In early June, sporadic but serious service disruptions plagued Microsoft’s flagship office suite — including the Outlook email and OneDrive file-sharing apps — and cloud computing platform. A shadowy hacktivist group claimed responsibility, saying it flooded the sites with junk …
Nestled among the bustling city streets of Washington is a hidden oasis that many Americans don’t know exists. Congress established the U.S. National Arboretum in 1927. Vital scientific research is under way at the sprawling 183-hectare compound. VOA’s Dora Mekouar …
New harmful illicit drugs are inundating a flourishing market for traffickers amid violence and corruption hurting local communities across Europe, the EU’s agency monitoring drugs and addiction said Friday. The grim finding was part of the agency’s annual report. It …
Researchers have been exploring the presence of cancer in animals from elephants to mollusks to learn about cancer in wild animals. They also hope their research will help with human cancers. “Studying wildlife cancer, and more generally the evolution of …
Advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday unanimously recommended that updated COVID-19 shots being developed for a fall vaccination campaign target one of the currently dominant XBB coronavirus variants. The panel voted 21-0 in favor of XBB-targeted …
The long hunt for extraterrestrials just got a big boost. Scientists have discovered that phosphorus, a key building block of life, lies in the ocean beneath the icy surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The finding was based on a review …
Six percent of all maternal deaths around the world are caused by obstructed labor, according to the World Health Organization. That’s when a baby can’t move through the birth canal. It can also lead to obstetric fistula, a condition that …
When peanuts are dropped into a pint of beer, they sink to the bottom before floating up and “dancing” in the glass. Scientists have dug deep to investigate this phenomenon in a study published on Wednesday, saying it has implications …
Blood banks in Cameroon are usually close to empty due to widely held taboos against blood donation. Officials in the central African country are trying to convince people to move past those beliefs amid an increased demand for blood and …
In the United States, women’s access to legal abortion depends on where they live. The Western U.S. state of Idaho has some of the toughest laws against abortion, and that may be having an impact on women who are trying …
Singapore was the first country in the world to greenlight the sale of lab-grown meat, but even after nearly 2½ years, the fledgling industry is still struggling with supply issues and hurdles such as public acceptance, experts say. Lab-grown or …
David Smith, a retired print technician from the north of England, was pursuing his hobby of looking for interesting shapes when he stumbled onto one unlike any other in November. When Smith shared his shape with the world in …
Huge strides in life expectancy worldwide are bringing new challenges that come with increased longevity, the Dutch health minister told VOA this week. “If you look at it from a global perspective, we’ve seen that over the past 25 years, …
El Nino has officially returned and is likely to yield extreme weather later this year, from tropical cyclones spinning toward vulnerable Pacific islands to heavy rainfall in South America to drought in Australia. After three years of the La Nina …
Schools across the U.S. East Coast canceled outdoor activities, airline traffic slowed, and millions of Americans were urged to stay indoors Wednesday as smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted south, blanketing cities in thick, yellow haze. The U.S. National Weather Service …
Most transplanted hearts are from donors who are brain dead, but new research shows a different approach can be just as successful and boost the number of available organs. It’s called donation after circulatory death, a method long used to …
Kilauea, one of the most active volcanoes in the world, began erupting Wednesday after a three-month pause, displaying spectacular fountains of mesmerizing, glowing lava that’s a safe distance from people and structures in a national park on the Big Island. …
As communities in countries rich and poor face soaring costs from extreme weather and rising seas, governments are grappling with how to set up a new fund to tackle “loss and damage” driven by global warming. The topic was for …
Moving around metropolitan areas can present challenges for individuals who are obese or have height limitations, as many public spaces are not designed to accommodate their needs. However, a new law adds weight and height to the list of characteristics …
China, where COVID-19 was first identified in humans more than three years ago, expects its current wave of infection to hit as many as 65 million cases per week by late June, according to official accounts of models presented at …
New advances in the fight against a range of cancers have been revealed at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), which wraps up in Chicago on Tuesday. Here are some of the announcements that have …
Global leaders in the battle against global warming convened in Bonn, Germany, on Monday for the start of the final phase of a two-year long assessment of the progress being made to limit rising temperatures. The annual Bonn Climate Change …
A pill has been shown to halve the risk of death from a certain type of lung cancer when taken daily after surgery to remove the tumor, according to clinical trial results presented on Sunday. The results were unveiled in …
Tour de France organizers have set up an anti-COVID protocol for this year’s race, with riders and team staff banned from signing autographs and eating out of their hotels, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters Saturday. …