ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) ? A formal complaint filed with New York's lobbying board asks it to investigate whether Artists Against Fracking, a group formed by Yoko Ono and son Sean Lennon, is violating the state's lobbying law.
The complaint obtained by The Associated Press was made by the Independent Oil & Gas Association to the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics.
The energy trade group based its request for an investigation on an AP report that found that Artists Against Fracking and its advocates didn't register as lobbyists. Registration requires several disclosures about spending and activities.
A spokesman for Artists Against Fracking says the group's activities are protected because they were made during a public comment period. He also says celebrities involved in the group are protected because they are longtime activists, not lobbyists.
The percentage of U.S. kids with autism continues to rise, with the latest estimate showing the highest numbers yet.
?
About 1 in 50 U.S. children (2 percent) ages 6 to 17 have an autism spectrum disorder, according to a new report based on a national survey of parents in 2011 and 2012. That's up from about 1 in 86 children (1.16 percent) reported to have autism in the 2007 survey.
?
Most of the rise is attributed to new autism cases diagnosed after 2008, the researchers said. In particular, there was an increase in cases of older children (ages 10 to 17) diagnosed with mild forms of autism.?
?
The reason for the rise is not known, and cannot be determined from the report. But the findings suggest that doctors and other healthcare professionals are getting better at identifying and diagnosing mild forms of autism, said study researcher Stephen Blumberg, of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, the organization the released the report.
?
Because the findings are based on parents' reports, and were not confirmed by a doctor or the patient's medical records, they might not be entirely accurate. However, previous estimates based on parental reports have generally matched those based on medical records, the researchers said.
?
The new findings are not directly comparable to a report released last year, which found that 1in 88 children U.S. children has autism. That report was based on information collected in 2008 from 8-year old children living in 14 areas in the United States.
?
The new study is based on phone surveys of 96,000 parents in 2011 and 2012. Parents were asked if a doctor or health care professional had ever diagnosed their child with an autism spectrum disorder.
?
One of the interesting findings of the new report is the large percentage of children that were diagnosed at age 7 or later, said Michael Rosanoff, associate director of Public Health Research & Scientific Review at Autism Speaks, an autism advocacy organization. About 30 percent of children ages 10 to 13, and 14 percent of children ages 14 to 17 were first diagnosed when they were 7 or older. The condition can reliably be diagnosed starting at age 3.
?
These children may have flown under the radar because they were mildly affected, Rosanoff said. But "even mildly affected children who are in general education settings can struggle without, and benefit from, appropriate ASD services," Rosanoff said, referring to autism spectrum disorder.
?
More rigorous studies are needed to determine the true rate of autism, which Rosanoff said he suspects is even higher.
?
Pass it on: About 1 in 50 children has autism, according to results from a national survey of parents.
?
?
Related on MyHealthNewsDaily and MNN:
?
?
This story was originally written for MyHealthNewsDaily and is republished with permission here. Copyright 2013 MyHealthNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company.
ATLANTA (AP) ? As more Republicans give in to President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul, an opposition bloc remains across the South, including from governors who lead some of the nation's poorest and unhealthiest states.
"Not in South Carolina," Gov. Nikki Haley declared at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference. "We will not expand Medicaid on President Obama's watch. We will not expand Medicaid ever."
Widening Medicaid insurance rolls, a joint federal-state program for low-income Americans, is an anchor of the law Obama signed in 2010. But states get to decide whether to take the deal, and from Virginia to Texas ? a region encompassing the old Confederacy and Civil War border states ? Florida's Rick Scott is the only Republican governor to endorse expansion, and he faces opposition from his GOP colleagues in the legislature. Tennessee's Bill Haslam, the Deep South's last governor to take a side, added his name to the opposition on Wednesday.
Haley offers the common explanation, saying expansion will "bust our budgets." But the policy reality is more complicated. The hospital industry and other advocacy groups continue to tell GOP governors that expansion would be a good arrangement, and there are signs that some Republicans are trying to find ways to expand insurance coverage under the law.
Haslam told Tennessee lawmakers that he'd rather use any new money to subsidize private insurance. That's actually the approach of another anchor of Obama's law: insurance exchanges where Americans can buy private policies with premium subsidies from taxpayers.
Yet for now, governors' rejection of Medicaid expansion will leave large swaths of Americans without coverage because they make too much money to qualify for Medicaid as it exists but not enough to get the subsidies to buy insurance in the exchanges. Many public health studies show that the same population suffers from higher-than-average rates of obesity, smoking and diabetes ? variables that yield bad health outcomes and expensive hospital care.
"Many of the citizens who would benefit the most from this live in the reddest of states with the most intense opposition," said Drew Altman, president of the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
So why are these states holding out? The short-term calculus seems heavily influenced by politics.
Haley, Haslam, Nathan Deal of Georgia and Robert Bentley of Alabama face re-election next year. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant is up for re-election in 2015. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is term-limited at home but may seek the presidency in 2016. While they all govern GOP-leaning states, they still must safeguard their support among Republican voters who dislike large-scale federal initiatives in general and distrust Obama in particular. Florida's Scott, the South's GOP exception on expansion, faces a different dynamic. He won just 49 percent of the vote in 2010 and must face an electorate that twice supported Obama.
A South Carolina legislator put it bluntly earlier this year. State Rep. Kris Crawford told a business journal that he supports expansion, but said electoral math is the trump card. "It is good politics to oppose the black guy in the White House right now, especially for the Republican Party," he said.
Whit Ayers, a leading Republican pollster, was more measured, but offered the same bottom line. "This law remains toxic among Republican primary voters," he told The Associated Press.
At the Tennessee Hospital Association, president Craig Becker has spent months trying to break through that barrier as he travels to civic and business groups across Tennessee. "It's really hard for some of them to separate something that has the name 'Obamacare' on it from what's going to be best for the state," he said, explaining that personality driven politics are easier to understand than the complicated way that the U.S. pays for health care.
