Coming soon: Atomic-scale, 2-D electronics

21 hrs.

John Roach , NBC News

A world filled with teeny tiny two-dimensional electronic devices is a giant step closer thanks to a pioneering technique to make atom-thick patterns that combine a conductor and an insulator.

Conventional microelectronic devices have three basic parts;?a metal to conduct electricity, semiconductor components and an insulator to protect the components from the free-flowing electricity.

?The long-term proposal is to have the different components, but all of them at the level of atomic-layer thickness,? Pulickel Ajayan, a nanomaterials scientist at Rice University, told NBC News.?

He and his colleagues have successfully mated two of the three components ? a conductor and insulator. The conductor is the wonder material graphene, and the insulator is hexagonal boron nitride.

Meanwhile,?Tom?s Palacios and his?colleagues at the?Massachusetts Institute of Technology?are?working with molybdenum disulfide?to?create?the?semiconductor piece of the puzzle.

?Ultimately, one will be able to build complete circuits with semiconductors, metals, and insulators all at the atomic level with our system,? Ajayan said.

The new?technique expands earlier research that showed graphene can be merged with hexagonal boron nitride, an insulator, since they both have the same chicken-wire atomic array.

The new work, published Sunday in Nature Nanotechnology, describes a method for finely controlling the deposition of graphene onto gaps in sheets of hexagonal boron nitride through a lithorgraphic process.

?You can essentially stitch one onto the other and that enabled us to do this pretty well,? Ajayan said.

As a proof of principle, the team created designs such as combs, rings, and an owl, the Rice University mascot.

The technique starts with a sheet of hexagonal boron nitride. Then masks are laid on top the sheets. The exposed material is etched away with boron gas. Once the masks are washed away, graphene is grown in the gaps via chemical vapor deposition.

The graphene bonded with the hexagonal boron nitride, as seen in the image at left. This layer can be picked up and placed on any substrate.

Going forward, the team aims to integrate a third element, a semiconductor, to the 2-D fabric. If this?works, it would allow for truly integrated in-plane devices.

?There is no limit to what you can build,? Ajayan said, who noted that functional layers could be stacked, creating a stacked devices at the atomic scale.

?You get a very robust, flexible, functional device that includes not just the device but also power and other peripherals,? he said. ?That is the road we are going down.?

John Roach is a contributing writer for NBC News. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/futureoftech/coming-soon-atomic-scale-2-d-electronics-1B8179074

tri international criminal court ios 5.1 apple tv update new ipad release pregnant jessica simpson international womens day

Wetzel: Pro sports far behind on gay acceptance

NEW ORLEANS ? Just hours after San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver was surrounded by microphones and forced into an apology for anti-gay remarks, Ronnaiah Tuiasosopo was on television acknowledging he was gay. He spoke of his desire to have a relationship with what he says was an unwitting Manti Te'o, driving him to impersonate a female online and over the phone.

Te'o maintains he is "far from" gay, a question no less than Katie Couric asked him. His answer is worth accepting if only because it's not anyone's business who someone chooses to love.

The real issue is even if Te'o, or another athlete, were homosexual, how in the world would they summon the fortitude and accept the risk to come out while seeking a professional life in an NFL locker room? Clearly, at least in some number, locker rooms are still populated by bigots who agree with Culliver.

"It's going to take a very courageous person," said Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brandon Ayanbadejo, who is straight but a very public supporter of gay rights.

Culliver told the Artie Lange Show on Tuesday that San Francisco "ain't got no gay people on the team. They gotta get up outta here if they do. Can't be with that sweet stuff."

[Related: Niners' Culliver sorry for homophobic comments]

Culliver's comments were stupid, but no less stupid was his willingness to say what many players think, even if they suggest the opposite.

Ayanbadejo estimated that 50 percent of the league agrees with Culliver, 25 percent with him and 25 percent may not be in complete agreement on issues such as gay marriage but are accepting of everyone.

While that's far behind society at large, where gay co-workers are everywhere and even equality in marriage laws are getting passed in some states, Ayanbadejo figures that's actually an improvement from the start of his 14-season career.

Chris Culliver apologized for his anti-gay remarks. (Getty)

"You went from 95 percent of the people thinking like Culliver, so we're definitely winning the battle," Ayanbadejo said in advance of the Ravens-49ers showdown in Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday.

Still, why are pro sports so far behind other segments of society on acceptance?

"Do you want the truth?" Ayanbadejo asked.

Yes.

"You can't handle the truth," he said, channeling his Jack Nicholson with a laugh. "I honestly have my opinions why but I really can't voice them right now. I think it's something I can talk about after the Super Bowl. Its tough to be sitting here talking about equality. Naturally that's the most important thing, but right here and now I'm focused on the Super Bowl."

When the problem is that deep ? too deep for perhaps the most outspoken player in the league to even honestly discuss ? then it should serve as a wake-up call to the league that a real dialogue is overdue. There would never be such concern on other equal rights issues.

Of all the items that football is dealing with right now, this is one that isn't difficult to tackle. The NFL and NFLPA could use their bully pulpit on an important campaign to raise awareness on acceptance throughout sports.

The Culliver comments were ridiculous and quickly condemned, but their impact will linger, and not just in the NFL. There are over 10,000 players in major college football and none are publicly out. The percentages aren't much better at the high school ranks.

[Yahoo! Sports Radio: Dan Wetzel on the role of gay athletes in pro sports]

The impact can be devastating, especially on teenagers. Having young people forced into living a lie can lead to all kinds of coping mechanisms from substance abuse to even suicide, a simply sad and unacceptable waste in this day and age.

Te'o has been dogged by a million jokes for just being in the middle of such a bizarre story and those will only grow after Tuiasosopo dishes to Dr. Phil. It was bad enough when his girlfriend wasn't real; now she's a gay man? Some wonder if he'll slide in the NFL draft and, if so, what's the real reason.

It may be that the only way this barrier gets broken is if a truly top-line player is unfortunately outed. Then due to the athlete's strong play, teammates and opponents will be forced to see things in a different light.

"If you're an amazing player the acceptance is going to come a lot easier," Ayanbadejo said. "It's going to be like, 'oh man, I didn't know gay people could be such amazing athletes.'?"

Ayanbadejo says he understands why the average player who is fighting just to stay in the league stays in the closet.

[Watch: Did Culliver's comments fracture the 49ers' focus?]

"You have to think about it, you're playing a short-term game," he said. "The average is three years. You have three years to play this game, why would you make things any tougher on yourself in those three years?

"Why would you want to make your job harder? Until mentalities change and people are more accepting, then it doesn't make sense to do it. If your dream is to play football and you've dealt with the discrimination and hid everything that long, then you might as well just play and finish and do things after."

The league is, in certain spots, trying. Ayanbadejo, Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe and other players have politicked for gay rights. When a Maryland politician condemned Ayanbadejo for his work on a gay marriage referendum, the Ravens unequivocally supported their employee. Meanwhile, the 49ers have partnered with the It Gets Better Project that reaches out to young people facing harassment. And the NFL is expected to include a presentation from Athlete Ally in future rookie symposiums.

The NCAA, which is the feeder system for these players and is made up of what is supposed to be open-minded public institutions, needs to do more also. A few schools, including UCLA, Connecticut and Duke, have joined up with the You Can Play organization that combats homophobia in sports, but the number is painfully low.

"There's a lot more we can do," Ayanbadejo said.

If nothing else it's long overdue for the NFL and its players to move beyond the accepting stage and into the welcoming one. The culture of ignorance still plagues this sport and that should humiliate everyone involved in the league. It's a stain on everyone.

[Y! Sports Fan Shop: Buy Super Bowl XLVII merchandise]

Ayanbadejo figures the reaction will be so positive for that first openly gay player that the entire issue will spin on a dime.

"People would be writing books about it and making movies and it would turn into such an awesome story. [We could] really call it our Jackie Robinson athlete," he said.

"We know that he's out there, we're just waiting for him to embrace it and everybody to embrace him," Ayanbadejo added.

