Month: August 2022

Five southern African countries, with more than half the continent’s elephants, are conducting a first-ever aerial census to determine the elephant population and how to protect it. 

Light aircraft will fly simultaneously across the plains of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe — in a conservation area known as the Kavango-Zambezi Trans-frontier Conservation Area (KAZA) — in an exercise that will run until October 20.

KAZA is home to an estimated 220,000 elephants, and the five countries are keen to know the exact figures and the animals’ distribution patterns. 

More than 130,000 of the animals are found in Botswana, which has the world’s largest elephant population. 

Botswana’s National Parks and Wildlife director, Kabelo Senyatso, said the population count will be key in the management of the elephants. 

The data primarily will be used to guide decision-making by the five partner states, Senyatso said, including land-use planning, managing human-elephant conflict, hunting, and tourism.

Senyatso said the exercise is critical for a region with a high number of trans-boundary elephants. 

“It is important that as managers of the resource, we have a clear understanding of where they are and how they are distributed across the landscape,” Senyatso said. “It is an exciting project, the first of its kind. We expect the data on the patterns to be analyzed starting early 2023 such that by quarter one of 2023, we would already be having preliminary data that we can share with the public and for our decision-making.”      

KAZA’s executive director, Nyambe Nyambe, said the elephant count will determine a scientific approach to the management of the elephant populations.      

“It is highly anticipated that it will generate science-based information on the population distribution and other factors and is a reaffirmation of the KAZA partner states’ commitment to the joint pursuit of science-led conservation supported by accurate and reliable data,” Nyambe said. “The results from this survey will become the cornerstone for the long-term protection and management of Africa’s largest trans-boundary elephant population.”     

Botswana-based conservationist Map Ives said revealing the elephant migration patterns across the five countries’ borders is key. 

“We hope to see what the results come up with,” Ives said. “What we will be interested in seeing is not only how many elephants there are but the distribution, therefore, and what the likelihood of those elephants moving between countries is. We know that this population is one single contiguous population.”          

While elephant populations are increasing in the KAZA region, elsewhere on the African continent the numbers are decreasing due to loss of habitat and poaching. 

 
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Offshore wind farms are to be permitted for the first time in Australia. The Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has declared part of the Victoria coast an offshore wind zone and a 60-day community consultation process will soon begin.

The Australian government has designated the country’s first offshore wind zone, which gives developers permission to increase their planning and consultation for wind farm projects.

Australia currently has no offshore wind generation, which was seen as too expensive and hard to build compared to onshore wind or solar projects.

The Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen says there is no time to lose.

“We are way behind the game, way behind the rest of the world in producing wind off our coastline. Again, we have a lot of catching up to do. Offshore wind is jobs-rich and energy-rich,” he said.

The first official offshore wind zone is off the Gippsland coast in the state of Victoria. There are plans to install up to 200 wind turbines, with the closest located 7 kilometers from the coastline. It would be one of the world’s largest wind farms. Construction could begin in 2025.

Other areas will follow off the coasts of New South Wales, Tasmania and Western Australia.

Erin Coldham, the acting chief executive of the Danish-owned Star of the South wind project in the Bass Strait in Victoria, says the project will help reduce Australia’s reliance on fossil fuels.

“In the region where we are looking to put a project in Gippsland, it is a region that has been generating power for over 100 years and been working in the offshore oil and gas business. But those communities know those opportunities will not be around forever. So, there is a really strong sense of enthusiasm for technologies like offshore wind to continue that tradition into the future,” said Coldham.

Wind turbines have been identified as a key part in Australia’s plan to generate more than 80% of its energy needs with renewable sources by 2030.

In 2020, 24% of Australia’s electricity came from renewable energy, up from 21% in 2019.

Solar is Australia’s largest source of green power. A quarter of Australian homes have rooftop solar systems — the highest uptake in the world.

But despite this, Australia has been one of the world’s worst per capita emitters of greenhouse pollution. Coal and gas still generate most of its electricity. Analysts have said that for years it has been regarded as a climate laggard.

But that perception is now changing.

For the first time, Australia has a legislated target to cut greenhouse gas output.

Last week, new laws were passed by the federal parliament in Canberra that will cut carbon emissions by 43% by 2030.

 
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Sold-out hotels. Excitement that seems to grow by the day. The potential for hundreds of thousands of visitors, support staff, and more.

These are just a few of the factors being calculated into preparations for Artemis I, the first launch of NASA’s moon-focused Space Launch System rocket slated for Aug. 29. Standing 322 feet tall, it promises to be the biggest, most powerful rocket to launch from the Space Coast in years – bringing with it a level of excitement to match.

All told, Space Coast officials are expecting at least 100,000 visitors for the rocket’s first window, which includes opportunities on Aug. 29, Sept. 2, and Sept. 5 (Labor Day). Currently, T-0 on Aug. 29 is set for 8:33 a.m. ET. Pad 39B will host.

The rocket is part of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to put humans back on the moon sometime this decade. That starts with the uncrewed Artemis I mission and its plan to take an Orion capsule on a four-to-six-week journey to the moon and back. Artemis II will do the same with astronauts, then Artemis III will put two astronauts on the surface sometime after 2024.

Hotels and tourism

The Space Coast isn’t a stranger to launch day crowds. During the space shuttle era that ran through 2011, half a million or more visitors would sometimes flood the area, scooping up hotel rooms and packing local businesses.

Since then, crowds have been smaller, but still significant. Even during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, thousands still flocked to Brevard County to see launches.

Some of the recent SpaceX Crew Dragon launches, which take astronauts to the International Space Station from KSC, have drawn between 100,000 and 250,000 visitors, according to Peter Cranis, executive director of the Space Coast Office of Tourism. It wouldn’t be a stretch to expect more than 100,000 for Artemis I.

