Peter Daszak is part of the World Health Organization’s 14-member team investigating the origins of the coronavirus. This weekend on Twitter he described “explaining key findings of our exhausting month-long work in China” to journalists — only to see team members “selectively misquoted to fit a narrative that was prescribed before the work began.” Daszak was responding to a New York…
Tag: Southeast Asia
Global Chip Shortage Threatens Production of Laptops, Smartphones and More
Makers of cars and electronic devices from TVs to smartphones are sounding alarm bells about a global shortage of chips, which is causing manufacturing delays as consumer demand bounces back from the coronavirus crisis. From a report: The problem has several causes, industry executives and analysts say, including bulk-buying by U.S. sanctions-hit Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies, a fire at a…
15 Asia-Pacific Countries Form World’s Largest Trade Bloc, Exclude the US
“Fifteen Asia-Pacific economies formed the world’s largest free trade bloc on Sunday,” reports CNBC, “a China-backed deal that excludes the United States, which had left a rival Asia-Pacific grouping under President Donald Trump.” Amid questions over Washington’s engagement in Asia, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) may cement China’s position more firmly as an economic partner with Southeast Asia, Japan and…
The spread of rice farms threatens key wetlands in southeast Asia
Rice farming near Cambodia’s largest lake has spread and reduced flooded forests and grasslands by about a third over the past 15 years, taking over the habitat of threatened species Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2259193-the-spread-of-rice-farms-threatens-key-wetlands-in-southeast-asia/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Chilling Report Suggests 1 Out of 5 Countries Could Be Headed For Ecosystem Collapse
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScienceAlert: A new insurance index from the Swiss Re Institute has found just over half of all global GDP — nearly 42 trillion US dollars — is dependent on goods and services provided by the natural world. In many places around the world, however, that sturdy foundation is turning to sand. The report, referred…
Divers discover lost WWII submarine wreck off Southeast Asia
Divers in Southeast Asia have located the lost wreck of what’s thought to be a U.S. Navy submarine that sank in 1943 after it was attacked by Japanese aircraft. Source: https://www.livescience.com/lost-wwii-sub-wreck-discovered.html
Saharan-fed sunsets in the US
A massive Saharan dust plume is moving into the southeast US, bringing technicolor sunsets and suppressing tropical storms. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/saharan-dust-cloud-us-sunsets-june2020…
From RealPlayer To Toshiba, Tech Companies Cash in on the Facial Recognition Gold Rush
At least 45 companies now advertise real-time facial recognition. From a report: More than a decade before Spotify, and years before iTunes, there was RealPlayer, the first mainstream solution to playing and streaming media to a PC. Launched in 1995, within five years RealPlayer claimed a staggering 95 million users. […] RealPlayer is still very much alive. Now called RealNetworks, a…
President Trump Just De-Funded a Research Nonprofit Studying Virus Transmissions
Charlotte Web writes: The U.S.-based research non-profit Ecohealth Alliance has spent 20 years investigating the origins of infectious diseases like Covid-19 in over 25 countries, “to do scientific research critical to preventing pandemics.” America just cut it’s funding. Trump’s reason? “Unfounded rumors” and “conspiracy theories…without evidence,” according to reports in Politico and Business Insider. The group had received a total of…
10 More Virus Researchers Say ‘Virtually No Chance’ Coronavirus Escaped From a Lab
Long-time Slashdot reader Charlotte Web writes: “Virus researchers say there is virtually no chance that the new coronavirus was released as result of a laboratory accident in China or anywhere else,” writes NPR, citing “10 leading scientists who collect samples of viruses from animals in the wild, study virus genomes and understand how lab accidents can happen.” NPR reports: “All of…