What is the Most Secluded Place in the World?

Tiny Pitcairn Island is home to fewer than 50 inhabitants
Tiny Pitcairn Island is home to fewer than 50 inhabitants
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What is the Most Secluded Place in the World?

Tiny Pitcairn Island is home to fewer than 50 inhabitants
Tiny Pitcairn Island is home to fewer than 50 inhabitants

Seclusion can be found while hiking in the Dolomites in Italy or by rowing in Sweden, but civilization is always only a few kilometers away. But what are the really isolated, inaccessible, and so remote places that hardly anyone has ever seen? This remains a question for scientists. Geography has a term for particularly remote places: poles of inaccessibility. According to the University of California's Department of Geography in Santa Barbara, “The pole of inaccessibility is the most challenging to reach owing to its remoteness from geographical features that could provide access.”

The poles of inaccessibility are usually continental or oceanic. The continental poles of inaccessibility are located on the farthest land from coasts. For example, the Eurasian pole of inaccessibility is located in the northwest desert of China, the German news agency reported.

On the other hand, the oceanic pole of inaccessibility is the place located in the ocean or the farthest point from any land. This pole is located in the South Pacific and is known as Point Nemo. It is about 2,700 kilometers from the nearest land, the Pitcairn Islands.

The most isolated island in the world is the uninhabited Bouvet Island, in the South Atlantic and makes part of Norway since 1930. But the island has little to offer to those who dream of seclusion due to its harsh weather conditions. It is mostly home to algae and fungi that only grow in areas where the earth does not freeze, along with albatrosses, penguins and other cold-resistant birds.

The question is: Are these remote places really untouched? Reinhold Leinfelder, a geophysicist at the Free University in Berlin, says humans have changed the earth and left their mark everywhere. Even at Point Nemo, the remnants of a small-scale civilization can be found, for example.



Japan Sees Hottest September Since Records Began 

Young women use portable fans to seek relief from the heat as temperatures soar in Japan. (AFP)
Young women use portable fans to seek relief from the heat as temperatures soar in Japan. (AFP)
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Japan Sees Hottest September Since Records Began 

Young women use portable fans to seek relief from the heat as temperatures soar in Japan. (AFP)
Young women use portable fans to seek relief from the heat as temperatures soar in Japan. (AFP)

Japan has seen its hottest September since records began 125 years ago, the weather agency said, in a year expected to be the warmest in human history.

The scorching September's average temperature was 2.66 degrees Celsius higher than usual, the Japan Meteorological Agency said on Monday.

This was "the highest figure since the start of statistics in 1898", the agency said in a statement.

This year is expected to be the hottest in human history as climate change accelerates, with countries including Austria, France, Germany, Poland and Switzerland each announcing their warmest September on record.

Across Japan last month, 100 of 153 observation locations broke an average temperature record, including in Tokyo, with an all-time high of 26.7 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit), in Osaka with 27.9C and in Nagoya with 27.3C.

The average temperature jump of 2.66C was "extraordinary" and "easily topped previous highs", weather agency official Masayuki Hirai told AFP on Tuesday.

"If this is not an abnormally high temperature, I don't know what is," he said.

French weather authority Meteo-France said the September temperature average in the country will be around 21.5 degrees Celsius, between 3.5C and 3.6C above the 1991-2020 reference period.

The UK, too, has matched its record for the warmest September since records began in 1884.

The average global temperature in June, July and August was 16.77 degrees Celsius, surpassing the previous 2019 record, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in a report.

In September, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told world leaders the climate crisis had "opened the gates to hell".

In his opening address at the Climate Ambition Summit, Guterres evoked this year's "horrendous heat" but stressed: "We can still limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees," referring to the target seen as needed to avoid long-term climate catastrophe.


