U.S. Department of Defense Armed with Science Update: SENSORS

U.S. Department of Defense Armed with Science Update

NEW BIOSURVEILLANCE DIVISION WORKING ON BATTLEFIELD BIODEFENSE AND HEALTH SURVEILLANCE

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Global Force's Needs Shape DOD Biosurveillance
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, June 5, 2013 - A new biosurveillance division at the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center here -- home to a unique serum repository and database for service members and a global network of military laboratories -- is working to fill gaps at the convergence of battlefield biodefense and health surveillance.

Health surveillance involves monitoring human health to identify and prevent infectious and chronic diseases. Biosurveillance, at least for the Defense Department, is the process of gathering, integrating, analyzing and communicating a range of information that relates to health threats for people, animals and plants to help inform decisions and provide for increased global health security.

The Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center vision is to be the central epidemiological resource and global health surveillance proponent for the armed forces. Its mission is to provide timely, relevant and comprehensive health surveillance information to promote, maintain and enhance the health of military and associated populations.

Last year Dr. Rohit Chitale became director of the fledgling Division of Integrated Biosurveillance, which shares a building with the DOD Serum Repository, the world's largest, with more than 55 million serial serum specimens dating back to the mid-1980s.

The specimens are linked to the Defense Medical Surveillance System, a database that can be used to answer questions at the patient level and in the aggregate about the health of the armed forces and beneficiaries.

Also part of AFHSC is the Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System, called GEIS, whose 33 partners include military laboratories, academic institutions and nongovernmental organizations around the world that support service members and population-based surveillance and capacity building in 62 countries.

Leading the new biosurveillance division, Chitale has a doctorate in infectious disease epidemiology from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a master's of public health in epidemiology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Before joining AFHSC last year, the 42-year-old scientist was senior analyst in the Global Disease Detection, or GDD, program at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Soon after the severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, epidemic in 2002-2003 sickened more than 8,000 people worldwide and killed 774, Congress funded the GDD program at CDC in 2004. The aim was to strengthen the global capacity to detect, identify and contain emerging infectious diseases and international bioterrorism threats.

In 2006, Chitale was one of the first analysts to help establish the GDD Operations Center at CDC. This epidemic intelligence and response operations unit uses many sources of information about disease events, including Internet-based media reports scanned for key words in more than 40 languages.

"What I came to AFHSC to do," he told American Forces Press Service during a recent interview, "was to take the next step."

The new division is part of a multiagency effort to implement the nation's first U.S. National Strategy for Biosurveillance, released in 2012 by the White House to make sure federal agencies can quickly detect and respond to global health and security hazards.

It's also part of a push to increase DOD diagnostics funding through the department's biodefense program, Andrew C. Weber, assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, told American Forces Press Service in an interview last year.

Some of the work is done by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency's Joint Science and Technology Office of the Chemical and Biological Defense Program, as well as by the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense.

In October 2009, Weber himself ushered the Chemical and Biological Defense Program into the biosurveillance business by signing a memorandum to the military department secretaries announcing that emerging infectious diseases would become part of the chemical and biological defense mission.

Chitale, who says he's spent the past 14 months building his division and learning about the many separate biosurveillance efforts underway across the department and the military services, is looking to better integrate these elements to create a coherent, global picture of biological threats -- and recommendations for action -- specific to the Defense Department.

"We now have a [memorandum of understanding] between Health Affairs, where AFHSC is, and Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs," Chitale said.

"Historically," he explained, "NCB's mission is global security -- combating weapons of mass destruction writ large -- and our mission is the medical care and surveillance of the forces and DOD populations. They're different missions, ... [but] recently it has become increasingly clear that they are converging."

The memo, signed last summer, describes how NCB and DOD Health Affairs will collaborate on cooperative activities that contribute to U.S. national security and to global health security.

"NCB and Health Affairs will cooperate on activities that help counter weapons of mass destruction, to include chemical, biological, or radiological events that impact various domains significant to U.S. forces," Chitale said. "In effect, that's the whole spectrum when it comes to health."

His division helped to write a 50-page operational plan in December that lists 61 actions that the two organizations will accomplish together.

"They will be things like facilitating training for more preventive-medicine residents," Chitale said. "We're going to help create and implement better algorithms for syndromic surveillance. We're working to create information management systems so we can all work more smartly -- for example, a system that can bring multiple high-quality information streams into one portal and refresh every 10 minutes, and be shared with trusted partners."

The challenge for DOD is that the biosurveillance mission is complex, he noted. "There are three services that each do what we do here to some extent, but they do it for their own service," he said. "What added value do we have? One thing, at least, is that we can bring it all together to get a complete picture."

Such an augmented system would use information from the DOD agencies, the rest of the U.S. interagency including the CDC, the World Health Organization, the World Organisation for Animal Health, the AFHSC-GEIS network, the Internet-based Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases, or ProMED, and even more informal sources, such as Twitter.

Ultimately, Chitale said, he envisions being able to do for DOD what he and his CDC colleagues did for global public health, but even more -- collect a broad range of data and information relating to human, animal and plant health, work with partners and analyze it according to DOD needs, and provide guidance, recommendations and reach back support to the department's leadership and DOD customers such as the six geographic combatant commands, and especially their surgeons' offices.