“I think the crewed launches and these Artemis launches are going to be of equal interest to people,” Cranis said. “I would expect certainly over 100,000, if not more, coming for that.”

As of June, Cranis said, Brevard County had 10,734 hotel rooms and 4,500 vacation rental units. Each unit can obviously accommodate more than one person, but those numbers likely won’t be impacted by spectators driving from Orlando, for example, to see the launch without staying overnight.

Speaking to the greater launch cadence, Cranis said Artemis also supports his office’s efforts at marketing the Space Coast. Both KSC and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station have hosted 32 launches this year, a pace not seen since the 1960s.

“Our marketing line is we’re the only beach that doubles as a launch pad and now that’s a message we can put out there because the frequency is so elevated,” he said. “Being known for that is something that makes us special among our peers who obviously have beaches to promote, but no space program.”

Just glancing at hotel room listings shows a rapidly dwindling supply among those that haven’t been sold out.

The space-themed Courtyard by Marriott Titusville – Kennedy Space Center is one of the area’s newest hotels. Completed this year and opened to the public in April, it boasts views of KSC and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station pads and even has a rooftop “Space Bar” specifically for launch viewing.

All the Courtyard’s rooms, along with the Space Bar, are sold out for Artemis I.

“We’ve had more and more people discover the hotel since it opened in April, with steadily increasing room bookings and patronage of The Space Bar on the roof,” said Glen White, director of corporate communications for Delaware North. The company franchised the Courtyard hotel brand and paid for the project.

“We also anticipate having people book rooms and visit the Space Bar to feel the excitement of seeing Artemis on the launch pad in the days leading up to launch,” White said.

Delaware North’s main Space Coast operation is the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, which is expecting to sell out its Artemis day offerings.

“We are expecting capacity crowds at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex for the upcoming Artemis launch,” said Therrin Protze, the visitor complex’s chief operating officer. “(The visitor complex) will offer special Artemis launch viewing packages that will include some of the closest public viewing opportunities with distinctive experiences like live commentary from space experts and access to select exhibits and attractions.”

Artemis I’s launch ties in with the complex’s recently opened “Gateway: The Deep Space Launch Complex” exhibit, which focuses on the future of spaceflight. Inside the new exhibit is a scale model of the SLS rocket, a flown Orion capsule similar to the one on Artemis I, and other items like a ceiling-mounted SpaceX Falcon Heavy booster.

The visitor complex’s tickets for Artemis I viewing will go on sale 11 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 2, at the Kennedy Space Center website.

Kennedy Space Center and media

Crowds gathering to see the launch as spectators aren’t the only visitors expected on the Space Coast. Hundreds of media members from around the world have signed up to cover the liftoff, too.

KSC’s public affairs team confirmed at least 700 media have signed up so far, a figure that dwarfs typical launches and is closer to crowds seen during the space shuttle program. Heather Scott, a spokesperson for the Space Force’s Space Launch Delta 45, said the military branch will also be pitching in to help manage media.

“The growing sense of energy and excitement that has been steadily building around Kennedy and among our workforce in the last year is tangible,” said Mike Bolger, director of KSC’s Exploration Ground Systems. “A sense of anticipation is growing daily as we close in on launching this amazing rocket and spacecraft.”

From an employee perspective, launch day car passes that can be used to bring personal vehicles – and family and friends, in most cases – are highly sought after.

And it’s not just about launch day viewing: employees not directly working on Artemis have been handling non-critical items for those who are, even going as far as buying their lunch to help free up time.

“Our teams are laser-focused on walking SLS and Orion through the final steps before its maiden flight around the moon, but the excitement across the center is palpable,” KSC Director Janet Petro said. “You can see it in peoples’ faces, you can hear it in their voices, and when we all stand together with our eyes to the sky on launch day, I don’t think there will be a feeling in the world like it.”
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Stem cell scientists say they have created “synthetic embryos” without using sperm, eggs or fertilization for the first time, but the prospect of using such a technique to grow human organs for transplantation remains distant.

The breakthrough was hailed as a major step forward, though some experts said the result could not fully be considered to be embryos and warned of future ethical considerations.

In research published in the journal Cell this week, scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel said found a way to have mouse stem cells self-assemble into embryo-like structures in the lab.

They started by collecting cells from the skin of mice, then made them return to the state of stem cells.

The stem cells were then placed in a special incubator designed by the researchers, which continuously moved to mimic a mother’s womb.

The vast majority of the cells failed to form anything.

But 50 — 0.5 percent of the 10,000 total — collected themselves into spheres, then embryo-like structures, the researchers said.

After eight days — around a third of the 20-day mouse gestation period — there were early signs of a brain and a beating heart, they added.

They were described as 95% similar to normal mouse embryos.

‘Time will tell’

If human organs could one day be grown in a lab, the technique could provide life-saving transplants for thousands of people every year.

Stem cell scientist Jacob Hanna, who led the research, told AFP, “The big problem for transplantation is that you need to find a matching donor and the DNA is never identical to the patient.”

But using the new technique, one day scientists could take cells from a patient’s liver, for example, use them to make stem cells, grow a synthetic embryo then “transplant them back into the patient,” Hanna said.

“The cell will be made from the patient, so it will be the exact DNA — no need to find donors and there can be no rejection,” he added.

While they were the most advanced synthetic embryo-like structures ever grown, some scientists not involved in the research warned against calling them “embryos.”

“These are not embryos,” French stem cell scientist Laurent David told AFP.

He preferred to call them embryoids, the name for a group of cells that resemble an embryo.

