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Virus Implicated In Colony Collapse Disorder In Bees

Byoliveridley

This is a potentially important find, but as usual, I feel the need to stress that at this point in time, as the scientists did too, that they correlated the presence of this virus with the prevalence of Colony Collapse Disorder. It is likely that this virus, while being a contributing factor, is not the only cause. Other contributors may include stress, the fact that these bee hives are transported thousands of miles, etc.

But, great detective work by this collaborative team of academics, American government scientists and one for-profit company.

ScienceDaily: Virus Implicated In Colony Collapse Disorder In Bees

A team led by scientists from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Pennsylvania State University, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, University of Arizona, and 454 Life Sciences has found a significant connection between the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) and colony collapse disorder (CCD) in honey bees.

The findings, an important step in addressing the disorder that is decimating bee colonies across the country, are published in the journal Science.

In colony collapse disorder, honey bee colonies inexplicably lose all of their worker bees. CCD has resulted in a loss of 50-90% of colonies in beekeeping operations across the U.S.

I was just thinking I should check on the progress of scientists towards finding a cause for this issue, seems like I did not have to!

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  • Climate Deniers Get Top Science Posts

    Byoliveridley

    Seriously, I’ve had enough of Bush North up here in Canada, he has to go and luckily, he’s only running a minority government, so it’s not 4 more years…

    globeandmail.com: Global warming critics appointed to science boards

    Top Canadian scientists are accusing the Harper government of politicizing science funding and jeopardizing climate research by naming global warming critics to key boards that fund science.

    The government’s actions are “dreadful,” said Garry Clarke, a leading international glaciologist at the University of British Columbia, and undercut public pledges to tackle climate change.

    “Their mouths are doing one thing and their hands are doing something different,” Prof. Clarke said.

    Already alarmed over funding cuts to basic research, scientists say two appointments in particular are worrisome. Mark Mullins, the executive director of the conservative-leaning Fraser Institute – and a former adviser to the Canadian Alliance Party – was recently appointed to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), which funds university research projects that have included studies on climate change.

    Desmogblog has more, including choice quotes from the economists and oil geologists that run this country’s science.

    Mullins: “It strikes me that the science is not settled,” he said in a 2007
    interview posted at BCbusinessonline. “‘Put caps on global emitters’ is
    not the natural conclusion I would come to.”

    Weissenberger: “To those who doubt the scientific basis of global warming theory, we
    say: Don’t let a cabal of government-funded scientists, environmental
    activists and journalists convince us they’re the mainstream.” — April
    28, 2006″

    These are the people who will be deciding who gets science money in Canada.

    This has probably been the most unscientific administrations in Canada’s recent history.

    I think it is time to throw the bums out, it’s time for another election!

  • Wow, Conventional Milk makes Twins!

    Byoliveridley

    44m.jpgHoly tentacular twins, Batman! This is crazy news, the first study linking the incidence of twins with environmental factors. The culprit is growth hormone fed to cows to increase milk production. According to this Wikipedia article, a third of all dairy cattle use Monsanto’s rBGH (or rBST) brand Posilac®, so obviously, use is widespread.

    FEED – July 2006 (from the Union of Concerned Scientists)

    1. Engineered hormone in milk may be linked to twinning. A recent study found that women who consumed dairy products were five times more likely to give birth to twins than vegan women. The study suggested that the use of engineered bovine growth hormone/bovine somatotropin (BGH/BST) to boost milk production in dairy cows may be related to the higher level of twinning. BGH is known to increase twinning in dairy cows. In addition, the rate of human twinning is twice as high in the United States, where BGH is used, as in Britain, where BGH is banned. BGH affects twinning rate by increasing insulin-like growth factor (IGF), a protein produced in the milk of both animals and humans, that promotes ovulation and may help early-stage embryos survive. A separate study found that levels of IGF were 13 percent lower in vegan women than in women who consumed dairy products. Read a press release about the study, which was published in The Journal of Reproductive Medicine.

    If true, no woman should ever drink “conventional” milk (non-organic, non rGBH free, etc). Twins are fun, I love my twin nieces very much, but they are much more difficult to carry and deliver, and there are more complications.

    Scary, but I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg as far as environmental effects on childbirth are concerned.

  • Why land use is critically important for climate change

    Byoliveridley

    That’s the argument from a new paper published in Science today, written by Princeton University’s Tim Searchinger and others. The upshot? Clearing out forests to use the wood for bioenergy clearly has an environmental cost, but that’s simply not accounted for in any of the prevailing climate-change programs. Kyoto, the European cap-and-trade plan, and the House climate bill all treat bioenergy as carbon-neutral; nobody counts the effect of disappearing forests.

    via Environmental Capital

    In my long blog post earlier this morning, I briefly alluded to the fact that proposed Canadian climate change legislation explicitly excludes land use. Well, bad idea! I am surprised this is being trumpeted as a major new finding, hasn’t it been obvious for at least the last few years that biofuel carbon neutrality is very dependent on how land use patterns change?

  • EPA Faces major Challenges, and no money

    Byoliveridley

    At a time when this country faces major environmental challenges, including catching up with the rest of the developed world on global warming, the agency that would have to do the heavy lifting on environmental regulation ain’t getting the money to do diddley squat. A 25% cut in inflation adjusted terms over 4 years is huge, especially considering that the EPA was not a cushy agency even before that.

    ES&T Online News: Budget cuts increasingly damaging to EPA

    Support for research and development at EPA has declined by 25% in inflation-adjusted terms between the recent high point in 2004 and the proposed 2008 budget, according to figures from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

    “Morale has never been so low here since the days of Ann Gorsuch, and even then there was more money,” says one scientist, referring to the time during the early 1980s when former administrator Gorsuch, who resigned under a cloud, did her best to shrink the agency.

    But George Gray, assistant administrator for the agency’s Office of Research and Development (ORD), says he fully supports the proposed budget. “This budget fulfills every presidential environmental commitment and maintains the goals laid out in the EPA’s strategic plan, while spending less,” he says. The budget cuts come on the heels of EPA’s program to cut $2 million from the agency’s fund for specialized libraries.

    The scientists’ difficulties are likely to increase if the proposals in a June 2006 memo from Lyons Gray, EPA’s chief financial officer, are carried out. The memo, which was released by the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) directs ORD to reduce laboratory physical infrastructure costs by a minimum of 10% by 2009 and another 10% by 2011. The memo suggests that this will require closing, relocating, and consolidating EPA’s laboratory and field locations, as well as reducing or relocating staff. ORD chief George Gray told Congress that EPA does not intend to shut down any labs or get rid of any scientists during the current administrator’s tenure.

    The U.S will pay the price for this deliberate destruction of government infrastructure. You won’t see it now, it will be a little more apparent in a few years.

  • |

    Coffee Roasting and Popcorn Lung

    Byoliveridley

    Cross-posted from Interrobang

    Who among us coffee drinkers don’t love the smell of freshly roasted coffee? I am sure some of us imagine how much fun it would be to smell freshly roasting coffee more often. I don’t, because smell for me is an instant jolt of pleasure/pain followed by a rather rapid decline into the background.

    Caution, though. New measurements from the US Centres for Disease Control warn of high exposure to some pretty nasty chemicals that can cause your lungs to be destroyed irreversibly, the unfortunately named “popcorn lung” or bronchitis obliterans:

    Investigators with the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, a research arm of the CDC, spent several days at Madison-based Just Coffee in July. Investigators tested personal air space and took air samples to measure the concentration of the chemicals diacetyl and 2,3-pentanedione… NIOSH researchers found levels in three breathing-zone samples that exceeded the safety levels recommended by the CDC.

    Coffee Roasting Plants and Exposure

    The test results show a marginal exceedance in this case, but noted that ventilation is a big factor and these tests were done under well ventilated conditions on a warm and dry day when doors were open. So, exposure can be higher in other circumstances.

    Worker exposures are to higher levels, and are more sustained, so they deserve the most attention.

    So, local coffee roasters, it may make sense to confirm that your roasting environments are not exposing your workers to harmful, lung obliterating chemicals. Remember, organic, shade grown, fair pay, artisanal roasting aside, chemical exposures to workers don’t change. And, everything that smells good isn’t good for you.

    One of my frequent points of emphasis (rants, some might say) is on the relative risk vs. media attention to exposures of people to ambient, day to day concentrations of potential harmful chemicals vs. those faced by workers everywhere. The last time diacetyl and bronchitis obliterans were in the news, it was around the use of diacetyl to produce that buttery smell so beloved in microwave bag popcorn (I don’t like it myself, olive oil all the way!). Despite reports of many workers facing severe lung issues, it took the detection of the disease of one person eating multiple bags of microwave popcorn over many years to actually move government regulators into action on diacetyl. People who work in factories, in the fields, and make things are exposed to thousands of times higher concentrations of harmful chemicals for longer periods of time, but their concerns are often de-emphasized.

    This doesn’t mean ambient exposures in the general population are to be ignored, but worker exposures are to higher levels, and more sustained, so they deserve the most attention.

    16-May-2016 Update

    This US Centers for Disease Control page is a good collection of information and further readings. They recommend facility tests to measure diacetyl and its cousin 2,3-pentanedione, and better ventilation, worker safeguards and personal protective equipment as necessary. They also note that at least five workers in large scale coffee processing plants have been diagnosed with bronchitis obliterans.

    Coffee image By Ailura – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

  • Turning CO2 into plastic?

    Byoliveridley

    Interesting stuff…

    Sifting the Garbage for a Green Polymer – New York Times

    It was here that Dr. Coates discovered the catalyst needed to turn CO2 into a polymer.

    With Scott Allen, a former graduate student, Dr. Coates has started a company called Novomer, which has partnered with several companies, including Kodak, on joint projects. Novomer has received money from the Department of Energy, New York State and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Coates imagines CO2 being diverted from factory emissions into an adjacent facility and turned into plastic.

    Anthropogenic CO2 emissions = 7 Giga ton per year. So it will take a lot of plastics to take care of that. The promise of biopolymers is that they reduce the need for fossil fuels, and are biodegradable.

    Seems to be another case where some funding and regulatory nudging away from the petroleum plastics would really help.