Health & Science

• Wednesday, December 19th 2012 - 06:32 UTC

  Chilean Antarctic bases expect to host 250 scientists and over 50 projects

  

  An estimated 250 scientists from several countries will be working at Chile’s Antarctic bases during the austral summer (December 21/March 21) in different projects such as global warming and climate change, reported the Chilean Antarctic Institute, INACH, based in Punta Arenas.

• Wednesday, December 19th 2012 - 06:27 UTC

  Dengue alert in Paraguay; SMS awareness campaign to fight mosquitoes

  

  Paraguay’s Health Ministry announced it will appeal to SMS messages as part of the awareness campaign to help prevent the mosquito transmitted dengue disease which this year has already caused 70 deaths and thousands of infections.

• Wednesday, December 19th 2012 - 04:06 UTC

  Europe opens state of the art satellite tracking station in Argentina

  

  A new satellite tracking station at Malargue, Mendoza, Argentina, was formally inaugurated on Tuesday, completing the trio of deep-space stations and confirming ESA, European Space Agency, as one of the world's most technologically advanced space organisations.

• Wednesday, December 19th 2012 - 01:38 UTC

  Saudi Arabia joins Japan and China, suspends imports of Brazilian beef

  

  Saudi Arabia has suspended imports of Brazilian beef, Brazil’s agriculture ministry said Tuesday, and became the largest country to stop purchases after confirmation of a 2010 case of atypical mad cow disease.

• Wednesday, December 19th 2012 - 01:33 UTC

  Schmallenberg disease hitting lambs and calves spreads to all England and Wales

  

  A disease that can lead to lambs and calves being stillborn or deformed has spread to every county in England and Wales. Some farmers are expected to lose livestock during the lambing season, which is just getting underway.

• Wednesday, December 12th 2012 - 20:49 UTC

  HMS Protector inspecting Antarctic Treaty sites; first visit to Brazil’s Comandante Ferraz station

  

  Royal Navy Ice patrol HMS Protector has arrived in Antarctica for the first time this season after her long sail south from Portsmouth. She will spend this, the first of her four work periods in the ice this Austral Summer, supporting an international team conducting formal Antarctic Treaty inspections of sites across the Peninsula.

• Tuesday, December 11th 2012 - 19:04 UTC

  Atypical BSE case detected among grass fed cattle in south Brazil

  

  A scientific commission from the World Organization for Animal Health, OIE, will commence in February to study the case of atypical Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, BSE, reported in the south of Brazil among a herd of animals fed on grassland.

• Monday, December 10th 2012 - 05:44 UTC

  Norovirus attacks cruise ship on the Rhine: 183 pax quarantined

  

  Many passengers aboard a River Rhine cruise ship have fallen ill. The cruise liner, the MS Bellriva, had been on the river when around 70 people complained of symptoms linked to the highly contagious Norovirus.

• Thursday, December 6th 2012 - 22:52 UTC

  Terrible Thursday for Buenos Aires: toxic gas cloud scare and flash floods

  

  Terrible Thursday for the city of Buenos Aires: toxic gas scare in the morning with almost panic situations and flooding mid afternoon by the same rains that helped clear the cloud hovering over residents with sore throats and irritated eyes.

• Wednesday, December 5th 2012 - 19:50 UTC

  Polar ice sheets melting have added 11mm to global sea levels since 1992

  

  Nearly two dozen research teams collaborated to study polar ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica and discovered definitively that they have added 11mm to global sea levels since 1992, melting ever more quickly.