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Category: food – Page 198

Reopening wet food markets must conform to strict standards: WHO.

GENEVA (Reuters) — The World Health Organization is not sure whether the presence of antibodies in blood gives full protection against reinfection with the new coronavirus, Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergencies expert, told a briefing on Friday.

Ryan also said that even if antibodies were effective there was little sign that large numbers of people had developed them and were beginning to offer so-called “herd immunity” to the broader population.

“A lot of preliminary information coming to us right now would suggest quite a low percentage of population have seroconverted (to produce antibodies),” he said.

Continue reading “WHO unsure antibodies protect against COVID, little sign of herd immunity” | >

While the Wuhan district in China was under quarantine, news surfaced of robots delivering food and, later, medical supplies. Meanwhile, in the United States, the French company NAVYA configured its autonomous passenger shuttles in Florida to transport COVID-19 tests to the Mayo Clinic from off-site test locations. As the weeks of stay-at-home orders and recommendations slip into months, the delivery robots that were seen as a joke, fad, or nuisance have in some instances found a way into the public consciousness as important tools to combat the spread of coronavirus. The question is, will their usefulness extend post-lockdown?

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Fyodor R., Refund Institute

👽Locust Swarm

👽Part I: New Terrain, destination Iran

(See map picture 2)

New swarms are currently forming from Kenya to Iran, according to the United Nations locust watch website. Addressing the outbreak requires urgent, additional funding and technical help from developed countries, Cheke said, because the tiny size and budget of the United Nation’s Food and Agricultural Organization team responsible for locust monitoring and control is already overwhelmed.

Continue reading “👽An extensive report of the ongoing Locust plague and where these little aliens are heading” | >

For guidance in this time of uncertainty, we spoke with five expert preppers about what they’re doing to ride out the pandemic, how they’ll be ready for whatever comes next—and how you can be too.

Long lines outside grocery stores. Aisles stripped of canned food, toilet paper, and hand sanitizer. A fast-moving pandemic disease that, as of last week, was infecting more than 30,000 people every day.

Just a month ago, such a situation was unimaginable for most of us. But for disaster preppers, it’s precisely the scenario they’re determined to be ready for.

“I’m from a very old Appalachian family. Even before the word ‘prepper’ was a term, we were always putting back stuff and being ready in case we couldn’t go to the store,” says Samantha Biggers, who hardly fits the stereotype seen in TV shows like Doomsday Preppers. Biggers is a tattooed, 36-year-old farmer in North Carolina who brews her own beer and shears her own sheep. That’s a far cry from a wild-eyed paramilitary man living off-grid in a bunker designed to weather an EMP blast.

Continue reading “Expert Disaster Preppers Explain How to Ride Out the Coronavirus Pandemic” | >

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people across the globe. It is also causing huge damage to the global economy. According to the predictions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2020 could be the worst year since the Great Depression in the 1930s, with more than 170 countries likely to experience negative per capita income growth due to the pandemic. Countries are taking different measures to mitigate that economic impact, depending on the situations in their countries. However, the process of overcoming economic crisis is going to be extremely difficult. Few businesses would find it hard even to sustain and there is going to be a significant upsurge in unemployment rates.

Like much of the rest of the world, India is under lockdown. It is bit premature to predict the exact impact of coronavirus crisis on the Indian economy since the situation is still evolving. However, it is clear at this stage that the country will be facing major economic downturn and levels of unemployment will steeply rise. The government has already offered an economic package of 1.7 trillion rupees ($22.3 billion) in the last month for providing food security and money to the poor. It is expected that the government would shortly announce the next economic stimulus package.

All this would require the government of India to undertake a ruthless review of existing patterns of expenditure. The government budgeting caters to the requirements of various segments of the society, including agriculture, health, education, and railways. The budget has two other important areas of attention: defense and science & technology.

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Interventions that may slow ageing include drugs (e.g., rapamycin, metformin), supplements (e.g., nicotinamide riboside, nicotinamide mononucleotide), lifestyle interventions (e.g., exercise) and diets (e.g., fasting)

Thanks to advances in modern medicine over the past century, the world’s population has experienced a marked increase in longevity. However, disparities exist that lead to groups with both shorter lifespan and significantly diminished health, especially in the aged. Unequal access to proper nutrition, healthcare services, and information to make informed health and nutrition decisions all contribute to these concerns. This in turn has hastened the ageing process in some and adversely affected others’ ability to age healthfully. Many in developing as well as developed societies are plagued with the dichotomy of simultaneous calorie excess and nutrient inadequacy. This has resulted in mental and physical deterioration, increased non-communicable disease rates, lost productivity and quality of life, and increased medical costs. While adequate nutrition is fundamental to good health, it remains unclear what impact various dietary interventions may have on improving healthspan and quality of life with age. With a rapidly ageing global population, there is an urgent need for innovative approaches to health promotion as individual’s age. Successful research, education, and interventions should include the development of both qualitative and quantitative biomarkers and other tools which can measure improvements in physiological integrity throughout life. Data-driven health policy shifts should be aimed at reducing the socio-economic inequalities that lead to premature ageing. A framework for progress has been proposed and published by the World Health Organization in its Global Strategy and Action Plan on Ageing and Health. This symposium focused on the impact of nutrition on this framework, stressing the need to better understand an individual’s balance of intrinsic capacity and functional abilities at various life stages, and the impact this balance has on their mental and physical health in the environments they inhabit.

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The farm, the first in the world to commercially grow tomatoes solely under artificial light, is one part of a push to transform food production in the United Arab Emirates, where 80% of food is imported.

With little water, scorching temperatures, and not much arable land, the UAE currently imports 80% of its food. Can it go local?

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