American actor George Takei at a movie premiere in Los Angeles, California, in 2011.
Credit: Paul Smith / Featureflash

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature AAPI pioneers in a variety of areas.

George Takei is an American actor and activist. He became famous for playing Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu on the science fiction television series “Star Trek” (1966-1969). Named after King George VI, Takei became a political activist after enduring many hardships as a Japanese American in the United States. His activism focuses on immigrants and protecting gay rights.

Hosato Takei was born April 20, 1937, in Los Angeles, California, to Japanese American parents. When he was young, his family was forcibly moved to a Japanese American internment camp in Arkansas. Japanese American internment is the term commonly used to describe the forced relocation and confinement of people of Japanese ancestry in the United States during World War II (1939-1945). Takei’s mother felt betrayed by internment and renounced her American citizenship. As a result, the Takei family was moved to a prison camp in California for the rest of the war.

After the war, Takei’s family remained in California. Takei acted in high school, but he instead chose to study architecture at the University of California at Berkeley. There, he was hired to provide English dubbing for Japanese films as a summer job. After two years at the university, Takei transferred to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) to study acting. He worked with an agent to land his first television roles, including parts on the television shows “77 Sunset Strip,” “Perry Mason,” and “Playhouse 90.”  After graduating in 1960, Takei spent a few years acting on the stage, first in New York and then in Stratford-Upon-Avon in England. In 1964 he finished his master’s degree in theater arts at UCLA.

TV series, Star Trek, USA 1960s, scene with: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichol. Credit: © Interfoto/Alamy Images

In 1965, Takei auditioned for the television producer Gene Rodenberry. Rodenberry cast Takei as Sulu, the pilot for the starship U.S.S. Enterprise on “Star Trek.” The show was set hundreds of years in the future and followed the crew of an outer space exploration mission.

Takei reprised the role of Sulu in numerous films, beginning with Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). He provided the voice of Sulu in many Star Trek electronic games. Takei has also played a number of other roles and made several cameo appearances as himself.

In addition to acting, Takei is known for his political activism. In 1972, he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, and in 1973, he unsuccessfully ran for Los Angeles city council. He also ran for California State Assembly in 1980. Despite these losses, Takei remained an outspoken activist. In addition to sharing his story of growing up in an internment camp, Takei has spoken out about gay rights issues. Takei came out as gay in 2005 and married his partner, Brad Altman, in 2008, when same-sex marriage was legalized in California.

SpaceX launches Starship, the most powerful rocket ever made, on April 20, 2023. The rocket exploded above the Gulf of Mexico minutes after launching.
Credit: SpaceX

The most ambitious private rocket program ever got off to a tentative, but explosive, start today. In its first test launch, the giant rocket Starship lifted off, but exploded during flight.

Starship is a heavy-lift rocket developed and operated by the American spacecraft company SpaceX. It consists of the first-stage booster, called Super Heavy, and the spacecraft itself, which is also called Starship. It is more powerful than the Saturn V, the rocket that took astronauts to the moon throughout the Apollo program.

Super Heavy ignited and cleared the launch pad at Boca Chica, Texas. This was the company’s primary objective, as an explosion on or near the ground could have damaged the launch pad infrastructure. The second stage was then supposed to separate and fly in a suborbital trajectory most of the way around Earth, splashing down near Hawaii. But the second stage failed to separate; and the rocket began spinning. It exploded in a fireball about four minutes after liftoff.

SpaceX already has one extremely successful rocket. The Falcon 9 debuted in 2010 and, thanks to the reuse of its first stage, has become one of the most reliable and cost-efficient rockets of all time. It has flown over 200 successful missions.

SpaceX plans to expand on the reusability gains made with the Falcon 9. Super Heavy will return to the launch pad, where giant arms will grab it as it slowly descends. The second-stage starship will be able to coast back into the atmosphere in a way similar to the space shuttle, before using its engines to land vertically. Both stages can then be reused.

SpaceX and its founder, South-African born entrepreneur (business developer) Elon Musk, have big plans for Starship. Musk is most interested in using Starship to send crewed missions to Mars. He hopes to use the craft’s massive payload to send enough crew and material to the planet to create a self-sustaining colony.

But there are more prosaic uses for the big rocket. SpaceX predicts it will be even cheaper to launch than the Falcon 9, further driving down the cost of access to space. The craft will be able to carry the larger next-generation satellites for Starlink, the company’s satellite internet service. SpaceX is working for contracts to return U.S. astronauts to the moon for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) using Starship.

Space tourism is also on Starship’s flight manifest. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has financed the first crewed mission on Starship, tentatively scheduled to launch later this year. He will fly around the moon with a crew of seven artists, filmmakers, and other creatives.

More tests are needed before the rocket can take anyone anywhere, however. SpaceX engineers will analyze the data from the launch and see what went wrong. Musk stated that the company will conduct another Starship test launch in a few months. They’re hoping the next one will fly straighter and further.

