Stone Soup for Thanksgiving: understanding bird disease through citizen science

Windowkill. Photo: Susan Spear

When somebody opens their front door to pick up the morning newspaper and sees a dead bird below their hedge, they get curious for answers. As soon as they stoop down for a closer look, an Indiana Jones adventure unfolds within the confines of their backyard. Was it poison, disease, predation, starvation, old age? Is this a fluke or widespread plague? Perhaps dead birds like this one are widely scattered across a country. But, if so, what sort of scientific method could find answers to what happened to them all? The stone soup method. In my favorite version of the folk story “Stone Soup,” a group of monks traveling through the war-torn countryside sit in the center of a quiet village and boil a stone in a large pot of water. Soon curiosity wins over the initial distrust and skepticism of impoverished villagers as each, in turn, are enticed to add a vegetable or spice. Through cooperation and sharing, the entire village feasts on delicious, nutritious soup. When my colleagues and I carry out research using citizen science methods, we are like the monks boiling stone soup. Instead of a pot, we have a big blank spreadsheet and curious folk are enticed to each add their observations, ultimately creating a robust database with observations from across a continent. Through citizen science I study healthy birds, but several of my colleagues focus on the sick and dying ones. This week in PLOS ONE, a research team led by Becki Lawson, a veterinarian and ecologist, reported a new strain of avian pox spreading in a common backyard bird in Great Britain. Citizen science participation was pivotal to tracking the outbreak, unraveling its mysteries, and informing localized studies. The new strain of avian pox entered Great Britain and spread in one family of birds, the Paridae. The Paridae include chickadees in North America, their European counterparts are various types of tits, most notably the Great Tit. By piecing together reports from citizen science participants, the team was able to track the spread of pox, starting in southeast England, moving to central England, and then into Wales in less than five years. Avian pox is not for the squeamish, so this study is a testament to what citizen scientists are willing to do. Birds with avian pox grow red, yellow, or gray wart-like lesions, particularly around the eyes, beak, and legs. The new strain makes really large lesions, so severe that they leave the bird unable to feed itself or look out for predators. The pox spreads from individual to individual through direct contact, indirect contact (like touching the same bird feeder), or through a vector that bites, like mosquitoes. There is no way to treat wild birds medically. When an outbreak occurs, people are advised to remove bird feeders to prevent birds from congregating. Also, the study is a reminder for people to periodically clean and sanitize wild bird feeders, just as you would with pets. There are numerous causes of bird deaths in Great Britain. I get the shivers from the names, such as the bacteria like salmonellosis, colibacillosis, Suttonella ornithocola, and Chlamydia psittaci, viruses like pox and fringilla papilloma, and parasites, like trichomonosis, cnemidocoptiasis, and syngamiasis. People have found birds with all of these infectious diseases in over 60 species since 2005 because thousands of individuals have followed hygienic protocols to pick up, package, and submit over 2,500 dead birds to designated veterinary labs for post mortem exams. The veterinary labs participate in the Garden Bird Health initiative (GBHi), a highly collaborative research project to investigate causes of sickness and death in British garden birds. Researchers at the Zoological Society of London collate information from two citizen science projects. First, they receive ad hoc reports, typically through the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Second, Garden BirdWatch, run by the British Trust for Ornithology, formed a systematic surveillance system in which participants provided information every week throughout the year (not just when sick or dead birds are found). Over the past few year Brits were alert and tracking the spread of this pox virus. Two years ago they also followed an epidemic of parasitic finch trichomonosis that caused a significant decline in British greenfinch populations, in research also led by Becki Lawson. The parasitic epidemic spread from the UK to the rest of Europe. The current viral pox epidemic turned the tables: this epidemic is likely invading the UK from Europe. Great Tits don’t migrate, so the new strain of pox had to arrive some other way. Working in coordination with the national efforts, ornithologists from the University of Oxford confirmed that the Great Tit was more susceptible than other species. Although the avian pox has severe effects on individual birds, in particular lowering the odds of survival for chicks and juvenile birds, researchers do not anticipate population declines as occurred with the greenfinch. In the US, citizen scientists are helping study disease and death in birds, too. The House Finch Disease Survey, which is a project by Andr? Dhondt, my colleague (and supervisor) at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, has tracked an epidemic of conjunctivitis, spread by bacteria. Like pox, people can typically see the symptoms of conjunctivitis in house finches, mainly red swollen and crusty eyes, like pink eye in our children. In the Pacific Northwest, hundreds of people help monitor marine health as they take long walks on the beach. They have counted thousands of dead (beached) sea birds each year and submitted their observations to my colleague Julia Parrish through the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST). These baseline numbers are important. Unless people are paying attention, we won’t notice if there is a sudden uptick in deaths, or be able to properly estimate the impact of a catastrophe, such as an oil spill. There are plenty of misconceptions about citizen science, largely attributed to its dual achievements: public engagement and academic research. Is the purpose of making stone soup to teach people about cooperation or to produce a good meal? The intent doesn’t matter because the stone soup method achieves both. Likewise, citizen science can woo everyday people into falling in love with science AND co-create knowledge that an individual scientist could not acquire alone. References: Lawson, B., Lachish S., Colvile, K.M., Durrant, C., Peck, K.M., Toms, M.P., Sheldon, B.C., Cunningham, A.A. Emergence of a novel avian pox disease in British tit species. PLoS ONE Lachish, S., Bonsall, M.B., Lawson, B., Cunningham, A.A., Sheldon, B.C. Individual and population-level impacts of an emerging poxvirus disease in a wild population of great tits. PLoS ONE Lachish, S., Lawson, B., Cunningham, A.A., Sheldon, B.C. Epidemiology of the emergent disease Paridae pox in an intensively studied wild bird population. PLoS ONE

