Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
It's Real: Attack of the Giant African Land Snails in Florida
Posted by Unknown in News, Pest and Parasites, Snail, USA on Monday, 13 May 2013
By Joe Sutton, CNN
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| Giant African land snails can carry a human parasite called rat lungworm, which is a form of meningitis and potentially deadly. |
(CNN) -- Florida, already threatened with sinkholes, now has a new terror: rat-sized, tire-puncturing snails.
Sounding like
something out of a 1950s B-movie, these giant African land snails eat
their way through some surprising stuff, including stucco, plastic
recycling bins, signs and more than 500 species of plants, says the
Florida Department of Agriculture.
Their calcium shells bear pointy edges that are sharp enough to blow out tires of vehicles that run over them.
Agriculture
Department spokeswoman Denise Feiber says the menacing creatures also
carry a human parasite called rat lungworm, which is a form of
meningitis and potentially deadly.
So far, no
human cases have been reported in Florida, Feiber says. But some giant
African land snails that have been captured in the state have carried
the parasite.
The snails are
isolated to the Miami-Dade County area, says Feiber. Experts don't know
exactly how they were first introduced to the United States. It's
thought they may have hitched rides aboard incoming travelers' luggage.
Or some of them may have been intentionally carried into the country as
pets -- and then released.
The snails have
another trait in common with rats: They can multiply very rapidly --
and grow to adulthood in a year, Feiber says. The snails can produce up
to 1,200 eggs per year, and they can live up to nine years.
Since
agriculture officials first discovered the snail invasion in 2011,
trappers have collected more than 117,000. Officials are hoping to
prevent a worst-case scenario, where the snails would threaten Florida
crops.
Some countries, such as Ecuador and Barbados, have run out of resources to fight these critters, Feiber said.
New Zealand Campaign to Make Sheep Shearing an Olympic Event
Posted by Unknown in New Zealand, News, Raw Milk, Sheep, Wool on Monday, 28 January 2013
It
probably had to come, from a country with almost ten times as many
sheep as people: New Zealand wants sheep shearing made into an Olympic
event.
The
New Zealand Farmers Federation, a rural lobby group, claims wool
shearers should be recognised alongside the world's finest athletes for
their "sport".
Jeanette Maxwell, a spokesman for the federation, describes top shearers as "athletes who take it to another level".
She said: "I can testify to the physical effort shearing takes.
"Surely, the time has come to elevate shearing's sporting status to the ultimate world stage.
"One way would be to make shearing a demonstration sport at the Commonwealth Games, if not the Olympics itself."
In March the small North Island town of Masterton will host the World Shearing Championships.
The
event, which attracts competitors from Britain, Ireland, Australia,
South Africa and a handful of other countries, sees large numbers of
fleeces shorn at frantic pace.
Many
of the world's best shearers also take part in New Zealand's own
national Golden Shears contest, which attracts wildly enthusiastic
crowds and extensive coverage in the country's media.
Shearing contests are divided into men's and women's categories.
Both offer considerable prize money and even greater prestige.
Ms
Maxwell pointed out that Irishman Ivan Scott, the current men's world
record holder, gained his world eight-hour solo title after shearing 749
sheep.
Kerri-Jo Te Huia, the women's champion, smashed the previous world record by 37, shearing 507 sheep in eight hours.
Shearing
is already recognised as a sport by SPARC, the government's Sport and
Recreation Council, which provides grants to help run competitions.
New
Zealand's human population of about 4.4 million is outnumbered by a
national sheep flock of almost 40 million, with most lamb meat being
exported to Britain, the Middle East and Asia.
By Paul Chapman in Wellington
Coconut Oil Touted as Alzheimer's Remedy
Posted by Unknown in Biofuel, Coconut Oil, Health Issues, News, Nutrition, USA on Sunday, 27 January 2013
An
estimated 5.4 million people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with
Alzheimer's disease and that number is expected to increase
exponentially as baby boomer generation enters their golden years.
But for some people, coconut oil has proven to slow the progression of Alzheimer's and may have even prevented it.
