Author: Uponsci

World’s oldest person, a Japanese woman, dies at 116

TOKYO — Tomiko Itooka, a Japanese woman who was the world’s oldest person according to Guinness World Records, has died, an Ashiya city official said Saturday. She was 116.

Yoshitsugu Nagata, an official in charge of elderly policies, said Itooka died on Dec. 29 at a care home in Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture, central Japan.

Itooka, who loved bananas and a yogurt-flavored Japanese drink called Calpis, was born on May 23, 1908. She became the oldest person last year following the death of 117-year-old Maria Branyas, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

When she was told she was at the top of the World Supercentenarian Rankings List, she simply replied, “Thank you.”

When Itooka celebrated her birthday last year, she received flowers, a cake and a card from the mayor.

Born in Osaka, Itooka was a volleyball player in high school, and long had a reputation for a sprightly spirit, Nagata said. She climbed the 3,067-meter (10,062-foot) Mount Ontake twice.

She married at 20, and had two daughters and two sons, according to Guinness.

Itooka managed the office of her husband’s textile factory during World War II. She lived alone in Nara after her husband died in 1979.

She is survived by one son, one daughter and five grandchildren. A funeral service was held with family and friends, according to Nagata.

According to the Gerontology Research Group, the world’s oldest person is now 116-year-old Brazilian nun Inah Canabarro Lucas, who was born 16 days after Itooka.

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Cybertruck soldier told ex-girlfriend of pain, exhaustion after Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — The highly decorated Special Forces soldier who died by suicide in a Cybertruck explosion on New Year’s Day confided to a former girlfriend who had served as an Army nurse that he faced significant pain and exhaustion that she says were key symptoms of traumatic brain injury.

Green Beret Matthew Livelsberger, 37, was a five-time recipient of the Bronze Star, including one with a V device for valor under fire. He had an exemplary military record that spanned the globe and a baby born last year. But he struggled with the mental and physical toll of his service, which required him to kill and caused him to witness the deaths of fellow soldiers.

Livelsberger mostly bore that burden in private but recently sought treatment for depression from the Army, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public.

He also found a confidant in the former nurse, who he began dating in 2018.

Alicia Arritt, 39, and Livelsberger met through a dating app while both were in Colorado Springs. Arritt had served at Landstul Regional Medical Center in Germany, the largest U.S. military medical facility in Europe, where many of the worst combat injuries from Iraq and Afghanistan were initially treated before being flown to the United States.

There she saw and treated traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs, which troops suffered from incoming fire and roadside bombs. Serious but hard to diagnose, such injuries can have lingering effects that might take years to surface.

“I saw a lot of bad injuries. But the personality changes can happen later,” Arritt said.

In texts and images he shared with Arritt, Livelsberger raised the curtain a bit on what he was facing.

“Just some concussions,” he said in a text about a deployment to Helmand Province in Afghanistan. He sent her a photo of a graphic tattoo he got on his arm of two skulls pierced by bullets to mark lives he took in Afghanistan. He talked about exhaustion and pain, not being able to sleep and reliving the violence of his deployment.

“My life has been a personal hell for the last year,” he told Arritt during the early days of their dating, according to text messages she provided to The Associated Press. “It’s refreshing to have such a nice person come along.”

On Friday, Las Vegas law enforcement officers released excerpts of messages Livelsberger left behind showing the way Livelsberger killed himself was intentional, meant both as a “wakeup call” but also to “cleanse the demons” he was facing from losing fellow soldiers and taking lives.

Livelsberger’s death in front of the Trump Hotel using a truck produced by Elon Musk’s Tesla company has raised questions as to whether this was an act of political violence.

Officials said Friday that Livelsberger apparently harbored no ill will toward President-elect Donald Trump, and Arritt said she and Livelsberger were Tesla fans.

“I had a Tesla, too, that I rescued from a junkyard in 2019, and we used to work on it together, bond over it,” Arritt said.

The pair stopped talking regularly after they broke up in 2021, and she had not heard from him in more than two years when he texted out of the blue on Dec. 28, and again on Dec. 31. The upbeat messages included a video of him driving the Cybertruck and another one of its dancing headlights; the vehicle can sync up its lighting and music.

But she also said Livelsberger felt things “very deeply, and I could see him using symbolism” of both the truck and the hotel.

“He wasn’t impulsive,” Arritt said. “I don’t see him doing this impulsively, so my suspicion would be that he was probably thinking it out.”

Arritt served on active duty from 2003 to 2007 and then was in the Army Reserve until 2011. With Livelsberger, she saw symptoms of TBI as early as 2018.

“He would go through periods of withdrawal, and he struggled with depression and memory loss,” Arritt said. “I don’t know what drove him to do this, but I think the military didn’t get him help when he needed it.”

But Livelsberger was also sweet and kind, she recalled: “He had a really deep well of inner strength and character, and he just had a lot of integrity.”

Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Friday that it has turned over all Livelsberger’s medical records to local law enforcement and encouraged troops facing mental health challenges to seek care through one of the military’s support networks.

“If you need help, if you feel that you need to seek any type of mental health treatment, or just to talk to someone — to seek the services that are available, either on base or off,” Singh said.

When Livelsberger struggled during the time they were dating, Arritt prodded him to get help. But he would not, saying it could cost him his ability to deploy if he was found medically unfit.

“There was a lot of stigma in his unit; they were, you know, big, strong, Special Forces guys there. There was no weakness allowed, and mental health is weakness is what they saw,” she said.

Livelsberger seeking treatment for depression was first reported by CNN.

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US announces $306 million in new bird flu funding

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden’s outgoing administration announced Friday that it will allocate $306 million to bolster the nation’s bird flu response before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

The new funding will support national, state and local preparedness and monitoring programs, as well as research into potential medical countermeasures against the H5N1 virus.

“While the risk to humans remains low, we are always preparing for any possible scenario that could arise,” Health Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement.

“Preparedness is the key to keeping Americans healthy and our country safe.”

The United States has reported 66 human cases of bird flu since the start of 2024, though experts believe the true number could be higher, with cases potentially going undetected among cattle and poultry workers.

While the virus has not been found to spread from person to person, the amount of bird flu circulating among animals and humans has alarmed scientists, because it might combine with seasonal influenza and mutate into a more transmissible form — potentially triggering a deadly pandemic.

