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Internet Abuzz: Avian Flu Weaponized?

Internet Abuzz: Avian Flu Weaponized?

Natural Solutions Foundation alerts world to startling evidence that H5N1 virus may already have been genetically engineered, resulting in the potential for a man-made pandemic. Since Natural Solutions Foundation first used the phrase "Weaponized Avian Flu" on its www.HealthFreedomUSA.org Internet site, on July 19, 2008, the references on the World Wide Web to the phrase have escalated, currently running several hundred new references daily. Foundation President Maj. Gen. Bert Stubblebine (USA ret) current best Intelligence Estimate is for a pandemic incident to possibly start this September 2008.

Washington, DC  August 21, 2008 -- Noted health freedom activist Rima E. Laibow, MD and her organization, the Natural Solutions Foundation, alerted Health Freedom supporters that possibly "rogue" government operatives in concert with pharmaceutical interests, may be setting the stage for the unleashing of a genetically engineered Avian Flu pandemic-for-profit, possibly during the Olympics. This warning is based on the publicly announced August delivery to the US of an alleged Avian Flu "vaccine" manufactured in China under contract to the US by Sanofi-Pasteur. This fact, coupled with other highly suggestive pieces of intelligence, has led Foundation President, Maj. Gen. Albert N. Stubblebine (USA, Ret.) to conclude that a pandemic "incident" may be the "Big Event with global consequences" to which Congressman Ron Paul MD alluded in his 2008 Independence Day message.

Significant Internet traffic has been generated from the warning, which has been picked-up by Independent News sites such as Rense.com, InfoWars.com, Nutrimed.com and others. Since Natural Solutions Foundation first used the phrase "Weaponized Avian Flu" on the Internet on July 19, 2008, the references on the World Wide Web to the phrase have escalated, currently running several hundred new references daily.

As a result, the Natural Solutions Foundation's urgent Health Freedom eAlert and accompanying video, entitled: 'Weaponized Avian Flu: Are YOU Ready to Die for the Establishment?' has become an Internet phenomenon, forwarded to millions of readers, according to Foundation best estimates. The eAlert and YouTube video are available at http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?p=742

According to Stubblebine and Laibow, "The story is a long, complicated one, winding its way from China to France by way of the First World War, the Oil Cartel, the Pharmaceutical Cartel and Iraq… to its final destination: a syringe full of something claiming to be a vaccine against the newly-deadly Avian Flu."

The opinions expressed by Gen. Stubblebine and Dr. Laibow are based upon a series of publicly available facts which have been brought together for the Intelligence Assessment; see the substantiation citations at the end of this release and on the Internet posting.

"Our best intelligence estimate is that pandemic Avian Flu has already been created through genetic engineering. The evidence shows the Avian Flu has been turned into a viral threat through bioengineering in the United States, fusing the deadly genome of the 1918 Pandemic, misnamed the "Spanish Flu," with the DNA of the innocuous H5N1 virus in a growth medium of human kidney cells, according to the National Institutes of Health and this vaccine's manufacturer. Some virologists believe that this would insure that the man-made mutant virus recognizes human cells and knows how to invade them."

Dr. Laibow stated: "As a Physician, I understand a basic virological fact that the public has not been told: it is impossible to make a vaccine against a virus that does not yet exist. Public relations efforts to the contrary, IF a vaccine is being made against the Avian Flu virus in its pandemic form, that means the pandemic virus must already exist. So the fact that the Avian Flu vaccine is already being manufactured in China by Sanofi-Pasteur, reported to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of TOTAL Petroleum, a French arm of the Cartel, supports our contention that the Weaponized Avian Flu already exists. As we saw in the case of the Anthrax scare of 2001, an allegedly disgruntled government employee can release deadly toxins from even the most secure government facility."

The Natural Solutions Foundation notes with alarm that the media has reported that the genome of the 1918 pandemic virus, the so-called "Spanish Flu", was recently intentionally resurrected by, and with grants from, the United States government. Because of that resurrection, the newly modified Avian Flu, and its "vaccine" may now be a significant threat to public health.

The "Spanish Flu" was American, not Spanish. The evidence shows it may have been created in the U.S. through an early bio-weapons program created at the direction of Teddy Roosevelt through manufacturing facilities controlled, according to current information, by the Rockefeller cartel, it was injected into healthy young men (i.e., 'soldiers') as the first mandatory vaccination in the military during WWI (also known as the "War to End Wars" and the "Great War"). The "Spanish Flu", originating in Kansas on U.S. Military bases, killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, and millions worldwide. It was one of the deadliest pandemics in modern history. It also appears to have been one of the most successful biological weapons ever created -- until now.

"Publicly available information shows the pharmaceutical industry and US government are both actively preparing for an Avian Flu pandemic -- this is shown through their own promotional literature and propaganda," continues Laibow.

Sanofi-Pasteur's website contains a document which clearly illustrates their business model and how the company successfully capitalizes on the immensely profitable worldwide mandatory vaccination market. It touted its contract with the US Government to produce a pandemic flu vaccine.

Dr. Laibow stated, "The whole notion of an Avian Flu pandemic, occurring without technological intervention, is highly questionable. To date, there have only been around 385 human cases of Avian Flu identified worldwide (assuming those identifications are trustworthy, of course), with 243 deaths. To put the absurdity of this effort into perspective, Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD), which many researchers believe is heavily associated with aspartame consumption, is a leading cause of death according to the CDC. For example, SCD killed 460,000 Americans in 1999 and the numbers keep rising (www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5106a3.htm). But aspartame, a product of Monsanto, is an approved substance, while, the currently non-pandemic Avian Flu is the focus of hugely expensive, seemingly irrational preparations IF there is no intent to create that very pandemic."

