Feb. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Las Vegas police found vials of the deadly toxin ricin and its key ingredient yesterday in a local hotel room, two weeks after its occupant was rushed to the hospital in critical condition.
``We don't know if the guy was manufacturing the ricin or not, and that's our concern,'' Captain Joseph Lombardo said in a televised press conference today. ``He's not a suspect at this point.''
Authorities declined to identify the patient, other than to say he was middle-aged.
Police and the FBI, which is aiding the inquiry, said they don't suspect terrorism. Ricin is also used in experimental cancer treatments. Castor beans, the key ingredient of the toxin, were found in the Extended StayAmerica hotel room, police said.
Federal officials have warned police departments since the Sept. 11 attacks to look out for ricin, which could be deadly in the hands of terrorists. It may be used to contaminate air- conditioning systems, drinking water or lakes, the FBI has said.
Las Vegas Deputy Police Chief Kathy Suey told the press conference that ricin was found in the hotel room after a friend or relative of the man came to clean it. It had been vacant since he called an ambulance Feb. 14, complaining of breathing trouble, and was hospitalized, she said.
Several Vials
Police took custody of several vials containing the poison, which is thousands of times more lethal than cyanide. Six people were taken to a hospital as a precaution, but none fell ill, Suey said.
``This is the just the beginning of what is obviously going to be a complex investigation,'' Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Detective Bill Cassell said in a telephone interview today.
In 2004, ricin was found in a U.S. Senate mailroom, shortly after letters were sent to the White House and a South Carolina post office threatening to spread the poison. No one was injured.
Traces of ricin were also found five years ago in a London apartment during a British-based counterterrorism raid.
Ricin is part of the waste ``mash'' left after processing castor beans, the source of castor oil. The toxin often takes the form of a powder, and can be inhaled or mixed with water, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Lethal Dose
Once in the body, ricin halts the production of vital proteins in the cells, which eventually die. Used in cancer patients, the poison has shown promise in reducing tumors.
A lethal dose for an adult would be about twice the size of a pinhead. Symptoms could include breathing difficulty, vomiting and liver and kidney failure within a few days. There is no antidote.
Some reports suggest ricin was used in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, according to the CDC.
In 1978, Bulgarian defector and journalist Georgi Markov died in London after a man attacked him with an umbrella tip that injected a poisonous dart into his skin, the CDC said.
While the castor bean is rarely grown as a U.S. crop, about 1 million tons are produced yearly worldwide, mostly by India and South America.
``Given the beans' abundance, it wouldn't be that difficult to obtain relatively pure ricin, and it wouldn't take a lot of sophisticated biochemical equipment,'' said Robert Brey, chief scientific officer at DOR Biopharma Inc.
The Ewing, New Jersey-based company is working to develop a vaccine for ricin exposure that could be stockpiled by the U.S. government.
Source: Bloomberg.com
CDC: Facts about Ricin.
How interesting that it isn't terrorism. Obviously somebody wants us to think that this unfortunate gentleman was merely making homemade cancer treatments that went terribly wrong. Yeah, that's it. Or maybe he had a really bad rodent infestation.
Something tells me that if I were found to have vials of ricin in my possession, I would have already had my rights read in the hospital.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Murder Suspect Tries to Flee Jacksonville on Cruise Ship
JACKSONVILLE, FL -- Investigators say a murder suspect wanted in Atlanta tried to escape the U.S. on a cruise ship out of Jacksonville.
Derron Williams, 29, is accused of murder.
Police say he deliberately ran over a person during an argument at a party earlier this month in Atlanta.
U.S. Marshals say Williams tried to flee the U.S. on board the Carnival Cruise Ship Celebration bound for the Bahamas.
It pulled out of port Thursday night.
The cruise ship made it five miles out to sea before getting stopped by the Coast Guard and U.S. Marshals.
Williams is being held at the Duval County Jail pending extradition to Georgia.
Source:
So if you need to get outta Dodge in a hurry, the cruise ship route is probably not your best choice.
Derron Williams, 29, is accused of murder.
Police say he deliberately ran over a person during an argument at a party earlier this month in Atlanta.
U.S. Marshals say Williams tried to flee the U.S. on board the Carnival Cruise Ship Celebration bound for the Bahamas.
It pulled out of port Thursday night.
The cruise ship made it five miles out to sea before getting stopped by the Coast Guard and U.S. Marshals.
Williams is being held at the Duval County Jail pending extradition to Georgia.
Source:
So if you need to get outta Dodge in a hurry, the cruise ship route is probably not your best choice.
Florida Blackout Blamed on Human Error
MIAMI (AP) -- Florida Power & Light says a power outage that affected more than half a million customers earlier this week was the result of human error.
The electric company released a 2-page preliminary report on the incident on Friday. It says that a field engineer investigating a switch that malfunctioned at one of the power company's substations in west Miami was to blame.
The company says ultimately two nuclear generation units and a natural gas unit at the Turkey Point facility south of Miami shut down. Two other FPL plants were also affected.
Source:
Ooops?
The electric company released a 2-page preliminary report on the incident on Friday. It says that a field engineer investigating a switch that malfunctioned at one of the power company's substations in west Miami was to blame.
The company says ultimately two nuclear generation units and a natural gas unit at the Turkey Point facility south of Miami shut down. Two other FPL plants were also affected.
Source:
Ooops?
Monday, February 25, 2008
Man Found Living Under House
PALATKA,FL — Palatka Police say they busted a crack house Monday morning, and what they found at the house surprised them.
Officers went to 1107 South 10th Street to serve an arrest warrant and arrested six people in the house.
Officers also found someone living underneath the front porch.
In a space that was only four-and-a-half feet tall, there was a television, bed, chair, micro-wave… even a toaster.
Assistant Chief James Griffith with the Palatka Police said, he’s never come across something like that before.
“As far as setting up a residence with electricity running off of extension cords underneath a house, no — I can’t recall any like that,” Griffith said.
Police say 23-year-old Thomas Tyrone Williams was living under the house. He was arrested for drug possession.
While investigators said they found one of the worst crack houses they’ve ever seen and an unusual dwelling underneath it, they also discovered seven children in the house.
All of the children are younger than six years old.
“Most disturbing was some of the crack cocaine was found in one of the backpacks that belonged to one of the children,” Griffith said.
30-year-old Christopher Crowley and 28-year-old Taronda Mack were arrested on drug charges and child abuse.
Griffith said the children are now with relatives and the Department of Children and Families has been notified about the case.
Source: First Coast News
Officers went to 1107 South 10th Street to serve an arrest warrant and arrested six people in the house.
Officers also found someone living underneath the front porch.
In a space that was only four-and-a-half feet tall, there was a television, bed, chair, micro-wave… even a toaster.
Assistant Chief James Griffith with the Palatka Police said, he’s never come across something like that before.
“As far as setting up a residence with electricity running off of extension cords underneath a house, no — I can’t recall any like that,” Griffith said.
Police say 23-year-old Thomas Tyrone Williams was living under the house. He was arrested for drug possession.
While investigators said they found one of the worst crack houses they’ve ever seen and an unusual dwelling underneath it, they also discovered seven children in the house.
All of the children are younger than six years old.
“Most disturbing was some of the crack cocaine was found in one of the backpacks that belonged to one of the children,” Griffith said.
30-year-old Christopher Crowley and 28-year-old Taronda Mack were arrested on drug charges and child abuse.
Griffith said the children are now with relatives and the Department of Children and Families has been notified about the case.
Source: First Coast News
Georgia Iron Worker Claims $275 Million Jackpot
ATLANTA (AP) -- An iron worker and his wife said their days of living paycheck-to-paycheck were behind them after presenting the winning ticket Monday for a $275 million Mega Millions jackpot.
Robert and Tonya Harris said they also plan to replace their trailer home with a new house, and buy a new four-wheel-drive truck first thing Tuesday morning.
"I was having to work overtime to make ends meet," said Robert Harris, who quit his job as soon as he found out his lottery ticket was a winner. "Now we don't have to do that."
The jackpot is the largest won by a single player in the history of the 15-year-old Georgia Lottery and the third largest in Mega Millions history, lottery officials said.
"It's awesome," Robert Harris, 47, told a room full of reporters after receiving the ceremonial big check from lottery officials. "We have been very blessed."
He said he picked the winning numbers from Friday's multistate drawing -- 7, 12, 13, 19 and 22, plus the Mega Ball number 10 -- by using his grandchildren's birthdays.
Now they plan to use the windfall to send their grandchildren to college, Tonya Harris said. They also want to share some money with other relatives, she said.
"We're not gonna change," she said, wearing warmup pants and flip-flops. "I'm too country."
The couple spent Sunday night at the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta before arriving at the lottery headquarters to claim their prize.
Lottery officials say the couple decided to take the lump sum: $167 million before taxes. They could have chosen an annuity of $10.5 million a year for 26 years.
They bought the winning ticket at Clyde's Market in Portal, a town of about 600 about 70 miles northwest of Savannah. Robert Harris said they play the lottery "very seldom, but something just entered my mind" to play.
He had his wife buy two $1 tickets while she was grocery shopping.
Billy Hodges, general manager of Clyde's Market, said the news of the jackpot on Saturday morning set the town abuzz.
"It happened to a nice lady; I think this lady really deserves it," Hodges said.
A year ago, Ed Nabors from Rocky Face, Ga., won half of a $390 million Mega Millions jackpot -- the richest lottery prize in U.S. history. The other half was claimed by Elaine and Harold Messner, a couple from Cape May County in New Jersey.
Mega Millions tickets are sold in California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington state. The twice-weekly drawing is done in Atlanta.
Source: First Coast News
I'm glad it went to somebody that knows what it is like to stretch a paycheck until it snaps.
Robert and Tonya Harris said they also plan to replace their trailer home with a new house, and buy a new four-wheel-drive truck first thing Tuesday morning.
"I was having to work overtime to make ends meet," said Robert Harris, who quit his job as soon as he found out his lottery ticket was a winner. "Now we don't have to do that."
The jackpot is the largest won by a single player in the history of the 15-year-old Georgia Lottery and the third largest in Mega Millions history, lottery officials said.
"It's awesome," Robert Harris, 47, told a room full of reporters after receiving the ceremonial big check from lottery officials. "We have been very blessed."
He said he picked the winning numbers from Friday's multistate drawing -- 7, 12, 13, 19 and 22, plus the Mega Ball number 10 -- by using his grandchildren's birthdays.
Now they plan to use the windfall to send their grandchildren to college, Tonya Harris said. They also want to share some money with other relatives, she said.
"We're not gonna change," she said, wearing warmup pants and flip-flops. "I'm too country."
The couple spent Sunday night at the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta before arriving at the lottery headquarters to claim their prize.
Lottery officials say the couple decided to take the lump sum: $167 million before taxes. They could have chosen an annuity of $10.5 million a year for 26 years.
They bought the winning ticket at Clyde's Market in Portal, a town of about 600 about 70 miles northwest of Savannah. Robert Harris said they play the lottery "very seldom, but something just entered my mind" to play.
He had his wife buy two $1 tickets while she was grocery shopping.
Billy Hodges, general manager of Clyde's Market, said the news of the jackpot on Saturday morning set the town abuzz.
"It happened to a nice lady; I think this lady really deserves it," Hodges said.
A year ago, Ed Nabors from Rocky Face, Ga., won half of a $390 million Mega Millions jackpot -- the richest lottery prize in U.S. history. The other half was claimed by Elaine and Harold Messner, a couple from Cape May County in New Jersey.
Mega Millions tickets are sold in California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington state. The twice-weekly drawing is done in Atlanta.
Source: First Coast News
I'm glad it went to somebody that knows what it is like to stretch a paycheck until it snaps.
Man Bitten by Shark While on Dive Near Bahamas Dies
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - An Austrian tourist died Monday after being bitten by a shark while diving near the Bahamas in waters that had been baited with bloody fish parts to attract the predators.
Markus Groh, 49, a Vienna lawyer and diving enthusiast, was on a commercial dive trip Sunday when he was bitten about 50 miles off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, said Karlick Arthur, Austrian counsel general in Miami. Groh was in the open water without a cage or similar protection.
The crew aboard the Shear Water, of Riviera Beach-based Scuba Adventures, immediately called the U.S. Coast Guard, which received a mayday from the vessel at about 10 a.m., said Petty Officer 3rd Class Nick Ameen.
The Coast Guard sent a helicopter to the scene, which hoisted Groh from the boat and flew him to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, where authorities said he died Monday.
Ameen said the man was bitten on the leg, but he could not be more specific about the extent of his injuries.
The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation by the Miami-Dade Police Department. A telephone message left for police was not immediately returned.
It was unclear what type of shark was involved in the attack.
A woman who answered the telephone at Scuba Adventures on Monday said the company had no comment.
The company's Web site says it offers the opportunity to get "face to face" with sharks. The site explains that its hammerhead and tiger shark expeditions in the Bahamas are "unique shark trips ... run exclusively for shark enthusiasts and photographers."
To ensure "the best results we will be 'chumming' the water with fish and fish parts," the Web site explains. "Consequently, there will be food in the water at the same time as the divers. Please be aware that these are not 'cage' dives, they are open water experiences."
Bahamas Diving Association president Neal Watson said Shear Water is known to work with species of sharks considered dangerous: lemon sharks, tiger sharks, bull sharks, hammerheads.
His organization, which has done hundreds of thousands of dives, opposes interactive dives with these species without the protection of cages and says Groh's death was preventable.
"I think that they just continue to push the envelope and trying to make it more and more and more exciting," Watson said of Shear Water. "It reached the point where it wasn't a matter of if but when an incident was going to occur."
Source:
What. The. Hell. Was. Wrong. With. Those. People? Sharks are not cuddly, gentle creatures. Sharks are swimming eating machines.
Reading this story makes me hopeful that there may be additional nature safari markets as yet untapped, perhaps in Europe, in which tourists clamor to pay for an expedition where the guide throws bloody food to crocodiles while ensconced safely on a large boat, who will then allow/encourage tourists to pay an extra fee to swim among the crocs and observe/record for posterity their natural feeding behavior. This would be most attractive to those people that are bored with being alive, or perhaps just those people who have always wanted to experience a traumatic limb amputation.
For those who are worried about polar bears starving, perhaps there could be polar bear feeding expeditions in which people pay a polar bear guide to drop chopped-up seal pieces to hungry-looking polar bears from the safety of a bear-proof vehicle, and the ecotourist-cum-polar bear saviors get to stay with the chopped-up seals to observe authentic polar bear feeding behavior. Even better, find a sow with cubs. She would appreciate the food ever so much more. The cubs like to be cuddled while momma bear eats.
Apparently the attorney didn’t know that feeding frenzies are something that he really should not be involved in. Mother nature is an unforgiving bitch and doing stupid things sometimes carries a death penalty.
Markus Groh, 49, a Vienna lawyer and diving enthusiast, was on a commercial dive trip Sunday when he was bitten about 50 miles off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, said Karlick Arthur, Austrian counsel general in Miami. Groh was in the open water without a cage or similar protection.
The crew aboard the Shear Water, of Riviera Beach-based Scuba Adventures, immediately called the U.S. Coast Guard, which received a mayday from the vessel at about 10 a.m., said Petty Officer 3rd Class Nick Ameen.
The Coast Guard sent a helicopter to the scene, which hoisted Groh from the boat and flew him to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, where authorities said he died Monday.
Ameen said the man was bitten on the leg, but he could not be more specific about the extent of his injuries.
The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation by the Miami-Dade Police Department. A telephone message left for police was not immediately returned.
It was unclear what type of shark was involved in the attack.
A woman who answered the telephone at Scuba Adventures on Monday said the company had no comment.
The company's Web site says it offers the opportunity to get "face to face" with sharks. The site explains that its hammerhead and tiger shark expeditions in the Bahamas are "unique shark trips ... run exclusively for shark enthusiasts and photographers."
To ensure "the best results we will be 'chumming' the water with fish and fish parts," the Web site explains. "Consequently, there will be food in the water at the same time as the divers. Please be aware that these are not 'cage' dives, they are open water experiences."
