http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/aaoo-toe050715.php
Public Release: 7-May-2015
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons
The United States makes up less than five percent of the world's population but consumes 80 percent of the global opioid supply and approximately 99 percent of all hydrocodone--the most commonly prescribed opioid in the world. And, according to the authors of a new literature review in the May issue of The Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, orthopaedic surgeons are the third highest prescribers of opioid prescriptions among physicians in the United States--behind primary care physicians and internists.
"The past few decades have seen an alarming rise in opioid use in the United States, and the negative consequences are dramatically increasing," says study co-author Hassan R. Mir, MD, MBA, associate professor of orthopaedics and rehabilitation at Vanderbilt Orthopaedic Institute. "Management of pain is an important part of patient care; however, the increased usage of opioids for the treatment of pain has led to several unanticipated aftereffects for individual patients and for society at large."
Opioids are now also prescribed by physicians more frequently to treat chronic conditions, including musculoskeletal pain of the spine and limbs, while prescriptions for non-opioids like nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) or acetaminophen have remained constant. The increased usage of opioids for pain management has led to unanticipated consequences:
Patients building up tolerance to drugs;
Worse treatment outcomes for conditions including work-related musculoskeletal disorders, joint replacements and spine surgery;
Unlawful sale or sharing of opioid medications with others; and,
When used inappropriately, addiction and unintentional overdose deaths can result.
•••••
Study co-author Brent J. Morris, MD, a shoulder and elbow surgeon with the Lexington Clinic Orthopedics - Sports Medicine Center, says "Physicians should aim to control pain and improve patient satisfaction while avoiding overprescribing opioids.
•••••
Thursday, May 07, 2015
Human security at risk as depletion of soil accelerates, scientists warn
Other culprits are people who rake up their leaves and grass clippings and burn or discard them. Utterly stupid.http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/uoc--hsa050515.php
Public Release: 7-May-2015
University of California - Berkeley
Steadily and alarmingly, humans have been depleting Earth's soil resources faster than the nutrients can be replenished. If this trajectory does not change, soil erosion, combined with the effects of climate change, will present a huge risk to global food security over the next century, warns a review paper authored by some of the top soil scientists in the country.
The paper singles out farming, which accelerates erosion and nutrient removal, as the primary game changer in soil health.
"Ever since humans developed agriculture, we've been transforming the planet and throwing the soil's nutrient cycle out of balance," said the paper's lead author, Ronald Amundson, a professor of environmental science, policy and management at the University of California, Berkeley. "Because the changes happen slowly, often taking two to three generations to be noticed, people are not cognizant of the geological transformation taking place."
In the paper, to be published Thursday, May 7, in the journal Science, the authors say that soil erosion has accelerated since the industrial revolution, and we're now entering a period when the ability of soil, "the living epidermis of the planet," to support the growth of our food supply is plateauing.
•••••
The authors identify the supply of fertilizer as one of the key threats to future soil security. Farmers use three essential nutrients to fertilize their crops: nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous. The paper credits the discovery of synthetic nitrogen production in the early 1900s to significantly increased crop yields that supported dramatic global population growth. Because the process of synthesizing nitrogen is energy- intensive, its supply is dependent on fossil fuels.
Unlike nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous come from rocks and minerals, and the authors point out that those resources are not equitably distributed throughout the world. The United States has only 1 to 2 percent of the world's potassium reserves, and its reserves of phosphorous are expected to run out in about three decades.
"This could create political challenges and uncertainties," said Amundson. "Morocco will soon be the largest source of phosphorous in the world, followed by China. These two countries will have a great deal of say in the distribution of those resources. Some people suggest we will see the emergence of a phosphorous cartel."
•••••
Another threat to soil security relates to its role as a mass reservoir for carbon. Left unperturbed, soil can hold onto its stores of carbon for hundreds to thousands of years. The most recent estimates suggest that up to 2,300 gigatons of carbon are stored in the top three meters of the Earth's soil - more carbon than in all the world's plants and atmosphere combined. One gigaton is equal to a billion tons.
But agriculture's physical disruption of soil releases stored carbon into the atmosphere. Based on the area of land used for farming worldwide, 50 to 70 gigatons of carbon has been released into the atmosphere throughout human history, according to the paper.
•••••
"Carbon sequestration plans won't make a dent in the amount of soil released by climate change," countered Amundson. "The amount of carbon stored through sequestration would be tiny compared to the potential amount lost through global warming."
Of particular concern are the large carbon stores in the soils in the planet's polar regions. Researchers have found that temperatures are increasing at greater rates in the northern latitudes.
"Warming those areas is like filling your freezer with food, then pulling the plug and going on vacation," said Amundson. "There will be a massive feast of bacteria feeding on the food as the plug gets pulled on the stored carbon in the frozen soil. Microbes are already starting the process of converting the carbon to CO2 and methane."
•••••
The authors recognize the human reliance on farming and note that most of the Earth's most productive soils are already in agricultural production. However, they argue for better management of the soils we rely upon.
One proposal is to stop discarding nutrients captured in waste treatment facilities. Currently, phosphorous and potassium are concentrated into solid waste rather than cycled back into the soil. Additionally, more efficient management is needed to curtail losses from soil. Excess nitrogen, for example, is considered a pollutant, with the runoff sapping oxygen from the nation's waterways, suffocating aquatic life and creating dead zones in coastal margins.
Amundson noted that it did not take too long to get people to start separating paper, glass and aluminum cans from their trash for recycling.
"We should be able to do this with soil," said Amundson. "The nutrients lost can be captured, recycled and put back into the ground. We have the skillset to recycle a lot of nutrients, but the ultimate deciders are the people who create policy. It's not a scientific problem. It's a societal problem."
How climate science denialism affects the scientific community
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/uob-hcs050615.php
Public Release: 7-May-2015
University of Bristol
Climate change denial in public discourse may encourage climate scientists to over-emphasise scientific uncertainty and is also affecting how they themselves speak - and perhaps even think - about their own research, a new study from the University of Bristol, UK argues.
Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, from Bristol's School of Experimental Psychology and the Cabot Institute, and colleagues from Harvard University and three institutions in Australia show how the language used by people who oppose the scientific consensus on climate change has seeped into scientists' discussion of the alleged recent 'hiatus' or 'pause' in global warming, and has thereby unwittingly reinforced a misleading message.
The idea that 'global warming has stopped' has been promoted in contrarian blogs and media articles for many years, and ultimately the idea of a 'pause' or 'hiatus' has become ensconced in the scientific literature, including in the latest assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Multiple lines of evidence indicate that global warming continues unabated, which implies that talk of a 'pause' or 'hiatus' is misleading. Recent warming has been slower than the long term trend, but this fluctuation differs little from past fluctuations in warming rate, including past periods of more rapid than average warming. Crucially, on previous occasions when decadal warming was particularly rapid, the scientific community did not give short-term climate variability the attention it has now received, when decadal warming was slower.
•••••
This asymmetry in response to fluctuations in the decadal warming trend likely reflects what the study's authors call the 'seepage' of contrarian claims into scientific work.
•••••
So why might scientists be affected by contrarian public discourse? The study argues that three recognised psychological mechanisms are at work: 'stereotype threat', 'pluralistic ignorance' and the 'third-person effect'.
'Stereotype threat' refers to the emotional and behaviour responses when a person is reminded of an adverse stereotype against a group to which they belong. Thus, when scientists are stereotyped as 'alarmists', a predicted response would be for them to try to avoid seeming alarmist by downplaying the degree of threat. Several studies have indeed shown that scientists tend to avoid highlighting risks, lest they be seen as 'alarmist'.
'Pluralistic ignorance' describes the phenomenon which arises when a minority opinion is given disproportionate prominence in public debate, resulting in the majority of people incorrectly assuming their opinion is marginalised. Thus, a public discourse that asserts that the IPCC has exaggerated the threat of climate change may cause scientists who disagree to think their views are in the minority, and they may therefore feel inhibited from speaking out in public.
Research shows that people generally believe that persuasive communications exert a stronger effect on others than on themselves: this is known as the 'third-person effect'. However, in actual fact, people tend to be more affected by persuasive messages than they think. This suggests the scientific community may be susceptible to arguments against climate change even when they know them to be false.
Professor Lewandowsky said: "We scientists have a unique and crucial role in public policy: to communicate clearly and accurately the entire range of risks that we know about. The public has a right to be informed about risks, even if they are alarming.
•••••
sometimes scientists have inadvertently allowed contrarian claims to frame the language of their scientific thinking, leading us to overstate uncertainty and under-communicate knowledge.
•••••
Public Release: 7-May-2015
University of Bristol
Climate change denial in public discourse may encourage climate scientists to over-emphasise scientific uncertainty and is also affecting how they themselves speak - and perhaps even think - about their own research, a new study from the University of Bristol, UK argues.
Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, from Bristol's School of Experimental Psychology and the Cabot Institute, and colleagues from Harvard University and three institutions in Australia show how the language used by people who oppose the scientific consensus on climate change has seeped into scientists' discussion of the alleged recent 'hiatus' or 'pause' in global warming, and has thereby unwittingly reinforced a misleading message.
The idea that 'global warming has stopped' has been promoted in contrarian blogs and media articles for many years, and ultimately the idea of a 'pause' or 'hiatus' has become ensconced in the scientific literature, including in the latest assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Multiple lines of evidence indicate that global warming continues unabated, which implies that talk of a 'pause' or 'hiatus' is misleading. Recent warming has been slower than the long term trend, but this fluctuation differs little from past fluctuations in warming rate, including past periods of more rapid than average warming. Crucially, on previous occasions when decadal warming was particularly rapid, the scientific community did not give short-term climate variability the attention it has now received, when decadal warming was slower.
•••••
This asymmetry in response to fluctuations in the decadal warming trend likely reflects what the study's authors call the 'seepage' of contrarian claims into scientific work.
•••••
So why might scientists be affected by contrarian public discourse? The study argues that three recognised psychological mechanisms are at work: 'stereotype threat', 'pluralistic ignorance' and the 'third-person effect'.
'Stereotype threat' refers to the emotional and behaviour responses when a person is reminded of an adverse stereotype against a group to which they belong. Thus, when scientists are stereotyped as 'alarmists', a predicted response would be for them to try to avoid seeming alarmist by downplaying the degree of threat. Several studies have indeed shown that scientists tend to avoid highlighting risks, lest they be seen as 'alarmist'.
'Pluralistic ignorance' describes the phenomenon which arises when a minority opinion is given disproportionate prominence in public debate, resulting in the majority of people incorrectly assuming their opinion is marginalised. Thus, a public discourse that asserts that the IPCC has exaggerated the threat of climate change may cause scientists who disagree to think their views are in the minority, and they may therefore feel inhibited from speaking out in public.
Research shows that people generally believe that persuasive communications exert a stronger effect on others than on themselves: this is known as the 'third-person effect'. However, in actual fact, people tend to be more affected by persuasive messages than they think. This suggests the scientific community may be susceptible to arguments against climate change even when they know them to be false.
Professor Lewandowsky said: "We scientists have a unique and crucial role in public policy: to communicate clearly and accurately the entire range of risks that we know about. The public has a right to be informed about risks, even if they are alarming.
•••••
sometimes scientists have inadvertently allowed contrarian claims to frame the language of their scientific thinking, leading us to overstate uncertainty and under-communicate knowledge.
•••••
When the baby comes, working couples no longer share housework equally
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/osu-wtb050615.php
Public Release: 7-May-2015
Ohio State University
When highly educated, dual-career couples have their first child, both spouses think the baby increases their workloads by equal amounts - but a new study suggests that's not true.
When asked directly, both men and women thought their own daily workloads had increased by more than four hours after their child was born.
Detailed time diaries that the new mothers and fathers kept told a different story. Both spouses overestimated their increased workload - but by widely varying amounts. Compared to the parents' estimated four hours of extra work each day, the time diaries showed women's workloads increased by two hours a day, while men's total working time each day increased by only about 40 minutes.
"Women ended up shouldering a lot more of the work that comes with a new baby, even though both men and women thought they added the same amount of additional work," said Claire Kamp Dush, co-author of the study an associate professor of human sciences at The Ohio State University.
The results were especially surprising because before the baby was born, these couples were sharing household chores relatively equally.
•••••
These aren't average U.S. couples. Participants in the study tend to have higher-than-average levels of education, both spouses have jobs and both spouses report their intention to keep working after the child is born.
"These are the couples you would expect to have the most egalitarian relationships," Kamp Dush said.
"They have the education, the financial resources and the other factors that researchers have believed would lead to equal sharing of responsibilities. But that's not what we found."
•••••
Moreover, 95 percent of both men and women agreed during the pregnancy that mothers and fathers should equally share the child care responsibility.
That's not what happened, though. After the arrival of their child, men did about 10 hours a week of physical child care - the less fun work like changing diapers and bathing the baby. Meanwhile, women did 15 hours per week.
The more "fun" part of parenting, such as reading to the baby and playing, is called child engagement, and the time diaries showed a much smaller gender gap here. Men spent about four hours per week in child engagement, while women spent about six hours.
In addition, men cut back their housework by five hours per week, while women did not reduce their housework to compensate for additional childcare work.
One explanation for women's increased post-parenthood workloads compared to men has been that they are spending less time at their paid jobs. But this study didn't find that. Neither men nor women had significantly decreased the number of hours spent at their paid jobs, the results showed.
"A lot of data shows that many women eventually decrease their time spent at paid work after having children, but we don't know when it happens," Yavorsky said. "This study shows that they're not doing it right after the birth of their first child."
•••••
What's the reason behind the change? Kamp Dush and Yavorsky said the reasons are complex and not entirely the fault of mothers or fathers.
Other research led by Schoppe-Sullivan shows that some mothers "gatekeep" - essentially controlling how much fathers are involved in child care and what they can do.
"Women shouldn't try to manage their partner's parenting. But men also need to take the initiative and learn child care duties that their own socialization may have neglected," Kamp Dush said.
Yavorsky noted that couples successfully shared nonchild-related housework before they became parents, but only men significantly dropped the number of hours they spent doing this post-childbirth.
