Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Hormone Therapy might create Lung Cancer More Likely

Taking a combination form of hormone replacement therapy, which includes both estrogen and progestin, increases a woman's risk for dying from lung cancer, a new study has found.

The finding stems from an analysis of data from the Women's Health Initiative trial on 16,608 postmenopausal women; aged 50 to 79, in the United States who had been randomly assigned to take either a once-daily tablet of 0.625 milligrams conjugated equine estrogen plus 2.5 mg medroxyprogesterone acetate or a placebo.

After eight years, 73 women taking the hormone therapy and 40 women in the placebo group had died of lung cancer. That meant, according to the researchers, that women who took the drug were 71 percent more likely to die from the disease.The study also found that women taking the hormone therapy were 28 percent more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer, although the study noted that the finding was not statistically significant.

"Treatment with estrogen plus progestin in postmenopausal women ... increased the number of deaths from lung cancer, in particular deaths from non-small-cell lung cancer," concluded Rowan Chlebowski, of the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbour-UCLA Medical Center, and his colleagues.

The researchers urged that the findings "be incorporated into risk-benefit discussions with women considering combined hormone therapy, especially those with a high risk of lung cancer ... such as current smokers or long-term past smokers."

Dr. Apar Kishor Ganti, from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, wrote in an accompanying editorial that "because the optimum safe duration of hormone-replacement therapy in terms of lung cancer survival is unclear, such therapy should probably be avoided in women at a high risk of developing lung cancer, especially those with a history of smoking."
In fact, Ganti questioned whether hormone therapy should be used at all.

"These results, along with the findings showing no protection against coronary heart disease, seriously question whether hormone-replacement therapy has any role in medicine today," he wrote. "It is difficult to presume that the benefits of routine use of such therapy for menopausal symptoms outweigh the increased risks of mortality, especially in the absence of improvement in the quality of life."

Monday, September 14, 2009

Smoking and Breast cancer are linked in women


The current study provides new evidence that "a woman smoker can reduce her risk of breast cancer by stopping smoking as soon as possible," Croghan commented to Reuters Health via email.
Croghan's group compared smoking history and other breast cancer risk factors among 1,225 women who developed breast cancer and 6,872 who did not during the first year after their initial visit to the Mayo Clinic Breast Clinic.

Surveys completed during this visit indicated just over 10 percent were current smokers, almost 9 percent were former smokers, and 81 percent had never smoked, Croghan, with the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Research Program in Rochester, Minnesota, and associates report.

In addition to the link with smoking, women who had used oral contraceptives for 11 years or longer had a whopping 200 percent increase in the odds of developing breast cancer. Women who used postmenopausal hormone therapy showed 81 percent increased odds, while aging raised the odds of developing breast cancer by 2 percent per year.

On the flip side, Croghan and colleagues report that having a hysterectomy decreased women's odds by 35 percent. Also, they did not see a compounding increase in risk for breast cancer among women with more than one risk factor.

Croghan noted that prior investigations with contradictory results regarding smoking and breast cancer risk did not consistently define smoking as current, former or never. The current study defines anyone who ever smoked more than 100 cigarettes at any time as having a history of smoking. Those who smoked less were considered never-smokers.

Croghan's group suggests further investigations using similar smoking definitions to assess how pre- and post-menopausal duration of smoking, amount smoked, and exposures to second-hand smoke might alter a woman's odds of developing breast cancer.
Source: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Yoga can help you by reducing Back Pain

Practicing yoga can help ease chronic lower back pain, a new study shows.
Researchers divided 90 people, aged 23 to 66, who had mild to moderate functional disability as a result of back pain into two groups.

One group did 90-minute sessions of Iyengar yoga twice a week for six months. The other group continued whatever medical therapy or treatments they'd been doing.

At the three-month and six-month marks, a greater proportion of those who'd done yoga reported improvements in their pain and functioning as measured by questionnaires that asked about pain levels, difficulty performing physical tasks and pain medications being taken. Yoga participants also reported fewer symptoms of depression.

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

10 Largest Oil Spills in history


Amoco Cadiz
The Amoco Cadiz encountered stormy weather and ran aground off the coast of Brittany, France on March 16, 1978. Its entire cargo of 68.7 million gallons of oil spilled into the sea, polluting about 200 miles of Brittany's coastline.


