Most Chicken Harbors Harmful Bacteria

I felt this was a very important article indeed:

"Dec. 4, 2006 -- Even if you go for the more expensive organic or antibiotic-free chicken, the chicken you buy at the grocery store probably contains bacteria that can make you sick.

But safe handling and proper cooking can reduce the risk.

A startling 83% of the chickens tested in a recent Consumer Reports investigation were contaminated with one or both of the leading bacterial causes of food-borne disease -- salmonella and campylobacter.

That is up from 49% in 2003, when the group last reported on contamination in chickens.

However, the results are similar to the contamination found in 1997, when almost three-fourths of the broilers Consumer Reports tested were positive for salmonella or campylobacter.

In their new report, "Dirty Birds," investigators with Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, concluded that paying more for a chicken does not increase your chances of getting one free of illness-causing bacteria.

"Overall, chickens labeled as organic or raised without antibiotics and costing $3 to $5 per pound were more likely to harbor salmonella than were conventionally produced broilers that cost more like $1 a pound," they wrote.

Jean Halloran of Consumers Union tells WebMD that fewer than one if five birds tested (17%) were free of both pathogens, the lowest percentage of clean birds recorded since the group began testing chickens eight years ago.

Antibiotic Resistance High
Investigators for the independent consumer group tested 525 whole broiler chickens from leading brands like Perdue, Tyson, Pilgrim's Pride, and Foster Farms, as well as organic and other brands raised without antibiotics.

The chickens were purchased at supermarkets, mass retailers, gourmet shops, and natural food stores in 23 states last spring.

Among the findings:

• 15% of chickens tested were contaminated with salmonella, compared to the 12% reported by Consumers Union in 2003.
• 81% harbored campylobacter, up from 42% in 2003. This bug is the main identified cause of bacterial diarrhea illness in the world.
• 13% of chickens were contaminated with both bacteria, up from 5% in 2003.
• 84% of the salmonella organisms analyzed and 67% of the campylobacter were resistant to one or more antibiotics. In the 2003 report, 34% of the salmonella and 90% of campylobacter were resistant.

"The problem of antibiotic resistance is related to both the widespread use of antibiotics in animal feed to promote growth and the widespread use in humans," Halloran says.

Major brands tested did not show better results than smaller brands, overall, based on tests of 78 chickens from each brand.

Among major brands, salmonella contamination ranged from a low of 3% in Foster Farms chickens to a high of 17% in chickens processed by Perdue.

But Perdue had the lowest level of campylobacter-contaminated chickens, with 74%; Tyson had the highest, at 89%.

Chicken Producers Respond
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) requires chicken producers to test for salmonella, but not campylobacter. The agency will begin collecting data on campylobacter soon, but it is not clear if it will set federal limits or require routine testing.

Halloran says it is clear routine testing is needed.

"81% [campylobacter] contamination is intolerable, in our view," she says.

Richard L. Lobb, a chicken industry spokesman, agrees that 81% would be unacceptable, but he argues that far fewer chickens are contaminated with the bacteria.

Lobb is director of communications for the National Chicken Council. He cites a recent, larger study by USDA researchers, in conjunction with the 10 major chicken processors, which found campylobacter bacteria in 26% of the processed chickens tested.

"How they could get from 26% to 81% just blows my mind," Lobb tells WebMD.
He adds that the chicken industry does not oppose testing for campylobacter, and says chicken is both a safe and healthy food.

"Consumer Reports says what every cook already knows -- that fresh poultry may carry naturally occurring bacteria and should be properly handled and cooked," says Lobb.

"The Consumer Reports story, as far as we know, contains nothing new and should not be cause for alarm to anyone," he says.

What Can You Do?
All agree proper handling and cooking can greatly reduce and even eliminate the risk of illness from chickens harboring salmonella or campylobacter bacteria.

That means always cooking chicken thoroughly, to the point where there are no red juices.
"Chicken needs to be cooked to at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit," Halloran says. "The best thing to do is test it with a meat thermometer. And if you are in a restaurant and you cut into chicken that doesn't look done, send it back."

Other suggestions for reducing risk include:

• At the grocery store, make chicken one of the last things you pick up before heading to the check-out line.
• Store and thaw chicken in the refrigerator, making sure its juices are contained and cannot contaminate other foods. Placing it on a plate, in a bowl, or inside a plastic bag is a good way to do this.
• When preparing chicken, wash your hands with soap and water after contact, and immediately clean cutting boards, knives, and anything else the chicken touches in hot, soapy water.
• Never return cooked meat to the plate that held it raw without washing the plate first.
  Washing chicken and removing its skin before cooking does not ensure it is free of bacteria.
  

"Consumers now have to realize that most chickens contain disease-causing bacteria, and that means they have to act appropriately," Halloran says. "They can't take chances.""

[Acknowledgement: WebMD]

"Consumers now have to realize that most chickens contain disease-causing bacteria, and that means they have to act appropriately," Halloran says. "They can't take chances."

And I agree with him.

Cell phones don’t cause cancer, huge study says

This is interesting, after many debates abt what cell phones can do to us, the debate is still continuing.

"WASHINGTON - A huge study from Denmark offers the latest reassurance that cell phones don’t trigger cancer.

Scientists tracked 420,000 Danish cell phone users, including 52,000 who had gabbed on the gadgets for 10 years or more, and some who started using them 21 years ago.

They matched phone records to the famed Danish Cancer Registry that records every citizen who gets the disease — and reported Tuesday that cell-phone callers are no more likely than anyone else to suffer a range of cancer types.

The study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, is the largest yet to find no bad news about the safety of cell phones and the radiofrequency energy they emit.

No end to the debate
But even the lead researcher doubts it will end the debate.

“There’s really no biological basis for you to be concerned about radio waves,” said John Boice, a Vanderbilt University professor and scientific director of the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Md. “Nonetheless, people are.”

So Boice and colleagues at Copenhagen’s Danish Cancer Society plan to continue tracking the Danish callers until at least some have used the phones for 30 years.

