The environmental group EcoWatch estimates that at least 1 million sea birds, and 100,000 marine mammals are killed every year by ingesting plastic or getting caught in it. It is an environmental nightmare, and it’s getting worse every year. But this week, more than 200 countries signed an agreement to begin dealing with the problem. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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America’s first black astronaut, Air Force Maj. Robert Lawrence Jr., finally got full honors Friday on the 50th anniversary of his death.

Several hundred people gathered at Kennedy Space Center to commemorate Lawrence, who almost certainly would have gone on to fly in space had he not died in a plane crash on Dec. 8, 1967.

The crowd included NASA dignitaries, astronauts, fellow Omega Psi Phi fraternity members, schoolchildren, and relatives of Lawrence and other astronauts who have died in the line of duty.

Lawrence was part of a classified military space program in the 1960s called the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, meant to spy on the Soviet Union. He died when his F-104 Starfighter crashed at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He was 32.

Astronauts at Friday’s two-hour ceremony said Lawrence would have gone on to fly NASA’s space shuttles and that, after his death, he inspired all the African-American astronauts who followed him. 

 Like Lawrence, Robert Crippen was part of the Air Force’s program. It was canceled in 1969 without a single manned spaceflight, prompting Crippen and other astronauts to move on to NASA. Crippen was pilot of the first space shuttle flight in 1981.

With a doctoral degree in physical chemistry — a rarity among test pilots — Lawrence was “definitely on the fast track,” Crippen said. He graduated from high school at age 16 and college at 20.

“He had a great future ahead of him if he had not been lost 50 years ago today,” Crippen said.

Lawrence paved the way for Guy Bluford, who became the first African-American in space in 1983, Dr. Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in space in 1992, and Charles Bolden Jr., a space shuttle commander who became NASA’s first black administrator in 2009. Next year, the International Space Station is getting its first African-American resident: NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps.

Another former African-American astronaut, Winston Scott, said his own shuttle rides into orbit would not have happened if not for a trailblazers like Lawrence. In tribute to Lawrence, a jazz lover, Scott and his jazz band serenaded the crowd with “Fly Me to the Moon” and other tunes.

Lawrence’s sister, Barbara, a retired educator, said he considered himself the luckiest man in the world for being able to combine the two things he loved most: chemistry and flying.

Lawrence’s name was etched into the Astronauts Memorial Foundation’s Space Mirror at Kennedy for the 30th anniversary of his death in 1997, following a long bureaucratic struggle. It took years for the Air Force to recognize Lawrence as an astronaut, given he’d never flown as high as the 1960s-required altitude of 50 miles.

The Space Mirror Memorial bears the names of two other African-Americans: Ronald McNair, who died aboard space shuttle Challenger in 1986, and Michael Anderson, who died on shuttle Columbia in 2003.

Marsalis Walton, 11, who drove from Tampa with his father, Sam, came away inspired. He dreams of becoming an astronaut.

“It feels good that everyone has a chance to do anything,” the boy said.
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Rapid action prevented the spread of the deadly Marburg virus just weeks after it was first detected in Uganda, the World Health Organization reports.

The first case of the disease in the African country was confirmed October 17, when laboratory tests found the death of a 50-year-old woman was due to the Marburg virus.  

“Within 24 hours of being informed by the Ugandan health authorities in early October, WHO deployed a rapid response team to the remote mountainous area and we have financed the immediate support and scaled up the response in Uganda and Kenya,” said World Health Organization spokeswoman, Fadela Chaib. 

WHO released $623,000 from its emergency fund to finance the action.

Marburg is a highly fatal disease caused by a virus from the same family as that of Ebola. It can be transmitted from person to person by bodily fluids, and can cause bleeding, fever, vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms. 

This was the fifth outbreak of Marburg virus in a decade, and lessons have been learned from those outbreaks, as well as from the West African Ebola epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people.

“Marburg is very infectious,” Chaib said. “It was also important to trace all the contacts of this first case and to follow them for a period of 21 days, plus 21 days just to make sure that there [are] no other cases being detected.” 

WHO reports three people died over the course of the outbreak, which affected two districts in eastern Uganda near the Kenyan border. Surveillance and contact tracing on the Kenyan side of the border by the Kenyan Ministry of Health and its partners also prevented cross-border spread of the disease, according to WHO.
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Mammography has been a standard screening device for breast cancer since the mid-1970s. And the practice is crediting with a 30 percent decline in death due to early detection and treatment. Now, many doctors are urging women to get a 3-D mammogram, which produces a more detailed view of the breast. But there has not been a large-scale study to determine if the technology actually provides a better outcome… until now. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Rising seas driven by climate change are threatening coastal cities around the world. The Southern U.S. city of Miami is already feeling the effects. Every autumn, when tides are at their highest, residents contend with flooded streets. Now, scientists are turning citizens into scientists to help them understand the impacts. VOA’s Steve Baragona spent time with volunteers splashing in puddles for science.
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Mammography has been a standard screening device for breast cancer since the mid-1970s. And the practice is credited with a 30 percent decline in death, thanks to early detection and treatment.

Now, many doctors are urging women to get a 3-D mammogram, which produces a more detailed view of the breast. But there has not been a large-scale study to determine if the technology actually provides a better outcome — until now.

