The power of simple prayer to heal illness is not clear, according to scientists, and is difficult to study. Whatever your faith, when you’re sick, you should seek treatment from a doctor. But in Nigeria, some people choose spiritual healers and miracle cures over orthodox medicine and hospitals. That creates some dangerous situations. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.
…

NEW YORK — Prepare to spot a rare, bright comet.

The space rock is slinging toward Earth from the outer reaches of the solar system and will make its closest pass Saturday. It should be visible through the end of October, clear skies permitting.

Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas should be bright enough to see with the naked eye, but binoculars and telescopes will give a better view.

“It’ll be this fuzzy circle with a long tail stretching away from it,” said Sally Brummel, planetarium manager at the Bell Museum in Minnesota.

What is a comet?

Comets are frozen leftovers from the solar system’s formation billions of years ago. They heat up as they swing toward the sun, releasing their characteristic streaming tails.

In 2023, a green comet that last visited Earth 50,000 years ago zoomed by the planet again. Other notable flybys included Neowise in 2020, and Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake in the mid to late 1990s.

Where did comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas come from?

The comet, also designated C/2023 A3, was discovered last year and is named for the observatories in China and South Africa that spied it.

It came from what’s known as the Oort Cloud well beyond Pluto. After making its closest approach about 71 million kilometers of Earth, it won’t return for another 80,000 years — assuming it survives the trip.

Several comets are discovered every year, but many burn up near the sun or linger too far away to be visible without special equipment, according to Larry Denneau, a lead researcher with the Atlas telescope that helped discover the comet.

How to view the comet

Those hoping to spot comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas should venture outside about an hour after sunset on a clear night and look to the west.

The comet should be visible from both the northern and southern hemispheres.
…

UNITED NATIONS — More than 370 million girls and women alive today, or one in every eight worldwide, experienced rape or sexual assault before the age of 18, the United Nations children’s agency said Wednesday.

The number rises to 650 million, or one in five, when taking into account “non-contact” forms of sexual violence, such as online or verbal abuse, UNICEF reported, in what it called the first global survey of the problem.

The report said that while girls and women were worst affected, 240 million to 310 million boys and men, or around 1 in 11, have experienced rape or sexual assault during childhood.

“The scale of this human rights violation is overwhelming, and it’s been hard to fully grasp because of stigma, challenges in measurement, and limited investment in data collection,” UNICEF said in releasing the report.

It comes ahead of an inaugural Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children in Colombia next month.

UNICEF said its findings highlight the urgent need for intensified global action, including by strengthening laws and helping children recognize and report sexual violence.

UNICEF said sexual violence cuts across geographical, cultural, and economic boundaries, but sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of victims, with 79 million girls and women, or 22% affected. Eastern and South-Eastern Asia follow with 75 million, or 8%.

In its data for women and girls, UNICEF estimated 73 million, or 9%, were affected in Central and Southern Asia; 68 million, or 14%, in Europe and Northern America; 45 million, or 18%, in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 29 million, or 15%, in Northern Africa and Western Asia.

Oceania, with 6 million, had the highest number affected by percentage, at 34%.

Risks were higher, rising to 1 in 4, in “fragile settings,” including those with weak institutions, U.N. peacekeeping forces, or large numbers of refugees, the report found.

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell called sexual violence against children “a stain on our moral conscience.”

“It inflicts deep and lasting trauma, often by someone the child knows and trusts, in places where they should feel safe.”

UNICEF said most childhood sexual violence occurs during adolescence, especially between ages 14 and 17, and those who suffer it face higher risks of sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse and mental health issues.

“(T)he impact is further compounded when children delay disclosing their experiences … or keep the abuse secret altogether,” UNICEF said.

It said increased investment in data collection was needed to capture the full scale the problem, given persistent data gaps, particularly on boys’ experiences.

UNICEF said it based its estimates of girls’ and women’s experiences on nationally representative surveys conducted between 2010 and 2022 in 120 countries and areas. It said estimates for boys and men were derived from a broader range of data sources and applied some indirect methods.
…

As representatives of the signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity prepare to meet in Cali, Colombia, this month, residents of some Colombian islands in the Caribbean are calling for action because rising seas are threatening their homes, families, and way of life. Austin Landis traveled to Santa Cruz del Islote to hear their story. Camera: Jorge Calle.
…

STOCKHOLM — Scientists David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the award-giving body said on Wednesday, for their work on the structure of proteins.

The prize, widely regarded as among the most prestigious in the scientific world, is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and is worth $1.1 million.

