The United Kingdom is now banning the manufacturing of tiny plastic microbeads used in products such as cosmetics, toothpaste and shower gels because they could hurt marine animals. The move comes as some other countries have banned microbeads, including the United States. It is estimated that more than 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans every year. VOA’s Deborah Block has more.
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Month: January 2018
Human antibodies made in genetically engineered cows have proved safe in an early stage clinical trial, U.S. scientists said on Wednesday, and could be developed into a treatment for the fatal viral disease, MERS.
MERS, or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, is a SARS-like viral infection first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012 that has caused deadly outbreaks in the Middle East as well as sporadic cases around the world.
Despite more than five years of waves of infection, no effective treatment or vaccine has been developed against MERS, which has a 35 percent case fatality rate and has so far killed at least 740 people worldwide.
More than 80 percent of MERS cases have been reported in Saudi Arabia, according to the World Health Organization.
In research published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal on Wednesday, scientists found that human antibodies called SAB-301 generated in so-called transchromosomic cattle — animals with human DNA incorporated into their genome — were safe in healthy volunteers.
The antibodies also persisted for more time than the MERS virus typically remains in the body, the study found, with antibodies still detected in bloodstream after 90 days.
This points a way ahead for the antibodies — which offer immunity against an invading infection — to be tested in further trials in people infected with MERS, the researchers said.
“This is the first study to show the safety and immune effects of a potential treatment for MERS,” said John Beigel at Leidos Biomedical Research, who co-led the U.S. government-funded study. “The data from our study suggest that SAB-301 is safe, and further research into the treatment is warranted.”
The idea of using human antibodies has developed in recent years in a variety of severe and emerging diseases, including flu, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), MERS and Ebola.
Blood plasma harvested from people whose immune systems have successfully fought the disease contains the right antibodies and can be given to other patients to help their immune systems fight the virus.
But harvesting human plasma is not always easy or swift when a new disease emerges, so scientists turned to the idea of transchromosomic cattle as a way of manufacturing specific antibodies in larger amounts.
Transchromosomic cattle have human DNA that codes for human antibodies incorporated into their genome. To make SAB-301, they were injected with a part of the MERS virus, stimulating their immune systems to produce antibodies against it. The antibodies were then extracted from the cattle’s blood and purified.
“The process of creating antibody treatments by harvesting antibodies from human donors is slow and often small-scale,” said Beigel. “However, the cattle-produced antibodies could be created as soon as three months.”
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Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has caved in to pressure from the governor and is banning oil and gas drilling off the Florida coast.
“I support the governor’s position that Florida is unique and its coasts are heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver,” Zinke said in a statement late Tuesday.
He outright admitted that Florida’s Republican Governor Rick Scott pressured him to put the state’s waters off limits.
Last week, the Trump administration proposed opening nearly all U.S. offshore waters to oil and gas drilling, reversing former Obama administration policies.
The White House has said it wants to make the U.S. more energy independent.
But environmental groups and Republican and Democratic governors from coastal states loudly object. They say oil and gas drilling puts marine life, beaches, and lucrative tourism at risk.
The Pentagon has also expressed misgivings about drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, where naval exercises are held.
The 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf was the largest such disaster in U.S. history, causing billions of dollars in damage to the Gulf Coast, from Louisiana to Florida, killing more than 100,000 different marine mammals, birds, and reptiles.
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President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered the secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs to come up with a plan to improve mental health care for U.S. veterans.
“They get out of the military and they had nobody to talk to, nobody to speak to. And it’s been a very sad situation,” Trump said moments before signing his executive order.
Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shuklin said 20 U.S. veterans a day commit suicide.
Under the president’s order, the three departments will come up with a plan to provide U.S. servicemen and women with 12 months of mental health benefits after they leave active duty.
This includes suicide prevention services and a 24-hour veterans’ hotline.
“We will not rest until all of America’s great veterans receive the care they’ve earned through their incredible service and sacrifice to our country,” Trump said.
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Nearly seven years into Syria’s civil war, Syrian refugees in neighboring Lebanon are becoming poorer, leaving children at risk of child labor and early marriage, aid organizations said on Tuesday.
A recent survey by the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF, U.N.’s World Food Program, and refugee agency, UNHCR showed that Syrian refugees in Lebanon are more vulnerable now than they have been since the beginning of the crisis.
Struggling to survive, more than three quarters of the refugees in Lebanon now live on less than $4 per day, according to the survey which was based on data collected last year.
“The situation for Syrian refugees in Lebanon is actually getting worse – they are getting poorer. They are barely staying afloat,” Scott Craig, UNHCR spokesman in Lebanon, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Around 1.5 million refugees who fled Syria’s violence account for a quarter of Lebanon’s population.
The Lebanese government has long avoided setting up official refugee camps. So, many Syrians live in tented settlements, languishing in poverty and facing restrictions on legal residence or work.
“Child labor and early marriage are direct consequences of poverty,” Tanya Chapuisat, UNICEF spokeswoman in Lebanon said in a statement to the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“We fear this (poverty) will lead to more children being married away or becoming breadwinners instead of attending school,” she said.