Laibow adds, "Given the shockingly obvious lack of any threat from an un-weaponized H5N1 virus, how can we explain the Bush Administration spending billions of dollars preparing each of the 50 States for what it drums into us is the "inevitable Bird Flu pandemic" anticipated to kill half or more of all Americans and similar numbers of people around the globe? Americans are outraged and can inform themselves and their families by contacting the Natural Solutions Foundation and joining the free distribution list of the informative Health Freedom eAlerts, http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=187 -- . eAlert list members can expect to be uniquely well informed as recipients of the Foundation's continuing threat analysis and action steps."

Gen. Stubblebine's Current Best Intelligence Estimate suggests the following possible scenario:

1. We have been examining the historical record for latency and infectious periods (for example, for the 1918 pandemic and for the unweaponized Avian Flu). The latency period could be anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks.

2. Our current best estimate is that people could start to notice symptoms as soon as a week after disbursal of the pathogen; the disease will, if especially virulent, cause death within 72 hours of first symptoms. The current supposedly unweaponized flu is deadly to 2/3 of those who catch it.
3. For example, if the pathogen were released, say, at the end of the Olympics, on August 23rd or 24th, people would start to notice symptoms by the end of the Labor Day Holiday (US Labor Day is September 1st this year).

4. By the time most US college students are back in school, September 5th, the media would begin to notice and the public authorities would be empowered to act, we suspect, within 72 hours of mass media notice (we believe the alternative media might "get wind" of the impending pandemic a 12 to 24 hours earlier).

5. Under this scenario, by September 8th we can expect national "lock down" and a declaration of Martial Law shortly thereafter, as people panic trying to obtain food and protection. Places of public accommodation would certainly be closed. This would very possibly signal the end of Internet communications, possibly telephone communications as well.

Finally, we note that the "Pandemic Avian Flu Vaccine" is scheduled to be delivered to the United States during August from Sanofi-Pasteur's Chinese pharmaceutical plant. The US government issued its "Vaccine" allocation plan on July 23, 2008. The Natural Solution Foundation issued its initially warning on July 19, 2008.

The Foundation has now provided links to original information, from which data leading to this intelligence Estimate of Situation has been developed, suggesting the induced Avian Flu pandemic could occur as early as September, 2008.

Substantiation

Here are some outside links that give rise to some of the elements of this Intelligence Estimate:

"Pandemic Flu Vaccine" allocation:
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/vaccine/allocationguidance.pdf

NorthCom Military Avian Flu Involvement, Planning and Exercises: www.northcom.mil

NIH Avian Flu "trials" -
http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2005/avianfluvax.htm

Sanofi-Pasteur - US contract -
www.sanofi-aventis.com/Images/060706_IR_en_tcm23-13319.pdf

Illegal "Pandemic Flu Vaccine" test:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/2235676/Homeless-people-die-after-bird-flu-vaccine-trial-in-Poland.html

Coffin Stockpile: http://www.prisonplanet.com/half-a-million-plastic-coffins.html

House Of Lords Warning:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/world-warned-over-killer-flu-pandemic-872809.html

About the Natural Solutions Foundation
The Natural Solutions Foundation, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org, www.GlobaHealthFreedom.org, was founded by Dr. Rima E. Laibow, MD and Maj. Gen. Albert N. Stubbleine, III (USA, ret.), who, along with Ralph Fucetola JD, are the Foundation Trustees. Established in 2004, the Foundation is an international NGO (Non Governmental Organization) active and registered in several countries, and is a not for profit 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization in the United States.

The Mission of the Foundation is to discover, develop, demonstrate and disseminate natural solutions to the problems threatening health and freedom, achieving and maintaining a healthy self, community and world. Since its founding the Natural Solutions Foundation has pursued a vigorous program on many fronts, including natural solutions to significant social, legal and international problems involving health and wellness. We consider health freedom to be part of those solutions. Among the major threats to health freedom are Codex Alimentarius (the World Food Code) and national agencies that are tasked with protecting the public, but are not. The threats to health and freedom are both domestic and international, as are the solutions.

Further listing of Natural Solutions Foundation accomplishments at: http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=195

Source: Natural Solutions Foundation

The Wasp Knife - It Can Blow You Up From The Inside (w/video of watermelon)

This weapon injects a freezing cold ball of compressed gas, approximately the size of a basketball, at 800psi nearly instantly. The effects of this injection will drop many of the world's largest land predators. The effects of the compressed gas not only cause over-inflation during ascent when used underwater, but also freezes all tissues and organs surrounding the point of injection on land or at sea. When used underwater, the injected gas carries the predator to the surface BEFORE blood is released into the water. Thus giving the diver added protection by diverting other potential predators to the surface.

Do you want to sleep tonight? Then you may not want to look at this giant 13 foot walking head robot.