Chitale has initially organized his small division into teams that include alert and response operations, coordination and engagement, and innovation and evaluation.

"We haven't said that we're actually creating an operations center," he said. "But the Alert and Response Operations team, ARO, is a term modeled after WHO's Global Alert and Response Operations [established in 2000], probably the world's first strategic health operations center. Others were since stood up around the world, and under the vision and leadership of Dr. Ray Arthur, we established one at CDC in 2006. In some ways, and based on the needs, I'm trying to model several of our key activities after that."

Already the AFHSC and the new division have relationships broadly across the interagency, including the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and the intelligence community, particularly through the Defense Intelligence Agency's National Center for Medical Intelligence in Maryland.

NCMI is an intelligence organization, while AFHSC is a preventive medicine and public health organization. Yet, there is some overlap in methods and certainly in goals. "Importantly," Chitale said, "we are working with NCMI closer than ever before, and are formalizing a MOU with them as well."

Key areas in which AFHSC and the new division can provide value for DOD biosurveillance is in disease detection, preventive medicine guidance and coordination with the interagency, he added. "We're trusted across the DOD and also domestic and international medical and public health communities – a real value add in this new paradigm, this new normal," Chitale said.

"When it comes to something like disease detection," he added, "you need the ability, which we have, to pick up the phone and call someone in Uganda who you trust -- a medical person, U.S. government staff working in the host nation, even someone in the Ministry of Health or WHO staff -- and ask them what's going on. They can talk to their people in the country, and you get high-quality information back within minutes to hours.

"You get real, hard information," he continued, "and those are your boots on the ground -- those are your listening posts across the globe."

FEDERAL DISASTER AID TO ILLINOIS GOES OVER THE $82 MILLION MARK

FROM: FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY

Federal Disaster Aid to Illinois Residents Tops $82 Million

AURORA, Ill. – Federal assistance in Illinois has reached more than $82.4 million, distributed among more than 30,200 individuals and households, since a major disaster was declared in the state May 10.

The latest summary of federal assistance to individuals and households that suffered losses due to the severe storms and flooding between April 16 and May 5 includes:
More than $82.4 million in FEMA grants approved for individuals and households;
Of that amount, more than $72 million approved for housing assistance, including temporary rental assistance, home repair costs and assistance toward replacing destroyed homes;
More than $10 million approved to cover other essential disaster-related needs, such as medical and dental expenses and damaged personal possessions;
More than 42,000 home inspections completed to confirm disaster damage;
More than $7.7 million in loans to homeowners, renters or business owners has been approved by the U.S. Small Business Administration; and
More than 2,300 visits to Disaster Recovery Centers (DRCs) operated jointly by FEMA and the state of Illinois.
Eleven counties in Illinois were included in the initial declaration, but on May 22, an additional
14 counties were added for individual assistance. On May 31, another eight counties were added.

WHERE IS THE GINSENG GOING? ANOTHER CHANGE IN THE NORTH AMERICAN FOREST

American Ginseng.  USFWS

FROM: NATIOAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
The Stress of Being Ginseng
Being surrounded by ginseng--a low-growing green-leafed herb of North American forests--may have been common in 1751, but today? Ginseng is under siege.

Biologist James McGraw of West Virginia University should know. On World Environment Day, and indeed every day, McGraw says that we can learn much about the environment around us from one small plant.

Funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Long Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) grant, McGraw and colleagues peer into the lives of more than 4,000 individual ginseng plants each year to see how they're faring.

"These understory plants are subject to all manner of [environmental] stresses," says McGraw. "After a while, you begin to wonder why there are any left."

Facing a panoply of threats

First, he says, there's harvesting for medicinal uses, "which is widespread and often illegally or at least unethically done. Then we have our four-footed friends--white-tailed deer--which eat a significant number of plants every year."

The plants' next challenge is the growth of invasive species such as multiflora rose and garlic mustard, which compete with ginseng.

The effects of global warming, including summers with heat waves and droughts, add to the burden for these plants of cooler climes. "Ginseng is also affected by ice storms, late frosts and hurricane flooding," says McGraw.

Then these Indiana Joneses of the plant world must survive what McGraw refers to as "natural pests:" insects defoliators and fungal pathogens.

Last--but definitely not least--is us.

"We're just beginning to understand what humans are doing to the forests where ginseng thrives: timbering, suppressing natural fires, mining, clearing land for housing developments, the list goes on and on," says McGraw.

The persistence of a slow-growing and valuable medicinal plant "despite all this," he says, "is a testament to the resilience of nature--and to the stewardship of those land-owners who care about protecting biodiversity in their forests."

Species in an extinction vortex

Tigers, elephants and ginseng all share a common feature, says Saran Twombly, director of NSF's LTREB program.

"These dwindling populations face increasing threats that trap them in an extinction vortex," Twombly says.

"McGraw's research relies on long-term data to identify the factors threatening populations of this important forest plant. The results show the knife-edge that separates healthy and unhealthy populations."

The NSF LTREB award "has been critical to our understanding of the 'big picture' of ginseng conservation," says McGraw.

He and colleagues work on one species of ginseng, Panax quinquefolius L., American ginseng.This member of the ginseng family, whose genus name Panax means "all heal" in Greek, hides deep in eastern deciduous woodlands.