However, David welcomed the “very convincing” research, which he said could allow further experiments to understand exactly how organs form.

Beyond organs, Hanna said the embryoids could also help identify new targets for drugs and potentially help find solutions for a range of issues such as pregnancy loss, infertility, endometriosis and preeclampsia.

“Time will tell,” he said.

Hanna, a Palestinian who led the research at the institute in Israel, said, “Science is my escape from the harsh reality I face while living in my homeland.”

“And I am one of the very ‘lucky’ ones,” he added.

The first author of the Cell study is a PhD student from the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, who needs a special permit regularly renewed to allow him to work at the institute in the Israeli city of Rehovot, Hanna said.

Ethical implications

Hanna has founded a company, Renewal Bio, that he said “will be focusing on testing potential clinical applications of human synthetic embryoids.”

He said they had ethical approval for such testing in Israel and it was legal in many other countries such as the U.S. and U.K.

“We should remember that synthetic embryos are embryoids and not real embryos and do not have the potential to become viable,” he said.

But researchers not involved in the study said it was very early to consider using such a technique for humans.

Alfonso Martinez Arias of Spain’s Pompeu Fabra University said the breakthrough “opens the door to similar studies with human cells, though there are many regulatory hoops to get through first and, from the point of view of the experiments, human systems lag behind mouse systems.”

And aiming to get similar results from human cells is likely to open an ethical can of worms.

“Although the prospect of synthetic human embryos is still distant, it will be crucial to engage in wider discussions about the legal and ethical implications of such research,” James Briscoe of Britain’s Francis Crick Institute said.
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Early Europeans drank milk for thousands of years before they evolved the ability to fully digest it as adults, scientists say.

New results published in the journal Nature suggest that being able to digest the lactose in milk wasn’t usually much of an advantage for ancient people in Europe. Instead, the new study suggests that famine and disease made lactose intolerance deadly.

The new discovery challenges the long-standing assumption that dairy farming spread through ancient populations alongside the genetic quirks that prevent adults from losing the ability to digest lactose.

Like other young mammals, human children produce an enzyme called lactase that breaks down lactose. The gene for lactase usually turns off in adulthood because aside from humans, adult mammals don’t drink milk.

Without lactase, lactose from milk ends up feeding gut microbes that produce gas, which can cause uncomfortable digestive problems.

“You’ll get some cramps. You’ll get some diarrhea. Might fart a bit more. It might be unpleasant for you,” said geneticist Mark Thomas of University College London, who led the genetics work for the new study. “It might be embarrassing, but you’re not going to die.”

But when our ancient ancestors suffered through plagues or famines, getting diarrhea from drinking milk was probably more than just uncomfortable, the authors suggest.

“Then we’re talking about a life-threatening condition,” Thomas said.

About one-third of people alive today have a genetic variant that keeps their lactase gene from turning off. This trait has evolved independently multiple times in the ancestors of people now living in parts of Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Europe.

Scientists long assumed that lactase persistence evolved alongside the spread of dairy farming, which happened over a few thousand years beginning around 7000 BC.

However, earlier studies revealed that lactase persistence was vanishingly rare in Europe until about 3,000 years ago. But after that, it took only a few thousand years for the trait to become widespread — the blink of an eye in evolutionary time.

Why this trait would evolve so quickly was a mystery.

“Lactase persistence has been under enormous amounts of natural selection over the last eight to ten thousand years … more than any other part of the genome in Europeans,” said Thomas. “It was, for a very long period of time, the one trait upon which life and death pivoted more than any other. … It’s insane. It just defies explanation.”

Searching for an explanation, the authors sought to reconstruct the history of milk use in the region over the past 9,000 years. They examined fat residues left on more than 7,000 pottery shards collected at 550 archaeological sites across Europe.

“When people were cooking … fat liquefies and then penetrates into the pores of the pottery,” said organic geochemist and study co-author Mélanie Roffet-Salque of the University of Bristol. “It’s quite stunning, really. But thousands of years later when archaeologists excavate a piece of pottery that had been discarded and then we analyze the pottery, it’s still there.”

The pottery shards showed that milk consumption was widespread across most of Europe for thousands of years before most Europeans became lactose tolerant.

Studying health data on modern Britons, the researchers didn’t find any evidence that drinking milk hurts the health of modern adults who don’t produce lactase.

Surprisingly, using data on ancient population fluctuations to approximate when and where ancient Europeans dealt with famine and disease, the researchers found that sickness and hunger might explain the evolution of lactase persistence better than milk consumption.

Famine could have forced ancient people to drink more milk than usual as other food sources ran out. And both malnutrition and disease could have made lactose-induced diarrhea very dangerous. Severe diarrhea can kill — it is still the second leading cause of death for children under 5 worldwide.

Shevan Wilkin, a biomolecular archaeologist at the University of Zurich who reviewed the new paper, said the research was an important step forward but that she’s not necessarily convinced that famine and disease alone can explain the evolution of lactase persistence.

“The reason I don’t know if I think they’re right, I also don’t know if I think they’re wrong, is before 2,000 years ago, there were absolutely times of famine,” Wilkin said.

Thomas said he’d like to see similar studies done in Africa, where lactase persistence evolved independently three different times. Wilkin agreed, noting that Europe is over-studied, and that future research should focus on other regions, including central Asia, where people drink lots of milk despite lacking a genetic variant that keeps lactase from turning off in adults.

“I think it’d be really interesting to apply this [in] multiple places,” said Wilkin. “It’s just such a cool and ambitious undertaking, and I think it’s really going to spur a ton of new studies.”
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Scientists say that climate change is increasing the likelihood of lightning strikes across the United States, after lightning struck at a square near the White House, leaving three people dead and one more in critical condition. 

