Scientists studying the effects of the potentially game-changing gene-editing tool CRISPR/Cas9 have found it can cause unexpected genetic damage which could lead to dangerous changes in some cells.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology on Monday, have safety implications for gene therapies that are being developed using CRISPR/Cas9 — a type of molecular scissor technology that can be used to edit DNA.

They also add to findings published last month which suggested the CRISPR gene-editing tool may inadvertently increase cancer risk in some cells.

“We found that changes in the DNA have been seriously underestimated before now,” said Allan Bradley, a professor at Britain’s Wellcome Sanger Institute who co-led the research published on Monday.

Shares of gene-editing companies CRISPR Therapeutics AG, Editas Medicine, Sangamo Therapeutics and Intellia Therapeuticsc fell sharply Monday.

“We do not use the methods described in this Nature Biotech paper … nevertheless, in our work, we do not see similar findings,” CRISPR Therapeutics said.

“Intellia does not believe that these findings significantly impact the path forward for CRISPR-based therapeutics,” it said in a statement.

Editas said the company was “not specifically concerned” about the latest findings.

Sangamo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CRISPR/Cas9, one of the newest genome-editing tools, can alter sections of DNA in cells by cutting at specific points and introducing changes at that location and is seen by many as a promising way to create treatments for diseases such as HIV or cancer.

Experts say treatments like these could inactivate a disease-causing gene, or correct a genetic mutation, but much more research is still needed to ensure techniques are safe.

Bradley’s team carried out a full systematic study in both mouse and human cells and discovered that CRISPR/Cas9 frequently caused extensive mutations including large genetic rearrangements such as DNA deletions and insertions.

These could lead to important genes being switched on or off — as intended by the therapies — but could also have major unexpected implications, the scientists said.

They warned that some the changes seen in this study were too far away from the target site to be picked up with standard analysis and testing methods.

Commenting on the findings, Robin Lovell-Badge, a stem cell expert at Britain’s Francis Crick Institute, said the work highlighted the need for very careful work when using to genome editing “to verify that the alterations to the DNA sequence are those, and only those, that had been designed to occur.”

“But the results give no reason to panic or to lose faith in the methods when they are carried out by those who know what they are doing,” he added.
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Supplying clean water and toilets for all could take hundreds of years in countries like Eritrea and Namibia unless governments step up funding to tackle the problem and its harmful effects on health, an international development agency warned on Monday.

WaterAid – which says nearly 850 million people lack clean water — predicted the world will miss a global goal to provide drinking water and adequate sanitation for everyone by 2030. 

Meeting it will cost $28 billion per year, the nonprofit said.

“Water, sanitation and hygiene is a global crisis,” said Savio Carvalho, WaterAid’s global advocacy director.

“We’re really calling for governments to pull up their socks,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from the United Nations in New York.

From July 9-18, governments are reviewing progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, which were agreed at the United Nations in 2015, with a focus on six of the 17.

Last week, U.N. officials said barriers to achieving the 2030 water and sanitation targets range from conflict and water pollution to climate change, urging more efficient water use.

By the 2030 deadline, “a significant number of people” in 80 countries are unlikely to have access to clean water, while poor sanitation is expected to persist in more than 100 nations, WaterAid said.

Drawing on U.N. data, the UK-based group calculated some countries will need hundreds of years to provide safe drinking water and toilets for all their people, meaning countries collectively are thousands of years off track.

At current rates, Namibians would have to wait until 2246 for everyone to have clean water, while all Eritreans would not get it until 2507 and Nicaraguans not until 2180, WaterAid said. It could be 500 years before every Romanian has access to a toilet, and 450 years for Ghanaians, it added.

Governments should fund water and sanitation provision from their own budgets, and work with utilities and private companies to reach people in isolated areas, said Carvalho.

“There’s money around – it’s just not allocated in the right way,” he said, urging international donors to increase spending on water and sanitation.

