2009 Ford Fusion V6 SEL - for sale in Liberty, KY 42539
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Ohio cannot change the rules on minor parties for the 2014 ballot in mid-game, a federal judge ruled today.
Republican-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Watson in Columbus issued a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of a new law and ordering Secretary of State Jon Husted to follow through with his original directive granting several small parties spots on the primary election ballot.
The ruling, however, applies only to 2014.
Attorney General Mike DeWines office said it had not decided whether to appeal the ruling.
The Libertarian and Green parties had objected to the retroactive application to the current election cycle of a law theyve dubbed the John Kasich Re-election Protection Act. Senate Bill 193, passed by Republicans and signed into law by Mr. Kasich in November, would have voided the Husted directive putting the Libertarian, Green, Constitution, and Socialist parties on the 2014 ballot.
The upshot of that provision, along with other provisions in the bill, is that minor parties must start from scratch to qualify for ballot access, wrote Judge Watson, a 2004 George W. Bush appointee. if S.B. 193 goes into effect, the nominating petitions already filed by minor party candidates to appear on the 2014 primary election ballot in reliance on [Mr. Husteds directive] would be nullified, and the time and resources expended on those petitions will have been wasted.
The same judge in November put on hold another law passed last year by majority Republicans that raised the bar for proposed constitutional amendments, referenda, and other initiatives to quality for the 2014 ballot.
Once again, the courts stand with us and with the First Amendment rights of all Ohioans to political freedom and suffrage in Ohio, said Kevin Knedler, chairman of the Libertarian executive committee. The foundation of a democratic society is the right to vote and to have real choices on the ballot.
A lot of voters, especially young voters, refuse to be put in either the Republican or Democrat boxes, and the Libertarian Party offers a true alternative for voters who want individual freedom in every area of life, he said.
Under Senate Bill 193, a minor party faced a deadline of 125 days before the November general election to file signatures qualifying its label for the ballot alongside the two major parties. Minor parties would have had to submit enough signatures of registered voters to equal at least 0.5 percent of the vote from the last presidential or gubernatorial election, about 28,000 based on the 2012 election. Of those, 500 would have to come from each of eight of Ohios 16 congressional districts.
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The Con Dao islands have an utterly unhurried ambience. "There are two traffic lights, but no work," the bike rental guy said apologetically as he gave me the island rundown. "One gas station, but close for lunch. Only one road, so you no lost. Right to airport or left to prisons and port."
Moped key in hand, I was relishing the chance to get out and explore some empty roads in search of a perfect beach for the day. I'd spent the previous week embracing Vietnamese city culture and its furious energy and commerce, but was now in need of some serious hammock time.
A cluster of 16 islets in the South China Sea, the Con Dao islands are 155 miles from Ho Chi Minh City. Only the main island, Con Son, is inhabited (its population is just 6,000), though the other islands can be visited.
Once hell on earth to thousands of prisoners incarcerated by French colonists and the American military, today the Con Daos are blissfully tranquil. With their ravishing sandy bays, rainforests and healthy coral reefs, their tropical appeal is easy to grasp. Flight connections used to be atrocious, but Vietnam Airlines now offers three daily flights from Ho Chi Minh City (52 one way).
The rental guy had lied about the one road. Easily sidetracked, my Honda and I had chanced upon a rough track close to the airport, and our inquisitiveness had rewarded us royally in the form of Dam Trau beach, a sublime half-moon crescent of pale sand, bookended by forest-topped rocky promontories.
After an hour's snorkelling, exploring the kaleidoscopic coral teeming with macro life and spending five minutes swimming eye-to-eye with a hawksbill turtle, I retreated to the plastic chairs in the bay's seafood shack, picked a victim from the live fish tank and gorged on crab with tamarind and chilli. The only other diners were a group from Hanoi, employees of a state-owned bank on a corporate jolly-with-a-purpose.
Vietnam is a country steeped in revolutionary rhetoric, and Vo Thi Sau, a teenage resistance fighter executed in Con Dao during the French occupation, fits the bill perfectly. (She killed a captain in a grenade attack at the age of 14, and wasn't captured until years later.) The bank staff were here to pay their respects to this national heroine, and to the thousands of others who lost their lives in Con Dao's 11 prisons.