Medicaid is financed mostly by Congress, though states have to put in their own money to qualify for the cash from Washington. The federal amount is determined by a state's per-capita income, with poorer states getting more help. On average in 2012, the feds paid 57 cents of every Medicaid dollar. It was 74 cents in Mississippi, 71 in Kentucky, 70 in Arkansas and South Carolina, 68 in Alabama. Those numbers would be even higher counting bonuses from Obama's 2009 stimulus bill.
Obama's law mandated that states open Medicaid to everyone with household income up to 138 percent of the federal poverty rate ? $15,420 a year for an individual or $31,812 for a family of four. The federal government would cover all costs of new Medicaid patients from 2014 to 2016 and pick up most of the price tag after that, requiring states to pay up to 10 percent. The existing Medicaid population would continue under the old formula. In its ruling on the law, the Supreme Court left the details alone, but declared that states could choose whether to expand.
Hospital and physician lobbying groups around the country have endorsed a bigger Medicaid program. Becker said he explains on his road show that the Obama law paired Medicaid growth with cuts to payments to hospitals for treating the uninsured. Just as they do with Medicaid insurance, states already must contribute their own money in order to get federal help with those so-called "uncompensated care" payments.
The idea was instead of paying hospitals directly, states and Congress could spend that money on Medicaid and have those new beneficiaries ? who now drive costs with preventable hospital admissions and expensive emergency room visits ? use the primary care system. But the Supreme Court ruling creates a scenario where hospitals can lose existing revenue with getting the replacement cash Congress intended, all while still having to treat the uninsured patients who can't get coverage.
Becker said that explanation has gotten local chambers of commerce across Tennessee to endorse expansion. "These are rock-ribbed Republicans," he said. "But they all scratch their heads and say, 'Well, if that's the case, then of course we do this.'"
In Louisiana, Jindal's health care agency quietly released an analysis saying the changes could actually save money over time. But the Republican Governors Association chairman is steadfast in his opposition. In Georgia, Deal answers pressure from his state's hospital association with skepticism about projected "uncompensated care" savings and Congress' pledge to finance 90 percent of the new Medicaid costs.
Altman, the Kaiser foundation leader, predicted that opposition will wane over time.
Arkansas Republicans, who oppose Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe's call for expansion, have floated the same idea as Haslam: pushing would-be Medicaid recipients into the insurance exchanges. Jindal, using his RGA post, has pushed the Obama administration to give states more "flexibility" in how to run Medicaid.
Deal convinced Georgia lawmakers this year to let an appointed state board set a hospital industry tax to generate some of the state money that supports Medicaid. That fee ? which 49 states use in some way ? is the same tool that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is using to cover her state's Medicaid expansion. Georgia Democrats and some hospital executives have quietly mused that Deal is leaving himself an option to widen Medicaid in his expected term.
"These guys are looking for ways to do this while still saying they are against 'Obamacare,'" Altman said. "As time goes by, we'll see this law acquire a more bipartisan complexion."
If you think programming a clock radio is hard, try reprogramming life itself. That's the goal of Drew Endy, a synthetic biologist at Stanford University.
Endy has been working with a laboratory strain of E. coli bacteria. He sees the microbes as more than just single-cell organisms. They're little computers.
"Any system that's receiving information, processing information and then using that activity to control what happens next, you can think of as a computing system," Endy says.
Normally the E. coli follow their own program. Is there food? Is the temperature all right? The bacteria process this information and make simple decisions about what to do next. Mainly, they decide whether to reproduce. Endy sees potential for them to do much more. He wants to take control of a cell's genetic machinery and use it to do human computing.
"For us, what's become exciting is the idea that we could get inside the cells in sort of a bottom-up fashion," he says.
Endy is talking about more than splicing in a few extra genes, as scientists already do with crops. He wants to make cells that can follow different programs, just like a computer. To do that, he needed to create something all computers have to have: the transistor.
Transistors are simple on/off switches. Computers are made of many millions of these switches. And to program a cell, you need a biological version. As Endy reports this week in Science, he managed to make one out of DNA.
His switch, which he calls a "transcriptor," is a piece of DNA that he can flip on and off, using chemicals called enzymes. Endy put several of these DNA switches inside his bacteria. He could use the switches to build logic circuits that program each cell's behavior. For example, he could tell a cell to change color in the presence of both enzyme A and enzyme B. That's a simple program: IF enzyme A AND enzyme B [are present] THEN turn green. For an in-depth look, check out Endy's own explanation on YouTube.
Timothy Lu, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is also building cellular computers. He can see lots of ways they could be used. For example, you could program cells to automatically scan your bowels for chemical signals of cancer and let you know if they find any.
"These cells could light up, and you could easily see whether the cell has computed [if] you may have early signs of cancer or not," he says. With a little more programming, such cells might be able to produce a drug, or target the cancer directly.
So far, only the simplest logic circuits work. And Endy doubts that these DNA computers will ever outperform a smartphone. But that's not the point.
"We're building computers that will operate in a place where your cellphone isn't going to work," he says.
He's betting that even a little bit of computing in places where cellphones will never roam can be very valuable.
Synthetic biologist Drew Endy's team at Stanford University has created a tiny biological switch, which they're calling a "transcriptor." It can turn genes on and off, and works in a similar way to electronic transistors.
In cells, molecules travel along a strand of DNA and read instructions. Drew Endy built what he's calling a "cellular transistor." It contains a small stretch of DNA that allows this "machinery" to pass over it in a given direction.
But when this stretch of DNA is flipped around, as you can see below, the machinery can't get past it. As a result, instructions for the cell aren't generated.
Endy can flip this cellular transistor around using special enzymes borrowed from viruses. This is just like turning a switch on and off.
