BBC News – Brazil releases ‘good’ mosquitoes to fight Dengue fever

24 September 2014 Last updated at 17:38 ET

The project “Eliminate the dengue: Challenge Brazil” by state Brazilian laboratory Fiocruz released about 10,000 mosquitoes infected with a dengue blocking bacteria
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Brazilian researchers in Rio de Janeiro have released thousands of mosquitoes infected with a bacteria that suppresses Dengue fever.

The hope is they will multiply, breed and become the majority of mosquitoes, thus reducing cases of the disease.

The initiative is part of a programme also taking place in Australia, Vietnam and Indonesia.

The intercellular bacteria, Wolbachia, being introduced cannot be transmitted to humans.

The programme started in 2012 says Luciano Moreira of the Brazilian research institute Fiocruz, who is leading the project in Brazil .

“Our teams performed weekly visits to the four neighbourhoods in Rio being targeted. Mosquitoes were analysed after collection in special traps.

“Transparency and proper information for the households is priority. ”

Ten thousands mosquitoes will be released each month for four months with the first release in Tubiacanga, in the north of Rio.

‘Good’ bacteria

The bacteria Wolbachia is found in 60% of insects. It acts like a vaccine for the mosquito which carries Dengue, Aedes Aegypti, stopping the Dengue virus multiplying in its body.

…(read more).

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Anti-nuclear Obama spending billions to upgrade nuclear arsenal

RT America

Published on Sep 24, 2014

The US will spend nearly $1.1 trillion over the coming decades to revitalize its nuclear arsenal. Modernizing the vast stock of warheads and delivery mechanisms, the plans will take roughly three decades to complete, and make no mention of reducing the total size of the arsenal, as President Barack Obama promised to do in 2008. RT’s Alexey Yaroshevsky has more on the initiative and the reaction of arms control proponents.

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Can the food and beverage industry improve American health?

PBS NewsHour

Published on Sep 24, 2014

The world’s largest soda manufacturers have pledged to reduce the number of calories in sugary drinks by 20 percent over the next decade. Judy Woodruff interviews PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi and Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of Robert Wood Johnson, part of a coalition of companies and nonprofits working to cut calorie consumption and improve the health of Americans.

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Save the Climate or Save Capitalism? | #FloodWallStreet Dispatch

Dennis Trainor, Jr

Published on Sep 24, 2014

This content is viewer supported: http://www.Patreon.com/AcronymTV

An exclusive Acronym TV dispatch from the Flood Wall Street day of action, featuring exclusive footage, analysis, and interviews with Adam Clayton Muller (Idle No More), Tim DeChristopher (Peaceful Uprising), Andy Bichlbaum (The Yes Men), Arun Gupta (Counterpunch), and Flood Wall Street organizer Goldi Guerra.

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Climate Change Discussed at Clinton Global Initiative…

thomhartmann

Published on Sep 24, 2014

Thom Hartmann talks with Secretary Rodney Slater, Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation under President Bill Clinton (participating in the Clinton Global Initiative for climate week)
Website: www.clintonfoundation.org/clinton-global

­-initiative

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Naomi Klein on Cause of Climate Crisis: “Capitalism Is Stupid”

Wednesday, 24 September 2014 09:46 By Sarah Jaffe, Truthout | Interview/News Analysis

Naomi Klein (Photo: Ed Kashi)Naomi Klein, author of the groundbreaking books, No Logo and The Shock Doctrine, is back with a new groundbreaking work, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. The book resets the debate over global warming by focusing on how it is integrally related to the current economic system that spans the globe.

Naomi Klein is out to change hearts and minds around climate change.

Her new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate out now from Simon & Schuster, is a broad challenge to those who want a livable planet: We need to come up with a livable economic system too. Deeply researched and personally reported, Klein’s third book takes us from the tar sands in Alberta (“Earth, skinned alive”) to the oil-soaked waters of the Gulf of Mexico (“a miscarriage”), from climate denier conferences to a meeting of would-be geoengineers, as she traces the path of destruction that capitalism and a mindset she terms “extractivism” – that is perhaps even older – have left on the Earth.

At one point, Klein concedes, it might have been possible to stop the climate crisis with a few regulations here, a carbon tax there. But we’re too far gone for that, and nothing but a full-on change in how humans relate to the Earth and to each other will save us now.

