Go ahead and have that cup of coffee, maybe even several more. New research shows it may boost chances for a longer life, even for those who down at least eight cups daily.

In a study of nearly half-a-million British adults, coffee drinkers had a slightly lower risk of death over 10 years than abstainers.

The apparent longevity boost was seen with instant, ground and decaffeinated, results that echo U.S. research. It’s the first large study to suggest a benefit even in people with genetic glitches affecting how their bodies use caffeine.

Overall, coffee drinkers were about 10 percent to 15 percent less likely to die than abstainers during a decade of follow-up. Differences by amount of coffee consumed and genetic variations were minimal.

The results don’t prove your coffee pot is a fountain of youth nor are they a reason for abstainers to start drinking coffee, said Alice Lichtenstein, a Tufts University nutrition expert who was not involved in the research. But she said the results reinforce previous research and add additional reassurance for coffee drinkers.

“It’s hard to believe that something we enjoy so much could be good for us. Or at least not be bad,” Lichtenstein said.

The study was published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

It’s not clear exactly how drinking coffee might affect longevity. Lead author Erikka Loftfield, a researcher at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, said coffee contains more than 1,000 chemical compounds including antioxidants, which help protect cells from damage.

Other studies have suggested that substances in coffee may reduce inflammation and improve how the body uses insulin, which can reduce chances for developing diabetes. Loftfield said efforts to explain the potential longevity benefit are continuing.

Adam Taylor, fetching two iced coffees for friends Monday in downtown Chicago, said the study results make sense.

“Coffee makes you happy, it gives you something to look forward to in the morning,” said Taylor, a sound engineer from Las Vegas.

“I try to have just one cup daily,” Taylor said. “Otherwise I get a little hyper.”

For the study, researchers invited 9 million British adults to take part; 498,134 women and men aged 40 to 69 agreed. The low participation rate means those involved may have been healthier than the general U.K. population, the researchers said.

Participants filled out questionnaires about daily coffee consumption, exercise and other habits, and received physical exams including blood tests. Most were coffee drinkers; 154,000 or almost one-third drank two to three cups daily and 10,000 drank at least eight cups daily.

During the next decade, 14,225 participants died, mostly of cancer or heart disease.

Caffeine can cause short-term increases in blood pressure, and some smaller studies have suggested that it might be linked with high blood pressure, especially in people with a genetic variation that causes them to metabolize caffeine slowly.

But coffee drinkers in the U.K. study didn’t have higher risks than nondrinkers of dying from heart disease and other blood pressure-related causes. And when all causes of death were combined, even slow caffeine metabolizers had a longevity boost.

As in previous studies, coffee drinkers were more likely than abstainers to drink alcohol and smoke, but the researchers took those factors into account, and coffee drinking seemed to cancel them out.

The research didn’t include whether participants drank coffee black or with cream and sugar. But Lichtenstein said loading coffee with extra fat and calories isn’t healthy.
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The polar bear may be the classic poster child for climate change, but it is far from the only animal threatened by a warming Arctic. Because the region is warming two to three times more quickly than the rest of the planet, the rapidly melting sea ice is opening new shipping lanes. New research suggests increased vessel traffic through Arctic waters is putting narwhals and other cetaceans at risk.

The receding ice has cleared the historically dangerous Northwest Passage, and the Northern Sea Route along Russia’s northern coast, dramatically increasing maritime traffic in what was once relatively untouched ocean.

“We’re on the precipice,” Donna Hauser from the University of Alaska Fairbanks said. “We’re poised for a lot of vessel traffic to increase in the Arctic. Part of what motivated the study [was to] understand where we’re at and where we need to go.”

Hauser was interested in assessing the vulnerability of Arctic marine mammals to shipping activity, to protect both the species themselves and the people who rely on them. “All of these species are really important resources for indigenous communities throughout the Arctic as well as in Alaska and in the Alaskan Arctic in particular.”

Hauser and her co-authors looked at seven species: beluga whales, narwhals, bowhead whales, ringed seals, bearded seals, walruses, and polar bears. They created a vulnerability measure based on a combination of the animal’s exposure to shipping traffic and their general sensitivity. Importantly, these measures refer only to vulnerability during September, when sea ice is at its lowest point and most ships pass through Arctic waters.

Their research found that narwhals and other whale species were the most vulnerable to late summer ship traffic, and polar bears were the least, with pinnipeds (walruses and seals) in between.

That does not surprise Randall Reeves, chairman of the Marine Mammal Commission Committee of Scientific Advisors.

“They [narwhals and belugas] are used to living in an extremely quiet world,” he told VOA.

The noise of ice-breaking ships and other maritime vessels is extremely disruptive to these cetaceans, as co-author Kristin Laidre of the Polar Ice Center points out.

“That underwater noise is a disturbance for marine mammals, especially different whale species that rely on sound to pretty much do everything,” she said.

Narwhals in particular are at risk because of their high exposure to vessels in the Northwest Passage which receives more traffic than the Northern Sea Route. The combined effect of high exposure and sensitivity mean these so-called unicorns of the sea are in the most perilous position of all the Arctic marine mammals, with other whales facing similar but less extreme circumstances.

