Tropical Storm Bud intensified late Sunday afternoon into a Category 1 hurricane some 254 miles (410 km) west of the Pacific coast of Mexico, the country’s weather service said.

With maximum sustained winds of 75 miles (121 km) per hour and gusts of 93 miles (150 km) per hour, Bud was moving northwest at 9.3 miles (15 km) per hour.

The storm is the second of the 2018 Pacific hurricane season after Tropical Storm Aletta, which is moving west away from land. On the Atlantic side, Subtropical Storm Alberto slammed into the Mexican Caribbean in late May, forcing the evacuation of oil workers in the Gulf of Mexico and killing almost 10 people in Cuba and in the U.S. Southeast.

Within hours, Bud was due to generate intense storms in the Mexican states that border the Pacific Ocean, such as Jalisco, Colima and Guerrero.

The Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center said Bud would start to weaken by late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

There are no oil installations on the Pacific side of Mexico.

Although authorities established a surveillance zone to follow the trajectory of the hurricane northward along Mexico’s western coast, there were no evacuations of tourist spots like Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas.

“People in the zones of the states with forecast of rains, wind and waves, including maritime navigation, are recommended to take extreme precautions and to comply with the recommendations issued by the authorities,” Mexico’s meteorological service said in a statement.
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After years of research and 400 million dollars from investors, Impossible Foods has produced the hottest new item on the vegan market, meat-free burgers. The goal of the California-based start-up is to make an all-natural organic product that could deliver the pleasure people get from eating meat, but with no cholesterol, antibiotics, hormones, harmful bacteria… or meat. Faiza Elmasry has the story. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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The University of Hawaii Cancer Center is the leader in a groundbreaking national study that found that early-stage breast cancer patients with the most common form of the disease do not benefit from chemotherapy.

The center helped develop the largest breast cancer study, enrolling 172 Hawaii patients onto the TailorX clinical trial, which found that hormone therapy alone produced results as good as both chemotherapy and hormone treatment for 70 percent of women post-surgery, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.

“We’re able now to spare a large group of women side effects of chemotherapy,” said Dr. Randall Holcombe, director of the University of Hawaii Cancer Center. “We now know with this study that women in this intermediate group will have the same chance of a cure by treating with a hormone pill alone. There are some side effects to hormone pills but a lot less than chemotherapy.”

It could significantly change the standard of care, he added.

The five-year survival rate was 98 percent for women who received hormone pills alone and 98.1 percent for those who received both therapies. At nine years, the rates were 93.9 percent and 93.8 percent, respectively.

The findings were based on 10,273 women who participated in the study from 2006 to 2010.

ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group based in Philadelphia conducted the clinical trial, supported by the National Cancer Institute, a number of foundations and sales of the breast cancer research postage stamp, which provided more than $5 million.
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Saturday that nearly $3 billion in pledges has been raised to help fund the education of vulnerable girls and women around the world.

Canada will contribute $300 million to the campaign. Germany, Japan, Britain and the World Bank are among the additional supporters. 

The prime minister made the announcement on the last day of the G-7 summit which was held in Quebec. 

Women’s groups that had met with Trudeau on the sidelines of the summit welcomed the news of the generous pledges that exceeded the groups’ expectations. 

“It gives young women in developing countries the opportunity to pursue careers instead of early marriage and child labor,” said Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head in Pakistan because of her campaign for the right of girls to receive an education.

Yousafzai, currently a student at Oxford University, said the pledges give “all of us the chance to create a safer, healthier and wealthier world.” 

According to a government statement, the funds will be used to equip girls and women, including refugees, with the skills needed for the jobs of the future.

