New evidence that raccoon dogs were at the Chinese
market where Covid is suspected to have first infected
12 VILLUPURAM
When the first object ever known
to have visited the Earth’s Solar
System from outer space zoomed
past in 2017, it was so strange that
at least one leading astronomer was
convinced it was an alien vessel
Jupiter
Mars
FILE Scientists offer ‘non-alien
explanation’ for interstellar visitor
SPACE
NEW EXPLANATION
ABOUT
FOREIGN OBJECT
But researchers said that
they had come up with a
simple and “compelling
non-alien explanation” for
the interstellar interloper’s
bizarre behaviour—though
not everyone was convinced
D I M E N S I O N S
Its diametre was roughly 100 metres—about the size of a football pitch—but by some
estimates it was 10 times as long as it was wide, shaped either like a pancake or a cigar
A PECULIAR COMET
But ‘Oumuamua did not much resemble
the comets that normally travel in from
the edges of the Solar System
It lacked both a tail and a fuzzy halo,
known as a coma, which are formed by
dust and gas warming in the Sun’s heat
THRUSTER BOOST
During
its interstellar
travels it was blasted by
penetrating cosmic rays that
converted some of its water into hydrogen
gas that became trapped within the object’s body.
When ‘Oumuamua neared the Sun, the heat released the
trapped hydrogen, acting as a “thruster boost” that propelled the
object on its unexpected path, she said
Object found near Nord Stream 2 pipeline in
Danish waters of Baltic sea
Nord stream
owner called to
recover object
ENERGY
COPENHAGEN: Denmark has in-
vited the Russian-controlled op-
erator of the Nord Stream 2 pipe-
line to help recover a mystery
object that was spotted near the
pipeline, six months after sections
were sabotaged.
Russian President Vladimir Pu-
tin, who revealed the discovery of
the object earlier this month, said
experts believe that it could be a
signal antenna to activate an ex-
plosive in that part of the
pipeline.
German, Swedish and Danish
authorities are investigating the
undersea explosions that sparked
four leaks on the two Nord Stream
pipelines in the Baltic Sea in Sep-
tember, seven months after Russia
invaded Ukraine.
The Danish energy agency re-
leased a photo late on Thursday of
the cylindrical object standing
near the Nord Stream 2 pipeline at
the bottom of the sea.
The agency said it is “possible”
that the object is a maritime
smoke buoy, 40 centimetres tall
and 10 cm wide, and that it “does
not pose an immediate safety
risk”. “With a view to further
clarifying the nature of the object,
Danish authorities have decided
to salvage the object with assist-
ance from the Danish Defence,” it
said in a statement.
Irregularities in mine plan’s report
ENVIRONMENT
S cientists for the federal govern-
ment say documents that Geor-
gia state regulators relied upon to
conclude a proposed mine won’t
harm the nearby Okefenokee
Water containing a radioactive material has leaked for a
second time from a nuclear plant near Minneapolis and
SATURDAY 25 03 2023
� �
OUMUAMUA
Earth
Sun Venus Mercury
OUMUAMUA
The object christened
‘Oumuamua—”scout” in
Hawaiian—baffled
scientists as soon as it
was spotted by an
observatory in Hawaii
six years ago
O F T H E
STRANGEST PART
But the strangest part
was that once
‘Oumuamua slingshotted
around the Sun, it sped
up and deviated from its
expected trajectory,
propelled by a mysterious
force on its way out of
the Solar System
US govt plans to overhaul
organ transplant system
As demand for transplant surges, thousands of patients die waiting
HEALTH
WASHINGTON: The Biden ad-
ministration said on Wednesday it
will attempt to break up the net-
work that runs the nation’s organ
transplant system as part of a
broader modernisation effort.
More people than ever are get-
ting new organs, with a record
42,888 transplants last year—but
that’s not nearly enough to meet
the demand. More than 100,000 pa-
tients are on the national trans-
plant list, thousands die waiting
and critics have long urged an
overhaul to save more lives.
The United Network for Organ
Sharing, or UNOS, is a nonprofit
organisation that has run the
transplant system, under a gov-
ernment contract, for nearly four
decades. That includes overseeing
the groups that retrieve organs,
helping set policies for how organs
are distributed and patients are
prioritised—and running the mas-
sive computer system that match-
es organs with patients.
Now the government aims to
end that monopoly and divide
those duties among more than one
group. Exactly how that will work
isn’t clear. The Health Resources
and Services Administration
(HRSA) will issue bids for new
contracts in the fall but wouldn’t
say how many.