Women older than 50 are advised to get a mammogram every year or two to screen for breast cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women.

​Comparing mammograms

A new study funded by the National Cancer Institute will compare traditional mammograms with the 3-D version to determine if the newer, often pricier choice really improves early detection of tumors.

“It’s a new technology that has been FDA approved,” said Dr. Tova Koenigsberg of Montefiore Health Systems in New York. “But we don’t actually have studies that know whether in a large population 3-D actually helps.”

Koenigsberg heads the project at Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care, one of about 100 clinics participating in the five-year study. The clinics, spread across the United States, and a few in Canada, will soon enroll healthy women ages 45 to 74 who are planning to get a routine mammogram, including Sabitri Jaipersaud.

After a doctor found what turned out to be a benign abnormality in her breast, she became diligent about annual mammograms and felt joining the study was important.

“It immediately piqued my interest because I feel that all, all of us can benefit from this and for the future,” Jaipersaud said.

The women in the study will be randomly assigned to get either the regular mammogram or the 3-D version for five years. Most will be screened annually but post-menopausal women who don’t have certain cancer risk factors will be screened every other year.

A traditional mammogram takes an X-ray of the breast from top to bottom and side-to-side.

“In a 3-D mammogram,” Koenigsberg said, “the camera actually sweeps at an angle and allows us to see the breast at different angles and projections.”

Known pros, cons

Doctors know that there are pros and cons to 3-D mammography, said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

“It might find disease that we need to find that two-dimensional does not,” Brawley said. “There’re potential cons in that it has a higher cost, higher amount of radiation, given every dose, every time a person has a test, as well as it may find a higher number of false positives.”

As for what type to choose, some insurers, including Medicare, cover the 3-D version, and a small number of states mandate coverage. Other insurers may require women to pay $50 to $100 more out of pocket.

After collecting the result of every scan, biopsy and cancer at the end of the study, researchers hope to provide certainty about how often women should get mammograms, and which women would benefit most from which type.
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Detecting cancer early can make all the difference in beating the disease. That is why a new test created by Polish doctors could be so important to women suffering from ovarian cancer. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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A Congolese fashion designer is promoting safe sex with a collection of clothes made of condoms that she hopes will help combat HIV/AIDS in the central African country.

Felicite Luwungu started making her condom line, which includes strapless evening gowns and tops, after the HIV/AIDS epidemic hit close to home.

“I have lost loved ones to HIV – that’s what inspired me to do this,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from the capital, Kinshasa. “The message that I hope people will apply is to be prudent.”

The number of people living with HIV/AIDS and dying from related infections in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been falling for more than a decade, according to the United Nations.

The prevalence rate of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is about 0.7 percent, among the lowest in southern and central Africa, UNAIDS data shows.

Luwungu, 40, displays her work in runway shows and exhibitions. When she finishes the condom collection, she plans to present it at a large fashion show next year.

The designs have shocked audiences but responses have been mostly positive, Luwungu said.

“People make jokes but it doesn’t discourage me,” she said. “That only pushes me to do this more.”
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Before it became the worst day of her life, Allison Norland spread a blanket on the grass outside her father-in–law’s house so her infant daughter could crawl on the soft ground. New to motherhood, her first child was a surprise. “I found out when I was six and a half months pregnant, which was unbelievable for me,” she said. “Then I went to the hospital, found out I was in labor, obviously still using.”

The daughter of an alcoholic, Allison says she has a highly addictive personality. Her drug use started with marijuana when she was 18. “I would start kind of hanging out with my sister and the older crowd and drink, and then the coke [cocaine] started. I was actually dating a man at the time who was selling weed and cocaine. So, easy access I guess,” she told us.

At 19, she met the man she would eventually marry. He introduced her to Oxycodone, a commonly prescribed, but highly addictive, semi-synthetic opioid.

“We started using when we would go out of town to visit his friends and then it kind of proceeded to [finding] some people down where we live who were selling [Oxycodone] and it kind of became more common place,” she said.

After two back-to-back car accidents while driving high, she was sent to a pain doctor for her injuries. “It was straight to 30 milligrams of Oxycodone. I was getting 90 pills a month. That doctor shut down and I went to another doctor and proceeded to 150 pills a month,” she said. “I was using every day.”

Pain medication

She says the doctors never asked her if she had a history of illegal drug use or had ever abused opioids. Estimates are six out of 10 heroin users on the street started out with pain medication prescribed by a doctor. As the opioid crisis has exploded across the country, the medical community has come under scrutiny for the way they treat pain, and addiction specialists often point a finger directly at the conduct of the medical community.

Allison developed what she described as an intense addiction. The birth of her daughter was her wake-up call. Her obvious drug use was called to the attention of child protective services in Miami-Dade County where she lived. She says they almost took her newborn from her.

“I was so guilty and so ashamed that I had let that go on as long as I did. But I had her, she was healthy, no withdrawal symptoms, no anything,” she said.

She stayed clean for seven months. Then tragedy struck. As Allison watched her daughter play on the blanket that day in the back yard, her father-in-law accidentally drove his car off the driveway, striking and killing the little girl.

After seeing her daughter in the hospital for the last time, Allison drove straight to where she knew she could get pills. She says she used every day for the next year.

