Saturday’s March for Science an International Event
Thousands of people around the world are expected to March for Science Saturday, Earth Day, in more than 600 locations, including Seoul, Madrid, London and Cape Town.
The flagship event will be in Washington, featuring speakers and several large teach-in tents on the National Mall. There, scientists, educators and leaders from a variety of disciplines will discuss their work, effective science communication strategies and training in public advocacy.
Organizers say the international event is the first step in a global movement to acknowledge and defend the “vital role science plays in everyday life, including in heath, safety, economies and governments.”
Watch: Scientists Speak Out and March for Science
“Science extends our lives, protects our planet, puts food on our table, contributes to the economy and allows us to communicate and collaborate with people around the world,” said Caroline Weinberg, national co-chair for March for Science. “Policymakers threaten our present and future by ignoring scientific evidence when crafting policy, threatening scientific advancement through budget cuts and limiting the public’s knowledge by silencing scientists.”
Budget cuts
U.S. President Donald Trump’s most recent budget has proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency that would eliminate 56 programs and drastically reduce funding for the agency’s Office of Research and Development and Science Advisory Board. Trump’s budget also proposes about $6 billion in cuts to the National Institutes of Health, which is the largest public funder of biomedical researching funding in the world.
Organizers say the event is nonpartisan and is not aimed against the Trump administration or any politician or party.
“Defending science, innovation and discovery is an absolute must in every community throughout the world,” said Claudio Paganini, organizer, March for Science Berlin. “We are proud to join each of the marches on April 22 to say in one, unified, global voice that science is essential to our futures.”
Freedom and equality
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a first-generation Iraqi immigrant, is the pediatrician who alerted officials in Flint, Michigan, that the city’s water was contaminated with lead. She is a March for Science honorary national co-chair.
“We march for science so that scientists have the freedom like I did, to speak out, free from politicization and to continue to make the world a better place,” she said.
Dr. Lydia Villa-Komaroff, another March for Science honorary national co-chair, was one of the first female Mexican-Americans to earn a doctorate in the natural sciences in the United States. For more than 40 years, she has helped Chicano/Hispanic and Native American scientists attain advanced degrees and increase diversity in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields.
“In the past several centuries, science has increasingly affected our lives for the better,” she said. “But, as seen in Flint, the fruits of science are not always distributed equally to all communities. Equally important, young people who live in underserved communities have not had equal opportunities to become scientists — to advance the frontiers of science, for the betterment of everyone. Science and our society are stronger when the people doing science reflect our society as a whole.”
Stephen Curry, professor of structural biology at Imperial College, London, says, “I will be marching in London on Saturday not so much to fly the flag for science — though I believe it is something worth celebrating — but because I think that in these fractious political times, when we are facing challenges that are truly global, it has never been more important for scientists to go public.”
your ad hereFor First Time, Drones Used in Major Search at Grand Canyon
The desperate effort this week to find two hikers who disappeared at the bottom of the Grand Canyon represented the National Park Service’s most extensive use yet of drones in a search-and-rescue mission.
The Grand Canyon is the only national park with its own fleet of unmanned aircraft for locating people who have gotten lost, stranded, injured or killed. Under a program that began last fall, it has five drones and four certified operators.
While the aerial search for the two hikers came up empty, it threw a spotlight on technology that can enter crevices and other rugged spots unreachable by foot while sparing searchers the dangers of going up in a helicopter.
Beautiful and dangerous
With its steep cliffs, nearly 2,000 square miles and mesmerizing views, the Grand Canyon can be as dangerous as it is captivating.
Rangers were confronted with 1,200 medical emergencies, 293 search-and-rescue missions and 17 deaths in 2016, a year in which the park had nearly 6 million visitors. Last summer, a 35-year-old Yelp executive tripped while hiking, fell backward and was found dead 400 feet below.
“Our historic model was to take the helicopter to look and see,” said Grand Canyon chief ranger Matt Vandzura. But now, drones can offer “that same close look but without putting any people at risk. It has dramatically increased our ability to keep our people safe.”
The drones are about 18 inches across and 10 inches high, with a battery life of about 20 minutes. Drone operators watch the video in real time and then analyze it again at the end of the day.
Missing hikers
The aircraft were used Monday through Wednesday in the search for LouAnn Merrell, 62, and her step grandson, Jackson Standefer, 14. The park also sent out three ground search teams of about 20 people in all, an inflatable motorboat and a helicopter.
Merrell and Standefer vanished last weekend after losing their footing while crossing a creek near the North Rim. They were on a hike with Merrell’s husband, Merrell Boot Co. co-founder Randy Merrell, and the boy’s mother.
The park soon scaled back the operation and stopped using the drones but continued the search. In a statement, the hikers’ families backed the decision and said they were “still praying for a miracle.”
Drones used before
In November, after a visitor drove off a cliff and died, drones were sent in to examine the trees and brush and make sure it was safe for a helicopter to fly in and lift the car out.
The next month, rangers used a drone to locate a woman who had jumped to her death. Then they rappelled down to retrieve the body.
The dangers of flying choppers in the canyon were illustrated in 2003, when a Park Service helicopter experienced a mechanical failure and crash-landed on the North Rim. Those aboard suffered only minor injuries; the helicopter was totaled.
Other national parks use drones, but for wildlife research. The use of private drones is prohibited in national parks.
James Doyle, a spokesman for the park service’s Intermountain region, said other national parks would probably seek their own drone fleets, too. He said the Grand Canyon’s extreme topography, it is a mile deep, makes it a perfect candidate.
“It’s a wonderful tool for the unfortunate situation we just found ourselves in at Grand Canyon,” Doyle said.
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Philanthropist Bill Gates Sounds Warning on Cuts to Development Aid
The founder of Microsoft, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, has given a passionate defense of foreign aid while voicing fears the political climate in the U.S. and in Britain could result in cuts to aid budgets. In a speech this week in London, he warned that withdrawing aid would “create a leadership vacuum that others will fill.”
Gates, who gives $5 billion a year to development aid through the foundation he set up with his wife, Melinda, is one of the world’s most generous philanthropists. In a speech at London’s Royal United Services Institute this week, he voiced fears that the political tide is turning against foreign aid.
“It concerns me that some world leaders are misinterpreting recent events as reasons to turn inward instead of seeing them for what they are: problems that although they are difficult and will take time, can be solved — if we invest in the long-term solutions that are necessary,” Gates said.
