Scores of people gathered on a New Zealand beach on Monday as a young whale that died in a rare stranding was pulled to shore. The seven-metre (23-foot) fin whale died in the early hours after beaching on an estuary sandbank near the Christchurch suburb of Moncks Bay, the conservation department said. The coast guard used an earthmover to lift the whale’s body out of the water. A crowd of people perched on boulders at […]
Life
‘The sun didn’t sting so much before’: fires stun Colombia’s Andes
By Valentín DÌAZ The once bright green Andean forest where Maria Yadira Jimenez worked as a tour guide has been reduced to ashes. Since Monday, forest fires have been advancing on Nemocon, a rural area with beautiful landscapes about 60 kilometers (37 miles) outside the Colombian capital Bogota. Though usually cool, the mountains surrounding the town have become a hellscape, with the blazes driving out residents and wildlife. Distraught, Jimenez joined volunteers who — along […]
Royal Caribbean’s ‘Icon,’ world’s largest cruise ship, sets sail
The world’s largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, set sail from Miami on its maiden voyage Saturday, carrying what amounted to the population of a small city. The ship, built over 900 days at a shipyard in Turku, Finland, is a monument to enormity, longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall, with 20 decks and room for more than 5,600 passengers (7,600 at maximum capacity) and a crew of 2,350. To ensure […]
Art attack: masterpieces targeted by activists
The dousing of a glass-covered Mona Lisa in pumpkin soup is the latest in a string of cases of priceless artworks being targeted by environmental activists. Here are some of the other cases that have made headlines in the past two years: – Soup for “Sunflowers” – In October 2022, two activists from the Just Stop Oil group emptied cans of tomato soup over the glass protecting Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” in London’s National Gallery. […]
Japan says Moon lander ‘resumed operations’
Japan’s Moon lander has resumed operations, the space agency said on Monday, indicating that power had been restored. After it landed on January 20, JAXA had said that problems with the craft’s solar batteries meant they were not generating power. “Last evening we succeeded in establishing communication with SLIM, and resumed operations,” JAXA said on X, formerly Twitter. “We immediately started scientific observations with MBC, and have successfully obtained first light for 10-band observation,” it […]
NASA helicopter’s mission ends after three years on Mars
By Issam AHMED WASHINGTON, Jan 26, 2024 (AFP) – NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter, which made history by achieving the first powered flight on another world, has officially ended its nearly three-year mission after sustaining rotor damage during its last outing, the space agency said Thursday. The tissue-box sized aircraft, which hitched a ride to the Red Planet under the belly of the Perseverance rover, first lifted off the surface on April 19, 2021. Originally intended […]
Colombia declares emergency over raging forest fires
BOGOTÁ, Jan 25, 2024 (AFP) – Colombia has declared a state of emergency in two regions as dozens of forest fires burned wide swathes of the country and left the capital choking on smoke during record temperatures linked with the El Nino weather phenomenon. Colombia has already extinguished hundreds of fires this month, but 25 continue to burn, according to data from the National Disaster Risk Management Unit (UNGRD) on Wednesday. In the departments of […]
Japan craft made successful pin-point Moon landing, space agency says
By Kyoko HASEGAWA TOKYO, Jan 25, 2024 (AFP) – Japan’s “Moon Sniper” craft made a pin-point lunar landing despite last-minute engine problems, the space agency said Thursday as it released the first images from the mission. A photo taken by a mini-rover showed the boxy yellow lander sitting intact at a slight angle on the rocky grey surface, lunar slopes rising in the distance. Saturday’s touchdown made Japan only the fifth nation to achieve a […]
Memory chip giant SK Hynix returns to profit on strong AI demand
The world’s second-largest memory chip maker, South Korea’s SK Hynix, said on Thursday it had returned to profit after four consecutive quarters of losses driven by demand for chips used in artificial intelligence. SK Hynix posted an operating profit of 346 billion won ($259.4 million) for the October-December period, compared with a loss of 1.9 trillion won in the same period a year earlier, with strong sales of its flagship products DDR5 and HBM3. Those […]
Clean energy largest driver of Chinese GDP growth in 2023: report
By Jing Xuan TENG SHANGHAI, Jan 25, 2024 (AFP) – Clean-energy projects were the largest driver of China’s economic growth in 2023, with Beijing investing nearly as much in decarbonisation infrastructure as total global investment in fossil fuels, according to a report released Thursday. China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases driving climate change, but it is also the top producer of wind and solar energy. Faced with soaring energy consumption, the country […]
Tesla sees slower 2024 volume growth as earnings miss estimates
By John BIERS Tesla reported lower fourth-quarter operating profits despite higher revenues Wednesday, following a series of auto price cuts as Elon Musk’s electric vehicle giant warned of slower volume growth in 2024. Shares of Tesla fell after the company’s earnings per share and revenues both missed analysts expectations in the fourth quarter, and it offered a sobering outlook for 2024 auto volumes. “Our company is currently between two major growth waves,” said Tesla. It […]
Prehistoric ‘chewing gum’ sheds light on Stone Age diet
DNA from a type of “chewing gum” used by teenagers in Sweden 10,000 years ago is shedding new light on the Stone Age diet and oral health, researchers said Tuesday. The wads of gum are made of pieces of birch bark pitch, a tar-like black resin, and are combined with saliva, with teethmarks clearly visible. They were found 30 years ago next to bones at the 9,700-year-old Huseby Klev archaeological site north of Sweden’s western […]