"Men can continue to be full partners in doing housework after the child is born and share in the mundane tasks that neither partner necessarily wants to do," she said.
Public Release: 7-May-2015
Ohio State University
When highly educated, dual-career couples have their first child, both spouses think the baby increases their workloads by equal amounts - but a new study suggests that's not true.
When asked directly, both men and women thought their own daily workloads had increased by more than four hours after their child was born.
Detailed time diaries that the new mothers and fathers kept told a different story. Both spouses overestimated their increased workload - but by widely varying amounts. Compared to the parents' estimated four hours of extra work each day, the time diaries showed women's workloads increased by two hours a day, while men's total working time each day increased by only about 40 minutes.
"Women ended up shouldering a lot more of the work that comes with a new baby, even though both men and women thought they added the same amount of additional work," said Claire Kamp Dush, co-author of the study an associate professor of human sciences at The Ohio State University.
The results were especially surprising because before the baby was born, these couples were sharing household chores relatively equally.
•••••
These aren't average U.S. couples. Participants in the study tend to have higher-than-average levels of education, both spouses have jobs and both spouses report their intention to keep working after the child is born.
"These are the couples you would expect to have the most egalitarian relationships," Kamp Dush said.
"They have the education, the financial resources and the other factors that researchers have believed would lead to equal sharing of responsibilities. But that's not what we found."
•••••
Moreover, 95 percent of both men and women agreed during the pregnancy that mothers and fathers should equally share the child care responsibility.
That's not what happened, though. After the arrival of their child, men did about 10 hours a week of physical child care - the less fun work like changing diapers and bathing the baby. Meanwhile, women did 15 hours per week.
The more "fun" part of parenting, such as reading to the baby and playing, is called child engagement, and the time diaries showed a much smaller gender gap here. Men spent about four hours per week in child engagement, while women spent about six hours.
In addition, men cut back their housework by five hours per week, while women did not reduce their housework to compensate for additional childcare work.
One explanation for women's increased post-parenthood workloads compared to men has been that they are spending less time at their paid jobs. But this study didn't find that. Neither men nor women had significantly decreased the number of hours spent at their paid jobs, the results showed.
"A lot of data shows that many women eventually decrease their time spent at paid work after having children, but we don't know when it happens," Yavorsky said. "This study shows that they're not doing it right after the birth of their first child."
•••••
What's the reason behind the change? Kamp Dush and Yavorsky said the reasons are complex and not entirely the fault of mothers or fathers.
Other research led by Schoppe-Sullivan shows that some mothers "gatekeep" - essentially controlling how much fathers are involved in child care and what they can do.
"Women shouldn't try to manage their partner's parenting. But men also need to take the initiative and learn child care duties that their own socialization may have neglected," Kamp Dush said.
Yavorsky noted that couples successfully shared nonchild-related housework before they became parents, but only men significantly dropped the number of hours they spent doing this post-childbirth.
"Men can continue to be full partners in doing housework after the child is born and share in the mundane tasks that neither partner necessarily wants to do," she said.
Study shows that children sleep better when they have a nightly bedtime routine
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/aaos-sst050715.php
Public Release: 7-May-2015
American Academy of Sleep Medicine
A multinational study suggests that having a regular bedtime routine is associated with better sleep in young children up to 6 years of age, and the positive impact on sleep increases with the consistency of the nightly routine.
•••••
Public Release: 7-May-2015
American Academy of Sleep Medicine
A multinational study suggests that having a regular bedtime routine is associated with better sleep in young children up to 6 years of age, and the positive impact on sleep increases with the consistency of the nightly routine.
•••••
Mouth and tongue exercises significantly curb snoring
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/acoc-sky050715.php
Public Release: 7-May-2015
American College of Chest Physicians
•••••
a Brazilian study published today in the Online First section of the journal CHEST finds that in patients with primary snoring or mild OSA, oropharyngeal, or mouth and tongue, exercises significantly reduced the frequency of snoring by 36 percent and total power of snoring by 59 percent.
•••••
Treatment of primary snoring varies widely and includes avoiding alcohol and sedatives, avoiding lying flat on the back to sleep, weight loss, treatment of nasal problems, palate and upper airway surgeries, and use of dental sleep devices.
"Past studies have focused on self-reporting questionnaires. New forms of treatment for snoring focusing on objective measures were needed. We tested the effectiveness of oropharyngeal exercises to reduce snoring," said Geraldo Lorenzi-Filho, MD, PhD, study author, "the exercises significantly reduced snoring in our study group."
Exercises included:
Pushing the tip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth and sliding the tongue backward
Sucking the tongue upward against the roof of the mouth, and pressing the entire tongue against the roof of the mouth
Forcing the back of the tongue against the floor of the mouth while keeping the tip of the tongue in contact with the bottom, front teeth
And elevating the back of the roof of the mouth and uvula while saying the vowel "A"
•••••
Public Release: 7-May-2015
American College of Chest Physicians
•••••
a Brazilian study published today in the Online First section of the journal CHEST finds that in patients with primary snoring or mild OSA, oropharyngeal, or mouth and tongue, exercises significantly reduced the frequency of snoring by 36 percent and total power of snoring by 59 percent.
•••••
Treatment of primary snoring varies widely and includes avoiding alcohol and sedatives, avoiding lying flat on the back to sleep, weight loss, treatment of nasal problems, palate and upper airway surgeries, and use of dental sleep devices.
"Past studies have focused on self-reporting questionnaires. New forms of treatment for snoring focusing on objective measures were needed. We tested the effectiveness of oropharyngeal exercises to reduce snoring," said Geraldo Lorenzi-Filho, MD, PhD, study author, "the exercises significantly reduced snoring in our study group."
Exercises included:
Pushing the tip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth and sliding the tongue backward
Sucking the tongue upward against the roof of the mouth, and pressing the entire tongue against the roof of the mouth
Forcing the back of the tongue against the floor of the mouth while keeping the tip of the tongue in contact with the bottom, front teeth
And elevating the back of the roof of the mouth and uvula while saying the vowel "A"
•••••
Cancer drugs approved quickly but not to patient's benefit
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/yu-cda050715.php
Public Release: 7-May-2015
York University
Highly priced cancer drugs get rushed approvals despite poor trial methodology and little effect on the longevity of patients, cautions York University Professor Dr. Joel Lexchin in the School of Health Policy and Management.
"Patients and their doctors should demand that regulators require pharma companies to provide clear evidence of clinical effectiveness of the drugs, resulting from rigorous methodology," suggests Lexchin. "Drug agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicine Agency (EMA) don't actually look at whether people live longer."
•••••
Lexchin cites earlier research reviewing solid cancer drugs within 10 years of EMA approval to point out that these drugs improved survival by just over a month.
"Similarly 71 drugs approved by the FDA from 2002 to 2014 for solid tumours have resulted in median gains in progression-free and overall survival of only 2.5 and 2.1 months, respectively," he says adding, "Also, only 42 per cent met the American Society of Clinical Oncology Cancer Research Committee's criteria for meaningful results for patients."
Public Release: 7-May-2015
York University
Highly priced cancer drugs get rushed approvals despite poor trial methodology and little effect on the longevity of patients, cautions York University Professor Dr. Joel Lexchin in the School of Health Policy and Management.
"Patients and their doctors should demand that regulators require pharma companies to provide clear evidence of clinical effectiveness of the drugs, resulting from rigorous methodology," suggests Lexchin. "Drug agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicine Agency (EMA) don't actually look at whether people live longer."
•••••
Lexchin cites earlier research reviewing solid cancer drugs within 10 years of EMA approval to point out that these drugs improved survival by just over a month.
"Similarly 71 drugs approved by the FDA from 2002 to 2014 for solid tumours have resulted in median gains in progression-free and overall survival of only 2.5 and 2.1 months, respectively," he says adding, "Also, only 42 per cent met the American Society of Clinical Oncology Cancer Research Committee's criteria for meaningful results for patients."
20 Things the Poor Do Every Day That the Rich Never Have to Worry About
http://www.alternet.org/20-things-poor-do-every-day-rich-never-have-worry-about
By Benjamin Irwin
December 5, 2013
1. Search for affordable housing. Especially in urban areas, the waiting list for affordable housing can be a year or more. During that time, poor families either have to make do with substandard or dangerous housing, depend on the hospitality of relatives, or go homeless.
[Or they scrape up enough money to move into a rental, stay until they are evicted because they can't pay the rent.]
2. Try to make $133 worth of food last a whole month. That’s how much the average food stamp recipient gets each month. •••
3. Subsist on poor quality food. Not because they want to, but because they can’t afford high-quality, nutritious food. They’re trapped in a food system that subsidizes processed foods, making them artificially cheaper than natural food sources. •••
4. Skip a meal. One in six Americans are food insecure. Which means (among other things) that they’re sometimes forced to go without eating. •••
5. Work longer and harder than most of us. While it’s popular to think people are poor because they’re lazy , the poor actually work longer and harder than the rest of us. More than 80 percent of impoverished children have at least one parent who works; 60 percent have at least one parent who works full-time. Overall, the poor work longer hours than the so-called “job creators.”
6. Go to bed 3 hours before their first job starts. ... because they’re more likely to work multiple jobs, in which case job #1 means they’re probably just getting to bed three hours before job #2 starts.
7. Try to avoid getting beat up by someone they love. According to some estimates, half of all homeless women in America ran away to escape domestic violence.
8. Put themselves in harm’s way, only to be kicked to the streets afterward. How else do you explain 63,000 homeless veterans?
9. Pay more than their fair share of taxes. Some conservative pundits and politicians like to think the poor don’t pay their fair share, that they are merely “takers.” While it’s true the poor don’t pay as much in federal income tax — usually because they don’t earn enough to qualify — they do pay sales tax, payroll tax, etc. In fact, the bottom 20% of earners pay twice as much in taxes (as a share of their income) as do the top 1%.
•••••
14. Live with chronic pain. Those earning less than $12,000 a year are twice as likely to report feeling physical pain on any given day.
15. Live shorter lives. There is a 10-14 year gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor. In recent years, poor people’s life expectancy has actually declined — in America, the wealthiest nation on the planet.
16. Use drugs and alcohol pretty much the same as (or less than) everyone else. Despite the common picture of inner city crack houses, drug use is pretty evenly spread across income groups. And rich people actually abuse alcohol more than the poor.
•••••
18. Get themselves off welfare as soon as possible. Despite the odds, the vast majority of beneficiaries leave the welfare rolls within five years. Even in the absence of official welfare-to-work programming, most welfare recipients enroll in some form of vocational training. Why? Because they’re desperate to get off welfare.
19. Have about the same number of children as everyone else. •••
•••••
By Benjamin Irwin
December 5, 2013
1. Search for affordable housing. Especially in urban areas, the waiting list for affordable housing can be a year or more. During that time, poor families either have to make do with substandard or dangerous housing, depend on the hospitality of relatives, or go homeless.
[Or they scrape up enough money to move into a rental, stay until they are evicted because they can't pay the rent.]
2. Try to make $133 worth of food last a whole month. That’s how much the average food stamp recipient gets each month. •••
3. Subsist on poor quality food. Not because they want to, but because they can’t afford high-quality, nutritious food. They’re trapped in a food system that subsidizes processed foods, making them artificially cheaper than natural food sources. •••
4. Skip a meal. One in six Americans are food insecure. Which means (among other things) that they’re sometimes forced to go without eating. •••
5. Work longer and harder than most of us. While it’s popular to think people are poor because they’re lazy , the poor actually work longer and harder than the rest of us. More than 80 percent of impoverished children have at least one parent who works; 60 percent have at least one parent who works full-time. Overall, the poor work longer hours than the so-called “job creators.”
6. Go to bed 3 hours before their first job starts. ... because they’re more likely to work multiple jobs, in which case job #1 means they’re probably just getting to bed three hours before job #2 starts.
7. Try to avoid getting beat up by someone they love. According to some estimates, half of all homeless women in America ran away to escape domestic violence.
8. Put themselves in harm’s way, only to be kicked to the streets afterward. How else do you explain 63,000 homeless veterans?
9. Pay more than their fair share of taxes. Some conservative pundits and politicians like to think the poor don’t pay their fair share, that they are merely “takers.” While it’s true the poor don’t pay as much in federal income tax — usually because they don’t earn enough to qualify — they do pay sales tax, payroll tax, etc. In fact, the bottom 20% of earners pay twice as much in taxes (as a share of their income) as do the top 1%.
•••••
14. Live with chronic pain. Those earning less than $12,000 a year are twice as likely to report feeling physical pain on any given day.
15. Live shorter lives. There is a 10-14 year gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor. In recent years, poor people’s life expectancy has actually declined — in America, the wealthiest nation on the planet.
16. Use drugs and alcohol pretty much the same as (or less than) everyone else. Despite the common picture of inner city crack houses, drug use is pretty evenly spread across income groups. And rich people actually abuse alcohol more than the poor.
•••••
18. Get themselves off welfare as soon as possible. Despite the odds, the vast majority of beneficiaries leave the welfare rolls within five years. Even in the absence of official welfare-to-work programming, most welfare recipients enroll in some form of vocational training. Why? Because they’re desperate to get off welfare.
19. Have about the same number of children as everyone else. •••
•••••
Employers prefer male managerial potential to female proven track record
Other research has found that those who hire are poor predictors of an applicants potential.http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/bps-epm050615.php
Public Release: 6-May-2015
British Psychological Society
Male job applicants who are perceived to have high levels of leadership potential are rated as a better employment prospect than a female applicant with proven leadership track record.
This is the finding of a study by undergraduate student Fatima Tresh, Dr Georgina Randsley de Moura and Abigail Player from the University of Kent that will presented today, Wednesday 6 May at the British Psychological Society Annual Conference in Liverpool. The study was funded by a 2014 BPS Undergraduate Research Assistantship Scheme. The scheme marks out a student as a future researcher and potential academic
•••••
Male applicants with leadership potential were most likely to be seen as successful and having the most impressive CV. Also, the findings suggested that men with leadership potential were rated higher than men with leadership performance. However, female applicants with potential were not rated higher than those with performance.