Watch: Billionaire Philanthropist Bill Gates Warns Against Cuts to Aid Budgets
The United States remains by far the world’s biggest donor, funding long-term programs and emergency relief across the globe. But President Donald Trump is proposing significant cuts to the $43-billion foreign aid budget as part of efforts to reduce government debt.
Gates argues that many critics of foreign aid don’t realize the major progress that has been achieved.
“If you could only pick one number to highlight the effectiveness of the development agenda since 1990, I would pick the number 122 million. That’s the number of children’s lives that have been saved,” he said.
He disputed the notion that funding foreign aid is a bottomless pit.
“As you bring down that childhood death rate, families choose to have less children,” he said. “The population goes down very substantially. Which brings within reach all of the things society is trying to do: better health, better education, economic opportunity.”
Gates’ speech in London comes as Britain gears up for a snap election in June. The UK is one of the few developed countries to meet the U.N. aid budget target of 0.7 percent of GDP. Current Prime Minister Theresa May has committed to keeping that pledge but many in her party want aid money diverted to the military.
Gates said he wanted to make the case for the facts.
“When aid is mismanaged it is a double crime, stealing both from the taxpayer and from the poor.” he said. “But let’s be clear. The bulk of this aid is getting to its recipients and having an incredible effect. There will always be a need to adjust, we’re working in very tough countries, so you’ll never get 100 percent perfect effectiveness. But you can learn. And every year, the aid is better spent.”
Aid agencies say the debate could not come at a worse time, with about 65 million refugees around the world, worsening conflicts in the Middle East and famine striking East Africa.
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Tiny Silver Implant Could Treat Chronic Ear Infections
Ear infections are one of those things almost everyone has to deal with. They’re painful, but generally easily treatable. But for many people, chronic ear infections can significantly affect their hearing and their quality of life. Polish doctors may have discovered a tiny solution for what can be a big problem. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Silicon Alley: The Latest New York Startups at NY TechDay
Silicon Valley is not the only place to find the next Mark Zuckerberg. Nearly 9,000 tech startups call New York City home, and their offerings reflect the unique needs of the most populous city in the U.S. VOA’s Tina Trinh reports from the NY Tech Day event in New York.
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Billionaire Philanthropist Bill Gates Warns Against Cuts to Aid Budgets
The co-founder of Microsoft, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, has given a passionate defense of foreign aid and voiced fears that the political climate in the US and Britain could see aid budgets cut. In a speech in London this week, he warned that withdrawing aid would create a ‘leadership vacuum that others will fill.’ Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Murals of Wide-eyed Children Bring Havana Walls to Life
The gigantic black and white portraits of children started appearing on walls around a suburban neighborhood of Havana two years ago, the work of Cuban artist Maisel Lopez.
The sober, finely painted portraits contrast with Cuba’s dilapidated buildings and pot-holed streets, colorful vintage cars and peeling pink, apricot and turquoise paint on eclectic architecture.
With nearly 30 murals completed, Lopez said he is only getting started on his “Colossi” series, a striking endeavor in the Communist-run country where street art is rare.
“I want to keep expanding further afield,” said Lopez, 31, who started painting the walls of homes and shops in his home district of Playa and is now completing his first mural in neighboring Marianao.
A chubby girl with wispy blond hair wistfully rests her chin on her hands, while a black boy with angular features peers at passersby with a slight air of defiance.
The murals are unusual in a country where public spaces are tightly controlled and posters and murals mainly have political themes or depict figures like Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
Only one other artist in Havana, Yulier Rodriguez, has an equally recognizable assortment of street art. His figures are alien, the murals colorful. Lopez’s subjects are realistic and monochrome.
Lopez said in an interview last week that political art led him to paint murals. He helped with several celebrating the Bolivarian revolution during a cultural mission in 2009 to Cuba’s socialist ally Venezuela.
“A mural is constantly in interaction with the public,” said Lopez, whose work is inspired by Cuban independence hero Jose Marti, who said “children are the hope of the world.”
“That’s why I paint the children big, to mark their importance,” he said.
Unlike many street artists, including Rodriguez, Lopez seeks permits to paint on walls. While initially hard to get, he gained trust as he developed the series, he said.
Each colossus is several meters tall and takes Lopez four days to a week to paint. Each depicts a child living in the vicinity. He does not charge to paint them.
Instead, he earns a living teaching art classes and selling canvas portraits that can fetch up to $1,500.
Locals have declared themselves fans and guardians of his work, looking after it as people stop to take photographs.
“It’s really striking and gives life to the street,” said Vivian Herrera, 47, who runs a bakery next to one of the murals.
“It’s like the girl is really there, with her big, open eyes.”
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‘Genius’ TV Series Shows Drama of Albert Einstein’s Life
Philosopher, humanitarian and physicist Albert Einstein is the subject of new TV series “Genius,” which delves into the drama and passion of the man who developed the theory of relativity and helped initiate the U.S. effort to build an atomic bomb.
Executive producer Ron Howard told reporters at the TV show’s launch at the Tribeca Film Festival that he had always been fascinated by Einstein.
“But I never realized how many twists and turns and, you know, there were in his life, and how much drama there was,” Howard said on Thursday.
The 10-part series for the National Geographic channel shows Einstein’s personal struggles and “how complicated, sexy, you know – kind of bohemian – a lot of his relationships were,” Howard said.
Australian Geoffrey Rush plays the older Einstein, with Britain’s Emily Watson and American actress Gwendolyn Ellis portraying older and younger versions of his second wife, Elsa.
“He wasn’t just a scientist,” Watson said of Einstein, who died in 1955. “He was a philosopher, a humanist. He was an immigrant. He was at the center of so many political events in the 20th century, or close to the center of them, and had incredibly complicated relationships in his life.”
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Fans Gather at Prince’s Home One Year After His Death
Fans are marking the anniversary of U.S. musician Prince’s sudden death from an accidental drug overdose with visits to his Paisley Park home, which has been turned into a museum.
The museum is hosting a four-day event that includes concert performances by Prince’s former bandmates and panel discussions.
It was a year ago Friday that the pop legend was found dead at Paisley Park, a recording complex outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Prince lived and created his music.
Fans come to grieve
Fans who came to the complex Friday included Mary Adams, who drove six hours from Kansas City, Missouri, with her 10-year-old daughter.
“I needed to come here. This is where it began. I needed to pay homage to the star,” she said.
Adams said Prince had a profound impact on her life.
“Prince is the person that helped me decide that is was OK to be me, because that’s who he was. And he did it his way, his music, his style,” she added.
