Top US, WHO Doctors Address Vaccine Safety
Anti-vaccine activists endured a cold, rainy day in Washington one recent Friday, to rally against childhood vaccines.
Gabriele Cashman drove for five hours to support the anti-vaccine cause. She and her husband don’t want anyone to force anything on their children when they have them.
“As parents, it’s our decision whether or not we want to vaccinate,” she said.
Watch: Top Doctors Address Vaccine Safety
The anti-vaccine movement has gained so much momentum that doctors like Peter Hotez are alarmed. Hotez works on vaccines at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.
“We now, in the state of Texas, have 50,000 kids whose parents are opting them out of getting vaccinated,” he said.
Hotez said these children generally live in communities near each other. He is concerned that only an outbreak of measles will convince these parents that vaccines save lives and prevent disability.
The activists don’t believe the science. Instead, they believe vaccines can cause anything from autism to severe allergies.
But Dr. Anthony Fauci at the National Institutes of Health says while children can have an adverse reaction, it’s so rare, that it’s unmeasurable. Fauci heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and oversees the development of vaccines.
Side effects that children may have are usually minor, according to Dr. Linda Fu, a pediatrician at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington.
“The most common side effects to any of these vaccines are pain at the injection site and fever for 24 to 48 hours,” Fu said.
Still, anti-vaccine activists, like Irine Pi, who helped organize the protest in Washington, are convinced harmful ingredients are added to vaccines. The preservative thimerosal was removed from vaccines in the U.S. by 2003, to help alleviate parents’ concerns that it caused autism. Numerous studies in the U.S. and elsewhere show it has no negative effect on children. But Pi is adamant that harmful ingredients are in vaccines routinely given to children.
“Now it’s aluminum that has been added. Add to that formaldehyde, polysorbate, and add to that significant human aborted fetal cell lines, bovine cells, pigs, sheep, monkey, dog. These cells are not meant to be injected into the human body,” Pi said.
Again, the science says otherwise. Fu has a specialty in immunizations. She told VOA, “The vaccines that the children are getting today are more pure and are very safe and effective.”
They are so effective that Dr. Flavia Bustreo at the World Health Organization says young people have no memory of the diseases they prevent.
“Currently, if you speak with any young mother or young father in Italy, where I come from, they don’t know diphtheria. They’ve never seen it. They don’t know that you can lose your child from diphtheria,” she said.
The World Health Organization has an online site to help parents find reliable information on vaccine safety. The CDC does the same.
Hotez wants the U.S. government to launch a campaign to persuade parents to vaccinate their children, but Fauci disagrees.
“I think that there will be a certain number of people, a certain percentage of people, who no matter what you say to convince them with evidence, they’re not going to be convinced, but I think the approach towards people who are anti-vaccinating is to respect their opinion and don’t denigrate them and don’t criticize them, but try to explain to them on the basis of solid evidence why the risk/benefit of vaccines clearly, clearly favors very, very heavily towards vaccinating your children,” Fauci said.
Hotez is now writing books for parents about vaccines. He says scientists have to get away from their laboratories and talk to people about vaccines.
Otherwise, he says, children will suffer and die from diseases that can be prevented.
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Top Doctors Address Vaccine Safety
Rain didn’t stop dozens of activists from gathering in Washington on a recent Friday to rally against childhood vaccines. They want President Trump to establish a committee to look into vaccine safety. VOA’s Carol Pearson spoke to the activists and to some of the world’s top doctors about vaccine safety.
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Scientists Report Progress on Malaria Treatment Tests
Scientists at the University of Cape Town in South Africa say they have tested a new experimental drug they believe could not only treat but also eradicate malaria, a deadly disease that strikes 200 million people each year. The compound has worked successfully in mice and monkeys. If it proves successful in humans, it could become a significant breakthrough in the treatment of the deadly disease. Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Scientists Find Ways to Use Wood in Electronic Devices
Wood is usually not associated with water filters, even less with electronic devices. But scientists at the University of Maryland say we have not yet discovered all the possibilities of this cheap, natural and sustainable material. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Oscar-Winning Director Jonathan Demme Dies
Oscar-winning U.S. film director Jonathan Demme, who terrified audiences and also made them laugh, died Wednesday in New York at 73.
His family said Demme suffered from cancer of the esophagus.
Demme may be considered one of the most eclectic directors in Hollywood history — directing rousing comedies, horror, concert films and emotional dramas.
His 1991 thriller Silence of the Lambs featured Anthony Hopkins as a cannibalistic murderer with a terrifying mask who is restrained in a cage.
The film and Demme’s close-ups of the criminal haunted audiences and won five Oscars, including one for Demme.
He followed it in 1993 with Philadelphia, starring Tom Hanks as a lawyer dying from AIDS. The film is considered to be a landmark in the way gays are portrayed and the seriousness of the AIDS epidemic.
