Monthly Archives: October 2012

Tigers' Cabrera wins 1st Triple Crown in 45 years

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By DAVE SKRETTA AP Sports Writer

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Miguel Cabrera had just achieved baseball immortality, and everyone around him knew it.

Tigers manager Jim Leyland had tears welling in his eyes. General manager Dave Dombrowski kept trying to remind people to stop and enjoy the moment. Prince Fielder simply shook his head in disbelief at the history that had unfolded.

Less than an hour earlier, in the midst of Detroit's otherwise meaningless 1-0 victory over Kansas City, it had finally become official: Cabrera had won the Triple Crown.

"Everybody said to me it was unbelievable. They were all excited to see this, enjoy this, be a part of something big," he said, taking the rare feat in stride better than anyone.

Cabrera finished the regular-season hitting .330 with 44 homers and 139 RBIs, leading the American League in all three statistical categories, making him just the 15th player to achieve the Triple Crown and the first since Boston's Carl Yastrzemski in 1967.

"I've managed a lot of players, managed some great ones, but I've never seen anything like this," Leyland said. "When you're sitting back and it's over with, people are talking about Miguel Cabrera, the rest of the world will have no idea who his manager was, but I will."

Among those in one of baseball's most exclusive clubs are Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle and Frank Robinson, who called it "an incredible accomplishment for a gifted young man, and Miguel should be proud of his all-around excellence and consistency throughout the season."

Cabrera's achievement wasn't assured until the Yankees pinch-hit for Curtis Granderson in their 14-2 rout of the Boston Red Sox. Granderson had homered twice to reach 43 for the year, tied with the Rangers' Josh Hamilton and one shy of the Tigers' third baseman.

The closest competition in the race for the batting title was Angels rookie Mike Trout, who remains Cabrera's toughest competition for the AL MVP. Cabrera was the runaway leader in RBIs.

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Tigers' Cabrera wins 1st Triple Crown in 45 years

Dismantle our apartheid education system

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Either ignored or plainly blindsided by her educational policymakers, multiculturalism and the infusion of the practices of multicultural education is absent, even though it is clear that politics and education cannot be taken as separate disciplines in order to understand the nature and future of national development.

Malaysias survival as a nation depends primarily on the re-crafting of an education system philosophically, systemically, and pedagogically sound enough to bridge the gaps between the socio-economic and cultural deficiencies brought about by the legacy of Mahathirism; one based on the use of race ideology to sustain control and to design hegemony of the Malay-Muslim race.

Education as the only means for personal, social, cultural, and even spiritual and ecumenical progress can only be achieved if one goes back to the its philosophical foundations and re-look at the conception of human nature itself.

In Malaysia, a legacy of British colonial policy and its tool of social reproduction, i.e. schooling, has paved the way for Malaysias neo-colonialist strategy of a hidden system of apartheid, to ensure that the races are still separated in an unequal way.

Issues and institutions in such a scenario reflect the ideology of dominance - of one race over others or the rest - blinding educationalists and policy-makers to see beyond race and religion in making sure that the gentle profession and humanistic enterprise called education is driven fundamentally by the almost ideologically-bankrupt United Malays National Organisations (Umnos) idea of education and nation-building.

Pre-schools, primary schools, secondary schools and even universities take the nature of racial educational exclusivity.

Shinning examples of this apartheid-isation of education are any all-racial schools, Mara Junior Science Colleges, and the Universiti Teknologi Mara system - all these in addition to the already apartheid-ised Malaysian Civil Service, albeit de facto in nature, whose existence is shackled by the ideology of an endangered ruling class of Malay-dominated politicians, in all its ignorance of the meaning of education, claimed superior knowledge to what that enterprise solely means.

New breed of educational policymakers needed

Malaysia needs not only a new educational direction, detouring from the road of further apartheid-isation of education it is happily traversing but also a new breed of cosmopolitanistic-thinking educational policymakers and practitioners.

Beyond these, Malaysia needs most logically a regime change in toto - to allow a new political will to an educational hope for the nation; anything short of these, will bring Malaysia to a pariah or a failed state educationally and economically in an increasingly predatorily globalised state. What then must Malaysians do?

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Dismantle our apartheid education system

Fear of treatment puts stress on women undergoing fertility therapy

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ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2012) Fertility treatment has a strong emotional impact on women who want to have children. A study of European countries with the highest number of assisted reproduction cycles identifies which aspects of reproduction treatment contribute to psychological stress.

Inability to conceive is extremely stressful for women who want to have a family. This notion is shown by a study published in the 'Human Reproduction' journal on patients in four countries with the highest number of cases of assisted reproduction cycles in Europe: France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

"Infertility causes a series of varied emotions that have a negative impact on important aspects of a woman's life," as explained by Juan Garca Velasco, one of the authors of the study, who is also director of the Infertility Institute of Valencia and lecturer in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid University. "It is linked to depression, anxiety, anger, cognitive imbalance and low self-esteem," he adds.

The study not only analyses the emotional impact of infertility on women but also identifies those aspects of ovary stimulation that contribute to the physical and psychological stress suffered by many patients.

The 445 women between the ages of 18 and 44 years taking part in the study had experienced difficulties in conceiving. While some had never undergone any fertility treatment, others were receiving it at the time or had already received it in the past two years. Almost a third of the participants said they began to worry from the moment in which they started trying to get pregnant and nearly half claimed to have felt ashamed or like a failure as a woman.

It was found that anxiety toward injections and the deterioration of their relationship with their partner were the main causes of stress. In this respect, the women who actually received treatment said that they got closer to their partner (33% compared to 19%). The majority of participants felt that their partner supported them, especially those that received fertility therapy (63%).