The hot, humid conditions in the U.S. capital on Thursday were primed for electricity. Air temperatures topped out at 34 degrees Celsius, 3 C higher than the 30-year normal maximum temperature for August 4, according to the National Weather Service. 

More heat can draw more moisture into the atmosphere, while also encouraging rapid updraft, two key factors for charged particles that lead to lightning. A key study released in 2014 in the journal Science warned that the number of lightning strikes could increase by 50% in this century in the United States, with each 1 C of warming translating into a 12% rise in the number of lightning strikes. 

Fast-warming Alaska has seen a 17% rise in lightning activity since the cooler 1980s. And in typically dry California, a siege of 14,000 lightning strikes during August 2020 sparked some of the state’s biggest wildfires on record. 

Beyond the United States, there is evidence that lightning strikes are also shooting up in India and Brazil. 

Bolts rarely hit people

But even as lightning strikes increase, being hit by one is still extremely rare in the United States, experts say. Roughly 40 million lightning bolts touch down in the country every year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with the odds of being struck at less than 1 in a million. 

Among those who are hit, about 90% survive the ordeal, the CDC says. The country counted 444 deaths from lightning strikes from 2006 through 2021. 

The two men and two women struck by lightning on Thursday while visiting Washington’s Lafayette Square, just north of the White House, were not so lucky when a bolt hit the ground during a violent afternoon thunderstorm. 

The lightning hit near a tree that stands meters from the fence that surrounds the presidential residence and offices across from the square, which is often crowded with visitors, especially in the summer months. 

All four victims suffered life-threatening injuries and were taken to area hospitals. Two later died: James Mueller, 76, and Donna Mueller, 75, from Janesville, Wisconsin, the Metropolitan Police Department said. 

“We are saddened by the tragic loss of life,” the White House said in a statement on Friday. “Our hearts are with the families who lost loved ones, and we are praying for those still fighting for their lives.” 

Later Friday a third victim, a 29-year-old male, was pronounced dead, the Metropolitan Police Department said. Further details on the victim were being withheld until the person’s family could be notified. 

Because heat and moisture are often needed to make lightning, most strikes happen in the summer. In the United States, the populous, subtropical state of Florida sees the most people killed by lightning. 
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As a sex worker and adult film actor, Roc was relieved when he was among the first Spaniards to get a monkeypox vaccine. He knew of several cases among men who have sex with men, which is the leading demographic for the disease, and feared he could be next. 

“I went home and thought, ‘Phew, my God, I’m saved,’ ” the 29-year-old told The Associated Press. 

But it was already too late. Roc, the name he uses for work, had been infected by a client a few days before. He joined Spain’s steadily increasing count of monkeypox infections that has become the highest in Europe since the disease spread beyond Africa, where it has been endemic for years. 

He began showing symptoms: pustules, fever, conjunctivitis and tiredness. Roc was hospitalized for treatment before getting well enough to be released. 

Spanish health authorities and community groups are struggling to check an outbreak that has killed two young men. They reportedly died of encephalitis, or swelling of the brain, that can be caused by some viruses. Most monkeypox cases cause only mild symptoms. 

Spain has confirmed 4,942 cases in the three months since the start of the outbreak, which has been linked to two raves in Europe, where experts say the virus was likely spread through sex. 

The only country with more infections than Spain is the much larger United States, which has reported 7,100 cases. 

Global count

In all, the global monkeypox outbreak has seen more than 26,000 cases in nearly 90 countries since May. There have been 103 suspected deaths in Africa, mostly in Nigeria and Congo, where a more lethal form of monkeypox is spreading than in the West. 

Health experts stress that this is not technically a sexually transmitted disease, even though it has been mainly spreading via sex among gay and bisexual men, who account for 98% of cases beyond Africa. The virus can be spread to anyone who has close, physical contact with an infected person, their clothing or bed sheets. 

Part of the complexity of fighting monkeypox is striking a balance between not stigmatizing men who have sex with men, while also ensuring that both vaccines and pleas for greater caution reach those currently in the greatest danger. 

Spain has distributed 5,000 shots of the two-shot vaccine to health clinics and expects to receive 7,000 more from the European Union in the coming days, its health ministry said. The EU has bought 160,000 doses and is donating them to member states based on need. The bloc is expecting another 70,000 shots to be available next week. 

To ensure that those shots get administered wisely, community groups and sexual health associations are targeting gay men, bisexuals and transgender women. 

In Barcelona, BCN Checkpoint, which focuses on AIDS/HIV prevention in gay and trans communities, is now contacting at-risk people to offer them one of the precious vaccines. 

Pep Coll, medical director of BCN Checkpoint, said the vaccine rollout is focused on people who are already at risk of contracting HIV and are on preemptive treatment, men with a high number of sexual partners and those who participate in sex with the use of drugs, as well as people with suppressed immune responses. 

But there are many more people who fit those categories than doses, about 15,000 people just in Barcelona, Coll said. 

The lack of vaccines, which is far more severe in Africa than in Europe and the U.S., makes social public health policies key, experts say. 

Contact tracing more difficult

As with the coronavirus pandemic, contact tracing to identify people who could have been infected is critical. But, while COVID-19 could spread to anyone simply through the air, the close bodily contact that serves as the leading vehicle for monkeypox makes some people hesitant to share information. 

“We are having a steady stream of new cases, and it is possible that we will have more deaths. Why? Because contact tracing is very complicated because it can be a very sensitive issue for someone to identify their sexual partners,” said Amós García, epidemiologist and president of the Spanish Association of Vaccinology. 

Spain says that 80% of its cases are among men who have sex with men and only 1.5% are women. But García insisted that will change unless the entire public, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, grasps that having various sexual partners creates greater risk. 

Given the dearth of vaccines and the trouble with contact tracing, more pressure is being put on encouraging prevention. 

From the start, government officials ceded the leading role in the get-out-the-word campaign to community groups. 

Sebastian Meyer, president of the STOP SIDA association dedicated to AIDS/HIV care in Barcelona’s LGBTQ community, said the logic was that his group and others like it would be trusted message-bearers with person-by-person knowledge of how to drive the health warning home. 

Community associations that represent gay and bisexual men have bombarded social media, websites and blogs with information on monkeypox safety. Officials in Catalonia, the region including Barcelona that has over 1,500 cases, are pushing public service announcements on dating apps Tinder and Grindr warning about the disease. 

But Meyer believes fatigue from the COVID-19 pandemic has played a part. Doctors advise people with monkeypox lesions to isolate until they have fully healed, which can take up to three weeks. 

“When people read that they must self-isolate, they close the webpage and forget what they have read,” Meyer said. “We are just coming out of COVID, when you couldn’t do this or that, and now, here we go again. … People just hate it and put their heads in the sand.”
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One in eight people who get coronavirus develop at least one symptom of long COVID, one of the most comprehensive studies on the condition to date suggested on Thursday. 

With more than half a billion coronavirus cases recorded worldwide since the start of the pandemic, there has been rising concern about the lasting symptoms seen in people with long COVID. 

However, almost none of the existing research has compared long COVID sufferers with people who have never been infected, making it possible that some of the health problems were not caused by the virus. 

A new study published in The Lancet journal asked more than 76,400 adults in the Netherlands to fill out an online questionnaire on 23 common long COVID symptoms. 

From March 2020 to August 2021, each participant filled out the questionnaire 24 times.  

During that period, more than 4,200 of them, 5.5%, reported catching COVID. 

Of those with COVID, more than 21% had at least one new or severely increased symptom three to five months after becoming infected. 

However nearly 9% of the control group, which did not have COVID, reported a similar increase in some symptoms. 

This suggested that 12.7% of those who had COVID — around 1 in 8 — suffered from long-term symptoms, the study said.  

The research also recorded symptoms before and after COVID infection, allowing the researchers to further pinpoint exactly what was related to the virus. 

It found that common long COVID symptoms include chest pain, breathing difficulties, muscle pain, loss of taste and smell, and general fatigue.

‘Major advance’

One of the study’s authors, Aranka Ballering of the Dutch University of Groningen, said long COVID was “an urgent problem with a mounting human toll.” 

“By looking at symptoms in an uninfected control group and in individuals both before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection, we were able to account for symptoms which may have been a result of non-infectious disease health aspects of the pandemic, such as stress caused by restrictions and uncertainty,” she said. 

The authors of the study said its limitations included that it did not cover later variants, such as delta or omicron, and did not collect information about some symptoms such as brain fog, which have since been considered a common sign of long COVID. 

Another study author, Judith Rosmalen, said “future research should include mental health symptoms” such as depression and anxiety, as well as aspects like brain fog, insomnia and a feeling of malaise after even minor exertion. 

Christopher Brightling and Rachael Evans, experts from Britain’s Leicester University who were not involved in the study, said it was “a major advance” on previous long COVID research because it had an uninfected control group. 

“Encouragingly, emerging data from other studies” suggest there is a lower rate of long COVID in people who have been vaccinated or infected with the omicron variant, they said in a linked Lancet comment. 
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The United States has declared monkeypox a public health emergency, the health secretary said Thursday, a move expected to free up additional funding and tools to fight the disease. 

The declaration came as the tally of cases crossed 6,600 in the United States on Wednesday, almost all of them among men who have sex with men. 

“We’re prepared to take our response to the next level in addressing this virus, and we urge every American to take monkeypox seriously,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said at a briefing. 

The declaration will also help improve the availability of monkeypox data, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said, speaking alongside Becerra. 

The World Health Organization also has designated monkeypox a “public health emergency of international concern,” its highest alert level. The WHO declaration last month was designed to trigger a coordinated international response and could unlock funding to collaborate on vaccines and treatments. 

Biden earlier this month appointed two top federal officials to coordinate his administration’s response to monkeypox, following declarations of emergencies by California, Illinois and New York. 

First identified in monkeys in 1958, the disease has mild symptoms including fever, aches and pus-filled skin lesions, and people tend to recover from it within two to four weeks, according to the WHO. It spreads through close physical contact and is rarely fatal. 

Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical adviser, told Reuters on Thursday that it was critical to engage leaders from the gay community as part of efforts to rein in the outbreak, but cautioned against stigmatizing the disease and its victims. 

“Engagement of the community has always proven to be successful,” Fauci said. 

Unlike when COVID-19 emerged, there are vaccines and treatments available for monkeypox, which was first documented in Africa in the 1970s. 

The U.S. government had distributed 156,000 monkeypox vaccine doses nationwide through mid-July. It has ordered an additional 2.5 million doses of Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine. 

The first U.S. case of monkeypox was confirmed in Massachusetts in May, followed by another case in California five days later. 
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NASA discusses its upcoming test flight to the moon. Plus, another look deep into the history of our universe, and we remember a beloved fictional pioneer in spaceflight. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us “The Week in Space.”
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President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order that the White House said would protect access to abortion care, part of the continuing fallout from a June Supreme Court reversal of its landmark 1973 ruling establishing a right to abortion.

With each of the 50 states now free to write abortion laws as it sees fit, an early test came Tuesday when voters in the Midwestern state of Kansas voted decisively to keep that state’s right to abortion. But several states now outlaw the practice, sometimes even in the case of rape or incest.

