Life

Space freighter burns up after launch to to ISS: Russia

by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — An unmanned cargo ship travelling to the International Space Station burned up in the atmosphere shortly after launch on Thursday, Russia’s space agency said. “According to preliminary information, as a result of an abnormal situation, the cargo ship’s loss occurred some 190 kilometers (110 miles) above the remote, unpopulated mountainous territory of (Russia’s) Tuva region, and most fragments burned up in dense layers of the atmosphere,” Roscosmos said […]

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How dangerous is AIDS?

One in seven people with HIV in Europe is unaware of their infection, the EU and World Health Organization reported Tuesday as 2015 marked another record year for new HIV cases in the region.

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Japan culling 230,000 more birds over avian flu

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan has mobilized its military to help with a second mass cull of 230,000 chickens amid a spreading outbreak of a highly contagious strain of avian flu, officials said. The highly virulent H5 strain was found in chickens at a farm in Joetsu city in Niigata prefecture, the local government said in a statement late Wednesday. It said that 2,100 people, including 1,020 members of the military, were being mobilized in […]

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S.Africa launches major new trial of AIDS vaccine

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) – by Philippe ALFROY South Africa on Wednesday begins a major clinical trial of an experimental vaccine against the AIDS virus, which scientists hope could be the “final nail in the coffin” for the disease. More than 30 years of efforts to develop an effective vaccine for HIV have not borne fruit, but for the first time since the virus was identified in 1983, scientists think they have found a promising candidate. […]

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Dog at German zoo helps rear tiger cub twins abandoned by their mother

STUCKENBROCK, Germany (Reuters) —A dog at a German zoo is helping to rear Bengal tiger cub twins which were abandoned by their mother soon after birth, Safaripark Stukenbrock in northern Germany said on Monday (November 28). One-month-old Peach and Pearl, born over the course of about an hour, were immediately rejected by their mother, said keeper Jeannette Wurms. “The first-born was in critical condition. She was so cold that we couldn’t take her temperature. Her […]

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Iconic work and collection of photographer Neil Leifer goes under the hammer

NEW YORK, United States (Reuters) — The iconic works of legendary sports photographer Neil Leifer and his collection of other people’s prints will go up for auction later this week. The signed images range from from his early start as a 16-year-old at the 1958 NFL Championship to recent photographs and include his celebrated images of boxing great Muhammad Ali. “My best known picture is Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston — there’s so much luck […]

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Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

TOWNSVILLE, Australia (Reuters) — Warm seas around Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have killed two-thirds of a 700-km (435 miles) stretch of coral in the past nine months, the worst die-off ever recorded on the World Heritage site, scientists who surveyed the reef said on Tuesday (November 29). Scientists surveyed sites on the Northern Great Barrier Reef in March and April and again at the same sites in October and November and found on average a […]

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Poor diet sees scurvy reappear in Australia

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Scurvy, a disease historically associated with old-world sailors on long voyages, is making a surprise comeback in Australia with health officials Tuesday revealing a spate of cases. Caused by vitamin C deficiency, it used to be a common, and often fatal, curse among seafarers who went months without fresh fruit and vegetables. Now considered rare, it is reappearing due to poor dietary habits, said Jenny Gunton, who heads the Centre for […]

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Spark of genius?

SEATTLE, USA (Reuters) — A group of students and graduates from Seattle’s University of Washington have developed a device that can generate electricity when exposed to an open flame. Their target market is the 600 million people in the developing world who have cellphones but no electricity at home to charge them. The developers, drawn from the university’s engineering department and business school, have launched a start-up company called JikoPower. The first part of its […]

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Miniature monkeys reunited after Australia zoo theft

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Two men were charged Monday with stealing rare pygmy marmosets from an Australian wildlife park as a baby was reunited with her mum and the hunt continued to find dad. Three of the monkeys, the world’s smallest, were snatched from their enclosure at the Symbio Wildlife Park south of Sydney on Saturday, with police and zookeepers launching a desperate bid to locate the suckling infant. There were fears it would die […]

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Dozens of homemade aircraft get wet at Hong Kong’s iconic harbour

HONG KONG, China (Reuters) — Dozens of colorful handmade aircraft attempted to fly off Hong Kong’s old airport runway before plummeting into the iconic Victoria Harbor on Sunday (November 27). The majority of the 41 funky and wonderful air crafts in shapes of cartoon characters, foods and animals plunged straight into the water without flying more than a meter. One of the contestants, Sylvia Tang, was inspired by a character from the famous ”Angry Birds” […]

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Dutch kill 190,000 ducks to contain bird flu outbreak

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AFP) — Dutch officials have culled 190,000 ducks on a central Netherlands farm where inspectors have confirmed the presence of a highly infectuous strain of bird flu, officials and local media said Sunday. The outbreak was detected at a farm in Biddinghuizen, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) west of Amsterdam, where about 180,000 ducks were put down together with another 10,000 within a one kilometer radius, the Dutch food and safety watchdog […]

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