Other global goals to ensure healthy lives, reduce inequality and end poverty will be jeopardized until access to water and sanitation is prioritized, noted Carvalho.

WaterAid quoted World Bank data showing the knock-on effects of inadequate sanitation — which causes child deaths from poor hygiene and preventable disease – cost $220 billion in 2015.

Some countries, including Rwanda and India, have made substantial headway towards the water and sanitation goal, but sustaining progress remains a challenge, said Carvalho.

“For the nations collectively to be thousands of years off track in meeting these human rights is shocking,” WaterAid Chief Executive Tim Wainwright said in a statement. 
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Mosquitos are one of the deadliest creatures on Earth. In a town in northern Australia, more than 80 percent of the mosquitoes that spread dengue fever have been wiped out in a pioneering tropical trial. Scientists say the results could help global efforts to eradicate the dangerous pest.

In the trial, millions of male Aedes aegypti, or yellow fever mosquitoes, were bred in a laboratory and infected with a naturally occurring bacteria that made them sterile.

They were then released near the small farming town of Innisfail in Queensland, 1,600 kilometers (995 miles) north of Brisbane.

Over three months they mated with females who laid eggs that did not hatch, causing the population to fall by about 80 percent. The type of mosquito used in the trial is responsible for infecting hundreds of millions of people around the world with diseases such as dengue, Zika and yellow fever.

The project was run by researchers from Australia’s national science body, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO, in a trial that received funding from Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

Dr. Rob Grenfell, the director of Health and Biosecurity at the CSIRO says the results are a major breakthrough.

“Now this is momentous in the sense that we have achieved a significant decrease in populations of mosquitoes in our test area here in northern Queensland,” he said. “But also to commemorate the incredible community that actually backed our science here, not only did they open their hearts and minds but also their homes to allow our scientists to come in and trap and test our mosquito-controlling technologies.”

Australian researchers want to test the technology overseas in an area with high levels of dengue. They believe it could be a valuable weapon against a public health menace.

The World Health Organization estimates that almost 4 billion people in 128 countries are at risk of contracting dengue. The disease is transmitted through the bite of an infected female mosquito. The WHO says that the global incidence of dengue has increased 30 times in the last 30 years.
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Mosquitos are one of the deadliest creatures on Earth. In a town in northern Australia, more than 80 percent of the mosquitoes that spread dengue fever have been wiped out in a pioneering tropical trial. Scientists say the results could help global efforts to eradicate the dangerous pest.

In the trial, millions of male Aedes aegypti, or yellow fever mosquitoes, were bred in a laboratory and infected with a naturally occurring bacteria that made them sterile.

They were then released near the small farming town of Innisfail in Queensland, 1,600 kilometers (995 miles) north of Brisbane.

Over three months they mated with females who laid eggs that did not hatch, causing the population to fall by about 80 percent. The type of mosquito used in the trial is responsible for infecting hundreds of millions of people around the world with diseases such as dengue, Zika and yellow fever.

The project was run by researchers from Australia’s national science body, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO, in a trial that received funding from Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

Dr. Rob Grenfell, the director of Health and Biosecurity at the CSIRO says the results are a major breakthrough.

“Now this is momentous in the sense that we have achieved a significant decrease in populations of mosquitoes in our test area here in northern Queensland,” he said. “But also to commemorate the incredible community that actually backed our science here, not only did they open their hearts and minds but also their homes to allow our scientists to come in and trap and test our mosquito-controlling technologies.”

Australian researchers want to test the technology overseas in an area with high levels of dengue. They believe it could be a valuable weapon against a public health menace.

