The idea that climate change is linked to the spread of a disease is not new. Some bacteria and viruses, after all, piggyback on an animal or insect, and the infectious advance depends on the host’s reaction to climbing temperatures. Consider dengue, a disease once anchored to tropical climates by its host’s penchant for heat and humidity, which is now pushing further north with its mosquito transits as the upper latitudes get warmer. But according to a study published this past June in PNAS, it’s not only climbing temperatures that are worrisome; in the past, even heavy rains have altered the course of disease, though often in divergent directions.
During the third plague pandemic (China, 1850-1964), researchers found that, for better or worse, the seasonal rains were a strong predictor of how the disease spread. There, storms governed Pestilence’s toll, prodding the disease in the arid north, and quelling it in the humid south.
Rats are the primary host for the bubonic plague, and in general, the more that infected rats move, the more the disease will spread. In the dry north, they figure, the rains quenched the parched landscape, causing the rats, and the disease, to stir. In the southern part of the country, the rains only served to make the humidity worse, perhaps forcing the rats to sit tight.
Keeping tabs on the spread of infectious disease is one thing; understanding the interaction of pathogens, hosts, and behavior is yet another.
Photo via Flickr / Yorick_R
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Sign in nowThis brands me as a colossal dork, but those Apple patents are for the design of the Apple ///, not the Mac. The Apple /// (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_III) was a very advanced 8-bit machine, sucessor to the Apple II, and Apple’s first big failure. It was also totally unrelated to the Mac, and didn’t even support a mouse. So there.
“a device similar to today’s track ball, which was inserted alongside radar screens and was used for retrieval of aircraft data. From 1966 to the American company Orbit produced such “Ball Tracker, ” (google translate of the Heise article)
The track ball goes back *much* further than this. It was invented in 1952 by a Canadian company as part of the user interface for a radar / packet data system. The English Wikipedia entry is an accurate summary of this, although the German language one doesn’t mention it at all.
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To paraphrase the Blues Brothers, “If raw milk cheese kills me, I don’t mind dyin’…”
Haggie: Ha – maybe you have a point! I hope you’ll tune it to find out what I uncover.
[...] Read post 1 here: So long, raw milk cheese [...]
Perhaps they should irradiate the cheese or use another sterilization method that does not change the taste. Irradiation is so underused!
In my book, people should be free to buy whatever they want so long as their is a disclaimer and it is well above the market price.
Irradiation isn’t the answer. Raw dairy products is more complex issue than taste. For some people it is taste, for others it’s about health. When you irradiate something it doesn’t differentiate between harmful and helpful bacteria. It might sound gross in this day in age of over-sanitizing everything we can, but there are healthy helpful bacteria that are useful to our bodies and if we irradiate our food we’re altering it nutritionally. Same goes for pasteurization. Some people argue that cooking does too (though I think there are things that are meant to be cooked … though not overcooked or burnt.)
Basically I want to be able to continue to choose to eat what I want how I want it. I would NOT buy raw milk from a farmer I didn’t trust. Raw milk cheese on the other hand is a little less likely to be a problem than plain raw milk. No chemical additives, no flash heat treatments, no irradiation, no genetically altered seeds.
I want to retain that choice of what food I put in my body without having to buy a farm out in Timbuktu to grow it all myself. Where does it end?
And the reason I’m a raw milk advocate is that it has helped me with my allergies when traditional drugs and shots did nothing. I’m not saying it was a cure all, just saying it’s one of several things I started doing and when I remove it my allergies do start coming back.
I was excited to see the Wired piece too, although I was would have liked some mention of feedback as part of larger more complete social systems. It seemed to focus on how on individual can minimize risk; i.e. negative feedback. What about positive feed back (hypcercycles or catalytic cycles)? Scientists have talked about feedback loops’ role in evolution, and I think that feedback loops are incredibly important for major social change. I wrote a blog on it:
http://thefeedbackloop.org/2011/06/22/feedback-loops-stir-shit-up/
Lovely reflection on climate and infectious disease. I will share this with the JIDC FB users.
I find this to be a fascinating relationship.
As I was doing some research a couple of weeks ago I became aware of this paper
published in the JIDC. Not trying to plug the journal, but I highly recommend this article reviewing Cholera in the marine environment. Entitled: Influence of environmental factors
on the presence of Vibrio cholerae in the marine environment: a climate link
http://www.jidc.org/index.php/journal/article/view/19734600/207
Before reading this paper I had not thought about this environmental relationship deeply. Of course Cholera would be connected to the marine environment (mainly I had thought of sewage), but I had not thought about the connection with weather patterns.
Thanks,
Alyson
Thanks, Alyson. I thought people might like this PNAS study. For all the talk on climate change, I’m surprised that there isn’t more effort directed to understanding how this could impact public health and infectious disease. Thanks for sharing the links.
Does not storms play an important role in the dissemination of Infectious diseases agents from one continent to other or to the neighboring countries?
Hi there. Thanks again. Everyone really liked your write-up. It was shared many times by JIDC members.
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Well that’s an interesting story. I can only imagine the possibilities of these “miracle berries” and what kinds of recipes would be created.