The Plum Island Animal Disease Center(PIADC) is a United States federal research facility dedicated to the study of foreign animal diseases. Since 1954, the center has had the goal of protecting America's livestock from foreign animal diseases. During the Cold War a secret biological weapons program targeting livestock was conducted at the site. This program has been the subject of controversies, and the facility has gained a cult status.
As a diagnostic facility, PIADC scientists study more than 40 foreign animal diseases and several domestic diseases, including hog cholera and African swine fever.PIADC runs about 30,000 diagnostic tests each year. PIADC operates Biosafety Level 3 Agriculture (BSL-3Ag), BSL-3 and BSL-2 laboratory facilities. The facility's research program includes developing diagnostic tools and preventatives (such as vaccines) for foot-and-mouth disease and other diseases of livestock.Plum Island's freezers also contain samples of polio and diseases that can be transferred from animals to humans.
Because Congressional law stipulates that live foot-and-mouth disease virus cannot be studied on the mainland, PIADC is unique in that it is currently the only laboratory in the U.S. equipped with research facilities that permit the study of foot-and-mouth disease
Foot-and-mouth disease is extremely contagious among cloven-hoofed animals, and people who have come in contact with it can carry it to animals.Accidental outbreaks of the virus have caused catastrophic livestock and economic losses in many countries throughout the world. Plum Island has experienced outbreaks of its own, including one in 1978 in which the disease was released to animals outside the center, and two incidents in 2004 in which foot and mouth disease was released within the center.Foot-and-mouth disease was eradicated from the U.S. in 1929 (with the exception of the stocks within the Plum Island centerbut is currently endemic to many parts of the world.
In a bizarre attempt to improve her relationship with her employer, an Indonesian maid has appeared in a Hong Kong court accused of adding menstrual blood to her employer’s food. Things are not, however, as they seem for Indra Ningsih, aged 26.
Indra mixed menstrual blood into a pot of vegetables as a sort of guaranteed panacea for improving relations between herself and her employer. It makes a little more sense if one considers that in some southeastern Asian cultures, menstrual blood is thought to have special powers. Whether true or no, she has been charged with one count of “administering poison destructive or noxious substances with intent to injure” according to the media.
She has not yet entered a plea. The noxious action was discovered completely by chance. Her female employer whose surname is Mok happened to enter the kitchen to her home and noticed the maid acting rather strangely. She caught her throwing something into the trash bin, which turned out to be a used sanitary napkin.
When she looked into the pot of vegetables, she noticed something “suspicious” floating around mixed with the vegetables and water. Indra had no excuse except to say that things had been bad between her employer and herself, and she hoped to improve things.
I was wandering the streets of New York the other day and after passing 50 Starbucks I decided I would stop in for a nice $5 cup of coffee. As always there is a line filled with girls trying so hard to be hot...you know the ones with the huge hand bags and sunglasses that cover half their face. These sunglasses create the illusion that this girl is smokin since all you can really see are her lips but once those come off the story can change very quickly my friends. On top of this they always order some insane combo of items like a half soy half skim mocha chi tea iced. Well after hearing that I decided to up the ante...The following is my order:
Can I have a grande 1/4 skim, 1/4 soy, 1/4 steamed whole milk, 1/4 1% steamed milk, 1/2 coffee, 1/4 black tea, 1/4 hot chocolate with 2 hots of espresso over ice but can you put it in a venti cup then mix it around and pour it into two tall cups and have whipped cream on one of them with a caramel swirl then in the other one 2 pumps of vanilla.
Brooke Greenberg is the size of an infant, with the mental capacity of a toddler. She can legally drive a car. And in some states she can get down in the bed. That's right, she turned 16 this year.
