Water, water, everywhere!

Hidden Ocean Discovered on Saturnian Moon. I think it's pretty cool that inference of the ocean was derived at by gravitational anomalies in the Saturnian moon's gravitational fields. This is why curious persons everywhere should support at least unmanned spacecraft and flights. If not for the Cassini spacecraft's close fly-by, this unexpected result would have gone unnoticed. Basic science doesn't always yield unexpected results, but compared to all other human activities, science yields more unexpected results than all others combined.

More water news via scientific inquiry..

"Oceans" of water found locked within earth. No, this isn't the biblical "waters of the deep," but it's almost a certainty that religious types will try to spin it as such. Go read the article. I am literate enough in these areas simplify things further with accuracy, but for any reader of this blog, it's a easy read.

More water...

Namib Beetle Inspires C nanotube device to remove H2O from driest places on earth Carbon nanotubes are a highly interesting substance. In the water collection iteration, C nanotubes are set up as a hydrophilic, and hydrophobic array. Call me a geek--you won't be the first--but "water-loving" and "water-repelling" are clunky terms. In one of my personal favorite uses of C nanotubes, they are used to Instantaneously boot computers by enabling system RAM to enter the non-volatile state, and to replace all manner of flash memory. A very disruptive technology. Sorry about the digression into other nanotube technologies.

With that, I, am. outta. Here.

I may have Lyme..No, seriously.

After my tirade about Lyme or borrelosis, or whatever medicine ultimately calls the typically tick vectored disease, your humble blogger may have been infected. I removed an adult I. scapularis earlier today. I cannot fathom how the tick got through my multi-layered tick defenses. Nonetheless, the little arachnid got through, and 'got me good.' I am on doxycycline prophylaxis right now.

The offending tick was DOA. This is where reality and the CDC part company. The tick was confirmed as an adult, and while I was telling my arachnid tale of woe, the APRN concurred with my observation that adult I. scapularis do indeed have the capacity to transmit Lyme to humans. Her other degree is as a PhD entomologist.

While it was no fun BEING the news, it was good to see what laypersons here in NH have long suspected--and some knew--borne out. I should note that my vitals were checked, and my BP was high at 150/80, and my temperature was low at 87.6 F. Since my visit, I have checked my BP, and it now reads 119/66. Stressors have always given me spikes in BP that are short in duration.

Given my low temperature reading, it is likely that the possible infection hasn't yet provoked a typical immune response. This was good news. The bite area(center of sternum)shows much inflammation, and the possible beginnings of the erythema migrans rash typical of Lyme.

I knew I was at risk, so I did everything that I could to lessen the likelihood of getting bitten. Okay, the one thing that I refuse to do is to stay indoors. Here's what I have done:

1) Applied permethrin to clothing and gear

2) Applied 40% DEET to boots, pants, and exposed skin

3) Performed tick checks after each outdoor excursion

4) Stayed out of areas with leaf litter and other tick harboring areas

5) Showered after going out of doors

There appears but one way to avoid tick bites: stay inside. I am still befuddled as to how the tick managed to burrow so deeply in what must have been a relatively sort amount of time.

Ticks are supposed to be an indicator of a healthy ecosystem. I agree with this right up to the time I get bitten. I am no alarmist, but the incidence of vector-borne diseases of all kinds are on the rise in the US. Will a time come when every first-aid kit will contain antibiotics? How about anti-virals, like Acyclovir? I'll be honest, I keep a stock of Chlorhexidine gluconate handy for an AB wash. I don't use it frivolously. If the faeces ever contacts the oscillator--and I for one, am not counting on it--preparation will be key to short and long-term survival.

Don't read this and think I'm an anti-government crackpot. It is not the continuance or fear of government that motivates my preparatory activities. I'd like to see humanity reduced by say 70%. I just don't want to be in that 70%.

Less weirdness later.

