AFP UK

The fossil of a jaw bone could prove that domesticated dogs lived in Central America as far back as 12,000 years ago, according to a study by Latin American scientists.

The dogs, and their masters, potentially lived alongside giant animals, researchers say.

A 1978 dig in Nacaome, northeast Costa Rica, found bone remains from the Late Pleistocene.

Excavations began in the 1990s and produced the remains of a giant horse, Equus sp, a glyptodon (a large armadillo), a mastodon (an ancestor of the modern elephant) and a piece of jaw from what was originally thought to be a coyote skull.

“We thought it was very strange to have a coyote in the Pleistocene, that is to say 12,000 years ago,” Costa Rican researcher Guillermo Vargas told AFP.

“When we started looking at the bone fragments, we started to see characteristics that could have been from a dog.

“So we kept looking, we scanned it… and it showed that it was a dog living with humans 12,000 years ago in Costa Rica.”

The presence of dogs is a sign that humans were also living in a place.

“We thought it was strange that a sample was classified as a coyote because they only arrived in Costa Rica in the 20th century.”

– First of its kind –

The coyote is a relative of the domestic dog, although with a different jaw and more pointed teeth.

“The dog eats the leftovers from human food. Its teeth are not so determinant in its survival,” said Vargas.

“It hunts large prey with its human companions. This sample reflects that difference.”

Humans are believed to have emigrated to the Americas across the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska during the last great ice age.

“The first domesticated dogs entered the continent about 15,000 years ago, a product of Asians migrating across the Bering Strait,” said Raul Valadez, a biologist and zooarcheologist from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

“There have never been dogs without people,” Valadez told AFP by telephone.

The presence of humans during the Pleistocene has been attested in Mexico, Chile and Patagonia, but never in Central America, until now.

“This could be the oldest dog in the Americas,” said Vargas.

So far, the oldest attested dog remains were found in Alaska and are 10,150 years old.

Oxford University has offered to perform DNA and carbon dating tests on the sample to discover more genetic information about the animal and its age.

The fossil is currently held at Costa Rica’s national museum but the sample cannot be re-identified as a dog without validation by a specialist magazine.

“This dog discovery would be the first evidence of humans in Costa Rica during a period much earlier” than currently thought, said Vargas.

“It would show us that there were societies that could keep dogs, that had food surpluses, that had dogs out of desire and that these weren’t war dogs that could cause damage.”

At least 15 people have died during unseasonably heavy rain and flooding in north China’s Shanxi province earlier this month, local officials said Tuesday, after the normally dry region received three months’ rain in one week.

The flooding hit the coal-rich landlocked region during a nationwide energy crunch, and after record floods killed more than 300 people in central Henan province in July.

At least 60 coal mines in the province — one of China’s top coal-producing regions — had temporarily closed due to the floods, but now all but four have returned to normal operation, local emergency management official Wang Qirui said at a press conference.

Wang said around 19,000 buildings were destroyed by the extreme weather, with 18,000 others “seriously damaged”.

“Fifteen people died due to the disaster, and three people remain missing,” he added.

At least 1.75 million residents across the province have been affected by the floods, with 120,000 safely evacuated, according to Wang.

Photos published Tuesday by local state newspaper Shanxi Evening News showed traffic police carrying schoolchildren on their backs while wading through waist-deep water after multiple vehicles got trapped.

Shanxi received more than three times the average monthly rainfall for October in just five days last week, with the provincial government saying precipitation had broken records in multiple localities.

Several regions across China have been hit by unprecedented flooding this year.

Thousands were evacuated in the Hubei and Sichuan provinces this summer because of torrential rain.

And more than 300 people were killed in central China’s Henan province last month after record downpours — a year’s worth of rain in three days.

Experts say freak weather events such as heavy floods and punishing droughts are becoming increasingly common because of climate change.

The collapse of a $1-billion deal to curb Indonesian deforestation has highlighted the pitfalls of a UN-backed global initiative, which critics say has been ineffective and trampled on indigenous communities’ rights.

Protecting trees is key to meeting ambitious climate goals, with tropical rainforest loss accounting for about eight percent of annual carbon dioxide emissions, according to monitoring platform Global Forest Watch. 

“This is make or break for the global climate,” said Frances Seymour, a forestry expert from US environmental think-tank the World Resources Institute.