David Morley, president of UNICEF Canada, said “UNICEF believes that the right to education is as fundamental as the right to food or shelter, and provides girls with the skills they need to break the cycle of crisis and poverty.” 
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A Yemeni student has taken his passion for invention to a new level by building household appliances such as refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and cooling fans out of cardboard. Surprisingly, the boy’s creations work very well. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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Scientists say due to indiscriminate use of antibiotics, for treating even minor infections, many bacteria have developed strong immunity against this type of drug. In their words, we may have already entered the ‘post-antibiotic era,’ with previously non-life-threatening infections becoming fatal. Researchers at Rockefeller University in New York say an enzyme called lysin may prove to be crucial in this new battle against infection. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention … and Gaza needs electricity. The coastal enclave’s two million residents now receive only three to four hours of power per day. So four university students invented a device that uses sea waves to generate electricity, in a bid to solve the power shortage. Faith Lapidus has details.
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Some 640,000 tons of lost fishing gear pollute the world’s oceans, according to the United Nations. Slow to break down, these so-called “ghost nets” take a huge toll on sea creatures from tiny sponges to dolphins, turtles and whales. A group of volunteer divers is working to clean up sea floors and draw attention to the damage these ghost nets do. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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A spike in suicide rates in the United States has cast fresh light on the need for more effective treatments for major depression, with researchers

saying it is a tricky development area that has largely been abandoned by big pharmaceutical companies.

U.S. health authorities said this week that there had been a sharp rise in suicide rates across the country since the beginning of the century and called for a comprehensive approach to addressing depression. The report was issued the same week as the high-profile suicides of celebrities Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade.

Reuters was not able to determine whether either Bourdain or Spade were getting drug treatment. Representatives could not immediately be reached for comment.

Kate Spade’s husband, Andy Spade, said in a statement this week that she had suffered from depression for many years and was working closely with her doctors.

With the availability of numerous cheap generic antidepressants, many of which offer only marginal benefit, developing medicines for depression is a tough sell.

Far more cancer drugs

Drugmakers have 140 therapies in development targeting mental health issues, including 39 aimed at depression, according to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America trade group. That compares with the industry’s work on 1,100 experimental cancer drugs, which can command some of the highest prices.

“Psychiatry has become a disfavored area for investment,” said Harry Tracy, whose newsletter, NeuroPerspective, tracks developments in drug treatments for psychiatric problems. “Insurers say, ‘Why should we pay more for a new treatment?’ ”

Some say anti-depressant drugs take too long to become effective, if they are effective at all. About half of people with depression fail to respond to current therapies, said Dr. Husseini Manji, global head of neuroscience at Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen unit.

Developing antidepressants is risky. Patients in clinical trials often show a big placebo response, masking the efficacy of the drug being tested. In addition, once approved, antidepressants require a large sales force to reach

psychiatrists as well as primary care providers.

Another impediment is the difficulty of conducting early depression research on animals that could form a basis for trials in people.

“This has been a big challenge to translate over to human clinical trials,” said Caroline Ko, project leader of NewCures, a newly formed program at Northwestern University aimed at reducing the risk of investment in treatments for depression, pain, Parkinson’s and other diseases.

Lone major player: Johnson & Johnson

J&J is the only large pharmaceutical company making a major investment in a new antidepressant, Tracy said. Smaller players include Sage Therapeutics, which expects a decision from U.S. regulators on a treatment for post-partum depression by the end of the year.

J&J’s esketamine targets treatment-resistant depression. It is similar to ketamine, which is used as an anesthetic and to relieve pain, and often is abused as a recreational party drug with the street nickname Special K.

The company expects to file for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of esketamine, a rapid-acting nasal spray, this year.

“Standard antidepressants can take weeks to work. They really are not useful in a crisis situation,” said Carla Canuso, who is leading J&J’s effort testing the drug in people deemed at imminent risk for suicide, which is most commonly associated with depression.

Allergan Plc is developing rapastinel, a fast-acting intravenous antidepressant the company purchased in 2015. The drug has breakthrough therapy designation from the FDA, with clinical trial results expected in early 2019. Last month, the company acquired another depression drug from its

collaborator, Aptinyx.

Dr. Julie Goldstein Grumet, a behavioral health expert from the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, said 122 people in the United States took their lives by suicide each day last week. Many were never even diagnosed with a mental illness. 

