Forests in the US – bar those in Alaska – will no longer absorb 150 million metric tons of carbon a year within five decades, experts say.

That carbon is equivalent to the emissions of roughly 40 coal power plants.

To understand how a carbon sink can become a carbon tap, we have to consider the lifecycle of a healthy forest, where new growth matures into old growth and old growth dies and makes room for new growth.

But today, in North America, not enough young trees are being planted and allowed to grow up.

This means that mature forests are outpacing young forests, which are also more likely to be harvested or killed due to climate effects like wildfires, drought, or storms.

The overall shift to an older age cohort of trees means that in the future, forests in the US could be dying more than they are growing.

Practically, this turns forests from carbon absorbers to carbon emitters.

Old growth trees hold the most carbon in total, but after reaching a certain size, their growth seems to slow. Young trees, on the other hand, rapidly take up carbon for growth.

This could mean that if there are fewer younger trees in the future, there will be less carbon absorbed by America's forests each year.

Planting new forests could help solve the aging tree problem, but space is limited and hotly contested by industry interests.

In the past, some scientists have suggested removing old forests to make way for young forests, but as experts at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) note, this approach is based on outdated science.

Old forests are slow-growing but some emerging evidence suggests they still continue to sequester carbon at rates that far outpace younger forests.

If we remove these previously undisturbed and intact ecosystems, we are most likely shooting ourselves in the foot.

The ecosystem services they provide for us are extensive, like global nutrient cycling, preventing erosion, increasing water and air quality, stabilizing local weather conditions and providing habitat for wildlife – including the pollinators our crops rely on.

Large trees may store even more carbon than we thought, and cutting them down, depending on how they're used, could potentially release all those emissions into the atmosphere once again.

The USDA report warns that "the ability of forests to provide the goods and services that society depends upon will be challenged over the next 50 years."

In April of this year, the US Forest Service announced a pathway to protecting old-growth trees from being cut down in federally managed forests.

At the moment, though, the government still allows these trees to be logged. And that's just the trees on public land. The majority of forests in the US are owned privately.

"There are an estimated 9.6 million family forest ownerships across the country and they control more forest land than any other ownership category (39 percent, excluding interior Alaska)," reads a section of the recent USDA report, "but most do not have a written forest management plan and have not received forest management advice."

What's even more discouraging is that federally managed forests are also managed in ways that threaten the future of these precious ecosystems. In June, the US Forest Service announced its plans to allow carbon waste from industry to be dumped in national forests.

"Turning our national forests into industrial dumping grounds is outrageous and completely wrongheaded," says Victoria Bogdan Tejeda, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute.

"There's no place in our national forests for carbon capture scams that only benefit polluting industries. The administration should scrap this rule and enact one that protects mature and old-growth forests and trees."

If the US wants to reach its current goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, it must remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as it emits.

Doing so without its carbon-absorbing forests will be extremely difficult. Especially if they turn from a help to a hindrance.

The USDA report is available here.

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The team has dubbed the species Tutcetus rayanensis after the Egyptian boy king Tutankhamun and the Wadi El-Rayan Protected Area in Egypt's Fayoum Oasis where the type specimen was found.

With an estimated length of 2.5 metres (eight feet) and a body mass of approximately 187 kilogrammes (410 pounds), Tutcetus is the smallest species so far found from the basilosaurids, the oldest known whales that lived exclusively in the water.

Life reconstruction of the extinct basilosaurid whale Tutcetus rayanensis swimming in the Tethys Ocean of present-day Egypt, 41 million years ago.

(Ahmed Morsi and Hesham Sallam)

Team leader Hesham Sallam, of the American University in Cairo (AUC), said it was a "remarkable discovery that documents one of the first phases of the transition to a fully aquatic lifestyle".

Basilosaurids "developed fish-like characteristics, such as a streamlined body, a strong tail, flippers and a tail fin, and had the last hind limbs visible enough to be recognised as 'legs', which were not used for walking but possibly for mating," Sallam said in an AUC statement.

Erik Seiffert of the University of Southern California, a co-author of the team's findings published in the review Communications Biology, said the Eocene fossil sites of Egypt's Western Desert have long been the world's most important for understanding the early evolution of whales and their transition to a fully aquatic existence.

Fayoum Oasis, some 150 kilometres (90 miles) southwest of Cairo, boasts Wadi al-Hitan, the Valley of the Whales, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that has turned up hundreds of fossils of some of the earliest forms of whale.

Now an oasis in the Western Desert, Fayoum lay under a tropical sea in the Eocene period 56 to 34 million years ago.

© Agence France-Presse

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In a study published recently in Neuron, researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) provided new insights regarding this question by identifying a new mechanism. They discovered that neurons surrounding the area of cell death secrete lipids that can trigger brain-autonomous neural repair after ischemic brain injury.

An ischemic stroke occurs when the blood supply to the brain is blocked and results in the death of brain cells. This condition is life-threatening, and patients will likely develop functional disabilities. Although the adult brain can self-repair, the underlying mechanisms need further clarification.

Inflammation of the brain contributes to the effects of ischemic stroke. "There is evidence that more lipids are produced after tissue injuries and contribute to regulating inflammation," says Takashi Shichita, senior author of the study. "We investigated the changes in lipid metabolite production in mice after ischemic stroke. Interestingly, the levels of a specific fatty acid called dihomo-γ-linolenic acid (DGLA) and its derivatives increased after the stroke."

The researchers further discovered that a protein known as PLA2GE2 (Phospholipase A2 Group IIE, an enzyme) mediates DGLA increase. By manipulating the expression of PLA2GE2, they also showed its impact on functional recovery. Deficiency of PLA2GE2 led to more inflammation, lower expression of factors stimulating neuronal repair, and more tissue loss. The team carried on with identifying the targets of PLA2GE2/DGLA.

"When we look at genes expressed in mice lacking PLA2GE2, we found low levels of a protein called peptidyl arginine deiminase 4 (PADI4)," explains Akari Nakamura, lead author of the study. "PADI4 regulates transcription and inflammation. Remarkably, expressing PADI4 in mice limited the extent of tissue damage and inflammation after ischemic stroke."

Additionally, the study shows that PADI4 promotes the transcription of genes involved in brain repair. It also identifies the whole signaling pathway involved in this process.

Most data were obtained in a mouse model of ischemic stroke. Yet, the recovery pathway likely exists in humans as the researchers found that neurons surrounding the stroke site express PLA2G2E and PADI4 in humans. Moreover, another recent study reported that the lower serum DGLA level was correlated with the severe ischemic stroke and cognitive disorders in humans.

This study describes a new mechanism that triggers brain repair after an ischemic stroke, which might lead to the development of compounds promoting PADI4's effects, that stimulate the recovery of patients. It could also change our current understanding and approach toward Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) or Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), as the only beneficial lipids for preventing atherosclerosis and vascular diseases.

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The WHO declared in May that COVID is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalizations and deaths.

In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80 percent increase compared to the previous 28 days.

However the number of deaths fell by 57 percent to 2,500.

The WHO warned that the reported number of cases and deaths do not reflect the true numbers, in part because countries carry out far less testing and monitoring than during earlier stages of the pandemic.

Many of the new cases came in the Western Pacific region, which saw infections jump by 137 percent, the WHO said.

Several countries in the Northern Hemisphere, including the United States, United Kingdom, France and Japan have seen a summer uptick in cases in recent weeks.

Experts have suggested that summer gatherings and travel, declining immunity and a new subvariant may have all played a role in the increase.

On Wednesday, the WHO designated the Omicron subvariant EG.5 as a "variant of interest" following a steady rise in its prevalence.

More than 17 percent of all reported cases were EG.5 in mid-July, up from 7.6 percent a month before, according to the WHO.

Subvariant poses 'low' risk

EG.5, which has been unofficially nicknamed "Eris" online, is considered to be a descendant of the XBB lineage of the virus.

It seems to be more transmissible than other circulating variants, likely due to a mutation in its spike protein, and the WHO said it has shown an ability to evade immunity.

But there is no sign that EG.5 causes more severe COVID symptoms and it poses a "low" risk to global public health, the WHO said, comparing its threat to other recent Omicron subvariants.

