Staff Reporter

A Closer Look at The Cookstove Project in Uganda

March 7, 2022 by Staff Reporter

AUSTIN, Texas — Poverty and air quality prove to be a loop of cause and effect. One variable is capable of causing an increase or decrease in the other and vice versa. Stove quality is a major factor in the indoor air pollution of homes in poverty. Without clean sources of cooking, families in poverty may find themselves stuck in the cycle of worsening air quality. The Cookstove Project in Uganda aims to address the destructive impact of open fire cooking in developing countries.

The Impacts of Open Fire Cooking

Approximately 2.6 billion people worldwide still cook on open fires or “simple stoves” using polluting fuels such as kerosene, coal and biomass. The majority of these individuals live in poverty and come from low- and middle-income countries. Fossil fuel burning alone causes half of the world’s deaths. This high rate is due to fine-particle pollution and most of these deaths occur in developing countries where poverty rates are high. When individuals burn these fuels, the fuels release a number of health-damaging pollutants, such as smoke, that penetrate the lungs. According to a 2015 article, indoor air pollution from black carbon causes 4.3 million global deaths annually — a severe consequence for families in poverty who cannot afford clean cooking stoves. Many of the affected individuals are women and children who spend the most time around household cooking fires.

The Cookstove Project in Uganda

The Cookstove Project in Uganda has provided citizens with clean cooking stoves beginning in 2013. There are now 20 employees working in the Mukono and Nakasongola districts of the country. Since its beginnings, the initiative has helped in the creation of more than 10,000 cookstoves in Uganda. Because citizens must be able to maintain the cookstoves themselves, The Cookstove Project in Uganda uses local materials and the stoves are made to fit cooking pots in the home. In order to be sure that families know how to properly use the cookstoves that the project builds, workers ask the citizens to help build them. Families learn how to work and maintain the stoves and evaluation officers visit to address any difficulties arising.

Expanding into New Territories

The project has noted so much growth that, in 2019, The Cookstove Project in Uganda was able to expand its help into new territories. When the project expands, leaders look for individuals in the new community who are enthusiastic about The Cookstove Project in Uganda and care about their fellow citizens. The project then trains up to 10 of these individuals to be the area’s “Cookstove Masters.” The project has also created a new position, a Sustainability Advocate (SA), to help with the exit of the initiative from areas. Sustainability Advocates further ensure that households “are trained to maintain their cookstoves” and visit homes to help with issues if necessary. These measures allow for the work of the project to be self-sustaining.

The link between indoor air pollution due to inefficient cooking stoves and poverty in developing countries is undeniable and poses a serious threat to the health of low-income individuals who find themselves facing the effects. However, with careful consideration and the implementation of cleaner, sustainable cooking stoves by The Cookstove Project in Uganda, there is hope for a future with less indoor pollution in Uganda.

– Katelyn Rogers
Photo: Flickr

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Tips for washing and disinfecting fruits and vegetables

March 7, 2022 by Staff Reporter

The content of this article ‘Tips for washing and disinfecting vegetables and fruits’ was prepared by mejorconsalud.com and hortalizas.com and has been revised and republished by FreshFruitPortal.com.

Including fruits and vegetables in the diet is healthy and indispensable for good health.

Therefore, this type of food has many properties that benefit our body, improve our defenses, and prevent us from many diseases.

However, before taking them home, both foods are susceptible to contamination with many pathogens that affect our health, not only because they are directly exposed to agents of our environment, but also in the process of planting and cultivation, where they are subjected to spraying with highly polluting pesticides.

Fruits and vegetables are usually consumed raw, and this implies a greater risk to health.

For that reason, it is very important to learn how to wash and disinfect this type of food very well to significantly reduce the risk of different contaminants, which may be present by dirt, storage process, transportation and, as mentioned above, the use of chemicals and pesticides with which they are grown.

Do you want to learn how to wash vegetables and fruits properly?

First of all, you should keep in mind that the best thing you can do to wash your fruits and vegetables is to do it before splitting or peeling them.

When you wash the whole fruit or vegetable, you prevent pathogens on the rind from being transferred to the inside of the food.

You can do this regardless of whether you are going to eat it with peel.

You should also wash your hands thoroughly before handling any type of vegetables and fruits.

Personal hygiene will also play a very important role in the non-contamination of this type of food.

When selecting the fruits and vegetables to be washed, you should put them at least two minutes under the tap, or in a container with water to save water.

If they are very dirty, you can help yourself by using a clean, soap-free brush or sponge.

It is recommended to remove outer leaves of some fruits and vegetables, as they may be contaminated.

To disinfect fruits and vegetables, there are several homemade tricks that you can consider, since they use antibacterial products, capable of fighting bacteria in these products and decreasing the risk of their contaminating pathogens.

After following these steps, it is also important to clean the cooking utensils to be used very well, to prevent the food from being contaminated while being handled in the kitchen.

How to disinfect vegetables and fruits?

When you have washed your fruits and vegetables, and preferably before cutting them, the ideal is to disinfect them completely, with some very effective homemade tips.

Baking soda

This product is very inexpensive, easy to find and, usually, we include it in the family basket, either for culinary purposes or for any health problems. Another of its virtues is that it can effectively clean and disinfect, that is why we could use it correctly to clean fruits and vegetables.

How to do it?

Dilute a tablespoon of baking soda in a liter of water, soak the vegetables and/or fruits for 10 minutes and that’s it.

Vinegar

This is another of the most powerful natural disinfectants that we could find, as it eliminates any kind of bacteria as it is antimicrobial.

