maintains and promises that meetings isn't really going to stop the protests that have been going on and looks like like they're going to continue. on a shorter thank you for bringing us up to speed. you're watching the news from berlin up next as our covert 19 special focusing today on the situation in south africa remember there's more on our web site follow us on instagram on twitter as well at the news i'm told me a lot of them for me on the team things to join. the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. has the rate of infection been developing what does the latest research say. information and context the coronavirus not day 19 special. on t w. i was issued when i arrived here i slept with 6

people in a room. it was hard. i even got white hair. learning the language hit me a lot this gives me a little push maybe to interrupt it's a you want to do their story in the light you're avoiding and reliable information for margaret. whenever a shipment of biotech pfizer coronavirus vaccine arrives in south africa it makes the headlines. because the country's vaccination program has been struggling because after a late start 1st using astra zeneca as job but that was stopped over its

ineffectiveness against the variant spreading rapidly in the country. then south africa turned to johnson and johnson's vaccine because that rolled out due to concerns. side effects. with the 2nd wave of infection now behind life are starting to appear normal in south africa but it may not stand up when i. look into this covered 19 special i'm rob what's in berlin the crown of our situation in south africa has relaxed in recent weeks the country has now put one of the world's hottest lock downs and 2 worrying waves of new cases behind it the number of new daily infections around 2000 a day just a 10th of what it was in late january the 2nd peak you can see that but improvement it's a spy it's a slow start in south africa's vaccination campaign and it's possible with

a mutated fires fairy and krishna reports. camps bay in cape town concern about the pandemic seems far away here in the last days of summer many people are still socially distancing but the mask mandate is rarely followed to be honest i'm just enjoying the phoenix today i missed out on a lot. the lot of like the weekends just 2 minutes the days you know i mean i think . i am happy that i'm free i'm able to come to the beach and have fun training for quite some time we must be to see windy but i even in dog of summer. like all of a sudden luck people couldn't come to the beach. away from the fish including the sea you know seeing the sunset but this is life. life is coming back to normal the economy's been open and like you know we have many of those. events are

going to. be random opposite. and there are any momentum and we want to sustain. and you know. antibody studies show that almost half of the population of cape town has already been infected in densely populated townships the rate is even higher the excess death rate suggests that more than $150000.00 people have died of corona virus during the pandemic. virus just involve composite worries that the mutation could be more resistant against vaccines as well as the antibodies people develop after early infections similar to the brazilian mutation but this hasn't been verified by studies there's still no proof of a higher death rate among the new mutations and there are glimmers of hope that

district with. the data were badly fitted to the 1st wave seem to be less badly affected during the 2nd wave and that makes one think of somehow protective if some like. some protective effect even picture with the previous. no it came to the very end but what we think is that if you had in fiction with newbury and virus you would be immune also against any preceding war and that is the good news. prize and his team are already preparing for the 3rd wave and they're increasing testing capacities since so many rules aren't being adhered to the number of new infections could start rising again. so we can now speak to cheryl cohen here is the head of the center for risperidone disease at south africa's national institute for communicable diseases thank you very much for joining us on the call that 19 special how would you characterize the coronavirus

situation in south africa is there a feeling that it's over the worst. thanks for having me i think you know rak now is how the africa case numbers i had a relatively low level. and they have been reducing since since the peak of our 2nd wave around the new year you better bet it me you know wouldn't characterize it as the. risk is over and we know from from previous waves that you know case numbers reach very high levels and then they came down but they certainly remains am a risk that case numbers may increase again so right now you know except in a small number of provinces and case numbers are generally at a low level that doesn't mean at all that they be complacent or think that they the society will remain at this level yeah you're working on the assumption that there will be wave or a year i suppose hoping that it can just be avoided it. well so i think.

