Life

Poo to the rescue: how fecal transplants can save starving koalas

Washington, United States (AFP) — Scientists in Australia have discovered how to save starving koalas whose fussy eating habits make them vulnerable to habitat loss: by feeding them poo. A team of researchers used fecal transplants in the form of orally ingested capsules to alter the microbes in the marsupials’ guts, thus allowing them to eat a wider range of eucalypts. Their work was described in a study published in the journal Animal Microbiome on […]

Adapting city life to climate change

https://youtu.be/0L_6fyH8KfI Videographic showing how cities can respond to heat waves. Northern hemisphere summers will deliver dangerously longer heatwaves, droughts and bouts of rain even if humanity manages to cap global warming at two degrees Celsius, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. VIDEOGRAPHICS Fred Garet, Emmanuelle Bailllon / AFP Videographics / AFP

Singapore to trial driverless buses booked with an app

SINGAPORE (AFP) — Singapore will next week begin a public trial of driverless buses that can be booked with an app, part of ambitions to roll out autonomous vehicles across the city-state. Well-organised and high-tech, Singapore has become a testbed for self-driving vehicles, developing home-grown technology and inviting foreign companies to trial their own. Four driverless mini-buses will follow a 5.7 kilometre (3.5-mile) route on the resort island of Sentosa from August 26 to November […]

Facebook launches tool to let users control data flow

 PARIS, FRANCE (AFP) — Facebook, under pressure to ramp up privacy rules across its platform, said on Tuesday it was rolling out a tool allowing users to control data that it receives from other apps and websites about their online activity. The new tool is to give clients access to their so-called “off-Facebook activity” — fed back to Facebook with the aim of targeting advertisements — and give them the option of deleting it. “Off-Facebook […]

Panama City turns 500 Years

By H.E. Rolando A. Guevara Alvarado Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Panama to the Philippines Today, I join my countrymen in celebrating the 500 founding anniversary of the capital of the Republic of Panama, Panama City, which was established on August 15th, 1519 by Pedro Arias Dávila–making it the Pacific coast’s oldest Spanish settlement in the Americas. As part of this commemoration, the Commission of the 500th anniversary of the founding of […]

New planet discovered in orbit of young Milky Way star

PARIS, France (AFP) — A second planet has been discovered circling Beta Pictoris, a fledgling star in our own galaxy offering astronomers a rare glimpse of a planetary system in the making, according to a study published Monday. “We talking about a giant planet about 3,000 times more massive than Earth, situated 2.7 times further from its star than the Earth is from the Sun,” said Anne-Marie Lagrange, an astronomer at France’s National Centre for […]

Watch: Senator Pacquiao prepares for his first major concert scheduled on Sept. 1

(Eagle News) — Filipino boxing legend and senator Manny Pacquiao is now busy preparing for his major concert set this September 1. In his instagram post, the fighting senator showed a video of his rehearsals for the concert, practicing his singing skills accompanied by a live band. “I’m about to sing and practice for my concert on September 1. I don’t know if I can do it, if I can do this. But I’ll try, […]

Cathay Pacific’s torrid week ends with shock CEO resignation

  by Jerome TAYLOR / Elaine YU Agence France Presse HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Cathay Pacific announced the shock resignation on Friday of its CEO Rupert Hogg, compounding a torrid week for the Hong Kong carrier after it was excoriated by Beijing because some staff supported pro-democracy protests. The 72-year-old airline has been left reeling after it became ensnared in the hardening of rhetoric from the communist mainland over ten weeks of anti-government protests […]

Tears and shouting as Australia dilutes Pacific climate warning

  WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AFP) — A Pacific summit has descended into tears, recriminations and shouting between pro-coal Australia and low-lying island nations facing an existential threat from climate change. The annual Pacific Island Forum wrapped up in Tuvalu late Thursday with Australia and the group’s 17 other members sharply at odds, potentially undermining Canberra’s efforts to curb China’s growing influence in the region. “There were serious arguments and even shouting, crying, people, leaders were […]

Sinking city: Indonesia’s capital on brink of disaster

  JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Time is running out for Jakarta. One of the fastest-sinking cities on earth, environmental experts warn that one third of it could be submerged by 2050 if current rates continue. Decades of uncontrolled and excessive depletion of groundwater reserves, rising sea-levels, and increasingly volatile weather patterns mean swathes of it have already started to disappear. Existing environmental measures have had little impact, so authorities are taking drastic action: the nation […]

Global measles cases triple year-on-year: WHO

GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — Measles cases nearly tripled globally during the first seven months of the year compared to the same period in 2018, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, amid growing concern over public resistance to the vaccine. So far this year, 364,808 measles cases were reported around the world, compared to 129,239 cases during the first seven months a year earlier. These numbers are “the highest (registered) since 2006,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier […]

Ecological disaster on Greek island as fire burns on

by Angelos TZORTZINIS MAKRYMALLI, Greece (AFP) — Firefighters on the Greek island of Evia were still battling Wednesday to contain a fire that has caused massive damage to a pristine mountain wildlife habitat after threatening four communities. “It’s a huge ecological disaster in a unique, untouched pine forest,” said acting regional governor Costas Bakoyannis. The fire that broke out in the early hours of Tuesday on Greece’s second-largest island prompted the evacuation of the villages […]