Polar bears, on the other hand, seem to be the best equipped to deal with vessel traffic during September.

“At that time of year,” said Laidre, “polar bears tend to be either on land or they followed the pack ice north.”

This means they were not exposed to the same level of noise and disruption as the marine mammals like whales and seals.

In addition, Hausers noted that polar bears “don’t use sound in the same way as the other marine mammals do and so some of those things that make the other species sensitive to vessels aren’t as big a factor for polar bears.”

This is the first study to compare effects of increased ship traffic across the major Arctic marine mammal species and determine which animals might be most in need of conservation efforts.

“We’re no longer in an Arctic state that was experienced by [1845 British Captain Sir John] Franklin or some of those early Western explorers,” said Hauser. “There’s a whole suite of different aspects that are potentially impacting the Arctic marine mammal species.”

In order to help protect these sentinel species’ and the whales in particular, the authors of the study suggest requiring ships to move at slower speeds to reduce strikes of whales that swim or rest at or just below the surface.

In addition, placing limits on the amount of noise vessels can make will protect whales’ delicate hearing.

“It’s not realistic to think we’re going to stop people from taking advantage of these passages through formerly pristine regions,” said conservationist Reeves. The ships are going to go there.”

However, by understanding which marine mammals are at risk, researchers can help plan for an uncertain future.

This research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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P.B. Smith Elementary School in Warrenton, Virginia, is one of a growing number of schools around the United States that have vegetable gardens. Teaching children about gardening gives them a chance to get hands-on experience with growing and eating vegetables, learning about nutrition and nature in the process.  Last year, this school’s beautiful, well-kept green space got a valuable addition — a garden filled with plants that attract butterflies.  

Learning about butterflies

In class, members of the P.B. Smith Elementary School’s ecology club learn about butterflies — monarch butterflies, in particular. They talk about the need for certain plants for an organism to survive. They learn about life cycles, from eggs to larva, pupa and adult.  

But the learning is not complete without the hands-on part. Ecology Club teacher Barbara Dennee said that happens when her class visits the garden. There, they wait patiently to see this life cycle unfold.

The students’ patience was rewarded when monarch butterflies landed in their garden. Monarchs lay their eggs on milkweed plants, which have been disappearing due to the use of herbicides and unfavorable weather conditions. That means monarchs have fewer places to stop their migration journey between Canada and Mexico.

 “We had probably about a dozen monarchs, and in years past, we never had any,” Dennee said. “So, we feel like we’ve definitely been a good station for the monarchs. Once they emerge from their chrysalis, they fly away. They know where to go. I don’t know how to go to Mexico, but they do. They follow the sun, and the kids have helped them in that.”

Observations and discoveries

Eleven-year-old Amelia Jakum loves to observe nature, and gets excited for the discoveries she makes in the garden.

 “We saw several swallowtails, caterpillars,” she said. “There is this really fat one that should be turning to chrysalis very soon. I’m quite surprised at how it can turn into chrysalis. And just how does its body form into a beautiful body of a butterfly?”

The kids’ excitement motivated them to learn more about butterflies, how they survive and what plants they feed on, particularly milkweeds.

“That’s the host for the butterfly, the monarch especially,” Dennee explained. “We planted from seeds the milkweed plant. Today, we didn’t see any monarchs, but we did see swallowtail caterpillars. They like dill and parsley. So, the kids learn that different kinds of butterflies are not competing for the food. They live harmoniously.”

Ten-year-old Keenan Whitney said learning about butterflies was an eye-opener.

“I only thought they pollinated one flower, for some reason. But I learned they pollinated a lot of flowers, and that if we didn’t have butterflies, we probably wouldn’t have any food. We wouldn’t be alive,” he said.

When kids become that aware of the interconnections between humans and nature, Dennee said, it means her club succeeded in its mission.

“One of our missions for the Ecology Club is to be good stewards of the earth, and they can save this world,” she said. “They can say these words, but they don’t really understand until they actually do something.”

A gift to her old school

When the ecology club created its vegetable garden a couple of years ago, students started to learn how to plant and harvest a variety of herbs and vegetables. They give part of the produce to the school’s cafeteria and donated the rest to a local food bank.

Adding a new garden to attract butterflies was the brainchild of Keely Scott, a former student who has always been involved in school activities and clubs. Last year, the high school student needed a Girl Scout project.  She went back to P.B. Smith and created a butterfly garden.

“We had a butterfly bush at my house,” she said. “We actually had to cut it down when we built our deck, and I missed it so much.  I loved looking at the butterflies and to increase its population in our area.  I thought I can fix that.  So, I developed this idea, and Mrs. Dennee supported me 100 percent.”

School principal Linda Payne Smith said Scott not only presented her old school with a beautiful garden, she also served as a positive role model for its students.

“We want the kids to take ownership of those gardens and come back like our senior Keely Scott has come back and created the butterfly garden,” she said. “We hope that their love for the environment started at P.B. Smith, that we have seen it evolve.”
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Just call her Professor Fiona.

