http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/06/thousands-of-bats-killed-by-hot-weather-in-queensland
Helen Davidson
Monday 6 January 2014
Thousands of bats have died across Queensland after extremely hot weather at the weekend.
On Saturday Dayboro resident Murray Paas found hundreds of dead flying foxes on the ground of his 1.5-hectare property. He filmed the sight and uploaded it to YouTube, describing it as “massive carnage” from the extreme temperatures, which rose above 43C in Brisbane on Saturday.
Paas told Guardian Australia that he estimated more than 1,000 bats had died in the heat on his property alone.
“[The bats] usually only hang out in the tops of the trees but throughout the day they were getting lower and lower … trying to get as much shelter as they could from the sun,” he said.
However, by the end of the day many of the 10,000-strong colony had perished, falling to the ground or hanging dead from branches.
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The number of flying fox deaths is “unprecedented”, a spokesman for the Moreton Bay regional council told Guardian Australia.
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Independent animal carers and researchers have been to the Dayboro property to take orphaned bats away.
An estimated 3,000 bats also died in Ipswich and Redbank.
Gavin Miles from rescue service Bats QLD spoke to Guardian Australia from Woodford, where he was helping in the aftermath of thousands of deaths, also blamed on the heat. The colony of bats in the area ranges from 5,000 to 20,000. Miles estimated his team had rescued about 250 animals.
“There are still bodies everywhere and probably a couple of thousand dead animals,” said Miles, adding he’d not seen anything like it in the eight years he’d worked as a rescuer. He said Woodford residents had told him it reached 48C at the weekend.
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Thursday, January 09, 2014
Yes, your boss probably is happier than you are
http://www.today.com/money/yes-your-boss-probably-happier-you-are-2D11879272
Allison Linn
Jan. 9, 2014
Chances are, your boss really is living the good life.
A Pew Research Center report released Thursday found that bosses are more likely than workers to be satisfied with their family life, current job and financial situation.
Top managers are also more likely than non-managerial employees to say they are paid fairly for what they do, and less likely to be looking for a new job, according to the report.
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Allison Linn
Jan. 9, 2014
Chances are, your boss really is living the good life.
A Pew Research Center report released Thursday found that bosses are more likely than workers to be satisfied with their family life, current job and financial situation.
Top managers are also more likely than non-managerial employees to say they are paid fairly for what they do, and less likely to be looking for a new job, according to the report.
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It can happen to any of us
From economist Robert Reich on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/727602150585717"
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as the economy has shifted, poverty is now a condition almost anyone can fall into. Nearly 55% of Americans between the ages of 25 and 60 have experienced at least a year in poverty or near poverty; half of all American children have at some point during their childhoods relied on food stamps. A growing portion of the middle class are in part-time or temporary positions, or contract workers. And two-thirds of those below the poverty line at any given point identify themselves as white.
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Wednesday, January 08, 2014
Study Shows ‘Readability’ Scores Are Largely Inaccurate
http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wms-begeny-readability/
Matt Shipman
Dr. John Begeny
Release Date: 01.08.14
Teachers, parents and textbook companies use technical “readability” formulas to determine how difficult reading materials are and to set reading levels by age group. But new research from North Carolina State University shows that the readability formulas are usually inaccurate and offer little insight into which age groups will be able to read and understand a text.
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Matt Shipman
Dr. John Begeny
Release Date: 01.08.14
Teachers, parents and textbook companies use technical “readability” formulas to determine how difficult reading materials are and to set reading levels by age group. But new research from North Carolina State University shows that the readability formulas are usually inaccurate and offer little insight into which age groups will be able to read and understand a text.
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The ironic (and surprising) effects of weight stigma
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-01/uoc--ti010814.php
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 8-Jan-2014
Contact: Andrea Estrada
University of California - Santa Barbara
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — If you're one of the millions of people who count losing weight among their top New Year's resolutions, you might want to pay careful attention to some new findings by UC Santa Barbara psychology professor Brenda Major.
It turns out that the weight-stigmatizing messages presented by the media — the ones that characterize overweight individuals as lazy, weak-willed, self-indulgent and contributing to rising health care costs — may be tipping the scales in the wrong direction. Designed to encourage weight loss, they may actually have the opposite effect.
According to Major's research, which appears in the current online issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, when women who perceive themselves as overweight are exposed to weight-stigmatizing news articles, they are less able to control their eating afterward than are women who don't perceive themselves that way.
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 8-Jan-2014
Contact: Andrea Estrada
University of California - Santa Barbara
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — If you're one of the millions of people who count losing weight among their top New Year's resolutions, you might want to pay careful attention to some new findings by UC Santa Barbara psychology professor Brenda Major.
It turns out that the weight-stigmatizing messages presented by the media — the ones that characterize overweight individuals as lazy, weak-willed, self-indulgent and contributing to rising health care costs — may be tipping the scales in the wrong direction. Designed to encourage weight loss, they may actually have the opposite effect.
According to Major's research, which appears in the current online issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, when women who perceive themselves as overweight are exposed to weight-stigmatizing news articles, they are less able to control their eating afterward than are women who don't perceive themselves that way.
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New device can reduce sleep apnea episodes by 70 percent, Pitt-UPMC study shows
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-01/uops-ndc010814.php
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 8-Jan-2014
Contact: Cristina Mestre
University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences
PITTSBURGH, Jan. 8, 2014 – Implantation of a sleep apnea device called Inspire® Upper Airway Stimulation (UAS) therapy can lead to significant improvements for patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), according to a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. After one year, patients using the device had an approximately 70 percent reduction in sleep apnea severity, as well as significant reductions in daytime sleepiness.
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 8-Jan-2014
Contact: Cristina Mestre
University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences
PITTSBURGH, Jan. 8, 2014 – Implantation of a sleep apnea device called Inspire® Upper Airway Stimulation (UAS) therapy can lead to significant improvements for patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), according to a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. After one year, patients using the device had an approximately 70 percent reduction in sleep apnea severity, as well as significant reductions in daytime sleepiness.
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Deep freeze has silver linings for natural world
It is my experience that the milder winters we have been having had resulted in more fleas on my pets and more mosquitoes. I expect the cold of the last couple of days will result in fewer this summer.http://apnews.myway.com/article/20140108/DAB6TKK80.html
Jan 8, 6:08 PM (ET)
By JOHN FLESHER
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It may be hard to think of this week's deep freeze as anything but miserable, but to scientists like Lenters there are silver linings: The extreme cold may help raise low water in the Great Lakes, protect shorelines and wetlands from erosion, kill insect pests and slow the migration of invasive species.
"All around, it's a positive thing," Lenters, a specialist in the climate of lakes and watersheds, said Wednesday.
Ice cover on the Great Lakes has been shrinking for decades, but this year more than 60 percent of the surface is expected to freeze over at some point - an occurrence that could help the lakes rebound from a prolonged slump in water levels.
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Scientists noted that subzero temperatures and pounding snowfalls like those that gripped much of the nation for several days are not unheard-of in the Midwest and Northeast and used to happen more frequently.
For all the misery it inflicted, the polar vortex that created the painfully frigid conditions apparently broke no all-time records in any major U.S. cities, according to Jeff Masters, meteorology director of Weather Underground.
"I'm just happy to see that we have a normal winter for once," said Lenters, who works for Limnotech, an environmental consulting firm in Ann Arbor.
As the climate has warmed, the absence of bitter cold has actually been damaging.
The emerald ash borer, an insect native to Asia, arrived in the U.S. around 2002 and has killed about 50 million ash trees in the Upper Midwest. But some locales this winter may have gotten cold enough to kill at least some larvae, said Robert Venette, a U.S. Forest Service research biologist in St. Paul, Minn.
A reading of minus 20 will usually produce a 50 percent mortality rate, and "the numbers go up quickly as it gets colder than that," Venette said.
While the freeze won't wipe out the ash borer, it will give communities a chance to develop plans for limiting the bug's spread, he said.
Other pests that originated in warmer places could be affected as well, including the gypsy moth, the hemlock woolly adelgid and the European beetle that carries Dutch elm disease, said Lee Frelich, director of the University of Minnesota Center for Forest Ecology. Native insects have evolved to cope with deep freezes.
Extreme cold also reins in invasive nuisance plants such as kudzu, which has ravaged the Southeast but has yet to find its way north, said Luke Nave, a University of Michigan assistant research scientist.
"As long as these cold snaps continue to occur, they will help reinforce the current range limits for certain plants," Nave said.
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Tuesday, January 07, 2014
Loving Touch Critical for Premature Infants
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140106094437.htm
Jan. 6, 2014 — The benefit that premature infants gain from skin-to-skin contact with their mothers is measurable even 10 years after birth, reports a new study in Biological Psychiatry.
Physical contact with babies is essential for their physical and psychological development. This lesson has been learned the hard way, as infants neglected in hospitals and orphanages developed many problems, ranging from depression to a more global failure to thrive. But, what types of contact are necessary and what are the beneficial effects of enriching physical contact?
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"In this decade-long study, we show for the first time that providing maternal-newborn skin-to-skin contact to premature infants in the neonatal period improves children's functioning ten years later in systems shown to be sensitive to early maternal deprivation in animal research," said Feldman.
Specifically, the researchers compared standard incubator care to a novel intervention called "Kangaroo Care" (KC), which was originally developed to manage the risk for hypothermia in prematurely born babies in Columbia, where they struggled with a lack of access to incubators. This method, in essence, uses the mother's body heat to keep their babies warm.
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Jan. 6, 2014 — The benefit that premature infants gain from skin-to-skin contact with their mothers is measurable even 10 years after birth, reports a new study in Biological Psychiatry.
Physical contact with babies is essential for their physical and psychological development. This lesson has been learned the hard way, as infants neglected in hospitals and orphanages developed many problems, ranging from depression to a more global failure to thrive. But, what types of contact are necessary and what are the beneficial effects of enriching physical contact?
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"In this decade-long study, we show for the first time that providing maternal-newborn skin-to-skin contact to premature infants in the neonatal period improves children's functioning ten years later in systems shown to be sensitive to early maternal deprivation in animal research," said Feldman.
Specifically, the researchers compared standard incubator care to a novel intervention called "Kangaroo Care" (KC), which was originally developed to manage the risk for hypothermia in prematurely born babies in Columbia, where they struggled with a lack of access to incubators. This method, in essence, uses the mother's body heat to keep their babies warm.
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Tiny Acts of Microbe Justice Help Reveal How Nature Fights Freeloaders
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140106133245.htm
Jan. 6, 2014 — The idea of everyone in a community pitching in is so universal that even bacteria have a system to prevent the layabouts of their kind from enjoying the fruit of others' hard work, Princeton University researchers have discovered.
Groups of the bacteria Vibrio cholerae deny loafers their unjust desserts by keeping the food generated by the community's productive members away from V. cholerae that attempt to live on others' leftover nutrients, the researchers report in the journal Current Biology. The researchers found that individual bacteria produce a thick coating around themselves to prevent nutrients from drifting over to the undeserving. Alternatively, the natural flow of fluids over the surface of bacterial communities can wash away excess food before the freeloaders can indulge.
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The Princeton findings also provide insight into how all microbes potentially preserve themselves by imposing fairness and resolving the "public goods dilemma," in which a group must work together while also avoiding exploitation by their self-serving individuals, said co-lead author Carey Nadell, a postdoctoral research associate in Bassler's lab.
"The public goods dilemma is a central problem in the history of life on Earth, during which single cells have emerged as collectives of genes, multicellular organisms have emerged as collectives of cells, and societies have emerged as collectives of multicellular organisms," Nadell said.
"At each of these transitions in complexity there has been -- and remains -- the threat of exploitation by single members pursuing their own interests at the expense of the collective as a whole," Nadell said. "Clarifying how exploitation can be averted is therefore critical to understanding how life has taken the various forms that exist today."
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"If V. cholerae's system of extracellular digestion were compromised by exploitation," Nadell said, "the world's supply of carbon and nitrogen would become sequestered on a rapid geological timescale."
Jan. 6, 2014 — The idea of everyone in a community pitching in is so universal that even bacteria have a system to prevent the layabouts of their kind from enjoying the fruit of others' hard work, Princeton University researchers have discovered.
Groups of the bacteria Vibrio cholerae deny loafers their unjust desserts by keeping the food generated by the community's productive members away from V. cholerae that attempt to live on others' leftover nutrients, the researchers report in the journal Current Biology. The researchers found that individual bacteria produce a thick coating around themselves to prevent nutrients from drifting over to the undeserving. Alternatively, the natural flow of fluids over the surface of bacterial communities can wash away excess food before the freeloaders can indulge.
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The Princeton findings also provide insight into how all microbes potentially preserve themselves by imposing fairness and resolving the "public goods dilemma," in which a group must work together while also avoiding exploitation by their self-serving individuals, said co-lead author Carey Nadell, a postdoctoral research associate in Bassler's lab.
"The public goods dilemma is a central problem in the history of life on Earth, during which single cells have emerged as collectives of genes, multicellular organisms have emerged as collectives of cells, and societies have emerged as collectives of multicellular organisms," Nadell said.
"At each of these transitions in complexity there has been -- and remains -- the threat of exploitation by single members pursuing their own interests at the expense of the collective as a whole," Nadell said. "Clarifying how exploitation can be averted is therefore critical to understanding how life has taken the various forms that exist today."
