Little wonder subantarctic islands uninhabited

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Steve Knowles knows what it's like to call New Zealand's subantarctic islands home and struggles to fathom how early settlers managed to survive there.

The HMNZS Wellington arrived at the Campbell Islands overnight with Conservation Minister Nick Smith, philanthropists Gareth and Sam Morgan and Conservation Department and Metservice staff on board.

The scientific expedition was earlier forced to seek shelter at Stewart Island after sailing through a storm dubbed "hell on earth" during an initial attempt to reach the islands.

While the sub-Antarctic islands are now recognised as UN world heritage sites and are nature reserves, they have a history of attempted but ultimately unsuccessful settlement, both by Maori and Europeans.

Knowles, a Metservice Networks Operations Manager, spent a year on the Campbell Islands as a 22-year-old meteorologist in 1990, and said the early settlers would have faced enormous challenges.

"It's no picnic down there, temperatures quite often get down to the low single figures, you can get snow any day of the year, the days when there's no wind is pretty seldom so wind chill is always a factor and just being able to get out of that and stay comfortable must've been a quite a struggle for those guys."

While he and his four colleagues had hot water, central heating and solid buildings to call home, the early settlers were forced to live in sod huts, he said.

Those promised a new start would have found living on the islands dismal.

"It's a constant struggle with morale, morale can be a big issue in a place like that, and it's really a matter of keeping yourself occupied, having an interest and keeping positive about things... Those guys would've done it pretty hard back in the early days," he said.

"And it's not a matter of going down to the hardware shop to get supplies, you've basically got to make it from scratch if you don't have it there or come up with another solution. It's tough times."

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Little wonder subantarctic islands uninhabited

Islanders afraid to go home 60 years after Bikini Atoll

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By Giff Johnson ,AFP March2,2014,12:11amTWN

Part of the intense Cold War nuclear arms race, the 15-megaton Bravo test on March 1, 1954 was a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

It vaporized one island and exposed thousands in the surrounding area to radioactive fallout.

As those who remembered that terrifying day gathered in the Marshall Islands' capital of Majuro, along with younger generations, to commemorate the anniversary, many exiles refused to go back to the zones that were contaminated, despite U.S. safety assurances.

I won't move there, Evelyn Ralpho-Jeadrik, 33, said of her home atoll, Rongelap, which was engulfed in a snowstorm of fallout from Bravo and evacuated two days after the test. I do not believe it's safe and I don't want to put my children at risk.

People returned to live on Rongelap in 1957 but fled again in 1985 amid fears, later proved correct, about residual radiation.

One of the more than 60 islands in Rongelap has been cleaned up as part of a US-funded $45 million program, but Ralpho-Jeadrik said she has no intention of going back.

I will be forever fearful. The U.S. told my mother it was safe and they returned to Rongelap only to be contaminated again, she said.

It is not just their homes which have been lost, said Lani Kramer, 42, a councilwoman in Bikini's local government, but an entire swathe of the islands' culture.

As a result of being displaced, we've lost our cultural heritage our traditional customs and skills, which for thousands of years were passed down from generation to generation, she said.

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Islanders afraid to go home 60 years after Bikini Atoll

The Impact of Change on Health Care Providers | The Business of Health Care: Bending the Cost Curve – Video

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The Impact of Change on Health Care Providers | The Business of Health Care: Bending the Cost Curve
This panel examined how changes implemented in 2014 and beyond will impact hospitals, physicians, insurers, and integrated delivery systems. It also explored...

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Mary Landrieu In 2009: ObamaCare Will Fix "Skyrocketing" Health Care Costs For Small Business – Video

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Mary Landrieu In 2009: ObamaCare Will Fix "Skyrocketing" Health Care Costs For Small Business
Mary Landrieu In 2009: ObamaCare Will Fix "Skyrocketing" Health Care Costs For Small Business (November 18, 2009)

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Documents show Clinton health care strategy

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Washington Former President Bill Clintons aides were concerned early in his presidency about the health care overhaul effort, led by his wife, that never passed and a need to soften the image of Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to documents released Friday. Mrs. Clinton now is a potential 2016 presidential contender.

The National Archives released about 4,000 pages of previously confidential documents involving the former presidents administration, providing a glimpse into the struggles of his health care task force, led by the first lady, and other priorities such as the U.S. economy and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Hillary Clintons potential White House campaign has increased interest in Clinton Presidential Library documents from her husbands administration during the 1990s and her own decades in public service. A former New York senator and secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton is the leading Democratic contender to succeed President Barack Obama, though she has not said whether she will run.

