Circulation of 'disaster myths' in Haiti could hinder appropriate disposal of bodies
Myths about the infectious disease threat posed by dead bodies could lead to insensitive and inappropriate treatment of victims' bodies following the floods in Haiti, and need to be checked, according to a public health researcher who has studied the potential risks at length. Although most ...'Dead zone' area shrinking, Texas A&M prof says
... water - had broken up and appeared to pose little threat to marine life, while in other areas the hypoxia appeared to have moved further off shore. Hypoxia can result in fish kills and can adversely affect many types of marine life where it is present. The dead zone area encompassed more than 6,000 square...Pacific Northwest team unveils largest virus proteome to date
...ding viral cause of birth defects and is a serious threat to transplant and AIDS patients and others with a compromised immune system. "Our labs identified the viral and host proteins that compose the HCMV virion," said Jay Nelson, Ph.D., director of the OHSU Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute (VGTI) and...Ecology of infectious diseases grants awarded
... change, society's greater global mobility and the threat of the deliberate release of disease organisms. By knowing how natural systems work, public health officials can recognize when an outbreak is unnatural. The recent outbreaks of West Nile Virus and SARS show how little is known about the ecology of...Lecture on ecology of infectious diseases
...ngs, concern is growing that prairie dogs may be a threat to public health. With funding from the joint National Science Foundation-National Institutes of Health Ecology of Infectious Diseases Program, biologist Sharon Collinge of the University of Colorado at Boulder used records from two decades of plag...Veterinarians discover first known case of canine distemper in a wild tiger
...eft in the wilds of Russia, this is a very serious threat that could contribute to the loss of this severely... tiger habitat, disease becomes an ever increasing threat to tiger conservation world wide, a threat we cannot afford to ignore," Dr. Quigley said....Highlights of American Chemical Society national meeting in Philadelphia, Aug. 22-26
...the specter of biological warfare has raised a new threat to humanity from infectious diseases," she notes. Dadachova and her microbiology collaborators, Arturo Casadevall and Liiseanne Pirofski, believe radiolabeled antibodies can be used as an anti-infective modality and could be developed for the treatme...Managing occupational exposures to potential bioterrorist agents
Laboratories working with biological threat agents must develop comprehensive programs in orde...ation to other institutions involved in biological threat agent research--Rusnak and her team reviewed potential laboratory exposures at the Institute between...Tobacco promising factory for biopharmaceuticals
...tically manipulated tobacco will not pose a safety threat to products consumed by humans. "Since tobacco is neither a food nor a feed-crop, transgenic tobacco will not enter our food chain," Zhang said. The research is funded by the Jeffress Memorial Trust and the Tobacco Initiative. Zhang is the director ...Endangered turtles' trek along ocean currents revealed by satellite
...p strategies to minimise the unintended but deadly threat posed to leatherbacks by deep-sea fishing. These giant reptiles - known to reach 2.1 metres in length and weigh in at 365 kg - briefly come ashore to lay their eggs on beaches across French Guiana and neighbouring Suriname, the turtles' last remai...Protein vaccine fully protects mice from lethal aerosol challenge with ricin toxin
...ntal vaccine against ricin, a potential biological threat agent, which fully protected mice from aerosol challenge with lethal doses of the toxin. The study was performed at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). Ricin is a toxin derived from the castor plant, which is g...An exotic grass kills trees by hijacking their water
...nner. He said, "What makes buffelgrass a potential threat to the foothill palo verdes and other native plants is that it can move into undisturbed habitats and effectively compete for water."...New England forests at greater risk from air pollution
...dicating which forest areas are under the greatest threat from air pollution. These pictures, notes Will-Wolf, look different between the two regions. Air pollution in the southern states, such as Georgia and Alabama, appears to concentrate in localized areas, whereas the dirtier air in the New England stat...Ocean scientists assess impact of seismic pulses in effort to protect whales
...uency. Tolstoy says that ocean scientists take the threat to whales seriously. "Lamont-Doherty and the National Science Foundation, which funded our study, have already responded to the new data by adjusting the safety radius when they do research involving seismic sound generation," she says. "If a whale e...HIV reveals evolution of a primate defense against intragenomic infiltrators
...ng from one's own genome pose less of an immediate threat than a retrovirus like HIV. But the constant efforts of the endogenous retrovirus to "jockey for evolutionary dominance," the authors conclude, could eventually take a toll and would be expected to provoke efforts to contain it. And it may be that th...Research shows oceans are becoming more acidic
...h elevated CO 2 and decreasing pH pose a serious threat to coral reefs, possibly leading to the elimination of some reefs by the end of this century. Participants at the symposium stressed that although the impact of climate change on the ocean has been much debated, the direct impact of CO 2 itself has ...Carnivore extinction risk determined more by biology than human population density, says study
...ine," they write. They highlight in particular the threat to African viverrids, or civets and genets, even though they are currently considered relatively safe. The authors, from Imperial College London, University of Virginia, USA, and the Institute of Zoology, suggest action now would offset greater dange...Tips from the Journals of the American Society for Microbiology
...ed by the Centers for Disease Control as bioterror threat agents. "A human vaccine would be valuable for individuals who may be occupationally exposed to brucellae and for persons who consume unpasteurized diary products from areas in which brucellae are endemic," say the researchers. In the study mi...Report outlines steps needed to lessen smallpox threat
...for Disease Control and Prevention's] list of high threat (category A) agents." Given the pressing need for novel drugs to prevent the spread of smallpox if it were to be used as a bioterror agent, Harrison said that the group's top recommendation was the immediate engagement of biotechnology and pharmaceut...Asian bird flu became highly pathogenic through continued circulation and gene swapping
...ndications that H5N1 could evolve into a worldwide threat to humans: the outbreak of H5N1 in poultry in Asia...f millions of poultry across East Asia reduced the threat of transmission of bird flu to humans, and possibly even prevented the outbreak of a human pandemic,...