Will Middlebrooks: Winter Ball Decision Not Like A Butting Of Heads

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The Boston Red Sox have left open the possibility of Middlebrooks playing winter ball after a disappointing 2014 season. The third baseman hasnt yet made a decision, though, as several factors are in play.

Its tough, Middlebrooks told WEEI.coms Alex Speier during the Red Soxs series against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium this week. I do understand the organizational side of it and what they need to feel or see, but then theres my side of it. I want to go get healthy, I want to go get stronger, I want to get fresh, turn the page and get ready for next year. Its a tough decision.

I just feel like, do I take the time and go get healthy and let some of these things go away, not swing a bat for a while, or do I get the consistent at-bats in games for a couple months and then have the healing pushed back and take more time for everything?

Middlebrooks expects to have more discussions with the Red Sox this month regarding the possibility of playing winter ball after the season ends. Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington, assistant GM Mike Hazen and manager John Farrell all pointed to winter ball as being a possibility for the 25-year-old, but Middlebrooks, who has battled various injuries over the last two seasons, wants to make sure the benefit of garnering extra at-bats wont be mitigated by an inability to fully recover health-wise for 2015.

Thats the part I dont know. Thats the part Im just not sure of. I dont know, Middlebrooks said. Thats something that time will tell. I dont have an answer for you.

Middlebrooks made it clear in his conversation with Speier that the subject of winter ball isnt one involving animosity. The sides remain amicable in all their discussions, which should increase in the coming weeks.

Its not like Im going against them. Its not like a butting of heads. Its not like that at all, Middlebrooks told Speier. They understand where Im coming from and I understand where theyre coming from.

Its been another disappointing season for Middlebrooks, who hasnt lived up to expectations since bursting onto the scene in 2012. Injuries certainly have played a role, even if theyre not the only preventative flaw in Middlebrooks game.

I know Im a good player, Middlebrooks said. When Im healthy no excuses but when Im healthy, I know the type of player I am. I know the impact I can make in the game. Thats not cockiness. I just know the player I am. I know the tools I have. I know what I can do. Ive done it. That adds to the frustration when things arent going well, because I know the player I am. Its hard not to be able to show it.

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Will Middlebrooks: Winter Ball Decision Not Like A Butting Of Heads

Dr. Robert Zubrin – Mars Direct: Humans to the Red Planet within a Decade – Video

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Dr. Robert Zubrin - Mars Direct: Humans to the Red Planet within a Decade
Achieving a human mission to Mars has been a fascination of humanity for some time. In the 1990s, Dr. Robert Zubrin proposed the "Mars Direct" mission architecture, using conventional rockets...

By: NASA Ames Research Center

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Dr. Robert Zubrin - Mars Direct: Humans to the Red Planet within a Decade - Video

NASA Aims to Establish Traffic Rules for Drones

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NASA is looking for partners to collaborate on a traffic management system for drones, according to recently filed documents. "Currently, there is no established infrastructure to enable and safely manage the widespread use of low-altitude airspace," NASA explained in a fact sheet (PDF) outlining the proposal. Drones and remotely guided small craft like those used by hobbyists have no awareness of each other, and may not be able to avoid each other or things like power lines or high winds. NASA aims to create a system to track and manage the growing number of craft in the air.

The proposed UTM (Unmanned aerial system Traffic Management) project is still in early stages, despite work form NASA along these lines for more than a decade. For now the plan is to work with aircraft makers, aviation experts, makers of sensors and software, and generally anyone who has something to contribute to the idea. There's no set timeline, but the first tests could occur as early as mid-2015.

First published September 5 2014, 3:59 PM

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NASA Aims to Establish Traffic Rules for Drones

NASA Sparks Scientific Interest at Richmond International Raceway

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NASA and teachers from across Virginia will engage the public in science, technology, engineering and math activities at this weekend's NASCAR races at Richmond International Raceway in Richmond, Virginia.

The event will be held Sept. 5 to 6 and is the result of a partnership with Rockets 2 Racecars (R2R), a NASA Langley Educator Professional Development program and the Virginia529 College Savings Plan.

Children of all grade levels will have the opportunity to explore clouds and their role in Earth's climate, solar energy use by NASA and in racing, and Newton's laws of motion.

The activities will be held in the Virginia529 Kids Zone at the Commonwealth Mall near Lot D of the raceway. Kids can discover how science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) apply to cars on a racetrack, and what racecars and rockets have in common.

The activities are Friday, Sept. 5, from noon to 7 p.m. and Saturday, Sept. 6, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. They include a Drag Race to Mars Engineering Design Challenge, tire tread and diameter activities, and a Go Green with Solar Energy activity.

Families will also get to see the Rockets 2 Racecars exhibit, where they will learn how space exploration has helped the auto and racing industries and how NASA plays a key role in improving brakes, engine cooling systems and more. In addition, the exhibit will feature artifacts from space and future aircraft concept models.

Race fans also will learn about NASA's plans for space travel via the Space Launch System (SLS), the world's most powerful rocket, and the Orion crew capsule, both of which are being developed.

