The world will likely breach the internationally agreed-upon climate change threshold in about a decade and keep heating to break through a next warming limit around mid-century, even with big pollution cuts, artificial intelligence predicts in a new study that’s more pessimistic than previous modeling.

The study in Monday’s journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reignites a debate on whether it’s still possible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as called for in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, to minimize the most damaging effects of climate change. The world has already warmed 1.1 or 1.2 degrees since pre-industrial times, or the mid-19th century, scientists say.

Two climate scientists using machine learning calculated that Earth will surpass the 1.5-degree (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) mark between 2033 and 2035. Their results fit with other, more conventional methods of predicting when Earth will break the mark, though with a bit more precision.

“There will come a time when we call the 1.5C target for maximum warming dead, beyond the shadow of a doubt,” Brown University Environment Institute director Kim Cobb, who wasn’t part of the study, said in an email interview. “And this paper may be the beginning of the end of the 1.5C target.”

Stanford University’s Noah Diffenbaugh, a study co-author, said the world is on the brink of the 1.5-degree mark in “any realistic emissions reduction scenario.” Avoiding a 2-degree rise, he said, may depend on nations meeting zero-emissions goals by the middle of this century.

The artificial intelligence-based study found it unlikely that temperature increase could be held below 2 degrees Celsius, even with tough emissions cuts. And that’s where the AI really differs with scientists who had been forecasting using computer models that are based on past observations, Diffenbaugh said.

In a high-pollution scenario, the AI calculated, the world would hit the 2-degree mark around 2050. Lower pollution could stave that off until 2054, the machine learning calculated.

In contrast, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change figured in its 2021 report that the same lower-pollution scenario would see the world pushing past 2 degrees sometime in the 2090s.

Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, who wasn’t part of the Diffenbaugh study but was part of the IPCC, said the study makes sense, fits with what scientists know, but seems a bit more pessimistic.

There’s a lot of power in using AI, and in the future, that may be shown to produce better projections, but more evidence is needed before concluding that, Mahowald said.

Normally, climate scientists use a bunch of computer model simulations, some running hot and some cold, and then try to figure out which ones are doing the best job. That’s often based on how they performed in the past or in simulations of the past, Diffenbaugh said. What the AI does is more keyed to the climate system now, he said.

“We’re using this very powerful tool that is able to take information and integrate it in a way that no human mind is able to do, for better or for worse,” Diffenbaugh said.

Each year, government climate negotiators at a United Nations summit proclaim that they have managed to “keep 1.5 alive.” But with the latest study, there’s a divide among scientists on how true that really is. Diffenbaugh said there’s been so much warming already that it really doesn’t matter how pollution is cut in the next several years. The world will hit 1.5, the AI figures.

Zeke Hausfather of the tech company Stripe and Berkeley Earth, who was not part of the study, agreed, saying it’s time to “stop pretending” that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees is possible. Some scenarios do see temperatures warming past the mark but then coming back down, something called “overshoot.”

Other scientists not involved with the study, such as University of Pennsylvania’s Michael Mann and Climate Analytics’ Bill Hare and Carl-Friedrich Schleussner maintain 1.5 is still alive. They say one rapid decarbonization scenario that Diffenbaugh didn’t examine shows the world can mostly keep under the threshold.

If the world can cut its carbon emissions in half by 2030 “then warming can be limited to 1.5 degrees” with a tiny overshoot and then reductions to get under the mark, Hare said.

Believing that the world can no longer keep warming below 1.5 “is a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Mann said by email. “In the end it’s easy to overinterpret the significance of a precise threshold like 1.5C warming. The challenge is to limit warming as much as possible.”
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In the 1980s, more than 3 million people worldwide were infected with Guinea worm. At the end of 2022, the number of reported cases globally was down to 13.

There were 15 cases reported a year earlier, “which does not sound like a big reduction, but when you are dealing with very small numbers in very remote areas we take it as a huge step forward,” said Adam Weiss, director of the Carter Center’s Guinea Worm Eradication Program.

Guinea worm, a parasite usually ingested through contaminated water, grows inside the human body, then emerges through open sores creating intense pain.

When Weiss’ organization, founded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, began spearheading the effort to rid the world of Guinea worm parasites in 1986, it existed in 20 countries.

In 2022, just four countries reported new Guinea worm infections in humans.

“We had six human cases in Chad, five human cases in South Sudan, and one in Ethiopia and one in the Central African Republic on the border with Chad,” Weiss told VOA during a recent Skype interview.

The Atlanta-based global nonprofit Carter Center is marking continued progress in the global fight against Guinea Worm infections as the World Health Organization recognizes World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day January 30.

Across the globe, from his office in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Dr. Zerihun Tadesse Gebreselassie was pragmatic about the overall eradication efforts.

“It’s both good news and at the same time, not so good news,” he explained during a Skype interview with VOA. Gebreselassie serves as the Carter Center’s senior country representative in Ethiopia, a nation on the cusp of complete Guinea worm eradication.

“We are doing surveillance by moving from house to house in each and every village which has historically been reporting cases. So, we found only one person, and we found him before his clinical manifestation — which means we suspected that this could be a Guinea worm case — we kept him in a facility called a case containment center,” Gebreselassie said.

The Carter Center also provides financial incentives for people to report any potential Guinea worm infections. That, coupled with a robust water source filter education program and continued monitoring efforts in countries where the parasite exists, is helping the Carter Center remove obstacles on the path to complete eradication.

“Since this is a global eradication program, even when you have one case, still you have to continue monitoring,” Gebreselassie said. “We have to get rid of all cases for three consecutive years.”

One of the biggest setbacks to declaring the world free of Guinea worm was its discovery in domesticated animals and wildlife.

“It was a punch to the gut back in 2012 when we started seeing infections,” Weiss said.

But after years of dramatic increases in the number of dogs and cats in remote villages carrying the parasite, 2022 showed encouraging results.

“The last several years we went from several thousand animal infections to this year being just over 600 animal infections in the world,” Weiss said.

But the magic number in the overall eradication effort is zero cases in both humans and animals.

“We have to get rid of it from all hosts in order to meet the definition of eradication,” Weiss said.