“Every day I pushed the limit further and further because I didn’t know how to be anymore, and what to be anymore. To go from being a mom and loving this thing so much, so much more than I love myself, to having her gone and this absence in my heart, it was really hard,” she said.

The incident left Allison with Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and depression. The years passed in a fog. After an arrest, and time at another rehabilitation facility, Allison was ordered by the court to go to The Village, in Miami Florida, one of several residential and outpatient rehab centers run by Westcare, a non-profit healthcare corporation that specializes in addiction services.

Treating addiction

At first, she was hostile toward being at The Village, a renovated old Florida motel-style complex a few blocks from Biscayne Bay in the Edgewater neighborhood north of downtown Miami. Now 28, Allison sat with us in the room she shares with two other women, the walls lined with metal bunk beds and cabinets decorated with family pictures.

“I snuck in phones [which are forbidden]. I would get caught smoking on the facility, but then again I fought a lot. I fought in here, I fought out there. I just fought. I was so angry and broken down that I couldn’t be that person anymore,” she said.

Allison was initially ordered to stay at the facility for 90 days. She has chosen to stay longer. Now in her fourth month, she has slowly begun to unravel the threads of her addiction. The problems were not socio-economic. “I didn’t grow up on the streets,” she told us. “My family was upper middle-class.”

For decades, opioid abuse predominantly affected people of color in poverty-wracked inner cities. Today’s crisis has moved into the white middle-class suburbs and spread to small towns across the country.

When we asked her what an addict loses, she said “everything.” At the core of her loss were the morals and values she grew up with.

“To learn to look people in the eye and tell the truth because that is a big part of addiction – lying. I have to learn how to look people in the eye. I have to learn how to stand up straight. I have to learn how to love myself. That is what I lost most of all,” she said.

The Village uses a combination of medication, and individual and group therapy to treat its clients.

Patients are given Suboxone, a synthetic opioid strip that dissolves under the tongue. There has been some controversy with treating opioid addiction with opioids, but The Village says it has used Suboxone with great success. Delivered in small doses, the strips can eliminate withdrawal symptoms in 15 minutes. Suboxone also eliminates the cravings for opioids with limited side effects. Clients continue on the drug for months.

“With medication, we can begin to have an effect on your cravings for drugs and keep you engaged in your recovery,” says Frank Rabbito, senior vice president for Westcare, which runs The Village. “Medication keeps you away from illegal drugs and gives you an opportunity to engage in your recovery, be monitored by us for a period of time, and move toward a greater independent lifestyle.”

Therapy sessions

Allison credits the relationship and trust she has built with her therapist for her turnaround. Like many substance abusers, she has a history of physical, mental and sexual abuse going back to her childhood.

“I would say 80 percent of substance users have trauma in their past,” said Alexandra Kirkland, a therapist who works with patients at The Village. “And it causes them to have depressive symptoms. So when they flash back and think about the trauma, it breaks into their daily functioning, and many times they use substances as an escape to deal with the trauma.”

“My therapist has been incredible and has helped me through things I have done in the dark that I never thought would come to light,” Allison told us. “There are things that happened to me that I never wanted to talk about I have talked about with her. And it is because I know she can understand.”

The sessions have helped her confront some painful realities, such as using drugs while pregnant.

“I put my daughter in harm’s way for a pill. I put my life in danger for a pill. I was risking everything for this drug. And that is it – chasing a high that was never going to be enough, “she said.

It’s hard to reconcile the darkness she describes with the person in front of us; she now carries herself with an air of happiness and confidence, and can flash a smile that lights up the room. Allison wants to stay even longer at the The Village and further her recovery.

The odds are against her. Researchers estimate a mere three percent of addicts stay clean for life.  Allison is not deterred. She now wants to become an addiction specialist.

“That is my goal,” she says, brimming with energy. “It is exciting to work toward something. That is a huge thing. I want to help people. People like me.”
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At the summit of one of Iceland’s most dangerous volcanoes, a 72-foot (22-meter) depression in the snow is the only visible sign of an alarming development.

The Oraefajokull volcano, dormant since its last eruption in 1727-1728, has seen a recent increase in seismic activity and geothermal water leakage that has worried scientists. With the snow hole on Iceland’s highest peak deepening 18 inches (45 centimeters) each day, authorities have raised the volcano’s alert safety code to yellow.

Experts at Iceland’s Meteorological Office have detected 160 earthquakes in the region in the past week alone as they step up their monitoring of the volcano. The earthquakes are mostly small but their sheer number is exceptionally high.

“Oraefajokull is one of the most dangerous volcanos in Iceland. It’s a volcano for which we need to be very careful,” said Sara Barsotti, Coordinator for Volcanic Hazards at the Icelandic Meteorological Office.

What worries scientists the most is the devastating potential impact of an eruption at Oraefajokull.

Located in southeast Iceland about 320 kilometers (200 miles) from the capital, Reykjavik, the volcano lies under the Vatnajokull glacier, the largest glacier in Europe. Its 1362 eruption was the most explosive since the island was populated, even more explosive that the eruption of Italy’s Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. that destroyed the city of Pompei.

Adding to the danger is the lack of historical data that could help scientists predict the volcano’s behavior.

“It’s not one of the best-known volcanos,” Barsotti said. “One of the most dangerous things is to have volcanos for which we know that there is potential for big eruptions but with not that much historical data.”

Iceland is home to 32 active volcanic sites, and its history is punctuated with eruptions, some of them catastrophic. The 1783 eruption of Laki spewed a toxic cloud over Europe, killing tens of thousands of people and sparking famine when crops failed. Some historians cite it as a contributing factor to the French Revolution.

The Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted in April 2010, prompting aviation authorities to close much of Europe’s airspace for five days out of fear that its volcanic ash could damage jet engines. Millions of travelers were stranded by the move.

To remedy the lack of data for Oraefajokull, scientists are rushing to install new equipment on and around the volcano. Those include ultra-sensitive GPS sensors that can detect even the slightest tremors, webcams for real-time imagery of the volcano and sensors in the rivers that drain the volcano’s glaciers to measure the chemical composition of the water.

Associated Press journalists last week visited scientists working near the mouth of the Kvia River, where the stench of sulfur was strong and the water was murky, clear signs that geothermal water was draining from the caldera.

“The most plausible explanation is that new magma is on the move deep below the surface,” said Magnus Gudmundsson, professor of geophysics at the Institute of Earth Sciences in Reykjavik.

But what happens next is anyone’s guess. In the most benign scenario, the phenomenon could simply cease. More concerning would be the development of a subglacial lake that could lead to massive flooding. At the far end of the spectrum of consequences would be a full eruption.

With such high-risk developments at stake, authorities are taking precautions. Police inspector Adolf Arnason now is patrolling the road around the volcano, which will be used for any evacuation, and residents have received evacuation briefings.

“Some farmers have only 20 minutes (to leave),” he said, pulling up to a small farm on the flank of the mountain.

If an evacuation is ordered, everyone in the area will receive a text message and the radio will broadcast updates. Police are confident that Oraefi’s 200 residents will know how to react, but their biggest concern is contacting tourists.

Iceland has seen a huge boom in tourism since the 2010 eruption — a record 2.4 million people are expected to visit this year and about 2,000 tourists travel through Oraefi every day. While some stay in hotels that could alert their guests, others spend the night in camper vans spread across the remote area.

“The locals know what to do. They know every plan and how to react. But the tourists, they don’t,” said Police Chief superintendent Sveinn Runarsson. “That’s our worst nightmare.”
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Within seconds of pulling out of the station parking lot, Major Mike Will gets his first call to respond to a crisis. Wills switches on his lights and siren and picks up the pace.

A thirty-year veteran of the Louisville’s emergency medical services, he has witnessed the explosion in opioid overdoses that have ravaged the city over the past two-years.

“The information we have right now is a 52-year old adult male who is unconscious, CPR in progress. And it look like an overdose,” he tells us.

The epidemic is taking a toll on Louisville’s first responders who field an average of over 20 overdose calls a day.

“When I first started, we could anticipate making narcotic or opioid overdose calls maybe five times a year,” he says. “And in the past year or two we have several of our crews that are making five in a 12 or 16 hour shift.”

As overdoses have steadily risen in cities and small towns across the country, officials have been searching for answers. Louisville reached a crisis point last August, with 151 overdoses over a span of four days.

Doctor on the front lines

Dr. Robert Couch, an emergency room physician and medical director at Louisville’s Norton Audubon Hospital, was on call at that time. He saw nine overdoses in five hours.

“We have been seeing heroin overdoses for a long time. But what was unusual about this overdose experience was it was taking larger and larger doses of the antidote Naloxone to reverse the effects of it,” he says. “So we knew that it wasn’t just heroin.”

Couch had learned of a similar spike in overdose cases in Ohio and West Virginia several weeks earlier. According to toxicology reports, those cases were caused by heroin mixed with Carfentanil, an opioid derivative often known as “the elephant tranquilizer,” that is 5,000 times more powerful than heroin.

“It is toxic in microgram quantities,” says Couch. “And so I suspected what other communities had seen was moving into Louisville at that time.”

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Fentanyl and Carfentanil are synthetic opioids predominantly manufactured in underground laboratories in China. Often sold as research chemicals, they can be bought on the dark web.

Cheaper to produce than heroin, they are often delivered to the U.S. through the mail. Dealers then mix the synthetics with their heroin to boost profits. The results are often deadly.

“Unfortunately, users don’t know what they are getting,” says Couch. “Heroin is toxic enough as it is. These other derivatives can cause death almost immediately through respiratory depression.”

Fentanyl and its derivatives have forced emergency rooms across the country to change their protocols for overdose patients.

“A couple of years ago we would start with a very small dose, say 0.4 milligrams of Naloxone and that would be effective,” Couch tells us. “That dose has increased to about 2 milligrams and now we are using 4 milligrams of Naloxone just to restore breathing initially.”

Naloxone can suppress opioids in the body for about 30 minutes, which is long enough to treat a typical heroin overdose. The Fentanyl derivatives are so potent emergency rooms are having to re-dose patients as the Naloxone wears off.

“People can re-sedate and be right back in the throes of their overdose even though they have been administered the reversal agent,” Couch says.

Fear on the streets

As overdoses have risen, so has fear on the street among drug users.

“To find a bag of heroin is pretty rare – that is just heroin,” says Mathew LaRocco, who runs the Louisville Metro Needle Exchange out of the first floor of a city government building. The exchange provides clean needles and other supplies to 400 drug users a week.