you know if we look at or think about the possibility of a 3rd wave we know that we have no experience to large waves in south africa but there have been a number of studies looking at population immunity a proportion of people that have been infected in the country and while here in some areas of the country immunity levels appear to be fairly high even as high as 60 percent the scenes i mean in the areas of the western cape we we we know there's been in teens transmission other areas have much lower levels of people that have been infected just sitting around 3030 percent so so based on that i mean it would appear to be lacky that there will be a 3rd wave. and and you know this is also taking into account the fact that restrictions have relaxed substantially since the peak of the wave mostly around trying to get the economy going and generate economic activity so i think most experts would agree that it is lacking that it will be another wave inside

africa as opposed to difficulty steps to to predict the timing and the magnitude of where one of the things i suppose are helping stories is have got wave off with facts and nations but the vaccination program isn't going as well as might have hoped. so i think pixelation got off to a slow start then was hoped largely related to concerns about about the new period which which did emerge in south africa really around the time of their running out of the vaccination program so so i've been told now at about 350000 health care workers have been vaccinated through a program. really focusing on health care workers out of about 21500000 potentially eligible health care workers but i think south africa is planning over the next few weeks in fact to move into a match more actually scaled intensive vaccination program the player and number of several 1000000 doses are expected to arrive in the country over the next few

months and the. target group is expanding within the next 3 weeks to include individuals over the age of 60 with a plan to to really decrease that age been quite rapidly over the subsequent months i'm certain there is a planted need to abscond explanation repine any eventual target is really to get to about 2 thirds of the population vaccinated towards the end of this year into into next year. you know he had restrictions song for example of the use of the astra zeneca vaccine and also there was a pause at the johnson and johnson baxi has south africa tied its own hands by making these restrictions. well i think i mean i think the 2 issues are different i think that johnson and johnson was a pause with regard to safety concerns and i think that you know that's quite a normal thing in media other countries in europe and other parts of the world also

instituted a pause in response to the safety concerns until we got information that confirmed that the vaccine was safe yes that may have had a negative impact on the acceptance of the vaccine but you know i think that again may have been experiencing in other parts of the world with regard to astra zeneca exene i think it was a complex decision and you know i think if you go back to i wouldn't say we've had our hands i think now the government has really secured. you know supply of a number of other vaccine products which are suppose coming into the country over the next few weeks. i thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us cheryl cohen from south africa's national institute for communicable diseases now it's time to answer more of your questions about science correspondent. is there any conclusive evidence for avoiding alcohol before or after receiving

a covert going team vaccine. asking for conclusive evidence for anything in this pandemic is setting the bar pretty high which is why most of the commentary that i read on this topic has been pretty heads and and i couldn't find any really clear directives issued by trustworthy healthcare bodies like the c.d.c. or the w.h.o. saying you should stop drinking completely before or between vaccine shots maybe it's best therefore to start by looking at the conclusive evidence that we do have we know alcohol abuse is bad for your house pretty much everyone agrees on that and there are convincing studies out there showing that one of the things regular heavy alcohol consumption impacts negatively is immune system response there are other studies however showing that light or moderate drinking doesn't have the same

impact and even indicating it might actually bolster your immune response so so most medical professionals appear to be adopting a kind of middle of the road approach to this question and saying hey it's fine to have a celebratory beer or a glass of champagne after you've been vaccinated but adding that it's never a good idea to overindulge particularly after receiving a vaccination after all aside from the potential direct health considerations of that having a hangover would almost certainly make any potential vaccine side effects even less pleasant to deal with. very quick and before we are reminded that nowhere is safe from coffee 19 not even the highest place on earth more than 30 climb has just been evacuated from the foot of mount.

