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Saturday, June 3, 2006

Human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 Avian Flu (Bird Flu) virus was earlier suspected in an Indonesian nurse currently hospitalised who was showing symptoms of the virus. However it is now being reported that tests on the woman for avian virus have been returned showing negative results, and that the samples are being sent to a World Health Organization approved laboratory in Hong Kong for further analysis and confirmation.

“Thank God, the result came back negative,” said senior official for the Indonesian Health Ministry, Hariadi Wibisono.

The nurse had been in close contact with two children, brother and sister, who have died. The sister, nine, was confirmed of having died from the virus by local lab tests. The brother was buried before any blood tests could be taken, but showed similar symptoms.

It was reported on Friday that an analysis has shown that the virus has not mutated, and the WHO has said that there was no evidence so far of human-to-human transmission.

Other members of the same family are currently ill, but all members have received the Tamiflu antiviral drug.

“I think it is a cluster. The local test from the victim in Pamulang is bird flu positive. The symptoms of the virus are very similar to previous clusters we’ve had. The parents are also suffering from flu, and we are giving them a full dose of Tamiflu now,” said Indonesia’s Health Minister, Siti Fadilah Supari.

“The characteristics of germ (the boy had) is very similar (to his sister’s), and now their mother and father are suffering from flu. They are all in the Pamulang district,” added Supari.

The nurse, whose initials are “C.I.,” 25, has been put in isolation at Bandung’s Hasan Sadikin Hospital, but officials say that her condition is stable and that her case may be the result of human-to-human transmission due to the fact that she has not had any contact with poultry.

“We could not confirm whether she is positive of having been infected by avian influenza virus or not, although she had earlier have contacts with siblings, 18-year old Ad and 10-year old Ai, who died of bird flu virus recently,” said Hadi Yusuf, chief of the Bird Flu team at Sadikin Hospital.

“When she arrived at this hospital last night, her body temperature was very high, namely 39.6 Celsius degrees but now it has decreased to 37 Celsius degrees. After considering her contact with dead bird flu victims, we declared her a suspected bird flu case. But she is still fully conscious, her breathing problems are not too serious and she’s not experiencing chest pain,” added Yusuf.

The names of the children and the nurse have not been released. The nurse is undergoing treatment and has been administered Tamiflu. She is expected to be released when the required amount of doses is given, which officials say could be as early as next week.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

NASA’s Cassini–Huygens spacecraft has discovered evidence for a large-scale saltwater reservoir beneath the icy crust of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The data came from the spacecraft’s direct analysis of salt-rich ice grains close to the jets ejected from the moon. The study has been published in this week’s edition of the journal Nature.

Data from Cassini’s cosmic dust analyzer show the grains expelled from fissures, known as tiger stripes, are relatively small and usually low in salt far away from the moon. Closer to the moon’s surface, Cassini found that relatively large grains rich with sodium and potassium dominate the plumes. The salt-rich particles have an “ocean-like” composition and indicate that most, if not all, of the expelled ice and water vapor comes from the evaporation of liquid salt-water. When water freezes, the salt is squeezed out, leaving pure water ice behind.

Cassini’s ultraviolet imaging spectrograph also recently obtained complementary results that support the presence of a subsurface ocean. A team of Cassini researchers led by Candice Hansen of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, measured gas shooting out of distinct jets originating in the moon’s south polar region at five to eight times the speed of sound, several times faster than previously measured. These observations of distinct jets, from a 2010 flyby, are consistent with results showing a difference in composition of ice grains close to the moon’s surface and those that made it out to the E ring, the outermost ring that gets its material primarily from Enceladean jets. If the plumes emanated from ice, they should have very little salt in them.

“There currently is no plausible way to produce a steady outflow of salt-rich grains from solid ice across all the tiger stripes other than salt water under Enceladus’s icy surface,” said Frank Postberg, a Cassini team scientist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

The data suggests a layer of water between the moon’s rocky core and its icy mantle, possibly as deep as about 50 miles (80 kilometers) beneath the surface. As this water washes against the rocks, it dissolves salt compounds and rises through fractures in the overlying ice to form reserves nearer the surface. If the outermost layer cracks open, the decrease in pressure from these reserves to space causes a plume to shoot out. Roughly 400 pounds (200 kilograms) of water vapor is lost every second in the plumes, with smaller amounts being lost as ice grains. The team calculates the water reserves must have large evaporating surfaces, or they would freeze easily and stop the plumes.

“We imagine that between the ice and the ice core there is an ocean of depth and this is somehow connected to the surface reservoir,” added Postberg.

The Cassini mission discovered Enceladus’ water-vapor and ice jets in 2005. In 2009, scientists working with the cosmic dust analyzer examined some sodium salts found in ice grains of Saturn’s E ring but the link to subsurface salt water was not definitive. The new paper analyzes three Enceladus flybys in 2008 and 2009 with the same instrument, focusing on the composition of freshly ejected plume grains. In 2008, Cassini discovered a high “density of volatile gases, water vapor, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, as well as organic materials, some 20 times denser than expected” in geysers erupting from the moon. The icy particles hit the detector target at speeds between 15,000 and 39,000 MPH (23,000 and 63,000 KPH), vaporizing instantly. Electrical fields inside the cosmic dust analyzer separated the various constituents of the impact cloud.

