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Trojan Horse For Ovarian Cancer: Nanoparticles Turn Immune System Soldiers Against Tumor CellsImmunologists have devised a Trojan horse to help overcome ovarian cancer, unleashing a surprise killer in the surroundings of a hard-to-treat tumor.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 3:00 pm Microscopic 'Beads' Could Help Create 'Designer' Immune Cells That Ignore Transplanted OrgansThe future of organ transplantation could include microscopic beads that create "designer" immune cells to help patients tolerate their new organ, researchers say.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 3:00 pm Skull Of Crocodile 100 Million Years Old UnearthedPaleontologists have made the most important discovery to date at the Arlington Archosaur Site, a prolific fossil site in Texas. The disassembled skull of a crocodile with two-and-a-half-inch-long teeth that lived nearly 100 million years ago has been unearthed.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 3:00 pm Patients With Depression Frequently Suffer From Medically Unexplained PainPain symptoms that cannot be attributed, or at least not fully attributed, to an organic origin are more frequently and more severely experienced by patients with depression than by those without.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 3:00 pm Entirely New Way To Study Brain Function DevelopedScientists have devised a chemical technique that promises to allow neuroscientists to discover the function of any population of neurons in an animal brain, and provide clues to treating and preventing brain disease.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 3:00 pm Wastewater Used To Map Illicit Drug UseA team of researchers has mapped patterns of illicit drug use across the state of Oregon using a method of sampling municipal wastewater before it is treated. Their findings provide a one-day snapshot of drug excretion that can be used to better understand patterns of drug use in multiple municipalities over time.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 3:00 pm Vitamin D, Curcumin May Help Clear Amyloid Plaques Found In Alzheimer's DiseaseScientists have found that a form of vitamin D, together with a chemical found in turmeric spice called curcumin, may help stimulate the immune system to clear the brain of amyloid beta, which forms the plaques considered the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 12:00 pm Capturing Carbon Dioxide In Tiny Bowls: Global Warming Fix From Microbes?The accidental discovery of a bowl-shaped molecule that pulls carbon dioxide out of the air suggests exciting new possibilities for dealing with global warming, including genetically engineering microbes to manufacture those carbon dioxide "catchers."Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 12:00 pm Circulating Blood Cells Are Important Predictors Of Cancer Spread In ChildrenEndothelial progenitor cells may play a role in the start and progression of metastatic disease in children with cancer, according to study results published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 12:00 pm Coral Reefs Exposed To Imminent Destruction From Climate ChangeLeading ocean scientists and climate change experts agreed on a new level of atmospheric carbon dioxide that would need to be achieved to ensure the survival of coral reefs.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 12:00 pm Solar eclipse sparks tourism fever in China (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:57 am Shuttle soars to space station after launch delaysCAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - U.S. space shuttle Endeavour blasted off from its seaside launch pad on Wednesday, ending a month of delays to a mission intended to complete construction of Japan's Kibo research laboratory on the International Space Station.Source: Reuters: Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:13 am 'Extinct' tiny shrew rediscoveredThe Nelson's small-eared shrew has been rediscovered in Mexico, more than a century after first being described.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:09 am The Nation's weather (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:07 am Damage eyed as shuttle heads toward space station (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:06 am Cave record of Britain's pioneersCheddar Gorge is shown to be one of the first places ancient Britons re-colonised towards the end of the last Ice Age.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:02 am Dog wet nurse saves panda cubs in China (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:01 am Clinton aims to deepen partnership with India (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 7:51 am Top US officials to meet China PM on climate (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 6:50 am The folly of pretenceWe must not preserve the myth of God – it was a useful crutch, but we've outgrown it The question: Should we believe in belief?As I explain in the chapter by that title in Breaking the Spell, "belief in belief" is a common phenomenon not restricted to religions. Economists realise that a sound currency depends on people believing that the currency is sound, and scientists recognise that the actual objectivity of scientific studies on global warming is