Astronauts aboard the International Space Station will soon get a personal assistant, similar to Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, but so smart that astronauts prefer to call it a “colleague.”

Its official name is CIMON, short for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion, and it will partially live in a five-kilogram ball built by Airbus. It has a video screen with rudimentary face features, cameras with face recognition, microphones and speakers.

CIMON will move freely within the space station; however, its brain will be on Earth in IBM’s supercomputer, named Watson, loaded with a huge amount of scientific knowledge.

CIMON’s main human companion will be German astronaut Alexander Gerst, who will bring it onboard ISS in June. The two are currently training together, as CIMON will have to be able to recognize Gerst’s voice and face, and also to navigate within the complicated interior of the spacecraft.

For starters, Gerst and CIMON will cooperate in experiments with crystals, a complex medical experiment, and also try to solve the Rubik’s magic cube using only videos.

A larger experiment will be the interaction between human and artificial intelligence, especially in view of future deep-space missions.

CIMON’s developers would like to see whether an intelligent interactive assistant will help reduce astronauts’ stress during long flights and improve their efficiency.
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Artificial Intelligence is on the cusp of transforming our world in ways many of us can barely imagine. While there is much excitement about emerging technologies, a new report by 26 of the world’s leading AI researchers warns of the potential dangers that could emerge over the coming decade, as AI systems begin to surpass levels of human performance. Henry Ridgwell reports from London
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U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a new initiative Tuesday that will target painkiller manufacturers and distributors who overprescribe and allow the misuse of prescription drugs by addicts.  The initiative, Sessions said, will tackle the opioid crisis “at its root.” 

The Prescription Interdiction and Litigation (PIL) Task Force will “use criminal and civil actions” to ensure that prescription painkiller manufacturers and distributors adhere to Drug Enforcement Administration rules against diversion and over-prescription of pain drugs.

The task force will use the False Claims Act to target pain management clinics, drug testing facilities and doctors who improperly prescribe opioids, the Justice Department said. 

“Over the past year, the Department has vigorously fought the prescription opioid crisis, and we are determined to continue making progress,” Sessions said at a press conference in Washington. “Today, we are opening a new front in the war on the opioid crisis by bringing all of our anti-opioid efforts under one banner. We have no time to waste.”

Over-prescription of painkillers

Rampant over-prescription of painkillers have long been seen as a driving force of the opioid crisis in the United States. The vast majority of opioid addicts start off with prescription painkillers before switching to heroin, the synthetic opioid fentanyl and other more potent drugs.

The United States, which represents less than five percent of the global population, consumed more than 30 percent of the world’s opioid supply in 2015, according to the International Narcotics Control Board.

“It is estimated that we use many times more opioids than is medically necessary for a population our size,” Sessions said.

In 2016, a record 64,000 Americans died of drug overdoses, most of them from opioid painkillers, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Preliminary data indicate 2017 “was even worse, albeit with a much smaller increase,” Sessions said.

Leading cause of death

Amid the opioid epidemic, drug overdose has become the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50. 

“These are not acceptable trends, and this new task force will make us more effective in reversing them and saving Americans from the scourge of opioid addiction,” Sessions said.

The attorney general said the newly created task force of senior officials from across the Justice Department will also review pending state and local lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors to determine what support the Justice Department can lend to those legal efforts.

To that end, the Justice Department plans to file a “statement of interest” in support of hundreds of lawsuits brought against opioid manufacturers and distributors, Sessions said.

The lawsuits, filed by a number of cities, municipalities and medical institutions, seek to recover the costs associated with providing treatment and public safety measures instituted in response to the drug crisis.

Medicare pays for opioids

The Department of Justice will argue that federal agencies have borne substantial costs as a result of the opioid crisis and seek reimbursement.

In 2016, the federally funded Medicare prescription drug program paid more than $4 billion for opioids, according to Sessions.

The attorney general described the creation of the task force as the latest in a series of steps the justice Department has taken to combat an epidemic that is showing few signs of letting up.

