Dragon’s blood, mandrake root and devil’s snare were used for potions and spells in the Harry Potter series. But in real life, the creepy-named plants were used for medicinal purposes and could be purchased at an apothecary, also known as a pharmacy. Today, one of the best preserved apothecaries in the United States has been turned into a small museum in historic Alexandria, Virginia. Deborah Block reports.
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A university in London is looking at new ways to use technology that displays fully three-dimensional images. They’re hoping academics and experts can use the technology to deliver lectures in the classroom – remotely. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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Extreme weather events predicted by climate change sometimes mean more than just bad storms, sometimes they mean the exact opposite. In Germany, a hot, dry summer has left water levels at near historic lows, and that problem is rippling across the entire economy. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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An outbreak of Ebola in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed more than 200 people. Almost 300 Ebola cases have been confirmed since the outbreak began in August, authorities say.

The health ministry said half of the cases were in Beni, a city of 800,000 people, in the North Kivu province.

The outbreak is in a conflict zone where dozens of armed groups operate. Aid agencies have been forced to suspend or slow down their work on several occasions since the outbreak.

Health Minister Oly Ilunga said his response teams “have faced threats, physical assaults, repeated destruction of their equipment and kidnapping.”

“Two of our colleagues in the Rapid Response Medical Unit have even lost their lives in an attack,” Ilunga said.

Ebola was detected in the DRC in 1976. The current outbreak is the tenth since it was first discovered.

The World Health Organization has warned the virus could spread to nearby countries, including Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

Medical workers have lots of experience dealing with Ebola outbreaks in the DRC. Fortunately, they have new tools to fight the deadly virus. A new vaccine has shown it can protect people who’ve come into contact with Ebola victims, and more people have learned techniques to keep the virus from spreading.

However, old problems persist with every outbreak. Some people still refuse to believe Ebola exists and have hidden infected family members. Traditional burial practices also put people at risk.
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Taking fish oil or vitamin D? Big studies give long-awaited answers on who does and does not benefit from these popular nutrients.

Fish oil taken by healthy people, at a dose found in many supplements, showed no clear ability to lower heart or cancer risks. Same for vitamin D.

But higher amounts of a purified, prescription fish oil slashed heart problems and heart-related deaths among people with high triglycerides, a type of fat in the blood, and other risks for heart disease. Doctors cheered the results and said they could suggest a new treatment option for hundreds of thousands of patients like these.

Up to 10 percent of U.S. adults take fish oil. Even more take vitamin D, despite no major studies to support the many health claims made for it.

“Those who peddle it promote it as good for everything,” but in this definitive test, vitamin D “showed a big nothing,” said Dr. James Stein, a heart specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He had no role in the studies or ties to the companies involved.

Results were revealed Saturday at an American Heart Association conference in Chicago and published by the New England Journal of Medicine.

About fish oil

These oils, also called omega-3 fatty acids, are found in salmon, tuna and certain other fish. They reduce triglycerides and inflammation and may have other effects. There are different types, including EPA and DHA.

One study tested 4 grams a day of Amarin Corp.’s prescription Vascepa, which is concentrated EPA, in more than 8,000 patients with high triglycerides and a greater risk of heart problems for various reasons. All were already taking a statin such as Lipitor or Zocor to lower cholesterol. Half were given Vascepa and the rest, mineral oil capsules as a comparison.

After five years, about 17 percent of those on Vascepa had suffered one of these problems — a heart attack, stroke, heart-related death or clogged arteries requiring medical care — versus 22 percent of the others.

That worked out to a 25 percent reduction in risk. Looked at individually, heart attacks, heart-related deaths and strokes all were lower with Vascepa. Only 21 people would need to take Vascepa for five years to prevent one of the main problems studied — favorable odds, Stein said.

Side effects may be a concern: More people on Vascepa were hospitalized for an irregular heartbeat — 3 percent versus 2 percent of the comparison group. Doctors say that’s puzzling because other research suggests fish oil lowers that risk.

The concern with the heart rhythm problem is that it can raise the risk of stroke, but there were fewer strokes among those on Vascepa, said study leader Dr. Deepak Bhatt of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Vascepa costs around $280 a month; many insurers cover it. Amarin sponsored the study and some study leaders work or consult for the company.

