Monthly Archives: March 2015

Galapagos Islands wildlife: Like nothing else in this world

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Sunset view from San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands. Photo: Michael Gebicki

Anne O'Davis has just narrowly avoided being speared by a pelican. We're snorkelling off Espanola, one of the Galapagos Islands, and a pelican hunting fish just arrowed into the sea barely a metre in front of her, hitting the water in a blur of beak,feathers and foam. The pelican surfaces a moment after she does, shaking its head skyward to swallow its catch.

Such close encounters are a common hazard, according to Ramiro, our naturalist guide, although the birds have excellent eyesight, and nobody actually gets hit. Anne is now shadowing a ray, a very big ray, no harm done. Just a couple of minutes later we watch a marine iguana swimming in the sea alongside us, gnawing algae off the black basalt.

When we land on Espanola that morning, a sea lion that had given birth moments before is moving her still-blind pup away from the jetty's footpath, lifting the mewling ball of fur gently in her mouth. That same night after dinner, while the ship swings at anchor, we watch flying fish exploding from the sea and thudding against the side of our vessel, attracted by the lights, while sea lions hover just a couple of metres away, waiting to scoop up the stunned fish.

A journey to the Galapagos Islands is a voyage to another planet. Even for the well-travelled adventurer, the astonishing animal, plant and bird life of these remote volcanic islands rekindles all the excitement of the first-time traveller. It's nature as you've never seen her before, birth, death and everything in between, flaunting her wildest notions with species that seem to come from science fiction. The marine iguana for starters, is a creature that looks like a leftover from the age of the dinosaurs.Then there's the Galapagos tortoise, which can weigh up to 300 kilos, happily munching the fruit of the poison apple, which will blister your skin if so much as a drop should fall on you, and can live well nobody quite knows for sure, but 150 years is well within reach.

What's more, it all happens right before your nose. Apart from the lumbering giant tortoises, the islands' wildlife has never been hunted. There are no large predators here, and the birds and animals are practically fearless. At the waterfront on San Cristobal, shortly after our flight to the island, fat sea lions are sprawled across the steps of the jetty where we wait to board the Zodiac waiting to take us to our ship. V-tailed frigate birds, also known as pirate birds for their habit of robbing other birds of their catch, drift across the sky. As you march around the islands' paths, pairs of Nazca boobies will continue their squabbling domestic arguments, albatross will barely pause from their mating dance and a blue-footed booby lands just a couple of metres away as I stand on a clifftop. At the Tortoise Reserve on San Cristobal, giant tortoises will munch their way through vegetation, unconcerned by the telephoto lenses focused on them. Go out for a snorkel and sea lions perform aquabatics in front of your nose, while their pups will nuzzle against your laces if they find your footwear sufficiently attractive and neon blue seems to be their fashion favourite.

It's these animals that rule the roost. While sea lions and land iguanas might sprawl casually across the pathways, and even give birth on them, it's you who must tread carefully, walk around and get out of the way when they march towards the sea a zoo in reverse, and a photographers' paradise.

The Galapagos also occupy an exalted place in the annals of science. Frequently described as mother nature's test tube, these islands once changed the way humanity thinks about its origins. Scattered across the Pacific almost 1000 kilometres off the coast of South America, the Galapagos Archipelago consists of 18 main islands and more than 100 islets. Although they might be close, they're all different. The islands sit above one of the planet's most active volcanic hotspots, where the earth's crust is melting, creating undersea volcanoes that rise to the surface to form the islands. As tectonic plates shift, the islands move away from the hotspot, allowing new islands to be created, and this accounts for the vast differences in age, terrain and vegetation among the islands. While Espanola is probably four million years old, Isabela and Fernandina are still being formed. Isabela's active volcanoes rise to 1700 metres, while plantations of coffee, sugarcane, bananas and citrus divide the lush highlands of Santa Cruz.

