Algae blooms happen when simple algae plants start growing out of control. The tiny plants are not usually toxic on their own, but the overabundance creates so-called dead zones because they suck all the oxygen out of the water. In Sweden, researchers have enlisted the aid of native fish that can slow down the out of control growth of algae. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Autistic children are naturally sensitive to changes in their routines, including visits to the doctor or dentist. They may become agitated and uncooperative. When a dog trainer in Chile tried bringing dogs to the office to help the children relax, the experiment proved so successful that it evolved into a full-scale business. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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It’s no secret that the world’s coral reefs are at risk. Pollution, dredging, overfishing and, especially, acidic, warming waters are pushing these complex ecosystems to the brink of destruction, and marine scientists and researchers have been stymied in attempts to restore their health.
Saving them isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s a necessity if we want to keep our oceans healthy and viable. Coral reefs provide nurseries for nearly a quarter of the ocean’s fisheries, help protect shorelines from storms, and offer underwater wonders for snorkelers and divers.
Now, a project at San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences offers hope for what marine biologist Bart Shepherd calls ‘one of the most magical and beautiful places on Earth’. “It’s this incredible city of organisms that all learn to live together. All these animals are competing to try and take over space and try to get access to sunlight, to nutrients in the water.”
Shepherd is director of the Academy’s Steinhart Aquarium, and, with the Academy’s curator of ichthyology, Luiz Rocha, directs the appropriately-named Hope for Reefs initiative.
Reefs under stress
Human activity and increasingly warm and acidic ocean water are taking a heavy toll on the world’s coral reefs. A recent aerial survey found more than two-thirds of the coral in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is experiencing “shocking” amounts of bleaching, and Rocha says human-induced climate change is devastating other reefs as well.
“When coral gets stressed, in most cases because of warm water, it expels the algae,” he explains. Algae have a symbiotic relationship with the coral polyps. The coral provides a protective environment for the algae, which provide corals with essential nutrients and their incredible colors. “So,” Rocha adds, “when the algae gets out, the coral gets bleached and becomes white.” That bleaching can lead to the coral’s death.
Restoring the reef
Various methods have been tried to bring back reefs. The most successful so far has been artificially accelerating a natural process called fragmentation. Researchers purposefully break off coral branches, allow the pieces to recover and grow, and then plant them back onto the reef.
But Shepherd points to a long-term problem with that approach. “You are producing thousands of identical genetic clones of the same coral from one parent colony. So, you’re really reducing the genetic diversity that’s out there on the reef and the ability of the coral to respond, perhaps, to things we don’t even know are going to happen.”
So, the Hope for Reefs crew turned to a unique method pioneered by the coral conservation group Secore International. In 2011, it began using in vitro fertilization to restore the health of dying coral reefs. Endangered elkhorn coral off the coast of its field station in Curaçao was the test case. Shepherd says, “So, we actually have proven that you can go and collect gametes – sperm and eggs, fertilize them and grow them in a laboratory for a short period of time, plant that baby coral back out on the reefs and, within five years, it will grow up and spawn with its wild counterparts on the reef.”
A small window of opportunity
Corals only spawn once a year, at night around a full moon. During those couple of nights, millions of the corals’ sex cells float to the surface, but, Shepherd explains, more than 99 percent don’t make it.
“What we’re able to do is intercede at a point where most of the sperm and eggs will be eaten by fish. We put a net over the coral and we collect those sperm and eggs, bring them back to the lab, cross-fertilize them and go from there.”
Hope for Reefs doesn’t stop with restoration. Shepherd says educating local governments and community stakeholders to save their coral reefs is key to the success of the project — and time is crucial.
“We need communities that want to help manage their reefs, that are going to look at the environmental conditions and why they are the way they are and what we can do to improve them. Reducing sewage outflow, reducing sedimentation, reducing the fishing pressures on herbivores, and there’s a holistic approach to managing reefs that really needs to be in place in order for this to work.”
And, says project co-director Luiz Rocha, that approach includes communication. “We don’t safeguard our results. We know that it is urgent. We know that we have to talk about it as soon as possible. So, we are working on our scientific publications that take quite a while to be published, but we also take to the field with us a media person, a science writer, a photographer that will be talking about our results in real time, most of the time.”
Looking ahead
Hope for Reefs has just finished the first year of its five-year project and everyone involved is optimistic. The challenge is to scale up in vitro fertilization to restore endangered coral reefs worldwide before they are lost. The project hopes to seed one million global corals by 2021.
With a commitment of nearly $13-million from the California Academy of Sciences, and a new partnership with The Nature Conservancy, twenty new expeditions are planned. First up, the degraded reef at Secore International’s field station in Curaçao and, then, on to the Yucatan Peninsula and the Great Maya Reef.
A widely used family of over-the-counter painkillers may increase the risk of having a heart attack, a new study suggests.
According to researchers at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Center (CRCHUM), non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can raise the risk of heart attacks “as early as in the first week of use and especially within the first month of taking high doses of such medication.”
Common forms of NSAIDs include diclofenac, ibuprofen and naproxen.
“Given that the onset of risk of acute myocardial infarction occurred in the first week and appeared greatest in the first month of treatment with higher doses, prescribers should consider weighing the risks and benefits of NSAIDs before instituting treatment, particularly for higher doses,” the researchers said.
