Health experts say the influenza season in the United States is proving to be more severe than usual, with about twice the number of people reporting flu-like illness to their doctors compared with the same time last year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that in the week ending December 23, 36 states reported widespread flu. The agency said that nearly 2,500 people have been hospitalized for flu-related symptoms and that 13 children have died of the virus in the current season, which started in October.

The CDC said that across the nation, about 5 percent of patients saw their doctors for flu-like symptoms in the week ending December 23, compared with 2.2 percent of patients doing so during the same week in 2016.

Hospitals in California are particularly overwhelmed, with some Southern California pharmacies running out of flu medication. Health officials told the Los Angeles Times on Friday that 27 people younger than 65 had died of the flu in California since October. Only three people died of the flu in the same time period a year ago.

Medical experts say this year’s strain of influenza may just be peaking early in the season. By February last year, flu deaths had gone from the three reported in December to 68.

Experts say it is also possible that this year’s dominant strain, H3N2, is more resistant to treatment than some others. Health officials say more people may be getting ill because the vaccine is less effective against H3N2.

Los Angeles County’s interim health officer, Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, told the Times that this strain of flu causes more hospitalizations and more deaths than other strains that respond better to treatment. He said influenza is especially dangerous for the elderly, who are at greater risk of developing pneumonia or other complications along with the flu — conditions that could be fatal when combined.

Gunzenhauser said vaccination against influenza lowers one’s chances of catching the flu or being a carrier. Also, if the flu does later strike someone who has been vaccinated, his illness is likely to be less severe.

The stakes are low, Gunzenhauser said, noting that the worst side effect from the shot is likely to be “a sore arm.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

Veteran U.S. astronaut John Young, who walked on the moon and even smuggled a corned beef sandwich into orbit during one of his six missions in space, has died at age 87, NASA said Saturday.

Young, a former Navy test pilot, in 1972 became the ninth of 12 people ever to set foot on the moon.

“We’re saddened by the loss of astronaut John Young,” the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said on Twitter.

The time and cause of Young’s death were not immediately clear.

Young became one of the most accomplished astronauts in the history of the U.S. space program. He flew into space twice during NASA’s Gemini program in the mid-1960s, twice on the Apollo lunar missions and twice on space shuttles in the 1980s.

He retired in 2004 after 42 years with the U.S. space agency.

​Moon mission

The Apollo 16 mission in April 1972, his fourth space flight, took Young to the lunar surface.

As mission commander, he and crewmate Charles Duke explored the moon’s Descartes Highlands region, gathering 90 kilograms (200 pounds) of rock and soil samples and driving more than 26 kilometers (16 miles) in the lunar rover to sites such as Spook Crater.

Recalling his lunar exploits, Young told the Houston Chronicle in 2004: “One-sixth gravity on the surface of the moon is just delightful. It’s not like being in zero gravity, you know. You can drop a pencil in zero gravity and look for it for three days. In one-sixth gravity, you just look down and there it is.”

Young’s first time in space came in 1965 with the Gemini 3 mission that took him and astronaut Gus Grissom into Earth orbit in the first two-man U.S. space jaunt. It was on this mission that Young pulled his sandwich stunt, which did not make NASA brass happy but certainly pleased Grissom, the recipient of the snack.

Astronaut Wally Schirra, who was not flying on the mission, bought the corned beef sandwich on rye bread from a delicatessen in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and asked Young to give it to Grissom in space. During the flight, as they discussed the food provided for the mission, Young handed Grissom the sandwich.

NASA later rebuked Young for the antics, which generated criticism from lawmakers and the media, but his career did not suffer.

Rehearsal for moon landing

His May 1969 Apollo 10 mission served as a rehearsal for the historic Apollo 11 mission two months later in which Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon.

Young and his crew undertook each aspect of that subsequent mission except for an actual moon landing.

Young’s fifth space mission was as commander of the inaugural flight of NASA’s first space shuttle, Columbia, in 1981. In 1983, he became the first person to fly six space missions when he commanded Columbia on the first Spacelab trek, with the crew performing more than 70 scientific experiments.

He never went to space again. Young had been due to command a 1986 flight that was canceled after the explosion of the shuttle Challenger earlier that year. He ended up as the only person to fly on space shuttle, Apollo and Gemini missions.

Young was born September 24, 1930, in San Francisco and grew up in Orlando, Florida. After receiving a degree in aeronautical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1952, he entered the Navy and graduated from its test pilot school. NASA picked him in 1962 for its astronaut program.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Emergency authorities in Australia have released a virtual reality program recreating potentially catastrophic bushfire scenarios.  The project aims to encourage residents in the state of Victoria to prepare for extreme danger.  

