Six fatal cases related to brain-eating amoeba reported in USA

The term “killer amoeba” may as well belong to some sci-fi movie. Unfortunately, a microscopic organism called Naegleria fowleri is not part of fiction. The amoeba lives in lakes and hot springs. Naegleria attacks the body through the nasal cavity, quickly eating its way to the brain. Once infected, people start complaining of a stiff neck, headaches and fevers. In the later stages of an infection, they will show typical signs of brain damage e.g. hallucinations and behavioral changes.

Though the attacks are extremely rare, U.S. health officials have already registered six fatal Naegleria-related cases this year. Some health officials are quite concerned about a possible epidemic caused by the killer amoeba. According to data released by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Naegleria infected 23 people from 1995 to 2004.

This year health officials already registered six deaths related to the killer amoeba in southern states, namely, three people died in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona. Consequently, state health officials put their communities on high alert. On the other hand, the CDC is aware of only several hundred cases worldwide since the discovery of Naegleria in Australia in the 1960s.

The case of the 14-year-old Aaron Evans, reported in September, came as a shock to many Americans. Along with his father and other loved ones, the boy went to Lake Havasu, Arizona, to celebrate his father’s birthday on September 8. The Southwest had been hit hard by a heat wave, and the boy spent the whole day swimming and splashing in the lake. Aaron woke up with a throbbing headache about one week later. His father took him to an emergency room. The doctors first thought the boy was suffering from meningitis. Aaron was rushed to another hospital. Despite all the efforts to save his life, the boy passed away on September 17. “My kids won’t swim in Lake Havasu again,” said the boy’s father following the tragedy.

According to Michael Beach, a specialist in recreational water-born illnesses with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, a patient will usually die within two weeks after initial exposure. Once infected, people have little chance of survival. Those stirring up the bottom as they wade through shallow water are likely to get infected with Naegleria. It is still unclear why boys seem to be more frequently infected than girls. “Boys tend to have more boisterous activities when swimming, but at this point we can’t be sure if that’s the only reason,” Beach said.

Naegleria fowleri is a heat-loving microorganism. Some health officials warn that the number of cases may start increasing as global warming sets in. Although some drugs have been found effective in stopping the amoeba in lab experiments, they have rarely helped patients survive the infection, according to medical sources. Plugging one’s nose prior to swimming or diving in warm, standing water seems to be the easiest way to prevent the killer-amoeba from entering the body.

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Iron Fertilization "Give me half a tanker of iron and I’ll give you the next ice age"

What if, to prevent global warming, humanity fertilized the ocean with iron? That is the question scientists will be discussing at an international Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution conference from September 26-27.

The idea became more mainstream after oceanographer John Martin famously told his colleagues, “Give me half a tanker of iron and I’ll give you the next ice age.”

Dissolved iron is rare in the ocean. Iron is a vital nutrient for phytoplankton growth and photosynthesis. Ocean zones that are iron-deficient have small phytoplankton populations, if at all.

Phytoplankton, like any other life form that obtains energy through photosynthesis (e.g. plants), absorbs carbon dioxide. Unlike most other plants, when phytoplankton dies, the CO2 is not necessarily immediately released in to the atmosphere. When most plants die, they decompose and the carbon dioxide is released in to the atmosphere. Phytoplankton lives in the ocean. When it dies, it sinks to the bottom of ocean, bringing the CO2 with it. That CO2 can stay down there for hundreds of years.

The idea is that iron fertilization would dramatically increase the phytoplankton population, who would then absorb carbon dioxide.

Critics argue that not enough research has been done on large-scale effects. Some worry that harmful algae could bloom as well, ecosystems could be disrupted, or that areas could become oxygen depleted.

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Turning your office wasteland into a recycling haven

For several years, colleagues within our office looked around at the mountains of used printer paper, newspapers and other waste that surrounded them and made mild mutterings about how awful it was that it all just went into the main waste skip and wasn’t recycled. Yet while many were keen to see the waste dealt with in a better way, no-one was particularly keen to take on the recycling role themselves.

Yet, when we finally got the bit between our teeth at the start of the year and decided once and for all that the waste must stop, it turned out to be much easier than anticipated.

