Foreign Mosquitoes Invading United States, Presenting New Health Threats Tracked by Colorado State University

FORT COLLINS - Being a stowaway is risky, but people don’t often think of stowaways posing a risk to the health of an entire nation. But since 1986, one professor at Colorado State University has quietly kept a database of incidents of the worst kind of stowaways -- mosquitoes -- in an effort to ensure that new diseases don’t become a threat to the United States.

The database monitors invasions of mosquitoes, often the result of the tiny insect stowing away on imported goods. It may not sound like a significant job until one considers the perspective that mosquitoes infect one billion people and countless animals around the globe each year with diseases and cause millions of deaths. There are more than 3,000 varieties of mosquitoes in the world. Only about 150 of them are native to the United States, yet only a few species carry and transmit certain infectious diseases, and an invasion of non-native mosquitoes can open up a new population to an infectious disease that hasn’t been established in that area or country before.

“The introduction of a new variety of mosquito into any population of humans and animals can pose a significant health threat because they may introduce a new disease or strain of a disease,” said Chester Moore, an infectious disease researcher at CSU who maintains the database. “As disease vectors, mosquitoes have the ability to significantly change the health or health threats to a community – much as we’ve seen with the slow advancement of mosquito-transmitted West Nile virus across the United States. Until 1999 when it was introduced into the United States, Americans thought of the disease as one found in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.”

It’s not hard for a mosquito to invade new territory in today’s global society. For example, about 10 years ago the Asian tiger mosquito – technically known as the Aedes albopictus – caught a ride on some lucky bamboo imported into the Los Angeles area and infested shipping ports and local florist shops. It’s not the first time the insect has invaded; since 1984, the Asian tiger also has been discovered in 25 states, including Colorado, Texas, Chicago, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Nebraska and Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia. In 1994, it was documented in all counties of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee, and it’s now well established in the South. It carries an exceptional number of diseases for a mosquito species including Chikungunya fever, dengue fever, St. Louis encephalitis, yellow fever, Cache Valley virus and West Nile virus, and dog heartworm.

Moore, a professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology at CSU began tracking the invasion of mosquitoes while working at the Centers for Disease Control and brought the work with him when he began researching vector diseases at CSU in 2003. Moore is contacted when an official discovers and confirms a foreign mosquito in the United States. While most invaders don’t survive, some become established only in a small area, but their population can explode if the conditions change in their favor, as evidenced by the Asian tiger and the Aedes aegypti, the yellow fever mosquito. Several invading species, including the Asian tiger and the yellow fever mosquito, lay eggs that can survive winter conditions to hatch in the spring. These eggs also survive drying, which makes it easier for them to be carried around the world on tires, lucky bamboo and other plants and other surfaces.

The Aedes aegypti, which spreads yellow fever and dengue, or breakbone fever, was most likely the first stowaway to the Americas. It is native to Africa and scientists believe that it was brought to America through slave trade in the 1500s. In 1501, the Spanish crown authorized Nicolás de Ovando, at that time the governor of the Indies, to begin importing African slaves. From its initial introduction into the Caribbean, the yellow fever mosquito spread rapidly via the Spanish shipping routes, according to Moore. It quickly colonized Central and South America, Mexico and the coastal regions of the United States. At one point, it extended as far north as Philadelphia and Boston during the summers. Benjamin Rush, a physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence, described a dengue epidemic in Philadelphia in the late 1700s. Scientists now know it was transmitted by this mosquito. It remains an important mosquito, in terms of human and animal health, and is a focus of Moore’s monitoring work. Today it is mostly found only in the southern regions of the United States.

Another significant invader is the Ochlerotatus japonicus, which was first introduced into New Jersey and New York among scrap tires imported from Asia.

While less than 10 foreign varieties of mosquitoes have been documented in the United States since Moore started maintaining the database, he and others have noticed other invasions, and he now tracks ticks and other disease vectors moving into the country. Moore also tracks how mosquitoes indigenous to regions within the United States are expanding their territory.

“Several indigenous mosquito species are changing their distribution across the states if you look at patterns from the last 30 years,” said Moore. His database has documented several species on the move, becoming established in new areas. The species are moving in a different direction – some toward the south, some northward and some eastward.

The reason for the movement remains a mystery.

“If you look at old distribution maps from the 1950s and 1960s for the Culex coronator, you’ll see they once were only found in the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Now, they’ve moved across the Gulf States into Florida and the Carolinas – they’ve really moved around. I’ve been looking at the distribution to see if global warming has caused the changes, but we just had an email from someone in the Minnesota who found a Canadian species of mosquito – so that species is moving south. We need to do a lot more work before we can answer questions about why mosquitoes are moving around so much.

“Increased international commerce and travel will likely lead to more introductions,” Moore said. “And there are multiple paths of introduction. The fact that a species is not an important vector in its native environment does not mean it will not be a vector in a new environment.”

It’s appropriate that, given the work in tracking foreign invasions of mosquitoes, that Moore has a significant role in tracking the presence of West Nile virus in the community. He runs the laboratory at CSU that tests all mosquitoes gathered in Larimer County for the virus. Thousands of mosquitoes are caught around the city and the two known to carry West Nile virus are sorted out and brought to Moore’s laboratory. Each week a newly captured batch is tested for the West Nile virus by lab technician Kamiey Price.