“We’re missing opportunities to screen people for the risk of suicide,” she said.
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Health officials say a salmonella outbreak linked to pre-cut melon has sickened 60 people in five Midwestern states.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Caito Foods LLC on Friday recalled pre-cut watermelon, honeydew melon, cantaloupe and fruit medleys containing at least one of those melons that were produced at its facility in Indianapolis.

It said the five states where people were sickened were Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri and Ohio. The CDC said the fruit was also distributed to stores in Georgia, Kentucky and North Carolina. It was sold in clear plastic clamshell containers at Costco, Jay C, Kroger, Payless, Owen’s, Sprouts, Trader Joe’s, Walgreens, Walmart and Whole Foods/Amazon.

Officials said people should throw away or return recalled products. 

The CDC said 31 of the people sickened had been hospitalized, but that there had been no deaths reported. Those sickened often develop diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps 12 to 72 hours after eating the contaminated food. The illness often lasts four to seven days.
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More people are committing suicide than ever before, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports, but suicide isn’t uniquely an American issue. The World Health Organization estimates that every 40 seconds, someone in the world ends his or her life.

Experts say the key to preventing suicide is to get help early and to reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness and suicide.

Dorothy Paugh was 9 years old when her father took his life.

“I count that day as the last day of my childhood,” she said, “because from that moment on, I had no sense of security.”

Paugh’s father is buried at Arlington Cemetery, a place reserved for war heroes.

“It’s important to me that people not label those who die by suicide as cowards,” she said, “because my father was brave. He fought in World War II and … I think he just got overwhelmed.”

Nearly 50 years later, Dorothy Paugh’s life was shaken again by yet another suicide.

“I lost my son in 2012,” she said.

“This is my favorite picture of Peter because he has a hint of a smile. It’s so understated, but he has piercing blue eyes. He’s paying attention. He’s looking at the world with love, I think.”

Each year, some 800,000 people worldwide die as a result of suicide — and that number does not include the countless others who attempt it. The World Health Organization says this translates to one self-inflicted death every 40 seconds. But the impact on families, societies and communities is far greater.

“The ripple effect is enormous,” Paugh said. My son’s “brothers, his girlfriend, myself, his father. It’s a shock that takes years to recover … to find footing again.”

Yet, experts say suicide can be prevented if governments create policies to prevent alcohol and drug abuse, make guns safer, reduce the stigma of suicide, and provide support for those suffering from depression and diseases that cause depression.

Paul Gionfrieddo, who heads Mental Health America, became an advocate for early treatment when his son developed a mental illness.

“Suicide is the ultimate stage four event for a lot of people who have serious mental illnesses and, frankly, it’s the ultimate stage four, late-stage event for a lot of people with other kinds of chronic diseases as well, too, who might not have had a mental illness,” Gionfrieddo said.

Because of her experience, Paugh became an advocate for suicide prevention.

“If we think someone may be troubled, ask them outright if they are having thoughts of suicide,” Paugh said. “It’s not a comfortable conversation, but it’s a lot more comfortable than a funeral. That’s my hope and my purpose in speaking about suicide — so people know it is preventable.”

Mental health experts say mental health screening would help people get into treatment before their depression becomes severe. Other recommendations include reducing the social stigma associated with mental illness and making treatment more widely available.
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Microplastics, the tiny particles of plastic from decaying waste in the world’s oceans, have been found in seawater and snow in Antarctica. It had been hoped that the frozen continent was protected from the soaring levels of plastic waste in the world’s oceans, but research by environmental campaign group Greenpeace has revealed that few, if any, places on Earth appear able to escape the reach of plastic pollution. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Earthquakes happen frequently in Italy, but the famous leaning tower in Pisa still stands, puzzling scientists. An earthquake expert from University of Bristol thinks he knows why. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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The very thought of visiting a hospital emergency department is stressful enough for many people, even without the discomfort or pain of an examination or treatment.

