Disaster in Biological News

Bioterrorism and disaster preparedness explored in special issue of Medical Decision Making

Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC (July 27, 2009) According to a study in a special issue of Medical Decision Making , a large-scale, covert anthrax attack on a large city would overwhelm hospital resources even with an extremely effective public health response, primari...

Looming tropical disaster needs urgent action

A major review by University of Adelaide researchers shows that the world is losing the battle over tropical habitat loss with potentially disastrous implications for biodiversity and human well-being. Published online today in the Ecological Society of America's journal Frontiers in Ecology a...

Killer fungus spells disaster for wheat

A WHEAT disease that could destroy most of the worlds main wheat crops could strike south Asias vast wheat fields two years earlier than research had suggested, leaving millions to starve. The fungus, called Ug99, has spread from Africa to Iran, and may already be in Pakistan. If so, this is extre...

Researchers find evidence linking stress caused by the Sept. 11 disaster with low birth weights

Researchers have found evidence of an increase in low birth weights among babies born in and around New York City in the weeks and months after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Writing in the journal Human Reproduction [1], they suggest that stress may have contributed to the effec...

Triage study challenges notions of emergency medical response to disaster

NEW YORK (Oct. 31, 2007) -- In the face of terrorism and catastrophic natural disasters, modern regional trauma systems that improve survival for critically injured patients are more vital than ever. Yet many fundamental assumptions underlying these systems -- such as the notion that it is im...

Soil, conservation experts to reflect on Hurricane Katrina disaster

Two years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and parts of the Gulf Coast, soil scientists and conservation leaders will share lessons learned during the International Annual Meetings of the American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and Soil Science Soc...

ORNL 'resilience' plan to help Tennessee, Mississippi and South Carolina communities beat disaster

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 4, 2007 A new Oak Ridge National Laboratory initiative could help avert disasters in Tennessee, Mississippi and South Carolina and also lead to more information about climate change. The new Community and Regional Resilience Initiative (CARRI) will be implemented in Gulf...

Holiday gluttony can spell disaster for undiagnosed diabetics

Hearty feasts and couch-potato marathons are holiday traditions, but UT Southwestern Medical Center experts warn that packing on pounds and not exercising could be deadly for the 6 million Americans who have diabetes and don't even know it. Diabetes, a metabolic disorder linked with obesity, can...

A human taste for rarity spells disaster for endangered species

The shady pursuit of endangered bird eggs made international headlines in May 2006 when Colin Watson, widely considered Britain's most notorious illegal egg collector, died after falling from a 12-meter tree, allegedly while hunting a rare egg. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds estimate...

Indonesia - disaster relief aid in action

ISN's immediate response to this latest quake - to strike the Indonesian island of Java - was to call once again on its Renal Disaster Task Force (RDRTF). Under the leadership of Dr. Raymond Vanholder, the Task Force acted rapidly by sending two scouts to join a team from Médecins Sans Frontières (...

New tooth enamel dating technique could help identify disaster victims

Remnants of above-ground nuclear testing provide a way to determine age at time of death The radioactive carbon-14 produced by above-ground nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960s is providing forensic scientists with a more precise way to determine a person's age at the time of death. The metho...

High-tech vehicle design boosts emergency rescue capacity

...alent rescue vehicles able to take paramedics to a disaster area and immediately carry up to four patients awa...ticular, there is a need to get medical teams to a disaster area rapidly with all the equipment they require a...ype of off-road vehicle needed for rapid access to disaster zones. "Our four-stretcher carrier is adjustable a...

Army study improves ability to predict drinking water needs

...ccording to Dr. Cheuvront. The Institute of Medicine has also expressed interest in improving the prediction of water needs for the general public and disaster relief efforts. Dr. Cheuvront points out that an improved sweating prediction equation would not only help keep troops healthy and cut the cost of ope...