Ghosts are everywhere in Con Dao, nowhere more so than at Phu Hai jail. Built in 1862, it once housed 20,000 prisoners political and criminal inmates chained together naked in rows. The really troublesome individuals were kept in "tiger cages", with six to 10 men crammed into a tiny open-roofed enclosure, beaten with sticks from above and dusted with lime and water (which burns the skin). Unbeknown to the world, the Americans continued operating these tiger cages until 1970 when a Life magazine report broke news of their existence, provoking an international outcry.
It had been a chastening day, the brutality of prison conditions contrasting acutely with the overwhelming beauty of my surroundings. As I strolled along the seafront promenade in Con Son town, it was easy to marvel at the sheer gentility of this pocket-sized island capital, its litter-free streets, French-era villas, well-kept municipal buildings and air of calm and prosperity.
Con Son town has a dozen or so hotels and guesthouses but the Six Senses resort (sixsenses.com; from 441), a short ride away to the north, really is in a class of its own. Occupying the island's best beach, it comprises 50 or so ocean-front, timber-clad beach villas, each fusing contemporary style with rustic chic.
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Future Islands Photo by Tim Saccenti
Future Islands have officially announced their fourth album. The record is calledSinglesand it's set to be released on March 25 by way of 4AD, the band's new label after parting ways with Thrill Jockey. According to a press release, the follow-up to 2011'sOn the Wateris Future Islands' "boldest and most immediate work to date," due in part to a new partnership with producer Chris Coady, whose previous credits include Beach House, Grizzly Bear, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Fans of the synth-savvy swooners can expect a more polished, hi-fi sound for their 4AD debut.
The Baltimore trio made up of frontman Samuel T. Harring, bassist/guitarist William Cashion, and keyboardist/guitarist/programmer Gerrit Welmers is also plotting a hefty tour schedule in support of Singles. Find details of the forthcoming trek (which includes a few dates with Wye Oak, who are also planning a new record for later this year) below, along with the cover art for Singles. And for more info on Future Islands' next effort, check out SPIN'slist of 50 Albums You Gotta Hear in 2014.
Future Islands tour dates:
February 3 - Los Angeles, CA @ Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock February 6 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom February 8 - Baltimore, MD @ Floristree February 11 - London, U.K. @ Hoxton Bar & Kitchen February 13 - Paris, France @ La Maroquinerie February 14 - Brussels, Belgium @ Beurschouwburg February 16 - Hamburg, Germany @ Ubel & Gefhrlich February 17 - Berlin, Germany @ C-Club March 3 - Charlottesville, VA @ The Southern * March 4 - Asheville, NC @ Orange Peel * March 5 - Saxapahaw, NC @ The Haw River Ballroom * March 7 - Chattanooga, TN @ JJ's Bohemia * March 8 - Oxford, MS @ Proud Larry's * March 9 - Baton Rouge, LA @ Spanish Moon * March 16 - Memphis, TN @ Hi-Tone Cafe * March 24 - Cleveland Heights, OH @ Grog Shop March 25 - Grand Rapids, MI @ Pyramid Scheme March 26 - Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall March 27 - Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon March 28 - Minneapolis, MN @ Triple Rock Social Club March 29 - Fargo, ND @ The Aquarium March 31 - Billings, MT - The Railyard April 1 - Bozeman, MT @ The Filling Station April 2 - Spokane, WA - The Bartlett April 3 - Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile April 4 - Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre April 5 - Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge April 6 - Eugene, OR @ Cozmic Pizza April 7 - Arcata, CA @ Humboldt Brews April 8 - Reno, NV @ The Holland Project April 9 - Santa Cruz, CA @ The Catalyst April 10 - San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel April 21 - El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace April 22 - Marfa, TX @ Padre's April 23 - Austin, TX @ The Mohawk April 24 - Dallas, TX @ Three Links April 25 - Little Rock, AR @ Stickyz Rock'n'Roll Chicken Shack April 26 - Birmingham, AL @ The Bottletree April 29 - Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church April 30 - New York, NY @ Webster Hall May 1 - Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club
* = with Wye Oak
50 Albums You Gotta Hear in 2014
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Galapagos Marine Iguana:: A recent study reveals closely related lizard species have different escape behaviours depending on where they live, and that their evolutionary relationships were mostly irrelevant. Image: Blinking Idiot/Flickr
When Charles Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands, he noted that many of its animal inhabitants were so unafraid of people that a gun is here almost superfluous. He swatted birds with his hat, pulled the tails of iguanas and sat on giant tortoises.