This so-called Danish cohort “is probably the strongest study out there because of the outstanding registries they keep,” said Joshua Muscat of Pennsylvania State University, who also has studied cell phones and cancer.

Reassurance ... for now
“As the body of evidence accumulates, people can become more reassured that these devices are safe, but the final word is not there yet,” Muscat added.

Cell phones beam radiofrequency energy that can penetrate the brain’s outer edge, raising questions about cancers of the head and neck, brain tumors or leukemia. Most research has found no risk, but a few studies have raised questions. And while U.S. health officials insist the evidence shows no real reason for concern, they don’t give the phones a definitive clean bill of health, either, pending long-term data on slow-growing cancers.

For the latest study, personal identification numbers assigned to each Dane at birth allowed researchers to match people who began using cell phones between 1982 and 1995 with cancer records.

Among 420,000 callers tracked through 2002, there were 14,249 cancers diagnosed — fewer than the 15,001 predicted from national cancer rates. Nor did the study find increased risks for any specific tumor type."

[Acknowledgement: Associated Press]

"As the body of evidence accumulates, people can become more reassured that these devices are safe, but the final word is not there yet"

Eating red meat may raise breast cancer risk

Here's what I just read:

"CHICAGO - Eating red meat may raise a woman’s risk of a common type of breast cancer, and vitamin supplements will do little if anything to protect her heart, two new studies suggest.

Women who ate more than 1½ servings of red meat per day were almost twice as likely to develop hormone-related breast cancer as those who ate fewer than three portions per week, one study found.

The other — one of the longest and largest tests of whether supplements of various vitamins can prevent heart problems and strokes in high-risk women — found that the popular pills do no good, although there were hints that women with the highest risk might get some benefit from vitamin C.

The meat study was published in Monday’s Archives of Internal Medicine. The vitamin study was presented at an American Heart Association conference in Chicago. Both were led by doctors at Harvard Medical School and were aimed at two diseases women most fear and want to prevent.

Antioxidants like vitamins C and E attach to substances that can damage cells. Scientists have been testing them for preventing such diseases as Alzheimer’s and cancer.

This is the first large study to test vitamin C alone, not in combination with E or other vitamins, for heart health, said Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who led the research.

More than 8,000 women were randomly assigned to take vitamin C, E or beta carotene alone or in various combinations for nearly a decade. An additional 5,442 women took folic acid and B vitamin supplements for more than seven years.

“Overall, there was minimal evidence of any cardiovascular benefit of any of these antioxidants,” and people should not start or continue taking them for that purpose, Manson said.

Among the 3,000 women in the study who had no prior heart disease but three or more risk factors for it, those who received vitamin C alone or in combination had a 42 percent lower risk of stroke. Smokers taking C also had a 48 percent lower risk.

Vitamin E could help a little
Vitamin E may give very small benefits for some women, the study suggests. Those with prior heart disease had a 12 percent reduction in the risk of new heart problems, Manson said.

“Many of these subgroup findings are intriguing. However, they need to be confirmed in other studies,” Manson said. “We don’t want this to be interpreted as a conclusive finding.”

What does appear conclusive is that folic acid and B vitamins “are not effective as preventive agents,” said Dr. Christine Albert, who presented that portion of the study at the heart meeting on Monday. These nutrients lower homocysteine, a blood substance thought to increase heart disease risk, but many studies now call the importance of that into question.

The meat study was based on observation rather than an experiment. The Nurses’ Health Study tracked the diets and health of more than 90,000 women who were 26 to 46 years old when they enrolled roughly two decades ago.

They filled out diet questionnaires in 1991, 1995 and 1999, and were divided into five groups based on how much red meat they said they ate. Researchers checked on their health for 12 years on average and confirmed breast cancer diagnoses with medical records.

Meat consumption was linked to a risk of developing tumors whose growth was fueled by estrogen or progesterone — the most common type — but not to tumors that grow independently of these hormones.

The women who ate more red meat were more likely to smoke and be overweight, but when the researchers took those factors into account, they still saw that red meat was linked with an increased risk of breast cancer.

Red meat also raises risk of colorectal cancer
Earlier studies have found that obesity raises the risk of breast cancer and that red meat raises the risk of colorectal cancer.

“Our study may give another motivation to reduce red meat intake,” said study co-author Eunyoung Cho.

However, Dr. Anne McTiernan of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle cautioned that the findings rely on women’s recall of what they ate — an inexact way to measure diet.

“A 16-ounce steak and a three-ounce piece of meat are counted the same. People are horrible at determining what is a real serving,” said McTiernan, author of “Breast Fitness,” a book on reducing cancer risk.

It may be wise to cut down on red meat because of its fat and calorie content, McTiernan said, but “this isn’t a reason to become a vegetarian if you weren’t planning to do that already.”"

[Acknowledgement: Associated Press]

Happy people catch fewer colds

Here's an article that's really interesting. Now there's another reason to be happy! (:

"Happy people are healthier people, research suggests.

People who are happy, lively, calm or exhibit other positive emotions are less likely to catch colds and report fewer symptoms of the illness when they are under the weather.

The new finding held true regardless of personality traits such as optimism, extraversion and self-esteem. A person’s age, race, gender, education and body mass also did not make a difference.

Researchers interviewed 193 volunteers, aged 21 to 55, over several weeks to assess their moods and overall emotional states, and then infected them with either a rhinovirus, known to cause the common cold, or an influenza virus, responsible for the basic flu.

The volunteers were then quarantined to see if they came down with a cold or the flu. While the study found happiness is associated with boosted health, it suggests the opposite might not be true.

People who reported more negative emotions, such as depression, anxiety and anger, were not any more likely to catch colds than normal controls, the study found.

The study, led by psychologist Stephen Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University, will be detailed online in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine. "

[acknowledgement: Livescience.com]

An Inconvenient Truth

Ok, So I've watched it. And I'd give it a 4/5.

Firstly, the statistics were real and enough to prove a lot. Indeed, temperature do have a correlation with the amount of carbon dioxide.

