YCLOAK

Attention asteroid aficionados: NASA is set to launch a series of spacecraft to visit and even bash some of the solar system’s most enticing space rocks. 

The robotic trailblazer named Lucy is up first, blasting off this weekend on a 12-year cruise to swarms of asteroids out near Jupiter — unexplored time capsules from the dawn of the solar system. And yes, there will be diamonds in the sky with Lucy, on one of its science instruments, as well as lyrics from other Beatles’ songs. 

NASA is targeting the predawn hours of Saturday for liftoff. 

Barely a month later, an impactor spacecraft named Dart will give chase to a double-asteroid closer to home. The mission will end with Dart ramming the main asteroid’s moonlet to change its orbit, a test that could one day save Earth from an incoming rock. 

Next summer, a spacecraft will launch to a rare metal world — a nickel and iron asteroid that might be the exposed core of a once-upon-a-time planet. A pair of smaller companion craft — the size of suitcases — will peel away to another set of double asteroids. 

And in 2023, a space capsule will parachute into the Utah desert with NASA’s first samples of an asteroid, collected last year by the excavating robot Osiris-Rex. The samples are from Bennu, a rubble and boulder-strewn rock that could endanger Earth a couple of centuries from now. 

“Each one of those asteroids we’re visiting tells our story … the story of us, the story of the solar system,” said NASA’s chief of science missions, Thomas Zurbuchen. 

There’s nothing better for understanding how our solar system formed 4.6 billion years ago, said Lucy’s principal scientist, Hal Levison of Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “They’re the fossils of planet formation.”

China and Russia are teaming up for an asteroid mission later this decade. The United Arab Emirates is also planning an asteroid stop in the coming years.

Advances in tech and design are behind this flurry of asteroid missions, as well as the growing interest in asteroids and the danger they pose to Earth. All it takes is looking at the moon and the impact craters created by asteroids and meteorites to realize the threat, Zurbuchen said. 

The asteroid-smacking Dart spacecraft — set to launch November 24 — promises to be a dramatic exercise in planetary defense. If all goes well, the high-speed smashup will occur next fall just 11 million kilometers (7 million miles) away, within full view of ground telescopes. 

The much longer $981 million Lucy mission — the first to Jupiter’s so-called Trojan entourage — is targeting an unprecedented eight asteroids. 

Lucy aims to sweep past seven of the countless Trojan asteroids that precede and trail Jupiter in the giant gas planet’s path around the sun. Thousands of these dark reddish or gray rocks have been detected, with many thousands more likely lurking in the two clusters. Trapped in place by the gravitational forces of Jupiter and the sun, the Trojans are believed to be the cosmic leftovers from when the outer planets were forming. 

“That’s what makes the Trojans special. If these ideas of ours are right, they formed throughout the outer solar system and are now at one location where we can go and study them,” Levison said.

Before encountering the Trojans, Lucy will zip past a smaller, more ordinary object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists consider this 2025 flyby a dress rehearsal. 

Three flybys of Earth will be needed as gravity slingshots in order for Lucy to reach both of Jupiter’s Trojan swarms by the time the mission is set to end in 2033. 

The spacecraft will be so far from the sun — as much as 850 million kilometers (530 million miles) distant — that massive solar panels are needed to provide enough power. Each of Lucy’s twin circular wings stretches 7 meters (24 feet) across, dwarfing the spacecraft tucked in the middle like the body of a moth. 

Lucy intends to pass within 965 kilometers (600 miles) of each targeted asteroid. 

“Every one of those flybys needs to be near perfection,” Zurbuchen said.

The seven Trojans range in size from a 64-kilometer (40-mile) asteroid and its 1-kilometer (half-mile) moonlet to a hefty specimen exceeding 100 kilometers (62 miles). That’s the beauty of studying these rocks named after heroes of Greek mythology’s Trojan War and, more recently, modern Olympic athletes. Any differences among them will have occurred during their formation, Levison said, offering clues about their origins.

Unlike so many NASA missions, including the upcoming Dart, short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, Lucy is not an acronym. The spacecraft is named after the fossilized remains of an early human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia in 1974; the 3.2-million-year-old female got her name from the 1967 Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. 