Like baking soda, it is a very cheap product that can be found in the family basket. Best of all, it is good for your health and has no toxic components.

How to do it?

Dilute a glass of vinegar in a liter of water, then soak the fruits for 10 minutes or choose to spray the mixture with a spray bottle before using the food in preparations.

Lemon

Lemon is a food known for its disinfectant and antibacterial properties, which are mainly due to its citric acid.

This food, combined with a little vinegar, makes a natural disinfectant, ideal for eliminating any pathogens from your fruits and vegetables.

How to do it?

Mix equal parts of water, lemon, and vinegar in a pan. Then soak the fruits and/or vegetables to be used, leaving it for 10 minutes, rinse, dry with a clean towel and then use.

Avoid E.coli and Salmonella contamination in lettuce and spinach

Spinach and lettuce are crops subject to frequent E. coli and Salmonella contamination.

Below, experts from University of California share their experience and lessons learned from examining the ecology and biology of these dangerous pathogens under production environments.

Question 1: If there is water or organic matter contaminated with bacteria in the field during seeding, will germinating seedlings become infested and will the bacteria end up in the harvested produce?

In a field test, E. coli strains applied as a water-based spray (to simulate irrigation services), as well as strains mixed with sand and placed in net bags (simulating contamination sources), didn’t survive in soil for long periods of time under commercial growing conditions.

Neither aerosol nor bag inoculum was recovered by direct culture in Petri dishes. We worked with lettuce and spinach plants growing in inoculated soil, or near the inoculum in the bags.

Question 2: Do pathogenic bacteria that affect humans “internalize” in large leafy vegetable crops grown under real field conditions?

“Internalization” is the phenomenon by which plant roots take up microorganisms and transport them to aerial stems and leaves.

Some laboratory and growth chamber studies indicate that large leafy vegetables can take up E. coli in this way, contaminating leaves that could eventually be consumed by humans.

We set up trials in a commercial operation to investigate internalization under field conditions.

When various generic strains of E. coli were inoculated into spinach roots using drip irrigation tape, aboveground foliage did not test positive for E. coli with direct seeding methods.

Surface sterilization of plants with mercuric chloride followed by crop enrichment resulted in one out of 80 plants testing positive for generic E. coli strains.

Based on this experiment, we believe E. coli doesn’t internalize to longleaf vegetables grown under field conditions.

Question 3: Since bacteria can survive in crop residues, what can be done in the field to improve degradation and reduce bacterial numbers?

Further studies were conducted to determine if production practices could increase the die-off and reduce the number of pathogens living in lettuce and spinach crop residues.

We simulated lettuce contamination by inoculating mature crops from commercial operations with generic strains of E. coli and Salmonella.

Plots with lettuce were treated differentially by mowing, ring roller or not touching contaminated crops.

After a holding period, contaminated crops were mixed into the soil by discing.

A set of plots including all soil treatments received an irrigation treatment for one week after discing.

Survival of E. coli and Salmonella was monitored by sampling soil and crop residues from the day of incorporation and then at 1, 6, 11, 11, 20, and 48 days after incorporation.

After 21 days, a second lettuce crop was planted in the original plots and plants were sampled at the thinning out stage (27 days after emergence) to assess the transfer of inoculated strains to this replanted crop.

After incorporating the first crop, target bacteria were quantifiable in only a few plots, during the first sampling date; however, they were recovered in tests taken on later dates 48 days after inoculation.

No secondary crop lettuce plants in any of the plots tested positive for E. coli.

Source: mejorconsalud.com

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Clean air leads to healthy living – News

March 7, 2022 by Staff Reporter

Protect your loved ones from harmful elements with the Philips Air purifiers

Published: Mon 7 Mar 2022, 10:09 AM

Last updated: Mon 7 Mar 2022, 10:10 AM

Clean air is one of the crucial ingredients for a safe and healthy existence. Breathing good air is vital for everyone’s health and wellbeing. Too many of us are exposed to polluted or contaminated air without the access to the good air, which we need for our health. At Philips, we believe that every breath matters. That’s why, we continuously strive to make the air we breathe cleaner, better and safer. We know that providing clean air, free-from pollutants in the short-term, provides important health benefits for today and in the long-term.

Now you can transform the air quality in your home and provide clean air, free from harmful impurities in minutes to you and your family with Philips Air, which empowers you to take control with user-friendly design that effortlessly ensures the health and safety of your family, now and always.

An independent study from the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany (‘Reducing the airborne transmission risk for SARS-CoV-2’) demonstrated that the use of portable air purifiers can help reduce virus-aerosol levels in a classroom. Together with his team, Joachim Curtius, Professor for Experimental Atmospheric Research, tested four Philips air purifiers in a classroom with 27 students and their teachers over a period of a week. The result? Half an hour after switching it on, the air purifiers had removed 90 per cent of the aerosols from the air**. Based on the experimental findings, the investigators state that “air purifiers are an important additional measure of precaution, especially in cases where no fixed ventilation systems are installed and when windows cannot be opened”. Philips Air purifiers are devices designed to help remove pollutants from the air indoors. They circulate air in a room and catch particulates like pollutants, dust and mold, and remove bacteria and viruses from the air. Our purifiers effectively remove 99.97 per cent ultra-fine particles as small as 0.003um* (smaller than the smallest known virus), indoor allergens and harmful gases, addressing three key threats from indoor air in one go.

As air purifiers will most likely run 24/7, it is also important that they have low energy consumption. Even when running at maximum speed, our purifiers use only 50-62W, which is as much as 1x traditional light bulb.

