A sleek futuristic train that travels through a special tunnel and covers the distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 30 minutes. This was the dream of Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX in 2013. And every year he’s getting closer to making that dream a reality. Late July was marked by the third annual Hyperloop pod competition in Los Angeles; a competition that has once again set a new speed record. Genia Dulot has the story.
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From: MeNeedIt
Not counting certain types of skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women in the U.S. and worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Now researchers in Europe have come up with a robotic device that may speed detection of cancer tumors, potentially saving thousands of lives. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
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From: MeNeedIt
How late is too late to become a mother? Actress Brigitte Nielsen has had her fifth child at 54, reopening debate on the growing number of women using IVF to have babies later in life.
Fertility experts say the average age of mothers is steadily rising across the world, with women increasingly turning to fertility treatments to extend their childbearing years.
Some have renewed calls for women to prioritize having children in their younger and more fertile years, but others said health providers needed to take into account the pressures that led women to put off starting a family.
“We should trust women to make this decision for themselves,” Katherine O’Brien, head of policy research at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), a charity.
“What we need is a health care service that supports their decisions rather than trying to cajole women into children at a time that’s not right for them,” she told Reuters.
Nielsen said she conceived using eggs she had frozen in her 40s, an increasingly popular choice among women seeking to extend their fertile years.
Given that the quantity and quality of eggs declines with age, most women trying to conceive in their mid-40s or above would be advised to consider using donor eggs taken from a younger woman.
A recent analysis of fertility treatments in 1,279 institutions across Europe found almost a third of births through egg donation in 2014 were to women aged 40 or older.
One Indian woman thought to be in her 70s gave birth last year using a donor egg, according to Britain’s Guardian newspaper, a case that promoted debate over the ethics of older women using treatment to conceive.
“There is a global trend for women choosing to have their children later in life,” said Richard Kennedy, the president of the International Federation of Fertility Societies.
“Certainly, in the UK and western Europe it’s personal choices: It’s lifestyle, it’s women pursuing their professions and [they] are making lifestyle choices to delay having families to until their late 30s or early 40s,” he said.
Kennedy said pregnancies of women in their 50s or older “is not something that should necessarily be encouraged,” citing the heightened risks of cardiac and other health problems during pregnancy.
“I think that women should be conscious of their fertility,” he added. “A woman should be encouraged to consider that when she is making decisions around her career and personal life.”
O’Brien, however, said much of the debate around fertility “just ignores the reality of women’s lives.”
She pointed to research by BPAS that found women were aware that fertility declined with age, but were often waiting to have children for practical reasons — such as concern over their financial stability or the impact on their careers.
“The fact that women are able to have children at that stage of their life should be celebrated,” she said. “All this finger-wagging is directed solely at women and that ignores that this is largely a decision taken by two people.”
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From: MeNeedIt
Facebook said it had deleted hundreds of offensive posts since a law banning online hate speech came into force in Germany at the start of the year that foresees fines of up to 50 million euros ($58 million) for failure to comply.
The social network received 1,704 complaints under the law, known in Germany as NetzDG, and removed 262 posts between January and June, Richard Allan, Facebook’s vice president for global policy solutions said in a blog.
“Hate speech is not allowed on Facebook,” Allan said, adding that the network had removed posts that attacked people who were vulnerable for reasons including ethnicity, nationality, religion or sexual orientation.
Complaints covered a range of alleged offenses under Germany’s criminal code, including insult, defamation, incitement to hatred and incitement to crime, the report said. Of the posts that were blocked, the largest number was for insult.
Facebook is less popular in Germany than other European countries, with only around two in five internet users logging on each month, according to researchers eMarketer.
That’s in part due to collective memories of hate-filled propaganda that date back to Germany’s 20th century history of Nazi and Communist rule that don’t always sit well with Facebook’s broad view on freedom of speech.
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg faced criticism in Germany after saying in a recent interview that Facebook should not delete statements denying that the Holocaust happened — a crime in Germany. He later clarified his remarks.
Facebook has a dedicated team of 65 staff handling complaints under the NetzDG, Allan said, adding that this could be adjusted in line with the number of complaints.