Endy can combine these DNA switches to create what are known as "Boolean logic gates." In electronic circuits, and in DNA, these gates take input signals and follow a simple rule. Below is an example of an AND gate. Only if enzyme A AND enzyme B are present will the cell's instructions be created.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Reducing sulfur in gasoline and tightening emissions standards on cars beginning in 2017, as the Obama administration is proposing, would come with costs as well as rewards. The cost at the pump for cleaner air across the country could be less than a penny or as high as 9 cents a gallon, depending on who is providing the estimate.
An oil industry study says the proposed rule being unveiled Friday by the administration could increase gasoline prices by 6 cents to 9 cents a gallon. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates an increase of less than a penny and an additional $130 to the cost of a vehicle in 2025.
The EPA is quick to add that the change aimed at cleaning up gasoline and automobile emissions would yield billions of dollars in health benefits by 2030 by slashing smog- and soot-forming pollution. Still, the oil industry, Republicans and some Democrats have pressed the EPA to delay the rule, citing higher costs.
Environmentalists hailed the proposal as potentially the most significant in President Barack Obama's second term.
The so-called Tier 3 standards would reduce sulfur in gasoline by more than 60 percent and reduce nitrogen oxides by 80 percent, by expanding across the country a standard already in place in California. For states, the regulation would make it easier to comply with health-based standards for the main ingredient in smog and soot. For automakers, the regulation allows them to sell the same autos in all 50 states.
The Obama administration already has moved to clean up motor vehicles by adopting rules that will double fuel efficiency and putting in place the first standards to reduce the pollution from cars and trucks blamed for global warming.
"We know of no other air pollution control strategy that can achieve such substantial, cost-effective and immediate emission reductions," said Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. Becker said the rule would reduce pollution equal to taking 33 million cars off the road.
But the head of American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Charles Drevna, said in an interview Thursday that the refiners' group was still unclear on the motives behind the agency's regulation, since refining companies already have spent $10 billion to reduce sulfur by 90 percent. The additional cuts, while smaller, will cost just as much, Drevna said, and the energy needed for the additional refining actually could increase carbon pollution by 1 percent to 2 percent.
"I haven't seen an EPA rule on fuels that has come out since 1995 that hasn't said it would cost only a penny or two more," Drevna said.
A study commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute estimated that lowering the sulfur in gasoline would add 6 cents to 9 cents a gallon to refiners' manufacturing costs, an increase that likely would be passed on to consumers at the pump. The EPA estimate of less than 1 cent is also an additional manufacturing cost and likely to be passed on.
A senior administration official said Thursday that only 16 of 111 refineries would need to invest in major equipment to meet the new standards, which could be final by the end of this year. Of the remaining refineries, 29 already are meeting the standards because they are selling cleaner fuel in California or other countries, and 66 would have to make modifications.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the rule was still undergoing White House budget office review.
___
Follow Dina Cappiello on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dinacappiello
By Dave Warner (Reuters) - The winner of one of the biggest Powerball jackpots of all time owes $29,000 in overdue child support payments, the Passaic County, New Jersey, sheriff's office said on Thursday. Pedro Quezada, 44, a county resident who is married and the father of five children ages 5 to 23, was the sole winner of a $338 million jackpot on Saturday. Because he chose the lump sum option, instead of annual payments over 30 years, he will actually receive $211 million, lottery officials said on Thursday. Officials said that is the third-largest lump sum payment in Powerball history. ...
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Business and labor groups moved close Friday to resolving a dispute over a new low-skilled worker program that had threatened to stall negotiations on a sweeping immigration bill in the Senate, officials said.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who's been brokering talks between the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement that negotiators are "very close, closer than we have ever been, and we are very optimistic." He said there were still a few issues remaining.
The talks stalled late last week amid a dispute over wages for workers in the new program, and senators left town for a two-week recess with the issue in limbo. Finger-pointing erupted between the AFL and the chamber, with each side accusing the other of trying to sink immigration reform, leaving prospects for a resolution unclear.
But talks resumed this week, and now officials from both sides indicate the wage issue has been largely resolved. An agreement would likely clear the way for a bipartisan group of senators to unveil legislation the week of April 8 to dramatically overhaul the U.S. immigration system, strengthening the border and cracking down on employers as well as remaking the legal immigration system and providing a path to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S.
"We're feeling very optimistic on immigration: Aspiring Americans will receive the road map to citizenship they deserve and we can modernize 'future flow' without reducing wages for any local workers, regardless of what papers they carry," AFL-CIO spokesman Jeff Hauser said in a statement. "Future flow" refers to future arrivals of legal immigrants.
The new visa program would bring up to 200,000 lower-skilled workers a year to the country. The number of visas would fluctuate according to demand, and the workers would be able to change jobs and could seek permanent residency. Under current temporary worker programs workers can't move from employer to employer and have no path to permanent U.S. residence and citizenship.
The new visas would cover dozens of professions such as long-term care workers and hotel and hospitality employees. Currently there's no good way for employers to bring many such workers to the U.S.; an existing visa program for low-wage nonagricultural workers is capped at 66,000 per year and is supposed to apply only to seasonal or temporary jobs.
Officials with the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce said there's an agreement for workers to get paid prevailing wages for the industry they're working in. The labor organization had accused the chamber of trying to pay workers in the new program poverty-level wages, something the chamber disputed.
A Christian Science perspective: Online research can be helpful and informative as well as addictive and captivating, especially when symptoms of illness are involved. How does anyone draw the line?
By Laura Moliter / March 28, 2013
Does it seem that it?s easy to get drawn into finding all the answers to our lives through the Internet? This available, expansive, and fast technological advance is bringing information to the world quickly and comprehensively. Anytime we need to find a restaurant, a date, or the last time the moon was full, we have an immediate answer on the Web.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
The advancements in accessibility of information and communication can lead us to new ideas, expanded thought, and connections across the globe. It?s a tool that has saved lives by reaching those in need with inspiration and care. Exploring topics of well-being with discernment, expectation, as well as wisdom and self-control, can open us up to the very idea we need just when we need it.
