Could Catching Swine Flu Be Good For You?

When word came in April that an entirely new, highly infectious disease--swine flu--was spreading beyond Mexico, this was the most paranoid city in the world. Land at the airport with a fever and runny nose, and you'd risk being quarantined for a week, just in case you'd brought the new disease with you.
People in this city, scarred by the SARS epidemic, still shudder when they hear someone cough. For Hong Kongers, the sound brings back memories of the scary time when the city nearly shut down and residents feared death from a new mystery disease. Schools were closed. When people left their homes--which wasn't often--many wore medical masks to reduce their exposure to anyone who might be sick.



Fast-forward. If you catch the flu in Hong Kong today--or in most places--you won't be rushed to the isolation ward just in case it proves to be the new swine flu. You'll be told to go home and rest and not cough on anyone. "Everyone has finally realized that this is going to spread," said Dr. Anthony Mounts, a flu specialist at the World Health Organization.
What a change.
That's because SARS and swine flu are proving such opposites. Both are new diseases, which means that none of the 6 billion people on the planet had immunity to them when they came on the scene. The World Health Organization feared that if they developed into full-blown pandemics and raced around the world, millions would die, defenseless against new strains.

So this is what Mars is Really Like!

NASA has released stunning photographs of the planet Mars. Taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the views are amazing! Some show the Victoria crater which has been explored close up by a rover vehicle for two years. Another shows a dust devil in the Martian atmosphere.

The new oblique view of Victoria Crater shows layers on steep crater walls, difficult to see from straight overhead, plus wheel tracks left by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity between September 2006 and August 2008. The orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science
Experiment camera shot it at an angle comparable to looking at landscape from an airplane window. Some of the camera's earlier, less angled images of Victoria Crater aided the rover team in choosing safe routes for Opportunity and contributed to joint scientific studies.
The new Victoria Crater image is shown in the accompanying image. It is available online at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/multimedia/mro20091012a.html
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been studying Mars with an advanced set of instruments since 2006. It has returned more data about the planet than all other past and current missions to Mars combined. For more information about the mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mro.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson

Wobbling Earth Triggers Climate Change

Regular wobbles in the Earth's tilt were responsible for the global warming episodes that interspersed prehistoric ice ages, according to new evidence.
The finding is the result of research led by Russell Drysdale of the University of Newcastle that has been able to accurately date the end of the penultimate ice age for the first time.
The new dates, which appear in the today's edition of Science
, show the end of the second last ice age occurring 141,000 years ago, thousands of years earlier than previously thought.
Using information gathered from a trio of Italian stalagmites, the research has punched a hole in the prevailing theory that interglacial periods are related to changes in the intensity of the northern hemisphere summer.
Drysdale and colleagues suggest that the Earth emerges from ice ages due in large part to changes in the tilt of the planet in relation to the sun, otherwise known as its obliquity. This affects the total amount of sunlight each hemisphere receives in its respective summer, rather than the peak intensity of the solar radiation during the northern summer.
Sediment on the sea floor contains accurate a record of what happened to the Earth's climate prior to the last ice age. But up until now dating the sediment and the evident climatic changes has not been possible.

$10 million fine agreed to in Bay Area oil spill

The Hong Kong-based company that operates the cargo ship that caused a 2007 oil spill in San Francisco Bay pleaded guilty Thursday to criminal charges.

Fleet Management Ltd. pleaded guilty to charges of obstruction, making false statements and negligent discharge of oil, and agreed to pay a $10 million fine under a deal reached with prosecutors. A federal judge still must approve the deal.

The Cosco Busan sideswiped the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on a foggy morning on Nov. 7, 2007. The ship spilled 53,000 gallons of oil into the water, killing thousands of birds and other wildlife and fouling miles of shoreline.

The ship's pilot, John Cota, was sentenced in July to 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to two misdemeanor charges.

Company director Aga Nagarajan appeared in court Thursday with lawyer Marc Greenberg, who entered the guilty pleas. They declined comment outside court.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston scheduled a Dec. 11 hearing to decide whether the $10 million is enough punishment.