According to UNICEF, 5 percent of Syrian refugee children between 5-17 are working, and one in five Syrian girls and women aged between 15 and 25 is married.
Mike Bruce, a spokesman for the Norwegian Refugee Council, said without sufficient humanitarian aid and proper work Syrian families would increasingly fall into debt and more could turn to “negative coping mechanisms” like child labor and marriage.
Cold winter temperatures in Lebanon would also hurt refugees, he said.
“Refugees are less and less able to deal with each shock that they face and severe weather could be one of those shocks,” said Bruce.
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A handful of Indian cities are gearing up to launch bike-sharing systems to ease traffic congestion and deadly air pollution, as urban populations surge and vehicles clog the streets.
Bike-sharing systems in the southern city of Mysuru and the central city of Bhopal, both launched last June, have met with a tremendous response, officials say.
About half a dozen more cities, including Bengaluru, Pune and Bhubaneswar, are now drawing up similar plans, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI), a Washington D.C.-based research organization.
“Bike sharing is a viable option for Indian cities — we just need good-quality bikes, dedicated lanes and a system that is efficient,” said Chandramauli Shukla, chief executive of Bhopal Smart City Corporation.
The corporation implements the federally-funded Smart Cities program to improve services like internet connectivity and public transport in 100 cities across India.
With rising incomes and a large young population, passenger vehicle ownership in India has nearly tripled in the last decade, government data shows. Gridlock has become common and transit systems struggle to keep pace.
Vehicle emissions account for almost a third of air pollution in India, which has nearly half the world’s 20 most polluted cities, according to the World Health Organization.
Some 2.5 million people in the country die every year due to pollution.
Mysuru, close to the technology hub of Bengaluru, was the first to introduce a bike-sharing program, with the state’s chief minister riding a yellow Trin Trin bike at the launch.
Registered users can borrow any of 450 bikes from 48 docking stations for a nominal fee.
In Bhopal, users can register on their smartphones and unlock one of 500 bikes from 60 docking stations.
The city now has 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) of dedicated bike lanes, according to WRI, which provided technical expertise to the Bhopal Municipal Corporation on the bike-sharing system.
More than 25,000 people registered in the first few months, half of them women, said Amit Bhatt, director of transport at WRI India.
“In India, people look down on those who bike. So we had to show this is cool, with good-quality bikes and a mobile app to register and unlock bikes,” he said.
“But the main priority is safety, with dedicated bike lanes. That has encouraged people to give it a go,” he told Reuters.
Officials must be careful not to repeat the mistakes of China, where unchecked growth of bike-sharing firms led to piles of discarded bikes clogging sidewalks, Bhatt added.
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Sudan’s pound currency weakened to 30.5 pounds to the U.S. dollar on Tuesday from about 29.5 pounds a day earlier, traders said, continuing its fall amid protests over bread prices and an acute shortage of hard currency.
Street protests broke out across the northeastern African country after bread prices doubled in recent days, following a government announcement late last month that it was eliminating subsidies in its 2018 budget as part of austerity measures.
This month Sudan devalued its pound currency to 18 per U.S. dollar from 6.7 pounds to the dollar previously. Hard currency remains scarce in the formal banking system however, forcing importers to resort to an increasingly expensive black market.
“The dollar is rising on a daily basis and there is a strong appetite to buy at any price given its scarcity on the market,” one black market trader told Reuters.
The government has ruled out a market-determined exchange rate and the black market rate for pounds has been steadily weakening against the dollar since late last month, when the devaluation was announced.
“I expect the dollar price to continue to increase in the coming days because companies and importers are buying dollars in large quantities since the beginning of the year because the banks are not meeting their hard currency needs,” another black market trader said.
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Twenty-First Century Fox’s Fox Sports is partnering with Twitter to stream a live show and Snap Inc’s Snapchat to showcase stories with match-day highlights on the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament to be hosted in Russia later this year.
Fox Sports would produce the show, which will be streamed from Moscow’s Red Square on each match day and provide previews, recaps and near real-time video highlights for each game, the company said.
Fox said the coverage of the tournament, taking place from June 14 to July 15, will be available in the United States and can be seen using the @FOXSports and @FOXSoccer Twitter handles.
Fox Sports will also produce magazine-like editions of content for Snapchat’s mobile-first audience, called Publisher Stories.
The Publisher Stories on Snapchat will record the day-by-day highlights of the monthlong tournament through recaps, previews and features produced specifically for Snap.
Snapchat will also produce FIFA World Cup “Our Stories,” featuring video highlights of goals and other key moments provided by Fox Sports.
Livestreaming has been one of Twitter’s biggest focus areas since last year as it seeks to attract new users.
The company had previously signed a multi-year deal with the U.S. National Football League to livestream pre-game coverage as well as a 30-minute show.
Snapchat has also done something similar by previously partnering with Discovery Communications Inc’s Eurosport for a European, multi-language deal that will see Winter Olympics content held this year as part of Snapchat’s “stories” feature.
