AFP UK

Nearly 900 firefighters were slowly bringing a wildfire under control that has raged for nine days on the Greek island of Evia, authorities said Wednesday, while fresh forces were deployed to fight a massive blaze on the Peloponnese peninsula.

Greece has started to count the cost from wildfires that have scorched their way through thousands of hectares, leaving three dead, hundreds homeless, causing incalculable damage and capsizing the critical tourism season.

The fires have been fanned by the country’s worst most severe heatwave in decades and the authorities have pointed the finger at climate change, which experts say increases the intensity and frequency of such extreme weather events.

Algeria has meanwhile become the latest Mediterranean country to be hit by devastating wildfires this summer, with the death toll there rising to 65 on Wednesday after eight people were killed in blazes in Turkey earlier in the month.

A huge multinational force has been deployed to back fire crews on the Greek island Evia, where the town of Istiaia has been under threat for days. 

“I think we can say that the fire fronts are slowly coming under control,” Istiaia mayor Yiannis Kontzias told state TV ERT.

“Yesterday, we saw the light of the sun for the first time in days,” he said, referring to giant smoke clouds that have choked residents and obstructed flights by water-bombing aircraft.

– ‘Entire ecosystem destroyed’ –

But even as the immediate danger receded, Kontzias said local businesses “face extinction” in coming months in a tourism season already decimated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We have lost the month of August, which would have sustained people here over the coming year.”

“(Local) tourism has been demolished, most (visitors) have left,” he said.

“The damage is huge, and the environmental disaster will have economic repercussions for decades.”

From July 29 to August 11, more than 93,000 hectares (231,000 acres) were burnt in Greece, according to the European Forest Fire Information System. The average area burnt over the same period between 2008 and 2020 was 2,330 hectares.

A draft UN assessment seen exclusively by AFP called the Mediterranean a “climate change hotspot” and said increasing temperatures and aridity had lengthened fire seasons and “doubled potential burnable area”.

Dimitris Haliotis, the head of a Red Cross team who came to Evia from across the country in Patras, said that “the entire ecosystem is destroyed” on the island, with the loss of forest animals running in the hundreds.

Theodoros Roumeliotis, the local hoteliers president on the Greek spa town of Aidipsos, said August reservations had collapsed by 90 percent.

“It’s a colossal loss,” he told AFP.

“Right now, hotels are obliged to refund one million euros in reservations cancelled,” he said, adding that some operators were unlikely to survive the blow.

– Peloponnese fires –

The fire situation was more precarious on Wednesday in the mountainous Peloponnese region of Gortynia.

Christos Lambropoulos, deputy governor for the broader Arcadia region, said efforts were concentrated on keeping the fire from reaching the thickly forested Mount Mainalo.

“Villages do not seem at risk at the moment… but conditions change by the hour,” he told ERT.

Forces in Gortynia were beefed up Wednesday to nearly 600 firefighters including crews from the Czech Republic, Britain, France and Germany.

EU states and other countries have so far contributed 21 aircraft, 250 vehicles and more than 1,200 firefighters, some of whom were due to arrive by Friday.

Support from abroad has helped avert an even greater disaster.

“When we arrived, it seemed like the whole of Greece was burning,” said Nicolas Faure, part of a detachment of French firefighters that arrived last week, and was later bolstered to over 170.

Another 60 firemen were tackling a smaller fire in Laconia, in the southeastern Peloponnese, the fire department said.

In Evia, nearly 900 firefighters had been deployed, including Cypriots, Moldovans, Poles, Serbs, Slovaks, Romanians and Ukrainians. Serbian, Swedish and Swiss planes and helicopters were among a fleet of seven aircraft providing support.

There have been growing calls in Greece for the resignation of top public safety officials who as recently as June had insisted that the country was well-prepared.

There was additional anger over the loss last week of much of the forest of Varibobi, one of Athens’ last remaining nature reserves. 

Civil protection deputy minister Nikos Hardalias said Greece’s resources were “stronger than ever before”.

