Month: April 2017

Dating app Tinder is hit or miss for humans, but wildlife conservationists hope it might lead to love for the world’s last male northern white rhino.

The move is seen as a last-ditch effort to keep the species alive.

“I don’t mean to be too forward, but the fate of the species literally depends on me,” the rhino’s profile says. “I perform well under pressure.”

Sudan is 43 years old, weighs nearly 2,270 kilograms and lives in Kenya. And while he has two female companions, they are unable to mate due to age and other limitations.

The campaign to find love for Sudan, called Most Eligible Bachelor by the Kenyan Ol Pejeta Conservancy, which came up with the idea.

While it’s unclear if any potential mates can swipe right on Sudan’s profile, the group hopes the move will raise $9 million for research into breeding methods such as in vitro fertilization.

“We partnered with Ol Pejeta conservancy to give the most eligible bachelor in the world a chance to meet his match,” said Matt David, the head of communications and marketing at Tinder in an interview with the Associated Press. “We are optimistic given Sudan’s profile (it) will be seen on Tinder in 190 countries and over 40 languages.”

Sudan and his two female friends — 17-year-old Najin and 27-year-old Fatu — live at the conservancy protected by 24-hour security.

“The plight that currently faces the northern white rhinos is a signal to the impact that humankind is having on many thousands of other species across the planet,” Richard Vigne, the conservancy’s chief executive officer, told AP. “Ultimately, the aim will be to reintroduce a viable population of northern white rhino back into the wild, which is where their true value will be realized.”
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A type of worm could help solve the growing problem of plastic pollution.

The common wax worm, or Galleria mellonella, researchers say, can eat plastic and could help reduce the waste caused by the one trillion polyethylene plastic bags used around the world annually.

“We have found that the larva of a common insect, Galleria mellonella, is able to biodegrade one of the toughest, most resilient, and most used plastics: polyethylene,” says Federica Bertocchini of the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria in Spain.

The discovery about the caterpillar’s hunger for plastic was accidental, said Bertocchini, adding that the plastic bags containing the wax worms “became riddled with holes.”

She said the worms can “do damage to a plastic bag in less than an hour.” And after 12 hours, researchers saw “an obvious reduction in plastic mass.

They also found that the worms transformed polyethylene into ethylene glycol, an organic compound used in making polyester fibers as well as antifreeze. It is unclear if the worms produce enough to be commercially viable.

Plastic is not the natural food of the wax worm, but researchers say that since they lay their eggs in beehives, the hatchlings feed on beeswax.

“Wax is a polymer, a sort of ‘natural plastic,’ and has a chemical structure not dissimilar to polyethylene,” Bertocchini says.

Researchers say they still need to better understand how wax is digested, but that finding out could lead to a biotechnological solution to plastic waste.

“We are planning to implement this finding into a viable way to get rid of plastic waste, working towards a solution to save our oceans, rivers, and all the environment from the unavoidable consequences of plastic accumulation,” Bertocchini says. “However,” she adds, “we should not feel justified to dump polyethylene deliberately in our environment just because we now know how to biodegrade it.”

The study was published in the journal Current Biology.
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India is plundering the land of its indigenous people to profit from mining, with little regard of the devastation caused to poor tribal communities, said an Indian land rights activist who won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize on Monday.

Prafulla Samantara, 66, from India’s eastern state of Odisha is one of six winners of the annual prize — often known as the “Green Nobel” — which honors grassroots activists for efforts to protect the environment, often at their own risk.

Samantara, recognized by the Goldman jury for winning a 12-year legal battle to stop a multi-national firm mining bauxite on tribal lands, said he was honored by the award but voiced concern at the continued mining threats faced by India’s tribes.

“The state has a history of not honoring legal protections of indigenous people in the constitution. Corporate influence and the promise of profits continues to tempt the government to disregard indigenous people’s rights,” Samantara told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.

