Solar still in water. QIAOQIANG GAN, SUNY BUFFALO

buffalonews.com - by T.J. Pignataro  - October 15, 2017

Distilling water using the sun’s rays . . . a University at Buffalo startup has found a quick way to do it . . . and it could transform how potable water gets to people in developing countries or in areas stricken by natural disasters like earthquakes or hurricanes.

The university’s Sunny Clean Water startup said its method is nearly three times as fast as the industry standard . . . 

. . . The process uses a floating solar still and a specially-engineered carbon-based cloth to capture, desalinate and purify as much as a liter of water every three hours in a prototype developed by UB associate professor of electrical engineering Qiaoqiang Gan, Singer and other university electrical engineering students.

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A 2-year-old Honduran child cries as her mother is searched by US Border Patrol agents on Tuesday, June 12.

cnn.com - by Madison Park and Kyle Almond - Photographs by John Moore/Getty Images

The 2-year-old girl looks up at the adults around her with tears in her frightened eyes, her curls clinging to the side of her face and her mouth opened in a terrified cry.

The girl, who was with her mother and others, had rafted across the Rio Grande and were stopped in Texas by US Border Patrol agents last week . . .

 . . . John Moore, a Getty photographer and Pulitzer Prize winner, took the picture after the toddler's mother set her down.

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ALSO SEE RELATED IMAGES HERE - Photos from a decade at the border

Sea level rise contributions from ice melt in different areas, including Greenland (a), West Antarctica (b), East Antarctica (c) and median of global glaciers (d). Values are ratios of regional sea level change to global mean sea level change. Adapted from Kopp et al. 2015.

axios.com - by Andrew Freedman - June 14, 2018

News of Antarctica's accelerating ice melt garnered worldwide headlines yesterday, as scientists revealed that 3 trillion tons of ice has been lost to the sea since 1992 — mostly from the thawing West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Antarctic Peninsula.

Why it matters: The location of the ice melt is important for determining the future of coastal communities, according to climate scientists. And, due to West Antarctica melting, it turns out that the U.S. coastline will be hit extra hard . . .

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Scientists warns time is running out to save the Antarctic and its unique ecosystem, with potentially dire consequences for the world. Photograph: Daniel Beltrá/Greenpeace

CLICK HERE - IMBIE - ANALYSIS - Mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2017

washingtonpost.com - by Chris Mooney - June 13, 2018

Antarctica’s ice sheet is melting at a rapidly increasing rate, now pouring more than 200 billion tons of ice into the ocean annually and raising sea levels a half-millimeter every year, a team of 80 scientists reported Wednesday.

An MSF cholera treatment center set up in Abs town, pictured in July 2017.  Gonzalo Martinez/MSF

doctorswithoutborders.org - by João Martins - June 11, 2018

A newly constructed cholera treatment center run by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Abs, Yemen, was hit by an airstrike Monday at approximately 5:40 am.

No staff or patients were killed or injured. The facility had not yet received any cholera patients and was empty . . .

. . . Markings on the roof of the compound clearly identified the CTC as a healthcare facility. The airstrike has now rendered the CTC non-functional. In keeping with security protocol, MSF has temporarily frozen its activities in Abs until the safety of its staff and patients is guaranteed.

submitted by Albert Gomez

Two women walk in front of a billboard, which says "Ebola must go. Stopping Ebola is Everybody's Business" in Monrovia, Liberia - 15 January 2015 - Photo: UNMIL/Emmanuel Tobey

futurehealthsystems.org - by Sehwah Sonkarlay - June 12, 2018

 . . . The ‘Understanding and Strengthening Community Resilience in Liberia’ meeting, which took place from 28th February – 1st March, was attended by representatives from the Ministry of Health, research organisations, and community members. Its aim was to understand the experience of Liberia in identifying and building resilience at the community level in the context of the recent Ebola epidemic, combined with its post-war and unique sociopolitical history.

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Credit: Tove Hoffman

CLICK HERE - STUDY - CDC - EID - Alkhurma Hemorrhagic Fever Virus RNA in Hyalomma rufipes Ticks Infesting Migratory Birds, Europe and Asia Minor

uu.se - Press Release - June 1, 2018

In a new study, researchers at Uppsala University and other institutions have identified genetic material from the recently identified Alkhurma hemorrhagic fever virus in the tick species Hyalomma rufipes. The discovery was made after thousands of ticks were collected from migratory birds captured in the Mediterranean basin. The results indicate that birds could contribute to spreading the virus to new geographical areas.

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Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

 - Forecasters see wind output staying low for at least two weeks

 - Wind generating 4.3% of U.K. electricity on Wednesday

bloomberg.com - by Rachel Morison - June 6, 2018

Britain’s gone nine days with almost no wind generation, and forecasts show the calm conditions persisting for another two weeks.

The wind drought has pushed up day-ahead power prices to the highest level for the time of year for at least a decade. Apart from a surge expected around June 14, wind levels are forecast to stay low for the next fortnight, according to The Weather Company.

