Tuesday, August 5, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Ebola outbreak could be much worse than thought
CBS NEWS August 5, 2014, 6:24 AM

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The worst outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in history could actually be much worse than the official death toll reflects. Already, the World Health Organization says 887 people have died, but a top doctor working at the heart of the outbreak in West Africa says many cases are going unreported.

The senior doctor, who works for a leading medical organization in Liberia, explained to CBS News' Debora Patta that what has helped set this outbreak apart from previous ones is the virus' spread in urban areas.

One of the epicenters of the disease is the Liberian capital of Monrovia, home to about a million people, or almost a quarter of the country's population.

The doctor, who spoke to CBS News on condition of confidentiality, said the disease is spinning out of control in Africa partly because it is extremely difficult to contain it in a sprawling, congested city center.

Meanwhile, the second American missionary infected with the virus was on her way back to the U.S. aboard a private jet Tuesday morning. Nancy Writebol was expected to reach the isolation unit at the Emory University Hospital later in the day. Her colleague, Dr. Kent Brantly, is already there. Both have been given an experimental serum to try and treat the disease, and hopes have been expressed over limited improvements in their condition.

Also, officials at a hospital in New York city said a man admitted to the facility Monday morning showing symptoms commonly associated with Ebola likely does not have the disease. He had traveled recently to West Africa, but a senior doctor at Mt. Sinai hospital told reporters the "odds are" his ailment is not linked to the deadly virus.

The official Ebola death toll jumped from 729 to 887 on Monday as Liberia confirmed dozens of new cases, but the doctor told us he believes the real number is at least 50 percent higher.

He put this down to the fact that people are scared to report Ebola cases, and have instead been hiding sick relatives and burying the still-contagious bodies of the dead in secret.

Traditions in parts of West Africa involve touching bodies before burial -- potentially putting unknown numbers of family and community members at risk.

The Liberian government has ordered that the corpses of all Ebola victims be cremated.

Two treatment centers have been set up in Monrovia; JFK Hospital, which is right in the middle of the city, and the ELWA (Eternal Love Wins Africa) center, run by a Christian charity, in a suburb not far from the center.

As Western aid organizations have pulled many workers out of West Africa, control of the treatment centers has been handed back to a large degree to the Liberian government, which has already said trying to control the outbreak is beyond its capability.

The international non-profit group Doctors Without Borders has issued a statement saying it is over-stretched and under-staffed on the ground in the region, and its workers still don't have a full grasp on all the infected areas.

The implication in that statement is that the disease could be quietly spreading in parts of Liberia and neighboring nations where victims' families have not yet come forward.




Health workers battle trust issues, attacks in Ebola outbreak
CBS/AP August 4, 2014, 1:42 PM

In the countries where the Ebola outbreak is at its worst, health workers and clinics have come under attack from panicked residents who mistakenly blame foreign doctors and nurses for bringing the virus to remote communities.

In some cases, family members have even removed sick Ebola patients from hospitals.

As news of the disease first spread in Guinea, people quickly blamed the health care workers who showed up to help because Ebola had never been there before. In April, just a few months after the outbreak was first discovered, a Doctors Without Borders clinic was attacked.

A spokesman for Doctors Without Borders said at the time: "We understand very well that people are afraid because it is a new disease here, but these are not favorable working conditions so we are suspending our activities."

Although Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is still at work in Guinea, the group still occasionally comes under attack there. The Red Cross has also recently reported an attack on its aid workers there.

The New York Times reports MSF classifies "12 villages in Guinea as 'red,' meaning they might harbor Ebola but were inaccessible for safety reasons." The Los Angeles Times reports the number of hostile villages battling the disease might be as high as 20.

In a press release last week, MSF acknowledged the concerns about visiting local villages, saying "There continues to be significant fear surrounding Ebola amongst local communities. ... MSF is working with local authorities and elders to try to ensure safe access to these areas in order to obtain a clearer picture of whether people are still being infected and dying of the virus."

In Liberia, the aid organization Samaritan's Purse, which had hosted the American doctor who fell ill with the disease and is currently being treated in Atlanta, said it was forced to shut down operations after attacks on its workers.