From January to June, Facebook removed a total of around 2.5 million posts that violated its own community standards designed to prevent abusive behavior on the platform.
“We have taken a very careful look at the German law,” Allan wrote in his blog, which was published in German. “That’s why we are convinced that the overwhelming majority of content considered hate speech in Germany, would be removed if it were examined to see whether it violates our community standards.”
A lawmaker for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Tankred Schipanski, said the NetzDG law — which requires social platforms to remove offensive posts within 24 hours — was doing the job for which it was intended.
($1 = 0.8579 euros)
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From: MeNeedIt
The Latest on the aftermath of Facebook’s release of user growth and expectations for the company ahead (all times local):
4:50 p.m.
The 19 percent loss in Facebook’s stock chopped $119 billion off its market value.
It was the company’s worst trading day since going public in 2012, and among the biggest one-day losses of market value in U.S. stock market history.
The loss came a day after Facebook revealed that its user base and revenue grew more slowly than expected in the second quarter as it grappled with privacy issues.
Those revelations stunned investors, who believed the company had weathered the recent scandal over users’ privacy and pushed the stock to an all-time high Wednesday of $217.50.
12:45 p.m.
The erosion in the value of Facebook as it is perceived on Wall Street involves some staggering numbers.
In midday trading Thursday, the company’s market value (the number of outstanding shares multiplied by the value of a single stock), fell by more than $122 billion.
That means that in one day, just the decline in Facebook’s market value is roughly the entire market value of McDonald’s or Nike, give or take a few billion. And it far exceeds to total market value of major U.S. multinational corporations such as General Electric, Eli Lilly or Caterpillar.
The company still has a total market value close to $511 billion, which exceeds the annual gross domestic product of countries like Poland, Belgium and Iran.
Facebook was downgraded by a number of industry analysts who were caught off guard by slowing growth in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Company shares fell 19 percent Thursday.
10:40 a.m.
Facebook may be heading for its worst day on the markets in its history a day after the company revealed that user growth, amid swirling questions about how their information is used, has slowed.
The stock plunged 19 percent in early trading Thursday, eradicating well in excess of $100 billion in market value.
The social media company’s financial results, released late Wednesday, fell short of Wall Street expectations as the company continues to grapple with privacy issues. It also warned that revenue would decelerate as it promotes new products
Facebook had 2.23 billion monthly users as of June 30, up 11 percent from a year earlier, but well short of what industry analysts had been expecting.
The results are from the first full quarter following the revelation of the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal. The company is also contending with European privacy rules that went into effect in May.
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From: MeNeedIt
The Japanese city of Iga is fighting off would-be ninjas after a news report suggesting the city wanted to hire the traditional assassins went viral.
The confusion began last week, when a reporter for National Public Radio in the United States said Japan was suffering from a shortage of workers because of declining birth rates.
The report quoted Sakae Okamoto, mayor of Iga, as saying the worker shortage had affected the city’s plans to build a second museum focused on the warriors.
Iga is famous for being the home of the powerful Iga ninja clan.
While the report mentioned that ninja performers could earn as much as $85,000, it did not say the city was looking to hire them.
The story was subsequently picked up on social media and other news outlets that failed to clarify the lack of jobs.
Iga city officials received 115 emails from would-be ninjas offering their services and asking when they could start. Other job requests were sent to the city’s ninja museum, the regional tourist board and a a local university.
The applications have come from around the world, including Italy, India, Ecuador and the U.S.
The ninja-centric city has posted a statement in several languages on its website stressing it was not hiring. But it took the opportunity to extol the virtues of its “splendid tourist attractions, including facilities about ninjas.”
Besides its first ninja museum, the central Japanese city also has several ninja costume rental shops and holds an annual ninja festival.
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From: MeNeedIt
Rock Steady Boxing NOVA gym opened in McLean, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., last December. That was the good news for 75-year-old Neil Eisner, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s six years ago and finds boxing an effective way to fight back against the disease.
