ApocaDocuments (13) for the "Biology Breach" scenario from this week
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Sun, Jan 18, 2009
from London Guardian:
Stop scattering ashes, families are told
So many people want to scatter the ashes of family and friends in beauty spots that the government has been forced to step in with anti-pollution rules. Last month, staff at the Jane Austen House Museum in Hampshire discovered piles of human ashes scattered around the novelist's home and gardens, and football grounds, rivers, parks, golf courses, lakes, rivers and mountain tops have all become favourite remembrance spots.
Until 1960, only about one in three people in Britain chose cremation and it was uncommon for anyone to ask to have their ashes scattered. But, says the Cremation Society, there are now more than 420,000 cremations a year, 70 percent of all deaths.
Most families want to sprinkle the ashes in places meaningful to the deceased. In the 1970s, about 12 percent of ashes were taken away from the crematorium - now it is nearer two-thirds. ...
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What are we supposed to do with the ashes -- eat 'em?
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Sun, Jan 18, 2009
from Dhaka Daily Star:
Industrial pollution chokes people, crops alike
Ammonia mixed toxic gas and urea dust emitted from Jamuna Fertiliser Factory (JFF) in Jamalpur have allegedly been wreaking havoc on the local environment and causing debilitating illnesses among the locals.
The toxic gas of the largest urea producing factory, at Tarandani of Sarishabari upazila in Tangail, has also been harming crops, trees, livestock, poultry and fish resources for the last 17 years. Many trees around the factory do not have a single leaf....Since its inception the JFF has been producing 1,700 tonnes of urea per day, 5,60,000 tonnes a year. Urea is produced from ammonia and carbon dioxide gas. Chemical formaldehyde is also mixed with the urea to make it hard. Formaldehyde acts as a disinfectant and it kills most bacteria and fungi (including their spores). ...
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This is a strange case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Formaldehyde.
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Sat, Jan 17, 2009
from Science News:
Livestock manure stinks for infant health
The manure generated by thousands of cows or pigs doesn’t just stink — it may seriously affect human health.
New research examining two decades’ worth of livestock production data finds a positive relationship between increased production at industrial farms and infant death rates in the counties where the farms reside. The study reported in the February American Journal of Agricultural Economics implicates air pollution and suggests that Clean Air Act regulations need to be revamped to address livestock production of noxious gases.
The new work is in line with several studies documenting the ill effects of megafarms, which typically have thousands of animals packed into small areas, comments Peter Thorne, director of the Environmental Health Sciences Research Center at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Higher rates of lung disease have been found in workers at large poultry and swine operations and respiratory problems increase in communities when these large-scale farms move in, Thorne notes.
“This study is a very important contribution,” says Thorne. “This is an industry we really need — it provides food and a lot of jobs — the answer isn’t for everyone to become vegetarians.” ...
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Oink... quack quack... moooooooo Whaaaaaaaaaaa!
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Sat, Jan 17, 2009
from Chicago Tribune:
U.S. warns of Teflon chemical in water
Less than a week before the Bush administration leaves office, federal environmental regulators are issuing a controversial health advisory on drinking water contaminated with a toxic chemical used to make Teflon and other non-stick coatings.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is advising people to reduce consumption of water containing more than 0.4 parts per billion of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA -- a level critics say is not strict enough. Studies have shown the chemical, which is linked to cancer, liver damage and birth defects, has built up in human blood throughout the world.
It is unclear how many cities might exceed the new limit because the EPA doesn't require water treatment plants to test for PFOA... Critics called the EPA's advisory a last-minute gift from the Bush administration to DuPont and a handful of other companies that make PFOA. Some scientists have proposed limits as low as 0.02 parts per billion. ...
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If it doesn't stick, then what's the worry?
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Fri, Jan 16, 2009
from TIME:
E-Waste Not, E-Want Not
Every day Americans throw out more than 350,000 cell phones and 130,000 computers, making electronic waste the fastest-growing part of the U.S. garbage stream. Improperly disposed of, the lead, mercury and other toxic materials inside e-waste can leak from landfills.... A lot of exported e-waste ends up in Guiyu, China, a recycling hub where peasants heat circuit boards over coal fires to recover lead, while others use acid to burn off bits of gold. According to reports from nearby Shantou University, Guiyu has the highest level of cancer-causing dioxins in the world and elevated rates of miscarriages. "You see women sitting by the fireplace burning laptop adapters, with rivers of ash pouring out of houses," says Jim Puckett, founder of Basel Action Network (BAN), an e-waste watchdog. "We're dumping on the rest of the world." ...
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Money talks, e-waste walks.
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Fri, Jan 16, 2009
from LA Times:
Mercury levels higher in women in Northeast, coastal areas
Health officials have warned consumers for several years to avoid consuming too much of any type of fish that tends to be high in mercury. High blood mercury levels can cause serious health problems and are particularly dangerous for pregnant women because the toxin may harm the fetus.
... Researchers used data from a large, national nutrition survey collected from 1999 to 2004 and found that women in the Northeast were the most likely to have blood mercury concentrations above 3.5 micrograms per liter. Almost 1 in 5 women in the Northeast had levels that are considered too high. More than 16 percent of women living in counties that bordered an ocean or the Gulf of Mexico had levels that are considered too high. Nationwide, about 10 percent of women had levels at or greater than 3.5 micrograms per liter. ...
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Maybe fish will become so toxic that we'll let them survive.