politically impotent unless people believe in that objectivity, so economists and scientists (among others) take steps to foster and protect such beliefs that they think are benign. That's acting on belief in belief. Sometimes the maintenance of a belief is deemed so important that impressive systems of propaganda are erected and vigorously defended by people who do not in fact share the belief that they think is so important for society to endorse. For instance, imbecile monarchs have been kept on their thrones by widespread conspiracies of oblivion and deception when it has been deemed too socially disruptive to confirm to the populace what everybody suspects: the king is an idiot. Religion offers an extreme case of this. Today one of the most insistent forces arrayed in opposition to us vocal atheists is the "I'm an atheist but" crowd, who publicly deplore our "hostility", our "rudeness" (which is actually just candour), while privately admitting that we're right. They don't themselves believe in God, but they certainly do believe in belief in God. It's not always easy to tell who just believes in belief, since the actions motivated by believing in belief (while not actually believing in God) are – with the exception of those rare sotto voce confessions – well-nigh indistinguishable from the actions of genuine believers: say the prayers, sing the hymns, tithe, proclaim one's allegiance, volunteer for church projects, and so on. Sometimes I wonder if even 10% of the people who proclaim their belief in God actually do believe in God. I am particularly unimpressed by those who proclaim the loudest; they demonstrate by their very activism that they fear the effect of any erosion of religion, and they must think that erosion is likely if they don't put their shoulders to the wheel. If they were more confident and secure in their religious convictions, they probably wouldn't waste their time trying to discredit a few atheists. For instance, since they are confident that the moon landings really happened, they don't bother working to discredit the moon-landing sceptics who lurk on the internet, even though those loonies do pose something of a threat to public confidence in the veracity of the media and the government. I am confident that those who believe in belief are wrong. That is, we no more need to preserve the myth of God in order to preserve a just and stable society than we needed to cling to the Gold Standard to keep our currency sound. It was a useful crutch, but we've outgrown it. Denmark, according to a recent study, is the sanest, healthiest, happiest, most crime-free nation in the world, and by and large the Danes simply ignore the God issue. We should certainly hope that those who believe in belief are wrong, because belief is waning fast, and the props are beginning to buckle. A national study by evangelicals in the United States predicted that only 4% of their children would grow up to be "Bible-believing" adults. The Southern Baptists are baptising about as many today as they were in 1950, when the population was half what it is today. At what point should those who just believe in belief throw in the towel and stop trying to get their children and neighbours to cling to what they themselves no longer need? How about now? guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 16 Jul 2009 | 6:00 am Senate confirms ex-astronaut Bolden to head NASA (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 4:18 am Space shuttle Endeavour thunders into orbit on sixth attemptAfter more than a month's delay Endeavour began its flight to the international space station on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the liftoff of man's first moon landing After more than a month's delay, space shuttle Endeavour and seven astronauts have thundered into orbit in a flight to the international space station, hauling up a veranda for Japan's enormous lab and looking to set a crowd record. Success came on launch try number 6, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the liftoff of man's first moon landing. But the mood was dampened somewhat when Nasa managers watched the launch video. Eight or nine pieces of foam insulation came off the external fuel tank during liftoff, and the shuttle was hit at least two or three times, said Bill Gerstenmaier, Nasa's space operations chief. Some scuff marks were spotted, but that probably is coating loss and considered minor, he said. In fact, Mission Control told the astronauts that the damage which occurred not quite two minutes into the flight looked to be less extensive than what occurred on the last flight. The impacts were around the edge of the shuttle where the right wing joins the fuselage. Engineers immediately began reviewing all the launch pictures, standard procedure ever since flights resumed following the Columbia disaster. Gerstenmaier said zoom-in photos will be taken of the entire shuttle right before it docks with the space station on Friday, to ascertain whether it suffered any serious damage. It will take days to go through all the data. At a news conference, Gerstenmaier noted that the Endeavour crew has shuttle repair kits on board. In case of irreparable damage, the astronauts could move into the space station for two to three months and await rescue by another shuttle. Columbia was destroyed during re-entry in 2003 because