aktbird57 - You and your 290 friends have supported 2,279,786.7 square feet!
Marine Wetlands habitat supported: 102,752.1 square feet.
You have supported: (0.0)
Your 290 friends have supported: (102,752.1)
American Prairie habitat supported: 48,970.4 square feet.
You have supported: (11,798.7)
Your 290 friends have supported: (37,171.7)
Rainforest habitat supported: 2,128,064.2 square feet.
You have supported: (169,105.3)
Your 290 friends have supported: (1,958,959.0)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
2279786.7 square feet is equal to 52.34 acres
Dan, keeping fingers, eyes, and toes crossed for you and Pattie!
<and lots of good thoughts and prayers too!>
That would be great news about the absence of MS....but the mystery remains. Gotta get to the bottom of it.
Do you remember that spacecraft containing comet dust particles that parachuted to earth?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060313/ap_on_sc/comet_return&printer=1;_ylt=AnHW2ju1maM1Ij0BbczDBWVxieAA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-
"NASA Finds Another Solar System Mystery
By PAM EASTON, Associated Press Writer
Mon Mar 13, 6:32 PM ET
NASA scientists have a new mystery to solve: How did materials formed by fire end up on the outermost reaches of the solar system, where temperatures are the coldest?
The materials were contained in dust samples captured when the robotic Stardust spacecraft flew past the comet Wild 2 in 2004. A 100-pound capsule tied to a parachute returned the samples to Earth in January.
The samples include minerals such as anorthite, which is made up of calcium, sodium, aluminum and silicate; and diopside, made of calcium magnesium and silicate. Such minerals only form in very high temperatures....."
Dan,
these are good news, all the best to Pat.
A butterfly- a sign too. At least somewhere spring is around.
Snow and frost here. It is not unusual that we have some snow in March, but this year we have had no "mild break" in between. So winter has really overstayed its welcome. So the forecast of 2/2 was correct: 40 more days of winter.
I am longing for snowdrops, and green leaves.
Beautiful pictures.
Thanks, ul - sumac - Stradee and all. We are hoping what is found will be something that can be fixed. Or, controlled with meds....... We will spend the last week of this month in Tyler for a series of tests.
sumac, that's interesting re the space stuff. Some scientist are now saying that comets supplied our planet with the water which helped begin life.
all clicked for MA and Me
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-environment-greenhouse.html
"March 14, 2006
Global Warming Gases at Highest Levels Ever: UN
By REUTERS
Filed at 10:25 a.m. ET
GENEVA (Reuters) - Greenhouse gases blamed for global warming and climate change have reached their highest ever levels in the atmosphere, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday.
A bulletin from the United Nations agency said the gases -- the main warming culprit carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide -- ``all reached new highs in 2004.''
WMO officials also indicated that a near record year-on-year rise in CO2 levels for 2005 recorded by U.S. monitors -- well above the average for the past 10 years -- would not come as a major surprise"
aktbird57 - You and your 290 friends have supported 2,281,402.2 square feet!
Marine Wetlands habitat supported: 102,915.9 square feet.
You have supported: (0.0)
Your 290 friends have supported: (102,915.9)
American Prairie habitat supported: 48,993.8 square feet.
You have supported: (11,798.7)
Your 290 friends have supported: (37,195.1)
Rainforest habitat supported: 2,129,492.5 square feet.
You have supported: (169,105.3)
Your 290 friends have supported: (1,960,387.2)
~~~~~~~~~~~
2281402.2 square feet is equal to 52.37 acres
~~~~~~~~~~
pwayfarer?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/15/opinion/15wed4.html?th&emc=th
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"March 15, 2006
Editorial
Secret Avian Flu Archive
At a time when health authorities are racing to head off a possible avian flu pandemic, it is distressing to learn that the World Health Organization is operating a secret database that holds the virus's genetic information. A lone Italian scientist has challenged the system by refusing to send her own data to the password-protected archive. Instead, she released the information publicly and urged her colleagues to do the same. She is surely right. The limited-access archive should be opened or bypassed immediately to encourage research on this looming health menace.
The campaign by Ilaria Capua, an Italian veterinarian who works on avian influenza, was spotlighted in recent articles in the journal Science and The Wall Street Journal. The hidden data could be of immense value in determining how the virus is evolving and in developing effective vaccines or drugs. The possibility of breakthroughs can increase only if many more scientists can analyze the data.