Gebreselassie is optimistic that the goal of complete eradication is in sight despite setbacks.

“We are in the last mile, which is the most difficult one,” he told VOA.

If the effort is successful, Guinea worm would be only the second disease eradicated from the planet, but the first through prevention as there is no medicine to treat, and no vaccine to prevent, infections.
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World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warns global health challenges are growing and threatening the well-being of millions of people worldwide. He spoke at the opening of WHO’s week-long executive board meeting. 

The WHO chief began his presentation on a somber note. He told meeting participants that an emergency committee convened to assess the status of the pandemic has concluded that COVID-19 remains a global health emergency. 

He said the situation is much better now than a year ago when the omicron variant of the coronavirus was at its peak. But, he added, weekly reported deaths have been rising since early December. He said more than 170,000 people have lost their lives to COVID-19 in the past eight weeks. 

“And that is just the reported deaths. We know the actual number is much higher. We cannot control the virus, but we can do more to address the vulnerabilities in populations and health systems.” 

Tedros said health providers have the knowledge and means to control the spread of other diseases as well. He outlined an ambitious program for promoting health and protecting people from diseases. These, as well as other proposals for how the world can better prepare and respond to future health emergencies will be under discussion by member countries this week. 

Tedros said progress has been made over the past year in promoting health, by addressing the root causes of disease. He called this action essential in achieving a target set by WHO of seeing one billion more people enjoying better health and well-being. 

“On trans-fat, we have seen an almost five-fold increase in the number of people protected by WHO-recommended policies on the use of industrially produced trans-fat, from 550 million people to 2.6 billion, in just four years. But as you know, still five billion are unprotected.” 

Last year, he said, WHO reached the target it set to support 100 million tobacco users in stopping smoking. He noted, however, this left an estimated 600 million users who want to kick the habit and need support. 

Tedros presented numerous examples of key health achievements in both communicable and non-communicable diseases. He also acknowledged setbacks in many of these same areas, indicating the necessity of remaining alert and responding rapidly to health emergencies whenever and wherever they may arise. 
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The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies warns the world is dangerously unprepared for the next pandemic and this will have severe health, economic and social consequences for countries around the world.  The IFRC has just released this year’s World Disaster Report.

In a marked departure from previous reports, the IFRC does not delve into the numerous natural disasters that caused untold devastation last year.  It does not rank the severity of disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and drought in terms of deaths and the destruction of livelihoods and infrastructure.

Instead, the report focuses on the global crisis unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic and on warnings of worse calamities to come if the global community does not prepare now for the next health crisis.

IFRC Secretary General Jagan Chapagain said the authors of the report conclude the coronavirus pandemic has been the biggest disaster in our living memory, by any measure.

“I think no other disasters, the hurricane, earthquake, drought, or flood can compete in terms of the terrible human and socio-economic costs.  Of course, the most conservative estimates tell us that 6.5 million people died from COVID-19 across these three years.  But we all know that the real number could be much, much higher,” said Chapagain.

And the financial costs, he said, are staggering.  He said the International Monetary Fund estimates the cost of the pandemic over the last three years to be $13.8 trillion.

He said the COVID-19 pandemic should be a wake-up call for the global community to prepare now for the next health crisis.  He notes the World Health Organization and multiple epidemiologists have warned disease outbreaks are growing more frequent.

Chapagain said these outbreaks are being driven by factors such as climate change, increased movement of goods and services, urbanization, as well as growing inequity.  He said success in tackling future health crises depends upon building trust among world leaders, within and between communities and countries.

“Without trust, lifesaving pandemic counter measures will not be accepted and implemented by the people who need them most.  Preparedness will require equity.  Our preparedness must include provisions for greater equity because public health emergencies will thrive on and aggravate existing inequities,” he said.

Chapagain said community-based organizations are an integral part of pandemic preparedness and response.  He said local actors and communities have important roles to play as frontline responders in all phases of disease outbreak management.

He notes IFRC staff, and its global network of volunteers have reached more than 1.1 billion people over the past three years and helped to keep them safe from the virus.
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Ahead of World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day Monday, the World Health Organization is calling for action to tackle these debilitating illnesses, which affect an estimated 1.65 billion people globally. 

A diverse group of 20 parasitic and bacterial tropical diseases is categorized as neglected. This is because they disproportionally affect people who live in poor, remote communities and are not on the list of global health priorities.

Ibrahima Soce Fall is director of WHO’s Department of Neglected Tropical Diseases. He says these vector-borne diseases are transmitted by insects in areas that lack safe water, sanitation, and access to health care. He says they also are spread via contaminated food and water.

Fall says they cause immense suffering because of their disfiguring and disabling impact.

“If you take diseases like onchocerciasis, you know, so-called river blindness because it can lead to blindness. The same for trachoma. So, these are so many diseases that are fatal and very debilitating,” he said.

Trachoma is an eye disease that can cause permanent blindness.

Fall says these diseases do not attract the amount of investment needed to access health services or develop new tools for diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines.

He notes some of these ailments have been around for a very long time. For instance, the biblical disease, leprosy, still exists in 139 countries and dengue, which has been around for 800 years, remains prevalent in 129 nations.

Despite the many challenges, progress is being made in the elimination of the NTDs. WHO reports the number of people requiring NTD interventions fell by 80 million between 2020 and 2021. It finds 47 countries have eliminated at least one NTD and more countries are in the process of achieving this target.

According to the Carter Center, there were only 13 human cases of Guinea worm disease last year, pushing the illness closer to eradication. The Atlanta-based center was co-founded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn Carter. When it began leading the international campaign to eradicate Guinea worm in 1986, there were an estimated 3.5 million cases in at least 21 countries in Africa and Asia.

WHO officials say the goal it has set to eliminate at least one neglected tropical disease in 100 countries by 2030 can be achieved. It says the scientific community has the tools and the know-how to save lives and prevent suffering. But WHO says nations need to act together and invest in helping get rid of this dreaded group of diseases.
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The discovery of an asteroid the size of a small shipping truck mere days before it passed Earth on Thursday, albeit one that posed no threat to humans, highlights a blind spot in our ability to predict those that could actually cause damage, astronomers say.