Bahamas Diving Association president Neal Watson said Shear Water is known to work with species of sharks considered dangerous: lemon sharks, tiger sharks, bull sharks, hammerheads.
His organization, which has done hundreds of thousands of dives, opposes interactive dives with these species without the protection of cages and says Groh's death was preventable.
"I think that they just continue to push the envelope and trying to make it more and more and more exciting," Watson said of Shear Water. "It reached the point where it wasn't a matter of if but when an incident was going to occur."
Source:
What. The. Hell. Was. Wrong. With. Those. People? Sharks are not cuddly, gentle creatures. Sharks are swimming eating machines.
Reading this story makes me hopeful that there may be additional nature safari markets as yet untapped, perhaps in Europe, in which tourists clamor to pay for an expedition where the guide throws bloody food to crocodiles while ensconced safely on a large boat, who will then allow/encourage tourists to pay an extra fee to swim among the crocs and observe/record for posterity their natural feeding behavior. This would be most attractive to those people that are bored with being alive, or perhaps just those people who have always wanted to experience a traumatic limb amputation.
For those who are worried about polar bears starving, perhaps there could be polar bear feeding expeditions in which people pay a polar bear guide to drop chopped-up seal pieces to hungry-looking polar bears from the safety of a bear-proof vehicle, and the ecotourist-cum-polar bear saviors get to stay with the chopped-up seals to observe authentic polar bear feeding behavior. Even better, find a sow with cubs. She would appreciate the food ever so much more. The cubs like to be cuddled while momma bear eats.
Apparently the attorney didn’t know that feeding frenzies are something that he really should not be involved in. Mother nature is an unforgiving bitch and doing stupid things sometimes carries a death penalty.
44-Year-Old Woman is China's Third Bird Flu Fatality in 2008
BEIJING (AFP) — A 44-year-old woman in southern China who tested positive for bird flu died on Monday, health officials said, in what is likely the country’s third reported death from the virus this year.
The migrant worker, surnamed Zhang, died after developing a fever and a cough following contact with dead poultry in Guangdong, the province’s health department said, although authorities in Beijing did not immediately comment.
In the financial hub of Hong Kong, which borders Guangdong, officials reacted by increasing tests of poultry coming over the border, although there was no ban on imports as occurred in similar cases previously.
The Guangdong health department said Zhang died in hospital after developing a fever, cough and inflammation of the lungs on February 16.
“We undertook tests on the patient and found that … a test for the bird flu virus (H5N1) was positive,” the department said in a statement.
“It was determined that before her illness she had had contact with dead poultry,” the statement added, without saying specifically that the suspect fowl had H5N1.
The department said that no-one else who had come into close contact with the victim had shown any symptoms of the virus.
The central health ministry did not confirm the case. “We have no information,” an official at the ministry’s media office in Beijing said when contacted by AFP. In China, the central government authorities carry out their own tests for bird flu cases.
The World Health Organisation’s China representative, Hans Troedsson, said the Chinese health ministry had informed his office of the potential bird flu case on Sunday.
If confirmed as a bird flu-related death, it would be the third in China since the start of 2008.
A 41-year-old man died of the virus in the southern Guangxi autonomous region on February 20, while a 22-year-old man in central Hunan province died on January 24.
Not including the death of Zhang in Guangdong, 19 people have been confirmed to have died of bird flu in China since 2003, while 10 others have recovered after catching the virus.
The latest deaths come despite China conducting a huge campaign last year to contain the disease, during which it attempted to vaccinate its entire tens of millions of poultry and stepping up public education efforts.
Hong Kong authorities appeared to be monitoring the Guangdong case very closely and gave more details than Chinese officials.
Zhang farmed poultry at her home and ate chicken after it had fallen ill and died, Thomas Tsang, the controller of the Centre for Health Protection of the Department of Health in Hong Kong, said.
The Hong Kong government has strengthened its border control, will continue to do temperature checks on those entering the territory and step-up inspections of imported poultry, Tsang told reporters.
Anyone who entered the city from the Guangdong province in the past six months and catches pneumonia must be tested for bird flu, he added, but there were as yet no plans to ban poultry imports from the province.
Bird flu has killed more than 200 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation.
Scientists fear the virus could eventually mutate into a form that is much more easily transmissible between humans, triggering a global pandemic.
Source: AFP
More from the International Herald Tribune.
The migrant worker, surnamed Zhang, died after developing a fever and a cough following contact with dead poultry in Guangdong, the province’s health department said, although authorities in Beijing did not immediately comment.
In the financial hub of Hong Kong, which borders Guangdong, officials reacted by increasing tests of poultry coming over the border, although there was no ban on imports as occurred in similar cases previously.
The Guangdong health department said Zhang died in hospital after developing a fever, cough and inflammation of the lungs on February 16.
“We undertook tests on the patient and found that … a test for the bird flu virus (H5N1) was positive,” the department said in a statement.
“It was determined that before her illness she had had contact with dead poultry,” the statement added, without saying specifically that the suspect fowl had H5N1.
The department said that no-one else who had come into close contact with the victim had shown any symptoms of the virus.
The central health ministry did not confirm the case. “We have no information,” an official at the ministry’s media office in Beijing said when contacted by AFP. In China, the central government authorities carry out their own tests for bird flu cases.
The World Health Organisation’s China representative, Hans Troedsson, said the Chinese health ministry had informed his office of the potential bird flu case on Sunday.
If confirmed as a bird flu-related death, it would be the third in China since the start of 2008.
A 41-year-old man died of the virus in the southern Guangxi autonomous region on February 20, while a 22-year-old man in central Hunan province died on January 24.
Not including the death of Zhang in Guangdong, 19 people have been confirmed to have died of bird flu in China since 2003, while 10 others have recovered after catching the virus.
The latest deaths come despite China conducting a huge campaign last year to contain the disease, during which it attempted to vaccinate its entire tens of millions of poultry and stepping up public education efforts.
Hong Kong authorities appeared to be monitoring the Guangdong case very closely and gave more details than Chinese officials.
Zhang farmed poultry at her home and ate chicken after it had fallen ill and died, Thomas Tsang, the controller of the Centre for Health Protection of the Department of Health in Hong Kong, said.
The Hong Kong government has strengthened its border control, will continue to do temperature checks on those entering the territory and step-up inspections of imported poultry, Tsang told reporters.
Anyone who entered the city from the Guangdong province in the past six months and catches pneumonia must be tested for bird flu, he added, but there were as yet no plans to ban poultry imports from the province.
Bird flu has killed more than 200 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation.
Scientists fear the virus could eventually mutate into a form that is much more easily transmissible between humans, triggering a global pandemic.
Source: AFP
More from the International Herald Tribune.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Giant Fossil Frog From Hell Discovered
A team of researchers, led by Stony Brook University paleontologist David Krause, has discovered the remains in Madagascar of what may be the largest frog ever to exist.
The 16-inch, 10-pound ancient frog, scientifically named Beelzebufo, or devil frog, links a group of frogs that lived 65 to 70 million years ago with frogs living today in South America.
Discovery of the voracious predatory fossil frog -- reported on-line this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) -- is significant in that it may provide direct evidence of a one-time land connection between Madagascar, the largest island off Africa's southeast coast, and South America.
To identify Beelzebufo and determine its relationship to other frogs, Krause collaborated with fossil frog experts Susan Evans, lead author of the PNAS article, and Marc Jones of the University College London. The authors concluded that the new frog represents the first known occurrence of a fossil group in Madagascar with living representatives in South America.
"Beelzebufo appears to be a very close relative of a group of South American frogs known as 'ceratophyrines,' or 'pac-man' frogs, because of their immense mouths," said Krause, whose research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The ceratophryines are known to camouflage themselves in their surroundings, then ambush predators.
"The finding presents a real puzzle biogeographically, particularly because of the poor fossil record of frogs on southern continents," said Krause. "We're asking ourselves, 'What's a 'South American' frog doing half-way around the world, in Madagascar?'"
He said that because frogs "are not adept at dispersal across marine barriers, and since the few fossil frogs that are known from the Late Cretaceous in Africa are unrelated to Beelzebufo, one possibility is that there was a land connection between South America and Madagascar during that period."
Some geoscientists have suggested a lingering physical link between South America and Madagascar during the Late Cretaceous Period -- a link involving Antarctica. Antarctica in the Late Cretaceous was much warmer than it is today.
"The occurrence of this frog in Madagascar and its relatives' existence in South America provides strong evidence that the supercontinent Gondwana 'disassembled' during the latest part of the Cretaceous," said Richard Lane, program director in NSF's Division of Earth Sciences.
Krause and colleagues have hypothesized this connection based on previous discoveries of sauropod and theropod dinosaurs, crocodiles and mammals in Madagascar that were very closely related to forms in South America.
Beelzebufo is one of the largest frogs on record and was perhaps the largest frog ever to exist. The size and robustness of its bones and its relatedness to the rotund South American forms indicates it was also probably the heaviest frog to exist.
The size, girth, appearance, and predatory nature of the frog prompted its discoverers to call it the "armored frog from hell." They derived the genus name from the Greek word for devil (Beelzebub) and the Latin word for toad (bufo). The species name, ampinga, means "shield."
The largest living frog today is the goliath frog of West Africa, which attains lengths of 12.5 inches and weights of 7.2 pounds. The largest frog alive on Madagascar today, at just over four inches long, "would have been a nice hors d'oeuvre for Beelzebufo," Krause said.
Since the discovery of the first bones found in northwestern Madagascar in 1993, Krause and his team have gathered some 75 fossil fragments of Beelzebufo. Through the accumulation of these fossils, the team has been able to reconstruct the frog's skeleton, including nearly the entire skull.
Not only was the frog huge, it was powerful in design, had a protective shield, an extremely wide mouth and powerful jaws. These features made Beelzebufo capable of killing lizards and other small vertebrates, perhaps even hatchling dinosaurs.
Source: National Science Foundation
Dang, and I thought the little tree frogs made a mess everywhere.
The 16-inch, 10-pound ancient frog, scientifically named Beelzebufo, or devil frog, links a group of frogs that lived 65 to 70 million years ago with frogs living today in South America.
Discovery of the voracious predatory fossil frog -- reported on-line this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) -- is significant in that it may provide direct evidence of a one-time land connection between Madagascar, the largest island off Africa's southeast coast, and South America.
To identify Beelzebufo and determine its relationship to other frogs, Krause collaborated with fossil frog experts Susan Evans, lead author of the PNAS article, and Marc Jones of the University College London. The authors concluded that the new frog represents the first known occurrence of a fossil group in Madagascar with living representatives in South America.
"Beelzebufo appears to be a very close relative of a group of South American frogs known as 'ceratophyrines,' or 'pac-man' frogs, because of their immense mouths," said Krause, whose research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The ceratophryines are known to camouflage themselves in their surroundings, then ambush predators.
"The finding presents a real puzzle biogeographically, particularly because of the poor fossil record of frogs on southern continents," said Krause. "We're asking ourselves, 'What's a 'South American' frog doing half-way around the world, in Madagascar?'"
He said that because frogs "are not adept at dispersal across marine barriers, and since the few fossil frogs that are known from the Late Cretaceous in Africa are unrelated to Beelzebufo, one possibility is that there was a land connection between South America and Madagascar during that period."
Some geoscientists have suggested a lingering physical link between South America and Madagascar during the Late Cretaceous Period -- a link involving Antarctica. Antarctica in the Late Cretaceous was much warmer than it is today.
"The occurrence of this frog in Madagascar and its relatives' existence in South America provides strong evidence that the supercontinent Gondwana 'disassembled' during the latest part of the Cretaceous," said Richard Lane, program director in NSF's Division of Earth Sciences.
Krause and colleagues have hypothesized this connection based on previous discoveries of sauropod and theropod dinosaurs, crocodiles and mammals in Madagascar that were very closely related to forms in South America.
Beelzebufo is one of the largest frogs on record and was perhaps the largest frog ever to exist. The size and robustness of its bones and its relatedness to the rotund South American forms indicates it was also probably the heaviest frog to exist.
The size, girth, appearance, and predatory nature of the frog prompted its discoverers to call it the "armored frog from hell." They derived the genus name from the Greek word for devil (Beelzebub) and the Latin word for toad (bufo). The species name, ampinga, means "shield."
The largest living frog today is the goliath frog of West Africa, which attains lengths of 12.5 inches and weights of 7.2 pounds. The largest frog alive on Madagascar today, at just over four inches long, "would have been a nice hors d'oeuvre for Beelzebufo," Krause said.
Since the discovery of the first bones found in northwestern Madagascar in 1993, Krause and his team have gathered some 75 fossil fragments of Beelzebufo. Through the accumulation of these fossils, the team has been able to reconstruct the frog's skeleton, including nearly the entire skull.
Not only was the frog huge, it was powerful in design, had a protective shield, an extremely wide mouth and powerful jaws. These features made Beelzebufo capable of killing lizards and other small vertebrates, perhaps even hatchling dinosaurs.
Source: National Science Foundation
Dang, and I thought the little tree frogs made a mess everywhere.
Dust in West up 500% in last 2 Centuries says CU-Boulder Study
The West has become 500 percent dustier in the past two centuries due to westward U.S. expansion and accompanying human activity beginning in the 1800s, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Sediment records from dust blown into alpine lakes in southwest Colorado's San Juan Mountains over millennia indicates the sharp rise in dust deposits coincided with railroad, ranching and livestock activity in the middle of the last century, said geological sciences Assistant Professor Jason Neff, lead author on the study. The results have implications ranging from ecosystem alteration to human health, he said.
"From about 1860 to 1900, the dust deposition rates shot up so high that we initially thought there was a mistake in our data," said Neff. "But the evidence clearly shows the western U.S. had it's own Dust Bowl beginning in the 1800s when the railroads went in and cattle and sheep were introduced into the rangelands."
A paper on the research funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation was published in the Feb. 24 issue of Nature Geoscience. Co-authors included CU-Boulder's Ashley Ballantyne, Lang Farmer and Corey Lawrence, Cornell University's Natalie Mahowald, the University of Arizona's Jessica Conroy and Jonathan Overpeck, Christopher Landry of the Center of Snow and Avalanche Studies in Silverton, Colo., the University of Utah's Tom Painter and the U.S. Geological Survey's Richard Reynolds.
The study indicates "dust fall" in the West over the past century was five to seven times heavier than at any time in the previous 5,000 years, said Neff, who is also a faculty member in CU-Boulder's Environmental Studies Program. While some fine-grained dust from Asia periodically falls on Colorado's San Juans, the abundance of larger-sized dust particles in the lake sediments there indicates most of the dust originated regionally in the Southwest, said the authors.
While droughts can trigger erosion and increased dust deposition, western U.S. droughts during the past two centuries have been relatively mild compared to droughts over the past 2,000 years, Neff said. Instead, the increased dustiness in the West coincides with intensive land use, primarily grazing, according to radiocarbon dating and lead isotope analysis of soil cores retrieved from lakebeds, he said.
"There were an estimated 40 million head of livestock on the western rangeland during the turn of the century, causing a massive and systematic degradation of the ecosystems," said Neff. The 1934 Taylor Grazing Act that imposed restrictions on western grazing lands coincided with a decrease in accumulation rates of the San Juan lake sediments in the study -- a decrease that continues to today, he said.
The study also shows more than a five-fold increase in nutrients and minerals in the lakebed sediments during the last 150 years, said Neff. Increases in nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium -- byproducts of ranching, mining and agricultural activity - have been shown to change water alkalinity, aquatic productivity and nutrient cycling.
In the Niwot Ridge alpine region west of Boulder, for example, CU-Boulder researchers have observed increased algal growth in streams and lakes as a result of rising nitrogen deposition, as well as changes in the composition and diversity of wildflowers on the tundra. "Because these types of inputs have the potential to increase plant growth, the ultimate outcome of such depositions could change the fabric of our ecosystems," said Neff.
Excessive dust also can cause significant human health problems, including lung tissue damage, allergic reactions and respiratory problems, Neff said.
