Monday, 13 October 2014

Today in History October 13 First Ebola virus disease case.





October 13 is the 286th day of the year. There are 79 days remaining until the end of the year.
7042 lores-Ebola-Zaire-CDC Photo.jpgToday's Highlight in History- The first electron micrograph of an Ebola viral particle is obtained by Dr. F.A. Murphy, now at U.C. Davis, who was then working at the C.D.C.
Ebola virus virion.jpg





Ebola virus disease (EVD), Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) or simply Ebola is a disease of humans and other mammals caused by an ebolavirus. Symptoms start two days to three weeks after contracting the virus, with a fever, sore throat, muscle pain and headaches. Typically, vomiting, diarrhea and rash follow, along with decreased function of the liver and kidneys. Around this time, affected people may begin to bleed both within the body and externally.
Frederick A. Murphy, DVM, PhD, is widely recognized for obtaining the first electron micrograph of an Ebola viral particle while working at a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he served as Chief of Viropathology, near Emory University in Atlanta in 1976.


Since the discovery of the viruses in 1976 when outbreaks occurred in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (then called Zaire), Ebola virus disease has been confined to areas in Central Africa, where it is endemic untill the current outbreak.

The first known outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD), occurred between June and November 1976 in Nzara, South Sudan, (then part of Sudan) and was caused by Sudan virus (SUDV), one of the ebolaviruses. The Sudan outbreak infected 284 people and killed 151. The first identifiable case in Sudan occurred on 27 June in a storekeeper in a cotton factory in Nzara, who was hospitalized on 30 June and died on 6 July. While the WHO medical staff involved in the Sudan outbreak were aware that they were dealing with a heretofore unknown disease, the actual "positive identification" process and the naming of the virus did not occur until some months later in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

On 26 August 1976, a second outbreak of EVD caused by Ebola virus (formerly called Zaire ebolavirus) began in Yambuku, a small rural village in Mongala District in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo (then known as Zaire). The first person infected with the disease was village school headmaster Mabalo Lokela, who had toured an area near the Central African Republic border along the Ebola River between 12–22 August. On 8 September he died of what would become known as the Ebola virus (EBOV) member of the ebolaviruses. (The Ebola River in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo is the headstream of the Mongala River, a tributary of the Congo River. It is roughly 250 km in length. In 1976 the Ebola virus (EBOV) was first identified near the river)
DateDecember 2013 – present[1]
Casualties
  • Reported Cases / Deaths (as of 8 October 2014)
  •  Total: 8,400 / 4,033
  • Liberia Liberia: 4,076 / 2,316 (as of 7 October 2014)
  • Sierra Leone Sierra Leone: 2,950 / 930 (as of 8 October 2014)
  • Guinea Guinea: 1,350 / 778 (as of 7 October 2014)
  • Nigeria Nigeria: 20 / 8 (as of 8 October 2014)
  • United States United States: 2 / 1 (as of 12 October 2014)
  • Senegal Senegal: 1 / 0 (as of 8 October 2014)
  • Spain Spain: 1 / 0 (as of 8 October 2014)
An epidemic of Ebola virus disease (EVD) is ongoing in certain West African countries. It began in Guinea in December 2013 then spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone. A few much smaller subsidiary outbreaks have occurred elsewhere, with outbreaks in Nigeria and Senegal that appear to have been successfully contained .

The Director-General of the WHO, Margaret Chan, called the outbreak "the largest, most complex and most severe we've ever seen" and said that it "is racing ahead of control efforts". In a 26 September statement, the WHO said, "The Ebola epidemic ravaging parts of West Africa is the most severe acute public health emergency seen in modern times."

No specific treatment for the disease is yet available. Efforts to help those who are infected are supportive and include giving either oral rehydration therapy (slightly sweet and salty water to drink) or intravenous fluids.