Women undergoing treatment said they were more anxious when it comes to sex and negative emotions, such as impatience or frustration. Whereas those not having treatment said they felt "confused" and those undergoing treatment claimed to mostly feel "vulnerable and exhausted."

Despite being aware of the limitations of age, 68% never thought they would have a problem conceiving. According to Garca Velasco, "in order to overcome the physical and psychological challenges that such treatment implies, some form of protocol would be necessary that involves a minimal number of injections and an increase in readily available information in order to reduce stress and increase patient satisfaction."

Waiting two years to start treatment

Garca Velasco outlines that "infertility can significantly affect women's lives and their personal relationships." "However, despite its negative impact, many of those women trying to conceive do not seek medical help."

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Virginia Tech to tackle the 'Big Data' challenges of next-generation sequencing with HokieSpeed

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Wu Feng, associate professor of computer science in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, will engage in Big Data research with promising advances for genomics. Credit: Virginia Tech

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) today announced nearly $15 million in new big data fundamental research projects. These awards aim to develop new tools and methods to extract and use knowledge from collections of large data sets to accelerate progress in science and engineering research.

Among the awards is a $2 million grant to Iowa State, Virginia Tech, and Stanford University to develop high-performance computing techniques on massively parallel heterogeneous computing resources for large-scale data analytics.

Such heterogeneous computing resources include the NSF Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) funded HokieSpeed supercomputing instrument with in-situ visualization. HokieSpeed was the highest-ranked commodity supercomputer in the U.S. on the Green500 when it debuted in November 2011.

Specifically, the three-university team intends to develop techniques that would enable researchers to innovatively leverage high-performance computing to analyze the data deluge of high-throughput DNA sequencing, also known as next generation sequencing (NGS).

The research will be conducted in the context of grand challenge problems in human genetics and metagenomics or the study of metagenomes, the genetic material received directly from environmental samples.

On this grant, working together are Srinivas Aluru, a chaired professor of computer engineering at Iowa State University and principal investigator; Patrick S. Schnable, a chaired professor of agronomy, also at Iowa State; Oyekunle A. Olukotun, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Stanford University; and Wu Feng, http://www.cs.vt.edu/user/feng who holds the Turner Fellowship and who is an associate professor of computer science at Virginia Tech. Olukotun and Feng are co-principal investigators.

In previous research Aluru has advanced the assembly of plant genomes, comparative genomics, deep-sequencing data analysis, and parallel bioinformatics methods and tools. Aluru and Schnable previously worked together on generating a reference genome for the complex stalk of corn genome that will help speed efforts to develop better crop varieties.

Feng's relevant prior work lies at the synergistic intersection of life sciences and high-performance computing, particularly in the context of big data. For example, in 2007, Feng and his colleagues created an ad-hoc environment called ParaMEDIC, short for Parallel Metadata Environment for Distributed I/O and Computing, to conduct a massive sequence search over a distributed ephemeral supercomputer that enabled bioinformaticists to "identify missing genes in genomes."

Feng said, "With apologies to the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, one can view ParaMEDIC as WonkaVision for Scientific Data a way to intelligently teleport data using semantic-based cues. "

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Virginia Tech to tackle the 'Big Data' challenges of next-generation sequencing with HokieSpeed

Quicker gene test may help babies – Thu, 04 Oct 2012 PST

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October 4, 2012 in Nation/World

Lauran Neergaard Associated Press

WASHINGTON Too often, newborns die of genetic diseases before doctors even know whats to blame. Now scientists have found a way to decode those babies DNA in just days instead of weeks, moving gene-mapping closer to routine medicalcare.

The idea: Combine faster gene-analyzing machinery with new computer software that, at the push of a few buttons, uses a babys symptoms to zero in on the most suspicious mutations. The hope would be to start treatment earlier, or avoid futile care for lethalillnesses.

Wednesdays study is a tentative first step: Researchers at Childrens Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., mapped the DNA of just five children, and the study wasnt done in time to help most ofthem.

But the hospital finds the results promising enough that by years end, it plans to begin routine gene-mapping in its neonatal intensive care unit and may offer testing for babies elsewhere, too while further studies continue, said Dr. Stephen Kingsmore, director of the pediatric genome center at ChildrensMercy.

For the first time, we can actually deliver genome information in time to make a difference, predicted Kingsmore, whose team reported the method in the journal Science TranslationalMedicine.

Even if the diagnosis is a lethal disease, the family will at least have an answer. They wont have false hope, headded.

More than 20 percent of infant deaths are due to a birth defect or genetic diseases, the kind caused by a problem with a single gene. While there are thousands of such diseases from Tay-Sachs to the lesser known Pompe disease, standard newborn screening tests detect only a few of them. And once a baby shows symptoms, fast diagnosis becomescrucial.

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Quicker gene test may help babies - Thu, 04 Oct 2012 PST

Gene diseases in newborns unveiled quicker

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Too often, newborns die of genetic diseases before doctors even know what's to blame. Now scientists have found a way to decode those babies' DNA in just days instead of weeks, moving gene-mapping closer to routine medical care.

The idea: Combine faster gene-analyzing machinery with new computer software that, at the push of a few buttons, uses a baby's symptoms to zero in on the most suspicious mutations. The hope would be to start treatment earlier, or avoid futile care for lethal illnesses.

Wednesday's study is a tentative first step: Researchers at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., mapped the DNA of just five children, and the study wasn't done in time to help most of them.

But the hospital finds the results promising enough that by year's end, it plans to begin routine gene-mapping in its neonatal intensive care unit -- and may offer testing for babies elsewhere, too -- while further studies continue, said Dr. Stephen Kingsmore, director of the pediatric genome center at Children's Mercy.