Nonetheless, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that "the risk remains of a more dangerous variant emerging that could cause a sudden increase in cases and deaths".

France's Health Minister Aurelien Rousseau called for vigilance, while emphasizing that COVID numbers remain at low levels.

"We will have to live with the resurgence of this virus for several seasons to come," he said in a statement sent to AFP.

Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, told AFP that the true COVID situation remained unclear "just about everywhere in the world".

"Health authorities urgently need to reinstate a reliable COVID health monitoring system," he said, calling for wastewater to be analyzed to detect virus trends.

While the impact of COVID has been greatly diminished due to high levels immunity from either vaccination or prior infection, the virus still poses a threat—including long COVID, for which symptoms can last for months or years.

The WHO has urged countries to ramp up vaccination efforts.

Pharmaceutical firms Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and Novavax are all working on updating their COVID vaccines to target XBB subvariants.

© 2023 AFP

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"People might expect that a hearing loss could be due to earwax or maybe an ear infection and might not realize that they have a potentially severe problem," Michaelides says.

But sudden sensorineural hearing loss—also called sudden hearing loss or sudden deafness—is far more serious than an ear plugged with wax, and immediate treatment is crucial. Sensorineural hearing loss occurs when the inner ear or nerve pathways connecting the inner ear to the brain are damaged.

"Sometimes we see damage to the inner ear that could be permanent if not treated immediately," Michaelides says. "It's important to have a proper diagnosis so that we can determine if immediate therapy to reverse the hearing loss is necessary."

Is it earwax, or something more serious?

If your hearing has suddenly diminished, how do you know whether your ear is plugged or if it's something requiring immediate medical attention?

People with earwax buildup may feel some pressure with a ringing sound, called tinnitus, in one or both ears. But these can also be signs of a more serious issue and should be examined by a physician. "Sudden onset tinnitus in one ear or significant ear fullness can be a sign of inner ear damage," Michaelides says.

Unlike the slow buildup of earwax, sudden hearing loss in one or both ears occurs very rapidly—over a few hours or, at the most, a few days. It usually strikes adults between 30 and 60 years old (though it can happen to anyone), and most people with the condition experience loss in only one ear.

Michaelides advises that people who experience any hearing loss seek care instead of assuming it is due to wax buildup. "I would recommend that you see your primary care physician or an urgent care center to look for any evidence of ear canal or eardrum issues. Period," he says. "If there is none, immediately seek out a hearing test or a visit with an ENT for further evaluation."

Many causes of sudden hearing loss, many treatments

There are dozens of possible causes of sudden hearing loss, so when a patient comes in for treatment, Michaelides and his colleagues conduct a detailed examination to discover what's behind it.

Top causes of sudden hearing loss include the following:

• Ongoing exposure to loud music

• Illnesses such as mumps, meningitis, multiple sclerosis or measles

• Head trauma

• Drugs such as aspirin, cisplatin and quinine, or the antibiotics streptomycin and gentamicin

• Genetics (it can be passed along from generation to generation)

Sometimes the problem proves to be high platelet count in the blood or a blockage in the cochlear artery, which carries blood from the heart to the ear. Other potential causes include overuse of opiate drugs and autoimmune inner ear disease, in which the body's immune system attacks part of the ear.

To determine the cause of your sudden hearing loss, the doctor will ask these questions[:]

• When did you first notice hearing loss? Was it sudden or gradual?

• Does it affect one ear or both ears?

• Do you have a history of ear infection?

• Do you have a family history of hearing loss?

• Have you been sick recently? What is your history of illnesses?

• Have you been exposed to loud noises at home or at work?

• Have you had any head injuries?

When physicians identify one of these diseases, they can treat the hearing loss by targeting the underlying condition.

In most cases, though, sudden hearing loss is idiopathic, meaning doctors can't determine its cause. In such instances, they often prescribe oral steroids, which have been shown to help patients recover from unexplained sudden hearing loss.

For some patients who have medical conditions such as osteoporosis or diabetes that can make taking steroids inadvisable, physicians at RUSH inject the medication directly into the ear's tympanic membrane to limit potential effects on the rest of the body.

Unraveling the mystery

In the hopes of eventually targeting treatments even more precisely, researchers are trying to unearth the reason behind most idiopathic sudden hearing loss. One theory is that it may result from a virus that attacks the inner ear, Michaelides says, affecting the cochlea (a spiral-shaped cavity of the inner ear that contains nerve endings essential for hearing) and causing the ear not to work.

"Other theories are that there may be a rupture of a small membrane within the cochlea or perhaps a tiny, microscopic blood clot in the blood supply to the inner ear," Michaelides says. "There are many causes of hearing loss. Some of them may be very benign and resolve themselves, but sometimes damage could be permanent if it's not appropriately treated."

Regardless of the cause, Michaelides urges those who have symptoms to seek immediate care. "If there is a sudden change in hearing, evaluating it within the first two weeks is always helpful."

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“911 is down. Cell service is down. Phone service is down,” Hawaii Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke told CNN on Wednesday morning.

Although strong winds can sometimes threaten cell towers, most are strong enough to handle the worst that even a Category 5 hurricane can bring. Fire, however, complicates the issue.

“When the fires get too close to cell sites, they will obviously burn equipment, antennas, and feedlines,” said Glenn O’Donnell, VP of research at market research firm Forrester. “In extreme cases, they will also weaken the towers, leading some to collapse. The smoke and flames can also attenuate signals because of the particulate density in the air.”

If a tower collapses, cell networks could take months to restore. But if carriers are able and prepared to do restorations with mobile backup units, it could bring limited service back within hours, O’Donnell said. Wireless carriers often bring in COWs (Cells On Wheels), COLTs (Cells On Light Trucks), and GOaTs (Generators on Trailers) in emergencies to provide backup service when cell towers go down.

Power outages are also a threat to cell phone towers. The Maui disaster has already wiped out power to at least 14,000 homes and businesses in the area, according to PowerOutage.us. Many towers have backup power generators, but they have limited capacity to keep towers running.

Cell towers have back-up technology built in, but this is typically done through optical fiber cables or microwave (wireless) links, according to Dimitris Mavrakis, senior researcher at ABI Research. However, if something extraordinary happens, such as interaction with rampant fires, these links may experience “catastrophic failures and leave cells without a connection to the rest of the world.”

And, in an emergency, a spike in call volume can overload the system – even if people are able to get reception.

“Even cells that have a good service may experience outages due to the sheer volume of communication happening at once,” Mavrakis said.

“Everyone in these areas may be trying to contact relatives or the authorities at once, saturating the network and causing an outage. This is easier to correct though and network operators may put in place additional measures to render them operational quickly.”

A T-Mobile spokesperson said its cell sites are “holding up well during the fires” but commercial power outages may be disrupting the service for some customers. “As soon as conditions allow, our priority is to deploy teams with portable generators that will bring temporary power back to our sites,” the spokesperson said.

An AT&T spokesperson said it is assessing the impact to its wireless network and “will continue to coordinate closely with local utility companies on restoration progress.”

Meanwhile, Verizon told CNN on Thursday its teams are currently deploying the first batch of satellite-based mobile hotspots at evacuation sites in areas of greatest need, particularly the west side of the island, west of Maalaea, Lahaina, and Northern Kapalua. Verizon’s larger equipment, which is being barged over from Honolulu, is expected to arrive later in the day. This includes COLTs and a specialized satellite trailer to provide service to a cell site that has a damaged fiber connection.

AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon said they are waiving talk, text and data overage charges during this time.

The hope of satellite networks

Satellite networks continue to operate regardless of what’s happening on the ground. This means satellite phones, which often feature large antennas, can help provide voice, SMS, and data services anywhere on Earth, even without cell service.

Satellite phones have been popularized over the years by hikers, emergency responders and intrepid travelers, but they are expensive and are not mainstream products. However, some newer smartphone models – including the latest model iPhone 14 and some phones built by Motorola and Huawei – offer built-in satellite connectivity, which allows the sending of SOS messages via satellites.