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"If V. cholerae's system of extracellular digestion were compromised by exploitation," Nadell said, "the world's supply of carbon and nitrogen would become sequestered on a rapid geological timescale."
Green Spaces Deliver Lasting Mental Health Benefits
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140107093323.htm
Jan. 7, 2014 — Green space in towns and cities could lead to significant and sustained improvements in mental health, finds a new study published in the journal of Environmental Science & Technology.
Analyzing data that followed people over a five year period, the research has found that moving to a greener area not only improves people's mental health, but that the effect continues long after they have moved.
The findings add to evidence that suggests increasing green spaces in cities -- such as parks and gardens -- could deliver substantial benefits to public health.
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Jan. 7, 2014 — Green space in towns and cities could lead to significant and sustained improvements in mental health, finds a new study published in the journal of Environmental Science & Technology.
Analyzing data that followed people over a five year period, the research has found that moving to a greener area not only improves people's mental health, but that the effect continues long after they have moved.
The findings add to evidence that suggests increasing green spaces in cities -- such as parks and gardens -- could deliver substantial benefits to public health.
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In Much of U.S., Extreme Cold is Becoming More Rare
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/extreme-cold-events-in-a-climate-context-16931
January 7th, 2014
By Andrew Freedman
The deep freeze that continues to affect the U.S. has resulted in numerous daily temperature records, and some all-time cold temperature records. But in general, this Arctic outbreak, courtesy of a huge chunk of the polar vortex that the jet stream temporarily dislodged from the Arctic, is bringing the coldest temperatures in 20 to 30 years to many areas of the Midwest, Ohio Valley, Deep South, and the eastern seaboard.
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While the cold temperatures have been unusual and even deadly, climate data shows that intense cold such as this event is now occurring far less frequently in the continental U.S. than it used to. This is largely related to winter warming trends due to manmade global warming and natural climate variabiility.
Climate Central calculated the number of nights below a specific temperature threshold for dozens of U.S. cities based on the local climatology and current weather conditions. The calculations encompass the entire winter season, and show that overall there is a downward trend in the number of extreme cold nights like we’re currently experiencing – although there are variations in a few cities. This trend is consistent with climate studies showing that overall, winters across the contiguous U.S. have warmed by .61°F per decade since 1970, and every region has warmed at least somewhat over that time.
Winters have also warmed over a longer period of record, but the fastest warming has taken place during the past few decades. In addition, the fastest warming has taken place at night, rather than during the day, which is consistent with climate change projections.
For example, in Minneapolis in the 1970s (1969-79), there were an average of 14.7 nights with temperatures below minus 10°F. But in the past decade (2002-2012), that number has fallen dramatically, to about 3.8. The calculations run from July through June of the following year, so that we wouldn't break up the winter season.
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And in St. Louis, the 1970s featured an average of 3.8 nights with a low of 0°F or below, yet in the past decade, the average for such frigid nights fell to zero.
A Climate Central analysis released in February 2013 found that the states with the coldest winters have been warming the fastest, including states hard hit by the current cold snap. The top 5 fastest-warming states, the analysis found, were Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Vermont and South Dakota.
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there is ongoing research that suggests that rapid Arctic warming, which has been linked to human-caused global warming, may be creating more amplified weather patterns like the one that we are currently seeing, with sharp curves in the jet stream steering weather systems in unusual ways. If that hypothesis is true, we could actually experience more extreme cold snaps, even as the planet continues to warm.
January 7th, 2014
By Andrew Freedman
The deep freeze that continues to affect the U.S. has resulted in numerous daily temperature records, and some all-time cold temperature records. But in general, this Arctic outbreak, courtesy of a huge chunk of the polar vortex that the jet stream temporarily dislodged from the Arctic, is bringing the coldest temperatures in 20 to 30 years to many areas of the Midwest, Ohio Valley, Deep South, and the eastern seaboard.
-----
While the cold temperatures have been unusual and even deadly, climate data shows that intense cold such as this event is now occurring far less frequently in the continental U.S. than it used to. This is largely related to winter warming trends due to manmade global warming and natural climate variabiility.
Climate Central calculated the number of nights below a specific temperature threshold for dozens of U.S. cities based on the local climatology and current weather conditions. The calculations encompass the entire winter season, and show that overall there is a downward trend in the number of extreme cold nights like we’re currently experiencing – although there are variations in a few cities. This trend is consistent with climate studies showing that overall, winters across the contiguous U.S. have warmed by .61°F per decade since 1970, and every region has warmed at least somewhat over that time.
Winters have also warmed over a longer period of record, but the fastest warming has taken place during the past few decades. In addition, the fastest warming has taken place at night, rather than during the day, which is consistent with climate change projections.
For example, in Minneapolis in the 1970s (1969-79), there were an average of 14.7 nights with temperatures below minus 10°F. But in the past decade (2002-2012), that number has fallen dramatically, to about 3.8. The calculations run from July through June of the following year, so that we wouldn't break up the winter season.
-----
And in St. Louis, the 1970s featured an average of 3.8 nights with a low of 0°F or below, yet in the past decade, the average for such frigid nights fell to zero.
A Climate Central analysis released in February 2013 found that the states with the coldest winters have been warming the fastest, including states hard hit by the current cold snap. The top 5 fastest-warming states, the analysis found, were Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Vermont and South Dakota.
-----
there is ongoing research that suggests that rapid Arctic warming, which has been linked to human-caused global warming, may be creating more amplified weather patterns like the one that we are currently seeing, with sharp curves in the jet stream steering weather systems in unusual ways. If that hypothesis is true, we could actually experience more extreme cold snaps, even as the planet continues to warm.
How to care for feral cats during the winter
See the following articlehttp://www.mnn.com/family/pets/stories/how-to-care-for-feral-cats-during-the-winter
By Laura Moss
Tue, Jan 07 2014
Ga., like the nation, trapped in an ideology of decline
http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/jay-bookman/2014/jan/07/ga-nation-trapped-ideology-decline/
Jay Bookman
Jan. 7, 2014
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However, it’s the reaction to our situation that tells us how dire things have gotten. We still like to tell ourselves that we are the richest, most prosperous nation on earth, yet we also tell ourselves that we can’t afford what our competitors can afford. It's not a lack of resources, it's a lack of will and willingness to sacrifice.
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It's also funny -- in a sad sort of way -- to see people build policy on the assumption that Georgia state legislators would offset the loss of federal revenue by voting to raise state taxes. There is no basis for such a belief, and as a former state legislator, Graves knows it. In a state whose economy has always been focused on transportation, we now rank 49th in per capita transportation spending.
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Jay Bookman
Jan. 7, 2014
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However, it’s the reaction to our situation that tells us how dire things have gotten. We still like to tell ourselves that we are the richest, most prosperous nation on earth, yet we also tell ourselves that we can’t afford what our competitors can afford. It's not a lack of resources, it's a lack of will and willingness to sacrifice.
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It's also funny -- in a sad sort of way -- to see people build policy on the assumption that Georgia state legislators would offset the loss of federal revenue by voting to raise state taxes. There is no basis for such a belief, and as a former state legislator, Graves knows it. In a state whose economy has always been focused on transportation, we now rank 49th in per capita transportation spending.
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What is causing the atctic vortex?
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html?entrynum=2605
By Dr. Jeff Masters
Published: 4:33 PM GMT on January 07, 2014
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In the winter, the 24-hour darkness over the snow and ice-covered polar regions allows a huge dome of cold air to form. This cold air increases the difference in temperature between the pole and the Equator, and leads to an intensification of the strong upper-level winds of the jet stream. The strong jet stream winds act to isolate the polar regions from intrusions of warmer air, creating a "polar vortex" of frigid counter-clockwise swirling air over the Arctic. The chaotic flow of the air in the polar vortex sometimes allows a large dip (a sharp trough of low pressure) to form in the jet stream over North America, allowing the Arctic air that had been steadily cooling in the northern reaches of Canada in areas with 24-hour darkness to spill southwards deep into the United States. In theory, the 1.5°F increase in global surface temperatures that Earth has experienced since 1880 due to global warming should reduce the frequency of 1-in-20 year extreme cold weather events like the current one. However, it is possible that climate change could alter jet stream circulation patterns in a way that could increase the incidence of unusual jet stream "kinks" that allow cold air to spill southwards over the Eastern U.S., a topic I have blogged about extensively, and plan to say more about later this week.
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By Dr. Jeff Masters
Published: 4:33 PM GMT on January 07, 2014
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In the winter, the 24-hour darkness over the snow and ice-covered polar regions allows a huge dome of cold air to form. This cold air increases the difference in temperature between the pole and the Equator, and leads to an intensification of the strong upper-level winds of the jet stream. The strong jet stream winds act to isolate the polar regions from intrusions of warmer air, creating a "polar vortex" of frigid counter-clockwise swirling air over the Arctic. The chaotic flow of the air in the polar vortex sometimes allows a large dip (a sharp trough of low pressure) to form in the jet stream over North America, allowing the Arctic air that had been steadily cooling in the northern reaches of Canada in areas with 24-hour darkness to spill southwards deep into the United States. In theory, the 1.5°F increase in global surface temperatures that Earth has experienced since 1880 due to global warming should reduce the frequency of 1-in-20 year extreme cold weather events like the current one. However, it is possible that climate change could alter jet stream circulation patterns in a way that could increase the incidence of unusual jet stream "kinks" that allow cold air to spill southwards over the Eastern U.S., a topic I have blogged about extensively, and plan to say more about later this week.
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2013: Australia’s Warmest Year on Record
Very informative graphs at this link. Almost every day in 2013 was above average in temperature.http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/comment.html?entrynum=231#commenttop
By: Christopher C. Burt, 8:46 PM GMT on January 06, 2014
As the most intense cold wave to envelop a large portion of the U.S. since 1996 unfolds, record warmth has been the story for much of the rest of the world, including California, but especially in Australia where 2013 has been determined to be the continent’s warmest calendar year on record. This year has begun with yet more records. Here are some details.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology issued a special statement on January 3rd confirming that 2013 was the nation’s warmest year on record (since 1910) so far as annual average temperature. The average was 21.8°C (71.2°F) which surpassed the previous warmest year of 21.63°C (70.9°F) set in 2005. 2013 was 1.2°C (2.2°F) above the long-term normal.
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Every state averaged above normal in 2013 with at least portions of every state observing their warmest year on record with the exception of Tasmania.
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One of the reasons for the unusual warmth in 2013 was very high sea surface temperatures (SST), the third warmest on record according to preliminary data.
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The unusual heat contributed to a number of destructive wild fires (or bush fires as they are called in Australia). One of the worst, in terms of damage, was that which scorched southeastern Tasmania during the early January heat wave of 2013. A total of 25,500 hectares (62,000 acres) burned with 193 homes destroyed along with an additional 186 other buildings. Even larger and more destructive wild fires occurred during the early spring heat waves of September and October when 50,000 hectares (124,000 acres) were scorched and 193 homes lost in the Blue Mountain area west of Sydney.
It will be interesting to see how Australia fares in 2014, having once more started off with some anomalous heat.
Bill Moyers Documentary Blacked Out in NC
January 4, 2014
Legendary journalist Bill Moyers has created a new documentary about North Carolina’s politics in 2013 titled North Carolina: State of Conflict. As of press time Saturday, UNC-TV does not have the show scheduled to air in our state – essentially blacking out the documentary to all but those who are able to access it through the internet.
“First it was Wisconsin. Now it’s North Carolina that is redefining the term ‘battleground state,’” the show’s website says. “On one side: a right-wing government enacting laws that are changing the face of the state. On the other: citizen protesters who are fighting back against what they fear is a radical takeover.”
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“State of Conflict is more than a local story,” states BillMoyers.com. “It offers a case study of what may be the direction of American politics for years, perhaps decades, to come.”
CCD has contacted UNC-TV asking why they have chosen not to air the show, and has not gotten a response. We will publish that response, explanation, or statement when it becomes available. In the meantime, CCD would like to bring our readers Mr. Moyer’s excellent and illuminating documentary in full below.
UPDATE:
With a tip from a reader, CCD has found out that UNC-TV did and will air the documentary exclusively via digital cable services such as Time Warner Cable, but is not available for those who do not have the digital cable service or view through broadcast. The documentary can be found on UNC’s MX service at the following times:
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As our reader put it best: Yes, however it is/was broadcast over-the-air as a digital subchannel of UNC-TV. If a NC viewer who does not have cable and gets his/her TV via a digital antenna connected to a TV with a digital tuner AND he/she knows HOW to dig in the digital tuning and actually FIND the digital subchannel for UNC-MX, then yes, they could watch it. So UNC-TV is going to say, “We DID air it.”.
Concussed kids heal faster without homework, video games
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/national/concussed-kids-heal-faster-without-homework-video-/ncd8K/
By Matt Picht
Jan. 7, 2014
Concussions in children are a painful experience, and it can take a while for the brain to fully heal after getting knocked around. One thing that might get in the way of a child's recovery? Homework.
According to a new study from Boston's Sports Concussion Clinic, concussed children who avoid activities that require a lot of mental exertion recover significantly faster than those who don't. (Via Pediatrics)
"We're talking about spending a lot of time effectively in bed not doing much of anything. ... No cell phone, no texting, no reading, no video games, and — if there's a silver lining in all this, it's also no homework." (Via CBC)
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By Matt Picht
Jan. 7, 2014
Concussions in children are a painful experience, and it can take a while for the brain to fully heal after getting knocked around. One thing that might get in the way of a child's recovery? Homework.
