US tourist dies while snorkeling in Cayman Islands

Posted on by

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman IslandsCayman Islands police say a Florida man has died while snorkeling during a vacation in the British Caribbean territory.

A police statement says the 56-year-old tourist from Tampa died while snorkeling off Grand Cayman's east end.

Police spokeswoman Janet Dougall said Monday that she does not have immediate authorization to release the man's name.

Authorities say the American tourist was snorkeling Sunday with a companion but became separated. A short time later the man was found floating face down in the water.

Police say the Tampa man was brought to shore by his companion, who administered CPR until paramedics arrived. He was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital.

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

View post:

US tourist dies while snorkeling in Cayman Islands

Police: Florida tourist apparently drowns while snorkeling in Cayman Islands

Posted on by

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands Cayman Islands police say a Florida man has died while snorkeling during a vacation in the British Caribbean territory.

A police statement says the 56-year-old tourist from Tampa died while snorkeling off Grand Cayman's east end.

Police spokeswoman Janet Dougall said Monday that she does not have immediate authorization to release the man's name.

Authorities say the American tourist was snorkeling Sunday with a companion but became separated. A short time later the man was found floating face down in the water.

Police say the Tampa man was brought to shore by his companion, who administered CPR until paramedics arrived. He was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital.

Read this article:

Police: Florida tourist apparently drowns while snorkeling in Cayman Islands

Ethnicity and the Genetics of Smoking Behavior

Posted on by

In a paper published online in advance in Translational Psychiatry, a team led by researchers at nonprofit institute SRI International shows in a GWAS meta-analysis that a non-coding SNP on chromosome 15q25.1 is associated with smoking quantity as measured by cigarettes per day in African Americans. In their paper, members of the Study of Tobacco in Minority Populations Genetics Consortium say that this variant "is present in the 5'-distal enhancer region of the CHRNA5 gene," and that additional, informative associations at 15q25.1 within PSMA4, CHRNA5, and CHRNA3 approached, but did not reach, genome-wide significance for smoking quantity. These additional SNPs "are associated with a second signal previously reported in studies in European ancestry populations," the team says.

Overall, the authors write, larger studies are needed to validate the suggestive loci "and further elucidate the contribution of genetic variation to disparities in cigarette consumption, SC [smoking cessation], and smoking-attributable disease between African Americans and European Americans."

See the original post here:

Ethnicity and the Genetics of Smoking Behavior

Health Care ‘Navigators’ Help Save in Costly ER Visits

Posted on by

New America Media, News Report, Viji Sundaram, Posted: May 28, 2012

The 47-year-old credits a Tongan-speaking nurse at Ravenswood who helped her navigate the health care system and encouraged her to make some lifestyle changes soon after she was diagnosed as borderline diabetic a year ago.

Coming from an island culture, I used to eat a diet heavy in meat. Now I eat a lot of salads, and am willing to make even more changes, said Tulua, who has been able to prevent herself from becoming a full-blown diabetic.

Ravenswood has been engaged in this kind of work for months now, but a new transfusion of $7.3 million in federal money it received earlier this month will allow it to hire more culturally sensitive navigators to expand the program. This will help to save San Mateo County an estimated $6.2 million in health care costs over the next three years, said the centers chief executive officer, Luisa Buada.

Ravenswood was handpicked for the federal grant from a nationwide pool of 3,000 applications by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), observed Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-Palo Alto) at an event last week to celebrate the federal grant. Of the 26 recipients of the grant, it was the only community health center.

Some 19,000 patients are expected to benefit from the grant to Ravenswood, the majority of whose patients are poor, and from Latino, Pacific Islander and African-American communities.

Buada said the additional staff who will be hired will help clients coming out of hospital stays to stay on top of their medication needs and follow-up medical appointments. That will prevent expensive visits to emergency rooms.

Twenty percent of our Medicare beneficiaries go back to the hospital with the same problem they first went there with, observed David Sayen, CMSs regional administrator in San Francisco.