“This is just extreme,” Biden said before signing the order, which aims to help people seeking abortions travel to a state where it remains legal. “You know, even the life of the mother is in question in some case — in some states.

“Republicans in Congress and their extreme MAGA ideology are determined to go even further, talking about nationwide bans that would outlaw abortion in every state, under every circumstance, going after the broader right to privacy as well. But as I said before, this fight is not over. And we saw that last night in Kansas.”

This was the second abortion-related executive order that Biden had signed since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. The first executive order, last month, aimed to guarantee access to emergency contraception and abortion medication.

Critics said these White House actions were too vague, and too slow.

“What we’re seeing is the federal government figuring out how they can support abortion patients without violating federal law,” said Elizabeth Nash, state policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization that supports abortion rights.

“And so that’s why some of this is so piecemeal,” she said. “And we’re seeing what agencies are going to come up with. And frankly, this is the sort of announcement that we really needed to hear right when Dobbs came down. And so I’m hoping that these agencies can be kick-started into action so that they can catch up. Because we are seeing states ban abortion.”

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Biden administration is working as fast as it can, but “there’s steps and processes that we have to take in order to take actions as big as these.

“But look, there has been an urgency from this president from day one when — when the Supreme Court made this extreme decision to take away a constitutional right,” she said.

Thirteen states immediately banned abortion right after the Supreme Court ruling. In the coming months, four states — California, Kentucky, Michigan and Vermont — will vote on abortion, as Kansas did.

Kansans on Tuesday voted in large numbers, and nearly 59% voted against a proposal to amend the state constitution to remove abortion protections. In this respect, the conservative state echoed national trends: A recent Pew poll found that 61% of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Anti-abortion groups decried the Kansas vote and Biden’s actions.

“Biden and the Democrats make a serious error in assuming Americans nationwide agree with their radical agenda — using the full weight of the federal government to impose abortion on demand up to the moment of birth, illegally forcing taxpayers to fund it, ‘cracking down’ on nonprofits that provide life-affirming alternatives, and threatening to destroy any guardrails of democracy that stand in their way,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.

No state allows abortion at birth. Most abortions — about 91% of them — happen before the 13-week mark, said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Research from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that abortions at or after 21 weeks of pregnancy represent just 1% of all U.S. abortions. Those cases, it said, are often the result of serious health risks to the fetus or the pregnant person.

Since the ruling, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have urged Congress to enshrine abortion access into federal law. Harris has spent the past few weeks crisscrossing the country to speak about the issue with legislators, health care providers, faith leaders and others.

She said the Biden administration’s policy is clear.

“We trust the judgment of the women of America to make decisions based on what they know is in their best interests,” she said.

“We trust the women of America to make those decisions, if she chooses, in consultation with her faith leader, with her physician, with her loved one. But we understand fully the government should not be making that decision for her.”
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Two invasive species — the brown tree snake and the American bullfrog — cost the world more than $16 billion between 1986 and 2020, according to a study. 

Researchers say the already-hefty price tag should be seen as a lower limit on the true cost of invasive reptiles and amphibians, especially in under-studied regions such as Africa and South America. The study results were published in the online journal Scientific Reports. 

Invasive species are animals, plants or other living things that aren’t native to the places where they live and damage their new environments. Humans spread many of the more than 340 invasive reptile and amphibian species — as stowaways in cargo or through the exotic pet trade, for instance. 

Invasive reptiles and amphibians can damage crops, destroy infrastructure, spread disease and upset ecosystems. The damage is costly, but scientists still don’t fully understand the extent of the economic impact wrought by invasive species. 

For the study, biologist and study author Ismael Soto of the University of South Bohemia, and Ceske Budejovice in the Czech Republic, and his colleagues, estimated the global cost of invasive reptiles and amphibians using a database called InvaCost. The database collects the results of thousands of studies, reports and other documents produced by scientists, governments and non-governmental organizations. 

The data revealed that invasive reptiles and amphibians have cost at least $17 billion worldwide between 1986 and 2020.  

“But this cost mostly focused on two species — the brown tree snake [and] the American bullfrog,” Soto told VOA in an interview via Zoom. “But there are almost 300 invasive species of reptiles [and] amphibians. So, this means that our cost is really underestimated.”  

The two species have received a disproportionate amount of attention from researchers, said economist Shana McDermott of Trinity University, who was not involved in the study. 

“When you talk about invasives, people immediately will probably say, ‘Oh, the brown tree snake,’ just because its impacts are so wide-ranging,” she said via Zoom. “It’s got ecosystem biodiversity impacts. It’s got impacts to human health — it sends people to the hospital every year with bites. It takes down energy infrastructure. … And so, of course, people are like, ‘Oh God! That’s an incredibly dangerous invasive! Let’s understand it better.'”  

The research bias toward a few well-known species also skews the distribution of costs worldwide. For instance, 99.6% of the $10.4 billion in costs from reptile invasions were in Oceania and the Pacific Islands, largely reflecting damage dealt by the brown tree snake in Hawaii, Guam and Northern Mariana Islands. Likewise, most damage from amphibians was in Europe.  

But that doesn’t mean invasive reptiles and amphibians aren’t problematic elsewhere. Soto said there are many invasive amphibians in Africa, but their costs probably haven’t been quantified.  

“There’s not enough research in these countries [to] detect the economic costs,” he said. 

Soto also noted that the current cost estimate only includes costs that are easily quantified. Destroyed crops or property are easier to count than reduced quality of life or indirect damage to human health and assigning dollar values to ecological damage is trickier still, McDermott said. 

