(Em)Power yourself!

May is Walk/Bike to Work Month

Want to get fit, lose weight, build muscle, lower your stress levels, save gas, and reduce air pollution?

Consider biking or walking all or part of the distance to work.

Many more of us could commute with our own two legs than do. You probably have a few good excuses for not powering yourself to work:

I live too far from work. It'll take too much time. I don't have a safe route to travel. I don't have a place to shower at work. I don't have a safe place to stash my bike. I don't want to appear weird. I'm too out of shape to go that far.

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Smith Joins First Plant Diagnostic Training Team in Bangladesh

Cheryl Smith, UNH Cooperative Extension's plant health specialist recently returned from a trip to Bangladesh where she served as co-instructor for a week-long Plant Disease Diagnosis Training Workshop held at Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) in Mymensingh, Bangladesh.

"I've always been interested in international agriculture, sharing my knowledge and expertise to improve the plant disease diagnostic skills in developing nations, particularly in Asia," says Smith. "When my colleague Dr. Robert Wick of the University of Massachusetts asked me to join him for this first-of-its-kind training, I jumped at the chance. The plant disease diagnostic training workshop was the first of its kind ever offered in Bangladesh, or in Southeast Asia for that matter."

Wick and Dr. M. Bahadur Meah of BAU have collaborated as co-investigators on a U.S. Department of Agriculture-Bangladesh Cooperative Research Project aimed at establishing a plant-disease diagnostic clinic at BAU, the first of its kind for all Southeast Asia, and training faculty and staff in diagnostic techniques.

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Tick alert: Lyme disease up 43 percent in 2007

A new report from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services (NHDHHS) notes that cases of Lyme disease in the Granite State rose 43 percent last year, from 619 in 2006 to 892 in 2007.

The highest rates of disease occurred in Rockingham, Strafford, Hillsborough, Merrimack, and Carroll Counties.

The culprit: blacklegged tick
"The state monitoring program found that half the adult blacklegged ticks collected in Strafford, Rockingham and Hillsborough Counties, and 20 percent to 50 percent in Merrimack County carried the Lyme disease bacterium," says UNH Cooperative Extension entomologist Alan Eaton.

Eaton adds, "New Hampshire is home to 15 species of ticks, but the blacklegged tick (Ixodes scapularis, also called the "deer tick") is the one that transmits Lyme disease."

"The blacklegged tick itself becomes infected with Lyme disease-causing bacteria by feeding on an infected 'reservoir host,' an organism that carries high levels of the bacteria in its bloodstream," says Eaton. "In New Hampshire, the primary reservoir host for Lyme disease is the white-footed mouse."

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