Obama adds to Pacific islands monument, world's biggest marine reserve

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President Obama on Thursday created the largest marine reserve in the world by expanding Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument in the south-central Pacific Ocean. It expands the monument to cover 490,000 square miles, six times its current size.

"Remote" in the reserve's name refers to the string of uninhabited tropical islands -- including Howland, where Amelia Earhart was scheduled to refuel on her round-the-world flight before her plane disappeared, Wake and Baker -- as well as atolls and reefs west of Hawaii that make up this monument.

Obama took the action to "more fully protect the deep coral reefs, sea mounts and marine ecosystems unique to this part of the world," a White House announcement says. Commercial fishing will be banned in the waters but recreational fishing will be allowed.

The president invoked the Antiquities Act in expanding the national monument that protected 83,000 square miles when it was created by President George W. Bush in 2009.

The monument protects:

--birds like boobies, frigatebirds and sooty terns that nest on Baker Island;

--many types of coral -- staghorn, brain and others -- that exist on terraces around Baker Island and Kingman Reef;

--sharks, jacks, grouper and parrotfish at Jarvis Island; and

--Green and Hawskbill turtles, humpback whales and species of dolphins that forage in its waters.

The monument is managed by the Interior and Commerce departments through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, respectively.

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Obama adds to Pacific islands monument, world's biggest marine reserve

Presidential Proclamation — Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument Expansion

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The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

September 25, 2014

PACIFIC REMOTE ISLANDS MARINE NATIONAL MONUMENT EXPANSION

- - - - - - -

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

Through Proclamation 8336 of January 6, 2009, the President established the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument ("Monument") to protect and preserve the marine environment around Wake, Baker, Howland, and Jarvis Islands, Johnston and Palmyra Atolls, and Kingman Reef for the care and management of the historic and scientific objects therein. The Monument is an important part of the most widespread collection of marine- and terrestrial-life protected areas on the planet, sustaining many endemic species including corals, fish, shellfish, marine mammals, seabirds, water birds, land birds, insects, and vegetation not found elsewhere. The Monument includes the lands, waters, and submerged and emergent lands of the seven Pacific Remote Islands to lines of latitude and longitude that lie approximately 50 nautical miles from the mean low water lines of those seven Pacific Remote Islands. The islands of Jarvis, Howland, and Baker were also the location of notable bravery and sacrifice by a small number of voluntary Hawaiian colonists, known as Hui Panalau, who occupied the islands from 1935 to 1942 to help secure the U.S. territorial claim over the islands.

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Presidential Proclamation --- Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument Expansion

Q&A: Why It's Important to Protect a Vast Marine Monument

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On Wednesday night, the White House announced that it is expanding an existing marine monument around seven U.S.-controlled islands and atolls in the central Pacific, making it the largest protected area of any kind on the planet.

The historic announcement extends protection to endangered wildlife and serves as a powerful symbol of commitment to marine conservation, says one leading ocean scientist and advocate.

Elliott Norse, the founder and chief scientist of the Seattle-based Marine Conservation Institute, has spent the past decade working on marine protected areas in the Pacific. In addition to his scientific and advocacy work on the newly expanded Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, Norse also worked to establish the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument.

National Geographic discussed the importance of these protected areas with Norse.

Why is it important to expand the Pacific Remote Islands National Marine Monument from its current state?

There are two answers to that question. One of them is a conservation/science answer and one of them is politics. An answer to the former is that existing protections are not enough to maintain the abundance of marine life we are concerned about.

We originally made the case that the Bush administration should create the monument out to the exclusive economic zone around the islands, 200 miles. They weren't able to do it because of politics. But it is important because there are organisms that drive processes in these ecosystems that are being killed in large numbers.

Take tunas, which are being fished in the area. It turns out that tunas are really important to seabirds that nest and feed their chicks on the islands. Many of those birds feed well past the boundaries that Bush originally established, and we have to protect the places where they feed.

That's because many of these seabirds can't go very deep in the ocean, so they pick up things from the surface. The problem is many of the fish and squid they eat can go deep. But tunas drive those prey species up to the surface as they feed, where some of them can be caught by birds. So tunas are an essential part of the biology of these island-nesting seabirds.