A key tool in the fight has been the United Nations-backed REDD+ mechanism, a framework where public and private funds are paid to developing countries to curb emissions by reducing deforestation. 

Hundreds of projects have sprung up worldwide under the initiative over the past decade and major donors include Norway, Germany and Britain.

Projects range from national-level schemes supported by foreign governments to smaller, private ones, which generate “carbon credits” to be sold to firms seeking to offset emissions.

But the initiative has been dogged by controversy, with environmentalists saying projects in some places, including Cambodia, Peru and the Democratic Republic of Congo have failed to involve local communities and deliver on promised benefits, in some cases leading to conflict. 

Last month, Indonesia, home to the world’s third-largest expanse of tropical forest, walked away from the $1-billion deal with Norway, having received only a tiny fraction of the money.

– Fundamentally flawed –

Globally deforestation has only escalated in recent years — destruction of pristine rainforest was 12 percent higher in 2020 than the year before despite a global economic slowdown, according to Global Forest Watch.

Joe Eisen, executive director of Rainforest Foundation UK, said REDD+ is fundamentally flawed: “The architecture is wrong. It reduces forests down to their carbon values, rather than the intrinsic other values they have — like the people and nature.” 

“Forests are so much more than the amount of carbon they absorb.”

For the initiative’s detractors, the collapse of Indonesia’s deal with Norway, which was agreed in 2010 in a bid to reduce the Asian nation’s rampant deforestation, has underlined REDD+ weaknesses.

The agreement outlined steps Jakarta needed to take, including developing a strategy to combat forest loss and come up with a monitoring system with the bulk of the payment to be based on deforestation reduction results.

But changes “advanced more slowly than expected” and deforestation actually increased initially, according to a 2015 report by the Center for Global Development.  

And while figures show forest loss slowed in Indonesia in the past five years, authorities say they did not receive the expected first payment of $56 million for this success. 

Indonesian officials told the Jakarta Post they terminated the deal because Norway had shown “no goodwill” and set additional requirements such as documentation on how the cash would be spent. 

But Norway’s ministry of climate and environment told AFP they believed the “few issues that remained could have been resolved relatively quickly”.

Environmentalists fear the unravelling of the agreement is a blow to Indonesia’s climate efforts.

“Does this rejection of Indonesia’s most prominent international partnership signal a lack of ambition to reach… emissions reductions goals?” said Greenpeace forests campaigner Kiki Taufik.

– Ancient forests lost forever –

According to Global Forest Watch, Indonesia in 2001 had 93.8 million hectares (230 million acres) of primary forest — ancient forests which have largely not been disturbed by human activity — an area about the size of Egypt. 

By 2020, this figure had decreased by about 10 percent, meaning the archipelago lost virgin forest cover the size of Portugal.

Although the rate of forest loss has slowed since 2016, experts are sceptical the Norway deal played a substantial role, pointing to other factors, such as slower economic growth and higher rainfall.

Another major criticism of REDD+ is that schemes often fail to consider indigenous groups, whose lands and rights are often affected, or to properly compensate them for their role in protecting forests.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, local communities were not consulted before projects began, leading to violence and bloodshed, according to a Rainforest Foundation UK report. 

A report by NGO Fern found villagers in one Cambodian project said they had received little if any of the money for their work patrolling lands to help prevent trees being cut down. 

“REDD+ has so far been pursued without really paying attention to (indigenous communities’) rights,” said Alain Frechette, from the Rights and Resources Initiative, which has studied some REDD+ schemes. 

The Amazon Fund set up in 2008 to pay for curbing deforestation in Brazil, to which Norway contributed $1.2 billion, has been hailed as a REDD+ success by some.

Seymour said: “It was definitely a thumb on the scale in terms of getting international recognition and finance that solidified political support.”

But deforestation has escalated sharply since President Jair Bolsonaro came to power and rolled back environmental policies.

Seymour — who is also chair of the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions, which certifies national and provincial-scale credits under the mechanism — says the system should not be dumped but overhauled to focus on large-scale initiatives. 

Referring to the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels, she said: “There’s no way you can meet the Paris temperature targets without stopping tropical deforestation.”

No fewer than eight of this year’s 13 Nobel winners were American citizens, extending a historic trend tied to the strength of US academia and its ability to attract top world talent.

American universities consistently dominate “Global top 100” rankings, with a mix of private “Ivy Leagues” with lavish endowments and prestigious state colleges. 

