[naturenews] from [nature.com]
[naturenews]
Published online 8 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.889
News
First swine flu death on the Galapagos
Spread of virus shows islands no longer in evolutionary isolation.
Henry Nicholls
Swine flu has reached the Galapagos Islands, and the first human fatality there has caused widespread alarm, threatening to undermine a booming tourist industry — mixed news for conservation efforts on the Ecuadorian archipelago.
Since the middle of August, when the first case of pandemic H1N1 influenza on the Galapagos was confirmed, the population of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz — the island with the biggest human population — has been on high alert.
Bars and nightclubs along the main strip were among the first businesses to close and for almost two weeks all activities in the town's schools, colleges and universities were suspended in an effort to prevent further spread of the disease.
In spite of these measures, the virus caused its first death on the islands when a 29-year-old man with swine flu died of a heart attack on 28 August.
"The major problem in Galapagos is that we don't have the hospitals and the doctors to help," says Jaime Navas, a natural history guide and friend of the deceased.
"If you get into trouble over there, there is no chance to get out."
Mainland flight
This fear has led Navas to move his young family from the islands to the city of Guayaquil on the coast of mainland Ecuador, where the hospitals are better equipped to deal with swine flu.
"There are a lot of people [with similar concerns] that have come to the mainland over the last two weeks," he says.
The governor of the islands, Jorge Torres, and the director of the Galapagos National Park, Edgar Muñoz, have both been quoted in recent news reports claiming that swine flu is unlikely to affect the buoyant tourism industry.
But Navas is not so sure. Tourists are thinking twice about coming and residents are thinking hard about leaving, he says. "This is a serious thing for Galapagos."
Tourism is a mixed blessing for the Galapagos. It generates wealth but this fuels expansion of the human population, placing ever-increasing pressure on the islands' fragile ecosystems.
Viral defences
Earlier this year, on 28 April, Muñoz and other local officials agreed on several protective measures, including mandatory use of gloves and masks by everyone working at ports and airports.
The most recent report from the Ecuadorian ministry of health, issued on 28 August, said there had been 1,001 confirmed cases of swine flu in the country, 16 of them in the Galapagos. There were 44 deaths throughout Ecuador, not including the Galapagos fatality. On Sunday, the chief of security of President Rafael Correa also died of the disease, and today the ministry of health sent 40 doctors to the islands with respirators and antiviral drugs.
Simon Goodman, a conservation geneticist at the University of Leeds, UK, has recently monitored how frequently mosquitoes are introduced to the archipelago on board the twice-daily flights to the Galapagos1. For him, the arrival of swine flu highlights just how hard it is seal the islands off from the rest of the world. "The previous geographic isolation of Galapagos is completely eroded now," he says.
There is one consolation: the H1N1 swine flu strain is extremely unlikely to affect any of the native fauna for which the Galapagos are famous, says Kristien Van Reeth, an animal virologist at Ghent University in Belgium. "So far, the infectivity of the [swine flu] virus has only been confirmed for pigs, humans, ferrets and macaques."
In the unlikely event that the virus did break out from the human population in the Galapagos, it would find it easier to spread to another mammal, says Van Reeth. So, she says, swine flu is not something that should concern the reptiles and birds that dominate Galapagos life. "I have never heard of reptiles with influenza."
References
1.Bataille, A. et al. Proc. R. Soc. B published online. doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.0998 (2009).
[naturenews]
Published online 8 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/461153a
News
Cash crisis could ground NASA rocket
Crewed missions to the Moon are under threat, warns an expert panel.
By Eric Hand
A committee of aerospace engineers and scientists was poised to deliver its grim assessment of NASA's human space-flight programme to US President Barack Obama on 8 September. The panel's report will outline the stark choices Obama will face, which could include cancelling a new system of Moon-bound rockets and all but giving up on exploring space beyond the low Earth orbit of the International Space Station (ISS).
"The bottom line is, they concluded that there's not enough money in the current budget to do anything useful in human space flight," says Marcia Smith, president of the Space and Technology Policy Group, a consultancy based in Arlington, Virginia, and former director of the Space Studies Board at the US National Research Council.
In May, Obama ordered the committee to review the current space policy set by former president George W. Bush, with its "vision" of building a Moon base as a prelude to sending people to Mars. The committee was tasked with assessing new scenarios — including using the ISS past its scheduled de-orbit in 2016 — while keeping to strict budget guidelines. Led by former aerospace executive Norman Augustine, the ten-member committee has not yet released its report, but public discussions this summer have made some of the options clear.
Given the budget constraints, the choices weren't pretty. In Obama's 2010 budget request, NASA's exploration programme, known as Constellation, would receive about US$6 billion per year — about $1 billion less than Bush asked for in his 2009 budget, and several billion less than what was slated in previous budgets (see chart). "The Bush budget stressed the system, but the Obama budget, if left as is, breaks it," says Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington DC. One analysis by the committee showed that if the current plan and budget are kept, astronauts won't even leave low Earth orbit until 2028.