Still on a vector-borne disease "crusade"

Okay, so "crusade" isn't at all accurate. I'm a pretty hardcore materialist. It is not that I am wedded to an entirely naturalistic cosmic view of everything. Given extraordinary evidence to support a god or gods belief, I would shift my cosmic perspective without issue, or comment.

Moving back to the point... After yesterday's post, I decided to look around for Lyme information. I struck tick vector gold!

Discover Magazine gives Frontline Coverage of Tick stuff. Sorry about the use of "Frontline" while posting a link, but it does work.

Discover Mag has much more than the fascinating article referenced above. If you are at all interested in this subject, be sure to read the comments. Kerry Clark, who likely has done more than any other individual to bring southern Lyme to the fore engages reader's comments. The medical community in the southern US is as bad as the medical community here in NH as to the realities of tick-borne diseases.

Also on Discover:

A fairly comprehensive treatment of the whole Lyme debacle.

The CDC(Centers for Disease Control) appear to finally coming around to the prevalence of Lyme.

CDC reports that Lyme is ten times more common than previous estimates. Ten times more prevalent. Still, even given the latest data on Lyme, the CDC is sill sticking to the old data that 95% of Lyme cases are confined to the usual suspects geographically speaking. Looking at this table, New Hampshire had the highest incidence per state on a per capita basis in 2012. That the infection rate my be ten times the number of reported cases is alarming. Even though much of what the CDC has been shown to be wrong, here's the CDC's clearinghouse for Lyme. Once again, science is way ahead of the official governmental stance. There has been much made of the medical community's slow response to Lyme and possibly Lyme-like disease. The offending bacilli are of the Borrelia genus.

In addition to the above clusterf*ck, every source I can find states that Lyme is spread only via the nymph stage of I. scapularis. This is completely wrong. Adult I. scapularis ticks are also vectors to human disease. How do I know this? It's pretty simple. My brother Bryan contracted Lyme from an adult I. scapularis. We know this to be true, as the feeding tick was collected, and two labs confirmed the species, the stage of development, and the presence of Borrelia burgdorferi; the only bacterium currently acknowledged by the medical community to transmit Lyme to humans. Discover is correct. The debate over Lyme or Lyme-like illness borders on being insane. With migratory birds, and other species that keep the disease circulating in nature having no respect for state and national boundaries, the affected areas are truly largely unknown. Anyone that gets bitten by a tick of any species in any area that has a reasonable chance of harboring tick borne vector disease should be given the option of at least a short, prophylactic course of antibiotics. That's how the medical community should be handling this issue.

One more thing, bedbugs are another potential Lyme vector. Read the bit on other Borrelia species found in the paragraph titled: Bedbugs and Infectious Disease, and go to bottom of page for an account of a potential transmission.

The more we know about Lyme, the worse the picture gets. The funding for reasearch for what looks like a national health crisis--that's only likely to get worse--is astonishingly paltry.

If you develop symptoms that are typical of Lyme disease, try a physician. Given the rise of treatment resistant bacteria, many physicians are loathe to prescribe a course of antibiotics. While this is typically a good call, there are times--and this is certainly one of them--where the medical community is miles behind the data. Living in one of the densest areas for confirmed cases of Lyme, I wouldn't leave the office without a script. When a colleague had to have a pacemaker implanted due to a missed case of Lyme, it alters your outlook on these things.

Pound the damned table if you must. Advanced Lyme is nothing you want.

I got nothin' today...Wait! I have vector-borne diseases

No science news today. I'm certain that stuff that's actual science, not the application of science, which is technology was reported on today. I could probably really fudge another post(as I did last night), but I would much rather post less, and offer either more information than even that reported by "science news" sites. I was involved all day with applied botany. Lifting and toting many bags of softwood mulch and digging holes in mother terra can be quite tiring in ninety degree(F) weather with relatively high levels of relative humidity.

I also applied mulch, watered many plants, and did other planty things.

We also feed thirty-two(so far) identied species of avian life, and I did time aiding all those hundreds of individual birds by building and putting up a stagimg perch where the birds can hang whilst waiting a turn at the wild bird feeders.

