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chasejw

BBC NEWS | Health | New nerves grown from fat cells - 0 views

  • New nerves grown from fat cells
  • New nerves grown from stem cells taken from a patient's fat could be available by 2011,
  • The findings of their study on rats, in Experimental Neurology, could help hundreds of people a year, they say.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • At the moment, only limited techniques are available to help repair nerves outside the spinal cord, even though they have a limited capacity to regrow.
  • Other nerves from elsewhere in the patient are often used, which does not restore perfect function and can cause further damage. The Manchester technique uses stem cells - immature cells which the body naturally uses to create different tissue types. So far, the team has extracted stem cells from fat tissue taken from rats, and managed to coax the cells into becoming neurons - nerve cells - in the laboratory. Their next step is to repeat this in stem cells from human fat, and then create a full replacement nerve, using a biodegradable "sheath" to surround it.
  • This nerve-filled tube could then be implanted to re-join the ends of a severed nerve virtually anywhere in the body, they claim.
chasejw

`Ellen' cancels tapings per doggy angst - Yahoo! News - 0 views

  • Ellen DeGeneres' talk show was put on hold for a day because of her emotionally wrenching dog-adoption drama.
    • chasejw
       
      yes
  • The battle over Iggy, a Brussels Griffon terrier mix, pitted DeGeneres against an animal rescue agency and, at one point, had her in tears on her show
  • owners of the nonprofit Mutts and Moms agency, claimed that DeGeneres violated the adoption agreement by not informing them that she was giving the dog away and removed Iggy from the hairstylist's home Sunday
sirgabrial

NPR : Maine Middle School to Issue Birth Control Pills - 0 views

  • Maine Middle School to Issue Birth Control Pills
  • School officials in Portland, Maine, voted to make birth control pills available to students at one of the city's middle schools.
  • The contraceptives would be available to girls in the seventh and eighth grades, with their parents' permission.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • The move, sanctioned late Wednesday in a 7-2 vote by the Portland School Committee, follows a spate of pregnancies among middle school girls.
  • King Middle School will be Maine's first school to have a full range of contraception available, including birth control pills and patches. Condoms have been available at King's health center since 2000.
  • as young as 11.
  • student undergoes a physical exam by a physician or nurse practitioner
  • Parents must consent to their children using the school's health center
  • reatment is confidential under state law
  • students can decide whether to inform their parents about the services they receive.
  • 17 pregnancies at its three middle schools in the last four years
  • not all these kids have a strong parental advocate at home."
  • does not clearly define the services being offered.
  • kids already having sex need better access to birth control.
sirgabrial

ScienceDaily: Turn Off The TV During Family Meals - 0 views

  • Turn Off The TV During Family Meals
  • September and October mark the start of television’s new fall season as the premieres of new shows and old favorites hit the airwaves. But, University of Minnesota researchers found that watching television while eating family meals may have a negative impact on children’s diets.
  • School of Public Health Project EAT researchers found that children in families who watched TV while eating meals together had a lower-quality diet than the children of families who ate together, but turned the TV off. Boys watching TV while eating family meals consumed fewer vegetables and grains, and more soft drinks, than those who did not watch TV; girls watching TV ate significantly fewer dark vegetables and more fried food.
    • sirgabrial
       
      -what specific results, wonder how they got these

  • ...5 more annotations...
  • television may be influencing the types of foods that adolescents choose to eat because of the advertisements they see.
  • lthough watching TV negatively impacts the nutritional quality of food children eat at family meals, children engaged in regular family meals did eat healthier foods than children in families who did not eat regular meals
  • importance of family meals.
  • Use the time to catch up with your children on whatever is going on in their lives,”
  • The Project EAT study was published in the September/October issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.
sirgabrial

Scientists unravel health benefits of garlic: study - 0 views

  • Garlic boosts hydrogen sulfide to relax arteries
  • Eating garlic is one of the best ways to lower high blood pressure and protect yourself from cardiovascular disease. A new study from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) shows this protective effect is closely linked to how much hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is produced from garlic compounds interacting with red blood cells.
  • led to the relaxation of blood vessels
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Fresh garlic was used at a concentration equal to eating two cloves.
  • “When these garlic compounds are metabolized to H2S in the vascular system, the H2S targets membrane channels and causes smooth muscle cells to relax,”
  • The research team examined molecules in garlic called polysulfides and their ability to liberate H2S within cells.
  • he findings appear in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
  • 72 percent vessel relaxation in rat arteries.
  • protected hearts from the tissue and cell damage often seen in heart attack patients.
  • H2S is a toxic, flammable gas responsible for the smell of rotten eggs
  • It’s also produced naturally by the body in small amounts, and as age advances, H2S production dwindles.
  • ot entirely clear
  • limiting oxidative damage in cells
  • reventing platelet aggregation, which can trigger a heart attack or stroke, and in limiting cancer growth and the progression of several diseases is well documented
sirgabrial

