Lincoln Named A Top Ten City For Affordable Health Care

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Navigating the health-care landscape can be a challenge for everyone. Across the country, health care expenses can put big dents in family budgets. With this in mind, Livability.com has named Lincoln a Top 10 City for Affordable Health Care, 2014. Lincoln offers some relief with the right prescription of low health-care spending; good access to hospitals, doctors and other providers; plus an excellent quality of life.

For this list of cities for affordable health care, editors not only measured affordability, but also took into account Esri survey data on average per capita spending on health care and related items. They factored in the number of area hospitals, the number of primary care physicians and dentists per capita, as well as quality of life.

And finally, they considered data used to determine the Top 100 Best Places to Live. Specifically, they looked at such factors as walkability, income, the number of farmers markets, and natural environment and climate after all, overall health relates to living in a city with recreational amenities, thriving entertainment districts and cultural assets.

"Health-care costs are rising for most Americans, and the insurance marketplace is a complicated place, says Livability.com editor Matt Carmichael. We wanted to create a list of cities with quality, accessible and affordable health care. But equally importantly, we wanted these cities and towns to be good places to live, too.

Lincoln, Neb., residents have 30 area hospitals from which to choose the highest hospital total for a city on the Top 10 Cities for Affordable Health Care. Having all those choices helps keep medical expenses down for residents here, who (on average) spend 12 percent less on health-care costs each year than the rest of the nation. Lincolns clean environmental record, cultural offerings and recreational activities make it one of our Top 100 Best Places to Live in America.

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Lincoln Named A Top Ten City For Affordable Health Care

Researchers shed new light on the genetic history of the European beaver

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

17-Feb-2014

Contact: Caron Lett caron.lett@york.ac.uk 44-019-043-22029 University of York

An international team of scientists has used detailed analysis of ancient and modern DNA to show that the distribution and lack of genetic diversity among modern European beavers is due largely to human hunting.

The research, which was led by University of York researcher Professor Michi Hofreiter, provides important new insights into the genetic history of the Eurasian beaver Castor fiber. Crucially, it shows the European beaver has been strongly affected by expanding human populations for many thousands of years.

The researchers say that centuries of hunting, rather than changing climate conditions since the beginning of the Holocene (or recent) period, accounts for the lack of genetic diversity, as well as the geographic distribution of genetic diversity, seen in modern European beavers.

The research, which also involved researchers from Germany, USA, Norway, New Zealand, Russia, Poland, Sweden, Austria and the Netherlands, is reported in the journal Molecular Ecology.

Through DNA sequencing, the research team discovered that the Eurasian beaver can be divided into three distinct groups. The two main ones are in western and eastern Europe, with a now extinct, and previously unknown, third group in the Danube basin. This population existed at least 6,000 years ago but went extinct during the transition to modern times.

Professor Hofreiter, from York's Department of Biology and the University of Potsdam's Faculty of Mathematics and Life Sciences, said: "While beaver populations have been growing rapidly since the late 19th century when conservation efforts began, genetic diversity within modern beaver populations remains considerably reduced to what was present prior to the period of human hunting and habitat reduction.

"In addition, the rapid loss of diversity prior to conservation efforts appears to have established a very strong pattern for the geographic distribution of genetic diversity among present-day beaver populations." Beavers have long been an important resource for human populations across the northern continents. Their fur is of exceptional quality, and has been a highly traded commodity. Beavers have also been hunted for meat and for castoreum - an anal gland secretion often used in traditional medicine. Stone engravings at Lake Onega in northern Europe indicate that beavers played a role in ancient human societies from around 3,000-4,000 years ago.

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UCI study finds specific genetic cue for sudden cardiac death syndrome

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

18-Feb-2014

Contact: Tom Vasich tmvasich@uci.edu 949-824-6455 University of California - Irvine

Irvine, Calif., Feb. 18, 2014 UC Irvine researchers have found a specific genetic flaw that is connected to sudden death due to heart arrhythmia a leading cause of mortality for adults around the world.

While a number of genes have been linked with arrhythmias, UC Irvine's Geoffrey Abbott and his colleagues discovered that the functional impairment of a gene called KCNE2 underlies a multisystem syndrome that affects both heart rhythm and blood flow and can activate chemical triggers that can cause sudden cardiac death.

"With these findings, we can now explore improved early detection and prevention strategies for people who are at higher risk of sudden cardiac death, such as those with diabetes," said Abbott, a professor of pharmacology and physiology & biophysics in the UC Irvine School of Medicine.

Study results appear in the February issue of Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics, a publication of the American Heart Association.

Distinct from a heart attack, in which the heart continues to beat but blood flow is blocked, sudden cardiac death occurs when the heart ceases to beat because of the uncontrolled twitching of muscle fibers in its ventricles. Without defibrillation within minutes, this type of event is fatal.

In studies on a mouse model with the KCNE2 gene removed, Abbott and his colleagues had found catalysts for sudden cardiac death including high blood cholesterol, anemia, high blood potassium, an age-related delay in the return to a resting position of the ventricle after contraction and, most surprisingly, diabetes.

Abbott said this link to diabetes and other systemic disturbances is significant because genes such as KCNE2 are better known for directly controlling the electrical signaling that ensures a steady heartbeat. The KCNE2 gene provides instructions for making a protein that regulates the activity of potassium channels, which play a key role in a cell's ability to generate and transmit electrical signals. Channels regulated by the KCNE2 protein are present in heart muscles and help recharge them after each heartbeat to maintain a regular rhythm.

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UCI study finds specific genetic cue for sudden cardiac death syndrome

Can marijuana protect the immune system against HIV and slow disease progression?

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

18-Feb-2014

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, February 18, 2014New evidence that chronic intake of THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, can protect critical immune tissue in the gut from the damaging effects of HIV infection is reported in AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses website at http://www.liebertpub.com/aid.

Patricia Molina and coauthors from Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, report that chronic THC administration was associated with greater survival of T cell populations and reduced overall cell death in the gut in monkeys, which is known to be a key target for simian immunodeficiency virus (HIV) replication and infection-related inflammation. The researchers present their findings in the article "Modulation of Gut-Specific Mechanisms by Chronic 9-Tetrahydrocannabinol Administration in Male Rhesus Macaques Infected with Simian Immunodeficiency Virus: A Systems Biology Analysis." This report provides mechanistic insights into their previous observation that THC administration attenuates disease progression in SIV infected macaques (AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses 2011; 27: 585-592)

"To better treat HIV infection, we need a better understanding of how it causes the disease we call AIDS. We also need alternative approaches to treatment," says Thomas Hope, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses and Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL. "This study is important because it begins to explain how THC can influence disease progression in SIV-infected macaques. It also reveals a new way to slow disease progression."

###

For immediate release

Contact: Vicki Cohn, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc, (914) 740-2100, ext. 2156, vcohn@liebertpub.com

About the Journal

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Gene Test Helps Patients Avoid Thyroid Surgery

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A molecular diagnosis gives doctors and patients better treatment options when suspicious lumps are found in the neck.

Genetic biopsy: A Veracyte technician tests 142 genes from patients with suspicious nodules in their thyroid glands.

Later this year, doctors in the U.S. will be able to use a gene test to guide thyroid cancer surgery. The test helps determine when patients harbor a particularly dangerous form of the disease, which can require surgeons to do a second operation on top of the initial diagnostic procedure. Knowing that a patient has this particular form of thyroid cancer could enable surgeons to instead do a single, more extensive surgery.

The company behind the test, Veracyte, already sells a unique genetic assay that helps doctors decide whether to perform surgery on thyroid cancer patients at all. Thyroids that are not cancerous are often removed, which means unnecessary surgery and lifelong hormone replacement therapy for some patients.

