What is the lawsuit against CVS and Walmart? Chains targeted over homeopathic product sales

Bailey Schulz, USA TODAY
Mon, February 6, 2023

Looking for a cold remedy at your local pharmacy? Be careful what you choose: Experts warn that some options on the shelves may be no better than sugar pills.

CVS and Walmart are in the midst of a court battle for selling FDA-approved, over-the-counter medications alongside homeopathic products, a form of alternative medicine based on diluted ingredients.

The Center for Inquiry, the nonprofit that filed the lawsuits, argues that this sort of product placement is misleading and presents homeopathic products as equivalent alternatives to science-based medicines.

There is little evidence that shows homeopathic products are effective, according to the National Institutes of Health. And while experts say most are harmless, the Food and Drug Administration warns that it cannot ensure their safety or effectiveness.

“Over-the-counter medication has to have been proven safe and effective for the condition that it's purported to treat,” said Kelly Karpa, a former pharmacist and a professor in East Tennessee State University's department of medical education. “(Whereas homeopathic products) had their own set of conditions under which they can be marketed. They kind of bypassed all of that safety and efficacy.”

Gas stove bans explained: Are natural gas stoves actually a 'hazard'? Why are they suddenly controversial?

Fed interest rate decision: Central bank hikes by 0.25 percentage point to tame inflation
What are homeopathic medicinal products?

Homeopathy is an alternative medical practice first developed in the late 1700s. Practitioners believe that a substance that causes symptoms in a healthy person can be used to treat symptoms and illnesses, according to the FDA.

For example: Since cutting onions can make eyes water, a homeopathic treatment for itching or watering eyes would be diluted red onion.

Unlike pharmacology, which follows the idea that a higher dosage usually leads to a greater response, homeopathy believes that the more diluted a substance, the more potent it is.

The concern some medical professionals have is that homeopathy products may contain toxic substances that are not diluted enough.

"The good thing about most of the products is that most of them are safe because they're so diluted," said Adriane Fugh-Berman, a professor in the department of pharmacology and physiology at Georgetown University Medical Center. But if it fails to weaken a toxic substance enough, "that could be an issue."

Sunscreen recall: Banana Boat expands sunscreen spray recall over cancer-causing chemical benzene
Is homeopathic medicine effective?

A 2015 paper from Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council based on 176 individual studies found “no health conditions for which there was reliable evidence that homeopathy was effective."

“Homeopathy had never had any hardcore data behind it that was consistent with what we currently recognize as a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that clearly indicates efficacy,” Karpa said.

Fugh-Berman notes that most homeopathic products are harmless and may even provide a placebo effect, but she has issues with them being sold on store shelves alongside FDA-approved medications.

“Homeopathic preparations should be available for those who know what they are and want to use them, but no one should inadvertently buy sugar pills,” she said.

In this Nov. 5, 2020 file photo, a woman pushes a shopping cart to enter a Walmart in Rolling Meadows, Ill.

Fed slows pace of rate hikes: Fed raises rates a quarter point. What that means for your finances.
Are homeopathic products FDA approved?

Homeopathic products are typically labeled as homeopathic and have ingredients listed in terms of dilution, such as 1x or 2c.

The FDA warns that there are currently no products labeled as homeopathic that are FDA-approved, and says the agency cannot ensure these drugs meet standards for safety, effectiveness, and quality. Nevertheless, sales have increased in recent years.

The agency in December said it intends to prioritize enforcement and regulatory actions for certain homeopathic products that "potentially pose a higher risk to public health."

There have been safety issues with homeopathic products in the past. In 2017, the FDA sent out a note that it had found elevated levels of the toxic substance belladonna in certain homeopathic teething tablets.

The following year, the agency alerted consumers to a recall of certain homeopathic products for humans and pets because of microbial contamination.

“I used to look at homeopathic products as: It probably won't hurt you. Even if it's just a placebo, it might help you,” Karpa said. But “there's also a risk of delaying appropriate treatment. And I think that in and of itself can be harmful.”

Samsung smartphone: Samsung's new Galaxy S23 smartphones boast new processors, better cameras

Exxon Mobil earnings: Exxon Mobil reports record annual profits for 2022; White House calls earnings 'outrageous'
What’s the status of CFI’s lawsuits?

Last month, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals denied requests for a rehearing from CVS and Walmart.

“We disagree with the ruling,” reads a statement from Marci Burks, director of corporate affairs for Walmart. “We take allegations like these seriously and look forward to defending this case in the Superior Court.”

CVS did not respond to a request for comment.

Nick Little, vice president and general counsel for the Center for Inquiry (CFI), says if the case does go to trial, that likely won't occur until late this year or early 2024.

"The individual stores are responsible for how they market (these products), how they represent them to customers," Little said. "We want to see all the major chains make this change."

You can follow USA TODAY reporter Bailey Schulz on Twitter @bailey_schulz and subscribe to our free Daily Money newsletter here for personal finance tips and business news every Monday through Friday.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: CVS, Walmart sued over homeopathic products. What are they?

Finally, Some Good News About Egg Prices

Dennis Lee
Mon, February 6, 2023 

hands holding eggs at grocery store

Just when we thought we’d be paying high prices for eggs forever, there’s a glimmer of hope on the horizon: NPR reports that wholesale egg prices are finally starting to come back down. Citing data from the USDA, NPR says that in the Midwest, the wholesale price for a dozen eggs dropped $0.58 to a total of $3.29 per dozen at the end of January.

Note that these are wholesale prices, which means you might not have seen much improvement in your grocery bill just yet. But if this trend continues, you should see some relief at the supermarket soon. Bakers and breakfast lovers, rejoice.

The initial cause of the jump in egg prices was due to a 2022 avian flu outbreak, which ripped through domestic egg-laying bird populations. In many cases, entire flocks were culled, causing supplies to drop drastically—which, in turn, caused the price of the remaining eggs to spike. Unfortunately, the outbreak is still in progress, with no clear end in sight.

This particular strain of the avian flu has been particularly unforgiving. Typically wild birds afflicted with the virus don’t usually see much sickness, but poultry scientist Phillip Clauer at Penn State College of Agricultural Science told NPR that the current outbreak is different.

“We’re seeing symptoms and we’re seeing mortality in some of the wild birds,” Clauer said. “This time around, it’s more deadly.”

Despite the nastiness of the outbreak, no one should be worried that it will cause widespread illness among humans. The avian flu doesn’t often jump to people, and though one person in Colorado was reported infected last spring, they were largely asymptomatic and recovered with the aid of antiviral medication.

So why has it taken so long for things to level off? Well, when a flock gets destroyed, farmers need to start practically from scratch, starting from chicks, which can take 16 to 18 weeks, according to Dr. Yuko Sato, a veterinarian at Iowa State University. Essentially the market is recovering from an unwelcome jolt in the system, and it can’t do so any faster than its current pace.

It’s also likely that we’ll never really see bargain-bin prices for eggs anymore, even after poultry populations recover. Inflation is still an ongoing issue, so baseline prices are still likely to be higher than we all remember from the good ol’ days (remember a dollar a dozen, anyone?). Still, we’ll take relief where we can get it, so keep an eye out at the grocery store. As for me, I think I’ll celebrate with an egg salad sandwich.

 The Takeout

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/02/fact-focus-egg-shortage-breeds-chicken.html

FACT FOCUS: Egg shortage breeds chicken-feed conspiracies

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/02/major-leap-in-bird-virus-threatens-yet.html

‘Major Leap’ in Bird Virus Threatens Yet Another Pandemic

UK

Does the egg shortage spell the end for brunch? For the sake of the chickens, I hope so

Emma Beddington
Sun, 5 February 2023 

Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA

Is brunch over? I hope so – like afternoon tea, it’s a stupid meal, sabotaging two perfectly good ones. Then there’s the queueing, all that sourdough massacring your soft palate, and dribbles of hollandaise, horribly reminiscent of baby posset. None of this has stopped people, but perhaps egg shortages will.

The UK egg drought never quite reached pandemic pasta proportions, but rationing was widespread through November and supply has not wholly recovered. The United States is now in the grip of acute shortages, with 60% year-on-year price rises, a dozen eggs reportedly reaching $18.

Why? Bird flu, of course, has meant huge culls of commercial flocks. But farmers say increased costs are equally, or more, to blame – energy and feed (the cost of raw materials has risen by 90% since 2019, according to the National Farmers’ Union). Major retailers remain unwilling to pay farmers a sustainable price for their goods – increased retail prices aren’t reflected in what farmers are getting – meaning many have concluded egg production is not economically viable.

