Continue reading Acoustic Research unleashes pair of audio docks in AirPlay and Bluetooth flavors
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Once on the verge of extinction, North America's largest land birds have made a dramatic comeback. To ensure their continued survival, biologists are relying on high-tech gadgets and unusual interventions
?| January 9, 2012
The first California condors to enter the wild in five years took a few hesitant hops on a sandstone cliff, craned pinkish necks over the pre?c?ipice and tentatively tested their nine-foot-plus wings. Since that landmark launch in 1992, wildlife biologists have released nearly 200 condors that were born and raised in captivity, and they?ve prospered. The world population has rebounded from 22 in 1987 to 396 birds, with wild populations concentrated in Baja California, Arizona, and southern and central California. As these giant scavengers move to reoccupy their full seven-million-square-mile range, scientists are using state-of-the-art technology to guide the Pleistocene-period survivors toward full self-sustainability. They are counting on this and other unusual inventions, such as swapping infertile for fertile eggs, to ensure their full recovery.
From his office in Ventura, Calif., Jesse Grantham, coordinator of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service?s condor recovery program, can track each free-flying California condor to within a few feet of its location. He and his colleagues have fitted every 17-pound-plus bird with a radio trans?mitter and a solar-powered GPS device that sends more than 1,000 daily locator points per bird a day. Too many waypoints in one place for too long signal that a bird is in trouble. Crews then trek through remote canyons to check on the sick or dead condor and run tests on it and the carrion it was eating. The GPS data also help scientists find breeding caves, where they verify the viability of each egg and even switch infertile eggs laid in the wild with fertile ones laid by captive birds.
Scientists are finding that condors face many of the same dangers that stalked the birds 25 years ago, with the main one being lead bullet fragments that lodge in the flesh of carrion. Some nine out of 10 con?dors have elevated lead levels, a problem that persists despite a ban on the use of lead bullets within condor habitat in California. Bottle caps, DDT, high-voltage power lines and the occasional shooting also con?tribute, which means the environment still presents ?all the mortality factors that nearly caused their extinction,? Grantham says.
Using condor telemetry records, however, scientists are removing whatever dangers they can. Near Big Sur, Calif., GPS tracking docu?mented a condor corridor from Anderson Peak to the Pacific Ocean in a canyon where Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) maintains a three-mile power line. After three condor electrocutions, flight data helped to convince PG&E to begin burying the power line in August. Else?where, scientists are working with solar- and wind-energy developers to avoid condor flight paths when they site projects. They have made headway on the lead issue, too, calling for extending the lead bullet ban and enforcing it more vigorously. ?
And there are more data to come. Plans include installing tiny digital devices to record condors? heart rate and wing-flapping intensity to learn how wind speed and direction affect their energy usage. By linking flight information to meteorological data, scientists are learning precisely how condors move across the landscape and what places are most important to protect, says Mike Wallace of the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conser?vation Research.
The $5-million-a-year condor recovery program has proved that California condors can be coaxed back into successfully reproducing and raising their young in the wild. Grantham and Wallace are opti?mistic that the telemetric information will help ensure that future populations become self-sufficient?if only something can be done about the lead.
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MOSCOW?? Police in a provincial Russian city say an 18-month-old child was swept into the underground municipal sewage system when a sidewalk collapsed because of a ruptured pipe.
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The mother, a 26-year-old policeman's wife, was pushing the child in a stroller in the city of Bryansk when the ground caved in underneath them.
Police say the woman was rescued, but the child was swept away by the current into a collecting tank for the sewage system and was presumed dead.
Investigators say they are working to determine the cause of Sunday's accident, but suspect faulty construction of the system may be to blame.
Underground pipes carrying hot water occasionally burst in Russia, causing the ground above them to suddenly collapse to the peril of those walking above.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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By Genevra Pittman
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Annual screening for prostate cancer doesn't cut men's chances of dying from the disease, according to the latest results of a large screening trial.
Comparing men who were screened each year with so-called PSA tests, for prostate specific antigen, or rectal exams to those who received their usual care, researchers found that more men in the screening group had been diagnosed with prostate cancer after 13 years -- but there was no difference in how many had died from it.
The results support a previous report by the same researchers that found no difference in deaths seven to 10 years after the screening program started.
They are also consistent with recent draft guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommending that average-risk men not undergo regular PSA screening, according to a researcher who worked on the study.
"Men, if they're considering screening, should be aware that there's a possibility that there's little or no benefit (and) that there certainly are harms to PSA screening," said study co-author Philip Prorok, from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.
Those harms include catching and treating small cancers that never would have been detected or caused men any problems, Prorok told Reuters Health.
