INTERESTING TIMES

We used to live in a world where people got sick from exposure to feces and lives were saved with antibiotics. Now we live in a world where people are dying from antibiotics and their lives are being saved by feces.
--a colleague

Arabian peninsula = Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Leb¬anon, Oman, Palestinian territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen

MERS is the viral infection that's causing severe respiratory disease in lots of folks over there. There have been just a few cases in the US, starting in May. I'm wondering if military personel are coming back sick? Apparently pretty much all of the camels on the Arabian peninsula have this virus. We don't know if it causes chronic infections, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did, considering what we are learning about viral DNA mingled with our own.

Only one type of plastic does not float *in salt water at least*, and that is type I PETE plastic, the hard clear kind that drink bottles are made of. It is the most abundantly manufactured kind, and it does not float.

Types of Plastic:
1 PET
2 HDFE
3 PVC (rafts)
4 CDPE (bags)
5 PP
6 PS (polystyrene)
7 Other

I posted once about the Great Pacific Waste Dump, basically just parroting media hype. It turns out the plastic in the ocean is mostly in tiny bits instead of in a big island of capped bottles. It is thickest in the five GYRES on the planet, which appear to me to be doldrums where there are no tradewinds or strong currents. The most directly alarming thing about the litter of plastic bits is that it is covered in life that is migrating in a whole new way. Barnacles, biofilm and plankton all hitch a ride or get tangled in the mess. We had NO IDEA what this is going to mean in the long run. A new name has been coined for all the microorganisms on the polypropylene and polyethlene in the ocean: the Plastisphere. The only organism named by Emelia DeForce PhD in last night's Science Pub talk was Vibrio, the same genus as cholera. I was dying to ask if MRSA was on the plastic around Hawaii but we left because the line was long and we were done. All the factoids in this post are courtesy of Dr DeForce.

Plastic is made from crude oil into nerdles (sp?), which are small balls of hard petroleum product. Those can then be shipped to the manufacturers who combine them with additives and make their product.

Sounds like a bad joke, but it isn't. A H3N8 influenza strain has jumped species and killed at least 162 seals on the New England Coast. Seal pups under 6 months old were most affected by the pneumonia and skin lesions. Other marine animals, such as whales, may also get infected. The bird flu strains that have jumped to humans were H1N1 and H5N1. Nobody knows if the new seal flu is going to be able to infect humans, but it appears to be another bird flu that has traveled.

There is no profit
in curing the body
if in the process
we destroy the soul.
--Samuel Golter, City of Hope

most (136/156) acquired during travel
of unvaccinated Americans to countries with outbreaks
1/1/11-6/17/11-->156 confirmed cases reported to CDC
imported infections-->12 outbreaks (defined as 3+ linked cases)
of the total: 86 (62%) unvaccinated, 30 (22%) undocumented vaccination status,
11 (8%) had received 1 MMR dose, 11 (8%) had 2 doses, and 1 (1%) had 3 documented doses
measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000 dt successful vaccine coverage (2-dose)
endemic/outbreaks still occuring in Europe (France, UK, Spain, Switzerland), Africa, Asia (incl India)
( a few more notes and the link )