A tiny caterpillar could be the solution to plastic pollution, scientists suggest

 by Sirena Bergman in news

Getty

While scientists and researchers work to find ways to stall the effects of climate change, it's possible that the answer to one of our problems may actually already exist in the form of a caterpillar.

In 2017, it was discovered that waxworms have the ability to eat through plastic. At the time, it was unclear how exactly this was possible and whether it could be replicated, and now researchers think they may have found a breakthrough.

A paper published earlier this week reveals that it's all about the worms' gut bacteria and microbiome. This discovery allows for the hope that an efficient method of environmentally friendly plastic degradation could be on the horizon.

Christophe LeMoine, an associate professor and chair of biology at Brandon University in Canada, told CNN:

We found that waxworm caterpillars are endowed with gut microbes that are essential in the plastic biodegradation process. This process seems reliant on a synergy between the caterpillars and their gut bacteria to accelerate polyethylene degradation.

Currently, the best way to tackle plastic pollution is recycling, but this is far from perfect.

The process of recycling itself requires the use of non-renewable energy, plus unlike other materials such as glass or metal, plastic can only be recycled a certain number of times. A single plastic water bottle will take approximately 450 years to completely break down, and this process emmits dangerous gases which contribute to climate change.

While some steps are being taken towards minimising the demand for plastic products (such as banning straws and charging for bags), the world is still currently producing nearly 300 million tons of plastic each year, much of which ends up in the ocean, leading to devastating environmental consequences.

Waxworms don't provide a perfect solution, as their excrement is somewhat toxic, but it could be a starting point for scientists looking to develop innovative ways of tackling the huge issue of plastic waste.

---30---

Nathaniel Woods executed in Alabama despite someone else confessing to the crime

by Moya Lothian-McLean in news

Getty

A black man has been executed in Alabama – despite someone else confessing to the crime and begging officers to halt the execution.

Nathaniel Woods was given a lethal injection last night after last minute appeals for his sentence to be commuted failed.

He was 44 years old.

Woods was convicted in 2005 of the murder of three policemen in Birmingham, Alabama, even though he always claimed innocence when it came to the act of shooting.

And Kerry Spencer, the man convicted alongside him, gave the same story, denying Woods was involved with the murders and saying that he acted alone.

The case has attracted widespread attention, thanks to the involvement of some high-profile campaigners who tried to prevent Woods’ execution.

Both Kim Kardashian West and Martin Luther King III spoke up to try and stop what they called a “tragic example of injustice”.

Just before Woods’ execution, Kardashian tweeted: “The court has lifted the temporary stay of execution for #NathanielWoods. The governor will NOT save his life.

“My heart and prayers are with Nate and his family.This is a tragic example of injustice in the system – in a few minutes Nate may die for a crime he did not commit.

Nate will die for a crime another man confessed to and says Nate had nothing to do with. My heart and prayers are with Nate and his family and all the advocates who worked tirelessly to save his life”.

Following the prison’s confirmation that Woods had indeed been executed, Kim tweeted her commiserations.

Since the execution, many have been questioning Alabama’s death penalty legislation and the apparent racism present in condemning a man to death for a crime he didn’t commit.

Others have pointed out that the same punishment doesn’t seem to apply to white criminals.

Or even white policemen who don’t even receive sanctions for murdering black individuals.

And there were calls for the death penalty to be (re)abolished altogether.

Will anything be learnt from this case?

Given it's almost 60 years since the Civil Rights movement and this sort of structural inequality is still occurring: probably not.

Comments

Selene
Rest in power Nathaniel ! Yet another gross miscarriage of so called ’ justice’ and further example of the tide of racism and the car right ignoring the true facts..Please support Reprieve.org.hi and let’s stand together to fight state/ government sanctioned murder !

Reply
Selene
please excuse a few typos ! MS and typing don’t go to well together these days! That should read...reprieve.org.uk..Please at least visit their site.

AS A CATHOLIC HE GIVES HER WHAT FOR OVER INCONSTANCY AND HYPOCRISY INVOKING THE POPE, ITS RIGHT ON

The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell

14 hrs · 

Lawrence considers the contradiction between Republican Gov. Kay Ivey’s pro-life stance and her decision not to stop the execution of Nathaniel Woods in Alabama.
https://on.msnbc.com/2wCTR6K

Lawrence considers the contradiction between Republican Gov. Kay Ivey’s pro-life stance and her decision not to stop the execution of Nathanial Woods in Alabama.