According to a new study from Boston's Sports Concussion Clinic, concussed children who avoid activities that require a lot of mental exertion recover significantly faster than those who don't. (Via Pediatrics)
"We're talking about spending a lot of time effectively in bed not doing much of anything. ... No cell phone, no texting, no reading, no video games, and — if there's a silver lining in all this, it's also no homework." (Via CBC)
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Marriage may not be silver bullet for poverty, study says
If you have had much contact with poor people, you already know this.http://www.nbcnews.com/business/marriage-may-not-be-silver-bullet-poverty-study-says-2D11863554
When I did substitute teaching in poor high schools and middle schools, I tried to get my students to take education seriously. The boys didn't think they needed to study because they were sure they would be able to get rich in music or sports.
The girls thought they didn't need to study because they would get married and be supported by their husbands. Of course, who would be available for them to marry? Those boys who didn't think they needed an education.
In one class, I asked if they knew any women who had been able to do this. There was a pause, then one girl said "My grandmother."
Allison Linn CNBC
Jan. 7, 2014
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“We are continuing to spend money on … these healthy marriage initiatives and I think the evidence is now clear that these are not effective policies,” said Kristi Williams, an associate professor of sociology at The Ohio State University. “So, it’s time to start thinking about spending that money in a way that’s more likely to help single mothers and their children.”
A new briefing paper, written by Williams and released Monday by the Council on Contemporary Families, argues that even when single mothers do later marry, those marriages are not necessarily beneficial to the women and their children.
Williams points to a study finding that more than half of single moms who married were divorced by the time they reached ages 35 to 44. In many cases, she notes, women who marry and later divorce are worse off financially.
Children also don’t always benefit, she said. Her research found that the children of single mothers who later married did not often have extra physical or psychological advantages once they were adolescents.
Williams said she did see advantages for children whose biological parents later got and stayed married, but she notes that’s uncommon. A long-running project called the Fragile Families study found that only 16 percent of the low-income unwed mothers they studied were married to their child’s biological father five years after the child’s birth.
----- [They probably got divorced their husbands for good reason: abuse to them or their children, being a financial drain on the family, drinking and/or drugs.]
The government has long funded initiatives to encourage healthy marriages and responsible fatherhood, stemming from the welfare reform efforts that began in 1996.
Williams argues that policymakers might get more bang for their buck if they used that money for other efforts to improve the financial futures of young, low-income women. Those include programs to help reduce unintended pregnancies and ones that subsidized child care for children three years old and younger, she said.
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Williams and others say their research has found that low-income women, like most Americans, do want to get and stay married. But, Williams said, they hesitate because they are realistic about how challenging it will be to have a successful marriage amid severe economic strain.
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Monday, January 06, 2014
How global warming can make cold snaps even worse
http://qz.com/163636/how-global-warming-can-make-cold-snaps-even-worse/
By Eric Holthaus
Jan. 6, 2014
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In fact, despite the trolling of Donald Trump and other climate change deniers, global warming is probably contributing to the record cold, as counter-intuitive as that may seem. The key factor is a feedback mechanism of climate change known as Arctic amplification. Here’s how to explain the nuts and bolts of it to your under-informed family and friends:
Snow and ice are disappearing from the Arctic region at unprecedented rates, leaving behind relatively warmer open water, which is much less reflective to incoming sunlight than ice. That, among other factors, is causing the northern polar region of our planet to warm at a faster rate than the rest of the northern hemisphere. (And, just to state the obvious, global warming describes a global trend toward warmer temperatures, which doesn’t preclude occasional cold-weather extremes.)
Since the difference in temperature between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes helps drive the jet stream (which, in turn, drives most US weather patterns), if that temperature difference decreases, it stands to reason that the jet stream’s winds will slow down. Why does this matter?
Well, atmospheric theory predicts that a slower jet stream will produce wavier and more sluggish weather patterns, in turn leading to more frequent extreme weather. And, turns out, that’s exactly what we’ve been seeing in recent years. Superstorm Sandy’s uncharacteristic left hook into the New Jersey coast in 2012 was one such example of an extremely anomalous jet stream blocking pattern.
When these exceptionally wavy jet stream patterns occur mid-winter, it’s a recipe for cold air to get sucked southwards. This week, that’s happening in spectacular fashion.
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This effect has already been measured with mid-level atmospheric winds in the northern hemisphere decreasing by around 10% since 1990. Not-so-coincidentally, that’s about the same time when Arctic sea ice extent really started to crash.
-----
By Eric Holthaus
Jan. 6, 2014
-----
In fact, despite the trolling of Donald Trump and other climate change deniers, global warming is probably contributing to the record cold, as counter-intuitive as that may seem. The key factor is a feedback mechanism of climate change known as Arctic amplification. Here’s how to explain the nuts and bolts of it to your under-informed family and friends:
Snow and ice are disappearing from the Arctic region at unprecedented rates, leaving behind relatively warmer open water, which is much less reflective to incoming sunlight than ice. That, among other factors, is causing the northern polar region of our planet to warm at a faster rate than the rest of the northern hemisphere. (And, just to state the obvious, global warming describes a global trend toward warmer temperatures, which doesn’t preclude occasional cold-weather extremes.)
Since the difference in temperature between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes helps drive the jet stream (which, in turn, drives most US weather patterns), if that temperature difference decreases, it stands to reason that the jet stream’s winds will slow down. Why does this matter?
Well, atmospheric theory predicts that a slower jet stream will produce wavier and more sluggish weather patterns, in turn leading to more frequent extreme weather. And, turns out, that’s exactly what we’ve been seeing in recent years. Superstorm Sandy’s uncharacteristic left hook into the New Jersey coast in 2012 was one such example of an extremely anomalous jet stream blocking pattern.
When these exceptionally wavy jet stream patterns occur mid-winter, it’s a recipe for cold air to get sucked southwards. This week, that’s happening in spectacular fashion.
-----
This effect has already been measured with mid-level atmospheric winds in the northern hemisphere decreasing by around 10% since 1990. Not-so-coincidentally, that’s about the same time when Arctic sea ice extent really started to crash.
-----
Ford's pay boost drove automakers' standard for century
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/fords-pay-boost-drove-automakers-standard-century-2D11862569
Paul A. Eisenstein The Detroit Bureau
Jan. 6, 2014
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But perhaps no single moment was more pivotal than one day 100 years ago when car maker Henry Ford announced he would double the pay for 25,000 of his employees.
Not only did Ford boost wages to $5 a day but he cut the time his employees spent toiling on the grueling assembly line from nine to eight hours.
-----
Clearly, that didn’t happen and, if anything, it helped lower Ford’s costs by reducing the chaos on the assembly line where workers frequently had lasted little longer than it took them to be trained for the job.
Equally important, Ford’s $5 wages – about $117 a day in today's money, or nearly $30,000 a year – helped kick-start the American middle class, creating a ready market for the cars those workers were building, especially when other major manufacturers were forced to follow suit.
-----
While not all of his employees qualified for the $5 wage, all received major increases and the payoff was obvious almost immediately. Previously, the Model T plant saw as much as 10 percent of its workforce quit – daily. That quickly dropped to just 1 percent. By 1915, even though production was rising sharply, Ford needed to hire just 2,000 replacement workers. In 1913, the year the moving assembly line was switched on, the factory had needed 53,000.
-----
And while Ford had once been a hero to his workers he would eventually be demonized for the harsh conditions along the line. The automaker aggressively resisted union organizing efforts, giving in only after media coverage of the violent Battle of the Overpass, when company goons beat up labor activists outside one of the Ford plants in May 1937.
Over the decades, wages at Ford and its Detroit rivals would rise rapidly – until the U.S. economy began to falter in 2007. That saw the United Auto Workers Union agree to trim total labor costs at Ford from around $70 an hour to just over $50. And many newly hired workers now fall into a lower, or second-tier pay structure worth little more than half that amount.
That means they’re earning less today, adjusted for inflation, than Ford workers were given after the pay hike of January 1914.
Paul A. Eisenstein The Detroit Bureau
Jan. 6, 2014
-----
But perhaps no single moment was more pivotal than one day 100 years ago when car maker Henry Ford announced he would double the pay for 25,000 of his employees.
Not only did Ford boost wages to $5 a day but he cut the time his employees spent toiling on the grueling assembly line from nine to eight hours.
-----
Clearly, that didn’t happen and, if anything, it helped lower Ford’s costs by reducing the chaos on the assembly line where workers frequently had lasted little longer than it took them to be trained for the job.
Equally important, Ford’s $5 wages – about $117 a day in today's money, or nearly $30,000 a year – helped kick-start the American middle class, creating a ready market for the cars those workers were building, especially when other major manufacturers were forced to follow suit.
-----
While not all of his employees qualified for the $5 wage, all received major increases and the payoff was obvious almost immediately. Previously, the Model T plant saw as much as 10 percent of its workforce quit – daily. That quickly dropped to just 1 percent. By 1915, even though production was rising sharply, Ford needed to hire just 2,000 replacement workers. In 1913, the year the moving assembly line was switched on, the factory had needed 53,000.
-----
And while Ford had once been a hero to his workers he would eventually be demonized for the harsh conditions along the line. The automaker aggressively resisted union organizing efforts, giving in only after media coverage of the violent Battle of the Overpass, when company goons beat up labor activists outside one of the Ford plants in May 1937.
Over the decades, wages at Ford and its Detroit rivals would rise rapidly – until the U.S. economy began to falter in 2007. That saw the United Auto Workers Union agree to trim total labor costs at Ford from around $70 an hour to just over $50. And many newly hired workers now fall into a lower, or second-tier pay structure worth little more than half that amount.
That means they’re earning less today, adjusted for inflation, than Ford workers were given after the pay hike of January 1914.
As US freezes heatwave prompts 'severe fire' warnings in Australia - corrected Jan. 7, 2014
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/06/22202191-as-us-freezes-heatwave-prompts-severe-fire-warnings-in-australia?lite
By Henry Austin, NBC News contributor
Jan. 6, 2014
As the bone chilling “polar vortex” continues to freeze America to its core, in Australia things could not be more different as the sweltering temperatures that made 2013 the hottest year on record continue to blast the country.
The highest temperature recorded so far this year has been 125 degrees Fahrenheit in Moomba, South Australia, on Jan. 2. While in Sydney on Monday temperatures were a sweltering 96 degrees.
While less extensive and prolonged than the record breaking hot spell that opened 2013, the country’s Bureau of Meteorology called the latest heat wave a “remarkable event” in a statement Monday.
The report comes just days after the bureau confirmed last year was Australia’s hottest in more than a century of records, easily breaking the previous record set in 2005 by 32.3 degrees Fahrenheit [corrected 1/6/2014, should have been 3.23F, no surprise.]. [Wow! If this turns out to be a misplaced period, I'll make a correction.]
-----
By Henry Austin, NBC News contributor
Jan. 6, 2014
As the bone chilling “polar vortex” continues to freeze America to its core, in Australia things could not be more different as the sweltering temperatures that made 2013 the hottest year on record continue to blast the country.
The highest temperature recorded so far this year has been 125 degrees Fahrenheit in Moomba, South Australia, on Jan. 2. While in Sydney on Monday temperatures were a sweltering 96 degrees.
While less extensive and prolonged than the record breaking hot spell that opened 2013, the country’s Bureau of Meteorology called the latest heat wave a “remarkable event” in a statement Monday.
The report comes just days after the bureau confirmed last year was Australia’s hottest in more than a century of records, easily breaking the previous record set in 2005 by 32.3 degrees Fahrenheit [corrected 1/6/2014, should have been 3.23F, no surprise.]. [Wow! If this turns out to be a misplaced period, I'll make a correction.]
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Polar vortex: What is it, and when is it going away?
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/06/22201007-polar-vortex-what-is-it-and-when-is-it-going-away?lite
By Erik Ortiz
Jan. 6, 2014
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Twenty-six states are under wind-chill warnings or watches, and the polar vortex is to blame, breaking loose from its North Pole confines and plunging the country in a deep, dangerous freeze.
"Think of this as a polar hurricane," said NBC News' Al Roker.
-----
Basically an arctic cyclone, it ordinarily spins counterclockwise around the north and south poles.
While it tends to dip over northeastern Canada, it’s catching everyone’s attention because it has moved southward over such a large population — as many as 140 million Americans are feeling the freeze.
-----
There’s a variety of reasons why a chunk of cold air over Canada would break off our way.
Chiefly, warmer air builds up over areas such as Greenland or Alaska, and that air forces the colder, denser air southward.
Also, weather patterns can create the right conditions for the polar vortex to point south.
But in this case, “this very well just may be one of those anomalies where it forces itself southward,” Giannasca said.
-----
Through the course of a winter, the arctic air can get displaced southward, typically into the eastern U.S. But it is uncommon for such cold air to cover such a large part of the country, happening maybe once a decade or longer.
-----
By Erik Ortiz
Jan. 6, 2014
-----
Twenty-six states are under wind-chill warnings or watches, and the polar vortex is to blame, breaking loose from its North Pole confines and plunging the country in a deep, dangerous freeze.
"Think of this as a polar hurricane," said NBC News' Al Roker.
-----
Basically an arctic cyclone, it ordinarily spins counterclockwise around the north and south poles.