If you currently find yourself in the same frustrating position as we were in, the Big Green Switch guide to setting up an office recycling scheme will hopefully help to get your office into a greener way of working.

STEP ONE: What are you going to collect for recycling?

Although this may seem like an obvious question, setting the boundaries of what you will and won’t collect is a very important aspect of your scheme.

Here are some of the items you may want to consider:
- Paper (newspaper, magazine etc).
- Drinks cans.
- Plastic bottles.
- Glass bottles.
- Drink cartons.
- Cardboard.
- Printer Cartridges.
- Items for composting.

Setting up a scheme involving all of these items may be costly and take up a lot of your time. You may want to start with the basics and build up from there. Have a look in bins and see which items are most commonly thrown away. You’ll probably find paper, plastic and cans to be a good starting point. Smells are another issue to bear in mind. Storing teabags for composting is brilliant for the environment, but could quickly lead to a very smelly kitchen. Look at how much room you have and be practical about what you can and can’t achieve within your workplace.

STEP TWO: What will you collect it all in?

Talk to your manager about buying some recycling bins to place around the office. Don’t try to use existing bins as this will very quickly lead to confusion and a huge jumble of items.

Go for bins with lids for anything that could be smelly and large boxes with sturdy handles are a good bet for carrying paper. Also invest in a stack of biodegradable bin liners to make sure you’re not just adding extra plastic to the landfill.

The way you mark your bins is also very important; be very clear about what can and can’t go in each bin to avoid confusion. We’ve created a set of posters for you to use to help people know what they can and can’t place in each bin. After a little trial and error we also found the need to stick this information on the lid of the bin (if possible) to make sure people can clearly see what the bin is for.

STEP THREE: How will it get to the main recycling centre?

So, you’ve collected your waste and it’s neatly bagged up in biodegradable bin liners. What next? Now you need to make sure it gets to a main recycling centre, and this is where you have a few options.

There are three main choices for waste collection:
- Your local authority/council.
- A private service.
- An in-house collection.

Both your council and a private scheme may also provide bins, but check out the size and positioning of these to make sure your scheme is kept as simple as possible. Visit sub-it.co.uk to find out whether a local company will collect your recyclable waste, or get in touch with your council to if there are any schemes they can offer to your business.Also remember that a private or council service will often charge for collections so check with your manager or company owner to make sure they are happy to cover this charge.

If a private or council scheme doesn’t fit your criteria, you may want to think about organising an in-house recycling run. This will only realistically work for a small to medium-sized business; if you are trying to organise this sort of scheme for a large company, a private/council collection is likely to work well.

However, organising an in-house collection can often be easier and cheaper for your company. It’s unlikely you will be able to manage every recycle run on your own, so send out an email and try to get as many people involved as possible. Remember, the more people involved, the less often they will each have to go.

Generally speaking, one run to the recycling centre per week should be enough, but this will depend on the size of your company and the amount of waste produced. Draw up a rota of the people prepared to help and give them a week or half week period when their turn should be. Don’t try to make them take the rubbish on one particular day, their work commitments must come first and they’ll need to fit the recycling around their own timetable. Also, try to encourage colleagues to make the run on their way home, rather than taking a special trip which would notch up additional traffic pollution.

As long as you’re reasonable about your volunteers’ commitment to the scheme, you should be able to get a pretty steady rota of people taking rubbish down for recycling. Always remember to say thank you and be prepared to be the first person to cover a recycling run if someone is ill.

STEP FOUR: What next?

With your recycling scheme up and running and your office hopefully now starting to catch the green bug, there are plenty of other ways in which you can make your workplace into a greener place to be. Have a look at The Big Green Switch’s ‘In the Workplace’ section to get you started on creating a cleaner, greener office.
GOOD LUCK!

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First Synthetic Lifeform is Nigh

Exciting scientific developments descend upon us, as scientists at the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, have successfully managed to transfer an entire genome of one species into another — which grew and multiplied into the first species. Why is this significant? Because the next experiment involves creating and implanting a synthetic genome — the success of which could mark the creation of the first artificial lifeform and enable greater possibilities for biological engineering.

