Day: May 10, 2018

Even Young Men Who Smoke Have Increased Stroke Risk

Young men who smoke are more likely to have a stroke before age 50 than their peers who avoid tobacco, a small study suggests.

Smoking has long been linked to an increased risk of stroke in older adults, but research to date examining this connection in younger adults has mainly focused on women. For the current study, researchers examined data on 615 men who had a stroke before age 50 and compared their smoking habits to a control group of 530 similar men who didn’t have a history of stroke.

Overall, current smokers were 88 percent more likely to have a stroke than men who never smoked, the study found.

Light smokers who had fewer than 11 cigarettes a day were 46 percent more likely to have a stroke. Heavy smokers with a two pack-a-day habit, or more, were over five times more likely to have a stroke.

‘Simple takeaway’

“The simple takeaway is the more you smoke, the more you stroke,” said lead study author Janina Markidan of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Smoking causes inflammation in blood vessels that increases the risk of blood clots forming, which in turn increases the risk of stroke, Markidan said by email.

“Although reducing the number of cigarettes smoked can reduce your risk of stroke, quitting is still the best choice for smokers,” Markidan added.

For the study, researchers focused on what’s known as an ischemic stroke, the most common kind, which occurs when a clot blocks an artery carrying blood to the brain.

Study has limitations

Among the stroke cases included in the study, 239 men had never smoked and 108 were former smokers. Another 103 men smoked less than 11 cigarettes daily, while 97 men smoked between 11 and 20 cigarettes a day and 40 men smoked 21 to 39 cigarettes daily.

An additional 28 men who had strokes smoked more than 40 cigarettes, or two packs, a day.

Most of the men who had strokes in the study were between 35 and 49 years old.

The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how smoking habits might directly influence the potential for a stroke in younger men.

Another limitation is that researchers lacked data on other tobacco products participants used in addition to cigarettes, which might influence their risk of stroke, researchers note in the journal Stroke.

Results hold true for younger smokers

The study team also lacked data on other factors that can independently influence the risk of stroke such as alcohol consumption or exercise habits.

Even so, the results suggest the link between smoking and strokes that is well established for older adults also holds true for younger smokers, said Allan Hackshaw, a researcher at University College London in the UK, who wasn’t involved in the study.

“It shows that smoking has a serious impact even when people are younger,” Hackshaw said by email. “Because treatments for stroke are much better now (fewer die from it straight away), many people who suffer one can have long-lasting consequences and physical disabilities at an age when they are usually expected to be working and physically active/fit.” 

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Mexico Says Time Running Out for Quick NAFTA Deal; Canada Upbeat

Mexico on Thursday indicated time was running out to see whether NAFTA nations could agree a new deal in the short term while Canada struck a upbeat tone, saying top-level talks this week had achieved a great deal.

Major differences remain between the three members of the North American Free Trade Agreement after more than eight months of largely slow-moving negotiations launched at the insistence of Washington, which wants major changes to the 1994 pact.

A source close to the talks said U.S. officials have told Canada and Mexico that May 17 or 18 is the deadline for a text that could be dealt with by the current U.S. Congress. A second source confirmed that those dates had been discussed.

Need solutions before elections

Mexico’s Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said he expected to learn by the end of Friday whether a new deal was possible in the short term.

“I think we will be finding out through the day and tomorrow … if we really have what it takes to be able to land these things in the short run,” Guajardo told Reuters.

Top-level talks between the three members this week hit an obstacle as the United States and Mexico sought to settle differences over the key issue of automobiles.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer wants a quick agreement to avoid running into complications caused by a Mexican presidential election on July 1 and U.S. midterm Congressional elections in November.

‘Getting closer’

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said the three nations had “made a lot of progress since Monday … we are definitely getting closer to the final objective.”

Freeland, speaking to reporters after meetings with senior U.S. legislators on Capitol Hill, sidestepped questions as to when an agreement might be reached.

Guajardo told Reuters that “we have suitcases for two weeks if necessary.”

U.S. President Donald Trump regularly threatens to walk away from NAFTA, underscoring uncertainty over the pact. Business executives complain that the lack of clarity is hitting investment.

Mexico has launched a counterproposal to U.S. demands to toughen automotive industry content rules and boost wages. U.S. President Donald Trump blames cheaper wages in Mexico for manufacturing job losses in the United States.