Bush 'planted fake news stories on American TV' - Independent Online Edition > Americas - 0 views

  • Bush 'planted fake news stories on American TV'
  • Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news. Some of the fake news segments talked up success in the war in Iraq, or promoted the companies' products.
  • The report, by the non-profit group Centre for Media and Democracy, found that over a 10-month period at least 77 television stations were making use of the faux news broadcasts, known as Video News Releases (VNRs). Not one told viewers who had produced the items.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • much worse than we expected going into the investigation in terms of just how widely these get played and how frequently these pre-packaged segments are put on the air."
  • public relations companies commissioned to produce these segments by corporations had become increasingly sophisticated in their techniques in order to get the VNRs broadcast. "They have got very good at mimicking what a real, independently produced television report would look like,"
  • an Iraqi-American in Kansas City was seen saying "Thank you Bush. Thank you USA"
  • The FCC has declined to comment on the investigation
  • n response to the 2003 fall of Baghdad.
  • produced by the State Department
  • Many of the corporate reports, produced by drugs manufacturers such as Pfizer, focus on health issues and promote the manufacturer's product.
    • sirgabrial
       
      -i wonder how much this has gone on in the past?
      -reefer madness anyone?

  • While the original VNR disclosed that it was produced by Mars, such information was removed when it was broadcast by the television channel - in this case a Fox-owned station in St Louis, Missouri.
  • "Essentially it's corporate advertising or propaganda masquerading as news,"
  • based on real reporting and real information
barnaby

Upside Down World - Anti-Terrorism Law Criminalizes Protest in Paraguay - 0 views

shared by barnaby on 18 Oct 07 - Cached
  • Government of Paraguay has introduced proposals
  • criminalisation of social protest and the paralysis of civil society organizations
  • thousands and thousands of rural poor are being forced from their land
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • organizing to fight for their right to land, health care and education.
  • lack of government support.
  • land occupation, and the intention of occupying land, will become a crime punishable in some cases by five years in prison
  • straight to prison.
  • anti-terrorist law
  • arbitrary decision by a judge
  • dangerous interventions or obstacles on public roadways,” “noise pollution”
  • financing terrorist activities is also a crime punishable by 5-15 years in prison, as is any kind of association with terrorist organizations.
  • anyone could be considered a terrorist
  • A lawyer giving a workshop, a journalist doing an investigation, or an international NGO providing financial support could all be accused of promoting terrorism.”
barnaby

Stabroek News - Mozilla Firefox - 0 views

  • At the Third PetroCaribe Summit held in Caracas
  • Daniel Ortega made it clear that ethanol diplomacy would not work in his country
  • they could never satisfy global demand
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • he did try to make Mr Lula understand that ethanol production was not high on his agenda
  • Nicaragua's potential for sugar-cane ethanol holds greater promise than corn-based ethanol
  • Brazil is the main producer of ethanol in the world and accounts for about 90 percent of global biofuels
  • seems more inclined to follow his ideological soul mate, Mr Chávez, who has for good measure already promised to finance a petroleum refinery in Nicaragua
  • Ortega appears therefore to be adopting a pragmatic approach to ameliorating his country's energy crisis
  • Ortega made it clear that he prefers the more populist, petro-dollar largesse of Mr Chávez
  • it is vulnerable to a sudden drop in the price of oil.
  • deepen energy cooperation and strengthen multilateral relations in the region.
  • stressed the need for energy security in the face of an "unjust international economic order"
  • Bolivia, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela
  • Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica and St Vincent and the Grenadines are flirting.
  • Ten countries also signed on to a parallel Treaty on Energy Security, which Venezuela had already signed with Argentina and Uruguay, and which focuses on: oil and gas; ethanol production,
  • and alternative means of generating electricity.
  • Guyana's interest in developing a large-scale ethanol industry
  • Mr Chávez would appear to have trumped Mr Lula at the end of their week of energetic diplomacy
barnaby