The mistrust of central government and help from outside runs deep in this part of West Africa. All three countries are relatively fresh off decades of either brutal civil war or iron-fisted dictatorships.

To battle the reams of misinformation and cultural roadblocks to stopping the disease's spread, health workers have begun an aggressive public information campaign. The campaign also has spawned a popular catchy dance tune from three Liberian musicians that has reportedly been on heavy rotation on the radio of the region.

The track, called "Ebola in Town," was released in late May, and implores listeners: "don't touch your friend."

The song warns that the disease kills quickly, and even carries a message against eating bush meat, which has been blamed for the disease's outbreak in the region.




“World Health Organization says 887 people have died, but a top doctor working at the heart of the outbreak in West Africa says many cases are going unreported. The senior doctor, who works for a leading medical organization in Liberia, explained to CBS News' Debora Patta that what has helped set this outbreak apart from previous ones is the virus' spread in urban areas....the doctor told us he believes the real number is at least 50 percent higher.... He put this down to the fact that people are scared to report Ebola cases, and have instead been hiding sick relatives and burying the still-contagious bodies of the dead in secret. Traditions in parts of West Africa involve touching bodies before burial -- potentially putting unknown numbers of family and community members at risk.”

This seems to be a war against a virus, yes, but also against the lack of education and logical thought that is involved here. Religion is something that develops in nearly all human societies, and in each one the folktales and beliefs are different, but all are firmly held by most of the people. Russia and China have educated their populations against beliefs in magic and a higher power, in other words, religion. They haven't taught them to think freely for themselves, however, but to follow the party line and be obedient.

One other article on this subject said that the people believe the disease is not “a real disease,” but a spell cast by witches. Their burial practice, also a religious matter, in this case is spreading the disease, as it involves touching the dead. Likewise, many African people like to eat wild animals, called “bush meat,” which aid workers fear are contaminated with the virus. The government, which is in some cases not trusted by the people, has in one case published a catchy song by a popular singing group about the dangers of touching the ill and eating bush meat.

Too few of the people have come to “believe” in the virus spread disease, however, and have begun to attack aid workers at their treatment centers whom they mistakenly suspect of bringing the disease into the area. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the Red Cross are still treating the ill in Guinea. Samaritan's Purse has pulled its workers out of the area.

In the past, outbreaks of Ebola have stopped spontaneously, but this one is not following that pattern. Several cases of air travelers from the stricken area have surfaced in the US, showing high fever and gastrointestinal symptoms, but none so far have been diagnosed as having Ebola. One of the problems with the disease is that people who are ill can transmit the virus before they develop symptoms, and the virus may not cause symptoms for several weeks after exposure, making it difficult to track the path of the infection. It's hard to convince people that they contracted it by eating bush meat or touching someone who was sick. Unfortunately, viruses are invisible to the naked eye.

See the following article on the Net about new information about Ebola, according to the Canadian government which is working on a vaccine: http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2014/08/canadian-government-ebola-aerosolized-highly-contagious-lives-outside-host-3006098.html. This article may contain new theories about Ebola rather than proven facts, but it includes some frightening information. First, it may be spread through the air; second, the virus can live on surfaces that have been touched by a patient; third, it has been found in pigs, two rodents, shrews, non-human primates and fruit bats.







Ukraine troops push toward rebels in Donetsk
CBS/AP August 5, 2014, 6:51 AM

DONETSK, Ukraine -- Ukrainian troops took control of a key checkpoint on the western edge of Donetsk, the biggest city in the rebellious east, and were making gradual advances Tuesday to quash pro-Russian separatist forces.

An Associated Press reporter saw a tank carrying the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag Tuesday morning in the suburb of Marinka, which lies on a key road into Donetsk. Rebel combatants could still be seen in sniper positions in a nearby area closer to the city center.

A spokesman for the Ukrainian military operation in the east, Oleksiy Dmitrashkovsky, said further fighting was expected to ensure full control over Marinka.

