Ralphie Aversa
April 25, 2014 1:49 PM
Trending Now
Swimmer Adam Walker was simply trying to help the dolphins. The mammals
returned the favor in a fashion he may never be able to be repay.
Walker found himself swimming New Zealand's Cook Strait as a part of the Oceans Seven mission.
The British open-water swimmer hopes to be the second person ever to
complete this group of seven long-distance swims in sites around the
world. He is also looking to raise funds for Stop Whaling, a nonprofit
group focused on whale and dolphin conservation.
His swim in New Zealand spanned
16 miles, and he didn't expect to encounter any sharks. But, alas,
Walker looked down in the middle of the swim and saw a great white below
him.
Walker was worried, to say the
least. And then a pod of dolphins swam up and surrounded him. The group
of about 10 stayed with him for an hour until the shark left.
"I'd like to think they were protecting me and guiding me home!" he posted on Facebook. "This swim will stay with me forever."
A video of his swim with the
dolphins was uploaded on Wednesday to YouTube. Many viewers are
commenting on dolphins' history with protecting humans, while some are
simply in awe of the scene. Even Walker commented that he felt "blown
away" by the whole ordeal. The two-minute clip has more than 300,000
hits.
Walker eventually completed the
task in 8 hours and 36 minutes. It is his sixth of seven long-distance
swims before the mission is finished. It Walker's last swim will take
place in August in the Irish Sea.
Last week, officials in Guinea expressed optimism.
The outbreak of Ebola that had spread into Liberia and beyond appeared
to be waning. The number of deaths, which had then numbered 106, had
slowed. Travel restrictions had been bolstered. The outbreak, which had sent waves of panic across West Africa, finally seemed under control.
“The number of new cases have fallen rapidly,” Rafi Diallo, a spokesman for Guinea’s health ministry, told Reuters. On
the day of the interview, April 15, there were 159 confirmed or
suspected cases of the disease. “Once we no longer have any new cases …
we can say that this is totally under control.”
It’s eight days later. And the number of those killed by the Ebola killed in Guinea is now 136. Nearly 210 cases have been confirmed.
In all, across Liberia and Guinea, 142 people have been killed — and
242 infected — in an outbreak that began months ago in the forested
villages of southeast Guinea and shot to the capital city. It has dominated headlines in Africa since. The World Health Organization, which says it may spread for
months, cautions that more deaths could be on the way. “As the
incubation period for [Ebola] can be up to three weeks, it is likely
that the Guinean health authorities will report new cases in the coming
weeks and additional suspected cases may also be identified in
neighboring countries,” the WHO reported on Tuesday.
The disease, for which there is no cure, is terrifying in part
because of the gruesome way it kills. It predominantly spreads through
blood, secretions and other bodily fluids. At first, the WHO says,
symptoms include intense weakness and fever, but then the sickness
deepens with bouts of diarrhea, vomiting, and internal and external
bleeding.
There are several theories explaining the outbreak, Africa’s worst in seven years and the first to kill in the continent’s west. One was published last week
in the New England Journal that established “the emergence of a new
EBOV strain in Guinea,” which had “evolved in parallel” to other disease
veins.
It said the sickness first appeared in December — substantially earlier than other estimates. “The [virus] introduction seems to have happened in early December 2013 or even before,” the researchers said.
“It is suspected that the virus was transmitted for months before the
outbreak became apparent because of clusters of cases in the [Guinea]
hospitals of Guéckédou and Macenta. This length of exposure appears to
have allowed many transmission chains and thus increased the number of
cases of Ebola virus disease.”
The scientists said data suggests “a single introduction of the virus
into the human population. … Further investigation is ongoing to
identify the presumed animal source of the outbreak.” The animal that’s
most likely behind the outbreak is the fruit bat, which pervades large
swaths of west Africa. Officials suspect someone handled the meat of a contaminated bat, fell ill, and then spread the infection.
The fatality rate, the study concluded, was 86 percent “among the
early confirmed and 71 percent among the clinically suspected cases,” a
rate consistent with previous Ebola outbreaks. ”The emergence of the
virus in Guinea highlights the risk of [Ebola] outbreaks in the whole
West African sub-region.”
The fragmentary remains of the
Kryptodrakon progenitor found in the famed "dinosaur death pits" area of
the Shishugou Formation in northwest China are seen in an undated
illustration courtesy of Brian Andres. Scientists on Thursday said they
have found a fossil from 163 million years ago that represents the
oldest known example of a lineage of advanced flying reptiles that later
would culminate in the largest flying creatures in Earth's history.
(REUTERS/Illustration by Brian Andres/Outline by Peter Wellnhofer)
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It was the start of something big - really big.
Scientists
on Thursday said they have found a fossil from 163 million years ago
that represents the oldest known example of a lineage of advanced flying
reptiles that later would culminate in the largest flying creatures in
Earth's history.
The newly
identified Jurassic period creature, a species named Kryptodrakon
progenitor that was unearthed in the Gobi desert in northwestern China,
was modest in size, with a wingspan of perhaps 4-1/2 feet (1.3 meters).