Prior studies had pointed to an increase in heart attack risk from using NSAIDs, but this study looked at timing, dose and the duration of taking the medicine.
For the study, the researchers looked at past studies on NSAIDs from Canada, Finland and the United Kingdom. there were 446,763 people studied, and 61,460 had a heart attack.
“The study found that taking any dose of NSAIDs for one week, one month, or more than a month was associated with an increased risk of heart attack,” researchers said in a statement.
The overall risk of heart attack was between 20 and 50 percent higher than those not using NSAIDs, the researchers said.
“To put this in perspective, as a result of this increase, the risk of heart attack due to NSAIDs is on average about one percent annually,” researchers wrote. “The type of analysis the researchers used allowed them to conclude with greater than 90 percent probability that all NSAIDs studied are associated with a heightened risk of heart attack.”
They added that the increased risk was higher with higher doses during the first month of use. The risk did not continue to increase over a longer treatment duration.
“It remains prudent to use NSAIDs for as short time as possible,” researchers wrote.
The researchers said the study did not consider other potential factors for increased risk of heart attack.
The study was published this week in BMJ.
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Any outbreak of measles is cause for concern, but the current outbreak in Minneapolis, Minnesota stands out for two reasons. One, almost none of the victims were vaccinated against the disease. Two, nearly all of the victims are ethnic Somalis.
Doctors say the situation is the result of the disproven, but persistent, belief the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) can cause a child to develop autism.
Dr. Mohamed Hagi Aden, an internal medicine specialist at Regions Hospital in neighboring St. Paul, says more than 50 percent of Somali-American children in the area never get the MMR vaccine, due to autism fears.
The result is seen in the measles outbreak statistics. As of Tuesday, the Minnesota Department of Health had recorded 50 cases of measles in the state. It said 45 of those infected were confirmed to be unvaccinated against measles, and 45 of the cases were Minnesotan Somalis (or Somali Minnesotans, as the department put it).
Dr. Aden says opposition to the MMR vaccine stems from a perceived high rate of autism within the local Somali-American community. A report by the University of Minnesota showed that in 2010, about one in 32 Somali children in Minneapolis between the ages of 7 and 9 was identified as having autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
“And while parents were looking for answer, they found a study by a British researcher that linked the autism and the MMR vaccine, and that has created fear and suspicion with the community,” Dr. Aden told VOA’s Somali Service.
The study he cites is real; it was published in the British medical journal The Lancet in 1998. But the journal retracted the finding 12 years later, saying it contained errors.
In the meantime, multiple studies have failed to find any evidence to back up the original study’s claims. One study of 95,000 American children found “no harmful association between MMR vaccine receipt and ASD,” even in cases where kids’ older siblings had been diagnosed with autism.
“There is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism,” says Dr. Aden.
Making the case for vaccination
As the outbreak grows, the Minnesota Department of Health is working to win back trust in vaccines.
It’s harder than it used to be, says the department’s infectious disease director, Kris Ehresmann.
“You used to be able to get up and say, ‘I’m a scientist and X percent of people did Y, and everyone said, ‘Oh yes, OK, we need to change our behavior,'” she said. Now, she says, “It’s a different world.”
And in the case of the Somali-American community, where a large number of people are immigrants and refugees who are less assimilated, “It’s more of getting the community to own the issue and own the solutions.”
That means a lot more community outreach. In the past few years, the Department of Health has hired two Somali outreach workers. One visits mothers’ groups, day care centers and charter schools to talk about vaccines.
Another Somali worker talks to parents about autism and the resources available for special-needs children.
“The community does have very real concerns about autism,” Ehresmann said. “By saying, ‘Oh, vaccines don’t cause autism,’ that’s not sufficient.”
Some of the most important voices advocating for vaccines have been Somali doctors and other health professionals, and the imams from the hardest-hit areas, Ehresmann said.
“These folks are really stepping up to the plate and speaking out on the value of vaccines on their own. It is coming from within the community leadership. That is really important,” she said.
Taiwan’s already precarious relations with old rival China took another step back this week after the self-ruled island said Beijing blocked it from the annual World Health Organization assembly, a move that may prompt Taipei to rethink how they treat the other side.
Officials in Taipei said Tuesday the deadline had lapsed to receive an invitation to the May 22-31 World Health Assembly in Geneva. They blamed China for using its clout in the World Health Organization (WHO) to block the invitation.
“If the other side overlooks our appeals and grave reminders, that is sure to severely hurt people’s feelings and spark a backlash in Taiwan public opinion, even causing cross-Strait (China-Taiwan) relations to drift further,” said Chiu Chui-cheng, spokesman for the Taiwan government’s Mainland Affairs Council.
“We want to appeal once more to the other side not to offend Taiwan public opinion,” Chiu said. “The Beijing authorities should reflect deeply on avoidance of old-fashioned, hawkish policy mentalities and actions that could cause huge harm to a resumption of cross-Strait relations.”
Beijing sees self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory rather than a state entitled to membership in international organizations. The two sides have been separately ruled since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to Taiwan.
Taiwan is unlikely to retaliate in real terms over the WHO slight, but the flap brings a string of other China issues into sharper focus and may increase popular anger in Taiwan while prompting a new search for ways Taipei can work with Beijing without selling down local autonomy.