NASA for years has prioritized detecting asteroids much bigger and more existentially threatening than 2023 BU, the small space rock that streaked by 2,200 miles from the Earth’s surface, closer than some satellites. If bound for Earth, it would have been pulverized in the atmosphere, with only small fragments possibly reaching land.

But 2023 BU sits on the smaller end of a size group, asteroids 5-to-50 meters in diameter, that also includes those as big as an Olympic swimming pool. Objects that size are difficult to detect until they wander much closer to Earth, complicating any efforts to brace for one that could impact a populated area.

The probability of an Earth impact by a space rock, called a meteor when it enters the atmosphere, of that size range is fairly low, scaling according to the asteroid’s size: a 5-meter rock is estimated to target Earth once a year, and a 50-meter rock once every thousand years, according to NASA.

But with current capabilities, astronomers can’t see when such a rock targets Earth until days prior.

“We don’t know where most of the asteroids are that can cause local to regional devastation,” said Terik Daly, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

The roughly 20-meter meteor that exploded in 2013 over Chelyabinsk, Russia is a once-every-100-years event, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It created a shockwave that shattered tens of thousands of windows and caused $33 million in damage, and no one saw it coming before it entered Earth’s atmosphere.

Some astronomers consider relying only on statistical probabilities and estimates of asteroid populations an unnecessary risk, when improvements could be made to NASA’s ability to detect them.

“How many natural hazards are there that we could actually do something about and prevent for a billion dollars? There’s not many,” said Daly, whose work focuses on defending Earth from hazardous asteroids.

Avoiding a really bad day

One major upgrade to NASA’s detection arsenal will be NEO Surveyor, a $1.2 billion telescope under development that will launch nearly a million miles from Earth and surveil a wide field of asteroids. It promises a significant advantage over today’s ground-based telescopes that are hindered by daytime light and Earth’s atmosphere. 

That new telescope will help NASA meet a goal assigned by Congress in 2005: detect 90% of the total expected amount of asteroids bigger than 140 meters, or those big enough to destroy anything from a region to an entire continent.

“With Surveyor, we’re really focusing on finding the one asteroid that could cause a really bad day for a lot of people,” said Amy Mainzer, NEO Surveyor principal investigator. “But we’re also tasked with getting good statistics on the smaller objects, down to about the size of the Chelyabinsk object.”

NASA has fallen years behind on its congressional goal, which was ordered for completion by 2020. The agency proposed last year to cut the telescope’s 2023 budget by three quarters and a two-year launch delay to 2028 “to support higher-priority missions” elsewhere in NASA’s science portfolio.

Asteroid detection gained greater importance last year after NASA slammed a refrigerator-sized spacecraft into an asteroid to test its ability to knock a potentially hazardous space rock off a collision course with Earth.

The successful demonstration, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), affirmed for the first time a method of planetary defense.

“NEO Surveyor is of the utmost importance, especially now that we know from DART that we really can do something about it,” Daly said.

“So by golly, we gotta find these asteroids.”
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Heavy rainfall hit New Zealand’s north island again on Sunday, causing landslides, flash floods and knocking out roads, with the death toll rising to four after a person who had been missing was confirmed dead.

Battered by rain since Friday, Auckland — New Zealand’s largest city of 1.6 million people — remained under a state of emergency. The nation’s weather forecaster, MetService, warned of severe weather on Sunday and Monday for the north island. Intense rainfall could also cause surface and flash flooding, it said.

The focus of the emergency has since moved south, with Waitomo District, about 220 km from Auckland, declaring a state of emergency late on Saturday.

Police confirmed that a man missing after being swept away on Friday in Onewhero, a rural village about 70 km south of Auckland, had died.

“The most horrific part of it is that we’ve lost lives,” Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni told reporters in Auckland.

The culprit: Climate change

Climate change is causing episodes of heavy rainfall to become more common and more intense in New Zealand, though the impact varies by region. Climate Change Minister James Shaw noted the link to climate change on Saturday when he tweeted his support for those affected by flooding.

On Sunday, police said they were assisting with traffic management and road closures after heavy rainfall “caused numerous slips, flooding and damage to roads.”

In nearby Bay of Plenty there was also “widespread flooding,” police said, as well as a landslide that had knocked down a house and was threatening neighboring properties.

Thousands of properties remained without power, while hundreds were without water, authorities said on Sunday.

Airline back in service Sunday

But Air New Zealand said the airline’s international flights in and out of Auckland would resume starting Sunday noon, local time (2300 GMT on Saturday).

On Saturday, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, in office less than a week, flew by helicopter over Auckland before touring flood-hit homes. He described the flood impact in the city as “unprecedented” in recent memory.

People made more than 2,000 calls for assistance and 70 evacuations around Auckland because of the flooding, the New Zealand Herald reported Saturday.
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The U.N.’s main AIDS program says thousands of children are dying from HIV/AIDS because, unlike adults, they do not receive treatment for the deadly disease.

HIV/AIDS is no longer an automatic death sentence. People infected with the disease can live a normal lifespan, provided they receive treatment and care. Unfortunately, there is a glaring disparity between the way children and adults with HIV/AIDS are treated.

UNAIDS spokeswoman Charlotte Sector says 76 percent of adults have access to treatment but only half of children living with HIV are receiving lifesaving treatment. She says children account for 15 percent of all AIDS deaths, despite making up only four percent of all people living with the disease.

“Last year alone 160,000 children were infected with HIV,” Sector said. “So, what is happening is that 12 countries are coming together in Africa because six countries in sub-Saharan Africa represent 50 percent of those new infections.”

She says a global alliance led by UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF has formed to close the huge gap. She says 12 African countries have joined the alliance. Sector says health ministers from eight countries will launch the initiative next week in Tanzania.

“So, not only is it getting children on treatment, but it is mostly trying to stop vertical transmission,” Sector said. “Now what is vertical transmission? It is the mother passing on HIV during pregnancy, during delivery or during breast feeding because most of those transmissions are taking place during breastfeeding.”

Spector says efforts to contain the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa mainly have been centered on getting adults on treatment, as the main transmitters of the virus. In the process, however, she says the needs of children have been overlooked.

