On May Day, I wrote that the media would follow the story of H1N1 throughout the season around the globe and back to the North American flu season. I said journalists owed the public good solid reporting and investigation due to the big-oops in 1918. Those years of news-printed reassurances didn’t do much for lowering death tolls or to prepare the public.

We were getting reports of the numbers as they rolled through the WHO, and the CDC. Real numbers became speculative and open to manipulation rapidly. Governments exercising or flexing their own interpretations by who got tested. (That’s who not WHO) Almost always the first listed on the rosters of illness were foreigners who brought the disease into the country of reporting.

Reporters called around, reported the numbers and the latest deaths. Their penmanship hands tied by patient privacy, reusing the quotes of well-meaning health officials. The song of songs repeated. ‘This was a milder than expected H1N1, there have been no changes in the novel A-H1N1 virus to our knowledge at this time. Vaccine will be produced. You may need two inoculations spaced 3 weeks apart. Things could change fast. We will get back to you. We can only process so many calls. No we are not overwhelmed.’ Not a global conspiracy folks, just unprepared bureaucracy.

The ages of those hit hardest have been different from past seasonal-flu. Very concerning some said. Ominous said I. When you could get a treating MD to talk, they mentioned medical conditions preceding the Influenza related death. Not surprising unless you considered people with preceding health conditions got seasonal flu but rarely died as young adults. Obesity not being a medical condition that should loom large for a fatal outcome of flu. Pregnant women were among those effected and remain at greater risk than in the past. Their immune system usually runs high in the 2nd & 3rd trimesters providing historic protection.

Children under the age of two, and New York, Australia, and the First Nations of Canada had some staggering number of infections. In South America, Chile and Argentina numbers were rising. In the US the states of WI and IL were dealing with greater numbers. Though in earnest those states did deal with and threw out a better blanket of initial detection.

Readers began counter arguments about cleanliness, diet or light-ray treatments.

Here is the kicker as of June 29th A-H1N1 has developed resistance to the antiviral drug Tamiflu. It was just one little case in Denmark. If you knew that was going to happen than you are probably up on H5N1, or a consummate reader of influenza history. This is the point where younger readers might jump in and talk about flu-parties while nay-sayers scoff at potent pandemics, and medical people remind us a vaccine is just around the corner.

The next day, two more cases of resistant flu were discovered, one in the US and another case in Japan. The only conclusion is that the virus will continue to spread as A-H1N1 drug-resistant flu. It’s name keeps getting longer.

We are approximately 80 days past the initial outbreak and A-H1N1 has decided to change its game plan. Flu-parties are not a good idea and they never were. Influenza deaths have continued to follow North Americans into the summer months. The real infection numbers are going to reach about a quarter of the global population. A-H1N1 has decided to get tougher, and mutations could very likely follow fast. The testing is taking longer to show a positive to A-H1N1 in some hospitalized cases. There is every indication that H1N1 grows smarter and has begun a hide and seek game in the human body.

We are not done with the A-H1N1 novel. This was just the first chapter in A-Viral book. Are You Worrying Too Much About A-H1N1 is still posted. It talks about the Smart Viruses, or RNA viruses. Written for laypersons. It was posted May 2, 2009. 68 days later… we glean the first evidence that ‘The Worry’ is still with us. On May 15th I expressed every hope that H1N1 would not want to trouble the human population too much.

Hope takes pause. Let’s hope… the analytic content of reporting in the Media steps up. Health ministers under pressure starts now. Another blame game in a new world sharing red tape. Spinners will be out in force if the story of the Denmark case is highly publicized. It was just one little case, then followed by two. A-H1N1 is talking and learning new language.

More on A-H1N1

• Pandemic Swine Flu Shows Tamiflu Resistance (abcnews.go.com)
• No Swine Flu Vaccine (sciscoop.com)
• Why British Health Officials Decry ‘Swine Flu Parties’ (time.com)
• Think You Have Swine Flu? What to Do (health.usnews.com)
• WHO Says Tamiflu-Resistant H1N1 “Isolated Case” (nlm.nih.gov)

Now, the world’s peak ocean science body has adopted a new definition of seawater developed by an international team to help make climate predictions more accurate.