Last month, Sessions announced a 45-day surge of DEA agents to focus on pharmacies and prescribers who were dispensing an unusual or disproportionate amount of drugs.

Last year, President Donald Trump declared the opioid epidemic a “public health emergency,” but critics say the declaration was not followed by the deployment of additional resources to tackle the crisis.

Sessions, however, defended the administration’s commitment to combating the epidemic, saying the Justice Department has taken “historic new actions to reverse the rising tide of addiction and death.”

Among the steps, he cited the indictment of more than 120 defendants, including doctors, the takedown of a Dark Net drug bazaar and the creation of a unit to detect evidence of overprescription and opioid-related health fraud.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) reports it is teaming up with national and international health agencies to tackle what appears to be the largest outbreak of Lassa fever in Nigeria. The Latest figures show 1,081 suspected cases of the disease, including 90 deaths.

The WHO reports 317 of more than 1,000 suspected cases of Lassa fever have been confirmed during the past eight weeks.  It says the number is more than the 305 cases reported all of last year, making this the biggest Lassa fever outbreak to date.

While the disease is present in 17 Nigerian states, the WHO reports it is largely concentrated in the three southern states of Edo, Ondo and Ebonyi. Lassa fever is endemic in Nigeria, as it is in a number of West African States. WHO spokesman Tarek Jasarevic says investigations have been undertaken to find out why this year’s outbreak is so extensive.

“[The] WHO is helping to coordinate health actors and is joining rapid risk assessment teams traveling to hot spots to investigate the outbreak. [The] WHO is supporting the Lassa fever Emergency Operations Center that is led by the Nigeria Center for Disease Control to revise the Lassa fever incident Action Plan, and to strengthen surveillance, infection prevention control and treatment, as well as better coordination and conducting Lassa fever research and development,” Jasarevic said.

Lassa fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic illness that occurs in West Africa. The virus is transmitted to humans via contact with food or household items contaminated with rodent urine or feces. Jasarevic told VOA the virus also can be spread between humans.

“Once a person is infected, it can infect other people just like Ebola was through the body fluid. So, mainly that would be the health care workers who are not properly trained and who are not properly equipped who may then get infected inside the health care facilities,” Jasarevic said.  

The incubation period of Lassa fever ranges from six to 21 days. The WHO says the best way to prevent the disease is by promoting good community hygiene to discourage rodents that spread the disease from entering homes. Besides storing grain and other foodstuffs in rodent-proof containers, the WHO suggests keeping cats in the home is a good idea.
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Only days after the spectacular liftoff of what is currently the heaviest space rocket, the privately-built Falcon Heavy, NASA announced the next launch will carry a specially built atomic clock. The new device, much smaller and sturdier than earth-bound atomic clocks, will help future astronauts navigate in deep space. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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When Angela was born without lower legs, her father believed she was an evil spirit and should be taken to a “concoction man” — a traditional herbalist who would kill the baby and bury her.

But Angela survived after a midwife put her mother in touch with charity worker Joseph Asakibeem, who has devoted his life to saving Ghana’s “spirit children.”

In parts of northern Ghana, babies born with disabilities are traditionally seen as bringers of bad luck, said Asakibeem, who on Monday won the Bond Humanitarian Award that recognizes hidden “superheroes” for his work with the charity AfriKids. Until recently, many spirit children were taken to a concoction man who would lock them in a room after administering a poisonous potion.

“The local belief is that if you survive, it’s proof you are not a spirit, but if you die, it’s confirmation that you are a spirit,” said Asakibeem, a project manager at AfriKids.

“Unfortunately, most times the child dies. They then bury the child in an isolated place away from the village.”

Babies whose mothers die in childbirth, or who are born after something bad has happened to the family, also risk being labelled spirit children.

Smart girl

Angela, now a bright seven-year-old, is one of 110 children rescued by Asakibeem and his team at AfriKids.

She has learned to walk with prosthetic limbs, helps her mother with chores, and is thriving at school. Angela’s parents separated after her birth but her father has begged for a reconciliation after seeing her progress, AfriKids said.

“She’s a very strong girl, she’s smart and a fast learner,” Asakibeem told Reuters by Skype.  “My hope is one day she will become a nurse or teacher and serve as a role model to the community.”

Asakibeem, 41, grew up in the Kassena Nankana region in northern Ghana, where the belief in kinkirigo, or spirit children, was deeply embedded.

In 2005, up to 15 percent of babies who died were thought to have been killed as spirit children, according to AfriKids.

Asakibeem began talking to parents, village elders and concoction men to change mindsets and dispel superstitions by informing them about the medical reasons for disabilities and promoting health care.

Asakibeem said many disabilities in the region were linked to poor nutrition and health care during pregnancy, and a lack of access to medical help during labor complications.

AfriKids has set up a center in Asakibeem’s home village, Sirigu, and another in nearby Bongo district, providing help for disabled children, a support group for their mothers and antenatal care for pregnant women.

It gives small loans for businesses like basketry, pottery and poultry farming to help mothers support their families.

Reaching concoction men

One challenge was persuading the concoction men to stop.

AfriKids provided livestock and loans to kickstart businesses.

It also takes them to areas where children with disabilities flourish and some of those who once made a living from killing children have become advocates to protect them, Asakibeem said.

No child killings have been reported in Kassena Nankana for 10 years, but Asakibeem said they continue elsewhere.

“We’re now expanding our work to the whole of northern Ghana. My dream is that in 15 years I can stop this practice.”
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The most comprehensive elephant genome study ever conducted, covering seven living and extinct species, is offering some surprises about the family tree of the world’s largest land animal while also settling a debate about Africa’s elephants.

Researchers said on Monday their research confirmed that the two types of African elephants, those inhabiting forests and those roaming savannas, are separate species that have lived in nearly complete isolation from one another for the past half million years despite their close proximity.

They join the Asian elephant as the world’s three existing elephant species.

The scientists sequenced the genomes of two African savanna elephants, two African forest elephants, two Asian elephants, two extinct so-called straight-tusked elephants, four extinct woolly mammoths, including two from North America and two from Siberia, one extinct Columbian mammoth and two extinct American mastodons. Mastodons are not classified as members of the elephant lineage but are cousins.

“I hope that this study can create an appreciation for the rich evolutionary history of elephants and emphasize the need for protecting the only three elephant species that still walk the planet today, who are all under imminent risk of extinction from poaching and habitat loss,” said Harvard Medical School geneticist Eleftheria Palkopoulou, one of the researchers.

The research found multiple instances of gene flow — interbreeding — between different extinct elephant species, though this has virtually stopped among today’s elephants.

The straight-tusked elephants that once inhabited Europe and Asia — the largest of the species studied at up to 13 feet tall (4 meters) and 15 tons — are a case in point. The species turns out to be a hybrid with portions of its genome arising from an ancient African elephant, the woolly mammoth and the African forest elephants still alive today.

Straight-tusked elephants were traditionally thought to be most closely related to Asian elephants due to similarities in their skulls and teeth. One of the two straight-tusked elephants studied lived 120,000 years ago and provided one of the oldest high-quality genomes for any extinct species.

The scientists also found fresh evidence of interbreeding among the Ice Age Columbian and woolly mammoths, which crossed paths in locations where the more temperate regions of North America met the glaciers that then covered large parts of the continent.

The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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A new super-material — stronger, lighter and cheaper than steel — has emerged from scientists’ labs. It’s not a high-tech nano-polymer or some new alloy. It’s wood. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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Around the world, one in three people suffer from something known as “hidden hunger.” Their bellies may be full, but the food they are eating is not nutritious. A San Francisco food technology firm is working in Liberia to see if it can make a popular Liberian dish more nutritious. Michelle Quinn reports.
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The majority of people believe cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is successful more often than it tends to be in reality, according to a small U.S. study.