Arabian Gulf Spills
Beginning in late January of the 1991 Gulf War, the Iraqi Army destroyed tankers, oil terminals, and oil wells in Kuwait, causing the release of about 900,000,000 barrels of oil. This was the largest oil spill in history.



Argo Merchant
On December 15, 1976, the Argo Merchant ran aground on Fishing Rip (Nantucket Shoals), 29 nautical miles southeast of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts in high winds and ten foot seas. Six days later, the vessel broke apart and spilled its entire cargo of 7.7 million gallons of No. 6 fuel oil.



Barge Bouchard 155
On August 10, 1993, three ships collided in Tampa Bay, Florida: the barge Bouchard 155, the freighter Balsa 37, and the barge Ocean 255. The Bouchard 155 spilled an estimated 336,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil into Tampa Bay.



Barge Cibro Savannah
On March 6, 1990, the Cibro Savannah exploded and caught fire while departing the pier at the Citgo facility in Linden, New Jersey. About 127,000 gallons of oil remained unaccounted for after the incident. No one knows how much oil burned and how much spilled into the environment.


Burmah Agate
On November 1, 1979, the Burmah Agate collided with the freighter Mimosa southeast of Galveston Entrance in the Gulf of Mexico. The collision caused an explosion and a fire on the Burmah Agate that burned until January 8, 1980. An estimated 2.6 million gallons of oil were released into the environment, and another 7.8 million gallons were consumed by the fire.


Exxon Valdez
On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The tanker was traveling outside the normal shipping lanes in an attempt to avoid ice. It spilled 10.8 million gallons of oil (out of a total cargo of 53 million gallons) into the marine environment, and impacted more than 1,100 miles of non-continuous Alaskan coastline. State and Federal agencies continue to monitor the effects of this spill, which was the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

Ixtoc I
The 2-mile-deep exploratory well, Ixtoc I, blew out on June 3, 1979 in the Bay of Campeche off Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico. By the time the well was brought under control in March, 1980, an estimated 140 million gallons of oil had spilled into the bay. The Ixtoc I spill is currently #2 on the all-time list of largest oil spills of all time.

Jupiter
On September 16, 1990, the tank vessel Jupiter was offloading gasoline at a refinery on the Saginaw River near Bay City, Michigan, when a fire started on board and the vessel exploded.


Megaborg
The Megaborg released 5.1 million gallons of oil as the result of a lightering accident and subsequent fire. The incident occurred 60 nautical miles south-southeast of Galveston, Texas on June 8, 1990.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

A new source of renewable energy


Surplus and waste watermelons from farms harvests can be converted into energy now. 2.5 million gallons of clean, renewable ethanol fuel can be got from watermelons that are required for a year destined for your car, truck, or airplane's gas tank.

In United States, every year 360,000 tons of watermelons spoil in fields. Some local growers who are worried about this wondered whether the waste watermelons can be turned into ethanol, the clean-burning fuel derived from plant sugars. In a sequence of new experiments that was published in the journal Biotechnology for Biofuels, Fish and his team showed that they can.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Smog causes serious health problems.

Poor air quality is harmful to health. The primary target is the respiratory system, but air pollution also targets the heart and the immune system. Particle pollution poses particular risks to the cardiac system.

Sources of smog include:
• Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) come almost entirely from man-made sources: combustion of fuels in cars and trucks, coal-fired power plants, industrial boilers and gas-powered engines such as lawnmowers and leaf blowers. This occurs because nitrogen gas -- which accounts for about 80% of air -- also burns (oxidizes) when other fuels are burned.
• Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are vapors that emanate from paint and print shops, gas stations, dry cleaners, lawn chemicals, and from combustion engines, such as those in cars and trucks, boats and diesel locomotives. Trees also release VOCs.
• Particle pollution, or particulate matter (PM), consists of a mixture of extremely small solids and liquid droplets that typically includes aerosols and fine solids, such as dust and soot. Sources include all types of combustion, including vehicle exhaust, power plants, wood burning, construction activity and agriculture.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Causes of tornadoes

Thunderstorms develop in warm, moist air in advance of eastward-moving cold fronts. These thunderstorms often produce large hail, strong winds, and tornadoes. Tornadoes in the winter and early spring are often associated with strong, frontal systems that form in the Central States and move east. Occasionally, large outbreaks of tornadoes occur with this type of weather pattern. Several states may be affected by numerous severe thunderstorms and tornadoes.

