Tonight may be your best night for viewing the year end meteor shower Geminid. Normally providing about 50 meteors an hour, this year a bright moon will overpower most of the ‘shooting stars’. But you can still take a glimpse outside, if you are up to the challenge, although word is you may only see one an hour considering the moons effect on it this year.
If a flu pandemic strikes the United States, a Novartis plant in North Carolina now stands ready to respond with vaccine techniques that offer speed and scalability advantages over traditional vaccine-making methods. Novartis’ vaccine facility in Holly Springs, North Carolina today became the first cell culture vaccine facility authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use during a pandemic. The plant will develop vaccines from cultured animal cells, in contrast to the traditional method of making flu vaccines from chicken eggs. (read more)
If you take this along with our announcement a while ago regarding another new plan Medicago that can create vaccines from tobacco plants. According to these press releases, these two North Carolina facilities could provide about 40% of the countries flu vaccines.
I think our reporter did not make it to the city council meeting last night, if you have anything you’d like to share please do so in our open lines!
Late tonight through early tomorrow morning is suppose to be the peak of this meteor shower. Sadly the waning gibbous moon is high over head late tonight and through tomorrow morning. A dense low level cloud cover is moving in from the northwest at this late hour. I will wait until next year for the Geminid meteor shower.