“This emergency warning is being issued for Hare Creek.  There is a bushfire at Hare Creek that is out of control.  The bushfire is traveling in a north-westerly direction towards Upper Hare Creek,” says the program’s warning.

The virtual reality programs have three different scenarios.  They show how residents who leave it too late to respond to an advancing bushfire can face disastrous consequences.  

Officials say the technology allows Australians to get a taste of the type of hostile conditions they might face and helps them make better decisions.  The simulation urges homeowners to decide early whether to leave, seek shelter, or stay and defend their property.

South-eastern Australia, one of the world’s most fire-prone regions, has been preparing for a scorching weekend with temperatures forecast as high as 45 degrees Celsius.

Victoria state Emergency Management Commissioner, Craig Lapsley, says the bushfire risk in some areas will be extreme.

“Obviously it is about heat, it is about fire.  We are going to see a fire today that is going to be hot, dry and windy, and with a wind change late in the day that if we had fires running in the afternoon the wind change will change the direction of the fires and traditionally that is where we lose most of our property after the wind change.  So it is one of those days that has got everything in it.  Look after yourself, your neighbors, your family, your friends,”  Lapsley said.  

Australia’s most deadly bushfire killed 173 people in Victoria in 2009.  However, Australia’s deadliest natural hazard is extreme heat.  More than twice as many victims lost their lives in the heatwave that preceded the so-called ‘Black Saturday’ blazes.  It is the very young, the infirm, and those over the age of 75 who are most risk from searing temperatures. Heat-related illness, which can occur when body temperature exceeds 37.8°Celsius, includes dehydration, cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke.  The consequences can be catastrophic, resulting in heart attacks, brain damage and death.

Firefighters have been predicting one of the worst fire seasons on record.  They say warmer conditions have been coupled with a very dry winter.

 
…

From: MeNeedIt

The U.S. economy ended 2017 by adding 148,000 new jobs in December. Despite the modest gain, hiring was strong enough to suggest the economic momentum will continue. But while the national unemployment rate remained unchanged at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent, analysts say the pace of job growth may be slowing down. Mil Arcega has more.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Frigid temperatures, some that felt as cold as minus 30 degrees (-34 Celsius), moved across the East Coast on Friday as the region dug out from a massive winter storm that brought more than a foot of snow, hurricane-force winds and coastal flooding a day earlier.

Forecasters predicted strong winds and record-breaking cold air to hang around through the weekend.

The worst cold is likely to be in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. The Mount Washington Observatory, on its website, predicted the mountain’s highest summits could see wind chills of minus 100 degrees into Saturday.

WATCH: East of the Rockies, North America Shivers

Jess Flarity, a 32-year-old visiting a friend in Concord, New Hampshire, said the deep chill reminded him of his time in Alaska.

“I’ve been in minus 60 before so minus 20 doesn’t frighten me,” he said as he waited for a bus back to Boston Friday. “But I did have to prepare, bring some extra cold weather gear — gloves, boots and those kinds of things.”

In Portland, Maine, Jeanne Paterak said the cold snap revived her worries about the impact of climate change. 

“We are seeing some historic temperatures and everyone will be vulnerable,” she said as she stocked up on milk, vegetables and juice at a supermarket Friday morning.

​Wind chill a worry

The arctic blast could make temperatures feel as low as minus 15 degrees to minus 25 (-26 to -31 Celsius) from Philadelphia to Boston and make residents of states like Maryland and Virginia shiver from temperatures ranging from 10 degrees to 15 degrees (-12 to -9 Celsius). The wind chill could make it feel like minus 35 degrees (-37 Celsius) in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts, the National Weather Service said.

Thursday’s storm packed wind gusts of more than 70 mph (113 kph) and dumped as much as 18 inches (46 centimeters) of snow in some places.

It caused school and business closings, airline and rail service cancellations or reductions and thousands of utilities outages, many of them restored quickly. Some ferry services also had to be shut down.

Flights resumed at airports along the East Coast after hundreds were canceled Thursday.

Fires and floods

Massachusetts officials said the storm caused more than 1 million gallons of untreated sewage to spill into Nantucket Harbor after a huge sewer main break. In Gloucester, north of Boston, an estimated 50 cars were destroyed in a school parking lot after a storm surge submerged the lot under a few feet of salt water.

In New Jersey, gusty winds carried flames from a vacant building across the street to two other buildings Friday morning. The flames also spread to two structures adjacent to the vacant building, damaging a total of five in Newark. Two firefighters suffered minor injuries.

In the South, the winter weather forced the need for portable toilets outside Mississippi’s Capitol after pipes burst, and it caused iguanas to become sluggish and topple from trees in South Florida. Residents of southeast Georgia were treated to a rare half-foot of snow (15 centimeters).