“We faced an operationally unique situation with 586 fires in eight days during the worst weather phenomenon in 40 years,” he said on Tuesday.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis this week apologised to the nation for any possible “shortcomings” in the state’s response. He is to hold a press conference on Thursday.

China’s drug regulator has approved the country’s first mixed-vaccine trial, a company involved in the study said, as the rapid spread of the Delta variant raises concern about the efficacy of domestically produced jabs.

The trial will test the efficacy of combining an “inactivated” vaccine made by China’s Sinovac with a DNA-based one developed by US pharmaceutical company Inovio, a statement issued on Tuesday said.

The statement was put out by Advaccine Biopharmaceuticals Suzhou, Inovio’s trial partner in China.

Preclinical work has found that “two different vaccine applications… produce an even stronger and more balanced immune response”, Advaccine chairman Wang Bin said in the statement. 

There are several types of Covid vaccines, including those using an inactivated or weakened virus to generate an immune response, and more cutting-edge RNA- or DNA-based jabs that use engineered versions of the coronavirus’ genetic code to create a protein that safely prompts an immune response.

Five out of the seven vaccines approved in China are two-shot inactivated vaccines.

Their published efficacy lags RNA jabs by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which have pre-Delta success rates above 90 percent.

The World Health Organization has said there is still not enough data to say whether using two different vaccines together is safe or can boost immunity. 

Inovio has not published any efficacy data from its global clinical trials. It is the first DNA-based vaccine to be trialled in China.

China is battling its worst coronavirus outbreak in months, with officials saying many of those infected had already been vaccinated. 

This has added to calls for China’s two biggest vaccine producers — state-run Sinopharm and privately owned Sinovac — to provide data proving their jabs work against the Delta variant.

Beijing is yet to approve any foreign vaccines for domestic use.

Hundreds of firefighters were battling to control two massive wildfires in Greece on Wednesday, one raging for nine straight days, that have left hundreds homeless and caused incalculable damage.

With the assistance of a huge multinational force, Greek fire crews were fighting to beat back blazes on the island of Evia and in the Peloponnese peninsula in rugged terrain.

Hundreds have been left homeless and face a harsh winter, not only at the mercy of floods, but also because of their lost agricultural livelihood and income from tourism.

“I think we can say that the fire fronts are slowly coming under control,” Yiannis Kontzias, mayor of the Evia town of Istiaia that has been under threat for days, told state TV ERT.

“Yesterday, we saw the light of the sun for the first time in days,” he said, referring to giant smoke clouds that have choked residents and obstructed flights by water-bombing aircraft.

– ‘We face extinction’ –

But even as the immediate danger receded, Kontzias said local businesses “face extinction” in coming months in a tourism season already decimated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We have lost the month of August, which would have sustained people here over the coming year.”

“(Local) tourism has been demolished, most (visitors) have left,” he said.

“The damage is huge, and the environmental disaster will have economic repercussions for decades,” he said.

Aidipsos, one of Greece’s main spa towns, would normally have tens of thousands mainly Greek and Balkan visitors in August and revenue of around 15 million euros ($17.5 million), local operators say.

But local hoteliers president Theodoros Roumeliotis says August reservations have collapsed by 90 percent.

“It’s a colossal loss,” Roumeliotis told AFP.

“Right now, hotels are obliged to refund one million euros in reservations cancelled,” he said, adding that some operators were unlikely to survive the blow.

The fire situation was more precarious on Wednesday in the mountainous Peloponnese region of Gortynia, home to dense forests and deep ravines.

Christos Lambropoulos, deputy governor for the broader Arcadia region, said efforts were concentrated on keeping the fire from reaching the thickly forested Mount Mainalo.

“Villages do not seem at risk at the moment… but conditions change by the hour,” he told ERT.

Three people have died in the latest fire wave, which came in the midst of Greece’s most severe heatwave in decades.

Several firefighters have been hurt, some critically.

Many here admit that help from abroad has been critical in averting an even greater disaster.