Minneapolis landmarks in purple
Fans are also holding a street party Saturday outside First Avenue, the club Prince made famous in Purple Rain, the title track of his breakthrough 1984 album and movie.
Landmarks around Minneapolis are being lighted in purple for two nights in tribute to Prince, while the Minnesota History Center is holding a special exhibit of Prince memorabilia.
The anniversary was supposed to be celebrated by the release of new Prince music. However, a Minnesota district court this week issued a temporary injunction barring the release of the six-song EP Deliverance after Prince’s estate filed a lawsuit claiming the works were stolen by his former sound engineer.
Prince’s commercial legacy continues to be surrounded in controversy. The pop star died without a will or children, and dozens of people came forward after his death, claiming they were heirs.
Musical legacy
Prince died at 57 from an accidental overdose of powerful painkillers he was secretly using to ease the pain of hip surgery.
Prince was 19 when he released his first album, For You, in 1978. In the decades that followed, the multitalented musician released 1999, Little Red Corvette and Purple Rain.
He sold more than 100 million albums worldwide, won seven Grammys and picked up an Oscar for Best Original Song score for Purple Rain. He was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.
Rhonda Soso said Friday that she came from California to Paisley Park “just to be a part of the purple family, the purple army, just be a part of just his spirit, just his energy.”
“It’s just still so difficult accepting that he’s no longer here,” she added.
your ad hereNorth Dakota’s ‘Water Protectors’ Bring Their Pipeline Story to Film
They call themselves “water protectors” and describe the Dakota Access pipeline ferrying crude oil across America as “the black snake.”
In “Awake: A Dream From Standing Rock,” the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and those who flocked to windswept tribal lands in North Dakota last year to protest the pipeline, get to tell their story on their own terms.
They also hope to build on the impetus of the months-long standoff, despite the $3.8 billion project by Energy Transfer Partners LP eventually going ahead.
“The ambition of the film is really to get people to understand the issue and feel it in a way that’s emotional,” said director Josh Fox, an environmental activist and filmmaker.
The film, comprised of three parts by different directors, premieres on Saturday – Earth Day – at the Tribeca film festival. It also will be streamed online at awakethefilm.org on a pay-what-you-can basis with all proceeds going to the cause.
“It’s really about pushing the movement forward. We also want to say, you guys did something unbelievable, and this is one way of giving a debt of gratitude,” Fox said.
The 1,172-mile (1,885-km) Dakota Access line running from North Dakota to Illinois drew international attention in 2016 after the Standing Rock Native American tribe sued to block completion of the final link, saying it would desecrate a sacred burial ground.
Environmentalists also argued that potential leaks along its length would risk poisoning the water supply for some 17 million Americans.
In February, U.S. President Donald Trump gave the go-ahead to complete the project. The protest camps were demolished and oil is expected to start flowing in mid-May.
The film contrasts the water cannon, rubber bullets, helicopters and riot gear used by law enforcement officials against the protesters with idyllic scenes of sparkling water, sunsets, starry skies and communal camp life. More than 700 people were arrested during the protests.
“The film initiates as a dream, as if the last 500 years of civilization didn’t happen,” said Fox.
“It was an amazing place, and it ran on very different principles than our society – those of sharing mutual respect and non violence,” said Fox, who spent several weeks there at the suggestion of “Divergent” actress Shailene Woodley.
Although the protesters ultimately lost the battle over the pipeline, their spirits remain high.
“Our camp is gone, but our spirit is not broken,” says Sioux member Floris Bull White. “Will you wake up and join us?”
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US Undergrads Build Prosthetic Arm for 10-year-old Violinist
The pressure was on for Abdul Gouda and his classmates at George Mason University: not only did their graduation depend on the success of their project, but so did the hopes of impossibly cute 10-year-old girl.
Fifth-grader Isabella Nicola wanted to play the violin, but she was born with no left hand and a severely abbreviated forearm. Her music teacher at Island Creek Elementary in Fairfax County had built her a prosthetic allowing her to move the bow with her left arm and finger the strings with her right — the opposite of how violin is usually taught. But the prosthetic was heavy and he thought there might be a better option. He reached out to Mason, his alma mater.
As it happened, Gouda and his four teammates in the bioengineering department were in the market for a project — students are required to take on a capstone project their senior year, and their initial idea had fallen through.
Still, Gouda admitted some hesitation at the outset.
“It’s sort of a lot of pressure,” he said. “You’ve got this young girl whose counting on you and you’re expected to deliver.”
The team — Gouda, Mona Elkholy, Ella Novoselsky, Racha Salha and Yasser Alhindi — developed multiple prototypes throughout the year. There was a fair amount of literature on similar projects that helped them get a good start, but Isabella’s case is unique to her, and the project included plenty of trial and error.
Isabella communicated easily with the group and provided feedback, especially about the weight. The first came in at 13 ounces; the final version shaved an ounce or two off of that after feedback from Isabella.
The team enlisted a music professor at Mason, Elizabeth Adams, who provided feedback on what Isabella would need to play the violin with some finesse.
On Thursday, Isabella received her final prosthetic, built from a 3-D printer, and hot pink (at her request) with “Isabella’s attachment” emblazoned on the forearm.
She played some scales as she adjusted the fit, and even a few bars of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”
“Oh my gosh, that’s so much better,” Isabella said as she tried out the new prosthetic.
And the team had a surprise for her, a plug-in attachment designed to let her grip a handlebar and ride a bicycle.
“I feel very blessed that I have this amazing group of people,” Isabella said.
Isabella had her heart set on playing music when the school began offering strings lessons in fourth grade.
“I’ve never told her no. I told her we would try. There was no guarantee the school would be able to do an adaptation,” said her mother, Andrea Cabrera. “Through these little miracles, it kept going forward.”
Isabella never had any doubt it would come together.
“I felt right away that I’d be able to play,” she said. “I’ve always had perseverance.”
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As Orbit Becomes More Crowded, Risk From Space Debris Grows
Decades’ worth of man-made junk is cluttering up Earth’s orbit, posing a threat to spaceflight and the satellites we rely on for weather reports, air travel and global communications.
More than 750,000 fragments larger than a centimeter are already thought to orbit Earth, and each one could badly damage or even destroy a satellite.
Last year, a tiny piece of debris punched a gaping hole in the solar panel of Copernicus Sentinel-1A, an observation satellite operated by the European Space Agency, or ESA. A solar array brought back from the Hubble Telescope in 1993 showed hundreds of tiny holes caused by dust-sized debris.