I have hopes for the egg shortages and they go beyond outlawing hollandaise. The serious one is that it would be amazing if they let us face, and even challenge, the reality of intensive egg production. Is this a bait and switch: brunch provocation for hen welfare? Yes, sorry. But it is grim and it matters: “enriched” cages (giving each bird no more than a sheet of A4’s worth of space according to the RSPCA) are still legal and deprive birds of their natural scratching, flapping, dust-bathing behaviours. Barn-raised birds fracture bones moving around because they’re bred too heavy (86% of them, according to Henry Mance’s How to Love Animals). Then, regardless of the farming system, billions of male chicks are killed because there’s no use for them.

Hens aren’t supposed to produce eggs all year round. In the American hen-keeper and journalist Tove Danovich’s imminent book Under the Henfluence, she explains that, historically, “winter eggs” were a rare luxury, four or five times as expensive as summer ones. Now, artificial lighting keeps layers productive, giving us eggs on tap. That takes such a toll, UK producers only keep their hens for 72 weeks, on average. They aren’t sent to a sun-dappled orchard to peck out the rest of their days under the trees, if you’re wondering.

Cheap food has unacceptably high costs. Is that as bad as children dying from mould and malnutrition? Of course not. Millions of people don’t have the luxury of choice – especially now – and no one struggling to feed themselves and their loved ones should be thinking about this stuff. The problem is structural: our system is inhumane and it’s a disaster in waiting; a disaster that may have already happened. At minimum, intensive production has been instrumental in spreading the current, catastrophic bird flu strain.

My sillier hope is that, as the end times draw seemingly closer, backyard chicken keepers like me become the supply cornering barons of apocalypse narratives. I imagine myself sitting in a heavily guarded enclave, wearing a feathered cloak and stroking a pekin bantam, receiving supplicants hoping to exchange their treasured possessions (petrol, jewels, cashmere) for a single, precious egg. Finally, my girls would earn their keep and eggs would get their lustre back. Imagine how you’d revere an egg if it was as rare and luxurious as a truffle: imagine how differently you’d view the creature that produced it?

The only problem: my hens aren’t laying. They’re young, it’s winter and I chose them for aesthetics (they look like murderous Hollywood golden age widows), not productivity. In spring, they might manage an egg or two a day – between the six of them – at best. Since theirs are the only eggs I eat now, each one is a tiny miracle and a source of celebration. I’m fine with that. I don’t keep them for eggs, but because they’re funny, endearing and delightful to watch: they love digging for worms or dustbathing, wings spread in the sun; they have personalities and preferences. That’s how I know all hens deserve better.

• Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist

Webb Telescope Spots a Small Asteroid From 62 Million Miles Away

Isaac Schultz
Mon, February 6, 2023 

An artist's illustration of the small, distant asteroid.

One of the solar system’s 1.1-million-plus asteroids was recently spotted by the Webb Space Telescope, from a distance of about 62 million miles. The asteroid is relatively small, making it a showcase of the new space observatory’s sharp vision.

The object is between 328 feet and 656 feet across, putting it in the same ballpark as the moonlet Dimorphos or the Roman Colosseum. Dimorphos is the space rock struck by NASA’s DART mission in September.

These objects are pretty small by asteroid standards. Asteroids can be 600 miles wide, according to Britannica, and the newly spotted one is among the smallest ever detected in the main belt.

Webb and the Hubble Space Telescope both observed the aftermath of the DART impact, showing that the space-based observatories can see such small bodies. But Dimorphos and its larger companion, Didymos, are just 6.8 million miles away. (Just.) The newly imaged asteroid is nearly 10 times more distant.

Researchers using Webb data were not searching for the asteroid; they happened upon it in calibration data from the MIRI instrument, Webb’s mid-infrared imager. MIRI was imaging a main-belt asteroid named 10920 1998 BC1, which was discovered 25 years ago. The smaller body of the newfound asteroid intervened.

An artist’s concept of Dimorphos and the Colosseum. The newly discovered asteroid is about the same size.

“We — completely unexpectedly — detected a small asteroid in publicly available MIRI calibration observations,” said Thomas Müller, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, in an ESA release. “The measurements are some of the first MIRI measurements targeting the ecliptic plane and our work suggests that many, new objects will be detected with this instrument.”

To confirm that the object is indeed a previously unknown asteroid, the team will do followup studies on some of the background stars in the MIRI image, to get a better idea of the object’s orbit. Those studies may turn up yet more hitherto-unknown, petite planetesimals.

“This is a fantastic result which highlights the capabilities of MIRI to serendipitously detect a previously undetectable size of asteroid in the main belt,” said Bryan Holler, Webb support scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, in the ESA release. “Repeats of these observations are in the process of being scheduled, and we are fully expecting new asteroid interlopers in those images!”

