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Wednesday, April 3, 2013
A Samoan Airline Now Charges Passengers By Body Weight
Four more diagnosed with new bird flu in China
By Maggie Fox, Senior Writer, NBC News
Four more people have been diagnosed with a new strain of bird flu in China that?s killed two people, officials said on Tuesday.
That makes seven human cases of H7N9 bird flu, all in the eastern part of the country around Shanghai.This is a different strain of bird flu from H5N1 avian influenza, which has killed 371 people out of 622 infected in 15 countries since 2003.
The four new cases are reported in China's eastern Jiangsu Province, including a woman in Nanjing who works killing poultry, a man in Suzhou, a woman in Wuxi and a woman in Suqian. The official Chinese news agency Xinhua says 167 people who were in close contact with the four don?t appear to have any flu symptoms.
A total of 167 people who had come into contact with the four showed no symptoms of fever or respiratory illnesses, it said. That suggests -- but doesn?t prove -- that the virus isn?t passing from person to person, experts say.
On Sunday, China reported three H7N9 bird flu infections: two in Shanghai and one in Anhui. The two Shanghai victims died and the third patient is in critical condition, Xinhua says. There?s no suggestion yet that they infected any of their friends or relatives, either, Chinese officials have said.
Doctors keep a very close eye on cases of animal flu that pass into humans. Seasonal flu causes an annual pandemic that kills tens of thousands of people globally every year. But if a new virus starts passing from animals to humans, it can cause far more serious disease.
For instance, H5N1 kills about 60 percent of the people it infects. Luckily, it doesn?t pass easily from person to person, either, and most people who got it appear to have been directly infected by sick chickens.
But flu can mutate very quickly and it?s possible that a bird or animal strain of flu could develop the ability to pass quickly from one person to another. H1N1 swine flu appears to have done this in 2009. It killed a greater than usual number of young adults and children that year, and has now joined the mix of annual human flu strains.
And H1N1 is an indirect descendant of the 1918 ?Spanish flu?, which killed anywhere between 50 million and 100 million people. So public health experts take the risk of another such pandemic seriously.
Chinese officials have not said what they are doing to see if the H7N9 virus is spreading among poultry flocks. H5N1 pops up among chickens regularly, forcing mass culls.
?Since its widespread re-emergence in 2003 and 2004, this avian virus has spread from Asia to Europe and Africa and has become entrenched in poultry in some countries, resulting in millions of poultry infections, several hundred human cases, and many human deaths,? the World Health Organization says.
?Outbreaks in poultry have seriously impacted livelihoods, the economy and international trade in affected countries.?
H5N1 infects ducks without causing any symptoms. As long as an influenza virus exists in an animal, it will be steadily mutating and also swapping genes with other viruses.
That?s what happened with H1N1 swine flu in 2009. It was a never-before-seen mixture of human, pig and bird viruses. It wasn?t nearly as deadly as other new flu viruses that cause pandemics, something that could lead people to believe that flu pandemics aren?t that big a deal. But H5N1 and H7N9 are completely new to the human body and appear to be more deadly than seasonal flu.
While there are vaccines against seasonal flu, there are only experimental human vaccines for H5N1 and none for H7N9. Flu mutates so quickly that it?s impossible to formulate vaccines until a strain is actually circulating. Researchers are working to develop a universal flu vaccine that could protect people against a range of strains, or even all strains of influenza.
But most types of flu appear to be helped at least a little by two antiviral drugs -- oseltamivir or Tamiflu, and zanamivir or Relenza. Neither is a cure, but given early enough can relieve the worst symptoms, WHO says.
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Opposition: SAfrican troops must withdraw from CAR
JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? South Africa's leading opposition party on Monday urged President Jacob Zuma to withdraw troops from Central African Republic, where 13 South African troops were killed in the recent rebellion.
There are suggestions that Zuma should be impeached for allegedly misleading parliament about the deployment of South African troops in Central African Republic.
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille's announcement that her party will present a motion in parliament Tuesday to demand the withdrawal of South African troops, comes amid increasingly angry debate over why the soldiers were deployed to Central African Republic at all, and suggestions they were sent to protect mining interests of South Africa's governing African National Congress. The ANC denies it has any business in the country rich in diamonds, uranium and other resources.
The South African soldiers were killed in a March 24 battle in which rebels took the Central African Republic's capital, Bangui. President Francois Bozize fled to neighboring Cameroon and has asked for asylum in the West African state of Benin.
There are also calls for Zuma to report Central African rebel leader Michel Djotodia to the International Criminal Court at The Hague for using child soldiers. The South African National Defense Force Union, a trade union of soldiers, said Monday the South African government is legally bound ask the ICC to indict Djotodia and his Seleka rebels over child soldiers.