The funding announcement comes amid concern over how the incoming Trump administration will handle the threat.

The president-elect told Time magazine recently he would abolish the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy established under Biden — though it is not clear if he has the authority to do so, since it was created by Congress.

His pick for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is a vocal vaccine skeptic who has pledged to shake up the nation’s health agencies and promotes raw milk, thought to be a vector for bird flu.

Biden’s administration has also faced criticism for what some consider a subpar bird flu response.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, published a report last month citing an array of problems including “lagging data, incomplete surveillance, sluggish coordination, considerable mistrust, and insufficient planning and stockpiling of vaccines and therapies.”

Given these shortcomings, infectious disease epidemiologist Meg Schaeffer of the SAS Institute told AFP: “In my opinion, avian influenza is going to become either a pandemic or a virus…  that will become a very widespread and significant health issue for us in the next one to two years.”

She urged raw milk consumers in particular to “take a pause on that consumption.”

Adding to concerns, a virus sample from a critically ill patient in Louisiana has shown signs of mutating to better adapt to human airways, although there is no evidence it has spread beyond that individual, health authorities said last week.

Researchers are also closely monitoring the growing number of bird flu infections in cats, which could expose humans through close contact. 

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Seasonal illnesses in full force in most US states, CDC says

The holidays came with a side of flu for many Americans, with 40 states reporting high or very high levels of illness last week, according to the latest government health data. 

“A lot of flu out there,” said Carrie Reed of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Of course, there are a number of bugs that cause fever, cough, sore throat and other flulike symptoms. One is COVID-19. Another is RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, which is a common cause of coldlike symptoms but can be dangerous for infants and the elderly. 

Reed said that the most recent CDC hospitalization data and other indicators show that the flu virus is trending higher than the other germs. Several seasonal flu strains are driving cases, with no dominant one, she added. 

Pediatric hospitals have been busy since November with RSV, but “influenza has now joined the party,” said Dr. Jason Newland, an infectious-diseases specialist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. 

“Now we’re really starting to roll,” he added. “Our hospitals are busy.” 

Where flu illnesses are the highest 

One indicator of flu activity is the percentage of doctor’s office visits driven by flulike symptoms. That level last week was about equal to the peak of last winter’s respiratory virus season — which occurred at the same time of year. Reed noted that most people avoid medical appointments over the holidays if they can help it, so the data in late December might be skewed by people who came down with sudden illnesses. 

Last week’s flu activity was particularly intense in the South, Southwest and West. The states reporting lesser amounts of suffering were mostly in the northern Great Plains and in New England. 

So far this season, the CDC estimates, there have been at least 5.3 million flu illnesses, 63,000 hospitalizations and 2,700 deaths, including at least 11 children. 

It’s not clear if this winter respiratory virus season will be any worse than others. So far it seems relatively typical, at least for kids, Newland said. 

How to protect yourself 

U.S. health officials recommend that everyone 6 months and older get an annual flu vaccination, and they say it’s not too late to get a shot. 

You should also avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth because germs can spread that way, health officials say. You should also wash your hands with soap and water, clean frequently touched surfaces and avoid close contact with people who are sick.

The CDC also has been keeping its eye on a rise of illnesses from norovirus, a nasty stomach bug, with 91 outbreaks reported early in December. 

Investigators also have been closely watching another kind of influenza virus, the Type A H5N1 version of bird flu. The CDC says 66 human U.S. cases of that were reported last year, but none of them in the last week. 

The cases are “fairly sporadic,” and the overall risk to the public remains low, Reed said. Almost all have been traced to direct contact with infected animals, with no proof of spread between people. 

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US surgeon general urges cancer warnings for alcoholic drinks

WASHINGTON/LONDON — Alcoholic drinks should carry a warning about cancer risks on their label, the U.S. surgeon general said Friday in a move that could signal a shift toward more aggressive tobacco-style regulation for the sector. 

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said alcohol consumption increases the risk of at least seven types of cancer, including breast, colon and liver cancer, but most U.S. consumers remain unaware of this. 

Murthy also called for the guidelines on alcohol consumption limits to be reassessed so that people can weigh the cancer risk when deciding whether or how much to drink. U.S. dietary guidelines currently recommend two or fewer drinks per day for men and one drink or less per day for women. 

“Alcohol consumption is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, after tobacco and obesity,” Murthy’s office said in a statement accompanying the new report, adding the type of alcohol consumed does not matter. 

His advisory sent shares in alcohol companies including Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Anheuser-Busch and Heineken down, in some cases over 3%. 

Alcohol producers and industry associations did not immediately share comments. 

It is unclear when or if the surgeon general’s suggestions will be adopted. U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is entering its final two weeks. Murthy could be succeeded by Janette Nesheiwat, a director of a New York chain of urgent care clinics and President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for the role. 

Trump, whose brother died from alcoholism and who does not drink himself, has long warned about the risks of drinking. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, has been open about his past struggles with heroin and alcohol, and says that he attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. 

The decision to update the label will ultimately be made by Congress. 

Small print 

Murthy’s advisory harks back to early U.S. surgeon general action on tobacco, starting with a 1964 report that concluded smoking could cause cancer. The report kicked off decades of increasingly strict regulations, starting with U.S. laws on warning labels one year later and still ongoing today. 

Alcoholic drinks in the U.S. already carry warnings on their packaging, including that drinking alcohol while pregnant can cause birth defects and that it can impair judgment when operating machinery. These appear in small print on the back of the packaging. This label has not changed since its inception in 1988. 

Murthy’s recommendations call for an update to these existing labels, rather than new cigarette-style warnings that are today displayed prominently on the front of every packet. 

Analysts, however, pointed out that cigarette warning labels did little to curb smoking and ingrained habits are hard to change. 

“Warning labels won’t be an immediate deathblow to alcohol makers, but it will compound the long-term threats to the industry,” said Blake Droesch, analyst with eMarketer. 

In the U.S., among the largest markets for many western producers, companies face growing competition from alternatives like cannabis and the threat of lower volumes as some consumers, especially younger ones, drink less than previous generations. 