But
later members of its branch of the flying reptiles known as pterosaurs
were truly colossal, including Quetzalcoatlus, whose wingspan of about
35 feet was roughly the same as that of an F-16 fighter.
Roughly
220 million years ago, pterosaurs became the first flying vertebrates to
appear on Earth, with birds - first appearing about 150 million years
ago - and bats - appearing about 50 million years ago - coming much
later.
Pterosaurs arose during
the Triassic period not long after their cousins, the dinosaurs, also
made their debut. Their wings were supported by an incredibly elongated
fourth digit of the hand - the "pinky finger."
The
pterosaurs remained largely unchanged for tens of millions of years -
with characteristics like long tails and relatively small heads - and
none became very big. But later during the Jurassic period, some
developed anatomical changes that heralded the arrival of a new branch
called pterodactyloids that eventually replaced the more primitive forms
of pterosaurs.
Many of these
pterodactyloids had massive, elongated heads topped with huge crests,
lost their teeth and grew to huge sizes. Perhaps the defining
characteristic of the group is an elongation in the bone at the base of
the fourth finger called the fourth metacarpal, and Kryptodrakon is the
oldest known pterosaur to have this advance, the researchers said.
'SUCCESS OF THE GROUP'
"In
primitive pterosaurs, it is one of the shortest and least variable
bones in the wing, but in pterodactyloids it is quite elongated," said
Brian Andres, a paleontologist at the University of South Florida, and
one of the researchers.
Kryptodrakon lived right before its fellow
pterodactyloids began to take over the ancient skies. "We can look at
his anatomy and see what were the last changes in his body that may be
responsible for the success of the group," Andres added.
Another important element of the discovery is the environment that Kryptodrakon called home.
It
lived in a river-dominated ecosystem far from the ocean in a region
teeming with life, including a fearsome dinosaur predator called
Sinraptor and a gigantic plant-eating dinosaur named Mamenchisaurus that
boasted one of the longest necks of any creature ever to walk the
planet.
George Washington
University paleontologist James Clark said the fact that Kryptodrakon
lived in such an ecosystem along with other evidence indicates that the
advanced pterosaurs - many of which later ruled the skies over seashore
ecosystems and fed on fish in the oceans - actually first evolved far
inland in a terrestrial environment.
The
origin of the pterodactyloids had been a little bit of a quandary, with
their fossil record not extending back in time as much as some
scientists had expected. Kryptodrakon is about five million years older
than any other known member of the advanced pterosaur lineage, the
researchers said.
"This is filling in that time gap," Clark said.
Its
genus name, Kryptodrakon, means "hidden dragon" in honor of the 2000
film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," that had parts filmed near where
it was unearthed. Its species name, progenitor, means ancestral.
The research was published in the journal Current Biology.
Cases of the MERS Coronavirus
have significantly increased in the last few months, and in recent
weeks there have been reports of the virus in new countries including
Egypt, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, leaving officials
struggling to figure out why infections have increased.
See How The MERS Coronavirus Affects the Body
The MERS Coronavirus, which stands for Middle Eastern Respiratory
Coronavirus, was first identified in late 2012 and causes acute
respiratory illness, shortness of breath and in severe cases kidney
failure. The virus is related to the SARS virus and the common cold.
There have been 350 cases and more than 100 deaths reported worldwide
from the virus, although the World Health Organization (WHO) has
laboratory-confirmed only 254 cases with 93 deaths. Most of the reported
infections have come from Middle East countries including Saudi Arabia,
Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
While public health experts have been tracking the disease for nearly
two years, in recent weeks health officials are reporting a sharp rise
in cases. The WHO reported at least 78 confirmed cases since the
beginning of the year, and that diagnosed cases sharply increased in
mid-March.
This week the WHO released a report,
which said that among newly diagnosed cases up to 75 percent could be
human-to-human transmission, since a large number of health workers were
infected with the disease. However there is evidence that the reason
for the increase could be related to increased testing for the virus and
a seasonal increase in the disease rather than virus mutation.
Dr. Ian Lipkin, an epidemiologist and professor of Epidemiology at
the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, has been
investigating the virus and said 75 percent of camels in Saudi Arabia
have had the disease. Lipkin points out that as camels are born in the
spring the virus can spread from the young animals to people who
interact with them.
"The younger animals have the virus and become infected and become
little virus factories," said Lipkin, who explained that camels are
extremely common in Saudi Arabia and surrounding countries.
"It's almost like dogs in the U.S. Except they eat the camels ...
there's so much opportunity," for the virus to spread, he said.
Lipkin also pointed out that when patients are treated with invasive
pulmonary measures, the virus "deep in the lungs" can come to the
surface and infect health care workers treating these patients. Lipkin
said to combat the spread, more oversight will be needed to both
regulate people's interactions with camels and to protect healthcare
workers from infection.