Chelsea player Christian Pulisic during the Premier League match at the City Ground, Nottingham, on January 1, 2023.
Credit: © Andrew Yates, Sportimage/Alamy Images

With the nickname “Captain America,” you know Christian Pulisic is a soccer star! At the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, Pulisic scored the only goal against Iran, winning the game and securing the United States a spot in the knockout stage. Sadly, the team later lost to the Netherlands. Pulisic returned to England after the tournament to play for Chelsea FC in the Premier League. However, Pulisic started the new year with a new knee injury on Jan. 5th. Despite his injury, Chelsea coach Graham Potter knows Pulisic’s worth and has promised to keep Captain America playing for Chelsea.

Pulisic plays forward and right winger. He has played for the United States Men’s National Team (USMNT); in the Bundesliga, the professional soccer league in Germany; and in the Premier League in England. The Premier League is England’s highest professional soccer league. Pulisic is known for his agility, quick assists, and game-winning goals.

Pulisic was born on Sept. 18, 1998, in Hershey, Pennsylvania. His parents both played soccer at George Mason University. Pulisic’s family moved to England temporarily when he was seven. There, Pulisic played soccer with a youth team. The family then moved to Detroit, Michigan, where his father worked for the Detroit Ignition, an indoor soccer league.

The Pulisic family later returned to Hershey. At 16, Christian became eligible to play in Europe because his grandfather was Croatian. Pulisic secured dual citizenship with Croatia and a European passport. In 2015, he moved to Germany and began playing for the Borussia Dortmund team for players under 17. When Pulisic was still 16, Borussia Dortmund moved him to the under-19 league.

Pulisic began playing with the United States Men’s national team in 2016, becoming the youngest player to play in a qualifier, against Guatemala. In 2018, Pulisic became one of the youngest USMNT captains, in an international match against Italy. He won U.S. Soccer’s Male Player of the Year award in 2017, 2019, and 2021.

In 2016, coaches pulled Pulisic up to the senior team for Borussia Dortmund. Pulisic also played for Borussia Dortmund in the Europa League competition. In January 2019, Pulisic signed a contract with the prestigious Premier League club Chelsea FC. Chelsea loaned him back to Dortmund to complete the season. The transfer cost was U.S. $73 million, making Pulisic the most expensive American player and one of Dortmund’s most expensive sales in team history.

Pulisic debuted for Chelsea in August 2019. He scored three goals—a feat known as a hat trick— against Burnley in October. Pulisic became the second American to score a hat-trick in the Premier league.

The sun produces heat from nuclear reactions deep inside it. All life on Earth depends on this heat.
Credit: NASA/SDO

This summer, the entire globe experienced a heat wave. Western states in America experienced a record-breaking heat wave in late August and early September of 2022.

A heat wave is a period over which the temperature rises well above normal for a particular region. Heat waves may be less dramatic than such natural disasters as hurricanes, earthquakes, or tornadoes, and heat waves tend to cause less damage to property. However, heat waves rank among the deadliest extreme weather.

The varying nature of local climate makes it difficult to establish a simple definition of a heat wave. The temperatures of a heat wave must be hot relative to the average temperatures at a place during a particular time of year. For example, a temperature of 90 °F (32 °C) during the summer is not out of the ordinary for the northern African country of Sudan. However, it would be an exceptionally high temperature for the northern U.S. state of Alaska. Meteorologists agree that high temperatures must persist for more than one full day to be considered a heat wave.

This chart can be used to determine the heat index (HI), a number that describes how people are affected by the combination of temperature and relative humidity. As the temperature and relative humidity rise, the heat index increases. The higher the index, the greater the likelihood that people will develop heat-related illnesses. The risk of illness is low when the index is below 80 °F.
Credit: World Book chart by Linda Kinnaman

Heat waves are sometimes accompanied by high relative humidity. Relative humidity is the amount of water vapor in the air compared with the amount the air can hold at saturation. High relative humidity interferes with the human body’s ability to cool itself through the evaporation of sweat. Thus, high humidity can make a heat wave more uncomfortable and dangerous. Some weather agencies make use of a measure called the heat index, which factors in relative humidity to give a measure of how hot the air feels.

Heat waves are generally created by areas of high air pressure. Meteorologists call these areas highs or anticyclones. Warm highs bring high temperatures and air that contains little moisture. These highs are large weather systems that may affect a region for an extended time. In the summer, a warm high sometimes stalls over North America, for example, causing a heat wave.

The high temperatures of a heat wave can cause dehydration and hyperthermia in people and in animals. Dehydration is a condition in which the body loses too much water. In severe cases, dehydration can lead to a fast heartbeat, low blood pressure, shock, and death. Hyperthermia is a condition that occurs when the body becomes overheated. Forms of hyperthermia include heat exhaustion, heat cramps, and heatstroke (also called sunstroke). Heatstroke is a serious condition that can cause permanent neurological damage and death.

Elderly people, infants, and people with long-term illnesses may suffer heatstroke more readily than others during a heat wave. Hyperthermia can be particularly dangerous for people with long-term medical conditions. Such conditions as asthma, diabetes, heart failure, and high blood pressure place the body’s organs under stress. The added stress from hyperthermia can induce heart attack, breathing failure, and other fatal medical events among such people.