​Record coastal flooding

In New England, powerful winds brought coastal flooding that reached historic levels in some communities.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed Friday that water levels in Boston broke the record set during a massive blizzard in 1978.

The flooding sent large trash containers floating down Boston streets, forced the shutdown of a subway station as water cascaded down the steps and prompted rescues of people trapped in cars and homes by rapidly rising waters in several Massachusetts communities.

In Scituate, south of Boston, residents were spending Friday trying to dry out their basements before more frigid temperatures arrived.

Longtime resident Dianne Davis said her home was surrounded by ocean water that eventually filled her basement.

“I’ve never been afraid, but when the water was coming up over my front steps, that’s when I said … ‘OK this is getting serious,”’ Davis said.

At least 10 deaths

At least 10 people died in weather-related accidents, including a 13-year-old girl who was sickened by carbon monoxide in an apartment building in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

In Massachusetts, a worker suffered cardiac arrest and died Friday while clearing snow at a Massachusetts Water Resources Authority facility. Two people died of cardiac arrest during the storm Thursday on New York’s Long Island, officials said. And in Maine, authorities on Friday said they’re still searching for a clammer who disappeared during the blizzard.

Sunday morning was expected to bring the coldest temperatures from Portland, Maine, to Washington, D.C. More seasonable weather is expected to return early next week with temperatures in the high 30s and near 40s.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Social media giant Twitter has reiterated its stance that accounts belonging to world leaders have special status, pushing back against calls from some users for the company to ban U.S. President Donald Trump. 

In a blog post Friday, Twitter said it would not block the accounts of world leaders even if their statements were “controversial” because of a need to promote discussions about public policy. 

​“Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial tweets would hide important information people should be able to see and debate,” Twitter said.

It said such a move would also not silence a world leader, but it “would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions.”

“Twitter is here to serve and help advance the global, public conversation. Elected world leaders play a critical role in that conversation because of their outsized impact on our society,” the post said. 

The company has previously said that it considers whether a post is newsworthy and of public interest before deciding whether to remove it. 

Twitter did not specifically mention Trump in its statement. The debate over Trump’s tweets grew on Wednesday, when he tweeted that he had a “much bigger” nuclear button than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Critics said the tweet violated Twitter’s ban against threats of violence. 

Last month, Twitter began enforcing new rules to remove “hateful” content on the network, including posts that promote violence. 

The company said Friday that it reviews all tweets, including those of world leaders. “We review tweets by leaders within the political context that defines them, and enforce our rules accordingly,” the statement said.

A White House spokeswoman said she did not expect there to be any White House comment on the Twitter statement. 

Pete Heinlein at the White House contributed to this report.
…

From: MeNeedIt

America’s space agency wants you to head for the mountains with a smartphone and a measuring stick.

NASA’s earth science arm is funding research that recruits citizen scientists on skis, snowshoes and snowmobiles to measure the depth of snow in backcountry locations in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

Their measurements will be incorporated into computer models that calculate how much water will end up in the region’s rivers and reservoirs.

​Early results promising

“Our initial model runs show that citizen science measurements are doing an amazing job of improving our simulations,” said David Hill, an Oregon State University professor of civil engineering, who is collaborating with Alaska and University of Washington researchers. They received one of 16 NASA citizen science grants for the project.

The snowpack measurements are incorporated into computer models estimating “snow-water equivalent,” the amount of liquid water contained in snow cover, of a watershed. 

In Western states, according to NASA, nearly three-fourths of annual stream flow that provides drinking water comes from spring and summer melt.

NASA in February began a multiyear research project to improve the accuracy of its snow measurements with partners in Europe and Canada, trying to solve challenges such as detecting snow through trees. 

​Several projects

The grant awarded to Hill, Anthony Arendt of the University of Washington and Gabriel Wolken, a research geologist with the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys, is not directly connected to that project but has a mutual interest, said Kevin Murphy, a program executive for science data systems at NASA headquarters. 

“We decided about two years ago to start this program, which really looks at how can we harness the creativity and the capabilities of citizens to augment a lot of our satellite or aircraft measurements,” Murphy said.

Cheap, plentiful volunteers

Snow telemetry stations maintained by the U.S. Agriculture Department are another important tool for measuring snow in high-elevation and other hard-to-access places, Hill said. The unmanned stations collect data using a system of automated sensors. 

But too few of them exist, Hill said. “They’re expensive to install, they’re expensive to maintain, so there just aren’t that many.”

The citizen snow-measuring program, Community Snow Observations, aims to supplement that with people. 