The whole film was somewhat an in-between thing between one of his lectures on global warming and his life revolving around saving the planet. The illustrations he gave were easily digestible. Especially the one about the frog in a beaker of water that was slowly boiling. The images that he has shown were amazing and astonishing as well.

It's an inspirational film that will encourage you to save the planet now before it's too late. You can reduce your carbon emissions to as much as 0%. And by other ways we can do, we can reduce the level of carbon dioxide in the air to as low as the level in 1970.

Anyway, if you love your planet, there's no harm watching it.

You can visit the official site at www.climatecrisis.net on how you can start saving the Earth.

Watching "An Inconvenient Truth" tmr

I am so excited. I'll be watching this documentary movie/film tmr and really just watching the trailer is already quite scary. Not the horror gore kind of scary but the oh-my-god-this-is-actually-happening kind of scary. As I blog most of the time about global warming, I know most of these effects. But just watching it all as once will really remind one the importance of saving the environment. Global warming is real. It's already happening and by 10 years time if we don't do anything, the effects are really too vast and horrifying to describe. I've seen some images in the trailer and those are real from pictures I myself have seen. It's a movie that should not be missed. Even if you're not an environmental person, you should not miss this chance seriously. But still, I haven't watched it, haha. So I shall rate and review it tmr. So be sure to check back tmr. Right now, I will list down these global warming facts from the official site of the movie:


"WHAT IS GLOBAL WARMING?

Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and temperatures are rising.

The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, it’s already happening and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence.(1) The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable.

We’re already seeing changes. Glaciers are melting, plants and animals are being forced from their habitat, and the number of severe storms and droughts is increasing.

The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years.(2)

Malaria has spread to higher altitudes in places like the Colombian Andes, 7,000 feet above sea level.(3)

The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade.(4)

At least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles.(5)

If the warming continues, we can expect catastrophic consequences :

Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years -- to 300,000 people a year.(6)

Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.(7)

Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense.

Droughts and wildfires will occur more often.

The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.(8)

More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.(9)

There is no doubt we can solve this problem. In fact, we have a moral obligation to do so. Small changes to your daily routine can add up to big differences in helping to stop global warming. The time to come together to solve this problem is now – TAKE ACTION

1 According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this era of global warming "is unlikely to be entirely natural in origin" and "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence of the global climate."

2 Emanuel, K. 2005. Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years. Nature 436: 686-688.

3 World Health Organization

4 Krabill, W., E. Hanna, P. Huybrechts, W. Abdalati, J. Cappelen, B. Csatho, E. Frefick, S. Manizade, C. Martin, J, Sonntag, R. Swift, R. Thomas and J. Yungel. 2004. Greenland Ice Sheet: Increased coastal thinning. Geophysical Research Letters 31.

5 Nature.

6 World Health Organization

7 Washington Post, "Debate on Climate Shifts to Issue of Irreparable Change," Juliet Eilperin, January 29, 2006, Page A1.

8 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. 2004. Impacts of a Warming Arctic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Also quoted in Time Magazine, Vicious Cycles, Missy Adams, March 26, 2006.

9 Time Magazine, Feeling the Heat, David Bjerklie, March 26, 2006.

The next section I'm posting is "about the film":


"Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.

If that sounds like a recipe for serious gloom and doom -- think again. From director Davis Guggenheim comes the Sundance Film Festival hit, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, which offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man's fervent crusade to halt global warming's deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. That man is former Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, re-set the course of his life to focus on a last-ditch, all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change. In this eye-opening and poignant portrait of Gore and his "traveling global warming show," Gore also proves himself to be one of the most misunderstood characters in modern American public life. Here he is seen as never before in the media - funny, engaging, open and downright on fire about getting the surprisingly stirring truth about what he calls our "planetary emergency" out to ordinary citizens before it's too late.

With 2005, the worst storm season ever experienced in America just behind us, it seems we may be reaching a tipping point - and Gore pulls no punches in explaining the dire situation. Interspersed with the bracing facts and future predictions is the story of Gore's personal journey: from an idealistic college student who first saw a massive environmental crisis looming; to a young Senator facing a harrowing family tragedy that altered his perspective, to the man who almost became President but instead returned to the most important cause of his life - convinced that there is still time to make a difference.

With wit, smarts and hope, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH ultimately brings home Gore's persuasive argument that we can no longer afford to view global warming as a political issue - rather, it is the biggest moral challenges facing our global civilization.

Paramount Classics and Participant Productions present a film directed by Davis Guggenheim, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. Featuring Al Gore, the film is produced by Laurie David, Lawrence Bender and Scott Z. Burns. Jeff Skoll and Davis Guggenheim are the executive producers and the co-producer is Leslie Chilcott. "


I've also got the trailer from Youtube so that all of you can watch it:

Why does eating feel so good? It’s in your head

I found this article in MSNBC health provided by Reuters. It's really interesting..

"WASHINGTON - Why does eating feel so good? The secret may lie in the head, not in the stomach, U.S. researchers reported.

Tests on rats show that the appetite hormone ghrelin acts on pleasure receptors in the brain.

The findings may help researchers develop better diet drugs.

“In mice and rats ghrelin triggers the same neurons as delicious food, sexual experience, and many recreational drugs; that is, neurons that provide the sensation of pleasure and the expectation of reward,” the researchers write in Friday’s issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

“These neurons produce dopamine and are located in a region of the brain known as the ventral tegmental area (VTA),” wrote the researchers, headed by Dr. Tamas Horvath of the Yale University School of Medicine in Connecticut.

Horvath’s team found that ghrelin, itself only discovered in the last decade, acts on a molecular structure on brain cells called the ghrelin receptor growth hormone secretagogue 1 receptor or GHSR for short.

When ghrelin was infused into this area of the rats’ brains, they ate as hungrily as they did after being kept hungry overnight, the researchers said.

Ghrelin is produced in the gut and triggers the brain to promote eating.

Several hormones are known to be involved in eating and appetite, and studies have shown that influencing them can affect weight gain in rats and mice. Influencing human eating behavior has proven far more difficult, however.

Horvath said it might be possible to design a drug that interferes with GHSR and thus help people with eating disorders."

