Mount Sinai School of Medicine Bringing Free Courses Online

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Newswise Mount Sinai School of Medicine has signed an agreement with Coursera.org that will make Mount Sinai graduate and medical school courses freely available online.

Mount Sinai will begin by offering three courses that focus on training students to use computation to convert the information in large and small data-sets in biomedical sciences to understand disease progression, adverse events in individual patients, and to predict efficacy of drug therapy. The three courses Introduction to Systems Biology, Networks Analyses in Systems Biology, and Mathematical Models in Systems Biology will be offered in 2013. The courses provide a solid basis for understanding the new era of personalized and precision medicine that is being made possible by advanced gene sequencing technologies.

John Morrison, PhD, Dean of the Mount Sinai Graduate School of Biological Sciences, said, The rigorous courses that we are putting up on Coursera, the planned interactions and the testing formats have the ability to completely change graduate education. Today, like most schools, our programs have one to two years of classes followed by several years of research or clinical training. If the online formats take hold then didactic learning can be interspersed through the research or clinical training years. We can also offer our courses world-wide for free, thus greatly enhancing the reach of our educational mission.

Leading Mount Sinais effort to put courses online is Ravi Iyengar, PhD, The Rosenstiel Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics and Director of Systems Biology Center New York.

My sense is we are at a transformative time in higher education and Coursera is one driver of this change both for off- and on-campus education, said Dr. Iyengar. The ability to provide free high quality courses in an emerging area of biomedical sciences provides us with exciting opportunities to engage current and future scholars world-wide. For graduate students, such online courses will allow them to get formal training in new areas as their research interests start to gel. For medical students it will allow them to learn details and mechanisms as they see patients. In pharmacology, it would be great to teach in an integrated manner drug action mechanisms and drug usage as students go through their clerkships, rather than in a classroom a year or two earlier. Online courses may well allow to accomplish this goal.

The development of these courses has been supported in part by a Systems Biology Center grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health.

About The Mount Sinai Medical Center

The Mount Sinai Medical Center encompasses both The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Established in 1968, Mount Sinai School of Medicine is one of the leading medical schools in the United States. The Medical School is noted for innovation in education, biomedical research, clinical care delivery, and local and global community service. It has more than 3,400 faculty in 32 departments and 14 research institutes, and ranks among the top 20 medical schools both in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding and by U.S. News & World Report.

The Mount Sinai Hospital, founded in 1852, is a 1,171-bed tertiary- and quaternary-care teaching facility and one of the nations oldest, largest and most-respected voluntary hospitals. In 2011, U.S. News & World Report ranked The Mount Sinai Hospital 14th on its elite Honor Roll of the nations top hospitals based on reputation, safety, and other patient-care factors. Mount Sinai is one of 12 integrated academic medical centers whose medical school ranks among the top 20 in NIH funding and U.S. News & World Report and whose hospital is on the U.S. News & World Report Honor Roll. Nearly 60,000 people were treated at Mount Sinai as inpatients last year, and approximately 560,000 outpatient visits took place.

For more information, visit http://www.mountsinai.org. Find Mount Sinai on: Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mountsinainyc Twitter @mountsinainyc YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/mountsinainy

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Mount Sinai School of Medicine Bringing Free Courses Online

Penn Liberty Bank Introduces CashWise™

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WAYNE, Pa., Sept. 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Penn Liberty Bank , a premier local community bank with ten locations in Chester and Montgomery Counties, has named their high tech, cash management suite of products and services, CashWise.

CashWise offers the latest banking technology services such as secure online cash management services, cost wise credit and debit card payment services with next day availability, remote deposit capture options, mobile banking including applications for both iPhone and Android, plus other products and services that provide ultimate convenience for business clients.

Penn Liberty Bank has always offered the latest technology available and will continue to upgrade CashWise products and services as new technology emerges. "Many businesses believe they need to bank with the larger, regional banks to get high tech cash management services. We want everyone to know that Penn Liberty has that level of services plus the personal touch of a community bank," said David Griest, founder and Chief Information Officer at Penn Liberty Bank.

"We are committed to insuring that our clients have the ability to bank wherever and whenever they need. Penn Liberty Bank distinguishes itself by offering industry leading, customized cash management technology along with the high touch personalized service that can only be found at a community bank," said Pat Ward, Chairman and CEO of Penn Liberty Bank.

For more information about CashWise call 888-795-7366 or email us at CashWise@pennlibertybank.com.

