Author: DW

Ancient Egyptians appear to have carried out surgery on people with cancerous cells, a study has found.Scientists already knew from their texts that ancient Egyptians were exceptionally skilled with medicine – and could treat diseases, traumatic injuries, build protheses and put in dental fillings. But an international team of researchers studied two human skulls, each thousands of years old, and found “extraordinary” evidence of attempts to treat cancer.The study’s lead author, Professor Edgard Camaros, a paleopathologist at the University of Santiago de Compostela, said: “This finding is unique evidence of how ancient Egyptian medicine would have tried to deal with…

A former head of the Dutch intelligence and security service AIVD is set to become Prime Minister of the Netherlands at the head of a right-wing-led coalition government. Dick Schoof, a 67-year-old senior civil servant at the country’s justice ministry with no current party affiliation, is considered an expert on security and migration – two key issues for the four coalition partners. The largest party in the coalition is the nationalist Party for Freedom (PVV), which emerged as the largest party after November’s election — albeit with less than a quarter of the vote and nowhere near enough support to govern…

UN development specialist Garry Conille has been named Haiti’s new prime minister by the country’s transitional council. The move comes amid a security crisis in the Caribbean country, with armed gangs controlling most of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and parts of the countryside.  The transitional council was formed last month after former Prime Minister Ariel Henry formally resigned. A member of the council told the AFP news agency that Conille was elected 6-1 on Tuesday afternoon. Council president Edgard Leblanc also announce the decision on social media. Who is Garry Conille? Conille has been UNICEF’s regional director for Latin America and the…

An NFL player has been accused of sexually assaulting two women on a flight to London last year.Former Jacksonville Jaguars kicker Brandon McManus has been named in a lawsuit by women identified only as Jane Doe I and Jane Doe II, which was filed last Friday in Duval County, Florida, according to reports.The women allege that the Jaguars did not provide a safe working environment for staff on the flight, which took the team to the English capital for the NFL’s annual London Games last autumn.They accuse McManus, who now plays for the Washington Commanders, of rubbing and grinding up…

Children born with Type 1 diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa die in childhood, said Biyi Adesina, a diabetologist in Nigeria. That was certainly true until very recently. Now, increased awareness of the condition throughout the region has allowed many children with Type 1 diabetes, who depend on daily insulin injections, to live past their first and second birthdays.  But Adesina told DW that a diagnosis was just half the battle. In Nigeria’s private health care system, the majority of the population is uninsured. Drugs for noncommunicable diseases — such as insulin — are frequently an out-of-pocket expense for patients or their parents.  Parents can’t pay children’s diabetes…

Mozart’s “Magic Flute” is one of the most famous and reverred operas in the world. But the composer, dubbed the “pop star of classical music,” also produced works that are mainstays of popular culture, including “Little Night Music” — perhaps best-known today as a ringtone. The musical prodigy too created profound music that plumbed the depths of the soul. “Mozart is more than the chocolate ball from Salzburg and more than a cell phone ringtone,” said Evelyn Meining, director of the Mozartfest Würzburg, the biggest Mozart festival in Germany.  “He was a hard-working person who composed day and night,” she added. Meining wants to promote am image of Mozart that…

People in the Ukrainian frontline city of Kharkiv are still searching for the dead, identifying corpses. On Saturday, Russian forces fired two guided bombs at a home improvement store, killing at least 18 people and injuring over 40 more — seven are still unaccounted for. A DW reporter was in Kharkiv last week as air-raid sirens blared for 16 hours straight. It was impossible to sleep because the city was under constant missile and drone attacks. Still, the next morning, nine-year-old Sashko got up, combed his hair, ate his breakfast and went to school for the first time in the two…

It would be nice if innovation could happen “just by dreaming,” says Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, who stresses that imagining things is “crucial for being innovative.” That is why the professor of information science at Oxford University believes artificial intelligence (AI) won’t be able to compete with human creativity for the time being. “Humans can imagine things that don’t exist yet,” he told DW, because despite being trained on massive datasets AI is working with data from the past. So, the datasets used for machine learning reflect what we can learn from the past for the present, he added, enabling AI to make insights from…

Last week, several media reports suggested that Saudi Arabia was on the verge of a “mega deal” with the United States. Bombastic phrases like a “mega deal” or a “grand bargain” are being used because the agreement would bring the US and the Saudis closer in significant ways, including in a mutual defense pact and through cooperation on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and a civilian nuclear program. Such a deal was originally supposed to be closely tied to the normalization of Saudi Arabia’s relations with Israel. However, with the Saudis insistent that any normalization include Israeli recognition of a path…

A Japanese town that put up a huge black screen to try to stop tourists taking photos of Mount Fuji has found holes in the material – with the openings said to be just the right size to fit a camera lens through.Officials in Fujikawaguchiko, a popular spot for those hoping to photograph the mountain on the island of Honshu, installed the black mesh net last week in a bid to prevent overcrowding caused by tourism. The town spent 1.3 million yen (£6,485) on the screen which is 8.2ft high (2.5 metres) and 66ft (20 metres) long.However, a hole was…