India successfully carried out Saturday the first of a series of key test flights after overcoming a technical glitch ahead of its planned mission to take astronauts into space by 2025, the space agency said.

The test involved launching a module to outer space and bringing it back to earth to test the spacecraft’s crew escape system, said the Indian Space Research Organization chief S. Somanath, and was being recovered after its touchdown in the Bay of Bengal.

The launch was delayed by 45 minutes in the morning because of weather conditions. The attempt was again deferred by more than an hour because of an issue with the engine, and the ground computer put the module’s liftoff on hold, said Somanath.

The glitch caused by a monitoring anomaly in the system was rectified and the test was carried out successfully 75 minutes later from the Sriharikota satellite launching station in southern India, Somanath told reporters.

It would pave the way for other unmanned missions, including sending a robot into space next year.

In September, India successfully launched its first space mission to study the sun, less than two weeks after a successful uncrewed landing near the south pole region of the moon.

After a failed attempt to land on the moon in 2019, India in September joined the United States, the Soviet Union and China as only the fourth country to achieve the milestone.

The successful mission showcased India’s rising standing as a technology and space powerhouse and dovetails with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s desire to project an image of an ascendant country asserting its place among the global elite.

Signaling a roadmap for India’s future space ambitions, Modi earlier this week announced that India’s space agency will set up an Indian-crafted space station by 2035 and land an Indian astronaut on the moon by 2040.

Active since the 1960s, India has launched satellites for itself and other countries, and successfully put one in orbit around Mars in 2014. India is planning its first mission to the International Space Station next year in collaboration with the United States.
…

your ads here!

It’s been a month since a Maryland man became the second person to receive a transplanted heart from a pig — and hospital video released Friday shows he’s working hard to recover.

Lawrence Faucette was dying from heart failure and ineligible for a traditional heart transplant because of other health problems when doctors at the University of Maryland School of Medicine offered the highly experimental surgery.

In the first glimpse of Faucette provided since the September 20 transplant, hospital video shows physical therapist Chris Wells urging him to smile while pushing through a pedaling exercise to regain his strength. 

“That’s going to be tough, but I’ll work it out,” Faucette, 58, replied, breathing heavily but giving a smile. 

The Maryland team last year performed the world’s first transplant of a heart from a genetically altered pig into another dying man. David Bennett survived just two months before that heart failed, for reasons that aren’t completely clear, although signs of a pig virus later were found inside the organ. Lessons from that first experiment led to changes before this second try, including better virus testing. 

Attempts at animal-to-human organ transplants — called xenotransplants — have failed for decades, as people’s immune systems immediately destroyed the foreign tissue. Now scientists are trying again using pigs genetically modified to make their organs more humanlike. 

In Friday’s hospital video, Faucette’s doctors said the pig heart has shown no sign of rejection. 

“His heart is doing everything on its own,” said Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin, the Maryland team’s cardiac xenotransplantation chief. 

A hospital spokesperson said Faucette, of Frederick, Maryland, has been able to stand and physical therapists are helping him gain the strength needed to attempt walking. 

Many scientists hope xenotransplants one day could compensate for the huge shortage of human organ donations. More than 100,000 people are on the nation’s list for transplants, most awaiting kidneys, and thousands will die waiting. 

A handful of scientific teams have tested pig kidneys and hearts in monkeys and in donated human bodies, hoping to learn enough for the Food and Drug Administration to allow formal xenotransplant studies. 
…

your ads here!

Astronomers have detected an intense flash of radio waves coming from what looks like a merger of galaxies dating to about 8 billion years ago — the oldest-known instance of a phenomenon called a fast radio burst that continues to defy explanation. 

This burst in less than a millisecond unleashed the amount of energy our sun emits in three decades, researchers said. It was detected using the Australian SKA Pathfinder, a radio telescope in the state of Western Australia. Its location was pinpointed by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, one of the most powerful optical telescopes. 

A fast radio burst, or FRB, is a pulse of radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation. It lasts a small fraction of a second but outshines most other sources of radio waves in the universe. Radio waves have the longest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. 

“The radio waves in FRBs are similar to those used in microwave ovens. The amount of energy in this FRB is the equivalent to microwaving a bowl of popcorn twice the size of the sun,” said astronomer Ryan Shannon of Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, co-leader of the study published this week in the journal Science. 

Until now, the oldest known such burst dated to 5 billion years ago, making this one 3 billion years older. The universe is about 13.8 billion years old. For comparison, Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. In seeing objects and events from long ago, astronomers peer across vast cosmic distances, making this burst also the farthest of any FRB ever detected. 

“We now know that fast radio bursts have been around for more than half the age of the universe,” said astronomer and study co-leader Stuart Ryder of Macquarie University in Australia. 

Fast radio bursts were discovered in 2007. 

“The most likely source is a hypermagnetized neutron star, called a magnetar. These stars are stellar corpses the mass of the sun but only the size of a small city. They are some of the most extreme objects in the universe, which you would need to produce such extreme bursts,” Shannon said. 

“There are more energetic events in the universe, associated with stellar explosions or a black hole shredding a star apart. But FRBs are unique in that they produce all their energy in radio waves, with nothing seen in other bands — optical light or X-rays, for example — and that the signals are so short,” Shannon added. 

They also are more common, Shannon added, with upward of 100,000 thought to occur somewhere in the universe daily. Far fewer have been detected, Shannon said, and only around 50 — including this one — have been traced back to the galaxy where they originated. 

“Galaxies in the distant universe look different than those nearby — they don’t have nice spiral arms — so it wasn’t clear if what we were seeing was one galaxy with a few clumps, or a few smaller galaxies. It is likely that the source is a few galaxies, possibly merging,” Shannon said. 

The researchers said that studying these bursts also can help to detect and measure the immense amount of matter believed to populate the expanses of space between galaxies. As these radio waves zip though the cosmos, they can flag the presence of this intergalactic plasma — gas so hot that some or all its atoms are split into the subatomic particles electrons and ions. 

