Magnitude 6.1 Earthquake Strikes China's Sichuan Province

BEIJING — China's official Xinhua News Agency says a 6.1 magnitude earthquake has struck Sichuan province. There were no reports of casualties.

Xinhua said Saturday the earthquake hit 31 miles southeast of Panzhihua city, near the border with Yunnan province.

On May 12, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Sichuan province killed nearly 70,000 people and left 5 million homeless.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,413882,00.html

Gustav heading for U.S. Gulf coast, at least 22 dead

Gustav is on a collision course with the U.S. Gulf coast and could hit Louisiana, where the governor has already declared a state of emergency. At least 22 people have died from the tropical storm.

Weather officials say Gustav is expected to pass between the southern coast of Cuba and Jamaica sometime Thursday, as travels west.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080826/gustav_weakens_080827/20080827?hub=CTVNewsAt11

Tropical Storm Gustav Heading for Dominican Republic, Haiti

MIAMI — The National Hurricane center says Tropical Storm Gustav has formed in the central Caribbean, and is heading for the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

At 2 p.m. EST Monday reports from an Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicated that the storm had maximum winds near 60 mph.

Earlier in the day, when the storm was a tropical depression, forecasters said the center of the storm would be moving near or over southwestern Haiti on Tuesday.

The Dominican Republic and Haiti both issued tropical storm warnings for the southern and western parts of the island shared by the two countries.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,410123,00.html

VN-made bird-flu vaccine effective

HA NOI — The first human group test of the locally-produced H5N1 influenza vaccine, Fluvax, was successful, with thirty students inoculated at the Military Medical Institute (MMI).

The initial period of this first large-scale trial was completed in three months, and volunteers exhibited no side effects.

http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=05SOC230808

Commission finds U.S. vulnerable to electromagnetic pulse attack

In the early 1960s, engineers in nuclear weapons testing programs in the United States and the Soviet Union noticed an unexpected phenomenon when warheads were exploded high above the Earth's surface. The electromagnetic fields produced by the detonations often resulted in damage to electrical systems on the ground. One test 400 kilometers above Johnston Island in the South Pacific destroyed a commercial telecommunications system in the Hawaiian Islands 1,400 kilometers away.

Now, a new report by the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack warns that a nuclear attack aimed at crippling the nation's technological backbone could be greater today than it was during the Cold War. Such an attack also would be easier to orchestrate, and potentially more devastating, than a direct hit to a major metropolitan area.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0808/081908kp1.htm

New developments in fight against bird flu

UK scientists are developing a portable testing machine, which they claim will detect cases of bird flu in two hours.

It currently takes around a week to identify different flu strains, due to the need for laboratory testing. Researchers at Nottingham Trent University say their equipment - designed to be used at the scene of an outbreak - will enable far quicker identification of avian flu in humans.

http://www.meatinfo.co.uk/articles/65886/New-developments-in-fight-against-bird-flu.aspx?categoryid=9045

'Boomerang' Fay gains strength over Florida

NAPLES, Fla. (AP) — Tropical Storm Fay rolled ashore in southwestern Florida on Tuesday without much fanfare, but stubbornly hung around like an unwelcome houseguest, gaining power and threatening — once again — to become a hurricane.

The storm first hit the Florida Keys, veered out to sea and then traversed east across the state on a path that would curve it toward to the Florida-Georgia border. The failure of Fay to weaken meant a whole new swath of the state had to prepare for a worse storm, and meant Florida could wind up getting hit three separate times.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gW7Ur7I6YEcSo4_KU3maMkK9JQ1wD92LLOIG3

NHC: Tropical Storm 'Fay' Nears Dominican Republic

MIAMI -- The government of the Dominican Republic has issued a tropical storm warning for the Dominican Republic for the entire North coast of the Dominican Republic, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The center of the storm is located about 35 miles east of Santo Domingo as of 5 p.m., according to the NHC. The storm has maximum sustained winds of about 40 mph with higher gusts and is moving west at about 14 mph.

http://www.nbc6.net/news/17199093/detail.html?dl=mainclick

Chupacabra strikes Texas town?

Traveling all the way from its point of origin in Puerto Rico, the chupacabra (literally "goat sucker") has now popped up in the Texas town of Cuero. Or it allegedly has. Even better, sheriff's deputy (in training no less) Brandon Reidel caught the supposed chupacabra on tape.

http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=chupacabra-strikes-texas-town-2008-08-13

Tropical Storm Iselle forms in Pacific off Mexico

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Forecasters say Tropical Storm Iselle has formed off Mexico's southern Pacific coast.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami says Iselle formed on Wednesday about 230 miles southwest of the port city of Manzanillo, and is expected to move roughly westward and out to sea.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iWBbdHByCmGN-lxBFcJNymKh_RfwD92HL0SO0

Hope over 'quick' bird flu test

Experts developing a portable testing machine for bird flu in humans say it could save lives by cutting the time it takes to spot potentially lethal cases.

Nottingham Trent University developers say their equipment could cut the wait for results from a week to two hours.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7559458.stm

Tropical Storm Edouard Forms off Louisiana Coast

MIAMI — Tropical Storm Edouard formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, and forecasters expected it to bring high winds and several inches of rain to the coasts of western Louisiana and eastern Texas.

Forecasters made Edouard, packing 50-mph sustained winds, the fifth tropical storm of the 2008 hurricane season. They expected the storm to strengthen and said it could reach near-hurricane strength by the time it made landfall in Texas sometime Tuesday morning.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,396701,00.html

Crypto parasite making swimmers sick in Texas

DALLAS — A waterborne illness in pools, lakes and water parks has sickened at least 100 North Texas swimmers and may have killed one, a dramatic increase when compared to summers past. Experts say they don't know exactly why there's been a spike in the outbreaks of cryptosporidiosis, a diarrhea disease. But they point to a variety of possible factors, including a true increase in cryptosporidiosis, availability of a prescription drug to treat it and greater public awareness of the illness, commonly known as crypto.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5920256.html

Cryptosporidium

Cryptosporidium is a protozoan pathogen of the Phylum Apicomplexa and causes a diarrhoeal illness called cryptosporidiosis. Other apicomplexan pathogens include the malaria parasite Plasmodium, and Toxoplasma, the causative agent of toxoplasmosis. Unlike Plasmodium, which transmits via a mosquito vector, Cryptosporidium does not utilize an insect vector and is capable of completing its life cycle within a single host, resulting in cyst stages which are excreted in faeces and are capable of transmission to a new host.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptosporidium