A draft report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services is under final review in Paris this week. The report was three years in the making and is expected to lay out a rescue plan for the world’s vanishing biodiversity. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…
Month: April 2019
A major power shortage at the International Space Station has delayed this week’s SpaceX supply run.
SpaceX was supposed to launch a shipment Wednesday. But an old power-switching unit malfunctioned at the space station Monday and knocked two power channels offline. The six remaining power channels are working normally, according to NASA.
NASA stressed Tuesday that the station and its six astronauts are safe. But because of the hobbled solar-power grid, the SpaceX launch is off until at least Friday. NASA wants to replace the failed unit to restore full power, before sending up the SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule.
The breakdown has left the station’s big robot arm outside with one functioning power channel instead of two. Two power sources are required — one as a backup — when the robot arm is used to capture visiting spacecraft like the Dragon.
Flight controllers will use the robot arm to replace the bad unit with a spare later this week, saving the astronauts from going out on a spacewalk.
There’s no rush for this delivery. Northrop Grumman launched supplies two weeks ago.
Solar wings collect and generate electricity for the entire space station. Any breakdown in this critical system can cut into power and affect operations.
SpaceX, meanwhile, is still investigating this month’s fiery loss of its new Dragon capsule designed for astronauts.
Six weeks after a successful test flight without a crew to the space station, the crew Dragon was engulfed in flames during a ground test. SpaceX was in the process of firing the capsule’s thrusters on a test stand. The April 20 accident — which occurred right before or during the firing of the launch-abort thrusters — sent thick smoke billowing into the sky.
SpaceX and NASA have offered few details. But the accident is sure to delay launching a crew Dragon with two NASA astronauts on board. SpaceX had been aiming for a summertime flight.
The company still needs to conduct a launch-abort test, before astronauts strap in. The Dragon that flew last month was supposed to be used for this test in June.
…
A space rock left a massive crater on the moon during January’s total lunar eclipse.
Spanish scientists reported Tuesday the meteoroid hit the moon at 38,000 mph (61,000 kph), carving out a crater nearly 50 feet (15 meters) across. It was the first impact flash ever observed during a lunar eclipse.
The scientists — who operate a lunar impact detection system using eight telescopes in Spain — believe the incoming object was a comet fragment up to 2 feet (60 centimeters) across and 100 pounds (45 kilograms). The impact energy was equivalent to 1 { tons of TNT.
Astrophysicist Jose Maria Madiedo of the University of Huelva says it was “really exciting” to observe the event, after many unsuccessful tries.
The findings appear in the Royal Astronomical Society’s Monthly Notices.
…
Some people told they have Alzheimer’s may instead have a newly identified mimic of the disease — and scientists say even though neither is yet curable, it’s critical to get better at telling different kinds of dementia apart.
Too often, the word dementia is used interchangeably with Alzheimer’s when there are multiple types of brain degeneration that can harm people’s memory and thinking skills.
“Not everything that looks like Alzheimer’s disease is Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Julie Schneider, a neuropathologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. And among all the known dementias, this newly identified kind “is the most striking mimic of Alzheimer’s,” she added.
It’s not clear how many people have this particular type, which an international team of scientists defined Tuesday in the journal Brain. But there could be a sizeable number, said Dr. Peter Nelson of the University of Kentucky, the paper’s lead author.
The dementia was dubbed “LATE,” an acronym chosen in part because the oldest seniors seem at greatest risk.
Here’s a look at various dementias in the confusing Alzheimer’s-or-not mix:
Scientists stumbled onto newest disorder
Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia, and autopsies have long found its telltale signs in the brain: sticky plaque from an abnormal buildup of amyloid protein, and tangles of another protein named tau. Only recently have scientists developed special, pricey scans that can measure that buildup in living brains.
Then studies with those scans found about a third of people with Alzheimer’s symptoms lack amyloid buildup — ruling out Alzheimer’s, said Schneider, senior author of Tuesday’s paper. What else could cause their dementia?
