NASA Super Guppy jet makes rare stop in Mesa

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NASAs enormous Super Guppy cargo plane made a rare visit to Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport on Dec. 10.(Photo: Parker Leavitt/The Republic)

With a size and body more reminiscent of a whale than a tiny aquarium fish, NASA's Super Guppy plane made a rare stop at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport on Dec. 10, drawing a crowd of spectators and photographers.

The massive, oddly-shaped cargo plane touched down in Mesa for about an hour on its way from Long Beach, Calif. The plane was carrying a "large wing part" headed to Langley Field in Virginia, airport officials said.

"This is absolutely amazing," San Tan Valley resident Kristen Young said shortly after the aircraft landed at around 11:30 a.m. "It's huge. I wasn't expecting it to be this big."

Young and several other moms from the Queen Creek Stroller Strides club brought their toddlers to the airport for an up-close glimpse of the plane. The group often visits the the airport for picnics while watching planes come in.

NASA's Guppy planes were developed in 1962 and played an instrumental role in support of the agency's Apollo program, which took the first humans to the moon in 1969.

The Super Guppy that landed at Gateway Airport is the last of its kind still in use, while several others are on display around the world. This was the plane's second visit to Mesa in the last 20 years, having also landed here last March.

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Buckle up for more big news from InSPACE's nano-world

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19 hours ago by Mike Giannone European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne, Expedition 20 flight engineer, performs another two runs of the InSPACE-2 study, activating the Microgravity Science Glovebox and powering on the hardware in the Columbus module of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

They say good things come in small packages; sometimes so do exciting new discoveries.

From research into things that are one-billionth of a meter in size, near limitless engineering applications could result. Known as nano-particles, understanding these tiny items could result in new materials and manufacturing models, better energy producing systems, improved or new mechanical systems, enhanced films, fiber optics and other soft materials.

The Structure of Paramagnetic Aggregates from Colloidal Emulsions (InSPACE) series of experiments on the International Space Station explored nano-particles suspended in Magnetorheolocial (MR) fluidsa type of smart fluid that tends to self-assemble into shapes in the presence of a magnetic field. InSPACE research is supported by NASA's Space Life and Physical Sciences Division, which oversees space station research into basic and applied scientific studies in life and physical sciences.

Emerging from the InSPACE-2 investigation are findings that clarify details, confirm facts and sometimes surprise researchers.

The article titled 'Buckling Instability of Self-Assembled Colloidal Columns', published in the American Physical Society's Physical Review Letters on Sept. 26, 2014, is just the latest paper written by InSPACE researchers based on space station experiments. It explains the unexpected bucking phenomenon first observed in InSPACE-2.

When exposed to magnetic fields, MR fluids can transition into a nearly solid-like state. When the magnetic field is removed, the fluids disassemble and buckle. While the disassembling was expected, the buckling was something that surprised Eric Furst, Ph.D, principal investigator and a 20-plus-year veteran of colloidal research.

"We had never seen anything like this buckling in ground-based experiments," said Furst, of the University of Delaware, Newark.

Buckling is seenand properly designed to avoidin buildings and mechanical devices. However, this property had not been observed in MR fluids or more generally, in colloidal soft matter systems before now.

"There's a growing interest in buckling phenomena in terms of manipulating, in particular, soft materials," said Furst. "Whether we want to induce bucking or not, I'm not sure. That's the engineering question we have in front of us. What can we do with this really beautiful, physical, fundamental result?"

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UHAA announces 2015 honorees

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The University of Houston Alumni Association (UHAA) has announced its 2015 Alumni Awards recipients, which include nationally and locally prominent leaders in their fieldsfrom CEOs to radio and television personalities as well as individuals who have a history of service to the University and community. Honorees will be recognized at the 61st Annual Awards Gala on May 2, 2015, at the Westin Houston, Memorial City.

Distinguished Alumni Awards are given to individuals whose professional accomplishments bring prestige to the University. Five people are being honored in 2015:

Aylwin Lewis (76, M.B.A. 90) is the president and chief executive officer of Potbelly Corp. and is a board member at the Walt Disney Co. and Starwood Hotels and Resorts.

Bill Worrell (69) is in his 32nd season as the play-by-play announcer for the Houston Rockets. In 2011, he was honored with a Lone Star Emmy for best play-by-play announcer.

Rushion McDonald (83) is the executive producer of the Emmy-winning Steve Harvey Show. He is a co-founder of the Neighborhood Awards show (formerly the Hoodie Awards), a tribute to the best leaders and organizations in local neighborhoods throughout the nation. McDonald was listed as one of Showtime Networks top 50 U.S. comedians for three consecutive years.

