John McFall, from the United Kingdom, is a member of the ESA Astronaut Class of 2022. John McFall is one of the more than 22 500 candidates who submitted a valid application in 2021 in response to ESA’s call for new astronauts for missions to the International Space Station and beyond. ESA’s new class of astronauts includes career astronauts, members for the astronaut reserve and astronauts with a physical disability for a feasibility project. They will start a 12-month basic training at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre in spring 2023.
Credit: P. Sebirot/ESA

The European Space Agency (ESA), a cooperative space program among the nations of Europe, made history in November 2022, naming the world’s first physically disabled astronaut. Paralympian and orthopedic surgeon John McFall joined 15 others out of 22,500 applicants in the journey to space. McFall had his right leg amputated after a motorcycle accident when he was 19 years old. Before his accident, he was a runner. McFall persevered through recovery and made it to the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing, China. He secured the bronze medal in the 100-meter race.

McFall was born on April 25, 1981, in Frimley, England. He was a runner before his accident in 2000. Determined to reach his goals despite his new existence as an amputee, McFall worked through recovery all the way to the Paralympics. He became a professional runner in 2005, only five years after his accident. After his success as a Paralympian, McFall trained as an orthopedic surgeon.

He studied at Swansea University in Wales 2004. He continued his education to earn his master’s degree at the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff in 2005. Not one to shy away from challenges and education, McFall graduated from Cardiff University School of Medicine in 2014. He joined the Royal College of Surgeons in 2016 and works as a trauma and orthopedic specialist in the south of England.

McFall heard that the ESA was looking to hire a Paralympian as an astronaut in February 2021 as he worked in the intensive therapy unit helping patients recover from COVID-19. He started filling out an application and soon was undergoing memory and physical tests and answering difficult questions in interviews.

The ESA named McFall and 15 others as official recruits in November 2022. The group will undergo more testing to ensure their ability to fulfill the role. McFall will take part in the Parastronaut Feasibility Project which will help the ESA understand how space flight works for astronauts with physical disabilities.

January 23, 2019

Today, January 23, marks the 300th anniversary of the establishment of the small south-central European nation of Liechtenstein. On Jan. 23, 1719, Liechtenstein became an autonomous principality within the German-based Holy Roman Empire. The small monarchy gained complete independence in 1806 with the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine during the Napoleonic Wars. Liechtenstein is one of the world’s smallest countries. It covers only 62 square miles (160 square kilometers) and has only about 39,000 people.

Liechtenstein’s flag has two horizontal stripes, the upper one blue (for the sky), and the lower one red (for the glow of evening fires). A crown representing the prince appears in the upper-left corner. Credit: © Loveshop/Shutterstock

Today, Liechtenstein’s “Birthday Party” begins with a meeting at the Scheidgraben, a symbolic ditch that marks the border between the nation’s Oberland (south) and Unterland (north). Liechtenstein was created from the pairing of the Dominion of Schellenberg (the Unterland) and the County of Vaduz (the Oberland). A bell-ringing then starts synchronized festivities in Vaduz, Liechtenstein’s capital; the nearby town of Schaan; and other towns throughout the country. Hans-Adam II, the Prince of Liechtenstein and head of state, will make an appearance in Vaduz, as will his son Prince Alois, who has been Liechtenstein’s head of government since 2004. 

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Liechtenstein is one of the world’s smallest countries. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

Liechtenstein lies along the Rhine River between Switzerland and Austria, and has many close ties with the Swiss. Most of the people speak Alemannic, a German dialect. Liechtenstein uses Swiss money, and Switzerland operates its postal and telephone systems. Switzerland also represents Liechtenstein in the country’s diplomatic and trade relations. Like Switzerland, Liechtenstein does not belong to the European Union. Also like Switzerland, Liechtenstein has maintained its neutrality through several wars. Liechtenstein has not fought in a war since 1866. Its name in German, the official language, is Fürstentum Liechtenstein (Principality of Liechtenstein).