Critics called Demme’s 1984 concert film starring the Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense, one of the greatest rock films ever made, using techniques that have set the standard for rock documentaries.
Demme also was heavily involved in the Florida-based charity Americans for Immigrant Justice, and his family has requested that fans honor Demme by making contributions to the fund.
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Are the Arts a Good Government Investment?
Musician David Byrne, known for his work with the 1980s pop band Talking Heads, wrote an urgent blog post this month. “I just got back from a rally at City Hall,” he said, referring to a New York City rally to support arts funding. “I spoke very briefly, making the economic and social argument that arts funding benefits the economy and creates jobs way in excess of the amount invested.”
Byrne and others at the rally were protesting a budget request by the White House for Congress to eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
While the Trump administration has said little beyond the budget proposal itself, conservative commentator George Will and others have made the case. Will wrote in The Washington Post last month that the arts mainly benefit the wealthy, and that the wealthy will support the arts regardless of federal help.
In addition, he said NEA funding, which goes to all 435 congressional districts in the United States, supports projects he does not consider art. The NEA, he said, “defines art democratically and circularly. Art is anything done by anyone calling himself or herself an artist, and an artist is anyone who produces art.”
The prospect of losing their funding is forcing arts organizations to pull out all the stops to show what good the arts do, beyond the fancy doors of museums and music auditoriums. And they question what good it would do to eliminate agencies whose spending combined makes up less than 1 percent of the national budget.
Byrne, the pop musician, said in his blog post: “Investment in the arts doesn’t cost us money — it MAKES us money!”
Attracting funds
The NEA says its budget appropriation for 2016 was $147.9 million, about .004 percent of the federal budget. It says its contributions to local arts institutions resulted in the leveraging of up to $9 million in private and other public funds.
Brad Erickson of Theatre Bay Area, a group representing 300 theater companies in the San Francisco area, clarified the issue in comments to The San Francisco Chronicle last month: “Nobody is getting enough from the NEA to keep the lights on and the rent paid. An NEA grant attracts other money. A dollar from the NEA attracts another $8 in private and local funding.”
The advocacy group Americans for the Arts studies the economic growth that the arts foster in the communities they serve. The group reported that in 2014, arts and culture represented 4.2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product — a larger share, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, than transportation, tourism or construction.
Further, the NEA says 40 percent of the funding it doles out goes to organizations and activities in high-poverty neighborhoods, where arts education can matter the most.
Wolford McCue, president and CEO of the Arts Community Alliance in Dallas, told VOA that studies have found how important arts activities can be to an individual education.
“Young adults who have been engaged with the arts graduate from high school, junior college and college at a significantly higher rate than those not engaged in the arts,” he said. “Significantly more are gainfully employed, pay taxes, vote and volunteer in their community.”
Controversial content
One argument against arts funding persists from the 1980s, when NEA funding went to a venue hosting an art show of provocative photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe — an artist whose name is now synonymous with controversy. His sexually charged work set off a nationwide debate about obscenity and the role of public funding.
Those who defended Mapplethorpe’s work said he was entitled to free speech. Critics said federal dollars should not be used to support work that some people find obscene.
And that, some arts activists say, may be at the root of the issue. While the arts may look like an extravagance to some, others say shutting off arts funding amounts to stifling speech.
PEN, a writers organization focused on free speech, is circulating an online petition advocating for the NEA and its sister organizations. “Eliminating these vital agencies would lessen America’s stature as a haven for free thinkers and a global leader in humanity’s shared quest for knowledge,” it says.
Support in France
A group of French filmmakers also has rallied in support of keeping U.S. federal arts funding alive, saying defunding the NEA is “muffling diversity” because art enables people on the margins of society to tell their stories.
And in an op-ed piece in The New York Times last month, Eve Ewing, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, said, “Artists play a distinctive role in challenging authoritarianism. Art creates pathways for subversion, for political understanding and solidarity among coalition builders.
“Art teaches us that lives other than our own have value.”
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Experimental Drug Cures Malaria in Mice
Scientists have developed a compound that both cured and prevented malaria in animals. They say the experimental drug even is effective against resistant strains of the mosquito-borne parasite.
If the experimental treatment pans out in humans, it could be a huge breakthrough in the treatment and prevention of malaria, a disease that strikes an estimated 200 million people each year.
The parasitic illness is responsible for about 425,000 deaths annually, most of them children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Scientists found the compound, called MMV048, blocks the parasite across its multiple life stages, interrupting the infection cycle and potentially curing the disease in humans.
‘Exciting profile’
Kelly Chibale is a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and director of the Cape Town Drug Discovery and Development Center. He is senior author of a study describing the work in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
In animal trials, Chibale said MMV048 cured 100 percent of mice that were infected with malaria.