Super Bowl video from Yahoo! Sports:

Other popular content on Yahoo! Sports:
? David Beckham signs with PSG, will donate salary to charity
? How the Super Bowl got its Roman numerals
? Rudy Gay trade a sign to LeBron that Super Team era ending
? UFC's most unappreciated star is chasing history

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nfl--chris-culliver-s-remarks--manti-te-o-episode-make-it-hard-for-active-gay-athlete-to-go-public-194711778.html

where do i vote dixville notch Remember Remember The 5th Of November African painted dogs What Time Do Polls Open Krysten Ritter v for vendetta

Pfizer, Lilly beat Street; generics take toll

(Reuters) - Pfizer Inc and Eli Lilly and Co both reported a better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit as they weathered generic competition for once top-selling products through deals, cost cutting and strong sales of newer products.

The U.S. drugmakers also issued 2013 forecasts on Tuesday that passed muster with investors, sending shares of both companies up about 3 percent.

Excluding special items, Pfizer earned 47 cents per share, topping analysts' average expectations by 3 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

But global sales for the largest U.S. drugmaker fell 7 percent to $15.1 billion as sales of Lipitor, formerly the world's top selling prescription medicine at nearly $13 billion a year for Pfizer, plunged 71 percent to $584 million with the market flooded by cheaper generic copies.

Pfizer's net profit quadrupled to $6.32 billion, or 86 cents per share, due to the November sale of its nutritional products business to Swiss food group Nestle SA for about $12 billion. It is also preparing to spin off its animal health business through an initial public offering expected to bring in billions more.

"Pfizer is doing exactly what you want them to do," said Bill Smead, portfolio manager of Seattle-based Smead Value Fund that owns Pfizer shares. "Pfizer is moving back to their core with a strong balance sheet and a bright future."

Lilly's fourth-quarter net profit fell more than 3 percent as sales of its Zyprexa schizophrenia drug - at one time one of the world's top five sellers - fell 49 percent to $385 million.

Excluding one-time items such as asset impairments and restructuring charges, Lilly earned 85 cents per share, beating analysts' expectations by 7 cents per share.

Lilly's results and its 2013 forecast were dependent upon aggressive companywide cost controls. Strong sales of other drugs and animal health products helped offset the toll of generic Zyprexa in the fourth quarter.

"We are absolutely emerging from the loss of Zyprexa," Lilly Chief Financial Officer Derica Rice said in an interview. "We feel good where we are."

But the company is facing yet another daunting patent cliff at the end of this year when its current biggest product, the antidepressant Cymbalta, begins to face generic competition.

"They're negotiating the Zyprexa patent cliff pretty well by keeping costs down, but the question is whether they can keep tightening the belt to offset the patent expiration on Cymbalta," said Judson Clark, an analyst for Edward Jones. "It's a $6 billion a year drug, and a tough act to follow."

Lilly updated the 2013 earnings forecast it issued earlier this month, which was better than Wall Street estimates, to include 7 cents per share from a delayed research and development tax credit. It now expects to earn $3.82 to $3.97 per share, which represents growth of 13 percent to 17 percent.

Pfizer forecast 2013 earnings of $2.20 to $2.30 per share, excluding special items, with a midpoint below the average analyst estimate of $2.29 per share, according to Thomson Reuters. Pfizer earned $2.19 a share in 2012.

Pfizer earnings were propped up by rebounding sales in emerging markets, which rose 17 percent to $2.65 billion, and strong sales of its Prevnar vaccine for pneumococcal bacteria, which jumped 19 percent to $993 million. It also recently won approvals for highly promising new products, including the blood clot preventer Eliquis, which it shares with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co , and Xeljanz for rheumatoid arthritis.

"As they pare away non-pharmaceuticals businesses, that will allow Pfizer's drug pipeline to shine even more because it will represent a bigger portion of the company going forward," Clark said.

Smead likes the U.S. pharmaceutical sector as a whole. "The best business over next 20 years is keeping baby boomers alive and keeping their animals alive," he said.

Pfizer shares were up 83 cents, or 3 percent, at $27.67, while Lilly shares rose $1.92, or 3.6 percent, to $54.56 in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Bill Berkrot, Ransdell Pierson and Caroline Humer; Editing by Jilian Mincer and Maureen Bavdek)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pfizer-lilly-beat-street-generics-toll-172934071--sector.html

black friday deals Sephora Cyber Monday 2012 Walmart.com detroit lions Thanksgiving Day cooking a turkey

Gut microbes at root of severe malnutrition in kids

Public release date: 30-Jan-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Caroline Arbanas
arbanasc@wustl.edu
314-286-0109
Washington University School of Medicine

A study of young twins in Malawi, in sub-Saharan Africa, finds that bacteria living in the intestine are an underlying cause of a form of severe acute childhood malnutrition.

The research, led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and reported Feb. 1 in the journal Science, shows how dysfunctional communities of gut microbes conspire with a poor diet to trigger malnutrition.

The discovery is bolstered by additional studies in mice, showing that gut microbes transplanted from malnourished children cause dramatic weight loss and alter metabolism when the animals are fed a nutrient-poor diet.

"The gut microbes of malnourished children and malnourished mice do not appear to mature along a normal, healthy trajectory," says senior author Jeffrey Gordon, MD, director of the Center for Genome Sciences & Systems Biology. "Feeding the children and the mice a high-calorie, nutrient-rich food had a temporary, beneficial effect on their gut microbes, but not enough to repair the dysfunction. Our results suggest we need to devise new strategies to repair gut microbial communities so these children can experience healthy growth and reach their full potential."

Childhood malnutrition is a common problem in Malawi, and while a poor diet clearly plays a critical role, it is not the only factor. Scientists have long puzzled over why some children are afflicted by the condition but not others, even those in the same household who eat the same foods. This has led to the realization that a lack of food alone cannot explain its causes.

The standard treatment is a peanut-based, nutrient-rich therapeutic food, which has helped to reduce deaths from the condition. But the new study shows that the therapeutic food only has a transient effect on the gut microbes. Once the therapeutic food is discontinued, the community of microbes in the intestine and their genes revert to an immature state, in the children and in the mice.

This may explain why many malnourished children gain weight when they are treated with therapeutic food but remain at high risk for stunted growth, neurological problems and even malnutrition and death after treatment is stopped, the researchers say.

The new study followed 317 sets of twins in Malawi for the first three years of their lives. During this time, half of the twin pairs remained healthy, and in the others, either one or both twins developed malnutrition. The researchers focused on children who developed a form of malnutrition called kwashiorkor. The illness is associated with swollen bellies, liver damage, skin ulcerations and loss of appetite, in addition to wasting.

The researchers were particularly interested in twin pairs in which one twin remained healthy and the other became malnourished. This occurred just as often in fraternal twins as identical twins, pointing to a factor other than human genes.

So, Gordon and his team looked to another source of genes the microbial genes in the gut. These genes extract nutrients and calories from the diet, synthesize vitamins and nutrients and help shape the immune system.

In Malawai, the typical diet consists of a corn-based porridge that lacks sufficient vitamins and minerals. When a child in the study became malnourished, the standard of care was to give both twins the therapeutic food to limit food sharing.

This allowed Gordon to track the gut microbes just before, during and after treatment with the therapeutic food. While the food seemed to kick start maturation of the gut microbiomes of the severely malnourished children, its benefits were only temporary. Four weeks after the therapeutic food was discontinued, the gut microbiomes of the malnourished children either failed to progress or even regressed, while those of the healthy co-twins continued to mature on a normal trajectory.

Delving deeper, the researchers transplanted the gut microbes from healthy and malnourished co-twins into groups of germ-free mice that had been raised under sterile conditions.

Mice transplanted with malnourished children's gut microbes and that ate a typical Malawian diet experienced substantial weight loss, while those that had the healthy twin's gut microbes and ate the same nutrient-deficient diet did not. And although the microbiomes of the "malnourished" mice did mature when they were fed the therapeutic food, they tended to revert to a malnourished state when the village diet was resumed.