“One of the discoveries being recognized this year concerns the construction of spectacular proteins. The other is about fulfilling a 50-year-old dream: predicting protein structures from their amino acid sequences,” the academy said in a statement.

Half the prize was awarded to Baker “for computational protein design” while the other half was shared by Hassabis and Jumper “for protein structure prediction,” the academy said.

The third award to be handed out every year, the chemistry prize follows those for medicine and physics announced earlier this week.

The Nobel prizes were established in the will of dynamite inventor and wealthy businessman Alfred Nobel and are awarded to “those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”

First handed out in 1901, 15 years after Nobel’s death, it is awarded for achievements in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace. Recipients in each category share the prize sum that has been adjusted over the years.

The economics prize is a later addition funded by the Swedish central bank.

Chemistry, close to Alfred Nobel’s heart and the discipline most applicable to his own work as an inventor, may not always be the most headline-grabbing of the prizes, but past recipients include scientific greats such as radioactivity pioneers Ernest Rutherford and Marie Curie.

Last year’s chemistry award went to Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Aleksey Ekimov for their discovery of tiny clusters of atoms known as quantum dots, widely used today to create colors in flat screens, light emitting diode (LED) lamps and devices that help surgeons see blood vessels in tumors.

Alongside the cash prize, the winners will be presented a medal by the Swedish king on Dec. 10, followed by a lavish banquet in Stockholm city hall.
…

…

Abuja, Nigeria — Cholera is surging in Nigeria, health officials said this week, with the number of cases and deaths increasing by more than 200% this year.

The Nigerian Center for Disease Control said in this week’s epidemiological report that the country has recorded nearly 11,000 cases of cholera this year — a 220% increase compared with the same point in 2023.

The report said fatalities over the same periods have increased from 106 to 359 — a rise of 239%.

The state of Lagos accounted for 43% of the nation’s cases, while Kano, Katsina, Jigawa and Borno also recorded significant numbers.

Last month, the worst flooding in 30 years ravaged conflict-ridden Borno state, worsening an already dire humanitarian situation there. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced and moved to overcrowded camps.

“We’re now facing a significant public health challenge that demands urgent attention and action,” Borno Health Commissioner Baba Mallam Gana said. “This outbreak is concerning, especially in the aftermath of a flooding incident.

“The floods have created ideal conditions for the spread of waterborne diseases like cholera by contaminating water sources and disrupting sanitation systems,” he said.

Cholera is a bacterial disease, usually spread by contaminated food or water. It causes severe diarrhea and dehydration.

The Nigerian CDC launched a national emergency response along with state authorities to bring numbers down, but the number of cases is surging, Gana said.

“We must now act swiftly to prevent further spread of this disease,” he said.

As part of the flood intervention responses, Gana said, the Borno public health emergency center was converted into a control center to coordinate surveillance, risk communication and community engagement, as well as essential health services, infection prevention, water sanitation and hygiene.

Nigeria’s Health Ministry is sending hundreds of thousands of doses of cholera vaccine to the affected areas. Borno alone received 300,000 doses, and state authorities say the vaccine has been distributed to camps for those displaced by the floods.
…

new york — Humanity is hitting the upper limit of life expectancy, according to a new study.

Advances in medical technology and genetic research — not to mention larger numbers of people making it to age 100 — are not translating into marked jumps in lifespan overall, according to researchers who found shrinking longevity increases in countries with the longest-living populations.

“We have to recognize there’s a limit” and perhaps reassess assumptions about when people should retire and how much money they’ll need to live out their lives, said S. Jay Olshansky, a University of Illinois-Chicago researcher who was lead author of the study published Monday by the journal Nature Aging.

Mark Hayward, a University of Texas researcher not involved in the study, called it “a valuable addition to the mortality literature.”

“We are reaching a plateau” in life expectancy, he agreed. It’s always possible some breakthrough could push survival to greater heights, “but we don’t have that now,” Hayward said.

What is life expectancy?

Life expectancy is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might expect to live, assuming death rates at that time hold constant. It is one of the world’s most important health measures, but it is also imperfect: It is a snapshot estimate that cannot account for deadly pandemics, miracle cures or other unforeseen developments that might kill or save millions of people.

In the new research, Olshansky and his research partners tracked life expectancy estimates for the years 1990 to 2019, drawn from a database administered by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. The researchers focused on eight of the places in the world where people live the longest — Australia, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain and Switzerland.

The U.S. doesn’t even rank in the top 40. But is also included “because we live here” and because of past, bold estimates that life expectancy in the U.S. might surge dramatically in this century, Olshansky said.

