Climate change will have an impact, not just on the temperature, but on the economy, according to a new analysis. A group of researchers has just released a study focused on the future economic effects of climate change in the U.S. Using six different economic variables, the team is predicting, with county by county accuracy, how a warming climate will rapidly change American society over the next century. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Instagram is adding a new feature to automatically block any comments that are clearly spam or harassment.
The new filters will track comments that are obviously spam or vulgar harassment and block and remove them. Users will still be able to delete or report other comments or turn comments off on certain posts.
The filter blocking “toxic” comments will first be unveiled in English, but Instagram says it hopes to expand it to more languages over time.
The second filter blocking obvious spam will be introduced in a number of languages including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, French, German, Russian, Japanese, and Chinese.
The company said in a blog post, “These tools are the next step in our commitment to foster kind, inclusive communities on Instagram.”
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This year’s World Food Prize has been awarded to African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina, for his work to improve the lives of millions of small farmers across the African continent — especially in Nigeria, where he was once the agriculture minister.
Kenneth Quinn, president of the World Food Prize Foundation, based in Des Moines, Iowa, said the $250,000 award reflected Adesina’s “breakthrough achievements” in Nigeria and his leadership role in the development of AGRA — the nonprofit Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.
For example, Quinn said, “our laureate introduced the E-Wallet system, which broke the back of the corrupt elements that had controlled the fertilizer distribution system for 40 years. The reforms he implemented increased food production by 21 million metric tons and led to and attracted $5.6 billion in private-sector investments that earned him the reputation as the ‘farmers’ minister.'”
Adesina is the sixth African to win what some consider the Nobel Prize for food and agriculture. He will accept the prize in October in the Midwestern state of Iowa, where farming is a mainstay of the economy.
Challenges ahead
As president of the African Development Bank, the 57-year-old economist said he is honored by the recognition of decades of work, but he noted to VOA that the challenges ahead in Africa are quite immense.
“The big issue is how we’re going to make sure that 250 million people that still don’t have food in Africa get access to food,” Adesina said. “The other one is, we still have 58 million African children that are stunted today and, obviously, stunted children today are going to lead us to stunted economies tomorrow.”
Almost 30 percent of the 795 million people in the world who do not have enough to eat are in Africa, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
While Africa imports $35 billion worth of food every year, Adesina says the money spent on food imports should instead go into food production.
“Our task ahead is to make sure that Africa fully feeds itself,” the bank president said. “That Africa conserves that $35 billion and Africa transforms its rural economies and creates new hope and prosperity for a lot of the young people.”
Agriculture as ‘cool’ career
Adesina said he has worked to promote agriculture as a “cool” career for young people, so they can see their future in agriculture as a business, not just a way of life.
Gold lying in the ground in the rough can look like a clump of dirt, and won’t look like the extremely valuable metal it is unless it is cleaned and polished, Adesina said, and “that’s how it is with agriculture.”
“The size of the food and agribusiness market in Africa will rise to $1 trillion by 2030,” he added, “so this should be the sector where the millionaires and billionaires of Africa are coming out of.”
The African Development Bank launched an almost $800 million initiative last year called “Enable Youth.” The aim, Adesina said, “is to develop a new generation of young commercial farmers in both production, logistics, processing, marketing and all of that, all across the value chain.”
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The Dead Sea, the lowest spot on earth, is getting lower. With less rainfall than average this year, experts say the water level could drop more than one and a third meters by October. But the lake’s shrinkage is not just a reflection of drier weather and increased water use. It’s a prediction of a future mega-drought. Faith Lapidus reports.
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The number of cases of Zika virus is way down around the world this year. Instead of treating new cases, doctors, health workers and researchers are freer to track and help those children with microcephaly, a disease caused by Zika-carrying mosquitoes. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Many Americans in rural parts of the United States voted to elect Donald Trump as president in 2016, despite his stance against trade agreements. In the wake of the President Trump’s announcement to withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, or TPP, and now curbing trade with Cuba, VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports on how farmers in the Midwest state of Illinois are reacting, and adjusting, to the uncertain road ahead.
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Nguyen Kim Lan used to make a decent living shuttling customers around town on his Honda motorbike. But his clientele has dwindled as young and tech-savvy Vietnamese increasingly use ride-hailing apps like Uber and Grab to summon cheaper, safer motorbike taxis.
The expansion of the ride-hailing services across Southeast Asia is shaking up traditional motorcycle taxi services that are a key source of informal work for people like Lan. In some cases, the Xe Om, or motorbike taxi, drivers are venting their anger in attacks on the new competitors.
Lan is just frustrated. He says his income has fallen to 20 percent to 30 percent of what it used to be.
‘Picked up at the door’
“Nowadays, my frequent customers have all booked Grab and Uber, so they don’t come here anymore,” said Lan, 62, as he waited for customers at an intersection in downtown Hanoi.
“Before, office workers would come here after work. Now they just sit in their offices and get picked up at the door,” he said.
As elsewhere in the region, motorbikes are Vietnam’s main form of transportation, especially in the capital Hanoi and the southern commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City. They can maneuver through crowded, narrow city streets more easily than cars and are less expensive to buy and run.
First taxis, now motorbikes
Having invaded the conventional taxi market, ride hailing apps like Uber and Malaysia-based Grab are now elbowing aside the Xe Om with their UberMoto and GrabBike services.
Vietnam, a communist-ruled country of 93 million, has about 45 million motorbikes, the highest rate of motorcycle ownership per capita in Southeast Asia. About 3 million new motorbikes were sold last year.
Practically everyone has mobile phones, and cheap Internet access has enabled most Vietnamese city dwellers to get online.
Nguyen Tuan Anh, chairman of Grab Vietnam, said the number of GrabBike drivers has jumped from 100 when they first launched in late 2014 to more than 50,000, with hundreds joining every day.
The growth of passengers is “explosive,” he said.
Many Vietnamese now prefer to use ride hailing apps, viewing their services as safer and cheaper, Tuan Anh said. “GrabBike brings transparency and that’s why customers love it. They know that they will not be cheated by the drivers.”
Hotspots of conflict
But Tuan Anh said he knows of more than 100 cases where GrabBike drivers were attacked in the past year, often by Xe Om drivers worried about losing business.
Bus stations, hospitals and schools are hotspots for conflict. In one case, a GrabBike driver was stabbed in the lung. In another, police fired warning shots to disperse crowds of Xe Om and GrabBike drivers who were battling near a bus station in Ho Chi Minh City.
