(CNN Business)China’s decision to allow families to have three children could produce a windfall for makers of strollers, car seats and baby formula. At least, that’s what investors think.Stocks tied to baby products and maternity services soared in mainland China and Hong Kong on Monday after the Chinese government announced a major change to its family planning policy as the country tries to avert a demographic crisis.Shares of Goodbaby, which makes children’s products, jumped 31% in Hong Kong. Suzhou Basecare Medical Co., which offers genetic testing for couples looking to undergo IVF, rose 15%.
Beingmate, a major infant formula manufacturer, climbed 8% in Shenzhen. Goldlok Holdings, which makes electric trains and dolls, leaped 10%. Clothing maker Lancy was up 7%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng (HSI) inched up 0.1% on Monday, while the Shenzhen Composite rose 1.1%.
We read all day so you don’t have to.Get our nightly newsletter for all the top business stories you need to know.Sign Me UpBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.The Chinese Communist Party’s top leadership made the decision to permit couples to have up to three children at a meeting Monday, though state media reports did not say when the policy change would be implemented.It comes just three weeks after Beijing published its 2020 census, which showed China’s population was growing at its slowest rate in decades. That’s putting major pressure on an economy that relies on a young workforce to support an aging population and keep up high levels of growth.China’s one-child policy was in place for more than 35 years as Beijing tried to address overpopulation and alleviate poverty.
In 2015, the Chinese government announced that it would loosen the restrictions to allow up to two children per family. But the reversal failed to raise the country’s birth rate, which fell by almost 15% year-on-year in 2020.— Laura He, Ben Westcott and Eric Cheung contributed reporting.
ByLAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORYMAY 30, 2021
New research by LLNL scientists shows that satellite measurements of the temperature of the troposphere (the lowest region of the atmosphere) may have underestimated global warming over the last 40 years. One of the physical processes they looked at was tropical water vapor like shown in this NASA image. Credit: NASA
New research by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) climate scientists and collaborators shows that satellite measurements of the temperature of the troposphere (the lowest region of the atmosphere) may have underestimated global warming over the last 40 years.
The research appears in theJournal of Climate.
The team studied four different properties of tropical climate change. Each property is a ratio between trends in…
Reports of this animal’s demise were otter nonsense.
A wild giant river otter feared to be extinct in Argentina was recently spotted swimming in the country’s Bermejo River,according to local conservationists.
“It was a huge surprise,” Sebastián Di Martino, director of conservation at Fundación RewildingArgentinatold The Guardian.
“I was incredulous. An incredible feeling of so much happiness,” Di Martino said of the sighting. “I didn’t know if I should try to follow it or rush back to our station to tell the others.”
The species, officially calledPteronura brasiliensis,had not been seen in the…
It’s tempting to think these electromagnetic bursts could be used to predict when a quake will strike. Up until now, however, the cause of the strange bursts hasn’t been clear.
New research suggests that the key lies in the gases that get trapped in what’s known as a fault valve and can build up ahead of an earthquake. These impermeable layers of rock can slip across a fault, effectively creating a gate that blocks the flow of underground water.
When the fault valve eventually cracks and pressure decreases, carbon dioxide or methane dissolved in the trapped water is released, expanding in volume and pushing the cracks in the fault. As the gas emerges, it also gets electrified, with electrons released from the cracked surfaces attaching themselves to gas molecules and generating a current as they move upwards.
“The results supported the validity of the present working hypothesis, that coupled interaction of fracturing rock with deep Earth gases during quasi-static rupture of rocks in the focal zone of a fault might play an important role in the generation of pre- and co-seismic electromagnetic phenomena,” write the researchers in their published paper.
Using a customized lab setup, the team was able to test the reactions of quartz diorite, gabbro, basalt, and fine-grained granite in scaled-down earthquake-like simulations. They showed that electrified gas currents could indeed be linked to rock fracture.
The type of rock does make a difference, the scientists found. Rocks including granite have lattice defects that capture unpaired electrons over time through natural radiation rising from below the surface, and that leads to a larger current.
And the type of fault seems to have an effect as well. The study backs up previous research from the same scientists into seismo-electromagnetics, showing how carbon dioxide released from an earthquake fault could be electrified and produce magnetic fields.
Other hypotheses about the electromagnetic bursts include the idea that the rocks themselves could become semiconductors under enough strain and with enough heat, while other experts don’t think these weird bursts are predictors at all.
Until an earthquake is actually predicted by unusual electromagnetic activity – activity that happens a lot on our planet as a matter of course anyway – the jury is still out. But if this idea is backed up by future research, it could give us a life-saving method for getting a heads up on future quakes.
“As a result of this laboratory experiment, it might be possible to detect the electric signal accompanying an earthquake by observing the telluric potential/current induced in a conductor, such as a steel water pipe buried underground,” conclude the researchers.
“Such an approach is now undergoing model field tests.”
One of the fastest-warming regions of the U.S. is the Southwest — and that region, plus the broader West, is stuck in itsmost expansive and intense droughtof the 21st century.
Why it matters:Studies show that a warming climate is exacerbating the drought, and in some ways may be triggering it in the first place. That means the Southwest is drying out — and California’s large wildfires could start as soon as next month.
And one climate researcher says California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains saw one of the fastest snow melt-outs in history this year.
The drought situation is particularly severe in the Colorado River Basin and northern California. Scientists and public officials are warning that the California wildfire season is likely to be severe, due to the combination of dry vegetation and above-average temperatures.
President Bidensent a warning to the presidents ofChinaandRussiaduring his Memorial Day address on Sunday.
