About that Popular Guardian Story on the Collapse of Industrial Civilization

The end of the world, like everything worth knowing these days, will be tweeted:

NASA-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for ‘irreversible collapse’? | Nafeez Ahmed http://t.co/nWqOcD3UkB

— Guardian Environment (@guardianeco) March 14, 2014

If a study with the imprimatur of a major U.S. government agency thinks civilization may soon be destined to fall apart, I want to know more about that.

Click.

The piece cuts to the chase in the opener:

A new study sponsored by Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilization could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.

What follows is a straightforward summary of the paper, which the Guardian writer tells us has been accepted for publication in a peer reviewed journal called Ecological Economics.

I’m going to discuss the actual paper separately in the second part of this post. First, let’s talk about the Guardian write-up, its author, and how his piece went global, the latter of which is a sad commentary on journalism today.

Technically, the story appears on a blog in the environment section of the Guardian. The blog’s host is Nafeez Ahmed, who in his Guardian bio describes himself as “a bestselling author, investigative journalist and international security scholar.”

Since joining the Guardian’s blogging network in 2013, Ahmed has carved out what I would call the doomsday beat. He highlights individuals and academic papers that reinforce the thesis of his 2011 documentary, “The Crisis of Civilization,” which is about

how global crises like ecological disaster, financial meltdown, dwindling oil reserves, terrorism and food shortages are converging symptoms of a single, failed global system.

In a post last year, I briefly mentioned him, saying, “If you want a tour guide to the apocalypse, Ahmed is your guy.” Understandably, he didn’t appreciate this backhanded compliment.

In fairness to him, there is a seemingly never-ending supply of journal papers with apocalyptic themes to choose from.

A good example, of course, is the collapse paper he disingenuously hyped as being “NASA-sponsored.” (You’ll soon understand why that was deceptive.) Evidently, Ahmed  was shown the paper by its authors ahead of publication, which he turned into an article/post with this headline:

Nasa-funded study: Industrial civilization headed for ‘irreversible collapse’?

Ahmed thinks of himself as a journalist, so he writes many of his blog posts in a superficial news story format. He even refers to some of his posts as “exclusives,” which is how he characterized his write-up on the supposedly funded NASA study. Journalistic gloss, however, doesn’t mask fundamental journalistic shortcomings.

In the collapse paper Ahmed wrote about last week, he explains how the authors came to their conclusions, sprinkling in quotes from the paper. But he provides no reaction to the study from independent experts. If he questioned the three co-authors themselves, you wouldn’t know, since they are not quoted in his piece. To Ahmed, getting an exclusive apparently means not having to do any actual reporting.

On twitter, Ahmed was challenged to respond to rebuttals of the study he uncritically accepted. He demurred: “I’m just the reporter- ask the study authors.”

Chew on that for a second.

Ahmed’s summary of the soon-to-be published Ecological Economics paper at his Guardian blog–which he thought of as a big scoop–wouldn’t pass Journalism 101. Nonetheless, it was picked up by many other outlets around the world and became a sensation on social media. He was thrilled:

My NASA study exclusive has not just gone viral, it’s gone global and is making headlines in national newspapers all over

— Nafeez Ahmed (@NafeezAhmed) March 17, 2014

Naturally, the Daily Mail jumped all over it, as did the New York Post, which headlined its piece, “NASA Predicts the End of Western Civilization.”

Other headlines included: The National Journal: “Here’s How NASA Thinks Society Will Collapse”; The Times of India: “NASA-Funded Study Warns of Collapse of Civilization in Coming Decades”; and Popular Science: “NASA-Sponsored Study Warns of Possible Collapse of Civilization.”

Do you notice anything familiar about those headlines? NASA did and was pretty steamed. It recently issued a statement saying that the collapse paper

was not solicited, directed or reviewed by NASA. It is an independent study by the university researchers utilizing research tools developed for a separate NASA activity. As is the case with all independent research, the views and conclusions in the paper are those of the authors alone. NASA does not endorse the paper or its conclusions.

So much for the sexy NASA angle that was undoubtedly a big selling point. Not that it matters anymore. The marginal NASA connection was played up and successfully dangled as click bait. Mission Accomplished, Guardian editors and Ahmed.