It is also the differences between the islands that has created the differences in the species that inhabit them. Espanola's marine iguanas are the only members of the species that change colour during breeding season. The land iguanas that inhabit the slopes of Wolf Volcano on Isabela Island are pink, unlike any others. The mockingbirds on Espanola are carnivorous, distinguishing them from those on the other islands. The giant tortoises that live on islands with more abundant vegetation have a rounded, domed carapace, and then there are the finches, the beaks of each subspecies adapted to a slightly different purpose, depending on the island where they are found. It is almost as if in the Galapagos, nature is underlining the principle of natural selection, highlighting it in red with bold capitals, waiting for a curious mind to come along and draw the obvious conclusion. When the naturalist Charles Darwin arrived in 1835, it was the Galapagos that provided the spark for what would become Darwin's theory of natural selection, the basis for our understanding of evolution.

There are two ways to experience this animal wonderland, either aboard one of the many vessels that offer cruises around the islands or from a base on dry land. Land has lots of appeal, and it's less expensive, but also limiting. The main tourism base is Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz, site of the Galapagos' main airport, and home to most of its accommodation. Most of the other islands are national parks, with only day visitors and no accommodation. Those who choose to stay in a resort or guesthouse around Puerto Ayora face long boat trips out to the national park islands to see the wildlife. This involves a two-hour trip each way, even to the closest islands.

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Galapagos Islands wildlife: Like nothing else in this world

Quei "21 Pensieri" sulla Giornata per i Down

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Si celebra oggi la decima Giornata mondiale della sindrome di Down. Una data, il 21 marzo, che non stata scelta a caso visto che la sindrome nota anche come Trisomia 21. A scoprirla e a darle questo nome fu il genetista, pediatra e attivista francese Jrme Lejeune (19261994), proclamato servo di Dio dalla Chiesa cattolica. I suoi "21 Pensieri", che vi riproponiamo di seguito in inglese, con la promessa di tradurli presto, sono una manifesto in difesa della vita e della persona umana.

1. Human genetics can be summarized in this basic creed: In the beginning is the message, and the message is in life, and the message is life. And if the message is a human message, then the life is a human life.

2. Life has a very long history, but each of us has a very definite beginningthe moment of conception.

3. A month after conception, a human being is one-sixth of an inch long. The tiny heart has already been beating for a week, and the arms, legs, head and brain have already begun to take shape. At two months, the child would fit into a walnut shell: Curled up, she measures a little more than an inch long. Inside your closed fist, she would be invisible, and you could crush her without meaning toeven without noticing. But if you open your hand, she is virtually complete, with hands, feet, head, internal organs, brain, everything in place. All she needs to do is grow. Look even more closely with a standard microscope, and you'll be able to make out her fingerprints. Everything needed to establish her identity is already in place.

4. Hate the disease, love the patient: That is the practice of medicine.

5. Again and again we see this absolute misconception of trying to defeat a disease by eliminating the patient! It's ridiculous to stand beside a patient and solemnly say, Who is this upstart who refuses to be cured? How dare he resist our art? Let's get rid of him! Medicine becomes mad science when it attacks the patient instead of fighting the disease. We must always be on the patient's side, always.

6. When parents are worried about a sick child, we have no right to make them waitnot even one nightif we can do otherwise.

7. Either we will cure them of their innocence, or there will be a new massacre of the innocents.

8. I see only one way left to save them, and that is to cure them. The task is immensebut so is Hope.

9. We will beat this disease. It's inconceivable that we won't. It will take much less intellectual effort than sending a man to the Moon.

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Webcast- ACA Best Practices: Annual Health Care Reporting and the Cadillac Excise Tax – Video

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Webcast- ACA Best Practices: Annual Health Care Reporting and the Cadillac Excise Tax
Please join us for our next in the series of ACA Best Practices webcasts in which we provide actionable insights how best to comply with ongoing ACA requirements. This event focuses on reporting...

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Webcast- ACA Best Practices: Annual Health Care Reporting and the Cadillac Excise Tax - Video

A new look at an old problem | Betsy Bradley and Lauren Taylor | TEDxYale – Video

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A new look at an old problem | Betsy Bradley and Lauren Taylor | TEDxYale
The US spends more money on health care than any other Western country. Listen to Betsy Bradley and Lauren Taylor to learn why. Elizabeth H. Bradley is a professor of public health at Yale...

By: TEDx Talks

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A new look at an old problem | Betsy Bradley and Lauren Taylor | TEDxYale - Video

PolitiFact: The federal health care law, things that came true and things that didn't (w/video)

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Predictions about the health care law were a dime a dozen back in 2010. Supporters contended that virtually everyone around the country would soon have access to affordable insurance. Opponents said the law would cost a fortune by adding to the national debt and killing jobs.