Beer makers especially have, however, enjoyed benefits from a shift toward healthier lifestyles, with low- or no-alcohol products enjoying rapid growth. Heineken’s 0.0 version, for example, grew double digits in 16 markets last year. 

The advisory said alcohol is responsible for 100,000 U.S. cancer cases and 20,000 cancer deaths each year, more than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash deaths. 

The new report recommends health care providers should encourage alcohol screening and treatment referrals as needed, and efforts to increase general awareness should be expanded.

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South Sudan begins mass inoculation campaign with cholera vaccines 

Juba, South Sudan   — More than 1.1 million doses of an oral cholera vaccine have arrived in South Sudan, as the government launched a program to inoculate more than 80 percent of the population. But the mass vaccination exercise faces numerous challenges, including a lack of access to the areas dealing with the worst cholera outbreaks.

Medics in South Sudan will attempt to vaccinate at least 9 million people against cholera, an exercise that targets mostly children and mothers.

More than 1.1 million doses of oral cholera vaccine arrived in the capital, Juba, and will be dispatched next week to hot spots areas like the town of Bentiu.

The country’s Ministry of Health reported last week that 199 people have died of cholera, with 13,000 more diagnosed so far with the bacteria.

Dr. Gabriel Boum Tap is an immunization officer at UNICEF in South Sudan.

“Of course, we had also received some vaccines before; only that they were not enough, because, you know, it’s not like the cholera vaccine is manufactured and is put in one place already,” he said.

At least one cholera case has been recorded in 29 of the 79 counties in South Sudan, with Bentiu, Renk and Juba most affected.

The first case was reported on September 23 in Renk, northeast of the capital.

But as the country prepares to roll out a mass vaccination exercise, the process faces some serious headwinds.

Thinjin Khoat is one of the victims of the cholera outbreak. He says he has seen people die of the disease, with many more trooping to local health centers seeking urgent medical attention.

“I was at one of the health facilities, and there was a suspected case of cholera. The patient was a 5-year-old. The patient was vomiting, and in the process, the health workers couldn’t get the vein. The patient is not able to get the oral fluid. … In that process, the patient died of dehydration,” he said.

Cholera is an acute diarrhea infection caused by consuming contaminated food or water. If not treated, it can be fatal within hours.

Khoat says accessibility to health care remains a major hindrance to the fight against the disease.

“Some of the community members, they don’t have access, because, you know, in Bentiu here, there is flooding. There are some areas that health workers cannot access because of the flood and also security issues,” he said.

According to Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, poor living conditions in South Sudan have created the perfect breeding ground for cholera.

Stephanie Ngai is MSF’s project coordinator for cholera response in Bentiu, located in Rubkona County, an area with a large refugee population.

“Here in Rubkona, the explosion on the outbreak very quickly overwhelmed the local systems that are responsible for coordinating the response and scaling up the interventions,” she said. ‘Other partners don’t have adequate funding to properly scale up the level needed, which is massive. And the overall response coordination has not been strong enough to manage the response and ensure that the needs are adequately met.”

The government says the vaccination exercise is expected to roll out next Monday with support from international partners such as MSF and the World Health Organization.

Buok Danhier, the immunization program manager for the Unity State Ministry of Health, says the various entities will split up duties in Rubkona.

“Rubkona has many payams [local districts]. Most of the payams are affected by flooding, and these are the ones that will be taken by WHO — the hard-to-reach areas. WHO and other partners are pledging to cover all those areas that are hard to reach and also very far from town. Bentiu IDP, Rukona and Bentiu town — these areas will be covered by MSF, and the recruitment process is ongoing,” said Danhier.

The vaccination exercise will target children 1 year and above.

WHO says up to 143,000 people worldwide die from cholera each year out of an estimated 4 million annual cases.

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‘Dinosaur highway’ tracks dating back 166 million years discovered in England

LONDON — A worker digging up clay in a southern England limestone quarry noticed unusual bumps that led to the discovery of a “dinosaur highway” and nearly 200 tracks that date back 166 million years, researchers said Thursday. 

The extraordinary find made after a team of more than 100 people excavated the Dewars Farm Quarry, in Oxfordshire, in June expands upon previous paleontology work in the area and offers greater insights into the Middle Jurassic period, researchers at the universities of Oxford and Birmingham said. 

“These footprints offer an extraordinary window into the lives of dinosaurs, revealing details about their movements, interactions, and the tropical environment they inhabited,” said Kirsty Edgar, a micropaleontology professor at the University of Birmingham. 

Four of the sets of tracks that make up the so-called highway show paths taken by gigantic, long-necked, herbivores called sauropods, thought to be Cetiosaurus, a dinosaur that grew to nearly 18 meters in length. A fifth set belonged to the Megalosaurus, a ferocious 9-meter predator that left a distinctive triple-claw print and was the first dinosaur to be scientifically named two centuries ago. 

An area where the tracks cross raises questions about possible interactions between the carnivores and herbivores. 

“Scientists have known about and been studying Megalosaurus for longer than any other dinosaur on Earth, and yet these recent discoveries prove there is still new evidence of these animals out there, waiting to be found,” said Emma Nicholls, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. 

Nearly 30 years ago, 40 sets of footprints discovered in a limestone quarry in the area were considered one of the world’s most scientifically important dinosaur track sites. But that area is mostly inaccessible now and there’s limited photographic evidence because it predated the use of digital cameras and drones to record the findings. 

The group that worked at the site this summer took more than 20,000 digital images and used drones to create 3-D models of the prints. The trove of documentation will aid future studies and could shed light on the size of the dinosaurs, how they walked and the speed at which they moved. 

“The preservation is so detailed that we can see how the mud was deformed as the dinosaur’s feet squelched in and out,” said Duncan Murdock, an earth scientist at the Oxford museum. “Along with other fossils like burrows, shells and plants we can bring to life the muddy lagoon environment the dinosaurs walked through.” 

The findings will be shown at a new exhibit at the museum and also broadcast on the BBC’s Digging for Britain program next week.

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How to catch the Quadrantids, first meteor shower of 2025

WASHINGTON — When the Quadrantid meteor shower peaks Friday, it will be the year’s first chance to see fireballs in the sky. 

A waning crescent moon means good visibility under clear and dark conditions. 