Another toxic protein found
It turns out another protein, named TDP-43, also can run amok in the brain. Scientists knew it plays a role in a completely different disorder, Lou Gehrig’s disease. Then, they linked TDP-43 buildup to severe shrinking of the hippocampus, a brain region key for learning and memory.
Nelson said about a quarter of people over age 85 have enough abnormal TDP-43 to affect their memory or thinking abilities. For now, it takes an autopsy to spot — the symptoms seem like Alzheimer’s until a specialist can peer inside the brain.
“What is now clear is that a lot of dementia is caused by gloppy proteins. We used to think it was just two gloppy proteins, amyloid and tau,” Nelson said.
The next step: Finding better ways to measure abnormal TDP-43 and diagnose LATE. (It stands for an unwieldy scientific name — Limbic-predominant Age-related TDP-43 Encephalopathy.)
“Our ultimate goal is to test people hopefully in a very noninvasive way,” said National Institute on Aging dementia specialist Nina Silverberg. That’s key to eventually developing treatments.
Other culprits also are overlooked
— Strokes, sometimes small “silent” ones, can trigger what’s called vascular dementia, something scientists at the National Institutes of Health think might be prevented with better blood pressure control.
— Lewy body dementia, named for clumps of still another abnormal protein, can cause Alzheimer’s-like symptoms along with movement and other problems.
— Frontotemporal dementia often triggers changes in personality and tends to strike at a younger age than Alzheimer’s, yet can still be misdiagnosed.
Many older patients probably have “mixed dementia,” several brain changes that combine to cause trouble, Dr. Walter Koroshetz, head of NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, told a recent meeting about non-Alzheimer’s dementias.
Tuesday’s paper about TDP-43-caused disease adds to the complexity, said Alzheimer’s Association chief science officer Maria Carrillo, who wasn’t involved with the new research.
“We must learn more about each contributing cause of dementia so we can understand how these changes begin and interact and co-occur, and how to best diagnose, treat and prevent them,” she said.
Why is it important to tell one dementia from another?
Current treatments for Alzheimer’s and other dementias temporarily ease symptoms. But there are other reasons for a precise diagnosis. A list of medications common for seniors can harm people with Lewy body dementia, for example. Knowing the specifics also can help people plan care, as some types of dementia worsen faster than others.
And it’s critical for developing better dementia treatments. Testing a treatment that targets, say, the tau tangles or amyloid plaques of Alzheimer’s won’t stand a chance if patients who only have TDP-43 are allowed into the study.
“If you have a dementia percolating in your brain, the only hope we have right now is to participate in a clinical trial to try to stop it,” Nelson said.
…
Facebook Inc on Tuesday debuted an overhaul of its core social network and new business-focused tools, the first concrete steps in its plan to refashion itself into a private messaging and e-commerce company.
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a fresh design for the world’s biggest social network that de-emphasized its News Feed and showcased services like its messaging app, online marketplace and video-on-demand site.
The company also rolled out features aimed both at encouraging users to interact with their close social circle as well as with businesses, including appointment booking and a “Secret Crush” option for Facebook Dating.
Zuckerberg in March promised changes to the advertising-driven social media company as it was under regulatory scrutiny over propaganda on its platform and users’ data privacy. Facebook’s News Feed continues to draw ad dollars but user growth in its most lucrative markets has slowed.
“We believe that there is a community for everyone. So we’ve been working on a major evolution to make communities as central as friends,” said Zuckerberg on Tuesday, speaking at Facebook’s annual F8 conference, where the company gives developers a peek at new product releases.
Other Facebook executives introduced changes within the Messenger and Instagram apps aimed at helping businesses connect with customers, including appointment booking and enhanced shopping features as well as a tool to lure customers into direct conversations with companies via ads.
Zuckerberg identified private messaging, ephemeral stories and small groups as the fastest-growing areas of online communication. In last three years, the number of people using WhatsApp has almost doubled.
