Life

Los Angeles tests cooling pavement paint to beat heat

LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP ) — Can a splash of gray pavement paint help combat global warming? In Los Angeles, where summer temperatures regularly surpass 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), workers are coating streets in special gray treatments in a bid to do just that. The City of Angels, home to four million people, is the first major city to test the technology. Normal black asphalt absorbs 80 to 95 percent of sunlight, while the gray “cool […]

Van Gogh goes virtual as ‘Sunflowers’ unite via livestream

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AFP) — Five versions of Vincent Van Gogh’s masterpiece painting “Sunflowers” will be united across three continents for the first time on Monday via a consecutive livestream feed, the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam has said. “On Monday… Facebook is hosting five consecutive livestreams in which international museum directors and conservators present the version of Sunflowers in their own institution,” the museum said on its website. “Five different Sunflowers paintings will be […]

SpaceX to launch supercomputer to space

by Kerry Sheridan Agence France-Presse MIAMI, United States (AFP) – SpaceX is poised to launch an unmanned cargo ship toward the International Space Station Monday, including a super-computer that could direct astronauts on future deep-space missions. The liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Dragon cargo ship, is planned for 12:31 pm (1631 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The weather forecast is 70 percent favorable for launch. The mission is the 12th official trip […]

Sea turtles lay eggs on protected Mexican beach

PLAYA LA ESCOBILLA, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexico’s beautiful Playa La Escobilla was crawling with nesting marine turtles this weekend as they emerge from the sea to lay their eggs on the sandy beaches in their annual migration during the months of August and September. Members of the Olive Ridley Turtle Sanctuary Cooperative on La Escobilla beach, in the town of Santa Maria Tonameca, battle for turtle conservation in the Pacific Ocean to protect populations that […]

McGregor’s sparring partner quits, says Mayweather can easily defeat “scumbag” boxer

  LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — Former boxing champ Paulie Malignaggi says he has no regrets about quitting Conor McGregor’s training camp, describing the mixed martial arts fighter as a “scumbag” who surrounds himself with “a bunch of yes men.” McGregor is preparing to face boxing star Floyd Mayweather in a Las Vegas boxing ring on August 26 in what could be one of the richest fights in history. The 36-year-old Malignaggi, who retired […]

Facebook discretely fields China photo-sharing app

SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Facebook’s interest in China has led it to discretely create a photo-sharing application released there without the social network’s brand being attached. “We have long said that we are interested in China, and are spending time understanding and learning more about the country in different ways,” a Facebook representative said Friday in an email response to an AFP inquiry. “Our focus right now is on helping Chinese businesses and […]

World’s oldest man, Holocaust survivor, dies in Israel aged 113

(Reuters) — Holocaust survivor Israel Kristal, who last year was recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest living man, died in Israel on Friday (August 11), aged 113, local news media reports said. Guinness said Kristal was born in Poland on Sept. 15, 1903, and survived the Auschwitz death camp, where his first wife, two children and other family members were killed by the Nazis. He married again after the war and moved […]

Moroccan scientists develop machine that milks scorpions for cancer research

  Extracting venom from scorpions can be a dangerous task. The poisonous secretion can be fatal to humans but the venom, when broken down at a molecular level, contains hundreds of components that can be used in cancer research and to develop new drugs. Manual extraction can also be harmful for the scorpions, as there is a risk of puncturing the venom gland. Now scientists at Morocco’s Ben M’sik Hassan II University have found a […]

Australia vitamin ‘breakthrough’ to cut miscarriages, birth defects

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Taking a common vitamin supplement could significantly reduce the number of miscarriages and birth defects worldwide, Australian scientists said Thursday, in what they described as a major breakthrough in pregnancy research. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that deficiency in a key molecule among pregnant women stopped embryos and babies’ organs from developing correctly in the womb, but could be treated by taking the dietary supplement vitamin […]

Pia Wurtzbach urges more HIV tests amid UN report that PHL has fastest growing infections in Asia

https://youtu.be/OWsY84JMz00   MANILA, Philippines (AFP) — The Philippines’ former Miss Universe conducted a public HIV test in Manila on Wednesday a week after the United Nations said her country had the fastest-growing number of  infections in Asia. Pia Wurtzbach, UNAIDS goodwill ambassador for Asia and the Pacific, took the test in front of reporters as part of her efforts to raise awareness of HIV and remove the stigma surrounding the virus in the conservative nation. The United Nations […]

Asteroid to shave past Earth on Oct 12: ESA

by Mariëtte Le Roux Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — A house-sized asteroid will shave past our planet on October 12, far inside the Moon’s orbit but without posing any threat, astronomers said Thursday. The space rock will zoom by harmlessly at a distance of about 44,000 kilometers (27,300 miles) — an eighth of the distance from the Earth to the Moon, according to the European Space Agency, This is just far enough to […]

Planet marks new highs for heat, pollutants, sea level in 2016: report

by Jean-Louis Santini with Kerry Sheridan in Miami Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The Earth set a series of dire records in 2016, including hottest year in modern times, highest sea level and most heat-trapping gases ever emitted, a global climate report said Thursday. A range of key climate and weather indicators show the planet is growing increasingly warm, a trend that shows no signs of slowing down, said the annual State […]