Members of the LightSail 2 team declared their mission a success in a teleconference Wednesday. The citizen-funded spacecraft is the highest-performing solar sail to date and the first to demonstrate the ability to orbit Earth in a controlled way.    “This is a very exciting day for us, and for me personally,” said Bill Nye, chief executive officer  of the Planetary Society, the organization behind the mission. “This idea that you could fly a spacecraft with nothing but photons is surprising, and for me, it’s very romantic that you could be sailing on sunbeams.”    LightSail 2 is the latest demonstration of solar sail technology, which uses the gentle pressure of photons — the particles of light — on a lightweight, reflective surface to propel a craft through space, similar to the way the wind pushes a sailing ship across the ocean. However, instead of canvas, solar sails are made of thin sheets of Mylar, the same crinkly …

The Trump administration took a step Wednesday toward allowing importation of medicines from Canada, an action the president has advocated as a way to bring cheaper prescription drugs to Americans, but the pharmaceutical industry was quick to resist the move. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said it and the Food and Drug Administration will propose a rule that will allow it to authorize states and other groups to pursue pilot projects related to importing drugs from Canada. The agency also said it would allow drugmakers to bring drugs that they sell more cheaply in foreign countries into the United States for sale here, an option the companies are unlikely to embrace. Capital Alpha analyst Rob Smith, in a research note, questioned why manufacturers would voluntarily lower prices in the United States to match those in Canada or any other foreign country. The announcement comes as President Donald Trump aims to address the world’s highest drug prices ahead of the 2020 elections and after several drug policy failures. Reuters …

As the Ebola epidemic in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo enters its second year, experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) are voicing concern about the growing risk of the virus spreading to neighboring countries.Fears that the deadly Ebola virus could spread to Congo’s nine neighboring countries are growing with the death of the second person confirmed to have had the disease in Goma, a city of more than one million people. Goma, the capital of conflict-ridden North Kivu province, borders Rwanda and DRC’s gateway to the rest of the world.Uganda has had three imported cases of Ebola. While it has successfully contained the spread of the disease, WHO experts warn of the potential dangers should the virus enter South Sudan, which is a particularly vulnerable, unstable country.This is the 10th Ebola outbreak over the past four decades in the DRC. The executive director of WHO Emergencies, Michael Ryan, …

The Trump administration said Wednesday it will set up a system to allow Americans to legally import lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada, weakening a longstanding ban that had stood as a top priority for the politically powerful pharmaceutical industry.Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar made the announcement Wednesday morning. Previous administrations had sided with the industry on importation, echoing its concerns that it could expose patients to risks from counterfeit or substandard medications.Azar, a former drug industry executive, said U.S. patients will be able to import medications safely and effectively, with oversight from the Food and Drug Administration. The administration’s proposal would allow states, wholesalers and pharmacists to get FDA approval to import certain medications that are also available here.It’s unclear how soon consumers will see results.Most patients take affordable generic drugs to manage conditions such as high blood pressure or elevated blood sugars. But polls show concern about …

Lisa Schlein contributed to this report from Geneva.Officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo say the person who was confirmed as the second case of Ebola in the city of Goma has died.The announcement was made Wednesday, a day after the latest case was first revealed.The case involved a man who traveled to Goma from a northeastern rural community in Ituri province. He was diagnosed a few days after arrival and was being treated at the Goma Ebola Treatment Center.Goma is home to more than a million people and lies directly on Congo’s border with Rwanda, where tens of thousands cross on foot daily.Earlier this month, a pastor tested positive and later died after arriving in Goma by bus, sparking fears the disease could spread quickly through the densely populated city.After that incident, the World Health Organization declared the Ebola epidemic in DR Congo’s conflict-ridden North Kivu and Ituri provinces …

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his guest, director of the World Food Program David Beasley, planted tree seedlings on Tuesday in a salute to Ethiopia’s Green Legacy Initiative, which seeks to combat climate change through mass tree planting. Volunteers in the Horn of Africa state planted 350 million trees in the past week in an effort to curb climate change effects. …