The San Juan lakes are located in an area dominated by rocky talus slopes with little soil and vegetation at about 13,000 feet in elevation and are located downwind of several major U.S. deserts like the Colorado Plateau and the Mojave. The site was chosen in part because the San Juans experience frequent wintertime dust deposition events -- usually between four to seven episodes annually, Neff said.
A study published in Geophysical Research Letters in 2007 involving co-authors of the Nature Geoscience paper, including Neff, showed wind-blown dust from disturbed lands in the Southwest shortened the duration of San Juan mountain snow cover by roughly a month. "The dust we see in these lakes is the same dust that causes earlier spring snowmelt here, so we can now definitively say that humans are in large part responsible for this melt," said Neff.
"There seems to be a perception that dusty conditions in the West are just the nature of the region," said Neff. "We have shown here that the increase in dust since the 1800s is a direct result of human activity and not part of the natural system."
Source: Eurekalert
Hmmmm. I see no mention of the environmental degredation caused by bison.
Sediment records from dust blown into alpine lakes in southwest Colorado's San Juan Mountains over millennia indicates the sharp rise in dust deposits coincided with railroad, ranching and livestock activity in the middle of the last century, said geological sciences Assistant Professor Jason Neff, lead author on the study. The results have implications ranging from ecosystem alteration to human health, he said.
"From about 1860 to 1900, the dust deposition rates shot up so high that we initially thought there was a mistake in our data," said Neff. "But the evidence clearly shows the western U.S. had it's own Dust Bowl beginning in the 1800s when the railroads went in and cattle and sheep were introduced into the rangelands."
A paper on the research funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation was published in the Feb. 24 issue of Nature Geoscience. Co-authors included CU-Boulder's Ashley Ballantyne, Lang Farmer and Corey Lawrence, Cornell University's Natalie Mahowald, the University of Arizona's Jessica Conroy and Jonathan Overpeck, Christopher Landry of the Center of Snow and Avalanche Studies in Silverton, Colo., the University of Utah's Tom Painter and the U.S. Geological Survey's Richard Reynolds.
The study indicates "dust fall" in the West over the past century was five to seven times heavier than at any time in the previous 5,000 years, said Neff, who is also a faculty member in CU-Boulder's Environmental Studies Program. While some fine-grained dust from Asia periodically falls on Colorado's San Juans, the abundance of larger-sized dust particles in the lake sediments there indicates most of the dust originated regionally in the Southwest, said the authors.
While droughts can trigger erosion and increased dust deposition, western U.S. droughts during the past two centuries have been relatively mild compared to droughts over the past 2,000 years, Neff said. Instead, the increased dustiness in the West coincides with intensive land use, primarily grazing, according to radiocarbon dating and lead isotope analysis of soil cores retrieved from lakebeds, he said.
"There were an estimated 40 million head of livestock on the western rangeland during the turn of the century, causing a massive and systematic degradation of the ecosystems," said Neff. The 1934 Taylor Grazing Act that imposed restrictions on western grazing lands coincided with a decrease in accumulation rates of the San Juan lake sediments in the study -- a decrease that continues to today, he said.
The study also shows more than a five-fold increase in nutrients and minerals in the lakebed sediments during the last 150 years, said Neff. Increases in nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium -- byproducts of ranching, mining and agricultural activity - have been shown to change water alkalinity, aquatic productivity and nutrient cycling.
In the Niwot Ridge alpine region west of Boulder, for example, CU-Boulder researchers have observed increased algal growth in streams and lakes as a result of rising nitrogen deposition, as well as changes in the composition and diversity of wildflowers on the tundra. "Because these types of inputs have the potential to increase plant growth, the ultimate outcome of such depositions could change the fabric of our ecosystems," said Neff.
Excessive dust also can cause significant human health problems, including lung tissue damage, allergic reactions and respiratory problems, Neff said.
The San Juan lakes are located in an area dominated by rocky talus slopes with little soil and vegetation at about 13,000 feet in elevation and are located downwind of several major U.S. deserts like the Colorado Plateau and the Mojave. The site was chosen in part because the San Juans experience frequent wintertime dust deposition events -- usually between four to seven episodes annually, Neff said.
A study published in Geophysical Research Letters in 2007 involving co-authors of the Nature Geoscience paper, including Neff, showed wind-blown dust from disturbed lands in the Southwest shortened the duration of San Juan mountain snow cover by roughly a month. "The dust we see in these lakes is the same dust that causes earlier spring snowmelt here, so we can now definitively say that humans are in large part responsible for this melt," said Neff.
"There seems to be a perception that dusty conditions in the West are just the nature of the region," said Neff. "We have shown here that the increase in dust since the 1800s is a direct result of human activity and not part of the natural system."
Source: Eurekalert
Hmmmm. I see no mention of the environmental degredation caused by bison.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Burn Patient 10th to Die from Port Wentworth Sugar Refinery Explosion
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- A 10th victim of the Feb. 7 Imperial Sugar refinery blast in Port Wentworth, near Savannah, died in the Joseph M. Still Burn Center at Doctors Hospital died on Friday, the hospital said.
Thirteen patients from the explosion remain in the burn center in critical condition and two others in serious condition, said Beth Frits, spokeswoman for the hospital.
Frits said the identify of the victim who died on Friday was being withheld pending notification of family members.
Source: News4Jax.com
Thirteen patients from the explosion remain in the burn center in critical condition and two others in serious condition, said Beth Frits, spokeswoman for the hospital.
Frits said the identify of the victim who died on Friday was being withheld pending notification of family members.
Source: News4Jax.com
CDC Report on Measles Outbreak in California
Measles, once a common childhood disease in the United States, can result in severe complications, including encephalitis, pneumonia, and death. Because of successful implementation of measles vaccination programs, endemic measles transmission has been eliminated in the United States and the rest of the Americas. However, measles continues to occur in other regions of the world, including Europe (1). In January 2008, measles was identified in an unvaccinated boy from San Diego, California, who had recently traveled to Europe with his family. After his case was confirmed, an outbreak investigation and response were initiated by local and state health departments in coordination with CDC, using standard measles surveillance case definitions and classifications.* This report summarizes the preliminary results of that investigation, which has identified 11 additional cases of measles in unvaccinated children† in San Diego that are linked epidemiologically to the index case and include two generations of secondary transmission. Recommendations for preventing further measles transmission from importations in this and other U.S. settings include reminding health-care providers to 1) consider a diagnosis of measles in ill persons who have traveled overseas, 2) use appropriate infection-control practices to prevent transmission in health-care settings, and 3) maintain high coverage with measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine among children.
The index patient was an unvaccinated boy aged 7 years who had visited Switzerland with his family, returning to the United States on January 13, 2008. He had fever and sore throat on January 21, followed by cough, coryza, and conjunctivitis. On January 24, he attended school. On January 25, the date of his rash onset, he visited the offices of his family physician and his pediatrician. A diagnosis of scarlet fever was ruled out on the basis of a negative rapid test for streptococcus. When the boy’s condition became worse on January 26, he visited a children’s hospital inpatient laboratory, where blood specimens were collected for measles antibody testing; later that day, he was taken to the same hospital’s emergency department because of high fever 104°F (40°C) and generalized rash. No isolation precautions were instituted at the doctors’ offices or hospital facilities.
The boy’s measles immunoglobulin M (IgM) positive laboratory test result was reported to the county health department on February 1, 2008. During January 31–February 19, a total of 11 additional measles cases in unvaccinated infants and children aged 10 months–9 years were identified. These 11 cases included both of the index patient’s siblings (rash onset: February 3), five children in his school (rash onset: January 31–February 17), and four additional children (rash onset: February 6–10) who had been in the pediatrician’s office on January 25 at the same time as the index patient. Among these latter four patients, three were infants aged <12 months. One of the three infants was hospitalized for 2 days for dehydration; another infant traveled by airplane to Hawaii on February 9 while infectious.
Parents who have never personally experienced measles because they were vaccinated as children tend to underestimate what a deadly disease measles can be. They are also counting on a sufficient number of their neighbors immunizing their children so that any potential epidemic is averted, a strategy that I find extremely foolish.
On the other hand, if these people want to remove their progeny permanently from the gene pool through disease, should I really attempt to reason with them? Unfortunately, infants below vaccination age can contract the disease from an unvaccinated child through no fault of the parent.
Once ubiquitous, measles now is uncommon in the United States. In the prevaccine era, 3 to 4 million measles cases occurred every year, resulting in approximately 450 deaths, 28,000 hospitalizations, and 1,000 children with chronic disabilities from measles encephalitis. Because of successful implementation of measles vaccination programs, fewer than 100 measles cases are now reported annually in the United States and virtually all of those are linked to imported cases (2,3), reflecting the incidence of measles globally and travel patterns of U.S. residents and visitors. During 2006–2007, importations were most common from India, Japan, and countries in Europe, where measles transmission remains endemic and large outbreaks have occurred in recent years (CDC, unpublished data, 2008). Since November 2006, Switzerland has experienced that country’s largest measles outbreak since introduction of mandatory notification for measles in 1999 (1).
The San Diego import-associated outbreak, affecting exclusively an unvaccinated population and infants too young to be vaccinated, serves as a reminder that unvaccinated persons remain at risk for measles and that measles spreads rapidly in susceptible subgroups of the population unless effective outbreak-control strategies are implemented. Although notable progress has been made globally in measles control and elimination, measles still occurs throughout the world. U.S. travelers can be exposed to measles almost anywhere they travel, including to developed countries. To prevent acquiring measles during travel, U.S. residents aged >6 months traveling overseas should have documentation of measles immunity before travel (4). Travel histories should be obtained and a diagnosis of measles should be considered by physicians evaluating patients who have febrile rash illness within 3 weeks of traveling abroad.
Measles virus is highly infectious; vaccination coverage levels of >90% are needed to interrupt transmission and maintain elimination in populations. The ongoing outbreak in Switzerland, which has resulted in hospitalizations for pneumonia and encephalitis, has occurred in the context of vaccination coverage levels of 86% for 1 dose at age 2 years and 70% for the second dose for children aged <12 years. In the United States, vaccination coverage levels for at least 1 dose of MMR vaccine have been >90% among children aged 19–35 months and >95% among school-aged children during this decade. Although not measured routinely, 2-dose vaccine coverage is extremely high among U.S. schoolchildren because of school vaccination requirements.
Measles transmission in schools was common in the era before interruption of endemic-disease transmission, and school requirements for vaccination have been a successful strategy for achieving high vaccination coverage levels in this age group and decreasing transmission in school settings. In the United States, all states require children to be vaccinated in accordance with Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommendations before attending school (4). However, medical exemptions to immunization requirements for day care and school attendance are available in all states; in addition, 48 states offer nonmedical religious exemptions, and 21 states (including California) offer nonmedical PBEs.¶ These exemptions are defined differently by each state. The PBE allowed by California requires only a parental affidavit (5). Compared with vaccinated persons, those exempt from vaccination are 22 to 224 times more likely to contract measles (5--7).
The community transmission that has occurred during the San Diego outbreak is consistent with previous observations that the frequency of vaccination exemptors in a community is associated with the incidence of measles in that community; in addition, imported measles cases have demonstrated the potential for sizeable outbreaks in U.S. communities with suboptimal vaccine coverage (5,6,8). The public health response to this outbreak has included identification of cases, isolation of patients and vaccination, administration of immune globulin, and voluntary quarantine of contacts who have no evidence of measles immunity. Costs associated with control of these outbreaks can be substantial. In Iowa, the public health response to one imported measles case cost approximately $150,000 (9).
This outbreak also illustrates the risk for measles transmission in health-care settings. Airborne transmission of measles has been reported in emergency departments, physician offices, and pediatric ambulatory care-settings (10). Persons exposed to measles should be instructed to inform all health-care providers of their exposure before entering a health-care facility. Health-care personnel providing care to suspected measles patients (i.e., patients with febrile illness and generalized maculopapular rash or known contacts with prodromal symptoms) should apply appropriate isolation practices, including airborne precautions, in addition to taking standard precautions for such patients.**
Once a suspected measles case has been identified, prompt isolation of the potentially infectious patient and implementation of appropriate infection-control measures can help to decrease risk for transmission. Patients with suspected measles should be placed in an examination room, preferably an airborne-infection isolation room, as soon as possible and should not be permitted in patient waiting areas. Until placed in an airborne-infection isolation room, the patient should wear a surgical mask. If a surgical mask cannot be tolerated, other practical means to contain respiratory aerosols should be implemented. The door to the examination room should be kept closed, and all health-care personnel in contact with the patient should be documented as immune to measles. Health-care personnel and visitors without evidence of immunity (i.e., documentation of adequate vaccination, laboratory evidence of immunity, born before 1957, or documentation of physician-diagnosed measles) should be restricted from entering the rooms of patients known or suspected to have measles (4,10). The examination room should not be used for 2 hours after the infectious patient leaves. Suspected measles patients should not be referred to other locations for laboratory tests unless infection-control measures can be implemented at those locations.
Measles morbidity and mortality can be reduced through vaccination with MMR vaccine. Vaccination of U.S. travelers can reduce measles importations. Sustained high population immunity through vaccination, effective surveillance, and robust public health preparedness and response capacity are needed to keep the United States free from indigenous measles transmission and control any outbreaks associated with importations.
I have naturally acquired measles immunity; therefore, I made damn good and sure my children were immunized on schedule.
Source: Centers for Disease Control
The index patient was an unvaccinated boy aged 7 years who had visited Switzerland with his family, returning to the United States on January 13, 2008. He had fever and sore throat on January 21, followed by cough, coryza, and conjunctivitis. On January 24, he attended school. On January 25, the date of his rash onset, he visited the offices of his family physician and his pediatrician. A diagnosis of scarlet fever was ruled out on the basis of a negative rapid test for streptococcus. When the boy’s condition became worse on January 26, he visited a children’s hospital inpatient laboratory, where blood specimens were collected for measles antibody testing; later that day, he was taken to the same hospital’s emergency department because of high fever 104°F (40°C) and generalized rash. No isolation precautions were instituted at the doctors’ offices or hospital facilities.
The boy’s measles immunoglobulin M (IgM) positive laboratory test result was reported to the county health department on February 1, 2008. During January 31–February 19, a total of 11 additional measles cases in unvaccinated infants and children aged 10 months–9 years were identified. These 11 cases included both of the index patient’s siblings (rash onset: February 3), five children in his school (rash onset: January 31–February 17), and four additional children (rash onset: February 6–10) who had been in the pediatrician’s office on January 25 at the same time as the index patient. Among these latter four patients, three were infants aged <12 months. One of the three infants was hospitalized for 2 days for dehydration; another infant traveled by airplane to Hawaii on February 9 while infectious.
Parents who have never personally experienced measles because they were vaccinated as children tend to underestimate what a deadly disease measles can be. They are also counting on a sufficient number of their neighbors immunizing their children so that any potential epidemic is averted, a strategy that I find extremely foolish.
On the other hand, if these people want to remove their progeny permanently from the gene pool through disease, should I really attempt to reason with them? Unfortunately, infants below vaccination age can contract the disease from an unvaccinated child through no fault of the parent.
Once ubiquitous, measles now is uncommon in the United States. In the prevaccine era, 3 to 4 million measles cases occurred every year, resulting in approximately 450 deaths, 28,000 hospitalizations, and 1,000 children with chronic disabilities from measles encephalitis. Because of successful implementation of measles vaccination programs, fewer than 100 measles cases are now reported annually in the United States and virtually all of those are linked to imported cases (2,3), reflecting the incidence of measles globally and travel patterns of U.S. residents and visitors. During 2006–2007, importations were most common from India, Japan, and countries in Europe, where measles transmission remains endemic and large outbreaks have occurred in recent years (CDC, unpublished data, 2008). Since November 2006, Switzerland has experienced that country’s largest measles outbreak since introduction of mandatory notification for measles in 1999 (1).
