Category Archives: SHTF
SIGNS OF THE APOCALYPSE – 500 dead penguins wash up along Brazil’s beaches
- Hundreds wash ashore in Rio Grande do Sul, biologists say
- Birds are decomposed but otherwise seem unharmed
- Penguins migrate from Argentina about this time of year, biologist says
(CNN) — Marine biologists in Brazil have launched an investigation after hundreds of dead penguins washed ashore in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, they said Monday.
More than 500 birds have been found on beaches over the past week, and that figure has steadily risen over the past few days, according to experts from Brazil’s Center of Coastal and Marine Studies (Ceclimar).
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The figure has been especially puzzling for the marine scientists, who say the birds are badly decomposed but otherwise seem unhurt and without oil stains.
The discovery follows an official inquiry launched by the Peruvian government this year when close to 3,000 dolphins and more than 500 pelicans washed up along the country’s northern coast.
Mauricio Tazeres, a biologist from the Center of Coastal and Marine Studies, said “it’s actually pretty common for us to find at least some penguins but never in this number.
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“The animals usually migrate from Argentina around this time of year in search of food and warmer weather, and each year, some do wash up. But over 500 is a very, very high number, and right now, I simply do not have an explanation.
“We have collected some samples for autopsy, but the animals are so decomposed, it is going to make analysis very difficult,” he said. “The animals were a lot smaller in terms of size and weight than normal penguins, so we think it will be natural causes, but it is certainly very strange.”
‘Zombie’ Rudy Eugene and Ronald Poppo met before Miami ‘Causeway Cannibal’ attack, friend says
MIAMI, Fla. — It has been months since a face-chewing attack in Miami that left a homeless man hospitalized with portions of his face missing, but many questions still remain.
Rudy Eugene, who was shot and killed by police, is accused of brutally attacking Ronald Poppo during Memorial Day Weekend. But according to new reports, this wasn’t the first time the two met.
According to the Miami Herald, Eugene’s friend Christian says the two had met Poppo before while volunteering with Miami’s homeless community.
“[Ronald Poppo] seemed like a nice and kind man,” Christian exclusively told the Herald. “I remember when we gave him food.’’
Eugene was not on “bath salts” or synthetic marijuana when he chewed the face off Poppo, according to toxicology reports.
But many scientists and skeptical observers don’t believe the reports.
Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti is just one of the doubting Thomases who think the so-called “Causeway Cannibal” was on something not caught by either of the two labs that ran the toxicology tests.
“We are not testing for everything that may be out there,” said Dr. Barry Logan, one of the nation’s leading toxicologists.
That’s because they can’t.
Clandestine labs are using more than 100 chemical compounds to make synthetic marijuana, but even the most sophisticated lab can only test for 17, said Logan, director of Forensic and Toxicological Services at NMS Labs in Pennsylvania, the same lab hired by Miami-Dade County to help test Eugene for bath salts and synthetic marijuana.
Bath salts, also known as synthetic amphetamines, are also hard to track for the same reason.
There are hundreds of bath salt compounds out there, but toxicologists can only test for 40, Logan said.
“This is always a moving target,” Logan said. “As soon as a test exists for something, there are new compounds waiting in the wings. We are always a step behind.”
Even Logan was surprised when Eugene’s drug scan found only traces of marijuana.
“His behavior was consistent with someone who was delusional and hallucinating, which would be consistent with bath salts,” Logan said.
The report released last week by the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner contained this disclaimer: “Within the limits of current technology by both laboratories, marijuana is the only drug identified in the body of Mr. Rudy Eugene.”
Experts say there is no question Eugene’s behavior was drug-induced – and not by marijuana. But it’s hard to prove because even the most sophisticated labs cannot test for every compound.
“We are not incompetent,” said Dr. Bruce Goldberger, professor and director of toxicology at the University of Florida. “We have the tools, we have the sophistication and know-how. But the field is evolving so rapidly it is hard for us to keep track. It’s almost as if it is a race we can never win.”
Goldberger thinks Eugene was on a drug far stronger than marijuana the day of the attack.
“To say marijuana could have induced this behavior is simply outrageous,” Goldberger said. “No matter how sick mentally or physically a person is, they don’t go around eating people’s faces, or barking at police, or eating a dog, like what happened recently in Texas.”
A Waco man who tried to eat a dog on June 14 told police he was high on synthetic marijuana at the time.
Users say they are drawn to fake weed because it gets them high and doesn’t show up in most drug tests.
One chronic pot user said she’d been smoking synthetic marijuana for two years, then was rushed to the emergency room when she tried to stop cold turkey.
The hospital tests found only traces of marijuana – just like with Rudy Eugene.
Ann Howard, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Corrections, said probation officers have the option of testing for designer drugs.