The World Health Organization estimates that almost 4 billion people in 128 countries are at risk of contracting dengue. The disease is transmitted through the bite of an infected female mosquito. The WHO says that the global incidence of dengue has increased 30 times in the last 30 years.
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Fat dogs may have more in common with obese humans than we think. Hungarian researchers have discovered that overweight dogs were interested only in top quality food and would not settle for second best. The study suggests that dogs could be used as models into the causes and psychological impact of human obesity. VOA’s Deborah Block has a report.
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Robots can do a lot of things people can do… but can they replace doctors? A London-based artificial intelligence company says its AI robot doctors can diagnose patients just as well as a human clinician. But some general practitioners say the service can never replicate the level of care given by human doctors. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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The World Health Organization is calling for access to more than 210,000 people in urgent need of medical assistance in southern Syria, the scene of recent intense fighting between Russian-backed Syrian Government forces and opposition armed groups. 

United Nations and other aid agencies are able to provide medical and other assistance to people in Government-controlled areas in southern Syria.  But, parts of rebel-held northwest Daraa and Quneitra Governorates are inaccessible to them, raising concerns for the health of more than 200,000 people displaced by the fighting.

The World Health Organization is calling for unimpeded and immediate access to these areas,” said Jasarevic. “WHO spokesman, Tarik Jasarevic says many lives are at stake.  He says health workers must be allowed to reach those in urgent need of help and the safe delivery of essential medicines and medical items must be guaranteed.  

“The majority of people displaced are exposed to soaring summer temperatures of up to 45 degrees Celsius and dusty desert winds, with limited access to clean drinking water, sanitation services, and adequate health care.  In the past week, at least 15 Syrians—12 children, two women, and one elderly man—have died due to dehydration, and diseases transmitted through contaminated water.”

WHO reports nearly 75 percent of all public hospitals and health centers in Daraa and Quneitra are closed or only partially functioning.  As a consequence, it says many injured people, including hundreds of children, as well as pregnant women in need of emergency obstetric services are unable to receive vital medical care.

 
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Eight critically endangered black rhinos are dead in Kenya following an attempt to move them from the capital to a national park hundreds of kilometers away, the government said Friday, calling the toll “unprecedented” in more than a decade of such transfers.

Preliminary investigations point to salt poisoning as the rhinos tried to adapt to saltier water in their new home, the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife said in a statement. It suspended the ongoing move of other rhinos and said the surviving ones were being closely monitored.

Losing the rhinos is “a complete disaster,” said prominent Kenyan conservationist Paula Kahumbu of WildlifeDirect.

Conservationists in Africa have been working hard to protect the black rhino sub-species from poachers targeting them for their horns to supply an illegal Asian market. 

In moving a group of 11 rhinos to the newly created Tsavo East National Park from Nairobi last month, the Kenya Wildlife Service said it hoped to boost the population there. The government agency has not said how the rhinos died. Fourteen of the animals were to be moved in all.

“Disciplinary action will definitely be taken” if an investigation into the deaths indicates negligence by agency staff, the wildlife ministry said.

“Moving rhinos is complicated, akin to moving gold bullion, it requires extremely careful planning and security due to the value of these rare animals,” Kahumbu said in a statement. “Rhino translocations also have major welfare considerations and I dread to think of the suffering that these poor animals endured before they died.”

Transporting wildlife is a strategy used by conservationists to help build up, or even bring back, animal populations. In May, six black rhinos were moved from South Africa to Chad, restoring the species to the country in north-central Africa nearly half a century after it was wiped out there.

Kenya transported 149 rhinos between 2005 and 2017 with eight deaths, the wildlife ministry said.

According to WWF, black rhino populations declined dramatically in the 20th century, mostly at the hands of European hunters and settlers. Between 1960 and 1995, numbers dropped by 98 percent, to fewer than 2,500.

Since then the species has rebounded, although it remains extremely threatened. In addition to poaching, the animals also face habitat loss.

African Parks, a Johannesburg-based conservation group, said earlier this year that there are fewer than 25,000 rhinos in the African wild, of which about 20 percent are black rhinos and the rest white rhinos.