About Penn Liberty Bank

Penn Liberty Bank offers ten conveniently located branches and is a community bank focused on providing personal, high touch service. Combining state of the art technology with highly talented, customer service oriented employees and a full suite of consumer and business products and services has resulted in the Bank's growth to over $540 million in assets.

To learn more about Penn Liberty Bank please visit http://www.pennlibertybank.com.

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Penn Liberty Bank Introduces CashWise™

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson speaks at Macalester

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Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate, will speak Friday at Macalester College in St. Paul, as part of a three-week national tour.

Remember his name: He may turn out to be a factor in the presidential election, as the Libertarian Party projects that he'll pull votes from Mitt Romney in swing states.

Johnson is scheduled to appear Friday from 1 to 3 p.m. in Mac's Hill Ballroom at Kagin Commons.

He's trying to hit more than a dozen colleges on the tour that began this week:

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Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson speaks at Macalester

Libertarian presidential nominee visits NC campus

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DURHAM, N.C. (AP) Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson is visiting a North Carolina campus to speak and take questions at a public forum.

The former two-term governor of New Mexico was slated to continue his 15-stop nationwide college tour at Duke University in Durham on Thursday night.

Johnson was a longshot candidate for the Republican presidential nomination before switching to the Libertarian Party last December. He won that party's nomination at its national convention in Las Vegas in May.

Johnson supports legalized marijuana, low taxes and immigration reform.

Johnson will be on the North Carolina presidential ballot. There are more than 16,000 registered Libertarian voters out of more than 6.4 million registered voters statewide.

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Libertarian presidential nominee visits NC campus

Libertarian candidate Johnson asks voters to ‘take a closer look’

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DURHAM -- A quick glance at Gary Johnson during his Thursday visit to Duke University was enough to realize the Libertarian candidate for president is no Barack Obama or Mitt Romney.

The former two-term governor of New Mexico strolled into a conference room at the Sanford School of Public Policy wearing blue jeans, a navy blazer and a T-shirt with a peace sign. The nearest thing to Secret Service was campus police. With a dozen or so gathered for an afternoon press conference, Johnson left the podium unmanned and instead stood near the group.

Johnson, 59, is in the middle of a three-week college tour that will include events at 15 schools around the country, starting in Pennsylvania and ending in his home state. The goal is to focus attention on issues neglected along the campaign trail and to draw distinctions between his beliefs and those of his opponents. Hes also hoping to rally his young supporters and win over Ron Paul supporters who are none too enthusiastic about Romney.

At the press conference, Johnson laid out a case for ending the so-called war on drugs in favor of decriminalization, for immediately ending the war in Afghanistan, and for cutting government spending across the board.

A budget proposal by Romneys running mate, Paul Ryan, has drawn the ire of Democrats for cutting Medicare spending and balancing the budget over the course of several decades. Johnson said the plan is too slow and cuts too little.

If we dont slash Medicare now, theres no Medicare later, Johnson said. I would present a balanced budget to Congress in 2013. ... Weve got to fix these problems by ourselves, but nobodys doing it. Were burying our heads in the sand.

Johnson has already qualified to be on the ballot in 47 states, including North Carolina.

But one aspect of the race that has frustrated him is the institutional advantages enjoyed by Democrats and Republicans. They control the makeup of Congressional districts, set requirements for a candidate to be listed on the ballot, and receive exponentially more media coverage.

Candidates from mainstream parties also control who ends up on the stage for the televised presidential debates. The Commission on Presidential Debates, which manages the debates, requires a candidate to secure at least 15 percent of the vote in selected polls before he or she can participate. Only Obama and Romney are mentioned in most of the polls used by the CPD, so there is little hope for anyone else.

Johnson said getting onstage is the best shot he has at winning, and he may fight in court to be included. But for now he is crisscrossing the country controlling what he can.

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Bank of America to Slash 16000 Jobs by Year-End – Video

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20-09-2012 09:40 Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) -- In "Street News," Bloomberg's Scarlet Fu reports on today's top stories including Bank of America is set to cut 16000 by the end of the year, Nike will buy back $8 billion in stock over the next four years, GM looks to buy the auto-lending units of Ally Financial in Europe and Latin America and 6 million Americans face a health care penalty for not having health insurance. She speaks on Bloomberg Television's "Bloomberg Surveillance."