EU states and other countries have so far contributed 21 aircraft, 250 vehicles and more than 1,200 firefighters, some of whom were due to arrive by Friday.

Forces in Gortynia were beefed up Wednesday to nearly 600 firefighters including crews from the Czech Republic, Britain, France and Germany.

Another 60 firemen were tackling a smaller fire in Laconia, in the southeastern Peloponnese, the fire department said.

In Evia, a presence of nearly 900 firefighters was arrayed against the wildfires including Cypriots, Moldovans, Poles, Serbs, Slovaks, Romanians and Ukrainians. Serbian, Swedish and Swiss planes and helicopters were among a fleet of seven aircraft providing support.

– Call for resignations –

There have been growing calls in Greece for the resignation of top public safety officials who as recently as June had insisted that the country was well-prepared.

There was additional anger over the loss last week of much of the forest of Varibobi, one of Athens’ last remaining nature reserves. Olympia, home to the ancient Olympics, also narrowly escaped destruction earlier this month.

“(Our resources were) stronger than ever before. We faced an operationally unique situation with 586 fires in eight days during the worst weather phenomenon in 40 years,” civil protection deputy minister Nikos Hardalias insisted on Tuesday.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis this week apologised to the nation for any possible “shortcomings” in the state’s response. He is to hold a press conference on Thursday as pressure mounts for heads to roll.

Hundreds of firefighters were battling to control two massive wildfires in Greece on Wednesday, one raging for nine straight days, that have left hundreds homeless and caused incalculable damage.

With the assistance of a huge multinational force, Greek fire crews were fighting to beat back blazes on the island of Evia and in the Peloponnese peninsula in rugged terrain.

“I think we can say that the fire fronts are slowly coming under control,” Yiannis Kontzias, mayor of the Evia town of Istiaia that has been under threat for days, told state TV ERT.

“Yesterday, we saw the light of the sun for the first time in days,” he said, referring to giant smoke clouds that have choked residents and obstructed water drops by firefighting aircraft.

The situation was more precarious in the mountainous Peloponnese region of Gortynia, home to dense forests and deep ravines.

Christos Lambropoulos, deputy governor for the broader Arcadia region, said efforts were concentrated on keeping the fire from reaching the thickly forested Mount Mainalo.

“Villages do not seem at risk at the moment… but conditions change by the hour,” he told ERT.

Three people have died in the latest fire wave, which came in the midst of Greece’s most severe heatwave in decades.

Many here admit that help from abroad has been critical in averting an even greater disaster.

EU states and other countries have so far contributed 21 aircraft, 250 vehicles and more than 1,200 firefighters, some of whom were due to arrive by Friday.

Forces in Gortynia were beefed up Wednesday to nearly 600 firefighters including crews from the Czech Republic, Britain, France and Germany.

Another 60 firemen were tackling a smaller fire in Laconia, in the southeastern Peloponnese, the fire department said.

In Evia, a presence of nearly 900 firefighters was arrayed against the wildfires including Cypriots, Moldovans, Poles, Serbs, Slovaks, Romanians and Ukrainians. Serbian, Swedish and Swiss planes and helicopters were among a fleet of seven aircraft providing support.

There have been growing calls in Greece for the resignation of top public safety officials who as recently as June had insisted that the country was well-prepared.

“(Our resources were) stronger than ever before. We faced an operationally unique situation with 586 fires in eight days during the worst weather phenomenon in 40 years,” civil protection deputy minister Nikos Hardalias insisted on Tuesday.

– ‘We face extinction’ –

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis this week apologised to the nation for any possible “shortcomings” in the state’s response. He is to hold a press conference on Thursday as pressure mounts for heads to roll.

In addition to hundreds of homes lost according to early estimates and the blow to Greece’s dwindling forests, the cost to local economies is expected to be daunting.

“We face extinction,” said mayor Kontzias in Evia, whose jurisdiction includes the popular spa town of Aidipsos.

“We have lost the month of August, which would have sustained people here in the coming year.”