The plant was historically found in rich, cool hardwood forests--from southern Quebec and Ontario south to northern Georgia, and west as far as Minnesota, eastern Oklahoma and northern Louisiana.

"Ginseng populations vary from frequent to uncommon to rare across the landscape," says McGraw, "but they're almost always small, usually fewer than 300 plants."

Medicinal plant for the ages

The species has long been valued for its medicinal qualities, especially by Asian cultures. They've integrated American ginseng into traditional medicinal practices as a complement to native Asian ginseng species.

In Asia, ginseng is considered an adaptogen--it enhances overall energy levels.

"In western medicine, ginseng has exhibited anti-cancer properties in cell cultures," says McGraw. "It's also shown beneficial effects on blood sugar and obesity, as well as on enhancing the immune system for prevention of colds and flu."

After ginseng was discovered in North America, the market quickly became profitable enough to fuel intense wild harvesting, eventually reaching an industrial scale.

"Ginseng shares a part of early American history," says McGraw. "Its roots--the most sought-after parts--were first exported to Asia from the United States in the early 1700s."

In one typical year (1841), more than 290,000 kilograms of dry ginseng roots were shipped from North America to the Asian continent.

"Although average root size was larger in the 1800s than it is today," says McGraw, "even a conservative estimate suggests that this represents at least 64 million roots."

Ginseng at the forefront

Harvest of the plant has continued apace, he says, particularly in the Appalachian region, where the sale of ginseng still supplements household incomes.

Ecologists began studying ginseng because of its value as a wild-harvested species, and its decrease in abundance after decades of harvesting.

Now, however, ginseng has become an important model species--a sensitive indicator of the effects of global and regional environmental change on deciduous forests.

"The prominence of American ginseng has led to its use as a 'phytometer' [a gauge] to better understand how change is affecting lesser-known plant species in eastern North America," says McGraw.

The data in his project come from 30 ginseng populations in seven states. "Our study populations are in habitats from suburban woodlots to rich, old-growth forests," McGraw says.

In a paper published this year in the Annals of The New York Academy of Sciences, McGraw and co-authors state that the Asian market has made ginseng North America's most important harvested wild medicinal plant over the past two centuries.

That status prompted a listing on CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) Appendix II. All species on Appendix II are susceptible to extinction in the absence of trade controls.

Most states with ginseng populations are converging on a uniform start date for harvesting--Sept. 1. "That allows time after harvest for planting ripe seeds that will lead to recovery of the plants," McGraw says.

Since forests are, for the most part, open to everyone, ginseng will continue to be harvested as long as there is immediate profit to be made, scientists believe.

Successful sustainability in such open access habitats, they say, depends on management of the resource by those who actively harvest it.

Sustainability and ginseng

McGraw and colleagues' research shows that ginseng harvesters willing to employ a stewardship strategy gain the most benefit by harvesting when seeds are ripe, usually in autumn months, then planting the seeds to ensure high germination rates.

September is a summertime away. But in northeastern forests, ginseng leaves have already unfurled.

"Now they face a gamut of environmental challenges," says McGraw. "They're rooted in place, left with whatever nature--or more likely humans--dish out. If we want ginseng to be part of the future landscape, we had best tread very carefully."

"Ginseng is not everywhere common," wrote Swedish naturalist Peter Kalm in 1749. "Sometimes you may search the woods for several miles without finding a single plant. Round Montreal they formerly grew in abundance, but there is not a single plant to be found, so they have been rooted out."

By three centuries later, northeastern forests may be empty--at least of an unassuming and "all healing" herb named ginseng.

FROM: NASA WATER

Water on the Moon

Since the 1960s, scientists have suspected that frozen water could survive in cold, dark craters at the moon's poles. While previous lunar missions have detected hints of water on the moon, new data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter pinpoints areas near the south pole where water is likely to exist. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

STATEMENT BY SECRETARY OF STATE KERRY REGARDING IRANIAN CRUDE OIL PURCHASES

FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Regarding Significant Reductions of Iranian Crude Oil Purchases
Press Statement
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
June 5, 2013
　

The United States and the international community stand shoulder to shoulder in maintaining pressure on the Iranian regime until it fully addresses concerns about its nuclear program. That is why today I am pleased to announce that China, India, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Taiwan have again qualified for an exception to sanctions outlined in section 1245 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012, based on additional significant reductions in the volume of their crude oil purchases from Iran or for reducing those purchases to zero and remaining there. As a result, I will report to the Congress that exceptions to sanctions pursuant to Section 1245 of the NDAA for certain transactions will apply to the financial institutions based in these jurisdictions for a potentially renewable period of 180 days.

Today’s determination is another example of the international community’s strong and steady commitment to convince Iran to meet its international obligations. A total of 20 countries and economies have continued to significantly reduce the volume of their crude oil purchases from Iran or have completely eliminated such purchases. This determination takes place against the backdrop of other recent actions the Administration has taken to increase pressure on Iran, including the issuance of a new Executive Order on June 3. The message to the Iranian regime from the international community is clear: take concrete actions to satisfy the concerns of the international community, or face increasing isolation and pressure.