South African soldiers who fought in Central African Republic said they were appalled to find out they had killed some youngsters among the rebels.
"It was only after the firing had stopped that we saw we had killed kids," said one paratrooper, among the 27 wounded who were flown home for treatment, quoted by The Sunday Times of Johannesburg. "We did not come here for this ... to kill kids. It makes you sick. They were crying for help ... calling for (their) moms."
Zuma told parliament's defense committee that the South African soldiers were training CAR troops and would help with disarming and demobilization under a peace agreement that fell apart. But the trade union says the elite paratroopers and Special Forces deployed in Central African Republic are an unlikely choice to do military training.
Business Day newspaper asked in an editorial "Did President Jacob Zuma mislead Parliament about their deployment? And if he did, is that an impeachable offense?"
It noted that Bozize had come to South Africa and met Zuma just days before his overthrow, presumably to plead for further military assistance or report his days were numbered. "There are red lights flashing. ... For South Africans, the question is whether Mr. Zuma knew after Mr. Bozize's visit that the situation was critical. If he did, why did he not withdraw the troops or reinforce them?" the newspaper asked.
Zuma authorized the deployment of 400 soldiers but only 200 were sent in January. Since the battle ? defense officials say the 200 soldiers fought some 3,000 rebels, killing hundreds before a truce was reached ? Zuma said that instead of withdrawing troops he was considering sending reinforcements.
It appears a strange suggestion given that the bilateral agreement was signed with an ousted president and that rebel leader Djotodia, whom the South African soldiers fought, has declared himself president and said he intends to stay in power until elections scheduled in 2016.
Opposition leader Zille said "The conclusion is inescapable that the South African troops were deployed to defend the faltering and dictatorial Bozize regime." Bozize seized power in a coup in 2003 and was elected in dubious 2005 elections that excluded the man he had ousted.
Zille said the mission "was reportedly undertaken against expert military advice." And that its aim was "allegedly to protect the business interests of a politically connected elite, both in South Africa and the Central African Republic."
"If this is so, President Zuma's position both as president of the republic and commander in chief of the armed forces, becomes untenable," she told a news conference. "We believe that our troops should be withdrawn immediately. To this end, the DA will table an urgent parliamentary resolution ... to compel the president to bring our soldiers back home."
The Mail and Guardian newspaper reported extensively on the alleged business interests, saying South Africa's former defense minister signed a cooperation agreement with the CAR covering defense, minerals and energy in 2006. As a result, a company was set up with shareholders including an ANC veteran of the liberation war and the Chancellor House Trust that serves as a fundraiser for the ANC, it said. The company, a joint venture with the CAR government, was to serve as a national diamond exporter, buying diamonds from the country's small-scale miners, The Mail and Guardian reported.
A statement Monday from ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu said, "The ANC rejects with contempt the damaging and malicious claim by The Mail and Guardian that South African soldiers were sent to the Central African Republic to protect ANC business interests." It added that "the ANC as an organization does not have business interests in CAR."
The ANC threatened to sue the newspaper.
Zuma is to attend a conference Wednesday in Chad with leaders from Central Africa to discuss the crisis in the Central African Republic.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/opposition-safrican-troops-must-withdraw-car-120508956.html
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AAA Mich.: Gas prices fall 12 cents from last week
DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) -- AAA Michigan says gasoline prices have fallen about 12 cents during the past week to a statewide average of about $3.68 per gallon.
The auto club says Monday the average is about 37 cents per gallon less than last year at this time.
Of the cities it surveys, AAA Michigan says the cheapest price for self-serve unleaded fuel is in the Marquette area, where it's about $3.57 a gallon. The highest average is in the Ann Arbor area at about $3.71.
Dearborn-based AAA Michigan surveys 2,800 Michigan gas stations daily.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/aaa-mich-gas-prices-fall-152129594.html
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Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Inhabitat's Week in Green: TORQ Roadster, quantum-dot solar cells and an invisibility cloak
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green.
This week, Team Inhabitat traveled to Mountain View, Calif., to get a look at the 100 percent sun-powered Solar Impulse airplane before it embarks on its first flight across the United States. Inhabitat editors also braved the crowds at the 2013 New York International Auto Show to report on the hottest new hybrids and electric cars. Some of the green cars unveiled at this year's show were the compact Mercedes-Benz 2014 B-Class Electric Drive and BMW's sexy new Active Tourer plug-in hybrid. The Tesla Model S was named the 2013 World Green Car of the Year, beating out the Renault Zoe and the Volvo V60. And speaking of new auto unveils, Epic EV unveiled its new all-electric TORQ Roadster, which looks like a roofless Batmobile and can go from 0-60 MPH in just four seconds.
Filed under: Misc, Transportation, Science
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/31/torq-roadster-quantum-dot-solar-cell-invisibility/
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