"For the first time, we can actually deliver genome information in time to make a difference," predicted Kingsmore, whose team reported the method in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Even if the diagnosis is a lethal disease, "the family will at least have an answer. They won't have false hope," he added.

More than 20 percent of infant deaths are due to a birth defect or genetic diseases, the kind caused by a problem

Sequencing whole genomes -- all of a person's DNA -- can help when it's not clear what gene to suspect. But so far it has been used mainly for research, in part because it takes four to six weeks to complete and is very expensive.

On Wednesday, researchers reported that the new process for whole-genome sequencing can take just 50 hours -- half that time to perform the decoding from a drop of the baby's blood, and the rest to analyze which of the DNA variations uncovered can explain the child's condition.

That's an estimate: The study counted only the time the blood was being decoded or analyzed, not the days needed to ship the blood to Essex, England, home of a speedy new DNA decoding machine made by Illumina, Inc. -- or to ship back the results for Children's Mercy's computer program to analyze. Kingsmore said the hospital is awaiting arrival of its own decoder, when 50 hours should become the true start-to-finish time.

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Gene diseases in newborns unveiled quicker

Two-day test can spot gene diseases in newborns

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WASHINGTON (AP) Too often, newborns die of genetic diseases before doctors even know what's to blame. Now scientists have found a way to decode those babies' DNA in just days instead of weeks, moving gene-mapping closer to routine medical care.

The idea: Combine faster gene-analyzing machinery with new computer software that, at the push of a few buttons, uses a baby's symptoms to zero in on the most suspicious mutations. The hope would be to start treatment earlier, or avoid futile care for lethal illnesses.

Wednesday's study is a tentative first step: Researchers at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., mapped the DNA of just five children, and the study wasn't done in time to help most of them.

But the hospital finds the results promising enough that by year's end, it plans to begin routine gene-mapping in its neonatal intensive care unit and may offer testing for babies elsewhere, too while further studies continue, said Dr. Stephen Kingsmore, director of the pediatric genome center at Children's Mercy.

"For the first time, we can actually deliver genome information in time to make a difference," predicted Kingsmore, whose team reported the method in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Even if the diagnosis is a lethal disease, "the family will at least have an answer. They won't have false hope," he added.

More than 20 percent of infant deaths are due to a birth defect or genetic diseases, the kind caused by a problem with a single gene. While there are thousands of such diseases from Tay-Sachs to the lesser known Pompe disease, standard newborn screening tests detect only a few of them. And once a baby shows symptoms, fast diagnosis becomes crucial.

Sequencing whole genomes all of a person's DNA can help when it's not clear what gene to suspect. But so far it has been used mainly for research, in part because it takes four to six weeks to complete and is very expensive.

Wednesday, researchers reported that the new process for whole-genome sequencing can take just 50 hours half that time to perform the decoding from a drop of the baby's blood, and the rest to analyze which of the DNA variations uncovered can explain the child's condition.

That's an estimate: The study counted only the time the blood was being decoded or analyzed, not the days needed to ship the blood to Essex, England, home of a speedy new DNA decoding machine made by Illumina, Inc. or to ship back the results for Children's Mercy's computer program to analyze. Kingsmore said the hospital is awaiting arrival of its own decoder, when 50 hours should become the true start-to-finish time.

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Two-day test can spot gene diseases in newborns

Sacramento Students Learn Rewards Of Recycling

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SACRAMENTO, Calif., Oct. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. Richard Pan, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), Keep California Beautiful and the Sacramento Regional Conservation Corps today launched Read, Write, Recycle!, a recycling contest for students of San Juan and Natomas Unified School Districts.

Six schools, two from the San Juan Unified School District and four from the Natomas Unified School District, will compete over the next five weeks to collect the most recyclable materials. One winning school in each district will receive $500 for the most recyclables collected. A grand prize of $1,000 will be awarded to the single school in the two districts that recycles the most paper, aluminum, glass, and plastic.

"It's no secret that schools have suffered tremendous cuts over the last few years, and we need to be creative to generate much-needed funds," said Dr. Pan, who chairs the California State Assembly Committee on Health. "This partnership is an excellent example of working together to meet students' needs, while still teaching valuable lessons like recycling."

Each school will receive $150 for participating. These funds can be used for much needed school supplies. In addition, each of the participating schools will receive several recycling bins. Teachers and students also will receive tips to help encourage recycling at school and at home.

"We are inspired by the enthusiasm these young people bring to recycling. Collecting valuable materials like plastic, paper, aluminum and glass and diverting them from the waste stream is a great way to be part of solutions that show commitment to a clean environment," said Steve Russell, vice president of the Plastics Division at ACC. "We're proud to be part of any program that helps create the next generation of recyclers."

SACRAMENTO STUDENTS WILL REAP THE REWARDS OF RECYCLING

A total of 165 elementary school classes from the six schools will participate in this five-week recycling challenge. In total, more than 4,300 students will participate in the program, learning valuable lessons about recycling.

"We are delighted to work with the San Juan and Natomas school districts, Assemblymember Pan, the ACC and Keep California Beautiful to provide an opportunity to recycle in Sacramento-area schools," said Dwight Washabaugh, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Conservation Corps. "Partnerships like these help our kids value the environment and help our corps members learn valuable skills in the workplace."

The Read, Write, Recycle! program launched in February of 2012 in San Gabriel County where 1,500 students recycled more than 11 thousand pounds of materials. Building on the success of this initial program, Dr. Pan and the partners are bringing the competition to Sacramento.

