Month: June 2020

A genetic analysis of COVID-19 patients suggests that blood type might influence whether someone develops severe disease. Scientists who compared the genes of thousands of patients in Europe found that those who had Type A blood were more likely to have severe disease while those with Type O were less likely. Wednesday's report in the New England Journal of Medicine does not prove a blood type connection, but it does confirm a previous report from China of such a link. "Most of us discounted it because it was a very crude study," Dr. Parameswar Hari, a blood specialist at the Medical College of Wisconsin, said of the report from China. With the new work, "now I believe it," he said. "It could be very important." Other scientists urged caution.  …

The joint Europe and U.S. Solar Orbiter spacecraft has made its first close approach to the Sun, getting as close as 77 million kilometers and taking the closest images of the sun ever captured.The collaboration between the the U.S. space agency, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), began in February when the orbiter was launched from from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The orbiter is designed to give close-up views of the Sun's polar regions and observe its magnetic activity for the first time.ESA and NASA scientists say on Monday the orbiter made its first close approach to the Sun at around 77 million kilometers, about half the distance between Earth and the star. The researchers used the flyby to test the spacecraft's ten science instruments, including six telescopes.The space…

How does a virus make some people sicker than others? ...

COVID lockdowns are clearing the air around the world, but the emissions reductions may only be temporary. ...

A cheap and widely available steroid drug has shown it can save the lives of the most seriously ill COVID-19 patients, British researchers said Tuesday. Scientists called the use of dexamethasone, normally used to reduce inflammation in patients with arthritis and other diseases, a "major breakthrough" in the treatment of patients infected by the coronavirus who have been hospitalized and needed the use of a ventilator or supplemental oxygen. Researchers at the University of Oxford said that a study of more than 6,400 patients — a third of whom were administered the drug and two-thirds of whom were not — showed that use of the drug was particularly beneficial for the most seriously ill patients but did not appear to help less ill patients. A pharmacist holds a box of dexamethasone tablets at…

A study by researchers at Britain’s University of Nottingham published this week suggests there could be more than 30 intelligent civilizations in our galaxy.The study, published Monday in the Astrophysical Journal, uses a calculation based on how long it took advanced life to develop on Earth – about five billion years ago - and applied it to the known galaxy.  Lead researcher on the study, University of Nottingham Astrophysics Professor Christopher Conselice, says they came by their number assuming it would take just as long for life to develop on other planets. “The idea is looking at evolution, but on a cosmic scale. We call this calculation the Astrobiological Copernican Limit.”First author on the study and Assistant Engineering Professor Tom Westby says previous methods for estimating the number of intelligent…

Researchers in England say they have the first evidence that a drug can improve COVID-19 survival: A cheap, widely available steroid called dexamethasone reduced deaths by up to one third in severely ill hospitalized patients.   Results were announced Tuesday and researchers said they would publish them soon. The study is a large, strict test that randomly assigned 2,104 patients to get the drug and compared them with 4,321 patients getting only usual care. The drug was given either orally or through an IV. After 28 days, it had reduced deaths by 35% in patients who needed treatment with breathing machines and by 20% in those only needing supplemental oxygen. It did not appear to help less ill patients. "This is an extremely welcome result," one study leader, Peter Horby…

An investigation conducted on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has found that agency leaders violated NOAA’s own scientific integrity policy in releasing a statement last year contradicting their own forecasters and supporting U.S. President Trump’s false assertion about the path of Hurricane Dorian last year.NOAA is the agency that includes the U.S. National Weather Service.From his Twitter feed Sept. 1, Trump wrote that Hurricane Dorian, a storm that at that time was approaching the U.S. southeast coast, would hit Alabama “harder than anticipated.” A few minutes later, the National Weather Service office in Birmingham, Ala., posted from its Twitter account “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama.”Alabama was not struck by the hurricane.The…