While it tends to dip over northeastern Canada, it’s catching everyone’s attention because it has moved southward over such a large population — as many as 140 million Americans are feeling the freeze.
-----
There’s a variety of reasons why a chunk of cold air over Canada would break off our way.
Chiefly, warmer air builds up over areas such as Greenland or Alaska, and that air forces the colder, denser air southward.
Also, weather patterns can create the right conditions for the polar vortex to point south.
But in this case, “this very well just may be one of those anomalies where it forces itself southward,” Giannasca said.
-----
Through the course of a winter, the arctic air can get displaced southward, typically into the eastern U.S. But it is uncommon for such cold air to cover such a large part of the country, happening maybe once a decade or longer.
-----
Sunday, January 05, 2014
Self-Esteem Can Be an Ego Trap
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=self-esteem-can-be-ego-trap
By Jennifer Crocker and Jessica J. Carnevale
Sept./Oct. issue of Scientific American Mind
Having high self-esteem has a few modest benefits, but it can produce problems and is mostly irrelevant for success.
The pursuit of self-esteem through a focus on greatness makes us emotionally vulnerable to life's disappointments—and can even lower our chances of success.
Compassion, along with a less self-centered perspective, can motivate us to achieve while helping us weather bad news, learn from our mistakes and fortify our friendships.
By Jennifer Crocker and Jessica J. Carnevale
Sept./Oct. issue of Scientific American Mind
Having high self-esteem has a few modest benefits, but it can produce problems and is mostly irrelevant for success.
The pursuit of self-esteem through a focus on greatness makes us emotionally vulnerable to life's disappointments—and can even lower our chances of success.
Compassion, along with a less self-centered perspective, can motivate us to achieve while helping us weather bad news, learn from our mistakes and fortify our friendships.
generosity leads to higher levels of happiness
http://www.cifar.ca/lara-b-aknin
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Dr. Aknin’s primary research interests focus upon the antecedents and consequences of happiness and prosocial behaviour. Some of her recent work has examined perceptions of the money and happiness relationship and whether people reap greater happiness from spending money on others (i.e. prosocial spending) than when spending the same amount of money on themselves. Her research has found that generous spending leads to higher levels of happiness than spending money on oneself, both in North America and in various other countries around the world. Dr. Aknin and her colleagues have also found that children as young as two years old experience greater happiness when sharing their own resources (e.g. edible treats) with others than when receiving the same treats themselves.
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Dr. Aknin’s primary research interests focus upon the antecedents and consequences of happiness and prosocial behaviour. Some of her recent work has examined perceptions of the money and happiness relationship and whether people reap greater happiness from spending money on others (i.e. prosocial spending) than when spending the same amount of money on themselves. Her research has found that generous spending leads to higher levels of happiness than spending money on oneself, both in North America and in various other countries around the world. Dr. Aknin and her colleagues have also found that children as young as two years old experience greater happiness when sharing their own resources (e.g. edible treats) with others than when receiving the same treats themselves.
-----
Thousands of visitors to yahoo.com hit with malware attack
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/01/04/thousands-of-visitors-to-yahoo-com-hit-with-malware-attack-researchers-say/
By Timothy B. Lee
January 4, 2014
Two Internet security firms have reported that Yahoo's advertising servers have been distributing malware to hundreds of thousands of users over the last few days. The attack appears to be the work of malicious parties who have hijacked Yahoo's advertising network for their own ends.
-----
Fox IT says Yahoo users have been getting infected since at least Dec. 30. At the time it discovered the issue on Friday, the firm says, malicious payloads were being delivered to around 300,000 users per hour. The company guesses that around 9 percent of those, or 27,000 users per hour, were being infected. More recently, the firm says, the volume of infections has tapered off, perhaps due to efforts by Yahoo's security team.
-----
By Timothy B. Lee
January 4, 2014
Two Internet security firms have reported that Yahoo's advertising servers have been distributing malware to hundreds of thousands of users over the last few days. The attack appears to be the work of malicious parties who have hijacked Yahoo's advertising network for their own ends.
-----
Fox IT says Yahoo users have been getting infected since at least Dec. 30. At the time it discovered the issue on Friday, the firm says, malicious payloads were being delivered to around 300,000 users per hour. The company guesses that around 9 percent of those, or 27,000 users per hour, were being infected. More recently, the firm says, the volume of infections has tapered off, perhaps due to efforts by Yahoo's security team.
-----
Lawsuits dog company providing medical care in prisons
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/lawsuits-dog-company-providing-medical-care-in-gwi/nbYXz/
Oct. 25, 2013
By Dan Klepal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Anjoure Teele was pregnant in January 2011 when she was booked into the Gwinnett County jail for armed robbery. One month later, she had a miscarriage in the back seat of a Sheriff’s patrol car en route to the hospital, with her wrists handcuffed and shackled to her waist.
This story continues on our new premium website for subscribers, MyAJC.com.
===========
From the print version:
She had a miscarriage in the back seat of a sheriff's patrol car en route to the hospital, with her wrists handcuffed and shackled to her waist. Teele's fetus, 18 weeks in gestation, was pronounced dead on arrival at Emory Eastside Hospital in Snellville.
Teele is in the midst of a wrongful death lawsuit file in 2011 against the Gwinnett County jail's medical provider, Corizon Health, which has had similar claims of malpractice made against it in jails and prisons all over the country.
Upon arrival at the hospital, Teele told Deputy Thomas Maloy that her baby had been born & was in her jumpsuit and that her shackles were too tight. Maloy ordered her out of the car, forced her to sit in a wheelchair.
============
One of the many articles I found in searching for more info on the company:
http://www.lawton911.com/larry/is-corizon-health-care-which-merged-with-prison-health-services-killing-inmates-and-costing-you-money-yes-read-on/
Is Corizon Health Care which merged with Prison Health Services killing inmates and costing YOU money? Yes! Read on……
Prison health care is a touchy subject because the person getting treatment is a person who committed a crime. Let’s put the 8th Amendment – Cruel and Unusual Punishment – aside for a second and address prison health care in general. Prison health care has become a huge business and when companies who get the contracts to provide inmate care cut costs to beef up their bottom line the taxpayers eventually pay.
-----
Here is how YOU lose. When an inmate gets out of prison and has aliments that could have been easily taken care while he was incarcerated it costs the taxpayers. The person getting out usually has no health care and he gets medicaid. You pay that cost. In essence, you are paying for the profits of private health care companies, because the private company should have taken care of the minor issue, but instead cut costs to beef up their bottom line.
The cases below are sad. Settlements to the families of inmates who are abused and mistreated by a corrupt system are miniscule compared to the profits these companies make.
Aleshia Napier was 18 years old in 2006 when she hung herself with a bed sheet at the Broward Correctional Institution in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., after being placed in solitary confinement despite her diagnosis of clinical depression and bipolar disorder.
-----
“My main concern is the profit motive taking precedence over patient care,” said Berg, who has taken out more than ten lawsuits against private health care companies. “The second one is that once the government entity contracts with the private provider, the government entity doesn’t provide any oversight.”
Prison Health Service (PHS) got its largest contract ever in 2000, $253 million for three years, from New York City after both Florida and Pennsylvania began official investigations of PHS into treatment of those states’ inmates. At the same time it received the contract, PHS was paying millions in legal fees.
-----
cases like that of Ashley Ellis, who died in a PHS-run facility in Vermont from a lack of a vitamin that could be bought over the counter, all the more sad. Ellis, 23, died three days into her 30-day sentence. PHS did not have potassium in stock at the prison, and during Ellis’ stay, there was no doctor on staff and only one registered nurse, during just one shift.
-----
Oct. 25, 2013
By Dan Klepal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Anjoure Teele was pregnant in January 2011 when she was booked into the Gwinnett County jail for armed robbery. One month later, she had a miscarriage in the back seat of a Sheriff’s patrol car en route to the hospital, with her wrists handcuffed and shackled to her waist.
This story continues on our new premium website for subscribers, MyAJC.com.
===========
From the print version:
She had a miscarriage in the back seat of a sheriff's patrol car en route to the hospital, with her wrists handcuffed and shackled to her waist. Teele's fetus, 18 weeks in gestation, was pronounced dead on arrival at Emory Eastside Hospital in Snellville.
Teele is in the midst of a wrongful death lawsuit file in 2011 against the Gwinnett County jail's medical provider, Corizon Health, which has had similar claims of malpractice made against it in jails and prisons all over the country.
Upon arrival at the hospital, Teele told Deputy Thomas Maloy that her baby had been born & was in her jumpsuit and that her shackles were too tight. Maloy ordered her out of the car, forced her to sit in a wheelchair.
============
One of the many articles I found in searching for more info on the company:
http://www.lawton911.com/larry/is-corizon-health-care-which-merged-with-prison-health-services-killing-inmates-and-costing-you-money-yes-read-on/
Is Corizon Health Care which merged with Prison Health Services killing inmates and costing YOU money? Yes! Read on……
Prison health care is a touchy subject because the person getting treatment is a person who committed a crime. Let’s put the 8th Amendment – Cruel and Unusual Punishment – aside for a second and address prison health care in general. Prison health care has become a huge business and when companies who get the contracts to provide inmate care cut costs to beef up their bottom line the taxpayers eventually pay.
-----
Here is how YOU lose. When an inmate gets out of prison and has aliments that could have been easily taken care while he was incarcerated it costs the taxpayers. The person getting out usually has no health care and he gets medicaid. You pay that cost. In essence, you are paying for the profits of private health care companies, because the private company should have taken care of the minor issue, but instead cut costs to beef up their bottom line.
The cases below are sad. Settlements to the families of inmates who are abused and mistreated by a corrupt system are miniscule compared to the profits these companies make.
Aleshia Napier was 18 years old in 2006 when she hung herself with a bed sheet at the Broward Correctional Institution in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., after being placed in solitary confinement despite her diagnosis of clinical depression and bipolar disorder.
-----
“My main concern is the profit motive taking precedence over patient care,” said Berg, who has taken out more than ten lawsuits against private health care companies. “The second one is that once the government entity contracts with the private provider, the government entity doesn’t provide any oversight.”
Prison Health Service (PHS) got its largest contract ever in 2000, $253 million for three years, from New York City after both Florida and Pennsylvania began official investigations of PHS into treatment of those states’ inmates. At the same time it received the contract, PHS was paying millions in legal fees.
-----
cases like that of Ashley Ellis, who died in a PHS-run facility in Vermont from a lack of a vitamin that could be bought over the counter, all the more sad. Ellis, 23, died three days into her 30-day sentence. PHS did not have potassium in stock at the prison, and during Ellis’ stay, there was no doctor on staff and only one registered nurse, during just one shift.
-----
Study Finds Link with Teen Pot Use and Schizophrenia
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/01/05/Study-Finds-Link-Teen-Pot-Use-and-Schizophrenia
January 5, 2014
Heavy marijuana use as a teenager may cause changes in brain structure that resemble schizophrenia, new research shows.
Teens who were heavy marijuana users - smoking it daily for about three years - had abnormal changes in their brain structures related to working memory and performed poorly on memory tasks, a new study shows. A poor working memory predicts poor academic performance and everyday functioning.
The brain abnormalities and memory problems were observed during the individuals’ early twenties, two years after they stopped smoking marijuana, which could indicate the long-term effects of chronic use. Memory-related structures in their brains appeared to shrink and collapse inward, possibly reflecting a decrease in neurons.
The study also shows the marijuana-related brain abnormalities are correlated with a poor working memory performance and look similar to schizophrenia-related brain abnormalities. Over the past decade, scientists have shown that changes in brain structure may lead to changes in the way the brain functions.
-----
The younger the individuals were when they started chronically using marijuana, the more abnormally their brain regions were shaped, the study reports. The findings suggest that these regions related to memory may be more susceptible to the effects of the drug if abuse starts at an earlier age.
-----
Chronic use of marijuana may contribute to changes in brain structure that are associated with having schizophrenia, the research shows. Of the 15 marijuana smokers who had schizophrenia in the study, 90 percent started heavily using the drug before they developed the mental disorder. Marijuana abuse has been linked to developing schizophrenia in prior research.
-----
Chronic marijuana use could augment the underlying disease process associated with schizophrenia, Smith notes. “If someone has a family history of schizophrenia, they are increasing their risk of developing schizophrenia if they abuse marijuana,” he says.
-----
January 5, 2014
Heavy marijuana use as a teenager may cause changes in brain structure that resemble schizophrenia, new research shows.
Teens who were heavy marijuana users - smoking it daily for about three years - had abnormal changes in their brain structures related to working memory and performed poorly on memory tasks, a new study shows. A poor working memory predicts poor academic performance and everyday functioning.
The brain abnormalities and memory problems were observed during the individuals’ early twenties, two years after they stopped smoking marijuana, which could indicate the long-term effects of chronic use. Memory-related structures in their brains appeared to shrink and collapse inward, possibly reflecting a decrease in neurons.
The study also shows the marijuana-related brain abnormalities are correlated with a poor working memory performance and look similar to schizophrenia-related brain abnormalities. Over the past decade, scientists have shown that changes in brain structure may lead to changes in the way the brain functions.
-----
The younger the individuals were when they started chronically using marijuana, the more abnormally their brain regions were shaped, the study reports. The findings suggest that these regions related to memory may be more susceptible to the effects of the drug if abuse starts at an earlier age.