Actually, none of those things have happened.

As the Affordable Care Act makes its way to its fifth anniversary on Monday, the law has taken twists and turns, moving off course from where everyone thought it would be.

Once expected to insure 32 million new Americans by the end of the decade, the projected target has been downgraded to 27 million far from the universal coverage many proponents hoped for.

Unforeseen developments, like significant changes in health cost trends and a sweeping Supreme Court decision on Medicaid expansion, have meant the insurance provisions in the law will cost $139 billion less over the next five years than it was supposed to back in 2010. That has quieted some critics who expected massive, deficit-inflating costs.

In five years, the law has steadily navigated toward its overall goal of decreasing the number of uninsured Americans, without dramatically disrupting the overall health care industry, for better or worse. Yet.

"The whole thing has been in much slower motion than what was predicted," said Michael Tanner, health care analyst with the libertarian Cato Institute. "Whether you thought something good was going to happen or something bad, you sort of thought it would have happened by now. Instead, it's just been creeping along."

Job killing?

One of the warnings that the law's opponents issued repeatedly in the months leading up to passage was that the health care law would kill jobs. In 2011, Republicans titled the repeal legislation they were pursuing the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act." But independent studies didn't back up the claims that the law would end up reducing employment, so PolitiFact has rated such statements False.

Last year, the GOP seized on a talking point that 2.3 million jobs would go away because of the health care law. But that, too, was a misreading of evidence. A nonpartisan report actually showed that some people would stop working if they no longer had to work for insurance. PolitiFact rated the claim Mostly False.

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PolitiFact: The federal health care law, things that came true and things that didn't (w/video)

Under Health Care Act, Tax Filers Find Costly Complications

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Jeff Swensen for The New York Times J.C. Ciesielski, 34, prepared his taxes with Richard Matthews, an accountant at Just Harvest Tax Center, in Pittsburgh this month. Mr. Ciesielski had to repay part of his health care subsidy after not adjusting his income.

PITTSBURGH When he signed up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act last fall, J. C. Ciesielski estimated his income at $19,400, qualifying him for a federal subsidy that cut his premiums in half. But Mr. Ciesielski, an actor, earned an extra $2,340 from a voice-over job in December, and that welcome bit of income proved problematic when he did his taxes this month.

A tax preparer told Mr. Ciesielski that because he had not informed the federal health insurance marketplace, HealthCare.gov, of his additional income, he had to repay $118 of his subsidy. Mr. Ciesielski, who is being treated for a brain tumor, looked perplexed as he learned the money would come out of his refund check.

This is definitely the lowest refund Ive ever gotten, Mr. Ciesielski, 34, said as he drummed his fingers on the tax preparers desk. But it boils down to I have health insurance, which I desperately need.

This filing season, for the first time, millions of Americans are facing tax implications and new forms that even seasoned preparers are finding confusing related to their health insurance status. The changes are not only complicating things for tax filers, but also costing many of them money.

Under the Affordable Care Act, people who remained uninsured last year must either pay a penalty with their taxes, one of the most contentious elements of the law, or claim an exemption. The Obama administration has said up to six million people would owe a penalty of $95 or 1 percent of their household income, whichever is greater. But as many as 30 million people are getting exemptions, mainly because they are too poor to afford health insurance or because they live in a state that refused to expand Medicaid last year under the health law.

And people who did get insurance but, like Mr. Ciesielski, underestimated their income for 2014 the figure on which subsidies are calculated are being required to pay back part of their subsidy.

In late February, H & R Block reported that its uninsured clients had paid an average penalty of $172. The money comes out of refunds, while people who do not get refunds are required to pay the Internal Revenue Service by April 15.

The health law prohibits the I.R.S. from imposing criminal fines or putting liens on the property of people who ignore the insurance mandate, but it does allow the agency to collect the penalty by reducing future refunds.

It will still be on their books, said Courtenay Murphy, a tax preparer in Gunnison, Colo.

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Under Health Care Act, Tax Filers Find Costly Complications

Health care paperwork harms small businesses – Sun, 22 Mar 2015 PST

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Complying with the health care law is costing small businesses thousands of dollars that they didnt have to spend before the new regulations went intoeffect.

