Select Page ::

NASA scientist confirms fireball, boom was likely meteorite – WEAR

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

A NASA scientist has confirmed the source of a bright light and booms across the North Escambia area about 9:15 Saturday night was likely a meteorite dropper at least the size of a basketball.

Took a look at the eyewitness reports there is a lot of scatter, but I was able to use a software tool developed by a colleague to derive a ground track. The fireball first appeared to the NE of Mobile and moved westerly at about 56,000 miles per hour. The best reports indicate that it broke apart above U.S. 43 north of Mobile, and the reports of sound indicate it probably penetrated fairly low into the atmosphere before fragmenting, perhaps as low as 14 miles altitude, Bill Cooke, lead of NASAs Meteoroid Environment Office located in Huntsville, AL, wrote in a Facebook post.

The objects average brightness was about that of the full moon, with reports of it being seen as far away as extreme North Alabama and Arkansas.

A search of the Doppler weather radar in the area may be helpful in determining if there were meteoritic particles falling to the ground, he said.

NorthEscambia.com received reports of distant shooting start sightings from Saturday night Panama City to Pensacola, and more fireball-like descriptions from readers either side of a line from Bay Minette to Atmore to Bratt to Flomaton to Brewton. Many of those residents also reported a boom or explosion that rattle windows and shook their homes.

NASA scientist confirms fireball, boom was likely meteorite - WEAR

60000-year-old microbes found in Mexican mine: NASA scientist – Phys.Org

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

February 20, 2017 Scientists from NASA have found a microbe, said to have survived inside crystals for up to 60,000 years, which they believe could prove the existence of living organisms inother extreme environments, like planets and the moon

NASA scientists have discovered living microorganisms trapped inside crystals for as long as 60,000 years in a mine in Mexico.

These strange ancient microbes have apparently evolved so they can survive on a diet of sulfite, manganese and copper oxide, said Penelope Boston of NASA's Astrobiology Institute in a presentation over the weekend at a conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"This has profound effects on how we try to understand the evolutionary history of microbial life on this planet," she said.

They were discovered in the Naica mine, a working lead, zinc and silver mine in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua.

The mine is famous for its huge crystals, some as long as 50 feet (15 meters).

The discovery has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, but it has led Boston to believe that living organisms may also have survived in the extreme environments of other planets and moons in our solar system.

She said about 100 different kinds of microorganismsmost of them bacteriahave been found locked in Naica crystals for periods ranging from 10,000 to 60,000 years.

Ninety percent of them have never been observed before now, she said.

The discovery of these ultra-hardy microorganisms has been a windfall for researchers but also a source of concern for astrobiologists thinking about bringing back samples collected on space missions in the solar system.

The extreme conditions under which these microbes have survived raises the possibility that dangerous extraterrestrial organisms could accidentally hitch a ride to Earth on a returning spaceship.

Astrobiologists also worry about the risk that Earth organisms could contaminate other planets in the course of missions to places like Mars, which has already been visited by several US robots.

NASA sterilizes its spacecraft and equipment before launching them into space. But there is always a risk that ultra-resistant microorganisms will survive.

"How do we ensure that life-detection missions are going to detect true Mars life or life from icy worlds rather than our life?" asked Boston.

The concerns are not new. During the Apollo missions of the 1960s and '70s, astronauts returning from the moon were quarantined.

The microorganisms found in the Naica mine are not even the oldest discovered to date.

Several years ago scientists reported finding microbes in ice and salt that were up to 500,000 years old.

Explore further: Biologists find weird cave life that may be 50,000 years old

2017 AFP

In a Mexican cave system so beautiful and hot that it is called both Fairyland and hell, scientists have discovered life trapped in crystals that could be 50,000 years old.

Scientists have a constructed a new database of the diversity in an enzyme that is used by microorganisms to metabolize sulfur.

(Phys.org)A team of researchers working deep in a mine in Canada has found water samples that date back approximately 2 billion years, breaking the record of oldest discovered water on the surface of the Earth by approximately ...

Recently, a team of astrobiologists from the EU funded MASE (Mars Analogues for Space Exploration) project descended 1.1 kilometers below Earth's surface to the Mars-like environment of the Boulby Mine in the UK looking for ...

They live several kilometers under the surface of the earth, need no light or oxygen and can only be seen in a microscope. By sequencing genomes of a newly discovered group of microbes, the Hadesarchaea, an international ...

The US space agency NASA on Wednesday announced two unmanned missions to asteroids designed to study one of the earliest eras in the history of the solar system.

Gene editing, which has raised ethical concerns due to its capacity to alter human DNA, is being considered in the United States as a tool for improving livestock, experts say.

Scientists from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) have discovered that the chromosome responsible for the social organisation of colonies of the highly invasive fire ant is likely to have evolved via a single event rather ...

Forest elephant populations in one of Central Africa's largest and most important preserves have declined between 78 percent and 81 percent because of poaching, a new Duke University-led study finds.

The winter habits of Britain's basking sharks have been revealed for the first time.

What looks like a caterpillar chewing on a leaf or a beetle consuming fruit is likely a three-way battle that benefits most, if not all of the players involved, according to a Penn State entomologist.

By tagging individual bumblebees with microchips, biologists have gained insights into the daily life of a colony of bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) in unprecedented detail. The team found that while most bees are generalists ...

Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more

View post:

60000-year-old microbes found in Mexican mine: NASA scientist - Phys.Org

Nominations invited for $250,000 Kabiller Prize in Nanoscience and … – Northwestern University NewsCenter

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

EVANSTON - Northwestern Universitys International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN) is now accepting nominations for two prestigious international prizes: the $250,000 Kabiller Prize in Nanoscience and Nanomedicine and the $10,000 Kabiller Young Investigator Award in Nanoscience and Nanomedicine.

The deadline for nominations is May 15, 2017. Details are available on the IIN website.

Our goal is to recognize the outstanding accomplishments in nanoscience and nanomedicine that have the potential to benefit all humankind, said David G. Kabiller, a Northwestern trustee and alumnus. He is a co-founder of AQR Capital Management, a global investment management firm in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The two prizes, awarded every other year, were established in 2015 through a generous gift from Kabiller. Current Northwestern-affiliated researchers are not eligible for nomination until 2018 for the 2019 prizes.

The Kabiller Prize the largest monetary award in the world for outstanding achievement in the field of nanomedicine celebrates researchers who have made the most significant contributions to the field of nanotechnology and its application to medicine and biology.

The Kabiller Young Investigator Award recognizes young emerging researchers who have made recent groundbreaking discoveries with the potential to make a lasting impact in nanoscience and nanomedicine.

The IIN at Northwestern University is a hub of excellence in the field of nanotechnology, said Kabiller, chair of the IIN executive council and a graduate of Northwesterns Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and Kellogg School of Management. As such, it is the ideal organization from which to launch these awards recognizing outstanding achievements that have the potential to substantially benefit society.

Nanoparticles for medical use are typically no larger than 100 nanometers comparable in size to the molecules in the body. At this scale, the essential properties (e.g., color, melting point, conductivity, etc.) of structures behave uniquely. Researchers are capitalizing on these unique properties in their quest to realize life-changing advances in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease.

Nanotechnology is one of the key areas of distinction at Northwestern, said Chad A. Mirkin, IIN director and George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry in Weinberg. We are very grateful for Davids ongoing support and are honored to be stewards of these prestigious awards.

An international committee of experts in the field will select the winners of the 2017 Kabiller Prize and the 2017 Kabiller Young Investigator Award and announce them in September.

The recipients will be honored at an awards banquet Sept. 27 in Chicago. They also will be recognized at the 2017 IIN Symposium, which will include talks from prestigious speakers, including 2016 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Ben Feringa, from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.

The winner of the inaugural Kabiller Prize, in 2015, was Joseph DeSimone the Chancellors Eminent Professor of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at North Carolina State University and of Chemistry at UNC-Chapel Hill.

DeSimone was honored for his invention of particle replication in non-wetting templates (PRINT) technology that enables the fabrication of precisely defined, shape-specific nanoparticles for advances in disease treatment and prevention. Nanoparticles made with PRINT technology are being used to develop new cancer treatments, inhalable therapeutics for treating pulmonary diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and asthma, and next-generation vaccines for malaria, pneumonia and dengue.

Warren Chan, professor at the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto, was the recipient of the inaugural Kabiller Young Investigator Award, also in 2015. Chan and his research group have developed an infectious disease diagnostic device for a point-of-care use that can differentiate symptoms.

In total, the IIN represents and unites more than $1 billion in nanotechnology infrastructure, research and education. These efforts, plus those of many other groups, have helped transition nanomedicine from a laboratory curiosity to life-changing technologies that are positively impacting the world.