Looking more closely, the researchers found that mice with the gut microbes transplanted from a malnourished twin carried some species of bacteria associated with human illnesses, including inflammatory bowel disease. Moreover, the combination of a nutrient-deficient diet and a malnourished microbiome altered carbohydrate and amino acid metabolism, and reduced the availability of sulfur, which may contribute to weight loss. In addition, a central metabolic pathway for extracting energy from food also was disrupted.

"These findings suggest that energy metabolism may be a bigger challenge for these children when they are exposed to a nutrient-deficient, low-calorie diet," Gordon says.

Moving forward, the researchers plan to conduct additional studies to further define the role of the gut microbes in severe malnutrition and explore ways to permanently repair the gut microbiome so sick children can overcome the long-term effects of severe malnutrition.

"There is much more work to do," Gordon says. "It may be that earlier or longer treatment with existing or next-generation therapeutic foods will enhance our ability to repair or prevent the problems associated with malnutrition.

"We are also exploring whether it is possible to supplement the therapeutic food with beneficial gut bacteria from healthy children, as a treatment to repair the gut microbiome," he explains. "We hope that these studies will provide a new way of understanding how the gut microbiome and food interact to affect the health and recovery of malnourished children."

###

The research is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (DK30292, DK078669, T32-HD049338.

Smith, MI, Yatsunenko T, Manary MJ, Trehan I, Gordon J et al. Gut Microbiomes of Malawian Twin Pairs Discordant for Kwashiorkor. Science. Feb. 1, 2013.

Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

---

[ | 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.

Public release date: 30-Jan-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Caroline Arbanas
arbanasc@wustl.edu
314-286-0109
Washington University School of Medicine

A study of young twins in Malawi, in sub-Saharan Africa, finds that bacteria living in the intestine are an underlying cause of a form of severe acute childhood malnutrition.

The research, led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and reported Feb. 1 in the journal Science, shows how dysfunctional communities of gut microbes conspire with a poor diet to trigger malnutrition.

The discovery is bolstered by additional studies in mice, showing that gut microbes transplanted from malnourished children cause dramatic weight loss and alter metabolism when the animals are fed a nutrient-poor diet.

"The gut microbes of malnourished children and malnourished mice do not appear to mature along a normal, healthy trajectory," says senior author Jeffrey Gordon, MD, director of the Center for Genome Sciences & Systems Biology. "Feeding the children and the mice a high-calorie, nutrient-rich food had a temporary, beneficial effect on their gut microbes, but not enough to repair the dysfunction. Our results suggest we need to devise new strategies to repair gut microbial communities so these children can experience healthy growth and reach their full potential."

Childhood malnutrition is a common problem in Malawi, and while a poor diet clearly plays a critical role, it is not the only factor. Scientists have long puzzled over why some children are afflicted by the condition but not others, even those in the same household who eat the same foods. This has led to the realization that a lack of food alone cannot explain its causes.

The standard treatment is a peanut-based, nutrient-rich therapeutic food, which has helped to reduce deaths from the condition. But the new study shows that the therapeutic food only has a transient effect on the gut microbes. Once the therapeutic food is discontinued, the community of microbes in the intestine and their genes revert to an immature state, in the children and in the mice.

This may explain why many malnourished children gain weight when they are treated with therapeutic food but remain at high risk for stunted growth, neurological problems and even malnutrition and death after treatment is stopped, the researchers say.

The new study followed 317 sets of twins in Malawi for the first three years of their lives. During this time, half of the twin pairs remained healthy, and in the others, either one or both twins developed malnutrition. The researchers focused on children who developed a form of malnutrition called kwashiorkor. The illness is associated with swollen bellies, liver damage, skin ulcerations and loss of appetite, in addition to wasting.

The researchers were particularly interested in twin pairs in which one twin remained healthy and the other became malnourished. This occurred just as often in fraternal twins as identical twins, pointing to a factor other than human genes.

So, Gordon and his team looked to another source of genes the microbial genes in the gut. These genes extract nutrients and calories from the diet, synthesize vitamins and nutrients and help shape the immune system.

In Malawai, the typical diet consists of a corn-based porridge that lacks sufficient vitamins and minerals. When a child in the study became malnourished, the standard of care was to give both twins the therapeutic food to limit food sharing.

This allowed Gordon to track the gut microbes just before, during and after treatment with the therapeutic food. While the food seemed to kick start maturation of the gut microbiomes of the severely malnourished children, its benefits were only temporary. Four weeks after the therapeutic food was discontinued, the gut microbiomes of the malnourished children either failed to progress or even regressed, while those of the healthy co-twins continued to mature on a normal trajectory.

Delving deeper, the researchers transplanted the gut microbes from healthy and malnourished co-twins into groups of germ-free mice that had been raised under sterile conditions.

Mice transplanted with malnourished children's gut microbes and that ate a typical Malawian diet experienced substantial weight loss, while those that had the healthy twin's gut microbes and ate the same nutrient-deficient diet did not. And although the microbiomes of the "malnourished" mice did mature when they were fed the therapeutic food, they tended to revert to a malnourished state when the village diet was resumed.

Looking more closely, the researchers found that mice with the gut microbes transplanted from a malnourished twin carried some species of bacteria associated with human illnesses, including inflammatory bowel disease. Moreover, the combination of a nutrient-deficient diet and a malnourished microbiome altered carbohydrate and amino acid metabolism, and reduced the availability of sulfur, which may contribute to weight loss. In addition, a central metabolic pathway for extracting energy from food also was disrupted.

"These findings suggest that energy metabolism may be a bigger challenge for these children when they are exposed to a nutrient-deficient, low-calorie diet," Gordon says.

Moving forward, the researchers plan to conduct additional studies to further define the role of the gut microbes in severe malnutrition and explore ways to permanently repair the gut microbiome so sick children can overcome the long-term effects of severe malnutrition.

"There is much more work to do," Gordon says. "It may be that earlier or longer treatment with existing or next-generation therapeutic foods will enhance our ability to repair or prevent the problems associated with malnutrition.

"We are also exploring whether it is possible to supplement the therapeutic food with beneficial gut bacteria from healthy children, as a treatment to repair the gut microbiome," he explains. "We hope that these studies will provide a new way of understanding how the gut microbiome and food interact to affect the health and recovery of malnourished children."

###

The research is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (DK30292, DK078669, T32-HD049338.

Smith, MI, Yatsunenko T, Manary MJ, Trehan I, Gordon J et al. Gut Microbiomes of Malawian Twin Pairs Discordant for Kwashiorkor. Science. Feb. 1, 2013.

Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

---

[ | 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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/wuso-gma013013.php

Sarah Jones chicago marathon barcelona vs real madrid Johnny Depp Dead college football rankings Steel Magnolias Niels Bohr

JMIR--Correlates of Health-Related Social Media Use Among Adults ...

Advertisement: Preregister now for the Medicine 2.0 Congress

Original Paper

Correlates of Health-Related Social Media Use Among Adults

Rosemary Thackeray^*, MPH, PhD; Benjamin T Crookston^*, MPH, PhD; Joshua H West^*, MPH, PhD

Brigham Young University, Department of Health Science, Provo, UT, United States
^*all authors contributed equally

Corresponding Author:
Rosemary Thackeray, MPH, PhD

Brigham Young University
Department of Health Science
221 Richards Building
Provo, UT, 84602
United States
Phone: 1 801 422 1704
Fax: 1 801 422 0273
Email:

---

ABSTRACT

Background: Sixty percent of Internet users report using the Internet to look for health information. Social media sites are emerging as a potential source for online health information. However, little is known about how people use social media for such purposes.
Objectives: The purpose of this study was two-fold: (1) to establish the frequency of various types of online health-seeking behaviors, and (2) to identify correlates of 2 health-related online activities, social networking sites (SNS) for health-related activities and consulting online user-generated content for answers about health care providers, health facilities, or medical treatment.
Methods: The study consisted of a telephone survey of 1745 adults who reported going online to look for health-related information. Four subscales were created to measure use of online resources for (1) using SNS for health-related activities; (2) consulting online rankings and reviews of doctors, hospitals or medical facilities, and drugs or medical treatments; (3) posting a review online of doctors, hospitals or medical facilities, and drugs or medical treatments, and (4) posting a comment or question about health or medical issues on various social media. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed.
Results: Respondents consulted online rankings or reviews (41.15%), used SNS for health (31.58%), posted reviews (9.9%1), and posted a comment, question, or information (15.19%). Respondents with a chronic disease were nearly twice as likely to consult online rankings (odds ratio [OR] 2.09, 95% CI 1.66-2.63, P<.001). Lower odds of consulting online reviews were associated with less formal education (OR 0.49, 95% CI 0.37-0.65, P<.001) and being male (OR 0.71, 95% CI 0.57-0.87, P<.001). Respondents with higher incomes were 1.5 times as likely to consult online rankings or reviews (OR 1.49, 95% CI 0.10-2.24, P=.05), than respondents with a regular provider (OR 2.05, 95% CI 1.52-2.78, P<.001), or living in an urban/suburban location (OR 1.61, 95% CI 1.17-2.22, P<.001). Older respondents were less likely to use SNS for health-related activities (OR 0.96, 95% CI 0.95-0.97, P<.001), as were males (OR 0.70, 95% CI 0.56-0.87, P<.001), whereas respondents with a regular provider had nearly twice the likelihood of using SNS for health-related activities (OR 1.89, 95% CI 1.43-2.52, P<.001).
Conclusions: People are using social media for seeking health information. However, individuals are more likely to consume information than they are to contribute to the dialog. The inherent value of ?social? in social media is not being captured with online health information seeking. People with a regular health care provider, chronic disease, and those in younger age groups are more likely to consult online rankings and reviews and use SNS for health-related activities.

(J Med Internet Res 2013;15(1):e21)
doi:10.2196/jmir.2297

KEYWORDS

social media; Internet; health information; consumer

The Internet is becoming an increasingly common source of health information. Approximately 60% of Internet users report using the Internet to look for health information [1,2]. In addition to seeking health information, Wen et al [3] found that 15% of Internet users also tracked personal health information on the Internet. Determinants of seeking health information online include education, gender, race, age, presence of children in the home, having a poor personal health condition, and geographic residence [1,4-7]. Similarly, predictors of using the Internet to track personal health information include gender, race, education, and having a health care provider [3].

Historically, online health seeking meant visiting an agency- or organization-sponsored website. Recently, social media sites are emerging as a potential source of online health information [8]. Social media refers to ?activities, practices, and behaviors among communities of people who gather online to share information, knowledge, and opinions using conversational media? [9]. These social media are broadly categorized as forums and message boards, review and opinion sites, social networks (eg, Facebook), blogging and microblogging (eg, Twitter), bookmarking, and media sharing (eg, YouTube) [10].

Individual use of social media is steadily increasing. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of adult Internet users in the United States are involved with a type of social media called social networking sites (SNS), such as MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn [11]. Technorati currently registers over 1.3 million blogs [12], 13 percent of Internet users (140 million people) have a Twitter account [13,14], and Facebook has 955 million active users [15]. By 2015, it is estimated that the number of individuals and corporations who have social networking accounts will reach over 3 billion [16].

Social media and SNS use varies by demographics. There are statistically significant differences in SNS use between younger and older ages and between males and females [11]. However, SNS are used fairly equally across education, income, race/ethnicity, and rural and urban locations [11]. Chou and colleagues [17] found that age and education were predictors of 3 forms of social media use (ie, participating in online support groups, blogging, and visiting a SNS).

In contrast to going online to seek health information, social media technologies allow online social media users to create, distribute, and share information independent of an organization. The level of use and involvement with social media technologies varies by individual. Bernoff and Anderson [18] and Li and Bernoff [19] classify individuals based on how they use social media. These classifications, although not mutually exclusive, include creators, conversationalists, critics, collectors, joiners, or spectators. Similarly, Hoffman and Novak [20] identify 4 goals for social media use: create, connect, consume, and control. The main conclusion from both typologies is that the range of social media activities that people engage in varies from consuming to creating content.

Despite the near ubiquity of social media use and the high prevalence of health information seeking on the Internet, there is a dearth of literature about the characteristics of people who use social media for seeking health information and how these people engage with social media. Thus, additional research is needed to determine whether social media users are primarily spectators, or if they are creators or critics. That is, are they looking for information or are they becoming part of the information creation and sharing process? Knowing the correlates of social media use for health information can allow health professionals to more accurately segment populations and tailor interventions accordingly. Therefore, the aim of this research was two-fold. First, to establish the frequency of various forms (eg, spectators, creators, or critics) of online health-seeking behaviors. Second, this research seeks to identify correlates of 2 health-related online activities: (1) using SNS for health-related activities, and (2) consulting online user-generated content for answers about health care providers, health facilities, or medical treatment.

Data Source and Sample

The data for this study were taken from the 2010 Health Tracking Survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research on behalf of the Pew Internet & American Life Project [21]. The data were collected during August to September 2010 through a telephone survey that included both cell phones and landlines. A random digit method was used to select participants who were US residents, aged 18 years and older, and who spoke English (n=3001). Data were weighted to the most recent US Census Bureau?s Current Population Survey. Data were stripped of identifying information and made available to the public. For the current study, inclusion criteria were adults who used the Internet at least occasionally (Pew question Q6a) and who reported going online to look for health-related information (Pew question healthseek). The final sample size was 1745.

Measures

Demographic, Socioeconomic, and Health Status

Demographic, socioeconomic, and health status covariates included ethnicity, education, income, gender, age, race, marital status, having a chronic health condition, geographic community type, health insurance status, and having a family doctor or health care professional. Response categories for race, education, and marital status were collapsed to account for small cell sizes.

To measure an individual?s level of social media health engagement, we created 4 subscales based on related survey items. Each of the response variables were dichotomous and coded as yes or no. We calculated Cronbach alpha to estimate internal reliability for each scale.

Used Social Networking Sites for Health-Related Activities

The 5 questions that focused on using SNS for health-related activities included (1) get health information, (2) start or join a health-related group, (3) follow your friend?s personal health experiences or health updates, (4) raise money or draw attention to a health-related issue or cause, and (5) remember or memorialize others who suffered from a certain health condition (Pew questions Q26a-e). The composite scale had an internal reliability of Cronbach alpha=.66

Consulted Online Rankings or Reviews

Three questions focused on consulting online rankings or reviews of (1) doctors or other providers, (2) hospitals or other medical facilities, and (3) particular drugs or medical treatments (Pew questions Q29a-c; Cronbach alpha=.69).

Posted a Review Online

Three questions focused on whether respondents had posted a review online of (1) a doctor, (2) a hospital, or (3) his/her experiences with a particular drug or medical treatment (Pew questions Q29d-f; Cronbach alpha=.61)

Posted a Comment or Question on Social Media

Five questions asked if respondents had posted comments, questions, or information about health or medical issues on various social media. These included (1) an online discussion, a listserv, or other online group forum, (2) a blog, (3) a social networking site, such as Facebook, MySpace, or LinkedIn, (4) Twitter or another status update site, and (5) a website of any kind, such as a health site or news site that allows comments and discussion (Pew questions Q25a-e; Cronbach alpha=.80)

Data Analysis

Unadjusted univariate analyses of demographics, socioeconomic, and health status variables with each social media?health engagement scale were computed. Variables that were significantly associated with the dependent variable were included in a multivariate regression model. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed with social media health engagement as the dependent variable and the demographics, socioeconomic, and health status variables as covariates. All analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics version 20 (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY, USA).

Demographic Characteristics

More than half of the study sample was female (56.16%, 980/1745) and white (79.20%, 1382/1745) (see Table 1). College graduates comprised 39.43% (689/1745) of the sample, 29.46% (514/1745) reported a household income between US $75,000 and $150,000, and 86.88% (1516/1745) reported having health insurance. Respondents reported consulting online rakings or reviews (41.15%, 718/1745) and using SNS for health (31.58%, 551/1745) more than they reported contributing content through posting reviews of doctors, hospitals, drugs, or medical treatments (9.91%, 173/1745), or posting a comment, question, or information about health or medical issues on a blog, SNS, Twitter, website, or online discussion or forum (15.19%, 265/1745).