Real-life ‘Waterworld’: Early Earth was completely covered in water with no continents, say scientists
Discovery could help scientists understand how and where single-cell organisms first emerged
Kate Ng

Lead author Benjamin Johnson inspects a rock outcrop near the site of an ancient hydrothermal vent in the Panorama district ( Jana Meixnerova )

The ancient Earth may once have been completely covered in water, new research suggests.

In a study published in Natural Geoscience, researchers examined a chunk of ocean crust located in northwestern Australia’s outback that is approximately 3.2 billion years old.

The geologic site, called the Panorama district, provided clues about the chemistry of ocean water from billions of years ago.

It could also help scientists understand how and where single-cell organisms first emerged on earth.

Lead author Benjamin Johnson and co-author Boswell Wing analysed data from more than 100 rock samples across the terrain to search for two different isotopes of oxygen trapped in the stone.

A pillow basalt formation made up an ancient seafloor 3.2 billion years ago (Benjamin Johnson)

Mr Wing, of the University of Colorado Boulder, said in a news release: “The history of life on Earth tracks available niches. If you’ve got a waterworld, a world covered by ocean, then dry niches are just not going to be available.”

Mr Johnson, who is a postdoctoral fellow in the same university, added: “Today, there are these really scrubby and rolling hills that are cut through by dry river beds. It’s a crazy place.

“There are no samples of really ancient ocean water lying around but we do have rocks that interacted with that seawater and remembered that interaction.”

He described the process as similar to analysing coffee ground to gather information about the water that was poured through them.

In their findings, the duo discovered the ratio of the two isotopes, Oxygen-18 and Oxygen-16, present in the rocks today may have been just slightly off in the seawater 3.2 billion years ago.

Mr Wing said though the mass differences seemed small, they were “super sensitive” to the presence of continents.

Independent news email

Only the best news in your inbox
Continue


Register with your social account or click here to log in
I would like to receive morning headlinesMonday - Friday plus breaking news alerts by email

The team’s theory is that the excess Oxygen-18 in the ancient seawater could be explained by the lack of soil-rich continents to absorb the heavier Oxygen-18 isotopes at the time.

However, there may have been some dry spots of land around.

Mr Wing said: “There’s nothing in what we’ve done that says you can’t have teeny, micro-continents sticking out of the oceans.

“We just don’t think that there were global-scale formation of continental soils like we have today.”

The study does not answer the question of when tectonic plates began pushing masses of rocks that eventually became continents, but Mr Wing and Mr Johnson said they plan to study younger rock formations from Arizona to South Africa to try and determine that.

Mr Johnson said: “Trying to fill that gap is really important

---30---

ON THIS DAY; MARCH 7, 1985 WE ARE THE WORLD 

BY MICHAEL JACKSON AND LIONEL RICHIE WAS RECORDED ‘The rockers don’t like the song, we’re leaving’: The making of USA for Africa’s ‘We Are the World’

Springsteen found his own parking space as the superstars arrived in limos, Prince didn’t turn up at all, Bob Dylan blanked Al Jarreau, and Michael Jackson terrified Lionel Richie. Mark Beaumont tells the behind-the-scenes story of the biggest-selling charity single of all time, with the help of those who were there.

Bette Midler and Bob Dylan were among the stars on the charity single ( Rex )

Diana Ross jumped in Bob Dylan’s lap. Billy Joel fawned over Ray Charles. Lindsey Buckingham disturbed Michael Jackson hiding in the bathroom, and Waylon Jennings stormed out when the row got too heated. When you put together, for one night only, the greatest supergroup ever constructed, even with a sign saying “check your egos at the door” at the entrance, sparks are going to fly.

Such were the scenes at A&M Recording Studios in Los Angeles on 28 January 1985, when the biggest musical stars in America – minus Madonna and Prince, plus Dan Aykroyd – convened to record “We Are the World”, the USA’s answer to Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”. USA for Africa, as the band would be known, was not short of spotlight hoggers – among its ranks could be found Jackson, Dylan, Charles, Joel, Ross, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder and Tina Turner. The likes of Fleetwood Mac’s Buckingham, The Jackson Five, Bette Midler and the table-thumping godfather of rock’s mid-Eighties famine relief efforts Bob Geldof were reduced to mere faces in a chorus line of 46 stars.

The song would become America’s greatest moment of musical magnanimity – selling 20 million copies, the single raised more than $63m for aid in the US and Africa, where famine in Ethiopia would claim 1.2 million lives between 1983 and 1985. In the earliest days of the collaborative charity single, “We Are the World” set an unmatchable bar – no greater collection of superstar artists have ever congregated in the same studio since. If many subsequent charity single line-ups were glittering, this one could blind.

