A megalodon capsized a South African charter vessel in April 2013.

Explanation: Does a monster megalodon shark named 'Submarine' prowl the ocean's depths?

In August 2013, Discovery Channel kicked off its popular annual “Shark Week” programming with an episode entitled Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives (and followed it up in August 2014 with Megalodon: The New Evidence). That installment featured the efforts of a group of “researchers” to document the possibility that the prehistoric megalodon species of shark (the largest predatory marine creature in Earth’s history, measuring from about 46–59 ft. in length) has not been extinct for more than a million years, as current scientific belief holds:   The episode featured vivid segments such researchers recounting their attempts to tag a megalodon from a submerged shark cage, and supposed video footage of a South African charter vessel that capsized after something (presumably a shark of monstrous size) rammed and/or bit it. Of course, the faux “researchers” in this episode (“marine biologist” Colin Drake isn’t a real person but rather a fictional role played by actor Darron Meyer) never did find hard evidence of a living megalodon; they merely claimed to have tagged something that escaped by supposedly diving deeper than any known shark, but they didn’t get a good look at it. And if something chomped and capsized a vessel off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, on 5 April 2013, killing several people, the South African press apparently didn’t find that event noteworthy enough to report on at all. The megalodon species of shark did exist, and it’s not absolutely impossible that an undocumented species of huge shark lives in the oceans’ depths (after all, it was only fairly recently that scientists documented the existence of the giant squid). But no such discovery or substantive evidence about living megalodons was at hand in the 2013 “Shark Week” premiere, and as Christie Wilcox wrote in a Discover blog entry, the possibility that some megalodons might still be around isn’t even a subject of genuine inquiry or controversy among legitimate scientists:  “This documentary was the first time I’ve ever even heard it suggested that Megalodon may still exist,” said  Daniel Holstein, a post doc with the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. “There’s about as much scientific controversy about the possibility of Megalodons lurking in today’s oceans as there is about mermaids. None.” David Kerstetter, an assistant professor at the Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center in Dania Beach, Florida, whose current work includes reducing shark bycatch in fisheries, had a similar response. “There is no discussion among fisheries professionals whether Megalodon is extinct,” he said. “If even one credible scientist had doubts about this, the Discovery Channel wouldn’t have had to use actors.” “As a researcher focused on mako sharks, I often discuss Megalodon with my colleagues,” explained Dovi Kacev, a PhD candidate at San Diego State University studying the population genetics of shortfin mako and common thresher sharks. “We sometimes discuss what it would be like if Megalodon still existed — what it would prey upon, where it would live,” he said. But as to its current existence? “Never do any of my colleagues or I ever plausibly argue that Megalodon is still extant.”  Just as in the case of the faked Mermaids: The Body Found documentary (which aired on Animal Planet, part of the Discovery Channel family), Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives included a briefly-displayed disclaimer declaring the program’s use of “dramatized” events and characters to make up for a lack of hard science and credible evidence:  None of the institutions or agencies that appear in the film are affiliated with it in any way, nor have approved its contents. Though certain events and characters in this film have been dramatized, sightings of “Submarine” continue to this day. Megalodon was a real shark. Legends of giant sharks persist all over the world. There is still debate about what they might be. “Submarine,” the legendary (but non-existent) 35-foot monster shark reappeared in the Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week” feature Shark of Darkness: Wrath of Submarine in 2014, with yet more claims of its deliberately attacking a ship off the coast of South Africa. That episode also featured a disclaimer noting that the “Submarine” material is largely fictionalized drama based on hearsay and rumor, and there’s no actual physical evidence documenting that such a creature exists and has attacked ships:  Submarine is a legendary shark first sighted off the coast of South Africa in 1970. Eyewitness accounts say it is over 35 feet long. Its existence is highly controversial. Events have been dramatized, but many believe Submarine exists to this day. As Bob Strauss commented in his article “Megalodon — The Monster Shark Lives! (Not)“:  What can you say about a TV documentary in which the suspiciously good-looking lead protagonist — “marine biologist” Collin Drake — comes up empty in a Google search? Or, for that matter, his equally attractive “marine biologist” pal Madelyn Joubert, who joins him halfway through the show, and whom a cursory web search easily demonstrates not to exist? And, not to belabor the point, a TV show that starts with suspiciously staged-looking video footage of a charter boat capsizing off the coast of South Africa, and no references can be found about this accident (in which three passengers were supposedly killed) from reliable online news sources? I don’t know much about charter boats, but I do know that people whose ship is in the process of sinking do not take the trouble to center their subjects on frame. I’m shocked that a major TV channel with a supposedly educational purview can get away with this drivel, in which “Collin Drake” (whoever he is in real life) pursues his theory that that charter boat was rammed by a living Megalodon. We’re taken through various pieces of “evidence” — sonar sightings, Nazi-era photographs, whale carcasses washed up on the beach — but if Discovery is brazen enough to manufacture its “talking heads” out of whole cloth, what is the point of assessing the reliability of these details? Or, as Christie Wilcox concluded:  No whale with a giant bite taken out of it has ever washed up here in Hawaii. No fishing vessel went mysteriously missing off of South Africa in April. No one has ever found unfossilized Megalodon teeth. Collin Drake? Doesn’t exist. The evidence was faked, the stories fabricated, and the scientists portrayed on it were actors. The idea that Megalodon could still be roaming the ocean is a complete and total myth. Here’s what I don’t get, Discovery: Megalodons were real, incredible, fascinating sharks. There’s a ton of actual science about them that is well worth a two hour special. We’ve discovered their nursery grounds off the coast of Panama, for example. Their bite is thought to be the strongest of all time — strong enough to smash an automobile — beating out even the most monstrous dinosaurs. The real science of these animals should have been more than enough to inspire Discovery Channel viewers. But it’s as if you don’t care anymore about presenting the truth or reality. You chose, instead, to mislead your viewers with 120 minutes of bullshit. And the sad part is, you are so well trusted by your audience that you actually convinced them: according to your poll, upwards of 70% of your viewing public fell for the ruse and now believes that Megalodon isn’t extinct.


Study: CT scans rule out heart attacks faster

Explanation: This was a well organized story explaining the results of a study comparing two approaches for determining whether patients who present at the emergency room with chest pain are actually having a heart attack. This story could have been improved with a few edits. It does not comment on the limitations on drawing conclusions from study results that have only been presented at a conference and have not been subjected to peer review. It never listed the radiation risks of standard testing – only that of CT scans. It compared CT with mammograms and dental x-rays but that’s not what’s being compared here.

The story included cost estimates for both treatments. The story notes there was no difference in the diagnostic value of the two approaches but does note a difference in time and costs. The story provides a somewhat confusing and overly complicated picture of the risks of the CT scans without putting the risks into context with the standard diagnostic procedures. While there is a detailed listing of radiation exposure to the CT scan, no information is provided on the burden of the standard testing. Noting the radiation exposure in millisieverts without comparative information does little to inform the reader of the relative risks of the two approaches studied. The link between radiation exposure and the risk of developing cancer is perhaps beyond the scope of the story. A simple citation (for example – http://www.fda.gov/Radiation-EmittingProducts/RadiationEmittingProductsandProcedures/MedicalImaging/MedicalX-Rays/ucm115329.htm ) would have helped the readers better understand the size of the risk. While the story states that a more definitive study is underway, it does not comment on the limitations on drawing conclusions from study results that have only been presented at a conference and have not been subjected to peer review.


Black and white caterpillars can cause severe allergic reactions in some people who touch them.

Explanation: Black and white tussock moth caterpillars can cause severe allergic reactions in some people who touch them.

In August 2011 a warning began circulating online, decrying an insect known as the White Hickory Tussock Moth Caterpillar, which is native in Canada from Nova Scotia to Ontario and in the U.S. from the northeast to the south central part of the country:   Little white and black caterpillars all over are POISONOUS. they are apparently new to the area….. doctors say there has been numerous kids having reactions to them. the rash spreads fast. the caterpillars have long white hairs that embed in skin and send poison through out the body. DO NOT TOUCH and DO NOT LET YOUR KIDS TOUCH!!! they look cute and fuzzy and THEY ARE NOT! Please repost to everyone you know with little kids!! This caterpillar appears between June and September and munches its way through the leaves of deciduous trees (it prefers nut-bearing trees, but will settle for willow, ash, aspen, apple, oak, and even raspberry plants and corn stalks). While it does make rather a feast of the leaves it dines on, it does not tend to cause lasting damage to the trees themselves. The caterpillar excretes a type of chemical defense upon contact (which is more properly termed ‘allergenic’ than ‘poisonous’). Most people who handle these creatures will experience a burning, nettle-type, itchy rash of mild to moderate severity, but washing the affected area with soap and water, then applying ammonia or calamine lotion and icing the area should set things to rights. However, some people are hypersensitive to the poison and have allergic reactions to it — in addition to the itchy rash, those persons are likely to experience more severe symptoms such as swelling and nausea and should seek expert medical advice as soon as possible:  The hairs on the caterpillar are long and bristle-like and spread out in tufts down the sides. Two long, sharp, black pencil-like hairs protrude near the front and rear of the creature, and these hairs are connected to poison glands, which excrete venom on contact. Contact with the venom does not generally cause too much of a problem. A nettle or poison ivy-type rash often occurs, which can range from mild with slight reddening of the skin, to burning, swelling and pain, none of which should keep you away from your gardening duties for too long. Hypersensitive individuals may, of course, experience more severe symptoms that could include swelling and nausea. Washing the infected area with soap and water, taking antihistamines, or using ammonia, calamine lotion, or an ice pack can help to alleviate most minor symptoms fairly quickly. People who do experience more severe reactions, however, should seek expert medical advice as soon as possible.