Correlates of Social Media Health Engagement and Regression Analyses

Regression analyses revealed few correlates for posting reviews of a doctor, hospital, drug, or medical treatment (chronic disease, income, age, health insurance) and for posting a comment, question, or information on various social media sites (chronic disease, age, marital status). Therefore, the further analysis and data presented here are limited to using SNS for health and consulting online rankings or reviews.

An examination of correlates of consulting online rankings or reviews identifies several factors that are associated with higher use of online rankings and reviews (see Table 2). For example, approximately half (49.27%, 339/688) of those with a college degree reported using online rankings or reviews compared with 40.71% (204/501) of those with some college and 31.50% (172/546) of those with a high school education or less. Factors associated with use of SNS for health included income, gender, age, marital status, and having a personal or family doctor or health care provider.

Unadjusted Regression Analyses for Consulting Online Rankings

Unadjusted regression analyses revealed numerous factors associated with consulting online rankings or reviews of doctors, hospitals, drugs, or medical treatments (see Table 3). Having a chronic disease, reporting a higher annual income, living in an urban/suburban location, reporting health insurance coverage, and having a regular health care provider were each independently associated with increased odds of consulting online rankings. Decreased odds were observed among older respondents, those who were unmarried, those with lower levels of education, males, and those who were black/African American.

Unadjusted Regression Analyses for Using Social Networking Sites for Health

Table 4 presents the results of the unadjusted regression analyses for using SNS for health-related activities, such as getting information, joining a group, following friends? health experiences, raising money, increasing awareness, or remembering or memorializing others. Older respondents and males were each less likely to engage in such behaviors. Respondents who reported being unmarried or having a regular health care provider were more likely to use SNS for health-related purposes.

Adjusted Regression Analyses for Consulting Online Rankings

Results from adjusted regression analyses (see Table 3) revealed that respondents with a chronic disease were nearly twice as likely to consult online rankings as respondents who were free of chronic disease (OR 2.09, 95% CI 1.66-2.63, P<.001). For levels of education, high school or less (OR 0.49, 95% CI 0.37-0.66, P<.001) and some college (OR 0.70, 95% CI 0.54-0.91, P=.01) were each associated with lower odds of consulting online rankings than respondents who had at least obtained a college degree. With respect to income, respondents who reported an annual income of US $75,000 to $150,000 were 1.5 times as likely to consult online rankings (OR 1.49, 95% CI 0.10-2.24, P=.05) compared to those making less than US $20,000. Males were less likely than females (OR 0.71, 95% CI 0.57-0.87, P<.001), whereas respondents who have a regular provider were more than 2 times more likely to consult online rankings (OR 2.05, 95% CI 1.52-2.78, P<.001). Living in an urban/suburban location was associated with a 60% increased chance of consulting rankings (OR 1.61, 95% CI 1.17-2.22, P<.001). In the adjusted model, marital status, race, and insurance coverage were not significantly associated with consulting online rankings. Likewise, the influence of having a health care provider and income was attenuated.

Adjusted Regression Analyses for Using Social Networking Sites for Health

Adjusted odds ratios for using SNS for health-related purposes are presented in Table 4. As respondents? ages increased, their likelihood for using such sites decreased (OR 0.96, 95% CI 0.95-0.97, P<.001). With respect to gender, males had lower odds than females (OR 0.70, 95% CI 0.56-0.87, P<.001). Compared to respondents without a regular health care provider, respondents with a regular provider had nearly twice the likelihood of using SNS for health-related activities (OR 1.89, 95% CI 1.43-2.52, P<.001), a greater influence than in the unadjusted model. Marital status was not significantly associated with using SNS for health-related activities.

Source: http://www.jmir.org/2013/1/e21/

cleveland plain dealer barry sanders barry sanders john scott jimmie johnson juan pablo montoya crash chardon high school shooting

Author Q&A: Jennifer Dornbush,? ? Write On Online

Jennifer Dornbush, author of Forensic Speak: How to Write Realistic Crime Dramas, is a long-time storyteller who grew up around death investigation.

?My father was the county Medical Examiner and kept his office in our home, ? she says. ?Besides a few nightmares and therapy sessions, my childhood has also given me some very uncanny experiences for my storytelling. To round out my death investigation knowledge, I went back to school and completed over 360 hours of CSI training.?

Dornbush has published more than 100 articles, and has written short films and documentaries, a children?s book, and a dozen film and TV scripts.

What inspired you to first start writing?
I?ve been writing since before I could actually write, so I guess you could say it was a gift that was given to me rather than something that inspired me. I?m grateful every day for this gift and my prayer is that I will continue to be a good steward of it.

Why did you write Forensic Speak?
Forensic Speak started out as a project for an independent study course I designed in order to earn my certificate at the Forensic Science Academy. To pass the academy, I needed a prerequisite course and when that course was cancelled after the first week of class, I convinced the director of the program to allow me to write a handbook for crime writers instead. I was the only writer in the class and I wanted to tailor something specific to my educational goals. The director loved the idea, so off I went. Later, my writing group encouraged me to publish it. But I was so busy at the time that I dismissed it.

What was your process for writing it? Getting it published?
After I finished the academy a writer friend sent me a YouTube video to Michael Wiese Publishing. In the video Ken Lee announced that MWP was seeking material. My friend encouraged me to send in a query. The book was far from ready, but I thought, why not? On a lunch break one day, I wrote a query and sent it off. In less than an hour later Ken contacted me to say MWP was interested. However ? it took us a year from to get the pitch right and figure out what the book would be. So I didn?t actually sign the book contract until a year after I sent the query. From there it took me another year to write the book. This month will mark exactly three years since I entered the Forensic Science Academy and had the idea to write the book.

Having such an intense upbringing around foresics science, how did you decide what to include and what to discard?
My upbringing dealt primarily with death investigation, not so much criminology, DNA, ballistics, and fingerprinting. I wanted to round out my knowledge of crime investigation so I attended the Forensic Science Academy here in Los Angeles. When I was telling my writer friends about my experiences in the academy, they said that they wished they could go through it. I thought, well, why not put the academy in book form for those who aren?t able to take the academy? That inspired me to create a book built on the forensic foundation we were taught in the academy. Forensic science is vast and growing! My book is a smorgasboard. You get a sample of everything. You can pick and choose what you need. And if you want more of one thing, I?ve provided resources that will bring you to a larger meal.

What?s your favorite part of writing Forensic Speak? The greatest challenge?
Favorite part: Research and interviewing experts. Greatest challenge: Deciding what details to keep in or leave out. I?m an academic at heart so I tend to want more and more information. But I realize that can bog down the message.

What are the three biggest mistakes new writers make when writing in the crime genre?
1. Not spending the time, energy, or research to get the forensic facts right.

2. Thinking that what they see on TV or in movies is correct procedure.

3. Writing crime scenes that come off at cliche, plastic, or static (in action and dialogue!).

You also have a children?s book ? talk about different ends of the spectrum. In what ways was that writing/publishing process different?
I view my children?s book as a fun way to give something of value to the next generation. The book is my hobby, not my profession, so this takes away a lot of the pressure of marketing and selling. The message of the book is joy: what happens when we lose it? How do we get it back? I do book readings and when I see the children?s engaging with the story that means so much more to me than the couple bucks I get from a sale.

Additional advice for crime writers?
- Read and watch crime fiction.

- Figure out what brand of crime fiction best suits you.

- Keep a journal or file of interesting cases you want to explore in your writing.

- Create interesting, dynamic antagonists. Give them a story, a life, a emotional motivation.

Advice for non-fiction writers?
Write about your hobbies and interests to benefits others. Find your niche and explore ten ways you can share what you know with others.

For example? I took the concept behind Forensic Speak and created a monthly newsletter that features a forensic fun fact, a forensic link of the month, a forensic term of the month and a crime writer?s Q&A of the month. Then, I created a series of seminars: Writing the Killer Procedural, 10 Essential Steps in Death Investigation, How to Choose a Crime Show That?s Write For You?