“Taiwan people will feel frustrated with the assertive response of China,” said Huang Kwei-bo, associate diplomacy professor at National Chengchi University in Taipei. “Beijing’s image will get worse.”
Over the past year, China sailed an aircraft carrier around Taiwan, scaled back Taiwan-bound tourism and, since March, has detained a Taiwanese activist without announcing any formal charges against him.
Under former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, Beijing let Taipei observe the World Health Assembly every year since 2009 as “Chinese Taipei,” implying a link to China.
A spokesman for the Communist government’s Taiwan Affairs Office said Monday Taiwan could not observe this year’s assembly, where the WHO sets policies and approves a budget, because current President Tsai Ing-wen has not endorsed the Beijing view that both sides belong to a single China – a term Ma accepted.
Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party takes a guarded view of relations with China. Some party members want Taiwan to declare formal independence from Beijing.
China’s actions “will definitely push Taiwan people further and further away and severely destroy peace and stability between the two sides,” Tsai’s party said in a statement Tuesday. “The authorities in Beijing must reflect and correctly see this negative outcome.”
Taiwanese see the world health assemblies as opportunities to learn from the 192 WHO member states and share their own experience in infectious disease control, and improve medical services in developing countries.
Taiwan has just 21 diplomatic allies compared to more than 170 that recognize Beijing, making it hard for Taiwan to gain access to international bodies.
“The only barrier is politics and to speak more specifically, it’s just China,” ruling party legislator Yeh Yi-chin said Monday. “But where we’d like to appeal and remind everyone is, does the whole world want to let China, one country, destroy the global medical safety net?”
Beijing periodically uses its diplomatic connections and clout as the world’s second largest economy to block Taiwan from joining the United Nations, of which the WHO is a special agency. Last year Taiwan was rejected from observing a session of the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization and from participating in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Those barriers would keep affecting how Taiwanese see Beijing. “We need to see what happens next time at the United Nations,” Huang said.
Some Taiwanese may pressure Tsai to find a way of negotiating with China that lets the other side open doors again internationally without making Taiwan give up autonomy. Some scholars expect Tsai to propose a new formula for China relations in the second half of 2017.
The U.S. State Department backed Taiwan’s cause of joining the World Health Assembly this year, saying it supports the island’s “meaningful participation” in international bodies that require statehood.
“The United States remains committed to supporting Taiwan as it seeks to expand its already significant contributions to addressing global challenges,” a spokesperson said this week. “We encourage authorities in Beijing and Taipei to engage in constructive dialogue, on the basis of dignity and respect.”
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Pressure is mounting on the U.S. administration to remain committed to the Paris agreement on climate change. European Union leaders, a former United Nations chief and former U.S. President Barack Obama have joined the chorus of voices emphasizing the need for action to reduce greenhouse emissions worldwide. On Tuesday, the White House announced that President Trump is postponing his decision regarding the climate treaty for the second time. Zlatica Hoke has more.
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It was more of a leg buster, but scientists have named a spiky, tank-like dinosaur that wielded a sledge-hammer tail after the fanciful beast Zuul from the blockbuster film Ghostbusters that menaced Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and friends.
The scientists on Tuesday described fossils unearthed in the northern Montana badlands of the four-legged, plant-eating dinosaur called Zuul crurivastator that was about 20 feet (6 meters) long, weighed 2-1/2 tons and lived 75 million years ago.
Zuul belonged to a group of Cretaceous Period dinosaurs called ankylosaurs that were among the most heavily armored land animals ever. They were clad in bony armor from the snout to the end of the tail, often with spikes and a tail club that could be used to smash the legs of predators like the Tyrannosaurus rex cousin Gorgosaurus that lived alongside Zuul.
Zuul is one of the most complete and best-preserved ankylosaur ever found, including rare soft tissue, paleontologist Victoria Arbour of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto said. Its fossils included skin impressions and keratinous sheaths on the tail spikes.
In the 1984 movie, Zuul (pronounced ZOOL) was described as an ancient Near East demigod and appeared as a big, horned, vaguely dog-like monster with glowing red eyes, possessing actress Sigourney Weaver’s body.
The dinosaur’s name was inspired by its skull similarities to the head of the Ghostbusters monster, Royal Ontario Museum paleontologist David Evans said.
“The skull of the new dinosaur has a short, rounded snout, gnarly forehead, and two sets of horns projecting backward from behind the eyes, just like Zuul,” Evans said.
Aykroyd, the Ontario-born Ghostbusters star and co-writer, appeared in a video released by the museum alongside the dinosaur’s skull, holding a photo of the movie beast.
“We’re so honored that the Royal Ontario Museum would accord the name of this magnificent creature with the appellation that we called our ‘terror dog’ in the movie, and that is Zuul, Z-U-U-L,” Aykroyd said.
The dinosaur’s tail, about 10 feet (3 meters) long, was an intimidating defensive weapon.
“The menacing, spiked tail of Zuul is by far the coolest part of the animal,” Evans said. “It has a wicked series of large spikes at the base of the tail, then a series of elongated, peaked spines that run the length of the tail club, and it ends in a massive, expanded club.”
The research was published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
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Diego Rosales was so terrified during his dental appointments when he was 4 that he kept biting his dentist.