It was shown to wipe out an infection in three days, said Chibale, adding, “Overall, it presents an exciting profile in terms of the potential to contribute to malaria eradication.”
And, MMV048 completely protected monkeys that received a dose of the compound. Researchers were unable to infect them, according to Chibale, who said he hopes the experimental drug has the same effect in humans.
“It’s present in the body in the blood already,” he explained, “so even when you get bitten by a mosquito, the parasites that initially end up in the blood they will find the drug already waiting for them and they’ll be killed off before they increase in population.”
In the animal studies, Chibale said the compound lasted for at least eight days in the bloodstream, acting as a shield against infection.
Not a vaccine
Chibale is quick to caution that the compound is not a vaccine, which stimulates the immune system to afford long-lasting protection against a pathogen. Development of a vaccine against malaria has been a difficult and frustrating process.
Instead, Chilabe said, MMV048 targets a protein that the parasite needs to protect itself from the immune system.
The parasites are destroyed in the liver, said Chilabe, the first place they travel after someone is bitten by an infected mosquito.
The parasites are thus prevented from migrating into the bloodstream where they infiltrate red cells by the thousands, maturing into a form that can be transmitted back to mosquitoes.
Chibale said MMV048 appears to be effective against parasites that have become resistant to existing drugs.
But he said the drug, in all likelihood, would have to be used as part of drug cocktail with existing anti-malarials to prevent the development of drug resistance.
Early clinical trials show that the compound is safe in healthy humans.
The next stage of clinical trials – to begin testing MMV048’s effectiveness in humans infected with malaria – is likely to begin later this year. Human trials will determine the drug’s proper dose and how often it needs to be given to protect against malaria.
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Low-cost Drug Could Save Thousands of Mothers’ Lives Across Developing World
A new study says a low-cost and widely available drug could save the lives of one in three mothers who would otherwise bleed to death after childbirth. The global trial of more than 20,000 women also found the drug reduced the need for urgent surgery to control bleeding, such as a hysterectomy, by more than one-third. VOA’s Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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Nearly 2 Million Children Participate in Polio Trials that Proved Successful
Up to this day in 1954 in American history, even a president of the United States, later President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, could be struck down by the debilitating effects of paralysis that is the signature of poliovirus.
The irony is that very few Americans perceived Roosevelt as “handicapped,” according to presidential historians.
On April 26, 1954, hopes were high at the Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia, where an ambitious effort to test a polio vaccine was taking place. 1.8 million American children along with kids from Canada and Finland were enrolled. At the time it was the largest public health experiment in American history.
Less than a year later on April 12, 1955, researchers announced the vaccine was safe and effective. It quickly became a standard part of childhood immunizations in America.
The last case of naturally occurring polio in the United States happened in 1979. Today, despite a concerted global eradication campaign, poliovirus continues to affect children and adults in Afghanistan, Pakistan and some African countries, including Nigeria.
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Security Firm: Cyberattacks Against Saudi Arabia Continue
Researchers at U.S. antivirus firm McAfee say the cyberattacks that have hit Saudi Arabia over the past few months are continuing, revealing new details about an unusually disruptive campaign.
Speaking ahead of the blog post ‘s publication Wednesday, McAfee chief scientists Raj Samani said the latest intrusions were very similar, albeit even worse, to the malicious software that wrecked computers at Saudi Arabia’s state-run oil company in 2012.
“This campaign was a lot bigger,” Samani said. “Way larger in terms of the amount of work that needed to be done.”
It’s a striking claim. The 2012 intrusions against Saudi Aramco and Qatari natural gas company RasGas – data-wiping attacks that wrecked tens of thousands of computers – were among the most serious cyberattacks ever publicly revealed. At the time, the United States called it “the most destructive attack that the private sector has seen to date.”
Echoing research done by others, McAfee said the most recent wave of attacks drew heavily on the malicious code used in the 2012 intrusions. McAfee also said that some of the code appears to have been borrowed by a previously known hacking group, Rocket Kitten , and used digital infrastructure also employed in a cyberespionage campaign dubbed OilRig . U.S. cybersecurity firms have tied both to Iran, with greater or lesser degrees of certainty.
McAfee stopped short of linking any particular actor to the most recent attacks.
Saudi officials and news media have given little detail about the intrusions beyond saying that more than a dozen government agencies and companies were affected, and a government adviser did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
The Iranian Embassy in Paris did not immediately return messages.
your ad hereArts Program in Poor Performing Schools Boosts Learning
In some of the lowest performing elementary and middle schools in the U.S., students are learning in an unconventional way.
“I like to act and I like to sing and I like to dance,” said 10-year-old Kayla Driakare, whose teachers at Florence Griffith Joyner Elementary School are incorporating much of what she loves doing into the everyday curriculum.