During the spring in the Central Plains, thunderstorms frequently develop along a "dryline," which separates very warm, moist air to the east from hot, dry air to the west. Tornado-producing thunderstorms may form as the dryline moves east during the afternoon hours.

Along the front range of the Rocky Mountains, in the Texas panhandle, and in the southern High Plains, thunderstorms frequently form as air near the ground flows "upslope" toward higher terrain. If other favorable conditions exist, these thunderstorms can produce tornadoes.

Tornadoes occasionally accompany tropical storms and hurricanes that move over land. Tornadoes are most common to the right and ahead of the path of the storm center as it comes onshore.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Working of satellites

A satellite works by receiving radio signals sent from the Earth and resending the radio signals back down to the Earth. In a simple system, a signal is reflected, or "bounced," off the satellite. For example, it is possible to bounce a signal off the surface of the Moon back down to Earth. Because the Moon is very far away, for this to work the signal from the Earth must be very strong and the receiver receiving the signal must be sensitive enough to detect the very weak signal receive back from the moon.

Unlike a passive satellite such as the moon or the early ECHO satellite, a modern communications satellite receives the radio signal and sends it back down to Earth stronger than it was received. This process is called "amplification" of the radio signal. In addition to amplifying the signal, a communications satellite also typically converts the radio from one frequency to another so that the signal getting sent down is not confused with the signal being sent up.

Friday, August 07, 2009

The Green Dinosaur

The Green Dinosaur is one of the common names for this tree, also known as Ribbonwood and Idiot Fruit. It has its own interesting story of life, extinction and rebirth as well as an unsolved mystery!

The Ribbonwood tree (Idiospermum australiense) is a relic species and has a most unusual characteristic which sets it apart from modern plants. All modern flowering plants produce seeds which have either one seed leaf (monocots) or two seed leaves (dicots) but the seeds of the Idiospermum can have between 2 to 6 seed leaves! Normally seeds will germinate and send up a single shoot but the Ribbonwood can sprout more than one shoot per seed. The fruit is large at 80mm (just over 3 inches) and globular, splitting into four segments on the ground. The red, spirally arranged flowers are also another indication of its primitiveness.

The Green Dinosaur was located in the late 1800's by timber cutters south of Cairns who brought it to the attention of a German botanist named Diels. By the time Diels returned to the spot where this tree was found, they had been clearfelled for sugarcane (one of the principal commercial crops of north Queensland). It was believed to be gone forever. However, in 1971, the species was rediscovered - not because someone identified the tree from its unusual tree-ring pattern - but because its fruit was turning up in the stomachs of dead cattle! We now know that its fruit is toxic.

There is another intriguing aspect to the Ribbonwood tree and that is how its seeds are dispersed. The successful continuance of most rainforest species depends on their seeds being dispersed away from the parent plant. The Green Dinosaur's seeds are large, heavy, do not float and are too poisonous for most animals to eat. Gravity dispersal may be why the Ribbonwood tree is only found in very wet lowland rainforest in very few locations.

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Future Climate Change

Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere will increase during the next century unless greenhouse gas emissions decrease substantially from present levels. Increased greenhouse gas concentrations are very likely to raise the Earth's average temperature, influence precipitation and some storm patterns as well as raise sea levels (IPCC, 2007). The magnitude of these changes, however, is uncertain.

The amount and speed of future climate change will ultimately depend on:

• Whether greenhouse gases and aerosol concentrations increase, stay the same or decrease.

• How strongly features of the climate (e.g. temperature, precipitation and sea level) respond to changes in greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations.

• How much the climate varies as a result of natural influences (e.g. from volcanic activity and changes in the sun’s intensity) and its internal variability (referring to random changes in the circulation of the atmosphere and oceans).

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Bioluminescence

Bioluminescence is one of the most astonishing natural phenomenons as it seems to be drawn from science fiction or comic books, rather than science and natural history. Where else to you find characters with green lanterns, or shooting red beams of light, or escaping with a flash of blue light. How can a living animal make light? The technical answer is that light is produced by energy released from chemical reactions occurring inside (or ejected by) an organism.