“Most of the normal matter in the universe — this is the regular matter that makes up stars, planets, humans — is thought to reside in a diffuse cosmic web of gas between galaxies,” Shannon said. “People have been searching for this matter for decades using other techniques. Because it is so diffuse, it is nearly invisible in any other way, so [it] was considered ‘missing.'”
…

your ads here!

With warmer oceans serving as fuel, Atlantic hurricanes are now more than twice as likely as before to rapidly intensify from wimpy minor hurricanes to powerful and catastrophic, a study said Thursday.

Last month Hurricane Lee went from barely a hurricane at 129 kph to the most powerful Category 5 hurricane with 249 kph winds in 24 hours. In 2017, before it devastated Puerto Rico, Hurricane Maria went from a Category 1 storm with 145 kph to a top-of-the-chart whopper with 257 kph winds in just 15 hours.

The study looked at 830 Atlantic tropical cyclones since 1971. It found that in the last 20 years, 8.1% of the time storms powered from a Category 1 minor storm to a major hurricane in just 24 hours. That happened only 3.2% of the time from 1971-90, according to a study in the journal Scientific Reports. Category 1 hurricanes top out at 153 kph and a hurricane has to have at least 178 kph winds to become major.

Those are the most extreme cases, but the fact that the rate of such turbocharging has more than doubled is disturbing, said study author Andra Garner, a climate scientist at Rowan University in New Jersey.

When storms rapidly intensify, especially as they near land, it makes it difficult for people in the storm’s path to decide on what they should do — evacuate or hunker down. It also makes it harder for meteorologists to predict how bad it will be and for emergency managers to prepare, Garner and other scientists said.

“We know that our strongest, most damaging storms very often do intensify very quickly at some point in their lifetimes,” Garner said, highlighting 2017’s Maria, which some researchers said killed nearly 3,000 people directly and indirectly. “We’re talking about something that’s hard to predict that certainly can lead to a more destructive storm.”

And this “has become more common in the last 50 years,” Garner said. “This has all happened over a time period when we’ve seen ocean waters get warmer.”

“We’ve had 90% of the excess warming that humans have caused to the planet going into our oceans,” Garner said.

Oceans this year have been setting heat records monthly since April with scientists warning of off-the-charts temperatures.

Garner found the rapid intensification of hurricanes was primarily along the East Coast’s Atlantic seaboard, more so than the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s not just the cases of extreme rapid intensification. Garner looked at all storms over different time periods and found that in general they’re intensifying faster than they used to.

There have been more Atlantic storms in the last few decades than in the 1970s and 1980s – scientists have several theories for why, from changes in air pollution to natural cycles – but Garner said by looking at percentages she took out the storm frequency factor.

Previous studies had found an increase in rapid intensification. Garner’s study was statistically meticulous in confirming what scientists had figured, said Karthik Balaguru, a Pacific Northwest National Lab climate scientist who last year had a paper demonstrating how storms near the Atlantic coast are intensifying faster before landfall than they did in the 1970s and 1980s.

The National Hurricane Center considers a storm to rapidly intensify if it increases wind speed by 46 kph in 24 hours.

In 2020, a record year for hurricanes and the last year of Garner’s study, six storms rapidly intensified that much. Hannah, Laura, Sally, Teddy, Gamma and Delta. Since then, there have been several rapid intensifying and deadly storms, including 2021’s Ida, 2022’s Ian and 2023’s Idalia.

“If we don’t work to lower our (carbon) emissions, then that’s a trend that we likely could expect to see continue to happen in the future” and even get worse, Garner said.
…

your ads here!

Burkina Faso’s health ministry has declared a dengue fever epidemic amid the deadliest outbreak in years. More than 200 people have died, and new cases are rising sharply.

There have been 50,478 suspected cases and 214 deaths of the mosquito-borne illness this year, the ministry said in a statement released on Wednesday, mostly in the urban centers of the capital, Ouagadougou, and Bobo Dioulasso. It said about 20% of the cases and deaths were recorded last week alone.

Dengue kills an estimated 20,000 people worldwide each year. Rates of the disease have risen eightfold since 2000, driven largely by climate change, the increased movement of people and urbanization.

The World Health Organization this month warned that the disease would become a major threat in new parts of Africa as warmer temperatures create conditions for the mosquitoes carrying the infection to spread.

Dengue is spread by infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Symptoms include fever, muscle pain, nausea and rashes. Lack of treatment or misdiagnosis, common in poverty-stricken countries such as Burkina Faso where health care is spotty, increase the chance of death.

Burkina Faso’s outbreak dwarfs other African outbreaks in recent years. According to figures from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, dengue killed 18 people in Burkina Faso in 2017 and 15 in 2016.

The health ministry said that it was providing free rapid diagnostic tests and had organized spraying of insecticide in public places to counter the spread.
…

your ads here!

Australian researchers say they have produced the most comprehensive view of the history of the universe to date. An Australian National University team says their study offers new ideas about how the universe might have started.

The research team says the study’s aim was to understand the origins of all the objects in the universe.

The U.S. space agency, NASA, says the universe “includes all of space, and all the matter and energy that space contains. It even includes time itself and, of course, it includes you.”

NASA adds that “the Milky Way is but one of billions of galaxies in the observable universe — all of them, including our own, are thought to have supermassive black holes at their centers.”

The Australian team says it has created the most comprehensive chart ever created of the history of the universe.

The lead author is honorary associate professor Charley Lineweaver. He said that when the universe began 13.8 billion years ago in a hot big bang, there were no objects, such as protons, atoms, people, planets, stars or galaxies.

The authors say the charts provide new ideas about how the universe came into being.

The first shows temperature and density of the universe as it expanded and cooled. The second plots the mass and size of all objects in the universe. The ANU researchers say the study suggests the universe may have started as what is known as an instanton, which has a specific size and mass, rather than a singularity, which they say is a hypothetical point of infinite density and temperature. Put simply, this would mean that at its beginning the universe may have been finite, and not infinite, in size. This is important because researchers say that what lies beyond the boundary of the universe is “also a major mystery.”

Lineweaver told VOA that mapping the universe will boost our understanding of it.