But the tests are expensive – anywhere from $200 to $300 for synthetic marijuana and up to $500 for bath salts, Goldberger said.
Probation officers may not test everyone, but they will target high-risk candidates, said Jim Hall, director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Substance Abuse at Nova Southeastern University in Davie.
It’s for their own good, he said.
“These are the guinea pig drugs of 2012,” Hall said. “The people using these drugs are risking their lives, their minds and their kidneys. Some of these people have had to be put on dialysis for the rest of their lives.”
Oakland Park resident Jimmy Hewett says his probation officer had him tested for synthetic marijuana after he was quoted in the Sun Sentinel saying he smoked the stuff.
A judge issued a warrant for his arrest after he admitted using the designer drug.
Because it is openly sold at gas stations and convenience stores, Hewett says he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong.
But on July 17, he will have to answer to the court. The charge: Violating probation.
Doomsday 2012: If Not Zombies then….UFO’s, Planet X and Other Heavenly Bodies
Doomsday 2012: If Not Zombies then….UFO’s, Planet X and Other Heavenly Bodies
By Jim Donahue
After careful reflection and some prompting from certain individuals, I feel as though I have forgotten to mention some material in regards to what might happen on 12/21/2012. So for the moment, the next installment, Doomsday 2012: How to Prepare and Survive the Event, is on hold while I touch on some other perspective problems.
UFOs have been a hot topic of debate all over the world for eons. What with more than one airline pilot admitting to have seen a UFO, it would appear that they do in fact exist. In fact, in México City, UFO sightings are a daily happen stance. And there are other places around the globe where similar things occur.
The History Channel has a series Ancient Aliens attempts to deal with this phenomenon from a factual standpoint. It comes off as factual to some degree, but in the end, it’s just entertainment. One of the show’s most well-known contributors, Erich von Däniken, author of the book, Chariots of the Gods? Is accepted as gospel by true believers.
The background information for the series, posted on the channel’s website, says, “According to ancient alien theorists, extraterrestrials with superior knowledge of science and engineering landed on Earth thousands of years ago, sharing their expertise with early civilizations and forever changing the course of human history. Ancient alien theory grew out of the centuries-old idea that life exists on other planets. The space program played no small part in this as well: If mankind could travel to other planets, why couldn’t extraterrestrials visit Earth?
Most ancient alien theorists, including von Däniken, point to two types of evidence to support their ideas. The first is ancient religious texts in which humans witness and interact with gods or other heavenly beings who descend from the sky—sometimes in vehicles resembling spaceships—and possess spectacular powers. The second is physical specimens such as artwork depicting alien-like figures and ancient architectural marvels like Stonehenge and the pyramids of Egypt.
Alex Knapp of Forbes.com says, “I find it incredible and frightening that a worldwide distributed television channel that bills itself as ‘The History Channel’ can broadcast such rubbish as Ancient Aliens. If it were an entertainment program, I’d have fewer worries (although it would still make me cross); it is the implied authority of the channel (‘The History Channel,’ not just any old ‘History Channel’) that makes the broadcast of this series so potentially damaging as we saw in the reaction of the forum poster quoted above. A channel that is making claims for its authoritative status, which offers educational resources, has a responsibility not to mislead its viewers (no doubt its executives think of them as ‘customers’). That responsibility is one that all makers and broadcasters of supposedly factual television have, but one that few of them take seriously: the responsibility to check facts.”
Okay, now let’s talk about Planet X. Planet X, also known as Nibiru, is a mysterious object that orbits our sun every 3600 years. This object has a very significant connection to the Mayan calendar date of 2012. There is so much information about what is happening in our solar system that even the local news channels report that there are signs of planet X. Dr. Michio Kaku a renowned scientist claims that scientists like him had made a mistake. He made a statement saying that scientific data regarding the passing of Planet X passing through our solar system was off by a factor of 20. What this means is that scientists had previously misinterpreted the difference between a X class solar storm and the new catastrophic Y class solar storms detected in 2003 from hitting the Earth. This corrected data makes an immensely distinct difference between a survivable X class solar storm versus an incredibly strong Y class solar storm that would disrupt the world so harshly with the possible result of setting humanity back towards a third world economy across a global scale. This is a very real difference in data and a very real threat to mankind. And so it goes. We may have a near Earth object collide with our planet.
There is also increased interest in Earth’s moon. Some say it’s a landing base and operations center for aliens. Rumor has it that the American government has marked as classified a lot of information about findings on the Moon. In 1988, a prominent Chinese official, a member of the nation’s space program, unveiled pictures of human footprints on the lunar surface. The official stated that he had received the information from a reliable source and accused the Americans of concealing that information. The photos were dated from August 3, 1969 – two weeks after Armstrong and Aldrin stepped onto the surface of the Moon on July 20, 1969. Therefore, the materials of the lunar mission were studied and classified by NASA.