Orion will carry astronauts to beyond low-Earth orbit, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space.

Orion's first flight test, called Exploration Flight Test-1, is scheduled to launch Dec. 4 atop a Delta IV rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Inflatable models of the Orion and SLS will be on display at the race.

Teachers participating in R2R professional development training will learn how aerospace STEM relates to the racing industry. Teachers will use their newly acquired skills in the Virginia529 Kids Zone, as they work alongside NASA education specialists in the engineering design challenge booths.

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NASA Sparks Scientific Interest at Richmond International Raceway

Why Deadspin Sucks, By Former NFL Punter Chris Kluwe

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Some people are fans of the website Deadspin. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the website Deadspin. This 2014 website preview is for those in the latter group. You can read previous previews here.

Your website: Deadspin, still part of the Gawker network, still a front for Denton's coke laundering, still using misleading titles for THOSE PAGEVIEWS, DOE.

Your 2013 record: +1. Again. Bear in mind, though, that this is a mediocre, half-assing, non-Schiano-man +1, hardly fit to shine the shoes of previous +1 years. Comments have gotten appreciably lamer, with multiple pro-caliber commenters settling for puns that any Bleacher Report sheepfister can understand. I demand obscure references to pop-culture events that take an episode of Sherlock to decode! You people have gotten fucking lazy.

Your editor: Still the lifeless husk of meat known as Tommy Craggs, who dies a little more each day he's forced to upload a Grierson and Leitch review of some lame movie that nobody gives two camel shits about. I'm sure Craggs wishes he'd kept his mouth shut like a good ESPN drone so he wouldn't have to eat top ramen every night because Denton doesn't pay anyone anything. Tommy Craggs is stuck in a never-ending hell of his own devising, and if he could run a sub 5.0 40, he would be considered a Cleveland Brown.

Your head contributor: Still Drew Magary. I swear to Satan's unbleached asshole, does no one else at this website know how to string words together in the English language? I want a new contender, someone to push Magary off his all caps-lock throne. I want CONTROVERSY, dammit. I mean, you can tell Drew's coasting when he writes a bullshit article like this. NO HATER'S GUIDE TO THE TOP 25?! How am I supposed to know which crableg-lusting ACC quarterback or racist Pac-54 coach to direct my gallons of bile and ragespittle at? Magary might as well quit and go take over for Easterbrook at this point.

Also, this shitheel wears a jacket tied around his waist like some yuppy high schooler and he's A GROWN MAN WITH KIDS. Somebody call Child Protective Services. Those poor kids are fucking doomed to a life of passive-aggressive disappointment and bitter alcoholism.

What's new that sucks: Well, a whole lot of people who never knew what the words "gaping hentai futanari non-consensual" put together mean got a real quick education courtesy of the COMPLETELY UNFORESEEABLE abuse of anonymous burner accounts. Thankfully, Gawker Media did something about it immediately after it was brought to their attention, and by immediately, I mean months later, because WHO THE SHIT CARES ABOUT WOMENBITS WHEN THERE'S SPORTS STUFF, AMIRITE, RAY RICE? Don't forget to buy that pink, ladies! A whole 5 percent goes to breast cancer! Menstruation voids the warranty!

While I'm on the subject of burner accounts, the public stance Gawker (and by association, Deadspin) has taken on them is beyond ludicrous. You guys aren't enabling the next Edward Snowden. Deep Throat 2 isn't coming your way (unless you decide to give Steve Phillips a job). If someone wants to give you a screaming hot tip that'll set the world on fire, because clearly that's what sports news (or political gossip that puts TMZ to shame, in the case of Gawker) does, they'll make a throwaway email account at a public library and send you a note. The only thing burner accounts do is make me want to scream "IT'S A FUCKING SCHOONER" whenever I see that horrible pixelated square.

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Why Deadspin Sucks, By Former NFL Punter Chris Kluwe

Faith, Medicine or ZMapp: What Cured The Ebola Patients?

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Faith, medicine or ZMapp?

For Ebola survivors Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, the answer is clear.

I would say the Lord. His merciful, gracious hand saved me in a way that used people and medication and a drug that had not been released. I think all of those things have played into our recovery, Writebol told NBC News in an exclusive interview for the Friday NBC News Special "Saving Dr. Brantly: The Inside Story of a Medical Miracle.

The doctors who treated them have another idea and they think what theyve learned can save Ebola patients in Africa. What almost killed Brantly, they say, were irregular heart rhythms caused by whats called electrolyte imbalance the loss of minerals because of his constant, unending diarrhea.

The closest infectious disease we can compare it to is cholera, Dr. Bruce Ribner, who heads the special containment unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta where Writebol and Brantly were treated, told NBC News.

As with cholera, the constant vomiting and diarrhea pull all the fluids from the body, and with them sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium the so-called electrolytes that help the cells in organs such as the heart, brain and kidneys to function.

Brantly was losing five to seven quarts a day of fluid, Ribner said.