U.S. regulators on Monday revoked emergency authorization for malaria drugs promoted by President Donald Trump for treating COVID-19 amid growing evidence they don't work and could cause deadly side effects. The Food and Drug Administration said the drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are unlikely to be effective in treating the coronavirus. Citing reports of heart complications, the FDA said the drugs' unproven benefits "do not outweigh the known and potential risks." The decades-old drugs, also prescribed for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, can cause heart rhythm problems, severely low blood pressure and muscle or nerve damage. The move means that shipments of the drugs obtained by the federal government will no longer be distributed to state and local health authorities for use against the coronavirus. The drugs are still available for alternate…

Near the southern Vietnam beaches filled with kite surfers and mud baths, there sits a hydropower plant called Da Mi. It is no longer just generating power from dams and falling water, however. Crews added solar panels to the reservoir last year, creating what the Asian Development Bank called the first large floating solar project in Southeast Asia. With the project and others like it, sunny Vietnam has the region’s largest installed capacity of solar power. Its ambitions to move to solar and away from coal was stymied by one issue for years, though. After companies installed panels to suck up power from the sun, they sold the energy to the state utility, without a way to push it directly to customers like other companies. That is about to change. Hanoi has…

How accurate are the coronavirus tests used in the U.S.? Months into the outbreak, no one really knows how well many of the screening tests work, and experts at top medical centers say it is time to do the studies to find out. When the new virus began spreading, the Food and Drug Administration used its emergency powers to OK scores of quickly devised tests, based mainly on a small number of lab studies showing they could successfully detect the virus. That’s very different from the large patient studies that can take weeks or months, which experts say are needed to provide a true sense of testing accuracy. The FDA’s speedy response came after it was initially criticized for delaying the launch of new tests during a crisis and after the Centers for Disease…

The World Health Organization says lessons learned from previous outbreaks of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo and effective therapeutics will allow it to more quickly contain a new outbreak of the deadly disease in Equateur Province.U.N. health officials report there is no link between the Ebola outbreak declared June 1 in Mbandaka, Equateur Province, and the epidemic, which broke out nearly two years ago in DR Congo’s North Kivu and Ituri provinces.      They say the experience gained, however, and lessons learned from tackling this deadly disease in eastern DRC will help them to more quickly stop the spread of the virus in Equateur Province in the western part of the country.   WHO Emergency Operations Manager Michel Yao says the World Health Organization has more than…

A new study based on fossilized footprints suggests a prehistoric relative of modern crocodiles walked on two hind legs. The study, published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, describes how ancient fossilized footprints discovered in South Korea had originally been thought to belong to a pterosaur — a flying dinosaur — that had been walking on two legs. But further analysis of the prints suggests that they actually belonged to a bipedal crocodile, a creature that walked on two legs because it was semi-adapted to land. This is the first evidence from this time period of a bipedal crocodylomorph, a branching, diverse group of animals that includes crocodilians and their extinct relatives. The researchers named the new species Batrachopus grandis.  The footprints were 18 to 24 centimeters long, suggesting that the creatures’ bodies were almost 3 meters long. They seem to have been left only by the back limbs, showing a clear heel-to-toe walking pattern. The well-preserved fossils, discovered in South Korea's Jinju Formation, date to the lower Cretaceous…

The Trump administration Friday finalized a regulation that overturns Obama-era protections for transgender people against sex discrimination in health care. The policy shift, long sought by the president's religious and socially conservative supporters, defines gender as a person's biological sex. The Obama regulation defined gender as a person's internal sense of being male, female, neither or a combination. LGBTQ groups say explicit protections are needed for people seeking sex-reassignment treatment, and even for transgender people who need medical care for common conditions such as diabetes or heart problems. Behind the dispute over legal rights is a medically recognized condition called "gender dysphoria" — discomfort or distress caused by a discrepancy between the gender that a person identifies as and the gender at birth. Consequences can include severe depression. Treatment can range from sex-reassignment…

Survivors of COVID-19 are donating their blood plasma in droves in hopes it helps other patients recover from the coronavirus. And while the jury's still out, now scientists are testing if the donations might also prevent infection in the first place.   Thousands of coronavirus patients in hospitals around the world have been treated with so-called convalescent plasma  — including more than 20,000 in the U.S. — with little solid evidence so far that it makes a difference. One recent study from China was unclear while another from New York offered a hint of benefit. "We have glimmers of hope," said Dr. Shmuel Shoham of Johns Hopkins University. With more rigorous testing of plasma treatment underway, Shoham is launching a nationwide study asking the next logical question: Could giving survivors…