Read, Write, Recycle! is the latest recycling effort supported by ACC under the Plastics. Too Valuable to Waste. Recycle. campaign. ACC also works with LA's Best, an after-school enrichment program in Los Angeles, to educate students about recycling, and ACC is a key sponsor of Recycle. Goal., a recycling contest between young soccer players in Southern California and the Central Valley.

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Sacramento Students Learn Rewards Of Recycling

Bionengineers Introduce "Bi-Fi" — The Biological Internet

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By Andrew Myers

If you were a bacterium, the virus M13 might seem innocuous enough. It insinuates more than it invades, setting up shop like a freeloading houseguest, not a killer. Once inside it makes itself at home, eating your food, texting indiscriminately. Recently, however, bioengineers at Stanford University have given M13 a bit of a makeover.

The researchers, Monica Ortiz, a doctoral candidate in bioengineering, and Drew Endy, PhD, an assistant professor of bioengineering, have parasitized the parasite and harnessed M13s key attributes its non-lethality and its ability to package and broadcast arbitrary DNA strands to create what might be termed the biological Internet, or Bi-Fi. Their findings were published online Sept. 7 in the Journal of Biological Engineering.

Using the virus, Ortiz and Endy have created a biological mechanism to send genetic messages from cell to cell. The system greatly increases the complexity and amount of data that can be communicated between cells and could lead to greater control of biological functions within cell communities. The advance could prove a boon to bioengineers looking to create complex, multicellular communities that work in concert to accomplish important biological functions.

Medium and message M13 is a packager of genetic messages. It reproduces within its host, taking strands of DNA strands that engineers can control wrapping them up one by one and sending them out encapsulated within proteins produced by M13 that can infect other cells. Once inside the new hosts, they release the packaged DNA message.

The M13-based system is essentially a communication channel. It acts like a wireless Internet connection that enables cells to send or receive messages, but it does not care what secrets the transmitted messages contain.

Effectively, weve separated the message from the channel. We can now send any DNA message we want to specific cells within a complex microbial community, said Ortiz, the first author of the study.

It is well-known that cells naturally use various mechanisms, including chemicals, to communicate, but such messaging can be extremely limited in both complexity and bandwidth. Simple chemical signals are typically both message and messenger two functions that cannot be separated.

If your network connection is based on sugar then your messages are limited to more sugar, less sugar, or no sugar explained Endy.

Cells engineered with M13 can be programmed to communicate in much more complex, powerful ways than ever before. The possible messages are limited only by what can be encoded in DNA and thus can include any sort of genetic instruction: start growing, stop growing, come closer, swim away, produce insulin and so forth.

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Bionengineers Introduce "Bi-Fi" — The Biological Internet

Healthful relationship between UW, business

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Originally published October 3, 2012 at 8:06 PM | Page modified October 3, 2012 at 8:39 PM

This region is a hot spot for the biomedical innovation that could revolutionize health care in the near future, and a key to that is the relationship between university researchers and the private sector.

The University of Washington Department of Bioengineering is trying to tend that relationship, through a Bioengineering Affiliates Program, directed by Charles McLien III.

The public sector can be a businessman's best friend, feeding established businesses new discoveries and nurturing young entrepreneurs. University researchers get to see their work put to practical use, and the institution gets royalty payments and esteem (and more grants).

At an open house Tuesday, business and nonprofit leaders, UW researchers and students talked about the intersections of their work and what it means for health care.

Paul Ramsey, CEO of UW Medicine, said in his keynote speech that this is a critical time for the U.S. health-care system, which is under pressure to improve care and cut costs.

Ramsey mentioned the new report from the independent Institute of Medicine that the U.S. health-care system wastes about $750 billion a year.

Better practices and treatments can help improve that, but only if the system will adapt.

Ramsey told the story of the Hungarian physician who discovered the benefits of hand-washing 150 years ago but couldn't persuade colleagues to clean their hands. Even today, Ramsey said, 50 percent of doctors don't wash before seeing a patient. At UW facilities nearly 100 percent do.

Ramsey also said a new treatment can take 15 to 20 years to move from lab to practice, from discovery to drug.

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Healthful relationship between UW, business

Grey's Anatomy's Ramirez: I'm Concerned About the Future of Callie and Arizona's Relationship

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Sara Ramirez

Arizona survived the deadly plane crash on Grey's Anatomy, but things aren't going to be easy for her and her wife Callie.

"It's very painful, it's very difficult and it's really heart-wrenching what happens," Sara Ramirez, who plays Callie, tells TVGuide.com.

On Thursday's episode, viewers will flash back to retrace the time between the rescue and the present. Though Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) specifically instructed Callie to save her leg, that didn't happen. Arizona is not only left distraught about her future, but also that her wife didn't keep her promise. Ramirez says that because of this, she's not sure how the couple can move on.

"Because they got married, because they have a child, certainly from Callie's perspective she's just trying to survive, she's trying to do what's right, [but] I'm really worried for them. I'm genuinely concerned about what's going to happen, how things are going to get better if they're going to get better."

5 major spoilers from the Grey's Anatomy Season 9 trailer

In the interview below, Ramirez warns viewers tuning into Thursday's episode: "Keep your Kleenex boxes nearby." Plus: Ramirez shares details about a new (platonic) relationship on the horizon for Callie.

Grey's Anatomy airs Thursdays at 9/8c on ABC.

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Grey's Anatomy's Ramirez: I'm Concerned About the Future of Callie and Arizona's Relationship

Trimcare™ Weight Loss and Anti-Aging, in association with Safe Laser Centers, Launches Innovative Body Makeover Contest

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The contest is being run to celebrate the new partnership between Trimcare and the growing new Las Vegas weight loss and spa services company Safe Laser Centers.