Experts meeting in Germany this week said the problem could get worse as private companies such as SpaceX, Google and Arlington, Virginia-based OneWeb send a flurry of new satellites into space over the coming years. They said steps should be taken to reduce space debris.
Getting all national space agencies and private companies to comply with international guidelines designed to prevent further junk in orbit would be a first step. At the moment those rules — which can be costly to implement — aren’t legally binding.
ESA’s director-general, Jan Woerner, told The Associated Press on Friday that so-called mega-constellations planned by private companies should have a maximum orbital lifetime of 25 years. After that, the satellite constellations would need to move out of the way, either by going into a so-called `graveyard orbit’ or returning to Earth.
That’s because dead satellites pose a double danger: they can collide with other spacecraft or be hit by debris themselves, potentially breaking up into tiny pieces that become a hazard in their own right.
The nightmare scenario would be an ever-growing cascade of collisions resulting in what’s called a Kessler syndrome — named after the NASA scientist who first warned about it four decades ago — that could render near-Earth orbits unusable to future generations.
“Without satellites, you don’t have weather reports, live broadcasts from the other side of the planet, stock market, air travel, online shopping, sat-nav in your car,” Rolf Densing, ESA’s director of operations, said. “You might as well move into a museum if all the satellites are switched off.”
Even if future launches adhere to the guidelines, though, there’s the question of what to do with all of the debris already in orbit.
“We have to clean the vacuum, which means we need a vacuum cleaner,” Woerner said.
Just how such a device would work is still unclear. Proposals include garbage-cleaning spacecraft armed with harpoons, nets, robotic arms and even lasers to fry really small bits of debris.
Luisa Innocenti, the head of ESA’s “clean space” initiative, said a mission is already in the works to bring down a very large piece of debris.
“It’s a very complex operation because nobody wants to fail,” she said. “Nobody wants to hit the debris and create another cloud of debris.”
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WHO: Thousands Dying from Viral Hepatitis
The United Nations’ World Health Organization says millions of lives could be saved if people infected with viral hepatitis were tested and treated for these potentially fatal diseases.
New WHO data from the just released Hepatitis 2017 report show an estimated 325 million people globally are living with chronic hepatitis B or hepatitis C virus infections.
WHO said hundreds of thousands of people infected with these diseases are dying because they lack access to life-saving testing and treatment. The agency noted that most people are untested and do not even know that they are infected.
Consequently, WHO said they remain untreated and are at risk of “a slow progression to chronic liver disease, cancer and death.”
Hepatitis B virus is transmitted between people through contact with blood or other body fluids. Hepatitis C virus is spread through direct contact with infected blood.
Latest estimates show that viral hepatitis caused 1.34 million deaths in 2015 and that some 1.75 million people were newly infected with hepatitis C, bringing the total number of people living with this disease globally to 71 million.
Comparable to TB
Gottfried Hirnschall, director of WHOs department of HIV/global hepatitis program, said that the number of deaths from viral hepatitis was comparable to that of tuberculosis.
However, he noted that hepatitis kills more people than HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and significantly more than malaria.
“What is, however, the difference between hepatitis and those three other diseases is that the trend for hepatitis is upwards. We are seeing an increase in mortality while for the other three diseases, it has been going down over the years,” Hirnschall said. “Since 2000 and 2015, we have seen a 22 percent increase from one million, as I said, to 1.34 million.”
Hirnschall said there was a range of interventions and tools, including highly effective vaccines and medicines that can prevent hepatitis from becoming a chronic and fatal disease.
WHO estimates 257 million people worldwide were living with chronic hepatitis B in 2015. However, it noted that new infections have been falling dramatically thanks to increased coverage of HBV vaccination among children.
Hepatitis B is mainly transmitted in the first years of life from mother to child and is most prevalent in the Western Pacific and African regions.
While this safe and effective vaccine has been around since 1982, nations have been slow to use it. But Ana Maria Henao Restrepo, team leader of the department of immunization, vaccines and biologicals, observed that this has changed.
She said 95 percent or 185 countries now use the hepatitis B vaccine in routine immunization programs.
“That is great and as I mentioned because of this, 85 percent of the infants worldwide are protected with three doses of hepatitis B vaccine. Where we are lagging behind is on the first dose that is given after birth. It is very important to prevent infections from the mother,” she said.
Restrepo said only 50 percent of countries were delivering this vaccine. Without this vaccine, she said “people become chronically infected and require medication and diagnosis” throughout their lifetime.
Unsafe injections
Unsafe injections in health care settings and injecting drug use are the most common modes of hepatitis C transmission. The problem is most widespread in the Eastern Mediterranean and European regions.
While using clean needles and syringes will prevent transmission of the disease, Gottfried Hirnschall said there is a highly effective drug that can cure hepatitis C within a relatively short time.
“A person needs to take a single tablet or a tablet every day for two to three months and most of the people will be cured.”
He said few people have availed themselves of this treatment for a long time because of the exorbitantly high $84,000 price tag.
“They were very high to start with. They are still very high in many countries, particularly in high-income countries,” he said.
“But, as the report also points out, the price of these treatments has come down considerably. It costs as little as $200 in some countries now, per cure for treatments, which is quite striking.”
Hirnschall said the new possibilities of cure for hepatitis C and the possible elimination of hepatitis B through vaccination have created some positive momentum and greater public attention on these heretofore “silent epidemics.”
“The momentum has clearly been driven by the excitement around some new opportunities we do now have,” he said.
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Catching Waves For Science
Catch a wave, and you’re sitting on top of the world. You’re also sitting on top of a unique biome. What does that do to our bodies? One surfer, who is also a chemistry graduate student, is trying to find out what all this wave time is doing to surfers’ bodies. This report by Kevin Enochs is narrated by Robert Raffaele.
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Prince Home State Marks Death Anniversary With Celebrations
For Prince fans, Friday’s one-year anniversary of his shocking death from an accidental drug overdose will be a time for sadness and celebration.
At his Paisley Park home and recording studio-turned-museum, a full four days of events are on tap, ranging from concert performances by his former bandmates to panel discussions.
Fans who can’t afford those high-priced tickets can head to a street party outside First Avenue, the club he made world famous in “Purple Rain.” And the Minnesota History Center is staging a special exhibit of Prince memorabilia, including his iconic “Purple Rain” suit.
Here’s a look at how Prince’s home state will honor his legacy and mourn his loss:
Paisley Park
Prince’s home base in the Minneapolis suburb of Chanhassen is marking the anniversary with a roster of shows from artists such as his old band The Revolution, Morris Day and the Time and New Power Generation. Also on the docket: panel discussions featuring such speakers as his old band mates — think Lisa (Coleman) and Wendy (Melvoin) from “Purple Rain” and The Revolution — along with many more.