So the panel looked at alternatives, narrowing down some 3,000 permutations to just a handful for presidential digestion. In several scenarios, the Ares I rocket — one of two needed to take cargo and astronauts to the Moon — would be cancelled. Instead, money would be poured into commercial space companies, such as Space Exploration Technologies of Hawthorne, California, and Orbital Sciences in Dulles, Virginia, which are already trying to build rockets to take cargo to the ISS. But the committee also seems inclined to support commercial rockets that could ferry people into space, says Smith.
Former NASA administrator Michael Griffin says there are risks not just in making a crewed commercial rocket a reality, but also in ceding the capability for space travel — traditionally held by the US government — to the private sector. "I am not a fan of attempts to rely on such a capability before it actually exists," says Griffin, now a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He says he would also be disappointed if Ares I were cancelled, not so much for the $6 billion that has already been spent on the rocket and its Orion crew capsule, but because he still believes that Ares I is the cheapest way to get past low Earth orbit when paired with its heavy-lift launch companion Ares V. The system, he says, "has the sole failure of costing more than President Obama was willing to provide in the budget".
The committee found that extensive human exploration of the Moon and a direct trip to Mars are not feasible. With a little budgetary leeway, and with the Ares I money put into developing an alternative heavy-lift rocket, the committee determined that there could eventually be a 'deep space' option. Such possibilities could include visits to asteroids, flybys of the Moon and planets, and trips to Lagrangian points — the gravity wells in the Earth–Sun system where some telescopes are situated.
The committee found many ways to extend the operations of the ISS to 2020 in order to satisfy international agreements. What is not obvious is whether, after spending $2.5 billion a year to service the ISS in coming years, there would be money for much else. "I dislike pretending that we have goals that are far-reaching and frontier-oriented when we're not willing to set aside money to achieve them," says Griffin.
Obama's 2010 budget guidance did include the caveat that additional money could be requested for the programme pending the Augustine committee's report. Congress, which is working to set those spending figures this autumn, has scheduled hearings on the report for mid-September. So although the committee's job will soon be over, some tough decisions — whether to argue for more money, or to accept a more limited programme — are still in store. "The more difficult job is going to be on the president's desk," says Smith.
[naturenews]
Published online 8 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.889
News
First swine flu death on the Galapagos
Spread of virus shows islands no longer in evolutionary isolation.
Henry Nicholls
Swine flu has reached the Galapagos Islands, and the first human fatality there has caused widespread alarm, threatening to undermine a booming tourist industry — mixed news for conservation efforts on the Ecuadorian archipelago.
Since the middle of August, when the first case of pandemic H1N1 influenza on the Galapagos was confirmed, the population of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz — the island with the biggest human population — has been on high alert.
Bars and nightclubs along the main strip were among the first businesses to close and for almost two weeks all activities in the town's schools, colleges and universities were suspended in an effort to prevent further spread of the disease.
In spite of these measures, the virus caused its first death on the islands when a 29-year-old man with swine flu died of a heart attack on 28 August.
"The major problem in Galapagos is that we don't have the hospitals and the doctors to help," says Jaime Navas, a natural history guide and friend of the deceased.
"If you get into trouble over there, there is no chance to get out."
Mainland flight
This fear has led Navas to move his young family from the islands to the city of Guayaquil on the coast of mainland Ecuador, where the hospitals are better equipped to deal with swine flu.
"There are a lot of people [with similar concerns] that have come to the mainland over the last two weeks," he says.
The governor of the islands, Jorge Torres, and the director of the Galapagos National Park, Edgar Muñoz, have both been quoted in recent news reports claiming that swine flu is unlikely to affect the buoyant tourism industry.
But Navas is not so sure. Tourists are thinking twice about coming and residents are thinking hard about leaving, he says. "This is a serious thing for Galapagos."
Tourism is a mixed blessing for the Galapagos. It generates wealth but this fuels expansion of the human population, placing ever-increasing pressure on the islands' fragile ecosystems.
Viral defences
Earlier this year, on 28 April, Muñoz and other local officials agreed on several protective measures, including mandatory use of gloves and masks by everyone working at ports and airports.
The most recent report from the Ecuadorian ministry of health, issued on 28 August, said there had been 1,001 confirmed cases of swine flu in the country, 16 of them in the Galapagos. There were 44 deaths throughout Ecuador, not including the Galapagos fatality. On Sunday, the chief of security of President Rafael Correa also died of the disease, and today the ministry of health sent 40 doctors to the islands with respirators and antiviral drugs.