But there is also a danger I?ve learned to be alert to. A reliance on other people?s thoughts and opinions can be addictive and hypnotic. Instead of leading to well-being, it can lead us into a morass of information that is overwhelming, conflicting, confusing, and often depressing. How helpful is that?
While I?ve certainly found gems of inspiration and comforting insights on the Web just when I?ve needed them, I?ve also been a victim of the hypnotism it can promote when I?m not on guard. I have willingly set myself down before the Google god and typed my question into its gaping maw. The answers have usually been prolific. And one answer has led only to another question and another question, portal to portal into an endless, dark maze.
I?ve found this mesmerizing trip into a cyberspace abyss to be the most compelling in relation to health, which is such a prime personal concern for everyone. It?s a topic ripe for a bottomless trough of information. When we are suffering from some malady, human nature wants to know what it is. And since very often we are shy about talking about our ailments, why not consult Google? Or Bing? Or Ask Jeeves? Or this or that blog that looks reputable? These resources don?t know me, so they won?t lie to me or judge me.
And so the appointment with Dr. Google uncovers the fact that I am either (1) on my last days and should prepare my estate, (2) paranoid and ignorant, (3) stuck with my problem forever as there is no cure, or (4) easily cured with expensive drugs or a drink of cool water.
So, more questions, more googling, more time wasted, weary eyes, frustration, and often, increased fear. What have I gained? Isn?t this process of search with no rescue akin to mesmerism? Isn?t it simply putting faith in another?s opinion, needing another?s validation to tell me what is true even if I don?t know the integrity of the source? Even when that source has no particular awareness of my individual situation?
One day I found myself wondering about a recurring physical symptom, and, against my higher intuitions, ruminating about it. Before I knew it, I was caught in the middle of this googled mire of sometimes incomprehensible information and found myself transfixed by it. Time whipped by. My mind became a jumble of prognoses, remedies, causes, and fears. I was google-eyed! Then, blessedly, a firm yet inaudible voice broke the mesmerism and rescued me: ?Step away from the machine. God, Truth, has the reliable answer, the right one for you, and it is also full of love. Hit ?escape? and ?refresh!? ?
Justin Bieber just returned to the United States from his tour, but is already pissing off his neighbors. The 19-year-old singer is being investigated for battery following an altercation on his property in California, when he threatened to kill his neighbor and spit in his face! A neighbor told Sheriff’s deputies the teen singer was ...
Unity already supports development for (nearly) all mobile platforms and now the game engine maker's working on an optimized version for those with Qualcomm processors -- ie, quite a chunk of them. On the heels of freshly announced competition, it announced that it's collaborating with the chip-maker to release a new version of its multi-platform engine "in the coming months" to speed up Unity-authored games for Android and Windows Phone 8 devices powered by most flavors of that CPU. So far there are over 1.5 million registered developers building games for around 770 products that pack the necessary Snapdragon / Adreno combo, according to Unity -- meaning there's a decent chance you'll soon see some extra oomph in one or another of the games you play, whether you're in Redmond or Mountain View's camps. Hit the PR after the jump for more.
It was announced that North Korea has now ordered rockets and long-range artillery units to be targeted towards U.S. military bases on Guam, Hawaii and the mainland. Analysts believe the threats are only to bolster the appearance of power for new leader Kim Jong Un.
By Alastair Jamieson, Staff writer, NBC News
North Korea stepped up its aggressive rhetoric on Tuesday, ordering its rocket and long-range artillery units to be combat ready and on the "highest alert" and issuing new threats against U.S. bases on Hawaii, Guam and mainland America.
Pyongyang warned that U.S. facilities would be "reduced to ashes and flames the moment the first attack is unleashed," according to a military order issued by the pariah state?s military "supreme command."
It comes in response to joint military drills by U.S. and South Korean forces which began in the area early this month and which have seen U.S. bombers flying sorties threatening the North.
Rodong Sinmun via EPA
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects an army landing exercise on Monday.
South Korea's defense ministry said it saw no sign of imminent military action by North Korea Tuesday, according to Reuters.
The announcement marked a further increase in military rhetoric from Pyongyang, and followed a threat last week that it would attack U.S. bases in the Pacific if its "enemies ? make even the slightest movement."
It came as South Korea marked the third anniversary of the sinking of one its navy vessels, blamed on North Korea, which left 46 sailors dead.
Pyongyang previously threatened nuclear attack on the United States and South Korea, although it is not believed to have the capability to hit the continental United States with an atomic weapon. However, Reuters reported that U.S. military bases in the Pacific area are in range of its medium-range missiles.
The isolated nation has threatened to attack American military bases in Japan and Guam in retaliation for the U.S. conducting military exercises with South Korea. On Wednesday, major South Korean banks and media companies were hacked.
The military statement, also posted on the KCNA website, said: "From this moment the? supreme command will put on the highest alert all the field artillery units including strategic rocket units and long-range artillery units which are assigned to strike bases of the U.S. imperialist aggressor troops in the U.S. mainland and on Hawaii and Guam and other operational zone in the Pacific as well as all the enemy targets in south Korea and its vicinity."
Voice of America?s Northeast Asia bureau chief, Steve Herman, quoted South Korean radio station MND saying Tuesday?s announcement is the first time North Korea has referred to "Il-ho" ? its highest level combat readiness posture.
North Korea has said it has abrogated an armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War and threatened a nuclear attack on the United States.?
The youngest son of Kim Jong Il succeeded his late father in 2011, becoming the third member of his family to rule the unpredictable and reclusive communist state.
Related:
PhotoBlog:?Combat ready? Kim Jong Un inspects troops as N. Korea issues new threats
South Korea on alert after hackers strike banks, broadcasters
US Capitol in flames? North Korea dreams of nuclear strike
UN passes sanctions despite North Korea threat of 'pre-emptive nuclear attack'
?