MORE DIAGNOSIS, NOT MORE DEATHS
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 223,000 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer in the U.S. in 2007, the most recent year with available data, and 29,000 died from the disease.
The new findings are from a national study examining the effect of screening for prostate, lung, colon and ovarian cancers.
The data come from close to 77,000 middle-aged and older men, who between 1993 and 2001 were randomly assigned to a regular screening program with six years of annual PSA blood testing and four years of rectal exams, or to their usual care.
For some men, that usual care included cancer screening. The researchers estimated that men in the comparison group received about half as much screening as those enrolled in the annual screening program.
Thirteen years after the start of the study, 4,250 men who'd undergone annual screening had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, compared to 3,815 not in the screening program.
That worked out to a 12 percent increase in the number of cancers diagnosed with regular screening, Prorok and his colleagues reported Friday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
However, there was not a clear difference in the number of men who died of prostate cancer over that time period: 158 in the annual screening group and 145 in the comparison group.
That was still the case when the researchers looked specifically at older or younger men, and those that did or didn't have other diseases.
Prorok said that because the number of cancers diagnosed in the usual care group never caught up with those found through regular screening, the PSA tests and exams that followed likely picked up some cancers that otherwise wouldn't have caused symptoms or threatened men's health.
"Somebody who is never going to suffer adverse effects of a disease, if you label them with cancer, you're kind of doing them a disservice," said Dr. Philipp Dahm, a urologist from the University of Florida in Gainesville, who has studied prostate cancer screening but wasn't involved in the new report.
And treatment, whether or not it's necessary, can come with side effects such as incontinence and impotency, he added.
'NO ABSOLUTE CLEAR ANSWER'
Dahm said that one limitation of this study is that because men in the usual care group were allowed to get cancer screening, it can't compare prostate cancer outcomes in men with annual screening and those who never get PSA tests.
Dr. Scott Eggener, a urologic cancer specialist from the University of Chicago Medical Center not involved in the study, said that was a serious flaw.
"It ends up being a study of intensive screening versus fairly intensive screening," he told Reuters Health. "You can't really make sense of it."
A large European study that may have provided a clearer comparison did suggest the tests are helpful at preventing deaths from prostate cancer, but the researchers said it had its own set of limitations.
When it comes to annual PSA testing, Prorok said, "There's no absolute clear answer here, but I think it's important that men become fully informed before they decide what to do."
Dahm agreed.
"I think in the future it will be wrong for physicians just to add this to the labs. It's important that physicians and patients talk about the value and the potential downsides of this test," he told Reuters Health.
"I'm sure it does good for many patients, but it has the risk for potential harm. Men just need to know what they're getting themselves into."
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/AoyC3I Journal of the National Cancer Institute, online January 6, 2012.
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Some things never change. One of the unshakable axioms of the Catholic church is that bishops who toe the line get promoted. This morning, the Vatican presented American Catholics with exhibit A when it announced that New York archbishop and United States Conference of Catholic Bishops president Timothy Dolan will be elevated to the rank of cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI next month.
Considering that the New York archdiocese is widely regarded as the spiritual heart of the Catholic church in America and that eight out of New York?s ten archbishops have been named cardinals, it was only a matter of time before Dolan got the red hat. Still, given the great deal of respect Dolan?s peers have for the archbishop, the visibility of his current office, and the fact that his charm and media savvy have made him the de facto face of the American Catholic church, many people were surprised that it took Rome this long to move on his promotion.
Dolan?s anti-gay rhetoric didn?t stop after the law passed. He whined that he had been tricked by the politicians who cast their votes for fairness and lied that Catholic churches in his diocese were being threatened with lawsuits intended to force them to perform same-sex weddings, despite the fact that the law explicitly prohibited such suits. And he doubled down on his rhetoric about the ?threat? to marriage posed by loving same-sex couples, comparing their marriages to ?polygamy, adultery, and forced marriages.?
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has taken a similarly aggressive tack under Dolan?s leadership, forming a so-called subcommittee ?for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage? dedicated to opposing equal marriage rights. This group is so extreme that its Policy Advisor for Marriage and Family, Daniel Avila, was forced to resign late last year after publishing an inflammatory column in which he stated that homosexuality is caused by Satan.
Apparently, engaging in consistent spiritual abuse of LGBT people so endeared him to Catholic leaders in Rome that they gave him a promotion. The worst part? All cardinals under the age of 80 are eligible to vote in a papal conclave (election). Benedict XVI is in failing health, and Dolan?s young age (at 61, he?s a veritable spring chicken among his fellow cardinals, whose average age in 2010 was 78) ensures that he?ll be able to help vote another anti-gay pope into office after the current one dies, and is likely to be able to repeat the feat at least once more. And the cycle of institutional homophobia in the Catholic church continues.