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Greek PM presses for deal on loan

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece has reacted with dismay to the European Union‘s failure to agree to release vital rescue loan funds for the debt-ridden country, with the prime minister warning it was not just Greece’s future that hangs in the balance.

The delay prolongs uncertainty over the future of Greece, which faces a messy default that would threaten the entire euro currency used by 17 EU nations.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras stressed that Greece has done what its creditors from the EU and International Monetary Fund required. “Our partners, along with the IMF, also must do what they have committed to doing,” he said.

He said that “it is not just the future of our country, but the stability of the entire eurozone” that depend on the success of negotiations in coming days.

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NJ jury convicts NY man in iPad data breach case

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — A federal jury on Tuesday convicted a man of illegally gaining access to AT&T‘s servers and stealing more than 120,000 email addresses of iPad users including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and film mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Andrew Auernheimer, of New York, was convicted of identity theft and conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to computers. Each count carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.

Prosecutors said the former Fayetteville, Ark., resident was part of an online group that tricked AT&T’s website into divulging email addresses including those of Bloomberg, Weinstein, then-White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who’s now Chicago’s mayor, and other celebrities.

The group then shared the addresses with the website Gawker, which published them in redacted form accompanying a news article about the breach, prosecutors said.

A second man arrested with Auernheimer early last year, Daniel Spitler, of San Francisco, pleaded guilty that June.

At the time of the arrests, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said there was no evidence the men used the swiped information for criminal purposes. But authorities cautioned that it could have wound up in the hands of spammers and scam artists.

According to court papers, the men used a computer script they called the iPad3G Account Slurper to fool AT&T’s servers into thinking they were communicating with an iPad. The theft of the email addresses occurred in June 2010.

Prosecutors said at the time of Auernheimer’s arrest that he had bragged about the operation in a blog posting and in an interview with CNET published online after the Gawker article. Court papers also quoted him declaring in a New York Times article: “I hack, I ruin, I make piles of money. I make people afraid for their lives.”

Auernheimer, after he was charged and released on bail, had declined to comment.

iPad maker Apple Inc., based in Cupertino, Calif., referred questions to AT&T, which acknowledged a security weak spot on a website that exposed the email addresses. AT&T said the vulnerability affected only iPad users who signed up for its 3G wireless Internet service and said it had fixed the problem.