“I think it’s pretty timeless,” says Kim Carnes, of “Bette Davis Eyes” fame, one of the 21 soloists on the song. “Wherever I go fans will inevitably say ‘you were a part of “We Are the World”, what was that like?’ People really want to know the details because the song made a huge impact.”

Initially, USA for Africa was the brainchild of songwriter and activist Harry Belafonte. Shocked by the footage of starving children beamed onto NBC, he began recruiting fellow stars in December 1984 for what he envisaged as a benefit concert for the famine relief effort. One of his first calls was to Ken Kragen, manager of around half of the highest-charting US artists in the early Eighties.

“When Belafonte called me, it was just two days before Christmas, at about one or two in the afternoon,” Kragen recalls today. As they spoke, the project morphed into a charity song in the mould of Band Aid instead. “I said, ‘Harry, Geldof showed us the way. We’ve got artists who are bigger worldwide here and I represent a couple of the biggest… let me see if we can put that together’.”

USA for Africa’s charity hit single would become America’s greatest moment of musical magnanimity – selling 20 million copies (Rex Features)

By the time he’d reached his client Lionel Richie’s house that same day Kragen had already recruited Kenny Rogers, and before he’d finished a meeting with producer Dick Clark to discuss Richie’s job hosting the 1985 American Music Awards on 28 January he’d struck on the idea of recording the song after the awards, since the event would be bringing most of America’s biggest music stars to LA. All they needed to do was convince them to swing by a studio rather than an aftershow. Little did they realise they were about to form the biggest and best supergroup of all time.

Kragen envisaged Richie writing the song with Stevie Wonder, and Richie set about trying to track Wonder down. “Lionel kept trying to get in touch with Stevie all night,” Kragen says. “The next morning, [Richie’s] wife Brenda is in a jewellery store, the day before Christmas now, and who walks in looking for gifts? It’s Stevie Wonder. He asked Brenda to help him pick out gifts and Brenda said, ‘Not unless you call my husband back.’” At the same time, Kragen caught producer Quincy Jones as he was about to board a plane to Hawaii for Christmas. “I ask him if he would produce it and he immediately says yes. I said to him, ‘Would you get Michael [Jackson] to perform on the song?’ In 30 minutes or so, Quincy calls me back and says, ‘Michael not only wants to do the song, he wants to write it with Stevie and Lionel.’”

Read more

Cocaine, no sleep and deep soul: the story of Bowie’s Young Americans

Marijuana for breakfast: The Beatles and the making of Help!

40 years ago, The Clash shattered punk orthodoxy with London Calling

Jackson was riding high on the success of Thriller, the album that would seal his place as the biggest artist in the world, so Kragen knew he’d pulled off one of the greatest coups in pop history. “The day after Christmas, or two days after, I get a call from Belafonte. He said, ‘So Ken, have you been thinking about what we talked about?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ve got a song written by Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie and Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones is producing, and Kenny Rogers, Kim Carnes and Lindsey Buckingham have all agreed to be on it.’” Happy Christmas, Harry.

With only a month to go until the AMAs, Kragen and his team of 50 set about piecing the line-up together at a furious pace. “I took the Billboard charts and decided I would not go to sleep each night until I had confirmed two artists from the chart,” he says. “I would work my way down the charts. I had the number one artist, Michael Jackson. We thought we would get Prince because Sheila E was a good friend of Lionel’s, Lionel was number three, Kenny was in the top 10, we already had a big hunk of the top 10.”

The key moment was when Bruce Springsteen came on board. “John Landau was managing Bruce Springsteen and I knew John,” says Kragen. “I called John and said, ‘Can we get Bruce?’ and he said, ‘Oh my god, Bruce is finishing up two years on the road, touring constantly.’ I said, ‘John, you personally are going to be able to take credit for saving millions of lives if you get your client to do this.’ The next thing I know, on 15 January, Jon Landau called me and said, ‘Bruce Springsteen is in,’ and from that day I never made another outgoing call. All I did was answer the phone. The floodgates opened and mostly I had to turn people down. I wanted about 20 people, we ended up with 45.”

Kragen remembers Eddie Murphy’s manager rejecting the request and can’t recall Madonna’s excuse, but cites only John Denver and Joan Baez as artists he didn’t book but wished he had. “We really should have had Baez,” he says. “Jeff Bridges and I were driving out to Live Aid together on one of the rehearsal days. Jeff turns to me and says, ‘You know, Ken, I feel like the seeds that were planted by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and others in the Sixties and lay fallow in the ‘Me’ generation of the Seventies have now, in the Eighties, broken through the ground, blossomed, and are bearing fruit.’”

