NASA Study Predicted Outbreak Of Deadly Virus

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

NASA Study Predicted Outbreak Of Deadly Virus

Postby Uncle $cam » Sat Feb 21, 2009 5:27 am

NASA Study Predicted Outbreak Of Deadly Virus
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 101433.htm

ScienceDaily (Feb. 19, 2009) — An early warning system, more than a decade in development, successfully predicted the 2006-2007 outbreak of the deadly Rift Valley fever in northeast Africa, according to a new study led by NASA scientists.

Rift Valley fever is unique in that its emergence is closely linked to interannual climate variability. Utilizing that link, researchers including Assaf Anyamba, a geographer and remote sensing scientist with the University of Maryland Baltimore County and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., used a blend of NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration measurements of sea surface temperatures, precipitation, and vegetation cover to predict when and where an outbreak would occur.

The final product, a Rift Valley fever "risk map," gave public health officials in East Africa up to six weeks of warning for the 2006-2007 outbreak, enough time to lessen human impact. The researchers described their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The first-of-its-kind prediction is the culmination of decades of research. During an intense El Niño event in 1997, the largest known outbreak of Rift Valley fever spread across the Horn of Africa. About 90,000 people were infected with the virus, which is carried by mosquitoes and transmitted to humans by mosquito bites or through contact with infected livestock.

The 1997 outbreak provoked the formation of a working group--funded by the U.S. Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System--to see if predictions of an outbreak could be made operational. Such predictions would not only aid mitigation efforts in the endemic countries and protect the global public, but would help protect American civilian and military personnel located and traveling overseas, ensure the safety of imported goods and animals, and prevent infected humans or mosquitoes from entering the United States.

"To do all that, we need to understand a disease in the endemic region," Anyamba said.

The link between the mosquito life cycle and vegetation growth was first described in a 1987 Science paper by co-authors Kenneth Linthicum of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Compton Tucker of NASA Goddard. Then, a subsequent 1999 Science paper described link between the disease and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). ENSO is a cyclical, global phenomenon of sea surface temperature changes that can contribute to extreme climate events around the world.

For some areas, the warm phase of ENSO brings drought, while in some areas like the Horn of Africa, ENSO leads to above-normal rainfall. Excessive, sustained rainfall awakens the eggs of mosquitoes infected with Rift Valley fever that can remain dormant for up to 15 years in dried-out dambos—shallow wetlands common in the region.

Building on that research, Anyamba and colleagues set out to predict when conditions were ripe for excessive rainfall, and thus an outbreak. They started by examining satellite measurements of sea surface temperatures. One of the first indicators that ENSO will bring an abundance of rainfall is a rise in the surface temperature of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean and the western equatorial Indian Ocean.

But perhaps the most telling indicator of a potential outbreak is a measure of the mosquito habitat itself. The researchers used a satellite-derived vegetation data set--processed at NASA Goddard and called the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index—that measures the landscape's "greenness." Greener regions have more than the average amount of vegetation, which means more water and more potential habitat for infected mosquitoes.

"Greenness describes habitat and represents life," Anyamba said. "Without such systematic, continuous Earth system measurements from satellites, we would not be able to translate the information into outbreak predictions."

The final product is a risk map for Rift Valley fever, showing areas of anomalous rainfall and vegetation growth over a three-month period. The forecast is updated and issued monthly as a means to guide ground-based mosquito and virus surveillance.

As early as September 2006, the monthly advisory from Anyamba and colleagues indicated an elevated risk of Rift Valley fever activity in East Africa. By November, Kenya's government had begun collaborating with non-governmental organizations to implement disease mitigation measures—restricting animal movement, distributing mosquito bed nets, informing the public, and enacting programs to control mosquitoes and vaccinate animals.

"There is no human vaccine," Anyamba said, "so prevention is critical."

Between two and six weeks later—depending on the location—the disease was detected in humans.

"Satellite data is a valuable tool that allowed us to look remotely at large sections of land in Africa and understand what was happening on the ground," Linthicum said.

After the 2006-2007 outbreak, Anyamba and colleagues assessed the effectiveness of the warning maps. They compared locations that had been identified as "at risk" with the locations where Rift Valley fever was reported.

Of the 1,088 cases reported in Kenya, Somalia, and Tanzania, 64 percent fell within areas delineated on the risk map. The other 36 percent of cases did not occur within "at risk" areas, but none were more than 30 miles away, leading the researchers believe that they had identified most of the initial infection sites.

The potential for mapping the risk of disease outbreaks is not limited to Africa. Previous research has shown that risk maps are possible whenever the abundance of a virus can be linked to extremes in climate conditions. Chikungunya in east Africa and Hantavirus and West Nile virus in the United States, for example, have been linked to conditions of rainfall extremes.

