Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

Researchers develop models to predict epidemics of yellow fever, other mosquito-borne diseases

Yellow fever was the first human disease to have a licensed vaccine and has long been considered important to an understanding of how epidemics happen and should be combated. It was introduced to the Americas in the seventeenth century, and high death rates have resulted from successive outbreaks since then. Epidemics of yellow fever were associated with the slave trade, the US gold rush and settlement of the Old West, the Haitian Revolution, and construction of the Panama Canal, to cite only a few examples.

Centuries after the disease was first reported in the Americas, an international team of researchers will embark on a groundbreaking study to develop models that predict epidemics of yellow fever and other diseases caused by mosquito-borne arboviruses such as dengue, zika, and chikungunya.

Source: Researchers develop models to predict epidemics of yellow fever, other mosquito-borne diseases

Deforestation, forest conversion and palm oil | EurekAlert! (“deforestation and afforestation had significant correlations to disease outbreaks”)

Confirming past hypotheses, they found that both deforestation and afforestation had significant correlations to disease outbreaks. They found a strong association between deforestation and epidemics (such as malaria and Ebola) in tropical countries like Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Indonesia, Myanmar and Malaysia. In contrast, temperate regions like the USA, China and Europe showed clear links between afforestation activities and vector-borne diseases like Lyme disease.

Their approach did not distinguish between different types of reforestation activities, but they did find a significant increase in disease outbreaks in countries with expanding palm oil plantations. This was especially striking in regions of China and Thailand, where there was relatively little deforestation. These areas appeared particularly susceptible to mosquito-borne diseases like dengue, zika and yellow fever.

Source: Deforestation, forest conversion and palm oil | EurekAlert!

Amazon deforestation drives malaria transmission, and malaria burden reduces forest clearing | PNAS

Our work provides clear large-scale evidence that deforestation increases malaria, by using econometric techniques that approximate the gold standard of randomized controlled trials with observational data where controlled experiments are impossible. The effects of deforestation on malaria are largest in the early stages of deforestation in the interior of the Amazon as forest edge habitat increases, promoting mosquito vector breeding habitat, survival, and human biting rate (5615), but the effects attenuate as forest loss progresses, forest edge area declines, and human settlements become larger and further removed from forest (1021). The key implication is that forest clearing has a direct impact on human health, in addition to the loss of other ecosystem services such as species diversity, water quality, and carbon storage, that is quantifiable and predictable at regional and decadal scales. Source: Amazon deforestation drives malaria transmission, and malaria burden reduces forest clearing | PNAS

Linking Deforestation to Malaria in the Amazon: Characterization of the Breeding Habitat of the Principal Malaria Vector, Anopheles darlingi

We postulate that deforestation in the Amazon changes the epidemiology of malaria by contributing to a change in Anopheles species composition and abundance, which results from the change in breeding site availability. In addition to changes in shade, vegetation, and hydrology resulting from deforestation, settlers often create artificial bodies of water such as fish farms and wells, and introduce new animal species.  The construction of roads through tropical rainforests also changes the surrounding ecology through erosion, blockage of streams, and by allowing previously inaccessible areas to become colonized by cattle ranchers, loggers, and farmers, thus exacerbating deforestation. , In this study, we examine the associations between A. darlingi larval presence and ecologic factors, in addition to studying the influence of landscape at larger scales. Source: Linking Deforestation to Malaria in the Amazon: Characterization of the Breeding Habitat of the Principal Malaria Vector, Anopheles darlingi

Up to 5 Million Children Have Lost Parents During the Pandemic. How Children Who Became Orphans By COVID-19 Coped | Time (Me: In US – Stop denials and anti-vaxxing, get vaccinated!)