The Spectrum - www.thespectrum.com - - Mozilla Firefox - 0 views

  • The cost of implementing educational vouchers is staggering
  • cumulatively topping out at $384 million
  • separate budget, with the addition of voucher funding, Utah taxpayers will actually be taxed two times for education.
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  • Private schools will not have to employ teachers with educational credentials
  • No Child Left Behind Act, which has been championed by President Bush already at the cost of millions of taxpayer dollars
  • Northwest Association of Accredited Schools
  • assured that they are informed citizens and on equal footing with students from the rest of the country
  • accredited by any agency of their choosing.
  • ot that parents don't care; it's just that many of them are stretched too far
  • violates the intent and the spirit of the U.S. Constitution
  • Once a voucher is used for a religious school, taxpayer money is being used to fund religion
  • any organization may comply with the described minimal standards for creating a school, thus allowing a student to use that voucher to attend it
  • a school may call itself the "School of Humanity" all the while teaching and preparing its students for Jihad against America. And all this at the expense of U.S. citizens!
  • vouchers were used with no significant improvements in test scores noted
  • higher test scores are largely a result of smaller class sizes - not vouchers!
barnaby

Deadly Guatemala Electoral Campaign - Prensa Latina - 0 views

  • While there are still 40 days to the Guatemalan general elections
  • most violent since institutionality was re-established in 1985
  • 39 people have died
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • son of Daniel Mijangos, who is running for the post of mayor for the PP (Patriotic Party), was shot dead.
  • mafias linked to drug trafficking, smuggling, and money laundering are responsible for at least 14 of the murders
barnaby

Votescam: Comment: The New Yorker - 0 views

  • ne of the most important Republican lawyers in Sacramento quietly filed a ballot initiative that would end the practice of granting all fifty-five of California’s electoral votes to the statewide winner
  • award two of them to the statewide winner and the rest, one by one, to the winner in each congressional district.
  • spot the Republican ticket something in the neighborhood of twenty electoral votes
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Nominally, the sponsor of No. 07-0032 is Californians for Equal Representation. But that’s just a letterhead
  • address is the office suite of Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk, the law firm for the California Republican Party, and its covering letter is signed by Thomas W. Hiltachk, the firm’s managing partner and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s personal lawyer for election matters
  • winner-take-all rule, which is in force in all but two states, does seem unfair on the face of it.
  • while everybody else is still going with winner take all by state, the real-world result
  • Republicans
  • Ohio-size gift of electoral votes
  • audacious power play packaged as a step forward for democratic fairness.
barnaby

Bush Aide Blocked Report - washingtonpost.com - 0 views

  • A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health
  • report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments
  • described the link between poverty and poor health, urged the U.S. government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate
  • blocked by William R. Steiger, a specialist in education and a scholar of Latin American history
  • family has long ties to President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
  • Richard H. Carmona
  • Bush administration's frequent efforts during his tenure to give scientific documents a political twist
  • senior official told him that "this will be a political document, or it will not be released."
  • scientific and medical experts inside and outside the government against Steiger and his political bosses
  • Steiger
  • Steiger
  • "often inaccurate or out-of-date and it lacked analysis and focus."
    • barnaby
       
      not an expert in the field
  • Steiger confirmed that he sharply disagreed with Carmona on the issue of how much the report should promote Bush administration policies
  • let Americans know what their generosity is already doing in helping to solve those challenges
  • linking public health problems with violence and other social ills
  • The hunger, disease, and death resulting from poor food and nutrition create social and political instability
  • the report charts trends in infectious and chronic disease; reviews efforts to curb AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria; calls for the careful monitoring of public health to safeguard against bioterrorism; and explains the importance of proper nutrition, childhood immunizations and clean air and water
  • disease and suffering do not respect political boundaries in an era of globalization and mass population movements
barnaby

Gulf Daily News - 0 views

  • United States has agreed to a 25 per cent increase in its military and defence aid to Israel, to $30 billion
  • important element for the security of Israel.
  • "to keep the qualitative edge between Israel and the other states in the region,"
barnaby