Canadian-based UN coral reef expert honored at world meeting in Australia

...ndangers ecosystems that support the economies over half the world's population. Dr. Sale and the report's co-authors said a potentially "terminal" disaster looms in several coastal areas unless humanity introduces "much more effective management immediately." Over the past several years as Assistant D...

Next-generation software system for flood warning and risk analysis to be developed

...60209.php ">Chinese . Flooding is a wide spread and devastating natural disaster across the globe. It is the worst natural disaster in the UK, causing annual damage of about 1.5 billion. The figure is expect...

Triage technology with a Star Trek twist

...ist, at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Science & Technology Directorate (DHS S&T). Determining who needs medical care at the scene of a disaster is still pretty old-fashioned: emergency responders bent over a victim, checking body temperature, heart rate, and muscle movement. Up close and pers...

American Chemical Society's Weekly PressPac -- May 13, 2009

... a monthly publication. Martin Hajduch and colleagues note in the new study that plants growing in the Chernobyl area following the April 26, 1986 disaster somehow adapted to the radioactive environment and thrived. But until now, nobody knew what biochemical changes in the plants accounted for this mirac...

Monitoring water through a snake's eyes

... Abraham Katzir of Tel Aviv University's School of Physics and Astronomy. To combat the threat of contamination due to industrial spillage, natural disaster or sabotage, the physicist has developed a new system to monitor the safety of a building or community's water supply in real time. Modifying spec...

Admiral to discuss piracy on high seas at IEEE Homeland Security Conference

...papers will be presented in the following tracks: weapons of mass destruction detection; border & maritime; counter IED (improvised explosive device); disaster response; and critical infrastructure protection. Presenters come from government, industry, academia, national laboratories and small business. T...

Indigenous peoples at world summit to share climate change observations, coping techniques

... defined and protected internationally." "Climigration differs from migration caused by catastrophic environmental events such as hurricanes, where disaster relief and the temporary relocation of individuals and communities is the humanitarian response," she says. "Climigration means no possibility to re...

Field stations foster serendipitous discoveries in environmental, biological sciences

...s state that few people realize the value of the data and specimens held at field stations--until an event such as a disease outbreak or environmental disaster triggers their use. "At a time when we are reinvesting in our nation's academic infrastructure, it's critical that we also invest in one of our gre...

Saving energy and the environment with Flywheels

...the problem of what to do with 200 large-scale toxic lead-acid batteries." Hospitals and data back-up centers cannot afford power outages. Lives and disaster recovery for businesses depend on an uninterrupted flow of energy. A typical power outage is very short and most hospitals and data centers have back-...

Scientists gather to protect global food security from return of devastating wheat fungus

...er Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, to gather March 17-20 in Ciudad Obregn, Mexico, to map out a strategy for averting agricultural disaster for a crop that provides food and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people. In an indication of the international scope of the threat, scien...

Public Policy Center hosts flood symposium March 10-12

...ocus on flood mitigation strategies, flood risk management and insurance, and community planning. Invited speakers represent top flood and natural disaster experts from the UI and other major universities across the United States, and from appropriate state and federal agencies. Larry Weber, director of t...

American Institute of Physics announces awards for best science writing

...f these objects colliding with the Earth, and they figure out ways to avoid such impending disasters -- an asteroid strike is perhaps the only natural disaster we might be able to prevent. As Cort was producing "Asteroid," NASA was continually adjusting the odds of a collision with Apophis, downgrading the...

Abandon hope

...ecause every other message I receive suggests that disaster is guaranteed," they explain. People are heari...tists present evidence that profound environmental disaster is imminent. It is urgent to live up to an extr...t doing so gives hope for averting disaster. Yet disaster is inevitable. "Given a predisposition to mi...

Defying the disaster: Researcher explores resilient housing

...ther stakeholders to determine the greatest needs in constructing a natural disaster resilient home. "We then compared those needs to resources and technolo... Web-based portal that contains various resources for making a home natural disaster resilient. "People will be able to search for information, like they do...

Biofuels boom could fuel rainforest destruction, Stanford researcher warns

... Policies favoring biofuel crop production may inadvertently contribute to, not slow, the process of climate change, Gibbs said. Such an environmental disaster could be "just around the corner without more thoughtful energy policies that consider potential ripple effects on tropical forests," she added. Gi...

Disabled and other vulnerable groups more susceptible to terrorism fears

...from loss of well-being or security to injury, illness or death caused by a disaster associated with terrorism and national terrorism policies," the researchers conclude. "The disaster burden associated with terrorism and consequent policies may fall dispropor...

Satellites search out South Pole snowfields

...a collected is all quality assured. This will ultimately result in more confidence in the data used for climate change, weather systems and monitoring disaster areas. Some of these measurements require the detection of changes of a few tenths of a percent per decade, yet current sensors exhibit biases between...

Purdue study suggests warmer temperatures could lead to a boom in corn pests

...l economic and social consequences," Alexander said. "In addition to loss of yields, the variation in yields could drive up the costs of insurance and disaster relief for farmers." The research team next will look at a broader range of crops and will work to create a more complete modeling framework, Diffe...

National and international doctoral training

...ion and the development of a self-organised mobile communi-cation system in disaster scenarios. In the Grants Committee meeting it became clear that the DFG'...he Research Training Group "Self-organised Mobile Communication Systems for disaster Scenarios" aims to overcome the restrictions of existing, highly static com...

Issues at intersection of climate change and health impact global well-being

... from the effects of climate change. Key principles of adaptation are discussed by Kristie Ebi and Jan Semenza, and lessons learned from public health disaster preparedness are described by Mark Keim. Margalit Younger et al. expand on the ways in which policies and actions can both address climate change and ...

Innovations in Pediatric Medicine International Conference brings together pediatrics experts

...Boston and Harvard Medical School will present a framework for planning for disaster management, highlighting unique pediatric aspects. He will discuss the cond...Pediatric Specialty Team-1), the first team developed by the NDMS (National disaster Medical System) dedicated to treating children in disasters. He will share ...

Rhode Island Hospital simulation center examines benefits and applications of medical simulation

...f traditional simulation, with an emphasis on the effects on acute care and disaster training. For example, mobile portable simulation allows on-site training i...ve Simulation at the Organizational Level--Implications for Patient Safety, disaster Surge Capacity, and Facilitating the Systems Interface." David G. Lindquist...

Eastern Pacific tuna hang in the balance

...shing, but an unmanaged fishery. Regrettably for the fish and for the people and businesses that depend on them, the impending ecological and economic disaster of a tuna collapse will not wait for member nations to work out their differences. Although some nations have opted for unilateral measures, these ...

Natural and social sciences: ICSU embraces the need to work more closely together

...rder to investigate how changes in the Earth System affect global and regional sustainability. And new ICSU programmes, such as Integrated Research on disaster Risk and Ecosystem Change and Human Well-being, have involved both the natural and social sciences from the earliest planning stages. Indeed, it coul...

International Council for Science launches major research program on natural disasters

...inning of this century. 'Integrated Research on disaster Risk (IRDR) will provide an enhanced capacity arou...es within the country, paving the way for improved disaster risk management,' said Filipe Domingos Freires Luc...ke Mozambique have no alternative but to integrate disaster risk reduction in development planning and climate...

Innovations in Pediatric Medicine CME conference brings together national pediatrics experts

...ori Armstrong, R.N., Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia University Medical Center 10:30 11:00 a.m. Pediatric disaster Medicine Dr. Gary R. Fleisher, Children's Hospital of Boston and Harvard Medical School 11:00 11:30 a.m. Recent Advances in the Pathophysiology...

Weather woes emphasize need for SSPEED

...EED is short for the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from disaster Center, primary sponsor of the conference. Rice leads the organization of G...ic and private partners formed to address deficiencies in storm prediction, disaster planning and evacuations, all topics that will be covered in depth at the c...