“(Local) tourism has been demolished, most (visitors) have left,” he said. “The damage is huge, and the environmental disaster will have economic repercussions for decades,” he said.

German pharmaceutical and chemical giant Bayer lost another appeal against a verdict that found its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, the latest setback in its bid to end thousands of lawsuits over the product.

An appeals court in San Francisco on Monday upheld the 2019 ruling in favor of a couple who claimed they got non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after using Roundup for years.

The court also upheld a judge’s decision to reduce the jury’s compensation award to Alva and Alberta Pilliod from $2 billion to $86.7 million.

Bayer has been plagued by problems since it bought Monsanto, which owns Roundup, in 2018 for $63 billion and inherited its legal woes.

The German firm says it has not committed any wrongdoing, and maintains that scientific studies and regulatory approvals show Roundup’s main ingredient glyphosate is safe.

Glyphosate is nonetheless classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer at the World Health Organization (WHO).

In the latest ruling, the appeals court said Monsanto displayed an “intransigent unwillingness to inform the public about the carcinogenic dangers of a product it made abundantly available at hardware stores and garden shops across the country.”

“Monsanto knew that studies supporting the safety of Roundup were invalid when the Pilliods began spraying Roundup in their yards, wearing no gloves or protective gear, spurred on by television commercials.”

Bayer said it was evaluating its options.

“We respectfully disagree with the Court’s ruling as the verdict is not supported by the evidence at trial or the law,” a Bayer spokesperson said. “Monsanto will consider its legal options in this case.”

“We continue to stand strongly behind the safety of Roundup, a position supported by four decades of extensive science and the assessments of leading health regulators worldwide that support its safe use.”

Plaintiff’s attorney Brent Wisner hailed the ruling, saying Monsanto “has now lost every appeal, and for good reason,” according to a statement released by his firm. 

“This is a major triumph for the Pilliods and plaintiffs everywhere,” Wisner said. “Monsanto needs to pull its head out of the sand and Roundup off the shelves now.”

Bayer has set aside more than $15 billion to deal with a wave of US lawsuits linked to the weedkiller.

After allotting its latest tranche of $4.5 billion for potential costs, the German company posted huge losses for its second quarter last week.

In February, it said it had settled some 90,000 cases.

In May, a San Francisco court upheld a damages award of $25 million against Bayer and in favor of California resident Edwin Hardeman.

Bayer has said it will petition the US Supreme Court to review the Hardeman case this month.

German pharmaceutical and chemical giant Bayer lost another appeal against a verdict that found its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, the latest setback in its bid to end thousands of lawsuits over the product.

An appeals court in San Francisco on Monday upheld the 2019 ruling in favor of a couple who claimed they got non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after using Roundup for years.

The court also upheld a judge’s decision to reduce the jury’s compensation award to Alva and Alberta Pilliod from $2 billion to $86.7 million.

Bayer has been plagued by problems since it bought Monsanto, which owns Roundup, in 2018 for $63 billion and inherited its legal woes.

The German firm says it has not committed any wrongdoing, and maintains that scientific studies and regulatory approvals show Roundup’s main ingredient glyphosate is safe.

Glyphosate is nonetheless classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer at the World Health Organization (WHO).

In the latest ruling, the appeals court said Monsanto displayed an “intransigent unwillingness to inform the public about the carcinogenic dangers of a product it made abundantly available at hardware stores and garden shops across the country.”

“Monsanto knew that studies supporting the safety of Roundup were invalid when the Pilliods began spraying Roundup in their yards, wearing no gloves or protective gear, spurred on by television commercials.”

Bayer said it was evaluating its options.

“We respectfully disagree with the Court’s ruling as the verdict is not supported by the evidence at trial or the law,” a Bayer spokesperson said. “Monsanto will consider its legal options in this case.”

“We continue to stand strongly behind the safety of Roundup, a position supported by four decades of extensive science and the assessments of leading health regulators worldwide that support its safe use.”

Plaintiff’s attorney Brent Wisner hailed the ruling, saying Monsanto “has now lost every appeal, and for good reason,” according to a statement released by his firm. 