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When urban designer Trupti Vaitla asked residents of a Mumbai slum what new features they’d like to see in their dilapidated public space, she was surprised by one popular answer: a patch of grass.
The Lotus Garden is the only open area for about 200,000 people who live in cramped and squalid tenements abutting the city’s biggest landfill. The municipal corporation had done little for its upkeep and it was littered with trash.
Three years ago, Vaitla and her team were tasked with transforming it into a space that people would actually use.
They expected residents to suggest elements like lighting, elaborate landscaping and a gym.
The team didn’t expect such enthusiasm for a simple lawn.
“But they were excited to be involved, and for them, a patch of green was really important – a small oasis in their otherwise drab and congested world,” said Vaitla, chief executive of Mumbai Environmental Social Network (MESN).
Vaitla’s team, backed by funding from United Nations Habitat, which promotes sustainable urban development, spent months cleaning up Lotus Garden. They installed lights and water, planted shrubs and grass, and built an open-air gym.
From the very first day, residents including women and children who had earlier avoided the space, swarmed in, Vaitla said.
The appetite for areas like the Lotus Garden is not surprising. In Mumbai, with its population of 18 million and counting, soaring real estate prices and relentless construction, public spaces are shrinking.
“In a crowded slum, these spaces are particularly relevant, as people have nowhere else to go,” said Pontus Westerberg, digital projects officer at UN Habitat. “These spaces also impact on their health, sanitation, safety, access to emergency services.”
Digital Lego
Encouraged by their success with Lotus Garden, MESN and UN-Habitat collaborated on another space in the nearby Gautam Nagar neighborhood. This time, they decided to use technology to encourage even more community involvement.
The team settled on Minecraft, a video game that allows players to build their own worlds using virtual Lego-like pieces.
For the past five years, UN Habitat has used Minecraft in its Block by Block programme, which aims to encourage some of the poorest communities in the developing world to participate in upgrading their common spaces.
The program is a partnership between UN Habitat, Mojang, the creator of Minecraft, and Microsoft, which owns Mojang.
“It can be a challenge to mobilize people in slums – especially the youth – who are resigned to their environment and don’t feel a sense of ownership,” said Westerberg by telephone from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.
The traditional approach, using maps and drawings, often draws little interest from residents, he said.
“But with an interactive design tool like this – I call it digital Lego – they are so engaged, and that makes the process more democratic,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The Block by Block program was launched in Kibera, Nairobi’s largest slum. It has since been used in about 50 locations in more than 20 countries including Indonesia, Nigeria and Mexico.
Once UN-Habitat selects a site, a Minecraft model of the site is built using photographs, videos, maps and Google Street View, if it is available. UN-Habitat then holds a workshop.
Residents are put into groups of mixed ages and genders, and given a laptop with the Minecraft model. They learn the game in a matter of minutes or hours, Westerberg said, and everyone pitches in on the redesign.
The designs are then discussed with local officials, one design is chosen, and the project is handed over to a local architect to execute.
No Swimming Pool
When Vaitla brought Minecraft to a workshop in Gautam Nagar, participants used it to create plans including better lighting, seating, trees and play areas for children.
The slum’s 6,000 residents live in close quarters, among open drains and common spaces strewn with garbage. They were looking for realistic solutions to improve their lives.
“The designs they came up with were all sensible,” Vaitla recalled. “No one said, ‘We want a swimming pool.'”
Other organizations are also putting digital tools like Google Earth and smartphones to work for disadvantaged residents of India’s urban areas.
Shelter Associates, a charity that focuses on slum upgrades, is working with residents to create maps of slums that need amenities like sewage lines, or are at risk of eviction because they are on disputed land.
This is particularly relevant as the government’s Smart Cities plan risks hastening slum evictions.
In the western state of Maharashtra, where Mumbai is located, Shelter Associates has mapped about 500 settlements of more than 200,000 homes, said Executive Director Pratima Joshi.
“There are so many low-cost technologies that are easy to use, and we train slum residents to use them as a first step towards mobilizing the communities,” she said.
As for Lotus Garden, residents continue to take pride in the space they redesigned, said Vaitla.
“The lawn is a bit scraggly, but still being maintained, as are other amenities,” she said. “If you involve the community, they will participate, and they will take better care of these spaces.”
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Sitting on a rickety bench at his home in Kipipiri, in central Kenya, Samuel Macharia pulls a piece of paper from his pocket and proudly points to the signature at the bottom.
“This paper means I get paid on time for my potatoes, even when the weather is bad,” he said.
The precious document is a farming contract Macharia signed in March with the East African Potato Consortium. It says he will sell at least two tons of potatoes to food processors each harvesting season for the next two years.
“Thanks to this contract I can earn up to 22,000 Kenyan shillings ($213) per season,” he said.
Recurring drought and sudden cold spells have affected the quality of potatoes and other staples across Kenya.
Peris Mukami, a farmer from Timau village, in Meru County, said her potato yields had declined by over 10 percent in the past two years because “it is either too cold or too hot.”