Similar problems have been reported in Thailand and Indonesia.
Tuan Anh said GrabBike tells its drivers to be cautious and to seek help from police.
Many Vietnamese seem keen to use such services despite the potential for conflict.
Cheaper, more convenient
Tran Thuc Anh, a 21-year-old video games designer, says she switched to using GrabBike to commute from bus stations to and from her office about six months ago.
It costs her half as much as using Xe Om did, she says.
“I just need to be online to book a bike without going around to look for a traditional Xe Om, so it’s very convenient,” Thuc Anh said.
Many GrabBike drivers originally worked as Xe Om, but not all are willing to sign up. Older motorbike taxi drivers say they don’t know how to use online apps or lack the cash to buy smart phones. Others are put off by the cheaper fares GrabBike charges.
But Nguyen Quang Trung, a 30-year-old salesman who began moonlighting for GrabBike six months ago, said Xe Om drivers who try to overcharge their customers are finished.
“Uber and Grab are safe and their fares are reasonable and customers see this,” Trung said. “Only elder people or those who are in hurry use traditional Xe Om. Young people and people who are not short on time never use Xe Om.”
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Cuba earned more than $3 billion from tourism in 2016 and expects to better that this year despite President Donald Trump’s tightening of restrictions on U.S. travel to the Caribbean island, a government official said on Wednesday.
“In 2016, revenue reached more than $3 billion in all activity linked to tourism in the country,” Jose Alonso, the Tourism Ministry’s business director, told state-run media.
“We think that, given the growth the country is seeing at the moment, we will beat that figure this year,” Alonso said.
Tourism revenue totaled $2.6 billion in 2015.
The number of foreign visitors to Cuba was up 22 percent in the first half of 2017 compared with the same period last year, according to Alonso, who said that put it on track to reach its target for a record 4.2 million visits this year.
Tourism has been one of the few bright spots recently in Cuba’s economy, as it struggles with a decline in exports and subsidized oil shipments from its key ally Venezuela.
A surge in American visitors has helped boost the sector since the 2014 U.S.-Cuban detente under the Obama administration and its easing of U.S. travel restrictions, even as a longtime ban on tourism remained in effect.
But Trump earlier this month ordered a renewed tightening of travel restrictions, saying he was canceling former President Barack Obama’s “terrible and misguided deal” with Havana.
Many details of the policy change are still unknown. But independent travel to Cuba from the United States, by solo travelers and families, will likely be much more restricted.
Alonso said he was confident “an important number of Americans” would still be able to visit the island. But an announcement by Southwest Airlines Co (LUV.N) on Wednesday that it was reducing its number of flights to Cuba cast shadow over his upbeat comments.
“There is not a clear path to sustainability serving these markets, particularly with the continuing prohibition in U.S. law on tourism to Cuba for American citizens,” Southwest said in a statement.
Southwest joined other U.S. airlines that have cut flights to Cuba over past months or pulled out of the market altogether.
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Solomon was just 7 years old when he woke up missing a leg.
And he was one of the lucky ones.
Weeks later, Solomon was back on two feet with the aid of an artificial leg, fitted at a hectic hospital, turned into a limb-making factory, in the South Sudanese capital of Juba.
The hospital is in horribly high demand in a country born of war that remains littered with mines and explosive devices, with civil war still raging all around.
Most of South Sudan’s estimated 60,000 amputees have suffered war-related injuries, be it gunshot or landmine wounds.
As civil war devastates the world’s youngest country — it celebrates its sixth anniversary next month — it has become increasingly difficult for amputees to gain good treatment.
Second chance
Solomon came to his first artificial limb after an open fracture turned into a life-threatening infection, which forced doctors to amputate.
When he woke from surgery in a remote hospital in South Sudan’s Bentiu, he was far away from the capital with little chance of rehabilitation or help adjusting to his new life.
“I was put on a flight to Juba, where I am receiving a new, artificial leg,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from his current home at the Physical Rehabilitation Reference Center.
It is the country’s biggest hospital for prosthetic orthotic treatment, treating about 30 patients a day.
“Amputations have gone up since the beginning of the civil war in 2013, but even with increased need, access to some areas is impossible due to active fighting and many people who have lost limbs might never be able to get out and receive help,” said Emmanuel Lobari, who as head of technicians oversees the production of all the prosthetic limbs.
Both hospital and factory, the center produces an average of 50 prostheses each month — all hand-made and custom fit.
Durable, affordable
“We use polypropylene to make the limbs, a material that has proved to be both durable and affordable,” physiotherapist Daniel Odhiambo said.
A Kenyan, he is one of a handful of expatriate staff at the hospital, employed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
“The prostheses last for an average of two years and it’s usually the foot, made out of a softer material, that wears out the fastest. The leg itself can last up to 10 years.”
Making a limb — from melting the plastic-like polypropylene to shaping it into a leg — is a quick process in the hospital’s small, modern factory and can be done within a day.
“It’s the fitting and the patient’s adaption that take up to 10 days,” Lobari said.
Lobari is South Sudanese, like most of the hospital’s 30 staff, all of whom received Red Cross training.
The organization first started treating amputations in 1979 during Ethiopia’s civil war, and developed the polypropylene technology that has since spread across all conflict zones.
Odhiambo has worked in many places, including Afghanistan, Yemen and Iraq. He recently took up his second mission in Juba.
“Here in South Sudan, I mainly see war wounds and they are very different from civilian wounds,” he said.
Nearly 250,000 mines and explosive devices were found and destroyed in South Sudan so far in 2017, according to the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS). South Sudan slipped into civil war in 2013, two years after becoming independent from Khartoum, and some 4 million people, one third of the population, have fled to neighboring countries in its wake.
For those left behind, risk is part of daily life. The worst case Odhiambo has seen is an 18-year-old boy, who was brought to the clinic with both legs blown off by a landmine, pieces of muscle hanging out of the wound and shrapnel fragments stuck deep in his flesh.
“He was in consistent pain and it took months to build the right prosthesis, but I stayed with him through the whole process. I told him not to give up. He had his whole life ahead of him still.”
A resilient nation
Simon has been coming to the hospital for several months and can still vividly recall the day he was attacked, when several bullets were shot through his leg.
“I thought I was going to die, but my family took me to a small hospital where my leg was amputated,” he said.
Simon is from the north of the country then moved to Juba to get better care.
Three in four patients at the center are male. The women and children at the hospital underwent amputations after suffering different traumas, such as war injuries, crocodile bites, road accidents or infections.
