romunov’s blog et al

With recent snow fall all over the world, which may be a bit unusual for autumn, I wonder how long will it take someone to put together a number of snow pictures and write something to akin of “Global waming? FAIL!”.

Here is a link to a GREAT post about the state of world fisheries and the nonsense behind government subsidy revenues that are sustaining unreasonably high fleet numbers. For most readers, I highly recommend reading at least the first page, as it is informative enough, but I will encourage everyone to read the whole three page ordeal. Author of the post is Daniel Pauley, of whom a rather lengthy but interesting video can be seen in the “embedment” below. The subject is essentially the same. The best point he makes, in my opinion, is the vertical pressure that needs to be exerted upon government entities to achieve change (in sustainable fisheries), just like in smoking laws.

Ever wondered what a GMO is? The acronym stands for genetically modified organisms. And this is the case of GM plants. One would think that with rampant spread of GMO seeds to grow for crops will yield a perfectly safe foods for animal consumption (that means animal and human). That may be the case, but things like that need scientific scrutiny. And when you give out End User License agreement that forbids exactly that, you may be labeled suspicious and trying to turn the tables in your advantage. WHY?

As a precondition to buy seeds, either to plant for crops or to use in research study, Monsanto and the gene giant companies must first sign an End User Agreement with the company. For the past decade, the period when the greatest proliferation of GMO seeds in agriculture has taken place, Monsanto, Pioneer (DuPont) and Syngenta require anyone buying their GMO seeds to sign an agreement that explicitly forbids that the seeds be used for any independent research. Scientists are prohibited from testing a seed to explore under what conditions it flourishes or even fails. They cannot compare any characteristics of the GMO seed with any other GMO or non-GMO seeds from another company. Most alarming, they are prohibited from examining whether the genetically modified crops lead to unintended side-effects either in the environment or in animals or humans.

link

The Guardian writes:

The World Health Organisation has raised concerns about the fast-track production of the swine flu vaccine in Europe, where the treatment is due to be made available at least two months earlier than in the US. Britain is expected to be the first country in Europe to provide the vaccine, with the first of 132 million ordered doses due to be administered next month.

Some believe the vaccines will be safe once they rush through the procedures, but I wonder, will that be enough?

Professor Steve Field, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, added: “I’m sure the vaccine programme won’t be allowed to commence until adequate safety checks have been carried out.”

Some have expressed doubt, and rightfully so:

But some US officials believe the European approach is the best option. “The consequences of not having a vaccine if this virus gets worse are very high,” said Leonard Marcus, a public health expert at Harvard University. “If [regulatory authorities] took all the time that was necessary to make sure there are no side effects, ironically, in the effort to save a few lives, many lives could be lost.”

If the vaccines will be safe, why have the manufacturers sought legal immunity against any damages?

The US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, has just signed a decree granting vaccine makers total legal immunity from any lawsuits that result from any new “Swine Flu” vaccine. Moreover, the $7 billion US Government fast-track program to rush vaccines onto the market in time for the Autumn flu season is being done without even normal safety testing. Is there another agenda at work in the official WHO hysteria campaign to declare so-called H1N1 virus—which has yet to be rigorously scientifically isolated, characterized and photographed with an electron microscope—the scientifically accepted procedure—a global “pandemic” threat?

Of course, this is assuming the swine flu is Cappo di banda of flus, but there is no convicing evidence so far, that that is the case. More people die of “regular” flu (various types of influenza) each year. It’s estimated that around 30.000 people in US alone and almost 500.000 people die because of influenza yearly. So far, the swine flu took a heavy toll on respiratory patients, people with compromised immune systems and obese people.

Would you put your child into a trial run (to be “guinea pigs”) for a flu vaccination even though the flu is similar to the regular one (mortality wise)? How about if something goes wrong because of the vaccine and the producer would not be held liable for its product?

My crappy Uni doesn’t subscribe to journal Biological reviews. I’m looking for an article by MacNiel et al. (1997) titled:

THE TROPHIC ECOLOGY OF FRESHWATER GAMMARUS SPP. (CRUSTACEA:AMPHIPODA): PROBLEMS AND PERSPECTIVES CONCERNING THE FUNCTIONAL FEEDING GROUP CONCEPT

From Prisonplanet.com:

Under Level 6 conditions, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HSS) is able to declare mandatory vaccination under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP). There is no criteria listed stating what constitutes a threat.

And you would imagine there’s a Catch 22. Yes, there is:

The HHS web site says the Secretary may “issue a declaration…that provides immunity from tort liability (except for willful misconduct) for claims of loss caused, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from administration or use of (vaccine or other pharmaceutical) countermeasures to diseases, threats and conditions determined by the Secretary to constitute a present, or credible risk of a future public health emergency…” This means that if you or your child is harmed by a vaccine during these conditions, there is nothing you can do about it.

The Big Daddy (the govt) puts corporate interests ahead of those of individuals and the population.

This means it is time to stop giving the government your blind faith. It is time to become educated about flu vaccines.