Studies have shown that drug users who frequent needle exchanges are 5 times more likely to seek treatment and less likely to contract HIV, hepatitis, and other health problems associated with intravenous drug use.

LaRocco works closely with the drug-using community in metro Louisville and says people are legitimately scared.

“There is a lot more respect for the product that is on the street,” he says. “People are realizing just how dangerous this is.”

LaRocco says several years ago when Fentanyl first came on the scene there was a small subset of users – usually young male users – who had the attitude that it would never happen to them.

“You don’t see that anymore,” he says. “You are seeing a volatility to the drug where people who used to inject five times a day are now injecting 15 times a day. They are still using the same amount of drug throughout the day, they are just breaking it up into smaller doses because they don’t want to die.”

He says Fentanyl and its derivatives are also showing up in other street drugs like methamphetamine.

“I have a client that only shoots methamphetamine,” says LaRocco. “He doesn’t shoot anything else. He was drug-screened and there was Fentanyl in his screen.”

LaRocco says even with the fear on the streets it is still difficult for an addict to overcome their irrational cravings.

“That still doesn’t change the fact that when someone overdoses on a bag of dope, everybody want to figure out where they got that bag of dope from. Because they know it is going to get them high,” he told us.

Lucky man

Major Mike Will arrives on the scene and pulls up behind a fire truck parked in a middle-class, suburban neighborhood lined with sidewalks. Two police officers are standing in the yard of a modest house with a brick front porch. Inside, paramedics are administering Naloxone, the opioid antidote, and the patient begins to regain consciousness.

“The transport unit was right on top of the run,” says Will. “So that gives this individual a much better chance because the first responders were so close. Apparently we had a two minute response time.”

A few minutes later, a white man with graying hair walks out under his own power and lays on a gurney waiting for him in the front yard – cheating certain death. Major Wills says he’s one of the lucky ones.

“You know these people we are bringing back with Naloxone, it’s giving them a second chance,” he says. “And it is frustrating to see these folks doing it over and over again. But I mean, you know, addiction is a sickness. And these people are addicted.”
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The World Health Organization warns the number of people living with dementia globally will triple from 50 million to 152 million by 2050.  WHO is launching a global monitoring system on dementia, which will track progress and identify areas of concern.

The WHO reports dementia exacts a huge social and economic burden, one that will grow as people age and succumb to this mental illness.  

The agency estimates five percent of the world’s older population suffers from dementia and is in need of care.  Belying common belief, WHO says this is not mainly a problem of rich countries as dementia also affects people living in poorer countries.

The health agency says the cost of caring for dementia patients today is $818 billion or one percent of the world’s Gross Domestic Product.  Tarun Dua is a medical officer in WHO’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse.  She says this economic cost will be more than $2 trillion by 2030.

“Moreover, there is stigma, human rights violations associated with people with dementia and their caregivers,” said Dua. “And, therefore, it is imperative that we have a public health response.  An important step that has been taken by all member States has been endorsing an action plan on dementia this year.” 

She says the plan focuses on caring for people who have dementia, on preventing and on finding a cure for this illness.  She says raising awareness of this problem is essential.

“Many people consider that dementia is a normal part of ageing, which is not true,” said Dua. “We need to think about risking, preventing dementia because the risk factors for dementia are the same for communicable diseases.  So, good exercise, good diet, no tobacco, decreasing alcohol, all of this can decrease the risk of dementia.”

Along with this, she says elderly people who suffer from depression should receive treatment for this malady.  She says social inclusion and cognitive exercise are other strategies that should be employed to reduce the risk of dementia. 
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A group of 2017 Nobel Laureates have addressed the lack of female representation in sciences ahead of the prize-awarding ceremony in Stockholm.

The seven winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, Chemistry and Economic Sciences – all white men – said change is happening.

Jacques Dubochet, who won the chemistry prize, told reporters: “Science has been made by males, for males. It is changing, it takes time, but you will see it, they (women in science) are coming.”

Physicist Kip Thorne pointed to the increase in the number of women entering undergraduate programs in sciences today compared to when he was a student.

He said Thursday: “Change is coming, but there is a long delay between entering freshman and the Nobel prize.”
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About 17 million babies worldwide live in areas where outdoor air pollution is six times the recommended limit, and their brain development is at risk, the U.N. children’s agency (UNICEF) said on Wednesday.

The majority of these babies — more than 12 million — are in South Asia, it said, in a study of children under one-year-old, using satellite imagery to identify worst-affected regions.

“Not only do pollutants harm babies’ developing lungs — they can permanently damage their developing brains — and, thus, their futures,” said UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake.

Any air pollution above the World Health Organization’s recommended limit is potentially harmful for children, and risks grow as pollution worsens, UNICEF said.

Air pollution is closely associated with asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis and other respiratory infections, it said.

Scientific findings about the links with brain development are not yet conclusive, but rapidly growing evidence is “definitely reason for concern”, UNICEF’s Nicholas Rees, the report’s author, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Brain development in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life is critical for their learning, growth and for them “being able to do everything that they want and aspire to in life,” he said.