Today, the 9-year-old is far calmer, soothed by the presence of Zucca, a black Labrador that helps autistic children like him face one of their worst fears.
A visit to the dentist can be daunting for any child, but it’s especially so for many with autism. They can be upset by the lights in their faces or frightened by the noises of the instruments. Some have to be sedated.
Therapy dogs have been used in many countries to calm autistic children and aid people with numerous other conditions. Raul Varela began the practice in Chile after noticing that his autistic child’s social interactions improved after spending time with the family’s black Labrador.
Varela quit his job and got certified by Spain-based Bocalan as a therapy dog trainer for children with autism.
He started a nonprofit organization called Junto a Ti (“Next to You”) that specializes in visits to the dentist for autistic children. It uses six dogs, all female, because the organizers say they are more docile. And the dogs get specialized training.
“Zucca had already been trained to be around children with autism, but taking her to the dentist was different,” Varela said. “She needed to be able to resist the screaming, the noise from the drill and to stay still in the lap of the children, even when they pull their hair or their ears.”
So far, the dogs have aided about 50 children visiting a single university-run dental clinic on the southern edge of Chile’s capital. The clinic pays the equivalent of $67 for a session with a dog, though its charge for a child’s visit varies, depending on the family’s economic level.
On a recent day, Diego sat in the dentist’s chair with Zucca on his lap. There was no biting and no screaming this time. Instead, Diego continued to pet Zucca long after the dentist had plucked out one of his teeth, and he smiled when he got to take the tooth home inside a tiny box for the tooth fairy.
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Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is an increasing threat, according to investigators with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In a study that focused on Russia, India, South Africa and the Philippines — four countries with a so-called “high burden” of multidrug-resistant TB — researchers estimated that within the next 25 years, the proportion of TB cases that don’t respond to one or more antibiotics will increase significantly in those areas.
Russia leads the pack, researchers reported. Their mathematical model predicts that one-third of TB cases in Russia will be multidrug or extensively-drug resistant by 2040.
India is next, with more than 12.4 percent of the cases expected to be resistant to treatment, followed by almost 9 percent in the Philippines and 5.7 percent of cases in South Africa.
These four nations accounted for more than 230,000 new cases of difficult-to-treat tuberculosis in 2015 — nearly 40 percent of drug-resistant cases worldwide, according to the CDC investigators.
The latest findings were published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
Peter Cegielski, team leader for Prevention, Care and Treatment of Tuberculosis at the CDC’s Global Tuberculosis Branch, said infected individuals can develop drug-resistant strains by not taking their medications properly. This is known as acquired TB. However, Cegielski said the primary driver now is person-to-person transmission, with drug-resistant bacteria spreading through the air.
“The TB germs, if you cough or sneeze, the TB germs can remain suspended in the air for hours, so anybody else in the vicinity can inhale one and become infected,” he said.
Cegielski said airborne transmission of TB is not regularly targeted as part of prevention efforts, but it should be. He said tuberculosis was brought under control in the West in large part by infected people covering their nose and mouth when they sneezed or coughed.
In addition to encouraging people to follow that example, Cegielski said public health officials need to step up containment efforts to keep drug-resistant cases of TB from getting out of control.
“So that means expanding the diagnostic capabilities of laboratories in low- and middle-income countries; expanding access to rapid diagnosis and effective treatment to make sure that everybody who has TB is treated properly in the first place,” he said.
Worldwide, there are 10.4 million new cases of TB each year, resulting in nearly 2 million deaths. The bacteria, says Cegielski, kills more people than any other germ on the planet.
Cegielski warns that drug-resistant TB is going to become increasingly more common, resulting in many more deaths, unless more money is spent on prevention and treatment efforts.
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Venezuela’s infant mortality rose 30 percent last year, maternal mortality shot up 65 percent and cases of malaria jumped 76 percent, according to government data, sharp increases reflecting how the country’s deep economic crisis has hammered at citizens’ health.
The statistics, issued on the ministry’s website after nearly two years of data silence from President Nicolas Maduro’s leftist government, also showed a jump in illnesses such as diphtheria and Zika. It was not immediately clear when the ministry posted the data, although local media reported on the statistics on Tuesday.
Recession and currency controls in the oil-exporting South American nation have slashed both local production and imports of foreign goods, and Venezuelans are facing shortages of everything from rice to vaccines. The opposition has organized weeks of protests against Maduro, accusing him of dictatorial rule and calling for elections.
In the health sector, doctors have emigrated in droves, pharmacy shelves are empty, and patients have to settle for second-rate treatment or none at all. A leading pharmaceutical association has said roughly 85 percent of medicines are running short.
The Health Ministry had stopped releasing figures after July 2015, amid a wider data blackout.
Its statistics for 2016 showed infant mortality, or death of children aged 0-1, climbed 30.12 percent to 11,466 cases last year. The report cited neonatal sepsis, pneumonia, respiratory distress syndrome, and prematurity as the main causes.
Hospitals often lack basic equipment like incubators, and pregnant women are struggling to eat well, including taking folic acid, factors that can affect a baby’s health.
Maternal mortality, or death while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of a pregnancy, was also up, rising 65.79 percent to 756 deaths, the report said.
The Health Ministry did not respond to a request for further information. Maduro’s government says a coup-mongering elite is hoarding medicines to stoke unrest.
