Yukon Kuskokwim Nushagak science

There was quite a bit packed into an hour because it was well-organized, but easy to follow. You can follow along to compare whether (or what types of) preparedness has or has not been done locally. For example, I haven’t seen or heard anything about the ethics of who will receive scarce treatments; we know from the Hooper Bay fire news stories that very few if any schools have an emergency plan which has been tested. Have any of the businesses (besides Corinna’s) looked to see if there will be sufficient sanitation supplies on hand? Lynden Cargo is about our only source of fresh foods and mail. What will they do if the airport is closed for several weeks or their staff is ill? Another question, although this is the year designated for maximum seasonal influenza immunizations and education, how come we are so late in getting the vaccine?

Pandemic Flu Preparedness: What Every Community Should Know

• http://publichealthgrandrounds.unc.edu/pandemic/

September 29, 2006, 2:00 - 3:00 pm ET

An online discussion forum will begin September 29 and end on October 6. Come back here after the program to ask questions and share your best practices.

• Join the discussion. - https://instruct.unc.edu/wcb/schools/5/4601/bhart/PubRoun27061/forums/forum1/wwwboard.html

• Go to the webcast - http://publichealthgrandrounds.unc.edu/pandemic/webcast_od.htm

• Go to the closed caption webcast - http://publichealthgrandrounds.unc.edu/pandemic/webcast_od_cc.htm

This comes in pdf format of individual chapters. I haven’t had a chance to review this yet. It is aimed at health educators who too often jump in without listening first.

[I once had the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, ATSDR, part of EPA and CDC, insist that we had to write materials in the local language. We kept insisting that the indigenous language was not a written one; even if it were, most speakers couldn’t read it; and we really wanted to use dance as a medium of education, not reading. The Agency also insisted we do telephone surveys, even though only about half of us had telephones. Stupid us for thinking we were capable of doing our own research.]

“Teaching Patients With Low Literacy Skills, 2nd Ed.” 1996, JB Lippincott Pub. is now available on line and may be read and downloaded at no charge.

• http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/healthliteracy/doak.html

[posted on the HealthLiteracy listserv]

from the excellent blog, Bringing Health Information to Communities

• http://library.med.utah.edu/blogs/BHIC/archives/cat_articles.html#001816

Site Search Tags: BHIC, health+ed, literacy

You’ll have to contact the company to order (not yet widely available). The idea is fun and might work. But it will cost more than ordinary soap. It might backfire in that without the device, will hands be washed the equivakent of two happy birthday sings? On the other hand (sic), habits once engrained are easily retained.

The squid thing is neat. And the soap is NOT anti-microbial (hurray!)

SquidSoap dispenser shows you when you’re done scrubbing
Squid Soap’s mission is to “train tomorrow’s great hand washers.” The pump-bottle is decorated with a plastic squid, and the top of the pump has an ink-stamper that leaves a ring on your hand when you pump your soap. Once you’ve scrubbed enough to remove the ink-stamp, you’ve also scrubbed enough to kill the germs on your hands.

from BoingBoing

• http://www.boingboing.net/2006/09/22/squidsoap_dispenser_.html

Friday, September 22, 2006

Oh, for fun. mpb

Solar X-rays:

Geomagnetic Field:

From

• http://www.n3kl.org/

Forecasting aurora now more precise,
WEB SITE: A new page offers an hour-by-hour forecast for northern lights.

• Geophysical Institute Web site - http://www.gedds.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast

Fred Langa’s current issue (see the link on the sidebar) gives a summary of feeds and suggestions for software to read them.

6) Of Blogs and Feeds

After launching the new Langa Blog

• http://langa.com/blog/

and RSS feed

• http://langa.com/blog/rss.xml

we received mail about using them, including this note:

Hi. Can you explain how those RSS feeds work on people’s blogs? I
see on some blogs where you can subscribe to them but don’t know
how. I have clicked on the RSS thing but I get a file or something
and don’t know what to do with it. —Gail

Both blogs and RSS feeds are relatively new, simplified ways to publish and get content online….

One major advantage of RSS feeds is that you can subscribe to them, which means simply that you tell your RSS reader that you want every post to get a specific feed. When the publisher of that feed posts a new item, your RSS reader will fetch it for you—no searching or browsing required.