Meanwhile, according to Kragen, Wonder “disappeared” to Philadelphia, so Richie co-wrote the song over a week in Jackson’s bedroom at his family home in Encino. In his autobiography Moonwalk, Jackson claimed he already had the root of the song. “I used to ask my sister Janet to follow me into a room with interesting acoustics like a closet or the bathroom,” he wrote. “I’d sing to her, just a note, a rhythm of a note ... I’d just hum from the bottom of my throat. I’d say, ‘Janet, what do you see when you hear this sound?’ And this time she said, ‘Dying children in Africa.’ ‘You’re right. That’s what I was dictating from my soul.’”

Richie told Billboard that the pair would listen to national anthems to get a feel for the enormity of the song – when they weren’t being interrupted by unexpected intruders. “I’m on the floor in Michael’s bedroom,” he said. “I don’t think he had a bed – he just slept on the floor. There’s a bunch of albums around the wall ... and I hear over my shoulder, hhhhhhhhhhhh. There was a goddamn f***ing python. A boa constrictor, a python, who cares what the hell it was. It was a big-ass, ugly-ass snake ... I was screaming. And Michael’s saying: ‘There he is, Lionel, we found him. He was hiding behind the albums.’ I said: ‘You’re out of your freaking mind.’ It took me about two hours to calm my ass back down.”

The key moment was when Bruce Springsteen came on board – then everybody wanted to join in (Rex Features)

With Jackson enthusiastically rushing out a demo, the song was finished on 21 January, the day before the initial recording session at Kenny Rogers’ Lion Share Recording Studio. Here, Jones, Jackson, Richie, Wonder (“Stevie walked in and he said, ‘OK, I’m here, let’s write the song,’” says Kragen) and a band including Toto’s David Paich laid down a guide take of the song without trying to perfect it. Quincy Jones mailed numbered cassette copies to all of the participants along with a note: “My fellow artists... In the years to come, when your children ask, ‘What did mommy and daddy do for the war against world famine?’, you can say proudly, this was your contribution.”

Meanwhile, every detail of the session was plotted in advance. “Quincy said, ‘we can’t leave anything to chance.’” Kragen remembers. “’You can’t let superstars walk into that room with the slightest uncertainty of what they’re going to do. They will fight over what parts they think are the best, where they’re going to stand. So we’re going to put on the music who sings what when.’”

In a bungalow off Sunset Boulevard, Kragen and his production team decided on a location for the session amid the utmost secrecy. “The single most damaging piece of information is where we’re doing this,” he said. “If that shows up anywhere, we’ve got a chaotic situation that could totally destroy the project. The moment a Prince, a Michael Jackson, a Bob Dylan drives up and sees a mob around that studio, he will never come in.“

In fact, it was the age-old battle between pop and rock which almost destroyed the project at the very last minute. “The night before, at the rehearsal for the American Music Awards, I was approached by the manager of one of the rock artists,” Kragen says. “He said, ‘The rockers don’t like the song and they don’t want to stand next to the non-rockers on the stage so we’re leaving.’ He didn’t tell me who, he acted like all the rockers were going to leave. I said to him, ‘Look, we’re recording tomorrow, you’re there or you’re not.’ They went to Bruce and Bruce said, ‘I came out here to save lives and feed people, I’m not going anywhere.’ If The Boss was there, you had to remain. He really saved the day.”

In the event only Prince shunned the session, with Huey Lewis taking his allotted line. Instead, he sent Sheila E as his representative while he partied the night away on Sunset. In Alan Light’s book Let’s Go Crazy, Revolution guitarist Wendy Melvoin would claim he didn’t show “because he thinks he’s a badass and he wanted to look cool, and he felt like the song for ‘We Are the World’ was horrible and he didn’t want to be around ‘all those muthaf***as’.”

“Prince’s name is actually printed on the music,” Kragen says, “because Quincy had the idea of having the two rivals, Michael and Prince, at the same microphone. It didn’t happen. Sheila E tried her best to get him there. He did call while we were recording, he reached Quincy and said, ‘Can I come over and lay down a [guitar] track?’ and Quincy said, ‘No, we’ve already done the basic tracks.’ One of the reasons Prince didn’t come was he’s used to going into a recording studio and playing all the parts. Not just him and another star, him and nobody else. So the idea of walking into a room full of superstars, plenty of the people that were there were intimidated. He went to a nightclub instead and when he came out his bodyguards beat up some paparazzi, and that made a box in the big article in the LA Times about what we did. So he was really embarrassed by that [Prince later penned B-side “Hello”, claiming paparazzi intrusion had stopped him attending]. When we decided that we were going to put out an album, Prince submitted a song right away for that.”

The rest of the superstar class of ’85 took their AMA limos full of bodyguards straight to A&M studios – except Springsteen. “A crowd had formed around the gates because they saw the limos arriving one after the other,” Kragen laughs. “I’m standing out there greeting the artists as they’re coming out of their cars. All of a sudden, a guy pushes his way through the crowd. He’s in cut-off gloves and a leather jacket. I recognise him immediately, it’s Bruce. He says, ‘Hey man, I got a great parking space across LaBrea...’”

Inside, the mother of all A-list bonding sessions was under way. When Ray Charles arrived, Billy Joel exclaimed, “That’s like the Statue of Liberty walking in,” and was visibly shaking when Quincy Jones introduced him to Charles: “Ray, this is the guy who wrote ‘New York State of Mind’.” When Joel explained the song was a homage to Charles, the pianists struck up a lasting friendship, recording a duet “Baby Grand” within a year. Charles also spent much of the night drinking with Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, a knees-up that would eventually result in Farm Aid.


If Bob Dylan seemed zoned out in the video, it’s likely because he was the focus of much attention and adulation. Diana Ross walked through the door and promptly jumped into his lap, Nelson cornered him to talk about golf and jazz-pop singer Al Jarreau got short thrift from the folk legend. “Bobby, in my own stupid way I just want to tell you I love you,” Jarreau told Dylan, who simply blanked him entirely and walked away, leaving Jarreau sobbing, “My idol!”.

Carnes had a far more pleasant Dylan experience. “He was easy to talk to,” she says, “exactly how I would have expected him to be. It was an amazing, memorable night and nobody had an ego, nobody tried to pull rank. People were really excited to be there and be part of something really monumental.”

With 500 guests, including model Christie Brinkley and actors Brooke Shields, Jane Fonda and Steve Martin, at a party on an adjoining sound stage to watch the session on a 25ft screen – as well as getting berated by Bob Geldof for guzzling the laid-on buffet during a famine – the chorus convened at 10.30pm.They were recorded first to avoid anyone leaving after performing their individual lines. After Geldof gave an introductory speech about the horrors of the famine, everyone was handed a lyric sheet and foldable chart of the music, and guided to their pre-selected X on the floor. Spirits were high. In a recording break Ray Charles asked where the bathroom was, and Stevie Wonder took his hand and guided him down the corridor, the blind leading the blind. Even Michael Jackson, recording his multi-tracked vocals as everyone else was arriving, was in jovial mood, laughing whenever he messed up a take, dancing at the microphone and allowing Jones to call him “Smelly”.

“We talked some because we were right next to each other,” Carnes says of Jackson, “but he was very, very shy, clearly a man of few words. Until the music starts and he starts singing and being Michael Jackson. Then it all goes away.” As the evening progressed, though, the occasion seemed to get the better of Jackson. Kragen recalls finding him hiding from a Time photoshoot in the lavatory. “I went looking for Michael and when I found him he was in the men’s room, curled up on the counter. Getting together with this many big stars was very intimidating.” Lindsey Buckingham also surprised him in the bathroom. “It kind of freaked him out!” he said. “He was quite nervous, just to be startled by someone walking in, and I just nodded my head.”

Lionel Richie and Cyndi Lauper at the recording of ‘We are the World’ (Rex Features)

As the session crept into the early hours, some frictions developed. At 1am an argument broke out over a nonsense lyric Jackson had included at the end of the chorus, “sha-lum sha-lingay”. Geldof argued that it sounded too close to an African language and that it might be considered mocking, so Stevie Wonder called a Nigerian friend to get a phrase in Swahili that would be appropriate for the song. The phrase was “willi moing-gu”, which didn’t go down well with some of the cast. “Say what!” yelled Ray Charles, “Willi what! Willi moing-gu, my ass! It’s three o’clock in the goddamn mornin’ – I can’t even sing in English no more.” Geldof pointed out that Ethiopians don’t speak Swahili and Waylon Jennings left the sessions claiming “no good old boy sings in Swahili”. When everyone voted to settle on a new line, “one world, our children”, an exhausted Tina Turner muttered, “I like sha-lum better, who cares what it means?”

With the chorus in the can by 3am – and Ray Charles also departed, declaring, “I haven’t had no good lovin’ since January” (it was January) – USA for Africa took an hour’s break. Everyone set about collecting all of the other artists’ signatures on their music charts. “People were gracious and wonderful about that,” says Carnes. “Nobody held back. Everybody wanted to get everybody’s signature. Everyone knew it was a really special night.”

At 4am, Jones set about recording the solo lines, ditching his original plan to record the singers one by one in favour of a faster method – placing 21 microphones in a U-shape and getting them all to record side by side. “Taking this kind of chance is like running through hell with gasoline drawers on,” he said. “Any talking or outside noises, laughing, giggling, even a creak in the floor, could ruin the whole thing.”

“Everybody hung around and watched,” says Carnes. “It took the song to another level of ‘just how cool is this?’”

Even as dawn approached, the camaraderie didn’t wane. Tina Turner finished her duet with Billy Joel with a celebratory cry of “fish burger!”, and there was a passing of the baton moment after the soloists wrapped up around 5am. Called in to add adornments to the chorus, Dylan seemed uncertain of his half-sung, half-spoken take. “Bob Dylan, when he was recording his solo piece, stepped up to the microphone and sounded nothing like Bob Dylan,” says Kragen. “He was so nervous because he was not used to recording with all these other stars there. Lionel, Quincy and Stevie asked everybody else to leave, they then sat down one at a time at the piano and did Dylan, did him perfectly. Particularly Stevie Wonder doing Dylan. Then Bob Dylan went to the microphone and nailed it.”
Diana Ross cried like crazy from the experience of the night (Rex Features)

Reassured, Dylan stayed in the studio to hear Springsteen steal the song with his impassioned late-chorus vocal. The Boss admitted he’d broken into a genuine sweat while singing and Jones regarded his performance a gift from God, saving the chorus from an ignominious fade-out. “Springsteen walks up to the microphone, sings his part once, kills it, just nails it, it’s so good you get shivers,” Kragen recalls. “And he turns to all of us and goes, ‘Is that OK?’”

At 8am, the remaining contributors staggered out into the LA sunshine knowing, even before the song sold out its initial run of 800,000 copies in just three days en route to the top of the charts worldwide, that they’d been part of pop history. “Everybody had left except for Quincy, Diana Ross, our arranger Tom Bahler and myself,” says Kragen, “and we were huddled in a circle on the floor of the studio, tightly hugging each other and crying like crazy from the experience of the night.”

Besides the half a million dollars that the song still raises every year – Kragen estimates the combined total exceeds $80m and grants are being distributed to this day – USA for Africa’s lasting legacy is that it set a precedent for generations to come that when the greatest causes arise, the greatest artists step up. “The whole night was filled with magic,” says Carnes today. “From start to finish, it was incredible to be part of that.”

---30---

Gecko stows away from India to English Channel island

A gecko stowed away in a couple's luggage from India to Guernsey, an island in the English Channel. Photo courtesy of GSPCA

March 5 (UPI) -- Animal rescuers in Guernsey said they are taking care of a gecko that stowed away in a vacationer's luggage when they returned from India.

The Guernsey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said a pair of locals on the English Channel island contacted rescuers recently when they returned from a trip to India and discovered the small lizard in their luggage.


The lizard, which measures about 3 inches long, is believed to be a gehyra gecko. The GSPCA said the lizard, dubbed Mr. Patel, is currently in quarantine on the advice of veterinarians.

Karen Jagger said the gecko wasn't discovered until she and her husband had been home from their India trip for about two weeks.

"We had arranged a house move and were in the process of moving to the new house," Jagger said. "I have a clothes rail at the new house and we arrived with my clothes to hang them up."

"On hanging up the first three items he fell out onto the floor," she said.

The GSPCA said Mr. Patel had traveled nearly 5,000 miles, making it the "furthest-traveled and most unusual" animal rescue.

UPDATED
These cleaners kill coronavirus: Lysol, Clorox, Purell products make EPA's disinfectants list

ANNOTATED BY A PROFESSIONAL CUSTODIAL CONSULTANT, ME

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/02/in-2009-i-helped-develop-edmonton.html

Kelly Tyko, USA TODAY March 6, 2020

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released a list of disinfectants to protect against the spread of the coronavirus.

According to the EPA, products on the list have "qualified for use against COVID-19" through the agency's Emerging Viral Pathogen program where manufacturers provide the EPA with data that "shows their products are effective against harder-to-kill viruses."

Coronaviruses are what are called enveloped viruses, "meaning they are one of the easiest types of viruses to kill with the appropriate disinfectant product," the EPA says.

“Using the correct disinfectant is an important part of preventing and reducing the spread of illnesses along with other critical aspects such as hand washing,” EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a news release. “EPA is providing this important information in a public and transparent manner on disinfectant products to help reduce the spread of COVID-19.”

TO DISINFECT A SURFACE PROPERLY, 
SEE WHAT THE INSTRUCTIONS OR SAFETY SHEET TELLS YOU THE DILUTION RATIO IS. THE DISINFECTANT MIGHT BE READY TO USE OR MAY NEED TO BE DILUTED 
FIRST USE SOAP AND WATER TO CLEAN THE SURFACE OR YOU CAN USE THE DISINFECTANT, TO CLEAN THE SURFACE FIRST.
NEXT APPLY DISINFECTANT
LET SIT WET ON THE SURFACE TO WORK, DISINFECTANTS NEED DWELL TIMEON A SURFACE TO WORK ANYWHERE FROM FIVE MINUTES FOR VIROX TO TEN -FIFTEEN MINUTES FOR BLEACH AND BLEACH BASED PRODUCTS.
AGAIN READ THE INSTRUCTIONS OR GO ONLINE AND DOWNLOAD THE MATERIAL SAFETY DATA SHEET MSDS FOR THE PRODUCT, BY PRODUCT NAME.

The EPA released a list of disinfectant products that "have qualified for use against the coronavirus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that for "disinfection, diluted household bleach solutions, alcohol solutions with at least 70% alcohol, and most common EPA-registered household disinfectants should be effective."

The CDC also mentioned another list with EPA-approved "emerging viral pathogens claims" from the American Chemistry Council Center for Biocide Chemistries. Many of the same products from the EPA list also are on the list.

The EPA says consumers should follow the directions and pay "close attention to the contact time for the product on the treated surface."

The agency notes there may be additional disinfectants that meet the criteria that could be added to the list.

EPA list of registered disinfectants

Here are some of the registered disinfectants on the EPA’s list. Find the full here.
Clorox Disinfecting Wipes
Clorox Commercial Solutions
Clorox Disinfecting Spray
Clorox Multi-Surface Cleaner + Bleach
Klercide 70/30
Lonza Formulation
Lysol Clean & Fresh Multi-Surface Cleaner
Lysol Disinfectant Max Cover Mist
Lysol Heavy-Duty Cleaner Disinfectant Concentrate
Oxycide Daily Disinfectant Cleaner
Peak Disinfectant Wipes

X-Ray Apron Cleaner Disinfectant

All Purpose Virox

IN CANADA WE ALSO USE A PRODUCT CALLED VIROX, A SUPER HYDROGEN PEROXIDE DISINFECTANT SAFER THAN BLEACHES OR QUATS CONTACT A JANITOR SUPPY HOUSE TO PURCHASE IT.

Peroxide Multi Surface Cleaner and Disinfectant
Peroxide Disinfectant and Glass Cleaner
Purell Professional Surface Disinfectant Wipes
Sani-Prime Germicidal Disposable Wipe
Sani-Prime Germicidal Spray

The American Chemistry Council's Center for Biocide Chemistries posted a list of disinfectants referred to as "fighting products" at Americanchemistry.com, which the website said were pre-approved by the EPA and "for use against emerging enveloped viral pathogens and can be used during the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak." The website said it was providing the information as a "public service," but notes the list is "not exhaustive" but can be used to "identify products suitable for use against COVID-19." 

Find them here.

Cosa Oxonia Active
Microban 24 Hour Multi-Purpose Cleaner
Microban 24 Hour Bathroom Cleaner
Lemon Disinfectant
Cosa Oxonia Active
Clear Gear Sports Spray
Foster First Defense
Sani-Spritz Spray
Don-O-Mite
One-Step Disinfectant Cleaner
X-Ray Apron Cleaner Disinfectant

All Purpose Virox

IN CANADA WE ALSO USE A PRODUCT CALLED VIROX, A SUPER HYDROGEN PEROXIDE DISINFECTANT SAFER THAN BLEACHES OR QUATS CONTACT A JANITOR SUPPY HOUSE TO PURCHASE IT.

SaniZide Pro 1 Spray
Maxim GSC Germicidal Spray Cleaner
Bright Solutions Lemon Zip Disinfectant
Simple Green Clean Finish

DO NOT USE QUATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 YOU ARE NOT TRAINED IN USING THEM AND 

THEY HAVE A SPECIFIC USE PER GERM USE TOO MUCH OR TOO LITTLE AND IT CREATES CONDITIONS FOR BUGS TO BUILD RESISTANCE

QUATS ARE A PESTICIDE THEY KILL GOOD AND BAD GERMS INDISCRIMINATELY

IF USING GET THE MSDS SHEET AND READ IT. YOU REQUIRE CHEMICAL PROOF GLOVES, GOGGLES AND N95 RESPIRATOR MASK TO USE QUATS SAFELY 

SIMPLY PUT DO NOT USE QUATS

TB Quat Disinfectant
REScue Ready to Use One Step Disinfectant Cleaner & Deodorizer
Zep Spirit II
Zep Quick Clean Disinfectant
Stepan Spray Disinfectant Concentrate
Buckeye Sanicare Lemon Quat
3M Quat Disinfectant Cleaner Concentrate
Symplicity Sanibet Multi-Range Sanitizer
Pine Quat
Quaternary Disinfectant Cleaner
TruShot Disinfectant Cleaner for Hospitals
TruShot Disinfectant Cleaner Restroom Cleaner & Disinfectant

NEVER USE A ANTIMICROBIAL CLEANER IT IS HIGHLY TOXIC TO GOOD AND BAD BUGS, IF IN DOUBT USE SOAP AND WATER

Zep Antibacterial Disinfectant & Cleaner

Bioesque Solutions Botanical Disinfectant Solution

Formula 17750 Wintermint

Formula 17822 Deo-Clean Multi
Neutra-Tec 64


Tito's warns customers: Vodka is not a safe hand sanitizer

March 6 (UPI) -- The Texas-based makers of Tito's Handmade Vodka issued an unusual statement in response to a customer's comment: Do not use vodka as hand sanitizer.

The issue was raised Thursday when a customer said on Twitter that they had been using Tito's Handmade Vodka to make homemade hand sanitizer.

"I made some hand sanitizer out your vodka. The hand sanitizer doesn't taste bad either. Cheers to Tito's vodka. Keeping me germ-free and feeling good at the same time," the customer wrote.

Tito's responded with a serious statement warning other customers not to follow their example.

"Per the CDC, hand sanitizer needs to contain at least 60 percent alcohol. Tito's Handmade Vodka is 40 percent alcohol, and therefore does not meet the current recommendation of the CDC," the brand tweeted.

TitosVodka

@TitosVodka re

plying to

@titansfight

Per the CDC, hand sanitizer needs to contain at least 60% alcohol. Tito's Handmade Vodka is 40% alcohol, and therefore does not meet the current recommendation of the CDC. Please see attached for more information.

Preventing coronavirus: Wash hands

According to the CDC, this is how to properly clean your hands.

With an alcohol-based hand sanitizer:

• Put product on hands and rub hands together
• Cover all surfaces until hands feel dry
• This should take around 20 seconds

With soap and water:

• Wet your hands with warm water. Use liquid soap if possible. Apply a nickel- or quarter-sized amount of soap to your hands.
• Rub your hands together until the soap forms a lather and then rub all over the top of your hands, in between your fingers and the area around and under the fingernails.
• Continue rubbing your hands for at least 15 seconds. Need a timer? Imagine singing the “Happy Birthday” song twice.
• Rinse your hands well under running water.
• Dry your hands using a paper towel if possible. Then use your paper towel to turn off the faucet and to open the door if needed.

SEE
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-lingers-in-rooms-and.html

Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweets that 'coronavirus panic is dumb'

FILE PHOTO: SpaceX founder and chief engineer Elon Musk attends a post-launch news conference to discuss the SpaceX Crew Dragon astronaut capsule in-flight abort test at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. January 19, 2020. REUTERS/Steve Nesius

(Reuters) - Tesla Inc’s Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk tweeted on Friday that the coronavirus “panic” was “dumb”.


The number of people infected with coronavirus surpassed 100,000 across the world on Friday. The outbreak has killed more than 3,400 people and spread across more than 90 nations, with six countries reporting their first cases.


Stock markets have plunged and concerns have led to shortages of face masks, disinfectant and other items. Companies across the world are changing the way they work, asking and requiring employees to work from home, for instance, and stopping corporate travel.

Tesla stock is down more than 20% since the news of the virus outbreak triggered a broader sell-off in the stock market around mid February.

Billionaire Musk, with more than 30 million followers, has a history of being outspoken on his Twitter account, one of corporate America’s most-watched.