Author: Dmedia

SAN DIEGO — A rarely seen deep-sea fish resembling a serpent was found floating dead on the ocean surface off the San Diego coast and was brought ashore for study, marine experts said.  The silvery, 12-foot-long (3.6-meter) oarfish was found last weekend by a group of snorkelers and kayakers in La Jolla Cove, north of downtown San Diego, in the U.S. state of California, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said in a statement.  It's only the 20th time an oarfish is known to have washed up in California since 1901, according to institution fish expert Ben Frable.  Scripps noted that oarfish have a mythical reputation as predictors of natural disasters or earthquakes, although no correlation has been proven.  Oarfish can grow longer than 20 feet (6 meters) and normally live in…

ABUJA, NIGERIA — Barely 48 hours after the World Health Organization declared mpox a global health emergency, Nigeria went on high alert Friday, announcing new mpox cases and raising concerns about the country’s ability to contain the outbreak. The Nigeria Center for Disease Control and Prevention, or NCDC, said it has recorded 39 cases of mpox so far this year amid a surge in infections across Africa. No deaths have been recorded in Nigeria. Bayelsa, Cross River, Ogun and Lagos states are the most affected by the outbreak. Speaking at a news conference, NCDC lead Dr. Olajide Idris said that the nation is ramping up its response to manage the spread of the virus and prevent the disease from being imported. Mpox is a rare viral zoonotic disease, meaning it is…

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Sarah Bagheni had a headache, fever, and itchy and unusual skin lesions for days, but she had no inkling that her symptoms might have been caused by mpox and that she might be another case in a growing global health emergency.  She also has no idea where to go to get medical help.  She and her husband live in the Bulengo displacement camp in eastern Congo, a region that is effectively ground zero for a series of mpox outbreaks in Africa. This year's alarming rise in cases, including a new form of the virus identified by scientists in eastern Congo, led the World Health Organization to declare it a global health emergency on Wednesday. It said the new variant could spread beyond the five African…

Stockholm — Health authorities warned Friday that Europe must be ready for more cases of a deadly strain of mpox that has killed hundreds of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The World Health Organization urged pharmaceutical firms to ramp up vaccine production and China said it would screen travelers for the disease after the first cases of the more deadly strain to be recorded outside Africa were announced in Sweden and Pakistan. France's Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said his country was on the "highest alert" and would implement "new recommendations" for travelers to risk areas. Mpox is caused by a virus transmitted to humans by animals but can also spread human-to-human through close physical contact. It causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions. The WHO on Wednesday…

BANGKOK — Southeast Asia is among the regions most prone to natural disasters, but a new analysis released Thursday shows its people also feel the best equipped to deal with them. It seems logical that the countries in and around the Pacific Ring of Fire, vulnerable to earthquakes, typhoons, storm surges and other dangers, are also the best prepared, but the survey by Gallup for the Lloyd's Register Foundation shows that's not always the case in other regions. "Frequent exposure to hazard isn't the only factor that determines how prepared people feel," Benedict Vigers, a research consultant with Gallup, told The Associated Press. The report found the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has played a key role in disaster risk reduction, and Vigers said the region's wider approach includes widespread and…

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Abuja, Nigeria — Nigerian authorities on Thursday placed key entry points into the country on high alert following the outbreak of the mpox virus in Africa. Authorities have also put nine Nigerian states, including the commercial hub, Lagos, and the capital, Abuja, under serious surveillance. The Nigerian Center for Disease Control and Prevention told journalists that the action is in response to surging cases of the mpox virus in Africa and to intensify coordination to limit importation and spread of the virus. This week, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had recorded 2,863 confirmed cases of mpox, with 517 deaths, across 13 countries this year. It said there are about 17,000 suspected cases of mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, in total. So far this year, Nigeria has…

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PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistan's health ministry has confirmed at least one case of the mpox virus in a patient who had returned from a Gulf country, it said on Friday, as provincial health authorities reported they had detected three cases. A health ministry spokesperson said the sequencing of the confirmed case was under way, and that it would not be clear which variant of mpox the patient had until the process was complete. A new form of the virus has triggered global concern because it seems to spread more easily though routine close contact. Earlier on Friday, the health department in northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said three cases had been detected in patients on arrival from the United Arab Emirates. It was not clear whether the patient confirmed by the central…

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cape canaveral, florida — The first of four supermoons this year rises next week, providing tantalizing views of Earth's constant companion. Stargazers can catch the first act Monday as the full moon inches a little closer than usual, making it appear slightly bigger and brighter in the night sky. "I like to think of the supermoon as a good excuse to start looking at the moon more regularly," said Noah Petro, project scientist for NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. August's supermoon kicks off a string of lunar spectacles. September's supermoon will coincide with a partial lunar eclipse. October's will be the year's closest approach, and November's will round out the year. What makes a moon so super? More a popular term than a scientific one, a supermoon occurs when a full lunar…

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washington — President Joe Biden on Tuesday visited Louisiana's infamous "Cancer Alley" to strike at what he identified as a top priority of his dwindling presidency: announcing $150 million in research funding toward the goal of dramatically reducing cancer deaths in the United States. The Cancer Moonshot is an initiative close to Biden's heart. Both he and first lady Jill Biden have had brushes with skin cancers. And in 2015, an aggressive brain cancer took the life of their eldest son, Beau. "We're moving quickly," Biden said of the initiative, which has a goal of reducing the U.S. cancer death rate by at least half by 2047. "Because we know that all families touched by cancer are in a race against time." Cancer is the second-biggest cause of death worldwide. The…

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As Nigeria struggles with food insecurity, young Nigerians and startups are seeking to revolutionize the agricultural sector through technology. In the state of Kaduna, Shamsuddeen Jibril invented a drone that can detect crop diseases. Alhassan Bala has the report from Abuja, Nigeria. ...