The social media company is now working on “LightSpeed” in order to make its Messenger app smaller in size and faster.
Facebook will also introduce Messenger for Mac and Windows and launch a new feature called “Product Catalog” for WhatsApp Business. The desktop version of Messenger will be available this fall.
“I know that we don’t exactly have the strongest reputation on privacy right now, to put it lightly,” Zuckerberg said.
The online ad market is largely dominated by Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google. But by focusing more on messaging, e-commerce, payment and enterprise-focused tools,
Facebook will also need to battle the likes of Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp as well as fast-growing Silicon Valley unicorns like workplace messaging app Slack.
“We’ve shown time and again as a company that we have what it takes to evolve,” Zuckerberg said.
Making money
Facebook pulled in nearly $56 billion in revenue last year, almost of all which came from showing ads to the 2.7 billion people who access its family of apps each month.
But Facebook is no longer adding many new users in the United States and Europe, its most lucrative markets, and it must find additional sources of revenue if it is to sustain growth.
The product releases at F8 indicate its answer involves efforts to keep users on its apps for longer, coupled with e-commerce tools Facebook is hoping businesses will pay to use.
Features that drive the most user engagement, like Stories and videos, are being decked out with new tools and given increased prominence across the platforms.
One new feature will allow users to watch videos together in Messenger, while also viewing each other’s reactions in simultaneous texts and video chats.
Facebook Dating will be expanded into 14 new markets, including places in Asia like the Philippines where Facebook has high user growth. A “Secret Crush” feature will allows users to explore potential romantic relationships within their friend circle.
The company is also courting businesses, giving them ways to chat with customers and conduct transactions, similar to how consumers in China are already shopping on services like WeChat. Instagram is expanding a sales system introduced last month, allowing public figures, known as influencers, to tag products in their posts so fans can buy them right away.
Sellers on Marketplace will likewise receive payments and arrange shipping directly within Facebook.
…
Children in Ghana are starting to get a new vaccine designed to stop malaria. Ghana is the second African country to get the vaccine, which is expected to reduce cases of the mosquito-borne and sometimes fatal disease. But experts caution that other malaria-prevention measures are still necessary.
It took more than thirty years and almost one billion dollars to develop the malaria vaccine launched in Ghana today.
The vaccine, known as RTS-S, reduces cases of the mosquito-spread disease in children by up to 40 percent.
Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi are participating in a pilot vaccination program, which began last week in Malawi. Over the next four years about one million babies are expected to be vaccinated with four doses of RTS-S.
Cape Coast is a city in one of three regions Ghana is targeting due to high levels of malaria.
The vaccine is considered an additional tool in the fight against the disease, alongside bed nets and indoor insecticide spraying. The World Health Organization’s Richard Mihigo said the vaccine is needed because progress has stalled in recent years.
“This is really something we are considering in public health as a dream coming true, because so far when you look at the intervention that has been used to fight the disease, we believe that this new vaccine is going to add a significant boost to the fight against malaria,” he said.
The WHO says malaria infected 219 million people in 2017 and killed 435,000.
The disease remains one of the world’s leading killers, claiming the life of one child every two minutes. Most of these deaths are in Africa and more than a quarter million of them are children.
Ghanaian officials launched the vaccination program Tuesday with patients from the Ewim Polyclinic in Cape Coast. The clinic serves low-income Ghanaians, many of whom live in cramped conditions and prefer to sleep outside, where they are vulnerable to mosquito bites.
Since 2016 the clinic has seen over a thousand cases of malaria each year in children under five.
Nurse Agnes Morgue-Duncan is hopeful the vaccine will protect children and help eradicate malaria.
“Our communities are the main fisherfolks and there are a lot of people. We have a densely populated area. So sometimes you will see one room and so many people in one room and sometimes they mostly sleep outside before getting inside, so automatically or definitely they will be bitten by the mosquito and infected,” said Morgue-Duncan.
The vaccine will be rolled out in Kenya in the coming weeks, and doctors will watch closely to see if malaria rates decline.