Our solutions can support creating healthy indoor air at home, schools, offices, or any other space where the air we breathe is shared.

Footnote:

*From the air that passes through the filter, tested to DIN71460-1.

** Testing mobile air purifiers in a school classroom: Reducing the airborne transmission risk for SARS-CoV-2:https://aktuelles.uni-frankfurt.de/forschung/studie-zeigt-luftreiniger-beseitigen-90-prozent-der-aerosole-in-schulklassen/

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State seeking help with outreach for water issues in rural valley communities | News

March 7, 2022 by Staff Reporter

If you know your way around poor, rural communities with bad drinking water in the San Joaquin Valley, the state needs your help.

A highly anticipated $130 million annual program to fix bad drinking water systems in disadvantaged communities has sputtered getting off the ground because the state can’t seem to connect with residents.

So, now it’s looking to hire people to get out and spread the word.

The state has money and programs to fix domestic wells, wrote Jessi Snyder, director of community development for Self-Help Enterprises, in an email.

“The hard part has been getting the word out about those resources,” Snyder wrote. Self-Help is a Visalia-based nonprofit that works with disadvantaged communities throughout the valley on affordable housing and drinking water issues.

And there are plenty of drinking water problems in small, isolated valley communities, which is one of the reasons the Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER) program was created in 2019 and assigned an annual $130 million budget.

But the state has faced myriad problems getting those resources into the hands of the residents who need them.

A lack of technology and reliable internet in some communities make it difficult for residents to attend meetings and communicate with the State Water Resources Control Board, which oversees SAFER, according to a report on the new outreach effort to hire community liaisons.

Another challenge has been poor communication. Projects can often take years to complete and communication with project managers often deteriorates.

And there’ve been cultural and language rifts as well, according to the new outreach plan, which noted water education hasn’t been done in communities’ preferred method of communication.

The new outreach effort will use community partners to engage residents and explain how programs from free bottled water to new wells will work, what to expect and how to stay involved and informed. And technical assistance partners will provide everything from administrative to operational help.

The Water Board is also using an aquifer risk map to help target communities with the greatest need for safe drinking water. The map estimates where domestic wells and state small water systems will likely be pumping from contaminated aquifers.

The board is still looking for partners and anticipates finalizing agreements by late 2022.

Meanwhile, Snyder said residents in the San Joaquin Valley with dry domestic wells or who wish to get water quality testing can call Self-Help Enterprises at 559-802-1685 for assistance. Self-Help Enterprises can set up bottled water deliveries, water hauling, well assessments, water quality testing and water tank installations.

Jesse Vad reports for SJV Water, a nonprofit, independent online news publication dedicated to covering water issues in the San Joaquin Valley. Lois Henry, SJV Water’s CEO and editor, can be reached at [email protected]. The website is sjvwater.org.

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UA staff shortage affects quality of campus life during the pandemic

March 6, 2022 by Staff Reporter

The message came in an email halfway through spring break 2020: Students should take an extended vacation and classes would transition to online when they returned.

Two days later, a follow-up email urged students to stay home and not return to campus. By late March 2020, classes went fully online and COVID-19 was a pandemic.

This year’s spring break marks the second anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, and students at the University of Arizona still feel its effects all around campus. Ever-evolving mask mandates, regular COVID-19 testing, updated attendance policies and contact tracing have all become the university’s new normal.

And so has long lines at Student Union Memorial Center’s restaurants, canceled exercise classes at the Student Recreation Center and abrupt closures and unkempt public spaces due to employee shortages and new sanitation guidelines that are trying facilities staff.

MORE FROM THE DAILY WILDCAT

As we begin the third year of the pandemic, we look back on the impact its first two years have had on the UA community.

Restaurant closures spur long lines and wait times

By Madison McCormick

The Student Union, like businesses nationwide, is struggling to find workers in part as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Without enough employees, several student-favorite restaurants across the UA campus, including Cactus Grill, were forced to close and students find themselves waiting in long lines for longer periods of time at the restaurants that stayed open.

Todd Millay, executive director of the Arizona Student Unions, said wait times range anywhere from 15 to 18 minutes during peak hours, but this varies by restaurant and time of day.

Millay said some of the more popular dining locations, like Chick-Fil-A and Panda Express, have seen wait times of up to 30 minutes.

In a Zoom interview, Arizona Student Unions Assistant Director for Human Resources Eric Kay said a shortage of non-student benefits-eligible employees is partly to blame.

According to Kay, data from the Human Resources Department shows that the Student Union had more than 235 full-time employees before the pandemic, and that number is now down to 206, with 40 full-time position vacancies.

In response to the staff shortage, Arizona Student Union management has asked existing full-time staffers to manage multiple restaurant locations for additional pay. Kay said this coverage strategy has worked thus far, but spreading employees thin is not a long-term solution.

To further compensate for the deficit of full-time employees, the student union is operating at 85% of its pre-pandemic capacity, with six of its 34 restaurants closed. Millay said the 28 dining locations still open are generally back to normal hours of operation, though those hours vary.

Among the closures are Mexican restaurant Sabor, which switched to operating as the home base for the GrubHub food delivery robots before Arizona Student Unions ended their partnership earlier this month, and the beloved Cactus Grill, which has become a COVID-19 testing facility.

A COVID-19 testing site sign hangs in a Student Union Memorial Center hallway. (Courtesy Genavieve Sinner)

“Some of our wait times are declining as the new robots on campus are getting food to people before having to come wait in line,” Millay said in an email before the partnership ended. “We are seeing over 600 robot deliveries every day already and this is a new and expanding service.”