This year, Price and Moore have encountered a low number of WNV positive mosquitoes, although that number will likely grow significantly with the warming weather and decline in rain. In spite of the recent rains, Moore anticipates that it will still be a year with a low level of transmission of the virus to people and animals because cooler weather slows down the development of the virus. Next year could be a different story, depending upon the weather conditions

Three Tips to Increase Your Google Page Rank

A friend of mine started a website about a year ago, and he tried all sorts of advertising to get people to visit. Some of it worked, some did not, but at what cost and was it worth it? If you ask him he will say no and I tend to agree.

I agree because his website was for the sole purpose of selling products online and he was not a brick and mortar type business. When he came to me for some advice I told him to scrap the advertising costs, landing page development costs and so on. I told him what he really needed to do was get a higher PR. He said “are you talking about public relations?” I said no, what PR in the internet world means is page rank, specifically Google Page Rank.

He stood there like a deer in headlights and had no idea what I was talking about. I am going to tell you what I told him. First get to know what the Google PR is. The Google Page Rank, PR for short, is the scale that ranks a website from zero to ten (with ten being the highest) as its importance for the topic (or the topic that Google deems it to be) it is about. The higher your PR the higher up the ladder of search results you will appear when someone searches on keywords that are on your site.

He said, “ok I understand, but how do I increase it?” I told him there are a variety of ways to do this but I recommend you do the three following exercise since they take up very little of your time and have the biggest impact.

The first way is to exchange links with similar websites or websites that are at least in the same realm of what you do. For instance, he sold power tools for woodworking; therefore he should be exchanging links with woodworkers, websites about woodworking, and websites about how to use tools and so on. Exchanging links means that you will put a link to someone else’s website on your website and they will do the same for you. It is more commonly known as a reciprocal link exchange. I told him to contact no less than 5 websites everyday and request a link exchange and do not be surprised if you receive a no for an answer or do not get a response at all. It’s just the nature of the internet.


Next I told him to partake in online discussions about woodworking, power tools or anything else related to the field. I told him to visit message boards, social networks, and trade show websites. When you join any of these sites chances are they allow you to have a signature line. In that signature line you can enter in something like, “Joe is the owner of XYZ power tools and can be found online at {web address here}”. Every time you engage in a discussion and submit your post your signature goes along with it. This does two things it gets a link to your website out there more often and allows others in the discussion group to take a look at your site. If they like it, your prices or whatever it is your website is about, they will tell their friends and now your website has just gone viral.


The final thing I told him was to become a writer. He looked at me strangely and asked what I meant. What I said was each day you need to write an article about power tools. The article should informational and educational such as safety procedures for a table saw, or ten cool things to build with a router. At the end of each article you will create what is called a resource box. In this resource box (just like your signature line in discussion groups) you will let people know who you are and how they can get a hold of you. Once that is complete submit your article to article directories. They are free and they crave your articles because they have tens of thousands of visitors daily looking for your information.

So how do these three tips help increase your Google Page Rank? Well simply put Google rates a website based its popularity around the Internet. The more people talking about your website and more specifically, linking to it, the more favorably Google looks upon it and in turn your PR will increase.

There are a variety of tools out there where you can check what your Google Page Rank is at anytime. Just do a search in Google for page rank checker and you will find a number of them. They all basically work the same. Just keep in mind Google indexes websites 2 to 4 times per year so do not be surprised if in January you are a PR of 2 and come May you are still a PR 2. The Internet is large and it takes time for Google to index every single website.

Article Source: http://www.upublish.info

About the Author:
Bruce A. Tucker
About the Author:
Mr. Tucker is a regular contributor on Bukisa, an online community for writers where they can submit their articles.

U.S. Department of Justice Makes Available $1 Billion in Recovery Act Funds for COPS Program

WASHINGTON – U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that the Department of Justice is now accepting applications for $1 billion in Recovery Act Funds for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Program. Approximately 5,500 law enforcement officer jobs will be created or saved in law enforcement agencies across the country through funding provided by the Department of Justice.
"This investment of Recovery Act funds will pump new resources into our communities through a program with a proven track record," said U.S. Attorney General Holder. "We will not just create and preserve jobs, but also increase community policing capacity and crime-prevention efforts."
Funds awarded to law enforcement agencies by the COPS Office provide 100 percent of entry-level salary and benefits for each officer for three years. All jurisdictions that receive funding must plan to retain COPS-funded officer positions for at least one year after the grant ends.
The COPS Office is a federal agency responsible for advancing community policing nationwide. Since 1995, COPS has awarded more than $10 billion to advance community policing, including grants awarded to more than 13,300 state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies to fund the hiring and redeployment of nearly 117,000 officers. In addition to funding law enforcement positions, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services has been the catalyst for innovations in community policing, and the broad implementation of this effective law enforcement strategy. Currently, departments that employ community policing serve 87 percent of American communities.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (H.R.1) includes $4 billion in Department of Justice grant funding to enhance state, local, and tribal law enforcement efforts, including the hiring of new police officers, to combat violence against women, and to fight internet crimes against children. The Justice Department also recently announced the allocation of $2 billion in Recovery Act funding for state and local law enforcement and criminal justice assistance through the Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program. Similar to the JAG awards, COPS Recovery Act funds can also be used to hire new officers or rehire recently laid off officers, fill unfunded vacancies and help prevent scheduled layoffs within law enforcement agencies.
Unlike JAG funds, COPS funds are allocated directly to the local level governments and law enforcement agencies and provide a three-year period of funding. COPS hiring grants will be awarded through a competitive application process that will take into account the impact of the current economic crisis on applicant agencies, as well as crime statistics and plans for initiating and advancing community policing. The procedure for allocating JAG grants is based on a formula of population and violent crime statistics, in combination with a minimum allocation to each state and territory.
Attorney General Holder's Remarks at the National League of Cities Conferen