Las Vegas, NV (PRWEB) October 04, 2012

The "WinShare" contest is called that way because it is based upon an innovative system that rewards social sharing in a way that allows participants to continuously increase their odds of winning during the course of the contest. What happens is that after entering the contest, a very simple one click process, participants are taken to special sharing page form which they can easily share the contest on social media and via email. At this point, for every person who enters the contest through this shared link, the sharer will automatically be awarded 10 additional entries that will be added to their total. Since there are no limits on extra entries or on the sharing timeframe (as long as the contest hasn't finished), prolific sharers can easily amass hundreds of entries to tilt the odds in their favor by having more tickets in the virtual raffle box.

Trimcare has been a pioneer in medically supervised weight loss treatment programs in Las Vegas for over 20 years. Founded by Dr. Ivan L. Goldsmith (triple board certified in the areas of Internal Medicine, Obesity, and Anti-aging),Trimcare is a leader in providing medically supervised weight loss programs. Trimcare has successfully treated over 20,000 patients in the past dozen years with novel obesity regimens designed to curb hunger, promote food avoidance, and extinguish binge or nighttime eating. Its program has successfully incorporated a proprietary brand of supplements, skin care products, food, weight loss programs, and hormone replacement therapies. As a leader in the integrated disciplines of weight loss and anti-aging therapies, Trimcare has been at the forefront of expanding awareness of the nation's Obesity Epidemic.

Safe Laser Centers sees the association with Dr. Goldsmith as a great opportunity to bring new weight programs to the people of Las Vegas. Spearheaded by Kristine Castro, a newcomer to the area who brings to the table expertise with the i-Lipo system and her extensive experience as a massage therapist. "I-Lipo works by delivering low level laser therapy to induce a chemical signal in fat cells that causes them to break down stored triglycerides or fats into free fatty acids and glycerol, which are released through the cell membranes," explains Castro. "Fat content is then released into the blood and transported around the body to tissues where it will be burned off during a period of post-treatment."

By targeting different areas in the body, patients can decide their own priorities such as choosing, for example, to focus on treating their love handles and/or saddle-bag regions. The low level lasers used in the i-Lipo treatment induce the target area to release fat even before exercise is begun. Designed to be used in tandem, the novel medical regimens used at Trimcare, consisting of Phentermine and Topamax, enable patients to make the lifestyle modifications needed to not only promote weight loss, but aid in the difficulties associated with weight maintenance. According to Dr. Goldsmith, Our patients notice the effects almost immediately. The combined therapies successfully cause a decreasing waist circumference, declines in % body fat, and lost pounds. When thus combined, it is not unusual for Trimcare patients to achieve a greater-than-10% weight loss in 90 days which far exceeds what is seen with diet and exercise alone.

Goldsmith and Castro envision expanding the association into other medical facilities and also stand alone clinics both within and outside Las Vegas and hope that this "WinShare" contest will help them show off the amazing non-invasive weight loss and body makeover capabilities of the partnership. The two businesses are passionate about their philosophy of promoting lifestyle style changes, including diet and exercise, as the cornerstone of any successful weight-loss attempt along with the notion of truly minimally invasive therapies or treatment; avoiding procedures like bariatric and plastic surgeries where the attendant risks are much greater for post-op complications and problems. The two companies also seek to facilitate access, offering financing though CareCredit.com

Both companies stress that weight loss needs to be tailored to individual patient needs. According to Kristine Castro, "i-Lipo combined with the Trimcare weight loss regimen allows most patients to take advantage of this treatment with minimum difficulties and provides safe, long term reproducible results as well as immediate effects that achieve a dramatic reshaping of body and reduction of cellulite." Significant results from Trimcare combined with i-Lipo commonly become apparent in as little as 30 days and the system is far less costly than liposuction while involving no pain, needles or downtime. "This is truly remarkable in its simplicity and we can't wait for more people to experience it for themselves," adds Castro. The "WinShare" contest runs from October 1st through October 31st .

Kristine Castro Safe Laser Center (702) 994-8814 Email Information

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Trimcare™ Weight Loss and Anti-Aging, in association with Safe Laser Centers, Launches Innovative Body Makeover Contest

StrataDx appoints Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, New Board Member

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LEXINGTON, Mass., Oct.3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --StrataDx, a leader in anatomic pathology services, announced today the appointments of Jim Agnello as Chief Financial Officer, Greg Richard as Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing, and Steve Casper to its Board of Directors.StrataDx provides clinicians with high-quality pathology services in the fields of dermatology, urology, podiatry, oral pathology, gastroenterology and gynecology.

Jim Agnello, CPA, joins StrataDx as the Chief Financial Officer and brings over two decades of financial & laboratory operational expertise. Mr. Agnello served as the Chief Financial Officer of Clarient and Nodality and most recently, as the Vice President of Operations for Healthtronics, Inc. He also spent 18 years with SmithKline Beecham in a variety of senior financial positions. Jim has a a Master's Degree in Accounting from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

Greg Richard joins the company as the Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing and brings extensive senior sales leadership expertise in not only the laboratory industry, but in Managed Care, Biotech, and Clinical Trials as well. Most recently, he was the Chief Commercial Officer at Signal Genetics, a specialty molecular testing Company, and served previously as the Sales Officer for LabCorp's Northeast Division and the Vice President of Managed Care and Global Sales and Marketing for Clinical Trials at Quest Diagnostics. Greg received a B.A. from Westminster College.