One
of those people is Steve Newport, whose Alzheimer's has slowed
considerably. Some of his symptoms even reversed, thanks to the unlikely
treatment prescribed by his wife, Dr. Mary Newport, a physician who
runs a neonatology ward at a Tampa, Fla., hospital.
Dr.
Newport became determined to help her husband after the severity of his
disease was discovered through an Alzheimer's test in which the person
being tested is asked to draw a picture of a clock.
"He drew circles and several numbers just in a very random pattern, didn't really look anything like a clock," she said.
"And
the doctor pulled me over to the side and said, 'You know, he's
actually on the verge of severe Alzheimer's at this point, he's beyond
moderate," Dr. Newport recalled.
"So that was very, very devastating news," she said.
Dr. Newport began learning everything she could about her husband's disease.
"It
appears to be a type of diabetes of the brain and it's a process that
starts happening at least 10 or 20 years before you start having
symptoms and it's very similar to type 1 or type 2 diabetes in that you
develop a problem with insulin," she explained.
Alternative Brain Fuel
In this case, insulin problems prevent brain cells from accepting glucose, their primary fuel. Without it, they eventually die.
But
there is an alternative fuel -- ketones, which cells easily accept.
Ketones are metabolized in the liver after you eat medium chain
triglicerides, found in coconut oil.
Dr.
Newport added coconut oil to her husband Steve's diet. Just two weeks
later, he took the clock test again and demonstrated stunning
improvement.
"I
thought at the time, was it just good luck? Was it a lot of prayer? Was
it the coconut oil?" she said. "And I thought, well, we're going to
keep the coconut oil going."
Three weeks later, Steve took the clock test a third time and continued to perform better on it.
And it wasn't just intellectually, he also improved emotionally and physically.
"He
was not able to run. He was able to run again," she recalled. "He could
not read for about a year and a half, but after two or three months he
was able to read."
"Instead
of being very sluggish, not talking very much in the morning, he would
come out in the morning with energy, talkative, and joking, and he could
find his water and his utensils," Dr. Newport said.
She
documented Steve's success in a book titled, Alzheimer's Disease: What
If There Was A Cure? Dr. Newport received many "thank you" letters from
people whose loved ones were suffering from Alzheimer's. Each of the
letters claimed their family member was helped after they followed
Steve's diet.
Expensive Power Punch
And while coconut oil is encouraging, there's something much more powerful.
A
team of biochemists, led by Professor Kieran Clarke at England's Oxford
University, have developed a ketone ester that packs a punch ten times
greater than coconut oil.
"It
reaches quite considerably higher levels," Clarke said. "And you can
get whatever levels you want depending on how much you drink."
The problem is, they need millions of dollars to mass produce it.
"It's
very expensive. And so we can't make very much of it ourselves," Clarke
said. "And what we would like is funding so we could actually scale up
and make it."
"But
of course there's no real profit in manufacturing stuff like that, and
so people really don't want to fund that sort of thing," he said.
Coconut Oil Myths
So until a high potency ketone ester is available to the general public, coconut oil is still a good ketone source.
Just
make sure it's pure, in other words, non-hydrogenated. Avoid any
hydrogenated oil, including coconut oil, because hydrogenated oils are
the same thing as dangerous trans fats. Check the list of ingredients
for the word, "hydrogenated."
Some people are afraid to eat coconut oil because they think it's bad for your heart. But it's actually very healthy.
Dr. Beverly Teter is a lipid biochemist researcher at the University of Maryland and an expert in the area of dietary fat.
She
said that years ago, coconut oil was criticized for raising
cholesterol. But scientists have since learned there are two kinds of
cholesterol -- LDL, the bad kind, and HDL, which is very good for you.
HDL, the good cholesterol, is the kind that coconut oil raises.
"So
they put out the message that it increased serum cholesterol," Teter
explained. "But the truth of the matter is, it was helping the profile
of the serum cholesterol."
"That
never has been corrected in the public press, and I think that's the
reason people have misconceptions about it," she said.
Defense against Disease
Not
only does coconut oil improve cholesterol levels, Teter said the way it
helps the brains of some Alzheimer's patients can even be extended to
people with Parkinson's disease, ALS , epilepsy, dementia, even
schizophrenia and autism.