Bagel Talk, La Petite Pâtisserie, Core and the Arizona Room also shut down during the pandemic. Millay said these restaurants will likely remain closed, but the Union is working toward reopening Sabor this semester.

Students can also look forward to an Indian food restaurant replacing La Petite Pâtisserie in the Global Center.

Disinfecting UA campus top priority for facilities department

By Diana Ramos

Before the pandemic, the University of Arizona Facilities Management Department’s priority was to ensure the lawns were mowed, the trees trimmed and the common areas were clean.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, those priorities have shifted and intensified.

Facilities purchased millions of masks and high-quality cleaning supplies to disinfect classrooms, restrooms, offices, hallways and nearly all high-touch surfaces around campus.

“It is a financial change; it is double the cost,” said Assistant Facilities Management Vice President Chris Kopach.

Kopach said the university has purchased over 1.5 million KN95 masks since the beginning of the year.

To accommodate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, the university established a COVID-19 cleanup team. Within an hour of receiving a positive COVID-19 case report, the team disinfects the exposed area.

Kopach said the university didn’t lay off any maintenance staff because of the pandemic, but the department’s priorities changed which has impacted staffing.

RELATED: RecycleMania teaches students to implement more sustainable living practices

Before the pandemic, custodians cleaned classrooms three times a week. Now, they clean them five times a week.

Hallways, restrooms and high-traffic areas are disinfected multiple times per day. To prioritize student health and safety, the UA decided to focus specifically on cleaning classrooms. Because many office jobs are now conducted virtually, cleaning office spaces took the backseat.

Among the maintenance staff’s new custodial duties is restocking surgical masks, hand sanitizer, paper towels and disinfectants in classrooms around campus.

A box of disposable masks, disinfectant and napkins on a table in the Undergraduate Lounge at the University of Arizona’s Marshall building.

“They give us much more work now,” said Amanda Norzagaray, a custodian for the Louise F. Marshall Building.

Through key performance indicators, Facilities Management determines quality levels of cleaning where they evaluate how much per square foot an employee can cover and at what level. On a scale of one through five — one being best and five being worst — the UA scored between one and two, Kopach said.

In addition to observing an expanded list of custodial tasks, the Facilities Management Department also ran the vaccination Point of Distribution on campus from Jan. 19 to June 25, 2021. The POD ultimately vaccinated around 250,000 people in the six months it was open, including members of the Tucson community, UA students and university faculty and staff.

Limited rec staff has to pull all the weight

By Cameron Jobson

After closing campus in the spring of 2020 because of the pandemic, the University of Arizona Recreation Center reopened that summer with staff shortages ranging from lifeguards and fitness instructors to managers and weight room monitors.

The shortages continue as the pandemic enters its third year.

Troy Vaughn, the director of the Student Recreation Center, said the spring semester usually requires a staff of about 550 student employees, but at the start of the semester in January only 349 positions were filled.

Some of this loss is already accounted for, due to students’ schedule changes, but the facility still has 14 different positions with open applications.

The shortage of Rec Center student staff has less to do with the pandemic itself and fears of contracting the virus and more to do with pandemic-related responsibilities including cleaning the gym and enforcing mask mandates among patrons.

“[COVID-19] has taught us a lot about repositioning and shifting priorities,” Vaughn said. “We re-energized our staff to better enforce cleaning and understand the hot spots.”

The Rec Centers student staff dedicates time to disinfecting equipment with electrical sprayers, distributing masks and enforcing the university’s COVID-19 policies.

A sign that says face masks are required indoors at the University of Arizona’s Campus Recreation Center. (Courtesy Campus Recreation Marketing Team)

Keeping up with an evolving pandemic and dealing with resistant patrons was not in the original job description. Some student employees are part-time and may not have anticipated these changes.

“From an employee mental health standpoint, the mask mandate has been terrible,” Vaughn said. “It’s been difficult to manage.”

Since Sept. 6, 2021, the Rec Center has issued over 165,000 masks. Surgical-grade face coverings are now required in the facility and in all UA buildings.

While most patrons are respectful, the fated pushback falls on the shoulders of the student staff. Vaughn said many students don’t return to work because they don’t want to be the “enforcers.”

Remaining employees feel “spread too thin,” said aquatics supervisor Tyrel Malmgren.

“Some of these maintenance tasks are really nitty-gritty,” Malmgren said while checking his assigned duties. “Scrubbing the grates, cleaning lane lines and hosing the deck are almost jobs of their own.”

Sometimes, these duties can’t all be completed in one shift.

“There have been plenty of shifts that only have two [life]guards working because we can’t find coverage,” Malmgren said. “People are constantly scrambling.”

Due to the employee shortage, Malmgren said they are looking to hire “just about anyone.” As a result, the level of performance and expertise has decreased.

“You can see the difference in quality of lifeguards,” Malmgren said. “When it’s not competitive, the skills go down so much it’s almost concerning.”

Regardless of the current staff, Malmgren said patrons seem pretty happy. Programming is continuing as scheduled, at about 90% capacity.

“We are running as normal as we can,” Vaughn said. “We’re doing our best. We’re surviving, but it’s not been easy by any means.”

The faculty has been brainstorming innovative ways to recruit new employees. When the statewide minimum wage increased from $12.15 to $12.80 in January, the Rec Center pushed its minimum to $13.

As the Rec Center enters the third year of the pandemic, Vaughn said he is grateful for their current staff of student employees.

