Life

The hybrid car

(AFP) In Norway, electric cars are exempt from taxes. In August, zero emission cars accounted for more than 15 percent of new car registrations, a market share which is unparallelled in the world but which is facing stiff competition from hybrid cars. A hybrid car runs on two forms of power, electricity and petrol. https://youtu.be/iQQS9yBap3A DAVID LORY / AFP VIDEOGRAPHICS / AFP

A brief history of Mars exploration

(AFP) The European Space Agency hopes that technologies tested during its ExoMars programme could pave the way for a return mission to the Red planet in the 2020s, as well as establish if Mars ever harboured life. A brief history of Mars exploration in videographics. JONATHAN RENAUD DE LA FAVERIE KATHERINE LEVY SPENCER / AFP VIDEOGRAPHICS / AFP In the 20th century US-USSR “Space Race”, NASA was the first to make it to Mars. In […]

Teens with celiac disease may be smaller than peers

(Reuters Health) By Kathryn Doyle – Girls diagnosed with celiac disease tend to be slightly shorter than their peers and boys to be underweight, but the size differences are not significant or concerning, Israeli researchers say. The study of more than 2 million teens who underwent medical exams over nearly two decades also found that celiac is being diagnosed more often now than in the past. Celiac disease (CD) is an autoimmune disorder that damages the […]

Global deal reached to phase out super greenhouse gases

  by Dave Clark and Stephanie Aglietti KIGALI, Rwanda | AFP | — In a major step toward curbing global warming, the world community agreed on Saturday to phase out a category of dangerous greenhouse gases widely used in refrigerators and air conditioners. Nearly 200 countries agreed to end production and consumption of so-called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) under an amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol on protecting the ozone layer. HFCs stoke climate change because they […]

In Lebanon, saving the hearts of Syrian refugee babies

Sidon, Lebanon (AFP) –by Sara Hussein Nine-month-old Amena al-Helou’s skin sizzles as the surgeon cauterises an incision in her chest, beginning a heart operation at a south Lebanon hospital to save the Syrian refugee’s life. She is just one of dozens of refugees treated each year by Lebanon’s leading paediatric heart surgeon Issam al-Rassi, who each week sets aside a day to operate on Syrian and Palestinian refugees. But for all his efforts, including on occasion […]

DiCaprio issues climate action call in new documentary

London, United Kingdom  (AFP) — by Maureen COFFLARD Leonardo DiCaprio has issued an impassioned call for immediate action on climate change in “Before the Flood”, a documentary film making its European premiere in London on Saturday. The Hollywood megastar, who won this year’s best actor Oscar for his role in “The Revenant”, takes viewers around the world to meet experts and politicians in order to reveal the scale of the problem, its effects and the […]

Fusion project construction kicks into gear as costs balloon

CADARACHE, France (Reuters)– Construction of an experimental nuclear fusion reactor in southern France is in full swing as the cost estimate has ballooned to nearly four times the original estimate, but the ITER project’s new head says new forecasts are realistic. The seven partners in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) – Europe, United States, China, India, Japan, Russia and South Korea – launched the project 10 years ago with a 5 billion euro ($5.6 […]

No quick fix from China’s ‘two-child’ policy: study

PARIS, France (AFP) — The end of China’s one-child-per-couple limit last year will not provide the population boost sought by Chinese leaders in the near term, according to a study released Friday. Any potential benefits the new “two-child” rule might have for the nation’s shrinking workforce and rapidly ageing population will not be felt for at least two decades, the study concluded. China is faced with deep demographic challenges thanks to the strict — and […]

Reprieve for Australian sub-Antarctic island station

by Martin PARRY SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia’s permanent sub-Antarctic research base at World Heritage-listed Macquarie Island has won a reprieve from closure and will instead get a multi-million dollar revamp, the government said Friday, in a boost for science. The Australian Antarctic Division announced in September the station on the island — which lies in the Southern Ocean between Australia and Antarctica — would shut after almost seven decades due to environmental contamination concerns and […]

WATCH: Endangered species

(AFP) — One in four mammals, one in eight birds, 40% of all amphibians and nearly one in three conifer trees; all are at risk of dying out. Some 20,000 of the world’s plant and animal species are now threatened with extinction out of 73,600 monitored — 1.8 million have been listed in total. Some 800 are already described as extinct while 69 species are only able to survive in captivity. Within the world’s mammal […]