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Kimchi Threat as Heatwave Drives up South Korea Cabbage Prices 

Kimchi in a jar at the Kimchi Culture Institute in Namyangju, South Korea. (Reuters)
Kimchi in a jar at the Kimchi Culture Institute in Namyangju, South Korea. (Reuters)
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Kimchi Threat as Heatwave Drives up South Korea Cabbage Prices 

Kimchi in a jar at the Kimchi Culture Institute in Namyangju, South Korea. (Reuters)
Kimchi in a jar at the Kimchi Culture Institute in Namyangju, South Korea. (Reuters)

An unprecedented heatwave across South Korea has driven up the price of cabbages, data revealed Friday, with the vegetable used in the famed national dish kimchi surging by nearly 70 percent year-on-year.

The price of a single cabbage hit 9,337 won (US$ 7.02) on Thursday -- up 69.1 percent from the same day a year ago, according to data released by the state-run Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation.

Cabbage is a key ingredient of kimchi, the country's famed fiery fermented dish which many Koreans eat every day.

Experts say rising summer temperatures are leading to supply instability -- especially for highland cabbage, which thrives in cooler climates.

"Additionally, climate change has changed the patterns of soil disease outbreaks," said Lee Young-gyu, a virologist at the National Institute of Crop Science.

"For instance, soil-borne fungal diseases like root rot, which causes wilting in cabbage, are spreading," he told AFP.

Lee said there have also been reports of seedlings perishing from the extreme heat, or being scorched by the intense sunlight.

This month, South Korea's Rural Development Administration established a dedicated research institute to address the supply instability of highland cabbage.

The body has warned that if no measures are taken to address climate change, suitable areas for summer cabbage cultivation could vanish by 2090.

This year South Korea experienced its highest average summertime temperature since such records began half a century ago -- nearly two degrees higher than the historic average, the weather agency said earlier this month.

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2 Private Lunar Landers Head Toward the Moon in Roundabout Journey

The Blue Ghost Mission 1 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from NASA's Launch Complex 39A at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA, 15 January 2025. EPA/CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH
The Blue Ghost Mission 1 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from NASA's Launch Complex 39A at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA, 15 January 2025. EPA/CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH
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2 Private Lunar Landers Head Toward the Moon in Roundabout Journey

The Blue Ghost Mission 1 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from NASA's Launch Complex 39A at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA, 15 January 2025. EPA/CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH
The Blue Ghost Mission 1 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from NASA's Launch Complex 39A at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA, 15 January 2025. EPA/CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH

In a two-for-one moonshot, SpaceX launched a pair of lunar landers Wednesday for US and Japanese companies looking to jumpstart business on Earth’s dusty sidekick.
The two landers rocketed away in the middle of the night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the latest in a stream of private spacecraft aiming for the moon, The Associated Press reported. They shared the ride to save money but parted company an hour into the flight exactly as planned, taking separate roundabout routes for the monthslong journey.
It’s take 2 for the Tokyo-based ispace, whose first lander crashed into the moon two years ago. This time, it has a rover on board with a scoop to gather up lunar dirt for study and plans to test potential food and water sources for future explorers.
Lunar newcomer Texas-based Firefly Aerospace is flying 10 experiments for NASA, including a vacuum to gather dirt, a drill to measure the temperature below the surface and a device that could be used by future moonwalkers to keep the sharp, abrasive particles off their spacesuits and equipment.
Firefly’s Blue Ghost — named after a species of US Southeastern fireflies — should reach the moon first. The 6-foot-6-inches-tall (2-meter-tall) lander will attempt a touchdown in early March at Mare Crisium, a volcanic plain in the northern latitudes.
The slightly bigger ispace lander named Resilience will take four to five months to get there, targeting a touchdown in late May or early June at Mare Frigoris, even farther north on the moon’s near side.
“We don’t think this is a race. Some people say ‘race to the moon,’ but it’s not about the speed,” ispace’s founder CEO Takeshi Hakamada said this week from Cape Canaveral.
Both Hakamada and Firefly CEO Jason Kim acknowledge the challenges still ahead, given the wreckage littering the lunar landscape. Only five countries have successfully placed spacecraft on the moon since the 1960s: the former Soviet Union, the US, China, India and Japan.
“We’ve done everything we can on the design and the engineering,” Kim said. Even so, he pinned an Irish shamrock to his jacket lapel Tuesday night for good luck.
The US remains the only one to have landed astronauts. NASA’s Artemis program, the successor to Apollo, aims to get astronauts back on the moon by the end of the decade.
Before that can happen, “we’re sending a lot of science and a lot of technology ahead of time to prepare for that,” NASA's science mission chief Nicky Fox said on the eve of launch.
If acing their respective touchdowns, both spacecraft will spend two weeks operating in constant daylight, shutting down once darkness hits.
Once lowered onto the lunar surface, ispace’s 11-pound (5-kilogram) rover will stay near the lander, traveling up to hundreds of yards (meters) in circles at a speed of less than one inch (a couple centimeters) per second. The rover has its own special delivery to drop off on the lunar dust: a toy-size red house designed by a Swedish artist.
NASA is paying $101 million to Firefly for the mission and another $44 million for the experiments. Hakamada declined to divulge the cost of ispace’s rebooted mission with six experiments, saying it's less than the first mission that topped $100 million.
Coming up by the end of February is the second moonshot for NASA by Houston-based Intuitive Machines. Last year, the company achieved the first US lunar touchdown in more than a half-century, landing sideways near the south pole but still managing to operate.