The feds are taking orders for extra Tamiflu, the medication that doctors hope will blunt the impact should a human avian flu epidemic occur. States are lining up to get some. The AP's Kevin Freking has...
The feds are taking orders for extra Tamiflu, the medication that doctors hope will blunt the impact should a human avian flu epidemic occur. States are lining up to get some. The AP's Kevin Freking has a good national roundup. Other AP correspondents around the country have more stories, usually focussed on what regional officials are doing. The Bush administration, it says here, is buying enough for 44 million people, but states can buy additional stockpiles sufficient for another 31 million people, Freking reports.
Stories:
AP Kevin Freking; AP Tara Godvin via Honolulu Star Bulletin; AP...
If you want to introduce a topic for discussion--or see what others have raised for discussion--click on "Comments" below and fire away.
If you want to introduce a topic for discussion--or see what others have raised for discussion--click on "Comments" below and fire away.
A policy paper in this week's Science focusses on the continuing and drastic decline worldwide among frogs and other amphibians. Scientists have long noticed and puzzled over the troubling...
A policy paper in this week's Science focusses on the continuing and drastic decline worldwide among frogs and other amphibians. Scientists have long noticed and puzzled over the troubling disappearance of animals that play a key role in many aquatic environments. A fungus discovered only eight years ago and spreading around the world with lethal impact on amphibians is rising to near the top of the list of likely causes (see earlier post, linked below, on a NYTimes feature). A large international program will be needed to stem the loss, according to the paper signed by dozens of scientists. Some fear loss, for the first time in human history, of an entire class of organisms. It asks for a $400 million US research and rapid-response program, for starters. And, as David Perlman writes in the SF Chronicle, global warming is probably not only a general...
Wildfires in the American west are bigger and more frequent in recent decades and the most likely explanation is the obvious but, until now, undocumented connection: summers are hotter and drier and the snow...
Wildfires in the American west are bigger and more frequent in recent decades and the most likely explanation is the obvious but, until now, undocumented connection: summers are hotter and drier and the snow is melting earlier. That's from a report in this week's Science. The authors, at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USGS, UC-Merced, and the University of Arizona, say retreating snowpacks are making high elevations more vulnerable to fire, the fire season is longer by 78 days than it was in the 1970s, the number of fires is up by a factor of four, and the area burnt is up sixfold. With glaciers melting and hurricanes revving harder, the pace of wildfires could hardly be expected to hold still. Their intensification has been long predicted. The journal's publisher, the AAAS, expected coverage to hold until midday Thur, thus keeping it out of the US morning dailies...
In a clever bit of geological sleuthing, Stanford researchers measured deuterium in sediments of rivers flowing from California's lofty Sierra...
In a clever bit of geological sleuthing, Stanford researchers measured deuterium in sediments of rivers flowing from California's lofty Sierra Nevada and conclude the uplift that holds the mountains occurred as long ago as during the time of the dinosaurs, the Mesozoic. That is more than ten times the usual 3 to 6 million year age ascribed to them. It is in Science magazine this week. Lisa Krieger wrote it for the San Jose Mercury News and does a good job explaining just how deuterium ratios could reveal such a thing, but it still leaves one wondering why deuterium in rain falling at high altitudes is different from that at low altitudes. Keay Davidson in the SF Chronicle explains that it has to do with the temperature, and by inference the altitude, at which the raindrops condensed...
The Tracker missed this one over the holiday, but the Dispatch's Mike Lafferty had a fairly long piece July 4 on sequestering or otherwise abating carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion. Its news core is...
The Tracker missed this one over the holiday, but the Dispatch's Mike Lafferty had a fairly long piece July 4 on sequestering or otherwise abating carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion. Its news core is a test coming up this fall. Researchers from Battelle and the FirstEnergy utility company will drill 7000 feet into the sandstone under a power plant along the Ohio River. They will pump a small fraction of its CO2 into the rock to see how well the effluent stays put and to help see whether large-scale programs can be affordable and effective. Lafferty also reviews efforts to offset carbon emissions with farming and tree-planting programs that absorb the gas. The story jumps about from specific experiments to descriptions of the overall predicament of climate change.
