Science

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/how-a-winnipeg-lab-became-an-ebola-research-powerhouse-1.2773397

Read more about Ebola Vaccine Would Likely Have Been Found By Now If Not For Budget Cuts: NIH Director
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How a Winnipeg lab became an Ebola research powerhouse

Sat, 2014-10-04 11:10 — Norea

Researchers with the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg say they are optimistic that a tool to combat the Ebola virus may be on the horizon. (John Woods/Canadian Press) By Helen Branswell - The Canadian Press - Sep 21, 2014

Winnipeg is half a world away from the countries in Africa where Ebola, and its viral cousin, Marburg, occasionally slip out of their animal reservoir to start infecting and killing people, as Ebola is now doing in West Africa.

The current outbreak has infected at least 5,335 people and killed at least 2,622. To date, there has never been a case of either viral hemorrhagic fever infections within Canadian borders.

So why then is Canada's national lab an Ebola research powerhouse? Why is a facility on the edge of the Prairies, near North America's longitudinal centre, the site from whence some of the most promising Ebola research emanates?

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Ban Ki-moon: 'World living in an era of unprecedented level of crises'

Mon, 2014-09-22 18:00 — Norea

United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon with actor Leonardo DiCaprio during his designation ceremony as the UN Messenger of Peace. Photograph: EPA

Julian Borger - New York The Guardian
21 Sep 2014 16.55 BST

More than 140 heads of state and government fly in to New York this week for the United Nations general assembly amid apprehension that international order is unraveling at an accelerating pace, while the world's leaders seem ever less willing or able to deal with the proliferating threats.

The UN's humanitarian agencies are in danger of being completely overwhelmed by the multiple crises. Ebola is spreading rapidly across West Africa, swamping rickety national health systems and a thus-far underfunded UN effort to stop its advance. The spread of Islamic State (Isis) extremists in the Middle East, feeding on the destruction of the Syrian civil war and exposing the weakness of the Iraqi state, has similarly outpaced patchy international efforts at containment.

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http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2014/08/20/are-electricity-eating-bacteria-next-big-thing-green-fuel?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRojv6jKZKXonjHpfsX56%2BwrUKK%2BlMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4FRMBnI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFSLHEMa5qw7gMXRQ%3D

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Are electricity-eating bacteria the next big thing in green fuel?

Tue, 2014-09-09 10:30 — Norea

By Michael Keller - Published August 20, 2014

Editor's Note: This story is republished with permission from Txchnologist, a digital magazine that follows innovation in science and technology.

There's a large and growing list of renewable energy projects pumping out cleaner electricity these days. Photovoltaic panels produce direct current and solar concentrators drive steam turbines using sunlight. Wind turbines churning out megawatts of power dot the landscape of many countries. Other projects are looking to light communities through tides, running rivers and even the heat of the Earth.

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http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/09/04/the_ebola_outbreak_is_out_of_control_can_it_be_tracked_remotely

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Can Social Media Help Contain Ebola?

Thu, 2014-09-04 15:11 — Norea

By Simon Engler - SEP 4, 2014 - 05:06 PM

Patrick Sawyer, Nigeria's first Ebola patient, collapsed at the international airport in Lagos on July 20. This Wednesday, more than six weeks later, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that it was monitoring at least 200 Nigerians for infection related to Sawyer's case. Sawyer, a Liberian-American who had traveled from Monrovia, had carried the often-fatal disease to Africa's most populous country, hundreds of miles from its origin. It was as if he had slipped through a crowd.

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Ebola gene study traces origin of current outbreak

Fri, 2014-08-29 09:12 — Norea

Researchers have rapidly sequenced 99 Ebola virus genomes from the latest outbreak and are sharing them with the medical community to "accelerate response efforts." Catharine Paddock PhD - 29 August 2014 - medicalnewstoday.com

An international research team has rapidly sequenced 99 Ebola virus genomes collected in the 2014 outbreak. The team, including members from the Broad Institute and Harvard University in the US and the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation, hopes the findings will help multidisciplinary, international efforts to understand and contain the unprecedented epidemic that is growing in West Africa.

The researchers report their findings in the journal Science. Five team members died of Ebola virus disease before the manuscript was published, and their fellow authors honor their memory in the study report.

The 99 genomes came from 78 patients diagnosed with Ebola virus disease in Sierra Leone during the first 24 days of the outbreak. Some patients gave more than one sample, allowing the team to see how the virus changed over the course of a single infection.

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Boots on the Ground

Wed, 2014-08-20 18:47 — Elhadj Drame

Bloomberg School students assess Ebola interventions at outbreak epicenter.

When the Red Cross asked for help conducting Ebola-related research in Guinea, Bloomberg School doctoral students Tim Roberton and Clementine Fu immediately stepped forward. From July 19 to August 1, the two worked in the outbreak’s initial epicenter in Guéckédou, and in the capital city of Conakry.

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Canada offers experimental Ebola vaccine VSV-EBOV to West Africa

Wed, 2014-08-13 07:08 — Elhadj Drame

The Canadian Press

Aug 12, 2014 5:47 PM ET

A made-in-Canada experimental Ebola vaccine will be offered for use in the West African outbreak response, the Public Health Agency of Canada revealed Tuesday.

The news comes hours after the World Health Organization said a panel of experts advised that it would be ethical to use untested drugs and vaccines in this raging epidemic, which is several times larger than any previous outbreak.

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Disease: The Next Big One

Wed, 2013-10-23 12:47 — Gina Angiola

By DAVID QUAMMEN, Published: October 14, 2013, NY Times

BOZEMAN, Montana — Grim prognostications of pestilence are as old as the Book of Revelation, but they have not gone out of style or been rendered moot. Plague is a tribulation that science, technology and social engineering haven’t fixed. In the mid-1960s, some public health officials imagined that antibiotics and other modern therapies would enable us to “close the book” on infectious diseases and so make it possible to focus on noncommunicable afflictions, like heart attack, diabetes and stroke. But that optimism was mistaken...

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