Currently there is no vaccine for the MERS Coronavirus. There have
been no reported cases in the U.S. and the CDC has not issued any travel
advisories related to the disease. Follow the Latest News on the MERS Coronavirus Outbreak
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt has discovered its
first case of the potentially deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome
(MERS) in an Egyptian citizen who had recently returned from Saudi
Arabia, Egypt's Ministry of Health said on Saturday.
The virus,
which can cause coughing, fever and pneumonia, has spread from the Gulf
to Europe and has already caused over 90 deaths.
The patient, 27,
is being treated for pneumonia at a Cairo hospital and is in a stable
condition, the ministry said in a statement.
The man, who is from the Nile Delta, was living in the Saudi capital Riyadh, the ministry said.
Saudi Arabia, which has been hardest-hit by the MERS virus, announced
on Friday it had discovered 14 more cases in the kingdom, bringing the
total number to 313.
Although the number of MERS infections
worldwide is fairly small, the more than 40 percent death rate among
confirmed cases and the spread of the virus beyond the Middle East is
keeping scientists and public health officials on alert.
A
spokesman for the World Health Organization in Geneva said on Friday it
was "concerned" about the rising MERS numbers in Saudi Arabia urging for
a speedy scientific breakthrough about the virus and its route of
infection.
Saudi authorities
have invited five leading international vaccine makers to collaborate
with them in developing a MERS vaccine, but virology experts argue that
this makes little sense in public health terms.
(Reporting by Yasmine Saleh and Mahmoud Mourad, Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
FILE - This combination made from file photos provided by the National Institute of Health, Pasteur Institute …
WASHINGTON (AP) — EDITOR'S NOTE: In 1981, the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention reported the first cases of a rare
pneumonia that had sickened five Los Angeles gay men. The AIDS epidemic
had begun.
Over the next
three years, the CDC formally named the condition and announced that
sexual contact and infected blood were the major ways the disease
spread.
On April 23, 1984, the
Department of Health and Human Services held a press conference to
announce that the probable cause of the disease had been found — a virus
that was eventually called the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. At
the meeting, government scientists said the discovery could spur work
on a preventive vaccine, which could be ready for testing within two or
three years.
There is still no cure or vaccine. But drugs emerged
in the mid-1990s that have turned HIV from a death sentence into a
manageable chronic disease for people who stick with them.
An estimated 36 million people have died of AIDS since 1981, according to the World Health Organization.
Thirty years after its publication, the AP is making its original report on the announcement available.
___
Government
scientists have found the virus that probably causes AIDS, a discovery
that has led to a blood test for the deadly disease and the possibility
of developing a preventive vaccine within two or three years, federal
health officials announced Monday.
"The probable cause of AIDS has been found," Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret M. Heckler told a news conference.
Isolating
the virus and developing a process to mass-produce it led to a test
that should detect AIDS — acquired immune deficiency syndrome — in
victims even before symptoms arise and tell if donated blood supplies
are contaminated with the virus.
By identifying those carrying the
virus and its presence in blood, "we should be able to assure that
blood for transfusion is free from AIDS," Mrs. Heckler said.
"With the blood test, we can now identify AIDS victims with essentially 100 percent certainty," Mrs. Heckler said.
Dr.
Edward N. Brandt, assistant HHS secretary for health, said the test
should be widely available within six months to screen donated blood,
suspected to be a source of the agent that causes the disease that
destroys the body's immune system.
Brandt said that having
quantities of the elusive virus should spur work on a preventive
vaccine, which could be ready for testing within two or three years.
"What
we have at the moment is not of particularly great benefit to those
with the disease right now," Brandt said. However, he continued, the
blood test should help researchers define the early courses of the
incurable disease and possibly find a way to intervene at an earlier
stage.
Scientists at the
National Institutes of Health, and particularly Dr. Robert Gallo of the
National Cancer Institute, were given most of the credit for isolating
the virus and devising the system to routinely detect and grow it, a
major step for future research.
The officials said they are so
sure about the strength of the U.S. findings, which closely parallel
work by French scientists reported last week, that they can declare an
AIDS breakthrough after years of research.
"The NCI work provides the proof we need that the cause of AIDS has been found," Mrs. Heckler said.
Four papers describing the work of Gallo and his many colleagues will be published this week in the journal Science.
According
to Gallo and the papers, the causative virus appears to be a member of a
family of viruses called human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV) previously
suspected of having a role in AIDS.
The researchers said the new
virus, called HTLV-3, shares so many characteristics with other HTLV
viruses that it has to belong to this family despite some structural
differences.
Scientists said
they suspect HTLV-3 is very closely related, if not identical, to the
recently publicized AIDS candidate virus called lymphadenopathy
associated virus (LAV), which was discovered last year by French
researchers at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.
Gallo
told the news briefing that his group has worked closely with the
French researchers and, despite some recent "miscommunications and
misunderstandings," still is collaborating with them. And, he said, the
Americans are not trying to steal credit for finding the virus.
To
his knowledge, Gallo said, the French virus has yet to be truly
isolated and grown in quantity to determine its structure. If it proves
the same as HTLV-3, Gallo said, he will make sure the world knows of the
French contribution.
