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American Ebola Survivor Gives Blood to Infected Health-Care Colleague

Steven Reinberg HealthDay Reporter - THURSDAY, Sept. 11, 2014 (HealthDay News)

An American medical missionary who survived infection with Ebola has donated blood to a colleague who's struggling to fight his own infection with the often deadly virus.

Dr. Rick Sacra was given blood transfusions from Dr. Kent Brantly last Friday, shortly after arriving at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. The 51-year-old Sacra has also been given an experimental drug and other treatments, hospital officials said.

http://www.philly.com/philly/health/topics/HealthDay691687_20140911_American_Ebola_Survivor_Gives_Blood_to_Infected_Health-Care_Colleague.html

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Hundreds of children across US sickened by severe respiratory virus

 A CDC spokesman said the agency is testing to see if the virus caused illnesses reported in children in Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma and Utah. Photograph: David Goldman/APtheguardian.com - Monday 8 September 2014 21.24 BST

Suspected virus, enterovirus 68, typically causes illness lasting a week and most children recover with no lasting problems.

Hundreds of children in more than 10 states have been sickened by a severe respiratory illness that public health officials say may be caused by an uncommon virus similar to the germ that causes the common cold.

Nearly 500 children have been treated at one hospital alone – Children’s Mercy in Kansas City, Missouri – and some required intensive care, according to authorities.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/08/children-respiratory-virus-illinois-missouri

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Shale Oil Benefits Could Pay for Smaller Carbon Footprint

Photo Credit: Oil field by Christopher Halloran via ShutterstockAugust 20, 2014 - environmentalleader.com

The US could see about a 27 percent reduction in its carbon footprint if just half of the unanticipated economic benefits of shale gas and oil production were used in the efforts, according to agricultural economists at Purdue University.

The researchers estimate that shale technologies annually provide an extra $302 billion to various sectors within the US economy, relative to 2007.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2014/08/20/shale-oil-benefits-could-pay-for-smaller-carbon-footprint/

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Are electricity-eating bacteria the next big thing in green fuel?

By Michael Keller - Published August 20, 2014
 
Editor's Note: This story is republished with permission from Txchnologist, a digital magazine that follows innovation in science and technology.

There's a large and growing list of renewable energy projects pumping out cleaner electricity these days. Photovoltaic panels produce direct current and solar concentrators drive steam turbines using sunlight. Wind turbines churning out megawatts of power dot the landscape of many countries. Other projects are looking to light communities through tides, running rivers and even the heat of the Earth.

http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2014/08/20/are-electricity-eating-bacteria-next-big-thing-green-fuel?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRojv6jKZKXonjHpfsX56%2BwrUKK%2BlMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4FRMBnI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFSLHEMa5qw7gMXRQ%3D

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Waste-to-Energy Could Supply 12% of US Electricity

GraphAugust 19, 2014 - environmentalleader.com

If all of the municipal solid waste (MSW) that is currently put into landfills each year in the US were diverted to waste-to-energy (WTE) power plants, it could generate enough electricity to supply 12 percent of the US total, according to a study conducted by the Earth Engineering Center (EEC) of Columbia University.

According to the study, this shift also could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 123 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year.

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Planning for the 21st Century Grid

Carl Zichella Director for Western Transmission, NRDCAugust 19, 2014 By Carl Zichella

It seems everyone involved with renewable energy and climate change is asking the same question these days.  What will the 21st century grid look like?  This is one of the key questions the Department of Energy is asking as part of the first “Quadrennial Energy Review (QER)” seeking to understand how much modernizing the nation’s energy infrastructure will need in the coming years.

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Toxic Tide Shows Up Early in Sag Harbor

High levels of Cochlodinium detected in Sag Harbor cove last week could put shellfish and finfish at risk.13 August 2014 - By Mara Certic

Just weeks after blue-green algal blooms were detected in Georgica Pond, extremely high levels of the toxic rust alga Cochlodinium have emerged in Sag Harbor and East Hampton waters.

Cochlodinium first appeared on Long Island in 2004 and has been detected in local waters every summer since. According to Professor Christopher Gobler, who conducts water quality testing and is a professor at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, densities above 500 cells per milliliter can be lethal to both finfish and shellfish. The Gobler Laboratory recorded Cochlodinium at densities exceeding 30,000 cells per milliliter in Sag Harbor Cove, and over 1,000 in Accabonac and Three Mile Harbors.

http://sagharborexpress.com/toxic-tide-shows-up-early-in-sag-harbor/

http://sagharboronline.com/sagharborexpress/page-1/toxic-tide-shows-up-early-in-sag-harbor-32598

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Risk and Risk Underwriting

In writing about the importance of promoting private enterprise, as well as in many other sections of my work, I suggested an almost near certainty that the risk management industry eventually will facilitate resilience and structural adaptivity in our built environment.  In my larger draft, I included a short section about this, which I am posting below (somewhat revised).  I believe it is beneficial to share this section now in order to explain my optimism for resilience. (I also wrote short sections on Time, Rapid Change, Optimism, A Futurist Perspective, and The Human Factor but do not necessarily intend to post them here.)

 

The future will be all about risk and trying to find protection from the rapidly increasing threats to our world as we advance in population size, social/cultural/economic complexity, and cutting-edge science and technology.  Risk underwriting will play a big role in how well or how poorly we adapt to accelerating change. 

 

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Zoetis Granted Conditional License by USDA for PEDv Vaccine

submitted by Albert Gomez     

          

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, February 1, 2013.  Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid

reuters.com - by P.J. Huffstutter and Tom Polansek - September 3, 2014

(Reuters) - Zoetis Inc has received a conditional license from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for its vaccine against a deadly piglet virus and will begin selling it this month in the United States, the company said on Wednesday.

Shares of Zoetis, the world's largest animal-health company, reached an all-time high of $36.65 and were up 0.7 percent at $35.73 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

With its new vaccine, Zoetis joins a growing push by both the agriculture and pharmaceutical industries to combat the spread of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv), which has killed about 13 percent of the U.S. hog herd over the past year.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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Ebola Outbreak: Call to Send in Military to West Africa to Help Curb Epidemic

Head of Médecins sans Frontières says the world is 'losing the battle' as cases and deaths continue to surge

MSF - theguardian.com - by Sarah Boseley - September 2, 2014

Military teams should be sent to west Africa immediately if there is to be any hope of controlling the Ebola epidemic, doctors on the frontline told the United Nations on Tuesday, painting a stark picture of health workers dying, patients left without care and infectious bodies lying in the streets.

The international president of Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), Dr Joanne Liu, told member states that although alarm bells had been ringing for six months, the response had been too little, too late and no amount of vaccinations and new drugs would be able to prevent the escalating disaster.

"Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it," Liu said.

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