Steven E. Casper has been named to the board of StrataDx. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer of National Dentex Corporation. Mr. Casper has significant experience developing successful health care organizations. Prior to National Dentex, Mr. Casper was involved the founding and development of AmeriPath and Dermpath Diagnostics, both leading providers of pathology services. Mr. Casper served as the President of Dermpath Diagnostics, a division of Quest Diagnostics, Inc. and previously held senior executive roles at AmeriPath and Summit Partners. Steven received a B.A from Boston College.

"These appointments represent a significant milestone for StrataDx. Greg and Jim both have stellar track records of driving growth and generating value in their respective organizations," said Pat Noland, Chief Executive Officer, StrataDx.

Richard Novak, Chairman of the StrataDx Board of Directors adds, "We are pleased to welcome Steven to the Board. His breadth of knowledge and expertise will contribute to the ongoing evolution of StrataDx as a best in class pathology services organization."

About StrataDx

(www.strataDx.com)

StrataDx is a full service anatomic pathology laboratory that offers services in all areas of surgical pathology and cytology as well as molecular diagnostics and immunoflorescence. The pathology team is comprised of members with subspecialty board certification in dermatopathology, hematopathogy, cytopathology, nuclear medicine, clinical pathology, and the majority of the pathologists have more than two decades of medical experience. Many also have teaching appointments at some of the nation's most prestigious academic medical centers including Harvard, Tufts, and the Univ. of Pennsylvania. StrataDx services customers ranging from major regional hospitals to small, independent physician practices in more than 40 states. Headquartered in Lexington, MA, with additional locations in Cambridge, MA, the company has more than 120 employees.

About Linden Capital Partners

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StrataDx appoints Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, New Board Member

WHO Calls For Expanded Nutrition Interventions

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WHO News Release

WHO Calls For Expanded Nutrition Interventions To Avert Child Deaths

HANOI, 25 September 2012With solid evidence pointing to proper nutrition as essential for survival, health and development, the World Health Organization raised malnutrition high on the agenda of the Regional Committee for the Western Pacific.

The Regional Committee, WHO's governing body in the Region, is meeting in Hanoi from 24 to 28 September to review WHO's work in the Region and to set future directions to improve the health of the Regions people.

Addressing the Regional Committee, Dr Shin Young-soo, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific, said that despite a drop in undernutrition rates in the Region, "there is no room for complacency as the levels of maternal and young child undernutrition continue to be too high. At the same time, the rising rates of obesity and noncommunicable disease represent an epidemicone that is growing fast in our Region. This double burden of malnutrition leads to long-term negative impacts on the health and development of the people and for the economies of Member States."

Adequate provision of nutrients, beginning at the earliest stages of life, is essential to ensure good physical and mental development and long-term health and productivity.

Dr Shin warned that many countries in the Region now tend to focus on the problem of overnutrition even as undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies continue to be a problem.

In an effort to address malnutrition, the Regional Committee, composed of 37 countries and areas in the Western Pacific, pledged to scale up and sustain cost-effective nutrition interventions aiming to prevent more than 100 000 under five-year-old child deaths per year in the Region. This means saving more than 270 lives of children under five years every dayor 11 lives per hour.

Dr Shin urged the Regional Committee to expand areas for action, to identify targets and priority actions in health and other sectors, and to adopt a time frame and indicators for monitoring.

The Regional Committee is set to endorse a resolution to scale up nutrition, based on the WHO Comprehensive Implementation Plan on Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition. It called for increased investment in 20122025 to expand nutrition interventions, with targets to reduce substantially the double burden of malnutrition and related mortality and morbidity, including stunting and wasting, anaemia in women and low birth weight. At the same time, the plan seeks to increase exclusive breast-feeding and to stop the rapid increase in obesity among children.

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WHO Calls For Expanded Nutrition Interventions

Spokesperson/Resource Availability Alert – Looking for a health and nutrition, lifestyle or culinary resource? Loblaw …

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BRAMPTON, ON, Oct. 3, 2012 /CNW/ - (TSX:L) - Healthy living is something many Canadians strive for, but between eating the right foods, exercising and being mindful of health risks, it can feel like a daunting endeavor. Loblaw banner stores offer one of Canada's leading assortments of fresh offerings* along with a broad range of services to empower Canadians to make healthier choices including the presence of 21 dietitians in 44 Loblaws store locations across Ontario. If you're looking for new ideas or need a trusted opinion, Loblaw has a panel of media-savvy specialists for print or broadcast opportunities across the province to help support your audience in their journey towards achieving healthier lifestyles.

Dietitians

Alexis Williams , Registered Dietitian, Health and Wellness Director, Loblaw Companies Limited Alexis develops health and wellness services and programs for Loblaw banner stores including the in-store dietitians program offered at selected Loblaws store locations that offers personalized grocery store tours and more to customers. Alexis also has experience as a fitness instructor, personal trainer, and nutrition counsellor.

Tina Stewart , Registered Dietitian, President's Choice Product Development, Loblaw Companies Limited Toronto-based Tina works with the President's Choice product development team. As a busy mom of two, including one child with food allergies, Tina has great tips to offer for choosing healthier foods and filling your grocery cart with them.

Susan MacFarlane, In-store Registered Dietitian, Loblaws store in Kanata, Ottawa , Ontario Ottawa-based dietitian Susan MacFarlane leads grocery store tours, food demonstrations, cooking classes, educational seminars and 1:1 nutrition consultations, specializing in vegan/vegetarian diets. In addition, Susan consults on nutrition-related chronic disease management such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity and metabolic syndrome and has facilitated numerous talks relating to infant feeding and picky eaters.

