East Sea: Are artificial islands more dangerous than oil rigs? – News VietNamNet

VietNamNet Bridge Though it is slow and difficult to identify, Chinas strategy of building artificial islands in the South China Sea (Bien Dong Sea East Sea) is dangerous because of its strategic value and the ability to change face that benefits China once the island chain is fully developed .

The "abrasive" move and China's long-term attempt

China conducts illegal construction activities on Gac Ma (Johnson South Reef) of the Truong Sa Archipelago (Spratly Islands) of Vietnam. Photo: Armed Forces of the Philippines/BBC.

Chinas East Sea policy has a clear delineation between short term and long term.

The strategy to maintain a continuous presence in the undisputed waters to gradually turn them into disputed areas has been resolutely pursued by Beijing. The 981 oil rig incident is a typical example. China used this oil rig as a "mobile sovereignty landmark " to maintain its presence in the undisputed waters, even in the areas that are completely within the exclusive economic zone of its neighboring countries.

The objective of turning from "no dispute" to "dispute", from "theirs" to "ours", have been implemented in accordance with the motto of the Chinese people, "What is mine is mine, what's yours, we can negotiate."

Along with that move, Chinas strengthening and expansion of the construction of artificial islands has shown their long-term strategic calculations in the East Sea. The 981 oil rig is a pretty risky move, but it is substantially easier to manage and attract the support of the international community for a small country like Vietnam. Meanwhile, though it takes place slowly and is difficult to identify, the artificial island building strategy is more dangerous.

Another way to evaluate Chinas East Sea strategy is through changes of targets in certain stages. These are intentional changes. We will see the same thing when considering China's maritime strategy from 2009 to present. For example, how could China say that the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) - signed in 2002 and the guidelines for implementing the DOC signed in 2011 would be the lodestar navigation of the parties, when the use of force is still a key tool in Beijing's policy.

Currently, what we can see most clearly in China's steps are the consistency of the overall goal to increase the ability to control the entire East Sea. What is not clear is the specific objectives and tasks that every single department of China will perform.

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East Sea: Are artificial islands more dangerous than oil rigs? - News VietNamNet

Baylor College of Medicine scientist identify a novel precursor to neurodegeneration

HOUSTON -- (Jan. 15, 2015) - Alteration of lipid metabolism in brain cells promotes the formation of lipid droplets that presage the loss of neurons, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children's Hospital in a report that appears online in the journal Cell.

Neuroscience graduate student Lucy Liu, and Dr. Hugo Bellen, professor of molecular and human genetics, neuroscience, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and director of the Graduate Program in Developmental Biology at Baylor connected the presence of lipid droplet accumulation in the glia of specific mutants as a harbinger of neurodegeneration.

Fruit fly genetics

The Bellen lab uses fruit fly mutants of evolutionarily conserved genes that lead to neurodegeneration in human patients to dissect the molecular mechanisms that underlie the demise of neurons. The fruit flies carry mutations in genes that have human homologs that cause Leigh syndrome, Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 2A2 and ARSAL (autosomal recessive spastic ataxia with leukoencephalopathy). All of these mutations affect the function of the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell.

Lipid droplets and energy

Lipid droplets are organelles that serve as energy storage depots. They accumulate in the brain support cells (glia) when defects in the mitochondria of neurons lead to elevated levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Working with three independent fruit fly models and a mouse model, Liu et al., revealed a novel pathway leading to this accumulation through the inappropriate activation of two proteins: c-Jun-N-terminal Kinase (JNK) and Sterol Regulatory Element Binding Protein (SREBP). These lipid droplets accumulate in glial cells before signs of neurodegeneration appeared.

"This is the first documentation of lipid droplet accumulation in glial cell" said Liu, first author of the study. The authors show that elevated reactive oxygen species in the neurons promotes synthesis of lipids leading to the formation of lipid droplets in glia. This accumulation affects the glia's ability to support the neurons when the lipid droplets become peroxidated, completing a negative feedback loop.

Not enough for neurodegeneration

"ROS or lipid droplets alone do not lead to the rapid onset of neurodegeneration," said Bellen, senior author on the study. "The synergism of ROS with lipid droplets is key. Reducing one or the other delays neurodegeneration."

Upon further investigation, Liu and her colleagues showed that reducing many of the components of this pathway can delay neurodegeneration. For example, treatments with a blood-brain-barrier penetrating antioxidant delay the onset of neurodegeneration in flies and mice developed by their collaborator Dr. Albert Quintana at University of Washington in Seattle.

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Baylor College of Medicine scientist identify a novel precursor to neurodegeneration

Discovery of CLPB gene associated with a new pediatric mitochondrial syndrome

Kansas City, Mo. -- January 15, 2015 -- A new study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics demonstrates the continued important contributions from the Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo. The study describes a new pediatric mitochondrial syndrome and discovery of the responsible gene, called CLPB. Dr. Carol Saunders and her team partnered with collaborators in Denmark to report their collective findings based on gene mapping and exome sequencing in five children with CLPB-related disease. These patients had strikingly similar clinical findings including cataracts, severe psychomotor regression during febrile episodes, epilepsy, neutropenia with frequent infections, urinary excretion of 3-methylglutaconic aciduria, and death in early childhood.

"This research once again highlights the power of genomic medicine in the diagnosis and discovery of rare pediatric conditions," said Saunders, clinical laboratory director of the Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine "In this case, we have identified one of the many genes, CLPB, involved in mitochondrial diseases. These findings emphasize the importance of basic research into the characterization of human CPLB gene function and will pave the way for the diagnosis of other patients."

The Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine at Children's Mercy was the first genome center in the world inside a children's hospital, and the center's STAT-Seq test for critically ill newborns was one of TIME magazine's Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2012. Learn more at http://www.childrensmercy.org/genomics.

About Children's Mercy Kansas City

Children's Mercy, located in Kansas City, Mo., is one of the nation's top pediatric medical centers. The 354-bed, not-for-profit hospital provides care for children from birth through the age of 21, and has been ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of "America's Best Children's Hospitals." For the third time in a row, Children's Mercy has achieved Magnet nursing designation, awarded to fewer than seven percent of all hospitals nationally, for excellence in quality care. Its faculty of 600 pediatricians and researchers across more than 40 subspecialties are actively involved in clinical care, pediatric research, and educating the next generation of pediatric subspecialists.

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FOR INTERVIEWS WITH DR. CAROL SAUNDERS, CONTACT JAKE JACOBSON AT JAJACOBSON@CMH.EDU

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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Discovery of CLPB gene associated with a new pediatric mitochondrial syndrome

Paul Pepper: MU Health Care, "Asthma" & Chris Fitzgerald, Clean Sweep Columbia – Video


Paul Pepper: MU Health Care, "Asthma" Chris Fitzgerald, Clean Sweep Columbia
Today Paul Pepper chats with PAUL FOREMAN, MU Health Care, about asthma: the who, the what, the why and the risk factors. If you think you have asthma, please watch this interview! At [5:03]...

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Countryside Veterinary Clinic Check Ups Ellicott City MD – Video


Countryside Veterinary Clinic Check Ups Ellicott City MD
Regular checkups are an important part of your pet #39;s health care, and at Countryside Veterinary Clinic, we #39;re here to provide the best and most comprehensive exams in town. We #39;ll make sure...

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Ilana – Video


Ilana
Turning Point Behavioral Health Care Center staff and supporters share their mental health self-care tips for feeling more peaceful, or changing perspective on a difficult situation.

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Universal health care still at risk: King

Health Minister Sussan Ley has left the door open for more changes to planned Medicare reforms after dumping a controversial GP rebate.

Ms Ley - who late last year replaced Peter Dutton in the job - has scrapped plans to cut a Medicare rebate for short GP visits, abandoning an estimated $1.3 billion in planned savings. Just before Christmas, the government dumped a $7 co-payment measure for GP visits.

She says the government is still committed to a $5 cut to Medicare rebates for general patients from July 1, and a freeze on Medicare rebate indexation through to mid-2018.

But the minister has promised to consult widely on health reform, and doctors still have concerns about both those measures, particularly the $5 co-payment.

"Look, it is still government policy. That doesn't mean I'm not keen to hear people's views about it," she told the ABC on Friday.

"I will be working with them in how we refine programs the details of the co-payment, but the principle of the co-payment is sound."