Enter an immersive virtual-reality program created by three graduates being used in France to relax patients and even increase their tolerance of pain, without resorting to drugs.

“What we offer is a contemplative world where the patient goes on a guided tour, in interactive mode, to play music, do a bit of painting or work out a riddle,” said Reda Khouadra, one of the 24-year-olds behind the project.

As patients are transported by chunky VR goggles into a three-dimensional world of Japanese zen gardens or snowy hillsides, they become more tolerant of minor but painful procedures such as having a cut stitched, a burn treated, a urinary catheter inserted or a dislocated shoulder pushed back into place.

“The virtual reality project … enables us to offer patients a technique to distract their attention and curb their pain and anxiety when being treated in the emergency room,” said Olivier Ganansia, head of the emergency department at the Saint-Joseph Hospital in Paris. “I think in 10 years, virtual reality won’t even be a question anymore, and will be used in hospitals routinely.”

The Healthy Mind startup is not a world first but has landed a $20,000 prize from a university in Adelaide, Australia — which will now pay for the three founders to present their project at Microsoft’s headquarters in Seattle.
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Efforts to fight suicide in the United States are desperate for additional funding, suicide-prevention experts said, following this week’s high profile deaths of celebrities Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, and new statistics showing a growing problem.

Federal funding for suicide trailed far behind other major public health issues, even though it is the 10th-leading cause of death among Americans, claiming one person every 12 minutes, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Our crisis centers across the country are chronically underfunded,” said John Draper, executive director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which can be reached at 1-800-273-TALK and provides free support 24 hours a day.

Other funding levels

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) provided about $35 million in 2017 to fund research into suicide prevention, with another $68 million devoted to the category of suicide, according to the agency’s statistics.

There were 45,000 U.S. suicides in 2016. In comparison, alcoholism, which killed an estimated 65,000 Americans in 2015, saw $500 million in funded research last year.

Private charities, which help sustain suicide prevention hotlines, also have a harder time raising funds than those that tackle some other health issues, experts said.

“Look at breast cancer. More people will die by suicide than breast cancer this year,” said Dan Reidenberg, executive director of the nonprofit Suicide Awareness Voices of Education. 

Almost $690 million was spent on breast cancer research last year, according to NIH statistics. About 41,000 women will die from breast cancer this year, the American Cancer Society estimates.

​High rate of suicide

The United States has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world, according to World Health Organization data. In 2015, the United States had a rate of 15.3 suicides per 100,000 people, well above the global average of 10.6 per 100,000, according to WHO.

Bourdain, a chef and host of CNN’s Parts Unknown food-and-travel show, died of an apparent suicide Friday in a French hotel. Spade, a fashion designer known for her popular handbags, was found dead in her apartment Tuesday after what her husband described as a long battle with depression.

Scientists are making progress in identifying ways of predicting suicide risk more precisely, including biomarkers that could indicate whether someone is more likely to attempt it, said Jane Pearson, chairwoman of the National Institute of Mental Health’s suicide research consortium.

Undiagnosed mental health problems, stresses such as loss of a job or a loved one, relationship problems, financial difficulties and physical problems can contribute to suicide, experts said.

‘Confluence of factors’

“It’s usually a confluence of factors,” said Jerry Reed, a member of the executive committee of the Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention. “We have to be mindful of the whole spectrum.”

Research has shown that direct intervention, much like the use of suicide hotlines, can help people contemplating suicide to change their minds, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s Draper said.

The key is to think of suicide as a public health issue, much like diseases such as AIDS or cancer, said Christine Moutier, the chief medical officer at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

While tragic, the deaths of Spade and Bourdain could help spread the message that suicides can be prevented, experts said.

“It definitely is a teachable moment,” Pearson said.
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The World Health Organization  (WHO) says it is cautiously optimistic about containing the spread of the Ebola virus in Democratic Republic of Congo, but warns that much work lies ahead. Thirty eight of 62 suspected cases have been confirmed. Of this total number of confirmed cases, 27 people have died.