Fans who could afford it spent $999 for VIP passes for the Paisley schedule, and the estate said those were sold out. A relatively cheaper option — $549 general admission passes — was still available midweek.
Prince’s siblings, who are on track to inherit an estate valued around $200 million, are hosting an all-night dance party in the Minneapolis suburb of Golden Valley with Dez Dickerson, Apollonia Kotero, Andre Cymone and others.
First Avenue
The downtown Minneapolis club where Prince filmed key parts of “Purple Rain” is hosting late-night dance parties Friday and Saturday with tracks from the late superstar.
A memorial street party outside the club is also on tap for Saturday. It will be reminiscent of the one that drew thousands of mourners on the night of Prince’s death to cry, dance and sing along.
Pieces of History
Prince’s “Purple Rain” costume — purple jacket, white ruffled shirt and studded pants — was put out for display at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul through Sunday.
The museum is also marking the anniversary by featuring handwritten lyrics to an unreleased song, “I Hope We Work It Out,” signed by Prince in 1977. Prince performed it for record executives when he first signed with Warner Bros.
Painting the Town Purple
Several landmarks in Minneapolis will be lit up in Prince purple, including U.S. Bank Stadium, Target Field, the IDS Center, and the Interstate 35W and Lowry Avenue bridges over the Mississippi River.
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Film Explores Innovative Ways to Fight Climate Change
An award-winning documentary has captured the innovative ways farmers and others are trying to make the planet a greener, more sustainable place.
Winner of the 2016 César for best documentary, the French equivalent of an Oscar, Tomorrow charts a road trip in which co-directors Cyril Dion and Mélanie Laurent roam the globe in search of solutions to environmental problems.
Their journey takes them to Icelandic volcanoes, Indian slums and French farmlands, among other places, to tell the stories of ordinary people fighting climate change.
The decision to steer away from doomsday narratives — most recently seen in Leonardo DiCaprio’s “Before the Flood” — came from the realization that such an approach failed to spur people into action, Dion said.
“When we focus on catastrophe, and on things that raise fear, it triggers mechanisms in the brain of rejection, flight and fear,” the longtime environmental activist said in a phone interview ahead of the film’s U.S. release Friday.
The film begins in the United States, where two California professors discuss their milestone 2012 study concluding climate change may signal a new cycle of mass extinction.
Soon afterward, Dion and Laurent — a French actress known for her role in “Inglourious Basterds” — hit the road.
Public plantings
In Britain, they visit the market town of Todmorden where residents have seized public spaces to plant fruit, vegetables and herbs — which pedestrians are encouraged to pick.
In the French city of Lille, the CEO of an envelope company shows them how bamboo is grown in the factory’s wastewater to feed a wood boiler that powers the unit’s central heating.
And in Copenhagen, local planners explain how building a labyrinth of bike paths is part of efforts to become first carbon-free capital by 2025.
“We don’t make the cities to make the cars happy, to make the modernistic planners and architects happy,” Jan Gehl, a local architect and urban planner, says in the film. “We have to make the cities so that citizens can have a good life and a good time.”
Dion said he was confident the film would appeal to American viewers despite the many U.S. lawmakers who are skeptical about climate change and oppose regulation to combat it.
Since being sworn in January, President Donald Trump has taken several steps to undo climate change regulations put in place by the previous administration.
Trump also promised during his election campaign to pull the United States out of the global climate change pact reached in Paris in 2015.
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‘Guardians’ Sequel a New Mixtape of Galaxy Saving
The stars of Guardians of the Galaxy, the Marvel movie about a rag-tag group of intergalactic heroes, landed in Hollywood to debut their return in a much-anticipated sequel that sees them embark on another high-stakes space adventure.
In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, space heroes Peter Quill, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot find themselves pursued by a villain and once again are given the task of saving the universe.
They are joined along the way by Gamora’s petulant sister Nebula, space pirate Yondu and Mantis, an empathic alien. The film is scheduled to open in theaters May 5.
“This is a million-piece puzzle and when you sit back and see the mosaic put together you get this one incredibly even, fully executed idea,” Chris Pratt, who plays Peter Quill, said at the red carpet premiere Wednesday.
“It’s brilliant, great music, it’s super funny, dramatic and it’s got great emotion and relationships, it’s stunning,” he said.
Action with a heart
Sylvester Stallone, who makes an appearance as Stakar Ogord leader of the space pirates known as “ravagers,” said action films “are modern mythology when it’s done right.”
“The kind of action films I’ve done are sort of more mano-a-mano … now they’ve developed this Marvel universe Guardians that have a heart, that has a lot of emotion to it, that takes it another step further,” he said, using the Spanish phrase for “hand to hand” combat that has come to be associated with any kind of competition between two people.
“It’s kind of a cross between Rocky [and] Rambo in space,” he added.
Original set records
The sequel follows 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, which smashed summer box office records and ushered in a new cadre of edgy heroes in the Marvel cinematic universe.
“I made a movie about outcasts for outcasts and it’s very touching for me that people all over the world, whether here or in Japan or in Russia or in England have been touched by the movie,” writer-director James Gunn said.
Gunn will write and direct the third Guardians film, set for release in 2020.
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Top 5 Songs for Week Ending April 22
We’re lining up the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart for the week ending April 22, 2017.
It’s one thing when a song enters the Top Five, but quite another when it debuts in the Top Five. That’s what we’re looking at this week.
Number 5: The Chainsmokers & Coldplay “Something Just Like This”
Let’s start in fifth place, where The Chainsmokers and Coldplay back off two slots with “Something Just Like This.”
Coldplay is touring Asia and just performed in South Korea, where the band honored victims of the Sewol ferry tragedy, South Korea’s worst maritime disaster. On April 16, 2014, the ferry capsized and sank, leaving more than 300 people dead or missing.
Lead singer Chris Martin called for 10 seconds of silence to honor the victims.
Number 4: Kyle Featuring Lil Yachty “iSpy”
Kyle and Lil Yachty gain a notch in fourth place with “ISpy.” Lil Yachty says his debut full-length album will be titled Teenage Emotions; we still don’t have a release date.
Lil Yachty made an appearance last weekend at California’s Coachella Festival, joining Gucci Mane onstage.
Number 3: Bruno Mars “That’s What I Like”
Bruno Mars descends a slot to third place with “That’s What I Like.” If Mars feels like grabbing another artist for a collaboration, I have two names for him.