“The Lucy fossil really transformed our understanding of human evolution, and that’s what we want to do is transform our understanding of solar system evolution by looking at all these different objects,” said Southwest Research Institute’s Cathy Olkin, the deputy principal scientist who proposed the spacecraft’s name. 

One of its science instruments actually has a disc of lab-grown diamond totaling 6.7 carats. 

And there’s another connection to the Fab Four. A plaque attached to the spacecraft includes lines from songs they wrote, along with quotes from other luminaries. From a John Lennon single: “We all shine on … like the moon and the stars and the sun.” 

 
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The World Health Organization’s endorsement of the world’s first malaria vaccine marks a major advance against the mosquito-borne illness, which kills some 265,000 children in Africa annually.

Bitrus Yusuf pours syrup into a measuring cup to give to his three-year-old daughter and grandson who are sick with malaria. 

He said the mosquito-borne parasite that causes the illness is all too common at this Abuja camp for internally displaced people where they live. 

“We went to bed, all was well, everybody was well,” Yusuf said. “But toward midnight I heard him shivering. As I touched his body (it was) very hot, so I woke him up.” 

The World Health Organization said some 94% of malaria cases and deaths worldwide occur in Africa, and that Nigeria accounts for a quarter of the fatalities. The U.N. agency said children under the age of five and pregnant women are the most affected.

Last week, the global health body announced its approval for the rollout of the world’s first malaria vaccine, Mosquirix. The vaccine, made by the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, has been in development for more than three decades.

The WHO said Mosquirix could potentially change the course of public health history.

Walter Kazadi Mulombo is the WHO representative in Nigeria. 

“You know before the vaccine could be introduced in the country, it has to be cleared by NAFDAC for the case of Nigeria and there are steps to be taken for the country to approve the vaccine so that introduction can start,” Mulombo said.

NAFDAC refers to the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control in Nigeria. 

During a large-scale pilot program that began in 2019, some 2.3 million doses of the vaccine were administered to children in Malawi, Kenya and Ghana. 

The WHO said when rolled out, the vaccine could help prevent up to four in 10 cases of malaria.

But Mulombo warns there could be supply problems at first.

“There may be some supply issues so it may not be in the quantity we require to reach all those that we need to reach,” Mulombo said. “But we understand that GSK, the manufacturer, is working already with some African countries to decentralize production.”

Abuja Primary Health Board official, Ndaeyo Iwot, said the new vaccine does not eliminate the need for taking other malaria preventive measures.

“If you don’t combine it with sleeping under insecticide treated nets and also taking care of your environment, where the vectors can breed, then you’re more likely to continue to have the scourge of malaria in this country,”  Iwot said.

GlaxoSmithKline said it will manufacture about 15 million doses of the vaccine yearly, but experts say at least 50 to 100 million doses are needed every year in areas with moderate to high transmission.

In the meantime, Nigerian parents like Yusuf said they are hoping to get their children vaccinated as soon as possible.
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Victoria state has Thursday reported 2,297 new local COVID-19 cases — the highest number of daily infections recorded by any Australian state or territory since the pandemic began. But as infections surge, authorities hope to lift a lockdown in Melbourne within days when vaccination rates reach 70%.

A 107-day lockdown in Sydney, the New South Wales state capital, was lifted on Monday.

Neighboring Victoria state has record COVID-19 case numbers, however, but epidemiologist Catherine Bennett said she believes vaccinations will soon bring the outbreak under control.

“While we might see cases go up as we have those freedoms start to come into effect this week in New South Wales, Victoria, probably, in a week or two, we are now seeing that we can do that safely,” she said. “That’s everything.”

Health authorities in Victoria do not think case numbers have peaked, but they say vaccination rates are rapidly increasing. They say they are on track to soon cancel stay-at-home orders in the state capital, Melbourne.

A lockdown in the national capital, Canberra, will end later on Thursday.

Lockdowns in Australia are being lifted as inoculation rates hit 70%, and further restrictions on domestic and international travel and the size of gatherings will end when they reach 80%. For now, though, the freedoms apply only to the fully vaccinated.

Nationally, about 69% of Australians have received two vaccine doses.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said the Pfizer drug could soon be approved for Australian children ages 5-11.

