Monthly Archives: October 2012

Councillors plant seed for more floral islands

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By Kevin Werner, News Staff

Former Hamilton mayor Bob Morrow enhanced his reputation by introducing the citys floral traffic island program, believing it boosted Hamiltons image.

After several years of cutbacks, former mayor Fred Eisenberger boosted the program in an attempt to re-energize the city.

Now councillors want more flowers on traffic islands.

Its a winner, said Mountain councillor Tom Jackson. People love to see it.

When Morrow lost the 2000 municipal election, the floral island program slowly declined under mayors Bob Wade and Larry Di Ianni, as part of the citys cost-cutting measure. Of 247 floral traffic islands, there remained 155. About 70 of them were converted to gravel and rock, while another 22 islands had their flowers removed.

But in 2007, councillors started to see the benefits of having colourful flowers along the roadways. They agreed to add five full-time employees, and provided $368,000 capital costs, and another $285,000 in operating funding to re-instate the program.

Today there are 264 floral island programs, with ward 2 having the most at 102. Ward 1 has 40, while ward 6 has 19, ward 7 nine, and ward 8 24. Wards 11, 14 and 15 have no floral islands.

There is some converted to gravel, said Dundas councillor Russ Powers. Some make sense, some dont.

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Councillors plant seed for more floral islands

Wyoming voters will get a say on Obamacare mandate

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CHEYENNE -- A proposal designed to block the federal health-care act's insurance mandate in Wyoming will go before state voters on Nov. 6.

But legal experts say proposed Constitutional Amendment A will have little, or no, real impact.

It may play well politically in Wyoming, but it wont have any effect, said Timothy Jost, a law professor and expert in health care law at Washington and Lee University in Virginia.

The supremacy clause (of the U.S. Constitution) says that federal laws are supreme over state laws and that any state laws would be pre-empted.

The proposal is one of three proposed constitutional amendments on the general election ballot in Wyoming.

Ballot language on proposed Amendment A

reads:

The adoption of this amendment will provide that the right to make health-care decisions is reserved to the citizens of the state of Wyoming. It permits any person to pay and any health care provider to receive direct payment for services.

It also says the Legislature can place reasonable and necessary restrictions on health care and that the state shall preserve residents rights from undue governmental infringement.

Lawmakers passed a bill during the 2011 session to create the ballot measure.

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Wyoming voters will get a say on Obamacare mandate

Senior health care centers worry about future

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Leaders of adult day health care centers at financial risk say it's too early to know whether a Medi-Cal transition that started last week will serve as a safety net.

"I still don't know what's going to happen to us," said Kiana Bahadoran, co-owner of Advanced Adult Day Health Care Center in Simi Valley. "Worry is my other name these days. I wake up with worries, and I sleep with worries."

On Oct. 1, a long Medi-Cal transition reached culmination. Instead of being paid by a state-run agency to provide Medi-Cal care to 784 seniors and disabled people in and around Ventura County, the centers now will be paid by a managed care agency that administers the Medi-Cal insurance program locally, the Gold Coast Health Plan.

The change is rooted in a lawsuit filed after state leaders tried to eliminate California's adult day health care program to reduce costs. Client advocates said the cut would end up putting seniors who receive therapy, nursing care and other services at the centers into hospitals and nursing homes.

A settlement created a compromise program, Community Based Adult Services. Although the five Ventura County centers in the program provide the same services they did in adult day health care, Community Based Adult Services is designed to save the state money by serving fewer people and coordinating care better.

Locally, about 60 people in the old program were deemed ineligible for the new program. Nearly all of them are appealing the ruling, and even if it stands, they may still be eligible for therapy and other care based on individual needs.

On Oct. 1, Gold Coast took over managing the care and paying the bill for county residents receiving services at the health care centers. A similar transition has taken place in 29 other counties.

Leaders of some local centers say the transition is off to a smooth start.

"So far, so good," said Mark Kovalik, administrator of Among Friends Adult Day Health Care in Oxnard. "Both organizations, Gold Coast and us, have to go through a learning curve, but they've been very cooperative."

Kovalik said Among Friends is in no danger of closing. Leaders of the Oxnard Family Circle Adult Day Health Care Center say the same thing.

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Senior health care centers worry about future

Microsoft, General Electric unite to improve health care data

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In a downtown Bellevue, Wash., high-rise last week, the doors opened to a new health care joint venture formed by two of the world's largest companies: Microsoft and General Electric.