SYDNEY — Researchers in Australia have developed a drug that could revolutionize treatment for millions of diabetes patients around the world.   Scientists in the U.S., China and Australia are designing treatments that imitate the body’s natural response to changing blood glucose, or sugar, levels and respond instantly.   The Australian team is handling one of several research projects that have developed different types of so-called 'smart insulins,' which sits in the body of a diabetes patient and is activated only when it is needed.  The aim is to keep glucose levels within a safe range, avoiding excessively high blood glucose, which is called hyperglycaemia, and excessively low blood sugar levels, known as hypoglycaemia.     The new treatments are not cures for diabetes but could ease the burden on patients.…

Harare — Zimbabwean authorities recently declared the end of a cholera outbreak which lasted nearly 18 months, but public health experts say the conditions which caused the waterborne disease still exist and need urgent attention. After battling a cholera outbreak which began in February of last year, Zimbabwe gave the ‘all clear’ after saying no new cases were recorded in July. The last reported case was in June. During the outbreak, the country recorded 34,549 suspected cases and more than 700 deaths.   Dr. Douglas Mombeshora is Zimbabwe’s health minister. “What it means really is to say the interventions that we undertook as government have yielded [the] results that we wanted, that is to make sure that we suppress cholera. There are other issues that we have to continue working on.…

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Beersheba, Israel — At 19, Yoni, an Israeli man, has to put aside his plans to join the military and instead enter rehab for drug abuse that has worsened since Hamas' October 7 attack. Health professionals said Yoni's case is not an exception in wartime Israel, noting a surge in drug and alcohol abuse as well as other addictive behaviors. Yoni, who asked to use a pseudonym to protect his privacy, told AFP he had started taking drugs recreationally before, but "after the war it seemed to really get worse." "It's just a way to escape from reality, this whole thing," said the resident of Beersheba in southern Israel who lost a friend, Nir Beizer, in the Hamas attack that sparked the ongoing Gaza war. Psychiatrist Shaul Lev-Ran, founder of the…

Balkhash, Kazakhstan — Seen from the sky, with its turquoise waters stretching out into the desert expanses in the shape of a crescent, you can see why they call Lake Balkhash the "pearl of Kazakhstan." But pollution, climate change and its overuse are threatening the existence of one of the most unique stretches of water in the world. One side of the Balkhash — the biggest lake in Central Asia after the Caspian Sea — has salt water, but on the other it is fresh. In such a strange environment, rare species have abounded. Until now. "All the miseries of the Balkhash are right under my eyes," fisherman Alexei Grebennikov told AFP from the deck of his boat on the northern shores, which sometimes has salty water, sometimes fresh. "There are…

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Windhoek, Namibia — Poverty, family dysfunction, hopelessness and learning challenges are among the reasons children, sometimes as young as 9, take their own lives. The Namibia Association of Occupational Therapists on Saturday brought together children, parents, and health care workers to teach children how to cope and adapt into adulthood. When Samuel Njambali was 11 years old, he began drinking and smoking with his peers. This destructive behavior led to fights and failing grades at school. His grandmother helped him get his act together. Now an intern occupational therapist, Njambali gave a peer talk at a #Be Free Youth Campus workshop Saturday on the impact of substance abuse on adolescent mental health and the role of occupational therapy in treating and correcting negative behavior patterns. "Occupational therapy is a profession that…

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — Mars and Jupiter are cozying up in the night sky for their closest rendezvous this decade. They’ll be so close Wednesday, at least from our perspective, that just a sliver of moon could fit between them. In reality, our solar system’s biggest planet and its dimmer, reddish neighbor will be more than 575 million kilometers apart in their respective orbits. The two planets will reach their minimum separation — one-third of 1 degree or about one-third the width of the moon — during daylight hours Wednesday in most of the Americas, Europe and Africa. But they won’t appear that much different hours or even a day earlier when the sky is dark, said Jon Giorgini of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. The best views will be…

PARIS — Women's boxing at the Paris Olympics has highlighted the complexity of drafting and enforcing sex eligibility rules for women's sports and how athletes like Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan are left vulnerable in the fallout. When eligibility for women's events has come into question, it often has been a legally difficult process for sports bodies that has risked exposing athletes to humiliation and abuse. In the 1960s, the Olympics used degrading visual tests intended to verify the sex of athletes. The modern era of eligibility rules are widely known to have started in 2009, after South African 800-meter runner Caster Semenya surged to stardom on the track as an 18-year-old gold medalist at the world championships. Semenya, the Olympic champion in the 800 meters in…

LAHAINA, Hawaii — When a deadly wildfire tore through Lahaina on Maui last August, the wall of flames scorched the 151-year-old banyan tree along the historic town's Front Street. But the sprawling tree survived the blaze, and thanks to the efforts of arborists and dedicated volunteers, parts of it are growing back — and even thriving. One year after the fire, here's what to know about the banyan tree and the efforts to restore it. Why is Lahaina's banyan tree significant? The banyan tree is the oldest living one on Maui but is not a species indigenous to the Hawaiian Islands. India shipped the tree as a gift to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the first Protestant missionaries to live in Lahaina. It was planted in 1873, a…