Life

Needle found in Australian strawberries sold in New Zealand

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AFP) — The Australian strawberry scare has spread to New Zealand with a supermarket chain announcing Sunday that needles were found in a box of the fruit sourced from the neighbouring country. The Countdown supermarket chain said it had taken a brand of Australian strawberries off the shelves after a sabotaged punnet — a plastic box — was sold in an Auckland store. The strawberries, from Western Australia state, were sold in […]

UP Singing Ambassadors captures hearts in Paris with final Europe concert

  By Malou Francisco EBC Europe correspondent, Eagle News Service (Eagle News) — Even in the world’s famous art and cultural center in Paris, the University of the Philippines Singing Ambassadors (UPSA) has won recognition from music enthusiasts and has captured their hearts fulfilling the group’s motto of “Sing from the heart to bring joy and peace through music.” Winner of numerous grand prizes and top prizes in their European tours, the UPSA held their […]

Propping up glaciers to avoid cataclysmic sea level rise

by Marlowe HOOD Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — As global warming outpaces efforts to tame it, scientists have proposed building massive underwater structures to prevent an Antarctic glacier the size of Britain from sliding into the sea and lifting the world’s oceans by several meters. The more modest of two engineering schemes — which is still on the scale of a Panama or Suez Canal — to shore up Thwaites Glacier would require […]

Google Mini captures top spot in connected speaker market: survey

  WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Google Home Mini has vaulted to the top spot in the global market for connected speakers, edging out a rival device from Amazon, a survey showed Wednesday. The Strategy Analytics report for the second quarter of 2018 showed the smallest device from Google captured 20 percent of the market with sales of 2.3 million. That was slightly ahead of the Echo Dot, the similarly sized device from Amazon, with […]

Even moderate warming could melt Antarctic ice sheet: study

by Patrick GALEY Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Moderate global temperature rises of just two degrees Celsius could still be enough to melt parts of the largest ice sheet on Earth and raise sea levels by several metres, experts warned on Wednesday. As the pace of climate change rapidly outstrips mankind’s attempts to rein it in, scientists delved into the distant past of glaciers in eastern Antarctica to predict what lay in store […]

Air pollution linked to higher risk of dementia: study

PARIS, France (AFP) — Urban air pollution, mostly from vehicles, is associated with an increased risk of dementia, according to research published Wednesday. The link remained even after heavy drinking, smoking and other well established risk factors for dementia were ruled out, the researchers reported in medical journal BMJ Open. Worldwide, about seven percent of people over 65 suffer from Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia, a percentage that rises to 40 percent above the […]

Canada opioid deaths hits 8,000; overdose deaths mainly from fentanyl use

OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) — More than 1,000 Canadians died of an apparent opioid overdose in the first three months of this year, bringing the toll since the public health crisis erupted in 2016 to 8,000, the public health agency said Tuesday. “The latest data suggest that the crisis is not abating,” the agency said in a statement. “We want to emphasize that the current crisis does not discriminate,” it said. “It impacts people from all […]

Microplastics may enter foodchain through mosquitoes

  PARIS, France (AFP) — Mosquito larvae have been observed ingesting microplastics that can be passed up the food chain, researchers said Wednesday, potentially uncovering a new way that the polluting particles could damage the environment. Microplastics — tiny plastic shards broken down from man-made products such as synthetic clothing, car tyres and contact lenses — litter much of the world’s oceans. Hard to spot and harder to collect, they can seriously harm marine wildlife […]

5.2 million children at famine risk in Yemen: charity

LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — More than five million children are at risk of famine in Yemen as the ongoing war causes food and fuel prices to soar across the country, charity Save the Children warned Wednesday. Disruption to supplies coming through the embattled Red Sea port of Hodeida could “cause starvation on an unprecedented scale,” the British based NGO said in a new report. Save the Children said an extra one million children now […]

Nation state cyber attacks on rise, says Europol

  by Danny Kemp Agence France Presse THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AFP) — Global ransomware attacks are increasingly linked to nation states, with the lines between politics and crime often blurring, Europe’s police agency said on Tuesday. Key ransomware attacks include the so-called WannaCry and NotPetya malware, which infected hundreds of thousands of computers around the world in 2017, demanding that users pay ransoms to regain access. “Ransomware retains its dominance,” said Europol’s latest annual report […]

Germany rolls out world’s first hydrogen train

BREMERVORDE, Germany (AFP) — Germany on Monday rolled out the world’s first hydrogen-powered train, signalling the start of a push to challenge the might of polluting diesel trains with costlier but more eco-friendly technology. Two bright blue Coradia iLint trains, built by French TGV-maker Alstom, began running a 100-kilometer (62-mile) route between the towns and cities of Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, Bremervoerde and Buxtehude in northern Germany — a stretch normally plied by diesel trains. “The world’s […]

Melting permafrost threatens climate rescue plan: study

by Patrick GALEY Agence France-Presse Global targets aimed at warding off runaway planetary warming could be breached sooner than expected, experts warned Monday, as gases released by melting permafrost threaten to undermine human efforts to avert climate disaster. Under the current rescue plan, outlined in the 2015 Paris climate treaty, countries have agreed to limit global temperature rises to “well below” two degrees Celsius, and 1.5C if deemed possible. That course of action assumes that […]