Since the first Nobels were awarded in 1901, the US has racked up 400 medals, followed by the United Kingdom with 138 and Germany with 111 — these figures include people affiliated with multiple countries.

“I’m really appreciative of the opportunities that have been given to me in this country,” Ardem Patapoutian, co-winner of the 2021 Nobel Medicine prize for his work on the nerve receptors related to touch, said of the United States at a press conference after his win. 

The Armenian-American, who grew up in Lebanon, credited his success to the public-funded University of California system, where he received his bachelors and did his post-doc, as well as the Scripps Research Institute where he has been based for two decades.

The University of California is also home to his co-winner David Julius, of UC San Francisco. In all, UC staff and faculty have won 70 Nobels — one shy of the total won by France, the fourth-leading country.

– Basic research –

This year’s Physics Prize co-winner Syukuro Manabe, who left Japan in the 1950s and did his groundbreaking work on climate models at Princeton in New Jersey, told reporters that in America, he was able to go where his curiosity led him, which was key to his success.

Chemistry co-winner David MacMillan relocated to the United States from Scotland in the 1990s, and is also a professor at Princeton — where Filipino-American Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa earned her bachelors in 1986.

Monday’s Economics Prize was shared by Canadian-American David Card, Israeli-American Joshua Angrist — both at Princeton — and Dutch-American Guido Imbens, who is at Stanford.

Funding for basic research, which is defined as study for the aim of improving scientific theories or understanding of subjects, is at the heart of America’s wins, David Baltimore, co-winner of the 1975 Nobel Prize in medicine, told AFP.

This is a “trailing indicator” because, compared to applied research, the dividends can pay out years or decades later, often in unpredictable ways.

“It’s also the strength of our research institutes and universities that goes back to the founding of Harvard so many centuries ago, and their continued support with no breaks,” added Baltimore, now president emeritus and distinguished professor of biology at Caltech.

American emphasis on basic research traces back to the aftermath of World War II and the creation of the National Science Foundation in 1950, which continues to coordinate federal funding to universities today.

Philanthropy and private endowments also play an ever-growing role in financing.

While China is catching up to the US in terms of total research funding ($496 billion versus $569 billion adjusted for purchasing power parity in 2017), it has challenges linked to academic freedom and ability to attract top talent, said H.N. Cheng, president of the American Chemical Society.

– Rewarding youth and migrants –

Just as rich countries with strong sports infrastructure dominate international competitions like the Olympics, being the world’s number one economy makes the United States a scientific powerhouse.

“A scientist for example will find more job opportunities not only in academia, but also industry, government labs and other opportunities,” Cheng told AFP.

Marc Kastner, an emeritus professor of physics at MIT, added that US universities have a long history of rewarding bright young researchers with their own labs.

“In places like Europe and in Japan, there would be big groups led by a very senior professor and it wasn’t until that person retired that a younger person stepped in, and by that time they don’t necessarily have their best ideas anymore,” he said.

For example, Harvard neurobiologist Catherine Dulac, who won the 2021 Breakthrough Prize for her work on parental instinct, decided against returning to France in her twenties for this very reason, as well as gender bias, she told AFP last year.

Looking ahead, some worry that falling immigration could challenge US pre-eminence.

“The US has built a phenomenal culture of welcoming,” Stefano Bertuzzi, who migrated from Italy and is today CEO of the American Society for Microbiology, told AFP.

Lately, however, he and Kastner have been worried by rising trends of xenophobia and nationalism, which are making the United States less of a choice destination. 

This is particularly true for Chinese students, who came under the scanner during the administration of former president Donald Trump over espionage concerns.

The Covid-19 pandemic offered young climate activists from Africa, Asia and South America a unique opportunity to connect online with their counterparts in the West and have their voices heard.

But now many are worried the pandemic may keep them from attending crucial climate talks in Glasgow, where they hope to push world leaders on issues facing poor countries on the frontlines of climate change. 

Flooding, fires and extreme heat are just a few of the climate-change induced catastrophes that experts say will more adversely affect communities in lower-income countries as the planet steadily heats up. 

Activists from those countries fear that without their presence, their voices will be ignored at the upcoming COP26 summit opening on October 31.  

“We’re only going to be left behind again,” said Mitzi Jonelle Tan, a climate activist in the Philippines. 

