Apr212021 by DmediaNo Comments

A Whale Chorus Reveals How Climate Change May Be Shifting Migration

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Eerie wails, explosive trumpets and ghostly moans. The sounds from the underwater recorders had a story to tell, even without a single intelligible word: the whales had stayed put. The recordings gathered during the 2018-2019 winter in the freezing cold Arctic waters off Canada proved that a population of bowhead whales had skipped their usual migration south. Scientists believe this behavior -- never previously detected -- could be driven by the effects of climate change and be a potential harbinger of shifting dynamics across the region's ecosystem.   Ordinarily, the approximately 20,000 bowheads that make up the Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort (BCB) population around Canada have a fairly predictable migration pattern spanning 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles). They spend the winter in part of the Bering Sea, which lies between Russia and Alaska, and head north then east to the Beaufort…


Apr212021 by DmediaNo Comments

Chinese President Xi Jinping to Appear at US-Led Global Climate Summit 

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Chinese President Xi Jinping will speak Thursday at the global summit on climate change organized by U.S. President Joe Biden. Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman at the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said in a written statement Wednesday that President Xi will deliver an “important speech” during the virtual conference.  Xi is among 40 world leaders invited by President Biden to attend the two-day virtual summit, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and Russian President Vladimir Putin.  His acceptance comes days after John Kerry, Biden’s special envoy on climate change, held talks with his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, in Shanghai.  Xi’s appearance is his first with Biden since the latter took office in January, and comes amid increasing tensions between the two economic superpowers over a host of issues, including Beijing’s tightening control on semi-autonomous Hong Kong and its…


Apr212021 by DmediaNo Comments

EU Targets Cutting Emissions 55% by 2030

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The European Union announced Wednesday a provisional agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the 27-member bloc by 55% by 2030. The 2030 target is part of a larger goal of getting the EU to be carbon-neutral by 2050. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the agreement puts the EU “on a green path for a generation.” “It is our binding pledge to our children and grandchildren,” she added. EU member states must approve the deal before it becomes official. Wednesday’s agreement comes ahead of the start of a two-day virtual summit hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden for world leaders to discuss ways to combat climate change.  ...


Apr212021 by TechmanNo Comments

US Trying to Insulate Electrical Grid From Cyberattacks  

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With America’s electrical infrastructure getting zapped daily by an unprecedented number of cyberattacks, the federal government is taking action to prevent a potentially crippling hack of the grid.  A 100-day plan was announced Tuesday by the U.S. Energy Department to harden security systems for the country’s electrical infrastructure and increase the ability to detect and neutralize cyber threats.  “The United States faces a well-documented and increasing cyber threat from malicious actors seeking to disrupt the electricity Americans rely on to power our homes and businesses,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. “It’s up to both government and industry to prevent possible harms — that’s why we’re working together to take these decisive measures so Americans can rely on a resilient, secure, and clean energy system.”  The electric industry was among those hit by recent cyberattacks and data breaches targeting Solar Winds and Microsoft Exchange software, but officials stress the timing of Tuesday’s…


Apr212021 by DmediaNo Comments

Carbon Dioxide Emissions Could Jump 5% as Economies Rebound, Energy Agency Says

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Carbon dioxide emissions are expected to grow this year after falling dramatically during the pandemic as economies around the globe contracted.In a report issued Tuesday, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said emissions of the greenhouse gas would rise by 1.5 billion metric tons, or 5%. While big, the increase is not likely to eclipse the surge seen following the 2008-09 global financial crisis.After a series of stimulus bills, the U.S. economy is expected to grow rapidly in 2021, with growth forecasts at 6% or higher.The group said coal would be the largest driver of the increase in greenhouse gas emissions. It said demand for coal was expected to grow 4.5% this year. That would be higher than 2019, but below a 2014 peak.“This is a dire warning that the economic…


Apr202021 by DmediaNo Comments

EMA Finds Link Between Johnson & Johnson Vaccine and Blood Clots

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Europe’s drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said Tuesday it found a possible link between the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine and rare forms of blood clots, but that the drug’s benefits outweigh its risks. In its statement Tuesday, the EMA said that its drug safety group, the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC), after reviewing all available evidence, concluded that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine’s product information should include a warning about unusual blood clots with low blood platelets. The committee concluded that the events should be listed as very rare side effects of the vaccine. The EMA gave a similar assessment of the AstraZeneca vaccine which also was found to have a possible link to rare blood clots. The EMA reviewed the Johnson & Johnson vaccine following a…


Apr192021 by DmediaNo Comments

India Reports Record 273,810 Daily COVID Cases

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India's health ministry Monday announced a record 273,810 new COVID cases in the previous 24-hour period while officials in the capital, New Delhi, announced a weeklong lockdown. The infections reported Monday are the most the country has seen in a single day since the pandemic began. About 1 in 3 people tested for COVID-19 in New Delhi recently returned a positive result, according to the city's chief minister Sunday.  "The bigger worry is that in last 24 hours, positivity rate has increased to around 30% from 24%," Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of Delhi, told a news briefing Sunday.  "The cases are rising very rapidly. The beds are filling fast," he said.  People in Delhi have turned to social media to complain about the lack of oxygen canisters and the shortages of hospital…


Apr192021 by DmediaNo Comments

South Sudan Stops Using Doses of AstraZeneca Vaccine Over Expiration Fears

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South Sudan health officials have stopped administering 60,000 doses of the COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine that are past the expiration date but still have a shelf life of at least six months, according to the drugmaker and the World Health Organization.  The doses, which were donated by the mobile telecommunications network MTN and the African Union (AU), arrived in Juba about three weeks ago. Dr. Richard Lako, the incident manager for COVID-19 operations at the South Sudan health ministry, told reporters Sunday in Juba that the vaccine is no longer being used. "We later discovered the lifespan of this vaccine is just remaining 14 days, so immediately we started engaging because if we start them, we may not be able to finish, so the ministry is now engaging the AU and the team…


Apr192021 by TechmanNo Comments

Apple Restores Parler Social Media to App Store

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Apple will allow the self-proclaimed free speech social media app Parler back in the App Store.The news came from a letter from Apple to Colorado Republican Congressman Ken Buck and Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee, who had pressed the company about its removal of Parler.Apple said it removed Parler in January because it had been used to plan the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Facebook was also used by protesters but was not removed from the App Store.In the letter, Apple said Parler had strengthened its content moderation, leading to its reinstatement. Parler had marketed itself as a social media platform with less moderation.“Apple anticipates that the updated Parler app will become available immediately upon Parler releasing it,” Timothy Powderly, Apple’s senior director for government affairs, wrote in…


Apr192021 by DmediaNo Comments

India Reports a Record 273,810 COVID Cases in One Day

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India’s Health Ministry Monday announced a record 273,810 new COVID cases in the previous 24-hour period. About 1 in 3 people tested for COVID-19 in the Indian capital of New Delhi recently returned a positive result, according to the city’s chief minister Sunday. “The bigger worry is that in last 24 hours positivity rate has increased to around 30% from 24%,” chief minister Arvind Kejriwal told a news briefing Sunday. “The cases are rising very rapidly. The beds are filling fast,” he said. People in Delhi have turned to social media to complain about the lack of oxygen cannisters and the shortages of hospital beds and drugs. With more than 15 million people with the infection, India is second to the U.S. which has 31.6 million infections. Just more than 1% of India’s population has been…


Apr192021 by DmediaNo Comments

NASA’s Mars Helicopter Takes First Successful Test Flight

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The U.S. space agency, NASA, Monday received images and data confirming its small helicopter, Ingenuity, successfully performed the first controlled powered flight of an aircraft on a planet other than Earth. Scientists in the control room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology burst into applause and cheers when data confirmed Ingenuity had successfully spun its rotors, lifted off to a height of three meters and landed safely back on the surface of Mars.   "Wow!"The @NASAJPL team is all cheers as they receive video data from the @NASAPersevere rover of the Ingenuity #MarsHelicopter flight: pic.twitter.com/8eH4H6jGKs— NASA (@NASA) April 19, 2021A picture taken by the small craft of its own shadow on the ground below it arrived seconds later, as did video of the flight taken by NASA’s…


Apr182021 by DmediaNo Comments

US, China Pledge Urgent Climate Control Measures

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China and the United States, the world’s two biggest carbon polluters, have reached a new agreement to take urgent measures to curb climate change.The two countries said in a joint statement late Saturday that they “are committed to cooperating with each other” and other nations to deal with the climate crisis “with the seriousness and urgency that it demands.”U.S. special envoy for climate John Kerry and Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua reached the agreement during three days of talks last week in Shanghai, just days ahead of the virtual summit on the issue being hosted this week by U.S. President Joe Biden.Kerry told reporters in Seoul on Sunday that he considers the language of the document to be “strong” and that China and U.S. agreed on "critical elements on where we…


