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Bloomberg
2 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Virgin Galactic to Delay First Spaceplane Flight to Fall 2026
Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. is delaying the first commercial flight of its upgraded Delta space vehicle from summer to the fall months of 2026. The Richard Branson-founded company plans to resume private space tourism trips in the autumn after the Delta spacecraft's first operational flight, which will be a research mission and also occur in the fall.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
More than 400 indirect deaths linked to LA wildfires, study suggests
More than 400 additional deaths are estimated to be linked to the wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles earlier this year, according to a new study. The figure, published on Wednesday in the medical journal JAMA, looks at deaths that have been attributed to factors caused by the wildfires, like poor air quality and delays in accessing healthcare. It is a higher figure than the official death count of 31 by the Los Angeles County, which tallied deaths caused directly by the fires. The study comes as hundreds of wildfires burn across the US and Canada, prompting air quality advisories in cities like Chicago, Buffalo and New York. The Palisades and Eaton fires tore through Los Angeles in January, destroying thousands of structures and leading to the evacuation of more than 100,000 Los Angeles residents. Why wildfires are becoming faster and more furious The far-reaching impacts of wildfire smoke – and how to protect yourself The latest study revealed that around 440 people are estimated to have died as a result of the wildfires between 5 January and 1 February. Researchers said they tallied the figure by looking at all deaths and their causes in Los Angeles during the period of the fires, and comparing it to similar data from previous years. The results show that there were nearly 7% more deaths during the wildfires. Some are attributed to lung and heart conditions exacerbated by smoke or stress, while others are more indirect - like delayed healthcare treatment for dialysis or cancer patients as a result of fire-related disruptions. The authors said that the findings underscore the need for officials to count both direct and indirect fatalities of wildfires and other climate-related emergencies when trying to quantify their impact. "They also highlight the need for improved mortality surveillance during and after wildfire emergencies," the authors said, noting that their figures are provisional as there may have been additional fire-related deaths beyond the scope of the study. The BBC has reached out to Los Angeles County officials for comment on the study's findings. Another study released on Wednesday in JAMA that looked at the aftermath of the 2023 Maui wildfires showed that 22% of adults in the region had reduced lung function, and half displayed symptoms of depression. The fires, which broke out in August 2023 and were the worst to affect Hawaii in recent history, killed at least 102 people and destroyed more than 2,000 structures. The authors of the Maui study said their results show the need for "sustained clinical monitoring and community-based mental health supports" months after a climate disaster. A second study on the Hawaii fires suggests that Maui saw the highest suicide and drug overdose rates in the month of the 2023 wildfires. Wildfires have become more frequent in recent years as a result of climate change, driven by hotter and drier weather that fuels fire spread. In addition to directly threatening lives and structures, smoke from wildfires has been shown to have adverse health effects on people. Wildfire smoke has been found to be harmful to certain immune cells in the lungs, with a toxicity four times greater than particulates from other types of pollution. This can have a long-term impact on cardiovascular health, experts have said. Older people, pregnant women and young children, as well as those with underlying health conditions, such as heart disease or asthma, are more likely to get sick, experts say. But the smoke can also impact healthy adults. One dead and thousands evacuated as wildfire spreads in France Massive clouds of smoke blanket parts of California as Gifford fire grows Canadian wildfires prompt New York air quality alert Ten workers killed battling wildfires in Turkey
Wall Street Journal
3 hours ago
- Wall Street Journal
‘Battle of the Big Bang' Review: A Question of Origins
In the 1920s, scientists discovered that the universe was not static in size, as had previously been assumed, but was expanding in all directions. Galaxies were rushing away from one another as the very space between them was stretching. It was tempting, therefore, to imagine running the film backward into the past. The expansion, it seemed, must have started somewhere: at an infinitely hot, infinitely small and infinitely dense point from which everything exploded some 13.8 billion years ago. This origin became known as the big bang, and that infinitely small point at which it all began was called a singularity: a place where all the known laws of physics break down. Time was purportedly created only at the moment of banging, so it made no sense to ask what came before the big bang, just as it makes no sense to ask what is north of the North Pole. Why it happened at all remained an awkward question, but the existence of such an inscrutable singularity at the birth of all things became the mainstream view. It might be surprising, then, to learn that few experts in the field hold this view anymore. The traditional picture of the big bang is actually two separate ideas, explain Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Halper in 'Battle of the Big Bang: The New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins.' Researchers continue to endorse the hot big bang, the idea of a primordial explosion of energy, but most do not think it goes back to 'a state of infinite density where time stands still and the answers to all our origin questions meet their demise.' Mr. Afshordi is a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Waterloo in Canada; Mr. Halper is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and the creator of the YouTube series 'Before the Big Bang.' Their excellent book promises to map the 'quiet revolution' of 21st-century cosmology and introduce us to the revolutionaries. In very different ways, these rebels are all addressing questions left unanswered by the old theory. One is the origin-of-structure problem: The big bang ought to have spread energy homogeneously throughout space, but we observe clumps of galaxies with vast spaces between them, and measurements of the cosmic microwave background—the fossil radiation from when the universe was only 380,000 years old—reveal an unpredictable pattern of warm and cold spots. Nor have we ever seen an inflaton, a hypothetical particle that is supposed to have driven a period of enormous growth in the size of the early universe.