Caradigm, as the 50-50 joint venture is called, is aimed at bringing together Microsoft's strengths in developing large-scale data platforms with GE Healthcare's expertise in building health care applications.

The idea is to create a system that will allow health care organizations to better track individual patients, as well as to take advantage of the ability to bring together, and make sense of, large amounts of data from disparate sources.

The overall goal is to deliver better care at lower costs. "The premise is we'll be better together than separate," Caradigm CEO MIchael Simpson said last week of the two companies coming together. He also said a smaller joint-venture company would be able to act more nimbly than two giant companies.

Caradigm employs 600 in offices in Bellevue; Salt Lake City; Andover, Mass.; Chevy Chase, Md.; and other cities. The company is expected to employ about 750 people eventually.

The niche Caradigm aims to fill is related to the greater amounts of available electronic medical data and the drive toward interoperability - the ability for different health care systems and information from those systems to work with and relate to each other.

Those trends are happening worldwide, Simpson contends, and in the U.S. are being spurred in large part by the U.S. government. The HITECH Act of 2009, for instance, offers incentives for hospitals and physicians to use electronic health records.

But just digitizing the information led to the creation of different "silos" of data - with medical records being separate from analytical tools, for instance, or one company's offerings being unable to work with another company's.

Caradigm aims to create a layer that brings all that data together, allowing for easier data sharing and permitting clinicians to aggregate data so they can learn from it and use it strategically.

"Caradigm creates the big umbrella to bring all those silos together," Simpson said.

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Microsoft, General Electric unite to improve health care data

Romney favors health care competition, gives few details

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As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney oversaw the most ambitious revamping of a health care system by any state in the country. And as a presidential candidate, he contends that's how health care reform should be handled: state by state.

Romney has provided few specifics on what the federal government would do to help states expand coverage for uninsured Americans or make the health care system more efficient.

But he has made clear he believes that competition and giving consumers the ability to choose among a variety of health plans and providers can lead to better quality at a lower cost.

"The general approach is there," said Nina Owcharenko, a policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy and research organization. "But the details - I guess we will just have to wait and see."

At the same time, Romney has said he would not just repeal the Affordable Care Act but also replace it - and critics contend his campaign has provided scant information on just what would replace the law.

"They have nothing of substance to replace it with," said Robert Laszewski, a consultant and former health insurance executive who writes a respected blog, the Health Policy and Marketplace Review. "And that's the important thing to understand."

Romney's proposals contain little to expand coverage for the tens of millions of Americans who work in low-wage jobs that don't provide health benefits, who have pre-existing health conditions that prevent them from being able to buy health insurance or who have lost their jobs and health insurance.

"His proposal, to the extent that he has any details, would do very little to expand health insurance coverage and in contrast would very likely would lead to an increase in people without coverage," said Thomas Oliver, a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Recent studies by the Commonwealth Fund and Families USA - organizations that support the Affordable Care Act - projected that Romney's proposals would result in the number of people without health insurance increasing at a faster pace in the next decade, in part because of his proposal to limit future growth in federal spending on the Medicaid program.

For certain, Romney has made reducing the federal budget deficit one of his top priorities, and he has risked backing bold plans to limit future federal spending on Medicaid and eventually Medicare.

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Romney favors health care competition, gives few details

California initiative will test appetite for genetically modified foods

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LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Calories. Nutrients. Serving size. How about "produced with genetic engineering?"

California voters will soon decide whether to require certain raw and processed foods to carry such a label.

In a closely watched test of consumers' appetite for genetically modified foods, the special label is being pushed by organic farmers and advocates who are concerned about what people eat even though the federal government and many scientists contend such foods are safe.

More than just food packaging is at stake. The outcome could reverberate through American agriculture, which has long tinkered with the genes of plants to reduce disease, ward off insects and boost the food supply.

International food and chemical conglomerates, including Monsanto Co. and DuPont Co., have contributed about $35 million to defeat Proposition 37 on the November ballot. It also would ban labeling or advertising genetically altered food as "natural." Its supporters have raised just about one-tenth of that amount.

If voters approve the initiative, California would become the first state to require disclosure of a broad range of foods containing genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Food makers would have to add a label or reformulate their products to avoid it. Supermarkets would be charged with making sure their shelves are stocked with correctly labeled items.