And what's the political reason for the monument's expansion?

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Q&A: Why It's Important to Protect a Vast Marine Monument

Large International Study Pinpoints Synapse Genes with Major Roles in Severe Childhood Epilepsies

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Newswise Philadelphia, Sept. 25, 2014 An international research team has identified gene mutations causing severe, difficult-to-treat forms of childhood epilepsy. Many of the mutations disrupt functioning in the synapse, the highly dynamic junction at which nerve cells communicate with one another.

This research represents a paradigm shift in epilepsy research, giving us a new target on which to focus treatment strategies, said pediatric neurologist Dennis Dlugos, M.D., director of the Pediatric Regional Epilepsy Program at The Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, and a study co-author. There is tremendous potential for new drug development and personalized treatment strategies, which is our task for the years to come.

Multiple researchers from the U.S. and Europe performed the research, the largest collaborative study to date focused on the genetic roots of severe epilepsies. The scientists reported their results online today in the American Journal of Human Genetics (epub ahead of print).

Two international research consortia collaborated on the studythe Epi4K/EPGP Consortium, funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the European EuroEPINOMICS consortium. The genetic analysis was performed at the NINDS-funded Epi4K Sequencing, Biostatistics, and Bioinformatics Core at Duke University, led by Drs. David Goldstein, Erin Heinzen and Andrew Allen.

The current study added to the list of gene mutations previously reported to be associated with these severe epilepsy syndromes, called epileptic encephalopathies. The researchers sequenced the exomes (those portions of DNA that code for proteins) of 356 patients with severe childhood epilepsies, as well as their parents. The scientists looked for de novo mutationsthose that arose in affected children, but not in their parents. In all, they identified 429 such de novo mutations.

In 12 percent of the children, these mutations were considered to unequivocally cause the childs epilepsy. In addition to several known genes for childhood epilepsies, the study team found strong evidence for additional novel genes, many of which are involved in the function of the synapse.

Epilepsies are amongst the most common disorders of the central nervous system, affecting up to 3 million patients in the U.S. Up to one third of all epilepsies are resistant to treatment with antiepileptic medication and may be associated with other disabilities such as intellectual impairment and autism. Severe epilepsies are particularly devastating in children. In many patients with severe epilepsies, no cause for the seizures can be identified, but there is increasing evidence that genetic factors may play a causal role.

The research teams used a method called family-based exome sequencing, which looks at the part of the human genome that carries the blueprints for proteins. When comparing the sequence information in children with epilepsy with that of their parents, the researchers were able to identify the de novo changes that arose in the genomes of the affected children. While de novo changes are increasingly recognized as the genetic cause for severe seizure disorders, not all de novo changes are necessarily disease-causing.

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Large International Study Pinpoints Synapse Genes with Major Roles in Severe Childhood Epilepsies

Heres to the geneticist who helped map the first breast cancer gene

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Mary-Claire King has argued that all young women should be screened for the known breast-cancer risk mutations

You probably dont recognise the name Mary-Claire King, but Im willing to bet you know this extraordinary womans work. King, a professor at the University of Washington, did her PhD with Allan Wilson in evolutionary genetics, and together they were the first to show that human and chimp are about 99 per cent identical at the DNA level.

In 1974, King took the evolutionary genetics insights she had learned during her PhD and applied them to a different problem. She started searching for genetic determinants of breast cancer. Next month, October 2014, is the 20th anniversary of the mapping of the first breast cancer gene.

Forty years ago, the landscape of genetics research was markedly different from today. There was not yet a single human genetic disease mapped. It was nine years before the first one, responsible for Huntingtons Disease, was linked to a specific chromosome. There was no genome sequence to look up, not even an accurate idea of how many genes are in the human genome. Many scientists thought there were as many as 100,000 genes, but the true value is closer to a humbling 22,000.

Given these scientific challenges, the best approach available to King and her research team was to use a technique called linkage mapping.