This overly optimistic view, which may partly stem from seeing happy outcomes in television medical dramas, can get in the way of decision-making and frank conversations about end of life care with doctors, the research team writes in American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

CPR is intended to restart a heart that has stopped beating, known as cardiac arrest, which is typically caused by an electrical disturbance in the heart muscle. Although a heart attack is not the same thing — it occurs when blood flow to the heart is partly or completely blocked, often by a clot — a heart attack can also cause the heart to stop beating.

Odds of surviving 

Whatever the cause of cardiac arrest, restarting the heart as quickly as possible to get blood flowing to the brain is essential to preventing permanent brain damage. More often than not, cardiac arrest ends in death or severe neurological impairment.

The overall rate of survival that leads to hospital discharge for someone who experiences cardiac arrest is about 10.6 percent, the study authors note. But most participants in the study estimated it at more than 75 percent.

“The majority of patients and non-medical personnel have very unrealistic expectations about the success of CPR as well as the quality of life after patients are revived,” said lead author Lindsey Ouellette, a research assistant at Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine in Grand Rapids.

Patients and family members should know about the realistic success rate and survival numbers when planning a living will and considering a “Do Not Resuscitate” order, Ouellette said.

“We think it is best to have the latest and most accurate information when dealing with this life-impacting decision, whether or not to undertake or continue CPR,” she told Reuters Health in an email.

Good TV, not good information

To gauge perceptions of CPR, the researchers surveyed 1,000 adults at four academic medical centers in Michigan, Illinois and California. Participants included non-critically ill patients and families of patients, who were interviewed during random hospital shifts.

In addition to asking about general knowledge of CPR and personal experiences with CPR, the researchers presented participants with several scenarios and asked them to estimate the likelihood of CPR success and patient survival in each case.

One scenario involved a 54-year-old who suffered a heart attack at home and required CPR by paramedics. About 72 percent of the survey participants predicted survival and 65 percent predicted a complete neurological recovery.

In a scenario describing a trauma-related cardiac arrest in an 8-year-old, 71 percent predicted CPR success and 64 percent predicted long-term survival of the child.

“Many people felt if a person was successfully revived, they would return to ‘normal’ rather than possibly needing lifelong care,” Ouellette said.

At the same time, more than 70 percent of respondents said they watched TV medical dramas regularly, and 12 percent said these shows were a reliable source of health information.

“Tempering unrealistic expectations may not make for ‘good TV,’ but perhaps we can get a better idea of just how these dramas may impact the views people hold about CPR and other aspects of medicine,” she said.

Medical act, not miracle

“People think about CPR as a miracle, but it’s another medical act,” said Dr. Juan Ruiz-Garcia of Hospital Universitario de Torrejon in Madrid who wasn’t involved in the study. “I’m not really sure what people would choose if they knew the real prognosis of it,” he told Reuters Health by phone.

CPR should be part of the conversation about end-of-life care and advanced directives among families, said Carolyn Bradley of Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut.

“When doing CPR at a hospital, we tend to move the family away, but we’ve created a situation where families may not be there for the final moments,” she said in a phone interview.

“Have a critical conversation with your health care provider and go with questions about what would happen during CPR,” she said. “What does it look like? What happens to my body? Who will be around? It could be the end-of-life. Statistically, it is.”
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Only days after the spectacular liftoff of what is currently the heaviest space rocket, the privately built Falcon Heavy, NASA announced the next launch will carry a specially built atomic clock. The new device, much smaller and sturdier than earth-bound atomic clocks, will help future astronauts navigate in deep space. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Opioid addiction is a crisis in the United States, with more than 2 million Americans dependent on the pain-killing drugs, experts say. Now, the ancient Chinese needle form of acupuncture is providing an alternative to opioids for pain and helping people who are already addicted them. VOA’s Deborah Block has the story.
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