Hanoi (AFP) Aug 28, 2020 Vietnamese weaver Phan Thi Thuan hitches up her trousers as she wades into a lotus paddy to gather the stems needed to make a rare and highly sought-after thread. Her great-aunt made and sold traditional silk to the French during colonial rule, passing the technique on to Thuan, who started weaving when she was six in her village on the … Continue reading Fabric of success: how ‘lotus silk’ is weaving its way into Vietnam

Charikar, Afghanistan (AFP) Aug 26, 2020 Rescue workers in Afghanistan searched Wednesday for survivors of flash floods that killed more than 100 people and destroyed hundreds of houses near Kabul, officials said. Troops pulled dozens of victims from the rubble of collapsed buildings in Charikar, capital of Parwan province, after torrential overnight rains fuelled fierce floods that swept through the city. Officials and witnesshttp://dlvr.it/Rfg3sQ Continue reading Afghanistan flash floods kill over 100

Washington DC (UPI) Aug 26, 2020 Geologists have discovered a link between carbon dioxide degassing patterns and earthquake incidence in Italy’s Apennine Mountains, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. Over millions of years, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere gets trapped in rocks and minerals called carbonates through a variety of chemical and biological processes. When tectonic forhttp://dlvr.it/Rfg3sN Continue reading Study links rise of buried CO2 with earthquakes in Italy

Kinshasa (AFP) Aug 25, 2020 The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Tuesday declared the end of a 25-month outbreak of measles that claimed the lives of more than 7,000 children aged under five. The outbreak was countered by vaccination on a massive scale, in which millions of children and infants were immunised. “For the past month, we are able to say that this epidemic … Continue reading DR Congo declares end to deadly measles epidemic

Paris (ESA) Aug 29, 2020 As we await the return of our Earth from Space programme next Friday, today the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission shows us a rare, cloud-free view of Iceland captured on 14 August 2020. The large, white area visible on the island is a national park that encompasses the Vatnajokull Glacier. Covering an area of around 8400 sq km with an average ice … Continue reading A cloud-free Iceland

Paris (ESA) Aug 29, 2020 Over the past months, the Arctic has experienced alarmingly high temperatures, extreme wildfires and a significant loss of sea ice. While hot summer weather is not uncommon in the Arctic, the region is warming at two to three times the global average – impacting nature and humanity on a global scale. Observations from space offer a unique opportunity to understand … Continue reading Monitoring the Arctic heatwave

To deliver exceptional customer experiences at-scale, retailers need to have their finger on the pulse of changing consumer expectations. Modern consumers expect checkout to be seamless and safe, no matter the digital channel or their geographic location. Let’s look at best practices that retailers are using to revamp their checkout experience.http://dlvr.it/RfXMss Continue reading Best Practices to Improve the E-Commerce Checkout Process

Washington DC (UPI) Aug 24, 2020 Scientists have discovered a new melting hotspot in East Antarctica, home to most of the Antarctic ice sheet, Earth’s largest freshwater reservoir. According to a new study, published Monday in the journal Nature Communications, an influx of warm seawater into the Lützow-Holm Bay has accelerated melt rates beneath the Shirase Glacier Tongue. The sub-glacier melting hotspot was ihttp://dlvr.it/RfRbKx Continue reading New melting hotspot found in East Antarctica

Washington DC (UPI) Aug 24, 2020 Much of the research into the microbial contents of the human digestive tract has focused on bacteria, but there are viruses in the human gut, too. The virome is the equivalent of the microbiome, and research published Monday in the journal Cell Host and Microbe suggests each human hosts a unique virome in their gut. Scientists examined data from … Continue reading Each human gut hosts a unique community of viruses

London (AFP) Aug 24, 2020 Songbirds in tropical rainforests curtail their reproduction to help them survive droughts, according to a study Monday. Species with longer lifespans were better able to cope with this environmental volatility than previously thought, researchers found. With more record hot spells gripping parts of the planet and biodiversity threatened by human encroachment on habitats, a crucial questhttp://dlvr.it/RfRb95 Continue reading Tropical songbirds stop breeding to survive drought