everest after taking over from corona virus whole suffers a 2nd wave of infections the country's tourism sector depends on the thousands of people who come every year to climb the world's tallest mountain it's now trying to recover from a total shutdown of the himalayan summits last year. and that's all from this data you call 1000 special for more check out straight away dot com slash public 92nd. tasty alternatives for. good or vegetarian vegan options really better for our health and the planet. with the naked eye it's virtually impossible to tell whether or not this is the real meat. but it staining

from animal products goes far beyond that. moral to. the. amanda legend 100 years of use of book. artist and in one of the made up you listed. on the moth to this. and why does he continue to impact today. marks 21. fans 30 minutes on d w. a little guys this is the subject the 7 percent is the platform for africa's youth to do these issues and share ideas. nor the saddle

we're not afraid to touch and delicate topic africa's population is growing. and young people clearly have the solutions the future belongs to. the 77 percent now every weekend on d w. they storm water that has evaporated from rivers lakes and oceans and return it to the earth in the form of rain. clouds cover more than half of our planet on any given day. what secrets do they hold for research on. this and more coming up on today's program.

hello and welcome to tomorrow to day your science show on d w. cirrus clouds are located high in the sky 8 to 12000 means has about the us. and several structures clouds are slightly below that sliver structures of the dark reign found at just 2 to 4000 meters. then there are human as clouds 0 cumulus that look like floating cotton balls and the low all enveloping strong scouts to name just a few if you. how does a full and what role do they play in the earth's climate those are the questions that cloud researchers are seeking to answer. countless clouds form and float above the atlantic and they reflect back tonight

from the sun and. helped keep the atmosphere cool could they be used to combat global warming was the answer so far is that we don't know it's extremely hard to model the behavior of clouds they still appear to be unpredictable they constitute a major mystery for climate science. barbados lies several 100 kilometers off venezuela's eastern seaboard to. the caribbean nation belongs to the lesser antilles group of islands it's very windy there and a hot spot for cloud research here scientists are tracking the complex behavior of cumulus clouds. on the windward east coast where the easterly trade winds more in off the ocean the max planck institute for meteorology has a cloud observatory. reversed serbia and stevens research focuses on low level

cumulus clouds. they are always in motion and have a major impact on the climate. that makes them important for the future of the planet with. a change in low power like this by a few percent going to have as large an effect on earth's energy budget as a doubling of the concentration of c o 2 so all of the human activity that we've had since the beginning of industrial times to they is still not even a doubling of the c o 2 concentration and that could be countered or doubled by just a few percent change of more or less clouds of the crimes that we see here it sounds amazing but there isn't enough data so far to model the relevant processes accurately and this project was designed to help remedy that deficit all kinds of measuring devices for deployment and laser shoots 29 kilometers up into the sky and

measures water vapor and ever cells radiation and temperature. the research ship. packed with instruments some had never been deployed at sea before. the boreal unmanned aerial vehicle has to be catapulted into the. pool of research planes flew circles the international team pulled out all the stops to gather data about the clouds here. the project name is you recast. the german air space center's halo and craft can fly for 9 hours at a stretch. while we don't measure the clouds directly we infer their properties indirectly and to do that we need to look at them from many different angles you can imagine getting to know a person from. indirect relationships you'd like to ask lots of people what that person is like so here you would like to ask lots of instruments how they see the cloud because you're only measuring it indirectly and so that's why we need to look

at the clouds from many sides with many different instruments with through many different properties and that's what this aircraft is so good at doing. many factors determine the filmation of clouds among them droplets science particle density secularization patterns temperature and radiation. when that should. be with them so i know we're on halo flying in circles to the east of barbados. people were trying to characterize the large scale air mass of the euro zone this is the circle we're flying. done over here to the east we have some ships and unmanned surface vehicles. fargo. yes an american plane is over here also flying circles so we'll have a nice comprehensive view on the truth of the. every 4 minutes

a dropsonde was ejected from halo the dropsonde seal data on the vertical servo dynamic structure of the trade wind atmosphere. and they will help reveal the life cycle of clouds in space and time even that of the dynamic fragmented cloud formations that satellite pictures do not capture. the meteor was equipped with a doppler radar. it measured to among other things the rate of vertical motion of droplets in the low level cumulatively. like it hardens there showing him the experiment is all about these small cumulus clouds we want to find out about how they will react when it gets warmer on earth what kind of questions will these clouds form but sometimes

they're close together sometimes far apart they change in size too they influence each about this is what we're trying to find out with this experiment you know by the next moment we have. a team from hamburg university investigated another important issue the role played by the interaction between ocean and atmosphere in cloud formation because. the scientists collect meteorological data with sensors attached to an outbreak at the bow of the meteor or and another one high up on the past. the key question here is this does global warming mean that more water in the oceans evaporates and thus boosts cloud formation or does it mean that low clouds in particular dissipate faster. the research requires nerves of steel.