Who lives the longest?

Women continue to live longer than men and life expectancy improvements are still occurring — but at a slowing pace, the researchers found. In 1990, the average amount of improvement was about 2½ years per decade. In the 2010s, it was 1½ years — and almost zero in the U.S.

The U.S. is more problematic because it is harder hit by a range of issues that kill people even before they hit old age, including drug overdoses, shootings, obesity and inequities that make it hard for some people to get sufficient medical care.

But in one calculation, the researchers estimated what would happen in all nine places if all deaths before age 50 were eliminated. The increase at best was still only 1½ years, Olshansky said.

Eileen Crimmins, a University of Southern California gerontology expert, said in an email that she agrees with the study’s findings. She added, “For me personally, the most important issue is the dismal and declining relative position of the United States.”

Why life expectancy may not be able to rise forever

The study suggests that there’s a limit to how long most people live, and we’ve about hit it, Olshansky said.

“We’re squeezing less and less life out of these life-extending technologies. And the reason is, aging gets in the way,” he said.

It may seem common to hear of a person living to 100 — former U.S. President Jimmy Carter hit that milestone last week. In 2019, a little over 2% of Americans made it to 100, compared with about 5% in Japan and 9% in Hong Kong, Olshansky said.

It’s likely that the ranks of centenarians will grow in the decades ahead, experts say, but that’s because of population growth. The percentage of people hitting 100 will remain limited, likely with fewer than 15% of women and 5% of men making it that long in most countries, Olshansky said.
…

GENEVA  — Billions of people are facing a future of water scarcity as global rivers dry up, glaciers melt, and intense heat and other extreme weather events caused by climate change create critical changes in water availability around the world, according to the State of Global Water Resources report issued Monday by the World Meteorological Organization. 

“Water is the canary in the coal mine of climate change,” said Celeste Saulo, WMO secretary-general. “Water is the basis of life on this planet, but it can also be a force of destruction.”  

She told journalists at a briefing in Geneva that “water is becoming increasingly unpredictable, what we call an erratic hydrological cycle, leading to extreme rainfall, sudden floods, and severe droughts.”   

“Climate change is one of the causes of these extreme behaviors,” she said, noting that these extreme events “wreak a heavy toll on lives, ecosystems and economies.” 

“Melting ice and glaciers threaten long-term water security for many millions of people. And yet we are not taking the necessary urgent action,” she warned. 

“To mitigate the impact of such potential catastrophes, we must gather reliable data. After all, we cannot appropriately manage what we do not measure,” she said, adding that scientific data gathered by WMO “indicates the situation will worsen over the coming years.” 

The report finds 2023 was the driest year for global rivers in 33 years, marking the last of five consecutive years of widespread below-normal conditions for river flows, thereby reducing “the amount of water available for communities, agriculture and ecosystems, further stressing global water supplies.” 

It notes that 2023 was also the second consecutive year in which all regions in the world with glaciers reported ice loss, the year in which “glaciers suffered the largest mass loss ever registered in 50 years.” 

“The glaciers are retreating rapidly,” said Stefan Uhlenbrook, WMO director of hydrology, water and cryosphere. “The latest data for this year actually shows that in the Swiss Alps, at least, it has been continuing and more glaciers have been reduced. 

“If a glacier is melting more and more, that means more water becomes available downstream,” he said. “However, if the glacier is gone in a few more decades, it will be very dramatic because then the summer high flows from the melting glaciers will disappear because there is no storage anymore. 

“If the glacier disappears, that changes completely the hydrological regime. It changes completely the conditions for ecosystems. It changes completely the availability of water for farmers. So, it has really severe consequences,” he said. 

One manifestation of this was seen last week when Switzerland and Italy redrew part of their shared border in the Alps because melting glaciers due to climate change had moved their long-defined national border. 

The report says 3.6 billion people currently face inadequate access to water at least one month a year, and this is expected to increase to more than 5 billion by 2050.   

While no region is spared from disastrous hydrological extreme events, it says floods and droughts affected Africa most in terms of human casualties. The report says major flooding in Libya due to two collapsed dams, triggered by Storm Daniel, killed more than 11,000 people. Floods also impacted the Greater Horn of Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Mozambique and Malawi. 

“Jordan is one of the most water scarce countries because of the high population density and the very arid conditions,” Uhlenbrook observed, adding that many parts of Asia, North and South America, and Russia among other regions are “very vulnerable to the changes we see from climate change.” 

“We see the increasing variability of the hydrological cycle causing tension and stress and providing the source of conflict in many parts of the world,” he said. 