“We need leaders to hear our stories, they don’t know what it’s like to be afraid for your life because of floods,” the 23-year-old told AFP from Marikina city, regularly hit by typhoons made more powerful by rising seas.

Tan is one of several climate activists AFP has been following in the lead-up to COP26, billed as humanity’s last chance to avoid catastrophic global warming.   

She will be going to COP26, but many will be not, hampered by a lack of access to vaccines, travel restrictions and limited funding. 

– ‘Systemic injustices’ –

Like hordes of other activists from the so-called global south — less industrialised, lower-income nations — Tan has linked up with Greta Thunberg’s Fridays For Future movement that has inspired massive street protests around the world. 

But as the pandemic swept the globe, activists were forced off the streets. 

They connected online, carving out a space for activists from lower-income countries to have their concerns heard. 

“In online spaces, the distances between the global north and the global south become less relevant,” said Joost de Moor, an assistant professor at Sciences Po university in Paris.

Some created the Most Affected Peoples and Areas (MAPA) group within Fridays For Future, pushing for the climate crisis to be linked with other “systemic injustices” related to class, gender, race or disability. 

“When we started, we just wanted a group chat to talk and feel safe with one another,” Tan said of the group, which started on WhatsApp. 

It blossomed. Around 10 two-hour long calls were organised between activists across hemispheres. 

They exchanged experiences and points of view, an opportunity to talk about the impact of climate change in lower-income countries. 

“For young environmentalists in the global south, climate change directly affects their quality of life, housing and their capacity to provide food for themselves,” said Sarah Pickard, a researcher in youth political participation at Paris 3 University.

– Underrepresented, most affected –

Another issue that emerged: sourcing the natural resources required to shift to renewable energies. 

The World Bank estimates that over three billion tonnes of minerals and metals will be needed to deploy wind, solar and geothermal power necessary for the green transition. 

But many companies producing these resources — mostly operating in lower-income countries — are accused of rights abuses. 

“It’s not just about reducing carbon emissions, it’s also about the way it’s done,” Tan said.

With COP26 around the corner, many are hoping these issues will be front-and-centre.

But few will get the chance to travel to Glasgow. 

“Underrepresented groups are left out, yet they are the groups who are already the most affected by the climate crisis,” Nigerian climate activist Kelo Uchendu told AFP from the southern city of Enugu. 

In the north of his country, droughts and desertification have pushed herders to migrate in search of forage and water to feed their cows, leading to conflict over scarce natural resources.

The 25-year-old mechanical engineering graduate hopes issues like this will be brought to the attention of the head of COP26, Alok Sharma. 

He has helped collect activists’ input to local COPs (Conference of the Parties) across Africa to be handed to Sharma at the meeting.

But he might not be the one to do it. He has only secured partial funding to travel, and has not yet received his Covid-19 jab.

– ‘Can’t ignore us’ – 

Having a global voice extends beyond the COP26 summit for Kenyan activist Kevin Mtai. 

Without international support, local projects can be tough to implement. 

“You are on your own or maybe with some volunteers,” the 26-year-old said, referring to the gardening project in orphanages and schools he set up in Kenya to teach children how to plant vegetables sustainably.

But when he hosts events linked to Fridays For Future, organisations often help with funding and media coverage.

Despite the groundswell of climate awareness, optimism is tempered ahead of COP26, with many activists sceptical the high-level talks will deliver.

“We have to pay a lot of attention to what is said, but most of the work is going to come from climate activists,” 25-year-old biology teacher Catalina Reyes Vargas told AFP from Colombia. 

She won’t be attending because she has not received a second Covid-19 jab and her country is on Britain’s travel red list.

Filipina activist Tan says regardless of what happens, they won’t be silenced. 

“True change comes from the streets,” she said. 

“We have to be so loud they can’t ignore us.”

The Covid-19 pandemic offered young climate activists from Africa, Asia and South America a unique opportunity to connect online with their counterparts in the West and have their voices heard.

But now many are worried the pandemic may keep them from attending crucial climate talks in Glasgow, where they hope to push world leaders on issues facing poor countries on the frontlines of climate change. 

Flooding, fires and extreme heat are just a few of the climate-change induced catastrophes that experts say will more adversely affect communities in lower-income countries as the planet steadily heats up. 

Activists from those countries fear that without their presence, their voices will be ignored at the upcoming COP26 summit opening on October 31.  