The IIN houses numerous centers and institutes, including the Ronald and JoAnne Willens Center for Nano Oncology, an NIH Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence, an Air Force Center of Excellence for Advanced Bioprogrammable Nanomaterials, and the Convergence Science & Medicine Institute.

Link:

Nominations invited for $250,000 Kabiller Prize in Nanoscience and ... - Northwestern University NewsCenter

New nano approach could cut dose of leading HIV treatment in half – Phys.Org

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

February 21, 2017 Credit: University of Liverpool

Successful results of a University of Liverpool-led trial that utilised nanotechnology to improve drug therapies for HIV patients has been presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Seattle, a leading annual conference of HIV research, clinical practice and progress.

The healthy volunteer trial, conducted by the collaborative nanomedicine research programme led by Pharmacologist Professor Andrew Owen and Materials Chemist Professor Steve Rannard, and in collaboration with the St Stephen's AIDS Trust at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital in London, examined the use of nanotechnology to improve the delivery of drugs to HIV patients. The results were from two trials which are the first to use orally dosed nanomedicine to enable HIV therapy optimisation.

Manipulation of matter

Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale. Nanomedicine is the application of nanotechnology to the prevention and treatment of disease in the human body. By developing smaller pills that are better for patients and less expensive to manufacture, this evolving discipline has the potential to dramatically change medical science and is already having an impact in a number of clinically used therapies and diagnostics worldwide.

Currently, the treatment of HIV requires daily oral dosing of HIV drugs, and chronic oral dosing has significant complications that arise from the high pill burden experienced by many patients across populations with varying conditions leading to non-adherence to therapies.

Developing new therapies

Recent evaluation of HIV patient groups have shown a willingness to switch to nanomedicine alternatives if benefits can be shown. Research efforts by the Liverpool team have focused on the development of new oral therapies, using Solid Drug Nanoparticle (SDN) technology which can improve drug absorption into the body, reducing both the dose and the cost per dose and enabling existing healthcare budgets to treat more patients.

The trial results confirmed the potential for a 50 percent dose reduction while maintaining therapeutic exposure, using a novel approach to formulation of two drugs: efavirenz (EFV) and, lopinavir (LPV). EFV is the current WHO-recommended preferred regimen, with 70% of adult patients on first-line taking an EFV-based HIV treatment regimen in low- and middle-income countries.

The trial is connected to the University's ongoing work as part of the multinational consortium OPTIMIZE, a global partnership working to accelerate access to simpler, safer and more affordable HIV treatment. Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, OPTIMIZE is led by the Wits Reproductive Health & HIV Institute in Johannesburg, South Africa, and includes the interdisciplinary Liverpool team, Columbia University, Mylan Laboratories and the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP). OPTIMIZE is supported by key partners including UNITAID and the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC).

Potential applications

Benny Kottiri, USAID's Office of HIV/AIDS Research Division Chief, said: "The potential applications for HIV treatment are incredibly promising. By aligning efforts, these integrated investments offer the potential to reduce the doses required to control the HIV virus even further, resulting in real benefits globally. This would enable the costs of therapy to be reduced which is particularly beneficial for resource-limited countries where the burden of disease is highest."

Explore further: New nanomedicine approach aims to improve HIV drug therapies

More information: The presentation is available online: http://www.croiwebcasts.org/console/player/33376?mediaType=slideVideo&

Cells within our bodies divide and change over time, with thousands of chemical reactions occurring within each cell daily. This makes it difficult for scientists to understand what's happening inside. Now, tiny nanostraws ...

Drugs disguised as viruses are providing new weapons in the battle against cancer, promising greater accuracy and fewer side effects than chemotherapy.

DNA, the stuff of life, may very well also pack quite the jolt for engineers trying to advance the development of tiny, low-cost electronic devices.

The precise control of electron transport in microelectronics makes complex logic circuits possible that are in daily use in smartphones and laptops. Heat transport is of similar fundamental importance and its control is ...

A new technique using liquid metals to create integrated circuits that are just atoms thick could lead to the next big advance for electronics.

The ability of small intestine cells to absorb nutrients and act as a barrier to pathogens is "significantly decreased" after chronic exposure to nanoparticles of titanium dioxide, a common food additive found in everything ...

Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more

Continued here:

New nano approach could cut dose of leading HIV treatment in half - Phys.Org

Moore’s Law and supply chain planning systems – The 21st Century Supply Chain – Perspectives on Innovative (blog)

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

It was in 1965 that Dr. Gordon Moore made a prediction that changed the pace of tech. His prediction, popularly known as Moores law, was with regards to doubling of the number of transistors per square inch on an integrated circuit every 18 months or so. As a result of the innovations attributable to the endurance of Moores law over the last 50+ years, we have seen significant accelerations in processing power, storage, and connectivity. These advances continue to have major implications on how companies plan their supply chains. In my nearly two decades as a supply chain professional, I have seen quite a few changes.

Lets look at some of the big shifts that have taken place in the supply chain planning space.

Early on in my career, I remember working with a large global company who had to take their interconnected global supply chain model and slice it up into distinct independent supply chain models. This was because the processing power at the time was simply not enough to plan their supply chain in a single instance. This surgical separation of supply chains required a high degree of ingenuity and identifying the portions of supply network with the least amount of interconnections, and partition them. This was not the most optimal way to build a supply chain model, but they did what they could within the limitations of the technology then. With the advent of better processing power, they were able to consolidate these multiple instances into a single global instance leading to a better model of their business. This is just one of many such examples.

As the hardware side of the solution benefited from Moores law, in parallel, developers of the supply chain applications continued to make conscious efforts to better utilize the storage, processing, and network resources available to them. This multi-pronged approach resulted in squeezing further efficiencies and bringing better scalability. Now companies are getting more adventurous with their planning and are getting planning down to the point of consumption. While there is enough debate within the supply chain community as to whether the data at more atomic levels is clean, trustworthy, and dense enough, and whether the extra effort needed to model down to the granular levels is worth it, the fact that we are seeing technology scale to such levels of granularity is illustrative of the power of Moores law.

In a traditional packaged planning software deployment, the vendor sells a perpetual license for the software, helps the customer with sizing the hardware, waits for the hardware to be setup and configured at the customers premises, then installs the software and the middleware components needed before the software configurations can begin. This whole process can take several weeks or in many cases, months. With Moores law holding its power over the decades, and resulting gains in processing, storage, and network speeds, newer delivery models prevailed. Supply Chain Planning capability is now being provided in a Software as a Service (SaaS) model. Immediately upon executing the necessary contracts, customers can start accessing the software, so the project can begin in earnest. This is shifting the focus from Technology enablement to Business capability enablement. I remember the days when prospects approached Cloud with skepticism, specifically around the security of cloud based systems. Now, while I still see a number of prospects asking questions around security as part of the RFP (Request for Proposal) process, it is fair to say that the security discussion in most instances is turning out to be a set of quick conversations with the customers IT teams. There is in general, a growing acknowledgement that a SaaS vendor catering to many customers is better equipped to handle security vulnerabilities than any one companys IT organization.

One added advantage of the move to the cloud is accessibility. Until a few years ago, every RFP looking for global deployment of supply chain planning systems used to contain questions around accessibility on dial up lines and such in developing nations. Now it is not as often that I see questions around speed of networks and accessibility. With tech becoming accessible across the globe and with increasing availability of the bandwidth, I am seeing fewer companies query about accessibility from different geographies. Instead, the questions are more geared around access from various mobile devices, which is becoming a core requirement. The SaaS model renders itself very well to such support across varied devices and form factors. SaaS is illustrative of the symbiotic progress between hardware and software delivery models powered by Moores law.

While there is enough talk about the rise of the machines and autonomous supply chains, the newer forms of planning technology is in fact helping get the best of bringing together the humans and machines, rather than making humans redundant. The previous generations of planning technology was very much waterfall oriented with Demand Planning, followed by Supply Planning, followed by Capacity Planning, and so on. It severely undermined the role of human intelligence in supply chain planning. The well intentioned users of such systems spend more time in data gathering, preparation, and piece together information on outdated data using excel macros and such. Also, building an S&OP capability with such underlying technology is turning out to be an expensive band aid for several organizations.

Such batch, waterfall-oriented planning is giving way to near real-time concurrent planning supported by what-if scenarios and social collaboration. Supported by technologies such as in memory computing, concurrent planning can happen at a scale like we have not seen before. Such advances in planning at the speed of business can also better leverage advances in IoT, Machine Learning, and Data science. Batch oriented supply chain planning capabilities of the previous generation are not fit to consume the real time digital signals from smart, connected devices, and course correct as needed. Having a system that can supplement human intelligence so planners can make decisions at the speed of business can be very empowering.