The San Diego import-associated outbreak, affecting exclusively an unvaccinated population and infants too young to be vaccinated, serves as a reminder that unvaccinated persons remain at risk for measles and that measles spreads rapidly in susceptible subgroups of the population unless effective outbreak-control strategies are implemented. Although notable progress has been made globally in measles control and elimination, measles still occurs throughout the world. U.S. travelers can be exposed to measles almost anywhere they travel, including to developed countries. To prevent acquiring measles during travel, U.S. residents aged >6 months traveling overseas should have documentation of measles immunity before travel (4). Travel histories should be obtained and a diagnosis of measles should be considered by physicians evaluating patients who have febrile rash illness within 3 weeks of traveling abroad.
Measles virus is highly infectious; vaccination coverage levels of >90% are needed to interrupt transmission and maintain elimination in populations. The ongoing outbreak in Switzerland, which has resulted in hospitalizations for pneumonia and encephalitis, has occurred in the context of vaccination coverage levels of 86% for 1 dose at age 2 years and 70% for the second dose for children aged <12 years. In the United States, vaccination coverage levels for at least 1 dose of MMR vaccine have been >90% among children aged 19–35 months and >95% among school-aged children during this decade. Although not measured routinely, 2-dose vaccine coverage is extremely high among U.S. schoolchildren because of school vaccination requirements.
Measles transmission in schools was common in the era before interruption of endemic-disease transmission, and school requirements for vaccination have been a successful strategy for achieving high vaccination coverage levels in this age group and decreasing transmission in school settings. In the United States, all states require children to be vaccinated in accordance with Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommendations before attending school (4). However, medical exemptions to immunization requirements for day care and school attendance are available in all states; in addition, 48 states offer nonmedical religious exemptions, and 21 states (including California) offer nonmedical PBEs.¶ These exemptions are defined differently by each state. The PBE allowed by California requires only a parental affidavit (5). Compared with vaccinated persons, those exempt from vaccination are 22 to 224 times more likely to contract measles (5--7).
The community transmission that has occurred during the San Diego outbreak is consistent with previous observations that the frequency of vaccination exemptors in a community is associated with the incidence of measles in that community; in addition, imported measles cases have demonstrated the potential for sizeable outbreaks in U.S. communities with suboptimal vaccine coverage (5,6,8). The public health response to this outbreak has included identification of cases, isolation of patients and vaccination, administration of immune globulin, and voluntary quarantine of contacts who have no evidence of measles immunity. Costs associated with control of these outbreaks can be substantial. In Iowa, the public health response to one imported measles case cost approximately $150,000 (9).
This outbreak also illustrates the risk for measles transmission in health-care settings. Airborne transmission of measles has been reported in emergency departments, physician offices, and pediatric ambulatory care-settings (10). Persons exposed to measles should be instructed to inform all health-care providers of their exposure before entering a health-care facility. Health-care personnel providing care to suspected measles patients (i.e., patients with febrile illness and generalized maculopapular rash or known contacts with prodromal symptoms) should apply appropriate isolation practices, including airborne precautions, in addition to taking standard precautions for such patients.**
Once a suspected measles case has been identified, prompt isolation of the potentially infectious patient and implementation of appropriate infection-control measures can help to decrease risk for transmission. Patients with suspected measles should be placed in an examination room, preferably an airborne-infection isolation room, as soon as possible and should not be permitted in patient waiting areas. Until placed in an airborne-infection isolation room, the patient should wear a surgical mask. If a surgical mask cannot be tolerated, other practical means to contain respiratory aerosols should be implemented. The door to the examination room should be kept closed, and all health-care personnel in contact with the patient should be documented as immune to measles. Health-care personnel and visitors without evidence of immunity (i.e., documentation of adequate vaccination, laboratory evidence of immunity, born before 1957, or documentation of physician-diagnosed measles) should be restricted from entering the rooms of patients known or suspected to have measles (4,10). The examination room should not be used for 2 hours after the infectious patient leaves. Suspected measles patients should not be referred to other locations for laboratory tests unless infection-control measures can be implemented at those locations.
Measles morbidity and mortality can be reduced through vaccination with MMR vaccine. Vaccination of U.S. travelers can reduce measles importations. Sustained high population immunity through vaccination, effective surveillance, and robust public health preparedness and response capacity are needed to keep the United States free from indigenous measles transmission and control any outbreaks associated with importations.
I have naturally acquired measles immunity; therefore, I made damn good and sure my children were immunized on schedule.
Source: Centers for Disease Control
Venzuelan Oil Production Capability Questioned
The financial situation of state-run Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. could reach critical levels that might affect its production capability, both short- and mid-range, experts said Friday.
The financial muscle of the Venezuelan oil company, which has earned gross revenues exceeding $650 billion in the nine years of President Hugo Chávez’s administration, could be severely weakened by the extensive social expenditures the company is underwriting in Venezuela, the low level of investment in exploration and exploitation and an unusually high debt.
Just last year, PDVSA acquired a debt higher than $12 billion and it could be forced to pay about $10 billion to energy transnationals, including ExxonMobil, to compensate for the nationalizations the government carried out in mid-2007, said economist José Guerra, a professor at the Central University of Venezuela.
PDVSA’s president, Rafael RamÃrez, has defended the company’s economic performance, claiming that last year 92.5 percent of the oil exports were under state control and that its fiscal contribution increased by 15 percent to more than $42 billion in 2007.
But the weakening of PDVSA’s finances could even compromise its compliance with the accords Chávez signed with more than a dozen Caribbean countries in an alliance called PetroCaribe, said Horacio Medina, an oil engineer and a former PDVSA executive.
During a forum organized by the University of Miami and the El Venezolano publishing group, Medina and Guerra this week analyzed in detail the financial health of the Venezuelan company, revealing a situation with important consequences for the United States, which receives about 1.3 billion barrels of Venezuelan crude a day.
A sudden cutoff of Venezuelan shipments to the U.S. is unlikely, but the Chávez administration is preparing ”a scenario to exit the U.S. market in the medium or long term,” Medina said.
Among the indications of this strategy, is the sale of Citgo’s participation in the Lyondell refinery in Texas in August 2006 and the dissolution of the alliance that Citgo maintained with the convenience-store chain 7 Eleven, Medina said.
Source: Miami Herald
The only thing Venezuela has going for it are the oil revenues. I don’t want to contemplate the implosion that would occur should they falter.
The financial muscle of the Venezuelan oil company, which has earned gross revenues exceeding $650 billion in the nine years of President Hugo Chávez’s administration, could be severely weakened by the extensive social expenditures the company is underwriting in Venezuela, the low level of investment in exploration and exploitation and an unusually high debt.
Just last year, PDVSA acquired a debt higher than $12 billion and it could be forced to pay about $10 billion to energy transnationals, including ExxonMobil, to compensate for the nationalizations the government carried out in mid-2007, said economist José Guerra, a professor at the Central University of Venezuela.
PDVSA’s president, Rafael RamÃrez, has defended the company’s economic performance, claiming that last year 92.5 percent of the oil exports were under state control and that its fiscal contribution increased by 15 percent to more than $42 billion in 2007.
But the weakening of PDVSA’s finances could even compromise its compliance with the accords Chávez signed with more than a dozen Caribbean countries in an alliance called PetroCaribe, said Horacio Medina, an oil engineer and a former PDVSA executive.
During a forum organized by the University of Miami and the El Venezolano publishing group, Medina and Guerra this week analyzed in detail the financial health of the Venezuelan company, revealing a situation with important consequences for the United States, which receives about 1.3 billion barrels of Venezuelan crude a day.
A sudden cutoff of Venezuelan shipments to the U.S. is unlikely, but the Chávez administration is preparing ”a scenario to exit the U.S. market in the medium or long term,” Medina said.
Among the indications of this strategy, is the sale of Citgo’s participation in the Lyondell refinery in Texas in August 2006 and the dissolution of the alliance that Citgo maintained with the convenience-store chain 7 Eleven, Medina said.
Source: Miami Herald
The only thing Venezuela has going for it are the oil revenues. I don’t want to contemplate the implosion that would occur should they falter.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Al Qaeda in Iraq Executing Former "Allies"
BALAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Video provided to CNN shows an al Qaeda in Iraq firing squad executing one-time allies -- fellow Sunni extremists -- who were not loyal enough to the terror organization, coalition military analysts said.
Analysts say the video shows al Qaeda in Iraq operatives executing nine Sunni men deemed disloyal.
In the video provided by coalition military officials, armed men wearing masks are shown standing behind nine kneeling men, all of whom are wearing blindfolds or hoods with their hands presumably tied behind their backs. The video shows the men being executed.
"Al Qaeda in Iraq, which is foreign led and foreign dominated here inside Iraq, is killing off other Sunni groups that are certainly not supportive of the government of Iraq, currently, or of the foreign occupation, but are not sharing the same ideology that al Qaeda in Iraq has," Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said.
The video was recovered late last year during a raid on a compound near Samarra that was being used for killing and torture, a coalition official said.
A number of documents -- some found in the same raid -- bolster the coalition notion that al Qaeda in Iraq is waging a violent campaign against its former allies, intelligence analysts said. Watch how the documents could aid coalition forces »
Samarra is the site of a February 2006 attack on al-Askariya Mosque, revered by Shiites. The attack set off a wave of sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis, who were suspected of perpetrating the attack. The northern Iraqi city lies in Salaheddin province, one of four provinces where coalition forces have beefed up operations against Sunni militants.
Coalition officials say the documents are indicative of a deep rift among the militant groups fighting coalition forces. Al Qaeda in Iraq "would like nothing more than to aggravate the situation," Smith said last week.
Al Qaeda in Iraq has a history of documenting its actions, the analysts said.
One document found in the Samarra raid shows the execution of a woman believed to have helped Iraqi police. Another describes the murders of 12 men who al Qaeda in Iraq felt were not sufficiently loyal.
In another document, al Qaeda in Iraq criticizes jihadist groups that it says are following "a false path," according to the analysts.
The analysts said one document also describes the stance of six Sunni splinter groups being targeted by al Qaeda in Iraq. The document, signed by leaders of the groups, outlines their opposition to the U.S. presence in Iraq but includes a pledge to avoid attacks on civilians.
Coalition officials said the documents and video may reflect a move toward reconciliation among some Sunni factions.
In recent months, the U.S. has paid Sunnis and some Shiites $148 million to help fight extremists, military officials said. These groups have taken on many monikers, including Awakening Councils, Concerned Local Citizens and Sons of Iraq.
Coalition officials said they are trying to determine whether the documents found last year are a reason to expand efforts to bring more Sunnis into the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq.
Source: CNN
Guess they've never read "How to Make Friends and Influence People".
Analysts say the video shows al Qaeda in Iraq operatives executing nine Sunni men deemed disloyal.
In the video provided by coalition military officials, armed men wearing masks are shown standing behind nine kneeling men, all of whom are wearing blindfolds or hoods with their hands presumably tied behind their backs. The video shows the men being executed.
"Al Qaeda in Iraq, which is foreign led and foreign dominated here inside Iraq, is killing off other Sunni groups that are certainly not supportive of the government of Iraq, currently, or of the foreign occupation, but are not sharing the same ideology that al Qaeda in Iraq has," Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said.
The video was recovered late last year during a raid on a compound near Samarra that was being used for killing and torture, a coalition official said.
A number of documents -- some found in the same raid -- bolster the coalition notion that al Qaeda in Iraq is waging a violent campaign against its former allies, intelligence analysts said. Watch how the documents could aid coalition forces »
Samarra is the site of a February 2006 attack on al-Askariya Mosque, revered by Shiites. The attack set off a wave of sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis, who were suspected of perpetrating the attack. The northern Iraqi city lies in Salaheddin province, one of four provinces where coalition forces have beefed up operations against Sunni militants.
Coalition officials say the documents are indicative of a deep rift among the militant groups fighting coalition forces. Al Qaeda in Iraq "would like nothing more than to aggravate the situation," Smith said last week.
Al Qaeda in Iraq has a history of documenting its actions, the analysts said.
One document found in the Samarra raid shows the execution of a woman believed to have helped Iraqi police. Another describes the murders of 12 men who al Qaeda in Iraq felt were not sufficiently loyal.
In another document, al Qaeda in Iraq criticizes jihadist groups that it says are following "a false path," according to the analysts.
The analysts said one document also describes the stance of six Sunni splinter groups being targeted by al Qaeda in Iraq. The document, signed by leaders of the groups, outlines their opposition to the U.S. presence in Iraq but includes a pledge to avoid attacks on civilians.
Coalition officials said the documents and video may reflect a move toward reconciliation among some Sunni factions.
In recent months, the U.S. has paid Sunnis and some Shiites $148 million to help fight extremists, military officials said. These groups have taken on many monikers, including Awakening Councils, Concerned Local Citizens and Sons of Iraq.
Coalition officials said they are trying to determine whether the documents found last year are a reason to expand efforts to bring more Sunnis into the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq.
Source: CNN
Guess they've never read "How to Make Friends and Influence People".
Pizza Fusion: Saving the Planet One Pizza at a Time
Two years ago on Valentine’s Day, two Florida Atlantic University business school buddies were having lunch, complaining about their miserable, soul-less jobs, when they had one of those ideas that would ultimately shape their destiny.
Forgo their reliable paychecks and open a pizza joint.
But this wouldn’t be just any pizza palace. It would be one in keeping with the times — an organic, earth-sustaining franchise that delivered its pizza pies in hybrid cars and would eventually become the nation’s first chain of organic pizzerias.
Two years after opening Pizza Fusion in Deerfield Beach, Michael Gordon and Vaughan Lazar have sold 55 franchises in eight states, with a new Weston store that is certified as meeting Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards of the U.S. Green Building Council.
A NOBLE CONCEPT
”We thought about creating a concept that was all about doing better and more, and pizza turned out to be the instrument,” said Gordon, a seasoned entrepreneur who for a time had owned his own candle store before going into real estate holdings. At the time of the idea for the pizzeria, Lazar was running his own printing and design firm.
”It was one of those stupid conversations. We can do this, being narcissistic and all,” Gordon said. “We didn’t know how difficult it was.”
For some perspective, consider this: Nationally, there are about 65,000 pizzerias, making the market highly saturated, said Pizza Today editor-in-chief Jeremy White. Restaurant industry estimates put the failure rate at somewhere between 60 percent and 80 percent.
”It’s a risky proposition to open a restaurant,” White said.
A furious four months followed that Valentine’s Day lunch, as the two put together the concept — ”Saving the Earth, one pizza at a time” — and secured the financial backing to open their first store.
The most difficult part, said Lazar, was solving the logistical nightmare of obtaining enough organic food from local farmers to run the restaurants.
”We had 18 distributors when we started,” he said.
Ultimately, they settled on United Natural Foods and its sister company, Albert’s Organics, which handles produce, meat and cheeses.
AN EDIBLE MISSION
Next the pair had to work on selling consumers on both their pizzas and their business model, Lazar said.
‘Our second challenge was educating people on what `organics’ is and what it is to be a green business and trying not to put the mission before the food,” he said. “People don’t like to chew on a mission.”
Because market studies can be so costly, they sought locations already scouted out by Whole Foods Market, the supermarket chain that made organic an everyday convenience.
”Obviously, they did the demographic studies that we can’t afford, [showing] that there was a market there to support organics,” Lazar said. “Their distribution was already set up, and we could just jump on that.”
BIG DAVE’S HELP
They also hired an expert in traditional pizzerias: ”Big Dave” Ostrander, who ran his own pizza joint in Michigan for 25 years and has written four books on the industry. He also coached the U.S. Pizza Team to a silver medal at the World Championships in 2003. Ostrander, who was initially wary of the whole green thing, gave them a two-week crash course on the pizza industry and its potential for generating impressive revenue. (The top-earning independent pizza restaurant, Amid’s East Coast Pizzeria in San Mateo, Calif., raked in $30 million in gross sales in 2006, according to Pizza Today.)
”It’s a very big tossup when you go green and turn the cost of the concept over to your customers. I had immediate reservations,” Ostrander said. “I was freaked out the first time they brought a $10 or $11 steak into the restaurant and a $4 pepper. I said we’re going to have a hard time making ends meet.”