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Bank of America to Slash 16000 Jobs by Year-End - Video

'Deferred:' No health insurance for immigrants

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Benefits of the nation's health care law will not extend to undocumented immigrants given reprieve from deportation by the Obama administration.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- As word spread this week that some benefits of the nation's health care law will not extend to the thousands of undocumented immigrants given reprieve from deportation by the Obama administration, advocacy groups were reminded that the youths' status remains much in limbo.

The Obama administration earned the praise of immigrant advocacy groups when it decided to grant relief to young undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. But a new rule would keep those same immigrants from federal health insurance coverage, putting some in an uncomfortable spot where they have permission to be here, but can't take advantage of all the programs available for others.

Some who championed the new immigration policy expressed disappointment at the news, which was more in line with critics of the policy who say that this group should receive no benefits whatsoever because of their legal status.

Five things to know about the big change in immigration policy

As many as 1.7 million immigrant youths may meet the criteria to be spared from deportation for a renewable two-year period, according to an estimate from the Pew Hispanic Center.

The New York Times was the first to report about a little-noticed rule put in place by the Department of Health and Human Services, that excludes the beneficiaries of "deferred status" from the health insurance benefits.

The Obama administration was clear that those who qualified for deferred action did not gain legal status in the United States, but would have "lawful presence," which would allow them to work legally and opened the door for other benefits, like driver's licenses.

But the HHS directive, published in the Federal Register, specifically excludes this group from the "lawful presence" category.

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'Deferred:' No health insurance for immigrants

Health care battle has plenty of fight left, Denver panel shows

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Ezekiel "Zeke" Emanuel, former Special Advisor for Health Policy to Peter Orszag, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the Diane and Robert Levy University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania (THE DENVER POST | Joe Amon)

A key architect and a sharp opponent of national health care reform clashed in debate Thursday over how much "Obamacare" limits consumer choice and holds hope of cutting costs.

The Affordable Care Act strips exactly the kind of freedom consumers need to make better care choices and reduce costs, health economist Linda Gorman argued at a panel sponsored by The Post and the University of Denver.

Gorman of the Independence Institute said the subsidies and patient-managing plans of "Obamacare" wipe consumer choice out of the picture. By contrast, Gorman said, procedures where buyers know the price and have real choice, like Lasik eye surgery and urgent care centers, have seen costs come down through true competition.

Linda Gorman, former academic economist and Senior Fellow and Director of the Health Care Policy Institute at the Independence Institute (THE DENVER POST | Joe Amon)

"Our health care system is the fifth largest economy in the world," and still tens of millions of Americans go without care, responded Dr. Zeke Emanuel, who helped write portions of "Obamacare" for the White House. The new state insurance exchanges will be a pro-consumer marketplace, he argued, allowing people to choose basic benefits or pay more for gold-plated plans.

Emanuel is a fierce advocate for going even farther toward universal health care, while Gorman has criticized reforms for blowing up state and federal budgets while restricting consumers with mandates.

Doctors and hospitals will join to manage each patient's care more efficiently, and win rewards from insurance funds if they save money and improve quality, Emanuel said. The 2010 reform signing was "historic," and marked an end to a system that pays for doing more procedures instead of providing good care, he said.

Americans have tried that managed-care system in earlier decades, and many wound up hating the "capitated" model where they were denied care they wanted in order to save money, Gorman responded. Such a system also pushes insurers to cherry-pick healthier patients to avoid high costs, she said.

Voters need to know Republican reform alternatives are draconian, Emanuel said. He claimed the Romney-Ryan budget proposals would cut Medicaid funding up to 75 percent, a disaster for states and poorer patients.

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Health care battle has plenty of fight left, Denver panel shows

NZ out of step on GE

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The New Zealand Government needs to follow the lead of Austria and France who are taking action around their approval processes for genetic engineering (GE), the Green Party said today.

In response to a study finding that rats grew tumours and died after being fed GE Roundup ready corn, Austrias Minister for agriculture and the environment has asked the European Commission to review its approval processes. Frances Government have also ordered an investigation into the findings and are signalling that they may suspend imports of the corn.

"New Zealand needs to do the same but successive Governments seem too closely tied with the GE industry to be trusted to do so," Green Party genetic engineering spokesperson Steffan Browning said today.

"The National Government funded the recent biotech conference to the tune of $100,000 from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment plus additional significant contributions from other departments; these are not the actions of a Government with their eyes open about GE.

"The New Zealand public want to know that the food approved for sale in this country is safe.