WALKING HEAD ROBOT

Aluminium, Stainless Steel, Acrylic, Pneumatic Actuators, Electronics, LCD Screen

The WALKING HEAD is a 2 m diameter 6-legged autonomous walking robot. Vertically mounted on its chassis is an LCD screen imaging a computer generated human-like head. The LCD screen can rotate from side to side. The robot has a scanning ultra-sound sensor that detects the presence of a person in front of it. It sits still until someone comes into the gallery space- then it stands, selects from a set of movements from its library of pre-programmed motions and performs the choreography. It then stops and waits until it detects someone else. The robot performs on a 4 m diameter platform and its tilt sensor system detects when it is close to the edge and backs off, walking in another direction. The Walking Head robot will become an actual-virtual system in that its mechanical leg motions will actuate its facial behaviours of nods, turns, tilts blinks and its vocalizations. Other possibilities include the robot being driven by its web-based 3D model with a menu of motion icons that can be pasted together and played. The robot is pneumatically actuated. The WALKING HEAD is a work in progress.

Some 12 million honey bees were released along Canada's largest highway on Monday after a truck transporting them overturned, police said.

Some 12 million honey bees were released along Canada's largest highway on Monday after a truck transporting them overturned, police said.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the truck carrying 330 crates of bees was traveling on a ramp when the load shifted and the truck overturned.

A downpour of rain helped to contain the bees in and around the truck, police said.

"Bees don't like the rain ... thousands of bees are hanging on the back of this truck and on the pavement right behind," said Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokesman Derek Strong.

Bee experts from Agriculture Canada were called in to help deal with the accident.

Richard Duplain, vice president of the New Brunswick Beekeepers Association, said it's difficult to predict whether the bees would be docile or agitated given their ordeal.

"It's certainly not a situation where you want to tempt problems," said Duplain. "You certainly don't want to go walking through a field of disoriented, agitated and wet honey bees."

Duplain said it's unlikely the bees would survive very long unless they're captured quickly because they wouldn't be under the care and attention of experienced beekeepers.

Goats gotta die: It's a religious thing

The animals go in the house....but they don't come out.

Horror flick?

Nah, a religious ceremony.

Neighbors in an Orange County neighborhood aren't happy about religious animal rituals happening in a home now filled with empty animal cages.

But it's legal.

Deputies told homeowners they recently interrupted a goat sacrifice on Friday as part of a Santeria ceremony.

"I don't want them to hurt animals. I don't care what animals they are," said one unidentified neighbor who is spooked by the practice of chicken and goat sacrifices at her neighbor's home.

Spooked? We think it's fascinating. You think folks in Iowa have so much to talk about around the dinner table?

"I don't like any kind of odd thing happening. I mean, I don't know?,'' an unidentified neighbor said.

Doesn't like odd stuff? Uh-oh. Time to move to Iowa.

RAW VIDEO: Family Refuses To Comment On Santeria Sacrifices At Home
RAW INTERVIEW: Man Talks About Santeria Sacrifices At Neighbor's Home

Michael Jacksons Face is Being Held Together By Tape (w/scary ass pic)

Couple, 100 And 99, Drove Wrong Way On Highway

Police say an elderly couple, aged 100 and 99, who drove the wrong way along a highway for more than a mile in New Zealand before crashing will probably be asked to surrender their driver's licenses.

Police spokeswoman Kaye Calder said the duo amazingly managed to dodge oncoming vehicles during their wrong-way jaunt Sunday on New Zealand's busiest highway near the capital, Wellington.

Their vehicle eventually collided with on oncoming car. They suffered minor injuries.

Calder said Tuesday the pair are unlikely to face charges and that police are still trying to determine who was driving the car at the time of the incident and how they ended up going the wrong way.

Come to Florida - get your Brain-Eating Amoeba

Six young men died last year after swimming in lakes or pools infested with a brain-eating amoeba, the CDC reports.

The bad blobs -- known as Naegleria fowleri or N. fowleri -- thrive in warm, fresh water all over the world. But the key word here is warm. The amoeba loves heat. In the U.S., it inhabits the relatively hot waters of lakes, hot springs, and poorly maintained pools in Southern or Southwestern states.

All six of the 2007 cases were in Florida, Texas, and Arizona (the victims' names and swimming sites come from local media reports):

• May/June 2007: Angel Arroyo Vasquez, age 14, of Orlando, Fla., was swimming in an apartment swimming pool.
• July 2007: Will Sellars, age 11, of Orlando, Fla., was swimming and wakeboarding in Lake Conway.
• August 2007: Richard Almeida, age 10, of Kissimmee, Fla., was swimming and wakeboarding at Orlando Watersports Complex.
• August 2007: John "Jack" Herrera, age 12, participated in water activities during summer camp at Lake LBJ in Texas.
• August 2007: Colby Sawyer, age 22, ruptured his eardrum while wakeboarding at Lake LBJ in Texas.
• September 2007: Aaron Evans, age 14, was swimming at Lake Havasu in northeastern Arizona.

Why the deadly amoeba struck these six and not the thousands of other people exposed in the same places at the same times is a mystery, says CDC epidemiologist Jonathan Yoder.

"Humans are the accidental host -- we are not part of this amoeba's life cycle," Yoder tells WebMD. "But when it finds a nice warm environment like your nose, it looks for a food source."

How Brain-Eating Amoebas Attack

That food source is the human brain. The CDC doesn't like to call N. fowleri "the brain-eating amoeba," but that's what it does.

"It actually is using the brain for food," Yoder says. "So it is a very tragic situation for the person unfortunate enough to have that happen."

After the amoeba enters the nose, it finds its way to the olfactory nerve. N. fowleri appears to be attracted to nerve cells, so it follows the nerve into the brain. That's when bad things happen.

The amoeba has mouth-shaped structures on its surface called food cups. It's perfectly capable of chewing up brain and blood cells with these food cups, but the blob finds it more efficient to secrete enzymes and proteins that dissolve brain cells so it can suck up the debris with its food cup.