Most meteor showers are named for the constellations where they appear to originate from in the night sky. But the Quadrantids “take their name from a constellation that doesn’t exist anymore,” said NASA’s William Cooke. 

These meteors usually don’t have long trains, but the heads may appear as bright fireballs. The peak may reveal as many as 120 meteors per hour, according to NASA. 

Viewing lasts until Jan. 16. Here’s what to know about the Quadrantids and other meteor showers. 

What is a meteor shower? 

As the Earth orbits the sun, several times a year it passes through debris left by passing comets — and sometimes asteroids. The source of the Quadrantids is debris from the asteroid 2003 EH1. 

When these fast-moving space rocks enter Earth’s atmosphere, the debris encounters new resistance from the air and becomes very hot, eventually burning up. 

Sometimes the surrounding air glows briefly, leaving behind a fiery tail — the end of a “shooting star.” 

Special equipment is not needed to see the various meteor showers that flash across annually, just a spot away from city lights. 

How to view a meteor shower 

The best time to watch a meteor shower is in the early predawn hours, when the moon is low in the sky. 

Competing sources of light — such as a bright moon or artificial glow — are the main obstacles to a clear view of meteors. Cloudless nights when the moon wanes smallest are optimal viewing opportunities. 

And keep looking up, not down. Your eyes will be better adapted to spot shooting stars if you aren’t checking your phone. 

The Quadrantids will peak on a night with a slim crescent moon, just 11% full. 

When is the next meteor shower? 

The next meteor shower, the Lyrids, will peak in mid-April.

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Five years on, WHO urges China to share COVID origins data

Geneva — The World Health Organization on Monday implored China to share data and access to help understand how COVID-19 began, five years on from the start of the pandemic that upended the planet.

COVID-19 killed millions of people, shredded economies and crippled health systems.

“We continue to call on China to share data and access so we can understand the origins of COVID-19. This is a moral and scientific imperative,” the WHO said in a statement.

“Without transparency, sharing, and cooperation among countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics.”

The WHO recounted how on Dec. 31, 2019, its country office in China picked up a media statement from the health authorities in Wuhan concerning cases of “viral pneumonia” in the city.

“In the weeks, months and years that unfolded after that, COVID-19 came to shape our lives and our world,” the U.N. health agency said.

“As we mark this milestone, let’s take a moment to honor the lives changed and lost, recognize those who are suffering from COVID-19 and Long COVID, express gratitude to the health workers who sacrificed so much to care for us, and commit to learning from COVID-19 to build a healthier tomorrow.”

Earlier this month, the WHO’s Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus addressed the issue of whether the world was better prepared for the next pandemic than it was for COVID-19.

“The answer is yes, and no,” he told a press conference.

“If the next pandemic arrived today, the world would still face some of the same weaknesses and vulnerabilities that gave COVID-19 a foothold five years ago.

“But the world has also learnt many of the painful lessons the pandemic taught us and has taken significant steps to strengthen its defenses against future epidemics and pandemics.”

In December 2021, spooked by the devastation caused by COVID, countries decided to start drafting an accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

The WHO’s 194 member states negotiating the treaty have agreed on most of what it should include but are stuck on the practicalities.

A key fault-line lies between Western nations with major pharmaceutical industry sectors and poorer countries wary of being sidelined when the next pandemic strikes.

While the outstanding issues are few, they include the heart of the agreement: the obligation to quickly share emerging pathogens, and then the pandemic-fighting benefits derived from them such as vaccines.

The deadline for the negotiations is May 2025.

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India rocket launches space docking mission

NEW DELHI — India launched a rocket Monday carrying two small spacecraft to test docking in space, a critical step for the country’s dreams of a space station and a manned moon mission. 

The mission is “vital for India’s future space ambitions,” Jitendra Singh, the country’s science and technology minister, said in a statement ahead of the launch, which was broadcast live by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced plans last year to send a man to the moon by 2040. 

The PSLV-C60 rocket, which blasted off Monday evening at the Sriharikota launch site with shooting flames as it soared into the night sky, included two 220-kilogram (485-pound) satellites. 

ISRO has dubbed the mission SpaDeX, or Space Docking Experiment. 

“PSLV-C60 successfully launches SpaDeX and 24 payloads,” it said in a statement. 

The mission is intended to “develop and demonstrate the technology needed for rendezvous, docking, and undocking of two small spacecraft,” it added. 

The technology is “essential” for India’s moon plans, it added, calling it a “key technology for future human spaceflight and satellite servicing missions.” 

It will involve a “precision rendezvous,” maneuvering satellites orbiting Earth at speeds of 28,800 kilometers per hour (17,895 miles per hour). 

Their relative velocities will be reduced to 0.036 kph (0.22 mph) to “merge to form a single unit in Space,” ISRO said. 

The world’s most populous nation has a comparatively low-budget aerospace program that is rapidly closing in on the milestones set by global space powers. 

“Through this mission, India is marching towards becoming the fourth country in the world to have space docking technology,” ISRO added, after Russia, the United States and China. 

India has flexed its spacefaring ambitions in the last decade with its space program growing considerably in size and momentum, matching the achievements of established powers at a much cheaper price tag.  

In August 2023, it became just the fourth nation to land an unmanned craft on the moon after Russia, the United States and China.

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Record-breaking heat likely to continue in 2025, accelerating climate change

The World Meteorological Organization warns this year’s record-breaking heat is likely to continue in 2025, further accelerating climate change and leading to catastrophic consequences if urgent action is not taken to stem the “human activities” behind this looming disaster. 

According to the United Nations weather agency, 2024 is set to be the warmest year on record, “capping a decade of unprecedented heat fueled by human activities.” 

“Greenhouse gas levels continue to grow to record observed highs, locking in even more heat for the future,” the WMO said. The agency stresses the need for greater international cooperation to address extreme heat risks “as global temperatures rise, and extreme heat events become more frequent and severe.” 

Celeste Saulo, who was appointed WMO secretary-general in June 2023 and began her four-year term in January 2024, said that in her first year in office she “issued repeated Red Alerts about the state of the climate” warning that “every fraction of a degree of warming matters, and increases climate extremes, impacts and risks.” 

The WMO State of the Climate 2024 report finds that between January and September global average temperatures were 1.54 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial times and above the level stipulated in the 2016 Paris Agreement on climate change. 