Ken Bailey (69, J.D. 72) is a founding partner of the civil litigation law firm Bailey Peavy Bailey, PLLC. While at the University of Houston, he was the starting quarterback during the 1967-1969 seasons and, in 1968, was a recipient of the Charles Saunders Award for an Outstanding Athlete. He has held numerous volunteer positions, which include serving on the UH Law Centers Law Foundation Board and co-chairing the UH Athletics Director Search Committee in 2009.

Dominic Ng (80) is chairman and chief executive officer of East West Bancorp Inc. and East West Bank. His numerous volunteer positions include director and former chairman of the Committee of 100 Inc., member of the University of Southern Californias board of trustees, committee member on the Resnick Institute advisory council at the California Institute of Technology, member of the Bowers Museum board of governors, and board member of the Southern California Asia Society Inc.

The 2015 UHAA Distinguished Service Award recipient is Laurie Rutherford (86, M.B.A. 91, M.S. 04), director of Enterprise Risk Management at CenterPoint Energy. This award is given to UHAA Life Members who are set apart by a history of service to the association and University. Rutherford serves as president of the UH CenterPoint Energy Alumni Association and is a former member of the Houston Cougars womens basketball team.

John T. McNabb and Drue DaSilva (93, M.S. 99) have been named Outstanding Volunteer Award recipients. The Outstanding Volunteer Award recognizes alumni and University supporters who exemplify a spirit of volunteerism to advance UHAAs mission. McNabb is chairman and chief executive officer of the Willbros Group, as well as senior advisor and former vice chairman of corporate finance at Duff and Phelps Corp. He is a former member and chairman of the deans advisory board at the University of Houstons C.T. Bauer College of Business, where he developed and taught a course in leadership. DaSilva is manager of inside sales at ShoreGroup and is an active volunteer with many alumni organizations including Moores School of Music, the University of Houstons College of Technology and Chi Omega.

Sports journalist and ESPN anchor Robert Flores (92) has been named UHAAs Rising Star, which honors motivated young alumni who have excelled beyond the norm early in their careers. Flores hosts ESPN2s Fantasy Football Now and is co-host of SportsCenters Top 10 of the Month on ESPN.

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Old Crow Medicine Show – "8 Dogs 8 Banjos" | Live at the Grand Ole Opry | Opry – Video

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Old Crow Medicine Show - "8 Dogs 8 Banjos" | Live at the Grand Ole Opry | Opry
Old Crow Medicine Show performs "8 Dogs 8 Banjos" live at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. 2014 Grand Ole Opry, LLC Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubscribeOpry Get Tickets:...

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Old Crow Medicine Show - "8 Dogs 8 Banjos" | Live at the Grand Ole Opry | Opry - Video

Nuclear medicine treatment shows promise for cancer therapy

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9-Dec-2014

Contact: Kimberly Brown kbrown@snmmi.org 703-652-6773 Society of Nuclear Medicine @SNM_MI

Reston, Va. (December 9, 2014) - Cancer therapy can be much more effective using a new way to customize nuclear medicine treatment, researchers say in the December 2014 issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. The process could also be useful for other diseases that could benefit from targeted radiation.

Targeted therapy with radiopharmaceuticals--radioactive compounds used in nuclear medicine for diagnosis or treatment--has great potential for the treatment of cancer, especially for cancer cells that have migrated from primary tumors to lymph nodes and secondary organs such as bone marrow. These disseminated tumor cells can be difficult to treat with a single targeting agent because there are dramatic differences in the number of targetable receptors on each cell.

In the study, breast cancer cells were treated with different concentrations of a cocktail of four fluorochrome-conjugated monoclonal antibodies. The amount of each antibody bound to each cell was determined using flow cytometry. Formulas were developed to "arm" the antibodies with the desired radionuclide and activity, calculate the absorbed dose to each cell, and perform a simulation of the surviving fraction of cells after exposure to cocktails of different antibody combinations. Simulations were performed for three alpha-particle emitters.

"Our approach moves radiation treatment planning for cancer therapy from the tumor level to the molecular and cellular level, with nuclear medicine serving as the treatment engine," stated Roger Howell, Ph.D., lead researcher. "The concepts are not restricted to cancer therapy but can be applied more widely to other diseases that may benefit from a targeted approach with cocktails of radiopharmaceuticals. The approach can also be extended to cocktails consisting of radiopharmaceuticals and non-radioactive agents."