Infections, viruses
Diphtheria, a bacterial infection that is fatal in 5 to 10 percent of cases and that Venezuela had controlled in the 1990s, affected 324 people, the data showed — up from no cases the previous year.
Diphtheria was once a major global cause of child death but is now increasingly rare; its return showed how vulnerable the country is to health risks.
Reuters documented the case of a 9-year-old girl, Eliannys Vivas, who died of diphtheria earlier this year after being misdiagnosed with asthma, in part because there were no instruments to examine her throat, and shuttled around several run-down hospitals.
There were also 240,613 cases of malaria last year, up 76.4 percent compared with 2015, with most cases of the mosquito-borne disease reported in the rough-and-tumble Bolivar state.
Cases of Zika rose to 59,348 from 71 in 2015, reflecting the spread of the mosquito-borne virus around Latin America last year. There was no data for likely Zika-linked microcephaly, where babies are born with small heads, although doctors say there have been at least several dozen cases.
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Screening for thyroid cancer is no longer recommended for adults with no symptoms, a U.S. health task force says.
In a news release, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force said physicians should not screen for the disease in adults who have “no signs or symptoms.”
Thyroid cancer, which grows on the thyroid, is relatively rare in the U.S., the Task Force said, adding there likely would be 56,300 new cases in 2017 or 3.8 percent of all cancers.
The thyroid is a gland found in the neck and it produces hormones governing metabolism.
The Task Force said there was no evidence that screening boosts survival and can lead to over diagnosis and other potential complications.
“While there is very little evidence of the benefits of screening for thyroid cancer, there is considerable evidence of the serious harms of treatment, such as damage to the nerves that control speaking and breathing,” said Task Force member Karina W. Davison, Ph.D., M.A.Sc. “What limited evidence is available does not suggest that screening enables people to live longer, healthier lives.”
Over diagnosis, the Task Force said, “leads to an increase in new diagnoses of thyroid cancer without affecting the number of people who die from thyroid cancer.”
“Over diagnosis occurs because screening for thyroid cancer often identifies small or slow growing tumors that might never affect a person during their lifetime,” said Task Force member Seth Landefeld, M.D. “People who are treated for these small tumors are exposed to serious risks from surgery or radiation, but do not receive any real benefit.”
The Task Force’s recommendation does not include people who’ve been exposed to radiation in the head or neck area, which can lead to a higher risk of developing thyroid cancer.
The Task Force’s recommendation was published in JAMA.
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The use of medical marijuana is legal in the U.S. state of Georgia. But like many other states, it is illegal to grow, import or sell it. So how are patients who qualify to use it supposed to get it? Well, a coalition of families and one lawmaker is working to get the drug to those who need it. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Rampant poaching across Africa has pushed species of elephants, rhinos and other treasured wildlife to the edge of extinction. However, there is a mostly untapped resource that can help crack down on these crimes: the Wildlife Whistleblower Program.
The program, an initiative of the National Whistleblower Center in Washington, allows witnesses to report wildlife crimes online, anonymously if they so choose. Reportable crimes include illegal poaching and trafficking, destruction of rainforests, and the improper netting of dolphins.
The international program provides confidentiality and monetary rewards to those who report such crimes if a case is successfully prosecuted.
The Washington-based Whistleblower Center describes itself as a legal advocacy organization that protects “the right of individuals to report wrongdoing without fear of retaliation.”
Chief operating officer Ashley Binetti says the wildlife program was created after the executive director realized U.S. wildlife laws that include rewards have not been fully implemented.
She thinks that will change as people with knowledge of such crimes realize that their identities will be kept confidential.
“[It’s] now a two-fold endeavor,” she said. “One aspect is educating potential whistleblowers about this opportunity and the other side is creating a safe online reporting platform whereby individuals with information can come forward with that, report it, and then be connected to attorneys who will help them transmit that information to appropriate law enforcement.”
“It’s not like you’re reporting to a tip line where you don’t know that your information is going to remain confidential,” Binetti said.
She says another element of the anti-poaching project is the potential for monetary rewards.
“Whistleblower rewards have been incredibly successful and there is all the reason to believe that that model can be replicated in terms of energizing wildlife whistleblowers and reversing the extinction crisis,” she said.
Link to US
Binetti says anyone with knowledge of a wildlife crime can contact the center and be eligible for an award, with one caveat.
“The crime can occur anywhere, but it does have to have a tie to the U.S. But under these laws, that can be quite broad,” she explained. “For example, with the Lacey and Endangered Species acts, if a [wildlife product] is destined for the United States or is leaving the U.S. or a U.S. person is involved, there is potential liability there.”.
Another law that can be applied to wildlife crime is the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which criminalizes bribery that would allow illicit goods onto ships and planes.
“So whereas you have the wildlife crime laws that haven’t been fully implemented in terms of the whistleblowing provisions, you have the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that is a really great route to start, [though] we haven’t seen it used in this context as best that it can be,” Binetti said.
To report a wildlife crime, witnesses should visit the National Whistleblower Center website at: wildlifewhistleblower.org\submit-a-report.
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India launched a “South Asia” satellite on Friday to provide communication services to neighboring countries in a new initiative hailed by leaders of seven South Asian countries as a boost to regional cooperation.
