to keep ebola at bay - big don say - "schmoke weed everyday"

mtlblog |  Not a day has gone by in the last few weeks without a mention of Ebola. Having made its way into North America, Ebola has become reached the top of the “to fear” list, making many worry that it will only be a matter of time before the disease dominates the continent. Effective vaccines and treatments for Ebola have yet to be discovered, though one may be hiding in plain sight: cannabis.

Cannabinoids in marijuana have gained more and more of a reputation as a way to control and aid one’s immune systems, specifically with diseases that target a body’s natural defense measures against viruses, like HIV. Dr. David B. Allen, medical director of Cannabis Sativa, Inc, and Brad Morehouse, founder of NewCure.org, both believe cannabis can combat Ebola in the same way.

First, a rundown on what Ebola is and does, so everyone understands the argument. Ebola is a virus that targets the RNA (which creates proteins) in cells, takes over, then begins to replicate itself. The virus is able to hide itself from virus killing cells by creating indivisibility cloak-like surface proteins, which makes fighting Ebola especially difficult for the body.

Another consequence of Ebola being an RNA virus is that it makes each strain unique to the individual infected, thus making the creation of a widely applicable vaccine incredibly difficult.

What makes Ebola deadly is the way in which one’s immune system reacts as time goes on. Aside from creating hemorrhaging and leaking between cells, Ebola primarily kills when a person’s body releases a massive amount of enzymes (a cytokine storm) and an overabundant, and fatal amount, of immune cells being activated.

That’s where marijuana comes in as a potential saving grace to those afflicted with Ebola. As Joe Martin points out, cannabis is contains natural antiretrovirals and is also an anti-inflammatory able to reduce the harm to the body caused by a cytokine storm.

Dr. Allen also notes that cannabis has already become a legitimate regulator of immune system processes for those infected with HIV, with the same processes being applicable to Ebola. Being a natural virus killer, Allen also notes how cannabis can prevent the other harmful consequences of Ebola, namely hemorrhaging and cell leaking. Fist tap Big Don.

granny goes hard on obola: MUCH more impressed with this chick than I am with myself....,

belize gots to say the nayno...,

belizean |  Update: Channel 7 news anchor Indira Craig has posted on her Facebook page that Belize Prime Minister Dean Barrow in a callous move in view of very close Belize-U.S. relations, has denied entry into Belize for the stricken U.S. nationals to be air lifted to the U.S.A. for treatment:

“Talks have concluded with the PM and The US State Department officials. Belize WILL NOT BE GRANTING ACCESS to the suspected passengers to have entry onto our shores. An official release will be sent out shortly by government followed by a press conference to be held tomorrow.Passports have been returned so this scare has ended.”

In a late night official press release issued by the Belize Press Office, the Belize government offered its version of the Belize Ebola Incident.It stresses that while the patient did not disembark in Belize, it does not address the question that thousands of cruise ship passengers that may have had contact with the patient(s) did in fact disembark and tour Belize City today:

Belmopan. October 16, 2014. The Government of Belize was contacted today by officers of the U.S. Government and made aware of a cruise ship passenger considered of very low risk for Ebola. The passenger had voluntarily entered quarantine on board the ship and remains free of any fever or other symptoms of illness. The Ebola virus may only be spread by patients who are experiencing fever and symptoms of illness and so the US Government had emphasized the very low risk category in this case. Nonetheless, out of an abundance of caution, the Government of Belize decided not to facilitate a U.S. request for assistance in evacuating the passenger through the Phillip Goldson International Airport.

The GOB reassures the public that the passenger never set foot in Belize and while we remain in close contact with US officials we have maintained the position that when even the smallest doubt remains, we will ensure the health and safety of the Belizean people. The Prime Minister has called a press conference tomorrow morning to further address any concerns that may arise from this event.