One would think that this capability would be rare in nature, yet in the ocean most types of animals — ranging from bacteria to sharks — include bioluminescent members. In fact, it is estimated that luminescence has evolved independently at least 40 times. The functions of bioluminescence are not known for all animals, but typically it is used during ecological interactions for defense (warning or evading predators) or offense (luring or detecting prey), and at times for communication between members of the same species.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Nanotechnology and its Benefits

Nanotechnology is the understanding and control of matter at dimensions between 1 and 100 nanometers, where single phenomenon enables novel applications. Surrounding nanoscale science, engineering, and technology, nanotechnology involves imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulating matter at this length scale.

A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick; a single gold atom is about a third or a nanometer in diameter. Dimensions between approximately 1 and 100 nanometers are known as the nanoscale. Unusual physical, chemical, and biological properties can emerge in materials at the nanoscale. These properties may differ in important ways from the properties of bulk materials and single atoms or molecules.

The power of nanotechnology is rooted in its potential to transform and revolutionize multiple technology and industry sectors, including aerospace, agriculture, biotechnology, homeland security and national defense, energy, environmental improvement, information technology, medicine, and transportation. Discovery in some of these areas has advanced to the point where it is now possible to identify applications that will impact the world we live in.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Types of medicine

Ayurveda
Ayurveda is that knowledge of life, which deals elaborately and at length with conditions beneficial or otherwise to the humanity, and, to factors conducive to the happiness, or responsible for misery or sorrow besides indicating measures for healthful living for full span of life.

Yoga
Yoga is a science as well an art of healthy living physically, mentally, morally and spiritually. It’s systematic growth from his animal level to the normalcy, from there to the divinity, ultimately. It’s no way limited by race, age, sex, religion, cast or creed and can be practiced by those who seek an education on better living and those who want to have a more meaningful life.

Naturopathy
Naturopathy or Nature Cure believes that all the diseases arise due to accumulation of morbid matter in the body and if scope is given for its removal, it provides cure or relief. For treatment it primarily stresses on correcting all the factors involved and allowing the body to recover itself. The five main modalities of treatment are air, water, heat, mud and space.

Homeopathy
Homeopathy has been practiced in India for more than a century and a half. It has blended so well into the roots and traditions of the country that it has been recognised as one of the National Systems of Medicine and plays an important role in providing health care to a large number of people.

Unani
Unani postulates that the body contains a self-preservative power, which strives to restore any disturbance within the limits prescribed by the constitution or State of the individual. The physician merely aims to help and develop rather than supersede or impede the action of this power.

Siddha
Siddha is very similar to Ayurveda. In the Siddha system, chemistry had been found well developed into a science auxiliary to medicine and alchemy. It was found useful in the preparation of medicine as well as in transmutation of basic metals into gold.

Acupressure
Acupressure is the application of pressure or localized massage to specific sites on the body to control symptoms such as pain or nausea. It is derived from traditional Chinese medicine, which is a form of treatment for pain that involves pressure on particular points in the body knows as “acupressure points”. A practitioner puts pressure on specific points on the body with his or her fingers in order to relieve pain and discomfort, prevent tension-related ailments, and promote good health.

Acupuncture
Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese form of medicine, which involves the insertion of pins in certain vital points of the body. It is used for the treatment of chronic pain conditions such as arthritis, bursitis, headache, athletic injuries, and posttraumatic and post surgical pain.

Telemedicine
Telemedicine generally refers to the use of communication and information technologies for the delivery of clinical care. It may be as simple as two health professionals discussing a case over the telephone, or as complex as using satellite technology and video-conferencing equipment to conduct a real-time consultation between medical specialists in two different countries.

Thursday, July 02, 2009

New watch phone




Watch phone trader 3G Watches releases the latest addition to its previously popular fleet of cell phone watches, the all new Flex 110. The Flex 110 is the stylish and classy big brother to the previously trendy sporty Flex. The Flex 110 multimedia watch phone possess the same functions as the Flex, but with a design geared toward the business class.

This shiny and classy cell phone watch is sure to be a hit .Operating on 900/1800/1900 gsm, T-Mobile and AT&T customer's now have what many consider to be the most new styled watch phone to date. The Flex 110 comes ready with touch screen, Bluetooth capabilities, mp3, mp4 player, digital, FM radio tuner, and video camera.