“The cold damages potato vines with frostbite while heat makes them wilt,” she explained.
To try to fight back, Kenyan potato farmers such as Macharia are increasingly turning to production contracts with food processors — a system known as contract farming — through the East African Potato Consortium.
By working with the consortium, they get access to seeds that better stand up to harsher conditions, as well as better fertilizers.
They also get a guaranteed price for their crop, as long as they produce good-quality potatoes on time, said Wachira Kaguongo, head of the National Potato Council.
Fair Deals
The consortium, which was set up in 2016 by the National Potato Council, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa and the Grow Africa partnership, aims to increase private investment in agriculture by linking potato farmers with food processors across the country, Kaguongo said.
Each production agreement is reviewed and approved by the National Potato Council, which ensures it is fair to both parties, said Willy Bett, cabinet secretary of the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries.
“Businessmen will always want to get farmers to sign something that may not be favorable to them,” Bett told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “We’re trying to prevent that by ensuring that farming activity is done on a contract basis in Kenya.”
Contract farming has allowed farmers to sell produce to food giants such as the fast-food chain KFC, formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Macharia’s potatoes now fetch 22 shillings ($0.20) per kilo, more than double what he used to get when selling them at the Kipipiri open air market.
“I am paid in cash at my farm,” he said. “And I do not have to travel to the market when I don’t want to.”
So far 5,000 farmers have signed up to the system, with a total of 23,000 expected to have made the switch by 2020, said Kaguongo.
Supply Shortage?
Felix Matheri, a researcher at the International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology, said that while contract farming provides farmers with a steady income, it risks depriving poor families of their food supply.
“Contracts bind farmers to supplying an agreed amount of potatoes, meaning that when the harvest is low farmers are forced to sell all their produce to meet their obligations,” he explained.
“But potatoes are rich in starch and a critical source of nutrients — farmers should save some for home consumption,” he said.
Others have concerns about contract farming as well. Louise Wangari, a roadside seller of potatoes in Nyandarua County, said she is worried it might affect the supply she gets from farmers.
“The quantity of potatoes I was getting from farmers was already decreasing due to extreme weather,” she said.
“If they start signing contracts with other buyers, then I may be out of business soon, as I can’t afford to pay them as much as the food processors.”
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Failure to rein in global temperature rises could cause the marine food web to collapse, devastating the livelihoods of tens of millions of people who rely on fisheries for food and income, scientists have warned.
Warming oceans restrict vital energy flows between different species in the marine ecosystem, reducing the amount of food available for bigger animals — mostly fish — at the top of the marine food web, according to a study in the journal PLOS Biology published Tuesday.
This could have “serious implications” for fish stocks, said Ivan Nagelkerken, a professor of marine ecology at Australia’s University of Adelaide and one of the study’s authors.
Globally, about 56.5 million people were engaged in fisheries and aquaculture in 2015, according to the latest data from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
In addition, almost a fifth of animal protein consumed by 3.2 billion people in 2015 comes from fish, FAO said.
The Adelaide scientists set up 12 large tanks, each holding 1,800 liters of water, in a temperature-controlled room to replicate complex marine food webs, and test the effects of ocean acidification and warming over six months.
Plant productivity increased under warmer temperatures but this was mainly due to an expansion of bacteria which fish do not eat, Nagelkerken said in a phone interview.
The findings show that the 2015 Paris agreement on curbing global warming must be met “to safeguard our oceans from collapse, loss of biodiversity and less fishery productivity.”
Under the landmark agreement, world leaders agreed to limit the rise in average global temperatures to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.
The United Nations, however, has warned the world is heading toward a 3-degree increase by 2100.
Recent studies have sounded alarm bells for oceans and its inhabitants as the Earth continues to experience record-breaking heat.
A Jan. 4 paper published in the journal Science said “dead zones” — where oxygen is too low to support most marine life — more than quadrupled in the past 50 years due to human activities.
Another said high ocean temperatures are harming tropical corals, which are nurseries for fish, almost five times more often than in the 1980s.
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The inability of law enforcement authorities to access data from electronic devices due to powerful encryption is an “urgent public safety issue,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday as he sought to renew a contentious debate over privacy and security.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation was unable to access data from nearly 7,800 devices in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 with technical tools despite possessing proper legal authority to pry them open, a growing figure that impacts every area of the agency’s work, Wray said during a speech at a cyber security conference in New York.
The FBI has been unable to access data in more than half of the devices that it tried to unlock due to encryption, Wray added.
“This is an urgent public safety issue,” Wray added, while saying that a solution is “not so clear cut.”
Technology companies and many digital security experts have said that the FBI’s attempts to require that devices allow investigators a way to access a criminal suspect’s cellphone would harm internet security and empower malicious hackers.
U.S. lawmakers, meanwhile, have expressed little interest in pursuing legislation to require companies to create products whose contents are accessible to authorities who obtain a warrant.
Wray’s comments at the International Conference on Cyber Security were his most extensive yet as FBI director about the so-called Going Dark problem, which his agency and local law enforcement authorities for years have said bedevils countless investigations. Wray took over as FBI chief in August.