“So, what happens is suddenly there is a realization that we have forgotten all these children, and there is a forgotten generation of children,” Sector said. “So now, there has been a scramble to kind of close that faucet, if I may say, of getting to the children before they are even born or after they are born.”

The global alliance will run for the next eight years until 2030. During that period, it aims to close the treatment gap for pregnant and breastfeeding adolescent girls and women living with HIV, prevent and detect new HIV infections, provide access to testing and treatment, and end the social barriers that hinder access to services.
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This week India launched its first nasal COVID-19 vaccine, four months after it received approval for its restricted emergency use among adults in the country.

The mucosal vaccine, made by India’s leading vaccine maker, Bharat Biotech, is based on technology licensed from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, in the U.S.

It is administered in the form of drops in the nose and stimulates an immune response in the mucous membranes of the tissues lining the nasal cavity, upper airways and lungs.

Originally called BBV154 and now sold by Bharat Biotech as iNCOVACC, the nasal vaccine was launched by Indian Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday, Republic Day, a national holiday in the country.

“Proud to launch iNCOVACC, the world’s 1st intranasal vaccine for COVID … A mighty display of India’s research and innovation prowess under PM Narendra Modi Ji’s leadership. Congratulations to Bharat Biotech for this feat!” Mandaviya posted on Twitter.

He called the vaccine a “historic achievement & a testimony to the innovative zeal” of India’s scientists.

In a statement, Bharat Biotech said that iNCOVACC, the “world’s first intranasal COVID vaccine for primary series and heterologous booster” is now available on CoWIN, India’s vaccine portal that digitally tracks people’s vaccination status.

It will cost 800 rupees ($9.80) in private hospitals and 325 rupees ($4) in government hospitals. A heterologous booster is the vaccine dose for people who have already received two doses of Covishield or Covaxin, the two common Indian COVID vaccines.

“iNCOVACC is a cost-effective COVID vaccine which does not require syringes, needles, alcohol wipes, bandage, etc., saving costs related to procurement, distribution, storage, and biomedical waste disposal, that is routinely required for injectable vaccines,” the statement said.

“Amid growing COVID-19 cases and emerging variants of the highly transmissible virus, a booster dose of the vaccine becomes imperative. As [a] needleless vaccination, Bharat Biotech’s iNCOVACC will be the world’s first such booster dose … The nasal delivery system has been designed and developed to be cost-effective in low- and middle-income countries,” the statement added.

Dr. Krishna Ella, chairman of Bharat Biotech, told ANI news agency that iNCOVACC was “easy to deliver” since no syringe is required and that it resulted in a broader immune response as compared with injectable COVID vaccines.

In a Sept. 7 news release, the Washington University School of Medicine said that since the adenoviral nasal vaccine — which is known as iNCOVACC in India — is delivered via the nose, right where the virus enters the body, it has the “potential to block infection and break the cycle of transmission, as well as prevent lung damage.”

“The nasal delivery system was designed and developed to be cost-effective, a feature that is especially important in low- and middle-income countries, and the vaccine can be stored in a refrigerator. Receiving the vaccine requires only a brief inhalation, a major plus to the many people who prefer to avoid needles,” the statement said.

Dr. Michael S. Diamond, a professor of molecular microbiology, pathology & immunology, and a co-inventor of the nasal vaccine technology, was quoted in the news release as saying: “Nasal vaccines induce the type of protective immunity that we think will prevent or limit infection and also curb pandemic transmission of this virus.”

On Friday, Diamond told VOA that “it is exciting” to see the deployment of iNCOVACC in India as a nasally delivered vaccine and booster.

“The continued waves of COVID-19 infection necessitate new strategies to overcome transmission. By generating immunity in the upper respiratory tract at the portal of entry of the virus, this vaccine has the potential to better limit [the] spread of the virus than other approaches,” Diamond said.
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A comet is streaking back our way after 50,000 years. 

The dirty snowball last visited during Neanderthal times, according to NASA. It will come within 42 million kilometers (26 million miles) of Earth on Wednesday before speeding away again, unlikely to return for millions of years. 

Discovered less than a year ago, this harmless green comet already is visible in the northern night sky with binoculars and small telescopes, and possibly the naked eye in the darkest corners of the Northern Hemisphere. It’s expected to brighten as it draws closer and rises higher over the horizon through the end of January, best seen in the predawn hours. By February 10, it will be near Mars, a good landmark. 

Skygazers in the Southern Hemisphere will have to wait until next month for a glimpse. 

Bigger, brighter, closer

While plenty of comets have graced the sky over the past year, “this one seems probably a little bit bigger and therefore a little bit brighter and it’s coming a little bit closer to the Earth’s orbit,” said NASA’s comet and asteroid-tracking guru, Paul Chodas. 

Green from all the carbon in the gas cloud, or coma, surrounding the nucleus, this long-period comet was discovered last March by astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility, a wide field camera at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory. That explains its official, cumbersome name: comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). 

On Wednesday, it will hurtle between the orbits of Earth and Mars at a relative speed of 207,000 kph (128,500 mph). Its nucleus is thought to be about 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) across, with its tails extending millions of kilometers (miles). 

The comet isn’t expected to be nearly as bright as Neowise in 2020, or Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake in the mid- to late 1990s. 

But “it will be bright by virtue of its close Earth passage … which allows scientists to do more experiments and the public to be able to see a beautiful comet,” University of Hawaii astronomer Karen Meech said in an email. 

Scientists are confident in their orbital calculations, putting the comet’s last swing through the solar system’s planetary neighborhood at 50,000 years ago. But they don’t know how close it came to Earth or whether it was even visible to the Neanderthals, said Chodas, director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. 

When it will return, though, is tougher to judge. 

Every time the comet skirts the sun and planets, their gravitational tugs alter the iceball’s path ever so slightly, leading to major course changes over time. Another wild card: jets of dust and gas streaming off the comet as it heats up near the sun. 

“We don’t really know exactly how much they are pushing this comet around,” Chodas said. 

A moving time capsule

The comet — a time capsule from the emerging solar system 4.5 billion years ago — came from what’s known as the Oort Cloud, well beyond Pluto. This deep-freeze haven for comets is believed to stretch more than one-quarter of the way to the next star. 

