Lebanon is most dangerous country for driving, says study
The GPS findings showed a road traffic mortality rate of 22.6 deaths per 100,000 population in lebanon
The country has the fourth-worst road quality conditions globally, according to the study
Updated 13 January 2024
Arab News
LONDON: Lebanon has topped the list of the world’s most dangerous countries to be a driver, with a road traffic mortality rate of 22.6 deaths per 100,000 population, a recent study has found.
The findings, published on Friday by Global Positioning Specialists, highlighted that Lebanon has the fourth-worst road quality conditions globally, scoring 2.8 out of 7, a factor that contributed to its overall global ranking.
The country also has a motor vehicle theft rate of 179 thefts per 100,000 population, according to GPS, which investigated road quality, traffic fatalities, and motor vehicle crime statistics in 60 countries around the world.
A total of 45 people were killed and 263 others injured in traffic accidents across Lebanon last August, according to the country’s Internal Security Forces.
Information International, a Beirut-based research and consultancy firm, recorded 1,099 road accidents in Lebanon during the first half of 2023, a rise from 916 in the corresponding period of 2022. The death toll saw an increase of 54 percent over the same period.
The hazardous driving conditions in Lebanon are primarily attributed to the poor quality of roads coupled with reckless driver attitudes, according to Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces.
And while the authorities have installed road radar to deter violators, fines are too low to help reduce accidents. The highest fine for speeding is equivalent to about half a dollar.
Ranking second to Lebanon on GPS’ list of the world’s most dangerous countries to be a driver are Uruguay — which ranked first in motor vehicle theft — and Colombia, which scored 2.7 for road quality.
Costa Rica, Greece, Guatemala, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Italy, and Russia were also among the worst countries for driving.
’Ready to come out?’ Scientists reemerge after year ‘on Mars’
A year-long mission simulating life on Mars took place in 2015-2016 in a habitat in Hawaii, and although NASA participated in it, it was not at the helm
Updated 07 July 2024
AFP
WASHINGTON: The NASA astronaut knocks loudly three times on a what appears to be a nondescript door, and calls cheerfully: “You ready to come out?“
The reply is inaudible, but beneath his mask he appears to be grinning as he yanks the door open — and four scientists who have spent a year away from all other human contact, simulating a mission to Mars, spill out to cheers and applause.
Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell, Nathan Jones and team leader Kelly Haston have spent the past 378 days sealed inside the “Martian” habitat in Houston, Texas, part of NASA’s research into what it will take to put humans on the Red Planet.
They have been growing vegetables, conducting “Marswalks,” and operating under what NASA terms “additional stressors” — such as communication delays with “Earth,” including their families; isolation and confinement.
It’s the kind of experience that would make anyone who lived through pandemic lockdowns shudder — but all four were beaming as they reemerged Saturday, their hair slightly more unruly and their emotion apparent.
“Hello. It’s actually so wonderful just to be able to say hello to you,” Haston, a biologist, said with a laugh.
“I really hope I don’t cry standing up here in front of all of you,” Jones, an emergency room doctor, said as he took to the microphone — and nearly doing just that several moments later as he spotted his wife in the crowd.
The habitat, dubbed Mars Dune Alpha, is a 3D printed 1,700 square-foot (160 square-meter) facility, complete with bedrooms, a gym, common areas, and a vertical farm to grow food.
An outdoor area, separated by an airlock, is filled with red sand and is where the team donned suits to conduct their “Marswalks,” though it is still covered rather than being open air.
“They have spent more than a year in this habitat conducting crucial science, most of it nutrition-based and how that impacts their performace ... as we prepare to send people on to the Red Planet,” Steve Koerner, deputy director at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, told the crowd.
“I’m very appreciative.”
This mission is the first of a series of three planned by NASA, grouped under the title CHAPEA — Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog.
A year-long mission simulating life on Mars took place in 2015-2016 in a habitat in Hawaii, and although NASA participated in it, it was not at the helm.
Under its Artemis program, America plans to send humans back to the Moon in order to learn how to live there long-term to help prepare a trip to Mars, sometime toward the end of the 2030s.
Cyclist fined after kissing his wife at Tour de France
Celebrations went too far for the International Cycling Union race commissaries, responsible for imposing general rules during races
Julien Bernard stopped to hug and kiss his wife Margot, who had their child Charles in her arms at the time
Updated 06 July 2024
AFP
COLOMBEY-LES-DEUX-EGLISES, France: The friends and family of Julien Bernard gathered on a hillside to greet him as the Tour de France passed by his home during Friday’s stage in Burgundy giving him a welcome that authorities found a little too warm.
Celebrations went too far for the International Cycling Union race commissaries, responsible for imposing general rules during races.