“The mining-based industry has become priority for the government and the global market, but it does not support the common people. They are often led to believe that mining is for their own benefit, but then they are displaced by destructive development.”

India’s tribes make up almost 10 percent of its 1.3 billion population. Yet most live on the margins of society — inhabiting remote villages and eking out a living from farming, cattle rearing and collecting and selling forest produce.

Many live in mineral-rich regions such as Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, and risk being chased off their ancestral land due to a rising number of mining projects.

While their land is protected under a decade-old law known as the Forest Rights Act, few know their rights — leaving them open to exploitation.

Fast-track

Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government swept to power almost three years ago, it has taken a pro-business approach by fast-tracking environmental clearances for mining firms in a bid to boost investment, jobs and growth.

The son of a village farmer who went on to college to study economics and then law, Samantara led a battle against the London-headquartered Vedanta Resources which wanted to mine bauxite from a mountain considered sacred by indigenous people in Odisha.

He was kidnapped, assaulted and attacked for his activism against, but in the end, a vote of villagers — which had been ordered by the Supreme Court — rejected the mine.

Samantara — described by the Goldman jury as an “iconic leader” — slammed the government for blocking the foreign funds of thousands of charities, including green groups.

“It is deplorable. Many are fighting legally and are being targeted by the government,” he said.

Despite increasing threats to the environment and to those fighting to protect it, Samantara said he remained optimistic.

“I feel there is a growing threat to the very existence of Mother Earth if man-made destruction of nature is not stopped. But I see a ray of light,” he said.

“Though my contributions may be a drop in the ocean, thousands like me in the world can bring a radical change in thinking and spur action, encouraging a shift from consumption to preservation and conservation for future generations.”

The Goldman Environmental Prize was established in 1989 by San Francisco philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman and provides $175,000 cash award to each individual.

Other winners were Congolese Park Ranger Rodrigue Katembo, Guatemalan land rights activist Rodrigo Tot, Australian family farmer Wendy Bowman, Slovenian organic farmer Uros Macerl and a Los Angeles community organizer by the name of Mark Lopez.

 
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There’s a big difference between practicing dentistry, and finding a way to practice being a dentist. But thanks to the world of virtual reality, dentists-in-training have a new way to practice their craft through the relatively new technology of mixed reality (MR), where the virtual world meets the real world. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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The World Health Organization has announced that trials of a new malaria vaccine will take place in three African countries – Kenya, Ghana and Malawi. They have been selected for their high prevalence of malaria and strong existing immunization programs for other diseases. The announcement was made ahead of the U.N.’s World Malaria Day Tuesday. And as Henry Ridgwell reports, the chosen theme for this year is “a push for prevention.”
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A strong earthquake of magnitude 6.9 struck off the west coast of Chile on Monday, rocking the capital Santiago and briefly causing alarm along the Pacific Coast but sparing the quake-prone nation of any serious damage.

The quake was centered about 85 miles (137 km) from Santiago, and some 22 miles (35 km) west of the coastal city of Valparaiso. The U.S. Geological Survey twice revised the magnitude before settling on 6.9, a strength usually capable of causing severe damage.

The epicenter’s shallow depth of 15.5 miles (25 km) below the sea allowed it to be felt hundreds of miles (km) away.

Santiago office buildings swayed for about 30 seconds at the end of the workday.

‘Short, but very powerful’

Closer to the epicenter, residents scrambled for higher ground, remembering the lessons of the country’s devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2010.

“It was short but very powerful,” said Paloma Salamo, a 26-year-old nurse, who was in a clinic in Viña del Mar, just north of Valparaiso, when the quake struck.

People ran from the facility carrying children and some headed for the hills when the tsunami alarm sounded, she said, but calm was soon restored.

“So far there has been no human loss nor significant damage,” President Michelle Bachelet said, praising people for evacuating in an orderly fashion in the immediate aftermath.