In another major setback for conservation, the last remaining male northern white rhino on the planet died in March in Kenya, leaving conservationists struggling to save that sub-species using in vitro fertilization.

 
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Scientists have announced a new finding about the source of a high-energy neutrino, a subatomic particle detected at an observatory at the Earth’s South Pole.

The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, details the work of more than 1,000 scientists who pooled their research on the tiny particles, which are able to pass through matter in a straight line — like a ghost.

The neutrino’s ability to travel without deviation from its course means its source can be accurately tracked, unlike other types of subatomic particles that can be dragged off course by a magnetic field like the Earth’s.

“[Neutrinos are] very clean, they have simple interactions, and that means every single neutrino interaction tells you something,” said Heidi Schellman, a particle physicist at Oregon State University.

The scientists used a large observatory known as IceCube, in use since 2010, to hunt for neutrinos and try to track the source. A group of neutrinos coming from the same location over the past couple of years was determined to have emanated from a blazar, or black hole that aims a jet of radiation at Earth. The black hole is estimated to have been in a distant galaxy that destructed four billion years ago.

The blazar that is considered the source of the neutrino was named TXS 0506+056 and is believed to be the first known source of a high-energy neutrino.

The discovery could be a breakthrough for multimessenger astronomy, where scientists look at the entire electromagnetic spectrum and pool their findings, using known relationships between types of electromagnetic particles to put together a larger picture.

“It is an entirely new means for us to learn about the cosmos,” Roopesh Ojha of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center told The Washington Post.
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Is your dorm room stifling hot? That might impact your memory.

New research shows that heat can affect even healthy young adults intellectually, with worse cognitive performance observed in students who slept in a non-air-conditioned room during a heat wave.

Researchers from Harvard University recruited 24 students who slept with air-conditioning and 20 who slept in rooms without AC before, during and after a Boston-area heat wave.

They recorded temperature, relative humidity, carbon dioxide and noise in each bedroom throughout the study.

The indoor temperature of the non-air-conditioned dorm averaged 26.3 C (79.3 F) compared with 21.4 C (70.5 F) in the dorm with air-conditioning.

Each participant wore an activity monitor to measure heart rate, perspiration and sleep quality. When the students woke up each morning, they were tested for how quickly and accurately they completed two cognitive tests that measured memory and reaction.

Researchers also noted how much water and caffeine the students consumed, and how long they spent outdoors each day.

After 12 days, researchers were surprised by the data.

“We found very significant effect of detrimental cognitive function among those students that didn’t have air-conditioning during this heat wave period,” said lead author Jose Guillermo Cedeno Laurent of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The students who didn’t have air-conditioning performed significantly worse on the basic cognitive tests. In particular, going without AC during a heat wave hurt their reaction time when they had to make quick judgments.

“Their study really demonstrated that exposure to heat can have all these potential effects on people’s daily activities,” said Daisy Chang, an organizational psychologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

“A whole host of reasons could potentially explain this exposure effect,” Chang noted. “It’s not necessarily directly exposure to heat. [The heat] could have affected their sleep quality so they’re less rested, they have less energy, or mental resources, or ability to focus.”

The dorms without AC were louder at night because of fan and street noise, which could have disrupted sleep.

And while air-conditioned rooms can hold higher levels of carbon dioxide, which can have a negative impact on cognition, the students slept better in a cooler room.

“We find that heatwaves are impacting us all,” Cedeno said. “These … extend to those like the young and healthy university students. And that we find significant effects on the way they think – their cognitive functions.”

Extreme heat exposure is the biggest killer of all climate phenomena in the United States, killing 7,000 people between 1999 and 2010. Previous research focused on how hot weather affects at-risk populations like the elderly and the very young. And 2016 was the hottest year on record for the past 200 years.