Abigail said: "The findings have implications for gender equality in the workplace and provide initial evidence that women's leadership potential is not recognised by potential employers. This is a significant barrier to career progression and success for women."
Women in high-income medical education positions still paid less than men
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/ehs-wih050615.php
Public Release: 6-May-2015
Elsevier Health Sciences
The existence of gender-based wage gaps in many occupations continues to be a hot-button topic in social and political debates. While much attention has been focused on medium- and lower-wage positions, some studies have shown that wage disparities extend to high-wage, high-prestige positions. According to a new study published in The American Journal of Medicine, women who serve as directors of internal medicine residency programs are paid less than their male counterparts.
"Despite the increased percentage of women faculty in U.S. academic medicine, disparities in achievement still exist," according to lead author Lisa L. Willett, MD, of the Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham. "The disparity exists regardless of region, program type, academic rank, general internal medicine specialty, age, or years of experience. In addition, we found that the gap in salary has not narrowed over the past five years."
Salary data was divided into $25,000 increments and the mode, or most likely, salary was $200,000 to $225,000 for men and $175,000 to $200,000 for women. Even after controlling for academic rank, career path in general internal medicine, and age, the differences remained. The authors also found that these differences have persisted since at least 2008.
•••••
Public Release: 6-May-2015
Elsevier Health Sciences
The existence of gender-based wage gaps in many occupations continues to be a hot-button topic in social and political debates. While much attention has been focused on medium- and lower-wage positions, some studies have shown that wage disparities extend to high-wage, high-prestige positions. According to a new study published in The American Journal of Medicine, women who serve as directors of internal medicine residency programs are paid less than their male counterparts.
"Despite the increased percentage of women faculty in U.S. academic medicine, disparities in achievement still exist," according to lead author Lisa L. Willett, MD, of the Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham. "The disparity exists regardless of region, program type, academic rank, general internal medicine specialty, age, or years of experience. In addition, we found that the gap in salary has not narrowed over the past five years."
Salary data was divided into $25,000 increments and the mode, or most likely, salary was $200,000 to $225,000 for men and $175,000 to $200,000 for women. Even after controlling for academic rank, career path in general internal medicine, and age, the differences remained. The authors also found that these differences have persisted since at least 2008.
•••••
Wednesday, May 06, 2015
Atlantic's First Invest of the 2015, 90L, Organizing Over the Bahamas
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2975
By: Jeff Masters and Bob Henson , 3:50 PM GMT on May 06, 2015
The first Atlantic Ocean "Invest" of 2015 has arrived, as the National Hurricane Center (NHC) designated the area of disturbed weather over the Northwest Bahamas as Invest 90L on Wednesday morning. Note that there is no formal definition of what qualifies as an "Invest"; declaring an "Invest" is merely done so that a set of forecasting aids like computer model track forecasts can be generated for the disturbance. NHC gives an "Invest" a tracking number 90-99, followed by a single letter corresponding to the ocean basin--"L" for the Atlantic, or "E" for the Eastern Pacific. Other warning agencies assign "Invests" for the other ocean basins--"W" for the Western Pacific, "A" for the Arabian Sea, etc. When the numbering reaches 99, the next disturbance gets the recycled name "90". The appearance of 90L on May 6 this year marks the third earliest arrival of the year's first "Invest" over the past ten years
•••••
Ocean temperatures were near 26°C (79°F), which is about 1.7°C (3°F) above average for this time of year, and just at the limit of where a tropical storm can form.
•••••
By: Jeff Masters and Bob Henson , 3:50 PM GMT on May 06, 2015
The first Atlantic Ocean "Invest" of 2015 has arrived, as the National Hurricane Center (NHC) designated the area of disturbed weather over the Northwest Bahamas as Invest 90L on Wednesday morning. Note that there is no formal definition of what qualifies as an "Invest"; declaring an "Invest" is merely done so that a set of forecasting aids like computer model track forecasts can be generated for the disturbance. NHC gives an "Invest" a tracking number 90-99, followed by a single letter corresponding to the ocean basin--"L" for the Atlantic, or "E" for the Eastern Pacific. Other warning agencies assign "Invests" for the other ocean basins--"W" for the Western Pacific, "A" for the Arabian Sea, etc. When the numbering reaches 99, the next disturbance gets the recycled name "90". The appearance of 90L on May 6 this year marks the third earliest arrival of the year's first "Invest" over the past ten years
•••••
Ocean temperatures were near 26°C (79°F), which is about 1.7°C (3°F) above average for this time of year, and just at the limit of where a tropical storm can form.
•••••
Redistribution vs Trickle Down
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_05/redistribution_vs_trickle_down055385.php
May 05, 2015 10:00 AM
By Nancy LeTourneau
•••••
Back in 1973, TIME magazine noticed that something interesting was going on in Minnesota.
•••••
No, the story was not about how this land of 10,000 lakes was good for fishing. The story was about the Minnesota Miracle that was launched in 1971 to address the fact that resources were vacating both the rural and urban areas of the state - leaving them cash-strapped to provide basic services.
What was the answer that the Minnesota Miracle came up with? It’s that r-word that is so dreaded in conservative circles - redistribution. Instead of forcing local communities to rely on regressive property taxes, state income taxes were made more progressive and revenue was sent back to local governments to ensure an even playing field among urban, suburban and rural areas when it comes to government services.
Derek Thompson recently looked at how all that has impacted the Minneapolis/St. Paul Twin Cities area 40 years later.
Only three large metros where at least half the homes are within reach for young middle-class families also finish in the top 10 in the Harvard-Berkeley mobility study: Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. The last is particularly remarkable. The Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area is richer by median household income than Pittsburgh or Salt Lake City (or New York, or Chicago, or Los Angeles). Among residents under 35, the Twin Cities place in the top 10 for highest college-graduation rate, highest median earnings, and lowest poverty rate, according to the most recent census figures. And yet, according to the Center for Housing Policy, low-income families can rent a home and commute to work more affordably in Minneapolis-St. Paul than in all but one other major metro area (Washington, D.C.). Perhaps most impressive, the Twin Cities have the highest employment rate for 18-to-34-year-olds in the country.
•••••
May 05, 2015 10:00 AM
By Nancy LeTourneau
•••••
Back in 1973, TIME magazine noticed that something interesting was going on in Minnesota.
•••••
No, the story was not about how this land of 10,000 lakes was good for fishing. The story was about the Minnesota Miracle that was launched in 1971 to address the fact that resources were vacating both the rural and urban areas of the state - leaving them cash-strapped to provide basic services.
What was the answer that the Minnesota Miracle came up with? It’s that r-word that is so dreaded in conservative circles - redistribution. Instead of forcing local communities to rely on regressive property taxes, state income taxes were made more progressive and revenue was sent back to local governments to ensure an even playing field among urban, suburban and rural areas when it comes to government services.
Derek Thompson recently looked at how all that has impacted the Minneapolis/St. Paul Twin Cities area 40 years later.
Only three large metros where at least half the homes are within reach for young middle-class families also finish in the top 10 in the Harvard-Berkeley mobility study: Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. The last is particularly remarkable. The Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area is richer by median household income than Pittsburgh or Salt Lake City (or New York, or Chicago, or Los Angeles). Among residents under 35, the Twin Cities place in the top 10 for highest college-graduation rate, highest median earnings, and lowest poverty rate, according to the most recent census figures. And yet, according to the Center for Housing Policy, low-income families can rent a home and commute to work more affordably in Minneapolis-St. Paul than in all but one other major metro area (Washington, D.C.). Perhaps most impressive, the Twin Cities have the highest employment rate for 18-to-34-year-olds in the country.
•••••
Register Minority Voters in Georgia, Go to Jail
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121715/georgia-secretary-state-hammers-minority-voter-registration-efforts
By Spencer Woodman
May 5, 2015
•••••
Quitman, a town of fewer than 4,000 people, sits in Brooks County, Georgia, ten short miles to the Florida state line. In 2010—for the first time in the county’s history—the county elected a majority-black school board. This upset victory followed a sudden surge in local black voting that was catalyzed by a group of get-out-the-vote activists.
•••••
For weeks after the historic primary, Kemp’s armed investigators, along with officials from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, went door-to-door in Quitman’s black neighborhoods. Without evidence of actual voter fraud in Quitman, the state’s case against the town’s voting activists came to rely on allegations of less glaring breaches of absentee ballot procedure.
Echoing Kemp’s investigation into AALAC, many accusations against those in Quitman focused on voting organizers improperly possessing voters' materials. (The Quitman investigation was spurred by a local district attorney with strong enough connections to the county's white school board members that he could not work on the case.)
State agents arrested a dozen voting organizers, three of whom had won seats on the county school board. With the charges pending, Georgia’s Republican governor, Nathan Deal, issued an executive order temporarily removing those women from their posts, reinstating the county’s white-majority school board.
•••••
Another Quitman resident, Debra Dennard, faced two felony charges of voter fraud for helping her father fill out his absentee ballot. Her father, David Dennard, is missing both legs and is partially blind. Mr. Dennard says that with his daughter’s assistance he voted for just who he wanted to without any coercion or meddling. “All she did was help me—just as she helps me with almost everything,” the father told me last year. “I knew who I wanted to vote for, and I signed the ballot myself.”
At the first of Lula Smart’s three trials, Quitman resident Bessie Hamilton testified that one of Kemp’s investigators came to the doctor's office where she worked, took her into an unused break room, and intimidated her into signing a statement against Smart. “I was scared,” she said on the stand. “This man came to my job with a gun, and on top of that, he told me I could have went to jail.”
Last September—four years after the election in question—a jury in Quitman cleared Lula Smart on every count against her. This past December, the state dropped all of its remaining charges against the group. A dozen arrests netted not a single conviction or plea deal in Quitman. (One member of the group died in 2012.)
But the damage to those targeted in Quitman was already done. Quitman resident Sandra Cody told me that, last November, she and another member of the group were removed from their longtime Head Start teaching jobs because of the pending voting charges. “They said were not supposed to be around children,” Cody said, “because we have this on our record.”
Although the charges were dropped weeks after their removal, bureaucratic red tape delayed their return to those jobs until February. Cody told me that, in addition to the years of stress resulting from the now-dismissed felony charges, she fell behind on her rent and utility bills because of the loss of work.
•••••
By Spencer Woodman
May 5, 2015
•••••
Quitman, a town of fewer than 4,000 people, sits in Brooks County, Georgia, ten short miles to the Florida state line. In 2010—for the first time in the county’s history—the county elected a majority-black school board. This upset victory followed a sudden surge in local black voting that was catalyzed by a group of get-out-the-vote activists.
•••••
For weeks after the historic primary, Kemp’s armed investigators, along with officials from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, went door-to-door in Quitman’s black neighborhoods. Without evidence of actual voter fraud in Quitman, the state’s case against the town’s voting activists came to rely on allegations of less glaring breaches of absentee ballot procedure.
Echoing Kemp’s investigation into AALAC, many accusations against those in Quitman focused on voting organizers improperly possessing voters' materials. (The Quitman investigation was spurred by a local district attorney with strong enough connections to the county's white school board members that he could not work on the case.)
State agents arrested a dozen voting organizers, three of whom had won seats on the county school board. With the charges pending, Georgia’s Republican governor, Nathan Deal, issued an executive order temporarily removing those women from their posts, reinstating the county’s white-majority school board.
•••••
Another Quitman resident, Debra Dennard, faced two felony charges of voter fraud for helping her father fill out his absentee ballot. Her father, David Dennard, is missing both legs and is partially blind. Mr. Dennard says that with his daughter’s assistance he voted for just who he wanted to without any coercion or meddling. “All she did was help me—just as she helps me with almost everything,” the father told me last year. “I knew who I wanted to vote for, and I signed the ballot myself.”
At the first of Lula Smart’s three trials, Quitman resident Bessie Hamilton testified that one of Kemp’s investigators came to the doctor's office where she worked, took her into an unused break room, and intimidated her into signing a statement against Smart. “I was scared,” she said on the stand. “This man came to my job with a gun, and on top of that, he told me I could have went to jail.”
Last September—four years after the election in question—a jury in Quitman cleared Lula Smart on every count against her. This past December, the state dropped all of its remaining charges against the group. A dozen arrests netted not a single conviction or plea deal in Quitman. (One member of the group died in 2012.)
But the damage to those targeted in Quitman was already done. Quitman resident Sandra Cody told me that, last November, she and another member of the group were removed from their longtime Head Start teaching jobs because of the pending voting charges. “They said were not supposed to be around children,” Cody said, “because we have this on our record.”
Although the charges were dropped weeks after their removal, bureaucratic red tape delayed their return to those jobs until February. Cody told me that, in addition to the years of stress resulting from the now-dismissed felony charges, she fell behind on her rent and utility bills because of the loss of work.
•••••
Chicago agrees to pay $5.5m to victims of police torture in 1970s and 80s
British media often does a more thorough job of reporting on important U.S. news than U.S. media does.http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/06/chicago-police-torture-victims-deal
Zach Stafford in Chicago, Spencer Ackerman and Joanna Walters
Wednesday 6 May 2015
Chicago approved an unprecedented deal on Wednesday to compensate victims tortured in police custody in the 1970s and 80s under the regime of a notorious former police commander, in an attempt to close a dark chapter in the city’s history.
•••••
Chicago city council voted to award a total of $5.5m to help survivors, almost all African American men, who were mistreated in a long episode of police brutality that ran throughout the 70s and 80s under Jon Burge.
The funds will be used to pay up to $100,000 per individual for living survivors with valid claims to have been tortured in police custody during Burge’s command.
•••••
From 1972 through 1991, Burge and officers under his command tortured more than 100 African Americans, largely in impoverished sections of Chicago’s South Side, in a systematic regime of violence and intimidation.
Men in custody were subjected to electric shocks, burns and mock executions, among other brutal acts, predominantly in order to extract confessions.
Burge ran a group of rogue detectives known as the Midnight Crew who led the violence.
There are allegations that officers used suffocation on those in their custody and forced men to play “Russian roulette”.
Burge was fired in 1993 but was never charged with crimes directly stemming from the violence before the statute of limitations ran out. He was convicted in 2010 of obstruction of justice and perjury, in relation to a civil lawsuit alleging that he tortured citizens. He subsequently served four and a half years in prison before being released in 2014, and continues to draw a police pension.