“Our students have been nothing short of absolutely amazing,” Vaughn said. “The positivity that they bring and the commitment they have for student safety and for user safety … they’ve come through with flying colors.”

*El Inde Arizona is a news service of the University of Arizona School of Journalism.

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How Seattle is Planning To Become The Next 15-Minute City

March 6, 2022 by Staff Reporter

Seattle is seeking to follow other cities around the world to become healthier and greener and to reduce the number of cars in the city.

Cities around the world are seeking to transform themselves. They are in a quest to become healthier, greener, and more vibrant. The collapse of cities in the Rust Belt is a cautionary tale to cities that fail to adapt. One city seeking to transform itself for the future is the City of Seattle. It is seeking to become a “15-minute city”.

One city in Europe planning to implement this rather radically is Barcelona in Spain – there one may have to leave one’s car behind. But there are more plans afoot than just transforming old cities, meet Telosa – the proposed utopian futuristic city in the American desert.

What is a “15-Minute City”?

According to AIA Seattle, a 15-minute city is

“…an approach to urban design and planning that aims to improve quality of life by creating cities where everything a resident needs can be reached within 15 minutes by foot, bike or public transit.”

The aim of this design is to reduce people’s reliance on cars. The focus on designing the neighborhoods should be focused on the needs of the people and not cars. The concept was first created by Carlos Moreno in Paris and is today influential in cities trying to reinvent themselves around the world.

For more information about Carlos’ concept, watch his short TED talk. The main and core ideas of a 15-minute city are:

Easy Access to Goods and Services: The Residents Should Have Easy Access To These – Especially Groceries, Fresh Food, and Healthcare
Variety of Housing: Every Neighborhood Should Have Different Size and Levels of Affordability To Accommodation Many Types of Households
Clean Air: Every Neighborhood Should Have Clean Air and Green Spaces For Everyone
Work Remotely: More People Should Be Able to Work Close To Home or Remotely – Have Smaller Scale Offices, Retail, Hospitality As Well As Co-Working Spaces

The four characteristics of the framework of a 15-minute city are proximity, diversity, density, and ubiquity.

Related: Salton City: Intended As A Resort City, Now Inhabited By Ghosts

The 15-Minutes City Is Catching On

The idea is catching on with cities like Melbourne in Australia, Ottawa in Canada, Paris in France, London in England, Milan in Italy, and Portland in Oregon already latching onto the idea.

Professor Carlos Moreno: The Man Behind The 15-Minute City Concept

Already by the end of 2020 Paris had installed over 300 kilometers of bike lanes around Paris and made a number of streets car-free. Bike ridership was up by at least 54% in the French capital. Paris is also planning to remove parking spaces in favor of new parks, playgrounds, urban forests, and public gardens across the city.

Making it Work For Seattle

City planners in Seattle are thinking that this could work for their city. The generally held belief is that 15 minutes is roughly the maximum amount of time that city dwellers should spend getting to basic needs — without having to resort to a car.

The plan in Seattle is to make it so that the common day-to-day things that one would need are only ever a short walk away – that includes libraries, health care, parks, cafes, and other amenities.

“Put the stuff closer together so it’s easier to get to the stuff.”

– Minneapolis Planner Paul Mogush

This is part of the city’s plan to revitalize the city after the pandemic as well as reduce pollution.

This remains in the early stages as the new plan isn’t actually due until 2024. But even before then, the city is already building the infrastructure for the 15-minute city. This has partly been facilitated by the pandemic and the massive shift to remote work that is expected to be (in part) enduring.

Some of the tactics that they are planning to use to make this a reality include:

Adding More Greenery to the City
Investing In Public Transit
Rezoning to Enable Smaller Scale Offices Etc. As Well As Mixed-use Buildings
Reallocating Roadway to Pedestrians and Cyclists

The hope is for these adjustments to minimize unnecessary travel in to revitalize neighborhoods by injecting new life into the main streets.

Related: One Day Travel By Hyperloop: Pipe Dream or Reality?

Seattle Is Well-Positioned

Seattle is considered well-positioned to become a 15-minute city:

“It’s a city of neighborhoods, so there are already these clusters of services throughout the city. It’s not like LA, where the density is so low, things are so far apart from each other that you have to drive. There is sort of an urban fabric [in Seattle].”

University of Washington professor Jeff Hou

In the future, not only will Seattle have fewer cars, but it may also have much greener cars. The sale of new traditional international combustion engine cars (i.e. cars running on gasoline and diesel) is to be banned in Washington State by 2030 in favor of zero-emission vehicles – like electric cars.

Next: Neon: Meet The Futuristic Saudi City Under Construction

This Is What It’s Like To Drive Across The 17.6-Mile-Long Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel

About The Author

Aaron Spray
(988 Articles Published)

Aaron is a first-hand traveler who has visited more than 70 countries around the world. He is passionate about traveling and opening up the world for other intrepid explorers.

In UP’s only 2 ST seats, anger over stalled projects, drinking water

March 6, 2022 by Staff Reporter

Duddhi and Obra, the only two Assembly constituencies reserved for Scheduled Tribes in Uttar Pradesh, seem stuck in a time warp. The two seats in backward Sonbhadra district go to the polls on Monday — the last day of polling in the state — with the all-too-familiar issues of roti-kapda-makaan, besides clean drinking water, as their basic demands.

The four seats of the Naxal-hit tribal belt (besides Duddhi and Obra, Robertsganj and Ghorawal), which share their boundaries with Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh, also have unemployment as a major issue. In 2017, the BJP won three out of four seats in this tribal belt, while its alliance partner, the Apna Dal(S), won one (Duddhi).