China Offers to Collaborate on Lunar Mission as Deadlines Loom 

View of the last supermoon of the year, known as Harvest moon, from the village of Sant Elm, Majorca island, eastern Spain, early 30 September 2023. (EPA)
View of the last supermoon of the year, known as Harvest moon, from the village of Sant Elm, Majorca island, eastern Spain, early 30 September 2023. (EPA)
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China Offers to Collaborate on Lunar Mission as Deadlines Loom 

View of the last supermoon of the year, known as Harvest moon, from the village of Sant Elm, Majorca island, eastern Spain, early 30 September 2023. (EPA)
View of the last supermoon of the year, known as Harvest moon, from the village of Sant Elm, Majorca island, eastern Spain, early 30 September 2023. (EPA)

China, which aims to become a major space power by 2030, has opened up a key lunar mission to international cooperation as mission deadlines loom for setting up a permanent habitat on the south pole of the moon.

China welcomes countries and international organizations on its uncrewed Chang'e-8 mission and to jointly carry out "mission-level" projects, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said at the 74th International Astronautical Congress in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Monday.

Mission-level projects mean China and its international partners could launch and operate their spacecraft, conduct spacecraft-to-spacecraft "interactions", and jointly explore the surface of the moon, according to details announced on CNSA's website.

International partners are also welcome to "piggyback" on the Chang'e-8 mission and independently deploy their own modules once the Chinese spacecraft lands, CNSA said.

Interested parties must submit a letter of intent to CNSA by Dec. 31. Final selection of proposals will come in September 2024.

The Chang'e-8 mission will follow the Chang'e-7 in 2026, which also aims to search for lunar resources on the moon's south pole. The two missions will lay the foundations for the construction of the Beijing-led International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) in the 2030s.

China, which deployed an uncrewed probe to the moon on the Chang'e-5 mission in 2020, plans to send an uncrewed Chang'e-6 probe to the far side of the moon in the first half of 2024 to retrieve soil samples.

China aims to land astronauts on the moon by 2030.

China's timeline to build an outpost on the south pole coincides with NASA's more ambitious and advanced Artemis program, which aims to put US astronauts back on the lunar surface in December 2025, barring delays.

On the 2025 Artemis 3 mission, two US astronauts will land on the lunar south pole, a region previously unvisited by any human. The last time a human set foot on the moon was in 1972 under the US Apollo program.

The crewed Artemis 4 and 5 missions are planned for 2027 and 2029, respectively.

NASA is banned by US law from collaborating with China, directly or indirectly.

As of September, 29 countries - including India, which landed a probe near the moon's south pole in August - have signed the Artemis Accords, a pact crafted by NASA and the US State Department aimed at establishing norms of behavior in space and on the lunar surface.

China and Russia are not signatories of the agreement.

China, for its own lunar station program, has secured participation from only Russia and Venezuela so far.


How Can AI, Brain Science Help Create Fragrances?

Beauty brands are looking to research and technology to sniff out the factors that lure buyers
Beauty brands are looking to research and technology to sniff out the factors that lure buyers
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How Can AI, Brain Science Help Create Fragrances?

Beauty brands are looking to research and technology to sniff out the factors that lure buyers
Beauty brands are looking to research and technology to sniff out the factors that lure buyers

Beauty brands are looking to research and technology to sniff out the factors that lure buyers, according to a report by The Guardian.

Making perfume is an art that can be traced back to ancient Greece but now modern-day perfumiers are beginning to look beyond their noses to develop the scents most likely to appeal to us. They are, instead, turning to AI.

Perfumes can now be designed to trigger emotional responses using ingredients known as neuroscents – odors shown by biometric measures to arouse different positive feelings such as calm, euphoria or sleepiness. Hugo Ferreira, a researcher at the Institute of Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering in Lisbon, is mapping brain activity and response to perfumes to build a database of neuroscents.

He says the sense of smell is fascinating. “With sight and hearing, you can imagine the face of a loved one or favorite tune. It’s hard to imagine a smell even though it can provoke a torrent of emotions and memories.”

Ferreira says this is due to the structure of the olfactory system. Messages from scent receptors are sent via the olfactory bulb to different brain areas that control everything from memory or thirst to stress reactions.

“Olfaction is the most diverse sense with many different receptors. It’s estimated that there are about 400 different olfactory receptor gene families. Among other things these various connections may explain how we can ‘smell fear’, or the smell of victory,” he added.