This year’s U.N. Environment Program’s Emissions Gap report warns temperatures are likely to rise to 3.1 degrees Celsius by the end of the century if preventive action is not taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. 

“Climate change plays out before our eyes on an almost daily basis in the form of increased occurrence and impact of extreme weather events,” Saulo said. “This year we saw record-breaking rainfall and flooding events and terrible loss of life in so many countries, causing heartbreak to communities on every continent,” she said. 

Tropical Cyclone Chido, which hit the French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean in mid-December and then moved on to Mozambique, has had a devastating impact on the lives and livelihoods of the communities in its wake. However, this cyclone is only the latest of dozens of extreme weather events that have wreaked havoc across the globe this year. 

According to a new report from the World Weather Attribution and Climate Central, climate change intensified 26 of the 29 extreme weather events studied “that killed at least 3,700 people and displaced millions.” 

“Climate change added 41 days of dangerous heat in 2024, harming human health and ecosystems,” it said. 

Extreme weather events have affected all regions of the world. Highlights include Hurricane Helene, which hit the U.S. state of Florida, causing widespread flooding and wind damage. 

Heavy rains have caused severe flooding and mudslides in South America. Massive rains also have led to deadly flash flooding in Europe, notably in Spain, and generated historic flooding across West and Central Africa, killing more than 1,500 people. 

These and other regions also have been affected by raging wildfires and severe drought causing hunger, irreparable suffering and harm, as well as enormous economic losses to countless millions. 

“This is climate breakdown — in real time,” Antonio Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general warned in his New Year’s message. “We must exit this road to ruin, and we have no time to lose. 

“In 2024, countries must put the world on a safer path by dramatically slashing emissions, and supporting the transition to a renewable future,” he said. 

In response to the secretary-general’s call to action on extreme heat, a group of experts from 15 international organizations, 12 countries, and several leading academic and NGO partners met at WMO headquarters earlier this month to advance a coordinated framework for tackling this growing threat. 

This plan is one of many WMO initiatives that aim to safeguard public health through improved climate services and early warnings. 

As the U.N. weather agency prepares to mark its 75th anniversary in 2025, WMO officials say they will continue to coordinate worldwide efforts to observe and monitor the state of the climate and support international efforts “to mitigate and adapt to climate change.” 

“Our message will be that if we want a safer planet, we must act now,” WMO chief Saulo said. “It is our responsibility. It is a common responsibility, a global responsibility.” 

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Netanyahu ‘in good condition’ after prostate surgery, says hospital

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu successfully underwent prostate removal surgery on Sunday and is in good condition, according to the hospital treating him.  

The surgery took place while Israel remains at war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, more than 14 months after an unprecedented attack by Palestinian militants on Israel on October 7 last year. 

“The prime minister has awakened from anesthesia and is in good condition. He has been transferred to the recovery unit and will remain under observation in the coming days,” the Hadassah Medical Centre said in a statement. 

On Saturday, Netanyahu’s office announced that he had been diagnosed with a urinary tract infection caused by a benign prostate enlargement.  

Earlier, in March, Netanyahu underwent a hernia surgery, and in July last year, doctors implanted a pacemaker after a medical scare. 

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Abortions more common in US, as women turn to pills, travel

Abortion has become more common despite bans or deep restrictions in most Republican-controlled states, and the legal and political fights over its future are not over yet.

It’s now been two and a half years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and opened the door for states to implement bans.

The policies and their impact have been in flux ever since the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Here’s a look at data on where things stand:

Abortions are more common than before Dobbs

Overturning Roe and enforcing abortion bans has changed how woman obtain abortions in the United States.

One thing it hasn’t done is put a dent in the number of abortions being obtained.

There have been slightly more monthly abortions across the country recently than there were in the months leading up to the June 2022 ruling, even as the number in states with bans dropped to near zero.

“Abortion bans don’t actually prevent abortions from happening,” said Ushma Upadhyay, a public health social scientist at the University of California San Francisco.

For women in some states, there are major obstacles to getting abortions — and advocates say that low-income, minority and immigrant women are least likely to be able to get them when they want.

For those living in states with bans, the ways to access abortion are through travel or abortion pills.

Pills become bigger part of equation — and legal questions

As the bans happened, abortion pills became a bigger part of the equation.

They were involved in about half the abortions before Dobbs. More recently, it’s been closer to two-thirds of them, according to research by the Guttmacher Institute.

The uptick of that kind of abortion, usually involving a combination of two drugs, was underway before the ruling.

But now, it’s become more common for pill prescriptions to be made by telehealth. By the summer of 2024, about 1 in 10 abortions were via pills prescribed via telehealth to patients in states where abortion is banned.

As a result, the pills are now at the center of battles over abortion access.

This month, Texas sued a New York doctor for prescribing pills to a Texas woman via telemedicine. There’s also an effort by Idaho, Kansas and Missouri to roll back their federal approvals and treat them as “controlled dangerous substances,” and a push for the federal government to start enforcing a 19th-century federal law to ban mailing them.

Travel for abortion has increased

Clinics have closed or halted abortions in states with bans.

A network of efforts to get women seeking abortions to places where they’re legal has strengthened and travel for abortion is now common.

The Guttmacher Institute found that more than twice as many Texas residents obtained abortions in 2023 in New Mexico as New Mexico residents did. And as many Texans received them in Kansas as Kansans.

Abortion funds, which benefitted from “rage giving” in 2022, helped pay the costs for many abortion-seekers. But some funds have had to cap how much they can give.

The ban that took effect in Florida this year has been a game-changer

Florida, the nation’s third most-populous state, began on May 1 enforcing a ban on abortions after the first six weeks of pregnancy.

That immediately changed the state from one that was a refuge for other Southerners seeking abortions to an exporter of people looking for them.

There were about 30% fewer abortions there in May compared with the average for the first three months of the year. And in June, there were 35% fewer.

While the ban is not unique, the impact is especially large. The average driving time from Florida to a facility in North Carolina where abortion is available for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is more than nine hours, according to data maintained by Caitlin Myers, a Middlebury College economics professor.

Clinics have opened or expanded in some places

The bans have meant clinics closed or stopped offering abortions in some states.