Poor training acknowledged
Court documents showed the company acknowledging its crew was poorly trained and the master failed to stop the pilot from leaving port in thick fog. The master admitted he could "suffer adverse personnel consequences" if he delayed departure, according to the court filing.

The poor training and the master's failure to delay departure led to the negligent discharge count.

The company was charged with obstruction and making false statements for creating and presenting to investigators false navigational documents.

The day after the accident, an unidentified Fleet executive ordered the ship's second officer to create a "berth-to-berth passage plan" that was supposed to have been made before the ship left port, according to the court document.

Another Fleet manager was aware of the document's creation and the ship's master signed the false passage plan "because he thought that not doing so would make the superintendents angry," according the joint factual statement signed by prosecutors and lawyers for the company.

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The false passage plan was given to Coast Guard investigators and a federal grand jury looking into the accident. Crew members also altered navigational charts after the accident, according to court records.

Oil washed up along 26 miles
The National Transportation Safety Board concluded earlier this year that a medically unfit pilot, an ineffective captain and poor communications between the two were the primary causes of the accident.

No one was injured in the crash, but the spill contaminated 26 miles of shoreline. It also killed more than 2,500 birds of about 50 species and delayed the start of the crab-fishing season. Cleanup efforts cost more than $70 million.

Fleet and Regal Stone Ltd., which owns the Cosco Busan, face several lawsuits from fishermen, cities along the bay and others affected by the spill.

Lawsuit Seeks to Halt U.S. Blasts in Canadian Marine Protected Area

Two environmental groups are taking the Canadian government to court to stop loud seismic blasting by an American research vessel that threatens endangered and threatened whales in a Canadian marine protected area.

U.S. researchers have asked Canada to grant a controversial seismic vessel access to the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents, a marine protected area 250 kilometers (155 miles) off British Columbia's coast and a habitat of endangered blue whales, threatened fin whales, and other marine life.

On behalf of Living Oceans Society and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Ecojustice has filed a lawsuit alleging that Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs cannot grant clearance to a foreign vessel that is expected to harass marine mammals in violation of Canadian law.

The plaintiff environmental groups are seeking a temporary injunction against the seismic research on Friday, August 14 in Federal Court in Ottawa.

That is the date that the RV Marcus Langseth, owned by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, is scheduled to leave Astoria, Oregon for a month-long expedition to explore beneath the Pacific sea floor using loud blasts of sound.

Blue whales are now beginning to resume their migrations from southern California to the north Pacific Ocean. (Photo by Zoran Kovacevic)

"To ensure compliance with environmental laws, Canada should deny clearance to this vessel and refuse to sanction the harassment of endangered whales," says Lara Tessaro, the Ecojustice lawyer who represents the environmental groups.

"Seismic testing is known to cause hearing loss and behavioral disturbances in whales," says Kim Wright of Living Oceans Society, "Any research needs to be done in a way that does not threaten marine life in the area."

Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation for use by U.S. universities, research institutes and government agencies, the 235 foot, 3834 ton RV Marcus Langseth generates three-dimensional images of magma chambers, faults and other structures miles below the seabed.

The ship is designed to pulse sound through seabottoms and read the return signals with arrays of hydrophones towed in "streamers" stretching as long as five miles.

The plaintiff groups complain that the RV Marcus Langseth "would cause intense acoustic disturbance from a 36 air gun seismic array, which would blast at 180 decibels every two or three minutes."

Steam rises from a vent in the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents Marine Protected Area. (Photo courtesy University of Washington, ROPOS, and Neptune Canada)

Known as ETOMO: Endeavour Seismic Tomography Experiment, the research investigates the molten rock that is found beneath the Endeavour segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge. The scientific team is led by Dr. Doug Toomey of the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Oregon, and includes scientists from the University of Washington.

"The scientific objectives are to: (1) Determine if the segmentation and intensity of the magma-hydrothermal systems at the Endeavour ridge are related to magma supply or to the magma plumbing between the mantle and crust, and (2) Constrain the thermal and magmatic structure underlying the Endeavour hydrothermal system in order to understand the patterns of energy transfer," Dr. Toomey explains on his website.

The Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents were designated as Canada's first Marine Protected Area in 2003 to protect the deep ocean hydrothermal vents and unique species that live there.

"If marine animals can't find safety in the few areas set aside for them, where will they find it?" says CPAWS National Oceans Manager Sabine Jessen, "They have little chance of survival in the long term without these refuges from human disturbance."

The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, LDEO, argues that because biologists are concerned that seismic pulses like those emitted by the Langseth could affect sea creatures, "the ship will take extensive precautions to minimize contact with marine mammals, some of which may be especially sensitive to sound."

Cruises will be scheduled to avoid migrations or other activities of many species, the observatory says on its website. "Before turning on the sound, the ship will search for submerged animals' vocalizations with the ship's microphones, as well as post observers to search visually from deck and, if needed, in aircraft or onshore."

R/V Marcus G. Langseth (Photo courtesy LDEO)

Tessaro told ENS in an interview that there is a difference between American and Canadian law with regard to harassing marine mammals.

In the United States, somebody who is going to conduct activities that harass or take marine mammals and should be mitigated can simply get a permit.

In Canada, two different laws apply. First, the marine mammal regulations flatly prohibit harassment. No one can obtain a permit to harass a whale or dolphin that is not at risk.

Second, under the Species At Risk Act, permits can be granted to harass endangered and threatened species, such as the blue whales and fin whales found in the vicinity of the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents, but the researchers must take all reasonable measures to mitigate against harm to the animals.

"Our complaint against the federal government is that they are not using this provision," Tessaro said. "You can obtain a permit under the Species At Risk Act but LDEO has not done so."

Tessaro said that Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans officials who have examined the LDEO proposal "won't give us their advice, they refused last Friday."

"We've heard that they recommend additional mitigation," she said.

If researchers are to be allowed to conduct seismic testing in a Canadian marine protected area, says Tessaro, "it is better do it by permit - not just with a wink and nod."

Ozone is a long-range killer.

More than 20,000 lives a year could be saved if major industrial regions cut their emissions of ozone-triggering gases by a fifth, a new study has found. And the whole world would benefit: many victims of ozone pollution live a long way from the machines that cause it.

Although ozone high in the atmosphere is vital for our survival, shielding us from harmful UV radiation, at ground level it is very harmful and has been linked to respiratory conditions, heart attacks and even cancer.

Ozone forms when sunlight interacts with gases such as methane, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide, emitted by ships, cars and power plants.

To investigate its effect on human health, Susan Anenberg of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and her colleagues used computer simulations to estimate how much ozone people in North America, the European Union, and south and east Asia would breathe if each region cut emissions of ozone triggers by a fifth.

The researchers then plugged this data into a public health model to estimate how many lives would be saved in each region thanks to such a drop in ozone levels.

Lethal traveller

They found that some 21,800 ozone-linked deaths a year could be avoided in the northern hemisphere alone.

But the biggest surprise was how many deaths blamed on ozone pollution in one region could be traced to emissions in another. Up to 76 per cent of the people whose lives could be saved by North American emissions cuts live outside the continent, the researchers found.

"Compared with the other regions, reducing emissions in North America could save the most lives abroad," Anenberg says.

The study found that cutting emissions in North America saved more lives in the EU than it did at home. "Ozone is mainly being generated on the polluted east coast of the US and carried over to Europe by the prevailing winds", says co-author Drew Shindell, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

Policy push

Anenberg hopes that the findings will spur US policy-makers to make more stringent cuts to the country's ozone emissions.

"While the US commonly evaluates the domestic health benefits of proposed actions to reduce ozone pollution, this research shows that substantial benefits may result outside of national or continental boundaries," she says.

The EU is the region where the most people die because of foreign ozone pollution, particularly North American emissions, the study found.

Indeed, if all four regions cut emissions by a fifth, over 50 per cent of the deaths avoided in the EU would be thanks to foreign cuts, the research suggests.