The “space diplomacy” by India, which has an advanced space program, aims at building stronger ties in the region where China has been gaining influence. But underlining the tensions between the two most populous countries in the region, India’s arch-rival, Pakistan has opted out of the project.
Soon after the launch of the $70-million satellite, which is funded by New Delhi, the leaders of the seven countries participating in the project — India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Afghanistan and the Maldives, addressed a video conference that was nationally televised.
Calling it the “first of its kind” project, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the satellite would help meet the aspirations of economic progress of one-and-a-half-billion people in the region.
“It shows that our collective choices for our citizens will bring us together for cooperation, not conflict, development, not destruction, and prosperity, not poverty, he said.”
Pointing out that South Asia was the world’s least economically integrated region, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said “South Asia has taken a giant step today toward regional cooperation.”
The leader of the landlocked country, which does not have road access to India, said if cooperation through land is not possible, it is certainly possible through the sky. “We are confident we will integrate,” he said.
Weighing 2,230 kilograms and containing 12 communication transponders, the satellite was put in orbit by a rocket in Sriharikota in eastern Andhra Pradesh state. It will help provide services such as telecommunications, telemedicine, disaster management and weather forecasting.
In a region prone to natural disasters like cyclones, floods and earthquakes, the satellite’s greatest benefit is expected to be in the area of disaster management.
The biggest beneficiaries will be the two smallest countries — Bhutan and Maldives.
Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay noted that his tiny Himalayan country, which measures the happiness quotient of its citizens as an indicator of progress, had neither the technical know-how nor the resources to launch their own satellite. He said the satellite will “advance the well being and happiness of our people” as it helps boost an array of services.
Pointing out that India wants to use its space program to further its regional goals, Sukh Deo Muni, a South Asia expert at New Delhi’s Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses said “India wants to take the lead in integrating the region, and probably join hands on the developmental issues, cooperating with each other.”
After taking office in 2014, Prime Minister Modi launched what he called a “neighborhood first” approach, partly to counter China, which has expanded its influence in South Asia and pumped in billions of dollars to build infrastructure projects in countries like Sri Lanka.
Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan at the Observer Research Foundation Others said that for the first time, Modi is giving a strategic dimension to the country’s space program.
“India is possibly beginning to appreciate the importance of space launches as part of foreign policy tool and diplomatic engagement, something that China has been doing for a long time,” he said.
Foreign policy experts say Pakistan’s decision to opt out of the project is not surprising given the deep political hostilities and suspicions between the two countries.
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Rob Dunn is trying to prevent squash heart attacks.
Carried by the spotted cucumber beetle, a bacterial disease is giving squash, pumpkins, cucumbers and melons the botanical equivalent of clogged arteries. Wilting leaves are the first sign as the bacteria multiply in the plant’s circulatory system. The disease can nearly wipe out a farmer’s field.
“It’s a bad way to die,” Dunn said. “All your veins have been filled up with some bacteria.”
Dunn, an ecologist at North Carolina State University, said the way we farm today makes it easy for this and other plant plagues to spread.
Modern farms raise just a few crops over wide areas. While they feed more people more affordably than ever, there are risks in this way of feeding the world.
For a hungry pathogen, a giant monoculture is “the holy land, right? It’s unbelievable. You can eat from one end to the other,” Dunn said.
‘A story we repeat again and again’
The Irish potato famine of the 1840s is the worst-case scenario. About a million people died when a fungus wiped out the one crop on which most of the population subsisted.
That kind of catastrophe is rare. But Dunn says devastating disease outbreaks are an inevitable byproduct of modern agriculture.
“This is a story we repeat again and again,” he said.
Dunn tells several of those stories in his new book, Never Out of Season.
One example: Henry Ford’s rubber plantations. The auto pioneer planted millions of rubber trees on land carved out of the Brazilian Amazon in the 1930s. But pests and disease ravaged them again and again. Ford gave up in 1945. Fordlandia, as the first plantation was known, is now an abandoned ruin.
Then there’s the fungus that nearly wiped out cocoa production in Brazil, a suspected bioterrorist attack that wrecked the economy and transformed the ecosystem; and the cassava mealybug that threatened Africa in the 1980s.
Prepare now
Still, Dunn says he doesn’t expect agriculture to change anytime soon.
“People like cheap food,” he said. “We feed more people than we ever have.”
But, he added, we should be doing much more to prepare for the next inevitable plague.
That means collecting and preserving as many crop varieties as possible, plus their wild relatives. In addition, we need to know much more about the complex microbial ecosystem living in, on and around our crops.
“If there’s a fungus on which the roots of squash depend, we don’t know it. If there’s a fungus that grows inside the squash plant that helps it defend itself, we don’t know it. If there’s a parasite that attacks the beetle that carries the bacteria, probably nobody’s studying it,” Dunn said. “And that’s true for most of our crops.”
The Great Pumpkin Project
Dunn is working to fill in some of those gaps.
And he wants the public to help.
Scientists don’t know how far squash heart attack disease has spread, and they don’t know where the beetles that carry the disease are from year to year. So, scientists want anyone growing squash — or pumpkins, melons, cucumbers or any of the other members of the family — to watch out for them.
The Great Pumpkin Project at the citizen-science site iNaturalist.org is looking for pictures of attacking insects and sick plants.