[Acknowledgements: MSNBC health, Reuters]

'One degree and we're done for'

This article is from newscientist 27 sept , it's rather shocking and scary really:

""Further global warming of 1 °C defines a critical threshold. Beyond that we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know."'

So says Jim Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Hansen and colleagues have analysed global temperature records and found that surface temperatures have been increasing by an average of 0.2 °C every decade for the past 30 years. Warming is greatest in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, particularly in the sub-Arctic boreal forests of Siberia and North America. Here the melting of ice and snow is exposing darker surfaces that absorb more sunlight and increase warming, creating a positive feedback.

Earth is already as warm as at any time in the last 10,000 years, and is within 1 °C of being its hottest for a million years, says Hansen's team. Another decade of business-as-usual carbon emissions will probably make it too late to prevent the ecosystems of the north from triggering runaway climate change, the study concludes (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 103, p 14288).

The analysis reinforces a series of recent findings on accelerating environmental disruption in Siberia, northern Canada and Alaska, underlining a growing scientific consensus that these regions are pivotal to climate change. Earlier this month, NASA scientists reported that climate change was speeding up the melting of Arctic sea ice. Permanent sea ice has contracted by 14 per cent in the past two years (Geophysical Research Letters, vol 33, L17501). However, warming and melting have been just as dramatic on land in the far north.

A meeting on Siberian climate change held in Leicester, UK, last week confirmed that Siberia has become a hotspot of global climate change. Geographer Heiko Balzter, of the University of Leicester, said central Siberia has warmed by almost 2 °C since 1970 - that's three times the global average.

Meanwhile, Stuart Chapin of the University of Alaska Fairbanks this week reported that air temperatures in the Alaskan interior have risen by 2 °C since 1950, and permafrost temperatures have risen by 2.5 °C (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0606955103).

In Siberia the warming is especially pronounced in winter. "It has caused the onset of spring to advance by as much as one day a year since satellite observations began in 1982," says Balzter. Similarly, Alaskan springs now arrive two weeks earlier than in 1950, according to Chapin.

The Leicester meeting heard that the rising temperatures are causing ecological changes in the forests that ratchet up the warming still further. Vladimir Petko from the Russian Academy of Sciences Forest Research Institute in Krasnoyarsk says warm springs are triggering plagues of moths. "They can eat the needles of entire forest regions in one summer," he says. The trees die and then usually succumb to forest fires that in turn destroy soil vegetation and accelerate the melting of permafrost, Petko says.

In 2003 Siberia saw a record number of forest fires, losing 40,000 square kilometres according to Balzter, who has analysed remote sensing images of the region. Similar changes are occurring in Alaska. According to Chapin, warming there has shortened the life cycle of the bark beetle from two years to one, causing huge infestations and subsequent fires, which destroyed huge areas of forest in 2004. "The current boreal forest zone could be so dried out by 2090 that the trees will die off and be replaced by steppe," says Nadezhda Tchebakova, also at the institute in Krasnoyarsk.

Melting permafrost in the boreal forests and further north in the Arctic tundra is also triggering the release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from thick layers of thawing peat. First reports published exclusively in New Scientist last year (13 August 2005, p 12) were recently confirmed by US scientists (Nature, vol 443, p 71).

"Large amounts of greenhouse gases are currently locked in the permafrost and if released could accelerate the greenhouse effect," says Balzter. Hansen's paper concludes that the effects of this positive feedback could be huge. "In past eras, the release of methane from melting permafrost and destabilised sediments on continental shelves has probably been responsible for some of the largest warmings in the Earth's history," he says.

We could be close to unleashing similar events in the 21st century, Hansen argues. Although the feedbacks should remain modest as long as global temperatures remain within the range of recent interglacial periods of the past million years, outside that range - beyond a further warming of about 1 °C - the feedbacks could accelerate. Such changes may become inevitable if the world does not begin to curb greenhouse gas emissions within the next decade, Hansen says.

Meanwhile, another new study underlines that the boreal peat bogs, permafrost and pine forests are not just vital to the planet as a whole, they are major economic assets for the countries that host them. A detailed study of the northern boreal forests by environmental consultant Mark Anielski of Edmonton, Canada, puts the value of their "ecosystem services" at $250 billion a year, or $160 per hectare.

These benefits include flood control, water purification and pest control provided by forest birds, plus income from wilderness tourism and meat from wildlife such as caribou. Anielski presented his findings to Canada's National Forest Congress in Gatineau-Ottawa earlier this week.

The value of these ecosystem services is more than twice that of conventional resources taken from the region each year, such as timber, minerals, oil and hydroelectricity, Anielski says. "If they were counted in Canadian inventories of assets, they would amount to roughly 9 per cent of our gross domestic product - similar in value to our health and social services."

You can add to that figure the value of having such a huge volume of carbon locked away. "The boreal region is like a giant carbon bank account," he says. "At current prices in the European carbon emissions trading system, Canada's stored carbon alone would be worth $3.7 trillion."

And if Hansen is right that the carbon and methane stored in the boreal regions has the potential to transform the world into "another planet", then the boreal region may be worth a great deal more than that."

It's really scary that just one degree will trigger so many inextricably linked events because of the burning of fossil fuels, the emission of greenhouse gases etc. We have to really save the environment!Or we'll all perish from our own actions.

I've also subscribe to msn alerts that allows you to receive an update once I update this blog. I hope it'll work. If there's any problems do email me, and I'll see what can be done.

Further global warming of 1 °C defines a critical threshold. Beyond that we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know.

Embryonic stem cells without embryo death

Well, as I promised, the article. Sorry for the delay, heh. Have been really busy. After this article, I will only update either the end of this month or next month. Sorry everyone, coz I'm having my prelims this month and 'A' levels in november. Yep.

"You don’t have to destroy an embryo to create stem cells for medical research. An American biosciences company has succeeded in deriving the cells from embryos without killing them, raising hopes that President Bush will reconsider his veto on federal funding for such work.
Last year, Bob Lanza and his team from Advanced Cell Technology of Worcester, Massachusetts, demonstrated that stem cells could be harvested from mouse embryos without killing them (see Are all human embryos equal?). Now they have done the same in human embryos left over from IVF treatment.