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Academy Sues Over “Deer Hunter” Oscar Statuette

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – A possibly counterfeit Oscars trophy for the 1978 film has sparked a very real lawsuit.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington state over an Oscar statuette that “was either a genuine statuette or a very convincing counterfeit.”

If it’s real, the trophy was the one awarded to Aaron Rochin for his sound work on the 1978 film “The Deer Hunter.”

The Academy is suing Washington resident James Dunne, who sold the statue, and Edgard G. Francisco, who purchased it.

Dunne initially offered the statuette for sale on eBay in September but deleted the listing for fear that the Academy might discover it, according to the suit, which was filed last week. He later privately sold the statue of Florida resident Francisco for $ 25,000, the suit says.

The suit goes on to allege that after an appraisal, Francisco decided the statuette was fake and demanded a $ 15,000 refund. Dunne claims he provided a full refund. He also claims that he told Francisco that the trophy might not be authentic before he bought it.

Dunne told the Academy that he had either picked up the statuette at a moving sale or obtained it from a third party who got it at an estate sale.

After getting the refund, the suit says, Francisco threw the statuette away.

The Academy’s suit is two-fold: If the trophy was real, the Academy is seeking restitution for the loss of its property; if it was fake, the Academy claims that the pair infringed on the organization’s Oscars copyright.

The latter would seem to be the more probable scenario in this case. For one thing, the Academy says that the identification number for the statuette would place its manufacture in 1979, while the eBay auction billed it as a “Rare Pre-1950 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences OSCAR Statue Award!”

The Academy is asking for unspecified damages, plus suit costs and attorneys’ fees.

(Pamela Chelin contributed to this report)

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Docs Push for Over-the-Counter Pill

In an attempt to lower the alarmingly high rate of unplanned pregnancy — and the high cost associated with it — an expert panel of doctors recommended Tuesday that birth control pills be made available without a prescription.

Specifically, the committee said the potential benefits of over-the-counter birth control pills outweigh the danger, which includes a small risk of dangerous blood clots.

Nearly half of all pregnancies happen by accident, according to government data. These pregnancies cost taxpayers an estimated $ 11.1 billion each year, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ Committee on Gynecologic Practice.

The birth control pill, commonly called “the pill,” is a formulation of hormones, usually progestin and estrogen, that helps prevent pregnancy mainly by keeping the ovaries from releasing eggs. Right now “the pill” is only available in the United States with a prescription, which the committee said poses a significant barrier.

“Access to and cost issues are common reasons why women do not use contraception or use it inconsistently,” said Dr. Kavita Nanda, one of the physicians on the committee.

A survey from 2004, cited by the committee, found that almost half of all uninsured women and 40 percent of low-income women who were not using birth control pills, the patch or the ring, said they would more likely use the pill if it were available over the counter.

This same survey also found that more than two out of three women at risk of an unintended pregnancy would use their pharmacy if more methods of birth control were available over the counter.

The committee said that birth control pills are good options for these women, with efficacy ranging from 92 to 99 percent depending on use.

Dr. Daniel Grossman, an American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists fellow, who was not part of the committee, said oral contraceptives are also safe. “We have over 50 years of experience with this method,” he said.

There are still many steps that would have to occur for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommendation to translate into the availability of birth control pills over the counter. And not all doctors support the idea that birth control pills are safely sold without a prescription.

“I think that the risks far outweigh the benefits,” said ABC News’ senior medical contributor Dr. Jennifer Ashton, who is also an obstetrician and gynecologist.

“Even though they’re hormones … they’re at much higher doses than our body makes, and as such there can be side effects ranging from minor to life threatening,” Ashton said. She went on to list some of the side effects associated with birth control pills, including low risks of blood clot, stroke and heart attack. “It’s a full spectrum of things that really needs a medical provider in the picture.”

Still, the committee noted in its recommendation that the risk of blood clots associated with birth control pills was low, with three to 10 women out of 10,000 taking the pill experiencing such a problem each year. By comparison, past research has found that the risk of blood clots associated with being pregnant is five to 20 women out of 10,000 each year, while the risk of clots associated with having just given birth is 40 to 65 per 10,000.