"Without changing the GE approval process and actually enforcing our labelling laws we cant be confident in that.

"We fought hard for proper labelling laws but they are not enforced, so New Zealanders cant actually show their opposition to GE through their purchasing.

"The fact is that this study shows we are right to be concerned and we need better approval processes that prove safety over the long term, instead of the short term feeding studies that decisions have been made on to date.

"This study has already started a strong discussion because people are really worried about the effects of these foods that have been approved to be in our stores now for a decade or longer.

"Of course this research is being described by some as controversial because there is big, big money involved in GE.

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NZ out of step on GE

‘Shock of the News’ at National Gallery of Art a fascinating cross section of art, news

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Curator Judith Brodie focuses on two seminal works in her excellent National Gallery of Art show, Shock of the News, which documents the stormy, obsessive, often dysfunctional and prodigiously productive relationship between art and newspapers over the past century. First is a classic screed by the Italian poet and provocateur Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, a manifesto of Futurism published in 1909 in the respectable Parisian newspaper Le Figaro. Second is Picassos 1912 collage Guitar, Sheet Music, and Glass, which incorporated a fragment of another French newspaper, Le Journal, into an image that also uses a scrap of sheet music and a charcoal sketch to create a flat, schematic map of sensual diversions and cafe life.

Although newspapers had appeared in art before (Cezanne painted his father reading what looks like the Jackson Pollock Daily Herald in 1866), and art had appeared in newspapers with increasingly satisfying results since advances in printing late in the 19th century, the Picasso and Marinetti works announced a new relation between the two media. Picassos pasted-paper construction brought the newspaper as a material thing to the foreground of his picture, while Marinetti suggested new ways for artists to use the larger apparatus of the newspaper phenomenon, its mass appeal and its power to mold public opinion.

Thereafter, what might seem to be two very different wellsprings of inspiration pretty much merged. Focusing on the materiality of newspaper inevitably raised questions about what those little pieces of paper said, which dragged in the jangling, newsy world of politics and war and celebrity and everything else the newspaper promised its readers on a daily basis. And as artists developed a more conceptual approach to using newspapers publishing their own absurdist or self-aggrandizing broadsheets, analyzing and dissecting the hidden mythologies of the news business they often, and perhaps accidentally, made work that is alluring on a purely aesthetic and tactile level.

Shock of the News presents a fascinating cross section of the results, from an original copy of Marinettis testosterone-soaked manifesto (like something Walt Whitmans evil twin might have written had he grown up in a Prussian boarding school) to works done in the past five years, as the newspaper business hemorrhaged jobs, profits and confidence. Paul Sietsemas 2008 Modernist Struggle ink and enamel work, a meticulous trompe loeil rendering of two pieces of newspaper, the New York Times and Los Angeles Times (which includes the headline Modernists Struggle with Traditionalists Over Guns), feels autumnal and reflective, an honorific painting that gives the newspaper the same treatment as a Dutch still life or an old family portrait hanging above the mantel. The precision of his image, including the painstakingly realistic rendering of slight creases and curled corners, is wistful, perhaps loving, and the results are such an accurate rendering of banal objects that attention focuses on the small dissonance between use of the singular in Sietsemas title (Modernist Struggle) and the plural in the headline the artist paints (Modernists Struggle ...).

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‘Shock of the News’ at National Gallery of Art a fascinating cross section of art, news

Freedom must have limits, says Dr Mahathir

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21 September 2012 | last updated at 12:14AM

Commenting on the movie, Innocence of Muslims, that insulted Prophet Muhammad and Islam, Dr Mahathir said the act of making such a anti-Islam film was something "blatantly disgusting".

He said all types of freedom should have their limit and one should not insult or cause disharmony to another person in the name of freedom of expression.

"Freedom does not include causing or creating hatred among Muslims against those who debase their religion.

"When one doesn't put a limit to the definition of freedom, then there will be room for misuse of power and it will create havoc and instability.

"People will demonstrate and get injured or murdered like in Libya. When there is instability, a country cannot develop," he said when addressing students during a forum at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia here.

He said it was not freedom when one said or did something without thinking of others' feelings.

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Freedom must have limits, says Dr Mahathir

Freedom Rider tells Pinellas students about a summer of protests in 1961

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By Terri Bryce Reeves, Times Correspondent Terri Bryce ReevesTampa Bay Times In Print: Friday, September 21, 2012

CLEARWATER

In 1961, Ernest "Rip" Patton Jr. was a 21-year-old drum major in the Tennessee State University marching band. He made history that year, but it wasn't for swinging a baton.