“When you extrapolate in so many different ways it gives you just a lay of the land that I just think is a beautiful way of understanding the universe,” he said. “If there is one way to understand the Big Bang it started out hot and dense and it got cooler and less dense, and as it did that particles and objects of all kinds condensed out of this hot, dense background. And understanding that is something that we should all make an attempt to do that because that is probably the most profound underlying theme of the history of the universe.”

Lineweaver also said he believes that research into the origins of the universe could help to answer some fundamental scientific questions about life beyond Earth.

“How did we get here? So, I am kind of semi-obsessed with the big picture of life on Earth and what it means and whether we are alone or not and so I have been writing quite a few things about that,” he said. “The basic idea is, well, if we can figure out how we got here, maybe we can make better guesses about whether other life forms have evolved elsewhere.”

The Australian National University study is published in the latest issue of The American Journal of Physics. 
…

your ads here!

U.N. inspectors took samples from a fish market near the Fukushima nuclear power plant on Thursday following the release of wastewater from the wrecked facility in August.

China and Russia have banned Japanese seafood imports since the discharge began but Japan says it is safe, a view backed so far by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Some 540 Olympic swimming pools worth of water have been collected since a tsunami sent three reactors at Fukushima-Daiichi into meltdown in 2011 in one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters.

Japan says that the water has been filtered by its special ALPS technology of radioactive substances — except tritium — and diluted with seawater.

Japan says tests have shown that tritium levels are within safe limits.

The IAEA team comprising scientists from China, South Korea and Canada were collecting fish, water and sediment samples this week to verify Japan’s findings.

Paul McGinnity, a member of the mission, told reporters that the aim was “to ascertain whether the Japanese labs are measuring and analyzing properly” tritium levels.

“Tritium is the concern because tritium levels as you know are relatively high because it is not removed by the ALPS process,” McGinnity said.

“I can say that we don’t expect to see any change (in tritium levels), certainly in the fish. We do expect to see a small rise in levels of tritium in seawater samples very close to the discharge point. But otherwise, we don’t. We expect to find levels that are very similar to what we measured last year.”

Samples will be sent back to labs in the team members’ home countries for independent review, and the IAEA will evaluate and publish those results.

Russia this week followed its ally China in banning Japanese seafood imports, although it buys relatively small volumes.

Japan, which has called China’s ban politically motivated, said Moscow’s move was an “unjust” step “without any scientific basis.”

The water release is aimed at making space to begin removing the highly dangerous radioactive fuel and rubble from the wrecked reactors.
…

your ads here!

As the war drags on, some severely injured Ukrainians who received medical help abroad are returning home. Yana Stepanenko and her mother have resettled in Lviv after a year of treatment and rehabilitation in the U.S. Omelyan Oshchudlyak has the story. Camera: Yuriy  Dankevych      
…

your ads here!

A clinical trial is recruiting thousands of volunteers — including a large number of Black women who face disparities in breast cancer death rates — to try to find out.

People like Carole Stovall, a psychologist in Washington, D.C., have signed up for the study to help answer the question.

“We all need a mammogram anyway, so why not do it with a study that allows the scientists to understand more and move closer to finding better treatments and ways of maybe even preventing it?” Stovall said.

The underrepresentation of women and minorities in research is a long-simmering issue affecting health problems including Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and COVID-19. Trials without diversity lead to gaps in understanding of how new treatments work for all people.

“Until we get more Black women into clinical trials, we can’t change the science. And we need better science for Black bodies,” said Ricki Fairley, a breast cancer survivor and advocate who is working on the issue.

Black women are 40% more likely to die from breast cancer than white women and tend to be diagnosed younger. But it’s not clear whether 3D mammography is better for them, said Dr. Worta McCaskill-Stevens of the National Cancer Institute.

“Are there populations for whom this might be important to have early diagnosis?” asked McCaskill-Stevens. “Or is it harmful,” causing too many false alarms or unneeded follow-up tests and treatments?

McCaskill-Stevens, who is Black, leads NCI’s efforts to boost access to cancer research in minority and rural communities. She has joined the study herself.

The newer 3D technique has been around for a decade, but there’s never been conclusive evidence that it’s better than 2D at detecting advanced cancers. The screening technique combines multiple pictures of the breast taken from different angles to create a 3D-like image. Both 3D and 2D mammograms compress the breast and use low doses of radiation.

Prior studies suggest that 3D finds more cancers than 2D, but catching more cancers doesn’t necessarily mean more lives saved. Some cancers missed by standard screening may not progress or need treatment. Previous studies did not randomly assign patients to a screening method, the gold standard for research.

The notion “that if it’s new, it’s shiny, then it’s better,” isn’t necessarily true, McCaskill-Stevens said. “Until we have the evidence to support that, then we need well-designed randomized trials.”

The trial has enrolled nearly 93,000 women so far with a goal of 128,000. The NCI-funded study is now running in Canada, South Korea, Peru, Argentina, Italy and 32 U.S. states. A site in Thailand will soon begin enrolling patients.

“We added more international sites to enhance the trial’s diversity, particularly for Hispanic and Asian women,” said Dr. Etta Pisano, who leads the study.

Overall, 42% of participants are Hispanic. As recruiting continues, enrolling Black women and other women of color will “absolutely” continue as a priority, Pisano said.

Participants are randomly assigned to either 2D or 3D mammograms and are followed for several years. The number of advanced cancers detected by the two methods will be compared.

At the U.S. study sites, 21% of study participants are Black women — that’s higher than a typical cancer treatment study, in which 9% of participants are Black, McCaskill-Stevens said.

The University of North Carolina has signed up more Black women than any other study site. Nearly a quarter of the nearly 3,000 women enrolled at UNC’s two locations are Black.

“Women in North Carolina want to take part in something that’s bigger than them,” said Dr. Cherie Kuzmiak, who leads the UNC arm of the study. “They want this active role in helping determine the future of health care for women.”

In Washington, D.C., word of mouth has led to successful recruiting.