The General Assembly of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) accepted the case for the introduction of a new international description of seawater based on its physical, or thermodynamic, properties. The new definition uses a new property called Absolute Salinity to say whether a particular body, lake, estuary, or marginal land is seawater or not.

Variations in salinity and heat influence ocean currents and measuring those variations are central to quantifying the oceans’ role in climate change. These variations drive deep ocean currents and the major vertical overturning circulations of the worlds oceans, which transfer ocean heat towards the Arctic and Antarctic regions.

The last oceanic definition is now three decades old, but a re-assessment was instigated in 2005 when the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) established a working group, chaired by Trevor McDougall, of Australia’s CSIRO Marine & Atmospheric Research. Supporting him were Rainer Feistel from the Leibniz-Institut für Ostseeforschung in Warnemünde (Germany), Dr Frank Millero, from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami in Florida, Dan Wright of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Canada and David Jackett also of CSIRO.

In the old definition, salinity, which is a measure of the salt content in the oceans was determined by electrical conductivity measurements and assumed that the composition of salt in seawater is the same in all the world’s oceans.

“The new approach, involving Absolute Salinity, takes into account the changes in the composition of sea salt between different ocean basins which, while small, are a factor of about ten larger than the accuracy with which scientists can measure salinity at sea,” explains McDougall.

Once the new definition is adopted, climatologists will have a better variable to plug into their models for understanding temperature effects due to differences in salt types and concentrations. The difference will be less than 1 degree Celsius at the sea surface, but it is nevertheless important to correct for such biases in climate models.

IOC site on ocean salinity

How to follow a topic or conversation on Twitter without having a Twitter account:

1. The easiest method is to go to http://search.twitter.com and type in a relevant keyword – eg #wcsj – press enter and see the results.

That will look like this – http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23wcsj

As new tweets are posted with your keyword you will need to press the refresh button (ie reload the page) to see them too.

2. The second easiest method is to go to Monitter or Twitterfall (I prefer this one) and type in a word there and watch the tweets unfurl in real time – ie they auto refresh. I’ve found Monitter to slow down my laptop quite a bit, Twitterfall less so.

3. If the topic is very popular (eg anything to do with Michael Jackson or mrsslocombespussy) it will be a ‘trending topic’ – ie in the top ten of popular tags, then you can watch it unfold in real time over at What The Hashtag and there’s also the opportunity to ‘harvest’ a transcript of all the tweets to read when convenient.

* That looks like this http://wthashtag.com/Wcsj
* The “View transcript” link is below the bar chart which is showing the number of tweets over a number of days.

If it’s not trending and not appearing at wthashtag you can add it yourself – but you will need to sign up for an account. The people behind wthashtag helpfully created the #wcsj page for me because I didn’t have an account at the time. I’d only learned about it the week before at Sci Comm Conference – there seems to be a very short lag time these days between hearing about a tool and then using it!

3a. What’s a hashtag?

It’s very similar to tagging or keywording (eg as used in Flickr to help people find things when searching). The # symbol adds a ‘flag’ to a word increasing its signal against the noise of every other tweeted word. It also makes it appear as an active link in the search results page at http://search.twitter.com. You can search for a word without putting a hash in front of it though, it’s not essential for most things.

4. Receive tweets by email

Tweetlater (you need to register) is a free service which will email you the results of a Twitter search for a particular topic – another way of catching up with a lot of tweets on a topic. [Topify.com lets you run several functions DM's, following, blocking for your Twitter account via email, db]

The information in the rest of the post assumes a Twitter account – visit Twitter and sign up.

The middling to advanced tips
1. Ten Brutal Twitter tips from David Bradley – useful overview

2. Tweeting in 140 characters, shortening links – Each twitter post of 140 characters is a ‘tweet’ and the only way to include most web links is to shorten them otherwise they won’t fit. Twitter does this automatically but to get the most info in your tweet, as you’re writing it, it’s best to pre-shorten your URL so you can see how many spare characters will remain.

URL shortening services include Tinyurl, is.gd or bit.ly – bit.ly lets you track the number of times your link is clicked on, as does tr.im, which may be useful information. [You might also investigate WordTwit for self-hosted Wordpress users which makes your own site a URL shortener and so retains your branding, db]

3. The @ symbol, “@replies”

In front of anyone’s name (with no space) does two things (i) turns the name into an active link that can be clicked on taking you to their Twitter profile and (ii) sends a copy of the tweet to them – although they go straight to the person they are also public and others can find them, so do not use @reply for private messages, see DM below (though it’s probably best not to use Twitter for private messages).

You can read messages sent to you by clicking on the @jobrodie (your name here) link in the right hand side of the main page, once you have an account.

4. Retweeting someone else’s post (RT)

RT (retweet) in front of a post means that you are reposting someone else’s Tweet.

Here’s one I tweeted earlier…

“RT @JRBtrip RT @TechCrunch Tweetraising: the potential for charities on Twitter http://tinyurl.com/ok6a5t”

This means that I’m retweeting @JRBtrip’s post, he himself was retweeting @Techcrunch. My retweeting of this, using their @names means that both people will receive a copy of my message – ie they’ll know that I’ve retweeted them.

There needs to be a space before the @ otherwise the name won’t resolve to an active link. [Retweeting is a very important part of twitter etiquette as well as impacting on personal twitter grade and rank, db]

5. Hat tip

Another way to acknowledge someone is to use h/t or ht to acknowledge that they were the originator of an idea, for example – here’s me acknowledging that @SciCommConf and @marilyneb told me about the wthashtag (what the hashtag) website. It’s not done that often to be honest, but if you see the phrase that’s what it means.

“Not enough characters left in last tweet to h/t @SciCommConf & @marilyneb for highlighting @wthashtag – #wcsj transcript

6. Direct Messages (DM or d)

Typing d jobrodie sends a private message to me but it will only work if I am following you (if I’m not following you it would have to be @jobrodie). You can also send direct messages through the Direct Messages link on Twitter.

7. Following posts / conversations in real time with a Twitter account

Tweetdeck is excellent for this, you can download it from – it presents you with basic columns (all the tweets of everyone you’re following, a column of tweets sent to you, a column of private messages plus any columns you care to add – eg a search for #wcsj).

You need to grant Tweetdeck access to your Twitter account for it to work – I’ve not had any problems with this particular service but have only used it on iPhone. [There are lots of external applications that require you to login with your Twitter ID, if you're unsure about these, check them out on twitter search before signing up, just in case there are security issues; TweetDeck is "safe", db]

Some additional suggestions

1. Using Twitter on a mobile phone

Twitter’s easy to use on a computer/laptop but there are mobile phone applications such as Twitterfon, Tweetie as well as Tweetdeck (for iPhone) that mean you can read or post tweets (might be a link to a blog post for example) while on the move. Many people at #wcsj were using phones to ‘live blog’ the conference. [Ironically, Twitter was meant to be an SMS service in the first place, db]

2. A new account needs a bit of time to get going

It takes time to get the hang of Twitter but a little bit longer to build up a network. Lots of people sign up and then can’t see the point of it. It’s a bit like moving to a new neighborhood and getting to know the locals – it’s something you cultivate.

It really helps if you fill in the bio section, add a link to your website (or blog) and a photo. Then people know who you are. [Or, at least who you'd like them to think you are, db]

3. Following people and being followed

Anyone can follow anyone else, unless they’ve restricted their “Twitter stream” by locking it – in which case you need to request permission to follow them. People are less likely to follow you if there’s no information in your bio. In my case I’m likely to block you from following me if I can’t see who you are. It’s just difficult to engage with people if they’re anonymous – and Twitter is meant to be a tool for social networking ;) [I very rarely follow anyone who has restricted access, it's pointless, take a look at my twitter follow decision flow chart, db]

You can find people to follow by (a) searching for their name or knowing their Twitter account URL and clicking on the ‘Follow’ button, (b) by searching for keywords and following the people writing the most interesting posts about them, (c) if you’ve found someone to follow see who else they are following and who else is following them – some of those people might have similar interests to you.

4. Attention conference organizers

Please choose a hashtag that’s simple and brief to type when tweeting from a mobile phone. #wcsj is pretty much perfect – short, letters only (numbers are on another screen on iPhones) and gives you more characters to type a message in – also it’s very natural (’organic’!) and reflects what people were using already in referring to the conference. To be honest #scc2009 wouldn’t have been my first choice for the sci com conference but it doesn’t matter much when you’re using a laptop of course.

Many conferences use Twitter to create a bit of a buzz around the event and draw people in, some conferences might want to set ground rules about what sessions can be covered – I expect people may well ignore this but sometimes it mightn’t be appropriate to live blog things, I suppose.

5. Blog owners … and possibly newspaper (online versions) people (?)

If you want to make it easy for people to share a post and you want to maintain some control over the link, pre-shorten the URL for them (create the post, shorten the URL, then amend the page to add in the new URL – I don’t know a simpler way) or use a ‘Tweet this’ button. This makes it easy for people to share info on your website (promote your work) without having to shorten the URL themselves…

Using a bit.ly [and tr.im, db] link here lets you collect some referral information about where clicks are coming from – and at this point we are at the limits of my URL tracking knowledge.

In David’s post linked above one of the first things you see on the page is the ‘Tweet this’ button – if you read the comments you will see I was asking about this sort of thing when the text was originally posted.

Many sites do this very well with a panel of social media sharing buttons including Facebook, Digg etc. etc.

6. If you wanted to refer to the URL of a particular Tweet…

…look at the bit just below the Tweet – the ‘time when it was posted’, in this case “half a minute ago” gives the URL for that particular tweet.

” TEDchris Mass-collaboration music vid. Beautiful way to nurture your fanbase: http://bit.ly/8yJiG (via@ndjbaker) ”
half a minute ago from web

7. Twitter’s just a series of RSS feeds

Some content you create yourself by typing it, some can be pushed from another source – eg I have an automated feed set up to collect any newly registered clinical trials about diabetes, which is published automatically whenever the ClinicalTrials.gov database is updated http://twitter.com/diabetestrials

Little is said about this in the press or media for it definitely appears that they have been programmed to believe that a drugs cure will come in time.

This is a total fallacy if we refer to the ‘Spanish flu’ (swine flu) where at least 20 million perished but where in all probability nearer to 100 million worldwide died. Unfortunately the next deadly flu pandemic will kill far more than these numbers, as the world’s population is now many times larger and with modern air travel, it will take effect far more quickly and will spread even wider.

Indeed, common sense dictates that if it takes two to three months to isolate and develop antidotes, and a minimum of a further 6 months to provide a drug together with an extra minimum 6 months to effectively distribute to the masses, not many will survive if they are infected. For the wretched problem here is that the 1918 killer flu did its worst in the first 4>6 months and where travel was much slower in those days. Indeed, several months before the deadly Spanish Flu arrived, there was a milder swine flu outbreak across the world, just like what we have today, but where it reappeared with a vengeance in the Autumn of 1918 (between Sept. and Nov.).

That is what we have clearly to be fearful of and where it may happen again. Professor Shortridge defeated the killer flu at its source and where he believes in the global strategy of ‘to never let it happen in the first place’. Predominantly this is really what governments should be doing all across the world, as the drugs cure will simply come too late.

It is time therefore that the media and press took note of the ‘only’ real solution to this killer pandemic, whenever it happens, and where presently they are being deluded by the large pharmaceuticals and governments into believing that a drugs cure will come in time. Unfortunately for the media this time, even their own families with some certainty will be affected. We therefore require an ‘open debate’ to be undertaken and ‘open minds’ to be heard if we are to stop such unprecedented deaths happening and on an unimaginable scale.

Dr David Hill
World Innovation Foundation

Flu articles

• A(H1N1) Pandemic: Hoping for the best (beinghealthyhomeandaway.blogspot.com)
• Aboriginal leaders concerned as flu numbers rise (ctv.ca)
• The Doctor’s World: Is This a Pandemic? Define ‘Pandemic’ (nytimes.com)
• US company makes first batch of swine flu vaccine (beinghealthyhomeandaway.blogspot.com)
• WHO Pushes H1N1 Flu to Pandemic State (pharmexec.com)

A British Council survey into awareness of Charles Darwin and attitudes towards evolution has found that there is a broad international consensus of acceptance towards his theory of evolution.

The British Council, the UK’s international body for cultural relations, announced the results of its international survey at the World Conference of Science Journalists (WCSJ) in London on Tuesday 30 June, 2009, as part of its international programme Darwin Now, to mark the publication of Charles Darwin’s groundbreaking work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection on 24 November, 1859.

More than 10000 people were surveyed across ten countries included Argentina, China, Egypt, India, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Great Britain and the USA.

The results show that the majority of adults surveyed have heard of Charles Darwin and know at least a little about his theory of evolution with the highest levels in Great Britain (71%), the USA (71%), Mexico (68%), Argentina (65%), China (54%) and Russia (53%) whilst 62 percent of adults surveyed in Egypt and 73 percent in South Africa said they had never heard of Charles Darwin or his theory of evolution. Overall, the majority (70%) of adults surveyed across the 10 countries have at least heard of the British naturalist.

In all countries surveyed more people showed some agreement than disagreement that “it is possible to believe in a God and still hold the view that life on Earth, including human life, evolved over time as a result of natural selection”.

The results also show that USA, in South Africa and in India are the most likely to believe that life on Earth, including human life, was created by a God and has always existed in its current form (all at 43%).

But most people in the world take a scientific view, with the majority of adults in China (67%), Mexico (42%), Argentina (37%), Great Britain (38%), Spain (38%) and Russia (32%) believing that life on Earth, including human life, evolved over time as a result of natural selection, in which no God played a part.

“The international Darwin survey has thrown up some very interesting results,” said Fern Elsdon-Baker, Head of the British Council Darwin Now programme, “especially as it includes data from countries not previously covered before. The most encouraging aspect of the survey shows that whilst there are diverse views on Darwin’s theory of evolution, there appears to a broad acceptance that science and faith do not have to be in conflict.”

Take the follow-up survey now

Expectant mothers who visit the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, which opened today, June 30, will be able to see for themselves how their stress levels could affect the heart rate of their unborn baby and find out why they should reduce their anxiety levels to protect their baby before it’s born.

The researchers behind the exhibit, led by Vivette Glover, hope that it will raise families’ awareness of the importance of reducing levels of stress and anxiety in expectant mothers.

Glover and colleagues have shown that maternal stress and anxiety can affect the development of the baby’s brain. The researchers say that the stress hormone cortisol may be one way in which the fetus is affected by the mother’s anxiety during pregnancy. Usually the placenta protects the unborn baby from the mother’s cortisol, by producing an enzyme that breaks the hormone down. When the mother is very stressed, this enzyme works less well and lets her cortisol through the placenta.

This in turn can result in a greater risk of emotional problems such as anxiety or depression, behavioral problems such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and learning disabilities.

Of course, this news is almost certain to cause worry among expectant mothers…best advice? Chill out and keep baby in mind.

Developmental news

• ADHD genes found, known to play roles in neurodevelopment (scienceblog.com)
• More children with special needs in mainstream schools (telegraph.co.uk)
• ADHD Meds and Deaths (blisstree.com)

Those figures are thrown into stark relief when you read the latest figures for the US published by WebMD. According to the CDC, more than 1 million Americans have had swine flu, and half of those cases have been in New York City.

Meanwhile, the possibility of a vaccine draws ever so slightly closer. Radiant Research, Inc. today announced that it is actively recruiting subjects and establishing operational plans for upcoming H1N1 vaccine trials.

Theories about mutant viruses abound, but the WHO said on Thursday that the H1N1 virus was “stable” and there was no sign of it mixing with avian flu or other influenza viruses. But, one has to say there’s a big “yet” at the end of that sentence. There is the possibility of reassortment of genes that could trigger the emergence of another strain. Of course, further reassortment could actually lead to an even less virulent strain, not necessarily a more lethal form of the virus. Time will tell.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Flu Season Goes Into Overtime (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• 1 confirmed case of swine flu in Quebec (cbc.ca)
• Cases Of Swine Flu At WaPo (mediabistro.com)

Male subjects (aged 39–60) were recruited at the Urology Department of the University of Siena Medical Center if they had hypoactive sexual desire disorder, sexual arousal disorder, or orgasmic disorder, but were not on drugs that cause such problems and didn’t have mood disorders.

Subjects were randomly assigned to active light treatment (ALT) or placebo light treatment (L-PBO) and assessed at baseline and after two weeks.

The ALT was daily exposure to a white fluorescent light box fitted with an ultraviolet filter and rated at 10,000 lx at a distance of 1 m from screen to cornea) for 30 min as soon as possible after waking between 7.00 and 8.00 a.m. The L-PBO was an identical light box fitted with a neutral density gel filter to reduce light exposure to 100 lx.

After the two weeks of treatment, 3 of the 5 patients randomized to ALT no longer had the sexual disorder they had presented originally whereas the sexual disorder was still present in all the 4 patients in the placebo group.

ALT might provide a way of treating sexual disorders although a much larger scale trial is now needed to verify the findings from this preliminary screening.

More…

South Africa has just announced its first case of H1N1, while health officials in Utah are warning that the swine flu risk is serious as the state’s death toll hits 8. Wisconsin has reported its fourth death and in Greensboro, South Carolina, 33 infants are suspected of having been exposed to the virus. Massachusetts too, reported its first death from H1N1.

Two schools in the East of England are closed because some students have tested positive for the virus.

CTV Montreal reported Wednesday that an elderly woman has become the seventh H1N1-related death in Quebec.

Meanwhile, the Scottish authorities confirmed that the British mother who died earlier this week was indeed a victim of the H1N1 virus.

Iran is yet to report any H1N1 infections. While, the source of the original infection, Mexico, has reported 6241 confirmed cases of swine flu, with 108 deaths, a death rate of about 1.7%.

Scienceroll recently provided a round up of flu mapping.

Apparently, less of the “anticancer” compound falcarinol leaches out of the carrots and into the cooking water if carrots are boiled whole. Of course, the truly health conscious will be steaming their vegetables rather than direct boiling. Chopped carrots cooked retain 25 percent less falcarinol than those cooked whole, according to Newcastle’s Kirsten Brandt, Ahlam Rashed, and their colleagues.

Whether or not roasting, grilling or cooking in carrot cake could form part of a future study Brandt revealed today.

She also points out that the natural sugars in carrots that give the orange root vegetable its distinctive sweet flavor are also found in higher concentrations in whole-cooked carrot. Their study also addressed this issue with a taste panel and seemingly whole-cooked carrots are tastier.

Brandt and colleagues first discovered the health benefits of falcarinol in carrots four years ago in collaboration with her colleagues at the University of Southern Denmark. The initial tests were on raw carrots but Brandt points out that cooking softens cell walls that allow easier ingestion of beneficial compounds.

“We all want to try to improve our health and diet by getting the right nutrients and eating our five-a-day fresh fruit and vegetables,” says Brandt, “The great thing about this is it’s a simple way for people to increase their uptake of a compound we know is good for you, all you need is a bigger saucepan.”

Original research on falcarinol from 2005:

Christensen, L., Vach, W., Ritskes-Hoitinga, J., & Brandt, K. (2005). Inhibitory Effects of Feeding with Carrots or (-)-Falcarinol on Development of Azoxymethane-Induced Preneoplastic Lesions in the Rat Colon Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 53 (5), 1823-1827 DOI: 10.1021/jf048519s

Veggie news

• Cooked Or Raw: Surprise Health Finding in Veggie Report (friendseat.com)
• The Mysteries Surrounding Cooked vs. Raw Food (friendseat.com)
• Microwaving Beats Boiling for Veggies [Cooking] (lifehacker.com)