i would say ok. it's unusual for it to rock so much with old days waves it's very very windy today and i haven't come up yet so often i found it quite challenging. to be earned stevens is cautiously optimistic that the haps as the world heats up more clouds will form and help cool it down again but he doesn't know for sure nobody doubts and so it remains essential to do everything we can in the finds against climate change. factory farming is one such driver of climate change the near and slurry as well as the digestive processes of callus and sheep all produce the greenhouse gas me thing. the way animals are foamed is also driving more people to become vegetarian the demand for veggie burgers and nuggets is on the rise. the 40 w.'s

kyo do have us shares her take on the hype surrounding feeding meat substitutes we wanted to know what our viewers have to say. we asked on facebook what you think of the meat. norman civilian secret says nothing compares to a good steak preferably done medium red. in monsanto's a writes that he tried eating burgers made of kosova they tasted similar he says but there was still something missing. and they rose sunday via vega has been a vegetarian for 15 years his best decision ever he says thanks for your comments and now his keel. can you tell whether this is going back is beef. these or this chicken or any of these sandwich mean. we're

talking about. plant based meat alternatives. the companies producing them say they're going to replace need entirely. but it also. comes back to real me so what's the deal with all of the actual expense of my body and the benefit of what. i'm on the way tonight. at 6 o'clock look. at the v. can and vegetarian me file. is not good sausages you name it all need to free. now meat alternatives are not new but this recent generation of extremely need like substitutes arguably originated in the us with pioneers like beyond.

but before all of these high tech innovations different cultures have had their own meat alternatives for centuries because it was cheaper for religious reasons. a lot of which i'm sad to say has been bastardized in the west into dry brown bland or to something like this not necessarily the worst advertising and definitely a far cry from real meat but they were the only meat substitutes available on the market for a long time. and then came the busy burgers patties made out of vegetables tasted like lead to so they were not designed to mimic the taste of meat the new generation of fake meats revolutionized the market by trying to peel to meet each other. the market value of plant based meats worldwide was estimated to be worth around $11000000000.29 and it's just almost triple that over the next 5 years with

the biggest grow. expected in the asia pacific region with western companies branching out globally and local brands popping up worldwide. so how do plants become this much like meat. well it's hard to get details from the manufacturers a lot of the information is proprietary. made a sort. of weak but most products start with concentrated or isolated soy or weak protein the manufacturers then probably use extrusions the ingredients are mixed needed and rapidly heated under pressure that's also how becomes conflicts the product on the market also have oil is added in for example from some flowers or coconuts as well as added minerals spices color and binders impossible to has one ingredient that the of those don't have. a plant based chemical compound that makes the lead. on the other hand some companies have said this

sites on replacing chicken instead of beef for example like meat. what we want to do is we want to have ingredients which are kitchen recognizable ingredients and we want to have processions which is a natural process without any carrot jemma goal part of the. top fleet's live kindly which includes the brand like meat chicken looks like feels like it tastes like chicken but taste isn't the only reason these products are flying off the shelves it's because they taste similar while supposedly being so much better for the planet so it's actually true impossible food claims it's back to has 89 percent less global warming potential uses 96 percent less land and 87 percent less water than a conventional beefburger. can be said to choose to have substantially lower environmental

footprint than conventional and this is rachel sundog she studied the environmental and health effects of different plant based meat but she says maybe substitute have a slightly higher impact. that non-processed mean that you can actually if you look at chicken the results are less pronounced but still quite clear rachel sometimes made a study shows that on average meat substitutes emit 43 percent less greenhouse gases you 77 percent less land and 76 percent less water compared to chicken. but that's what all the producers are claiming what if burgers the healthier and the food we have no strong herbs no give groups a much different. components such as cold cold. this is it. he's a researcher and doctor who conducted a study on the health effects of me told.