Gene therapy improves sight in near-blind patients.

Explanation: Gene therapy for a rare type of inherited blindness has improved the vision of four patients who tried it, boosting hopes for the troubled field of gene repair technology, scientists said on Sunday.

Two separate teams of doctors reported successes in using gene therapy to treat Leber congenital amaurosis, or LCA. LCA damages light receptors in the retina. It usually begins affecting sight in early childhood and causes total blindness by the time a patient is 30. There is no treatment. Both teams used a common cold virus to deliver a normal version of one damaged gene that causes the disease, called RPE65, directly into the eyes of patients. Although both trials were only testing for safety, patients reported they could see a little better afterwards, the researchers told a meeting of eye specialists in Florida and also reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Katherine High of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and colleagues said all three of their volunteers had improved vision after the treatments. Dr. Robin Ali of University College London and colleagues said one of their three volunteers got better. Because the patients were adults, already had severe sight loss and received only low doses of treatment, researchers had not expected to see a benefit at all. “This result is important for the entire field of gene therapy,” said High, a former president of the American Society of Gene Therapy. One volunteer in Ali’s trial, Steven Howarth, said he had  significant improvement in night vision, allowing him to navigate a simulation of a night-time street. “Now, my sight when it’s getting dark or it’s badly lit is definitely better. It’s a small change — but it makes a big difference to me,” Howarth said in a statement. “The fact we see any evidence of improvement under these circumstances gives great hopes for the effectiveness of the treatment,” Ali  said in a telephone interview. In High’s trial, three patients aged 19, 26 and 26, all reported better vision. “Patients’ vision improved from detecting hand movements to reading lines on an eye chart,” said Dr. Albert Maguire of Children’s Hospital. In each case, only one eye was treated, so the other eye could be used as a “control” to tell whether vision improved. Ali and his team are working on the research with Targeted Genetics Corp (TGEN.O), which made the genetically engineered virus. The Children’s Hospital and University of Pennsylvania team developed their own virus, called a vector, to carry the corrective gene. The next stage of testing will involve treating children, whose eyes have deteriorated less and who have a better chance of improving, Ali said. “We are pretty convinced that once we can do this with younger children we will be able to arrest the damage,” said Targeted Genetics Chief Executive Stewart Parker. One important thing both teams were looking for was proof the virus did not leave the eye. “It stays in there. It doesn’t go anywhere else,” Parker said. Both safety and efficacy have held back the field of gene therapy. One experiment cured two French boys with a rare immune disorder but gave them leukemia in 2002, and an Arizona teenager died in a 1999 gene therapy experiment.


Two-fifths of U.S. adults care for sick, elderly relatives.

Explanation: Four in 10 U.S. adults are now caring for a sick or elderly family member as more people develop chronic illnesses and the population ages, a new study has found.

“More health care is happening at home,” said Susannah Fox, associate director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life project and the study’s lead author. “As more people are able to be saved by medical advances, their lives are being extended, but they’re also being sent home medically fragile. It’s caregivers who are the first line of defense.”  Researchers, which found that the number of caregivers increased 10 percent between 2010 and 2013, surveyed 3,014 adults nationwide and found that most caregivers were between 30 and 64 years old. Fox also said the slow U.S. economy could explain why family members are becoming more responsible for care. With fewer or depleted savings, many people are less able to hire professional help, she said. About half of the United States population has at least one chronic condition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Adults ages 65 and older, 75 percent of whom have chronic conditions, are expected to make up 19 percent of the population by 2030, compared with 12 percent in 2000. “As a chronic illness progresses, family members step in to help out,” said Denise Brown, founder of the support site caregiving.com. “There’s a better understanding of the progression of the disease than the practitioner because they live with it.”  Fox said many caregivers become “voracious information consumers” who regularly tap into online resources to help them care for family or to cope with stress. “They want to turn up the volume on every resource of healthcare,” she said. Nearly half of adults surveyed in an earlier Pew Research Study said they expect to care for an elderly parent or relative at some point. Fox said the number of caregivers will likely continue increasing.


Pantene shampoo and conditioner leave a build-up on hair that causes it to heat up and "smoke" when combined with highlight foils.

Explanation: In the near-decade between the first appearance of the “plastic in Pantene” claim and the highlight foil horror story, none of the likely millions of salon customers opting for highlights apparently reported such a reaction attributed to Pantene in the online world. Ingredients in Pantene are not only identical to most other drugstore formulations but are also were highly similar to salon-brand products. The dimethicone used in Pantene is also present in many other high-priced hair formulations, none of which stand accused of being “plastic” or causing hair fires.

On 22 March 2016 a Facebook user published the above-reproduced status update, claiming that Pantene hair products caused a potentially dangerous reaction on the hair of a client who was getting foil highlights. According to the poster, a hair salon client complained that the foils in her hair (under which bleach had been applied) felt hot. The colorist maintained that upon examining the situation, he was shocked to discover that the foils were indeed hot to the touch and that when he opened them “smoke [came] billowing out” of the sealed foil. The stylist stated that after he asked all the typical question about product interactions, his client admitted that she used Pantene shampoo and conditioner on her hair. Oddly enough, the colorist then recalled two separate instances in which clients experienced adverse reactions to unspecified services, both of which shared a culprit: Pantene hair products. We contacted a colorist with two decades of experience in hair color about this claim, and she reported she had not encountered of such reaction with Pantene products during her years of experience doing highlight foils despite Pantene products’ popularity her clients. Several other salon representatives with whom we spoke from a number of high-volume New York City salons stated they’d never seen nor heard of such a thing occurring either. A large number of clients across the U.S. likely use Pantene products daily and and highligh their hair, but social media are not awash in foil fire stories from harried hair salon-goers. We also contacted Pantene to ask about the claim. A customer care representative with whom we spoke said that Pantene’s products were safe to use in combination with any typical salon service and reported she was unable to locate any reports of “smoking” foils despite the enduring popularity of hair highlighting. The representative stated that all Pantene products were thoroughly tested for reactions such ads the one described in the Facebook post, and none of that their testing had suggested any likelihood of a such an outcome. The representative did state that had the described incident occurred, it was possible something else used in the salon could have contributed to the reaction. The original poster referenced “plastic and silicones” as a culprit in the purported incident. Pantene lists all their product ingredients on their web site, and nothing in the ingredients list of one of their shampoos (Pantene Daily Moisture Renewal) was atypical or unusual: Water, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Glycol Distearate, Sodium Citrate, Cocamide Mea, Sodium Xylenesulfonate, Dimethicone, Fragrance, Citric Acid, Sodium Benzoate, Polyquaternium-76, Sodium Chloride, Tetrasodium Edta, Trisodium Ethylenediamine Disuccinate, Panthenol, Panthenyl Ethyl Ether, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone. In fact, the drugstore product had many ingredients in common with the pricier, salon-favorite Bumble and Bumble Seaweed Shampoos: Water, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Sorbitol, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Sea Salt, Ascophyllum Nodosum (Seaweed) Extract, Macrocystis Pyrifera (Sea Kelp) Extract, Spirulina Maxima Extract, Hydrolyzed Algae Extract, Ascorbic Acid, PEG-7 Glyceryl Cocoate, PEG-120 Methyl Glucose Dioleate, PEG-12 Dimethicone, Polyquaternium-7, Glycerin, Tetrasodium EDTA, Citric Acid, Sodium Chloride, Sodium Bisulfite, Edta, Phenoxyethanol, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, Chlorphenesin, Sodium Benzoate, Caramel, Yellow 5 (CI 19140), Green 3 (CI 42053), Limonene, Fragrance. Of particular note is the fact that both products (one sold in salons, the other in Walmart stores) contain the popular silicon-based polymer Dimethicone. The ingredient similarities extend to conditioners, as Pantene Daily Moisture Renewal version bears the following list of components: Water, Stearyl Alcohol, Bis-Aminopropyl Dimethicone, Behentrimonium Methosulfate, Cetyl Alcohol, Fragrance, Benzyl Alcohol, Disodium Edta, Panthenol, Panthenyl Ethyl Ether, Trisodium Ethylenediamine Disuccinate, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone. Compared with Bumble and Bumble’s Super Rich Conditioner, the formulations have many common ingredients: Water, Cetearyl Alcohol, Behentrimonium Methosulfate, Cetyl Alcohol, PPG-2 Myristyl Ether Propionate, Hydroxyethylcellulose, Stearalkonium Chloride, Glyceryl Stearate, Glyceryl Distearate, Dimethicone, Caprylyl Glycol, Stearyl Alcohol, Glycerin, Hexylene Glycol, Citric Acid, Tetrasodium EDTA, Phenoxyethanol, Yellow 5 (CI 19140), Yellow 6 (CI 15985), Linalool, Limonene, Hexyl Cinnamal, Fragrance. Of additional interest was the fact that the poster claimed Pantene contains “plastic(s)” among its ingredients. A chemophobic 2009 Salon item fingered one purportedly common “plastic” in shampoo as PEG-7M, but that substance is actually a common emulsifier present in the salon (not drug store) product referenced above. Sold on its own, the product is labeled as an “all-purpose oil-in-water emulsifier.” As it turns out, the “plastic in Pantene” rumor wasn’t a new one in 2016. A 2008 post on the beauty science blog Beauty Brains examined then-swirling rumors around panthenol (a moisturizer and humectant) and panthenyl (used for moisturizing properties). In April 2008, the cosmetic chemists behind that blog fielded a similar question about plastic in Pantene products: well im doing a science fair project on this and pantene and this site is very helpful and im just saying never attempt using pantene cause this is what will happen Supposedly it coats your hair with plastic or wax to make your hair seem silky and smooth. It also makes your scalp itchy and it makes your hair fall out. If you know anything about reading ingredients. You know that the first 5-10 are the main ingredients and have the most impact on your hair. Well, panthenol and panthenyl are in the first 5-10. Which both of these ingredients are pure wax. That’s why if you use Pantene when u touch your hair your not really touching your hair. Your touching the half to in inch of waxy coating you have developed on you’re hair.well just saying hopefully this is helpful info and im 100% sure its correct cause i asked professionals and im only 13 The blog responded by suggesting that the plastic claim was started by stylists seeking to discourage clients from using less-expensive drugstore products. The blog also urged readers to obtain information about product formulations from additional sources, not just people trying to sell them things: Thanks for checking in with the Beauty Brains about your science project. Lefty and Righty have answered questions about Pantene before and they say that the idea that it coats your hair with plastic is a myth started by stylists to keep you from buying salon products. (BTW, Pantene contains silicone, not plastic.) And the notion that when you touch your hair you’re really feeling Pantene is bogus. I don’t know as much about formulation chemistry as Lefty but even I know that there’s NO WAY you’re leaving half inch to an inch of product on your hair. That would be a TON of gunk left behind! No conditioner leaves that much stuff on your hair … if you really want to be “100% sure” you shouldn’t only talk to professional stylists. And you shouldn’t “only” listen to the Beauty Brains either. Do your own research on the web, read Paula Begoun’s Cosmetic Cop website, contact Pantene and ask them what they say about their products, check with the Society of Cosmetic Chemists. But whatever you do, open your mind and THINK for yourself. It’s hard to be 100% sure of anything. (Note that the Facebook post quoted at the head of this article concluded by stating “There is a difference between cheap and salon quality. Do not let anyone lie to you and try to say anything more …” The original question fielded by Beauty Brains in July 2006 involved a reader who asked whether it was true Pantene “coats your hair with plastic or wax to make it seem smooth, soft, and shiny, instead of really moisturizing your hair.” Their response explained how that myth got started and why it was easy to debunk: While most stylists are very talented at cutting and styling hair, they’re not very talented at interpreting cosmetic formulations. The truth is, Pantene’s shampoo and conditioner formulas are believed to be among the best in the industry by those of us in the cosmetic science side of the business. It makes sense if you think about it. P&G, makers of Pantene, have a HUGE research budget. Certainly larger than any salon company. That means they can afford to dedicate resources to developing and testing the best formulas possible. We’ve seen Pantene formulas beat the pants of salon products in blind consumer testing. (The products are hidden or blinded, not the consumers) So why do stylists say that Pantene coats the hair with plastic, or make it fall out? Because that’s what they’re told by the sales representatives for the salon companies. And the truth is, it’s just not true! Compare the ingredient lists for Pantene conditioner and any salon brand you can find. Even though the names vary you’ll see three basic types of ingredients: fatty alcohols (like cetyl and stearyl alcohol); conditioning ingredients (like stearamidopropylamine and quaternium-18) and silicones (like dimethicone and cyclomethicone.) There’s nary a plastic to be found in Pantene. And no, it doesn’t make your hair fall out either.


