It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, November 28, 2022
The Mataafa storm was one of the worst in Great Lakes history Randi Mann Mon, November 28, 2022
This Day In Weather History is a daily podcast by Chris Mei from The Weather Network, featuring stories about people, communities and events and how weather impacted them. -- On Nov. 28, 1905, the SS Mataafa was sailing on Lake Superior when it ran into what would be its demise, the Witch of November.
The Witch of November is a term used to describe the hurricane-like winds that roar across the Great Lakes during the fall. The annual events are created when the cold Arctic air from the north-northwest and warm Gulf air from the south interact.
The "witches" were brewing up one of the worst storms to ever hit the Great Lakes. The SS Mataafa didn't have a chance against the conditions, and to this day, the weather event is dubbed “The Mataafa Storm of 1905."
This is how it all went down.
The SS Mataafa left Duluth, Minn., on Nov. 27 at 5 p.m. It didn't take long for the winds to reach 71 km/h.
The battered remains of Mataafa
The ship was towing a barge named James Nasmyth. As Mataafa approached the Duluth Ship Canal, it was clear that the ship and the barge were not going to make it through, so under Capt. R. F. Humble's orders, James Nasmyth was cut loose.
On Nov. 28, the storm really started to pick up, with winds reaching gusts of 109 km/h. Capt. Humble (retrospectively ironic names are almost never welcomed) finally resigned to the fact that the ship would have to return to Duluth.
Unfortunately, the witches were going to win this one.
The waters thrashed the SS Mataafa until it was grounded in shallow water near the north pier. The ship then broke in two.
There were 12 men in the aft of the ship that became submerged in water. Three men were able to make their way out and nine of them died on board.
There were another 15 crew members in the fore half of the ship who were able to get rescued on the morning of the 29th.
Crew saving survivors of Mataafa
A life-saving crew faces still-raging waters on Nov. 29, 1905, to rescue Mataafa survivors.
To hear more about the Witch of November and “The Mataafa Storm of 1905," listen to today's episode of "This Day In Weather History."
Seaweed found 100 metres underwater in Antarctica 'could help in climate change battle'
ROB WAUGH
28 November 2022,
Scientists have found red seaweed 100 metres deep in Antarctica and believe their find could help play a role in the battle against climate change.
The researchers hoped to understand how deep down seaweed in Antarctica could survive – and used a robot craft to find seaweed attached to rocks.
Finding the red alga Palmaria decipiens deep underwater is key in our understanding of Antarctica, "a continent that is so important to understand for addressing the environmental challenges the world faces today", the scientists said.
A team working at the Rothera Research Station on Adelaide Island, off the south-western Antarctic Peninsula, made the discovery.
Professor Frithjof Kuepper, of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Aberdeen, described the "huge role" seaweeds can play in protecting the environment.
He said: "We know that carbon capture will be crucial to limiting global warming as we move forward, and seaweeds sequester large amounts of CO2 [carbon dioxide].
"Seaweeds have the potential to play a huge role in protecting the environment by storing carbon at the bottom of oceans when they die and reducing ocean acidification.
"Seaweeds are also an important food source to numerous animals and fish and have been eaten by people in many coastal communities in parts of the world for centuries... [and] have been used in a variety of cosmetic and pharmaceutical goods and with carbon-neutralising properties it represents a sustainable product."
Professor Frithjof Kuepper, of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Aberdeen, said seaweeds play a 'huge role' in climate change. (PA)
Using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) from a small boat, the researchers successfully collected seaweed samples for further examination.
They had set out to clarify the maximum depths that seaweed could grow in Antarctica.
Kuepper said: "We now know that seaweeds can live at least down to 100 metres depth in Antarctica. That is quite a lot, but we can't rule out that they may live even deeper."
Ben Robinson, of the British Antarctic Survey and University of Southampton, added: "In Antarctica, icebergs scour and remove seaweed from the shallows, leading to lots of loose seaweed at depths where it is no longer attached to the seafloor.
"Due to cold temperatures, it can take many years for these loose seaweeds to even start breaking down, so we could not rely on appearance.
"Instead, we needed to use an ROV to test and collect seaweed to confirm whether they were attached to the seafloor and to confirm a new depth limit for seaweed."
UK Government makes ‘another screeching U-turn’ over plans to drop a ban on onshore wind farms A general view of a wind farm
TORY ministers are set for “another screeching U-turn” over plans to drop a ban against onshore wind farms, campaigners said today.
Greenpeace UK said the government is “finally beginning to realise the obvious” after Business Secretary Grant Shapps hinted that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak could back down amid a growing Conservative rebellion over the issue.
Despite once branding the structures “white satanic mills,” former PM Boris Johnson is reported to be among 30 Tory MPs backing ex-Cabinet minister Simon Clarke’s pro-wind amendment to the Levelling Up Bill.
The move, also allegedly supported by Mr Johnson’s short-lived successor Liz Truss and current Levelling-Up Secretary Michael Gove, would allow wind farms in rural areas where there is community consent.
Mr Shapps claimed that this is also Downing Street’s policy, but the PM actually vowed to continue the Tory moratorium on new onshore wind — imposed in 2015 — during his first party leadership bid over the summer.
The Business Secretary attempted to play down the significance of the latest revolt, which follows reports that Mr Sunak has also dropped plans to reform planning laws amid growing unrest in his party, saying he is “completely mystified” by headlines about it.
He told Times Radio: “It’s the most extraordinarily overwritten story I’ve read.”
But Green Party MP Caroline Lucas tweeted: “Yet another screeching U-turn from a PM who has failed time after time to show climate leadership.”
Greenpeace UK policy director Doug Parr urged the government to “put facts before ideology and scrap one of the most absurd and damaging policies ever introduced.”
The “necessary but tiny step” was welcomed by Labour for a Green New Deal co-founder Chris Saltmarsh.
However, he told the Morning Star that public ownership of energy production is needed to free Britain from its “slow, parasitic private market.”
MORNINGSTAR
Twitter search spam campaign hides China riots, researchers say
Elon Musk meanwhile muses whether Apple 'hate[s] free speech in America' because the company mostly stopped advertising on Twitter
Twitter over the weekend was flooded with spam and suggestive ads in what appears to be an attempt to help the Chinese government hide news about rioters protesting coronavirus restrictions in China.
"Chinese bots are flooding Twitter with 'escort ads', possibly to make it more difficult for Chinese users to access information about the mass protests," wrote Mengyu Dong, a researcher with the Stanford Internet Observatory, a social media research project, in a Twitter post. "Some of these [accounts] have been dormant for years, only to become active yesterday after protests broke out in China."
Other researchers have similarly concluded that recent Twitter searches using Chinese characters for Beijing, Shanghai and other cities have been returning significantly more ads for escorts, gambling, and the like as a way to drown out politically sensitive search results. Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, said via Twitter that he'd previously warned about the risks billionaire Elon Musk was taking by cutting so many of the company's staff and that this appears to be the first major failure to stop a government interference campaign under Musk's leadership.
Stamos said the spam campaign, which produces escort ads and other content when Chinese city names are entered into Twitter search, appears to be "an intentional attack to throw up informational chaff and reduce external visibility into protests in China" given that Twitter is blocked within China.
China over the weekend saw mass protests over the government's coronavirus lockdown policy in cities all across the country. Musk – who relies on the favor of Chinese authorities to safeguard Tesla's market and assets in China and appears to have courted that favor with government-appreciated remarks about Taiwan – attempted to make light of the pro-government influence operation through his recently purchased social media mouthpiece.
"The amount of pro psy ops on Twitter is ridiculous! At least with new Verified they will pay $8 for the privilege haha," he tweeted.
Then he followed up with an image of hate symbol Pepe the Frog, encircled by the phrase, "Honestly I don't care about this particular psyop."
The Chief Twit, as Musk has referred to himself, subsequently used his $44 billion personal social media bully pulpit to challenge Apple's decision to mostly stop advertising on Twitter.
"Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter," he wrote. "Do they hate free speech in America?"
Twitter's own fact checking system Birdwatch explained in an addition to Musk's post that Apple's ad agency had recommended clients stop buying ads on Twitter and that Apple is exercising its right to free speech by not advertising.
Last week, Media Matters for America, a non-profit that monitors for conservative misinformation, reported that Twitter had lost 50 of its top 100 advertisers less than a month after Elon Musk acquired the social media site. At the time, Musk said he had purchased Twitter "to try to help humanity, whom I love," as he put it in a letter he wrote to calm advertisers worried about his agenda and antics.
Apple – which coincidentally faces a potential iPhone shortfall as a result of the lockdown protests in China and shares Musk's deference toward the Chinese government as a matter of business interest – was not among controversy-shy advertisers listed by Media Matters and the iGiant did not respond to a request to confirm that it had dialed back its advertising on Twitter.