U.S. Department of Defense Armed with Science Update

U.S. Department of Defense Armed with Science Update

EXPORT-IMPORT BANK SUPPORTS GEORGIA BUSINESS

FROM: EXPORT-IMPORT BANK
Ex-Im Loan Supports Georgia Small Business’ Expansion Efforts

Loan is part of Bank’s Global Credit Express Program

Washington, D.C. – In line with its focus on boosting small-business exports, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) authorized a $50,000 Global Credit Express (GCE) loan to Post Medical Inc. of Alpharetta, Ga., to support the export of disposal containers for needles, syringes, and other sharps to buyers in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, France, and Italy.

The Ex-Im Bank line of credit will support $95,000 in exports and sustain two jobs in Alpharetta.

"The Global Credit Express product was created to help American small businesses like Post Medical expand their export reach and increase their sales, and this transaction demonstrates its success," said Ex-Im Bank Chairman and President Fred P. Hochberg. "In this case, Ex-Im Bank’s financing will bring state-of-the art disposal containers to health providers across the world and, at the same time, support key small-business jobs here at home. Helping American small business grow is a top priority here at Ex-Im."

Founded in 1982, Post Medical researches, develops, and produces products for the safe handling and disposal of infectious medical waste, especially needles, syringes, and other sharps. The company’s products are used in hospitals, laboratories, nursing homes, prisons, and jails, among other settings.

"Post Medical is very excited to partner with the Export-Import Bank to continue our growing export business internationally," said Matthew Walker, president and chief operating officer. "This partnership is crucial to support our growing team of people and will enable us to pursue additional overseas markets for our sharps-disposal products in the Middle East and Latin America."

Export Insurance Services served as the originator for the GCE loan and the broker for Trade Credit Insurance.

Ex-Im Bank’s Global Credit Express program is a pilot program currently offered through a select number of Originating Financial Institutions nationwide that delivers short-term working capital loans directly to creditworthy small business exporters. Through this new program, U.S. exporters may be eligible for a 6- or 12-month revolving line of credit of up to $500,000. Global Credit Express adds liquidity to the U.S. small business export market by financing the business of exporting rather than specific export transactions.

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
President Proclaims Flag Day and National Flag Week

American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, June 7, 2013 - President Barack Obama today signed a proclamation designating June 14 as Flag Day and the week beginning June 9 as National Flag Week.


Here is the president's proclamation:

Each June, our Nation lifts its sights to the flag that has watched over us since the days of our founding. In those broad stripes and bright stars, we see the arc of the American story -- from a handful of colonies to 50 States, united and free.

When proud patriots took up the fight for independence, they came together under a standard that showed their common cause. When the wounds of civil war were still fresh and our country walked the long road to reconstruction, our people found hope in a banner that testified to the strength of our Union. Wherever our American journey has taken us, whether on that unending path to the mountaintop or high above into the reaches of space, Old Glory has followed, reminding us of the rights and responsibilities we share as citizens.

This week, we celebrate that legacy, and we honor the brave men and women who have secured it through centuries of service at home and abroad. Let us raise our flags high, from small-town storefronts to duty stations stretched around the globe, and let us look to them once more as we press on in the march toward a more perfect Union.

To commemorate the adoption of our flag, the Congress, by joint resolution approved August 3, 1949, as amended (63 Stat. 492), designated June 14 of each year as "Flag Day" and requested that the President issue an annual proclamation calling for its observance and for the display of the flag of the United States on all Federal Government buildings. The Congress also requested, by joint resolution approved June 9, 1966, as amended (80 Stat. 194), that the President annually issue a proclamation designating the week in which June 14 occurs as "National Flag Week" and call upon citizens of the United States to display the flag during that week.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim June 14, 2013, as Flag Day and the week beginning June 9, 2013, as National Flag Week. I direct the appropriate officials to display the flag on all Federal Government buildings during that week, and I urge all Americans to observe Flag Day and National Flag Week by displaying the flag. I also call upon the people of the United States to observe with pride and all due ceremony those days from Flag Day through Independence Day, also set aside by the Congress (89 Stat. 211), as a time to honor America, to celebrate our heritage in public gatherings and activities, and to publicly recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this seventh day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.

SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND PLANS FOR A GLOBAL NETWORK

As demand for special operations forces reduces in Afghanistan, U.S. Special Operations Command hopes to engage more broadly across the globe while building a global special operations network. Here, an Afghan boy interacts with a coalition special operations forces member in the Arghandab district of Afghanistan's Helmand province, Aug. 30, 2012. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class James Ginther

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENE
Socom Officials Work on Plan for Global Network
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla., June 3, 2013 - About 100 people are hard at work at the U.S. Special Operations Command headquarters here on a new plan that will operationalize the way the command provides manpower and capability in support of the new defense strategic guidance.

The plan, due to the Joint Staff in late August, is part of the Special Operations Command 2020 vision Navy Adm. William H. McRaven introduced shortly after taking the helm as Socom commander in 2011.

The building of a global network of special operations forces, as well as U.S. government partners and partner nations, is a major component of Socom 2020, McRaven explained during the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Tampa, Fla., earlier this month.

McRaven's Socom 2020 vision calls for a globally networked force of special operations forces, interagency representatives, allies and partners, with aligned structures processes and authorities to enable its operations. Globally networked forces, he said, will provide geographic combatant commanders and chiefs of mission with an unprecedented unity of effort and an enhance ability to respond to regional contingencies and threats to stability.

