Year: 2023

A new malaria vaccine approved Monday for use by the World Health Organization could be rolled out in African countries in the next few months, potentially saving hundreds of thousands of children’s lives in the coming years. The new vaccine, known as R21, was developed by Britain’s Oxford University along with the Serum Institute of India. It is already in use in Ghana and Burkina Faso. “This new approval for R21 has the potential now that vaccination can occur across sub-Saharan Africa and protect many more children at risk,” said Professor Azra Ghani, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Imperial College London. “We estimate that if this is rolled out across the continent at the sort of coverage levels that we've seen in the implementation study so far, this could avert…

The World Health Organization approved a second malaria vaccine Monday. It’s hoped the new drug will quickly be rolled out in countries across Africa in the coming months. Henry Ridgwell reports from London. ...

The Nobel Prize in physics was awarded Tuesday to three scientists who look at electrons in atoms during the tiniest of split seconds. Pierre Agostini of The Ohio State University in the U.S.; Ferenc Krausz of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany; and Anne L'Huillier of Lund University in Sweden won the award. Their experiments "have given humanity new tools for exploring the world of electrons inside atoms and molecules," according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which announced the prize in Stockholm. They "have demonstrated a way to create extremely short pulses of light that can be used to measure the rapid processes in which electrons move or change energy." At the moment, this science is about understanding our…

The World Health Organization on Monday announced the recommendation of a second malaria vaccine, with the aim of giving countries a cheaper and more readily available option to tackle the deadly disease. Developed by Oxford University with the help of the Serum Institute of India, the new vaccine, known as R-21, will be rolled out in some African countries early next year, and expand into other countries later in 2024, according to WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Research that has not yet undergone the usual process of scientific review suggests the three-dose vaccine to be around 75% effective. Boosters would be available for continued protection. "Almost exactly two years ago, WHO recommended the broad use of the world's first malaria vaccine called RTS,S" also known as Mosquirix, Tedros told a…

Two scientists who jointly worked on the ground-breaking technology behind some of the most effective COVID-19 vaccines have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize for medicine, one of the most prestigious accolades in the field. Hungarian American scientist Katalin Kariko and her American colleague, Drew Weissman, began working on so-called “mRNA” technology in the early 1990s at the University of Pennsylvania. Their breakthrough was crucial in developing the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNtech coronavirus vaccines, which have proved among the most effective in tackling COVID-19. Lifesaving vaccines The Nobel Prize in Medicine Committee in Sweden said the discovery had helped defeat one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times. “mRNA vaccines, together with other COVID-19 vaccines, have been administered over 13 billion times. Together, they have saved millions of…

A Hungarian American scientist and her American colleague who jointly worked on the ground-breaking technology behind some of the most effective COVID vaccines have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize for medicine. Henry Ridgwell reports. ...

An endangered Sumatran rhinoceros, the smallest and hairiest of the five extant rhino species, was born in Indonesia last week in a conservation area, the government said Monday.  Weighing about 27 kilograms (59.52 lbs.), the yet-to-be named female calf, was born Saturday at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary (SRS) facility in Way Kambas National Park, Lampung province in the tropical Southeast Asian country.  Covered in black hair, the newborn stood about 45 minutes after her birth. On the next day, she began to walk around the jungle, the environment ministry said in a statement.  The mother, 22-year-old Ratu, was in a healthy condition, the ministry said.  Ratu is a native of Lampung, while her mate, Andalas, aged 23, was born at the Cincinnati Zoo, in the midwestern U.S. state of Ohio,…

More than 1,000 people have died from dengue fever in Bangladesh this year, making 2023 the deadliest year due to dengue, since the disease was first detected in the country, according to government figures. The Directorate General of Health Services said that more than 200,000 dengue cases were recorded this year. In a recent 24-hour period, nearly 3,000 were admitted to hospitals because of dengue, the Daily Star newspaper said. The Mayo Clinic says dengue fever is “a mosquito-borne illness that occurs in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. Mild dengue fever causes a high fever and flu-like symptoms. The severe form of dengue fever, also called dengue hemorrhagic fever, can cause serious bleeding, a sudden drop in blood pressure [shock] and death.” “All our efforts to control the…