Brad Mete estimates his staffing company, Affinity Resources, will spend $100,000 this year on record-keeping and filing documents with the government. Hes hired two extra staffers and is spending more on services from its human resourcesprovider.

The Affordable Care Act, which as of next Jan. 1 applies to all companies with 50 or more workers, requires owners to track staffers hours, absences and how much they spend on health insurance

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Karen Gonzales, a recruiter with Affinity Resources, a temporary staffing company, talks with a job seeker on the phone from her Miami Lakes, Fla., office onMonday. (Full-size photo)

Complying with the health care law is costing small businesses thousands of dollars that they didnt have to spend before the new regulations went intoeffect.

Brad Mete estimates his staffing company, Affinity Resources, will spend $100,000 this year on record-keeping and filing documents with the government. Hes hired two extra staffers and is spending more on services from its human resourcesprovider.

The Affordable Care Act, which as of next Jan. 1 applies to all companies with 50 or more workers, requires owners to track staffers hours, absences and how much they spend on health insurance. Many small businesses dont have the human resources departments or computer systems that large companies have, making it harder to handle the paperwork. On average, complying with the law costs small businesses more than $15,000 a year, according to a survey released a year ago by the National Small BusinessAssociation.

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Health care paperwork harms small businesses - Sun, 22 Mar 2015 PST

Health care, wages still in dispute between city and police union

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The San Antonio Police Officers Association plans to review a counteroffer to a proposal they made Monday for a new labor contract.

The main issues that the union and the city continue to debate center on the cost of health care and salary increases.

If the police union wants to increase health care benefits beyond what the city offered Friday, the added cost would have to be absorbed by proposed wage increases, city officials said.

Ron DeLord, SAPOAs chief negotiator, told the citys team at the bargaining table that its possible the two sides could reach agreement on March 31 the last bargaining session the two sides have scheduled.

I dont see any way to reach a deal today. I think that we are closer and closer, but not close enough yet, DeLord said. We have another day on the 31st, which may be the finish or not day. Well see.

DeLord and union boss Mike Helle noted that the city has provided free health care for officers and their dependents since 1978 and giving that up is, according to DeLord, a monumental shift.

Theres value for that, he said.

Under proposals made both by the city and the union, officers would begin paying health care premiums on Jan. 1. The union has sought a plan that would include health care without premiums. Dubbed a consumer-driven health plan, such medical insurance includes high deductibles, which would be offset by city contributions to a health savings account. The two sides continue to argue over how much that contribution should be.

And just how much officers would receive in increased pay between now and fiscal year 2018 has become a point of contention in negotiations that have dragged on for more than a year. The two sides have spent most of the time negotiating over health care, which City Manager Sheryl Sculley had identified as a skyrocketing expense that needed to be reined in.

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Health care, wages still in dispute between city and police union

University of Glasgow leads the way in drug treatments

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How to get the right treatment to the right patient at the right time

University of Glasgow leads the way in new global drug treatments

The University of Glasgow is launching the first ever Masters programme designed to specifically address the new paradigm in drug discovery stratified medicine which tailors drug therapies to individual patients genetic makeup.

The University of Glasgow is at the forefront of stratified medicine, which involves examining the genetic makeup of patients and their differing responses to drugs designed to treat specific diseases the right treatment to the right patient at the right time.

The course director of the new MSc in Clinical Trials and Stratified Medicine, Professor Matthew Walters, said: Stratified Medicine holds huge potential in the timely development of new treatments for human disease. It is among the most important concepts to emerge in 21stcentury clinical science and will be a crucial component of the global drive to increase the efficacy, safety and cost-effectiveness of new treatments.

He added: There has been global recognition of the need for training in this area so that we have young drug researchers in academia and the commercial environment imbued with the skills required to apply the science for the benefit of patients.

Glasgow is also home to the Stratified Medicine Scotland Innovation Centre, which combines cutting-edge genetic research with state-of-the-art health informatics and imaging technologies. It is a unique collaboration in healthcare between partners from academia, the NHS and the pharmaceutical industry.

There is already huge interest in stratified medicine and pharmaceutical science in Saudi Arabia, said Professor Walters.

