Or, how two “great sparrow bees” incited a national hunt for alleged Chinese alien invaders BLAINE, Washington––How did the Asian giant hornet, known for centuries in Japan as the “great sparrow bee,” generally regarded as beneficial to farmers for killing insect pests, suddenly become feared in the U.S. as the so-called “murder hornet”? After […]
“Dog breeder from Dallas” directing Trump COVID-19 response?
Labradoodle breeding qualifications as questionable as COVID-19 accomplishments WASHINGTON D.C.––“No, the Trump administration did not put a professional dog breeder from Dallas in charge of COVID-19 response,” huffed Todd J. Gillman, Washington Bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News, on April 23, 2020, sounding just a bit defensive of Brian Harrison, 37, a fellow Texan. Contradicting […]
COVID-19: far more U.S. meat workers hit than Wuhan “wet market” staff
Infectious as “wet markets” are, U.S. slaughterhouse conditions appear to be much worse WATERLOO & SIOUX CITY, Iowa; SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota––COVID-19 has infected hundreds of U.S. slaughterhouse workers, who may have spread the pandemic disease to whole cities, USA Today reported late on April 22, 2020. The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, […]
People who buy meat from glass cases have little room to throw stones
“Wet markets” in China & U.S. slaughterhouses both kill people as well as animals SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota––Underscoring that people who buy meat from glass cases have little room to throw stones at the “wet markets” of China and the developing world, which sell live animals, the Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods pig slaughterhouse in Sioux Falls, […]
COVID-19: India feeds stray dogs; ASPCA says “don’t fix them”
ASPCA advice to shelters could increase puppy & kitten litters by about half a million in spring/summer 2020 While pet keepers in the developed world fret about the apparently infinitesimally small risk of pets and humans infecting and reinfecting each other, following the discovery of COVID-19 infecting one cat in Liege, Belgium, and two dogs […]
From gorillas to shelter dogs: animals caught in the COVID-19 crunch
No animals other than bats & humans are known to get COVID-19, but millions are affected by the human response WASHINGTON D.C.––Animals and animal-related projects from Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo to National Institutes of Health-funded laboratories are feeling the impact of the international COVID-19 scare underway throughout early 2020, […]
COVID-19: seldom has animal testing offered so little to so many
Still no animal models, three months into global crisis BEIJING, WASHINGTON D.C.––A hint of the desperation of practitioners of traditional animal-based biomedical research to contribute something of relevance to the global fight against COVID-19 was posted late on March 18, 2019 by the online periodical Live Science. “When exposed to the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 […]
COVID-19 hot tip for coffee growers: don’t go bat-@#$% nuts!
COVID-19 shows “Eat @#$% & die!” is a warning, not a metaphor KUNMING, China; LONDON, U.K.; SEATTLE––One might imagine that the midst of a global pandemic of COVID-19, a disease apparently originating in bats, would not be the best time for selling bat-processed coffee. At this writing, COVID-19 has infected nearly 175,000 people, worldwide, killing […]
Sex, COVID-19, & the Thai monkey apocalypse
“Monkey menace” emerged first & will likely be around a lot longer BANGKOK, Thailand––Nightmares that a flying monkey army might ransack Thailand leaped across the Indian Ocean during the second week of March 2020, out of Hindu mythology and the daily fears of Buddhist temple keepers, and into the imagination of social media video-watchers […]
COVID-19 & “The Next Big One”: Spillover revisited
Science writer David Quammen saw COVID-19 coming COVID-19, though renamed twice just in the first few months of 2020, “is not as novel as you might think,” explained veteran science writer David Quammen in the January 28, 2020 edition of The New York Times. Quammen, 72, was uniquely positioned to comment, not only because he […]
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