Many beauty brands have invested in neuroscent research and technology, as the possibilities of creating fragrances proven to make consumers feel good are obviously big. L’Oréal has partnered with neurotechnology company Emotiv to create a scent choice “experience”.

During 2023, shoppers at certain Yves Saint Laurent stores worldwide have used a headset to create an electroencephalogram – EEG – to discover which scents appealed to them. Results so far show that 95% of customers who used the headset found the right perfume.

Fashion and fragrance business Puig says it took 45 million brain readings from men aged 18-35 to finesse the cologne Phantom by Paco Rabanne, adding lavender and lemon to the formula as a result of its research.

Givenchy Irresistible eau de parfum – the latest iteration of the Very Irresistible range that has been a bestseller for 20 years – includes a rose extract dubbed “anti-morose”, chosen after biometric research.


How are Ancient Roman and Mayan Buildings Still Standing? Scientists are Unlocking their Secrets

El Castillo is one of Mexico's most famous Mayan temples and attracts 1.4 million visitors a year (AFP/Getty Images)
El Castillo is one of Mexico's most famous Mayan temples and attracts 1.4 million visitors a year (AFP/Getty Images)
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How are Ancient Roman and Mayan Buildings Still Standing? Scientists are Unlocking their Secrets

El Castillo is one of Mexico's most famous Mayan temples and attracts 1.4 million visitors a year (AFP/Getty Images)
El Castillo is one of Mexico's most famous Mayan temples and attracts 1.4 million visitors a year (AFP/Getty Images)

