The turbine technology had some resistance from environmental groups ever since dead bats were seen around the turbines, even in small wind farms. It was first postulated that the turbines caused localised turbulence in the earth’s magnetic field, confusing the bats and causing them to crash into the supporting pylons. Later, dead birds started showing up in larger installations. Close examination of the carcases eventually revealed that they were killed by the turbine blades smashing into them in-flight. Observations confirmed the danger posed to slow flying creatures like small birds and bats by even slow turning turbine blades. However the dissent is muted because it happens only in a small number of installations.

Recently, opposition to wind turbine projects is emerging from a most unexpected quarter: the United States military. This is in direct conflict with the federal Energy Department, which is spending billions of dollars on wind projects as part of a broader effort to promote renewable energy.

Moving turbine blades can be indistinguishable from airplanes on many older radar systems, and they can even cause blackout zones in which planes disappear from radar entirely. Clusters of wind turbines, which can reach as high as 400 feet, look very similar to storm activity on weather radar, making it harder for air traffic controllers to give accurate weather information to pilots. In 2009, about 9,000 megawatts of proposed wind projects were abandoned or delayed because of radar concerns raised by the military and the Federal Aviation Administration. That is nearly as much as the amount of wind capacity that was actually built in the same year.

Although the military says no serious incidents have yet occurred because of the interference, the wind turbines pose an unacceptable risk to training, testing and national security in certain regions.  For example, the military says that the thousands of existing turbines in the gusty Tehachapi Mountains, to the west of the R-2508 military complex in the Mojave Desert, have already limited its abilities to test airborne radar used for target detection in F/A-18s and other aircraft.

Eliminating turbine clutter on radar is complicated. Part of the challenge is that many radar systems in use in the United States date back to the 1950s and have outdated processing capabilities — in some cases, less than those of a modern laptop computer. While there are technology fixes to ease interference on these aging systems, it can be tricky to filter out just the turbines.

On radar, a wind turbine can look like a 747 on final approach. We don’t want to have the software eliminate a real 747.
- Peter Drake, technical director, Raytheon (radar systems supplier)

Being the world’s biggest consumer of energy, how the opposing interests of two of US’s national imperatives (energy security and national security) is resolved will have a huge impact on the global effort to move towards renewable energy source.

Source: CNET News – Prius to offer optional noise to alert pedestrians

With this, Toyota becomes the first auto manufacturer to incorporate a noise generator, stealing the thunder from Nissan. (The Nissan Leaf will only go on sale in December in the United States, Japan, Portugal, and the Netherlands). Meanwhile, General Motors announced that its 2011 Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car, which will arrive in US showrooms in November, will feature a driver-controlled (ie not automatic) sound and flashing lights. The noise makers in these vehicles pre-empt  the Motor Safety Act of 2010 being proposed in US that will require “new electric or hybrid vehicles to provide an alert sound” at under 20 mph (about 36 km/hour).

The legislation was in direct respond to concerns raised by the National Federation of the Blind (Blind Pedestrians Say Quiet Hybrids Pose Safety Threat) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (Incidence of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Crashes by Hybrid Electric Passenger Vehicles). The NHTS report claims that hybrid vehicles are twice as likely to be involved in accidents with pedestrians and bicyclists than other vehicles. However, a more comprehensive study by an EV enthusiast of the 1994-2008 figures from the Fatality Reporting System maintained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show no increase in deaths for blind people in pedestrian accidents during the 10 years that hybrid-electric vehicles have been sold. (There are now roughly 1 million hybrid-electric vehicles among the 300 million on US roads.) In fact, the rate of pedestrian fatalities has in fact fallen over the period studied.

Source: GreenCarReports.com – Sounds For Silent EVs: Solving a Problem That May Not Exist

Nevertheless, the Motor Safety Act of 2010 is scheduled to be voted into law soon. What remained to be seen is whether the concerns addressed by the provisions in Section 109 really do exist.

In contrast, last month the was a case in US where teachers spied on the students via software installed on the students’ own notebook PC.

Source: FoxNews NY – Girls Bugged Teachers’ Staff Room

The state-run newspaper said the jam between Beijing and Jining city had given birth to a mini-economy with local merchants capitalising on the stranded drivers’ predicament by selling them water and food at inflated prices. The congestion was expected to last into mid-September as the road project will not be finished until then, the newspaper said.

Source: NDTV – China: Jam stretching 100 km enters 10th day

Talking of care of aged, recently researchers from the Economist magazine interviewed health professionals and looked through official data in 40 countries globally. They concluded access to drugs and carers were the two most pressing issues for all involved. They also said that most health systems, no matter how well funded, relied to some extent on charities and philanthropic bodies to offer support to patients, particularly through networks of hospices.

The analysis by the Economist Intelligence Unit looked at access to services, quality of care and public awareness in the 40 countries. It found the UK performed particularly well on issues such as obtaining pain killers and quality of support, and has one of the best systems for end of life care.

As for me, I think I’d stay put in Singapore. It’s where my heart is (and where my love ones are).

Recently the causative agents of the immune reaction have been precisely identified by researchers based in UK and Australia: three small fragments within the gluten protein. This gives a potential new target for developing treatments like protease therapies (that treat celiac disease by breaking down gluten before it reaches the intestine) and even a vaccine. Currently, the only treatment is for patients to remove all gluten-containing foods  from their diets. Even then, almost half will still end up with damage to their intestines five years after starting a gluten-free diet.

Source:
• LiveScience – Researchers Pinpoint Cause of Gluten Allergies
• BBC NEWS – ‘Toxic trio’ triggers gut disease

Is this the reality of a longevity nation?  -The Mainichi

Japan has long boasted of having many of the world’s oldest people, a testament, many Japanese would say, to a society with a superior diet and a commitment to the welfare of its elderly that is unrivalled anywhere else in the world. That pride and confidence all but evaporated last week, replaced by a mixture of disbelieve, perplexity and self-doubt, when it was revealed that many of the centenarians listed on record had died or gone missing years or even decades ago.

