Scientists in Israel have revealed what they say is the world’s first 3D-printed heart, using human tissue. It’s hoped the small heart will pave the way for transplants without donors, when every hospital might have access to 3D organ printers. Faith Lapidus reports.
…

your ads here!

Scientists in Israel have revealed what they say is the world’s first 3D-printed heart using human tissue. It’s hoped the small heart will pave the way for transplants without donors, when every hospital might have access to 3D organ printers. Faith Lapidus reports.
…

your ads here!

Scientists in Israel have revealed what they say is the world’s first 3D-printed heart using human tissue. It’s hoped the small heart will pave the way for transplants without donors, when every hospital might have access to 3D organ printers. Faith Lapidus reports.
…

your ads here!

The Kenyan capital has experienced a jump in cholera cases, one of the city’s top hospitals said on Tuesday, adding that eight of its own staff had been infected with the disease.

Cholera, which is spread by ingesting fecal matter, causes acute watery diarrhea and can kill within hours if not treated.

“There is an upsurge of cholera cases in the county of Nairobi. We have had several cases admitted in our hospital.

Unfortunately we had eight staff affected,” The Nairobi Hospital, which is private, said in a statement.

There were 23 cases of cholera admitted at the hospital, said Mohamed Dagane, the executive in charge of health services in the Nairobi county government.

“There is no confirmed cholera fatality at the hospital,” he said in a statement, adding they were tracing all those who had come into contact with the patients to give them prevention treatment.

“We have sufficient stock of medicine and rehydration fluid to cater for any patient.”

The hospital, which has some of the most advanced facilities in the city, said it had put in “all precautionary measures.”

There was no immediate comment from health ministry and local government officials.

At least four people were killed and dozens more treated when another outbreak of the disease hit the city in 2017, causing authorities to shut down some restaurants.
…

your ads here!

The Kenyan capital has experienced a jump in cholera cases, one of the city’s top hospitals said on Tuesday, adding that eight of its own staff had been infected with the disease.

Cholera, which is spread by ingesting fecal matter, causes acute watery diarrhea and can kill within hours if not treated.

“There is an upsurge of cholera cases in the county of Nairobi. We have had several cases admitted in our hospital.

Unfortunately we had eight staff affected,” The Nairobi Hospital, which is private, said in a statement.

There were 23 cases of cholera admitted at the hospital, said Mohamed Dagane, the executive in charge of health services in the Nairobi county government.

“There is no confirmed cholera fatality at the hospital,” he said in a statement, adding they were tracing all those who had come into contact with the patients to give them prevention treatment.

“We have sufficient stock of medicine and rehydration fluid to cater for any patient.”

The hospital, which has some of the most advanced facilities in the city, said it had put in “all precautionary measures.”

There was no immediate comment from health ministry and local government officials.

At least four people were killed and dozens more treated when another outbreak of the disease hit the city in 2017, causing authorities to shut down some restaurants.
…

your ads here!

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi on Tuesday implored people in areas hit by the nation’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak to accept the disease is real and trust health workers.

Mistrust of first responders and widespread misinformation propagated by some community leaders has led many in affected areas of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to refuse vaccinations. Instead, they turn to traditional healers, whose clinics have contributed to the hemorrhagic fever’s spread.

“It is not an imaginary disease,” Tshisekedi said after arriving in the city of Beni on his first tour of eastern Congo since being inaugurated in January.

“If we follow the instructions, in two or three months Ebola will be finished,” he optimistically told a crowd after having his temperature taken and washing his hands, as required of all incoming passengers to Beni airport.

Congo has suffered 10 outbreaks of Ebola, which causes severe vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding, since the virus was discovered there in 1976. The current one has seen 1,264 confirmed and probable cases and 814 deaths since it was declared last August.

It is surpassed only by the 2013-2016 outbreak in West Africa, in which more than 28,000 cases were reported and more than 11,000 people died.

Following a series of attacks on treatment centers by unidentified assailants in February and March, the current outbreak is now spreading at its fastest rate yet.

More than 100 cases were confirmed last week.

Tshisekedi, who won a disputed election last December to succeed Joseph Kabila, also called on Tuesday for the disarmament of dozens of militia that operate in the east and whose presence has complicated the Ebola response.

“The time of armed groups is over,” he said. “The new government is reaching out to these children of the country to surrender arms through disarmament programs.”
…

your ads here!