"If the viruses prove to be the same, I will say so in collaboration with the French," Gallo said.
Both viruses attack and grow in the same white blood cells that are defective or missing in AIDS patients.
About
90 percent of blood serum samples from American AIDS patients show
evidence of previous infection by HTLV-3, said Gallo. However, similar
samples sent to Paris also showed about the same percentage of infection
by LAV, according to French researchers.
Although
it is unclear if HTLV-3 and LAV are the same viruses, it appears that
scientists have identified, isolated, grown and taken electron
microscope pictures of a virus or viruses that may cause AIDS.
Other
experts say more work is needed to positively prove that HTLV-3 causes
AIDS since victims of the disease become infected with many viruses
because of their decimated immune systems.
AIDS
results in the collapse of the immune system, which defends the body
against disease. Victims become susceptible to rare cancers, pneumonia
and other infections that lead to disability and death.
The
federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta say that more than 4,000
AIDS cases have been reported in the United States since 1981 and that
more than 1,700 patients have died of the incurable disease.
The
majority of victims have been promiscuous male homosexuals, but other
high-risk groups are intravenous drug abusers, Haitian immigrants and
hemophiliacs who are treated with blood products. Scientists think AIDS
is transmitted through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or
semen.
The NIH studies said
HTLV-3 viruses themselves, and not just indirect evidence of their
presence, were isolated from 48 individuals. No virus was isolated from
115 normal people who were not members of groups at increased risk of
AIDS.
Those in whom the virus
was found included 26 of 72 patients with AIDS; 18 of 21 patients with a
pre-AIDS syndrome manifested by depressed immune systems, and three of
four clinically normal mothers of children infected with AIDS who may
have acquired the infection before birth or through nursing.
The
reports said the virus also was found in one of 22 samples from
clinically normal, non-promiscuous homosexual males believed to be at
only moderate risk of AIDS. However, six months after the tests, the man
with the virus developed AIDS.
Methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacteria that is resistant to many of
the strongest antibiotics, and although recent prevalence has been
limited to hospitals and nursing homes, a new study of 161 New York City
residents who contracted the MRSA infections finds that the these
people’s homes were “major reservoirs” for the bacteria strains. (Photo
by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
Atlanta (CBS ATLANTA) – An anti-biotic resistant
“superbug” that has long affected hospitals and other health care
locations around the world has now found a new “reservoir” location:
inside U.S. homes.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacteria that
is resistant to many of the strongest antibiotics, and although recent
prevalence has been limited to hospitals and nursing homes, a new study
of 161 New York City residents who contracted the MRSA infections finds
that the these people’s homes were “major reservoirs” for the bacteria
strains, HealthDay reports.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that
in communities outside of health care settings, most MRSA strains are
skin infections that are spread by physical contact, such as the sharing
of towels or razors. Athletes, military barracks, prisons and other
close-quarter living areas are at an increased risk of contracting and
spreading the bug.
In medical facilities, MRSA causes life-threatening bloodstream infections, pneumonia and surgical infections.
But the new study shows that the MRSA has spread into average U.S. homes.
“What our findings show is it’s also endemic in households,” lead
researcher Dr. Anne-Catrin Uhlemann, of Columbia University Medical
Center in New York City, tells HealthDay, from the study published in
the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences.
According to a report released by the CDC last September, more than 2
million Americans get drug-resistant infections each year. And about
23,000 die from these diseases that are increasingly resistant to the
strongest antibiotics that doctors use to fight the infections.
Uhlemann and fellow researchers took samples from those affected by
MRSA strains along with samples of a comparison group of people how had
not fallen ill. The researchers then took samples from these patients’
household surfaces and other social contacts to see if the bacteria had
spread.
Ultimately, the research showed that many homes outside of just those
affected by MRSA were “major reservoirs” for the MRSA strain, USA300,
which HealthDay notes is the primary cause of MRSA infections in
communities throughout the country.
Bedding, clothes and other everyday surfaces used by someone affected
by MRSA are suggested to be cleaned by bleach and hot water, although
Uhlemann says the role of surfaces in transmitting the disease is not
“well delineated.”
“We can’t just treat the person with the infection,” Uhlemann told
HealthDay. “We have to attempt to remove the (MRSA) colonization from
the home,” and another MRSA expert not involved in the study added that
the new study “confirms what we’ve suspected all along.”
Correct bandaging, protection of wounds, and hand-washing were
suggested by experts as the best ways to protect family members and
others who one may come in physical contact with regularly, thereby
spreading the bacteria to others.
The CDC has estimated that nearly one-in-three people carry staph
bacteria in their nose, and typically feel no symptoms of sickness.
About 2 percent of people carry MRSA.
The World Health Organization has previously stated that the overuse
of antibiotics has become so common that even normal infections may
become deadly in the future, due to the evolution of these bacteria
strains.