The grant is part of a $1 billion effort by federal officials through the Affordable Health Care Act program to reduce the cost of health care nationwide by emphasizing community clinics and preventive health care practices among the public.

The health care navigators on Ravenswoods payroll will offer more classes in nutrition, cooking, exercise and other topics of health education for patients with chronic conditions.

Continue reading here:

Health Care ‘Navigators’ Help Save in Costly ER Visits

United Behavioral Health Sued For Denying Needed Care

Posted on by

Two interesting developments took place after writing last week about United Behavioral Health deploying policies and guidelines based on a profoundly dangerous misunderstanding of clinical depression. The first is the large number of emails I've received from stakeholders across the spectrum of people involved in outpatient mental health care with similar-and even worse???stories. More on ...

Read the original here:

United Behavioral Health Sued For Denying Needed Care

Let Freedom Ring: Inspirational Memorial Day Quotes

Posted on by

Sometimes, the original sentiment of a holiday can get lost.

In today's case, the true meaning of Memorial Day might get burried in, say, the the excitement of the year's first beach trip, a delectable BBQ or an enticing super sale. There's no shame in enjoying the three-day weekend. But, to make sure to enjoy it for all it's worth, we think it's important to focus on the deeper meanings: freedom and remembrance. Do take a moment this holiday weekend to honor our country.

We've put together a few quotes to help evoke gratefulness for the freedom we are so blessed to have.

What do you do to celebrate our freedom and remember those who fought to honor it?

"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth." -George Washington

"Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose." -The Wonder Years

"What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us." -Helen Keller

"To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die." -Thomas Campbell

"Perhaps they are not stars in the sky, but rather openings where our loved ones shine down to let us know they are happy." -Eskimo Legend

"Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight." -Rossiter W. Raymond

Visit link:

Let Freedom Ring: Inspirational Memorial Day Quotes

Non-toxic algae found on beaches

Posted on by

28 May 2012 Last updated at 11:19 ET

Stretches of algae, which can give off an unpleasant smell, have been reported on some Denbighshire beaches.

The local authority said the non-toxic marine algal blooms were affecting the north Wales coast.

In windy conditions the phaeocystis algae - not uncommon in spring and early summer - appears as foam, but looks oily in calm weather.

The council said it smells like cabbage when it is dying. Although not dangerous, contact should be avoided.

Earlier this month, similar algae washed up on beaches in Swansea and Pembrokeshire was mistaken for raw sewage.

Following that incident, Environment Agency Wales said it could cause mild skin irritation if handled, and contact should be avoided.

More:

Non-toxic algae found on beaches

Chicagoans flock to beaches on Memorial Day

Posted on by

May 28, 2012 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- Crowds packed beaches as Chicago sweltered under the sun Monday on the hottest Memorial Day on record.

Dennis Kaehr and his family got to North Avenue Beach by 8 a.m. Monday. As early birds, the Oak Lawn family was able to get a nice spot by the water.

"I got the prime location right here, but the reason why we came out early is because when I used to come out here a lot of times a few years back, usually this whole place would be packed," Kaher said.

"Got to get the good parking and a good spot on the beach it's going to be a good time today," Austin Jump said.

Chicago is in for a sizzling hot memorial day. A second day of record breaking heat may be in store.

"We're exercising before it gets too hot and then we're gonna spend the rest of the day at our pool," Janet Kowalski, walker, said.

The Chicago Fire Department says they'll have teams of bike paramedics patrolling the lakefront. Emily Petrosko will be playing sand volleyball, but she packed plenty of water and ice.

"I'll drink lots of water and just try to go in the shade every once in awhile," Emily Petrosko, volleyball player, said.

Last year on Memorial Day, police shut down north avenue beach at around 5:30 p.m. after eight people suffered heat-related illnesses.

Anyone planning to be outside Monday is reminded to wear protective sunscreen and cool clothing and to drink lots of water.

