December 24, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – A two-tier system that has long made workers leave offspring behind in villages is cutting into birthrates Even as China’s leaders have looked for ways to lift sagging birthrates, Beijing thought there was one group who … Read More
December 24, 2024
(New York Times) – Our reporter went to Congo, where the mpox epidemic has reached the teeming capital, infecting children and their mothers, who sell sex to survive. The detection of a new, fast-spreading strain of the virus in a … Read More
December 23, 2024
(Wired) – In Russia’s war against Ukraine, electronic warfare, including signal-jamming, anti-drone weapons, and innovative protections for critical military systems, has become a key piece of the conflict. EDM4S—or Electronic Drone Mitigation 4 System—is a portable electronic-warfare weapon from Lithuania. … Read More
December 23, 2024
(Knowable Magazine) – Neurologists have grappled with a cluster of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis cases in France, where a fondness for a toxic wild mushroom may hold the answer Well known to skiers and alpinistes, Montchavin also has grabbed the attention … Read More
December 23, 2024
(NPR) – What’s happening in the Philippines is part of a seismic shift in the global HIV/AIDS landscape. Sub-Saharan Africa has long been the epicenter of the HIV crisis. But in recent years, new infections and AIDS-related deaths have plummeted. … Read More
December 19, 2024
(The Conversation) – Often called “ghost guns” because they can be hard to trace, these firearms can be either partially or completely made with components that have been produced in metal or plastic on commercially available 3D printers. The U.S. … Read More
December 18, 2024
(New York Times) – Problems with getting vaccines to families have left many children unvaccinated and in danger of contracting the virus. There were more than 311,000 reported cases of measles in Congo last year. Some 6,000 of them ended … Read More
December 16, 2024
(Undark) – When providing health care for new immigrants and refugees, the world’s faraway conflicts fall sharply into focus. I work in a clinic in Toronto that largely serves patients who are newcomers to our country, many of whom are … Read More
December 16, 2024
(Nature) – The influential writer talks about frighteningly accurate predictions, the creative act of reading, AI consciousness — and hope. My feeling is that ‘artificial intelligence’ is a public-relations name that obscures what’s really going on. It’s artificial for sure. … Read More
December 10, 2024
(The Guardian) – Ten patients suffering from a mystery disease that has broken out in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have tested positive for malaria, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said. However, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus … Read More
December 10, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – This Lunar year, the year of the dragon, is seen as an auspicious one for marriage and births in Chinese culture. Nonetheless, 2024 births are expected to drop below 8 million, less than half the number … Read More
December 10, 2024
(Gizmodo) – While the exact fate of the misplaced samples is still unknown, they likely pose no danger to the public, government officials have said. A research facility in Australia is in hot water over losing track of its viruses. … Read More
December 9, 2024
(New York Times) – In a remote Congolese town, a medical mystery led to the discovery of alarming changes in the mpox virus and, eventually, to a global health emergency. How could a boy who had never left Kamituga have … Read More
December 6, 2024
(NPR) – Every year, an estimated 400,000 children worldwide develop a form of cancer. Five-year survival rates in high-income nations are typically over 80%, with an expected cure rate of near 100% for some cancers like retinoblastoma — a malignant … Read More
December 6, 2024
(Wired) – The WHO has sent epidemiologists to the country to uncover the cause of the illness, which has killed more than 70 people, half of them children. Deaths in the southwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from … Read More
December 6, 2024
(Associated Press) – Thirteen children under the age of 14 have died in central Mexico and authorities said Thursday they suspect contaminated IV feeding bags as the culprit. The federal Health Department ordered doctors across the country not to use … Read More
December 6, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – A federal appeals court ruled Friday that TikTok can be banned in the U.S. over national security concerns, upholding a federal law requiring the popular social media app to shed its Chinese ownership to keep operating. … Read More
December 4, 2024
(NPR) – The Taliban’s supreme leader has reportedly ordered a ban on women attending nursing and midwivery institutes, closing a rare avenue they had to pursue an education beyond the sixth grade. Human Rights Watch says the ban was ordered … Read More
December 3, 2024
(Associated Press) – It’s been called the closest the world has ever come to a vaccine against the AIDS virus. The twice-yearly shot was 100% effective in preventing HIV infections in a study of women, and results published Wednesday show … Read More
November 27, 2024
(Undark) – In the future, humans may not be the only arbiters of who lives and dies in war, as weapons gain decision-making power. How autonomous and semi-autonomous technology will operate in the future is up in the air, and … Read More
November 27, 2024
(BBC) – For the first time in almost a decade MPs are going to vote on giving terminally ill adults in England and Wales the right to have an assisted death. While it’s something that remains illegal in most countries, … Read More
November 26, 2024
(New York Times) – Researchers are trying to understand why resistant pathogens are so prevalent in the war-torn nations of the Middle East. Nations of the Middle East, like Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan, now suffer from particularly high rates … Read More
November 25, 2024
(The Guardian) – Of the 85,000 women killed by men in 2023, 60% died at the hands of a partner or family member, new UN figures show An estimated 140 women and girls across the world die at the hands … Read More
November 22, 2024
(Wired) – Amnesty International has issued a report charting the supply chains and human rights due diligence policies of 13 major EV manufacturers. The results are a world away from the clean, safe future that electric vehicles promise. The race … Read More
November 21, 2024
(Wired) – Chinese black market operators are openly recruiting government agency insiders, paying them for access to surveillance data and then reselling it online—no questions asked. China has long been a billion-plus-person experiment in total state surveillance, with virtually no … Read More
