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germtales...

Pox Redux

Here Comes the (Cheaper) Sun...

Swan Song 100,000 Strong!

Drug Resistant TB & Hospital-Prisons in South Africa

Chickens, Eggs & Ethanol

Prison Break: MRSA, Overcrowded Jails & Public Health
&
Killer Superbug
Spreading
&
MRSA in Animals
&
Raging Phages! Bacterial Virus Vanquishes MRSA!

Farm Fertilizers & Freaky Frogs

The Appendix: Nursery for Good Germs?

Rip van Winkle Microbes & Global Warming

 

Another Reason Not to Kiss a
Mad Deer

Wild Horses
& Sheryl Crow

Book Review
*****
Biography of a Germ
by
Arno Karlen

Bright Ideas:
Cave-dwelling Division

For the last 30 years, the Davis family of tiny Armington, Illinois has been building earth-sheltered homes – waterproof cement “caves” surrounded top, bottom and on three sides by several feet of dirt. They’re energy-smart and tornado-proof snug.

Geothermal works: Dig 6 to 8 feet down anywhere in the world, and the ground temperature will be the average ambient air temperature for wherever you happen to be. In central Illinois, for example, that’s about 55 degrees F. Earth homes stay naturally warm in the winter and cool in the summer, requiring much less energy to heat and air-condition.

The idea for the very first Davis “cave” came when home-heating oil prices spiked due to the Arab oil embargo of 1973. Andy Davis, a self-taught engineer, began thinking of digging his way to energy freedom. Friends and neighbors rallied ‘round his Flintstonian determination, gathering stones from all 50 states to embed in the cave’s walls. With homey touches such as faux fur kitchen cabinet covers, and a faux fur door, the Davis family moved in three years later. When the heating bill came to less than $2 for the whole winter...

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STRAY FACT

Shhhhh! There are Birds Trying to Sing Here!
Songbirds, fed up trying to compete with the noise of urban life, have taken to singing at night, according to researchers at the University of Sheffield. While country nights are filled with the sounds of crickets, frogs and the occasional owl, it’s “Avian Idol” once the sun goes down in the city, with songbirds tweeting in full competitive glory deep into the wee hours.

Although the phenomenon has long been noted, it was thought that light pollution was to blame. Not so, say researchers who tested the effects of nocturnal light and daytime noise on urban robins. Light pollution contributes, but it’s noise that’s driven these lovesick birds to perform after hours. Which means, among other things, that the early bird catching the worm is really a bird that just stayed up late.
more Stray facts

CO2 emissions:
Ethanol vs. Gas
Less than a 4% difference in tail pipe emissions

micro to macro

wild domestic human

one nature one world

The Mystery of the Ancient Horses...
_________________
what really happened 10,000 years ago?

test

CLIMATE CHANGE & ENERGY

Corn, Cars & Cows: The Good, the Bad, and the Truth about Ethanol

Feverish Planet

My Note to Oprah

Running on Empty

Warm on a Winter’s Day

EXOTICS

Fellow Travelers: Snakes...and More on a Plane!

When a Frog is a Fish

FOOD & FOOD SAFETY

CSI: Vegetable Edition

The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Taking Stock: The Costs of a Recall

When a Frog is a Fish

HEALTH / POLICY

The Blood Hungry Spleen and Other Poems about Our Parts

A Bug in the System

Disease Emergence & Resurgence: The Wildlife-Human Connection

Humanitarian Technology Review

Microbes on the March

The People’s Surveillance

Technology for the Greater Good

When a Frog is a Fish

HORSES

Ancient Horses: The Origins of an Idea

The Mystery of the Ancient Horses

INSECTS & WORMS

The Earth Moved (Book Review)

The Motors of August Cicadas

Young Naturalist’s Pop-Up Handbook: Butterflies &

Pop-Up Handbook: Beetles (Book Review)

MENTAL ILLNESS

Mind Germs: Part I: Looking for Evidence

Mind Germs: Part II: Prime Suspects

NATURE MISC.

Nature’s New Balance Part I: Wild Suburban Kingdom

Nature’s New Balance Part II: Family Planning Gone Wild

Nature’s New Balance sidebar: They Shoot (Trap and Poison) Coyotes, Don’t They?

A Sand County Almanac (Book Review)

Songbird Journeys (Book Review)

Winter World (Book Review)

TRADE & TRAVEL

A Bug in the System

Fellow Travelers: Snakes...and More on a Plane!

Out of Eden (Book Review)

17-YEAR CICADAS!

It is late June and the final few weeks of Brood XIII, a boisterous batch of 17-year cicadas whose loud-partying ways seem to put everything else in perspective. Like the Northern Lights, or an ocean horizon, or fossils from ancient swamps now embedded in mountaintops, the emergence of trillions of the cicadas speaks of time beyond the limits of human understanding and the hubris of human control. To these Rip Van Winkles of the insect world so intent on their mission, the changing scenery above-ground barely seems to register. Mammoth to Man to we’ll see who’s next...

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Bright Ideas:
Planting Trees Division

On warm days, a single mature tree can provide the cooling effect of 5 room-size air-conditioners. On cold days, a tree can act as a wind-break, reducing heating bills. Tree leaves absorb air-borne dust particles and CO2, a Greenhouse gas. And trees can boost property values by as much as 10%.

- Start by digging a hole 3 times the width of the root ball and exactly as deep as the root ball. - Cut any twine or wire holding burlap around the root ball. Get rid of as much as you can, and fold the rest down. - Fold the burlap down so it doesn’t get in the way of spreading roots (90% of most trees’ roots are found in the top 18” of soil, growing laterally). - MORE - .

alphabetical, including

book reviews

NEW!

see more germtales at www.germtales.ning.com (6/25/08)
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Microbes on the March
on emerging diseases, “one medicine / one health” and smarter,
tech-ier surveillance...

by JANET A. GINSBURG

Unless you happen to be a germ, the news from the recent International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases isn’t good: There are more outbreaks of more diseases spreading further, faster and affecting more individuals and more species than ever. MRSA (Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is on the rise in pets, pigs and people. Hundreds of thousands – possibly millions -- of doses of fake malaria drugs are being smuggled around Asia and Africa. As are chickens, potentially infected with avian influenza. Public health systems are limping along, chronically under-staffed and poorly equipped. Shifts in weather patterns and a changing climate are expanding the ranges of a devil’s brew of vector-borne plagues.

After first noting some hard-won progress on the measles / polio / HIV / malaria net / and pandemic preparedness fronts (all of which is fragile), CDC director and conference keynoter Julie Gerberding, reeled off a much longer list of what still needs work. “Many of the things challenging us now aren’t going to get better. We are missing capacity and investment… We need to get real and realistic about what it’s going to take,” she said. “There are two major problems: We don’t know what to do for some of these problems. And we don’t do what we know.”

In the face of such a frank and dark assessment, the rallying cry of “One Medicine / One Health” – a movement recognizing the links between human, animal and environmental health – provided a rare ray of hope. Over half of all known human infectious diseases and more than 75% of emerging diseases are zoonotic, meaning animals can get them, too, or can serve as symptom-free pathogen “reservoirs.” Bottom line: healthier animals mean healthier people, and vice-versa. Whether as sentinels (dead crows for West Nile) or as routes of transmission (wobbly “downer” livestock for Mad Cow), it pays to pay attention to the other passengers on the ark.
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by JANET A. GINSBURG

Over the last few months, I have been working on a proposal for InSTEDD* (“Innovative Support To Emergencies, Diseases and Disasters”), an independent non-profit spin-off of Google.org that works on technologies to improve global health and humanitarian action. Most of its efforts are focused on developing software, adapting hardware and testing out systems for better disease surveillance, data collection, connectivity and field communications.

My project – the Humanitarian Technology Review (working title) – is a bit different: a weekly online newsletter / website journal that covers technology for global heath and humanitarian action.

The need for concrete aid – more anti-malarial bed nets, more vaccines and drugs, clean water, food, shelter, digital networks, money – is both pressing and obvious. But to say, "We need to invest in more information and better ways to connect across disciplines!" addresses a somewhat less tangible, though no less urgent, need. This truly is “innovative support,” designed to link those with needs to those with ideas, products and funding. It is a medium to make it easier to discover and implement much-needed better answers. (see related post: Technology for the Greater Good: HTR & the Roots of an Idea)

Ironically, although specialization has led to a greater aggregate knowledge, growing gaps between fields have led to missed opportunities and missed clues – sometimes with tragic consequences.

Months before the CDC reported cases of paralysis in West Nile patients, veterinarians documented cases in large mammals. Humans, too, are large mammals, but doctors don't have time to read vet journals and vice-versa. There are similar examples in every field.

HTR is about mixing it up, bridging “silos” of expertise and transcending boundaries (geographic, political, professional). No one single e-newsletter will cover every topic. The point specifically is not to overload readers, but to give them an easy way to learn about discoveries and developments in other fields, some of which might be relevant to their work.

Some of the most promising ideas over the last few years are the result of inspired combinations...
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Technology for the Greater Good

by JANET A. GINSBURG

In the fall of 2006, I found myself in unfamiliar territory: on the “other” side of the byline. I was officially part of the team for “Strong Angel III” (SA3), a large civilian / military disaster preparedness exercise designed to test technologies for humanitarian crises and health emergencies.

Set in the only “anti-scenic” spot in all of San Diego – a collection of crumbling buildings so derelict, firefighters routinely torch them for training – the deafening roar of airplanes taking off from the airport next door added a certain theatricality to the under-siege atmosphere.To this desolate corner came half of Silicon Valley – including large delegations from Microsoft and Google – along with a collection of DARPA contractors, a few out-of-uniform Joint Chiefs of Staff, several scientists from nearby universities, someone whose day job was rumored to be driving the Mars rover, and a small group of frontline NGO aid workers whose approval would be the gathering’s brass ring.

No matter how clever or technically brilliant a technology, if it wasn’t practical, it didn’t fly. (“Yes, it’s a gorgeous map. But I have a old black & white printer....”)

The premise for this week-long disaster techfest was suitably dire: In the midst of a spreading global pandemic, with health services stretched to the limit, terrorists launch a series of cyber attacks on an unnamed city, knocking out power and cutting internet and cell phone access. What do you do?

At SA3, you started with a jolt from a hybrid car battery to get things off to a good, green, off-the-grid start. As generators cranked up to power a fleet of satellite dishes lined up on a crumbling concrete courtyard, squads of techies raced to makeshift workstations to set up gear and get to work. My job was to wander the sprawling site and talk to everyone I could. I tagged along on field tests and tried to figure out what worked and, just as important, what didn’t and why. In short, my contribution was being a journalist, although my “articles” – rough and raw email missives written at the fringes of each day – had a circulation of exactly four: SA3’s core organizers, led by Eric Rasmussen, a Navy doctor with a taste for tech and a career spent at the front lines of tragedy: Haiti. Bosnia. Sudan. New Orleans (after Katrina). Thailand (after the tsunami). Afghanistan. Iraq.

Refugee Charette
I first met Rasmussen a few years earlier at a “Refugee Charette” organized by Amory Lovins, the founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute and a true-believer in the power of good design to make almost anything better.

Lovins had heard Rasmussen speak about a Sudanese refugee camp where aid trucks dispensed water from spigots three times the diameter of the spouts on people’s jugs, which not only wasted water but created puddles that attracted mosquitoes, triggering a malaria outbreak. Horrified, Lovins gathered 300 experts on refugee issues, energy generation, water systems, education, design, telemedicine (and one journalist) for a 3-day brainstorming session to tackle the larger of issue of how to improve the daily lives of millions of people “caught in the middle.”

Technology for the Greater Good is an idea easy to embrace. It offers the promise of a better life for those in need, and a way for those with know-how to contribute something of themselves. From Medicines sans Frontieres, founded in 1971 by a group of French doctors and journalists in response to the famine in Biafra, Nigeria, to its counterparts, Engineers Without Borders and Architects Without Boarders, there has been a movement to provide on-the-ground professional expertise. “Design for the Other 90%,” a recent exhibition at New York’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum, focused on this kind of work, highlighting everything from MIT’s D Lab’s efforts to develop a cheaper, “greener” charcoal from sugarcane, to the Lifestraw personal portable water filtration system, and the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project to provide students in poor countries with the tools for a high tech 21st century education.
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