While this comet originated in our solar system, we can’t be sure it will stay there, Chodas said. If it gets booted out of the solar system, it will never return, he added. 

Don’t fret if you miss it. 

“In the comet business, you just wait for the next one because there are dozens of these,” Chodas said. “And the next one might be bigger, might be brighter, might be closer.” 
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Dozens of indigenous children suffering from malnutrition and acute diseases have been hospitalized in northern Brazil, with relatives in hammocks holding their emaciated frames in scenes that underscore the gravity of a public health crisis.

The health secretary of Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima state, said on Friday that 59 indigenous children were currently at the only pediatric hospital in the state, 45 of them from the Yanomami people. Eight were under intensive care.

The secretary said children are suffering from acute diarrhea, gastroenterocolitis, malnutrition, pneumonia and malaria.

Brazil’s government last week declared a medical emergency in the Yanomami territory, the country’s largest indigenous reservation, after reports of children dying of malnutrition and diseases associated with illegal gold mining.

Officials have called the crisis a “genocide,” blaming the administration of former President Jair Bolsonaro for the neglect, with some saying the territory now looks like a “concentration camp.”

“Malnutrition is the biggest problem right now,” Boa Vista Health Secretary Regiane Matos told Reuters in an interview. “These people were forgotten in their communities. In recent years it has only gotten worse, and what we want now are solutions.”

She said illegal mining in the region “aggravated” the crisis, severely polluting the territory’s crucial waterways, where Yanomamis get their water and food.

The reservation has been invaded by illegal miners for decades, but incursions multiplied after Bolsonaro won office in 2018 promising to allow mining on previously protected lands.

At the Boa Vista pediatric hospital, Reuters witnessed several indigenous children so thin their ribs were visible.

Their parents called out for help.

“Many are sick, there is no food!” said Marcelo Yanomami, the father of one hospitalized child. “Many of our relatives have died. Many Yanomami have died.”

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited the region last week. Brazil’s Air Force on Friday opened a field hospital in Boa Vista to provide care for some 700 Yanomami people, in addition to flights delivering food in the region.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed revisions to its guidelines to make it easier for gay and bisexual men to donate blood, eliminating a three-month abstinence period before donations.

The restrictions were implemented years ago to prevent the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

In a release posted to the agency’s website, the FDA said under the draft proposals, all donors — regardless of sexual orientation — would be given a questionnaire regarding new partners, sexual history, and certain types of sexual activities.

Any prospective donors who do not report having new or multiple sexual partners and have not engaged in certain practices, such as anal sex, in the previous three months, may be eligible to donate, provided all other eligibility criteria are met.

The proposed new guidelines would allow gay and bisexual men in monogamous, long-term relationships to more easily give blood.

The FDA said the draft proposals were developed after reviewing available information, including data from Britain and Canada, countries with similar HIV epidemiology that have implemented the “gender-inclusive, individual risk-based approach for assessing donor eligibility.”

In the statement, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said, “Maintaining a safe and adequate supply of blood and blood products in the U.S. is paramount for the FDA,” and these proposals will allow the agency to do so.

Under the plan, the donor deferral time periods would stay in place for other HIV risk factors, including for those who have exchanged sex for money or drugs, or have a history of non-prescription injection drug use. 

Any individual who has ever had a positive test for HIV or who has taken any medication to treat HIV infection would continue to be deferred permanently.

The proposed guideline changes released Friday will be open for public comment for 60 days. The agency will then review and consider all comments before finalizing the changes.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press.  
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The Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 has likely become the dominant variant in the United States, accounting for 61.3% of COVID cases in the week ended January 28, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed on Friday.

The subvariant accounted for 49.5% of cases in the week ended January 21, according to estimates from the CDC.

XBB.1.5, which is currently the most transmissible variant, is an offshoot of XBB, first detected in October.

The now-dominant XBB-related subvariants are derived from the BA.2 version of Omicron.

An analysis from CDC showed on Wednesday that updated COVID-19 boosters from Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE and Moderna helped prevent symptomatic infections against the new XBB-related subvariants.
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The Biden administration moved Thursday to protect northeastern Minnesota’s pristine Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from future mining, dealing a potentially fatal blow to a copper-nickel project.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland signed an order closing more than 900 square kilometers of the Superior National Forest in the Rainy River Watershed around the town of Ely, to mineral and geothermal leasing for 20 years, the longest period the department can sequester the land without congressional approval.

The order is “subject to existing valid rights,” but the Biden administration contends that Twin Metals Minnesota lost its rights last year, when the department rescinded a Trump administration decision to reinstate federal mineral rights leases that were critical to the project. Twin Metals, which is owned by the Chilean mining giant Antofagasta, filed suit in August to try to reclaim those rights, and reaffirmed Tuesday that it’s not giving up despite its latest setback.

“Protecting a place like Boundary Waters is key to supporting the health of the watershed and its surrounding wildlife, upholding our Tribal trust and treaty responsibilities, and boosting the local recreation economy,” Haaland said in a statement. “With an eye toward protecting this special place for future generations, I have made this decision using the best available science and extensive public input.”

Project’s critics praise decision

Critics of the project hailed the decision as a massive victory and called for permanent protection for the wilderness. But supporters of Twin Metals said the order runs counter to the administration’s stated goal of increasing domestic supplies of metals critical to the clean energy economy.

The proposed underground mine would be built southeast of Ely, near Birch Lake, which flows into the Boundary Waters. The project has been battered by shifting political winds. The Obama administration, in its final weeks, chose not to renew the two leases, which had dated back more than 50 years. The Trump administration reversed that decision and reinstated the leases. But the Biden administration canceled the leases last January after the U.S. Forest Service in October 2021 relaunched the review and public engagement process for the 20-year mining moratorium.

While the Biden administration last year committed itself to expanding domestic sources of critical minerals and metals needed for electric vehicles and renewable energy, it made clear Thursday that it considers Boundary Waters to be a unique area worthy of special protections. A day ago, the administration said it would reinstate restrictions on roadbuilding and logging in the country’s largest national forest, the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

‘An attack on our way of life’

Twin Metals said it was “deeply disappointed and stunned” over the moratorium.