Musk, who manages to find time for social media arguments despite his supposed leadership role at other companies, subsequently claimed, "Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why." Yet it appears Musk has some idea that Apple's alleged threat arises from not following the company's iOS rules. Apple requires a 30 percent sales commission for in-app purchases and imposes content moderation requirements on social media services – something less evident on Twitter during the Musk regime than it was during previous management.
After professing ignorance about the cause of Apple's discontent, the Chief Twit posted an image suggesting he would "go to war" rather than pay Apple's 30 percent app commission, which presumably would reduce revenue from in-app sales of any service Twitter chooses to offer through its iOS app.
War against Apple – in court, presumably, despite Musk's gun pandering – has not worked out well for Epic Games, which failed to convince a judge that Apple's platform rules are unlawful. Nonetheless, that decision is being appealed. What's more, cracks in Google's similar Play Store payment requirements haveappeared.
So who knows. Musk might well benefit from joining the battle to break into Apple's walled garden and loot it. With sufficient help from government trustbusters, he might get the full $8 demanded of companies, governments, and individuals seeking to make their free speech Twitter "Verified."
Meanwhile, mitigating Twitter search manipulation may have to wait for spam damage that Musk cares about. ®
TURKEY'S IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION Russian army chief in Syria meets Kurds over Turkey tensions
Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, speaks during a news conference in Hassakeh, Syria, Saturday, Nov. 26, 2022. Abdi said Saturday they have halted operations against the Islamic State group due to Turkish attacks on northern Syria over the past week.
(AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)
BEIRUT (AP) — The chief of Russian forces in Syria has met with a Kurdish commander over threats by Turkey to launch a new incursion into northern Syria, a Kurdish spokesman and an Arab TV station said Monday.
Siamand Ali, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, confirmed to The Associated Press that Lt. Gen. Alexander Chaiko met Sunday with Kurdish commander Mazloum Abdi in northeast Syria, adding that he has no details about what they discussed.
Chaiko’s trip to the northeast came days after Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to order a land invasion of northern Syria targeting Kurdish groups following the Nov. 3, explosion in Istanbul that killed six people and wounded dozens.
Russia has called for de-escalation along the Turkey-Syria border.
Turkey has launched a barrage of airstrikes on suspected militant targets in northern Syria and Iraq over the past week, in retaliation for the Istanbul bombing that Ankara blames on the Kurdish groups. The groups have denied involvement in the bombing, and say Turkish strikes have killed civilians and threatened the fight against the Islamic State group.
The Lebanon-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV reported that Chaiko discussed with Abdi tensions along the northern border and what can be done to avoid a new major incursion by Turkey. The station, which has reporters in different parts of Syria, said Chaiko suggested the deployment of Syrian government forces along the border with Turkey up to 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of the border.
Another SDF spokesman, Aram Hanna, told the Al-Arabiya TV station Monday that the Russians put forward during the talks the conditions of the Turkish side. He added without giving detail: “We reject all the demands of the Turkish occupiers.”
US maintains Türkiye has 'right to defend themselves' against terror
'They have the right to defend themselves. They have suffered terrorist attacks,' says White House
ARMED STRUGGLE OF THE OPPRESSED IS NOT TERRORISM
Michael Gabriel Hernandez |29.11.2022 WASHINGTON
The US on Monday backed Türkiye's right to self-defense following this month's terrorist attack in Istanbul, but emphasized the need for de-escalation in Syria.
"Turkey continues to fall victim to terrorist attacks, whether its near that border or elsewhere inside the country. And they have a right to defend themselves and their citizens against attacks," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at a briefing.
"They have suffered terrorist attacks, but we don't want to see actions, particularly inside Syria that are going to lead to potential for more casualties, more loss of innocent life, and any diminution from our efforts, a distraction away from our efforts, because we have troops in Syria, to go after ISIS," said Kirby.
"We also don't want to see the actions inside Syria by Turkey or anyone else that could put American lives at risk because there are Americans on the ground in there helping the SDF," he added.
Kirby was referring to the US's principal partner in Syria, which is led by the YPG. The YPG is the Syrian affiliate of the PKK, a designated terrorist organization in the US and Türkiye.
US support for the YPG has long strained bilateral relations between Ankara and Washington.
The Pentagon last Wednesday expressed concern over Türkiye's airstrikes in northern Syria, saying they posed a threat to US personnel and harmed the fight against Daesh/ISIS.
"Recent airstrikes in Syria directly threatened the safety of U.S. personnel who are working in Syria with local partners to defeat ISIS and maintain custody of more than ten thousand ISIS detainees," said Spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder in a statement.