The Cincinnati Zoo’s famous premature baby hippo does more than delight social media fans and help sell a wide range of merchandise. She’s also an educational and literary force; heroine of a half-dozen books so far and a popular subject for library and classroom activities.

The latest book is “Saving Fiona” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) written by the zoo’s director, Thane Maynard.

“She has taught us a lot,” Maynard said. It’s believed Fiona is the smallest hippo ever to survive. Born nearly two months early, she was 29 pounds (13 kilograms), a third the size of a typical full-term Nile hippo and unable to stand or nurse. 

A zoo staffer hand-milked her mother Bibi, and Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington helped develop a special formula. Nurses from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital were enlisted to put in a hippo IV.

“We were a nervous wreck every day,” Maynard said of Fiona’s first six months after her birth in January 2017.

His book is aimed at young readers, telling Fiona’s against-the-odds story while loading in facts about hippos, such as that they can outrun humans and are herbivores that can be dangerous because of their size of up to 5,000 pounds (2,267.96 kilograms). 

“Part of the zoo’s mission is public education,” Maynard said. “(The book) is reaching kids and families with a message of hope … never giving up.”

The combined Fiona library of books by various authors and illustrators has sold tens of thousands so far.

Educators say students are attracted to lessons themed around animals. Fiona has been on the cover of three Scholastic News Magazines that reached millions of students with stories accompanied by reading exercises or math formulas such as finding how many bathtubs the water in her zoo would fill.

“Everybody just falls in love with her,” said Stephanie Smith, editorial director for Scholastic News grades 3-6. “Kids will just gobble it up. It makes teaching easy.” 

Mike Shriberg, Great Lakes regional director for the National Wildlife Federation, said conservationists see celebrity-type attention to Fiona that glosses over the serious challenges for hippos and other animals facing shrinking habitats and illegal hunting.

“There is a deeper message to be conveyed,” he said.

However, Shriberg, who said growing up in Cincinnati as a frequent zoo visitor helped lead him into wildlife conservation, said the Fiona mania – which has seen her image marketed on items from playing cards to beer – is a positive development overall.

“We are certainly in favor of anything that is engaging people with wildlife, and Fiona has been a phenomenal success,” he said. “You’ve got the American public and people around the world really caring about hippos and animals, through the lens of Fiona.”
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Researchers at a public university in Sweden are creating a 3-D, virtual reality model of the Milky Way. They say their work could change how surgeons separated by oceans collaborate on medical examinations. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports.
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June 30 marks Asteroid Day, a U.N.-sanctioned campaign to promote awareness around the world of what’s up in the sky. In Milan, scientists are assembling a new telescope that uses “insect vision” to spot risky celestial objects. Faith Lapidus explains.
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A new study of a popular HIV drug could ease concerns about its link to depression. Researchers in Uganda found that efavirenz, once feared to lead to depression and suicide, did not cause the expected negative side effects in their patients.

Efavirenz is an affordable, once-a-day pill used around the globe to treat and prevent HIV/AIDS. It’s “the treatment of choice” in most of the world, according to Africa Health Research Institute’s Mark Siedner, “especially [in] countries that depend on global aid to treat HIV.”

But some fear that efavirenz may come with a cost.

Some studies in the United States and Europe found the drug increased patients’ risk of depression or suicide, although other studies did not.

The mixed results prompted many doctors in the United States to prescribe more expensive but potentially safer drugs.

Siedner wanted to take another look at the risk of depression, this time in an African population. From 2005 until 2015, he and a team of Ugandan and U.S. doctors tracked 694 patients who took either efavirenz or another antiretroviral medication. They regularly asked the patients whether they experienced depression or suicidal thoughts.

No difference

Their analysis, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, showed there was no difference between the two treatments. Siedner told VOA, “In other words, efavirenz was not associated with a risk of depression. If anything, there seems to be a signal that potentially it was associated with a decreased risk. But it wasn’t a strong enough [signal] for us to say that.”

The authors also reported that of the 17 participants who died in the course of the study, not a single death was a suicide. 

Siedner has two possible explanations for why their findings differed from those in Western countries. “One potential cause is that every single ethnic group in the world, of course, is different, and different in many different ways — different socially, different environmentally, and in this case they may be different genetically.” His team is looking at whether the genes that control metabolism of the drug have a role to play in this story.

A second explanation could be the effectiveness of the drug. Because efavirenz is so potent, it could be keeping people healthier than they expected, so patients are less likely to report negative emotions.

The study is important, said Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, because it pushes back against “the initial observation of suicidal ideation and suicide and depression” as caused by efavirenz. He told VOA, “I think now what you’re seeing is that with these conflicting reports, it’s likely someone will come in [with] the proposal to do a randomized study and take a look. So the story isn’t ended with this paper.”

As more research on the safety of efavirenz is conducted, new and cheaper drugs that might replace it are on the horizon. One of them, dolutegravir, might also pose a risk, however. A study in Botswana found dolutegravir was linked to neural tube defects in embryos, meaning it might not be safe for pregnant women. As always, further research is needed to confirm whether this is a common problem or specific to the population studied in Botswana.