Now it is becoming very realistic and affordable to represent the model of an end to end network of a large corporation with all its assumptions and parameters, and simulate the response strategies to the various stimuli the supply chain receives. Linear approximations of highly non-linear supply chains are giving way to more realistic modeling of supply networks.

All in all, Moores law did have a major impact on the supply chain planning capabilities. Significant gaps still exist between the art of the possible with a new way of concurrent planning, as compared to how many organizations run their supply chain planning processes in a batch oriented manner today. My advice to the companies embarking on supply chain transformation the future is here! Challenge yourself on if the old ways of planning will meet the needs of the organizations of the present day. If Moores law helped get unprecedented computing power right in your pocket in the form of a smart phone, what can it do to your supply chain? The possibilities are limitless. You just need to be open to explore!

As Vice President of Industry Strategy at Kinaxis, Madhav serves as a trusted advisor for our customers through sales and implementation, ensuring success. He also engages with our strategic customers and key industry leaders to drive thought leadership and innovation. Madhav joined Kinaxis in the summer of 2016, bringing many years of experience in Supply Chain Management across various industries. Madhav started his professional career at i2 (which was later acquired by JDA). During his 17+ year tenure at i2/JDA, Madhav played numerous roles in Customer Support, Consulting, Presales, and Product Management. During his illustrious career, he was instrumental in helping enable numerous large scale transformational supply chain opportunities. He is very passionate about Supply Chain Management and the role it plays in making the world a better place. He shares this passion with others through his engagements and writings. Madhav has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from University of Florida and a B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras.

Mediterranean Plants May Help Brain Diseases – Voice of America

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle report.

In the future, chemicals from plants found in and around the Mediterranean may be used to help treat people with brain diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

These two diseases are age-related and neurodegenerative. Neurodegenerative relates to the degeneration of nervous tissue, especially the brain.

People suffering from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's have deposits of sticky plaque in their brains. Over time, this plaque reduces brain function. Eventually, it causes death.

Scientists say plaque can be reduced

But scientists say the plaque deposits can be reduced with chemicals from plants, including prickly pear and brown seaweed. Scientists say the chemicals or, extracts appear to replace the harmful, sticky plaque with deposits that are less harmful.

These scientists are researchers at the University of Malta and the National Center of Scientific Research at the University of Bordeaux.

They tested the chemical extracts of the plants on a substance called Brewer's yeast. This yeast had plaque deposits similar to those seen in Alzheimer's disease. Scientists say the health of the yeast improved greatly after exposure to the chemical extracts.

Researchers then tested the extracts in fruit flies that were genetically changed to develop symptoms of Alzheimer's.

They found that when the flies were given brown seaweed extract, their lifespans increased by two days. Prickly pear helped the insects live four days longer.

That may not sound like a long time. However, the researchers remind us that one day in the life of a fruit fly is equal to one human year.

Researchers also noted that movement in some diseased insects improved.

They reported their findings in the journal Neuroscience Letters.

The best way to fight neurodegenerative diseases

Researchers say that the sticky plaques in both Alzheimers and Parkinsons diseases appear to form through the same biological pathways. Targeting these pathways, they say, is the best way to fight the diseases.

The lead author of the study is Ruben Cauchi of the University of Malta's Center for Molecular Medicine and Biobanking. He says the Mediterranean plant extracts are already used in health foods and some cosmetics. So, they are very safe.

The research team is working with a company that extracts the chemicals for commercial use as so-called "fountain of youth" products.

And thats the Health & Lifestyle report.

Im Anna Matteo.

Jessica Berman wrote this report for VOA News. Anna Matteo adapted it for Learning English. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor.

Check your understanding of the story by taking this reading quiz.

________________________________________________________________

neurodegenerative adj. relating to or marked by degeneration of nervous tissue

degeneration n. deterioration of a tissue or an organ in which its function is diminished or its structure is impaired

extract n. a substance that you get from something by using a machine or chemicals

deposit n. an amount of something (such as sand, snow, or mud) that has formed or been left on a surface or area over a period of time

Brewers yeast n. a yeast used or suitable for use in brewing; also : the dried ground-up cells of such a yeast used as a source of the vitamin B complex

plaque n. medical : a change in brain tissue that occurs in Alzheimer's disease : medical : a harmful material that can form in arteries and be a cause of heart disease

exposure n. the fact or condition of being affected by something or experiencing something : the condition of being exposed to something

extract v. to get (a substance) from something by the use of a machine or chemicals

Mediterranean Plants May Help Brain Diseases - Voice of America

Research reveals how brain remembers fearful experiences | Baylor … – Baylor College of Medicine News (press release)

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

Understanding how the brain remembers can one day shed light on what went wrong when memory fails, such as it occurs in Alzheimers disease. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University reveal for the first time the specific patterns of electrical activity in rat brains that are associated with specific memories, in this case a fearful experience. They discovered that before rats avoid a place in which they had a fearful experience, the brain recalled memories of the physical location where the experience occurred. The results appear in Nature Neuroscience.

We recall memories all the time, said senior author Dr. Daoyun Ji, associate professor of molecular and cellular biology at Baylor. For example, I can recall the route I take from home to work every morning, but what are the brain signals at this moment when I hold this memory in my mind?

Studying the workings of the brain in people is difficult, so scientists have turned to the laboratory rat. They have learned that when the animal is in a particular place, neurons in the hippocampus, appropriately called place cells, generate pulses of activity.

A number of place cells generates electrical activity called a spiking pattern, Ji said. When the rat is in a certain place, a group of neurons generates a specific pattern of spikes and when it moves to a different place, a different group of neurons generates another pattern of spikes. The patterns are very distinct. We can predict where the animal is by looking at its pattern of brain activity.

But, are these spiking patterns involved in memory?

How to know what a rat is thinking

Our laboratory rats cannot tell us what memory they are recalling at any particular time, Ji said. To overcome that, we designed an experiment that would allow us to know what was going on in the animals brain right before a certain event.

In the experiment, conducted by first author Chun-Ting Wu, graduate researcher at the Ji lab, a rat walked along a track, back and forth. After a period of rest, the rat walked the same track again, but when the animal approached the end of the track, it received a mild shock. After it rested again, the rat was placed back on the track. This time, however, when it approached the end of the track where it had received the mild shock before, the rat stopped and turned around, avoiding crossing the fearful path.

Before a rat walked the tracks the first time, we inserted tiny probes into its hippocampus to record the electrical signals generated by groups of active neurons, Ji said. By recording these brain signals while the animal walked the track for the first time we could examine the patterns that emerged in its brain we could see what patterns were associated with each location on the track, including the location where the animal later got shocked.

Because the rat turns around and avoids stepping on the end of the track after the shocks, we can reasonably assume that the animal is thinking about the place where it got shocked at the precise moment that it stops walking and turns away, Ji said. Our observations confirmed this idea.

When the researchers, in collaboration with co-author Dr. Caleb Kemere at Rice University, looked at the brain activity in place neurons at this moment, they found that the spiking patterns corresponding to the location in which the rat had received the shock re-emerged, even though this time the animal was only stopping and thinking about the location.

Interestingly, from the brain activity we can tell that the animal was mentally traveling from its current location to the shock place. These patterns corresponding to the shock place re-emerged right at the moment when a specific memory is remembered, Ji said.

Future directions

The next goal of the researchers is to investigate whether the spiking pattern they identified is absolutely required for the animals to behave the way they did.

If we disrupt the pattern, will the animal still avoid stepping into the zone it had learned to avoid? Ji said. We are also interested in determining how the spiking patterns of place neurons in the hippocampus can be used by other parts of the brain, such as those involved in making decisions.

Ji and his colleagues also plan to explore what role spiking patterns in the hippocampus might play in diseases that involve memory loss, such as Alzheimers disease.

We want to determine whether this kind of mechanism is altered in animal models of Alzheimers disease. Some evidence shows that it is not that the animals dont have a memory, but that somehow they cannot recall it. Using our system to read spiking patterns in the brains of animal models of the disease, we hope to determine whether a specific spiking pattern exists during memory recall. If not, we will explore the possibility that damaged brain circuits are preventing the animal from recalling the memory and look at ways to allow the animal to recall the specific activity patterns, the memory, again.

Dr. Daniel Haggerty, a post-doctoral associate in the Ji lab, also contributed to this work.

This study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (R01MH106552) and the Simons Foundation (#273886).

Go here to read the rest:

Research reveals how brain remembers fearful experiences | Baylor ... - Baylor College of Medicine News (press release)

Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin Review: A Middling Misfire – UploadVR

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

I really want to deliver you some good news, here. I want to tell you that the Psychonauts, long thought lost to the fabled realm of cult classics, have made their triumphant return in a game thats truly worthy of their twisted world of psychic agents. I want to tell you about a mind-bending VR experience that plays with your psyche in clever, astonishing ways, just as Raz did when he climbed into the heads of characters in the first game.

Sadly, Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin is not that experience.

There are things to love in this brief spin-off to the 2005 platformer that developer Double Fine made its name with. The cast, for example, is back together and writer and development legend Tim Schafer hasnt lost his grasp on them. Rhombus of Ruin is VRs first introduction to the wit, soul, and sheer creativity of Double Fines world building, and in that respect it doesnt disappointment. Id chuckled to myself multiple times within the first scene, and some of the games sights are truly spectacular. No one does weird quite like these guys, and it shows here.

Back in control of Raz mere minutes after the cliffhanger ending of the first game, the developer has crafted a 2-3 hour adventure in which youll attempt to save the father of your maybe-girlfriend, Lili. Its seen clear opportunity in translating the first games psychic power-infused platforming into a VR puzzler that more closely resembles one of Schafers classic point-and-click adventure games like Grim Fandango or Day of the Tentacle.

As well intentioned and respectable a throwback this might be clearly influenced by the design challenges of VR that can cause simulation sickness it ultimately leaves this chapter in the Psychonauts saga feeling decidedly inessential, restrictive, and dated.

Many of the games core mechanics are incidental, and not anywhere near as satisfactory to use as they should be. If youre familiar with VR, then youve probably picked things up and moved them with your mind before. Its a mechanic as old as the first full retail VR games like Lands End on Gear VR; you look at an item, you press a button to bring it towards you, and then you move it by steering your head.

Its a necessary component of the game, but it would have you think its novel and empowering, when really its a somewhat laborious way of shifting items around. As harsh as that sounds, its consistent with most of the powers you can use; serving a design purpose more than a genuinely fun mechanic to utilize. Body-hopping clairvoyance, for example, is much the same, a mesh of mechanic and locomotion that doesnt excuse the fact everyones rooted to the same spots.

Pyrokinesis, meanwhile, suggests sections in which you can giddily burn your surroundings to the ground, but these never materialize. Its reduced to often redundant actions like burning specific items that block your path, and feels almost totally useless once the more satisfactory Psi-Blasts come into play, which at least give a kick to their use.

I just never felt like the more powerful psychic agent Raz had grown to become by the end of the first game. Theres an argument to be made for Double Fines intentions to deliver a different kind of experience, but it comes off as overly limited.

There are glimpses of what the game could have been, which occur when the puzzle-solving is at its spontaneous best. Rapidly flinging suitcases down a corridor to block a door, or shattering the glass of a fish tank to snap someone out of a trance were impulse-based actions where I reacted naturally to the world around me. When I stumbled with working out which power I needed to use where, however, characters would repeat unhelpful lines of dialogue ad-nauseum.

Psychonauts In the Rhombus of Ruin never really gets inventive with VR, at least not until two sequences towards the end in which you visit the mind of a fan favorite character. Though this involves a trite boss fight, theres an element of storytelling here that truly capitalizes on the connections VR can enhance with characters, and the clever spins it can take with scale and environments. I had hoped for the trippy, surprising ride these precious few moments delivered right the way through, but ultimately this was all it could muster even in the short run time.

A missed opportunity for sure, then, made all the more bitter by the fact the series didnt need to radically reinvent itself to fit VR. Luckys Tale and Wayward Sky show third-person platforming works in VR, and the latters mix of first-person gameplay proves Double Fine could have had the best of both worlds here. Ultimately, its just like PSVRs Batman game, missing crucial elements of what makes the IP so compelling.

Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin gives fans a reason to be excited for Psychonauts 2, if only because it shows Double Fine hasnt lost is grasp of the wonderful world it concocted 12 years ago now and not much else. As a VR game this is most often dated and only rarely the eye-opening adventure that a VR game about characters that can climb inside your psyche should be. Im happy that the Psychonauts are alive and well, however anyone but the series most devoted fans should wait until next year for what will hopefully be the coming home party they so truly deserve.

Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin will be available on PlayStation VR for $19.99 on February 21st 2017.Read our Game Review Guidelinesfor more information on how we arrived at this score.

Tagged with: double fine, Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin

Follow this link:

Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin Review: A Middling Misfire - UploadVR

Star Citizen May Still Get VR Support, But Framerate is a Concern – UploadVR

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

Considering over 1.7 million people contributed $143 million to make the game a reality, its no surprise that painting doubt over one of the games coveted features cancause a bit of an uproar. Most recently, Star Citizens senior graphics programmer Ben Parry had the community up in arms when he seemingly squashed the potential of Star Citizen coming to virtual platforms.

As reported on Gamecrate, Parry responded to a question in the RSI forums that asked if the switch to the Amazon Lumberyard game engine would facilitate VR support and he responded with this:

Sorry to say, do not hold your breath for this. Ignoring the render tech for VR itself (which given the work weve done, would definitely be a read-and-rewrite job, not a merge-this-file job), making a game properly VR-compliant takes a lot of work at the design and testing level regardless of the engine used. Wed probably need to get the framerate up a bit higher too, come to think of it.

VR support was etched in stone when the game reached the $12 million mark in their funding even though, at that time, it only promised Oculus Rift support for the hangar module where you can explore your ships in a closed environment. More VR rumblings happened from that point and, in early 2016, lead dev Chris Roberts declared there was a refocus happening to make VR support a reality and that the game would support all major headsets eventually. Keep in mind that the game was running on CryEngine at that time and a complete engine shift would probably raise a few new obstacles in VR integration, but Parrys statement made it seem like a really long shot entirely. A couple days later, though, he took to Reddit to clarify:

Hi, I should probably let this lie, but I wanted to clarify that, If at all was definitely NOT what I was getting at. I was answering a simple does X mean we get Y type question, from a tech perspective, and the answer is no it doesnt, because thats not the main hurdle. I didnt in any way intend to suggest it had been removed from the plan.

Star Citizen is one of the most ambitious gaming undertakings of recent years and maybe ever, shaping up to contain a massive swath of gameplay experiences that bring outer space to life for gamers inside and outside of a ships cockpit. Its not impossible that the game will launch with VR support for a couple modules. Though Parry did say its not off the table entirely, it may be time to reel expectations in a bit and not expect full VR implementation until well after the launch of the full game.

Tagged with: chris roberts, flight sim, roberts space industries, Star Citizen

Originally posted here:

Star Citizen May Still Get VR Support, But Framerate is a Concern - UploadVR

Report: New Gear VR Planned For Galaxy S8, Comes With Single Hand Controller – UploadVR

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

We wont see Samsungs next Galaxy smartphone, the unannounced S8, at Mobile World Congress next week, but it shouldnt surprise you to hear that, when we do see it, it might well come with a new version of the Gear VR.

That is according to smartphone industry leakster, Roland Quandt, who today noted that the next model for the Gear VR, dubbed SM-R324, is on its way, and will largely be the same as the previous model, only changed slightly to fit Samsungs new phone. You might remember that the last model was leaked early on an Indian import website, but we couldnt find any such information to corroborate this version and Quadnt doesnt cite any sources, so take the next with a pinch of salt for now.

Samsung Gear VR SM-R324 is coming same as SM-R323 for S7, but gets different front cover to hold Galaxy S8 and a single hand controller.

Roland Quandt (@rquandt) February 20, 2017

But heres one very interesting aspect of Quandts tweet; he says it will be coming with a single-hand controller.

Previously, Gear VR has utilized an on-board touchpad for control, and supported Bluetooth gamepads for titles that require more elaborate input. While this will likely be the case with any proposed new version of the device, the alleged addition of this controller is hugely interesting. Not only could it mean Gear VR gets its first dedicated external input method, but theres room for deeper speculation here too.

Daydream, the mobile VR ecosystem from Google, uses a single-hand controller too. Samsung itself has partnered with Google to make a Daydream-compatible mobile phone, which could well be the Galaxy S8 should it fall in line with Googles reference specs. Could it be that this controller is a Daydream remote similar to the one that ships with the Daydream View? If so that has some pretty big implications for the device but, again, thats only speculation at this point.

With the S8 expected to skip out MWC, were not quite sure when Samsung is planning to show it off. One things for sure; with the distaster that was the Galaxy Note 7 still fresh in the mind, the company is going to need to pull out all the stops to win back its audience.

Tagged with: Galaxy S8, gear vr, samsung

View original post here:

Report: New Gear VR Planned For Galaxy S8, Comes With Single Hand Controller - UploadVR

Cincy students get a glimpse into medicine – Cincinnati.com

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

Princeton High School juniors Viktorija Bostogaite and Christina Garvis model their new lab coats during their TAP MD program event Monday at UC Medical Center.(Photo: The Enquirer/Anne Saker)Buy Photo

CORRYVILLE - Deep in the sprawling University of Cincinnati Medical Center lies a windowless room that contains half a century of history the surgical amphitheater, wherethe past and present of medicine connect with the future.

So as Greater Cincinnati endured Monday mornings pea-soup fog, about 50 area high schools students, some with giddy parents, walked with reverence into the amphitheater, gazing at the high ceiling and the oil portraits that capture the stern faces of noted Cincinnati surgeons.

The big moment to come: an operation to remove a kidney from a living donor.

She was excited, but I could barely sleep last night, said Erika Gallagher of Sharonville, who took a day off from work to bring her daughter, Princeton High School junior Viktorija Bostogaite.

This month, 47 students from around the region came together for the yearlong TapMD program, run by the nonprofit the Health Collaborative with the hope of"tapping" or enticing at least half of each class to follow the path into the healing sciences. Mondays visit to the surgical amphitheater was the first big field trip for the TapMD class, and not only were there bagels and juice, but each student received a white coat with the first name embroidered over the left pocket.

I have been thinking about medicine, and when I heard about this program and how it can expose you to a medical education, it sounded awesome, said Princeton junior Christina Garvis.

Im exploring right now, so Im glad to have this chance, said Preetham Kastury, a junior at Mason High School.

Arepresentative from Ethicon, the Blue Ash-based Johnson & Johnson division that manufactures surgical equipment, displayed on a table some of the tools that would be used in Mondays procedure.

A brass drain fitting on the tiled floor served as a reminder that 50 years ago, when UC Heaths kidney transplant program began, many surgeries of all kinds took place in the surgical amphitheater, where students and doctors took the steeply raked seats to watch and learn.

Mondays procedure actually took place in an operating room several floors away, with the surgeon at the table using a camera to assist the effort.

In the amphitheater, viewers watched a screen as the surgeon at the table threaded a camera into the patients body. For long stretches, the hissing of a fan was only sound in the amphitheater. The magnification enhanced the doctors every snip fat and tissue with a heated knife. In two hours, the kidney was free, and on its way to its recipient.

Read or Share this story: http://cin.ci/2lnE8yX

Go here to read the rest:

Cincy students get a glimpse into medicine - Cincinnati.com

Virginia Board of Medicine adopts regulations to address opioid epidemic – WRIC

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) The Virginia Board of Medicine voted to adopt new regulations in response to Virginias opioid epidemic.

These regulations address the safe prescribing of opioids and buprenorphine by health care practitioners in the Commonwealth. The regulations also give prescribers a descriptive template for effective prescribing habits to ultimately produce best patient outcomes.

The opioid prescribing regulations address three common types of pain: Acute pain (often from injury or minor illness), pain resulting from surgery and chronic pain. The regulations prescribe limitations on the number of days opioids should be prescribedwhile maintaining a physicians discretion to exceed in cases where medically necessary. The BOM also addressed the prescribing of buprenorphine, used to treat opioid addiction, to ensure Virginians struggling with anopioid use disorder have every opportunity to successfully manage their disease.

The epidemic of opioid abuse and overdose has devastated thousands of Virginia families, said Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Dr. Bill Hazel. Setting limits and guidelines for proper prescribing, as these regulations do, will help curtail the flow of pills into our communities and significantly reduce the chances of people becoming addicted to prescribed medications. The new regulations also help ensure when people are prescribed the addiction treatment medication buprenorphine, they get the addiction counseling that is critical to their recovery.

These regulations will now be available for review under the Administrative Process Act and are then expected to be signed by the Governor. To see the full regulations, click here.

This is a developing story. Stay with 8News online and on air for the latest updates.

Never miss another Facebook post from 8News

Find 8News onTwitter,Facebook, andInstagram; send your news tips to iReport8@wric.com.

Go here to see the original:

Virginia Board of Medicine adopts regulations to address opioid epidemic - WRIC

Clemson researchers work toward brighter future in medicine, security – Greenville News

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

Jan. 27, 2017 - Luiz Jacobsohn, in his lab in Olin Hall, recently won an NSF CAREER award.(Photo: Patrick D. Wright)

A research project underway at Clemson University could mean a future with safer medical imaging, tighter national security and even more efficient lighting.

The project involves defects known as electronic traps that are found in materials used for the detection and measurement of ionizing radiation, said Luiz Jacobsohn, the assistant professor inClemsons Department of Material Science and Engineering who is leading the work.

The materials are dosimeters, which measure the amount of accumulated ionizing radiation absorbed, and scintillators, which display luminescence, or light, when exposed to ionizing radiation, he said.

The traps are found in both, but play different roles in each as they capture electrons, he said, and the more radiation received, the more electrons that are captured. And the traps occur without control.

There has not been a systematic investigation of these defects in materials in general, he said.

Sounds like esoteric scientific jargon to the layperson.

But in a nutshell, Jacobsohn is looking to map this process and engineer these traps in the hopes of enhancing the performance of the dosimeters and scintillators.

And better scintillators could mean less radiation in CT scans, he said.

Jan. 27, 2017 - Luiz Jacobsohn, in his lab in Olin Hall, recently won an NSF CAREER award.(Photo: Patrick D. Wright)

CT scans offer detailed images of the inside of the body, allowing doctors to pinpoint the precise location of a tumor in the brain, a blood clot in the lungs or a malfunction in a beating heart.

But they deliver much more radiation than X-rays potentially damaging DNA, leading to fears that they may cause cancer later in life, particularly in children, who are more vulnerable to the effects of radiation.

Research has shown that children and young adults who have multiple CTs have a small increased risk of leukemia and brain tumors one case of leukemia and one brain tumor in the decade following the firsts CT for every 10,000 head CT scans performed on children 10 years of age or younger than would have been expected without any scans, according to the National Cancer Institute.

So something that could reduce the amount of radiation in the scans has the potential to prevent illness and save lives.

By increasing the quality of the detector through a better scintillator, you can decrease the amount of radiation a patient has to go through in CT scans, he said. You can improve accuracy of radiotherapy as well because you know precisely how much radiation is needed.

And these materialsare used for other applications, too.

Because scintillators act like sensors to detect the presence of radioactive materials, they are used to protect the country from the smuggling of nuclear materials across our borders, he said. So a better scintillator couldimprove national security, he said.

Jan. 27, 2017 - Luiz Jacobsohn, in his lab in Olin Hall, recently won an NSF CAREER award.(Photo: Patrick D. Wright)

And understanding the role of the traps, which are detrimental to luminescence, could lead to more efficient lighting and lower energy bills, he said.

In his laboratory, which is equipped with high-temperature, atmospherically controlled furnaces and optical spectrometers, Jacobsohn synthesizes materials, modifies them through thermal processing, measures and analyzes their characteristics, and evaluates their luminescent properties.

Its a great opportunity for students to be exposed to science and to learn, he said, and in this way, prepare themselves for their professional lives.

Jacobsohn's work is supported by a $546,243 grant from the National Science Foundations Faculty Early Career Development Program. He also has plans to develop tools and strategies aimed at introducing materials science and engineering concepts to students atD.W. Daniel High School and McCormick High School.

The NSF CAREER award affirms Dr. Jacobsohns accomplishments as a teacher and a scholar, said Anand Gramopadhye, dean of the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences. It also underscores Clemsons growing strength as a research university, creating jobs and finding solutions to some of the worlds toughest challenges.

Read or Share this story: http://grnol.co/2m1qipe

See the original post:

Clemson researchers work toward brighter future in medicine, security - Greenville News

What it’s like in preventive medicine: Shadowing Dr. Blumenthal – American Medical Association (blog)

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

As a medical student, do you ever wonder what its like to specialize in preventive medicine? Meet Daniel Blumenthal, MD, a preventive medicine and public health specialist and a featured physician in the AMA Wire Shadow Me Specialty Series, which offers advice directly from physicians about life in their specialties. Check out his insights to help determine whether a career in preventive medicine and public health might be a good fit for you.

Shadowing Dr. Blumenthal

Specialty: Public health and general preventive medicine

Practice setting: Academic

Employment type: Medical school

Years in practice: 42 (retired)

A typical day and week in my practice: I was a medical school department chair. Every day was different. Some days, I taught students. Other days, I worked on research projects or manuscripts or saw patients in a neighborhood health center. I had a meeting or two on most days. A typical week was split between teaching, 10 percent; clinical patient care, 10 percent; research, 30 percent; and administration, 50 percent.

The most challenging and rewarding aspects of caring for preventive medicine patients: Most of the time, students and physicians think about patients as individuals who present themselves one at a time to a doctor in an office or a hospital. But in public health, the community is our patient, and we can go about diagnosing and treating the community using much the same thought processes as we do in treating individuals.

I teach students to think about subjective datathe kind you can collect from a survey or a focus group or a key informant interviewand objective data, such as morbidity and mortality statistics. Frequently, the objective data will lead you down a different path from what the subjective data would. Its important to consider all of that and develop an assessment, a problem list, which may be very longmuch longer than it would be for most individual patientsand then a plan for addressing those problems.

Very often, that plan will be something that involves a policy change or a piece of legislation, which might be a law requiring motorcycle riders to wear helmets or a law requiring children to be completely immunized on school entry. Those are the sorts of things that may be very difficult to convince our elected officials are important, and that may be the most difficult part of treating the community as a patient. But there are other difficult parts as well, such as convincing people to eat more vegetables, which would be undertaken on a community-wide basis.

The most rewarding aspects are seeing students graduate with a real understanding of health equity, as well as seeing improvements in health status indices and reductions in disparities.

Three adjectives to describe the typical preventive medicine specialist: Socially conscious. Oriented to the big picture. Curious.

How my lifestyle matches or differs from what I had envisioned in medical school: As a general pediatrician, the rewards had less to do with treating the self-limited diseases and more to do with watching kids grow up. But that had its limits, and I think treating sore throats and stomach aches would have bored me eventually.

Being in public health and preventive medicine has given me the opportunity to do so many different things, including teaching, research and local public health as a county health officer; national public health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); international public health with the World Health Organization; and program development as a medical school department chair. That variety of experiences has kept medicine exciting for me. Also, in public health, you can save more lives than you can ever save as a clinician. You just dont know whose lives they are.

Skills every physician in training should have for preventive medicine but wont be tested for on the board exam: Epidemiology, health education and promotion, and policy development. For academicians, specifically: teaching and research skills.

One question every physician in training should ask themselves before pursuing this specialty: Will I be satisfied taking care of one disease or a small group of related diseases for my whole career, or would I prefer to do a variety of things that affect both individuals and populations?

Books every medical student in preventive medicine should be reading:

Maxcy-Rosenau-Last Public Health and Preventive Medicine, edited by Robert Wallacea general reference text; the equivalent of Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics or Goldman-Cecil Medicine

Annals of Epidemiology, by Berton Rouech, or any other book by Rouech

House on Fire: The Fight to Eradicate Smallpox, by William H. Foege, MD, MPH

The online resource students interested in my specialty should follow: The CDC website.

One quick insight I'd give students who are considering preventive medicine: Do an elective at the CDC, a health department or similar. You might get to do some hands-on epidemiology, gather data on a food-borne illness or other outbreak, or even get involved in taking measures to control an epidemic, such as the Zika virus.

If I had a mantra or song to describe my life in this specialty, it would be: Public health is one manifestation of social justice, so Id pick Blowin in the Wind.

See more here:

What it's like in preventive medicine: Shadowing Dr. Blumenthal - American Medical Association (blog)

UVI’s dream of creating a medical school could be turning into a financial nightmare – Virgin Islands Daily News

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

The current status, or actual lack of status, of the UVI proposed medical school has people in the community talking about the elephant in the room.

Why did UVI take on this dream project without a basic understanding that a community of 105,000 people may not be able to create and sustain it?

UVI has postponed its second attempt at accreditation for the medical school due to, among other things:

No scholarship funding in place to reduce the debt burden of students

Failure to show pipeline programs are in place to ensure student diversity

Faculty and student handbooks are incomplete.

Insufficient support staff had been hired

Failure to raise more than $3 million of the needed $10 million.

Application curriculum committee membership was not consistent with the schools bylaws.

UVI appointed too many full professors to the medical school.

The lack of realistic progress caused the dean of the proposed medical school, Benjamin Sachs, to leave his job and the territory. He was quoted as telling UVI President David Hall that he wasnt doing anything so there was no reason for him to be in the territory.

He pledged to return when the finances are in better shape. He also is not taking a paycheck, to help them financially.

The community doesnt mind our leaders dreaming big. We dont mind having a wish list of things for the future of the Virgin Islands. What the people do mind is taking on projects on a wing and a prayer when the basics arent in place.

In a community that is struggling with its budget on a consistent basis, always seeking funds and taking from Peter to pay Paul, there were more than a few raised eyebrows when the talk of a medical school began.

And now we wonder: What are the ongoing costs and monies spent at this time?

President Hall has said he desnt think the lack of fundraising suggests there is a lack of interest in supporting the medical school. Perhaps he needs to consider his thoughts about the support that he feels is out there for this endeavor.

The community is aware that medical schools work closely with hospitals, and our two hospitals themselves need attention and are in financial difficulty. But for now, isnt funding a medical school a case of throwing good money after bad?

UVI has been making debt service payments on its loan for the medical school, according to President Hall. Shouldnt the university re-think this spending of funds?

Perhaps one day, the Virgin Islands will be on firm footing to push through its dream of a medical school, but now does not appear to be the right time.

Maria Ferreras, St. Thomas

Go here to read the rest:

UVI's dream of creating a medical school could be turning into a financial nightmare - Virgin Islands Daily News

Caribbean medical schools get a second look – The Boston Globe

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

Above Dr. Moazzum Bajwa meets with patient Jos Luis Garcia at the Riverside University Health System Medical Center.

MORENO VALLEY, Calif. Its easy to dismiss the for-profit medical schools that dot many a Caribbean island as scams, set up to woo unqualified students who rack up huge debts, drop out in staggering numbers, and if they make it to graduation end up with an all but worthless degree.

But the schools are determined to change that image. Many are churning out doctors who are eager to work in poor, rural, and underserved communities. Their graduates embrace primary care and family practice, in part because theyre often shut out of training slots for more lucrative specialties.

And they just might help solve an urgent physician shortage in California and beyond.

The deans of two of the Caribbeans medical schools, Ross University School of Medicine in Dominica and American University of the Caribbean in St. Maarten, are on an aggressive campaign to improve their image. Theyve published a series of editorials and letters with titles like Why malign overseas medical students? and have hired the public relations giant Edelman to make the case that their humble, hard-working, compassionate students may be precisely the kinds of physicians that America needs most.

Get Talking Points in your inbox:

An afternoon recap of the days most important business news, delivered weekdays.

Our students have persevered. They havent had all the opportunities in life and they still want to help people, said Dr. Heidi Chumley, dean of the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine. Absolutely, we want to get our story out.

That story is unfolding on the ground in places like Moreno Valley, a city of about 200,000 in Californias Inland Empire, a former agricultural region just east of Los Angeles. Here, the Riverside University Health System Medical Center rises from a stretch of largely undeveloped land once slated for luxury housing. It acts as the countys public safety net for an ethnically diverse and mostly low-income population including patients like retired carpenter Jos Luis Garcia.

On a recent clinic visit, Garcia, 69, was following up on a urinary tract infection and his high blood sugar. He saw Dr. Moazzum Bajwa, 30, a second-year resident and graduate of Ross.

Sitting eye to eye with Garcia, he spoke in a steady stream of Spanish. The visit lasted nearly an hour.

In an attempt to keep his patient off insulin, Bajwa had asked Garcia to improve his diet and to track blood-sugar levels after meals. Nmeros fantsticos! Bajwa exclaimed, looking at the folded sheet of carefully written numbers Garcia had brought to show him.

Bajwa, a former middle school science teacher, then spent 10 minutes drawing a careful diagram to explain to a rapt Garcia exactly why certain foods raised his blood sugar. He then examined Garcia and checked his medical records.

As the visit was ending, Bajwa asked Garcia about stress. Garcia said his wife had recently had surgery for glioblastoma multiforme, one of the most malignant of brain tumors. Wow, Bajwa said quietly as he scanned the medical summary Garcia had handed him. Wow. He sat down again on his low stool.

Lo siento mucho, seor, Bajwa said, clearly moved.

Then he gave Garcia a hug.

This is a very great doctor, Garcia said later, through a translator. Normally, I dont feel important.

Bajwa, a US citizen raised in Michigan and North Carolina, is the grandson of Pakistani Nobel physics laureate Abdus Salam and holds two advanced degrees, in neuroanatomy and public health. But he couldnt get into an American medical school. So he attended Ross.

It was the only school that gave me an opportunity, he said.

There are about 70 medical schools in the Caribbean, most of them established in recent decades and run by for-profit businesses that cater to Americans. These so-called second-chance schools accept students with lower grades and MCAT scores, or sometimes no MCAT score at all. Compared with US medical schools, tuition and dropout rates are higher and class sizes larger. Ross, for example, enrolls more than 900 students per year.

Graduates can practice medicine in the United States after passing their US licensing exams and completing a residency. But the schools have come under fire for generating a stream of students who dont end up as physicians, but do end up with crushing debt because they flunk out or dont win residencies.

One graduate of St. Georges University School of Medicine took a poorly paying job drawing blood to help pay off $400,000 in medical school loans. Another graduate of AUC entered nursing school after failing to get a residency.

Are Caribbean medical schools promising something they cannot fulfill? asked Dr. Glenn Tung, an associate dean at Brown Universitys Warren Alpert Medical School who has studied the schools. What Im concerned about is the cost to the students who dont make it and the cost to the American taxpayer when loans arent repaid.

Illinois Senator Richard Durbin has repeatedly introduced bipartisan legislation to strip the schools of Title IV federal funding for student loans. Three Caribbean medical schools Ross, AUC, and St. Georges took in $450 million in federal funding via student loans in 2012, Durbin said.

These for-profit Caribbean medical schools need to be accountable to their students and to US taxpayers, he said in a statement.

Dean Chumley and Dr. Joseph Flaherty, the dean of Ross, take exception to such criticism.

They acknowledge many for-profit medical schools arent doing a good job training and developing students. But they argue that AUC and Ross, two of the oldest Caribbean schools both owned by the for-profit educational juggernaut DeVry Inc. are creating successful doctors.

Obviously, brains help, but judgment, empathy, intuition, thats all part of it, Flaherty said. Our students are gung-ho.

Just 54 percent of US medical graduates who trained overseas are matched with a residency program in their first year of eligibility. Thats an abysmal record, compared with the 94 percent for graduates of US schools. But Ross and AUC say they have match rates higher than 86 percent. And they say a vast majority of students pass their step 1 licensing exams on the first try.

The schools are also controversial because they buy their way into hospitals to train students. In 2012, Ross inked a contract beating out rival St. Georges University School of Medicine of Grenada to pay $35 million over a decade to the cash-strapped Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield in exchange for the lions share of the hospitals roughly 100 rotation spots for third-year medical students.

Some critics fear such deals will squeeze American-trained students out of rotations; disputes have flared in New York, where St. George paid $100 million for rotation spots, and in Texas, where lawmakers attempted to ban Caribbean students from training in the state.

But Flaherty, Rosss dean, said such deals are a win-win. A struggling hospital gets funds. His school, which has no teaching hospital, gets a place to train students.

The doctors get to know our students and say, These guys are good, he said.

While their numbers are up, its still harder for international medical grads known as IMGs to get residency positions. Theyve heard all the jokes about studying anatomy on the beach with mai tais in hand. But when it comes to residency positions, they are deadly serious.

You have to apply very widely. Theres always a stigma that IMGs dont get as good an education. said Rina Seerke-Teper, 31, a second-year resident who has wanted to be a doctor since she was 6. She graduated from the University of California Berkeley and worked in stem cell research before attending AUC.

Many Caribbean graduates dont even apply to residency programs that are filled only with American trained students. Instead, they look for IMG friendly programs like the family practice residency here, run in a busy clinic housed within the county hospital. The program is highly competitive about 800 applications for 12 positions each year and of the three dozen current residents, 29 studied in a medical school outside the United States.

Competition for the coveted slots is likely to grow even more as California, which just got one new medical school and is slated to soon add another, starts spitting out more locally trained graduates.

California will need an estimated 8,000 additional primary care doctors by 2030. The United States as a whole is projected to need some 30,000 additional primary care physicians in the coming decades.

Dr. Michelle Quiogue works in one of the areas hit hardest by the shortage, rural Kern County. A graduate of a prestigious medical school Brown Universitys Quiogue has worked alongside many foreign-trained doctors and would never know what college they graduated from.

In her mind, the problem is not a lack of medical students but a lack of residency programs to train them. The governor has proposed cutting $100 million for primary care residency training, and her organization, the California Academy of Family Physicians, is scrambling to get it replaced.

I have never heard a patient ask where a physician is trained, said Carly Barruga, a third-year medical student at nearby Loma Linda University who said she is getting excellent training in her rotation here from Caribbean-trained doctors like Dr. Tavinder Singh.

Singh, 30, is chief resident here and a Ross graduate. Singh didnt apply to US medical schools because his MCATs werent as strong as they should have been. He didnt want to wait a year to retake them.

While Singh was once the one begging for a chance, the tables have turned. In a state hungry for family practice physicians, hes now fielding numerous job offers.

For now, though, hes just happy to be practicing medicine. He loves helping patients like Wendy Ocampo, a 19-year-old with limb girdle muscular dystrophy. During an appointment this month, Ocampo came in to see Bajwa with respiratory symptoms.

It was supposed to be a quick visit, but he ended up spending a half-hour with her once he discovered bureaucratic hurdles had left her waiting seven months for the wheelchair she needs for her job and college.

It burns me up that these things are falling through the cracks, said Bajwa, after taking a few minutes to compliment Ocampos impressive new shoes and ask if she was growing out her hair.

Though sick, Ocampo beamed. Honestly, hes great, she said. He calls me to check on me. I have, like, 30 doctors and none of them have ever done that.

See more here:

Caribbean medical schools get a second look - The Boston Globe

Haywood edges Liberty for 15-AA title – Jackson Sun

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

Kevin Odom, USA TODAY NETWORK -- Tennessee Published 10:22 p.m. CT Feb. 20, 2017 | Updated 7 hours ago

Haywood's Markeston Douglas goes over Liberty Tech's Curtis Cross for a block during their game Monday evening.(Photo: KENNETH CUMMINGS/The Jackson Sun)Buy Photo

Haywoods Tristan Jarrett put the Tomcats on his back and carried them to the District 15-AA tournament title with a 55-52 win over Liberty on Monday night in a crowded gymnasium at Liberty Tech.

Jarrett led the Tomcats to victory with 23 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks.

When we (Haywood) lost (Dedric) Boyd for the season, we had to move Tristan to the point and asked him to do a lot for this team, said Haywood coach Kendall Dancy. He makes us go, and he has done a great job in leading this team in the second half of the season.

Both teams played aggressive and effective defense from tip-off to the final whistle, keeping point totals for both teams low.

When you get two teams that play defense like Liberty and ourselves, it can be tough to score points, and that was evident tonight, Dancy said. Liberty is well-coached by Terrell Green, and they get after you.

Tomcat freshman post player Markeston Douglas played a key defensive role under the basket as well. He finished the game with four blocks, but his presence made Liberty players alter their shots around the basket as well. Douglas also had eight points and five rebounds.

Libertyscored four points in the third quarter after battling to a 24-24 halftime tie, which made for a long road to come back in the fourth quarter.But to their credit the Crusaders narrowed the lead to three points at 54-51 but ran out of time.

The Crusaders were led by Shermar Henderson with 14 points (all in the second half) and DJ Bond with 12 points.

Maybe the most impressive thing about the game was the environment in Libertys gym. The stands were packed with fans supporting both teams and enjoying an exciting game.

I can say that Haywood Tomcat fans are the greatest fans in high school basketball. They support us wherever we play, and that is great for these players, said a jubilant Dancy after the game.

Ripley 62, North Side 57: In the consolation game Ripley used a 16-0 run to start the second quarter to pull in front of North Side early and then held on to win third place by five points, 62-57.

Ripleys Famous Jones put on an offensive show with circus moves under the goal and long range 3-pointers as he scored a game-high 29 points.

North Side was led by Alantae Peterson with 13 points.

Haywood's Dillon Dancy celebrates after a successful three-pointer during their game, Monday evening against Liberty Tech.(Photo: KENNETH CUMMINGS/The Jackson Sun)

Haywood's Keithon Powell goes up for a layup during Monday night's game against Liberty Tech.(Photo: KENNETH CUMMINGS/The Jackson Sun)

Haywood's Xavier Walker battles Liberty Tech's Elijah Harris for posession during their game, Monday evening.(Photo: KENNETH CUMMINGS/The Jackson Sun)

Haywood County's Tristan Jarrett dribbles past a Liberty Tech defender during their game, Monday evening.(Photo: KENNETH CUMMINGS/The Jackson Sun)

See the original post:

Haywood edges Liberty for 15-AA title - Jackson Sun

Latest attempt to squelch religious liberty – WND.com

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is a professing atheistic group that is requesting the Air National Guard end the practice of prayers at official ceremonies and other base events as a result of a complaint by a guardsman who contacted them.

A concerned guardsman informed FFRF that ceremonies at the Pease Air National Guard Base regularly have chaplains delivering invocations. These include readings from the bible and references to a Christian god. Attendance at these ceremonies is mandatory for all guardsmen, notes a statement from FFRF.

The FFRF and the guardsman appear to be oblivious that the Constitution does not guarantee them the right not to be offended. If a service member attends an official military ceremony or base event, it would be highly incumbent upon him or her to expect an invocation or reference to a religious sentiment. This does not contravene the Establishment Clause on the First Amendment since military ceremonies and base events are historical, interfaith, and are not publicized as distinctively Christian events.

