Zika… Co-Factors
August 4th, 2016Via: Globe and Mail:
Brazil’s Ministry of Health has launched an investigation into the cluster of babies born with brain defects linked to the Zika virus, after an expected “explosion” of cases across the country did not occur.
The bulk of the cases of congenital Zika syndrome – fetal brain defects that sometimes cause microcephaly, or abnormally small skulls – remain clustered in the northeast region of the country where the phenomenon was first identified last October, the ministry says.
And that has epidemiologists and infectious disease experts asking what is going on: Is it Zika and another virus working together that damages the fetal brains? Is it Zika and an environmental factor? Or something about the women themselves whose fetuses are affected?
Sea Hunter Unmanned Sub Chaser Completes First Sea Trials
August 3rd, 2016Via: New Atlas:
The Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) has completed its first round of sea trials, during which main contractor Leidos says it met or surpassed its performance goals. Co-sponsored by DARPA and the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the autonomous 132-ft (42-m) trimaran, which is designed to track potentially hostile submarines for months at a time without a crew, was christened Sea Hunter on April 9 at the Swan Island shipyard in Portland, Oregon.
Neural Dust
August 3rd, 2016Via: UC Berkeley:
University of California, Berkeley engineers have built the first dust-sized, wireless sensors that can be implanted in the body, bringing closer the day when a Fitbit-like device could monitor internal nerves, muscles or organs in real time.
Because these batteryless sensors could also be used to stimulate nerves and muscles, the technology also opens the door to “electroceuticals” to treat disorders such as epilepsy or to stimulate the immune system or tamp down inflammation.
The so-called neural dust, which the team implanted in the muscles and peripheral nerves of rats, is unique in that ultrasound is used both to power and read out the measurements. Ultrasound technology is already well-developed for hospital use, and ultrasound vibrations can penetrate nearly anywhere in the body, unlike radio waves, the researchers say.
Private Company Wins U.S. Clearance to Fly to the Moon
August 3rd, 2016…including cremated human remains?
Via: Reuters:
A Florida-based company won U.S. government permission on Wednesday to send a robotic lander to the moon next year, the firm’s founder said, marking the first time the United States has cleared a private space mission to fly beyond Earth’s orbit.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s unprecedented go-ahead for the Moon Express mission also sets a legal and regulatory framework for a host of other commercial expeditions to the moon, asteroids and Mars.
As approved by the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, the privately held Moon Express, headquartered in Cape Canaveral, plans to fly a suitcase-sized lander to the moon for a two-week mission in 2017, said the company founder and chief executive Bob Richards.
The spacecraft will carry a number of science experiments and some commercial cargo on its one-way trip to the lunar surface, including cremated human remains, and will beam back pictures and video to Earth, the company said.
Google’s Project Wing Delivery Drones to Be Tested in U.S.
August 3rd, 2016Via: Bloomberg:
The proposed drone delivery service born in Google’s experimental labs will test its system at a U.S. site, the White House announced as part of an initiative to push research and safety measures for unmanned flight.
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Project Wing’s test program will be the most significant drone delivery trial to date in the U.S. Amazon.com Inc. announced on July 26 it would begin testing its drone delivery system in the U.K.
Jeep Hackers Take Control of Steering and Braking Systems
August 3rd, 2016Via: The Verge:
A pair of hackers have compromised their Jeep Cherokee, fooling the car into doing dangerous things like turning the steering wheel or activating the parking brake at highway speeds. It’s the same pair that hacked their Jeep remotely last year. But, because this version of the hack requires physical access to the car — in this case, through a laptop connected to the OBD II engine diagnostic port — it may not be quite as scary, except for the fact that they’re controlling way more vehicle systems.
Armed Man Busted at Trump Tower After Secret Service Calls Cops
August 3rd, 2016Via: New York Post:
A man is in custody after police responded to a call about someone showing up with a gun at Trump Tower Tuesday night.
The Secret Service asked for NYPD assistance after stopping the man at the building on Fifth Avenue by E. 56th St. just after 10 p.m., officials said.