Rock Steady Boxing (RSB) was designed especially for people with Parkinson’s, a neurodegenerative disorder that leads to tremors and balance problems. Each exercise in the program focuses on a specific skill — one is combining punches on a bag to work on strength, another is crawling across the floor. Eisner says the exercises help him perform everyday tasks like moving around and getting in and out of bed.
Some strengthening exercises target vocal cords. “One of the things that’s interesting enough is [Parkinson’s patients] tend to have a [softer] voice. When you have that lower voice, and people can’t hear you, you don’t realize. So, he asks us to bring our voice clearly and more loudly,” Eisner said.
Becoming an RSB trainer
For personal trainer Alec Langstein, working with an older population is familiar. He understands their health issues and the need for them to stay active.
“My aunt has a gym in Westchester, New York, and she does a Rock Steady Boxing program there,” he said. “She invited me up to her gym to check out the program. She thought it would be a perfect fit for what I do. I helped out with a few classes, and it was just, I thought, an amazing program.”
The Rock Steady Boxing nonprofit was founded in 2006 by attorney Scott C. Newman, who was looking for ways to stay active after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s at age 40. Since then, more than 500 boxing programs have been introduced in the U.S. and around the world.
Langstein went to the organization’s headquarters to become an RSB-licensed trainer, and a few months later, he opened his Rock Steady Boxing NOVA gym.
“It’s a typical boxing program,” he explained. “They focus on balance, hand-eye coordination, reaction, footwork. There is some cognitive stuff because in boxing, certain numbers equal certain punches. So, when I yell certain numbers, you have to move and react at the same time. So, the brain and the body are working together. It’s also taking out the aggression some people may have out of having the disease.”
Improving quality of life
To understand how RSB can help Parkinson’s patients, physical therapist Danielle Sequira says it’s important to know what triggers the symptoms.
“Parkinson’s mainly affects the dopamine-producing cells in the brain. That leads to a lack or a loss of dopamine, which contributes to the movement difficulties,” she said.
While boxing and other exercises don’t cure the disease or stop the dopamine decline, they can improve the patient’s quality of life. Exercises can be modified for people with Parkinson’s, including those in wheelchairs.
“The research shows that exercise helps the brain use dopamine more efficiently,” Sequira said. “My goal usually, after I work with some of my patients with Parkinson’s, is to refer them out to get involved in an exercise program out in the community.”
The social effect
RSB seems to have helped Victoria Hebert reduce the symptoms of her Parkinson’s. She has a tremor in her left hand, and says certain situations trigger it.
“Being cold, being hot, or sitting with a crowd I’m not very comfortable with, I can’t help starting to shake. I end up having to sit on my hand just to keep it still,” she said.
But with this crowd, Hebert doesn’t feel the need to hide the disease. “These people have become very close in the four or five months we’ve been together.”
“That’s the big part of it, sharing experiences with others,” she added. “I have to say, it’s very embarrassing, but over eight years of time I’ve never met another person with Parkinson’s. Then, I came here, and it was like a whole class of 20, 25 people with it. It was kind of surprising to me, kind of surprising that I, myself, didn’t reach out to anybody before that.”
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From: MeNeedIt
Social media giant Facebook, which has weathered storms about privacy and data protection, is now looking at cooler growth following a years-long breakneck pace.
Shares in Facebook plummeted 19 percent to close at $176.26 Thursday, wiping out $100 billion. It was believed to be the worst ever single-day evaporation of market value for any company.
The plunge came one day after the firm missed revenue forecasts for the second quarter and warned that growth would be far weaker than previously estimated.
Chief Financial Officer David Wehner warned Wednesday in an earnings call with analysts that revenue growth had already “decelerated” in the second quarter and would drop “by high single-digit percentages” in coming quarters.
At one point during the call, Facebook shares were trading down as much as 24 percent, an unprecedented drop for a large firm.
On the call, Jefferies & Co. analyst Brent Thill said that “many investors are having a hard time reconciling that deceleration. … It just seems like the magnitude is beyond anything we’ve seen.”
Facebook said the slowdown would come in part from a new approach to privacy and security, but also appeared to acknowledge the limits of growth in advertising, which accounts for virtually all its revenue.