But Gordon and Lazar were adamant, and after Ostrander spent several days in South Florida, he, too, became convinced that customers would pay more (the cost is about 20 percent higher) for organic food.
”I deal almost exclusively with indies — chains have guys like me who do the trouble shooting — and for an indie to do well and grow so well is amazing,” he said. “It’s phenomenal, actually.”
Within three weeks of opening, Gordon said, they received an offer of $1 million to buy a 25 percent stake in the company — an offer they rejected.
Read the rest here.
Heh. Interesting marketing concept and development of a niche market catering to suburban angst. Somebody *really* interested in “saving” the “environment” would probably not be eating delivered pizza regardless of the hybrid vehicle delivery or how “organic” it was.
Anybody else out there have a rather unlikely idea that turned into a cash cow that you’re still milking? I need to do something different and I’m slap out of ideas.
Forgo their reliable paychecks and open a pizza joint.
But this wouldn’t be just any pizza palace. It would be one in keeping with the times — an organic, earth-sustaining franchise that delivered its pizza pies in hybrid cars and would eventually become the nation’s first chain of organic pizzerias.
Two years after opening Pizza Fusion in Deerfield Beach, Michael Gordon and Vaughan Lazar have sold 55 franchises in eight states, with a new Weston store that is certified as meeting Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards of the U.S. Green Building Council.
A NOBLE CONCEPT
”We thought about creating a concept that was all about doing better and more, and pizza turned out to be the instrument,” said Gordon, a seasoned entrepreneur who for a time had owned his own candle store before going into real estate holdings. At the time of the idea for the pizzeria, Lazar was running his own printing and design firm.
”It was one of those stupid conversations. We can do this, being narcissistic and all,” Gordon said. “We didn’t know how difficult it was.”
For some perspective, consider this: Nationally, there are about 65,000 pizzerias, making the market highly saturated, said Pizza Today editor-in-chief Jeremy White. Restaurant industry estimates put the failure rate at somewhere between 60 percent and 80 percent.
”It’s a risky proposition to open a restaurant,” White said.
A furious four months followed that Valentine’s Day lunch, as the two put together the concept — ”Saving the Earth, one pizza at a time” — and secured the financial backing to open their first store.
The most difficult part, said Lazar, was solving the logistical nightmare of obtaining enough organic food from local farmers to run the restaurants.
”We had 18 distributors when we started,” he said.
Ultimately, they settled on United Natural Foods and its sister company, Albert’s Organics, which handles produce, meat and cheeses.
AN EDIBLE MISSION
Next the pair had to work on selling consumers on both their pizzas and their business model, Lazar said.
‘Our second challenge was educating people on what `organics’ is and what it is to be a green business and trying not to put the mission before the food,” he said. “People don’t like to chew on a mission.”
Because market studies can be so costly, they sought locations already scouted out by Whole Foods Market, the supermarket chain that made organic an everyday convenience.
”Obviously, they did the demographic studies that we can’t afford, [showing] that there was a market there to support organics,” Lazar said. “Their distribution was already set up, and we could just jump on that.”
BIG DAVE’S HELP
They also hired an expert in traditional pizzerias: ”Big Dave” Ostrander, who ran his own pizza joint in Michigan for 25 years and has written four books on the industry. He also coached the U.S. Pizza Team to a silver medal at the World Championships in 2003. Ostrander, who was initially wary of the whole green thing, gave them a two-week crash course on the pizza industry and its potential for generating impressive revenue. (The top-earning independent pizza restaurant, Amid’s East Coast Pizzeria in San Mateo, Calif., raked in $30 million in gross sales in 2006, according to Pizza Today.)
”It’s a very big tossup when you go green and turn the cost of the concept over to your customers. I had immediate reservations,” Ostrander said. “I was freaked out the first time they brought a $10 or $11 steak into the restaurant and a $4 pepper. I said we’re going to have a hard time making ends meet.”
But Gordon and Lazar were adamant, and after Ostrander spent several days in South Florida, he, too, became convinced that customers would pay more (the cost is about 20 percent higher) for organic food.
”I deal almost exclusively with indies — chains have guys like me who do the trouble shooting — and for an indie to do well and grow so well is amazing,” he said. “It’s phenomenal, actually.”
Within three weeks of opening, Gordon said, they received an offer of $1 million to buy a 25 percent stake in the company — an offer they rejected.
Read the rest here.
Heh. Interesting marketing concept and development of a niche market catering to suburban angst. Somebody *really* interested in “saving” the “environment” would probably not be eating delivered pizza regardless of the hybrid vehicle delivery or how “organic” it was.
Anybody else out there have a rather unlikely idea that turned into a cash cow that you’re still milking? I need to do something different and I’m slap out of ideas.
1/2 Million Poultry Workers Unemployed in Bangladesh
DHAKA (AFP) — The spread of deadly bird flu in Bangladesh has forced the closure of 40 percent of the nation’s poultry farms and left half a million poultry workers jobless, industry officials said on Monday.
Government authorities said the virus was still “under control”, although it has spread to 43 out of the country’s 64 districts, forcing authorities to slaughter some 800,000 birds.
“It’s a natural disaster like cyclone or floods. The poor farmers who raise chickens in their backyards are particularly hard hit by the bird flu,” said Abdul Baki, principal scientific officer of the livestock department.
“But we still think things are under control,” Baki said, adding the government was launching a massive plan to compensate affected farmers.
Baki’s comments came as the authorities struggled to slaughter another 160,000 birds in one of the largest farms in the capital Dhaka. Officials said it would take another day to complete the slaughter.
The outbreak at Omega farm showed the disease was out of control, industry officials said.
“Omega is one of the top farms which rigorously maintained international bio-safety regulations but it was not spared by the deadly flu,” said M.M Khan, a senior official of the Bangladesh Poultry Association.
“The situation is so bad nobody is buying any poultry these days. They’re panicking. The crows and migrant birds are spreading the flu everywhere, leaving authorities simply hopeless,” Khan said.
Already some supermarkets in the capital have suspended poultry sales, he said,
The flu has forced closure of at least 40 percent of the country’s estimated 150,000 commercial farms, leaving at least half a million people jobless, Khan said.
The government has repeatedly urged people not to be frightened and begun a major drive to assure people that eating cooked poultry poses no health dangers.
It is also giving farmers 1.50 dollars compensation for each chicken slaughtered because of the virus.
Bangladesh was first hit by bird flu in February 2007 but the disease became dormant. Officials said outbreak resurfaced in January when 20 new districts were hit. So far in February another 11 have been hit.
Bangladesh’s poultry industry is one of the world’s largest, producing 220 million chickens and 37 million ducks annually.
Source:
Dang. Chicken and duck is a relatively inexpensive and quick maturing source of protein to a poverty-stricken nation. Even if bird flu does not mutate into a form that can easily infect humans, it is still causing considerable economic hardship.
Government authorities said the virus was still “under control”, although it has spread to 43 out of the country’s 64 districts, forcing authorities to slaughter some 800,000 birds.
“It’s a natural disaster like cyclone or floods. The poor farmers who raise chickens in their backyards are particularly hard hit by the bird flu,” said Abdul Baki, principal scientific officer of the livestock department.
“But we still think things are under control,” Baki said, adding the government was launching a massive plan to compensate affected farmers.
Baki’s comments came as the authorities struggled to slaughter another 160,000 birds in one of the largest farms in the capital Dhaka. Officials said it would take another day to complete the slaughter.
The outbreak at Omega farm showed the disease was out of control, industry officials said.
“Omega is one of the top farms which rigorously maintained international bio-safety regulations but it was not spared by the deadly flu,” said M.M Khan, a senior official of the Bangladesh Poultry Association.
“The situation is so bad nobody is buying any poultry these days. They’re panicking. The crows and migrant birds are spreading the flu everywhere, leaving authorities simply hopeless,” Khan said.
Already some supermarkets in the capital have suspended poultry sales, he said,
The flu has forced closure of at least 40 percent of the country’s estimated 150,000 commercial farms, leaving at least half a million people jobless, Khan said.
The government has repeatedly urged people not to be frightened and begun a major drive to assure people that eating cooked poultry poses no health dangers.
It is also giving farmers 1.50 dollars compensation for each chicken slaughtered because of the virus.
Bangladesh was first hit by bird flu in February 2007 but the disease became dormant. Officials said outbreak resurfaced in January when 20 new districts were hit. So far in February another 11 have been hit.
Bangladesh’s poultry industry is one of the world’s largest, producing 220 million chickens and 37 million ducks annually.
Source:
Dang. Chicken and duck is a relatively inexpensive and quick maturing source of protein to a poverty-stricken nation. Even if bird flu does not mutate into a form that can easily infect humans, it is still causing considerable economic hardship.
Bird Flu Death in China
BEIJING, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) — China’s Ministry of Health on Monday confirmed a human case of H5N1 bird flu in the central Hunan Province. A 22-year-old man surnamed Li in Jianghua County, Yongzhou City, suffered fever and headache on Jan. 16 and was hospitalized on Jan. 22. His symptoms worsened despite treatment.
Li died at 5 p.m. on Jan. 24 after all rescue measures failed.
His specimens tested positive for the bird flu virus strain H5N1, said the country’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The report didn’t identify how he might have contracted the disease.
The virus is most commonly passed from sick poultry to humans who have close contact with infected birds.
Statistics by the World Health Organization (WHO) show there have been 18 human deaths from the H5N1 strain, and 28 confirmed cases of infection in China since 2003.
By Feb. 1, of the total of cases of confirmed human bird flu infections worldwide, 225 have been fatal.
The local government undertook prevention and control measures once the case was reported. Those who had close contact with Li were put under strict medical observation. So far, none have shown signs of the disease, the ministry said.
The case has been reported to the WHO, authorities in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and some foreign governments.
The latest confirmed case of human bird flu took place in the worst snow-stricken province of Hunan, where prolonged low temperatures, icy rain and heavy snow have caused blackouts and traffic chaos.
On Feb. 15, the Ministry of Health said that no cases of infectious epidemic or mass food poisoning were reported in China’s snow-stricken areas by Feb. 14, and that the death toll caused by infectious diseases in the snow-stricken areas showed no year-on-year increase in the past month.
Source: Xinhua
I hope that China’s reassurances are accurate, but I wouldn’t want to place any wagers on that. China has a long history of being less than open about health matters.
Li died at 5 p.m. on Jan. 24 after all rescue measures failed.
His specimens tested positive for the bird flu virus strain H5N1, said the country’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The report didn’t identify how he might have contracted the disease.
The virus is most commonly passed from sick poultry to humans who have close contact with infected birds.
Statistics by the World Health Organization (WHO) show there have been 18 human deaths from the H5N1 strain, and 28 confirmed cases of infection in China since 2003.
By Feb. 1, of the total of cases of confirmed human bird flu infections worldwide, 225 have been fatal.
The local government undertook prevention and control measures once the case was reported. Those who had close contact with Li were put under strict medical observation. So far, none have shown signs of the disease, the ministry said.
The case has been reported to the WHO, authorities in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and some foreign governments.
The latest confirmed case of human bird flu took place in the worst snow-stricken province of Hunan, where prolonged low temperatures, icy rain and heavy snow have caused blackouts and traffic chaos.
On Feb. 15, the Ministry of Health said that no cases of infectious epidemic or mass food poisoning were reported in China’s snow-stricken areas by Feb. 14, and that the death toll caused by infectious diseases in the snow-stricken areas showed no year-on-year increase in the past month.
Source: Xinhua
I hope that China’s reassurances are accurate, but I wouldn’t want to place any wagers on that. China has a long history of being less than open about health matters.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Saving Old, Well-Adapted Breeds of Livestock Before They Become Extinct
ScienceDaily (Feb. 17, 2008) — Phil Sponenberg, professor of pathology and genetics in the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, has spent more than 30 years working to make sure certain living pieces of history — some dating to the 15th century — don’t become extinct.
Sponenberg's brand of living history comes in the form of various rare strains of livestock, which were involved in events like Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the Caribbean Islands and the Spanish conquest of the Americas.
Sponenberg’s involvement began with Choctaw horses when he was a college student, and has spread to other kinds of animals through the years. Ancestors of Choctaw horses, Colonial Spanish horses were brought to the Caribbean Islands by Columbus and to Mexico by Hernándo Cortés. The horses were stolen from Mexico and rapidly traded north by Pueblo Indians.
These horses were noted by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark during their expedition to explore the Pacific Northwest. In fact, the Spanish influence extended up to the Carolinas, across the Gulf Coast, and throughout the West.
“The Choctaws were one of the tribes displaced from Mississippi, and they took their livestock with them,” Sponenberg says.
The breeding stock has dispersed and not everyone can recognize a rare breed when they have one. Sponenberg received a call about a short horse that was about to be gelded. It turned out that the small horse, Icki, was a Choctaw. “Icki was the end of his bloodline,” says Sponenberg, who was able to buy the stallion and return him to a small herd to sire more Choctaw horses.
Sponenberg has also identified another group of the Spanish horses still in the South — “Marsh Tacky” horses, which were used to manage cattle and to chase wild hogs across swampy terrain.
Another Spanish livestock breed Sponenberg has run across in his travels is South Pineywoods cattle — also known as Florida Cracker Cattle. Small, rugged, horned, heat-tolerant, and disease-resistant, “these cattle are exquisitely adapted to this environment,” Sponenberg says. They are also long-lived and productive.
Through the years, Sponenberg has also found more Spanish horses, cotton patch geese, old Spanish goats, and some locally adapted Spanish sheep.
In fact, Sponenberg himself is the owner of a Choctaw horse, and he raises Tennessee myotonic (fainting) goats. The goats are from two old lines from New Braunfels, Texas.
Saving rare breeds
Sponenberg says he loves field work — discovering a new pocket of preserved livestock, making friends, and working with the people who manage the animals. His success, he says, is a result of the friendships and interest he has created — but also because of the strategies he has developed through scientific research.
Along the way, Sponenberg has done work and published strategies specific to rare breeds conservation, documentation, and genetic management.
Now, the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy is providing technical support for recapturing certain animals for pure breeding. The Bureau of Land Management contacts him to identify Spanish-type horses in wild herds to help the bureau conserve the horses.
Sponenberg stays connected with conservation efforts and affiliations and works to establish new relationships. He has collaborated with the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy since 1978, and with Iberian researchers since the early 1990s.
As a result of his work, several new strains of horses have been added and excluded through detailed blood typing or DNA typing.
About other rare breeds:
Pineywoods Cattle:
.....remain from the earliest days of Spanish control of what is now the southeastern United States
.....usefulness to local populations as sources of meat, milk, hides, and oxen persists today
Cotton Patch Geese:
.....used extensively to weed cotton fields in the early 1900s
.....avidly consume grassy weeds and leave alone broad-leaved plants like cotton
Pine Tacky saddle horses:
.....local Spanish-type horses, found in the deep South
only three have been discovered and identified to date
Gulf Coast or Native sheep:
.....adapted descendants of old family flocks from the coastal deep South
trace back to an Iberian origin and are now being registered by the Gulf Coast Native Sheep Alliance
A Boer Goat Descendent (sic).
Local goats:
.....Nearly extinct, largely due to crossbreeding to the imported Boer goat
.....identified strains are exquisitely adapted to the local area
Swine:
.....remnants of an old Iberian type, usually black or grey in color, and poorly muscled
.....historically desired as a source of lard and cured meat
.....often earnotched, several have fused toes (mulefoot) and wattles (fleshy appendages) on the neck
This is a particular passion of mine. The old breeds of livestock were (and are) adapted to the area in which they lived, could eat the local grasses, were resistant to disease, and could raise their progeny without assistance. They also taste good. For anybody that wishes to raise their own food, I strongly advise them to search out the old, endangered breeds. The latest super duper strain of layers for the huge poultry houses may give you many eggs, but will not be keeping your landscape bug free while supplementing her diet. (And for those of you who do not know, egg yolks should be a bright reddish orange in color (about the color of the sun when I post the no sunspots today picture), not the anemic yellow I've seen in store eggs.