of a hole in its wing, left there by flyaway foam at liftoff. Endeavour blasted off a little after 6pm from its seaside pad the same one used to launch Apollo 11 on 16 July 1969 a welcome sight for shuttle workers who had to overcome hydrogen gas leaks last month and, since the weekend, thunderstorms. The skies finally cleared, allowing commander Mark Polansky and his crew to embark on their 16-day adventure. One more holdup and they would have tied a record for the most shuttle launch delays. Later, from orbit, Polansky radioed, "For all of us, it was a pretty decent wait, but we are thrilled to be here." The astronauts will catch up on Friday afternoon with the space station, which was soaring more than 220 miles above the Pacific at launch time. When they do, it will be the first time 13 people are together in space. Ten is the previous record. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 16 Jul 2009 | 3:59 am Stem Cell Decision Opens New Doors, May Spur More Research (HealthDay)HealthDay - WEDNESDAY, July 15 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced last week their new guidelines for stem cell research funding, including allowing some previously ineligible stem cell lines to receive federal grants, provided they were obtained in an ethical manner.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 3:48 am UN tackles 'climate harm' shipsThe UN discusses rules aimed at cutting the emission of greenhouse gases from shipping.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Jul 2009 | 3:22 am Killer parasites' genes decodedScientists have decoded the genetic blueprint of a parasitic worm responsible for thousands of deaths worldwide every year.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Jul 2009 | 3:19 am Urine Tapped as FuelTopping off your hydrogen-fueled car's tank may soon have an entirely new meaning.Source: Livescience.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 2:51 am Technology Tracks TrashThat doofus in line at the mobile phone store who accidentally threw his phone away? He may have been onto something.Source: Livescience.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 2:46 am NASA Eyes Debris Hits to Shuttle Heat Shield (SPACE.com)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Jul 2009 | 2:00 am Elephants Welcome StrangersElephants are all about family. But when there is no family, then strangers are welcome.Source: Livescience.com | 15 Jul 2009 | 11:29 pm Swine flu will be biggest pandemic ever, warns world health chiefAs swine flu sweeps the planet, Margaret Chan, head of the World Health Organisation, tells how she is leading the battle against it – and the personal price she is paying Although she would no doubt point out that swine flu should properly be called H1N1, there is something pleasing in the fact that the first thing Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organisation, does when I enter her office is pick up a cut-out of a pig that has fallen on its face and carefully place it upright. A pink and gilt confection, it's left over from celebrating the Chinese year of the pig in 2007: it was so cute, she says, that she couldn't bear to throw it out. A year earlier, Chan had been a surprise candidate in a surprise election (the previous incumbent died halfway through his term), but she won with a clear majority to become the first Chinese national to run a major UN agency. A rule change in 2005 (the WHO no longer has to beg states for information about threats to global health, but can just demand it) also makes her the most powerful public health official in history. Tiny in her orange jacket and neat little orange-brown Miu Miu mules, she wears that authority not lightly, exactly, but naturally: in an organisation famed for its bureaucratic circumlocutions, she is refreshingly direct. It's a strength she's aware of – "I have a reputation for being a straight-talker, I will tell them the story like it is" – but that makes it no less striking, or true. (Also striking, for those who have witnessed it, is her penchant for bursting into song: she once punctured a tense moment at a summit about bird flu by singing a few lines of Getting To Know You, from The King and I.) Months later, on 11 June 2009, she found herself the first WHO chief in 41 years to stand before the world and announce that a new virus had reached pandemic proportions. Right up until the last minute, scientists were calling her up and warning her to be careful about raising the threat alert so high — but the strict definition of "pandemic" is a new disease spreading uncontrollably through numerous countries, and on that count her decision has been completely borne out. On 11 June, swine flu had been registered in 74 countries; when we meet in Geneva four weeks later, it has just been confirmed in 140 countries. Born in another year of the pig, 62 years ago, Chan began her career as a liberal arts graduate and a high school teacher of home economics, Chinese and English, but when her boyfriend moved to Canada to study medicine, she followed him. Finding that she still saw him very little, she applied to study medicine herself, in the same class. When they graduated they returned to Hong Kong, and in 1994 she was appointed as director of health there, with a staff of 7,000. Three years later, she faced a major outbreak of bird flu. Chan