Swine Flu News-Farmers fear pigs may get "swine" flu from people

KANSAS CITY (Reuters) – Humans have it. Pigs don't. At least not yet, and U.S. pork producers are doing everything they can to make sure that the new H1N1 virus, known around the world as the "swine flu," stays out of their herds.

"That is the biggest concern, that your herd could somehow contract this illness from an infected person," said Kansas hog farmer Ron Suther, who is banning visitors from his sow barns and requiring maintenance workers, delivery men and other strangers to report on recent travels and any illness before they step foot on his property.

"If a person is sick, we don't want you coming anywhere on the farm," Suther said.

Those sentiments were echoed by producers around the nation this week as fears of a possible global flu pandemic grew, with more than 200 people sickened, including more than 100 in the United States, and at least 177 dead, all but one in Mexico.

"There is no evidence of this new strain being in our pig populations in the United States. And our concern very much is we don't want a sick human to come into our barns and transmit this new virus to our pigs," said National Pork Producers chief veterinarian Jennifer Greiner.

"If humans give it to pigs, we don't have things like Tamiflu for pigs. We don't have antivirals. We have no treatment other than to give them aspirin," said Greiner.

The World Health Organization on Thursday officially declared it would stop calling the new strain of flu "swine flu," because no pigs in any country have been determined to have the illness and the origination of the strain has not been determined.

The never-before-seen H1N1 flu virus has elements of swine, avian and human varieties.

PIGS BEHIND SECURITY FENCES

Still, U.S. hog farmers said flu fears have hit them hard in the wallet as hog prices plummeted this week in response. Many countries reacted to the outbreak earlier this week by banning pork or meat from U.S. states that have human cases of the flu. And Egypt ordered the slaughter of all pigs in the country as a precaution.

U.S. hog producers have already been struggling financially for more than a year due to poor prices and high feed costs. If the new flu strain does hit their herds, it could spur further price declines, and could potentially spread broadly through herds.

To try to protect against such a scenario, industry groups and veterinarians this week warned farmers to step up their biosafety protocols, keeping pigs in barns behind security fences with access by any outsiders extremely limited.

Purdue University veterinarian Sandy Amass said farmers should keep an eye on pigs for "coughing, runny nose, fever and a reduction in feed intake," and to have the animals tested immediately if they exhibit such flu symptoms.

"Pigs get flu just like people get flu," Amass said. "We're want to do everything possible so the pigs don't get infected."

For Carroll, Iowa, producer Craig Rowles that means if any of his workers feel sick, they are ordered to take time off work -- paid -- to keep them away from the pigs.

"It's a real issue," Rowles said. "If the pigs get it, there isn't much we can do. Water, aspirin, and bed rest, that's all we've got."

(Reporting by Carey Gillam; additional reporting by Bob Burgdorfer in Chicago, Editing by Sandra Maler)

Odd News:New atom-smasher generates hope, fear, may open black hole!

Europe’s enormous $8-billion particle accelerator, to be activated as early as this summer, is generating both excitement and fear.

By John Johnson Jr.

Michelangelo L. Mangano, a respected particle physicist who helped discover the top quark in 1995, now spends most days trying to convince people that his new machine won’t destroy the world.

“If it were just crackpots, we could wave them away,” the physicist said in an interview at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French acronym, CERN. “But some are real physicists.”

What the critics are in such a lather about is the $8-billion Large Hadron Collider, a massive assemblage of iron, steel and superconducting wire 300 feet underground in a 17-mile-long circular tunnel on the Franco-Swiss border.

The most complex piece of scientific equipment ever built, the collider will send particles crashing into each other at just a wink shy of the speed of light, generating energies more powerful than the sun.

Scientists like Mangano believe that this instrument, when it begins operating as early as this summer, will peer into a looking-glass world that could contain entrances to extra dimensions and super-massive partners of the familiar particles that make up our world. One creature that must be hiding there, the scientists say, is the Higgs particle, one of the most exotic undiscovered objects since the yeti.



Critics think the collider could also spawn a black hole that will swallow Earth.
LaTimes

Stupid News - Friday the 13th is said to be an unlucky day

Stupid News - Friday the 13th is said to be an unlucky day

The modern reason for this is said to come from Friday October the 13th, 1307. On this date, the Pope of the church in Rome in conjunction with the King of France, carried out a secret death warrant Against "the Knights Templar". The Templars were terminated as heretics, never again to hold the power that they had held for so long. There Grand Master, Jacques DeMolay, was arrested and before he was killed, was tortured and crucified.

There are however many other stories behind it, some true and some urban legends.

Superstitions about Friday being lucky or unlucky day have existed since ancient times.

The number 13 has been considered unlucky for a long time. Early Romans thought 13 was a sign of death and destruction.

The fear of the number 13 is called triskaidekaphobia.

Coupling the number 13 and a Friday is sometimes considered very bad luck. Lucky for us there are a maximum of three Friday the 13th in one year.