Apr182021 by DmediaNo Comments

Mars Helicopter Flight Test Promises Wright Brothers Moment for NASA

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NASA hopes to score a 21st-century Wright Brothers moment on Monday as it attempts to send a miniature helicopter buzzing over the surface of Mars in what would be the first powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet.Landmark achievements in science and technology can seem humble by conventional measurements. The Wright Brothers’ first controlled flight in the world of a motor-driven airplane, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903 covered just 120 feet (37 meters) in 12 seconds.A modest debut is likewise in store for NASA’s twin-rotor, solar-powered helicopter Ingenuity.If all goes to plan, the 4-pound (1.8-kg) whirligig will slowly ascend straight up to an altitude of 10 feet (3 meters) above the Martian surface, hover in place for 30 seconds, then rotate before descending to a gentle…


Apr182021 by DmediaNo Comments

Israel Lifts Its Mask Mandate on Sunday

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With nearly 60% of its population receiving the first COVID-19 vaccine, Israel is lifting its requirement Sunday to wear masks outdoors. The mask mandate remains in place, however, for enclosed spaces.Beginning April 24, France will require all travelers from Brazil to quarantine for 10 days.Brazil has 13.9 million COVID cases, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Only the U.S. and India have more cases, at 31.6 million and 14.5 million, respectively.More than 371,000 people have died in Brazil from COVID, Johns Hopkins reported. The U.S. is the only place that has more COVID deaths, at 566,893.On Sunday, India reported 261,500 new coronavirus cases in the previous 24-hour period.On Saturday, the worldwide COVID death toll surpassed 3 million.World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week the weekly…


Apr182021 by DmediaNo Comments

Nearly 700 Patients Evacuated in Johannesburg Hospital Fire

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Nearly 700 patients were evacuated Saturday from Johannesburg's Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, where a fire blazed through parts of the facility in South Africa's largest city.No injuries or casualties have been reported. The fire has been contained but the hospital has been closed for seven days, said David Makhura, premier of Gauteng province where Johannesburg is located.Early Saturday morning the fire caused the third floor of the hospital's parking garage to collapse.Sixty firefighters battled the blaze through the night. The fire started Friday morning and had been doused by the afternoon but then it reignited in the evening and continued burning overnight.The fire has caused extensive damage to the hospital, which has more than 1,000 beds and serves Johannesburg, a city of 6 million people, and the surrounding Gauteng province. It…


Apr182021 by DmediaNo Comments

US, China ‘Committed to Cooperating’ on Climate Crisis: Joint Statement

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The United States and China are "committed to cooperating" on the pressing issue of climate change, the two sides said in a joint statement Saturday, following a visit to Shanghai by U.S. climate envoy John Kerry."The United States and China are committed to cooperating with each other and with other countries to tackle the climate crisis, which must be addressed with the seriousness and urgency that it demands," said the statement from Kerry and China's special envoy for climate change Xie Zhenhua.Kerry, the former U.S. secretary of state, was the first official from President Joe Biden's administration to visit China, signaling hopes the two sides could work together on the global challenge despite sky-high tensions on multiple other fronts.The joint statement listed multiple avenues of cooperation between the United States…


Apr172021 by TechmanNo Comments

Final Ruling on Trump Facebook Ban Delayed

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A final ruling on whether to overturn Facebook's ban on former U.S. president Donald Trump will take a bit longer than anticipated, an independent oversight board said Friday.Critics of the social media company and even strong advocates of unfettered political discourse called on Facebook's oversight board to endorse the decision to boot Trump from the platform in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol."The board's commitment to carefully reviewing all comments has extended the case timeline," a spokesperson told AFP."The board will announce its decision on the case concerning former U.S. President Trump's indefinite suspension from Facebook and Instagram in the coming weeks."The Facebook oversight board had originally expected to have its decision by this month.Calling Trump a "clear and present danger," scholars and civil rights…


Apr162021 by DmediaNo Comments

‘Godzilla’ Shark Discovered in New Mexico Gets Formal Name

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The 300-million-year-old shark's teeth were the first sign that it might be a distinct species.The ancient chompers looked less like the spearlike rows of teeth of related species. They were squatter and shorter, less than an inch long, around 2 centimeters."Great for grasping and crushing prey rather than piercing prey," said discoverer John-Paul Hodnett, who was a graduate student when he unearthed the first fossils of the shark at a dig east of Albuquerque in 2013.This week, Hodnett and a slew of other researchers published their findings in a bulletin of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science identifying the shark as a separate species.He named the 6.7-foot (2-meter) monster Dracopristis hoffmanorum, or Hoffman's Dragon Shark, in honor of the New Mexico family that owns the land in…