This story was originally published on Tue Mar 26, 2013 6:22 AM EDT
Major advance in understanding risky but effective multiple sclerosis treatmentPublic release date: 26-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Anita Kar anita.kar@mcgill.ca 514-398-3376 McGill University
Powerful treatment improves patients' lives and provides new insight into mechanisms of the disease
A new study by Multiple Sclerosis researchers at three leading Canadian centres addresses why bone marrow transplantation (BMT) has positive results in patients with particularly aggressive forms of MS. The transplantation treatment, which is performed as part of a clinical trial and carries potentially serious risks, virtually stops all new relapsing activity as observed upon clinical examination and brain MRI scans. The study reveals how the immune system changes as a result of the transplantation. Specifically, a sub-set of T cells in the immune system known as Th17 cells, have a substantially diminished function following the treatment. The finding to be published in the upcoming issue of Annals of Neurology and currently in the early online version, provides important insight into how and why BMT treatment works as well as how relapses may develop in MS.
"Our study examined why patients essentially stop having relapses and new brain lesions after the bone marrow transplant treatment, which involves ablative chemotherapy followed by stem cell transplantation using the patient's own cells," said Prof. Amit Bar-Or, the principle investigator of the study, who is a neurologist and MS researcher at The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital -The Neuro, McGill University, and Director of The Neuro's Experimental Therapeutics Program. "We discovered differences between the immune responses of these patients before and after treatment, which point to a particular type of immune response as the potential perpetrator of relapses in MS."
"Although the immune system that re-emerges in these patients from their stem cells is generally intact, we identified a selectively diminished capacity of their Th17 immune responses following therapy - which could explain the lack of new MS disease activity. In untreated patients, these Th17 cells may be particularly important in breaching the blood-brain-barrier, which normally protects the central nervous system. This interaction of Th17 cells with the blood-brain barrier can facilitate subsequent invasion of other immune cells such as Th1 cells, which are thought to also contribute to brain cell injury.
Twenty-four patients participated in the overall clinical trial as part of the 'Canadian MS BMT' clinical trial, coordinated by Drs. Mark Freedman and Harry Atkins at the Ottawa General Hospital. The new discovery, made in a subset of patients participating in the clinical trial, was based on immunological studies carried out jointly in laboratories at The Neuro and the Universit de Montral. Results of this study not only show the clinical benefits of BMT treatment, but also open a unique window into the immunological mechanisms underlying relapses in MS. Th17 cells could be the immune cells associated with the initiation of new relapsing disease activity in this group of patients with aggressive MS. This finding deepens our understanding of MS and could guide the development of personalized medicine with a more favourable risk/benefit profile.
Among the patients treated in the Canadian MS BMT clinical trial, was Dr. Alexander Normandin, a family doctor, who was a third- year McGill medical student getting ready for his surgery exams when he first learned he had MS, "I was so engrossed in my studies that I didn't pay attention to the first sign but within a few days of waking up with a numb temple, my face felt frozen. I learned that I had a very aggressive form of MS and would probably be in a wheelchair within a year. It was a brutal blow. I became patient #19 of only 24 for this experimental treatment. My immune system was knocked out and then rebooted with my stem cells. Today, my MS has stabilized. I now have this disease under control and I take it one day at a time."
###
Both the clinical and biological studies were supported by the Research Foundation of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. Link to study: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.23784/abstract
Multiple Sclerosis
MS is a disorder of the brain and spinal cord that causes fatigue, disequilibrium, sensory problems and muscle paralysis. The cause of MS is unknown, but evidence suggests that it is an auto-immune disease that destroys myelin, a substance coating axons, the thin strands that carry signals between brain cells.
It usually strikes between the ages of 15 and 40 but can begin as early as age two. Women have twice the probability of developing MS than men. Canada has one of the world's highest national rates - about 1,100 new cases each year. Some 50,000 Canadians have MS. More than 1 in 5 lives in Quebec. The most common form of MS is relapsing-remitting, in which acute symptoms alternate with periods of remission. Primary progressive MS, the least common form, develops continually without remission. Secondary progressive MS begins as relapsing-remitting, then becomes steadily progressive.
The Neuro
The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital The Neuro, is a unique academic medical centre dedicated to neuroscience. Founded in 1934 by the renowned Dr. Wilder Penfield, The Neuro is recognized internationally for integrating research, compassionate patient care and advanced training, all key to advances in science and medicine. The Neuro is a research and teaching institute of McGill University and forms the basis for the Neuroscience Mission of the McGill University Health Centre. Neuro researchers are world leaders in cellular and molecular neuroscience, brain imaging, cognitive neuroscience and the study and treatment of epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and neuromuscular disorders. For more information, visit theneuro.com.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
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.
Major advance in understanding risky but effective multiple sclerosis treatmentPublic release date: 26-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Anita Kar anita.kar@mcgill.ca 514-398-3376 McGill University
Powerful treatment improves patients' lives and provides new insight into mechanisms of the disease
A new study by Multiple Sclerosis researchers at three leading Canadian centres addresses why bone marrow transplantation (BMT) has positive results in patients with particularly aggressive forms of MS. The transplantation treatment, which is performed as part of a clinical trial and carries potentially serious risks, virtually stops all new relapsing activity as observed upon clinical examination and brain MRI scans. The study reveals how the immune system changes as a result of the transplantation. Specifically, a sub-set of T cells in the immune system known as Th17 cells, have a substantially diminished function following the treatment. The finding to be published in the upcoming issue of Annals of Neurology and currently in the early online version, provides important insight into how and why BMT treatment works as well as how relapses may develop in MS.