Update From Carnival Cruise Lines: John Head, Carnival Senior Cruise Director wrote on his FaceBook Page:

“Late afternoon on Wednesday, Oct. 15., we were made aware by the U.S. CDC of a guest sailing this week on board Carnival Magic who is a lab supervisor at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. At no point in time has the individual exhibited any symptoms or signs of infection and it has been 19 days since she was in the lab with the testing samples. She is deemed by CDC to be very low risk. At this time, the guest remains in isolation on board the ship and is not deemed to be a risk to any guests or crew. It is important to reiterate that the individual has no symptoms and has been isolated in an extreme abundance of caution. We are in close contact with the CDC and at this time it has been determined that the appropriate course of action is to simply keep the guest in isolation on board.”

peter piot: outbreak out of hand, won't end without clipboards...,

guardian |  The Ebola epidemic, which is out of control in three countries and directly threatening 15 others, may not end until the world has a vaccine against the disease, according to one of the scientists who discovered the virus.

Professor Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said it would not have been difficult to contain the outbreak if those on the ground and the UN had acted promptly earlier this year. “Something that is easy to control got completely out of hand,” said Piot, who was part of a team that identified the causes of the first outbreak of Ebola in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, in 1976 and helped bring it to an end.

The scale of the epidemic in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea means that isolation, care and tracing and monitoring contacts, which have worked before, will not halt the spread. “It may be that we have to wait for a vaccine to stop the epidemic,” he said.

On Thursday night, a Downing Street spokesman said a meeting of the government’s emergency response committee, Cobra, was told the chief medical officer still believed the risk to the UK remained low.

“There was a discussion over the need for the international community to do much more to support the fight against the disease in the region,” the spokesman said. “This included greater coordination of the international effort, an increase in the amount of spending and more support for international workers who were, or who were considering, working in the region. The prime minister set out that he wanted to make progress on these issues at the European council next week.”

Dr Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in evidence to Congress, said he was confident the outbreak would be checked in the US, but stressed the need to halt the raging west African epidemic.

“There are no shortcuts in the control of Ebola and it is not easy to control it. To protect the United States we need to stop it at its source,” he said.

ebolavirus in west africa, and the use of experimental therapies or vaccines

biomedcentral |  Abstract - Response to the current ebolavirus outbreak based on traditional control measures has so far been insufficient to prevent the virus from spreading rapidly. This has led to urgent discussions on the use of experimental therapies and vaccines untested in humans and existing in limited quantities, raising political, strategic, technical and ethical questions.

Ebolavirus outbreaks and disease - The ongoing outbreak in West Africa of ebolavirus hemorrhagic fever (EHF) [1], lately also referred to as Ebola virus disease (EVD), has led to a surge in public interest and concern regarding this virus, which was first discovered in 1976 during simultaneous outbreaks in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Sudan [2]. Humans initially contract the virus either through contact with the infected reservoir, which is thought to be fruit bats, or by hunting and butchering of infected wildlife, particularly great apes. Since their discovery, ebolaviruses have caused frequent outbreaks almost exclusively in Central Africa. However, the recent emergence of Zaire ebolavirus in West Africa, resulting in what is the largest outbreak to date (Figure 1), with 4,390 cases and 2,226 deaths as of 7 September 2014, shows that ebolaviruses are more widely distributed than previously thought. While EHF is commonly associated with high case fatality rates (up to 90% for Zaire ebolavirus, approximately 50% for Sudan ebolavirus, and approximately 35% for Bundibugyo ebolavirus), the pathogenicity of Taï Forest ebolavirus, which was discovered in the mid-1990s in Ivory Coast, is unknown because only a single case has been reported, and Reston ebolavirus, which is found in the Philippines, is considered apathogenic for humans. Outbreaks are usually driven by human-to-human transmission as a result of direct contact with live or deceased patients and their body fluids, mainly during patient management and care, and participation in traditional local burial practices. Basic hygiene measures and barrier nursing techniques are usually sufficient to disrupt ebolavirus transmission and spread in the community. Nevertheless, because of its high case fatality rate and the absence of licensed vaccines or treatments, this virus is considered of the highest biosafety concern, restricting work on infectious virus to a few maximum containment laboratories worldwide. Despite the restricted and highly regulated handling of the pathogen, there have been considerable scientific achievements over the past years; however, many challenges remain in the public health sector in relation to identifying and managing cases and interrupting virus spread.

why isn't d-bag stephen pomp raining on lockheed martin's astounding claims of having fusion in the bag?

lockheed | FUSION VS. FISSION

More than 50 years ago, nuclear power through fission was the excitement of its day. People tried using it to power almost everything, even planes. In the end, operational hurdles prevented fission from widespread use.