The researchers employed a technique used in pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in which a single cell or “blastomere” is removed from the ball of eight to 10 cells that comprise the early embryo. The researchers were able to grow a stem cell line from just one or two cells from an early embryo - leaving that embryo viable. The cells are “pluripotent”, meaning they can grow into the three major tissue types (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature05142).

Lanza hopes that because the method does not involve destroying embryos, it will lead to the lifting of the veto on federal funding for stem cell research. “We need to jump-start the field – it’s been crippled by a lack of funding,” he says. “This will hopefully solve the political impasse and bring the president on board, as no embryos will be harmed with this method.”

IVF embryos that have been biopsied for PGD have grown into normal babies, says Alison Murdoch of the International Centre for Life in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. “However, it is not true to say the biopsy is not detrimental to the embryo,” she says. “Some embryos do not survive.”

Lanza says that until the safety issues have been examined more closely, the procedure should only be used on a cell already taken from an embryo for PGD."


This would be quite a good news to embryonic scientists throughout the world. With this technology, many controversies abt killing a life would be less critical and with safety issues examined by these scientists, there shouldn't really be much problem.

Update

Sry abt not updating for a month. Have been really busy. I will be updating soon I hope. And most probably on the recent research in embryonic stem cells.

How nicotine helps cancer grow

Sorry for not updating for some time. Right..this article is very suitable for all smokers out there or even non-smokers who have people around them that are smokers. The article is from newscientist 21 July :
"Nicotine influences a key cancer pathway in cells, which may explain how it speeds up cancer growth, says a new study. The researchers believe their results may help in the design of better anti-cancer drugs.

"We believe that these components can be targeted for cancer therapy," says Srikumar Chellappan of the University of South Florida, in Tampa, US, who led the study. "So we are quite excited about the new therapeutic avenues this study has revealed."

Rather than initiate cancer, nicotine seems to make existing cancers more aggressive, he says. Previous studies have found, for example, that breast cancer is more likely to spread to the lungs of patients who smoke than those who do not. And blocking the receptors for nicotine on the surface of aggressive cancer cells in a laboratory dish halts their growth (see Nicotine speeds the growth of lung cancers).

Cigarette smoking can nevertheless trigger the development of cancer, stresses Chellappan. By-products of nicotine and other compounds are to blame, though, rather than nicotine itself.

One pack a day
Although it was known that nicotine makes cancers more aggressive, relatively little is known about how it has this effect. To explore this question Chellappan and his colleagues looked at the specific molecules in cancer cells that interact with nicotine.

They exposed human lung cancer cells to an amount of nicotine equivalent to that present in the bloodstream of a person who smokes one pack of cigarettes a day. This stimulated the cells to replicate. A closer look revealed that nicotine caused a molecule called Raf-1 to bind to a key protein called Rb, which normally suppresses tumours.

This interference with the Rb protein's function could make the cancer spread faster, says Chellappan. Eight out of ten tumours examined by his group had abnormally high Raf-1 and Rb interactions, a finding that lends further support to this idea.

"One area of active research in our laboratory is to identify agents that can prevent the binding of Raf-1 and Rb," says Chellappan, adding that such drugs "could have potent anti-cancer activities".

[Acknowledgement: Newscientist]

Well, although a drug that may perform anti-cancer activities is under research..It'll still take quite a long time to be produced and trialled. That is why, every smoker should quit smoking. Every non-smoker should not smoke. Cigarettes should be banned while nicorette gums encouraged. This is also for the benefit of non-smokers because second hand smoke is potentially more dangerous than first hand. Smoking in public also affects many different people like pregnant women, the elderly and young children. They are innocent especially an unborn child. Therefore, one should always think before smoking. It not only affects you in the future but the people around you...at a faster rate than you think. If one cannot quit, he/she should always think about everyone that he/she cares about and after some time, of distractions and much nicorette gums, I'm sure a better life awaits. Smoking is bad for health so quit before it's too late; hesitate before addiction awaits.

A closer look revealed that nicotine caused a molecule called Raf-1 to bind to a key protein called Rb, which normally suppresses tumours.
This interference with the Rb protein's function could make the cancer spread faster

Kyoto promises are nothing but hot air

Check out this article from NewScientist, 22 June. It's quite disappointing.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025574.000?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg19025574.000

Many governments, including some that claim to be leading the fight against global warming, are harbouring a dirty little secret. These countries are emitting far more greenhouse gas than they say they are, a fact that threatens to undermine not only the shaky Kyoto protocol but also the new multibillion-dollar market in carbon trading.

A revealing reflection

Ok..I noe...I haven't updated for nearly a month..haha. Have been really busy. Right..this time, I'll be talking about sth really interesting. It somehow answers our common question of "Why is yawning and laughing contagious?". This article is from Scientific American Mind April/May issue (I haven't gotten the June/July yet. If I do, I'll find some interesting ones :)). Ok..so anyway..This article talks about how the discovery of mirror neurons provide stunning insights into everything from how we learn to walk to how we empathise with others. This article is really long, so I'll just type a few here and there:

"These neurons have been studied in the past for their roles in movement and other functions. Now, however, researchers are examining them intensely for what seems to be an additional function - the way they fire in response to something observed. The discovery of this mechanism, made about a decade ago, suggests that everything we watch someone else do, we do as well - in our minds. At its most basic, this finding means we mentally rehearse or imitate every action we witness, whether it is a somersault or a subtle smile. It explains much about how we learn to smile, talk, walk, dance, or play tennis. At a deeper level, it suggests a biological dynamic for our understanding of others, the complex exchange of ideas we call culture, and psychosocial dysfunctions ranging from lack of emphathy to autism. Comprehending mirror neurons helps us make sense of everything from why yawns are contagious to why, watching Lawrence Olivier fall to his knees, we share Hamlet's grief for Ophelia."