Many major issues remain

Many other major issues crucial to a deal are still unresolved, including U.S. demands for a five-year sunset clause, and elimination of settlement panels for trade disputes.

After meeting with Lighthizer on Thursday, Guajardo told reporters that the talks were not just covering autos.

“You cannot think that in a process of negotiations we’re going to solve one item without reviewing the overall balance of the agreement,” he said. “We’re going over all the items. It’s very important to stress that.”

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Italian Researchers Develop Lighter, Cheaper Robotic Hand

Italian researchers on Thursday unveiled a new robotic hand they say allows users to grip objects more naturally and featuring a design that will lower the price significantly.

The Hennes robotic hand has a simpler mechanical design compared with other such myoelectric prosthetics, characterized by sensors that react to electrical signals from the brain to the muscles, said researcher Lorenzo De Michieli. He helped develop the hand in a lab backed by the Italian Institute of Technology and the INAIL state workers’ compensation prosthetic center.

The Hennes has only one motor that controls all five fingers, making it lighter, cheaper and more able to adapt to the shape of objects.

“This can be considered low-cost because we reduce to the minimum the mechanical complexity to achieve, at the same time, a very effective grasp, and a very effective behavior of the prosthesis,” De Michieli said. “We maximized the effectiveness of the prosthetics and we minimized the mechanical complexity.”

They plan to bring it to market in Europe next year with a target price of around 10,000 euros ($11,900), about 30 percent below current market prices.

Arun Jayaraman,a robotic prosthetic researcher at the Shirley Ryan Ability lab in Chicago, said the lighter design could help overcome some resistance in users to the myoelectric hands, which to date have been too heavy for some. Italian researchers say the Hennes weighs about the same as a human hand.

In the United States, many amputees prefer the much simpler hook prosthetic, which attaches by a shoulder harness, because it allows them to continue to operate heavy equipment, Jayaraman said.

Italian retiree Marco Zambelli has been testing the Hennes hand for the last three years. He lost his hand in a work accident while still a teenager, and has used a variety of prosthetics over the years. A video presentation shows him doing a variety of tasks, including removing bills from an automated teller machine, grasping a pencil and driving a stick-shift car.

“Driving, for example, is not a problem,” Zambelli, 64, said, who has also learned to use a table knife. “Now I have gotten very good at it. I think anyone who’s not looking with an expert eye would find it difficult to spot that it’s an artificial hand.”

About a dozen labs worldwide are working on improvements to the myoelectric prosthetic, with some focusing on touch, others on improving how the nervous system communicates with the prosthetic.

“Each group is giving baby steps to help the field move forward,” Jayaraman said.

Cost remains a barrier for advanced prosthetic limbs, as well as the fact that the more complex motorized systems tend to be “heavy and fragile. They also get hard to control,” said Robert Gaunt, an assistant professor of rehabilitation at the University of Pittsburgh.

The Hennes design “could make a difference. I think it is a clever approach and one that could see significant benefits for people with missing hands,” he said.

Limitations remain the inability to control individual fingers for tasks like playing the piano or typing on a computer.

“But the vast majority of what many of us do with our hands every day is simply grasp objects,” Gaunt said.

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Dr. Dre Loses Trademark Claim Against ‘Dr. Drai’

Dr. Dre has lost his trademark fight against Dr. Drai.

The rapper, whose real name is Andre Young, objected to the trademark application of a Pennsylvania gynecologist whose nickname is spelled differently but sounds the same. Dr. Draion M. Burch’s website advertises that he’s a sex expert, “obgyn and media personality.”

 

Burch goes by a shortened version of his first name and applied to register it as a trademark. The rapper objected, saying the public would be confused and assume a connection between him and the gynecologist.

 

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has disagreed, saying consumers will be able to distinguish between the two.

 

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People, Power Costs Keep Indoor Farming Down to Earth

There’s a budding industry that’s trying to solve the problem of the limp lettuce and tasteless tomatoes in America’s supermarkets.

It’s full of technologists who grow crops in buildings instead of outdoors, short-cutting the need to prematurely harvest produce for a bumpy ride often thousands of miles to consumers in colder climes.