These antics fuelled his famous idea that animals become tame when they live on remote, predator-free islands. Now, William Cooper Jr of Indiana UniversityPurdue University in Fort Wayne has tested Darwin's hypothesis on 66 species of lizards from around the world and found that island dwellers tended to be more docile than their continental relatives the strongest evidence yet for this classic idea. The results are published this week in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Several studies and unpublished reports have shown that particular species are more approachable on islands where there are fewer predators, or quicker to flee on islands that contain introduced hunters such as feral cats. But despite this largely anecdotal evidence for island tameness, no one has ever established that its a general phenomenon in any group, says Cooper. We showed that for a large prey group lizards there really is a significant decline in wariness on islands.
Taming of the few Island tameness is an old idea, but there have been few tests of it, says Dan Blumstein, a behavioral biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. This is a needed paper that convincingly shows some of the drivers of island tameness in lizards.
Cooper and his colleagues scoured past studies and collated data on the distance at which lizards start to flee when approached by a researcher. They took a conservative approach, discarding studies in which researchers had pointed at the lizards, walked towards the animals faster or slower than a particular fixed speed, or studied populations that were habituated to humans.
Cooper and his team ended up with data for 66 species, from the Eurasian common lizard (Zootoca vivipara) to the Galapagos marine iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus). The results clearly showed that humans can get closer to island-dwelling lizards than to mainland ones, and that lizards become more approachable on islands that are farther from the mainland.
Island ecology is so important that it overrides any effect of evolutionary history, Cooper and his co-authors say. They also showed that even closely related lizard species have different escape behaviors depending on where they live, and that their evolutionary relationships were mostly irrelevant.
The results do not explain why island lizards are tamer than those on the mainland, although the relative lack of island predators is the most likely reason. Animals with skittish dispositions can needlessly abandon valuable resources, and natural selection would be expected to weed out such responses if predators are rare or absent.
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
8-Jan-2014
Contact: Susan Gilbert gilberts@thehastingscenter.org 845-424-4040 x244 The Hastings Center
(Garrison, NY) The Center for Research on Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Psychiatric, Neurologic, and Behavioral Genetics at Columbia University Medical Center unveils its mission today with the launch of its website. Two Hastings Center research scholars are core faculty members of the new center, which was recently awarded a five-year grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute.
As understanding of the genetic contributions to psychiatric, neurologic, and behavioral (PNB) traits and disorders grows rapidly, this knowledge is quickly being translated into clinical practice. But the information presents particular ethical, legal, and social challenges because of what it could reveal about characteristics associated with individual identity and many of our most feared afflictions. Because of the potential for stigma linked to many PNB disorders and traits, this information may negatively affect how people view themselves and how others see them. Examination of the impact of PNB genetic information and consideration of the implications for normative judgments and public policy are therefore critically needed.
"Scientific findings regarding PNB traits must be discussed with special attention to the human and social context because such traits and disordersfrom Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, and depression to empathy, aggression, and intelligencecan touch our sense of who we are as persons," said Erik Parens, PhD, a senior research scholar at The Hastings Center. Parens and Josephine Johnston, LLB, MBHL, a Hastings Center research scholar and director of research, are core faculty members of the new center, based in the Department of Psychiatry. "The new center is uniquely situated to offer such attention."
The center is focusing on three areas: 1) the impact of PNB genetic information in clinical and research contexts on patients, family members, and clinicians, including effects on treatment choices, health and lifestyle decisions, identity, and self-image; 2) the impact of PNB genetic information in nonclinical contexts in which such information may affect perceptions of autonomy and responsibility for behavior, with a special focus on attributions of responsibility in the judicial process and in everyday life; and 3) data to suggest how PNB genetic information should be used in policy judgments related to clinical contexts (e.g., diagnostic and treatment decisions), research contexts (e.g., access to genetic data), and nonclinical contexts (e.g., legal rules and health policy).
Parens and Johnston will lead the new center's investigation into the meaning of PNB genetics information and how it should be used in policies and practices, as well as the translation of the center's work into formats that can inform policies and practices.
"Our center offers the opportunity to advance knowledge of the ethical, legal, and social implications of one of the most rapidly developing areas of genetics. Drawing on our empirical studies and input from key stakeholders, we will develop strategies to guide the use of PNB genetic data in clinical and research settings, as well as in courts, legislatures, and regulatory agencies," said Paul Appelbaum, MD, director of the center and of the Division of Law, Ethics and Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. "By integrating empirical researchers with experts in ethics, economics, law, and public policy, we hope to point the way toward beneficial use of the latest scientific findings in this exciting new area of genetics."