 
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Pangolins are the world’s most illegally trafficked animal. Eight species of the elusive mammals are found in Africa and Southeast Asia, but as many as 300 are poached every day, destined for markets in Vietnam and China, where their meat is considered a delicacy and their scales believed to have medicinal properties. Researchers in the UK are hoping to deter pangolin poaching with fingerprint technology that’s designed to identify poachers and bring them to justice. VOA’s Julie Taboh explains.
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Forty years ago this month, the first test-tube baby was born in what is now called in vitro fertilization. British baby Louise Brown was born July 25, 1978. She’s married now with two children who were born naturally. A new exhibition at the Science Museum in London is showcasing the anniversary and the technological advances achieved through in vitro fertilization. VOA’s Deborah Block has more.
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Plans to launch the first NASA astronauts since 2011 to the International Space Station from the United States look set to be delayed due to incomplete safety measures and accountability holes in the agency’s commercial crew program, according to a federal report released on Wednesday.

SpaceX and Boeing Co are the two main contractors selected under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s commercial crew program to send U.S. astronauts to space as soon as 2019, using their Dragon and Starliner spacecraft respectively.

But the report from the Government Accountability Office said the issues could cause delays in the launch of the first crewed mission from U.S. soil by a private company and could result in a nine-month gap in which no U.S. astronauts inhabit the ISS.

“Boeing and SpaceX continue to make progress developing their crew transportation systems, but both contractors have further delayed the certification milestone to early 2019,” the report said.

“Without a viable contingency option for ensuring uninterrupted access to the ISS in the event of further commercial crew delays, we concluded that NASA was at risk of not being able to maximize the return on its multibillion dollar investment in the space station,” it added.

Test flights set for this year

Boeing said it was aiming for test flights this year. “Boeing is working with NASA to ensure that the CST-100 Starliner flies at the earliest time it is safe to do so,”

Boeing senior spokesman Jerry Drelling told Reuters in an email. Officials with SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, and NASA could not immediately be reached to comment.

In 2014, SpaceX and Boeing respectively received $2.6 billion and $4.2 billion contracts to build crew transportation systems under the commercial crew program, NASA’s flagship campaign to use the private sector for ISS missions.

In the report, NASA said it was working closely with its commercial partners to resolve the issues and was developing contingency plans in case of further delays.

Safety first

Before SpaceX and Boeing can launch the astronauts they must demonstrate their crew systems are safe for human spaceflight, according to NASA.

The GAO said it is tracking potential safety risks on the private companies’ crew capsules, including a Boeing Starliner abort system meant to eject the capsule from a hazardous rocket explosion, and a since-upgraded fuel valve on SpaceX’s Falcon rocket that triggered a costly 2016 launchpad explosion.

Since 2011, NASA has bought seats on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft months in advance to send U.S. astronauts to the space station from launchpads in Kazakhstan. U.S. launches before 2011 were handled by NASA.
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The acting head of the Environmental Protection Agency plans to keep cutting anti-pollution rules and regulations on industry.

Andrew Wheeler held his first meeting with EPA employees Wednesday after taking over the job for Scott Pruitt, who resigned last week amid allegations of ethics violations.

Wheeler, like Pruitt and President Donald Trump, believes the nation’s air and water can still be protected without what they say are job-killing regulations and pollution standards on industry.

Wheeler said the EPA would make cleaning up Superfund industrial waste sites and investing in water infrastructure priorities.

He promised to listen to all voices within the agency. “I value your input and your feedback, and you will find me and my team ready to listen,” Wheeler told staffers.

Wheeler also said he was proud of his work as a coal industry lobbyist — something that has attracted criticism from environmentalists and some Democrats. He said some people use the term “coal lobbyist” in a derogatory manner, but that he had nothing to be ashamed of.

Wheeler’s lobbying efforts primarily focused on better health care, pensions and benefits for retired coal miners.