In the quest to build better for the future, some are looking for answers in the long-ago past.
Ancient builders across the world created structures that are still standing today, thousands of years later — from Roman engineers who poured thick concrete sea barriers, to Maya masons who crafted plaster sculptures to their gods, to Chinese builders who raised walls against invaders.
Yet scores of more recent structures are already staring down their expiration dates: The concrete that makes up much of our modern world has a lifespan of around 50 to 100 years.
A growing number of scientists have been studying materials from long-ago eras — chipping off chunks of buildings, poring over historical texts, mixing up copycat recipes — hoping to uncover how they’ve held up for millennia, The Associated Press said.
This reverse engineering has turned up a surprising list of ingredients that were mixed into old buildings — materials such as tree bark, volcanic ash, rice, beer and even urine. These unexpected add-ins could be key some pretty impressive properties, like the ability to get stronger over time and “heal” cracks when they form.
Figuring out how to copy those features could have real impacts today: While our modern concrete has the strength to hold up massive skyscrapers and heavy infrastructure, it can't compete with the endurance of these ancient materials.
And with the rising threats of climate change, there's a growing call to make construction more sustainable. A recent UN report estimates that the built environment is responsible for more than a third of global CO2 emissions — and cement production alone makes up more than 7% of those emissions.
“If you improve the properties of the material by using ... traditional recipes from Maya people or the ancient Chinese, you can produce material that can be used in modern construction in a much more sustainable way,” said Carlos Rodriguez-Navarro, a cultural heritage researcher at Spain’s University of Granada.
Is ancient Roman concrete better than today's? Many researchers have turned to the Romans for inspiration. Starting around 200 BCE, the architects of the Roman Empire were building impressive concrete structures that have stood the test of time — from the soaring dome of the Pantheon to the sturdy aqueducts that still carry water today.
Even in harbors, where seawater has been battering structures for ages, you’ll find concrete “basically the way it was when it was poured 2,000 years ago,” said John Oleson, an archaeologist at the University of Victoria in Canada.
Most modern concrete starts with Portland cement, a powder made by heating limestone and clay to super-high temperatures and grinding them up. That cement is mixed with water to create a chemically reactive paste. Then, chunks of material like rock and gravel are added, and the cement paste binds them into a concrete mass.
According to records from ancient architects like Vitruvius, the Roman process was similar. The ancient builders mixed materials like burnt limestone and volcanic sand with water and gravel, creating chemical reactions to bind everything together.
Now, scientists think they’ve found a key reason why some Roman concrete has held up structures for thousands of years: The ancient material has an unusual power to repair itself. Exactly how is not yet clear, but scientists are starting to find clues.
In a study published earlier this year, Admir Masic, a civil and environmental engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proposed that this power comes from chunks of lime that are studded throughout the Roman material instead of being mixed in evenly. Researchers used to think these chunks were a sign that the Romans weren’t mixing up their materials well enough.
Instead, after analyzing concrete samples from Privernum — an ancient city outside of Rome — the scientists found that the chunks could fuel the material’s “self-healing” abilities. When cracks form, water is able to seep into the concrete, Masic explained. That water activates the leftover pockets of lime, sparking up new chemical reactions that can fill in the damaged sections.
Marie Jackson, a geologist at the University of Utah, has a different take. Her research has found that the key could be in the specific volcanic materials used by the Romans.
The builders would gather volcanic rocks left behind after eruptions to mix into their concrete. This naturally reactive material changes over time as it interacts with the elements, Jackson said, allowing it to seal cracks that develop.
The ability to keep adapting over time “is truly the genius of the material,” Jackson said. “The concrete was so well designed that it sustains itself.”
Using tree juice to make sculptures as strong as seashells At Copan, a Maya site in Honduras, intricate lime sculptures and temples remain intact even after more than 1,000 years exposed to a hot, humid environment. And according to a study published earlier this year, the secret to these structures' longevity might lie in the trees that sprout among them.
Researchers here had a living link to the structures' creators: They met with local masons in Honduras who traced their lineage all the way back to the Mayan builders, explained Rodriguez-Navarro, who worked on the study.
The masons suggested using extracts from local chukum and jiote trees in the lime mix. When researchers tested out the recipe — collecting bark, putting the chunks in water and adding the resulting tree “juice” into the material — they found the resulting plaster was especially durable against physical and chemical damage.
When scientists zoomed in, they saw that bits of organic material from the tree juice got incorporated into the plaster’s molecular structure. In this way, the Mayan plaster was able to mimic sturdy natural structures like seashells and sea urchin spines — and borrow some of their toughness, Rodriguez-Navarro said.
Studies have found all kinds of natural materials mixed into structures from long ago: fruit extracts, milk, cheese curd, beer, even dung and urine. The mortar that holds together some of China’s most famous structures — including the Great Wall and the Forbidden City — includes traces of starch from sticky rice.
Luck or skill? Some of these ancient builders might have just gotten lucky, said Cecilia Pesce, a materials scientist at the University of Sheffield in England. They’d toss just about anything into their mixes, as long as it was cheap and available — and the ones that didn’t work out have long since collapsed.
“They would put all sorts of things in construction,” Pesce said. “And now, we only have the buildings that survived. So it’s like a natural selection process.”
But some materials seem to show more intention — like in India, where builders crafted blends of local materials to produce different properties, said Thirumalini Selvaraj, a civil engineer and professor at India’s Vellore Institute of Technology.
According to Selvaraj’s research, in humid areas of India, builders used local herbs that help structures deal with moisture. Along the coast, they added jaggery, an unrefined sugar, which can help protect from salt damage. And in areas with higher earthquake risks, they used super-light “floating bricks” made with rice husks.
“They know the region, they know the soil condition, they know the climate,” Selvaraj said. “So they engineer a material according to this.”
Ancient Roman ... skyscrapers? Today’s builders can’t just copy the ancient recipes. Even though Roman concrete lasted a long time, it couldn't hold up heavy loads: “You couldn’t build a modern skyscraper with Roman concrete,” Oleson said. “It would collapse when you got to the third story.”
Instead, researchers are trying to take some of the ancient material’s specialties and add them into modern mixes. Masic is part of a startup that is trying to build new projects using Roman-inspired, “self-healing” concrete. Jackson is working with the Army Corps of Engineers to design concrete structures that can hold up well in seawater — like the ones in Roman ports — to help protect coastlines from sea level rise.
We don’t need to make things last quite as long as the Romans did to have an impact, Masic said. If we add 50 or 100 years to concrete’s lifespan, “we will require less demolition, less maintenance and less material in the long run.”


