Angel Salvatory, 17, buys cloth at a market in Kabanga village in Tanzania. Albinos living in a nearby protection center are allowed to go to the local market as long as they travel in a group for their own safety.
Credit Jacquelyn Martin for NPR
Mwatatu Musa, 45, was abandoned by her husband and now lives in a one room hut in Kakonko, Tanzania. As a young woman she was raped by men, who she thinks victimized her because she has albinism.
Credit Jacquelyn Martin for NPR
Maajabu Boaz, 20, who has albinism, plays checkers with local men where he feels safe in Nengo Village, Kibondo, Tanzania. Boaz has a reputation of carrying knives for self-protection.
Life is hard for albinos throughout Africa, but especially in the East African nation of Tanzania. At best, they face raw prejudice; at worst, they are hunted for their flesh, the results of superstitious beliefs.
Albino killings have been reported in a dozen African countries from South Africa to Kenya, but they are worse in Tanzania than anywhere else.
A new report finds the U.S. birth rate has dropped to its lowest level on record, led by a dramatic decline in births among immigrant women. The trend has been visible at La Clinica del Pueblo, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., that holds a weekly neonatal clinic.
Ireland-based Intrade lets users bet money on all manner of predictions — like if a particular film will win an Oscar. The site is ceasing operations in the U.S.
The popular website Intrade allows its users to bet on the odds of almost anything — like whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will get ousted by a certain date, or whether the movie Argo will win best picture at the Oscars.
This week, Ireland-based Intrade announced that U.S. users will have to unwind their bets and shut down their accounts by the end of the year. That's after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Intrade for operating an unregistered exchange.
Facebook has a long history of upsetting its users by suddenly announcing a change to its privacy settings. In 2009, as a way to quiet the critics, Facebook set up a system for its customers to vote on changes. If enough of them were unhappy, the company would back down. Now, Facebook wants to get rid of the voting.
An iceberg that likely calved from Jakobshavn Isbrae, the fastest glacier in western Greenland.
Credit Ian Joughin / Science/AAAS
For several summers this deeply incised melt channel transported overflow from a large melt lake to a moulin, a conduit that drains the water through many hundreds of feet to the ice sheet's bed.
Originally published on Thu November 29, 2012 4:44 pm
Superstorm Sandy sparked a lot of interest in rising sea levels when it swept across the Northeast last month and flooded parts of the coast. Over the next century, more water — and higher sea levels — could come from melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica. How much has been unclear.
But now scientists have developed a much clearer view of how quickly that ice has been melting over the past two decades. And that will help researchers forecast the rate of sea-level rise in the years to come.