NIMBY Notebook: Habitat For Hypocrisy - 0 views

  • Bill Duane
  • Martha's Vineyard, 10 homeowners sued earlier this year—on environmental grounds—to block construction of an affordable house for a fisherman who'd been living with his wife and children in a tent.
  • volunteered for Habitat for Humanity
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • People support affordable housing with their labor, money, and votes—just so long as it's nowhere near them.
  • retired schoolteacher had sent him inside a Monet greeting card, which began, "You are a disgrace to the human race and should be ashamed of yourself."
  • teacher's home is worth almost as much as his own. "And it's surrounded by vacant lots,"
  • Until recently, that is, when the group announced plans to build two affordable duplexes just down the street from him
  • Joni Lynch says her most strident foes were button-wearing progressives.
  • few development projects have been more enigmatically unpopular
  • Marin project
  • three luxury houses will be clumped onto a 17.5-acre hill in a way that preserves most of the land as open space.
  • Duane and I climbed into his Mercedes station wagon and drove to the project site, a hillside of chaparral and grass. He'd promised me it would be obvious that congestion was already bad. A lone Toyota Prius with a "Save Tibet" sticker silently cruised by. "Usually this whole area is packed with cars," he insisted. And if I researched the matter, he hinted, I might learn that the endangered Tiburon mariposa lily grows here (naturalists doubt it), and that an Indian burial spear discovered nearby might have belonged to the county's namesake, Chief Marin (a Marin anthropologist says Duane is "reporting things that are not there"). Duane next raised an environmental justice concern: Placing the affordable housing in the shadow of million-dollar homes fosters "a slave kind of mentality."
    • barnaby
       
      Lies to save face
  • most opposition to affordable housing boils down to homeowner fear of lowered property values and higher school costs.
barnaby

Bush says others delay Guantanamo prison closure - washingtonpost.com - 0 views

  • part of the delay was the reluctance of some nations to take back some of the people being held there."
  • detention without charge
  • base in Cuba.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • needed in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism.
  • 355 detainees
  • 80 are eligible for release or transfer
  • another 75 to 80 detainees on track for transfer
  • down to about 200
  • 25 of the 80 detainees currently eligible for transfer cannot be returned to their home nations because of human rights concerns
  • U.S. officials did not specify which countries were reluctant
  • Britain asked the United States on Tuesday to release five detainees from Guantanamo
  • still reviewing the request
  • 14 al Qaeda suspects
  • a label that allows the U.S. government to keep holding them
  • from secret CIA prisons
  • not meant to determine guilt
  • Charges have not been filed
barnaby

TheStar.com - News - U.S., India in nuclear deal - 0 views

shared by barnaby on 18 Oct 07 - Cached
  • worked out differences blocking the sharing of civilian nuclear fuel and technology
  • could spur the spread of nuclear weapons.
barnaby

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Nerve gas antidote made by goats - 0 views

  • cientists have genetically modified goats to make a drug in their milk that protects against deadly nerve agents such as sarin and VX.
barnaby

When New Building Dries Up Resources - New York Times - 0 views

  • local public schools and the “family-type, small-town feeling”
  • offset other negatives
barnaby

When New Building Dries Up Resources - New York Times - 0 views

  • long-term integrity of the vast underground water supply that serves it as well
  • The prevalent mentality that natural resources have no end has come to an abrupt halt here,” said John A. Henry
  • overuse of its wells could draw in saltwater
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • buying water from Savannah for the last five years.
  • decade ago
  • became widely known about a decade ago >,
  • straining the key underground water source past its limits
  • continued high use there of underground water could intensify saltwater intrusion in wells
  • already caused some saltwater to be suctioned
  • 5, 10 or 15 years
barnaby

Drug czar gives warning : Local : Redding Record Searchlight - 0 views

  • illicit marijuana gardens are a terrorist threat to the public's health and safety
  • who plant and tend the gardens are terrorists who wouldn't hesitate to help other terrorists get into the country with the aim of causing mass casualties
  • using Black Hawk and other helicopters
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • led by the sheriff's office and has involved 17 agencies
  • destroying our lands and wildlife
  • $300 million to revive
  • $11,000 per acre to pull the plants, clear irrigation systems, reshape any terracing and replant native vegetation
  • Walters didn't give specific goals for Operation Alesia
  • put its leaders into jail
  • at least two straight weeks of daily raids
  • at least two straight weeks of daily raids
  • Bosenko has promised will be at least two straight weeks of daily raids.
  • straight weeks of daily raids.
  • two straight weeks of daily raids
  • two straight weeks of daily raids.
  • two straight weeks of daily raids.
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