Tag Archives: gadget news

Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ update brings front camera improvement and October 2018 security patch



Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ update brings front camera improvement and October 2018 security patch

Samsung has pushed out an update with camera improvements for the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ today. The company released a similar update for the Galaxy Note 9 late last month, but for the Galaxy S9, the improvements come for the front camera. The changelog notes that the brightness of faces in environments with backlighting has been improved. The update also brings the October 2018 security patch
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Crews battle final cussed Southern California wildfire

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Crews fought a pitched battle towards the final remaining massive wildfire in Southern California because the cussed flames threatened almost 2,000 properties and different buildings.

The fireplace that erupted on a hilltop northeast of Los Angeles headed for what could be its third day Saturday and firefighters had been discovering it arduous work as shifting winds made the entrance line a transferring goal.

The Maria Hearth had burned some 15 sq. miles (38 sq. kilometers) and prompted evacuation orders for almost 11,000 individuals because it started Thursday night.

Jap Ventura, Camarillo, Somis and Santa Paula had been in danger, Ventura County fireplace officers mentioned.

On Friday, a tug of struggle developed between onshore and offshore winds.

“It has been an uphill battle ever since,” Ventura County Hearth Chief Mark Lorenzen mentioned. “As winds shift, now we have a complete new gas mattress open up.”

Winds and skin-cracking low humidity had been anticipated to make Saturday one other troublesome day for firefighters.

Crews battled to maintain the flames away from orchards and farms within the rural space. Three buildings had been destroyed.

The trigger was underneath investigation however there was a troubling chance that {an electrical} line might need been concerned — as such traces have been at different latest fires.

Southern California Edison mentioned Friday that it re-energized a 16,000-volt energy line 13 minutes earlier than the fireplace erupted in the identical space.

Edison and different utilities up and down the state shut off energy to a whole lot of hundreds of individuals this week out of issues that prime winds may trigger energy traces to spark and begin fires.

SCE will cooperate with investigators, the utility mentioned.

The fireplace started throughout what had been anticipated to be the tail finish of a siege of Santa Ana winds that fanned fires that destroyed buildings and prompted mass evacuations throughout the area.

The fires even caught the eye of teenage climate-change activist Greta Thunberg, who was visiting Los Angeles for a rally.

“It has been horrifying to see what’s going on right here and what occurs right here typically and that it is gotten worse due to the local weather disaster,” she mentioned.

Crimson flag climate warnings of utmost fireplace hazard had been anticipated to run out Friday night however forecasters prolonged them to six p.m. Saturday for valleys and inside mountains of Ventura and Los Angeles counties, citing the withering situations.

In Northern California, extra individuals had been allowed to return to areas evacuated because of the enormous Kincade Hearth burning for days within the Sonoma County wine nation.

The 121-square-mile (313-square-kilometer) fireplace was 70% contained, the California Division of Forestry and Hearth Safety mentioned.

The tally of destroyed properties reached 174 and there have been 35 extra broken, Cal Hearth mentioned. Many different constructions additionally burned.

Historic, dry winds prompted the state’s largest utility, Pacific Gasoline & Electrical Co., to provoke 4 rounds of widespread pre-emptive shut-offs in Northern California this month to stop wildfires.

However the Contra Costa County Hearth Safety District pegged the utility’s tools as the reason for three smaller fires that cropped up Sunday within the San Francisco Bay Space suburbs of Martinez and Lafayette.

And whereas the reason for the Kincade Hearth hasn’t been decided, PG&E reported an issue with a transmission tower close to the spot the place the fireplace began.

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AP employees author Janie Har in San Francisco and John Rogers in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

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Amazon’s revenue falls as quicker transport prices soar

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Amazon’s push for quicker supply is hurting its income.

The net retailer mentioned third-quarter revenue fell 26% from a 12 months in the past, lacking Wall Road expectations. Its inventory sunk 6.5% in after-hours buying and selling.

Amazon is shifting to chop its supply time in half, to in the future as a substitute of two, for Prime members who pay $119 a 12 months. The corporate mentioned that it is costing the corporate about $1.5 billion to make the change, almost double what it anticipated.

“It is a massive funding, and it is the fitting long-term resolution for patrons,” mentioned Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, in a press release.

The Seattle-based firm reported internet earnings of $2.1 billion, or $4.23 per share, within the quarter ending Sept. 30. That is 36 cents beneath what analysts anticipated, based on FactSet.

Its income, nevertheless, beat expectations, rising 24% to $70 billion.