View original post here:

Chicagoans flock to beaches on Memorial Day

Another tiny rock will pass Earth tomorrow | Bad Astronomy

Posted on by

[tl;dr: A small 5-10 meter asteroid will pass us tomorrow; it poses no danger to us.]

I recently wrote about near-Earth asteroid 2012 KP24, a house-sized (25 meter) rock. As I write this it passed us safely just a few hours ago, as predicted.

But thanks to scibuff and AsteroidWatch on Twitter, I just learned of another tiny visitor that will buzz past us tonight/tomorrow, May 29, at around 07:00 UTC (03:00 Eastern US time). Called 2012 KT42, this one is even smaller than KP24: its probably less than 10 meters across about the size of a school bus or more likely a minivan. And itll be a close shave: though the orbit is still not nailed down, the nominal miss distance is about 14,500 kilometers (8900 miles). Thats a bit bigger than the diameter of the Earth itself.

[UPDATE (19:15 UTC): There's more info on KT42 in on the Italian Remanzacco Observatory blog (h/t TredySas). There's also a cool animation made from five exposures of it:

I'll add more here if I hear anything.]

[UPDATE (19:55 UTC): No new info as such, but Alex Gibbs from the Catalina Sky Survey sent me this nice 4-tile mosaic of the discovery images of KT42, taken with the Mt. Lemmon 60" telescope:

Very cool!]

Bear in mind, it was only discovered last night, so the current orbit is preliminary. Many small rocks that pass close to Earth are discovered shortly before they breeze past us (and some not until after), so this is nothing out-of-the ordinary.

Go here to read the rest:

Another tiny rock will pass Earth tomorrow | Bad Astronomy

Memorial Day 2012 | Bad Astronomy

Posted on by

[Note: Today is Memorial Day, a US tradition where we remember the contributions of those in the military who have fallen. Yesterday, I was thinking about what to write about it. My dad was in the Navy just after World War II, but I wasn't sure what to write about that. I decided to put the idea aside for a time, since I have a deadline for an article I'm writing about space exploration. While looking up old blog posts for that, I happened by coincidence on something I wrote three years ago, on July 20, 2009, the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11. I am reposting it below. For reasons that will be clear if you read the whole thing, I don't think there's more I could say on this day.]

On July 20, 1969, at 20:17:40 GMT, human beings landed on an alien world.

That was the moment that the Eagle lander touched down on the surface of the Moon, 40 years ago today. Nearly five hours later, at 02:56:15 GMT on July 21, Neil Armstrong placed his boot in the lunar regolith, planting it firmly into history as well.

You can read all about this event and its global and historical impacts all over the web, so I wont belabor the point here. But the Apollo missions mean something special to me, so forgive me this small indulgence. While the overall significance of the missions is interesting and fun to think about and discuss, the real stories, the ones that sink in, are the personal ones.

I was four when Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins approached the Moon. Thats old enough to form memories of the event, but young enough that those memories are malleable; I have a hard time distinguishing what I actually saw with what I may have seen years later on TV. I seem to vaguely remember sitting on the couch with my family watching the events unfold; even at that age I was in love with science fiction and all things spacey. Its possible my parents let me stay up late to watch that first step. It wouldve been 11:00 p.m. at our old home. But honestly, I dont remember.

However, just a wee bit over two years later that changed. In July 1971, my parents rented a Winnebago a monstrous recreational vehicle and the whole family piled in so we could road trip down to Cape Canaveral. If all went according to plan, we would be there in time to watch Apollo 15 launch and make its way to the Moon.

I was six, so I remember this much better. The bathroom on the RV smelled overwhelmingly like fruit. My sister taught me that its OK to lie when you say something if you cross your fingers while saying it. We stopped to visit friends of my moms in South Carolina, and again in Georgia so my oldest brother could check out the Georgia Tech campus before applying there the next year.