-----
Chronic use of marijuana may contribute to changes in brain structure that are associated with having schizophrenia, the research shows. Of the 15 marijuana smokers who had schizophrenia in the study, 90 percent started heavily using the drug before they developed the mental disorder. Marijuana abuse has been linked to developing schizophrenia in prior research.
-----
Chronic marijuana use could augment the underlying disease process associated with schizophrenia, Smith notes. “If someone has a family history of schizophrenia, they are increasing their risk of developing schizophrenia if they abuse marijuana,” he says.
-----
Severe mental illness tied to higher rates of substance use
http://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/news-releases/2014/01/severe-mental-illness-tied-to-higher-rates-substance-use
January 03, 2014
People with severe mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder have a higher risk for substance use, especially cigarette smoking, and protective factors usually associated with lower rates of substance use do not exist in severe mental illness, according to a new study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health.
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January 03, 2014
People with severe mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder have a higher risk for substance use, especially cigarette smoking, and protective factors usually associated with lower rates of substance use do not exist in severe mental illness, according to a new study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health.
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A Good Dream
http://www.reverbnation.com/patriciashannon/song/16414114-a-good-dream-secular
A Good Dream, secular version
copyright 1996 words by Gaillyn Thea Hope and Patricia M. Shannon
music by Patricia M. Shannon
This morning in the paper I read
a plane crash left 200 dead.
A father went berserk and killed his child.
And the weather today is going to be mild.
(chorus)
But I had a good dream last night,
peace and joy had conquered might.
Brothers and sisters all were we,
living together in harmony.
The best part of it for me
was no child lived in misery.
The whole world from war was free,
love had won the victory.
At noon I turned the radio on.
I heard of homeless people starved to the bone.
Crowds marching on poverty,
while rich CEO's got their salaries increased.
(chorus)
This evening on the TV was shown
a church and its congregation were bombed.
A thousand workers joined the unemployment line
seven strikers were killed on a picket line,
I sadly hung my head and I said,
"Is peace and love in the world really dead?"
(chorus)
Saturday, January 04, 2014
Patronage for Plutocrats
If the Republicans retain or increase strength in Congress in the fall elections, I don't expect this situation to improve.http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2014_01/days_end_and_weekend_watch_84048470.php
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january_february_2014/ten_miles_square/patronage_for_plutocrats048351.php?page=all
Washington Monthly January/ February 2014
By Jon Marcus
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In fact, researchers at the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, have found that only 43 percent of students who receive work study meet the federal definition of financial need as determined by whether they also receive Pell Grants. Work study “disproportionately benefits the students who need it the least,” says Rory O’Sullivan, research and policy director at the youth advocacy organization Young Invincibles.
A major source of the problem stems from the fact that the work-study program uses a fifty-year-old formula to determine how federal funds are allocated. Unlike other federal financial aid programs that distribute money according to how many students at a university actually need aid, money for the work-study program is based instead on how much a university received the previous year, and how much it charges for tuition.
That perpetuates a system under which the universities that get the lion’s share of federal dollars are not the ones with the most low-income students but, rather, those that have been participating in work study the longest and charge the highest tuition. Consequently, nearly half of work-study recipients attend private, nonprofit universities and colleges.
As the chart on page 18 shows, eight of the top ten schools receiving the largest amount of federal work-study money are private nonprofit institutions, including Columbia, Northwestern, New York University, and the University of Southern California. With the exception of tiny Berea College in Kentucky, these schools do a relatively poor job of serving low-income students.
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By contrast, less-prestigious state colleges and universities, which tend to serve students of more modest means, get relatively few work-study dollars. Florida State University, for instance, receives less than one-fifth as much work-study money as Columbia, even though Florida State is five times bigger and has a much higher proportion of low-income students, according to the Teachers College study. The same is true of community colleges, which were typically built in the late 1960s and ’70s, after the old-line schools first grabbed their self-perpetuating shares of work-study funds. Community colleges enroll 30 percent of all students, including many who have comparatively low incomes, but get only 16 percent of work-study money, according to the College Board. By comparison, private, nonprofit institutions enroll only 17 percent of all students but get 40 percent of the funding.
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Today, nearly one in four work-study recipients comes from a family that earns more than $80,000 a year, according to new figures from the U.S. Department of Education. By contrast, fewer than one in five students who get work-study money comes from a family that makes less than $20,000 a year.
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Those on-campus work-study jobs aren’t the same as off-campus jobs at local fast-food joints, Cooper says. They’re in convenient locations, and students can often study while they’re at work—two factors that correlate with greater academic success. Studies have shown that when students are forced to take off-campus jobs, it can slow down and derail their path to graduation, Cooper says. “The more they work to pay for school, the less well they do,” she said. ‘If we enhance work study, we can do a lot to improve their academic outcomes.” Seventy-two percent of U.S. undergraduates currently work at least part-time while in school, most of them off-campus, and one in five works thirty-five hours a week or more, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
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Last year, the Senate Education Committee began a series of hearings that will continue this year on updating the whole financial aid system.
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Shingles Linked to Increased Risk of Stroke in Young Adults
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140102165650.htm
Jan. 2, 2014 — Having shingles may increase the risk of having a stroke years later, according to research published in the January 2, 2014, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Shingles is a viral infection that causes a painful rash. It is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox. After people recover from chickenpox, the virus stays dormant in the nerve roots. In some people, the virus reactivates years later as shingles.
People age 18 to 40 who had shingles were more likely to have a stroke, heart attack or transient ischemic attack, also called a TIA or warning for a stroke, years later than people who had not had shingles. People over 40 who had shingles were more likely to have a heart attack or TIA, but not a stroke, than those who had not had shingles.
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Jan. 2, 2014 — Having shingles may increase the risk of having a stroke years later, according to research published in the January 2, 2014, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Shingles is a viral infection that causes a painful rash. It is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox. After people recover from chickenpox, the virus stays dormant in the nerve roots. In some people, the virus reactivates years later as shingles.
People age 18 to 40 who had shingles were more likely to have a stroke, heart attack or transient ischemic attack, also called a TIA or warning for a stroke, years later than people who had not had shingles. People over 40 who had shingles were more likely to have a heart attack or TIA, but not a stroke, than those who had not had shingles.
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Fear of Childbirth Predicts Postpartum Depression
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140103085242.htm
Jan. 3, 2014 — Expectant women with prenatally diagnosed fear of childbirth are at an increased risk of postpartum depression, according to a study of over 500,000 mothers in Finland. Women with a history of depression are at the highest risk of postpartum depression. The fact that fear of childbirth puts women without a history of depression at an approximately three times higher risk of postpartum depression is a new observation which may help health care professionals in recognising postpartum depression. The results were published recently in BMJ Open.
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Jan. 3, 2014 — Expectant women with prenatally diagnosed fear of childbirth are at an increased risk of postpartum depression, according to a study of over 500,000 mothers in Finland. Women with a history of depression are at the highest risk of postpartum depression. The fact that fear of childbirth puts women without a history of depression at an approximately three times higher risk of postpartum depression is a new observation which may help health care professionals in recognising postpartum depression. The results were published recently in BMJ Open.
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Dogs Sense Small Variations in Earth's Magnetic Field, New Research Suggests
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140103085246.htm
Jan. 3, 2014 — Researchers analyzed the body orientation of 70 dogs of different breeds, while the dogs relieved themselves in the open country and without being on the leash. The statistical analysis of the more than 7,000 observations (recorded together with the currently prevailing environmental conditions of the location, time of day and other important parameters such as the familiarity of the terrain for each dog) was frustrating.
In contrast to grazing cows, hunting foxes and landing waterfowl (previous studies of the research collective), the dogs showed no clear preference for a particular body alignment while urinating or defecating.
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The emerging picture of the analysis of the categorized data was surprising: dogs prefer a body-alignment along the magnetic north-south axis, but only during periods of calm magnetic field conditions. After taking into account all other factors, the researchers concluded that with this discovery they provide clear indication of a magnetic sense in dogs.
Jan. 3, 2014 — Researchers analyzed the body orientation of 70 dogs of different breeds, while the dogs relieved themselves in the open country and without being on the leash. The statistical analysis of the more than 7,000 observations (recorded together with the currently prevailing environmental conditions of the location, time of day and other important parameters such as the familiarity of the terrain for each dog) was frustrating.
In contrast to grazing cows, hunting foxes and landing waterfowl (previous studies of the research collective), the dogs showed no clear preference for a particular body alignment while urinating or defecating.
-----
The emerging picture of the analysis of the categorized data was surprising: dogs prefer a body-alignment along the magnetic north-south axis, but only during periods of calm magnetic field conditions. After taking into account all other factors, the researchers concluded that with this discovery they provide clear indication of a magnetic sense in dogs.
Cell phones aren't the only bad manners in movies
The same applies to concerts.http://www.today.com/entertainment/lights-camera-shhh-cell-phones-arent-only-bad-manners-movies-2D11818060
Gael Fashingbauer Cooper
Jan. 4, 2014
Moviegoers head to the cinema to be transported into a fantasy world -- and they don't take kindly to interruptions that break that spell. Ninety-seven percent of the 28,000 who voted in our TODAY.com survey said that cell phone use in theaters should "never be allowed -- watch the movie instead!"
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While cell phone use -- whether for texting, talking or game playing -- is a sore spot, it's far from the only gripe moviegoers have. Chatting, kicking seats, smuggling in smelly food and bringing kids to age-inappropriate films all irritate those who are already paying ever-increasing ticket prices, sometimes with a 3-D surcharge.
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We've gotten spoiled
With global warming, people have forgotten how cold it used to get more often, and don't know how to deal with it when it does come.
Eg., where I now live, in the Atlanta area, the record low for Jan. for 1981-2010 was -8F. The record low for Feb. was 6F.
The lowest recorded temperature was -9F on 2-13-1899.
The forecast low for this coming Monday night is 8F, far from the lowest, and in line with what it used to get more often than it has for quite a few years.
1/4/2013 The radio just said some areas will have cold weather not seen for more than 10 years.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/03/22164040-dangerous-deep-freeze-to-bring-coldest-temps-in-nearly-30-years?lite
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The Weather Channel warned that "one of the coldest arctic air masses in nearly 30 years" was likely to hit the Plains and Midwest this weekend.
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Friday, January 03, 2014
Quadrantids Meteor Shower peak Jan 2-3
http://www.iflscience.com/space/skywatching-events-not-miss-2014
January 2-3 - Quadrantids Meteor Shower peak - The shower will be visible from January first through the fifth, it peaks overnight on the 2nd and into the morning of the 3rd, with about 40 sightings per hour. These should be very easy to see, because the moon will not be present to wash the meteors out. The meteors will appear to be originating from the constellation Bootes.
- See more at: http://www.iflscience.com/space/skywatching-events-not-miss-2014#sthash.iLTphlmB.dpuf
January 2-3 - Quadrantids Meteor Shower peak - The shower will be visible from January first through the fifth, it peaks overnight on the 2nd and into the morning of the 3rd, with about 40 sightings per hour. These should be very easy to see, because the moon will not be present to wash the meteors out. The meteors will appear to be originating from the constellation Bootes.
- See more at: http://www.iflscience.com/space/skywatching-events-not-miss-2014#sthash.iLTphlmB.dpuf
Playtex Recalls Hip Hammock Infant Carriers Due to Fall Hazard
http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2014/Playtex-Recalls-Hip-Hammock-Infant-Carriers/
Recall date: December 19, 2013
Name of product:
Playtex Hip Hammock infant carriers
Hazard:
The buckles on the waist and shoulder straps can crack or break, posing a fall hazard to the child.
Consumer Contact:
Playtex at (800) 522-8230 from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET Monday through Friday or online at www.playtexproducts.com and click on Recall for more information.
Recall date: December 19, 2013
Name of product:
Playtex Hip Hammock infant carriers
Hazard:
The buckles on the waist and shoulder straps can crack or break, posing a fall hazard to the child.
Consumer Contact:
Playtex at (800) 522-8230 from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET Monday through Friday or online at www.playtexproducts.com and click on Recall for more information.
Prego Recall 2014: Traditional Italian Pasta Sauce Recalled For Spoilage
See the article at the link to find out how to identify possibly affected jars, and how to get a refund.http://www.ibtimes.com/prego-recall-2014-traditional-italian-pasta-sauce-recalled-spoilage-how-get-refund-1524562
By Rebecka Schumann
on January 02 2014
One of the biggest U.S. Italian-sauce supermarket suppliers, Prego, announced a voluntary recall for hundreds of cases of its jarred pasta-sauce products late Tuesday, owing to spoilage.
According to a press release from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Campbell Soup Company, the parent company of Prego, is recalling an estimated 300 cases of 24-ounce sized jars of Prego Traditional Italian Sauce because of a possible spoilage risk. The potentially defective items were reportedly uncovered during a “routine quality control test” and were shipped to several U.S. states last month on Dec. 21, 2013, including retail locations in Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico and Oklahoma.
India Building Solar Canals To Produce Power & Slow Water Loss
http://solarlove.org/india-building-solar-canals-to-produce-power-slow-water-loss/
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+GreenpeaceInternational/posts/KL9TfoGexFw
Close on heels of commencing use of wastelands in northern districts and rooftops in towns and cities, Gujarat is set to potentially use the existing 19,000 km-long network of Narmada canals across the State for setting up solar panels to generate power.
The Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, will inaugurate the first of a series of this project, known as Canal Solar Power Project, when he launches a 1 megawatt (mw) pilot project, which is already commissioned, on Narmada branch canal near Chandrasan village of Kadi taluka in Mehsana district on Tuesday.
http://gigaom.com/2012/04/23/a-solar-canal-rises-in-india/
A 1 MW project has been built over nearly half a mile of the Narmada Canal in the state of Gujarat in India, and it will not only produce electricity but also conserve land and water, the state government said Monday. The project is meant to show an efficient use of land in an agricultural region by putting solar panels over a waterway rather than over fertile ground. It also should reduce evaporation of the canal water by an estimated 237,750 gallons of water each year, the state government said.
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The idea of putting solar panels over water to save land and water isn’t new, but it’s not widely deployed either. A New York Times story last year outlined several projects – including two at California vineyards – that have done so by installing solar panels over ponds.
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Gujarat has been busy with solar power project development over the past few years. The state, which encourages solar energy installation by guaranteeing premium prices for the solar electricity, boasts at least 600 MW of solar and 2,580 MW of wind energy generation, which makes it one of the largest renewable energy producing state in the country.
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https://plus.google.com/u/0/+GreenpeaceInternational/posts/KL9TfoGexFw
Close on heels of commencing use of wastelands in northern districts and rooftops in towns and cities, Gujarat is set to potentially use the existing 19,000 km-long network of Narmada canals across the State for setting up solar panels to generate power.
The Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, will inaugurate the first of a series of this project, known as Canal Solar Power Project, when he launches a 1 megawatt (mw) pilot project, which is already commissioned, on Narmada branch canal near Chandrasan village of Kadi taluka in Mehsana district on Tuesday.
http://gigaom.com/2012/04/23/a-solar-canal-rises-in-india/
A 1 MW project has been built over nearly half a mile of the Narmada Canal in the state of Gujarat in India, and it will not only produce electricity but also conserve land and water, the state government said Monday. The project is meant to show an efficient use of land in an agricultural region by putting solar panels over a waterway rather than over fertile ground. It also should reduce evaporation of the canal water by an estimated 237,750 gallons of water each year, the state government said.
-----
The idea of putting solar panels over water to save land and water isn’t new, but it’s not widely deployed either. A New York Times story last year outlined several projects – including two at California vineyards – that have done so by installing solar panels over ponds.
-----
Gujarat has been busy with solar power project development over the past few years. The state, which encourages solar energy installation by guaranteeing premium prices for the solar electricity, boasts at least 600 MW of solar and 2,580 MW of wind energy generation, which makes it one of the largest renewable energy producing state in the country.
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Wal-Mart recalls card table, chair sets after finger amputations
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/wal-mart-recalls-card-table-chair-sets-after-finger-amputations-2D11838980
Jan. 2, 2014
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is recalling about 73,400 Mainstays five-piece card table and chair sets because the chairs can unexpectedly collapse, posing a fall hazard or potential finger injury.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission said Thursday that Wal-Mart has received 10 reports of injuries, including one finger amputation, three fingertip amputations, sprained or fractured fingers and one report of a sore back.
The recall includes the Mainstays card table sets with a black padded metal folding table and four black padded metal folding chairs. "Made by: Dongguan Shin Din Metal & Plastic Products Co.," the company that made the chair cushions, is printed on a white label on the bottom of the chairs.
The sets were sold at Wal-Mart stores across the U.S. and on its website from May 2013 through November 2013 for about $50.
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Jan. 2, 2014
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is recalling about 73,400 Mainstays five-piece card table and chair sets because the chairs can unexpectedly collapse, posing a fall hazard or potential finger injury.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission said Thursday that Wal-Mart has received 10 reports of injuries, including one finger amputation, three fingertip amputations, sprained or fractured fingers and one report of a sore back.
The recall includes the Mainstays card table sets with a black padded metal folding table and four black padded metal folding chairs. "Made by: Dongguan Shin Din Metal & Plastic Products Co.," the company that made the chair cushions, is printed on a white label on the bottom of the chairs.
The sets were sold at Wal-Mart stores across the U.S. and on its website from May 2013 through November 2013 for about $50.
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A Yellow Ribbon Tied On A Dog’s Collar Means Stay Away
http://theilovedogssite.com/do-you-know-what-a-yellow-ribbon-tied-on-a-dogs-collar-means/#xSsPTecjidG26jFJ.01
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A yellow ribbon around a dog’s collar is to help children identify that you need to proceed with caution. The dog may not be child friendly, may have fear or anxiety issues, or may be overly excited. Either way, caution should be applied when approaching.
The Yellow Dog Project is a nonprofit organization that is a global effort to help raise awareness and education around dogs that require a little extra distance upon approaching. Does this mean that the dog is aggressive or mean? No, there are numerous reasons why a dog may have a yellow ribbon. It may mean the dog is new with the handler, is under medical care, or in foster care for instance.
The purpose of this project is to assist with the proper techniques to approach a dog. Children have a lot of energy and often to run up and pet a dog. Not all dogs understand this and can become fearful. With proper education, all parties are put in a less stressful environment, which in turn reduces opportunities for an unforeseen accident.
----- [on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheYellowDogProject
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A yellow ribbon around a dog’s collar is to help children identify that you need to proceed with caution. The dog may not be child friendly, may have fear or anxiety issues, or may be overly excited. Either way, caution should be applied when approaching.
The Yellow Dog Project is a nonprofit organization that is a global effort to help raise awareness and education around dogs that require a little extra distance upon approaching. Does this mean that the dog is aggressive or mean? No, there are numerous reasons why a dog may have a yellow ribbon. It may mean the dog is new with the handler, is under medical care, or in foster care for instance.
The purpose of this project is to assist with the proper techniques to approach a dog. Children have a lot of energy and often to run up and pet a dog. Not all dogs understand this and can become fearful. With proper education, all parties are put in a less stressful environment, which in turn reduces opportunities for an unforeseen accident.
----- [on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheYellowDogProject
Thursday, January 02, 2014
Cooperation
We and other multi-celled animals are a result of cooperation. Our individual cells work together. The mitochondria in our cells that create energy for us used to be a separate species that learned to be part of us, to the benefit of both.
FTC says flashlight app left consumers in the dark
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20131205/DAAGDUL81.html
Dec 5, 3:17 PM (ET)
By ANNE FLAHERTY
The maker of a popular Android mobile app that turns your phone into a flashlight has agreed to settle the Federal Trade Commission's charges that the software secretly supplied cellphone locations to marketers, even when consumers rejected its terms of service.
The settlement against Goldenshores Technologies LLC, which makes the "Brightest Flashlight Free" app, comes as the FTC is taking a closer look at app developers, websites and other companies that track consumers' data without their knowledge. The company will make changes under the agreement; no fines were imposed.
This particular case came to light because of the diligence of tech-savvy customers who questioned why a flashlight app would be interested in a phone's geolocation. The FTC said consumer concerns posted online helped to tip off the agency.
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According to the FTC, the Brightest Flashlight Free app made note of a phone's precise location and the unique code that identifies every device on the market. The company would automatically pass that information along to third parties, including advertising networks, even though its privacy policy stated initially that information wouldn't be shared outside the company.
What's more, according to the FTC, the app appeared to give consumers a choice of backing out of any data collection by rejecting its license agreement. But before the consumer could click "accept" or "refuse," the app already was sending data to third parties.
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Dec 5, 3:17 PM (ET)
By ANNE FLAHERTY
The maker of a popular Android mobile app that turns your phone into a flashlight has agreed to settle the Federal Trade Commission's charges that the software secretly supplied cellphone locations to marketers, even when consumers rejected its terms of service.
The settlement against Goldenshores Technologies LLC, which makes the "Brightest Flashlight Free" app, comes as the FTC is taking a closer look at app developers, websites and other companies that track consumers' data without their knowledge. The company will make changes under the agreement; no fines were imposed.
This particular case came to light because of the diligence of tech-savvy customers who questioned why a flashlight app would be interested in a phone's geolocation. The FTC said consumer concerns posted online helped to tip off the agency.
-----
According to the FTC, the Brightest Flashlight Free app made note of a phone's precise location and the unique code that identifies every device on the market. The company would automatically pass that information along to third parties, including advertising networks, even though its privacy policy stated initially that information wouldn't be shared outside the company.
What's more, according to the FTC, the app appeared to give consumers a choice of backing out of any data collection by rejecting its license agreement. But before the consumer could click "accept" or "refuse," the app already was sending data to third parties.
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Chief Justice Warns Sequestration Cuts Already Threatening Public Safety
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/01/01/3109311/john-roberts-sequestration/
By Josh Israel on January 1, 2014
Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, in his annual Year-End Report on the State of the Federal Judiciary, blasted the 2011 Budget Control Act’s automatic “sequestration” federal spending cuts and warned that the cuts to the federal court system’s budget “pose a genuine threat to public safety.”
Roberts, appointed to the Supreme Court in 2005 by President George W. Bush, listed “adequate funding for the Judiciary” as the “single most important issue facing the courts” and offered a Dickensian look at the federal judiciary past, present, and future.
Conceding that balanced budgets are important, Roberts blasted the Draconian sequester — cuts that came after nearly a decade of belt-tightening by the judicial branch. Because they had previously reduced costs significantly, the $350 million in new across-the-board cuts have already made it difficult for justice to be protected, Roberts argued, noting that “because virtually all of their core functions are constitutionally and statutorily required,” the courts have little discretion over what they spend:
ROBERTS: Sequestration cuts have affected court operations across the spectrum. There are fewer court clerks to process new civil and bankruptcy cases, slowing the intake procedure and propagating delays throughout the litigation process. There are fewer probation and pretrial services officers to protect the public from defendants awaiting trial and from offenders following their incarceration and release into the community. There are fewer public defenders available to vindicate the Constitution’s guarantee of counsel to indigent criminal defendants, which leads to postponed trials and delayed justice for the innocent and guilty alike. There is less funding for security guards at federal courthouses, placing judges, court personnel, and the public at greater risk of harm.
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By Josh Israel on January 1, 2014
Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, in his annual Year-End Report on the State of the Federal Judiciary, blasted the 2011 Budget Control Act’s automatic “sequestration” federal spending cuts and warned that the cuts to the federal court system’s budget “pose a genuine threat to public safety.”
Roberts, appointed to the Supreme Court in 2005 by President George W. Bush, listed “adequate funding for the Judiciary” as the “single most important issue facing the courts” and offered a Dickensian look at the federal judiciary past, present, and future.
Conceding that balanced budgets are important, Roberts blasted the Draconian sequester — cuts that came after nearly a decade of belt-tightening by the judicial branch. Because they had previously reduced costs significantly, the $350 million in new across-the-board cuts have already made it difficult for justice to be protected, Roberts argued, noting that “because virtually all of their core functions are constitutionally and statutorily required,” the courts have little discretion over what they spend:
ROBERTS: Sequestration cuts have affected court operations across the spectrum. There are fewer court clerks to process new civil and bankruptcy cases, slowing the intake procedure and propagating delays throughout the litigation process. There are fewer probation and pretrial services officers to protect the public from defendants awaiting trial and from offenders following their incarceration and release into the community. There are fewer public defenders available to vindicate the Constitution’s guarantee of counsel to indigent criminal defendants, which leads to postponed trials and delayed justice for the innocent and guilty alike. There is less funding for security guards at federal courthouses, placing judges, court personnel, and the public at greater risk of harm.
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Senator Spends Vacation Day With Homeless Man To Learn About The Challenges He Faces
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/01/02/3110541/homeless-chris-murphy/
By Scott Keyes on January 2, 2014
Just another guy who I should avoid eye contact with and hope he doesn’t ask me for spare change, many residents likely thought as they walked by Chris Murphy on the streets of New Haven, CT Monday.
Few knew his day job: United States senator.
While most Americans were still on vacation celebrating the holidays, Sen. Murphy (D-CT) spent Monday shadowing “Nick,” a New Haven man who has been homeless for the past six months. Nick preferred that his real name not be printed.
The cards were stacked against Nick from the beginning. His father was a drug addict, and by 13 years old, Nick was hooked on crack as well. Two years later, Nick was a ward of the state.
The fact that he was able to overcome these odds, graduate from high school, and find work as a salesman is a testament to his resolve. But Nick, who had worked his entire life, lost his advertising sales job last year. Without an income, he lost his home soon thereafter. And last week, his jobless benefits expired. Nick lives on the streets now as he looks for new work.
The two men, both 40 years old, spent the day together to give Murphy a better sense of the unique challenges that homeless people face in trying to improve their lives.
Their day began at 7:30 a.m., when the shelter Nick stayed at asks residents to vacate. Their first stop was the methadone clinic for Nick to treat his drug addiction. The two then hung out at Dunkin Donuts and walked around to kill time, waiting for the library to open at 10 a.m. Nick spent the next hour and a half filling out sales job applications, responding to emails, and setting up an appointment with a career counseling organization. Because he doesn’t own a car, the jobs he could apply for were restricted to those that had offices on a bus route.
His drive to get back on his feet is clearly strong. What was really holding Nick back, however, was his lack of an address. Even though Nick has worked for 20 years and has an impressive résumé, he’s caught in something of a catch-22, Murphy told ThinkProgress by phone Thursday. “He can’t get a job without a permanent address and can’t get a permanent address without a job.” Nick used the address of the shelter on applications, but some employers might harbor prejudice against those who can’t afford a home.