McRaven noted his own experience working with the Joint Special Operations Command in Afghanistan. "It has been interesting to work in a network like that, and we do that very, very well on the direct action side," he said. "We need to figure out -- and it is part of the Socom plan -- how do we take that network, and be able to extend that out to the theater special operations commands," down to special operations forward elements and forces assigned to them.

Working toward that vision, the Socom staff is hard at work on what is expected to serve as a blueprint for special operations forces activities around the globe in light of the new guidance, explained Army Col. Stuart Bradin, who is leading the operational planning team.

With a renewed focus on the Asia-Pacific region as well as the Middle East, the new strategy calls for military operations that more closely mirror those special operations forces have conducted since their inception, Bradin noted.

The strategy advocates smaller-scale operations and activities coordinated with not only with partner nations and militaries, but also with the U.S. interagency community. The focus will be on preventing major conflict before it happens, largely by building partner capacity.

"We are going to go out in small footprints and work with key partners to ensure that small regional issues don't become major theater operations," Bradin said. "We can't afford that in blood or treasure."

The planning effort underway here is examining what special operations missions should be conducted, and where, in support of the strategy, Bradin said.

For the past 12 years, the intensive demand for special operations forces in Iraq and Afghanistan left minimal capability to support other parts of the globe. Those engagements, when they occurred, typically were linked to short-term exercises and training events. But with wartime requirements expected to reduce, McRaven said, he hopes to provide better support for all of the theater special operations commanders and the geographic combatant commanders they serve.

Rather than posturing capability to counter specific threats -- a calculation that historically has rarely been accurate -- McRaven wants to posture it with the combatant commanders.

"They are the employers of [special operations forces]," Bradin said. "So he wants to give them enough special operations capability that they have it at their ready disposal and can use it in their geographic [area of responsibility].

The first step in formulating the plan was to bring the theater special operations commanders together in April 2012 to identify their top priorities for support. They reported what top three activities they wanted, at what locations, with what level of manpower and for how long, to achieve what objectives, Bradin said.

As part of the report, the theater special operations commanders ensured their recommendations were coordinated through the respective chiefs of mission and tied into the theater's country campaign plan.

"At the end of the day, this allowed us to enumerate all our operational requirements, which is huge," Bradin said.
The geographic combatant commanders validated the requirements two months later, both in writing and during a video teleconference.

The Joint Staff then gave Socom 120 days to turn the requests into a single, unified plan. That sent Bradin and his planning team back to the drawing board to come up with something never before formulated in Socom's history: a comprehensive, global special operations forces planning document that matches resources to need.

"This will be a huge plan," Bradin said. "It will synchronize the planning, the deployment and the posture of all these special operations forces in support of the geographic combatant commands. ... It demonstrates how we intend to align forces to those requirements."

Once implemented, the plan is expected to provide a framework for more comprehensive and more regular special operations forces engagements in more parts of the world, Bradin said.

"A lot of what we have done in the past, because of necessity, has been very episodic," he said, often too infrequent and short-term for operators to build strong relationships with partners. "So I think that with the plan in effect, you will see smaller groups [of operators] with more persistent engagement in those areas. By aligning the forces, you will see a lot of the same people going to the same places, so the relationships will build over time. And in the [special operations] community, everything we do is about people and trust."

The plan won't satisfy everything commanders would like to see in their areas of responsibility, Bradin conceded.

"The reality is [that] we don't have enough for everything," he said. If you do the math, we are hitting about 60 percent of what they ask for. But based on the requirements, and what we are able to resource, the plan actually will allow us to do more than we are currently doing."

Bradin said he expects the plan to change as it undergoes rigorous staffing by the Joint Staff and across the interagency spectrum. It's designed to accommodate changing events, requirements and priorities, he said, and likely will need to be updated annually once it's put into effect, he said.

"This has been a bottom-up, requirement-driven process that required making choices and prioritizing everything we have here, and all of that can change," Bradin said. "So we have to be adaptive to that. Our goal all along has been to build a plan that synchronizes [Socom's] activities and operationalizes the defense strategic guidance, while allowing the command to adapt to those changes."

NEW LABELING RULES FOR MECHANICALLY TENDERIZED BEEF PRODUCT

FROM: U.S. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION

FSIS Proposes New Labeling Rules for Mechanically Tenderized Beef Products
New labels and cooking instructions will give consumers information they need to safely enjoy these products

WASHINGTON, June 6, 2013 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is proposing new requirements for labeling beef products that have been mechanically tenderized, including adding new cooking instructions, so that consumers can safely enjoy these products.

"Ensuring that consumers have effective tools and information is important in helping them protect their families against foodborne illness," said Under Secretary Elisabeth Hagen. "This proposed rule would enhance food safety by providing clear labeling of mechanically-tenderized beef products and outlining new cooking instructions so that consumers and restaurants can safely prepare these products."

To increase tenderness, some cuts of beef go through a process known as mechanical tenderization, during which they are pierced by needles or sharp blades in order to break up muscle fibers. Research has shown that this process may transfer pathogens present on the outside of the cut to the interior. Because of the possible presence of pathogens in the interior of the product, mechanically tenderized beef products may pose a greater threat to public health than intact beef products, if they are not cooked properly.