So what else fell through the cracks on this story? Well, if you bother to read through all the herd-like media coverage of the study, you’ll notice that every piece essentially duplicates what the Guardian published. As far as I can tell, all the other similarly sensationalist articles did was reproduce or restate what appeared in the Guardian. And we know how much reporting went into that big exclusive!

Nobody from these other outlets talked to the study’s authors or solicited opinion from independent experts. Everyone willingly ceded the story to the Guardian. After teasing its readers with a few excerpts, PopSci gushed:

You should really head over to the Guardian for the full story; it’s worth reading.

This was not an isolated sentiment. Many people retweeted the story, including journalists in my twitter feed. There were a couple of skeptical outliers, some folks who know about mathematical models and were incredulous after reading both the study and the Guardian story. One is Robert Wilson, a UK Mathematical Ecology PhD Student who wrote up his impressions at his personal blog. Another is the U.S. science journalist David Appell, who offered his thoughts on the study’s model and (like Wilson) also took note of Ahmed’s conspiracy theorist leanings.

The huge, uncritical pick-up of the Guardian story perturbed me. Why was everyone so quick and seemingly content to parrot a story that contained no actual reporting? After all, it was just a blogger’s interpretive summary of an unpublished journal paper. Why didn’t anyone reach out to the paper’s authors or bother to call a few sources to examine the merits of the study?

So I thought I’d fill that journalistic vacuum myself. In part two of this post, I’ll report what the authors of the paper had to say after I contacted them, and what numerous, highly regarded experts think of their study. This is completed. I’m just proofing the material and breaking it out into a separate post.

Check back in several hours for part two.

View the original article here

About that Popular Guardian Story on the Collapse of Industrial Civilization

The end of the world, like everything worth knowing these days, will be tweeted:

NASA-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for ‘irreversible collapse’? | Nafeez Ahmed http://t.co/nWqOcD3UkB

— Guardian Environment (@guardianeco) March 14, 2014

If a study with the imprimatur of a major U.S. government agency thinks civilization may soon be destined to fall apart, I want to know more about that.

Click.

The piece cuts to the chase in the opener:

A new study sponsored by Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilization could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.

What follows is a straightforward summary of the paper, which the Guardian writer tells us has been accepted for publication in a peer reviewed journal called Ecological Economics.

I’m going to discuss the actual paper separately in the second part of this post. First, let’s talk about the Guardian write-up, its author, and how his piece went global, the latter of which is a sad commentary on journalism today.

Technically, the story appears on a blog in the environment section of the Guardian. The blog’s host is Nafeez Ahmed, who in his Guardian bio describes himself as “a bestselling author, investigative journalist and international security scholar.”

Since joining the Guardian’s blogging network in 2013, Ahmed has carved out what I would call the doomsday beat. He highlights individuals and academic papers that reinforce the thesis of his 2011 documentary, “The Crisis of Civilization,” which is about

how global crises like ecological disaster, financial meltdown, dwindling oil reserves, terrorism and food shortages are converging symptoms of a single, failed global system.

In a post last year, I briefly mentioned him, saying, “If you want a tour guide to the apocalypse, Ahmed is your guy.” Understandably, he didn’t appreciate this backhanded compliment.

In fairness to him, there is a seemingly never-ending supply of journal papers with apocalyptic themes to choose from.

A good example, of course, is the collapse paper he disingenuously hyped as being “NASA-sponsored.” (You’ll soon understand why that was deceptive.) Evidently, Ahmed  was shown the paper by its authors ahead of publication, which he turned into an article/post with this headline:

Nasa-funded study: Industrial civilization headed for ‘irreversible collapse’?

Ahmed thinks of himself as a journalist, so he writes many of his blog posts in a superficial news story format. He even refers to some of his posts as “exclusives,” which is how he characterized his write-up on the supposedly funded NASA study. Journalistic gloss, however, doesn’t mask fundamental journalistic shortcomings.

In the collapse paper Ahmed wrote about last week, he explains how the authors came to their conclusions, sprinkling in quotes from the paper. But he provides no reaction to the study from independent experts. If he questioned the three co-authors themselves, you wouldn’t know, since they are not quoted in his piece. To Ahmed, getting an exclusive apparently means not having to do any actual reporting.