It helps patients such as Solomon, just starting a new life with his first prosthesis, to meet older patients like Simon.
“The boy is still young, but he can see that he’s not alone with his injury,” Odhiambo said.
“The one difference I’ve noted working in South Sudan is that people here accept their fate easier than any others. They are resilient and want to go on with their lives. I even see it in Solomon,” Odhiambo said. “People have suffered, but they don’t lose their drive and motivation.”
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For Shalini Gera, a rights lawyer in India’s Chhattisgarh state, it was the searing testimony of tribal activist Soni Sori that drew her attention to atrocities in the mineral-rich state.
Sori, who was arrested in 2011 on charges of aiding Maoist rebels in the state, accused the police of torturing and sexually assaulting her while in prison. Her crime?
Defending the right of indigenous people to live in an area rich in minerals in what is one of India’s poorest states.
Police officials, who have since been moved to other locations, deny any mistreatment.
Stirred by Sori’s call for justice, Gera and a couple of other lawyers left Delhi to set up office in the state’s restive Bastar region in 2013. It wasn’t long before they were targets.
The lawyers said they were followed, had objects thrown into their home, and were accused of helping Maoist rebels. They say they were harassed for defending villagers and indigenous people.
They were finally evicted by a fearful landlord last year, and relocated to Bilaspur about 400 km (250 miles) away, where they continued to pursue their cases.
Mineral-rich, rights-poor
The lawyers have angered plenty of people in high places.
A top police official recently said they should be crushed on the highway for going against the state to protect villagers.
“Parts of Chhattisgarh are like a war zone,” said Sudha Bharadwaj, a lawyer in Bilaspur who backed Gera and set up a legal aid group, Janhit, for farmers and indigenous people.
“There is violence against people who insist on their rights and we are perceived as anti-development for helping them,” said Bharadwaj, 55, who took up law at the age of 40 to help local people.
One of India’s least developed states, Chhattisgarh sits atop some of India’s biggest reserves of coal, iron ore, bauxite, dolomite, limestone, tin and gold, and accounts for nearly a fifth of the total value of minerals produced in India.
At least 25 conflicts are raging in the state — over coal and iron ore, power projects and steel plants — and they affect 70,000 people, according to research firm Land Conflict Watch.
The race for resources to spur India’s economic growth has pitted some of its most vulnerable people against the state, stalling industrial projects worth billions of dollars.
There are at least 332 land conflicts nationwide, affecting more than 3.5 million people, according to Land Conflict Watch.
Nowhere are these conflicts more violent and bloody than in Chhattisgarh, part of the “Red Corridor” stretching across eastern and central India that has witnessed a Maoist rebellion for more than three decades.
The rebels, who say they are fighting for the land rights and empowerment of indigenous people, accuse the government of plundering mineral resources while ignoring the villagers.
Adivasis, or “original dwellers,” and lower-caste Dalits make up more than 40 percent of the state’s 28 million population and traditionally lived in its forests and hills.
After the opening of the economy in the early 1990s, tracts of forest land were handed to companies including Adani Group, Jindal Power, Essar and Tata Steel for mines and power plants.
Backed by the state, an anti-insurgency militia called Salwa Judum — meaning “Peace March” or “Purification March” — began cracking down on the Maoist rebels from 2005 to free up land.
A pitched battle ensued, in which hundreds were killed and tens of thousands displaced amid accusations of mass rape, illegal detentions, torture and extra-judicial killings.
Activists are caught “between two sets of guns” in the conflict between Maoist combatants and government security forces, Human Rights Watch said in a 2012 report.
“The original inhabitants are seen as road blocks that they have to get out of the way to do more mining, build more plants, more industry,” said Bharadwaj.
Murder, treason
The fight for land and the environment is “a new battleground for human rights,” according to British-based watchdog Global Witness, with India chalking up at least six deaths in 2015 related to land conflicts.
In Chhattisgarh, villagers spoke of giving up land at gunpoint while activists faced charges from murder to treason.
Lingaram Kodopi, a tribal activist, fled to Delhi after being shot in the leg in 2011.
Binayak Sen, a physician, was convicted of treason and sedition in 2010 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Ramesh Agrawal, who received the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2014 for leading a protest that shut down a proposed coal mine, was wounded by masked gunmen in 2012.
Sori was attacked again last year with chemicals.
Delhi University professor Nandini Sundar was among those charged last year in the killing of an indigenous man in Bastar shortly after she published a book on the conflict.
“People opposing the state are not treated as citizens. The state sees it fit to tackle them only through the military,” said Gera, a co-founder of Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group. “Would there be less violence if there were no resources? Perhaps.”
‘Iron fist’
Laws that protect the rights of farmers and indigenous people — including a 1996 law on tribal areas and the 2006 Forest Rights Act giving traditional forest dwellers access to forest resources — are poorly implemented, activists say.
Meanwhile, state officials say resource-based industries are needed to spur growth and generate jobs for the state.
“We have settled forest rights where requested. If there is any complaint of rights violation, we look into it,” said Subodh Kumar Singh, a senior official in the mines department. “There may be a few displacements, but the people are resettled. The industries are bringing good development.”
The Supreme Court in 2011 called Salwa Judum “illegal” and ordered its disbandment. The top court said it was dismayed the only option for the state was “to rule with an iron fist.”
But a battle is still raging.
Among the cases that Bharadwaj is handling is that of Janki Sidar, who is fighting the unauthorized takeover of her land.
The case is 14 years old. Bharadwaj is her 10th lawyer.
“It is necessary for us — doctors, lawyers, journalists — to be involved,” said Bharadwaj. “We have to help them confront the power of the state and industry. We have to become their amplifiers to carry their voices to the outside world.”
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Cooks at a community kitchen in Kampala’s Nakasero Hill business district are preparing a traditional breakfast of green bananas in offal sauce using a very untraditional means of cooking – volcanic rocks.
It’s a method that some are hoping will take off across Africa, to help protect forests and improve the lives of women.
“Rocks for fuel is a reprieve to all women in Africa,” said Susan Bamugamire, one of the 55 cooks in the community kitchen set up by city authorities in the Wandegeya Market shopping mall to help feed local workers.
“Save for the high cost of purchasing and installing it, the special cookstove is something every woman will crave to have in her kitchen,” she said, saying it would largely free women from having to seek out firewood, charcoal or kerosene.
But cost is an issue in a country where a third of the population live on $1.90 or less a day and even small domestic stoves are priced at $100.
The stoves use heat-holding volcanic rocks broken down to the size of charcoal. The rocks are heated using starter briquettes and then remain hot for hours with the help a fan blowing a continuous flow of air over them.