He was part of a group that would come to be known as the Freedom Riders. They were nonviolent protesters men and women, black and white, young and old who boarded buses and risked their lives to challenge Jim Crow laws in the segregated South. On Tuesday, Patton told U.S. history students at Countryside High School what life was like when blacks were prohibited from eating at lunch counters and fully using public facilities. He stressed the importance of the nonviolent protests.

"What we did in the '60s, we did for you," said Patton in his deep, serene voice. "We did it for our generation and generations to come.

"Now I want to ask, what are you going to do for your generation?"

Patton is 72 now. His hair is snowy white. But his memories are still vivid and he's eager to share them as he travels around the country, speaking to everyone he can from students in an auditorium to talk show hosts including Oprah Winfrey.

The stop at Countryside High was one of 13 planned visits to Pinellas County schools this week. The Freedom Rider talks were arranged by Linda Whitley, supervisor of the school system's social studies department.

In June, she and 28 other Pinellas County teachers retraced part of the route of the Freedom Riders through four Southern states, visiting museums and historical sites along the way. The trip was made possible by a federally funded Teaching American History grant. During the trip, she and the others got to know Patton and invited him to speak.

During his talk, the Nashville resident recounted how blacks and their white supporters were beaten, bullied and imprisoned during the Freedom Rides in 1961.

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Freedom Rider tells Pinellas students about a summer of protests in 1961

Custom Data Solutions Retains Freedom One Financial Group As 401(k) Plan Advisor

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CLARKSTON, Mich., Sept. 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Clarkston, Mich.-based Freedom One Financial Group, a 401(k) plan recordkeeping and administrative service provider, announced today that Freedom One Investment Advisors, Inc. will provide 401(k) plan advisory services for Sterling Heights, Mich.-based Custom Data Solutions. Freedom One Financial Group Vice President of Strategic Growth & Development Errol Hau made the announcement.

Custom Data Solutions was founded as a software development company specializing in providing high end, innovative solutions in various industries, such as insurance, property management, manufacturing and distribution. Today, they have grown their business to become the premier data collection and processing service in the Vending, Fund Raising, Concession, Specialty, and Foodservice channels. Freedom One Financial Group will work with Custom Data Solutions to handle the company's retirement assets for 25 participants.

In a prepared statement, Michael L. Nudi, president and CEO of Custom Data Solutions, stated "Our process in determining what company would manage our 401(k) plan was very thorough. Knowing the great impact a 401(k) plan has on our employees' lives and plans for the future, we understood the importance of finding a company with a proven track record to ensure our employees achieve the maximum benefit. Additionally, we looked to partner with a company that shares many of the same business philosophies as our own company. Freedom One Financial Group brings all of these things and more to the table and with their prudent investment process, we feel comfortable with their direction."

"We are pleased to add Custom Data Solutions as a client," said Hau. "Freedom One Financial Group continues to grow our client roster based on client referrals, positive feedback on our investment process and our long track record of client loyalty."

About Freedom One Financial Group

With more than 20 years of successful experience, Freedom One Financial Group team members specialize in providing state-of-the-art employee communications and administrative services to more than 1,000 clients across the United States. Freedom One Investment Advisors, Inc. is a trusted 401(k) plan advisor to employees, employers and other fiduciaries who value independent and unbiased advice for their retirement plans. Plan design, implementation, and employee communication services provided by Freedom One Retirement Services. Registered investment advisory services provided by Freedom One Investment Advisors.

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Custom Data Solutions Retains Freedom One Financial Group As 401(k) Plan Advisor

See this year's top shots in astronomy

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(c) Martin Pugh

This picture of the Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as M51, won top honors in the Deep Space category and the overall competition for 2012 Astronomy Photographer of the Year. The picture was entered by British-Australian photographer Martin Pugh. Here's what the Royal Observatory says: "This beautifully composed image of the Whirlpool Galaxy combines fine detail in the spiral arms with the faint tails of light that show its small companion galaxy being gradually torn apart by the gravity of its giant neighbour. A closer look shows even more distant galaxies visible in the background."

By Alan Boyle

The Whirlpool Galaxy is one of the most photogenic spirals in the known universe, but not all whirlpools are created equal: Australian photographer Martin Pugh's view of the galaxy, also known as M51, was stunning enough to win him the top prize in the Royal Observatory's Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition.