learned then that clarity of communication is of utmost importance, and that over-reassurance can be as bad as no reassurance at all. She has in mind the (infamous in Hong Kong) moment when she was trying to tell people that it was still safe to eat chicken. "They asked me, 'Do you eat chicken?' and I said, 'Yes, I do. I eat chicken every day.'" It's the last sentence she regrets, because it is so patently undermining. No one would go on that kind of diet, right? Her critics were not to know that it was, in fact, true: Chan did eat chicken every day, just as she has had a tuna sandwich every single lunchtime (barring official functions) for the five years she has lived in Geneva. Her job is so big, so unpredictable, that she says these fixed points are crucially important "to maintain my sanity". So now it's a tuna sandwich every day, and a session on a treadmill every morning. But in Hong Kong the damage was done, and she eventually ordered a cull of all 1.5m chickens in the country. By the time the Sars epidemic came round in 2003, she was experienced and tough enough to have earned the nickname "Iron Lady"; although 299 people died in Hong Kong, and she was criticised in some quarters for being slow off the mark (she replied that she had found it hard to get accurate information from mainland China), most experts applauded her efficiency. She was headhunted to improve the WHO's response to infectious disease threats because, as the then director-general told her, "You are the only person who has managed crises. I have many armchair experts. I need generals." Chan's war has arrived with a vengeance. A 2007 WHO report, A Safer Future, estimated that a flu pandemic could affect more than 1.5 bn people, or 25% of the world's population. Could swine flu be that big? "Quite likely. Quite likely. But it probably won't happen in one run. It will probably come back [in two or three waves]." How does she expect it to compare to other pandemics? "In terms of the number of countries affected and the number of people infected, this has got to be the biggest." Bigger than 1918? "If you're talking about mortality then it's different. 1918 is the biggest in terms of mortality. I would not like to make any predictions . . . I hope we don't see the 1918 picture. But we should expect to see more people infected, and more severe cases coming up, including deaths." Swine flu is probably already much bigger than anyone knows. Ten days ago, only six countries in Africa had reported cases, but as Chan readily admits, this is rather misleading: until the WHO started sending out lab kits in early May, many developing countries had no means of testing for it. Furthermore, modelling suggests that swine flu has an attack rate of 30% — once it enters a country, the likelihood is 30% of citizens will catch it at some point. In wealthy countries such as Britain, she observes, "The disease is self-limiting. Some even recover without medicine. But is it going to be the same in a country where they have a high proportion of people suffering from HIV? Or chronic malnutrition? Or diabetes? [all of which damage immune systems]?" Pregnant women are among the groups most severely affected; already, every minute of every day, a woman dies in childbirth or pregnancy. Furthermore, unlike seasonal flu, H1N1 tends to affect previously healthy 30-50 year-olds; developing countries have large, young populations often living in crowded conditions. As well as having no testing facilities, these countries will often have almost no access to antivirals such as Tamiflu. "Is it fair," demands Chan, rhetorically, "for these countries to go into a pandemic empty-handed?" So she has gone, cap in hand, to the companies that produce them: Roche has just provided 5.6m free doses of antivirals, which Chan has dispatched to the developing world; she is angling for another 5-6m, and hopes they will soon come through. "Vaccines are much more difficult," she says with some understatement, "because of the limitations in production capacity." Companies in Europe and North America, and a few small ones in Asia, are racing to make a vaccine to combat this new disease. "One should be available soon, in August. But having a vaccine available is not the same as having a vaccine that is proven safe. Clinical trial data will not be available for another two to three months." The process of acquiring a vaccine is already a salutary lesson in health inequality. "Most of the production capacity has already been booked up by wealthy countries. Again I have to ask the question: do the developing countries have to wait at the end of the queue? Because if that's the case, they won't have a vaccine for six months." So Chan is trying to persuade manufacturers to free up a percentage of their production capacity for developing countries – 10% is her modest request. "The most important thing is to have a supply of vaccine to protect, first and foremost, a functioning health system. It is always important to keep taking care of pregnant women, cancer patients, diabetics and so forth. And I'm also mindful that a certain amount of vaccine should be provided to countries so they can maintain a stable society — that they must vaccinate law enforcement officers, and fire brigades, for example. Making sure that society can function in a normal way." There is, of course, the caveat