Barry Manilow says he loves Mars’ performing style; Manilow says they met once, but nothing came of it. If Mars wants to work with a female artist, JoJo says he’s her number one pick in the current music scene.
Number 2: Kendrick Lamar “Humble”
Here’s your big entrant of the week: Kendrick Lamar debuts in the runner-up slot with “Humble.”
On April 16, he closed Coachella’s first weekend with a headlining performance. It all happens again next weekend.
Number 1: Ed Sheeran “Shape of You”
Speaking of repetition, Ed Sheeran extends his championship run to 12 weeks with “Shape Of You.” How common is this? Not very.
In the 58-year history of the Hot 100 chart, only 18 songs have held the title for 12 weeks or longer. Most recently, The Chainsmokers and Halsey lasted exactly 12 weeks at the top with “Closer.”
That happened last November…but what will happen next week? Join us in seven days and we’ll listen together.
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Germany’s Lilium Calls Test of ‘Flying Taxi’ Prototype Successful
A Bavarian startup is developing a five-seat “flying taxi” after successful test flights over Germany of a smaller version of the electric jet, the company said Thursday.
Munich-based Lilium, backed by investors who include Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom, said the planned five-seater jet, which will be capable of vertical takeoff and landing, could be used for urban air taxi and ride-sharing services.
In flight tests, a two-seat prototype executed maneuvers that included a midair transition from hover mode, like a drone, to wing-borne flight, like a conventional aircraft, Lilium said.
Potential competitors to Lilium Jet include much bigger players such as Airbus, the maker of commercial airliners and helicopters, which aims to test a prototype self-piloted, single-seat “flying car” later in 2017.
Slovakian firm to take orders
Slovakian firm AeroMobil said at a car show in Monaco on Thursday that it would start taking pre-orders for a hybrid flying car that can drive on roads. It said it planned production beginning in 2020.
But makers of “flying cars” still face hurdles, including convincing regulators and the public that their products can be used safely. Governments are still grappling with regulations for drones and driverless cars.
Lilium said its jet, with a range of 300 kilometers (190 miles) and cruising speed of 300 kph (185 mph), is the only electric aircraft capable of both vertical takeoff and jet-powered flight.
“We have solved some of the toughest engineering challenges in aviation to get to this point,” Daniel Wiegand, Lilium co-founder and chief executive, said in a statement.
The jet, whose power consumption per kilometer is comparable to that of an electric car, could offer passenger flights at prices comparable to those of normal taxis but with speeds five times faster, Lilium said.
Lilium, founded in 2014 by four graduates from the Technical University of Munich, is unusual on the German startup scene, which is dominated by e-commerce firms largely based in Berlin and self-financed engineering firms dotted around the country.
It raised $11.4 million (10.6 million euros) in 2016 from Zennstrom-led venture firm Atomico Partners and e42, the investment arm of entrepreneur Frank Thelen, a juror on the German investment reality TV show “Lion’s Den.”
Two-seat ‘multicopter’
Other potential rivals include crowd-funded eVolo, a firm based near Mannheim that has said it expects to receive special regulatory approval for its two-seat “multicopter” with 18 rotors to be used as flying taxis in pilot projects by 2018.
Terrafugia, based outside the U.S. city of Boston and founded a decade ago by Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates, aims to build a mass-market flying car, while U.S.-Israeli firm Joby Aviation has said it is working on a four-seater drone.
Google, Tesla and Uber have also reportedly shown interest in the new technology.
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Germany’s Lilium Calls Test of Its ‘Flying Taxi’ Prototype Successful
A Bavarian startup is developing a five-seat “flying taxi” after successful test flights over Germany of a smaller version of the electric jet, the company said Thursday.
Munich-based Lilium, backed by investors who include Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom, said the planned five-seater jet, which will be capable of vertical takeoff and landing, could be used for urban air taxi and ride-sharing services.
In flight tests, a two-seat prototype executed maneuvers that included a midair transition from hover mode, like a drone, to wing-borne flight, like a conventional aircraft, Lilium said.
Potential competitors to Lilium Jet include much bigger players such as Airbus, the maker of commercial airliners and helicopters, which aims to test a prototype self-piloted, single-seat “flying car” later in 2017.
Slovakian firm to take orders
Slovakian firm AeroMobil said at a car show in Monaco on Thursday that it would start taking pre-orders for a hybrid flying car that can drive on roads. It said it planned production beginning in 2020.
But makers of “flying cars” still face hurdles, including convincing regulators and the public that their products can be used safely. Governments are still grappling with regulations for drones and driverless cars.
Lilium said its jet, with a range of 300 kilometers (190 miles) and cruising speed of 300 kph (185 mph), is the only electric aircraft capable of both vertical takeoff and jet-powered flight.
“We have solved some of the toughest engineering challenges in aviation to get to this point,” Daniel Wiegand, Lilium co-founder and chief executive, said in a statement.
The jet, whose power consumption per kilometer is comparable to that of an electric car, could offer passenger flights at prices comparable to those of normal taxis but with speeds five times faster, Lilium said.
Lilium, founded in 2014 by four graduates from the Technical University of Munich, is unusual on the German startup scene, which is dominated by e-commerce firms largely based in Berlin and self-financed engineering firms dotted around the country.
It raised $11.4 million (10.6 million euros) in 2016 from Zennstrom-led venture firm Atomico Partners and e42, the investment arm of entrepreneur Frank Thelen, a juror on the German investment reality TV show “Lion’s Den.”
Two-seat ‘multicopter’
Other potential rivals include crowd-funded eVolo, a firm based near Mannheim that has said it expects to receive special regulatory approval for its two-seat “multicopter” with 18 rotors to be used as flying taxis in pilot projects by 2018.
Terrafugia, based outside the U.S. city of Boston and founded a decade ago by Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates, aims to build a mass-market flying car, while U.S.-Israeli firm Joby Aviation has said it is working on a four-seater drone.
Google, Tesla and Uber have also reportedly shown interest in the new technology.
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Mississippi Delta Offers Vacationing Blues Fans Many Stories
The Mississippi Delta has no shortage of museums, historic attractions and clubs devoted to the blues. But visitors will find the region has many other stories to tell, from the cotton plantations where African-American families worked and lived in desperate poverty to culinary traditions that reflect a surprising ethnic diversity.
The Blues Trail and Museums
You can’t miss the big blue guitars marking the famous crossroads of Highways 61 and 49 in Clarksdale. This is where, according to legend, Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil to learn how to play the blues.