Vaduz is the capital of Liechtenstein. Credit: © Shutterstock

Liechtenstein is a constitutional monarchy. It is ruled by a prince who is the head of the House of Liechtenstein. The throne usually passes to the prince’s eldest son.

Because of its central location in Europe, the area that is now Liechtenstein has been continuously inhabited since 3000 B.C. Charlemagne, king of the Franks, controlled the area in the late A.D. 700′s. After his death in 814, the region was divided into two independent states, Vaduz and Schellenberg. Both states later became part of the Holy Roman Empire. Johann-Adam Liechtenstein, a prince from Vienna, acquired Schellenberg in 1699 and Vaduz in 1712. His descendants still rule Liechtenstein.

February 16, 2018

Today, the northeastern European country of Lithuania celebrates the centennial of its declaration of independence on Feb. 16, 1918. Lithuania lies on the Baltic Sea, south of Latvia and Estonia. Lithuania shares parts of its borders with Poland and Russia—neighbors who have dominated much of Lithuania’s history. Centuries ago (from the late 1100′s until 1386), Lithuania was an independent nation, so the 1918 event was actually a restoration of Lithuanian independence. The restoration was brief and precarious, however, and the independent nation disappeared from world maps in 1940. Lithuania regained its independence in 1991.

Credit: Office of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania

Today at 12:30 p.m. Lithuanian time, the nationwide ringing of bells officially begins centennial events that include art and food festivals, history-themed marches, a special Mass at Vilnius Cathedral, and grand concerts at Vilnius’s Cathedral Square and the National Opera and Ballet Theatre. In the evening, 100 bonfires will light the way along the city’s main street, Gediminas Avenue. Vilnius is Lithuania’s capital and largest city, and many buildings and streets are decorated to appear as they did 100 years ago in 1918.

Lithuanian flag Credit: © Photo Roman/Shutterstock

Centennial celebrations will take place throughout the country, and other events will take place throughout the year. This summer’s highlight is a centenary edition of Lithuania’s famous Song Festival, a cultural and musical celebration recognized by UNESCO on the Intangible Cultural Heritage List. UNESCO is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN). Its full name is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

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Lithuania. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

The Lithuanian peoples first united into a single nation in the late 1100′s. From the late 1300′s until the 1700′s, Lithuania was united with Poland. Russia ruled the country from the late 1700′s until 1918, when Lithuania declared independence. Immediately, the fledgling republic had to fight Russians and then Poles (who were also fighting each other) for control of the country. Lithuania remained independent, but Poland controlled Vilnius from 1920 until 1939. That year, Nazi Germany seized part of Lithuania. Later in 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a secret pact that divided parts of Europe between them. In 1940, the Soviet Union forced Lithuania to become a Soviet republic. Lithuania was fought over again during World War II (1939-1945), after which it remained a part of the Soviet Union for nearly 50 years. Many Lithuanians resisted Soviet rule, however, and on March 11, 1990, the small nation declared independence once again. That act was part of a series of events that resulted in the Soviet Union’s dissolution—and a free Lithuania—in 1991.

Since then, Lithuania has grown culturally and economically while forging close ties with western Europe. In 2004, Lithuania joined both the European Union (EU), which promotes economic and political cooperation, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a defense alliance.

November 22, 2017

In May 2017, London’s powerhouse soccer club Chelsea won the English Premier League (EPL), arguably the world’s best professional soccer league. For Chelsea, led by Belgian superstar Eden Hazard and no stranger to success, it was its sixth English title. On June 3, Spanish side Real Madrid defeated Italy’s Juventus 4-1 to win the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Champions League, the world’s top annual soccer tournament. Real Madrid, led by superstars Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale, and Karim Benzema, won its second-straight European championship and record 12th overall. The soccer year was dedicated to familiar favorites, but it was individual stars who stole the headlines—and the cash.