Genetically altered plants grown from seeds engineered in the laboratory have been a mainstay for

Proponents say explicit labeling gives consumers information about how a product is made and allows them to decide whether to choose foods with genetically modified ingredients.

"They're fed up. They want to know what's in their food," said Stacy Malkan, spokeswoman for the California Right to Know campaign.

Agribusiness, farmers and retailers oppose the initiative, claiming it would lead to higher grocery bills and leave the state open to frivolous lawsuits. Kathy Fairbanks, spokeswoman for the No on 37 campaign, said labels would be interpreted as a warning and confuse shoppers.

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California initiative will test appetite for genetically modified foods

California initiative to test appetite for 'genetically engineered' food

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The Associated Press Published Sunday, Oct. 7, 2012 10:03AM EDT

LOS ANGELES -- Calories. Nutrients. Serving size. How about "produced with genetic engineering?"

California voters will soon decide whether to require certain raw and processed foods to carry such a label.

In a closely watched test of consumers' appetite for genetically modified foods, the special label is being pushed by organic farmers and advocates who are concerned about what people eat even though the federal government and many scientists contend such foods are safe.

More than just food packaging is at stake. The outcome could reverberate through American agriculture, which has long tinkered with the genes of plants to reduce disease, ward off insects and boost the food supply.

International food and chemical conglomerates, including Monsanto Co. and DuPont Co., have contributed about $35 million to defeat Proposition 37 on the November ballot. It also would ban labeling or advertising genetically altered food as "natural." Its supporters have raised just about one-tenth of that amount.

If voters approve the initiative, California would become the first state to require disclosure of a broad range of foods containing genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Food makers would have to add a label or reformulate their products to avoid it. Supermarkets would be charged with making sure their shelves are stocked with correctly labeled items.

Genetically altered plants grown from seeds engineered in the laboratory have been a mainstay for more than a decade. Much of the corn, soybean, sugar beets and cotton cultivated in the United States today have been tweaked to resist pesticides or insects. Most of the biotech crops are used for animal feed or as ingredients in processed foods including cookies, cereal, potato chips and salad dressing.

Proponents say explicit labeling gives consumers information about how a product is made and allows them to decide whether to choose foods with genetically modified ingredients.

"They're fed up. They want to know what's in their food," said Stacy Malkan, spokeswoman for the California Right to Know campaign.

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California initiative to test appetite for 'genetically engineered' food

Genetic labelling mooted in California

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By Alicia Chang

Calories. Nutrients. Serving size. How about "produced with genetic engineering"?

California voters will soon decide whether to require certain raw and processed foods to carry such a label.

In a closely watched test of consumers' appetite for genetically modified foods, the special label is being pushed by organic farmers and advocates who are concerned about what people eat even though the federal government and many scientists contend such foods are safe.

More than just food packaging is at stake. The outcome could reverberate through American agriculture, which has long tinkered with the genes of plants to reduce disease, ward off insects and boost the food supply.

International food and chemical conglomerates, including Monsanto and DuPont, have contributed about US$35 million to defeat Proposition 37 on the November ballot. It also would ban labelling or advertising genetically altered food as "natural". Its supporters have raised just about one-tenth of that amount.

If voters approve the initiative, California would become the first state to require disclosure of a broad range of foods containing genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Food makers would have to add a label or reformulate their products to avoid it. Supermarkets would be charged with making sure their shelves are stocked with correctly labelled items.

Genetically altered plants grown from seeds engineered in the laboratory have been a mainstay for more than a decade. Much of the corn, soybean, sugar beets and cotton cultivated in the United States today have been tweaked to resist pesticides or insects. Most of the biotech crops are used for animal feed or as ingredients in processed foods including cookies, cereal, potato chips and salad dressing.

Proponents say explicit labelling gives consumers information about how a product is made and allows them to decide whether to choose foods with genetically modified ingredients.

"They're fed up. They want to know what's in their food," said Stacy Malkan, spokeswoman for the California Right to Know campaign.

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Genetic labelling mooted in California

A Quick Primer On Futurist-Level Foresight

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Anyone raising a child with the benefits of the digital world doesn't have to look past those tiny fingertips tapping their own apps to realize how quickly we're transitioning.