Other yard/garden work was performed as well. I am something of a non-expert on Platycodon grandiflorus cultivars, and while not a plant completist, one that is as engaged as I am in gardening should learn as much as possible about their favorite plants. Balloonflower(Platycodon grandiflorus) is my area of study. I am also engaged in building up wildlife habitats on my little part of the world, and have been pretty successful in habitat restoration efforts.

I now count as garden/woodland regulars more amphibians and reptiles than I encountered as a youth in a more 'wild' setting.

Well, that does bring up a science related topic of concern: tick-borne pathogens.

7 April was World Health day, and this year's focus was on vector-borne diseases. I do not believe that one thinks of New Hampshire USA as a hotbed of vector-borne pathogens. Even twenty years ago this wasn't a real concern. The times have certainly changed.

The medical community was really behind the curve in NH. While we have the highest per capita incidence of Lyme, the medical community even five years ago did not generally recognize the risk. In the past five years the standard treatment for tick bites has gone from a wait-and-see if Lyme develops, to the now standard for ANY tick bite of a three day course of doxycycline(as long as doxycycline is not contraindicated), to the standard twenty-one day course if Lyme has been confirmed. I found AN article, which while only a year old, is no longer truly current.

Other rick-borne pathogens in New Hampshire:

But Lyme disease is not always the correct diagnosis.

"A lot of people are aware of Lyme, but they're not as aware of Babesiosis, Bartonellosis and Ehrlichiosis," Giard said. "Those have a devastating effect on people, and we're really concerned. So it's very important that when people go to get tested that they ask to be tested for all those tick-borne diseases, which are at epidemic levels."

Babesiosis is a human disease related to malaria parasites. It is associated with voles, chipmunks, mice and shrews. The white-footed mouse is the primary reservoir host. The Blacklegged tick is the main vector. Most human cases occur during summer.

Symptoms range from mild to life-threatening, including fever, fatigue, chills, sweats, headache, and more. Severe symptoms are more likely in people who are immunosuppressed, have had their spleen removed, and/or are elderly. Onset of symptoms is one to six weeks after the tick bite.

"When we test in our office, we're testing Lyme as well as those other organisms to determine if someone has been infected by a tick-borne bite," Giard said. "And I like saying 'tick-borne bite' because we've had patients come in whose symptomatology really points to Babesiosis rather than Lyme. We treat it as if we're treating malaria."

"Babesiosis in particular is quite nasty," Giard says, noting that it can enlarge the spleen and liver.

Giard retests patients every six hours because of the way these organism shed their DNA.

Bartonellosis can infect humans, mammals and a wide range of wild animals, according to lymedisease.org. Its bacteria are known to be carried by fleas, body lice and ticks. Scientists suspect that ticks are a source of infection in some human cases of Bartonellosis. Some people who recall being bitten by ticks have been co-infected with Lyme and Bartonella.

According to lymedisease.org, Bartonellosis is often mild, but in serious cases it can affect the whole body. Early signs are fever, fatigue, headache, poor appetite, and an unusual, streaked rash. Swollen glands are typical, especially around the head, neck and arms.

Ehrlichiosis is the name for several animal and human diseases. Victims usually report flu-like symptoms — headache, fever, muscle aches, fatigue — and sometimes gastro-intestinal symptoms or rash. Symptoms typically appear five to 10 days after being bitten by an infected tick. The lone star tick is the primary vector.

All in all, a rather sobering set of prospects.

I would be remiss if I didn't include Hantavirus, an often fatal bio-safety level four pathogen, with the white-footed Deer Mouse the most common vector, as well as a whole host of recent mosquito vector diseases.

Jamestown Canyon Virus And Powassan Virus are now found in NH. The former has a mosquito vector, and the latter a tick vector. We have been dealing with Eastern Equine Encephalitis(mosquito vector, transmissable to humans via mosquito feeding) and West Nile Virus(Mosquito vector) for over a decade.