…
Nearly half of the glaciers in World Heritage sites will disappear by the end of this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked, a report said Tuesday.
The new study from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) focused on the 46 World Heritage sites where glaciers are found, including Grosser Aletschgletscher in the Swiss Alps, Greenland’s Jakobshavn Glacier and Khumbu Glacier in the Himalayas.
Using a variety of data and advanced modelling, the authors “predict glacier extinction by 2100 under a high emission scenario in 21 of the 46 natural World Heritage sites where glaciers are currently found,” IUCN said in a statement.
That “high emission scenario” refers to the status quo, where the commitments made under the 2015 Paris climate pact are not met.
Sites likely to see the most severe ice-loss are Los Glaciares National Park in Argentina and Waterton Glacier International Peace Park, which straddles the Canada-US border.
The disappearance of small glaciers in the Pyrenees – Mont Perdu World Heritage site could happen before 2040, according to IUCN projections.
Even if nations deliver on the terms of the Paris agreement, eight of the 46 World Heritage sites analysed in the report will still be ice-free by the year 2100, IUCN added.
“Losing these iconic glaciers would be a tragedy and have major consequences for the availability of water resources, sea level rise and weather patterns,” Peter Shadie, director of IUCN’s World Heritage Programme, said in the statement.
IUCN, widely-known for its “red list” of endangered species, has developed the first ever inventory of the 19,000 glaciers spread across 46 World Heritage sites.
…
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says he hopes to makes “substantial progress” in trade talks with China, as the world’s two largest economies try to reach a resolution to their trade war.
Mnuchin and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer are leading a U.S. delegation meeting with Chinese officials this week in Beijing.
Next week, Chinese officials will travel to Washington for another round of talks.
Washington and Beijing have held several rounds of talks this year to resolve a trade war that began in 2018 when President Donald Trump imposed punitive tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports. He has been trying to compel Beijing to change its trade practices. China retaliated with tariff increases on $110 billion of U.S. exports.
Their iconic blue-colored planters and grain cars are recognizable on many farms across the United States. They are also easily spotted in large displays, some stacked one on top of the other, in front of Kinze’s manufacturing hub along Interstate 80, where, inside buildings sprawling across a campus situated among Iowa’s corn and soybeans fields, the company’s employees work with one key component.
“Steel is the lifeblood of Kinze,” says Richard Dix, a company senior director. “We’re a factory that’s essentially a weld house. We cut, burn, form, shape, cut, paint steel.”
WATCH: Kane Farabaugh’s video report
Steel now costs more, the result of a 25 percent tariff on the material imported from most countries, including China.
“When there is a tariff on steel it cuts rights to the core of our fundamental product construction,” says Dix.
In March of 2018, President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on aluminum and steel, with the goal of boosting U.S. production and related employment.
While there has been a modest benefit to the domestic steel industry, Dix says increased costs are negatively impacting smaller manufacturing companies like Kinze.
“We see the bills that come in from our suppliers are higher based on those tariffs,” Dix explains. “Not just in steel but also in a lot of the electronics, rubber commodities and other agricultural parts we buy from China as well. Those tariffs take their effect on our cost structure, on the profitability for the family, through our employees, and now to our dealers and on to our customers.”
Those customers are mostly U.S. farmers who use some of Kinze’s products to put soybean and corn seeds into the ground. Soybean exports in particular are now subject to retaliatory tariffs imposed by the Chinese, one of the biggest export markets for U.S. farmers, which has sunk commodity prices and contributed to another year of overall declining income for U.S. farmers.
That means many are less likely to purchase the products Kinze makes.
“The market is substantially down,” says Dix. “The farmers don’t have that level of security they need to go out into the dealerships and buy that equipment. We get a one-two punch. We pay more for the product that comes into us and therefore on to the customer, and then we have a reciprocal situation where we can’t export what was advantageous to us.”