“I think the whole field right now is in a bit of a holding pattern,” Siedner said when asked about dolutegravir and the future of HIV medication.
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The suicide rate in the U.S. is rising. A new government report shows nearly 45,000 Americans killed themselves in 2016, more than twice the number of homicides. In fact, the suicide rate, particularly among young people ages 15 to 34, has been rising at an alarming rate for almost three decades, well before the recent high profile suicides of designer Kate Spade and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain. Reporter Daria Dieguts takes a look at a trend that has many health professionals worried.
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Sharks are the stars of a splashy new exhibit at the New York Aquarium. The new exhibit is a major step in the beachfront facility’s recovery from the devastating impact of 2012’s Superstorm Sandy. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Kids exposed to tobacco smoke in the womb and early in infancy could have double the odds of developing hearing loss compared with children who were not exposed to tobacco at all, a Japanese study suggests.

While previous research suggests that adult smokers are at greater risk of hearing loss than nonsmokers, less is known about how much smoke exposure during infancy or pregnancy might impact hearing.

For the current study, researchers examined data on 50,734 children born between 2004 and 2010 in Kobe City, Japan. Overall, about 4 percent of these kids were exposed to smoking during pregnancy or infancy, and roughly 1 percent had tobacco exposure during both periods.

Hearing tests done when kids were 3 years old found that 4.6 percent of the children had hearing loss. They were 68 percent more likely to have hearing loss if they were exposed to tobacco during pregnancy, and 30 percent

more likely if they inhaled secondhand smoke during infancy, the study found.

When kids had smoke exposure during both periods, they were 2.4 times more likely than unexposed kids to have hearing loss.

“Patients with the greatest risk of hearing impairment are those who are directly exposed to maternal smoking in the womb,” said Dr. Matteo Pezzoli, a hearing specialist at San Lazzaro Hospital in Alba, Italy. 

“Interestingly, the exposure to tobacco in early life seems to further strengthen the prenatal toxic effect,” Pezzoli, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.

Other problems

When pregnant women smoke, it may harm fetal brain development and lead to auditory cognitive dysfunction, Pezzoli added. Tobacco smoke may also damage sensory receptors in the ear that relay messages to the brain based on sound vibration.

Globally, about 68 million people have a hearing impairment that is thought to have originated in childhood, Koji Kawakami of Kyoto University in Japan and colleagues note in Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology. Kawakami didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Researchers assessed children’s hearing using what’s known as a whisper test. For these tests, mothers stood behind their kids to prevent lip reading, then whispered a word while the kids had one ear covered.

While this test is simple and considered an accurate way to assess hearing in adults and older children, there’s some concern about how reliable the results may be in young kids. It’s considered more reliable when it’s done by trained

clinicians and specialists and less reliable when it’s done by primary care providers, researchers note. It’s unclear how accurate study results based on tests administered by the children’s parents would be, researchers acknowledge.

The study also wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how tobacco exposure during pregnancy or infancy might directly cause hearing loss in kids.

“There was no standardized medical evaluation of hearing or examination of the ears by ear specialists,” said Dr. Michael Weitzman, a pediatrician and hearing researcher at New York University who wasn’t involved in the study.

No follow-up

“Moreover, the severity of hearing loss could not be ascertained in this study, and it did not follow up the children throughout their childhood, so we do not know if what they found attenuated or got worse over time,” Weitzman said by email.

Still, the results add to the evidence linking tobacco exposure to hearing problems in kids, Weitzman said.

To protect children against hearing problems caused by cigarette smoke, it’s important for women to quit before they become pregnant or as soon as they discover they’re pregnant, said Huanhuan Hu, a researcher at the National Center for Global Health and Medicine in Japan who wasn’t involved in the study.

“To minimize the chance that their baby will be exposed to tobacco smoke in the womb, other family members should also quit, or at least not smoke at home or nearby the pregnant women,” Hu said by email.
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The International Labor Organization (ILO) says urgent action is needed to avert a global crisis as the number of people, including children and elderly, needing care rises, The warning is part of a new ILO report on care work and care jobs unveiled Thursday in Geneva.

The ILO cautions that the global care crisis will become a reality in coming years without a doubling of investment.  Authors of the report say $5.5 trillion was spent in 2015 on education, health and social work. They say that amount must be increased to $18.4 trillion by 2030 to prevent the care system from falling apart.  

The report finds the majority of care globally is done by unpaid caregivers, mostly women and girls, and that it is a major barrier preventing women from getting paid jobs. It says this reality not only hampers their economic opportunities, but stifles development prospects.

Lead author Laura Addati tells VOA 606 million women, compared to 41 million men, are unable to get paid employment because they have to care for a family member.

“This pool of participants who are lost to the labor force could be activated, … [put in] jobs that could benefit society. A part of these jobs could be career [caregiver] jobs, so as we well pointed out, there could be basically an activation process to sort of replace some of those jobs, so making those who were unpaid, paid care workers,” she said.  

Addati says more people nowadays are part of nuclear families, eroding the concept of extended households, which used to play an important role in caring for family members.  She says that is increasing the demand for more caregivers in smaller households.