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi on Tuesday implored people in areas hit by the nation’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak to accept the disease is real and trust health workers.

Mistrust of first responders and widespread misinformation propagated by some community leaders has led many in affected areas of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to refuse vaccinations. Instead, they turn to traditional healers, whose clinics have contributed to the hemorrhagic fever’s spread.

“It is not an imaginary disease,” Tshisekedi said after arriving in the city of Beni on his first tour of eastern Congo since being inaugurated in January.

“If we follow the instructions, in two or three months Ebola will be finished,” he optimistically told a crowd after having his temperature taken and washing his hands, as required of all incoming passengers to Beni airport.

Congo has suffered 10 outbreaks of Ebola, which causes severe vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding, since the virus was discovered there in 1976. The current one has seen 1,264 confirmed and probable cases and 814 deaths since it was declared last August.

It is surpassed only by the 2013-2016 outbreak in West Africa, in which more than 28,000 cases were reported and more than 11,000 people died.

Following a series of attacks on treatment centers by unidentified assailants in February and March, the current outbreak is now spreading at its fastest rate yet.

More than 100 cases were confirmed last week.

Tshisekedi, who won a disputed election last December to succeed Joseph Kabila, also called on Tuesday for the disarmament of dozens of militia that operate in the east and whose presence has complicated the Ebola response.

“The time of armed groups is over,” he said. “The new government is reaching out to these children of the country to surrender arms through disarmament programs.”
…

your ads here!

Sweden’s teenage activist Greta Thunberg choked backed tears on Tuesday as she warned of climate disaster and urged Europeans to vote in next month’s elections to press for decisive action on cutting greenhouse gases.

In a speech to a packed committee of the European Parliament, Thunberg, 16, warned time is running out to stop the ravages of global warming.

“I want you to panic, I want you to act as if the house was on fire,” Thunberg told the environment committee of the assembly in the French city of Strasbourg.

Citing scientific reports endorsed by the United Nations and holding back her tears, she warned of accelerating disasters like mass species extinction, erosion of top soil, deforestation, air pollution, loss of insects and the acidification of oceans.

She received a warm round of applause before composing herself and continuing her speech.

“You need to listen to us, we who cannot vote,” Thunberg said, referring to the tens of thousands of students taking to the streets worldwide to fight climate change.

“You need to vote for us, for your children and grandchildren,” she said. “In this election, you vote for the future living conditions for human kind.”

Voters in EU countries will elect on May 23-26 a new European Parliament, which will also play a role in chosing the head of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm.

Hijacked for political ends

During a visit to Brussels in February, Thunberg urged the European Union to double its ambition for greenhouse gas cuts, upping its target from 40 percent to 80 percent by 2030.

Under the 2015 Paris climate deal to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, the 28-nation EU has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030, compared to 1990.

EU officials are now talking of increasing the figure to 45 percent.

The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) has said warming is on track toward an unliveable 3C or 4C rise, and avoiding global chaos will require a major transformation.

Thunberg has inspired tens of thousands of children worldwide to boycott classes to draw attention to climate change.

Around 100 young people marched Tuesday through the streets of Strasbourg to the parliament building to press for urgent action against climate change.

Francoise Grossetete, a French member of the European Parliament, said she would skip the committee hearing because she strongly objected to Thunberg’s alarmist stand that in her view is anti-economic growth.

Thunberg has become “the symbol of this just environmental cause that is hijacked for political ends” by environmental lobbies, said Grosssete, a member of the center-right European People’s Party.

The Swede hit global headlines with her speech in December at a UN climate meeting in Poland and has received support from climate activists.

 

 

 
…

your ads here!

Sweden’s teenage activist Greta Thunberg choked backed tears on Tuesday as she warned of climate disaster and urged Europeans to vote in next month’s elections to press for decisive action on cutting greenhouse gases.

In a speech to a packed committee of the European Parliament, Thunberg, 16, warned time is running out to stop the ravages of global warming.

“I want you to panic, I want you to act as if the house was on fire,” Thunberg told the environment committee of the assembly in the French city of Strasbourg.

Citing scientific reports endorsed by the United Nations and holding back her tears, she warned of accelerating disasters like mass species extinction, erosion of top soil, deforestation, air pollution, loss of insects and the acidification of oceans.

She received a warm round of applause before composing herself and continuing her speech.

“You need to listen to us, we who cannot vote,” Thunberg said, referring to the tens of thousands of students taking to the streets worldwide to fight climate change.