VOA’s Lisa Schlein contributed to this report.Officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo have confirmed a second case of the deadly Ebola virus in the city of Goma. Goma is home to more than a million people and lies directly on Congo’s border with Rwanda, where tens of thousands cross on foot daily.”I have just been informed of a case of Ebola in Goma,” Dr. Aruna Abedi, coordinator of the Ebola response in North Kivu province, told AFP.The case involves a man who traveled to Goma from a northeastern rural community in Ituri province. He was diagnosed a few days after arrival and is being treated at the Goma Ebola Treatment Center.Earlier this month, a pastor tested positive and later died after arriving in Goma by bus, sparking fears the disease could spread quickly through the densely populated city.After that incident, the World Health Organization declared the Ebola epidemic in DRC’s …

The United Nations’ Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, reports an unprecedented number of children in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are being infected with Ebola and many are dying from this deadly disease.Children account for more than 700 of the 2,671 reported cases of Ebola. UNICEF health specialist Jerome Pfaffman says more than half of the youngsters infected with this deadly disease are below the age of five.  Pfaffman, who has just completed his third tour of duty in northeast Congo, calls this number unprecedented. He says it is proportionally higher than the number of children who were infected in the 2014 West African outbreak, which affected about 28,000 people, killing more than 11,000.”When I left there were 12 new confirmed cases,” he said. “Five were alive and will have the chance to access treatment, but seven had died in the community. This is bad. Having this number of community deaths …

The move to dismantle the Jason scientific panel follows other Trump administration efforts to abolish or delay the work of independent groups that have been a staple of the U.S. government for decades.U.S. officials say many panels simply add bureaucracy and costs. Opponents of the closures see the change as a move to silence outside criticism in areas of significant public concern.“This White House has set the tone that science is unimportant if it conflicts with their political positions,” said Linton Brooks, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration from 2002 to 2007 and now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.A Department of Justice panel studying forensic science, for instance, was disbanded in April 2017 within three months of Trump taking office. The panel was unpopular with some prosecutors and tough-on-crime proponents because it highlighted concerns over law enforcement techniques used …

It’s 6 a.m on a chilly Johannesburg morning, and Luyanda Hlatshwayo is elbow-deep in a trash can, pulling out milk bottles, soda cans, the lid of a pot, a broken blender. His eyes light up as he hits pay dirt: a tranche of used white paper. Hlatshwayo, who is 35, has spent nine years sorting through Johannesburg’s trash cans, making him a master of turning trash into treasure. He’s one of the city’s 9,000 “reclaimers” — an informal network of workers who collect and sell recyclables. The mental mathFrom the outside, his job looks simple. His tools are his hands and a homemade plastic dolly. But in his head, he keeps a complex agenda of which neighborhoods put out trash on which day; which roads to avoid if he doesn’t want to get hit by a car in the pre-dawn darkness; and a stockbroker’s mental ledger of what a recyclable item can …

The deadliest time for many surgery patients isn’t when they’re on the operating table, it’s while they’re recovering in the hospital and after they go home, a new study suggests.For the study, researchers examined outcomes for more than 40,000 patients age 45 and older who underwent non-cardiac surgery at 28 hospitals in 14 countries. Researchers monitored patients for complications and deaths within 30 days of surgery.Overall, five people, or less than 1% of patients, died on the operating table, and another 500 patients, or 70%, died in the hospital. Another 210 deaths, or 29%, didn’t happen until after patients were sent home.Nearly half of all the deaths were associated with three complications: major bleeding, heart damage, and bloodstream infections.”Many families anxiously wait to hear from the surgeon whether their loved one survived the operation, but our research demonstrates that very few of the deaths occur in the operating room,” said …

Scientists warn the most effective drug used to treat malaria is becoming ineffective in parts of Southeast Asia — and unless rapid action is taken, it could lead to a global health emergency.Writing in the Lancet journal, researchers from Thailand’s Mahidol University and Britain’s Oxford University say parasites that carry malaria are developing resistance to a key drug combination across multiple regions of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.The report warns that the parasite Plasmodium falciparum — which causes the most lethal form of human malaria — is becoming resistant to the first-choice drug, DHA-piperaquine, in parts of Southeast Asia, with patients seeing a failure rate of 50 percent or more.The situation is so critical that scientists say the treatment should not be used in Cambodia, Vietnam and northeast Thailand, because it is ineffective and contributes to increased malaria transmission.New treatments must be considered, says Sterghios Moschos of the University of Northumbria.“It might …