The report finds that more than 380 million people globally are care workers. It says two-thirds are women.  In Europe, the Americas and Central Asia, three-quarters of all care workers are women.  The report notes long-term care services are practically non-existent in most African, Latin American and Asian countries.

The ILO says about 269 million jobs could be created if investment in education, health and social work were doubled by 2030, easing the global care crisis.

 
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Many elementary schools around the United States have started gardens to give their young students hands-on experience with growing and eating vegetables, learning about nutrition and nature in the process. The Ecology Club at P.B. Smith Elementary School in Warrenton, Virginia, started its garden a couple of years ago. As Faiza Elmasry tells us, the school’s beautiful, green space got a valuable addition last year, a garden filled with plants that attract butterflies. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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There’s an exciting new breakthrough in treating deadly brain tumors. Doctors have used a modified polio virus to treat people with brain cancer. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports the results, so far, are promising.
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A Japanese space explorer arrived at an asteroid Wednesday after a 3 1/2-year journey and now begins its real work of trying to blow a crater to collect samples to eventually bring back to Earth.

The unmanned Hayabusa2 spacecraft reached its base of operations about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the asteroid and some 280 million kilometers (170 million miles) from Earth, the Japan Space Exploration Agency said.

Over the next year and a half, the spacecraft will attempt three brief touch-and-go landings to collect samples. If the retrieval and the return journey are successful, the asteroid material could provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on Earth.

The mission is challenging. The robotic explorer will spend about two months looking for suitable landing places on the uneven surface. Because of the high surface temperature, it will stay for only a few seconds each time it lands.

The asteroid, named Ryugu after an undersea palace in a Japanese folktale, is about 900 meters (3,000 feet) in diameter. In photos released by JAXA, the Japanese space agency, it appears more cube-shaped than round. A number of large craters can be seen, which Project Manager Yuichi Tsuda said in an online post makes the selection of landing points “both interesting and difficult.”

The first touchdown is planned for September or October. Before the final touchdown scheduled for April-May, Hayabusa2 will send out a squat cylinder that will detonate above the asteroid, shooting a 2-kilogram (4.4-pound) copper projectile into it at high speed to make a crater.

Hayabusa2 will hide on the other side of the asteroid to protect itself during the operation and wait another two to three weeks to make sure any debris that could damage the explorer has cleared. It will then attempt to land at or near the crater to collect underground material that was blown out of the crater, in addition to the surface material from the earlier touchdowns.

The spacecraft will also deploy three rovers that don’t have wheels but can hop around on the surface of the asteroid to conduct probes. Hayabusa2 will also send a French-German-made lander to study the surface with four observation devices.

Asteroids, which orbit the sun but are much smaller than planets, are among the oldest objects in the solar system. As such, they may help explain how Earth evolved, including the formation of oceans and the start of life.

Hayabusa2 was launched in December 2014 and is due to return to Earth at the end of 2020. An earlier Hayabusa mission from 2003 to 2010 collected samples from a different type of asteroid and took three years longer than planned after a series of technical glitches, including a fuel leak and a loss of contact for seven weeks.

NASA also has an ongoing asteroid mission. Its Osiris-Rex spacecraft is expected to reach the asteroid Bennu later this year and return with samples in 2023.
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Warming waters have reduced the harvest of Alaska’s prized Copper River salmon to just a small fraction of last year’s harvest, Alaska biologists say.

The runs of Copper River salmon were so low that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game shut down the commercial harvest last month, halting what is usually a three-month season after less than two weeks. Earlier this month, the department also shut down most of the harvest that residents along the river conduct to feed their families.

The total commercial harvest for Alaska’s marquee Copper River salmon this year after it was halted at the end of May was about 32,000 fish, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reported. That compares with the department’s pre-season forecast of over 1.2 million and an average annual harvest of over 1.4 million fish in the prior decade.

State biologists blame warming in the Gulf of Alaska for the diminished run of Copper River salmon, prized for its rich flavor, high oil content and deep-red color.

The fish spend most of their lives in the ocean, and those waters were 3 to 5 degrees Celsius (5 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than normal, thanks to a warm and persistent North Pacific water mass that climate scientists have dubbed “the Blob,” along with other factors, said Mark Somerville, a biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Warmer temperatures caused the metabolism of the fish to speed up, Somerville said. “They need more food for maintenance,” he said. “At the same time, their food source was diminished.”

Other important salmon runs are also struggling, including those in the Kenai River — a world-famous sport fishing site — and along Kodiak Island. Others have had good numbers, though the returning fish are noticeably reduced in size, Somerville said.

In Alaska, where wild salmon is iconic, Copper River fish hold a special status.

Their high oil content is linked to their ultra-long migration route from the ocean to their glacier-fed spawning grounds. They are the first fresh Alaska salmon to hit the market each year. Copper River salmon have sold for $75 a pound.

Chris Bryant, executive chef for WildFin American Grill, a group of Seattle-area seafood restaurants, worries about trends for Alaska salmon beyond the Copper River.