 

More than 30 high-tech companies from the U.S. to Singapore hoping to turn indoor farming into a major future food source, if only they can clear a stubborn hurdle: high costs.

 

These companies stack plants inside climate-controlled rooms, parse out nutrients and water, and bathe them with specialized light. It’s all so consumers can enjoy tasty vegetables year-round using a fraction of the water and land that traditional farming requires. Farmers can even brag the produce is locally grown.

 

But real estate around cities is pricey. Electricity and labor don’t come cheap. And unlike specialty crops like newly legal marijuana, veggies rarely command premium prices. (It’s tough to compete with plants grown in dirt with free sunlight, after all.)

 

Even the best-funded indoor farming company on the planet — Plenty, which has raised nearly $230 million so far — has embraced a longtime farmers’ crutch: government handouts. It hasn’t found any takers yet.

 

“We believe society should consider investing in this new form of agriculture in the way it invested in agriculture in the 1940s,” said Plenty CEO Matt Barnard in a recent interview.

 

Barnard says public aid — in the form of cheaper power — is one way to turn a good but elusive idea into a sustainable venture.

 

Last year, the U.S. paid farmers $9.3 billion in direct support, and subsidized weather-related crop insurance to the tune of $5.1 billion. In a nutshell, Barnard argues that some of that money could be diverted to crops that grow in rain or shine.

 

Plenty grows kale, mixed greens, basil and natural sweetener stevia in a grey, low-rise warehouse complex in the industrial suburb of South San Francisco.

 

Visitors arriving via the back door must don full-body overalls and rubber boots dipped in disinfecting shoe baths before entering the air-tight workspace.

 

Seedlings are grown on flatbeds and bathed in purple light that gives them the look of a 3D movie watched without glasses. Maturing plants are stuffed into columns where they grow sideways, fed by drip irrigation, and irradiated by columns of light-emitting diodes.

 

The plants will be clipped and packaged before heading to stores later this year.

 

But there are some noticeable gaps in the menu. There are no carrots or tomatoes, because long roots that grow down and vines that require human pruning don’t do well on walls.

 

For indoor farms, making money has largely meant shipping in bulk to grocery stores, a conundrum if costs aren’t in line.

 

Investment in indoor farming soared to $271 million last year, up from just $36 million in 2016, according to market research firm Cleantech Group.

 

“The question is, how are they going to scale?” asks Pawel Hardej, CEO of Civic Farms, a vertical farming consultancy in Austin, Texas.

 

There have been plenty of indoor farming failures already.

 

FarmedHere shuttered its operations in Louisville, Kentucky, and Bedford Park, Illinois, in January last year due to cost overruns.

 

Georgia-based PodPonics, which filed for bankruptcy in 2016, cited labor costs as its biggest drag.

 

Google’s X, the search giant’s secretive “moonshot factory,” killed its indoor farming efforts because it couldn’t grow food staples like grains and rice.

 

Even fans of the technology aren’t sure it can beat another sheltered alternative: greenhouses.

 

“Vertical farming to a lot of [investors] is an ‘if’ and a ‘maybe’ versus a ‘when,'” says Cleantech adviser Yoachim Haynes. “The question that needs to be answered is, ‘Can they do it with cheaper electricity and cheaper labor?’ This is not a question that many have been able to answer.”

 

Barnard says Plenty can prosper if it spends 3 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour on power — well below the 10.4 cents that is the average price nationwide, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

 

While Plenty announced plans to build a 100,000 square-foot facility in the Seattle suburb of Kent in November, it said it isn’t in talks about power breaks with any U.S. city now.

 

Most public support has so far been in rebates for energy-efficient lighting, not running costs.

 

Seattle City Light provided $10,000 worth of energy-efficient lighting to an indoor growing facility that helped feed the city’s homeless. But it already offers the lowest power rate of the top 25 cities in America. “That’s the deal that’s on the table,” says spokesman Scott Thomsen.

 

Chicago provided some $344,000 in construction grants since 2008 to The Plant , a former pork processing plant that is home to multiple indoor farms.

 

While that helped with structural improvements, it didn’t help with operations, says John Edel, the president of Bubbly Dynamics LLC, which owns The Plant.

 

Supplying grocery stores in large volumes is “harder than it sounds,” he says. And other ways of obtaining cheap power — like The Plant’s plan to install a bio-gas guzzling turbine — have faced obstacles that make it uneconomical.