•••••
World passes critical global warming milestone
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/world-passes-critical-global-warming-milestone/
ByMichael CaseyCBS NewsMay 6, 2015
The world has passed a worrying milestone, with concentrations of greenhouse gases reaching levels not seen for millions of years.
For the first time, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Wednesday that global concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in March passed 400 parts per million.
The landmark has long been expected, given that nations led by the United States, China and India continue to pump huge quantities of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. But the fact it has now been reached could provide additional urgency to reaching a global pact to cap emissions when world leaders meet in Paris on the issue later this year.
"It was only a matter of time that we would average 400 parts per million globally," said Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA's Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network. "We first reported 400 ppm when all of our Arctic sites reached that value in the spring of 2012. In 2013 the record at NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory first crossed the 400-ppm threshold. Reaching 400 parts per million as a global average is a significant milestone."
The burning of fossil fuels has caused global carbon dioxide concentrations to rise more than 120 parts per million since pre-industrial times," added Tans. "Half of that rise has occurred since 1980."
And the latest NOAA data shows the recent years have been among the worst. The average growth rate of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere from 2012 to 2014 was 2.25 ppm per year, the highest ever recorded over a period of three consecutive years.
Ed Dlugokencky, the NOAA scientist who manages the global network, said he expected the global average will remain above 400 ppm through May, the time of year when global carbon dioxide concentrations peak due to natural cycles on top of the persistent rising greenhouse gases.
And experts say reversing this trend is unlikely.
"Elimination of about 80 percent of fossil fuel emissions would essentially stop the rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but concentrations of carbon dioxide would not start decreasing until even further reductions are made and then it would only do so slowly," James Butler, director of NOAA's Global Monitoring Division.
Temperatures have also been warming in line with the rising emissions.
The world hit a record for the warmest year in 2014 and the trend continued with this winter being the warmest ever. Last month was less extreme, with NOAA reporting Wednesday that April was only the 17th warmest on record - with an average temperature of 53.1°F, or 2.1°F above the 20th century average - in the contiguous United States. Many parts of the U.S. were warmer than average, especially the Southeast.
ByMichael CaseyCBS NewsMay 6, 2015
The world has passed a worrying milestone, with concentrations of greenhouse gases reaching levels not seen for millions of years.
For the first time, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Wednesday that global concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in March passed 400 parts per million.
The landmark has long been expected, given that nations led by the United States, China and India continue to pump huge quantities of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. But the fact it has now been reached could provide additional urgency to reaching a global pact to cap emissions when world leaders meet in Paris on the issue later this year.
"It was only a matter of time that we would average 400 parts per million globally," said Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA's Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network. "We first reported 400 ppm when all of our Arctic sites reached that value in the spring of 2012. In 2013 the record at NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory first crossed the 400-ppm threshold. Reaching 400 parts per million as a global average is a significant milestone."
The burning of fossil fuels has caused global carbon dioxide concentrations to rise more than 120 parts per million since pre-industrial times," added Tans. "Half of that rise has occurred since 1980."
And the latest NOAA data shows the recent years have been among the worst. The average growth rate of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere from 2012 to 2014 was 2.25 ppm per year, the highest ever recorded over a period of three consecutive years.
Ed Dlugokencky, the NOAA scientist who manages the global network, said he expected the global average will remain above 400 ppm through May, the time of year when global carbon dioxide concentrations peak due to natural cycles on top of the persistent rising greenhouse gases.
And experts say reversing this trend is unlikely.
"Elimination of about 80 percent of fossil fuel emissions would essentially stop the rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but concentrations of carbon dioxide would not start decreasing until even further reductions are made and then it would only do so slowly," James Butler, director of NOAA's Global Monitoring Division.
Temperatures have also been warming in line with the rising emissions.
The world hit a record for the warmest year in 2014 and the trend continued with this winter being the warmest ever. Last month was less extreme, with NOAA reporting Wednesday that April was only the 17th warmest on record - with an average temperature of 53.1°F, or 2.1°F above the 20th century average - in the contiguous United States. Many parts of the U.S. were warmer than average, especially the Southeast.
'The GOP’s War on Science Gets Worse'
This is immoral.http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2015/05/the-gops-war-on-science-gets-worse.html
Elizabeth Kolbert at the New Yorker:
The G.O.P.’s War on Science Gets Worse: During last fall’s midterm election campaign, “I’m not a scientist” became a standard Republican answer to questions about climate change. ... Now, it seems, they are trying to go one better. They are trying to prevent even scientists from being scientists.
Last week, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, headed by Texas Republican Lamar Smith, approved a bill that would slash at least three hundred million dollars from NASA’s earth-science budget. “Earth science, of course, includes climate science,” Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Texas Democrat who is also on the committee, noted. ... Defunding NASA’s earth-science program takes willed ignorance one giant leap further. It means that not only will climate studies be ignored; some potentially useful data won’t even be collected. ...
The vote on the NASA bill came just a week after the same House committee approved major funding cuts to the National Science Foundation’s geosciences program, as well as cuts to Department of Energy programs that support research into new energy sources. ...
“It’s hard to believe that in order to serve an ideological agenda, the majority is willing to slash the science that helps us have a better understanding of our home planet,” Representative Johnson wrote. Hard to believe, but, unfortunately, true.
When bosses 'serve' their employees, everything improves
This totally fits my own experience as an employee.http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/ub-wb042915.php
Public Release: 6-May-2015
University of Illinois at Chicago
UIC Business
When managers create a culture where employees know the boss puts employees' needs over his or her own, measureable improvements in customer satisfaction, higher job performance by employees, and lower turnover are the result, according to research by Robert Liden, Sandy Wayne, Chenwei Liao, and Jeremy Meuser, that has just been published in the Academy of Management Journal.
Employees feel the most valued, and in return give back to the company and its customers when their bosses create a culture of trust, caring, cooperation, fairness and empathy. According to Sandy Wayne one of the authors of the research, "The best business leadership style is far from, 'Do this. Don't do that.' A servant leader looks and sounds a lot more like, 'Is there anything I can do to help you?' Or, 'Let me help you....' Or, 'What do you need to...?' This approach helps employees reach their full potential."
The corresponding admiration employees have for bosses who care about them manifests itself in teamwork, loyalty and dedication to the business and its customers. The leadership style trickles down. Wayne said, "It's contagious. The employees see their leaders as role models and often mimic those qualities, creating a culture of servant leadership. This serving culture drives the effectiveness of the business as a whole."
•••••
Fecal microbiota transplant cures C. diff, blocks multi-drug resistant pathogens
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/asfm-fmt050615.php
Public Release: 6-May-2015
American Society for Microbiology
A fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) not only cured a case of Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infection in a 66 year old man; it eliminated populations of multi-drug resistant organisms both in the patient's gastrointestinal tract, and several other body sites. This case report is published ahead of print April 15 in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology.
The patient suffered from quadriplegia and multiple other conditions, requiring a ventilator, a feeding tube, and chronic foley catheterization. As a result of his complex medical needs, he was admitted to the intensive care unit at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, California. Within the first week, he was diagnosed with C. diff colitis, and treated with oral antibiotics. However, whenever the antibiotics were tapered, the C. diff rapidly relapsed. Concurrently, a number of multi-drug resistant organisms were isolated from the patient, which led to repeated infections.
Ultimately, the doctors suggested fecal microbiota transplant, and the patient's sister volunteered to be the donor, and passed the screening tests for infectious diseases and parasites. The doctors injected the material using a colonoscope, after discontinuation of antibiotics.
During the next two years and until the patient died, the C. diff never returned. Although methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) did recolonize his urinary tract several months after the fecal transplant, the many other antibiotic-resistant microbes did not, despite his ongoing stay in the intensive care unit.
•••••
"Intriguingly, we additionally found that by letting the normal bacteria replenish his gastrointestinal tract, the resistant bacteria which had plagued him up to that point, disappeared from his body."
"Patients, especially those in long-term facilities, receive numerous courses of antibiotics that almost invariably result in both colonization and infections from multi-drug resistant organisms, and in the end with bacteria resistant to all antibiotics," said coauthor Gonzalo Ballon-Landa, MD, also an infectious disease specialist at Scripps Mercy Hospital. "This paper indicates that replenishing the normal gut flora and keeping these patients off antibiotics can result in the disappearance of multi-drug resistant organisms from the patients' bodies and thus potentially save their lives."
Clostridium difficile causes inflammation of the large intestine, resulting in diarrhea. It is particularly a problem in older adults receiving hospital care, and caused an estimated half million infections in 2011, with 29,000 deaths occurring within 30 days post-diagnosis, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
•••••
Public Release: 6-May-2015
American Society for Microbiology
A fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) not only cured a case of Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infection in a 66 year old man; it eliminated populations of multi-drug resistant organisms both in the patient's gastrointestinal tract, and several other body sites. This case report is published ahead of print April 15 in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology.
The patient suffered from quadriplegia and multiple other conditions, requiring a ventilator, a feeding tube, and chronic foley catheterization. As a result of his complex medical needs, he was admitted to the intensive care unit at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, California. Within the first week, he was diagnosed with C. diff colitis, and treated with oral antibiotics. However, whenever the antibiotics were tapered, the C. diff rapidly relapsed. Concurrently, a number of multi-drug resistant organisms were isolated from the patient, which led to repeated infections.
Ultimately, the doctors suggested fecal microbiota transplant, and the patient's sister volunteered to be the donor, and passed the screening tests for infectious diseases and parasites. The doctors injected the material using a colonoscope, after discontinuation of antibiotics.
During the next two years and until the patient died, the C. diff never returned. Although methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) did recolonize his urinary tract several months after the fecal transplant, the many other antibiotic-resistant microbes did not, despite his ongoing stay in the intensive care unit.
•••••
"Intriguingly, we additionally found that by letting the normal bacteria replenish his gastrointestinal tract, the resistant bacteria which had plagued him up to that point, disappeared from his body."
"Patients, especially those in long-term facilities, receive numerous courses of antibiotics that almost invariably result in both colonization and infections from multi-drug resistant organisms, and in the end with bacteria resistant to all antibiotics," said coauthor Gonzalo Ballon-Landa, MD, also an infectious disease specialist at Scripps Mercy Hospital. "This paper indicates that replenishing the normal gut flora and keeping these patients off antibiotics can result in the disappearance of multi-drug resistant organisms from the patients' bodies and thus potentially save their lives."
Clostridium difficile causes inflammation of the large intestine, resulting in diarrhea. It is particularly a problem in older adults receiving hospital care, and caused an estimated half million infections in 2011, with 29,000 deaths occurring within 30 days post-diagnosis, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
•••••
Sea lion strandings -- The view from the rookery
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/nnmf-sls050615.php
Public Release: 6-May-2015
NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service
For a few months now, sea lion pups have been stranding on the coast of Southern California. So many have washed up, emaciated and exhausted, that marine mammal care centers can scarcely hold them all. But while most people first notice the pups on the beach, their desperate plight began on the Channel Islands, which are about 25 miles offshore of Santa Barbara. Those islands are home to the sea lion rookeries where the pups are born and where they spend the first year of life.
Many pups at the rookeries are going hungry, according to Sharon Melin, a wildlife biologist with the NOAA Fisheries National Marine Mammal Laboratory who recently returned from 3 weeks of fieldwork on the Channel Islands.
In this podcast, Melin explains that unusually warm water along the Pacific coast has sent sardines, anchovies, and other prey species north or deeper in search of cooler water. As a result, sea lion mothers are having trouble finding enough food to nurse their pups.
Many of the pups eventually set off on their own desperate search for food. But the pups, weak and lacking the experience they need to forage on their own, wash up on the mainland instead.
Public Release: 6-May-2015
NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service
For a few months now, sea lion pups have been stranding on the coast of Southern California. So many have washed up, emaciated and exhausted, that marine mammal care centers can scarcely hold them all. But while most people first notice the pups on the beach, their desperate plight began on the Channel Islands, which are about 25 miles offshore of Santa Barbara. Those islands are home to the sea lion rookeries where the pups are born and where they spend the first year of life.
Many pups at the rookeries are going hungry, according to Sharon Melin, a wildlife biologist with the NOAA Fisheries National Marine Mammal Laboratory who recently returned from 3 weeks of fieldwork on the Channel Islands.
In this podcast, Melin explains that unusually warm water along the Pacific coast has sent sardines, anchovies, and other prey species north or deeper in search of cooler water. As a result, sea lion mothers are having trouble finding enough food to nurse their pups.
Many of the pups eventually set off on their own desperate search for food. But the pups, weak and lacking the experience they need to forage on their own, wash up on the mainland instead.
Viewing violent news on social media can cause trauma
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/bps-vvn050615.php
Public Release: 6-May-2015
British Psychological Society
Viewing violent news events via social media can cause people to experience symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
This is one of the findings by Dr Pam Ramsden from the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Bradford that will be presented today, Thursday 7 May 2015, at the Annual Conference of the British Psychology Society being held in Liverpool.
Dr Ramsden explained: "The negative effects of exposure to other people's suffering have long been recognised in roles such as professional healthcare workers. Various studies have documented the negative psychological reactions following indirect exposure to traumatised people called vicarious traumatisation."
"Social media has enabled violent stories and graphic images to be watched by the public in unedited horrific detail. Watching these events and feeling the anguish of those directly experiencing them may impact on our daily lives.
•••••
Analysis indicated that 22 per cent of participants were significantly affected by the media events. These individuals scored high on clinical measures of PTSD even though none had previous trauma, were not present at the traumatic events and had only watched them via social media. Those who reported viewing the events more often were most affected.
Dr Ramsden said: "It is quite worrying that nearly a quarter of those who viewed the images scored high on clinical measures of PTSD. There was also an increased risk for those with outgoing, extroverted personalities. With increased access to social media and the internet via tablets and smartphones, we need to ensure that people are aware of the risks of viewing these images and that appropriate support is available for those who need it."
