Flights from Japan tested for radiation
CHICAGO, March 18 (UPI) -- U.S. officials say traces of radiation were found on United and American airlines jets that arrived at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport from Tokyo.
It was determined that passengers and cargo on the Wednesday flights were not at risk, the Chicago Tribune reported.
"No aircraft entering the United States [Wednesday] tested positive for radiation at harmful levels," U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement.
The Department of Homeland Security said it had initiated the testing of airline and ocean traffic for radiation contamination "out of an abundance of caution."
U.S. airlines and government officials are monitoring a radiation plume moving over the Pacific that was predicted to reach the United States Friday.
Maps used to guide aircraft in the North Pacific now carry a red radioactive sign to denote a no-fly zone over Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi reactors, and flight controllers have been given the coordinates of an area over the Pacific where airborne concentrations are of greatest concern, the Tribune said.
"Upper air forecasts are pretty good," aviation consultant Robert Mann said. "As long as you know what to look for, you can forecast where the stuff is going to go."
Virus link to chronic fatigue disputed
CHICAGO, March 18 (UPI) -- A scientific paper that gave hope to patients diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome has been largely discredited by subsequent research, U.S. scientists say.
Evidence is mounting that a retrovirus called XMRV is not a new human pathogen infecting millions, as was feared, but rather was a laboratory contaminant, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The original finding had prompted some chronic fatigue sufferers to begin taking potent anti-HIV drugs, the newspaper said.
Cancer biologist Robert Silverman at the Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute who worked on the study that linked XMRV to chronic fatigue said his lab had stored a cell line known to harbor XMRV and he was working to determine if contamination occurred.
"I am concerned about lab contamination, despite our best efforts to avoid it," Silverman said.
This week a European research team reported being unable to find any evidence of XMRV in the blood samples from people diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome.
The original study, published in 2009, was led by retroviral immunologist Judy Mikovits of the private Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease in Reno, Nev.
Mikovits has made increasingly broad statements about XMRV, connecting it to a list of frustrating medical conditions like ALS, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, dementia and even autism, the Tribune reported.
"It is clearly a human infection," Mikovits told a presentation hosted by a California alternative medical practice in January. "It is clearly circulating through the population as is our fear and your fear."
Scientists say there is no evidence to support her statement.
"Saying that is just inciting fear," Columbia University virologist Vincent Racaniello said.
This month, 4,000 scientists and clinicians gathered in Boston for a retroviral conference that included 10 presentations offering evidence that XMRV is a lab contaminant. Mikovits did not attend.
Chicago museum in bid for space shuttles
CHICAGO, March 18 (UPI) -- Chicago's Adler Planetarium has joined the bidding war to secure one of NASA's space shuttles for display when the fleet is retired, officials say.
Planetarium officials announced plans for a dramatic lakefront glass pavilion they said would be built if the museum obtains one of the soon-to-be-retired space shuttles, the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday.
The Adler is competing with 20 other museums to obtain one of two orbiters up for grabs, Endeavour and Atlantis.
NASA has promised the oldest shuttle, Discovery, to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
NASA says it will make an announcement on which two museums will get the other two shuttles on April 12, the 30th anniversary of the first shuttle space flight.
"Chicago is the best place in the Middle West for a shuttle," Adler President Paul Knappenberger said while displaying a concept drawing of the building Adler would build on a parking lot west of the planetarium to house a shuttle and related exhibits.
A space shuttle advisory committee headed by Chicago-area resident and Apollo 13 astronaut James Lovell helped Adler with its proposal, the Tribune reported.
Urban foxes a problem in Britain
LONDON, March 18 (UPI) -- Urban foxes in Britain are being collected and dumped in the countryside, and since they usually scavenge for food they don't know how to hunt, critics said.
Environment and Farming Minister Jim Paice described the practice as "very cruel," The Daily Telegraph reported Friday.
The trapping and dumping of foxes has occurred amid concern over the behavior and growing confidence of urban foxes following a number of attacks on children in their homes.
"I would suggest that that is actually very cruel, because those foxes are not accustomed to living on their own or hunting for their prey, it's usually all there in refuse bags in urban areas," Paice said.
"Many of them -- and farmers and others will bear witness -- wander around the countryside in a somewhat dazed situation."
Britain's urban fox population is estimated to be about 30,000, and pest-control firms report an increasing number of calls from households wishing to remove or kill problem foxes.
"We don't think foxes should be exterminated in any part of the country -- but to pretend they don't cause problems in some areas is frankly very blinkered thinking," Paice acknowledged.
