In this petition youll find all of these facts and also your future

"European institutions, which worry more about Member States complying with austerity Measures than about maintaining and improving national R&D infrastructures that can help these countries change their productive model to a more robust one based on knowledge-generation.

They have chosen to ignore that public investment in R&D is an attractor of private investment; that in an “innovation State” like the United States over half of its economic growth has come from innovation with roots in basic research funded by the federal government.

They have chosen to ignore that time and resources are required to train researchers. Instead, shielded by the European directive to decrease workforce in the public sector, they have imposed drastic hiring cuts at research institutions and universities. Together with the lack of opportunities in the private sector and the cuts in human resources programs, this is triggering a “brain drain” from the South to the North and from Europe to beyond.

Discouraged by the lack of opportunities and the uncertainty inherent in the concatenation of fixed-term contracts, many scientists are considering leaving the field, with the nature of research activities making this a one-way journey. 

...excellence is the tip of an iceberg that floats only because of the body of work beneath. 

They have chosen to ignore, but we are determined to remind them because their ignorance can cost us the future. 

CLICK HERE TO READ THE OPEN LETTER AND SIGN THE PETITION

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The Wonder Of It All

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

As I stop and observe the outside world around me, I have been acutely aware that my experience is a bit unconventional.  For the last few weeks I have been eating, breathing, and sleeping GOATS.  This was our first year breeding livestock, with four successful litters born on our farm, nine new kids total.  They are so precious it makes all the effort worth while. 

I know what your are thinking...nine babies!  Sounds overwhelming, and some days it has been, but oh every birth was so exciting and exhilarating.  A little bit of chaos is tolerable when you know it is temporary!  It still amazes me how the births were all staggered a few days apart.  This week we witnessed the last two of our does give birth.  

It is extraordinary when you develop a relationship with an animal over time and you become close enough to be able to communicate.  The trust they had in me and the closeness I felt was beyond words.  So perfect that they all came at times when I happened to be working at home.  

We are enjoying the kids for only a few days, as they are all going to new homes.  It has been a priority to keep our goat families intact and not separate Mamas from their young.  We have been very fortunate to find some wonderful people who want to incorporate them into their homesteads. 

Rosemary and her kids

This evening we said goodbye to Bella and her two strapping boys, who are headed up to Napa to live a life of luxury, eating pasture galore.  It was hard to see Bella go since she was our first goat and has been here with us from the beginning of our adventures. 

I decided to keep our lovely doe May Daisy and her beautiful triplet girls.  There is something quite special about the Sable Sanaan/Oberhasli cross and I am looking forward to bonding with her gorgeous kids.  May Daisy is a super milk producer with great teat formation, and a gentle, affectionate temperament, all you could want in a dairy goat.  

Tuppens and her kids

After this weekend I can exhale and focus some attention on the family cow.  I think we all fell in love with the sight and feeling of having a real herd.  There is just something enchanting about seeing them all together, the dance of their hierarchy, their affection and frolicking, their beauty.  I will miss it until next year.  And until then...there is the MILK.  

Select photos by Lori Eanes 

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The stuff they say about Ebola Are we all gonna die Part 3 of 3

Finally we reach an end, but not for the probable (yet pleading for statistical proof) outbreak. The world went bananas with Ebola for a while, the news made it the red hot topic alongside the Islamic State. Ebola is here to stay, not only in the affected regions, but also in the different communication vias spread through a globalised world of words, images and sounds. A lot has been done and said, overall the organisations acted late but still in time to correct a lazy initial approach. Procedures were inadequate and knowledge outside the Ebola niches was deficient, but now it seems that things are progressing much better, with one or two cases of PLAIN stupidity surging here and there. 

There arent reasons for panicking, so if you want to panic, go panic over FLU or NOROVIRUS since Winter is coming. Obviously, if the proper measures arent taken, one will have to be worried sick because sick will be a common word. 

The literature on Ebola, as a consequence of the investment on research, is now readily available if it wasnt already. People just didnt really care. The depth of knowledge is definitely increasing as researchers and lab personnel are now more aware of the correct way to process Ebola samples, for example.

I was personally badly impressed with the lack of altruism, empathy and philanthropy from ignorant people, who not only are damn ignorant but they are also very selfish. I remember reading somewhere comments from very few Illuminati Americans who dont represent the norm, Thank God, asking for policies against those who were helping Ebola patients in Africa. Comments like "... they knew what they were going for... now dont let them in because they will infect us". Wow, that is really nice and recommendable to portrait such disregard for the human kind and such disbelief in your own countrys health authorities. I am glad that representatives like President Obama had the guts to say that he did not fear meeting them face-to-face and shake their hands.