Roadside signs for the Mississippi Blues Trail make it easy to find other sites as well, from Clarksdale’s Riverside Hotel, where Bessie Smith died, to the Dockery Farms cotton plantation in Cleveland, where many pioneering bluesmen lived, worked and made music, including Charley Patton, Roebuck “Pops” Staples and Howlin’ Wolf.
A sign in a field at Clarksdale’s Stovall Plantation notes that Muddy Waters’ songs were recorded there in 1941 by musicologist Alan Lomax as he collected folk music for the Library of Congress.
The sharecropper’s shack that Waters lived in has been restored and relocated to the nearby Delta Blues Museum. In Indianola, the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center pays tribute to King’s life and legacy. He’s buried there as well.
These museums and others use photos, artifacts, videos and other exhibits to explore the blues’ roots, beginning with African musical traditions brought to the South by slaves. Because Delta cotton plantations were relatively isolated, musical styles developed here uninfluenced by trends elsewhere. But eventually, many African-Americans who barely eked out a living working for white landowners in the decades after the Civil War migrated away from the South, seeking economic opportunity elsewhere along with an escape from segregation and racial terror.
Waters left the Delta for Chicago in 1943. King left Mississippi for Memphis, where he got his big break at radio station WDIA. These and other bluesmen were worshipped by 1960s music giants like Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. “Muddy Waters’ music changed my life,” said Eric Clapton. As the title of one of Waters’ songs puts it, “The Blues Had a Baby and They Named It Rock and Roll.”
Cat Head, clubs, festivals
Stop in Cat Head, a Mississippi blues music and gift store in Clarksdale, for a chat with owner Roger Stolle, a blues fan who moved there to “help pull the blues scene together in a way that would get people to come.” Local clubs stagger their schedules so you can hear live music every night. Stolle keeps a list online of who’s playing where.
Clarksdale’s best-known club is Ground Zero, co-owned by actor Morgan Freeman and Clarksdale Mayor Bill Luckett, but blues fans may be disappointed by party-vibe bands playing songs here like “Sweet Home Alabama.”
A more interesting venue is Red’s. Don’t be fooled by its rundown appearance and tiny, informal, living-room-style interior. Red’s showcases under-the-radar, brilliantly talented musicians like Lucious Spiller, whose performances will make you realize why the blues still matter.
Delta festivals include the Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival, August 11-13, and the October 12-15 Deep Blues Fest. Next year’s Juke Joint Festival will be April 12-15.
Food, lodging
Mississippi cuisine isn’t just catfish and barbecue. Doe’s, in Greenville, where a security guard watches over your car as you dine and walks you to the parking area when you leave, is known for steaks the size of your head and has been recognized by the James Beard Foundation. Chamoun’s Rest Haven in Clarksdale, founded by a Lebanese family in the 1940s, serves some of the best kibbe you’ll find outside the Middle East.
At Larry’s Hot Tamales, ask owner Larry Lee to share stories of how Mexican tamales became a scrumptious Mississippi staple. For upscale bistro fare like ceviche and roasted vegetables, try Yazoo Pass in Clarksdale.
To learn more about culinary traditions in Mississippi and elsewhere in the South, visit the Southern Foodways Alliance website.
Delta accommodations range from motels to the Alluvian, a luxury boutique hotel in Greenwood. A unique lodging option in the Delta is spending the night in a preserved sharecropper’s shack at the Shack Up Inn in Clarksdale or at Tallahatchie Flats in Greenwood.
Some travelers may find the concept offensive as a sugarcoating of the misery experienced by those who had no choice but to live this way. But for others, a night spent in a rustic cabin that rattles with the howling wind or shakes to its foundations in a thunderstorm may evoke the very vulnerability that makes the blues so haunting.
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Without O’Reilly, Fox News Faces Its Toughest Test
Fox News Channel has thrived despite losing founding leader Roger Ailes and next-generation star Megyn Kelly within the past nine months. Wednesday’s firing of defining personality Bill O’Reilly will be its toughest test yet.
Fox moved quickly to install a new lineup after announcing O’Reilly’s exit because of several harassment allegations by women, which he continues to deny.
Outside pressure isn’t leaving with him; members of the National Organization for Women demonstrated outside Fox’s headquarters Thursday, saying the company’s workplace culture wouldn’t really change unless management cleaned house of other high-ranking executives who knew about the sexual harassment but didn’t do anything.
For most of Fox’s existence, O’Reilly had been the linchpin of its success as the most visible and most-watched host. Fox’s viewership at 9 p.m. went up when Tucker Carlson replaced Kelly in January — her battles with Donald Trump cost her support among many Fox viewers — but don’t expect Carlson to repeat the feat when he moves an hour earlier on Monday.
‘Some dismay’
“There’s going to be some dismay among the Fox audience,” said Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the conservative watchdog Media Research Center. “The real question is what happens next. If they offer the same generic product, then it will be forgive and forget.”
Announcing a new lineup at the same time as the O’Reilly firing was smart, Graham said, because it enabled some viewers to say, “Oh, that’s not bad. I can live with that.”
Fox News has consistently been the most-watched network in all of cable television, not just news, over the past few months. The ouster of Ailes because of sexual harassment allegations last summer may have been disturbing, but meant little to viewers because it was off the air. Most of his management team remained, and the network’s approach didn’t change.
O’Reilly’s brand of middle-class populism, delivered with a mix of humor and outrage, predated and reflected the appeal of President Donald Trump. O’Reilly wasn’t always predictable in his opinions. Joe Pollak of the right-wing Breitbart.com website wrote a column Thursday headlined “Bill O’Reilly’s secret: he was a centrist, not a conservative.”
Arguably, the lineup installed in his stead is more reliably conservative. Carlson has made it a point to seek a younger audience by reaching out to the alt-right community, said Angelo Carusone, president of the liberal Media Matters for America. Eric Bolling begins his own show at 5 p.m. and the current late-afternoon panel show, “The Five,” moves into the 9 p.m. hour.
“It’s not like they brought in [Fox managing editor for breaking news] Shep Smith or a news anchor,” Carusone said.
Biggest challenge
Carlson scored the highest ratings ever for Fox in the 9 p.m. time slot for the first three months of 2017, but there remains some question about how much that was a result of following O’Reilly in the lineup. With him moving up an hour, 9 p.m. most likely represents Fox’s biggest challenge. “The Five” is set up as a panel show with one liberal trying to hold his own with four conservatives. The panelists are familiar to Fox viewers, and O’Reilly protege Jesse Watters is being added to the mix.