While fission continues to power our nuclear reactors today, fusion offers a cleaner, safer source of energy.

Fission occurs when one atom is split into two smaller fragments, creating an explosion of sorts and resulting in the release of heat energy. 

Fusion is the process by which a gas is heated up and separated into its ions and electrons. When the ions get hot enough, they can overcome their mutual repulsion and collide, fusing together. When this happens, they release a lot of energy – about one million times more powerful than a chemical reaction and 3-4 times more powerful than a fission reaction.

Energy created through fusion is 3-4 times more powerful than the energy released by fission. 

HOW COMPACT FUSION WORKS 
Nuclear fusion is the process by which the sun works. Our concept will mimic that process within a compact magnetic container and release energy in a controlled fashion to produce power we can use. A reactor small enough to fit on a truck could provide enough power for a small city of up to 100,000 people Building on more than 60 years of fusion research, the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works approach to compact fusion is a high beta concept. This concept uses a high fraction of the magnetic field pressure, or all of its potential, so we can make our devices 10 times smaller than previous concepts. That means we can replace a device that must be housed in a large building with one that can fit on the back of a truck.

but I bet they got some clipboards though....,

WaPo |  Attention in the United States is squarely focused on containing the spread of the Ebola virus from the Dallas hospital ward where a patient with the disease died last week.

But across the Atlantic, the devastating effects of the outbreak continue. Liberia, one of the three West African countries at the heart of the Ebola epidemic, has been tragically ill-prepared to deal with the spread of the deadly virus. An inventory released by the country's health ministry this week shows how stark the situation is, beginning with Liberia's acute shortage of body bags.

i want me one of these anti-ebola clipboards!!!

abcnews |  The man seen not wearing a hazmat suit while standing just feet away from the second nurse with Ebola as she was transported to Emory University hospital did not need to wear the protective gear, the medical airline said. 

The nurse, identified Wednesday as Amber Vinson, was flown from Dallas to Atlanta on medical airline Phoenix Air. 

She was seen being transported to and from the ambulance by three people in full body hazmat suits, but the fourth person by her stretcher was wearing plainclothes and holding a clipboard. 

The airline confirmed to ABC News that the man was their medical protocol supervisor who was purposefully not wearing protective gear. 

"Our medical professionals in the biohazard suits have limited vision and mobility and it is the protocol supervisor’s job to watch each person carefully and give them verbal directions to insure no close contact protocols are violated," a spokesperson from Phoenix Air told ABC News said. 

"There is absolutely no problem with this and in fact insures an even higher level of safety for all involved," the spokesperson said.

DIYbio

Radar O'Reilly Whither thou goest, synthetic biology? First, let’s put aside the dystopian scenarios of nasty modified viruses escaping from the fermentor Junior has jury-rigged in his bedroom lab. Designing virulent microbes is well beyond the expertise and budgets of homegrown biocoders.

“Moreover, it’s extremely difficult to ‘improve’ on the lethality of nature,” says Oliver Medvedik, a visiting assistant professor at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and the assistant director of the Maurice Kanbar Center for Biomedical Engineering. “The pathogens that already exist are more legitimate cause for worry.”

On the other hand, it’s probably too much to expect kitchen counter fermenting vessels stocked with customized microorganisms exuding insulin, biodiesel, and can’t-believe-it-tastes-like-butter spreadable lipids.

“But I can see that kind of technology scaled up to the municipal level,” says Medvedik. “Large fermenter arrays could provide fuels, medicines, fiber — anything carbon-based. Not every city can afford or would want a petroleum refinery to supply its fuel and chemical needs. They’re expensive and dirty. But fermenting vessels are quiet, clean, versatile, and ultimately, cheaper.

how depressed does the ebola make you?

LiverTox Introduction

Imipramine is a tricyclic antidepressant that continues to be widely used in the therapy of depression.  Imipramine can cause mild and transient serum enzyme elevations and is rare cause of clinically apparent acute cholestatic liver injury.