These are some of the concerns Dix explained to Iowa Republican Senator Joni Ernst, who participated in a roundtable discussion at Kinze along with farmers and others in Iowa impacted by tariffs. It was part of a “Tariffs Hurt the Heartland” event hosted by Kinze, and organized by the group Americans for Free Trade along with the Association of Equipment Manufacturers.
Ernst says the personal stories she gathers from these meetings go a long way in helping President Donald Trump understand the impact on her constituents.
“He has a very different negotiating style,” she told VOA. “He wants to start with the worst possible scenario, and negotiate his way to a good and fair trade deal, but again sharing those stories is very important and yes it does have an impact. I think the president does listen.”
Ernst says she is encouraged by news from the Trump administration on developments in negotiations that lead her to believe the trade dispute with China, and the related tariffs, could end soon.
“When I last spoke to [U.S. Trade Representative] Robert Lighthizer, he had indicated that the deal with China is largely done, it’s just figuring out the enforcement mechanism, and that is what the United States and China are really bartering over right now.”
But Kinze’s Richard Dix says one year under tariffs has already taken a toll on the company’s operations.
“We’re not really that big, so we can say that this impact has been a seven-figure impact for us in the last year, and that’s a substantial amount of money.”
It’s an amount that Dix says, so far, hasn’t been passed on to Kinze’s customers, or the employees.
“We have not actually had any direct layoffs that are attributable to this tariff situation, but we’re all tightening our belts.”
…
On a sunny, breezy spring day, a group of children, four to seven-years-old, sit on their bikes, helmets and gloves on, ready to start their biking lesson. Their moms, standing nearby, watch them closely, feeling proud that their little ones are learning how to ride.
Instructor Rachel Van is also excited about making biking a part of their lives. She still remembers how she felt, riding a bike for the first time. It was an amazing “I can” moment. Now, her job is helping other kids to experience that moment.
“It’s probably the biggest confidence booster. It gives kids such a sense of independence and agency,” she says.
Basics of biking
Rachel Van quit her job as a salesperson in the bicycle industry last year, to become a certified cycling instructor. She founded Pedal Power Kids to teach bicycle education.
Before hitting the road, she has the group review the basics of the bike maintenance, what she calls “the ABC quick check.”
“A” is for air, she explains. “We have to check our tires before we ride. B is for brakes. We want to make sure our brakes work before we find ourselves on the top of the hill about to go down. And C is for chain. We want to make sure that our chain doesn’t have any junk in it.”
They also work on biking skills, from balance and pedaling to turning, starting and stopping.
And they need to learn and remember some basic rules. The first one is eyes up and forward.
“A lot of kids struggle with their eyes on the ground, looking for their pedals, but obviously that doesn’t allow them to see what’s going on around them, and it also doesn’t allow them to turn properly,” Van says.
That’s because watching where you’re going helps you steer.
“Sometimes people think that you turn your bike using the handle bar. You see little kids going like this, steering,” she says as she demonstrates, turning the handle bar back and forth, “and they fall over. But we really turn by leaning. So, when we look, then our body leans and then our bike leans.”
Biking changes lives
Being able to ride a bike opens a whole new world to children. It gives them a sense of accomplishment and freedom. They become more aware of their surroundings, learning to make safe, smart decisions going from one place to another.
Van’s goal is to get more kids on two wheels. That, she says, will help make the world a better place. “That’s really a great way for kids to be active and develop healthy habits,” Van says. “It helps reduce pollution and just keep families and communities connected.”
Since starting Pedal Power Kids last year, Van has helped around 250 new riders. An active community network of satisfied mothers is her best advertiser.
“Moms are pretty magic,” Van says. “If the mom is happy with something, if [having their child learn to ride] made their lives a bit easier, then they tell their friends. So my business has grown almost entirely through word of mouth.”
Julia Roeling is part of the moms’ network. She says biking is a great activity for their kids to be outside and not to stay home playing video games all the day. But since she had neither the time nor comfort level to teach her kids how to ride, she enrolled two of her three kids in Van’s bicycling class.
