Day: February 14, 2021

NASA Rover Faces ‘7 Minutes of Terror’ Before Landing on Mars 

When NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance, a robotic astrobiology lab packed inside a space capsule, hits the final stretch of its seven-month journey from Earth this week, it is set to emit a radio alert as it streaks into the thin Martian atmosphere.   By the time that signal reaches mission managers some 204 million kilometers away at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles, Perseverance will already have landed on the Red Planet — hopefully in one piece.   The six-wheeled rover is expected to take seven minutes to descend from the top of the Martian atmosphere to the planet’s surface in less time than the 11-minute-plus radio transmission to Earth. Thus, Thursday’s final, self-guided descent of the rover spacecraft is set to occur during a white-knuckled interval that JPL engineers affectionately refer to as the “seven minutes of terror.”   Al Chen, head of the JPL descent and landing team, called it the most critical and most dangerous part of the $2.7 billion mission.   “Success is never assured,” Chen told a recent news briefing. “And that’s especially true when we’re trying to land the biggest, heaviest and most complicated rover we’ve ever built to the most dangerous site we’ve ever attempted to land at.”   Much is riding on the outcome. Building on discoveries of nearly 20 U.S. outings to Mars dating back to Mariner 4’s 1965 flyby, Perseverance may set the stage for scientists to conclusively show whether life has existed beyond Earth, while paving the way for eventual human missions to the fourth planet from the sun. A safe landing, as always, comes first.   Success will hinge on a complex sequence of events unfolding without a hitch — from inflation of a giant, supersonic parachute to deployment of a jet-powered “sky crane” that will descend to a safe landing spot and hover above the surface while lowering the rover to the ground on a tether.   “Perseverance has to do this all on her own,” Chen said. “We can’t help it during this period.”   If all goes as planned, NASA’s team would receive a follow-up radio signal shortly before 1 p.m. Pacific time confirming that Perseverance landed on Martian soil at the edge of an ancient, long-vanished river delta and lakebed.   Science on the surface From there, the nuclear battery-powered rover, roughly the size of a small SUV, will embark on the primary objective of its two-year mission — engaging a complex suite of instruments in the search for signs of microbial life that may have flourished on Mars billions of years ago.   Advanced power tools will drill samples from Martian rock and seal them into cigar-sized tubes for eventual return to Earth for further analysis — the first such specimens ever collected by humankind from the surface of another planet.   Two future missions to retrieve those samples and fly them back to Earth are in the planning stages by NASA, in collaboration with the European Space Agency.   Perseverance, the fifth and by far most sophisticated rover vehicle NASA has sent to Mars since Sojourner in 1997, also incorporates several pioneering features not directly related to astrobiology.   Among them is a small drone helicopter, nicknamed Ingenuity, that will test surface-to-surface powered flight on another world for the first time. If successful, the four-pound (1.8-kg) whirlybird could pave the way for low-altitude aerial surveillance of Mars during later missions.   Another experiment is a device to extract pure oxygen from carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere, a tool that could prove invaluable for future human life support on Mars and for producing rocket propellant to fly astronauts home.   ‘Spectacular’ but treacherous The mission’s first hurdle after a 293-million-mile (472-million-km) flight from Earth is delivering the rover intact to the floor of Jerezo Crater, a 28-mile-wide (45-km-wide) expanse that scientists believe may harbor a rich trove of fossilized microorganisms.   “It is a spectacular landing site,” project scientist Ken Farley told reporters on a teleconference.   What makes the crater’s rugged terrain — deeply carved by long-vanished flows of liquid water — so tantalizing as a research site also makes it treacherous as a landing zone.   The descent sequence, an upgrade from NASA’s last rover mission in 2012, begins as Perseverance, encased in a protective shell, pierces the Martian atmosphere at 12,000 miles per hour (19,300 km per hour), nearly 16 times the speed of sound on Earth.   After a parachute deployment to slow its plunge, the descent capsule’s heat shield is set to fall away to release a jet-propelled “sky crane” hovercraft with the rover attached to its belly.   Once the parachute is jettisoned, the sky crane’s jet thrusters are set to immediately fire, slowing its descent to walking speed as it nears the crater floor and self-navigates to a smooth landing site, steering clear of boulders, cliffs and sand dunes.   Hovering over the surface, the sky crane is due to lower Perseverance on nylon tethers, sever the chords when the rover’s wheels reach the surface, then fly off to crash a safe distance away.   Should everything work, deputy project manager Matthew Wallace said, post-landing exuberance would be on full display at JPL despite COVID-19 safety protocols that have kept close contacts within mission control to a minimum.   “I don’t think COVID is going to be able to stop us from jumping up and down and fist-bumping,” Wallace said.   