The proposed rule would require that mechanically tenderized product is labeled so that consumers know they are purchasing product that has been mechanically tenderized. The rule would also require the labels of mechanically tenderized product to display validated cooking instructions, so that consumers have the information they need to cook this product in a way that destroys illness-causing pathogens.

Since 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has received reports of five outbreaks attributable to needle or blade tenderized beef products prepared in restaurants and consumers' homes. Failure to thoroughly cook a mechanically tenderized raw or partially cooked beef product was a significant contributing factor in all of these outbreaks. In developing this proposed rule, FSIS used data from its own research, from the Agricultural Research Service, and from the CDC to determine the public health risk associated with undercooking mechanically tenderized products, and the benefits of the proposed rule.

EXPEDITION STUDYING GEOLOGIC PRCESSES AND CLIMATE HISTORY

 

Malaspina Glacier (from space) is a piedmont glacier: it's along the foot of a mountain range. Credit: NASA

FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

Expedition to the Gulf of Alaska: Scientists Study Coastal Mountains and Glaciers

Geologists aboard the scientific ocean drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution have embarked on their next adventure: studying glaciers to learn how Earth's geologic processes relate to the planet's climate history.

In the waters near Alaska's stunning coastal glaciers, the researchers are on Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 341: Southern Alaska Margin Tectonics, Climate and Sedimentation.

The ship set sail today from Victoria, British Columbia. The expedition will conclude on July 29, 2013.

"Its scientists are examining the relationship between mountain-building, glaciation and climate," says Jamie Allan, program director in the U.S. National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences, which supports IODP.

"This interplay happens not only in Alaska but in other parts of the world," says Allan. "New insights into these processes will help scientists better understand climate history and change, and how mountain landscapes form."

Led by co-chief scientists John Jaeger of the University of Florida and Sean Gulick of the University of Texas at Austin, an international team of researchers will collect and study sediments from five locations in the Gulf of Alaska.

They will investigate interactions between long-term climate change, including the fluctuations of large glaciers, and how mountains form.

The geologists will also conduct research on the transport of sediments from the mountains to the deep sea.

Because glaciers can erode and carry with them large amounts of rock, these rivers of ice can dramatically alter the landscape.

By rapidly decreasing the overall amount of rock in areas they scour, glaciers can also alter mountain ranges and cause uplifting--sometimes in less than one million years. In geologic terms, a relatively short time span.

"Mountains grow when numerous faults thrust layers of rock on top of each other," Gulick says. "We're asking whether this increases in locations with lots of erosion, such as beneath Alaska's glaciers."

The mountains of southern Alaska "have the perfect combination of large glaciers and rapidly uplifting mountains to test this idea," says Jaeger.

"We know very little about the long-term history of these glaciers," he says, "relative to what we know about other large ice sheets in, for example, Greenland and Antarctica."

The scientists are also comparing the advance and retreat of the Northern Cordilleran Ice Sheet with those of other major ice sheets. During the last 2.6 or so million years, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet periodically covered a large part of North America.

They also plan to obtain a record of Earth's magnetic field reversals recorded in the Gulf of Alaska, and look at ocean circulation changes and their effects on Earth's carbon cycle during transitions into and out of ice ages.

"Thousands of tourists sail through the Gulf of Alaska each year to see the dramatic landscapes created by these glaciers," Jaeger says.

Jaeger hopes that, in addition to many scientific benefits, "the findings from this expedition will provide tourists with a sense of how dynamic that landscape truly is."

The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) is an international research program dedicated to advancing scientific understanding of the Earth through drilling, coring and monitoring the subseafloor.

The JOIDES Resolution is a scientific research vessel managed by the U.S. Implementing Organization of IODP (USIO). Texas A&M University, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and the Consortium for Ocean Leadership comprise the USIO.

IODP is supported by two lead agencies: the U.S. National Science Foundation and Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

Additional program support comes from the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling, the Australia-New Zealand IODP Consortium, India's Ministry of Earth Sciences, the People's Republic of China's Ministry of Science and Technology, the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources and Brazil's Ministry of Education.

-NSF-

F-16'S MAY REMAIN IN JORDAN DUE TO CONCERNS OVER SYRIA

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Patriots, F-16s May Remain in Jordan After Eager Lion Exercise
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, June 5, 2013 - The United States could leave Patriot anti-missile batteries and F-16 fighter jets in Jordan following the end of Exercise Eager Lion, a Pentagon spokesman said here today.

Jordan has requested the batteries, but Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has not yet reviewed it, Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters. Hagel is returning from NATO meetings in Brussels today.

"When the secretary receives the request, he will favorably consider it," Warren said. "Jordan is a strong partner with us. We have a longstanding and strong relationship with the Jordanians, and we want to do what we can to support their security requirements."

The fighting in neighboring Syria has raised concerns in Jordan. The Patriot batteries and F-16s are going to Jordan to take part in Eager Lion – an annual exercise that this year encompasses 19 nations and about 8,000 service members. It is scheduled to start June 9 and to run through June 20.