Dunn hopes to collect millions of images from around the world, which would help scientists get a better sense of “which of these beetles is living in which places and eating what.”
And, hopefully, stay one step ahead of the next plant plague.
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Cities are places where action on climate change can have most impact because they are engines for innovation and also highly vulnerable to a warming planet, the head of the U.N. climate program said on Thursday.
More than 140 countries have ratified the Paris agreement on climate change and they are looking for leadership from cities to help them implement commitments their national governments made, Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said.
“As each country looks to meet their emissions reduction, energy efficiency or renewable energy goals, they will look to cities as places where transformational change can make the most difference,” Espinosa told a conference on urban resilience in Bonn.
She said cities have a big responsibility in tackling climate change not only because they are large contributors to environmentally harmful greenhouse gas emissions but they also have potential to deliver prosperity and economic opportunity.
“Climate action in cities is the key that unlocks a low emissions and resilient future,” she said.
Climate change risks will become even more pressing as around two-thirds of people are predicted to live in cities by 2050, with developing countries in particular poised to see their urban populations soar.
“Cities should welcome a transformation to sustainable development because cities are uniquely vulnerable,” said Espinosa.
Local action and educating citizens about climate change will be key drivers in reaching the goal agreed under the Paris deal — in effect since last year — to keep global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, she said.
“It is on the ground in the real world where everything comes together,” Espinosa said.
She cited data that shows more than two thirds of the world’s largest cities are in coastal regions, making their citizens vulnerable to sea level rises, flooding and other extreme weather.
“The risk to cities from climate impacts carries great social and economic cost, and of course, the loss of human lives,” said Espinosa.
“The ability of communities to meet their most basic needs — food, water, energy, sanitation — is threatened by climate change.”
These risks will not only affect cities in the developing world, she stressed, citing the impact of Hurricane Sandy in New York and the fact that flooding in Europe has more than doubled in the past 35 years.
The call of the wild is getting harder to hear.
Peaceful, natural sounds — bird songs, rushing rivers and rustling grass — are sometimes being drowned out by noise from people in many of America’s protected parks and wilderness areas, a new study finds.
Scientists measured sound levels at 492 places — from city parks to remote federal wilderness. They calculated that in nearly two-thirds of the Lower 48’s parks, the noise can at times be twice the natural background level because of airplanes, cars, logging, mining and oil and gas drilling.
That increase can harm wildlife, making it harder for them to find food or mates, and make it harder for people to hear those natural sounds, the researchers said. Colorado State University biologist George Wittemyer said people hear only half the sounds that they would in natural silence.
“They’re being drowned out,” said Wittemyer, a co-author of the research.
In about 1 in five public lands, there’s a tenfold increase in noise pollution, according to the study in Thursday’s journal Science .
“It’s something that’s sort of happening slowly,” Wittemyer said.
Sounds are crucial
Except for city parks, though, the researchers are not talking about sound levels that people would consider unusually loud. Even the tenfold increases they write about are often the equivalent of changing from the quiet of a rural area to a still pretty silent library.
But that difference masks a lot of sounds that are crucial, especially to birds seeking mates and animals trying to hunt or avoid being hunted, Wittemyer said. And it does make a difference for peace of mind for people, he said.
“Being able to hear the birds, the waterfalls, the animals running through the grasslands … the wind going through the grass,” Wittemyer said. “Those are really valuable and important sounds for humans to hear and help in their rejuvenation and their self-reflection.”
No escaping the noise
For study lead author Rachel Buxton, a Colorado State conservation biology researcher, it can be personal. She points to a Thanksgiving weekend hike last year with her husband in the La Garita Wilderness in southern Colorado.
“We went to escape the crowds. We went to be totally isolated and have a real wilderness experience,” Buxton recalled. “As we’re hiking, aircraft goes overhead. You’re walking along and you can hear the jet coming for ages.”
The research team, which includes a special unit of the National Park Service, not only measured sounds across the U.S., but they also used elaborate computer programs and artificial learning systems to determine what sounds were natural and which were made by people.
‘Study makes perfect sense’
“The study makes perfect sense to me,” George Mason University biology professor David Luther, who wasn’t part of the research. He said in an email that he’s noticed more noise at many sites throughout the U.S.
“Olympic National Park is currently suffering high amounts of noise pollution from military flight trainings low over the park and visitors have been complaining loudly about the diminished wilderness experience,” he wrote.
But there are still some places where you can get away from it all, Buxton said, highlighting Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado.
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Researchers from Harvard University, Princeton University and the Environmental Defense Fund proposed a new, more precise way to measure the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on Earth’s climate in an article published on Thursday in the academic journal Science.
The proposal would create a two-digit measurement system the scientists likened to blood pressure readings in medicine, which show the pressure on blood vessels both during heartbeats and in between them. It would help scientists and policymakers account for the fact that some greenhouse gases last longer than others in the atmosphere.
“Different gases have widely different lifetimes in the atmosphere after emission and affect the climate in different ways over widely different time scales,” said co-author Michael Oppenheimer, a geosciences professor at Princeton.
The system would show the effects of greenhouse emissions on a 20-year scale and a 100-year scale. Having a measurement that shows both numbers, the scientists argued, would let governments and other institutions trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow global warming decide which policies would be best in the short term and which should be adopted over the long term.