China also has a nascent clinical trials industry and Professor Walters is keen to involve Chinese students and academics in this area.

One of the elements we need to be clear about is whether medicines have the same impact across different populations. People handle drugs differently in different parts of the globe. There will be a significant need for people in China with these skills to be running clinical trials over the next few decades, he said.

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University of Glasgow leads the way in drug treatments

New procedure for reliable gene editing

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Here's the classic, if overly simplistic, example: Children inherit sets of chromosomes from each of their parents, with each chromosome containing the genes for various traits. A blue-eyed child has to inherit the blue-eyed gene from both the mother and the father. Otherwise, the dominant brown-eyed gene trumps the recessive blue-eyed gene.

In reality, eye color is determined by more than one gene. But the same principle applies to genetic defects such as muscular dystrophy: Even if you inherit the mutated gene for muscular dystrophy from one parent, the normal gene from the other parent can compensate and keep you from getting the disease.

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The downside for genetic engineers is that the mechanism makes it harder to introduce desired mutations. Mutagenic chain reaction, or MCR, makes the job easier. The researchers behind the Science study tweaked the CRISPR genome-editing procedure in fruit flies to make a mutation that's generated on one copy of a chromosome spread automatically to the other copy. Thus, both copies of the gene carry the mutation.

"MCR is remarkably active in all cells of the body, with one result being that such mutations are transmitted to offspring via the germline with 95 percent efficiency," study lead author Valentino Gantz, a graduate student at the University of California at San Diego, said in a news release.

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New procedure for reliable gene editing

Tokyo men stay one step ahead in style

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Tokyo men stay one step ahead in style

(AFP) / 22 March 2015

From sharp futurism to wool-and-denim casuals, the finale of Tokyo Fashion Week put the spotlight largely on menswear, aiming to promote the most dynamic area of Japanese clothes design.

A model displaying a creation from the "Sulvam" label by Japanese designer Teppei Fujita during Tokyo Fashion Week's 2015-16 autumn/winter collection in Tokyo. AFP

Tokyo: Feminine glamour may turn the most heads at fashion weeks in New York or Paris, but in Tokyo it is the style-conscious men who set the sartorial trends.

From sharp futurism to wool-and-denim casuals, the finale of Tokyo Fashion Week put the spotlight largely on menswear, aiming to promote the most dynamic area of Japanese clothes design.

What happens here is probably the future of mens fashion, said Antonio Cristaudo from Pitti Immagine, a collection of fashion industry events in Italy.

Theres individuality, they want to be different, he told AFP. Its important for all the fashion world to see whats happening in Japan.

Such innovation is nowhere more evident than on the streets of Tokyo, from the vintage and skater styles of Ura-Hara to the slick suits of the Marunouchi business district.

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Tokyo men stay one step ahead in style

Tokyo men stay one step ahead in style at Fashion Week

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A model displays a creation from Japanese designer Teppei Fujita's 2015-16 Autumn/Winter collection during Tokyo Fashion Week on March 21, 2015. AFP PHOTO/Toru Yamanaka

From sharp futurism to wool-and-denim casuals, the finale of Tokyo Fashion Week put the spotlight largely on menswear, aiming to promote the most dynamic area of Japanese clothes design.

"What happens here is probably the future of men's fashion," said Antonio Cristaudo from Pitti Immagine, a collection of fashion industry events in Italy.

"There's individuality, they want to be different," he told AFP. "It's important for all the fashion world to see what's happening in Japan."

Such innovation is nowhere more evident than on the streets of Tokyo, from the vintage and skater styles of Ura-Hara to the slick suits of the Marunouchi business district.

With sharp tailoring and eye-catching accessories, from hats and bags to shiny shoes, the get-up of Tokyo gents is striking to the first-time visitor.

"The menswear is just so much more exciting than womenswear here," said Misha Janette, an American fashion journalist based in Tokyo, who suggested the tendency for women to cover up meant their clothes could be "a bit shapeless."

For the men, meanwhile, "it's ok to do your hair, be into fashion, use skincare," Janette said. "They like to be proper in Japan."

Although Tokyo's dandies shine at home and start trends that travel abroad, the success of Japan's own designers has been limited overseas.

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Tokyo men stay one step ahead in style at Fashion Week