On twitter, Ahmed was challenged to respond to rebuttals of the study he uncritically accepted. He demurred: “I’m just the reporter- ask the study authors.”

Chew on that for a second.

Ahmed’s summary of the soon-to-be published Ecological Economics paper at his Guardian blog–which he thought of as a big scoop–wouldn’t pass Journalism 101. Nonetheless, it was picked up by many other outlets around the world and became a sensation on social media. He was thrilled:

My NASA study exclusive has not just gone viral, it’s gone global and is making headlines in national newspapers all over

— Nafeez Ahmed (@NafeezAhmed) March 17, 2014

Naturally, the Daily Mail jumped all over it, as did the New York Post, which headlined its piece, “NASA Predicts the End of Western Civilization.”

Other headlines included: The National Journal: “Here’s How NASA Thinks Society Will Collapse”; The Times of India: “NASA-Funded Study Warns of Collapse of Civilization in Coming Decades”; and Popular Science: “NASA-Sponsored Study Warns of Possible Collapse of Civilization.”

Do you notice anything familiar about those headlines? NASA did and was pretty steamed. It recently issued a statement saying that the collapse paper

was not solicited, directed or reviewed by NASA. It is an independent study by the university researchers utilizing research tools developed for a separate NASA activity. As is the case with all independent research, the views and conclusions in the paper are those of the authors alone. NASA does not endorse the paper or its conclusions.

So much for the sexy NASA angle that was undoubtedly a big selling point. Not that it matters anymore. The marginal NASA connection was played up and successfully dangled as click bait. Mission Accomplished, Guardian editors and Ahmed.

So what else fell through the cracks on this story? Well, if you bother to read through all the herd-like media coverage of the study, you’ll notice that every piece essentially duplicates what the Guardian published. As far as I can tell, all the other similarly sensationalist articles did was reproduce or restate what appeared in the Guardian. And we know how much reporting went into that big exclusive!

Nobody from these other outlets talked to the study’s authors or solicited opinion from independent experts. Everyone willingly ceded the story to the Guardian. After teasing its readers with a few excerpts, PopSci gushed:

You should really head over to the Guardian for the full story; it’s worth reading.

This was not an isolated sentiment. Many people retweeted the story, including journalists in my twitter feed. There were a couple of skeptical outliers, some folks who know about mathematical models and were incredulous after reading both the study and the Guardian story. One is Robert Wilson, a UK Mathematical Ecology PhD Student who wrote up his impressions at his personal blog. Another is the U.S. science journalist David Appell, who offered his thoughts on the study’s model and (like Wilson) also took note of Ahmed’s conspiracy theorist leanings.

The huge, uncritical pick-up of the Guardian story perturbed me. Why was everyone so quick and seemingly content to parrot a story that contained no actual reporting? After all, it was just a blogger’s interpretive summary of an unpublished journal paper. Why didn’t anyone reach out to the paper’s authors or bother to call a few sources to examine the merits of the study?

So I thought I’d fill that journalistic vacuum myself. In part two of this post, I’ll report what the authors of the paper had to say after I contacted them, and what numerous, highly regarded experts think of their study. This is completed. I’m just proofing the material and breaking it out into a separate post.

Check back in several hours for part two.

View the original article here

The Most Depressing Things <em>True Detective</em> Says About The Self Are True

We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self. A secretion of sensory experience and feeling. Programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when, in fact, nobody is anybody.

Rust Cohle has tumbled down a deep, dark philosophical hole and wants us to follow him. In HBO’s episodic crime drama True Detective, Cohle—played masterfully by Matthew McConaughey—accentuates his homicide investigations with disturbing existential rumination. Listening to Cohle lecture on the futile nature of human life or the cosmic indifference of the universe is emotionally arresting to say the least. His “corrosive” soul is the fulcrum for the supernatural element in True Detective, a nihilistic car wreck to stare at each week.

But Cohle is more than just dark when he speaks about human nature, he is right.

