May252024 by TechmanNo Comments

China’s Digital Silk Road exports internet technology, controls

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washington — China promotes its help to Southeast Asian countries in modernizing their digital landscapes through investments in infrastructure as part of its "Digital Silk Road." But rights groups say Beijing is also exporting its model of authoritarian governance of the internet through censorship, surveillance and controls. China's state media this week announced Chinese electrical appliance manufacturer Midea Group jointly built its first overseas 5G factory in Thailand with Thai mobile operator AIS, Chinese telecom service provider China Unicom and tech giant Huawei. The 208,000-square-meter smart factory will have its own 5G network, Xinhua news agency reported. Earlier this month, Beijing reached an agreement with Cambodia to establish a Digital Law Library of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Inter-Parliamentary Assembly. Cambodia's Khmer Times said the objective is to "expand…


May252024 by TechmanNo Comments

Attempts to regulate AI’s hidden hand in Americans’ lives flounder

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DENVER — The first attempts to regulate artificial intelligence programs that play a hidden role in hiring, housing and medical decisions for millions of Americans are facing pressure from all sides and floundering in statehouses nationwide. Only one of seven bills aimed at preventing AI's penchant to discriminate when making consequential decisions — including who gets hired, money for a home or medical care — has passed. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis hesitantly signed the bill on Friday. Colorado's bill and those that faltered in Washington, Connecticut and elsewhere faced battles on many fronts, including between civil rights groups and the tech industry, and lawmakers wary of wading into a technology few yet understand and governors worried about being the odd-state-out and spooking AI startups. Polis signed Colorado's bill "with reservations," saying…


May252024 by DmediaNo Comments

Italian museum recreates Tanzanian butterfly forest

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TRENTO, Italy — In a lush greenhouse high in the Alps, butterflies of various species and colors flutter freely while butterfly pupae are suspended in a structure as they grow into adult insects. This is the Butterfly Forest in the tropical mountain greenhouse in Trento, Italy, a project by the Museo delle Scienze (MUSE), an Italian science museum. It's modeled on Udzungwa Mountains, a mountain range and rainforest area in south-central Tanzania that's one of the world's biodiversity hotspots. The Butterfly Forest features plant species endemic to the region, as well as birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates from different parts of the world, all inside 600 square meters of forest with cliffs, inclinations and a waterfall. The Butterfly Forest was created this spring to create public awareness on some of…


May242024 by Dmedia1 Comment

Scientists: Climate change, rapid urbanization worsen impact of East African rains

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NAIROBI, Kenya — The impact of the calamitous rains that struck East Africa from March to May was intensified by a mix of climate change and rapid growth of urban areas, an international team of climate scientists said in a study published Friday. The findings come from World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists that analyzes whether and to what extent human-induced climate change has altered the likelihood and magnitude of extreme weather events. The downpours caused floods that killed hundreds of people, displaced thousands of others, killed thousands of livestock and destroyed thousands of acres of crops. To assess how human-caused climate may have affected the floods, the researchers analyzed weather data and climate model simulations to compare how these types of events have changed between today's climate and the…


May242024 by DmediaNo Comments

World’s largest tree passes health check

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SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, California — High in the evergreen canopy of General Sherman, the world's largest tree, researchers searched for evidence of an emerging threat to giant sequoias: bark beetles. The climbers descended the towering 2,200-year-old tree with good news on Tuesday. "The General Sherman tree is doing fine right now," said Anthony Ambrose, executive director of the Ancient Forest Society, who led the expedition. "It seems to be a very healthy tree that's able to fend off any beetle attack." It was the first time climbers had scaled the iconic 85-meter sequoia tree, which draws tourists from around the world to Sequoia National Park. Giant sequoias, the Earth's largest living things, have survived for thousands of years in California's western Sierra Nevada range, the only place where the species is…


May232024 by TechmanNo Comments

IS turns to artificial intelligence for advanced propaganda amid territorial defeats

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Washington — With major military setbacks in recent years, supporters of the Islamic State terror group are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence (AI) to generate online propaganda, experts said. A new form of propaganda developed by IS supporters is broadcasting news bulletins with AI-generated anchors in multiple languages. The Islamic State Khorasan (ISKP) group, an IS affiliate active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, produced in a video an AI-generated anchorman to appear reading news following an IS-claimed attack in Bamiyan province in Afghanistan on May 17 that killed four people, including three Spanish tourists. The digital image posing as an anchor spoke the Pashto language and had features resembling local residents in Bamiyan, according to The Khorasan Diary, a website dedicated to news and analysis on the region. Another AI-generated propaganda video…