“It is not too late,” CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said to
CBSNews.com during a press conference. “If we’re not careful, the
medicine chest will be empty when we go there to look for a lifesaving
antibiotic for someone with a deadly infection. If we act now, we can
preserve these medications while we continue to work on lifesaving
medications.” Dr. Henry Chambers, chair of the
antimicrobial resistance committee for the Infectious Diseases Society
of America, told HealthDay he agreed, and that “about half of
antibiotics prescribed aren’t needed.”
A report earlier this month found that the drug-resistant bacteria
caused a fatal blood infection in a Brazilian patient, according to Live
Science. His body had developed a resistance to the powerful antibiotic
vancomycin – used widely to treat the infection – during the course of
his stay at the hospital.
– Benjamin Fearnow
Musician
Ryan Lewis is spearheading a fundraising effort to build medical
centers around the world to provide comprehensive health care and
specialized HIV/AIDS treatment for the needy, and it's all because of one case that hits very close to home.
Lewis, who is one half of the hit rap duo, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, says his mother, Julie Lewis, has been HIV positive since she gave birth to her first child 30 years ago.
After giving birth to her daughter, Teresa, in 1984, Julie Lewis needed a blood transfusion.
"In
that moment without anyone knowing it, (she) had HIV positive blood put
into her body," Ryan Lewis said. "At age 25, one year younger than I am
right now, her life would change forever."
She had two other children - Laura and Ryan - before being diagnosed as HIV positive in the summer of 1990.
"I
was 32 years old, and I had three young children, ages 6, 4, and 2. I'd
never thought about dying," an emotional Julie Lewis said, speaking in a YouTube video about the initiative. Scientists Find Aggressive New HIV Strain
Each of her younger children had a 25 percent chance of being born with HIV, but they were both born free of the virus.
Julie Lewis herself was given only a few years to live.
"But you know what's amazing? My mom never died. She lived," her son said.
Julie
Lewis founded the 30/30 Project to allow people all over the world
access to the same high-quality healthcare that she received. The
project is raising funds on the website IndieGoGo. As of Tuesday night, the campaign had collected $19,238 of a stated goal of $100,000. UK Doctor: 'I'd Rather Have HIV Than Diabetes'
"Life-threatening
diseases like HIV/AIDS can be managed," Julie Lewis said. "What people
need is access … I was infected with HIV 30 years ago. And I never
thought I'd be sitting here, 30 years later, talking to you."
The announcement is timed to coincide with the 30 th anniversary of the scientific discovery that AIDS is caused by HIV.
Macklemore voiced his support for the project.
"Healthcare is a human right. That is what we believe. We want to see this idea put into action," he said.
An
estimated 34 million people globally have been diagnosed with HIV,
according to the World Health Organization. Since the epidemic began in
the early 1980s, the infection has claimed more than 33 million lives,
according to CDC estimates.
More than 1.1 million people in the U.S. are living with the infection but nearly one in six is unaware they are infected.
When
AIDS was a relatively new disease, patients could expect to develop
full blown AIDS within 10 years and live only a year or two longer.
Now,
with better HIV treatments, patients who start them before their immune
system declines significantly have a much longer life expectancy. ABC News' Liz Neporent contributed to this report.
By Liz Dwyer | Takepart.com
April 21, 2014 4:19 PM
Takepart.com
Mon, 21 Apr 2014 13:16:26 PDT
It’s not every
day that you see an 11-foot-long, 805-pound shark at a gas station. But
last week after Pensacola Beach, Fla., resident Cat West stopped for a
fill-up and saw a ginormous fish hanging out of the back of a pickup
truck, he snapped a photo that lit up social media. Now two Florida
cousins are being lauded for possibly setting a world record for largest
shortfin mako catch ever.
Earnie
and Joey Polk, two fishermen who hold records from the International
Land-Based Shark Fishing Association, say they intended to keep the
catch a secret—they don't want their angling spots swarmed by
record-seeking competition. But this particular shortfin mako was simply
too large to stay hidden in the bed of their pickup.
“That’s probably the best fish we ever caught,” Earnie Polk told the Pensacola News Journal.
“You’ll spend many, many hours to catch a fish of that caliber or a
fish of that size.” Torpedo-like shortfin makos are known for being the
fastest shark in the sea. They've been clocked at speeds of up to 60
miles per hour. They can also leap 20 feet in the air.
The
duo say they normally tag and release the majority of sharks they catch
(in 2013 they caught 300 sharks and kept 20 of them) as part of the
National Marine Fisheries Service’s Cooperative Shark Tagging Program.
However, an hour-long fight with a hook wore out this particular shark
too much for it to survive. In the above video you can see the big fish
frantically flopping around after being caught.
Last
year a study of shark, ray, and cartilage-containing fish species by
the International Union for the Conservation of Nature found that only one-third of the species can be considered “safe” from extinction. The shortfin mako is one of the fish listed on IUCN’s Red List as “vulnerable” globally.
The
shark the Polk cousins caught may have once been at the top of the
ocean food chain, but it ended up being fried and served at a community
barbecue. Shortfin makos are, along with other shark species, targeted
across the world for both their meat and their fins. One hundred million sharks die every year.