Donetsk, a city of 1 million people, has largely been spared of fighting earlier during the rebellion that erupted in April but come under shelling in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, Ukraine accused rebels of firing on a group of unarmed Ukrainian soldiers as they returned from the Russian side of the border on Tuesday.

Officials in Kiev said Monday that hundreds of troops engaged in a fire-fight near the border were forced to flee into Russia when they ran out of ammunition. Russian media reported that the soldiers had defected, a claim Ukraine denied.

Russia's Interfax news agency quoted Ukrainian national defense council spokesman Andriy Lysenko as saying pro-Russian separatists "treacherously fired on a column in which there were 195 unarmed Ukrainian troops returning from the Russian Federation."
There were no immediate reports on the number of casualties.




Ukrainian troops are moving into Donetsk via a suburb called Marinka, while snipers remain entrenched within Donetsk. “Oleksiy Dmitrashkovsky, said further fighting was expected to ensure full control over Marinka.” Meanwhile, Ukrainian national defense council spokesman Andriy Lysenko accused the rebels of “treacherously firing” on 195 Ukrainian troops returning from the Russian side of the border. An earlier article said that the number of troops who were forced into the Russian territory was in the range of 300, so where are the other 100? Hopefully they are safe. Kiev doesn't seem to be near the point of surrendering, at any rate. Taking a city of 1 million people won't be easy, though. At least Russia doesn't show any sign of moving its government troops over the border. The war goes on.




Iran says it gave Hamas missile technology – CBS
AP August 4, 2014, 3:27 PM

TEHRAN, Iran - Hamas is able to fire missiles into Israel because Tehran provided weapons technology to the militant group to defend itself against Israeli attacks, a senior Iranian official said Monday.

Officials from Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards have said in the past that Fajr-5 missiles are part of Hamas' Gaza Strip arsenal, whose technology has been supplied by Iran and produced locally without needing direct shipment.

"Palestinian resistance missiles are the blessings of Iran's transfer of technology," the Secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council, Mohsen Rezaei, was quoted as saying by Al-Alam, the Arabic channel of Iran's state TV. "We need to transfer defensive and military technology to Palestinians so that they can build weapons under the blockade and defend themselves," he added.

Hamas has fired more than 3,200 rockets into Israel during the recent conflict, with some intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defense system and many of the crude missiles landing in open areas away from cities. Israel, which launched its military operation in Gaza on July 8, has since carried out more than 4,600 airstrikes across the crowded seaside area. More than 1,880 Palestinians and over 60 Israelis have been killed in the fighting.

Rezaei, a former Revolutionary Guard chief commander, wrote to President Hassan Rouhani this week calling on him to provide air defense systems to Hamas to hit invading Israeli planes. He also said Hamas should dig tunnels to be used as shelter to protect Gaza's population from Israeli assaults.

"I've requested Rouhani to provide air defense systems to Gaza so that Palestinians can defend themselves against invading planes," he said, adding that Iran was not shy to publicly declare its military support for Hamas.

"The Americans in recent days approved about $300 million to strengthen (Israel's) Iron Dome. You should provide air defense systems to Palestinians to be able to defend their people against aerial bombardment," he said in the appeal to Rouhani.

Rezaei also urged Hamas to capture Israeli soldiers to use them as bargaining chips in its battle against Israel.

"Getting their soldiers captured is the weak point of Israelis. Should two or three be captured, all Zionists will surrender," he said.

Rezaei said Israel's goal in the ongoing war was to disarm Hamas and destroy its missile power, but that it has failed to do so despite discovering and hitting some underground tunnels.

"The Zionists seized some tunnels but they can't plow the entire Gaza Strip. Facilities where weapons are produced remain intact," he said.

Iran's Guard commanders have boasted that stone-throwing Palestinians are hitting Tel Aviv with missiles, thanks to Iran's support.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, who has the final say on all state matters in Iran, called on Muslims from around the world last week to help arm Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to defend themselves against Israel.

Iran, a Hamas backer, does not recognize Israel and supports militant anti-Israeli groups such as the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah group.




“Secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council, Mohsen Rezaei, was quoted as saying by Al-Alam, the Arabic channel of Iran's state TV. "We need to transfer defensive and military technology to Palestinians so that they can build weapons under the blockade and defend themselves," he added.... Rezaei also urged Hamas to capture Israeli soldiers to use them as bargaining chips in its battle against Israel. 'Getting their soldiers captured is the weak point of Israelis. Should two or three be captured, all Zionists will surrender,' he said.... 'The Zionists seized some tunnels but they can't plow the entire Gaza Strip. Facilities where weapons are produced remain intact,' he said.... Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, who has the final say on all state matters in Iran, called on Muslims from around the world last week to help arm Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to defend themselves against Israel.”

As long as Iran keeps giving them weapons, Hamas will almost certainly keep fighting. Israel is trying to defend itself rather than working toward a decisive victory over Hamas, which would of course be a bloodbath. If other Islamic groups come into Palestine to join the fight, as Iran suggests they should, Israel will have a much more difficult fight on its hands. If Israel makes an all out assault before the Palestinian ranks are strengthened, the UN and possibly the US will criticize them heavily. Until Israel and Palestine are brought to a peaceful sharing of the territory with a two-state treaty this war will go on.

Many of the population within Israel are loyal to Netanyahu in his war against Palestine, but some voices there are calling for peace. See the website http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/content/jvp-mission-statement. “JVP Mission Statement: Jewish Voice for Peace members are inspired by Jewish tradition to work together for peace, social justice, equality, human rights, respect for international law, and a U.S. foreign policy based on these ideals.”

“JVP opposes anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, and anti-Arab bigotry and oppression.  JVP seeks an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem; security and self-determination for Israelis and Palestinians; a just solution for Palestinian refugees based on principles established in international law; an end to violence against civilians; and peace and justice for all peoples of the Middle East.”





Army Corps of Engineers agrees to disclose dam pollution
AP August 4, 2014, 5:03 PM

PORTLAND, Ore. - For the first time in its history, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will have to disclose the amount of pollutants its dams are sending into waterways in a groundbreaking legal settlement that could have broad implications for the Corps' hundreds of dams nationwide.

The Corps announced in a settlement on Monday that it will immediately notify the conservation group that filed the lawsuit of any oil spills among its eight dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers in Oregon and Washington.

The Corps will also apply to the Environmental Protection Agency for pollution permits, something the Corps has never done for the dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers.

The settlement filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, Oregon, ends the year-old consolidated lawsuit by the conservation group Columbia Riverkeeper, which said the Corps violated the Clean Water Act by unmonitored, unpermitted oil discharges from the eight hydroelectric dams.

The settlement reflects the recent tack of the EPA regulating the environmental impacts of energy. The agency has recently come up with regulations of mountaintop removal for coal and fracking for oil and gas.

As part of the settlement, the Corps admits no wrongdoing, but will pay $143,000 and the consolidated cases were dismissed.

When contacted by The Associated Press, the Corps' Northwest and national offices requested questions via email Monday and did not immediately comment on the settlement.

The settlement will allow oversight of the dams by the EPA. The agency had the authority to regulate the dams' pollution before the settlement, but it could not compel the corps to file for a pollution permit. The Corps will also be forced to switch to a biodegradable lubricant for its dam machinery if an internal study finds that it's financially feasible.

The Corps isn't just a polluter, however. It's also a regulator of pollution under the Clean Water Act. The act grants the Corps the authority to issue permits for the discharge of materials excavated from or put into U.S. Waterways.

"Under the letter of the law, they have been engaged in unpermitted discharge for years," said Melissa Powers, an environmental law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. "They should have long ago said, 'This is how much we're discharging. Here are the environmental impacts.' "

Monday's settlement will force the Corps' hand. To discharge pollutants into waterways, the polluters must obtain permission from state and federal governments. Before the settlement, the EPA knew about the unpermitted discharges from the dams, but the Corps said in letters to state agencies that it is not accountable to the EPA.

The Corps argued in the same letters that disclosing the mechanical workings of the dam as part of an oil-discharge summary could compromise the dams' security.
In July 2013, Columbia Riverkeeper sued and demanded to know what the Corps was sending into the water and how much of it was going in.