The effect of the radiopharmaceutical cocktails was compared to that of single antibodies. In certain activities, cocktails outperformed single antibodies by a factor of up to 244. These findings suggest that targeted alpha therapy can be improved with customized radiolabeled antibody cocktails. Depending on the antibody combination and specific activity of the radiolabeled antibodies, cocktails can provide a substantial advantage in tumor cell killing. The methodology used in this analysis provides a foundation for pretreatment prediction of tumor cell survival in the context of personalized cancer therapy.

"This method is preferable, as it accounts for behavior of the drugs in the patient's body," Howell continues. "The beauty of either approach for planning a treatment is that the patient is not subjected to any radiopharmaceutical injections during the planning phase, which uses only fluorescent-labeled drugs. The patient is not injected with radiopharmaceuticals until the treatment phase, whereupon only a cocktail specifically optimized for that individual is administered. This spares the patient from receiving ineffective cocktails that may damage normal tissues and prevent further treatment."

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Where Doctors Train May Affect Whether They Practice Expensive Medicine

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TUESDAY, Dec. 9, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Doctors who were trained in high-cost areas of the United States may be more likely to practice expensive medicine, a new study suggests.

However, that effect gradually decreases over time.

Researchers from George Washington University analyzed Medicare claims data from doctors who completed their residencies between 1992 and 2010. They found that those who did their medical training in more expensive regions of the country spent an average of 29 percent more on patient care than those who did their training in less expensive regions.

"Evidence suggests that there is wide variation in Medicare spending, with higher spending associated with more inpatient-based and specialist-oriented care," study senior author Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan, professor of medicine and health policy at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington, said in a university news release.

"A number of studies also show that higher spending for health care doesn't necessarily lead to better outcomes," Mullan added.

In the study, the unadjusted average spending of doctors who trained in high-spending areas was $1,847 more per Medicare patient. When adjusted for patient, doctor and community factors, the spending was about $522 more per patient.

The difference in spending was strongest among doctors who had recently completed their residency program. Within seven years after completing training, doctors trained in high-spending regions spent an average of $2,434 more per patient than those who trained in lower-spending regions.

Spending differences linked to doctors' training locations were no longer evident 16 to 19 years after completing their residency, according to the researchers.

Study author Dr. Candice Chen said, "Communities that recruit physicians who have trained in areas where more health care services are the norm will practice more expensive medicine but not necessarily produce better health outcomes." Chen conducted the research while an assistant research professor at Milken, which is based in Washington, D.C.

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Hopkins medical students participate in "die in"

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About 150 medical students participated in a "die in" demonstration outside Johns Hopkins School of Medicine on Wednesday to protest police brutality in Baltimore and across the nation.

About 150 medical students participated in a "die in" demonstration outside Johns Hopkins School of Medicine on Wednesday to protest police brutality in Baltimore and across the nation.

Wearing white lab coats, the students lined up outside the Anne and Mike Armstrong Medical Education Building in the 1600 block of McElderry St. in East Baltimore at noon and shouted "If I can't breathe, you can't breathe." Following a short speech by an event organizer, the students laid out on the sidewalk surrounding the medical school for four-and-a-half silent minutes, representing in minutes the hours it took for St. Louis area medical examiners to retrieve the body of 18-year-old Michael Brown from a street in Ferguson, Mo., after he was fatally shot by police in August.

"This is a health problem," said event organizer and doctor Manisha Sharma, saying police need to be held more accountable for unnecessary killings and excessive uses of force in the same way doctors are held accountable for malpractice.

Tania Haag, a Hopkins medical student and demonstration organizer, said students are becoming more and more aware of the inequity that exists within the medical and justice system in how the poor are treated, and she said Wednesday's demonstration was meant to highlight that gap.

"You have to be aware that different access to care exists," she said.

The "die in" was held in concert with medical schools across the United States, which held similar protests. Wednesday was also International Human Rights Day.

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Medical students across U.S. hold 'die-ins' to protest racism

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SACRAMENTO, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- White-coated medical students from Harvard to the University of California held "die-ins" Wednesday to protest the deaths of unarmed black men and racism in health care.

The National White Coat Die-In involved scores of medical schools across the United States.

Lucy Ogbu Nwobodo, one of the organizers of the protest at the UC Davis Medical School in Sacramento, said the national discussion of the shooting of Michael Williams in Ferguson, Mo., and the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York "have affected all of us."