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Burying a victim of the Nipah virus in Kozhikode, southern India. There is no vaccine and no cure for the disease.  Credit K.Shijith/Associated Press

The infection, an emerging threat, has killed virtually all of its victims so far in India.

nytimes.com - by Emily Baumgaertner - June 4, 2018

A rare, brain-damaging virus that experts consider a possible epidemic threat has broken out in the state of Kerala, India, for the first time, infecting at least 18 people and killing 17 of them, according to the World Health Organization.

The Nipah virus naturally resides in fruit bats across South and Southeast Asia, and can spread to humans through contact with the animals’ bodily fluids. There is no vaccine and no cure.

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CLICK HERE - EcoHealth Alliance - Analysis: EcoHealth Alliance’s FLIRT Program Identifies Areas at Risk of Further Nipah Virus Spread

Hurricane Harvey over the Gulf of Mexico in August 2017. The storm stalled over Texas and dropped nearly 50 inches of rain in some places.  Credit NOAA/NASA GOES Project

CLICK HERE - STUDY - A global slowdown of tropical-cyclone translation speed

A new study shows that storms are staying in one place longer, much like Hurricane Harvey did last year.

nytimes.com - by Kendra Pierre-Louis - June 6, 2018

 . . . A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature focuses on what is known as translation speed, which measures how quickly a storm is moving over an area, say, from Miami to the Florida Panhandle. Between 1949 and 2016, tropical cyclone translation speeds declined 10 percent worldwide, the study says. The storms, in effect, are sticking around places for a longer period of time.

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A section of the Kalinago Territory about a month after Hurricane Maria

dominicanewsonline.com - June 1, 2018

KALINAGO TERRITORY — The largest disaster-preparedness-focused gathering of Dominicans since Maria made landfall will take place 9AM tomorrow, June 2nd, in the Kalinago Territory. Over 60 Kalinago residents and government officials will come together for a day-long workshop to review how emergency management procedures worked and failed in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

Co-led by the Kalinago Council and the Dominica Resilience Systems, this workshop will ask concerned citizens to review how emergency systems performed with respect to 26 core mission critical functions, which consist of everything from water and evacuation routes to emergency shelters and supply chains.

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ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE - Kalinagos to discuss development agenda for Kalinago Territory

CLICK HERE - CLADE X LIVESTREAM (ARCHIVED)

A panel of experts play out a pandemic exercise on May 15 to demonstrate what policies and strategies the U.S. government should have in place. (Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security)

submitted by Mike Kraft - washingtonpost.com - by Lena H. Sun - May 30, 2018

A novel virus, moderately contagious and moderately lethal, has surfaced and is spreading rapidly around the globe . . .

. . . So began a recent day-long exercise hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. The simulation mixed details of past disasters with fictional elements to force government officials and experts to make the kinds of key decisions they could face in a real pandemic.

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An explosion at an antibiotics factory in China reduced the supply so significantly doctors in the UK warned that patients were being put at risk from reliance on less suitable alternatives. Photograph: Stanislav Krasilnikov/Getty Images

CLICK HERE - WHITE PAPER - Shortages, stockouts and scarcity - The issues facing the security of antibiotic supply and the role for pharmaceutical companies (22 page .PDF paper)

Patients given wrong dose, wrong type, or poor quality medicines because supply is waning

theguardian.com - by Nicola Davis - May 31, 2018

The antibiotic resistance crisis which is threatening to render many diseases untreatable is being fuelled not just by overuse of the drugs, but a fragile supply chain that is at risk of collapse, experts have warned.

CLICK HERE - EcoHealth Alliance - Ebola Spreads To Major Congo Transportation Hub, Will It Spread Further?

cnbc.com - by Angelica LaVito - May 25, 2018

An Ebola outbreak is emerging in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and a nonprofit that studies infectious diseases identified where it could spread based on flight patterns. . .

. . . EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that studies outbreaks, used software to identify where Ebola could spread through infected passengers. The system used flight patterns from the airports in Mbandaka, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, those nearest to Bikoro, where the outbreak started.

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ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE - Where could Ebola spread?

FILE PHOTO: A man types on a computer keyboard in front of the displayed cyber code in this illustration picture taken on March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration

CLICK HERE - FBI Statement - FOREIGN CYBER ACTORS TARGET HOME AND OFFICE ROUTERS AND NETWORKED DEVICES WORLDWIDE

reuters.com - by Joseph Menn, Sarah N. Lynch - May 25, 2018

The FBI warned on Friday that Russian computer hackers had compromised hundreds of thousands of home and office routers and could collect user information or shut down network traffic.

The U.S. law enforcement agency urged the owners of many brands of routers to turn them off and on again and download updates from the manufacturer to protect themselves. . .

. . . Infections were detected in more than 50 countries, though the primary target for further actions was probably Ukraine, the site of many recent infections and a longtime cyberwarfare battleground.

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