“We want to turn the public into these mobile snow telemetry stations,” he said. “You just need a probe to do it.”

The measuring device can be as rudimentary as a yardstick, Hill said, but most people venturing into mountains already carry an avalanche probe, a 5- to 6-meter stick that folds down like a tent pole. After an avalanche, the probes are used to feel for people buried in the snow. Probes typically carry measurement markings.

“You want to know when you actually find that person how deep they are,” Hill said. “They’re really just a big, long ruler.”

First volunteers in Alaska

For the citizen science program, an online tutorial tells participants to find undisturbed snow, push the probe firmly to the ground, read the depth in centimeters and enter the data onto a smartphone app. Participants are asked to repeat that several times and average the measurements.

The app records the location and time of the measurement and uploads the information. The program accounts for measurements in continental climate locations with light, dry snow or the wet, dense snow of maritime climates. 

Initial measurements were made last winter in Alaska’s Thompson Pass north of Valdez, where other snow research was being conducted.

“I recruited some of the folks from Valdez Avalanche Center. They brought friends along,” said Wolken, the Alaska research geologist. “That was our first go at getting sort of a grassroots, citizen science team.”

The hundreds of measurements collected far outpaced what the scientists could gather themselves. When NASA announced grants for citizen scientist projects, the researchers jumped to apply, Wolken said.

Modeling errors plunge

Preliminary calculations have been “striking,” Hill said, and the subject of a paper written by a doctoral student.

“He has results that basically show that the errors in our modeled snow-water equivalent are cut by about 90 percent with this input from public,” Hill said. “We’re thrilled about that.”

Other NASA grants in the program will use citizen scientists to collect data on mosquito populations and their breeding environments around the world, water depths in lakes in North Carolina and elsewhere, moisture in soil at various locations, changes in giant kelp across the globe, and images of clouds from the ground in Colorado.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Britain should charge a 25-pence ($0.34) levy on disposable coffee cups to cut down waste and use the money to improve recycling facilities, a committee of lawmakers said Friday.

Chains Pret A Manger, Costa Coffee, Caffe Nero and Greggs alongside U.S. firm Starbucks are among the biggest coffee-sellers in Britain, rapidly expanding in the last 10 years to meet increasing demand.

Although some outlets give a discount to customers using their own cup, only 1-2 percent of buyers take up the offer, according to parliament’s environmental audit committee, which said a “latte levy” was needed instead.

2.5 billion cups a year

“The UK throws away 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups every year; enough to circle the planet 5½ times,” said chair of the committee, Mary Creagh.

“We’re calling for action to reduce the number of single-use cups, promote reusable cups over disposable cups and to recycle all coffee cups by 2023,” she said.

The committee said that if the recycling target is not met then disposable coffee cups should be banned.

Bag levy success

In October 2015, Britain introduced a charge of 5-pence on all single-use plastic bags provided by large shops, which led to an 83 percent reduction in UK plastic bags used in the first year.

On Friday the environment ministry said the government was working closely with the sector and had made progress in increasing recycling rates.

“We are encouraged by industry action to increase the recycling of paper cups with some major retail chains now offering discounts to customers with reusable cups,” said a spokeswoman.

“We will carefully consider the committee’s recommendations and respond shortly,” she said.
…

From: MeNeedIt

A true treasure overlooks the city of Kinshasa on top of Ngaliema Hill. An exhibition room of a few dozen square meters is too small to contain the 45,000 pieces that have been collected from across the Democratic Republic of Congo. But this is the temporary solution to keep some of this collection open to the public until a new and bigger museum, opens in 2018. Abdourahmane Dia has this report.
…

From: MeNeedIt

The Consumer Electronics show opens this weekend in Las Vegas, Nevada. There are a host of new tech startups descending on the city, hoping to become the next big thing. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…

From: MeNeedIt

A life threatening cold front swept across North America, bringing piles of snow and icy conditions. The National Weather Service issued wind chill advisories and freeze warnings covering a vast area from South Texas to Canada and from Montana through New England. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports doctors are issuing warnings about injuries from frostbite and ice.
…

From: MeNeedIt

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is partially abandoning its “pay-what-you-wish” admissions policy that has made it an egalitarian destination for generations of art lovers.

Starting March 1, the museum will charge a mandatory $25 entrance fee to most adult visitors who don’t live in New York state.

Museum President and CEO Daniel Weiss announced the change Thursday.

Weiss says the extra money will help balance the Met’s $305 million annual operating budget.

Entrance will remain free for all children under 12 and pay-as-you-wish for students up to graduate school in New York and surrounding New Jersey and Connecticut.  

The $25 fee will allow visitors to enter the Met over three consecutive days, instead of just one.
…

From: MeNeedIt