“A lot of focus goes on making sure children have good quality education, but also important is the development of the brain itself,” he added.
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Researchers have identified the molecule that attracts the insect that transmits citrus greening disease, a development expected to help farmers control a plague that has destroyed trees in growing regions of Brazil and the United States.

The scientific breakthrough, shared with Reuters exclusively on Tuesday, is the result of six years of research on Diaphorina citri, the vector of citrus greening disease.

The molecule was discovered by Fundo de Defesa da Citricultura (Fundecitrus), a research center sponsored by farmers and orange juice producers in Brazil, in partnership with the University of California, Davis and the University of Sao Paulo’s Agricultural College, known as Esalq.

The next step will be to synthesize the pheromone from the molecule and create a product that will work as a kind of trap to attract and neutralize the insect. Then scientists hope to reduce the spread of a disease that resulted, since 2005, in the destruction of almost half of Brazil’s current orange tree area.

“This will not cure greening disease, but it will allow us to work in an intelligent and assertive way against the insect,” Juliano Ayres, general manager at Fundecitrus, said in a telephone interview.

The first commercial solution should be available to farmers in a year, said Walter Leal, the Brazilian researcher representing UC Davis who participated in the interview.

Based on government data, Brazil’s main producing regions of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais have almost 175 million trees planted on around 415,000 hectare (1.025m acres), Fundecitrus said.

Around 32 million trees are infected, the data show.

Citrus greening, or Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, is incurable and one of the most serious citrus plant diseases in the world, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

The infected trees produce fruits that are green, misshapen and bitter, unsuitable for sale as fresh fruit or for juice.

Most infected trees die within a few years, the USDA said.
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Former President Barack Obama on Tuesday told a summit of mayors driven to act after President Donald Trump rejected the Paris climate accord that cities and states are the “new face of American leadership” on climate change.

Obama, who did not mention Trump by name, made a quick appearance at the conference hosted by his former chief of staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. He said it was an “unusual time” with the U.S. as the only country to walk away from the Paris agreement, but it was a chance for local leaders to come together and fulfill promises the country has made.

“Ultimately the work is done on the ground,” Obama said. “Cities and states and businesses and universities and nonprofits have emerged as the new face of American leadership on climate change.”

Charter turns to mayors

Chicago officials billed the North American Climate Summit, which began Monday evening, as the first of its kind for the city. Leaders elsewhere have taken similar action, despite Trump’s announcement earlier this year that the U.S. would pull out of the 2015 Paris agreement, which involves nations setting benchmarks to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases. The U.S. won’t technically back out until 2020 because of legal technicalities.

The idea is to fill the void left by the actions of the Republican president, who has worked to reverse much of Obama’s approach to foreign policy, Chicago officials said. Trump has said the terms of the agreement should be more favorable to businesses and taxpayers.

The Chicago charter calls for mayors to achieve a percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that’s equal to or more than what is outlined in the Paris agreement. It also calls for them to work with scientific and academic experts to find solutions. Some mayors have specifically agreed to commitments to expand public transportation and invest in natural climate solutions such as tree canopy and vegetation.

Trump isn’t mentioned by name

Emanuel said the current resident of the White House — not mentioning Trump by name — and his environmental officials are in denial on climate change despite facts.

“Climate change can be solved by human action,” he said. “We lead respectively where there is no consensus or directive out of our national governments.”

Mayors from 51 cities including Paris, Mexico City, San Francisco and Phoenix attended the summit.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said city residents will be the victims if action isn’t taken.  

“We cannot afford to be cautious,” she said. 
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The white-tailed prairie dog will not be declared an endangered or threatened species after the U.S. government deemed on Tuesday there was no danger despite declines in its population from human development and disease.

The decision was a victory for energy companies and ranchers who could have seen increased restrictions on lands that are open to oil and gas development and livestock grazing.

Environmentalists more than a decade ago petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to provide Endangered Species Act protection to white-tailed prairie dogs, found only in Western states.

Years of legal wrangling ensued, and in 2014 the Fish and Wildlife Service was ordered by a U.S. judge in Montana to correct gaps in a review of threats posed to the rodents, which build elaborate burrows in parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and Utah.

In the finding released on Tuesday, federal wildlife managers said their assessment of habitat destruction, poisoning, recreational shooting and other stressors affecting white-tailed prairie dogs, named for their white-tipped tails, showed the creatures to be resilient.

“The white-tailed prairie dog is not currently in danger of extinction and is not likely to become in danger of extinction within the foreseeable future,” the Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement.

Prairie dogs now occupy just a fraction of the land where they historically made their underground homes, said Matthew Sandler, attorney for Rocky Mountain Wild, a party to the petition to officially protect the animals.

“It’s hard to know if the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision is based on the best available science or a political decision to put economic benefits above the environment,” he added.

U.S. wildlife managers on Tuesday disputed Sandler’s assertions, saying that data show that white-tailed prairie dogs have declined in number but not in distribution. Agency spokesman Ryan Moehring also emphasized that its assessment of the animal “is based on the best-available scientific and commercial information.”

White-tailed prairie dogs are said to be less social than the other types of North American prairie dogs, all of which give warning “barks” when predators or other intruders are near.