Coconut
oil also kills bacteria, making it a natural antibiotic without the
negative side effects. Teter said because of that, it also helps defend
against viruses like HIV and herpes.
"The
coconut oil tends to keep the bacteria down so that if you're assaulted
with a virus, your immune system can concentrate on the virus. It
doesn't have to concentrate on 27 other bacteria that day," she
explained.
As always, consult your doctor before making any dietary changes and ask about the addition of coconut oil to your diet.
Sweden: Wedding Ring 'Found on Carrot' After 16 Years
A Swedish woman has discovered her wedding ring on a carrot growing in her garden, 16 years after she lost it, says a newspaper.
 |
| Lena Paahlsson says the ring was on a small carrot she was about to discard |
Lena Paahlsson had long ago lost hope of finding the ring, which she designed herself, reports Dagens Nyheter.
The white-gold band, set with seven small diamonds, went missing in her kitchen in 1995, she told the paper.
Although the ring no longer fits, she hopes to have it enlarged so she can wear it again.
Mrs Paahlsson and her family live on a farm near Mora in central Sweden.
She
took the ring off to do some Christmas baking with her daughters, but
it disappeared from the work surface where it had been left, she
explained to Dagens Nyheter.
The
family searched everywhere and years later took up the tiling on the
floor during renovations, in the hope of finding the ring.
It
was not until 16 years later when Mrs Paahlsson was pulling up carrots
in her garden that she noticed one with the gold band fastened tightly
around it.
"The carrot was sprouting in the middle of the ring. It is quite incredible," her husband Ola said to the newspaper.
 |
| Lena Paahlsson and husband Ola say it is incredible that the ring has been found |
The
couple believe the ring fell into a sink back in 1995 and was lost in
vegetable peelings that were turned into compost or fed to their sheep.
"I had given up hope," Mrs Paahlsson told Dagens Nyheter, adding that she wanted to have the ring adjusted to fit her.
"Now that I have found the ring again I want to be able to use it," she said.
Oregon's Monster Mushroom is World's Biggest Living Thing
Posted by Unknown in Mushroom, News, Research and Technology
The largest living organism ever found has been discovered in an ancient American forest.
The
Armillaria ostoyae, popularly known as the honey mushroom, started from
a single spore too small to see without a microscope. It has been
spreading its black shoestring filaments, called rhizomorphs, through
the forest for an estimated 2,400 years, killing trees as it grows. It
now covers 2,200 acres (880 hectares) of the Malheur National Forest, in
eastern Oregon.
The
outline of the giant fungus stretches 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometres)
across, and it extends an average of three feet (one metre) into the
ground. It covers an area as big as 1,665 football fields.
The
discovery came after Catherine Parks, a scientist at the Pacific
Northwest Research Station in La Grande, Oregon, in 1998 heard about a
big tree die-off from root rot in the forest east of Prairie City.
Using
aerial photos, Ms Parks staked out an area of dying trees and collected
root samples from 112. She identified the fungus through DNA testing.
Then, by comparing cultures of the fungus grown from the 112 samples,
she determined that 61 were from the same organism, meaning a single
fungus had grown bigger than anything anyone had ever described before.
On
the surface, the only evidence of the fungus are clumps of golden
mushrooms that pop up in the autumn with the rain. "They are edible, but
they don't taste the best," said Tina Dreisbach, a botanist and
mycologist with the US Forest Service in Corvallis, Oregon. "I would put
lots of butter and garlic on them."
Digging
into the roots of an affected tree, something that looks like white
latex paint can be seen. These are mats of mycelium, which draw water
and carbohydrates from the tree to feed the fungus and interfere with
the tree's absorption of water and nutrients. The long rhizomorphs that
stretch into the soil invade tree roots through a combination of
pressure and enzyme action.
In
1992, another Armillaria ostoyae was found in Washington state covering
1,500 acres, near Mount Adams, making it the largest known organism at
the time.
"We
just decided to go out looking for one bigger than the last claim,"
said Gregory Filip, associate professor of integrated forest protection
at Oregon State University, and an expert in Armillaria. "There hasn't
been anything measured with any scientific technique that has shown any
plant or animal to be larger than this."
He
said scientists want to learn to control Armillaria because it kills
trees, but they also realise it has served a purpose in nature for
millions of years.
EU confirms virulent H5N1 bird flu found at British poultry farm
Posted by Unknown in Bird Flu, Europe, News, Poultry Farming on Monday, 10 September 2012
The European Commission confirmed on Saturday that the bird flu virus detected at a turkey farm in eastern England was the virulent H5N1 strain, which can be transmitted to humans.
"Samples from the infected establishment were immediately sent to the Community Reference Laboratory in Weybridge, which has this morning swiftly confirmed the disease to be the H5N1 strain of avian influenza," it said in a statement.
"Further tests to characterise the virus are underway, in order to ascertain whether or not it is the Asian strain."
The virus was found at a factory farm run by one of Britain's biggest poultry producers, Bernard Matthews, in Holton, Suffolk.
It is the first time the H5N1 strain has been found at a poultry farm in Britain.
The Bernard Matthews farm is in the heart of the country's chicken and turkey farming region and faces having to slaughter as many as 160,000 of its birds as a precautionary measure.
A three-kilometre (1.8-mile) protection zone and 10-kilometre surveillance zone have been set up around the farm, while strict movement controls are in place and farmers are being told to keep poultry indoors.
Britain's environment ministry said it was set to impose further restrictions, adding it was banning bird shows and pigeon racing nationwide following the outbreak.
In a statement, Bernard Matthews stressed that consumers should not be alarmed and said it had strong biosecurity measures in place.
"While Bernard Matthews can confirm that there has been a case of H5N1 avian influenza at its Holton site, it is important to stress that none of the affected birds have entered the food chain and there is no risk to consumers," it said.
And Peter Kendall, president of the National Farmers' Union, told BBC television that consumers should not stop buying poultry because of the scare.
"There's enormous concern, both for the whole farming community, the producers of poultry in the United Kingdom, and making sure we get the message about how well this will be managed and controlled," he said.
"We're encouraging all farmers to be incredibly viglant, look at their flocks carefully.
"We do need to reassure consumers, however, that this is not an issue about safety of poultry. It's completely safe to eat."
Officials announced on Friday that they had detected the H5 strain of the virus at the farm, though it was not confirmed as H5N1 until Saturday.
Government vets were called to the farm earlier this week after the death of more than 2,000 turkeys before H5N1 was confirmed.
It is still not clear how the virus was transmitted to the farm, where animals are housed in warehouses.
Professor John Oxford, a virologist at London's Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry, told the BBC that the "most likely" explanation was that a small bird had come in through a ventilation shaft.
Adding he was confident that the outbreak could be contained, he said: "I don't think it has made any difference as a threat to the human population...
"One good thing about this virus is that it's easily destroyed. You can kill it with a bit of detergent."
In March 2006, a wild swan found in Cellardyke, on the east Scotland coast, was found to have the H5N1 variant of the virus.
The H5N1 strain can be transmitted to humans and has killed more than 160 people worldwide since 2003, most of them in Asia. - AFP/
Voluntary Lettuce Recall Creates More Worry for Farmers
Posted by Unknown in E.Coli, Food Borne Diseases, News, USA
SAN FRANCISCO, — It is, in scope and severity, a fairly minor recall: about 8,500 cartons of lettuce, which may or may not have come into contact with irrigation water contaminated with E. coli bacteria. No one has gotten sick, the lettuce company involved emphasized, adding that the move was precautionary.
But for farmers in the Salinas Valley of California, already reeling from last month’s deadly E. coli outbreak in spinach, the timing could not have been worse.
“It clearly has the potential to set back our effort to regain consumer confidence,” said Bob Perkins, the executive director of the farm bureau in Monterey County, one of three counties to which the contaminated spinach was linked. “Right now, I don’t know how the story is playing out with the general public, whether it’s an example of another problem with the industry or it’s an example of how the system works.”
The voluntary recall of the lettuce, announced Sunday by the Nunes Company, based in Salinas, involved about 8,500 cartons of green leaf lettuce sold under the Foxy label. Tom Nunes Jr., the company’s president, said Monday that only 250 cartons could have reached consumers and that those were believed to be in one of seven Western states: Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon or Washington. Mr. Nunes said the other cartons had been found and were being destroyed.