The old lard-type hogs I used to grow (see mulefoot picture at top) were friendly, docile, happily shared the barn with nesting ducks and chickens, and had the best tasting bacon I've ever eaten.
Every house doesn't need a cow that gives 10 gallons of milk a day. A smaller pastured cow that grazed a good portion of her feed would be fine. A dual-purpose miniature cow such as a Dexter would probably work well.
Health Officials Watching Drug-Resistant Flu Strain
Ten Chicago-area patients have tested positive for an unusual type of drug-resistant influenza, prompting concern and increased surveillance by local and federal health officials.
The strain of flu can be treated successfully with some drugs, but it does not respond to Tamiflu, the most common anti-viral medication for flu. The Illinois Department of Public Health issued a health alert to doctors and hospitals Thursday, suggesting that flu patients who are in intensive care receive a combination of drugs until their virus can be analyzed.
Officials said eight of the Tamiflu-resistant infections came from an outbreak at a single Chicago health-care facility, the name of which has not been released.
Source: Chicago Tribune
The significance of that is, of course, that the only treatment for H5N1 aka bird or avian flu are antiviral drugs.
The strain of flu can be treated successfully with some drugs, but it does not respond to Tamiflu, the most common anti-viral medication for flu. The Illinois Department of Public Health issued a health alert to doctors and hospitals Thursday, suggesting that flu patients who are in intensive care receive a combination of drugs until their virus can be analyzed.
Officials said eight of the Tamiflu-resistant infections came from an outbreak at a single Chicago health-care facility, the name of which has not been released.
Source: Chicago Tribune
The significance of that is, of course, that the only treatment for H5N1 aka bird or avian flu are antiviral drugs.
Indonesia's Death Toll from Bird Flu Increases to 105
JAKARTA (AP): Bird flu killed a 3-year-old boy and a teenager in Indonesia, the health ministry announced, bringing the country's death toll from the disease to 105.
The latest victim was identified only as Han, a 3-year-old boy from the capital, Jakarta, who died Friday at a hospital in the city, radio El-Shinta reported Saturday.
Nyoman Kandun, a senior Health Ministry official, confirmed the report but did not provide details.
Laboratory tests confirmed the boy had the dangerous H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, Kandun said. It was not clear how he was infected.
Earlier Saturday, the Health Ministry said a 16-year-old Indonesian boy from Central Java province died of bird flu. The boy, whose name was not disclosed, became ill on Feb. 3 with a cough and other respiratory symptoms, according to the Health Ministry's Web other respiratory symptoms, according to the Health Ministry's Web site.
He died a week later in a hospital in the city of Solo, about 450 kilometers southeast of Jakarta, said Sumardi, a ministry spokesman. Like many Indonesians, he goes by one name.
Tests confirmed the teenager had been infected by the H5N1 virus, the ministry's Web site said.
Source: The Jakarta Post.
The latest victim was identified only as Han, a 3-year-old boy from the capital, Jakarta, who died Friday at a hospital in the city, radio El-Shinta reported Saturday.
Nyoman Kandun, a senior Health Ministry official, confirmed the report but did not provide details.
Laboratory tests confirmed the boy had the dangerous H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, Kandun said. It was not clear how he was infected.
Earlier Saturday, the Health Ministry said a 16-year-old Indonesian boy from Central Java province died of bird flu. The boy, whose name was not disclosed, became ill on Feb. 3 with a cough and other respiratory symptoms, according to the Health Ministry's Web other respiratory symptoms, according to the Health Ministry's Web site.
He died a week later in a hospital in the city of Solo, about 450 kilometers southeast of Jakarta, said Sumardi, a ministry spokesman. Like many Indonesians, he goes by one name.
Tests confirmed the teenager had been infected by the H5N1 virus, the ministry's Web site said.
Source: The Jakarta Post.
For "EcoMoms", Saving the Earth Begins at Home
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — The women gathered in the airy living room, wine poured and pleasantries exchanged. In no time, the conversation turned lively — not about the literary merits of Geraldine Brooks or Cormac McCarthy but the pitfalls of antibacterial hand sanitizers and how to retool the laundry using only cold water and biodegradable detergent during non-prime-time energy hours (after 7 p.m.).
Move over, Tupperware. The EcoMom party has arrived, with its ever-expanding “to do” list that includes preparing waste-free school lunches; lobbying for green building codes; transforming oneself into a “locovore,” eating locally grown food; and remembering not to idle the car when picking up children from school (if one must drive). Here, the small talk is about the volatile compounds emitted by dry-erase markers at school.
Perhaps not since the days of “dishpan hands” has the household been so all-consuming. But instead of gleaming floors and sparkling dishes, the obsession is on installing compact fluorescent light bulbs, buying in bulk and using “smart” power strips that shut off electricity to the espresso machine, microwave, X-Box, VCR, coffee grinder, television and laptop when not in use.
“It’s like eating too many brownies one day and then jogging extra the next,” said Kimberly Danek Pinkson, 38, the founder of the EcoMom Alliance, speaking to the group of efforts to curb eco-guilt through carbon offsets for air travel.
Part “Hints from Heloise” and part political self-help group, the alliance, which Ms. Pinkson says has 9,000 members across the country, joins a growing subculture dedicated to the “green mom,” with blogs and Web sites like greenandcleanmom.blogspot.com and eco-chick.com. Web-based organizations like the Center for a New American Dream in Takoma Park, Md., advocate reducing consumption and offer a registry that helps brides “celebrate the less-material wedding of your dreams.”
At an EcoMom circle in Palo Alto, executive mothers whipped out spreadsheets to tally their goals, inspired by a 10-step program that urges using only nontoxic products for cleaning, bathing and make-up, as well as cutting down garbage by 10 percent.
“I used to feel anxiety,” said Kathy Miller, 49, an alliance member, recalling life before she started investigating weather-sensitive irrigation controls for her garden with nine growing zones. “Now I feel I’m doing something.”
The notion of “ecoanxiety” has crept into the culture here. It was the subject of a recent cover story in San Francisco magazine that quotes a Berkeley mother so stressed out about the extravagance of her nightly baths that she started to reuse her daughter’s bath water. Where there is ecoanxiety, of course, there are ecotherapists.
Read the rest here.
Everybody searches for meaning in their life through religion of one kind or another. Looks like a group of people have found comfort in devoting their lives in service to Gaia.
Move over, Tupperware. The EcoMom party has arrived, with its ever-expanding “to do” list that includes preparing waste-free school lunches; lobbying for green building codes; transforming oneself into a “locovore,” eating locally grown food; and remembering not to idle the car when picking up children from school (if one must drive). Here, the small talk is about the volatile compounds emitted by dry-erase markers at school.
Perhaps not since the days of “dishpan hands” has the household been so all-consuming. But instead of gleaming floors and sparkling dishes, the obsession is on installing compact fluorescent light bulbs, buying in bulk and using “smart” power strips that shut off electricity to the espresso machine, microwave, X-Box, VCR, coffee grinder, television and laptop when not in use.
“It’s like eating too many brownies one day and then jogging extra the next,” said Kimberly Danek Pinkson, 38, the founder of the EcoMom Alliance, speaking to the group of efforts to curb eco-guilt through carbon offsets for air travel.
Part “Hints from Heloise” and part political self-help group, the alliance, which Ms. Pinkson says has 9,000 members across the country, joins a growing subculture dedicated to the “green mom,” with blogs and Web sites like greenandcleanmom.blogspot.com and eco-chick.com. Web-based organizations like the Center for a New American Dream in Takoma Park, Md., advocate reducing consumption and offer a registry that helps brides “celebrate the less-material wedding of your dreams.”
At an EcoMom circle in Palo Alto, executive mothers whipped out spreadsheets to tally their goals, inspired by a 10-step program that urges using only nontoxic products for cleaning, bathing and make-up, as well as cutting down garbage by 10 percent.
“I used to feel anxiety,” said Kathy Miller, 49, an alliance member, recalling life before she started investigating weather-sensitive irrigation controls for her garden with nine growing zones. “Now I feel I’m doing something.”
The notion of “ecoanxiety” has crept into the culture here. It was the subject of a recent cover story in San Francisco magazine that quotes a Berkeley mother so stressed out about the extravagance of her nightly baths that she started to reuse her daughter’s bath water. Where there is ecoanxiety, of course, there are ecotherapists.
Read the rest here.
Everybody searches for meaning in their life through religion of one kind or another. Looks like a group of people have found comfort in devoting their lives in service to Gaia.
Novel Approach Strips Staphylococcus aureus of Virulence
An international team of researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has blocked staph infections in mice using a drug previously tested in clinical trials as a cholesterol-lowering agent. The novel approach, described in the February 14 online edition of Science, could offer a new direction for therapies against a bacterium that’s becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics.
“By following their scientific instinct about a basic biological process, the researchers made a surprising discovery with important clinical implications,” said NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D. “Although the results are still very preliminary, they offer a promising new lead for developing drugs to treat a very timely and medically important health concern.”
This work was supported by three NIH components: the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
A pigment similar to the one that gives carrots their color turns Staphylococcus aureus (“staph”) golden. In the bacterium, this pigment acts as an antioxidant to block the reactive oxygen molecules the immune system uses to kill bacteria.
Researchers had speculated that blocking pigment formation in staph could restore the immune system’s ability to thwart infection. While perusing a magazine on microbial research, Eric Oldfield, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign read how in 2005 University of California, San Diego researchers knocked out a gene in staph’s pigment-making pathway to create colorless—and less pathogenic—bacteria.
“I looked at the metabolic pathway and noticed that it was similar to the one for the production of cholesterol in humans,” said Oldfield, senior author of the Science paper, who had spent decades studying this pathway. With numerous cholesterol-lowering drugs already on the market and in development, he wondered if any could turn staph colorless and make them once again susceptible to the immune system.
Colleagues in Taiwan determined the structure of the enzyme that triggers the first critical step in staph’s pigment formation and observed striking similarities to an enzyme involved in human cholesterol production. They also captured the structures of several cholesterol-lowering drugs bound to the bacterial enzyme.
Building on their 2005 research that sparked the current study, Victor Nizet, M.D., and George Liu, M.D., Ph.D., now at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Calif., tested eight different drug compounds that act on the human cholesterol enzyme. Three blocked pigment production in laboratory tests. When the researchers treated mice infected with S. aureus with one of the compounds, the bacterial population was reduced by 98 percent.
Because the approach reduces the virulence of the bacteria by stopping pigment production, it may not cause selective pressures on the population, which can lead to antibiotic resistance. It also targets only S. aureus, possibly reducing side effects.
“This is an entirely new approach that seems to work in animals, and now we need to take the next step to explore if it will work in humans,” said Oldfield.
Contributing authors also include Chia-I Liu, Ph.D., Wen-Yih Jeng, Ph.D., and Andrew H.-J. Wang, Ph.D., of the Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan; Mary E. Hensler, Ph.D., of the University of California, San Diego; and Yongcheng Song, Ph.D., and Fenglin Yin, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Source: National Institute of General Medical Sciences
If this works out in human studies (and as we well know, products that cure mice do not always work out well in other species), it will be a wonderful new tool to treat people that have contracted this disease. My uncle died from an MRSA infection.
Whenever possible, I like to present the actual article instead of the condensed version presented on television shows and in newspapers. I have found those articles tend to present popular belief as fact and to draw inferences that do not exist.
Patient with Rare Disorder Responds to Cancer Drug
A rare disorder caused by an excess of two types of immune cells—the mast cell found in various tissues and its blood-based twin, the basophil—has successfully been treated with a cancer drug, report scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study, now available online at the Web site of the journal Haematologica, was a collaborative effort led by Dean Metcalfe, M.D., chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Allergic Diseases and Jan Cools, Ph.D., a staff scientist, at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven within the Vlaams Institute for Biotechnology and the Department of Molecular and Developmental Genetics, in Leuven, Belgium.
A few years ago, the 61-year-old patient was referred to the NIH Clinical Center because he was quite ill with symptoms of systemic mastocytosis, a disease caused by excessive numbers of mast cells, and chronic basophilic leukemia, a rare type of bone marrow cancer characterized by an overabundance of basophils.
Systemic mastocytosis often results from a mutation in the gene that codes for the KIT receptor found on the surface of mast cells, a discovery first made by Dr. Metcalfe and his team in 1995. In this patient, however, the KIT receptor mutation was ruled out. In further studies, NIAID researchers and their collaborators found a chromosomal abnormality that led to the discovery of a fusion protein in the cell, created by two genes joining together. They also found that the fusion protein was the basis of the disorder and figured that the patient should respond to imatinib, a drug already approved to treat different types of cancers and systemic mastocytosis. After the patient was treated with the cancer drug imatinib, his clinical symptoms improved quickly and dramatically, and he remains in clinical remission three years after treatment was started.
This is a rare report of the simultaneous occurrence of these two conditions in one patient, and the first describing a response to therapy. Diagnosing a patient who has such an atypical disorder can be difficult, says Dr. Metcalfe. Recently, another patient with similar clinical findings was referred to their clinic. Based on their experience with the first patient, the researchers started treatment with imatinib and, according to Dr. Metcalfe, this patient also is responding well.
Identifying this newly recognized chromosomal abnormality and the fusion protein in patients who present with clinical findings of systemic mastocytosis and chronic basophilic leukemia may enable doctors to successfully treat these individuals with imatinib, according to Dr. Metcalfe.
ARTICLE: I Lahortiga et al. Activity of imatinib in systemic mastocytosis with chronic basophilic leukemia and a PRKG2-PDGFRB fusion. Haematologica DOI: 10.3324/haematol.11836 (2008
Source: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease
I'm glad that this apparently very rare disease now has an effective treatment.
A few years ago, the 61-year-old patient was referred to the NIH Clinical Center because he was quite ill with symptoms of systemic mastocytosis, a disease caused by excessive numbers of mast cells, and chronic basophilic leukemia, a rare type of bone marrow cancer characterized by an overabundance of basophils.
Systemic mastocytosis often results from a mutation in the gene that codes for the KIT receptor found on the surface of mast cells, a discovery first made by Dr. Metcalfe and his team in 1995. In this patient, however, the KIT receptor mutation was ruled out. In further studies, NIAID researchers and their collaborators found a chromosomal abnormality that led to the discovery of a fusion protein in the cell, created by two genes joining together. They also found that the fusion protein was the basis of the disorder and figured that the patient should respond to imatinib, a drug already approved to treat different types of cancers and systemic mastocytosis. After the patient was treated with the cancer drug imatinib, his clinical symptoms improved quickly and dramatically, and he remains in clinical remission three years after treatment was started.
This is a rare report of the simultaneous occurrence of these two conditions in one patient, and the first describing a response to therapy. Diagnosing a patient who has such an atypical disorder can be difficult, says Dr. Metcalfe. Recently, another patient with similar clinical findings was referred to their clinic. Based on their experience with the first patient, the researchers started treatment with imatinib and, according to Dr. Metcalfe, this patient also is responding well.
Identifying this newly recognized chromosomal abnormality and the fusion protein in patients who present with clinical findings of systemic mastocytosis and chronic basophilic leukemia may enable doctors to successfully treat these individuals with imatinib, according to Dr. Metcalfe.
ARTICLE: I Lahortiga et al. Activity of imatinib in systemic mastocytosis with chronic basophilic leukemia and a PRKG2-PDGFRB fusion. Haematologica DOI: 10.3324/haematol.11836 (2008
Source: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease
I'm glad that this apparently very rare disease now has an effective treatment.
Oceans' Fiercest Predators Now Vulnerable to Extinction
Sharks are disappearing from the world’s oceans. The numbers of many large shark species have declined by more than half due to increased demand for shark fins and meat, recreational shark fisheries, as well as tuna and swordfish fisheries, where millions of sharks are taken as bycatch each year.
Now, the global status of large sharks has been assessed by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), which is widely recognized as the most comprehensive, scientific-based information source on the threat status of plants and animals.
“As a result of high and mostly unrestricted fishing pressure, many sharks are now considered to be at risk of extinction,” explained Julia Baum, a member of the IUCN’s Shark Specialist Group who will be speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Conference in Boston, which runs from February 14 to 18. She will outline management measures required to conserve sharks at an afternoon press conference on February 17.
