This is by far one of my favorite interactive graphics. It comes from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation. If I could embed the graphic in this post, I most certainly would.
If you haven’t done so yet, check out the informational video above.
This was originally posted at my Scientific American blog.
Some of you may have noticed that my recent social media posts have originated from Abu Dhabi in the UAE. I am here for the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, the largest gathering on sustainability in the Middle East.
This week is jam packed with numerous interesting tours, panels, press conferences and activities of which I will share more about in future posts. Tonight, however, I was in attendance at a very special presentation celebrating innovations in technology from all over the world, held at the glamorous Emirates Palace Hotel
The Zayed Future Energy Prize embodies the vision of the late founding father of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan who laid the foundation for renewable energy and sustainability as part of his legacy in pioneering sustainable development in the UAE. An annual award, the Prize is managed by Masdar, on behalf of the Abu Dhabi government and seeks to award achievements and innovation in the fields of renewable energy and sustainability, as well as to educate and inspire future generations.
This article was originally published by Scientific American
Unless you’ve been distanced from the news and the internet, you have heard that tuberculosis has become increasingly drug resistant and is resurging in many areas of the world and this is much more than a minor inconvenience.
Kari Stoever, the Vice President of External Affairs at Aeras – a global nonprofit biotech advancing TB vaccines for the world, has put together a team to create an educational series of videos, which are available in its entirety for screenings, to raise awareness about the re-emerging infectiousness and virulence of pulmonary TB across the world.
This was originally published at Scientific American
Just a few weeks ago, I flew into India to join other new media specialists and journalists with the International Reporting Project to examine issues of child survival and health. (Before I continue, I simply must extend thanks to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for providing a portion of the IRP funding to make this trip possible, the School of Integrative Biology at UIUC for supporting my participation in the project and GoPro Cameras for outfitting me with a Hero3 for documentation purposes.)
I have talked to many many people who have experienced India, I’ve read numerous books (fiction and non-fiction), and watched many documentaries, TV shows, and fictional movies about India, but knew that the experience of visiting would be something valuable. I was warned of the approximately “five people per square foot” population density in Mumbai, of the smell–a persistent sewer/trash odor, the pollution, the noise, the dogs, cattle, and goats, and the widespread extreme poverty. I discovered that the southern port city of India in Maharashtra State where we first landed, formerly known as Bombay, to be all that and even more. It was humid and warm during our visit, but actually in a relatively cool and dry streak, at least for India. The city, as I was exaggeratively informed by John Schidlovsky, founder and director of the IRP, “was built on mold” and with my allergy to mold so severe that I carry an epipen, I found myself taking more than the recommended dose of allergy meds just to breathe, each day grateful it wasn’t the rainy season. Thankfully, we eventually traveled north to cooler, drier, and less moldy climes to a rural area outside Nagpur and later to New Delhi.
Throughout most of India, I found myself delighted at the fact that women still wear colorful sarees on a daily basis, not yet succumbing to western trends, and impressed that men and boys generally wear button-down shirts, slacks, and nice shoes everyday, no matter their income level or age (try convincing a young boy to do that in America day to day–no way!)
<–Niramaya Health FoundationIf you have seen the movie “Slumdog Millionaire”, it begins in Mumbai, in one of the largest slums located near the airport and situated right at the largest dumping ground in India. This area was our first stop in order to visit the Niramaya project drop-in health center. We toured the slums and received an overview of healthcare and educational awareness work Niramaya does in the community.
Malnutrition and Sanitation
What if children seem to have enough of the appropriate nutritive food, yet still exhibit signs of malnutrition? Could there be something else going on here? Indeed. In the past few years, scientist have discovered a phenomenon called ENVIRONMENTAL ENTEROPATHY which is caused by prolonged exposure to food and water contaminated with feces.
Environmental enteropathy, (EE) also known as gut dysfunction, affects up to 50% of children in the developing world, and causes no overt symptoms or signs in children.
Part 1: The Science of Nutrition and Malnutrition.
Today’s post is number three in the run-up to my International Reporting Project trip to India where I will be part of a team of 10 journalists covering the topic of child survival. First, I addressed Infectious Diseases, then Vaccinations. Today, we will look at Malnutrition. What is the state of malnutrition in India? How has scientific understanding of what good nourishment means helped us work on the malnourishment issue particularly in developing nations? Can science put an end to world hunger? How are sanitation and hygiene related to malnutrition?
Before we go on, let’s define a few terms so there is no confusion:
Developing countries generally wait an average of 20 years between when a vaccine is licensed in industrialized countries and when it is available for their own populations. Economic, infrastructural and scientific hurdles all contribute to this long delay. The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) is a partnership between many public and private organization, including UNICEF, WHO, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, members of the vaccine industry and NGOs. GAVI was formed in 1999 to address the long delay between vaccine availability in industrialized countries and developing countries. Scientific advances that would help make more vaccines available in developing countries include the development of temperature stable vaccines, development of vaccines that required less than three doses to immunize and the development of needle free methods to administer vaccines.
In 2008, WHO estimated that 1.5 million of deaths among children under 5 years were due to diseases that could have been prevented by routine vaccination. This represents 17% of global total mortality in children under 5 years of age.
Hygiene, proper nourishment and sanitary conditions make for a healthy community, with lowered incidence of infectious disease, but since much of this is lacking in developing countries, vaccination is very helpful to giving the immune system a boost.
We can thank scientists, physicians and engineers for their work in understanding the immune system and how to make it work for us against disease by using vaccinations.
Inside the International Space Station Control Room
I have attended a few NASA events, including the last shuttle launch and the launch of MAVEN. I visited Johnson Space Center in May 2013, tweeting images and thoughts from my visit. The image above was seen by Jennifer Welsh at Business Insider and included in a post, with my permission.
“Joanne Manaster, a biologist at the University of Illinois-Urbana, tweeted this image of the mission control room that runs the International Space Station.
In the picture, you can see a video link into the station, the video feed from an outer camera on the station, and the station’s route, which you can also find online. Look at all those screens — four each!
You can see the Flight Director, who monitors the technical aspects of the space station’s flight in real time; the CAPCOM, who is the capsule communicator that talks directly to the astronauts on the space station; and the MOD, the mission operations dictorate, who plans, directs, manages, and implements overall mission operations.“
I also saw a retired Soyuz capsule, a mock up of the International Space Station used to train astronauts and some mock-ups of the new Orion capsule that will be our next vehicle to take humans back and forth to space, and with any luck, they will also go to Mars.
If you ever have an opportunity to go to a NASA Social, I highly recommend giving it a chance. It will help you look at our space program with a more informed eye, and every space news story will come alive in your mind.
10 years ago Social Media, Space, Travel, Uncategorized • Tags: Business Insider, Control Room, Houston, International Space Station, ISS, Joanne Manaster, Johnson Space Center, NASA, NASA Social, Orion