A study published in the December 2022 issue of the American Journal of Transplantation finds Canada leading the world in harvesting organs from those who received medical assistance in dying. The study found that in Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain, a total of 286 people who sought euthanasia provided …

The warming of the waters off the East Coast has come at an invisible, but very steep cost — the loss of microscopic organisms that make up the base of the ocean’s food chain. The growing warmth and saltiness of the Gulf of Maine off New England is causing a …

Brazil’s government has declared a public health emergency for the Yanomami people in the Amazon who are suffering from malnutrition and diseases such as malaria because of illegal mining. The decree, signed by Health Minister Nisia Trindade on Friday, has no expiration date and allows for hiring extra personnel. It …

Tons of waste dumped in poorly regulated riverside landfills or directly into the waterways that flow across three countries end up accumulating behind a trash barrier in the Drina River in eastern Bosnia during the wet weather of winter and early spring. This week, the barrier once again became the …

As damaging as it was for more than 32 trillion gallons of rain and snow to fall on California since Christmas, a worst-case global warming scenario could juice up similar future downpours by one-third by the middle of this century, a new study says. The strongest of California’s storms from …

The World Health Organization says there is no evidence that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines increase the risk of strokes in older people. WHO officials say there is no basis to the recent concerns raised by the media and science communities about the safety of the mRNA booster shots. They say the …

South Korea on Friday announced an end to its indoor mask mandate, one of the country’s last major pandemic restrictions. Health authorities said as of Jan. 30, face coverings will no longer be required indoors, except in hospitals, pharmacies, and on public transportation. The move was made because a winter …

Every year, the night sky grows brighter, and the stars look dimmer. A new study that analyzes data from more than 50,000 amateur stargazers finds that artificial lighting is making the night sky about 10% brighter each year. That’s a much faster rate of change than scientists had previously estimated …

As the coronavirus pandemic enters its fourth year, the United States is grappling with a new subvariant of COVID-19 called XBB.1.5, and China is reporting a spike in cases following the dismantling of its zero-COVID policy. VOA’s Laurel Bowman reports. …

Environmental activist Greta Thunberg is set to meet International Energy Agency executive director Fatih Birol in Davos on Thursday, organizers of a fringe round-table event at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting told Reuters. Thunberg is to meet Birol along with fellow campaigners Helena Gualinga, Vanessa Nakate and Luisa Neubauer, …

The impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine is being felt as far away as Indian-administered Kashmir, where ornithologists see the conflict as contributing to a shortage of migratory birds which make their way each winter from Europe to the wetlands of the Kashmir Valley. Every February, the wildlife protection department …

Campaigners have welcomed a decision to remove the skeleton of an 18th century man with gigantism from public display at a London museum. The remains of Charles Byrne, who was 2.31 meters (7ft 7in), had been on show at the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England …

People in Somalia are highly traumatized due to political instability, prolonged violence and humanitarian crisis, a new health study said. The joint study by the United Nations, Somalia’s health ministry and the country’s national university found that mental disorder is prevalent across the country. It said that cases are about …

There was visible excitement among students when schools reopened Tuesday in Malawi’s two biggest cities, Lilongwe and Blantyre, after a two-week suspension caused by a cholera outbreak.  The bacterial illness has killed close to 800 people, more than 100 of them children, and affected more than 25,000.  Malawi’s government announced …

Nearly two thirds of the sharks and rays that live among the world’s corals are threatened with extinction, according to new research published Tuesday, with a warning this could further imperil precious reefs. Coral reefs, which harbor at least a quarter of all marine animals and plants, are gravely menaced …

Jill Biden’ s advocacy for curing cancer didn’t start with her son’s death in 2015 from brain cancer. It began decades earlier, long before she came into the national spotlight, and could now be further energized by her own brush with a common form of skin cancer. The first lady …

When Benjamin Franklin fashioned the first lightning rod in the 1750s following his famous experiment flying a kite with a key attached during a thunderstorm, the American inventor had no way of knowing this would remain the state of the art for centuries. Scientists now are moving to improve on …

Pakistan Monday launched its first nationwide anti-polio campaign of the year to immunize children under the age of five against the crippling disease. The move follows a surge in new infections in 2022. While no new case has been reported in Pakistan so far this year, the highly infectious wild …

Pakistan launched its first anti-polio campaign of the year Sunday, targeting 44.2 million children under the age of five. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where polio continues to threaten the health and well-being of children. Polio affects the nervous system of children and ultimately …

The U.S. has now collected 510 reports of unidentified flying objects, many of which are flying in sensitive military airspace. While there’s no evidence of extraterrestrials, they still pose a threat, the government said in a declassified report summary released Thursday. Last year the Pentagon opened an office, the All-domain …

Astronomers have detected in the stellar halo that represents the Milky Way’s outer limits a group of stars more distant from Earth than any known within our own galaxy – almost halfway to a neighboring galaxy. The researchers said these 208 stars inhabit the most remote reaches of the Milky …

A new report finds nearly a billion people in the world’s poorer countries are treated for often life-threatening conditions in health care facilities that lack a reliable electricity supply.  A joint report by the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and the International Renewable Energy Agency, “Energizing Health: Accelerating Electricity …

The U.S. Department of the Interior will reform its regulations for the development of wind energy facilities on the country’s outer continental shelf to help meet crucial climate goals, it said in a statement on Thursday. The proposed rule changes would save developers a projected $1 billion over a 20-year …

England will ban a range of single-use plastic items such as cutlery, plates and bowls starting in October to limit soaring plastic pollution, Britain’s environment department said Saturday.  The decision follows a public consultation by the government in which 95% of respondents were in favor of the bans, the department …

A Swiss company says it has certifiably extracted CO2 from the air and permanently stored it in the ground — for the first time on behalf of paying customers, including Microsoft. Climeworks, a startup created in 2009 by two Swiss engineers, said its facility in Iceland had successfully removed carbon …