More than 100 Dolphins Found Dead in Brazilian Amazon as Water Temperatures Soar 

A dead dolphin is seen at the Tefe lake, affluent of the Solimoes river that has been affected by the high temperatures and drought in Tefe, Amazonas state, Brazil, October 1, 2023. (Reuters)
A dead dolphin is seen at the Tefe lake, affluent of the Solimoes river that has been affected by the high temperatures and drought in Tefe, Amazonas state, Brazil, October 1, 2023. (Reuters)
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More than 100 Dolphins Found Dead in Brazilian Amazon as Water Temperatures Soar 

A dead dolphin is seen at the Tefe lake, affluent of the Solimoes river that has been affected by the high temperatures and drought in Tefe, Amazonas state, Brazil, October 1, 2023. (Reuters)
A dead dolphin is seen at the Tefe lake, affluent of the Solimoes river that has been affected by the high temperatures and drought in Tefe, Amazonas state, Brazil, October 1, 2023. (Reuters)

More than 100 dolphins have died in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest in the past week as the region grapples with a severe drought, and many more could die soon if water temperatures remain high, experts say.

The Mamiraua Institute, a research group of Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, said two more dead dolphins were found Monday in the region around Tefe Lake, which is key for mammals and fish in the area. Video provided by the institute showed vultures picking at the dolphin carcasses beached on the lakeside. Thousands of fish have also died, local media reported.

Experts believe high water temperatures are the most likely cause of the deaths in the lakes in the region. Temperatures since last week have exceeded 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Tefe Lake region.

The Brazilian government’s Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, which manages conservation areas, said last week it had sent teams of veterinarians and aquatic mammal experts to investigate the deaths.

There had been some 1,400 river dolphins in Tefe Lake, said Miriam Marmontel, a researcher from the Mamiraua Institute.

“In one week we have already lost around 120 animals between the two of them, which could represent 5% to 10% of the population,” said Marmontel.

Workers have recovered carcasses of dolphins since last week in a region where dry rivers have impacted impoverished riverside communities and stuck their boats in the sand. Amazonas Gov. Wilson Lima on Friday declared a state of emergency due to the drought.

Nicson Marreira, mayor of Tefe, a city of 60,000 residents. said his government was unable to deliver food directly to some isolated communities because the rivers are dry.

Ayan Fleischmann, the Geospatial coordinator at the Mamirauá Institute, said the drought has had a major impact on the riverside communities in the Amazon region.

“Many communities are becoming isolated, without access to good quality water, without access to the river, which is their main means of transportation,” he said.

Fleischmann said water temperatures rose from 32 C (89 F) on Friday to almost 38 C (100 F) on Sunday.

He said they are still determining the cause of the dolphin deaths but that the high temperature remains the main candidate.


Indonesia Launches Southeast Asia's First High-speed Rail

With a top speed of 350 kilometers (220 miles) per hour, the bullet train "Whoosh" can get between the capital Jakarta and Bandung in 45 minutes. Yasuyoshi CHIBA / AFP
With a top speed of 350 kilometers (220 miles) per hour, the bullet train "Whoosh" can get between the capital Jakarta and Bandung in 45 minutes. Yasuyoshi CHIBA / AFP
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Indonesia Launches Southeast Asia's First High-speed Rail

With a top speed of 350 kilometers (220 miles) per hour, the bullet train "Whoosh" can get between the capital Jakarta and Bandung in 45 minutes. Yasuyoshi CHIBA / AFP
With a top speed of 350 kilometers (220 miles) per hour, the bullet train "Whoosh" can get between the capital Jakarta and Bandung in 45 minutes. Yasuyoshi CHIBA / AFP

Indonesia launched Southeast Asia's first high-speed railway on Monday, a delayed, multibillion-dollar project backed by China that President Joko Widodo hailed as "a symbol of our modernization".

With a top speed of 350 kilometers (220 miles) per hour, the bullet train "Whoosh" can get between the capital Jakarta and Bandung in 45 minutes.

The 140 km journey would previously have taken about three hours by train, said AFP.

"The Jakarta-Bandung high-speed train marks our efficient, friendly, and integrated mass transportation system," Widodo said during a ceremony at the capital's central station.

"It is a symbol of our modernization in public transport, seamlessly connecting with other modes of transportation."