Watch phone trader, 3G Watches specializes in selling high-tech multimedia cell phone watch devices equipped with Bluetooth, mp3, video player, digital, and video camera ready to use in the U.S. with carrier's AT&T and T-Mobile.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Japanese inventions

They've got the ones that clean, and others that can pour drinks, so it was only a matter of instant by Japanese inventors came up with robots that can cook.Various prototype robo-chefs showed off their cooking skills at the International Food Machinery and Technology Expo in Tokyo this week, flipping "okonomiyaki" Japanese pancakes, serving sushi and slicing vegetables.

Japan has one of the world's fastest aging societies and experts say robots can help care for the growing number of elderly, and fill in for the lack of young people willing to take on jobs as chefs, cleaners or caretakers.

Japan is home to almost half the world's 800,000 industrial robots and expects the industry to expand to $10 billion.Tomio Sugiura, president of Sugiura Kikai Sekkei, which manufactured the vegetable-slicing robot, saw a robot in every home in the near future.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

End of Dual-Sim Mobile Phones?

More than two weeks after a petition was filed by Madurai resident Somasundaram Ramkumar, the Madras High Court has directed mobile manufacturers to restrain from manufacturing and selling dual sim phones in India.

Apparently, Ramkumar claims to hold Indian patent (No.214388) for plurality of SIM cards in a single mobile handset (in simpler terms, dual SIM phones) and claims the rights over the technology used to manufacture such phones.

The High Court has sought the implementation of the Intellectual Property Rights (Imported Goods) Enforcement Rules 2007 Act. This Act enables customs officials to seize imported goods that infringe patents.

The directive by the High Court has hit the sales of devices from manufacturers like Samsung, LG, MIRC Electronics and Spice Mobile who have quite a few number of dual SIM models on sale.

ForMoreInfo: http://www.techtree.com/India/News/End_of_Dual-Sim_Mobile_Phones/551-100499-547.html

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Easy Water Days Are Over

Gerhard Payen is an adviser on water to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and President of The International Federation of Private Water Operators - association that connects international organizations with private sector providers of water and sanitation services. He says the U.N. report is an important wake up call to the world.

"The reality today is that water scarcity is increasing in many parts of the world because of increasing usage and also partly due to climate change," Payen explained. "This is a reality. So easy water [i.e., easily accessible drinking water] is over. So in the future, we will have to manage water more carefully. There are potential conflicts. So if the governments don't care that conflicts will emerge, this is at local regional and international level. This is a collective responsibility; all of us have a role to play. We have to realize we are so numerous on this planet. Easy water is over."

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Cardinal's NCAA Hopes Die In L.A.

The Cardinal probably will be notified sometime Sunday which team it will play in the postseason, but Stanford's 85-73 loss to No. 13 Washington in the Pac-10 tournament quarterfinals Thursday guaranteed that the Cardinal will not be playing in the March event that matters most - the NCAA Tournament.

In all likelihood, the Cardinal (18-13) will play in a postseason tournament for the 16th straight season, but for only the second time in 15 years, it won't be the main event.

"The NCAA is every team's goal," Stanford junior Landry Fields said, "but I know our team would love to keep playing. It hurts not to play in the Big Dance, but the next best thing is to play in something else."

Something else for the Cardinal might be the National Invitation Tournament, which announces its field Sunday after the NCAA Tournament names its 65 teams.

The Cardinal had given up on earning an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament weeks ago, but the hope of getting an automatic berth by winning the Pac-10 tournament got a boost when Stanford won three of four games heading into the matchup with regular-season champion Washington (25-7).

Thanks to the efforts of Fields, who filled every column of the stat sheet, and Anthony Goods, who had his second consecutive big offensive game, the Cardinal gave the Huskies a run.

The Cardinal tied the game 43-43 with 17:19 left on a basket by Goods, who had a season-high 26 points one day after scoring 23 in the win over Oregon State.

However, Stanford scored only one point over the next three minutes, while the Huskies stepped up the pace and scored seven straight points, systematically taking the Cardinal out of the game.

The Cardinal could not keep up with Washington's speed and never got closer than five points the rest of the way while losing to the Huskies for the third time this season.

"I thought early in the game when it was going up and down that it would be in our favor, and maybe it was," Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said.