Earnie
Polk said what they do is “just a good pastime.” He said he and his
cousin fish ethically. “We don’t do chumming whatsoever. We fish at
night. We don’t fish on crowded beaches. We don’t fish anytime there are
swimmers,” he said. “We don’t draw the fish to the beach. We just catch
what swims by. The fishermen are there because the fish are there.”
Riyadh (AFP) - The MERS
death toll has climbed to 81 in Saudi Arabia, which sacked its health
minister as cases of infection by the coronavirus mount in the country.
A 73-year-old
Saudi who suffered from chronic illnesses died in Riyadh and a
compatriot diagnosed with the virus, aged 54, died in the port city of
Jeddah, the health ministry said late Monday.
The
ministry said it has registered 261 cases of infection across the
kingdom since the discovery of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in
September 2012.
The World
Health Organisation said on April 17 that it has been informed of 243
laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with MERS worldwide, including
93 deaths.
Saudi Arabia on Monday dismissed its health minister, Abdullah al-Rabiah, without any explanation.
Rabiah
last week visited hospitals in Jeddah to calm a public hit by panic
over the spread of the virus among medical staff that triggered the
temporary closure of a hospital emergency room.
MERS was initially concentrated in eastern Saudi Arabia but now affects other areas.
The
virus is considered a deadlier but less-transmissible cousin of the
SARS virus that erupted in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, nine
percent of whom died.
Experts are still struggling to understand MERS, for which there is no known vaccine.
A
recent study said the virus has been "extraordinarily common" in camels
for at least 20 years, and it may have been passed directly from the
animals to humans.
By Clare Leschin-Hoar | Takepart.com
19 hours ago
Takepart.com
Tue, 22 Apr 2014 15:39:43 PDT
Grim news for America’s oyster lovers. Vibrio
infections, often linked to that beautiful plate of raw Atlantic
brininess, were up a stunning 75 percent through 2013, according to the
latest Food Safety Progress Report from federal authorities.
Compared
to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2006 to 2008
report, the vibrio increase was the biggest among the six pathogens
tracked by the agency. Despite the sharp increase in vibrio infections,
the pathogen only accounted for 55 hospitalizations and two deaths in
2013—like many food-borne illnesses, vibrio typically causes diarrhea,
which can be serious in the immune-compromised, the elderly, or
children.
Overall, America’s food safety grades show very little progress has been made in the fight to keep our food safe from pathogens.
A
tiny bright spot in the report shows a modest 9 percent decline in
salmonella infections. But reading the numbers can get tricky; despite
declining numbers, salmonella caused 2,003 hospitalizations and 27
deaths last year.
Then there’s
E. coli. There was no significant change in the E. coli strains
tracked, but the CDC was frank in its warning about the pathogen.
“We could be losing ground on past progress in E. coli reduction,” according to the report.
Overall
in 2013, FoodNet, the collaboration between the CDC, 10 state health
departments, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, and the FDA
found that more than 19,000 infections, 4,200 hospitalizations, and 80
deaths stemmed from the pathogens it tracks, and that young children
were often the most affected.
Those are just the reported numbers.
For each pathogen, the CDC estimates the number of cases that go
unreported. For example, for every Yersinia case reported, 123 cases are
not diagnosed. For every salmonella case, 29 go undiagnosed. For every
vibrio case reported, 142 cases are not reported.
Even the CDC admits that most food-borne illnesses can be prevented. Why?
Urvashi
Rangan, Ph.D., director of the Consumer Safety Group at Consumer
Reports, says part of the reason is that the U.S. hasn’t made enough
progress on standards for meat or on the use of antibiotics that can
affect pathogen resistance; she points to last year’s Foster Farm
outbreak as an example. The USDA's lack of standards for chicken parts
is part of the problem, Rangan said.
“We
should have standards in place for all meat at this point, and
strengthen them over time to get a meaningful reduction in
contamination,” Rangan said. “And we need to deal with the virulence and
resistance of pathogens and stop teasing them with antibiotics used in
agriculture.”
Dr. Robert
Tauxe, deputy director of CDC’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and
Environmental Diseases, also pointed out another snag in the efforts to
curb food-borne illnesses—changes in the diagnostic tests used by
laboratories that allow health officials to trace food-borne outbreaks
across state lines.
Laboratories
are increasingly relying on less expensive, rapid non-culture tests.
That means collecting stool samples from sick patients may not be
needed. While that can be a benefit to both doctors and patients, for
health officials who track disease, the shift in laboratory testing
means they’re not always able to get the DNA fingerprint they need to
trace an outbreak to its source.
It’s a problem health officials have been aware of for several years.
“This trend will challenge our ability to monitor trends and detect outbreaks," says Tauxe.
Maryn McKenna, author of Superbug, has also written that not having a cultured organism also means losing the ability to detect when the food-borne illness is antibiotic-resistant. She writes:
Antibiotic
resistance is an increasingly important issue for food production; the
now year-long outbreak in chicken from Foster Farms, which has racked up
524 infections in 25 states, involves a Salmonella that is multi-drug
resistant. No longer being able to track resistance could mean
completely losing track of foodborne epidemics.