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Schumer requires federal probe of contaminated child meals

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The Senate’s prime Democrat is asking on the Meals and Drug Administration to look at a report that discovered dozens of child meals merchandise contaminated with lead and different metals.

Sen. Chuck Schumer says Sunday the FDA should take extra motion to control the infant meals trade. A research by Wholesome Infants Shiny Futures discovered the presence of heavy metals in 95% of the 168 child meals that have been examined.

The research discovered 95% of the meals examined contained lead, arsenic, mercury or cadmium. It discovered one in 4 child meals that have been examined contained all 4 metals.

The New York senator says shoppers “rightfully anticipate these meals to be undeniably protected, appropriately regulated and nutritiously sustaining.”

He says federal regulators ought to look at the research and launch a public assertion of their findings.

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‘Flash drought’ brings mud and dread to southern farmers

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Throughout an unlimited expanse of the South stretching from Texas to Maryland, there are rising issues for the cattle, cotton and corn amid a worsening drought fueled by this summer time’s report excessive temperatures.

One of many bullseyes marking the nation’s driest areas is Bartow County, Georgia, the place excessive drought has kicked up buckets of mud and left cattle pastures naked. The farm nation northwest of Atlanta is among the many hardest hit spots in a dozen Southern states the place greater than 45 million residents are actually residing in some sort of drought circumstances, the latest U.S. Drought Monitor report reveals.

Throughout the South, the drought has ravaged the pastures the place cattle and different livestock feed. The vast majority of these lands are in both poor or very poor situation in Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas and West Virginia, the U.S. Division of Agriculture reported in its most up-to-date crop report. Pasture and vary circumstances had been in even worse form in Virginia, the place 71% of the land is in poor or very poor form.

“Trying forward if we do not get sufficient rain and the pastures do not get better, we’ll be dipping into winter feeding hay earlier than time, or should liquidate some cattle,” mentioned Dean Bagwell, a cattle farmer in Bartow County.

“It’s irritating with the climate, sophisticated by cattle costs not as excessive as we would prefer to see them,” he mentioned. “So if you’re pressured to promote, then you are going to have much less revenue. It simply all performs into the frustration of making an attempt to make a residing farming.”

At a farm the place individuals come to see the kangaroos, camels and different wildlife in Cartersville, Georgia, proprietor Scott Allen factors out the “baked mud” and cracked earth within the mattress of a small stream close to his zebras. The pure spring water is sort of dried up, so he is utilizing municipal water.

“It has been in all probability higher than 60 days since we had any precipitation that amounted to something,” Allen mentioned. “The mud is simply relentless.”

The USDA crop report reveals practically 1 / 4 of the cotton crop is in poor or very poor situation in Texas, the place greater than 13 million individuals — greater than half the state’s inhabitants — are experiencing drought circumstances, the middle reported. Excessive drought unfold into a number of new areas of central and japanese Texas in current weeks.

The scenario can be dire in North Carolina, the place 40% of the cotton and 30% of the corn is in poor or very poor form. In Georgia, practically 20% of the peanut crop is in poor or very poor situation, the report reveals.

The warmth has performed a big issue, forecasters say. In August, excessive temperatures and humidity despatched the warmth index hovering throughout the South. The warmth index — what it truly appears like — rose to 121 levels (49.four Celsius) in Clarksdale, Mississippi, on Aug. 12. And that warmth caught round, carrying report excessive temperatures into October. A number of Alabama cities this 12 months have seen their hottest October temperature ever recorded.

The mixture of dry climate and intense warmth can create drought circumstances comparatively shortly, leading to a “flash drought.”

The time period took place throughout a 2001 drought within the Nice Plains. Mark Svoboda, director of the Nationwide Drought Mitigation Middle, was searching for a option to describe the speedy onset of that drought and got here up with “flash drought,” he recollects. The phrase resonated with individuals and made headlines in The Omaha World-Herald’s protection of that drought. Again then, Svoboda and different scientists had few instruments to trace flash droughts. Throughout the previous decade, nonetheless, satellite tv for pc imagery has given forecasters a lot better knowledge to observe a rapidly-spreading drought, Svoboda mentioned.

In coming years, local weather change is anticipated to accentuate droughts and improve their frequency, scientists warned within the Nationwide Local weather Evaluation launched by the White Home final 12 months. And warmth waves are anticipated to hit the South tougher than different areas.

Cities with a very excessive threat of future warmth waves embrace Memphis, Tennessee; and Raleigh, North Carolina. New Orleans and Birmingham, Alabama, are additionally cited within the report as having traits towards extra intense and frequent warmth waves.