The World Health Organization reports the majority of confirmed Ebola cases were detected two to three weeks ago. Since then, there only have been a few sporadic cases.It notes there have been no confirmed cases since mid-May in two of the three affected areas in DR Congo, the large city of Mbandaka and Bikoro, where the virus was originally detected one month ago.

Peter Salama, the WHO’s deputy director general of emergency preparedness and response, said the fact that there have been no recent confirmed cases is important. He said nearly 700 people who were in contact with infected individuals have been immunized with a promising, experimental vaccine.

“We have added cause for optimism because now we have reached for the majority of the contacts — more than 98 percent of the contacts — with vaccination,” he said. “And because the vaccination for the majority of them occurred 10 days ago, we believe that the majority of those contacts in the ring vaccination are now protected against Ebola. So that gives us a lot of source of optimism along with the fact that we have not seen cases since mid-May in those two locations.”

Salama said phase one to protect urban centers and towns has gone well and the WHO will now begin phase two. He said the focus will be on vaccinating health workers and contacts of infected persons in the third affected area of Iboko and the tiny town of Itipo within this health zone. A case of Ebola was confirmed there on Thursday.

Iboko is a very remote, forested region with a large, marginalized indigenous population. The town of Itipo has no infrastructure, power or running water. Salama said the logistical challenges of identifying, tracing and then vaccinating every contact of an infected person in this area are enormous and the work ahead over the coming weeks will be very tough.

An Ebola outbreak in West Africa a few years ago left more than 11,000 people dead.
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A growing number of e-cigarette and vaporizer sellers have started offering college scholarships as a way to get their brands listed on university websites and to get students to write essays about the potential benefits of vaping.

The tactic is taken from a method that was once believed to improve a site’s ranking in search results, and it has successfully landed vaping brands on the sites of some of the nation’s best-known universities, including Harvard. It also has drawn criticism that the scholarships are a thinly disguised ploy to attract young customers.

The scholarships, ranging from $250 to $5,000, mostly involve essay contests that ask students to write about the dangers of tobacco or whether vaping could be a safer alternative. At least one company asks applicants to write about different types of e-cigarettes and which one they recommend. Some seek papers in support of medical marijuana.

Over the last two years, the grants have been posted online by e-cigarette retailers and review websites such as Slick Vapes, SmokeTastic and DaVinci Vaporizer.

Scholarship offers removed

Robert Pagano, owner of the Las Vegas-based review site Vapor Vanity, said he was offering new scholarships of up to $1,500 this year. He acknowledged it’s partly a marketing tool, but he also says many in the industry are former smokers and want to help teens avoid tobacco.

“It’s a little bit of being genuine, a little bit of self-interest,” said Pagano, whose company does not sell vaping products. “This is probably the best way to get people to actually focus on the issues that we’re trying to write about.”

Days after Pagano was interviewed by The Associated Press, the scholarships were removed from his site without explanation. He did not return calls or emails seeking further comment.

The grants have emerged as high schools struggle to rein in booming teen use of the devices, sometimes threatening students with suspensions or installing alarms that can detect the devices’ discreet vapor. Federal agencies have attempted to crack down on underage sales and are investigating marketing efforts by the brand Juul, which has become especially popular among teens.

Although some of the scholarships are limited to students 18 and older — the nation’s legal age to buy vaping products — many are open to younger teens or have no age limit.

Most companies behind the essay contests did not return calls or declined interview requests. But the American Vaping Association trade group defended the practice, saying it allows companies to boost their brand while offering college students a helping hand.

Alcohol makers have same program

The head of the association, Gregory Conley, compared it with scholarship programs that have long been offered by alcohol makers like Anheuser-Busch, which distributes tens of thousands of dollars each year for minority students.

Some anti-tobacco groups were unaware of the scholarships until asked about them by the AP, but they sharply criticized efforts to get teens writing in favor of vaping.