Apple’s free Emergency SOS via satellite service has already helped at least one family get in contact with first responders during the Maui wildfires.

The service, which launched last year, allows iPhone users to contact dedicated dispatchers in emergency situations via satellites. When a user attempts to call 911 and is unable to get on a cell network, they will be automatically redirected to the service’s dispatchers where they can answer a questionnaire with short multiple choice questions to share information quickly. The dispatchers also receive their coordinates, medical ID and emergency contact information.

Apple told CNN the feature is reserved for connections to emergency services and does not allow users to contact friends and family. For anyone who has access to a Wi-Fi connection while wearing an Apple Watch, the Walkie-Talkie feature could also be used to send messages or make calls. However, Wi-Fi networks can also fail when optical fiber networks are disrupted.

Local radio stations are still on the air and providing lifeline information to residents and visitors.

Although it’s unclear how long cell phone service could be down in affected regions, companies have been able to bring connectivity to disaster regions in the past. In 2017, Google worked with AT&T and T-Mobile to deploy its Project Loon balloons to deliver Internet to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

Hawaii’s Red Cross recently tweeted that people can call 1-800-RED-CROSS to see if their loved ones are at a local shelter.

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Yandex's fate has been the subject of much speculation since it announced plans to pursue a corporate restructuring last November, a move that should ultimately see its main revenue-generating businesses inside Russia spun off from its Dutch-registered parent company.

As Russia's leading tech company, boasting some of the country's top developers among more than 20,000 staff, Yandex was one of the few Russian firms with genuine global ambitions before Moscow unleashed its war in Ukraine in February 2022.

Many of its staff have moved abroad, some relocating to Serbia, where its new offices are filling up quickly. Maksut Shadaev, the head of Russia's ministry of digital affairs, told parliament in December that around 100,000 IT specialists had left Russia in 2022.

And at a company where staff know-how is crucial to maintaining a leading position in search technology, advertising and ride-hailing, a hostile takeover by the state that sparks a talent exodus could do serious damage, according to the sources.

"It's obvious that if (nationalisation) happens, the company will gradually come to nothing," said one of the people with knowledge of the talks. "And this is probably what is stopping tough action from being taken."

The Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment. Yandex declined to comment. In a results filing late last month the company said its plans for the potential corporate restructuring were "progressing".

Moscow has previous form. It seized assets in the Sakhalin oil and gas projects last year by presidential decree and has taken the Russian assets of four Western firms under "temporary control" in 2023, including handing the running of French food group Danone's (DANO.PA) Russian subsidiary to the nephew of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Yandex co-founder Arkady Volozh, in a statement on Thursday criticising what he described as Russia's "barbaric" invasion, said he had been focused on extricating "talented Russian engineers" from the country since the war started.

"These people are now out, and in a position to start something new, continuing to drive technological innovation," he said. "They will be a tremendous asset to the countries in which they land."

It is not yet clear whether Volozh's comments may have any bearing on how Russia decides to proceed with the company.

TALKS AT STANDSTILL

Sources told Reuters in May that shareholders in Yandex's Dutch holding company, Yandex NV, could be in line to make $7 billion from a full divestment of its Russian businesses and that Yandex had received bids from several Russian billionaires.

The likelihood of Yandex successfully divesting, however, is diminishing, three of the sources said.

Talks are currently at a standstill. The fourth source said Yandex's people were the key asset and that no one wanted to be seen to be "killing the company".

One of the sources said "hawks" in state companies believed nothing at all should be paid to foreigners. There was a risk that the "brains" at Yandex would leave en masse if the company were nationalised or sold to a state firm, the source added.

Andrei Kostin, CEO of state-owned Russian lender VTB (VTBR.MM), in June proposed that Moscow should take temporary control of Yandex's assets, decrying the fact that Western investors were set to gain.

VTB was the only party to publicly state that it had bid for Yandex, before later announcing a withdrawal from the process. Two sources said VTB had never been a serious option as a buyer, given sanctions on the state lender.

VTB did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Extracting funds from Russia is getting harder. Obtaining approval for deals, with Moscow now demanding a 50% discount among other requirements, is a lengthy and difficult process, Western company executives have told Reuters.

For Yandex, last month's U.S. sanctions on Alexei Kudrin, the former finance minister acting as a mediator between the Kremlin and the company, are another headache, two of the sources said.

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IN AN EERIE echo of 2018’s Camp Fire, which sped through the town of Paradise, California, destroying 19,000 buildings and killing 85 people, ferocious wildfires are tearing through Maui, forcing some people to flee into the ocean. Much of the town of Lahaina is now ash, and the death toll stands at 36 so far. 

Like so many other places around the world, the island of Maui is being swept into the Age of Flames, also known as the Pyrocene. In places where fire is a natural part of the landscape, like California, wildfires now burn with ever greater ferocity, oftentimes spawning their own towering thunderclouds made of smoke, or obliterating ecosystems instead of resetting them for new growth. And where wildfire was once very rare in the landscape, like Maui, residents and governments are struggling to cope with their descent into the firestorm. 

“Hawaii's ecosystem is not adapted to fire. It is destroyed by fire,” says Elizabeth Pickett, co-executive director of the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization. “So we don't have good fire and bad fire. We have bad fire, period.” 

In the immediate term, what’s driving Maui’s fires is what makes wildfires so deadly anywhere in the world: wind. Hurricane Dora, which is churning hundreds of miles to the south, is a low-pressure system. Meanwhile, to Hawaii’s north, a high pressure system has formed. Those opposing systems have created 80-mile-per-hour gusts across Maui, driving the flames forward. Once the fire reaches a town like Lahaina, it easily hops from structure to structure. (California’s wind-driven wildfires have been known to throw embers miles ahead of the actual fire, setting new blazes ahead.)

Maui is in its dry season, but parts of the island were already abnormally parched, to the point of moderate or severe drought, according to the US Drought Monitor. Less moisture in the landscape means that vegetation dries out and piles up, ready to burn. Dry winds exacerbate this problem by scouring the landscape, sucking out any moisture that might remain. In general, as the atmosphere warms with climate change, the air gets thirstier and thirstier, leading to further desiccation. (Hot air can hold more moisture than cold air.)

Historical factors have also conspired to push Maui into the Pyrocene. When Europeans arrived in the late 18th century and established plantations for growing sugarcane and pineapple, they also brought invasive grasses. Now the economics have changed, and those fields lie fallow. But the grasses have spread like a plague. “Those fire-prone invasive species fill in any gaps anywhere else—roadsides, in between communities, in between people’s homes, all over the place,” says Pickett. “At this point, 26 percent of our state is covered in these fire-prone grasses.”

This stuff is highly sensitive to short-term fluctuations in rainfall. The grass will grow like crazy when the rains come, then quickly desiccate when the landscape dries. “When we get these events like we’re seeing these past few days—when the relative humidity really drops low—all those fine fuels become very explosive,” says fire ecologist Clay Trauernicht of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. 

While the contribution of climate change to these Hawaiian fires hasn’t fully been worked out, Trauernicht says, it’s clear that something has gone awry. But between 1920 and 2012, over 90 percent of the state has seen a drying trend. “It's really coming from the firefighters, who are also telling us that they're seeing fire behavior that they haven't seen in 20 years fighting fires on these islands,” Trauernicht says. “The extreme fire behavior coming up out of these grasslands in particular—the erratic movement and rapid spread and the intensity—that's my kind of yardstick. Is climate change affecting fire? It’s definitely making it more challenging to work with.”

Social dynamics are also making these Hawaiian wildfires far more dangerous. People are at the greatest risk along the “wildland-urban interface,” or WUI—the places where human development butts up against vegetation. The town of Paradise was very much like this, with lots of vegetation interspersed with buildings. “Virtually every community in Hawaii is on a wildland-urban interface,” says Pickett. “So we're just like a WUI state, because we have developments that are all adjacent to wildland areas, or surrounded by wildland areas.”

