Day: August 8, 2020

China on Saturday sealed off another village in Inner Mongolia after a resident died from bubonic plague, the second lockdown in the region in two days.According to a statement issued by the Health Commission of Bayannaoer, a local patient suffering with the centuries-old disease died Friday of multiple organ failure. He was the second victim of the plague reported this month in the northern Chinese region.”The place of residence of the deceased is locked down, and a comprehensive epidemiological investigation is being carried out,” the announcement posted on the commission’s website said.The first lockdown was announced Thursday in an adjacent city when the health commission of Baotou announced a villager there had died of circulatory system failure.Map of China showing Inner Mongolia regionThe bubonic plague is a highly infectious and often fatal disease, “with a case-fatality ratio of 30% – 100% if left untreated,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO).The authorities in both cities issued a third-level alert – the second lowest in a four-level system – effective immediately until the end of 2020, to prevent the spread of the disease.While the disease is spread mostly by rodents, authorities in both cities have warned that human-to-human transmission is possible. “Currently, there is a risk of human plague spreading in our city,” the statement reads.All close and secondary contacts of the patients have been quarantined, the two commissions said. They also urged people to reduce contact with wild animals and avoid hunting, skinning or eating animals that could cause infection.Cases are becoming increasingly rare in recent years in China. According to China’s National Health Commission, there were five cases in 2019, with one death. Worldwide, there are 1,000 to 2,000 cases each year that are reported to the WHO.
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Much of Canada’s remaining intact ice shelf has broken apart into hulking iceberg islands thanks to a hot summer and global warming, scientists said.Canada’s 4,000-year-old Milne Ice Shelf on the northwestern edge of Ellesmere Island had been the country’s last intact ice shelf until the end of July when ice analyst Adrienne White of the Canadian Ice Service noticed that satellite photos showed that about 43% of it had broken off. She said it happened around July 30 or 31.Two giant icebergs formed along with lots of smaller ones, and they have already started drifting away, White said. The biggest is nearly the size of Manhattan — 21 square miles (55 square kilometers) and 7 miles long (11.5 kilometers). They are 230 to 260 feet (70 to 80 meters) thick.”This is a huge, huge block of ice,” White said. “If one of these is moving toward an oil rig, there’s nothing you can really do aside from move your oil rig.”The 72-square mile (187 square kilometer) undulating white ice shelf of ridges and troughs dotted with blue meltwater had been larger than the District of Columbia but now is down to 41 square miles (106 square kilometers).Temperatures from May to early August in the region have been 9 degrees (5 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 1980 to 2010 average, University of Ottawa glaciology professor Luke Copland said. This is on top of an Arctic that already had been warming much faster than the rest of globe, with this region warming even faster.”Without a doubt, it’s climate change,” Copland said, noting the ice shelf is melting from both hotter air above and warmer water below.”The Milne was very special,” he added. “It’s an amazingly pretty location.”Ice shelves are hundreds to thousands of years old, thicker than long-term sea ice, but not as big and old as glaciers, Copland said.Canada used to have a large continuous ice shelf across the northern coast of Ellesmere Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, but it has been breaking apart over the last decades because of man-made global warming, White said. By 2005 it was down to six remaining ice shelves but “the Milne was really the last complete ice shelf,” she said.”There aren’t very many ice shelves around the Arctic anymore,” Copland said. “It seems we’ve lost pretty much all of them from northern Greenland and the Russian Arctic. There may be a few in a few protected fjords.”
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Researchers have confirmed that hundreds of thousands of years ago, Neanderthals mated with at least four other contemporary species of ancient humans, or hominids, and the evidence lives on in the genes of modern men and women.A study published Thursday in the science journal PLOS Genetics shows how researchers from Cornell University analyzed the genomes, the complete genetic “map,” from Neanderthals, a prehistoric human ancestor called Denisovans, and modern humans.Analysis of the genomes revealed new evidence of gene flow between these species, bolstering earlier theories that the species intermated. The researchers found 3% of the Neanderthal genome came from interbreeding with other ancient humans that lived at the same time.The new study estimates this intermixing happened between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago — far earlier than previous estimates indicated.The researchers also found that 1% of the Denisovan genome contained genetic material that came from an “archaic human ancestor” that was neither human, nor Neanderthal, nor Denisovan. They suggested it came from Homo erectus, an early human ancestor believed to be the first to spread to what is now Eastern Europe and parts of Asia.Homo erectus looked much like we do today, but with elongated legs and shorter arms. They are believed to have outlived contemporary hominids, dying out as recently as 117,000 years ago.The new study suggests that 15% of the genetic pieces that came from Homo erectus have been passed on to humans today. They suggest it split off from the lineage that would become modern humans about 1 million years ago, which would fit the timeline for intermingling with its contemporary hominid species.The genome for Homo erectus has not been sequenced so it is difficult to precisely figure out how all the different human ancestors got together. But the researchers theorize that migration habits combined with the fact that all four species did overlap for several thousand years made it likely that they intermingled.
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TikTok reacted to President Donald Trump’s executive order barring U.S. companies and individuals from doing business with its parent company, ByteDance, by threatening to take legal action and urging its U.S. users to lobby on its behalf.  Trump ordered sweeping bans late Thursday prohibiting U.S. companies from doing business with ByteDance and Tencent, the owner of the messenger app WeChat. The executive orders targeting the Chinese companies go into effect in 45 days.  “We are shocked by the recent Executive Order, which was issued without any due process,” ByteDance said in a statement released Friday.  The company suggested that the executive order was illegal and that it might be challenged in court. “We will pursue all remedies available to us in order to ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and our users are treated fairly — if not by the Administration, then by the U.S. courts,” the company said.  In the meantime, Tencent responded by saying it was evaluating the situation. “The company is reviewing the potential consequences of the administrative order in order to fully understand its impact,” Tencent said in a brief statement issued through Hong Kong Stock Exchange.  In addition to its hugely popular messaging feature, WeChat also links to finance and other services. It claims that the app has more than 1 billion users.  The Trump administration and U.S. lawmakers have expressed concerns that the Chinese social media services could provide American users’ personal information to the Chinese government. Both companies have said they do not share their data with the Chinese government.  The twin executive orders Thursday added new contention to growing U.S.-Chinese conflict over technology and security. The Chinese foreign ministry accused Washington of “political suppression” and said the moves would hurt American companies and consumers.  “The United States is using national security as an excuse, frequently abuses national power and unreasonably suppresses companies of other countries,” Wang Wenbin, a ministry spokesman, said.  Wang, who did not mention TikTok or Tencent by name, said China strongly opposed the move but gave no indication of how Beijing might retaliate.  The Trump administration has previously threatened to shut TikTok down if it remains under the ownership of Beijing-based ByteDance.  According to a memo sent Monday by Chief Executive Officer Zhang Yiming, ByteDance is exploring all possibilities to ensure that its subsidiary can continue operating in the United States. Without naming Microsoft directly, the company said Friday, “We even stated that we could sell our U.S. business to a U.S. company.”  The statement ended by calling on its 100 million U.S. users to put pressure on the Trump administration.  “As TikTok users, creators, partners and family members, you have the right to express your opinions to all levels of lawmakers, including the White House government,” the statement said.   
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