The WMO report is calling for urgent action and international cooperation to address the scarce water issues. It says cooperation through data sharing and building of trust between nations is critical for managing shared water resources. 

“We must fill the gaps in our understanding. We need to expand our hydrological monitoring, especially in regions where data is scarce. We cannot afford blind spots when it comes to our water resources,” WMO chief Saulo said. “I urge nations to invest in hydrological monitoring and commit to sharing this critical data, because without it, we are navigating without a map.” 

She underscored the importance of early warning systems in addressing climate-induced disasters such as floods and extreme weather events. “These global challenges transcend borders and conflicts because water is once again the basis of life on Earth, so we must work together to address the water issues,” she said. 
…

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A spacecraft blasted off Monday to investigate the scene of a cosmic crash. 

The European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft rocketed away on a two-year journey to the small, harmless asteroid rammed by NASA two years ago in a dress rehearsal for the day a killer space rock threatens Earth. Launched by SpaceX from Cape Canaveral, it’s the second part of a planetary defense test that could one day help save the planet. 

The 2022 crash by NASA’s Dart spacecraft shortened Dimorphos’ orbit around its bigger companion, demonstrating that if a dangerous rock was headed our way, there’s a chance it could be knocked off course with enough advance notice. 

Scientists are eager to examine the impact’s aftermath up close to know exactly how effective Dart was and what changes might be needed to safeguard Earth in the future. 

“The more detail we can glean the better as it may be important for planning a future deflection mission should one be needed,” University of Maryland astronomer Derek Richardson said before launch. 

Researchers want to know whether Dart — short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test — left a crater or perhaps reshaped the 150-meter (500-foot) asteroid more dramatically. It looked something like a flying saucer before Dart’s blow and may now resemble a kidney bean, said Richardson, who took part in the Dart mission and is helping with Hera. 

Dart’s wallop sent rubble and even boulders flying off Dimorphos, providing an extra kick to the impact’s momentum. The debris trail extended more than 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) into space for months. 

Some boulders and other debris could still be hanging around the asteroid, posing a potential threat to Hera, said flight director Ignacio Tanco. 

“We don’t really know very well the environment in which we are going to operate,” said Tanco. “But that’s the whole point of the mission is to go there and find out.” 

European officials describe the $400 million (363 million euro) mission as a “crash scene investigation.” 

Hera “is going back to the crime site and getting all the scientific and technical information,” said project manager Ian Carnelli. 

Carrying a dozen science instruments, the small car-sized Hera will need to swing past Mars in 2025 for a gravity boost, before arriving at Dimorphos by the end of 2026. It’s a moonlet of Didymos, Greek for twin, a fast-spinning asteroid that’s five times bigger. At that time, the asteroids will be 195 million kilometers (120 million miles) from Earth. 

Controlled by a flight team in Darmstadt, Germany, Hera will attempt to go into orbit around the rocky pair, with the flyby distances gradually dropping from 30 kilometers (18 miles) all the way down to 1 kilometer (a half-mile). The spacecraft will survey the moonlet for at least six months to ascertain its mass, shape and composition, as well as its orbit around Didymos. 

Before the impact, Dimorphos circled its larger companion from 1,189 meters out. Scientists believe the orbit is now tighter and oval-shaped, and that the moonlet may even be tumbling. 

Two shoebox-sized Cubesats will pop off Hera for even closer drone-like inspections, with one of them using radar to peer beneath the moonlet’s boulder-strewn surface. Scientists suspect Dimorphos was formed from material shed from Didymos. The radar observations should help confirm whether Didymos is indeed the little moon’s parent. 

The Cubesats will attempt to land on the moonlet once their survey is complete. If the moonlet is tumbling, that will complicate the endeavor. Hera may also end its mission with a precarious touchdown, but on the larger Didymos. 

Neither asteroid poses any threat to Earth — before or after Dart showed up. That’s why NASA picked the pair for humanity’s first asteroid-deflecting demo. 

Leftovers from the solar system’s formation 4.6 billion years ago, asteroids primarily orbit the sun between Mars and Jupiter in what’s known as the main asteroid belt, where millions of them reside. They become near-Earth objects when they’re knocked out of the belt and into our neck of the woods. 

NASA’s near-Earth object count currently tops 36,000, almost all asteroids but also some comets. More than 2,400 of them are considered potentially hazardous to Earth. 
…

Washington — The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a bid by President Joe Biden’s administration to enforce in Texas federal guidance requiring hospitals to perform abortions if needed to stabilize a patient’s emergency medical condition.  