A chance encounter at her hair salon persuaded Stovall to join the research. While waiting for a hair appointment, she met Georgetown University cancer researcher Lucile Adams-Campbell. The two, both Black, started chatting.

“She explained how important it was to get women of color into the program,” said Stovall, who jumped at the chance to catch up on her mammograms after the COVID-19 pandemic delayed screening for her and thousands of others.

For Stovall, there was a personal reason to join the research. Her sister recently completed treatment for triple negative breast cancer, an aggressive type that affects Black women at higher rates than white women.

Women ages 45 to 74 without a personal history of breast cancer are eligible for the study, which launched in 2017. Many women also are providing blood and cheek swab samples for a database that will be mined for insights.

“It’s a dream that people had since the beginning of screening that we wouldn’t fit everybody into the same box,” Pisano said. The study’s findings could “reduce disparities if we’re successful, assuming people have access to care.”

Stovall, 72, had a brief scare when her mammogram, the traditional 2D type, showed something suspicious. A biopsy ruled out cancer.

“I was extremely relieved,” Stovall said. “Everybody I know has heard from me about the need for them to go get a mammogram.”
…

your ads here!

Four-day work weeks improved Spanish workers’ health several ways, such as by lowering stress while reducing fuel emissions and benefiting children, a pilot program showed on Tuesday. 

The coastal city of Valencia — Spain’s third largest with more than 800,000 inhabitants — scheduled local holidays to fall on four consecutive Mondays between April 10 and May 7 this year. The project affected 360,000 workers. 

Many participants used the long weekends to develop healthier habits such as practicing sport, resting and eating homemade food, according to an independent commission of health and social science experts that evaluated the program. 

The data showed an improvement in self-perceived health status, lower stress levels and better feelings regarding tiredness, happiness, mood and personal satisfaction, it added. 

A drop in the use of motor vehicles led to better air quality on the four Mondays during the program’s period, as less nitrogen dioxide was emitted, according to the city’s daily emissions measurements. 

However, smokers and drinkers increased their overall use of tobacco and alcohol, it said.

More time for hobbies, leisure

A high percentage of those surveyed said they were more likely to read, study, watch films and pursue hobbies such as  photography, music or painting, the commission said. It did not specify the percentage. 

Children benefited the most, thanks to improved work-life balance enjoyed by their parents, the commission found. 

Retail sales down

While the hospitality and tourism sectors served more customers during extended weekends, retailers reported a decrease in sales and emergency medical services may have been overextended as more healthcare workers took time off, the report said. 

The project was designed by the left-wing Compromis coalition of progressive, green and regionalist parties, which ruled the city at the time. 

Last year, the Spanish government launched a similar two-year project focused on small and medium-sized industrial companies nationwide. 
…

your ads here!

Foreigners who live in Italy will be able to use the national health service after paying a $2,109 annual fee, the government said Monday. 

The charge, part of the 2024 budget adopted by the cabinet, will apply only to citizens from outside the European Union, the economy ministry said in a statement.  

The ministry said there would be an unspecified discount for those with legal residency papers, as well as for foreign students and au pairs.  

It was not immediately clear how far the reform would change the current system, which already foresees payments for some categories of foreigners. 

Giordana Pallone of the Cgil trade union told the Adnkronos news agency the reform risked falling foul of the Italian constitution, which guarantees free medical care for the poor.  

“We’ll now have to wait to see how the law is written, because as it is reported today, it has no value or basis compared to the system and regulations that we have,” she said.  

Foreign workers, job seekers, asylum-seekers and unaccompanied minors currently have access to free health care, like Italian nationals.  

Other foreigners with legal residency, such as diplomats and students, can join the Italian health service voluntarily, for a variable fee. 

For students, for example, the charge is capped around $150 per year, while for others it depends on their annual income and can go up to more than $2,950.  

Last month, Italy’s right-wing government sparked controversy by decreeing that migrants would have to pay more than $5,200 to avoid detention while their request for protection was being processed. 
…

your ads here!

All About America explores American culture, politics, trends, history, ideals and places of interest.

West Virginia (41%), Louisiana (40.1%) and Oklahoma (40%) are the states with the fattest populations in the nation, laying claim to the highest proportion of adults with a body mass index (BMI) of 40% or greater, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“The latest data from CDC is looking grim,” says Jamie Bussel of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a health-based philanthropic organization. “Twenty-two states had an adult obesity rate at or above 35%. And that was up from 19 states the year before. And when we look back a decade ago, no states had an adult obesity rate at or above 35%. So yes, clearly, when you look at the numbers, they’re not going in the right direction.”

In addition to West Virginia, Louisiana and Oklahoma, the 22 states with an obesity rate of 35% or higher are Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The highest prevalence of obesity can be found in the Midwest and South, followed by the Northeast and the West. Obesity rates trended higher among Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and Alaska natives.

Every U.S. state had an obesity rate of at least 20%. The CDC calls additional support for obesity prevention and treatment “an urgent priority.”

“Obesity is a disease caused by many factors, including eating patterns, physical activity levels, sleep routines, genetics and certain medications,” said Karen Hacker, director of CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, in a press release. “This means that there is no one size fits all approach. However, we know the key strategies that work include addressing the underlying social determinants of health such as access to healthcare, healthy and affordable food, and safe places for physical activity.”

Bussel says more robust federal food programs are necessary to help families living in poverty.

“In February of 2023, the USDA proposed updates to the school meals to align them with a diet that was [in line with] the latest dietary guidelines, and some of those changes include limits on added sugar, reductions in sodium levels, etc.,” she says. “We believe that those types of changes are really important changes that could improve students’ health and diet quality.”

There have also been changes to the WIC program, a federally funded supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, aimed at filling key nutritional gaps.

“A year ago in November, the USDA proposed updates to the WIC food package that will aim to help families purchase more nutritious foods,” Bussel says. “So again, these are federal-level policies that we believe are really important in helping ensure that all kids and families can thrive and be healthy and access good, high-quality food.”

Sheldon Jacobson, a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois, has studied obesity and says the government should invest more in public transportation to get people moving.