However, a top focus is modern-
ising that organ-matching tech-
nology and improving accounta-
bility in the complex transplant
system, including greater inde-
pendence of the boards that set
organ policies. Patients will be
better served “by ensuring there’s
competition in this process and
that we’re getting best-in-class” to
handle the different transplant
Swamp and its vast wildlife refuge
contain technical errors and “crit-
ical shortcomings” that render
them unreliable. Since 2019, Twin
Pine Minerals has been seeking
permits to mine titanium less than
4.8 km from the Okefenokee Na-
SEARCHING FOR
INTERSTELLAR
VISITORS
Astronomers had long
been searching for
comet-like objects
entering the Solar System
from the vastness of
interstellar space, but had
never before observed one
C O M E T
PROPOSING
NEW THEORIES
Jennifer Bergner, an expert
in astrochemistry at the
University of California,
Berkeley, and co-author of a
new study, said that many
of the theories "stretched
the imagination"
Her proposal is that, T he number of tuberculosis deaths in
wherever 'Oumuamua may
have come from, it started
out as a water-rich, comet-
like object
Surgical instruments lay on a table during a kidney transplant surgery | AP
Demanding
transparency
Asked by senators about
complaints against United
Network for Organ Sharing
Health and Human Services
(UNOS), Secretary Xavier
Becerra pledged that “we’re
going to require transparency. ...
They can’t hide behind
confidentiality and say, ‘We
can’t show you what’s gone
on.’”
functions, HRSA Administrator
Carole Johnson said in an
interview.
Also Wednesday, HRSA took ini-
tial steps to translate some of the
government’s data on organ dona-
tion and transplantation into an
easier-to-understand website for
patients and families, data that
can help them decide how to pur-
sue care.
The Biden administration also
tional Wildlife Refuge, the largest
refuge east of the Mississippi Riv-
er. Scientists have warned that
mining near the swamp’s rim
could ir reparably har m the
swamp’s ability to hold water and
increasing the frequency of
humans has reignited debate over the origin of the the plant will be shut down, but there is no danger to the
pandemic public, the plant’s owner said on Thursday
newindianexpress com
Russia to skip Earth Hour, calls Earth’s close call
with massive
its organiser a ‘foreign agent’
asteroid
SPACE
ENVIRONMENT part in the event, which is announcement, WWF in Rus-
scheduled this Saturday, for 14 sia said on its website that CAPE CANAVERAL: An aster-
MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Fri- years. “This year, we took the Earth Hour will only take place oid big enough to wipe out a
day said Russia will skip the decision to hold back from this online this year because of its city will zip harmlessly be-
annual global Earth Hour event event,” Kremlin spokesman new status. The organisation tween Earth and the moon’s or-
this weekend after the World
Wildlife Fund (WWF) was la-
Dmitry Peskov told reporters
on Friday. “It is because they
said it will legally challenge
the foreign agent decision.
bit this weekend, missing both
celestial bodies.
belled a “foreign agent” by have become a foreign But it also urged caution ask- Saturday’s close encounter
Moscow. agent.” The Russian jus- ing supporters not to use the will offer astronomers the
The move comes as tice ministry included WWF symbol “as we are wor- chance to study a space rock
Russia cracks down on the WWF’s Russia ried about our partners and from just over 168,000 km away.
most foreign-linked branch on its list of colleagues.” More than 60 envi- That’s less than half the dis-
groups since its offen- foreign agents earlier ronmental groups have signed tance from here to the moon,
sive in Ukraine, includ- this month. a petition to President Vladimir making it visible through bin-
ing climate-orientated or- The global environmen- Putin this month, calling on oculars and small telescopes.
ganisations. Earth Hour, which
WWF organises, encourages
people worldwide to turn their
tal advocacy group has worked
in Russia since 1994. The for-
eign agent label has Soviet-era
him to reverse the WWF for-
eign agent designation. They
said the organisation is “apo-
While asteroid flybys are com-
mon, NASA said it’s rare for
one so big to come so close
lights off for 60 minutes to raise connotations and has been litical” and has worked on its —about once a decade. Scien-
awareness about environmen- widely used against Kremlin mission to protect the Russian tists estimate its size between
tal issues. Russia has taken critics. Before the Kremlin’s environment since the 1990s. 40 metres and 90 metres.
TB deaths rising
again in Europe
HEALTH
Europe is on the rise again after
declining for almost two decades, the World
Health Organization (WHO) warned on
Friday. TB killed 27,300 Europeans in 2021
compared to 27,000 a year earlier, according
to the latest data available. WHO attributed
the rise to the pandemic, citing lockdowns,
diverted medical resources and delayed
diagnoses, as well as the spread of a drug-
resistant form of tuberculosis. This was the
first time in 20 years the downward trend
was broken, the WHO Europe said. Russia
and Ukraine were the two most affected
countries, with around 4,900 and 3,600
deaths respectively.
has requested that Congress more
than double HRSA’s funding for
transplant oversight, to $67 mil-
lion next year.
Wednesday’s announcement
doesn’t directly address some
tougher problems, such as that po-
tentially usable organs too often
aren’t retrieved from would-be do-
nors and that hospitals often de-
cline to use less-than-perfect or-
gans that could help the right
patient. An influential science
panel last year urged the govern-
ment to set performance goals ad-
dressing those and other
challenges.
UNOS announced its own set of
planned improvements to the
transplant system in January and
in a statement on Wednesday, said
it was committed to working with
the government. “We believe we
have the experience and expertise
required to best serve the nation’s
patients and to help implement
HRSA’s proposed initiatives,” the
nonprofit said in a statement.
droughts. The Georgia Environ-
mental Protection Division moved
the project a big step forward in
January by releasing a draft plan
for how Twin Pines would conduct
mining operations and mitigate
any environmental damage.