“It offers additional support and protection for parents and families,” he said. “It is coming at an earlier time than we had previously expected, so I am very, very pleased about that.”

Australia’s Northern Territory has announced some of the world’s toughest vaccine mandates. Shop workers, hairdressers and other workers must be inoculated by Christmas Eve or face dismissal.

The Northern Territory has a population of about 250,000 people. It has recorded about 200 coronavirus cases and zero deaths since the pandemic began but authorities believe it is only a matter of time before more infections are detected as Australia gradually reopens.

The territory’s chief minister, Michael Gunner, said the tough vaccine measures are needed.

“If you work in retail or in a supermarket, you need to get the jab,” he said. “If you are behind the counter at the bank, if you are a receptionist or positions like that, you need to get the jab. If you are a barber, a hairdresser, a beauty therapist, you need to get the jab. All these workers and many, many more directly interact with members of the public. That means you are frontline workers in our economy. That means you must be vaccinated.”

Australia has recorded 131,380 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began; 1,461 people have died. 

 
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COVID-19 cases among U.S. service members have been on a steady decline over the last month, as more service members have become vaccinated ahead of the Defense Department’s fast-approaching vaccination compliance deadlines.

The number of cases reached 4,902 the week of Sept. 8 but dropped to 863 cases last week, the military’s lowest number of cases since early June, according to DOD data obtained by VOA.

“The decline, it’s exactly how we wanted it to go,” Defense Department spokesperson Major Charlie Dietz told VOA on Wednesday.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a memo Aug. 25 requiring service members to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or face penalties, leaving deadlines for vaccination compliance to the service branches.

DOD’s vaccination mandate came during a summer surge of the coronavirus across the country that was particularly hard-hitting for unvaccinated people. Nearly as many service members died in August as in all of 2020. More service members died in September than in August, and none of those who died in September were fully vaccinated, Dietz said.

According to data on active-duty troops obtained Wednesday by VOA, 91% of the Army, 99% of the Navy, 96% of the Air Force and Space Force, and 91% of the Marine Corps are fully or partially vaccinated.

But active-duty troops are vaccinated at a much higher rate than their Reserve and Guard counterparts, some of whom have deadlines as late as June 30, 2022.

With less than three weeks until the first of the military’s COVID-19 vaccination compliance dates, about one in five U.S. service members — hundreds of thousands of troops — have yet to get a single COVID-19 vaccine dose.

The Air Force’s COVID-19 vaccination compliance deadline is Nov. 2 for active-duty troops and Dec. 2 for Guard and Reserve airmen.

“With the Air Force deadline up first, it will be interesting to see how they handle things. They are our canary in the coal mine,” a military official told VOA.

Meanwhile, the Defense Department will roll out its plan for civilian workforce vaccine compliance on Friday, according to a military official. The rollout is expected to include how the department will track civilian vaccination rates and what will happen to those civilians who fail to comply.

President Joe Biden set Nov. 22 as the deadline for federal civilian employees to be fully vaccinated, the second-earliest compliance date for DOD, following the date for Air Force active-duty troops.

However, the Pentagon has not yet tracked or received self-reporting COVID-19 vaccination data for more than half of its roughly 765,000 civilian employees.

Catholic objections

As the Pentagon’s compliance deadlines near, the archbishop for military services says Catholic troops should be able to refuse the vaccine based on conscientious objection.

“No one should be forced to receive a COVID-19 vaccine if it would violate the sanctity of his or her conscience,” Timothy P. Broglio, archbishop for the military services, said Tuesday in a statement.

The archbishop had previously supported President Joe Biden’s mandatory vaccination order for U.S. service members, and he still encouraged troops to get vaccinated in his most recent statement. But he added this week that the Catholic Church’s permission to get the COVID-19 vaccine should not overrule a member’s conscious objections to vaccines tested or derived from lab replicas of abortion-derived cells, which is how the COVID-19 vaccines were developed.

Katherine Kuzminski, of the Center for a New American Security, told VOA on Wednesday the statement “is threading a really fine needle,” adding that vaccines for chickenpox, rubella, hepatitis A and poliovirus were all tested with “abortion-derived cell lines” like the tests conducted for the Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines.

“The question will be, has this person ever raised a conscious objection to a previous vaccine?” she said.

According to Dietz, the Pentagon currently requires at least nine vaccines for individuals entering military service, including hepatitis A, hepatitis B, influenza, measles, poliovirus, tetanus-diphtheria-pertussis, and varicella. Up to 17 vaccines are required for service members depending on their role and geographic region.

Objections have been granted to service members in the past for some of their required vaccines, such as the vaccine for anthrax, according to a military official. 
…

Finance ministers from the Group of 20 economies Wednesday pledged to keep economic stimulus policies in place to ensure a recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amid ongoing risks, “We will continue to sustain the recovery, avoiding any premature withdrawal of support measures,” according to the official communique released after the G-20 meeting.

While the global recovery has been solid, the statement notes that it has been “highly divergent” among countries.

“We reaffirm our resolve to use all available tools for as long as required to address the adverse consequences of COVID-19, in particular on those most impacted,” the statement continued.

At the same time, officials are closely watching rising prices, the statement said.

The meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors is being held at a time when suppliers are struggling to meet renewed demand and bottlenecks are causing shortages of key materials and pushing prices higher.

Oil prices, notably, have spiked above $80 a barrel for the first time in years.

The World Bank estimates 8.5% of global container shipping is stalled in or around ports, twice as much as in January.

Italy’s central bank chief Ignazio Visco agreed with the International Monetary Fund and others who have said the inflation pressures are mostly the result of transitory factors like the surge in demand.

But he acknowledged that “these may take months before fading away.”

G-20 central bankers are studying the issue to see if there are “more structural factors at work” in the bigger-than-expected inflation spike, and “whether there is some component which starts being transitory but that could become permanent,” Visco told reporters.

Central bankers are walking a fine line between supporting the recovery with easy financial conditions while warding off a permanent increase in inflation.

“Supply chain issues are being felt globally — and finance leaders from around the globe must collaborate to address our shared challenges,” said U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, who chaired the meeting of the world’s richest nations.

The G-20 communique said central banks “will act as needed” to address price stability “while looking through inflation pressures where they are transitory.”

But World Bank President David Malpass warned that some of the price spikes “will not be transitory.”

“It will take time and cooperation of policymakers across the world to sort them out.”

IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said the lag in vaccination rates to contain the pandemic in developing nations is contributing to the supply constraints, and “as long as it widens, this risk of interruptions in global supply chains is going to be higher.” 

 
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People who got Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine as a first shot had a stronger immune response when they boosted it with the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, a study by the National Institutes of Health showed Wednesday.

The study, which is preliminary and hasn’t been peer reviewed, is the latest challenge to J&J’s efforts to use its COVID-19 vaccine as a booster in the United States.

The study, which included more than 450 adults who received initial shots from Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson, showed that “mixing and matching” booster shots of different types is safe in adults. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are based on messenger RNA, while J&J’s uses viral vector technology.

The finding comes as an advisory group to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration prepares to meet later this week to discuss the merits of a booster shot for Moderna and J&J vaccines.

FDA officials on Wednesday said J&J’s regulatory submission for its booster raised red flags such as small sample sizes and data based on tests that had not been validated.

U.S. health officials have been under pressure to offer advice on booster doses of the J&J and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines since the White House announced in August that it planned to roll out boosters, beginning last month, for most adults.

The NIH study contrasted the safety and immune responses of volunteers who were boosted with the same shot used in their initial vaccination with those of volunteers who received a different type of shot as a booster.

Mixing and matching doses for a booster produced side effects like those seen in primary inoculations and raised no significant safety concerns, the study said.

The study of the three COVID-19 vaccines authorized in the United States showed that using different types of shots as boosters generally appeared to produce a comparable or higher antibody response than using the same type.

The trial took place in 10 U.S. cities and used a total of nine combinations of initial shots and boosters. 

Mixing booster doses “may offer immunological advantages to optimize the breadth and longevity of protection achieved with currently available vaccines,” researchers wrote in the study. 
…

The chief of the World Health Organization on Wednesday honored the late Henrietta Lacks, an American woman whose cancer cells were taken without her knowledge during the 1950s and ended up providing the foundation for vast scientific breakthroughs, including research about the coronavirus. 