When Cohle says that we are “programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody,” he’s not just trying to ruin partner Marty Hart’s “silent reflection periods,” he is bringing up some of the biggest questions in the scientific exploration of human consciousness. Is the mind separate from the body? Who is in control? What makes the mind? Some research suggests that fully understanding consciousness involves biting the bullet that Cohle loads in the gun: our sense of self is programmed, a construct, an illusion.

Ask most people if mind and body are one and they will say no. This is referred to as “naïve dualism.” The people who think the body and mind are separate—more specifically the physical brain and the mind—are not naïve or stupid themselves, so to speak, but rather we are born thinking this way without consideration. When we look in the mirror, for example, we instinctively comment on our physical appearance separate from the mind. “You” haven’t aged but your body looks older. When you trip on the sidewalk you might say your legs gave out, but it wasn’t your fault. We feel as though we drive our bodies like a vessel our minds inhabit. But these feelings are still considered naïve because of what we now know about the brain.

James Bridges/Michele K. Short/HBO

When we knew nothing of where the mind sprang from, it was understandable to think ourselves something of a puppet master. We are born (and cultured) with a sense of self located somewhere behind the eyes, in between the temples. Ultimately, our intuitive sense of self is like our pre-programmed intuitive sense of physics—useful in most situations, but not very accurate when we ask bigger questions.

With support from countless experiments and a number of intersecting fields, science is now certain mind and brain are one. More succinctly, “The mind is what the brain does.” If you—the you that harbors your personality, your will, your conscious thought—were truly separate from the physical brain, then brain damage or surgery could never change who you were. But it does. In theory, a surgeon could remove or alter a part of your brain and you would become an entirely different person (the case of Phineas Gage being the classic example). We’ve seen it enough times to know that our naïve dualism lives up to the designation. You are your brain. Dualism is no longer a scientifically tenable position. It may be a philosophical one, but Cohle has something to say about that too.

The dark truth Rust Cohle is alluding to is this: Who you are is entirely dependent on the physical brain, “this meat,” as Cohle puts it. And this meat makes mistakes about reality all the time.

Illusions are the easiest (and maybe the least depressing) way to see that our brains make mistakes. A famous optical illusion like this one makes it pretty clear that something is off. No matter how many times you try to see it, only by changing the conditions does something flip in your brain to say, “These blocks are the same color.”

Your brain is a prediction and modeling machine. There is simply too much information coming into our senses at any one time not to take advantage of some shortcuts. In the block example, your brain is assuming that the blocks are a different color because of their apparent lighting and 3D orientation. It makes a guess and that’s what you perceive.

Another example you’re going to hate me for: Your nose is always in your field of vision. The only reason why you don’t notice it all the time is that your brain is effectively editing it out like some green screen effect. Not only does the brain edit out reality, it fills it in. For example, you have two fairly substantial blind spots in your vision that you never notice. Only when you do a test like this do they “appear.” Otherwise, you would never see two large black spots in your vision. The brain is making predictions about the world and modeling what would be in those blind spots if the world were consistent within them. It’s a weird concept—the world we perceive is only our brain’s best simulation of what is beyond our eyes, ears, and noses. It gets even weirder than that.

In The Self Illusion, psychologist Bruce Hood lays out the case for how the brain’s models extend all the way to the self. Life seems rich and continuous and coherent to us, but thanks to the numerous illusions that fool us we know that’s not true. Because of how our vision works, for example, we are functionally blind between the times our eyes dart from one focal point to another, but we never notice. (Just try to see your eyes moving in a mirror.) Hood claims this blindness adds up to hours each day, but it’s never a part of our conscious experience. Those kinds of insights lead to a disturbing conclusion—the brain also models the self.

The “you” that rationalizes and chooses and deliberates is simply a way for the brain to navigate the world. Having a sense of a self that apparently controls the body from behind the eyes is an efficient way to deal with other sentient creatures, and evolved along with our intelligence, or so psychologists like Hood suggest. This conclusion doesn’t necessarily have to come from a scientific perspective either. In Buddhist philosophy, the term “anatta” refers to Rust’s contention of the “not-self” or the self illusion. If you simply pay attention to the nature of perception—what you feel and how—eventually you will notice that the sensation of a singular sense of self melts away. Of course, that kind of meditation does not work for everyone, and does not prove there is no “you.” Maybe shrinking your mirror down to the size of a quarter will help.

