Posts tagged : "Science"

Kourosh Ziabari - Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington: The tidal wave of the coronavirus pandemic is subsiding. Increasingly countries are returning to normalcy as vaccinations and herd immunity are prevailing, and states are beginning to bounce back from the throes of the crisis. In Iran, the second country in the Middle East to confirm a coronavirus case, and once a hotspot of contagion, the government’s idiosyncratic response to the health emergency and its ideological handling of the immunization plans still resonates with many as the symptom of a broader malaise: the perception that to the government, politics supersede Iranian lives. It remains unclear when the first case was diagnosed versus what was...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran’s talented, educated youth have consistently cultivated the nation’s public image as one characterized by vibrancy and motivation to push the boundaries. Whether mathematicians, computer scientists, anthropologists or artists, Iranians have carved out a universal reputation as hard-working and creative, even though the lion’s share of this brilliance is bearing fruit overseas, not at home. Over time, the country’s name has become a shorthand for its deep-seated brain drain, sapping the Islamic Republic’s strength to address challenges and deliver for its people. The authorities routinely complain about this human capital flight coming at the expense of the nation’s progress, and...

Kourosh Ziabari - The New Arab: Five years have passed since the death of Maryam Mirzakhani, an Iranian mathematics genius whose long list of international accolades and substantial role in elevating academia have made her a scientific celebrity, ensuring her popularity transcends the borders of Iran. On July 14, 2017, at the age of 40, the young Mirzakhani died of breast cancer after four years of grappling with illness. She is the first and only woman so far to have received a Fields Medal from the International Mathematical Union since the award’s inception in 1936. Unofficially known as the Nobel Prize in mathematics, Fields goes to scholars and researchers aged 40 or younger who make outstanding contributions to...

Kourosh Ziabari - TRT World: It was once the largest saltwater lake in the Middle East, and the sixth largest on Earth. Along its fertile banks, civilisations rose and fell. It was the cradle of life, sustaining millions of lives through millennia — humans, animals, birds. It is now dying. Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran is fast on its way to desiccation or drying up. And the emergency management authorities of the West Azerbaijan province have warned as recently as July 14 that more than 95 percent of the highly saline lake’s water has disappeared. This follows a two-decade pattern of annually losing 40 centimetres of its water level. Although officials blame the runaway drying of the lake to the conundrum of climate change and...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: Climate change is a complex threat to life on Earth, driving countless shifts worldwide, and it is only through collective action on the individual, national, regional and international levels that it can be addressed meaningfully. The provision of food, fiber, fuel and freshwater, without which human society and its economy cannot survive, is jeopardized by the rising global temperature and record levels of land and freshwater exploitation. The UN Secretary General António Guterres has termed climate change the “defining challenge of our time.” Some experts talk of climate change as a “threat multiplier” that even has the potential to increase the risk of political instability and terrorism. Climate...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: The world is reeling from an unprecedented, lethal pandemic and governments are scrambling to come up with a remedy in the form of a vaccine that can tamp down the torrent of deaths and infection it is causing. It is intrinsic that the scourge of COVID-19 and the global economic recession associated with it represent the leitmotif of daily conversations, soaking up the attention of media and the public. At this critical time, it might be that such pressing global challenges as global warming are overlooked. But let’s face it: our summers and winters are getting warmer; with the rise of sea levels at rates not chronicled in some 3,000 years, cities as colossal as Jakarta might be submerged altogether; the...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: Facts about climate change are frightening enough to prod conscientious citizens of the 21st century into taking swift action to avert the tragedy which now looms large over their lives and survival. According to NASA data, the average global temperatures in 2019 were warmer than the entire 20th century average. Eleven percent of the world’s population, namely 800 million people, is highly vulnerable to climate change impacts. Global warming and extreme weather conditions are responsible for as many as 150,000 deaths annually. And despite the abundance of figures and studies pointing to the acuteness of the situation, there are leaders who irresponsibly call climate change a hoax and deny climate science...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: Facts that corroborate the world is entangled in a climate emergency are abundant. Scientific evidence paints a clear and unambiguous picture of what lies ahead for the humanity: climate change is happening, it is almost entirely triggered by harmful anthropogenic activity, and in the decades to come, its impacts on human life will be scorching and at times irreversible. 2020, the second hottest year on record since 1880, witnessed unfortunate natural disasters almost unvaryingly linked to climate change. Record-setting wildfires engulfing Australia, California, Brazil and Siberia; an unprecedented hurricane season in the Atlantic marked by 30 named storms; massive floods overwhelming India and Bangladesh,...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: While US-Iran relations are apparently warming, with hopes rising of a resumption of the scuppered Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear pact, Washington continues to pile on punitive measures, particularly in the technology sector. The US government recently imposed a penalty of US$8 million on Germany’s SAP Software Solutions for “illegally” exporting US-origin software, including upgrades and security fixes, to Iranian users. The sale violated the technology sanctions placed on the Middle East nation, which is home to nearly 60 million internet users. From 2010 to 2017, SAP and its international partners exported the technology a total of 20,000 times to people in Iran and...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: There is unanimity among scientists that the Earth’s climate is presently changing faster at any point in the history of modern civilization, and this inauspicious change, unleashing a variety of negative impacts on human life, is chiefly triggered by anthropogenic activities. As evidenced by a plethora of academic and scholarly research, the worrying growth of the emissions of heat-tapping greenhouse gases, deforestation, land-use change and solid waste and waste water generation are only some of the drivers of a phenomenon some experts have warned is the most conspicuous threat to human rights in our time. Climate change affects human communities in a number of ways. Human health, infrastructure and...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran, like the rest of the world, has seen the novel coronavirus wreak havoc on public health, the economy, education, and transportation. But in the Islamic republic, the pandemic is also exposing social and religious rifts that have been simmering under the surface for decades, and which come to light at times of crisis. The Iranian authorities on March 16 announced that the shrine of the eighth Shiite Imam Reza in the holy city of Mashhad and the shrine of his sister, the revered Fatimah bint Musa, in the pilgrimage city of Qom, would be closed down to preclude the spread of Covid-19, as both of these sites are used for congregational prayers. Qom was the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: A member of the Association of American Universities, the University at Buffalo (UB) is the largest and most comprehensive public research university in the State University of New York (SUNY) system. A world-renowned center for research and academic excellence,  Buffalo was established in 1846 and enrolls more than 30,000 students. The university is 89th in the 2019 Best College Rankings, according to the US News and World Report. Researchers and scholars at the University at Buffalo are credited with many important scientific discoveries, achievements and breakthroughs. For example, the university’s medical researchers have developed a vaccine that can block mosquitoes from transmitting malaria....