FIDDLING WHILE ROME BURNS

Are a majority of we humans fiddling while Rome burns?  Don't know the meaning to this phrase? Read on. 

The definition in broad terms is: To occupy oneself with unimportant matters and neglect priorities during a crisis.

What's the origin of the phrase 'Fiddling while Rome burns'?

The source of this phrase is the supposed story that Nero played the fiddle (violin) while Rome burned, during the great fire in AD 64. However, there are two major flaws with the story. Firstly, there was no such instrument as the fiddle (violin) in first century Rome. If Nero played anything during the Rome fire, it was probably the lyre.

Secondly, the story may be completely false and Nero may very well not have neglected his duty at all. Nero died four years later, and we should remember that history is written by the victors. The historian Suetonius records the Nero was responsible for the fire and that he watched it from a tower while playing an instrument and singing about the destruction of Troy. Others record this story merely as a rumour.

By modern-day standards Nero certainly appears a bizarre character, but that doesn't make this story true. Roman scholars differ over interpretations of events surrounding the fire. The rivalries and conflicting accounts, even those in contemporary reports, make the 'fiddling' story uncertain.

In modern times, a majority of us inhabitants of planet Earth are occupying ourselves with trivial matters, neglecting the important issue:GLOBAL WARMING! 

The past five years have been the five warmest since record-keeping began in the late 1800s. The Earth has experienced 42 straight years (since 1977) with an above-average global temperature, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

Based on five separate data sets that keep track of the Earth's climate, the global average temperature for the first 10 months of 2018 was about 1.8 degrees above what it was in the late 1800s. That was when industry started to emit large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Australia experienced record summer heat in January of this year. The town of Port Augusta reached the hottest day since record-keeping began in 1962 with a temperature of 121F or 49.5C.  The heat was so intense it caused bats to fall from trees, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases being released into the atmosphere by industry, transportation and energy production from burning fossil fuels are enhancing what's known as the planet's natural greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide is the most prevalent among all greenhouse gases produced by human activities, attributed to the burning of fossil fuels.

The atmospheric carbon dioxide level for March was 411.97 parts per million and continue to rise. It has now reached levels in the atmosphere not seen in 3 million years.

That's an increase of 46% from just before the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s, when CO2 levels were around 280 parts per million. Levels began to rise when humans began to burn large amounts of fossil fuels to run factories and heat homes, releasing CO2 and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

Scientists say to keep a livable planet, we need to cut the level to 350 parts per million.

A consequence of higher temperatures is the melting of the polar ice caps, which is causing sea levels to rise. The world's oceans have risen about an inch in the past 50 years due to melting glaciers alone, a study published this month in the journal Naturefound.

The Earth's glaciers are now losing up to 390 billion tons of ice and snow per year, the study suggests.  Global warming has caused over 3 trillion tons of ice to melt from Antarctica in the past quarter-century and tripled ice loss there in the past decade, another study, released in June  2018 revealed

Where do we go from here?  Maybe. See the following link. 

https://www.drawdown.org/

Should We Be Worried About Global Warming?

Anthrax Outbreak In Russia Thought To Be Result Of Thawing Permafrost

Russia is fighting a mysterious anthrax outbreak in a remote corner of Siberia. Dozens of people have been hospitalized; one child has died. The government airlifted some families out because more than 2,000 reindeer have been infected.

Officials don't know exactly how the outbreak started, but the current hypothesis is almost unbelievable: A heat wave has thawed the frozen soil there and with it, a reindeer carcass infected with anthrax decades ago.

Some scientists think this incident could be an example of what climate change may increasingly surface in the tundra. The place where the outbreak is occurring is called the Yamal Peninsula. It lies high above the Arctic Circle at the top of the world. It's so cold there, the soil — called permafrost — is frozen solid, more than 1,000 feet deep in some places, or about the height of the Empire State Building.  

"The soil in the Yamal Pennisula is like a giant freezer," says Jean-Michel Claverie at the National Center for Scientific Research in France. "Those are very, very good conditions for bacteria to remain alive for a very long time."

In this case, the bacteria were anthrax, and more than 75 years ago, they killed a reindeer. The carcass got covered in a thin layer of permafrost, Russian officials think. For decades, it lay there frozen. Then this summer, a heat wave hit and a thicker layer of permafrost melted, and the reindeer's carcass rose to the surface, the theory goes. As it warmed up, so did the anthrax.

Russian officials say they're working hard to get the outbreak under control. They're vaccinating reindeer and burning the carcasses of dead animals.

There's likely to be more cases of anthrax resurfacing, says Birgitta Evengard, a microbiologist at Umea University in Sweden. That's because climate change is causing the temperature in the Arctic Circle to rise very quickly.

"It's rising about three times faster in the Arctic than in the rest of the world," she says. "And that means the ice is melting and the permafrost is thawing."

In the early 20th century, there were repeated anthrax outbreaks in Siberia. More than a million reindeer died. Now there are about 7,000 burial grounds with infected carcasses scattered across northern Russia.

"It's not that easy to dig in the permafrost to bury these animals," Evengard says. "So they are kind of very close to the surface."

That means anthrax outbreaks in Siberia could occur every summer, she says. And it's not just anthrax that could be a problem.

People and animals have been buried in permafrost for centuries. There could be bodies infected with all kinds of viruses and bacteria, frozen in time. She says scientists are just starting look for it.

"So we really don't know what's buried up there," she says. "This is Pandora's box."

For example, researchers have found pieces of the 1918 Spanish flu virus in corpses buried in mass graves in Alaska's tundra. There's also likely smallpox and the bubonic plague buried in Siberia.


So the question for researchers is: Could these pathogens — like anthrax — ever be reactivated?  READ ON......

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/14/thawing-siberian-permafrost-soil-risks-rise-anthrax-prehistoric/

Household cleaning products may contribute to kids' overweight by altering their gut microbiota

Commonly used household cleaners could be making children overweight by altering their gut microbiota, suggests a Canadian study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

The study analyzed the gut flora of 757 infants from the general population at age 3-4 months and weight at ages 1 and 3 years, looking at exposure to disinfectants, detergents and eco-friendly products used in the home.

Researchers from across Canada looked at data from the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) birth cohort on microbes in infant fecal matter. They used World Health Organization growth charts for body mass index (BMI) scores.
Associations with altered gut flora in babies 3-4 months old were strongest for frequent use of household disinfectants such as multisurface cleaners, which showed lower
levels of Haemophilus and Clostridium bacteria but higher levels of Lachnospiraceae. 

The researchers also observed an increase in Lachnospiraceae bacteria with more frequent cleaning with disinfectants. They did not find the same association with detergents or eco-friendly cleaners. Studies of piglets have found similar changes in the gut microbiome when exposed to aerosol disinfectants.

"We found that infants living in households with disinfectants being used at least weekly were twice as likely to have higher levels of the gut microbes Lachnospiraceae at age 3-4 months; when they were 3 years old, their body mass index was higher than children not exposed to heavy home use of disinfectants as an infant," said Anita Kozyrskyj, a University of Alberta pediatrics professor, and principal investigator on the SyMBIOTA project, an investigation into how alteration of the infant gut microbiome impacts health.

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