“We’re still in this very early stage of trying to understand the economic costs, and trying to understand how invasive species impact ecosystems, how they impact people’s quality of life,” she said, adding that she wants to include the price of biodiversity losses in future cost estimates. 

Soto and McDermott agreed that future studies should not only quantify the costs of more species in more regions but also project how the costs will evolve with time, especially as climate change continues to facilitate the spread of more invasive species. 

“There is a lot still left to be determined. … I do think that quantifying it is the first step, though,” said McDermott. “Unless you can put a dollar value on it, unfortunately, you don’t get [policymakers’] attention for policy. So, this is an incredibly important topic. … We really shouldn’t be waiting on more studies to act.” 

 
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President Joe Biden virtually joined Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer Tuesday to celebrate the CHIPS and Science Act, which aims to boost U.S. competitiveness against China by allocating billions of dollars toward domestic semiconductor manufacturing and scientific research.

“This bill makes it clear the world’s leading innovation will happen in America. We will both invent in America and make it in America,” Biden said. He was scheduled to join the event in person but had to remain in isolation after testing positive for COVID-19 again on Saturday in what his physician described as a “rebound” case.

In the coming days, Biden is expected to sign the legislation, which passed in a 243-187 vote in the House of Representatives and 64-33 vote in the Senate last week.

The $280 billion act includes $52 billion in incentives for domestic semiconductor production and research, as well as an investment tax credit for semiconductor manufacturing. Advocates say it will allow the U.S. to catch up in the global semiconductor manufacturing race currently dominated by China, Taiwan and South Korea.

Last year, a semiconductor shortage affected the supply of automobiles, electronic appliances and other goods, causing higher inflation globally and pummeling Biden’s public approval among American voters.

Michigan, a major hub for the American auto industry, has been one of the states hardest hit by the semiconductor shortage.

“This bill will mean humming factories and lower costs on electronics, medical devices, farm equipment and cars for working families,” Whitmer said.

The act includes $4.2 billion to fund defense initiatives and the U.S. mobile broadband market, particularly efforts to promote non-Chinese 5G equipment manufacturing.

Catching up with China

The U.S. share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity has decreased from 37% in 1990 to 12% today, largely because other governments have offered manufacturing incentives and invested in research to strengthen domestic chipmaking capabilities, according to a state of the industry report by the Semiconductor Industry Association.

Now China accounts for 24% of the world’s semiconductor production, followed by Taiwan at 21%, South Korea at 19% and Japan at 13%, the report said.

With the CHIPS Act, the administration hopes to bring as much semiconductor manufacturing to the U.S. as practically possible, said Bonnie Glick, director of the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue University.

“And what can’t be reasonably onshore, either because it’s cost prohibitive or other allied countries simply do it better, we can ally-shore manufacturing and support that,” she told VOA.

The two allies the administration has leveraged are South Korea and Japan, both of which Biden visited in May. In Seoul, he toured a Samsung computer chip factory that is the model for a $17 billion facility that the South Korean technology giant is setting up in the U.S. state of Texas.

Last week, the U.S. and Japan launched a new joint international semiconductor research hub under a “bilateral chip technology partnership” to bolster manufacturing for 2-nanometer chips as early as 2025.

Washington has also persuaded Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. (TSMC) to open a U.S. foundry to produce advanced semiconductors. The $12 billion facility in the state of Arizona was completed last month and is scheduled to start production of 5 nm chips by 2024. TMSC also has plants in China.

“We’re back in the game,” Biden said Tuesday. “Remember, we invented these chips, we modernized these chips, we made them work, and there’s a lot more we can get done.”

The CHIPS Act has laid out a clear strategy for Washington, said Volker Sorger, director of the Devices & Intelligent Systems Laboratory at the George Washington University.

“Gain autonomy and eliminate political dependencies on these global supply chain values,” Sorger told VOA.

That strategy puts the U.S. on a collision course with China, which also aims to be the global leader in semiconductors. In 2015, Beijing launched the Made in China 2025 project, which aimed to increase chip production from less than 10% of global demand at the time to 40% in 2020 and 70% in 2025.

The Made in China 2025 program and the People’s Liberation Army’s goal of military-civil fusion make it “overtly clear that Beijing is seeking to dominate global technology and supply chains through anti-competitive trade practices and infiltration of dual-use technology research,” Glick said.

The U.S. government has been pushing for stricter export regulations to China by prohibiting export of equipment needed for manufacturing chips at 14 nm and below. “That would mark an escalation from the previous ban covering 10 nm and below,” Glick added.

Taiwan’s strategic importance

Taiwan — a self-governed island that Beijing claims to be its breakaway province — lies at the heart of the increasingly tense U.S.-China rivalry.

Taipei has dominated manufacture of the world’s most high-tech chips, accounting for 92% of the global production of 10 nm or smaller semiconductors, essentially creating what some observers have characterized as a “silicon shield” that ensures American support in the event of a Chinese attack, as well as a deterrence to such a move.

A military conflict over Taiwan could disrupt TMSC’s semiconductor production and have disastrous effects on global manufacturing.

U.S.-China tensions are already spooking technology investors. TSMC shares fell nearly 3% on Tuesday as U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed in Taipei in a visit she said demonstrated American solidarity with the Taiwanese people.

Beijing has condemned the visit, the first by a U.S. House speaker in 25 years, as a threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

Rare earths

The CHIPS Act does not include provisions to secure supply chains of rare earths — and other critical minerals used in semiconductors and other high-tech elements — to reduce the nation’s dependence on China, a major producer of these elements.

“I don’t know that we have developed a coherent strategy on accessing both rare and nonrare elements,” Glick said.