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New project on psychiatric, neurologic, and behavioral genetics
Senior Horse Health Care
Woodrow Friend, DVM, from Rood Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, explains what he looks at when examining a senior horse for health and soundness.
By: Horse Illustrated
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Kathleen McLaughlin Reports on China #39;s Aid in Africa
Learn more: http://pulitzercenter.org/projects/china-health-aid-africa-developing-world-corruption-anti-malarial-drugs-vaccines While most of the world has been noticing China #39;s aid in Africa,...
By: Pulitzer Center
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Kathleen McLaughlin Reports on China's Aid in Africa - Video
2013 saw a monumental number of data breaches, and health care was not immune. These breaches collectively compromised millions of individuals' personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI). Within the health care field, many of the reported data breaches were not perpetrated by sophisticated hackers but were the result of individuals making poor choices. Small and medium size businesses within the health care field, including health care providers and business associates, are working to comply with the new Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) reporting requirements. The new HIPAA security rule requires data breach notification and mentions possible financial penalties in the event that PII and PHI are compromised. Poor choices by employees can and do undermine even carefully constructed information security structures designed to be HIPAA compliant.
Forecast for 2014
The 2014 forecast is not good, according to InformationWeek. The size and quantity of health care data breaches are expected to grow as the U.S. Affordable Care Act is implemented. Small and medium practices will discover that data management is an integral part of the business of medical care. IT teams and IT service providers have an opportunity to distinguish themselves during this period of flux and to implement proven security solutions and security awareness programs.
There is a saying that one should treat sensitive information and cash in the same manner: Do not leave it lying about; secure it, and count it regularly. PII and PHI are no exceptions to the axiom. IT solutions may start with ensuring that patient information is an accountable item by using the HIPAA physical and technical safeguards to guarantee compliance and taking client data security even farther beyond compliance. Cyber attacks receive attention and headlines, but human error puts data at risk more often than hacks.
Security Awareness
Security awareness training, specifically surrounding the implementation of IT solutions and the physical handling of data, allows those closest to PII and PHI to understand how their actions can keep data safe or put the organization at risk of a data breach. Security awareness training should include several aspects: The preferred manner for the handling of paper files; the access controls placed on electronic medical records; the proper method to expunge medical data from systems and medical monitoring equipment; best practices for manual and automatic data storage and backup; prescribed channels to use to report an anomalous event.
With attention to detail, the probability of human error is reduced. With a reduction in human error, perhaps the prognostication of 2014 as a banner year for data breaches in health care will prove to be incorrect.
This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.
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As much as 20 to 40 percent of all health care spending in Massachusetts is wasteful, much of it squandered on unnecessary hospital readmissions and emergency room visits, according to a new state report released yesterday.
The study estimates wasteful spending in 2012 at a staggering $15 billion to $27 billion. The biggest single category $700 million was spent on readmissions of patients recently discharged from hospitals. Unnecessary ER visits tallied up $550 million in waste. Total health spending in the Bay State is estimated at $69 billion.
A lot of it is totally useless, if not harmful, said Stuart Altman, chairman of the Health Policy Commission, a state watchdog group charged with monitoring health care costs, which issued the report. The worst offenders are areas that actually dont add any value, but are destructive, like people going back to the hospital when they dont need to.
The first-of-its-kind report also found that preventable infections acquired in health care settings cost $10 million to $18 million a year.
Massachusetts first in the nation to adopt universal health coverage spends more per capita on health care than any other state, and health care costs here have grown faster than the national average. A 2012 state law aims to curb the growth of health care spending.
The Health Policy Commissions report notes that costs vary widely among the states hospitals.
Some hospitals deliver high-quality care with lower operating expenses, the report said, while many higher-expense hospitals achieve lower quality performance.
Former Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center chief executive Paul Levy said the findings are a good first step but wont spur hospitals into action not unless their names are on the report.
The Massachusetts Hospital Association said the report uses outdated numbers that dont show the progress hospitals are making on tackling costs.
Massachusetts hospitals are working collaboratively ... to improve care while becoming even more costefficient, including in the areas identified in the report as examples of wasteful spending, the MHA said in a prepared statement.