The rationale for the closed system is that the restrictions encourage scientists who are worried about being scooped by rivals to share their data on a limited basis even before they have published their findings in a journal. Confidentiality is also needed, some say, to encourage skittish countries, worried about bad publicity or the loss of intellectual property, to release the genetic sequences of viruses found on their territory.
Those arguments seem insubstantial now that some top W.H.O. officials and other health authorities have called for opening the exclusive-access system. Academic and national pride must not be allowed to slow potentially crucial health research. "
3 clicks today.
Morning all. Back to normal temps for a change.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/15/opinion/15wed4.html?th&emc=th
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"March 15, 2006
Editorial
Secret Avian Flu Archive
At a time when health authorities are racing to head off a possible avian flu pandemic, it is distressing to learn that the World Health Organization is operating a secret database that holds the virus's genetic information. A lone Italian scientist has challenged the system by refusing to send her own data to the password-protected archive. Instead, she released the information publicly and urged her colleagues to do the same. She is surely right. The limited-access archive should be opened or bypassed immediately to encourage research on this looming health menace.
The campaign by Ilaria Capua, an Italian veterinarian who works on avian influenza, was spotlighted in recent articles in the journal Science and The Wall Street Journal. The hidden data could be of immense value in determining how the virus is evolving and in developing effective vaccines or drugs. The possibility of breakthroughs can increase only if many more scientists can analyze the data.
The rationale for the closed system is that the restrictions encourage scientists who are worried about being scooped by rivals to share their data on a limited basis even before they have published their findings in a journal. Confidentiality is also needed, some say, to encourage skittish countries, worried about bad publicity or the loss of intellectual property, to release the genetic sequences of viruses found on their territory.
Those arguments seem insubstantial now that some top W.H.O. officials and other health authorities have called for opening the exclusive-access system. Academic and national pride must not be allowed to slow potentially crucial health research. "
Morning sumac,
Interesting articles.
Hopefully the flu won't mutate and attack humans. If so, we are going to hibernate for awhile wearing face masks............. grin. Sounds science-fictiony....
all clicked for MA n Me...................
Good article, sumac.
fgs, at the rate 'science' will produce any sort of vaccine, they'd be better designing fashionable helmits and masks. Poor birds are falling from the skies - and scientists are concerned about journal essays!
hint: get rid of factory farms - no more avian flu
<sigh>
Wish it were that simple, Stradee. But migratory birds are being hit hard, and they have had no contact with factory farms.
Factory Farms Provide Bird Flu Breeding Ground
Peter Singer
Bangkok Post, November 14, 2005
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Fifty years ago, American chicken farmers found that by keeping their birds in sheds they could produce chickens for the table more cheaply and with less work than by traditional farmyard methods. The new method spread: chickens disappeared from fields into long, windowless sheds. Factory farming was born. It isn't called ``factory farming'' merely because those sheds look like factories. Everything about the production method is geared towards turning live animals into machines for converting grain into meat or eggs at the lowest possible cost.
Walk into such a shed _ if the producer will let you _ and you will find up to 30,000 chickens. The National Chicken Council, the trade association for the US chicken industry, recommends a stocking density of about 550 square centimetres per bird _ less space than a standard sheet of typing paper. When the chickens approach market weight, they cover the floor completely. No chicken can move without having to push through other birds. In the egg industry, hens can barely move at all, because they are crammed into wire cages, which makes it possible to stack them in tiers, one above the other.
Environmentalists point out that this production method is unsustainable. For a start, it relies on the use of fossil fuel energy to light and ventilate the sheds, and to transport the grain eaten by the chickens. When this grain, which humans could eat directly, is fed to chickens, they use some of it to create bones and feathers and other body parts that we cannot eat. So we get less food back than we put into the birds _ and less protein, too _ while disposing of the concentrated chicken manure causes serious pollution to rivers and ground water.
Animal-welfare advocates protest that crowding the chickens keeps them from forming a natural flock, causes them stress, and, in the case of laying hens, prevents them from even stretching their wings. The air in the sheds is high in ammonia from bird feces, which are usually allowed to pile up for months _ and in some cases for a year or more _ before being cleaned out. Medical experts warn that because the birds are routinely fed antibiotics to keep them growing in such crowded, filthy, and stressful conditions, antibiotic-resistant bacteria could cause a public-health threat.
Yet, despite these well-founded criticisms, over the last 20 years factory farming _ not only of chickens, but also of pigs, veal calves, dairy cows, and, in outdoor feedlots, cattle _ has spread rapidly in developing countries, especially in Asia. Now we are discovering that the consequences may be far more deadly than we ever imagined.
As University of Ottawa virologist Earl Brown put it after a Canadian outbreak of avian influenza, ``high-intensity chicken rearing is a perfect environment for generating virulent avian flu viruses''.
Other experts agree. In October, a United Nations task force identified as one of the root causes of the bird flu epidemic, farming methods ``which crowd huge numbers of animals into small spaces''.
Supporters of factory farming often point out that bird flu can be spread by free-range flocks, or by wild ducks and other migrating birds, who may join the free-range birds to feed with them or drop their feces while flying overhead. But, as Mr Brown has pointed out, viruses found in wild birds are generally not very dangerous.
On the contrary, it is only when these viruses enter a high-density poultry operation that they mutate into something far more virulent. By contrast, birds that are reared by traditional methods are likely to have greater resistance to disease than the stressed, genetically similar birds kept in intensive confinement systems. Moreover, factory farms are not biologically secure. They are frequently infested with mice, rats, and other animals that can bring in diseases.
So far, a relatively small number of human beings have died from the current strain of avian influenza, and it appears they may have all been in contact with infected birds. But if the virus mutates into a form that is transmissible between humans, the number of deaths could run into the hundreds of millions.
Governments are, rightly, taking action to prepare for this threat. Recently, the US Senate approved spending $8 billion to stockpile vaccines and other drugs to help prevent a possible bird flu epidemic. Other governments have already spent tens of millions on vaccines and other preventive measures.
What is now clear, however, is that such government spending is really a kind of subsidy to the poultry industry. Like most subsidies, it is bad economics. Factory farming spread because it seemed to be cheaper than more traditional methods. In fact, it was cheaper only because it passed some of its costs on to others _ people who lived downstream or downwind from factory farms could no longer enjoy clean water and air.
Now we see that these were only a small part of the total costs. Factory farming is passing far bigger costs _ and risks _ on to all of us. In economic terms, these costs should be ``internalised'' by the factory farmers rather than being shifted onto the rest of us.
That won't be easy to do, but we could make a start by imposing a tax on factory-farm products until enough revenue is raised to pay for the precautions that governments now have to take against avian influenza. Then we might finally see that chicken from the factory farm really isn't so cheap after all.
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More links of interest...........
1. "As H5N1 Keeps Spreading, a Call to Release More Data," Science Magazine, 3/3/06
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/311/5765/1224?etoc (Subscription)
2. "Ready or Not, Bird Flu Is Coming to America," ABC News, 3/13/06
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/AvianFlu/story?id=1716820
3. "Industry Caused the Flu; Why Blame Wild Birds?" The Financial Express, 3/6/06
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=119545
4. OP-ED: "The Price of Cheap Chicken," Los Angeles Times, 3/12/06
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-orent12mar12,1,3871555.story
Stradee, good articles. Thanks.
In my "factory farming" is to blame for many things:
anti biotic resistant, water pollution in these areas, and ever so often diseases spread through these farms, so animals have to be slaughtered in large numbers.
But we as consumers don't want pay much for our food ( meat, crop, veggies, fruit).
I guess the standard of hygiene and controlling by veterinarians of these "farms" are higher in the western world than in Asia or Africa. And still we have problems.
I think we shouldn't panic, but it is good to be aware of the problem and take actions.
More vets to Asia, enforce hygiene standards, a stop to selling exotic birds, more education.
This will cost a lot of money- who is going to pay?
I am aware of the arguments regarding intense farming of poultry, and certainly those conditions present an ideal environment for the spread of lots of disease organisms, as well as the creation of some diseases.
But that does not mean that those environments are the ultimate origin of the flu, the primary means of its spread, or the reason for mutation.
Sorry for the double post above. I must not have been totally awake.