Theoretical physicist and futurist Dr. Michio Kaku argues that humankind is at a turning point in history. He claims that in this century, we are going to make a shift from the "Age of Discovery" to the "Age of Mastery," a period in which we will move from being passive observers of life and nature to its active choreographers. According to Kaku, robots with human-level intelligence may finally become a reality, and in the ultimate stage of mastery, we'll even be able to merge our minds with machine intelligence. It's how we harness this mastery that will matter.

The science fiction is becoming fact. During a recent visit to Google headquarters, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation to allow autonomous vehicles to operate on the state's roads. Brown touted the signing of the bill as turning today's science fiction into tomorrow's reality. California is the third U.S. state to legalize self-driving cars, following Nevada and Florida, where similar laws earlier were passed this year.

This is just the beginning. We need to be ready for the next set of intelligent innovation, in any field. Hospitals are embracing robotic surgery, and patients are choosing it more and more for many procedures. Robotic-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy, is minimally-invasive, laparoscopic surgery, and has become the standard of care for prostate cancer patients. It offers lower morbidity, less pain, less blood loss and increased precision.

Education too needs to evolve to prepare people for an integrated world, where science converges with every area of practice and development. People training in or committed to a single discipline in a traditional manner won't succeed in tomorrow's marketplace. For more than 30 years, the Fisher Program in Management and Technology has combined two of Penn's greatest assets into one educational experience: Penn Engineering and The Wharton School. Schools that fail to offer true cross-disciplinary study are going to fall behind to create future leaders of a converged world. And leaders who fail to create cross-functional, cross-industry workforce will lose to their competition.

It is the leader's responsibility to prepare his or her organization for what lies ahead--and that will mean changes in what we are doing now to break down the silos and create multi-disciplinary teams--in order to prepare for the unknown.

The underlying, critical element of achieving and maintaining convergence in the modern organization is nothing less than individual leadership. It takes leaders with perseverance and courage to build and implement the cross-functional management culture with the tenets of converged disciplines.

It is a continual evolution and revolution of concepts and opportunities that reflect contemporary and future business operations and objectives.

An essential part of this transition requires both left-brained (analytical) and right-brained (creative) talent and culture. Leaders of the future will approach this collaboration challenge by defining cross-functional teams as personas'. These are roles that one assumes or displays in society or the workplace. Their skills and behaviors influence their interactions with other people. Some personas are analytical, some are creative, and others are a combination. A few personas are as follows:

However, to sustain product and business innovation, leaders must build a flexible culture that can attract and empower a wide variety of talent. It is all too easy for organizations to fall into the analysis trap and focus on left-brain skills like process, measurement, and execution.

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A Quick Primer On Futurist-Level Foresight

Doug Saunders: ‘Religious freedom’ sends the wrong message to the wrong people

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Its time to speak out against religious freedom.

Or, to be precise, against its promotion and the way its used. To those of us who believe freedoms should be absolute and robust, and are ardently opposed to the persecution of people for their beliefs, this might sound like an odd proposition. What could be more benign than another freedom?

2012: Tainted

But Canada is within days of opening a federal Office of Religious Freedom (within the Department of Foreign Affairs), and its becoming apparent that this isnt a good idea for our country or the world. In fact, its very likely to contribute to the very problems we hope it might help solve.

We might as well face it: When groups of people exercise their self-proclaimed religious freedoms, terrible things tend to happen. The phrase religious freedom is evoked by Hindu nationalist parties in India to justify killing rampages in Muslim neighbourhoods, by the Buddhist-majority government of Sri Lanka to imprison members of the countrys Hindu minority, by Jewish religious parties in Israel to call for the denial of Israeli Muslims full citizenship rights, and by crowds of Salafists and Islamists in Egypt bent on ruining the lives of Coptic Christians.

For the ardent religious believer and the organized, hierarchical religious organization, religious freedom often refers to the right to restrict the freedoms of others, or to impose ones religion on the larger world.

Thats why the most important religious freedom is freedom from religion. This applies not just to those without religion. Its even more important for believers, who are most often persecuted by other faiths. In those examples of persecution listed above, its protection from a religion not more freedom for believers thats needed.

The problem is that religious freedom is deliberately vague. Does it refer to the freedom of individuals to hold religious beliefs of their choice, to speak and write openly of those beliefs without penalty, and to partake in religious rituals on private property and at places of worship?