"We are coming up on almost 30 years of vegetation data from satellites, which provides us with a good basis for predicting," Linthicum said upon returning from a Rift Valley fever workshop in Cairo, Egypt in January. "At this meeting, it was clear that using this tool as a basis for predictions has become accepted as the norm."


I don't know, perhaps it's just me, but WHY THE FUCK is NASA studying virus prediction?
Suffering raises up those souls that are truly great; it is only small souls that are made mean-spirited by it.
- Alexandra David-Neel
User avatar
Uncle $cam
 
Posts: 1100
Joined: Fri Nov 03, 2006 5:11 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Malcolm X Predicted Outbreak Of Dead Africans

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Sat Feb 21, 2009 4:52 pm

Uncle $cam wrote:NASA Study Predicted Outbreak Of Deadly Virus
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 101433.htm

ScienceDaily (Feb. 19, 2009) — An early warning system, more than a decade in development, successfully predicted the 2006-2007 outbreak of the deadly Rift Valley fever in northeast Africa, according to a new study led by NASA scientists.

Rift Valley fever is unique in that its emergence is closely linked to interannual climate variability. Utilizing that link, researchers including Assaf Anyamba, a geographer and remote sensing scientist with the University of Maryland Baltimore County and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., used a blend of NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration measurements of sea surface temperatures, precipitation, and vegetation cover to predict when and where an outbreak would occur.

The final product, a Rift Valley fever "risk map," gave public health officials in East Africa up to six weeks of warning for the 2006-2007 outbreak, enough time to lessen human impact.
.....


I don't know, perhaps it's just me, but WHY THE FUCK is NASA studying virus prediction?


My take on why this article is out now, not about the veracity, but about the timing of themes-

First, it is yet another competing story about a geographer and mapping.
We've just read about:
> 'Geographer finds bin Laden'
> 'Geographer finds Atlantis off Africa'-

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 101433.htm

Only this one isn't just competing online with the 2/20 and 2/21/09 online book give-aways of
Image

This 'NASA vs African disease' article has the US government agency and geographer mapping disease in Africa and saving lives.

My my.
That's a perfect meme-reversal of something else big and dangerous in the news cycle.

Because the issues of AIDS and syphilis are in the news, too.
Very bad US history with Africans there.


Because this AIDS-as-syphilis story brings up the infamous Nazi-type Tuskegee Experiments using unwitting untreated African American men with syphilis. And suspicions about AIDS as some form of ethnic targeted bioweapon will always exist, true or not.

http://rockcreekfreepress.com/

The Rock Creek Free Press is featuring an article series about many scientists relooking at AIDS as a form of undiagnosed syphilis, especially Lynn Margulis who has also spoken out for 9/11 Truth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Margulis

Margulis' paper on AIDS, Syphilis, and Lyme Disease, "the great imitators," calling for a complete revision of AIDS treatment
was just published here-
http://www.symbiosisjournal.com/Contents.shtml#vol471

Rock Creek Free Press is the online nexus for these themes-
Which is also probably why the Chandra Levy story was just revived, to compete using
the keywords, "Rock Creek Park."

Also why last week NPR (Voice of America) carried a story about Christopher Columbus
bringing syphilis from the New World back to Italy.
I recognized it as a meme-reversal of something - Tuskegee Experiments.

More problematic African-themed events-
And it is the anniversary of the
assassination of Malcolm X who exposed
US murder in Africa and was himself
targeted by CIA during his African tour. FBI and NYPD also targeted him.

Perhaps a good reason for that recent
cops-shoot-chimp story to be created (drugs in chimp?) and amped intentionally by the NYPost to create a
controversy-fueled viral marketing.

This is a nest of inter-related infowar problems, all superceded with competing articles to displace them and do
subliminal priming as interference theory and inoculation theory, pun intended.

Also related-
The White House just announced plans for yet another Stevie Wonder concert. Blind Africans on television have been generated as decoys for Tuskegee syphilis-induced blindness before when this history cropped up. I've got a list.
Last edited by Hugh Manatee Wins on Sat Feb 21, 2009 5:35 pm, edited 3 times in total.
CIA runs mainstream media since WWII:
news rooms, movies/TV, publishing
...
Disney is CIA for kidz!
User avatar
Hugh Manatee Wins
 
Posts: 9869
Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2005 6:51 pm
Location: in context
Blog: View Blog (0)

Postby vigilant » Sat Feb 21, 2009 5:18 pm

A couple of years ago I remember you talking about the grouping of articles by theme. Since then I have been looking and noticing. Now I routinely notice a swath of related articles that whose theme is reversed, just like this aids subject. I have also noticed it confuses and blankets the search engines and makes it harder to find what one is looking for, and it often produces the reverse. I believe you are on to something with the meme reversal process that takes place. I notice it too often for it to be an accident, in my opinion anyway.
The whole world is a stage...will somebody turn the lights on please?....I have to go bang my head against the wall for a while and assimilate....
vigilant
 