We need to enforce that the science behind the vaccines is solid, without strings attached. We should push for more safeguards, even though there is always a chance a person will have a (fatal) reaction to a vaccine.

Another way is giving nature its course. The remaining population will be immunized against a particular virus and all will be well. This is the way nature works, has worked and will continue to work even after we’ve gone down in toxic waste.

I remember reading previous reports about the swine flu virus being released from a laboratory. Here’s another article fromm The Independent, suggesting laboratory origins:

(1) “Careful study of the genetic origin of the [1977] virus showed that it was closely related to a 1950 strain, but dissimilar to influenza ‘A’ (H1N1) strains from both 1947 and 1957. This finding suggested that the 1977 outbreak strain had been preserved since 1950. The re-emergence was probably an accidental release from a laboratory source,” according to the study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Continuing further down:

This outbreak affected 230 military personnel, killing one person, but it was successfully contained and was almost certainly caused by the direct transmission of swine flu from pigs. Nevertheless, the global anxiety caused by the Fort Dix outbreak led to a surge in research into H1N1 around the world, with experiments on frozen samples of the virus stored in labs since the 1950s, Dr Zimmer said.

“I would imagine that most labs researching into influenza would have had the 1950s strain. We cannot actually pinpoint which lab had it or accidentally released it, but the re-emergence of H1N1 in 1977 made it potentially a man-made pandemic,” she said.

WHO has issued a pandemic warning level 6 yet little media outlets are pumping it up the way they have a few weeks ago when all this kadoongle started. What’s up with that?

Regular flu kills about 30.000 people in the States alone. Think about that when a few people die of some “new” disease (like the bird or swine flu). It’s laughable to me that they classify a disease as dangerous (sensu bird flu) when 100 people die in Asia, where population is four billion (out of six billion total).

Ever wondered what happens if you pour 10 tonnes of cement down an ant hill?

I think this is a sound, newsworthy news from Downunder.

Senator Fielding said he wanted to talk to the government’s environmental scientists about solar flares and their impact on global warming before he cast his vote.

“What I want to do is take the information that I’ve currently got and give it to the Rudd Government and their scientists and see what they say about it,'’ he said.

“If the answer is ‘look, it’s just rubbish and we’re just going to discount it’, well I think that’s not good enough.

“You need to argue your case on a scientific basis because this is a huge issue that if we get it wrong it’s going to actually end up costing Australia very, very dearly.'’

Spot on (emphasis mine)!

link

Had a few minutes and I went photohunting. I have a bush of Philadelphus coronarius next to my garden and this is what I managed to capture on a photo cell.

Above mentioned bush in full bloom.

Hopefully Maarten will be able to chip in the species. I still don’t have a dissection microscope and haven’t been able to ID it. It’s a hoverfly (Syrphidae).

Possibly a muscid (Muscidae).

Another muscid-like fly.

“Rainbow child spider” (Araniella sp., det.: M. Gregorič).

I must admit, I wasn’t surprised when I learned that Merck started a phony journal with support from Elsevier. This is also why we must promote Open Access journals to exclude the greedy corporations from tinkering in the machine named Science.

I guess you can’t wait more than a few years and some scandals before another outbreak of deadly (insert factor) erupts. The last one was Avian flu virus and before that, BSE. People are panicking and it’s not all their fault. Large burden is upon the WHO and media outlets who faithfully reprint their statements. And it’s sad to see state and federal officials do their bidding without trying to do real hard science and base their decisions on those findings. I bet you didn’t know that in the last scare, Tamiflu was the preferred “cure” of choice, but scientific community has expressed what they hold reservations regarding this product (see here and follow links).

We’re witnessing another scare. Tamiflu manufacturer has announced a prediction of 500% in increase of sales of the product. The media is spilling out mass death scenario regardless that the WHO has corrected its 150 dead figure to 7. This is hardly the mortality you would expect from a deadly virus that was rampant in 1918 and killed about 50 million people. This is not even as strong as the “regular” flu that kills several factors of magnitude more people a year.

While this may turn out to be a genuine pandemic with devastating effects, there is still little evidence to insinuate in that direction. Perhaps when pigs fly.

Just like with the bovine spongiformn encephalitis (BSE) and the bird flu, the journalistic profession has shifted into higher gear to hype everything up. Over the past week we’ve been flooded with the body count due to the newly emerged swine flu, virus H1N1.
However, WHO maintains there is only 7 confirmed deaths due to influenza virus. More people die from masochistic sex, but that doesn’t keep functionally illiterate people from hyperventilating.

A member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has dismissed claims that more than 150 people have died from swine flu, saying it has officially recorded only seven deaths around the world.

But I’m sure Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are enjoying the scare due to sky-rocketing sales of Tamiflu (they’re expecting 500% increase).

Hat tip top redpill8. I shamelessly reproduce the awesome here. Make sure to check the video about the other side you might not have seen in your local MSM outlet.