The cost of the COVID-19 pandemic is mostly noted in the people whose lives it has claimed—more than 740,000 in the U.S. alone, and more than 5 million worldwide. But there are the secondary victims, the collateral casualties—the spouses left widowed, the friends left bereft and, perhaps most poignantly, the children left orphaned. According to a survey recently published in Pediatrics—which relied on census data, as well as on publicly available figures on national fertility rates, deaths directly attributable to COVID-19 and excess deaths over the course of the pandemic compared to a similar period before the pandemic—the number of children in the U.S. who have lost at least one parent to COVID-19 now exceeds 120,000. The number who have lost a caregiving grandparent is greater than 22,000. And those figures take into consideration only the period from April 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021—missing the most recent summer surge entirely. Source: How Children Who Became Orphans By COVID-19 Coped | Time

The Nationality & Borders Bill: Imperial nostalgia, fascist resurgence and social control – Media Diversified

Arguably the most ‘diverse’ cabinet in the history of UK politics has introduced possibly the most racist and regressive pieces of legislation this country has seen in decades. The Nationality and Borders Billshould force us all to rethink representation politics – if we have not already, and to accept many of the premises that sustain the quest for ‘equality’ are ill-conceived.

As part of this, recognising that we are all capable of reproducing racism within systems and indeed, that systems cannot function without the participation – passive or active – of those it harms, is crucial. We all need, and this may hurt even more, to come to terms with the fact, ‘diversity’, ‘equality’ and ‘inclusion’ will not save us. In fact, they are today more likely to do many of us harm, than to help us achieve any semblance of justice.

Source: The Nationality & Borders Bill: Imperial nostalgia, fascist resurgence and social control – Media Diversified

‘A Gut Punch’: Biden Interior Dept Quietly Plans to Strip Protections From Key Species (Me: Misleading headline… a department within Interior has made dumb recommendations but that does not equal “Biden Interior Dept”)

Writing to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Interior Department Inspector General Mark Lee Greenblatt, and other officials, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) demanded to know why the USFWS would decide now to reduce protections for species including the Florida panther, the Key deer, the Canada lynx, and the whooping crane.

In the case of the latter three, the group slammed the service’s proposal—buried in the regulatory agenda it released late last week—to downlist the species.

Source: ‘A Gut Punch’: Biden Interior Dept Quietly Plans to Strip Protections From Key Species

Opinion | The Jan. 6 committee’s report on Mark Meadows shows the Trump coverup is imploding – The Washington Post

For instance, the report notes that Meadows received “many messages” urging him to get Trump to issue a statement that might quell the attack. It also says Meadows was with Trump or nearby as Trump learned about it and weighed what to do in response.

Indeed, the report discloses that the committee has obtained a text message indicating that Meadows was “pushing hard” to “condemn this s–t,” meaning Meadows was urging Trump to publicly call off the rioters.

Here’s what this really means: Meadows almost certainly has direct knowledge of how Trump responded to all these repeated demands that he call off the violent assault. The report says the committee wants to question Meadows about this, but he’s refusing to answer any questions.

What is it that Meadows does not want to testify to?

Well, we know from press accounts, such as this Post report, that Trump watched the violent assault unfold on TV and ignored many frantic pleas that he step in. One Trump adviser told The Post that Trump was enjoying the spectacle of his followers fighting on his behalf.

Source: Opinion | The Jan. 6 committee’s report on Mark Meadows shows the Trump coverup is imploding – The Washington Post

Do Better: 3nd draft comment hangar, Preface – Chapter 1

Context, Thought, and Learning: ShiraDest Offers Project Do Better

     For those interested in helping to begin this project, I have finally finished the third draft of DoBetter, formerly known as BabyAcres, or Baby Floors, and am out of spoons.  So, I am requesting volunteers to help with the work of providing feedback for this book, and preparing to send it out into the world, as yours, Intrepid Volunteers.

    I’m still posting the rough draft sections on Wednesdays as a reminder and rallying point, until someone offers to build a site or portal for the set of communities to be built around this project.  I offer Do Better as a starting point for guidelines over the next 70 years, with the understanding that the project must be shaped by those who come after me.  Thus Do Better, while written by my hand, must be released into other hands to continue the journey. …

View original post 439 more words