“Of particular concern is the scalloped hammerhead shark, an iconic coastal species, which will be listed on the 2008 IUCN Red List as globally ‘endangered’ due to overfishing and high demand for its valuable fins in the shark fin trade,” added Baum, who is an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Baum pointed out that fishing for sharks in international waters is unrestricted, and she supports a recently adopted United Nations resolution calling for immediate shark catch limits as well as a meaningful ban on shark finning (the practice of removing only a shark’s fins and dumping the still live but now helpless shark into the ocean to die).
Research at Dalhousie University over the past five years, conducted by Baum and the late Ransom Myers, demonstrated the magnitude of shark declines in the northwest Atlantic Ocean. All species the team looked at had declined by over 50 per cent since the early 1970s. For many large coastal shark species, the declines were much greater: tiger, scalloped hammerhead, bull and dusky shark populations have all plummeted by more than 95 per cent.
Source:
I never thought I'd see the day where I thought sharks needed protection but that day has come.
Now, the global status of large sharks has been assessed by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), which is widely recognized as the most comprehensive, scientific-based information source on the threat status of plants and animals.
“As a result of high and mostly unrestricted fishing pressure, many sharks are now considered to be at risk of extinction,” explained Julia Baum, a member of the IUCN’s Shark Specialist Group who will be speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Conference in Boston, which runs from February 14 to 18. She will outline management measures required to conserve sharks at an afternoon press conference on February 17.
“Of particular concern is the scalloped hammerhead shark, an iconic coastal species, which will be listed on the 2008 IUCN Red List as globally ‘endangered’ due to overfishing and high demand for its valuable fins in the shark fin trade,” added Baum, who is an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Baum pointed out that fishing for sharks in international waters is unrestricted, and she supports a recently adopted United Nations resolution calling for immediate shark catch limits as well as a meaningful ban on shark finning (the practice of removing only a shark’s fins and dumping the still live but now helpless shark into the ocean to die).
Research at Dalhousie University over the past five years, conducted by Baum and the late Ransom Myers, demonstrated the magnitude of shark declines in the northwest Atlantic Ocean. All species the team looked at had declined by over 50 per cent since the early 1970s. For many large coastal shark species, the declines were much greater: tiger, scalloped hammerhead, bull and dusky shark populations have all plummeted by more than 95 per cent.
Source:
I never thought I'd see the day where I thought sharks needed protection but that day has come.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Indonesia's Bird Flu Death Toll Reaches 104
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A 16-year-old Indonesian boy has died of bird flu, bringing the nation’s death toll from the illness to 104, the Health Ministry said Saturday.
The boy became ill on Feb. 3 with a cough and other respiratory symptoms, according to the Health Ministry’s Web site.
He died a week later in a hospital in the city of Solo, about 280 miles southeast of the capital, Jakarta, said Sumardi, a ministry spokesman. Like he many Indonesians, Sumardi goes by one name.
Tests confirmed the boy had been infected with the dangerous H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, the ministry’s Web site said.
The victim’s neighbors had sick chickens on their property and the boy apparently slaughtered some of them before he became ill, the ministry said.
Indonesia has regularly recorded human deaths from bird flu since the virus began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in 2003.
Bird flu remains hard for people to catch, but health experts worry the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily among humans, sparking a pandemic. So far, most human cases have been linked to contact with infected birds.
Scientists have warned that Indonesia, which has millions of backyard chickens and poor medical facilities, is a potential hot spot for a global bird flu pandemic.
More than 225 people have died worldwide from the virus, according to the World Health Organization.
Source: Associated Press, China Internet Information Center (English)
The boy became ill on Feb. 3 with a cough and other respiratory symptoms, according to the Health Ministry’s Web site.
He died a week later in a hospital in the city of Solo, about 280 miles southeast of the capital, Jakarta, said Sumardi, a ministry spokesman. Like he many Indonesians, Sumardi goes by one name.
Tests confirmed the boy had been infected with the dangerous H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, the ministry’s Web site said.
The victim’s neighbors had sick chickens on their property and the boy apparently slaughtered some of them before he became ill, the ministry said.
Indonesia has regularly recorded human deaths from bird flu since the virus began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in 2003.
Bird flu remains hard for people to catch, but health experts worry the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily among humans, sparking a pandemic. So far, most human cases have been linked to contact with infected birds.
Scientists have warned that Indonesia, which has millions of backyard chickens and poor medical facilities, is a potential hot spot for a global bird flu pandemic.
More than 225 people have died worldwide from the virus, according to the World Health Organization.
Source: Associated Press, China Internet Information Center (English)
7-Year-Old Child with Bird Flu in Vietnam
Vietnam's Health Ministry said a seven-year-old child from northern Hai Duong Province has been infected with H5N1, raising the total number of bird flu patients in Vietnam since 2003 to 105, according to local newspaper Young People on Saturday.
The child is under treatment at the Central Pediatrics Hospital in Hanoi capital. Some suspected human cases of bird flu infections are also under treatment at the city-based Tropical Diseases Hospital. Their specimens are being tested for H5N1 by Vietnam's National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology.
To date, Vietnam has reported a total of 105 human cases of bird flu infections, including 50 fatalities, since the disease started to hit the country in December 2003.
Since Feb. 13, two local people, a 27-year-old man named Hoang Van Doan from northern Ninh Binh Province and a 40-year-old man named Do Van San from northern Hai Duong Province, have died from bird flu, the newspaper said.
On Jan. 18, a 32-year-old ethnic man named Tran Van Dong from northern Tuyen Quang Province died from the disease.
Last December, after detecting no human cases of bird flu infections for nearly four months, the ministry confirmed that a four-year-old boy from northern Son La Province died on Dec. 16, 2007 from bird flu.
All the recently-detected bird flu patients have had close contacts with fowls, like slaughtering dead chickens for meal, before exhibiting bird flu symptoms. During the Lunar New Year Festival in early February, a large number of poultry were transported and slaughtered for meal across Vietnam.
The World Health Organization on Feb. 15 confirmed 103 cases of bird flu infections, including 49 fatalities in Vietnam. It has yet to confirm the two latest cases, including one fatality.
Vietnam currently has four localities having poultry being hit by bird flu: northern Thai Nguyen, central Quang Binh Province, northern Quang Ninh Province and southern Long An Province, the Department of Animal Health under the country's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said Friday.
Bird flu outbreaks in Vietnam, starting in December 2003, have killed and led to the forced culling of dozens of millions of fowls in the country.
(Xinhua News Agency February 16, 2008)
The child is under treatment at the Central Pediatrics Hospital in Hanoi capital. Some suspected human cases of bird flu infections are also under treatment at the city-based Tropical Diseases Hospital. Their specimens are being tested for H5N1 by Vietnam's National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology.
To date, Vietnam has reported a total of 105 human cases of bird flu infections, including 50 fatalities, since the disease started to hit the country in December 2003.
Since Feb. 13, two local people, a 27-year-old man named Hoang Van Doan from northern Ninh Binh Province and a 40-year-old man named Do Van San from northern Hai Duong Province, have died from bird flu, the newspaper said.
On Jan. 18, a 32-year-old ethnic man named Tran Van Dong from northern Tuyen Quang Province died from the disease.
Last December, after detecting no human cases of bird flu infections for nearly four months, the ministry confirmed that a four-year-old boy from northern Son La Province died on Dec. 16, 2007 from bird flu.
All the recently-detected bird flu patients have had close contacts with fowls, like slaughtering dead chickens for meal, before exhibiting bird flu symptoms. During the Lunar New Year Festival in early February, a large number of poultry were transported and slaughtered for meal across Vietnam.
The World Health Organization on Feb. 15 confirmed 103 cases of bird flu infections, including 49 fatalities in Vietnam. It has yet to confirm the two latest cases, including one fatality.
Vietnam currently has four localities having poultry being hit by bird flu: northern Thai Nguyen, central Quang Binh Province, northern Quang Ninh Province and southern Long An Province, the Department of Animal Health under the country's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said Friday.
Bird flu outbreaks in Vietnam, starting in December 2003, have killed and led to the forced culling of dozens of millions of fowls in the country.
(Xinhua News Agency February 16, 2008)
U.S. Versus French on Being Full
It's the French paradox redux: Why don't the French get as fat as Americans, considering all the baguettes, wine, cheese, pate and pastries they eat?
Because they use internal cues -- such as no longer feeling hungry -- to stop eating, reports a new Cornell study. Americans, on the other hand, tend to use external cues -- such as whether their plate is clean, they have run out of their beverage or the TV show they're watching is over.
"Furthermore, we have found that the heavier a person is -- French or American -- the more they rely on external cues to tell them to stop eating and the less they rely on whether they felt full," said senior author Brian Wansink, the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab in the Department of Applied Economics and Management, now on leave to serve as executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion until January 2009.
The new study, an analysis of questionnaires from 133 Parisians and 145 Chicagoans about how they decide when to stop eating, is being published in the journal Obesity and is being presented this later month at an the Winter Marketing Educators conference.
"Over-relying on external cues to stop eating a meal may prove useful in offering a partial explanation of why body mass index [a calculation based on the relationship of weight to height] varies across people and potentially across cultures," said co-author Collin Payne, a Cornell postdoctoral researcher. He stressed that further studies should following up with smoking behavior and socio-economic differences as well. "Relying on internal cues for meal cessation, rather than on external cues, may improve eating patterns in the long term.
Source:
I don't know about any of the rest of you, but having somebody lecture me that I'm over-relying on external cues and should instead be relying on internal cues (like the French!) to tell me that I'm "full" is, well, one of those pieces of advice that I file under "gee, thanks, now give me something that I can really use".
So, uh, how much time do French women have for lunch? I can tell you that high school teachers (in my county) have a total of 25 minutes for lunch which includes walking to and from the cafeteria (which takes 10 minutes from my location), standing in line for food (maybe 5 minutes) and eating (using the shovel-it-in technique) will take perhaps 10 minutes. Lunch is also the time for a pee break which has to be fit somewhere within that 25 minute time frame. Elementary school teachers have even less time for lunch because they have to walk the students to lunch and walk the students back. No time there for waiting on those ol' feelings of satiety!
Maybe teachers are a bad example. How about medical people? According to my mom (retired nurse), they *often* did not take their half-hour lunch on the 12-hour shift at the hospital she was at, instead relying on grazing from vending machines, due to staffing shortages/high patient census. I don't think the feeling of satiety even came into play there. Just lots of stress and not enough time for a meal.
Thinking back over the number of jobs I've had over my working life (and there were a lot of different types of jobs because I get bored easily), I don't recall ever having any job/business where I could eat at a leisurely pace, waiting for feelings of satiety to set in so that I could quit eating, knowing that my stomach wouldn't be growling in distress the rest of the afternoon.
Does that mean that I am unaware of feelings of satiety and only rely on external cues for every meal? Well, no. When I go to a nice restaurant for a leisurely meal on the weekend and order my entree, I often find to my bemusement that I end up taking it home to consume at a later time because after the appetizer and soup or salad, I am completely full and do not want anything else.
I also find that in my evening meal at home, I tend to eat as rapidly as I do in the morning and afternoon during the workday because I have household and farm chores to do, blogs to read, telephone calls to make, and only 3 to 4 hours in the evening to get it done. Again, I just do not have the time to linger over food preparation and consumption. I suppose that is a cultural shortcoming of trying to do everything.
I suppose the Answer to Obesity is to cut the work ethic and be more French like.
The French probably haven't had people telling them that eggs were evil killers, alcohol would make you fat, cream and other fats would kill them, and margerine was better for them than butter, either.
Because they use internal cues -- such as no longer feeling hungry -- to stop eating, reports a new Cornell study. Americans, on the other hand, tend to use external cues -- such as whether their plate is clean, they have run out of their beverage or the TV show they're watching is over.
"Furthermore, we have found that the heavier a person is -- French or American -- the more they rely on external cues to tell them to stop eating and the less they rely on whether they felt full," said senior author Brian Wansink, the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab in the Department of Applied Economics and Management, now on leave to serve as executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion until January 2009.
The new study, an analysis of questionnaires from 133 Parisians and 145 Chicagoans about how they decide when to stop eating, is being published in the journal Obesity and is being presented this later month at an the Winter Marketing Educators conference.
"Over-relying on external cues to stop eating a meal may prove useful in offering a partial explanation of why body mass index [a calculation based on the relationship of weight to height] varies across people and potentially across cultures," said co-author Collin Payne, a Cornell postdoctoral researcher. He stressed that further studies should following up with smoking behavior and socio-economic differences as well. "Relying on internal cues for meal cessation, rather than on external cues, may improve eating patterns in the long term.
Source:
I don't know about any of the rest of you, but having somebody lecture me that I'm over-relying on external cues and should instead be relying on internal cues (like the French!) to tell me that I'm "full" is, well, one of those pieces of advice that I file under "gee, thanks, now give me something that I can really use".
So, uh, how much time do French women have for lunch? I can tell you that high school teachers (in my county) have a total of 25 minutes for lunch which includes walking to and from the cafeteria (which takes 10 minutes from my location), standing in line for food (maybe 5 minutes) and eating (using the shovel-it-in technique) will take perhaps 10 minutes. Lunch is also the time for a pee break which has to be fit somewhere within that 25 minute time frame. Elementary school teachers have even less time for lunch because they have to walk the students to lunch and walk the students back. No time there for waiting on those ol' feelings of satiety!
Maybe teachers are a bad example. How about medical people? According to my mom (retired nurse), they *often* did not take their half-hour lunch on the 12-hour shift at the hospital she was at, instead relying on grazing from vending machines, due to staffing shortages/high patient census. I don't think the feeling of satiety even came into play there. Just lots of stress and not enough time for a meal.
Thinking back over the number of jobs I've had over my working life (and there were a lot of different types of jobs because I get bored easily), I don't recall ever having any job/business where I could eat at a leisurely pace, waiting for feelings of satiety to set in so that I could quit eating, knowing that my stomach wouldn't be growling in distress the rest of the afternoon.
Does that mean that I am unaware of feelings of satiety and only rely on external cues for every meal? Well, no. When I go to a nice restaurant for a leisurely meal on the weekend and order my entree, I often find to my bemusement that I end up taking it home to consume at a later time because after the appetizer and soup or salad, I am completely full and do not want anything else.
I also find that in my evening meal at home, I tend to eat as rapidly as I do in the morning and afternoon during the workday because I have household and farm chores to do, blogs to read, telephone calls to make, and only 3 to 4 hours in the evening to get it done. Again, I just do not have the time to linger over food preparation and consumption. I suppose that is a cultural shortcoming of trying to do everything.
I suppose the Answer to Obesity is to cut the work ethic and be more French like.
The French probably haven't had people telling them that eggs were evil killers, alcohol would make you fat, cream and other fats would kill them, and margerine was better for them than butter, either.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Migratory Birds Not Main Source of Bird Flu: WWF
Staff Report
LAHORE: Wild migratory birds may suffer from Avian Influenza (commonly known as bird flu), but they are not the main source of the disease’s outbreak in Pakistan, according to a study statement issued by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Lahore chapter on Friday.
The statement said that the statements about migratory birds being the main reason for the latest outbreak of bird flu in Pakistani poultry farms might have serious repercussions against the birds and their habitats. It said since the recent outbreak of bird flu in Sindh, WWF Pakistan had been in contact with BirdLife International, which carried out research on the role of wild birds, including migratory species, in the spread of HPAI H5N1.
The WWF said there were no sound grounds to support the allegations that migratory birds were solely responsible for the spread of H5N1. It said the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) collected samples from between 300,000 to 350,000 wild-birds across the world. None of these were found H5N1 positive. Likewise, sampling of 5000 water birds after the outbreak in Nigeria during 2006 found no traces of the virus (according to the Wildlife and the Environment Web). Despite increased sampling around the world, no fully documented migratory wild birds have tested positive for H5N1.
The WWF said the mapping of bird flu outbreaks across the world had shown that they followed poultry trade routes rather than the migratory birds’ flyways. Therefore, after a comprehensive critical review of recent scientific literature, it was concluded that poultry trade, rather than bird migration, was the main mechanism of the global dispersal of the H5N1 virus.
The organisation said the illegal trade of caged birds had transported the H5N1 virus the world over. It said, “Bird flu virus is transmitted farm to farm by the movement of live birds, people (especially with contaminated clothes), and contaminated vehicles, equipment, feed, and cages. Highly pathogenic viruses can survive for long periods in the environment, especially when temperatures are low. For example, the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus can survive in bird faeces for at least 35 days at a low temperature (4 degree Celsius). At a much higher temperature (37 degree Celsius), H5N1 viruses have been shown to survive, in faecal samples, for six days (WHO).”
The WWF called for the media to educate the people about the bird flu virus and how it was being spread. It also called for the authorities to monitor any suspicious mortality of birds in the wild. It asked the zoos to vaccinate all birds against the virus. The organisation said poultry farms should have tracking numbers because once their birds got out in the market they could not be tracked back to the farms. The WWF said strict hygiene and bio-security measures should be taken at poultry farms and zoos – People and vehicles going to the farms should be disinfected, the birds’ caretakers should meticulously clean utensils, their hands and feet.
The statement said the organisation did not support mass culling of wild birds or the destruction of their habitats. It said the birds’ habitats should be left undisturbed so that they do not seek refuge near human settlements.
Source: Daily Times
I've read other accounts that come to the same conclusion.
LAHORE: Wild migratory birds may suffer from Avian Influenza (commonly known as bird flu), but they are not the main source of the disease’s outbreak in Pakistan, according to a study statement issued by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Lahore chapter on Friday.
The statement said that the statements about migratory birds being the main reason for the latest outbreak of bird flu in Pakistani poultry farms might have serious repercussions against the birds and their habitats. It said since the recent outbreak of bird flu in Sindh, WWF Pakistan had been in contact with BirdLife International, which carried out research on the role of wild birds, including migratory species, in the spread of HPAI H5N1.
The WWF said there were no sound grounds to support the allegations that migratory birds were solely responsible for the spread of H5N1. It said the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) collected samples from between 300,000 to 350,000 wild-birds across the world. None of these were found H5N1 positive. Likewise, sampling of 5000 water birds after the outbreak in Nigeria during 2006 found no traces of the virus (according to the Wildlife and the Environment Web). Despite increased sampling around the world, no fully documented migratory wild birds have tested positive for H5N1.
The WWF said the mapping of bird flu outbreaks across the world had shown that they followed poultry trade routes rather than the migratory birds’ flyways. Therefore, after a comprehensive critical review of recent scientific literature, it was concluded that poultry trade, rather than bird migration, was the main mechanism of the global dispersal of the H5N1 virus.
The organisation said the illegal trade of caged birds had transported the H5N1 virus the world over. It said, “Bird flu virus is transmitted farm to farm by the movement of live birds, people (especially with contaminated clothes), and contaminated vehicles, equipment, feed, and cages. Highly pathogenic viruses can survive for long periods in the environment, especially when temperatures are low. For example, the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus can survive in bird faeces for at least 35 days at a low temperature (4 degree Celsius). At a much higher temperature (37 degree Celsius), H5N1 viruses have been shown to survive, in faecal samples, for six days (WHO).”
The WWF called for the media to educate the people about the bird flu virus and how it was being spread. It also called for the authorities to monitor any suspicious mortality of birds in the wild. It asked the zoos to vaccinate all birds against the virus. The organisation said poultry farms should have tracking numbers because once their birds got out in the market they could not be tracked back to the farms. The WWF said strict hygiene and bio-security measures should be taken at poultry farms and zoos – People and vehicles going to the farms should be disinfected, the birds’ caretakers should meticulously clean utensils, their hands and feet.
The statement said the organisation did not support mass culling of wild birds or the destruction of their habitats. It said the birds’ habitats should be left undisturbed so that they do not seek refuge near human settlements.
Source: Daily Times
I've read other accounts that come to the same conclusion.
Total Lunar Eclipse
Feb. 13, 2008: On Wednesday evening, February 20th, the full Moon over the Americas will turn a delightful shade of red and possibly turquoise, too. It's a total lunar eclipse—the last one until Dec. 2010.
The Sun goes down. The Moon comes up. You go out and look at the sky. Observing the eclipse is that easy. Maximum eclipse, and maximum beauty, occurs at 10:26 pm EST (7:26 pm PST).
A lunar eclipse happens when the Moon passes through the shadow of Earth. You might expect the Moon to grow even more ashen than usual, but in fact it transforms into an orb of vivid red.
Why red? That is the color of Earth's shadow.
Consider the following: Most shadows we're familiar with are black or gray; step outside on a sunny day and look at your own. Earth's shadow is different because, unlike you, Earth has an atmosphere. The delicate layer of dusty air surrounding our planet reddens and redirects the light of the sun, filling the dark behind Earth with a sunset-red glow. The exact tint--anything from bright orange to blood red is possible--depends on the unpredictable state of the atmosphere at the time of the eclipse. "Only the shadow knows," says astronomer Jack Horkheimer of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium.
Transiting the shadow's core takes about an hour. The first hints of red appear around 10 pm EST (7 pm PST), heralding a profusion of coppery hues that roll across the Moon's surface enveloping every crater, mountain and moon rock, only to fade away again after 11 pm EST (8 pm PST). No special filter or telescope is required to see this spectacular event. It is a bright and leisurely display visible from cities and countryside alike.
While you're watching, be alert for another color: turquoise. Observers of several recent lunar eclipses have reported a flash of turquoise bracketing the red of totality.
"The blue and turquoise shades at the edge of Earth's shadow were incredible," recalls amateur astronomer Eva Seidenfaden of Trier, Germany, who took the picture at right during the European lunar eclipse of March 3-4, 2007. Dozens of other photographers have documented the same phenomenon.
The source of the turquoise is ozone. Eclipse researcher Dr. Richard Keen of the University of Colorado explains: "During a lunar eclipse, most of the light illuminating the moon passes through the stratosphere where it is reddened by scattering. However, light passing through the upper stratosphere penetrates the ozone layer, which absorbs red light and actually makes the passing light ray bluer." This can be seen, he says, as a soft blue fringe around the red core of Earth's shadow.
To catch the turquoise on Feb. 20th, he advises, "look during the first and last minutes of totality." That would be around 10:01 pm EST and 10:51 pm EST (7:01 and 7:51 pm PST).
Blood red, bright orange, gentle turquoise: it's all good. Mark your calendar in vivid color for the Feb. 20th lunar eclipse.
Editor's note: This story is written for an American audience, but not only Americans can see the eclipse. People in Europe and western Africa are also favored. International maps and timetables may be found here.
Source: NASA
I hope it's a clear night so that I can see this one!
The Sun goes down. The Moon comes up. You go out and look at the sky. Observing the eclipse is that easy. Maximum eclipse, and maximum beauty, occurs at 10:26 pm EST (7:26 pm PST).
A lunar eclipse happens when the Moon passes through the shadow of Earth. You might expect the Moon to grow even more ashen than usual, but in fact it transforms into an orb of vivid red.
Why red? That is the color of Earth's shadow.
Consider the following: Most shadows we're familiar with are black or gray; step outside on a sunny day and look at your own. Earth's shadow is different because, unlike you, Earth has an atmosphere. The delicate layer of dusty air surrounding our planet reddens and redirects the light of the sun, filling the dark behind Earth with a sunset-red glow. The exact tint--anything from bright orange to blood red is possible--depends on the unpredictable state of the atmosphere at the time of the eclipse. "Only the shadow knows," says astronomer Jack Horkheimer of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium.
Transiting the shadow's core takes about an hour. The first hints of red appear around 10 pm EST (7 pm PST), heralding a profusion of coppery hues that roll across the Moon's surface enveloping every crater, mountain and moon rock, only to fade away again after 11 pm EST (8 pm PST). No special filter or telescope is required to see this spectacular event. It is a bright and leisurely display visible from cities and countryside alike.
While you're watching, be alert for another color: turquoise. Observers of several recent lunar eclipses have reported a flash of turquoise bracketing the red of totality.
"The blue and turquoise shades at the edge of Earth's shadow were incredible," recalls amateur astronomer Eva Seidenfaden of Trier, Germany, who took the picture at right during the European lunar eclipse of March 3-4, 2007. Dozens of other photographers have documented the same phenomenon.
The source of the turquoise is ozone. Eclipse researcher Dr. Richard Keen of the University of Colorado explains: "During a lunar eclipse, most of the light illuminating the moon passes through the stratosphere where it is reddened by scattering. However, light passing through the upper stratosphere penetrates the ozone layer, which absorbs red light and actually makes the passing light ray bluer." This can be seen, he says, as a soft blue fringe around the red core of Earth's shadow.
To catch the turquoise on Feb. 20th, he advises, "look during the first and last minutes of totality." That would be around 10:01 pm EST and 10:51 pm EST (7:01 and 7:51 pm PST).
Blood red, bright orange, gentle turquoise: it's all good. Mark your calendar in vivid color for the Feb. 20th lunar eclipse.
Editor's note: This story is written for an American audience, but not only Americans can see the eclipse. People in Europe and western Africa are also favored. International maps and timetables may be found here.
Source: NASA
I hope it's a clear night so that I can see this one!
Monday, February 11, 2008
More Horses Being Abandoned
A press release from the Unwanted Horse Coalition says economic factors, including high hay costs, are among the reasons cited in news reports for a growing number of unwanted and abandoned horses in the U.S. Over the last month, articles in newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times have reported on an apparent increase in the numbers of unwanted horses. A recent headline in The Wall Street Journal read,”Leaner Pastures: As Horses Multiply, Neglect Cases Rise.”
Regional newspapers and television stations have also reported that state agencies and horse rescue groups are seeing a growing number of horses that can no longer be cared for by owners.
Some of the reports suggest that rescue groups are about to be overwhelmed and may have to start turning horses away. The articles blame the problem on factors such as sharply rising hay costs, the drought in many parts of the U.S., over-breeding, the downturn in the economy, the costs of euthanasia and carcass disposal and the closing of the nation’s three slaughter facilities, which removed the floor on the value of horses.
The Unwanted Horse Coalition, which operates under the auspices of the American Horse Council, includes over 20 national organizations. It was created to educate horse owners and potential horse owners about what it means to “own responsibly.” Learn more about the coalition at www.unwantedhorsecoalition.org, or call the American Horse Council at 202-296-4031.
Source: Hay and Forage Grower
I could have a pasture FULL of horses, good ones, if I had the forage for them. People are giving away horses because they simply cannot afford to feed them and even then they may not be able to find a home. I have a friend that is divorced with 7 horses and nowhere to put them and no one will take them.
There used to be a value to horses when there were slaughter facilities. Now horses are valueless, and I don’t see the people that were so concerned about the “inhumanity” of slaughtering unwanted horses stepping forward to assume the feed bill to keep them from starving.
I always thought slaughter was more humane than slowly starving an animal to death.
Regional newspapers and television stations have also reported that state agencies and horse rescue groups are seeing a growing number of horses that can no longer be cared for by owners.
Some of the reports suggest that rescue groups are about to be overwhelmed and may have to start turning horses away. The articles blame the problem on factors such as sharply rising hay costs, the drought in many parts of the U.S., over-breeding, the downturn in the economy, the costs of euthanasia and carcass disposal and the closing of the nation’s three slaughter facilities, which removed the floor on the value of horses.
The Unwanted Horse Coalition, which operates under the auspices of the American Horse Council, includes over 20 national organizations. It was created to educate horse owners and potential horse owners about what it means to “own responsibly.” Learn more about the coalition at www.unwantedhorsecoalition.org, or call the American Horse Council at 202-296-4031.
Source: Hay and Forage Grower
I could have a pasture FULL of horses, good ones, if I had the forage for them. People are giving away horses because they simply cannot afford to feed them and even then they may not be able to find a home. I have a friend that is divorced with 7 horses and nowhere to put them and no one will take them.
There used to be a value to horses when there were slaughter facilities. Now horses are valueless, and I don’t see the people that were so concerned about the “inhumanity” of slaughtering unwanted horses stepping forward to assume the feed bill to keep them from starving.
I always thought slaughter was more humane than slowly starving an animal to death.
Finding the Missing Ice Age
Maureen Raymo puts what looks like a pinch of sand on a glass slide and powers up her microscope. Under magnification, the grains are revealed to be fossilized shells of tiny ocean creatures that existed millions of years ago. Raymo, a College of Arts and Sciences earth sciences research professor, is a paleoclimatologist, and these remains are to her what dinosaur bones are to paleontologists: keys to the past.
Raymo studies these shells to better understand the ice ages that have waxed and waned over millions of years on our planet. At the moment, she’s searching for evidence to support a theory she and several colleagues recently proposed to explain a conundrum that has puzzled researchers for years: why the timing of ice growth and decay was different between one million and three million years ago compared to the pattern observed for the last million years.
Scientists know that irregularities in the Earth’s orbit, which occur every 23,000, 41,000, and 100,000 years, affect global climate cycles. Those deviations can nudge the northern hemisphere farther from the sun, causing ice to remain through the summer and auguring a new ice age, like the one that ended 10,000 years ago in North America. But starting in the late Pliocene era, some three million years ago, evidence of the 23,000-year cycle of climate change disappeared from the climate record.
Read the rest at BU Today.
Good grief. People are finding microscopic fossils to confirm the existence of ice ages millions of years ago. In the meantime, I can't find car keys, glasses, watches, or books that I had the previous evening. I feel so inadequate now. Thanks a lot.
Raymo studies these shells to better understand the ice ages that have waxed and waned over millions of years on our planet. At the moment, she’s searching for evidence to support a theory she and several colleagues recently proposed to explain a conundrum that has puzzled researchers for years: why the timing of ice growth and decay was different between one million and three million years ago compared to the pattern observed for the last million years.
Scientists know that irregularities in the Earth’s orbit, which occur every 23,000, 41,000, and 100,000 years, affect global climate cycles. Those deviations can nudge the northern hemisphere farther from the sun, causing ice to remain through the summer and auguring a new ice age, like the one that ended 10,000 years ago in North America. But starting in the late Pliocene era, some three million years ago, evidence of the 23,000-year cycle of climate change disappeared from the climate record.
Read the rest at BU Today.
Good grief. People are finding microscopic fossils to confirm the existence of ice ages millions of years ago. In the meantime, I can't find car keys, glasses, watches, or books that I had the previous evening. I feel so inadequate now. Thanks a lot.
HemCon Bandage Update
There is a new bandage currently being used on the battlefields in Iraq called a HemCon® Bandage that is made from the shells of shrimp. I queried our allergist as to the safety of this Bandage for the shellfish allergic, because the product is now being marketed to local EMTs across the USA. The response that our allergist received from the company is as follows:There have been no known allergic reactions as a result of using the HemCon Bandage since distribution began in 2003 and there have been no adverse effects reported in over 500,000 bandages shipped. HemCon Medical Technologies, Inc. has results from a shellfish allergy study conducted by its chitosan supplier which demonstrates that, out of 221 individuals with suspected hypersensitivity, including 8 individuals with known shellfish allergies, none demonstrated any dermal sensitivity when pricked with a chitosan test solution. However, since chitosan is extracted from the shells of shrimp, other shellfish and fungi, individuals with known shellfish allergies should exercise caution in the use of products containing chitosan.
Source: AllergicChild.com
I was wondering as well whether those chitosan bandages would cause a reaction/anaphylactic shock in those unfortunate individuals with a severe shellfish allergy. Supposedly not, but it might be a good idea to wear one of those medical allergy alert bracelets in the event of an accident.
Source: AllergicChild.com
I was wondering as well whether those chitosan bandages would cause a reaction/anaphylactic shock in those unfortunate individuals with a severe shellfish allergy. Supposedly not, but it might be a good idea to wear one of those medical allergy alert bracelets in the event of an accident.
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