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Wed, Jan 14, 2009
from Los Angeles Times:
Herbal medicine sales up in sour economy; consumers seek cheaper, but often unproven, options
CHICAGO (AP)-- The choice between $75 prescription sleeping pills or a $5 herbal alternative is a no-brainer for Cathy and Bernard Birleffi, whose insurance costs have skyrocketed along with the nation's financial woes.
The Calistoga, Calif., couple seem to reflect a trend. With many Americans putting off routine doctor visits and self-medicating to save money, use of alternative treatments is on the rise — even though evidence is often lacking on their safety and effectiveness.
Climbing sales of herbal medicines have paralleled the tanking economy, according to an Associated Press review of recent data from market-watchers and retailers. ...
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Even if these herbal remedies aren't as good at restoring health, they're not as harmful as pharmaceuticals when you piss them into the groundwater!
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Wed, Jan 14, 2009
from ProPublica:
Jackson to Be Asked About Regulating Perchlorate in Drinking Water
In the latest volley of a years-long battle involving the Environmental Protection Agency, the military and the White House, the EPA announced last week that it will delay its decision [1] on whether to set a drinking water standard for perchlorate, a chemical in rocket fuel that has been found at harmful levels in drinking water across the country. The announcement that the EPA won't act until it receives advice from the National Academy of Sciences puts the contentious decision onto the already-heavy regulatory agenda awaiting Lisa Jackson, President-elect Barack Obama's pick to head the EPA. ...
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I still fail to see what's wrong with a little rocket fuel in my drink!
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Tue, Jan 13, 2009
from Associated Press:
Removing cats to protect birds backfires on island
BANGKOK, Thailand -- It seemed like a good idea at the time: Remove all the feral cats from a famous Australian island to save the native seabirds.
But the decision to eradicate the felines from Macquarie island allowed the rabbit population to explode and, in turn, destroy much of its fragile vegetation that birds depend on for cover, researchers said Tuesday.
Removing the cats from Macquarie "caused environmental devastation" that will cost authorities 24 million Australian dollars ($16.2 million) to remedy, Dana Bergstrom of the Australian Antarctic Division and her colleagues wrote in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology. ...
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With the toe bone connected to the foot bone...
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Tue, Jan 13, 2009
from New York Times:
Research Ties Human Acts to Harmful Rates of Species Evolution
Human actions are increasing the rate of evolutionary change in plants and animals in ways that may hurt their long-term prospects for survival, scientists are reporting. Hunting, commercial fishing and some conservation regulations, like minimum size limits on fish, may all work against species health... Based on an analysis of earlier studies of 29 species — mostly fish, but also a few animals and plants like bighorn sheep and ginseng — researchers from several Canadian and American universities found that rates of evolutionary change were three times higher in species subject to “harvest selection” than in other species. Writing in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers say the data they analyzed suggested that size at reproductive maturity in the species under pressure had shrunk in 30 years or so by 20 percent, and that organisms were reaching reproductive age about 25 percent sooner. ...
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Whatever happened to 'if it don't kill ya it makes ya stronger'? ...wussy nature...
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Tue, Jan 13, 2009
from Brisbane Courier-Mail:
Two-headed fish larvae blamed on farm chemicals in Noosa River
CHEMICAL contamination from farm runoff has been blamed after millions of fish larvae in the Noosa River were found to have grown two heads.
The disfigured larvae are thought to have been affected by one of two popular farm chemicals, either the insecticide endosulphan or the fungicide carbendazim.
Former NSW fisheries scientist and aquaculture veterinarian Matt Landos yesterday called on the Federal Government to ban the chemicals and urgently find replacements.
Dr Landos said about 90 per cent of larvae spawned at the Sunland Fish Hatchery from bass taken from the river were deformed and all died within 48 hours. ...
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I guess this is a case where two heads AREN'T better than one!
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Tue, Jan 13, 2009
from USDA Forest Service:
Top 5 invasive plants threatening Southern forests in 2009
U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) Ecologist Jim Miller, Ph.D., one of the foremost authorities on nonnative plants in the South, today identified the invasive plant species he believes pose the biggest threats to southern forest ecosystems in 2009.
"Cogongrass, tallowtree, and Japanese climbing fern are among the fastest moving and most destructive nonnative plant species facing many southern landowners this year," said Miller. "Rounding out the top five invasive species that I'm very concerned about would be tree-of-heaven and nonnative privets. While our forests are besieged by numerous invasive plants, these and other nonnative species present serious financial and ecological threats to the South and its forests in 2009."
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When the Tree of Heaven is an invasive species, you know life is out of balance.
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Mon, Jan 12, 2009
from Chicago Tribune:
Studies show SE. Ind. site high in mercury levels
INDIANAPOLIS - Rain and snow that fall near a cluster of coal-burning power plants in southeastern Indiana are laced with some of the highest concentrations of atmospheric mercury in the nation, a new federal study has found.
The U.S. Geological Survey research found the elevated levels of the toxic metal near Madison, Ind., adding to evidence that mercury spewed by power plants can end up in high concentrations in rain and snow that falls nearby.
The findings, along with a study that found the most toxic form of the metal in more than 80 percent of samples taken from streams statewide, document the legacy of one pollutant from modern industry, the researchers say.
"Everywhere we looked in Indiana we found mercury, and it's not the same everywhere, nor is it the same year to year or season to season," said Martin Risch, a USGS scientist who authored both papers.
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Turns out it's not just yellow snow that's off limits for eating...
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