The FBI supports strong encryption and information security broadly, Wray said, but described the current status quo as untenable.
“We face an enormous and increasing number of cases that rely heavily, if not exclusively, on electronic evidence,” Wray told an audience of FBI agents, international law enforcement representatives and private sector cyber professionals.
A solution requires “significant innovation,” Wray said, “but I just do not buy the claim that it is impossible.”
Wray’s remarks echoed those of his predecessor, James Comey, who before being fired by President Donald Trump in May frequently spoke about the dangers of unbreakable encryption.
Tech companies and many cyber security experts have said that any measure ensuring that law enforcement authorities are able to access data from encrypted products would weaken cyber security for everyone.
U.S. officials have said that default encryption settings on cellphones and other devices hinder their ability to collect evidence needed to pursue criminals.
The matter came to a head in 2016 when the Justice Department tried unsuccessfully to force Apple to break into an iPhone used by a gunman during a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California.
The Trump administration at times has taken a tougher stance on the issue than former President Barack Obama’s administration.
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in October chastised technology companies for building strongly encrypted products, suggesting Silicon Valley is more willing to comply with foreign government demands for data than those made by their home country.
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U.S. Senate Democrats said on Tuesday they will force a vote later this year on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s reversal of landmark Obama administration net neutrality rules and will try to make it a key issue in the 2018 congressional elections.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said the issue will be a major motivating factor for young voters the party is courting.
“We’re going to let everyone know where we stand and they stand,” Schumer said at a Capitol Hill news conference in Washington.
The FCC voted in December along party lines to reverse rules introduced in 2015 that barred internet service providers from blocking or throttling traffic, or offering paid fast lanes. A group of state attorneys general immediately vowed to sue.
A trade group representing major tech companies including Facebook, Alphabet and Amazon.com said last week it will back legal challenges to the reversal.
The vote in December marked a victory for AT&T, Comcast and Verizon Communications and hands them power over what content consumers can access over the internet. It marked the biggest win for FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in his sweeping effort to undo many telecommunications regulations.
Senate Democrats on Tuesday called the FCC decision “un-American” and an “all-out assault on consumers.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, backs the FCC repeal. A reversal of the FCC vote would need the approval of the Senate, U.S. House and President Donald Trump.
Trump also backed the FCC action, the White House said last month.
The FCC order grants internet providers sweeping new powers to block, throttle or discriminate among internet content, but requires public disclosure of those practices. Internet providers have vowed not to change how consumers get online content.
Democrats say net neutrality is essential to protect consumers, while Republicans say the rules hindered investment by providers and were not needed.
Democratic Senator Ed Markey said on Tuesday he had 39 co-sponsors to force a vote, but it is not clear when the vote will occur since the new rules will not take effect for at least another three months. “There will be a political price to pay for those who are on the wrong side of history,” Markey said.
Republicans control the Senate with 51 votes out of the 100-member body.
Senator Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat, said the issue was resonating with teenagers and college students.
“People are mobilizing across the country to save the free and open internet,” Schatz said.
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The new smart electronic gadgets on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas may help drive you into an increasingly connected future.
In the case of Byton, a futuristic smart car that is one of the hits of the CES – a driver steps into a high-tech sensory experience.
From a tablet embedded in the steering wheel and five hand gestures, the motorist controls the vehicle.
Sensors monitor the driver’s heart rate, blood pressure and other vital statistics.
Other features include tiny cameras instead of side view mirrors, and seats that swivel to give the car a lounge-like feeling.
Aiming for the Tesla market, the first Byton electric SUV is expected to go on sale first in China in 2019, selling for $45,000, before becoming available in the United States and Europe in 2020.
US market for smart devices
For the 170,000 attendees at CES – one-third of them from outside the U.S. – there are plenty of other “smart devices.”
This year’s CES demonstrates that entrepreneurs and companies are coming up with new ideas for adding sensors and connectivity to most everyday items.
But will there be a market?
Smart watches and smart speakers dominate the smart device category, and plenty are on display at the CES; however, just about 20 percent of the U.S. market will use some type of wearable device once a month this year, according to eMarketer, a research firm. “Wearable usage will continue to grow, but the growth rate will slow to single digits beginning in 2019,” the firm said.
Mirror that talks back
Phair Tsai is at the CES to show off her firm’s HiMirror, a “smart” beauty mirror.
By taking a photo, HiMirror keeps track of and analyzes the health of the user’s skin. It also displays news feeds and offers makeup tutorials via YouTube.
If you like what you see, HiMirror can let you share your good looks by sending video messages.
Connected shoe
If the shoe fits, wear it – with a smart device. Digitsole sells an insole with a sensor connected to a smartphone that can fit into any shoe.
That can help detect whether a worker is tired or in pain, said Karim Oumnia, president of the firm.
If a soldier falls or is injured, “the shoe will immediately send a message for his team to rescue him,” he said. And it is possible to set the shoe’s temperature via the sensors.
“Smart footware is not just for fun,” he said. “It makes your life easier.”
Smart cars, smart mirrors, smart shoes – more indications that we are living in an ever connected world.
The White House says President Donald Trump will attend this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, only the second time a U.S. president has attended the summit, and the first in 18 years.
Presidential spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Tuesday, “The president welcomes opportunities to advance his America First agenda with world leaders. At this year’s World Economic Forum, the president looks forward to promoting his policies to strengthen American businesses, American industries and American workers.”
U.S. presidents tend to avoid the elite gathering rather than be seen as too close to the ultra-rich clientele the gathering attracts. President Bill Clinton was the first and last U.S. president to attend in person, in 2000. President Ronald Reagan addressed the forum via satellite.
The United States generally sends a high-profile delegation to the annual event. In the past, vice presidents Dick Cheney and Joe Biden have attended. Former vice president Al Gore, musician Bono, Brazilian writer Paulo Coehlo, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair are regular attendees. Heads of state or government from Europe and Africa are often in attendance, as well.
The World Economic Forum is a Swiss nonprofit organization that says its mission is “improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.”
January’s annual meeting in Davos is the most famous of the forum’s gatherings, drawing some 2,500 people per year. But it also holds a number of regional meetings throughout the year to discuss economic issues and other problems faced by the world.
This year the forum will be held January 23-26.
Venezuela has extended its ban on air and maritime ties with three nearby Dutch Caribbean islands, citing out of control smuggling, officials said Tuesday.
Venezuela is pressing for high-level talks with leaders of Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire before trading can resume, officials said.
Vice President Tareck El Aissami said that leaders of the three islands must step up to control criminal groups that he says are smuggling Venezuelan goods, harming citizens of his country.
“We are not going to allow anymore aggression from these criminal organizations,” El Aissami said on Twitter, urging leaders of the islands to take action.
President Nicolas Maduro on Friday first ordered the 72-hour ban, accusing island leaders of being complicit in illegal trafficking. It follows threats he made in mid-December to close the routes.
Venezuelan authorities allege that the smuggling of products to neighboring countries is one of the causes of the severe shortage of food and other basic products that the South American country has been facing for several years.
The islands popular with tourists lie a short distance from Venezuela’s coast and host oil refineries run by Venezuela’s state oil giant and U.S. subsidiary Citgo.
In recent years, Venezuelans fleeing the nation’s economic collapse have sometimes fled to the islands by boat. In 2015 and 2016, Maduro took a similar measure to combat smuggling, temporarily closing the border crossings with Colombia.
SpaceX is defending its rocket performance during Sunday night’s launch of a secret U.S. satellite, responding to media reports that the satellite codenamed Zuma was lost.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell says the Falcon 9 rocket “did everything correctly” and suggestions otherwise are “categorically false.”
Northrop Grumman — which provided the satellite for an undisclosed U.S. government entity — says it cannot comment on classified missions.
The rocket’s first stage completed its job and landed back at Cape Canaveral following liftoff. But no second-stage information was provided because of all the secrecy surrounding the flight.
The Wall Street Journal quotes unidentified congressional officials as saying the satellite apparently did not separate from the rocket’s upper second stage, and plunged through the atmosphere and burned up.
Children who eat restaurant carry-out, or “takeaway,” meals once a week or more tend to have extra body fat and long-term risk factors for heart disease, suggests a UK study.
In the study of 9- and 10-year-olds, the kids who ate carry-out most often also consumed more calories but fewer vitamins and minerals compared with kids who rarely or never ate carry-out food, the authors report in Archives of Disease in Childhood.
“Frequent consumption of takeaway foods could potentially be increasing children’s risk of future coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes by increasing their LDL cholesterol and body fat,” lead author Angela Donin told Reuters Health in an email.
“Takeaway outlets are increasing, as is consumption with more than half of teenagers reporting eating takeaways at least twice a week,” said Donin, a researcher at St. George’s, University of London.
In adults, regular consumption of carry-out meals is associated with higher risk of obesity, coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes, but little is known about the effects it may be having on children’s health, Donin said.
“We, therefore, wanted to see how much takeaway food children were eating and if there were any effects on their health.”
The researchers analyzed data from the Child Heart and Health Study in England, which looked at potential risk factors for heart disease and diabetes in pre-teens. Participants included about 2,000 kids aged 9 and 10 years at 85 primary schools in three cities: London, Birmingham and Leicester.
The children answered questions about their usual diets, including how often they ate carry-out meals purchased from restaurants. Foods purchased at convenience stores or grocery stores were not included in the category. Photos of common foods were provided to help the kids recall and estimate portion sizes.
About one quarter of the children said they never or rarely ate carry-out meals and nearly half said they ate carry-out less than once per week. Just over one quarter said they ate these kinds of meals at least once per week.
Boys were more frequent consumers of carry-out meals than girls, as were children from less affluent backgrounds.
The study team used the kids’ dietary responses to calculate calorie counts and nutrient intake. Among regular consumers of carry-out meals, the foods eaten were higher-calorie and higher-fat, while protein and starch intake was lower and intake of vitamin C, iron, calcium and folate was also lower compared with kids who didn’t eat these types of meals.
