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NASA's Oldest Active Astronaut Returns to Earth on 70th Birthday

After leaving the International Space Station (ISS), Soyuz MS-26 space capsule commander, Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin, holds a hard-boiled egg given to him for Easter outside the capsule after he, NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonaut Ivan Vagner landed in a remote area near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan April 20, 2025, in this still image taken from video. (Roscosmos/Handout via Reuters)
After leaving the International Space Station (ISS), Soyuz MS-26 space capsule commander, Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin, holds a hard-boiled egg given to him for Easter outside the capsule after he, NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonaut Ivan Vagner landed in a remote area near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan April 20, 2025, in this still image taken from video. (Roscosmos/Handout via Reuters)
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NASA's Oldest Active Astronaut Returns to Earth on 70th Birthday

After leaving the International Space Station (ISS), Soyuz MS-26 space capsule commander, Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin, holds a hard-boiled egg given to him for Easter outside the capsule after he, NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonaut Ivan Vagner landed in a remote area near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan April 20, 2025, in this still image taken from video. (Roscosmos/Handout via Reuters)
After leaving the International Space Station (ISS), Soyuz MS-26 space capsule commander, Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin, holds a hard-boiled egg given to him for Easter outside the capsule after he, NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonaut Ivan Vagner landed in a remote area near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan April 20, 2025, in this still image taken from video. (Roscosmos/Handout via Reuters)

Cake, gifts and a low-key family celebration may be how many senior citizens picture their 70th birthday.

But NASA's oldest serving astronaut Don Pettit became a septuagenarian while hurtling towards the Earth in a spacecraft to wrap up a seven-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

A Soyuz capsule carrying the American and two Russian cosmonauts landed in Kazakhstan on Sunday, the day of Pettit's milestone birthday.

"Today at 0420 Moscow time (0120 GMT), the Soyuz MS-26 landing craft with Alexei Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and Donald (Don) Pettit aboard landed near the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan," Russia's space agency Roscosmos said.

Spending 220 days in space, Pettit and his crewmates Ovchinin and Vagner orbited the Earth 3,520 times and completed a journey of 93.3 million miles over the course of their mission.

It was the fourth spaceflight for Pettit, who has logged more than 18 months in orbit throughout his 29-year career.

The trio touched down in a remote area southeast of Kazakhstan after undocking from the space station just over three hours earlier.

NASA images of the landing showed the small capsule parachuting down to Earth with the sunrise as a backdrop.

The astronauts gave thumbs-up gestures as rescuers carried them from the spacecraft to an inflatable medical tent.

Despite looking a little worse for wear as he was pulled from the vessel, Pettit was "doing well and in the range of what is expected for him following return to Earth," NASA said in a statement.

He was then set to fly to the Kazakh city of Karaganda before boarding a NASA plane to the agency's Johnson Space Center in Texas.

The astronauts spent their time on the ISS researching areas such as water sanitization technology, plant growth in various conditions and fire behavior in microgravity, NASA said.

The trio's seven-month trip was just short of the nine months that NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams unexpectedly spent stuck on the orbital lab after the spacecraft they were testing suffered technical issues and was deemed unfit to fly them back to Earth.

Space is one of the final areas of US-Russia cooperation amid an almost complete breakdown in relations between Moscow and Washington over the Ukraine conflict.

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Cat-linked Parasite is ‘Major Cause of Vision Loss’

Awareness protects people from being infected with the parasite (Getty) 
Awareness protects people from being infected with the parasite (Getty) 
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Cat-linked Parasite is ‘Major Cause of Vision Loss’

Awareness protects people from being infected with the parasite (Getty) 
Awareness protects people from being infected with the parasite (Getty) 

As much as a third of the world’s population could be infected with a parasite from cats that might lead to retina-damaging eye infection and permanent vision loss, a groundbreaking new study warns.

Although the disease, toxoplasmosis, is preventable and treatable, researchers call for it to be formally recognized as a neglected tropical disease (NTD) by the World Health Organization (WHO), according to The Independent.

“Toxoplasmosis is a leading eye infection and a major cause of vision loss worldwide, yet it receives limited attention in global health agendas,” said Justine Smith, an author of the study published in the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

With WHO’s recognition, we can make substantial progress in prevention and management of this infection,” said Dr Smith, an ophthalmologist from Flinders University in Australia.

People may be infected with the parasite either through eating undercooked meat, contaminated produce or water, or exposure to cat feces.

Cats themselves may get infected from eating raw meat, birds, or rodents.

Curbing the disease spread would require integration of veterinary strategies, improved farm health safety, management of stray cats, and safe disposal of animal waste, scientists say.

It occurs mainly in communities with limited access to healthcare, safe food, clean water and prenatal care.

In most severe cases, infection with the parasite may lead to inflammation of the retina and permanent blindness; scientists warn.