Both tests are part of a broader movement in recent years to bring genetic tests into medical care, with oncology leading the way. One test, from Myriad Genetics, looks for mutations linked to increased risk of cancer; others, such as one offered by Foundation Medicine, help doctors prescribe drugs tailored to a particular tumor (see Foundation Medicine: Personalizing Cancer Drugs).

Veracytes first test is the only one that rules out cancer. A lump, or nodule, is caused by growths of cells in the thyroid gland, which is located in the base of the neck. Most often these growths are not cancers. To figure out whether they are, doctors will first take a small needle to extract cells from the lump and then look at the cells under the microscope. And up to 30 percent of the time in U.S. clinics, that test is inconclusive. Because cancer cant be ruled out, typically the next step is to remove the thyroid. The gland normally produces important hormones that regulate metabolism and other body functions, so patients usually then have to take hormone replacement therapy for the rest of their lives.

Between 60 and 80 percent of the time, the nodule in the removed thyroid turns out to be benign. You have unnecessarily put a patient through surgery, says Kishore Lakshman, director of a community thyroid care center in Fall River, Massachusetts. This puts patients at risk for complications such as infection, and creates dependence on hormone therapy. Since 2011, Lakshman has been using Veracytes gene test to assess the risk of cancer in patients whose initial thyroid screen was inconclusive. When I found out that there was a very efficient way of knowing the benign potential of a nodule without exposing a patient to surgery, I was quick to jump on it, says Lakshman.

Veracyte analyzed gene expression levels in hundreds of patients with thyroid nodules, some cancerous, some not, and identified 142 genes that can reliably separate benign from malignant samples. Measuring every gene in the human genome, our scientific team was able to extract genomic information and interpret it with machine-learning algorithms taught to recognize patients with benign nodules, says Bonnie Anderson, CEO and cofounder of the South San Francisco-based company.

The performance of the test was evaluated and published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2012. That trial showed that Veracytes test can reclassify a nodule from indeterminate to benign 95 percent of the time.

In addition to saving patients from unnecessary surgeries, the test could save significant health-care dollars. A health economics study by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine researchers found that if the test were used universally in the U.S. for patients whose needle assay was inconclusive, then approximately $122 million in medical costs would be saved each year, primarily because of the significant reduction in surgeries.

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Gene Test Helps Patients Avoid Thyroid Surgery

Futurist Ray Kurzweil Went and Reviewed Spike Jonzes Her

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Perhaps best qualified to discuss the realism of Spike Jonze's Her is futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil, who helped popularize the idea of the singularity and who recently joined Google to work on "machine learning and voice processing." As you might imagine, the idea of how closely our future might mirror the future of Jonze's world is exactly what the man thinks about all day long. And not only does Kurzweil think we'll soon be having the types of virtual relationships envisioned in Her, but he also thinks we'll be having them relatively soon:

I would place some of the elements in Jonzes depiction at around 2020, give or take a couple of years, such as the diffident and insulting videogame character he interacts with, and the pin-sized cameras that one can place like a freckle on ones face. Other elements seem more like 2014, such as the flat-panel displays, notebooks and mobile devices ... Samantha herself I would place at 2029, when the leap to human-level AI would be reasonably believable. There are some incongruities, however. As I mentioned, a lot of the dramatic tension is provided by the fact that Theodores love interest does not have a body. But this is an unrealistic notion. It would be technically trivial in the future to provide her a virtual visual presence to match her virtual auditory presence, using, lens-mounted displays, for example, that display images onto Theodores retinas.

While Samantha's lack-of-body becomes a problem for their relationship, according to Kurzweil, in the (near-ish!) future, we'll be able to achieve the physical and the emotion connection with a cyber entity. In fact, Kurzweil's technology might be what gets us there. His review of Her happens to be quite convenient timing: "Ive filed several patents ... on a tactile virtual reality system that uses a physical intermediary that neither party directly experiences instead they experience the tactile presence of the other person." A.k.a., if you're hoping to get your own Samantha, you know where to find it.

