Month: August 2021

A new study suggests Earth’s supply of oxygen developed thanks to the planet’s gradually slowing rotation creating longer days that allowed a certain form of algae to admit more oxygen as a byproduct of its metabolic process.
The study, published Monday in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience, suggests that about 2.4 billion years ago there was so little oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere, it could barely be measured, so no animal or plant life as we know it could exist.
Much of the life on Earth consisted of tiny microbes, among them, a blue-green form of algae called cyanobacteria, which breathed in carbon dioxide and exhaled oxygen in the earliest form of photosynthesis.
The researchers say about 400 million years ago, the Earth took a relatively enormous leap in the amount of oxygen in its atmosphere, growing from nearly imperceptible levels to one-tenth the amount of oxygen it has now.
The researchers suggest the Earth’s rotation, which has been gradually slowing over time, lengthened days from about six hours to about the current 24 hours. The longer days provided more sunlight for the cyanobacteria to produce enough oxygen to give the planet breathable air.
The scientists reached their conclusion by studying microbes found growing in a sinkhole under 80 feet of water in Lake Huron, off the coast of the U.S. state of Michigan. The bacteria exist in an oxygen-poor environment similar to the single-celled cyanobacteria that formed matlike colonies billions of years ago, which carpeted both land and seafloor surfaces.

The researchers dredged up the bacteria from the sinkhole and tinkered with how much light it got in lab experiments. The more continuous light the microbes got, the more oxygen they produced.
That finding, in turn, points to a previously unconsidered link between Earth’s oxygenation history and its rotation rate.
The scientists say their models show that this proposed mechanism might help explain the pattern of Earth’s oxygenation, as well as the persistence of low-oxygen periods through most of the planet’s history.

Source: Voice of America

Britain has opened its borders to fully vaccinated travelers from the United States and much of Europe, as the government continues to ease coronavirus travel restrictions.
Monday was the first day that travelers arriving in Britain from the United States and most parts of the European Union could do so without going into quarantine.
New arrivals must still be tested for the coronavirus before boarding a flight to Britain and within two days of arrival.
Britain is maintaining quarantine requirements for French travelers, saying the country has a concerning number of cases of the beta variant in some areas. The beta variant was first detected in South Africa.
Britain has one of the highest vaccination rates for its population with nearly 90% of adults having at least one shot.

The country will begin offering a booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to 32 million Britons starting in early September, The Telegraph reported Sunday. The shots will be available in as many as 2,000 pharmacies with the goal of getting them into arms by early December.
The government has been preparing since at least June, when the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) called for a plan to offer the third shot to people 70 years old or older, home care residents and those who are vulnerable for health reasons.
US rules
In the U.S., more jurisdictions are requiring employees to get vaccinated or submit to regular testing as the country grapples with a rise of infections blamed on the delta variant.
Denver, Colorado, Mayor Michael Hancock announced Monday the city will mandate all city employees and private sector workers in high-risk settings to be vaccinated against the virus by the end of September.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said state health care workers, along with workers in corrections facilities or assisted living centers, must be vaccinated or face testing twice a week.

In New York State, Governor Andrew Cuomo urged businesses to turn away unvaccinated customers. He said it is in businesses’ best interests because many customers want to know that the customer next to them is vaccinated.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that 70% of U.S. adults have received at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine. President Joe Biden had originally aimed to pass that milestone by July 4.
In Myanmar
A group of 16 humanitarian aid organizations has issued a joint statement warning about the “spiraling humanitarian catastrophe in Myanmar triggered by skyrocketing COVID-19 cases and widespread violence.”
“Over 60 percent of reported deaths from COVID-19 in Myanmar have occurred in the past month alone, with the number of confirmed cases doubling in the last two months,” according to the statement issued Monday.
“Health care facilities from Kachin to Mandalay to Yangon remain shuttered as health care workers face violence and threats,” the statement said. “More than 400 doctors and 180 nurses have been given arrest warrants since the military takeover in February 2021.”
“The communities we work with are desperate and dying. … The population needs safe and fair access to humanitarian aid and health care now,” Laura Marshall, country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Myanmar, said in the statement.
Around the globe
In Australia, officials extended a lockdown in Brisbane, the country’s third-largest city until Sunday because of a growing COVID-19 outbreak. Sydney, the biggest city in the country, is beginning its sixth week of lockdown.
Olympics organizers in Tokyo reported 17 new coronavirus cases tied to the Games, including one athlete. That brings the total number since the beginning of July to 276.

Germany said Monday that beginning in September, it will start to offer a booster shot against COVID-19 to vulnerable individuals, including the elderly and those with weak immune systems.
In Berlin, thousands marched Sunday to protest pandemic restrictions, and about 600 protesters were detained after clashes with police, The Associated Press reported.
While Germany eased many of its restrictions in May, large gatherings remain banned.
More than 200,000 people turned out Saturday in France to protest vaccination requirements.
There are 198.7 million cases of COVID-19 as of Monday and 4.2 million deaths globally, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

Source: Voice of America

WASHINGTON – The top U.S. infectious disease expert said Sunday that the country is facing “some pain and suffering” with the surging delta variant of the coronavirus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s top medical adviser, told ABC’s “This Week” show, “Things are going to get worse,” and laid the blame on millions of people who have not been vaccinated against the virus.
As the number of new cases has risen sharply in recent weeks, some people who have not been vaccinated say they now are considering getting shots. But millions more are saying that for one reason or another they have no intention of getting inoculated no matter how many health officials urge them to do so.

Fauci, who almost daily prods Americans to get vaccinated, said, “You are protecting yourself from getting seriously ill and perhaps dying. The unvaccinated are allowing the propagation of the virus.”
The U.S. is already recording 70,000 new coronavirus cases a day, up nearly 60,000 over the last six weeks, to a level not seen since February. The caseload is being fueled by the delta variant first discovered in India. The coronavirus causes the COVID-19 disease.
Some disease trackers are predicting even bigger caseloads, to 140,000 to 300,000 new infections later in August as the highly transmissible delta variant spreads throughout the United States.
Scientists now say that even those already vaccinated can spread the variant, prompting the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, to issue a new directive last week. The CDC said that those already vaccinated should again wear face masks in indoor public settings in parts of the country where the number of new cases is spreading the fastest.

The directive has drawn rebukes from some Republican governors who have relaxed coronavirus restrictions in their states in recent months and voiced opposition to new face masking orders or any directive for mandatory vaccinations. Biden last week ordered more than 2 million federal workers to get vaccinated before returning to offices in the coming months or face frequent tests to prove they do not have the coronavirus.
Doug Ducey, the Republican governor in the southwestern state of Arizona, dismissed the CDC directive, saying, “Arizona does not allow mask mandates, vaccine mandates, vaccine passports or discrimination in schools based on who is or isn’t vaccinated. We’ve passed all of this into law, and it will not change.”
Ducey said the CDC directive “is just another example” of the Biden administration’s “inability to effectively confront the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Fauci said he disagreed with the Republican officials’ complaints that the new masking recommendations were overkill. He rejected complaints by those who refuse to get vaccinations and have said their individual liberties are being eroded.
“We are in a very serious health challenge,” Fauci said. “The fact is that if you get infected [and pass on the virus to others] you are encroaching on their individual rights.”

Source: Voice of America