Think about the brain’s self modeling like The Matrix. In that film, humans are kept alive and thinking by electrical inputs wired straight into their brains. The humans in turn create a sense of self and experience from these inputs alone. But their sensory experience is completely illusory, and they’d never know it. Is that really any different from how we experience the world? Isn’t the self just a jumbled of sensory input that is stitched together like some rag doll that looks terrible up close? Now that’s thinking like Rust Cohle.

Rust Cohle by p1xer on deviantART

Matthew McConaughey’s character in True Detective could go down in TV history as the world’s biggest bummer—a pessimist walking into extinction. That doesn’t mean he’s wrong. Knowing that the mind is not separate from the brain, that our senses can be fooled, that our sense of self can break down if we simply pay attention to the here and now, Rust Cohle is right—we are a multitude of unconscious processes cobbled together in a locked room and labeled “You”.

People… I have seen the finale of thousands of lives man. Young, old, each one was so sure of their realness. That their sensory experience constituted a unique individual. Purpose, meaning. So certain that they were more than a biological puppet. Truth wills out, everybody sees once the strings are cut off all down.

–

If you haven’t seen True Detective, this will give you a good sense of the fantastic (and depressing) acting you are missing (video contains spoilers):

And check out the incredible fan art!

–

Human consciousness is nowhere close to figured out, and there is no way I could cover every argument about the self here. For more, check out these videos and books:

The Self Illusion: How Your Brain Creates You—A talk by psychologist Bruce Hood

Me, Myself, and Why: Searching for the Science of Self—By Jennifer Ouellette

The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity—By Bruce Hood

Image Credits:
Rust Cohle by p1xer on deviantART
James Bridges/Michele K. Short/HBO

View the original article here

NEW: Travelers' Health - Advice about Cholera for Travelers Arriving in the United States from Haiti

There is an outbreak in Haiti of a disease called cholera. Cholera is an infection that can cause severe diarrhea and can result in life-threatening loss of fluids from the body (dehydration). Without proper care, a person can die from this disease.

People most often get cholera by drinking water or eating food that has cholera germs in it. Water can be contaminated with the feces of a person sick with cholera. Food can be contaminated by water that has cholera germs in it or if prepared or handled by a person sick with cholera.

Contact CDC 24 Hours/Every Day
Phone: 1-800-CDC-INFO (232-4636)
TTY: (888) 232-6348
Email: cdcinfo@cdc.gov
CDC’s website on the Haiti cholera outbreak:  http://www.cdc.gov/haiticholera/

View the original article here

UPDATE: Frequently Asked Questions About the Haiti Cholera Outbreak

Beginning in mid-May, the Haitian Ministry of Health surveillance and reports from PAHO and other partners indicated an upsurge in cholera cases and deaths in some parts of Haiti. These cases have been primarily seen in the Departments of South-East, Grand-Anse, South and West. As of May 29, 2011, there have been 321,066 cases and 5,337 deaths and the cumulative case fatality rate is 1.6%.

The prevention steps are the same now as they have been since the original outbreak of cholera in Haiti in fall 2010: Drink and use safe water. Wash your hands often with soap and safe water. If no soap is available, scrub hands often with ash or sand and rinse with safe water. Use latrines or bury feces. Do not defecate in any body of water. Cook food well, keep it covered, eat it hot, and peel fruits and vegetables. Clean up safely—in the kitchen and in places where the family bathes and washes clothes. For more information see: Five Basic Cholera Prevention Messages

The outbreak of cholera was confirmed in Haiti on October 21, 2010.

Although we can’t be certain, experience from the Peru outbreak in the early 1990s and from other countries in Latin America suggests that we should expect to identify additional cases for many months to several years.

No, the current outbreak is not a result of the January 2010 earthquake. Outbreaks of epidemic cholera have not been documented in Haiti before or anywhere in the Caribbean since the mid-nineteenth century. For a cholera outbreak to occur, two conditions have to be met: (1) there must be significant breaches in the water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure used by groups of people, permitting large-scale exposure to food or water contaminated with Vibrio cholerae organisms; and (2) cholera must be present in the population. While it is unclear how cholera was introduced to Haiti, both of these conditions now exist.

Cholera is an acute, diarrheal illness caused by infection of the intestine with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The infection is often mild or without symptoms, but sometimes it can be severe.

Cholera infection is often mild or without symptoms, but can sometimes be severe.  In severe cases, the infected person may experience profuse watery diarrhea, vomiting, and leg cramps, which can cause rapid loss of body fluids and lead to dehydration and shock.  Without treatment, death can occur within hours.

A person can get cholera by drinking water or eating food contaminated with the cholera bacterium. In an epidemic, the source of the contamination is usually the feces of an infected person that contaminates the food and/or water.  The disease can rapidly spread in areas with inadequate treatment of sewage and drinking water, such as Haiti.  However, at this time the origin of this outbreak is unknown and CDC hopes to learn more in the course of its response to this outbreak.

Person-to-person transmission is extremely rare, even to healthcare workers during epidemics. Drinking water and food contaminated with Vibrio cholerae from the feces of an infected person is the most common source of cholera infections.

Cholera can be treated by immediately replacing fluids and salts lost through diarrhea using oral rehydration solution. This solution is used throughout the world to treat diarrhea. Antibiotics may also be used to shorten the course and diminish the severity of the illness. However, they are not as important as receiving oral or intravenous rehydration therapy.

Cholera is found naturally in the environment in many areas around the world and can move from place to place via contaminated water or food, or infected people.

Cholera can be prevented by both visitors and residents of Haiti by following the Five Basic Cholera Prevention Messages:

Drink and use safe water* Bottled water with unbroken seals and canned/bottled carbonated beverages are safe to drink and use Use safe water to brush your teeth, wash and prepare food, and to make ice Clean food preparation areas and kitchenware with soap and safe water and let dry completely before reuse *Piped water sources, drinks sold in cups or bags, or ice may not be safe and should be boiled or treated with chlorine.

To be sure water is safe to drink and use: Boil it or treat it with a chlorine product or household bleach If boiling, bring your water to a complete boil for at least 1 minute To treat your water with chlorine, use one of the locally available treatment products and follow the instructions If a chlorine treatment product is not available, you can treat your water with household bleach. Add 8 drops of household bleach for every 1 gallon of water (or 2 drops of household bleach for every 1 liter of water) and wait 30 minutes before drinking Always store your treated water in a clean, covered container Wash your hands often with soap and safe water* Before you eat or prepare food Before feeding your children After using the latrine or toilet After cleaning your child’s bottom After taking care of someone ill with diarrhea * If no soap is available, scrub hands often with ash or sand and rinse with safe water. Use latrines or bury your feces (poop); do not defecate in any body of water Use latrines or other sanitation systems, like chemical toilets, to dispose of feces Wash hands with soap and safe water after defecating Clean latrines and surfaces contaminated with feces using a solution of 1 part household bleach to 9 parts water What if I don’t have a latrine or chemical toilet? Defecate at least 30 meters away from any body of water and then bury your feces Dispose of plastic bags containing feces in latrines, at collection points if available, or bury it in the ground. Do not put plastic bags in chemical toilets Dig new latrines or temporary pit toilets at least a half-meter deep and at least 30 meters away from any body of water Cook food well (especially seafood), keep it covered, eat it hot, and peel fruits and vegetables* Boil it, Cook it, Peel it, or Leave it Be sure to cook shellfish (like crabs and crayfish) until they are very hot all the way through *Avoid raw foods other than fruits and vegetables you have peeled yourself. Clean up safely—in the kitchen and in places where the family bathes and washes clothes Wash yourself, your children, diapers, and clothes, 30 meters away from drinking water sources

In the United States, cholera was prevalent in the 1800s but water-related spread has been eliminated by modern water and sewage treatment systems.  However, U.S. travelers to areas with epidemic cholera (for example, parts of Africa, Asia, or Latin America) may be exposed to the cholera bacterium.  Additionally, travelers may bring contaminated seafood back to the United States, which can result in foodborne outbreaks of cholera.

At this time, CDC does not recommend cholera vaccines for travelers since their risk of contracting the disease is extremely low. For cholera vaccine to be effective, people need two doses, and it takes time for vaccinated people to become immune. Multiple weeks can elapse before they are protected following vaccination. Since most people travel for a short period of time, the vaccine is not recommended. Basic hygiene precautions should always be taken.