About 200 U.S. soldiers of the 1st Armored Division based at Fort Bliss, Texas, deployed to Jordan in April to provide a nucleus of command and control capabilities if the fighting in Syria spills over into Jordan. About 120,000 Syrians have fled to Jordan to escape the country's civil war.

Weekly Address: Time to Pass Commonsense Immigration Reform | The White House

Weekly Address: Time to Pass Commonsense Immigration Reform | The White House

U.S. NAVY AND THAI MARINES/NAVY PARTICIPATE IN CARAT THAILAND

FROM: U.S. NAVY

130608-N-RG360-164 NAKHORNNAYOK RIVER, Thailand (June 8, 2013) U.S. Navy Sailors assigned to Maritime Civil Affairs and Security Training, Security Forces Assistance Detachment, observe Royal Thai Marines and Royal Thai Navy sailors during an insertion and extraction exercise as part of Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) Thailand 2013. More than 1,200 Sailors and Marines are participating in CARAT Thailand. CARAT is a series of bilateral military exercises between the U.S. Navy and the armed forces of Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Timor Leste. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Melissa K. Russell/Released)

130608-N-RG360-136 NAKHORNNAYOK RIVER, Thailand (June 8, 2013) U.S. Navy Sailors assigned to Maritime Civil Affairs and Security Training, Security Forces Assistance Detachment, ride in rivierine boats with Royal Thai Marines and Royal Thai Navy sailors during Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) exercise Thailand 2013. More than 1,200 Sailors and Marines are participating in CARAT Thailand. CARAT is a series of bilateral military exercises between the U.S. Navy and the armed forces of Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Timor Leste. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Melissa K. Russell/Released)

EPA APPROVES PLAN REGARDING SEWER OVERFLOWS IN CINCINNATI AREA

FROM: U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
EPA Approves Plan to Control Sewer Overflows in Cincinnati Area

Will Reduce Releases of Sewage and Polluted Stormwater by More Than 1.5 Billion Gallons Each Year

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the approval of an innovative plan for the control of combined sewer overflows (CSOs) in the city of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio.

"This plan is good news for the residents of Cincinnati and for communities along the Ohio River," said Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. "Not only will this innovative plan ensure that significant volumes of polluted stormwater and raw sewage are kept out of local waterways, but it will also cost less than more traditional approaches, saving money for ratepayers and the city."

The plan establishes priorities to address communities’ most serious water quality problems and promotes cost-effective, innovative solutions to reduce pollution. Specific components include separating sewers to keep rainwater out of the combined sewer system and use of green infrastructure to manage rainwater diverted from the combined system.

Under a 2010 consent decree and CSO control plan, the Metropolitan Sewerage District of Greater Cincinnati (MSDGC) was required either to construct a deep tunnel system under Mill Creek to alleviate CSOs in many neighborhoods in the city, or conduct further analyses and propose an alternative plan. MSDGC proposed the alternative plan to EPA in December 2012. The alternate plan is expected to save more than $150 million (in 2006 dollars) from the original deep-tunnel plan.

The plan will also create a green corridor that will convey stormwater runoff to Mill Creek in the Fairmont neighborhood of Cincinnati. The corridor will also include a floodway that will help prevent flooding of local streets, homes and businesses during extreme rain events. The green corridor and constructed channel will be an amenity for the neighborhood and may contribute to neighborhood stabilization and economic revitalization in addition to helping to resolve overflow issues.

Combined sewer systems, which collect both sewage and rainwater, become overwhelmed during rain events, allowing untreated sewage mixed with rainwater to be discharged into local water bodies and the Ohio River. Keeping the rainwater out of the combined system helps open up capacity in the combined sewer systems and helps to reduce overflows.

Raw sewage contains pathogens that threaten public health, leading to beach closures and public advisories against fishing and swimming. This problem particularly affects older urban areas, where minority and low-income communities are often concentrated. This settlement also highlights the benefit of using integrated planning approaches and green infrastructure to facilitate sustainable, innovative, and cost-effective solutions to protect human health and improve water quality.

Today’s announcement is the latest in a series of Clean Water Act settlements and CSO control plans that will reduce the discharge of raw sewage and contaminated stormwater into U.S. rivers, streams and lakes. It is part of EPA’s national enforcement initiative to keep raw sewage and contaminated stormwater out of the nation’s waterways.
The state of Ohio and the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission were also parties to the 2010 consent decree.

U.S. Department of Defense Armed with Science Update

U.S. Department of Defense Armed with Science Update

AF SAYS F-35 LIGHTNING II WILL HAVE INITIAL OPERATIONAL CAPABILITY IN DECEMBER 2016

FROM: U.S. AIR FORCE

Air Force establishes F-35 IOC target
5/31/2013 - WASHINGTON, D.C. (AFNS) -- The Air Force announced today it expects to declare F-35A Lightning II initial operation capability in December 2016. The announcement was included in a joint report detailing service-specific IOC requirements and dates for each of the F-35 variants that was delivered to Congress today.

"The Air Force has spent the last six months looking at our initial capability requirements and the expected availability date. This announcement is exciting news for the Air Force," said Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley. "It highlights to members of Congress, our international partners, and the American public that the program is on track to bring the United States military and our allies this critical capability."

Congress directed the secretary of the Air Force and secretary of the Navy to provide a report that details the IOC dates, requirements and capabilities for each of the F-35 variants by June 1.

