Monday, March 31, 2014

H5N1: Garrett on Ebola: We have met the enemy and he is us - Pogo

H5N1: Garrett on Ebola: Don't kiss the cadaver

When distressed by such environmental changes, animals are more likely to venture near human habitation in search of food, and come down from the upper tiers of forests into tree levels filled with predatory monkeys and chimps.

Once in Nzara, McCormick found the rafters of a Sudanese textile warehouse filled with bats. South African virologist Robert Swanepoel found swarms of bats in trees inside Kikwit town, and traces of Ebola in their blood. Even bats found in a cave in Spain carried Ebola.

The bats play a vital role in the survival of rain forests: The solution is not elimination of the animals, but of human contact with them.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Japan Loses Its Appetite for Whale Meat

The greatest threat to Japan's whaling industry may not be the environmentalists harassing its ships or the countries demanding its abolishment, but Japanese consumers. They've lost their appetite.

The amount of whale meat stockpiled for lack of buyers has nearly doubled over 10 years, even as anti-whaling protests helped drive catches to record lows. More than 2,300 minke whales worth of meat is sitting in freezers, while whalers still plan to catch another 1,300 whales per year.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Dolores O'Riordan - Dreams (Live in Chile)

La Vida Boheme - LA VIDA MEJOR

Enroll By March 31: It's a Slam Dunk | National Women's Law Center

Enroll By March 31: It's a Slam Dunk

Posted on March 26, 2014 |

Posted by:

Dania Palanker, Senior Counsel

I used to fill out a March Madness bracket as part of the office pool. I had no idea what I was doing. The first year, I had to ask my office mate what the numbers on the bracket meant. I took a chance though. I guessed what would happen. I always lost my dollar.

There are certain things we shouldn’t leave to chance. That includes our health. Guessing as to whether we will need health insurance means taking a chance on our health and our economic stability. If you guess that you don’t need health insurance, then what happens if you get in an accident on the basketball court? Arecent study found that, in 2012:

Over 8,000 people were hospitalized because of basketball injuries
Over half a million people were treated in the emergency room due to basketball injuries.
The average medical costs of treating a leg fracture, one of the most common injuries on the basketball court, are about $3,400. The average costs for an arm fracture are over $7,500.

Santé Les Amis - Brasil

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Like It's 1849: Latinos Are the Majority in California | TakePart

Like It's 1849: Latinos Are the Majority in California | TakePart

This month, 39 percent of residents—more than 14.5 million people—identified as Latino, making them the most populous racial or ethnic group in California for the first time since it became a U.S. state in 1850. That's slightly more than the 38.8 percent of residents who identify as white. Latinos significantly outnumer Asian Americans (14.9 percent) and blacks (7.2 percent) in the Golden State.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Mars commits to No Deforestation, exposes P&G for its inaction | Greenpeace International

Mars committed to remove deforestation from all of its products by the end of 2015, a move that places pressure on companies such as Procter & Gamble to set an equally ambitious No Deforestation Policy. In addition, Greenpeace activists today documented ongoing forest clearance and unfurled a giant banner in a palm oil plantation in Indonesia which is owned by P&G supplier Musim Mas, and where orangutan habitat was recently cleared.

“Mars joins a growing list of companies including Unilever and Nestlé that are finally promising forest-friendly products to their consumers. It shows that global public pressure is working, and is leaving P&G, which refuses to clean up their supply chains, increasingly isolated,” said Areeba Hamid, forest campaigner at Greenpeace International.

Mars’ policy includes an ambitious timeline of 2015 to remove forest destruction from its supply chain. Importantly, the policy recognises the need to move beyond the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) standards and Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) commitments to break the link between palm oil and deforestation – an issue that P&G has refused to recognise.