Last June, following Biden’s executive order to improve supply chains, the administration released a report concluding that the U.S. was overly reliant on China for critical minerals. Currently, China controls 87% of the global permanent magnet market, 55% of rare earths mining capacity and 85% of rare earths refining.

Earlier this year, the administration announced actions it said would bolster the supply chain of these elements, including a contract for U.S. company MP Materials to process heavy rare earth elements at its California production site — the first processing and separation facility of its kind in the nation.  
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US President Joe Biden virtually joined Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer on Tuesday to celebrate the CHIPS and Science Act, which aims to boost US competitiveness against China by allocating billions of dollars toward domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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A bill enhancing health care and disability benefits for millions of veterans exposed to toxic burn pits won final approval in the Senate on Tuesday, ending a brief stalemate over the measure that had infuriated advocates and inspired some to camp outside the Capitol.

The Senate approved the bill by a vote of 86-11. It now goes to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law. Biden described the legislation as the biggest expansion of benefits for service-connected health issues in 30 years and the largest single bill ever to comprehensively address exposure to burn pits.

“I look forward to signing this bill, so that veterans and their families and caregivers impacted by toxic exposures finally get the benefits and comprehensive health care they earned and deserve,” Biden said.

The Senate had overwhelming approved the legislation back in June, but a do-over was required to make a technical fix. That process derailed when Republicans made a late attempt to change another aspect of the bill last week and blocked it from advancing.

The abrupt delay outraged veterans groups and advocates, including comedian Jon Stewart. It also placed GOP senators in the uncomfortable position of delaying the top legislative priority of service organizations this session of Congress.

A group of veterans and their families have been camping out at the Capitol since that vote. They had endured thunderstorms and Washington’s notorious summer humidity, but they were in the galleries as senators cast their votes.

“You can go home knowing the good and great thing you have done and accomplished for the United States of America,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told them.

The legislation expands access to health care through the Department of Veterans Affairs for millions who served near burn pits. It also directs the VA to presume that certain respiratory illnesses and cancers were related to burn pit exposure, allowing veterans to obtain disability payments to compensate for their injury without having to prove the illness was a result of their service.

Roughly 70% of disability claims related to burn pit exposure are denied by the VA due to lack of evidence, scientific data and information from the Defense Department.

The military used burn pits to dispose of such things as chemicals, cans, tires, plastics and medical and human waste.

Hundreds of thousands of Vietnam War era veterans and survivors also stand to benefit from the legislation. The bill adds hypertension, or high blood pressure, as a presumptive disease associated with Agent Orange exposure.

The Congressional Budget Office projected that about 600,000 of 1.6 million living Vietnam vets would be eligible for increased compensation, though only about half would have severe enough diagnoses to warrant more compensation.

Also, veterans who served in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Guam, American Samoa and Johnston Atoll will be presumed to have been exposed to Agent Orange. That’s another 50,000 veterans and survivors of deceased veterans who would get compensation for illnesses presumed to have been caused by their exposure to the herbicide, the CBO projected.

The bill is projected to increase federal deficits by about $277 billion over 10 years.

The bill has been a years-long effort begun by veterans and their families after they had returned from the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and experienced maladies that they suspected were caused by their close proximity to burn pits. It was named after Sgt. First Class Heath Robinson from Ohio, who died in 2020 from cancer he attributed to prolonged exposure to burn pits. His widow, Danielle Robinson, was first lady Jill Biden’s guest at the president’s State of the Union address earlier this year.

Stewart, the former host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, also brought increased exposure to the burn pit maladies veterans were facing. He also was in the gallery watching the vote Tuesday. He wept and held his head in his hand as the final vote began.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a situation where people who have already given so much had to fight so hard to get so little,” he said after the vote. “And I hope we learn a lesson.”

The House was the first to act on the burn pits legislation. An earlier version the House approved in March was expected to increase spending by more than $320 billion over 10 years, but senators trimmed some of the costs early on by phasing in certain benefit enhancements. They also added funds for staffing to help the VA keep up with the expected increase in demand for health care and an increase in disability claims.

Some GOP senators are still concerned that the bill will increase delays at the VA because of an increased demand for veterans seeking care or disability compensation.

“What we have learned is that the VA cannot deliver what is promised because it does not have the capacity to handle the increase,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.

Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., led the effort to get the bill passed in the Senate. After passage, Tester told reporters he received a call from Biden, thanking him for “taking a big weight” off his shoulder.

Moran said that when the bill failed to pass last week, he was disappointed but remembered the strength of the protesters who had sat outside in the scorching heat for days.

“Thanks to the United States Senate for demonstrating when there’s something good and a good cause, this place still works,” Moran said. 
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The United States sued Idaho on Tuesday over a state law that it says imposes a “near-absolute ban” on abortion and also sought to block the Western state from prosecuting or disciplining doctors, according to a court filing.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for Idaho, seeks a preliminary and permanent injunction against the state prohibiting enforcement of the law and asked the court to rule that the state law violates federal statutes.

The lawsuit also alleges the state law interferes with the United States’ pre-existing agreements with hospitals under Medicare, referring to the federal health care program for seniors.

“Today, the Justice Department’s message is clear … if a patient comes into the emergency room with a medical emergency jeopardizing the patient’s life or health, the hospital must provide the treatment necessary to stabilize that patient,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference in Washington announcing the filing.

“This includes abortion, when that is the necessary treatment,” Garland added.

Tuesday’s lawsuit marks the Justice Department’s first legal battle over reproductive rights since the Supreme Court in June overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that recognized women’s constitutional right to abortion.

Idaho in March became the first state to enact a six-week abortion ban modeled on a Texas law that empowers private citizens to sue abortion providers. The law bans abortion before many women know they are pregnant.
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