The following questions and answers explore everyday practicalities and doubts about the COVID-19 pandemic, using the latest available scientific research. The Spanish newsroom Civio wrote them for readers in Spain and have translated and adapted them for a wider audience.
Continue reading Translated story: FAQ on coronavirus disease (COVID-19)Category Archives: Outlets
Countries Debate Openness of Future National IDs
Kenya’s High Court ruled Thursday that a recent amendment requiring citizens to register for a national biometric digital identification system overreached on some counts, such as allowing for links to DNA or GPS records, and failed to guarantee sufficient inclusion of Kenyan residents.
The ID system, called the National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS), was a homegrown answer to India’s pioneering Aadhaar system, which two years ago faced its own Indian Supreme Court ruling that upheld some components while modifying others.
More than half of African countries are developing some form of biometric or digital national ID in response to major international calls to establish legal identification for the almost 1 billion people who now lack it. But this ID boom, also taking place outside Africa, often gets ahead of data protection laws, as occurred in Kenya.
Continue reading Countries Debate Openness of Future National IDsTranslated story: Spanish public hospitals pay 307,200 euros for each personalised childhood leukaemia treatment
I translated this story for Madrid civil society group and data journalism newsroom Civio:
“Spanish public hospitals pay 307,200 euros for each personalised childhood leukaemia treatment.”
Ancient crystal growths in caves reveal seas rose 16 meters in a warmer world
The future of sea level rise may be written into the walls of coastal Spanish caves.
Mineral “bathtub rings” deposited inside the limestone Artà Caves on the Balearic island of Mallorca show how high seas rose during the Pliocene Epoch — a time when Earth was about as warm as it’s expected to get by 2100. Those mineral deposits suggest the planet’s seas were around 16 meters higher on average than they are today, researchers report August 30 in Nature.
Continue reading Ancient crystal growths in caves reveal seas rose 16 meters in a warmer world