Dedicated—that is to say, intentional—observations of very small bodies in the future could see Webb spotting asteroids less than a kilometer across, according to the same release.

Given that Webb was designed to see clear across the universe, to some of the oldest light we can see, it is a marvel that it can also view objects so small as well.

More: New Hubble and Webb Images Capture Aftermath of DART Asteroid Smash Up

Gizmodo

WAITING FOR GODEL
Do we live in a rotating universe? If we did, we could travel back in time


Paul Sutter
Mon, February 6, 2023 

Does the universe rotate?

We know that planets rotate, but what about the universe as a whole? No, the universe doesn't appear to rotate; if it did, time travel into the past might be possible.

Although people throughout antiquity had argued that the heavens rotate around the world, in 1949, mathematician Kurt Gödel was the first to provide a modern formulation of a rotating universe. He used the language of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity to do so, as a way of honoring his friend and neighbor at Princeton, Einstein himself.

But this process of academic "honoring" went in a different direction than you might suspect, because Gödel used the example of a rotating universe to show that general relativity was incomplete.

Related: Was Einstein wrong? The case against space-time theory

Gödel's model of a rotating universe was rather artificial. Besides the rotation, his universe contained only one ingredient: a negative cosmological constant that resisted the centrifugal force of that rotation to keep the universe static.

But the artificial nature of that universe didn't bother Gödel. Instead, his main point was that general relativity allowed for the possibility of a rotating universe at all. And Gödel used his rotating universe to show that general relativity allowed for time travel into the past, which should be forbidden.
Taking the universe out for a spin

Living in a rotating universe would be strange indeed. For one, all observers would consider themselves the center of rotation. This means that if you parked yourself somewhere and ensured that you were absolutely still, you would see the universe wheeling around you. But if you picked up and moved anywhere else, even to a distant galaxy, you would always still see the universe rotating around your new position.

This is incredibly hard to visualize, but it's not much different from the idea that in an expanding universe, all observers see themselves as the center of expansion.

The farther you go from any one observer, the greater the rate of rotation. And this isn't merely a rotation of stuff but a rotation of space-time itself. This means that light, which is always forced to follow the curvature of space-time, makes for some strange journeys. A beam of light sent out from an observer will curve away as it gets swept up in the rotation of space-time. At some distant point, the rotation will be too much, and the light will turn around and return to the observer.

This means there's a limit to how far you can see in a rotating universe, and beyond that, all you'll observe is duplicate images of your own past self.

This strange behavior doesn't apply only to light. If you were to get in a rocket and blast off through a rotating universe, you, too, would get caught up in the rotation. And because of that rotation, your movement would double back on itself. When you returned to your starting point, however, you would find yourself arriving before you had left.

In a manner of speaking, a rotating universe would be capable of rotating your future into your own past, allowing you to travel back in time.
Sitting still

This was Gödel's major objection to general relativity. That theory, being our ultimate understanding of space and time, should not allow for backward time travel, because time travel into the past violates our notions of causality and introduces all sorts of nasty time-travel paradoxes. The fact that relativity did not automatically make time travel impossible signaled to Gödel that Einstein's theory was incomplete.

Thankfully, we see no signs that we live in a rotating universe. If the cosmos were rotating, then light coming from opposite directions of the sky would be redshifted in one direction and have an equivalent amount of blueshifting in the other. Astronomers have applied this test to surveys of distant galaxies and even to the cosmic microwave background, which is the light left over from when the cosmos was only 380,000 years old. The conclusion of these tests is that if the universe is rotating, it's doing so at a rate of less than 10^-17 degrees per century.

Related stories:

— Is time travel possible?

— Why time-traveling tachyons probably don't exist

— What is the grandfather paradox?

But Gödel's objection still stands. Since 1949, physicists have concocted other ways for general relativity to allow for backward time travel, wormholes, faster-than-light-speed "warp drive" (known as Alcubierre drive), and special paths around infinitely long cylinders. But all those contrivances rely on some sort of exotic physics that breaks our understanding of how the universe works, like matter with negative mass.

But Gödel's rotating universe is simply a matter of observational test, not a fundamental break with known physics. We could have found ourselves in a rotating universe just as easily as we find ourselves in an expanding one. There's nothing in our knowledge of physics that prevents this kind of universe from existing, so there's nothing in our knowledge of physics that prevents backward time travel.

Perhaps Gödel is right, and we have more to learn about the universe.