The Loblaw team of dietitians have a wealth of advice to offer on healthy living such as:

Chefs

Tom Filippou, Executive Chef and National Director, President's Choice Cooking Schools, Loblaw Companies Limited You may know Chef Tom from many of the commercials featuring President's Choice products, serving up great food alongside Galen G. Weston. Chef Tom is also responsible formore than 200 President's Choice Cooking Schools across Canada . He can provide a variety of recipe ideas and inspiration for entertaining that's sure to make an impression on your guests.

Dana Speers , Executive Chef, President's Choice Test Kitchen, Loblaw Companies Limited A mom, Gemini award winner and a chef in the President's Choice Test Kitchen, Dana is always eager to share simple, healthy and kid-friendly recipes and cooking tips that are perfect for busy Canadian families.

Pharmacists

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Spokesperson/Resource Availability Alert - Looking for a health and nutrition, lifestyle or culinary resource? Loblaw ...

Australian healthcare company Rapid Nutrition to invest $20 mn in India

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New Delhi, Oct 3 (IANS) Australia's Rapid Nutrition, one of the world's largest natural healthcare companies, is to invest $20 million in India for rolling out its globally successful scientific and holistic weight loss programme Leisa's Secret and also setting up a manufacturing facility in this country.

"Rapid Nutrition brings out India's only scientific weight loss programme built around 12 years of extensive research in Australia. It is Rapid Nutrition's serious objective to deliver sustainable results to consumers and demonstrate it by commitment," said Simon St Ledger, Rapid Nutrition's founder and chairman, at a news conference here.

"This is coupled with cutting-edge technology and endorsement from medical professionals."

Rapid Nutrition will initially invest $10.6 million by March 31. It plans to set up a manufacturing facility in Hyderabad and also acquire a healthcare marketing firm in India soon, St Ledger said.

The roll out of Leisa's Secret aims to cover south India first, followed by west, north and later east and central India.

"Leisa's Secret weight loss programme offers the combined benefit of four products which will be supplied directly to the customer. The individual is entitled to nutritional support by a team of qualified nutritionist and motivational support to be provided by trained para-medical team to improve compliance," a company statement said.

"We wish to grab 50 percent of our business through type 2 and smaller cities so that this programme reaches a larger base. We would do this by continuous empanelment of doctors and nutritionists in our programme across the country. We are starting with metro cities, but soon we will be there across the nation," said St Ledger.

In the pipeline are premium weight-loss snacks to address the between-meal snacking pattern among Indians.

India is reeling under a huge nutrition debt as nearly 570 million consume sufficient or excess calories but lack adequate intake of nutrients. In fact, 60 percent of this section consumes higher than normal calories, with a disproportionately high fat intake making hypertension and diabetes as the India's crowning glory.

"Middle-aged housewives and working women are the target for many debilitating lifestyle disorders. Current weight loss patterns are not sustainable, resulting into yo-yoing of weight. With growing awareness, people display a prophylactic intent rather than curative. Leisa's Secret caters to this growing need with scientifically proven holistic weight loss programme," said Amit Srivastava, CEO, India and APAC, Rapid Nutrition.

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Australian healthcare company Rapid Nutrition to invest $20 mn in India

Comparing Food Safety Testing Practices in the US and Europe: How Fast Is Fast Enough?

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According to Food Micro7, a new market research report from Strategic Consulting, Inc., US food producers are moving more quickly to new, rapid technologies for their food safety testing programs, while their European counterparts remain more faithful to traditional microbiology test methods.

Woodstock, VT (PRWEB) October 03, 2012

Food Micro, Seventh Edition: Comparison of the Food Microbiology Testing Markets in the US and EU (Food Micro7) from Strategic Consulting, Inc. (SCI), compares total test volume, market value and growth in food microbiology testing, including the organisms tested and the technologies used for food safety testing in each region.

According to Tom Weschler, president of Strategic Consulting and lead author of Food Micro7, an important difference between the US and European markets is the test methods used, particularly for pathogen testing. In general, US food producers have embraced rapid test methods that are touted as easier to use and delivering faster results. European food producers have been slower to adopt these newer technologies, and have continued to use a higher percentage of traditional, culture-based test methods.

European food producers are adopting rapid test methods but at a slower rate than their US counterparts, Weschler says. Nearly 89% of pathogen tests conducted in the US in 2010 used rapid methods, compared to just over 42% of the pathogen tests conducted in the EU in 2011. There appears to be less urgency for pathogen test results in Europe when compared to the US, where faster test results are a key driver in the conversion from traditional to newer microbiology tests methods, Weschler says.

The United States and Europe are substantial markets for food safety microbiology testing. Food producers in the two regions draw on an increasingly global food supply to provide consumers access to a broad array of foods year-round. At the same time, consumers are more concerned about the safety of their food, due to increasing food recalls and heightened press coverage of pathogen outbreaks that sicken people in multiple states and countries.

With a population of more than 500 million, the 27 countries of the EU conducted an estimated 275.3 million food safety microbiology tests in 2011. US food producers conducted 213.2 million tests in 2010, for an estimated population of 310 million.

Routine microbiology tests are used to determine the presence and levels of microorganisms in the food plant or the food product. Routine tests accounted for 78% of all food microbiology tests performed in the US. The remaining 22% were pathogen tests, which look for specific organisms that have the potential to cause human disease, such as Salmonella, Listeria, Campylobacter and E. coli O157.

In Europe, routine tests accounted for 82% of all food microbiology tests conducted in 2011, while pathogen tests accounts for just 18%. Thus, while Europe conducts more pathogen tests by volume (49.9 million in the EU versus 46.2 million in the US), pathogen testing in the US represents a greater percentage of overall food microbiology testing and is growing at a faster rate.