Trump will nominate a new EPA chief in the coming months, and that person must meet Senate approval. Wheeler has said he is not interested in the job permanently.
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The air pollution problem isn’t going away. According to the World Health Organization, nine out of 10 people worldwide breathe polluted air and approximately 7 million die as a result of exposure to it each year. One creative startup has an artistic solution to an ugly problem. VOA’s Tina Trinh reports.
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Rocket Lab, a Silicon Valley-funded space launch company, planned to open a second launch site in the United States to complement its remote New Zealand pad, the firm said Wednesday.

Rocket Lab said it was considering four sites on both the East and West coasts and would make a final decision in August.

Founder and Chief Executive Peter Beck said in an emailed statement that launching from the United States “adds an extra layer of flexibility for our government and commercial customers.”

The Auckland and Los Angeles-headquartered firm has designed a battery-powered, partly 3-D-printed rocket and has touted its service as a way for companies to get satellites into orbit regularly.

Its successful launch of a rocket that deployed satellites in January after years of preparation was an important step in the global commercial race to bring down financial and logistical barriers to space.

Rocket Lab counts the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as well as earth imaging firm Planet and global data and analytics company Spire among its customers.

American sites being considered were Cape Canaveral in Florida, Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, Pacific Spaceport Complex in Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, Rocket Lab said.

The firm expected its first launch from the United States would take place in the second quarter of 2019.

Rocket Lab operates the world’s only private orbital launch pad on the Mahia Peninsula in northwest New Zealand, Beck’s home country.

The island nation is well-positioned to send satellites bound for a north-to-south orbit around the poles, whereas the United States is better for satellites flying west to east.
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With the trauma of being trapped in the flooded Tham Luang cave complex behind them, the young members of the Wild Boars soccer team are facing a new challenge – dealing with lingering emotional and psychological stress. As Faith Lapidus reports, mental health experts are assessing how their terrifying experience could impact their lives.
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Scientists have unearthed in northwestern Argentina fossils of the earliest-known giant dinosaur, a four-legged plant-eater with a medium-length neck and long tail that was a forerunner of the largest land animals of all time.

Researchers said the dinosaur – named Ingentia prima, meaning “the first giant” – was up to 33 feet (10 meters) long and weighed about 10 tons, living about 210 million years ago during the Triassic Period.

Ingentia was an early member of a dinosaur group called sauropods that later included Earth’s biggest terrestrial creatures including the Patagonian behemoths Argentinosaurus, Dreadnoughtus and Patagotitan.

“We see in Ingentia prima the origin of gigantism, the first steps so that, more than 100 million years later, sauropods of up to 70 tons could come into existence like those that lived in Patagonia,” said paleontologist Cecilia Apaldetti of the Universidad Nacional de San Juan in Argentina, lead author of the study published on Monday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Unlike later sauropods, Ingentia’s legs were not pillar-like. Its neck also was shorter than later sauropods, which possessed among the longest necks relative to body length of any animals ever.

Dinosaurs first appeared earlier in the Triassic Period, roughly 230 million years ago. The first ones were modestly sized, a far cry from the immense dinosaurs of the subsequent Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods. Scientists had previously believed the first giant dinosaurs appeared roughly 180 millions years ago.

Apaldetti called Ingentia not only the largest dinosaur but the biggest land animal of any kind up to that point in time. It was at least twice as large as the other plant-eaters that shared the warm, savannah environment it inhabited. The biggest predators there were not dinosaurs, but large land-dwelling relatives of crocodiles.

“Gigantism is an evolutionary survival strategy, especially for herbivorous animals, because size is a form of defense against predators,” Apaldetti said.

The scientists identified important traits related to gigantism in Ingentia. It possessed a bird-like respiratory system, related to the development of air sacs inside the body that gave it large reserves of oxygenated air and kept it cool despite its large size.

While later giant dinosaurs grew in an accelerated yet continuous manner, an examination of its bones showed that Ingentia grew seasonally rather than continuously, but at an even higher rate.