The FFRF request to end prayers implies that it is constitutional malfeasance to hear military chaplains express their inviolable liberties, which is unwarranted, since service members are not under compulsion or coerced to bow their heads to pray; it is voluntary. If the disgruntled guardsman felt that his constitutional liberties would be violated for attending an event that offers voluntary prayers he is not mandated to participate in, the first step should not have been to contact the Freedom From Religion Foundation, but to seek accommodation, which can be found in the Department of Defense Instruction 1300.17 (4b.):

In accordance with section 533(a)(1) of Public Law 112-239 (Reference (d)), as amended, unless it could have an adverse impact on military readiness, unit cohesion, and good order and discipline, the Military Departments will accommodate individual expressions of sincerely held beliefs (conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs) of Service members in accordance with the policies and procedures in this instruction. This does not preclude disciplinary or administrative action for conduct by a Service member requesting religious accommodation that is proscribed by Chapter 47 of Title 10, United States Code (the Uniform Code of Military Justice), including actions and speech that threaten good order and discipline.

The Wisconsin-based FFRF has also opined that prayers offered by military chaplains at ceremonies and base events create hostile work environments for minority religious and nonreligious guardsmen and are illegal under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Both claims are fallacious. The First Amendment prohibits the government from making any law respecting an establishment of religion, which refers to establishment. A chaplains right to publicly exercise his sincerely held beliefs do not nullify or contravene the Establishment Clause in any way.

When the FFRF asserted that prayers create a hostile work environment, they appear to be creating a straw-man argument, since they do not explicitly articulate a rational argument or evidence on why a historic and interfaith prayer would create a pejorative environment. The FFRF assertions are able to prove one thing the organization does not like God!

A complaint by the FFRF that audaciously requests the Air National Guard end the practice of including prayers at official ceremonies and other base events should cause observers to ponder the groups motives, since its appellation of being a freedom from religion foundation is a construct that is not found anywhere in the Constitution. The FFRFs pithy request is not an attempt to support and defend the Constitution, it is an attempt to eviscerate all sentiments of Christianity simply because they do not like it.

No matter how hard the FFRF tries to remove references to the Lord or feels that it is presumptuous to ask everyone to join in a Christian ceremony, they cannot escape. The FFRF cannot efface themselves from His effectual beauty that surrounds them (Psalm 19:1), or His law that is indelibly engraved in their hearts (Romans 2:15), or nullify the oath every service member is required to take, which requires them to bear true faith and allegiance and to support and defend the Constitution the supreme law of the U.S., which closes with these words:

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the twelfth.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are solely his and do not necessarily represent the views of any government, military, or religious organization. Sonny Hernandez wrote this article as a civilian on his own time on an issue of public interest.

Go here to read the rest:

Latest attempt to squelch religious liberty - WND.com

Liberty nearly erases 18-point deficit but falls to Western Albemarle … – Lynchburg News and Advance

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

BEDFORD Region play is all about weathering the storm.

And for Western Albemarle, the furious tempest came in the form of Shantel Crowder and her Liberty teammates.

We made enough free throws, Western Albemarle coach Kris Wright said.

That may sound like a simple recap, but the Warriors clinched a 49-39 victory at the free-throw line, ending Libertys season in the Region 3A West play-in game here on Monday night.

Liberty (18-6) nearly erased an 18-point deficit. The Minettes trailed 40-22 heading into the fourth quarter. The play-in game looked like itd be a blowout.

But Crowder, banking shots off the glass, brought Liberty roaring back. The Minettes, suddenly playing with a sense of urgency, put together a 17-1 run that culminated with reserve Jessi Bollingers layup with 1:30 remaining.

Something just told us that we had to get it together and come back, said Crowder, who led Liberty with 14 points.

Liberty trailed 43-39 in the final minute and had a chance to cut the deficit to a single possession, when Jerica Thompson (two points) began battling for a loose ball. Whistles cut through the air. One official called a jump ball. Another official overruled that and called a foul on Thompson, giving WA two free throws.

Liberty coach Emilee Dunton was furious over the call and was called for a technical foul. WA hit three of four foul shots to expand the lead to 46-39 with 37 seconds remaining.

One guy ran all the way in with a jump ball and hes the head official of the officials crew and the other guy jumps in and overrides it, Dunton said after the game, pointing out that the possession arrow favored Liberty at the time of Thompsons foul. Yeah, Im gonna jump your bones because weve just fought all the way back, were under our hoop and its life or death in that situation.

Once again, as a young coach I shouldnt have lost my cool, but I feel like it wasnt the right call.

Dunton also emphasized that had the Minettes made their free throws, the result of Mondays game could have been different. Liberty was 7 of 14 from the line on the night. Western Albemarle was 16 of 27.

We make our free throws or we dont turn the ball, then were not in that situation. But Im proud of how the girls fought back and hats off to Western Albemarle, Dunton added. They were able to withstand the run and thats what I told the girls in the locker room is its going to be a game of runs.

Western Albemarle (18-8) received 19 points from Eleri Hayden and 13 from Elizabeth Coffman. Hayden, who capped a splendid night with 11 rebounds and three steals, also knocked down the first set of free throws with 37 seconds left to give the Warriors a 45-39 lead.

I just think a lot of us got hot and started hitting our shots, Hayden said. We had a comfortable lead in the first half and ended up pulling it out.

The score was tied 6-6 at the end of the first quarter. But WA outscored the Minettes 16-5 in the second quarter to take a 22-11 lead at halftime. After being down by 18 points, Liberty outscored the Warriors 17-9 in the final frame.

It was a quarter in which Western Albemarle managed just one field goal, but also rattled home seven of 13 free throws, none bigger than the ones in the final minute by Hayden and Annie Meenan (seven points) that gave the Warriors some breathing room.

They beat us here in the season opener and it was tied with four minutes to go, Wright said. So weve been in this scenario before against each other. So we just tried to hang in there. I might have gotten real nervous had it gotten to be a one possession game but we managed to stay away from that.

For Crowder, a sophomore, the season was a success. Liberty has several underclassmen, like Celeste St. John (seven points), who will return next season.

Once we start getting that chemistry, Crowder said, theres gonna be no stopping us.

Continue reading here:

Liberty nearly erases 18-point deficit but falls to Western Albemarle ... - Lynchburg News and Advance

Liberty, Pine Creek girls’ programs enjoy stress-free seasons, turn page on past turmoil – Colorado Springs Gazette

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Danzig

Caption + Liberty's head coach Kyle Spencer tries to rally his girls. Rampart defeated Liberty 46-41 in girls basketball at Rampart High School on Tuesday, February 7, 2017. photo by Jerilee Bennett, The Gazette

At this time last year, the girls' basketball programs at Liberty and Pine Creek were 5A playoff bound, but with dark clouds overhead.

Both had interim coaches finish seasons after tumult at each school.

This week, a pair of first-year coaches, Kyle Spencer at Liberty and Janean Jubic at Pine Creek, lead their respective squads into the postseason after drama-free campaigns that have allowed scars to heal.

"There's a lot more positivity now, and that translates through and we get good play out of it," said junior Morgan Sibley, whose No. 30-seeded Lancers (13-10) host No. 35 Eaglecrest (9-14) at 7 p.m. Tuesday. "Any stuff that was going on is gone now, and we don't have that issue anymore. It's a team effort now."

The Lancers made history last February, winning the program's first playoff game since 2008 under junior varsity coach Monty Taylor, who assumed interim duties after Mike Broekhuis resigned earlier in the month.

In early May, Rye native and former Otero Junior College women's basketball coach Spencer was selected to take over the reins and led Liberty to its most regular-season wins in more than a decade.

"When I came in, the group that was here was really hungry for success, regardless of what had happened in the past," Spencer said. "They just wanted a chance to do great things. I'm blessed with great kids that want to show up and play hard every day."

Jubic, who didn't arrive at Pine Creek until mid-July, inherited a senior-heavy team that went 20-5 a season ago but was stunned by the sudden resignation of first-year coach Kenny VanRyn just three days before the team's playoff opener.

On Friday, the 13th-seeded Eagles (17-6) host either Poudre or Mountain View in a second-round contest with a much different outlook and perspective under Jubic's lead.

"After last year, a lot of us were broken," senior forward Spencer Lindsey said. "The new staff has been healing to us. We're all family. This has been a good experience coming back from last year. Now, I think we're better prepared to be successful in the playoffs."

Through it all, Jubic insists that persevering through adversity indeed builds character that extends well beyond the basketball court.

"These kids are better for it," said Jubic, who played college basketball at Colorado-Colorado Springs and Colorado Christian before serving as an assistant at CSU-Pueblo and Air Force. "They have that life experience that a lot of high school students don't have to go through. It has been a challenging year, but I think we're ready."

Original post:

Liberty, Pine Creek girls' programs enjoy stress-free seasons, turn page on past turmoil - Colorado Springs Gazette

Select Page ::