Researchers warn that currently there is less research funding and policy attention for toxoplasmosis than diseases with similar or lower impacts.

A formal WHO recognition as an NTD would unlock funding for research, prevention and treatment.

“Without this recognition, we can expect limited progress in the prevention and management of toxoplasmosis to continue,” researchers warn.

Varieties

Why Some Europeans Resist Air Conditioning, Even Amid Deadly Heatwaves

People use an umbrella to protect themselves from the sun, amid a heatwave, at Castle Square in Warsaw, Poland, June 28, 2026. (Reuters)
People use an umbrella to protect themselves from the sun, amid a heatwave, at Castle Square in Warsaw, Poland, June 28, 2026. (Reuters)
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Why Some Europeans Resist Air Conditioning, Even Amid Deadly Heatwaves

People use an umbrella to protect themselves from the sun, amid a heatwave, at Castle Square in Warsaw, Poland, June 28, 2026. (Reuters)
People use an umbrella to protect themselves from the sun, amid a heatwave, at Castle Square in Warsaw, Poland, June 28, 2026. (Reuters)

As climate change drives more severe and prolonged heatwaves, it seems that turning to air conditioners is the most logic option to save lives.

But in Europe, many residents and officials are still reluctant to use air conditioning although the heat takes an increasingly deadly toll. A big part of the reason is many European countries consider air conditioning as an unnecessary, costly, carbon emissions-heavy indulgence.

France's record heat last week has been linked to around 1,000 deaths of mostly elderly people. Heat danger is a problem being felt across Europe, which has the oldest population of any continent and is also the world's fastest-warming continent, according to CBS News.

The continent also has more heat-related deaths per capita than anywhere else in the world, yet it has fewer hot days. According to World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, there have been more than 1,300 heat-related excess deaths in Europe since June 21.

European officials are calling for change, but not the kind that may seem obvious — like air conditioning.

A 2007 study found that air conditioning can cut heat-related deaths by 75%, but only about 20% of Europeans have air conditioning in their homes. In the US, it's about 90%.

“My honest response is I don't think that should be the solution anywhere,” Ine Vandecasteele, an urban adaptation expert with the European Environment Agency, told CBS News.

“It is an immediate response, which can support essentially those who may be vulnerable in hospitals, or in very short term can help. But in the longer term, what happens is, installing more air conditioning actually emits more heat into our environment, so it will actually increase the speed of warming,” she added.

It's also more expensive. In Europe, energy prices are much higher than in the US. European governments have instead funded other ways to cool historic and densely populated cities, such as public cooling stations.

In Rome, wearable technology is distributed to monitor the elderly, who are by far the most at risk in the increasing heat. But Italy has also embraced air conditioning more than other European nations.

About 56% of all homes in Italy had air conditioning as of 2024, according to the National Institute of Statistics, and the country accounts for one-third of all electricity use on air conditioning in the European Union, according to EU data.

A recent survey in France found that one in six people said they would rather suffer for the sake of the environment. Vandecasteele told CBS News she doesn't find that surprising.

“We're not doing this for us,” she said. “We're doing this for the future generations.”

Varieties

End of the Line for Finland’s Analogue Phone Network

Countries across the world have rolled out fiber optic cable that can handle both internet services and voice calls. (Reuters)
Countries across the world have rolled out fiber optic cable that can handle both internet services and voice calls. (Reuters)
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End of the Line for Finland’s Analogue Phone Network

Countries across the world have rolled out fiber optic cable that can handle both internet services and voice calls. (Reuters)
Countries across the world have rolled out fiber optic cable that can handle both internet services and voice calls. (Reuters)

Finland on Tuesday pulled the plug on analogue landline phone calls after almost 150 years, the latest country to push forward in a global transition towards digital infrastructure.

Estonia, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain have already made the jump, as countries across the world roll out fiber optic cable that can handle both internet services and voice calls.

Finland's fixed-line network began operating in the 1880s, but like everywhere else the digital revolution has swallowed up the old technology based on copper wires.

And the Nordic country, home of mobile phone pioneer Nokia, has seen the use of landline phones gobbled up by mobile technology.

Elisa, the country's last major telecom operator with a fixed-line copper-wire network, marked the end of its service with a call between the firm's CEO Topi Manner and Jarkko Saarimaki, head of the country's communication and transport agency.

The two chatted about their memories of landline phones, with Manner recalling his time as a teenager in London in the 1980s when he would call home once a week at an agreed time to make sure the family were all there.

They also discussed the future of mobile technologies, before ending the call with a casual "kuulemiin", meaning "speak later" in Finnish.

When announcing its decision to retire the network in January -- a move its competitors had already made earlier -- Elisa said its customers had just a "few thousand" landline-only plans, with no new ones being sold in years.

After Tuesday, the only providers of landline plans in Finland will be local operators, currently covering a few thousand plans for local calls, public broadcaster Yle said.