Cellphone networks down

Officials canceled a tsunami warning that had been issued in Valparaiso. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reported small tsunami waves of half a foot (15 cm).

There were no reports of structural damage in Valparaiso, but cellphone networks were down in some places, a spokesman with the local government said.

Videos from the Valparaiso area showed objects falling from store shelves, rocks falling onto roads and lights flickering.

Felt beyond the Andes

The quake was felt as far away as Argentina, on the other side of the Andes.

Interior Minister Mario Fernandez said there had been some landslides but “in general the situation is pretty normal bearing in mind the quake’s intensity.”

Strict construction codes in Chile limit damage to buildings.

Copper mining was unaffected, according to Chile’s state-run Codelco, one of the largest copper mining companies in the world, and Anglo American, which has copper operations in central Chile.

But interruptions in the electricity supply led the Aconcagua oil refinery to temporarily suspend operations for safety reasons, state-run oil firm ENAP said. There was no damage to either of Chile’s two refineries, ENAP said.

Several aftershocks including two of magnitudes 5.0 and 5.4 were recorded in the same spot and could be felt in Santiago, part of a cluster of tremors from that area in recent days.

‘Ring of Fire’

Chile, located on the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire,” has a long history of deadly quakes, including a 8.8 magnitude quake in 2010 off the south-central coast, which also triggered a tsunami that devastated coastal towns. More than 500 people died.

That was the sixth-largest earthquake ever recorded, according to the USGS. The largest recorded temblor in history was also in Chile, a 9.5-magnitude quake in 1960.

The long, slender country runs along the border of two tectonic plates, with the Nazca Plate beneath the South Pacific Ocean pushing into the South America Plate, a phenomenon that also formed the Andes Mountains.

 
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An experimental blood test can quickly and accurately diagnose malaria from other infections, so treatment of the mosquito-borne illness can be started promptly. 

The symptoms of malaria, which strikes an estimated 200 million people around the globe every year, are non-specific.  That means the fever, aches, pains and chills in the early stages could be mistaken for any number of infections. 

Identifying and treating malaria promptly not only increases a patient’s chances of survival, but also helps prevent the disease from spreading to more people.

The blood test, developed by researchers at Stanford University in California, looks for patterns of immune system activation to determine whether a person is infected with the malaria parasite, and not a bacterium or virus.  It is reportedly 96 percent accurate.

Purvesh Khatri, a professor of medicine at Stanford, helped develop the biomarker test, which looks at which genes are switched on or off, depending on the infection.

A simple blood test measuring these immune markers could be helpful in resource-poor settings, according to Khatri. 

“So a test like ours is useful,” he said, “You could take a blood test that would not require an expert technician, and they are more sensitive than the rapid diagnostic test than we have now.”

Khatri notes the current test is not very accurate because it looks for a molecule, called an antigen, that activates an immune response in a malaria infection. 

“And the problem with those are there are not enough antigen,” said Khatri.  “So treatment then [could] be inappropriate and then it could awhile before malaria is diagnosed.”

Khatri and his team drew upon data from 40 studies involving more than 3,000 blood samples from patients with various infections.  Some were known to have malaria.  But there were also other tropical illnesses observed in the studies, including dengue, typhoid and leishmaniasis.

From those blood studies, investigators analyzed the activation of 2,100 different genes, looking at which genes switched on and off with parasitic, viral and bacterial infections.

They found a group of seven genes that were expressed in malaria compared to healthy people and those with other infectious illnesses.

To confirm their discovery, the researchers whittled the samples down to 900, in which they were able to discern the pattern of gene activation unique to malaria with near 100 percent accuracy.

While the experimental blood test is accurate in diagnosing malaria, Khatri says it might also detect other parasitic diseases that researchers have not yet studied.

But he said the blood test could be reliably used in cases where malaria is strongly suspected and confirmation of the disease is needed.

Khatri presented his findings at a meeting of the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases before World Malaria Day this week.
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