measure leaks, Colorado scientists teamed up with the Environmental Defense Fund and Google Street View Cars to make “methane maps.” From Fort Collins, Colorado, Shelley Schlender reports.
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Miners Union, Federal Officers at Odds Over Increase in US Coal Deaths
Deaths in U.S. coal mines this year have surged ahead of last year’s, and federal safety officials say workers who are new to a mine have been especially vulnerable to fatal accidents.
But the nation’s coal miner’s union says the mine safety agency isn’t taking the right approach to fixing the problem.
Ten coal miners have died on the job so far this year, compared to a record low of eight deaths last year.
The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration is responding to the uptick in deaths with a summer initiative, sending officials to observe and train miners new to a particular mine on safer working habits. The push comes during a transition for the agency, amid signals from President Donald Trump that he intends to ease the industry’s regulatory burden.
Federal inspectors powerless
The miner’s union, the United Mine Workers of America, says the agency initiative falls short. It notes federal inspectors who conduct such training visits are barred from punishing the mine if they spot any safety violations.
“To take away the inspector’s right to issue a violation takes away the one and only enforcement power the inspector and the agency has,” UAW president Cecil Roberts wrote in a recent letter to the federal agency.
Patricia Silvey, a deputy assistant secretary at the Mine Safety and Health Administration, or MSHA, said eight of the coal miners who died this year had less than a year’s experience at the mine where they worked.
“We found from the stats that category of miners were more prone to have an accident,” Silvey said in an interview with The Associated Press before the 10th death occurred at mine in Pennsylvania on July 25.
New miners die in accidents
Silvey pointed to a death last May at West Virginia’s Pinnacle Mine where a miner riding a trolley rose up and struck his head on the mine roof. She said the fatality could have been due to the miner’s unfamiliarity with the mine. The miner had worked there nine weeks, according to an accident report. And in the most recent death, a miner less than two weeks into the job at a mine in eastern Pennsylvania was run over by a bulldozer July 25.
Five of the 10 coal mining deaths this year have occurred in West Virginia, and two more in Kentucky. Alabama, Montana and Pennsylvania each had one coal mining death. Nine of the miners killed this year had several years’ experience working at other mines.
The mine safety agency’s injury numbers show that workers who were new to a mine had more than double the injuries. Going back to October 2015, miners who worked at a specific mine less than a year suffered 903 injuries, compared to 418 for miners working at a mine one to two years.
Training for miners
The mine safety agency says it will visit mines and “offer suggestions” on training miners who have been at a mine less than a year. Silvey said the union is correct that inspectors won’t be writing safety violations, but that the initiative “has in no way undermined our regular inspection program.”
The miner’s union said the federal agency should not expect safety suggestions to carry the same weight as citations and fines.
“To believe that an operator will comply with the law on their own free will is contrary to historical experience and naive on MSHA’s part,” the letter said.
Strong enforcement
A former MSHA official said the agency would be “tying the hands” of inspectors if they don’t allow them to write citations on the training visits.
“The record low fatal injury rate among coal miners in recent years is because of strong enforcement of the law,” said Celeste Monforton, who served on a governor-appointed panel that investigated West Virginia’s 2010 Upper Big Branch mine disaster that killed 29 miners. There were 12 coal mining deaths in 2015 and 16 in 2014.
“It would be a disgrace to see that trend reversed,” she said.
Phil Smith, a spokesman for the miner’s union, said the union’s safety department met recently with MSHA on the dispute, but MSHA maintained it has the authority to conduct observation visits without enforcement.
Safety boss’ position vacant
The mine safety agency’s top position has been vacant since former Assistant Secretary of Labor Joe Main left in January. Main, a former miner’s union official, focused on eliminating hazards at troubled mines by increasing aggressive inspections after West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch explosion. Main declined to comment.
Silvey said a vacancy at the mine safety agency’s top position hasn’t hindered their efforts. She said she knew of no timetable for hiring a new assistant secretary of Labor to oversee the mine safety agency.
“I know one thing, it’s a presidential appointment,” she said.
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3-D View of Cells Could Mean New Ways to Fight Disease
What turns a cell into a brain cell, or a muscle cell, or a cancer cell for that matter? It is all about the DNA, and what genetic markers get turned on and off. Scientists at the Salk Institute have created a 3-D map of a cell that is giving them a unique view of how DNA works inside individual cells. Kevin Enochs reports.
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In Hotels, China Filling Gaps in ‘Great Firewall’
In China, the plush international hotel lobby has been one of the few places to find gaps in the “Great Firewall,” a sophisticated system that denies online users access to blocked content such as foreign news portals and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
Now that small crack in the system may be closing, too, as Beijing tightens control over what it sees as its domestic cyberspace, mimicking real-world border controls and subject to the same laws as sovereign states.
Regulators have warned firms providing internet networks for hotels to stop offering, or helping to install, virtual private networks (VPNs) into hotel systems, tools that allow users to evade, at least partially, China’s internet censors.
“We received notices recently from relevant (government) departments, so we don’t make recommendations anymore,” said a marketing manager at Chinese hotel network provider AMTT Digital, who is not named because he is not authorized to talk to the media. He added this was linked to increased government scrutiny over the use of unauthorized VPNs.
Tunnel closing for some
VPNs create a tunnel through the Great Firewall allowing users to access blocked content outside China’s borders.
Companies in China routinely use VPNs for their businesses, which Beijing has said are not currently under threat.
A notice from the Waldorf Astoria in Beijing, circulated online, said the hotel had stopped offering VPN services.
A Waldorf official declined to comment, but several staff said the hotel no longer offered VPN services. “(VPNs) don’t accord with Chinese law,” one staffer told Reuters. “So we don’t have this anymore.”
Network provider: hotels decide
A leading internet network provider to hotels in China, AMTT Digital says it works with more than 30 global hotel chains including Marriott, InterContinental, Shangri-La , Wyndham, Starwood and Hilton.
Previously, the firm, which is backed by several funds including ones with government ties, would recommend “certified,” or government approved, VPNs, the manager said, which would then be incorporated into hotels’ internal networks.
“We would make recommendations of certified VPN providers and then incorporate them into the gateway so it runs smoothly,” he said. “But it is up to the hotel to decide if they want it.”
Dozens of VPNs closed
China’s Ministry of Information Industry and Technology (MIIT), which oversees regulation of VPNs, did not respond to requests for comment.
As it clamps down further on access to outlawed online content, Beijing has recently closed dozens of China-based VPNs, overseas providers have seen rolling attacks on their services, the WhatsApp encrypted messaging app was disrupted, and telecoms firms have been enlisted to extend China’s domestic internet control.
U.S. tech giant Apple Inc pulled dozens of VPN apps from its App Store in China at the weekend, drawing criticism from app providers who said it was bowing to pressure from Beijing’s cyber regulators.
“We’re in the middle of the storm right now with the government fiercely cracking down on VPNs,” said Lin Wei, a Beijing-based network security expert at Qihoo 360 Technology Co. “It’s really hard for ordinary people to find anywhere they can get on sites like Google.”
No Twitter, Facebook, YouTube
The “neutered” hotel VPNs, which staff and analysts said were often installed with tacit approval from authorities, already underline sensitivities of even ceding small amounts of control.
President Xi Jinping has overseen a marked sharpening of China’s cyberspace controls, including tough new data surveillance and censorship rules. This push is now ramping up ahead of an expected consolidation of power at the Communist Party Congress this autumn.
Guests at the InterContinental hotel on the east side of Beijing can search on Alphabet Inc’s Google search engine or check their email on Gmail, a business need for many travelers, but both otherwise widely blocked in China.
But they can’t access Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, which are banned by the government.
China also routinely blocks sensitive content online such as searches for the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests or, more recently, coverage of imprisoned Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died of cancer last month. These topics are searchable, though, in China using a VPN connection.
Some hotels haven’t blocked sites
Technical staff at five other hotels in Beijing, including Crowne Plaza, Hilton and Shangri-La, said guests could still access some blocked websites, though others were often still off-limits. Officials at the hotels declined to comment.
Other hotels Reuters spoke to said they did not offer VPN services because it did not accord with government rules.
“It’s a compromise the hotels are making,” said Lin, the network security expert. VPNs were not technically illegal, but were in a “grey area” and “for well-known reasons” authorities were cracking down on them.
Staff and guests at a number of hotels said some kind of VPN service was still on offer, either built into the hotel’s Wi-Fi network or on demand to guests who needed access.
Reuters visited the InterContinental and Crowne Plaza in Beijing, both owned by InterContinental Hotels Group, where Google and Gmail were unblocked. A worker at the Hilton Beijing hotel said the same sites should be accessible.
Officials at IHG and Hilton did not respond to requests for comment.
Some hotels went further.
A technician at the Pangu 7 Star Hotel in Beijing, owned by exiled tycoon Guo Wengui, said resident guests could get full internet access, including sites like Facebook and Twitter, through its VPN-enabled “Pangu global” Wi-Fi network.
“We have a special VPN to cross the Great Firewall,” the worker told Reuters. “But it’s a little bit slow.”
Reuters couldn’t reach Pangu officials for comment.
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