“This is a major triumph for the Pilliods and plaintiffs everywhere,” Wisner said. “Monsanto needs to pull its head out of the sand and Roundup off the shelves now.”

Bayer has set aside more than $15 billion to deal with a wave of US lawsuits linked to the weedkiller.

After allotting its latest tranche of $4.5 billion for potential costs, the German company posted huge losses for its second quarter last week.

In February, it said it had settled some 90,000 cases.

In May, a San Francisco court upheld a damages award of $25 million against Bayer and in favor of California resident Edwin Hardeman.

Bayer has said it will petition the US Supreme Court to review the Hardeman case this month.

German pharmaceutical and chemical giant Bayer on Tuesday lost another appeal against a verdict that found its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, the latest setback in its bid to end thousands of lawsuits over the product.

An appeals court in San Francisco upheld the 2019 ruling in favor of a couple who claimed they got non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after using Roundup for years.

The court also upheld a judge’s decision to reduce the jury’s compensation award to Alva and Alberta Pilliod from $2 billion to $86.7 million.

Bayer has been plagued by problems since it bought Monsanto, which owns Roundup, in 2018 for $63 billion and inherited its legal woes.

The German firm says it has not committed any wrongdoing, and maintains that scientific studies and regulatory approvals show Roundup’s main ingredient glyphosate is safe.

Glyphosate is nonetheless classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer at the World Health Organization (WHO).

In the latest ruling, the appeals court said Monsanto displayed an “intransigent unwillingness to inform the public about the carcinogenic dangers of a product it made abundantly available at hardware stores and garden shops across the country.”

“Monsanto knew that studies supporting the safety of Roundup were invalid when the Pilliods began spraying Roundup in their yards, wearing no gloves or protective gear, spurred on by television commercials.”

Bayer said it was evaluating its options.

“We respectfully disagree with the Court’s ruling as the verdict is not supported by the evidence at trial or the law,” a Bayer spokesperson said. “Monsanto will consider its legal options in this case.”

“We continue to stand strongly behind the safety of Roundup, a position supported by four decades of extensive science and the assessments of leading health regulators worldwide that support its safe use.”

Plaintiff’s attorney Brent Wisner hailed the ruling, saying Monsanto “has now lost every appeal, and for good reason,” according to a statement released by his firm. 

“This is a major triumph for the Pilliods and plaintiffs everywhere,” Wisner said. “Monsanto needs to pull its head out of the sand and Roundup off the shelves now.”

Bayer has set aside more than $15 billion to deal with a wave of US lawsuits linked to the weedkiller.

After allotting its latest tranche of $4.5 billion for potential costs, the German company posted huge losses for its second quarter last week.

In February, it said it had settled some 90,000 cases.

In May, a San Francisco court upheld a damages award of $25 million against Bayer and in favor of California resident Edwin Hardeman.

Bayer has said it will petition the US Supreme Court to review the Hardeman case this month.

German pharmaceutical and chemical giant Bayer on Monday lost another appeal against a verdict that found its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, the latest setback in its bid to end thousands of lawsuits over the product.

An appeals court in San Francisco upheld the 2019 ruling in favor of a couple who claimed they got non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after using Roundup for years.

The court also upheld a judge’s decision to reduce the jury’s compensation award to Alva and Alberta Pilliod from $2 billion to $86.7 million.

Bayer has been plagued by problems since it bought Monsanto, which owns Roundup, in 2018 for $63 billion and inherited its legal woes.

The German firm says it has not committed any wrongdoing, and maintains that scientific studies and regulatory approvals show Roundup’s main ingredient glyphosate is safe.

Glyphosate is nonetheless classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer at the World Health Organization (WHO).

In the latest ruling, the appeals court said Monsanto displayed an “intransigent unwillingness to inform the public about the carcinogenic dangers of a product it made abundantly available at hardware stores and garden shops across the country.”

“Monsanto knew that studies supporting the safety of Roundup were invalid when the Pilliods began spraying Roundup in their yards, wearing no gloves or protective gear, spurred on by television commercials.”