“You need to vote for us, for your children and grandchildren,” she said. “In this election, you vote for the future living conditions for human kind.”

Voters in EU countries will elect on May 23-26 a new European Parliament, which will also play a role in chosing the head of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm.

Hijacked for political ends

During a visit to Brussels in February, Thunberg urged the European Union to double its ambition for greenhouse gas cuts, upping its target from 40 percent to 80 percent by 2030.

Under the 2015 Paris climate deal to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, the 28-nation EU has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030, compared to 1990.

EU officials are now talking of increasing the figure to 45 percent.

The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) has said warming is on track toward an unliveable 3C or 4C rise, and avoiding global chaos will require a major transformation.

Thunberg has inspired tens of thousands of children worldwide to boycott classes to draw attention to climate change.

Around 100 young people marched Tuesday through the streets of Strasbourg to the parliament building to press for urgent action against climate change.

Francoise Grossetete, a French member of the European Parliament, said she would skip the committee hearing because she strongly objected to Thunberg’s alarmist stand that in her view is anti-economic growth.

Thunberg has become “the symbol of this just environmental cause that is hijacked for political ends” by environmental lobbies, said Grosssete, a member of the center-right European People’s Party.

The Swede hit global headlines with her speech in December at a UN climate meeting in Poland and has received support from climate activists.

 

 

 
…

your ads here!

Brandenburg has become the first state in Germany to require all children attending kindergarten to be vaccinated for measles and other infectious diseases as fears spread across Europe about the influence of the anti-vaccination movement and lower immunization rates.

A decrease in immunization has led to an increase in measles in Germany, France, Italy and elsewhere.  

The German government is considering whether to mandate vaccinations across the country.  Authorities there say 2019 is likely to be a record year for measles with cases tripling in three states.  Other European countries have already introduced laws making vaccinations compulsory, including Italy which two years ago passed a law making 10 vaccines obligatory for children who enrolled in Italian schools, including chickenpox and measles.

Last week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency with 285 cases of measles confirmed since October.  City health officials have ordered mandatory vaccinations for anybody who’s been in contact with infected people and violators can face fines of up to $1,000.

Health officials say a booklet produced by an anti-vaccine group has been widely disseminated through Orthodox Jewish communities, not the first time in the United States an insular community has seen a jump in infection rates as a result of a fall in immunization rates prompted by anti-vaccine campaigners.

Under the Brandenburg law children who have not been vaccinated against measles will be excluded from attending kindergartens.  Brandenburg lawmakers say they will examine whether to add other vaccinations. “In the public interest, individual concerns towards vaccination, which cannot be proven scientifically, must take second place,” said Sylvia Lehmann of the Social Democratic Party.

State lawmakers from Germany’s right-wing populist Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD) voted against the legislation, noting a vaccine obligation last existed in east Germany when the communists were in power.  The Green Party abstained from the vaccine vote.

Brandenburg’s health minister Andreas Buttner says “the protection of babies and pregnant women” should take “precedence over the rights of those who refuse to have their children vaccinated.”  In Brandenburg 73.5% of young children are being vaccinated within the recommended time frame of 23 months.

In some Germany’s other states, including Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, school principals have been taking action by ordering children who have not been vaccinated to go home.

The World Health Organization said more Europeans contracted measles last year – 82,600 – than at any time in the past decade.

German Health Minister Hermann Groehe is proposing a federal law obligating nursery schools in all of the country’s 16 states to report parents to health officials if they cannot prove that they sought vaccination advice for their children.  If the law is passed, parents who do not show proof of such medical consultation could be fined up to $2,800.

“No one can be blasé about the fact that people are still dying of measles,” Groehe told Germany’s Bild newspaper.  “Therefore we are now toughening the regulations for vaccination protection.”

But Groehe has so far ruled out making vaccinations compulsory for school children, as Italy recently did.

Italy’s approach has been characterized by U-turns, thanks to the vaccine-sceptic anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), which is in a coalition government with the populist Lega party.

M5S had helped to fuel the anti-vaccination campaign and poured scorn on expert opinion that insists vaccines are safe and the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine isn’t linked to autism.  The party argued requiring schoolchildren to be vaccinated was “coercive.”  

Last year, the health minister, a member of the Five Star Movement, introduced a temporary measure to allow children to stay in school as long as their parents declared they had been vaccinated without having to provide any documentation.  Italian measles rates then skyrocketed and last year the country accounted for nearly a quarter of all new cases in Europe, according to WHO.  