There is still a long way to go if the world wishes to reduce the exposure risk to this or other uncommon viruses. Nevertheless, the answer to the question "Are we all gonna die" is blatantly clear, YES. YES WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE. Most of all we are going to die because of the very same top 10 causes of death that have been tackling us til 2012:

[1]

And figures will be pretty much the same as predictions up to 2030 do not include EBOLA. What we can say is that, regardless of what you do, if you panic or not, if you get proper information or not, you and I are going to die, but its very unlikely that Ebola will be our grim ripper. 

Im glad I was of help to all my readers. You know you make this blog a better place whenever you visit it. But I have to move on, there will be plenty of people writing plenty of stuff about Ebola. I for one need to move on to other "big man tings now", this aint cool anymore. But I promise to be alert.

[1] WHO, The top 10 causes of death, [http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/], last visited on the 29th of October 2014, last uopdated on May 2014.

1st image taken from The keep-calm-o-matic, [http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-or-not-we-are-all-going-to-die/].

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Merry Xmas and a Happy 2015 to all my readers

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Scott Weiland and all my other Autumn leaves

They keep falling like autumn leaves, and it makes me really sad that Scott Weiland is no longer with us. I loved his music, I loved his melodic disturbance, I loved his work.

Kurt Cobain, Layne Stayley and now Scott Weiland... one by one all my symbols from the 90s fade away in a gloom mist of incredible sadness. I have no words to describe what he represented for me has a teenager. I am chocked because I honestly though he was recovering from all his dramas and all his battles.

How can anyone not feel the presence and the essence of Interstate Love Song? ... 

No words.

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All About Wool

...to maintain ones self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime,

 if we live simply and wisely.

-H.D. Thoreau

cleaned, combed, and dyed wool roving ready to be spun or felted

Yesterday I had the opportunity to volunteer for a wonderful event at the Oakland Museum? called FELT, the first of a four part series called the Seed Circus, including sheep and felt, foraging, pickling and fermentation, and the fall harvest.  Sponsored by The Greenhorns, a land-based non profit serving young farmers across America, this event educated all about wool from the livestock to the spindle.  There were some local artists doing wet felted rugs and clothing, even a farmer who brought two of his East Friesian sheep to demonstrate sheering.  I learned that East Friesians are a good breed for both wool  and dairy.  We took home a big bag of the freshly sheered wool (pictured below).  It was surprising to feel how oily it is and pretty stinky too, but once picked and washed will make nice material for felting projects.  Needless to say we had a great time.  Check the links for dates on the next three events to come. 

raw wool fresh off of the sheep

It Takes a Village.....to Eat a Zucchini?

I found this zucchini hiding in the garden tonight after two hot days.  I have heard of these monstrosities getting dropped off secretly on neighbors doorsteps but have not yet grown one myself until now.  This squash is most probably destined for the dehydrator.

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The stuff they say about Ebola Are we all gonna die Part 1 of 3

A lot has been spat throughout the different media channels of communication, bottom line is that personally I believe contingency plans are failing. Why? I dont want to start a conspiracy theory here, but when having to deal with such ailment governments and health authorities can not plead ignorance; what I saw was the dragging of  decision-making procedures and poorly conducted protocols. I saw loads of action in allowing pharma companies to use untested drugs, something so unprecedented that takes me back to what was generated by the avian and swine flues propaganda some years back. I dont want to say these poor approaches were to serve the intents of Big Pharma, that is just not the case; it is better to assume that health authorities like WHO and governments of well developed countries just didnt really think this would spread so quickly. In a word, leniency. It was in Africa last month so what the hell should we worry about - they thought! I am not convinced of an outbreak per se, numbers prove it, unless you bend the definition of outbreak, but then Influenza should gather a lot more attention. Anyway, there are a lot of loop-holes in all of the things said and done in the media; some by ignorant people and some by very informed/qualified individuals. I will contribute my way with what I read and was written by scientists with proper opinions. Opinions I personally consider of value, for an example of a good conversation access here. Here it is for you, my answer to the question inside all our heads. 

Are we all gonna die? 

The answer can be found in Part 3

How Ebola disables initial immune responses?

"Researchers report that they have discovered a mechanism unique to the Ebola virus that defeats attempts by interferon to block viral reproduction in infected cells. They say their study [find here] explains for the first time how the production by the virus of a protein called Ebola Viral Protein 24 (eVP24) stops the interferon-based signals from ramping up immune defenses. With the bodys first response disabled, the virus is free to mass produce itself and trigger the too large immune response that damages organs and often becomes deadly as part of the Ebola virus disease (EVD)."

Taken from GEN News Highlights

Ebola Outbreak Underestimated

"During a recent press conference, Joanne Liu, international president of Doctors Without Borders, guessed it would take officials around six months to contain the outbreak, Reuters reported.