The good news is that Klein has written an immensely hopeful book, a book about people who believe they can make change and who are doing it in the face of a political and economic system that would seem to doom them to failure. She doesn’t define what comes after capitalism, leaving that to the social movements she describes being born all over the world, but sketches its broad outlines, letting us know what this new climate justice movement is against – but also what it is for – and making a case for a broad redistributive justice movement that would include already-existing movements for racial justice, feminism and decolonization.

The problem is, capitalism is stupid … in that it doesn’t actually think.

Truthout’s Sarah Jaffe caught up with Klein on the eve of the People’s Climate March and of the United Nations Climate Summit in New York to talk about why liberalism is not enough, why billionaires can’t save us, and what we need to do to save ourselves.

Sarah Jaffe for Truthout: You’ve written two other books, No Logo and The Shock Doctrine, that helped to name and understand a particular historic moment. How was this book a direct outgrowth of your previous work, and how has your worldview changed in the years since those other books?

…(read more).

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We Need a News Network Independent of the Elites

TheRealNews

Published on Sep 24, 2014

TRNN Senior Editor Paul Jay: Because we don’t take corporate money or accept funding from either the Democrats or the Republicans, your donation is what makes The Real News possible

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Leonardo DiCaprio to Global Leaders: “Now Must Be Our Moment For Action” on Fighting Climate Change

democracynow

Published on Sep 24, 2014

http://democracynow.org – World leaders have wrapped up a one-day United Nations summit on climate change with pledges to tackle global warming, but no binding commitments. On Tuesday, world leaders set goals including stopping tropical deforestation by 2030, improving food production and increasing the number of electric cars on the roads. Yet no movement was made on how to slow global warming and keep the rise in ocean temperatures below two degrees. In his remarks, President Obama called for a “global compact” to fight climate change. Hollywood actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio also addressed the U.N. summit on climate change Tuesday. He was recently named a United Nations Messenger of Peace.

Leonardo DiCaprio said:

“Now must be our moment for action. We need to put a price tag on carbon emissions and eliminate government subsidies for oil, coal and gas companies. We need to end the free ride that industrial polluters have been given in the name of a free market economy. They do not deserve our tax dollars, they deserve or scrutiny for the economy itself will die if our ecosystems collapse.”

“This is the most urgent of times and the most urgent of messages. Honored delegates, leaders of the world, I pretend for a living, but you do not. The people made their voices heard on Sunday around the world, and the momentum will not stop. But now it is your turn. The time to answer humankind’s greatest challenge is now. We beg of you to face it with courage and honesty.”

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Peoples Climate March – Report Back

People’s Climate March

Published on Sep 24, 2014

We said it would take everyone to change everything — and everyone showed up.

With world leaders coming to New York City for a landmark summit on climate change, people around the world took to the streets to demand action to end the climate crisis.

Now, more than ever, we are a big, beautiful, unified movement. We are coming together around the world like never before to demand a brighter and more just future for everyone.

This march came out of months of hard work, building connections with people far and wide, and for all the success of today, it’s ultimately about what we do when we’re in our own communities. It’s about next week, next month, next year. But this is turning point – a huge step forward in our calls for climate justice.

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Stephen Blyth Named Next President and CEO of Management Company

By Christine Y. Cahill, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
UPDATED: September 24, 2014, at 4:40 p.m.

Stephen Blyth will be the next president and chief executive officer of Harvard Management Company, the University’s investment arm which manages its $36 billion endowment.

Muhammad H Tahir
Richard Tarrant presents the Teaching Prize to Stephen Blyth (Department of Statistics) at the Phi Beta Kapps Literary Exercises in Sanders Theatre in May 2013.

Blythe, who is currently a managing director and head of public markets at HMC, as well as a professor of statistics, will assume the role Jan. 1, 2015. He will manage the largest university endowment in the world, which, as reported yesterday in HMC’s annual report, currently sits at $36.4 billion.

He will succeed Jane L. Mendillo, who announced in July her decision to end her eight-year tenure at the helm of HMC.

Blythe joined HMC in 2006 upon leaving Deutsche Bank, where he served as managing director and head of its global rates proprietary group in London. Before that, Blyth was a managing director of Morgan Stanley’s interest-rate group in New York.

In his role as a professor, Blyth has taught Statistics 123: “Applied Quantitative Finance,” a popular undergraduate course within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, since 2009, and was awarded the Alpha Iota Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 2013.

…(read more).

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