"The researchers have learned, for instance, that mirror neurons do not just fire when an animal is watching someone else perform an action. Mirror neurons also fire if a monkey hears the sound of someone doing something it has experienced - say, tearing a piece of paper. And as the scientists began studying humans (using brain imaging rather then electrodes), they found groups of mirror neurons in higher numbers and in more places than occur in monkeys. Mirror neurons revealed themselves in the premotor cortex and the inferior parietal areas - associated with movement and perception - as well as in the posterior parietal lobe, the superior temporal sulabilities to comprehend someone else's feelings, understand intention and use language.

Unlike monkeys, humans also use mirror neurons to directly imitate actions and to understand their meanings. It appears we use mirror neurons to learn everything from our first smiles and steps to our most sauve expressions and graceful dance moves. We also use them to appreciate these things, to feel the meaning behind a smile or to enjoy - in a sense by doing it at a premotor neural level - the thrill of hitting a tennis ball as we watch a Pete Sampras backhand. (and just adding sth on my own - probably the thrill of kicking a soccer ball as we watch the world cup lol)"

" Another major insight relates to our understanding of other people's intentions and emotions. Several studies have demonstrated the dynamics of empathy, two with particular elegance. One, described by Iacoboni in 2005, shows that our mirror neurons work in elaborate sets. We possess a basic set of mirror neurons corresponding to an action's most essential form - reaching, for instance - that is supplemented by other groups of mirror neurons that selectively fire according to the action's percieved purpose. Iacoboni had volunteers watch films of people reaching for various objects within a teatime setting - a teapot, a mug, a pitcher of cream, a plate of pastries, napkins - in different contexts. In every instance, a basic collection of "reaching" mirror neurons would also fire depending on what expected action was suggested by various details in the scene. If the viewer saw a neatly set table and expected the hand to pick up a teacup to drink, one array fired; if the viewer saw a messy table and expected the hand to pick up a cup to clear it away, another group fired. Thus, mirror neurons seem to play a key role in percieving intentions - the first step in understanding others and also in building social relations and feeling empathy."

Here are two captions from two pictures:
"Contagion: When we see another person yawn, mirror neurons in primal brain regions tell us to do the same. Group laughter can be catching, too."
"Empathy: Theatregoers feel the pain of an actress spurned because their mirror neurons fire as if they were experiencing their own rejection firsthand."

[Acknowledgement: Scientific American Mind]

Wow with so much typing..my hands are getting tired already as I just updated my blog too heh. Anyway, I think that's really probably how we learn what we learnt with the mirror neurons being the backstage crew of our lifestages. It's really interesting isn't it? Such breakthrough..as mentioned in the last para: " If their enormous explanatory power is backed by more robust results, they might indeed become regarded as the DNA of neuroscience" Oh yes I'd have to agree with that. Such a wonderful thing for a better understanding of life should be researched into more; producing even more intriguing results (:

Contagion: When we see another person yawn, mirror neurons in primal brain regions tell us to do the same. Group laughter can be catching, too.

The 2% Difference

This article is from Discover, April and it is about the 2% difference between chimps and us humans; what those differences are. I'll not post the whole article but the most interesting part about the difference in our brains and theirs: "...That all makes sense. Still, chimps and humans have very different brains. So which are the brain-specific genes that have evolved in very different directions? It turns out that there are hardly any that fit that bill. This, too, makes a great deal of sense. Examine a neuron from a human brain under a microscope, then do the same with a neuron from the brain of a chimp, a rat, a frog, or a sea slug. The neurons all look the same: fibrous dendrites at one end, an axonal cable at the other. They all run on the same basic mechanism: channels and pumps that move sodium, potassium, calcium around, triggering a wave of excitation called an action potential. They all have a similar complement of neurotransmitters: serotonin, dopamine, glutamate, and so on. They're all the same basic building blocks. The main difference is the sheer number of neurons. The human brain has 100 million times the number of neurons a sea slug's brain has. Where do these differences in quantity come from? At some point in their development, all embryos - whether human, chimp, rat, frog, or slug - must have a single first cell committed toward generating neurons. That cell divides and gives rise to 2 cells; those divide into 4, then 8, then 16. After a dozen rounds of cell division, you've got roughly enough neurons to run a slug. Go another 25 rounds or so and you've got a human brain. Stop a couple rounds short of that and, at about one-third the size of a human brain, you've got one for a chimp. Vastly different outcomes, but relatively few genes regulate the number of rounds of cell division in the nervous system before calling a halt. And it's precisely some of those genes, the ones involved in neural development, that appear on the list of differences between the chimp and human genomes.

That's it; that's the 2 percent solution. What's shocking is the simplicity of it. Humans, to be human, don't need to have evolved unique genes that code for entirely novel types of neurons or neurotransmitters, or a more complex hippocampus (with resulting improvements in memory), or a more complex frontal cortex (from which we gain the ability to postpone gratification). Instead, our braininess as a species arises from having humongous numbers of just a few types of off-the-rack neurons and from the exponentially greater number of interactions between them. The difference is sheer quantity: Qualitative distinctions emerge from large numbers. Genes may have something to do with that quantity, and thus with the complexity of the quality that emerges. Yet no gene or genome can ever tell us what sorts of qualities those will be. Remember that when you and the chimp are eyeball to eyeball, trying to make sense of why the other seems vaguely familiar."

[Acknowledgement: Discover Magazine]

That was only like 1/3 of the whole article yet it is really fascinating to know that the number of neurons actually makes us so different from the chimps. There was a picture of the foot of a chimpanzee and it resembles so much like our limbs with the lines and everything. There were other differences mentioned in the article for example that "chimps have a great many more genes related to olfaction than we do; they've got a better sense of smell because we've lost many of those genes. The 2% distinction also involves an unusually large fraction of genes related to the immune system, parasite vulnerability, and infectious diseases; chimps are resistant to malaria, and we aren't; we handle tuberculosis better than they do. Another important fraction of that 2% involves genes related to reproduction - the sorts of anatomical difference that split a species in two and keep them from breeding." They make a whole lot of difference don't they.