"We decided to come together as one voice to speak up about these issues," Nwobodo told Capital Public Radio. "We believe that because it affects our patients outside of the hospital it's just as important as what we see in the medical clinics."

At Yale in New Haven, Conn., medical students spent 4 1/2 minutes lying on the ground, a minute for each hour Williams' body remained on the street, and then, like Garner, shouted "I can't breathe." Jessica Minor, a medical student, said the protest was also aimed at the under-representation of minorities and women in medical school.

At the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, protesters stopped traffic. About 100 students blocked Walnut Street by lying down.

"Protecting the citizens of this country is something that I've been doing since I got out of the military," Michael Spinnato, a first-year student at Penn, told KYW-TV.

Philadelphia has one of the biggest clusters of medical schools in the country, and each held their own demonstration.

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Tufts, Boston Medical Center talk merger

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Tufts Medical Center and Boston Medical Center two large Hub teaching hospitals are considering a blockbuster merger in what would be the latest in a string of high-profile hospital mega-unions in the Bay State.

Tufts Medical Center is currently engaged in discussions to explore a partnership with Boston Medical Center, Tufts spokeswoman Brooke Hynes said in a statement last night. Like Tufts MC, BMC is an outstanding academic medical center backed by an exceptional medical school and university.

Hynes declined to discuss specifics of the deal, including how close the two sides are to signing an agreement.

BMC, a 496-bed hospital, has one of the citys busiest trauma centers and holds a teaching affiliation with Boston University School of Medicine.

Tufts is a Chinatown hospital with 415 beds that in 2012 performed more heart transplants than any other hospital in Massachusetts. It also includes the Floating Hospital for Children and has a teaching affiliation with Tufts University School of Medicine.

Our organizations share a commitment to high quality, lower cost health care and to serving every patient with the greatest respect and compassion, Hynes said. Bringing our strengths together could be very powerful and meaningful, and we look forward to continuing our conversations with BMC.

BMC spokeswoman Melissa Monahan noted both are Hub hospitals that share a commitment to teaching and research.

There is more work we need to do before making a decision, but our conversations to date suggest the combination of our organizations could strengthen our missions to provide the highest-quality care to patients for many years to come, Monahan said.

With Tufts MC we have recognized that the combination of our individual strengths could create a partnership uniquely positioned to improve health care in Massachusetts, she added.

The mega-deal comes on the heels of Tufts acquisition of Lowell General Hospital, which was completed in October, and in response to other huge hospital consolidations.

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Wearing lab coats, medical students die-in

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Roughly 70 members of the Yale School of Medicine and Yale School of Public Health communities, clad in traditional white lab coats, lay down in front of the medical school for four a half minutes today after assembling at noon.

The demonstration was part of the nationwide protests against the shooting of Michael Brown and choking of Eric Garner at the hands of police earlier this year. But this demonstration, part of White Coat Die-Ins held at medical schools across the country, also emphasizedthe effect of systemic racial inequalities on health outcomes for minorities.

This is not just a political issue, said Jessica Minor MED 22 GRD 22, the student who organized the event. This is a public health issue. And, above all, this is a human rights issue.

We talk about mortality, and we talk about risk, Minor continued. Being black is a risk. Its something we cant deny, and its what this movement is asserting.

The nationwide White Coat Die-In was set to occur at 12 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, but students chose to move it to midday, when people are out for their lunch break, to increase the protests visibility, Minor said.

Robert Rock MED 17, who joined the die-in, said that it is important that future healthcare providers are trained and cognizant of how systemic racism can play out in patient-provider interactions and create health disparities. Among those disparities, he said, are the differences in cancer diagnosis rates between minority and non-minority patients.

If you step back fromthat explicit event [the shooting of Michael Brown] and look atthe situation in verycongested urban areas where minorities live, its very much a health issue, Rock said.

Ignacio Cerdena MED 18, who participated in the die-in, added that simply living in intensely policed areas can result in post-traumatic stress disorder-like symptoms, which can be passed on for generations.

While the attendees of the demonstration came from a mix of minority and non-minority backgrounds, several participants noted that their experiences growing up motivated their interest in pursuing healthcare as a career, allowing them to tackle the nations discrepancies in access to healthcare.

Herbert Castillo Valladeres MED 18, who helped organize the event, emigrated to the United States from Guatemala at 11 years old, and grew up in an extremely diverse Los Angeles neighborhood. He said he was happy to see that the die-in attracted students of all backgrounds and ethnicities.

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