The Air Force will achieve IOC when the first operational squadron has 12 or more aircraft and Airmen are trained and equipped to conduct basic close air support, interdiction, and limited suppression and destruction of enemy air defense operations in a contested environment.

"The F-35 is a vital capability that the nation needs to stay ahead of adversary technological gains, and it provides the multi-role capabilities that the anti-access and area denial environment of the future will require," said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III. "We're excited that this program is on the road to success, and we're grateful that our international partners remain as committed to this program as we are."

The F-35 is an unprecedented 5th generation fighter combining stealth technology with fighter speed and agility, fully integrated sensors and network enabled operations, and state-of-the-art avionics.

The world's most advanced fighter has achieved a string of milestones recently as it moves toward IOC. A few of these include the beginning of pilot training at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., in January; the delivery of the first operational test aircraft to Edwards AFB, Calif., and Nellis AFB, Nev., in March; the first operational pilot aerial refueling in April; and the completion of high angle of attack testing in May.


　

WHY ARE DISEASES NASTY TO THEIR HOSTS?

House Finch.  Credit:  Wikimedia.

FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Evolution in the Blink of an Eye
A disease in songbirds has rapidly evolved to become more harmful to its host at least twice in two decades, scientists report.

The research offers a model to help understand how diseases that threaten humans may change in virulence as they become more prevalent in a host population.

"Everybody who's had the flu has probably wondered at some point: 'Why do I feel so bad?'" said Dana Hawley of Virginia Polytechnic Institute, lead author of a paper on the results published today in the journal PLOS Biology.

"That's what we're studying: Why do pathogens cause harm to the hosts they depend upon? And, why are some life-threatening, while others only give you the sniffles?"

Disease virulence is something of a paradox.

"The jumping of a pathogen to a new host, such as bird flu jumping to humans, is just the first step of disease emergence," said Sam Scheiner, National Science Foundation (NSF) program director for the joint NSF‒National Institutes of Health Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases Program, which funded the research.

"The subsequent evolution of that pathogen in its new host can be critical to determining further [pathogen] spread," Scheiner said.

"This study is the first to confirm predictions that pathogens may evolve to become more deadly. The results are important for planning responses to events such as the bird flu outbreak in China."

To spread, viruses and bacteria must reproduce in great numbers. But as their numbers increase inside a host's body, the host gets more and more ill.

So a highly virulent disease runs the risk of killing or debilitating its hosts before the hosts can transmit the bug along. But sometimes pathogens find the right balance through evolution. The new study shows that can happen in just a few years.

Hawley and co-authors studied house finch eye disease, a form of conjunctivitis, or pinkeye, caused by the bacteria Mycoplasma gallisepticum.

It first appeared around Washington, D.C., in the 1990s. The house finch is native to the Southwest but has spread to towns and backyards across North America.

The bacteria are not harmful to humans, which makes them a good model for studying the evolution of dangerous diseases such as SARS, Ebola and avian flu.

"There's an expectation that a very virulent disease will become milder over time, to improve its ability to spread," said André Dhondt, director of bird population studies at Cornell University. "Otherwise, it just kills the host and that's the end of it for the organism.

"House finch eye disease gave us an opportunity to test this--and we were surprised to see it actually become worse rather than milder."

The researchers used frozen bacterial samples taken from sick birds in California and along the Eastern Seaboard on five dates between 1994 and 2010, as the pathogen was evolving and spreading.

The samples came from an archive maintained by co-author David Ley of North Carolina State University, who first isolated and identified the causative organism.

The team experimentally infected wild-caught, house finches, then measured how sick the birds got with each sample. The researchers kept the birds in cages as they fell ill then recovered (none of the birds died from the disease).

Contrary to expectations, the biologists found that in both regions--California and the Eastern Seaboard--the disease had evolved to become more virulent over time.

Birds exposed to later disease strains developed more swollen eyes that took longer to heal.

A less-virulent strain spread westward across the continent. Once established in California, however, the bacteria again began evolving higher virulence.

In evolutionary terms, some strains of the bacteria were better adapted to spreading across the continent, while others were more suited to becoming established in a more localized area.

"For the disease to disperse westward, a sick bird has to fly farther, and survive for longer, to pass on the infection," Hawley said. "That will select for strains that make the birds less ill.

"But when it gets established in a new location, there are lots of other potential hosts, especially around bird feeders. It can evolve toward a nastier illness because it's getting transmitted more quickly."

House finch eye disease was first observed in 1994 when birdwatchers reported birds with weepy, inflamed eyes as part of Project Feederwatch at Cornell University.

Though the disease does not kill birds directly, it weakens them and makes them easy targets for predators.

The disease quickly spread south along the East Coast, then north and west across the Great Plains and down the West Coast. By 1998 the house finch population in the eastern United States had dropped by half--a loss of an estimated 40 million birds.

Birdwatchers can do their part to help house finches and other backyard birds by washing their feeders in a 10 percent bleach solution twice a month.

Along with Hawley, Dhondt and Ley, the paper's authors include Erik Osnas and Andrew Dobson of Princeton University, and Wesley Hochachka of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

-NSF-

U.S. State Department Daily Press Briefing - June 7, 2013

Daily Press Briefing - June 7, 2013