sciencedaily.com - March 5, 2015

Source:  Texas A&M University

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Changing global patterns of urban exposure to flood and drought hazards

Summary:  A heads-up to New York, Baltimore, Houston and Miami: a new study suggests that these metropolitan areas and others will increase their exposure to floods even in the absence of climate change.  Their work is published in Global Environmental Change. . . .

. . . "Through land change, bank protection, channelization, and other means, urbanization can also alter the geomorphology of river channels and floodplains, which in turn may contribute to increased risk of flooding."

"Our findings suggest that future urban expansion in flood and drought prone zones will at least be as important as population growth and economic development in increasing their exposure," the researchers add.

"With climatic changes, this exposure is only expected to increase in the future. Thus, proper planning and financing in fast growing cities today will be critical in mitigating future losses due to floods and droughts."

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Prince George's County Health Department to be Presenting

CAPITOL HEIGHTS, MARYLAND, April 20 - Restoration Chapel International, in its disaster relief mission, is collaborating with the US-Africa Ebola Working Group, under the sponsorship of Miss Africa Foundation, to hold an Intercessory Prayer Service and Community Dialogue on Ebola on April 26, 2015 from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at 9113 Hampton Overlook; Capitol Heights, Maryland 20743. The objective is to provide a spiritual platform for those with ties to the affected countries and African ambassadors to come together and mourn their loss, share stories and mobilize relief efforts for Ebola survivors in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The event is co-chaired by Prophet Frank Sarpong and Dr. Rodney Sadler, with Prince George's County providing tactical support.

U.S. citizens, the African Diplomatic Corps, local officials, community leaders and nationals from at least 30 African countries will attend. Survivors of the deadly virus will participate via skype. Other speakers include:

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                                                                     April 1, 2015

BALTIMORE — A Baltimore company and Maryland public health officials are announcing a smartphone and Web application for self-reporting possible Ebola symptoms.

Emocha Mobile Health Inc. said Wednesday that people returning from affected West African nations can use the app to report their temperature and any symptoms twice daily to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The federal government recommends such reporting for 21 days.

The state health agency has operated a call center since October for monitoring people known to have been in affected countries. The app eventually will link to the state's database of such individuals to automate the reporting of data to Maryland and federal authorities.

NEW YORK TIMES  by Denise Grady                                                                March 6, 2015

The moment he felt a needle jab into his thumb in September on an Ebola ward in Sierra Leone, Dr. Lewis Rubinson knew he was at risk of contracting the deadly disease. What could he do but wait to see if he got sick, and hope that treatment would pull him through?

Ocean and sky (stock image) / Iakov Kalinin / Fotolia

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Atlantic and Pacific multidecadal oscillations and Northern Hemisphere temperatures

sciencedaily.com - February 26, 2015

The recent slowdown in climate warming is due, at least in part, to natural oscillations in the climate, according to a team of climate scientists, who add that these oscillations represent variability internal to the climate system. They do not signal any slowdown in human-caused global warming.

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(ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE)

REPORTS Of RESEARCH ON TWO METHODS OF RAPID TESTING FOR EBOLA

(Two items, scroll down)

MEDICAL PRESS                                                                                     Dec. 8, 2014

Rutgers researcher David Alland, working with the California biotechnology company Cepheid, has received a grant of nearly $640,000 from the National Institutes of Health to develop a rapid test to diagnose Ebola as well as other viruses that can cause symptoms similar to Ebola.

Researchers will adapt this cartridge, now used worldwide for tuberculosis screenings, to collect and test samples from potential Ebola patients. Credit: John Emerson

Alland, a professor of medicine and associate dean for clinical research at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and the principal investigator of the project, says health workers would be able to take the test to small villages and other remote locations where the spread of Ebola has been especially rampant and diagnose patients where they live...

TIME MAGAZINE By Alexandra Sifferlin                          Nov. 25, 2014
 By  Alexandra Sifferlin                       

Scientists are scurrying to get their Ebola vaccines through the necessary safety trials before they can be used widely. That includes the University of Maryland School of Medicine, which recently kicked off the latest step in their research: figuring out the appropriate dosing for the vaccine that’s both effective and safe.

The University of Maryland is one of a handful of institutions involved in the testing of an experimental but promising vaccine developed by the National Institutes of Health’s Vaccine Research Center (VRC) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). The hope is that the vaccine will pass through early trials needed by end of December so that the World Health Organization (WHO) and a panel of outside experts can decide whether to move on to a large efficacy trial, which would mean vaccinating a lot of people in West Africa to see how well it works.

NBC NEWS                                   Oct. 30, 2014
By Maggie Fox and Stacey Naggiar

Close to 50 volunteers have come back safe and well from the Ebola hot zone in West Africa, aid agencies tell NBC News, even as states debate whether to force such workers into quarantine.

                                                                                    Denmark / U.S. CBP via Reuters file

A look at the numbers from groups such as Doctors Without Borders and the International Medical Corps shows just about 150 people have gone to help fight the epidemic in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Of them, 47 have returned symptom-free.

Discussion of conflicting quarantine guidelines

HOMELAND SECURITY NEWSWIRE                     Oct. 30, 1014
Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) issued new guidelines on how states should deal with travelers from Ebola-stricken regions, but a lack of federal authority to mandate such guidelines has led to conflicting strategies, varying from state to state, which includes mandatory at-home quarantine for some travelers. Under current U.S. law, the states have the authority to issue quarantine or isolation policies, and they also control the enforcement of these policies within their territories.

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http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20141030-lack-of-federal-authority-makes-fashioning-coherent-national-ebola-policy-difficult

A young man, dressed in a biohazard costume, stands on the corner of 546 West 147th Street in New York City. Bryan Thomas/Getty Images

VOX                                                                       Oct. 29, 2014
By Julia Bellez
As Ebola fears wash over America, some state governors are turning to mandatory quarantines: locking up healthy workers returning from West Africa for 21 days, Ebola's incubation period. The policy in New Jersey made national headlines after it resulted in a nurse who had no Ebola symptoms — and had been fighting the disease in West Africa, no less — being isolated in a poorly heated tent with no running shower or toilet.

UPDATE WITH DETAILS OF MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA MONITORING  (Scroll down)

ROUNDUP OF DEVELOPMENTS IN THE QUARANTINE  DISPUTE
NEW YORK TIMES                        Oct. 28, 2014

By SABRINA TAVERNISE, MICHAEL D. SHEAR and HELENE COOPER

The federal government on Monday tried to take charge of an increasingly acrimonious national debate over how to treat people in contact with Ebola patients by announcing guidelines that stopped short of tough measures in New York and New Jersey and were carefully devised, officials said, not to harm the effort to recruit badly needed medical workers to West Africa.

THE WASHINGTON POST                    0ct, 27, 2014
By Joel Achenbach, Brady Dennis and Lena H. Sun

The Ebola quarantine controversy has become a chaotic brawl involving politics, science and the law. The rules on quarantining health-care workers returning from West Africa are changing almost daily and varying according to geography and political climate.

The Pentagon announced Monday that Army personnel returning to their home base in Italy from Liberia will be held in quarantine for 21 days — even though none have symptoms of Ebola or were exposed to patients infected with the virus.

The military’s policy does not appear to track new guidelines announced Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which called for “high-risk” individuals and health-care workers without any symptoms to be directly monitored by state and local health authorities.

reuters.com - By Ryan McNeill, Deborah J. Nelson and Duff Wilson - September 4, 2014

As the seas rise, a slow-motion disaster gnaws at America’s shores

Part 1: A Reuters analysis finds that flooding is increasing along much of the nation’s coastline, forcing many communities into costly, controversial struggles with a relentless foe.

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csbcouncil.org

The Chesapeake Sustainable Business Council is a business-led educational and advocacy organization whose mission is to promote sustainable business viability, awareness, and impact within the Chesapeake region (MD, DC and VA).

(CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION)

A waning crescent moon hangs over the Chesapeake Bay just before sunrise in North Beach, Md.  Twenty one states are challenging the Obama administration's plan to clean up the bay.  (Ray K. Saunders / The Washington Post)

washingtonpost.com - by Darryl Fears - February 5, 2014

Attorneys general in 21 states are backing an attempt to derail the Obama administration’s Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan, fearing that the government will use that authority to regulate wastewater in other watersheds, including the Mississippi River Basin.