While the BJP is banking on the projects that it inaugurated in the past five years — a medical college, housing schemes, a project to provide clean drinking water — resentment has been building up since most of these schemes are yet to get off the ground.

The Samajwadi Party, meanwhile, is banking on its established tribal leaders in a region where land is the main currency and which has in the past seen clashes over land rights — in 2015, over the Kanhar irrigation project, and in 2019, when 10 tribals were killed in Umbha.

In the current Assembly, Duddhi is represented by BJP ally Apna Dal(S) MLA Hariram. But this election, the BJP has decided to contest the seat on its own and has chosen Ram Dular, a tribal leader.

A miffed Hariram has switched sides and is now the BSP candidate, but locals say much of the anger over unfulfilled promises is directed at Hariram and therefore, the fight could be between Ram Dular and SP’s Vijay Singh. In the 2017 election, about 8,500 people of this constituency had chosen the NOTA option.

Vijay Singh is a seven-time MLA and a former minister who has won from the seat both on Congress and SP tickets. His supporters have been assuring voters that the Gond leader will get a space in the Cabinet if the party is voted to power. Singh had contested the 2017 election as a BSP candidate.

The Congress has fielded a woman candidate, Basanti Panika.

Campaigning for Ram Dular, Yogi Adityanath had promised to provide clean drinking water to the region. Reason: The high fluoride content in the water here has been blamed for several ailments among people. The government had approved an RO water project, but work on it is still underway in some regions.
Sensing the anti-incumbency in neighbouring Duddhi, five months before the elections, the BJP government in UP made Obra’s sitting MLA Sanjiv Kumar, a Gond leader, a minister in the Yogi Adityanath Cabinet. The party hopes the course-correction will see the party through this election.

The SP has left Obra to its alliance partner, Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party, which has fielded Rakesh Kumar Gond. The Congress, on the other hand, is banking on Ram Raj, a young tribal leader who had led the 2019 protest over land in Umbha.

After the incident, however, the village was turned into a model village with pucca homes, land rights to farmers and even piped drinking. While the BJP is focusing on this turnaround, the Opposition is attempting to keep the focus on the incident

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How To Minimise Indoor Pollution

March 6, 2022 by Staff Reporter

We all know that outdoor air pollution is harmful – but did you know about the dangers of indoor air pollution? Indoor air pollution can come from standard everyday activities such as cooking and cleaning. And the effects can be very serious.

Recently, Panasonic Australia held their Technology Showcase, unveiling the new Portable nanoe™ X Generator.

At the showcase, Industrial Hygienist Brad Prezant explained that air pollution is more dangerous than we think, and that it’s actually a leading cause of premature death. He noted that it’s hard to protect ourselves from outdoor pollutants, however, we have more control over our indoor environment, where we spend approximately 90% of our time.

Some of his tips for minimising indoor pollution included:

Avoid cooking that creates smoke
Avoid citrus or chlorine based cleaners
Avoid aerosol spays
Avoid plumbing leaks to manage moisture in your home
Close windows and doors when bushfire smoke is present

To provide additional safety, Panasonic has developed technology that inhibits up to 99% of indoor pollutants such as viruses, bacteria, mould, and allergens, while also minimising odours. Panasonic’s nanoe™ X Generator purifies the air through the release of nano-size, atomised water particles. This state-of-the-art technology has undergone 25 years of research and development, and is backed up by 140 lab tests globally.

Joe De Bella, Senior Product Marketing Manager of Air Conditioning at Panasonic Australia, explained, “Our research shows that one in three Australians 20+ are now more concerned about air quality compared to 18 months ago. It’s positive that we as a population are taking notice of the harmful pollutants we breathe each day, and it is something that will continue to be front of mind as we battle variants of COVID-19, annual flu seasons, pollution, and the close-to-home threat of bushfires.”

The Portable nanoe™ X Generator can be used not only at home, but also on the go in a range of settings like your office or car.

The Panasonic Portable nanoe™ X Generator is available now at RRP $299

For more information visit https://www.panasonic.com/au/nanoe/

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America’s virus trackers show cautious optimism over state of coronavirus pandemic – 60 Minutes

March 6, 2022 by Staff Reporter

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Biden struck a cautiously optimistic note about the COVID-19 pandemic as it enters its third year.

The White House followed up with a detailed strategy for the pandemic’s next phase including vaccinating here and abroad, testing, antiviral treatments, improving the quality of indoor air, expanding the nation’s capacity to track and treat new variants and supporting people with long-term consequences of COVID.

The Centers for Disease Control has also issued new guidelines suggesting most Americans can take off their masks.

We set out, in the wake of the State of the Union, to assess the state of the pandemic with some of the country’s foremost researchers, both at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

That’s where virologist Paul Duprex alerted 60 Minutes last year about the dangers of coronavirus variants — well before Delta and Omicron battered the United States.

Dr. Jon LaPook: It’s been about one year since we last spoke for 60 Minutes. Is the pandemic over?

Paul Duprex: The pandemic is not over. But we’re in a very different place today than we were one year ago.

Dr. Jon LaPook: How so?

Paul Duprex: There have been multiple more variants. But we’re moving in a direction where there are not as many people who are in hospital because of the disease. And we’ve got many more people vaccinated. And we understand a lot about first shots, second shots, and now boosters. So, it’s a totally different landscape.