The achievement was made today by Dr. Craig Venter and his team using the following method as described in their press release:

The JCVI team devised several key steps to enable the genome transplantation. First, an antibiotic selectable marker gene was added to the M. mycoides LC chromosome to allow for selection of living cells containing the transplanted chromosome. Then the team purified the DNA or chromosome from M. mycoides LC so that it was free from proteins (called naked DNA). This M. mycoides LC chromosome was then transplanted into the M. capricolum cells. After several rounds of cell division, the recipient M. capricolum chromosome disappeared having been replaced by the donor M. mycoides LC chromosome, and the M. capricolum cells took on all the phenotypic characteristics of M. mycoides LC cells.

The image above shows colonies of the transformed Mycoplasma mycoides bacterium. Dr. Venter says that in light of this advance — the team plans to do the same using a genome produced from scratch in a laboratory within months. As reported by the UK Telegraph:

The scientists want to create new kinds of bacterium to make new types of bugs which can be used as green fuels to replace oil and coal, digest toxic waste or absorb carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

[…]

Since the 1970s, scientists have moved genes - instructions to make proteins - between different organisms.

But this marks the first time that the entire instruction set, consisting of more than a million “letters” of DNA, has been transplanted, transforming one species of bacterium into another.

They are attempting to build a microbe with the minimal set of genes needed for life, with the goal of then adding other useful genes, such as ones for making biofuels.

Seems my simulated artificial lifeforms don’t seem as significant for the time being! But of course, there are still things that we need to overcome. According to the Telegraph, only one in every 150,000 transfers worked. There are also concerns regarding safety — unexpected side effects can abruptly become evident when evolution is superseded. Venter mentions in addition that the project was on pause for some time while under review for ethical concerns, as these advances can lead to new kinds of biological warfare.

Nevertheless it’s an exciting development and I look forward to hearing the results of their consequent experiments.

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Power Up with Wheat Grass — The Green BLOOD!

Dr. Ann Wigmore, from the Hippocrates Institute in Boston, popularized wheat grass therapy. Many leading Naturopaths consider wheat grass to be a panacea on the earth.

Wheat grass is a humble weed that is a powerhouse of nutrients and vitamins for the human body. In the form of fresh juice, it has high concentrations of chlorophyll, active enzymes, vitamins and other nutrients. According to Dr. Preety Agarwal a famous Alternate therapist, one ounce of wheat grass juice is equivalent in food value to two and a half pounds of green leafy vegetables.

Chemical Composition of Wheat Grass:

Wheat grass is also called as “Green Blood” because its close structural similarity to Hemoglobin. Wheat grass contains many nutritious and prophylactic ingredients. It is rich in Vitamin A, Vitamin C, B, E, K, Laetrile (Vitamin B17 – which has a marked anti-cancer effect) and several useful enzymes.

Clinical uses of Wheat Grass:

Dr. Ann Wigmore found Wheat Grass useful in as many as 350 diseases.

Heart and cardio-vascular system

• Anaemia
• High Blood pressure
• Atherosclerosis
• Internal hemorrhage

Respiratory System

• Common cold
• Asthma
• Bronchitis

Digestive system

• Constipation
• Dyspepsia
• Nausea and vomiting
• Peptic ulcer disease
• Diabetes
• Worm infestations

Teeth and gums

• Caries
• Septic gums
• Bleeding gums

Joints

• Osteoarthritis
• Rheumatoid Arthritis

Brain and Nervous system

• Parkinson’s disease
• Weakness
• Headaches

Skin diseases

• Eczema
• Pimples
• Boils
• Burns

Wheat grass therapy has also been used with great success in kidney, ear diseases and in several cancers.

How is Wheat Grass administered?

Wheat grass can be grown at home in small shallow pots. The wheat has to be sprouted first prior to sowing it. For a normal person about 100 grams of wheat grass per day are quite adequate to maintain positive health. Wheat grass can be chewed or drunk as a juice and it can also be administered as an enema. It is very important to note that the juice must be consumed as soon as it is extracted; otherwise the vital elements in the juice will lose its efficacy.

During the last ten or twenty years there has been a tremendous explosion of information in the scientific literature to support the use of natural medicine.

Wheat grass therapy teaches that is that it is nature, which cures the patient and not the physician. With the progress of civilization, we are perhaps violating the laws of nature and that is why there is an increase in disease. To be optimally effective, Wheat Grass Therapy must be combined with exercise, a stress free life and proper diet.

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