Widodo said the 600-capacity train was the first high-speed rail transportation in Southeast Asia.

It is part of Beijing's Belt and Road initiative -- a decade-old program of China-backed infrastructure projects.

The president said the name was actually an acronym, standing for a tagline of "Waktu Hemat, Operasi Optimal, Sistem Handal" -- which in Bahasa Indonesia means "Saving time, optimal operation, reliable system".

It was built by PT KCIC, which is made up of four Indonesian state companies and Beijing's China Railway International Co.

The project was initially set to cost less than $5 billion and be completed by 2019.

However, delays caused by construction challenges and the Covid-19 pandemic led to a surge in costs.

In preparation for its opening, officials have conducted public trials for the new high-speed route.

Last week, Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi confirmed that the government would extend the high-speed train route from Bandung to the country's second-biggest city Surabaya.

Last month, Chinese Premier Li Qiang joined Senior Minister Luhut Pandjaitan on a ride aboard the train during his Jakarta visit for summits with Southeast Asian leaders.

Pandjaitan told reporters on Thursday that Widodo plans to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping in the future to ride the train, but did not give more specifics.


Endangered Sumatran Rhino Born in Indonesia 

A handout picture released by the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry on October 1, 2023, shows a female Sumatran rhino calf, born on September 30, 2023, with its mother Ratu, a 23-year-old female Sumatran rhino, at the Way Kambas National Park Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary (SRS TNWK). (Photo by Handout / Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry / AFP)
A handout picture released by the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry on October 1, 2023, shows a female Sumatran rhino calf, born on September 30, 2023, with its mother Ratu, a 23-year-old female Sumatran rhino, at the Way Kambas National Park Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary (SRS TNWK). (Photo by Handout / Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry / AFP)
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Endangered Sumatran Rhino Born in Indonesia 

A handout picture released by the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry on October 1, 2023, shows a female Sumatran rhino calf, born on September 30, 2023, with its mother Ratu, a 23-year-old female Sumatran rhino, at the Way Kambas National Park Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary (SRS TNWK). (Photo by Handout / Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry / AFP)
A handout picture released by the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry on October 1, 2023, shows a female Sumatran rhino calf, born on September 30, 2023, with its mother Ratu, a 23-year-old female Sumatran rhino, at the Way Kambas National Park Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary (SRS TNWK). (Photo by Handout / Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry / AFP)

An endangered Sumatran rhinoceros, the smallest and hairiest of the4 five extant rhino species, was born in Indonesia last week in a conservation area, the government said on Monday.

Weighing about 27 kilograms (59.52 lb), the yet-to-be named female calf, was born on Saturday at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary (SRS) facility in Way Kambas National Park, Lampung province in the tropical Southeast Asian country.

Covered in black hair, the newborn stood about 45 minutes after her birth. On the next day, she began to walk around the jungle, the environment ministry said in a statement.

The mother, 22-year-old Ratu, was in a healthy condition, the ministry said.

Ratu is a native of Lampung, while her mate, Andalas, aged 23, was born at the Cincinnati Zoo, United States, but has since moved to the same park as Ratu.

The pair previously had Delilah in 2016 and Andatu in 2021.

"This is a happy news, not only for Indonesia but for the world," environment minister Siti Nurbaya said in the statement.

There were just 80 Sumatran rhinos left in the world, based on a 2019 assessment of threatened species by the Indonesian government.

The mammal, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, is the only Asian rhino with two horns and can grow up to 1.5 meters-tall, weighing between 500 to 960 kg.


In New York City, Scuba Divers’ Passion for Sport Becomes Mission to Collect Undersea Litter

Atlantic goliath grouper fish swim near Boynton Beach, Florida on September 10, 2023. (AFP)
Atlantic goliath grouper fish swim near Boynton Beach, Florida on September 10, 2023. (AFP)
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In New York City, Scuba Divers’ Passion for Sport Becomes Mission to Collect Undersea Litter

Atlantic goliath grouper fish swim near Boynton Beach, Florida on September 10, 2023. (AFP)
Atlantic goliath grouper fish swim near Boynton Beach, Florida on September 10, 2023. (AFP)

On a recent Sunday afternoon, the divers arrived on a thin strip of sand at the furthest, watery edge of New York City. Oxygen tanks strapped to their backs, they waded into the sea and descended into an environment far different from their usual terrestrial surroundings of concrete, traffic and trash-strewn sidewalks.