That’s not only putting more people in the path of fast-moving wildfires, but providing more sources of ignition in the first place: cars driving over dry grass, camp fires, fireworks. “Lahaina hasn’t changed much—it’s been where it’s been for a long, long time,” says Trauernicht. “But that landscape around it has gone through some dramatic changes, just within the past couple of decades. And that’s really like the message that we’ve been trying to harp on, is that this is a fuel-management problem.”

Which means it’s a solvable problem. There’s already growing awareness of the dry vegetation issue in Hawaii, Pickett and Trauernicht say. Not only can communities clear more brush, but they can also bolster wetlands, which act as natural firebreaks and support native species. And then, maybe, no other Hawaiian community will have to suffer Lahaina’s fate. “The vegetation is within our control,” says Trauernicht. “Unfortunately, this is the worst outcome you can imagine. And maybe this will make people wake up.”

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Researchers say, the specific abnormalities seem to be dictated by the size of the child's brain, a finding that could help doctors and researchers to diagnosis and treat autism in the future. The findings were published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

"It's amazing that children with the same symptoms end up with two distinct forms of altered neural networks," said Dr. Flora Vaccarino, the Harris Professor in the Child Study Center at Yale School of Medicine and co-senior author of the paper.

Using stem cells collected from 13 boys diagnosed with autism—including eight boys with macrocephaly, a condition in which the head is enlarged—a Yale team created brain organoids (small, three-dimensional replicas of the developing brain) in a lab dish that mimic neuronal growth in the fetus. They then compared brain development of these affected children with their fathers. (Patients were recruited from clinician colleagues at the Yale Child Study Center, which conducts research, service, and training to improve understanding of health issues facing children and their families.)

The study was co-led by Alexandre Jourdon, Feinan Wu, and Jessica Mariani, all from Vaccarino's lab at the Yale School of Medicine.

About 20% of autism cases involve individuals with macrocephaly, a condition in which a child's head size is in the 90th percentile or greater at birth. Among autism cases these tend to be more severe.

Intriguingly, the researchers found that children with autism and macrocephaly exhibited excessive growth of excitatory neurons compared with their fathers while organoids of other children with autism showed a deficit of the same type of neurons.

The ability to track the growth of specific types of neurons could help doctors diagnose autism, symptoms of which generally appear 18 to 24 months after birth, the authors say.

The findings may also help identify autism cases that might benefit from existing drugs designed to ameliorate symptoms of disorders marked by excessive excitatory neuron activity, such as epilepsy, Vaccarino said. Autism patients with macrocephaly might benefit from such drugs while those without enlarged brains may not, she said.

Creating biobanks of patient-derived stem cells could be essential to tailor therapeutics to specific individuals, or personalized medicine.

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They have found more evidence that sub-atomic particles, called muons, are not behaving in the way predicted by the current theory of sub-atomic physics.

Scientists believe that an unknown force could be acting on the muons.

More data will be needed to confirm these results, but if they are verified, it could mark the beginning of a revolution in physics.

All of the forces we experience every day can be reduced to just four categories: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force and the weak force. These four fundamental forces govern how all the objects and particles in the Universe interact with each other.

The findings have been made at a US particle accelerator facility called Fermilab. They build on results announced in 2021 in which the Fermilab team first suggested the possibility of a fifth force of nature.

Since then, the research team has gathered more data and reduced the uncertainty of their measurements by a factor of two, according to Dr Brendan Casey, a senior scientist at Fermilab.

"We're really probing new territory. We're determining the (measurements) at a better precision than it has ever been seen before."

In an experiment with the catchy name 'g minus two (g-2)' the researchers accelerate the sub-atomic particles called muons around a 50-foot-diameter ring, where they are circulated about 1,000 times at nearly the speed of light. The researchers found that they might be behaving in a way that can't be explained by the current theory, which is called the Standard Model, because of the influence of a new force of nature.

< Watch the video at the the source page. >

Although the evidence is strong, the Fermilab team hasn't yet got conclusive proof.

They had hoped to have it by now, but uncertainties in what the standard model says the amount of wobbling in muons should be, has increased, because of developments in theoretical physics.

In essence, the goal posts have been moved for the experimental physicists.

Based on a 2,700-hectare site near Chicago, Fermilab is America's premier particle physics lab

The researchers believe that they will have the data they need, and that the theoretical uncertainty will have narrowed in two years' time sufficiently for them to get their goal. That said, a rival team at Europe's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are hoping to get there first.

Dr Mitesh Patel from Imperial College London is among the thousands of physicists at the LHC attempting to find flaws in the Standard Model. He told BBC News that the first people to find experimental results at odds with the standard model would be one of the all time breakthroughs in physics.

"Measuring behaviour that doesn't agree with the predictions of the Standard Model is the holy grail for particle physics. It would fire the starting-gun for a revolution in our understanding because the model has withstood all experimental tests for more than 50 years."

Fermilab says that its next set of results will be "the ultimate showdown" between theory and experiment that may uncover new particles or forces.

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe are also in the race to find inconsistencies with the Standard Model

So what is the Standard Model and why is getting an experimental result that doesn't quite fit in with its predictions such a big deal?

Everything in the world around us is made from atoms - which in turn are made from even smaller particles. These interact to create the four forces of nature: electricity and magnetism (electromagnetism), two nuclear forces and gravity.

Their behaviour is predicted by the standard model, and for fifty years it has predicted their behaviour perfectly, with no errors whatsoever.

Muons are similar to electrons which orbit atoms and are responsible for electrical currents, but they are about 200 times as massive.

In the experiment they were made to wobble, using powerful, superconducting magnets.

Galaxies are accelerating apart from each other faster than predicted by teh Standard Model

The results showed that the muons wobbled faster than the standard model said it should. Prof Graziano Venanzoni, of Liverpool University, who is one of the leading researchers on the project, told BBC News that this might be caused by an unknown new force.

"We think there could be another force, something that we are not aware of now. It is something different, which we call the 'fifth force'.

"It is something different, something we don't know about yet, but it should be important, because it says something new about the Universe."

If confirmed, this would represent arguably one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs for a hundred years, since Einstein's theories of relativity. That is because a fifth force and any particles associated with it are not part of the Standard Model of particle physics.

Researchers know that there is what they describe as "physics beyond the Standard Model" out there, because the current theory can't explain lots of things that astronomers observe in space.

These include the fact that galaxies are continuing to accelerate apart after the Big Bang that created the Universe, rather than the expansion slowing down. Scientists say the acceleration is being driven by an unknown force, called dark energy.

Galaxies are also spinning faster than they should, according to our understanding of how much material is in them. Researchers believe it's because of invisible particles called dark matter, which again are not part of the Standard Model.

The results have been published in the Journal Physical Review Letters.

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A new measurement of the strong nuclear force, which binds protons and neutrons together, confirms previous hints of an uncomfortable truth: We still don’t have a solid theoretical grasp of even the simplest nuclear systems.

To test the strong nuclear force, physicists turned to the helium-4 nucleus, which has two protons and two neutrons. When helium nuclei are excited, they grow like an inflating balloon until one of the protons pops off. Surprisingly, in a recent experiment, helium nuclei didn’t swell according to plan: They ballooned more than expected before they burst. A measurement describing that expansion, called the form factor, is twice as large as theoretical predictions.

“The theory should work,” said Sonia Bacca, a theoretical physicist at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz and an author of the paper describing the discrepancy, which was published in Physical Review Letters. “We’re puzzled.”

The swelling helium nucleus, researchers say, is a sort of mini-laboratory for testing nuclear theory because it’s like a microscope—it can magnify deficiencies in theoretical calculations. Physicists think certain peculiarities in that swelling make it supremely sensitive to even the faintest components of the nuclear force—factors so small that they’re usually ignored. How much the nucleus swells also corresponds to the squishiness of nuclear matter, a property that offers insights into the mysterious hearts of neutron stars. But before explaining the crush of matter in neutron stars, physicists must first figure out why their predictions are so far off.

Bira van Kolck, a nuclear theorist at the French National Center for Scientific Research, said Bacca and her colleagues have exposed a significant problem in nuclear physics. They’ve found, he said, an instance where our best understanding of nuclear interactions—a framework known as chiral effective field theory—has fallen short.