Ryder said the US recognizes Türkiye’s legitimate security concerns and added "we will continue to discuss with Türkiye and our local partners maintaining cease-fire arrangements."
Early Nov. 20, Ankara launched Operation Claw-Sword, a cross-border aerial campaign against the YPG/PKK terror group which has illegal hideouts across the Iraqi and Syrian borders where they plan attacks on Turkish soil.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Türkiye's determination to establish a 30-kilometer-deep (18.6-mile) security strip next to its borders continues, something it previously sought to do with US and Russian cooperation on its southern border. Turkish officials have complained that Washington and Moscow failed to uphold their ends of the deal.
"We do not need to get permission from anyone while taking steps concerning the security of our homeland and our people, and we will not be held accountable to anyone," Erdogan added.
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M Meta fined USD 275 million by European Union Penalty against Meta for violating European privacy rules The penalty, imposed by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, brings the total fines to more than $900 million that the regulator has imposed on Meta since last year. Representational picture
Adam Satariano | London | Published 29.11.22
TOMORROW'S NEWS TODAY
In the latest penalty against Meta for violating European privacy rules, the tech giant was fined roughly $275 million on Monday for a data leak discovered last year that led to the personal information of more than 500 million Facebook users being published online.
The penalty, imposed by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, brings the total fines to more than $900 million that the regulator has imposed on Meta since last year.
In September, the same regulator fined the company roughly $400 million for its mistreatment of children’s data.
Last October, Irish authorities fined Meta, which was previously called Facebook, 225 million euros, or about $235 million, for violations related to its messaging service WhatsApp.
The accumulating penalties will be a welcome sign to privacy groups that want to see EU regulators more aggressively enforce the General Data Protection Regulation.
The law was hailed as a landmark moment in the regulation of technology companies when it took effect in 2018, but regulators have since faced criticism for not applying the rules strongly enough.
Ireland has been under pressure because of the key role it plays in enforcing EU data protection rules.
The country is tasked with policing tech companies’ compliance with the 2018 law as aresult of companies such as Meta, Google and Twitter alllocating their EU headquarters in Ireland.
TikTok, which also set up a EU hub in Ireland, is the subject of another investigation there.
The fine issued on Monday stems from an investigation started last year by Irish regulators into reports that Facebook had not safeguarded its platform against being“scraped” for information, leading to the publication on an online hacker forum of data that included users’ names, locations and birthdates, in violation of rules.
New York Times News Service
What headline? 'Gaslighting' is Merriam-Webster's word of 2022
Lookups for the word on the US-based merriam-webster.com increased 1740% in 2022 over the year before. But something else happened. There wasn't a single event that drove significant spikes in the curiosity, as it usually goes with the chosen word of the year.
The gaslighting was pervasive.
“It’s a word that has risen so quickly in the English language, and especially in the last four years, that it actually came as a surprise to me and to many of us,” said Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's editor at large, in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.
Profile By Gaslight An Irregular Reader About The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes
Calgary Loblaw distribution centre workers accept offer hours before lockout: union
The Canadian Press
Unionized workers at a Loblaw distribution facility in Calgary have accepted a contract offer hours before they were scheduled to be locked out.
Teamsters Local Union 987 said 66 per cent of its members who work at the Calgary Freeport Facility voted Friday to accept the employer's final offer.
The union said 534 members had received layoff notices ahead of the planned lock-out.
Loblaw spokeswoman Catherine Thomas issued a statement on Saturday saying the company is pleased the workers accepted the offer and avoided a work stoppage, describing its offer as containing "some of the most competitive wages in the industry."
The workers, whose previous contract expired in June, had twice rejected offers from the employer during what the union called a "difficult" bargaining process.
John Taylor, business agent for the Teamsters local, said last week that while the company had offered a decent wage increase, workers were looking for more guarantees around shift scheduling and seniority.
Scientists around the world are urged to develop a new bird flu vaccine to beat the latest deadly mutation
EXCLUSIVE
While risk of a mass outbreak of bird flu among people remains low the 60 per cent fatality rate has led to a global race for a human vaccine
A notice is displayed at the Swanpool Nature Reserve in Falmouth, Cornwall, warning of cases of bird flu (Photo: Hugh R Hastings/Getty)
Labs in Australia, Japan, the UK and US are working together to produce a working vaccine 2.3.4.4b strain of the H5N1 virus as concerns grow that it could mutate to become easily transmissible to people and cause a second global pandemic in three years.