"Our results show that slightly more lives in Europe could be saved by reducing foreign emissions of ozone 'precursors' than by reducing European emissions," says Anenberg.

Asia alarm

Some regions are mostly poisoning themselves, though. South Asia's ozone pollution, for example, kills the most people, and 90 per cent of its victims live locally. Anenberg says that reducing ozone precursor emissions by 20 per cent in the region would save about 7600 lives a year there.

"Our results suggest that collective international agreements may be desirable to reduce emissions and improve human health throughout the northern hemisphere," she says.

It would also buy time against the looming threat of global warming, says Shindell. "Given that many of the precursors of ozone – and ozone itself – are greenhouse gases, this finding adds even more to the rationale of tackling climate change."

"All these results seem reasonable to me", says Mark Schoeberl, an atmospheric scientist with NASA's Earth Observing System based at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who was not involved in the study. "They emphasise again that there is only one atmosphere and air pollution is a global problem, not just a local one."

That opinion is echoed by environmental scientist Mark Potosnak of DePaul University, Chicago: "It's a typical result when further exploring human impacts on the environment – the world is a bit smaller than we first thought."

India against US trade barrier for climate policy

India wants the new global climate change agreement to ban trade barriers targeting nations that refuse to accept limits on their carbon emissions, the chief Indian climate negotiator said Friday.

As some 180 nations work on drafting a new climate accord, India proposed adding a clause to bar any country from taking action against another country's goods and services based on its climate policy.

The clause is largely directed against efforts by U.S. Congress to impose trade penalties on countries that do not commit to specific action against greenhouse gases.

Chief delegate Shyam Saran said such measures looked like "protectionism under a green label," and were complicating the latest round of climate negotiations in Bonn.

Trade issues are "extraneous to what we are trying to construct here, which is a collaborative response to an extraordinary global challenge," Saran told The Associated Press.

The talks in Bonn adjourn Friday after five days of meetings, and resume next month in Bangkok with the aim of reaching a new agreement by the December conference in Copenhagen. The new accord would succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

Officials at the talks Friday said delegates have made no attempt to settle outstanding differences on key issues, and there has been little progress in whittling down a 200-page draft accord.

The U.S. House or Representatives has passed a climate bill that would impose trade penalties on countries that do not accept limits on their emissions, and the Senate is considering a similar bill. President Barack Obama has opposed attaching trade issues to climate and energy legislation.

The Kyoto accord required 37 industrial countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a total 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2012, but made no obligations on developing countries.

The world's wealthier nations want developing countries, such as China and India, to share the burden and agree to slow their explosive emissions growth, even if they cannot yet make reductions.

The developing countries, however, have resisted specific commitments, holding out for pledges of hundreds of billions of dollars to help them adapt to climate conditions and move to low-carbon growth.

Poorer countries also want the wealthy ones to commit to reducing emissions further by up to 40 percent by 2020, from 1990 levels. So far, the wealthier bloc has pledged an aggregate reduction of 15-21 percent, the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said this week.

Those figures exclude the United States, which rejected the Kyoto Protocol but says it wants to join in a Copenhagen deal. The House bill called for a 17 percent emissions reduction from 2005 and a cut of more than 80 percent by 2050.

Environmental activists warned that progress in the talks was too slow, with just a few weeks of actual negotiating time left before the decisive conference in December.

Unless every country contributes more, the final agreement could become known as "greenwash Copenhagen," said Aileen Yang, the climate campaign manager for Greenpeace China.

In New Delhi, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said India "is not yet prepared to take on legal binding targets" regarding its carbon emissions, "but it does not mean that India is not ready to take on responsibilities."

Ramesh, who is heading to China on Aug. 24 for environment talks, said India would control its carbon footprint through measures including the formation of an environmental protection agency modeled on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He said the new Indian agency would likely be in place by December.

Saran said India already is spending 2-2.5 percent of its gross domestic product on adapting to climate change, from introducing new crops to researching the effect of melting glaciers and the need to build reservoirs. India also will spend $2.5 billion over the next five years to regenerate its forests.