Ingentia, known from two partial skeletons, was discovered in Argentina’s San Juan Province.
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American Airlines on Tuesday said it plans to no longer offer plastic straws and stir sticks in its lounges and onboard its flights, amid a broader global push to abandon one-time use plastics.

Starting this month, American said drinks in its airport lounges will no longer come with plastic utensils and will instead feature biodegradable straws and wooden stir sticks. The phase-out onboard its planes will begin in November, with plastic straws and stirrers to be replaced by environmentally friendly bamboo.

“We’re cognizant of our impact on the environment and we remain committed to doing our part to sustain the planet for future generations of travelers,” Jill Surdek, vice president of flight service, said in a statement.

The carrier will also transition to “eco-friendly” flatware in its lounges.

American said that the move will eliminate more than 71,000 pounds (32,200 kg) of plastic each year.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier joins rival Alaska Airlines, which announced in May its plans to replace plastic straws with more environmentally friendly alternatives.

On Monday, Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee chain, said it would no longer offer plastic straws at its 28,000 locations by 2020.
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Most people think the world is more dangerous today than it was two years ago as concerns rise over politically motivated violence and weapons of mass destruction, according to a survey released Tuesday.

Six out of 10 respondents to the survey, commissioned by the Global Challenges Foundation, said the dangers had increased, with conflict and nuclear or chemical weapons seen as more pressing risks than population growth or climate change.

The results come as NATO leaders prepare to meet in Brussels on Wednesday amid growing tensions between the United States and fellow members over defense spending, which some fear could damage morale and play into the hands of Russia.

“It’s clear that our current systems of global cooperation are no longer making people feel safe,” said Mats Andersson, vice chairman of the Global Challenges Foundation, in a statement.

Andersson said turbulence between NATO powers and Russia, ongoing conflict in Syria, Yemen and Ukraine and nuclear tensions with North Korea and Iran were making people feel unsafe.

A separate survey commissioned by the Global Challenges Foundation after North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un met U.S. President Donald Trump found the talks reassuring.

Less than a third of the nearly 5,000 respondents reported feeling less concerned about weapons of mass destruction.

“War is more likely,” said Dr. Patricia Lewis, director of international security at the think tank Chatham House. “We have a great deal of instability and that is so often a precursor to wars.”

“Two large powers are disrupting the established rules. We saw the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and we see the U.S. starting a trade war, ripping up agreements which the rest of us are trying to abide by,” said Lewis.

Founded to deter the Soviet threat in 1949, NATO is based on deep cooperation with the United States, which provides for Europe’s security with its nuclear and conventional arsenals.

It has found renewed purpose since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, sending battalions to the Baltics and Poland to deter potential Russian incursions.

The survey findings are based on responses from more than 10,000 people in 10 countries surveyed by polling firm ComRes in April this year.

The Global Challenges Foundation promotes discussion of the greatest threats to humanity — issues that could wipe out more than 10 percent of the population — in order to find solutions.
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You would never think there could be a dispute about breastfeeding, especially since decades of research show that breast milk is better for babies than formula. But after The New York Times reported the Trump administration opposed a U.N. resolution calling for countries to encourage this practice, health officials the world over responded.

The administration called the Times report “fake news.” Both the State Department and the Department of Health and Human Services issued statements saying the U.S. is not anti-breastfeeding. The State Department said the original resolution “called on states to erect hurdles for mothers seeking to provide nutrition to their children.” Both agencies defended bottle feeding with infant formulas and issued statements saying that “not all women are able to breastfeed for a variety of reasons.”

Some women don’t have enough milk. Others may take medication that prohibits breastfeeding. And breastfeeding does not always come naturally for both newborns and mothers. Many doctors think these hurdles can be worked around. They also say if a mother can’t produce enough breast milk, what she can produce is still far better than formula.