I have lots of other memories that are trivial to others but which I cherish. But still and all, we finally reached Kennedy Space Center. I remember touring the area, and I also remember being on the tour bus and getting up pretty close to the Saturn V. I wonder now if thats a distorted memory; its hard to imagine they let tourists get as close as my semi-fuzzy recollection indicates.

And then the day arrived. We parked on the banks of the Banana River and waited for the moment. I wandered off a bit to play on my own (times were different then), and I distinctly remember finding a blue plastic kiddie pool upside down on the river bank. I flipped it over, and a billion mosquitoes exploded out of it! Not too surprisingly, thats one of the stronger memories I have from that day.

And then the moment finally arrived. I remember nothing of the countdown, but boy oh boy do I remember the launch. A man next to me had a camera that he was frantically snapping away with; I remember the noise of the shutter and him winding it, trying to keep up with the rocket lifting off into the sky miles away.

Read the original here:

Memorial Day 2012 | Bad Astronomy

Astronomy mistake picked up by nine-year-old

Posted on by

So when nine-year-old Daniel Smith read in a Telegraph astronomy guide last month that Neptune, the most distant of the eight planets, was a mere 4.5 million km from our closest star he instantly recognised that something didn't add up.

A little sleuthing around the relative location of the other planets soon confirmed his suspicion and brought about an explanation an unfortunate typo by the Daily Telegraph.

Our guide, one of two astronomy booklets released last month, should in fact have said 4.5 billion miles, rather than million a fact which Daniel picked up but several pairs of grown-up eyes did not.

Daniel, who lives in New Zealand with his family, explained his reasoning in a letter to his grandfather Don Smith, a Telegraph reader from Felixstowe, Suffolk, who had sent him the books as a present.

He wrote: "Dear grandad, I really liked the solar system books you got us. They were very interesting! But I noticed a mistake.

"It said Neptune was 4.5 million km when mercury was 57.9 million km. I found the problem by looking at the other planets. It turns out that Neptune was supposed to say 4.5 billion km from the Sun."

He signed off the letter "Love, Daniel," adding: "PS, give grandma a kiss from me!"

Mr Smith forwarded the note on to the Telegraph noting how impressed he was that a child had digested the "quite intelligent" booklets so thoroughly that he picked up on the miscalculation.

We quite agree, and would like to thank Daniel for reading our booklets so thoroughly.

Read the original post:

Astronomy mistake picked up by nine-year-old

Exetel taps artificial intelligence

Posted on by

Internet service provider Exetel has unveiled a new customer support system that uses artificial intelligence to solve user connection and other support issues online.

The Calliope system, developed by Exetel and the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology, is the result of an eight-year bid to bake intelligence into the ISP's customer management systems.

The new system was developed over the past two years at the institute, and aims to respond to simple questions that would otherwise be fielded by call centre staff.

Exetel CEO Steve Waddington told Sri Lankan media last week that by automatically answering common user issues online - often by pointing them to a centralised wiki of support information - the new system freed up support engineers' time and reduced the company's support costs.

Waddington drew parallels between the system and the 'Siri' feature on Apple iPhones, which translated user requests in natural language - as opposed to set commands - to deliver answers from a variety of sources.

"Siri is exactly the sort of intelligent agent that Calliope is on a commercial basis. You could say Siri is to Calliope what a spreadsheet is to Oracle database," he said.

Despite the use of natural language, the Calliope system requires users to enter short, clear sentences with readily recognisable phrases such as "drop outs", "no sync" or product names in order to receive support.

The AI system did not replace the call centre for complex user support issues, Waddington said, but removes the need for call centre staff to deal with simple questions often repeated through users.

"Eight years ago we conceived of Calliope as a method to make us a more efficient company, and make the information our customers wanted more available to them," he said.

"Our own development stalled in its second year. We had simply reached the limit of the resources a small company like us could commit to such a project. And the concept languished for a few years."

Excerpt from:

Exetel taps artificial intelligence