David Adam,
environment correspondent
Thursday September 29, 2005
The Guardian
Coverage is 20% below average for time of year · Destructive cycle could affect Earth's weather
Global warming in the Arctic could be soaring out of control, scientists warned yesterday as new figures revealed that melting of sea ice in the region has accelerated to record levels.Experts at the US National Snow and Data Centre in Colorado fear the region is locked into a destructive cycle with warmer air melting more ice, which in turn warms the air further. Satellite pictures show that the extent of Arctic sea ice this month dipped some 20% below the long term average for September - melting an extra 500,000 square miles, or an area twice the size of Texas. If current trends continue, the summertime Arctic Ocean will be completely ice-free well before the end of this century.Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the Colorado centre, said melting sea ice accelerates warming because dark-coloured water absorbs heat from the sun that was previously reflected back into space by white ice. "Feedbacks in the system are starting to take hold. We could see changes in Arctic ice happening much sooner than we thought and that is important because without the ice cover over the Arctic Ocean we have to expect big changes in Earth's weather." [...] LINK
By ALICIA CHANG
AP Science Writer
Published September 21, 2005,
4:00 PM CDT
Three Chicago-area children have died of a toxic shock syndrome-like illness caused by a superbug they caught in the community and not in the hospital, where the germ is usually found. The cases show that this already worrisome staph germ has become even more dangerous by acquiring the ability to cause this shock-like condition. "There´s a new kid on the block," said Dr. John Bartlett of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, referring to the added strength of the superbug known as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. "The fact that there are three community-acquired staph aureus cases is really scary," continued Bartlett, an infectious disease specialist. The Chicago deaths were described in Thursday´s New England Journal of Medicine.
Health officials do not yet know how the drug-resistant staph causes this new syndrome, but it appears to be rare, said Dr. Clifford McDonald, an epidemiologist with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, doctors should be on the lookout for shock-like cases caused by MRSA, said Dr. Robert Daum, a pediatrician at the University of Chicago who co-authored the study.
In 1999, drug-resistant staph infections killed four healthy children ranging in age from 1 to 13 years old in Minnesota and North Dakota. Since then, doctors have actively looked for such infections in their community. In the cases reported in Thursday´s medical journal, the baby and two toddlers who died were otherwise healthy before they were separately admitted to a Chicago hospital with pneumonia-like symptoms between 2000 and 2004. Doctors believe the children probably inhaled the germ. The children died within a week of being hospitalized and autopsies showed they suffered from shock and bleeding in the adrenal gland. The infections were caused by MRSA, which is usually not associated with the syndrome. Until recently, drug-resistant staph infections were limited to hospitals and other health care settings where they can spread to patients with open wounds and cause serious complications.
But infectious disease specialists say a growing number of community-acquired resistant staph infections have struck healthy people outside of hospitals in recent years. Doctors in Los Angeles treated 14 people with necrotizing fasciitis, informally known as flesh-eating bacteria, caused by the resistant germ. And in Corpus Christi, Texas, doctors have seen community-acquired resistant staph cases jump from 10 cases a year in the 1990s to more than 400 in 2003. The first Chicago death occurred in 2000 when a 15-month-old girl was diagnosed with severe pneumonia. She died eight hours later. In 2003, a 9-month-old girl was hospitalized with fever and breathing problems. Her condition deteriorated and she died six days later. A year later, a 17-month-old boy was admitted with respiratory problems and died the next day.
In all three cases, the victims´ conditions progressed from pneumonia to shock.
By MARK HUME
Globe and Mail
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Vancouver - A silent tectonic event, so powerful it has shifted southern Vancouver Island out to sea, but so subtle nobody has felt a thing, is slowly unfolding on the West Coast.