Tigers are one of the world’s endangered species.India, however, is working hard to change that classification for its national animal.In just four years, its tiger population has grown from 2,226 to 2,976.In 2010, India’s tiger population was down to 1,400.India is now one of the safest places in the world for tigers.”Nine years ago, it was decided in Saint Petersburg (Russia) that the target of doubling the tiger population would be 2022,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Monday at the release of the All India Tiger Estimation Report 2018.  “We in India completed this target four years in advance.””It’s an historic achievement,” Modi said of his country’s growing tiger count.  “But we still have a long way to go to secure a long-term future for wild tigers,” said Belinda Wright, founder of the Wildlife Protection Society of India.  She warned that one of the biggest challenges against the tigers in …

The U.N. World Food Program says it plans to double food rations to assist 440,000 people affected by the Ebola virus and their contacts over the next six months to respond to escalating needs in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The dramatic scale-up of food assistance is aimed at providing essential nutritional support to thousands of people affected by the Ebola virus.   Recipients will receive food for 28 days.  This is one week longer than the 21-day incubation period, the time interval from infection with the virus to onset of symptoms.The World Food Program says the operation also will allow agencies working to contain  the deadly virus to keep tabs on the health situation of contacts of victims and their families, as well as of confirmed and suspected cases.WFP spokesman Herve Verhoosel explains beneficiaries of this expanded program will be required to come to specific distribution sites every week to pick …

The World Health Organization (WHO) is urging nations to implement a series of cost-effective, anti-tobacco measures it says will help their populations quit smoking. A new WHO report found that progress in combating the tobacco epidemic and in reducing demand is being made, but not enough.A survey found 36 countries have introduced one or more measures aimed at helping people quit smoking. Only Turkey and Brazil have implemented all of WHO’s recommended anti-tobacco measures. These include graphic images on cigarette packages warning of the dangers of smoking, banning tobacco advertising and promotion, and raising taxes on tobacco products.  While this is progress, it is seen as far too little to stop the global tobacco epidemic that each year prematurely kills more than eight million people, 80 percent of them in developing countries.Program manager of WHO’s tobacco control unit, Vinayak Prasad, accuses the tobacco industry of being devious and finding new ways …

Two-month-old Lahya Kathembo became an orphan in a day. Her mother succumbed to Ebola on a Saturday morning. By sunset her father was dead, too.    They had been sick for more than a week before health workers finally persuaded them to seek treatment, neighbors said. They believed their illness was the work of people jealous about their newborn daughter, a community organizer said, and sought the guidance of a traditional spiritual healer.The Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo is ravaging Beni, a sprawling city of some 600,000, in large part because so many of the sick are choosing to stay at home. In doing so, they unknowingly infect caregivers and those who mourn them.Two-month-old Lahya Kathembo is carried by a nurse waiting for test results at an Ebola treatment center in Beni, Congo, July 17, 2019.”People are waiting until the last minute to bring their family members and when they …

The World Health Organization reports an experimental vaccine is saving lives and slowing the spread of the Ebola virus in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. But as the first anniversary of the Ebola epidemic nears, the WHO warns many challenges remain before the deadly disease is fully contained. More than 2,600 cases of Ebola, including 1,756 deaths, have been reported in North Kivu and Ituri provinces since Aug. 1, 2018, according to WHO, making this the second worst Ebola outbreak after the 2014 West African epidemic, which killed more than 11,000 people.A second wave of the outbreak in the Beni health zone is larger than the first wave one year ago, WHO reports. Beni accounts for more than half of the 242 new cases of Ebola reported in the last three weeks. Other recent hotspots include Mandima, Mabalako and Katwa.Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO health emergencies, has credited the work …