“They’re trying to use youth as their marketing surrogates,” said Gregg Haifley, director of federal relations for the American Cancer Society’s lobbying arm in Washington. “They can gussy it up any way they want, try to put lipstick on that pig, but this is about marketing.”

Opponents said the scholarships could test federal rules forbidding tobacco and e-cigarette companies from marketing to minors. The Food and Drug Administration, which oversees regulation of e-cigarettes, declined to comment on the question and referred a reporter to the Federal Trade Commission. An FTC spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Long-term effects an unknown

Most medical experts agree that vaping is safer than smoking traditional cigarettes, but little is known about its long-term health effects.

Manufacturers often say vaping products are meant only for adults trying to quit smoking, and some of the essay contests note that they aren’t meant to promote vaping. But some anti-tobacco groups say there’s no other reason the companies would reach out to young people.

“Most of these kids are not smokers,” said Robin Koval, president of the Truth Initiative, a Washington-based nonprofit that opposes the tobacco and vaping industries. “What they’re saying and what they’re doing don’t seem to agree here. But that’s not surprising.”

It’s unclear how many — if any — of the scholarships have been awarded. Several websites promise to publicize winners and their essays, but it doesn’t appear any have done so. None of the 15 companies contacted by the AP would disclose winners, and only one agreed to an interview.

Marketing experts say the vaping industry isn’t the first to use college scholarships as a form of cheap advertising. The internet is teeming with similar offers from websites that sell weight-loss pills and protein powders, as well as payday lenders and companies that pay cash for gold.

‘Backdoor’ approach

The tactic was created years ago, at a time when websites thought getting their link on a college or government site would boost their rankings in Google search results. Some created scholarships purely to get their links on university financial-aid pages.

“This is almost a backdoor way to get your name on a university website, and from the point of view of the student, it would look like the university is supporting this effort,” said Ron Berman, who teaches marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s business school.

The tactic worked. Vaping scholarships have ended up on financial-aid directories compiled by Harvard, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Pittsburgh and others, including institutions that have taken a stance against e-cigarettes.

Harvard and California State University at Long Beach immediately removed the listings after being asked about them by the AP, saying they had been posted inadvertently.

“We’re not interested in being a platform for tobacco or vaping,” said Jeff Bliss, a spokesman for CSU Long Beach.

Outdated strategy?

Some marketing firms advise against the strategy, calling it outdated. Google has updated its algorithm to defeat similar tactics, and it penalizes sites that try to manipulate search rankings.

Wil Reynolds, founder of the Philadelphia-based marketing agency Seer Interactive, said his company employed the strategy years ago for clients connected to the education world, but he abandoned it after other industries started exploiting it.

It is a shady practice when you really can’t back it up with a legitimate reason,” he said.
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As summer draws near in the Northern Hemisphere, millions of people will slather on sunscreen to protect themselves from the sun’s harmful rays. But most sunscreens contain chemicals harmful to the oceans. Now researchers in London have developed a compound found in seaweed that could be the basis for a new generation of environmentally friendly sunscreens. As VOA’s Julie Taboh reports, they may not only protect us from damaging rays from the sun but also act as an anti-oxidant.
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By day, she’s a cryogenics engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, where she works on what she calls a “baby step toward a mission to Mars.” By night, she participates in Goddard’s Music and Drama Club, often known as MAD. She played keyboard for the club’s spring musical.  

“The work here can get very intense,” said Breon, a 30-year NASA veteran. “We did our thermal vacuum testing a couple of months ago, and it was an around-the-clock, 24/7 operation.” 

The club members include scientists, engineers and managers who work for NASA on projects including weather satellites and space telescopes, and they say the club is a creative outlet for them.  

“We’ve got more engineers per square foot than any other theater group around,” said Randy Barth, who directed the club’s latest musical, “Weird Romance.”

MAD has staged at least one show a year at Goddard since 1970, from “Oklahoma!” and “The Sound of Music” to science-fiction fare. Club members say it helps them with their day jobs and shows the public another side of scientists at the sprawling flight center northeast of Washington.