Fields had no trouble with the frantic nature of the game, collecting 16 points, a season-high 15 rebounds, three assists, two steals and a blocked shot. He also had five turnovers to put a significant number in every statistical category.

Washington, which ranks third nationally in rebounding margin, collected 18 points on second-chance opportunities, but the Cardinal countered by getting 20 second-chance points of their own. The bigger problem was the transition baskets that helped the Huskies shoot 60.7 percent from the field in the final 20 minutes.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Jeanette Pohlen Scored High

Jeanette Pohlen scored a career-high 21 points, including two free throws in the final seconds, as No. 2 Stanford held on to defeat Arizona 70-67 and clinch a share of the Pac-10 regular-season championship.

Stanford (25-4, 16-1) has either won outright or shared the Pac-10 regular-season title for nine straight seasons. The Cardinal can win the 2008-09 crown outright Saturday with a victory over No. 18 Arizona State.

Stanford, which got 16 points from Kayla Pedersen, beat Arizona (11-17, 4-13) for the 12th time and won its 28th consecutive game at Maples Pavilion.

Arizona sophomore forward Ify Ibekwe, the Wildcats' leading scorer and rebounder, returned to action after missing two games with a knee injury and finished with 17 points and 13 rebounds.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Demands More From Batsmen

Mithali Raj, one of the senior batsmen in the Indian women's team, has demanded an improved batting performance during the upcoming World Cup in Australia. India have lost their previous nine completed ODIs - defeated 4-0 by England and going down 5-0 to Australia - in which the batsmen struggled to put up competitive scores.

"A score of 200-plus is a bare minimum. Gone are the days in women's cricket where a team scored 170 and defended it," Mithali was quoted as saying in the Times of India. "Our openers haven't done well and that means the middle order was exposed to the new ball almost every time. That was the problem in Australia and England."

She was pleased with the team's effort during training, when they scored in excess of 200 in both their practice games.The team, she said, had also prepared for faster pitches by batting against bowling machines at the Mumbai Cricket Association's Bandra-Kurla Complex ground.

Though India had a demoralising tour of Australia late last year, Mithali was confident of a better show next month. "It's the end of the season and the wickets won't be too bouncy. If anything they will keep low."

India were runners-up in the previous edition in South Africa in 2005, losing in the final to Australia. They are placed in Group A with Sri Lanka, Pakistan and England, and will face Pakistan in the tournament opener at the Bradman Oval in Bowral on March 7.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Researchers for HIV work

Even as Connecticut considers reducing funding for AIDS programs, state public health researchers are winning accolades for their work with those living with HIV.

A program developed at the University of Connecticut's Center for Health, Intervention and Prevention is among a group of eight intervention programs commended recently by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Under the program, known as "Options," clinicians are trained to counsel HIV-positive patients during routine medical appointments to avoid risky behavior, such as unprotected sex and drug use, developing a list of behavioral prescriptions for patients to follow as they live with the virus.

"Most interventions focus on people not infected with HIV and not likely to become infected," said Jeffrey D. Fisher, a social psychology professor at UConn and director of the intervention center. "But we also need to help people who have HIV to practice safer sex and drug use."

Such precautions are necessary not just to protect the health of those living with HIV or AIDS, which make patients substantially more susceptible to infection and disease, but also to ensure that continued risky behavior doesn't spread HIV to those with whom diagnosed people share needles or have sex.

Fisher developed the program in the late 1990s with his brother, Bill Fisher, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, and three other researchers from CHIP and Yale University.

The Options program was developed from current behavioral theory and a process of collaboration with those struggling with HIV diagnosis and problems with substance abuse or risky sex, Fisher said. The intervention plan asks clinical workers to work with patients to develop strategies for reducing risk, and to evaluate each patient's willingness to change.

The program was included this year in "The 2008 Compendium of Evidence-based HIV Prevention Interventions," which is compiled annually by the CDC, and recognizes programs that have proven successful at reducing HIV infection and behavior that can increase the chance of contracting sexually transmitted diseases.

The CDC estimates that 46,000 people were infected with HIV in the U.S. in 2006, the most recent year for which data was available.