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Historic Ongoing Search Fails to Find Climbers Missing on Pakistan’s K2 Mountain

The search for three climbers, who went missing on Pakistan’s K2 mountain earlier this month, has found no trace of them.Iceland’s John Snorri, 47, Chile’s Juan Pablo Mohr, 33, and Pakistan’s Muhammad Ali Sadpara, 45, lost contact with base camp on February 5 during their ascent of what global mountaineers describe as the killer mountain. K2 is the world’s second-highest mountain at 8,611 meters.”An unprecedented search in the history of mountaineering has been ongoing,” Vanessa O’Brien, the first British-American mountaineer to climb K2, said Sunday.She is assisting the search effort as part of the virtual base camp comprising family members in Iceland, Chile, and specialists from around the world, including in Pakistan.”It has been nine long days. If climbing the world’s second-tallest mountain in winter is hard, finding those missing is even more of a challenge,” said O’Brien.When asked whether the men could still be alive despite harsh winter conditions, O’Brien told VOA, “That I don’t know. But on Valentine’s Day, I guarantee you they were loved by their families and their nations.”She explained that specialists, with “devoted support” from Pakistani, Icelandic and Chilean authorities, have scrutinized satellite images, used synthetic aperture radar technology, scanned hundreds of pictures, and checked testimonials and times.”When the weather prevented the rotary machines (helicopters) from approaching K2, the Pakistan Army sent a F-16 (aircraft) to take the photographic surveys,” O’Brien said.Unfortunately, there has been no sign of the missing climbers, she added.Karrar Haidri, an official at the private Alpine Club of Pakistan that promotes mountaineering in the country, said the base camp stopped receiving signals from Snorri and his companions after they reached 8,000 meters.Sonrri made his first winter attempt on K2 in 2019, but was forced to abort it “when two members of his team expressed they did not feel fully prepared” for the expedition. ‘Savage Mountain’K2 has gained the reputation as “Savage Mountain” because while more than 6,500 people have climbed the world’s highest peak, Everest, only 337 have conquered K2 to date.Since 1954, up to 86 climbers have died in their attempt to scale K2, where summit winds reach hurricane force and still-air temperatures can plunge below -65 degrees Celsius.Experts say about one person dies on K2 for every four who reach the summit, making it the deadliest of the five highest peaks in the world.Since the first failed bid in 1987-88, only a few expeditions had attempted to summit K2 in winter.Last month, a 10-member team of Nepali climbers made history when they became the first to climb K2 in winter.Located in the Karakoram range along the Chinese border, K2 was the last of the world’s 14 tallest mountains higher than 8,000 meters to be scaled in winter.Bulgarian alpinist Atanas Skatov died earlier this month on K2. A renowned Spanish climber, Sergi Mingote, fell to his death last month while descending the mountain.

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Duchess of Sussex Expecting 2nd Child

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are expecting their second child, their office confirmed Sunday.A spokesperson for the couple said in a statement: “We can confirm that Archie is going to be a big brother. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are overjoyed to be expecting their second child.”  The baby will be eighth in line to the British throne.Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle married at Windsor Castle in May 2018. Their son Archie was born a year later.In early 2020, Meghan and Harry announced they were quitting royal duties and moving to North America, citing what they said were the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media. They recently bought a house in Santa Barbara, California.In November, Meghan revealed that she had a miscarriage in July 2020, giving a personal account of the traumatic experience in hope of helping others.