The complexity of diagnosing heat-related deaths has made it difficult for experts to track the toll of heat waves. The World Health Organization estimated that heat waves killed more than 166,000 people between 1998 and 2017. Another study found that approximately 500,000 heat-related deaths occurred worldwide between 2000 and 2019. Despite the uncertainties, experts agree that heat waves are deadly. In 2003, for example, Europe suffered a catastrophic heat wave in which some 70,000 people died.

Heat waves can also put stress on electric power and water services. People’s use of air conditioning strains the electrical grid. Power plants may need more water for cooling. People may also use more water to try to keep cool. When demand for electricity exceeds generating capacity, officials may have to reduce voltage to prevent a blackout. Such a reduction, called a brownout, may damage electrical equipment or cause the equipment to operate less efficiently. High temperatures also buckle pavement and warp railroad tracks.

Drought kills crops. Two farmers examine a Kansas corn field that has been affected by a drought in 2012. Climate scientists suspect such droughts might become more common in some areas due to the effects of global warming.
Credit: © Mashid Mohadjerin, The New York Times/Redux Pictures

Heat waves are dangerous to plants and animals as well. Excessive temperatures can kill animals that cannot find ways to keep cool. Prolonged heat can wither plants. Droughts usually accompany heat waves, compounding the danger to living things. Heat waves and droughts dry out the ground and plants, increasing the likelihood and severity of wildfires.

A Russian firefighter sprays water on a wildfire in the Ryazan region, southeast of Moscow. In 2010, a devastating wave of wildfires wept across Russia following a record-setting heat wave.
Credit: AP Photo

Data suggest that heat waves are increasing in duration, frequency, and intensity. The time of year in which heat waves occur is also expanding. Most climatologists think that climate change brought about by human-caused global warming is driving these changes.

People must exercise caution during heat waves to avoid health problems. Experts advise wearing light-colored, loose-fitting clothing when outdoors and avoiding going out during the hottest part of the day. People should drink fluids regularly but avoid beverages with alcohol or caffeine, which can contribute to dehydration.

People who are homeless or who live in homes without air conditioning are particularly vulnerable to heat waves. During a heat wave, local governments may open air-conditioned cooling centers where people can stay to cool down.

People can help to protect their community during a heat wave. They can air condition their homes only to what temperature is necessary, conserving power. People might be asked to limit water use at certain times to prevent drops in their community’s water pressure. They may be asked to conserve water if the heat wave is accompanied by a drought. Because heat waves increase the risk of wildfires, people may be prohibited from starting fires outdoors.

Erin Jackson of USA competing on the 500m during the 2021 ISU World Cup on November 12, 2021 in Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Poland.
Credit: © Orange Pics BV/Alamy Images

In February 2022, Erin Jackson became the first Black woman to win a medal in speed skating at the Winter Olympics. She won gold in the 50o-meter race in the long-track speed skating event at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, China. Jackson was the first skater representing the United States to win the 500-meter race since 1994. Jackson also joined Shani Davis as the only two Black athletes to medal in Olympic speed skating.
 
Jackson is an American speed skater. Jackson narrowly missed qualifying for Beijing 2022, earning a bronze in two races at the Olympic team trials. She slipped in the 500-meter, the event for which she was ranked number one in the world. Fellow top-ranking speed skater and friend Brittany Bowe qualified for three events. Bowe stepped down in the 500-meter race to give Jackson her spot, sending Jackson to her second Olympic Games.
 
Jackson became the first Black woman to represent the United States in long-track speed skating at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Long-track races are held on an oval 333 1/3 to 400 meters (264 ½ to 437 yards) around. She became the first Black American woman to win a World Cup title for speed skating in 2021. During the 2021-2022 season, Jackson won gold in four World Cup races. She broke the American record, finishing the 500-meter race in 36.80 seconds, at the Salt Lake City World Cup in 2021.
 
Jackson was a top competitor in in-line speed skating and roller derby. In-line skates, sometimes referred to by the trade name Rollerblade, are roller skates with the wheels aligned in a single row. She transitioned to ice speed skating in 2017 to compete in the Olympics. After only four months of training on ice, she made the U.S. National Team.
 
Erin Jackson was born on Sept. 19, 1992, in Ocala, Florida. Jackson began roller skating and figure skating as a child. She began competing on a figure skating team when she was 8 years old. After two years, her coaches moved away, leading her to switch to in-line speed skating in 2002. Jackson joined Inline Team USA in 2008. She competed in the Junior World Championships and Pan American Games in high school. She won gold in the 500-meter race in the 2014 Pan American Games.
 
While attending college, Jackson joined the roller derby team the Ocala Cannibals in 2012. She transferred to a team in Jacksonville, the New Jax City Rollers, in 2013. She competed with the team in the 2015 Women’s Flat Track Derby Association championship. She graduated from the University of Florida in 2015 with a degree in engineering. Jackson has won many in-line skating world championship medals and dozens of national championships.