 

The recognition from WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus came more than a decade after the publication of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” Rebecca Skloot’s book about the discrimination in health care faced by Black Americans, the life-saving innovations made possible by Lacks’ cells and her family’s legal fight over their unauthorized use. 

 

“What happened to Henrietta was wrong,” Tedros said during a special ceremony at WHO Geneva headquarters before handing the Director-General’s Award for Henrietta Lacks to her 87-year-old son Lawrence Lacks as several of her other descendants looked on.

Reproduced infinitely ever since, HeLa cells have become a cornerstone of modern medicine, including the development of the polio vaccine, genetic mapping and even COVID-19 vaccines. 

Tedros noted that Lacks lived at a time when racial discrimination was legal in the United States and that it remains widespread, even if no longer legal in most countries.

“Henrietta Lacks was exploited. She is one of many women of color whose bodies have been misused by science,” he said. “She placed her trust in the health system so she could receive treatment. But the system took something from her without her knowledge or consent.” 

 

“The medical technologies that were developed from this injustice have been used to perpetuate further injustice because they have not been shared equitably around the world,” Tedros added.

The HeLa cell line — a name derived from the first two letters of Henrietta Lacks’ first and last names — was a scientific breakthrough. Tedros said the cells were “foundational” in the development of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines, which can eliminate the cancer that took her life.

As of last year, WHO said, less than 25% of the world’s low-income countries and fewer than 30% of lower-middle-income countries had access to HPV vaccines through national immunization programs, compared to over 85% of high-income countries. 

 

“Many people have benefited from those cells. Fortunes have been made. Science has advanced. Nobel Prizes have been won, and most importantly, many lives have been saved,” Tedros said. “No doubt Henrietta would have been pleased that her suffering has saved others. But the end doesn’t justify the means.”

WHO said more than 50 million metric tons of HeLa cells have been distributed around the world and used in more than 75,000 studies. 

 

Last week, Lacks’ estate sued a U.S. biotechnology company, accusing it of selling cells that doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took from her without her knowledge or consent as part of “a racially unjust medical system.” 

 

“We stand in solidarity with marginalized patients and communities all over the world who are not consulted, engaged or empowered in their own care,” Tedros said. 

 

“We are firm that in medicine and in science, Black lives matter,” he added. “Henrietta Lacks’ life mattered — and still matters. Today is also an opportunity to recognize those women of color who have made incredible but often unseen contributions to medical science.”
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A report marking the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction finds many deaths and economic losses from natural disasters could be averted by investing in preventive risk reduction measures. 

Climate-related disasters have nearly doubled over the past 20 years, with developing countries bearing the brunt of the damage. Though extreme weather events and other emergencies are growing, the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction says little money is being allocated to help countries prevent or reduce risks. 

The report finds $133 billion of official development assistance was allocated for disaster-related aid between 2010 and 2019, but only $5.5 billion was invested in measures to reduce the risks and lessen the impact of disasters. 

For every $100 spent on disaster-related development aid, only 50 cents goes toward protecting development from the impact of disasters, according to the report. 

Ricardo Mena, director of the Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, said even that low-level funding should be better targeted to address the needs of poorer, more vulnerable countries. 

“One would think that countries that are more prone to disasters and that experience higher mortality rates would be the ones where DRR, disaster risk reduction, financing would be allocated the most. But that is unfortunately not the case,” he said. “Insufficient investment is being provided to prevent future disasters in areas where high mortality is likely.” 

Mena said failure to invest in DRR is like buying a nice car that has no brakes.

“Investing in DRR, we know it makes sense and, in terms of cost-benefit, it is tremendously positive,” he said. “So, yes, we are saying it is better to attack the underlying factors of risk, then having to spend more money at a time when disasters actually happen.” 

Academic studies find every dollar invested in disaster risk reduction prevention can result in savings of $3 to $15 in disaster losses. 

Mena is calling for an increase in funding to help poor countries adapt to climate change and implement national strategies for disaster risk reduction. 

 
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Hurricane Pamela came ashore on Mexico’s Pacific coast Wednesday, bringing with it strong winds and rain. 