The other study tested a lower 1 gram daily dose of a different type of fish oil — an EPA/DHA combo sold as Lovaza or Omacor and in generic form — in 26,000 people with no prior heart problems or cancer.

After about five years, rates of a combined measure of heart attacks, strokes and other problems were similar for fish oil users and a comparison group. Cancer rates and deaths also were similar.

There were fewer heart attacks in the fish oil group — 145 versus 200 in the comparison group. The study leader, Dr. JoAnn Manson at Brigham and Women’s, called that “a substantial benefit,” but several independent experts disagreed because of the way the study was set up to track this and certain other results.

“These findings are speculative and would need to be confirmed in a separate trial,” said the Cleveland Clinic’s Dr. Steven Nissen.

Fishy comparisons?

Both studies share a problem: the oils used for the comparison groups, which may not have been true placebos. The Vascepa study used mineral oil, which interferes with statin drugs, raises cholesterol, and might have made the comparison group fare worse and made Vascepa look better than it truly was.

The other study used olive oil, which might have helped that comparison group do better, possibly masking any benefit to the others from fish oil.

Leaders of both studies say any effect from the comparison oils isn’t enough to alter the main results, and independent experts agreed. But Nissen, who is leading another fish oil study, is using corn oil as a comparison.

The ‘sunshine’ vitamin

Manson’s study also tested vitamin D, which the skin makes from sun exposure. It’s tough to get enough from foods like milk, eggs and oily fish, though many foods now are fortified with it. Some studies have found that people with lower levels of D are more likely to develop cancer, but it’s not known if supplements alter that risk.

Study participants took 2,000 international units of D-3 (the most active form of vitamin D, also called cholecalciferol) or fake vitamin pills for five years.

Vitamin D did not affect the odds of having a heart attack or stroke or developing cancer. After excluding the first two years of use, researchers saw fewer cancer deaths among those on the vitamin — 112 versus 149 in the placebo group.

“Cancer can take years to develop” so a difference may not show up right away, Manson said. “This looks promising” and people will be studied longer to see if the trend holds up, she said.

Several other experts said these numbers just hint at a possible benefit that needs more study.

“These ‘positive’ results need to be interpreted with caution,” Dr. Clifford Rosen of Maine Medical Center Research Institute and Dr. John Keaney Jr. of the University of Massachusetts wrote in a commentary in the medical journal. 
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In Uganda, officials have stepped up measures to prevent an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus.  Ebola has infected 319 people in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo since August, killing 198.  The border between the countries remains open, and health experts fear the virus will enter Uganda through the cross-border traffic.  

The Lamia River marks the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola-infected North Kivu Province and Uganda.  

Despite the deadly viral outbreak, Uganda’s Health Ministry says 20,000 people cross the border every week, putting the country at high risk.

Ugandan Jane Biira goes to the DRC side at least twice a week to buy food and charcoal to sell back home.  

“We have heard the disease is there but, we have to go out and trade.  We are only a little scared, because we have never seen anyone fall ill with Ebola where we go.  We buy the merchandise and leave.”

When Biira and others cross into Uganda they get checked at screening points by health care workers and volunteers, like Boaz Balimaka.  

“We have the hand-washing, then disinfecting the feet, and screening, then we allow somebody to pass.”

While no Ebola cases have yet been detected in Uganda, it can take up to three weeks for symptoms to appear.   

The virus causes a severe hemorrhagic fever that kills at least half the people who become infected.  

Even with border screenings, Butogo Town Council head John Kandole says they worry someone with Ebola could slip through.

“Somebody who comes from Congo, we don’t shake with him with hands. Once he comes to buy anything, he buy and go. And the money sometimes we have been fearing to get.”

Uganda’s Health Ministry is stepping up preventive measures by deploying an experimental Ebola vaccine for health care and front-line workers along the border.

Jane Ruth Aceng, Uganda’s health minister, says vaccines are also on standy-by.

“Currently, in Uganda we have 2,100 doses of the vaccine available at the National Medical Stores, and preparations are in high gear, including training of the health workers that are to be targeted.”

A 2007 Ebola outbreak in Uganda, in the border town of Bundibugyo, infected 149 people, killed 37, and took several weeks to be contained.