I'm sure I have missed a few. In early June this year, it has been tick-borne disease that has garnered most of the coverage as our fierce winter--and subsequent spring runoff was great for tick survival, but--according to those in the field--really kept the mosquito counts down. No science, but lots of outdoor perils to be aware of..of course, prevention is the real key to stopping vector-borne disease. Mosquito repellent high in DEET should keep you free of the mosquito vector pathogens.

In contradiction to the popular--and demonstrably wrong--views about DEET being an effective tick repellent, it is simply not so. DEET is a poor tick repellent, Permethrin is a great tick repellent. I have personally fairly saturated my very light tan boots with forty percent DEET repellent and have watched black legged ticks(Ixodes scapularis..primary vector for Lyme and a few other pathogens to humans) crawl right across my boots as if I was wearing no repellent. This was at most thirty minutes after application. These were the poppy seed sized nymphs that are the most active feeders on humans, and the primary transmitters to us. DEET being effective for controlling ticks may work for some subset of the population somewhere, but here in central New Hampshire, Permethrin is the safe choice.

I would be remiss if I didn't say a bit about "bug" repellent safety. These are toxins. I cannot state with any degree of certainty that these agents are safe to use. I have read everything that I can find about the relative safeties of these two agents, and can draw no firm conclusions. Read all that you can, but consider this a warning, NO 'natural' products I have tried provide effective safety. Living here, I have tried dozens to date. One more thing, once bitten you are at risk. The longer an infected tick feeds the greater the hazard, but no one living where tick-borne disease agents exist is ever one hundred percent safe once bitten. Staying out of areas where ticks are known to be found isn't a great option. Please do not take my word for any of this. Consider it a starting point with which to conduct your own research. Have fun in nature, but try and lessen your overall risks.

Science Quiz Wrong Answer Buzzer and Mathematical Models of Evolution

First off, I reveal my one error in the CS Monitor's Scientific Literacy Quiz.

I could not recall the formula for computing acceleration in Newtons. If you take the quiz, you'll come across the 200 gram question..That's the one that got me. NO. I'm not giving you the answer. Please be honest. No resorting to Stephen Wolfram's Alpha search to glean answers. If you do this, you reinforce everything negative found in The Shallows. Don't be shallow. Wolfram Alpha was called "the coolest thing I've ever seen on the 'Net" by an astrophysics major at Hah-vid. That's Harvard to everyone not a Kennedy. We geeks know all the coolest stuff on the 'Net.

So now you know that I forget stuff I learned in HS physics. Shame that.

Okay, too much about my long-term memor..where was I going with this?

MIT Has the coolest stuff on this coast. Those CalTech kids no doubt have their biases as well. In strolling about the MIT Press journals I came across the Journal Of Computational Evolution. One would think that someone that did a summer at the venerated Cambridge, MA school would get a free sub. to a few journals..so what if I did work there in 1984. But no, I'd have to cough up $39/yr for a sub. Of course I can get the IEEE stuff gratis, but I am a member of the IEEE! A quick glance at this free article illustrates just how far CE modeling has come.

Using MatLab or Stephen Wolfram's Mathematica(there's S. Wolfram again)--simply for relative ease of development--the current algorithmic models are not only powerful tools for analyzing noted changes, but have predictive power for future courses of genetic mutations and subsequent expressions reaching all the way to phenotype. So, what does all this mean?

For my purposes, it all equates to irrefutable evidence for the fact of naturalistic evolution, and yes, toying with the equations is sort of fun.

I'll revisit this once I get some sleep, and after further cogitation of the consequences of the various algorithms.

Even the most casual observer will likely be shocked by the sophistication of these models. I find them almost endlessly fascinating, but I fear that I am wired differently than the balance of humanity.

I very likely posted this too quickly. I did not fully examine the algorithms in close enough detail to provide any useful commentary. For that I apologize.

Unlike the media, I'd much rather be accurate, than first with an observation.