Opposing groups’ methods
It would also help in disputes between opposing advocacy groups. For example, according to the researchers, advocates for using natural gas as an energy source base their arguments on a 100-year timescale. But their opponents, activists lobbying against natural gas, use a 20-year time scale to show the effects of burning natural gas on the climate.
An overwhelming majority of scientists believe emissions of gas like carbon dioxide, which is produced from burning fossil fuels, are contributing to global climate change, triggering sea level increases, droughts and more frequent violent storms.
For the two-value proposal to be successful, the scientists argued, it would have to be widely adopted, not only by individual government agencies like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but also by international bodies like the United Nations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change.
Science is a weekly, peer-reviewed journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Pill Could Help People Who Can’t Exercise
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NASA has released stunning video taken by the Cassini space probe as it took the first of its “grand finale” dives between Saturn and its rings.
The images were taken April 26 as Cassini made a southerly pass over Saturn. It captures the vortex on the planet’s north pole and continues to the hexagonal jet stream.
“I was surprised to see so many sharp edges along the hexagon’s outer boundary and the eye-wall of the polar vortex,” said Kunio Sayanagi, an associate of the Cassini imaging team based at Hampton University in Virginia, who helped produce the new movie. “Something must be keeping different latitudes from mixing to maintain those edges,” he said.
During the plunge, Cassini dropped from 72,400 kilometers to 6,700 kilometers above the clouds.
The Cassini probe was launched in 1997 and arrived at Saturn in 2004. Some mission highlights include the possible discovery of an ocean and hydrothermal activity on the moon Enceladus as well as liquid methane seas on Titan, another icy Saturn moon.
Its mission is scheduled to end in September as the probe dives into Saturn’s thick atmosphere where it will burn up.
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President Donald Trump’s pick to marshal the government’s response to the opioid epidemic and assist people with mental illness doesn’t quite fit the mold of some of his other nominees.
Psychiatrist Elinore McCance-Katz isn’t an outsider bent on disrupting the system.
Instead, she’s an academic expert on addiction with extensive state government and federal experience, and a reputation for relying on science. She spent time at the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the agency she has been nominated to lead.
The strongest opposition to her nomination isn’t coming from Democrats and advocacy groups, but from a Republican who says she’s been part of the problem.
Helped draft action plan
McCance-Katz, 60, now serves as chief medical officer for the Rhode Island agency responsible for substance abuse and mental health services. She was on a task force that produced a nationally recognized opioid action plan for the state.
After a stint at SAMHSA during the Obama administration, McCance-Katz penned an article last year strongly critical of the federal agency, alleging “hostility toward psychiatric medicine” and failure to address the treatment needs of mentally ill people.
That may have caught the eye of the White House, along with a post-election piece that cast Trump’s victory as positive change for people with mental illness. Now the president wants to send McCance-Katz back to SAMHSA.
Coordinating 112 programs
Congress recently elevated the job of agency director to a new position with the higher rank of assistant health secretary, requiring Senate confirmation. Lawmakers want an executive to instill coherence and coordination among 112 federal programs for people with serious mental illness. Up to now, the main purpose of the roughly $4-billion agency has been to distribute grants.
Advocates for people dealing with mental illness and substance abuse see an opening. They were heartened that the White House invited advocacy groups to meet as officials were sifting candidates for SAMHSA.
“The early signs that we are seeing are that the importance of mental health is recognized,” said Ron Honberg, a senior policy adviser with the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which is supporting McCance-Katz. “The administration has come out very strongly on the opioid issue.” The budget deal increased federal spending.
On Capitol Hill
In the Senate, the nomination of McCance-Katz goes to the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a committee member active on mental health issues, called her a “qualified and experienced leader who will make mental health reform a reality.”
But in the House, Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., says he was “stunned.” The congressman earlier had led an investigation of SAMHSA that revealed poor coordination of mental health programs and gaps in the oversight of grants. Although McCance-Katz criticized the agency after she left, Murphy says she failed to say anything while she was there, serving as chief medical officer.
Advocates say the problems Murphy highlighted have been addressed, and McCance-Katz would find the agency in better shape than she left it.
Within the mental health community, there’s a longstanding tension between those who favor medical treatment for problems like addiction, and those who favor “peer support.” The latter involves approaches similar to Alcoholics Anonymous, while the treatment usually involves medication. McCance-Katz is seen as firmly in the treatment camp.
The Rhode Island plan McCance-Katz helped develop starts with steps to curtail prescriptions of highly addictive drugs, promotes the antidote naloxone as the standard of care for overdose rescue, provides medication-based treatment for criminal justice inmates, and expands peer support services.
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Modern agriculture is feeding more people more cheaply than ever, with large-scale farms that grow just one or a few crops. But there are risks in this way of feeding the world. A new book explores how large-scale agriculture invites large-scale attacks of pests and diseases. VOA’s Steve Baragona met the author, who is enlisting the public to try to stay ahead of the next crop plague.
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An unusual machine working in Baltimore, with more than 20,000 followers on Facebook and Twitter, has just celebrated its third birthday. Imaginatively named “Mr. Trash Wheel,” this hybrid-powered contraption is responsible for preventing the city’s trash from reaching its inner harbor. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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