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Almost half of Colorado’s lodgepole forests are infested. Amid mountains covered by ailing, rust-colored pines, about 100 people pored over maps and discussed priorities Thursday in the battle to slow the spread of forest-killing beetles and clean up the destruction already wreaked. The Colorado Bark Beetle Cooperative is helping shape the U.S. Forest Service’s strategy for dealing with more than 1,000 square miles of trees infested by the bugs that burrow beneath a tree’s bark and sap its life. The result has been huge swaths and, in some cases, entire mountainsides of brown trees. The Forest Service, state agencies and...

It's now leaking out that there was more going on than met the eye at the Security and Prosperity Partnership Summit in Montebello, Canada, in August. The three amigos - President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon - finalized and released the "North American Plan for Avian & Pandemic Influenza." The "Plan" - that's what they call it, with a capital P - is to use the excuse of a major flu epidemic to shift powers from U.S. legislatures to unelected, unaccountable "North American" bureaucrats. This idea was launched on Sept. 14, 2005,...

Crews cutting trees in hopes stopping wildfire from jumping between neighborhoods and the forest. As the color red has grown in the forest... The mountain pine beetle epidemic has hit ...hard. Whether it’s a lightning strike or a barbecue sparking a blaze, Spaeh says she understands the risk of a destructive forest fire. ....town, county and the U.S. Forest Service are cooperating to create a layer of “defensible space” — a 200-to-300-foot barrier — that aims to stop the spread of a fire, either from the forest into the neighborhood or vice versa. “This is a really good thing,” ......

Black Death casts a genetic shadow over England 12:26 01 August 2007 NewScientist.com news service Colin BarrasBlack Death as illustrated in a 15th century bible The Black Death continues to cast a shadow across England. Although the modern English population is more cosmopolitan than ever, the plagues known as the Black Death killed so many people in the Middle Ages that, to this day, genetic diversity is lower in England than it was in the 11th century, according to a new analysis. Rus Hoelzel at the University of Durham, UK and his colleagues looked at the mitochondrial DNA from human...

<p>Mexican ambulance drivers are transporting hospital patients unable to pay for medical care or emergency-room services in their country to facilities in the United States, where their treatment is mandated by federal law, authorities said yesterday.</p> <p>The border crossings have been reported from Brownsville, Texas, to Douglas, Ariz., and involve Mexican ambulance companies whose drivers have been instructed by hospital officials in Mexico to take ailing and uninsured patients to the United States, the authorities said.</p>

China blames pig deaths on blue-eared disease Thu May 10, 12:09 PM ET A mystery virus killing hundreds of pigs in south China has been identified, the agriculture ministry said Thursday, warning it could mutate and spread during the hot summer months. The virus was probably linked to a reproductive and respiratory condition known as blue-eared pig disease, the ministry said in a statement on its website. "This disease spreads especially fast during the summer," the ministry said, citing the hot and humid weather of the season. The agriculture ministry requires veterinary departments to stay on high alert for the...

HONG KONG, May 7 — A mysterious epidemic is killing pigs in southeastern China, but international and Hong Kong authorities said today that the Chinese government is providing little information about it, or about the contaminated wheat gluten that has caused deaths and illnesses in other animals. The lack of even basic details is reviving longstanding questions about whether China is willing to share information about health and food safety issues with potential global implications. The Chinese government — and particularly the government of Guangdong Province, which is adjacent to Hong Kong — was criticized in 2003 for concealing information...

May 8, 2007 China Tells Little About Illness That Kills Pigs, Officials Say By KEITH BRADSHER HONG KONG, May 7 — A mysterious epidemic is killing pigs in southeastern China, but international and Hong Kong authorities said Monday that the Chinese government was providing little information about it or the contaminated wheat gluten that has caused death and illness in pets in the United States. The lack of even basic details is reviving longstanding questions about whether China is willing to share information about health and food safety issues with potentially global implications. The Chinese government — and particularly the...

'Stress threatens epidemic of heart disease' Last Updated: 1:36am BST 20/04/2007 The stress of everyday life is threatening a global epidemic of cardiovascular disease, a report by international health experts has warned. High blood pressure is a "silent condition" which is "grossly underestimated" by patients, their families, medics and politicians, according to the study unveiled at the European Parliament in Brussels. The move towards "Westernised" lifestyles - associated with high-fat diets, long working hours and lack of exercise - is partly to blame. But by 2025 almost two thirds of the world's adults could have high blood pressure. The report,...

LONDON (Feb. 28) - Scientists want to exhume the body of a British diplomat who died of "Spanish flu" during a pandemic in 1919 in hopes of discovering clues to fight a possible future global outbreak sparked by H5N1 bird flu . Sir Mark Sykes, best known for his work dismantling the Ottoman Empire, is believed to be buried in a lead-lined coffin, something which may have preserved enough human tissue to yield useful information on how he died, and the nature of the avian flu that killed him. "We're after an intact body," said John Oxford, a professor of...

Meningitis outbreak kills 1,000 in south Sudan Sun 21 Jan 2007 7:47 AM ET JUBA, Sudan, Jan 21 (Reuters) - At least 1,000 people have died in one week in south Sudan's Warap state from meningitis and another unknown disease, state governor Anthony Bol Madut said in a statement sent to Reuters on Sunday. Emerging from Africa's longest civil war, south Sudan's infrastructure is almost non-existent and outbreaks of disease are frequent. A cholera outbreak last year killed 147 people. "There is an outbreak of meningitis and (an) unknown disease spreading fast throughout the state and there is fear it...

Bird flu epidemic rumbles on around the world 12:31 11 January 2007 NewScientist.com news service Debora MacKenzie The H5N1 bird flu virus shows no signs of going away in 2007, with outbreaks in poultry and people flaring up across its heartland in east Asia and, most worryingly, in Africa. Other countries the virus reached in winter 2006, including Europe, are watching nervously for its return. And hitherto unaffected areas are anxiously testing mysterious bird deaths to see if they will be next. The biggest flare-up so far has been in Vietnam, where an outbreak in poultry that started in early...

Many people worry about putting on a few pounds during the holiday season. But when you reach for a Christmas cookie, keep in mind that you're not the only one who's going to enjoy that tasty treat: It will also get eaten by the bacteria living in your gut. And it turns out that the kind of bacteria living there may affect how much weight you gain. Until a couple of years ago, scientists didn't have the tools to figure out exactly what lives in a person's digestive tract. But with new genetic probes, they can do a kind of...

The number of Colorado lodgepole pines killed by bark beetles jumped nearly fivefold in 2006 as the explosive, decadelong bug epidemic continues to gain steam. About 4.8 million lodgepoles were killed this year, up from roughly 1 million trees last year, according to Bob Cain, an entomologist with the U.S. Forest Service in Golden. The lodgepole acreage under attack by mountain pine beetles jumped about 50 percent this year to 644,840 acres, up from 430,526 acres last year. The new numbers, which are considered preliminary, come from aerial tree-damage surveys conducted this summer. "We had a significant increase in both...

The number of Chinese testing positive for HIV is growing dramatically according to new figures, adding to fears that a once-hidden epidemic is spreading through the country's booming sex trade.By the end of October, 183,733 people had tested positive for the virus this year, compared to 144,089 for the whole of last year, a rise of almost 30 per cent in 10 months. While local Aids activists say the government is still underestimating the crisis, international agencies said the increase was partly due to the extension of testing programmes as the authorities become more open about a disease whose infection...

SEOUL, Nov. 15 (Yonhap) -- Scarlet fever has been spreading fast in North Korea for nearly a month and is showing signs of becoming a full-blown pandemic despite efforts by North Korean authorities to contain the disease, a source close to the North said Wednesday. The disease first broke out in the communist state's northern Yanggang Province last month, but is quickly spreading to other parts of the country, the source told Yonhap News Agency on condition of anonymity.

Three million body bags may be stockpiled in disaster plans Last Updated: 1:17am GMT 06/11/2006 Secret plans to stockpile millions of body bags to be used in the event of a flu pandemic, terrorist attack or other disaster are being considered by the Government and health experts, according to a senior minister. The proposals reflect mounting concern at the lack of space to store bodies in morgues and bury them in the event of mass deaths. A senior member of the Government involved in policy planning for a flu pandemic told The Daily Telegraph that "various scenarios" involving hundreds of...

People who lived during the 1918 influenza epidemic may hold secrets in their blood that could help fight a future pandemic, but finding them now is a race against time. People who were toddlers at the end of World War I -- when the epidemic swept the globe and killed 50 million -- are in their 90s now. Nearly a lifetime after the notorious outbreak, researchers are hoping those who lived through it will come forward and donate a vial of blood, which then will be analyzed for antibodies to the virus. In particular, a New Jersey researcher is seeking...

'Friendly Fire' an Epidemic in S. Africa Thursday September 28, 2006 2:01 AM By CELEAN JACOBSON Associated Press Writer PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) - South Africans are killing relatives and acquaintances at an alarming rate, police said Wednesday, acknowledging traditional methods for battling crime do little to stem the tide. According to an annual police report on crime, nearly 50 people killed every day across the country - a figure that will likely add to South Africa's reputation as a violent society. The government is desperate to counter the country's violent image, especially in the run-up to the soccer World...

An Empire's Epidemic Scientists Use DNA in Search for Answers to 6th Century Plague By THOMAS H. MAUGH II, Times Staff Writer By the middle of the 6th century, the Emperor Justinian had spread his Byzantine Empire around the rim of the Mediterranean and throughout Europe, laying the groundwork for what he hoped would be a long-lived dynasty. His dreams were shattered when disease-bearing mice from lower Egypt reached the harbor town of Pelusium in AD 540. From there, the devastating disease spread to Alexandria and, by ship, to Constantinople, Justinian's capital, before surging throughout his empire. By the time...