Scientists who are tracking the event with sensitive seismographs and earth orbiting satellites warn it could be a trigger for a massive earthquake -- some time, maybe soon.But they are quick to add that the imperceptible tremors emanating from deep beneath the surface are sending signals scientists are not yet able to comprehend fully and "the Big One" might yet be 200 years off.What they do know is that the earth is moving this week on the West Coast as two massive tectonic plates slip past each other .Link
By Steve Connor,
Science Editor
The Independent Published:
16 September 2005
A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has convinced scientists that the northern hemisphere may have crossed a critical threshold beyond which the climate may never recover. Scientists fear that the Arctic has now entered an irreversible phase of warming which will accelerate the loss of the polar sea ice that has helped to keep the climate stable for thousands of years. LINK
We have the situation with destroyed labs in N.O. after the hurricane and now this in New Jersey...Article from SOTTTed ShermanNewhouse News Service
Thursday, September 15, 2005 Newark, N.J.
- Three lab mice carrying deadly strains of plague have disappeared from separate cages at a bio-terror research facility in Newark, sparking a hushed, intensive investigation by federal and state authorities. Officials said the animals could have been stolen from the center or simply misplaced in a colossal accounting error at one of the top-level bio-containment labs in New Jersey.
The incident occurred more than two weeks ago and was confirmed only Wednesday after questions were raised by The Star-Ledger newspaper.
The research lab is on the campus of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
It is run by the Public Health Research Institute, a leading center for research on infectious diseases, now participating in a six-year federal bio-defense project to find new vaccinations for the plague - which federal officials fear could be used as a bio-weapon. The university has responsibility for the security of the building. At least two dozen employees and researchers at the lab have been interrogated and in some cases subjected to lie-detector tests.
However, the disease-carrying lab mice may never be accounted for, federal officials said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also investigating.
"The FBI has expended substantial resources and put many agents into this investigation to satisfy - among other things - the most compelling question of whether public safety is at risk," said agent Steve Siegel, an FBI spokesman.
BBC
Friday, 2 September 2005,
17:13 GMT
SottIn New Orleans, state officials have described the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as a national disgrace.And increasingly across the country, questions are being asked: "How could this happen?" "Why is help taking so long?" and "How can thousands of Americans be stranded?".President George Bush was visiting some of the devastated areas of the south on Friday amid growing anger over the federal response to the disaster.
Officials insist their response has been effective - rejecting widespread criticism that the administration was too slow to react to the crisis. [...]The head of the New Orleans emergency operations, Terry Ebbert, has questioned when reinforcements will actually reach the increasingly lawless city."This is a national disgrace. Fema has been here three days, yet there is no command and control," Mr Ebbert said."We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."One man, George Turner, who was still waiting to be evacuated, summed up much of the anger felt by the refugees."Why is it that the most powerful country on the face of the Earth takes so long to help so many sick and so many elderly people?" he asked.
"Why? That's all I want to ask President Bush."And John Rhinehart, the administrator of a New Orleans hospital without power and water, said: "I'm beginning to wonder if the government is more concerned about the looting than people who are dying in these hospitals."
There is widespread agreement among commentators that somewhere there has been a breakdown in the system.The Biloxi Sun Herald in Mississippi asked: "Why hasn't every able-bodied member of the armed forces in south Mississippi been pressed into service?" [...]
Capacity of leaking tanks estimated at 160,000 barrels
By Miguel Llanos
ReporterMSNBC
Updated: 6:33 p.m. ET
Sept. 2, 2005
A “major oil spill” has been spotted near two storage tanks southeast of New Orleans, the state Department of Environmental Quality said Friday.
The spill was first spotted Thursday during a flyover, department spokeswoman Jean Kelly told MSNBC.com, “but we still don’t have access to the area.”
The spill was just north of Venice, a town in the Mississippi River Delta, and 65 miles southeast of New Orleans.
Each tank is 20 feet tall and 200 feet in diameter, she said. The department initially estimated that total capacity could be 1 million barrels each but later reduced that to 80,000 each. A barrel of oil is 42 gallons.
Kelly said the department still doesn't know who owns the tanks and therefore can’t be sure how much oil is in them.
The Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989 involved about 250,000 barrels of oil.
Homeland Security officials were restricting access to the area, and Kelly said the state agency had notified both the Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency so that they can begin clean-up.
Coast Guard officials in St. Louis said they were looking into the report but that their priority was search and rescue in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The state agency said it was continuing to assess the situation from the air.
The department added that it hoped to soon have two helicopters dedicated to assessing wider areas for environmental problems.