The Category 1 storm had just regained hurricane strength before hitting 65 kilometers north of Mazatlan, a port city and tourist destination. 

The storm has the potential for strong storm surge and possible flooding. 

At landfall, the storm had winds of 120 kph, but that was anticipated to dissipate quickly as the storm moves inland.

The remnants of the storm, which is expected to bring heavy rains across much of Mexico, could hit Texas on Thursday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. 

Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press. 
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Over 70 zoos in the United States are gearing up to inoculate some of their animals against COVID-19 amid a rise in cases. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports on the vaccine’s effectiveness for the animals and which species will get the jab first.
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A tropical storm set off landslides and flash floods as it barreled over the tip of the northern Philippines, leaving at least 11 people dead and seven missing, officials said Tuesday. 

More than 6,500 villagers were evacuated from homes in several towns and cities swamped by floods and battered by pounding rains and wind that toppled trees and knocked down power.  

Tropical Storm Kompasu was last tracked over the South China Sea heading toward China’s Hainan island and later Vietnam with sustained winds of 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour and gusts of 125 kph (78 mph), government forecasters said.  

Six villagers died in landslides that hit their houses in the northern mountain province of Benguet and three others in the region remain missing. A security guard was swept away by strong waves while inspecting a seaport and drowned in Claveria town in Cagayan, disaster response officials said.  

In western Palawan province, four people died and four others went missing in flash floods in Narra town, which was drenched by monsoon rains enhanced by the storm. 

The coast guard its personnel rescued elderly residents and children trapped in submerged homes Monday and carried them through floodwaters in a rural village in Brooke’s Point town in Palawan. 

About 20 storms and typhoons each year lash the Philippines, which also lies in the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a region often hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, making the Southeast Asian archipelago one of the most disaster-prone in the world. 
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As William Shatner prepares to be beamed up Wednesday for his first real-life spaceflight, and to become at 90 the oldest person ever to enter the final frontier, he’s bringing out the awe in the small handful of people around a rural Texas spaceport. 

Shatner’s 10-minute trip with three others on the second passenger flight from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin will be more like the first space launches of the 1960s than the fictional galactic voyages of the Starship Enterprise on “Star Trek,” but the very idea of him leaving the atmosphere is powerful. 

“It’s time Captain Kirk actually physically got up into space. I’m kind of excited about that,” said Becky Brewster, mayor of Van Horn, a rural town of about 1,800 people on what was once desolate desert ranchland in far West Texas that has been transformed by the presence of the Blue Origin spaceport facilities 25 miles away. 

The mayor, a lifelong “Star Trek” fan, said she was disappointed she wasn’t invited to the launch site but is savoring the moment anyway. She’s planning to watch from her backyard with the livestream playing. 

“He and Mr. Spock were the ones that got me interested in space and science fiction and and everything else,” Brewster said. “So, from junior high age up to now where William Shatner is actually in our town fixing to go up into space. You know, it’s kind of like the whole circle now for me.” 

Beyond his celebrity identity, Shatner being space-bound at his age is a kick for close observers. 

Joseph Barra, who works as a bartender for a Los Angeles catering company, heard only that he was getting an unusual gig at a remote Texas launch site. 

“I’m like stop. You had me at space. Had no clue what else,” Barra said. “And then all I heard was their gonna send some 90-year-old man into space. And I’m like, Dang, that sounds intense. Like, I wonder who that is. Then you get in site and I’m like, Oh, it’s William Shatner.” 

Barra said the experience of serving drinks to Shatner and his crew mates has been surreal and then some. 

“We’re seeing that the man who in a sense like made space popular or made or gave everybody dreams of going to space,” Barra said. “Now he’s the one going to space and he’s the one setting the bar. It’s inspiring. Some like here, this man is 90 years old, proving that no matter how old you are, you still have more to do and accomplish on this Earth, and you can still give people an inspiration and a source and something to aspire to.” 

Barra said he heard Shatner say he plans to just gaze out the window at Earth during his minutes of weightlessness. 

But he has a bit more planned apparently. 

A Twitter user asked Shatner, an avid tweeter, on Tuesday whether he will post from space. 

