Haiti
sastyk | January 26, 2010A couple of years ago, I wrote a post with the above title, about the way that biofuel and meat production in the US was pushing up world food prices. I observed, as has been documented in any number of studies, that when the world's poorest people and the world's richest people's vehicles (or their pets, to their appetite for grain fed meat) compete for food, the cars, pets and rich folk always eat first - the rich come to the table once for their share of staple grains, then three of or four more times for more grains in the form of meat. We then come to the table again for a share for…
oracknows | January 26, 2010Almost two years ago, I discovered something that disturbed me greatly. Basically, I learned the story of an Air Force officer named Col. Richard Niemtzow, MD, PhD. Col. Niemtzow is a radiation oncologist who has over the last decade fallen deeply into woo. Specifically, he has become known for a technique that he has dubbed "battlefield acupuncture," a technique that he has promoted energetically (word choice intentional) and ceaselessly, to the point where, sadly, the military is starting to take it seriously even though the evidence Col Niemtzow has presented in favor of the technique is…
eklemetti | January 14, 2010Sometimes it is easy to feel overwhelmed by a disaster like the earthquake in Haiti - I mean, how much can someone sitting in their office thousands of miles away do? It isn't really feasible for most people to pull up stakes and go to give first-hand assistance during the recovery - but you feel like you need to do something. The first step is just trying to offer whatever assistance you can in whatever limited way you can. Many of us might not have a lot of money to spare - but that is the key word, "spare". That means "leftover". That means you have money to begin with - so some sacrifice…
sastyk | January 13, 2010It is always hard to grasp the magnitude of suffering in Haiti - a place that should not be so desperately impoverished, that should never be the victim of so much suffering has an almost unending depth of misery. And it has only gotten worse over the last few years, as high food prices have driven people to starvation, as hurricane after hurricane has battered Haiti, and now the earthquake has caused immeasurably more suffering. The best most of us can do is open our purses, and we should open them wide.
Where to? Well, all the usual suspects are good - The Red Cross, Doctors without…
eklemetti | January 13, 2010Somehow I haven't posted a bunch of interesting items collected over the last few weeks, so I need to catch up. A pre-emptive hat tip to everyone who has sent me links or notes that might seem familiar in this post.
Tungurahua in Ecuador erupting in 2000.
First off, those of you looking for information on the Haitian earthquake that devastated the capitol Port Au Prince, Highly Allochthonous has post on the tectonics of the quake. Right now, it is hard for me to come up with a worse location in terms of devastation for a quake to have hit in the Caribbean Basin.
Back in volcano news, a lot…
eklemetti | January 12, 2010This isn't directly volcano-related, but the USGS (and CNN) are reporting that a 7.0 earthquake just occurred in Haiti. Looking at the map, it seems that it epicentered only 10 miles/15 kilometers from Port Au Prince, the biggest city in Haiti. The earthquake was at 10 km depth - so a fairly shallow earthquake related to the complex transform faulting along the boundary of the Caribbean and Atlantic plates. A Tsunani Watch has been issued for the Caribbean as well - but the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center believes that the only effects will be local (within 100 km) of Hispaniola.
awild | August 9, 2009In a rare bit of good environmental news, herpetologist extraordinaire Rich Glor travels to Haiti in search of a potentially extinct Anolis lizard and finds a pair of surviving populations.
awild | December 3, 2008
Linepithema flavescens, last seen in 1934
Linepithema flavescens, a small yellow ant from Haiti, is one of the species I re-described as part of my Ph.D. dissertation. All we know about this ant, apart from the brief notes on the specimen labels, is the external appearance of a few workers. Queens and males haven't been collected. No one has studied its ecology or behavior. The few existing museum specimens- gathered from two different field sites- may be too valuable to attempt DNA extraction.
A 1934 collection is the last time anyone has ever seen L. flavescens. As the natural…
gregladen | November 8, 2007Lots of people are talking about this latest paper on HIV. It is an "open access" paper in the PNAS, and you can get it here.
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that can cause AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). It is a member of a larger group of viruses (the Smian immunodeficiency viruses) which are generally thought to be of African origin. There are two types of HIV (HIV-1, and HIV-2), with HIV-1 being the more virulent and, in human populations, most widespread.
There are several theories as to the origin of HIV. When I was in Zaire in the mid 1980s, people in…