A collection of hand selected articles by nedhamson from Ned’s Second Line Daily.
Category Archives: environment
TB incidence increasing in Denmark | Vaccine News Daily
The Statens Serum Institut recently noted that tuberculosis cases in Denmark are increasing, particularly among immigrants and residents of Greenland or immigrant descent, and suggested the TB prevention plan within the country may need revision.
The presence of TB in Denmark has steadily increased since 2009. In 2012, the country saw the highest incidence of TB in five years. Most cases occurred with immigrants residing in Denmark, while the prevalence of TB in persons native to Denmark remained unchanged.
via TB incidence increasing in Denmark | Vaccine News Daily.
Dumping plan for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef gets green light | News | DW.DE | 31.01.2014
and like too many other profit before planet dummies – they will just say “Oops” when something really bad happens and they kill the reef and northern Australia’s coast.
“We are devastated. I think any Australian or anyone around the world who cares about the future of the reef is also devastated by this decision,\” said Richard Leck, reef campaign leader for the international conservation group World Wildlife Fund. \”Exactly the wrong thing that you want to do when an ecosystem is suffering … is introduce another major threat to it – and that\’s what the marine park authority has allowed to happen today.\”
But the Marine Park Authority has defended the decision, pointing to strict conditions that include a water quality monitoring plan that is to stay in place five years after the dumping is complete.
via Dumping plan for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef gets green light | News | DW.DE | 31.01.2014.
Defending people’s milk in India — New Internationalist
‘We take care of the cow and the cow takes care of us,’ says Marayal, a farmer in Thalavady, Tamil Nadu. Her two cows produce 6 to 10 litres of milk a day, which she sells for 30-40 cents per litre.
Across India, there are millions of backyard dairy farmers like Marayal. Each owning just one or two cows, these farmers supply millions more families and hundreds of thousands of informal milk parlours and tea stalls across India. These small unregistered operations prefer to buy milk directly from backyard dairy farmers, who supply fresh milk at the lowest price.
via Defending people’s milk in India — New Internationalist.
Alicia Silverstone Supports Peace Silk – Look to the Stars
Alicia Silverstone Supports Peace Silk
\”According to PETA, 3,000 silkworms are killed to make every pound of silk,\” says actress Alicia Silverstone.
This is because the silkworms are gassed, steamed or boiled before they emerge from their cocoons as moths. Preventing the moths from cutting through the cocoons allows manufacturers to harvest long, single strands of silk.
Silverstone supports peace silk, the process by which the silkworm is allowed to live out its full life cycle.
“Peace silk is woven by hand by fair trade producers in India,” says Silverstone. “This cruelty-free silk is sourced from the cocoons of the wild Eri moth. The process does not involve touching or harming the moths, nor does it require keeping them in captivity. Rather, their cocoons are collected from the forest after the moths emerge and fly away.”
via Alicia Silverstone Supports Peace Silk – Look to the Stars.
Current H7N9 wave rivals last spring’s case total | CIDRAP
China\’s steady rise in H7N9 avian flu cases continued over the past 3 days, with 14 new cases from five provinces, as the latest test results in poultry showed a conflicting picture of the virus on farms, including positive samples found today in birds sent to Hong Kong.
The fresh round of infections—coming at a pace matching last year\’s peak—could soon eclipse last spring\’s outbreak totals and come as poultry trade and consumption are high in the lead-up to Lunar New Year celebrations later this week.
via Current H7N9 wave rivals last spring’s case total | CIDRAP.
Food Politics » The fight over white potatoes in WIC
Has nothing to do with nutrition and everything to do with profit!
The National Potato Council lobbyists induced Congress to add a clause to the 2014 omnibus appropriations bill. When President Obama signed that bill on January 17, he directed the USDA to allow all varieties of fresh, whole, or cut vegetables to be included. Translation: white potatoes, and French fries at that.
If the USDA fails to comply, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack must submit a report to Congress explaining why not.
The National Potato Council makes this statement: “This action sends a clear message to USDA that it is obligated to base its nutritional policy on the latest nutritional science, which calls for an increase in starchy vegetable consumption for all Americans, including WIC mothers and children.”
It does? I’m not aware of such science.
The Institute of Medicine is currently reviewing the WIC package and I seriously doubt that it will find a deficiency of starchy vegetables in American diets.
This is about getting potato growers a chunk of taxpayer money spent for the WIC program.
Dark skin and blue eyes: How Europeans once looked | News , Science | THE DAILY STAR
The DNA of a hunter-gatherer who lived in Spain some 7,000 years ago suggests that Europeans were dark-skinned until much more recently than previously thought, researchers said Sunday.
Genetic material recovered from a tooth of La Brana 1, an ancient man whose skeleton was dug up in a deep cave system in Spain in 2006, revealed a strange combination of dark skin and blue eyes, according to a study in the journal Nature.
Europeans from the Mesolithic Period between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago, when La Brana lived, were thought to have already been fair-skinned due to low ultraviolet radiation levels at these high latitudes.
\”Until now, it was assumed that light skin colour evolved quite early in Europe, (during) the Upper Palaeolithic… But this is clearly not the case,\” study co-author Carles Lalueza-Fox from Spain\’s Evolutionary Biology Institute, told AFP.
\”This individual had the African variants for the pigmentation genes.\”
via Dark skin and blue eyes: How Europeans once looked | News , Science | THE DAILY STAR.
Breadcrumbs in Dark Times: Any minute now, everything will change. | Rebelle Society
When the Going Gets Tough…
These days, the rough patch we’re navigating has turned into a very long haul. I believe we’ll weather the changes. I believe we’re strong enough to do so. Still, it’s easy to fall into despair and wish that our journey wasn’t so rife with trouble.
Right now, we’re in a thick soup of changes that rival any changes we’ve weathered in human history. The shit’s hitting the fan — environmentally, economically, emotionally — and everywhere we look, people are losing it. Shooting up the joint. Setting themselves on fire. Totaling their cars. Blowing up their personal lives.
via Breadcrumbs in Dark Times: Any minute now, everything will change. | Rebelle Society.
Japan: New Leak Detected at Crippled Reactor – NYTimes.com
Highly radioactive water found in a reactor building at the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant offers new evidence that the reactor’s containment vessel was breached during the accident, the plant’s operator said Monday. The operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, said a remote-controlled robot had found water on the floor of the heavily contaminated No. 3 reactor building that was even more radioactive than expected. The high radiation level suggests that the water had leaked from inside the reactor itself, where it would have come in contact with the melted-down fuel core. Nearly three years after the accident, the exact condition of the plant’s three damaged reactors remains unclear since high radiation levels and flooding make it impossible for workers to inspect them.
via Japan: New Leak Detected at Crippled Reactor – NYTimes.com.





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