Four Somalis on a cargo freight
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum
Overfishing and dumping brought ‘em their fate
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum
The mates were fixed by their terrible plight
Women and children dying from radiation such a horrible sight
And pleas to the UN were scuttled outright;
by four days investigation, all is alright
And there they lay, dead and sick on the beach
Like break o’day in a oozing den.
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum

Twenty two sailors on the Alabama’s list
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum
They say they’re bringing food, but why all the guns?
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum
The captain gives up his life for the ransom of the crew
And the pirates abandon ship after much ado
The sailors bring their bounty a Mombasa way
And there it lay, under covers
Dripped down from up-staring eyes
In murk sunset and foul sunrise
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum

Four Somali men of ‘em thin and dark
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum
Sort of like Jack Sparrow but without the grin
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum
Twas the media that swiped them with a murderous mark
Calling them al Queda and terrorists without respite
Worthy of bullets between the eyes they say
And there they lay condemned to this day, damn my eyes
Looking for the truth
All souls bound just contrariwise
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum

Twenty two men of ‘em good and true
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum
Ev’ry man Phillip’s could ha’ sailed with Old School,
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum
There was chest on chest of unknown freight
Under 18 armed guards the ship made haste
And the cargo riot of stuff untold,
And silently offloaded without fanfare
Under sightless glare with lips struck dumb
The sailors shared the same stories by the rule of thumb,
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum

More was seen through the media’s screen…
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum
Ratings undoubt high this Easter scene
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum
‘Twas a famous story built on a bed of bunk
With CNN, MSNBC and Fox coloring the egg
And the truth lay cracked and dry in a red blot
Where they pirates or some coastguard coxs?
That dared the blade and the bullet
By God! They could not speak for the TV forbade
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum

Four Somalis and Captian on a rescue boat
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum
The media and the devil had them in their scopes
The mates were fixed by the sniper’s sight
The brains shot out without a fight
And the Captain was rescued — all screamed ‘hooray!’
The media wrapped him tight in a wondrous display
With a Yo-Heave-Ho! and a fare-you-well
And a sudden plunge in the sullen swell
The truth lies below on the road to hell
Yo ho ho and a tanker of scum

Seeking as many examples as possible and slowly running out of ideas and references, I’m turning to the mighty wise blogosphere. Hopefully, people with more experience than me will be willing to contribute.

I am in need of a few examples of spatial and or temporal separation of adults and their developmental stages (eggs/larvae/adults). I’m looking for examples like the American salmon who spawns in streams and rivers and dies afterwords, never meeting their offspring. Or like the in the case with some freshwater shrimp, where eggs/larvae are laid into a river and are swept downstream. While floating towards the sea, they sexually mature and slowly return to their default breeding ground. Or perhaps snakes that guard their eggs, leaving them just prior to hatching. Examples from any phylum are welcome. References very welcome.

A lot of sociopaths is on anti-depressants these days.

It emerged that Kretschmer had been suffering from depression, even attending a clinic and receiving medication for the condition.

link

Being a biologist I enjoy the burden of seeing deeper and further when taking walks into “the wild”, especially pertaining animals and plants. To an average person, a walk in the woods is usually just a walk with background noise and green plants, but to me, there are dozens of plant and animal species to observe and listen to. Average layman usually sees animals for what they appear to be, but upon closer inspections, they are often caught red tarsused (bio-joke™) faking someone else. This is often the case with hoverflies (scientifically they’re called Syprhidae). They have found a way to mimic poisonous insects like wasps, bees and bumblebees. Many hoverflies mimic colors and patterns, but some have taken a step (3 steps, having 6 pairs of legs?) further and can mimic behavior as well. However, if a person takes some time and observes these animals, they can be discerned from their poisonous counterparts with relative ease. If you don’t have your eye trained on hoverflies, here is one (but not the only) anatomical character (see Picture 1) that can aid identification, especially if you have a specimen pinned down or in a net. This family of flies has a vena spuria, a chitonous fold in the wing. While this is present in large majority of species, some genera have it reduced or lack it altogether. In that case, others characters must be taken into consideration as well. Other insects, as far as I know, lack this “vein” in its entirety. The biggest give away is hinted already in their name. They have a distinct pattern of flying - darting around with hovering between darts. Hovering is, however, not confined to this family (see Picture 2, a fly from family Bombyliidae). With spring arriving shortly, take a minute to observe these fascinating animals. For further reading, see Hoverflies of Northwestern Europe by M. P. van Veen. The hoverfly in this post is also pictures on the front page of this book. This is also a good start-up book for any dipterologists located in or near this region.

Picture 1 (Episyrphus balteatus, a cosmopolitan, appears to overwinter as imago and emerges early)

Picture 2 (a bombyliid photographed while hovering)

I was browsing diptera.info and came across this article where Martin Suvák demonstrates how a fly (Coenosia attenuata) can be used to hunt insects. This is due to flies intriguing behavior of hunting. After taking off and capturing prey, it often returns to the same spot to finally manipulate and sucks its prey. Check it out. Many nice pictures and a nice narrative.