Obviously, this causes a lot of damage. And it happens fast: Victims usually die seven to 10 days after infection, although symptoms may not appear for up to 14 days.

Initial symptoms include headache, fever, nausea, vomiting, and stiff neck. Later symptoms include confusion, inability to pay attention to people and surroundings, loss of balance, seizures, and hallucinations. Death follows the first symptoms by three to seven days.

The disease is technically called primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, or PAM.

"We want to make sure people understand this is a tragic event," Yoder says. "When it happens to a person, particularly if it is a child, we don't want to minimize the tragedy."

At least eight people have survived PAM. All were treated with powerful drugs soon after infection. Unfortunately, most victims aren't treated in time. There are rapid tests for N. fowleri infection, but because the infection is so rare, doctors usually don't suspect a brain-eating amoeba until it's too late.

Last summer's six cases were a lot compared to most years. But the CDC says there's no evidence that the brain-eating amoeba is on the rise. There were eight cases in 1980, seven cases in 2002, and six cases in 1978, 1986, and in 1995. Since 1937, there have been only 121 known cases.

So far, there haven't been any cases in 2008. But the CDC warns people either to avoid swimming in warm, fresh water or to wear nose plugs if they do. N. fowleri does not live in salt water or in properly maintained swimming pools, although it has been found in domestic water supplies.

"People should assume there is a risk of swimming in warm, fresh water," Yoder says. "And we think that things people do to minimize entry of water into the nose might provide some reduction of risk, such as using a nose clip. We can't say there is scientific evidence this works, but that is a commonsense approach."

The CDC also suggests that people avoid digging or stirring up sediment while playing or working in warm waters. The CDC further suggests that people avoid thermally polluted water, such as the water near power plants, although Yoder says the CDC has not yet looked at how much thermal pollution affects amoeba populations in public waters.

States where N. fowleri has caused disease include Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.

Infections have been seen around the world, including 16 cases traced to the same swimming pool in the Czech Republic.

There's no question of eradicating the blob. N. fowleri turns into its cyst form when conditions aren't right -- and can survive for years in the soil.

'Horror frog' breaks own bones to produce claws

"Amphibian horror" isn't a movie genre, but on this evidence perhaps it should be. Harvard biologists have described a bizarre, hairy frog with cat-like extendable claws.

Trichobatrachus robustus actively breaks its own bones to produce claws that puncture their way out of the frog's toe pads, probably when it is threatened.

David Blackburn and colleagues at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology, think the gruesome behaviour is a defence mechanism.

The researchers say there are salamanders that force their ribs through their skin to produce protective barbs on demand, but nothing quite like this mechanism has been seen before.

The feature is also found in nine of the 11 frogs belonging to the Astylosternus genus, most of which live in Cameroon.

Instant weapon

"Some other frogs have bony spines that project from their wrist, but in those species it appears that the bones grow through the skin rather than pierce it when needed for defence," says Blackburn.

At rest, the claws of T. robustus, found on the hind feet only, are nestled inside a mass of connective tissue. A chunk of collagen forms a bond between the claw's sharp point and a small piece of bone at the tip of the frog's toe.

The other end of the claw is connected to a muscle. Blackburn and his colleagues believe that when the animal is attacked, it contracts this muscle, which pulls the claw downwards. The sharp point then breaks away from the bony tip and cuts through the toe pad, emerging on the underside.

Hirsute horror

The end result may look like a cat's claw, but the breaking and cutting mechanism is very different and unique among vertebrates. Also unique is the fact that the claw is just bone and does not have an outer coating of keratin like other claws do.

Because Blackburn has only studied dead specimens, he says he does not know what happens when the claw retracts – or even how it retracts. It does not appear to have a muscle to pull it back inside so the team think it may passively slide back into the toe pad when its muscle relaxes.

"Being amphibians, it would not be surprising if some parts of the wound heal and the tissue is regenerated," says Blackburn.

Males of the species, which grows to about 11 centimetres, also produce long hair-like strands of skin and arteries when they breed (see image). It is thought that the "hairs" allow them to take in more oxygen through their skin while they take care of their brood.

Spiky snack

In Cameroon, they are roasted and eaten. Hunters use long spears and machetes to kill the frogs, apparently to avoid being hurt by their claws.

"This is an incredible story," says Ian Stephen, curator of herpetology at the Zoological Society of London, UK. "Some frogs grow spines on their thumbs during breeding season, but this is entirely different."

"For me, it highlights the need for a lot more research on amphibians especially in light of the threat of mass extinctions," he adds.

The existence of frogs with erectile claws like cats was first described by Belgian zoologist George Boulenger in 1900 in frogs found in the French Congo, now the Republic of Congo.

Your grandchildren will not know what a banana is. And here's why.

Below the headlines about rocketing food prices and rocking governments, there lays a largely unnoticed fact: bananas are dying. The foodstuff, more heavily consumed even than rice or potatoes, has its own form of cancer. It is a fungus called Panama Disease, and it turns bananas brick-red and inedible.

There is no cure. They all die as it spreads, and it spreads quickly. Soon – in five, 10 or 30 years – the yellow creamy fruit as we know it will not exist. The story of how the banana rose and fell can be seen a strange parable about the corporations that increasingly dominate the world – and where they are leading us.