“They love working with Rachel,” she says. “She knows what to say to motivate them. Now, they can do it safely. And they know how to get around the community and stop at the stop signs and be together on their bikes.”
The kids in the classes are happy and excited about their biking experiences. They name their bikes and take pride in being able to do the bike maintenance themselves. They have fun biking with their friends.
Having fun is important to teach these kids a sport that will keep them active for life. As Van observes, “We probably wouldn’t be playing lacrosse when we are 75 or 89, but we certainly can be riding a bike!”
…
Commemorations for Leonardo da Vinci’s 500th anniversary begin this week in Amboise, in the Loire Valley, with France and Italy setting aside recent tensions to honor the memory of the Renaissance genius in the town where he spent his final years.
In 1516, aged 64, Leonardo da Vinci left Italy to enter the service of King Francis I of France. Many of his masterpieces — St. John the Baptist, the Mona Lisa — followed him and were sold to the French monarch, forming a legacy now exhibited at the Louvre museum in Paris.
Amid diplomatic tensions between Rome and Paris, his legacy has become contentious, with Italy’s Culture undersecretary Lucia Borgonzoni in November telling Italian media she wanted to renegotiate the planned lending of his works to the Louvre for an anniversary exhibition, because “the French cannot have it all.”
It is unclear, for example, whether the iconic drawing of the “Vitruvian Man” will eventually leave Venice to join the Louvre for the display.
But on Thursday, in Amboise, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella will seek to ease strains between the two normally close allies that have grown more acute since mid-2018, mostly over migration policy.
They will gather at Leonardo’s tomb, a modest grave in a chapel of Amboise castle containing his presumed remains, and will pay a visit to his house nearby, the Clos Luce, where he died on May 2nd, 1519.
“It’s an extremely solemn gesture, showing that the two countries have this shared memory, this figure, a culture that binds our two countries,” the director of Amboise castle Jean-Louis Sureau told Reuters in an interview.
Da Vinci ‘s arrival in France was no accident, because King Francis I wanted him to join the Court to participate in its international influence and refinement, Sureau said.
“Leonardo da Vinci was unquestionably born in Italy, he’s Florentine, but beyond that, he led a career at the service of several powerful men. This career, and his life, end here, in France,” Sureau added.
During his three years in France, da Vinci focused on perfecting unfinished masterpieces, drawing and scientific writing, but also took part in organizing lavish parties for the King of France.
“This universal man, who, to be clear, was first and foremost Italian, can also be seen as the symbol of a European culture, built beyond traditional divisions,” Catherine Simon Marion, delegate general of the Clos Luce, said.
…
The Trump administration is ready to provide more federal aid to farmers if required, a White House adviser said on Monday, after rolling out up to $12 billion since last year to offset agricultural losses from the trade dispute with China.
“We have allocated $12 billion, some such, to farm assistance. And we stand ready to do more if necessary,” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture had previously ruled out a new round of aid for 2019. As of March, more than $8 billion was paid out as part of last year’s program. On Monday, the department said it had extended the deadline to apply to May 17.
A constituency that helped carry Republican President Donald Trump to victory in 2016, U.S. farmers have been among the hardest hit from his trade policies that led to tariffs with key trading partners such as China, Canada and Mexico.
While farmers have largely remained supportive of Trump, many have called for an imminent end to the trade dispute, which propelled farm debt to the highest levels in decades and worsened the credit conditions for the rural economy.
Beijing imposed tariffs last year on imports of U.S. agricultural goods, including soybeans, grain sorghum and pork as retribution for U.S. levies. Soybean exports to China have plummeted over 90 percent and sales of U.S. soybeans elsewhere failed to make up for the loss.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer were scheduled to travel to Beijing on Monday for the latest negotiations in what could be the trade talks’ endgame.
Both sides have cited progress on issues including intellectual property and forced technology transfer to help end a conflict marked by tit-for-tat tariffs that have cost the world’s two largest economies billions of dollars, disrupted supply chains and rattled financial markets.