-.Wikipedia

World Events

1792 – In Washington, D.C., the cornerstone of the United States Executive Mansion (known as the White House since 1818) is laid.
1843 – In New York City, Henry Jones and 11 others found B'nai B'rith (the oldest Jewish service organization in the world).
1881 – First known conversation in modern Hebrew by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and friends.
1884 – Greenwich, in London, England, is established as Universal Time meridian of longitude.
1885 – The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) is founded in Atlanta, United States.
1892 – Edward Emerson Barnard discovers D/1892 T1, the first comet discovered by photographic means, on the night of October 13–14.
1917 – The "Miracle of the Sun" is witnessed by an estimated 70,000 people in the Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal.
1923 – Ankara replaces Istanbul as the capital of Turkey.
1976 – A Bolivian Boeing 707 cargo jet crashes in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, killing 100 (97, mostly children, killed on the ground).
1976 – The first electron micrograph of an Ebola viral particle is obtained by Dr. F.A. Murphy, now at U.C. Davis, who was then working at the C.D.C.
1977 – Four Palestinians hijack Lufthansa Flight 181 to Somalia and demand release of 11 members of the Red Army Faction.
1983 – Ameritech Mobile Communications (now AT&T Inc.) launched the first US cellular network in Chicago.
1990 – End of the Lebanese Civil War. Syrian forces launch an attack on the free areas of Lebanon removing General Michel Aoun from the presidential palace.
1992 – An Antonov An-124 operated by Antonov Airlines registered CCCP-82002, crashes near Kiev, Ukraine killing 8.
2010 – The 2010 Copiapó mining accident in Copiapó, Chile comes to an end as all 33 miners arrive at the surface after surviving a record 69 days underground awaiting rescue.

Sunday, 12 October 2014

Teen Malala's Nobel prize award sparks pride in Pakistani


Malala Yousafzai at Girl Summit 2014 in London on July 22, 2014. Credit: Russell Watkins/DFID via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
Malala Yousafzai at Girl Summit 2014
in London on July 22, 2014. Credit:
Russell Watkins/DFID via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).


(CNA/EWTN News).- Malala Yousafzai has received the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 17 – making her the youngest ever recipient of the prestigious award and prompting local Archbishop Joseph Coutts to laud the “great honor” she's bestowed on the country.


The Pakistani teenager gained global attention when she was shot in the head by Taliban activists in 2012, at the age of 14, as a punishment for her public campaign for the rights of girls to be educated.

She received treatment for her injuries in the United Kingdom, where she continues to reside with her family. Yousafzai has continued to campaign for global access to education.

“This award is for all those children who are voiceless, whose voices need to be heard,” Yousafzai told the press on Oct. 10 following her reception of the reward. “They have the right to receive quality education. They have the right not to suffer from child labor, not to suffer from child trafficking. They have the right to live a happy life.”

“Through my story, I want to tell other children all around the world that they should stand up for their rights, that they should not wait for someone else, and their voices are more powerful.”

She also said she was “honored” to share the reward with Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian activist known know for his work in promoting children's rights.

The announcement of Yousafzai's reception of the award also came as “wonderful surprise” to Archbishop Coutts, who serves as shepherd of Karachi, Pakistan.

“The fact that a young girl like this,” he told CNA, “a teenager, has won the prize, such a prestigious international award, is a source of great pride for us, and for the country as a whole. A great honor.”

Because the international community often associates Pakistan with terrorism, he said, this award “just shows that there's the other side to a country as well, that there are people like this little girl Malala who stand up to a lot of negative things that are happening.”

“It is really something wonderful that has happened,” he said.

Speaking about the significance of Yousafzai sharing the Nobel Peace Prize with Satyarthi, he said: “I think the connection there is: here is this child in Pakistan . . . who stands up so bravely for the education of women which was being threatened by a certain extremist group called the Taliban. Then the other side of the country is a senior person, a man who has been also working to save children.”

Child labor and abuse are issues common to both India and Pakistan, he said.

“Both of (the recipients), in their own way, have been working to protect children and to work for the development of children,” he said.

Established in 1901, the Nobel Prize is an international award given by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm Sweden.

It is awarded yearly for achievements in peace, as well as in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and literature.



Today in History October 12

October 12 is the 285th day of the year. There are 80 days remaining until the end of the year.
a patient in an iron lung tank respirator


Today's Highlight in History; 1928 – An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Children's Hospital, Boston




A negative pressure ventilator, which colloquially is called an iron lung, is a form of medical ventilator that enables a person to breathe when normal muscle control has been lost or the work of breathing exceeds the person's ability. Examples of the device include both the Drinker respirator and the Both respirator. The negative form of pressure ventilation has been almost entirely superseded by positive pressure ventilation or biphasic cuirass ventilation.