Public Release: 6-May-2015
British Psychological Society
Viewing violent news events via social media can cause people to experience symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
This is one of the findings by Dr Pam Ramsden from the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Bradford that will be presented today, Thursday 7 May 2015, at the Annual Conference of the British Psychology Society being held in Liverpool.
Dr Ramsden explained: "The negative effects of exposure to other people's suffering have long been recognised in roles such as professional healthcare workers. Various studies have documented the negative psychological reactions following indirect exposure to traumatised people called vicarious traumatisation."
"Social media has enabled violent stories and graphic images to be watched by the public in unedited horrific detail. Watching these events and feeling the anguish of those directly experiencing them may impact on our daily lives.
•••••
Analysis indicated that 22 per cent of participants were significantly affected by the media events. These individuals scored high on clinical measures of PTSD even though none had previous trauma, were not present at the traumatic events and had only watched them via social media. Those who reported viewing the events more often were most affected.
Dr Ramsden said: "It is quite worrying that nearly a quarter of those who viewed the images scored high on clinical measures of PTSD. There was also an increased risk for those with outgoing, extroverted personalities. With increased access to social media and the internet via tablets and smartphones, we need to ensure that people are aware of the risks of viewing these images and that appropriate support is available for those who need it."
Tuesday, May 05, 2015
Eta Aquarid meteor shower
http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-eta-aquarid-meteor-shower
By Bruce McClure
May 05, 2015
A meteor shower is peaking tomorrow morning – May 6, 2015 – that should make our friends in the Southern Hemisphere happy. The Eta Aquarid shower, which can also be seen on the morning of May 7, is a fine one to view from tropical and southerly latitudes. At mid-northern latitudes, these meteors don’t fall so abundantly, though mid-northern meteor watchers will catch some, too, and might be lucky enough to catch an earthgrazer – a bright, long-lasting meteor that travels horizontally across the sky – before dawn. Because the Eta Aquarids are mainly a predawn shower, the full and waning gibbous [moon] in early May will interfere with the shower. Follow the links below to learn more about the Eta Aquarid meteor shower.
[see original article for more links.
http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-eta-aquarid-meteor-shower#how-many
Halley’s Comet is the source of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. Every year, our planet Earth crosses the orbital path of Halley’s Comet in late April and May, so bits and pieces from this comet light up the nighttime as Eta Aquarid meteors. This shower is said to be active from April 19 to May 20, although Earth plows most deeply into this stream of comet debris around May 5 or 6.
The comet dust smashes into Earth’s upper atmosphere at nearly 240,000 kilometers (150,000 miles) per hour. Roughly half of these swift-moving meteors leave persistent trains – ionized gas trails that glow for a few seconds after the meteor has passed.
Our planet also crosses the orbital path of Halley’s Comet at the other end of the year, giving rise to the Orionid meteor shower, which is usually at its best in the predawn hours on or near October 21.
Why not see how many Eta Aquarid meteors you’ll catch in the dark hours before dawn on May 5, 6 and 7.
Bottom line: What’s a good shower for the Southern Hemisphere? In 2015, the next one will be the Eta Aquarid shower on the mornings of May 5, 6, and 7. How to watch, some history, chart showing radiant point in this post.
By Bruce McClure
May 05, 2015
A meteor shower is peaking tomorrow morning – May 6, 2015 – that should make our friends in the Southern Hemisphere happy. The Eta Aquarid shower, which can also be seen on the morning of May 7, is a fine one to view from tropical and southerly latitudes. At mid-northern latitudes, these meteors don’t fall so abundantly, though mid-northern meteor watchers will catch some, too, and might be lucky enough to catch an earthgrazer – a bright, long-lasting meteor that travels horizontally across the sky – before dawn. Because the Eta Aquarids are mainly a predawn shower, the full and waning gibbous [moon] in early May will interfere with the shower. Follow the links below to learn more about the Eta Aquarid meteor shower.
[see original article for more links.
http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-eta-aquarid-meteor-shower#how-many
Halley’s Comet is the source of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. Every year, our planet Earth crosses the orbital path of Halley’s Comet in late April and May, so bits and pieces from this comet light up the nighttime as Eta Aquarid meteors. This shower is said to be active from April 19 to May 20, although Earth plows most deeply into this stream of comet debris around May 5 or 6.
The comet dust smashes into Earth’s upper atmosphere at nearly 240,000 kilometers (150,000 miles) per hour. Roughly half of these swift-moving meteors leave persistent trains – ionized gas trails that glow for a few seconds after the meteor has passed.
Our planet also crosses the orbital path of Halley’s Comet at the other end of the year, giving rise to the Orionid meteor shower, which is usually at its best in the predawn hours on or near October 21.
Why not see how many Eta Aquarid meteors you’ll catch in the dark hours before dawn on May 5, 6 and 7.
Bottom line: What’s a good shower for the Southern Hemisphere? In 2015, the next one will be the Eta Aquarid shower on the mornings of May 5, 6, and 7. How to watch, some history, chart showing radiant point in this post.
Treating gum disease reduces prostate symptoms, CWRU researchers find
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/cwru-tgd050515.php
Public Release: 5-May-2015
Case Western Reserve University
Treating gum disease reduced symptoms of prostate inflammation, called prostatitis, report researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine and the Departments of Urology and Pathology at University Hospitals Case Medical Center.
Previous studies have found a link between gum disease and prostatitis, a disease that inflames the gland that produces semen. Inflammation can make urination difficult.
•••••
Bissada explained that gum disease not only affects the mouth, but is a system-wide condition that can cause inflammation in various parts of the body. The dental school has previously found a link between gum disease and fetal deaths, rheumatoid arthritis and heart disease.
•••••
During the periodontal care, the men received no treatment for their prostate conditions. But even without prostate treatment, 21 of the 27 men showed decreased levels of PSA. Those with the highest levels of inflammation benefited the most from the periodontal treatment. Six participants showed no changes.
Symptom scores on the IPSS test also showed improvement.
Bissada is now conducting follow-up research to support the first study's findings. He hopes to make periodontal treatment a standard part of treating prostate disease, much like cardiac patients are often encouraged to visit their dentist before undergoing heart procedures and a dental checkup is advised for women who are pregnant or considering pregnancy.
Public Release: 5-May-2015
Case Western Reserve University
Treating gum disease reduced symptoms of prostate inflammation, called prostatitis, report researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine and the Departments of Urology and Pathology at University Hospitals Case Medical Center.
Previous studies have found a link between gum disease and prostatitis, a disease that inflames the gland that produces semen. Inflammation can make urination difficult.
•••••
Bissada explained that gum disease not only affects the mouth, but is a system-wide condition that can cause inflammation in various parts of the body. The dental school has previously found a link between gum disease and fetal deaths, rheumatoid arthritis and heart disease.
•••••
During the periodontal care, the men received no treatment for their prostate conditions. But even without prostate treatment, 21 of the 27 men showed decreased levels of PSA. Those with the highest levels of inflammation benefited the most from the periodontal treatment. Six participants showed no changes.
Symptom scores on the IPSS test also showed improvement.
Bissada is now conducting follow-up research to support the first study's findings. He hopes to make periodontal treatment a standard part of treating prostate disease, much like cardiac patients are often encouraged to visit their dentist before undergoing heart procedures and a dental checkup is advised for women who are pregnant or considering pregnancy.
The dark side of cannabis
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/dai-tds050515.php
Public Release: 5-May-2015
Deutsches Aerzteblatt International
Although the use of cannabis as a medical drug is currently booming (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2012; 109: 495-501), we should not forget that leisure time consumption--for example, smoking weed--can cause acute and chronic harms. These include panic attacks, impaired coordination of movement, and nausea, as Eva Hoch and colleagues show in a topical review article in Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2015; 112: 271-8). The symptoms depend on a patient's age, the amount of the drug consumed, and the frequency of drug use. It also matters in which form the cannabis is consumed--for example, as a joint, bong, or hash cake.
Cannabis is the most popular illegal drug in Germany and was consumed by almost one in 20 adults in Germany last year. An estimated one in 10 consumers will become dependent. This is critical especially for adolescents, because they are more prone to becoming dependent than adults.
•••••
Public Release: 5-May-2015
Deutsches Aerzteblatt International
Although the use of cannabis as a medical drug is currently booming (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2012; 109: 495-501), we should not forget that leisure time consumption--for example, smoking weed--can cause acute and chronic harms. These include panic attacks, impaired coordination of movement, and nausea, as Eva Hoch and colleagues show in a topical review article in Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2015; 112: 271-8). The symptoms depend on a patient's age, the amount of the drug consumed, and the frequency of drug use. It also matters in which form the cannabis is consumed--for example, as a joint, bong, or hash cake.
Cannabis is the most popular illegal drug in Germany and was consumed by almost one in 20 adults in Germany last year. An estimated one in 10 consumers will become dependent. This is critical especially for adolescents, because they are more prone to becoming dependent than adults.
•••••
Childhood maltreatment linked to sleep problems among adult Canadians
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/uot-cml050515.php
Public Release: 5-May-2015
University of Toronto
Adults who experienced multiple incidents of childhood maltreatment were more than two times as likely to have trouble sleeping than their counterparts who were not maltreated during childhood, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto, University of Ottawa, and Western University. The study appears online in the journal Sleep Medicine.
"We found a significant association between childhood maltreatment and difficulty sleeping later in life," says lead author Philip Baiden, a PhD Student at the University of Toronto's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. "Initially, we thought that the link would be explained by factors such as chronic conditions, chronic pain, and mental health problems - factors which the extant literature has found to be associated with trouble sleeping - but even after adjusting for 15 potential explanatory factors, we found that each additional type of childhood maltreatment experienced increased the odds of having trouble sleeping later in life by 10%." Past studies have "consistently found that early childhood adversities such as emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, and neglect are risk factors for poor physical and mental health later in life, our study suggests that these early childhood adversities are also related to trouble sleeping later in life."
•••••
Public Release: 5-May-2015
University of Toronto
Adults who experienced multiple incidents of childhood maltreatment were more than two times as likely to have trouble sleeping than their counterparts who were not maltreated during childhood, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto, University of Ottawa, and Western University. The study appears online in the journal Sleep Medicine.
"We found a significant association between childhood maltreatment and difficulty sleeping later in life," says lead author Philip Baiden, a PhD Student at the University of Toronto's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. "Initially, we thought that the link would be explained by factors such as chronic conditions, chronic pain, and mental health problems - factors which the extant literature has found to be associated with trouble sleeping - but even after adjusting for 15 potential explanatory factors, we found that each additional type of childhood maltreatment experienced increased the odds of having trouble sleeping later in life by 10%." Past studies have "consistently found that early childhood adversities such as emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, and neglect are risk factors for poor physical and mental health later in life, our study suggests that these early childhood adversities are also related to trouble sleeping later in life."
•••••
Two degrees warming a 'prescription for disaster' says top climate scientist James Hansen
1 meter (metre) = 3.2808399 fthttp://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/paris-2015-two-degrees-warming-a-prescription-for-disaster-says-top-climate-scientist-james-hansen-20150504-ggu33w.html
Peter Hannam
May 5, 2015
The aim to limit global warming to two degrees of pre-industrial levels is "crazy" and "a prescription for disaster", according to a long-time NASA climate scientist.
The paleo-climate record shows sea-levels were six to eight metres (19 to 26 feet) higher than current levels when global temperatures were less than two degrees warmer than they are now, Professor James Hansen, formerly head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and now at Columbia University in New York, said.
"It's crazy to think that 2 degrees celsius is a safe limit," Professor Hansen told RN Breakfast on ABC Radio on Tuesday, adding that this would lock in several metres of sea-level rise by the middle of the century,
New satellite data over the past decade indicate that the ice sheets are disintegrating faster than had been modelled by climate scientists.
"The ice sheets are losing mass faster and faster, with a doubling time of about 10 years," Professor Hansen said. "If that continues, we would get sea-level rises of several metres by 40-50 years."
"The consequences are almost unthinkable. It would mean that all coastal cities would become dysfunctional," he told ABC Radio.
Even the goal of limiting warming by two degrees is looking like it is unlikely to be met. A study out this week by Lord Nicholas Stern and colleagues found that the commitment and likely pledges by nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 fall about half short of the reductions needed to restrict the two-degree increase on pre-industrial levels.
•••••
The first three months of 2015 - and the past 12 months - were also the hottest in 136 years of data, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said last month.
•••••
Republican Texas Governor Deploys State Guard To Stave Off Obama Takeover
Another bat-shit crazy looney Republican governor. I'm sorry if you are a Republican and don't like that, but I don't know of any current Democratic governor that approaches this level of weirdness.http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2015/05/02/403865824/texas-governor-deploys-state-guard-to-stave-off-obama-takeover
Wade Goodwyn
May 2, 2015
Since Gen. Sam Houston executed his famous retreat to glory to defeat the superior forces of Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Texas has been ground zero for military training. We have so many military bases in the Lone Star State we could practically attack Russia.
So when rookie Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced he was ordering the Texas State Guard to monitor a Navy SEAL/Green Beret joint training exercise, which was taking place in Texas and several other states, everybody here looked up from their iPhones. What?
It seems there is concern among some folks that this so-called training maneuver is just a cover story. What's really going on? President Obama is about to use Special Forces to put Texas under martial law.
•••••
Former Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst tried to put it in perspective for outsiders when he explained, "Unfortunately, some Texans have projected their legitimate concerns about the competence and trustworthiness of President Barack Obama on these noble warriors. This must stop."
Another former Republican politician was a bit more pointed.
"Your letter pandering to idiots ... has left me livid," former state Rep. Todd Smith wrote Abbott. "I am horrified that I have to choose between the possibility that my Governor actually believes this stuff and the possibility that my Governor doesn't have the backbone to stand up to those who do."
•••••
Monday, May 04, 2015
Race, Class and Neglect
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2015/05/paul-krugman-race-class-and-neglect.html
Monday, May 04, 2015
Race, Class and Neglect, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: ...the riots in Baltimore, destructive as they are, have served at least one useful purpose: drawing attention to the grotesque inequalities that poison the lives of too many Americans.