“We are such an automobile-centric society. We build our communities centered around suburbs,” he says. “We focus on driving rather than bicycling or walking or even public transportation and, as a result, that basically contributes to the fact that this inactivity is forcing people to gain weight, whether we like it or not, because we do less.”

The states and U.S. territories with the lowest rates of obesity are the District of Columbia (24.3%), Colorado (25%), Hawaii (25.9%) and Vermont (26.8%).
…

your ads here!

Rite Aid Corp filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday, as it comes under pressure from lawsuits alleging that the drugstore chain helped fuel the opioid crisis in the United States.

Rite Aid listed estimated assets and liabilities in the range of $1 billion to $10 billion in a court filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based Rite Aid operates more than 2,000 retail stores across 17 states in the U.S., although it is much smaller than its rivals such as Walgreens Boots Alliance and CVS Health.

Along with other pharmacy chains, it has been named a defendant in lawsuits that alleged they helped fuel the opioid crisis in the United States.

The U.S. Department of Justice in March sued Rite Aid, accusing the pharmacy chain of missing “red flags” as it illegally filled hundreds of thousands of prescriptions for controlled substances, including opioids.

More than 900,000 people have died of drug overdoses in the U.S. since 1999, with opioids playing an outsized role, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 
…

your ads here!

The medicine in the diabetes drug Mounjaro helped people with obesity or who are overweight lose at least a quarter of their body weight, or about 27 kilograms (60 pounds) on average, when combined with intensive diet and exercise, a new study shows.

By comparison, a group of people who also dieted and exercised, but then received dummy shots, lost weight initially but then regained some, researchers reported Sunday in the journal Nature Medicine.

“This study says that if you lose weight before you start the drug, you can then add a lot more weight loss after,” said Dr. Thomas Wadden, a University of Pennsylvania obesity researcher and psychology professor who led the study.

The results, which were also presented Sunday at a medical conference, confirm that the drug made by Eli Lilly & Company has the potential to be one of the most powerful medical treatments for obesity to date, outside experts said.

“Any way you slice it, it’s a quarter of your total body weight,” said Dr. Caroline Apovian, who treats obesity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and wasn’t involved in the study.

The injected drug, tirzepatide, was approved in the U.S. in May 2022 to treat diabetes. Sold as Mounjaro, it has been used “off-label” to treat obesity, joining a frenzy of demand for diabetes and weight-loss medications including Ozempic and Wegovy, made by Novo Nordisk.

All the drugs, which carry retail price tags of $900 a month or more, have been in shortage for months.

Tirzepatide targets two hormones that kick in after people eat to regulate appetite and the feeling of fullness communicated between the gut and the brain. Semaglutide, the drug used in Ozempic and Wegovy, targets one of those hormones.

The new study, which was funded by Eli Lilly, enrolled about 800 people who had obesity or were overweight with a weight-related health complication — but not diabetes. On average, study participants weighed about 109.5 kilograms (241 pounds) to start and had a body-mass index — a common measure of obesity — of about 38.

After three months of intensive diet and exercise, more than 200 participants left the trial, either because they failed to lose enough weight or for other reasons. The remaining nearly 600 people were randomized to receive tirzepatide or a placebo via weekly injections for about 16 months. Nearly 500 people completed the study.

Participants in both groups lost about 7% of their body weight, or almost 8 kilograms, ( 17 pounds) during the diet-and-exercise phase. Those who received the drug went on to lose an additional 18.4% of initial body weight, or about 20 kilograms (44 pounds) more, on average. Those who received the dummy shots regained about 2.5% of their initial weight, or 2.7 kilograms 6 pounds).

Overall, about 88% of those taking tirzepatide lost 5% or more of their body weight during the trial, compared with almost 17% of those taking placebo. Nearly 29% of those taking the drug lost at least a quarter of their body weight, compared with just over 1% of those taking placebo.

That’s higher than the results for semaglutide and similar to the results seen with bariatric surgery, said Apovian.

“We’re doing a medical gastric bypass,” she said.

Side effects including nausea, diarrhea and constipation were reported more frequently in people taking the drug than those taking the placebo. They were mostly mild to moderate and occurred primarily as the dose of the drug was escalated, the study found. More than 10% of those taking the drug discontinued the study because of side effects, compared with about 2% of those on placebo.

Lilly is expected to publish the results soon of another study that the firm says shows similar high rates of weight loss. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted the company a fast-track review of the drug to treat obesity, which Eli Lilly may sell under a different brand name. A decision is expected by the end of the year.
…

your ads here!

As more children emerge from the pandemic grappling with mental health issues, their parents are seeking ways for them to build emotional resilience. 

And toy companies are paying close attention. 

While still in its early phase, a growing number of toy marketers are embracing MESH — or mental, emotional and social health — as a designation for toys that teach kids skills like how to adjust to new challenges, resolve conflict, advocate for themselves, or solve problems. 

The acronym was first used in child development circles and by the American Camp Association 10 years ago and gained new resonance after the pandemic. Rachele Harmuth, head of ThinkFun, a division of toy company Ravensburger, and resilience expert and family physician Deborah Gilboa, formed a MESH taskforce earlier this year with the goal of getting manufacturers to design toys with emotional resilience in mind and to have retailers market them accordingly. 

“We just need to educate parents and educators just a little bit to know that we could be using their play time a little bit intentionally,” Gilboa said. 

The plan is to certify MESH toys by mid-2024 the same way the Toy Association did for STEAM toys, which emphasize science, tech, engineering, arts, and math. Adrienne Appell, a spokeswoman at the Toy Association, notes that MESH is an area it will continue to monitor as it evolves. 

Many toys that could be considered MESH happen to already be in children’s toy chests — like memory games, puppets, certain types of Legos, Pokémon trading games, and Dungeons & Dragons. The concept was highlighted at the toy industry’s recent four-day annual show in New York, which featured an abundance of toys from the likes of hand2mind and Open the Joy that encourage children to express their feelings with mirrors or puppets. 

James Zahn, editor- in-chief of the trade publication the Toy Book, noted the bulk of the new toys being developed with MESH in mind will be out starting next year. 