Her school is a part of a national program called Turnaround Arts, and is an initiative started by former first lady Michelle Obama.It aims to help improve low performing schools through the arts.
For Driakare and her classmates, their school is a safe haven from life outside its walls.The students at Florence Griffith Joyner Elementary are from Watts, a neighborhood in Los Angeles known for its gang violence.
“High crime, high poverty, very multigenerational families in public housing. There’s gun violence. We see a lot of helicopters and we have lockdowns regularly and so, the thing is, all associated with poverty – that really traumatized students, so many of our students come to school with symptoms of post-traumatic stress,” explained school principal Akida Kissane Long.
She remembers when she first started at the school five years ago, there was “willful disobedience, primarily fighting (and) destruction of school property.”
Long said the suspension rate was “267 suspensions on record and (there were) 1,167 classroom suspensions.“
The school performed in the lowest 5% of the state and qualified for the Turnaround Arts program, a public-private partnership led by the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and managed by the D.C.-based John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
It is one of 68 schools in the U.S. participating in the program.Teachers receive special training, and the arts are incorporated into all the subjects.Turnaround Arts schools also partner with professional musicians and actors who work with the students. Among the names are Yo-Yo Ma, Sarah Jessica Parker, Elton John and Cameron Diaz.
“The children were so excited and have been so excited because it’s not just about – “Go to the board. Do the problem. Turn the page. Read the book.’It’s about acting and impersonating artists and historic figures, and acting out the water cycle and becoming a butterfly that goes from caterpillar through the cocoon to an expansive beautiful winged insect,” said Long.
On Thursdays, dedicated teachers in music and art give lessons.
“Art is fun. You get to draw what you draw and you get to draw something that you really like,” said an excited Driakare.
Only in the first year of a 3-year program, Long is already seeing results.
“We’ve probably suspended one kid this year. That’s amazing. Parents are getting phone calls to come to family portraiture night and come to family arts night, and it’s not just the naughty calls home. It’s for them to come and learn more about what their children are learning.So our parent engagement goes up,” Long said.
Decreased disciplinary actions, increased attendance and improved academic achievement are occurring nationwide in a 3-year program evaluation of pilot schools.From 2011 to 2014, the study found a 22.55% improvement in math proficiency and 12.62% improvement in reading proficiency in the Turnaround Arts pilot schools.The study also found Turnaround Arts schools performed better than comparable schools that received special grants for school improvement.
At a time when President Donald Trump is proposing cutting the budget for the arts, and arts education is being deemphasized as policy makers push for more focus on math and science in U.S. education, Long is making a case for a more holistic approach.
“Art speaks to everyone. Arts isn’t a set aside. It is part of what makes the curriculum rich and exciting and motivating.” Long added, “Because the arts is so universal and speaks across every culture and every language, every kid has an opportunity to access the highest levels of the curriculum because they had it delivered in a way that they could understand.”
At the end of the 3-year program, Long is asking the school district to turn this school into a visual and performing arts magnet school so it can get funding from the district to continue its focus on the arts, and allow more students to experience learning through a more creative approach.
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Experts Discuss Danger from Space Debris
Scientists meeting at the 7th European Conference on Space Debris, held in Darmstadt, Germany, say the density of space trash orbiting earth in some areas is so high that it may soon become dangerous to fly through it. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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A Glimpse Inside the VR Hospital of the Future
The future is full of virtual reality games, and applications. But one place where its utility is clearly going to have a positive impact is in the world of medicine. In London, the Virtual Reality Show is displaying some of the technologies that will change the way medicine, surgery, and even psychotherapy are practiced in the future. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports
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Swordsmith Carves His Own Style in Making Blades
In upstate New York, John Lundemo is making a living by making high end swords. He carves each sword with a distinctive style of his own, a style he developed over the years. Inspiration for his creativity comes from different places. And as Faiza Elmasry tells us, that’s what makes him a sword master. VOA’s Faith Lapidus narrates.
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Arts Program in Poor Performing Schools Boost Learning
President Trump’s proposed cuts to the federal budget for the arts is creating concern that it may impact a program started by former first lady Michelle Obama that is showing signs of success. Turnaround Arts gets some funding from federal tax dollars, and it helps some of the nation’s lowest performing schools improve learning in all educational subjects. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from Los Angeles.
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Pope Urges Powerful to Act Humbly in Surprise TED Talk Appearance
Pope Francis made a surprise appearance at a TED talk conference on Tuesday, urging powerful leaders “to act humbly” and said he hoped technological innovation would not leave people behind.
The 18-minute video was filmed in Vatican City and broadcast to the audience at the annual TED 2017 conference in Vancouver.
“The more powerful you are, the more your actions will have an impact on people, the more responsible you are to act humbly,” said the pontiff, while seated at a desk.