"It's a remarkable achievement by an amateur astronomer; one of the best images of M51 that I've seen," Marek Kukula, the Royal Observatory's public astronomer and one of the contest judges, said in a news release. More than 800 entries were submitted, and the observatory announced the winners on Wednesday night.

Pugh said via Flickr that he was "absolutely delighted" by the honor but for him, this isn't exactly a novel experience: He also won top honors in the 2009 competition.

Sir Patrick Moore, who's best-known for his British TV programs on astronomy, was impressed by the level of professionalism that today's amateurs bring to their sky snapshots. "Many of the pictures have been taken with equipment that was out of the range of the amateur many years ago," he said. "I also like the choice of subjects: photographing people and the night skies is very difficult. The entrants have done very well indeed."

Take a look at these winners, and then click your way through all the favorites at the Royal Museums Greenwich website. You can also scan through thousands of archived entries at the APotY Flickr gallery, and see the photo exhibition at the Royal Observatory through February.

(c) Masahiro Miyasaka

Japan's Masahiro Miyasaka won top honors in the Earth and Space category with this shot of Orion, Taurus and the Pleiades shining in the night sky above an icy landscape. The category is for photos that include "Earthly" things along with an astronomical subject. Miyasaka's entry, titled "Star Icefall," included a poem about the view: "The stars fell from the heavens. / The stars transformed themselves into an icicle. / Stars sleep eternally here."

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Billionaires Fund A 'Manhattan Project' For Nutrition And Obesity

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Enlarge Courtesy of the John and Laura Arnold Foundation

Billionaires John and Laura Arnold are betting that the country's top nutrition researchers can get to the bottom of the obesity epidemic.

Billionaires John and Laura Arnold are betting that the country's top nutrition researchers can get to the bottom of the obesity epidemic.

Why would a billionaire energy trader-turned-philanthropist throw his foundation's dough behind a new think tank that wants to challenge scientific assumptions about obesity?

John Arnold, 38, whose move from Enron to a spectacularly successful hedge fund got him on the list of wealthiest Americans, isn't crazy about talking to the press. But certainly his decision with his wife Laura to back a newly launched operation called the Nutrition Science Initiative, or NuSI, is an intriguing one.

Obesity, and all the dietary confusion that swirls around it, is clearly a problem that isn't going away. But NuSI says large-scale scientific studies that tackle fundamental questions like how food really affects fat, hormones and the brain are what's needed to solve it more than anything else.

We're told by NuSI's president, Peter Attia, a Stanford and Johns Hopkins-trained doctor, that Arnold's interest in the cause started with a podcast featuring science journalist and NuSI co-founder, Gary Taubes.

Taubes has been arguing for the last several years in books and articles in the New York Times Magazine that current dietary guidelines and beliefs about what has caused the obesity epidemic are wrong and based on poor science. Attia says Arnold approached Taubes after Arnold realized he could bring resources to bear on the problem $5 million in seed money to fund "good" studies that are usually prohibitively expensive.

"In ... nutrition science, the research is inadequate, so our guiding information is not based on rigorous science," Meredith Johnson, a spokeswoman for the John and Laura Arnold Foundation, told The Salt in an email.

One reason Attia agrees it's inadequate is that "it's really quite difficult to study nutrition in humans at the level of precision that scientists in other fields can get."

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Billionaires Fund A 'Manhattan Project' For Nutrition And Obesity

Wild boars are reservoir of HEV: High prevalence among forestry workers in eastern France

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Nearly one third of forestry workers in parts of eastern France are infected with Hepatitis E virus (HEV), according to a paper in the September Journal of Clinical Microbiology. Wild boars in the same region are also heavily infected. HEV is endemic in developing nations, but heretofore, HEV infection in industrialized nations has been most closely correlated with travel to developing nations.

The prevalence of HEV was found to be 14 percent among wild boar, about half that in pigs, says principal investigator Pierre Coursaget of the University of Tours, France. An earlier study found 12 percent prevalence among boar in The Netherlands. Among humans in the current study, the prevalence of anti-HEV antibodies increases with age, and varies with occupation and geographic location within eastern France. "The frequency of HEV infections in humans did not correlate with the number of pigs, locally, but there is good correlation with the number of car accidents due to wild boars," a surrogate for contact between humans and wild boars, says Coursaget.