Yet I do worry that the centrality of race and racism to this particular story may convey the false impression that debilitating poverty and alienation from society are uniquely black experiences. In fact, much though by no means all of the horror one sees in Baltimore and many other places is really about class, about the devastating effects of extreme and rising inequality.
Take, for example, issues of health and mortality. Many people have pointed out that there are ... black neighborhoods in Baltimore where life expectancy compares unfavorably with impoverished Third World nations. But what’s really striking on a national basis is the way class disparities in death rates have been soaring even among whites.
Most notably,... life expectancy among less educated whites has been falling at rates reminiscent of the collapse of life expectancy in post-Communist Russia. And yes, these excess deaths are the result of inequality and lack of opportunity...
•••••
The great sociologist William Julius Wilson argued long ago that widely-decried social changes among blacks, like the decline of traditional families, were actually caused by the disappearance of well-paying jobs in inner cities. His argument contained an implicit prediction: if other racial groups were to face a similar loss of job opportunity, their behavior would change in similar ways.
And so it has proved. Lagging wages — actually declining in real terms for half of working men — and work instability have been followed by sharp declines in marriage, rising births out of wedlock, and more. ...
The point is that there is no excuse for fatalism as we contemplate the evils of poverty in America. Shrugging your shoulders as you attribute it all to values is an act of malign neglect. The poor don’t need lectures on morality, they need more resources — which we can afford to provide — and better economic opportunities, which we can also afford to provide through everything from training and subsidies to higher minimum wages. Baltimore, and America, don’t have to be as unjust as they are.
Monday, May 04, 2015
Race, Class and Neglect, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: ...the riots in Baltimore, destructive as they are, have served at least one useful purpose: drawing attention to the grotesque inequalities that poison the lives of too many Americans.
Yet I do worry that the centrality of race and racism to this particular story may convey the false impression that debilitating poverty and alienation from society are uniquely black experiences. In fact, much though by no means all of the horror one sees in Baltimore and many other places is really about class, about the devastating effects of extreme and rising inequality.
Take, for example, issues of health and mortality. Many people have pointed out that there are ... black neighborhoods in Baltimore where life expectancy compares unfavorably with impoverished Third World nations. But what’s really striking on a national basis is the way class disparities in death rates have been soaring even among whites.
Most notably,... life expectancy among less educated whites has been falling at rates reminiscent of the collapse of life expectancy in post-Communist Russia. And yes, these excess deaths are the result of inequality and lack of opportunity...
•••••
The great sociologist William Julius Wilson argued long ago that widely-decried social changes among blacks, like the decline of traditional families, were actually caused by the disappearance of well-paying jobs in inner cities. His argument contained an implicit prediction: if other racial groups were to face a similar loss of job opportunity, their behavior would change in similar ways.
And so it has proved. Lagging wages — actually declining in real terms for half of working men — and work instability have been followed by sharp declines in marriage, rising births out of wedlock, and more. ...
The point is that there is no excuse for fatalism as we contemplate the evils of poverty in America. Shrugging your shoulders as you attribute it all to values is an act of malign neglect. The poor don’t need lectures on morality, they need more resources — which we can afford to provide — and better economic opportunities, which we can also afford to provide through everything from training and subsidies to higher minimum wages. Baltimore, and America, don’t have to be as unjust as they are.
Exposure to air pollution in the first year of life increases risk for allergies
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/uobc-eta050315.php
Public Release: 4-May-2015
University of British Columbia
New research from the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) study shows that exposure to outdoor air pollution during the first year of life increases the risk of developing allergies to food, mould, pets and pests.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, showed that the sensitivity to allergens was associated with exposure to traffic-related air pollution during infancy.
•••••
The study also found that children who live with furry pets and no attached garage were more likely to have no sensitivity to allergens.
•••••
"We also found that children who attended daycare or with older siblings in the household were less likely to develop allergic sensitization, suggesting that exposure to other children can be protective."
•••••
Public Release: 4-May-2015
University of British Columbia
New research from the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) study shows that exposure to outdoor air pollution during the first year of life increases the risk of developing allergies to food, mould, pets and pests.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, showed that the sensitivity to allergens was associated with exposure to traffic-related air pollution during infancy.
•••••
The study also found that children who live with furry pets and no attached garage were more likely to have no sensitivity to allergens.
•••••
"We also found that children who attended daycare or with older siblings in the household were less likely to develop allergic sensitization, suggesting that exposure to other children can be protective."
•••••
'Performance enhancing' drugs decrease performance
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/uoa-ed050415.php
Public Release: 4-May-2015
University of Adelaide
Doping is damaging the image of sport without benefitting athletes' results, according to University of Adelaide research.
Researchers from the University's School of Medical Sciences collated sporting records (including Olympic and world records) of male and female athletes across 26 sports, between 1886 and 2012. Comparisons were made between pre-1932 records (when steroids became available) and post, and it was found that the times, distances and other results did not improve as expected in the doping era.
The findings were published in the Journal of Human Sport and Exercise.
•••••
Public Release: 4-May-2015
University of Adelaide
Doping is damaging the image of sport without benefitting athletes' results, according to University of Adelaide research.
Researchers from the University's School of Medical Sciences collated sporting records (including Olympic and world records) of male and female athletes across 26 sports, between 1886 and 2012. Comparisons were made between pre-1932 records (when steroids became available) and post, and it was found that the times, distances and other results did not improve as expected in the doping era.
The findings were published in the Journal of Human Sport and Exercise.
•••••
Trying to correct political myths may only entrench them further
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/miot-rhi050415.php
Public Release: 4-May-2015
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Bad news, fans of rational political discourse: A study by an MIT researcher shows that attempts to debunk political rumors may only reinforce their strength.
"Rumors are sticky," says Adam Berinsky, a professor of political science at MIT, and author of a paper detailing the study. "Corrections are difficult, and in some cases can even make the problem worse."
More specifically, Berinsky found in an experiment concerning the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that rebuttals of political rumors about the supposed existence of "death panels" sometimes increased belief in the myth among the public.
"Pure repetition, we know from psychology, makes information more powerful," Berinsky says.
In the case of the "death panels," Berinsky's research indicates that the best way to counteract these rumors is to find a political figure who could credibly debunk the rumor based on their broader political stand -- a Republican senator, for instance.
As Berinsky sees it, it is harder for a democracy to function well in a public environment pervaded by political myths. The nonexistent "death panels" were alleged to have decision-making power over whether citizens received health care; in reality, as Berinsky points out, the ACA had provisions to pay doctors for counseling patients about their end-of-life options. [Ie., finding out what the patients wanted.]
•••••
Public Release: 4-May-2015
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Bad news, fans of rational political discourse: A study by an MIT researcher shows that attempts to debunk political rumors may only reinforce their strength.
"Rumors are sticky," says Adam Berinsky, a professor of political science at MIT, and author of a paper detailing the study. "Corrections are difficult, and in some cases can even make the problem worse."
More specifically, Berinsky found in an experiment concerning the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that rebuttals of political rumors about the supposed existence of "death panels" sometimes increased belief in the myth among the public.
"Pure repetition, we know from psychology, makes information more powerful," Berinsky says.
In the case of the "death panels," Berinsky's research indicates that the best way to counteract these rumors is to find a political figure who could credibly debunk the rumor based on their broader political stand -- a Republican senator, for instance.
As Berinsky sees it, it is harder for a democracy to function well in a public environment pervaded by political myths. The nonexistent "death panels" were alleged to have decision-making power over whether citizens received health care; in reality, as Berinsky points out, the ACA had provisions to pay doctors for counseling patients about their end-of-life options. [Ie., finding out what the patients wanted.]
•••••
Moderate exercise may make cancer treatments more effective, kinesiologist finds
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/ksu-mem050415.php
Public Release: 4-May-2015
Moderate exercise may make cancer treatments more effective, kinesiologist finds
Kansas State University
Kansas State University kinesiology research offers encouraging information for cancer patients: A brisk walk or a slow jog on a regular basis may be the key to improved cancer treatments.
Brad Behnke, associate professor of exercise physiology, and collaborators have shown that moderate exercise on a regular basis enhances tumor oxygenation, which may improve treatments in cancer patients.
•••••
But the key is moderate exercise, said Behnke. Too little exercise may have no effect, but too much exercise may have a negative effect and may shut down blood flow to the tumor region or impair the immune system.
Moderate exercise is an activity that uses 30 to 60 percent of someone's aerobic capacity, Behnke said. The activity is nonstrenuous and is something that most people can perform, such as a brisk walk or a slow jog.
Research also has shown that moderate exercise can help cancer patients counteract some of the side effects of treatment -- such as low blood count, fatigue, cachexia and lost muscle mass -- which has led to many researchers labeling this as "aerobic exercise therapy" for patients with cancer, Behnke said.
•••••
Public Release: 4-May-2015
Moderate exercise may make cancer treatments more effective, kinesiologist finds
Kansas State University
Kansas State University kinesiology research offers encouraging information for cancer patients: A brisk walk or a slow jog on a regular basis may be the key to improved cancer treatments.
Brad Behnke, associate professor of exercise physiology, and collaborators have shown that moderate exercise on a regular basis enhances tumor oxygenation, which may improve treatments in cancer patients.
•••••
But the key is moderate exercise, said Behnke. Too little exercise may have no effect, but too much exercise may have a negative effect and may shut down blood flow to the tumor region or impair the immune system.
Moderate exercise is an activity that uses 30 to 60 percent of someone's aerobic capacity, Behnke said. The activity is nonstrenuous and is something that most people can perform, such as a brisk walk or a slow jog.
Research also has shown that moderate exercise can help cancer patients counteract some of the side effects of treatment -- such as low blood count, fatigue, cachexia and lost muscle mass -- which has led to many researchers labeling this as "aerobic exercise therapy" for patients with cancer, Behnke said.
•••••
How to help Nepal
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-04-25/how-help-nepal-7-vetted-charities-doing-relief-work-following-earthquake
April 25, 2015 · 7:00 PM EDT Updated: April 27, 2015 · 10:45 AM EDT
By Jared Goyette
After disasters, the best way to help is generally to donate money to effective and efficient charities that have an established presence on the ground. Charity Navigator is one of the leading resources for evaluating the work of nonprofits, and the organization has posted a list of highly-ranked charities that have mounted relief operations in the aftermath of the 7.8 magnitude temblor that originated outside the capital, Kathmandu.
•••••
Here are seven nonprofits that say they will provide relief in Nepal and that have received either a three- or four-star rating (out of a possible four) from Charity Navigator. [Update: We’ve added three more charities to the list.]
AmeriCares
CARE
Catholic Relief Services
Direct Relief
GlobalGiving
International Relief Teams
Operation USA
Save the Children
Seva Foundation
UNICEF
Oxfam
April 25, 2015 · 7:00 PM EDT Updated: April 27, 2015 · 10:45 AM EDT
By Jared Goyette
After disasters, the best way to help is generally to donate money to effective and efficient charities that have an established presence on the ground. Charity Navigator is one of the leading resources for evaluating the work of nonprofits, and the organization has posted a list of highly-ranked charities that have mounted relief operations in the aftermath of the 7.8 magnitude temblor that originated outside the capital, Kathmandu.
•••••
Here are seven nonprofits that say they will provide relief in Nepal and that have received either a three- or four-star rating (out of a possible four) from Charity Navigator. [Update: We’ve added three more charities to the list.]
AmeriCares
CARE
Catholic Relief Services
Direct Relief
GlobalGiving
International Relief Teams
Operation USA
Save the Children
Seva Foundation
UNICEF
Oxfam
Here’s Who Really Controls Politics in the U.S.
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/05/01/Here-s-Who-Really-Control-Politics-US?utm_campaign=548f5168cb03a93709042da0&utm_source=boomtrain&utm_medium=email&bt_alias=eyJ1c2VySWQiOiJmZmViMzM1Ny1jYjI3LTQxYTQtYmZiZi1mYzIyMTVmMTczNzgifQ%3D%3D
By Eric Pianin, The Fiscal Times
May 1, 2015
In an era when just about every major Republican and Democratic presidential aspirant has a campaign sugar daddy, the role of big money in politics has never been more crucial.
As The Washington Post noted this week, “Never have so many candidates entered a White House contest boosted by such huge sums.”
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In the 2014 elections, 31,976 donors — equal to about one percent of one percent of the total population of the United States – accounted for an astounding $1.18 billion in disclosed political contributions at the federal level, according to a new report by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Sunshine Foundation, two non-partisan campaign spending watchdogs.
“Those big givers — what we have termed the Political One Percent of the One Percent — have a massively outsized impact on federal campaigns,” according to the report.
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The $1.18 billion they contributed represents 29 percent of all fundraising that political committees disclosed to the Federal Election Commission in 2014.
Though both parties depend on these donors, the GOP received more from them than Democrats.
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“The donors at the very top of the money pyramid provided the financial fuel for many of the attack ads and other messages from independent organizations that filled the airwaves last year,” according to the report. A previous analysis by CRP found that the country’s top 100 donors accounted for 39 percent of the $696,011,919 raised by super PACs in the 2014 elections.”
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By Eric Pianin, The Fiscal Times
May 1, 2015
In an era when just about every major Republican and Democratic presidential aspirant has a campaign sugar daddy, the role of big money in politics has never been more crucial.
As The Washington Post noted this week, “Never have so many candidates entered a White House contest boosted by such huge sums.”
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In the 2014 elections, 31,976 donors — equal to about one percent of one percent of the total population of the United States – accounted for an astounding $1.18 billion in disclosed political contributions at the federal level, according to a new report by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Sunshine Foundation, two non-partisan campaign spending watchdogs.
“Those big givers — what we have termed the Political One Percent of the One Percent — have a massively outsized impact on federal campaigns,” according to the report.
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The $1.18 billion they contributed represents 29 percent of all fundraising that political committees disclosed to the Federal Election Commission in 2014.
Though both parties depend on these donors, the GOP received more from them than Democrats.
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“The donors at the very top of the money pyramid provided the financial fuel for many of the attack ads and other messages from independent organizations that filled the airwaves last year,” according to the report. A previous analysis by CRP found that the country’s top 100 donors accounted for 39 percent of the $696,011,919 raised by super PACs in the 2014 elections.”