Brazilian soccer star Neymar and his bodyguards wade through fans and media to attend a press conference officially announcing his move from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain on Aug. 4, 2017, in Paris, France. Credit: © Mehdi Taamallah, NurPhoto/Getty Images

The money year began in China, where the Chinese Super League (CSL) has dangled oodles of yuan (the nation’s currency) to lure players away from better known and more competitive leagues elsewhere. In January, Argentine striker Carlos Tevez joined Shanghai Greenland Shenhua. His new salary? Roughly $42 million per year, or more than $800,000 per week—and more than 20 times the salary paid by his previous club, Buenos Aires’s Boca Juniors. Nigerian John Obi Mikel and Brazilians Alexandre Pato and the mononymous Oscar were among the other stars who followed the money to China. Managers, too, were chasing yuan signs (¥): 12 of the CSL’s 16 teams are currently led by coaches from other countries. Notable among them are Brazil’s World Cup-winning coach Luiz Scolari and Chile’s Manuel Pellegrini, who guided Manchester City to an EPL championship in 2014. Italian Fabio Capello leads Jiangsu Suning; his compatriot, Fabio Cannavaro, manages Tianjin Quanjian.

As more and more talent took the fast boat to China, the Chinese government counteracted the growing trend in late May 2017 by introducing a heavy import tax on clubs—purportedly to encourage the development of domestic talent. The nation’s “100 percent tax” means that every yuan a club spends on a foreign player must be matched by a yuan paid to the Chinese Football Development Foundation. The tax effectively doubles the price for foreign players, somewhat lessening the shock value of CSL salaries. The Chinese Football Association (CFA) has taken protective steps too by limiting clubs to a maximum of three non-Chinese players.

The CSL was soon upstaged, however, by colossal transfer dealings in Europe, where the average EPL salary is $3 million per year. In July, English right back Kyle Walker took $60 million to move from Tottenham Hotspur to Manchester City—a record topped days later by French left back Benjamin Mendy’s $70-million move from Monaco to Manchester City. (Teams in Europe pay a transfer fee, which amounts to buying out the player’s existing contract, while also adding the cost of a new contract.) London’s Arsenal bought French striker Alexandre Lacazette from Lyon for $60 million; Chelsea signed Spanish striker Álvaro Morata for $80 million; and Manchester United bought Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku from Everton for $100 million. During the hot transfer season of July and August, EPL clubs spent a total of $1.8 billion on new players, an amount roughly equal to the gross domestic product of the Italian republic of San Marino.

The year’s biggest jaw-dropper hit in early August, when Brazilian star Neymar confirmed wild rumors that he was leaving Spain’s Barcelona for Paris Saint-Germain in France. The price? $263 million. Barcelona then promptly spent $125 million on French forward Ousmane Dembélé.

September 14, 2017

Last month, Switzerland became the first European Union (EU) country to allow the sale of insect-based food items for human consumption. That’s right, for those of you craving a mealworm burger or a side of crickets or grasshoppers, you can now get them at the local market in Bern, Geneva, or Zürich. Long accepted as a protein-rich food in other parts of the world, eating insects is relatively new to Europeans, who—like a lot of other people—have a hard time getting over the “yuck” factor of eating bugs. Insects, however, are a logical, practical, and even tasty food choice as human populations continue to rise along with the economic and environmental cost of raising traditional crops and livestock.

Mealworms (the grubs of a type of darkling beetle) may be new to the diet of many people, but they have long been used in animal feed. Credit: © Denis Tabler, Shutterstock

In Africa, Asia, and parts of Latin America, it is common to find insects on menus or for sale in markets. In the United States, insects can be found as exotic menu items, and they are often used as food additives or dyes. U.S. companies can sell whole insects as long as the bugs are clean, wholesome, and raised specifically for human consumption. Most Food and Drug Administration (FDA) laws, however, detail limits of “unavoidable” bugs in other food. Chew on that for a minute. Anyway, in Europe, the Novel Food Regulation limits food that was not “used for human consumption to a significant degree” before 1997. This means that nontraditional food items must get special legal clearance. In May 2017, Switzerland approved crickets, grasshoppers, and mealworms as food items, and after the EU agreed, bugs hit store shelves in August.

