January 17, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – Chinese researchers isolated and mapped the virus that causes Covid-19 in late December 2019, at least two weeks before Beijing revealed details of the deadly virus to the world, congressional investigators said, raising questions anew about … Read More
January 16, 2024
(BBC) – Chinese researchers have cloned the first rhesus monkey, a species which is widely used in medical research because its physiology is similar to humans. They say they could speed up drug testing, as genetically identical animals give like-for-like … Read More
January 12, 2024
(ProPublica) – According to the latest UNICEF report, the U.S. was worse than 151 countries in reducing its stillbirth rate between 2000 and 2021, cutting it by just 0.9%. That figure lands the U.S. in the company of South Sudan … Read More
January 11, 2024
(New York Times) – The number of people facing possible starvation in the Gaza Strip in the coming weeks is the largest share of a population at risk of famine identified anywhere since a United Nations-affiliated panel created the current … Read More
January 11, 2024
January 10, 2024
(The Guardian) – Guatemala is often cited as the worst-case scenario for what can go wrong when adoptions are commercialised and children are sent from poorer countries to wealthier ones. Outright kidnappings like Preat’s were rare, but other abuses were … Read More
January 10, 2024
(MIT Technology Review) – Although AI is by no means a new technology there have been massive and rapid investments in it and large language models. However, the high-performance computing that powers these rapidly growing AI tools — and enables … Read More
January 9, 2024
(Associated Press) – Pope Francis called Monday for a universal ban on what he called the “despicable” practice of surrogate motherhood, as he included the “commercialization” of pregnancy in an annual speech listing threats to global peace and human dignity. … Read More
January 5, 2024
(New York Times) – Cities like New York and Chicago have struggled in recent months to accommodate the busloads of migrants arriving during the latest surge in migration. But here on the border, the small town of Eagle Pass, Texas, … Read More
January 5, 2024
(NBC News) – The United States said Friday it was preparing military logistical support and aid for regions in Japan devastated by an earthquake that killed 94 people, forced about 33,000 people to leave their homes, and left over 200 … Read More
January 3, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – Instrumentation maker Thermo Fisher Scientific said it no longer sells certain DNA-based human-identification products in Tibet, building on a similar halt of sales to China’s Xinjiang region of technology that human-rights groups allege can be misused … Read More
January 3, 2024
(Nature) – Evidence so far suggests that the prevalence of long COVID in [low- and middle-income countries] could be similar to that of wealthier countries — although, in both settings, the numbers vary a lot. One review found that between … Read More
January 3, 2024
(The Atlantic) – In 2016, most major news sites, including this one, largely stopped covering the disease regularly. Despite the absence of a treatment or vaccine, the world’s attention moved on. There are good reasons for this: Zika cases dropped … Read More
January 3, 2024
(Los Angeles Times) – Identified as a top-priority pathogen by both the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CRAB [Acinetobacter baumannii] is the most common form of a group of bacteria that are resistant … Read More
January 2, 2024
(NPR) – For many years, therapy for both types would begin with a lumbar puncture to see if the parasite has invaded the central nervous system, followed by intravenous injections of a drug toxic to the kidneys and an arsenic-based … Read More
January 2, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – With the number of babies in free fall—fewer than 10 million were born in 2022, compared with around 16 million in 2012—China is headed toward a demographic collapse. China’s population, now around 1.4 billion, is likely … Read More
January 1, 2024
(Associated Press) – Japan dropped its highest-level tsunami alert, issued following a series of major earthquakes on Monday, but told residents of coastal areas not to return to their homes as deadly waves could still come. The quakes, the largest … Read More
December 29, 2023
(NBC News) – Health regulators around the world are sounding the alarm about counterfeit versions of Ozempic. Fake versions of the hugely popular diabetes drug, which is often prescribed off-label for weight loss, have been reported in over a dozen … Read More
December 29, 2023
(Associated Press) – A large pool of dark liquid festering on the floor. No fresh air. Computer displays that would overheat and ooze out a fishy-smelling gel that nauseated the crew. Asbestos readings 50 times higher than the Environmental Protection … Read More
December 28, 2023
(STAT News) – In recent months, evidence suggests, the war in Ukraine and the ongoing conflict in Gaza have led to spikes of multidrug-resistant bacterial infections. This is to be expected; conflicts often create conditions that are perfect for drug resistance to emerge … Read More
December 26, 2023
(Associated Press) – The World Health Organization and the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza say amputations have become commonplace during the Israel-Hamas war, now in its 12th week, but could not offer precise figures. At the hospital in Deir al-Balah, … Read More
December 22, 2023
(Los Angeles Times) – As a shortage of Adderall stretches into its second year, millions of patients are still struggling to fill their prescriptions in U.S. pharmacies. But in Mexico, some pharmacies are selling the pricey orange pills over the … Read More
December 22, 2023
(Wall Street Journal) – In a country with a history of corruption and government inefficiency, Councilman Ramiro Rosário has come up with what he believes is a winning strategy to improve the work of politicians: replace them with computers. The … Read More
December 20, 2023
(Wired) – Odense is the first place in the world where Meta has tried to pipe excess heat from a data center directly into people’s homes—but it’s not the only tech company doing so. In Ireland, an Amazon data center … Read More
December 20, 2023
(BBC) – A sub-variant of the Omicron strain of coronavirus has been classified as a “variant of interest” by the World Health Organization, because of “its rapidly increasing spread”. JN.1 has been found in many countries around the world, including … Read More