last cholesterol i was only going to be more of. more so but the studies that have been conducted this far show that there is no. pressure or whatever response to some souls or small a recent stanford study made participants eat plant based for 8 weeks instead of meat which led to better cardiovascular health experience. healthier oh ever we need more studies. traditional value of chicken substitutes also can be similar or even better than the real thing so this can actually vary wildly depending on which product you look at meaning you do need to read the fine print to make sure you substitute is healthy once you can substitute had almost one and a half times the calories and nearly 3 times more fat than the meat it is trying to

replace but one thing's for sure can contain antibiotics alternatives to this ng. and that if. that makes. studies show that eating processed meats can be linked to cancer heart disease and diabetes further research is needed but in this short studies show this doesn't seem to apply as directly to a plant based alternative. so if you compare bag has to be focused directly these health. but that doesn't make vegan burgers a healthy food they still high in fat and the fact that you usually eat them with sugar resources and fries on the side doesn't make them any healthier and yes eating whole grains and unprocessed legumes is better for you and better for the planet no question but on the other hand if you really want about that and you have a choice why not take the ones that are better for the plot and same goes for all

of the dough for. any replaced meat is a win for the environment. and now for a look at one of the planet's most fascinating spectacles the already potent lights . those at the north pole and known as the northern lights but they're not the only wounds this week's question comes from king mischka. are there also polar lights at the south pole. for some reason many associate polar lights with the far north there they're called the aurora borealis some peoples living there traditionally associated the lights with the spirits of the dead. but such spectacular light shows also occur in the far south visible in southern australia new zealand and the after dark. the southern lights or aurora.

are the same kind of phenomenon as the northern lights but they are not mirror images of each other. they're common source is the sun intense explosions on its surface solar flares generate solar winds blasts of charged particles that zipped through space at incredible speed some head toward the earth . the earth is protected by the magnetic field surrounding it the pressure from the solar winds compresses this protective shield and diverts the showers of particles toward the north and south poles. in the process electrically charged particles electrons impart energy to oxygen and nitrogen molecules they bump into in the atmosphere that excites the molecules when they return to their normal state they release photons bursts of energy in the form of light oxygen glows green in red nitrogen violet. fluorescent tubes work the same way.

we can only see polar lights northern or southern when it's dark and there are more hours of darkness in the winter so that's when there's more of a chance of catching a glimpse. since earth's magnetic field steers solar winds to both poles the lights do indeed also occur at the south pole. as one researcher put it polar lights are like the sun blowing us a kiss. on his right why. do you have a science question you'd like us to answer then get in touch you can send us a video or text over. if it makes it onto the show we'll send you a little surprise as a thank you. come on just ask. if you can find more interesting science stories at d w dot com slash science and i'm now 20 feet. increase

drought in spain is a challenge for many wine grab is that's prompted some to experiment with the star shows instead in the indian district of hyderabad special purpose greenhouses are helping to protect crops from drought conditions and in the money in town a funnel some cotton farmers a switching 2 minutes. all over the world famous faced with climate change are having to respond. the same applies in germany too. once again. the situation is dire no clouds in the sky for johann gattis it's the 30 year of drought in a row 50 kilometers east of berlin in the village of bel found the farms potatoes corn and wheat and more than $740.00 hectares of leased land the drought is taking its toll. i am tired of all is that we have periods of 68 weeks

with no rain at all on top of the long hot period seen in the last year's heisman hot subjects the crops to even more stress. each year we've lost several 1000 euros in profits on each head tear of potatoes or had. to curb his losses gattis has been farming a wider variety of crops instead of the typical for now he grows up to 20 crops including sunflowers millet soil and buckwheat they can survive long dry periods and thrive in the heat. and few unforseen we try to diversify our risk with these different crops. and we always want to have a few that can endure extreme weather conditions like those we've had in the past few years. molded seconding is an agronomist he helps gattis and other farmers on their search for alternative crops and the state of brandenburg. his recommendation so many. now there

