8-Apr-2019: Four decades later, bamboo rice shows up in Odisha
Odisha is among the states known for a wide variety of rice, the staple food of eastern and north-eastern India and beyond. But this variety can be called unique even by Odisha's standards — the bamboo rice, which grows only twice or thrice in a century. And it is being harvested now.
The gates of Chandaka-Dampara Wildlife Sanctuary in Cuttack district have been opened for forest dwellers to come and collect the rice, because otherwise it will be attacked by rats.
The rare rice grows out of a dying bamboo shoot. Whenever bamboo blossoms, the rat population increases. To prevent rats from running the rice, forest officials allow local villagers and forest dwellers to collect bamboo rice. Also, the rice becomes a major source of income and food for villagers living near the forest.
The variety looks like paddy rice and tastes more like wheat. It is believed to have low glycemic index compared to other varieties and it is good for diabetics. It’s rich in proteins and does not contain any fat.
Last time bamboo rice collected was in 1979 and people are delighted to harvest this rare rice after 40 years. The bamboo forest is littered with the rice variety. It is not commonly available because it takes many years for a bamboo tree to flower and that’s why many locals even preserve the rice as they believe it has medicinal values.
The forest department also has plans for the rice. The forest department also purchased around 80 quintals from rice collectors for Rs 15 per kilogramme. The department will use this rice to germinate bamboo trees in other areas of the state.
21-Apr-2019: In a first, east Asian birds make Andaman stopover
Distinguished by the green and brown plumage on its back, the diminutive Horsfield’s Bronze Cuckoo (Chalcites basalis) is a native of Australia and New Guinea. However, researcher G. Gokulkrishnan had an unexpected encounter with the tiny bird — roughly about 15 cm and weighing 22 g and known for its repeated, loud and piercing whistle — early on July 7, 2017 in a tsunami ravaged coastal forest in the Great Nicobar Island of the Andaman and Nicobar island chain. The sighting was the first recorded instance of the bird in India.
Two other first time visitors were also recorded on the islands over 2017-18. The Zappey’s Flycatcher (Cyanoptila cumatilis) a song bird that breeds in China and spends the winters in the Malay peninsula, Sumatra and Java, was spotted six times in different areas of Andaman and Nicobar Islands between December 2017 and March 2017 — at least thrice in pairs.
Later that year researchers recorded the presence of the Javan Pond Heron(Ardeola speciosa), usually found in Thailand and Cambodia. Larger than Horsfield’s Bronze Cuckoo and Zappey’s Flycatcher, it was spotted on August 26, 2018.
During their migration from north to south, these birds make a stopover at the Andaman and Nicobar islands. The three new records from India from the Andaman and Nicobar Island have been discussed in detail in a recent publication of journal Birding ASIA.
East Asian Flyway: In the past few years a few other birds of southeast Asian origin have been recorded in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands during migration.
Researchers are intrigued by the fact that number of new sightings has increased post the tsunami. The new records include the Mugimaki Flycatcher(Ficedula mugimaki) , Blue-winged Pitta(Pitta moluccensis) , Chinese Egret(Egretta eulophotes) and the Chinese Paradise Flycatcher(Terpsiphone incei) .
These birds also use Andaman and Nicobar Islands for a few week rest before they can fly along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF). The EAAF extends from Arctic Russia and North America to the south Australian boundaries and includes the most of the east Asian regions including Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
A birding publication, A Checklist of the birds of India by Praveen J, Rajah Jayapal and Aasheesh Pittie, and published by the journal Indian BIRDS in June 2016 had listed 1,263 birds. The list in the publication has since been revised with the number of birds found in the country now being pegged at 300 approximately.
Andaman and Nicobar Islands, with just about 0.25 % the country’s landmass, is home to about 350 species of exotic birds, according to an official estimate.