The messy state of affair first came to light when officials in the Adachi ward of Tokyo went to visit Sogen Kato to congratulate him for being the oldest (at 111 years) because the man previously listed as Tokyo’s oldest had died. They found his mummified body in his bed. His 81 years old daughter hid his death for more than three decades in order to continue collecting his monthly pension payments. Alarmed, local authorities began sending teams to check on other elderly residents, and found many similar cases.

A typical case took place just blocks from the Mr. Kato’s house: relatives of a man listed as 103 years old said he had left home 38 years ago and never returned. The man’s son, now 73, told officials that he continued to collect his father’s pension “in case he returned one day.” A woman thought to be Tokyo’s oldest, who would be 113, was last seen alive in the 1980s. Another woman, who would be the oldest in the world at 125, is also missing, and probably has been for a long time – the site of her registered abode had been turned into a city park, in 1981. In all, almost 300 centenarians on record cannot be confirmed to be still living.

No one knows the reason for the missing centenarians. Is this the result of long-standing sloppy record keeping? Are we looking at the uncovering of widespread pension fraud? Or was this a reflection of disintegrating family ties, as an indifferent younger generation lets its elders drift away into obscurity? In testament of another virtue of Japanese society, hardly anyone suspects foul play in these cases.

This is a type of abandonment, through disinterest. Now we see the reality of aging in a more urbanized society where communal bonds are deteriorating.
- Hiroshi Takahashi, International University of Health and Welfare, Tokyo

These cases come at a time when Japan is grappling with overburdened care facilities for the elderly, criminal schemes that prey on them and the nearly daily discovery of old people who have died alone in their homes. Some say they reflect strains in a society that expects children to care for their parents, instead of placing them in care facilities. Longer life spans mean that children are called upon to take care of their elderly parents at a time when the children are reaching their 70s and are possibly in need of care themselves. In some of the cases, officials said, an aged parent disappeared after leaving home under murky circumstances. Experts say that the parents appeared to have suffered from dementia or some other condition that made their care too demanding, and the overburdened family members simply gave up, failing to chase after the elderly people or report their disappearance to the police.

While the authorities have turned up a large number of missing centenarians, demographically it has little impact on Japan’s vaunted life expectancy figures; the country still has the world’s highest life expectancy — nearly 83 years — according to the World Bank. What is in doubt though is whether it is worthwhile living that long, now that the quality of life of the aged had been thrown into question.

Scientists studying records from 227 farms in six important rice-producing countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, India and China had found that over the last 25 years, the growth in yields has fallen by 10-20% in some locations.

In 2004, other researchers found that rice yields in the Philippines were dropping by 10% for every 1ºC increase in night-time temperature. Warmer climates will also bring changes to rainfall, potentially causing drought. The effect is not limited to rice yield in Asia. “There have been some recent studies on US crops, in particular corn, that showed the drop-off … is substantial," said a UCSD researcher.

A study published at the beginning of last year concluded that half of the world’s population could face a climate-induced food crisis by 2100, with the most extreme summers of the last century becoming routine towards the end of this century.

A new superbug that is resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics has been identified in UK hospitals. The bacteria had acquired the genetic information that enable it to produce NDM-1 (New Delhi metallo-ß-lactamase-1), an enzyme that renders its host resistant to antibiotics like penicillins, cephalosporins, monobactams and Carbapenem; i.e. most antibiotics in use today. The trait had travelled back with patients who went abroad to South Asia for treatments such as cosmetic surgery. While the number of confirmed cases is low, there is now a very real possibility of it spreading worldwide. A study of its emergence in UK in the Lancet Infectious Diseases is urging tighter surveillance, and says new drugs are needed to counter the rising threat.

The fear would be that it gets into a strain of bacteria that is very good at being transmitted between patients

  What You Need To Know About NDM-1  
• NDM-1 can exist inside different bacteria, like E.coli, and it makes them resistant to even the most powerful groups of antibiotics – carbapenems, generally reserved for use in emergencies and to combat hard-to-treat infections caused by other multi-resistant bacteria.
• So far, the bacteria that has acquired NDM-1 capability has been limited to strains of Escherichia coli and  Klebsiella pneumoniae found in hospitals.
• The DNA code for the NDM-1 enzyme can easily jump to other strains of bacteria that are already resistant to many other antibiotics. This could produce dangerous infections that would spread rapidly from person to person that are practically impossible to treat.
• Other treatment options are available but they require combinations of antibiotics and chemical agents.
• Some strains of bacteria resistant to all known antibiotics had already been isolated.
• Health experts say the spread can be stopped through surveillance, rapid identification and isolation of any hospital patients who are infected. Normal infection control measures, such as disinfecting hospital equipment and hospital staffs washing their hands with antibacterial soap, can also halt the spread.
• New drugs will need to be developed to treat this resistant strains. Most of those currently in the pipeline will be useless because they are specific to Gram-positive bacteria like MRSA (Methicillin-Resistant Staph aureus) while NDM-1 carrying bacteria like E. coli and Kleb pneumoniae are Gram-negative.
• While most cases are found in the Indian subcontinent (where it is widespread), cases have also been seen in the US, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and Belgium.

Source
• Iowa Health – Extremely resistant superbug triggers global concern
• AccessRX – A New Superbug is Lurking: NDM-1 The Newest Global Threat
• BBC News – New ‘superbug’ found in UK hospitals
• DailyMail – Drug-resistant ‘superbug’ found in hospitals