“Enceladus has got warmth, water and organic chemicals, some of the essential building blocks needed for life,” said Dennis Matson in 2008, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

“This finding is a crucial new piece of evidence showing that environmental conditions favorable to the emergence of life can be sustained on icy bodies orbiting gas giant planets,” said Nicolas Altobelli, the European Space Agency’s project scientist for Cassini.

“If there is water in such an unexpected place, it leaves possibility for the rest of the universe,” said Postberg.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

New Zealander Folole Muliaga died Tuesday morning after Mercury Energy cut off the power in her household due to $168.40 of unpaid bills. Mrs Folole Muliaga was seriously ill and dependent on an oxygen life support machine that required electricity to run.

The 44-year-old died two and a half hours after the power was cut by a contractor, working for State Owned Enterprise, Mercury Energy. A spokesperson for Mercury Energy has said that they are devastated and deeply sympathetic by the news, but state they did not know that the power was needed to run the oxygen machine. They have stated that discretion is exercised in cases of extreme hardship or when medical conditions make it appropriate and that the same contractor had done so the previous day. However, relatives claim that the contractor was told that the power was needed by family members present, was invited into the house and talked to Mrs Folole Muliaga, but showed no discretion or compassion under the circumstances.

The power was cut at about 11am. Brendan Sheehan, spokesperson for the family, said that after the power was cut, Mrs Muliaga suffered from breathing difficulties. During this time Mrs Mulianga declined an offer for an ambulance from family members. At about 1pm she informed her sons that she was feeling dizzy and asked for hymns to be sung. Her condition quickly deteriorated until she couldn’t speak. When she passed out at 1:32pm, an ambulance was called but Mrs Mulianga could not be revived when it arrived 12 minutes later.

That same evening remaining family members claim they had to grieve in the dark, power was only reconnected after the outstanding amount of $168.40 was paid to Mercury Energy. Mercury Energy claim that the were initially only made aware that a funeral was going to take place and attempted to reconnect the supply at midnight once the full circumstances were made clear but were unable to contact the family. They state the supply was eventually reconnected before 8am the next day. Evidence has been provided by family members to show that they had made two payments to Mercury Energy in the same month trying to clear their outstanding bill, $61.90 on 1 May 2007, and $45 on 17 May 2007.

Trevor Mallard, minister of State Owned Enterprises, said, “I do think it is important that the facts are established before people rush to judgement.”

Both the New Zealand Police and Mercury Energy, the retail operating division of Mighty River Power, are conducting investigations into the events.

The mother-of-four school teacher lived in Mangere, South Auckland and had been suffering from a heart and lung condition, according to relatives of Mrs Muliaga, since February.

Hospital doctors have expressed surprise at the short length of time between when the supply was cut and the death occurred. They have also explained that relatives are trained what to do if the supply is lost, including to call for an ambulance if severe symptoms develop.

Thursday, June 8, 2006

The price for a barrel of oil dropped after news broke that Al Qaeda‘s leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been killed in a US airstrike Thursday. The death of al-Zarqawi seems to have been interpreted by the market as good news for the future supply of oil from the region.

This is against the backdrop in 2006 when the price of oil had reached a record high of $70 a barrel.

Today on the New York Mercantile Exchange light crude futures for July dropped from over $70 a barrel to a low of $69.54 before rising to $69.63 for a $1.19 loss. “There’s less of a terror threat in Iraq now,” said Naohiro Niimura, vice president of energy derivatives at Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd, in Tokyo, who gave his reason for the fall.

Iraq lies over one-third of known oil reserves but since the Iraq war in 2003 has been unable to pump more than 2 million barrels a day – 1 million less than prior to the coalition invasion. In May exports were said to be 1.5 million bpd.

The line on a graph that plotted oil price had done a steady incline over recent years, though many factors are involved in the price of a barrel of oil so it is almost impossible to say how much the troubles in Iraq contributed to this rise.

Iraq’s exports make up the largest proportion of its Gross Domestic Product and a significant proportion of world supply. Investors were said to have been worried about developing in the country citing lack of security and legal protection.

Al-Zarqawi, known for videotaped beheadings, suicide bombing campaigns against coalition forces and civilians and reportedly some attacks on oil infrastructure inside Iraq, had claimed responsibility for bombing three hotels in Amman, Jordan. It was hoped the death of Osama bin Laden’s operative in Iraq would remove a man who had opposed the US-backed Shiite-led state and western influence in the wider-region.

The Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s recent appointment of new security and home affairs ministers also may have affected the oil market. Director general of marketing and economics at the Iraqi oil ministry said both pieces of news together were “a positive indicator for security,” said Shamkhi Faraj.

Other voices sounded a note of caution against the optimism: “The situation in Iraq has now become so chaotic, that it transcends the death of one man, influential as al-Zarqawi was,” said Edward Meir.

The analyst at Man Financial believes the threat to the Iraqi oil industry is political as well as physical.

“Yes, al Qaeda attacked oil installations but they were not the only actors and they were not the main actors,” he said. “There is also a new factor — political parties that are using threats against oil to gain leverage.”

In an announcement about oil, Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih of the Iraqi government said it hoped to produce 4.3 million bpd in four years.