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Post-COVID Symptoms Will Have Profound Impact on Global Health 

The World Health Organization says debilitating post-COVID-19 symptoms in patients will have an impact on global health because of the magnitude of the pandemic.  
The World Health Organization is conducting research into  why many people who are infected with COVID-19 continue to suffer from various disabling conditions for up to six months after they have had the illness.    The team lead of WHO’s Health Care Readiness Division, Janet Diaz, says some people with post-COVID-19 conditions, also known as “long COVID” have not been able to go back to work.  She says their incapacitating symptoms prolong their recovery period.   “Some of the more common symptoms of the post-COVID-19 condition can be fatigue, exertional malaise, and cognitive dysfunction.  Sometimes you may be hearing patients describing that as ‘brain fog.’  These are real,”  she said.  Other complications include shortness of breath, cough, and mental health and neurological complications.  Diaz says it is not clear which patients are most at risk of long COVID.  She says they range from patients who have been hospitalized and required intensive care treatment to those with mild illnesses who were treated in ambulatory outpatient settings.   She says researchers do not know why this is happening and are working hard to get the answers to the many questions surrounding this disease, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.   FILE – Health care workers help a woman as she is discharged from the El Salvador Hospital after surviving the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in San Salvador, El Salvador, Jan. 19, 2021.“We are concerned, obviously, with the numbers of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus. … We do not know how common it is or how uncommon it is.  But the numbers, just by the magnitude of the pandemic will impact health systems.  Again, the main message from us is prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2. So, the public health measures are the No. 1 intervention right now that we know will prevent this,” she said.     These measures include observing physical distancing, wearing a mask and handwashing.     WHO is calling for a coordinated global research response and the collection of as much standardized clinical data as possible to better understand the condition and learn how to better treat those afflicted with this complication.      

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Ancient Mass Production Brewery Uncovered in Egypt 

Archaeologists have discovered a 5,000-year-old brewery that could produce thousands of liters of beer in the ancient Egyptian city of Abydos, Egypt’s Tourism and Antiquities Ministry said. The site in Egypt’s Sohag Governorate likely dates back to the reign of King Narmer around 3,100 BC, the ministry said in a statement on Saturday. Dr. Matthew Adams, one of the leaders of the Egyptian-American mission that made the discovery, said they believe the beer was used in royal burial rituals for Egypt’s earliest kings. The brewery, which had a production capacity of 22,400 liters, was split into eight sections each containing 40 clay pots used to warm mixtures of grain and water. Officials are keen to show off newly discovered artefacts as they try to revive visitor numbers after Egypt’s tourism industry received a painful blow during the coronavirus pandemic. The number of tourists visiting the country dropped to 3.5 million last year from 13.1 million in 2019. 

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Report: British Scientists Developing Universal COVID Vaccine