According to Rose Twine, the director of Eco Group Limited – the Kampala-based company that produces the stoves – the main aim is to provide an efficient form of cooking energy that is user friendly and good for the environment.
“It pains me when I see people cut down trees, some of them indigenous and decades old, just for the sake of making charcoal or firewood,” said Twine.
“It is now good that we can talk of an alternative,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The volcanic rocks can be repeatedly heated for up to two years with the aid of the fan, which is solar-powered and needs very little energy. Any surplus solar power produced can be used to light the house, run a radio and charge mobile phones, Twine said.
Alternatively, the fan can be run off mains electricity if the owner’s home or business is connected to the power grid, she said.
It is the cost of the fan, battery and solar panel that push up the stove’s production cost, pushing it out of reach of most people in Uganda.
“We can only achieve the environmental benefits of these stoves if they are made affordable for poor Ugandans who desperately need them,” said David Illukol, a senior mechanical research engineer at the government-run Uganda Industrial Research Institute.
“All we need is further research on how to reduce the costs of production, and perhaps [on] maintaining them,” the engineer said in an interview.
Despite the cost, more than 4,500 individuals and institutions in Uganda – including schools – are now using the stoves, according to Eco Group Limited.
The Kampala city authority has installed 230 of the stoves at Wandegeya Market where Bamugamire and her colleagues rent the premises from the government.
Protecting Trees
There are plans for the stoves to be used in other parts of the continent too.
Twine’s company began exporting them to Rwanda this year, and plans to take them to Kenya and Somalia as well.
An umbrella group of more than 1,000 climate organizations and networks – the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance – wants to spread the cooking method across Africa, according to its secretary general Mithika Mwenda.
Volcanic rocks have the potential to become a key cooking method for East Africa and perhaps the entire continent, engineer Illukol said.
They are a largely environmentally friendly form of cooking because – unlike charcoal, kerosene, gas and firewood – they do not emit climate-changing gases and produce no smoke at all, he said.
About 94 percent of Ugandan households use firewood or charcoal for cooking, according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics.
Only 20 percent of households had access to electricity in 2014, and most of those connected to the grid rarely use electricity for cooking because of the high costs involved, the statics bureau said.
Demand for wood for fuel has put pressure on Uganda’s shrinking forests.
The country had some 3 million hectares of tropical forests under government control at the beginning of the 20th century.
But by 1999, tropical forest cover had fallen to about 730,000 hectares or 3.6 percent of Uganda’s land area, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
“If we can stop using firewood and charcoal completely, then we will have saved a huge volume of wood that is used for fuel every year, and that is good for our environment,” said Illukol.
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From water taxis that “fly” on hydrofoils to aircraft wings and cutting-edge car steering wheels, the America’s Cup has produced technology with potential far beyond its “foiling” catamarans.
With their focus on carbon fiber and aerodynamics, the teams that fought for the America’s Cup attracted partners including planemaker Airbus and automotive groups BMW and Land Rover who were keen to learn from them.
One area where this is likely to have an impact is in harnessing “foiling” technology, where the America’s Cup boats “fly” above the water on foils, cutting water resistance.
“Foiling in small electric boats will most likely appear on rivers in major cities. We are just at the beginning of the foiling adventure,” Pierre Marie Belleau, head of Airbus Business Development, who managed its partnership with Larry Ellison’s Oracle Team USA, told Reuters.
The space-age catamarans used in the 35th America’s Cup, which ended in victory for Emirates Team New Zealand this week, can sail at maximum speeds of 50 knots (92.6 kilometers per hour) and have more in common with flying than sailing.
For Jaguar Land Rover, which sponsored British sailor Ben Ainslie’s attempt to win the cup, the relationship is a strategic one with a focus on technology and innovation.
“We don’t just get our logo onto a sail,” Mark Cameron, the company’s Experiential Marketing Director, said by telephone, adding that the carmaker would be providing more designers to help Land Rover BAR with technology for their next campaign.
Land Rover produced a special steering wheel for Ainslie to use in the America’s Cup, with in-built gear shift paddles that allowed him to adjust the catamaran’s “flight” levels.
The relationship is similar between BMW and Oracle Team USA, with the German automaker focused on areas including the electronics in the wheel used by skipper Jimmy Spithill, the development of carbon fiber used to make the boat and its components, and the aerodynamic testing.
“We like to think of ourselves more as a partner than a sponsor. We have a very strong carbon fiber relationship,” Ian Robertson, who is the BMW management board member responsible for sales and brand, told Reuters between races.
“This is a dynamic sport that is developing fast. … It’s moving quickly just like the car industry is moving quickly. It’s all changing,” Robertson said.
Plane sailing?
The America’s Cup catamarans use similar aerodynamics and load calculations to power their wings as commercial aircraft, which has led some skippers such as Spithill to become pilots.
Airbus is now considering applying the design and method of Oracle’s foils to the tips of aircraft, Belleau said, adding that this would need a two- to four-year certification process and require it to change its production method.
Airbus has also created a new generation of Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) microchips that were originally developed for the wings of its test aircraft and then adapted on board the Oracle boat to measure the wind speed and direction at all points on its almost 25-meter-high wing sail.
The sensors make it easier to tell if the wing sails are set efficiently, as wind speed and direction can vary from the top to bottom of the 25-meter wing of the America’s Cup boats — technology that could become standard in the marine leisure industry to replace less reliable wind instruments.
“I would be very surprised if this MEMS technology does not become standard in order to replace the classic anemometer,” Belleau said.
The Airbus A350-1000, one of Airbus’ twin-aisle, wide-body jetliners, is also flying every day using new instrumentation developed through the partnership.
Oracle used Airbus’ 3D printing and manufacturing process to produce stronger and lighter parts that Airbus has started to use on aircraft to replace titanium and aluminum.
“In 10 years from now … this technology will spread and will be on all the sailing boats in the market,” Belleau said. “In addition to the sporting competition, there is still this technological competition. … The story is not finished.”
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In the two years leading up to June 29, 2007, when Apple’s iPhone went on sale, company co-founder Steve Jobs and a select team were hard at work secretly designing what would become a global game changer.
The initiative even had a code name, “Project Purple.” By all accounts, the project was pained.
Inside a secure room, a collection of super smart techies, ate, slept, worked way beyond the typical eight hour day, fought and, at times overthought, the design of this new slick mobile device.
Before that day, flip phones, Blackberries and even the occasional pager were commonplace.