“We’re only going to be left behind again,” said Mitzi Jonelle Tan, a climate activist in the Philippines. 

“We need leaders to hear our stories, they don’t know what it’s like to be afraid for your life because of floods,” the 23-year-old told AFP from Marikina city, regularly hit by typhoons made more powerful by rising seas.

Tan is one of several climate activists AFP has been following in the lead-up to COP26, billed as humanity’s last chance to avoid catastrophic global warming.   

She will be going to COP26, but many will be not, hampered by a lack of access to vaccines, travel restrictions and limited funding. 

– ‘Systemic injustices’ –

Like hordes of other activists from the so-called global south — less industrialised, lower-income nations — Tan has linked up with Greta Thunberg’s Fridays For Future movement that has inspired massive street protests around the world. 

But as the pandemic swept the globe, activists were forced off the streets. 

They connected online, carving out a space for activists from lower-income countries to have their concerns heard. 

“In online spaces, the distances between the global north and the global south become less relevant,” said Joost de Moor, an assistant professor at Sciences Po university in Paris.

Some created the Most Affected Peoples and Areas (MAPA) group within Fridays For Future, pushing for the climate crisis to be linked with other “systemic injustices” related to class, gender, race or disability. 

“When we started, we just wanted a group chat to talk and feel safe with one another,” Tan said of the group, which started on WhatsApp. 

It blossomed. Around 10 two-hour long calls were organised between activists across hemispheres. 

They exchanged experiences and points of view, an opportunity to talk about the impact of climate change in lower-income countries. 

“For young environmentalists in the global south, climate change directly affects their quality of life, housing and their capacity to provide food for themselves,” said Sarah Pickard, a researcher in youth political participation at Paris 3 University.

– Underrepresented, most affected –

Another issue that emerged: sourcing the natural resources required to shift to renewable energies. 

The World Bank estimates that over three billion tonnes of minerals and metals will be needed to deploy wind, solar and geothermal power necessary for the green transition. 

But many companies producing these resources — mostly operating in lower-income countries — are accused of rights abuses. 

“It’s not just about reducing carbon emissions, it’s also about the way it’s done,” Tan said.

With COP26 around the corner, many are hoping these issues will be front-and-centre.

But few will get the chance to travel to Glasgow. 

“Underrepresented groups are left out, yet they are the groups who are already the most affected by the climate crisis,” Nigerian climate activist Kelo Uchendu told AFP from the southern city of Enugu. 

In the north of his country, droughts and desertification have pushed herders to migrate in search of forage and water to feed their cows, leading to conflict over scarce natural resources.

The 25-year-old mechanical engineering graduate hopes issues like this will be brought to the attention of the head of COP26, Alok Sharma. 

He has helped collect activists’ input to local COPs (Conference of the Parties) across Africa to be handed to Sharma at the meeting.

But he might not be the one to do it. He has only secured partial funding to travel, and has not yet received his Covid-19 jab.

– ‘Can’t ignore us’ – 

Having a global voice extends beyond the COP26 summit for Kenyan activist Kevin Mtai. 

Without international support, local projects can be tough to implement. 

“You are on your own or maybe with some volunteers,” the 26-year-old said, referring to the gardening project in orphanages and schools he set up in Kenya to teach children how to plant vegetables sustainably.

But when he hosts events linked to Fridays For Future, organisations often help with funding and media coverage.

Despite the groundswell of climate awareness, optimism is tempered ahead of COP26, with many activists sceptical the high-level talks will deliver.

“We have to pay a lot of attention to what is said, but most of the work is going to come from climate activists,” 25-year-old biology teacher Catalina Reyes Vargas told AFP from Colombia. 

She won’t be attending because she has not received a second Covid-19 jab and her country is on Britain’s travel red list.

Filipina activist Tan says regardless of what happens, they won’t be silenced. 

“True change comes from the streets,” she said. 

“We have to be so loud they can’t ignore us.”

Birds chirp near a river in the Ecuadorian jungle, five hours from the capital Quito, as Gregorio Mirabal expresses fear for the 500 tribes that often act as guardians of the Amazon rainforest and who face attacks, and even death, as a result.

Mirabel, the head of the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin (COICA), calls on developed nations who will gather at the COP26 — the climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland — to collaborate with indigenous people to protect the 8.4 million square kilometers (3.2 million square miles) of the Amazon.

