World update

Iran is planning a rapid boost in oil output, according to a senior oil ministry official, as discussions between Tehran and six major nations continue to eliminate US sanctions that have kept the country producing significantly below capacity since 2018. Iran and the six nations have been in discussions since April to resurrect a 2015 nuclear agreement that was terminated three years ago by former US President Donald Trump, reimposing sanctions. Most of the country's crude output would be restored within a month if sanctions are eased, according to Farokh Alikhani, production manager of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), who spoke to the oil ministry's SHANA website. Oil output has been restored to pre-sanctions levels at one-week, one-month, and three-month intervals, according to meticulous planning."   Washington, on the other hand, stated on Tuesday that even if the nuclear deal  However, Washington stated on Tuesday that even if the nuclear agreement

  Scholars argued that China's actions in connection with COVID-19 (and the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus), especially with the responsibilities of timing and information communication set out in Articles 6 and 7, violated the International Health Regulations (see, for example, here and here). If China had fulfilled these commitments, today's case of COVID-19 would possibly be exponentially less. This leads another scholar to declare, "China can and must be sued for the massive losses it has caused to the world, and to alert China of the arrival of the lawyers. Nevertheless, all these authors all share one thing: they do not recognize a legal precedent to hold China responsible for these infringements by a foreign court or tribunal. In compliance with Article 56 of the International Health Legislation, at least two researchers have pointed out a conflict resolution mechanism (see here and here), but that mechanism does so only if China accepts that it is of course, v

  In 1973, sunflowers grew in my father's vegetable garden. They appeared to sprout spontaneously in a few rows he'd lent to new California neighbors that year. At the moment, just six years old, these garish plants first set me off. Such odd and colorful flowers seemed out of place amid the respectable beans, peppers, spinach, and other vegetables that we've all grown. Yet eventually, sunflowers' beauty won me over. Their fiery halos relieved the lush monotonous garden dominated by late summer. I marveled at birds clinging to shaggy, gold balls, wings fluttering, seed plundering. That summer, Sunflowers identified flowers for me and changed my outlook. Flowers have a way to do so. They started transforming the way the planet looked nearly as soon as they arrived on Earth about 130 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period. That's comparatively recent in geological time: if all Earth's past were squeezed into an hour, just the last 90 seconds would b

  Soil: its nature and needs Soil is the basic element in plant cultivation, but soilless water growth, with or without gravel or sand, enriched with suitable chemicals (hydroponics) can be quite effective. Soil consists of particles, primarily calcium, extracted from rock dissolution along with organic matter. In particle pore spaces, all water (containing dissolved salts) and air circulate. The atmosphere contains more carbon dioxide and less oxygen. Minute living organisms are also found in immense quantities of soil , making it viable. Plants must cross this area to access most of their fuel. The soil must be maintained for fertility (supplying plant nutrients) and physical health. Nutrients must be supplied and published in plant-available ways. Plant growth requires sixteen elements. Three of these, fuel, oxygen, and hydrogen, are supplied by water and air; the other 13 by soil. The elements required in relatively large quantities are called major elements: nitrogen, phosph

  A researcher puts stickers on a lazy Susan under some plastic cups, then offers a whirl. A preschooler must find hidden stickers when the spinning ends. Some kids remember where the stickers are, but some have to search each cup. The game measures working memory , one of the group of behavioral abilities known as executive control that can be compromised in early-life trauma-facing adolescents. Adversity wreaks havoc, and from there you have a mechanism that reacts differently, says Megan Gunnar, a developmental psychobiologist at Minnesota University in Minneapolis who spent two decades researching the effects of early-life adversity in adopted kids. This work focuses on acute hardship, such as being orphaned, rather than regular struggles, which may teach valuable resilience. An infancy marked by deprivation, neglect or violence may also change the neuroendocrine system governing how the body reacts to stress. Stress response issues will put children on a road to developme

At a recent conference held on the evolution of infectious diseases, pathologist Nissi Varki, University of California, San Diego ( UCSD), observed that humans suffer from a long list of fatal diseases — including typhoid fever, cholera, mumps, whooping cough, measles, smallpox, polio, and gonorrhea — that don't bother chimpanzees and most other mammals. Both these bacteria follow the same mechanism to get into our cells: they target sugar molecules called sialic acids. Hundreds of millions of these sugars study the outer surface of any cell in the human body — and human sialic acids differ from apes. Varki and an international research team have now studied how nature could have struggled to develop new defenses after molecular instability appeared in our distant ancestors. Through studying current human genomes and ancient DNA from our extinct ancestors, Neanderthals and Denisovans, the researchers found an evolutionary explosion of our immune cells that happened at least