“This region sits on top of one of the world’s largest deposits of critical minerals that are vital in meeting our nation’s goals to transition to a clean energy future, to create American jobs, to strengthen our national security and to bolster domestic supply chains,” the company said in a statement. “We believe our project plays a critical role in addressing all of these priorities, and we remain committed to enforcing Twin Metals’ rights.”

Twin Metals says it can mine safely without generating acid mine drainage that the Biden administration and environmentalists say makes the $1.7 billion project an unacceptable risk to the wilderness. And it says the mine would create more than 750 high-wage mining jobs plus 1,500 spinoff jobs in the region.

Republican U.S. Representative Pete Stauber, who represents northeastern Minnesota, condemned the decision as “an attack on our way of life” that will benefit only foreign suppliers such as China that have fewer labor and environmental protections.

“America needs to develop our vast mineral wealth, right here at home, with high-wage, union protected jobs,” he said in a statement.

Democratic U.S. Representative Betty McCollum, who represents the St. Paul area, applauded the order, yet warned in a statement that a future administration could reverse the decision.

The order does not affect two other proposed copper-nickel projects in northeastern Minnesota — the PolyMet mine near Babbitt and Hoyt Lakes and the Talon Metals mine near Tamarack — which lie in different watersheds.
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The U.S. space agency NASA says a small asteroid will pass very close to Earth Thursday, just 3,600 kilometers from our planet’s surface, well within the orbit of most geosynchronous satellites.
 

In a release on its website, NASA says the object, known as 2023 BU, poses no threat to the Earth. The agency says even if it entered the atmosphere it would turn into a fireball and largely disintegrate harmlessly, with some bigger debris potentially reaching the surface as small meteorites.

NASA says the object – just 3.5 to 8.5 meters across – represents one of the closest passes by a near-Earth object ever recorded. It is expected to pass over the southern tip of South America at 7:27 p.m. EST (12:27 a.m. GMT). Experts say it would not be visible without a powerful telescope.

The agency said the asteroid was discovered and reported Saturday by amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov, who operates an observatory in Nauchnyi, Crimea.

NASA says additional observations were reported to the Minor Planet Center, or MPC, – the internationally recognized authenticator of the position of small celestial bodies. The MPC operates from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts under the authority of the International Astronomical Union.

The data was automatically posted on the Near-Earth Object Confirmation Page website. Within three days, several observatories around the world had made dozens of observations, helping astronomers better refine 2023 BU’s orbit.

The Center for Near Earth Object Studies, or CNEOS, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California analyzed the data from the MPC’s confirmation page and predicted the near miss. CNEOS calculates every known near-Earth asteroid orbit to provide assessments on potential impact hazards in support of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

JPL navigation engineer Davide Farnocchia said the CNEOS Scout impact hazard assessment system ruled out any threat of impact by the asteroid. But he said, despite very few observations, it was able to predict that the asteroid would make “an extraordinarily close approach with Earth.”  

“In fact, this is one of the closest approaches by a known near-Earth object ever recorded.”

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press
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An asteroid the size of a delivery truck will whip past Earth on Thursday night, one of the closest such encounters ever recorded.

NASA said it will be a near miss with no chance of the asteroid hitting Earth.

NASA said Wednesday that the newly discovered asteroid will zoom 3,600 kilometers above the southern tip of South America. That’s 10 times closer than the bevy of communication satellites circling overhead.

The closest approach will occur at 7:27 p.m. EST (9:27 p.m. local.)

Even if the space rock came a lot closer, scientists said most of it would burn up in the atmosphere, with some of the bigger pieces possibly falling as meteorites.

NASA’s impact hazard assessment system, called Scout, quickly ruled out a strike, said its developer, Davide Farnocchia, an engineer at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

“Despite the very few observations, it was nonetheless able to predict that the asteroid would make an extraordinarily close approach with Earth,” Farnocchia said in a statement. “In fact, this is one of the closest approaches by a known near-Earth object ever recorded.”

2023 BU

Discovered Saturday, the asteroid known as 2023 BU is believed to be between 3.5 meters and 8.5 meters feet across. It was first spotted by the same amateur astronomer in Crimea, Gennadiy Borisov, who discovered an interstellar comet in 2019. Within a few days, dozens of observations were made by astronomers around the world, allowing them to refine the asteroid’s orbit.

Earth’s gravity will alter the path of the asteroid once it zips by. Instead of circling the sun every 359 days, the rock will move into an oval orbit lasting 425 days, according to NASA.
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The United States is “actively seeking to reengage” China on counternarcotics, including stopping the flow of illicit synthetic drugs like fentanyl into the U.S., said the State Department ahead of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing in early February.

U.S. officials admit engagement between the two countries on these issues “has been limited in recent months.”

“We don’t have any recent meetings to read out or to preview,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA on Tuesday, when asked if talks to combat fentanyl have been resumed after Beijing suspended collaboration with Washington on the issue in protest of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last August.

“Though its past action has helped counter illicit synthetic drug flows, we do hope to see additional action from the PRC (People’s Republic of China) – meaningful, concrete action – to curb the diversion of precursor chemicals and equipment used by criminals to manufacture fentanyl and other synthetic drugs,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price told VOA this week.

In 2019, China added fentanyl-related substances to the list of controlled narcotic drugs.

While Beijing is no longer a major source of the synthetic opioid flowing to the United States, U.S. officials said Washington continues to see Chinese-origin precursor chemicals being used in illicit fentanyl production and other illicit synthetic drugs.

Bipartisan congressional majorities have approved legislation to prioritize U.S. efforts to combat international trafficking of covered synthetic drugs.

The FENTANYL Results Act was signed into law by U.S. President Joe Biden through the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 at the end of last year.

Fentanyl is the leading killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 49.

The FENTANYL Results Act would authorize programs through the State Department to build foreign law enforcement capacity to detect synthetic drugs and carry out an international exchange program for drug demand reduction experts, according to Democratic Representative David Trone and Republican Representative Michael McCaul, who co-authored the bill.

Trone said his nephew died of a fentanyl overdose alone in a hotel room.

A recent report by the U.S. Justice Department’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) underlined growing threats of an animal sedative called xylazine (often known as “tranq”) mixed with illicit fentanyl. The risk of overdose multiplies when xylazine is combined with fentanyl.

“A kilogram of xylazine powder can be purchased online from Chinese suppliers with common prices ranging from $6-$20 U.S. dollars per kilogram. At this low price, its use as an adulterant may increase the profit for illicit drug traffickers,” the DEA said in a report late last year.

On Dec. 15, 2021, the State Department announced a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Chuen Fat Yip, a Chinese national charged in a five-count federal indictment, including manufacturing and distributing a controlled substance knowing it will be unlawfully imported into the United States.

“We have no updates on Chuen Fat Yip,” a spokesperson told VOA when asked if the Chinese government is cooperating on his case.

Yihua Lee from VOA Mandarin contributed to this report.
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Israeli archaeologists said Wednesday that they are trying to uncover the meaning of a recently discovered hand imprint carved into the stone wall of an ancient moat outside Jerusalem’s Old City.

The imprint, which may been made as a “prank”, was found in a thousand-year-old moat exposed during works to expand a road in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem near Herod’s Gate, the Israeli Antiquities Authority said.

The massive moat was hewn into the stone around all of the Old City, stretching 10 meters (33 feet) across and between two to seven meters deep and, unlike typical European ones, not filled with water.

According to the IAA, Crusaders in 1099 needed five weeks to cross it and breach the city’s walls and defenses

While the moat’s function was clear, the hand’s meaning was elusive.

“It’s a mystery, we tried to solve it,” IAA’s excavation director Zubair Adawi said in a statement.

IAA archaeologists remained uncertain who carved the hand into the rock or its significance.

The moat and hand have meanwhile been covered to enable the continued infrastructure works just below the walls that currently surround the city, built in the 16th century by Suleiman the Magnificent.
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A chatbot powered by reams of data from the internet has passed exams at a U.S. law school after writing essays on topics ranging from constitutional law to taxation and torts.

ChatGPT from OpenAI, a U.S. company that this week got a massive injection of cash from Microsoft, uses artificial intelligence (AI) to generate streams of text from simple prompts.

The results have been so good that educators have warned it could lead to widespread cheating and even signal the end of traditional classroom teaching methods.

Jonathan Choi, a professor at Minnesota University Law School, gave ChatGPT the same test faced by students, consisting of 95 multiple-choice questions and 12 essay questions.

In a white paper titled “ChatGPT goes to law school” published on Monday, he and his coauthors reported that the bot scored a C+ overall.

While this was enough for a pass, the bot was near the bottom of the class in most subjects and “bombed” at multiple-choice questions involving mathematics.

‘Not a great student’

“In writing essays, ChatGPT displayed a strong grasp of basic legal rules and had consistently solid organization and composition,” the authors wrote.

But the bot “often struggled to spot issues when given an open-ended prompt, a core skill on law school exams”.

Officials in New York and other jurisdictions have banned the use of ChatGPT in schools, but Choi suggested it could be a valuable teaching aide.

“Overall, ChatGPT wasn’t a great law student acting alone,” he wrote on Twitter.

“But we expect that collaborating with humans, language models like ChatGPT would be very useful to law students taking exams and to practicing lawyers.”

And playing down the possibility of cheating, he wrote in reply to another Twitter user that two out of three markers had spotted the bot-written paper.

“(They) had a hunch and their hunch was right, because ChatGPT had perfect grammar and was somewhat repetitive,” Choi wrote.
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Malawi has appealed for more than 7 million additional doses of cholera vaccine from the World Health Organization as it struggles to control a record outbreak of the bacterial illness.

The WHO donated almost 3 million doses of the vaccine to Malawi in November but those were quickly used up. Since March of last year, almost 30,000 people have been infected and nearly 1,000 have died.

The appeal for more cholera doses comes as Malawi continues to register an increase in cases that have now affected all of its 29 districts.

The spokesperson for the health ministry, Adrian Chikumbe, said talks with the WHO are underway.

“We are expecting a consignment of 7.6 million doses for 17 districts, but we are going to also consider districts that are hard hit with the current outbreak,” Chikumbe said.

The Ministry of Health said Tuesday that there is no indication Malawi will receive the vaccine any time soon because many other countries are also pressing the WHO on the same issue.

The World Health Organization first supported Malawi with 3.9 million doses of the oral cholera vaccine last May, after the outbreak was reported in March.

The country received another consignment of 2.9 million doses in November through the WHO and the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF.

Maziko Matemba, community health ambassador in Malawi, said the vaccine shortage shows a change in attitude toward the shots.

“We had a similar situation with COVID-19 where we had low uptake when we saw more people getting sick and more people dying,” Matemba said. “So I am hoping WHO and the government of Malawi will take it as an advantage that now we have high uptake, people are demanding the vaccine. Some of us have even received calls where people want to access the vaccine. So I am hoping this time we will utilize the demand.”

Cholera is an acute diarrheal disease that can kill within hours if left untreated.

Malawi is currently battling its worst cholera outbreak in a decade, largely blamed on poor sanitation and hygiene.

The hard-hit districts include Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, and commercial hub Blantyre

Wongani Mbale, health promotion officer for the Blantyre District Health Office, said the main cause of cholera is the use of unsafe water.

“[In] Blantyre the population is growing due to urbanization, so the source of water is so scarce, so people are resorting into using the unsafe sources of water,” Mbale said.

The Malawian government is reconnecting water kiosks in hard-hit areas. They had been disconnected because of unpaid water bills.

As the country awaits another supply of cholera vaccine, health authorities have intensified campaigns on preventive measures, like eating boiled foods, washing hands with soap before eating and using toilets.
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A so-called space environmentalist is working to make the public more aware about space debris by tracking its movement in real time on a website. He says we need to think about space as an ecosystem. Deana Mitchell has the story. Camera: Deana Mitchell Produced by: Deana Mitchell
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The World Health Organization is appealing for a record $2.54 billion to assist millions of people in 54 countries facing catastrophic health emergencies triggered by multiple man-made and natural disasters.  

In launching the appeal, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the world is witnessing an unprecedented convergence of crises that demand an unprecedented response. 