On March 15, 2009, The New York Times produced another sensation. The same Chinese official, Mao Kan, stated that he had obtained over than 1,000 secret NASA photographs depicting not only human footprints but also a human carcass on the surface of the Moon. Some of the bones in the carcass were missing, the official said. The human corpse must have been dropped on the Moon from an alien spaceship, but the extraterrestrials kept some tissue samples for research.
The photos were taken by a lunar probe. The absence of air makes it possible to capture minute details from the lunar orbit. The pictures of the carcass were very clear.
Dr. Ken Johnston, former manager of the Data and Photo Control Department at NASA’s Lunar Receiving Laboratory, said that US astronauts had found and photographed ancient ruins of artificial origin on the Moon. Supposedly, US astronauts had seen large unknown mechanisms on the Moon. This data was classified by the US government.
Some folks are true believers, and others are skeptical. Which are you?
ZOMBIE OUTBREAKS – Zombie Apocalypse Across America
ZOMBIE OUTBREAKS
Zombie Apocalypse Across America
ZOMBIE PREPPERS – Using zombies to teach science and medicine
With my colleague Greg Tinkler, I spent an afternoon last week at a local public library talking to kids about zombies:
The Zombie Apocalypse is coming. Will you be ready? University of Iowa epidemiologist Dr. Tara Smith will talk about how a zombie virus might spread and how you can prepare. Get a list of emergency supplies to go home and build your own zombie kit, just in case. Find out what to do when the zombies come from neuroscientist Dr. Greg Tinkler. As a last resort, if you can’t beat them, join them. Disguise yourself as a zombie and chow down on brrraaaaiiins, then go home and freak out your parents.
Why zombies? Obviously they’re a hot topic right now, particularly with the ascendance of The Walking Dead. They’re all over ComicCon. There are many different versions so the “rules” regarding zombies are flexible, and they can be used to teach all different kinds of scientific concepts–and more importantly, to teach kids how to *think* about translating some of this knowledge into practice (avoiding a zombie pandemic, surviving one, etc.) We ended up with about 30 people there: about 25 kids (using the term loosely, they ranged in age from maybe age 10 to 18 or so) and a smattering of adults. I covered the basics of disease transmission, then discussed how it applied to a potential “zombie germ,” while Greg explained how understanding the neurobiology of zombies can aid in fleeing from or killing them. The kids were involved, asked great questions, and even taught both of us a thing or two (and gave us additional zombie book recommendations!)
For infectious diseases, there are all kinds of literature-backed scenarios that can get kids discussing germs and epidemiology. People can die and reanimate as zombies, or they can just turn into infected “rage monsters” who try to eat you without actually dying first. They can have an extensive incubation period, or they can zombify almost immediately. Each situation calls for different types of responses–while the “living” zombies may be able to be killed in a number of different ways, for example, reanimated zombies typically can only be stopped by destroying the brains. Discussing these situations allows the kids to use critical thinking skills, to plan attacks and think through choice of weapons, escape routes and vehicles, and consider what they might need in a survival kit.
Likewise, zombie microbes can be spread through biting, through blood, through the air, by fomites or water, even by mosquitoes in some books. Agents can be viral, bacterial, fungal, prions or parasitic insect larvae (or combinations of those). Mulling on these different types of transmission issues and asking simple questions:
“How would you protect yourself if infection was spread through the air versus only spread by biting?”
“How well would isolation of infected people work if the incubation period is very long versus very short?”
“Why might you want to thoroughly wash your zombie-killing arrows before using them to kill squirrels, which you will then eat?” (ahem, Daryl)
can open up avenues of discussion into scientific issues that the kids don’t even realize they’re talking about (pandemic preparedness, for one). And the great thing is that these kids are *already experts* on the subject matter. They don’t have to learn about the epidemiology of a particular microbe to understand disease transmission and prevention, because they already know more than most of the adults do on the epidemiology of zombie diseases–the key is to get them to use that knowledge and broaden their thinking into various “what if” situations that they’re able to talk out and put pieces together.
It can be scary going to talk to kids. Since this was a new program, we didn’t know if anyone would even show up, or how it would go over. Greg brought a watermelon for some weapons demonstrations (household tools only–a screwdriver, hammer and a crowbar, no guns or Samurai swords) which was a big hit. Still, I realize many scientists are more comfortable talking with their peers than with 13-year-olds. Talking about something a bit ridiculous, like an impending zombie apocalypse, can lessen anxiety because it takes quite a lot of effort to be boring with that type of subject matter; it’s entertaining; and kids will listen. And after all, what you don’t know, might eat you.