A wide variety of prepared insects are available for snacking at this market in Thailand. Credit: © Thor Jorgen Udvang, Shutterstock

Not all insects are fit for human consumption, of course, but many provide a highly nutritional, readily available, and environmentally friendly food source. Traditional agriculture—the planting and harvesting of crops, the raising of livestock, and the transport and delivery of food items—is a heavy contributor to global warming, which in turn adversely affects traditional agriculture. To slow the impact of climate change, and to feed the world’s ever-growing human population, insect agriculture is a logical and practical choice. Aside from Switzerland’s new food items, such insects as ants, bees, beetles, caterpillars, and locusts are packed with protein, fiber, good fats, and vital minerals. Bugs require much less feed, space, and care than traditional farm animals. They also emit considerably fewer greenhouse gases than most livestock.

Insects can be quite tasty, too. After all, they are arthropods, the largest phylum (division) of the animal kingdom that also includes crabs, lobsters, and shrimp. Most animals and many people on Earth already indulge in entomophagy (insect eating). Is it about time the rest of us joined them?

September 3, 2015

Over the past several years, the European Union (EU) has been faced with a growing problem—a trickle of migrants and refugees has become a flood of people trying to gain entry to EU nations. This week, the problem became acute in Budapest, Hungary.

Refugees storm a train at the Keleti train station in Budapest, Hungary, on September 3. After two days of blocking entrance to the station, Hungarian police began allowing refugees in again. (Credit: © Laszlo Balogh, Reuters/Landov)

According to the United Nations (UN), migrants are people seeking to live in a new country for economic reasons. They are from poor nations and believe they will have a better standard of living in a wealthier nation. Refugees are people fleeing to a new country because of dangerous conditions in their own nation. Such conditions may include war; famine; or persecution based on religion, nationality, or political or other beliefs.

Many migrants, often from African nations, arrive by sea in dangerous ships not fit to use as transportation. Greece and Italy have been frequent destinations for migrants, and both southern coastal nations have been hard-pressed to mount rescues for those who encounter difficulties on their journey. In 2015 alone, more than 2,000 migrants have died crossing the Mediterranean Sea in an attempt to reach Europe.

Refugees from Syria and other war-torn regions of the Middle East also take a dangerous sea journey. After their arrival in Greece, they tend to travel overland to Macedonia, through Serbia and Hungary, hoping to arrive in Germany. Thus far in 2015, nearly 500,000 people have entered Europe hoping to find a new home. It is the greatest movement of refugees in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).

On Tuesday, September 1, the lives of many mostly Syrian refugees became even harder when the nation of Hungary closed its train station in Budapest and refused to allow refugees to board trains for their final destination countries of Austria and Germany. The government of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban cited EU rules that state that refugees must be issued documents upon their arrival in Europe by the nation in which they landed. Orban claimed all refugees must be documented by Hungary before traveling on to Germany.

The scene in and outside the Keleti train station in Budapest was one of chaos. For the first two days, the train station was closed to refugees. Some 2,000 refugees slept outside the train station with no shelter or toilets. As of this morning, the station was reopened to the Syrians, although they are still not allowed to travel on trains out of Budapest. Even with the station as a shelter, services for many people are not available from the Hungarian government.

August 29, 2013

Europe is losing one of its main defenses against rising carbon dioxide emissions linked to global warming, a team of researchers from the Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland, and Italy has reported. Their analysis of data from 29 European countries suggests that the ability of the continent’s trees to absorb and sequester (store) carbon dioxide (CO2), an important greenhouse gas, has nearly reached its limit. Forests, much like oceans, are important natural carbon sinks—that is, areas that sequester large amounts of atmospheric carbon. According to the researchers, the amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed by Europe’s forests has been falling since 2005. The scientists also said that the forests may reach a saturation point by 2030, earlier than previously expected.