I found this at the excellent source of health information, BHIC blog, Bringing Health Information to the Community

“Medical Reference for Non-Medical Librarians”

• http://denison.uchsc.edu/outreach/medbib3.htm

Be sure to check out the page on

• Evaluating Medical Web Sites - http://denison.uchsc.edu/education/eval.html

An acronym to help with evaluation

* Use the acronym DOCTOr to remember the key categories to evaluate:
o Design - the aesthetics and ease of movement around the site.
o Other - cost of use, is the site rated or reviewed?
o Content - the depth and quality of the information, its purpose and audience.
o Technical - the technology requirements of the site, the effectiveness of the technology used.
o Origin - the author and sponsor of the site, their qualifications for presenting the information, the date of the information.

The DOCTOr acronym should also remind patients to consult a health professional before following the advice dispensed on a web page, in a news group message, or any other source.

Site Search Tags: BHIC, reference, library, dictionary

Declan has updated his mapping to use new features in Google maps. [ previously noted here Google Earth maps of avian flu spread]

My dial-up won’t handle it, but should be interesting for others. Be sure to follow his directions.

• http://declanbutler.info/blog/?p=58 The spread of avian flu with time; new maps exploiting Google Earth’s time series function

Once again, we know bird flu exists in North America; we have confirmation it is H5N1; but it is the low pathogenic variety (LPAI). (keep cooking your meats. update your preparedness.)

——————————
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 00:25:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: ProMED-mail
Subject: PRO/AH/EDR> Avian influenza, mallards - USA (MD)(02): LP, USDA report

AVIAN INFLUENZA, MALLARDS - USA (MD)(02): LOW PATHOGENICITY, USDA REPORT
****************************************************
Date: 12 Sep 2006
From: Joseph Dudley
Source: Official USDA release [edited]

Read the rest of this entry »

The cranes gather, alternately along the Rio Grande or the Kuskokwim River, for their trip.

two from Science in the News, an E-mail newsletter from Sigma Xi, mentioned previously as a source especially for science teachers (ΣΧ FYI for Sci TEK teachers, linked in sidebar) Thought experiments — Forum Debate Rights in a Pandemic

Probing the Mysterious Migration of Swans Suspected in Spread of Avian Flu
From The New York Times (Registration Required)

Tracking avian flu sometimes comes down to moves that have a lot of slapstick potential, like sprinting down a muddy Mongolian beach trying to tackle a scared but temporarily flightless swan.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read more http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5327204.stm

Scientists have discovered a potential reason to explain why the H5N1 strain of bird flu is so much more deadly to people than standard human flus….

The Nature Medicine research found that the bird flu virus triggers a massive inflammatory response, which often proved fatal…. It was found that the patients infected with H5N1 had much higher viral loads in the throat than those patients infected with the human flu virus.

…the presence of high levels of H5N1 virus triggered a release of proteins called cytokines which should control a body’s response to infection…. In these cases there was also an associated loss of lymphocytes (types of white blood cell) in the peripheral blood. The team suggest it is these factors which lead to lung damage, and on many occasions, death.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Study Adds Details on Bird Flu, Humans, By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
AP Science Writer
Read the rest of this entry »

Click thumbnails to see images better.

One summer I set out sticky fly strips (those strips of rubber coated paper that come in tubes) to cut down on the bugs outside my doorway. I was amazed at the types and numbers of insects that got stuck. When one strip was filled, I put up another.

Different insects and different numbers were caught at different times of the summer.

I think it would be interesting to see which week would have the most numbers of insects; which has the most variety of insect types. This could be plotted. Do the numbers and types of insects differ between placing the strips in the sunny side of the house or the darker side? windy or not windy side? When does the first insect get caught? Does that change from one year to the next? Is the first insect always the same? Do places on the coast have different insects from those upriver? If some of the trapped insects are the same kind, do these show up earlier downriver or upriver?

What’s the last bug?

The other thing I did was try an insect trap consisting of a bowl of water with one drop of liquid dish soap in it. The soap keeps the insects from walking on water (breaks the surface tension of the water). Fortunately, I used a white bowl, so the amazing colors of bugs stood out.

I drained most of the water away to concentrate the carcasses together and to make sure they were all at the same depth (in the same plane of view) so I could photograph them.

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