Bananas seem at first like a lush product of nature, but this is a sweet illusion. In their current form, bananas were quite consciously created. Until 150 ago, a vast array of bananas grew in the world's jungles and they were invariably consumed nearby. Some were sweet; some were sour. They were green or purple or yellow.

A corporation called United Fruit took one particular type – the Gros Michael – out of the jungle and decided to mass produce it on vast plantations, shipping it on refrigerated boats across the globe. The banana was standardised into one friendly model: yellow and creamy and handy for your lunchbox.

There was an entrepreneurial spark of genius there – but United Fruit developed a cruel business model to deliver it. As the writer Dan Koeppel explains in his brilliant history Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, it worked like this. Find a poor, weak country. Make sure the government will serve your interests. If it won't, topple it and replace it with one that will.

Burn down its rainforests and build banana plantations. Make the locals dependent on you. Crush any flicker of trade unionism. Then, alas, you may have to watch as the banana fields die from the strange disease that stalks bananas across the globe. If this happens, dump tonnes of chemicals on them to see if it makes a difference. If that doesn't work, move on to the next country. Begin again.

This sounds like hyperbole until you study what actually happened. In 1911, the banana magnate Samuel Zemurray decided to seize the country of Honduras as a private plantation. He gathered together some international gangsters like Guy "Machine Gun" Maloney, drummed up a private army, and invaded, installing an amigo as president.

The term "banana republic" was invented to describe the servile dictatorships that were created to please the banana companies. In the early 1950s, the Guatemalan people elected a science teacher named Jacobo Arbenz, because he promised to redistribute some of the banana companies' land among the millions of landless peasants.

President Eisenhower and the CIA (headed by a former United Fruit employee) issued instructions that these "communists" should be killed, and noted that good methods were "a hammer, axe, wrench, screw driver, fire poker or kitchen knife". The tyranny they replaced it with went on to kill more than 200,000 people.

But how does this relate to the disease now scything through the world's bananas? The evidence suggests even when they peddle something as innocuous as bananas, corporations are structured to do one thing only: maximise their shareholders' profits. As part of a highly regulated mixed economy, that's a good thing, because it helps to generate wealth or churn out ideas. But if the corporations aren't subject to tight regulations, they will do anything to maximise short-term profit. This will lead them to seemingly unhinged behaviour – like destroying the environment on which they depend.

Not long after Panama Disease first began to kill bananas in the early 20th century, United Fruit's scientists warned the corporation was making two errors. They were building a gigantic monoculture. If every banana is from one homogenous species, a disease entering the chain anywhere on earth will soon spread. The solution? Diversify into a broad range of banana types.

The company's quarantine standards were also dire. Even the people who were supposed to prevent infection were trudging into healthy fields with disease-carrying soil on their boots. But both of these solutions cost money – and United Front didn't want to pay. They decided to maximise their profit today, reckoning they would get out of the banana business if it all went wrong.

So by the 1960s, the Gros Michel that United Fruit had packaged as The One True Banana was dead. They scrambled to find a replacement that was immune to the fungus, and eventually stumbled upon the Cavendish. It was smaller and less creamy and bruised easily, but it would have to do.

But like in a horror movie sequel, the killer came back. In the 1980s, the Cavendish too became sick. Now it too is dying, its immunity a myth. In many parts of Africa, the crop is down 60 percent. There is a consensus among scientists that the fungus will eventually infect all Cavendish bananas everywhere. There are bananas we could adopt as Banana 3.0 – but they are so different to the bananas that we know now that they feel like a totally different and far less appetising fruit. The most likely contender is the Goldfinger, which is crunchier and tangier: it is know as "the acid banana".

Thanks to bad corporate behaviour and physical limits, we seem to be at a dead end. The only possible glimmer of hope is a genetically modified banana that can resist Panama Disease. But that is a distant prospect, and it is resisted by many people: would you like a banana split made from a banana split with fish genes?

When we hit up against a natural limit like Panama disease, we are bemused, and then affronted. It seems instinctively bizarre to me that lush yellow bananas could vanish from the global food supply, because I have grown up in a culture without any idea of physical limits to what we can buy and eat.

Is there a parable for our times in this odd milkshake of banana, blood and fungus? For a hundred years, a handful of corporations were given a gorgeous fruit, set free from regulation, and allowed to do what they wanted with it. What happened? They had one good entrepreneurial idea – and to squeeze every tiny drop of profit from it, they destroyed democracies, burned down rainforests, and ended up killing the fruit itself.

But have we learned? Across the world, politicians like George Bush and David Cameron are telling us the regulation of corporations is "a menace" to be "rolled back"; they even say we should leave the planet's climate in their hands. Now that's bananas.

Scientists develop jumping robot. Thousands to decend on us any day now to eat our flesh. (w/pic of scary unrelated robot)

Scientists have built a jumping robot inspired by the grasshopper that can leap 27 times its body length.

Swarms of the locust-like drones could one day be used to explore remote areas of the Earth or other planets, say the researchers.

The device, which looks like the workings of a watch perched on two long feet, weighs just seven grams, but it can jump 1.4 metres - 10 times further for its size and weight than any other robot.

Professor Dario Floreano, who led the team from the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland, said: "This biomimetic form of jumping is unique because it allows micro-robots to travel over many types of rough terrain where no other walking or wheeled robot could go.

"These tiny jumping robots could be fitted with solar cells to recharge between jumps and deployed in swarms for extended exploration of remote areas on Earth or on other planets."

Man’s Vomit Poisons 54 People (w/pic)

It was like a scene out of Resident Evil, when a man began to vomit in a hospital emergency room causing over 50 people surrounding him to be posioned and scrambling for medical attention themselves.