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Clinton, White House denounce bus bombing

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deliver joint statements …Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced a bomb attack on a bus in Tel Aviv that wounded at least 10 people even as she worked to help cobble together a truce between Israel and the Palestinians' Islamist Hamas movement that rules Gaza.

"The United States strongly condemns this terrorist attack, and our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the people of Israel," said Clinton, who has been meeting with leaders of Israel and Egypt as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas' government runs the West Bank.

"As I arrive in Cairo, I am closely monitoring reports from Tel Aviv, and we will stay in close contact with Prime Minister Netanyahu's team. The United States stands ready to provide any assistance that Israel requires," Clinton said in a written statement.

Hamas has welcomed the attack, even as the White House joined in the denunciations.

"The United States condemns today's terrorist attack on a bus in Tel Aviv," press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those injured and with the people of Israel.

"These attacks against innocent Israeli civilians are outrageous. The United States will stand with our Israeli allies and provide whatever assistance is necessary to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of this attack," Carney said. "The United States reaffirms our unshakeable commitment to Israel's security and our deep friendship and solidarity with the Israeli people."

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NJ jury convicts NY man in iPad data breach case

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — A federal jury on Tuesday convicted a man of illegally gaining access to AT&T‘s servers and stealing more than 120,000 email addresses of iPad users including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and film mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Andrew Auernheimer, of New York, was convicted of identity theft and conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to computers. Each count carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.

Prosecutors said the former Fayetteville, Ark., resident was part of an online group that tricked AT&T’s website into divulging email addresses including those of Bloomberg, Weinstein, then-White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who’s now Chicago’s mayor, and other celebrities.

The group then shared the addresses with the website Gawker, which published them in redacted form accompanying a news article about the breach, prosecutors said.

A second man arrested with Auernheimer early last year, Daniel Spitler, of San Francisco, pleaded guilty that June.

At the time of the arrests, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said there was no evidence the men used the swiped information for criminal purposes. But authorities cautioned that it could have wound up in the hands of spammers and scam artists.

According to court papers, the men used a computer script they called the iPad3G Account Slurper to fool AT&T’s servers into thinking they were communicating with an iPad. The theft of the email addresses occurred in June 2010.

Prosecutors said at the time of Auernheimer’s arrest that he had bragged about the operation in a blog posting and in an interview with CNET published online after the Gawker article. Court papers also quoted him declaring in a New York Times article: “I hack, I ruin, I make piles of money. I make people afraid for their lives.”

Auernheimer, after he was charged and released on bail, had declined to comment.

iPad maker Apple Inc., based in Cupertino, Calif., referred questions to AT&T, which acknowledged a security weak spot on a website that exposed the email addresses. AT&T said the vulnerability affected only iPad users who signed up for its 3G wireless Internet service and said it had fixed the problem.

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Tel Aviv bus blast shakes Gaza diplomacy

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A bomb struck an Israeli bus near the nation's military headquarters in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, wounding 10 people and complicating major diplomatic efforts to forge a truce between Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers.

The attack came as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton shuttled between Jerusalem and the West Bank to help piece together a deal to end Israel's weeklong offensive against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 130 Palestinians. Militant rocket fire into Israel has killed five Israelis. Clinton was due to travel later to Egypt, which is mediating in the crisis.

"What does it say about the future of the (truce) talks? I leave it to (the senior officials), but this doesn't add anything," Yitzhak Aharonovich, Israel's minister of internal security, told Army Radio.

The bus exploded around noon on one of the coastal city's busiest arteries, near the Tel Aviv museum, the district courthouse and across from an entrance to Israel's national defense headquarters.

The bus was completely charred, its side windows blown out and glass scattered on the asphalt. The wounded were evacuated and blood was splattered on the sidewalk.

"We suddenly heard a huge explosion and immediately knew it was a terror attack," said Nir Zano, 35. "I saw someone running in to carry out a woman who was injured."

Aharonovitch said the device was placed inside the bus by a man who then disembarked. The explosion took place while the bus was in movement, he said.