Ms Ley, who has begun setting up meetings with key crossbenchers and the Greens, believes her consultation process will result in a solid plan to ensure the viability of Medicare.

"The overarching principle, for me, will be: we protect bulk-billing, we maintain and improve high-quality care, we put that price ceiling into health and we make Medicare sustainable for the long term."

Medicare is not now sustainable, with the levy raising around $10 billion while the cost is $20 billion, she said.

Ms Ley does not believe that simply raising the levy is the answer to solving structural issues in Medicare.

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Universal health care still at risk: King

Scientists Spot Mutation Behind Genetic Form of Heart Failure

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 14, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have uncovered a major genetic risk for heart failure -- a mutation affecting a key muscle protein that makes the heart less elastic.

The mutation increases a person's risk of dilated cardiomyopathy. This is a form of heart failure in which the walls of the heart muscle are stretched out and become thinner, enlarging the heart and impairing its ability to pump blood efficiently, a new international study has revealed.

The finding could lead to genetic testing that would improve treatment for people at high risk for heart failure, according to the report published Jan. 14 in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

The mutation causes the body to produce shortened forms of titin, the largest human protein and an essential component of muscle, the researchers said in background information.

"We found that dilated cardiomyopathy due to titin truncation is more severe than other forms and may warrant more proactive therapy," said study author Dr. Angharad Roberts, a clinical research fellow at Imperial College London. "These patients could benefit from targeted screening of heart rhythm problems and from implantation of an internal cardiac defibrillator."

About 5.1 million people in the United States suffer from heart failure. One in nine deaths of Americans include heart failure as a contributing cause. And about half of people who develop heart failure die within five years of diagnosis, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In this study, researchers studied more than 5,200 people, including both healthy people and people suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy. The researchers performed genetic sequencing on all these people, examining the specific gene that the body uses to create titin.

Prior research had found that genetically shortened titin is the major genetic cause of dilated cardiomyopathy, accounting for about 25 percent of severe cases, according to the paper.

However, there are numerous mutations of the titin gene and many never lead to heart failure, so the researchers focused on those variations that occur most often in people with dilated cardiomyopathy.

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Scientists Spot Mutation Behind Genetic Form of Heart Failure

Century-old drug reverses autism-like symptoms in fragile X mouse model

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) affect 1 to 2 percent of children in the United States. Hundreds of genetic and environmental factors have been shown to increase the risk of ASD. Researchers at UC San Diego School of Medicine previously reported that a drug used for almost a century to treat trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, reversed environmental autism-like symptoms in mice.

Now, a new study published in this week's online issue of Molecular Autism, suggests that a genetic form of autism-like symptoms in mice are also corrected with the drug, even when treatment was started in young adult mice.

The underlying mechanism, according to Robert K. Naviaux, MD, PhD, the new study's principal investigator and professor of medicine at UC San Diego, is a phenomenon he calls the cellular danger response (CDR). When cells are exposed to danger in the form of a virus, infection, toxin, or even certain genetic mutations, they react defensively, shutting down ordinary activities and erecting barriers against the perceived threat. One consequence is that communication between cells is reduced, which the scientists say may interfere with brain development and function, leading to ASD.

Researchers treated a Fragile X genetic mouse model, one of the most commonly studied mouse models of ASD, with suramin, a drug long used for sleeping sickness. The approach, called antipurinergic therapy or APT, blocked the CDR signal, allowing cells to restore normal communication and reversing ASD symptoms.

"Our data show that the efficacy of APT cuts across disease models in ASD. Both the environmental and genetic mouse models responded with a complete, or near complete, reversal of ASD symptoms," Naviaux said. "APT seems to be a common denominator in improving social behavior and brain synaptic abnormalities in these ASD models."

Weekly treatment with suramin in the Fragile X genetic mouse model was started at nine weeks of age, roughly equivalent to 18 years in humans. Metabolite analysis identified 20 biochemical pathways associated with symptom improvements, 17 of which have been reported in human ASD. The findings of the six-month study also support the hypothesis that disturbances in purinergic signaling - a regulator of cellular functions, and mitochondria (prime regulators of the CDR) - play a significant role in ASD.