White-tailed prairie dogs are mostly found at altitudes of 5,000 to 10,000 feet (1,500 to 3,050 meters) in desert shrub or grasslands and must eat enough vegetation in mild seasons to survive months of winter hibernation, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
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Our knees handle more stress than any of other joints.  So it’s no wonder that knee pain affects so many of us.  If you go to any sporting event, you’ll notice that the athletes’ knees really get a workout. But it’s not only athletes who suffer knee injury.

People of all ages, including children, can suffer knee pain. Knees are the largest and most complex of our joints.  They are also used more than any other joint in our bodies.   

Studies have found that teenage girls are particularly vulnerable to knee damage during their growth spurt in puberty.  Researchers found that certain leg muscles at this age need extra help getting stronger so girls can avoid knee injury.  Sometimes exercise is all that’s needed to take the stress off our knees, but sometimes surgery is the only solution.  

More options to repair injuries

While people with arthritis might need their entire knee replaced with metal and plastic parts, there are more options now for younger people with less serious situations. 

A case in point is Monica Bates, who has marched in the University of Missouri alumni band for years, and for years, she had trouble with her right knee.  She used to wear a knee brace. When her knee pain didn’t go away, she thought she was going to be sad and bent over for the rest of her life.

Fortunately for Bates, researchers at her alma mater just happened to pioneer a bone-and-cartilage preservation system that reduces the need for metal and plastic implants. This system, Missouri Osteochondral Allograft Preservation System, or MOPS, can be used to treat many disorders of the knee, hip, ankle and shoulder. 

Patient’s cartilage used

Dr. James Stannard, developed this procedure with James Cook, a veterinarian who heads a regenerative orthopaedics laboratory and is director of operations and research at the university’s BioJoint Center.  Stannard is chair of orthopaedic surgery at the university’s School of Medicine

The technique replaces a patient’s damaged cartilage with healthy donor cartilage. Stannard said, “Instead of  bringing in man made material, which is our best effort to replicate what nature or God has given you, we’re bringing in the exact same material so it’s a transplant.”

Bates qualified for the procedure because she was young, active and she didn’t need an artificial knee. 

Stannard says the goal is to eventually stop using metal and plastic.  Metal and plastic joint replacements wear out over time. Patients with these replacements may have to give up activities they enjoy, like running or skiing.

  Fixing a ‘pothole’ 

There’s another relatively recent procedure that uses cartilage from healthy tissue in the patient’s own knee. Dr. Seth Sherman, also at the University of Missouri, has performed this surgery called MACI, or Matrix-induced autologous chondrocyte implantation. The procedure is likened to repairing a pothole in a road, it’s minimally invasive, but not intended to repair an entire knee.

“Through a small scope procedure we take your cells from a non-essential aspect of your own knee so they won’t cause harm and then we bring it to a laboratory and we actually expand and multiply your own cell and implant them back in,” is how Sherman explains it. 

This procedure is used to treat defects in the cartilage that covers the surface of the joints so movement is smooth and pain-free. It’s a two-step procedure. The first involves taking a small biopsy of healthy cartilage from a non-weight bearing part of the patient’s knee. The patient’s cells are then grown on a sterile collagen membrane that is later cut to size and implanted into the part of the knee that had a defect in the cartilage, much like repairing a pothole. 

These procedures are recommended for younger, active patients. Right now, total or partial knee replacement helps older patients with arthritis move again pain-free, but that may one day change.

Ways to help your knees

In the meantime, people of all ages can protect against knee damage by warming up before playing sports and by keeping off extra weight that puts additional stress on your knees. Another thing people can do is maintain a healthy weight to reduce the stress put on their knees. 

As for Monica Bates, it’s been more than a year since her surgery, and she’s back to marching in the alumni band pain-free.

“I am so able to do so many things. That’s the part I love about it.  Monica is back!”
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Market research estimates the U.S. baby food industry took in $53 billion in 2015. That market is expected to reach $75 billion by 2050. But baby food has not changed much in the past few decades, leading a small California startup to enter the market with what they say is a new choice for working families. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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The opioid crisis in the U.S. has destroyed the lives of thousands of people, tearing apart families and communities. For addicts, the road to recovery is long and hard and often fraught with many setbacks. It is estimated just three percent of substance abusers manage to stay clean for a lifetime. Jeff Swicord profiles one opioid user who is battling for her sobriety at a residential rehabilitation center in Miami, Florida
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Doctors across the U..S could soon be prescribing formerly illegal drugs as therapy for two hard-to-treat diseases – childhood epilepsy and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. A growing body of scientific evidence is leading the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to take a closer look at cannabidiol, an extract of marijuana, and MDMA, an ingredient in the party drug ecstasy.

The makers of a cannabidiol product named Epidiolex have now completed all three phases of FDA-approved clinical studies. The submission for FDA approval includes clinical data on 1,500 patients, 400 of whom had used it for more than a year. If it is approved, Epidiolex could be part of the legal arsenal for treating epilepsy within a year.

MDMA

The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is a non-profit organization focused on beneficial medical uses of psychedelics and marijuana. It funded six Phase 2 FDA-approved clinical studies of MDMA combined with therapy for treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The only PTSD medicines currently approved by the FDA usually don’t work well, says Boulder, Colorado, psychiatrist Will Vanderveer, “and leave millions of people still symptomatic and suffering. And dying from suicide.”