 
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University of Pennsylvania researchers say that for the first time they have linked social media use to increases in depression and loneliness.

The idea that social media is anything but social when it comes to mental health has been talked about for years, but not many studies have managed to actually link the two.

To do that, Penn researchers, led by psychologist Melissa Hunt, designed a study that focused on Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram.

The results were published in the November issue of the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.

How study worked

The study was conducted with 143 participants, who before they began, completed a mood survey and sent along photos of their battery screens, showing how often they were using their phones to access social media.

“We set out to do a much more comprehensive, rigorous study that was also more ecologically valid,” Hunt said. That term, ecologically valid, means that the research attempts to mimic real life.

The study divided the participants into two groups: The first group was allowed to maintain their normal social media habits. The other, the control group, was restricted to 10 minutes per day on each of the three platforms: Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram.

The restrictions were put in place for three weeks and then the participants returned and were tested for outcomes such as fear of missing out (FOMO), anxiety, depression and loneliness.

​Results of study

The results showed a very clear link between social media use and increased levels of depression and loneliness.

“Using less social media than you normally would leads to significant decreases in both depression and loneliness,” Hunt said. “These effects are particularly pronounced for folks who were more depressed when they came into the study.”

She calls her findings the “grand irony” of social media.

What is it about social media that’s just so depressing?

Hunt says that it’s two major things. The first is that social media invites what Hunt calls “downward social comparison.” When you’re online, it can sometimes seem that “everyone else is cooler and having more fun and included in more things and you’re left out,” she said. And that’s just generally demoralizing.

The second factor is a bit more nuanced. 

“Time is a zero-sum game,” Hunt told VOA. “Every minute you spend online is a minute you are not doing your work or not meeting a friend for dinner or having a deep conversation with your roommate.”

And these real life activities are the ones that can bolster self-esteem and self worth, Hunt said.

What to learn

So what’s the takeaway?

People are on their devices, and that’s not going to change, she said. But as in life, a bit of moderation goes a long way. 

“In general, I would say, put your phone down and be with the people in your life,” she added.

Hunt pointed out a few caveats to the study. First, it was done exclusively with 18- to 22-year-olds, and it is unclear if the depressing effects of social media will cross generational lines to older or younger people, Hunt said. But she expects her results should generalize at least for people through the age of 30.

Hunt says she is now beginning a study to gauge the emotional impact of dating apps.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration next week will issue a ban on the sale of fruit and candy flavored electronic cigarettes in convenience stores and gas stations, an agency official said, in a move to counter a surge in teenage use of e-cigarettes.

The ban means only tobacco, mint and menthol flavors can be sold at these outlets, the agency official said, potentially dealing a major blow to Juul Labs Inc, the San Francisco-based market leader in vape devices.

The FDA also will introduce stricter age-verification requirements for online sales of e-cigarettes. The FDA’s planned restrictions, first reported by The Washington Post and confirmed to Reuters by the official, do not apply to vape shops or other specialty retail stores.

There has been mounting pressure for action after preliminary federal data showed teenage use had surged by more than 75 percent since last year, and the FDA has described it as an “epidemic.”

“E-cigs have become an almost ubiquitous — and dangerous — trend among teens,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in September. “The disturbing and accelerating trajectory of use we’re seeing in youth, and the resulting path to addiction, must end. It’s simply not tolerable.”

That growth has coincided with the rise of Juul, whose sales of vaping devices grew from 2.2 million in 2016 to 16.2 million devices last year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency threatened in September to ban Juul and four other leading e-cigarette products unless their makers took steps to prevent use by minors. The FDA gave Juul and four big tobacco companies 60 days to submit plans to curb underage use, a compliance period that is now ending.

The planned restrictions on flavors in convenience stores are likely to have the biggest impact on Juul, which sells nicotine liquid pods in flavors such as mango, mint, fruit and creme, previously called creme brulee.

Juul competitors

The only other e-cigarette competitors sold at convenience stores are those marketed primarily by tobacco companies such as Altria Group Inc, British American Tobacco Plc, Imperial Brands Plc and Japan Tobacco Inc.

Those products, sold under the MarkTen, blu, Vuse and Logic brands, have lost market share as Juul has risen to prominence over the last year, growing from 13.6 percent of the U.S. e-cigarette market in early 2017 to nearly 75 percent now, according to a Wells Fargo analysis of Nielsen retail data.

E-cigarette products represent a small share of revenue for major tobacco companies, whereas Juul’s business is built entirely on the vaping devices. Revenue from e-cigarette devices made up less than 1 percent of British American Tobacco’s global revenue for the first six months of 2018, according to a company filing from July.

Altria last month announced it would stop selling its pod-based electronic cigarettes, generally smaller devices that use pre-filled nicotine liquid cartridges, in response to the FDA’s concerns about teen usage. The company also said it would restrict flavors for its other e-cigarette products to tobacco, menthol and mint.

Representatives from Altria, British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands and Japan Tobacco did not respond to requests for comment Thursday evening. A Juul spokeswoman declined to comment.

The companies have previously said their products are intended for adult use and that they work to ensure retailers comply with the law.

Divisive products

Juul has previously said the company wants to be “part of the solution in keeping e-cigarettes out of the hands of young people” but that “appropriate flavors play an important role in helping adult smokers switch.”

Meredith Berkman, a founder of Parents Against Vaping E-cigarettes, which seeks to curb underage use, said the agency’s move was a “good first step,” but added that “the final step should have happened yesterday.”

“Why not do away with flavors altogether, why not do away with online sales altogether?” she said.

E-cigarettes have been a divisive topic in the public health community. Some focus on the potential for the products to shift lifelong smokers onto less harmful nicotine products, while others fear they risk drawing a new generation into nicotine addiction.

Last year the FDA, under Gottlieb, extended until 2022 a deadline for e-cigarette companies to comply with new federal rules on marketing and public health.
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In Uganda, officials have stepped up measures to prevent an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus. Ebola has infected 250 people in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo since August, killing 180. The border between the countries remains open, and health experts fear the virus will enter Uganda through the cross-border traffic. Halima Athumani reports from Bundibugyo, Uganda.
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Readers with a science bent have likely seen at least one headline about a research paper proposing that the mysterious little space rock with a really funny name that zoomed between the Sun and Mercury last year might have alien origins.

The research paper is from Harvard University, the Ivy’est of Ivy League schools. The Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, to be exact.

So could it be that the object, called Oumuamua, Hawaiian for ‘scout’, is truly some kind of alien artifact, or an actual space probe sent to spy on all us Earthlings?

Hate to be a bummer, but no!

Let’s throw away our scientific and journalist objectivity for a moment and admit that most people want the answer to be ‘yes.’

That’s why scientists spend so much time looking for extrasolar planets that are like Earth, and why we want to get closer looks at Mars, and send probes to Europa or Enceladus or any place with oceans of liquid water. Researchers and astronomers all want some proof that humans are not all alone in the universe.

But in this case, based on conversations VOA has had with astronomers, and based on everything scientists know about space rocks, comets, and asteroids, Oumuamua doesn’t seem to be acting much differently than any other space rock out there in the void.

But here’s what scisntists do know about Oumuamua, and that might help explain why some scientists are so excited about it, whether it offers proof of alien intelligence or not.

Oumuamua was the first interstellar object to visit our solar system. That means it came from another star system like our own. It flew between Mercury and the Sun in November 2017, almost exactly a year ago.

It moved really quickly, at about 136-thousand kilometers per hour. Michele Bannister from Queen’s College in Belfast told VOA that scientists only had about three weeks to get a good look at it.

Credit: NASA

Oumuamua is reddish, and about 400 meters long. However, it’s 10 times longer than it is wide, so basically it looks a bit like a giant, dirty interstellar icicle. In space terms, 400 meters is tiny, so just finding the thing was a big win for astronomers.

“For decades we’ve theorized that such interstellar objects are out there,” says NASA’s Thomas Zurbuchen “and now―for the first time―we have direct evidence they exist.”

That’s really interesting, but how did the whole “aliens” thing get started? Well, it turns out that Oumuamua is definitely ‘unusual’ in that it isn’t just ambling through the galaxy. It’s changing speed and direction by itself. Bannister calls this “non-gravitational acceleration.”

It turns out that’s not particularly strange or even unusual. Bannister says this rock is likely filled with the kinds of things that comets and asteroids generally have in abundance. Carbon monoxide, for instance or cyanide. If so, when they get close to the sun and get warm, these gases shoot out like jets in a process called sublimation. This is likely what made Oumuamua look like it was acting under its own power, because it was in a way.

Here’s how NASA explains this outgassing acceleration:

Credit: NASA

We’ll never really know

But that perfectly reasonable explanation didn’t stop Harvard scientists Shmuel Bialy and Abraham Loeb from putting forth a few possible alternate possibilities for Oumuamua, including one that suggests our interstellar space rock was a lightsail, a giant sail that uses energy from the sun instead of wind to push a vehicle through space.

They suggest this might be a possibility because some other studies suggest our interstellar wanderer isn’t a comet and isn’t doing any outgassing. Hence the solar sail idea. And the team does the math to show how Oumuamua might fit the bill.

The other possibility put forward by Bialy and Loeb is that “Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization.” They do the math here as well to show how Oumuamua’s trajectory might make sense if it was aimed our way.

It’s important to note that the paper hasn’t been peer reviewed yet, which is the process all scientific research goes through before it gets published by reputable journals like Science, or Nature. That means other scientists in the same field read it over, give input and check on its validity. So we’ll see what happens with this paper.

But as far as Oumuamua goes, it’s too small for even our best telescopes to get a look at, so researchers have all the information they’ll ever have.

But don’t worry, there are likely a lot more Oumuamua’s out there. “The galaxy is filled with flying rocks,” Bannister says. “Trillions upon trillions” of space rocks, ranging in size from a “skyscraper” to a planet, are likely roaming around the galaxy. And if we’re lucky, Bannister says we should be able to see about one a year.

So, in a way the Earth is getting visitors from other stars, but they’re just random rocks passing through. So, no aliens, but still pretty really great science.
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Dramatic steps are needed to avoid potentially catastrophic levels of global warming, says the latest report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Experts say nature provides some of the best ways to pull planet-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Restoring forests is one route. In West Virginia, where strip mines scarred the earth, experts are working to bring back the forests that once covered vast swaths of the Appalachian Mountains. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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Female genital mutilation has dropped drastically among African children this century, research shows, but campaigners said Wednesday that teenagers and young women remained at risk of the harmful practice. 

Known as FGM, female genital mutilation is a ritual that usually involves the partial or total removal of the external genitalia, including the clitoris.  

Cutting is a rite of passage in many societies, often with the aim of promoting chastity. It can cause chronic pain, menstrual problems, recurrent urinary tract infections, cysts and infertility. Some girls hemorrhage to death or die from infections. It can also cause fatal childbirth complications in later life. 

Analyzing data spanning more than 20 years, BMJ Global Health said in a study there was a “huge and significant decline” in FGM in children under 14 across Africa. 

East Africa had the biggest fall in its prevalence rates, dropping to 8 percent in 2016 from 71 percent in 1995, according to the BMJ study published Tuesday. 

In north Africa, prevalence rates fell to 14 percent in 2015 from nearly 60 percent in 1990, the report said; west Africa dropped to about 25 percent in 2017, from 74 percent in 1996. 

UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency, estimates that 200 million women and girls globally have undergone FGM, with the highest prevalence in Africa and parts of the Middle East. 

More to the story 

Campaigners welcomed the drop but said FGM also affects teenagers and young women, demographic groups outside the study. 

“We are pleased to see that the numbers are coming down in a lot of countries,” said Emma Lightowlers, a spokeswoman for campaign group 28TooMany, which does research on FGM in Africa. “But it doesn’t tell the whole story and there are other groups where cutting takes place after the age of 14. It takes place in teenagers, or in fact, even in women in preparation for marriage,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. 

Julia Lalla-Maharajh, founder of the Orchid Project, which campaigns against female genital cutting, agreed. 

“Growing efforts to end the practice are having an impact [but] girls in this group may still be cut when they get older,” she said in an email to the Thomson Reuters Foundation. 

Although girls under 14 are most at risk, research should include those aged 15 to 19, said British-based charity Forward, which supports FGM survivors from African communities. 

“This data should not make us complacent to say that all those girls are risk-free,” said Naana Otoo-Oyortey, head of Forward. “We need to work towards ensuring these girls are supported and protected from FGM.”
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