Source: theday.com/re.aspx?re=76b88ed9-71a3-4510-a675-6361d367da02

Monday, February 09, 2009

Programming languages


A programming language is an extreme case of a formal language that can be used to control the behavior of a machine, particularly a computer, to perform specific tasks. Programming languages are defined using syntactic and semantic rules, to determine structure and meaning respectively.

Programming languages are used to facilitate communication about the task of organizing and manipulating information, and to express algorithms precisely. Some authors restrict the term "programming language" to those languages that can express all possible algorithms; sometimes the term "computer language" is used for artificial languages that are more limited.

Monday, February 02, 2009

CD-Text


CD-Text is an extension of the Red Book specification for audio CD that allows for storage of additional text information (e.g., album name, song name, artist) on a standards-compliant audio CD. The information is stored either in the lead-in area of the CD, where there is roughly five kilobytes of space available, or in the subcode channels R to W on the disc, which can store about 31 megabytes.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Zygosity


In genetics, zygosity refers to the similarity or dissimilarity of the DNA sequences in specific coding segments, or genes, on the homologous chromosomes of a zygote, or fertilized egg. The DNA sequence of any gene can vary among individuals in the population. The various forms of a gene are called alleles, and diploid organisms generally have two alleles for each gene, one on each of the two homologous chromosomes on which the gene is present. In diploid organisms, the alleles are inherited from the individual's parents, one from the male parent and one from the female. Zygosity in general is a description of whether those two alleles code for the same trait expression or different ones, but there are several specific applications of the term.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Cud

Cud is a portion of food that returns from a ruminant's stomach in the mouth to be chewed for the second time. More accurately, it is a bolus of semi-degraded food regurgitated from the reticulorumen of a ruminant. Cud is produced during the physical digestive process of rumination, or "chewing the cud". The idiomatic expression chewing one's cud means meditating or pondering.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Oceanography

Oceanography also called oceanology or marine science, is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean. It covers a wide range of topics, including marine organisms and ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamics; plate tectonics and the geology of the sea floor; and fluxes of various chemical substances and physical properties within the ocean and across its boundaries. These diverse topics reflect multiple disciplines that oceanographers blend to further knowledge of the world ocean and understanding of processes within it: biology, chemistry, geology, meteorology, and physics.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Denim

Denim is a rugged cotton twill textile, in which the weft passes under two (twi- "double") or more warp fibers. This produces the familiar diagonal ribbing identifiable on the reverse of the fabric, which distinguishes denim from cotton duck. Denim has been in American usage since the late eighteenth century.The word comes from the name of a sturdy fabric called serge, originally made in Nîmes, France, by the Andre family. Originally called serge de Nîmes, the name was soon shortened to denim. Denim was traditionally colored blue with indigo dye to make blue "jeans," though "jean" then denoted a different, lighter cotton textile; the contemporary use of jean comes from the French word for Genoa, Italy (Gênes), where the first denim trousers were made.

A similarly woven traditional American cotton textile is the diagonal warp-striped hickory cloth that was once associated with railroadmen's overalls, in which blue or black contrasting with undyed white threads form the woven pattern. Hickory cloth was characterized as being as rugged as hickory wood—not to mention the fact that it was deemed to be worn mainly by "hicks"—although neither may be the origin of that term [from a nickname for "Richard"]. Records of a group of New Yorkers headed for the California gold fields in 1849 show that they took along four "hickory shirts" apiece. Hickory cloth would later furnish the material for some "fatigue" pantaloons and shirts in the American Civil War.

The word dungarees, to identify heavy cotton pants such as overalls, can be traced to a thick cotton country-made cloth, Dongari Kapar, which was sold in the quarter contiguous to the Dongari Killa, the fort of what was then known as Bombay (Hobson Johnson Dictionary). The word entered English with just this meaning in 1696 (OED). Dongri Fort was rebuilt in 1769 as Fort George, Bombay, where the first cotton mill was established in 1854. Dyed in indigo, the traditional cloth was used by Portuguese sailors and cut wide so that the legs could be swiftly rolled up when necessary. Thus, dungarees have a separate history.

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Puchezh-Katunki crater

Puchezh-Katunki is a meteor crater in the Chkalovsky District of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast in Volga Federal District, Russia. It is 80 km in diameter and is estimated to be 167 ± 3 million years old, placing it in the Middle Jurassic. The crater is not exposed to the surface, but appears as variation in the vegetation.