While the WHO and the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) do not believe there is a high risk of avian flu mutating to become an airborne virus capable of infecting humans and allowing person-to-person infection, concern remains high due to the high death rate from the virus.
Official figures from the WHO state that 60 per cent of the 868 people infected with avian flu over the past 20 years have died.
UK scientists have tested a human vaccine for bird flu in the event that the deadly virus mutates to infect people on a mass scale, but while it has shown signs of success it would not be a jab specific to the current 2.3.4.4b strain.
The MHRA is a member of one of four international WHO Essential Regulatory Laboratories, namely the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS).
The GISRS continuously monitors influenza viruses that are a risk to public health. In addition to human season influenza, this includes cases of zoonotic influenza virus infections and outbreaks of avian and other animal influenza viruses.
As part of GISRS’s preparedness plans, candidate vaccine viruses (CVVs) are developed against viruses that might pose a public health risk.
These CVVs can be used by vaccine manufacturers to develop and produce influenza vaccines.
An MHRA source said: “While CVVs related to the avian influenza viruses currently circulating in the UK are available, we are working to produce even better-matched CVVs.”
The current outbreak of avian flu has already led to the culling of almost four million birds such as chickens, ducks and turkeys in the UK and almost 100 million birds worldwide.
It is also understood that the UK’s Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) has confirmed cases of bird flu being transmitted to wild mammals, including foxes and sea life such as seals and dolphins in and around the UK, as well as across Europe and in the US.
Leading influenza virologist Professor Wendy Barclay of Imperial College London, who sits on the Government FluMap panel, says ‘a roll of the dice’ will decide if bird flu mutates to become airborne and highly transmissible to humans (Photo: Imperial College London)
Last week i revealed that the Government’s bird flu FluMap taskforce was concerned over mutations to the current strain of the virus due to initial evidence suggesting it may be more stable than previous strains.
Professor Wendy Barclay, who is a member of FluMap, believes its “a roll of the dice” on whether or not the virus mutates to infect humans more easily.
She said: “We are monitoring for signs of the virus mutating and potentially becoming airborne. That’s how pandemics happen.
“One of the things that FluMap is checking out is whether or not this virus is a little bit more stable than previous ones, and that might be why it has been hanging around since the summer and more than we’ve seen before.”
While any mutations that allow airborne transmission of the virus to humans is expected to reduce the potency of the virus, it is likely that it remains considerably higher than the 2 per cent fatality rate that Covid-19 caused at its peak in 2020.
Professor Barclay, who is also head of department of infectious disease at Imperial College London, added: “If the virus underwent the mutations it needs to become transmissible to humans, then that 60 per cent fatality rate might go down because there is a balance with viruses where, in order to become transmissible, they have to change their nature and usually that means the fatality rate goes down, but it doesn’t always.”
Avian flu outbreak wipes out record 50.54
million U.S. birds
The deaths of chickens, turkeys and other birds represent the worst U.S. animal-health disaster to date, topping the previous record of 50.5 million birds that died in an avian-flu outbreak in 2015.
The Powers Farm white turkey flock is seen under shelter as part of an effort to prevent exposure to avian influenza on Nov. 14, 2022 in Townsend, Del.
Nathan Howard / Getty Images
Nov. 25, 2022, By Reuters
CHICAGO — Avian flu has wiped out 50.54 million birds in the United States this year, making it the country’s deadliest outbreak in history, U.S. Department of Agriculture data showed on Thursday.
The deaths of chickens, turkeys and other birds represent the worst U.S. animal-health disaster to date, topping the previous record of 50.5 million birds that died in an avian-flu outbreak in 2015.
Birds often die after becoming infected. Entire flocks, which can top a million birds at egg-laying chicken farms, are also culled to control the spread of the disease after a bird tests positive.
Losses of poultry flocks sent prices for eggs and turkey meat to record highs, worsening economic pain for consumers facing red-hot inflation and making Thursday’s Thanksgiving celebrations more expensive in the United States. Europe and Britain are also suffering their worst avian-flu crises, and some British supermarkets rationed customers’ egg purchases after the outbreak disrupted supplies.
Bill Powers checks on his flock of white turkeys, which have been kept under shelter all year to prevent exposure to avian influenza.
Nathan Howard / Getty Images
The U.S. outbreak, which began in February, infected flocks of poultry and non-poultry birds across 46 states, USDA data show. Wild birds like ducks transmit the virus, known as highly pathogenic avian influenza, through their feces, feathers or direct contact with poultry.