“If you don’t, your power will ruin you, and you will ruin the other.”
WATCH: Pope delivers TED Talk
The comments echoed Francis’ frequent themes to not ignore the plight of immigrants, the poor and other vulnerable people. Speaking in Italian with subtitles, Francis urged solidarity to overcome a “culture of waste” that had affected not only food but people cast aside by economic systems that rely increasingly on automation.
“How wonderful would it be if the growth of scientific and technological innovation would come along with more equality and social inclusion,” he said.
TED Talk lectures have grown in popularity, having been viewed cumulatively over 4.6 billion times since going online in 2006 (www.ted.com).
Other speakers slated to appear at the annual conference this week include tennis superstar Serena Williams and entrepreneur Elon Musk.
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Bison Births Are First in Canadian National Park Area in 140 Years
Bison calves have been born in the area that makes up Alberta’s Banff National Park for the first time in 140 years, Parks Canada officials said Tuesday, marking a milestone in attempts to reintroduce a wild herd to the area.
Conservation officers said three calves had been born since Saturday in the remote Panther Valley on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains and that seven more were expected.
Western Alberta is dealing with unseasonably cold spring weather, but Bill Hunt, resource conservation manager for Banff National Park, said the calves were well-equipped to deal with harsh conditions.
“Last night, we had 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 centimeters) of snow, but fortunately bison are very well-adapted, so these little calves drop out, get their legs straightaway, start nursing and do fine,” Hunt said.
Parks Canada released a 16-strong herd of plains bison, including 10 pregnant females, in the country’s oldest national park in February.
They are keeping them under observation until summer 2018, when the animals will be released into the full 460-square-mile (1,189-square-kilometer) reintroduction zone after the females calve again next spring.
Bison herds of up to 30 million animals once migrated freely across North America. The shaggy, hump-shouldered animals, also widely known as buffalo, were nearly hunted to extinction in the late 19th century. Rangers estimate that bison have not grazed in Banff National Park since before it was established in 1885.
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Ella Fitzgerald’s 100th Birthday Marked with Grammy Exhibit
The Grammy Museum is putting rare Ella Fitzgerald memorabilia on display for what would have been the singing legend’s 100th birthday.
The museum’s “Ella at 100: Celebrating the Artistry of Ella Fitzgerald” exhibition includes the first Grammy Award that Fitzgerald won — the first awarded to an African-American woman — as well as some of her gowns, sheet music and personal telegrams.
Fitzgerald died in 1996 at 79 from complications with diabetes and left few possessions beyond personal notes, but the exhibit puts a focus on what made Fitzgerald a star — her voice.
Her voice is the key
Grammy Museum curator Nwaka Onwusa says she wants visitors to be captivated by her singing, so the exhibit includes video and audio of her early performances with jazz greats Count Basie or Duke Ellington.
The exhibit is one of several celebrations of Fitzgerald’s birthday on Tuesday. New York City declared it Ella Fitzgerald Day and the Smithsonian has also opened a special exhibit, while Starbucks stores in the United States played her music.
“Ella Fitzgerald’s is probably the single most important voice in American history,” said recording artist Miles Mosley. “If you’re going to start with any song before 1970, her version is the one you start from. That’s the ground floor. That is the most representative version of what the composer themselves wished their songs would sound like.”
Performed in many styles
Over the course of her career, she sang swing, bebop, pop, jazz. Among her best-known works are a 1938 novelty smash, “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” which she co-wrote, and a series of eight album sets, each dedicated to an American songwriter or songwriting team. In addition to being best sellers, those albums helped establish the long-play record as a platform for deeper, more serious musical exploration.
Twenty-plus years after Fitzgerald’s death, the rave reviews keep pouring in.
Celebration of Fitzgerald’s 100th actually began March 31, as Dianne Reeves held a Fitzgerald tribute concert at the Library of Congress, which serves as home to Fitzgerald’s personal library. A day later, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, which has long hosted a Fitzgerald exhibit, opened a new display, “First Lady of Song: Ella Fitzgerald at 100,” kicking off Jazz Appreciation Month.
Onwusa said Fitzgerald’s exhibit was not an easy display to put together, noting that the relatively new Grammy Museum, which opened in 2008, could not compete with the long-established Smithsonian and Library of Congress, which have long been collecting Fitzgerald memorabilia.
Gowns are a key attraction
But the Los Angeles-based Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation and Fitzgerald estate came through with enough items to make for an attraction, including gowns Fitzgerald wore in performance, rare photographs, sheet music, newspaper articles, concert programs. Securing performance footage proved more challenging, but was critical for Onwusa.
“When you come to Ella at 100, immediately we want visitors to be captivated by her voice,” she explained. “That’s what draws you to Ella.”