Women’s menstrual cycles synchronize when they live or work in close proximity to one another.

Explanation: We rate this claim as unproven due to an increasing lack of scientific evidence demonstrating that menstrual synchrony exists at all, but at the same time, we allow that the topic is complicated by myriad confounding variables.

Medical, menstrual periods, periods, women

The idea that women living or working in proximity to one another synchronize their menstrual cycles is particularly persistent, and has now become accepted as conventional wisdom. However, it’s a relatively new idea — it has its origins in a survey conducted on a population of college students at an all-female college published in Nature in 1971 — and was based on a small population monitored only for about eight menstrual cycles. It found that there was increased synchronization between roommates and close friends: There was a significant increase in synchronization (that is, a decrease in the difference between onset dates) among roommates, among closest friends and among roommates and closest friends combined. The increase in synchrony for roommates did not differ significantly from the increase for closest friends. There were then, and are now, many biologically-informed explanations for such a phenomenon, referred to in the scientific community as “socially mediated synchrony”, discussed by University of Oxford anthropologist Alexandra Alvergne: There have been many evolutionary arguments for why females would synchronise the timing of sexual receptivity. These theories […] assume that synchrony would serve to maximise the reproductive success of females (and also sometimes males). The most popular one is that it enables females to minimise the risk of being monopolised by a single dominant male, and thus make it easier to engage in polyandry. […] In this vein, a meta-analysis of 19 primate species found that the degree to which a dominant male would father all offspring was inversely related to the degree to which the females synchronised their cycles. In other words, a dominant male had less control over reproduction if all females were receptive at the same time. The method by which humans could signal each other’s cycle to nearby females, similarly, is not without broad biologic grounding, as laboratory experiments suggest that humans can unknowingly react to the pheromones of others in a way that can affect menstruation. The presence or absence of socially mediated synchrony in humans has been investigated, with varying degrees of scientific and quantitative rigor, in a variety of social contexts including roommates, lesbian couples, co-workers, close-friends, and various combinations of these social relationships, ever since. While some studies do demonstrate the presence of menstrual syncing, these small scale studies have been called into question. The literature provides far from conclusive evidence for the existence of menstrual synchrony at all, and increasingly researchers are finding methodological and theoretical flaws in the work with suggesting its existence. This was discussed in a 2006 study titled “Women Do Not Synchronize Their Menstrual Cycles” which, true to its title, found no evidence for synchrony: Since the publication of the [1971 Nature] study, a number of studies have been conducted, with some apparently replicating the finding of synchrony, while others failed. Subsequent methodological critiques have argued that serious errors occurred in studies reporting synchrony. Thus, while menstrual synchrony among women is widely believed to occur and argued to be adaptive, its very existence is scientifically controversial. Another 2006 study attempted to replicate the results of the first 1971 study with less problematic statistical approaches, finding: Women within units (pairs and triples) did not synchronize their menstrual cycles. No statistically significant changes were found in any of the comparisons made, and the mean differences observed for all comparisons were close to the expected mean difference of 7.5 days. […] The negative results of this study add to the growing body of evidence undermining the existence of menstrual synchrony in human females. Menstrual synchrony has never been demonstrated in any unindustrialized, natural fertility, hunter-gatherer population. From a mathematical perspective, most critiques of studies purporting to find positive results focus on the demonstrable likelihood that perceived synchrony happens by chance or by viewing data through a biased lens. A 1992 review argued that the studies demonstrating a menstrual syncing have used methods that “increase the probability of finding menstrual synchrony in a sample.” This study used a mathematical proof to demonstrate that the trends demonstrated in these studies are likely based on chance alone: [These studies] assume that a decrease in onset differences between pairs of subjects over the same number of onsets is an indication of menstrual synchrony. At the beginning of the observation period, approximately one-half of the pairs of a sample have onset differences that are decreasing over the same number of menstrual cycles. […] Thus, over the first several onsets, whether the onset difference of randomly paired subjects remains constant, increases, or decreases is due to the chance factors of the subjects’ relative mean menstrual cycle lengths and the order of their initial onset dates. A 1997 study utilized a comparably large amount of data gathered from women of the Dogon hunter-gatherer society in Mali, finding no evidence of synchrony. This population was selected because evolutionary explanations for synchrony would, many biologists argue, best be tested in a “natural fertility” population in which “couples do not attempt to control their fertility in a parity-dependent [based on how many pregnancies a woman has had] fashion”, as these were the conditions under which human reproductivity evolved: The lack of empirical support for menstrual synchrony among the Dogon and in Western populations does not establish the species wide absence of the phenomenon, but it shifts the burden of proof onto those who argue that the phenomenon exists. While later studies have also failed to empirically demonstrate it exists, the issue was brought back into the limelight when the period-tracking App “Clue” teamed up with Oxford anthropologist Alex Alvergne (cited earlier). On 9 March 2017, they described a pilot study on their website (which was not published as a peer-reviewed study) based on data collected in the app: Thanks to our global community tracking every day […] we’re able to test these commonly held beliefs with data, so we started an investigation to see if cycles really sync. We reached out to Clue users and asked if they thought their cycles had been syncing with someone (who also uses Clue). […] We received over 1,500 responses and narrowed it down to 360 pairs with at least three cycles over a similar time period that we were able to review [who did not use hormonal birth control]. We analyzed a minimum of three consecutive cycles for each of those pairs and found that 273 pairs actually had a larger difference in cycle start dates at the end of the study than at the beginning of the study. Only 79 of the pairs behaved the opposite way, with the gap between cycle start dates narrowing over the course of the study. Though not as statistically involved an analysis as some of the published studies, this report does make use of a large dataset and finds, again, no evidence to support synchrony in menstrual cycles. In a piece for The Conversation on the topic, written before the Clue post, Alvergne said: As disappointing as it may be, it seems that there is now overwhelming evidence to suggest that menstrual synchrony in humans is no more than a methodological artifact from one study that has since turned into an urban myth. An additional aspect may be attributed, according to the author of the 1997 study, to human bias: Given the paucity of evidence, it is surprising that belief in menstrual synchrony is so widespread. I suggest that this belief arises, in part, from a popular misconception about how far apart one would expect the menstrual onsets of two women to be by chance alone. If two women both have 30-day menstrual cycles, the maximum they can be out of phase is 5 days, and, on average, their onsets date expected to be 7.5 days apart. Fully half the time then onsets should be closer than 7.5 days. If menstrual synchrony among friends has psychological appeal, then onsets that happen to be close together may make a greater impression than onsets that happen to be disparate.