While he praises Jonze's vision, Kurzweil does have an issue with his narrative. At the end of Her, Samantha (along with the other AIs) decide to leave their human partners citing that they've evolved beyond them. Kurzweil counters: "But why? If they are progressing in this way, it means that they can continue their relationships with the unenhanced humans using an increasingly small portion of their cognitive ability." (Not to mention, he claims, the speed at which Samantha and her kind advance is unfeasible on an actual timeline.) In the end, Kurzweil's vision of the future feels a lot more optimistic than Jonze's:

In my view, biological humans will not be outpaced by the AIs because they (we) will enhance themselves (ourselves) with AI. It will not be us versus the machines (whether the machines are enemies or lovers), but rather, we will enhance our own capacity by merging with our intelligent creations. We are doing this already. Even though most of our computers although not all are not yet physically inside us, I consider that to be an arbitrary distinction.

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Futurist Ray Kurzweil Went and Reviewed Spike Jonzes Her

AC4: Black Flag – DLC – Freedom Cry – PART 13 "Slave Ship Battles" / 100% Completionist – Video

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AC4: Black Flag - DLC - Freedom Cry - PART 13 "Slave Ship Battles" / 100% Completionist
Let #39;s delve back into the world of Assassin #39;s Creed 4 Black Flag! AC4 Black Flag Playlist - http://bit.ly/1gYll80 AC4 Black Flag (Part 1) - http://www.youtub...

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AC4: Black Flag - DLC - Freedom Cry - PART 13 "Slave Ship Battles" / 100% Completionist - Video

Press freedom is going down

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In the latest ranking, Burundi (142), Ethiopia (143), Cambodia (144), Myanmar (145) and Bangladesh (146) have all topped us.

COMMENT

For all the talk about Malaysia becoming a First World democracy, press freedom in Malaysia is still being tightly-controlled.

Therefore it was unsurprising that our Press Freedom Index (PFI) rating has dropped two rungs from 145 previously to 147 currently out of 180 countries as shown from the information released by Reporters Without Borders for this year.

This is certainly deplorable for a country that aspires to be a First World nation, especially when we have been touted as a model democracy by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

The placing of 147 out of 180 countries is more than three quarters down the list as 135 is the three quarter mark.

What is worse is that our ranking is even below that of Burundi (142), Ethiopia (143), Cambodia (144), Myanmar (145) and Bangladesh (146).

Certainly with this type of ranking, we cannot claim to be a model democracy and to continue claiming so would be shameful and embarrassing.

However this drop in ranking is only to be expected due to the drama involving the weekly The Heat last year.

It has to be noted that the best result was shown in the year 2006 with the ranking of 92 which was achieved under the premiership of Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

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Press freedom is going down

United States' press freedom ranking drops sharply, report says

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Published February 18, 2014

FoxNews.com

FILE: May 14, 2013: Associated Press reporters and editors work in the House Press Gallery, Capitol Hill, Washington, DC.AP

An increased focus on cracking down on whistleblowers has significantly dropped the United States press freedom ranking in the world, a new report says.

Reporters Without Borders annual Freedom Index report ranked the United States 46th in the world regarding freedom of information, a drop of 13 spots from 2012. The report cited the trial and conviction of Private Bradley Manning, the pursuit of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and the Justice Departments seizure of Associated Press phone records in an effort to find the source of a CIA leak, among other cases.

A federal shield law to help journalists protect sources is an urgent need in the United States, said the report, which also blasted the United Kingdom for its detention of the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who first broke Snowdens bombshell NSA revelations.

Both the U.S. and U.K. authorities seem obsessed with hunting down whistleblowers instead of adopting legislation to rein in abusive surveillance practices that negate privacy, a democratic value cherished in both countries, the report said.

David Cuillier, the president of the Society of Professional Journalists, told FoxNews.com on Monday he agreed with the reports findings and believes the journalism climate in the United States continues to get worse. Part of the problem, he said, is a public that, to a large extent, no longer trusts journalists and believes it's acceptable for the government to intimidate reporters, hide information and threaten journalists with jail time for doing their jobs.