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Linda Carroll NBC News contributor
13 hours ago
A rare genetic mutation that disrupts the production of histamine may help researchers unravel the mystery that surrounds Tourette syndrome.
The mutation discovered by Yale researchers can cause the kinds of tics and other abnormalities that are the hallmark of the syndrome, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Neuron.
Thus far the genetic anomaly has been discovered only in nine members of a single family: a father and all eight of his children who have both the mutation and Tourette syndrome.
We know that Tourette is about 90 percent genetic, said study coauthor Dr. Christopher Pittenger, an associate professor of psychiatry and psychology at the Yale University School of Medicine and director of the Yale OCD research clinic. But its been incredibly hard to find any genetic abnormalities that cause the syndrome. We have proven that this gene really is the cause of Tourette in this family and also looked at some of its downstream effects.
Courtesy Jeffrey Kramer
Jeffrey Kramer and his three sons. Kramer and two of his grown-up sons have been living with Tourette for decades. Hes excited by the new findings, but realistic about their impact on patients with the syndrome.
What isnt known yet is how, or if, this finding can be extended to other people with Tourette, Pittenger and other experts said.
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Rare genetic mutation discovered in Tourette syndrome family
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
8-Jan-2014
Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 x2156 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News
New Rochelle, NY, January 7, 2014Packaging replacement genes in viruses is an effective method to deliver them to target tissues, but the human body mounts an immune response against the virus. The systemic and local immune reactions induced by an adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based gene therapy to treat lipoprotein lipase deficiency, approved for use in Europe, does not affect the safety of gene therapy or expression of the replacement gene for at least one year after delivery, according to a study published in Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available on the Human Gene Therapy website.
Valeria Ferreira and coauthors, uniQure BV and Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and University of Montreal and Chicoutimi Hospital, Quebec, Canada, evaluated measures of inflammation and adverse clinical events and the expression of a replacement lipoprotein lipase (LPL) gene that was injected intramuscularly into patients with LPL deficiency. The gene was packaged in an AAV vector, as described in the article "Immune responses to intramuscular administration of alipogene tiparvovec (AAV1-LPLS447X) in a phase II clinical trial of Lipoprotein Lipase deficiency (LPLD) gene therapy."
"The clinical data published in this paper were critical to the approval of Glybera," says James Wilson, MD, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of Human Gene Therapy and Director of the Gene Therapy Program, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia. "Furthermore, they provide context for laboratory measurements of immune responses which apparently did not impact product performance."
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About the Journal
Human Gene Therapy, the official journal of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy, British Society for Gene and Cell Therapy, French Society of Cell and Gene Therapy, German Society of Gene Therapy, and five other gene therapy societies, is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published monthly in print and online. Human Gene Therapy presents reports on the transfer and expression of genes in mammals, including humans. Related topics include improvements in vector development, delivery systems, and animal models, particularly in the areas of cancer, heart disease, viral disease, genetic disease, and neurological disease, as well as ethical, legal, and regulatory issues related to the gene transfer in humans. Its sister journals are Human Gene Therapy Methods, published bimonthly and focused on the application of gene therapy to product testing and development, and Human Gene Therapy Clinical Development, published quarterly and featuring data relevant to the regulatory review and commercial development of cell and gene therapy products. Tables of content for all three publications and a sample issue may be viewed on the Human Gene Therapy website.
About the Publisher
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Bioglow's Starlight Avatar plants emit faint light similar in intensity to starlight hence the name
Ever thought the glowing forests from the movie Avatar were pretty cool and wanted one yourself? Bioglow is the latest company to attempt to put such autoluminscent plants in homes with its aptly named Starlight Avatar.
Engineering plants to make them glow is not a new idea and has been around since the 1980s. Bioglow's approach involves adding genes responsible for bioluminescence from the marine bacteria Photobacterium leiognathi to the cultivated tobacco species Nicotiana tabacum. In this way, Bioglow claims it was able to achieve permanent light emission without the need for chemical additives to the exterior of the plant or the use of UV light.
While the current results emit only faint light, said to resemble the intensity of starlight hence the name Starlight Avatar Bioglow hopes that in the future autoluminescent plants will be able to produce enough light to illuminate town streets. It is also working on modifying the colors emitted via luciferase mutagenesis, the mutation of enzymes responsible for light generation, and is working to have foliage glow one color, with flowers and petals another.
This and similar ventures, such as the crowd funded Glowing Plants project have not come without criticism from environmental groups, such as Friends of the Earth (FOE), worried about the spread of genetically engineered or modified (GM) products and the flow of engineered genes into nature.
The New York Times reported in May 2013 that FOE and other environmental groups had lobbied both the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Kickstarter to have the Glowing Plant project shut down. Since then, the USDA has reviewed and approved Bioglows plants as safe because they are not "plant pests." Bioglow also says that the light-emitting pathway in its plants cannot be transferred by pollen to other plant populations.
Bioglow will be running on online auction for its plants that kicks off on January 31st and runs for a week.
Source: Bioglow
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Jan. 8, 2014 Currently, doctors use chromosome markers and gene mutations to determine the best treatment for a patient with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). But a new study suggests that a score based on seven mutated genes and the epigenetic changes that the researchers discovered were present might help guide treatment by identifying novel subsets of patients.
The findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, come from a study led by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center -- Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC -- James).
The epigenetic change used in the study is DNA methylation. It involves the addition of methyl groups to DNA, which can reduce or silence a gene's activity, or expression. Abnormal DNA methylation alters normal gene expression and often plays an important role in cancer development.
Overall, the findings suggest that patients with a low score -- indicating that one or none of the seven genes is overexpressed in AML cells -- had the best outcomes, and that patients with high scores -- that is, with six or seven genes highly expressed -- had the poorest outcomes.
"To date, disease classification and prognostication for AML patients have been based largely on chromosomal and genetic markers," says principal investigator Clara D. Bloomfield, MD, Distinguished University Professor, Ohio State University Cancer Scholar and Senior Adviser.
"Epigenetic changes that affect gene expression have not been considered. Here we show that epigenetic changes in previously recognized and prognostically important mutated genes can identify novel patient subgroups, which might better help guide therapy," says Bloomfield, who is also the William Greenville Pace III Endowed Chair in Cancer Research at Ohio State.
The seven-gene panel was identified in 134 patients aged 60 and older with cytogenetically normal acute myeloid leukemia (CN-AML) who had been treated on Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB)/Alliance clinical trials.
The researchers computed a score based on the number of genes in the panel that were highly expressed in patients' AML cells, and retrospectively tested the score in two groups of older patients (age 60 and up) and two groups of younger patients (age 59 and under).
Patients with a low score -- indicating that one or none of the seven genes is overexpressed -- had the best outcomes. Patients with high scores -- that is, with six or seven genes highly expressed -- had the poorest outcomes.
"For this seven-gene panel, the fewer highly expressed genes, the better the outcome," says first author Guido Marcucci, MD, professor of medicine and the associate director for translational research at the OSUCCC -- James. "In both younger and older patients, those who had no highly expressed genes, or had one highly expressed gene had the best outcomes."
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AML score combining genetic, epigenetic changes might help guide therapy
Bitcoin, Dennis Rodman, and Leaving the USA for More Freedom
By: Peace News Now
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Bitcoin, Dennis Rodman, and Leaving the USA for More Freedom - Video
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) - Inside the gymnasium at Freedom Park Community Center, the basketball goals are gone.
A brand new floor has been installed. There are new bleachers--the kind that roll away when you're done with them, or roll out for big events like boxing tournaments, set to happen here in the near future.
"When we look at Freedom Park and turn that into a boxing/conditioning facility, we expect people not just from the Freedom area to go to that facility, we expect them from all of the middle Georgia area," says Dale "Doc" Dougherty, director of Macon-Bibb Parks and Recreation. "(People) throughout Bibb County and maybe beyond will come into the Freedom Park location."
Over the next few months, workers will install several boxing rings inside the gym--two for competition, Dougherty says, and two for training.
The room next to it will serve as an exclusive training room, complete with plenty of punching bags hanging by chains from the ceiling.
And what's a good boxer without a little conditioning?
One of the things that made Freedom Park ideal for this center is the sidewalk around Freedom Park Lake. Dougherty says its easy access to the building will allow for pre-workout runs and jogs. The center will also serve as a fitness facility for kids of all ages.
"...where literally parents three days a week can drop their kids off for an hour or an hour and a half and know when they pick them up, they're going to be good and tired but they're also going to be getting in shape," he says.
The new look Freedom Park is just the first step in the parks and recreation department's vision for the future.
"We're also looking at the education side with robotics at one of our centers," Dougherty says. "Creating a full STEM program for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics for one of our centers. We're also looking at cultural arts--turning one of our centers into a theater as well as dance and just general drama classes."
