Showing posts with label fly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fly. Show all posts

After Years of Incubation - Sleeping Sickness

A Frenchman was taken by rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo and tortured. He escaped and a few years later emigrated to Canada with his wife and children. He began hearing voices and became paranoid fearing someone was trying to kill him.

Post traumatic stress disorder was diagnosed by a doctor. Antidepressants did not work. He got headaches and pain in his back. He deteriorated lost his appetite, became weak and dizzy, and contemplated suicide.

X-rays showed enlarged lymph nodes. An MRI indicated abnormality in the brain. A spinal tap found a very high white blood cell count and most importantly, eel-like protozoa - trypanosomes. After years of incubation, the man had developed sleeping sickness.

This disease is endemic in Africa. It is contracted by being bitten by the tsetse fly which carries the trypanosomiasis protozoa. Death occurs with extreme exhaustion. It can have a myriad of conflicting symptoms. Treatment by a few drugs is possible but also dangerous. The usual outcome is death from the disease or from the treatment.
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Health
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Aussie Bird Flies a Long Way

An Australian bird has flown a long way. Scientists were studying birds on the shores of western Alaska in the Arctic. They saw a bartailed godwit and examined the bird believing it to be a local inhabitant. The tag on its leg, however, showed that it had flown a very long way. Australian scientists had banded the bird earlier in Victoria. The small creature had travelled more than 8,000 miles.

Studies had shown that bartailed godwits usually spend their life in the same local area where they were born, though many presumed that they flew to the Arctic to breed. This has now been substantiated by the discovery. It is known that banded dunlin and semipalmated sandpipers fly to the Arctic from Asia and South America.

With the Arctic thawing, damage could be done to future breeding populations of birds. The hotter Arctic summer could affect the survival of the young. Migratory shorebirds are decreasing in number. This is due, it is believed, to habitat loss and global warming. More research is required in order to identify specific causes.
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Conservation

Aussie Bird Flies a Long Way

An Australian bird has flown a long way. Scientists were studying birds on the shores of western Alaska in the Arctic. They saw a bartailed godwit and examined the bird believing it to be a local inhabitant. The tag on its leg, however, showed that it had flown a very long way. Australian scientists had banded the bird earlier in Victoria. The small creature had travelled more than 8,000 miles.

Studies had shown that bartailed godwits usually spend their life in the same local area where they were born, though many presumed that they flew to the Arctic to breed. This has now been substantiated by the discovery. It is known that banded dunlin and semipalmated sandpipers fly to the Arctic from Asia and South America.

With the Arctic thawing, damage could be done to future breeding populations of birds. The hotter Arctic summer could affect the survival of the young. Migratory shorebirds are decreasing in number. This is due, it is believed, to habitat loss and global warming. More research is required in order to identify specific causes.
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