Background

Imipramine (im ip' ra meen) is a dibenzazepine derived tricyclic antidepressant which acts by inhibition of serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake within synaptic clefts in the central nervous system, thus increasing brain levels of these neurotransmitters.  Imipramine is indicated for therapy of depression and was approved for this indication in the United States in 1959; it is still widely used, with more than 1 million prescriptions being filled yearly.  Imipramine is also used for childhood enuresis.  Imipramine is available in generic forms and under the brand names of Tofranil in 10, 25, and 50 mg tablets and as capsules of 75, 100, 125 and 150 mg for nighttime dosing.  The typical recommended dose for depression in adults is 75 to 100 mg daily in divided doses, increasing gradually to a maximum of 200 mg daily.  Imipramine can also be given as a single nighttime dose.  The recommended dose in children (ages 6 years or above) is 25 to 75 mg daily 1 hour before bedtime.  Common side effects include dizziness, headache, drowsiness, restlessness, confusion, gastrointestinal upset, increased appetite, weight gain, blurred vision, dry mouth and urinary retention.

at least the ebola is quick...

Wikipedia Niemann–Pick type C has a wide clinical spectrum. Affected individuals may have enlargement of the spleen (splenomegaly) and liver (hepatomegaly), or enlarged spleen/liver combined (hepatosplenomegaly), but this finding may be absent in later onset cases. Prolonged jaundice or elevated bilirubin can present at birth. In some cases, however, enlargement of the spleen and/or liver does not occur for months or years – or not at all. Enlargement of the spleen and/or liver frequently becomes less apparent with time, in contrast to the progression of other lysosomal storage diseases such as Niemann–Pick disease, Types A and B or Gaucher disease. Organ enlargement does not usually cause major complications.

Progressive neurological disease is the hallmark of Niemann–Pick type C disease, and is responsible for disability and premature death in all cases beyond early childhood.^[13] Classically, children with NPC may initially present with delays in reaching normal developmental milestones skills before manifesting cognitive decline (dementia).

Neurological signs and symptoms include cerebellar ataxia (unsteady walking with uncoordinated limb movements), dysarthria (slurred speech), dysphagia (difficulty in swallowing), tremor, epilepsy (both partial and generalized), vertical supranuclear palsy (upgaze palsy, downgaze palsy, saccadic palsy or paralysis), sleep inversion, gelastic cataplexy (sudden loss of muscle tone or drop attacks), dystonia (abnormal movements or postures caused by contraction of agonist and antagonist muscles across joints), most commonly begins with in turning of one foot when walking (action dystonia) and may spread to become generalized, spasticity(velocity dependent increase in muscle tone), hypotonia, ptosis (drooping of the upper eyelid), microcephaly (abnormally small head), psychosis, progressive dementia, progressive hearing loss, bipolar disorder, major and psychotic depression that can include hallucinations, delusions, mutism, or stupor.

In the terminal stages of Niemann–Pick type C disease, the patient is bedridden, with complete ophthalmoplegia, loss of volitional movement and has severe dementia.

who might have natural immunity to the ebola?

National Center for Biotechnology Information Infections by the Ebola (EboV) and Marburg (MarV) filoviruses cause a rapidly fatal hemorrhagic fever in humans for which no approved antivirals are available1. Filovirus entry is mediated by the viral spike glycoprotein (GP), which attaches viral particles to the cell surface, delivers them to endosomes, and catalyzes fusion between viral and endosomal membranes2. Additional host factors in the endosomal compartment are likely required for viral membrane fusion. However, despite considerable efforts, these critical host factors have defied molecular identification3,4,5. Here we describe a genome-wide haploid genetic screen in human cells to identify host factors required for EboV entry. Our screen uncovered 67 mutations disrupting all six members of the HOPS multisubunit tethering complex, which is involved in fusion of endosomes to lysosomes6, and 39 independent mutations that disrupt the endo/lysosomal cholesterol transporter protein Niemann-Pick C1 (NPC1)7. Cells defective for the HOPS complex or NPC1 function, including primary fibroblasts derived from human Niemann-Pick type C1 disease patients, are resistant to infection by EboV and MarV, but remain fully susceptible to a suite of unrelated viruses. We show that membrane fusion mediated by filovirus glycoproteins and viral escape from the vesicular compartment requires the NPC1 protein, independent of its known function in cholesterol transport. Our findings uncover unique features of the entry pathway used by filoviruses and suggest potential antiviral strategies to combat these deadly agents

those thirteen year old incident response plans may fool a lazy auditor, but they won't fool ebola

mcclatchydc |  A Liberian man who arrived by ambulance at a Dallas hospital with symptoms of Ebola sat for "several hours" in a room with other patients before being put in isolation, and the nurses who treated him wore flimsy gowns and had little protective gear, nurses alleged Tuesday as they fought back against suggestions that one of their own had erred in handling him.

The statements came as Nina Pham, a 26-year-old nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, fought off the Ebola virus after contracting it from the Liberian, Thomas Eric Duncan. The statements by the Dallas hospital nurses were read by representatives of the Oakland, Calif.-based group National Nurses United.

RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, said the nonunionized Texas nurses could not identify themselves, speak to the media independently or even read their statements over the phone because they feared losing their jobs. In a conference call, questions from the media were relayed to the unknown number of nurses by National Nurses United representatives, and the responses were read back to reporters.

DeMoro said all of the nurses had direct knowledge of what had transpired in the days after Duncan arrived at the hospital on Sept. 28.

Among other things, they said that Duncan "was left for several hours, not in isolation, in an area where other patients were present."

When a nurse supervisor demanded that he be moved into isolation, the supervisor "faced resistance from other hospital authorities," the nurses said.

They described a hospital with no clear guidelines in place for handling Ebola patients, where Duncan's lab specimens were sent through the usual hospital tube system "without being specifically sealed and hand-delivered. The result is that the entire tube system, which all the lab systems are sent, was potentially contaminated," they said.

"There was no advanced preparedness on what to do with the patient. There was no protocol; there was no system. The nurses were asked to call the infectious disease department" if they had questions, they said.

The nurses said they were essentially left to figure things out for themselves as they dealt with "copious amounts" of body fluids from Duncan while wearing gloves with no wrist tapes, gowns that did not cover their necks, and no surgical booties. Protective gear eventually arrived, but not until three days after Duncan's admission to the hospital, they said.

The nurses' allegations conflict with what hospital officials have been saying since Duncan's admission: that they have strict protocols in place for handling such patients and that a mistake led to Pham becoming infected while she treated him.

The hospital released the following statement after the nurses' comments:

"Patient and employee safety is our greatest priority and we take compliance very seriously. We have numerous measures in place to provide a safe working environment, including mandatory annual training and a 24-7 hotline and other mechanisms that allow for anonymous reporting. Our nursing staff is committed to providing quality, compassionate care, as we have always known, and as the world has seen firsthand in recent days. We will continue to review and respond to any concerns raised by our nurses and all employees."

DeMoro said the nurses came forward and asked Nurses United to publicize their statements out of anger they were being blamed for what had happened to their colleague.

The nurses statements come as an additional 76 health care workers who were involved in the treatment of Duncan are being watched for symptoms of Ebola and as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pledged to improve its response to hospitals in the event of more Ebola cases.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/10/14/243412_dallas-nurses-describe-ebola-hospital.html?&rh=1#storylink=cpy

second texas nurse has ebola...,

               
        

nbcnews |  A second Texas health care worker who provided care for Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan has contracted the virus, according to preliminary test results released early Wednesday. The worker reported a fever Tuesday and was immediately isolated at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, state health officials said in a statement. Confirmatory testing will be carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. "Health officials have interviewed the latest patient to quickly identify any contacts or potential exposures, and those people will be monitored," the Texas Department of State Health Services said. "The type of monitoring depends on the nature of their interactions and the potential they were exposed to the virus." It is the third case diagnosed in the U.S. 

The worker was among those who took care of Duncan, who died a week ago after he was diagnosed with Ebola earlier this month. The first Texas Health Presbyterian nurse to become infected, Nina Pham, said in a statement Tuesday that she was "doing well" and grateful for her care. The CDC described the latest case involving a health care worker as a "serious concern." In a statement, it added: "As we have said before, because of our ongoing investigation, it is not unexpected that there would be additional exposures." Ebola is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids of a sick person or exposure to contaminated objects such as needles. People are not contagious before symptoms such as fever develop.

exponential increase and widening geographic footprint...,

NYTimes |  The World Health Organization reported sobering new figures Tuesday about the Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa, saying the number of new cases could reach 10,000 per week by December, about 10 times the rate of the past four weeks.

While the number of deaths so far is roughly half the number of confirmed, probable or suspected cases, the organization also said that the mortality rate is closer to 70 percent.

The updated figures were provided by Dr. Bruce Aylward, the health organization’s assistant director general, during a telephone news conference from its Geneva headquarters.

He said that as of Tuesday, the total number of confirmed, probable or suspected Ebola cases over the course of the epidemic had reached 8,914, with 4,447 deaths. The vast majority are in the three most afflicted countries: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Just on Friday, the organization said that the deaths totaled 4,024 — indicating that hundreds more people have died in a matter of days.

Dr. Aylward, an infectious diseases specialist who just completed a visit to West Africa, said the survival rate was now “30 percent at most in these countries, ” even as the international campaign to fight it has escalated.

The epidemic has continued to expand geographically and now affects more areas in the three countries than a month ago, including close to Guinea’s border with Ivory Coast, Dr. Aylward said, and the number of infections was still rising in the capitals of the three worst-hit countries.

Ebola's progression in Africa

Datasciencecentral Having found a dataset on Ebola cases, thought of checking it out quickly what the statistics really look like.

The dataset contains 3 countries and within each there are multiple regions.

So just using the high level information at the country level this is what we can see in a simple line chart.

In the below Chart,

The blue line > Total Death cases

The green line > Total Cases

The Orange line > Currently admitted

And the Red line > Total recovered.

lucy in the sky with diamonds....,

BI |  John Badding of Penn State University and his team discovered that liquid benzene, when subjected to extreme pressure (around 200,000 times the pressure at the surface of the Earth) and then slowly relieved of that pressure, forms extremely thin, tight rings of carbon that are structurally identical to diamonds.

In other words, if you could unravel a diamond like you can a piece of fabric, you'd get these far-out threads. The result is a chain, thousands of times thinner than a human hair, that has the potential to be the strongest, stiffest material ever discovered. 

The discovery was something of an accident, but far from a hapless one. The team used a large, high-pressure device called the Paris-Edinburgh device at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory to compress a 6-millimeter wide quantity of liquid benzene — a huge amount compared with previous experiments. The volume of liquid benzene, coupled with the size of the device, forced them to relieve the pressure more slowly than they would have otherwise.

"It's been known for a long time that if you put benzene under pressure, it’d make a type of polymer," Badding told Business Insider. "An Italian team did a similar experiment and found it was amorphous, disordered, with no pattern to the way material’s held together, kind of like glass. We were trying to make the same material everyone else had made, but in larger quantities."

When they released the pressure, "something interesting happened: the material became ordered," Badding said. The carbon atoms in the liquid benzene arranged themselves so that each was linked with four others, in what's called a tetrahedral structure. Structurally, the threads formed by the liquid benzene are identical to diamond, with each carbon atom linked with four others. You can see what they look like below. 

It was the breakthrough that Badding had been seeking for 20 years.

"Luck favors the prepared mind," Badding said. "I’d love to be able to say I predicted this was going to happen for benzene. I don’t think I can say that. But in a way our studies in benzene were a step in this larger goal, and we just happened to find that faster than we thought we would."

Now that Badding and his colleagues have shown that this structure is possible, the next step is to confirm the precise structure of the material and look for any imperfections that might exist.

"Theory suggests that if you can make the structures perfect, they could be as strong or stronger than carbon nanotubes, but we have not confirmed that experimentally," Badding said.

Going up

Towards the end of his life, science fiction writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke predicted that a space elevator would be built ten years after everybody stopped laughing. By the time he died, in 2008, everybody had.

something strange happens to civilizations, strange in a bad way...,

aeon |  ‘I think there is a strong humanitarian argument for making life multi-planetary,’ he told me, ‘in order to safeguard the existence of humanity in the event that something catastrophic were to happen, in which case being poor or having a disease would be irrelevant, because humanity would be extinct. It would be like, “Good news, the problems of poverty and disease have been solved, but the bad news is there aren’t any humans left.”’

Musk has been pushing this line – Mars colonisation as extinction insurance – for more than a decade now, but not without pushback. ‘It’s funny,’ he told me. ‘Not everyone loves humanity. Either explicitly or implicitly, some people seem to think that humans are a blight on the Earth’s surface. They say things like, “Nature is so wonderful; things are always better in the countryside where there are no people around.” They imply that humanity and civilisation are less good than their absence. But I’m not in that school,’ he said. ‘I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness, to make sure it continues into the future.’

Musk told me he often thinks about the mysterious absence of intelligent life in the observable Universe. Humans have yet to undertake an exhaustive, or even vigorous, search for extraterrestrial intelligence, of course. But we have gone a great deal further than a casual glance skyward. For more than 50 years, we have trained radio telescopes on nearby stars, hoping to detect an electromagnetic signal, a beacon beamed across the abyss. We have searched for sentry probes in our solar system, and we have examined local stars for evidence of alien engineering. Soon, we will begin looking for synthetic pollutants in the atmospheres of distant planets, and asteroid belts with missing metals, which might suggest mining activity.

The failure of these searches is mysterious, because human intelligence should not be special. Ever since the age of Copernicus, we have been told that we occupy a uniform Universe, a weblike structure stretching for tens of billions of light years, its every strand studded with starry discs, rich with planets and moons made from the same material as us. If nature obeys identical laws everywhere, then surely these vast reaches contain many cauldrons where energy is stirred into water and rock, until the three mix magically into life. And surely some of these places nurture those first fragile cells, until they evolve into intelligent creatures that band together to form civilisations, with the foresight and staying power to build starships.

‘At our current rate of technological growth, humanity is on a path to be godlike in its capabilities,’ Musk told me. ‘You could bicycle to Alpha Centauri in a few hundred thousand years, and that’s nothing on an evolutionary scale. If an advanced civilisation existed at any place in this galaxy, at any point in the past 13.8 billion years, why isn’t it everywhere? Even if it moved slowly, it would only need something like .01 per cent of the Universe’s lifespan to be everywhere. So why isn’t it?’

Musk has a more sinister theory. ‘The absence of any noticeable life may be an argument in favour of us being in a simulation,’ he told me. ‘Like when you’re playing an adventure game, and you can see the stars in the background, but you can’t ever get there. If it’s not a simulation, then maybe we’re in a lab and there’s some advanced alien civilisation that’s just watching how we develop, out of curiosity, like mould in a petri dish.’ Musk flipped through a few more possibilities, each packing a deeper existential chill than the last, until finally he came around to the import of it all. ‘If you look at our current technology level, something strange has to happen to civilisations, and I mean strange in a bad way,’ he said. ‘And it could be that there are a whole lot of dead, one-planet civilisations.’

why dispersal may be our only option...,

robinwestenra |  Following on from my recent post regarding the attempt by Dr Gavin Schmidt to rubbish the research of Russian scientists, led by Dr Natalia Shakhova and Dr Igor Semiletov, it now emerges that the latter were not even invited to the high profile meeting at the Royal Society.

The event, held a fortnight ago, is still causing controversy beyond the negative tweeting by NASA Goddard Director, Dr Gavin Schmidt. Schmidt aimed his presentation at discrediting the Russian’s work, using theoretical models, without expertise in methane, or credible data. The end result is that the Russian team have composed a letter to Royal Society President, Sir Paul Nurse, asking for an opportunity to present their findings, including contributions from over 30 scientists working in the region for over 20 years.

One of the longstanding major triumphs of the scientific community has been a commitment to apolitical analysis of important research. We all know there are geopolitical tensions between Russia and the West, but are these now making an unwelcome entree into an area that could pose enormous risk for humanity at large?