In an email to ScienceInsider, the WHO said it is considering administering the blood of people whove survived Ebola infection nto those who fall ill to the virus. Convalescent serum is high on our list of potential therapies and has been used in other outbreaks, the organisation told Science.

Still, when treating Ebola-infected patients, there is not a lot of extra time to experiment with unproven therapies, wrote Armad Sprecher, an epidemiologist and public health specialist at Doctors Without Borders, in New Republic. We cannot subject our patients to all of the possible things that might work. We have to chose wisely".

Taken from Pharmaceutical Microbiology

Ebola Researchers to test vaccine on humans, sequence virusgenomes

"The National Institute of Allergy and Infectios Diseases will test a potential Ebola Virus vaccine [find here] on humans starting next week.

"The vaccine, developed by the NIAID and GlaxoSmithKline... Today we know the best way to prevent the spread of Ebola infection is through public health measures, including good infection control practices, isolation, contact tracing, quarantine, and provision of personal protective equipment, NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci said in a press release. However, a vaccine will ultimately be an important tool in the prevention effort. "The launch of Phase 1 Ebola vaccine studies is the first step in a long process.

Researchers from the Broad Institute and Harvard University have teamed up to take on the task, in hopes of putting and end to the outbreak. Collecting 99 virus genomes from Sierra Leone patients, the researchers found more than 300 genetic distinctionsthat separate this epidemic from previous outbreaks.

The team used the deep sequencing [find here] technique to inspect each genome at an average of 2,000 times."

Taken from Genome

Image obtained from News Channel 3, [http://wtkr.com/2014/08/11/report-ebola-outbreak-likely-started-by-2-year-old-in-guinea/]

To be continued

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The stuff they say about Ebola Are we all gonna die Part 2 of 3

I am almost done with this topic that has been all over the news fro quite a while, unfortunately! Some of them channels broadcast an intense graphical set of images; images some minds would consider unnecessary violent and unnecessary awareness. I just watched a woman that had perished on a piece of carton paper being taken by two members of staff from some health department in Sierra Leone, as they were preparing themselves to drag the body away. In the eyes of the deceased womans family members, I saw apathy. Not the kind of apathy that resembles disrespect, distance, detachment, but the sort of apathy stamped by the "What can I do?"-attitude.

The question to "Are we all gonna die" is still answered, but I know the answer already. Ill save it for part three, the final part of this rambling through the Ebola pastures. I hope you stick around for yet another perspective I managed to extract from a series of articles written by people who know well what they are talking about.

"The Mathematics of Ebola trigger stark warnings: Act now or regret it"

"... a piece published last week in the Journal Eurosurveillance, which is the peer-reviewed publication of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (the EUs Stockholm-based version of the US CDC). The piece is an attempt to assess mathematically how the epidemic is growing, by using case reports to determine the reproductive number. (Note for non-epidemiology geeks: The basic reproductive number - usually shorted to Ro or R-nought - expresses how many cases of disease are likely to be caused by any one infected person. An Ro of less than 1 means an outbreak will die out; an Ro of more than 1 means an outbreak can be expected to increase. If you saw the movie Contagion, this is what Kate Winslet stood up and wrote on a whiteboard early in the film)."

"In a worst-case hypothetical scenario, should the outbreak continue with recent trends, the case burden could gain an additional 77,181 to 277,124 cases by the end of 2014."

"The level of response to the Ebola outbreak is totally inadequate. At the CDC, we learned that a military-style response during a major health crisis saves lives... We need to establish large field hospitals staffed by Americans to treat the sick. We need to implement infection-control practices to save the lives of health-care providers. We need to staff burial teams to curb disease transmission at funerals. We need to implement systems to detect new flare-ups that can be quickly extinguished. A few thousand U.S. troops could provide the support that is so desperately needed."

"There are two possible future chapters to this story that should keep us up at night:

The first possibility is that the Ebola virus spreads from West Africa to megacities in other regions of the developing world. This outbreak is very different from the 19 that have occurred in Africa over the past 40 years. It is much easier to control Ebola infections in isolated villages. But there has been a 300 percent increase in Africas population over the last four decades, much of it in large city slums...

The second possibility is one that virologists are loath to discuss openly bur are definitely considering in private: that an Ebola virus could mutate to become transmissible trough the air... viruses like Ebola are notoriously sloppy in replicating, meaning the virus entering one person may be genetically different from the virus entering the next. The current Ebola viruss hyper-evolution is unprecedented; there has been more human-to-human transmission in the past four months than most likely occurred in the last 500 to 1,000 years. Each new infection represents trillions of throws of the genetic dice."

Taken from Superbug by Maryn McKenna

Image taken from Wired, [http://www.wired.com/2011/09/contagion-questions-spoilers/all/].

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