Day: October 23, 2017

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As the trend of backyard flock tending skyrocketed in recent years, so has deadly infections, the Associated Press reports.

Since 2015, the number of Salmonella infections from contact with backyard poultry has quadrupled across the nation. This year, nearly every state has been pecked by outbreak strains; only Alaska and Delaware can crow about dodging them. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed 1,120 cases. Nearly 250 of those involved hospitalization, and one person died.

But that is likely just scratching the surface of the real numbers, according to CDC veterinarian Megin Nichols. “For one Salmonella case we know of in an outbreak, there are up to 30 others that we don’t know about,” she told the AP.

Salmonella is an invader of the gastrointestinal tract and a common food-borne illness. Those infected can develop diarrhea, cramps, and fever. Young children, the elderly, or people with compromised immune systems can develop more serious illnesses, including blood and organ infections.

Chickens and other fowl can carry Salmonella in their guts with no symptoms and silently shed the germs in feces. The bacteria can get stuck to their feathers and kicked up into dust around a coop.

This is well known to seasoned farmers, and proper handling and precautions can prevent contamination and sickness, the CDC says. Anyone raising or handling live poultry should make sure to wash their hands afterward, for starters. Other measures, like leaving shoes worn in or near a coop outside and not hugging chickens also work to protect poultry keepers.

Backyard poultry can pick up Salmonella at any time, but many come from hatcheries already infected. The US Agriculture Department encourages hatcheries to test for Salmonella, but testing is not required and is done on a voluntary basis. The AP reports that many of the consumer birds come from just 20 or so feed and farm supply retailers. And those draw baby fowl from just about half a dozen large hatcheries across the country.

Consumers can try to get their birds from a hatchery that tests for Salmonella. But Nichols suggests flock owners to just always assume the birds are infected and to care for them responsibly. “We view this as a preventable public health problem and are really hoping we start to see some change,” she said.

Megan Geuss

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On Thursday, Maryland officials gave Elon Musk’s Boring Company permission to dig a 10.1-mile tunnel “beneath the state-owned portion of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, between the Baltimore city line and Maryland 175 in Hanover,” according to the Baltimore Sun.

According to Maryland Transportation Secretary Pete Rahn, The Boring Company (which Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk founded to advance tunneling technology) wants to build two 35-mile tunnels between Baltimore and Washington, DC. The federal government owns about two-thirds of the land that Musk’s company would need to dig underneath. As of Friday, it was unclear whether that permission had been granted. (A Department of Transportation spokeswoman told Ars that the land in question was owned by the National Park Service, which did not immediately respond to request for comment.)

But the 10 miles that have been approved by the state of Maryland will for the first leg of an underground system that could contain a Hyperloop system. Musk first floated the idea of a Hyperloop—which would ferry passengers through a low-pressure tube in levitating pods floating above a track using air-bearings—in 2013. But the CEO determined that he didn’t have time to see his idea through to fruition, so he issued a white paper and challenged startups and students alike to make headway on the concept.

Musk seems to have changed his mind about not building his own Hyperloop though. In July, Musk tweeted that he had received “verbal govt approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop.” Musk added that the infrastructure would allow people to go from New York to DC in 29 minutes.

Such a project would cost billions of dollars, the Baltimore Sun noted, adding “The state does not plan to contribute to the cost of the project.”

The Maryland Transportation Authority told the Sun that The Boring Company had been given permits similar to those a utility gets to install underground infrastructure.

According to the Washington Post, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan said he was proud “to support The Boring Company to bring rapid electric transportation to MD – connecting Baltimore City to DC.”

Ars reached out to The Boring Company, and a spokesperson there declined to comment beyond a statement found in Maryland’s press release. “The Boring Company would like to thank Maryland, Washington DC, and the White House Office of American Innovation for their support,” the company said. The Washington Post noted that, “In March, President Trump appointed his son in law, senior adviser Jared Kushner, to lead the office,” although it’s still unclear what support the Office of American Innovation contributed.

JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images

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On Sunday morning the Wall Street Journal reported that Tesla has reached an agreement to open a factory in Shanghai.

The electric vehicle (EV) company has had grand ambitions for increasing its market share in China, and in June of this year Tesla said it was in talks with the Shanghai government about opening a manufacturing facility. At the time, the company said it hoped to reach a deal by year’s end.

Ars reached out to Tesla, and spokesperson Kady Cooper said the company wouldn’t make new comments on the WSJ article, but referred Ars to a statement Tesla made in June, which noted:

Tesla is working with the Shanghai Municipal Government to explore the possibility of establishing a manufacturing facility in the region to serve the Chinese market. As we’ve said before, we expect to more clearly define our plans for production in China by the end of the year. Tesla is deeply committed to the Chinese market, and we continue to evaluate potential manufacturing sites around the globe to serve the local markets. While we expect most of our production to remain in the US, we do need to establish local factories to ensure affordability for the markets they serve.”

The WSJ report specified that any future factory would be set up in Shanghai’s “free trade zone,” and Tesla vehicles would still be subject to an import tariff of 25 percent. But having a nearby factory could help the company reduce transportation costs and give the company more immediate access to the Chinese supply chain. It could also help curry favor with the Chinese government, which has indicated that it might impose aggressive policies to favor electric vehicles over internal combustion cars in the future.

China already has the most electric passenger vehicles in the world. In 2016, more than 40 percent of all the EVs sold globally were sold in China, and as Ars wrote in June, “the country also has 200 million electric two-wheelers, 3 million to 4 million low-speed electric vehicles, and more than 300,000 electric buses.”

Some foreign auto manufacturers already build their cars in China, but to avoid the 25 percent tariffs China requires the car makers to find a local partner to build those vehicles, which can mean splitting profits, losing control over the finished product, and sharing trade secrets with a local company. In the country’s free trade zones, however, Tesla would be able to build a “wholly owned factory,” according to the WSJ.

“Tesla is currently working with the Shanghai government about details of the deal’s announcement, such as timing,” the WSJ added.

Solving manufacturing issues has become a critical component of Tesla’s business in recent years. The company’s recently-launched Model 3 had a disappointing initial quarter due to inability to meet demand, which Tesla blamed on “manufacturing subsystems” taking “longer to activate” than expected. Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk has set ambitious goals for the company, saying he expects to eventually ramp up to delivering 500,000 Model 3s every year. China will no doubt be a part of meeting that lofty goal.