Police set up roadblocks across the city trying to apprehend the attacker.

"We strongly believe that this was a terror attack," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. He said three of the 10 wounded were moderately to seriously hurt.

In Gaza, the Tel Aviv bombing was praised from mosque loudspeakers, while Hamas' television interviewed people praising the attack as a return of militants' trademark tactics.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum welcomed it.

"We consider it a natural response to the occupation crimes and the ongoing massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip," he told The Associated Press.

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, who heard the explosion from his Tel Aviv office, called it "an escalation."

The cease-fire efforts come with thousands of Israeli ground troops massed on the Gaza border, awaiting a possible order to invade.

After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem Tuesday night, Clinton conferred with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank on Wednesday morning and was due to travel later to Cairo, which is mediating in the crisis.

The two sides had seemed on the brink of a deal Tuesday following a swirl of diplomatic activity also involving U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi. But sticking points could not be resolved as talks — and violence — stretched into the night.

Israeli aircraft pounded Gaza with at least 30 strikes overnight, hitting government ministries, smuggling tunnels, a banker's empty villa and a Hamas-linked media office.

Dozens of civilians are among the more than 130 Palestinians killed in a week of fighting. Four Israeli civilians and a soldier have been killed by rocket fire — a toll possibly kept down by a U.S.-funded rocket defense system that has shot down hundreds of Gaza projectiles.

The Tel Aviv bus bombed Wednesday was relatively empty during the explosion, which explains the relatively low number of casualties. The bombing was the first in the coastal city since April 2006, when a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 11 people at a sandwich stand near the city's old central bus station. A bomb left at a bus stand in Jerusalem last year killed one person.

More than 1,000 Israelis were killed during the violent Palestinian uprising in the last decade in bombings and shooting attacks. More than 5,000 Palestinians were killed as well.

___

Associated Press writer Ibrahim Barzak contributed to this report from Gaza City.

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J.R.R. Tolkien estate sues Warner Bros. over gambling, games

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The estate of “The Lord of the Rings” author J.R.R. Tolkien and publisher HarperCollins have filed an $ 80 million lawsuit against Warner Bros. studios over the licensing of characters and plots in online and gambling games derived from the films.

The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Monday, alleges that Warner Bros. and its subsidiary New Line Cinema – which own the merchandising rights to the “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” brands – infringed on copyrights by licensing to casino slot machines, online gambling, games and downloads.

Tolkien‘s estate accuses Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc., of “infringing conduct.”

“Not only does the production of gambling games patently exceed the scope of defendants’ rights, but this infringing conduct has outraged Tolkien’s devoted fan base, causing irreparable harm to Tolkien’s legacy and reputation and the valuable goodwill generated by his works,” the lawsuit stated.

The suit claimed Warner Bros. earned millions of dollars from legal merchandise licensing revenue related to “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy of films, which have grossed nearly $ 3 billion at the global box office.

The estate of the late English author and HarperCollins, a division of News Corp., are asking for at least $ 80 million in damages.

Representatives for Warner Bros., Tolkien’s estate and HarperCollins were not immediately available for comment.

The lawsuit comes a week ahead of the New Zealand premiere of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” the first of a new trilogy of films returning to Tolkien’s world of elves, goblins and wizards of Middle Earth, based on the “Lord of the Rings” prequel novel “The Hobbit.”

(Reporting By Eric Kelsey; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Mohammad Zargham)

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Greek PM presses for deal on loan

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece has reacted with dismay to the European Union‘s failure to agree to release vital rescue loan funds for the debt-ridden country, with the prime minister warning it was not just Greece’s future that hangs in the balance.

The delay prolongs uncertainty over the future of Greece, which faces a messy default that would threaten the entire euro currency used by 17 EU nations.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras stressed that Greece has done what its creditors from the EU and International Monetary Fund required. “Our partners, along with the IMF, also must do what they have committed to doing,” he said.

He said that “it is not just the future of our country, but the stability of the entire eurozone” that depend on the success of negotiations in coming days.

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