that swine flu has been "mild so far". Many countries may opt not to vaccinate at all, or not to make it compulsory. But it is also the case that an estimated 250,000-500,000 people die every year from seasonal flu (not including those who die of respiratory failure or heart disease which hasn't been traced back to an initial flu virus), and that the situation with swine flu could change at any moment. British scientists admitted this week that they were taken by surprise by swine flu's sudden spread; Chan is aware that while it could work itself out with comparatively minimal damage, she could also suddenly find herself dealing with a far more virulent, more deadly mutation. And that, of course, would be on top of the myriad other epidemics and crises currently demanding her attention; the massive health impacts of climate change, for example, which she is in no doubt "will be the defining issue of the 21st century". Declining food security will, she predicts, mean massive rises in people dying from malnutrition and diarrhoea, and probably more wars. More floods will mean more water contamination and issues with water security, and more deaths due to injuries and drowning. More waterlogged areas and changes in temperature will mean sharp rises in vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. "The prediction is that, within the next 10-20 years, food production in Africa will drop by 50%. If that's the case, how many more people will go hungry? Remember that malnourished, stunted children cannot reach their education potential, which will have a massive social and economic impact." Chan worries, too, about massive rises in non-communicable diseases (cancer, diabetes, smoking-related illnesses) outside their traditional stamping grounds of the well-fed west. The trouble, from her point of view, is that these diseases attract nothing like the funds that, say, malaria or polio or HIV/AIDS do: "60-80% of the disease burden in developing countries is now due to so-called lifestyle diseases" – and yet, until the last two years when the Bloomberg and Gates foundations got in on the act, non-communicable diseases received no donor funds at all. Then, of course, there are the ongoing battles — malaria (at least seven African regions have reduced deaths by half), polio, measles, HIV and TB, where another crisis of global proportions threatens: "The challenge is drug-resistant TB. And this is really huge. If it gets out of control," Chan warns, "it will take us back to the pre-antibiotic era." And so her days begin at 7am, on her treadmill, and end hunched over her files late at night. Her husband opted not to come with her to Geneva (there would be nothing for him to do, and she travels frequently), so she lives alone in a flat five minutes' walk away from WHO headquarters. She does not drive, and speaks so little French that when she first came she couldn't even find a tin-opener in the shops.For 30 years her husband did all the cooking, so she had forgotten how – after a year and a half she fell ill with anaemia. Living apart from him for the first time in 50 years is taking its toll. "I'm sorry!" she says, flapping her hands helplessly and wiping tears away. "When I talk about my husband . . . you know, he is so interesting, he is such a lovely man. I once said, 'David, can I have a contract?' He said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'Can I marry you again in the next life?' It's not easy. But it is the kind of sacrifice I think you have to make in the interests of global health." And it is a fixed term; she will be done in another two-and-a-half years. In the meantime, there are aeroplanes. The day after we met, Chan flew to Sharm-el-Sheikh to address the spouses of world leaders on maternal death rates; it was a brief stop on her way home to Hong Kong for a couple of weeks' annual holiday. Although "with a pandemic," Chan says wryly, "you can't really be on leave" • guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 15 Jul 2009 | 11:05 pm An awfully friendly Martian adventureTake six men and place them inside a hermetically sealed chamber for 105 days. Welcome to the scientific simulation that tested what astronauts would experience on a trip to Mars Take six men. Place them inside a hermetically sealed chamber that has no windows and is not much bigger than a garage. Tell them that they can only communicate with the outside world with a 20-minute time delay. Now stir and wait 105 days. Such a potent combination of ingredients would, you might think, produce explosive results. If 10 years of Big Brother teaches us anything, it is this. But earlier this week, four Russians, a German and a Frenchman emerged from a capsule at the Institute of Medical and Biological Studies in Moscow, declaring that their experiment to simulate the living conditions astronauts are likely to experience when travelling to Mars was "very easy". What's more, the crew's captain, Sergey Ryazansky, said they all got along so well that they will soon be heading to the French crew member's wedding. "That is, if his fiancee hasn't changed her mind yet," he joked. But interplanetary space travel is no joke, according to Dr Kevin Fong, a lecturer in space medicine and the co-director of the Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine at University College London. There is a wide range