“This transition amplifies the problems [with the theory] that in other situations are not so relevant,” van Kolck said.

The Strong Nuclear Force

Atomic nucleons—protons and neutrons—are held together by the strong force. But the theory of the strong force was not developed to explain how nucleons stick together. Instead, it was first used to explain how protons and neutrons are made of elementary particles called quarks and gluons.

For many years, physicists didn’t understand how to use the strong force to understand the stickiness of protons and neutrons. One problem was the bizarre nature of the strong force—it grows stronger with increasing distance, rather than slowly dying off. This feature prevented them from using their usual calculation tricks. When particle physicists want to understand a particular system, they typically parcel out a force into more manageable approximate contributions, order those contributions from most important to least important, then simply ignore the less important contributions. With the strong force, they couldn’t do that.

Then in 1990, Steven Weinberg found a way to connect the world of quarks and gluons to sticky nuclei. The trick was to use an effective field theory—a theory that is only as detailed as it needs to be to describe nature at a particular size (or energy) scale. To describe the behavior of a nucleus, you don’t need to know about quarks and gluons. Instead, at these scales, a new effective force emerges—the strong nuclear force, transmitted between nucleons by the exchange of pions.

Weinberg’s work helped physicists understand how the strong nuclear force emerges from the strong force. It also made it possible for them to perform theoretical calculations based on the usual method of approximate contributions. The theory—chiral effective theory—is now widely considered the “best theory we have,” Bacca said, for calculating the forces that govern the behavior of nuclei.

Sonia Bacca, a physicist at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, found that our best theoretical understanding

of the strong nuclear force is at odds with experimental results.Photograph: Angelika Stehle

In 2013, Bacca used this effective field theory to predict how much an excited helium nucleus would swell. But when she compared her calculation to experiments performed in the 1970s and 1980s, she found a substantial discrepancy. She’d predicted less swelling than the amounts measured, but the experimental error bars were too big for her to be sure.

Ballooning Nuclei

After that first hint of a problem, Bacca encouraged her colleagues at Mainz to repeat the decades-old experiments—they had sharper tools at their disposal and could make more precise measurements. Those discussions led to a new collaboration: Simon Kegel and his colleagues would update the experimental work, and Bacca and her colleagues would try to understand the same intriguing mismatch, if it emerged.

In their experiment, Kegel and his colleagues excited the nuclei by shooting a beam of electrons at a tank of cold helium gas. If an electron zipped within range of one of the helium nuclei, it donated some of its excess energy to the protons and neutrons, causing the nucleus to inflate. This inflated state was fleeting—the nucleus quickly lost grasp of one of its protons, decaying into a hydrogen nucleus with two neutrons, plus a free proton.

As with other nuclear transitions, only a specific amount of donated energy will allow the nucleus to swell. By varying the electrons’ momentum and observing how the helium responded, scientists could measure the expansion. The team then compared this change in a nucleus’s spread—the form factor—with a variety of theoretical calculations. None of the theories matched the data. But, strangely, the calculation that came closest used an oversimplified model of the nuclear force—not the chiral effective field theory.

“This was totally unexpected,” said Bacca.

Other researchers are equally mystified. “It’s a clean, well-done experiment. So I trust the data,” said Laura Elisa Marcucci, a physicist at the University of Pisa in Italy. But, she said, the experiment and theory contradict one another, so one of them must be wrong.

Bringing Balance to the Force

In hindsight, physicists had several reasons to suspect that this simple measurement would probe the limits of our understanding of nuclear forces.

First, this system is particularly persnickety. The energy needed to produce the transiently inflated helium nucleus—the state researchers want to study—lies just above the energy needed to expel a proton and just below that same threshold for a neutron. That makes everything hard to calculate.

The second reason has to do with Weinberg’s effective field theory. It worked because it allowed physicists to ignore the less important parts of the equations. Van Kolck contends that some of the parts deemed less important and routinely ignored are in fact very important. The microscope provided by this particular helium measurement, he said, is illuminating that basic error.

“I cannot be too critical because these calculations are very difficult,” he added. “They’re doing the best they can.”

Several groups, including van Kolck’s, plan to repeat Bacca’s calculations and find out what went wrong. It’s possible that simply including more terms in the approximation of the nuclear force might be the answer. On the other hand, it’s also possible that these ballooning helium nuclei have exposed a fatal flaw in our understanding of the nuclear force.

“We exposed the puzzle, but unfortunately we have not solved the puzzle,” Bacca said. “Not yet.”

Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.

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However, this is something scientists are now looking to change.

It's been announced that clinical trials for a potential tooth regrowth treatment are set to begin in July 2024, building on decades of research in the field. If those trials are successful, therapeutic drugs could be available by 2030.

A team from the Medical Research Institute at Kitano Hospital in Japan is in charge of the trial, which is targeting people with anodontia, a rare genetic condition that prevents baby teeth and adult teeth from growing in the normal way.

The treatment would initially target young children with the condition, but further down the line, the researchers think it could also be used more broadly – with people who have more common dental problems, such as gum disease, for example.

"The idea of growing new teeth is every dentist's dream," Katsu Takahashi, head of the dentistry and oral surgery department at Kitano Hospital, told The Mainichi. "I've been working on this since I was a graduate student. I was confident I'd be able to make it happen."

Here's how it works: having found a link between a specific gene called USAG-1 and limits on tooth growth in mice, the researchers then moved on to tests that tried to block the expression of USAG-1.

An antibody was discovered that could safely block some of the activity of USAG-1 in mice and ferrets without leading to any serious side effects, leading to induced tooth growth.

The next step is to see if the same chemical reactions can be controlled in humans.

We're talking about potential rather than reality at the moment, but it might be possible to use the new drug to prompt the growth of a third generation of teeth in the mouth, after baby teeth and full-sized adult teeth.

As the researchers point out in a recent scientific review, the benefit of the approach is that teeth growth is being triggered in a natural way, through a process known as bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling.

Our bodies are naturally doing the work, without any complicated engineering of stem cells required.

The team also suggests that advancements in scanning technology (such as mass spectrometry, for example) will make it easier to spot biomarkers indicating the people who will benefit most from the treatment.

"Anti-USAG-1 antibody treatment in mice is effective for tooth regeneration and can be a breakthrough in treating tooth anomalies in humans," write the researchers.

A paper on the research was published in Nature in July 2021.

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ZeroAvia’s half-hydrogen aircraft

While Beyond Aero aims to launch its first aircraft in 2030, a British/American startup is confident it can bring hydrogen power to the skies as early as 2025. To achieve this aim, ZeroAvia is developing engines that can be retrofitted onto existing aircraft. “There is a large fleet of aircraft which can be retrofitted with fuel cell powertrains. This is a quicker way of putting the technology into service,” ZeroAvia’s chief strategy officer, James McMicking, said.

 

He added that, although retrofitting may not allow the aircraft to travel its full design range, it will still be adequate for the customers. “We think we can actually deliver the cost reduction for the customers because many of these airframes have been designed to fly a lot further than they ever used to.”

 

“When we retrofit an aircraft, we add some weight because the first generation of these engines is heavier than the turbine. We compensate for the extra weight by reducing its range.” McMicking said the range of a Donner 228 retrofitted with a hydrogen fuel cell will be in the order of 250 to 300 nautical miles, which is one half of a standard aircraft. “But even the reduced range is still adequate for 98 percent of all the missions that these aircraft fly,” he explained.

 

ZeroAvia’s first product will be a 600 kilowatt hydrogen fuel cell engine, a prototype of which is currently being tested on a 19-seater Dornier 228 aircraft. “One engine of the aircraft uses a 600 kilowatt fuel cell that matches the performance of a stock turboprop on the other side of the aircraft. We have done so because when you're experimenting with any new technology in this industry, you want to ensure maximum level of safety. So in case we need to shut down the engine for any reason, we can do so and yet still have power from the other at the same time,” he said.

 

“To get the experimental certificate for the aircraft, we had to demonstrate to the regulator that the aircraft could climb out of the takeoff on the hydrogen electric engine, in case the turboprop had to be shut down,” he added.

 

According to McMicking, this engine produces enough power for 19 seater aircraft. “We are partnering with OEMs such as Textron and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. We will start the certification program at the beginning of next year and aim to get the first product in the market by the end of 2025,” he said.

 

McMicking said that the new powertrain will match the turbine performance in terms of power and thrust. “The pilot will be able to operate it close to the standard performance of the aircraft. There are some compromises involved in the retrofit approach. But, you end up with an economically advantageous solution on a per-seat basis and obviously zero emissions,” he said.

 

He said the company is also ensuring that its sources of hydrogen are the cleanest possible. "We are offering our customers engine contracts that include hydrogen. That means we will be responsible for sourcing the hydrogen. We are doing a lot of research and development in green hydrogen infrastructure. We have a demonstrator that uses solar power to produce hydrogen,” he said.

 

McMicking said that ZeroAvia’s next offering would be a bigger engine and liquid hydrogen storage systems for ATR 72  and Dash 8 aircraft, turboprops that carry up to 78 passengers.

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In coastal Iran on Tuesday, the heat index leaped as high as 158 degrees (70 Celsius), a level so extreme that it can test the ability of humans to survive outside for more than a few hours.

Heat indexes have regularly surpassed 140 degrees (60 Celsius) in the region in recent weeks, while nights have offered little relief. In populous cities such as Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait City, heat indexes have only fallen to 100 to 120 degrees (37.8 to 48.9 Celsius) after dark.

Excessive heat is very much the norm in this region, but it is now particularly intense as the planet reaches its highest temperatures on record.

In recent days, Persian Gulf sea surface temperatures have risen as high as 97.6 degrees (36.4 Celsius), the highest in 20 years of satellite data at this time of year. The hot tub-like waters are similar to those recently observed near the Florida Keys as oceans worldwide set records for warmth.

Sea surface temperature in the Persian Gulf.
© Ian Livingston/Ian Livingston

This summer has featured unusually extended spells of scorching weather in the Middle East as zones of high pressure — known as heat domes — have sprawled across a region from North Africa through southern Europe and South Asia.

August opened with a two-day countrywide shutdown in Iran as temperatures soared to at least 126 degrees in the Khuzestan province. The southern Iraq city of Basrah was similarly hot. Temperatures also soared past 124 degrees (51 Celsius) in Ahvaz, Iran, which holds the record for Asia’s highest temperature, 129 degrees (54 Celsius) in 2017.

The baking Persian Gulf has delivered particularly high heat indexes in recent days. On Tuesday, a location on the Iranian island of Qeshm at the intersection of the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman reached a heat index of 158 degrees (70 Celsius). In July, this same area saw levels up to 165 degrees (73.9 Celsius).

Maximum hourly heat index on Tuesday.
© Ian Livingston/Ian Livingston

Farther north along the gulf, the oil and energy hub of Asaluyeh, Iran, saw its heat index reach 146 degrees (63.3 Celsius) Tuesday and 148 degrees (64.4 Celsius) Wednesday. Its August peak was 153 degrees (67.2 Celsius) on the 5th. The average daily low for heat index in the same period was 107 degrees (41.7 Celsius). Through the 9th, the 24-hour average heat index has been a sultry 126 degrees (52.2 Celsius).

The major port city of Bushehr, roughly 150 miles up the coast from Asaluyeh and home to Iran’s controversial nuclear program, has endured unusually extensive periods of extreme heat indexes this year. Data processed by the Iowa Environmental Mesonet shows that excessive heat indexes of 118 to 128 degrees have occurred two to three times more often than normal.

The Persian Gulf waters have promoted suffocating humidity levels. Dew points — a measure of humidity — have persistently reached 90 to 95 degrees (32.2 to 35 Celsius) in adjacent land areas; in the United States, any point over 70 degrees (21.1 Celsius) is considered uncomfortably humid. And peak sea surface temperatures in the region have trended upward in recent years.

Persian Gulf sea surface temperature maximum over the last 20 years.

The combination of the searing heat sourced from nearby deserts and extraordinary humidity from the gulf results in a sweltering setting not seen elsewhere on Earth.

As the planet warms, places in and around the Persian Gulf region are expected to become increasingly inhospitable, and the footprint of unbearable heat will grow.

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Horrified Michelle Lespron said she ‘slammed the lid back down right away’ after spotting the black and pink-coloured coachwhip snake.

Michelle – who lives in the Catalina Foothills area of Tucson, Arizona, US – had popped to the loo shortly after returning from a trip to Nashville.

She said she couldn’t wait to sleep in her own bed and use her own bathroom, but instead discovered the hissing intruder in her home.

Preferring not to catch the snake herself, she enlisted the help of experts, Rattlesnake Solutions

However, it took handler Nick three visits over two days to catch the elusive reptile.

A video shows him bursting into the bathroom and quickly grabbing the snake before it bares its fangs and hisses at the camera.

The coachwhip snake as the handler removes it from the toilet (Picture: Jam Press)
© Provided by Metro

She said: ‘He’s my hero, Nick at Rattlesnake Solutions is my absolute hero.’

Although coachwhips are non-venomous they can often aggressively when anyone tries to handle them.

However, according to Rattlesnake Solutions it’s unusual for the species slither their way into a toilet.

The firm’s owner Bryan Hughes coachwhips are very sneaky, which meant capturing the snake wasn’t completely straight forward.

He added: ‘A coachwhip – some people call it a red racer but this one isn’t red – is a fast, intelligent snake.

‘It eats rattlesnakes, it climbs trees, it climbs houses, it does what it wants.’

The company also joked that Michelle has ‘the most famous toilet since Elvis’.

Michelle said it took her a while before she was able to use the toilet again, even though she knew the snake had been removed.

She said: ‘I actually had all my toiletries from the trip I had been on, so I just moved everything to the other bathroom.

‘I kept flushing the toilet before I’d even decided to sit down, I always turn my light on even at night when I’m tired.

‘I always leave my toilet lid closed and my father puts screens on the top of any openings on my roof so snakes and other animals can’t worm their way through.”

One local resident commented: ‘That is an incredibly beautiful snake.

‘Of course, I’ve never heard of it, but wow it’s so exotic looking.’

Another remarked: ‘I always look before I sit.’

Meanwhile a Texas woman was attacked by a snake and a hawk at the same time after the bird- which eats snakes- dropped the serpent on her while flying overhead.

Peggy Jones, 64, was mowing her lawn when out of nowhere, a snake suddenly fell on top of her and wrapped itself around her arm.

She tried to shake the snake loose but it refused to let her go and began striking her in the face, with Peggy’s glasses being the only protection she had from a potentially fatal bite.

To make matters worse, a hawk then swooped down moments later and also began attacking her arm as it attempted to reclaim its lost prey.

Eventually the hawk – successful in its scavenge – ripped the snake from her arm and flew away, leaving her bloodied and covered in bruises and deep lacerations.

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But Carter's glory and fame came at a price: On the day Carter opened the tomb, a snake killed his canary. Some of the Egyptian staff regarded it as a "warning from the spirit of the departed King against further intrusion on the privacy of his tomb," the New York Times reported.

Rumors continued to swirl of a mummy curse that Carter had unleashed, especially when people associated with the excavation started dying.

However, as decades passed and more members of Carter's team died, scientists began to wonder if there was a much more mundane reason for the deaths.

The tomb of Tutankhamun and the first death attributed to the curse

In April 1923, George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, lay feverish and coughing in a Cairo hospital. When he died on April 5, the lights in the city went out, LiveScience reported.

Back at his home in Hampshire, England, Lord Carnarvon's dog, Susie, died within a few hours of when he succumbed.

The NYT listed cause of death as pneumonia, triggered by an infected insect bite he had cut while shaving. But because he'd been present at the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb a few months prior, rumors of a curse started to swirl.

Lord Carnarvon, his daughter Lady Evelyn Herbert, and Howard Carter stand at the entrance to the tomb of Tutankhamun. (Harry Burton/Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Lord Carnarvon's NYT obituary noted that even before he was ill, "there had been talk of curses laid by the ancient Egyptians, with mystic incantations, on any who dared disturb the sleep of a Pharaoh."