Humans, like most other animals, breathe by negative pressure breathing: the rib cage expands and the diaphragm contracts, expanding the chest cavity. This causes the pressure in the chest cavity to decrease, and the lungs expand to fill the space. This, in turn, causes the pressure of the air inside the lungs to decrease (it becomes negative, relative to the atmosphere), and air flows into the lungs from the atmosphere: inhalation. When the diaphragm relaxes, the reverse happens and the person exhales. If a person loses part or all of the ability to control the muscles involved, breathing becomes difficult or impossible.
Iron lung from the 1950s in the Gütersloh Town Museum


In 1670, English scientist John Mayow came up with the idea of external negative pressure ventilation. Mayow built a model consisting of bellows and a bladder to pull in and expel air. The first negative pressure ventilator was described by Scottish physician John Dalziel in 1832. Successful use of similar devices was described a few years later. Early prototypes included a hand-operated bellows-driven "Spirophore" designed by Dr. Woillez of Paris (1876), and an airtight wooden box designed specifically for the treatment of polio by Dr. Stueart of South Africa (1918). Stueart's box was sealed at the waist and shoulders with clay and powered by a motor-driven bellows.The first of these devices to be widely used however was developed by Drinker and Shaw in 1928. The iron lung, often referred to in the early days as the "Drinker respirator", was invented by Philip Drinker (1894–1972) and Louis Agassiz Shaw, Jr., professors of industrial hygieneat the Harvard School of Public Health.The machine was powered by an electric motor with air pumps from two vacuum cleaners. The air pumps changed the pressure inside a rectangular, airtight metal box, pulling air in and out of the lungs.

The first clinical use of the Drinker respirator on a human was on October 12, 1928, at the Boston Children's Hospital.The subject was an eight-year-old girl who was nearly dead as a result of respiratory failure due to polio. Her dramatic recovery, within less than a minute of being placed in the chamber, helped popularize the new device.
Iron lung CDC.jpg
An Emerson iron lung. The patient lies within
the chamber, which when sealed provides
an effectively oscillating atmospheric pressure.


In 1931, John Haven Emerson (February 5, 1906 – February 4, 1997) introduced an improved and less expensive iron lung. The Emerson iron lung had a bed that could slide in and out of the cylinder as needed, and the tank had portal windows which allowed attendants to reach in and adjust limbs, sheets, or hot packs
-.Wikipedia








World Events

1773 – America's first insane asylum opens for 'Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds' in Virginia.
1792 – First celebration of Columbus Day in the USA held in New York City.
1793 – The cornerstone of Old East, the oldest state university building in the United States, is laid on the campus of the University of North Carolina.
1799 – Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse was the first woman to jump from a balloon with a parachute, from an altitude of 900 meters.
1810 – First Oktoberfest: The Bavarian royalty invites the citizens of Munich to join the celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen.
1822 – Pedro I of Brazil is proclaimed the emperor of the Empire of Brazil.
1823 – Charles Macintosh of Scotland sells the first raincoat.
1871 – Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) enacted by British rule in India, which named over 160 local communities 'Criminal Tribes', i.e. hereditary criminals. Repealed in 1949, afterIndependence of India.
1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited by students in many US public schools, as part of a celebration marking the 400th anniversary of Columbus's voyage.
1901 – President Theodore Roosevelt officially renames the "Executive Mansion" to the White House.
life in New Zealand history.
1918 – A massive forest fire kills 453 people in Minnesota.
1928 – An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Children's Hospital, Boston
1933 – The United States Army Disciplinary Barracks on Alcatraz Island, is acquired by the United States Department of Justice
1960 – Television viewers in Japan unexpectedly witness the assassination of Inejiro Asanuma, leader of the Japan Socialist Party, when he is stabbed and killed during a live broadcast.
1964 – The Soviet Union launches the Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew and the first flight without space suits
1968 – Equatorial Guinea becomes independent from Spain
1983 – Japan's former Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei is found guilty of taking a $2 million bribe from Lockheed and is sentenced to 4 years in jail.
1984 – Brighton hotel bombing: The Provisional Irish Republican Army attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet. Thatcher escapes but the bomb kills five people and wounds 31.
1999 – The former Autonomous Soviet Republic of Abkhazia declares its independence from Georgia
2000 – The USS Cole is badly damaged in Aden, Yemen, by two suicide bombers, killing 17 crew members and wounding at least 39.
2002 – Terrorists detonate bombs in the Sari Club in Kuta, Bali, killing 202 and wounding over 300.
2003 – Michael Schumacher wins his 6th Formula One Drivers' championship at the 2003 Japanese Grand Prix to beat the 48 year old record held by Juan Manuel Fangio
2005 – The second Chinese human spaceflight Shenzhou 6 launched carrying Fèi Jùnlóng and Niè Hǎishèng for five days in orbit.
2013 – 51 people are killed after a truck veers off a cliff in La Convención Province in Peru.

Saturday, 11 October 2014

St Genevieve: Genevieve Nnaji's new Collection on Jumia

Genevieve Nnaji photo (1)
Genevieve Nnaji

Genevieve, Nigerian celebrity actress who recently relaunched her St. Genevieve clothing line has released another collection of her brand to her marketing partners, Jumia, an online retail store.


The new collection, 'Red Carpet Style' was launched today on Jumia exclusively and is themed around pieces; from formal to casual.

Taiwo Oshadipe's candlelight Procession


Taiwo Oshadipe funeral procession 3
Taiwo Oshadipe funeral procession 2Taiwo Oshadipe funeral procession


Taiwo Oshadipe, one half of the Oshadipe twins who died early on October was honoured with a candle light precession by friends, families and loved ones at their Abule-Egba residence.
It was a teary moment for all present.





Photos from Taiwo Oshadipe candlelight procession

The Catholic Church in Nigeria leads the fight against gay discrimination


(CNA/EWTN News).- The Catholic Church in Nigeria has been at the forefront in fighting discrimination towards persons with same-sex attraction, says Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos, who adds that media coverage of the Church has been imbalanced.

Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos. Credit: Aid to the Church in Need.
Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos. Credit: Aid to the Church in Need.











In one of the strongest statements made about homosexuality during the first week of the Synod on the Family, the Nigerian prelate told the press on Oct. 8 that “the Catholic Church respects all human beings, and we believe we are all created in the image and likeness of God.”

Archbishop Kaigama said that the people of Africa believe marriage is only between a man and a woman, based on culture, biology, and religious belief. However, he stressed that this does not translate into support for the “the criminalizing of people with different sexual orientations.”

“The Catholic Church is in the forefront of defending them,” he said, “and we would defend any person with a homosexual orientation who has been harassed, who has been imprisoned, who has been punished.”

The archbishop criticized the media for focusing on the Church’s defense of marriage between a man and a woman, while ignoring the Church’s advocacy against discrimination towards persons with same-sex attraction.

“They forgot that we are serious defenders of human rights. We have our justice and peace department, we go to prisons, we see people who are unjustly imprisoned, or denied their rights.”

The media should have a balanced approach, he said, “in the sense that we respect human beings.”

Even though homosexual activity “is not in conformity with our culture and religion,” the archbishop continued, “we do not just throw away the persons. We embrace them in love. We try to share our point of view. We don't punish them.”

The pastoral care of persons with same-sex attraction has received relatively little attention thus far, although it is on the agenda for the Synod on the Family. At the opening session of the Synod on Oct. 6, Cardinal Peter Erdo noted “a broad consensus that people with a homosexual orientation should not be discriminated against.”

In an Oct. 10 briefing, Holy See Press Office director Fr. Federico Lombardi told the press that participants had noted the need for further discussion on issue of same-sex marriage.

The difficult and controversial questions “will come,” Archbishop Kaigama told the press. “By the grace of God, we're going to deal with them the best way possible for the good of the Church and the salvation of souls.”



Today in History October 11: The fall of Polaroid



October 11 is the 284th day of the year. There are 81 days remaining until the end of the year.

Today's Highlight in History 2001 – The Polaroid Corporation files for federal bankruptcy protection.