You get the picture? be creative and do what inspires you.

What do you know now that you wish you knew when you first started writing?
How long things take!!! I wish I had started out with more patience. I still get impatient and anxious at time. I want things to happen sooner, faster, better! I?m hard on myself, but I guess that?s human nature and my stubborn work ethic. Thank goodness for coffee, yoga, and my wiener dogs.

Source: http://writeononline.com/2013/01/29/author-qa-jennifer-dornbush-forensic-speak/

Provigil dez bryant Kitty Wells Marissa Mayer Jon Lord Colorado shootings dark knight rises

Green Blog: Market for Bear Bile Threatens Asian Population

European Pressphoto Agency Bears await food on a farm in Fujian Province in China that is run by the pharmaceuticals maker Guizhentang. The company legally makes tonics from bear bile.

The six bears that arrived this month at Animals Asia, an animal rescue center in China, had the grisly symptoms of inhumane ?bile milking.? Greenish bile dripped from open fistulas used to drain gall bladders; teeth were broken and rotted from gnawing on the bars of tiny cages.

Four of the bears have since had surgery to remove gall bladders damaged by years of unhygenic procedures to extract their bile, which is coveted for its purported medicinal properties. One bear?s swollen gall bladder was the size of a watermelon.

The latest batch of bears was rescued from an illegal farm by the Sichuan Forestry Department and joins 145 other bears at the center, near Chengdu in southwestern China.
Over all, 285 bears have been rescued since the center opened in 2000

With luck, the six bears will recover at the sanctuary. But thousands on farms, both legal and illegal, continue to suffer in wretched conditions, and countless others living in the wild across Asia are threatened by poaching and their illegal capture.

Bear bile contains a chemical called ursedeoxycholic acid, long used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat gallstones, liver problems and other ailments. There are an estimated 10,000 farmed bears in China, 3,000 in Vietnam, at least 1,000 in South Korea and others in Laos and Myanmar.

Tigers, rhinos and elephants are notoriously poached to satisfy high demand in Asia for their parts, which are falsely assumed to have medicinal properties. Experts warn that sun bears and Asiatic black bears, known colloquially as ?moon bears,? are on a similar route to endangerment, although their plight draws less media attention. ?No bears are extinct, but all Asian ones are threatened,? said Chris Shepherd, a conservation biologist and deputy regional director of the wildlife trade group Traffic who is based in Malaysia.

To address the threat, the demand for bear bile must be sharply reduced, Dr. Shepherd, a conservation biologist told hundreds of researchers at the International Conference on Bear Research and Management, an annual event held recently in New Delhi.

Reducing demand would require a multi-pronged effort, experts say. That would mean enforcing existing laws, arresting and prosecuting violators, promoting synthetic and herbal alternatives, and closing illegal farms.

Chinese celebrities like the actor Jackie Chan and the athlete Yao Ming have both spoken out against the bear bile industry to raise public awareness about poaching and the inhumane conditions typically found on farms. Bears often live for years in coffin-like cages in which they are unable to stand or turn around.

The bile is extracted through catheters inserted into the abdomen, with needles or by bringing the gall bladder to the skin?s surface, where it will leak bile if prodded.

Legal farming was conceived as a way of increasing the supply of bile to reduce the motivation for poaching wild bears, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. But there is no evidence that it has done so, it noted in a resolution passed last September, and there is concern among conservationists that it ?may be detrimental.?

The resolution also called on countries with legal bear farms to close down the illegal ones, to ensure that no wild bears are added to farms; to conduct research into bear bile substitutes (there are dozens of synthetic and herbal alternatives) and to conduct an independent peer-reviewed scientific analysis on whether farming protects wild bears.

Some groups argue that the increased supply of farmed bile has only exacerbated demand. ?Because a surplus of bear bile is being produced, bile is used in many non-medical products, like bear bile wine, shampoo, toothpaste and face masks,? Animals Asia says. Since bear farming began in China in the early 1980?s, bear bile has been aggressively promoted as a cure-all remedy for problems like hangovers, the group added.

In mainland China and Japan, domestic sales of bear bile are legal and theoretically under strict regulation as prescription products. But such sales are illegal in Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and the international trade is illegal as well.

Yet a 2011 report from Traffic indicated that bear bile products were on sale in traditional medicine outlets in 12 Asian countries and territories.

Nonprescription bear bile products like shampoo or toothpaste are illegal in China yet are readily available for purchase, conservationists say. Tourists from South Korea, a country that has decimated its own wild bear population, are major buyers in China and Vietnam even though taking bear bile products across borders is illegal under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna.

?Farms have drawn in bile consumers by creating a huge market ? farmed bile is cheap,? said David Garshelis, a research scientist at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources who is co-chairman of the I.U.C.N.?s bear specialist group.

In Vietnam, a milliliter of bile might sell for $3 to $6; about 100 milliliters can be extracted from a bear each day, according to Annemarie Weegenaar, bear and director of the veterinarian team at Animals Asia?s Vietnam center.

In four years, the I.U.C.N. is to issue a report on whether bear farms threaten wild populations. Meanwhile, demand appears to be spreading further afield in Asia and is now growing in Indonesia, largely as a result of demand from the Chinese and Korean communities there, said Gabriella Fredriksson, a conservation biologist based in Sumatra. A low-level poacher can sell a gall bladder from a bear caught in a simple snare and then killed for about $10.

So far the biggest threat to bears in Indonesia is loss of habitat from forest fires and the conversion of land to palm oil plantations. But in the last few years, poaching has increased, said Dr. Fredriksson, who has been there 15 years.

She cautioned that bears in Indonesia could also become highly threatened. ?Fifty years ago, bears were doing well in Cambodia and Laos,? she said. ?Now there?s hardly any left.?

Source: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/market-for-bear-bile-threatens-asian-population/?partner=rss&emc=rss

ted nugent veep los angeles kings earth day timothy leary jonathan frid pujols

Hard times can hit autistic children ? Health ? Bangor Daily News ...

It is estimated that up to three million americans struggle with autism, a disorder that affects the brain?s development through social and communication skills. Even though the population is increasing, not everything is known about autism, but more and more facts about autism continue to be well known. Roughly forty six million people worldwide have autism.

Researchers do not know what causes autism, but what is known is that people at the end of the autism spectrum tend to live normal lives just like typical people. However, people who have more significant autism, especially at the beginning or middle of the spectrum rely on life long institutional care, end up isolated living with parents, or unable to hold a career, and can end up on disability insurance.

Autism has a very broad spectrum ranging from a child that remains nonverbal for their whole life, up to brilliant engineers, scientists, and computer technicians. Some require more assistance with social skills, and independent living.

There are many spectrum disorders in the category autism. At the beginning of the spectrum is a disability called childhood disintegrative disorder. Childhood disintegrative disorder is a disability in which an infant makes babbling noises, and says clear words. But before the infant is two years ago, they completely stop speaking, and making eye contact. Most children with childhood disintegrative disorder never regain their speech, but a minority of them do. But their speech will be abnormal, and they will most likely be unable to function in normal life situations.

Another disorder is Kanner?s disorder which involves impaired speech, impaired social skills, and poor motor skills. A child who suffers from Kanner?s will have weak muscles, and not being able to ride a bike, and difficulties with physical activity.

There is also a disorder called Rett?s syndrome which is a type of autism where there?s all the symptoms, but also more significant sensory problems, such as sensitivities to loud noises.

At the very end of the spectrum, there is Asperger?s syndrome, and high-functioning autism which are both very similar. People with Asperger?s have normal speech development, but their lack of social skills is quite significant. Also, people who have Asperger?s syndrome tend to have sloppy handwriting, as well as mild motor issues, but not significantly bad like someone with Kanner?s. Many people with Asperger?s are unable to play sports because of their social abilities, and motor skills.

High-functioning autism is the same term as Asperger?s. However people wih high-functioning autism have speech delay, and people with Asperger?s have normal speech development. Also, people with Asperger?s want to fit in, but are unable to relate to other people, while a person with high-functioning autism can?t in such ways. But these disorder are very similar, and some people say they?re both exactly the same.