The organization says 95% of a population needs to be inoculated for the spread of the disease to become unlikely, protecting those who cannot be vaccinated for serious health reasons, including lowered immunity.

In March, the Italian government allowed the M5S’s temporary measure relaxing vaccination rules to expire, bringing back into play a two-year-old law requiring children to receive mandatory immunizations before attending school.  

Analysts say there has been a noticeable shift in public opinion favoring vaccinations since an Italian populist politician who has campaigned against compulsory vaccinations was hospitalized last month after contracting chickenpox and was widely mocked on social media.

 
…

your ads here!

Brandenburg has become the first state in Germany to require all children attending kindergarten to be vaccinated for measles and other infectious diseases as fears spread across Europe about the influence of the anti-vaccination movement and lower immunization rates.

A decrease in immunization has led to an increase in measles in Germany, France, Italy and elsewhere.  

The German government is considering whether to mandate vaccinations across the country.  Authorities there say 2019 is likely to be a record year for measles with cases tripling in three states.  Other European countries have already introduced laws making vaccinations compulsory, including Italy which two years ago passed a law making 10 vaccines obligatory for children who enrolled in Italian schools, including chickenpox and measles.

Last week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency with 285 cases of measles confirmed since October.  City health officials have ordered mandatory vaccinations for anybody who’s been in contact with infected people and violators can face fines of up to $1,000.

Health officials say a booklet produced by an anti-vaccine group has been widely disseminated through Orthodox Jewish communities, not the first time in the United States an insular community has seen a jump in infection rates as a result of a fall in immunization rates prompted by anti-vaccine campaigners.

Under the Brandenburg law children who have not been vaccinated against measles will be excluded from attending kindergartens.  Brandenburg lawmakers say they will examine whether to add other vaccinations. “In the public interest, individual concerns towards vaccination, which cannot be proven scientifically, must take second place,” said Sylvia Lehmann of the Social Democratic Party.

State lawmakers from Germany’s right-wing populist Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD) voted against the legislation, noting a vaccine obligation last existed in east Germany when the communists were in power.  The Green Party abstained from the vaccine vote.

Brandenburg’s health minister Andreas Buttner says “the protection of babies and pregnant women” should take “precedence over the rights of those who refuse to have their children vaccinated.”  In Brandenburg 73.5% of young children are being vaccinated within the recommended time frame of 23 months.

In some Germany’s other states, including Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, school principals have been taking action by ordering children who have not been vaccinated to go home.

The World Health Organization said more Europeans contracted measles last year – 82,600 – than at any time in the past decade.

German Health Minister Hermann Groehe is proposing a federal law obligating nursery schools in all of the country’s 16 states to report parents to health officials if they cannot prove that they sought vaccination advice for their children.  If the law is passed, parents who do not show proof of such medical consultation could be fined up to $2,800.

“No one can be blasé about the fact that people are still dying of measles,” Groehe told Germany’s Bild newspaper.  “Therefore we are now toughening the regulations for vaccination protection.”

But Groehe has so far ruled out making vaccinations compulsory for school children, as Italy recently did.

Italy’s approach has been characterized by U-turns, thanks to the vaccine-sceptic anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), which is in a coalition government with the populist Lega party.

M5S had helped to fuel the anti-vaccination campaign and poured scorn on expert opinion that insists vaccines are safe and the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine isn’t linked to autism.  The party argued requiring schoolchildren to be vaccinated was “coercive.”  

Last year, the health minister, a member of the Five Star Movement, introduced a temporary measure to allow children to stay in school as long as their parents declared they had been vaccinated without having to provide any documentation.  Italian measles rates then skyrocketed and last year the country accounted for nearly a quarter of all new cases in Europe, according to WHO.  

The organization says 95% of a population needs to be inoculated for the spread of the disease to become unlikely, protecting those who cannot be vaccinated for serious health reasons, including lowered immunity.

In March, the Italian government allowed the M5S’s temporary measure relaxing vaccination rules to expire, bringing back into play a two-year-old law requiring children to receive mandatory immunizations before attending school.  

Analysts say there has been a noticeable shift in public opinion favoring vaccinations since an Italian populist politician who has campaigned against compulsory vaccinations was hospitalized last month after contracting chickenpox and was widely mocked on social media.

 
…

your ads here!