This takes advantage of the fact that as chromosomes are passed from parent to child, getting scrambled through the generations, genes that are physically close neighbours on a chromosome are more likely to stay together, unscrambled. Using this genetic insight, characteristics in this case increased susceptibility to breast cancer can be tested for proximity to known landmarks in the genome based on patterns of co-inheritance.

This work is slow and painstaking and, for about 16 years, King and her relatively small research team were working on this alone. By 1990 they had narrowed down the location of a breast cancer gene (dubbed BRCA1 by King) to a comparatively small region on chromosome 17.

To give an impression of what they had done, it was as if the total length of the genome was the road from Galway to Sligo, and Kings research had narrowed down the search to Tuams main street.

At this point, the goal was in sight. Others decided to join the search in competition with King. This was dubbed the race by many commentators. More than 100 researchers were working full tilt in about a dozen labs around the world.

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Heres to the geneticist who helped map the first breast cancer gene

Medical Weight Loss And Health Care Of Western New York East Amherst NY 14051 – Video

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Medical Weight Loss And Health Care Of Western New York East Amherst NY 14051
http://www.localedge.com/b29915052/Medical+Weight+Loss+And+Health+Care+Of+Western+New+York?type= If you have been fighting your weight for most of your life, you are not alone. Dr. Meng and...

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Medical Weight Loss And Health Care Of Western New York East Amherst NY 14051 - Video

Supplements Manufacturing – Italian organic health care products for Distributors – Video

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Supplements Manufacturing - Italian organic health care products for Distributors
Organic supplements manufacturing produced in Italy, health dietary and food organic supplements manufacturer for worldwide distributors using Italian organic Lycopene. For more info visit...

By: Italian Business Guide

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Supplements Manufacturing - Italian organic health care products for Distributors - Video

Orientation Lectures (2014) – UNAIDS : Standard precautions of health care settings – Video

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Orientation Lectures (2014) - UNAIDS : Standard precautions of health care settings
Introduction lecture 22-9-2014 for 1st year students of Kasr al-Ainy faculty of medicine Host : Students union of Kasr al-Ainy By Walid Hassan (2009-2015) , UNAIDS trainer.

By: Abdelaziz el Shabouny

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Orientation Lectures (2014) - UNAIDS : Standard precautions of health care settings - Video

Report identifies game changers for U.S. health care

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By Karen Pallarito HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay News) -- Imagine if doctors and hospitals got paid for providing better care, not more care, and consumers had better data for making informed health choices.

A new report suggests that's the direction the U.S. health system is headed.

The report, from the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics in Parsippany, N.J., identifies 10 "harbingers of change" -- recent events expected to alter the delivery of health care and use of medicines over the next decade.

The authors concede that poor adoption of new technologies, worries about data privacy and other obstacles could slow the pace of change, but their long-term outlook for patient care is hopeful.

"I think there can be optimism about the effectiveness of the care [patients] receive and even the cost of it," said Murray Aitken, executive director of the institute, as well as one of the study's authors.

One indication of what lies ahead: the entry of such technology juggernauts as Apple, Google and Samsung into the health care marketplace, according to the report.

IMS predicts greater innovation in mobile health applications and wearable health devices that cull personal health data and monitor everything from physical activity to blood-sugar levels.

"These new technologies get people more engaged in their own health care," Aitken said.

And with a consumer's permission, a doctor could tap into that data to tweak medication levels without the patient having to make an appointment.

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Report identifies game changers for U.S. health care

Carl Leubsdorf: Health care battles continue to roil

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Last winter, Virginias Republican legislative majority blocked Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffes plan to extend Medicaid to 400,000 Virginians without medical insurance.

Afterwards, McAuliffe vowed to take executive action but discovered legal restrictions limited him to adding 25,000 people to the rolls, mostly those with mental illnesses, though he included funds to encourage 160,000 more to enroll in private insurance.

As a result, he was denounced for failing to live up to his vow by the same Virginia GOP whose legislators blocked Medicaid expansion in the first place.

To make sure he failed, the Legislatures Republican majority last week again blocked what The Washington Post termed McAuliffes top legislative priority.