There are 108.5 million global COVID-19 infections, Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday. The U.S. has the most cases at 27.5 million, followed by India with 10.9 million and Brazil with 9.8 million.The Telegraph newspaper reports British scientists are developing a universal vaccine that would combat all the variants of the coronavirus and could be available within a year.The British newspaper says scientists at the University of Nottingham are working on a vaccine that would target the core of virus instead of the spike protein that current vaccines focus on.Targeting the core alleviates the need to frequently adjust existing vaccines as the virus mutates.The Telegraph said proteins found in the core of the virus are far less likely to mutate, meaning the vaccine would protect against all current variants and would theoretically have greater longevity.A 58-year-old man in France is reported to be the first person infected for a second time with the highly contagious South African variant of the coronavirus.The man’s reinfection is “rare albeit probably underestimated,” according to the authors of an article in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal.New Zealand’s largest city in going into a three-day lockdown, the country’s first in six months. The shuttering of Auckland comes after the discovery of three family members – a father, mother and daughter – with COVID.The rest of the country will be on heightened restrictions.New Zealand is known for having have stamped out the local transmission of the coronavirus, but it regularly detects the virus in travelers to New Zealand who are then placed in quarantine.The mother in the New Zealand family with COVID works at a catering company that does laundry for airlines. Authorities are investigating whether there is a link to an infected passenger.Not all U.S. states are happy about President Joe Biden’s plan to establish 100 COVID vaccine inoculation sites around the country by the end of the month, according to an Associated Press report.The wire service reports that some states have learned that the sites do not come with additional vaccines but would pull vaccines from the state’s existing allocation.A spokesperson for Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee said, “Up until now, we’ve been under the impression that these sites do not come with their own supply of vaccine — which is the principal thing we need more of, rather than more ways to distribute what we already have.”Adding to the confusion, AP reported that some states have been told by federal officials that the new sites would come with their own supply of vaccines.

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Doctors, Selfie Points Help Fight Vaccine Hesitancy in New Delhi

Azhoni Marina had witnessed the havoc wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic up close as she nursed patients in a COVID ward for seven months at New Delhi’s Indraprastha Apollo Hospital. As she waited after her night shift to get her first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, however, she was apprehensive.“I heard from so many people that there is lot of side effect, so actually I was a bit worried before I received the vaccine,” Marina said.However, a sense of relief washed over her when she did not suffer any aftereffects during the half-hour mandatory wait after she got the shot.“I am now waiting for my second dose,” she said, heading home.Unlike most countries, for India the challenge is not availability of vaccines as it rolls out a nationwide inoculation drive – there are millions of doses ready in the world’s largest vaccine-producing country.Since launching the program in mid-January, though, health officials have been battling to overcome “vaccine hesitancy” as people scheduled to take shots failed to show up at inoculation centers.The waning pandemic in India, health officials warn, has led to a sense of complacency about the need to get vaccines, while initial reports about possible side effects have raised doubts among some. That includes some of the country’s 30 million health and front-line workers, who are first in line to get the shots.At the Apollo Hospital, doctors ramped up the numbers of inoculations by stepping forward to take the vaccine to allay doubts — the daily numbers of inoculations have grown nearly threefold here.Nurse Azhino Marina is apprehensive as she waits for her COVID-19 vaccine shot at New Delhi’s Indraprastha Apollo Hospital. (Anjana Pasricha/VOA)“People were a bit scared, they asked a lot of questions, we kept on answering their questions and then when they saw that vaccine is quite safe, this helped us in building confidence in vaccines,” said Sanjeev Sharma, a hospital clinical pharmacologist.From talks by senior doctors, to individual counseling sessions, to selfie points where those who get vaccinated take photos and upload them on social media, the Indian capital has launched several initiatives to persuade people to take the shots.For Rajesh Kumar Kohli, who worked in the COVID section of the Apollo Hospital for several weeks, getting the vaccine’s first dose brought huge relief.“Even if something happened to me, I will now be safe,” he said.However, the decreased sense of urgency about getting inoculated as India’s case numbers dip dramatically is posing a challenge. India is reporting about 12,000 infections a day, compared to about 90,000 at its peak in September.Indian cities such as New Delhi that were hot spots for the pandemic are fully open. Markets are buzzing, movie theaters and restaurants have opened, the streets are again crammed with vehicles.The government’s decision to administer a homegrown vaccine, Covaxin, before final trial results become available has also created doubts among some, even though health experts have been reiterating that it is both effective and safe, and leading doctors in the city have taken the shot to instill confidence. This is one of the two vaccines being used at inoculation centers.A health care worker in New Delhi gets a photo taken at a selfie point set up to encourage people to come forward to get inoculated. (Anjana Pasricha/VOA)Several big Indian states, such as Tamil Nadu and Punjab, have vaccinated fewer than half of their health care workers who are due to be given shots.Health officials have been constantly reinforcing the message that only vaccinations will end the pandemic, saying the lower numbers present India a with window of opportunity to make sure it is not hit by a second wave, as many Western countries have been.“Where the footfall is not so good, we are organizing talks by senior consultants, we are involving local people and mobilizers to ask them to come to the centers,” said Dr. Pareejat Saurabh, an immunization officer in Delhi. Those steps have boosted numbers.India is expected to move to the next phase of its program next month, inoculating those over 50. This may pose greater challenges, though. Even in this vulnerable group, opinion on taking the vaccine is divided, with some saying they are anxiously awaiting their turn and others preferring to “wait and watch.”“Whenever my turn comes, I will take the vaccine,” said Veena Sawhney, shopping at a New Delhi market.A shop owner, Rajesh Mehta, however, was more cautious.“The old should take it. I want my mother to get it. But I am in no rush, my immunity is OK,” he told VOA.So far, more than 8 million people have been vaccinated – India says it has been the fastest to administer this many shots and plans to accelerate the drive in coming weeks.Given the massive scale of the task, though, the country with the second-highest number of infections after the United States could fall short of its target of reaching 300 million people, nearly one quarter of its population, by August.

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Cloning Diamonds: An Art and Rare Skill

Diamond cloning is said to be a vocation, an artform and a rare skill. New York artist John Hatleberg creates precise reproductions of famous diamonds, but one copy became his life’s work – the Blue Diamond of the French Crown. Vladimir Lenski has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
Camera: Aleksandr Barash and Natalia Latukhina

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More Than 50 Million Doses of COVID-19 Vaccines Administered in US, CDC says

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had administered more than 50 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Saturday morning and delivered about 69.9 million doses.The tally of vaccine doses is for both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, vaccines as of 6:00 a.m. ET Saturday, the agency said.According to the tally posted on Friday, the agency had administered 48.4 million doses of the vaccines, and delivered about 69 million doses.The agency said about 37.1 million people had received one or more doses while more than 13 million people have got the second dose as of Saturday.About 5.7 million vaccine doses have been administered in long-term care facilities, the agency said.   

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Guinea Sees First Ebola Deaths Since 2016 

Four people have died of Ebola in Guinea in the first resurgence of the disease in five years, the country’s health minister said Saturday.Remy Lamah told AFP that officials were “really concerned” about the deaths, the first since a 2013-16 epidemic — which began in Guinea — left 11,300 dead across the region.One of the latest victims in Guinea was a nurse who fell ill in late January and was buried on February 1, National Health Security Agency head Sakoba Keita told local media.”Among those who took part in the burial, eight people showed symptoms: diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding,” he said. Three died and four were in a hospital, he added.The four deaths from Ebola hemorrhagic fever occurred in the southeast region of Nzerekore, he said.Keita also told local media that one patient had “escaped” but had been found and hospitalized in the capital, Conakry. He confirmed the comments to AFP without giving further detail.The World Health Organization has eyed each new outbreak since 2016 with great concern, treating the most recent one in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an international health emergency.’Testing underway’Early Sunday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted that the U.N. health agency had been informed of two suspected cases of the deadly disease in Guinea.”Confirmatory testing underway,” the tweet said, adding that WHO’s regional and country offices were “supporting readiness and response efforts.”The DRC has faced several outbreaks of the illness, with the WHO on Thursday confirming a resurgence three months after authorities declared the end of the country’s latest outbreak.The country had declared the six-month epidemic over in November. It was the country’s 11th Ebola outbreak, claiming 55 lives out of 130 cases.The widespread use of vaccinations, which were administered to more than 40,000 people, helped curb the disease.The 2013-16 outbreak sped up the development of a vaccine against Ebola, with a global emergency stockpile of 500,000 doses planned to respond quickly to future outbreaks, the vaccine alliance Gavi said in January.  

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