stone is just as oil what's astonishing is that in comparison to other crops soil can thrive in relatively barren dry soil and even in these very warm temperatures there's nevertheless it's still a plant that requires water just a different times than other crops one cycling travels along the bone dry roads of brandenburg on the way to mention back to the life in the center for agricultural landscape research. here trying to breeders and soil scientists work together with still ologists geographers and hydrologists the scientists are researching agricultural land and how it can be farmed sustainably with a central topic of climate change they have 150 have tears a field to experiment on. at the touch of a button it rains here markets rankling can also simulate a drought he wants to find out how sewing grows best in sandy soil. is to spit out

some money since it's difficult to manipulate the weather we simulated on these fields that we've installed canopies that stop the rain from reaching the ground then we take a look at how that impacts the surface temperature of the plants and the moisture of the soil. which is we're interested in determining how much water the soil means need and during which phases and causing the systems business which. is a late summer rainstorm sufficient or should farmers irrigate before then. sandy soil is especially problematic because it stores water very poorly the sand here it is less humus forms and the faster the soil dries out. the research center analyzes erosion water use soil quality and climate data in order to generate growth prognoses for the most important crops. the results on for a sobering glimpse into a future blighted by climate change red and yellow indicate that. corn crops are

likely to sink by least a 5th the prospects for wheat are also graham. was also going to answer i gave notice on the basis of our results which show that crops react very differently to climate change we recommend that farmers plant a wider variety of crops on their 4th autumn on super bowl that diversifies the risk and give the city's a crucial oil so on that we also recommend dividing fields into smaller plots. trying to go on those estimates of doing smaller fields into a wider variety of crops that's exactly what researchers at the center are trying out their growing 9 different crops on plants and just how to have. the choice of want to plant where was the result of careful analysis. of your home and finish it cut to home for good when did extensive mapping of the soils properties and demarcated different parts of the field question do we use this information and several years of yield data to divide the field into different sections how does

fit with it and type of i should do you some are better suited for certain crops and crop rotation and the higher quality soil and other sections are better for plants that can thrive on barren soil video brought into a school this experiment is designed to take 10 years the hope is that by the end of that period the soil will have been enhanced thanks to the faster crop rotation and will store more water and be less prone to blow waynes danced. on gattis can't wait that long. he's currently experimenting with growing millet. here this millikan make do with little water and the whole thing that's what we hope that we can be successful with it in the next few years the focus of. the climate crisis will change agriculture. that's unavoidable the farmers who can't

adapt will face hard times in the future. that's all for this week see you next time on tomorrow today until then take care and keep asking questions.

artist and in most of them a the top of your list of. hamas activists except.

what does he continue to. impact today. marks 21. coming up on w. acrobatics on the. it's where contortionist stephanie meaning is in her element. she searches for extreme locations for her shoots. climbing up them is a thrill in of itself. and then lift off. the. 13 w. . how does a virus spread. why do we panic and when we'll all miss them. just 3 of the topics covered and the weekly radio. if you would like and the

information on the coronavirus or any other science topic you should really check out our podcast you can get it wherever you get your podcasts you can also find us at tell me dot com and slash science. takes a moment polling place for a bit to check. the arab spring began in 2011. people stood up against corrupt rulers and dictatorship. all these moments have left deep box in my memory. function of that was emotional it was another critical feature. the people who were

liberated. they had hoped for more security more freedom more dignity have their hopes been fulfilled. where does the arab world stand today 10 years after the arab spring. arab ellie and starts june 7th on d w. this is news and these are our top stories e.u. leaders are in the portuguese city of porto to discuss ways to 5 poverty in a post coronavirus world european commission president on the line is at the summit in person along with the majority of the blocs leaders the focus is on an action

plan for economic and social recovery. hospitals in india struggling to cope with record kovan one.