But no matter where children are placed on the autism spectrum, everyone with it still struggles with life skills way more than typical people. People on the spectrum should get as much support as possible, and deserve to be treated the same as everyone else, from their teachers, close friends, and family members who love them.

Source: http://bangordailynews.com/community/hard-times-can-hit-autistic-children/

tim ferriss wmt human nature arkansas football blackhawks howard johnson levon helm

Male dancers signal their strength to men and women

Jan. 28, 2013 ? Heterosexual men pick up clues about other men's physical qualities from their dance moves just as heterosexual women do, say researchers at Northumbria University.

A study, led by psychologist Dr Nick Neave and researcher Kristofor McCarty, used 3D motion-capture technology and biomechanical analyses to examine the extent to which male dancing provides clues about the dancer's physical strength and fitness to both male and female observers.

The findings, published in the American Journal of Human Biology, suggest that male observers pick up on the strength of their potential rivals for female mates.

Researchers at Northumbria's School of Life Sciences filmed 30 males, aged 19-37, as they danced to a basic drum rhythm. Participants also completed a fitness test and assessments of upper and lower body strength. The dance clips were converted into virtual humanoid characters (avatars) and rated by women and men on perceived dance and physical qualities. The ratings were then correlated with various biomechanical indices.

The results showed that both sexes found significant positive associations between an individual's hand grip strength and their perceived dance quality, these qualities were picked up by the size and vigour of the movements of the upper body and arms.

Although it is traditionally thought that signals given off by men when they dance have been designed -- like animal mating displays -- to be interpreted as clues of their physical attributes to the opposite sex, it seems that heterosexual men are also making use of these signals, presumably to detect a potential love rival.

Dr Nick Neave believes that this increased sensitivity to male qualities by other heterosexual men may be due to intrasexual rivalry -- men sizing up the strength and virility of their competition.

He said: "Rated dance quality was positively associated with actual grip strength and these clues of upper-body strength were most accurately picked up by male observers. This ability to discern upper-body strength is principally because men are looking for cues of 'formidability' in other males.

"Upper-body strength is highly related to fighting ability as it reflects the ability to do damage, especially in intra-sexual conflicts. The ability to gauge strength before potential conflicts is sensible, especially to other males."

Also part of the research team were Northumbria University academics Dr Nick Caplan and Johannes H?nekopp, with Bernard Fink, from the Institute of Zoology and Anthropology, University of G?ttingen, Germany.

The study, "Male body movements as possible cues to physical strength: a biomechanical analysis", is published online in this month's American Journal of Human Biology

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 Northumbria University.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. N. Neave et al. Male body movements as possible cues to physical strength: a biomechanical analysis. American Journal of Human Biology, 2013

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/P6rh0QRlHrQ/130128081946.htm

benjarvus green ellis shaka smart hungergames bagpipes aspirin aspirin 21 jump street

Arrests made in Brazil fire, funerals begin

AAA??Jan. 28, 2013?9:20 AM ET
Arrests made in Brazil fire, funerals begin
AP

A woman cries over the coffin of a victim at a gymnasium where bodies were brought for identification in Santa Maria city, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. Flames raced through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday, killing more than 230 people as panicked partygoers gasped for breath in the smoke-filled air, stampeding toward a single exit partially blocked by those already dead. (AP Photo/Nabor Goulart)

A woman cries over the coffin of a victim at a gymnasium where bodies were brought for identification in Santa Maria city, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. Flames raced through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday, killing more than 230 people as panicked partygoers gasped for breath in the smoke-filled air, stampeding toward a single exit partially blocked by those already dead. (AP Photo/Nabor Goulart)

A man stands around coffins containing the remains of victims after the bodies were identified at a gymnasium in Santa Maria city, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. A fast-moving fire roared through the crowded, windowless Kiss nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday, within seconds filling the space with flames and a thick, toxic smoke that killed more than 230 panicked partygoers who gasped for breath and fought in a stampede to escape.(AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Relatives and friends mourn on the coffin containing the remains of a fire victim at a gymnasium where bodies were brought for identification in Santa Maria city, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. A fast-moving fire roared through the crowded, windowless Kiss nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday, within seconds filling the space with flames and a thick, toxic smoke that killed more than 230 panicked partygoers who gasped for breath and fought in a stampede to escape.(AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Relatives and friends carry the coffin of a victim out of a gymnasium where bodies where brought for identification in Santa Maria city, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. A fast-moving fire roared through the crowded, windowless Kiss nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday, within seconds filling the space with flames and a thick, toxic smoke that killed more than 230 panicked partygoers who gasped for breath and fought in a stampede to escape.(AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

A man carries an injured man, victim of a fire at the Kiss club in Santa Maria city, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, early Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013. Firefighters say that the death toll from a fire that swept through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil has risen to 180. Officials say the fire broke out while a band was performing. At least 200 people have been injured. (AP Photo/Agencia RBS)

SANTA MARIA, Brazil (AP) ? Brazilian police say they've made three arrests and are seeking a fourth person in connection with a nightclub fire that killed more than 230 people.

Inspector Ranolfo Vieira Junior said at a Monday press conference that the arrests are for investigative purposes. He says the detentions have five-day limits.

He declined to identify those arrested or the fourth person sought.

More than 230 people died early Sunday during the fire at a university party in southern Brazil. Police have said they think a band's pyrotechnics show ignited sound insulation on the ceiling, causing the blaze.

The Zero Hora newspaper quotes lawyer Jader Marques as saying his client Elissandro Spohr, a co-owner of the club, was arrested. The paper also says two band members were arrested.

Funerals began Monday in the city of Santa Maria, Brazil, where the blaze took place.

Associated PressNews Topics: General news, Commercial fires, Arrests, Bar and night club operators, Fires, Funerals and memorial services, Accidents and disasters, Law and order, Crime, Food services, Consumer services, Consumer products and services, Industries, Business
People, Places and Companies: Brazil

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-01-28-Brazil-Nightclub%20Fire/id-70db273f9bc74642b4c5b0dfe825f7a0

the matrix oceans 11 ferris state hockey mary poppins john derbyshire kinkade thomas kinkade paintings

Video: Closing Bell Exchange: Tracking Investors' Action

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/50618873/

College Football Scoreboard nfl scores nfl scores Devon Walker Tom Cruise ryan reynolds Star Trek: The Original Series

As world of gadgets grows, online industry tunes in to video ads ...

SAN FRANCISCO: Internet video ads, long a sideshow in the online advertising market, are gaining in importance to marketers and Web publishers as they look to capitalize on consumers' changing viewing habits and tap a $70 billion television market.

The ever-expanding array of gadgets that display online video, from tablets to Internet-connected TVs and DVD players, along with technology such as social media that facilitates distribution, has spurred new interest.

The growing trend means websites like Google Inc's YouTube, Yahoo, AOL and Hulu have a better shot at tapping the mother lode of television advertising budgets, though video ads have a long way to go before they become as dominant a part of the marketing landscape as TV ads.

Research firm eMarketer says video is the fastest growing form of online advertising, with spending increasing 46 percent last year, and outpacing popular formats such as search ads and display ads.

Google does not break out financial results for its YouTube business, but CEO Larry Page said on Tuesday that spending among YouTube's top 100 advertisers increased by more than 50 percent in 2012 compared with the year before.

There have been media reports that Facebook is developing a video ad service, and analysts will likely be looking for answers on that avenue when the social networking giant delivers its quarterly results on Wednesday.

At Yahoo, "one of our highest priorities was to create more online video experiences, because that's where the demand is for advertising," said Tim Morse, the former Yahoo finance chief who became CFO of video advertising technology company Adap.TV this month.

Advertisers are increasingly fond of video ads, Morse said, because of the similarities to TV.

"It's the closest to what they've had offline. They're looking for the same kind of medium where they can connect with consumers," he told Reuters.

TURNING POINT

Chevrolet has been running online video ads for several years, but significantly ramped up its activities and investment in 2012, said Carolin Probst-Iyer, the manager of digital consumer engagement for the General Motors division.