If there’s one thing Murphy took away from the experience, it’s a better sense of how critical stable housing is as a foundation for solving other problems. “Without a place to live, Nick can’t find a job,” Murphy said. “Without a house, it’s much harder for him to kick his drug habit.” But without more affordable housing in Connecticut and funding for the poor, it’s extremely difficult for people like Nick to leave the shelter and break out of the cycle of poverty.
The challenge became even more difficult this week as Nick’s only source of income — $100 in unemployment benefits — wasn’t renewed by Congress. “If we don’t extend unemployment benefits this month, you’re going to see a lot more homeless people here in Connecticut and across the country,” Murphy said.
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For Murphy, the day was an opportunity to learn more about an issue that too often gets ignored among both local and national policymakers. After all, the senator told ThinkProgress, “There’s a limited amount you can learn about the reality of homelessness when you’re just sitting at a conference table.”
This isn’t the first time he stepped outside the comfort zone to experience how those in poverty live. In May, Murphy was among 26 lawmakers who participated in a challenge to spend a week living on $4.50 per day, the amount of money afforded to recipients of food stamps, in order to highlight GOP-backed cuts to the program.
“As sobering as a day like this is,” Murphy said, “it’s slightly inspirational to hear somebody who’s been through what these guys have been through still believing there’s better days coming up soon.”
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By Scott Keyes on January 2, 2014
Just another guy who I should avoid eye contact with and hope he doesn’t ask me for spare change, many residents likely thought as they walked by Chris Murphy on the streets of New Haven, CT Monday.
Few knew his day job: United States senator.
While most Americans were still on vacation celebrating the holidays, Sen. Murphy (D-CT) spent Monday shadowing “Nick,” a New Haven man who has been homeless for the past six months. Nick preferred that his real name not be printed.
The cards were stacked against Nick from the beginning. His father was a drug addict, and by 13 years old, Nick was hooked on crack as well. Two years later, Nick was a ward of the state.
The fact that he was able to overcome these odds, graduate from high school, and find work as a salesman is a testament to his resolve. But Nick, who had worked his entire life, lost his advertising sales job last year. Without an income, he lost his home soon thereafter. And last week, his jobless benefits expired. Nick lives on the streets now as he looks for new work.
The two men, both 40 years old, spent the day together to give Murphy a better sense of the unique challenges that homeless people face in trying to improve their lives.
Their day began at 7:30 a.m., when the shelter Nick stayed at asks residents to vacate. Their first stop was the methadone clinic for Nick to treat his drug addiction. The two then hung out at Dunkin Donuts and walked around to kill time, waiting for the library to open at 10 a.m. Nick spent the next hour and a half filling out sales job applications, responding to emails, and setting up an appointment with a career counseling organization. Because he doesn’t own a car, the jobs he could apply for were restricted to those that had offices on a bus route.
His drive to get back on his feet is clearly strong. What was really holding Nick back, however, was his lack of an address. Even though Nick has worked for 20 years and has an impressive résumé, he’s caught in something of a catch-22, Murphy told ThinkProgress by phone Thursday. “He can’t get a job without a permanent address and can’t get a permanent address without a job.” Nick used the address of the shelter on applications, but some employers might harbor prejudice against those who can’t afford a home.
If there’s one thing Murphy took away from the experience, it’s a better sense of how critical stable housing is as a foundation for solving other problems. “Without a place to live, Nick can’t find a job,” Murphy said. “Without a house, it’s much harder for him to kick his drug habit.” But without more affordable housing in Connecticut and funding for the poor, it’s extremely difficult for people like Nick to leave the shelter and break out of the cycle of poverty.
The challenge became even more difficult this week as Nick’s only source of income — $100 in unemployment benefits — wasn’t renewed by Congress. “If we don’t extend unemployment benefits this month, you’re going to see a lot more homeless people here in Connecticut and across the country,” Murphy said.
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For Murphy, the day was an opportunity to learn more about an issue that too often gets ignored among both local and national policymakers. After all, the senator told ThinkProgress, “There’s a limited amount you can learn about the reality of homelessness when you’re just sitting at a conference table.”
This isn’t the first time he stepped outside the comfort zone to experience how those in poverty live. In May, Murphy was among 26 lawmakers who participated in a challenge to spend a week living on $4.50 per day, the amount of money afforded to recipients of food stamps, in order to highlight GOP-backed cuts to the program.
“As sobering as a day like this is,” Murphy said, “it’s slightly inspirational to hear somebody who’s been through what these guys have been through still believing there’s better days coming up soon.”
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If music is not protected, then neither are you
I hope people will read the whole article at the following link:http://www.salon.com/2013/12/04/david_lowery_silicon_valley_must_be_stopped_or_creativity_will_be_destroyed/
Scott Timberg
Dec 3, 2013
David Lowery, the frontman for the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, has become perhaps the most assertive and polarizing figure in the movement for musicians’ rights in the Internet age. Between his appearances onstage leading his bands – both of which recently toured — speaking to the business-of-music classes he teaches at the University of Georgia, and the blog he helps run, the Trichordist, Lowery works to stop the exploitation of artists.
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Let’s just zoom out a little bit to Silicon Valley in general. There’s Silicon Valley and then there’s a more radical, ideological version of Silicon Valley, and I think that’s what we’re dealing with here. This phrase gets bandied about called “permission-less innovation.” The idea is that you just do stuff without asking permission. In the down-the-rabbit-hole never-never land of Silicon Valley, they seem to present this unabashedly as if this were a good thing.
It’s good for them. Commercially, it’s good for them. Let’s think about it. Silicon Valley, there’s a part of it that has this notion of permission-less innovation, that they treat this as a good thing, but think about this as a civilian. You put your photos on Instagram and then is permissionless innovation just using those photos without your permission? Is permissionless innovation just using whatever you might have written on the Web in any way that any commercial entity sees fit? That’s largely what we’re talking about here.
The bigger fight here is that if they can do this with our songs, with our lyrics, then they can do it with your Instagram photos, they can do it with your Facebook profile, they can do it with anything you put on your Web page without your permission. That’s what permissionless innovation is. I don’t think the majority of people want that.
It strikes me that the people preaching permissionless innovation are the same people who work very hard to patent their software and their algorithms and things like that.
Yes. But, on the other hand, “permissionless innovation” is a favorite phrase of Google, and you see them in all kinds of patent battles — like their Motorola patents — with other companies. So, I guess, the big corporations get to have different intellectual property rights than artists or people who use Instagram or something like that. Do we want a world like that?
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I think Silicon Valley has gotten a pass on this. Most companies in other industries have; you think about oil companies funding global warming sort of studies that cast doubts on global warming, things like that, that are subject to scrutiny. But I think Silicon Valley in general has gotten some sort of pass from the general public and the press in general on these kinds of issues. And the end goal is not — they’re not Camper Van Beethoven lyrics and they’re not Beastie Boys songs — the end goal here, the end zone is when they get your data: your Facebook photos, your Instagram photos. When they get to you and do that as they see fit. We’re going to wake up in a world one day where we look back and say, “What the fuck were we thinking?”
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Like I said, even the Pirate Party says when it’s a commercial venture, that is when — even the most radical anti-copyright people agree that if it’s commercial, those who create that content have a right to profit or have some sort of say over how their stuff is used.
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That’s essentially the emergency versus a 64 percent decline in recorded music revenue to musicians, a 47 percent decline in artist employment. Yes. That’s true. But the four alarm fire isn’t the length of copyright. The four-alarm fire is that large, multinational corporations have figured out ways to monetize our music, our lyrics, without cutting us in on that. The currency of page views, the currency is you can set up a website that has the top 20 song lyrics, charge advertising on it, do your SEO right and you’ve got a top 500 Alexa website and you generate revenue from that. And you don’t cut in the artist. So this is kind of like the old music business of when the artist would sign a contract and they wouldn’t get any royalties; it’d go to the record companies and you’d ask them “where are my royalties,” and the record company would say, “Hey, here’s a Cadillac.” This is the same, old-school music business, except you don’t even get the Cadillac.
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if you go to something like San Francisco MusicTech, you’ll have a bunch of people standing onstage who have never made a fucking profit in their entire lives telling me, who makes a profit year after year, that I need to change my business model and innovate and embrace technology.
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Toxins for dogs
Many/most are also toxic to cats.https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=312868178854220&set=a.143540759120297.32488.141947249279648&type=1
Record number of homelessness since the Great Depression
From Robert Reich Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/723963930949539
Bill de Blasio is now Mayor of New York, whose residents include the world’s richest -- the captains of American industry, the titans of Wall Street. But also 52,000 homeless, of whom 22,000 are children – the highest level of homelessness since the Great Depression. New York is a microcosm of America. The Right sees nothing alarming about this degree of inequality, but it threatens the social fabric of our society, hobbles the economy, and undermines democracy.
Post by Robert Reich.
Wednesday, January 01, 2014
Feeling Hot Can Fuel Rage
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=feeling-hot-can-fuel-rage
By Ajai Raj
Jan./Feb. 2014 Scientific American Mind
As the climate heats up, tempers may follow suit, according to a study published in August 2013 in Nature. Analyzing 60 quantitative studies across fields as disparate as archaeology, criminology, economics, geography, history, political science and psychology, University of California researchers found that throughout history and across the world, higher temperatures, less rainfall and more drought were consistently linked to increased violence. The correlation held true for aggression between individuals, such as domestic abuse and assault, but was even more pronounced for conflict between groups.
“We didn't expect for there to be nearly so many convergent findings among so many different researchers,” says economist Solomon Hsiang, now at U.C. Berkeley, who led the study. “We were actually really stunned by the level of consistency in the findings that were out there and by the size of the effects we were observing.”
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Discomfort aside, the physical temperature of the brain may also play a role, according to Glenn Geher, director of evolutionary studies at the State University of New York at New Paltz, who also was not involved in the study. “There really is something to the idea of being ‘hot-headed,’” he says. “Brain temperature, which is affected by ambient temperature, does seem to be associated with aggressive mood states and aggressive behavior.” The bellicosity relates to a lack of oxygen in the regions of the brain that control our impulses, as the body directs more blood to the skin's surface in an effort to cool off, Geher explains. “So you get more emotional reactions and less prefrontal, step-back, cognitive-processing kinds of actions.”
As for the protests, wars and revolutions supposedly fueled by sweat, the key factor may be survival, especially in drought-ridden areas. “When there are resource constraints—when there is lack of food, when there is lack of access to water, when there is economic destruction—then that is a potent predictor of conflict between groups,” Lickel adds. “When you're in a society under stress and there is a danger of violence, people's group identities become incredibly important, and violence begins to get organized around these group terms.”
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By Ajai Raj
Jan./Feb. 2014 Scientific American Mind
As the climate heats up, tempers may follow suit, according to a study published in August 2013 in Nature. Analyzing 60 quantitative studies across fields as disparate as archaeology, criminology, economics, geography, history, political science and psychology, University of California researchers found that throughout history and across the world, higher temperatures, less rainfall and more drought were consistently linked to increased violence. The correlation held true for aggression between individuals, such as domestic abuse and assault, but was even more pronounced for conflict between groups.
“We didn't expect for there to be nearly so many convergent findings among so many different researchers,” says economist Solomon Hsiang, now at U.C. Berkeley, who led the study. “We were actually really stunned by the level of consistency in the findings that were out there and by the size of the effects we were observing.”
-----
Discomfort aside, the physical temperature of the brain may also play a role, according to Glenn Geher, director of evolutionary studies at the State University of New York at New Paltz, who also was not involved in the study. “There really is something to the idea of being ‘hot-headed,’” he says. “Brain temperature, which is affected by ambient temperature, does seem to be associated with aggressive mood states and aggressive behavior.” The bellicosity relates to a lack of oxygen in the regions of the brain that control our impulses, as the body directs more blood to the skin's surface in an effort to cool off, Geher explains. “So you get more emotional reactions and less prefrontal, step-back, cognitive-processing kinds of actions.”
As for the protests, wars and revolutions supposedly fueled by sweat, the key factor may be survival, especially in drought-ridden areas. “When there are resource constraints—when there is lack of food, when there is lack of access to water, when there is economic destruction—then that is a potent predictor of conflict between groups,” Lickel adds. “When you're in a society under stress and there is a danger of violence, people's group identities become incredibly important, and violence begins to get organized around these group terms.”
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Pay For It, Or Lose Us – The Challenge Facing Independent Musicians
I can really relate to this. I have had people tell me they like my songs, I should record more of them, but I can't afford to. I have spent a couple of thousand dollars, and have made zero.www.musicthinktank.com/blog/pay-for-it-or-lose-us-the-challenge-facing-independent-music.html
BY: MARK KNIGHT
Dec. 16, 2013
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All of the good press, viral videos, gushing praise and devoted fans in the world do not equate to revenue. And if musicians are not recouping their costs (let alone making a profit) then music is not a viable career for them, as they won’t be able to afford to make it. Let’s eliminate a common misunderstanding and clarify this matter here: It is uncommon for a record label to pay for its artist’s recording these days.
