A beachgoer finds rare fossilised shark teeth, thought to be millions of years old, on the east coast of the United States.
All posts by nedhamson
Germaine Greer defends views on transgender issues amid calls for cancellation of feminism lecture – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
“I don’t even talk about it, they’re not my issue. I haven’t published anything about transgender for years,” she said.”I’ve had things thrown at me, I’ve been accused of things I have never done or said, people seem to have no concern about evidence or indeed, even about libel.”When asked whether she will still deliver the lecture, Greer appeared pessimistic.”I’m getting a bit old for all this. I’m 76. I don’t want to go down there and be screamed at and have things thrown at me,” she told BBC News.”Bugger it. It’s not that interesting or rewarding.”
Ex-Im Bank Dispute Threatens G.E. Factory That Obama Praised – The New York Times
Opponents of the bank reply that organized labor and major corporations are the kinds of powerful lobbying institutions that can extract special favors from the government. The bank, they say, classifies a lot of big-company business as small business. “The big guys can extend the financing themselves,” said Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.In a study published this year, Ms. de Rugy and a co-author, Diane Katz, looked at the largest buyers of exports supported by Export-Import Bank financing and found that the top 10 were all either foreign oil companies or airlines. The authors singled out the subsidies to foreign oil companies: “The federal government,” the report said, “doubly disadvantages U.S. energy firms — through Washington’s excessive regulation and Ex-Im Bank subsidies to U.S. firms’ foreign competitors.”
The Mercatus Center is listed as one of the projects of the Koch family foundations. Charles G. and David H. Koch, libertarian conservative philanthropists, are also the chief executive and executive vice president, respectively, of the privately owned Koch Industries, which has substantial oil and energy interests. Another Koch-backed group, Heritage Action for America, is an opponent of the Export-Import Bank.
Source: Ex-Im Bank Dispute Threatens G.E. Factory That Obama Praised – The New York Times
Superspreaders & The Korean MERS Epidemiological Report
Transmission Map – Credit Korean CDC MERS Study
# 10,659
Although it was published last month in the Korean CDC’s official journal Osong Public Health and Research Perspectives, this overview of the their large cluster of MERS cases hasn’t really garnered much attention until today, when it was detailed at length in a Korea Herald article called 83% of Korean MERS cases stemmed from 5 patients.
While the media reports focuses on the role of handful of superspreaders driving this outbreak, the Korean CDC report goes to some length to acknowledge the unique conditions common to the Korean healthcare system that appear to have amplified these chains of infection. They list:
Prolonged duration of exposure before diagnosis and proper isolation, practice of seeking care at multiple healthcare facilities, frequent interhospital transfer, significant numbers of paid caregivers, and large numbers of contacts in large crowded tertiary referral hospitals might have contributed to multiple spreading events.
Moreover, the custom of family members and friends to accompany or visit patients, and to provide care with staying in the same hospital rooms (mostly multibed rooms) or in the crowded emergency rooms, may have also contributed to the increased number of contacts.
The full open access report, which contains a great deal of epidemiological detail on patients and chains of transmission, can be read at the link below. After which, I’ll return with a bit more on the superspreader phenomenon.
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Outbreak in the Republic of Korea, 2015
Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cheongju, Republic of Korea
∗Correspondence.E-mail: korea.cdc.mers@gmail.com.
Open Access DOI: http://bitly.com/1GqgPg5
Abstract
Objectives
The outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection in the Republic of Korea started from the index case who developed fever after returning from the Middle East. He infected 26 cases in Hospital C, and consecutive nosocomial transmission proceeded throughout the nation. We provide an epidemiologic description of the outbreak, as of July 2015.
Methods
Epidemiological research was performed by direct interview of the confirmed patients and reviewing medical records. We also analyzed the incubation period, serial interval, the characteristics of superspreaders, and factors associated with mortality. Full genome sequence was obtained from sputum specimens of the index patient.
