“There is now a move to raise public awareness about the increasing incidence of the bug in the natural environment. And this is where it gets controversial; for it is all about balance of risk. And scientists have to convince us that this is not just another manifestation of the nanny state, possessed of a burning desire to overregulate.

What they’re trying to formulate at the moment is what controls to put on animals, and how to inform walkers, campers, farmers; and people who live in rural communities with private water supplies. It looks like being a predictable litany: get your private water supply checked; wash your hands after handling animals; carry hand wipes; use bottled water; don’t drink from streams; don’t picnic or camp where animals are grazing; don’t get too muddy.

One scientist even used the analogy of traffic to convince those who resist the advice. In the 1920s you could walk across the road without looking right or left. Would you do that today?

The argument – that improvements in hygiene, not medicine, made the world safer – is a persuasive one, but it’s also terribly sad. There’s something desperately mournful about being told that the countryside, the wellspring of us all, is now a threat. It feels like the severing of some important connection, because in a funny way, the countryside has come to represent the lost land of the free: the last place where you can find an illusion of escape.

There’s an irony, too, in that the rush to the great outdoors has never been greater.”

“How is this for a new conservation mantra? Eat the panda. Let the tiger die out. And let’s admit that species such as the condor have had their day and let them quietly fade away instead of spending limited conservation resources trying to keep them alive. That is heresy to traditional conservationists but it is a view being propounded by activists calling for a radical rethink of priorities, especially as climate change threatens to accelerate the number of extinctions in the next few decades.” (The Australian)

Are they better off?: “Foregoing food for a day each month stood out among other religious practices in members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS or Mormons), who have lower rates of heart disease than other Americans, researchers reported at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2007. “People who fast seem to receive a heart-protective benefit, and this appeared to also hold true in non-LDS people who fast as part of a health-conscious lifestyle,” said Benjamin D. Horne, Ph.D., M.P.H., study author and director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology at Intermountain Medical Center and adjunct assistant professor of biomedical informatics at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. In the 1970s, scientists recognized that Latter-Day Saints (LDS) in Utah are less likely to die of heart disease than other Utah residents and Americans overall. The religious prohibition against tobacco use is usually credited for the health benefit, but researchers wondered whether other religious teachings also may be important(.” )Eurekalert

“The fiery demise of a fifth rocky planet in our Solar System might have led to a flurry of asteroid impacts that pockmarked the Moon and Earth billions of years ago.” (Cosmos)

“Yellowstone National Park, once the site of a giant volcano, has begun swelling up, possibly because molten rock is accumulating beneath the surface, scientists report…[T]he flow of the ancient Yellowstone crater has been moving upward almost 3 inches per year for the past three years.” (USAToday)

Do coffee shops discriminate against women?: “My female colleagues don’t go to coffee shops because they’re shabbily treated when they get there. That’s the conclusion of American economist Caitlin Knowles Myers. She, with her students as research assistants, staked out eight coffee shops (PDF) in the Boston area and watched how long it took men and women to be served. Her conclusion: Men get their coffee 20 seconds earlier than do women. (There is also evidence that blacks wait longer than whites, the young wait longer than the old, and the ugly wait longer than the beautiful. But these effects are statistically not as persuasive.)” — Tim Harford (Slate)

Cast as Witches, Then Cast Out: “In parts of Angola, Congo and the Congo Republic, a surprising number of children are accused of being witches, and then are beaten, abused or abandoned. Child advocates estimate that thousands of children living in the streets of Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, have been accused of witchcraft and cast out by their families, often as a rationale for not having to feed or care for them.” (New York Times )