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I have an American friend who fronts a fantastic band that has (a pretty modest) 300 likes on Facebook. Their last EP was downloaded 20,000 times, for free, illegally in 6 months. In that period, they‘ve sold less than 200 copies for the $3 asking price. This means that they have not recouped even half of the cost of the 6 days spent in the studio recording it. Yet tens of thousands of people own their music and presumably, lots would prefer it if they made more.
Now, if we assume that Facebook likes are a genuine gauge of popularity and that there is a correlation in the number an artist has and the number of illegal downloads their music generates, then the potential of lost revenue for bands with a greater online profile is significant. This ‘Lost revenue’ is of course impossible to measure - as we should take into account that when people have free music available to them, they will download more than they would have bought had they had to pay. But when we look at my friend’s band and their 1% paid download rate, we can be certain that they have suffered a considerable loss in revenue.
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It could be argued that this is all fair game and nothing but evolution. It is also often said that the music industry is in flux and the money is now available through licensing, publishing, synching and other such means; but those in control of these markets are exploiting the vulnerability of musicians and the rate offered for a song to be licensed and featured in a film or television series is significantly lower than it was 10 years ago and hardly represents a sustainable income.
The top brass in the music industry are guilty for its current predicament because they ignored fair warning from eminent business analysts about the need to adapt to an MP3 market in the late 90s, now this warning goes out to the music consuming public: pay for it - or lose us.
Plan to delist gray wolf endangers other threatened species
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-12/osu-ptd123013.php
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 30-Dec-2013
Contact: Jeremy Bruskotter
Ohio State University
Scientists say proposal to end wolf protection across US disregards science, history, threats
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The federal government's proposal to discontinue protection for the gray wolf across the United States could have the unintended consequence of endangering other species, researchers say.
As written, scientists assert, the proposed rule would set a precedent allowing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to declare habitat unsuitable for an endangered animal because a threat exists on the land – the exact opposite of the service's mandate to impose regulations that reduce threats against imperiled species.
The FWS has "conflated threats with habitat suitability" by stating that U.S. land currently unoccupied by wolves – most of the country that historically served as wolf habitat – is now unsuitable because humans living in those regions won't tolerate the animals, the lead scientist said. This claim runs counter to existing research, which the service did not cite in its explanation of the rule.
"The Fish and Wildlife Service is supposed to detail what the threats are and if they're substantial enough, they're supposed to list a species and put in place policies to mitigate the threats," said Jeremy Bruskotter, associate professor in The Ohio State University's School of Environment and Natural Resources and lead author of the paper.
"Here, they're saying that they recognize the threat of human intolerance and instead of mitigating the threat, they're just going to say the land is unsuitable."
Were this rule to stand, he said, "Anytime the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finds that something is in the way of a species' recovery, they can just say the habitat is unsuitable for the species and disregard the threat altogether."
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 30-Dec-2013
Contact: Jeremy Bruskotter
Ohio State University
Scientists say proposal to end wolf protection across US disregards science, history, threats
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The federal government's proposal to discontinue protection for the gray wolf across the United States could have the unintended consequence of endangering other species, researchers say.
As written, scientists assert, the proposed rule would set a precedent allowing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to declare habitat unsuitable for an endangered animal because a threat exists on the land – the exact opposite of the service's mandate to impose regulations that reduce threats against imperiled species.
The FWS has "conflated threats with habitat suitability" by stating that U.S. land currently unoccupied by wolves – most of the country that historically served as wolf habitat – is now unsuitable because humans living in those regions won't tolerate the animals, the lead scientist said. This claim runs counter to existing research, which the service did not cite in its explanation of the rule.
"The Fish and Wildlife Service is supposed to detail what the threats are and if they're substantial enough, they're supposed to list a species and put in place policies to mitigate the threats," said Jeremy Bruskotter, associate professor in The Ohio State University's School of Environment and Natural Resources and lead author of the paper.
"Here, they're saying that they recognize the threat of human intolerance and instead of mitigating the threat, they're just going to say the land is unsuitable."
Were this rule to stand, he said, "Anytime the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finds that something is in the way of a species' recovery, they can just say the habitat is unsuitable for the species and disregard the threat altogether."
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Review: Most clinical studies on vitamins flawed by poor methodolog
Oregon State University
http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2013/dec/review-most-clinical-studies-vitamins-flawed-poor-methodology
The study this story is based on is available online: http://bit.ly/1lbi4PB
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Most large, clinical trials of vitamin supplements, including some that have concluded they are of no value or even harmful, have a flawed methodology that renders them largely useless in determining the real value of these micronutrients, a new analysis suggests.
Many projects have tried to study nutrients that are naturally available in the human diet the same way they would a powerful prescription drug. This leads to conclusions that have little scientific meaning, even less accuracy and often defy a wealth of other evidence, said Balz Frei, professor and director of the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, in a new review published in the journal Nutrients.
These flawed findings will persist until the approach to studying micronutrients is changed, Frei said. Such changes are needed to provide better, more scientifically valid information to consumers around the world who often have poor diets, do not meet intake recommendations for many vitamins and minerals, and might greatly benefit from something as simple as a daily multivitamin/mineral supplement.
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“More than 90 percent of U.S. adults don’t get the required amounts of vitamins D and E for basic health,” Frei said. “More than 40 percent don’t get enough vitamin C, and half aren’t getting enough vitamin A, calcium and magnesium. Smokers, the elderly, people who are obese, ill or injured often have elevated needs for vitamins and minerals.
“It’s fine to tell people to eat better, but it’s foolish to suggest that a multivitamin which costs a nickel a day is a bad idea.”
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http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2013/dec/review-most-clinical-studies-vitamins-flawed-poor-methodology
The study this story is based on is available online: http://bit.ly/1lbi4PB
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Most large, clinical trials of vitamin supplements, including some that have concluded they are of no value or even harmful, have a flawed methodology that renders them largely useless in determining the real value of these micronutrients, a new analysis suggests.
Many projects have tried to study nutrients that are naturally available in the human diet the same way they would a powerful prescription drug. This leads to conclusions that have little scientific meaning, even less accuracy and often defy a wealth of other evidence, said Balz Frei, professor and director of the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, in a new review published in the journal Nutrients.
These flawed findings will persist until the approach to studying micronutrients is changed, Frei said. Such changes are needed to provide better, more scientifically valid information to consumers around the world who often have poor diets, do not meet intake recommendations for many vitamins and minerals, and might greatly benefit from something as simple as a daily multivitamin/mineral supplement.
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“More than 90 percent of U.S. adults don’t get the required amounts of vitamins D and E for basic health,” Frei said. “More than 40 percent don’t get enough vitamin C, and half aren’t getting enough vitamin A, calcium and magnesium. Smokers, the elderly, people who are obese, ill or injured often have elevated needs for vitamins and minerals.
“It’s fine to tell people to eat better, but it’s foolish to suggest that a multivitamin which costs a nickel a day is a bad idea.”
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Cloud mystery solved: Global temperatures to rise at least 4°C by 2100
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-12/uons-ncs121913.php
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 31-Dec-2013
Contact: Alvin Stone
University of New South Wales
Global average temperatures will rise at least 4°C [7.2F] by 2100 and potentially more than 8°C [14.4F] by 2200 if carbon dioxide emissions are not reduced according to new research published in Nature. Scientists found global climate is more sensitive to carbon dioxide than most previous estimates.
The research also appears to solve one of the great unknowns of climate sensitivity, the role of cloud formation and whether this will have a positive or negative effect on global warming.
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 31-Dec-2013
Contact: Alvin Stone
University of New South Wales
Global average temperatures will rise at least 4°C [7.2F] by 2100 and potentially more than 8°C [14.4F] by 2200 if carbon dioxide emissions are not reduced according to new research published in Nature. Scientists found global climate is more sensitive to carbon dioxide than most previous estimates.
The research also appears to solve one of the great unknowns of climate sensitivity, the role of cloud formation and whether this will have a positive or negative effect on global warming.
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Whose economy?
From Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/723663540979578
Post by Robert Reich.
Robert Reich
The stock market closed out a record year at an all-time high yesterday, giving stockholders in 2013 their biggest annual gains in almost two decades. But the real news here, that went completely unreported, is that the 2013 bull market widened inequality because (1) the richest 1 percent of Americans own 35 percent of the value of all shares of stock, and the richest 10 percent own over 80 percent, (2) the corporate profits on which these gains were based came largely from keeping the wages of ordinary workers low, (3) the capital gains and dividends these gains generated are taxed at a lower rate than most of the income of the middle class, and (4) the biggest winners are the top executives and Wall Street traders whose year-end bonuses are tied to the stock market, and the hedge-fund and private-equity managers whose “carried interest” loophole allows them to cash in big-time. When will we stop measuring the health of the economy by the Dow Jones Industrial average?
Study shows benefit in activities of daily living and savings in caregiver time with vitamin E
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 31-Dec-2013
Contact: Laura Newman
The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine
NEW YORK, NY –Dec. 26, 2013 – Difficulty with activities of daily living often affect Alzheimer's patients, which is estimated to affect as many as 5.1 million Americans. These issues are among the most taxing burdens of the disease for caregivers, which total about 5.4 million family members and friends. New research from the faculty of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai working with Veterans Administration Medical Centers suggests that alpha tocepherol, fat-soluble Vitamin E and antioxidant, may slow functional decline (problems with daily activities such as shopping, preparing meals, planning, and traveling) in patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease and decrease caregiver burden. There was no added benefit for memory and cognitive testing with the vitamin. The study is published online first in the Jan. 1 Journal of the American Medical Association.
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Sleep to protect your brain
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-12/uu-stp122913.php
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 31-Dec-2013
Contact: Christian Benedict
Uppsala University
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Fifteen normal-weight men participated in the study. In one condition they were sleep-deprived for one night, while in the other condition they slept for approximately 8 hours.
"We observed that a night of total sleep loss was followed by increased blood concentrations of NSE and S-100B. These brain molecules typically rise in blood under conditions of brain damage. Thus, our results indicate that a lack of sleep may promote neurodegenerative processes", says sleep researcher Christian Benedict at the Department of Neuroscience, Uppsala University, who lead the study.
"In conclusion, the findings of our trial indicate that a good night's sleep may be critical for maintaining brain health", says Christian Benedict.
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 31-Dec-2013
Contact: Christian Benedict
Uppsala University
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Fifteen normal-weight men participated in the study. In one condition they were sleep-deprived for one night, while in the other condition they slept for approximately 8 hours.
"We observed that a night of total sleep loss was followed by increased blood concentrations of NSE and S-100B. These brain molecules typically rise in blood under conditions of brain damage. Thus, our results indicate that a lack of sleep may promote neurodegenerative processes", says sleep researcher Christian Benedict at the Department of Neuroscience, Uppsala University, who lead the study.
"In conclusion, the findings of our trial indicate that a good night's sleep may be critical for maintaining brain health", says Christian Benedict.
US global share of research spending declines
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-01/uomh-ugs123013.php
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 1-Jan-2014
Contact: Nicole Fawcett
University of Michigan Health System
New analysis shows Asia gaining, due to increased support from both government, industry
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The United States' global share of biomedical research spending fell from 51 percent in 2007 to 45 percent in 2012, while Japan and China saw dramatic increases in research spending.
The research and development spending in the United States dropped from $131 billion to $119 billion, when adjusted for inflation, from 2007-2012, while Japan increased spending by $9 billion and China increased by $6.4 billion. Overall, Asia's share of spending grew from 18 percent to 24 percent. Europe held steady at 29 percent.
Prior analyses have suggested the United States' share of global expenditures were once as high as 80 percent.
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Despite reductions in funding from the National Institutes of Health, including a 20 percent drop in purchasing power since 2003, the researchers discovered that the United States' decline was driven almost entirely by reduced investment from industry, not the public sector. This includes support for clinical trials testing potential new therapies.
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"We were surprised the impact of industry funding was that dramatic, but it's key to note that government funding is equally important to maintain or grow. Research funded through the National Institutes of Health helps scientists understand how diseases work – this will happen slower as NIH funding continues to be cut," says study author Justin Chakma, a venture capital investor with Thomas, McNerney & Partners in La Jolla, Calif.
Historically, about half of drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had some federal government funding during the course of the research and development.
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 1-Jan-2014
Contact: Nicole Fawcett
University of Michigan Health System
New analysis shows Asia gaining, due to increased support from both government, industry
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The United States' global share of biomedical research spending fell from 51 percent in 2007 to 45 percent in 2012, while Japan and China saw dramatic increases in research spending.
The research and development spending in the United States dropped from $131 billion to $119 billion, when adjusted for inflation, from 2007-2012, while Japan increased spending by $9 billion and China increased by $6.4 billion. Overall, Asia's share of spending grew from 18 percent to 24 percent. Europe held steady at 29 percent.
Prior analyses have suggested the United States' share of global expenditures were once as high as 80 percent.
------
Despite reductions in funding from the National Institutes of Health, including a 20 percent drop in purchasing power since 2003, the researchers discovered that the United States' decline was driven almost entirely by reduced investment from industry, not the public sector. This includes support for clinical trials testing potential new therapies.
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"We were surprised the impact of industry funding was that dramatic, but it's key to note that government funding is equally important to maintain or grow. Research funded through the National Institutes of Health helps scientists understand how diseases work – this will happen slower as NIH funding continues to be cut," says study author Justin Chakma, a venture capital investor with Thomas, McNerney & Partners in La Jolla, Calif.
Historically, about half of drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had some federal government funding during the course of the research and development.
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