A factory that manufactures vaccines and drugs to protect soldiers from chemical and biological attacks has opened in north Florida. The Gainesville Sun reports (http://bit.ly/2hjSIIu ) that Department of Defense and other federal officials attended a ribbon cutting ceremony on Wednesday for the new $138 million, 183-square-foot Nanotherapeutics plant in Alachua. Deputy Assistant Secretary of…
Pfizer Fined for Hiking Epilepsy Drug Price 2,600% in UK
British regulators fined U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and distributor Flynn Pharma a record 89.4 million pounds ($112.7 million) Wednesday for increasing the cost of an epilepsy drug by as much as 2,600 percent. Pfizer and Flynn Pharma charged “excessive and unfair prices” for the drug used by 48,000 people in Britain, the Competition and Markets Authority…
Spread by Trade & Climate, Bugs Butcher America’s Forests
The scourge of insect pests is expected to put almost two-thirds of America’s forests at risk over the next decade. The problem is projected to cost several billion dollars every year for dead tree removal and jeopardize longstanding U.S. industries that rely on timber. Forests from New England to the West Coast are jeopardized by…
Stopgap Spending Bill to Be Unveiled as Congress Finishes Up
Congress is quickening its pace toward adjourning late this week, marching toward a final vote on legislation boosting medical research and speeding drug approvals and readying a separate stopgap spending bill to prevent the government from shutting down this weekend. The temporary budget bill, scheduled to be unveiled Tuesday, would keep federal agencies functioning into…
The Latest: NTSB Blames Crew Fatigue for Fatal Train Crash
The Latest on a hearing into the cause of a 2014 train collision in northern Arkansas that killed two Union Pacific employees (all times local): 11:35 a.m. The National Transportation Safety Board is blaming crew fatigue for a 2014 train crash that killed two Union Pacific workers in Arkansas. They also cited an automatic horn…
Study: Warming to Trigger 3 Times as Many Downpours in U.S.
Extreme downpours — like those that flooded Louisiana, Houston and West Virginia earlier this year — will happen nearly three times as often in the United States by the end of the century, and six times more frequently in parts of the Mississippi Delta, according to a new study. Scientists have long pointed out that…
UN: Dairy Potential Ally in Asia Nutrition Challenges
A U.N. report says Asia has halved hunger rates in the past quarter century, but because of westernized lifestyles, obesity is skyrocketing and people aren’t getting enough vitamins and minerals. A key ally in combatting this challenge may be dairy. Though processed food is transforming the Asian diet, so too is milk, which is nutritious,…
Researchers Grow Protective Biological Soil Crusts
In a greenhouse at Northern Arizona University, a professor is researching an oft-overlooked ecological field that could play an important role in preventing erosion and helping plants grow. Soil ecologist Matthew Bowker is growing mosses, lichens and cyanobacteria that make up protective biological soil crusts found on the Colorado Plateau, the Arizona Daily Sun reported…
New Hampshire Looks for Answers Behind Oyster Outbreaks
For the past 25 years, researcher Stephen Jones has tried to understand the threat that bacteria may pose to oysters in New Hampshire’s Great Bay estuary. He often couldn’t get funding to study the problem. But that is beginning to change as scientists notice “something is going on.” Scientists are recognizing that a waterborne disease…
EU: On Track to Meet 2020 Targets on Renewables, Emissions
The European Environment Agency says EU members “are collectively well on their way” to meeting 2020 targets on renewables, energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions. The Copenhagen-based agency says that despite a slight energy consumption increase in 2015, the bloc in recent years had lowered its energy consumption and was increasingly using renewable energy. The EEA…
After New Regulations, Oklahoma’s Shakes Calm Down a Bit
An Associated Press statistical analysis shows a dramatic drop in Oklahoma earthquakes since late May, when the state limited wastewater injections into energy wells. And a new study says the state is on its way back to calmer times that prevailed before a huge jump in man-made earthquakes. In parts of Oklahoma, the state ordered…
Invasive Strep Outbreak Claims Lives of 4 Alaskans
Four Alaskans have died this year in an outbreak of invasive strep bacteria that has mostly affected the homeless and Alaska Natives in the state’s two largest cities, State epidemiologist Joe McLaughlin said Tuesday. There have been 28 confirmed hospitalization cases of a new strain of Group A Streptococcus bacteria, starting with 10 cases in…
Science Panel Urges Rewrite of Food Allergy Warning Labels