 

“There isn’t a whole lot in the way of incentives for farms here,” Edel says. “There needs to be.”

 

 

 

 

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Spotify Cuts R. Kelly Music From Playlists, Cites Policy

Spotify has removed R. Kelly’s music from its playlists, citing its new policy on hate content and hateful conduct.

A spokesperson on Thursday says Kelly’s music is no longer available on the streaming service’s owned and operated playlists and algorithmic recommendations. His music will still be available, but Spotify will not actually promote it.

The new policy defines hateful conduct as “something that is especially harmful or hateful,” such as violence against children and sexual violence.  

 

Spotify says it doesn’t censor content because of an artist’s behavior. But the service wants programs to “reflect” its values. It says when an artist does something harmful or hateful, it may affect the ways it works with the artist.

 

Kelly has long been the target of sexual misconduct allegations, which he has denied.

 

Kelly’s representative didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

 

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Mayo Clinic Researchers Experiment with Age-Delaying Drugs

The Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon never found the Fountain of Youth, a magical water source supposedly capable of reversing the aging process. But scientists at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, are working to extend human life span and delay the onset of multiple age-related diseases and disabilities. VOA Maia Kay has the story.

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DRC Confirms Ebola Outbreak Near Border

Health officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo are racing to contain a new Ebola outbreak announced this week. At least two people are confirmed to have died of Ebola this month in a remote village of northwest DRC, very close to the border of the smaller, neighboring Republic of Congo.

The DRC’s health minister, Dr. Oly Ilunga, has been keeping people updated on social media, tweeting that on Thursday — some 24 hours after the initial announcement — a team of 12 experts landed in Mbandaka, the city closest to the outbreak.

Ilunga said that Ebola had been confirmed in two of 17 hemorrhagic fever deaths seen in recent weeks in the northwest village of Bikoro. The area has reported 21 cases of hemorrhagic fever in all.

 

“Our country,” he said in an open letter to the Congolese population, “is facing a new epidemic of Ebola that is a public health emergency of international concern.”

The World Health Organization has released $1 million from its emergency fund to respond to this outbreak. WHO and medical aid group Doctors Without Borders are leading the response, and have sent experts to the site.

“MSF’s DRC emergency team is already on site and has been supporting the Ministry of Health to deploy a rapid and tailored response to the emergency since last Saturday,” the group, known by its french acronym MSF, said in a statement. “MSF will continue to adapt its response according to the needs on the ground.”

The aid group declined to give more details, saying its experts were still gathering information.

 

‘This is not the first time’

This is not Congo’s first encounter with the hemorrhagic fever, which causes an acute, serious illness which is often fatal if left untreated. It is transmitted to people from wild animals and can be spread through human-to-human transmission.

Ebola derives its name from the place it was first discovered, the Ebola River, a tributary of the Congo River, in 1976. The average survival rate is 50 percent, according to the WHO.

 

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told VOA this is Congo’s ninth outbreak of Ebola since the virus was first identified, including one last year that he said “was contained relatively quickly.”

“So we are hoping to do the same thing this time around — to send quickly teams to the area where the virus has been confirmed to be circulating, to be in position to identify those who are sick, to be in position to identify those who have been potentially exposed, to put in place all those necessary measures that are used every time when there is an Ebola outbreak to try to stop the transmission as fast as possible,” he said.

This latest outbreak has occurred in an area near the banks of the Congo River, just across the border from the Republic of Congo. Because this region is poor in infrastructure, its many waterways are vital for transport and trade activities.

 

Ebola killed more than 11,000 people in a two-year epidemic that ravaged Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia between 2014 and 2016. So far, none of the recent outbreaks in Congo have been connected to that event.

The WHO’s Jasarevic said that to contain the newest outbreak, it is crucial that people in and around Bikoro cooperate with local health authorities.

“It is really important that communities in this particular area are engaged, are working together with authorities in terms of safe burial practices, in terms of proper contact tracing, to be compliant with those procedures,” he said. “The community engagement has been proven as a key component in successful containment of an Ebola outbreak.”