Apr162021 by DmediaNo Comments

Global COVID-19 Infection Rate Approaches Record High, WHO Warns

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The World Health Organization said Friday that COVID-19 cases are increasing globally at a worrying rate, with the number of new cases doubling each week, a pace approaching the highest rate of infection since the pandemic began.The WHO said Friday there were 541,960 new cases in the past week. On February 22 -- the week new cases began to tick up after six weeks of decline – 194,469 new cases were reported.  At a virtual briefing at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said countries that had avoided widespread infections are now seeing steep increases.  He pointed to Papua New Guinea, which, until the beginning of this year, had reported less than 900 cases and only nine deaths. The nation has now reported more than 9,300…


Apr162021 by DmediaNo Comments

Nigeria Steps Up Vaccination Efforts After Slow Rollout Blamed on Misinformation

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Nigerian authorities are stepping up efforts to vaccinate more people against COVID-19 after a slow rollout blamed on misinformation. Authorities aim to vaccinate over 80 million Nigerians by year’s end but are running far behind schedule.  An Abuja vaccination center, which opened March 16, one week after Nigeria's official vaccine rollout, vaccinates between 50 and 100 people daily. It is one of many vaccination locations in the Nigerian capital. Abuja resident Olu Agunbiade visited the center to get his first shot and says receiving the vaccine makes him feel safer.  "I can venture out into the world with a form of protection," he told VOA. "I know that doesn't mean I can't still contract COVID, but at least I have antibodies, I can fight it.”  Nigeria received about 4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine early last month.  Authorities say they will vaccine around 80…


Apr162021 by DmediaNo Comments

2.5 Billion T. Rex Roamed Earth, but Not All at Once, Study Says

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One Tyrannosaurus rex seems scary enough. Now picture 2.5 billion of them. That’s how many of the fierce dinosaur king probably roamed Earth over the course of a couple million years, a new study finds.Using calculations based on body size, sexual maturity and the creatures’ energy needs, a team at the University of California, Berkeley figured out just how many T. rex lived over 127,000 generations, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Science. It’s a first-of-its-kind number, but just an estimate with a margin of error that is the size of a T. rex.“That’s a lot of jaws,” said study lead author Charles Marshall, director of the University of California Museum of Paleontology. “That’s a lot of teeth. That’s a lot of claws.”The species roamed North America for about…


Apr162021 by DmediaNo Comments

India Records More Than 200,000 New COVID Cases Thursday

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Health officials in India said they counted more than 200,000 new COVID-19 cases Thursday, an all-time daily high for the South Asian nation.The surge in cases has India scrambling to find hospital beds and oxygen. The escalating tally has also forced India, a major vaccine producer, to delay global shipments of COVID vaccines and instead redirect them for use at home.New Delhi health official S.K. Sarin, told the Associated Press that the case surge is “alarming.”Some public health officials also say they believe a Hindu festival at which hundreds of worshippers bathed in the Ganges, as well as recent political rallies, may have contributed to the landmark surge.More than 30% of U.S. adults, about 78.5 million, are fully vaccinated for COVID-19, according to new data released by the U.S. Centers…


Apr162021 by DmediaNo Comments

UN Warns COVID-19 is ‘Roaring Back’ as Yemen Faces Famine

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The U.N. humanitarian chief warned Thursday that the world's largest humanitarian crisis in Yemen is getting even worse with the COVID-19 pandemic “roaring back” in recent weeks as the Arab world's poorest country faces a large-scale famine.In a grim update to the U.N. Security Council, Mark Lowcock said tens of thousands of people already are starving to death, with another 5 million just a step behind.Lowcock added that March was also the deadliest so far this year for civilians, with more than 200 killed or injured as a result of hostilities -- a quarter of the casualties in the oil-rich central province of Marib where Houthi rebel forces are pressing a military offensive. In March, nearly 350 private homes were also damaged or destroyed, he said.To stop the “unfolding catastrophe,”…


Apr162021 by DmediaNo Comments

US Water Managers Warn of Dismal Year Along the Rio Grande

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It has been 30 years or so since residents in New Mexico's largest city last saw their stretch of the Rio Grande go dry. There's a possibility it could happen again this summer. Federal water managers released their annual operating plan for the Rio Grande on Thursday, and it doesn't look good. Flows have been meager so far this year because of below-average snowpack in the mountains along the Colorado-New Mexico border that feed the river. Spring precipitation has done little to fill the void. Reservoirs are at a fraction of their capacity and continue to shrink. There is no opportunity to replenish them because the provisions of a water-sharing agreement with Texas prevent New Mexico from storing water upstream. That means the drought-stricken state has no extra water in the bank to…