“I had a long conversation for two hours recently with [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping], making it clear to him we could do nothing but speak out for human rights around the world because that’s who we are,” Biden said. “I’ll be meeting with [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin in a couple weeks in Geneva making it clear that we will not stand by and let him abuse those rights.”
WASHINGTON — Before he became a climate activist during his freshman year of college, Benji Backer had spoken at the Conservative Political Action Conference, written for right-leaning sites such as TownHall and RedState, and made a name for himself as a conservative commentator on television.
But like many other young people, he worried about climate change and didn’t see a place for himself in either the conservative movement, which mostly ignores or denies climate change, or the environmental movement, in which major institutes like the Sierra Club tend to align with Democrats.
“We want to plant a flagpole in the sand to say, this is an issue conservatives can and should lead on,” he said. “There is absolutely zero path to a zero emissions, climate change-free future without bipartisanship — and anybody who doesn’t accept that isn’t taking this seriously.”
The group has grown to more than 220 branches, many of which are on college campuses, with thousands of grassroots members and relationships on Capitol Hill.
The June 5 rally in Miami, a city that could wind up underwater if sea levels continue to rise, will feature like-minded Republicans such as Florida’s former Rep. Carlos Curbelo and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who has integrated climate adaptation into all of the city’s long-term planning.
“It is no longer an issue of the environment versus the economy; the environment is the economy,” Suarez said. “We hope to serve as a model of how conservative policies can protect the environment, invest in the future, and address the challenges of climate change.”
Backer and others say the partisan divide on climate is starting to narrow as people feel the effects of a warming climate and thanks to a rising generation of millennial and Gen Z voters who are far more likely than older Republicans to say human-caused climate change is real and that the government needs to do more about it.
Outside the left, many who care about the environment are turned off by what they view as the hectoring rhetoric of climate activists, Backer said.
“You have all these groups on the left, and then no groups on the right. That’s the market gap that we fit,” he said. “We are really the first and only grassroots movement in this space.”
Benji Backer, president of the American Conservation Coalition, testifies during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on September 18, 2019 on Capitol Hill.Alex Wong / Getty Images file
Focusing on more optimistic messages of innovation and local solutions can bring new people into the fold, he said, pointing to billionaire Elon Musk as an example of someone being rewarded in the market while reducing carbon emissions by popularizing electric vehicles.
In rural America, there’s a long history of conservation among hunters and fishermen, going back to former President Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican sportsman who founded the national park system, who now feel alienated by the culture of environmentalism and its often abstract goals.
“There are so many parts of this country that could be brought in if you can just make it about their backyards, something they can have personal buy-in,” said Backer, who spent much of last year on a cross-country road trip in a Tesla speaking with local groups. “And with climate change, that’s really easy to do that because it’s going to affect every community in this country.”
It focuses more on government carrots than sticks, such funding for clean energy research, and emphasizes nuclear power and carbon capture technologies, which progressive environments view warily.
“This shouldn’t be a partisan issue and it should be something that we can find sensible common ground on,” said Rep. Peter Meijer, R-Mich., a 33-year-old who thinks Republicans can champion a free market approach to climate solutions, told NBC News. “But that requires the Democratic Party to not greenwash economic redistribution efforts and it requires the Republican Party to stop denialism.”
The American Conservation Coalition has faced predictable criticisms from the left and the right, but has overlapping membership with both youth conservative groups like Turning Point USA and relationships with less politicized environmental groups, like the Nature Conservancy.
The group chose Miami for its first rally because it views Florida as an example of conservative leadership on climate.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a loyalist of former President Donald Trump who is eyeing his own 2024 presidential run, just signed legislation to prepare the state for rising sea levels and more severe storms that won overwhelming support in the GOP-controlled Legislature.
DeSantis notably did not talk much about climate change around the bill, nor does it address carbon emissions, but that may have helped depolarize the issue.
“We can debate all day the whys and how this happens,” Florida House Speaker Chris Sprowls, a Republican, said in response to Democratic criticism that it didn’t go far enough, “but if we just do that and we just debated all day, we wouldn’t do anything.”
Aylin WoodwardSat, May 29, 2021, 5:00 AM·7 min read
A fossilized mastodon skull and tusk discovered in an area of California east of Oakland.East Bay Municipal Utility District
A ranger patrolling a watershed area east of Oakland, California discovered a trove of hundreds of fossils last summer from nearly a dozen ancient species. The site contains hundreds of petrified trees as well.
It’s one of the largest fossil finds in California history, and new fossils are still being unearthed there almost every day.
The discovery include fossils from prehistoric elephants with four tusks, mammoth-like mastodons, tortoises, and camels. The findings have so far all been between 5 and 10 million years old.
The trove’s precise location remains a secret to protect the fossils and prevent looting.
The photos below show some of the findings so far.
Haverhill, MA – May 6: A site specialist employee with Curative waves to passing cars in Haverhill, MA on May 6, 2021. Haverhill area residents can get vaccinated by Curative at a pop-up clinic at an AMVETS Hall in Haverhill. Curative has been reaching out to hard-hit communities to encourage vaccination. Massachusetts is pivoting to a new outreach strategy in an effort to boost immunization among the unvaccinated. (Photo by David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Dan Keating and Leslie ShapiroSat, May 29, 2021, 3:27 PM·6 min read
The country’s declining covid-19 case rates present an unrealistically optimistic perspective for half of the nation – the half that is still not vaccinated.
As more people receive vaccines, covid-19 cases are occurring mostly in the increasingly narrow slice of the unprotected population. So The Washington Post adjusted its case, death and hospitalization rates to account for that…