Simon Goodman, a conservation geneticist at the University of Leeds, UK, has recently monitored how frequently mosquitoes are introduced to the archipelago on board the twice-daily flights to the Galapagos1. For him, the arrival of swine flu highlights just how hard it is seal the islands off from the rest of the world. "The previous geographic isolation of Galapagos is completely eroded now," he says.
There is one consolation: the H1N1 swine flu strain is extremely unlikely to affect any of the native fauna for which the Galapagos are famous, says Kristien Van Reeth, an animal virologist at Ghent University in Belgium. "So far, the infectivity of the [swine flu] virus has only been confirmed for pigs, humans, ferrets and macaques."
In the unlikely event that the virus did break out from the human population in the Galapagos, it would find it easier to spread to another mammal, says Van Reeth. So, she says, swine flu is not something that should concern the reptiles and birds that dominate Galapagos life. "I have never heard of reptiles with influenza."
References
1.Bataille, A. et al. Proc. R. Soc. B published online. doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.0998 (2009).
[naturenews]
Published online 8 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/461153a
News
Cash crisis could ground NASA rocket
Crewed missions to the Moon are under threat, warns an expert panel.
By Eric Hand
A committee of aerospace engineers and scientists was poised to deliver its grim assessment of NASA's human space-flight programme to US President Barack Obama on 8 September. The panel's report will outline the stark choices Obama will face, which could include cancelling a new system of Moon-bound rockets and all but giving up on exploring space beyond the low Earth orbit of the International Space Station (ISS).
"The bottom line is, they concluded that there's not enough money in the current budget to do anything useful in human space flight," says Marcia Smith, president of the Space and Technology Policy Group, a consultancy based in Arlington, Virginia, and former director of the Space Studies Board at the US National Research Council.
In May, Obama ordered the committee to review the current space policy set by former president George W. Bush, with its "vision" of building a Moon base as a prelude to sending people to Mars. The committee was tasked with assessing new scenarios — including using the ISS past its scheduled de-orbit in 2016 — while keeping to strict budget guidelines. Led by former aerospace executive Norman Augustine, the ten-member committee has not yet released its report, but public discussions this summer have made some of the options clear.
Given the budget constraints, the choices weren't pretty. In Obama's 2010 budget request, NASA's exploration programme, known as Constellation, would receive about US$6 billion per year — about $1 billion less than Bush asked for in his 2009 budget, and several billion less than what was slated in previous budgets (see chart). "The Bush budget stressed the system, but the Obama budget, if left as is, breaks it," says Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington DC. One analysis by the committee showed that if the current plan and budget are kept, astronauts won't even leave low Earth orbit until 2028.
So the panel looked at alternatives, narrowing down some 3,000 permutations to just a handful for presidential digestion. In several scenarios, the Ares I rocket — one of two needed to take cargo and astronauts to the Moon — would be cancelled. Instead, money would be poured into commercial space companies, such as Space Exploration Technologies of Hawthorne, California, and Orbital Sciences in Dulles, Virginia, which are already trying to build rockets to take cargo to the ISS. But the committee also seems inclined to support commercial rockets that could ferry people into space, says Smith.
Former NASA administrator Michael Griffin says there are risks not just in making a crewed commercial rocket a reality, but also in ceding the capability for space travel — traditionally held by the US government — to the private sector. "I am not a fan of attempts to rely on such a capability before it actually exists," says Griffin, now a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He says he would also be disappointed if Ares I were cancelled, not so much for the $6 billion that has already been spent on the rocket and its Orion crew capsule, but because he still believes that Ares I is the cheapest way to get past low Earth orbit when paired with its heavy-lift launch companion Ares V. The system, he says, "has the sole failure of costing more than President Obama was willing to provide in the budget".
The committee found that extensive human exploration of the Moon and a direct trip to Mars are not feasible. With a little budgetary leeway, and with the Ares I money put into developing an alternative heavy-lift rocket, the committee determined that there could eventually be a 'deep space' option. Such possibilities could include visits to asteroids, flybys of the Moon and planets, and trips to Lagrangian points — the gravity wells in the Earth–Sun system where some telescopes are situated.
The committee found many ways to extend the operations of the ISS to 2020 in order to satisfy international agreements. What is not obvious is whether, after spending $2.5 billion a year to service the ISS in coming years, there would be money for much else. "I dislike pretending that we have goals that are far-reaching and frontier-oriented when we're not willing to set aside money to achieve them," says Griffin.
Obama's 2010 budget guidance did include the caveat that additional money could be requested for the programme pending the Augustine committee's report. Congress, which is working to set those spending figures this autumn, has scheduled hearings on the report for mid-September. So although the committee's job will soon be over, some tough decisions — whether to argue for more money, or to accept a more limited programme — are still in store. "The more difficult job is going to be on the president's desk," says Smith.
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