Posts: 2210
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2007 9:53 pm
Location: Back stage...
Blog: View Blog (0)

Postby Penguin » Sat Feb 21, 2009 5:38 pm

Thanks for tickling my brain, Hugh.
Penguin
 
Posts: 5089
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:56 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Postby tal » Sat Feb 21, 2009 10:12 pm

.
Every Second Child in which Archie Kalokerinos relates his discovery that vaccination was killing every second Aboriginal child and how he mitigated the damage.


Every Child By Two front group for Wyeth

.
tal
 
Posts: 406
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:20 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: NASA Study Predicted Outbreak Of Deadly Virus

Postby MinM » Fri Oct 17, 2014 11:25 am

Ron Klain the newly minted "Ebola Czar" was portrayed by Kevin Spacey in the HBO movie Recount.

Of course Kevin Spacey died from the dreaded 'Motaba virus' in the movie Outbreak...
Image
Earth-704509
User avatar
MinM
 
Posts: 3286
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2008 2:16 pm
Location: Mont Saint-Michel
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: NASA Study Predicted Outbreak Of Deadly Virus

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Sat Oct 18, 2014 12:32 pm

Great thread, nicely complicated stew here. Why is NASA studying virus outbreak? That actually gets explained in the first paragraph, but as the Kali Yuga grinds on, I am slowly letting go of my expectations.

The Solar System -- and this gets given away a bit by the title of the film -- is a System, and the Earth is part of it. NASA's interest is in the application of climate models, and in the context of the OP they're using climate models to predict outbreaks. And getting some hits, too, so at least they're smarter than economists over there.

Everything NASA is suspect by necessity and that's their fault, I don't blame anyone at RI for reflexively equating them with Nazis, or at least a useful idiot front for all manner of covert fuckery. Even mundanely awesome stuff like EOS can easily read like the technological pretext for the Global Control Grid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Observing_System and after all, for certain flavors of reality here, "Climate Change" itself is a NASA project under the auspices of The Infamous Dr. Hansen.

But that mundanely awesome stuff is why NASA has a big research infrastructure aimed not at the stars (sorry, primates! you wasted all the fuel the Annunaki-saurs left you!) but at the surface of our home planet and the fabric of our lives.

Very interesting snip:

The 1997 outbreak provoked the formation of a working group--funded by the U.S. Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System--to see if predictions of an outbreak could be made operational. Such predictions would not only aid mitigation efforts in the endemic countries and protect the global public, but would help ...


After that, the author lapses into a fugue of mandatory USA hagiography reflexes. What it would also help is having an edge on responding to huge debilitating impacts on societies in Africa and Asia, the primary harbors of hotspots. And I don't think the Pentagon is interested in any of that humanitarian PR stuff when they institute working groups. When I say "responding" I mean "exploiting."

The other main point I wanted to make is that none of this is exactly quantum computing, nano-manufacturing, or artificial intelligence algorithms: they just looked at fucking satellite maps of mosquito habitat. Now, as a predictive model goes, giving humans photographs is actually a lot more solid - on every level - than a computer simulation. So I'm into that.
User avatar
Wombaticus Rex
 
Posts: 10896
Joined: Wed Nov 08, 2006 6:33 pm
Location: Vermontistan
Blog: View Blog (0)

Postby Perelandra » Sat Oct 18, 2014 12:48 pm

Wombaticus Rex » Sat Oct 18, 2014 8:32 am wrote:But that mundanely awesome stuff is why NASA has a big research infrastructure aimed not at the stars (sorry, primates! you wasted all the fuel the Annunaki-saurs left you!) but at the surface of our home planet and the fabric of our lives.
...
What it would also help is having an edge on responding to huge debilitating impacts on societies in Africa and Asia, the primary harbors of hotspots. And I don't think the Pentagon is interested in any of that humanitarian PR stuff when they institute working groups. When I say "responding" I mean "exploiting."

Excellent points.
“The past is never dead. It's not even past.” - William Faulkner
User avatar
Perelandra
 
Posts: 1648
Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2008 7:12 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: NASA Study Predicted Outbreak Of Deadly Virus

Postby 82_28 » Sat Oct 18, 2014 1:20 pm

Image

Wouldn't a mosquito be a perfectly good vector for this "handling of bodily fluids" or however it goes?
There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi
User avatar
82_28
 
Posts: 11194
Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2007 4:34 am
Location: North of Queen Anne
Blog: View Blog (0)


Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 44 guests