BRISBANE, Australia — Adelaide’s new Women’s and Children’s Hospital, which will be the first in Australia to be powered only by electricity. The new facility will not be connected to natural gas infrastructure, with electricity being used for heating, hot water, and other kitchen and building services. While no firm timeline has been finalized for construction, the state government says the move will save 2178 tonnes of greenhouse emissions each year, the equivalent of taking 700 vehicles off the road. “We have a responsibility to reduce the carbon footprint of the healthcare sector,” said Stephen Wade, Health Minister. “The new Women’s and Children’s Hospital…
Author: zenger.news
A worldwide project for accurate flood forecasting. A technology enabling the hearing-impaired to conduct phone conversations. Studies on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance disease diagnosis. These are just a few of the projects initiated by Google Israel intended to make the world a better place using artificial intelligence. Now those projects have a formal home: the “AI for Social Good” program established by Google and Tel Aviv University. The new three-year program, housed at the TAU Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, launched in February under the direction of professor Meir Feder of TAU’s Iby and…
SYDNEY — A report into the ailing New South Wales dairy industry of Australia has found no significant progress has been made since the last inquiry three years ago, prompting calls for an independent advocate for the sector. A New South Wales upper house committee report looking into the long-term sustainability of the state’s dairy industry was tabled in parliament on May 13. It found recent drought and bushfires, along with the supermarket price wars, were pushing the dairy industry towards inviability. “Despite more favorable seasonal conditions over recent months, we are still losing our local, family-run dairy farms at a concerning…
MELBOURNE, Australia — Victoria’s alcohol services have experienced a surge in demand as many locked-down residents turned to the bottle, a new poll shows. The Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association surveyed services across the state between December 2020 and January 2021 to gauge the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on client presentations. Of the 38 agencies, 70 percent said alcohol featured either “a lot more” or “a bit more” as a drug of concern. The association’s executive officer Sam Biondo said the result confirmed widespread anecdotal evidence from support services throughout 2020. “Not only have the number of people dealing with alcohol…
CHENNAI, India — The genetically modified fall armyworm, a pest that has invaded farms across Asia, Africa, and the Americas, has been developed by U.K-based biotechnology firm Oxitec to reduce the species’ population. The fall armyworm, or Spodoptera frugiperda, is a lepidopteran pest belonging to the family of butterflies and moths. It feeds on leaves, stems, and the reproductive parts of plants. The pest is causing significant damage to economically important cultivated grasses like maize, rice, sorghum, sugarcane, and wheat, along with 75 other crop species. Oxitec is collaborating with Bayer, a German multinational pharmaceutical and life sciences company, for the technology. “The…
KOLKATA, India — Covid-19 patients in India cannot have it easy — a crumbling healthcare infrastructure, supply glut of life-saving oxygen, shortage of beds, ventilators, and burial spots, and now a rare but fatal fungal infection following recovery. Known as mucormycosis, or black fungus, the disease affects patients with a history of diabetes and those who have a compromised immune system due to steroids and comorbidities — post-transplant/malignancy, voriconazole therapy to treat fungal infections. The disease is not new and is usually caused after exposure to mucor mold found in soil, plants, manure, and decaying fruits and vegetables. But it is increasingly being…
CHENNAI, India — YouTube has created a $100 million fund to pay creators for bite-sized mobile videos of up to 60 seconds. YouTube Shorts will pay original creators from the U.S. and India from 2021 to 2022. “The Shorts Fund is the first step in our journey to build a monetization model for Shorts on YouTube,” Amy Singer, a director at YouTube Shorts, said in the statement. “This is a top priority for us and will take us some time to get it right. We’ve paid more than $30 billion to creators, artists, and media companies over the past three years,…
U.S. figures showing a slight drain on commercial crude oil inventories kept upward pressure on oil prices Wednesday, though the market was more focused on the immediate impacts of the Colonial Pipeline outage, analysts said. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported commercial crude oil levels declined some 400,000 barrels during the week ending May 7. Gasoline inventories increased by 400,000 barrels during the period, while distillates, a refined product category that includes diesel, declined by 1.7 million barrels A drain on commercial inventories of petroleum and refined products usually indicates an increase in demand. Phil Flynn, a senior energy analyst…
CANBERRA, Australia — Seeds of native plants ravaged in the devastating Black Summer bushfires will be stored in the safety of a new seed bank. Plans are underway for the AU$7.2 million ($5.5 million) seed bank, which will be built at the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra. Environment Minister Sussan Ley revealed the modern and understated designs for the building on May 13. Construction is expected to begin next year with the help of another AU$650,000 ($500,167) in philanthropic donations. Ley says the seed bank will protect Australia’s biodiversity. Plans are under way for the $7.2 million seed bank, which will be built at…
CANBERRA, Australia — Australia is demanding the immediate release and evacuation of Australian citizen Sean Turnell, the detained economic adviser to Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi. “His safety and the safety of all Australians in Myanmar is our highest priority,” Foreign Affairs senior official Lynda Worthaisong told a parliamentary committee on May 13. She said the embassy in Yangon was spending a lot of time working on his case. More than 100 days have passed since the Myanmar coup, and officials have told the parliament’s foreign affairs, defense and trade committee the situation remains grim. “Australia is gravely concerned about the deteriorating situation…