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New Canadian research sheds light on how a disease deadly to certain animals, mostly in the wild, is spread. The answer seems to lie beneath their feet!
by Larry Powell It's a terrible ailment called chronic wasting disease (CWD). A moose in Riding Mountain National Park, Canada. A PinP photo. Canada's Food Inspection Agency describes it as "a progressive, fatal disease of the nervous system of cervids (deer, elk and moose)." It is blamed on a prion , or abnormal protein, which is also linked to mad cow disease in cattle, scrapie in sheep and CJD in humans. But CWD is the only disease in this group which spreads through the environment. It's been common in North America for years and, to a lesser degree, south Korea. Here in Canada, it has long been ravaging free-roaming animals in Saskatchewan and Alberta. More recently, it has been detected on a farm which raises red deer in Quebec and even among domesticated reindeer in northern Europe. Up 'til now, at least, some experts have considered CWD pretty much unstoppable. But a new study by a team of four researchers at the U
Climate correction: when scientists get it wrong
PHYS ORG A few weeks ago, AFP joined news outlets around the world in covering the release of a major academic paper, warning that our oceans were warming dramatically faster than previously thought. There was one problem. It was wrong. Read more here. Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) are small schooling fish that can be found on both sides of the North Atlantic. A NOAA photo.
Humanity Sleepwalks as Earth Burns.
--> by Larry Powell This is the Ashcroft Reserve fire in BC in 2017. That was the worst year ever for wildfires in that province - until this year! Photo by Shawn Cahill. As I write this, human bodies incinerated beyond recognition, are being pulled from the ruins of wildfires in California. More than a thousand people are either missing or confirmed dead, with property damage set to top several billions of dollars. Smoke from the fires has now enveloped San Francisco. President Trump blames "poor forest management,"and, after first threatening to withhold it, finally grants emergency aid. His critics take him to task for his lack of empathy for the victims. After visiting the fire zones, he continues, disgracefully, to deny the role manmade climate change is surely playing here. But what's worse, his absence of a heart (which has been evident for some time), or his actual policies which have shown him to be