Have you ever wondered why there are so many e coli break outs? Are you interested in finding out why there is such a rise in diabetes these days? What does a "grass fed" steak mean on a menu in a nice restaurant (p.s. its a good thing, a really good thing)? If you want to know more about what is really in the food you pick up at the grocery store for dinner, and really everyone should, then Food Inc. will be an amazing, eye-opening experience for you. Food Inc. features interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore's Dilemma) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield Farm's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin in a documentary that really gives you a scary inside look at how only a hand full of corporations are controlling the food, and more specifically meat, we eat every day. These companies' need to make a profit has caused a domino effect that starts at fast foods corporations' need for more and more cheap meat and ends with driving the price of healthy foods up so that most of America can't afford to feed their family with anything but the dollar menu which as we all know is not the breakfast, lunch, or dinner of champions.
The movie is absolutely riveting because its a topic that many of us never think twice about and it thoroughly explores the issue from every angle. Farmers, Lobbyists, Families affected, etc. all have their say except for the corporations who all individually declined (not surprisingly) interviews to be apart of the documentary. One of the lynch pin, holy shit!, scenes takes place in a factory that looks exactly like the final scene in Terminator 2. Its in this stadium of steel pipes and conveyor belts that they mix 70% (soon to be 100%!) of Americans' hamburger meat with ammonia in order to kill any bacteria, that you fully realize how little we know about what we are eating. The movie has it's funny and depressing moments but it's more importantly jam packed with scenes and facts that will give you a much different look at the Purdue chickens that are flying off the shelves. If you believe in the saying "ignorance is bliss" and you don't want to know why there was just an e coli breakout from freakin' cookie dough causing 60+ people to die then you'll hate this movie, but in my humble opinion, closing your eyes to the hard truth is no way to go through life.
Most movies made in the 80's feel cheesy, low budget, and dated because advancements in technology and time in general has not been so kind. Then sometimes time will give you the opposite effect where the cheesy 80's movie is escalated from under the radar to a cult classic, and that's exactly whats happened to Repo Man. This little 1984 classic stars the rat packer himself, Emilio Estevez as Otto, an 18 year old LA punk going no where in his trash bag life with his crime riddled punk friends until a repo man (Hary Dean Stanton) tricks him into stealing a car for him thus recruiting Otto into a job. After learning the ropes from a cast of sketchy and overly boozed repo vets, Otto and his team are on the hunt to beat out the Latinos, the FBI, and the cult freaks to get the $20K bounty on a Chevy Malibu with aliens in the trunk. WHAT? Exactly. This is a sci-fi/fantasy movie with a satirical under tone is a great commentary on life in the 80s lower class and how blaming society for your short comings and turning to the bottle/drugs/crime gets you no where (but killed).
The point of revisiting these old classics, weather time has made them better or worse is mostly for the entertainment value in revisit your youth and this one is basically a time capsule you've just dug up. The movie absolutely screams 80's wasteland LA and has a great punk/new wave sound track (Iggy Pop does the title track) which sets the tone for a fast paced movie in which scenes are quickly cut and tons of dialogue are packed into each. Repo Man offers a great little trip back in time with everything from the cars to the hysterically bad special effects multiply the charm of this strange sci-fi flick and its datedness makes it that much more enjoyable over time. Early on in the film, Otto proudly proclaims "I'm a Repo Man, I take back cars from dildos who don't pay their bills" which instantly kick starts the UFO time machine back to our 80s childhood.
Hey I'm no docotor but I can tell when someis alive...I usualy check to see if they are still warm inside. (tasteless)
An 84-year-old Polish woman woke up in a hospital morgue after being declared dead by her doctor. The error was noticed only when someone saw her body bag in the morgue moving, police said. The woman, from the village of Jablonowo, fell unconscious and her husband called an ambulance.
A doctor from the emergency medical services pronounced her dead, a police spokesman said. "A funeral company took the body to the morgue. Several hours later, a worker there noticed the bag containing the body was moving," he said. "He called a doctor who noted the woman's vital functions had returned." The woman was taken to hospital in the nearby town of Zwolen and placed in intensive care. Police have launched an investigation.
Hey I'm no docotor but I can tell when some is alive...I usualy check to see if they are still warm inside. (tasteless)