"When you're not regulated under a permit, you don't have to say what the impact (of pollution) on water was," Powers said.

Nationally, the settlement could force all unpermitted dams to obtain National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits from the EPA.

Daniel Estrin, an environmental law professor at Pace Law School in White Plains, New York, said the settlement will make it impossible for the Corps to say that all of its pollutant-discharging dams don't require discharge permits.

"The Corps' acknowledgment of the need for permits in this settlement will make it difficult for other owners to successfully deny that permits are required in the face of citizen suits like the one brought (here)," Estrin said.

The eight dams affected by the settlement are the Bonneville, the John Day, The Dalles and McNary in Oregon and the Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite in Washington state.

Environmentalists will be closely watching the type of permit issued by the EPA, Powers said. A "site-specific" permit would likely include limits that the Corps would have to meet on the amount of oil discharged.

If the EPA instead issues a general permit, environmentalists would be less sanguine about its prospects, Powers said. General permits are less effective in compelling change because they are issued without specific metrics that must be met, she said.

In 2009, the EPA found a host of toxins in fish on the Columbia River, including polychlorinated biphenyl, a potentially carcinogenic synthetic that was banned for production in the U.S. In 1979.

The eight dams use turbines that have shafts and hubs filled with oil or other lubricants. The oil leaks to the surface, along with oil from drainage sumps, transformers and wickets that control water flow.




Permits to pollute? What is that? Melissa Powers, an environmental law professor, explains that the requirement to get a permit to pollute is also a requirement to state what kind and how much of a pollutant is going into the water. "'When you're not regulated under a permit, you don't have to say what the impact (of pollution) on water was,' Powers said.... Nationally, the settlement could force all unpermitted dams to obtain National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits from the EPA.”

Oil and other lubricants, plus a carcinogen that was banned for production in the US in 1979 polychlorinated biphenyl, which are used in the power plants, have been escaping into the water as long as the plants have been in operation. The chemical along with “a host of toxins” have been found in fish in the Columbia River. The article didn't say whether the chemicals killed the fish, or simply were carried in their tissues, possibly to poison any people who ate the fish.

The article also states that the EPA will also now regulate the mountaintop removal method of coal mining and the practice of fracking to force oil and gas out of the ground rock. These things are part of the EPA's attempts to document the environmental impacts of energy production. I didn't see any mention, other than a fine of $143,000, of forcing the power plants to “pay the environmental costs” of their business. An article I was reading a few years ago said that if industry had to pay the real costs of their production processes, including the environmental cleanup costs, the developmental research to find cleaner ways of doing things would look more economically feasible. This may be a step in that direction.






A Hospital Reboots Medicaid To Give Better Care For Less Money – NPR
by SARAH JANE TRIBBLE
August 05, 2014

Carmen Smith remembers the day about a year ago when she gained Medicaid coverage.
"It was like Christmas Day, it was like getting a gift from Santa Claus!" she says. "People don't realize how important and how special it is to have insurance to be able to go see a doctor on a regular basis when you have an illness like mine."

Smith, 44, has Type 2 diabetes. Before qualifying for Medicaid coverage, she was what policy experts call a "frequent flier." She had used the emergency room at MetroHealth, the public hospital in Cleveland, five times in one year.

She bought insulin over the counter, guessed at her dosage and frequently got sick.

"I remember one instance when my sugars were up and I felt like I was having a heart attack. So it was like heart palpitations. And I ended up staying in the emergency room's 24-hour observation department," Smith says.

That kind of triage care is expensive. Smith couldn't pay the bills, but she made too much to qualify for Medicaid.

MetroHealth has struggled for years to cover the costs of patients like Smith.

So long before Ohio expanded Medicaid, the hospital redirected more than $30 million it receives from county taxpayers each year into a new pot.

They used the money to create their very own Medicaid program for county residents. And then they tracked the patients.

The results from the first nine months are in.

"All of the clinical outcomes are really amazing," says Dr. Randy Cebul, a researcher at MetroHealth.

