Year: 2021

NASA and the United States have successfully landed the Perseverance on Mars after the rover left the company of spacecrafts from the UAE and China in orbit. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, challenges for the rover – and potentially a treasure trove of discoveries  – await.Produced…

Humans are making Earth a broken and increasingly unlivable planet through climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, so the world must make dramatic changes to society, economics and daily life, a new United Nations report said.Unlike past U.N. reports that focused on one issue and…

The World Health Organization (WHO) Thursday launched its 2021 COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan (SPRP) designed to help all nations fight the pandemic and is seeking nearly $2 billion in donations to fund it.This is the second such initiative, coming just over a year…

Pushed to the back of Gen Z anxieties by the COVID-19 pandemic, a looming stressor for many people younger than 30 remains climate change, say experts.    “Natural disasters precipitated by climate change, including hurricanes, heatwaves, wildfires, and floods can lead to ... increased rates…

Malawi will reopen schools on Monday (Feb 22), five weeks after President Lazarus Chakwera suspended classes due to a surge in COVID-19 cases. Malawi's Presidential Task-Force on COVID-19 determined it is safe to resume classes after a drop in the rate of infection.Co-Chairperson of the Presidential…

A new study shows the new Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is effective against the South African variant of the virus, although it generates a slightly lower immune response.   In a report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers with Pfizer and the University…

The latest NASA probe to Mars is set to land Thursday after a journey that began last July.Perseverance’s entry into the Martian atmosphere was set to start at 3:55 p.m. EST, starting a seven-minute process that scientists hope will be successful. During the landing, NASA…

President Joe Biden’s administration has pledged to improve the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. This week, the first federally supported mass vaccination sites opened in California. Matt Dibble reports. Camera: Matt Dibble     Producer: Matt Dibble ...

Residents, some of whom lack heat or basic amenities in their own homes due to the unusually chilly weather, have been rescuing cold-stunned sea turtles and taking them to a convention center in a South Texas resort town. "Every 15 minutes or less there's another truck…

The U.N. secretary-general called on the world’s largest economies Wednesday to create a task force to plan and coordinate a global COVID-19 vaccination plan.  “The world urgently needs a global vaccination plan to bring together all those with the required power, scientific expertise and production and…

German Health Minister Jens Spahn said Wednesday the so-called British variant of COVID-19 is spreading quickly in his country, now accounting for more than 20 percent of all tested cases, and nearly four times the rate of two weeks earlier. Speaking to reporters in Berlin, Spahn…

A historic winter storm and frigid temperatures that have gripped at least half the United States has left more than 2.5 million Texans without power. Snow and record cold continued Wednesday in the southwestern state where temperatures are forecast to remain at or below freezing. The…

Japan began its long-awaited coronavirus vaccination program Wednesday. The first shots took place at a Tokyo hospital just hours after the hospital received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.  As many as 40,000 doctors and nurses across the nation will receive the first doses of the vaccine, with the…

It's as if the world has been turned upside-down, or at least its weather. You can blame the increasingly familiar polar vortex, which has brought a taste of the Arctic to places where winter often requires no more than a jacket. Around the North Pole, winter's…

Sixty-six million years ago, a huge celestial object struck off the coast of what is now Mexico, triggering a catastrophic "impact winter" that eventually wiped out three-quarters of life on Earth, including the dinosaurs. A pair of astronomers at Harvard say they have now resolved long-standing…

The European Space Agency (ESA) said Tuesday it is recruiting new astronauts for the first time since 2008 and encouraging women and people with disabilities to apply.The announcement Tuesday came in a virtual news briefing that included ESA Director General Jan Worner and current agency astronauts.…

The World Health Organization and other aid agencies are moving quickly to try to gain control over a new outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Guinea. Guinea is one of three countries that was affected by the 2014 West African outbreak, the largest in…

For the first time, wild camels have been sold on Australia's leading online livestock auction. Australia has the world’s largest herd of feral camels that were introduced in the 1840s. Auctioneers in Australia weren’t sure if the group of 93 Arabian camels would sell online, but they all sold for as much as $230…

Colombia is set to begin immunizations against COVID-19 after receiving its first shipment of vaccines on Monday. President Ivan Duque and his health minister accepted the first 50,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and said frontline health care workers and the elderly will be the first to get their shots. Colombia has a contract to buy 10 million doses from Pfizer and…