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‘Dynamic Scoring’ is Hiding a $2 Trillion Hole in the GOP’s Balanced Budget
"Entitlement" spending includes Social Security and Medicare.http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/05/01/Dynamic-Scoring-Hiding-2-Trillion-Hole-GOP-s-Balanced-Budget?utm_campaign=548f5168cb03a93709042da0&utm_source=boomtrain&utm_medium=email&bt_alias=eyJ1c2VySWQiOiI0YTc0NTIxMy05ZTE2LTYzNWQtMTUxOC0zZjcxZDIyY2NkNjYifQ%3D%3D
By Eric Pianin, The Fiscal Times
May 1, 2015
Congressional Republicans vowed this year to take a more “dynamic” approach to budgeting in their drive to eliminate the deficit within a decade. Their goal – simply put -- was to squeeze out a lot more in projected revenues over the coming years through rosy assumptions about the long-term economic and budgetary impact of their tax and spending policies.
Shortly after the GOP took control of Congress in January, the House Republicans adopted a new rule requiring budget scorekeepers at the Congressional Budget Office and the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation to do an analysis of “major” legislation that projects the macroeconomic effects of the policy changes over time.
The analysis, known as “dynamic scoring,” has been controversial among economists dating back to the Reagan administration of the 1980s because it is so imprecise.
The end result – put on full display Thursday when the House adopted a fiscal 2016 budget blueprint along party lines, 226-197 – was far more a reflection of wishful thinking than hard-headed budgetary policy making. Republicans used dynamic scoring to hide a gaping $2 trillion hole in their “balanced budget.”
The new budget purports to reach balance by 2024 by cutting nearly $5.3 trillion in entitlement and discretionary spending from the current CBO spending projections but without increasing tax rates.
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At the same time Congress is rushing to pass a new budget and spending bills for the coming fiscal year, Republicans are extolling the importance of lowering taxes to help businesses and the economy. Indeed, House Ways and Means Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Finance Committee Chair Orrin Hatch (R-UT) are exploring ways to achieve “revenue neutral” corporate tax reforms that cut rates while eliminating costly or unnecessary tax loopholes.
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Republican lawmakers are using what Gray described as “Enron-style accounting gimmicks” to hide the reality that – as currently conceived -- the GOP’s new budget will never balance. And he says the “trickery” begins with the presence of nearly $2 trillion of bogus tax revenues over the next 10 years.
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Then there’s the matter of the $1 trillion of Obamacare tax revenues that presumably would disappear if the Republicans -- or the Supreme Court, for that matter – manage to strike down the Affordable Care Act this year. Those taxes were meant to defray the cost of the major subsidized health insurance program. An honest accountant would have written off that $1 trillion as collateral damage in the war against Obamacare. But the GOP budgeteers are clinging to that revenue as part of its budget-balancing strategy.
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Global decline of large herbivores may lead to an 'empty landscape'
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/osu-gdo042715.php
Public Release: 1-May-2015
Oregon State University
The decline of the world's large herbivores, especially in Africa and parts of Asia, is raising the specter of an "empty landscape" in some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, according to a newly published study.
Many populations of animals such as rhinoceroses, zebras, camels, elephants and tapirs are diminishing or threatened with extinction in grasslands, savannahs, deserts and forests, scientists say.
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The authors focused on 74 large herbivore species - animals that subsist on vegetation - and concluded that "without radical intervention, large herbivores (and many smaller ones) will continue to disappear from numerous regions with enormous ecological, social, and economic costs." Ripple initiated the study after conducting a global analysis of large-carnivore decline, which goes hand-in-hand, he said, with the loss of their herbivore prey.
"I expected that habitat change would be the main factor causing the endangerment of large herbivores," Ripple said. "But surprisingly, the results show that the two main factors in herbivore declines are hunting by humans and habitat change. They are twin threats."
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The highest numbers of threatened large herbivores live in developing countries, especially Southeast Asia, India and Africa, the scientists report. Only one endangered large herbivore lives in Europe (the European bison), and none are in North America, which, the authors add, has "already lost most of its large mammals" through prehistoric hunting and habitat changes.
The authors note that 25 of the largest wild herbivores now occupy an average of only 19 percent of their historical ranges. Competition from livestock production, which has tripled globally since 1980, has reduced herbivore access to land, forage and water and raised disease transmission risks, they add.
Meanwhile, herbivore hunting occurs for two major purposes, the authors note: meat consumption and the global trade in animal parts. An estimated 1 billion humans subsist on wild meat, they write.
"The market for medicinal uses can be very strong for some body parts, such as rhino horn," said Ripple. "Horn sells for more by weight than gold, diamonds or cocaine." Africa's western black rhinoceros was declared extinct in 2011.
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The loss of large herbivores suggests that other parts of wild ecosystems will diminish, the authors write. The likely consequences include: reduction in food for large carnivores such as lions and tigers; diminished seed dispersal for plants; more frequent and intense wildfires; slower cycling of nutrients from vegetation to the soil; changes in habitat for smaller animals including fish, birds and amphibians.
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Public Release: 1-May-2015
Oregon State University
The decline of the world's large herbivores, especially in Africa and parts of Asia, is raising the specter of an "empty landscape" in some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, according to a newly published study.
Many populations of animals such as rhinoceroses, zebras, camels, elephants and tapirs are diminishing or threatened with extinction in grasslands, savannahs, deserts and forests, scientists say.
•••••
The authors focused on 74 large herbivore species - animals that subsist on vegetation - and concluded that "without radical intervention, large herbivores (and many smaller ones) will continue to disappear from numerous regions with enormous ecological, social, and economic costs." Ripple initiated the study after conducting a global analysis of large-carnivore decline, which goes hand-in-hand, he said, with the loss of their herbivore prey.
"I expected that habitat change would be the main factor causing the endangerment of large herbivores," Ripple said. "But surprisingly, the results show that the two main factors in herbivore declines are hunting by humans and habitat change. They are twin threats."
•••••
The highest numbers of threatened large herbivores live in developing countries, especially Southeast Asia, India and Africa, the scientists report. Only one endangered large herbivore lives in Europe (the European bison), and none are in North America, which, the authors add, has "already lost most of its large mammals" through prehistoric hunting and habitat changes.
The authors note that 25 of the largest wild herbivores now occupy an average of only 19 percent of their historical ranges. Competition from livestock production, which has tripled globally since 1980, has reduced herbivore access to land, forage and water and raised disease transmission risks, they add.
Meanwhile, herbivore hunting occurs for two major purposes, the authors note: meat consumption and the global trade in animal parts. An estimated 1 billion humans subsist on wild meat, they write.
"The market for medicinal uses can be very strong for some body parts, such as rhino horn," said Ripple. "Horn sells for more by weight than gold, diamonds or cocaine." Africa's western black rhinoceros was declared extinct in 2011.
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The loss of large herbivores suggests that other parts of wild ecosystems will diminish, the authors write. The likely consequences include: reduction in food for large carnivores such as lions and tigers; diminished seed dispersal for plants; more frequent and intense wildfires; slower cycling of nutrients from vegetation to the soil; changes in habitat for smaller animals including fish, birds and amphibians.
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Lifetime intense physical activity may lower risk for non-Hodgkin lymphoma
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/aafc-lip042915.php
Public Release: 1-May-2015
American Association for Cancer Research
Bottom Line: Performing vigorous physical activity over one's lifetime may lower risk for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).
Journal in Which the Study was Published: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research
Author: Terry Boyle, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Cancer Control Research at the B.C. Cancer Agency and the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia in Canada
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Public Release: 1-May-2015
American Association for Cancer Research
Bottom Line: Performing vigorous physical activity over one's lifetime may lower risk for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).
Journal in Which the Study was Published: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research
Author: Terry Boyle, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Cancer Control Research at the B.C. Cancer Agency and the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia in Canada
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Mentoring Inquiries Surge After Baltimore Riots
Please don't start mentoring unless you are committed. It can lead to the even worse outcomes than no mentoring, because it's another rejection.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/02/mentoring-baltimore-big-brothers-big-sisters_n_7193072.html
Julia Craven
May 2, 2015
Riot-torn Baltimore's smoky skies have given way to a silver lining.
More than 300 inquiries about mentoring young people have poured into Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Chesapeake, the branch of the nonprofit serving the city, from adults interested in working with one of the 600-plus kids on the local waiting list, according to a press release. That compares with 641 inquiries received from Baltimore in all of 2014.
The organization's CEO attributes this week's surge to people watching news of the unrest and feeling compelled to help young people find better ways to express themselves.
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“When you apply to be to be a mentor, you get trained. We do a lot of talking about cultural competency and what to expect and how to listen,” Hickey said. “You know, as an adult sometimes we just need to shut up and listen to what young people are telling us. I don’t think it’s important for an adult to think they have the answers.”
Big Brothers Big Sisters tries to match kids with a mentor from a similar background, but that's not always possible, Hickey said. The organization ensures the mentor is equipped to help their little brother or little sister by assigning a staff member who is available any time for advice.
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Big Brothers Big Sisters said research shows that after 18 months of mentoring, little brothers and little sisters were 46 percent less likely to use illegal drugs, 27 percent less likely to begin using alcohol, 52 percent less likely to skip school and 33 percent less likely to hit someone than children not in the program, according to the organization's press release.
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Portlight disaster relief for handicapped people in Nepal
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/Portlight/comment.html?entrynum=131
April 29, 2015
We know that when disaster strikes, the disability community is typically underserved, and often completely forgotten. In the wake of the devastation in Nepal, Portlight has connected with many of its disability stakeholders, to directly support their relief efforts. We need your help!
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April 29, 2015
We know that when disaster strikes, the disability community is typically underserved, and often completely forgotten. In the wake of the devastation in Nepal, Portlight has connected with many of its disability stakeholders, to directly support their relief efforts. We need your help!
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Sunday, May 03, 2015
California's 4.8 million low-wage workers now earn less than in 1979
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/uoc--c4m043015.php
Public Release: 30-Apr-2015
University of California - Berkeley
Over the past 35 years, California's high-wage workers have seen steady increases in their paychecks. But low-wage workers, 4.8 million strong and about one-third of the state's workforce, earned less in inflation-adjusted dollars in 2014 than they did in 1979, according to an analysis from the University of California, Berkeley.
UC Berkeley researchers analyzing U.S. Census Bureau data at the campus's Center for Labor Research and Education found that low-wage workers, defined as those earning hourly wages of $13.63 or less, have seen steady declines in their inflation-adjusted buying power. This low-wage workforce, nearly three-quarters nonwhite and concentrated in two industries -- retail trade, and restaurants and other food services -- has also become older and more highly educated.
Teens made up 5 percent of low-wage workers in 2014, down from 16 percent in 1979, and 48 percent of low-wage earners in 2014 had attended some college, compared to 39 percent in 1979. The analysis also showed that 40 percent of the state's low-wage workers in 2014 were foreign-born.
"We found that low-wage workers in California are older and more educated than they were 30 years ago, and yet they've seen stagnant and even declining wages," said Annette Bernhardt, a visiting UC Berkeley professor of sociology and a senior researcher at the center. "The story of growing inequality is not just about the top 1 percent, it is also about the millions of low-wage workers and their families who struggle with economic insecurity every day."
Bernhardt and the study's other authors, Ian Perry and Lindsay Cattell, found that the top occupations of California's low-wage workers are retail sales workers; cooks and food preparation workers; material-moving workers; and personal care and childcare workers. About half are in Southern California.
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Public Release: 30-Apr-2015
University of California - Berkeley
Over the past 35 years, California's high-wage workers have seen steady increases in their paychecks. But low-wage workers, 4.8 million strong and about one-third of the state's workforce, earned less in inflation-adjusted dollars in 2014 than they did in 1979, according to an analysis from the University of California, Berkeley.
UC Berkeley researchers analyzing U.S. Census Bureau data at the campus's Center for Labor Research and Education found that low-wage workers, defined as those earning hourly wages of $13.63 or less, have seen steady declines in their inflation-adjusted buying power. This low-wage workforce, nearly three-quarters nonwhite and concentrated in two industries -- retail trade, and restaurants and other food services -- has also become older and more highly educated.
Teens made up 5 percent of low-wage workers in 2014, down from 16 percent in 1979, and 48 percent of low-wage earners in 2014 had attended some college, compared to 39 percent in 1979. The analysis also showed that 40 percent of the state's low-wage workers in 2014 were foreign-born.
"We found that low-wage workers in California are older and more educated than they were 30 years ago, and yet they've seen stagnant and even declining wages," said Annette Bernhardt, a visiting UC Berkeley professor of sociology and a senior researcher at the center. "The story of growing inequality is not just about the top 1 percent, it is also about the millions of low-wage workers and their families who struggle with economic insecurity every day."
Bernhardt and the study's other authors, Ian Perry and Lindsay Cattell, found that the top occupations of California's low-wage workers are retail sales workers; cooks and food preparation workers; material-moving workers; and personal care and childcare workers. About half are in Southern California.
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Gravity data show that Antarctic ice sheet is melting increasingly faster
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/pu-gds043015.php
Public Release: 30-Apr-2015
Gravity data show that Antarctic ice sheet is melting increasingly faster
Princeton University
During the past decade, Antarctica's massive ice sheet lost twice the amount of ice in its western portion compared with what it accumulated in the east, according to Princeton University researchers who came to one overall conclusion -- the southern continent's ice cap is melting ever faster.
The researchers "weighed" Antarctica's ice sheet using gravitational satellite data and found that from 2003 to 2014, the ice sheet lost 92 billion tons of ice per year, the researchers report in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. If stacked on the island of Manhattan, that amount of ice would be more than a mile high -- more than five times the height of the Empire State Building.
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with the rapidly accelerating rates at which the ice is melting, and in the light of all the other, well-publicized lines of evidence, most scientists would be hard pressed to find mechanisms that do not include human-made climate change."
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"The fact that West Antarctic ice-melt is still accelerating is a big deal because it's increasing its contribution to sea-level rise," Harig said. "It really has potential to be a runaway problem. It has come to the point that if we continue losing mass in those areas, the loss can generate a self-reinforcing feedback whereby we will be losing more and more ice, ultimately raising sea levels by tens of feet."