Information can be accessed on CDC’s Travelers’ Health Website as well as the CDC Cholera Website.

CDC, in collaboration with the US government led by USAID, is assisting the government of Haiti, PAHO and several other international health agencies in responding to the cholera outbreak. There are several laboratory tests in progress in CDC labs, including a variety of molecular tests, which will help determine the genetic connections between the bacterial isolates from the Haiti outbreak and other strains around the world. CDC will continue to gather information about outbreak strains for comparison to other known cholera strains. However, the most important goals right now are to save lives and reduce the spread of disease  in Haiti.

View the original article here

[Editors' Choice] Clearing the Air About Stroke

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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The Checkup: More questions about cell phone safety

Are cell phones safe? That question has gotten a lot of attention, but so far, as my colleague pointed out on Monday, there has been no convincing evidence that those ubiquitous devices actually cause health problems. However, a new federal study may stir things up further, even though the bottom line again is that it raises more questions than it answers.

For the study, Nora Volkow of the National Institutes of Health and colleagues conducted PET scans on the brains of 47 subjects throughout 2009, as they randomly held phones up to their left or right ears for 50 minutes at a time, sometimes on but muted and other times off.

The researchers found that the activity of the entire brain did not differ between when the phone was on or off. But activity in the brain region closest to the antenna, known as the orbitofrontal cortex and temporal pole, was significantly higher -- about 7 percent more active -- when the phone was on, compared to when it was off.

"The increases were significantly correlated with the estimated electromagnetic field amplitudes, both for absolute metabolism and normalized metabolism," the authors write. "These results provide evidence that the human brain is sensitive to the effects of RF-EMFs from acute cell phone exposures."

They add, however, that "these results provide no information as to their relevance regarding potential carcinogenic effects (or lack of such effects) from chronic cell phone use. Further studies are needed to assess if these effects could have potential long-term harmful consequences."

In an editorial accompanying the study, Henry Lai of the University of Washington and Lennart Hardell of University Hospital in Orebro, Sweden, said the meaning of the findings remains far from clear but "warrant further investigation."

"An important question is whether glucose metabolism in the brain would be chronically increased from regular use of a wireless phone with higher radiofrequency energy than those used in the current study. Potential acute and chronic health effects need to be clarified. Much has to be done to further investigate and understand these effects," they wrote.

The findings may indicate that other changes in brain function occur from exposure to radiofrequency emissions, they said.

"If so, this might have effects on other organs, leading to unwanted physiological responses. Further studies on biomarkers of functional brain changes from exposure to radiofrequency radiation are definitely warranted," they wrote.

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A shot at the truth about gun violence

A shot at the truth about gun violence - opinion - 23 January 2013 - New Scientist@import "/css/gridmain.css"; @import "/css/article.css";@import "/css/comlist.css";@import "/data/images/ns/haas/haas.css";/* specific to this article view */#maincol {border-top:solid #A7A7A7 1px; padding-top:15px;}/* Basic commenting CSS*/.combx {margin:10px 0 0 0;padding:10px 20px 10px 10px;}#compnl {border-top:solid #A7A7A7 1px;}/* comment styles for article page only *//* form styles */#comform {margin:20px 50px 20px 10px;}#comform label{width: 90px;text-align: right;}#comform div.userhelp {margin:0 0 2px 115px;}#comform input.textinput, #comform textarea {width:300px;}#comform div.floatclear, #comformlogin div.floatclear {margin-bottom:10px;}#comform input#comcancel{margin:0 10px 0 0;}#comform input#compreview{margin:0 10px 0 0;}#comform textarea {height:95px;}#comformlogin {margin:20px 100px 20px 100px;}#comformlogin label{width: 120px;}#comformlogin input.textinput {width:150px;}#snv_opinion a {background: url('/img/bg/snv_opinion.jpg') no-repeat; color:#fff;}/* article social media */#sharebtns {width:440px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:20px; padding:15px 0 15px 10px; background:#F2F2F2;}#sharebtns div.floatleft {margin-right:10px;}#sharebtns .stumble {margin-top:1px;}.grpTools img {margin-right:8px; margin-top:9px;}#fblike {margin-top:41px;} (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='//www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-B92N');Opinion    Log in