The number of measles cases in the United States has soared to more than 460, the highest number since 1991. More than half of the cases are in New York, where 21 people had to be hospitalized, five of them in intensive care. Last week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared measles a public health emergency, and has ordered mandatory vaccination in parts of the city. VOA Zlatica Hoke reports measles cases are up 300 percent worldwide this year, according to the World Health Organization.
…

your ads here!

The number of measles cases in the United States has soared to more than 460, the highest number since 1991. More than half of the cases are in New York, where 21 people had to be hospitalized, five of them in intensive care. Last week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared measles a public health emergency, and has ordered mandatory vaccination in parts of the city. VOA Zlatica Hoke reports measles cases are up 300 percent worldwide this year, according to the World Health Organization.
…

your ads here!

Scientists on Monday provided the most comprehensive look to date at one of the solar system’s most exotic features: prime lakeside property in the northern polar region of Saturn’s moon Titan — if you like lakes made of stuff like liquid methane.

Using data obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft before that mission ended in 2017 with a deliberate plunge into Saturn, the scientists found that some of frigid Titan’s lakes of liquid hydrocarbons in this region are surprisingly deep while others may be shallow and seasonal.

Titan and Earth are the solar system’s two places with standing bodies of liquid on the surface. Titan boasts lakes, rivers and seas of hydrocarbons: compounds of hydrogen and carbon like those that are the main components of petroleum and natural gas.

The researchers described land forms akin to mesas towering above the nearby landscape, topped with liquid lakes more than 300 feet (100 meters) deep comprised mainly of methane. The scientists suspect the lakes formed when surrounding bedrock chemically dissolved and collapsed, a process that occurs with a certain type of lake on Earth.

The scientists also described “phantom lakes” that during wintertime appeared to be wide but shallow ponds — perhaps only a few inches (cm) deep — but evaporated or drained into the surface by springtime, a process taking seven years on Titan.

The findings represented further evidence about Titan’s hydrological cycle, with liquid hydrocarbons raining down from clouds, flowing across its surface and evaporating back into the sky. This is comparable to Earth’s water cycle.

Because of Titan’s complex chemistry and distinctive environments, scientists suspect it potentially could harbor life, in particular in its subsurface ocean of water, but possibly in the surface bodies of liquid hydrocarbons.

“Titan is a very fascinating object in the solar system, and every time we look carefully at the data we find out something new,” California Institute of Technology planetary scientist Marco Mastrogiuseppe said.

Titan, with a diameter of 3,200 miles (5,150 km), is the solar system’s second largest moon, behind only Jupiter’s Ganymede. It is bigger than the planet Mercury.

“Titan is the most Earth-like body in the solar system. It has lakes, canyons, rivers, dune fields of organic sand particles about the same size as silica sand grains on Earth,” Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory planetary scientist Shannon MacKenzie said.

The research was published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
…

your ads here!

Scientists on Monday provided the most comprehensive look to date at one of the solar system’s most exotic features: prime lakeside property in the northern polar region of Saturn’s moon Titan — if you like lakes made of stuff like liquid methane.

Using data obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft before that mission ended in 2017 with a deliberate plunge into Saturn, the scientists found that some of frigid Titan’s lakes of liquid hydrocarbons in this region are surprisingly deep while others may be shallow and seasonal.

Titan and Earth are the solar system’s two places with standing bodies of liquid on the surface. Titan boasts lakes, rivers and seas of hydrocarbons: compounds of hydrogen and carbon like those that are the main components of petroleum and natural gas.

The researchers described land forms akin to mesas towering above the nearby landscape, topped with liquid lakes more than 300 feet (100 meters) deep comprised mainly of methane. The scientists suspect the lakes formed when surrounding bedrock chemically dissolved and collapsed, a process that occurs with a certain type of lake on Earth.

The scientists also described “phantom lakes” that during wintertime appeared to be wide but shallow ponds — perhaps only a few inches (cm) deep — but evaporated or drained into the surface by springtime, a process taking seven years on Titan.

The findings represented further evidence about Titan’s hydrological cycle, with liquid hydrocarbons raining down from clouds, flowing across its surface and evaporating back into the sky. This is comparable to Earth’s water cycle.

Because of Titan’s complex chemistry and distinctive environments, scientists suspect it potentially could harbor life, in particular in its subsurface ocean of water, but possibly in the surface bodies of liquid hydrocarbons.

“Titan is a very fascinating object in the solar system, and every time we look carefully at the data we find out something new,” California Institute of Technology planetary scientist Marco Mastrogiuseppe said.

