Supercourse Newsletter, March 11, 2005
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NATO Advanced Research Workshop, run by the Supercourse Team
...please consider coming!!
"SCIENTIFIC NETWORKING FOR THE PREVENTION OF THREAT FROM MAN
MADE AND NATURAL DISASTERS"
in Kaunas, Lithuania, August 8-12, 2005
Networking of scientists from various disciplines and across the
borders may be an important aspect of disaster forecast and pre-
vention. This was demonstrated Supercourse activities in the
area of Just in Time Knowledge (JIT lecture on Bam earthquake),
(tsunami in South Asia http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec18091/index.htm).
The collapse of public health infrastructure in the countries of
the Former Soviet Union became a threat to the health of the
people in the FSU, Europe, Mediterranean region, and worldwide.
A famine in the FSU could be the tipping point leading to a
chain reaction of political, economic and health destabilization
in the FSU, markedly escalating nuclear and other types of
threat for all other countries. We will hold a meeting to dis-
cuss how an infrastracture for the Supercourse and scientific
networking could be built to avert the problem of natural disas-
ters spinning out of control to nuclear winter. We would like
scientists from many different disciplines and countries to dis-
cuss this essential issue. We invite scientists from all eligi-
ble countries (below) to apply to the workshop to build new ex-
citing telepreventive networks. Even if you cannot come, we
would love to hear your thoughts. Detailed information about the
workshop and application information can be found at
http://www.pitt.edu/~super2/nato
You can also contact Faina Linkov (mailto:faina.linkov@gmail.com)
and Eugene Shubnikov (mailto:eshub@mail.nsk.ru) for more informa-
tion. We have a limited number of partial travel grants.
Eligible countries: All 15 countries of the former Soviet Union,
Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany,
Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Nor-
way, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, UK, USA, Algeria, Egypt,
Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, Bulgaria, Romania,
Slovak Republic, Slovenia, The former Yugoslav Republic of Mace-
donia
Epidemiologic Diplomacy: Isn�t that a cool name? Upon return
from Pakistan we were wondering why people liked us a lot, in a
country where there is not a great love for Americans. We re-
ceived wonderful newspaper coverage, in contrast to most of the
articles about Americans. Part of the reason is the Supercourse
tries to be as a political as possible, as we are scientists and
friend first rather than Ukrainians, Japanese, Americans, Ken-
yans, Brazilians.
However, we served a very useful purpose, to help students see
who we really are, and visa versa. We were thinking that with
our membership 20,300 strong we can become a network of not only
epidemiologist/preventionist scientists, but also a group of
epidemiologist diplomats, where we bring science, and perhaps a
little bit of rationality to peace projects in the future. When
ever peace is about to occur, one of the first thing that hap-
pens is the exchange of scientists and health officials. Why
cannot our Supercourse faculty world wide be linking, apoliti-
cally to interactions between countries as we can collaborate,
despite enormous gulfs in our countries political agenda, epide-
miologists in many ways are the voices of truth in the area of
health.
BMJ: The BMJ disappointed the world a few months ago when their
business people overcame the humanitarians and they decided to
charge for access to their literature. This was a great way to
reduce the viewing of their journals from a zillion hits a year,
to a dribble number of hits. I was on strike against the BMJ (of
course they did not know it). Tony Delamothe has been the leader
of bringing the BMJ onto the Web. Despite this major set back,
alas, they just did something really cool. In the BMJ web site
you will be able to click on the figures and tables, and drop
these down directly into PowerPoint. Isn�t that fantastic??? Al-
though short sighted forcing payment, the are 'long sighted' in
PowerPoint. Great going Tony!!
Good News: Deb Aaron (mailto:debaaron@pitt.edu), has just gotten
tenure at the University of Pittsburgh. Deb was one of the
founding members of the Supercourse, and now is doing exception-
ally well.
Turkey Time: Once again we provide to you a brief description of
Turkey Epidemiology. The 40 turkeys in our backyard have gone
through a sudden transformation. Six of them have become �wild
and crazy� turkeys, their heads have turned blue and they are
strutting around, trying to make the gale turkeys pay attention
to them. They walk in pairs with the tail feathers held high,
all pumped up on testosterone. Sadly, as we males often have
been at dances when were young, no ladies pay attention to them
despite their beautiful blue heads.
Lecture of the week: Earlier this year, Supercourse team created
a JIT lecture on tsunami, which many of you liked and utilized
for teaching. We recently received a specialized lecture on Tsu-
nami in India, contributed by our strong supported in India, Dr.
Avasarala. This lecture gives a very interesting perspective
about the history of tsunami in India and the exploration of
preventive mechanisms. For more information visit
http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec18991/index.htm
Best Regards from Pittsburgh, Ron, Faina, Mita, Soni, Eugene,
Tony, Samar, Tom, Deb, Ezzeldeen, Julia,Tom
mailto:super1+@pitt.edu