A brand new report on the drought is anticipated later Thursday displaying the harm already executed, however now Bagwell and different farmers are involved concerning the long-term outlook. Octobers are normally among the many driest months within the South. There’s one hope for farmers: Lengthy-range forecasts level towards above-normal precipitation within the Southeast later this month, based on the Local weather Prediction Middle.

On the Tri-County Gin in Cartersville, one of many final remaining cotton gins in north Georgia, mud from the Georgia purple clay coats the pickup truck the place proprietor David Smith friends over the steering wheel and ponders the dry circumstances.

“It is not an entire, general catastrophe, however there are locations which might be hurting unhealthy,” he mentioned.

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The Newest: Oxygen performs main half in lots of ailments

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The Newest on the Nobel Prize in Drugs or Physiology (all occasions native):

1:15 p.m.

A member of the Nobel Committee at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet says this yr’s award was given for “a elementary primary science discovery about how the physique adapts to totally different ranges of oxygen.”

Nils-Goran Larsson informed The Related Press that though we’re surrounded by oxygen “we now have to adapt to totally different oxygen ranges — as an example if we begin dwelling at increased altitude we now have to adapt and get extra purple blood cells, extra blood vessels, and likewise in numerous illness processes the regulation of oxygen and the metabolism is essential.”

Larsson says “folks with renal failure typically get hormonal therapy for anemia. With this discovery system there are alternative routes of doing this and creating comparable therapies.”

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Drugs was earlier within the day given collectively to medics William G. Kaelin, Jr., Peter Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza for his or her analysis into how cells reply to ranges of oxygen.

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1:05 p.m.

The Johns Hopkins College Faculty of Drugs is celebrating one in all its high researchers, Dr. Gregg Semenza, who shares this yr’s Nobel Prize for drugs for his work on how genes reply to low ranges of oxygen.

Semenza’s dean, Paul B. Rothman, says his “groundbreaking primary analysis has been impressed largely by what he has seen within the clinic” at Hopkins. The college says that work has “far-reaching implications in understanding the impacts of low oxygen ranges in blood issues, blinding eye ailments, most cancers, diabetes, coronary artery illness, and different situations.”

The 63-year-old Semenza shares the award with William G. Kaelin Jr., professor of drugs at Harvard College and the Dana-Farber Most cancers Institute who did his specialist coaching in inner drugs and oncology at Johns Hopkins, and Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe, professor at Oxford College and on the Francis Crick Institute.

Johns Hopkins College President Ronald J. Daniels calls it a momentous day, and says they’re immensely happy with Semenza’s ardour for discovery, an instance of the college’s dedication to creating new information that helps make a greater and extra humane world.

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1 p.m.

Reached at his house within the Boston space, Kaelin stated he was half-asleep when his cellphone rang at 4:50 a.m.

“I used to be conscious as a scientist that in case you get a cellphone name at 5 a.m. with too many digits, it is generally excellent information, and my coronary heart began racing. It was all a bit surreal,” he stated.

Kaelin, who was born within the New York Metropolis borough of Queens and grew up within the metropolis’s suburbs, stated the prize committee had initially been unable to seek out his cellphone quantity so that they first reached his sister, “and that may develop into a part of the household lore.”

Kaelin stated he is not positive but how he’ll spend the prize cash however “clearly I will attempt to put it to some good trigger.”

Requested what sensible payoffs have been achieved from his work, Kaelin defined that “the molecular pathway that my fellow prize winners and I helped to outline converges on a protein known as HIF, and on account of this work there are actually alternatives to both enhance or lower HIF.”

He stated medicine are being developed to do this. Sure ailments like anemia could be handled by rising HIF, whereas inhibiting that protein may assist with different ailments together with sure cancers.

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12:50 p.m.

Dr. Andrew Murray of the College of Cambridge says the three winners of the Nobel prize in drugs “revealed the elegant mechanisms by which our cells sense oxygen ranges and reply to fluctuations.

In a press release on Monday, Murray stated that hypoxia — when the physique does not have sufficient oxygen — is a attribute of quite a few ailments together with coronary heart failure, power lung illness and plenty of cancers.

He stated the work of Dr. William G. Kaelin Jr, Dr. Gregg Semenza and Dr. Peter Ratcliffe has “paved the best way to better understanding of those frequent, life-threatening situations and new methods to deal with them.”

12:15 p.m.

