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Showing posts with the label Spain

Solar plane lands in New York City

A solar-powered airplane finished crossing the United States on Saturday, landing in New York City after flying over the Statue of Liberty during its historic bid to circle the globe, the project team said.  The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 4 a.m. local time after it took off about five hours beforehand at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania, the team reported on the airplane's website.  Such a pleasure to land in New York! For the 14th time we celebrate sustainability," said the project's co-founder Andre Borschberg on Twitter after flying over the city and the Statue of Liberty during the 14th leg of the trip around the globe. The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where the journey began in March 2015. The solar cr...

Zika virus pregnancy case confirmed in Spain

The health ministry said the woman had recently returned from Colombia, where it is believed she was infected.  Zika, which is spreading through the Americas, has been linked to babies being born with underdeveloped brains.  The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the microcephaly condition, linked to the mosquito-borne virus, a global public health emergency.  The WHO on Thursday also advised countries not to accept blood donations from people who had travelled to Zika-affected regions, the AFP news agency reported. The link between Zika infection and microcephaly has not been confirmed and the risks at different stages of pregnancy are unknown."  In a statement (in Spanish), the health ministry said the pregnant woman was diagnosed as having Zika in the north-eastern Catalonia region.  It did not release the woman's name, saying she was one of seven confirmed cases in Spain. It said two more patients were in Catalonia, two in Castile and ...

The UK paying less for new cancer drugs, according to a report in The Lancet Oncology

While the UK, Greece, Spain and Portugal pay the least, on average, for the drugs they use, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland pay the most.  The authors said more transparency was needed because some countries risked overpaying for drugs.  The pharmaceutical industry said the UK was getting a fair deal on medicines.  Prices of cancer drugs have risen steeply in recent years, placing major stress on many healthcare systems, including the NHS. The report said drugs had accounted for nearly a third of the EU's 51 billion euro (£37bn) cancer healthcare spending in 2009.  And the researchers then compared the 2013 price of 31 cancer drugs in 18 high-income countries, including the UK, Australia, New Zealand, France, Greece, Switzerland, Sweden and Portugal.  Prices in Greece were the lowest for 14 out of the 24 cancer drugs available there. The price of drugs in the UK was also low.  Prices of drugs in Switzerland, Germany and Sweden were frequently...

Extinct three-horn ruminant Xenokeryx amidalae is a close relation to modern giraffes

A new investigation challenges the previously held view that this unusual looking creature is related to North American ancestors of deer.  Scientists say the new study will help us better understand the evolution of cranial features such as horns, as well as the evolution of land ecosystems.  For the last 40 million years, ruminants have represented a big proportion of the world's large herbivores.  Ruminants include cattle, sheep, goats, deer, giraffes, antelopes, camels, and other extinct species.  Palaeomerycids, now extinct, were strange-looking three-horned ruminants found in many areas, from Spain to China, some 5-23 million years ago, during what is termed the Miocene Period. Dr Israel Sánchez and his collaborators from the Museo Nacional  de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, Spain, studied well-preserved remains of a new palaeomerycid - Xenokeryx amidalae.The skull was in particularly good condition and it included teeth, as well as the three h...