Science, Health & Recalls October 6

On September 27, Chinese Astronaut Zhai Zhigang lifted himself out of the Shenzhou VII spacecraft and performed the first spacewalk by a Chinese,The New York Times reports. The nation witnessed the feat via live television coverage, and Zhigang said, “I am here greeting the Chinese people and the people of the world.” The achievement was part of the nation’s effort to establish a space station by 2020 and to land on the moon.

 

British candy maker Cadbury ordered a recall of its China-made chocolates after tests cast doubt on the integrity of various food products, The Daily Mail reports. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the tests revealed melamine, the industrial chemical found in the milk responsible for killing four children in China and making around thousands more ill. Although the Beijing plant said all its dairy suppliers have been cleared by government milk testing, authorities say some manufacturers had been using melamine to make watered-down milk appear full of protein. Nations across Asia Pacific have removed items from store shelves to ensure public health.

 

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded $168.7 million to the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) at the UN Millennium Development Goals Malaria Summit. The PATH MVI is working on the approval of a first-generation vaccine candidate known as RTS,S, and will use the the Gates Foundation grant to expand clinical evaluations of the vaccine and hopefully introduce it to African immunization programs. MVI and partner GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals will launch trials of the vaccine in several African countries where malaria claims more than one million lives every year.

 

Solar panels are reportedly vanishing from rooftops throughout California and reappearing for sale on Internet sites like Craigslist and eBay, The New York Times reports. Solar power is an emission-free renewable energy source to help limit the carbon footprint and promote an environmentally conscious lifestyle. However, solar panels are a lucrative business opportunity.  Arrests have already been made in the sale of stolen solar power panels and investigators are urging buyers to install surveillance systems or personalize their panels for security purposes.

 

Scientists dumped a brigade of ducks into the fastest moving Greenland glacier to help detect melted glacial ice in the ocean, Reuters reports. Research led by robotics expert Alberto Behar of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is scrutinizing the rippling effects of global warming on the fusion of salt and fresh waters, while learning more about the glacier’s seasonal cycles. The popular bath toys contain built-in probes to help scientists learn about the glacier’s innards, and each is labeled with the words “science experiment,” and an e-mail address for anyone who finds them.