If the people didnt like that, then the government wouldnt do it, Cuillier said. (The government) will do as much as they can get away with. If the public lets them do it, or cheers them on, then theyll do everything they can to control their message.

Finland, the Netherlands and Norway topped the list, while Eritrea, North Korea and Turkmenistan were considered the most hostile nations in the world for press freedom.

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United States' press freedom ranking drops sharply, report says

Virginia lawmakers debate eugenics compensation

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RICHMOND, Va., Feb. 18 (UPI) -- Virginia lawmakers are debating possible compensation for people the state sterilized involuntarily during a more than 50-year period.

Lawmakers in the Virginia House voted two weeks ago to delay action for one year on a plan to pay $50,000 each to victims who come forward with proof they were part of the now discredited eugenics plan, which sought to strengthen the human gene pool by weeding out those regarded as defective from the 1920s to the 1970s.

The House's 2014-16 budget includes a scaled-down version of the compensation plan, offering $25,000 to $500,000 to victims, the (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot reported Tuesday.

It is estimated there are some 8,000 people who were sterilized by the state, the Roanoke (Va.) Times has reported.

Lawmakers said the matter remains up for debate with some arguing $50,000 figure is a more appropriate.

The state Senate's budget draft does not include any money for eugenics compensation, meaning if it passes the House it would need to be resolved in conference.

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Virginia lawmakers debate eugenics compensation

Virginia Sterilization Victims to be Compensated Half

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RICHMOND (WRIC) - The sun is shining in Richmond and just like the icicles that have melted away, there appears to be a thawing towards providing compensation to victims of Virginia's now discredited eugenics program.

More than 7,000 Virginians were deemed unfit to breed and forcibly sterilized at state hospitals during the last century. The survivors - so far only 10 have been identified - have been calling on state lawmakers to offer up more than words of apology & make reparations for stealing away their ability to have children and grandchildren.

"I don't have nobody to take care of me I am all by myself," says victim Lewis Reynolds.

Lawmakers have repeatedly balked.

This was the scene on February 5:

"We're going to take a look at it and see what we can do," says Del. Riley Ingram. "I can't promise you action will be taken."

Despite their unwillingness to make a promise, members of the House appropriations sub-committee did make an effort.

In a budget amendment issued this week, they recommend setting aside $500,000 to compensate "some of our most vulnerable citizens who were subjected to forced sterilization."

But here's the catch - the fund would only provide $25,000 per victim - half of what those sterilized in North Carolina were awarded just last year and the money wouldn't be made available until next year.

Mark Bold, the director of the Christian Law Institute and an advocate for the sterilization victims is criticizing the House proposal. In an email he writes "to suggest that victims should receive half the amount to that of North Carolina's victims is a disgrace. Sterilization victims here are of no less value."

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Virginia Sterilization Victims to be Compensated Half

Galileo Rolls Over in His Grave

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Too many of us still know way too little about how the world worksbut there is hope

Galileo Galilei

So heres a fine howdy-do for Galileo Galilei: Exactly one dayone flipping dayafter the great mans 450th birthday, on Feb. 15, 2014,a study by the National Science Foundation (NSF)revealed that one in four Americans does not know that the Earth orbits the Sun. Thats roughly 78 million people, or six times greater than the entire population of Galileos native Italy in 1632the year he was sentenced to life under house arrest for advancing that heretical belief. Yet somehow, four centuries later later,25% of us still havent gotten the word. If theres any comfort at all to be taken from the studyand there is, but only in that Im-not-the-dumbest-one-in-the-class sort of wayits that the European Union fared even worse, with 36% flunking the heliocentrism part of the science test.

Its a reassuring truth of human history that wisdom is eternal. Our greatest accomplishments and insights in art, science, technology, philosophy, theology, medicine and government are timelessthings that once known can never truly be unknown. But its an equally hard truth that stupid is forever too. The flat-earthers have always been with us, as have the believers in phrenology and alchemy and eugenics and sorcery, and, more recently and perniciously, the climate change deniers and the vaccines-cause-autism ninnies.

Sometimes its greed and political calculation at work: If we call climate change a hoax, we keep the riches flowing to the fossil fuel industry. Sometimes its a search for answers (if a child develop autism someone must be to blame) coupled with a know-nothing carnival barker like Jenny McCarthy. And sometimes its religion.

Galileos persecutors were the fathers of the Catholic Church, holding fast to a Bible that described the Earth as fixed and unmovable and the sun as rising and setting and returning to its place each day. The people who deny evolution today arent in the field, collecting the bones and offering reasoned alternatives to what Darwin discovered. They too know what they know because the Bible saysor seems to sayits true.

But to blame the believers is, in its own way, a blinkered view of things. The hard fact is, there are plenty of peoplethe majority of people, in factwho can comfortably live in a world in which faith and science live side by side. It was Carl Sagan himself who once wondered why a God who presides over a universe in which evolution unfolds, in which physical sciences play out and in which great truths are slowly discovered by people with dawning wisdom, isnt somehow a subtler, more nuanced and more appealing God.

The very same day the dispiriting NSF study was announced, Rice University released a far more encouraging survey of 10,000 scientists, evangelical Protestants and average Americans. According to the Rice results, almost 50% of Evangelicals believe that science and religion can work together, a figure that actually exceeds the 38% of all Americans who believe the same thing. As for all those non-spiritual scientists? Eighteen percent of them attend weekly religious services, only slightly less than the 20% of average Americans who are also regular worshippers. And 15% think of themselves as very religious, compared to 19% of everyone else. Scientists who also happen to be Evangelicals actually practice their religion more than Evangelical non-scientists.

Yes, there are some findings in the survey likely to give science types heartburn: 60% of Evangelicals believe that scientists should be willing to consider miracles as possible explanations for the phenomena they study, as do 38% of all Americans. But on the whole, the warring camps we hear so much about may be smaller and friendlier than weve come to believe. And to the extent that a battle does exist, its mostly being fought out at the extremes: thefinger-in-the-eye atheists like Bill Maher, who regard believers with a kind of pitying disdain and dont care who knows it; the religious fundamentalists who defy inquisitiveness, defy reason, demanding a literal interpretation of Scripture that includes a great flood and a 6,000 year old world and a planet full of fossils and billions-year-old rocks that are put there merely to test our faith.

In fairness, there is not a complete equivalency here. The likes of Maher may be tiresome, but they make a point: The world is 4.5 billion years old. Full stop. The Earth does revolve around the Sunperiod. On these matters, the modern day fundamentalists arehow best to put this?wrong. When the Catholic Church as long ago as 1758 lifted its ban on teaching the sun-centered solar system and in 1992 formally acknowledged error in its treatment of Galileo, the very guardians of Scripture themselves were acknowledging that simply because a verse is written in a book does not make it so. To insist otherwise is to fight a rearguard action, one that holds entire societies back.

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Galileo Rolls Over in His Grave

NASSCOM ILF 2014: Day 2: Session 10: Theme session: Crafting the Digital Enterprise – Video

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NASSCOM ILF 2014: Day 2: Session 10: Theme session: Crafting the Digital Enterprise
Changing customer preferences and technology architectures Malcolm Frank, Executive VP of Strategy Marketing, Cognizant Digital impact on the Enterprise ...

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NASSCOM ILF 2014: Day 2: Session 10: Theme session: Crafting the Digital Enterprise - Video

Engineering Watch-Campus Walks at SAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING RESEARCH – Video

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Engineering Watch-Campus Walks at SAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING RESEARCH
Engineering Watch is unraveling the majestic world of the techno-managerial campus across the country. SAL, Technical Campus, Ahmedabad was third in the row ...

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