Ebola vaccine trials to be tested as early as December

Ebola vaccine trials could begin in West-Africa in December, public health authorities said Friday, and could know by April whether the vaccine is effective or not.

According to Marie-Paule Keiny of the World Health Organization, the trials in December would be a month earlier than originally planned. At least five other vaccines could enter human testing in the first few months of 2015.

Participants in the trial would include health care workers in high risk areas. While a trial in Liberia would include others at high risk like burial workers or family members caring for Ebola patients.

Source: The New York Times

Ocean debris discovered on Kaua'i reveal possibility of mammoth tsunami risk

Massive marine debrisdiscovered in a sinkhole on the island of Kaua'i reveal there has been at least one mammoth tsunami that struck the islands about 500 years ago, and that another could happen again.

According to scientists led by Rhett Butler, director of the Hawai'i institute of geophysics and planetology(HIGP) at UH Mnoa, a wall of water up to nine meters (30 feet) high surged onto Hawaiian shores almost half a century ago. The massive tsunami was caused by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake off the coast of the Aleutian Islands.

The new study examined deposits believed to have come from the extreme event and used models to show how it might have occurred.

An earthquake in the eastern Aleutian Trench big enough to generate a massive tsunami such as the one in the study is expected to occur once every thousand years.

Excerpt from:

News at Nine, October 24