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Drugs was given collectively to William G. Kaelin Jr, who was born in 1957 in New York Metropolis and is a professor of drugs at Harvard College; Peter Ratcliffe, 65, of the College of Oxford; and 63-year-old Gregg L. Semenza on the Johns Hopkins College Faculty of Drugs.

The trio was given the award collectively for his or her discoveries of “how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability,” the Nobel Committee introduced Monday.

Thomas Perlmann, the secretary of the Nobel Committee on the Sweden’s Karolinska Instititute, stated he was capable of name the three laureates Monday, including the final one he known as was Kaelin. He reached him through his sister who gave him two cellphone numbers — the primary one was a incorrect quantity however he reached Kaelin on the second.

“He was actually completely satisfied,” Perlmann informed a information convention.

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11:30 a.m.

The 2019 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Drugs has been awarded to scientists William G. Kaelin, Jr, Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza.

They obtained the award collectively for his or her discoveries of “how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability,” the Nobel Committee introduced Monday.

It’s the 110th prize within the class that has been awarded since 1901.

The Karolinska Institutet stated in a press release the trio ought to share equally the 9 million kronor ($918,000) money award.

The discoveries made by the three males “have elementary significance for physiology and have paved the best way for promising new methods to battle anemia, most cancers and plenty of different ailments.”

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8:30 a.m.

The winners of this yr’s Nobel Prizes are to be introduced over the following week, to incorporate two literature laureates and the coveted Nobel Peace Prize.

Occasions start Monday with the award for physiology or drugs. The physics prize is handed out Tuesday and the next day is the chemistry prize.

This yr’s double-header Literature Prizes will likely be awarded Thursday and the Peace Prize will likely be introduced on Friday.

The economics prize — formally generally known as the Financial institution of Sweden Prize in Financial Sciences in Reminiscence of Alfred Nobel — will likely be awarded on Oct. 14.

The 2018 literature prize was suspended after a scandal rocked the Swedish Academy. The physique plans to award it this yr, together with saying the 2019 laureate.

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Learn extra tales on the 2019 Nobel Prizes by The Related Press at https://www.apnews.com/NobelPrizes

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Going with the floe: Scientists to arrange Arctic ice camp

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Scientists have chosen an ice floe on which to start establishing a analysis camp for a year-long worldwide expedition to review the Arctic, Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute mentioned Friday.

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After a number of days of looking out, researchers discovered an appropriate floe measuring about 2.5 kilometers by 3.5 kilometers (1.5 miles by 2.2 miles) within the Arctic Sea north of Russia that can function a base for the mission, the institute mentioned.

“It might not be the proper floe, however it’s one of the best one on this a part of the Arctic, and provides higher working situations than we might have anticipated after a heat Arctic summer season,” it quoted mission chief Markus Rex as saying.

Selecting the best floe is essential to the plan of permitting the expedition vessel RV Polarstern to float with the present all through winter, when an icebreaker wouldn’t usually be capable to penetrate so deeply into the central Arctic.

“We’ll have to attend and see if it’s additionally secure sufficient to face up to the autumnal storms that are actually brewing,” Rex mentioned, including that the workforce is “ready for all situations.”

The 140 million-euro ($158 million) expedition entails a whole bunch of scientists from 19 international locations, together with Germany, america, Russia, Britain, France and China. Their intention is to gather information from the distant and inhospitable north to enhance the scientific fashions that underpin their understanding of the Arctic and local weather change.

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MOSAiC expedition website: https://observe.mosaic-expedition.org/

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Peruvian authorities: 12.three million dried seahorses seized

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Authorities in Peru say they’ve detained a ship carrying 12.three million dried seahorses with a $6 million export worth in an unprecedented operation.

Peruvian marines adopted the Adonay ship for a number of days earlier than intercepting it about 200 miles (322 kilometers) off the Pacific coast.

On board, authorities discovered 55 packing containers crammed with seahorses in what Peruvians say is the biggest such seize on document.

4 crew members have been additionally detained and withstand 5 years in jail every.

All through the years, the ocean creature has been illegally purchased to be used in Chinese language drugs.

However considerations about declining populations have led many international locations to implement export bans.

Authorities introduced the most recent operation Tuesday and say the seahorses might be donated to investigative facilities and native universities for analysis.

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PayPal drops out of Libra, Fb’s funds mission

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PayPal has pulled out of Fb’s digital forex mission, often called Libra, a blow to the social media firm that has confronted stronger-than-expected scrutiny over its proposed creation of another funds system.

The digital funds firm mentioned Friday it’s withdrawing from the Libra Affiliation so it will probably give attention to its current companies.

