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The state health department hopes to detect cases earlier and prevent the disease from spreading. Illinois is the first state to do in-state testing for novel coronavirus. The Illinois Department of Public Health said test results are typically available within 24 hours for specimens arriving at the department's Chicago laboratory, the agency said in a statement. IDPH is also working on bringing testing to Springfield and Carbondale. “The ability to do this testing will mean we will be able to detect any new cases of novel coronavirus earlier and prevent any possible spread,” IDPH Assistant Director Evonda Thomas-Smith said in...

One of the world’s largest virus research centers, located in Siberia, was reportedly engulfed in flames after a sudden explosion rocked the secretive compound, known for its stores of Ebola, HIV, anthrax and other strains. Firefighters and rescue services were scrambled on Monday to respond to a fire that broke out in Koltsovo, a scientific hub several kilometers from Novosibirsk. The situation was quickly upgraded from an ordinary emergency to a major incident as the explosion and fire affected Russia’s research center of virology and biotechnology, often referred to as the Vector Institute. The laboratory is known for having developed...

The European Space Agency (ESA) has issued a new re-entry forecast for China's Tiangong-1 space lab. The 8.5-ton spacecraft is now expected to fall into Earth's atmosphere between March 24 and April 19, though ESA officials stressed that this is a rough estimate. "Re-entry will take place anywhere between 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south (e.g. Spain, France, Portugal, Greece, etc.)" latitude, officials with the Space Debris Office at ESA’s European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany, wrote in an update last week. "Areas outside of these latitudes can be excluded. At no time will a precise time/location prediction...

A Pennsylvania Department of Corrections K9 died after being left inside a hot car for more than two hours, officials confirmed. Totti, a 2-year-old yellow lab that worked with the department’s Drug Interdictions Unit, was left in the squad car during training exercises at the Rockview State Prison by his handler, Sgt. Chad Holland.... Pennsylvania prison officials have opened an internal investigation into Totti’s death. As the investigation continues, Holland remains employed by the department and has not been reprimanded.

The sign out front said "Saddam Hussein's Nuclear Mastermind." Inside, Mahdi Obeidi, former head of Iraq's centrifuge program for uranium enrichment, told more than 200 people, including Department of Energy employees, that he wants to help stop one of humanity's greatest nightmares - global weapons of mass destruction. "We cannot afford one mistake," Obeidi said. "Everybody should be concerned." Obeidi, who emigrated to the United States in 2003, spoke on Wednesday morning at the Pollard Auditorium at Oak Ridge Associated Universities. His visit was sponsored by the Oak Ridge Office of Counterintelligence and funded by the U.S. State Department, according...

A La Jolla lab is on the front lines of the fight against the Ebola Virus. The outbreak in West Africa has killed at least 961 people and prompted the World Health Organization to declare an international public health emergency. On the other side of the world from ground zero, researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla are looking at how the Ebola virus attaches to parts of the body and how it multiplies and replicates.

The National Institutes of Health announced today that vials of the virus that causes smallpox were found in a laboratory on its Bethesda, Maryland, campus, which was unequipped and unapproved to handle the deadly pathogen. Because it’s so infectious, the smallpox virus is considered a bioterrorism threat and is only permitted in two labs in the world: One at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Atlanta headquarters and another at the VECTOR Institute in Russia. The newly discovered vials violate an international agreement reached in 1979 aimed at keeping the virus eradicated while allowing some scientists to continue...

ATLANTA (AP) — A government scientist cleaning out an old storage room at a research center near Washington made a startling discovery last week — decades-old vials of smallpox packed away and forgotten in a cardboard box. The six glass vials of freeze-dried virus were intact and sealed with melted glass, and the virus MIGHT have been dead, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.

A US government laboratory mistakenly mixed a common flu strain with a dangerous and deadly type of bird flu and shipped it to another lab, authorities said Friday. The latest news followed admissions of mishandled anthrax and forgotten smallpox vials at separate US government labs, and raised new concerns about the safety of dangerous agents which could be used as bioterror weapons. No one was endangered by the mixed flu strain, said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Tom Frieden, who nevertheless said he was "astonished" that protocols could have been violated in that way. "Everything we have looked...

Canada’s public health agency is preparing to bring home a trio of scientists who were helping to combat Ebola in Sierra Leone after three people in their hotel complex tested positive for the viral hemorrhagic fever. A Health Canada spokesman confirmed late Tuesday night that the Public Health Agency of Canada is finalizing plans to pull its mobile laboratory team out of the West African country.

Police in Maryland have charged three people in connection with manufacturing MDMA, commonly referred to as Molly or the drug ecstasy, including a doctor who has a long-standing history of drug problems. Baltimore County cops said a drug investigation led to a search warrant and the arrest of Dr. Priscilla Sheldon-Cost, 51, at a house in Towson. Detectives found chemicals that can be used to manufacture MDMA and ecstasy were being created in a lab in the basement. Some of the substances that were found had even been labelled with MDMA written on it. 'They found chemicals that, when mixed,...

Toddler gets allergic reaction to new Chocolate Lab puppy. The child loves the dog and the dog is a great dog.

On Saturday, a police officer in Filer, Idaho responded to a call about two dogs running around without leashes on a suburban street. Thirty-eight seconds after exiting his patrol car, Officer Tarek Hassani determined that one of the animals was too aggressive and fatally shot it in the front yard of its owner's house. A video ...shows the 7-year-old black labrador convulsing and whimpering before moving out of the dash cam's line of sight. The dog, named “Hooch,” belonged to Rick Clubb, who says he suffers from Parkinson's disease and that Hooch was his trained service animal. At the time...

The Labrador retriever was the most popular dog breed in the U.S. last year for a 23rd year in a row, the American Kennel Club announced Friday. That's the longest any breed has been top dog since the organization's 1884 founding. German shepherds, golden retrievers, beagles and bulldogs are holding steady in the top-five pack, with Yorkshire terriers, boxers, poodles, Rottweilers and dachshunds continuing to round out the leading 10, which mirrors last year.

More than 40,000 defendants may be affected by the alleged drug tampering of “rogue” chemist Annie Dookhan, a sign the state’s massive drug lab scandal grew beyond initial estimates, according to the near year-long work of the lawyer tasked with determining the scope of the state-shaking saga... Meier found that the actual list of defendants affected grew to 40,323. Of those, 10,000 were in prison, or parole or probation and had been previously convicted of a drug offense in Superior Court. More than 300 state prison inmates have been released, and prosecutors have opted to dismiss or drop more than...

GOLDEN, Colo. — Inside a futuristic, white concrete campus here that looks like some top secret military organization, the world’s scientists gather to reduce mankind’s carbon footprint and ensure a bright, green future for all. Renewable Energy Lab says is going on. But lately the Department of Energy outpost has become infamous for top salaries of more than $500,000 a year and a staffer who went bonkers on social media late last year, threatening to get a gun and go on a “murderous rampage” against the staff of Watchdog.org. Even industry insiders aren’t sure what goes on at the NREL...

A portable meth lab exploded in an Oklahoma man's pants Friday during a scuffle with a state trooper. David Williams ran from a police officer who noticed a chemical smell as he was issuing a speeding ticket to the driver of the SUV that Williams was a passenger in, KOTV reported. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/27/portable-meth-lab-explodes-in-oklahoma-man-pants-police-say/#ixzz1tRBLh3Nj

Holly is my 7 year old yellow Labrador. She is the very best dog I've ever had. She's everything a lab should be and more. She's also my two son's best friend. The 20 year old moved out recently and always teased he'd take her when he got his own place but I told him over my dead body. My 5 year old, well that is his buddy and the light of his life. He adores her beyond words. When he had his first eye surgery when he was 6 months old, she laid on the floor with him and...

‘Why on Earth are they going after this case? What a waste of law enforcement resources!” read an email I received from a reader. He was referring to the recent federal indictment of former San Francisco drug lab technician Deborah Madden. At first glance, it might seem like an unnecessary endeavor to prosecute a woman charged with taking small amounts of drugs, but there’s another side to this story. Last year, then-District Attorney Kamala Harris turned the case over to then-Attorney General Jerry Brown’s office. Despite the fact that Madden admitted to snorting the cocaine she was supposed to be...

This is a Christmas story about a priest and his dog — and it is the heartwarming tale of this year’s holiday season. It began shortly before Christmas 15 years ago, when a yellow Lab puppy nuzzled and licked the hand of Msgr. Robert Ritchie in a Manhattan pet shop. And now, Ritchie, rector of famed St. Patrick’s Cathedral, has given his beloved pup a near sacred honor — placing a statue of the dog beside the figures of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the sanctuary’s Christmas crèche. ...