This was no movie though and no one was amused.

In Kumamoto, Japan, a man was rushed to the emergency room after drinking large amounts of pesticide and poisoning himself. Doctors were attempting to pump the patients stomach when he started violently vomiting before dying.

The spray of chloropicrin, a very dangerous pesticide, was so toxic it cause 54 doctors, nurses, and patients to have breathing problems and sores in their eyes, leaving them desperate for medical help.

All of the injured hospital workers were transfered to a different hospital and 10 of them ended up being hospitalized themselves.

A 72 year-old pneumonia patient got the worst of it as her condition worsened after being exposed to the fumes.

90 additional hospital personnel were called in to assist in the emergency and the nearby fire department was called in to decontaminate the emergency room.

Detergent suicides have been a recent trend in Japan, which has caused a panic amongst officials. With 50 people having killed themselves with detergent overdose recipes found on the internet, officials have tried to get internet providers to take down pages containing the recipe.

Israelis Almost Took Out Tony Blair's Jet. When asked for comment Blair said that Cheney was his Master and had taught him how to live on through the force.

The executive jet being used by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was just minutes away from being shot down by the Israeli Air Force.

Tony Blair honoured for Northern Ireland peace commitment.Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair... 

Blair, who is now the international community's special envoy to the Middle East, was traveling earlier this week to a special economic conference in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem from Egyptian airspace when two Israeli fighter jets were scrambled to intercept his plane.

Due to a technical fault in Blair's aircraft, its pilot did not respond to Israeli air traffic controllers' calls, leading to suspicions that the jet may have been on a terrorist mission.

The two Israeli planes flew directly above the Blair plane in a position usually taken before attack.

Man Attacked By Bee Swarm For Two Hours

A hiker at South Mountain's preserve was hospitalized Monday night after he was stung hundreds of times by bees.

Witnesses say they heard the 30-something male hiker screaming and yelling about 4 p.m. Monday from a gulley area about 150 yards off the trail.

The man tried to run after being attacked, but collapsed behind a rock. Witnesses say he was coated in bees as he waved a shirt above his head and screamed for help.

Several people tried to run to the hiker's aid, but they couldn't get close. One man came within ten feet and was repeatedly stung himself.

Two brothers say they then tried to help, but were warned to stay back at least 50 feet because the bees were so dangerous. Even police and park rangers could not help the hiker.

By the time a special technical rescue team with the Phoenix Fire Department arrived, the man had been under attack for 2 hours.

Six members of the rescue unit donned special bee suits with helmets, taped up their wrists to close up any holes and started down the mountain.

After a long hike into the preserves, and another hike off trail to reach the man, they were finally able to give him some relief.

They stabilized the man and gave him plenty of fluids. But the bees persisted.

The crews used a basket tied to a rescue helicopter to pull the man out of the preserves and to a waiting ambulance.

A Phoenix Fire Department spokesperson says the man suffered hundreds of bee stings.

Forget Burial - Forget Cremation - Now you can be dissolved using acid. Just wait until the first mistake is make... your dog DOES NOT want that steak.

Since they first walked the planet, humans have either buried or burned their dead. Now a new option is generating interest: dissolving bodies in lye and flushing the brownish, syrupy residue down the drain.

The process is called alkaline hydrolysis and was developed in this country 16 years ago to get rid of animal carcasses. It uses lye, 300-degree heat and 60 pounds of pressure per square inch to destroy bodies in big stainless-steel cylinders that are similar to pressure cookers.

No funeral homes in the United States — or anywhere else in the world, as far as the equipment manufacturer knows — offer it. In fact, only two U.S. medical centers use it on human bodies, and only on cadavers donated for research.

"It's not often that a truly game-changing technology comes along in the funeral service," the newsletter Funeral Service Insider said in September. But "we might have gotten a hold of one."

Getting the public to accept a process that strikes some as ghastly may be the biggest challenge. Psychopaths and dictators have used acid or lye to torture or erase their victims, and legislation to make alkaline hydrolysis available to the public in New York state was branded "Hannibal Lecter's bill" in a play on the sponsor's name — Sen. Kemp Hannon — and the movie character's sadism.

Alkaline hydrolysis is legal in Minnesota and in New Hampshire, where a Manchester funeral director is pushing to offer it. But he has yet to line up the necessary regulatory approval, and some New Hampshire lawmakers want to repeal the little-noticed 2006 state law legalizing it.

Patrick McGee, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester, said, "We believe this process, which enables a portion of human remains to be flushed down a drain, to be undignified."

State Rep. Barbara French, 81, said she, for one, might choose alkaline hydrolysis.

"I'm getting near that age and thought about cremation, but this is equally as good and less of an environmental problem," she said. "It doesn't bother me any more than being burned up. Cremation, you're burned up. I've thought about it, but I'm dead."

In addition to the liquid, the process leaves a dry bone residue similar in appearance and volume to cremated remains. It could be returned to the family in an urn or buried in a cemetery.

The coffee-colored liquid has the consistency of motor oil and a strong ammonia smell. But proponents say it is sterile and can, in most cases, be safely poured down the drain, provided the operation has the necessary permits.

Alkaline hydrolysis doesn't take up as much space in cemeteries as burial. And the process could ease concerns about crematorium emissions, including carbon dioxide as well as mercury from silver dental fillings.

The University of Florida in Gainesville and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., have used alkaline hydrolysis to dispose of cadavers since the mid-1990s and 2005, respectively.