“Fb has been a longstanding and valued strategic associate to PayPal, and we are going to proceed to associate with and help Fb in numerous capacities,” PayPal mentioned.

Fb has introduced Libra as a forex that might be used for digital funds, notably exterior the U.S. It could be backed by actual forex, in contrast to different digital currencies like Bitcoin or Etherium.

The Libra Affiliation, primarily based in Switzerland, was supposed to offer the forex mission a cushty arm’s size distance from Fb, which would not personal Libra.

Regardless of Fb’s efforts, monetary regulators in addition to members of Congress have questioned the corporate’s motives for creating a brand new digital forex, notably in mild of criticisms that Fb’s enterprise mannequin is just too invasive of its customers’ privateness.

Rep. Maxine Waters, the chairwoman of the Home Monetary Providers Committee, has demanded Fb founder Mark Zuckerberg testify in entrance of her committee earlier than Libra is rolled out. Together with privateness issues, Waters’ has cited the potential for Libra for use in cash laundering and different monetary crimes.

Republicans and Democrats and even President Donald Trump have known as for in numerous levels for Fb to be topic to U.S. banking legal guidelines — an arduous, sophisticated prospect — if the social media firm does transfer ahead with the Libra mission. In response, Fb has reportedly employed a number of outstanding Washington lobbyists to persuade politicians to offer their approval to Libra.

PayPal Holdings Inc., which is predicated in San Jose, California, is the primary firm to publicly finish its partnership with Libra, however different firms have been reportedly having second ideas. The Wall Road Journal reported this week that Mastercard and Visa, the world’s largest fee suppliers, have been contemplating ending their Libra relationships.

The Libra Affiliation mentioned it plans to proceed to maneuver ahead with the mission with out PayPal.

“Constructing (Libra) is a journey, not a vacation spot … every group that began this journey should make its personal evaluation of dangers and rewards of being dedicated to seeing by way of the change that Libra guarantees,” mentioned Dante Disparte, head of coverage and communications for the Libra Affiliation.

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NASA units 1st all-female spacewalk after swimsuit flap in spring

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The primary all-female spacewalk is again on, six months after a suit-sizing flap led to an embarrassing cancellation.

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NASA introduced Friday that the Worldwide Area Station’s two ladies will pair up for a spacewalk later this month. Astronauts Christina Koch and the newly arrived Jessica Meir will enterprise out Oct. 21 to plug in new, upgraded batteries for the solar energy system.

Will probably be the fourth of 5 spacewalks for battery work. The primary is Sunday; Koch will exit with Andrew Morgan.

Koch was alleged to do a spacewalk with one other feminine crewmate in March. However NASA needed to scrap the plan just some days prematurely as a result of there wasn’t sufficient time to get a second medium-size spacesuit prepared. The second medium was put collectively on board in June.

NASA’s deputy chief astronaut Megan McArthur advised reporters the all-female spacewalk can be a milestone. However she famous that girls are so built-in in any respect ranges at NASA now that they do not are likely to dwell on gender.

“I am certain that they will sit again and replicate on it, as all of us will. We’ll all have a good time that,” McArthur stated.

Koch and Meir, a marine biologist who arrived on the orbiting lab final week, are each members of NASA’s Astronaut Class of 2013, the primary and just one with a fair break up between women and men. They’re additionally each making their first spaceflights.

Koch, {an electrical} engineer, is greater than 200 days into an roughly 300-day mission, which is able to set a report for the longest single spaceflight by a girl.

“Up to now, ladies have not at all times been on the desk,” Koch stated throughout a televised interview earlier this week. “And it is great to be contributing to the human spaceflight program at a time when all contributions are being accepted, when everybody has a job, and that may lead, in flip, to elevated probability for fulfillment.”

Because the world’s first spacewalk in 1965, solely 14 ladies have accomplished them, versus 213 males, in line with NASA.

Anticipate extra ladies spacewalking collectively on the horizon.

“It seems that over the subsequent couple years, we’re having a whole lot of medium swimsuit folks fly,” stated NASA’s area station program supervisor, Kirk Shireman.

Koch will function the lead spacewalker for Sunday’s tour with Morgan, her U.S. male crewmate. There are 11 spacewalks developing within the subsequent few months — 10 U.S. and one Russian. Just one is 2 ladies.

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The Related Press Well being and Science Division receives assist from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Division of Science Training. The AP is solely answerable for all content material.

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This story has been corrected to say Meir arrived on the orbiting lab final week.

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