Brian Sheehan, a Syracuse University professor of communication and advertising, said the weak forecast “made investors nervous about more basic long-term issues” with the huge social network, notably its diminished appeal to younger users.
“With or without privacy issues, investors are scared that Facebook’s interactions, particularly with those under 25, are falling,” Sheehan said.
For the second quarter, profit was up 31 percent at $5.1 billion; revenues rose 42 percent to $13.2 billion, only slightly below most forecasts.
User base still growing
Facebook reported its user base was still growing but not as fast as some expected. Monthly active users rose 11 percent to 2.23 billion — below most estimates of 2.25 billion.
Richard Windsor, a technology analyst who writes the Radio Free Mobile blog, said the new outlook should not be surprising.
“This is a direct result of scale as it becomes increasingly difficult to grow at such high rates when a company hits this size,” Windsor wrote.
Windsor added that Facebook is forced to hire more people to handle tasks such as filtering inappropriate content after discovering the limits of artificial intelligence.
“Weaknesses in AI are forcing [Facebook] to keep hiring humans to do the jobs that the machines are incapable of,” he said.
Brian Wieser at Pivotal Research Group said the company appears to have hit a “wall” on growth in advertising.
In a research note, he said Facebook’s outlook “suggests that while the company is still growing at a fast clip, the days of 30 percent-plus growth are numbered.”
Until Wednesday, Facebook shares had been at record highs as investors seemed to shrug off fears about data protection and probes into the hijacking of private information by the political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook has invested heavily in “safety, security and privacy” after being rocked by concerns of manipulation of the platform to spread misinformation, warning of an “impact” on profitability.
Some analysts however said it was too soon to write off Facebook or its growth prospects, and that the company may have simply been warning of the worst-case scenario.
“The company has a track record of resetting revenue growth and expense expectations only to turn around and exceed those expectations the following quarter,” said Gene Munster of Loup Ventures. “We suspect Facebook is sticking with its historical playbook and will, in fact, beat these lower numbers.”
A positive view
Richard Greenfield of BTIG Research said he remained upbeat on Facebook despite the abrupt forecast shift.
“Facebook is actively choosing to make less money, deprioritizing near-term monetization to drive engagement to even higher levels,” Greenfield said in a note to clients.
Greenfield said he could “sense the fear/panic in investors’ voices” after the Facebook analyst call, but that he had maintained his outlook.
“Mobile is eating the world and Facebook is a core holding to benefit from that shift,” he said.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney said the drop creates a rare buying opportunity for Facebook shares.
“Facebook stills owns two of the largest media assets in the world [Facebook and Instagram] and the two largest messaging assets in the world [Messenger and WhatsApp],” Mahaney said in a note to clients, adding that he sees “no material change in marketer views of the attractiveness” of Facebook platforms.
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From: MeNeedIt
Since 2011, a year when Kentucky was flooded with 371 million doses of opioid painkillers, state officials have cracked down on pain clinics, sued pharmaceutical companies and limited how many pills doctors can prescribe.
The result is nearly 100 million fewer opioid prescriptions in 2017 — and an 11.5 percent increase in drug overdose deaths.
That’s the sobering findings of a new report from the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy in a state on the front lines of the nation’s opioid epidemic. The report says 1,565 people died from drug overdoses in 2017, a 40 percent increase in the past five years.
Deaths attributed to prescription painkillers and heroin are declining. But other drugs have taken their place. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, accounted for more than half of all the deaths. And methamphetamine has made a comeback, accounting for 360 deaths. That’s a 57 percent increase in just one year.
“We are in a crisis state,” Republican Gov. Matt Bevin said. “While we are putting money at it and while we are drawing attention to it, until we start to truly address this and look at underlying causes of these things and what is leading to this it is not going to be addressed.”
42,000 deaths in US in 2016
Nationally, opioids accounted for more than 42,000 deaths in 2016. States with the highest rates of drug overdose deaths that year were West Virginia, Ohio, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Kentucky, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Every year, Kentucky lawmakers have been passing more laws designed to address the opioid problem. They have increased penalties for heroin dealers. They have diverted more money to drug treatment programs. And they limited patients to a three-day supply of prescription painkillers unless a doctor gives them written permission for a larger amount.