of technical challenges to overcome, but perhaps an even greater challenge is understanding how a crew would cope with the physiological and psychological stresses they would face on an 18-month round trip to Mars (five times as long as the Moscow team managed). "They need to be fully autonomous and self-reliant," he says. "They will have to deal with close confinement, lack of privacy, constant threat to life and increasing disconnection with Earth." Getting the right blend of crew will be crucial, he adds: "Should it be, say, six GI Joe Identikits, or should we send a Star Trek-type rainbow of nationalities and genders? Who would get on better? Crew diversity might be a good thing, or it might be bad. We just don't know yet. History shows us that on long-range expeditions, where group psychology is a key component, things can go wrong. Look at Ferdinand Magellan. His crew mutinied, as did Captain Bligh's." Another key factor will be overcoming boredom. Fong says the trip to Mars will be pretty dull for much of the time, beyond a few hours a day doing system checks. Packing some decent DVD box sets might be wise. But perhaps best to steer clear of that well-trodden sci-fi sub-genre that follows a crew on a lengthy trip through space. They typically tend to meet a sticky end at the hands of a deranged crew member, or a blood-thirsty alien. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 15 Jul 2009 | 11:05 pm Space shuttle finally blasts offThe US space agency Nasa successfully launches the space shuttle Endeavour - at the sixth attempt.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jul 2009 | 11:03 pm We have liftoff!A Saturn V rocket launches Apollo 11 on the first leg of its journey to the moon on this day 40 years ago. Apollo expert Christopher Riley provides the commentary
Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 15 Jul 2009 | 11:02 pm Tsunami warnings canceled after 7.8 quake off NZ (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jul 2009 | 10:46 pm Space Shuttle Endeavour Takes to the SkiesAfter over a month's delay, space shuttle Endeavour finally blasts off.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 15 Jul 2009 | 10:15 pm Quebec report seeks to divert water, generate powerTORONTO (Reuters) - Quebec could raise up to C$9.5 billion ($8.5 billion) a year by reversing the flow of three northern rivers to generate power and export water to the United States, according to a report released on Wednesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 15 Jul 2009 | 9:41 pm Obama’s Computerized Hospital Vision May Have Blind Spot
The Obama administration plans to start reforming health care by forcing the nation’s hospitals to go digital. But this well-intentioned plan could backfire if it ends up favoring computerized record systems that have until now been a failure. “It appears that the deck has been stacked in favor of incumbent and legacy organizations,” said David Kibbe, a medical informaticist and senior advisor to the American Academy of Family Physicians. “The state of electronic health records available today is equivalent to the mainframe computer world in 1982. Imagine that the federal government had come in and said, ‘We’re not going to let DEC fail.’” Roughly 5 percent of U.S. hospitals use fully electronic health records, or EHRs for short. Their reluctance to adopt a basic 20th century technology stems partly from reluctance to change, but also from the inadequacies of available commercial systems. In January, a scathing National Research Council report described commercial EHRs as producing inefficiencies, inaccuracies and general disappointment. For every study showing EHR-based improvements in patient care, another shows faults. Stories like that of the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh — where death rates doubled in kids transferred to the hospital after EHR implementation — are cautionary reminders of the risks of moving too fast But some systems have been successful, most notably, non-commercial software used by Veterans Administration hospitals. Combined with a decade of industry lobbying efforts, those successes have allowed the allure of EHRs to survive their real-world problems. In a speech delivered in January, President Obama said electronic health records could “save billions of dollars and thousands of jobs” and “save lives by reducing the deadly but preventable medical errors that pervade our health-care system.”
In February, Obama earmarked $37 billion of the $787 billion economic stimulus package for EHRs, making them the first stage in a promised reform of the $2.1 trillion U.S. health care industry. Over the next several years, hospitals will receive federal subsidies to convert to EHRs. After 2015, laggards will have their Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements reduced. The incentives have made EHRs a national inevitability, but it’s the fine print that will determine whether they fulfill their hype. Obama’s mandate stipulates that EHRs have a “meaningful use,” a term considered a tacit acknowledgment of problems with earlier EHRs, but also open to interpretation. Exactly who will do that interpretation is the center of the EHR debate now playing out at ongoing meetings of the Health Information Policy Committee. Kibbe and like-minded critics worry that powers of interpretation — and, ultimately, the authority to certify or reject EHR systems — will be given to the same companies and personnel whose systems have been a failure. “There’s no doubt that the funding going into EHRs is going to have a huge impact over the next couple of years,” said Daniel Hoch, a Massachusetts General Hospital neurologist. “One of the worries is that you’ll only see them certifying these large corporate solutions, and it’ll stifle the small entrepreneurial company that’s really making something interesting.” The leading candidate for certification power is the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology, or CCHIT. The group is funded by a government contract, but has close ties to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, or HIMSS, a trade group that represents EHR vendors. The head of CCHIT is a former HIMSS executive, and executives from several companies sit on its board. In May, the Washington Post reported that HIMSS had lobbied the Obama administration to put CCHIT in charge of the certification. Whether CCHIT should have such power is arguable, said Fred Trotter, co-founder of the Liberty Medical Software Foundation, a group devoted to promoting open-source EHR systems. In a blog post published in June, he described their certification process as “a check-list for a Proprietary, Rigid, Overweight, Bloated, Loaded, Expensive, and Massive (or PROBLEM for short) EHR products.” Trotter promotes software called VistA (no relationship to the Microsoft OS) that was originally designed by Veterans Administration coders to improve care in hospitals once infamous for mistakes and mix-ups. They’ve since become some of the best in the country, in part because of VistA, which was designed collaboratively by the hospitals’ own coders rather than outside companies, said Trotter. Commercial EHRs are “designed to get paid,” he said. “If you free yourself from that, which happens with the Kaiser and VA model, then you can do more things with EHRs.” “The EHRs deployed to date have been about some kind of cost savings in the end,” said Stanford University medical informaticist Atul Bhutte. “I’m sure the Obama administration will be about cost savings as well.” A final decision on EHR certification is expected in December. “It’s definitely going to change the way business is done. In some cases for the better, and in some cases not for the better,” said Koch. Image: John Norris/Flickr Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes, Wired Science on Twitter.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 15 Jul 2009 | 8:03 pm BLOG: Trash Gets WiredThe Trash Track project will put wireless location markers on samples of city trash.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 15 Jul 2009 | 8:00 pm Solar Sentry Prepared for LaunchWith the solar observatory, NASA hopes to turn scientists into space weathermen.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 15 Jul 2009 | 7:45 pm Low carbon planAn ambitious new road map or yet another dead-end?Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jul 2009 | 7:29 pm Satellites can spot tsunamis: studyWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Satellites can spot the leading edge of a tsunami, U.S. government researchers said on Wednesday in a study that might lead to better ways of detecting the giant waves and get people out of their way.Source: Reuters: Science News | 15 Jul 2009 | 7:26 pm Baby Steps: Chinese Alligators Making a Comeback
Fifteen newly hatched Chinese alligators offer hope that the threatened species might make a comeback. The babies mark the first reproductive success of a seven-year struggle to reintroduce the Chinese alligator on Chongming Island, located at the mouth of the Yangtze River in China. Although the alligator used to roam over much of eastern China, commercial development along the Yangtze disrupted the reptile’s natural habitat and drastically reduced its numbers. A survey in 1999 found only 130 alligators left, all living in a small region of the Anhui Province. This week at the International Congress for Conservation Biology in Beijing, China, scientists announced that conservation efforts appear to be working: Captive-bred alligators released into the wild have produced 15 healthy babies. “This is fantastic news,” said biologist John Thorbjarnarson of the Wildlife Conservation Society in a press release. “The success of this small population suggests that there’s hope for bringing the Chinese alligator back to some parts of its former distribution.” Known in China as “tu long” — meaning muddy dragon — the Chinese alligator is one of only two varieties of alligator in the world and is considered the most threatened of all the crocodilian species. Attempts to restore the alligator to its natural habitat began with the reintroduction of three captive-bred animals from the Anhui Research Center of Chinese Alligator Reproduction in 2001. Six more alligators, including three from the Bronx Zoo in New York, were released into the wild in 2007 after being equipped with radio transmitters for remote monitoring. Researchers tracked the alligators for the next two years, reporting that they hibernated successfully during the winter and then bred in 2008. A video of the alligators being released into the wild is shown below — the hatchlings appear at the end of the segment.
