It Could Kill....Your....Kids....!

[genlock]

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- Letting your pets sleep in your bed may be hazardous to your health.

Although it's very rare, research shows pet can transmit infections and diseases-- even the bubonic plague-- to their human owners.
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Researchers from the University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine combed over a wide range of published studies on the subject.

They say very young children and those with compromised immune systems could be at particular risk.

Overall, pet health experts say the benefits of owning a pet far outweigh any potential health risks.

[jag]

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- Letting your pets sleep in your bed may be hazardous to your health.

Although it's very rare, research shows pet can transmit infections and diseases-- even the bubonic plague-- to their human owners.
ADVERTISEMENT
Researchers from the University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine combed over a wide range of published studies on the subject.

They say very young children and those with compromised immune systems could be at particular risk.

Overall, pet health experts say the benefits of owning a pet far outweigh any potential health risks.

"ADVERTISEMENT"?

[genlock]

The "advertisement" was a picture imbedded in the text.
I failed to remove it.
Sorry.

[CoolBreeze]

Odd that this topic came up, as I posted a page a few days ago about all the ways they tried to kill us kids "back in the day". We survived it all, while parents today are afraid of their own shadows and EVERY child is now a "miracle child".

Check this out and see how many you did:

http://www.mywvhome.com/oldies/scared.html

[genlock]

Chocolate to run out soon!

UK daily mail:

The world faces a chocolate ‘drought’ over the next few years, an expert warned yesterday.

Political unrest in the Ivory Coast, where 40 per cent of the world’s cocoa beans are grown, has ‘significantly’ depleted the number of certified fair trade cocoa farmers.

Many have fled the West ­African country, while fair trade training programmes have also come to a halt.

Fairtrade training programmes have ground to a halt because of the danger farmers face in rural areas.

The situation is already affecting chocolate manufacturers, who are facing the highest cocoa prices for over 30 years.

Prices jumped by 10 per cent this month alone. Analysts are predicting they could soon hit $3,720 per metric tonne - a level last seen in January 1979.

It follows a curb on international cocoa exports initiated earlier this week by the country's new president, Alassane Ouattara.

Angus Kennedy, the editor of Kennedy's Confection and a leading British chocolatier, said chocolate producers are facing 'one of the biggest challenges to hit the industry in recent history'.

'Supplies of sustainable cocoa are set to run out, it's that simple,' he said.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1CLT2ic00

[genlock]

From Ft.com:

"The sun is waking up from a long quiet spell. Last week it sent out the strongest flare for four years – and scientists are warning that earth should prepare for an intense electromagnetic storm that, in the worst case, could be a “global Katrina” costing the world economy $2,000bn.


“We have to take the issue of space weather seriously,” said Sir John Beddington, UK chief scientist. “The sun is coming out of a quiet period, and our vulnerability has increased since the last solar maximum [around 2000].”

“Predict and prepare should be the watchwords,” agreed Jane Lubchenco, head of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “So much more of our technology is vulnerable than it was 10 years ago.”

A solar storm starts with an eruption of super-hot gas travelling out from the sun at speeds of up to 5m miles an hour. Electrically charged particles hit earth’s atmosphere 20 to 30 hours later, causing electromagnetic havoc.

Last week’s solar storm may have been the biggest since 2007, but it was relatively small in historical terms.

It caused some radio communications problems and minor disruption of civil aviation as airlines routed flights away from the polar regions, said Dr Lubchenco.

A more extreme storm can shut down communications satellites for many hours – or even cause permanent damage to their components. On the ground, the intense magnetic fluctuations can induce surges in power lines, leading to grid failures such as the one that blacked out the whole of Quebec in 1989.

Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/67444b2c-3d13 ... z1EXbsN7Dy

The 11-year cycle of solar activity is quite variable and the present one is running late, with the next maximum expected in 2013.

The peak was not expected to be very strong but that should not cause complacency, said Tom Bogdan, director of the US Space Weather Prediction Center.

The most intense solar storm on record, which ruined much of the world’s newly installed telegraph network in 1859, took place during an otherwise weak cycle. An 1859-type storm today could knock out the world’s information, communications and electricity distribution systems, at a cost estimated by the US government at $2,000bn.

In terms of terrestrial vulnerability, the biggest change since the 2000 peak is that the world has become more dependent on global positioning system satellites – and not just for navigation. The world’s mobile phone networks depend on ultra-precise GPS time signals for their co-ordination."


We are going to die.

[genlock]

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/05/11/ ... -in-study/

[genlock]

The inside of the appliances, which four in ten homes in Britain own, are the perfect breeding ground for fungi associated with potentially deadly illnesses.

The moist and hot environment, combined with the alkaline water caused by the dishwasher tablets, means that the machines appear to have created a previously unknown and possibly serious threat to human health, the research paper has suggested.

The scientists studied 189 dishwashers in 101 different homes around the world. They found 62 per cent of dishwashers contained fungi on the rubber band in the door. More than half of these included the black yeasts Exophiala dermatitidis and E. phaeomuriformis which are known to be dangerous to human health.

Writing in the journal Fungal Biology, Dr Polona Zalar of the University of Ljubljana, said that "the potential hazard they represent should not be overlooked".

Her co-author Nina Gunde-Cimerman told The Daily Telegraph: "One thing that is not in the report is that we tested the dishes after they had been cleaned in these dishwashers and they were full of this black yeast, so too the cutlery that you put in your mouth. We just don't know how serious this could be."


Black yeasts are particularly dangerous for people with cystic fibrosis, as they are able to attack the lungs. They have also been found to occasionally cause fatal infections in healthy humans.

Both Exophiala species displayed remarkable tolerance to heat, high salt concentrations, aggressive detergents and to both acid and alkaline water.

This explains why the fungi survived even in high temperatures between 60 º to 80 º C, and despite the use of detergents and salt in the dishwasher.

This is the latest in a long line of health scares to raise concerns about everyday consumer goods. Which?, the consumer group, found that computer keyboards contained five times as many bugs as a lavatory on average. Meanwhile tests on shoppers’ bags, by the University of Arizona, revealed half contained traces of E.coli, the food poisoning bug that killed over 20 people in Europe over the last month.