Fridays documents release included memos related to the former presidents ill-fated health care reform proposal in 1993 and 1994, a plan that failed to win support in Congress and turned into a rallying cry for Republicans in the 1994 midterm elections. As first lady, Hillary Clinton chaired her husbands health care task force, largely meeting in secret to develop a plan to provide universal health insurance coverage.

White House aides expressed initial optimism about her ability to help craft and enact a major overhaul of U.S. health care.

The first ladys months of meetings with the Congress has produced a significant amount of trust and confidence by the members in her ability to help produce a viable health reform legislative product with the president, said an undated and unsigned document, which was cataloged with others from April 1993. The document urged quick action, warning that enthusiasm for health reform will fade over time.

But the documents also showed the growing concerns among Clintons fellow Democrats in Congress. Lawmakers, it said, going to their home districts for the August break are petrified about having difficult health care reform issues/questions thrown at them.

By September 1993, Mrs. Clinton acknowledged the obstacles in a Capitol Hill meeting with House and Senate Democratic leaders and committee chairs. I think that, unfortunately, in the glare of the public political process, we may not have as much time as we need for that kind of thoughtful reflection and research, the first lady said, citing this period of challenge.

The documents also include detailed media strategy memos written as aides tried to soften Mrs. Clintons image.

Her press secretary, Lisa Caputo, encouraged the Clintons to capitalize on their 20th wedding anniversary as a wonderful opportunity for Hillary and also suggested she spend more time doing White House events celebrating first ladies of the past.

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Documents show Clinton health care strategy

Medicine for Medicaid: Will Maine reform health care for low-income residents?

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Over the last several decades, most states across the country have shifted how they manage the health care of their low-income residents. Instead of coordinating directly with providers and paying for each medical procedure, states have, more and more, handed over that administrative responsibility to outside entities. The trend has not hit Maine until now.

Art by George Danby

A compromise bill proposed this week by Maine Republican Sens. Roger Katz of Augusta and Tom Saviello of Wilton would expand Medicaid coverage to 70,000 residents under the Affordable Care Act and start Maine on a years-long path of converting to a managed care system where the states Medicaid program, MaineCare, would be contracted out to private companies or nonprofits.

By all accounts, it would be the largest change to hit MaineCare in years, possibly decades. The goal, Katz and Saviello said, is to ensure all Maine residents have access to quality health care within a system that is ready for them and able to deliver medical care in a cost-effective way.

The status quo in MaineCare, even if we dont expand, is unacceptable, Katz said.

Whether you have ever held a MaineCare card or not, switching to a managed care model would affect you. You might work in the health care or social assistance industry now, or you might in the future; employment in the field grew by 22.6 percent between 2000 and 2012. You might have an elderly parent facing a need for long-term care. Or perhaps you are a taxpayer; MaineCare will comprise about 23 percent of the state general fund in fiscal year 2014.

Even if youre not familiar with the general term managed care, you probably already know what it is.

The beginnings of managed care can be traced back to 1929, when a physician in Oklahoma established a health cooperative for farmers lacking a nearby hospital or medical specialists, according to the federal governments National Council on Disability. The physician, Michael Shadid, sold shares to create a hospital and then developed an annual fee schedule to pay for the cost of care. By 1934, he had 600 family memberships.

This kind of prepaid health plan is what we would now call a health maintenance organization, or HMO: People regularly pay a fixed fee regardless of whether they require medical care, and a wide variety of medical services are available if they need them. They also have a primary care provider who can refer them to specialists. Procedures are covered if they see providers within a certain network.

If you have an HMO or a preferred provider organization, a PPO, you have a managed care plan.

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Gene Study Offers Clues to Why Autism Strikes More Males

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By Mary Brophy Marcus HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Feb. 27, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- A new DNA study begins to explain why girls are less likely than boys to have an autism spectrum disorder.

It turns out that girls tend not to develop autism when only mild genetic abnormalities exist, the researchers said. But when they are diagnosed with the disorder, they are more likely to have more extreme genetic mutations than boys who show the same symptoms.

"Girls tolerate neurodevelopmental mutations more than boys do. This is really what the study shows," said study author Sebastien Jacquemont, an assistant professor of genetic medicine at the University Hospital of Lausanne, in Switzerland.

