Liberia
oracknows | November 28, 2014
I hope my U.S. readers have all had a happy Thanksgiving. Today has been known at least since the mid-1970s as Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year. Whether it's still true or not, given the relentless proliferation, progression, and metastasis—yes, the use of terms related to cancer is intentional—of holiday sales right up until Christmas, I don't know. I do know that I plan on going nowhere near any store bigger than a convenience store until next week if I can possibly help it. I'm also sitting back and congratulating myself on one of the smartest decisions I've made in a…
oracknows | November 20, 2014
Here we go yet again.
I’ve been interested in the Ebola outbreak that’s been going on for months in west Africa for a number of reasons. First, it’s a bad disease, and this is the largest outbreak in history. over 5,000 people have died. Second, there’s been a lot of unreasonable fear mongering about the disease here in the US far beyond its actual threat level to the country. Third, of course, and perhaps most pertinent given the usual subject matter of this blog, is that the Ebola outbreak in Africa has been a godsend for quacks, cranks, and conspiracy theorists. There is no quackery or…
pgleick | October 13, 2014As input to the ongoing discussions about how to meet and overcome the spreading risks of Ebola, here are some summary thoughts about the water-related components of U.S. efforts. Specifics about the operations and effectiveness of water treatment or supply technologies, or the medical and health implications of their use must be verified by the designers/makers of the technology along with medical experts from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), West African health and water officials, and related institutions.
1. Water Supply Needs and Usage
Any…
tsmith | September 23, 2014Have a new article up at Slate. Nine months into the worst-ever Ebola outbreak, here's where we stand.
tsmith | September 18, 2014Gregg Mitman's article in the September 17th New England Journal of Medicine, "Ebola in a Stew of Fear," is unfortunately all too prescient. Dr. Mitman highlighted "the ecology of fear" in Western Africa. Fear is present on both the part of Westerners (scared of Africa's yellow fever, malaria, Ebola, its mere "different-ness"), and by native Africans (of whites' history of colonization and slavery, of medical exploitation dating back well over a century). Fear of each other.
This history of fear, the cultural legacy of decades of mistrust of both Western people and their medical science,…
sciencewoman | June 5, 2009Sheril, Isis, Alice,Zuska and many others have introduced you to the Silence Is the Enemy project, aimed at condemning and reducing sexual violence in places like Liberia, Congo, Darfur and other conflict ridden places in the world. In Liberia, for example, as many as 3/4 of the women have been raped, often repeatedly. And 28% of new rape victims are under the age of 4. Those are girls the age of my daughter and the girls who play on the playground with her. Raped and left to suffer a lifetime of physical and psychological consequences. (At the bottom of this post, please watch an important…
tsmith | June 1, 2009"I always think someone is following me and wants to rape me. It is better to die." --Darfuri refugee
Sometimes there comes a public health issue that's so big, so overwhelming, so heinous, that you just don't know where to begin discussing it. Nevertheless, the conversation should, and must, happen just the same. Silence may be easier, but speaking out is the only way to demystify the taboos and bring attention to what's going on for those who can't bring attention to it themselves. And maybe, just maybe, bring about some change.
It's no secret that rape happens during wartime.…
bioephemera | June 1, 2009
A sexual violence victim recovers in Goma, Congo
photo by Endre Vestvik
A few weeks ago, the NYT published a horrifying account by Nicholas Kristof of the pervasive sexual violence left over from Liberia's civil war. A major survey in Liberia found that 75% of Liberian women had been raped - most gang-raped. And many of the victims are children:
Of course, children are raped everywhere, but what is happening in Liberia is different. The war seems to have shattered norms and trained some men to think that when they want sex, they need simply to overpower a girl. Or at school, girls sometimes…
grrlscientist | March 9, 2008tags: pygmy hippopotamus, pygmy hippo, Hexaprotodon liberensis, zoology, endangered species, conservation
A rare pygmy hippopotamus, Hexaprotodon liberensis,
was thought to be extinct up until recently, after this image was
captured at night by a photo trap set up by researchers in a Liberian rainforest.
A team of zoologists set up a series of camera traps in a west African rainforest to determine whether the rare pygmy hippopotamus, Hexaprotodon liberensis, still survives, despite wars, habitat degradation and poaching in the area. After a three-day wait, they were pleasantly surprised…