Naviaux noted that suramin is not a drug that can be used for more than a few months without a risk of toxicity in humans. However, he said it is the first of its kind in a new class of drugs that may not need to be given chronically to produce beneficial effects. New antipurinergic medicines, he said, might be given once or intermittently to unblock metabolism, restore more normal neural network function, improve resilience and permit improved development in response to conventional, interdisciplinary therapies and natural play.

"Correcting abnormalities in a mouse is a long way from a cure in humans," cautioned Naviaux, who is also co-director of the Mitochondrial and Metabolic Disease Center at UC San Diego, "but our study adds momentum to discoveries at the crossroads of genetics, metabolism, innate immunity, and the environment for several childhood chronic disorders. These crossroads represent new leads in our efforts to understand the origins of autism and to develop treatments for children and adults with ASD."

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Co-authors include Jane C. Naviaux, Lin Wang, Kefeng Li, A. Taylor Bright, William A. Alaynick, Kenneth R. Williams and Susan B. Powell, all at UC San Diego.

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Century-old drug reverses autism-like symptoms in fragile X mouse model

What drives killers like the Ottawa or Paris attackers?

IMAGE:Violence and Gender is the only peer-reviewed journal focusing on the understanding, prediction, and prevention of acts of violence. Through research papers, roundtable discussions, case studies, and other... view more

Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

New Rochelle, NY, January 15, 2015-Zehaf-Bibeau, the Islamist convert who recently killed a Canadian military reservist on duty in Ottawa, Canada, represents a type of attacker rarely discussed--a person so obsessed with an overvalued idea that it defines their identity and leads them to commit violence without regard for the consequences. Although it appears that the assailants in Paris had more ties with terrorist organizations, the individuals still fit the description of people acting on overvalued ideas. This emerging, and likely growing phenomenon is explored in the article, published in the Perspectives section of the journal, "Lone Wolf Killers: A Perspective on Overvalued Ideas," published in the peer-reviewed journal Violence and Gender, from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

The article is available free on the Violence and Gender website.

Author Matthew H. Logan, PhD, a 28-year veteran officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), as well as an RCMP Criminal Investigative Psychologist (ret.), Ontario, Canada, explains that these killers do not always work alone, stating that "in the future I believe we will see more 'packs' of these wolves as they unite on common beliefs and themes."

"The violence we witnessed in Paris just days ago shook the world," says Violence and Gender Editor-in-Chief Mary Ellen O'Toole, PhD, Forensic Behavioral Consultant and Senior FBI Profiler/Criminal Investigative Analyst (ret.). "It was coldblooded, purposeful, and seemingly without remorse, driven by a unique self-righteous ideation of the killers. Dr. Matt Logan explains the 'motivating mindset' of young male offenders, sometimes loners and sometimes part of a group, whose 'overvalued ideas' combined with their own psychopathology is what motivates them to engage in this type of terror. 'Overvalued ideas do not constitute mental illness,' according to Dr. Logan, which makes this senseless, savage violence seem even more chilling and despicable."

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About the Journal

Violence and Gender is the only peer-reviewed journal focusing on the understanding, prediction, and prevention of acts of violence. Through research papers, roundtable discussions, case studies, and other original content, the Journal critically examines biological, genetic, behavioral, psychological, racial, ethnic, and cultural factors as they relate to the gender of perpetrators of violence. Led by Editor-in-Chief Mary Ellen O'Toole, PhD, Forensic Behavioral Consultant and Senior FBI Profiler/Criminal Investigative Analyst (ret.), Violence and Gender explores the difficult issues that are vital to threat assessment and prevention of the epidemic of violence. Violence and Gender is published quarterly online with Open Access options and in print, and is the official journal of The Avielle Foundation. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Violence and Gender website.

About the Publisher

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What drives killers like the Ottawa or Paris attackers?

Digital Ethics and the future of humanity. Gerd Leonhard Futurist Keynote Speaker TedXBrussels – Video


Digital Ethics and the future of humanity. Gerd Leonhard Futurist Keynote Speaker TedXBrussels
The complete video of my talk at at http://www.tedxbrussels.eu/ Thanks to the team for making this available! Original version at http://youtu.be/bZn0IfOb61U See http://www.futuristgerd.com/2014/...

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