The justices turned away the Justice Department’s appeal of a lower court’s decision that halted enforcement of the guidance in Texas, where a Republican-backed near-total ban on abortion is in effect, and against members of two anti-abortion medical associations.  

The Biden administration issued the guidance in July 2022 to protect access to abortion after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority the previous month overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that had legalized abortion nationwide.  

The guidance reminded healthcare providers across the country of their obligations under a 1986 federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) to ensure Medicare-participating hospitals offer emergency care stabilizing patients regardless of their ability to pay. Medicare is the government healthcare program for the elderly. Hospitals that violate EMTALA risk losing Medicare funding.  

The guidance made clear that under that law physicians must provide a woman an abortion if needed to resolve a medical emergency and stabilize the patient even in states where the procedure is banned, and that the measure preempts state bans that offer no exceptions for medical emergencies or with exceptions that are too narrow.

Texas law prohibits abortions unless the pregnancy places the woman at risk of death or “substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”

Republican-governed Texas and two anti-abortion medical associations – the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, sued the administration, arguing that the guidance unlawfully purports to compel healthcare providers to perform abortions.

U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix in 2022 blocked enforcement of the guidance, finding that it is an unlawful interpretation of the EMTALA statute, and would allow abortions beyond what is permitted by Texas law.

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Jan. 2 upheld Hendrix’s decision, ruling that “EMTALA does not mandate any specific type of medical treatment, let alone abortion.” The 5th Circuit’s decision came a month after the top court in Texas ruled against a woman who was seeking an emergency abortion of her non-viable pregnancy.  

Abortion rights advocates have challenged the scope of abortion ban exceptions in several states due to uncertainty, including among physicians, about what medical emergencies during pregnancy would permit health providers to perform the procedure.

In a similar case in June, the Supreme Court permitted, for the time being, abortions to be performed in Idaho when pregnant women are facing medical emergencies.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in the Idaho case revived a federal judge’s decision that EMTALA takes precedence over Idaho’s Republican-backed near-total abortion ban when the two conflict. While the justices lifted a block they had placed on the judge’s ruling in the case, they did not resolve the dispute on its merits, opting instead to dismiss it as “improvidently granted.”
…

STOCKHOLM — The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was awarded Monday to Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their discovery of microRNA, tiny pieces of genetic material that alter how genes work at the cellular level and could lead to new ways of treating cancer. 

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute, which awarded the prize, said the duo’s discovery is “proving to be fundamentally important” in understanding how organisms develop and function. 

MicroRNA have opened up scientists’ approaches to treating diseases like cancer by helping to regulate how genes work at the cellular level, according to Dr. Claire Fletcher, a lecturer in molecular oncology at Imperial College London. 

Fletcher said microRNA provide genetic instructions to tell cells to make new proteins and that there were two main areas where microRNA could be helpful: in developing drugs to treat diseases and in serving as biomarkers. 

“MicroRNA alters how genes in the cell work,” said Fletcher, who is an outside expert not associated with the Nobel prize. 

“If we take the example of cancer, we’ll have a particular gene working overtime, it might be mutated and working in overdrive,” she said. “We can take a microRNA that we know alters the activity of that gene and we can deliver that particular microRNA to cancer cells to stop that mutated gene from having its effect.” 

Ambros performed the research that led to his prize at Harvard University. He is currently a professor of natural science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Ruvkun’s research was performed at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Medical School, where he’s a professor of genetics, said Thomas Perlmann, Secretary-General of the Nobel Committee. 

Perlmann said he spoke to Ruvkun by phone shortly before the announcement. 

“It took a long time before he came to the phone and sounded very tired, but he quite rapidly was quite excited and happy, when he understood what it was all about,” Perlmann said. 

Last year, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Hungarian-American Katalin Karikó and American Drew Weissman for discoveries that enabled the creation of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 that were critical in slowing the pandemic. 

The prize carries a cash award of ($1 million from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. 

The announcement launched this year’s Nobel prizes award season. 

Nobel announcements continue with the physics prize on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Oct. 14. 

The laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. 

Fletcher said there are clinical trials ongoing to see how microRNA approaches might help treat skin cancer, but that there aren’t yet any drug treatments approved by drug regulators. She expected that might happen in the next five to 10 years. 

She said microRNA represent another way of being able to control the behavior of genes to treat and track various diseases. 

“The majority of therapies we have at the moment are targeting proteins in cells,” she said. “If we can intervene at the microRNA level, it opens up a whole new way of us developing medicines and us controlling the activity of genes whose levels might be altered in diseases.” 
…