Learn more by listening to the "Ask A Spaceman" podcast, available on iTunes and askaspaceman.com. Ask your own question on Twitter using #AskASpaceman or by following Paul @PaulMattSutter and facebook.com/PaulMattSutter.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Facebook.

Sam Smith Needs to Burn Their Devil Top Hat, Immediately

Coleman Spilde
Mon, February 6, 2023 

Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

Conservative Twitter mouthpieces spent last night tightening their arthritis braces and clacking away at their phone screens for hours, following Sam Smith’s three-minute performance at the Grammys. Smith and fellow queer pop sensation Kim Petras joined forces on music’s biggest stage to perform their hit song “Unholy,” amidst waves of pyrotechnics and dancers clad in entirely red outfits with long, black wigs.

The number was a clear attempt to generate a little buzz by harkening back to a time when pop stars were actually inflammatory, not just playing dress-up with different aesthetics. Madonna—one such legitimately provocative artist—said as much when she introduced the performance: “Are you ready for a little controversy?”

Apparently, some people were indeed ready for a Sam Smith squabble!

“Demons are teaching your kids to worship Satan,” conservative podcaster Liz Wheeler tweeted after the performance. “I could throw up.” Meanwhile, the performance itself was about as blasphemous as a case of the church giggles. It was all show, with no story or clear concept. In fact, the most offensive thing about Smith's brief tenure on stage was something that most people seem to be overlooking: their god-awfully ugly hat.

After Petras performed her verse—the sole, marginally listenable part of “Unholy”—the telecast cameras cut back to Smith at center stage, now donning a red top hat with devil horns on it. It is perhaps one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen a pop star wear, and I was there when Kesha was still braiding feathers into her hair, so that’s saying something. Meanwhile, Twitter was buzzing before the ceremony even began, with users calling the (cute!) jumpsuit Harry Styles wore on the red carpet a “clown costume.” And to that I say, I see your Ringling Brothers circus jumpsuit and raise you Sam Smith looking like a Super Mario villain.

It’s not that I don’t understand the purpose of the hat within the performance’s flimsy context. It’s just that it’s so damn hideous that it doesn’t matter. The hat interferes with Smith’s undeniable vocal talent! When I see that hat come out, everything else around it goes black. I can only make out the blurry silhouette of a ridiculous top hat with devil horns.

From Cringey Fans to Baffling Wins, the Grammys Fumbled the Bag Yet Again

Not one person has ever looked good in a top hat, and certainly not one worn smack-diddly-doo atop their noggin. Even Marlene Dietrich had the good sense to tilt that shit 45 degrees! I’m unsure as to why Sam Smith thinks that adding some corny, Halloweeny iconography to their look is going to be the thing that really ties it all together.

If this was the first time we had seen this hat, I could forgive the faux pas. Hell, I could even let them off with a warning if it were the second. But this is the third time I’ve had to bear witness to a version of this millinery monstrosity. And my patience is wearing thin! This ghastly chapeau is just the latest entry into Sam Smith’s canon of public-facing style that’s beginning to verge on the Billy Porter-ian. Smith and Porter both seem to enjoy the sensation of raiding a high school drama department’s costume collection and throwing on whatever they can find for an appearance. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it does not.

I feel I should note here that, when it comes to Smith’s personal style, I actually enjoy most of their outfit choices. Their Instagram account is awash in things that I would absolutely wear myself, and I have so much respect for their bravery when it comes to dressing. It’s not easy, by any means, to be a queer person and step out in whatever you want.

And I’ll even give some credence to the abhorrent top hat for being a non-gendered accessory. It’s not the typically hetero-male backward cap, and it doesn’t have the soft-yet-fluid femininity of something like a beret. Hats are hats; they should be free of a rigid and outdated perception of gender. But unfortunately, that’s not necessarily how it works. And the result that Smith has given us, while seemingly trying to find a middle ground, is the worst of both worlds.

Sam Smith Haters, Admit It: Their Transformation Is Glorious

Smith’s Grammy outfit was the latest topic in the weeks of debate over their fashion choices. I have no interest in contributing to the reductive and useless diatribe that has been permeating the cultural conversation when it comes to Smith’s style. Their most recent music video, for their new song “I’m Not Here to Make Friends,” has sparked debate over Smith’s choice to wear a corset that leaves their chest uncovered. Anyone looking to police someone else’s body won’t find an ally here. If you’re concerned about that, you’ve got much more pressing issues to address than the devil-horned top hat.