Those are fundamental rights. Theyre already protected in constitutional freedoms of speech, thought, conscience, assembly and basic equality. That our Constitution specifies a separate freedom of religion is redundant. That we would use a government office to promote religion above other freedoms is dangerous: It implies that theyre less important.

While Canadas Office of Religious Freedom will certainly be capable of defending people against the forces of religion (and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird mentions this possibility in his speeches), it appears to be hard-wired to do something far less benign. Its advisers and board members appear to be mainly religious believers and leaders of religious congregations.

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Doug Saunders: ‘Religious freedom’ sends the wrong message to the wrong people

Beaches closed after sharks attack whale

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2012-10-07 21:52

Cape Town - A 30m southern right whale carcass has been spotted offshore near Capricorn beach in Cape Town, the city disaster risk management centre said on Sunday.

"The whale carcass is approximately three kilometres past Sunrise Circle after Capricorn beach and can been seen from Baden Powell Drive," said spokesperson Wilfred Solomons-Johannes.

"It has been established that the whale has been bitten several times by Great White sharks, and the bay is covered in a lot of blood and pieces of blubber are afloat at sea."

He said the city has ordered the shoreline between Muizenberg and Monwabisi beaches be closed to the general public as a precautionary measure.

"The shark spotters are constantly monitoring any sightings of sharks along the False Bay coastline. The City is appealing to all water users to be vigilant at this time, obey the shark siren, and to take note of the shark spotters' flags and signage for regular updates on shark sightings."

He said the rapid response teams would attempt to recover the carcass at first daylight on Monday. "Beach users are advised that the general caution will remain in place until further notice," he said.

- SAPA

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Beaches closed after sharks attack whale

Local beaches closed due to sewage spill

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All recreational beaches were closed in Alamitos Bay last week because of a sewage spill from a private system into the Cerritos Channel.

The spill was contained shortly after the city became aware of it on Sept. 30. Mother's Beach was the first to be affected by the spill and was closed immediately.

"It honestly sucks that something like this could happen, Cory Carrasco, a sophomore communications major, said.

According to Long Beach City Health Officer Mitchell Kushner, the spill resulted from the failure of a private homeowners association pump, causing sewage to overflow from manholes onto the street and flow into the channel. The pump normally pushes sewage from homes into the city system.

Kushner said that new safeguards will be discussed at a meeting with homeowners in hopes of preventing this problem from happening again. He also said the property owners were looking at a possible fine or corrective action because the same problem has occurred before.

The Long Beach Health Department conducted water tests every day from Monday to Saturday to see when beach visitors could safely swim in the water again.

Kushner said that clean tests on consecutive days were required to re-open beaches. All beaches re-opened Saturday, according to an automated call-in message from the Long Beach department of Health and Human Services.

I'm glad the city took these precautions so no one comes into contact with the contaminated water and that they are using thorough testing to make sure the water is clean again, senior communications major Amie Boonlikit said.

The spills also affected the Cal State Long Beach Crew Team, which normally rows in Alamitos Bay.

According to the team president of the mens crew team, Yashar Rahimpour, the spill postponed one of the teams races until the following weekend.

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Local beaches closed due to sewage spill

Grand Opening of B/E Aerospace, Inc. 10/03/2012 – Video

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03-10-2012 03:59 First Philippine Industrial Park Tanauan City, Batangas 3 October 2012 President Benigno S. Aquino III graced the opening of the Philippine facility of B/E Aerospace in Batangas, the British firm whose investment of almost two billion pesos in the country is the world's leading manufacturer of aircraft galleys, provider of interior products and solutions, and distributor of aerospace fasteners and consumables for commercial planes and business jets. According to the President, this project marks a new kind of manufacturing in the country. President Aquino said, "We move up the value chain, it also marks the foothold we have secured in the aerospace supply sector." He also thanked the executives of the company for putting up a facility outside USA and Europe, and entrusting its operation in the hands of the skilled Filipino workers. Together with Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) Director General Lilia De Lima and top officials of B/E Aerospace, President Aquino passed through several sections of the assembly area and unveiled the commemorative plaque signalling the inauguration of the facility. * * * Connect with RTVM Website: Facebook Twitter: @RTVMalacanang LinkedIn: Radio Television Malacanang

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Grand Opening of B/E Aerospace, Inc. 10/03/2012 - Video

Bangalore's goal as aerospace hub

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7 October 2012 Last updated at 17:00 ET By Shilpa Kannan BBC News, Bangalore

A crowd of workers looks on proudly as a tractor tows a military helicopter across a huge field near Bangalore, in the Indian state of Karnataka.