Researchers also measured the children’s height, weight, waist circumference, skinfold thickness and body-fat composition. In addition, they measured blood pressure and took blood samples for cholesterol levels.
There were no differences in blood pressure or how well the kids’ bodies used insulin based on who regularly ate carry-out meals. But skinfold thickness, body fat composition and blood fats like LDL (bad) cholesterol all tended to be higher in regular consumers of carry-out meals.
“Children who ate more takeaway meals had higher total and LDL cholesterol (both important risk factors for coronary heart disease) and body fat.,” Donin said.
“Most people who order takeout usually purchase fast food, which is high in sodium, fat, and calories,” noted Sandra Arevalo, who wasn’t involved in the study.
”Fast-food also has low nutritional value, which means it is low in vitamins, minerals, fiber and sometimes protein,” said Arevalo, a registered dietician who directs Nutrition Services and Community Outreach at Community Pediatrics, a program of Montefiore and The Children’s Health Fund, in New York. “If you eat these meals over a long period of time you can start seeing the health consequences associated with it.”
Arevalo recommends parents who need to bring home a meal, call the restaurant ahead of time to order salads, vegetables, brown rice, grilled meats and to provide a healthier meal for their children.
“The price might be a deterrent but you can cut portions in half and get two meals out of one large one,” she said by email. Another idea is to learn to prepare quick and healthy meals.
“For example, hummus, carrots, and crackers make a great lunch, as well as a tuna or turkey sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes. Eggs are an excellent source of protein, you can scramble an egg with spinach, onions, and tomatoes and have it with a toast,” she said.
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Tiya-Marie Large, a member of the Pheasant Rump Nakota Nation in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, couldn’t understand why her 8-year-old son, Mylon McArthur, came home from school every day in tears.
“I’d ask him what was wrong. I’d ask him, ‘Is there anything you want to tell me? I promise I won’t get mad,’” she recalled. But Mylon refused to speak.
Large arranged for a meeting with his teacher, during which her son broke down sobbing, finally admitting that his classmates had been bullying him because he wore his long hair in braids.
The family had recently moved to Alberta, where Mylon was the only indigenous child in his class.
“I had to finally make the decision that I’d rather have him cut his hair than have him become suicidal,” Large said, pointing to the recent rise in teen suicides across Indian country.
Mylon decided to make a Facebook video explaining his decision and sending a message to bullies and educators: “You do not define me.” The video quickly went viral (See below).
A source of power
Hair has special spiritual and cultural significance for tribes, though traditions and styles vary from tribe to tribe. Whether worn long, braided or bound in a knot, most North American indigenous peoples see hair as a source of strength and power.
“Hairstyles helped to define both individuals, nations, and societies within those nations,” explained L.G. Moses, professor emeritus of history at Oklahoma State University.
As part of 19th century policies of forced assimilation of indigenous peoples, the U.S. and Canadian governments began what Moses calls an “assault on tribal hairstyles.”
“Long hair signaled whether people were civilized, or sadly, in the minds of teachers and bureaucrats, remained ‘blanket’ Indians,” he said, using a disparaging term for Native peoples who retained traditional customs.
Beginning in the 1870s, federal officials in Canada and the U.S. removed Native children into off-reservation boarding schools, where they were forced to give up their languages, clothing and long hair. Even today, some public school systems, prisons and some workplaces still require Native Americans to cut their hair.
Conrad Eagle Feather, a Sicangu Lakota living on South Dakota’s Rosebud Reservation, recalls taking a job for an organization in California.
“I wanted to grow my hair out, but long hair was a violation of the company’s grooming standards,” he said. “I even had a spiritual leader go explain to them why it was important for me to wear long hair. But they said ‘No.’”
After the company altered policy to allow a non-Native man to wear a beard, Eagle Feather enlisted the help of a legal organization and ultimately won the right to grow his hair.
Turning to social media
Michael Linklater, a Nehiyaw (Cree) from Thunderchild First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada, and a 3-on-3 pro basketball world champion, says he was harassed as a child for wearing his hair in braids.
“A lot of people who see indigenous men or boys with long hair see strength, and they see power. And it makes them uncomfortable. So, they feel the need to bring those people down,” he said.
Two years ago, after his own boys confessed to being bullied, Linklater decided to take action. In early 2016, he created a Facebook page that has since become a social movement — Boys With Braids.
“There needed to be a platform to foster pride in these young men, give them a voice and create some awareness on the issue,” he said, expressing hopes that the movement can put an end to bullying.
Boys With Braids has since spread across Canada and into the U.S., sprouting chapters in California, Michigan, New Mexico and South Dakota — states with large Native American populations.
On South Dakota’s Rosebud Indian Reservation, for example, the local Boys With Braids chapter invites boys to weekly meetings and events, including horseback riding camps, cooking lessons and even a buffalo hunt, all designed to instill pride not just in hair but all Lakota traditions.