“Made in the same factory as peanuts.” ”May contain traces of tree nuts.” A new report says the hodgepodge of warnings that a food might accidentally contain a troublesome ingredient is confusing to people with food allergies, and calls for a makeover. Foods made with allergy-prone ingredients such as peanuts or eggs must be labeled…
GOP Prepares for House Vote on Medical Research Bill
Republicans and Democrats put finishing touches Tuesday on a $6.3 billion medical research bill as GOP leaders prepared to try pushing the measure through the lame-duck Congress by next week. While Democrats and consumer groups were unhappy with parts of the legislation, it contained enough accomplishments for both sides that passage seemed likely. Government drug…
9th Washington State Polio-Like Case Confirmed
Health officials say a boy in Spokane County is the ninth person in Washington with a confirmed case of a rare syndrome that causes varying degrees of paralysis. Multiple news outlets reported Tuesday that the boy under age 10 has acute flaccid myelitis, also known as AFM. The syndrome affects the spinal cord, resulting in…
California Targets Dairy Cows to Combat Global Warming
California is taking its fight against global warming to the farm. The nation’s leading agricultural state is now targeting greenhouse gases produced by dairy cows and other livestock. Despite strong opposition from farmers, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation in September that for the first time regulates heat-trapping gases from livestock operations and landfills. Cattle and…
Alaska Biologists Research Mystery of Declining Caribou Herd
The size of a large caribou herd in Alaska’s Arctic region has dropped by more than 50 percent over the last three years, and researchers who have tentatively ruled out hunting and predation as significant factors for the decline are trying to determine why. The state’s Central Arctic herd, which roams an area of north-central…
Great Barrier Reef Sees Record Coral Deaths this Year
Warming oceans this year have caused the largest die-off of corals ever recorded on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, scientists said Tuesday. The worst-affected area is a 700-kilometer (400-mile) swath in the north of the World Heritage-listed 2,300-kilometer (1,400-mile) chain of reefs off Australia’s northeast coast, said the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral…
Denmark Urged to Clean up U.S. Military Waste in Greenland
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Greenland is calling on Denmark to clean up an abandoned under-ice missile project and other U.S. military installations left to rust in the pristine landscape after the Cold War. The 1951 deal under which NATO member Denmark allowed the U.S. to build 33 bases and radar stations in the former Danish…
High Court to Examine Mental Disability, Death Penalty Issue
The U.S. Supreme Court is set to examine whether the nation’s busiest state for capital punishment is trying to put to death a convicted killer who’s intellectually disabled, which would make him ineligible for execution under the court’s current guidance. Lawyers for prisoner Bobby James Moore, 57, contend that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals,…
16 Treated for Carbon Monoxide Poisoning in North Carolina
Emergency officials say 16 people in North Carolina have been treated for carbon monoxide poisoning after spending time in the same house. Local media reported four people went to the emergency department at Novant Health Rowan Medical Center in Salisbury late Tuesday afternoon, complaining of dizziness and other symptoms. The Salisbury Fire Department went to…
In a Pond Called Wreck, a New Creation Helps Fish Breed
For years, the conflicting goals of protecting the environment and some of the Jersey shore’s priciest real estate from storms have bedeviled New Jersey’s Wreck Pond. Storms sometimes open a channel between the 48-acre tidal pond and the ocean, but governments keep sealing it shut to protect homes from flooding. The result has been poor…
Grounded Whale off the Coast of Long Island Remains Stuck
Officials say attempts to free a large, 25-foot humpback whale that has become grounded on a sandbar off the coast of Long Island have been unsuccessful. The whale, which is estimated to weigh between 15 and 20 tons, got stuck in Moriches (moh-RIH’-chihs) Bay over the weekend. Officials believe the whale is the same humpback…
Get Used to Heat Records; Study Predicts Far More in Future
The United States is already setting twice as many daily heat records as cold records, but a new study predicts that will get a lot more lopsided as man-made climate change worsens. Under normal conditions, without extra heat-trapping gases from human activity, the nation should set about the same number of hot and cold records…
Sabra Recalls Hummus Amid Listeria Contamination Fears
Some varieties of Sabra hummus are being recalled amid concerns over possible listeria contamination. The Food and Drug Administration says the voluntary recall announced by Sabra Dipping Company includes hummus products with a “Best Before” date of Jan. 23, 2017, or earlier. The products were sent to retailers in the U.S. and Canada. The FDA…