“The fish are smaller, which makes it harder for chefs to get a good yield on it and put it on the plate,” he said.
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There’s an exciting new breakthrough in treating some types of deadly brain tumors, that uses, of all things, a polio virus. Doctors at Duke Health in North Carolina genetically altered the virus because it produces such a strong immune response in our bodies. The result is a longer life for patients whose brain cancer returned. All had glioblastoma, an aggressive and lethal type of brain cancer. Of the 61 patients in the study, 21 percent who got this new treatment had were alive three years later. 

While that number is low, the survival rate for glioblastoma is normally even lower, usually, a year and a half after diagnosis. The researchers compared the study group to a group of patients drawn from historical cases at Duke. Only four percent of these patients survived three years after treatment. 

Dr. Annick Desjardins, one of the authors, said not all patients respond, but if they do, they often become long-term survivors. Desjardins said, “The big question is, how can we make sure that everybody responds?”

Stephanie Hopper was the first patient in the Duke study. She was diagnosed with glioblastoma eight years ago. She had the tumor removed, but two years later, it returned. The modified virus is directly injected into the brain during surgery. After treatment, Hopper’s tumor shrunk to the point where it’s barely noticeable in her brain scans, and the tumor is continuing to shrink. 

Dr. Darell Bigner is the senior author of the study which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. He explained that by modifying the virus, it destroyed its ability to infect nerve cells and cause polio, but the virus retained the ability to kill cancer cells. In fact, the modified virus targeted the tumor cells. 

Prior to the study, the researchers decided they needed a different approach to treating glioblastomas which is why they looked at experimenting with the polio virus. 

One of the goals of a phase one trial is to find a dose that is safe. In some patients, the therapy caused their brains to swell and they experienced seizures and other bad side effects so the dose was lowered. Study participants were selected according to the size of their recurring tumor, its location in the brain and other factors designed for patient protection. 

For five of the 61 patients in the trial, the cancer returned. They were treated a second time and Bigner says, “Those that we’ve been able to follow long enough have responded to the treatment the second time. That’s extremely important.” Combining the polio virus with other approved therapies is one approach already being tested at Duke to improve survival. 

The researchers are continuing their work on treating glioblastomas and planning other studies as well. They want to test the therapy on children’s brain tumors. The therapy may also expand beyond brain tumors to include breast cancer and melanoma patient as well. 
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a California law that required anti-abortion crisis clinics to let patients know about the availability of free state-provided abortions, ruling that it violated the free-speech rights of the Christian-based centers.

Under a 1973 ruling, abortions are legal in the United States in most instances. But the new 5-4 decision handed anti-abortion activists a significant victory, approving of the way the clinics — often called crisis pregnancy centers — advise women with unplanned pregnancies against having an abortion.

The majority opinion said the California law “imposes an unduly burdensome disclosure requirement” on the clinics to pass on information they do not believe in. California said the law was needed to let poor women know of all options related to their pregnancies.

Justice Clarence Thomas said in his majority opinion that the crisis centers “are likely to succeed” in their constitutional challenge of the law.

Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for four liberal dissenters, said that among the reasons the law should have been upheld is that the Supreme Court had previously ruled in favor of state laws requiring doctors to tell women contemplating an abortion about the availability of adoption services.  

“After all,” Breyer wrote, “the law must be evenhanded.”

Crisis centers say they provide legitimate health services for women, but that their mission is to steer women with unplanned pregnancies away from abortion. Abortion rights activists say there are about 2,700 such clinics in the U.S., including 200 in California, far outnumbering the number of clinics that perform abortions.

In 2014, the most recent year for which statistics have been released, the government said 652,639 abortions were performed in the U.S.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the administration of President Donald Trump was pleased that the decision upheld freedom of speech for the clinics.

“Speakers should not be forced by their government to promote a message with which they disagree, and pro-life pregnancy centers in California should not be forced to advertise abortion and undermine the very reason they exist,” Sessions said. He said the Justice Department “will continue to vigorously defend the freedom of all Americans to speak peacefully in accord with their deeply held beliefs and conscience.”

 
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A U.N. report warns the global production of cocaine and opium has reached record-breaking levels as the markets for those and other illicit drugs expand.

In its World Drug Report 2018, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime finds global opium production jumped by 65 percent to 10,500 tons from 2016 to 2017, and in 2016 more than 1,400 tons of cocaine were manufactured globally, the highest level ever recorded.

The report says most of the world’s cocaine comes from Colombia and is sold in North America. It says Africa and Asia are emerging as trafficking and consumption hubs. It says opium is mainly produced in Afghanistan and shipped through the so-called Balkan route into Turkey and West Europe.

Director of Division for Operations of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime Miwa Kato tells VOA the growing opioid crisis, that is the non-medical use of prescription drugs, is becoming a major threat to public health and law enforcement worldwide.

“It is now accounting for three-quarters of addiction-related deaths around the world. So, it is a growing concern both in contexts like the North America context where the media attention very much is, but also in large parts of Africa and parts of Asia, where we do see similar problems,” Miwa Kato said.

The report finds 275 million people between the ages of 15 and 64 used illicit drugs at least once last year and nearly one-half-million drug abusers have died. Kato says the data is always very conservative and the true number of users and deaths is likely to be much higher.