The recall was decided on, Mr. Nunes said, after a test of reservoir water at a single Salinas Valley farm that supplies the Nunes Company found “a dangerous concentration of generic E. coli.” But he said there was no evidence yet that it was the potentially lethal strain E. coli O157:H7, which contaminated spinach last month, causing three deaths and sickening nearly 200.
“We don’t know what kind of E. coli it is,” said Mr. Nunes, who added that further test results on the E. coli were expected back Tuesday. “But it was enough to get our attention.”
Federal health authorities commended the recall and said Monday that no illnesses had been linked to the Nunes Company’s products or to the irrigation water. Finding very low levels of E. coli in water is not unusual, said Dr. David Acheson, chief medical officer of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the Food and Drug Administration.
Whether that will reassure customers or result in lettuce wilting at the salad bar remains to be seen. In downtown San Francisco, some delis posted signs informing customers that the shops were not using Foxy lettuce alongside notices that their spinach was safe.
Tina Lopez, an office worker at Washington Mutual here, said she was not worried about the salad she had just bought for lunch. “I figured if they had it out, it was probably O.K.,” Ms. Lopez said. “If anything it’s probably safer because they’re scrutinizing everything.”
That was exactly the kind of reaction farmers’ groups were hoping for. Tim Chelling, a spokesman for Western Growers, which represents 3,000 farmers and shippers in California and Arizona, said the response to the lettuce recall had been more forceful than the one to the spinach.
“I’ve been hearing from everybody and their brother,” Mr. Chelling said. “Everybody is communicating, trading information. People aren’t stumbling around in the fields in shock, but very quickly trying to organize themselves as professionally and diligently as possible.”
The lettuce recall is the latest in a series of food scares, including a recent recall of carrot juice linked to an outbreak of botulism in Georgia and Florida, and an Iowa company’s recall of 5,200 pounds of ground beef thought to have been contaminated with E. coli.
And though the nationwide spinach warning has been lifted, the investigation continues. Last week, officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Office of Criminal Investigations at the F.D.A. searched two processing facilities in the Salinas Valley.
Even more than spinach, however, contaminated lettuce has long been a source of concern for health authorities. In August, the F.D.A. announced the Lettuce Safety Initiative, meant to address E. coli outbreaks in the past decade that had been linked to fields in the Salinas Valley, about 100 miles south of San Francisco.
Still, Dr. Acheson said that Americans safely consumed hundreds of thousands of pounds of leafy greens every year and that the recent outbreak tied to spinach was an agricultural anomaly.
“Every now and again something goes wrong,” he said, “and the spinach example was one of the worst. Are we ever going to reach a point where we can say there is zero risk associated with fresh leafy greens? Probably not.”
But food safety experts said the lettuce recall only affirmed the need for more governmental oversight of the fresh produce industry, and for the type of inspections that governed meat and poultry.
“There’s no federal agency that deals with this,” said Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, public health and food safety at New York University. “This falls through the cracks, and that needs to be fixed.”
That need is even more acute, Dr. Nestle said, because many vegetables are eaten raw. “You could cook spinach, but you don’t ever cook lettuce,” she said.
Dave Kranz, a spokesman for the California Farm Bureau Federation, said it was premature to estimate what kind of economic damage the lettuce recall might inflict on farmers already hit hard by the spinach scare. Although the government warning on that crop was lifted, Mr. Kranz said, many farmers are still on hold, “waiting to see how much demand there will be, and how soon.”
While the Salinas Valley has been the focus of the recent E. Coli investigations, the growing season is poised to shift south, and there, farmers are anxious.
“It’s a huge worry,” said Jack Vessey, a vegetable farmer in El Centro, about 500 miles south of Salinas. Mr. Vessey grows 20 winter crops at his 7,000-acre ranch and just seeded green leaf lettuce fields for the mid-November harvest. Now, however, he is having second thoughts.
“The consumer confidence has to come back,” Mr. Vessey said. “I’m putting seed in the ground. But I’m pretty much gambling on what I plant now.”
Carolyn Marshall contributed reporting from San Francisco, and Libby Sander from Chicago.
