Word: livestock
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...well determine if they live or die. The pair number among millions of largely nomadic people in the vast Horn of Africa region, threatened once again by famine. Three straight years of scant rainfall have caused the blistering of large tracts of grazing land, killing off herds of livestock and resulting in the death of hundreds of people, a figure that could rise alarmingly in coming months. Several countries are affected, with Ethiopia hardest hit. "Villagers cite the death of camels as a proxy for the severity of water scarcity," says Gerald Martone of the New York City-based relief...
...fact, this mostly blue-eyed, blond or reddish-haired people who originated in what is now Scandinavia were primarily farmers and herdsmen. They grew grains and vegetables during the short summer but depended mostly on livestock--cattle, goats, sheep and pigs. They weren't Christian until the late 10th century, yet they were not irreligious. Like the ancient Greeks and Romans, they worshiped a pantheon of deities, three of whom--Odin, Thor and Freya--we recall every week, as Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were named after them. (Other Norse words that endure in modern English: berserk and starboard...
...taking their farm animals with them. (Inadvertently, they also brought along mice, dung beetles, lice, human fleas and a host of animal parasites, whose remains, trapped in soil, are helping archaeologists form a detailed picture of early medieval climate and Viking life. Bugs, for example, show what sort of livestock the Norse kept...
CATTLE CALL Scientists have been speculating for years that plying the nation's livestock with antibiotics may be creating superresistant bacteria in humans. Here's new evidence: after contact with cattle on his family's farm, a 12-year-old Nebraska boy became infected with the same antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella that had sickened the cows. Using a "molecular fingerprint," researchers confirmed that the cow bug and human bug were indeed one and the same...
DIED. EDWARD KNIPLING, 90, U.S. government entomologist whose 1950s insect-eradication technique, X-ray sterilization of males to prevent offspring, saved U.S. livestock from the plague of the screwworm; in Arlington, Va. Developed with a colleague, the no-insecticide model has since been used successfully against many other insect pests...