Mirabal is one representative of the 3.5 million indigenous people of the Amazon, who live across nine countries and territories — Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.

A member of the Wakuenai Kurripaco people, Mirabal, 54, says that 17 percent of the forest has already been wiped out by oil and mineral exploitation, as well as pollution and deforestation for agriculture and livestock.

— How do you see the future of the Amazon? —

There are two scenarios: (one is the) apocalypse, with no return. People will run out of oxygen, the planet will warm up in 50 years, by two or even three degrees. Life on this planet will not be possible if the Amazon disappears.

The other scenario (is) that our children can bathe in this river, learn about what is here, see the trees, the biodiversity, see this macaw fly. This is the scenario we propose to the world if it helps us protect 80 percent of the Amazon.

— Is the damage reversible? —

If Amazon deforestation reaches 20 percent, it will be very difficult to go back. The desertification, the lack of water, the fires will devastate the Amazon. We are at a turning point.

The Amazon is being murdered, its oil, its natural resources are being taken away, and they don’t want to leave the forest alive. They want to raze it. This is a cry from the forest, we say enough is enough!

— Why is it important to protect the Amazon? —

It’s one of the largest reserves of fresh water on the planet. It has the greatest biodiversity in the world, which guarantees the balance of the climate. Each tree generates clean air and collects the waste that comes from other countries, from the pollution, but for this we receive nothing.

If (world leaders) do not spend money on a missile but on the Amazon, that is fine with us. But this funding must be global, and distributed equally among the nine countries.

But there is no clear funding today in this sense. We don’t know how much money has been invested in the Amazon, if it gets here and when.

The vaccine (against Covid-19) still has not arrived in the communities, and it has been two years since the pandemic broke out. If we depended on governments, we would be dead already.

— What are the greatest dangers you face? —

The worst danger is our governments’ lack of political will, which goes hand-in-hand with corruption, the non-enforcement of our rights.

Developed countries must consider the Amazon as a territory that also supports them. We want to protect the Amazon to protect humanity.

— Who are the Amazon’s biggest enemies? —

The big banks of the planet are financing the destruction of the Amazon by providing the resources for oil exploitation and other forms of predatory activities.

It’s also up to our conscience to stop consuming so much plastic, so much energy. We do not realize that human beings have become the worst enemy of nature and life itself.

Brazil represents almost 60 percent of the whole Amazon basin. With President Jair Bolsonaro, deforestation, illegal mining and the killing of our brothers and sisters have increased. This is the worst government we have in the Amazon basin.

— Where is there the most risk for environmentalists? —

Brazil and Colombia are among the most dangerous places in the world if you’re a conservationist or indigenous leader.

Then comes Peru. This is because activists oppose oil, mining or logging companies. In 2020, there were 202 murders in the Amazon. The figure for 2019, which was 135, has been exceeded.

Inside a huge crater in Israel’s sun-baked Negev desert, a team wearing space suits ventures forth on a mission to simulate conditions on Mars.

The Austrian Space Forum has set up a pretend Martian base with the Israeli space agency at Makhtesh Ramon, a 500-metre (1,600-foot) deep, 40 kilometre (25 mile) wide crater.

The six so-called “analogue astronauts” will live in isolation in the virtual station until the end of the month.

“It’s a dream come true,” Israeli Alon Tenzer, 36, told AFP. “It’s something we’ve been working on for years.” 

The participants — from Austria, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain — all had to pass gruelling physical and psychological tests.

During their mission, they will conduct tests including on a drone prototype that functions without GPS, and on automated wind- and solar-powered mapping vehicles.

The mission will also aim to study human behaviour and the effect of isolation on the astronauts.

“The group’s cohesion and their ability to work together are crucial for surviving on Mars,” said Gernot Groemer, the Austrian mission supervisor.

“It’s like a marriage, except in a marriage you can leave but on Mars you can’t.”

– ‘Largest voyage ever’ –

The Austrian Space Forum, a private organisation made up of aerospace specialists, has already organised 12 missions, the most recent in Oman in 2018. 

The Israel project is part of mission Amadee-20, which was expected to kick off last year but was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The forum has partnered with Israeli research centre D-MARS to construct the solar-powered base.

German astronaut Anika Mehlis, the only woman on the team, told AFP how happy she was to be part of the project. 