Dr. Dennis Kuo heads the general pediatrics unit at the University of Buffalo Medical Center. As both an academic and a practicing pediatrician, he agrees that some women may need to use formula; but, he says the majority of women can breastfeed if they are supported by their doctors, families, communities and employers even before they give birth.

Infant formulas have improved with the addition of fatty acids and better quality proteins. Abbott, a formula manufacturer, says it can replicate prebiotics – nutritional ingredients – found naturally in breast milk. Prebiotics promote the growth of beneficial or “good” bacteria in the baby’s gut.

But even doctors who work in the formula industry acknowledge that breast milk is best. In a company press release in 2016, Rachael Buck, an Abbott researcher, was quoted as saying, “Nothing can replace breast milk. But for those moms who need or choose to use formula, we are committed to providing the most scientifically advanced nutrition.”

Doctors support mothers having a choice, but with caution. Kuo said if government and community policies support breastfeeding, the number of women who cannot provide mother’s milk to their babies will be very low.

Breastfeeding is best even for babies in developed countries. Dr. Joan Younger Meek of the Florida State University College of Medicine said women need a choice, but breast milk is best.  

“We know right after birth, when the mother puts the baby to breast, the baby gets the colostrum – the early milk that the mother produces. And it’s very high in immunoglobulins that protect the baby from infection, so that milk is critically important for babies. And that exclusive breastfeeding continues to support those health benefits for the baby.”  

Meek says in developed countries such as the United States, women need social support so they can breastfeed when they are in public. In the U.S., women have been discouraged, and in some cases prohibited, from breastfeeding at airports, restaurants and other public places. They are often asked to breastfeed in restrooms. Many women find this request offensive and demoralizing.

In low- and middle-income countries, breastfeeding is even more important. In these nations, not all women have access to clean water – a must for mixing formula. The water that goes into the formula has to be clean, along with the bottles, nipples and spoons used to measure formula. If not, the baby can get diarrhea, which can be fatal, since babies don’t have strong immune systems. Breastfed babies get help in avoiding disease from their mothers’ immune systems.

What’s more, formula is expensive. If a mother tries to dilute it to stretch it out, the baby will not get enough to eat and may suffer from malnutrition as well as diarrhea.

The largest and most detailed analysis of the benefits of breastfeeding worldwide was published two years ago in The Lancet medical journal. The study showed that millions of babies around the world would thrive if only they received mother’s milk for the first six months of life – or even longer.

Breastfed babies have fewer ear infections and fewer digestive problems. They grow differently. Breast milk even protects children from obesity later in life.

Breastfeeding also has clear benefits for the mother, as well. For one thing, it reduces the chance that she will hemorrhage after giving birth.  

Doctors say women need to be encouraged and supported in their efforts to breastfeed so their babies can survive and thrive.

 
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World health officials were stunned when the U.S. opposed a resolution for countries to encourage breastfeeding, especially when decades of research have shown its benefits for both mothers and babies. VOA’s Carol Pearson spoke with two prominent doctors who fully support the U.N. resolution based on scientific studies and explain the benefits and risks of breast or bottle feeding.
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There’s a glimmer of hope in the fight against the deadly HIV virus that causes AIDS. A new vaccine has produced a favorable immune system response during a trial on nearly 400 people. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo has details from the recent study published in the Lancet medical journal.
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NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope is almost out of fuel and has been forced to take a nap.

Flight controllers placed the planet-hunting spacecraft into hibernation last week to save energy. It will remain asleep until early August, when controllers attempt to send down the data collected before observations were interrupted.

Kepler has been searching for planets outside our solar system for nearly a decade. Considered the pioneer of planet hunting, it’s discovered nearly 3,000 confirmed worlds and as many potential candidates.

Launched in 2009, Kepler has endured mechanical failures and other mishaps. But there’s no getting around an empty fuel tank. The fuel is needed for pointing the telescope.

Kepler’s antenna must be pointed toward Earth to get the most recent observations back. For now, that’s the team’s highest priority.
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