By Rob Stein
The Washington Post
Updated: 2:25 a.m. ET Dec. 30, 2005
WASHINGTON - First came stomach cramps, which left Christina Shultz doubled over and weeping in pain. Then came nausea and fatigue -- so overwhelming she couldn't get out of bed for days. Just when she thought things couldn't get worse, the nastiest diarrhea of her life hit -- repeatedly forcing her into the hospital.
Doctors finally discovered that the 35-year-old Hilliard, Ohio, woman had an intestinal bug that used to be found almost exclusively among older, sicker patients in hospitals and was usually easily cured with a dose of antibiotics. But after months of treatment, Shultz is still incapacitated.
"It's been a nightmare," said Shultz, a mother of two young children. "I just want my life back."
Shultz is one of a growing number of young, otherwise healthy Americans who are being stricken by the bacterial infection known as Clostridium difficile -- or C. diff -- which appears to be spreading rapidly around the country and causing unusually severe, sometimes fatal illness.
That is raising alarm among health officials, who are concerned that many cases may be misdiagnosed and are puzzled as to what is causing the microbe to become so much more common and dangerous.
"It's a new phenomenon. It's just emerging," said L. Clifford McDonald of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. "We're very concerned. We know it's happening, but we're really not sure why it's happening or where this is going."
Link to full article
By DOUG O'HARRA
Anchorage Daily News
Published: December 25, 2005
Last Modified: December 25, 2005 at 05:25 AM
Warming temperatures could melt the top 11 feet of permafrost in Alaska by the end of the century -- damaging roads and buildings with sinkholes, transforming forest and tundra into swamps, and releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the air.
This meltdown forecast comes amid other signals that Arctic climate has been changing fast: shrinking sea ice cover, warmer temperatures and shifting vegetation.LINK
Laura Knight-Jadczyk
Let's talk about death now. Sure, I know, nobody wants to talk about death. But I have in mind some very interesting deaths that ought to be talked about for a lot of reasons.
The first death I want to talk about is the "apparent suicide" of Morris K. Jessup. The problem with Morris Jessup's suicide is that it was too obvious. He was found in his station wagon in a Dade County Park, Florida, on the evening of April 29, 1959. A hose had been attached to the exhaust pipe of the station wagon and looped into the closed interior. The whole set-up had been accomplished during daylight hours, in a public park. Ever since, researchers have said that Jessup's death was the price he paid for getting too close to the truth. You see, Jessup's death is SO apparent a suicide, that everyone just KNEW that it was NOT a suicide. And, of course, as a consequence, an entire mythos was born about something called the Philadelphia Experiment having to do with Time Travel.LINK to full article
Today The Wall Street Journal ran an article asking "Is Global Warming Killing the Polar Bears?" The article cited several recent studies that suggest polar bears are increasingly under threat from receding ice and warming temperatures.
Drowned polar bears are being found for the first time by researchers in Alaska, who speculate that greater distances between ice sheets could be taking a toll on the bears. While bears are capable of swimming long distances -- up to 60 miles (100 km) without stopping -- it is conceivable that they could suffer from exhaustion during an unexpectedly arduous swim.
The loss of ice also makes it more difficult for bears to find food.
LINK to full story
By John von Radowitz in London
December 14, 2005
The Sydney Morning Herald
A "DEAD zone" devoid of life has been discovered at the epicentre of last year's tsunami four kilometres beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean.
Scientists taking part in a worldwide marine survey made an 11-hour dive at the site five months after the disaster.
They were shocked to find no sign of life around the epicentre, which opened up a 1000-metre chasm on the ocean floor.
Instead, there was nothing but eerie emptiness. The powerful lights of the scientists' submersible vehicle, piercing through the darkness, showed no trace of anything living.
A scientist working on the Census of Marine Life project, Ron O'Dor, of Dalhousie University in Canada, said: "You'd expect a site like this to be quickly recolonised, but that hasn't happened. It's unprecedented."
Full Story
Over half a million in dark after storm
Friday, December 16, 2005; Posted: 7:38 p.m. EST (00:38 GMT)
ASHEVILLE, North Carolina (AP) -- Widespread damage from a deadly ice storm left more than half a million customers still in the dark Friday night, and utility officials said the electricity might not be fully restored in parts of the Carolinas until Tuesday.