See Also:
Images and Video: Wildlife Conservation Society.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 15 Jul 2009 | 7:07 pm People powerHow one village aims to become carbon neutralSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jul 2009 | 5:08 pm Military Robot Could Eat Dead Bodies'Bot designed to fuel itself by consuming organic material, from grass to furniture or even dead bodies.Source: Livescience.com | 15 Jul 2009 | 5:06 pm Neil Armstrong to skip Apollo 11 eventFirst man to walk on the moon will not take part in Nasa event celebrating the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing The world's most famous moon walker is to skip a Nasa event next week commemorating the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. The notoriously shy Neil Armstrong, the first of only a dozen men to set foot on the Earth's nearest neighbour, is counting on Apollo 11 shipmate Buzz Aldrin to relive his "one small step" for a worldwide audience. Armstrong is said to be deeply suspicious of fans and of the press. Instead, Aldrin will be joined on Monday at Nasa's Washington headquarters by Eugene Cernan, one of the last astronauts to visit the moon, and other Nasa astronauts. Armstrong is due to appear on Sunday night at an event at Washington's Smithsonian Institution, where he is expected to give a 15-minute lecture. But he is unlikely to satisfy the world's desire to hear him speak about his brief jaunt across the lunar surface four decades ago. "He will not be doing interviews or photos," said Isabel Lara, a spokeswoman for the Smithsonian. Nor will he be signing autographs, being reportedly suspicious of souvenir hunters since he discovered in 2005 that his Ohio barber had sold some of his hair to a collector for $3,000. Armstrong's aversion to the spotlight could have played a part in his selection for the historic role. According to his biographer James Hansen, Nasa threw out existing protocol that would have had Aldrin, the lunar lander pilot, as first out of the craft and on to the moon. Nasa chiefs predicted that the first person on the moon would have to bear the burden of lifetime fame, and granted the privilege to the comparatively unassuming Armstrong. Michael Collins, meanwhile, remained in the stifling command module, hurtling around the moon and preparing at an instant's notice to initiate one of 18 rescue procedures, should something fail on the surface below. Nasa has a number of events planned to mark the anniversary, which it hopes will bolster flagging public support for new investment in its space programme. Tomorrow, the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch, the US space agency is showing new broadcast-quality film of Aldrin and Armstrong's lunar excursion, including footage said to have been locked away in Nasa storage since the event. A new website, wechoosethemoon.org, will recreate Armstrong's first steps and track the capsule's route from Earth to the moon. The space shuttle programme, which has claimed the lives of 14 astronauts - 11 more than the Apollo programme - is slated for retirement next year. Barack Obama has shown little enthusiasm in public for the shuttle's replacement, Constellation, which Nasa planners hope will return people to the moon by 2020. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 15 Jul 2009 | 5:05 pm Artificial Brain Aids Cosmic ExplorationUsing an artificial brain, researchers can speed up the process of mapping the universe.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 15 Jul 2009 | 5:00 pm Basking Shark Washes up on N.Y. BeachA massive basking shark gave Jones Beach residents a shock when it washed ashore.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 15 Jul 2009 | 5:00 pm Quake sparks NZ-Australia alertA powerful earthquake strikes off the New Zealand coast, prompting a brief tsunami warning.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jul 2009 | 4:11 pm Buried City in Oasis Lends View of Ancient EgyptAt Amheida, a buried city marooned on an oasis deep in Egypt’s western desert, archaeologists are gaining insight into the cultural history of humanity throughout the region.Source: Livescience.com | 15 Jul 2009 | 4:04 pm Cannonballs Really Could Sink Ships, Study FindsResearchers have solved the puzzle of what sunk a recently discovered 19th century battleship. The answer — cannonballs.Source: Livescience.com | 15 Jul 2009 | 3:46 pm Mystery Gobs of Goo in Arctic SeaNobody knows what the stuff is, but it is thick and dark and gooey.Source: Livescience.com | 15 Jul 2009 | 3:39 pm Mom Who Killed Kids Claims DemonsA women who killed her four girls said they were possessed by demons.Source: Livescience.com | 15 Jul 2009 | 3:36 pm New launchLift-off for the new space blog from Jonathan AmosSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jul 2009 | 3:20 pm Low carbon way 'to reshape lives'Generating one third of electricity from renewables by 2020 is central to the UK government's low carbon initiative.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jul 2009 | 3:10 pm SLIDE SHOW: A Dino With Nine-Inch NailsScientists report the discovery of a giant, clawed dinosaur.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 15 Jul 2009 | 2:30 pm Alligators Boxed, Shipped, Set FreeFour Chinese alligators from the Bronx Zoo are among a group of once-captive gators that were reintroduced into the wild on Chongming Island, China. The alligators have successfully bred and recently welcomed new baby gators.Source: Livescience.com | 15 Jul 2009 | 2:12 pm Captive Alligators Breed in WildChinese alligators that were reintroduced to the wild have successfully mated and produced offspringSource: Livescience.com | 15 Jul 2009 | 2:08 pm Nitrites in Meats Fingered in Rise of DiseasesDiabetes and other diseases are linked with nitrites in hot dogs and other foods.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 15 Jul 2009 | 1:30 pm 'Cloak of Illusion' Tech Could Disguise ObjectsA cloak of illusion would allow an image to disguise a concealed object.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 15 Jul 2009 | 12:45 pm
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