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A New Silicon Valley is Sprouting in Middle America

Kavitha Kamalbabu needed a break. She had raised her two children and the youngest was now in kindergarten. It was time to turn attention to her career. The 36-year-old wanted to code. The mecca of high tech — Silicon Valley — wasn’t an option because she needed to stay close to home and family in Indianapolis, Indiana.

“I chose Kenzie Academy because of its life project-based learning,” she said.

Kamalbabu is now at the top of her class, getting a two-year degree as a software developer. Kenzie, based in Indianapolis, was established to keep talent in Middle America and to create a mini tech capital.

“Our point is to bring people from Indianapolis to stay in Indianapolis,” said founder Courtney Spence. To do that, they place students in local companies as quickly as possible after their enrollment.

For one class, Kamalbabu, originally from India, found herself asking questions about measuring beer and learning how data increases profit. The class was taking a tour of Steady Serve — a local beer management system that invented a device to measure the content of kegs to reduce waste and fraud.

In the past, CEO Steve Hershberger hired from big universities near Silicon Valley. Now, he needs coders to work on the connection between beer kegs to his iKeg app, and he is choosing interns from Kenzie because of the quality he sees in the candidates.

“It’s like they folded the country and brought San Jose [the heart of Silicon Valley] into Indianapolis.”

By the numbers

Indianapolis is Middle America. Located in the Corn Belt, Indiana is known for its farms — the state’s model is “The Crossroads of America.” City leaders said that perception is changing. Indianapolis deputy mayor of economic development Angela Smith Jones calls Indianapolis “Western Silicon Valley” with a “great startup culture.”

Last year, technology companies in Indianapolis contributed $7.7 billion into the city’s economy and employed 75,000 people.

Job postings for emerging tech are up 40 percent over last year, and the city’s unemployment rate is currently 3 percent, which is lower than the national average.

The average tech industry wage in Indiana is $76,860.

“It’s on the cusp of what we are seeing as being a tech boom,” Spence said.

Not so fast

But students majoring in tech at Stanford University — a research school located in the heart of Silicon Valley — were unimpressed. Freshman Max Comolli said he wouldn’t be enticed to leave California for Indianapolis because of the opportunities and “such a great tech scene already established.”

Masters candidate Diego Garcia said when he thinks of high tech, he thinks of “California or New York, not Indianapolis.” But freshman Alexa White from Detroit, Michigan, thinks a tech capital in the Midwest would “benefit the field” and create diversity.

The gender diversity hasn’t reached Kenzie, although school officials said they actively recruit females. The next class of 18 students starting later this year will have three women. Of the current class, only Kamalbabu and an African American are female.

Statistically, women — and especially women of color — make up a small percentage of the tech field. But 24-year-old Mya Williams called it a “pleasant surprise” when she saw Kamalbabu on the first day of class because she thought she would be the only female. Williams said young girls aren’t encouraged to concentrate in math and science. “They get looked over when it comes to software,” she said.

To Asia and beyond

Kenzie officials plan to duplicate the academy model, starting in Malaysia. Spence goes a step further. “We have a commitment to replicate it around the world,” she said.

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Virginia Woman Breaks Glass Ceiling with Wood

Virginia Wallen is a wife, a mother of three, and a woodworker. She achieved what she has never imagined she would — turning her carpentry hobby into a business. The entrepreneur isn’t just succeeding in her new career, she’s tearing down stereotypes and building a new role model.

It happens for a reason

Wallen, who grew up helping out on her family’s farm, developed all the skills required by a professional woodworker early on.

“It wasn’t so much as a passion — growing up doing woodworking – as much as a requirement: help mend a fence or work on the farm or do things like that,” she recalls. “When given a choice in high school between home economics and woodshop class I picked woodshop and welding. But the passion happened a lot later when the HGTV [TV channel for home improvement] came out.”

Still, carpentry wasn’t her first career choice. Wallen worked for 11 years with an IT company.

“I was pretty certain that that was my career path for the rest of my life,” she says. “So when I got laid off I was devastated. I just never expected that I would ever be laid off. I was applying for jobs everywhere but because I’m so type A. I can’t sit around and do nothing. And, I was driving my husband crazy.”

New career

Inspired by her dogs, Penny and Chloe, Wallen returned to her hobby… and made a crate for them. Then, she posted the pictures on line.