Horseshoe crabs and other crustaceans crawl on a seabed encrusted with barnacles and colonies of coral. Spiny-finned sea robin, blackfish and wayward angelfish swim in the murky ocean tinted green by sheets of algae.

Not all is pretty. Plastic bottles, candy wrappers and miles and miles of fishing line drift with the tides, endangering sea life.

The undersea litter isn't always visible from the shore. But it has long been a concern of Nicole Zelek, a diving instructor who four years ago launched monthly cleanups at this small cove in the community of Far Rockaway, where New York City meets the Atlantic Ocean, about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) south of John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens.

A throwaway culture of single-use plastics and other hard-to-degrade material has sullied the world's waters over the decades, posing a danger to marine life such as seals and seabirds. By 2025, some 250 million tons (226.7 million metric tons) of plastic will have found its way into the oceans, according to the PADI AWARE Foundation, a conservation group sponsoring a global project called Dive Against Debris.

Dive by dive, small groups like Zelek's have been trying to undo some of the damage.

“Every month we have a prize for the weirdest find,” she said. They have included the occasional goat skull, perhaps used as part of some ritual, Zelek surmises.

“The best find of all time was an actual ATM machine. Unfortunately, it was empty,” she said.

The divers' haul one late-summer Sunday wasn’t much, but there were clumps and clumps of fishing line untangled from underwater objects. What the divers can’t pull away by hand is cut with scissors.

“Unfortunately, tons of crabs and horseshoe crabs — which are under threat — get tangled in the fishing line and then they die,” Zelek said.

While more ambitious projects are underway to scoop up huge accumulations of floating debris in deeper waters, small-scale coastal cleanups like Zelek's are an important part of the battle against ocean pollution, said Nick Mallos, vice president of conservation for Ocean Conservancy.

“The science is very clear and that’s to tackle our global plastic pollution crisis,” he said. “We have to do it all.”

Every September, the conservancy holds monthlong international coastal cleanups. Since its inception nearly four decades ago, the cleanups have retrieved about 400 million pounds (181.4 million kilograms) of trash from coastal areas around the world.

The best way to combat plastics going into the oceans, Mallos said, is to reduce the globe's dependence on them, particularly in packaging consumer products. But human-powered cleanup is the least costly of all cleanup options.

The Dive Against Debris project invites what organizers call “citizen scientists” to survey their diving sites to help catalog the myriad items that don’t belong in oceans, lakes and other bodies of water. By the group’s count, more than 90,000 participants have conducted more than 21,000 such surveys and removed 2.2 million pieces of junk, big and small.

Zelek and her fellow divers have contributed their finds to the project.

Surface trash might be easy enough to clear with a rake, but the task is more challenging beneath the water. Over the years, the layers of monofilament fishing line have accumulated. And until a few years ago, no one was scooping out the line, hooks and lead weights.

Untangled, a pound of medium-weight fishing filament would stretch to a bit more than 4 miles (6.4 kilometers). It’s anybody’s guess how many miles of fishing line remain on the channel’s bottom.

“Those small things are really what start to accumulate and become a much larger and bigger problem,” said Tanasia Swift, who has been with the group for a year and works for an environmental nonprofit focused on restoring the health of New York City’s waters.

“If there’s anything that we see that doesn’t belong in the water, we take it out,” she said.

While the drivers work, fishermen cast their lines from a ledge where the city's concrete stops. The beach is frequented mostly by residents who live nearby.

Raquel Gonzalez is one such resident, and she's been coming to the beach for years. She and a neighbor brought a rake with them on the same Sunday the divers were there.

“Needs a lot of cleanup here. There's nobody that does any cleanup around here. We have to clean it up ourselves," she said.

“I love this spot, I love the scuba divers," Gonzalez said. “Look at all the good people here.”