Recently, Nikki Lowe of Albuquerque, N.M., whose son has also experienced bullying, teamed up with another mother to host a first-ever Boys with Braids event for Navajo youth — who traditionally wore their hair in a tsiiyee, a knot tied with wool yarn — but more often today wear braids.
“We hosted our first event on Dec. 2,” Lowe said. “We invited a drum group, and we had boys make leather key chains in the shape of traditional shields, something they could carry with them to make them feel strong,” she said. In the future, she’s planning on meeting with state educators and expanding into other states.
As for Mylon, he has not yet been able to attend a Boys With Braids event but hopes to in the near future.
He tells VOA that the bullying has stopped since he cut his hair three months ago. He also announced another decision:
“I’ve decided to grow it out again, and I can’t wait!”
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Intel has big plans to steer toward new business in self-driving cars, virtual reality and other cutting-edge technologies. But first it has to pull out of a skid caused by a serious security flaw in its processor chips, which undergird many of the world’s smartphones and personal computers.
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich opened his keynote talk Monday night at the annual CES gadget show in Las Vegas by addressing the hard-to-fix flaws disclosed by security researchers last week. At an event known for its technological optimism, it was an unusually sober and high-profile reminder of the information security and privacy dangers lurking beneath many of the tech industry’s gee-whiz wonders.
Some researchers have argued that the flaws reflect a fundamental hardware defect that can’t be fixed short of a recall. But Intel has pushed back against that idea, arguing that the problems can be “mitigated” by software or firmware upgrades. Companies from Microsoft to Apple have announced efforts to patch the vulnerabilities.
And Krzanich promised fixes in the coming week to 90 percent of the processors Intel has made in the past five years, consistent with an earlier statement from the company . He added that updates for the remainder of those recent processors should follow by the end of January. Krzanich did not address the company’s plans for older chips.
To date, he said, Intel has seen no sign that anyone has stolen data by exploiting the two vulnerabilities, known as Meltdown and Spectre. The problems were disclosed last week by Google’s Project Zero security team and other researchers. Krzanich commended the “remarkable” collaboration among tech companies to address what he called an “industry-wide” problem.
While Meltdown is believed to primarily affect processors built by Intel, Spectre also affects many of the company’s rivals. Flaws affecting the processor chips also endanger the PCs, internet browsers, cloud computing services and other technology that rely on them. Both bugs could be exploited through what’s known as a side-channel attack that could extract passwords and other sensitive data from the chip’s memory.
Krzanich himself has been in the spotlight over the security issue after it was revealed that he had sold about $39 million in his own Intel stocks and options in late November, before the vulnerability was publicly know. Intel says it was notified about the bugs in June.
The company didn’t respond to inquiries about the timing of Krzanich’s divestments, but a spokeswoman said it was unrelated to the security flaws.
During his presentation Monday, Krzanich also launched into a flashy and wide-ranging celebration of the way Intel and its partners are harnessing data for futuristic innovations, from 3D entertainment partnerships with Paramount Pictures to virtual-reality collaborations with the 2018 Winter Olympics and a new breakthrough in so-called quantum computing.
A self-driving Ford Fusion rolled onto the stage of the casino theater where Krzanich gave his talk. It’s the first of a 100-vehicle test fleet run by Mobileeye, the Israel-based software company that Intel bought for $15 billion last year. Mobileeye processes the information cars “see” from cameras and sensors.
A flying taxi — the German-built Volocopter — later lifted from the stage. Then came the drones, in a musical performance that Krzanich said would mark a Guinness record for the “world’s first 100-drone indoor lightshow without GPS.”
French prosecutors have opened an investigation into Apple over revelations it secretly slowed down older versions of its handsets.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said Tuesday a probe was opened last week over alleged “deception and planned obsolescence” of some Apple products. It is led by the French body in charge of fraud control, which is part of the Finance Ministry.
It follows a legal complaint filed in December by a French consumer rights group that aims to stop intentional obsolescence of goods by companies.
In France it is illegal to intentionally shorten the lifespan of a product in order to encourage customers replace it. A 2015 law makes it a crime, with penalties of up to two years in prison and fines of up to 5 percent of the company’s annual turnover.
Apple apologized in December for secretly slowing down older iPhones, a move it said was necessary to avoid unexpected shutdowns related to battery fatigue.
The company said on its website “we have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades.”
Lawsuits against the company have been filed in the U.S. and Israel.
The French consumer rights group, called HOP, filed a lawsuit on Dec. 27. It claims Apple slowed down older smartphones in order to make clients buy the new iPhone 8, which was launched on the market around the same time, according to HOP’s written statement.
One of the most common New Year’s resolutions is to lose weight and get fit. Faith Lapidus takes a look at how some people are trying to keep that commitment.
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2017 was the costliest year on record for natural disasters in the United States, according to scientists. Sixteen disasters caused an estimated $306 billion in damage. VOA’s Steve Baragona reports.
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At CES, the large consumer electronics show happening this week in Las Vegas, companies are showing off their latest products and services amid a crush of visitors. One theme this year – everything can be made better by adding sensors and internet connectivity. Michelle Quinn reports.
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