"Last year was a bit of a turning point," she said, as Chevrolet put greater emphasis on creating original video ads and looking for new ways to distribute spots, rather than simply running existing TV ads on YouTube and TV network websites.

One recent ad for the buzz-worthy new Corvette Stingray was viewed more times on mobile devices than it was on PCs, she said.

For Web publishers, video ads are good business. While typical banner ad rates can generate a few dollars per thousand views, video ad rates can reach $20 per thousand views, said eMarketer's David Hallerman.

"All of the Internet advertising to date has come from print sources," such as newspapers, magazines and yellow pages, said RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney.

"We're are at a point where television ad budgets are likely to come online."

The explosion of new screens such as smartphones and tablets greatly increases the venues where consumers can watch video, whether they're at their desks or on a bus. And social networking, which makes it easy for users to share favorite videos, has given marketers added incentive to produce video ads that can gain additional exposure by tapping into the social slipstream.

YouTube's head of industry development, Suzie Reider, said marketers are increasingly developing ads that are tailored for specific audiences, making it more likely that Web surfers will actually watch them.

"We're living in a day and age where nobody has to watch an ad that they don't want to watch," said Reider. "You can skip them on the Web, you can skip them on TV."

To make its website more appealing to advertisers, YouTube has helped create hundreds of "premium channels" featuring professionally produced video as opposed to the amateur clips YouTube is famous for. And it's developed a type of video ad that users can skip after five seconds - advertisers only pay if the ad is watched all the way through.

PRICE DEFLATION?

Despite the growth in Web video ad spending, which eMarketer estimates reached $2.93 billion in the United States last year, the firm said the spending still represents only about 10 percent of the broader online advertising market.

And that is a mere drop in the bucket compared with the $68 billion that Kantar Media estimates was spent on television advertising in 2011.

One potential constraint is the way big brands and agencies organize their marketing budgets, says Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser. Online video ads are typically funded from Web ad budgets rather than a much larger pool set aside for TV.

Analysts also note that the rich rates websites collect for video ads will decrease as more Internet sites open to ads - something that's already happening thanks to technology that automatically pairs ads with videos on websites.

Still, many analysts and industry executives are optimistic about what they see as the bigger picture.

"The number of people watching TV seems to be stagnating or declining, and the number of people turning to the Internet for entertainment is surging," said RBC's Mahaney. "It almost inevitably drives these TV budgets online" ? AGENCIES

Source: http://samaa.tv/newsdetail.aspx?ID=60766&CID=6

media matters hana taylor momsen xbox live update joan rivers gary carter dies oolong tea

Rebecca with an R: Love/Hate Relationships

Things I Really Hate: - Clipping my finger nails.?Maybe I'm alone on this. But I loathe clipping my finger nails. It makes me all tense, and I get anxiety. It just always hurts. And I hate the way they feel afterwards. I just really really hate fingernail clippers. Emery boards all the way!
- The word "lover." Just gross, Okay people? And with Valentine's Day around the corner, I feel like I'll be hearing a lot of it. And probably vomiting a little bit every time.
- Loading the dishwasher. I don't know. I just really hate getting my hands dirty. So after every two dirty dishes I touch, I wash my hands with soap. Which means I wash my hands over 10 times when loading the dishwasher. Now, I will happily unload the dishwasher all day long. Cause those babies are clean.

Things I Really Love:

- The sound of a big metal library stamp. Please tell me you are familiar with this sound. It is a thing of beauty. And it was that sound alone that made me want to be a librarian when I grew up. Just so I could use that stamp. And then things went all electronic and my dreams were dashed.
- Peanut butter & chocolate. My love is so strong for this combination that it has forced me to hate Nutella. Because it should be a chocolate-peanut butter spread, and not a chocolate-hazelent spread. Hate me all you want, but it's just not cutting it.
- Any TV show made by AMC. Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, Mad Men. The best. All of them. AMC can do no wrong.

Source: http://rebeccawithanr.blogspot.com/2013/01/lovehate-relationships.html

Univision josh hamilton alicia keys Susan Rice American Airlines the Who jon bon jovi

Cities affect temperatures for thousands of miles

Jan. 27, 2013 ? Even if you live more than 1,000 miles from the nearest large city, it could be affecting your weather.

In a new study that shows the extent to which human activities are influencing the atmosphere, scientists have concluded that the heat generated by everyday activities in metropolitan areas alters the character of the jet stream and other major atmospheric systems. This affects temperatures across thousands of miles, significantly warming some areas and cooling others, according to the study this week in Nature Climate Change.

The extra "waste heat" generated from buildings, cars, and other sources in major Northern Hemisphere urban areas causes winter warming across large areas of northern North America and northern Asia. Temperatures in some remote areas increase by as much as 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the research by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography; University of California, San Diego; Florida State University; and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

At the same time, the changes to atmospheric circulation caused by the waste heat cool areas of Europe by as much as 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F), with much of the temperature decrease occurring in the fall.

The net effect on global mean temperatures is nearly negligible -- an average increase worldwide of just 0.01 degrees C (about 0.02 degrees F). This is because the total human-produced waste heat is only about 0.3 percent of the heat transported across higher latitudes by atmospheric and oceanic circulations.

However, the noticeable impact on regional temperatures may explain why some regions are experiencing more winter warming than projected by climate computer models, the researchers conclude. They suggest that models be adjusted to take the influence of waste heat into account.

"The burning of fossil fuel not only emits greenhouse gases but also directly affects temperatures because of heat that escapes from sources like buildings and cars," says NCAR scientist Aixue Hu, a co-author of the study. "Although much of this waste heat is concentrated in large cities, it can change atmospheric patterns in a way that raises or lowers temperatures across considerable distances."

Distinct from urban heat island effect

The researchers stressed that the effect of waste heat is distinct from the so-called urban heat island effect. Such islands are mainly a function of the heat collected and re-radiated by pavement, buildings, and other urban features, whereas the new study examines the heat produced directly through transportation, heating and cooling units, and other activities.

The study, "Energy consumption and the unexplained winter warming over northern Asia and North America," appeared online January 27. It was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor, as well as the Department of Energy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Hu, along with lead author Guang Zhang of Scripps and Ming Cai of Florida State University, analyzed the energy consumption -- from heating buildings to powering vehicles -- that generates waste heat release. The world's total energy consumption in 2006 was equivalent to a constant-use rate of 16 terawatts (1 terawatt, or TW, equals 1 trillion watts). Of that, an average rate of 6.7 TW was consumed in 86 metropolitan areas in the Northern Hemisphere.

Using a computer model of the atmosphere, the authors found that the influence of this waste heat can widen the jet stream.

"What we found is that energy use from multiple urban areas collectively can warm the atmosphere remotely, thousands of miles away from the energy consumption regions," Zhang says. "This is accomplished through atmospheric circulation change."

The release of waste heat is different from energy that is naturally distributed in the atmosphere, the researchers noted. The largest source of heat, solar energy, warms Earth's surface and atmospheric circulations redistribute that energy from one region to another. Human energy consumption distributes energy that had lain dormant and sequestered for millions of years, mostly in the form of oil or coal.

Though the amount of human-generated energy is a small portion of that transported by nature, it is highly concentrated in urban areas. In the Northern Hemisphere, many of those urban areas lie directly under major atmospheric troughs and jet streams.

"The world's most populated and energy-intensive metropolitan areas are along the east and west coasts of the North American and Eurasian continents, underneath the most prominent atmospheric circulation troughs and ridges," Cai says. "The release of this concentrated waste energy causes the noticeable interruption to the normal atmospheric circulation systems above, leading to remote surface temperature changes far away from the regions where waste heat is generated."

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 Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Guang J. Zhang, Ming Cai, Aixue Hu. Energy consumption and the unexplained winter warming over northern Asia and North America. Nature Climate Change, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nclimate1803

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.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/18ztHxt5eMM/130127134210.htm

top chef texas great pacific garbage patch ben affleck and jennifer garner google privacy changes windows 8 preview leap year moratorium