Examine a neuron from a human brain under a microscope, then do the same with a neuron from the brain of a chimp, a rat, a frog, or a sea slug. The neurons all look the same: fibrous dendrites at one end, an axonal cable at the other.

Prisoner's dilemma

Sorry about the stagnatation.Here's the Prisoner's dilemma as I've promised. This is mentioned in a chapter in Matt Ridley's "The Origins of Virtue: Human instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation" It is actually a game, the most famous game in all of game theory which has been central to one of the most exciting scientific discoveries of recent years - nothing less than an understanding of why people are nice to each other. It applies whenever there is a conflict between self-interest and the common good. The game is called the prisoner's dilemma because the commonest anecdote to illustrate it describes two prisoners each faced with the choise of giving evidence against the other and so reducing his own sentence. The dilemma arises because if neither defects on the other, the polive can convict them both only on a lesser charge, so both would be better off if they stayed silent, but each is individually better off it he defects.

There is another sophisticated version of it known as the stag hunt and a modern version of the stag hunt - the wolf's dilemma. In the wolf's dillema: "Twenty people sit, each in a cubicle, with their fingers on buttons. Each person will get $1,000 after ten minutes, unless someone pushes his button, in which case the person who pushed the button will get $100 and everybody else will get nothing. If you are clever you do not push the button and collect $1000 but if you are very clever, you see that there is a tiny chance that somebody will be stupid enough to push his or her button, in which case you are better off pushing yours first, and if you are very, very clever you see that the very clever people will deduce this and will push their buttons, so you, too, had better push yours. As in the prisoner's dilemma, true logic leads you into collective disaster"

There are many other versions, explanations and etc. elaborated in the chapter. But on reading and understanding the prisoner's and wolf's dilemma alone, it seems quite true when illustrating humans co-operation with each other. For example, in the wolf' dilemma, if everyone collaborated at the start to not push the button together, there is still somehow a normal natural instinct in them that one of them will push the button and all will end up with nth except the person who pushed the button..it is probably a human nature in all of us to think like so.

In the later part of the the chaper, there is actually another game called tit-for-tat which is predicted to be a mechanism for generating co-operation between unrelated individuals. It has got something to do with reciprocity in society. But it is a little too long to elaborate. Anyway, all this is definitely something worth thinking about.

[Acknowledgement: Ridley, Matt.1996.The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Co-operation. 3:53-55, 63.]

Next update

Really sorry abt not updating for at least 2 weeks.I'm having my exams next week..so I'll probably update next weekend thereafter. I've also thought of creating a new section at the side-bar for latest bird-flu articles/updates so I can talk about more interesting stuff or news ;) yeps.

Bird flu arrives in Italy, Bulgaria, Greece and Slovenia

This is an article from irishexaminer.com, I had already seen this in the news yesterday and it is that the deadly H5N1 has been detected in Greece, Italy Bulgaria and Slovenia. So far no human cases have been found in these places. For the full article this is the website: http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/world/Full_Story/did-sgynF8r3r4ybcsg0aewFBADppk.asp I will not be commenting too much on this because I would like to talk about something more interesting. Something called "The prisoner's dilemma" or another version of it: the "wolf's dilemma". This has got something to do with the evolution of cooperation. But I shall only discuss this in my next post. Going for dinner now and quite tired after running 10 rounds of the school track.

H5N1 bird flu reaches Africa

This is quite a major news, I shall post the article first from NewScientist, 9th Feb: "The H5N1 bird flu virus has been confirmed in north-central Nigeria. Scientists had feared the virus would reach Africa, where human poverty and disease could combine with millions of highly susceptible backyard poultry to produce many human infections, and potentially a human pandemic virus.

But New Scientist can reveal that the location of Africa’s first reported outbreak should not come as a surprise. The region affected is right beside a major wintering ground for two relatively common species of duck. Those ducks shared breeding grounds in Siberia last summer with birds that winter in Turkey and around the Black Sea, where the virus also appeared recently.

“We are facing a serious international crisis,” said Samuel Jutzi, head of animal health at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, Italy. He is pleading for any further die-offs of poultry in the region to be reported immediately.

The World Animal Health Organization (OIE) in Paris, France, reported on Wednesday that 40,000 poultry, mainly laying hens, have died since 10 January at a commercial farm near Igabi in Kaduna state, a small town 150 kilometres south of the northern city of Kano. The owners initially tried antibiotics.

But the cause has now been confirmed as highly pathogenic H5N1 by the OIE’s collaborating centre for bird flu in Padua, Italy. Moreover, it is the same strain that appeared in wild birds at Qinghai Lake in China in spring 2005, and has since travelled across Siberia to Turkey and the Black Sea.

Summer breeding grounds
As it has everywhere it has gone, the virus is devastating poultry in the region, with Nigerian agricultural authorities reporting the death of 150,000 birds in Kano and Kaduna states, and more outbreaks reported in other parts of Nigeria.

Furthermore, Kano is near the Hadejia-Nguru inland river delta, which is a major wintering location for Northern pintail and garganey ducks. These species summer in breeding grounds across Siberia, where the Qinghai strain of H5N1 infected poultry and wild birds in summer 2005. They then winter in Turkey, around the Black Sea, and in West Africa. The Qinghai strain has already broken out in Turkey and around the Black Sea, apparently carried by migrants.

The authoritative 1996 Atlas of Anatidae [ducks, geese and swans] Populations of Africa and Western Europe says the Northern pintail wintering in the Black Sea and Mediterranean basins “are lumped with those wintering in West Africa as a single large population”. On average, 18,000 pintails winter each year at Hadejia-Nguru. Similar numbers of garganey ducks follow the same migration and 500,000 of each species winter at nearby Lake Chad.

Some of the Northern pintail wintering now in Britain and along Europe’s North Sea and Atlantic coasts also spent last summer on the same breeding grounds as the pintail that subsequently flew to the Black Sea, Turkey and West Africa."