However, I will do all I can to fight against this hellish helmet. If I never see the horned top hat again, it will still be too soon. If I had to guess, I’d say that the conceit behind Smith and Petras’ Grammy performance was to allude to conservative media’s damning of their respective queer identities as demonic—“unholy,” if you will. If that’s the case, the actual execution was severely lacking in the proper visual and aesthetic cohesion to pull that off. But hey, I guess that in the end, it still did the job.


Smith managed to piss people off with even the most lacking of sartorial taste. Leave it to the right-wing “spokespeople” and their legions of followers who spent $8 on Twitter Blue verified checkmarks to be baited by Party City couture.

China Spent the Weekend Mocking America Over Its Spy Balloon

Matt Young
Sun, February 5, 2023 

Dado Ruvic via Reuters

As the Chinese spy balloon that soared across American skies was shot down on Saturday and lawmakers argued over who was to blame, Beijing was basking in the bedlam.

Revelations about the balloon—which China dubbed an “airship”—and its numerous counterparts floating across the world trended across social media both inside and out of China across the weekend and while Republicans and Democrats argued, Beijing had other things in mind: memes and mockery.

Comments on social media from Chinese officials and commentators echoed similar sentiments poking fun at the U.S. for making a big deal over what they claimed was simply a whole lot of hot air. It was a trending topic on China’s biggest social media site, Weibo, with more than 130 million views.

“Hate to burst your bubble, #America! But #China simply has better things to do!”

“Perhaps #China was simply giving the #US a balloon. Much like one would give a child to make them feel better!”

It didn’t help that this weekend was the beginning of the Lantern Festival, a traditional Chinese celebration, offering a whole host of opportunities for ridicule.

On Chinese social media, the balloon is referred to not as the spy balloon, as it is known in the West, but the “Wandering Balloon,” according to What’s on Weibo—a pun from the 2019 Chinese sci-fi blockbuster that just saw its prequel released.

According to The China Project, public opinion appeared divided on whether to believe the official lines from the Chinese government. “On Weibo, opinions are split as to whether the balloon is an intelligence-collecting device sent out purposefully by the Chinese government.”

“Some people followed the official narrative parroted by a string of state media publications including the Global Times. But most commenters were skeptical of China’s explanation, writing that with all things considered, they were hard pressed to believe that the drifting was a pure coincidence.” However, the report says the balloon continued to be the butt of the joke.

Across the Pacific, however, there appears to be continuing reason for concern.

The balloon “was being used in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said in a written statement Saturday. U.S. officials first detected the balloon and its payload Jan. 28 when it entered U.S. airspace near the Aleutian Islands. The balloon traversed Alaska, Canada and re-entered U.S. airspace over Idaho. The high-altitude surveillance balloon was first detected over Montana and spent time above Malmstrom Air Force Base, which stores hundreds of nuclear weapons. It was shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday.

In concerning revelations published by the Financial Times over the weekend, China has boasted of its military use of stratospheric balloons before. The newspaper cited a military channel of the country’s state broadcaster, CCTV, which aired a report in 2018 that claimed “a high-altitude balloon tested hypersonic missiles.”

Video footage carried by CCTV and reposted on social media app Douyin at the time, but now deleted, showed a balloon visually identical to the one over the US last week carrying what looked like three different kinds of warheads.”

Despite the jokes, China responded to the U.S. and expressed its “strong dissatisfaction” against America’s “use of force to attack civilian unmanned airships.”

China said in a statement from its Ministry of Foreign affairs that it had “repeatedly informed the US side after verification that the airship is for civilian use and entered the US by complete accident.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

‘Major Leap’ in Bird Virus Threatens Yet Another Pandemic

David Axe
Mon, February 6, 2023

Ritzau Scanpix/Mads Claus Rasmussen via Reuters

The same highly pathogenic bird-flu virus that’s killed tens of millions of chickens and other birds over the past year just got a lot closer to infecting people, too.

An unusual outbreak of the H5N1 virus in minks—relatives of weasels—at a Spanish fur farm last fall also exposed the farm’s staff to the virus. Swift action by health authorities helped prevent any human infections. This time.

But bird flu isn’t going away. And as H5N1 continues to circulate in domestic and wild birds, causing millions of animal deaths and tightening the supply of eggs, it’s also getting closer and closer to the human population. “This… avian influenza has the potential to become a major problem to humans,” Adel Talaat, a professor of pathobiological sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told The Daily Beast.

It might be a matter of time before H5N1 achieves large-scale “zoonosis” and makes the leap to the human species. If and when that happens, we could have yet another major viral crisis on our hands. On top of the COVID pandemic, worsening seasonal RSV, the occasional monkeypox flare-up and annual flu outbreaks.