"To push a girl over the threshold for autism or any of these neurodevelopmental disorders, it takes more of these mutations," Jacquemont added. "It's about resilience to genetic insult."

The dilemma is that the researchers don't really know why this is so. "It's more of an observation at a molecular level," Jacquemont noted.

In the study, the Swiss researchers collaborated with scientists from the University of Washington School of Medicine to analyze about 16,000 DNA samples and sequencing data sets from people with neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorders.

The investigators also analyzed genetic data from almost 800 families affected by autism for the study, which was released online Feb. 27 in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

The researchers analyzed copy-number variants (CNVs), which are individual variations in the number of copies of a particular gene. They also looked at single-nucleotide variants (SNVs), which are DNA sequence variations affecting a single nucleotide. Nucleotides are the basic building blocks of DNA.

The study found that females diagnosed with any neurodevelopmental disorder, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and intellectual disability, had more harmful CNVs than males who were diagnosed with the same disorder. Females with autism also had more harmful SNVs than males with the condition.

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Gene Study Offers Clues to Why Autism Strikes More Males

Future of hotel industry in Ireland. Future travel, tourism, corporate hospitality Futurist speaker – Video

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Future of hotel industry in Ireland. Future travel, tourism, corporate hospitality Futurist speaker
Future of hotel industry in Ireland - key economic and customer trends affecting the hotels industry. Futurist speaker Patrick Dixon speaking at event for th...

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Health care rationing – budget cuts and government spending – health care futurist speaker – Video

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Health care rationing - budget cuts and government spending - health care futurist speaker
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Futurist Says We'll Use Lasers to Beam Our Minds Into Space Someday Soon

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The idea of erasing and implanting memories is a common feature of science fiction films such as Total Recall and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Modern science can already erase and implant memories in rats, and in the future such techniques might be used on humans as well. Such experiments are the subject of the new book The Future of the Mind by famed physicist and futurist Michio Kaku. But one obstacle facing human trials is resistance from bioethicists, who argue that our memories make us who we are. Kaku rejects this idea when it comes to traumatic memories, such as soldiers suffering from PTSD.

Were talking about basically an injury to the brain, in the form of a memory thats so traumatic it paralyzes you, says Michio Kaku in Episode 104 of the Geeks Guide to the Galaxy podcast. And I think this whole philosophy that we should be natural, that we should live with disease or live with traumatic memories, is taking things too far.

Kaku is a lifelong science fiction fan whose books and TV shows often deal with the intersection of science and science fiction. He thinks science fiction is an important tool for expanding creativity and embracing possibilities, and he feels many bioethicists could benefit from reading more science fiction, which might help reduce their excessive attachment to the familiar.

Science fiction is way past bioethicists, who are simply responding to whats happening in laboratories today, not responding to what will happen in the laboratory a few decades from now, says Kaku.

Listen to our complete interview with Michio Kaku in Episode 104 of Geeks Guide to the Galaxy (above). Then stick around after the interview as former co-host John Joseph Adams returns to the show to discuss his recent projects with his longtime agent Joe Monti and host David Barr Kirtley.

Michio Kaku on not fearing super-brains:

In so many comic books and movies, we have the super-genius becoming the villain, like Lex Luthor. Or all the movies where you see super-brains take over the world. But we actually do have super-brains, they actually do exist, some of them are my friends, theyre Nobel Prize winners in theoretical physics, and their incomes are very low, a fraction of what Zuckerberg makes, the founder of Facebook. Having a super-brain does not suddenly make you a dictator of the world. So we dont have to fear the scenarios of science fiction where the Lex Luthors of the world take over. People with exceptional ability, they dont become politicians, they dont become multi-millionaires, some of them just become professors like me, making a measly income.

Michio Kaku on using lasers to project our minds into outer space:

In the book I mention perhaps one of the greatest science fiction short stories, written by Isaac Asimov. His favorite science fiction story was way in the future when pure consciousness zips across the universe And this is a possibility. If I have a CD-ROM with all the [neural] connections on a disk, I can put that on a laser beam, and I can shoot that into outer space at the speed of light And then at the other end theres a relay station which absorbs the laser beam and puts all these memories into a robot, and so you can then begin to feel, and live on another star system So this idea was inspired by Isaac Asimov and other science fiction writers, but now we think it could be possible.

Michio Kaku on how science fiction can help Chinese scientists:

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Futurist Says We'll Use Lasers to Beam Our Minds Into Space Someday Soon