HEV is transmitted orally and fecally, with mortality rates of 1-3 percent in the general population, rising to 20-25 percent among pregnant women. In developing countries, outbreaks appear to arise from fecally contaminated water supplies. In Japan, and in Europe, consumption of wild boar or liver is associated with a high risk of acquiring hepatitis E virus infection, according to the report. However, the fact that HEV is absent among children in France suggests that eating ham is safe. Coursaget says the immune system in healthy people generally eradicates the infection, and that it is not sexually transmitted.

Deer also are known to be infected with HEV, says Coursaget. "People in contact with HEV-infected animals or their environment must be aware of the possibility of HEV infection," he says. He is currently studying HEV infection in forestry workers, veterinarians, and pig farmers in different regions of France, in an effort to quantify risk factors. The current study also compared several antibody tests for HEV, with one, the HEV ELISA test, from MP Biologicals, proving superior to the other two.

More information: A. Carpentier, et al., 2012. High hepatitis E virus seroprevalence in forestry workers and wild boars in France. J. Clin Microbiol. 50:2888-2893. bit.ly/asmtip0912e

Journal reference: Journal of Clinical Microbiology

Provided by American Society for Microbiology

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Wild boars are reservoir of HEV: High prevalence among forestry workers in eastern France

Study abroad program gets more class options

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Study abroad program gets more class options

A new microbiology study abroad program will infect OUs Arezzo campus next July and make it easier for science majors to earn credit while abroad.

The summer program will include OUs basic immunology and pathogenic microbiology courses and will join two other science programs already offered in ArezzoOrganic Chemistry/Chemistry & Wine Culture and Chemistry & Art.

Science classes offered abroad are rare phenomena for a number of reasons, immunology professor Casie Collamore said in an email.

I think part of the rarity is because it seems daunting to offer hard science courses in a four week time frame, she said. Some subjects just cant be tailored to fit such a tight schedule and expect the students to really absorb the material. Another problem is that many hard science faculty also have research labs that require their attention, and it is difficult to leave the lab bench and their students for a long period of time.

This isnt the first time the microbiology department has attempted to offer classes abroad, Collamore said. A few years ago, pathogenic microbiology professor Tyrrell Conway submitted a proposal to teach a microbiology class, but it was denied because it wasnt going to be taught alongside a second course.

As microbiology advisor, Collamore spoke with a number of microbiology students who wanted to study abroad but couldnt because none of the offered classes were required for their degrees. When she heard that Conways proposal had been denied, she spoke with him and they came up with a new proposal together, Collamore said.

The two professors thought Arezzo would be the perfect place to teach the two classes because it was the birthplace of Francesco Redi, a physician who helped disprove spontaneous generation. This finding led to the Golden Age of Microbiology, a time during which scientists discovered that microbes exist and cause disease, Collamore said.

It is thought [Francesco Redis] body is buried there as well, but nobody can find it, Collamore said. It seemed like a very fitting place to teach the two subjects.

Conway and Collamore will teach the pathogenic microbiology course and immunology course respectively. While Pathogenic Microbiology is required for microbiology majors, Basic Immunology is a popular course commonly taken by microbiology majors to meet their elective requirements, Collamore said.

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DNA evidence links Vallejo man to January stabbing in SLO, police say

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Using DNA matches off a knife, San Luis Obispo police detectives were able to identify a suspect in an attempted murder case, and then arrested a Vallejo man for the alleged crime.

In a news release issued Thursday, police Lt. Jeff Smith said Austin Sarna, 21, was arrested Wednesday in Vallejo after the DNA evidence linked him to an attack that occurred in January.

Sarna was taken into custody without incident, and was transported to San Luis Obispo County Jail, where he remains on a no-bail warrant.

Smith said that at 12:30 a.m. on Jan. 20, police were called to the intersection of Broad and Monterey streets on the report of a man who had been stabbed and was bleeding profusely from his arm.

Police learned that several men got into an altercation with two or more others. Trevor Tice, 27, of Atascadero, was stabbed multiple times in the back and arm. Zachary Lerno, 26, was stabbed once in the head.

"During the investigation there were limited details regarding the suspect due to a lack of witnesses and levels of intoxication," Smith said. But the knife used in the attack was found by officers and taken as evidence.

The suspected weapon was sent to a state crime lab for analysis. One DNA sample matched Tice; another matched Sarna. Investigators then contacted the two male victims and witnesses, who identified Sarna as one of the men in the altercation.

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DNA evidence links Vallejo man to January stabbing in SLO, police say

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