Category Archives: environment

Humans of New York

Humans of New York.

“I’ve been working my whole life to make the word ‘organic’ mean something. I lobbied for 20 years. I was hopeful when the National Organic Program was instituted in 2000. I saw an early version of the bill, two months before it was passed, and I’m telling you— it was awesome. But they gutted it. By the time they got done with it, 142 synthetics were lawfully permitted in the growing of ‘organic’ food.”

Avian Flu Diary: PAHO: Chikungunya Numbers Jump Nearly 30K In Past Week

While rarely fatal, Chikungunya can produce a severe fever and excruciating joint pain usually lasting for at least a week.  Some studies (cite) indicate significant arthritis-like sequelae can persist for months or even years post-infection.

 

With an incubation period of between 3 and 7 days, and the enormous amount of international travel to, and from, the Caribbean, the concern is that this virus will soon migrate to other areas that also have a favorable climate and the right kind of mosquitoes.

 

Brazil is particularly at risk this summer with the FIFA World Cup, something we discussed yesterday.

 

But then, so is the United States, and even parts of Europe (Italy saw a mini-epidemic in 2007 when just one infected traveler started a chain of infection that eventually touched 300 people).

 

The good news, at least in most of the United States, is that most of us live and work in air-conditioned spaces, and live in regions that maintain pretty good mosquito control programs, and so we aren’t as apt to be continually exposed to (and bitten by) mosquitoes as people living in the Caribbean.

 

But as a native Floridian, I can assure you that it is pretty much impossible to totally avoid feeding our unofficial `state bird’.

 

The state of Florida is concerned enough that it has issued warnings to the public, and is actively Preparing For Chikungunya.  In March the CDC held a Chikungunya Webinar and last December they released a CDC HAN Advisory On Recognizing & Treating Chikungunya Infection.

No one knows if Chikungunya will spread rapidly in the United States, like West Nile Virus has over the past 15 years, or produce infrequent and highly sporadic outbreaks, as has Dengue.

 

But given its rapid global expansion over the past nine years, no one in public health is taking the threat lightly.

via Avian Flu Diary: PAHO: Chikungunya Numbers Jump Nearly 30K In Past Week.

Drones give farmers an eye in the sky to check on crop progress — ScienceDaily

Dennis Bowman, a crop sciences educator with U. of I. Extension, is using two drones to take aerial pictures of crops growing in research plots on the farms.

Bowman intentionally made mistakes on one test plot — “areas where we didn’t apply enough nitrogen fertilizer, where we simulated mistakes in the applicator, where we shut the boom off for a short period of time or plugged it up and ran for a while,” Bowman said. “As the crop gets up and going, we’ll fly over it and see if we can detect those areas sooner than we could visually from the ground. (Watch the drone in action.)

via Drones give farmers an eye in the sky to check on crop progress — ScienceDaily.

The Spokesman-Review: Wandering wolf, OR-7, and new mate have pups

The speculation is over on whether Oregon’s famous radio-collared wandering wolf has a mate.

OR-7 and its mate have produced pups, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has confirmed.

See other images of OR-7, its mate and other Oregon wolves at ODFW’s wolf photo gallery

OR-7, the name given to the male wolf when it was first captured, radio-collared and released in northeast Oregon, found a mate in the Rogue River area of southwest Oregon’s Cascade Mountains after capturing worldwide attention as its movements were followed on the web through Oregon and California.

via The Spokesman-Review: Wandering wolf, OR-7, and new mate have pups.

Pimping for Coal and Air to Poison Us All – A bill to amend the Clean Air Act to prohibit the regulation of emissions of carbon dioxide from new or existing power plants under certain circumstances. (S. 2414) – GovTrack.us

Super Mitch – the fool – McConnell – S. 2414: A bill to amend the Clean Air Act to prohibit the regulation of emissions of carbon dioxide from new or existing power plants

via A bill to amend the Clean Air Act to prohibit the regulation of emissions of carbon dioxide from new or existing power plants under certain circumstances. (S. 2414) – GovTrack.us.

Oarfish Mystery: Why Are They Washing Ashore?: LAist

Oarfish Mystery: Why Are They Washing Ashore?: LAist.

According to traditional Japanese lore, the Daily Telegraph wrote in 2010, the fish rise to the surface and beach themselves to warn of an impending quake.

Shortly before the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, about 20 oarfish stranded themselves on Japanese beaches, suggesting the fish could possibly have known that the temblor was coming, Mark Benfield, a researcher at Louisiana State University who’s remotely videotaped the mysterious creature, he told Live Science earlier this year. Or of course, as he added, it could just be a coincidence.

However, Japanese folkore has long connected the two. “In ancient times Japanese people believed that fish warned of coming earthquakes, particularly catfish,” Hiroshi Tajihi, deputy director of the Kobe Earthquake Centre, told the Daily Telegraph. He dismissed the connection as “older superstitions,” saying, “there is no scientific relationship between these sightings and an earthquake.

Earlier this year, sea lions were beaching themselves in record numbers along California beaches, which experts speculated might be due to a lack of food fish.

A rare 15-foot Stejneger’s beaked whale washed ashore in Venice Beach on October 15, but no one knows whether that’s related to the oarfish strandings.

So, either we’re all doomed or it’s just been a banner week for weird fish photo ops.

Tests show high H7N9 antibodies in Chinese poultry workers | CIDRAP

The researchers found a hemagglutination-inhibition antibody titer of at least 1:160 in 7.2% of poultry workers in May and in 14.9% in December, a rise that was consistent with the second wave of H7N9 activity in China, with Guangdong as one of the hot spots. None of the participants had confirmed H7N9 infections, and investigators didn’t find evidence of infection in any of the general public group for either testing period.

The team pointed out that other studies of H7N9 seroprevalence in Chinese poultry workers showed much lower levels. For example, a study based on sampling in Zhejiang province in April and May of 2013 found 1.3% had antibody titers suggesting earlier infection.

Looking for risk factors, the researchers found that being female and having occupational exposure for 10 or more years was associated with infection. The team said the increased risk in women may reflect their having the major share of poultry duties for that region, which include selling poultry, defeathering, and cleaning. They said the longer work history could be related to reduced preventive measures or may reflect greater susceptibility to infection in older people.

They found that working in a retail market, rather than a wholesale setting, was associated with antibody titers indicative of infection in the analysis of samples from May. The researchers wrote that the shorter stays in warehouse markets and twice-a-week disinfection protocols might limit workers’ exposure to the H7N9 virus.

via Tests show high H7N9 antibodies in Chinese poultry workers | CIDRAP.