The risk of large-scale releases of the deadly greenhouse gas, methane, from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) may be a subject of debate in the scientific community, but to purposefully exclude one side of the debate and openly denounce their findings is not just immoral, it is reckless.

The letter, signed by Semiletov and Shakhova on behalf of more than 30 scientists, does state to the Royal Society President that the evidence shown by Dr Schmidt (based on work by Dr David Archer) is purely theoretical and that, despite both being very skilled climate modellers, neither has expertise in methane or the area in question, The East Siberian Arctic Shelf.

Whilst the meeting was in process, an expedition in the ESAS was in progress, with over 80 Russian and Swedish scientists. So why would such high profile Western scientists try to discredit a large and growing body of research? It is a hard question to answer, but the intent is certainly evident.

It is a matter for all of our concern if there is a posed risk of environmental devastation emanating from any region of the world. The Earth system does not acknowledge sovereignty or nationalist interests. International collaboration and respect are vital if we are to understand the changes that are going on as a result of man made climate change. The Earth is heating up and many feedbacks from the heating, such as methane releases, are not fully understood but are known to have caused enormous changes in the global climate.

The division between the climate modelling camp and the scientists carrying out observational research is completely nonsensical. It seems perfectly logical that the data collected by one group should be used by the other in order to make the models more accurate. If climate models have no basis in reality, then how can we trust their reliability?

The disdain shown by Dr Schmidt for his international colleagues should now be put aside and the doors of the Royal Society opened to allow the Russian team to present their findings. It is in all of our interests that this takes place, so, Sir Paul, over to you…

species final exams: dmitri orlov offers a prudent and scalable ebola mitigation strategy

cluborlov |  I have already mentioned that it may be a good idea to make arrangements through which survivors would be able to feed themselves, and provide them with the few other necessities for survival.

Beyond that, there are the basic mechanics of handling the pandemic. The current strategy treats it as a medical problem, best handled by doctors and nurses working in hospitals and clinics. This strategy only works for as long as the epidemic can be said to be under control; once it can be said to be out of control, the surviving doctors and nurses (medics are usually the first to be exposed—and to die) would be well advised to specifically refuse to handle Ebola patients.

In absence of any curative or preventive therapies, Ebola patients need shelter, hydration, hygiene, palliative care and, if and when they die, sanitary disposal of the remains. The goal is to do what is possible to give patients a chance to recover more or less on their own. To this end, it is very important to do all the things necessary to make sure that people are dying just from Ebola, and not from exposure, dehydration, or from any of the opportunistic diseases that thrive in disrupted circumstances, such as cholera and typhus. Sanitation is the most important aspect of the entire operation.

These services need not be provided by trained medics. The main two requirements for such service are: 1. psychological immunity to scenes of horrific suffering and death; and 2. immunity to Ebola. The first of these requirements comes down to natural talent; some have it, some don't. The second requirement is being provided free of charge by the Ebola virus itself, in cooperation with the survivors' immune systems.

English lacks a good word to describe this type of specialist, but we don't have to reach far to find one: the Russian word for it is “sanitar.” A popular Russian saying goes “wolves are sanitars of the forest” because they take care of disposing of the sick, the weak and the lame, thus giving those that survive a better chance. A sanitar need not be medically trained, but some training is needed: in diagnosis, palliative care, sanitation procedures and corpse disposal.

A third requirement is one that applies to the sanitation service as a whole: the number of sanitars has to scale with the rate of infection. Since the number of those infected is increasing exponentially, the number of sanitars assigned to serve them has to be able to increase exponentially as well. It seems outlandish to think that sufficient numbers of people will spontaneously volunteer for the job, and this means that they have to be press-ganged into service. And a super-obvious way to do just that is to simply never discharge Ebola survivors: once you are in, you are in until the pandemic is over, or until you die, whichever comes first. If you recover, you are given a bit of training, and then you go to work.

If you don't like the mitigation strategy I am proposing, please feel free to propose your own. Keep in mind, however, that what you propose has to automatically scale with the increase in the rate of infection, which is exponential. Sure, you can propose setting a public health budget, but then it has to double every couple of weeks—and keep doubling until the number of patients is in the billions.