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mom section Living Well Family & Relationships Education & Activities Parenting eHow Education K-12 K-12 Basics Ecosystem Activities for Kids
Elizabeth Stover
Elizabeth Stover, a writing teacher and author of 15 years experience, has a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Maryland. Her split minor includes Sociology/Writing. Ms Stover has been published by Creative Teaching Press in the books "Science Tub Topics" and "Math Tub Topics."
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According to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), an ecosystem includes all the living and nonliving things sharing a common space, depending on and interacting with each other. It may be as small as tiny pond or as large as an entire forest. Scientists often classify ecosystems by the type of larger biome in which they exist such as a forest, urban or coastal ecosystem.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) supports the education of kids as they learn about ecosystems and protecting natural resources for future generations. Have kids explore the information on the EPA Student Center website or in books to learn more about the way that plants, animals and nonliving objects exist interdependently in the ecosystem.
Kids can choose an ecosystem and create a model diorama in a shoebox. Use paper and markers to create a background and clay to create three-dimensional objects. Do not fasten the clay objects to the diorama. Have kids share their dioramas and take out one object at a time. They then discuss what depends on that object and whether the rest of the ecosystem would suffer if that object disappeared.
Just walking outside to investigate the ecosystem in which a child lives or a local ecosystem such as a stream, garden, orchard or forest is an educational activity for kids. When conditions prohibit this, or in addition to an actual field trip, try investigating some of the virtual scientific field trips available online (see Resources). Typically, these may include movie tour, web cams, live chats, question forums and downloads.
While visiting the ecosystem, kids can pretend to be a biologist. In preparation, help kids create, a pretend scientific field journal in which to write down or draw ecosystem observations during their visit. They make drawings or notes about the living and nonliving things, interdependencies, problems or unexpected objects they observe in the ecosystem. Take a camera for pictures to add to the journal. Once back from the trip, have them draw a conclusion about the health of the ecosystem based on their observations.
After discussion, field trips, videos or research, provide magazines from which kids can cut pictures to create ecosystem collages. Wildlife and outdoor magazines provide the best pictures for this project though most magazines contain a few outdoor, plant or animal pictures. Have kids search for pictures of living and nonliving objects found in a particular ecosystem. Kids can draw a background of vegetation and earth forms such as hills or shore with crayons then cut and glue pictures to create an ecosystem collage.
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The ecosystem of a river is the river viewed as a system operating in its natural environment, and includes biotic (living) interactions amongst plants, animals and micro-organisms, as well as abiotic (nonliving) physical and chemical interactions.[1][2]
River ecosystems are prime examples of lotic ecosystems. Lotic refers to flowing water, from the Latin lotus, washed. Lotic waters range from springs only a few centimeters wide to major rivers kilometers in width.[3] Much of this article applies to lotic ecosystems in general, including related lotic systems such as streams and springs. Lotic ecosystems can be contrasted with lentic ecosystems, which involve relatively still terrestrial waters such as lakes and ponds. Together, these two fields form the more general study area of freshwater or aquatic ecology.
The following unifying characteristics make the ecology of running waters unique from that of other aquatic habitats.[4]
Water flow is the key factor in lotic systems influencing their ecology. The strength of water flow can vary between systems, ranging from torrential rapids to slow backwaters that almost seem like lentic systems. The speed of the water flow can also vary within a system and is subject to chaotic turbulence. This turbulence results in divergences of flow from the mean downslope flow vector as typified by eddy currents. The mean flow rate vector is based on variability of friction with the bottom or sides of the channel, sinuosity, obstructions, and the incline gradient.[3] In addition, the amount of water input into the system from direct precipitation, snowmelt, and/or groundwater can affect flow rate. Flowing waters can alter the shape of the streambed through erosion and deposition, creating a variety of habitats, including riffles, glides[disambiguation needed], and pools.[5]
Light is important to lotic systems, because it provides the energy necessary to drive primary production via photosynthesis, and can also provide refuge for prey species in shadows it casts. The amount of light that a system receives can be related to a combination of internal and external stream variables. The area surrounding a small stream, for example, might be shaded by surrounding forests or by valley walls. Larger river systems tend to be wide so the influence of external variables is minimized, and the sun reaches the surface. These rivers also tend to be more turbulent, however, and particles in the water increasingly attenuate light as depth increases.[5] Seasonal and diurnal factors might also play a role in light availability because the angle of incidence, the angle at which light strikes water can lead to light lost from reflection. Known as Beer's Law, the shallower the angle, the more light is reflected and the amount of solar radiation received declines logarithmically with depth.[4] Additional influences on light availability include cloud cover, altitude, and geographic position (Brown 1987).