But some states where abortion remains legal until viability – generally considered to be sometime past 21 weeks of pregnancy — have seen clinics open and expand.

Illinois, Kansas and New Mexico are among the states with new clinics.

There were 799 publicly identifiable abortion providers in the U.S. in May 2022, the month before the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade. And by this November, it was 792, according to a tally by Myers, who is collecting data on abortion providers.

Myers said some hospitals that always provided some abortions have begun advertising it. So, they’re now in the count of clinics – even though they might provide few of them.

Lack of access to abortions during emergencies threatens patients’ lives

How hospitals handle pregnancy complications, especially those that threaten the lives of the women, has emerged as a major issue since Roe was overturned.

President Joe Biden’s administration said hospitals must offer abortions when they’re needed to prevent organ loss, hemorrhage or deadly infections, even in states with bans. Texas is challenging the administration’s policy and the U.S. Supreme Court this year declined to take it up after the Biden administration sued Idaho.

More than 100 pregnant women seeking help in emergency rooms were turned away or left unstable since 2022, The Associated Press found in an analysis of federal hospital investigative records.

Among the complaints were a woman who miscarried in the lobby restroom of Texas emergency room after staff refused to see her and a woman who gave birth in a car after a North Carolina hospital couldn’t offer an ultrasound. The baby later died.

“It is increasingly less safe to be pregnant and seeking emergency care in an emergency department,” Dara Kass, an emergency medicine doctor and former U.S. Health and Human Services official told the AP earlier this year.

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Drought, fire, deforestation ravaged Amazon rainforest in 2024

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — 2024 was a brutal year for the Amazon rainforest, with rampant wildfires and extreme drought ravaging large parts of a biome that’s a critical counterweight to climate change. 

A warming climate fed drought that in turn fed the worst year for fires since 2005. And those fires contributed to deforestation, with authorities suspecting some fires were set to more easily clear land to run cattle. 

The Amazon is twice the size of India and sprawls across eight countries and one territory, storing vast amounts of carbon dioxide that would otherwise warm the planet. It has about 20% of the world’s fresh water and astounding biodiversity, including 16,000 known tree species. But governments have historically viewed it as an area to be exploited, with little regard for sustainability or the rights of its Indigenous peoples, and experts say exploitation by individuals and organized crime is rising at alarming rates. 

“The fires and drought experienced in 2024 across the Amazon rainforest could be ominous indicators that we are reaching the long-feared ecological tipping point,” said Andrew Miller, advocacy director at Amazon Watch, an organization that works to protect the rainforest. “Humanity’s window of opportunity to reverse this trend is shrinking, but still open.” 

There were some bright spots. The level of Amazonian forest loss fell in both Brazil and Colombia. And nations gathered for the annual United Nations conference on biodiversity agreed to give Indigenous peoples more say in nature conservation decisions. 

“If the Amazon rainforest is to avoid the tipping point, Indigenous people will have been a determinant factor,” Miller said. 

Wildfires and extreme drought 

 

Forest loss in Brazil’s Amazon — home to the largest swath of this rainforest — dropped 30.6% compared to the previous year, the lowest level of destruction in nine years. The improvement under leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva contrasted with deforestation that hit a 15-year high under Lula’s predecessor, far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, who prioritized agribusiness expansion over forest protection and weakened environmental agencies. 

In July, Colombia reported historic lows in deforestation in 2023, driven by a drop in environmental destruction. The country’s environment minister, Susana Muhamad, warned that 2024’s figures may not be as promising because a significant rise in deforestation had already been recorded by July due to dry weather caused by El Nino, a weather phenomenon that warms the central Pacific. Illegal economies continue to drive deforestation in the Andean nation. 

“It’s impossible to overlook the threat posed by organized crime and the economies they control to Amazon conservation,” said Bram Ebus, a consultant for Crisis Group in Latin America. “Illegal gold mining is expanding rapidly, driven by soaring global prices, and the revenues of illicit economies often surpass state budgets allocated to combat them.” 

In Brazil, large swaths of the rainforest were draped in smoke in August from fires raging across the Amazon, Cerrado savannah, Pantanal wetland and the state of Sao Paulo. Fires are traditionally used for deforestation and for managing pastures, and those man-made blazes were largely responsible for igniting the wildfires. 

For a second year, the Amazon River fell to desperate lows, leading some countries to declare a state of emergency and distribute food and water to struggling residents. The situation was most critical in Brazil, where one of the Amazon River’s main tributaries dropped to its lowest level ever recorded. 

Cesar Ipenza, an environmental lawyer who lives in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, said he believes people are becoming increasingly aware of the Amazon’s fundamental role “for the survival of society as a whole.” But, like Miller, he worries about a “point of no return of Amazon destruction.” 

It was the worst year for Amazon fires since 2005, according to nonprofit Rainforest Foundation U.S.  Between January and October, an area larger than the state of Iowa — about 15.1 million hectares of Brazil’s Amazon — burned. Bolivia had a record number of fires in the first 10 months of the year. 

“Forest fires have become a constant, especially in the summer months and require particular attention from the authorities who don’t how to deal with or respond to them,” Ipenza said. 

Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Guyana also saw a surge in fires this year. 

Indigenous voices, rights made headway 

The United Nations conference on biodiversity — this year known as COP16 — was hosted by Colombia. The meetings put the Amazon in the spotlight and a historic agreement was made to give Indigenous groups more of a voice on nature conservation decisions, a development that builds on a growing movement to recognize Indigenous people’s role in protecting land and combating climate change. 

Both Ebus and Miller saw promise in the appointment of Martin von Hildebrand as the new secretary general for the Amazon Treaty Cooperation Organization, announced during COP16. 

“As an expert on Amazon communities, he will need to align governments for joint conservation efforts. If the political will is there, international backers will step forward to finance new strategies to protect the world’s largest tropical rainforest,” Ebus said. 

Ebus said Amazon countries need to cooperate more, whether in law enforcement, deploying joint emergency teams to combat forest fires, or providing health care in remote Amazon borderlands. But they need help from the wider world, he said. 

“The well-being of the Amazon is a shared global responsibility, as consumer demand worldwide fuels the trade in commodities that finance violence and environmental destruction,” he said. 

Next year marks a critical moment for the Amazon, as Belem do Para in northern Brazil hosts the first United Nations COP in the region that will focus on climate. 