Joey Polk tries to be inconspicuous while filling up with a giant mako shark in his truck; photo by West Calhoun
Florida anglers who had hoped to avoid publicity after catching a
giant mako shark from the beach last week might have succeeded had they
not stopped for gas on the way home–with the enormous predator spilling
from the bed of their pickup truck.
News spread not long after West Calhoun, a passerby, sent a photo of
the shark to the Pensacola News-Journal. The News Journal posted the
image on its Facebook page,
with no details, and the peculiar image was so widely shared and
discussed that the newspaper tracked down one of the anglers and, a day
later, reported that the catch could set a world record for shore-based fishing.
Cousins Earnie and Joey Polk hooked the shortfin mako in the dark
morning hours, on a Gulf Coast beach near Navarre. The apex predator,
reeled in with heavy tackle after an hour-long struggle, weighed 805
pounds and measured 11 feet.
“That’s probably the best fish we ever caught,” Earnie Polk said.
“You’ll spend many, many hours to catch a fish of that caliber, or a
fish of that size.”
Generic shortfin mako shark image is via Wikipedia
The International Land-Based Shark Fishing Association, which
encourages catch and release and accepts tape measurements with
estimated weights, recognizes a 674-pound mako caught by Earnie Polk in 2009 as the current record. Earnie and Joey also teamed to make that catch.
For the sake of comparison, the largest mako caught on rod and reel from a boat weighed 1,221 pounds, according to the International Game Fish Association. That catch was in 2001 off Massachusetts.
Presumably, the Polks hoped to keep news of their latest catch quiet
because the shark-conservation movement has become so vocal in recent
years. Sharks are slow to reproduce and vulnerable to overfishing, and
many species are believed to be in steep decline.
The image was shared nearly 3,000 times, and while many of the
comments were critical of the Polks, some were in support of the
anglers. Fishing for mako sharks off Florida, after all, is not illegal.
The Polks explained that they kept the shark because it had become so
weary during the fight, and they did not think it could swim back to
sea.
So they trucked the predator home and planned a family feast.
“It’s about $10 per pound at the fish market,” Earnie Polk said. “It
sells right along with tuna and swordfish. Between all of us, there
won’t be a bit of it wasted.” More from GrindTV Enormous great white shark grabs spotlight in Western Australia Humpback whales go for a surf at Pipeline
Giant mako shark hooked in Florida shallows
A photographer has captured what might be the only image showing
large whales riding a wave at iconic Banzai Pipeline on Oahu’s North
Shore.
J.T. Gray of North Shore Surf Photos arrived Saturday to find a
late-season swell had shown, minus the hordes of surfers that generally
greet each swell.
As a bodyboarder was catching one wave, two humpback whales
materialized in a larger second wave and rode the swell just long enough
for Gray to capture the moment.
While it’s common for dolphins to ride waves, this is rare behavior for a large whale species.
“The whales were 75 to 100 yards east of Pipeline and playing for a
while, then swam to about 10 yards outside of the lineup,” Gray told
GrindTV. “A set came in and the bodyboarder caught the first wave, and
the humpbacks caught the second.”
Gray added, “Whales frequent Hawaii in the winter months, but never that close to shore.”
The rare image was posted to Ocean Defender–Hawaii’s Facebook page on Monday, and as of Tuesday morning it had been shared more than 4,000 times. Gray gave permission for its use for this story.
He said the whales were a mother and calf, and it’s possible that the
whales were just playing, but it’s also possible that the mother was
keeping tabs on her stray calf.
Said Ocean Defender’s Oriana Kalama, “Yes, it’s the first time anyone
has seen a humpback surf or get that close to the waves, but they do
get really close to shore. Humpbacks sing, breach, and, if you ask me,
they dance too. If you ever have the chance to see them underwater, you
would see how much they seem to enjoy to move their pectoral fins and,
in a way, flirt with each other when in groups.
“So why wouldn’t they surf, too? After all, they are Hawaiians by birth.” Find North Shore Surf Photos on Facebook, SmugMug and Instagram Find Pete Thomas on Facebook and Twitter
Bouaké (Ivory Coast)
(AFP) - West Africa's first outbreak of Ebola fever is bad news for
gourmets in Ivory Coast, but brings respite from the hunter to species
sought out for tasty meat but feared to carry the disease.
Late in March, Health Minister Raymonde Goudou
Coffie called for her compatriots to stop eating porcupines and agoutis,
which look like large river-rats, "until we can be sure there are no
risks".
Bushmeat is known to
be a vector of Ebola, the alarming haemorrhagic fever that has claimed
at least 122 lives in Guinea, according to a UN World Health
Organisation toll on April 17. Liberia, meanwhile, reports 13 deaths.
Hunters
and restaurant owners in the central Ivorian town of Bouake are upset
that clients have begun to steer clear of the strong taste of the
agouti, a beast with a long snout and brown fur that can reach half a
metre (1.6 feet) in length.
Last
week, the minister's recommendation was still going unheeded or ignored
by some traders and hunters in Bouake's main bushmeat market. One
hunter openly carried a dead rodent.
Emile,
a customer in his 40s who seemed slightly tipsy, asked for "Ebola
meat", meaning braised agouti. "Ebola can't survive alcohol or hot
water," claimed the scarred Rigobeli, who had just eaten a large meal.
But such scenes are swiftly
becoming a thing of the past. An official ban on bushmeat -- including
antelopes, chimpanzees and porcupines as well as agoutis -- has been
enforced and a week later, the Bouake market was empty.
State
officials from the water and forestry service and in the health sector
are patrolling the whole country in search of offenders. They recently
burned 200 kilos (440 pounds) of smoked game found in the capital
Yamoussoukro.
The stakes are
high. Wild animals are carriers of often deadly haemorrhagic fevers,
including Ebola for which there is no medical cure. The fruit bat has
been singled out as a likely vector in the west African outbreak.
People
subsequently contaminate each other by direct contact with blood,
bodily fluids and the tissue of infected patients, including dead ones
during their burial.
The
current strain of Ebola kills 90 percent of its victims and suspect
cases have been reported in Sierra Leone and Mali, while Senegal has
closed its border with Guinea.
A "maquis," a small restaurant, in Kobakro, outside Abidjan, displays its menu on April 8, …
Fear of the disease runs
high in Ivory Coast, another of Guinea's neighbours, though no cases
have yet been reported. People have begun to listen to official warnings
and instructions.
- Secret signs -
"We
like agouti very much, but we would rather save our lives," said
Ernest, a man in his 30s. "As an Ivorian, I appreciate this meat. But
with the risk of Ebola, I've changed, I don't eat any more," Kassoum
agreed.
Not everybody plays by the rules. A restaurant owner, who
asked to remain anonymous, said she had established a code with some of
her most loyal customers, hardened eaters of bushmeat.
"When they
come in, those who can't do without agouti give me a signal in secret
and I make sure that other customers believe I am serving them beef,"
she explained.
Woman prepare food at a "maquis," a small African restaurant, in Kobakro, outside Abidjan, …
Adele Coulibaly, 48, whose
restaurant used to specialise in game, has converted to beef and fish,
but in the process she has lost customers and income. She is sceptical
about the government's recommendations.
"When
I was born, my mother was in this line of work and there was never any
disease," she said. "Bushmeat has nothing to do with Ebola."
On
the other hand, the restrictions imposed by the Ebola outbreak could
help wildlife to recover. A ban of game hunting has been in force since
1974, but remained largely ineffective because of the popularity of the
meat.
Agoutis, antelopes,
chimpanzees, porcupines and other species are all in danger of
extinction in Ivory Coast, but today they have at least a few weeks'
respite.
Ironically, "Ebola is
a good thing for the preservation of wildlife," said Colonel Jerome
Ake, the Yamoussoukro regional director for water and forestry.
A
break in hunting will also benefit the natural environment, since
hunters flush out game by starting large brush fires, which they are not
always able to keep under control.
In
the past 10 years, such blazes have killed 120 people and destroyed
more than 5,000 square kilometres (1,900 square miles) of forest and
other land, a region twice the size of Luxembourg. But in these days of
Ebola, fewer fires are likely to be started.
SARS-Like MERS Virus Spreads Among Health Care Workers (ABC News)
A sudden uptick in the SARS-like corona virus called MERS-CoV for Middle Eastern Respiratory Coronavirus is partially related to health care workers becoming infected with the disease.
This month the
World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed 32 cases of the virus so
far, including a cluster of 10 health care workers, all of whom worked
with an infected patient who died on April 10. Nearly all the cases were
located in the Middle East countries of Saudi Arabia, United Arab
Emirates and Jordan. One case was found in Malaysia.
Of the 32 cases reported this month, 19 were health care workers, according to the WHO.
For
the first time, the disease has been found in Asia, after a Malaysian
man was found to have contracted it this month. The 54-year-old man was
diagnosed with the disease after traveling to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The
man traveled for a pilgrimage and during his vacation spent time at a
camel farm, where he had camel milk. He died on April 13 and had
undisclosed underlying health conditions.
The
virus is a respiratory virus in the same family as the deadly SARS
virus and common cold. Symptoms can include fever, shortness of breath,
pneumonia, diarrhea and in severe cases kidney failure.
Since
the virus was first identified in April 2012, the WHO has found a total
of 243 confirmed cases of the deadly virus and 93 people have died from
it.
The virus has been shown
to spread between people in close contact. Currently officials do not
know where the virus originated, but suspect it was likely from an
animal.
CDC
officials recommend that if a recent traveler to the region develops a
fever or symptom of respiratory illness, including a cough or shortness
of breath, they should see a doctor immediately.
It has dominated headlines in Africa since. The World Health Organization, which says it may 
