Germany’s Newest Panda Twins Thrive During First 5 Days in Berlin Zoo 

This photo released by the Zoo Berlin on Tuesday, Aug. 27, shows a newborn panda at the Zoo in Berlin. (© 2024 Zoo Berlin via AP)
This photo released by the Zoo Berlin on Tuesday, Aug. 27, shows a newborn panda at the Zoo in Berlin. (© 2024 Zoo Berlin via AP)
TT
20

Germany’s Newest Panda Twins Thrive During First 5 Days in Berlin Zoo 

This photo released by the Zoo Berlin on Tuesday, Aug. 27, shows a newborn panda at the Zoo in Berlin. (© 2024 Zoo Berlin via AP)
This photo released by the Zoo Berlin on Tuesday, Aug. 27, shows a newborn panda at the Zoo in Berlin. (© 2024 Zoo Berlin via AP)

Germany's newest panda twins are thriving at the Berlin Zoo. The cubs spent their first five days of life taking turns cuddling and drinking milk from their mother every hour.

They were born Thursday to mother Meng Meng, 11. The zoo said Tuesday that it's cautiously optimistic during this critical period — panda cub mortality is at its highest within the first two weeks of birth and through the first month because they don't yet have a functioning immune system.

Without human help, one of the cubs likely would not have survived because giant pandas usually only raise one cub when they give birth to twins. So the zoo has stepped in with a team that includes experts from China's Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, who are on a visit to Berlin.

When one of the twins is with their mother, the other is spending time in an incubator donated by a Berlin hospital.

“Without protective measures, the giant panda would most likely already be extinct,” zoo director Andreas Knieriem said in a statement Tuesday, adding “every cub that grows up healthy counts.”

China gifted friendly nations with its unofficial mascot for decades as part of a “panda diplomacy″ policy. The country now loans pandas to zoos on commercial terms. There are about 1,800 pandas living in the wild in China and a few hundred in captivity worldwide.

Currently deaf, blind and pink — their black-and-white panda markings will develop later — the firstborn twin now weighs 180 grams, while the second is roughly 145 grams (6.35 and 5.11 ounces). Both have regained their birth weights and added more grams, which the zoo considers a promising sign. The cubs' sexes have not yet been determined “with certainty.”

Meng Meng was artificially inseminated on March 26. Female pandas are fertile only for a few days per year at the most. The twins' father, 14-year-old Jiao Qing, is not involved in rearing the cubs.

Meng Meng and Jiao Qing arrived in Berlin in 2017. In August 2019, Meng Meng gave birth to male twins Pit and Paule, also known by the Chinese names Meng Xiang and Meng Yuan, the first giant pandas born in Germany.

Those twins flew to China in December on a journey that was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic but had been contractually agreed to from the beginning.



Heatwaves in Spain Caused 1,180 Deaths in Past Two Months, Ministry Says

The most affected regions were Galicia, La Rioja, Asturias and Cantabria. (Getty Images/AFP)
The most affected regions were Galicia, La Rioja, Asturias and Cantabria. (Getty Images/AFP)
TT
20

Heatwaves in Spain Caused 1,180 Deaths in Past Two Months, Ministry Says

The most affected regions were Galicia, La Rioja, Asturias and Cantabria. (Getty Images/AFP)
The most affected regions were Galicia, La Rioja, Asturias and Cantabria. (Getty Images/AFP)

High temperatures caused 1,180 deaths in Spain in the past two months, a sharp increase from the same period last year, the Environment Ministry said on Monday.

The vast majority of people who died were over 65 and more than half were women, the data it cited showed.

The most affected regions were Galicia, La Rioja, Asturias and Cantabria - all located in the northern half of the country, where traditionally cooler summer temperatures have seen a significant rise in recent years.

Like other countries in Western Europe, Spain has been hit by extreme heat in recent weeks, with temperatures often topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

The 1,180 people who died of heat-related causes between May 16 and July 13 compared with 114 in the same period in 2024, the ministry said in a statement citing data from the Carlos III Health Institute. The number of deaths increased significantly in the first week of July.

The data shows an event "of exceptional intensity, characterized by an unprecedented increase in average temperatures and a significant increase in mortality attributable to heatwaves", the ministry said.

In the period the data covers, there were 76 red alerts for extreme heat, compared with none a year earlier.

Last summer, 2,191 deaths were attributed to heat-related causes in Spain, according to data from the Carlos III Health Institute.

The data from Spain follows a rapid scientific analysis published on July 9 that said around 2,300 people died of heat-related causes across 12 European cities during a severe heatwave in the 10 days to July 2.

It was not immediately clear whether the study conducted by scientists at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine was using the same methodology as the Spanish data.