Five members of an Afghan girls robotics team have arrived in Mexico after evacuating from their home country. The girls landed in Mexico City on Tuesday night and were welcomed at the airport by Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard. “We might be very far away of what is happening in Afghanistan, but the human cause, the protection of the values and the causes that identify us Mexicans have made us commit so they can be in Mexico,” Ebrard said. An Afghan woman, member of the Afghanistan Robotic team, is seen during a press conference after her arrival to Mexico after asking for refuge, at the Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, on August 24, 2021.The robotics team made up of girls and women as young as 14 years old gained attention in 2017 when they traveled to the United States to take part in an international competition. Last year, they worked to develop an open-source, low-cost ventilator as hospitals in many countries faced shortages of equipment to help coronavirus patients. The Associated Press quoted one team member Tuesday saying the team was grateful to Mexico “for saving our lives.” She said that thanks to Mexico’s actions, “our story will not end in a sad way” because of the Taliban. Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
…
Day: August 25, 2021
YouTube said Wednesday that it had removed more than 1 million videos with “dangerous coronavirus misinformation” since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.The statement by the Google-owned video platform came as social media platforms are under fire from political leaders for failing to stem the spread of false and harmful misinformation and disinformation about the virus and other topics.YouTube said in a blog post that it relies on “expert consensus from health organizations,” including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, but noted that in some cases, “misinformation is less clear-cut” as new facts emerge.”Our policies center on the removal of any videos that can directly lead to egregious real world harm,” chief product officer Neal Mohan wrote.”Since February of 2020, we’ve removed over 1 million videos related to dangerous coronavirus information, like false cures or claims of a hoax,” he said. “In the midst of a global pandemic, everyone should be armed with absolutely the best information available to keep themselves and their families safe.”YouTube said it was working to accelerate the process for removing videos with misinformation while simultaneously delivering those from authoritative sources.Mohan said the platform removes close to 10 million videos per quarter and that the majority of them have been watched fewer than 10 times.”Speedy removals will always be important but we know they’re not nearly enough. … The most important thing we can do is increase the good and decrease the bad,” he said.”When people now search for news or information, they get results optimized for quality, not for how sensational the content might be.”YouTube also said it had removed “thousands” of videos for violating election misinformation policies since the U.S. vote in November, with three-fourths removed before hitting 100 views.
…
A Belgian-African company operating in Burkina Faso is planting trees to help curb desertification and open up lands for grazing cattle and farming. The project by the company, Hommes et Terre (Men and Earth), is taking place in Burkina Faso’s dangerous conflict zones where expanding desertification is a cause for strife. Henry Wilkins reports from Ouagadougou.Camera: Henry Wilkins
…
The U.S. intelligence community has reportedly told President Joe Biden that it has not reached a definitive conclusion after reviewing available information on the origins of the COVID-19. The pandemic has sickened more than 213.2 million people around the globe since late 2019 and killed more than 4.4 million, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. President Biden ordered the nation’s intelligence agencies in May to deliver a report within 90 days on whether the virus, which was first detected in Wuhan, China, was the result of an animal-to-human transmission or an accidental leak from a Wuhan laboratory. FILE – Security personnel gather near the entrance of the Wuhan Institute of Virology during a visit by the World Health Organization team in Wuhan, China, Feb. 3, 2021.The president ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to examine the origins of the outbreak after the World Health Organization issued a report based on its own investigation. The WHO report, which found that the outbreak more likely began as an animal-to-human transmission, was criticized as incomplete, mainly due to the Chinese government’s failure to cooperate with the global health agency’s investigation.The director of national intelligence presented a classified report to Biden on Tuesday, U.S. news outlets reported. Unidentified officials said parts of the report will be declassified and released to the public in the coming days. Vaccine diminishing efficacy Meanwhile, a new study out of Britain reveals that the effectiveness of both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines diminishes after six months.The study found that protection from the two-dose Pfizer vaccine declines from 88% a month after the second dose to 74% after about five to six months, while the effectiveness of the two-dose AstraZeneca regimen declined from 77% a month after the final shot to 67% after a similar period. A separate study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the effectiveness of both the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines against the highly contagious delta variant dropped from 91% to 66%. Both vaccines were developed using innovative messenger RNA technology. The CDC also published a study Tuesday that shows unvaccinated people are about 29 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than those who are fully vaccinated. The findings were based on a survey of patients in the Los Angeles, California, area between May 1 and July 25. Emergency extension Japan is prepared to expand its current state of emergency to Wednesday amid a continuing surge of new infections. Officials say the government will place eight more prefectures, including Aichi, Hiroshima and Hokkaido, under a full state of emergency, boosting the total number of affected prefectures from 13 to 21. Hospitals are filled beyond capacity in Tokyo and across the nation, forcing thousands of infected patients to recover at home. FILE – A man wearing a protective mask stands in front of the second Paralympic flame cauldron at Ariake Yume-no-Ohashi Bridge, a day after the official opening of Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, in Tokyo, Japan, Aug. 25, 2021.The state of emergency was imposed for Tokyo and a handful of other prefectures weeks before the start of the Tokyo Olympics and remains in effect for the Tokyo Paralympic Games, which began in earnest Wednesday. Two more Paralympians have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of people in the Paralympic Village who have tested positive to at least nine, including three athletes. In Australia, in the meantime, New South Wales state reported 919 new coronavirus cases Wednesday, its biggest single-day number of infections since the delta variant was first detected in Sydney in mid-June. Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters, the Agence France-Presse.
…
The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday announced a new kind of climate observatory near the headwaters of the Colorado River that will help scientists better predict rain and snowfall in the U.S. West and determine how much of it will flow through the region. The multimillion-dollar effort led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory launches next week. The team has set up radar systems, balloons, cameras and other equipment in an area of Colorado where much of the water in the river originates as snow. More than 40 million people depend on the Colorado River. Alejandro Flores, an associate professor of hydrology at Boise State University, said the weather in mountainous areas is notoriously difficult to model and the observatory will be a “game changer.” “We have to think about the land and the atmosphere as a linked system that interact with each other,” he said in a call with reporters. “Up until now, there have been a lack of observations that help us understand this critical interface.” The West is in the midst of a more than 20-year megadrought that studies link to human-caused climate change. That, along with increased demand on the Colorado River led to the first-ever shortage declaration in August, and there is an increasing threat of deeper, more widespread water cuts. Arizona, Nevada and Mexico will not get their full allocations of river water next year. Scientists will use the observatory to gather data on precipitation, wind, clouds, tiny particles, humidity, soil moisture and other things. Along with a better understanding of the hydrology, they hope to learn more about how wildfires, forest management, drought and tree-killing bugs, for example, play a part in water availability. A big issue in predicting water supply in the West centers on soil moisture and content, said Ken Williams, the lead on-site researcher and Berkeley Lab scientist. The monsoon season largely was a dud across the Southwest for the past two years, which means more melting snow soaks into the ground before reaching streams and rivers when it does rain, he said. Climate experts said during a separate briefing Tuesday that southern Arizona and parts of New Mexico have seen impressive rainfall totals so far this monsoon season, with Tucson marking its wettest July on record. Mike Crimmins, a professor at the University of Arizona, called it an “amazing reversal” for the desert city. Some parts of the Southwest have seen as much as four times their normal precipitation levels. But Crimmins noted other spots like Albuquerque, New Mexico, are either at average levels or still lagging. “We have both really wet conditions for the short term, but we also have longer-term drought still hanging out there because we have these longer-term deficits that we cannot solve with just one or two or even three months of precipitation,” he said. To reverse the longer-term trends, the region would need to see back-to-back wet winters and summers that are hard to come by, Crimmins said. The new climate observatory, called the Surface Atmosphere Integrated Field Laboratory, brings together federal scientists, university researchers and others to build on a previous effort to study part of the upper Gunnison River basin in Colorado that shares characteristics with the Rocky Mountains. For the Rio Grande basin, the data could help water managers as they juggle longstanding water sharing agreements among Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Mexico, Williams said. It also could help improve weather forecasting and experiments to modify the weather, such as cloud seeding to produce more precipitation. The data will be available to other researchers and provide a benchmark for any collection beyond the two-year project, scientists said.
…
Geologists on Tuesday said they had detected a swarm of earthquakes at Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, though it is not erupting. The quakes began overnight and continued into the morning, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said. More than 140 earthquakes were recorded as of 4:30 a.m. The largest was magnitude 3.3. Most were less than magnitude 1. At the same time as the swarm, scientists recorded changes to the ground surface of the volcano. That may indicate magma was moving beneath the south part of Kilauea’s caldera, the observatory said. There’s been no evidence of lava at the surface. The observatory changed its volcano alert level to watch from advisory, meaning Kilauea is showing heightened or escalating unrest with more potential for an eruption. Kilauea is one of the world’s most active volcanoes, having erupted 34 times since 1952. In 2018, about 700 homes were destroyed when lava surged through volcanic vents in a residential neighborhood during the final year of an eruption that lasted more than three decades. Kilauea is about 200 miles south of Honolulu, on the Big Island of Hawaii.
…
The British government is considering plans to release beavers back into the wild across England some four centuries after the dam-building mammals became extinct in Britain. The proposals, described as a cautious step toward establishing a native beaver population, would see the animals allowed to be introduced if strict criteria were met along with an assessment of their impact on the surrounding land and other species. It comes after a successful five-year trial on the River Otter in Devon, a rural county in southwest England, concluded a family of beavers had a beneficial effect on the local ecology in what was the first legally sanctioned reintroduction to England of an extinct native mammal. “Today marks a significant milestone for the reintroduction of beavers in the wild,” environment minister George Eustice said on Wednesday at the start of a 12-week consultation on the plans. “But we also understand that there are implications for landowners, so we are taking a cautious approach to ensure that all potential impacts are carefully considered.” The government said beavers could play a hugely significant role in helping to restore nature, creating dams from trees, mud and rocks, which raise water levels and create wetland habitats that support the recovery of a wide range of native species. The semi-aquatic vegetarian mammals were hunted to extinction in Britain about 400 years ago because people wanted their meat, fur and castoreum, a secretion that was used in medicine and perfumes. The government said it also planned to make it an offense to capture, kill, disturb or injure beavers or damage their breeding sites.
…
A new study finds the number of people with hypertension has doubled over the last 30 years to 1.28 billion, mostly in developing countries. The study led by Imperial College London and the World Health Organization is the first comprehensive global analysis of trends in hypertension prevalence, detection, treatment and control.Data from more than 100 million people aged 30 to 79 in 184 countries showed that more than 700 million people with hypertension, a life-threatening illness, go untreated. Most do so because they are undiagnosed and do not know they have this condition.Bente Mikkelsen, director of WHO’s department of noncommunicable diseases, said lack of knowledge can have deadly consequences.”First of all,” Mikkelsen said, “we know that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of deaths. In the last global health estimates, we know that 17.1 million people are dying from cardiovascular diseases every year. And we know that hypertension is the main reason among those.”Hypertension significantly increases the risk of heart, brain and kidney diseases and is a leading cause of death worldwide. Major risk factors include unhealthy diets, lack of physical activity, consumption of tobacco and alcohol, and obesity, regarded by some as the tsunami of risk factors.Besides advocating healthy lifestyles, authors of the report say hypertension can be easily detected by measuring blood pressure and often can be effectively treated with low-cost medications.Over the past three decades, the study found, the burden of hypertension has shifted from wealthy nations to low-and-middle-income countries. Majid Ezzati, professor of global environmental health at Imperial College London, said that while hypertension has decreased in wealthy nations, it has increased in many of the poorer countries.”So many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, parts of South Asia, some of the Pacific Island nations, they are still not actually getting the treatment that is needed,” Ezzati said. “So, in an era that we are focusing a lot on equity in treatment — and again, this is something that we have been hearing every day for the past year and a half, inequity in diagnosis, inequity in treatment — this is again something that as a global health community we need to be aware of.”The study found treatment rates in these regions were below 25 percent for women and 20 percent for men. In comparison, it reported that more than 70 percent of men and women with hypertension in Canada, Iceland and South Korea were likely to receive medication to effectively treat and control this serious medical condition.
…