But some worry the MESH approach might end up promising parents something it can’t deliver. There’s also a risk of companies preying on parents’ anxieties about their kids’ mental health. 

“My fear is that MESH will be used as the next marketing gimmick,” said Chris Byrne, an independent toy analyst. “It will create a culture of fear that their children are not developing socially and emotionally. And that’s not really the job of the toy industry. ” 

Experts say childhood depression and anxiety were climbing for years, but the pandemic’s unrelenting stress and grief magnified the woes, particularly for those already grappling with mental health issues who were cut off from counselors and other school resources during remote learning. Many educators began emphasizing social emotional learning in response, which teaches children soft skills like helping them manage their emotions and create positive rapport with others. 

Dave Anderson, vice president of school and community programs and a senior psychologist in the ADHD and Behavior Disorders Center at the Child Mind Institute, applauded the toy industry’s efforts to likewise address emotional resilience. But he said parents need to be careful about claims that companies may be making. While there’s evidence that skills highlighted by the MESH taskforce can build resilience, there’s no evidence that the toys themselves will, he said. 

“The concepts are evidence based; the toys themselves are not,” he said. 

Bryne notes that the skills being highlighted by the MESH taskforce are the basics of play, whether it’s skateboarding that builds perseverance or learning how to share toys to help with conflict resolution. 

“In my opinion, if you live in a healthy home and you’re having healthy play and your parents are engaged, the MESH stuff kind of happens automatically, ” he said. 

The U.S. toy industry itself has been in need of a jolt following a weak year, particularly a lackluster holiday 2022 season when retailers were stuck with a surplus of toys after enjoying a pandemic-induced toy splurge by parents. The malaise has continued so far this year, with toy sales in the U.S. down 8% from January through August, based on Circana’s retail tracking service data. 

For its part, the MESH taskforce is initially working with specialty stores like Learning Express and small toy companies like Crazy Aaron’s, which has expanded beyond its Thinking Putty to add activity kits that teach kids problem solving like how magnets work with putty. One game ThinkFun is marketing: Rush Hour, a sliding block logic game that has kids battle traffic gridlock. 

But large retailers like Amazon are also waking up to the MESH approach. 

“The rising popularity of MESH toys speaks to the power of play and the important role that toys play in our lives,” said Anne Carrihill, Amazon’s director of toys and games. 

Richard Derr, owner of the Learning Express franchise in Lake Zurich, Illinois, said that he trained his workers on helping parents this past spring to pick the right toys. But the challenge is not to scare parents. 

“You don’t want to rush up to somebody and say, ‘Hey, how’s your mental health today of your kids?'” Derr said. “That’s why local toy stores are a great place to start because of our relationships with the community, customers and teachers.” 

But he noted toymakers can’t be overusing the word MESH without any meaning. 

Sarah Davis, the mother of three boys ages 3, 6 and 9, is open to the idea of MESH toys. The Great Falls, Virginia resident said her 6-year-old had delayed speech because he was wearing a mask during the heart of the pandemic, while her 9-year-old son has some issues with social interaction after being isolated and glued to his laptop. 

“My kids don’t have an issue with anxiety in terms of school,” she said, but added. “I still worry about the long-term effects of what that was like.” 

More than the promise of building emotional resilience through MESH is whether the toys themselves will actually be fun. 

“Are my kids going to ask for those kind of toys for Christmas?” Davis asked. “I’m going to be really curious and I will keep an eye out for them.” 
…

your ads here!

First came the darkening skies, then the crescent-shaped shadows on the ground, and finally an eruption of cheers by crowds that gathered Saturday along the narrow path of a rare “ring of fire” eclipse of the sun. 

It was a spectacular show for some parts of the western United States as the moon moved into place and the ring formed. 

There were hoots, hollers and yelps for those with an unfettered view in Albuquerque, where the celestial event coincided with an international balloon fiesta that typically draws tens of thousands of spectators and hundreds of hot air balloon pilots from around the world. 

They got a double treat, with balloons lifting off during a mass ascension shortly after dawn and then the eclipse a couple hours later. Organizers had 80,000 pairs of view glasses on hand for the massive crowd and some pilots used their propane burners to shoot flames upward in unison as the spectacle unfolded. 

Allan Hahn of Aurora, Colorado, has attended the festival for 34 years, first as a crew member and then as a licensed balloon pilot. His balloon, Heaven Bound Too, was one of 72 selected for a special “glow” performance as skies darkened. 

“It’s very exciting to be here and have the convergence of our love of flying with something very natural like an eclipse,” he said. 

Unlike a total solar eclipse, the moon doesn’t completely cover the sun during a ring of fire eclipse. When the moon lines up between Earth and the sun, it leaves a bright, blazing border. 

Saturday’s path: Oregon, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Texas in the U.S., with a sliver of California, Arizona and Colorado. Next: Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Brazil. Much of the rest of the Western Hemisphere gets a partial eclipse. 

Viewing all depends on clear skies — part of the U.S. path could see clouds. NASA and other groups livestreamed it. 

The event brought eclipse watchers from around the U.S. to remote corners of the country to try to get the best view possible. At Bryce Canyon National Park in southern Utah tiny lights could be seen along a well-known trail that snakes through a valley of red rock hoodoos as eclipse enthusiasts hit the trail before sunrise to stake out their preferred spots in nooks and crannies along the way. 

With the ring of fire in full form, cheers echoed through the canyons of the park as if the home team just hit a home run. 

“I just think it’s one of those things that unites us all,” said John Edwards, a cancer drug developer who traveled alone across the country to try to watch the eclipse from Bryce Canyon. “I just think it’s seeing these unique experiences that come rarely is what got me here. This is about as rare as it gets.” 

Kirby James and Caroline McGuire from Toronto didn’t realize they would be in a prime spot to watch the eclipse when they planned their trip to southern Utah. Their luck led to what McGuire called an “epic, epic” at the national park. 

“Nothing that you can read could prepare you for how it feels,” said Kirby James, 63, a co-founder of a software company. “It’s the moment, especially when the ring of fire came on, you realized you were having a lifetime experience.” 