Bayer said it was evaluating its options.

“We respectfully disagree with the Court’s ruling as the verdict is not supported by the evidence at trial or the law,” a Bayer spokesperson said. “Monsanto will consider its legal options in this case.”

“We continue to stand strongly behind the safety of Roundup, a position supported by four decades of extensive science and the assessments of leading health regulators worldwide that support its safe use.”

Plaintiff’s attorney Brent Wisner hailed the ruling, saying Monsanto “has now lost every appeal, and for good reason,” according to a statement released by his firm. 

“This is a major triumph for the Pilliods and plaintiffs everywhere,” Wisner said. “Monsanto needs to pull its head out of the sand and Roundup off the shelves now.”

Bayer has set aside more than $15 billion to deal with a wave of US lawsuits linked to the weedkiller.

After allotting its latest tranche of $4.5 billion for potential costs, the German company posted huge losses for its second quarter last week.

In February, it said it had settled some 90,000 cases.

In May, a San Francisco court upheld a damages award of $25 million against Bayer and in favor of California resident Edwin Hardeman.

Bayer has said it will petition the US Supreme Court to review the Hardeman case this month.

Volunteers and firefighters were working relentlessly Tuesday, often without masks or helmets, in a desperate bid to stop a violent blaze from reaching a key town on Greece’s Evia island, one of hundreds of fires that have raged through the country.

Nearly 900 firefighters, reinforced with fresh arrivals from abroad, were deployed on the country’s second largest island as major towns and resorts remained under threat on from a blaze burning for eight days.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced a package of 500 million euros ($586 million) in emergency help to those affected by what he has dubbed a “natural fury without precedent”, as well as for reconstruction of devastated areas.

Weather disasters bulked up by climate change have swept the globe this summer, with a landmark UN assessment published Monday warning the world is warming even faster than forecast.

Hundreds of homes have been lost in Evia, greater Athens, the Peloponnese and other parts of Greece to wildfires since late July, as the region suffers through an intense heatwave.

Underscoring the violent swings of fortune tormenting Greece, fires in the Peloponnese flared anew just an hour after officials said the situation was stabilising.

Residents in 20 small villages in the region of Gortynia were warned to evacuate on Tuesday, with the mayor saying conditions seemed out of control again.

“In the blink of an eye, all control was lost,” mayor Efstathios Soulis told state TV ERT, adding that dozens of villages, agricultural units and businesses were at risk.

The flames have claimed three lives in Greece, while in neighbouring Turkey eight have been killed eight. Several people have been injured, some critically.

Sixteen people have been arrested on suspicion of arson or negligent arson, the police said.

– ‘Where to go?’ –

Much of the attention was focused Tuesday on keeping the fire out of Evia’s northern hub of Istiaia, which has 7,000 residents who had yet to evacuate.

Firefighters and volunteers had been engaged overnight in “hand-to-hand combat, fighting heart and soul” to erect fire breaks outside villages neighbouring Istiaia, mayor Yiannis Kontzias said.

Locals, often in just t-shirts, battled the flames on several fronts, one of which raged out of control.

The Evia force includes hundreds of firefighters from Romania, Serbia and Ukraine. They were reinforced on Tuesday with units from Cyprus, Slovakia and Poland, the civil protection authority said.

The rugged island is popular with holidaymakers and many Greeks have summer homes on Evia. Some 3,000 people were evacuated by sea this past week as the flames neared.

Authorities ordered the evacuation of Asiminio, a coastal village near Istiaia also threatened by flames, on Tuesday.

“Where do you want us to go?,” a woman in her sixties shouted, refusing to leave as helicopters flew ahead.

On the streets, dozens of residents pointed angrily at a Slovakian firefighting truck. “Look, they’re doing all the work. Where are ours? We beg them to come and no one comes,” said Dimitri.

In Avgaria village, many people turned out to help the professionals. 

“If we don’t come, who will?” asked Yiannis, a burly man in his 20s. “My aunt’s house burnt down, that of my grandfather almost did too.”