Tags: Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Benedict XVI, cardinal, Catholic, Catholic Church, College of Cardinals, institutional homophobia, John Becker, marriage equality, New York, New York archdiocese, New York marriage equality, promotion, Timothy DolanLOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? "Mission: Impossible" star Jeremy Renner emerged unscathed from a bar fight in Thailand, his spokesman said on Thursday, but a hotel manager in his party was attacked with an ax.
A spokeswoman for Renner, 40, who also played the lead in Oscar-winning Iraq war movie "The Hurt Locker", denied media reports that the actor was hurt in the bloody incident in the Thai resort of Phuket early on Wednesday.
"Jeremy Renner was indeed in a bar in Phuket Thailand as a vicious attack on a patron took place but was not injured or involved. He exited as the fight took place," Renner's publicist said in a statement.
Renner, who co-stars with Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol", is currently working in the Philippines on "The Bourne Legacy" -- the latest in the Bourne action movie franchise, the publicist said.
The Phuket Gazette said on Thursday that six staff at the pub were arrested and charged with attempted murder of the general manager of a local resort hotel.
Manager Vorasit Issara was stabbed in the stomach and slashed in the neck with an ax, Phuket police told local reporters.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant, editing by Christine Kearney)
Refiles to correct typo in Jeremy in headline.
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Chrysler's sales jump 26 percent over 2010, as smaller and more fuel friendly models give the Big Three US automakers a boost. Also driving sales, pent-up demand from owners of aging cars.
Smaller and more fuel-friendly vehicles are credited with boosting the year-end sales of US automakers. In data released Wednesday, each of Detroit?s Big Three ? General Motors, Ford Motor Co., and Chrysler Group ? enjoyed double-digit sales growth for 2011.
Skip to next paragraphThe greatest success story is Chrysler, which reported the highest rate of growth among the domestic competition. Unit sales for cars and trucks jumped 26 percent over 2010, resulting in 1.4 million vehicles sold in the US alone.
Chrysler, the No. 3 US manufacturer, reported the gains just two years after it filed for bankruptcy.
Michelle Krebs, a senior analyst with Edmunds.com, says the turnaround can be traced to the company?s famous Super Bowl ad last year, which became a viral hit online and ended up winning the 2011 Emmy Award for best commercial (see blow).
The ad, for the Chrysler 200, was set to an Eminem song and featured the rapper cruising the gritty back streets and downtown boulevards of Detroit. Its defiant tone and city pride ?? the tagline ?imported from Detroit? entered the lexicon soon after ? created an emotional tone that many said captured the narrative of the US auto industry itself.
?That was a milestone in terms of turnaround [for Chrysler]. That convinced people they were back. Sales went through the roof as a result,? says Ms. Krebs.
Sales of the Chrysler 200 alone jumped 661 percent last year compared with 2010.
GM sold 2.5 vehicles in the US last year, a 17.6 percent increase. Ford came in second with 2 million in unit sales, an 11 percent increase.
Total industry light vehicles sales, including imports, are expected to reach 12.8 million for the year, an 11.3 percent increase from 11.5 million sold last year.
Polk, an automotive research firm in Southfield, Mich., forecasts that US sales will increase 7.3 percent to 13.7 million in 2012. Industry sales peaked in 2000, when total US sales reached 17.4 million. Polk reports that luxury will represent the fastest-growing segment this year as prices lower and manufacturers offer more options in that market, from smaller cars to SUVs.
Small car segments drove sales for all three manufacturers, a trend that started in 2008 when gas prices first sailed over the $4 per gallon mark and the Obama administration issued fuel economy standards starting in model year 2017. By 2025, fuel efficiency standards for new cars and light trucks will reach 54.5 mpg.
Ford reports small-car sales increased 25 percent in 2011, the greatest rate increase in that segment for any US automaker. Fiesta sales had the greatest gain, jumping 195 percent from 2010, with 68,574 sold.
?The industry has never seen a time when all three [automakers] had very good small cars. They?re finally back in the small car market,? says Krebs.
Helping drive up new car sales is pent-up demand. According to data from Polk, the average age of a vehicle in 2010 was 11 years, up from 8.4 years in 1995. Because people held onto cars longer these past few years, pent-up demand is naturally cycling into new cars sale of late.
?The used car market supply is very low and prices are very high and yet people are desperate to buy because their vehicles are so old,? Krebs says.
Import automakers in Asia were hit hard by the 2010 tsunami and earthquake in Japan, which slowed automobile production and subsequent sales.
Toyota sales were down 7 percent in 2011 compared to the previous year. The company sold 1.6 million vehicles last year. Honda did not release year-end sales data by press time. However year-to-year sales in November showed a 6 percent decrease, according to Edmunds.
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