Day: April 30, 2019

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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