Brad Crain, president of BioSafe Engineering, the Brownsburg, Ind., company that makes the steel cylinders, estimated 40 to 50 other facilities use them on human medical waste, animal carcasses or both. The users include veterinary schools, universities, pharmaceutical companies and the U.S. government.

Liquid waste from cadavers goes down the drain at the both the Mayo Clinic and the University of Florida, as does the liquid residue from human tissue and animal carcasses at alkaline hydrolysis sites elsewhere.

Manchester funeral director Chad Corbin wants to operate a $300,000 cylinder in New Hampshire. He said that an alkaline hydrolysis operation is more expensive to set up than a crematorium but that he would charge customers about as much as he would for cremation.

George Carlson, an industrial-waste manager for the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, said things the public might find more troubling routinely flow into sewage treatment plants in the United States all the time. That includes blood and spillover embalming fluid from funeral homes.

Hospital infested with poisonous spiders to close - the poisonous snakes can stay though

An Australian hospital will temporarily closed its doors so the building can be fumigated for an infestation of poisonous spiders.

 

The Baralaba Multi Purpose Health Service, a small hospital 200 miles northwest of Brisbane, will be treated for the toxic redback spiders that have multiplied in excess due to the unusually warm weather there. 

Redback spiders, which are common in the country, have a painful bite and are toxic, but an anti-venom is available. 

 Large numbers of the spiders have been found in the main part of the hospital that will be closed for at least 24 hours, according to Queensland state health officials. 

Patients will be moved to another hospital during the fumigation.

Makes one wonder if patients were dropping like flies.  

Hey great news - that asteroid that had small odds of destroying the earth just had the odds improve.. by alot. We have 28 years to live (give or take a year here or there)

German schoolboy, 13, corrects NASA's asteroid figures: paper

   

   

       

This artist's rendition released by NASA shows an asteroid belt. A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA's estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, after spotting the boffins had miscalculated.

A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA's estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, after spotting the boffins had miscalculated.

Nico Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth, the Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten reported.

NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000 but told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the young whizzkid had got it right.

The schoolboy took into consideration the risk of Apophis running into one or more of the 40,000 satellites orbiting Earth during its path close to the planet on April 13 2029.

Those satellites travel at 3.07 kilometres a second (1.9 miles), at up to 35,880 kilometres above earth -- and the Apophis asteroid will pass by earth at a distance of 32,500 kilometres.

If the asteroid strikes a satellite in 2029, that will change its trajectory making it hit earth on its next orbit in 2036.

Both NASA and Marquardt agree that if the asteroid does collide with earth, it will create a ball of iron and iridium 320 metres (1049 feet) wide and weighing 200 billion tonnes, which will crash into the Atlantic Ocean.

The shockwaves from that would create huge tsunami waves, destroying both coastlines and inland areas, whilst creating a thick cloud of dust that would darken the skies indefinitely.

The 13-year old made his discovery as part of a regional science competition for which he submitted a project entitled: "Apophis -- The Killer Astroid."

The only U.S. facility allowed to research the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease experienced several accidents with the feared virus, the Bush administration acknowledged Friday.

It would be more shocking if a department of this current administration didn't screw up....

The only U.S. facility allowed to research the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease experienced several accidents with the feared virus, the Bush administration acknowledged Friday. ;

A 1978 release of the virus into cattle holding pens on Plum Island, N.Y., triggered new safety procedures. While that incident was previously known, the Homeland Security Department told a House committee there were other accidents inside the government's laboratory.

The accidents are significant because the administration is likely to move foot-and-mouth research from the remote island to one of five sites on the U.S. mainland near livestock herds. This has raised concerns about the risks of a catastrophic outbreak of the disease, which does not sicken humans but can devastate the livestock industry.

Skeptical Democratic leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee demanded to see internal documents from the administration that they believe highlight the risks and consequences of moving the research. The live virus has been confined to Plum Island for more than a half-century to keep it far from livestock.

The 1978 accidental release "resulted in the FMD virus in some of the cattle in holding pens outside the laboratory facility," Jay Cohen, a senior Homeland Security official, wrote in response to the committee.

"Detailed precautions were taken immediately to prevent the spread of the disease from Plum Island, and new precautionary procedures were introduced."

Cohen, undersecretary for science and technology, said there also have been "in-laboratory incidents" — contamination of foot-and-mouth virus within the facility but not outside it — at Plum Island since 1954. That was the year the Agriculture Department acquired the land and started the Plum Island Animal Disease Center.

One government report, produced last year and already provided to lawmakers by the Homeland Security Department, combined commercial satellite images and federal farm data to show the proximity to livestock herds of locations that have been considered for the new lab.

"Would an accidental laboratory release at these locations have the potential to affect nearby livestock?" asked the nine-page document. It did not directly answer the question.

A simulated outbreak of the disease in 2002 — part of an earlier U.S. government exercise called "Crimson Sky" — ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation's National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets. In the exercise, the government said it would have been forced to dig a ditch in Kansas 25 miles long to bury carcasses. In the simulation, protests broke out in some cities amid food shortages.

"It was a mess," said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who portrayed the president in that 2002 exercise. Now, like other lawmakers from the states under consideration, Roberts supports moving the government's new lab to his state. Manhattan, Kan., is one of five mainland locations under consideration. "It will mean jobs" and spur research and development, he says.

