Thursday, October 27, 2011

Freezing Turkish quake survivors loot aid trucks

Survivors of Turkey's devastating earthquake have reportedly begun looting aid supplies as authorities struggle to provide shelter and food for the tens of thousands left homeless. 17 aid trucks belonging to the Turkish Red Crescent have been looted in quake-hit eastern Turkey. As night-time temperatures drop to below zero and snow was forecast to fall overnight, authorities are in a race against time to provide some form of shelter for the thousands of people who face another night out in the open. People are desperate to look after themselves and their loved ones and will do whatever it takes to survive.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Things are getting worse in Greece.

Greek riot police have fired tear gas and fought running battles with protesters, amid a 48-hour general strike that has paralysed the country. Protesters hurled petrol bombs and stones at the police, as a march by tens of thousands of people in central Athens turned violent.

I have said before that I believe Zombies really do exist. Just not in the Hollywood brain eating form we think of. Any kind of disaster can create Zombies. In this case its an economic disaster. Tens of thousands of desperate, scared, angry, frustrated people with no real plan roaming the streets venting their emotions on other people.

And it could happen here.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Black Death Is 'Grandmother' of All Modern Plagues

I was just reading about the new genetic research that indicates the bacterium blamed for the Black Death, a bug that wiped out more than a third of Europe's population within about five years. Looks an awful lot like the modern versions of the plague-causing bug. And I was struck by the thought that perhaps we need to be very careful about messing around with this kind of stuff in a laboratory.

While I am not saying that these scientists are doing any thing that is dangerous. They are only looking at DNA. It makes the Mad Scientist in me think about all kinds of nasty things that could come out of such knowledge. Then again. That's always the price we pay for knowledge.

It also makes one think about how horrendous it must have been for the people of Europe at that time. Its hard to contemplate the effect of a third of the population dying. If it were to happen today it would devastate the economy. In fact it could conceivably destroy our entire civilization.

Scary thought.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Seedbank Vaults Hedge Against Apocalypse

In times of accelerating climate change, extinction threats and the commodification of genetic resources by agribusiness, the sealed, and concealed, activities of seed-saving operations across the globe.

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