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While the volume of an ice sheet -- or how much space it takes up -- is also crucial information, it can change without affecting the amount of ice that is present, Simons explained. Snow and ice, for instance, compact under their own weight so that to the lasers that are bounced off the ice's surface to determine volume, there appears to be a reduction in the amount of ice, Simons said. Mass or weight, on the other hand, changes when ice is actually redistributed and lost.
Simons equated the difference between measuring ice volume and mass to a person weighing himself by only looking in the mirror instead of standing on a scale.
"You shouldn't only look at the ice volume -- you should also weigh it to find the mass changes," Simons said. "But there isn't going to be a whole lot of research of this type coming up because the GRACE satellites are on their last legs. This could be the last statement of this kind on these kinds of data for a long time. There may be a significant data gap during which the only monitoring available will not be by 'weighing' but by 'looking' via laser or radar altimetry, photogrammetry or field studies."
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Public Release: 30-Apr-2015
Gravity data show that Antarctic ice sheet is melting increasingly faster
Princeton University
During the past decade, Antarctica's massive ice sheet lost twice the amount of ice in its western portion compared with what it accumulated in the east, according to Princeton University researchers who came to one overall conclusion -- the southern continent's ice cap is melting ever faster.
The researchers "weighed" Antarctica's ice sheet using gravitational satellite data and found that from 2003 to 2014, the ice sheet lost 92 billion tons of ice per year, the researchers report in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. If stacked on the island of Manhattan, that amount of ice would be more than a mile high -- more than five times the height of the Empire State Building.
•••••
with the rapidly accelerating rates at which the ice is melting, and in the light of all the other, well-publicized lines of evidence, most scientists would be hard pressed to find mechanisms that do not include human-made climate change."
•••••
"The fact that West Antarctic ice-melt is still accelerating is a big deal because it's increasing its contribution to sea-level rise," Harig said. "It really has potential to be a runaway problem. It has come to the point that if we continue losing mass in those areas, the loss can generate a self-reinforcing feedback whereby we will be losing more and more ice, ultimately raising sea levels by tens of feet."
•••••
While the volume of an ice sheet -- or how much space it takes up -- is also crucial information, it can change without affecting the amount of ice that is present, Simons explained. Snow and ice, for instance, compact under their own weight so that to the lasers that are bounced off the ice's surface to determine volume, there appears to be a reduction in the amount of ice, Simons said. Mass or weight, on the other hand, changes when ice is actually redistributed and lost.
Simons equated the difference between measuring ice volume and mass to a person weighing himself by only looking in the mirror instead of standing on a scale.
"You shouldn't only look at the ice volume -- you should also weigh it to find the mass changes," Simons said. "But there isn't going to be a whole lot of research of this type coming up because the GRACE satellites are on their last legs. This could be the last statement of this kind on these kinds of data for a long time. There may be a significant data gap during which the only monitoring available will not be by 'weighing' but by 'looking' via laser or radar altimetry, photogrammetry or field studies."
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Viruses: You've heard the bad -- here's the good
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/asfm-vyh043015.php
Public Release: 30-Apr-2015
American Society for Microbiology
"The word, virus, connotes morbidity and mortality, but that bad reputation is not universally deserved," said Marilyn Roossinck, PhD, Professor of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology and Biology at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park. "Viruses, like bacteria, can be important beneficial microbes in human health and in agriculture," she said. Her review of the current literature on beneficial viruses appeared ahead of print April 24 in the Journal of Virology, which is published by the American Society for Microbiology.
In sharp contrast to the gastrointestinal distress it causes in humans, the murine (mouse infecting) norovirus plays a role in development of the mouse intestine and its immune system, and can actually replace the beneficial effects of certain gut bacteria when these have been decimated by antibiotics. Normal, healthy gut bacteria help prevent infection by bacteria that cause gastrointestinal illness, but excessive antibiotic intake can kill the normal gut flora, and make one vulnerable to gastrointestinal disease. However, norovirus infection of mice actually restored the normal function of the immune system's lymphocytes and the normal morphology of the intestine, said Roossinck.
Mammalian viruses can also provide immunity against bacterial pathogens. Gamma-herpesviruses boost mice resistance to Listeria monocytogenes, an important human gastrointestinal pathogen, and to Yersinia pestis, otherwise known as plague. "Humans are often infected with their own gamma-herpes viruses, and it is conceivable that these could provide similar benefits," said Roossinck.
Latent herpesviruses also arm natural killer cells, an important component of the immune system, which kill both mammalian tumor cells, and cells that are infected with pathogenic viruses.
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Viruses also provide a variety of services for plants. A few plants grow in the hot soils surrounding the geysers and the "Artists' Paintpots" of Yellowstone National Park. One such plant, which is a type of tropical panic grass, is a symbiosis that includes a fungus that colonizes the plant, and a virus that infects that fungus. All three members of this symbiosis are necessary for survival in soils simmering at more than 122 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Investigators have also found that certain viruses can render some plants drought tolerant, and at least one example of virally-conferred cold tolerance has been discovered-- discoveries that could become useful for expanding the ranges of crops.
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Other beneficial viruses are the ancient retroviruses that long ago made a permanent home in the genome, or that left genes therein, said Roossinck. "The mammalian genes for syncitin, essential in the establishment of the placenta, are retroviral env genes that were incorporated on several different occasions," Roossinck writes. "They even function differently in ruminants compared to other mammals... these elements are considered viral fossils that can help us understand the deep evolution of viruses."
"Viruses are beyond a doubt the coolest things I have ever encountered," said Roossinck. "They do truly amazing things with very little genetic information. I was always a little disturbed at the bad rap they get, so it was very exciting for me to find good ones."
Public Release: 30-Apr-2015
American Society for Microbiology
"The word, virus, connotes morbidity and mortality, but that bad reputation is not universally deserved," said Marilyn Roossinck, PhD, Professor of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology and Biology at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park. "Viruses, like bacteria, can be important beneficial microbes in human health and in agriculture," she said. Her review of the current literature on beneficial viruses appeared ahead of print April 24 in the Journal of Virology, which is published by the American Society for Microbiology.
In sharp contrast to the gastrointestinal distress it causes in humans, the murine (mouse infecting) norovirus plays a role in development of the mouse intestine and its immune system, and can actually replace the beneficial effects of certain gut bacteria when these have been decimated by antibiotics. Normal, healthy gut bacteria help prevent infection by bacteria that cause gastrointestinal illness, but excessive antibiotic intake can kill the normal gut flora, and make one vulnerable to gastrointestinal disease. However, norovirus infection of mice actually restored the normal function of the immune system's lymphocytes and the normal morphology of the intestine, said Roossinck.
Mammalian viruses can also provide immunity against bacterial pathogens. Gamma-herpesviruses boost mice resistance to Listeria monocytogenes, an important human gastrointestinal pathogen, and to Yersinia pestis, otherwise known as plague. "Humans are often infected with their own gamma-herpes viruses, and it is conceivable that these could provide similar benefits," said Roossinck.
Latent herpesviruses also arm natural killer cells, an important component of the immune system, which kill both mammalian tumor cells, and cells that are infected with pathogenic viruses.
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Viruses also provide a variety of services for plants. A few plants grow in the hot soils surrounding the geysers and the "Artists' Paintpots" of Yellowstone National Park. One such plant, which is a type of tropical panic grass, is a symbiosis that includes a fungus that colonizes the plant, and a virus that infects that fungus. All three members of this symbiosis are necessary for survival in soils simmering at more than 122 degrees Fahrenheit.
•••••
Investigators have also found that certain viruses can render some plants drought tolerant, and at least one example of virally-conferred cold tolerance has been discovered-- discoveries that could become useful for expanding the ranges of crops.
•••••
Other beneficial viruses are the ancient retroviruses that long ago made a permanent home in the genome, or that left genes therein, said Roossinck. "The mammalian genes for syncitin, essential in the establishment of the placenta, are retroviral env genes that were incorporated on several different occasions," Roossinck writes. "They even function differently in ruminants compared to other mammals... these elements are considered viral fossils that can help us understand the deep evolution of viruses."
"Viruses are beyond a doubt the coolest things I have ever encountered," said Roossinck. "They do truly amazing things with very little genetic information. I was always a little disturbed at the bad rap they get, so it was very exciting for me to find good ones."
Buyers with a trade-in get a raw deal
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/umso-bwa043015.php
Public Release: 30-Apr-2015
USC Marshall School of Business
If you're in the market for a new car, and especially if you have a trade-in, the latest research from the USC Marshall School of Business marketing department suggests you aren't getting the deal you think you are getting.
New research from USC Marshall School of Business associate professors of marketing Anthony Dukes and Sivaramakrishnan Siddarth shows that a consumer with a trade-in actually forks over more money to the dealer than consumers without a trade-in.
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Public Release: 30-Apr-2015
USC Marshall School of Business
If you're in the market for a new car, and especially if you have a trade-in, the latest research from the USC Marshall School of Business marketing department suggests you aren't getting the deal you think you are getting.
New research from USC Marshall School of Business associate professors of marketing Anthony Dukes and Sivaramakrishnan Siddarth shows that a consumer with a trade-in actually forks over more money to the dealer than consumers without a trade-in.
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Earth's volcanism linked to meteorite impacts
I remember reporting on this in my blog, but there are no blog entries before 2005. I don't remember if I had some kind of problem that caused me to lose previous entries, or if Blogger purges blog entries older after a certain length of time, or maybe when a certain number of posts or storage space is exceeded? If so, too bad. One of the purposes of my blog is to retain info I am interested in keeping so I can find it later.
I wasn't able to find out if Ms. Abbott suggested a mechanism for this correlation at the time of this research. Other people suggested that some asteroids were powerful enough to crash thru the earth's mantle and create a hole for volcanoes to erupt thru, but I couldn't find out what Ms. Abbott thought.
13 December 2002 by Kate Ravilious
Large meteorite impacts may not just throw up huge dust clouds but also punch right through the Earth's crust, triggering gigantic volcanic eruptions.
The idea is controversial, but evidence is mounting that the Earth's geology has largely been driven by such events. This would also explain why our planet has so few impact crater remnants.
Counting the number of asteroids we see in the sky suggests that over the past 250 million years, Earth should have been hit around 440 times by asteroids larger than one kilometre across. But scientists have found only 38 large impact craters from this period.
Dallas Abbott from Columbia University and her colleague Ann Isley from the State University of New York studied the timing of these 38 impacts and found that they correlate strongly with eruptions of "mantle-plume" volcanoes during the same period.
Most volcanoes come from small amounts of the Earth's upper mantle boiling over, but mantle-plume volcanoes happen when hot rock from deep within the Earth's mantle shoots straight up through the Earth's crust. The timing suggests that these volcanoes are related to asteroid impacts, Abbott and Isley report in Earth and Planetary Science Letters (vol 205, p 53).
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A Global Surge of Great Earthquakes from 2004-2014. Does global warming play a part?
An increase in earthquakes was predicted because of the melting of ice caps and glaciers releasing pressure.http://www.geosociety.org/news/pr/2014/14-76.htm
The Geological Society of America
GSA Release No. 14-76
Oct. 20, 2014
The last ten years have been a remarkable time for great earthquakes. Since December 2004 there have been no less than 18 quakes of Mw8.0 or greater – a rate of more than twice that seen from 1900 to mid-2004. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost and massive damage has resulted from these great earthquakes. But as devastating as such events can be, these recent great quakes have come with a silver lining: They coincide with unprecedented advances in technological and scientific capacity for learning from them.
“We previously had very limited information about how ruptures grow into great earthquakes and interact with regions around them,” said seismologist Thorne Lay of the University of California at Santa Cruz. “So we are using the recorded data for these recent events to guide our understanding of future earthquakes. We've gained a new level of appreciation for how one earthquake can influence events in other zones.”
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Did dinosaur-killing asteroid trigger largest lava flows on Earth?
I have wondered about this for some years.http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/uoc--dda043015.php
The headline refers to it being a "new" theory. Actually a woman scientist proposed this already. What is "new" is that males are proposing it.
Public Release: 30-Apr-2015
University of California - Berkeley
The asteroid that slammed into the ocean off Mexico 66 million years ago and killed off the dinosaurs probably rang the Earth like a bell, triggering volcanic eruptions around the globe that may have contributed to the devastation, according to a team of University of California, Berkeley, geophysicists.
Specifically, the researchers argue that the impact likely triggered most of the immense eruptions of lava in India known as the Deccan Traps, explaining the "uncomfortably close" coincidence between the Deccan Traps eruptions and the impact, which has always cast doubt on the theory that the asteroid was the sole cause of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.
"If you try to explain why the largest impact we know of in the last billion years happened within 100,000 years of these massive lava flows at Deccan ... the chances of that occurring at random are minuscule," said team leader Mark Richards, UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary science. "It's not a very credible coincidence."
Richards and his colleagues marshal evidence for their theory that the impact reignited the Deccan flood lavas in a paper to be published in The Geological Society of America Bulletin, available online today (April 30) in advance of publication.
While the Deccan lava flows, which started before the impact but erupted for several hundred thousand years after re-ignition, probably spewed immense amounts of carbon dioxide and other noxious, climate-modifying gases into the atmosphere, it's still unclear if this contributed to the demise of most of life on Earth at the end of the Age of Dinosaurs, Richards said.
"This connection between the impact and the Deccan lava flows is a great story and might even be true, but it doesn't yet take us closer to understanding what actually killed the dinosaurs and the 'forams,'" he said, referring to tiny sea creatures called foraminifera, many of which disappeared from the fossil record virtually overnight at the boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, called the KT boundary. The disappearance of the landscape-dominating dinosaurs is widely credited with ushering in the age of mammals, eventually including humans.
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tags: historical global warming, historical climate change,
I hate Microsoft
I hate Microsoft :( I have 4 CPU processors, but when I try to go to a web site, and it is waiting for something, I can't do anything else. I can't close that tab, can't close the browser, can't go to another program (like task manager), can't get to task manager with CTRL/ALT/DELETE. The only way to get out is to turn off the computer using the power button.
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