The U.S National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports global temperatures for the month of May 2020 are tied with May 2016 as the warmest on record.In its monthly Global Climate Report released this week, NOAA said the 10 warmest Mays – in terms of land and ocean surface temperatures - in the 141 years since records have been kept, have occurred since 1998. The report also says the last seven Mays, dating back to 2014, have been the warmest on record.  NOAA says last month marked the 44th consecutive May, and the 425th consecutive month in which temperatures were higher than at this time a century ago.The agency reports the areas with the biggest departures from average temperatures included northern and southeastern Asia, northern Africa, Alaska, the southwest contiguous…

The ongoing separatist conflict in Cameroon’s western regions has created a growing humanitarian emergency that has affected close to two million people.  Humanitarian experts say those displaced by the fighting need help resettling, but also psychological support.  A clinic in Cameroon’s capital provides rare trauma therapy for those affected, as Moki Edwin Kindzeka narrates in this report by Anne Nzouankeu in Yaoundé. ...

India reported nearly 11,000 new cases of COVID-19 in a 24-hour period Friday. The surge of 10,956 new coronavirus infections puts the massive South Asian nation in fourth place, surpassed only by the U.S., Brazil and Russia in the number of cases. India’s has 297,535 of the world’s total 7.5 million COVID-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. is leading the world count of infections with more than two million, Brazil has more than 800,00 and Russia has more than 510,000. Vaccine prospects A U.S. biotechnology company says it will make the first widespread tests of a possible coronavirus vaccine next month.Moderna is working with the U.S. National Institutes of Health in developing a COVID-19 vaccine. The company said Thursday the vaccine trial will begin with 30,000 volunteers. Some will get the actual…

NASA continues marking milestones more than a week after the first manned launch from U.S. soil in nearly a decade.  An astronaut made a historic visit to the depths of the ocean floor, while the space agency unveiled this year’s roster of Hall of Fame inductees.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us This Week in Space. ...

The U.S. space agency, NASA, has announced it has awarded a $199 million contract to a city of Pittsburgh company to launch its robot lunar rover to the moon in 2023. The agency made the announcement in an online release Thursday.In a statement posted on its website, Astrobotic Technology, a space robotics company, says it will deliver NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) to the moon's south pole on board the company's Griffin lunar lander.The contract was awarded under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program (CLPS)  and is the second CLPS contract Astrobotic has received. The company's Peregrine lander is scheduled for a NASA mission in in 2021. Astrobotic's MoonRanger rover was selected by NASA for delivery to the moon in 2022 on the lander of another CLPS contract…

The United States has officially gone over the 2 million mark in total cases of novel coronavirus infections.According to figures published Thursday on the website of Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus resource center, the U.S. now has 2,000,464 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 112,924 deaths, maintaining its position as the leading country with the total number of cases and deaths.Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, predicted Wednesday night during an interview on CNN the nation’s death toll will nearly double by September.“Most Americans are not ready to lock back down, and I completely understand that.” Dr. Jha said. “I understand people are willing to live alongside this virus. It means that between 800 and 1,000 Americans are going to die every single day.”As many as 21…

Neil Sullivan was angry, frustrated and crushed with guilt. His brother Joe had been rushed by ambulance from his home for the developmentally disabled to the emergency room with a possible case of the coronavirus. Neil had known the people at the Elisabeth Ludeman Developmental Center near Chicago were at risk. Regulators had flagged the facility over the years for violations such as neglect of residents and not keeping restrooms stocked with soap and paper towels. And now, in the middle of a pandemic, a staffer told Neil they were still short of life-saving equipment like surgical masks, gowns, hand sanitizers and even wipes. He watched helplessly as COVID-19 tore through Ludeman, infecting 220 residents — more than half the people living there — and 125 workers. Six residents and…