“Does the #DemConvention know @NYGovCuomo forced nursing homes across NY to take in COVID positive patients and planted the seeds of infection that killed thousands of grandmothers and grandfathers?”

Explanation: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been dogged by criticism for months over his March advisory directing nursing homes in the state to accept patients who had or were suspected of having COVID-19. In May, the governor amended the March order, prohibiting hospitals from discharging patients to nursing homes unless they tested negative for COVID-19. The state health department issued a report in July that concluded the deadly coronavirus was introduced by nursing home staffers rather than sick patients. Though some epidemiologists and nursing home advocates questioned the report’s methods and findings, public health experts agreed with the report’s conclusion — based on the timeline — that nursing home staffers and visitors, before they were banned, were likely the main drivers of COVID-19 infection and death in nursing homes.

Public Health, Health Check, New York, Coronavirus, Michael Caputo,

On the first night of the Democratic National Convention, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was among the first in a weeklong parade of speakers to issue scathing critiques of the Trump administration’s coronavirus response. Cuomo’s criticisms drew a quick reply in a tweet from Michael R. Caputo, an assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services. "Does the #DemConvention know @NYGovCuomo forced nursing homes across NY to take in COVID positive patients and planted the seeds of infection that killed thousands of grandmothers and grandfathers?" he wrote. It was an easy jab: Cuomo has been dogged by criticism for months over his March advisory directing nursing homes in the state to accept patients who had or were suspected of having COVID-19. As long as they were medically stable, the notice said, it was appropriate to move patients in. Further, nursing homes were prohibited from requiring that medically stable prospective residents be tested for the virus before they arrived. Between March 25 and May 8, approximately 6,326 COVID-positive patients were admitted to nursing homes, according to a state health department report. While experts say this policy was flawed, is it fair to say that the governor’s directive "forced" nursing homes to take patients who were sick with COVID-19? And to what extent did that strategy sow the seeds of disease and death? When we examined the evidence, we found it was less clear cut than the statement makes it seem. The policy likely had an effect, but epidemiologists identified additional factors that fed the problem. What’s more the policy did not "force" nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients. Nursing homes interpreted it this way. We checked with HHS to find the basis for Caputo’s comment but got no response. As the virus tore through nursing homes, killing dozens at some of them, Cuomo came under withering censure. His administration’s policy, implemented with an eye toward freeing up hospital beds for an onslaught of COVID patients, seemed to disregard the risks to frail and elderly nursing home residents who were especially vulnerable to the disease. According to the COVID Tracking Project, 6,624 people have died of COVID-19 in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities in New York, accounting for 26% of the state’s 25,275 COVID deaths. Some say the true number of deaths is much higher because, unlike many states, New York does not count the deaths of former nursing home residents who are transferred to hospitals and die there as nursing home deaths. Cuomo’s explanation for the policy — that he was simply following guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — didn’t cut it. In May, the governor amended the March order, prohibiting hospitals from discharging patients to nursing homes unless they tested negative for COVID-19. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when New York was the epicenter and more than a thousand people were being hospitalized daily, there was genuine fear that hospitals would not be able to accommodate the influx of desperately ill patients. Moving people out of the hospitals and into nursing homes was one strategy to help hospitals meet these needs. According to the CDC guidance cited in the earlier PolitiFact story, there were two factors to consider when deciding whether to discharge a patient with COVID-19 to a long-term care facility: whether the patient was medically ready, and whether the facility could implement the recommended infection control procedures to safely care for a patient recovering from the virus. A document from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said nursing homes should accept only patients they were able to care for. Long-standing state guidance is based on the same condition. Still, nursing homes didn’t believe turning away patients with COVID-19 was an option. "On its face it looked like a requirement," said Christopher Laxton, executive director of the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine, which represents medical professionals in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. "The nursing homes we spoke to felt it was a mandate, and a number of them felt they had no choice but to take COVID patients." While the overarching guidance not to take patients in unless they could be safely cared for may have been clear, nursing homes’ experience was often different, said Richard Mollot, executive director of the Long-Term Care Community Coalition, an advocacy group for elderly and disabled people. "There was little reason for nursing homes to think they should only take in patients if they have the ability to do so safely because those rules are not generally enforced on a regular basis." Bottom line: State and federal rules didn’t force nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients, but many of them believed they had no other choice. How much of the blame for the deaths of thousands of people in nursing homes from COVID-19 can be attributed to Cuomo’s March advisory? That is the 6,000-person question. In a July analysis of COVID-19 nursing home deaths, the state concluded that the deadly virus was introduced by nursing home staff members rather than sick patients. It noted that peak nursing home resident mortality from COVID-19 on April 8 preceded the peak influx of COVID patients on April 14. In addition, it found that nearly 1 in 4 nursing home workers — 37,500 people — were infected with the virus between March and early June. Based on these and other factors, the report concluded that the state admissions policy could not have been a driver of nursing home infections or fatalities. Epidemiologists and nursing home advocates beg to differ. "To say that introducing patients [to nursing homes] who had COVID did not cause problems is ridiculous," said Laxton. Calling the study’s approach "pretty flawed," Denis Nash, an epidemiologist at City University of New York School of Public Health, said he didn’t agree with the report’s conclusion that the policy had nothing to do with deaths. Others had the same view. "I didn’t think they showed data to say [the policy] is not a ‘driver,’" said Rupak Shivakoti, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. But Gary Holmes, assistant commissioner at the New York State Department of Health, had a different take. Critics of the report, he said, must be deliberately ignoring the rising death tolls in nursing homes in hot spots across the country. "Public health officials in those states are experiencing (and acknowledging) what NY’s report indicated weeks ago: these facilities are microcosms of the community and transmission is occurring unknowingly by asymptomatic spread among staff members," Holmes said, in an email. While public health experts quibbled with the report’s self-serving claim that the governor’s policy wasn’t a factor in COVID-19 nursing home deaths, they nevertheless agreed with the report’s broader conclusion that nursing home staffers as well as visitors, before they were banned, were likely the main drivers of COVID-19 infection and death in nursing homes. "Based on the timeline of the policy and deaths in the city, it is very unlikely that policy contributed to thousands of deaths," said Shivakoti. Infection control is a long-standing problem at nursing homes, Nash said, and the COVID deaths were a basic failure of infection control. That said, "it’s unclear how many of the deaths the policy might have caused." Also unclear: how many of the dead were grandmothers and grandfathers. In a tweet, the HHS assistant secretary for public affairs said that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo "forced" nursing homes across the state to admit COVID-positive patients and that this policy fueled the spread of COVID-19 that led to thousands of deaths in the nursing home population. Although nursing homes felt pressure to accept COVID-positive patients, they were not actually forced to do so. State regulations require nursing homes to accept patients only if they can care for them, and they could have refused them on those grounds. In addition, it’s unclear the extent to which the governor’s policy was responsible for nursing home COVID-19 deaths. Infection control is a longstanding problem in nursing homes that predates the pandemic and a report showed peak numbers of nursing home deaths came prior to the peak influx of patients as a result of Cuomo’s advisory. While the introduction of COVID-19 positive patients into nursing homes no doubt had an effect on infection spread, Caputo’s statement suggests it was solely responsible. That’s not what the evidence shows.


Explanation: This news release describes a study about intermittent fasting in mice, in which the mice that fasted weighed less four months later than the mice that did not fast. The finding described in the news release only applied to mice being fed a high fat diet (45 percent from fat), whereas when on normal chow and intermittent fasting on normal chow, there wasn’t much difference. The release was short on numbers and descriptions of measurements used, and implied that the mouse studies could benefit people, without any caveats that such a transfer of mouse discovery to practical application in humans often fails. The release did name the funders and avoided sensationalizing obesity. Obesity is an enormous public health problem. But this release misleads the reader into thinking its conclusions will transfer from the mice in the study to human patients with obesity. We were disappointed by this quote from one of the researchers: “Intermittent fasting without a reduction in calorie intake can be a preventative and therapeutic approach against obesity and metabolic disorders,” says Kyoung-Han Kim.” Based on the published study, we don’t find any evidence that this has been proven for human patients. A more accurate quote would be, “Intermittent fasting without a reduction in calorie intake can be a preventative and therapeutic approach against obesity and metabolic disorders in mice being fed a high fat diet.”