Paul Duprex

Duprex, born in Northern Ireland, is head of the Center for Vaccine Research at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He’s hopeful the virus will continue to mutate into a milder form.

Dr. Jon LaPook: Is it possible that the coronaviruses that now cause the common cold long ago began as fiercely, as dangerous, as deadly as SARS-CoV-2 and that, over time, it became weaker and weaker? Now we have the common cold?

Paul Duprex: Oh, I would say it’s more than possible. I would say it’s very likely. But we just have to wait and see where the virus ends up, and that’s just good science. Scientists follow the virus, keep a close eye on it, and we understand how that virus changes over time and where it will go.

Keeping a close eye on the virus at the Centers for Disease Control is director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the former chief of infectious diseases at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital. She was tapped by President Biden to lead an agency struggling to communicate effectively with the public.

This past week, Dr. Walensky took us behind the scenes at the agency that’s been fighting infectious diseases since it was formed in the 1940s to combat malaria.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: So here we are in our genomic sequencing lab.

Dr. Jon LaPook: This is the first time you’ve allowed a film crew back here?

Justin Lee: That is accurate.

Correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook, Dr. Rochelle Walensky and Justin Lee

Justin Lee leads the genomic sequencing laboratory and showed us how positive COVID test samples from all over the world are processed so genetic information can be extracted and analyzed in this sequencer to look for new variants of the virus.

Justin Lee: This was our most recent sequencing run.

Each square represents one person’s COVID test sample.

Dr. Jon LaPook: And about what percentage are Omicron?

Justin Lee: From the U.S. samples that are collected recently, 99% are Omicron.

Dr. Jon LaPook: Wow. So out of 96 wells, only one of them is yellow? Only one is Delta?

Justin Lee: Only one is Delta.

Since first being identified in the United States just three months ago, Omicron and its sub-variants have almost entirely replaced the Delta variant, which had caused more severe disease.

Earlier in the pandemic, the CDC was lagging behind in genetic sequencing. Now, hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency funding have helped create a nationwide early detection system.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: We want to be able to detect about 0.1% of any new variant if it comes into this country with 99% certainty.

Dr. Jon LaPook: And are you getting any kind of a hint that there’s some new variant of concern?

Justin Lee: No. Not right now. Nope. I mean, we’re tracking things but there’s nothing that appears to be, you know, the next omicron.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: We breathe a heavy sigh of relief when we don’t see anything—

But no threat is too small. In one COVID-19 briefing, we witnessed Dr. Walensky ask staff for an update on what some are nicknaming “Deltacron,”a genetic hybrid of the Delta and Omicron variants. It’s only been found rarely in the U.S. and Dr. Walensky says the CDC does not consider it a threat at this time.

COVID-19 briefing

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Anything more on Deltacron?

Dr. Mahon: No. I mean, it’s out there.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: But we’re still in the, like, handful of cases?

Dr. Mahon: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Not in the hundreds of thousands of cases?

Dr. Mahon: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Ok.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky

Recently, news about the pandemic in the United States has been encouraging. Hospitalizations, cases and deaths are dropping and effective antiviral treatments are becoming much more available for those who do get sick. Dr. Walensky has announced a new set of guidelines – meaning, right now, about 90% of Americans can choose to drop their masks.

Dr. Jon LaPook: You hear the word “endemic” a lot.

Dr. Jon LaPook: What exactly does that mean?

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: You’re at a steady state. Your pandemic or your disease is neither increasing nor decreasing.

Dr. Jon LaPook: So will there be a moment where it’s at such a low level that, even though it’s still on every continent, say, we’re not calling it a pandemic anymore?

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: I think we’ll get there. You know I do think that we will get to a place with this disease where we live with a relatively low level all year long and that maybe we have some surges during respiratory virus season. Those surges are annoying and for some, they will likely be tragic. But they are not to the tune of two and three thousand deaths a day. I think we live that way with influenza.

Dr. Walensky has learned to be cautious after telling fully vaccinated Americans back in May 2021 they could take off their masks.

White House Press briefing
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Once you are fully vaccinated, two weeks after your last dose, you can shed your mask.

But the party only lasted a few months. New CDC research during a surge of the delta variant forced her to tell the country that masks should go back on.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: I will never forget the gut punch on that Friday night when I first saw the data out of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, that demonstrated that there were vaccinated people that were transmitting it to other people. We said, “we have to put our masks back on.”

Dr. Jon LaPook: Do you think communicating, “We don’t know,” was done well enough to the public from the very beginning?

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: You know (sigh)…

Dr. Jon LaPook: Or, “it may change.”

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: There were so many times where we were optimistic. There were so many times where we didn’t know. And since my getting here what I said is, “we’re gonna lead with the science.” The implication was that science was black and white, and in fact, in an ever-evolving virus, and a two-year-long pandemic, the science isn’t always black and white. It’s– it’s oftentimes shades of gray.

Dr. Jon LaPook: But from the point of view of the taxicab driver who drove me here a couple days ago, he remembers it as, “They told us you could take your mask off and then they changed their mind.”

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Right.

Dr. Jon LaPook: One recent poll showed that less than half the American public trusts the CDC when it comes to advice about the virus. Do you take it personally?

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: I certainly don’t love to see statistics like that. But I think they will get better as we emerge from this pandemic.

During her 13 months on the job, Dr. Walensky has been on a mission to improve public trust in the agency. She’s done more than 90 press conferences and hundreds of interviews. She told us she wants Americans to know the crucial work the CDC’s 13,000 scientists, medical professionals, and public health workers do around the world.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Do they know that we deliver antiretroviral therapy to 12 million people around the world every year?