“The Five” faces strong competition with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in that hour, and CNN is about to give Jake Tapper a test drive in the time slot.
Trump’s most ardent defender on Fox, Sean Hannity, remains at 10 p.m. ET.
Fox plainly hopes that the brand and point of view it has developed is stronger than any single personality, even one as outsized as O’Reilly.
Rupert Murdoch and his sons James and Lachlan, who run Fox News parent 21st Century Fox, have talked about building an atmosphere of respect for women at the workplace now that the network’s top executive and top personality have both been drummed out for their behavior. Some observers, like the NOW demonstrators, wonder whether that can happen without further changes behind the scenes.
Ailes’ former top aide, Bill Shine, is now Fox’s co-president. He hasn’t been accused of any harassment, but many inside and outside Fox have wondered how much he and other executives still in place knew about Ailes’ and O’Reilly’s behavior. Fox even signed O’Reilly to a contract extension knowing that The New York Times was investigating harassment allegations against him — the story that led to O’Reilly’s ouster.
‘Nothing changed’
“There were a lot of people at Fox who really hoped things would change after Roger left, and they didn’t,” Margaret Hoover, a former Fox political contributor, said Thursday on CNN. She added: “Nothing changed in the sense that the culture that perpetuated this behavior is the same.”
Another former Fox contributor, Kirsten Powers, described on CNN an on-air segment with O’Reilly she found offensive because of the way the host talked about all the “blondes” who worked there. Powers said she sought an apology from O’Reilly and didn’t get one, and her complaints were waved off by various managers, including Ailes. She said she wouldn’t go on O’Reilly’s show, despite the high-profile platform it provided, for a few years afterward.
A former Fox clerical worker who anonymously complained Tuesday came forward Thursday on “The View” to identify herself and speak about the experience. Perquita Burgess, who is black, said O’Reilly leered at her, made grunting noises as he passed her desk and once referred to her as “hot chocolate.” She said she felt “triumphant” when she heard about O’Reilly’s firing.
“It’s very cathartic,” she said.
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Wily Bald Underground Critter Uses Plant-like Survival Strategy
They are homely, buck-toothed, pink, nearly hairless and just plain weird, but one of the many odd traits of rodents called naked mole-rats that live in subterranean bliss in the deserts of East Africa could someday be of great benefit to people.
Scientists said on Thursday the rodents, when deprived of oxygen in their crowded underground burrows, survive by switching to a unique type of metabolism based on the sugar fructose rather than the usual glucose, the only animal known to do so.
Metabolizing fructose is a plant strategy, and the researchers were surprised to see it in a mammal. They now hope to harness lessons learned from this rodent to design future therapies for people to prevent calamitous damage during heart attacks or strokes when oxygenated blood cannot reach the brain.
Naked mole-rats, they found, can survive up to 18 minutes with no oxygen and at least five hours in low-oxygen conditions that would kill a person in minutes.
More closely related to porcupines than moles or rats, they thrive in colonies boasting up to 300 members including a breeding queen in an insect-like social structure of cooperation in food-gathering and tunnel-digging.
With all those rodents breathing and clogging up burrows, they often encounter low-oxygen and high-carbon dioxide conditions.
“Naked mole-rats have evolved in an extremely different environment from most other mammals and they have had millions of years to figure out how to survive dramatic oxygen deprivation,” said neurobiologist Thomas Park of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who helped lead the study published in the journal Science.
In low-oxygen conditions, they enter a coma-like state and release fructose into the blood. By shifting their metabolism from the normal glucose-based system that relies on oxygen to a fructose-based system that does not, they can fuel vital organs such as the heart and brain.
Naked mole-rats live up to 30 years, decades longer than other rodents, are nearly immune to cancer and do not feel many types of pain. As the only cold-blooded mammal, they huddle together in mole-rat piles in order to keep warm. Their lips close behind their teeth so that they can dig with their teeth without getting dirt in their mouths. Their ears and eyes are tiny, and they have poor eyesight.
“Fructose has been linked to obesity and metabolic syndrome but that’s because we over-consume it in sweet beverages and junk food. Perhaps there is a use, and an important one, for fructose in moderate doses after all,” added molecular biologist Jane Reznick of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association in Berlin.
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Bacterial Product Can Lower Blood Sugar in Prediabetic People
Scientists have discovered that compounds derived from some bacteria can lower blood sugar levels in obese people with prediabetes, possibly preventing diabetes itself from developing.
Scientists call the bacteria-derived compounds postbiotics. They are not like probiotics, which are whole, live bacteria people take to change the microbial environment of the gut to ward off disease and improve digestion.
Postbiotics instead are beneficial pieces of bacteria cell walls that are easily absorbed by the body, which seem to make insulin work better. Postbiotics can also be derived from disease-causing microbes, say researchers.
Role of insulin
Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that ferries glucose from food into cells to nourish the body.
In people with prediabetes, insulin becomes less effective at its job.
Postbiotics seem to boost the hormone’s effectiveness. At least that’s what researchers at McMaster University in Canada’s Ontario province saw in experiments with obese mice.
Obesity is a risk factor for prediabetes, also known as metabolic syndrome. Other risk factors for metabolic syndrome include high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol.
Researchers say their work is designed to help obese individuals with prediabetes.
Biomedical sciences professor Jonathan Schertzer is senior author of a paper on postbiotics published in the journal Cell Metabolism.
To the extent that postbiotics are byproducts of bacteria in the gut, Schertzer says it’s just a matter of unleashing their beneficial effects.
“The bacteria in our guts are constantly dying and being turned over, and they’re producing a lot of this compound, this post-biotic,” Schertzer said. “So now we want to see if it’s a viable approach to increase that in obese people, or allow it to get through the gut, because the gut is a significant barrier. It’s supposed to keep all of these things out.
“But there are good things that the gut is keeping out as well. … We want to see if we can manipulate that and get some of the good things to get through,” he added.
Reducing the risk
Reducing inflammation to lessen the risk of diabetes and other diseases is an active area of research.
Schertzer says that’s why there’s interest in postbiotics and some other anti-inflammatory compounds contained in the pain reliever aspirin.
There also is an existing drug to treat a cancer called osteosarcoma, he says, that seems to work on the same biological pathways as postbiotics.
McMaster researchers are interested in seeing if that drug also reduces blood glucose levels in obese animals.
Schertzer says investigators are poised to begin human clinical trials of postbiotics,as a way to head off diabetes in obese individuals headed in that direction.
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