Police sources said the man walked through a blocked-off area with a gun, and was taken in by the Secret Service because he didn’t comply with authorities.
It’s not clear if the man posed a threat to Donald Trump, or if Trump was in the building at the time of the incident.
MIAMI: AERIAL ORGANOPHOSPHATE SPRAYING
August 3rd, 2016In Miami? Run.
Also, if anyone knows the name of the firm that’s doing the spraying, let me know.
Inert Ingredients are in most pesticide applications and naled is no exception. Caroline Cox from the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP) lists solvents in Dibrom that are listed as “inert ingredients”:
Napthaline: which has been classified by the EPA as a “possible human carcinogen” because it has caused lung tumors in mice. It has also caused headaches, restlessness, lethargy, nausea, diarrhea, and anemia
1,2,4-trimethylbenzene: it is a eye and skin irritant and a nervous system depressant that causes headaches, fatigues, nausea, and anxiety as well as asthmatic bronchitis.…
Unfortunately the most toxic route of exposure is inhalation and the most common application is as a mist making inhalation the most likely route as well (#ATSDR, 2007).
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Naled’s health effects stem from its cholinesterase inhibiting mechanisms which are common to all Organophosphates. It is a “severe” skin and eye irritant and can be ingested on food or in water, but it is most harmful and potent if it is inhaled (#Cox, 2002). Toxicologists at the University of California found that naled when inhaled is twenty times more toxic to rats as opposed to when it is ingested (#Cox, 2002).
Chronic Effects
Studies conducted on dogs and rates showed that naled does cause chronic nervous system damage resulting in a mineralization of the spinal cord and decreased nervous system enzyme activity that led to partial paralysis (#Cox, 2002).
Via: Reuters:
Florida will conduct an aerial insecticide spraying campaign at dawn on Wednesday in an effort to kill mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus, officials in Miami-Dade County said.
The campaign will cover a 10-mile area that includes the one-mile-square area just north of downtown Miami that health officials have identified as the hub of Zika transmission in the state, the officials said on Tuesday.
On Monday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an unprecedented travel warning, urging pregnant women to avoid travel to the Miami neighborhood at the center of the investigation.
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The aerial spraying campaign was recommended by the CDC in conjunction with the Florida Health Department to reduce adult mosquito populations that might be capable of carrying the Zika virus.
In a conference call on Tuesday, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden expressed concern that vector control efforts so far have not been as effective as hoped. A CDC expert is currently conducting tests in Miami to see if mosquitoes in the area have developed insecticide resistance.
Florida had been using two products in the pyrethroid class of insecticides. In its aerial campaign, the state will use a chemical called Naled that has been approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to Joseph Conlon, a spokesman for the American Mosquito Control Association.
Naled is from a different class of insecticides known as organophosphates. According to the CDC, the chemical has been widely used to control mosquito populations in the United States, including in Miami, Tampa and New Orleans.
The CDC recommended the same chemical for aerial spraying in Puerto Rico, but the recommendation has been met with protests from residents concerned about its impact on health, bees, agriculture and the environment.
Related: The Link Between Mosquito Spraying and Autism
U.S. Sent Pallets of Cash to Iran as Americans Were Freed
August 2nd, 2016Via: Wall Street Journal:
The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.
Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.
The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
World’s Largest Solar Power Plant Planned for Chernobyl Nuclear Wasteland
August 2nd, 2016Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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Via: Electrek:
The world’s most famous and damaging nuclear meltdown is now being considered for the world’s largest solar power plant. The Ukrainian nuclear power station Chernobyl had a nuclear meltdown on April 26, 1986. Since then 1,600 square miles of land has been deemed an ‘exclusion zone’ as the radiation levels are too high for human health. But in a recent interview, Ukraine’s ecology minister said the government was negotiating with two US investment firms and four Canadian energy companies, which have expressed interest in the Chernobyl’s solar potential.
It would be among the modern world’s greatest technical ironies if one of the worst industrial accidents ever would be replaced with a solar power plant, one of the world’s safest energy technologies.