I first heard, or rather, saw this news when I was having my break in the canteen. There was then, news being reported on the tv in the canteen and as I read the headlines scrolling across at the bottom I saw something like "the bird flu that has been spreading in Turkey has spread to Africa" and I was like omg...and I told my friends the news..but they don't seem to be worrying about the pandemic if it really happens. But I told another friend though and she got into the same worrying level as me. So, I guess we're both like scared..heh. Anyway, it seems the probability is really getting even higher, It's now a matter of how soon. I think the whole world should be on the alert mode now, so all of us better be prepared. Remember to wash your hands frequently with soap and to practise good hygiene. Oh, and also remember to cook any poultry or eggs thoroughly with high heat to ensure that any viruses or microorganisms will be killed.

Scientists had feared the virus would reach Africa, where human poverty and disease could combine with millions of highly susceptible backyard poultry to produce many human infections, and potentially a human pandemic virus.

“We are facing a serious international crisis,” said Samuel Jutzi, head of animal health at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, Italy.

Avian flu

I had an intuitive fear after watching the news yesterday and today. Yesterday, there were some bird flu cases discovered in Iraq; today, it seemed the bird flu has resurfaced in Hong Kong somehow.It seems to have gone from Turkey to Iraq to Hong Kong..where is it going next? Somehow as I listened and watched the news closely and carefully, it sparked a fear in me that I think the pandemic is getting nearer and nearer i.e. it's highly possible that it may happen quite soon....this year maybe. Of course I'm not some expert or anything, but seeing the news as it is.. it seemed possible. very possible. Just be on the alert... I hope I'm wrong of course..

Sweets for Stress

This is a rather interesting article from sciencentral.com which I found when I was browsing the site:"For some people sweets offer a treat or a little pick-me-up.

"It boosts my mood, makes me a little happier and then I can get through my day," says Leanne Mercadante a student in New York. "I feel happy, a little more relaxed."

For others it's more of an obsession.

"It's just comfortable, just total comfort food," explains Mika De Young, a self-confessed chocoholic. "It makes you happy."

"People that are stressed out, have any kind of anxiety, will definitely look to candy for relief," explains Kris Minkstein who meets many a sweet-lover while working at Dylan's Candy Bar in New York City. "When, a lot of times, a customer's had a long day… they'll pretty much indulge. They'll buy a lot of candy."

To those of us with our hands in the candy jar, here's some sweet news. Scientists have now shown that sugar can calm the nerves, at least in rats.

As reported on ScientificAmerican.com, brain researchers studied rats that were given water sweetened with sucrose — another name for sugar — twice a day for two weeks, as part of their regular nutritionally balanced diet, and compared them to rats that were not.

"We found that if they drink small amounts of sucrose it will reduce the amount of stress hormone produced during stress… relative to the rats that did not have access to sucrose," says stress neurobiologist Yvonne Ulrich-Lai from the University of Cincinnati's department of psychiatry.

During stress, signals are sent to a particular region of the brain that tells the body to release stress hormones, called glucocorticoids, from the adrenal gland. The researchers found that sugar reduces this hormonal response by about 25 percent, which may be why many of us feel more relaxed after eating sweets.

"Glucocorticoids are a type of stress hormone that are produced here in the body as the name implies during stress episodes. And in the short term they can help for survival during stress but excessive levels or levels that are high for too long can have detrimental side effects," Ulrich-Lai says.

These stress hormones help make sure that energy is available to the body during the fight or flight response and they can also help maintain blood pressure levels.

The research team stressed the rats using two different types of stressful stimuli. "One of them we referred to as 'restraint stress.' So, that is analogous to a person being in a well-lit well-ventilated crawl space for a long or short period of time," she explains. "The other stress that we use we term 'hypoxia,' and it's going into an environment with a slightly lower oxygen level, so it's the equivalent to a person being at a high altitude for a short period of time."

However, she says, that at this point they don't know to what extent these results might apply to people. Future work will need to be done to establish that.

Co-author of the study James Herman agrees that it's too soon to rush to the candy store just yet.

"People can, and animals can, essentially use sucrose as an anti-stress mechanism, and whether that is beneficial in the long run or contributes to things like obesity and diabetes and things along those lines, we don’t really know," says Herman, professor of psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati.

In the meantime, a sweet snack on a rough day may not be so bad.

They say that interestingly, artificial sweeteners also reduced stress levels, although not as much as the real thing.

This work was featured on ScientificAmerican.com on November 16, 2005 and was presented at the 2005 annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington, D.C.. The work was funded by a Diabetes and Disorders grant from the National Institutes of Health. "

Well, at least that might answer the question as to why sometimes we feel better after eating sweets. haha. And sometimes I do crave for sweets when I'm feeling down or stressed. I could feel my mood getting better. And last time when I have panic attacks, I turn to sweets as well. So they were the must-haves in my bag. Now, I still have them in my bags so that I can eat them when I'm feeling hungry or panicky. Some paediatric doctors give their patients sweets as well, to calm some of them down. But the long-term effect,when one eats too much is obesity and diabetes, especially diabetes. Some might wonder how eating too much sugar will cause diabetes. Well, I remembered in one of my notes or sth, it mentioned that overeating of sugary foods for a long period of time causes the repeated stimluation of the pancreas, secreting high levels of insulin and this in turn will desensitise the cells' response to insulin. And so glucose remains in the blood causing diabetes. Yep. That's why parents always tell their kids not to eat too much sweets as besides the possibilty of tooth cavities, there is also diabetes. I used to disbelieve that until I studied it, heh. So..just eat in moderate amounts >0<

Top 10 Health Stories of 2005

Happy new year everyone!! Sry abt not updating for a month, been reali busy. To start the year, here's the website for the top 10 health stories of 2005 picked by webMD editors: http://www.webmd.com/content/Article/116/112251.htm?pagenumber=1
It has five pages, so just slowly read through. Well, i browsed through an article in the newspaper today and it said that the number of suspected bird-flu cases in turkey has reached at least 30 - in unusual clusters which raise the possibility that the virus is becoming more contagious to humans. And I think I do rmb the news mentioning sth abt this too - that there might be a possibility of it being in the city. So after reading that i was quite afraid that if the pandemic is getting nearer, is there enough time for us to prepare?