Vanderveer worked with psychotherapist Marcela Ot’Alora, the study’s principal investigator, on the three-month long protocol, which included a monthly dose of MDMA and weekly therapy sessions. There were 28 participants. When they were given MDMA, therapists stayed with them during the eight hours the drug was active, helping them recall past traumas in a more effective way.  

Ot’Alora says the MDMA promoted trust with the therapists, and the insights gained were profound.

“It could be crying, it could be even screaming. They realize, ‘wow, I was completely going away and dissociated from the experience, and now I see what was really happening.’ Anger can come up, really getting in touch with the anger at what was done to them.”

Karen, one of the participants, was plagued by nightmares and dread after being sexually abused as a child. She says that decades of therapy and anti-depressant drugs did not help, but this protocol did.

“I don’t walk around just thinking I’m garbage anymore. You know, I feel like, wow, you know, I’m kind of a good person here.” James was a combat medic, and returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan with PTSD. He tried a number of different therapies, but still felt like he was in a dark cave, with no way out. Then he found the MDMA study. In an on-line documentary about the study, he describes the drug as “a kind of light,” and the therapists as “guides. And I could see around the cave and figure out how to get out of there. It was really helpful.”  

The MDMA plus therapy protocol eliminated symptoms in nearly 70 percent of the participants previously diagnosed with treatment resistant PTSD.  The final step before requesting FDA approval as a prescription medicine is Phase Three trials, which are scheduled to begin next year.
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NASA has nailed an engine test on a spacecraft 13 billion miles away.

Last week, ground controllers sent commands to fire backup thrusters on Voyager 1, our most distant spacecraft. The thrusters had been idle for 37 years, since Voyager 1 flew past Saturn.

To NASA’s delight, the four dormant thrusters came alive. It took more than 19 hours — the one-way travel time for signals — for controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, to get the good news.

Engineers wanted to see if these alternate thrusters could point Voyager 1’s antenna toward Earth, a job normally handled by a different set that’s now degrading. The thrusters will take over pointing operations next month. The switch could extend Voyager 1’s life by two to three years.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 is the only spacecraft traveling through interstellar space, the region beyond our solar system. Voyager 2 is close on its heels — nearly 11 billion miles from Earth. The thruster test worked so well that NASA expects to try it on Voyager 2. That won’t happen anytime soon, though, because Voyager 2’s original thrusters are still working fine.

The Voyager flight team dug up old records and studied the original software before tackling the test. As each milestone in the test was achieved, the excitement level grew, said propulsion engineer Todd Barber.

“The mood was one of relief, joy and incredulity after witnessing these well-rested thrusters pick up the baton as if no time had passed at all,” he said in a statement.

The twin Voyagers provided stunning close-up views of Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 2 also offered shots of Uranus and Neptune.
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Governments must do far more to include the needs of young people in the global fight against HIV and AIDS, according to a new report. Despite progress in tackling the disease, it is estimated that 1,700 new HIV infections occur every day among young people around the world, and the problem is particularly acute in Africa.

It is time policymakers recognized that HIV-positive adolescents face unique challenges, says the report from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, alongside the charity Sentebale.

Among the recommendations are that young people receive adequate psychosocial support; a human rights-based approach to testing and care, and finding ways to sensitively discuss sex and relationships for adolescents living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

​Professor Rashida Ferrand, who co-authored the research, says too many barriers are in place.

“We really need to be thinking about all the barriers at every step in that broad environment, both at facility level in clinics et cetera, but also recognizing the fact that most of the time young people do not spend in facilities. So, we have to think of modifying the environments and the barriers that those environments place,” Ferrand said.

Campaigners say many adolescents in Africa are unaware of their HIV status and are afraid to get tested.

‘Every single day I face stigma’

Twenty-three-year-old Masedi Kewamodimo was born with HIV. Both her parents died from AIDS. Growing up in her native Botswana, Masedi grew frustrated with the barriers she faced and decided to reveal her HIV status in order to campaign for better treatment.

“It is one of the most difficult things I have faced in my whole life. Every single day I face stigma.  People talk about it because one they fear it; two, they assume certain people within our society have it; and three, they feel like they cannot welcome people who are living with HIV and AIDS,” Kewamodimo told VOA.

The charity Sentebale, which helped put together the policy recommendations, was co-founded by Prince Harry, who is newly engaged to American actress Meghan Markle. She has also campaigned on health issues in Africa.

Earlier this year, the prince chaired a meeting in London on adolescents with HIV, titled “Let Youth Lead,” and called for a change in global education on the disease.

“Young people, the first time they know of the first time they hear anything about HIV and AIDS is probably by the time it is too late.  Whether it is in the education system here in the UK, whether it is across Africa, whether it is across the world, HIV needs to be treated exactly the same as any other disease,” Prince Harry said.

Campaigners hope the royal couple’s star power will help them spread the vital message that young people’s needs and fears must be addressed in the global drive to tackle HIV and AIDS.
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A growing body of scientific evidence is leading the U-S Food and Drug Administration to take a closer look at two illegal drugs that the federal government deems to have “no currently accepted medical use.” Now both are nearing the finish line for potential approval, as legal prescriptions for the treatment of childhood epilepsy and post-traumatic stress disorder. From Boulder, Colorado, Shelley Schlender reports.
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