Month: August 2021

The U.S. is projected to see nearly 100,000 more COVID-19 deaths between now and Dec. 1, according to the nation’s most closely watched forecasting model. But health experts say that toll could be cut in half if nearly everyone wore a mask in public spaces.In other words, what the coronavirus has in store this fall…

As Israel expands its third COVID booster shot campaign, analysts are pointing to wide disparities between Jews and Arabs when it comes to getting vaccinations. While 80% of eligible Jewish Israelis have been vaccinated, about one-third of Arab citizens of Israel have yet to get their shots. As Linda Gradstein reports from Jerusalem, some root…

African countries have committed to ending all forms of polio after cases of vaccine-derived polio increased last year, partly because of disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, Africa had been declared free of the wild poliovirus, after four years without a single case. But a variant has since returned in communities where not…

A Taiwanese company, TiSPACE, plans to launch Australia’s first commercial rocket later this year.The rocket is called Hapith, which means “flying squirrel” in a Taiwanese Indigenous language.So far, no specific date for the rocket’s launch has been given. However, officials say an experimental flight is planned this year from a private facility on the Eyre…

Vietnam is facing challenges in its COVID-19 vaccination efforts from global shortages and anti-Chinese vaccine sentiment as it tries to reach herd immunity by the end of next year’s first quarter.“Shot or no shot?” Chau Nguyen asked her sister after spending nights thinking about whether to get vaccinated and whether to accept the Chinese Sinopharm…

A Spanish judge in a decision cheered by environmentalists has put a halt to backup plans for the construction of a giant telescope in the Canary Islands — eliminating at least for now the primary alternative location to the preferred spot in Hawaii, where there have been protests against the telescope.  Construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope, or TMT, on…

The U.S. intelligence community has reportedly told President Joe Biden that it has not reached a definitive conclusion after reviewing available information on the origins of the COVID-19. The pandemic has sickened more than 213.2 million people around the globe since late 2019 and killed more than 4.4 million, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus…

A Belgian-African company operating in Burkina Faso is planting trees to help curb desertification and open up lands for grazing cattle and farming. The project by the company, Hommes et Terre (Men and Earth), is taking place in Burkina Faso’s dangerous conflict zones where expanding desertification is a cause for strife. Henry Wilkins reports from…

The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday announced a new kind of climate observatory near the headwaters of the Colorado River that will help scientists better predict rain and snowfall in the U.S. West and determine how much of it will flow through the region. The multimillion-dollar effort led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory launches next…

Geologists on Tuesday said they had detected a swarm of earthquakes at Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, though it is not erupting.  The quakes began overnight and continued into the morning, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said.  More than 140 earthquakes were recorded as of 4:30 a.m. The largest was magnitude 3.3. Most were less than magnitude 1.  At the same time…

The British government is considering plans to release beavers back into the wild across England some four centuries after the dam-building mammals became extinct in Britain. The proposals, described as a cautious step toward establishing a native beaver population, would see the animals allowed to be introduced if strict criteria were met along with an assessment…

A new study finds the number of people with hypertension has doubled over the last 30 years to 1.28 billion, mostly in developing countries.  The study led by Imperial College London and the World Health Organization is the first comprehensive global analysis of trends in hypertension prevalence, detection, treatment and control.Data from more than 100 million…