cryptogon.com

Almost half the dead were civilians, including children.

Israel, which lost two soldiers, seemed ready to press home its fiercest air and ground assault since it pulled troops back to the borders of the coastal enclave in 2005. It blamed rocket attacks by the Islamist Hamas movement for provoking four days of fighting, in which 96 Palestinians have been killed.

The U.N. Security Council prepared to meet in emergency session. A U.N. official in Gaza appealed for international action to end the “inhuman suffering” of its 1.5 million people and said killing women and children would not help Israel.

The choice of vocabulary from Matan Vilnai, an often outspoken former army general, was unusually grave – the word is not normally used for anything other than the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews.

Vilnai was speaking about his government’s plans to tackle the continued firing of makeshift rockets, known as Qassams, from Gaza.

“The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves,” he said, in a telephone interview with army radio yesterday morning.

His spokesman later tried to play down the force of his language, saying he meant only “disaster”.

Around two-thirds of emerging infectious diseases come from animals and 71.8% of those come from wildlife, a study published in the journal Nature said.

Researchers from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), University of Georgia, the Consortium for Conservation Medicine and Columbia University said new infectious diseases were on the rise.

The scientists analysed 335 incidents of disease emergence between 1940 and 2004 and found they had risen significantly in that time.

Some pathogens may be picked up by hunting or accidental means; others, such as Nipah virus, which recently emerged in Malaysia, go from wildlife to livestock, and then to people.

“We’ve never seen anything like this,” says Estes, who counsels clients by phone from her office in Richmond, Va. “Their homes are at risk, and they know it. But people say, ‘I don’t want to let my credit cards go because that’s my cash flow.'”

The United States fears prolonging the Turkish operation, which began on Feb. 21, will undermine stability in the region, particularly Iraq, though it backs Ankara’s mission to crush the PKK and late last year began providing significant intelligence.

“The Turks need to move, move quickly, achieve their objective and get out,” Bush told a White House news conference.

His comments came shortly after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrapped up a brief visit to Ankara, where he failed to pin down a possible timetable for a Turkish withdrawal.

Before arriving in Ankara he had made clear that he wanted the mission to be short — days or a week or two, not months.

The plans would put Google’s database of health records at the heart of a broader health information system that draws in health insurers, doctors and others, potentially giving the internet company a central role as the health industry moves towards greater use of information technology.

The initiative also opens a new front in Google’s spreading confrontation with Microsoft. The software company launched its own personal health records system, known as HealthVault, late last year.

Eric Schmidt, chief executive, outlined the Google Health plans at a conference in Florida on Thursday. The system will be based on personal health records that patients authorise their health insurers, doctors and others to move into Google’s database.

Other companies will then be able to write software applications that make use of these data, for instance creating services that help patients manage their medications or warn parents when their children need inoculations.

“There are a lot of applications you can’t envisage today,” Mr Schmidt told the Financial Times, adding that the overall aim was to improve the health of users by improving the quality of care.

Using state-by-state data, the report says 2,319,258 Americans were in jail or prison at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults. Whether per capita or in raw numbers, it’s more than any other nation.

What depressed the cavemen? It may strike us as a particularly modern malaise for a time-poor, fast-paced society but a new reappraisal of depression suggests it has always been around.

A leading psychiatrist says that depression is not a human defect at all, but a defence mechanism that in its mild and moderate forms can force a healthy reassessment of personal circumstances.

Dr Paul Keedwell, an expert on mood disorders at the Institute of Psychiatry, argues all people are vulnerable to depression in the face of stress to varying degrees, and always have been.

The fact it has survived so long – and not been eradicated by evolution – indicates it has helped the human race become stronger.

…

Dame Kelly Holmes has spoken in the past about how the depression she suffered in 2003 made her a stronger person, a year before her double-gold performance at the Olympics. Alastair Campbell has said it was the making of him.

But there are other qualities depression generates, not just resilience, says Dr Keedwell, author of How Sadness Survived.

“Psychological unease can generate creative work and the rebirth after depression brings a new love affair with life.”

Aristotle believed depression to be of great value because of the insights it could bring. There is also an increased empathy in people who have or have had depression, he says, because they become more attuned to other people’s suffering.

…

The room was most recently occupied by a 57-year-old man who has been in critical condition with breathing problems at a hospital for more than two weeks.

Las Vegas police said there was no apparent link to terrorist activity, and no indication of any spread of the deadly substance beyond the several vials of powder found in a plastic bag in the man’s room on Thursday. But what the ricin was doing there remained a mystery.

A pinprick of ricin is enough to kill.

“Six to eight hours, you’re going to start showing symptoms,” said Greg Evans, director of the Institute for Biosecurity at Saint Louis University in Missouri.

Capt. Joseph Lombardo said at a news conference late Friday that the book was tabbed at a spot with information about ricin. Lombardo did not give more information about the book or specify what kinds of weapons were found.

A friend or relative of the sick man found the vials after going to the Extended Stay America motel, several blocks west of the Las Vegas Strip, to retrieve his belongings, police Deputy Chief Kathy Suey said.

Tests by police homeland security officers, the Nevada National Guard and a laboratory in Las Vegas came back positive for ricin, she said. A cleanup of the motel has been completed, she added.

Seven people, including the man who found the ricin, the manager, two other motel employees and three police officers, were decontaminated at the scene and taken to hospitals for examination, but none have shown any signs of being affected by ricin, Suey said. All were released overnight.

“There is no information to lead us to believe that this is the result of any terrorist activity or related to any possible terrorist activity,” Suey said. “We don’t have any reason to believe any of it left the property.”

Police cordoned off the hotel and told residents to stay in their rooms. The cordon was lifted early Friday morning, and the motel has been open since then.

Lombardo said precautionary tests were also done a room in the Excalibur hotel, where the friend or relative had been saying. He said they came back negative.

Suey said the manufacture of ricin is a crime, but it was not clear the substance found belonged to the man, who was hospitalized in critical condition Feb. 14 after summoning an ambulance to the motel and complaining of respiratory distress.

The man was unconscious and unable to speak, Suey said, adding that he was not currently a suspect.

…

“We did have enough ricin to be of concern,” Lombardo said. “At this point, it has been contained and processed where it’s not a threat to anybody.”

Lombardo said the “area of concern” is under quarantine and is going through a decontamination process. All seven people have been decontaminated.

Lombardo said police do not have any suspects at this time.

Ricin is a poison that can be made from waste left over after processing castor beans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The toxin can come in the form of a mist or pellet and can be dissolved in water or weak acid, according to the CDC. The agency also says the toxin works by getting inside the cells of a person’s body and preventing the cells from making the proteins they need.

As little as 500 micrograms — an amount the size of the head of a pin — can kill an adult. It is not yet known how much of the material was found in the room.

Police were called to the Extended Stay America Motel on Thursday and retrieved a package from the motel manager that was determined to be a chemical or controlled substance, Officer Ramone Denby said.

Two preliminary tests indicate it contained ricin, he said. Results from further tests by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a second local lab are expected Friday, police said.

Homeland Security officials joined local police in the investigation. Officials from the FBI, Las Vegas Health District, a hazardous materials team and the National Guard were also at the scene.

Officers cordoned off the area and isolated the room where the substance was found.

Three motel employees and another person were quarantined and decontaminated at the site, then taken to hospitals for further testing, Denby said. All appeared to be in good condition, he said. Three police officers who had been exposed were also taken to hospitals.

It takes between six and eight hours for someone exposed to ricin to show signs of contamination, Denby said.

A woman who answered the phone at the motel declined comment.

Sintex’s digester uses bacteria to break down waste into sludge, much like a septic tank. In the process, the bacteria emit gases, mostly methane. But instead of being vented into the air, they are piped into a storage canister.

A one-cubic-meter digester, primed with cow dung to provide bacteria, can convert the waste generated by a four-person family into enough gas to cook all its meals and provide sludge for fertilizer. A model this size costs about $425 but will pay for itself in energy savings in less than two years. That’s still a high price for most Indians, even though the government recently agreed to subsidize about a third of the cost for these family-sized units. “We want to create a new industry for portable sanitation in India that’s not available now,” says S.B. Dangayach, Sintex’s managing director.

…