Two scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discoveries that enabled the development of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. The award was given to Katalin Karikó, a professor at Sagan’s University in Hungary and an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Drew Weissman, who performed his prizewinning research together with Karikó at the University of Pennsylvania. "Through their groundbreaking findings, which have fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system, the laureates contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times,” the panel that awarded the prize said. Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Assembly, announced the prize and said both scientists were “overwhelmed” by news of the prize when he…

The World Health Organization warns that soaring rates of severe malnutrition, acute hunger, and deteriorating health conditions are threatening the lives and well-being of millions of people in South Sudan with the situation set to worsen as the climate crisis kicks in. “South Sudan is a country where you see the overlap and compounding impact of conflict, climate crisis, hunger crisis, and disease outbreaks that have been going on for several years,” said Liesbeth Aelbrecht, WHO incident manager for the Horn of Africa. “Three in four South Sudanese need humanitarian assistance this year; two in three are facing crisis levels of hunger,” she said. “And these numbers are only getting worse.” The United Nations reports 6.3 million South Sudanese are suffering from acute hunger and more than 9 million of…

Nine years after a massive waste spill from a copper mine in the northern Mexican border state of Sonora, locals are still suffering from "alarming" levels of soil, air and water pollution, Mexico's Environment Department said Thursday. Summarizing a 239-page report, officials also confirmed, using satellite images, that the spill was not solely caused by dramatic rainfall, as was initially reported, but by the "inadequate design" of a dam at Buenavista del Cobre mine, owned by the country's largest copper producer, Grupo México. Locals and environmental advocates say the report offers the clearest view yet of the catastrophic scale of the accident and, with it, new hope that Grupo México may finally be held financially accountable after almost a decade of legal battles and broken promises. "We expect that, with…

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has tested positive for COVID-19 and will work remotely while isolating, his office said Sunday, just two weeks before a general election in which his Labour party is struggling. The positive test will temporarily sideline Hipkins in the campaign for the Oct. 14 election. Labour has been sliding in the opinion polls, with the center-right National party leading by 31.9% to 26.5% in a recent survey. Hipkins has cold and flu symptoms that began Saturday and will isolate for five days or until he returned a negative test, the prime minister's office said in a statement. "He will continue with engagements he can undertake via Zoom," the statement said. Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni would stand in for Hipkins at a Samoan church service…

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday laid out a proposal to begin regulating laboratory medical tests, a multibillion-dollar industry that the agency says poses a growing risk to patients because of potentially inaccurate results. The proposed rule would end decades of regulatory ambiguity and formally bring thousands of tests performed in large laboratories under FDA oversight. FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said the change will help ensure tests used to diagnose cancer, heart disease and many other conditions are safe, accurate and reliable. "A growing number of clinical diagnostic tests are being offered as laboratory-developed tests without assurance that they work," Califf said in a statement. He added that the agency has long worried that many tests offered by laboratories are not as accurate or reliable as those that undergo…

In pockets of Europe's Alpine mountains, glaciers are abundant enough that ski resorts operate above the snow and ice. Ski lifts, resorts, cabins and huts dot the landscape — and have done so for decades. But glaciers are also one of the most obvious and early victims of human-caused climate change, and as they shrink year by year, the future of the mountain ecosystems and the people who enjoy them will look starkly different. Glaciers — centuries of compacted snow and ice — are disappearing at an alarming rate. Swiss glaciers have lost 10% of their volume since 2021, and some glaciers are predicted to disappear entirely in the next few years. At the Freigerferner glacier in Austria, melting means the glacier has split into two and hollowed out as…

The U.S. West Coast produces over 90% of America's wine, but the region is also prone to wildfires — a combustible combination that spelled disaster for the industry in 2020 and one that scientists are scrambling to neutralize. Sample a good wine and you might get notes of oak or red fruit. But sip on wine made from grapes that were penetrated by smoke, and it could taste like someone dumped the contents of an ashtray into your glass. Wine experts from three West Coast universities are working together to meet the threat, including developing spray coatings to protect grapes, pinpointing the elusive compounds that create that nasty ashy taste, and deploying smoke sensors to vineyards to better understand smoke behavior. The U.S. government is funding their research with millions…