“Leaders from Amazon countries have a chance to showcase strategies and demand tangible support,” Ebus said. 

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Biden has AIDS Memorial Quilt at White House, observing World AIDS Day

Washington — President Joe Biden on Sunday had the AIDS Memorial Quilt spread on the White House South Lawn for the first time in observance of World AIDS Day.

Gathered with the president and his wife, Jill, were survivors, family members and advocates to memorialize the lives lost to the epidemic. The president emphasized the federal government’s support for the 1.2 million people in the United States living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which can lead to AIDS.

“This movement is fully woven into the fabric and history of America,” Biden said. “For all the lives lost, for all those that are still alive, look at what you’ve already done to change the hearts and minds, to save lives across the country and around the world. That’s the power of this movement.”

There were 124 sections of the quilt on the lawn to commemorate people who died due to AIDS-related illnesses. Conceived in 1985, the quilt made its first public appearance in 1987. There was also a red ribbon, a symbol of support and awareness for those with HIV and AIDS, draped across the South Portico of the White House.

There are 40 million people around the world with HIV, according to the White House.

Introducing Biden was Jeanne White-Ginder, whose son, Ryan White, contracted AIDS through a tainted blood transfusion at the age of 13 and died in 1990 at the age of 18. She said her son’s experience taught America that “we needed to fight AIDS and not the people who have it.”

The Ryan White CARE Act became law in 1990, and White-Grinder recalled being at the U.S. Capitol to speak for the measure and met Biden when he was a senator from Delaware.

The president also saluted Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert until leaving the government in 2022, Fauci was in attendance at the event as he worked to treat AIDS, though he’s known by much of the country for his efforts to address the coronavirus pandemic that made him a target of criticism by many Republican lawmakers.

The Biden administration has sought to make investments to stop the epidemic, and the stigmas attached to people with HIV. Among other steps, it has worked to expand access to PrEP, or the pre-exposure prophylaxis, which at-risk populations use to prevent HIV infections.

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Landmark climate change case to open at top UN court

The Hague — The top United Nations court will take up the largest case in its history Monday, when it opens two weeks of hearings into what countries worldwide are legally required to do to combat climate change and help vulnerable nations fight its devastating impact.

After years of lobbying by island nations who fear they could simply disappear under rising sea waters, the U.N. General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice last year for an opinion on “the obligations of States in respect of climate change.”

“We want the court to confirm that the conduct that has wrecked the climate is unlawful,” Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, who is leading the legal team for the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, told The Associated Press.

In the decade up to 2023, sea levels have risen by a global average of around 4.3 centimeters (1.7 inches), with parts of the Pacific rising higher still. The world has also warmed 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times because of the burning of fossil fuels.

Vanuatu is one of a group of small states pushing for international legal intervention in the climate crisis.

“We live on the front lines of climate change impact. We are witnesses to the destruction of our lands, our livelihoods, our culture and our human rights,” Vanuatu’s climate change envoy Ralph Regenvanu told reporters ahead of the hearing.

Any decision by the court would be non-binding advice and unable to directly force wealthy nations into action to help struggling countries. Yet it would be more than just a powerful symbol since it could serve as the basis for other legal actions, including domestic lawsuits.

On Sunday, ahead of the hearing, advocacy groups will bring together environmental organizations from around the world. Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change — who first developed the idea of requesting an advisory opinion — together with World Youth for Climate Justice plan an afternoon of speeches, music and discussions.

From Monday, the Hague-based court will hear from 99 countries and more than a dozen intergovernmental organizations over two weeks. It’s the largest lineup in the institution’s nearly 80-year history.

Last month at the United Nations’ annual climate meeting, countries cobbled together an agreement on how rich countries can support poor countries in the face of climate disasters. Wealthy countries have agreed to pool together at least $300 billion a year by 2035 but the total is short of the $1.3 trillion that experts, and threatened nations, said is needed.

“For our generation and for the Pacific Islands, the climate crisis is an existential threat. It is a matter of survival, and the world’s biggest economies are not taking this crisis seriously. We need the ICJ to protect the rights of people at the front lines,” Vishal Prasad, of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, told reporters in a briefing.

Fifteen judges from around the world will seek to answer two questions: What are countries obliged to do under international law to protect the climate and environment from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions? And what are the legal consequences for governments where their acts, or lack of action, have significantly harmed the climate and environment?

The second question refers to “small island developing States” likely to be hardest hit by climate change and to “members of “the present and future generations affected by the adverse effects of climate change.”

The judges were even briefed on the science behind rising global temperatures by the U.N.’s climate change body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ahead of the hearings.

The case at the ICJ follows a number of rulings around the world ordering governments to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In May, a U.N. tribunal on maritime law said that carbon emissions qualify as marine pollution, and countries must take steps to adapt to and mitigate their adverse effects.

That ruling came a month after Europe’s highest human rights court said that countries must better protect their people from the consequences of climate change, in a landmark judgment that could have implications across the continent.

The ICJ’s host country of The Netherlands made history when a court ruled in 2015 that protection from the potentially devastating effects of climate change is a human right and that the government has a duty to protect its citizens. The judgment was upheld in 2019 by the Dutch Supreme Court.

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UN plastic talks collapse as countries fail to agree to targets 

BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA — Countries negotiating a global treaty to curb plastic pollution failed to reach agreement on Monday with over 100 nations wanting to cap production while a handful of oil producers were prepared only to target plastic waste. 

The fifth U.N. Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meeting to yield a legally binding global treaty in Busan, South Korea, was meant to be the final one. 

However, countries remained far apart on the basic scope of a treaty, and could agree only to postpone key decisions to a future meeting. 

“While I saw points of convergence in many areas, positions remain divergent in some others,” said Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the chair of the meeting. 

The most divisive issues included capping plastic production, managing plastic products and chemicals of concern, and financing to help developing countries implement the treaty. 

An option proposed by Panama, backed by over 100 countries, would have created a path for a global plastic production reduction target, while another proposal did not include production caps. 

The fault lines were apparent in a revised document released on Sunday by Valdivieso, which could have formed the basis of a treaty, but remained riddled with options on the most sensitive issues. 