“My father took me to the space museum when I was little,” she said. “When I saw that the forum was looking for analogue astronauts, I told myself I had to apply.” 

Mehlis, a trained microbiologist, will study a scenario where bacteria from Earth infect potential life forms that may be found on Mars, saying this “would be a huge problem”.

Visually, the surrounding desert resembles the Red Planet with its stony wilderness and orange hues, though thankfully not in terms of atmospheric conditions.

“Over here, we have temperatures of about 25-30 degrees Celsius, but on Mars the temperature is minus 60 degrees Celsius and the atmosphere is not fit for breathing,” said Groemer.

The interior of the base is austere, with a small kitchen and bunk beds. Most of the space is reserved for scientific experiments.

NASA envisions the first human mission to Mars will launch in 2030.

“What we are doing here is preparing a large mission, the largest voyage our society has ever taken, as Mars and Earth are 380 million kilometres apart at their extreme point,” said Groemer.

“I believe the very first human to walk on Mars is already born and we are the ship-builders to enable this journey.”

Up to 3,000 residents of the Spanish island of La Palma on Monday were ordered to stay indoors after lava from a volcano destroyed a cement works, raising fresh fears of toxic gases.

La Cumbre Vieja volcano began erupting on September 19, forcing 6,000 people from their homes as the lava scorched its way across 600 hectares (1,400 acres) of land. 

Miguel Angel Morcuende, head of the cell handling the crisis, told journalists Monday that part of the cement factory had gone up in flames.

“Consequently, and until we can analyse if the air quality allows for normal life, we have decided to lock down,” he added.

The order concerns between 2,500 and 3,000 people living near the cement works on the west of the island in the Canaries archipelago, he said.

On Saturday, part of the volcano’s cone collapsed, sending new rivers of lava pouring down the slopes towards an industrial zone. 

Flights to the island resumed on Saturday after two days on hold because of the ash blasted from the volcano.

Despite the damage from the eruption — more than 1,200 buildings have been destroyed, say local officials — no has so far been killed or injured in the disaster.

This is the third volcanic eruption on La Palma Island, home to 85,000 people, in a century, although the last one dates back to 1971.

The effects of climate change could already be impacting 85 percent of the world’s population, an analysis of tens of thousands of scientific studies said Monday.

A team of researchers used machine learning to comb through vast troves of research published between 1951 and 2018 and found some 100,000 papers that potentially documented evidence of climate change’s effects on the Earth’s systems.

“We have overwhelming evidence that climate change is affecting all continents, all systems,” study author Max Callaghan told AFP in an interview.

He added there was a “huge amount of evidence” showing the ways in which these impacts are being felt. 

The researchers taught a computer to identify climate-relevant studies, generating a list of papers on topics from disrupted butterfly migration to heat-related human deaths to forestry cover changes.

The studies only rarely established a direct link to global warming — so Callaghan and teams from the Mercator Research Institute and Climate Analytics, both in Berlin, took on the task themselves. 

Using location data from the studies, they divided the globe into a grid and mapped where documented climate impacts matched climate-driven trends in temperature and precipitation.

For each grid cell they asked “is it getting hotter or colder or wetter or dryer outside of the bounds of natural variability?” said Callaghan. 

Then, he said, they checked if this kind of heating matched expectations from climate models. 

They found 80 percent of the globe — home to 85 percent of the world’s population, had generated impact studies that matched predictions for temperature and precipitation changes due to global warming.

Crucially, he said, research has disproportionately documented climate impacts in richer nations, with fewer studies in highly-vulnerable regions.

For example he said that trends in temperatures and rainfall in Africa could be linked to climate change.  

“But we won’t have many studies documenting the impacts of those trends, he said, calling it a “blind spot in our knowledge of climate impacts”.

– Machine learning –

Climate-related research has grown exponentially in recent decades.

Between 1951 and 1990 “we have about 1,500 studies in total,” Callaghan said, “Whereas in the five years or so since the last (UN) assessment report we have between 75,000 and 85,000 studies — a phenomenal increase.”

Callaghan said the sheer volume of research has made it impossible to individually identify all the studies that reliably link observed impacts to manmade climate change.

“In the first UN climate assessment report a team of authors could simply read all of climate science,” he said. “Now you’d need millions of authors.”

The machine learning technique now offers a global picture that could help experts trying to synthesise huge numbers of studies, Callaghan said, although he added that “it can never replace human analysis”.