“That week I had five people reached out to me asking if I would build them one,” she says. “I wasn’t expecting that feedback. But I took it as divine intervention, maybe I need to change. I told my husband I was going to start building dog kennels.”

That surprised her husband, Kevin Wallen, who works in IT and also enjoys carpentry as hobby.

“I thought she was crazy,” he admits. “But after the first one was well-received, it was great. It was like ‘OK, this is going to take off.’”

And it did. But that wouldn’t have been possible without her husband’s help.

“I took over Mr. Mom,” he explains. “I kind of stepped in and had to be more hands on with kids and more hands on with the school stuff and dinners and things like that because her work was focused on building the business. So it was a big change, but being married that’s what you got to do. You got to step up every now and then.”

Wallen is thankful for her husband’s support.

“Kevin can also help pick up that slack when I need it,” she says. “He can come down here when I need help building and he can help me do that. If I need help putting kids to bed because I’m here building until eleven o’clock at night, he can do that too.”

That gave Wallen the time she needed to build her brand, Ginny Bins. Her products are made of recycled wood and have a warm, vintage look. She markets them on-line.

On line at the right time

Around the same time Wallen started her business, psychologist Heather Abbott was in the process of starting a day care center, Little Oaks Montessori Academy. She went online searching for furniture.

“I didn’t want to get the standard, just ordered off the Internet pieces, I wanted something very customized that looked like it would go into a home,” she says. “I saw Ginny Bins, Virginia woodwork business. I liked it. I contacted her.

Abbott says Wallen understood what she wanted, from the whimsical to the practical.

“One of the things that I really was looking for is a book shelf that looks like a tree,” Abbott says. “She’s like, ‘you know I’ve never made anything like this, but I’m going to give it a shot.’ She did it and it happens to be one of the children’s favorite pieces in the school. She made boards with little clips. A table for the staff kitchen. The angle of the room was weird and she had to make it small enough to fit in. She did Dutch doors on all the classrooms so we wouldn’t have to shut the doors, we don’t have to close it all completely. ”

Abbott loves each of these items and the message of unlimited possibilities behind them. “It’s to teach our teachers, our students, our families that pass by, so they know that Virginia made those pieces and they can say this is a stereotype that we’re breaking.”

Woodworker Virginia Wallen doesn’t like stereotypes and believes it’s time for women to ignore them and just do what they want.

That’s what she’s doing. And that’s how she’s found her passion, woodworking- the work she has fun doing every day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Female Woodworker Carves a Space for Women in Carpentry

Virginia Wallen is a wife, a mother of three, and a woodworker. She achieved what she has never imagined she would — turning her carpentry hobby into a business. And as Faiza Elmasry tells us, the entrepreneur isn’t just succeeding in her new career, she’s tearing down stereotypes and building a new role model. Faith Lapidus narrates.

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Syrian Refugees Showcase Innovation Ideas

No matter where they live, young people are capable of coming up with fresh ideas about how to improve life in their communities. At a recent exhibition, held in the sprawling Zaatari refugee camp in northern Jordan, teenage Syrians showcased inventions geared toward making refugee camps more livable. VOA’s George Putic has more.

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USGS: Explosive Eruptions Possible at Hawaii Volcano

The eruption of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano could intensify in the coming weeks, possibly spraying boulders, rocks and ash for miles around, the U.S. Geological Survey said Wednesday.

Kilauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, erupted last week. Lava flows from fissures on its eastern flank have destroyed at least 36 homes and other buildings and forced the evacuation of about 2,000 residents.

The USGS said the risk would rise if the lava dropped below the groundwater level beneath the summit’s caldera.  An influx of water inside could cause steam-driven explosions. 

The agency said more violent eruptions could send “ballistic rocks” weighing up to a ton for about a kilometer or smaller ones much farther. 

The emergence of two new vents prompted Hawaii County to issue a cellphone alert ordering stragglers in two communities on the volcano’s eastern flank to get out immediately. Police followed up with personal visits.

Both communities are in a forested, remote part of the Big Island on the eastern flank of Kilauea, which has been erupting continuously since 1983. 

In recent years, the volcano has mostly released lava in hard-to-reach areas inside a national park or along the coastline. But last week, vents popped open and released lava, gas and steam inside neighborhoods.   

There’s no indication when the eruption might stop, or how far the lava might spread.

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