“I cannot bring my phone but I’ve prearranged a little something,” Shatner replied with a wink emoji. 

[[ https://twitter.com/WilliamShatner/status/1447906641823756288?s=20 ]]  

Earlier in the week he tweeted a photo of himself and his fellow crew members in blue flight suits that are far more futuristic than the yellow leotard-style uniform he wore on the original “Star Trek.” 

“Aren’t we all adorbs!” Shatner said. 

Bezos, who was on Blue Origin’s debut flight in July, is also a big “Star Trek” fan, and invited Shatner to take the flight as a guest. 

He’ll join three others — two of them paying customers in the burgeoning business of space tourism — aboard a Blue Origin capsule. 

The fully automated flight, delayed by a day due to weather, will take them no higher than about 66 miles (106 kilometers). The capsule will parachute back to the desert floor, not far from where it took off. 

Shatner plans to get right back to his work as Captain Kirk once he’s back down to Earth. 

“I’m doing Space, then Indiana Comic Con, & then on Sunday Wizard World Chicago,” he tweeted. 
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People over the age of the 60 without heart disease should not take low-dose aspirin daily to prevent a first stroke or heart attack, according to an independent panel of U.S. health experts.

In a draft of new guidelines released online Tuesday, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said bleeding risks caused by aspirin outweigh any potential benefits for adults in their 60s who have not had a heart attack or stroke.

Low-dose aspirin has long been recommended for people with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity or other maladies that increase their risks of a heart attack or stroke. 

“Aspirin use can cause serious harms, and risk increases with age,’’ said task force member and Tufts Medical Center primary care expert Dr. John Wong.

Wong said adults of all ages should consult with their doctors before deciding to start or stop taking aspirin, a pain reliever and blood thinner.

If the guidelines are finalized, they would mark a reversal of the group’s 2016 recommendations for preventing a first heart attack and stroke. But they would be more consistent with more recent guidelines issued by other medical organizations.

Public comments on the guidelines are allowed until Nov. 8, after which the group will consider before making a final decision.
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A group of World Health Organization experts is calling for 70 percent of the global population to be fully vaccinated by mid-2022 to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic from progressing in more dangerous ways. The 15-member Strategic Advisory Group of Experts, known as SAGE, which makes recommendations to WHO on vaccine policy and strategy, just concluded a four-day meeting.

The experts say more than enough vaccines are available to cover everyone by the middle of next year if the doses are not hoarded by wealthy countries and are shared equitably with poorer nations which as of yet do not have them. 

WHO director of immunization vaccines and biologicals Katherine O’Brien says it is urgent to get the doses to places that are falling behind in the race to vaccinate.

“Unless we do that, we will continue to have transmission and transmission will lead to more variants and the issue of the variants is that there is the potential for those variants to escape immune pressure and to undo much of the progress that has been made,” O’Brien said.

The experts recommend people who are moderately and severely immune compromised should be offered an additional or third dose of all COVID-19 vaccines. 

O’Brien says the third dose should be administered one to three months after people have received their second shot. 

“The intent of the third dose is to induce that person’s immune system to have protection that would be at the level that was demonstrated to prevent against severe disease, hospitalization, and death in the clinical trials, which excluded people with immuno-compromised conditions,” O’Brien said.

The SAGE experts say these additional shots are different from booster shots, which are not needed at this stage of the pandemic. For now, they say it is more important that people who have not been inoculated receive their jabs before people who are already vaccinated get a third dose.  

They say they will discuss booster shots at their next meeting November 11 and issue further recommendations then. 
…

Severe storms brought suspected tornadoes and baseball-sized hail to parts of Oklahoma, but there were no reports Monday of deaths or injuries. 

The severe weather system that hit Oklahoma late Sunday also brought heavy rain, lightning and wind to parts of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Texas, and more stormy weather is predicted later this week in parts of the central United States. 

Severe weather is not unusual in the Southern Plains in October, said Chuck Hodges, senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tulsa. But Sunday’s storm “was kind of more of a spring setup,” he said. 

“We had unusually high moisture and a very, very strong weather system that came through,” he said. 

Tornado warnings and reports of damage popped up across Oklahoma beginning Sunday afternoon, and survey crews with the weather service will head out Monday to determine how many tornadoes struck, Hodges said. 