Reports this week suggested that the current wave of bird flu could be crossing over into mammals with more regularity. Scientists found traces of bird flu in seals that died in a “mass mortality event” in the Caspian Sea in December, and the BBC reported this week that tests in Britain had found the virus in a range of mammals up and down the country. On Jan. 9, the World Health Organization was informed that a 9-year-old girl in Ecuador had tested positive.

Bird flu isn’t new. Scientists first identified the virus back in the 1870s. There’ve been dozens of major outbreaks over the years—and they’ve grown more frequent, and more severe, as the global population of domestic poultry has expanded in order to feed a growing human population.

H5N1, a more-severe “highly pathogenic avian influenza” virus—or HPAI—first appeared in China in the 1990s. It and other HPAIs have achieved zoonosis on a small scale, mostly in Asia. Several dozen people have died of bird flu in recent decades.

But so far, bird flu has mostly infected, well, birds. That makes it a huge problem for poultry farmers. And for people who buy eggs, of course. The current H5N1 outbreak has killed, or compelled farmers to cull, nearly 60 million chickens, turkeys, geese and ducks in the United States alone. The cullings drove up the price of eggs to nearly $5 per dozen at U.S. grocery stores last fall, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s several times the long-term average price.

Bird Flu Taking the Leap

Higher egg prices will be the least of our problems if large-scale zoonosis ever triggers a human bird-flu pandemic. And that’s why scientists and health officials keep a close eye on H5N1 and related HPAIs as they spread and mutate. For epidemiologists, the bird-flu outbreak at the mink farm in northwestern Spain was a giant red flag. An ominous sign that major zoonosis might be getting more likely.

Spanish health officials first noticed the outbreak in early October, when the death rate among minks at a large farm in Galicia tripled. Biological samples from the farm’s 52,000 minks contained H5N1. It was the first time bird flu had infected farmed minks in Europe.

Authorities ordered the culling of all the minks at the affected farm. At the same time, they quarantined and tested the farm’s 11 workers. Luckily, none had caught the virus.

It was a close call. And all the more worrying because no one knows for sure what happened. “The source of the outbreak remains unknown,” a team led by virologist Montserrat Agüero reported in the latest issue of Eurosurveillance, an epidemiology journal. It’s possible wild birds spread the virus to the minks. It’s also possible the pathogen was present in the minks’ food, which contains raw chicken.

Equally troubling, the virus didn’t just spread from birds to minks. It may also have spread from minks to other minks, as well, Agüero’s team discovered. “This is suggested by the increasing number of infected animals identified after the confirmation of the disease.”

That post-zoonosis transmission within a new species is how an animal virus such as H5N1 could cause a new pandemic. It’s what happened with COVID, after the SARS-CoV-2 virus spread from bats or pangolins to people back in late 2019. It’s what happened with monkeypox, after that pathogen first leaped from monkeys and rodents to human beings, possibly decades ago.

“The ability to achieve sustained transmission in a mammal is a major leap for flu viruses, so the mink event is a big deal,” James Lawler, an infectious disease expert at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, told The Daily Beast. “It definitely increases the risk for [a] species-jump to humans.”

The Spanish bird-flu outbreak has a happy ending for all involved—except those 52,000 minks, of course. But the next outbreak might not end so neatly. Not if scientists are late noticing a zoonotic leap, or if viral transmission outpaces health officials’ ability to cull affected animals, quarantine exposed people and isolate the virus.

Bird flu more than many viruses demands constant vigilance. It’s infecting more birds than ever, jumping to mammals in more places and learning new genetic tricks that increase the risk to humans.

All that is to say, our bird-flu problem might get worse before it gets better. “The ongoing widespread outbreaks of HPAI are concerning across the board,” Lawler said.

The Daily Beast.

Digging for Britain: Prehistoric find shines light on Neolithic life



David Wilson - BBC News NI
Sun, February 5, 2023

The discovery of a Neolithic era settlement is helping shed new light on how people lived on the shores of Lough Foyle some 5,000 years ago.

Archaeologists uncovered evidence of two large rectangular houses dating back to around 3,800BC during a 2021 dig at Clooney Road, Londonderry.

Neolithic tools, pottery and cooking utensils have also been unearthed.

Experts say that dwellings like those found in Derry have rarely been excavated before.

Archaeologist Katy McMonagle was the site director on the Clooney Road dig.

The finds feature in the latest series of BBC Two's Digging for Britain.