How do you cook a meal when a staple ingredient is unaffordable?  This question is playing out in households around the world as they face shortages of essential foods like rice, cooking oil and onions. That is because countries have imposed restrictions on the food they export to protect their own supplies from the combined effect of the war in Ukraine, El Nino's threat to food production and increasing damage from climate change.  For Caroline Kyalo, a 28-year-old who works in a salon in Kenya's capital of Nairobi, it was a question of trying to figure out how to cook for her two children without onions. Restrictions on the export of the vegetable by neighboring Tanzania has led prices to triple.  Kyalo initially tried to use spring onions instead, but…

Many millions of Chinese tourists are expected to travel within their country, splurging on hotels, tours, attractions and meals in a boost to the economy during the 8-day autumn holiday period that began Friday. This year's holiday began with the Mid-Autumn Festival on Friday and also includes the Oct. 1 National Day. The public holidays end Oct. 6. Typically hundreds of millions of Chinese travel at home and overseas during such holidays. The eight-day-long holiday is the longest week of public holidays since COVID-19 pandemic restrictions were lifted in December. Outbound tourism has lagged domestic travel, with flight capacities lagging behind pre-pandemic levels. Big cities like the capital, Beijing, Shanghai, and southern cities like Shenzhen and Guangzhou are favored destinations. Smaller cities, such as Chengdu and Chongqing in southwest China…

The streets of cities across Latin America were bathed in green Thursday as tens of thousands of women marched to commemorate International Safe Abortion Day. Latin American feminists have spent decades fighting to roll back strict prohibitions, although there are still few countries with a total ban, like El Salvador and Dominican Republic. In Mexico, marchers celebrated the recent decision by Mexico's Supreme Court to decriminalize abortions at the federal level. In Argentina, marchers had a more somber tone, worrying that the strength of a populist far-right presidential candidate going into elections in October could signal peril after years of work by feminists. Abortion was the heart of the protests, but crowds of women also raised alarm about the region's high rates of gender-based violence as well as abuses aimed…

Federal health advisers voted overwhelmingly against an experimental treatment for Lou Gehrig's disease at a Wednesday meeting prompted by years of patient efforts seeking access to the unproven therapy. The panel of Food and Drug Administration experts voted 17-1 that drugmaker Brainstorm's stem cell-based treatment has not been shown effective for patients with the fatal, muscle-wasting disease known as ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. One panel member abstained from voting. While the FDA is not bound by the vote, it largely aligns with the agency's own strikingly negative review released earlier this week, in which staff scientists described Brainstorm's application as "scientifically incomplete" and "grossly deficient." "Creating false hope can be considered a moral injury and the use of statistical magic or manipulation to provide false hope is problematic," said…

Environmental experts are ringing alarm bells, saying decades-long climate and environmental changes in Sudan have exacerbated social and political instability, fueling the monthslong conflict in the country centered around access to land, water and other vital resources. The current conflict in Sudan, rooted in global geopolitics and the historical legacy of the previous leadership of now-deposed authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir, is increasingly being attributed to climate change. In a May report, Practical Action, a Britain-based international development organization, highlighted the impact of climate change in Sudan, which includes the encroachment of the desert southward and a stark reduction in rainfall. Akinyi Walender, Practical Action Africa director, underscored the consequences of climate change in Sudan, including heightened drought, extreme rainfall variability, depletion of water sources and desertification spanning millions of hectares…

India’s moon lander and rover, which made a historic landing on the south pole of the moon, have not "woken up" after being put in sleep mode earlier this month to survive the freezing lunar night temperatures. Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organization have not succeeded in reestablishing communication with the Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover, which were part of India’s pioneering Chandrayaan-3 mission. After the spacecraft soft-landed on the little-explored lunar south pole on Aug. 23 — five days after a Russian spacecraft on an identical mission crashed — the rover spent 10 days traveling more than 100 meters on the lunar surface gathering scientific data. Tasked with "the pursuit of lunar secrets" by the ISRO, the spacecraft transmitted images and scientific data back to Earth and…