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A shot at the truth about gun violence23 January 2013Magazine issue 2901. Subscribe and saveFor similar stories, visit theWeapons Technologyand US national issuesTopic Guides

The best ways to prevent gun-related crime have never been properly investigated. It is time for the scientific evidence to trump ideology

LOVE it or loathe it, there is no denying that the US National Rifle Association (NRA) has been stunningly successful in its efforts to fight gun control. In the 1990s, it even managed to largely shut down US government research into gun violence as a public-health problem - an unbelievable situation that still stands today.

This is why President Obama's clear instruction to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to initiate research into reducing gun violence is important and necessary (see "Obama to scientists: Tell us how to calm gun violence").

But it is only the first step. Deciding whether to fund the research will be down to Congress, where the NRA's influence still holds strong.

If the NRA succeeds in blocking this attempt to bring science to bear on America's gun problem, it will be another demoralising example of the power of money over evidence-based politics.

The NRA presents itself as a civil rights group dedicated to upholding and defending the Second Amendment to the US Constitution - the one about the right to "keep and bear arms". The gun lobby interprets this as an inalienable individual right to own guns.

Although the NRA was founded on this platform, it is important to recognise that it has strong links to the firearms industry, which supplies it with millions of dollars in funding.

Viewed from this perspective, the NRA's strangling of research is utterly reprehensible. Imagine if a group associated with food manufacturers were able to curtail research on obesity, or if tobacco interests had nixed the science that tied smoking to lung cancer.

Hopefully we will now get some fresh answers on the best approaches to preventing gun violence. But if this knowledge is to be acted on, politicians and the public on both sides will need to abandon entrenched positions.

Liberal opponents of the gun lobby often assume that the answer lies in tougher restrictions on ownership - but that isn't necessarily where the biggest gains could be made.

Advocates for gun rights must accept that public-health researchers aren't the stooges of a sinister bureaucracy intent on seizing their guns. They are professionals trying to use the scientific method to save lives. They should be set free to do this work, and then listened to.

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InterpretationThu Jan 24 11:49:41 GMT 2013 by Eric Kvaalen

"...the Second Amendment to the US Constitution - the one about the right to 'keep and bear arms'. The gun lobby interprets this as an inalienable individual right to own guns."

That's also the interpretation of the Supreme Court (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller ). The amendment states, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

I don't think it's right to view the NRA as the arm of the gun manufacture industry. The NRA has a huge amount of popular support in the country.

login and replyreport this commentInterpretationThu Jan 24 17:25:59 GMT 2013 by Please Morgan

If people have the inalienable right to keep and bear guns, then everyone in the country should be issued with a gun free - otherwise people who can't afford guns are deprived of that right - unless they go stealing guns.

Guns (or the second amendment) thus incentivize crime - the stealing of guns - and to further use for the purposes of crime. That''s the reality.

There is nothing ideological about the gun business or the 'rights' that say it should exist.

login and replyreport this commentview threadInterpretationFri Feb 01 03:45:12 GMT 2013 by ullrich fischer

That's not what I've been reading in the news sites. There is huge popular support even among NRA members for mandatory background checks and limitation of clip sizes.

(long URL - click here)



The 2nd amendment was written when the apex of military technology was the muzzle loading musket. I think even the most "liberal" anti-gun fanatic would be ok with everyone in the country of any age or mental condition being supplied with a single shot muzzle loading musket.

There is also the bit about "well regulated militia". Since when is every tom dick and Charlie Manson who wants a machine gun a member of a "well regulated militia"?

LaPierre kinda shot himself in the foot with his incredibly stupid suggestion that arming teachers with automatic weapons was a viable solution to the problem. Right, a school full of hormone addled adolescent students and automatic weapons. What could possibly go wrong?

login and replyreport this commentview threadScience Will Be The Basis For Rulling EliteThu Jan 24 13:34:12 GMT 2013 by embutler

It is time for the scientific evidence to trump ideology>>

what an excuse for a dictatorship

it certainly worked for the russians ,who described their econmy as driven. by science.

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