"Our study examined why patients essentially stop having relapses and new brain lesions after the bone marrow transplant treatment, which involves ablative chemotherapy followed by stem cell transplantation using the patient's own cells," said Prof. Amit Bar-Or, the principle investigator of the study, who is a neurologist and MS researcher at The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital -The Neuro, McGill University, and Director of The Neuro's Experimental Therapeutics Program. "We discovered differences between the immune responses of these patients before and after treatment, which point to a particular type of immune response as the potential perpetrator of relapses in MS."
"Although the immune system that re-emerges in these patients from their stem cells is generally intact, we identified a selectively diminished capacity of their Th17 immune responses following therapy - which could explain the lack of new MS disease activity. In untreated patients, these Th17 cells may be particularly important in breaching the blood-brain-barrier, which normally protects the central nervous system. This interaction of Th17 cells with the blood-brain barrier can facilitate subsequent invasion of other immune cells such as Th1 cells, which are thought to also contribute to brain cell injury.
Twenty-four patients participated in the overall clinical trial as part of the 'Canadian MS BMT' clinical trial, coordinated by Drs. Mark Freedman and Harry Atkins at the Ottawa General Hospital. The new discovery, made in a subset of patients participating in the clinical trial, was based on immunological studies carried out jointly in laboratories at The Neuro and the Universit de Montral. Results of this study not only show the clinical benefits of BMT treatment, but also open a unique window into the immunological mechanisms underlying relapses in MS. Th17 cells could be the immune cells associated with the initiation of new relapsing disease activity in this group of patients with aggressive MS. This finding deepens our understanding of MS and could guide the development of personalized medicine with a more favourable risk/benefit profile.
Among the patients treated in the Canadian MS BMT clinical trial, was Dr. Alexander Normandin, a family doctor, who was a third- year McGill medical student getting ready for his surgery exams when he first learned he had MS, "I was so engrossed in my studies that I didn't pay attention to the first sign but within a few days of waking up with a numb temple, my face felt frozen. I learned that I had a very aggressive form of MS and would probably be in a wheelchair within a year. It was a brutal blow. I became patient #19 of only 24 for this experimental treatment. My immune system was knocked out and then rebooted with my stem cells. Today, my MS has stabilized. I now have this disease under control and I take it one day at a time."
###
Both the clinical and biological studies were supported by the Research Foundation of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. Link to study: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.23784/abstract
Multiple Sclerosis
MS is a disorder of the brain and spinal cord that causes fatigue, disequilibrium, sensory problems and muscle paralysis. The cause of MS is unknown, but evidence suggests that it is an auto-immune disease that destroys myelin, a substance coating axons, the thin strands that carry signals between brain cells.
It usually strikes between the ages of 15 and 40 but can begin as early as age two. Women have twice the probability of developing MS than men. Canada has one of the world's highest national rates - about 1,100 new cases each year. Some 50,000 Canadians have MS. More than 1 in 5 lives in Quebec. The most common form of MS is relapsing-remitting, in which acute symptoms alternate with periods of remission. Primary progressive MS, the least common form, develops continually without remission. Secondary progressive MS begins as relapsing-remitting, then becomes steadily progressive.
The Neuro
The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital The Neuro, is a unique academic medical centre dedicated to neuroscience. Founded in 1934 by the renowned Dr. Wilder Penfield, The Neuro is recognized internationally for integrating research, compassionate patient care and advanced training, all key to advances in science and medicine. The Neuro is a research and teaching institute of McGill University and forms the basis for the Neuroscience Mission of the McGill University Health Centre. Neuro researchers are world leaders in cellular and molecular neuroscience, brain imaging, cognitive neuroscience and the study and treatment of epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and neuromuscular disorders. For more information, visit theneuro.com.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
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.
Mar. 26, 2013 ? Africa isn't the kind of place you might expect to find penguins. But one species lives along Africa's southern coast today, and newly found fossils confirm that as many as four penguin species coexisted on the continent in the past. Exactly why African penguin diversity plummeted to the one species that lives there today is still a mystery, but changing sea levels may be to blame, the researchers say.
The fossil findings, described in the March 26 issue of the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, represent the oldest evidence of these iconic tuxedo-clad seabirds in Africa, predating previously described fossils by 5 to 7 million years.
Co-authors Daniel Thomas of the National Museum of Natural History and Dan Ksepka of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center happened upon the 10-12 million year old specimens in late 2010, while sifting through rock and sediment excavated from an industrial steel plant near Cape Town, South Africa.
Jumbled together with shark teeth and other fossils were 17 bone fragments that the researchers recognized as pieces of backbones, breastbones, wings and legs from several extinct species of penguins.
Based on their bones, these species spanned nearly the full size spectrum for penguins living today, ranging from a runty pint-sized penguin that stood just about a foot tall (0.3 m), to a towering species closer to three feet (0.9 m).
Only one penguin species lives in Africa today -- the black-footed penguin, or Spheniscus demersus, also known as the jackass penguin for its loud donkey-like braying call. Exactly when penguin diversity in Africa started to plummet, and why, is still unclear.
Gaps in the fossil record make it difficult to determine whether the extinctions were sudden or gradual. "[Because we have fossils from only two time periods,] it's like seeing two frames of a movie," said co-author Daniel Ksepka. "We have a frame at five million years ago, and a frame at 10-12 million years ago, but there's missing footage in between."
Humans probably aren't to blame, the researchers say, because by the time early modern humans arrived in South Africa, all but one of the continent's penguins had already died out.
A more likely possibility is that rising and falling sea levels did them in by wiping out safe nesting sites.
Although penguins spend most of their lives swimming in the ocean, they rely on offshore islands near the coast to build their nests and raise their young. Land surface reconstructions suggest that five million years ago -- when at least four penguin species still called Africa home -- sea level on the South African coast was as much as 90 meters higher than it is today, swamping low-lying areas and turning the region into a network of islands. More islands meant more beaches where penguins could breed while staying safe from mainland predators.
But sea levels in the region are lower today. Once-isolated islands have been reconnected to the continent by newly exposed land bridges, which may have wiped out beach nesting sites and provided access to predators.
Although humans didn't do previous penguins in Africa in, we'll play a key role in shaping the fate of the one species that remains, the researchers add.
Numbers of black-footed penguins have declined by 80% in the last 50 years, and in 2010 the species was classified as endangered. The drop is largely due to oil spills and overfishing of sardines and anchovies -- the black-footed penguin's favorite food.
"There's only one species left today, and it's up to us to keep it safe," Thomas said.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Daniel B. Thomas, Daniel T. Ksepka. A history of shifting fortunes for African penguins. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2013; DOI: 10.1111/zoj.12024
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
The Cardinals may have been wise to place a second-round tender on Hoyer.
Last week, Brian Hoyer signed his second-round tender with the Arizona Cardinals, meaning that unless the team decides to trade or cut him, he will be one of the quarterbacks on the roster next season. No team is allowed to negotiate with Hoyer now that he has signed the tender and he is no longer considered a free agent, which is bad news for the Steelers, according to Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (via NFL.com).
Bouchette states that the Steelers had interest in signing Hoyer to be the backup to Ben Roethlisberger before signing his tender with the Cardinals.
The Steelers were not willing to part with a second-round pick for a backup quarterback (obviously), so it became moot. The Cardinals were obviously aware that teams were going to have interest in him, which is why they placed such a high tender on him instead of hoping for the best.
The oddest part about all of this is that the Cardinals actually signed Hoyer last season after he was released from the Steelers. If they would have kept him on their roster, they would have had the option of tendering Hoyer instead of the Cardinals.
In all, it was a good move by the Cardinals as they were able to secure their backup (and possible starter) by paying him just $800,000 more for the season.
Jane Goodall apologizes: The famous primate researcher apologizes because her some passages were lifted from elsewhere. Jane Goodall and the publisher of "Seeds of Hope" announced a delay in the book's release.
By Hillel Italie,?Associated Press / March 23, 2013
Primatologist Jane Goodall during a news conference at the Mobile World Congress in La Casa de Libro, Barcelona last month. Separately, Goodall apologized that some passages from her upcoming book "Seeds of Hope" were copied and not properly credited.
REUTERS/Gustau Nacarino
Enlarge
The next book by primatologist Jane Goodall has been postponed because some passages were lifted from online sources and not properly credited.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
Hachette Book Group announced Friday that no new release date has been set for Goodall's "Seeds of Hope," originally scheduled for April 2. Goodall said in a statement that she agreed to delay the book and "correct any unintentional errors."
Goodall also apologized.
"During extensive research I spoke to as many experts as possible," Goodall said in a statement released by the Jane Goodall Institute. "I also visited numerous websites dedicated to celebrating, protecting and preserving the plants of the world. This was a long and well researched book, and I am distressed to discover that some of the excellent and valuable sources were not properly cited, and I want to express my sincere apologies."
"It is important to me that the proper sources are credited, and I will be working diligently with my team to address all areas of concern," said Goodall, who has written or co-written more than 20 books.
Hachette said excerpts that appeared this month in Smithsonian magazine did not contain questionable material.
Goodall, 78, co-authored "Seeds of Hope" with Gail Hudson, who has written for Nature, Good Housekeeping and other publications. The book is being billed as a study of "the critical role that trees and plants play in our world."
Earlier this month, a Washington Post freelance reviewer alerted the paper to numerous similarities between material in "Seeds of Hope" and passages on Wikipedia and on websites for organic tea and the history of tobacco.
"My goal is to ensure that when this book is released it is not only up to the highest of standards, but also that the focus be on the crucial messages it conveys," Goodall said. "It is my hope that then the meaningful conversation can resume about the harm we are inflicting on our natural environment and how we can all act together to ensure our children and grandchildren inherit a healthy planet."
Other authors in recent years have used Internet material without attribution, including Chris Anderson, whose 2009 book "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" contained passages taken verbatim from Wikipedia.
Twitter has done a great job at keeping the whole "blue badge" verification process a mystery. If curiosity eats away at you like it does me, you're in luck. A new video from comedians Hari and Ashok Kondabolu, featuring Anil Dash who has around 500k followers, shows the magical transformation from start to finish. First off, it's important to know that you can't ask to be verified. Twitter only offers this blessing upon those with enough followers and popularity to deserve it. However, the company promises that follower count has no bearing.
Pope Francis arrives in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on Sunday.
By F. Brinley Bruton, Staff Writer, NBC News
Crowds gathered in the Vatican to witness Pope Francis's first Palm Sunday celebration marking the start of the holy week of Easter in celebration of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.?
Tens of thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square to be part of the Catholic Church's most important liturgical season. Sprigs of olive trees were distributed to the faithful in remembrance of Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem before his crucifixion.
The new pontiff arrived in an uncovered car to start the ceremonies. Wearing bright red robes over a white cassock, Francis then walked along St. Peter's holding a palm frond and presided over the Mass from an altar sheltered by a canopy on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica.?
After Sunday's Mass, the Pope Francis will lead six more liturgies during the week, culminating with the Easter Sunday Mass and Urbi et Orbi blessing
On Saturday, Pope Francis and his predecessor Benedict prayed together before having lunch in a historic meeting.
The new pontiff had flown to the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo in the Alban Hills outside of Rome by helicopter. Pope Benedict XVI has been living there since he resigned Feb. 28, becoming the first pope to step down in 600 years.Both men wore white papal outfits.
Father Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said that Benedict and Francis had embraced at the helipad, then went to a private chapel to pray.
This is a developing story. Please check back for details.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Related:
Pope Francis spoke of being 'dazzled' by girl, possible change of celibacy rule
Pope stuns newsstand owner by calling to cancel home delivery
Pope's personal touch with crowds a 'nightmare' for security, expert says
This story was originally published on Sun Mar 24, 2013 5:04 AM EDT
Editor?s note:Sid Venkatesan is an IP partner specializing in high stakes IP disputes and IP counseling for technology companies in the Silicon Valley office of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.?James Freedman?is an associate in Orrick?s IP group and a recent Stanford Law School graduate.?
Online content providers and aggregators are well aware of the potential penalties that can result from a copyright infringement lawsuit. In addition to being expensive to litigate, a copyright lawsuit can result in statutory damages (which can range between $750 to $30,000 for each infringing work found on a website), some or all of an infringer?s profits and even steeper penalties for willful infringement. A peer-to-peer platform relying on user-uploaded content, for example, can face nearly unlimited liability under this regime. Clearly, a copyright suit can have a crippling effect on an early-stage tech company.
One of Congress? goals when it passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998 was to insulate certain digital content providers (called ?service providers? in the statute) as long as they promptly took down infringing works on notice from the copyright holder of those works.
Multi-part safe statutory tests are often a litigator?s delight, but they do not always provide clarity for businesses trying to comply with the law.
This protection is called a ?safe harbor? and can be used as a defense to a copyright infringement claim. There are several safe harbors in the DMCA (they are contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Section 512). One important one, set forth in Section 512, subpart (c), protects service providers that offer ?storage at the direction of a user? on the provider?s network, i.e. a platform for user-uploaded content. These service providers can rely on the safe harbor as long as they:
Promptly take down allegedly infringing material upon receipt of a statutory compliant notice;
Do not have ?actual knowledge? of copyright infringement;
Are unaware of ?facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent? (this is called ?red flag? knowledge in case law);
Remove or disable access to infringing material upon learning about it (whether or not a takedown notice has been received);
And do not receive a ?financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity? where the ?service provider has the right and ability to control the activity.
Multi-part safe statutory tests are often a litigator?s delight, but they do not always provide clarity for businesses trying to comply with the law. Indeed, Section 512(c) raises a number of questions. For example, what are ?facts and circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent?? Does an online ad-supported content-hosting platform ?receive financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity?? Does a service provider that processes or tags user-uploaded content perform ?storage at the direct of a user? or something else?
Unpacking Safe Harbor
The boundaries of the safe harbor have been tested in litigation and as a result, some recent federal Court of Appeals decisions have cleared up some of the questions around Section 512(c). Most recently, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ? which covers nine states, including the west coast ? ruled that the video streaming site Veoh was protected by the safe harbor in a case brought by Universal Music Group (though Veoh?s successor won, the original company went bankrupt following a fire sale in 2010).
The reasoning of the Ninth Circuit was aligned with a 2012 decision in the Second Circuit (which covers Connecticut, New York and Vermont) in Viacom v. YouTube, meaning there is agreement as to some of the rules of the road for courts covering the largest media and technology hubs in the country.
Specifically, the Veoh and YouTube cases make clear that:
?Storage at the direction of a user? includes more than simply storing user-uploaded content. Veoh and YouTube both automatically processed uploaded videos for hosting and converted them to Flash. These activities were found to be protected as they were logically related to ?storage.? On the other hand, YouTube?s alleged practice of syndicating clips to third parties might not fall within the safe harbor, and this issue was sent back to the trial court for further litigation.
Neither ?actual knowledge? nor ?red flag? knowledge can be based on a general awareness that infringing works may be on the service provider?s system. For example, there were news articles in 2007 indicating that Veoh had been lax in policing infringing code, but the Ninth Circuit found that such general awareness was not tied to the allegedly infringing UMG works at issue in the case.?In reaching this conclusion,?the Ninth Circuit appeared to rely on Veoh?s policy of promptly taking down infringing content on notice and the absence of internal emails or documents showing that Veoh knew of specific infringing works on its system.
There is no affirmative duty by the service provider to continuously monitor for potentially infringing copyrighted material. This conclusion is consistent with the statutory notice and takedown scheme, which places the burden of identifying infringing material on the copyright holders.
That being said, a service provider is not allowed to simply sit back and wait for a takedown notice if it is aware of specifically infringing material. Some emails presented in the YouTube case suggested that the YouTube founders may have been aware that infringing material on the site yet elected to wait for a takedown notice before removing the material. This was one of the reasons the YouTube case was sent back to the trial court for further proceedings, whereas Veoh had obtained a summary judgment victory [the lesson here as always: bad evidence can rarely be covered up with legal doctrine]. Also, on Thursday, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the BitTorrent site isoHunt was not entitled to safe harbor protection because its operator ?actively encourag[ed] infringement,? including by ?urging his users to both upload and download? works, actions that showed he had at least red flag knowledge of infringing works.
Finally, the safe harbor does not apply where a service provider receives a financial benefit where the provider ?exerts substantial influence on the activities of the users.? Veoh?s model of letting users decide what should be uploaded and retaining the right to take down content in its discretion was found to not ?exert substantial influence on its users? and therefore fell within the safe harbor.
Generally, these cases show that a platform that leaves content uploads to the discretion of its users, performs processing specifically related to the display of and access to that content, promptly abides by DMCA takedown requests, and does not close its eyes to specifically infringing works can probably take comfort from Section 512(c).
Less clear is how business models that use user uploaded content for purposes other than general ad-supported storage and viewing or models that limit or direct what users upload will fare. Moreover, though affirmative monitoring is not required under these cases, we can reasonably expect that what constitutes ?red flag? knowledge may change over time as technology improves and service providers are more easily able to identify and analyze content on their platforms.
[This column reflects Sid?s and James? general views and does not constitute legal advice or the views of Orrick or its clients.]
Justin Bieber just returned to the United States from his tour, but is already pissing off his neighbors. The 19-year-old singer is being investigated for battery following an altercation on his property in California, when he threatened to kill his neighbor and spit in his face! A neighbor told Sheriff’s deputies the teen singer was ...
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 26-Mar-2013
Share ] 
Twitter has done a great job at keeping the whole 
Unpacking Safe Harbor