“Wild birds continue to spread HPAI throughout the country as they migrate, so preventing contact between domestic flocks and wild birds is critical to protecting U.S. poultry,” said Rosemary Sifford, the USDA’s chief veterinary officer.
Farmers struggled to keep the disease and wild birds out of their barns after increasing security and cleaning measures following the 2015 outbreak. In 2015, about 30% of the cases were traced directly to wild bird origins, compared to 85% this year, the USDA told Reuters.
Government officials are studying infections at turkey farms, in particular, in hopes of developing new recommendations for preventing infections. Turkey farms account for more than 70% of the commercial poultry farms infected in the outbreak, the USDA said.
People should avoid unprotected contact birds that look sick or have died, though the outbreak poses a low risk to the general public, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
1.8 Million Chickens Slaughtered After Bird Flu Found in Nebraska Farm
The virus is primarily spread by wild birds as they migrate across the country
By Josh Funk
Photo by Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times
Nebraska agriculture officials say another 1.8 million chickens must be killed after bird flu was found on a farm in the latest sign that the outbreak that has already prompted the slaughter of more than 50 million birds nationwide continues to spread.
The Nebraska Department of Agriculture said Saturday that the state's 13th case of bird flu was found on an egg-laying farm in northeast Nebraska's Dixon County, about 120 miles (193 kilometers) north of Omaha, Nebraska.
Just like on other farms where bird flu has been found this year, all the chickens on the Nebraska farm will be killed to limit the spread of the disease. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says more than 52.3 million birds in 46 states — mostly chickens and turkeys on commercial farms — have been slaughtered as part of this year's outbreak.
In most past bird flu outbreaks the virus largely died off during the summer, but this year's version found a way to linger and started to make a resurgence this fall with more than 6 million birds killed in September.
The virus is primarily spread by wild birds as they migrate across the country. Wild birds can often carry the disease without showing symptoms. The virus spreads through droppings or the nasal discharge of an infected bird, which can contaminate dust and soil.
Commercial farms have taken a number of steps to prevent the virus from infecting their flocks, including requiring workers to change clothes before entering barns and sanitizing trucks as they enter the farm, but the disease can be difficult to control. Zoos have also taken precautions and closed some exhibits to protect their birds.
Officials say there is little risk to human health from the virus because human cases are extremely rare and the infected birds aren't allowed to enter the nation's food supply. Plus, any viruses will be killed by properly cooking poultry to 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
But the bird flu outbreak has contributed to the rising prices of chicken and turkey along with the soaring cost of feed and fuel.
Copyright AP - Associated Press
World's largest active volcano in Hawaii erupts for first time in decades
US authorities say flows of lava remained "contained" within the summit area of Mauna Loa, but the eruption could pose a threat to nearby residents should conditions change.
Lava is erupting from the Mauna Loa summit and overflowing from the caldera.
— Ken Hon/USGS Volcanoes
Emergency crews went on alert as Hawaii's Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano in the world, erupted for the first time in nearly 40 years, authorities in the United States have said.
Flows of lava remained "contained" within the summit caldera — the large depression at the mouth of a volcano — of Mauna Loa, but the eruption could pose a threat to nearby residents should conditions change, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported at 11:45 pm local time Sunday (9:45 GMT on Monday), some 15 minutes after the eruption inside the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
"At this time, lava flows are contained within the summit area and are not threatening downslope communities," the USGS said on its website, noting that residents of the area should review preparedness procedures. Mauna Loa has erupted 33 times since 1843, according to the USGS. The most recent eruption, in 1984, lasted 22 days and produced lava flows which reached to within about seven kms (four miles) of Hilo, a city which is home to about 44,000 people today.
While the latest eruption on the main island of the remote US state in the Pacific remains confined within the basin at the top of the volcano, called the caldera, "if the eruptive vents migrate outside its walls, lava flows may move rapidly downslope," according to the USGS.
Hours later on Monday morning, the USGS volcano monitoring office tweeted: "Lava does seem to have flowed outside the caldera, but for now the eruptive vents remain confined to the caldera."
The agency said the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory was in consultation with emergency management personnel and its staff would conduct an aerial reconnaissance over the 13,674-foot (4,168-metre) volcano as soon as possible.
Hawaii authorities said no evacuation orders have been given, although the summit area and several roads in the region were closed.
A USGS webcam on Mauna Loa summit's north rim showed long bright eruptive fissures within the volcanic crater, contrasted against the dark of night.
The Hawaiian islands are home to six active volcanoes