A day after Carnarvon's death, the paper quoted spiritualist and Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as saying "a malevolent spirit may have caused Lord Carnarvon's fatal illness."

Around the same time, however, Sir Ernest A. Wallis Budge of the British Museum described the curse theories as "bunkum" to the NYT.

The many deaths connected to Tutankhamun's curse

Whispers of the curse continued when American financier George Jay Gould died in May 1923 of pneumonia, a few months after visiting the tomb, per JSTOR.

And Philip Livingston Poe, a relative of Edgar Allen Poe, also caught pneumonia a few months after visiting the tomb in 1923. His illness made the papers and was connected to the "Mummies' Curse," though he lived another 47 years.

When Richard Bethell, Howard Carter's secretary, died in 1929, various reports said he was either the ninth, tenth, or thirteenth person associated with the excavation to die.

In total, the number of deaths that newspapers attributed to the curse ranged from nine to over 20, depending on whether you include visitors to the tomb and excavators' relatives.

The wide range of deaths attributed to the curse included those killed in car accidents, shootings, a house fire, and those who took their own lives. Some had never visited the tomb and were merely related to someone who had.

Egyptologist Howard Carter, left, and an unidentified man, examine the sarcophagus of King Tutankhamun. (Apic/Getty Images)

Despite the Western media's voracious appetite for this mummy curse notion, it was very rare for Western newspapers to include Egyptians' deaths in their curse coverage. One of the few was Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey, who reportedly visited the tomb. In 1923, his wife shot and killed him at the Savoy Hotel in London, and a sensational trial followed.

But dozens of Egyptian laborers contributed physical and skilled labor to excavate Tutankhamun's tomb. Because Carter never named most of them in his notes, and they were rarely mentioned in the press, it's difficult to know how clearing millennials-old dust and debris affected their health.

The curse of the fungi?

As the decades passed, some scientists wondered if there was something deadly lurking in Tutankhamun's tomb: fungi.

Two physicians published a letter in The Lancet in 2003 stating that aspergillus, a common mold, could have sickened Lord Carnarvon.

Aspergillosis can cause coughing, shortness of breath, but it's more serious for those who have weakened immune systems. Lord Carnarvon originally began visiting Egypt after a serious car accident in 1903 damaged his lungs, which would have made him especially susceptible to the mold.

For a 2013 study, Harvard University researchers looked at brown spots found on the walls of Tutankhamun's tomb, which were present when Carter first unsealed the tomb. The microbiologists wanted to determine if fungi or other microbes were responsible for the spots and posed a health risk to visitors.

Egyptian carpenters prepare to reseal Tutankhamun's tomb with Howard Carter circa 1923. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

While the analysis found evidence of fungal communities and bacteria, they were no longer active and posed no threat to visitors or the paintings.

It's impossible to say if aspergillus or any other fungi contributed to Lord Carnarvon's or Gould's deaths. Today, archaeologists wear gloves, masks, and sometimes a disposable clothing barrier to protect themselves from mold and fungi, according to "Dangerous Places: Health, Safety, and Archaeology."

Perhaps the most mundane explanation of the curse comes from Frank McClanahan, a physician who treated Lord Carnarvon during his illness in Luxor. The deaths are a small number of the many who visited the tomb.

[T]here were archaeologists coming and going all the time from all parts of the world," he said in a 1972 interview. "If you took any large crowd of people and checked back later, you would find a certain percentage of deaths among them."

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Hospitals on Maui are overwhelmed with patients suffering from burns and smoke inhalation as wildfires rage uncontrolled on the famously beautiful Hawaiian island. Evacuation orders are in place in several areas of the island, and a few people even fled into the ocean to avoid encroaching flames.

The devastating Maui fires, along with some on Hawaii’s Big Island, are the product of a confluence of weather conditions—namely, strong winds, dry vegetation and low humidity—says Robert Bohlin, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s (NWS’s) office in Honolulu.

The stage was set by drought conditions across various parts of the state’s islands, especially Maui. “This is the time of year when we start to dry out,” Bohlin says. That typical dryness has been exacerbated by weaker-than-normal trade winds that have kept rain away, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Drought dries out grasses and other vegetation, making them more likely to ignite in a wildfire.

Two other factors have been a large atmospheric pattern that features a strong high-pressure area to the north of the islands and a strong low-pressure area—in the form of Hurricane Dora—to the south. Wind tends to flow from high-pressure areas to low-pressure ones, and the stronger the pressure difference, the faster the winds. “We’re in that sweet spot between that very strong high and that very strong low,” Bohlin says. And the islands’ rugged terrain can sometimes funnel those winds and create stronger gusts. The NWS had warned of winds of 30 to 45 miles per hour, with gusts up to 60 mph. 

Such strong winds can quickly spread flames. “The fire can be a mile or more from your house, but in a minute or two, it can be at your house,” said Maui County’s fire assistant chief Jeff Giesea in a recent press release from the county.

The large atmospheric patterns “also brought in some really dry air,” Bohlin says, which promotes fire growth as well.

All of these conditions make it very difficult for firefighters to beat back the flames, which can spread faster and more unpredictably. Firefighting aircraft have been unable to fly because of the high winds, according to news reports.

The spreading flames have destroyed businesses on the major tourist strip of Front Street in the town of Lahaina on the western side of Maui. Parts of this side of the island have been cut off from communication, and 911 services are not available there, according to the county government.

Thousands of people are also without power. The National Guard has been deployed, and Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke has asked the White House to declare a federal emergency.

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Acid reflux is when stomach acid flows into the esophagus, usually after a meal or when lying down. People with acid reflux may experience heartburn and ulcers. People with frequent acid reflux may develop gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, which can lead to cancer of the esophagus.

Proton pump inhibitors reduce stomach acid by targeting the enzymes in the stomach lining that produce that acid.

"Proton pump inhibitors are a useful tool to help control acid reflux, however long-term use has been linked in previous studies to a higher risk of stroke, bone fractures and chronic kidney disease," said study author Kamakshi Lakshminarayan, MBBS, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in Minneapolis, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology.

"Still, some people take these drugs regularly, so we examined if they are linked to a higher risk of dementia. While we did not find a link with short-term use, we did find a higher risk of dementia associated with long-term use of these drugs."

The study included 5,712 people, age 45 and older, who did not have dementia at the start of the study. They had an average age of 75.

Researchers determined if participants took acid reflux drugs by reviewing their medications during study visits and during yearly phone calls. Of the participants, 1,490 people, or 26%, had taken the drugs. Participants were then divided into four groups based on whether they had taken the drugs and for how long, as follows: people who did not take the drugs; those who took the drugs for up to 2.8 years; those who took them for 2.8 to 4.4 years; and people who took them for more than 4.4 years.

Participants were then followed for a median duration of 5.5 years. During this time, 585 people, or 10%, developed dementia.

Of the 4,222 people who did not take the drugs, 415 people developed dementia, or 19 cases per 1,000 person-years. Person-years represent both the number of people in the study and the amount of time each person spends in the study. Of the 497 people who took the drugs for more than 4.4 years, 58 people developed dementia, or 24 cases per 1,000 person years.

After adjusting for factors such as age, sex and race, as well as health-related factors such as high blood pressure and diabetes, researchers found people who had been taking acid reflux drugs for more than 4.4 years had a 33% higher risk of developing dementia than people who never took the drugs.

Researchers did not find a higher risk of dementia for people who took the drugs for fewer than 4.4 years.

"More research is needed to confirm our findings and explore reasons for the possible link between long-term proton pump inhibitor use and a higher risk of dementia," said Lakshminarayan.

"While there are various ways to treat acid reflux, such as taking antacids, maintaining a healthy weight, and avoiding late meals and certain foods, different approaches may not work for everyone. It is important that people taking these medications speak with their doctor before making any changes, to discuss the best treatment for them, and because stopping these drugs abruptly may result in worse symptoms."

A limitation of the study was that participants were asked once a year about medication use, so researchers estimated use between annual check-ins. If participants stopped and restarted acid reflux drugs in between check-ins, estimation of their use may have been inaccurate. The authors were also unable to assess if participants took over the counter acid reflux drugs.