The hospital used extensive electronic medical records to carefully select uninsured patients and send them Medicaid cards before they even applied. Then MetroHealth gave personalized attention to patients. Cebul says they focused on 18,000 of them who came to the hospital a lot.

"The diabetes outcomes were probably the most impressive," he says. "The sugar control, the blood pressure control, the lipid control, virtually everything was much better and dramatically so."

Here's how it works. Each patient is assigned a nurse. That nurse books their appointments, calls them if they miss one and checks to make sure they take their medications.

In nine months, emergency department visits dropped 60 percent and primary care visits went up 50 percent.

The hospital also ended up spending less than it budgeted, saving an average of $150 on each patient every month.

"Better care, better outcomes, better costs," Cebul says.

Outside of Cleveland, a handful of cities and states expanded Medicaid earlier than the rest of the nation. But results haven't always been so promising.

In Oregon, for example, emergency department use went up when patients got Medicaid, not down.

They ran their experiment differently, giving some people Medicaid while leaving others uninsured. And they didn't do any of the oversight that Cleveland did.

No one program will have all the answers, according to Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. Instead, at a time when health reform is changing the way patients everywhere are treated, Salo says, there's a lot at stake in trying to figure out what works.

"You know we've got 50-plus states who are out there actively trying to steal best practices and good ideas and reform principals from other states," he says.

But Smith, a stay-at-home mom, knows this is working for her. She recalls how before getting Medicaid she was using a scooter to shop at Wal-Mart. Now, she's rides her bike to get around town.

"I'm really excited 'cause I'm doing a good job. I feel so good about myself. I get off my bike and I'm like out of breath. I'm not tired." Smith says.

She says she can't wait to call her nurse and talk about blood sugar levels.




Carmen Smith has diabetes, but had no health insurance. “She bought insulin over the counter, guessed at her dosage and frequently got sick..” I didn't know you could buy insulin over the counter. When she had to see a doctor, like many such people, she went to the Emergency Room – five times in one year. The state of Ohio has now expanded Medicaid, but before that her hospital MetroHealth set up a fund for county residents alone to function like Medicaid. It has the further benefit, however, of closely tracking the patients to see that they took their medication properly and went to a primary care doctor. “The hospital also ended up spending less than it budgeted, saving an average of $150 on each patient every month.”

This is a cheerful report of a subject that in general is less so. A news clip from the last week or so was about the fact that a number of doctors are refusing to take Affordable Care patients because the plan, while it pays doctors more than Medicaid does, it pays less than Medicare. I have even heard of doctors who won't take Medicare. I would hate to see this country become purely hostile to poor people, especially when doctors make at least $156, 000 a year. See the article, “Doctors’ Salaries: Who Earns the Most and the Least?” on yesterday's blog.

At some point, if progressive thinkers should actually gain a clear majority in this country, there may be an amendment to the Constitution giving citizens “a right” to health care. It sounds like a pipe dream at this point, with the Tea Party trying to strip our poorest people of their right to vote by putting up artificial barriers, but it's not impossible. Maybe at that time we will also set up measures that effectively reduce CO2 emissions from industrial plants and save the animals that are going extinct. I can dream, can't I?





The Gift Of Graft: New York Artist's Tree To Grow 40 Kinds Of Fruit – NPR
by NPR STAFF
August 03, 2014

It sounds like something out of Dr. Seuss, but artist Sam Van Aken is developing a tree that blooms in pink, fuchsia, purple and red in the spring — and that is capable of bearing 40 different kinds of fruit.

No, it's not genetic engineering. Van Aken, an associate professor in Syracuse University's art department, used an age-old technique called grafting to attach branches from 40 different kinds of stone fruit onto a single tree. It's called the "Tree of 40 Fruit." Weekend Edition's Arun Rath spoke to Van Aken about the project, and what inspired it.

"I'm an artist. So the whole project really began with this idea of creating a tree that would blossom in these different colors and would bear these multitude of fruit," he says.

But he soon discovered that it was actually pretty hard to find so many distinct varieties of stone fruit in New York, he explains in his presentationat TEDx Manhattan. "I realized the extent to which we've created these massive monocultures." Most grocery stores and markets only stock a few varieties — and most of them are grown in California.