Astrophysicist Kim Weaver is the club’s president. Doing theater helps her connect with people who aren’t scientists, she says.  

“When I say I’m an astrophysicist, I usually get a blank stare. So in order to get (people) to actually open up and smile at me, I then say I also do theater, because that’s the part that they think is cool,” Weaver said. “You say you’re a scientist, and I think that scares people. They think they can’t talk to you.”

She was a graduate student intern when she saw a flyer about the club’s auditions for “Sweet Charity.” Making the show was what led her to take a job at Goddard. 

“It really helped improve my chances, even in my career,” Weaver said. “I met some more senior astronomers who later on down the line were able to help steer me and guide me in my career path.”

“Weird Romance’” combines science and drama.  

In the first act, “The Girl Who Was Plugged In,” a corporate mogul creates his own celebrity using a beautiful, artificial body that is controlled by a homeless woman. 

The second, “Her Pilgrim Soul,” was adapted from a “Twilight Zone” episode. In it, a projector shows holographic images of a woman that were not programmed into it, to the surprise of the scientists involved. 

One of the production’s stage directions describes a character as having “a smile that could melt frozen methane.” 

Breon considered that a good omen, since her job actually involves melting frozen methane. 

“We have to do more than smile at it, though,” she joked. 
…

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has recorded its first confirmed case of Ebola in over a week, the health ministry said Thursday, although medics said they had made significant progress in their efforts to contain the disease.

The patient, a known contact of someone believed to have died from Ebola on May 20, was confirmed positive on Wednesday for the hemorrhagic fever in the rural community of Iboko, the ministry said in a daily report.

Health officials have moved aggressively to contain the epidemic in a bid to head off a repeat of the 2013-16 outbreak in West Africa that killed more than 11,300 people.

Over 1,800 health workers and other people who could have been exposed to the virus have received an experimental vaccine first tested in the waning days of the West Africa epidemic.

Those efforts and the slowing pace of new cases have led health officials to express cautious optimism about containing the outbreak, although its location directly up the Congo River from the capital, Kinshasa, remains a concern.

The last confirmed case before Wednesday was on May 30 in Iboko. The ministry also reported five new suspected cases on Thursday, including two in Mbandaka, a city of 1.5 million people.

In all, the ministry has recorded 38 confirmed, 14 probable and 10 suspected cases, including 27 deaths.

The World Health Organization said Thursday that it was committing $15.6 million over the next nine months to help the nine countries that border Congo to scale up their emergency response capabilities.

Earlier this week, the government of the northern Angolan province of Malanje closed its river border with Congo in response to the outbreak.
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Suicide rates rose in nearly every U.S. state from 1999 to 2016, with the rate spiking by more than 30 percent in half of the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported Thursday.

Though mental health is often blamed for suicides, more than half of the people who took their own lives in 27 states in 2015 had not been diagnosed with mental illnesses, the CDC said.

While suicide rates rose across age groups, the CDC said people ages 45-64 had the biggest rate increase. That age group also had the highest rate. People ages 10-24 had the lowest rate.

“It’s a national problem of wide scope that we need comprehensive approaches for,” said Anne Schuchat, a CDC deputy director.

Nearly 45,000 people committed suicide in 2016, making it one of three leading causes of death on the rise in the United States, along with Alzheimer’s disease and drug overdoses.

The death of designer Kate Spade by suicide in New York this week shocked the fashion world. Her husband said in a statement Wednesday that she had suffered from depression and anxiety for many years.

The CDC said suicides were rarely caused by any single issue.

In addition to mental health conditions and suicide attempts as risk factors, other contributing circumstances include social and economic problems, access to the means to commit suicide, and poor coping and problem-solving skills, the health agency said in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The CDC found that suicides had increased in every state except Nevada, where they decreased by 1 percent. However, Nevada had the ninth-highest suicide rate in the country.

North Dakota had the highest increase, at nearly 58 percent over the studied time period.