For the small towns and cities along the path, there was a mix of excitement, worries about the weather and concerns they’d be overwhelmed by visitors flocking to see the annular solar eclipse. 

As totality began in Eugene, Oregon, oohs and ahs combined with groans of disappointment as the eclipse was intermittently visible, the sun’s light poking through the cloud cover from behind the moon only at times. 

Koren Marsh and her parents drove five hours from Seattle to be within the path of the eclipse. Making the trip to see the ring of fire was part of the celebrations for her 16th birthday. Despite the poor viewing weather, she said it was still cool to witness totality as it peeked between the clouds. 

“I’m underwhelmed but I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed,” she said. “It was worth it to me because I like science.” 

Viewers on the East Coast were prepared to see less of the event — close to a quarter eclipse around midday in some areas, such as New York City — but were nonetheless geared up to watch the skies. In Maine, viewers expected to see only about 12% of the sun covered, but the Clark Telescope on the grounds of the Versant Power Astronomy Center at the University of Maine was open to the public. 

“As the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, it casts its shadow on our planet. In a very real sense, solar eclipses are ‘made in the shade’ of the moon,” said Shawn Laatsch, director of the Versant Power Astronomy and the Maynard Jordan Planetarium. 

Colombia’s Tatacoa desert was playing host to astronomers helping a group of visually impaired people experience the eclipse through raised maps and temperature changes as the moon blots out the sun. 

At the Cancun Planetarium, young visitors built box projectors to indirectly and safely view the ring of fire. The ancient Maya — who called eclipses “broken sun” — may have used dark volcanic glass to protect their eyes, said archeologist Arturo Montero of Tepeyac University in Mexico City. 

Brazil’s Pedra da Boca state park, known for its rocky outcrops for climbing and rappelling was expecting crowds. 

The entire eclipse — from the moment the moon starts to obscure the sun until it’s back to normal — is 2 1/2 to three hours at any given spot. The ring of fire portion lasts from three to five minutes, depending on location. 

Next April, a total solar eclipse will crisscross the U.S. in the opposite direction. That one will begin in Mexico and go from Texas to New England before ending in eastern Canada. 

The next ring of fire eclipse is in October next year at the southernmost tip of South America. Antarctica gets one in 2026. It will be 2039 before another ring of fire is visible in the U.S., and Alaska will be the only state in its direct path. 
…

your ads here!

In an ongoing legal battle with the Biden administration over a Nevada lithium mine, environmentalists are poised to return to court with a new approach accusing U.S. wildlife officials of dragging their feet on a year-old petition seeking endangered species status for a tiny snail that lives nearby.

The Western Watersheds Project said in its formal notice of intent to sue that the government’s failure to list the Kings River pyrg as a threatened or endangered species could push it to the brink of extinction.

It says the only place the snail is known to exist is in 13 shallow springs near where Lithium Americas is building its Thacker Pass Mine near the Oregon line.

President Joe Biden has made ramped-up domestic production of lithium a key part of his blueprint for a greener future. Worldwide demand for the critical element in the manufacture of electric vehicle batteries is projected to increase six-fold by 2030 compared with 2020.

Past lawsuits filed by conservationists and tribes have taken aim — largely unsuccessfully — at the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, which they accused of cutting regulatory corners to expedite approval of the mine itself in 2021.

The new approach targets the department’s Fish and Wildlife Service, charged with ensuring protection of fish and wildlife habitat surrounding the mine site 321 kilometers northeast of Reno.

Western Watersheds Project says groundwater pumping associated with the mine’s 113-meter open pit will reduce or eliminate flows to the springs that support the snails.

In the formal 90-day notice of intent to sue sent to Interior Secretary Deborah Haaland last month, they say her agency’s failure to make a 12-month finding on the listing petition filed in September 2022 is a violation of the Endangered Species Act.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service isn’t supposed to sit on its hands while species are in imminent danger of extinction, but the fact that it hasn’t met the deadlines on the pyrg raises questions about why they might be delaying,” Adam Bronstein, the project’s Nevada director, said in a statement.

“It would be absolutely unacceptable if the Biden Administration is waiting until it’s too late to save the species so as not to interrupt the construction of a lithium mine,” he said.

Interior Department spokesperson Melissa Schwartz said in an email Thursday the department had no comment on the group’s intent to sue.

Western Watersheds Project said time is of the essence because the snails were imperiled even before any new mining was contemplated due to livestock grazing, round-building and, increasingly, the anticipated impacts of climate change.

“The species has no regulatory protection whatsoever … because it is not an endangered species, or even a Bureau of Land Management-listed Sensitive species, and has no state law protections,” the notice said.

Conservationists and tribal lawyers claimed a partial victory last year when U.S. District Judge Miranda Du concluded the bureau failed to fully comply with new interpretations of the 1872 Mining Law. But she stopped short of blocking the project, allowing construction to begin as the bureau shored up plans for disposal of waste rock.

The opponents appealed, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Du’s ruling in July.

The tiny snail’s shell is less than 2 millimeters tall. By comparison, a U.S. nickel coin is 1.95 millimeters thick. They’ve managed to survive in isolated springs, which are remnants of extensive waterways that have covered what is now dry land only to recede many times over the last 2 million years, the listing petition said.

The project says three of the springs are within a 1.6-kilometer buffer zone, the bureau established in its review of potential impacts of a 3-meter drawdown of the groundwater table, and the rest are less than 4.8 kilometers away.

“As drought frequency increases with climate change, the Kings River pyrg will be at high risk of extinction,” the letter to Haaland said. It notes that the Nevada Department of Wildlife considers the pyrg “extremely vulnerable to climate change.”

Lithium Americas had no comment on the notice of intent to sue the Fish and Wildlife Service, spokesperson Tim Crowley said. The company said when the listing petition was filed last year that it’s done extensive work to design a project that avoids impacts to the springs.

The Bureau of Land Management said earlier its environmental review of the project that it didn’t detect any of the snails “within the direct footprint of the project or any area likely to be adversely affected by the project.”
…

your ads here!