Polaroid logo


Polaroid Corporation is an American international consumer electronics and eyewear company, founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land. It is most famous for its instant film cameras, which reached the market in 1948, and continued to be the company's flagship product line until the February 2008 decision to cease all production in favor of digital photography products. In September 2014 Polaroid introduced its latest digital camera product, the Polaroid Cube.

The company's original dominant market was in polarized sunglasses, an outgrowth of Land's self-guided research in polarization after leaving Harvard University after his freshman year—he later returned to Harvard to continue his research.

After Polaroid defeated Kodak in a patent battle, Kodak left the instant camera business on January 9, 1986.

Polaroid developed an instant movie system, Polavision, based on the Dufaycolor process. The product arrived on the market when videotape-based systems were rapidly gaining popularity. As a result, Polavision was unsuccessful and most of the manufactured product was sold off as a job lot at immense cost to the company. Its underlying technology was later improved for use in the Polachrome instant slide film system.

The company also was one of the early manufacturers of digital cameras, with the PDC-2000 in 1996; however, they failed to capture a large market share in that segment.

They also made 35 mm and multi format scanners, such as Polaroid SpiritScan 4000 35 mm scanner (the first scanner with a 4000 DPI CCD) in 1999, and the Polaroid PrintScan 120 in 2000, the scanners had mixed reception and had heavy competition with Nikon and Minolta. All the line was discontinued after the firm went bankrupt.

On October 11, 2001, Polaroid Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Almost all the company's assets (including the "Polaroid" name itself, which had become almost synonymous with instant photographs) were sold to a subsidiary of Bank One. They went on to form a new company, which also operates under the name "Polaroid Corporation" It stopped making Polaroid cameras in 2007 and stopped selling Polaroid film after 2009, to the consternation of many users.

Since March 2010, instant film materials for vintage Polaroid cameras have again become available on the market, developed and manufactured by a group called The Impossible Project, at the former Polaroid production plant in Enschede, The Netherlands.
-..Wikipedia


World Events 


1852 – The University of Sydney, Australia's oldest university, is inaugurated in Sydney.
1862 – American Civil War: In the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam, Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart and his men loot Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, during a raid into the north.
1864 – Campina Grande, Brazil, is established as a city.
1865 – Paul Bogle led hundreds of black men and women in a march in Jamaica, starting the Morant Bay rebellion.
1899 – Second Boer War begins: In South Africa, a war between the United Kingdom and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State erupts.
1899 – The Western League is renamed the American League.
1906 – San Francisco public school board sparks a diplomatic crisis between the United States and Japan by ordering Japanese students to be taught in racially segregated schools.
1910 – Former President Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first U.S. president to fly in an airplane. He flew for four minutes with Arch Hoxsey in a plane built by the Wright brothers at Kinloch Field (Lambert–St. Louis International Airport), St. Louis, Missouri.
1929 – J. C. Penney opens store #1252 in Milford, Delaware, making it a nationwide company with stores in all 48 U.S. states.
1950 – Television: CBS's mechanical color system is the first to be licensed for broadcast by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.
1962 – Second Vatican Council: Pope John XXIII convenes the first ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church in 92 years.
1972 – A race riot occurs on the United States Navy aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk off the coast of Vietnam during Operation Linebacker.
1975 – The NBC sketch comedy/variety show Saturday Night Live debuts with George Carlin as the host and Andy Kaufman, Janis Ian and Billy Preston as guests.
1976 – George Washington's appointment, posthumously, to the grade of General of the Armies by congressional joint resolution Public Law 94-479 is approved by President Gerald R. Ford.
1982 – The Mary Rose, a Tudor carrack which sank on July 19, 1545, is salvaged from the sea bed of the Solent, off Portsmouth.
1984 – Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a space walk.
1986 – Cold War: U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Reykjavík, Iceland, in an effort to continue discussions about scaling back their intermediate missile arsenals in Europe.
1987 – Start of Operation Pawan by Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka that killed thousands of ethnic Tamil civilians and hundreds of Tamil Tigers & Indian Armysoldiers.
1996 – Pala accident: a wood lorry and school bus collide in Jõgeva county, Estonia, killing eight children..
2001 – The Polaroid Corporation files for federal bankruptcy protection.
2002 – A bomb attack in a shopping mall in Vantaa, Finland kills seven.

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