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News is slow and most stories seem to be environmental, including climate change, so this seems pertinent. The Journal Sentinel's Tom Kertscher reports that last Saturday a local man and a friend...
News is slow and most stories seem to be environmental, including climate change, so this seems pertinent. The Journal Sentinel's Tom Kertscher reports that last Saturday a local man and a friend from Minnesota became the first ever to reach the North Pole on foot during the summer. They failed last year when drifting ice kept them from making it, and this year are being helicoptered to safety because the ice again is so broken up they can't reach Greenland on foot. Plus, one of them has a badly strained back. With global warming and all they worry for the polar bears and wonder if anybody can ever make such a trek again.
Stanford University researchers say they have found a genetic mechanism in mice that may explain the retardation common among people born with Down syndrome, and particularly the further deterioration in mental acuity that often occurs in middle age. The gene, called App for amyloid precursor protein is well known...
Stanford University researchers say they have found a genetic mechanism in mice that may explain the retardation common among people born with Down syndrome, and particularly the further deterioration in mental acuity that often occurs in middle age. The gene, called App for amyloid precursor protein is well known to also be a factor in Alzheimer's disease. The syndrome results from an extra chromosome 21, but the exact ways that extra copies of specific genes produce the many symptoms of Down syndrome have been elusive. The report is in the journal Neuron.
Stories:
Wall St. Journal (subscription req'd) Marilyn Chase; NY Newsday Sophia Chang; Scotsman (UK)...
Nature Magazine this week has a cover package on The Search for a Sister Earth, focussing on a report by a University of Colorado astrophysicist who has designed, along with engineers at Northrop-Grumman, a flower-...
Nature Magazine this week has a cover package on The Search for a Sister Earth, focussing on a report by a University of Colorado astrophysicist who has designed, along with engineers at Northrop-Grumman, a flower-shaped star shade, or occulter. It could position itself in space between the upcoming Webb Space Telescope and a distant star, and would employ some fancy diffraction to block the star's light while letting a planet's faint glow come on through. Very nice idea. It is reminiscent of an occulter on which Princeton astronomer David Spergel has been working for some time, but this one, dubbed the New Worlds Imager, is far bigger. It might be 50 meters wide and would maneuver into position thousands of kilometers from the telescope. The Rocky Mountain News's Bill Scanlon writes it in the US but most press interest appears to be in the UK and elsewhere. The...
The Times's James Ricci delves into the lives of a few men who have been infected by HIV for years, take few or no medications, yet remain free of AIDS. As one doc tells him, if whatever their immune systems are doing to keep the contagion in check could be bottled and given to others, "we sould...
The Times's James Ricci delves into the lives of a few men who have been infected by HIV for years, take few or no medications, yet remain free of AIDS. As one doc tells him, if whatever their immune systems are doing to keep the contagion in check could be bottled and given to others, "we sould solve the AIDS epidemic." It's not a new notion to HIV researchers, but realizing the hope to act on it has been elusive. People who live so easily with HIV are called "elite controllers." Now, it says here, organized efforts are underway to study them systematically.
Other AIDS News: NYTimes Donald G. McNeil Jr...
Yesterday's Washington Post got the news jump on a report from a National Center for Atmospheric Research report, also issued yesterday, warning of enormous biological havoc if acidification of...
Yesterday's Washington Post got the news jump on a report from a National Center for Atmospheric Research report, also issued yesterday, warning of enormous biological havoc if acidification of seawater continues. The report was embargoed, and the Post alluded to it, but the Post's story seems to be a case of enterprise journalism beating the rest of the pack. An NCAR press man says the Post story didn't even quote the report specifically, but anticipated its results with material already available. Anyway, the reason for acidifying oceans is the same as the reason for global warming: rising atmospheric CO2.