Other possible locations for the new National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility are Athens, Ga.; Butner, N.C.; San Antonio; and Flora, Miss. The new site could be selected later this year, and the lab would open by 2014. The number of livestock in the counties and surrounding areas of the finalists range from 542,507 in Kansas to 132,900 in Georgia, according to the Homeland Security Department's internal study.

Foot-and-mouth virus can be carried on a worker's breath or clothes, or vehicles leaving a lab, and is so contagious it has been confined to Plum Island since the research began. The existing lab is 100 miles northeast of New York City in the Long Island Sound. Researchers there who work with the live virus are not permitted to own animals at home that would be susceptible, and they must wait at least one week after work before attending outside events where such animals might perform, such as a circus.

Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee also are worried about the lab's likely move to the mainland. Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., and the head of the investigations subcommittee, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., also demanded reports about "Crimson Sky" and other studies on the consequences of live virus research on the U.S. mainland. Cohen, the Homeland Security official, said those documents were provided.

Two lawmakers from New York, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rep. Timothy Bishop, both Democrats, expressed concerns in letters they wrote last year about the Homeland Security Department's ability to protect the existing lab at Plum Island, which relies for security on a private security company and local police rather than federal agents.

"We are particularly concerned that DHS has not been meeting the security needs of the facility since Federal Protective Service agents were removed from the island," Clinton and Bishop wrote in a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

Cohen responded that Plum Island used a contract with a private security firm and relied on an agreement with local police, who were deputized to enforce federal laws on the island.

Will Jenkins, Bishop's spokesman, said Friday that Homeland Security "has been responsive to the concerns raised last year, and Congressman Bishop is pleased with the progress DHS is making regarding security for Plum Island."

The White House said modern safety rules at labs are sufficient to avoid any outbreak. But incidents in Britain have demonstrated that the foot-and-mouth virus can cause remarkable economic havoc — and that the virus can escape from a facility.

An epidemic in 2001 devastated Britain's livestock industry, as the government slaughtered 6 million sheep, cows and pigs. Last year, in a less serious outbreak, Britain's health and safety agency concluded the virus probably escaped from a site shared by a government research center and a vaccine maker. Other outbreaks have occurred in Taiwan in 1997 and China last year and in 2006.

If even a single cow signals an outbreak in the U.S., emergency plans permit the government to shut down all exports and movement of livestock. Herds would be quarantined, and a controlled slaughter could be started to stop the disease from spreading.

Infected animals weaken and lose weight. Milk cows don't produce milk. They remain highly infectious, even if they survive the virus.

The Homeland Security Department is convinced it can safely operate the lab on the mainland, saying containment procedures at high-security labs have improved. The livestock industry is divided. Some experts, including the former director at the aging Plum Island lab, say research ought to be kept away from cattle populations — and, ideally placed where the public already has accepted dangerous research.

The former director, Dr. Roger Breeze, suggested the facility could be safely located at the Atlanta campus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., home of The United States Army Medical Research Institute for infectious diseases.

Another possibility, Breeze said, is on Long Island, where there is no commercial livestock industry. That would allow retention of most of the current Plum Island employees.

The former head of the Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service said Americans are not prepared for a foot-and-mouth outbreak that has been avoided on the mainland since 1929.

"The horrific prospect of exterminating potentially millions of animals is not something this country's ready for," said Dr. Floyd Horn.

The Agriculture Department ran the Plum Island lab until 2003. It was turned over to the Homeland Security Department because preventing an outbreak is now part of the nation's biological defense program.

Plum Island researchers work on detecting the disease, controlling epidemics using vaccines and drugs, testing imported animals and training professionals.

The new facility will add research on diseases that can be transferred from animals to humans. The Plum Island facility is not secure enough to handle that higher-level research.

A new facility at Plum Island is technically a possibility. Signs point to a mainland site, however, after the administration spent considerable time and money scouting new locations. Also, there are financial concerns about operating from a location accessible only by ferry or helicopter.

The Homeland Security Department said laboratory animals would not be corralled outside the new facility, and they would not come into contact with local livestock. All work with the virus and lab waste would be handled securely and any material leaving would be treated and monitored to ensure it was sterilized.

"Containment technology has improved dramatically since foot-and-mouth disease prohibitions were put in place in 1948," said Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa.

Teacher accused of sending nude pics to seduce student

Teacher accused of sending nude pics to seduce student

A teenage student in possession of sexually explicit photos of his Swedish school teacher claims the woman was trying to seduce him, reports the Göteborgs Tidning (GT) newspaper.

The photos, which depict the teacher in sexually provocative positions, have now been circulated to several students at a school in Kungsbacka outside of Gothenburg, landing the teacher at the centre of a school-wide sex scandal.

The woman denies accusations that she sent the photos to the student or that she was trying to seduce him, claiming that the boy could have easily downloaded the pictures himself.

However, she admitted that the student, who is less than half her age, had given her special attention in the past.

“Well, he is quite mature for his age and has showed an interest in my body,” the teacher said to GT.

“He’s made comments about [my body] and stood close to me during class in order to have physical contact.”

The woman also admits to conducting internet chats with the boy, but points out that she does so with many students.

The teacher had posted several nude pictures of herself on various adult websites a few years ago.

“It may have been a little careless, but I didn’t know any better back then,” she said.

The teacher has been placed on leave while school administrators try to get to the bottom of the exactly how the student came into possession of the comprising images.

Meanwhile, the teacher is considering filing a complaint with police against the boy.

“Even I have the right to an adult life,” she said to GT.

“It feels really unpleasant to be exposed like this.”