Montana had the highest suicide rate, at 29.2 per 100,000 people per year, while the District of Columbia had the lowest, at 6.9 suicides per 100,000 people per year.

The CDC recommended a broad approach to suicide prevention, including boosting economic support by states, supporting family and friends after a suicide, and identifying and supporting people at risk for suicide.
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The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air peaked again this year at record levels, scientists reported Thursday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday that carbon dioxide levels averaged 411.25 parts per million in May at the federal Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, up from 409.65 a year ago.

The Scripps Institution for Oceanography, where scientists first started tracking the gas, found a similar increase.

May is traditionally the highest month for carbon dioxide levels; in late spring and summer, plants suck the heat-trapping gas out of the air.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air has increased nearly 26 percent in 50 years. Burning coal, gas and oil emits carbon dioxide, which is a major greenhouse gas.

NOAA greenhouse gas monitoring chief Pieter Tans said the rate of increase from last year is a little less than past years but much more than it was in the 1990s.

“The emissions that we are causing today will still be in the atmosphere-ocean system thousands of years from now,” Tans said. “We are as a global society making an extremely long climate change commitment.”
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A NASA rover has detected a bonanza of organic compounds on the surface of Mars and seasonal fluctuations of atmospheric methane in findings released on Thursday that mark some of the strongest evidence ever that Earth’s neighbor may have harbored life.

But National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists emphasized there could be nonbiological explanations for both discoveries made by the Curiosity rover at a site called Gale crater, leaving the issue of Martian life a tantalizing but unanswered question.

Three different types of organic molecules were discovered when the rover dug just 2 inches (5 cm) into roughly 3.5 billion-year-old mudstone, a fine-grained sedimentary rock, at Gale crater, apparently the site of a large lake when ancient Mars was warmer and wetter than the desolate planet it is today.

Curiosity also measured an unexpectedly large seasonal cycle in the low levels of atmospheric methane. About 95 percent of the methane in Earth’s atmosphere is produced from biological activity, though the scientists said it is too soon to know if the Martian methane also is related to life.

Organic molecules are the building blocks of life, though they can also be produced by chemical reactions unrelated to life. The scientists said it is premature to know whether or not the compounds were created in biological processes.

Whether anywhere other than Earth has harbored life, perhaps even in microbial form, is one of the paramount questions in science.

“There’s three possible sources for the organic material,” said astrobiologist Jennifer Eigenbrode of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. “The first one would be life, which we don’t know about. The second would be meteorites. And the last one is geological processes, meaning the rock-forming processes themselves.”

The rover, which has allowed scientists to explore whether Mars ever boasted conditions conducive to life, in 2014 made the first definitive detection of organic molecules, also in Gale crater rock formed from ancient lake sediment — but it was a much more limited set of compounds.

“What the organic detections in the rock do is to add to the story of habitability. It tells us that this ancient environment on Mars could have supported life,” Eigenbrode said. “Everything that was needed to support life  was there. But it doesn’t tell us that life was there.”

Christopher Webster, an atmospheric science research fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said it is possible existing microbes are contributing to the Martian atmospheric methane.

“With this new data, we again cannot rule out microbial activity as a potential source,” Webster said.

The amount of methane peaked at the end of summer in the northern hemisphere at about 2.7 times the level of the lowest seasonal amount.

The scientists were surprised to find organic compounds, especially in the amounts detected, considering the harsh conditions, including bombardment of solar radiation on the Martian surface. After drilling, Curiosity heats the rock samples, releasing the compounds.

Referring to the findings regarding organic compounds and methane, Webster said, “They hint at an earlier time on Mars when water was present and the existence of primitive life forms was possible.”

The scientists hope to find better preserved organic compounds with Curiosity or other rovers that would allow them to check for chemical signatures of life.

The research was published in the journal Science.
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If doctors suspect a patient has a broken bone, they typically take an X-ray to be sure of the problem. But to treat a mental health issue, doctors typically don’t take a picture of the brain. One doctor is trying to change that with a controversial brain scan. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti explains.
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