The storm blew through Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia on Thursday and was blamed for hundreds of traffic accidents and at least four deaths. Ice built up on tree limbs, causing them to snap and pull down power lines.Full Story
John Vidal, environment editor
Friday December 16, 2005
The Guardian
This could be the hottest year ever recorded, posing a threat to Arctic wildlife including polar bears, ice-dwelling seals and several forms of vegetation, according to UN scientists collating data from across the world.
With 15 days left and information only received until the end of November, this year is certain to be one of the four hottest with temperatures 0.5C warmer than average. "This year is currently the second warmest on record, and could end up being the warmest once all the figures are in. It has certainly been exceptional in the intensity of its storms," said Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the UN's World Meteorological Organisation which yesterday released its annual review of weather data in Geneva.
Full Story
KINGFISHER, Okla. -- Experts were analyzing the composition of natural gas shooting to the surface along a creek in a rural area of central Oklahoma in hopes of discovering its origin and determining what can be done to prevent the explosive vapors from reaching the surface.
Gas geysers continued to occur Tuesday along a five-mile section of Winter Camp Creek and were within about a mile of the town of Kingfisher, authorities said.
Hunters first noticed the leak, which includes geysers that blow water and mud 10 feet in the air, on Friday and told a game warden who notified the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the state agency that regulates utilities and oil drilling activities.
Full Story
Breaking news
December 16, 2005
By JESSE J. HOLLAND
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate on Friday rejected attempts to reauthorize several provisions of the USA Patriot Act as infringing too much on Americans privacy, dealing a major defeat to President Bush and Republican leaders.
In a crucial vote Friday morning as Congress raced toward adjournment, the bills Senate supporters were not able to garner the 60 votes necessary to overcome a threatened filibuster by Sens. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and their allies. The final vote was 52-47
Bush, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and GOP congressional leaders had lobbied fiercely to make most of the expiring Patriot Act provisions permanent, and add new safeguards and expiration dates to the two most controversial parts: roving wiretaps and secret warrants for books, records and other items from businesses, hospitals and organizations such as libraries.
by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
Copyright 2003, From The Wilderness Publications
[Some months ago, concerned by a Paris statement made by Professor Kenneth Deffeyes of Princeton regarding his concern about the impact of Peak Oil and Gas on fertilizer production, I tasked FTW's Contributing Editor for Energy, Dale Allen Pfeiffer to start looking into what natural gas shortages would do to fertilizer production costs. His investigation led him to look at the totality of food production in the US. Because the US and Canada feed much of the world, the answers have global implications.
What follows is most certainly the single most frightening article I have ever read and certainly the most alarming piece that FTW has ever published. Even as we have seen CNN, Britain's Independent and Jane's Defence Weekly acknowledge the reality of Peak Oil and Gas within the last week, acknowledging that world oil and gas reserves are as much as 80% less than predicted, we are also seeing how little real thinking has been devoted to the host of crises certain to follow; at least in terms of publicly accessible thinking. [...]
None of this research considers the impact of declining fossil fuel production. The authors of all of these studies believe that the mentioned agricultural crisis will only begin to impact us after 2020, and will not become critical until 2050. The current peaking of global oil production (and subsequent decline of production), along with the peak of North American natural gas production will very likely precipitate this agricultural crisis much sooner than expected. Quite possibly, a U.S. population reduction of one-third will not be effective for sustainability; the necessary reduction might be in excess of one-half. And, for sustainability, global population will have to be reduced from the current 6.32 billion people42 to 2 billion-a reduction of 68% or over two-thirds. The end of this decade could see spiraling food prices without relief. And the coming decade could see massive starvation on a global level such as never experienced before by the human race. Link
02 Dec 2005 14:53:32 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
MONTREAL, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Alarmed by a rapid thaw of Arctic ice, indigenous peoples want a 189-nation conference in Canada to step up protection of their hunting cultures.
This year, a hummingbird was spotted on an Alaskan island for the first time in memory. New insect-borne parasites killed 70 reindeer in Norway and seals native to California coasts were seen in the far north Pacific.
"Climate change is threatening our way of life," indigenous peoples from Russia, Scandinavia, Greenland, Canada and Alaska said in a draft petition to the U.N. conference in Montreal, which is seeking ways to curb rising temperatures.Link to
full story