Strategic Consulting has published seven market reports to date reviewing microbiology testing practices and technology in the food industry. The food sector represents almost 50% of the total industrial microbiology testing market, and is more than double the size of any other industrial segment including pharmaceutical, personal care products, beverage, environmental, and industrial processes.

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Comparing Food Safety Testing Practices in the US and Europe: How Fast Is Fast Enough?

Analysis of Emerging Microbiology Tests and Strategic Profiles of Leading Suppliers

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NEW YORK, Oct. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue:

Analysis of Emerging Microbiology Tests and Strategic Profiles of Leading Suppliers

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This 760-page report presents a comprehensive marketing and technological assessment, as well as medical rationale and diagnostic prospects for nearly 100 infectious diseases and viruses, including their scientific background, clinical significance and market needs for new tests, vaccines, drugs and extensive listings of companies developing or marketing innovative technologies and products.

The report also presents strategic assessments of leading market players and emerging suppliers with innovative technologies and products, including their sales, product portfolios, distribution tactics, technological know-how, new products in R&D, collaborative arrangements, and business strategies.

Contains 760 pages and 31 tables

Table of Contents

1. AIDS

a. Background

b. Diagnostic Tests

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Analysis of Emerging Microbiology Tests and Strategic Profiles of Leading Suppliers

For longevity, it's the survival of the nicest Save

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Oct. 4, 2012, 3 a.m.

Baboons, like people, really do get by with a little help from their friends. Humans with strong social ties live longer, healthier lives, whereas hostility and ''loner'' tendencies can set the stage for disease and early death.

In animals, too, strong social networks contribute to longer lives and healthier offspring - and now it seems that personality may be just as big a factor in other primates' longevity status. A study has found that female baboons that had the most stable relationships with other females weren't always the highest up in the hierarchy or those with close family around - but they were the nicest.

Scientists are increasingly seeing personality as a key factor in an animal's ability to survive, adapt and thrive in its environment. But this topic isn't an easy one to study scientifically, says primatologist Dorothy Cheney, of the University of Pennsylvania.

''Research in mammals, birds, fish and insects shows individual patterns of behaviour that can't be easily explained. But the many studies of personality are based on human traits like conscientiousness, agreeableness, or neuroticism. It isn't clear how to apply those traits to animals,'' she says.

Along with a group of scientists, including co-authors Robert Seyfarth, also at the University of Pennsylvania, and primatologist Joan Silk of Arizona State University, Professor Cheney has studied wild baboons at the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana for almost 20 years.

Besides providing detailed observations of behaviour in several generations of baboons, the research has yielded a wealth of biological and genetic data.

In previously published research, Professor Cheney and co-workers showed that females lived longer, had lower stress hormone levels and had more surviving offspring when they had close, long-lasting relationships with other females (characterised chiefly by spending time together and grooming).

Although dominance rank was significant for male baboons - alpha male baboons may live longer than lower-ranking males - this wasn't true for the females. Nor was an abundance of family the key to longevity. Not all of the longer-lived, less-stressed females had large families.

To find out more about how female baboons forge bonds, Professor Cheney and co-authors focused on detailed records of observations of 45 female baboons from 2001 to 2007. As a personality gauge, the researchers used specific behaviours, including how often the females were alone, how often they touched other females, how often they behaved aggressively, how often they were approached by others and how often they grunted when approaching other females of various ranks. Among female baboons, grunting is a sign of good will, Professor Cheney says. Using these criteria, the researchers characterised the baboons as ''nice'', ''aloof'' or ''loner''. The team also tested the baboons for levels of stress hormones known as glucocorticoids.

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According to UC Berkeley professor Ignacio Chapela, the passage of Proposition 37 will not only restore the right to choose what foods we put in our bodies, but it may restore scientific process to its rightful placesomething the bioengineering industry, with full assistance from the White House, removed.

"The promises made by genetic engineering have not been fulfilled," explains Chapela, a microbial biologist who was first to exposed the fact that genetically engineered corn was contaminating ancient strains of Mexican maize via cross-pollinating. "Genetic engineering has proven to be wishful thinking, a dream that has failed."

Chapela considers himself fortunate to be able to speak out freely about GMO failings, since so many other scientists have been attacked or threatened or have lost employment for approaching genetic engineering with a critical eye. "I would like to speak for those scientists," says Chapela, "because they cannot." When the first Bush administration instructed federal regulatory bodies to step aside and give the GE industry free reign, Chapela explains, there was no scientific scrutiny allowed.

"It has been very hard to survive as a scientist who is a critical thinker now," Chapela says. "The central dogma embedded in K-12 science textbooks indoctrinates young people to accept that genetic engineering is an inevitable part of life. It says all living things are driven by genes encoded in DNA, and that by manipulating that DNA we can create life, and mix, match and alter it the way we want it." But this isn't the way it actually plays out, says Chapela. "The reality is that genetic engineering is not working, any way you look at it."

What Proposition 37 offers consumers is the promise that all GMO foods will be labeled in California. What it offers scientists is a chance to scrutinize an industry that has intimidated themsometimes to the point of ruining their careersfor questioning the validity of genetic engineering. "The Bush administration decided in the 1980s that genetic engineering was the next wave of economic development for the U.S. and for the world," says Chapela. "We were instructed to look the other way."

Labeling GE foods may help science, which at present cannot investigate whether GE food consumption is related to rises in disease. "We have been sitting here in the dark, forbidden from looking," says Chapela, who believes a GMO-labeling law will give us "the simple capacity to know and to do the science for the first time. I think we deserve it."

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