This is the Rudra - one of the modern fighter aircraft produced at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (Hal), India's oldest and largest aircraft manufacturer.

The helicopter has been fitted with technology including laser rangefinder and thermal vision to enable the detection of targets in all weather conditions.

Armed with 70mm rockets, anti-tank guided missiles and air-to-air missiles, it is expected to play a major role in India's military industry.

Hal is state-owned and the major supplier to the country's armed forces. In the past 60 years, it has built more than 3,500 aircraft.

Hal has also helped to build an aerospace industry in and around Bangalore, where more than a quarter of India's air and spacecraft are produced.

Now the local authorities are hoping to attract more investment to turn the area into India's aerospace hub.

"Karnataka has its advantages - skilled manpower and engineering talent, and a lot of the supplier base is located here," says Karnataka's investment commissioner Maheshwar Rao.

National Aerospace Laboratories, Defence Research and Development Organisation and the Indian Space Research Organisation all have their offices in Bangalore. Leading private companies such as Boeing, Airbus, Honeywell and GE Aviation are also based in this city of 8.5 million people.

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Bangalore's goal as aerospace hub

Biorefining: The new green wave

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Biorefineries and "green chemistry" seem to have a credible future built on a wide range of applications such as cosmetics, plastics and detergents.

The rise of the price of oil and increasingly restrictive health legislation covering dangerous products are giving a boost to green refining.

Some "green chemistry" factories, a few of which exist in France, break down organic molecules found in wood, grain, and oil seeds, instead of using molecules derived from refined oil.

"The regulatory constraints are such that, together with the current cost of oil, it is already interesting for lubricants, resins and paints," said professor Daniel Thomas, vice president of the IAR competitivity centre in Picardie and Champagne in northwestern France. He was referring to the use of vegetable material in the refining process.

The European Commission directive known as Reach, which is due to result in a ban or drastic regulation of some chemical products such as phthalates, also opens the way to economically viable options for the use of other molecules derived from vegetable matter, leaders in the field meeting in Paris underlined.

In Europe 34 production facilities are considered to be biorefineries. There are five big centres in France, and the tally does not include laboratories or test laboratories.

Thomas said that "green chemistry is not a theoretical concept but is already a reality." He continued: "But it is true that this reality covers also the fact that the market is dependent on the price of oil, and that this border line is going to shift and so more and more molecules are going to become worthwhile."

For example, in the 1950s the price of a tonne of oil was one sixth of the price of a tonne of wheat. In 2011, oil was three times the price of wheat.

A study by consultants McKinsey has suggested that half of the inputs used by the chemicals industry could be in the form of vegetable matter by 2030, with the development of biocarburants such as lubricants, solvents and a concrete-like material made from wood for the construction industry, or plastic for bottles.

But this switch towards a chemical industry based on products from agriculture or forestry raises other problems: the use of land for purposes other than producing food could be a factor behind a rise of the prices of grains and vegetable oils and therefore of a large slice of what people eat.

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Biorefining: The new green wave

Biotech bodies in investment tie-up

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Mumbai, Oct 7:

The Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE), the apex body of the biotechnology sector in India, and the US-based Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association (WBBA) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to enable broad ranging co-operation in the field of biotechnology. The duo will support breakthrough discoveries in healthcare, agriculture and clean energy in the country.

Both ABLE and WBBA are to provide each others members an opportunity to co-operate and invest in the State of Washington and in India, in the field of biotechnology. These activities could be current ones that both associations are engaged in, or future ones that both may decide to do individually or jointly.

Activities could concern technical knowledge, market research, inputs for policy making, internships, exhibitions, workshops, seminars, capacity building, collaborations, investment and business partnering.

P. M. Murali, President, ABLE said, The collaboration aims to achieve breakthrough discoveries to provide affordable solutions for critical diseases, important challenges in agriculture and energy on mutually agreed topics.'

Chris Rivera, President, WBBA said, We see India as the growth engine of tomorrow and one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The collaboration with ABLE is significant to facilitate best of research in biotechnology from both the countries.