He said WHO is addressing an overwhelming number of intersecting health emergencies. These include climate change-related flooding in Pakistan, drought and acute hunger across the Sahel and in the greater Horn of Africa, health challenges sparked by the war in Ukraine, and the outbreaks of measles, cholera, and other killer diseases in dozens of countries. 

“The world cannot look away and hope these crises resolve themselves,” Tedros emphasized. “With funding and urgent action, we can save lives, support recovery efforts, prevent the spread of diseases within countries and across borders, and help give communities the opportunity to rebuild for the future.” 

WHO reports 80 percent of humanitarian needs globally are driven by conflict and around half of preventable maternal and child deaths occur in fragile, conflict-affected and vulnerable settings. 

The African region faces the highest burden of public health emergencies globally. In 2022, the continent accounted for 64 percent of all Grade 3, or most acute, emergencies globally. 

Fiona Braka, health emergencies operations manager in WHO’s regional office for Africa, said the continent has had to deal with conflicts and climate-driven humanitarian crises combined with new and recurrent outbreaks of diseases.

Speaking from Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, she said dealing with these complex emergencies has not been easy. But she said support provided by WHO and partners is proving to be beneficial in many ways. She noted that member states have been making progress in dealing with emergencies as they arise. 

“For instance, the time taken by countries to detect and interrupt outbreaks is shortening,” Braka gave as an example. “The investments made to address the COVID-19 pandemic over the past three years are paying off with the region better able to cope with the virus and its health emergency response systems bolstered.” 

The 54 health crises WHO currently is assisting include 11 classified as Grade 3. They include seven African countries, along with Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen. 
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is proposing switching to an annual COVID-19 vaccination campaign for the country, similar to the flu shot.

In documents posted online Monday, the agency said the new strategy would provide a simplified approach to the coronavirus vaccine. The proposed plan is set to be discussed at a meeting this week of FDA scientists and the agency’s panel of external vaccine advisers.

The FDA said most Americans would need only one annual vaccination to help protect them against the coronavirus, while others — including the elderly, the very young and those with weakened immune systems — might need a two-dose inoculation for additional protection.

Under the current vaccination system, a person must get two doses of the original COVID-19 vaccine, which targets the coronavirus that emerged in 2020. Following that, booster shots have been recommended at periodic intervals, with the latest boosters targeting both the original virus and the omicron variant.

The proposed FDA changes would do away with the system of primary vaccinations and boosters and would instead recommend for most Americans a single vaccine dose that is developed annually.

As with the flu shot, vaccine makers and independent experts would aim to develop a shot that targets the virus strains most likely to dominate in the winter season. The targeted strains could be changed every year.

The FDA is also considering making the shots interchangeable, so people would not have to keep track of which vaccine brand they receive.

The agency is hoping the changes will make it easier for Americans to continue with their COVID inoculations amid a waning interest from the public to receive repeated booster shots.

While more than 80% of the U.S. population has had at least one vaccine dose, only 16% of eligible Americans have received the latest booster shot, according to The Associated Press.

The proposed FDA changes also come as experts have been publicly debating how effective the latest booster shots have been at increasing protection against COVID-19, especially in healthy adults.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Far below our feet, a giant may have started moving against us. 

Earth’s inner core, a hot iron ball the size of Pluto, has stopped spinning in the same direction as the rest of the planet and might even be rotating the other way, research suggested on Monday.

Roughly 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) below the surface we live on, this “planet within the planet” can spin independently because it floats in the liquid metal outer core. 

Exactly how the inner core rotates has been a matter of debate between scientists — and the latest research is expected to prove controversial.

What little we know about the inner core comes from measuring the tiny differences in seismic waves — created by earthquakes or sometimes nuclear explosions — as they pass through the middle of the Earth.

Seeking to track the inner core’s movements, new research published in the journal Nature Geoscience analysed seismic waves from repeating earthquakes over the last six decades.

The study’s authors, Xiaodong Song and Yi Yang of China’s Peking University, said they found that the inner core’s rotation “came to near halt around 2009 and then turned in an opposite direction.”

“We believe the inner core rotates, relative to the Earth’s surface, back and forth, like a swing,” they told AFP.

“One cycle of the swing is about seven decades,” meaning it changes direction roughly every 35 years, they added.

They said it previously changed direction in the early 1970s and predicted the next about-face would be in the mid-2040s.

The researchers said this rotation roughly lines up with changes in what is called the “length of day” — small variations in the exact time it takes Earth to rotate on its axis.

Stuck in the middle 

So far there is little to indicate that what the inner core does has much effect on we surface dwellers.

But the researchers said they believed there are physical links between all Earth’s layers, from the inner core to the surface. 

“We hope our study can motivate some researchers to build and test models which treat the whole Earth as an integrated dynamic system,” they said.

Experts not involved in the study expressed caution about its findings, pointing to several other theories and warning that many mysteries remain about the center of the Earth.

“This is a very careful study by excellent scientists putting in a lot of data,” said John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Southern California.

“[But] none of the models explain all the data very well in my opinion,” he added. 

Vidale published research last year suggesting the inner core oscillates far more quickly, changing direction every six years or so. His work was based on seismic waves from two nuclear explosions in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

That timeframe is around the point when Monday’s research says the inner core last changed direction — which Vidale called “kind of a coincidence.”

Geophysicists ‘divided’  

Another theory — which Vidale said has some good evidence supporting it — is that the inner core only significantly moved between 2001 to 2013 and has stayed put since.

Hrvoje Tkalcic, a geophysicist at the Australian National University, has published research suggesting that the inner core’s cycle is every 20 to 30 years, rather than the 70 proposed in the latest study.

“These mathematical models are most likely all incorrect because they explain the observed data but are not required by the data,” Tkalcic said.

“Therefore, the geophysical community will be divided about this finding and the topic will remain controversial.”

He compared seismologists to doctors “who study the internal organs of patients’ bodies using imperfect or limited equipment.” 

Lacking something like a CT scan, “our image of the inner Earth is still blurry,” he said, predicting more surprises ahead.

That could include more about a theory that the inner core might have yet another iron ball inside it — like a Russian doll.

“Something’s happening and I think we’re going to figure it out,” Vidale said. “But it may take a decade.” 
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