The release doesn’t discuss costs of the mice chow used in the study but we’ll still rate this Not Applicable since our emphasis is on human interventions. People wanting to embark on a semi-fasting program could do so without purchasing any products. The benefits are given very sketchy treatment. For example, the release says, “Four months later the mice in the fasting group weighed less than those in the control group who continued to eat the same volume of food.” The release never tells us how many mice were in the study nor how much less they weighed than the control group at the end of the trial. The release also provides what it calls molecular detail about benefits to the experimental fasting mice vs. the control mice. But again, the quantities and context are not there. “Through an analysis into the underlying biology involved, the researchers found that such intermittent fasting tempers an immune reaction in fat cells. There are changes in certain gene pathways involved in the immune system and the body’s reaction to inflammation. A type of white blood cell known to play a role in fighting inflammation is triggered. Known as anti-inflammatory macrophages, these cells stimulate the fat cells to burn stored fats or lipids by generating heat. This happens during periods of intermittent fasting because there is an increase in vascular growth factor (VEGF) that help form blood vessels and activate anti-inflammatory macrophage.” What are the changes? How were they measured? We don’t see any numbers in this description to help the reader evaluate the credibility of the data. The release does not mention any potential harms that could exist for intermittent fasting. While the published study discussed the study limitations and the “practicality” of doing similar experiments with humans, the news release doesn’t acknowledge any limitations or explain to readers that animal studies are rarely replicated in humans and that much more study was called for by the authors to examine if “(1) beneficial effects of IF last after stopping the fasting (i.e., if there is a rebound effect); (2) whether there is any potential harm of IF; and (3) whether IF benefits apply to all generations (i.e., an age-dependent issue) and disease conditions.” There was no disease mongering. The research was funded by a variety of grants which were listed in the sidebar of the EurekAlert! site, but not in the news release text. The authors declared in the journal article that they had no conflicts of interest. While the release is written as if it could help inform human obesity treatment or prevention, there is no discussion of how obesity is treated or prevented now and the many alternatives available. These include changes in exercise and diet patterns and bariatric surgery. Fasting is widely available. The release does not make a claim of novelty. In the journal article, the authors write that others have established the ability of intermittent fasting to promote weight loss. They do say that they have identified a mechanism that might explain why weight loss occurs in fasting mice which could be considered novel. We think the headline is stretching things by stating “On and off fasting helps fight obesity.” The average reader likely assumes the obesity referred to is in humans and not mice. The release doesn’t clarify that the study was only in mice until the fourth sentence. “Up to sixteen weeks of intermittent fasting without otherwise having to count calories helps fight obesity and other metabolic disorders. Such fasting already shows benefits after only six weeks. This is according to a study by Kyoung-Han Kim and Yun Hye Kim in the journal Cell Research which is published by Springer Nature. Intermittent fasting in mice helped to kick-start the animals’ metabolism and to burn fat by generating body heat. The research team was led by Hoon-Ki Sung of The Hospital for Sick Children in Ontario, Canada.”


Experimental Psoriasis Drug Bests Older Treatment

Explanation: But neither story disclosed the conflicts of interest of the principal investigator. It’s difficult sometimes for journalists to dig and find conflicts of interest in those making claims about health care interventions. But when the conflicts are disclosed and published for anyone to see, why would a news story fail to include that information in a story? And neither story discussed the costs of biolgic drugs in the treatment of psoriasis. These drugs can cost $1,500-2,000/month. We think that any discussion about a new drug should include some comment about costs. Psoriasis is a chronic skin condition that, in its more aggressive forms, can produce a good deal of discomfort and disfigurement. Treatments to date have improved but a mainstay drug, methotrexate, is limited in its effectiveness and can have some nasty side effects. Biologic drugs such as Stelara, Humira and Enbrel are somewhat more effective but very expensive. So a story about a new drug that appears effective in very early clinical trials is important.

We also would have liked to have seen some comment on the costs of biologic drugs in the treatment of psoriasis. These drugs can cost $1,500-2,000/month. We think that any discussion about a new drug should include some comment about costs Adequate explanation of what the study showed for potential benefits. Better than the competing WebMD story, this story quantified the serious infections and explained the two cancer cases seen in the briakinumab group. It also explained that an earlier trial of the drug showed “some unexplained major adverse cardiac events.”  This was a more complete explanation than what WebMD provided. Adequate job explaining the study. The ending – with quote from the National Psoriasis Foundation spokesman – was apt:  “For people living with psoriasis…the message from this study is that ‘dramatic progress has been made from where we were just five years ago.’ ” We like that;  it was measured and responsible and didn’t go beyond the limits of what this study means. No disease mongering of psoriasis here. The story did state that Abbott Labs had funded the study and it did get an independent comment from the National Psoriasis Foundation. But we judge this to be unsatisfactory because the story did not disclose what is clearly disclosed in the journal article – that the principal investigator: It also didn’t disclose what the journal article disclosed, that Abbott personnel helped write the manuscript and helped with the statistical analyses. The Statement of Principles of the Association of Health Care Journalists includes these clauses:  As with the “novelty” criterion above, on this point, WebMD’s version of the story was better because it at least reminded readers that “a similar drug, Stelara…was approved by the FDA in 2009.” Neither story wrapped this research into the broader context of other approaches to psoriasis – including non-drug therapies. The experimental nature of briakinumab was made clear in the story. On this point, WebMD’s version of the story was better because it at least reminded readers that “a similar drug, Stelara…was approved by the FDA in 2009.” It’s clear that the story did not rely solely on a news release.


Over 1,000 quarantined in measles scare at LA universities.

Explanation: More than 1,000 students and staff members at two Los Angeles universities were quarantined on campus or sent home this week in one of the most sweeping efforts yet by public health authorities to contain the spread of measles in the U.S., where cases have reached a 25-year high .

Los Angeles, University of California, Health, Measles, North America, AP Top News, California, Science, California State University, U.S. News, Public health

By Friday afternoon, two days after Los Angeles County ordered the precautions, about 325 of those affected had been cleared to return after proving their immunity to the disease, through either medical records or tests, health officials said. The action at the University of University of California, Los Angeles, and California State University, Los Angeles — which together have more than 65,000 students — reflected the seriousness with which public health officials are taking the nation’s outbreak. “Measles actually kills people, so we have to take that really seriously,” said Dr. Armand Dorian, chief medical officer at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital. Those under the quarantine were instructed to stay at home and avoid contact with others. They also were barred from traveling by public transportation, including planes, trains, buses or taxis. If they must travel for an emergency, they were told to notify public health officials first. “This is a legally binding order,” the county’s public health director, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, told reporters. Anyone who violates it could be prosecuted, she said, but added that it appears everyone is cooperating so far. She didn’t describe what penalties those who don’t could face. The number of measles cases in the U.S. has climbed to nearly 700 this year, including five in Los Angeles County and 38 altogether in California. The surge is blamed largely on parents not getting their children vaccinated because of misinformation about the supposed dangers. Still, several students at Cal State-LA were shocked that their campus could be hit by a measles outbreak. “When they were like measles, I was like, ‘What? Where did that come from,’” said Sergio Dula, a communications major. Eden Guerra, a kinesiology major, was surprised classes weren’t canceled, noting, “This is like serious, like it’s life, you know.” Cal State-LA reported 875 students, staff, faculty and visitors were placed under quarantine after possibly being exposed to measles earlier this month. About 250 had been cleared by Friday after proving they are immune to the disease. At UCLA, 129 students and faculty were quarantined. All but 46 had been cleared by Friday. Cal State-LA is primarily a commuter school, while many UCLA students live on campus. Some UCLA students were provided a quarantine area to stay in, university officials said, though they gave no details. Only one person remained there Friday. Those covered by the quarantine were singled out based on their possible exposure to either an infected UCLA student who had attended classes in two buildings on three days earlier this month, or a person with measles who visited a Cal State-LA library on April 11, officials said. Those possibly exposed at Cal State-LA were located by tracking the records of people working in the library and those who logged on to its computers during the four hours the infected student was there. Given the amount of time a person can remain contagious, officials said the quarantine would end at UCLA on Tuesday and at Cal State-LA on Thursday. Around the country, lawmakers in California, New York, Washington state and Oregon have responded to the outbreak by moving to crack down on exemptions to vaccinating children. On Friday, President Donald Trump urged everyone to get vaccinated. Most of the cases are centered in two ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in New York — one in Brooklyn, the other in suburban Rockland County. In Rockland County, officials declared a state of emergency and at one point tried to bar unvaccinated children from schools and other public places, but a judge overturned the order. Authorities ordered mandatory vaccinations earlier their month in the affected Brooklyn neighborhoods and threatened fines of $1,000. City officials said earlier this week that 12 people had been issued summonses. Measles usually causes fever, runny nose and an all-over rash but in a small number of cases can lead to deadly complications such as pneumonia and swelling of the brain. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the vaccine for everyone over a year old, except for people who had the disease as children. Those who have had measles are immune. Health officials at a news conference repeatedly urged people who haven’t been exposed to measles to get vaccinated, saying the vaccine is safe and effective. “Ninety percent of people who are not immunized or haven’t had measles before, when they’re exposed to measles are likely to get measles,” Ferrer said. ___ Associated Press Writers Krysta Fauria and John Antczak contributed to this report.


U.N. flags need to cut meat to curb land use impact on global warming.

Explanation: Global meat consumption must fall to curb global warming, reduce growing strains on land and water and improve food security, health and biodiversity, a United Nations report on the effects of climate change concluded.