The report says cannabis was the most widely consumed drug in 2016. It says it is too early to know the impact of the legalization of the recreational use of cannabis.

But the report says data from Colorado, one of the first states in the U.S. to legalize marijuana, show a rise in emergency hospital admissions from marijuana intoxication and an increase in traffic accidents and deaths.

 
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Suicide is now the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Two teenagers have come up with a way to try and reduce the suicide rate with a smartphone app. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo sat down with the inventors, who recently received an award in Washington from the community based non-profit Mental Health America.
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Malnutrition is the “challenge of our time,” with diet-related disease afflicting almost every country in the world, the winners of a $250,000 prize dubbed the Nobel for agriculture said Monday.

David Nabarro and Lawrence Haddad, who were jointly awarded this year’s World Food Prize, are credited with cutting the number of stunted children in the world by 10 million by lobbying governments and donors to improve nutrition.

Stunting is caused by malnutrition in infancy and hinders cognitive as well as physical growth. Experts say the effects are largely irreversible and stunted children generally complete fewer years of schooling and earn less money as adults.

Malnourished children also tended to become malnourished mothers, perpetuating the cycle, said Haddad, who heads the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition.

Levels of obesity, diabetes and hypertension were “skyrocketing in pretty much every country … and the center of all these things is diets,” he said.

“People can’t get enough nutritious food because it’s too expensive or unavailable and the stuff that they shouldn’t be eating a lot of, stuff that’s high in sugar, salt and fat, is really cheap and available,” he told Reuters by phone. “This is the big challenge of our time. It’s not about how to feed our world. It’s about how to nourish our world.”

Haddad was joint winner of the award with Nabarro, a British doctor and former U.N. Special Representative for Food Security and Nutrition.

Between them they have persuaded governments, donors and others to set up policies and programs that decreased the number of stunted children globally to 155 million in 2017 from 165 million in 2012, the World Food Prize organizers said.

Nabarro said good nutrition in the first 1,000 days from conception to a child’s second birthday was “absolutely key.”

“There is work still to be done to get a widespread understanding of the importance of the right kind of diet,” he said.

About 815 million of the world’s 7.6 billion people go hungry daily while 2 billion are overweight or obese, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

The winners were honored in a ceremony at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Past recipients of the annual prize, founded in 1986 by Nobel laureate Norman Bourlag, include John Kufuour, a former president of Ghana, and Grameen Bank founder and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh.
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U.S. health regulators on Monday approved the first prescription drug made from marijuana, a milestone that could spur more research into a drug that remains illegal under federal law, despite growing legalization for recreational and medical use.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the medication, called Epidiolex, to treat two rare forms of epilepsy that begin in childhood. But it’s not quite medical marijuana.

The strawberry-flavored syrup is a purified form of a chemical ingredient found in the cannabis plant — but not the one that gets users high. It’s not yet clear why the ingredient, called cannabidiol, or CBD, reduces seizures in some people with epilepsy.

British drugmaker GW Pharmaceuticals studied the drug in more than 500 children and adults with hard-to-treat seizures, overcoming numerous legal hurdles that have long stymied research into cannabis.

FDA officials said the drug reduced seizures when combined with older epilepsy drugs.

The FDA has previously approved synthetic versions of another cannabis ingredient for medical use, including severe weight loss in patients with HIV.

Epidiolex is essentially a pharmaceutical-grade version CBD oil, which some parents already use to treat children with epilepsy. CBD is one of more than 100 chemicals found in marijuana. But it doesn’t contain THC, the ingredient that gives marijuana its mind-altering effect.

Physicians say it’s important to have a consistent, government-regulated version.

“I’m really happy we have a product that will be much cleaner and one that I know what it is,” said Ellaine Wirrell, director of the Mayo Clinic’s program for childhood epilepsy. “In the artisanal products, there’s often a huge variation in doses from bottle to bottle depending on where you get it.”

Side effects with the drug include diarrhea, vomiting, fatigue and sleep problems.

Several years ago, Allison Hendershot considered relocating her family to Colorado, one of the first states to legalize marijuana and home to a large network of CBD producers and providers. Her 13-year-old daughter, Molly, has suffered from severe seizures since she was 4 months old. But then Hendershot learned about a trial of Epidiolex at New York University.

“I preferred this to some of those other options because it’s is a commercial product that has gone through rigorous testing,” said Hendershot, who lives in Rochester, New York.

Since receiving Epidiolex, Hendershot says her daughter has been able to concentrate more and has had fewer “drop” seizures — in which her entire body goes limp and collapses.

FDA warnings

CBD oil is currently sold online and in specialty shops across the U.S., though its legal status remains murky. Most producers say their oil is made from hemp, a plant in the cannabis family that contains little THC and can be legally farmed in a number of states for clothing, food and other uses.

The impact of Monday’s approval on these products is unclear.

The FDA has issued warnings to CBD producers that claimed their products could treat specific diseases, such as cancer or Alzheimer’s. Only products that have received formal FDA approval can make such claims, typically requiring clinical trials costing millions.

Most CBD producers sidestep the issue by making only broad claims about general health and well-being.

Industry supporters downplayed the impact of the FDA approval.

“I don’t know a mom or dad in their right mind who is going to change what’s already working,” said Heather Jackson, CEO of Realm of Caring, a charitable group affiliated with Colorado-based CW Hemp, one of nation’s largest CBD companies. “I really don’t think it’s going to affect us much.”

Cost

Jackson’s group estimates the typical family using CBD to treat childhood epilepsy spends about $1,800 per year on the substance.

A GW Pharmaceuticals spokeswoman said the company would not immediately announce a price for the drug, which it expects to launch in the fall. Wall Street analysts have previously predicted it could cost $25,000 per year, with annual sales eventually reaching $1 billion.

For their part, GW Pharmaceuticals executives say they are not trying to disrupt products already on the market. The company has pushed legislation in several states to make sure its drug can be legally sold and prescribed.

The FDA approval for Epidiolex is technically limited to patients with Dravet and Lennox-Gastaut syndromes, two rare forms of epilepsy for which there are few treatments. But doctors will have the option to prescribe it for other uses.

The new medication enters an increasingly complicated legal environment for marijuana.

Nine states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for recreational use. Another 20 states allow medical marijuana, but the U.S. government continues to classify it as a controlled substance with no medical use, in the same category as heroin and LSD.

Despite increasing acceptance, there is little rigorous research on the benefits and harms of marijuana. Last year a government-commissioned group concluded that the lack of scientific information about marijuana and CBD poses a risk to public health.

Before sales of Epidiolex can begin, the Drug Enforcement Administration must formally reclassify CBD into a different category of drugs that have federal medical approval.

GW Pharmaceuticals makes the drug in the U.K. from cannabis plants that are specially bred to contain high levels of CBD. And the company plans to continue importing the medicine, bypassing onerous U.S. regulations on manufacturing restricted substances.
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Hand washing is one of the easiest ways to prevent some diseases. But in refugee camps and temporary shelters, providing access to soap, clean water and sanitation can put increased strain on resources. Officials at the global aid agency Oxfam say they have a solution that may overcome some of those challenges. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Languishing with fever and frustrated by delays in diagnosing his illness, Brian Gitta came up with a bright idea: a malaria test that would not need blood samples or specialized laboratory technicians.

That inspiration has won the 25-year-old Ugandan computer scientist a prestigious engineering prize for a noninvasive malaria test kit that he hopes will be widely used across Africa. 

For developing the reusable test kit known as Matibabu, Gitta this month was awarded the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation. The award by the Royal Academy of Engineering in Britain comes with $32,940.

Malaria is the biggest killer in Africa, and the sub-Saharan region accounts for about 80 percent of the world’s malaria cases and deaths. Cases rose to 216 million in 2016, up from 211 million cases in 2015, according to the latest World Malaria Report, released late last year. Malaria deaths fell by 1,000, to 445,000.

The mosquito-borne disease is a challenge to prevent, with increasing resistance reported to both drugs and insecticides.

No needles

The new malaria test kit works by shining a red beam of light onto a finger to detect changes in the shape, color and concentration of red blood cells, all of which are affected by malaria. The results are sent within a minute to a computer or mobile phone linked to the device. 

A Portugal-based firm has been contracted to produce the components for Matibabu, the Swahili word for “treatment.”

“It’s a perfect example of how engineering can unlock development, in this case by improving health care,” Rebecca Enonchong, Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation judge, said in a statement. “Matibabu is simply a game changer.” 

Gitta and five colleagues, all trained in computer science or engineering, developed an affordable, bloodless test that does not need a specialist to operate. The new test will be suitable for use in Africa’s rural areas, where most cases of malaria occur, because it will not depend on sending blood samples to a distant laboratory.

Others are also working to fill the need for quicker, easier malaria tests. There are more than 200 rapid diagnostic test products for malaria on the market, according to the WHO. 

80 percent accurate now

The fifth-generation prototype of Matibabu, with an accuracy rate of 80 percent, is still a work in process. Gitta and his group aim to refine the device until it achieves an accuracy rate exceeding 90 percent. 

Matibabu has yet to be formally subjected to all the necessary clinical trials under Ugandan safety and ethics regulations.

“It excites me as a clinician,” said Medard Bitekyerezo, a Ugandan physician who chairs the National Drug Authority. “I think the National Drug Authority will approve it.”

The government should invest in the project so that its developers don’t struggle financially, he added. The unit cost of the latest prototype is about $100.

Despite the optimism, Gitta has found a hurdle he didn’t anticipate: Some patients are skeptical of unfamiliar technology.

“The doctors will tell you that some people will not leave the hospital until their children have been pricked, and until they have been given anti-malaria drugs and painkillers, even if the kid is not sick,” he said. 

“We think we are developing for hospitals first, so that people can first get attached to the brand, and gain the trust of patients over time.”
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Before it became one of the venues for the World Cup, the city of Volgograd in southwest Russia was famous for an overabundance of small, annoying flies called midges. While the small two-winged flies don’t bite, soccer fans are finding that they don’t leave you alone either. VOA’s Mariama Diallo takes a look at what Russian officials are doing to make the sporting life more comfortable for World Cup fans and players.
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