The fire has also wrought havoc on the island’s agricultural economy that included olives, figs and honey, leaving many producers despondent.

Istiaia Mayor Kontzias said “mistakes were made and we need to draw lessons from this”. 

“The Greek state must never forget what happened in northern Evia,” he added. “Helicopters helped a lot and if we had done that since the beginning, we would have avoided all this destruction.”

He was echoing a complaint widely heard about the lack of air support not just on Evia but throughout Greece.

Many mayors around the country have complained of a serious lack of aerial support in fighting the fires, despite government assurances of having set aside ample resources.

– ‘Dagger to the heart’ –

“Every lost home is a tragedy, a dagger to the heart,” Deputy Civil Protection Minister Nikos Hardalias said Tuesday, his voice breaking. 

In a televised address on Monday, Mitsotakis apologised “for any shortcomings” in the state response.

“We may have done what was humanly possible, but in many cases it was not enough.”

EU states and other countries have so far contributed 21 aircraft, 250 vehicles and more than 1,200 firefighters, some of whom were due to arrive by Friday.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are set to welcome a most unusual guest, as “the Blob” blasts off into orbit on Tuesday.

An alien on its own planet, the Blob is an unclassifiable organism — neither fish nor fowl. Nor is it plant, animal or fungus.

As such, Physarum polycephalum — a type of slime mould — has long fascinated scientists and will now be part of a unique experiment carried out simultaneously by astronauts hundreds of kilometres above the Earth and by hundreds of thousands of French school students.

The slime mould first appeared on Earth around 500 million years ago, and defies conventional biology because it is made up of one cell with multiple nuclei. 

While most organisms grow and reproduce through the division and multiplication of cells, Physarum polycephalum does not.

“It is a single cell that grows without ever dividing,” explains Pierre Ferrand, professor of Earth sciences and life seconded to French space agency CNES, one of the people behind the project. 

Another oddity: “When most organisms make do with two sex types, the Blob has more than 720. It is an organism ‘with drawers’ which tells us that life consists of multitude originalities,” he says.

– What one’s cell can do –

A yellowish, spongy mass, the slime mould lacks a mouth, legs or brain.

Yet despite these apparent disadvantages, the mould eats, grows, moves — albeit very slowly — and has amazing learning abilities. 

Because the Blob’s DNA floats freely around inside its cell walls — rather than being contained inside a nucleus — it can “slough off” parts of itself at will. 

It can also enter a dormant state by dehydrating — called “sclerotia”.

And it is several pieces of sclerotia that will embark on their odyssey aboard an ISS refuelling freighter. 

When rehydrated in September, four sclerotia — each about the size of the average pinky fingernail — will be roused from their torpor in their Petri-dish beds.

The samples — both shorn from the same “parent Blob cell” (labelled by scientists as LU352)– will undergo two protocols: one will deprive certain sub-Blobs of food; the others will be able to gorge out on a food source — porridge oats.

The goal is to observe the effects of weightlessness on this organism — but as an educational experience, a giant school experiment that reaches into space. There are no scientific papers expected as part of the mission’s design. 

“Nobody knows what its behaviour will be in a microgravity environment: what direction will it move in? Will it take the third dimension by going upwards, or go sideways?” asks Ferrand.

“I’ll be curious to see if it develops by forming pillars,” says Blob specialist Audrey Dussutour, director for the Centre for Research on Animal Cognition in Toulouse. 

Meanwhile, back on Earth, thousands of specimens cut from the same LU352 strain will be distributed to about 4,500 schools and colleges in France. 

“More than 350,000 students will ‘touch’ the Blob,” says Christine Correcher, who runs the space agency’s educational programme.

At the end of this month, teachers will receive kits containing three to five sclerotia.

When the sections of the Blob are revived in space, their cohorts will also be rehydrated on Earth.

Observations will then begin to compare the differences in how the samples in space adapt compared with those on Earth — which may cast light on fundamental questions surrounding the basic building blocks of life.