Rectangular homes from the period are seldom found outside of Scotland and Ireland, Ms McMonagle said.

"Around Lough Foyle specifically there are quite a few - it has a high density of settlement dated to the early Neolithic - that shows around Lough Foyle there are lots and lots of Neolithic people living," she told BBC Radio Foyle's Mark Patterson Show.

Archaeologists seldom have an opportunity to excavate houses of the type found in Derry, she added.

"They were a short-lived phenomenon, that means it is even more exciting," she said.

The 5,000 year-old homes were much bigger than the average house of today.

There is evidence of dividing walls, foundations that may have supported oak planks and structures covered by a large peaked roof.

Circular dwellings - round houses - are more typical of the Neolithic period which occurred between 4,000 and 2,000BC.

It was when people took up agriculture as a way of life and moved away from being nomadic hunter-gatherers.

The Derry settlement, where it is located and the way it is constructed, is evidence of the shift to a more settled way of life, Ms McMonagle said.

"When we were digging it out you could see how amazing it would have looked, how deep the foundations were.

"The soil is good there and they are in a substantial place, with Lough Foyle as a resource, it would have been a beautifully wooded area back in the Neolithic.

"They would have been using that landscape so well."

The tools and utensils found are also evidence of the advances being made in the Neolithic period on the island of Ireland, she said.

'Like a Swiss Army knife'

The team from Northern Archaeology Consultancy, who were called in ahead of the construction of a modern day housing development, found serrated tools used to strip bark - unique to Ireland - and a Plano-convex knife.

The latter artefact, Ms McMonagle said, was used for a "little bit of everything, like a Swiss Army knife". Knives like this were used much earlier on the island of Ireland than elsewhere, she added.

A grinding stone was found, showing the inhabitants knew how to work grain, how to cultivate the land they inhabited.

It is not the first time evidence of Neolithic period settlement has been uncovered on the banks of the Foyle.

A 6,000-year-old village was unearthed in 2000 during an excavation ahead of the construction of Thornhill College's new school in the Culmore area of Derry.

Six thousand year old axe heads, arrowheads and pottery were among the artefacts recovered from a site which archaeologists said could have been home to about 50 of Ireland's earliest farmers.

Post-excavation work is now ongoing on the finds from Clooney Road. It is hoped some of what the team found will go on public display at a future date.

SCI FI TECH

Rolls-Royce Nuclear Engine Could Power Quick Trips to the Moon and Mars

Kevin Hurler
Mon, February 6, 2023 

Artist’s impression of the propulsion system at work.

Rolls-Royce Holdings is getting into the nuclear reactor business. The British aerospace engineering company says it’s developing a micro-nuclear reactor that the company hopes could be a source of fuel for long trips to the Moon and Mars.

As humanity begins to venture back into space, with crewed missions scheduled to visit the Moon and Mars within the next two decades, the technology that moves us throughout the solar system will be a pivotal part of that journey. Last week, Rolls-Royce teased the design of its Rolls-Royce micro-reactor for spaceflight with a digital mockup posted to Twitter last week:

As the company explained in a tweet, the reactor will rely on uranium, a common fuel used in nuclear fission. Nuclear fission involves bombarding an atom with a neutron. That atom then splits, releasing energy, and that energy could be used to propel a rocket. Nuclear reactors have been used to power things like submarines, but its use in spaceflight has often been overlooked in favor of chemical-based propulsion.

As to whether the final product will appear just like the mockup shown in the tweet, well, that remains to be seen. In a promo video on the company’s website, Head of Innovation Products and Services Jake Thompson says that the company is in the “concept, design, development, and testing phase” of the reactor, meaning a full-fledged announcement of the final product is still a ways off. That said, Thompson did say that the company is working on a basic prototype.

Rolls-Royce Holdings announced in 2021 its intent to develop nuclear reactor technology, having obtained $600 million in public and private funding to develop its business. Since the nuclear reactor won’t have to carry as much fuel as a chemical propulsion rocket, the entire system will be lighter allowing for faster travel or increased payloads. The company says that the reactor could serve as both a new form of propulsion and a power source for bases on the Moon or Mars, and Rolls-Royce claims that they will have a nuclear reactor ready to send to the Moon by 2029.

Rolls-Royce is not the only party working on rocket propulsion outside of traditional chemical fuel. NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced a collaboration to develop a thermal rocket engine that could improve the time it takes to get to deep space. Likewise, NASA had a successful test of a rotating detonation rocket engine, which uses less fuel and provides more thrust than current propulsion systems.