State officials spent $500,000 to create 1-833-8KY-HELP, a hotline to connect people with treatment options. And they have spent thousands of dollars giving first responders naloxone, medicine that can reverse an opioid overdose.
Medicaid expansion helped
Anti-drug advocates celebrate those changes, but their celebration is tempered once a year when the new numbers come out detailing how many more people have died.
“Most of the things we do we realize are not going to take that immediate effect,” said Van Ingram, executive director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy. “It just never gets any easier.”
Many anti-drug advocates have credited the Affordable Care Act with helping people get treatment. The law, known as Obamacare, expanded the Medicaid program to give more than 400,000 Kentuckians health coverage. Many used that coverage to get drug treatment.
Bevin wants to require people in Kentucky’s expanded Medicaid population to get a job, go to school or do volunteer work to keep their coverage. He also wants to charge them small monthly premiums to model private insurance plans.
Critics have said the result will be fewer people on Medicaid with fewer treatment options. But Bevin’s plan would exempt people with substance abuse disorder from complying with the new rules. Those rules were supposed to go into effect July 1, but were blocked by a federal judge.
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From: MeNeedIt
Mattel, home of Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels, is cutting 2,200 jobs in order to save money after the closing of U.S. toy retail giant Toys R Us.
The toymaker said the cuts amount to 22 percent of its nonmanufacturing employees worldwide. Mattel has about 28,000 employees.
It also plans to sell factories in Mexico as part of a $650 million cost-saving plan.
Mattel’s stock fell nearly 9 percent to $14.85 in after-hours trading Wednesday, after dropping 1 percent during the regular trading day.
Mattel reported a loss of $240.9 million in the second quarter, bigger than the $56.1 million loss in the same period a year ago.
Revenues fell nearly 14 percent to $840.7 million, below the $863.1 million analysts had predicted.
Ynon Kreiz, who was named CEO in April, said Wednesday that he expects the negative impact of Toys R Us closing to subside by next year.
The toymaker has lagged behind its competitors in digital media, analysts say, and is trying to catch up with other brands that have spawned apps, movies and TV shows.
Kreiz said the company is working closely with other retailers and looking for more ways to sell its toys online.
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From: MeNeedIt
One girl between the ages of 15 and 19 is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, every three minutes of every day, a United Nations report found.
The report, released Wednesday at the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam, said teenage girls are bearing the brunt of the AIDS epidemic, largely due to gender inequality.
Henrietta Fore, head of the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), called it a “crisis of health.”
“In most countries, women and girls lack access to information, to services, or even just power to say no to unsafe sex,” she said. “HIV thrives among the most vulnerable and marginalized, leaving teenage girls at the center of the crisis.”
The report said while there was significant progress in the battle against AIDS in other age groups, it is notably lacking among adolescents.
While AIDS-related deaths among all other age groups have been falling since 2010, those among children aged 15 to 19 have seen no reduction.
In 2017, 1.2 million 15- to 19-year-olds were living with HIV, three in five of them were girls, according to UNICEF.
Actress and activist Charlize Theron addressed the issue in her speech at the conference.
The AIDS epidemic is “not just about sex or sexuality,” she said. It is also about “the second-class status of women and girls worldwide.”
The solution, according to Angelique Kidjo, a UNICEF goodwill ambassador who contributed to the report, is education and economic empowerment.
“We need to make girls and women secure enough economically that they don’t have to turn to sex work,” she said. “We need to make sure they have the right information about how HIV is transmitted and how to protect themselves.”
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From: MeNeedIt
They are arguably among the most recognizable figures in American pop culture, and by their daring exploits, capture the imaginations of fans around the world. They are the fictional characters we call superheroes. Comic book and movie fans say characters such as Superman, Spider-Man and Captain America hold values that are especially relevant in today’s social and political climate. Elizabeth Lee reports on the pop culture significance of superheroes at Comic-Con in San Diego.
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From: MeNeedIt