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At an old biscuit factory in South London, giant mixers and industrial ovens have been replaced by robotic arms, incubators, and DNA sequencing machines. James Field and his company LabGenius aren’t making sweet treats; they’re cooking up a revolutionary, AI-powered approach to engineering new medical antibodies.

In nature, antibodies are the body’s response to disease and serve as the immune system’s front-line troops. They’re strands of protein that are specially shaped to stick to foreign invaders so that they can be flushed from the system. Since the 1980s, pharmaceutical companies have been making synthetic antibodies to treat diseases like cancer, and to reduce the chance of transplanted organs being rejected.

But designing these antibodies is a slow process for humans—protein designers must wade through the millions of potential combinations of amino acids to find the ones that will fold together in exactly the right way, and then test them all experimentally, tweaking some variables to improve some characteristics of the treatment while hoping that doesn’t make it worse in other ways. “If you want to create a new therapeutic antibody, somewhere in this infinite space of potential molecules sits the molecule you want to find,” says Field, the founder and CEO of LabGenius.

He started the company in 2012 when, while studying for a PhD in synthetic biology at Imperial College London, he saw the costs of DNA sequencing, computation, and robotics all coming down. LabGenius makes use of all three to largely automate the antibody discovery process. At the lab in Bermondsey, a machine learning algorithm designs antibodies to target specific diseases, and then automated robotic systems build and grow them in the lab, run tests, and feed the data back into the algorithm, all with limited human supervision. There are rooms for culturing diseased cells, growing antibodies, and sequencing their DNA: Technicians in lab coats prepare samples and tap away at computers as machines whir in the background.

Human scientists start by identifying a search space of potential antibodies for tackling a particular disease: They need proteins that can differentiate between healthy and diseased cells, stick to the diseased cells, and then recruit an immune cell to finish the job. But these proteins could sit anywhere in the infinite search space of potential options. LabGenius has developed a machine learning model that can explore that space much more quickly and effectively. “The only input you give the system as a human is, here’s an example of a healthy cell, here’s an example of a diseased cell,” says Field. “And then you let the system explore the different [antibody] designs that can differentiate between them.”

The model selects more than 700 initial options from across a search space of 100,000 potential antibodies, and then automatically designs, builds, and tests them, with the aim of finding potentially fruitful areas to investigate in more depth. Think of choosing the perfect car from a field of thousands: You might start by choosing a broad colour, and then filter from there into specific shades.

James Field, founder and CEO of LabGenius.

Photograph: LabGenius

The tests are almost fully automated, with an array of high-end equipment involved in preparing samples and running them through the various stages of the testing process: Antibodies are grown based on their genetic sequence and then put to the test on biological assays—samples of the diseased tissue that they’ve been designed to tackle. Humans oversee the process, but their job is largely to move samples from one machine to the next.

“When you have the experimental results from that first set of 700 molecules, that information gets fed back to the model and is used to refine the model’s understanding of the space,” says Field. In other words, the algorithm begins to build a picture of how different antibody designs change the effectiveness of treatment—with each subsequent round of antibody designs, it gets better, carefully balancing exploitation of potentially fruitful designs with exploration of new areas.

“A challenge with conventional protein engineering is, as soon as you find something that works a bit, you tend to make a very large number of very small tweaks to that molecule to see if you can further refine it,” Field says. Those tweaks may improve one property—how easily the antibody can be made at scale, for instance—but have a disastrous effect on the many other attributes required, such as selectivity, toxicity, potency, and more. The conventional approach means you may be barking up the wrong tree, or missing the wood for the trees—endlessly optimizing something that works a little bit, when there may be far better options in a completely different part of the map.

You’re also constrained by the number of tests you can run, or the number of “shots on goal,” as Field puts it. This means human protein-engineers tend to look for things they know will work. “As a result of that, you get all of these heuristics or rules of thumb that human protein-engineers do to try and find the safe spaces,” Field says. “But as a consequence of that you quickly get the accumulation of dogma.”

The LabGenius approach yields unexpected solutions that humans may not have thought of, and finds them more quickly: It takes just six weeks from setting up a problem to finishing the first batch, all directed by machine learning models. LabGenius has raised $28 million from the likes of Atomico and Kindred, and is beginning to partner with pharmaceutical companies, offering its services like a consultancy. Field says the automated approach could be rolled out to other forms of drug discovery too, turning the long, “artisanal” process of drug discovery into something more streamlined.

Ultimately, Field says, it’s a recipe for better care: antibody treatments that are more effective, or have fewer side effects than existing ones designed by humans. “You find molecules that you would never have found using conventional methods,” he says. “They’re very distinct and often counterintuitive to designs that you as a human would come up with—which should enable us to find molecules with better properties, which ultimately translates into better outcomes for patients.”

This article appears in the September/October 2023 edition of WIRED UK magazine.

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Professor John McGrath from UQ's Queensland Brain Institute, Professor Ronald Kessler from Harvard Medical School, and their colleagues from 27 other countries, analyzed data from more than 150,000 adults across 29 countries between 2001 and 2022, taken from the largest ever coordinated series of face-to-face interviews—the World Health Organization's World Mental Health Survey initiative.

Lead author Professor McGrath said the results demonstrate the high prevalence of mental health disorders, with 50 per cent of the population developing at least one disorder by the age of 75.

"The most common were mood disorders such as major depression or anxiety," Professor McGrath said.

"We also found the risk of certain mental disorders differed by sex."

The three most common mental health disorders among women:

• Depression

• Specific phobia (a disabling anxiety that interferes with daily life)

• Post-traumatic stress (PTSD)

The three most common mental health disorders among men:

• Alcohol abuse

• Depression

• Specific phobia

The research also found mental health disorders typically first emerge in childhood, adolescence or young adulthood.

"The peak age of first onset was at 15 years old, with a median age of onset of 19 for men and 20 for women," Professor McGrath said.

"This lends weight to the need to invest in basic neuroscience to understand why these disorders develop."

Professor Kessler said investment was also needed in mental health services with a particular focus on young people.

"Services need to be able to detect and treat common mental disorders promptly, and be optimized to suit patients in these critical parts of their lives," Professor Kessler said.

"By understanding the age at which these disorders commonly arise, we can tailor public health interventions and allocate resources to ensure that appropriate and timely support is available to individuals at risk."

The researchers said the outcomes provide valuable insights into the frequency and timing of mental disorder onset based on many different populations.

The study is published in The Lancet Psychiatry.

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The latest one was recorded on Monday when an X-class solar flare disrupted radio and navigation signals across North America.

‘X-class’ solar flares are the largest, most disruptive of flares and this one, classified as an X1.5, likely disrupted high-frequency radio communications on the sunlit side of Earth.

According to the Met Office, the flare burst out of the largest and most active sunspot group currently visible on the Sun’s disk.

This was the 20th X flare of the current 11-year solar cycle, which is due to reach its peak next year.

Monday’s flare followed another weaker X-class solar flare just two days earlier. The activity was detected by Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) which captured an image of the action.

Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy that can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.

‘X-class’ solar flares are the largest, most disruptive of flares (Picture: Reuters)

The Sun has seen a flurry of activity on its surface this year, with Nasa astronomers spotting multiple ‘coronal holes’ on our star.

The Sun’s magnetic field goes through a ‘solar cycle’ approximately every 11 years. We are currently in Solar Cycle 25, which forecasters didn’t expect to be this strong.

Nasa observes the Sun and our space environment constantly with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from the Sun’s activity to the solar atmosphere, particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding Earth.

Now, it may be on track to rival some of the stronger cycles of the 20th century.

The monthly average sunspot number for June 2023 was 163, according to the Royal Observatory of Belgium’s Solar Influences Data Analysis Center. This is more than every month since September 2022.

The last time sunspot numbers were this high, the Sun was on the verge of launching the Great Halloween Storms of 2003, which included the strongest X-ray solar flare ever recorded (X45), auroras as far as the south of the US and a coronal mass ejection (CME) so powerful it was ultimately detected by the Voyager spacecraft at the edge of the solar system.

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