May232024 by DmediaNo Comments

Ocean heat, La Nina likely mean more Atlantic hurricanes this summer

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WASHINGTON — Get ready for what nearly all the experts think will be one of the busiest Atlantic hurricane seasons on record, thanks to unprecedented ocean heat and a brewing La Nina.  There's an 85% chance that the Atlantic hurricane season starting in June will be above average in storm activity, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday in its annual outlook. The weather agency predicted between 17 and 25 named storms will brew up this summer and fall, with eight to 13 achieving hurricane status (at least 75 mph sustained winds) and four to seven of them becoming major hurricanes, with at least 111 mph winds.  An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms — seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.  "This season is looking to…


May222024 by DmediaNo Comments

Michigan farmworker diagnosed with bird flu in 2nd US case tied to dairy cows

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New York — A Michigan dairy worker has been diagnosed with bird flu — the second human case associated with an outbreak in U.S. dairy cows.  The patient had mild eye symptoms and has recovered, U.S. and Michigan health officials said in announcing the case Wednesday. The worker had been in contact with cows presumed to be infected, and the risk to the public remains low, officials said.  A nasal swab from the person tested negative for the virus, but an eye swab tested positive, "indicating an eye infection," the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.  The first case happened in late March, when a farmworker in Texas was diagnosed in what officials called the first known instance globally of a person catching this version of…


May222024 by DmediaNo Comments

War leaves tragic legacy of mental illness in Ukraine

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Experts say that in Ukraine, there has been a heavy increase in cases of anxiety, depression, adjustment disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health problems since Russia’s invasion in 2022, and it will likely have a long-term impact. For VOA, Lesia Bakalets has more. ...


May222024 by TechmanNo Comments

Australian researchers unveil device that harvests water from the air

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SYDNEY — A device that absorbs water from air to produce drinkable water was officially launched in Australia Wednesday. Researchers say the so-called Hydro Harvester, capable of producing up to 1,000 liters of drinkable water a day, could be “lifesaving during drought or emergencies.” The device absorbs water from the atmosphere. Solar energy or heat that is harnessed from, for example, industrial processes are used to generate hot, humid air. That is then allowed to cool, producing water for drinking or irrigation. The Australian team said that unlike other commercially available atmospheric water generators, their invention works by heating air instead of cooling it. Laureate Professor Behdad Moghtaderi, a chemical engineer and director of the University of Newcastle’s Centre for Innovative Energy Technologies, told VOA how the technology operates.   “Hydro Harvester…


May212024 by DmediaNo Comments

Small island states secure climate win at international ocean court

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BERLIN — A group of small island states that include Antigua and Barbuda and the Bahamas secured a win on climate change in an international court Tuesday as they seek to combat rising sea levels. In its first climate-related judgment, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, or ITLOS, said that greenhouse gas emissions absorbed by the ocean are considered marine pollution and countries are obliged to protect marine environments by going further than required under the Paris climate agreement. The opinion was requested by a group of nine island nations facing climate-driven rises in sea levels. The opinion is not legally binding, but it can be used to help guide countries in their climate policy and, in other cases, as legal precedent. "The ITLOS opinion will inform our…


May212024 by DmediaNo Comments

Global carbon emissions pricing raised record $104 bln in 2023

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LONDON — Countries raised a record $104 billion last year by charging firms for emitting carbon dioxide, but prices remain too low to drive changes needed to meet Paris climate accord targets, the World Bank said in a report on Tuesday.   Several countries are using a price on carbon emissions to help meet their climate goals by making polluters pay in the form of a tax, or under an emissions trading (ETS), or cap-and-trade, system. “Carbon pricing is a critical part of the policy mix needed to both meet the Paris Agreement goals and support low emissions growth,” the World Bank’s State and Trends of Carbon Markets report said.   There are 75 global carbon pricing instruments in operation, up two from a year ago, covering around 24% of global…


May212024 by DmediaNo Comments

Brazil floods leave trail of unprecedented devastation

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Historic floods swept through southern Brazil early this month, destroying everything in their path. The floods claimed over 150 lives and left more than 500,000 Brazilians displaced. Scientists attribute this unprecedented destruction to a confluence of weather conditions, all influenced by climate change. Yan Boechat reports. ...


May202024 by DmediaNo Comments

Study: Climate change key driver of record-low Antarctic sea ice

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Paris — Climate change played a key role in last year's record-low levels of Antarctic sea ice, a study published on Monday found, marking an abrupt shift from the growth seen in previous decades. Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) found that human-caused global warming resulted in a once-in-2,000-year low in ocean surface around the continent blanketed by ice. Compared to an average winter over the last several decades, the maximum extent of Antarctic sea covered by ice shrank by two million square kilometers — an area four times the size of France, the BAS said. "This is why we were so interested in studying what climate models can tell us about how often large, rapid losses like this are likely to happen," the study's lead author Rachel Diamond told…