The first night each time he got out of bed to go to the bathroom, he was getting weaker and weaker, said Crystal Johnson, one of the nurses who cared to Brantly and Writebol. He was febrile. He could barely stand. Every hour was tedious. We could not leave the room. We had to stay in our Tyvek suits and stay in the room.

It was water. It was just water coming out of him, added infectious diseases specialist Dr. Aneesh Mehta, another member of Emorys Ebola team.

And with every bout of diarrhea, Brantly was losing the electrolytes that make the heart beat regularly. He was having rhythm problems because his electrolytes were so out of balance, Ribner said.

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Faith, Medicine or ZMapp: What Cured The Ebola Patients?

Debbie Sacra, wife of Dr. Rick Sacra, speaks on Ebola diagnosis – Video

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Debbie Sacra, wife of Dr. Rick Sacra, speaks on Ebola diagnosis
Statement given at a press conference at UMass Medical School on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014, at 5 p.m., by Debbie Sacra, wife of Dr. Rick Sacra, the third American doctor to be infected with the...

By: UMass Medical School

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Debbie Sacra, wife of Dr. Rick Sacra, speaks on Ebola diagnosis - Video

A look at the Nebraska medical isolation unit where American Ebola patient being treated

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Published September 05, 2014

Dr. Mark Rupp, chief of the division of infectious diseases in the department of internal medicine at the Nebraska Medical Center, left, speaks as SIM USA President Bruce Johnson, center, and SIM Liberia country director Will Elphick, right, listen, at a news conference in Omaha, Neb., Friday Sept. 5, 2014, on the condition of ebola patient Dr. Rick Sacra, 51, who is treated at the center. Sacra, who served with North Carolina-based charity SIM, is the third American aid worker infected by the Ebola virus. He will begin treatment in the hospital's 10-bed special isolation unit, the largest of four such units in the U.S. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)The Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb. A third American aid worker, Dr. Rick Sacra, to be treated in the U.S. for the deadly Ebola virus arrived Friday at the Nebraska Medical Center's biomedical isolation unit the largest in the country.

Here are some questions and answers about the Omaha unit:

WHY IS THE COUNTRY'S LARGEST BIOCONTAINMENT UNIT IN OMAHA?

The Nebraska Biocontainment Patient Care Unit got its start in the years after Sept. 11 as Nebraska prepared to combat bioterrorism. By 2004, Nebraska ranked among the top six states for bioterrorism preparedness, according to a report by the nonprofit Trust for America's Health.

A year later, Nebraska's health agency pooled its allotment of federal bioterrorism dollars with contributions from the hospital and the University of Nebraska's medical school and opened the $1 million isolation unit.

The 10-bed, five-room unit is the largest quarantine and treatment facility in the country and designed to handle highly contagious and deadly infections including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), smallpox and plague. Other biocontainment units are in Montana, Maryland and at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where two infected Americans were treated earlier this summer.

HOW MANY PEOPLE HAS THE UNIT TREATED?

The unit has so far briefly housed only one person, a traveler five years ago from Africa whose symptoms concerned emergency-room workers in a Nebraska town, according to unit officials. The patient was diagnosed with malaria, which doesn't require quarantine.

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A look at the Nebraska medical isolation unit where American Ebola patient being treated

CEO says community effort needed for Fort Smith medical school

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FORT SMITH Community involvement was an overriding theme in a presentation Friday morning on the proposed Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine to be built at Chaffee Crossing in Fort Smith.

Kyle Parker, president and CEO of Arkansas Colleges of Health Education, told about 250 Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce members during the monthly First Friday Breakfast at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith that initial dirt work for the medical college is expected to begin this month in preparation for an early 2015 construction start.

Official announcements also came Friday with the naming of Fort Smith construction contractors Beshears Construction and Nabholz Construction as the winning bidders for first building on the campus, a 100,000-square-foot, three-story, $30 million-plus project.

Keeping it local was a big deal with the board, Parker said. Theres no reason not to if you can find the expertise here.

Nabholz and Beshears will focus on different areas of construction. The two local companies could not have done it on their own, Parker said, and approached the college board together with an alternative plan. The two have not worked on a major project before.

Parker also said the college plans to include a physicians assistant school set for 75 students by 2018.

The doctors who graduate from the college are also expected to keep it local, with a national average of 70 percent staying in the area to do their residency service, Parker said.

The Fort Smith region is one of the most underserved in the state, and the college is seen as being a well of future doctors for not just the Fort Smith region but other under-served areas like Benton and Washington counties, said John Taylor, chairman of the Arkansas Colleges of Health Education board of trustees.

Doctors of osteopathy can be in any field, from internal medicine to pediatrics and family medicine, but are known to focus on a more holistic approach, Taylor said.

Part of the behind-the-scenes work for Parker has been setting up clinical residency and rotation slots for future graduates, which he says are coveted because of a shortage. In addition to local hospitals like Mercy Fort Smith and Sparks Regional Medical Center, the Choctaw Nation and Cherokee Nation are two other parties involved with securing slots at their clinics for future doctors.

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CEO says community effort needed for Fort Smith medical school