Pay phones were rarer still.
Photo gallery: America’s love affair with the ever-evolving phone
Ten years later, Jobs is no longer with us, having passed away in 2011.
But most of the public is hunched over a hand-held device, iPhone or not, accessing the internet, watching videos on demand, and conducting mobile banking.
Time magazine published the final public video appearance of Jobs before he died after a 10-year battle with pancreatic cancer.
Apple, of course, is still redesigning, and hopefully improving upon, that first, innovative cell phone.
Later this year, the iPhone 8 will be released amid much speculation and apparent premature leaks.
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A new cyber virus spread from Ukraine to wreak havoc around the globe on
Wednesday, crippling thousands of computers, disrupting ports from Mumbai to Los Angeles and halting production at a chocolate factory in Australia.
The virus is believed to have first taken hold on Tuesday in Ukraine where it silently infected computers after users downloaded a popular tax accounting package or visited a local news site, national police and international cyber experts said.
More than a day after it first struck, companies around the world were still wrestling with the fallout while cybersecurity experts scrambled to find a way to stem the spread.
Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk said it was struggling to process orders and shift cargoes, congesting some of the 76 ports around the world run by its APM Terminals subsidiary.
U.S. delivery firm FedEx Corp said its TNT Express division had been significantly affected by the virus, which also wormed its way into South America, affecting ports in Argentina operated by China’s Cofco.
The malicious code locked machines and demanded victims post a ransom worth $300 in bitcoins or lose their data entirely, similar to the extortion tactic used in the global WannaCry ransomware attack in May.
More than 30 victims paid up but security experts are questioning whether extortion was the goal, given the relatively small sum demanded, or whether the hackers were driven by destructive motives rather than financial gain.
Hackers asked victims to notify them by email when ransoms had been paid but German email provider Posteo quickly shut down the address, a German government cybersecurity official said.
Ukraine, the epicenter of the cyber strike, has repeatedly accused Russia of orchestrating attacks on its computer systems and critical power infrastructure since its powerful neighbor annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in 2014.
The Kremlin, which has consistently rejected the accusations, said on Wednesday it had no information about the origin of the global cyberattack, which also struck Russian companies such as oil giant Rosneft and a steelmaker.
“No one can effectively combat cyber threats on their own, and, unfortunately, unfounded blanket accusations will not solve this problem,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
ESET, a Slovakian company that sells products to shield computers from viruses, said 80 percent of the infections detected among its global customer base were in Ukraine, with Italy second hardest hit with about 10 percent.
Eternal blue
The aim of the latest attack appeared to be disruption rather than ransom, said Brian Lord, former deputy director of intelligence and cyber operations at Britain’s GCHQ and now managing director at private security firm PGI Cyber.
“My sense is this starts to look like a state operating through a proxy … as a kind of experiment to see what happens,” Lord told Reuters on Wednesday.
While the malware seemed to be a variant of past campaigns, derived from code known as Eternal Blue believed to have been developed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), experts said it was not as virulent as May’s WannaCry attack.
Security researchers said Tuesday’s virus could leap from computer to computer once unleashed within an organization but, unlike WannaCry, it could not randomly trawl the internet for its next victims, limiting its scope to infect.
Bushiness that installed Microsoft’s latest security patches from earlier this year and turned off Windows file-sharing features appeared to be largely unaffected.
There was speculation, however, among some experts that once the new virus had infected one computer it could spread to other machines on the same network, even if those devices had received a security update.
After WannaCry, governments, security firms and industrial groups advised businesses and consumers to make sure all their computers were updated with Microsoft security patches.
Austria’s government-backed Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) said “a small number” of international firms appeared to be affected, with tens of thousands of computers taken down.
Security firms including Microsoft, Cisco’s Talos and Symantec said they had confirmed some of the initial infections occurred when malware was transmitted to users of a Ukrainian tax software program called MEDoc.
The supplier of the software, M.E.Doc denied in a post on Facebook that its software was to blame, though Microsoft reiterated its suspicions afterwards.
“Microsoft now has evidence that a few active infections of the ransomware initially started from the legitimate MEDoc updater process,” it said in a technical blog post.
Russian security firm Kaspersky said a Ukrainian news site for the city of Bakhumut was also hacked and used to distribute the ransomware to visitors, encrypting data on their machines.
Corporate Chaos
A number of the international firms hit have operations in Ukraine, and the virus is believed to have spread within global corporate networks after gaining traction within the country.
Shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk, which handles one in seven containers shipped worldwide, has a logistics unit in Ukraine.
Other large firms affected, such as French construction materials company Saint Gobain and Mondelez International Inc, which owns chocolate brand Cadbury, also have operations in the country.
Maersk was one of the first global firms to be taken down by the cyberattack and its operations at major ports such as Mumbai in India, Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Los Angeles on the U.S. west coast were disrupted.
Other companies to succumb included BNP Paribas Real Estate, a part of the French bank that provides property and investment management services.
“The international cyberattack hit our non-bank subsidiary, Real Estate. The necessary measures have been taken to rapidly contain the attack,” the bank said on Wednesday.
Production at the Cadbury factory on the Australian island state of Tasmania ground to a halt late on Tuesday after computer systems went down.
Russia’s Rosneft, one of the world’s biggest crude producers by volume, said on Tuesday its systems had suffered “serious consequences” but oil production had not been affected because it switched to backup systems.
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The U.N.’s disarmament chief warned Wednesday that terrorists and non-state actors are using the so-called dark web to seek the tools to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction.
“The global reach and anonymity of the dark web provides non-state actors with new marketplaces to acquire dual-use equipment and materials,” U.N. High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
The dark web is a part of the internet that requires special software to access and allows users and website operators to remain anonymous or untraceable, making it appealing to criminals, terrorists and pedophiles.
Nakamitsu said that dual-use items are complicating their efforts to address the risks posed by WMD.
“We must keep in mind that many of the technologies, goods and raw materials required for developing weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery derive from legitimate commercial applications that benefit many people,” she said. Nakamitsu added that it is important to strike the right balance between collective security and commercial opportunity with preventing proliferation.
Weapons of mass destruction include nuclear, chemical, radiological and biological weapons.
“While there are still significant technical hurdles that terrorist groups need to overcome to effectively use weapons of mass destruction, a growing number of emerging technologies could make this barrier easier to cross,” Nakamitsu said.
In addition to the dark web, she said the use of drones and 3-D printers by non-state actors are also growing concerns. Nakamitsu urged intensified international cooperation to make it harder for terrorists and criminals to illegally traffic sensitive materials.
Chemical weapons
Terrorists have already used poison gas in at least one deadly attack.
In Syria, Islamic State used mustard gas on civilians in the town of Marea in August 2015, according to a U.N.-authorized investigation last year. (The same investigators also concluded that the Syrian government carried out at least two chemical weapons attacks on civilians living in rebel-controlled areas in 2014 and 2015.)
“The use by non-state actors of chemical weapons is no longer a threat, but a chilling reality,” Joseph Ballard, a senior official with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) told council members.
Ballard said the OPCW is working to enhance the security of the global supply chain of dual-use materials and technologies, including working with international customs officials. He said the organization also works closely with the international chemical industry, to ensure that toxic chemicals do not fall into the wrong hands.
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A global cyberattack disrupted operations Wednesday at India’s largest container port, adding to the headaches of governments and businesses affected by so-called ransomware code that takes a user’s data hostage until the victim agrees to pay for its release.
The problems at Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai involved a terminal run by Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk. The company had said Tuesday as the attack was spreading largely in Europe and the United States that the malicious code was affecting terminals “in a number of ports.”
Australia’s Cyber Security Minister Dan Tehan told reporters Wednesday that officials have not yet confirmed the same computer virus was responsible for ransomware attacks on two Australian companies, but that “all indications would point to” that being the case.
Ukraine targeted first
Banks, government offices and airports in Ukraine were among the first to report the cyberattack.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Pavlo Rozenko tweeted a photo of his black computer screen, saying the government’s headquarters had been shut down.
Other international firms that reported being affected include America’s Merck pharmaceutical company, Russia’s Rosneft oil giant, British advertising giant WPP and French industrial group Saint-Gobain.
“We confirm our company’s computer network was compromised today as part of global hack. Other organizations have also been affected,” Merck said on Twitter.
A U.S. National Security Council spokesman said the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and other agencies are “working with public and private, domestic and international partners to respond to this event and provide technical information for prevention and remediation.”
“Individuals and organizations are discouraged from paying the ransom as this does not guarantee access will be restored,” the spokesman added.
Ransom demands
Europol’s European Cybercrime Center has told anyone affected by Tuesday’s attack to report the crime to national police and encouraged them not to pay any ransom requested by hackers.
“What is interesting about this particular case is that the email system that is supposed to be used to deposit the Bitcoin ransoms has actually been disabled, so the hackers in this case may not get what they bargained for,” Cedric Leighton, who operates his own crisis management consultancy, told VOA.
WATCH: Related video report
Eternal Blue
The computer virus used in the attack includes code known as Eternal Blue, a tool developed by the NSA that exploited Microsoft’s Windows operating system and which was published on the internet in April by a group called Shadow Brokers. Microsoft released a patch to protect systems from the exploit in March.
A similar ransomware attack last month named “WannaCry” affected computer systems in 150 countries.
Tim Rawlins, director of the Britain-based cybersecurity consultancy NCC Group, says these attacks continue to happen because people have not been keeping up with effectively patching their computers.
“This is a repeat WannaCry type of outbreak and it really comes down to the fact that people are not focusing on what they should be focusing on, the very simple premise of patching your systems,” Rawlins told VOA.
WATCH: Ransomeware basics facts
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International business in the United States and Europe, as well as Ukrainian state institutions, were among those affected by cyberattacks on Tuesday. The virus locked digital files and demanded payment for help to restore access to them. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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While technological revolution is changing much of the world, there are still areas that have seen only very small benefits, or none at all. There, people still live without electricity, clean water and basic healthcare. At a competition recently held in Washington, innovators presented affordable new devices, specially designed to help improve the lives of the world’s poorest. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Scientists have developed a skin patch that may soon take the “ouch” out of being vaccinated.
Every year, in the United States, less than half of the adults who should get a flu vaccine actually get the shot. That’s a problem because while most people tend to think of influenza as a mild disease, the infection can be deadly, especially in the elderly, young children and people with compromised immune systems.
To help raise that percentage researchers have developed a self-administered skin patch to protect against seasonal influenza as well as a shot. Researchers who developed the vaccine patch said it has a lot of advantages over an injection.
Nadine Rouphael was principal investigator of the patch at Emory University School of Medicine in Georgia where she’s a professor of infectious diseases. “The patch looks more like a Band Aid, like a nicotine patch, and then it has multiple very small needles that contain, in this case, influenza vaccine. Those microneedles completely dissolve into the skin and there will be no sharp waste afterwards,” said Rouphael.
The flu vaccine is currently administered by an injection into the muscle of the upper arm. It is painful and can leave some redness and swelling, which is why an estimated 60 percent of adults do not get immunized against seasonal flu.
In the first human clinical trial of the patch at Emory’s Hope Clinic, 100 participants aged 18-49, tested the effectiveness of the vaccine patch.
The trial, reported in the journal The Lancet, took place in June 2015. None of the participants had received a flu vaccine during the previous influenza season. The participants were divided into four groups. In one group the patch was administered by a health care provider, in the second it was self-administered by each participant, a third group received the vaccine via injection and a fourth group got a placebo.
Rouphael said the patch, whether it was put on the skin by a health care provider or by the participants, was as safe and effective as the intramuscular injection. Side effects were limited to mild redness and swelling that lasted for a few days. More importantly, the researchers found the immune responses were present in both the patch group and those who received the injection six months later, meaning they offered comparable protection.
Rouphael added the participants who used the patch liked it. “We do have a lot of people who are typically scared of needles and they were more prone or more excited as being part of this clinical trial so they could try the microneedle instead.”
The patch would only have to be put on the skin for a few minutes and then thrown away. Rouphael said 70 percent of those who received the patch in the trial indicated they would prefer it over an injection.
Because it does not need refrigeration, Rouphael said the patch could be bought off a store shelf or mailed to patients. The fact that it is painless, said Rouphael, means more people are likely to get vaccinated against the seasonal flu virus. The patch’s manufacturer, Global Center for Medical Innovation in Atlanta, is investigating using the device for other vaccines, including for measles, mumps and rubella.
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Computers around the world were locked up and users’ files held for ransom in a cyberattack Tuesday that paralyzed some hospitals, government offices and major multinational corporations.
Here’s a look at how malware and ransomware work and what people can do if they fall victim to attacks.
What is malware and ransomware?
Malware is a general term that refers to software that’s harmful to your computer, says John Villasenor, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Ransomware is a type of malware that essentially takes over a computer and prevents users from accessing data on it until a ransom is paid, he says.
How does your computer become infected with ransomware?
In most cases, the software infects computers through links or attachments in malicious messages known as phishing emails.
“The age-old advice is to never click on a link in an email,” said Jerome Segura, a senior malware intelligence researcher at Malwarebytes, a company based in San Jose, California, that has released anti-ransomware software. “The idea is to try to trick the victim into running a malicious piece of code.”
The software usually is hidden within links or attachments in emails. Once the user clicks on the link or opens the document, their computer is infected and the software takes over.
But some of the major ransomware attacks recently, including last month’s WannaCry and the one spreading Tuesday, borrowed leaked National Security Agency code that permits software to spread quickly within an organization’s network.
How ransomware works
“Ransomware, like the name suggests, is when your files are held for ransom,” said Peter Reiher, a UCLA professor who specializes in computer science and cybersecurity. “It finds all of your files and encrypts them and then leaves you a message. If you want to decrypt them, you have to pay.”
The ransomware encrypts data on the computer using an encryption key that only the attacker knows. If the ransom isn’t paid, the data is often lost forever.
When the ransomware takes over a computer, the attackers are pretty explicit in their demands, Segura says. In most cases, they change the wallpaper of the computer and give specific instructions telling the user how to pay to recover their files.
Most attackers demand $300 to $500 to remove the malicious ransomware; the price can double if the amount isn’t paid within 24 hours. The demand in Tuesday’s attack was $300 per computer, according to security researchers.
Law enforcement officials have discouraged people from paying these ransoms.
How to avoid these attacks
The first step is being cautious, experts say. Users should also look for malicious email messages that often masquerade as emails from companies or people you regularly interact with online. It’s important to avoid clicking on links or opening attachments in those messages, since they could unleash malware, Villasenor says.
But Villasenor says there is “no perfect solution” to the problem.
Users should regularly back up their data and ensure that security updates are installed on your computer as soon as they are released. Up-to-date backups make it possible to restore files without paying a ransom.
WannaCry and Tuesday’s attack exploited vulnerabilities in some versions of Microsoft Windows. Microsoft has released software patches for the security holes, although not everyone has installed those updates.
Even so, the new malware appears to have a backup spreading mechanism, so that even if some computers were patched, they can still be hit if one or more machines in a network weren’t patched.
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A quarter-century-old project to repopulate the steppes of Mongolia with wild horses was kept alive as four animals made the long trip back to their ancestral home from the Prague Zoo.
Driven to extinction in their homeland in the 1960s, the Przewalski’s horses survived in captivity before efforts began to re-introduce them to the arid desert and mountains along Mongolia’s border with China.
Zoos organized the first transport to Mongolia of the strong, stocky beasts in 1992.
For the past decade, Prague Zoo has been the only one continuing that tradition and it holds the studbook of a species whose ancestors – unlike other free-roaming horses such as the wild mustangs of the United States – were never domesticated.
The zoo completed its seventh transport last week, releasing four mares born in captivity in the Czech Republic, Germany and Denmark in the Gobi desert. They will spend the next year in an enclosed area to acclimatize before being freed.
“All the mares are looking very well, they are not hobbling, they are calm, eating hay and trying to test the taste of the new grass,” Prague Zoo veterinarian Roman Vodicka said after making observations a few days after the release.
Prague has released 27 horses in total and officials estimate around 190 are now back in the wild in the Gobi B park, where the most recent arrivals were sent.
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Tech enthusiasts may be drawn to HoloLens, the head-mounted holographic computer from Microsoft, but company executives say businesses also should consider how it can help improve their bottom line.
The wearable device allows users to interact with holograms using their gaze and simple hand gestures. Virtual interfaces are superimposed onto the immediate environment, combining the real world with a digital one. It’s a form of mixed reality that Microsoft executives say offers more than just entertainment value — it can be put to work in business scenarios.
“We’re seeing mixed reality broadly as a new kind of dimension, literally, of how we’re going to interact with information,” said Greg Sullivan, director of communications for the Windows and devices group at Microsoft.
Companies like German elevator maker Thyssenkrupp have begun experimenting with HoloLens. In a promotional video, an elevator repairman dons a HoloLens headset to begin a work order. The computer assesses the repair situation and displays holographic guidance, along with the ability to conference in an associate located remotely.
The associate can interact within the repair technician’s virtual workspace, “She can sit in her office in Germany and scale her expertise literally around the world … see what they’re seeing, guide them and even ink on their display,” Sullivan said.
WATCH: High-tech HoloLens in Action
Cirque de Soleil
Data visualization is another potential use for HoloLens.
“You can walk around the 3-dimensional representation of that data and it gives you powerful new insights, because as humans, we live in a 3-D world and we understand things better … if we interact with them in three dimensions,” Sullivan said.
That can be useful for creative industries. At Microsoft’s recent “Build” conference for software developers, set designers from Cirque de Soleil demonstrated how holographic versions of their theater sets allowed them to plan ahead. Team members wearing HoloLens could walk around and interact with true-to-scale holograms of their set designs, even inserting virtual avatars of real-life performers.
Architecture and engineering
Other industries that utilize 3-D modeling, like architecture and engineering, potentially can benefit from holographic computing, too. Trimble, a company specializing in GPS technologies, developed an application for HoloLens that allows architects and contractors to manipulate 3-D holographic designs and models in real-life environments, such as construction sites.
“You can have multiple people sharing an experience in mixed reality, look at a digital version of the project … and then make those changes in real time and all see them, and then go ahead and move right into production much, much quicker,” said Sullivan. “The efficiencies that are gained are really profound.”
Chris Silva, research director at Gartner, agrees. “3-D models in health care, extremely complex design documents … they’re a natural fit for something like HoloLens, where stepping into the data really can help get the job done better,” Silva said.
Big investment
But like many new technologies, HoloLens’ price tag initially may deter widespread adoption. The device retails for $3,000 for a developer edition and $5,000 for a business edition that comes bundled with enterprise applications.
“The biggest risk is making an investment in this technology and not having a plan for how it gets used,” Silva said. “These are devices that are two, maybe even three, times the cost of the average laptop, and much more expensive than a mobile device. They’re new, and therefore the organizations aren’t always sure how they’re going to use them.”
Silva recommends that companies take a pilot approach to the technology by introducing it to a single group, picking one process to improve upon and analyzing the subsequent results.
Microsoft’s long-time presence on office desktops means HoloLens eventually could transform everyday workspaces.
“When we look at the average worker model, where this type of technology starts literally replacing people’s monitors on their desks, somebody like Microsoft is well positioned to capture that,” Silva said. “They can plug HoloLens into the way they’re doing business today.”
Overall, Silva is excited for future developments in the mixed reality space.
“This is definitely the next frontier of mobile devices … this could be the next thing that replaces the desktop PC, the iPad, the smartphone in your pocket.”
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Professional football players are still not getting properly checked for concussions, despite a pledge by the sport’s governing body. That was obvious from a review of footage from the games in FIFA’s 2014 World Cup, the international men’s football championship held every four years.
The review, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that out of 81 head collisions there were only 12 assessments that fit the minimum requirements.
Co-author Michael Cusimano, a neurosurgeon at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, told VOA, “There were only two collisions [where] I could be happy and confident that a proper assessment was actually done.”
According to the 2012 Consensus Statement on Concussion in Sport, of which FIFA was a signatory, players showing any sign of concussion should immediately be withdrawn from play and assessed by a health care professional on the sideline. But players in the World Cup only received that full assessment 15 percent of the time.
More than half of the time, an assessment was done on the field or by a referee or another player. And 26 percent of the time, they received no assessment at all, despite showing as many as three signs of concussion. Those symptoms include being slow to get up, disorientation, obvious disequilibrium, unconsciousness, seizure-like movements, and head clutching.
The impact of concussions can accumulate over years and may lead to trouble with memory, attention, depression, anxiety, and early onset dementia. In rare cases, repeated blows to the head over a short period of time, even mild ones, can lead to death.
A concussion ignored
There was obviously something wrong with Christoph Kramer during the final game of the World Cup. The German player was struck on the side of his head by a shoulder and thrown to the ground. Following a brief assessment on the pitch, he was returned to play, despite showing at least three signs of concussion. After 13 minutes of strange, confused behavior, he was removed from the game.
A referee later told the Gazzetta dello Sport, “Shortly after the blow, Kramer came to me asking: ‘Ref, is this the final?’” The referee told teammates, but Kramer continued to play.
“Had he been injured to his knee and couldn’t walk there would be no doubt that he would have been taken off,” Cusimano said, “so why are we treating people with brain injuries any different than people who have, say, a leg injury?”
In response, FIFA soon created a policy to allow referees to stop play for as long as three minutes, so that players can receive an on-pitch assessment by health care personnel. But it is only at the discretion of the referee. This is not enough for Cusimano. He points out it was an on-pitch assessment that failed to catch Kramer’s apparent concussion, and it takes at least seven minutes to properly diagnose the condition. So he wants to see mandatory assessments on the sidelines, just as the 2012 Consensus advises.
‘Whole world is watching’
FIFA declined a request to speak with VOA, but shared a written statement highlighting their recent rule change, and their participation in the most recent International Consensus Conference on Concussion.
“Protecting the health of football players is and will remain a top priority in developing the game,” it said.
Researchers decided to analyze the World Cup because of the size of the audience. Over a billion people tuned in. That means that the World Cup provides an opportunity to set an example for how to handle concussions. They hope that better policy at the premier sporting event might not just protect those playing in the World Cup, but those playing in little leagues too.
“The whole world is watching,” said Dr. Cusimano. “FIFA has all the ability to do this properly.”
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Imagine going to the doctor and getting a cooking lesson! That’s what happens at a doctor’s practice near Washington D.C. Dr. Yum Pediatrics is half doctor’s office, with waiting area and exam rooms, half kitchen. Food is an important part of her approach to treatment.
In the exam rooms, she explains to her patients and their parents the crucial importance of eating nutritious meals. In the kitchen, she shows them how to prepare those meals.
Dr. Fernando’s goal is to help children establish good eating habits and inspire families to prepare nutritious meals with the ingredients they have in hand.
Food for good health
Fernando has seen first-hand the connection between what kids eat and their well-being.
“In the first glance, you think of diet-related illnesses, mainly just pediatric obesity, and it’s true that 30 percent of kids in our community and nationwide are obese. And that’s a pretty staggering number,” she says, adding, “but as I paid more attention to a lot of the symptomology that I was seeing in kids who even weren’t obese or overweight, I was seeing that those symptoms often traced back some way to the diet.”
To help change that, the pediatrician co-authored a book, Raising a Healthy, Happy Eater: A Parent’s Handbook. She also started a blog and a website.
“I simply posted recipes on that website and when I would see patients in the office and felt like I didn’t have enough time to go over the nutrition topics with them I would point them to that website.”
In 2012, she went a step further, co-founding the Dr. Yum Project. She developed a curriculum that preschool teachers can use to introduce nutrition lessons in their classrooms. Inside her practice, Fernando leads cooking classes.
Cooking with your doctor
Young patients, their parents and members of the community are invited to cook with Dr. Fernando and her team. They try different recipes and use different tools that make cooking an easy, fun everyday experience.
“Maybe it’s using our menu planners to see how they can make meal planning easy for them,” Fernando explains. “Maybe it’s using budget-friendly recipes to figure out how to eat really healthy on a budget. Maybe it’s our baby food options so that they can see how they can feed their babies the same food they’re eating.”
Yara Esquivel, a working mother of two, has been taking cooking classes with Dr. Yum for more than three years. “Even my husband and I are eating better because we’re making sure the kids are eating better,” she says.
Almost all of the ingredients used in the cooking classes come from the clinic’s garden.
“As part of our classes, we really want to create a playful experience around feeding and eating,” Fernando says. “We also want to create a rich sensory experience. So taking kids out to the garden where they can grow food, plant food and harvest it and bring it to the kitchen, then cook it with their own hands, it really inspires them and makes it easier for them to accept new foods because they’re invested in it.”
Delicious, Healthy Meals Made Easy
Dr. Yum co-founder, Heidi DiEugenio, says all the recipes are taste-tested and posted online. “Every single recipe is tasted by our families and we have the real feedback from some families, parents and kids about the food. We tagged all those recipes, making it very easy for them to find.”
The ultimate goal of this project is to change the culture around kids’ food.
“There is a lot going in the media, kinds of advertising and things going around that say kids food, like ‘lunchables,’ kids like processed food, kids wouldn’t eat fresh carrots, they would eat Doritos,” DiEugenio says. “You have to remember that these messages are out there because those companies are trying to make money. But it’s not necessarily the case. It’s a matter of being able to be patient with your kids, you have to learn how to try new foods all the time.”
The Dr. Yum team hopes to inspire pediatricians around the country to start cooking lessons to help families enjoy real, nutritious meals.
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