Over the past five years, there have been more than 150 reported cases of a mysterious illness among U.S. workers in Cuba, and now similar symptoms are being reported among those working in Vienna.
Oliver Moody reports that two dozen American spies, diplomats, and officials have developed unexplained illnesses resembling what has become known as Havana syndrome, a mysterious neurological condition first found among the staff at the U.S. embassy in Cuba in 2016. Symptoms include memory loss, hearing problems, and nausea.
U.S. security authorities have attributed the problem to concentrated beams of microwave radiation by Russians. The apparent outbreak in Austria is believed to be the biggest outside Cuba, and CIA Director William Burns is leading an investigation into the causes.
Sight For The Blind
We previously reported on speech for the speechless; but there is also a breakthrough in bringing sight to the blind. A 58-year-old man who had an injection of light-sensitive proteins into his retina can once again see images and moving objects, according to a study published in Nature Medicine.
The procedure is the first successful clinical application of optogenetics, in which flashes of light are used to control gene expression and neuron firing. The technique is widely used in laboratories to probe neural circuitry and is being investigated as a potential treatment for pain, blindness, and brain disorders.
The clinical trial, run by the company GenSight Biologics, based in Paris, enrolls people with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a degenerative disease that kills off the eye’s photoreceptor cells, which are the first step in the visual pathway. GenSight’s optogenetic therapy skips the damaged photoreceptor cells entirely by using a virus to deliver light-sensitive bacterial proteins into the retinal ganglion cells, allowing them to detect images directly.
Cool: Let’s Save The Planet
SkyCool Systems is developing technology to create coolness by reflecting the heat of the sun back into the sky. Aaswath Raman, who has been fascinated by radiational cooling since earning his doctorate at Stanford University, designed a material using nanotechnology to arrange molecules and atoms to behave exactly as needed.
In less than a year, his team created a thin film composed of seven microscopic layers atop a sliver of silver. The material reflects 97 percent of the sun’s beams, enough to generate a cooling effect during the day. The process works best in climates that are relatively dry with clear skies, as in California, Arizona, and Nevada.
The promise of such systems is that they will reduce the reliance on fossil fuels that are necessary in traditional air conditioning systems which pump a refrigerant through a mechanical system. The fossil fuels and the chemicals required are major contributors to global warming, so by using alternative methods, the planet may be saved.
Correction
The café talk on July 15, “Take Your Garbage Elsewhere,” misidentified Lance Young, who spoke against the siting of a landfill in Dalton. He is chief sachem of the Nemasket Nation, and said he was speaking with the blessings and on behalf of the Abenaki Nation of New Hampshire.
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