“A treaty that… only relies on voluntary measures would not be acceptable,” said Juliet Kabera, director general of Rwanda’s Environment Management Authority. 

“It is time we take it seriously and negotiate a treaty that is fit for purpose and not built to fail.” 

A small number of petrochemical-producing nations, such as Saudi Arabia, have strongly opposed efforts to reduce plastic production and have tried to use procedural tactics to delay negotiations. 

“There was never any consensus,” said Saudi Arabian delegate Abdulrahman Al Gwaiz. “There are a couple of articles that somehow seem to make it (into the document) despite our continued insistence that they are not within the scope.” 

China, the United States, India, South Korea and Saudi Arabia were the top five primary polymer producing nations in 2023, according to data provider Eunomia. 

Entrenched divisions 

Had such divisions been overcome, the treaty would have been one of the most significant deals relating to environmental protection since the 2015 Paris Agreement. 

The postponement comes just days after the turbulent conclusion of the COP29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. 

At Baku, countries set a new global target for mobilizing $300 billion annually in climate finance, a deal deemed woefully insufficient by small island states and many developing countries. 

The climate talks were also slowed down by procedural maneuvers by Saudi Arabia – which objected to the inclusion of language that reaffirmed a previous commitment to transition away from fossil fuels. 

Some negotiators said a few countries held the proceedings hostage, avoiding compromises needed by using the U.N.’s consensus process. 

Senegal’s National Delegate Cheikh Ndiaye Sylla called it “a big mistake” to exclude voting during the entire negotiations, an agreement made last year during the second round of talks in Paris. 

Plastic production is on track to triple by 2050, and microplastics have been found in air, fresh produce and even human breast milk. 

Chemicals of concern in plastics include more than 3,200 found according to a 2023 U.N. Environment Program report, which said women and children were particularly susceptible to their toxicity. 

Despite the postponement, several negotiators expressed urgency to get back to talks. 

“Every day of delay is a day against humanity. Postponing negotiations does not postpone the crisis,” said Panama’s delegation head, Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, on Sunday. 

“When we reconvene, the stakes will be higher.” 

 

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Feces and vomit fossils offer evidence explaining dinosaur supremacy

The way the dinosaurs relinquished their long dominance is well known. An asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, triggering a horrific mass extinction. But the way the dinosaurs — modest creatures initially — came to supremacy is less well understood.

New research that relied heavily on fossilized feces and vomit — evidence of who is eating what and who is eating whom – provides new clarity on how dinosaurs bested the competition during the Triassic Period. The study focused on a region in Poland with extensive fossils from this pivotal time.

First appearing roughly 230 million years ago, dinosaurs were at first overshadowed by other animals including large crocodile relatives — both terrestrial and semi-aquatic — and various plant-eaters including elephant-sized ones related to mammals and four-legged armored reptiles. By about 200 million years ago, dinosaurs reigned, their main competitors extinct.

“We approached the rise of dinosaurs in a completely novel way. We analyzed feeding evidence to deduce the ecological role of dinosaurs across their first 30 million years of evolution,” said paleontologist Martin Qvarnström of Uppsala University in Sweden, lead author of the study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The earliest dinosaurs and close relatives were opportunists, eating foods including bugs, fish and insects. Subsequently, larger and more specialized dinosaur predators evolved along with herbivorous dinosaurs apparently better adapted than competitors to exploit new plants that arose when the climate became more humid.

Feces fossils are called coprolites. Vomit fossils are called regurgitates. Together they are called bromalites. So why study this stuff? By examining undigested food — plants and prey — in bromalites, researchers can discern feeding patterns of various species and reconstruct an ecosystem’s food webs.

Hundreds of bromalites were examined, primarily coprolites.

“We studied over 100 kilograms of fossilized feces,” said study senior author Grzegorz Niedźwiedzki, a paleontologist and geologist at Uppsala University and the Polish Geological Institute.

How can researchers tell who left the feces or vomit? Skeletal fossils and footprints showed what animals were present at a given time. And the researchers deduced who produced a given coprolite based on factors including its size and shape, the type of undigested food and the nature of the digestive systems of living relatives of these extinct animals.

Take, for example, the 6-meter four-legged meat-eater Polonosuchus, a type of reptile called a rauisuchian that was related to crocs and was an apex predator alongside the early dinosaurs.

“We know that today’s crocodiles and alligators digest food for a long time and thoroughly. In their feces, undigested bones are very rarely found. Such coprolites — large, sausage-shaped, with highly digested mass — we found in a site where bones of Polonosuchus were also found,” Niedźwiedzki said.

“In contrast, in sites where there were bones and tracks of predatory dinosaurs, we found coprolites containing a lot of undigested remains. Some of them are full of pieces of bones, fish remains, and there are also teeth. You can see that all this passed through the digestive tract quickly and was not digested in the crocodile way,” Niedźwiedzki added.

Early members of the dinosaur evolutionary lineage were omnivorous, like 2-meter Silesaurus.

“The first dinosaur relative in the area, Silesaurus, was an opportunistic little thing that ate bugs, fish and plants. Some of the insects were amazingly well preserved,” Qvarnström said.

Big herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs began appearing late in the Triassic, which ended 201 million years ago.

Environmental changes linked to Earth’s increased volcanic activity precipitated a wider range of plants that ever-larger herbivorous dinosaurs exploited. This proliferation of big plant-eating dinosaurs encouraged the evolution of larger carnivorous dinosaurs.

The large non-dinosaur meat-eaters disappeared before the start of the subsequent Jurassic Period, completing the transition to dinosaur dominion. By 200 million years ago, meat-eating dinosaurs 8 meters long were present, alongside plant-eating dinosaurs 10 meters long.

Smok, a 6-meter strong-jawed carnivorous dinosaur relative, lived about 210 million years ago. Coprolites showed Smok’s predilection for bone-crushing, obtaining nutritious marrow in a feeding trait associated with much later dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus.

The coprolites of herbivorous dinosaurs offered surprises.

“Another interesting and very mysterious discovery was the finding of geochemical signals in the coprolites from burnt plant remains, as well as pieces of charcoal. Did the dinosaurs eat charcoal from burnt plants? Ferns, whose remains are in coprolites, may be toxic, and the charcoal may have neutralized these toxins,” Niedzwiedzki added.

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