Other outlets have the story today. Some of the smaller papers give the story extra zip. The St. Petersburg Times's Craig Pittman localizes it somewhat, noting that the study arose from a meeting last year in his city and ties in the...
The Tracker hadn't time to get this in yesterday, but the Times had an interesting addition to its fine continuing, occasional series The Energy Challenge. Matthew L. Wald describes entrepreneurs who see that coal is cheap, and that gasoline and natural gas fetch high prices, and therefore that it...
The Tracker hadn't time to get this in yesterday, but the Times had an interesting addition to its fine continuing, occasional series The Energy Challenge. Matthew L. Wald describes entrepreneurs who see that coal is cheap, and that gasoline and natural gas fetch high prices, and therefore that it may be profitable to turn the former into the latter. Technically, such things have been done. Germany did it in WWII after it was cut off from oil fields. But, as Wald reports, enviros and others worried about greenhouse gases are horrified at the prospect that the practice could become common with little control over the extra carbon dioxide that would be released. Every unit of energy obtained from such coal-derived synfuels would release even more CO2 than would burning the coal directly (if one counts releases from the manufacture of the fuel). And coal is bad enough as it is. The article mentions sequestration and gets into some other ways to liquefy or gasify coal...
The FDA recently approved a Genentech drug, Lucentis, that when injected into the eye helps suppress the proliferation of blood vessels that can cause macular degeneration, a common cause of blindness. Other drugs may be on the way. Newsday's Delthia Ricks covers the story with a vignette of one...
The FDA recently approved a Genentech drug, Lucentis, that when injected into the eye helps suppress the proliferation of blood vessels that can cause macular degeneration, a common cause of blindness. Other drugs may be on the way. Newsday's Delthia Ricks covers the story with a vignette of one woman's improvement. It is a solid piece of clinical medical writing, including a description of the so-called wet form of the ailment's blood vessel growth behind the retina as like "snakes under the carpet." But The Tracker really perked up upon encountering a kicker quote from a patient that is beyond anything her paper's circulation manager or other ad-side execs could concoct: "I want to tell the world about this marvelous drug....I am subscribing to Newsday again." That's almost worth a bonus.
In Nature this week a European research team describes tests on samples from three outbreaks of H5N1 avian flu virus in Nigerian poultry. None were the exact same strain, and indicate that the virus entered the country multiple times....
In Nature this week a European research team describes tests on samples from three outbreaks of H5N1 avian flu virus in Nigerian poultry. None were the exact same strain, and indicate that the virus entered the country multiple times. Both migrating wild birds and trade may have brought it in. The upshot is that in many parts of the world, shutting down movement of the virus will be very difficult should versions that easily pass among people arise via mutation. Catherine Brahic, writing for the news service of the Science and Development Network, has an interesting angle: Nigerian authorities had been criticized for not controlling the nation's first outbreak of bird flu in local poultry with an effective quarantine and similar measures. Now, they are somewhat off the hook if, as looks likely, the seeming spread of the virus was actually due to independent arrivals.
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6Jul 2006
The Journal Pediatrics this month has, as usual, an immense number of research articles (60, at rough count). Two, both on breastfeeding, seem to be getting most press attention. The AP's Carla K. Johnson picks up a report by researchers at Brown University, Indiana University, and elsewhere that...
The Journal Pediatrics this month has, as usual, an immense number of research articles (60, at rough count). Two, both on breastfeeding, seem to be getting most press attention. The AP's Carla K. Johnson picks up a report by researchers at Brown University, Indiana University, and elsewhere that found superior mental and physical development in very low birthweight babies fed human breastmilk. Johnson picks up a good quote as a kicker: "We're the only species on the planet that drinks another species' milk....Human milk is what these babies need." A second study, covered by Kathleen Doheny for HealthDay and distributed by Forbes, to wide pickup, links breastfeeding for three months or longer to a lower subsequent incidence of bedwetting. Reuters also uses this one. Doheny's account quotes one doc as cautioning that the results, from a study at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in NJ, are preliminary and need further exploration. That seems right...
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