…
A Dublin-based company plans to erect “mechanical trees” in the United States that will suck carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air, it said on Monday, in what may be prove to be biggest effort to remove the gas blamed for climate change from the atmosphere.
The company, Silicon Kingdom Holdings (SKH), will build 1,200 carbon-cleansing metal columns within a year with which it hopes to capture CO2 more cheaply than other methods, following a successful test in Arizona over a two-year period, it said.
That is enough to suck up nearly 8,000 cars worth of emissions per year of CO2.
“We have to figure out how to act to get to a climate that is safe,” said the technology’s inventor, Klaus Lackner, a professor at Arizona State University.
SKH’s pilot would be the world’s largest “direct air capture” operation to date, said Jennifer Wilcox, a professor of chemical engineering at the U.S.-based Worcester Polytechnic Institute, who is not involved in the project.
Carbon capture is gradually gaining momentum, with the United Nations saying in a report last year that the technology is likely needed to keep the rise in global temperatures below catastrophic levels.
SKH expects its two-year pilot, possibly in California, to capture about 36,500 metric tons of CO2 a year, it said – the equivalent of nearly 7,750 vehicles driven for a year.
Full-scale farms would be 100 times bigger.
The company’s “mechanical trees”, as the firm has dubbed them because they are tall and slender and absorb CO2 just like trees, are fitted with filter-like components to absorb the CO2, a photo of a prototype showed.
The device uses wind to blow air through its system rather than an energy-intensive mechanism, it said.
While capturing CO2 from industrial facilities and power plants has a decades-long commercial history, “direct air capture”, which pulls the gas directly from the atmosphere is a burgeoning field with only a handful of players, said Wilcox.
Swiss firm Climeworks has so far led the market, alongside Canada-based Carbon Engineering and U.S.-based Global Thermostat, she said.
The companies compress the high-concentration CO2 they capture and then can sell it for use in industrial applications, including making drinks fizzy, creating fuel and extracting oil.
While the high price of direct air capture has long been viewed as an impediment to scaling up the technologies, SKH’s costs is less than $100 per metric ton for pure CO2, it said.
“The $100 a ton is important because I think that’s the point where things start to get economically interesting,” Lackner told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “You can buy liquid CO2 which is delivered by truck in order to fill fire extinguishers and myriad other things for prices between $100 and $200 a ton.”
SKH would not provide information about how much building the pilot would cost. It said it was “in discussions with a range of potential funders and strategic partners from the aviation, energy and food and beverage industries.”
…
Democratic Republic of Congo registered a one-day record of 27 new confirmed Ebola cases on Sunday, raising last week’s number of cases to 126, the biggest since the current outbreak was declared last August, the health ministry said.
The previous record was 110 confirmed cases a couple of weeks ago.
The outbreak in the country’s eastern regions is now spreading at its fastest rate, due largely to a spate of attacks by militiamen and others distrustful of the international response.
In the past two months, five Ebola centers have been attacked and a senior World Health Organization official was killed by militiamen 10 days ago.
The assailants have mostly been unidentified but are believed to comprise both local militiamen and community members who oppose the response efforts. Many believe that Ebola is a conspiracy cooked up by the government or foreign countries.
The current outbreak of the virus, which causes severe vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding, is the second largest in history behind the 2013-16 West African epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people.
The Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo’s North Kivu and Ituri provinces is believed to have killed at least 891 people and infected over 500 more so far.
…
Palm oil plantations in Liberia are billed as bringing jobs and development but actually leave locals poorer, said a Liberian lawyer who won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize on Monday.
The U.S.-based Goldman Environmental Foundation gives the prize — often known as the Green Nobel — to six grassroots activists each year for efforts to protect the environment, often at their own risk.
Alfred Brownell was awarded for his successful campaign to protect more than 500,000 acres of tropical forest from palm oil development in the West African country, after which he was forced to flee Liberia in fear for his life.