28-Feb-2019: 2015-2016 El Niño Triggered Disease Outbreaks Across Globe
The 2015-2016 El Niño event brought weather conditions that triggered regional disease outbreaks throughout the world, according to a new NASA study that is the first to comprehensively assess the public health impacts of the major climate event on a global scale.
El Niño is an irregularly recurring climate pattern characterized by warmer than usual ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, which creates a ripple effect of anticipated weather changes in far-spread regions of Earth. During the 2015-2016 event, changes in precipitation, land surface temperatures and vegetation created and facilitated conditions for transmission of diseases, resulting in an uptick in reported cases for plague and hantavirus in Colorado and New Mexico, cholera in Tanzania, and dengue fever in Brazil and Southeast Asia, among others.
The strength of this El Niño was among the top three of the last 50 years, and so the impact on weather and therefore diseases in these regions was especially pronounced. By analyzing satellite data and modeling to track those climate anomalies, along with public health records, scientists were able to quantify that relationship.
The study utilized a number of climate datasets, among them land surface temperature and vegetation data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard NASA’s Terra satellite, and NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration precipitation datasets.
Based on monthly outbreak data from 2002 to 2016 in Colorado and New Mexico, reported cases of plague were at their highest in 2015, while the number of hantavirus cases reached their peak in 2016. The cause of the uptick in both potentially fatal diseases was an El Niño-driven increase in rainfall and milder temperatures over the American Southwest, which spurred vegetative growth, providing more food for rodents that carry hantavirus. A resulting rodent population explosion put them in more frequent contact with humans, who contract the potentially fatal disease mostly through fecal or urine contamination. As their rodent hosts proliferated, so did plague-carrying fleas.
A continent away, in East Africa’s Tanzania, the number of reported cases for cholera in 2015 and 2016 were the second and third highest, respectively, over an 18-year period from 2000 to 2017. Cholera is a potentially deadly bacterial infection of the small intestine that spreads through fecal contamination of food and water. Increased rainfall in East Africa during the El Niño allowed for sewage to contaminate local water sources, such as untreated drinking water. Cholera doesn’t flush out of the system quickly, so even though it was amplified in 2015-2016, it actually continued into 2017 and 2018.
In Brazil and Southeast Asia, during the El Niño dengue fever proliferated. In Brazil the number of reported cases for the potentially deadly mosquito-borne disease in 2015 was the highest from 2000 to 2017. In Southeast Asia, namely Indonesia and Thailand, the number of reported cases, while relatively low for an El Niño year, was still higher than in neutral years. In both regions, the El Niño produced higher than normal land surface temperatures and therefore drier habitats, which drew mosquitoes into populated, urban areas containing the open water needed for laying eggs. As the air warmed, mosquitoes also grew hungrier and reached sexual maturity more quickly, resulting in an increase in mosquito bites.
The strong relationship between El Niño events and disease outbreaks underscores the importance of existing seasonal forecasts. Countries where these outbreaks occur, along with the United Nations’ World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization, can utilize these early warning forecasts to take preventive measures to minimize the spread of disease. Based on the forecast, the U.S. Department of Defense does pre-deployment planning, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) takes measures to ensure the safety of imported goods.
Knowledge of the linkages between El Niño events and these important human and animal diseases generated by this study is critical to disease control and prevention, which will also mitigate globalization. These data were used in 2016 to avert a Rift Valley fever outbreak in East Africa. By vaccinating livestock, people likely prevented thousands of human cases and animal deaths.
Vaccinations for humans and livestock, pest control programs, removing excess stagnant water — those are some actions that countries can take to minimize the impacts. But for many countries, in particular the agriculture sectors in Africa and Asia, these climate-weather forecasts are a new tool, so it may take time and dedicated resources for these kinds of practices to become more utilized.
The major benefit of these seasonal forecasts is time. A lot of diseases, particularly mosquito-borne epidemics, have a lag time of two to three months following these weather changes. So seasonal forecasting is actually very good, and the fact that they are updated every month means we can track conditions in different locations and prepare accordingly which can save lives.