While normally these rules concern answering the call of nature in public or deviating dangerously from one’s line, Friday’s offense was of a more festive nature.
With a huge crowd outside Nuits Saint Georges chanting the local boy’s name, he stopped to hug and kiss his wife Margot, who had their child Charles in her arms at the time.
“I’d been waiting for this moment since the route was announced last October,” he told local newspaper ‘Le Bien Public’.
“This kind of moment comes once in a lifetime and never mind if they fined me (200 Swiss francs).
The fine was explained as for behavior damaging to the image of the sport.
“My wife organized for everyone to come and see me at that point of the race and I wanted to show my gratitude and thank her for that,” explained the 32-year-old.
The authorities were more bothered by the behavior of his friends who whipped up the deep crowds threatening the security barrier and pushing forward with the locals cheering “Lalalala Julien Bernard.”
For the record, he came 61st on the day 3min 11sec down on winner Renco Evenepoel.
Still inhabited termite mounds in South Africa found to be more than 30,000 years old
Study says the mounds existed while arge swathes of Europe and Asia were covered in ice
Calls for more research on termite mounds given the lessons they offer on climate change,
Updated 05 July 2024
AP
CAPE TOWN, South Africa: Scientists in South Africa have been stunned to discover that termite mounds that are still inhabited in an arid region of the country are more than 30,000 years old, meaning they are the oldest known active termite hills.
Some of the mounds near the Buffels River in Namaqualand were estimated by radiocarbon dating to be 34,000 years old, according to the researchers from Stellenbosch University.
“We knew they were old, but not that old,” said Michele Francis, senior lecturer in the university’s department of soil science who led the study. Her paper was published in May.
Francis said the mounds existed while saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths roamed other parts of the Earth and large swathes of Europe and Asia were covered in ice. They predate some of the earliest cave paintings in Europe.
Some fossilized termite mounds have been discovered dating back millions of years. The oldest inhabited mounds before this study were found in Brazil and are around 4,000 years old. They are visible from space.
Francis said the Namaqualand mounds are a termite version of an “apartment complex” and the evidence shows they have been consistently inhabited by termite colonies.
Termite mounds are a famous feature of the Namaqualand landscape, but no one suspected their age until samples of them were taken to experts in Hungary for radiocarbon dating.
“People don’t know that these are special, ancient landscapes that are preserved there,” Francis said.
Some of the biggest mounds — known locally as “heuweltjies,” which means little hills in the Afrikaans language — measure around 100 feet (30 meters) across. The termite nests are as deep as 10 feet underground.
Researchers needed to carefully excavate parts of the mounds to take samples, and the termites went into “emergency mode” and started filling in the holes, Francis said.
The team fully reconstructed the mounds to keep the termites safe from predators like aardvarks.
Francis said the project was more than just a fascinating look at ancient structures. It also offered a peek into a prehistoric climate that showed Namaqualand was a much wetter place when the mounds were formed.
The southern harvester termites are experts at capturing and storing carbon by collecting twigs and other dead wood and putting it back deep into the soil. That has benefits in offsetting climate change by reducing the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere.
It’s also good for the soil. Masses of wildflowers bloom on top of the termite mounds in a region that receives little rain.
Francis called for more research on termite mounds given the lessons they offer on climate change, sustaining ecosystems and maybe even for improving agricultural practices.
“We will do well to study what the termites have done in the mounds. They were thought to be very boring,” she said.
Yes, some animals can have babies without a mate. Here’s how
Females of species have the ability to reproduce asexually, without sperm from a male, in a process called parthenogenesis
It can occur is when a female’s egg fuses with another cell, often a cell leftover from a process that allows the female to create the egg
Updated 05 July 2024
AP
A boa constrictor in the UK gave birth to 14 babies — without a mate.
Is it a miracle? The result of a secret rendezvous? Probably not. Females of species have the ability to reproduce asexually, without sperm from a male. The process is called parthenogenesis, from the Greek words for “virgin” and “birth.”
Some plants and insects can do it, as well as some amphibians, reptiles, birds and fish. A stingray named Charlotte that was thought to have become pregnant by this method died this week at an aquarium in North Carolina, though she never delivered and it is unclear if she was ever pregnant.
Some wasps, crustaceans and lizards reproduce only through parthenogenesis. But in other species it’s rare and usually observed in captivity.
It tends to occur in situations where females are separated from males, said Demian Chapman, who directs the Sharks & Rays Conservation Research Program at the Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium in Sarasota, Florida.
The boa in the UK, a 6-foot, 13-year-old Brazilian Rainbow Boa named Ronaldo, gave birth last week after having no contact with any other snakes for at least nine years, according to the City of Portsmouth College, which kept the snake.