Dr. Jon LaPook: With AIDS?

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: With AIDS. No. Do they know that we’re working to eradicate polio? Do they know that when somebody gets sick with salmonella, that we look for the source? Do they know that we’re responsible for, you know, opioid statistics in the country?

The CDC’s emergency operations center

Dr. Walensky took us into the CDC’s emergency operations center — a command post normally packed during disease outbreaks.

Dr. Jon LaPook: I hear phrases like “command center,” “deployments,” “task forces.” It’s kind of got a military sound to it. It feels like it’s war.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: We have to act like this is war. We are at war against this virus.

A top priority has been improving the collection and analysis of data. Dr. Walensky showed us how, at the beginning of the pandemic, fewer than 200 hospitals, clinics, and doctors’ offices could send automated information on things like diagnoses, outcomes, and immunizations.

Dr. Jon LaPook: How could you do your work with so little data?

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Boy, did we have to work hard to put the pedal to the metal and create the infrastructure. We’ve built that in the last year. So we now have in December of 2020, we had 6,500 facilities. And end of last year, we had over 10,000 facilities, and we have more work to do.

Dr. Walensky says they can now better use data to gain insight into things like the effectiveness of vaccinations.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Here we’re looking at deaths. And we can map it towards the unvaccinated versus in the people who’ve received two doses of a vaccine, versus people who’ve been boosted. And so you see this massive difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated.

Dr. Jon LaPook: It’s kind of stunning.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: It is stunning. 41 times the risk of dying from COVID-19 in December of 2021 if you are unvaccinated compared to if you are boosted.

Virologist Paul Duprex used an animation to show how the body creates more and more immune cells with each shot of vaccine. That’s why almost every immunization we get, like measles and polio, takes more than one dose to be long-lasting.

Paul Duprex: There are lymph nodes all across the body. When we get immunized, the vaccine is taken up by the lymph nodes in the armpit. These white cells are produced. These white memory cells patrol the body. And whenever the second immunization occurs, they remember. They explode in the lymph nodes. And those memory cells are able to produce antibodies but they’re also able to recognize infected cells and take those cells out really quickly, before those cells start producing more virus in the body.

Dr. Jon LaPook: So months or even years after a vaccination these memory cells may be there kind of asleep…

Paul Duprex: But with one click of an infection, they wake up and they explode into action.

Dr. Jon LaPook: And with each vaccination, the amount of immunity goes up?

Paul Duprex: Yes. You can think of it like a staircase. The first vaccination, we’re up one step. The second vaccination, maybe we get to the third step. And the boost, we’re up at step ten. So we get this really faster, more robust response as we vaccinate once, twice, and then boost.

The CDC says research is ongoing to determine if, down the line, periodic COVID-19 immunizations will be needed, just like the annual flu shot.

The coronavirus vaccines were developed so quickly because scientists at the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere had already done the research needed to understand coronavirus’s molecular structure. Last fall, the NIH asked Paul Duprex to join a team to study other viruses that can harm humans.

Dr. Jon LaPook: So kind of a most wanted list?

Paul Duprex: Some of the most deadly agents are represented here.

The NIH has prioritized these seven viral families that cause potentially lethal illnesses like Ebola, Lassa fever, and encephalitis. Duprex says more transmissible viruses emerging from any of these families could unleash another global pandemic.

Dr. Jon LaPook: What are scientists doing in the lab today?

Paul Duprex: Looking at the three-dimensional structure of these, understanding the genetics, understanding how they evolve, how quickly they change. By understanding the viruses we’re ready to fight them whenever they come along and cause trouble.

Like so many Americans, Dr. Rochelle Walensky is taking advantage of a new phase in the pandemic. But as we head towards what may be the off-ramp of the pandemic, she told us she is taking nothing for granted.

Dr. Jon LaPook: The country is waking up.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Yeah.

Dr. Jon LaPook: Does it excite you or scare you?

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: We’re tip-toeing back into it. And how energizing and exciting to be able to do that right now? And yet, we’ve been hit with so many curve balls, right? And so my job is to protect the public against those curve balls. And so we have to be, you know, vigilant to make sure that those curve balls don’t come.

Produced by Denise Schrier Cetta. Associate producer, Katie Brennan. Broadcast associate, Eliza Costas. Edited by Warren Lustig.

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Jon LaPook

Dr. Jonathan LaPook is the chief medical correspondent for CBS News.

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Golden Gem ficus a good houseplant for wintertime

March 6, 2022 by Staff Reporter

Golden Gem Ficus, Asian Council Tree, lofty fig

Light: Bright indirect

Height: 6-100 feet

Spread: 4-90 feet

USDA Hardiness Zone: 9-11

Origin: Southeast Asia

Golden Gem ficus (Ficus altissima “Golden Gem”) is a beautiful hybrid. In warm tropical weather of its native habitat, it can grow to a very sizeable tree — up to 100 feet.

In central Ohio, Golden Gem ficus is a houseplant that spends winters inside. It grows as a tree or a multi-stemmed shrub.

The thick leaves are oblong with a slight point at the end. The leaf coloring makes this plant beautiful, with a base of emerald green and wonderful variegations of bright green and lime green. The lime green brightens to almost a chartreuse color.

Golden Gem ficus is a great air purifier and performs well in containers. It’s a houseplant must.

See Golden Gem ficus in the Dorothy M. Davis Showhouse as part of the Orchids exhibition at Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.

— Barbara Arnold

Franklin Park Conservatory

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