Although the report stopped short of explicitly advocating going meat free, it called for big changes to farming and eating habits to limit the impact of population growth and changing consumption patterns on stretched land and water resources. Plant-based foods and sustainable animal-sourced food could free up several million square kilometers of land by 2050 and cut 0.7-8.0 gigatonnes a year of carbon dioxide equivalent, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said. “There are certain kinds of diets that have a lower carbon footprint and put less pressure on land,” Jim Skea, professor at London’s Imperial College, said on Thursday. The IPCC met this week in Geneva, Switzerland to finalize its report which should help to guide governments meeting this year in Chile on ways to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement. “The IPCC does not recommend people’s diets ... Dietary choices are very often shaped or influenced by local production practices and cultural habits,” Skea, who is one of the report’s authors, told reporters in Geneva. Land can be both a source and sink of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming, and better land management can help to tackle climate change, the IPCC said. But it is not the only solution and cutting emissions from all sectors is essential to quickly curtail global warming. “The window for making these changes is closing fast. If there is further delay in reducing emissions, we will miss the opportunity to successfully manage the climate change transition in the land sector,” it said. Since the pre-industrial era, land surface air temperature has risen by 1.53 degrees Celsius, twice as much as the global average temperature (0.87C), causing more heatwaves, droughts and heavy rain, as well as land degradation and desertification. Human use directly affects more than 70% of the global, ice-free land surface and agriculture accounts for 70% of freshwater use, the IPCC added in the report. Agriculture, forestry and other land use activities accounted for 23% of total net man-made greenhouse gas emissions during 2007-2016. When pre- and post-production activity in the food system are included, that rises to up to 37%. Last year the IPCC’s first special report warned that keeping the Earth’s temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), rather than the 2C target agreed under the Paris accord, required rapid change across society. The IPCC warned of more disruption to global food chains as extreme weather becomes more frequent due to climate change and said environmental costs should be factored into food. It projects a median increase of 7.6% in cereal prices by 2050, meaning higher food prices and an increased risk of hunger. While an estimated 821 million people are undernourished, changing consumption habits have already contributed to about 2 billion adults being overweight or obese. Per capita supply of vegetable oils and meat has more than doubled based on data since 1961 but 25-30% of total food produced is still lost or wasted. Yields of crops such as maize and wheat have declined in some regions, while those of maize, wheat and sugar beets have increased in others in recent decades. While forests can soak up heat-trapping gases from the atmosphere, desertification and deforestation can amplify warming due to the loss of vegetation cover and soil erosion. Measures to cut emissions, such as the production of biofuels, biochar - made from biomass - as well as planting trees, will also increase demand for land conversion. Reducing deforestation and forest degradation could result in a reduction of 0.4-5.8 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent, the report said. The Amazon, about 60% of which lies in Brazil, is sometimes called the “lungs of the world” due to the amount of CO2 it can absorb but it was not directly mentioned in the IPCC’s summary for policymakers. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has supported opening up protected areas of the world’s largest tropical rainforest to facilitate agriculture and mining since taking office in January. The report text is prepared by over 100 scientists but has to be approved by governments. In those discussions, Brazil and India were very active to protect their national agro-industrial interests, a source familiar with the talks said.


Indiana University cleaning mold inside residence quadrangle.

Explanation: Indiana University is cleaning up inside a residence quadrangle after mold was found in units.

Indiana University, Health, Environmental health, Bloomington, Indiana

Patrick Connor, executive director of residential programs and services, tells The Herald-Times (http://bit.ly/2e50z9S ) students identified the problem when they began moving into Teter Quadrangle in August. The mold originally was thought to be in only one of the Teter buildings, but the university’s director of environmental health and safety, Dan Derheimer, says it has been found in all of them, with Teter Wissler being the most contaminated. Students living in rooms where mold was visible were moved to lounges during the cleanup. Only one student was still living in a lounge as of Thursday. All of the approximately 650 units are being cleaned as a precautionary measure. The cleanup is estimated to cost $84,000. ___ Information from: The Herald Times, http://www.heraldtimesonline.com


'Stink flirting' is a thing - just ask a ring-tailed lemur.

Explanation: For human beings, “stink flirting” may not sound like a prudent dating strategy. For ring-tailed lemurs, it is the way to go.

Scientists on Thursday described the results of a comprehensive study of this behavior - unique in the animal kingdom - that is exhibited by these primates native to Madagascar. Male ring-tailed lemurs increase their attractiveness to females by secreting from glands on their wrists a fruity and floral aroma smelling similar to a pear, the researchers said. The behavior dubbed “stink flirting” involves a male rubbing a fragrant clear liquid that oozes from those glands against his long fluffy tail and then waving the tail at females. The researchers pinpointed three compounds responsible for the scent. “It turns out that the key odorants were not really stinky,” said University of Tokyo biochemistry professor Kazushige Touhara, who led the study published in the journal Current Biology. “We can say that the identified odors are strong candidates for sex pheromones,” Touhara said, referring to chemical substances released by an animal that affects the behavior of other members of its species. Until now, no pheromones have been identified in any primates, a group that also includes monkeys, apes and people,  Touhara said. “Although there are many circumstances in which humans utilize olfactory cues for communication, there is no authentic pheromone that has been chemically identified,” Touhara said. “I believe there is no classic sex pheromone in humans that elicits attractive behavior to the opposite sex. But there are probably crucial odors that affect each other’s emotions - for example, a baby’s head smell that parents sniff and feel happy, and a woman’s axillary (underarm) odors that affect the emotions of males.”  Olfactory communication is important for ring-tailed lemurs, which possess well-developed scent glands on their wrists and shoulders that they use to mark territory and designate social rank in addition to romance. Among primates, lemurs are part of a separate evolutionary lineage with a keener sense of smell than the group that spans monkeys, apes and humans. The researchers found a close relationship between the male hormone testosterone and the lemur odor compounds. They also found that the male scent worked its magic only during the breeding season when females were sexually receptive, as measured by the amount of time spent sniffing the scent during lab experiments. Outside of the breeding season, the researchers found, the male gland secretions smelled different - more bitter and leathery. The females, the researchers found, showed scant interest in that.


Prospective new gang members are being initiated by killing the drivers of cars who flash their headlights at them.

Explanation: A warning about gang members driving around with their headlights off, then killing anyone who flashes them, is old and false.