Man Dies in Australia after Whale Collides with Boat

The full moon, a supermoon also known as the "Harvest Moon", rises above Macquarie Lighthouse and the Sydney Opera House in Sydney on September 29, 2023. (Photo by DAVID GRAY / AFP)
The full moon, a supermoon also known as the "Harvest Moon", rises above Macquarie Lighthouse and the Sydney Opera House in Sydney on September 29, 2023. (Photo by DAVID GRAY / AFP)
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Man Dies in Australia after Whale Collides with Boat

The full moon, a supermoon also known as the "Harvest Moon", rises above Macquarie Lighthouse and the Sydney Opera House in Sydney on September 29, 2023. (Photo by DAVID GRAY / AFP)
The full moon, a supermoon also known as the "Harvest Moon", rises above Macquarie Lighthouse and the Sydney Opera House in Sydney on September 29, 2023. (Photo by DAVID GRAY / AFP)

One man died and another was in hospital on Saturday in Australia after a whale struck and flipped their boat during a fishing expedition, authorities said.

Police said one man was pulled unconscious from Botany Bay, off the coast of Sydney, and later died, while the other was taken to hospital in a stable condition, police said.

"A whale has been involved, whoever would have thought that that would have occurred, it's terribly tragic," said New South Wales Police Minister Yasmin Catley.

According to Reuters, State Emergency Services Minister Jihad Dib said it was "an absolute freak accident".

The boat "was likely to have struck or been impacted by a whale breaching, causing the boat to tilt, ejecting both men", police said in a statement. It did not identify the whale's species.

Australia's extensive coastline hosts 10 large and 20 smaller species of whales. While human deaths caused by whales in the region are rare, Australia and neighboring New Zealand are hot spots for mass whale strandings on beaches.

Eight Danes were rescued in June when their sailboat capsized in the Pacific Ocean after a collision with one or two whales.


New Study: Women Are Twice More Prone to ‘Severe’ Reaction to Flu Jab

A medical worker receives a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at Tokyo Medical Center. Reuters
A medical worker receives a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at Tokyo Medical Center. Reuters
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New Study: Women Are Twice More Prone to ‘Severe’ Reaction to Flu Jab

A medical worker receives a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at Tokyo Medical Center. Reuters
A medical worker receives a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at Tokyo Medical Center. Reuters

Women are twice as likely to suffer a “severe” reaction to the flu jab as men, a new study has revealed.

Analysis of 34,000 adults who received the flu vaccination between 2010 and 2018 found that 3 percent of women had a severe reaction, compared to just 1.5 percent of men, according to The Telegraph.

Researchers from the University of Montreal, Canada, classified severe reactions as symptoms such as high fevers over 39 degrees, or significant swelling, pain or rashes known as erythema, that led to people being unable to carry out daily tasks.

The study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, found that women were also around a third more likely to suffer from other, less serious side effects than men.

It said that 38.6 percent of the 20,295 women analyzed had suffered side effects like headaches, vomiting, fevers and muscle aches after their vaccination, known as “systemic reactions”, compared with just 28.6 percent of the 13,860 men (around 29 percent fewer on the whole).

Rarely serious

The study said for every 1,000 people getting the flu vaccine, 74 more women would have these side effects than men.

Researchers also found that women were 31 percent more likely to get pain, swelling or an infection around the injection site. It said this happened to 44.6 percent of women and 33.9 percent of men.

Dr. Marilou Kiely, author of the report, said while “most reactions are mild, self-limited and rarely serious”, a bad reaction could “be a barrier” to having another vaccination.

“Transparent communication regarding the increased risk for females would potentially help sustain long-term trust in health authorities and vaccines,” she said.

Dr. Conall Watson, a consultant epidemiologist at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), said that “serious side effects are rare following a flu jab”.

Hospitalization and death

“Flu can cause very serious illness, hospitalization and death. Some people are more susceptible to the effects of flu - flu can trigger heart attacks, or lead to pneumonia, and can make existing medical conditions worse,” he said.

The NHS stresses that “severe allergic reactions” like anaphylaxis are very rare at around one in one million and that some of the reactions categorized as severe in this study, such as erythema, usually resolve on their own, even if they are uncomfortable.