Most lotic species are poikilotherms whose internal temperature varies with their environment, thus temperature is a key abiotic factor for them. Water can be heated or cooled through radiation at the surface and conduction to or from the air and surrounding substrate. Shallow streams are typically well mixed and maintain a relatively uniform temperature within an area. In deeper, slower moving water systems, however, a strong difference between the bottom and surface temperatures may develop. Spring fed systems have little variation as springs are typically from groundwater sources, which are often very close to ambient temperature.[4] Many systems show strong diurnal fluctuations and seasonal variations are most extreme in arctic, desert and temperate systems.[4] The amount of shading, climate and elevation can also influence the temperature of lotic systems.[3]
Water chemistry between systems varies tremendously. The chemistry is foremost determined by inputs from the geology of its watershed, or catchment area, but can also be influenced by precipitation and the addition of pollutants from human sources.[3][5] Large differences in chemistry do not usually exist within small lotic systems due to a high rate of mixing. In larger river systems, however, the concentrations of most nutrients, dissolved salts, and pH decrease as distance increases from the rivers source.[4]
Oxygen is likely the most important chemical constituent of lotic systems, as all aerobic organisms require it for survival. It enters the water mostly via diffusion at the water-air interface. Oxygens solubility in water decreases as water PH and temperature increases. Fast, turbulent streams expose more of the waters surface area to the air and tend to have low temperatures and thus more oxygen than slow, backwaters.[4] Oxygen is a byproduct of photosynthesis, so systems with a high abundance of aquatic algae and plants may also have high concentrations of oxygen during the day. These levels can decrease significantly during the night when primary producers switch to respiration. Oxygen can be limiting if circulation between the surface and deeper layers is poor, if the activity of lotic animals is very high, or if there is a large amount of organic decay occurring.[5]
The inorganic substrate of lotic systems is composed of the geologic material present in the catchment that is eroded, transported, sorted, and deposited by the current. Inorganic substrates are classified by size on the Wentworth scale, which ranges from boulders, to pebbles, to gravel, to sand, and to silt.[4] Typically, particle size decreases downstream with larger boulders and stones in more mountainous areas and sandy bottoms in lowland rivers. This is because the higher gradients of mountain streams facilitate a faster flow, moving smaller substrate materials further downstream for deposition.[5] Substrate can also be organic and may include fine particles, autumn shed leaves, submerged wood, moss, and more evolved plants.[3] Substrate deposition is not necessarily a permanent event, as it can be subject to large modifications during flooding events.[5]
Bacteria are present in large numbers in lotic waters. Free-living forms are associated with decomposing organic material, biofilm on the surfaces of rocks and vegetation, in between particles that compose the substrate, and suspended in the water column. Other forms are also associated with the guts of lotic organisms as parasites or in commensal relationships.[4] Bacteria play a large role in energy recycling,[3] which will be discussed in the Trophic Relationships section.
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Le cyborg est-il l #39;avenir de l #39;homme? Daniela Cerqui at TEDxMartigny
Dr Daniela Cerqui est une anthropologue intresse aux rapports entre technologie et socit et, plus fondamentalement, humanit. Ses recherches empiriques p...
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LAWRENCE SMITH/Fairfax NZ
NO GO: The health warning signs went up at Auckland's Mission Bay beach.
Swimmers have been warned off one of Auckland's most famous city beaches because of high levels of bacteria.
Warning signs have been put up at Mission Bay telling swimmers and beach-users of the poor water quality.
The contamination was discovered yesterday by Auckland Council's Safeswim monitoring programme, which tests water quality weekly at 63 Auckland beaches.
"Our advice is for people not to swim at Mission Bay on Thursday and Friday," acting chief operating officer Ian Maxwell said.
"Our testing indicates ... levels of bacteria [that] suggest a potential risk to human health."
The test result has surprised the council because checks of the wastewater and stormwater networks did not indicate a problem, and no overflows had been reported.
"This may be a one-off incident from an animal source, a boat dumping, or a false positive," Maxwell said.
He encouraged beach-users to swim at other local beaches including nearby Kohimarama and St Heliers.
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