Titan, with a diameter of 3,200 miles (5,150 km), is the solar system’s second largest moon, behind only Jupiter’s Ganymede. It is bigger than the planet Mercury.

“Titan is the most Earth-like body in the solar system. It has lakes, canyons, rivers, dune fields of organic sand particles about the same size as silica sand grains on Earth,” Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory planetary scientist Shannon MacKenzie said.

The research was published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
…

your ads here!

Doctors from the United States and Venezuela are working together to help patients in Venezuela. Dr. Gabriela Blohm lives in Gainesville, Florida and physician Alberto Paniz-Mondolfi lives 2,000 kilometers away in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. VOA’s Christina Caicedo Smit reports, their team work may save some lives today, and in the future.
…

your ads here!

Doctors from the United States and Venezuela are working together to help patients in Venezuela. Dr. Gabriela Blohm lives in Gainesville, Florida and physician Alberto Paniz-Mondolfi lives 2,000 kilometers away in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. VOA’s Christina Caicedo Smit reports, their team work may save some lives today, and in the future.
…

your ads here!

Whooping cranes, common ravens and peregrine falcons are among the celebrities of the sky in the eyes of Americans, even those who’ve never laid eyes them.

The ruffed grouse or purple martin? They’re like friends you might chat with. The wrentit and the Abert’s towhee are like the neighbors you don’t talk to much. As for the Hammond’s flycatcher and the Brewer’s sparrow, Americans don’t care much about them at all.

That’s the word from a new study that aimed to define “a range of relationships between people and birds” across the United States, said Justin Schuetz, one of the authors.

Results appear in a paper released Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Schuetz, a biologist and independent researcher in Bath, Maine, did the work with Alison Johnston, who’s affiliated with Cornell University in Ithaca, New York

The project included studying Google searches performed from 2008 to 2017 to learn about what Americans think about 621 bird species. Researchers knew where each search came from. They also knew the natural range of each species and how often it is sighted in specific places, based on a national database.

One key question was whether the Google data revealed more interest in each species than one would expect in various locations, based on how often it is sighted in those places. Another question was how much the interest in each species was limited to its natural range, or spilled out beyond it.

So birds in the “celebrity” category are those that attracted more Google attention than one would expect from how often they’re seen, and whose popularity extended outside of their natural range. They have “a reputation beyond where they live,” Schuetz explained.

Next came the “friends or enemies” category, which included species that get more Google attention than expected, but mostly in the states where they live. As with the other categories, the researchers couldn’t tell whether the searchers’ opinions of these familiar birds were positive or negative.

Then came birds classified as “neighbors,” whose few Google searches were confined to where they live. Finally there were the “strangers,” birds that got little Google interest anywhere.

The research also turned up other insights into what makes a species popular. Bigger bodies, colorful plumage and regular visits to birdfeeders helped. Species that served as mascots for professional sports teams reached celebrity status, but it wasn’t clear whether being a mascot encouraged popularity or the other way around.

The results also turned up some surprises. “People seem to have an inordinate fascination with owls we couldn’t account for entirely in our analysis,” Schuetz said.

Jeffrey Gordon, president of the American Birding Association, called the study “a fascinating framework for trying to understand how people are relating to birds.”

“I hope they’re able to use it to help people appreciate what’s right in their own backyard,” he said. “Most of us just aren’t keyed in to what is literally at our doorstep.”

David Ringer, chief network officer for the National Audubon Society, also found the work interesting.

“It’s great to see how much we know and love some species, and it’s provocative to see how much we still have to discover,” he wrote in an email. “I hope that many bird strangers' will becomefriends,’ and neighbors' will turn intocelebrities.”‘
…

your ads here!

Whooping cranes, common ravens and peregrine falcons are among the celebrities of the sky in the eyes of Americans, even those who’ve never laid eyes them.

The ruffed grouse or purple martin? They’re like friends you might chat with. The wrentit and the Abert’s towhee are like the neighbors you don’t talk to much. As for the Hammond’s flycatcher and the Brewer’s sparrow, Americans don’t care much about them at all.

That’s the word from a new study that aimed to define “a range of relationships between people and birds” across the United States, said Justin Schuetz, one of the authors.

Results appear in a paper released Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Schuetz, a biologist and independent researcher in Bath, Maine, did the work with Alison Johnston, who’s affiliated with Cornell University in Ithaca, New York

The project included studying Google searches performed from 2008 to 2017 to learn about what Americans think about 621 bird species. Researchers knew where each search came from. They also knew the natural range of each species and how often it is sighted in specific places, based on a national database.

One key question was whether the Google data revealed more interest in each species than one would expect in various locations, based on how often it is sighted in those places. Another question was how much the interest in each species was limited to its natural range, or spilled out beyond it.

So birds in the “celebrity” category are those that attracted more Google attention than one would expect from how often they’re seen, and whose popularity extended outside of their natural range. They have “a reputation beyond where they live,” Schuetz explained.

Next came the “friends or enemies” category, which included species that get more Google attention than expected, but mostly in the states where they live. As with the other categories, the researchers couldn’t tell whether the searchers’ opinions of these familiar birds were positive or negative.

Then came birds classified as “neighbors,” whose few Google searches were confined to where they live. Finally there were the “strangers,” birds that got little Google interest anywhere.

The research also turned up other insights into what makes a species popular. Bigger bodies, colorful plumage and regular visits to birdfeeders helped. Species that served as mascots for professional sports teams reached celebrity status, but it wasn’t clear whether being a mascot encouraged popularity or the other way around.

The results also turned up some surprises. “People seem to have an inordinate fascination with owls we couldn’t account for entirely in our analysis,” Schuetz said.

Jeffrey Gordon, president of the American Birding Association, called the study “a fascinating framework for trying to understand how people are relating to birds.”

“I hope they’re able to use it to help people appreciate what’s right in their own backyard,” he said. “Most of us just aren’t keyed in to what is literally at our doorstep.”

David Ringer, chief network officer for the National Audubon Society, also found the work interesting.

“It’s great to see how much we know and love some species, and it’s provocative to see how much we still have to discover,” he wrote in an email. “I hope that many bird strangers' will becomefriends,’ and neighbors' will turn intocelebrities.”‘
…

your ads here!

The number of measles cases worldwide nearly quadrupled in the first three months of the year compared to last year, the World Health Organization reported Monday.

The United Nations agency, citing preliminary data, said that more than 112,000 cases of the preventable but highly contagious disease have been reported across the globe in the January-to-March period.

WHO called for better vaccination coverage against measles, which can kill or leave a child disabled for life.

Over recent months, WHO said spikes in the disease have occurred “in countries with high overall vaccination coverage, including the United States … as well as Israel, Thailand, and Tunisia, as the disease has spread fast among clusters of unvaccinated people.”

“While this data is provisional and not yet complete, it indicates a clear trend,” WHO said. “Many countries are in the midst of sizeable measles outbreaks, with all regions of the world experiencing sustained rises in cases.”

The agency said the reported number of cases often lags behind the number of actual cases, meaning that the number of documented cases likely does not reflect the actual severity of the measles outbreaks.

For three weeks in a row, U.S. health authorities have added dozens of new reports of measles to its yearly total, now at 555, the biggest figure in five years. Twenty of the 50 U.S. states have now reported measles cases.

More than half of the U.S. total — 285 cases — have been reported in New York City. Officials in the country’s largest city last week ordered mandatory measles vaccinations to halt the outbreak that has been concentrated among ultra-Orthodox Jews in the city’s Brooklyn borough.

City health department officials blamed anti-vaccine propagandists for distributing misinformation in the community.
…

your ads here!

The number of measles cases worldwide nearly quadrupled in the first three months of the year compared to last year, the World Health Organization reported Monday.

The United Nations agency, citing preliminary data, said that more than 112,000 cases of the preventable but highly contagious disease have been reported across the globe in the January-to-March period.

WHO called for better vaccination coverage against measles, which can kill or leave a child disabled for life.

Over recent months, WHO said spikes in the disease have occurred “in countries with high overall vaccination coverage, including the United States … as well as Israel, Thailand, and Tunisia, as the disease has spread fast among clusters of unvaccinated people.”

“While this data is provisional and not yet complete, it indicates a clear trend,” WHO said. “Many countries are in the midst of sizeable measles outbreaks, with all regions of the world experiencing sustained rises in cases.”

The agency said the reported number of cases often lags behind the number of actual cases, meaning that the number of documented cases likely does not reflect the actual severity of the measles outbreaks.

For three weeks in a row, U.S. health authorities have added dozens of new reports of measles to its yearly total, now at 555, the biggest figure in five years. Twenty of the 50 U.S. states have now reported measles cases.

More than half of the U.S. total — 285 cases — have been reported in New York City. Officials in the country’s largest city last week ordered mandatory measles vaccinations to halt the outbreak that has been concentrated among ultra-Orthodox Jews in the city’s Brooklyn borough.

City health department officials blamed anti-vaccine propagandists for distributing misinformation in the community.
…

your ads here!

The submersible dropped from the ocean’s surface faster than I had expected. With a loud “psssssss” the air escaped from the ballast tanks and the small craft suddenly tilted forward.

Within seconds, aquanaut Robert Carmichael and I were enveloped by a vibrant shade of blue, watching streaks of sunlight pierce the water’s surface. Soon a large manta ray appeared from the darkness below, gently gliding toward our small craft before vanishing into the distance.

The dive took place off a coral atoll called St. Joseph in the outer islands of Seychelles on a mission to explore the Indian Ocean. This body of water is poorly studied and few scientists have ever ventured deeper than the maximum scuba depth of 100 feet.

For more than a month researchers from Nekton, a British-led scientific research charity, have been using submersibles to dive deep below the waves to document the ocean’s health.

We arrived at St. Joseph Island in the early hours of the morning, and this was the first submersible dive at the new site. The sea bed suddenly appeared beneath our craft, a landscape no one had ever seen before.

I quickly scribbled down in the mission report the depth and time at which we sighted the bottom: “165 feet, 1144 UTC.” Carmichael, a veteran of the sea, relayed the information to the surface via an underwater telephone. Its loud static noise would be a constant of our dive.

We moved across a seabed of rock and sand and scattered soft coral until a great darkness opened ahead. Carmichael lowered us over the side of an underwater cliff. Our target depth was 400 feet.

Oceans cover over two-thirds of the Earth’s surface but remain, for the most part, unexplored.

Their role in regulating our climate and the threats they face are underestimated by many people, so scientific missions are crucial to take stock of the health of underwater ecosystems.

Able to operate down to 1,000 feet, these manned submersibles give scientists a unique understanding of changes in habitats as sunlight diminishes through the different layers of ocean. We glided with the current as six cameras mounted around the craft recorded its journey. In the months to come, researchers at Oxford will comb through the footage frame by frame, noting each species encountered.

Suddenly a drop of cold water landed on my arm, triggering alarm. Water is best kept on the outside of a submersible. Carmichael quickly put me at ease: The difference in temperature between the water around us and our submersible had created a layer of condensation on the hatch. We quickly soaked it up with towels.

It was curiosity that drew Carmichael to the ocean. “I just wanted to know what was down here,” he said. “It’s stunning in so many ways.”

This curiosity has attracted mankind for centuries. “The human mind is naturally drawn to grandiose notions of supernatural beings, and the sea is the ideal medium for them,” wrote Jules Verne, author of “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” possibly the greatest submarine novel of all time, which opens with fears over a mysterious sea monster sinking ships and harvesting the lives of sailors.

Thirty years after reading the novel as a child, I’m sitting in a tiny glass bubble observing the underwater world like Captain Nemo on board the novel’s submarine, Nautilus. We are foreigners to this realm, objects of fascination for the reef shark that approaches us, as curious of us as we are of it.

Even in the 19th century, Verne feared the extinction of numerous species of marine life. The fears have been proven true. A WWF report found that marine vertebrate populations have declined by almost half since the 1970s.

Fishing is no longer the sole cause. Man-made pollution, global warming and the acidification of the oceans are new challenges.

As the oceans slowly soak up heat from the atmosphere, marine species will be affected in different ways. Some will adapt. Some will migrate to cooler waters. Others will disappear, leaving a gap in ecosystems that have existed for millennia.

“I came into the Indian Ocean hoping I’d see a giant Napoleon wrasse,” Carmichael said of one of the world’s largest reef fish. “Here we are, 35 days into the mission and I still haven’t seen one.”

Maybe we’re just not diving in the right places. Maybe the reality is bleaker.

As the surveys ended and the currents became too strong to fight, the surface vessel ordered our submersible to return to the surface.

With the lights off, we floated a few minutes in the semi-darkness before the sound of ballast tanks emptying marked our slow ascent. The dark blue water around us lightened.

“The oceans are all connected and important to the quality of life for all humans,” Carmichael said. “It’s worth protecting because the air we breathe and the food we eat and the oceans we swim in really do have a meaningful impact on everyone’s life.”

 
…

your ads here!