A possible tornado hit the Tulsa suburb of Coweta late Sunday, causing significant damage to a high school, homes and a gas station, news outlets reported, and Coweta Public Schools classes were canceled Monday. 

Building damage was also reported in Anadarko, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Oklahoma City. 

Earlier, baseball-sized hail shattered windows and dented cars in Norman, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Oklahoma City. 

The National Weather Service confirmed two small tornadoes touched down in rural areas of southwestern Missouri — an EF-1 twister in Newton County around 1 a.m. and an EF-0 in Jasper County around 4:45 a.m. KYTV-TV reported that a mobile home, a couple of barns and an irrigation system were damaged, but no one was hurt. 

Lightning that appeared to be from the same line of storms delayed an NFL game between the Buffalo Bills and the Chiefs in Kansas City, Missouri, for about an hour Sunday night. 

On Monday, severe storms were possible in parts of Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, while another round of storms is predicted Tuesday in Kansas and Oklahoma, the Storm Prediction Center said. 
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The World Health Organization said Monday that constructive action against climate change could save “millions” of lives. 

Ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, scheduled for October 31, the WHO is urging governments to reach concrete agreements to combat climate change. 

“Countries must set ambitious national climate commitments if they are to sustain a healthy and green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic,” the WHO said Monday in a statement announcing a new report on climate change and health. 

Amid the pandemic, climate crises including droughts, heat waves, flooding and hurricanes have ravaged all parts of the world.

“Changes in weather and climate are threatening food security and driving up food-, water- and vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, while climate impacts are also negatively affecting mental health,” the WHO statement read. 

The WHO report came on the same day that an open letter signed by more than 400 health bodies representing over 45 million health care professionals was released, calling for urgent action against climate change. 

At this year’s COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland, participants will spend two weeks discussing the measures needed to avoid what some are calling an “unprecedented ecological crisis.” 

 
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A key U.N. summit tasked with protecting biodiversity officially opens in China and online Monday, as countries meet to tackle pollution and prevent mass extinction weeks before the COP26 climate conference.

Beijing, the world’s biggest polluter, has sought to position itself in recent years as a world leader on climate issues after Washington’s withdrawal from international commitments under the Trump administration.

The online session that begins Monday afternoon — setting the stage for a face-to-face meeting in April — will see parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) working out the details of a new document that will set targets for protecting ecosystems by 2030.

Up for debate are the “30 by 30” plan to give 30% of lands and oceans protected status — a measure supported by a broad coalition of nations, as well as a goal to stop creating plastic waste.

China has not yet committed to the “30 by 30” plan.

This year’s COP15 gathering, hosted in the southwest city of Kunming, was originally set for 2020 and postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Around one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction amid human encroachment on habitats, over-exploitation, pollution, the spread of invasive species, and climate change. 

The CBD has been ratified by 195 countries and the European Union — although not the United States, the world’s biggest historical polluter — with parties meeting every two years.

Division over targets

China said on Friday it has “given high priority to the protection of biodiversity by establishing a network of protected areas and national parks.”

And this week Beijing is expected to unveil a statement known as the Kunming Declaration, which would set the tone for its environmental leadership.

But sharp divisions remain over the targets for urgent action over the next decade.

France and Costa Rica are among a coalition of support for the initiative to declare 30% of oceans and lands protected areas before 2030.

But when scientists called for more ambitious protection of half of Earth’s biodiversity, Brazil and South Africa strongly opposed.

Other sources of tension surround financing, with developing nations asking rich countries to foot the bill for their ecological transitions.

These issues will be at the heart of negotiation sessions set to take place in Geneva in January 2022.

The biodiversity discussions at COP15 are separate from weightier COP26 summit set to begin next month in Glasgow, where world leaders are under pressure to act on the climate crisis.

The Glasgow summit faces a packed agenda dominated by efforts to persuade countries such as China and India to commit to binding “nationally determined contributions” towards net zero emissions.

China has pledged to peak carbon emissions in 2030 and reach zero emissions by 2060, but environmentalists have flagged the huge amount of coal-fired power being brought online in recent years by the world’s top emitter of greenhouse gases.
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