One way parthenogenesis can occur is when a female’s egg fuses with another cell, often a cell leftover from a process that allows the female to create the egg. That cell, known as a polar body, gives the egg the genetic information it would normally get from sperm. The cell starts dividing and that leads to the creation of an embryo.
It’s unclear how prevalent parthenogenesis is in the wild, Chapman said. But it has happened outside captivity among smalltooth sawfish, an endangered species in Florida’s coastal waters.
“We think the females reproduce like that on some occasions because they haven’t found a male because there are so few of them,” Chapman said.
Offspring from parthenogenesis have less genetic variation, Chapman said, which can lead to developmental problems.
“A litter produced by sexual reproduction is usually much larger than one produced via parthenogenesis if it’s an animal that gives birth to litters,” Chapman said. “And you will often see individuals in that litter produced by parthenogenesis that don’t develop correctly in some way.”
Ants perform limb amputations on injured comrades to save their lives
These ants were observed treating injured limbs of nestmates either by cleaning the wound using their mouthparts or by amputation through biting off the damaged limb. The choice of care depended on the injury’s location
Updated 03 July 2024
Reuters
WASHINGTON: Limb amputations are performed by surgeons when a traumatic injury such as a wound from war or a vehicle accident causes major tissue destruction or in instances of serious infection or disease. But humans are not alone in doing such procedures.
New research shows that some ants perform limb amputations on injured comrades to improve their survival chances. The behavior was documented in Florida carpenter ants — scientific name Camponotus floridanus — a reddish-brown species more than half an inch (1.5 cm) long inhabiting parts of the southeastern United States.
These ants were observed treating injured limbs of nestmates either by cleaning the wound using their mouthparts or by amputation through biting off the damaged limb. The choice of care depended on the injury’s location. When it was further up the leg, they always amputated. When it was further down, they never amputated.
Two carpenter ants, Camponotus fellah, are seen in this undated photograph in a laboratory at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. (REUTERS)
“In this study, we describe for the first time how a non-human animal uses amputations on another individual to save their life,” said entomologist Erik Frank of the University of Würzburg in Germany, lead author of the research published on Tuesday in the journal Current Biology.
“I am convinced that we can safely say that the ants’ ‘medical system’ to care for the injured is the most sophisticated in the animal kingdom, rivaled only by our own,” Frank added.
This species nests in rotting wood and defends their home vigorously against rival ant colonies.
“If fights break out, there is a risk of injury,” Frank said.
Two carpenter ants, Camponotus fellah, are seen in this undated photograph in a laboratory at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. (REUTERS)
The researchers studied injuries to the upper part of the leg, the femur, and the lower part, the tibia. Such injuries are commonly found in wild ants of various species, sustained in fights, while hunting or through predation by other animals.
The ants were observed in laboratory conditions.
“They decide between amputating the leg or spending more time caring for the wound. How they decide this, we do not know. But we do know why the treatment differs,” Frank said.
It has to do with the flow of hemolymph, the bluish-greenish fluid equivalent to blood in most invertebrates.
“Injuries further down the leg have an increased hemolymph flow, meaning that pathogens already enter the body after only five minutes, rendering amputations useless by the time they could be performed. Injuries further up the leg have a much slower hemolymph flow, giving enough time for timely and effective amputations,” Frank said.
In either case, the ants first cleaned the wound, likely applying secretions from glands in the mouth while also probably sucking out infected and dirty hemolymph. The amputation process itself takes at least 40 minutes and sometimes more than three hours, with constant biting at the shoulder.
With amputations after an upper leg injury, the survival rate documented was around 90-95 percent, compared to about 40 percent for unattended injuries. For lower leg injuries in which just cleaning was performed, the survival rate was about 75 percent, compared to around 15 percent for unattended injuries.
Wound care has been documented in other ant species that apply an antibiotically effective glandular secretion to injured nestmates. This species lacks that gland.
Ants, which have six legs, are fully functional after losing one.
It was female ants observed doing this behavior.
“All worker ants are female. Males play only a minor role in ant colonies — mate once with the queen and then die,” Frank said.
So why do the ants do these amputations?
“This is an interesting question and it does put into question our current definitions of empathy, at least to some extent. I do not think that the ants are what we would call ‘compassionate,’” Frank said.
“There is a very simple evolutionary reason for caring for the injured. It saves resources. If I can rehabilitate a worker with relatively little effort who will then again become an active productive member of the colony, there is a very high value of doing so. At the same time, if an individual is too heavily injured, the ants will not care for her, but rather leave her behind to die,” Frank added.