The researchers, headed by Gert-Jan Nabuurs of Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands, listed a number of reasons for the trend. Europe’s trees are aging. Green plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere as they grow and use the carbon for photosynthesis. However, a tree’s ability to sequester CO2 lessens as it ages. Many of Europe’s trees were planted after World War II (1939-1945), which ravaged the landscape.

Forests cover large parts of Europe, such as the sides of this valley in southern Austria. (© Johanna Huber, SIME/4Corners Images)

Aging trees are more susceptible to wildfires, disease, infestation, and other natural disturbances that return the trees’ sequestered CO2 to the atmosphere, the scientists reported. They also noted that Europe has lost forest because of urban sprawl and deforestation. When trees die or shed leaves, they deposit their trapped carbon into the soil. There, certain bacteria may break down some of the plant matter and release carbon back into the atmosphere as CO2. Trees that are cut down release their CO2 back into the atmosphere as they decay, though turning the wood into paper products delays the release for a a short time.

The researchers suggested that European countries should reevaluate their forestry and land-use policies. “I think policymakers at a national level and within the European Union have to be clear that in certain regions, with valuable habitats, that the focus is on old forests and biodiversity,” Nabuurs told the BBC. “But in other regions, maybe it’s time to concentrate more on continuous wood production again and rejuvenate forests again, so then you have growing forests and a continuous flow of wood products.”

Additional World Book articles:

• Carbon cycle
• The Ocean’s Changing Chemistry (a special report)

April 26, 2013

The genetic roots of modern Europeans do not stretch as deep into prehistory as most scientists had thought, reports a joint team of German and Australian scientists. A new analysis of ancient skeletons found in Germany indicates that a major population upheaval occurred in Europe around 4,000 B.C., when long-established populations were suddenly displaced by other farming people moving into the region. These more recent migrants, rather than the older populations, seem to be the direct ancestors of most living Europeans today.

Archaeologists have found fossils and stone tools that show early humans first lived in Europe more than 700,000 years ago. The Cro-Magnon people hunted throughout Europe from about 35,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago. By about 6000 B.C., farming peoples migrated into Europe from the Near East. Most scientists had believed that modern Europeans were descended from these ancient populations. The new findings, however, suggest that most living Europeans are descended from farmers who migrated into the region only about 4,500 years ago.

A megalithic monument near Carnac, France, is one of many of these stone structures made by prehistoric people. The best-known monuments are in western Europe and the Mediterranean region. These sites were built between about 4500 and 1400 B.C., during the Neolithic period and early Bronze Age. The builders made them for religious purposes or as burial places. (© Joe Cornish, Tony Stone Images)

The scientists based their conclusions on an analysis of DNA from 39 ancient skeletons excavated from the Mitelelbe Saale region, near Lepzig. The analysis was published April 23 in the online journal Nature Communications. The team focused their study on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)–a form of DNA found outside the chromosomes in cellular structures called mitochondria–that was preserved in the bones. In humans, mtDNA is inherited only from the mother. This makes the material useful to biologists for helping to determine relationships between groups. The scientists chose to examine a particular variety of mtDNA known as haplogroup H, the most common mtDNA variety in Europe, found in about 40 percent of Europeans today. However, haplogroup H is not common in the mtDNA from skeletons of Cro-Magnons or other early European hunter-gatherers, suggesting they made little genetic contribution to modern European populations.

The mtDNA from skeletons dated to the early Neolithic period of Europe, about 7,500 years ago, shows that farmers from the Near East migrated into Europe carrying a version of the haplogroup H with them. However, the international team found that by the Middle Neolithic, around 4,500 years ago, this early version of haplotype H was suddenly replaced by the version seen in modern Europeans.

Scientists are not certain where this newer haplotype H originated. But such a rapid replacement could only result from the migration of new populations into the region. The research shows that the movement of populations in prehistory and the genetic history of modern populations is much more complex than scientists had thought.

Additional World Book articles:

• Agriculture (History)
• Cave dwellers
• Genetics
• Prehistoric people
• Stone Age