He now lives in the United States but hopes to return to continue his work, as palm oil development continues to displace farmers without giving them an alternative means to earn a living, he said.
“These forests mean a lot to Liberia. The communities that we supported who live in these areas … it is their home and their resources and their farms,” said Brownell, 53.
“Instead of trying to empower them, (palm oil) causes the impoverishment of those communities. So this is not development at all,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Sometimes palm oil companies offer jobs, but not enough for the number of people who lose their land, he said.
Liberians have protested land grabs by foreign palm oil companies for over a decade, since the former government gave out nearly half the nation’s territory in resource concessions.
The World Bank has credited these policies with transforming Liberia into a promising place for investors after a long civil war, but activists say local communities rarely benefit.
“We’re talking about lots of communities seeing their customary lands go away, lands they depend upon on a daily basis for their livelihoods,” said Patrick Kipalu, Africa Program coordinator for Rights and Resources Initiative, a global network that advocates for indigenous peoples’ land rights.
“It’s so negative compared to the economic opportunities that those companies can bring,” Kipalu said.
Liberian authorities could not immediately be reached for comment.
Brownell helped community members file a complaint in 2012 alleging environmental damage and human rights violations by Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL), a Southeast Asia-based agro-industrial company that had signed a deal with the state to lease 543,600 acres of land for palm oil production.
An industry body responded by halting GVL’s work on most of the land – a decision that was upheld last year after a legal battle.
Protests by community members led to violent clashes in 2015, and Brownell said that his home was attacked and family members arrested — leading him to flee.
GVL, still active in Liberia, said in an email that it acknowledged past mistakes and that it created a sustainability action plan in 2018 to resolve grievances with communities.
…
Halima Aden is featured in the magazine’s 2019 swimsuit issue wearing swimwear that covers the entire body except the face, hands and feet.
“Young girls who wear a hijab should have women they look up to in any and every industry. We are now seeing politicians, business women, television reporters, and other successful hijabi women in visible roles and that is the message we need to be sending,” Aden told the BBC. “The response has been incredible and I’m so honored that Sports Illustrated has taken the step to showcase the beauty that modestly dressed women possess.”
Aden, who was born in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, moved to the U.S. when she was 7. She said the photoshoot, which took place in Kenya, was an extremely emotional experience for her.
“I keep thinking (back) to 6-year-old me who, in this same country, was in a refugee camp,” Aden told the Sports Illustrated. “So to grow up to live the American dream [and] to come back to Kenya and shoot for SI in the most beautiful parts of Kenya — I don’t think that’s a story that anybody could make up.”
Aden also made history last year, becoming the first hijab-clad woman featured on the cover of British Vogue. Last month she and two other Muslim models were first black hijab-wearing models to appear on the cover of Vogue Arabia.
“Growing up in the states, I never really felt represented because I never could flip through a magazine and see a girl who was wearing a hijab,” Aden says in the video shared by the magazine on Twitter.
The Burkini was created by Australian designer Aheda Zanetti, who said it was made to provide Muslim women an ability to participate in the Australia’s beach lifestyle.
Zanetti says burkinis have also found fans among non-Muslims, including “Jews, Hindus, Christians, Mormons, women with various body issues.”
But it has also garnered controversy. Several towns in France have banned the wearing of burkinis, especially in community pools. The officials justified the ban by pointing to laws that forbids swimming in street clothes. Bans have also been imposed in a town in Germany and resorts in Morocco.
…
As U.S. farmers prepare for planting this year, they do so under a cloud of uncertainty created by continuing tariffs on U.S. grain exports. They also aren’t buying new equipment, which VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports is a growing concern for manufacturers who not only see declining sales, but increasing costs for the material they need to create their products.
…
One big concern about autonomous vehicles is that logical computers sometimes have trouble dealing with a messy world. To the point, a pedestrian was struck and killed by an autonomous vehicle in Arizona last year. But new algorithms are trying to solve that potentially deadly problem. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…