But then Van Aken came across the New York State Agricultural Experimentation Station. "It was the largest orchard of its kind in the Northeast, perhaps even east of the Rockies," he says.

The 3-acre plot contained all sorts of varieties of stone fruit, he says. "And they all had these amazingly different tastes."

That's when he started to understand the history behind these fruits, he says. "Then [the project] really became about preserving some of these antique and heirloom varieties."

The state wanted to close the operation down due to a lack of funding, so Van Aken purchased it in 2008.

His 16 trees around the country are composed of mainly antique and native stone fruit varieties, including peaches, plums, apricots and nectarines. In his TEDx talk, Van Aken says he's worked with 250 varieties of stone fruit at this point.

"I'm working with cherries; I've had limited success with that," he says. "I also graft almonds to them, because the almond blossoms are just absolutely amazing."

The process of building up these trees has taken years and a lot of patience. Van Aken starts with what's called a stock plan. He then inserts small, budding branches from other trees at strategic points throughout the stock tree. He tapes these grafts in place and lets them heal and and bond with their new base over the winter months. If all goes well, the grafts will start to grow in the spring.

The technique has been around for thousands of years, Van Aken says. "It appears on hieroglyphs in Egypt."

These days many commercial fruit trees are grafted — growers choose base trees that work well in their climate. And, Van Aken says, "nurseries now, what they'll do is they'll sell combination trees, which are two varieties that will cross-pollinate each other, so you'll get a better fruit set."

As we've reported, a group of dedicated fruit fans in San Francisco are even using the technique to get the barren trees along city sidewalks to bear cherries, pears and apples.

Van Aken's trees are still quite young — his rendering shows what he expects them to look like in a few years. For now, he says, he's battling the squirrels, chipmunks, deer and groundhogs that are threatening his labors of love.

"I get very Caddyshack," he says, laughing. "I'm a lot like Bill Murray during the summer."




Rootstock
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"…In grafting, it refers to a plant, sometimes just a stump, which already has an established, healthy root system, onto which a cutting or a bud from another plant is grafted.... Although grafting has been practiced for many hundreds of years, even in Roman times, most orchard rootstocks in current use were developed in the 20th century.[2] A variety of rootstocks may be used for a single species or cultivar of scion because different rootstocks impart different properties, such as vigour, fruit size and precocity. Rootstocks also may be selected for traits such as resistance to drought, root pests, and diseases. Grapevines for commercial planting are most often grafted onto rootstocks to avoid damage by phylloxera, though vines available for sale to back garden viticulturists may not be. The rootstock may be a different species from the scion, but as a rule it should be closely related, For example, many commercial pears are grown on quince rootstock.” 




Sam Van Akin is an artist, not a scientist, he said, yet this is interesting to me from a scientific viewpoint. The rootstock on which the scion is grafted should be of a similar species for successful grafting. The writer did say that on his trees, they are all “stonefruit,” which includes peaches, plums, apricots, almonds, etc. Van Akin had difficulty finding many different varieties until he found a scientific project in New York State.

"I realized the extent to which we've created these massive monocultures," said Van Akin. This a problem I've seen discussed before about modern farming. Growers have begun to use fewer and fewer varieties of plants of a given species, and as a result they are all so genetically similar that it is feared a plague of some kind could kill off much of the species. Scientists have started breeding some wild types in with their cultivated standards to vary the gene pool.

“'The 3-acre plot contained all sorts of varieties of stone fruit,' he says of the New York project. 'And they all had these amazingly different tastes.'.... The state wanted to close the operation down due to a lack of funding, so Van Aken purchased it in 2008.” Van Akin says the process of multiple grafting has been used as far back as the ancient Egyptians. The wikipedia article said that the Romans also grew such trees.

Some commercially produced rootstocks are now grafted with two similar fruit types so that they can cross-pollinate each other when they bloom to produce superior fruit. Seeing such a tree in bloom would be breathtaking. The artists image shown in the article showed many colors of blossom. Usually I like city life, but sometimes I wish I could live on a farm so I could try something like this. Maybe I'll win the lottery some day.