Fascinating Facts about Friday the 13th

In French Lick Springs, Indiana, a law was once passed requiring all black cats to wear bells.
Greek philosophers called 13 an 'imperfect' number.
Friday was the common day for people to be hanged in the past.
Hangmen were once paid thirteen pence halfpenny.
Some Texans say never to cut any kind of garment on a Friday because it will not be completed.
Many hotels have no room number 13
Many buildings do not have a 13th floor.
Many airplanes do not have a 13th row.
Many ships will not start a voyage on the 13th, particularly, Friday the 13th.

Stupid News - Friday The 13th ! ooooh!

Friday the 13th Phobia Rooted in Ancient HistoryJohn Roach
for National Geographic News

Updated August 12, 2004
This Friday some people will be so paralyzed with fear they simply won't get out of bed. Others will steadfastly refuse to fly on an airplane, buy a house, or act on a hot stock tip. It's Friday the 13th, and they're freaked out.

"It's been estimated that [U.S] $800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day because people will not fly or do business they would normally do," said Donald Dossey, founder of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina.

Among other services, Dossey's organization counsels clients on how to overcome fear of Friday the 13th, a phobia that he estimates afflicts 17 to 21 million people in the United States.

Symptoms range from mild anxiety to full-blown panic attacks. The latter may cause people to reshuffle schedules or miss an entire day's work.

When it comes to bad luck of any kind, Richard Wiseman—a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, England—found that people who consider themselves unlucky are more likely to believe in superstitions associated with bad luck.

"Their beliefs and behavior are likely to be part of a much bigger worldview," he said. "They will believe that luck is a magical force and that it can ruin their lives."

Wiseman found that one quarter of the 2,068 people questioned in a 2003 survey associate the number 13 with bad luck. People with such feelings, he found, are more likely to be anxious on days like Friday the 13th and thus more prone to have accidents. In other words, being afraid of Friday the 13th could be their undoing.

Ominous Number

So how did Friday the 13th become such an unlucky day?

Dossey, also a folklore historian and author of Holiday Folklore, Phobias and Fun, said fear of Friday the 13th is rooted in ancient, separate bad-luck associations with the number 13 and the day Friday. The two unlucky entities ultimately combined to make one super unlucky day.

Dossey traces the fear of 13 to a Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party at Valhalla, their heaven. In walked the uninvited 13th guest, the mischievous Loki. Once there, Loki arranged for Hoder, the blind god of darkness, to shoot Balder the Beautiful, the god of joy and gladness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow.

"Balder died and the whole Earth got dark. The whole Earth mourned. It was a bad, unlucky day," said Dossey. From that moment on, the number 13 has been considered ominous and foreboding.

There is also a biblical reference to the unlucky number 13. Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th guest to the Last Supper.

Meanwhile, in ancient Rome, witches reportedly gathered in groups of 12. The 13th was believed to be the devil.
Thomas Fernsler, an associate policy scientist in the Mathematics and Science Education Resource Center at the University of Delaware in Newark, said the number 13 suffers because of its position after 12.

According to Fernsler, numerologists consider 12 a "complete" number. There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Jesus.

In exceeding 12 by 1, Fernsler said 13's association with bad luck "has to do with just being a little beyond completeness. The number becomes restless or squirmy."

This fear of 13 is strong in today's world. According to Dossey, more than 80 percent of high-rises lack a 13th floor. Many airports skip the 13th gate. Hospitals and hotels regularly have no room number 13.

On streets in Florence, Italy, the house between number 12 and 14 is addressed as 12 and a half. In France socialites known as the quatorziens (fourteeners) once made themselves available as 14th guests to keep a dinner party from an unlucky fate.

Many triskaidekaphobes, as those who fear the unlucky integer are known, point to the ill-fated mission to the moon, Apollo 13.

As for Friday, it is well known among Christians as the day Jesus was crucified. Some biblical scholars believe Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit on Friday. Perhaps most significant is a belief that Abel was slain by Cain on Friday the 13th.

Phobia Cures

So, what are triskaidekaphobes to do?

Dossey said "practical" cures are as simple as learning to refocus one's thoughts from negative feelings to positive. His mantra: "What you think about, you begin to feel. What you feel generates what you do. And what you do creates how you will become."

In other words, those stricken with negative thoughts about Friday the 13th need to learn how to focus on pleasant thoughts. Those, in turn, will create pleasant feelings that make one's fears less overwhelming, according to Dossey.

"They haven't lost their mind. They've lost control of their mind," Dossey said of triskaidekaphobes. "They are focused in the wrong direction. In their mind they have a big, large, looming picture of something horrible that could happen."

Wiseman, the University of Hertfordshire psychologist, offers similar advice to those stricken with the fear of Friday the 13th.

"They need to realize that they have the ability to create much of their own good and bad luck," he said. "And they should concentrate on being lucky by, for example, looking on the bright side of events in their lives, remembering the good things that have happened, and, most of all, be[ing] prepared to take control of their future."

Folklore offers other remedies, however. One recommendation is to climb to the top of a mountain or skyscraper and burn all the socks you own that have holes in them. Another is to stand on your head and eat a piece of gristle.

So if you fear the 13th, take your pick of remedies and let tomorrow bring its luck—good or bad.