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Biotech bodies in investment tie-up

Aubrey de Grey on Longevity Science

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Here is a recently posted video in which SENS Foundation cofounder Aubrey de Grey discusses the mechanisms of aging and what to do about them:

Aubrey de Grey is a well-known researcher on the process of ageing.
He sees ageing as a disease and believes science will soon be able to slow it down so that we'll have more time for science to advance even further so we can fix the cellular damages of ageing and - maybe one day - live forever.

"Live forever" is such a clumsy shortage for agelessness achieved through medical technology, given that you'd have to put in a lot of work to push much past a few thousand years in a human body - even with a risk function for fatal accidents that is small compared to the present day. But you can't exactly stop people from using the phrase.

The video above was published by Basil Gelpke, who is also behind Human 2.0, a DVD release that examines the prospects for engineered longevity, among other topics of interest to transhumanists. It's subtitled in German, but is English language:

The human being will be the first species able to understand its own blueprint. The rapidly increasing knowledge of genetics, nanotechnology, robotics, and AI will dwarf everything philosophers, scientists, science fiction writers and other visionaries have ever conceived. Human life without disease and possibly even without death doesn't seem impossible anymore.

Source:
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/10/aubrey-de-grey-on-longevity-science.php

Noting Progress in Artificial Cornea Development

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The development of artificial replacements proceeds in parallel with tissue engineering as a way to build replacement parts for damaged corneas. Here, publicity materials tout recent progress in artificial corneas:

ArtCornea is based on a polymer with high water-absorbent properties. [Researchers] have added a new surface coating to ensure anchorage in host tissue and functionality of the optic. The haptic edge was chemically altered to encourage local cell growth. These cells graft to the surrounding human tissue, which is essential for anchorage of the device in the host tissue. The researchers aimed to enlarge the optical surface area of the implant in order to improve light penetration beyond what had previously been possible ... Once ArtCornea is in place, it is hardly visible, except perhaps for a few stitches. It's also easy to implant and doesn't provoke any immune response

The specialists have also managed to make a chemically and biologically inert base material biologically compatible for the second artificial cornea, ACTO-TexKpro. [They] achieved this by selectively altering the base material, polyvinylidene difluoride, by coating the fluoride synthetic tissue with a reactive molecule. This allows the patient's cornea to bond together naturally with the edge of the implant, while the implant's inner optics, made of silicon, remain free of cells and clear. The ACTO-TexKpro is particularly suitable as a preliminary treatment, for instance if the cornea has been destroyed as a consequence of chronic inflammation, a serious accident, corrosion or burns.

TexKpro and ArtCornea [were] first tested by the doctors in the [laboratory] in vivo in several rabbits. After a six month healing process, the implanted prostheses were accepted by the rabbits without irritation, clearly and securely anchored within the eye. Tests carried out following the operation showed that the animals tolerated the artificial cornea well. [Clinical trials will] soon commence at the Eye Clinic Cologne-Merheim.

Link: http://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2012/october/artificial-cornea-gives-the-gift-of-vision.html

Source:
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/10/noting-progress-in-artificial-cornea-development.php

A Cryonics Photo Essay at Wired

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Wired is running a photo essay on cryonics, the low-temperature preservation technique that intends to preserve the structure of the mind sufficiently well for patients to be restored to life by future technology:

The Prospect of Immortality is a six-year study by UK photographer Murray Ballard, who has traveled the world pulling back the curtain on the amateurs, optimists, businesses and apparatuses of cryonics.

"It's not a large industry," says Ballard, who visited the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Phoenix, Arizona; the Cryonics Institute in Detroit, Michigan; KrioRus in Moscow, Russia; and Suspended Animation Inc in Boytan Beach, Florida; among others.

Cryonics is the preservation of deceased humans in liquid nitrogen at temperatures just shy of its boiling point of -196°C/77 Kelvin. Cryopreservation of humans is not reversible with current science, but cryonicists hypothesize that people who are considered dead by current medical definitions may someday be recovered by using advanced future technologies.

Stats are hard to come by, but it is estimated there are about 2,000 people signed up for cryonics and approximately 250 people currently cryopreserved. Over 100 pets have also been placed in vats of liquid nitrogen with the hopes of a future recovery.

Link: http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2012/10/murray-ballard-cyronics/

Source:
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/10/a-cryonics-photo-essay-at-wired.php