Pfizer slashed its full-year revenue forecast by 13% and said Friday it will cut $3.5 billion worth of jobs and expenses due to lower-than-expected sales of its COVID-19 vaccine and treatment.

Pfizer earned record revenue in 2021 and 2022, topping $100 billion last year, after developing its vaccine Comirnaty with German partner BioNTech SE and antiviral treatment Paxlovid on its own. Last year, revenue from those two products exceeded $56 billion.

But annual vaccination rates have dropped sharply since 2021 and demand for treatments has dipped as population-wide immunity has increased from vaccines and prior infections. Pfizer and rivals have begun selling an updated COVID vaccine for this fall.

“We remain proud that our scientific breakthroughs played a significant role in getting the global health crisis under control,” Pfizer CEO Albert Boura said in a statement. “As we gain additional clarity around vaccination and treatment rates for COVID, we will be better able to estimate the appropriate level of supply to meet demand.”

The drugmaker said it now expects 2023 revenue of between $58 billion and $61 billion, down from its prior forecast of $67 billion to $70 billion. It said the reduction was solely due to lowered expectations for its COVID-19 products.

Pfizer said it will take a noncash charge of $5.5 billion in the third quarter to write off $4.6 billion of Paxlovid and $900 million of inventory write-offs and other charges for the vaccine.

The cost-cutting program, which will target savings of at least $3.5 billion annually by the end of 2024, will include layoffs, the company said, without providing details on how many jobs will be cut or from what areas. One-time costs to achieve the savings are expected to be around $3 billion.

Shares of the New York-based company were down about 7% in extended trading.

Pfizer slashed its forecast for sales of its antiviral COVID treatment Paxlovid by about $7 billion, including a noncash $4.2 billion revenue reversal, as it agreed to allow the return of 7.9 million courses purchased by the U.S. government. It had previously expected Paxlovid revenue of about $8 billion for the year.

Pfizer said that under a deal with the U.S. government, a credit for the returned Paxlovid doses will underwrite a program to supply the drug free-of-charge to uninsured and underinsured Americans through 2028 and to patients insured under the government’s Medicare and Medicaid programs through the end of next year.

Pfizer will also provide the U.S. government 1 million courses of Paxlovid for the Strategic National Stockpile.

The company expects the drug will become commercially available to people with private insurance on January 1.

Pfizer also cut full-year revenue expectations for the COVID vaccine by about $2 billion due to lower-than-expected vaccination rates.

Pfizer said its non-COVID products remain on track to achieve 6% to 8% revenue growth year over year in 2023.
…

your ads here!

Following another month of record-breaking temperatures throughout the globe in September, the year 2023 is all but certain to be the warmest on record, a U.S. agency said Friday.

The unwelcome news comes as world leaders prepare to meet for the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Dubai in late November where phasing out fossil fuels, the main driver of human-caused climate change, will be top of the agenda.

“There is a greater than 99% probability that 2023 will rank as the warmest year on record,” the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in its monthly update.

The calculation was based on data gathered through September and on simulations of possible outcomes based on the historical record, from 1975 to present.

“September 2023 was the fourth month in a row of record-warm global temperatures,” said NOAA chief scientist Sarah Kapnick in a statement.

“Not only was it the warmest September on record, it was far and away the most atypically warm month of any in NOAA’s 174 years of climate keeping. To put it another way, September 2023 was warmer than the average July from 2001-2010.”

Significant climate anomalies and events included Storm Daniel, which brought strong winds and unprecedented rainfall to eastern Libya, triggering widespread destruction including burst dams that killed more than 10,000 people.

An extratropical cyclone dumped more than 300 millimeters (12 inches) of rain in 24 hours over Brazilian states, triggering landslides and flooding that killed 30.

The average global temperature for September was 2.59 degrees F (1.44 degrees C) above the 20th-century average of 59.0F (15.0C), according to the NOAA data. It was 0.83F (0.46C) above the previous record from September 2020.

Holding long-term warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is seen as essential to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.

Africa, Europe, North America and South America each had their warmest September on record; Asia had its second warmest, while Oceana had its third warmest, according to the NOAA data.

In the poles, Antarctica had its warmest September, while the Arctic saw its second warmest.

September 2023 also set a record for the lowest global September sea ice extent on record.

The oceans, too, experienced record-high monthly global ocean surface temperatures for the sixth consecutive month.

Despite increasing extreme weather events and record-shattering global temperatures, greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and fossil fuels remain subsidized to the tune of $7 trillion annually.
…

your ads here!

Thousands of people marched the streets of Ghana’s capital last week to raise awareness of breast cancer. Event organizers aimed to dispel myths about breast cancer in Africa and encourage early detection for a cure. Senanu Tord reports from Accra. (Camera: Senanu Tord and Samuel Mintah)
…

your ads here!

Packaging producers in Kenya have begun a campaign to collect each day 1,500 tonnes of empty beverage cartons and turn them into new products. Officials say the cartons account for 30 percent of the liquid packaging board produced in Kenya. Victoria Amunga reports from Thika, Kenya. Camera and edit: Jimmy Makhulo
…

your ads here!

NASA on Wednesday showed off its first asteroid samples delivered last month by a spacecraft — the most ever returned to Earth.

Scientists and space agency leaders took part in the reveal at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The ancient black dust and chunks are from the carbon-rich asteroid named Bennu, almost 60 million miles away. NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft collected the samples three years ago and then dropped them off sealed in a capsule during a flyby of Earth last month.

Scientists anticipated at least a cupful of rocks, far more than what Japan brought back from a pair of missions years ago. They’re still not sure about the exact quantity. That’s because the main sample chamber has yet to be opened, officials said.

“It’s been going slow and meticulous,” said the mission’s lead scientist, Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona.

Black dust and particles were scattered around the outside edge of the chamber, according to Lauretta.

“Already this is scientific treasure,” he said.

Besides carbon, the asteroid rubble holds water in the form of water-bearing clay minerals, said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
…

your ads here!