To that end, there are viewing and listening stations, where exhibit visitors can watch and hear Fitzgerald performing in various points in her career. She was an active professional performer for some 65 years, going in semi-retirement in 1994, after having both of her legs amputated below the knee due to the effects of the diabetes.
‘100 Songs for a Centennial’
For those just being introduced to Fitzgerald, Verve/UMe has just released a career-spanning primer, the four-CD set “100 Songs for a Centennial.” For hardcore fans, there’s the lavish six-album vinyl limited-edition “Ella Fitzgerald Sings The George and Ira Gershwin Song Books,” which is newly packaged with lithographs, a book and a bonus track. Numerous other releases and events are planned throughout the year.
But once the celebration ends, it’s fairly clear that the Fitzgerald legacy will continue.
Grammy Museum executive director Scott Goldman singled out a relative newcomer such as Andra Day as a perfect example. “(Here’s) a young African-American artist who is blurring the lines between jazz and soul and R&B.” he noted. “If you listen to Andra Day, you’ll hear a little Ella Fitzgerald. And I think many artists carry that. I think that’s what makes Ella Fitzgerald so special. She lives.”
The exhibit runs through Sept. 10.
your ad hereWikipedia Founder Launches Site to Fight Fake News
The founder of Wikipedia is starting a website he says will fight so-called fake news.
Jimmy Wales says his Wikitribune site will bring journalists and volunteer fact checkers together to stop the spread of false news stories.
“We want to make sure that you read fact-based articles that have a real impact in both local and global events,” according to the group’s website.
The volunteer fact checkers’ role will be similar to how editors work on Wikipedia. Any changes will be reviewed by other fact checkers.
The site will also carry stories by professional journalists.
Unlike most news sites, Wikitribune says it will post full transcripts of interviews “to the maximum extent possible.”
“It takes professional, standards-based journalism, and incorporates the radical idea from the world of wiki that a community of volunteers can and will reliably protect the integrity of information,” said Wales, according to CNN.
Money to fund the site will come from contributions as opposed to advertisements or subscriptions.
“[Fake news] is literally designed to show us what we want to see, to confirm our biases, and to keep us clicking at all cost,” Wales said. “It fundamentally breaks the news.”
Some experts as skeptical, saying the site may only appeal to journalists and people who read a lot of news.
“I wonder whether it will be able to scale up to make a significant impact on the information sphere, especially on social networks such as Facebook where the main problems of fake news and misinformation occur,” saidCharlie Beckett, a professor at the London School of Economics, in an interview with CNN.
Wales’ Wikipedia has long battled criticism that it contains misleading or false information.
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Last Male Northern White Rhino Seeks Mate on Tinder
Dating app Tinder is hit or miss for humans, but wildlife conservationists hope it might lead to love for the world’s last male northern white rhino.
The move is seen as a last-ditch effort to keep the species alive.
“I don’t mean to be too forward, but the fate of the species literally depends on me,” the rhino’s profile says. “I perform well under pressure.”
Sudan is 43 years old, weighs nearly 2,270 kilograms and lives in Kenya. And while he has two female companions, they are unable to mate due to age and other limitations.
The campaign to find love for Sudan, called Most Eligible Bachelor by the Kenyan Ol Pejeta Conservancy, which came up with the idea.
While it’s unclear if any potential mates can swipe right on Sudan’s profile, the group hopes the move will raise $9 million for research into breeding methods such as in vitro fertilization.
“We partnered with Ol Pejeta conservancy to give the most eligible bachelor in the world a chance to meet his match,” said Matt David, the head of communications and marketing at Tinder in an interview with the Associated Press. “We are optimistic given Sudan’s profile (it) will be seen on Tinder in 190 countries and over 40 languages.”
Sudan and his two female friends — 17-year-old Najin and 27-year-old Fatu — live at the conservancy protected by 24-hour security.
“The plight that currently faces the northern white rhinos is a signal to the impact that humankind is having on many thousands of other species across the planet,” Richard Vigne, the conservancy’s chief executive officer, told AP. “Ultimately, the aim will be to reintroduce a viable population of northern white rhino back into the wild, which is where their true value will be realized.”
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Google Targets ‘Fake News,’ Offensive Search Suggestions
Google has sprinkled some new ingredients into its search engine in an effort to prevent bogus information and offensive suggestions from souring its results.
The changes have been in the works for four months, but Google hadn’t publicly discussed most of them until now. The announcement in a blog post Tuesday reflects Google’s confidence in a new screening system designed to reduce the chances that its influential search engine will highlight untrue stories about people and events, a phenomenon commonly referred to as “fake news.”
“It’s not a problem that is going to go all the way to zero, but we now think we can stay a step ahead of things,” said Ben Gomes, Google’s vice president of engineering for search.
