Brazil’s President says the country is losing the battle against the mosquito spreading the Zika virus, as experts warn the Olympics could fuel the disease’s spread.
Daily Archives: January 29, 2016
Serena Williams seeking to join Steffi Graf with Australian Open win
Serena Williams can equal Steffi Graf’s open-era record of 22 grand slam titles with a win over Angelique Kerber in the Australian Open final.
Humans implicated in huge flightless bird’s demise
The mystery behind the extinction of a huge flightless bird called Genyornis that flourished in the grasslands and woodlands of prehistoric Australia may have been solved, with burned eggshells as the clue and people as the culprits.
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Description: Rapperin Sonita Alizada
By Ned Hamson
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Afghan youngsters use hip hop to speak for women′s rights | NRS-Import | DW.COM | 29.01.2016
Sonita Alizadeh was just like any other teenager in Afghanistan. Growing up in a country in which girls are up for sale as brides meant her fate would not be any different. But she had other plans. Her dream was becoming a hip hop artist, and she was not going to let it go.Iranian film director Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami found Sonita in an Iranian school after she and her family fled the Taliban. Seeing the girl’s story and her musical talents, Ghaemmaghami decided to film a documentary about her story, even stepping in when the girl’s family planned to sell her as a bride: she paid Sonita’s family 2,000 dollars (€1,833) for them not to force the youngster into marriage.These experiences resulted in the film “Sonita,” which has been screened at the Sundance film festival, receiving many plaudits. In the movie, Sonita speaks up against many practices limiting women’s rights in her country, including forced marriage and limited education for girls, and her weapon of choice is hip hop music.
Source: Afghan youngsters use hip hop to speak for women′s rights | NRS-Import | DW.COM | 29.01.2016
‘We heard that people were nice in Denmark’
In the second part of our series, The Local profiles a Syrian refugee family from Aarhus, who talk about their impressions of the country, the challenges they face adapting to its culture, and how they have been helped by everyday Danes.
Danes in ‘historic’ flight from Social Democrats over asylum – The Local
Social Democrats leader Mette Frederiksen. Photo Thomas Lekfeldt/Scanpix
Danes in ‘historic’ flight from Social Democrats over asylum
A new poll shows a “historic” drop in voter support for the Social Democrats, with eight of ten voters who jumped ship saying they left the party over its hard-line position on asylum and immigration.
A Megafon poll showed that the Social Democrats plummeted seven percentage points, going from 26.3 percent support in November to just 19.3 percent this week. The drop was so significant that Megafon conducted an extra poll just to make sure the numbers hadn’t lied. “The poll shows an historic large drop in support for the Social Democrats. The drop is so big that we have to go all the way back to 1998 to see anything similar,” Megafon CEO Asger Nielsen told TV2. Measured by parliamentary seats, the poll would mean that the Social Democrats would go from their current 47 down to 34. The reason for the drop in support was clear. Voters rejected the party’s hard lurch to the right on immigration and asylum policies. “We asked everyone who left the Social Democrats in the poll to explain why and when I looked at all of the explanations, for 80 percent of them the refugee situation was the clear reason,” Nielsen told Politiken. Earlier this week, the Social Democrats were the only ‘red bloc’ party to vote in favour of Denmark’s controversial asylum package, which among other things allows for the confiscation of cash and valuables from refugees and will make some refugees wait three years before they can even apply to bring their families to Denmark.
Source: Danes in ‘historic’ flight from Social Democrats over asylum – The Local
French scientists discover critical stage in evolution of TB
Scientists from the Institut Pasteur, France’s National Center for Scientific Research and the Université Toulouse III recently discovered a critical stage that is part of the evolution of tuberculosis (TB) bacillus in developing pathogenicity.
In 2014 alone, an estimated 9.6 million people contracted TB with 1.5 million people dying worldwide. These figures make TB the world’s second-highest cause of death due to one infective agent.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis, an infective agent, causes TB, a chronic bacterial illness. The researchers found a glycolipid within the envelope of the bacterial cell and during evolution, this glycolipid could heighten the TB bacilli virulence among humans.
In contrast, when the glycolipids disappeared, TB became Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which is much more aggressive and raising in pathogenicity.
These discoveries could help researchers develop a more thorough understanding of how TB operates and evolves. This could enable them to further advance science against the emerging TB bacilli, allowing them to help people around the world.
For researchers to develop better strategies for fighting TB, they must better understand how the disease’s mechanisms operate as it spreads. There are various evolutionary stages that cause genetic adaptations, allowing TB bacillus to settle in humans.
Understanding this will allow researchers to improve their methods of fighting TB on a worldwide scale.
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