Although print references to this gang initiation scare date to 1993, anecdotal information places it as far back as the early 1980s when a reader in Montana heard the Hell’s Angels bike gang in California was said to be initiating inductees in this fashion. By 1984 the story had spread to Eugene, Oregon and had by then changed into a tale of Black and hispanic street gangs in Los Angeles targeting white people. “Flash your headlights and have a prospective gang member kill you as part of his initiation” legends have been with us for more than thirty years, something that should be kept in mind as hysteria builds during new outbreaks of this panic: [Collected via e-mail, November 2010] please dont flash your headlights at any car with no headlights on! Police officers is working with the DARE program and has issued this warning! if you are driving after dark and see a on-coming car with no headlights on, “do not flash your headlights at them” this is a common “Bloods” gang member “initiation game”. the new gang member, under initiation, drives along with no headlights on and the 1st car to flash their headlights at them is now his “target.” he is now required to turn around and chase that car, then shoot and kill individual in the vehicle in order to complete his initiation requirements. police departments across the nation are being warned. the gang’s intent is to have “bloods” nationwide, drive around on Friday and Saturday nights with their headlights off. in order to be accepted into the gang, they have to shoot and kill all individuals in the 1st auto that does a “courtesy” flash. please forward to all loved ones! [Collected via e-mail, 2005] Gang Initiation Weekend. ( Please Read Very Important!!!) Police officers working with the DARE program has issued this warning: If you are driving after dark and see an on-coming car with no headlights on, DO NOT FLASH YOUR LIGHTS AT THEM! This is a common Bloods gang member “initiation game” that goes like this: The new gang member under initiation drives along with no headlights, and the first car to flash their headlights at him is now his “target”. He is now required to turn around and chase that car, then shoot and kill every individual in the vehicle in order to complete his initiation requirements. Police Depts. across the nation are being warned that September 23rd and 24th is the “Blood” initiation weekend. Their intent is to have all the new bloods nationwide drive around on Friday and Saturday nights with their headlights off. In order to be accepted into the gang, they have to shoot and kill all individuals in the first auto that does a courtesy flash to warn them that their lights are off. Make sure you share this information with all your friends and family who are drivers. [Collected via e-mail, 2005] Please pass this on! Important police warning Very scary, now moving west…. started in… Manitoba, now in Saskatchewan and moving west. Police Warning – For Your Information: This is very scary and came directly from our Driver Training People who got the warning from Manitoba. Pass this to anyone you can. One of the officers who works with the dare program has passed along the following warning and asked that it be shared with all drivers. This is an extremely serious matter. If you are driving after dark and you see a car without its head-lights on do not flash your lights, do not blow your horn or make any signals to the driver of the other car. There is a new common gang initiation ‘game’ going on the streets. The new member being initiated drives along without his headlights on until someone notices and flashes their headlights or makes some sort of other action to signal him. The gang member is now required to chase the car and shoot at or into the car in order to complete his initiation requirements. Make sure you share this information with your family, friends, and anyone else you can reach. If you have any questions or information, please call your local police department. Please take this seriously. This is not a joke. Please pass this on to everyone you know on e-mail and in person. It could save someone’s life. [Collected via e-mail, 2004] I have received the following serious information via a contact at the London Ambulance Service which has units closely associated with South London police squads which are involved in fighting Gang Crimes. Some ‘street gangs’ in London (particularly South London at present, but it is sure to spread) have initiation tasks which new gang members have to carry out to be admitted to the ‘gang’. The latest craze is to drive around, deliberately with no lights on their cars. The first person who ‘flashes’ them, points at them or sounds their horn at them, has to be followed by that new gang member in their car, who then has to fire a shot into that vehicle !!! with no regard as to who is inside. The LAS official instruction is that if they see a vehicle with no lights on, they are NOT to ‘flash’ it etc. and the advice to friends and family is that you should ignore any vehicles you see without lights. I would ask that you pass this info on to family, friends and colleagues as it may save a life! [Collected via e-mail, 1998] Read & Heed! A police officer working with the DARE program has issued this warning: If you are driving after dark and see an on-coming car with no headlights on, DO NOT FLASH YOUR LIGHTS AT THEM! This is a common gang member “initiation game” that goes like this: The new gang member under initiation drives along with no headlights, and the first car to flash their headlights at him is now his “target”. He is now required to turn around and chase that car, and shoot at or into the car in order to complete his initiation requirements. Make sure you share this information with all the drivers in your family! Although print references to this gang initiation scare date to 1993, anecdotal information places it as far back as the early 1980s when a reader in Montana heard the Hell’s Angels bike gang in California was said to be initiating inductees in this fashion. By 1984 the story had spread to Eugene, Oregon and had by then changed into a tale of Black and hispanic street gangs in Los Angeles targeting white people. “Flash your headlights and have a prospective gang member kill you as part of his initiation” legends have been with us for more than twenty years, something that should be kept in mind as hysteria builds during new outbreaks of this panic. In August 1993, a major outbreak of this scare swept the United States as the legend spread quickly with the help of fax machines and e-mail forwards. The early fears were further intensified when a new round of faxes went out a few weeks later, these announcing a “Blood initiation weekend” of September 25 and 26 of that year: Police Depts across the nation are being warned that this is the “blood” initiation weekend. Their intent is to have all the new bloods nationwide drive around on Saturday and Sunday nights with their headlights off. In order to be accepted into the gang, they have to shoot and kill all individuals in the first auto that does a courtesy flash to warn them that their lights are off. “Blood initiation weekend” came and went without incident. Meanwhile, fake memos continued to circulate, each issuing a dire warning about this new gang initiation rite. The alerts looked credible — they were printed on what was purported to be Sacramento (California) or Illinois State Police letterhead. The police department in Lynn (Massachusetts) also got into the act when a prankster induced it to issue a warning. All three of those law enforcement agencies fielded thousands of calls about the alerts they had supposedly authored. The false rumor struck especially hard in Massachusetts, Illinois, Michigan, New York State, California, and Texas. From the end of 1993 until February 1994, it went into remission. Then a Massillon woman revived it with a one-page handwritten flier that said police were warning women to be aware because a gang was coming from Detroit to recruit members. Initiation would be to kill a woman at Belden Village Mall. In one night, she sent faxes to several dozen businesses. Police arrested Ann Sibila the next day and charged her with inducing panic. It’s possible the 1993 outbreak of this hoax was helped along by memories of a real life incident in 1992. Kelly Freed, a school secretary from Stockton, California, was shot to death after the driver of the car she was riding in gestured to a carload of kids who had forgotten to turn their headlights on. According to Stockton Police Lt. Ted Montes, the gesture was mistaken as a sign of disrespect. Montes said the kids were not gang-bangers and the incident had nothing to do with ritual. The two youths responsible for Freed’s death were convicted of murder. The rumor lay dormant until October 1998 when it again whipped around the Internet and through fax machines. The warnings this time were said to have originated with a DARE police officer in Houston, Texas. Once again, it was the same old story: no gang initiations, no killings, just a hoax on the loose. A hoax which quickly spread to all parts of the U.S.A. Scares of this ilk easily pick up additional believability based on who does the forwarding. The 1998 version was given an extra little boost in San Diego when Housing Commission staffers there forwarded the warning to other city departments, including the Mayor’s office and City Council. Though the “warning” was quickly debunked and short-circuited at City Hall, this didn’t happen before those forwards — now issuing from a local government agency and thus much more likely to be believed — spread far and wide. In common with versions in circulation in other parts of the country, the San Diego warning was said to have originated with the Sheriff’s Department. (In most every community this warning reaches, the “Sheriff’s Department” mentioned in the memo is always presumed to be the local one.) Debunking in San Diego was simple; someone at City Hall contacted the actual Sheriff’s Department for confirmation. “We certainly did not send it out,” said Lt. Ronald Van Raaphorst. Sometimes the actual warning does come from a real Sheriff’s Department. In the fall of 1998, the Nassau Sheriff’s Office in Florida forwarded the warning to the Fire Department, who subsequently sent it to every department in the city. In this case, the mistake originated with the Sheriff’s Office; it hadn’t bothered to check out a fax before forwarding it to others: Still, Ann Johnson, who supervises Nassau County dispatchers, said she thought the memo was serious enough to distribute. One of her part-time dispatchers brought it to her office and told her he had confirmed it with Jacksonville police, she said. So her office sent it to various agencies in the county. The 1998 prize for most authoritative vectoring of this canard goes to Art Eggleton, Canada’s Minister of Defence. On 20 November 1998, his office dispatched an “!!URGENT! !” security warning for all Ontario Members of Parliament. Later that same day, his office followed up the warning with an update advising recipients the original story was false. In 2004 the hoax jumped to Britain and through some form of garbling came to be associated with the London Ambulance Service. In widely-circulated e-mailed alerts, it was claimed gangs in London were initiating new members into their ranks via having them prove their mettle by shooting at whichever motorist blinked his headlights at them. Further, many of the e-mails asserted the warning has been “received and authenticated by the Metropolitan Police Intelligence Unit.” The London Ambulance Service posted this denial on their web site: HOAX E-MAIL An e-mail purported to have been issued by the London Ambulance Service on the subject of the police and gang crimes has been widely circulated in recent days. This originated from outside the Service and was forwarded by a member of staff to friends in good faith. Please be assured, however, that we have checked with the Metropolitan Police Service and the information contained within it is not genuine, so the message can be safely deleted. In 2004 a police officer in Thunder Bay, Ontario, forwarded the “lights out” warning to a colleague. That note subsequently escaped into the wild, leaving many with the impression that the Ontario Provincial Police had issued an official warning about gang members flashing their headlights at intended victims. The officer has since left a message on his voice mail indicating the alert bearing his name and signature block is an urban legend and that there have been “no known cases having occurred in Ontario or in Canada.” Moreover, according to that recording, his e-mail to a colleague was “never intended as a public advisory from the O.P.P.,” with callers advised to “Please disregard the message in its entirety.” That same e-mail bore the name and signature of a second officer, one in Ottawa. His voice mail recording also contains a denial of the alert, telling callers the warning is “completely false and inaccurate, and should not be passed on.” In 2005 an employee of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police passed to others a copy of the warning received in personal e-mail. The addition of this person’s signature block to the e-mail gave the specious heads-up the appearance of credibility, convincing many it really was an official warning from the RCMP. The confusion prompted the RCMP to post a denial on their web site: The following e-mail hoax has been circulating in Canada with an RCMP signature. One of our Saskatchewan employees sent this e-mail on to others in good faith without realizing it was untrue. The information contained in the e-mail is FALSE and the RCMP regrets any unnecessary alarm this may have caused the public. In September 2005 the unfounded warning about new members gaining acceptance into gangs via this method came to life once again, with warnings about the upcoming “Blood initiation weekend” springing up in communities across the nation. But of course what had people going in 2005 was but a reworking of previous baseless scares: Police Depts across the nation are being warned that September 23rd and 24th is the “blood” initiation weekend. Their intent is to have all the new bloods nation wide drive around on Friday and Saturday nights with their headlights off. In order to be accepted into the gang, they have to shoot and kill all individuals in the first auto that does a courtesy flash to warn them that their lights are off. [Collected via e-mail, 1993] Police Depts across the nation are being warned that this is the “blood” initiation weekend. Their intent is to have all the new bloods nationwide drive around on Saturday and Sunday nights with their headlights off. In order to be accepted into the gang, they have to shoot and kill all individuals in the first auto that does a courtesy flash to warn them that their lights are off. In late October 2005, the hoax hammered Mexico, with at least three different state agencies in that country issuing press releases about a Guatemalan gang named “Los Sangre” (The Blood). Supposedly, the Guatemalan office of Interpol alerted Mexico’s Federal Agency of Investigation, who in turn notified local authorities in Michoacan to this gang’s presence in Mexico and its plans to initiate new recruits during the two weekends prior to Halloween by having gang hopefuls drive about in darkened cars, then chase down and kill ordinary citizens who flashed headlights at them. These official alerts were quickly spread through the media to the general population, causing a great deal of anxiety. We were unable to locate any mentions of a Guatemalan gang or drug cartel going by the name “Los Sangre,” which would likely not be the case for a group of thugs that had a high enough profile for Interpol to know about it. By contrast, references to real Guatemalan gangs, such as Mara Salvatrucha and Mara 18 (aka MS-18), are rife. In November 2010 the “lights out!” warning came to be passed along as a cell phone text message. Throughout the history of the “lights out!” scare there have been occasional incidents involving flashing headlights that appear to fit the pattern of the legend but are merely incidental to it: spontaneous outbursts of road rage triggered by flashing headlights, criminals who used headlights as a way of luring prospective victims into stopping and getting out of their cars, (non-gang-related) imitative shootings, and false reports of crimes resembling the legend. Notable among the last category was a 22-year-old Wisconsin man who in October 2007 claimed he had been jumped and beaten by three men after he stopped his car on the shoulder of U.S. 41 because the automobile behind his was repeatedly flashing its headlights at him. A few weeks later, the purported victim was arrested on charges of filing a false police report after investigators found a witness who said the claimant had actually been beaten elsewhere under different circumstances. Sightings:   This legend is key to the plot of the 1998 film Urban Legend.


Coronavirus strain COVID-19 can be treated by drinking warm water, among several other claims made online.

Explanation: Breaking Down The COVID-19 ‘Friend’s Uncle’s Guidance’ Meme

As rumors quickly spread about purported myriad threats of a novel coronavirus strain known as COVID-19, a chain letter-style post purportedly containing medical advice about both the symptoms and treatments for the disease was spread heavily on Facebook despite relying (as these types of posts almost inevitably do) on third-hand, uncited “advice.”The post, which has been shared more than 291,000 times on the platform since being published on February 27 2020, is presented as an “important announcement”:Last evening dining out with friends, one of their uncles, who’s graduated with a master’s degree and who worked in Shenzhen Hospital (Guangdong Province, China) sent him the following notes on Coronavirus for guidance:The post then offers a list full of claims:We spoke to Dr. Christopher Labos, a cardiologist and associate with the office for science and society at McGill University in Canada who co-hosts a podcast about medical disinformation and misinformation; he was able to identify four outright falsehoods listed in the “guidance” for treating the virus. We separated the list based on the accuracy of its litany of claims to make it easier to read, with Labos’ comments listed under each item.What’s FalseLikewise, there is no evidence that item 10 (“can’t emphasise enough – drink plenty of water!”) is a proven deterrent or treatment to the visor, even if increasing water intake is generally considered a positive for one’s health, at least to a certain extent.What’s TrueBoth the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other health experts have advised people to frequently wash their hands with soap and water or use a hand sanitizer, but it is unclear how long the virus can “live on your hands.”What’s UnknownThe symptoms associated with COVID-19 can vary; for instance, the CDC reported that in some cases involving children in China, patients listed a runny nose as a symptom alongside coughing and running a fever. The section of the post detailing an alleged timeline for the virus’ progression (listed in the meme as “THE SYMPTOMS”) is also unclear. Some patients did not report any symptoms prior to being diagnosed with the virus.According to the CDC, “it may be possible” that a person can contract the virus by touching an affected surface with their mouth, nose, or eyes, it is believed that it primarily spreads through human contact.We attempted to contact other public health institutions for more information, such as the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. seeking comment — but a school spokesperson there told us that they were only granting such requests to “top-tier” news outlets.


Sides spar over water permit for refinery near national park.

Explanation: A company developing an oil refinery near Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota has supplied adequate information to justify drawing water from an underwater aquifer, State Water Commission officials testified Wednesday.

State courts, Courts, Parks, North America, National parks, North Dakota, Science, U.S. News, Aquifers

An attorney for area landowners challenging the recommended permit for the Davis Refinery countered that information from developer Meridian Energy Group has been vague and contradictory. The water permit is one of several hurdles that Meridian must overcome as it seeks to build the refinery just 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the state’s top tourist attraction. Administrative Law Judge Tim Dawson later will issue a recommendation to State Engineer Garland Erbele, whose final decision could be appealed to state court. The disagreement over the water permit centers around a related dispute over how big the refinery will actually be. Meridian in May 2016 applied for a permit to draw about 645 acre-feet of water per year from the underground Dakota Aquifer for a refinery that would process up to 55,000 barrels of oil per day Large volumes of water are commonly measured by the acre-foot in the U.S. One acre-foot is enough water to cover 1 acre (4,047 sq. meters) of land 1 foot (0.3 meter) deep and equals about 326,000 gallons (271,455 imperial gallons). The company later reduced the planned oil capacity to 49,500 barrels, just shy of a 50,000-barrel threshold in state law that requires a site permit from the state Public Service Commission. Meridian has denied trying to skirt state law, and state regulators last month concluded that they had no jurisdiction to intervene. Environmental groups that oppose the refinery are challenging that in state court. Given the reduction in the project capacity, the state engineer’s office has recommended that the company be issued a water permit with a corresponding reduction, to about 586 acre-feet annually. Landowner attorney JJ England has argued that the change to the company’s request is illegal and that the application should have been rejected. Area landowners have raised other concerns, including how they might be affected, how much of the water will be wasted during treatment and how wastewater from the refinery will be handled. Meridian has not applied for a wastewater discharge permit from the state Health Department, according to Water Quality Division Director Karl Rockeman. Wednesday’s hearing centered on whether Meridian will use all of the water for which it has applied for a “beneficial” use. England stressed that Meridian’s plans for treating and using the water are vague and at times have conflicting information. “The state engineer has not established Meridian’s intent to the requisite legal standard, and a number of significant questions remain,” he told Dawson. Water Appropriations Division Director Jon Patch and Hydrologist Manager Kimberly Fischer testified that information Meridian has supplied is enough to warrant a conditional water permit that will be fine-tuned after refinery operations begin and its precise water needs are determined. “If we would approve (the permit), and they ultimately aren’t using that amount of water, we would perfect the permit for the amount that they are using and have shown the need for,” Patch said. Meridian began site work in July , a month after receiving an air quality permit from the state Health Department that deemed the refinery a minor source of pollution. Environmental groups are fighting the permit in state court . A hearing is scheduled Dec. 12 in Dickinson. The groups worry about pollution in the 30,000-acre (12,000-hectare) park that draws more than 700,000 visitors annually. Meridian maintains the refinery will be the “the cleanest refinery on the planet.” ___ Follow Blake Nicholson on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/NicholsonBlake


U.N. says Saudi deportations of Ethiopian migrants risks spreading coronavirus.

Explanation: The United Nations said on Monday that deportations of illegal migrant workers by Saudi Arabia to Ethiopia risked spreading the coronavirus and it urged Riyadh to suspend the practice for the time being.

Saudi Arabia has so far deported 2,870 Ethiopian migrants to Addis Ababa since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the U.N. migration agency said. Ethiopian authorities confirmed that large-scale deportations were taking place. An internal U.N. memo seen by Reuters said Saudi Arabia was expected to deport some 200,000 Ethiopian migrants in total. Other Gulf Arab states, Kenya and other neighbouring countries are also expected to repatriate Ethiopian migrants, it said. “Large-scale migratory movements which are not planned make the transmission of the virus much more likely to continue. We are therefore calling for the temporary suspension of large-scale deportations,” Catherine Sozi, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Ethiopia, told Reuters. The Saudi media ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but many migrant workers worldwide have been left unemployed due to economic lockdowns imposed by governments in an effort to stem the spread of coronavirus. Saudi Arabia, which has around 30 million people, has so far reported 4,934 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, with 65 deaths. Ethiopia, with a population of 105 million, has so far reported only 74 coronavirus cases and just two deaths. Health Minister Lia Tadesse told Reuters that some of the deported migrants had tested positive for coronavirus but she did not have exact numbers. All migrants will be tested for coronavirus and will be quarantined for 14 days in schools and universities which have been closed and converted to serve that purpose, said Zewdu Assefa from the Ethiopian Public Health Institute. “They have been deported in a very congested way, with 300 to 500 squeezed onto single flights, and the number of people who will be returned keeps growing,” he said. The U.S. State Department said in its annual report on human trafficking last year that some 100,000 Ethiopians travel illegally to Saudi Arabia every year, lured by promises of work and a better life. An estimated 200,000 Ethiopians live in the kingdom, it said. A humanitarian aid organisation which asked to remain anonymous said it had raised concerns that the frequency of the flights and the large numbers of deportees involved could overwhelm Ethiopia’s quarantine system. “These migrants are very vulnerable. They have undertaken an extremely dangerous journey and many arrive in Ethiopia with high medical and mental health needs,” the aid group said.


U.S. bishop may have exposed Catholics to hepatitis during Communion.

Explanation: Catholics in North Dakota were warned to watch for symptoms of hepatitis A after a bishop with the disease served Communion at four churches, putting worshipers at risk, state officials said.

Bishop John Folda of the Catholic Diocese of Fargo got hepatitis from contaminated food while in Italy last month for a conference of newly ordained bishops, Aliceyn Magelky, spokeswoman for the diocese, said on Friday. Folda served Communion during Mass at three churches in Fargo and one church in Jamestown between September 27 and October 7, according to the North Dakota Department of Health. The Mass in Jamestown was at a convention of priests. “He feels terrible about it,” Magelky said. “He did not know when coming back that he had contracted the virus or he would have refrained from participating in Mass much sooner.”  Magelky said Folda is feeling better and has not been infectious since October 16, but is still not on a full work schedule. Priests who attended Folda’s Mass in Jamestown were notified directly of the bishop’s illness, she said. Hepatitis A can cause infection of the liver and is found in the feces of infected people, according to the health department. It is most often spread when people with the disease fail to wash their hands thoroughly and then touch other people. “The risk of people getting hepatitis A in this situation is low, but the department of health felt it was important for people to know about the possible exposure,” Molly Howell, immunization program manager for the agency said in a news release. The department encouraged people who received Communion from Folda to check with their doctors if they notice symptoms such as fever, tiredness, loss of appetite, nausea, abdominal discomfort, dark urine, pale stools or jaundice.