Results
A total of 186 confirmed patients with MERS-CoV infection across 16 hospitals were identified in the Republic of Korea. Some 44.1% of the cases were patients exposed in hospitals, 32.8% were caregivers, and 13.4% were healthcare personnel. The most common presenting symptom was fever and chills. The estimated incubation period was 6.83 days and the serial interval was 12.5 days. A total of 83.2% of the transmission events were epidemiologically linked to five superspreaders, all of whom had pneumonia at presentation and contacted hundreds of people. Older age [odds ratio (OR) = 4.86, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.90–12.45] and underlying respiratory disease (OR = 4.90, 95% CI 1.64–14.65) were significantly associated with mortality. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the MERS-CoV of the index case clustered closest with a recent virus from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Conclusion
A single imported MERS-CoV infection case imposed a huge threat to public health and safety. This highlights the importance of robust preparedness and optimal infection prevention control. The lessons learned from the current outbreak will contribute to more up-to-date guidelines and global health security.
During the SARS outbreak of 2003 – which is generally considered to have been more infectious than MERS – studies found most patients would typically only infect 1 or perhaps 2 additional people, and often none at all.
But a small percentage of patients proved unusually efficient at spreading the disease, with some responsible for 10 or more secondary infections (see MMWR Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome — Singapore, 2003).
By contrast, one of the Korean MERS patients (#14) is believed to have infected as many as 85 people, while two others (#1 & #16) appear to have infected more than 50 others between them.
While impressive totals, it seems unlikely that absent the crowded conditions and lax infection control procedures present in Korean hospitals, these three would have been nearly so successful in spreading the virus.
According to Stein’s excellent 2011 review Super-spreaders in infectious diseases:
Super-spreading events are shaped by host, pathogen, and environmental factors. Often, more than one factor may be implicated in the same outbreak.
The SARS super spreader phenomenon gave rise to the 20/80 rule, that 20% of the cases were responsible for 80% of the transmission of the virus (see 2011 IJID study). Super spreading events aren’t limited to SARS, they have been documented with measles, HIV, TB, S. aureus, Ebola, and various STDs . . .among others (cite)
In January of 2013, in Influenza Transmission, PPEs & `Super Emitters’ we looked at research that found a five patients (19 percent) in their study were “super-emitters” who emitted up to 32 times more flu virus than did the rest. Patients who emitted a higher concentration of influenza virus also reported greater severity of illness.
While the host and the pathogen are important parts to the equation, environment and opportunity also play a pivotal role in exacerbating these super spreader events.
The experience has been, once the threat is recognized and rigid infection control procedures are put into place, these outbreaks can be halted. The challenge, however, is finding ways to prevent these outbreaks, not just stop them.
Leica Elmarit-R 24mm f/2.8 E60
vintage everyday: Hiring Women? Check Out This 1943 Guide
{Not just ridiculous but downright dumb!}
This is pretty ridiculous, but below is the transcript:
Source: vintage everyday: Hiring Women? Check Out This 1943 Guide
CENSORED NEWS: VIDEO Massacre at Acteal, Chiapas: Testimony Inter-American Commission Human Rights
Thousands demonstrate in Tel Aviv: ‘No security without a solution’ | +972 Magazine


Thousands of Israelis participated in a protest march in central Tel Aviv Saturday night against the Netanyahu government’s policies in the West Bank and the continuing violence.The demonstrators, many of them from Peace Now — which organized the event — and the left-wing Meretz party, along with several members from the Arab-Jewish Hadash party and Da’am Workers Party, marched from Habima Square to the IDF headquarters on Kaplan Street, waving Israeli flags and holding signs that read “Intifada government, go home” and “There is no security without a solution.”Among the speakers was Peace Now head Yariv Oppenheimer, who accused the government of “taking an entire country hostage in an unnecessary religious war, and we are all paying the price. You have turned the state into a violent, racist, and hopeless place. We have come here to call for an end to the hatred and the incitement, for a struggle against racism, and to demand a political solution — two states for two people.”
Source: Thousands demonstrate in Tel Aviv: ‘No security without a solution’ | +972 Magazine
#FleshAndBone is a brand new limited series set in a ballet company in NYC from EMMY award winning writer @moirawalleybeckett. All episodes available November 8th on Starz. #Ballerina – #KiiraKoval @irinamaxemma in @fleshandbone_starz #FleshAndBone @industrycitybk #InsideIC #Brooklyn #NewYorkCity Outfit by @normakamali #NormaKamali #ballerinaproject_ #ballerinaproject #ballet #dance

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