Correcting autocomplete
Besides taking steps to block fake news from appearing in its search results, Google also has reprogrammed a popular feature that automatically tries to predict what a person is looking for as a search request as being typed. The tool, called “autocomplete,” has been overhauled to omit derogatory suggestions, such as “are women evil,” or recommendations that promote violence.
Google also adding a feedback option that will enable users to complain about objectionable autocomplete suggestions so a human can review the wording.
Facebook, where fake news stories and other hoaxes have widely circulated on its social network, also has been trying to stem the tide of misleading information by working with The Associated Press and other news organizations to review suspect stories and set the record straight when warranted. Facebook also has provided its nearly 2 billion users ways to identify posts believed to contain false information, something that Google is now allowing users of its search engine to do for some of the news snippets featured in its results.
Why Google cares
Google began attacking fake news in late December after several embarrassing examples of misleading information appeared near the top of its search engine. Among other things, Google’s search engine pointed to a website that incorrectly reported then President-elect Donald Trump had won the popular vote in the U.S. election , that President Barack Obama was planning a coup and that the Holocaust never occurred during World War II.
Only about 0.25 percent of Google’s search results were being polluted with falsehoods, Gomes said. But that was still enough to threaten the integrity of a search engine that processes billions of search requests per day largely because it is widely regarded as the internet’s most authoritative source of information.
“They have a lot riding on this, reputation wise,” said Lucy Dalglish, who has been tracking the flow of false information as dean of the University of Maryland’s journalism department. “If your whole business model is based turning up the best search results, but those results turn up stuff that is total crap, where does that get you?”
To address the problem, Google began revising the closely guarded algorithms that generate its search with the help of 10,000 people who rate the quality and reliability of the recommendations during tests. Google also rewrote its 140-page book of rating guidelines that help the quality-control evaluators make their assessments.
Google as referee
Fighting fake news can be tricky because in some cases what is viewed as being blatantly misleading by one person might be interpreted as being mostly true by another. If Google, Facebook or other companies trying to block false information err in their judgment calls, they risk being accused of censorship or playing favorites.
But doing nothing to combat fake news would probably have caused even bigger headaches.
If too much misleading information appears in Google’s search results, the damage could go beyond harm to its reputation for reliability. It could also spook risk-averse advertisers, who don’t want their brands tied to content that can’t be trusted, said Larry Chiagouris, a marketing professor at Pace University in New York.
“Fake news is careening out of control in some people’s eyes, so advertisers are getting very skittish about it,” Chiagouris said. “Anything Google can do to show it is trying to put a lid on it and prevent it from getting out of hand, it will be seen as a good thing.”
Although it also sells ads on its other services and independently owned websites, Google still makes most of its money from the marketing links posted alongside its search results. Google says its new approach isn’t meant to placate advertisers.
your ad herePlastic Eating Worm Could Help Ease Pollution
A type of worm could help solve the growing problem of plastic pollution.
The common wax worm, or Galleria mellonella, researchers say, can eat plastic and could help reduce the waste caused by the one trillion polyethylene plastic bags used around the world annually.
“We have found that the larva of a common insect, Galleria mellonella, is able to biodegrade one of the toughest, most resilient, and most used plastics: polyethylene,” says Federica Bertocchini of the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria in Spain.
The discovery about the caterpillar’s hunger for plastic was accidental, said Bertocchini, adding that the plastic bags containing the wax worms “became riddled with holes.”
She said the worms can “do damage to a plastic bag in less than an hour.” And after 12 hours, researchers saw “an obvious reduction in plastic mass.
They also found that the worms transformed polyethylene into ethylene glycol, an organic compound used in making polyester fibers as well as antifreeze. It is unclear if the worms produce enough to be commercially viable.
Plastic is not the natural food of the wax worm, but researchers say that since they lay their eggs in beehives, the hatchlings feed on beeswax.
“Wax is a polymer, a sort of ‘natural plastic,’ and has a chemical structure not dissimilar to polyethylene,” Bertocchini says.
Researchers say they still need to better understand how wax is digested, but that finding out could lead to a biotechnological solution to plastic waste.
“We are planning to implement this finding into a viable way to get rid of plastic waste, working towards a solution to save our oceans, rivers, and all the environment from the unavoidable consequences of plastic accumulation,” Bertocchini says. “However,” she adds, “we should not feel justified to dump polyethylene deliberately in our environment just because we now know how to biodegrade it.”
The study was published in the journal Current Biology.
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Winner of ‘Green Nobel’ says India Plundering not Protecting Tribal Lands
India is plundering the land of its indigenous people to profit from mining, with little regard of the devastation caused to poor tribal communities, said an Indian land rights activist who won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize on Monday.
Prafulla Samantara, 66, from India’s eastern state of Odisha is one of six winners of the annual prize — often known as the “Green Nobel” — which honors grassroots activists for efforts to protect the environment, often at their own risk.
Samantara, recognized by the Goldman jury for winning a 12-year legal battle to stop a multi-national firm mining bauxite on tribal lands, said he was honored by the award but voiced concern at the continued mining threats faced by India’s tribes.
“The state has a history of not honoring legal protections of indigenous people in the constitution. Corporate influence and the promise of profits continues to tempt the government to disregard indigenous people’s rights,” Samantara told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.
“The mining-based industry has become priority for the government and the global market, but it does not support the common people. They are often led to believe that mining is for their own benefit, but then they are displaced by destructive development.”
India’s tribes make up almost 10 percent of its 1.3 billion population. Yet most live on the margins of society — inhabiting remote villages and eking out a living from farming, cattle rearing and collecting and selling forest produce.
Many live in mineral-rich regions such as Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, and risk being chased off their ancestral land due to a rising number of mining projects.
While their land is protected under a decade-old law known as the Forest Rights Act, few know their rights — leaving them open to exploitation.
Fast-track
Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government swept to power almost three years ago, it has taken a pro-business approach by fast-tracking environmental clearances for mining firms in a bid to boost investment, jobs and growth.
The son of a village farmer who went on to college to study economics and then law, Samantara led a battle against the London-headquartered Vedanta Resources which wanted to mine bauxite from a mountain considered sacred by indigenous people in Odisha.
He was kidnapped, assaulted and attacked for his activism against, but in the end, a vote of villagers — which had been ordered by the Supreme Court — rejected the mine.
Samantara — described by the Goldman jury as an “iconic leader” — slammed the government for blocking the foreign funds of thousands of charities, including green groups.
“It is deplorable. Many are fighting legally and are being targeted by the government,” he said.
Despite increasing threats to the environment and to those fighting to protect it, Samantara said he remained optimistic.
“I feel there is a growing threat to the very existence of Mother Earth if man-made destruction of nature is not stopped. But I see a ray of light,” he said.
“Though my contributions may be a drop in the ocean, thousands like me in the world can bring a radical change in thinking and spur action, encouraging a shift from consumption to preservation and conservation for future generations.”
The Goldman Environmental Prize was established in 1989 by San Francisco philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman and provides $175,000 cash award to each individual.
Other winners were Congolese Park Ranger Rodrigue Katembo, Guatemalan land rights activist Rodrigo Tot, Australian family farmer Wendy Bowman, Slovenian organic farmer Uros Macerl and a Los Angeles community organizer by the name of Mark Lopez.
your ad hereFiat Chrysler, Google Begin Offering Rides in Self-driving Cars
Fiat Chrysler and Google for the first time will offer rides to the public in the self-driving automobiles they are building under an expanding partnership.
The companies announced in the spring of last year that they would build 100 self-driving Chrysler Pacifica hybrids minivans. Those vehicles have been tested in Arizona, California and Michigan.
Waymo, Google’s self-driving care project, said Tuesday that it will allow hundreds of people in Phoenix to take rides in the vehicles so that it can get feedback on the experience. People can apply on Waymo’s website.
The company also said that it’s expanding its fleet to 500 Pacifica hybrids.
Waymo – created by Google in 2009 – has given rides to the public before in its hometown of Mountain View, California. In 2015, it let a blind man ride around Austin, Texas, in one of its completely self-driving pods. The Phoenix program will be much larger in scale, and it will be the first to use the Pacifica minivans.
Others in the race to develop self-driving vehicles have been putting people in their cars since last fall. Uber has had self-driving Volvos on the road in Pittsburgh for some time. Boston startup nuTonomy is giving taxi rides to passengers in Singapore and Boston. In all cases, there is a backup driver behind the wheel.
Waymo said it wants to learn where people want to go in a self-driving vehicle, how they communicate with it and what kinds of information and controls they want.
Fiat Chrysler builds the Pacifica minivan in Windsor, Canada, just across the border from Detroit. It adds Waymo’s self-driving software and hardware, including sensors and cameras, at a facility in Michigan. Fiat Chrysler’s U.S. headquarters is in Auburn Hills, Michigan.
“This collaboration is helping both companies learn how to bring self-driving cars to market, and realize the safety and mobility benefits of this technology,” said Waymo chief John Krafcik in a company release.
Our early riders will play an important role in shaping the way we bring self-driving technology into the world – through personal cars, public transportation, ride-hailing, logistics and more. Self-driving cars have the potential to reshape each and every one of these areas, transforming our lives and our cities by making them safer, more convenient and more accessible.
Waymo has made clear that it intends to form partnerships with automakers and not build its own self-driving cars. It’s also in talks with Honda Motor Co. about a potential collaboration.
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