Once again, Terry McAuliffe has far over-promised, and mightily under-delivered, said state GOP communications director Garren Shipley, echoing the way Republican officials regularly portray actions limiting the Affordable Care Act as defeats for Democrats like McAuliffe and President Barack Obama.

In truth, preventing Medicaid expansion or other aspects of Obamacare in Virginia and other states, including Texas, is less a defeat for its political champions than a defeat for millions of Americans. After all, their participation in the landmark universal health care program is at stake when states consider the expanded Medicaid program, at mostly federal cost, or courts decide if its legal for them to receive a federal subsidy.

As a result, 375,000 poor and often elderly Virginians will still be denied health insurance. Over the next 10 years, the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation estimated, the state will lose $1.5 billion in additional Medicaid funds and its hospitals will lose more than $6 billion in reimbursements.

That pattern has been repeated on an even larger scale in Texas. The Urban Institute-Johnson Foundation analysis estimated more than 1.5 million people would be denied Medicaid coverage because Gov. Rick Perry rejected federal funds to underwrite 90 percent of the cost. The state will lose a potential $65.6 billion in federal funding.

By 2016, the Urban Institute says, those Texas numbers would deny 176,000 cholesterol screens, 44,100 Mammograms, 75,200 Pap smears and 3.2 million additional physicians visits for Medicaid-eligible Texans.

That pattern has been repeated in other states where Republican governors or legislatures have sought to undermine or halt the Affordable Care Act, preventing more than 5 million Americans in 20 states from participating in Medicaid.

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Carl Leubsdorf: Health care battles continue to roil

National team awarded $16 million NIH grant to study genetics of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

25-Sep-2014

Contact: Alison Trinidad alison.trinidad@usc.edu 323-442-3941 University of Southern California - Health Sciences

LOS ANGELES A multi-institutional team of researchers studying schizophrenia and bipolar disorder has been awarded a $16 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to create the most extensive genetic resource to date for these two devastating psychiatric disorders, using data assembled by the University of Southern California (USC).

The four-year award, shared by USC, the University of Michigan and the Broad Institute Inc., will help fund a project titled: "Whole Genome Sequencing of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder in the Genomic Psychiatry Cohort (GPC)."

Keck School of Medicine of USC researchers Carlos N. Pato, M.D., Ph.D., Franz Alexander Professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Michele Pato, M.D., professor and Della Martin Chair of Psychiatry, created the GPC, which includes more than 37,000 participants who have agreed to provide DNA samples for genomic, epidemiological and clinical studies.

"The GPC is a cohort of patients and controls who have agreed to partner with us in extensive genomic studies of human heredity, ranging from normal function to a variety of illnesses," said Carlos N. Pato, principal investigator of the new award. "This study will greatly increase the data available on the human genomic sequence. By design, it will help us study schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but this resource should prove extremely important for understanding the role of the human genome in a broad set of disorders and in normal human functions."

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are chronic, disabling and often life-threatening. Despite estimated lifetime prevalence of just more than 1 percent worldwide and their burden on individuals, families and public health, little is known about the molecular basis of the disorders. The high heritability of these disorders which involve five- to 10-fold increased risk to first-degree relatives indicates that potential insights about their molecular basis may be found in the ways in which genome sequences vary from person to person. Better understanding of the genetic basis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder could identify molecular mechanisms for novel drugs, therapies and preventive strategies.

"The failures and successes of genetic analyses over the past 15 years have shown that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are highly polygenic illnesses, which means that making meaningful observations about the genetic basis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder will require analyzing the largest possible number of genomes," said Michele Pato. "The important challenge is not only to find variants that affect the function or expression of a gene, but to find the subset of variants that truly matters to psychiatric illness."

The study will sequence total genomic DNA from 10,000 or more ethnically diverse individuals from the GPC, split evenly among schizophrenia cases, bipolar disorder cases and psychiatrically normal controls. The resulting genome sequence data will be processed to obtain the most informative view of the genomes for these individuals. The team will also conduct association analyses within these and other available sequence data, and through genotype imputation with the Psychiatric GWAS Consortium comprising approximately 100,000 additional genomes, to identify genetic variants associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

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National team awarded $16 million NIH grant to study genetics of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder