The Life and Times

Racial profiling behind traffic stop: B.C. judge

2010-12-24T21:24:00.001-08:00

Racial profiling behind traffic stop: B.C. judge

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/12/24/bc-racial-profiling.html

Last Updated: Friday, December 24, 2010 | 6:19 PM PT Comments31 Recommend6

The Canadian Press

A B.C. judge says an RCMP officer who pulled over a man last year, uncovering 57 marijuana plants inside his car, only did so because the man was Asian.

Provincial court Judge Elizabeth Bayliff has excluded any evidence against Zai Chong Huang obtained during the 2009 traffic stop, saying it's "more probable than not" the man was the victim of racial profiling.

Huang was pulled over in 100 Mile House.

Const. Berze, who is identified in the decision only by his rank and surname, testified he pulled Huang over after he saw the car swerve twice on the highway and didn't realize the driver was Asian.

But Bayliff said she doesn't believe the officer, and instead said it's more likely Berze stopped Huang because he assumed, since the man is Asian, he must be involved in the marijuana trade.

Bayliff said both the traffic stop and the officer's questionable testimony amounted to a "serious breach" of Huang's rights, and allowing the evidence into court would harm the reputation of the justice system.

"In my view, the police conduct in question here was serious," Bayliff wrote in a decision posted to the court's website Friday.

"An inevitable consequence of my finding that the real motivation for this stop was that the officer had observed Huang's race is the finding that Const. Berze was being untruthful with the court. This is a serious matter in and of itself, quite apart from the error in reasoning represented by the act of 'racial profiling.'"

Bayliff's decision excludes all of the evidence uncovered during the traffic stop, including the 57 marijuana plants, a heavy-duty timer, fertilizer and 150 empty plant pots.

The judgment does not say whether the charges against Huang will proceed.

Herbal medicines may be risky for kids

2010-12-24T21:20:00.001-08:00

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/12/24/alternative-medicine-children-risk.html

Giving alternative treatments such as homeopathic remedies instead of conventional medicines to children may have deadly side-effects in rare instances, a new analysis says.

Australian researchers monitored reports from pediatricians in Australia from 2001 to 2003 looking for suspected side-effects from alternative medicines like herbal treatments, vitamin supplements or naturopathic pills. They found 39 reports of side-effects including four deaths.

The study was published online Thursday in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, a specialist publication of the medical journal BMJ.

Unlike conventional medicines, whose side-effects are tracked by national surveillance systems, there are no such systems in place for alternative therapies.

In the study, researchers found infants to children aged 16 were affected by complementary medicines and that in nearly 65 per cent of the cases, side-effects were classified as severe, life-threatening, or fatal. In 44 per cent of cases, pediatricians believed their patient had been harmed by a failure to use conventional medicines.

"We have known for a long time that alternative medicines can put patients at risk," said Edzard Ernst, a professor of complementary medicine at Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, England. He was not linked to the study.

"Perhaps the most serious harm occurs when effective therapies are replaced by ineffective alternative therapies," he said. "In that situation, even an intrinsically harmless medicine, like a homeopathic medicine, can be life-threatening," Ernst said.

All four deaths the researchers identified were caused by a decision to use alternative therapies instead of conventional medicines.

"Many of the adverse events associated with failure to use conventional medicine resulted from the family's belief in complementary and alternative medicine and determination to use it despite medical advice," Alissa Lim of the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne and colleagues wrote.

They described one case of a 10-month-old baby who had severe septic shock after being given naturopathic medicines and was assigned to a special diet to treat eczema. In another case, an infant who suffered multiple seizures and a heart attack died after being given alternative therapies — which the parents had chosen due to their concerns about the side-effects of regular medicines.

Ernst said people should recognize the limitations of alternative medicines and that practitioners should be careful not to oversell their benefits.

The decade's top ten new species

2010-12-12T21:20:00.001-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9269000/9269338.stm

As 2010 draws to a close, scientists have been looking back over the array of new species that have been discovered since the beginning of the century.

Some of the weirdest and most scientifically wonderful are featured in a BBC Documentary, Decade of Discovery.

The film-makers collaborated with Conservation International to make the documentary, which has whittled down nature's top ten revelations.

So here is a shortlist of many of the team's favourite new species, listed in reverse order according to how unique, special and surprising they are.

Big red jellyfish (Tiburonia granrojo)

The one-metre-wide jelly was found at a depth of 3,000m

More than 3,000m under the Pacific ocean, researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) used cameras on a remotely operated vehicle to capture the hidden life at that depth.

Out of the darkness emerged a large, one-metre-wide red jellyfish.

Big red, as it has been dubbed, has no tentacles, making it unlike most jellies. Instead, it uses its fleshy arms to capture food. The scientists still do not know what it eats. They say it is a great example of how little we know of the deep sea.

Chan's megastick (Phobaeticus chani)

This is, as its name implies, a huge stick insect.

The largest specimen of Chan's megastick is in London's Natural History Museum

It was found near Gunung Kinabalu Park, Sabah, in the Heart of Borneo and measures more than half a metre in length - the longest insect on the planet.

The largest and one of only a handful of known specimens in the world is held at the Natural History museum in London.

Despite is enormous size virtually nothing is known about it. Scientists believe it lives high up in the rainforest canopy, which has made it hard to find and kept it a secret until now.

Grey-faced sengi (Rhyncocyon udzungwensis)

This sengi or elephant shrew was first discovered in 2006 in Uzungwa National Park, Tanzania. Italian scientist, Francesco Rovero, from the Trento Museum of Natural Sciences caught the tiny mammal on a camera trap.

Elephant shrews share a common ancestor with elephants

The grey-faced sengi is much bigger than any other - roughly the size of a rabbit. It weighs about 700g and has a long, flexible nose which resembles an elephant's trunk.

Strangely, elephant shrews are not related to shrews but they do share a common ancestor with elephants.

Bamboo shark (Hemiscyllium galei)

The bamboo shark, also known as the walking shark, was found in 2006 in Cenderawasih Bay in West Papua, Indonesia.

This area of coral reef habitat has such a high level of biodiversity that some researchers call it a "species factory".

The shark can swim but usually uses its pectoral fins to walk along the reef

Mark Erdmann from Conservation International was the first scientist to lay eyes on this new shark species in 2006.

Although it can swim if it needs to, it usually uses its pectoral fins to walk along the reef and feed amongst the coral.

Scientists raised funds for marine conservation by auctioning the naming rights to the new shark.

Giant slipper orchid (Phragmipedium Kovachii)

This large flamboyant purple flower caused something of a sensation when it was discovered.

It was found in 2001 being sold at the side of the road in the Peruvian Highlands by an orchid hunter and dealer, who illegally imported it to the US.

Giant orchid among the decade's top ten new species

He was duly prosecuted, but the orchid still bears his name. A few legal specimens are now in the hands of a select group of orchid breeders.

With its huge flowers - up to 20cm across - it originates in the Andes mountains of Peru.

Kipunji (Rungwecebus kipunji)

This is the first new genus (or group of monkey species) to be discovered since the 1920s.

It was tracked down in 2003 by Tim Davenport, a biologist from the Wildlife Conservation Society, who was working in the Mount Rungwe region of Tanzania.

He was interviewing local people about the animals they hunted and knew about in the forest. A few mentioned a "kipunji", a large monkey which sounded unlike anything else.

When Dr Davenport saw it he knew it was a new species, but later DNA analysis showed that it was actually an entirely new genus.

There were just 1,117 Kipunji in the wild at the last count, making them critically endangered.

Pitcher plant (Nepenthes palawanensis)

The large pitcher's slippery sides trap its prey

This giant plant was discovered just this year by botanist Stewart Macpherson who has made it his mission to find and photograph every species of these carnivorous plants around the world.

He found it at the very top of a mountain called Sultan's Peak, on the island of Palawan in the Philippines.

Pitcher plants are named after their highly-specialised leaves that form hollow, water-filled "pitchers".

Insects, such as flies, are attracted by nectar in the pitcher, but its sides are slippery so when prey falls in it cannot climb out.

Langkawi bent-toed gecko (Cyrtodactylus macrotuberculatus)

This extraordinary gecko was first discovered in 2008 on an island off North-western Malaysia by Dr Lee Grismer and his team.

It uses its amazing eyesight and grip to catch its forest-dwelling prey at night.

But what made it a discovery of the decade was that this forest gecko has also recently been found in a limestone cave.

The forest-dwelling and cave-dwelling geckos show evolution at work

The cave gecko looks similar to those living in the forest but has some remarkable visible differences.

Dr Grismer believes this could be evolution in the making - a gecko that has evolved to live in a cave.

The lizards may have moved into the caves to avoid predators - specifically pit vipers that live in the forest.

Pygmy three-toed sloth (Bradypus pygmaeus)

This species, discovered on the island on Escudo de Veraguas off the Carribean coast, shows how quickly the process of evolution can happen.

The pygmy sloth, number one on the list, has a surprising talent

The pygmy sloth has been isolated on its tiny island habitat for just 9,000 years - when rising sea levels cut the island off from the mainland.

The sloths are slower and more placid than their mainland relatives and, remarkably, they can swim.

They seem suitably adapted to their Caribbean island lifestyle.

Pygmy sloths are less than half the size of a normal sloth and they only eat mangrove leaves - a low-nutirent diet that explains their diminutive stature.

There are just 200 of them on the island so every mangrove tree counts for these vulnerable creatures.

Decade of Discovery, a collaboration between Conservation International and the BBC's Natural History Unit, will be broadcast at 20.00BST on Tuesday 14 December on BBC Two.

B.C. forests adding to air pollution: report

2010-12-09T20:43:00.000-08:00

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/12/09/bc-forests-carbon-dioxide-report.html

Reputation as a carbon sink no longer applies

Last Updated: Thursday, December 9, 2010 | 7:33 PM PT Comments2 Recommend3

The Canadian Press

The pine beetle has turned one-quarter of B.C.'s pine forests brown, and that's hurt their ability to soak up carbon dioxide. (CBC)

British Columbia's forests, often hailed as a giant sponge soaking up harmful air pollution, have become a net producer of carbon dioxide, a government reports says.

The report indicates the mountain pine beetle, which has killed millions of trees, and massive forest fires in recent years have transformed the forests from a carbon sink into a polluter.

The State of the Forests Report says the pine beetle epidemic appears to have peaked, but it will still take another decade before B.C. forests return to their carbon-sink status.

Forests Minister Pat Bell said the report shows government policies are supporting a sustainable forest industry.

But the B.C. Government and Service Employees Union doesn't share that view, saying the report shows budget cuts and reorganization in the Forests Ministry have severely eroded the government's ability to manage the forests.

Union president Darryl Walker is calling for a public inquiry to make recommendations to revitalize the forestry sector and restore public accountability

Study reveals how taking an active role in learning enhances memory

2010-12-07T01:59:00.000-08:00

Study reveals how taking an active role in learning enhances memory

http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-reveals-role-memory.html
December 6, 2010

Enlarge

A new study from psychology professor Neal Cohen (in blue shirt) and postdoctoral researcher Joel Voss found that those who have some control over their learning environment do better at remembering what they learned than those who don't. The study offers a first look at the brain mechanisms that contribute to this phenomenon. Credit: Photos by L. Brian Stauffer. Montage by Joel Voss.

Good news for control freaks! New research confirms that having some authority over how one takes in new information significantly enhances one's ability to remember it. The study, in the journal Nature Neuroscience, also offers a first look at the network of brain structures that contribute to this phenomenon.

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"Having active control over a learning situation is very powerful and we're beginning to understand why," said University of Illinois psychology professor Neal Cohen, who led the study with postdoctoral researcher Joel Voss. "Whole swaths of the brain not only turn on, but also get functionally connected when you're actively exploring the world."

The study focused on activity in several brain regions, including the hippocampus, located in the brain's medial temporal lobes, near the ears. Researchers have known for decades that the hippocampus is vital to memory, in part because those who lose hippocampal function as a result of illness or injury also lose their ability to fully form and retain new memories.

But the hippocampus doesn't act alone. Robust neural connections tie it to other important brain structures, and traffic on these data highways flows in both directions. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, which track blood flow in the brain, show that the hippocampus is functionally connected to several brain networks – distinct regions of the brain that work in tandem to accomplish critical tasks.

To better understand how these brain regions influence active versus passive learning, Voss designed an experiment that required participants to memorize an array of objects and their exact locations in a grid on a computer monitor. A gray screen with a window in it revealed only one object at a time. The "active" study subjects used a computer mouse to guide the window to view the objects.

"They could inspect whatever they wanted, however they wanted, in whatever order for however much time they wanted, and they were just told to memorize everything on the screen," Voss said. The "passive" learners viewed a replay of the window movements recorded in a previous trial by an active subject.

Then participants were asked to select the items they had seen and place them in their correct positions on the screen. After a trial, the active and passive subjects switched roles and repeated the task with a new array of objects.

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Enlarge

The new study showed that activity and interactivity increases between important brain regions in individuals who have more control over their learning environment, as compared to those who are passively absorbing information. The researchers found that the hippocampus is essential to the boost in performance that results from this heightened activity. Credit: Joel Voss

The study found significant differences in brain activity in the active and passive learners.
Those who had active control over the viewing window were significantly better than their peers at identifying the original objects and their locations, the researchers found. Further experiments, in which the passive subjects used a mouse that moved but did not control the viewing window, established that this effect was independent of the act of moving the mouse.

To identify the brain mechanisms that enhanced learning in the active subjects, the researchers repeated the trials, this time testing individuals who had amnesia – a disease characterized by impairment in learning new information – as a result of hippocampal damage. To the surprise of the researchers, these participants failed to benefit from actively controlling the viewing window.

"These data suggest that the hippocampus has a role not just in the formation of new memory but possibly also in the beneficial effects of volitional control on memory," the researchers wrote.

Brain imaging (by means of fMRI) of healthy young subjects engaged in the same active and passive learning tests revealed that hippocampal activity was highest in the active subjects' brains during these tests. Several other brain structures were also more engaged when the subject controlled the viewing window, and activity in these brain regions was more synchronized with that of the hippocampus than in the passive trials.

Enlarge

The hippocampus plays a vital role in enhancing memory in those who are actively engaged in learning something new. It coordinates with other brain structures to accomplish different tasks, such as recognizing an object one has seen before or remembering its original location. Credit: Graphic by Diana Yates. Brain by Andrew Giglio.

Activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the cerebellum and the hippocampus (see cartoon) was higher, and more highly coordinated, in participants who did well on spatial recall, the researchers found. Increased activity in the inferior parietal lobe, the parahippocampal cortex and the hippocampus (see cartoon) corresponded to better performance on item recognition.

"Lo and behold," Cohen said, "our friend the hippocampus makes a very conspicuous appearance in active learning."

The new findings challenge previous ideas about the role of the hippocampus in learning, Voss said. It is a surprise, he said, that other brain regions that are known to be involved in planning and strategizing, for instance, "can't do very much unless they can interact with the hippocampus."

Rather than being a passive player in learning, the hippocampus "is more like an integral part of an airplane guidance system," Voss said. "You have all this velocity information, you have a destination target and every millisecond it's taking in information about where you're headed, comparing it to where you need to go, and correcting and updating it."

More information: http://www.nature. … nn.2693.html

Provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (news : web)

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Chinese train sets speed record, says state media

2010-12-03T19:54:00.000-08:00

Chinese train sets speed record, says state media

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/12/03/china.high.speed.train/index.html?hpt=T2

By the CNN Wire Staff

December 3, 2010 9:05 p.m. EST

China's record-setting train

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The unmodified commercial train hits 481.1 kph (nearly 300 mph), state media says
That tops the previous record by 64.5 kph

RELATED TOPICS

China

(CNN) -- A Chinese high-speed train broke a world record Friday for fastest unmodified commercial train, reaching speeds of up to 481.1 kph (298.9 mph), state media reported.

According to China's official Xinhua news agency, the new-generation CRH380 moved as fast as a low-cruising jet-plane during a trial run on what will become the country's rail line between Beijing and Shanghai.

The previous world record was set by China in September, when a train on a Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed line hit a speed of 416.6 kilometers per hour, Xinhua said.

NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical

2010-12-02T16:27:00.000-08:00

NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical

12.02.10

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/astrobiology_toxic_chemical.html

Image of Mono Lake Research area
Click photo for larger image.

Felisa Wolfe-Simon processing mud from Mono Lake to inoculate media to grow microbes on arsenic.
Image Credit: Henry Bortman
Click photo for larger image.

Image of GFAJ-1 grown on arsenic.
Image Credit: Jodi Switzer Blum
Click photo for larger image.

Image of GFAJ-1 grown on phosphorus.
Image Credit: Jodi Switzer Blum
Click photo for larger image.

NASA-funded astrobiology research has changed the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth.

Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components.

"The definition of life has just expanded," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. "As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it."

This finding of an alternative biochemistry makeup will alter biology textbooks and expand the scope of the search for life beyond Earth. The research is published in this week's edition of Science Express.

Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur are the six basic building blocks of all known forms of life on Earth. Phosphorus is part of the chemical backbone of DNA and RNA, the structures that carry genetic instructions for life, and is considered an essential element for all living cells.

Phosphorus is a central component of the energy-carrying molecule in all cells (adenosine triphosphate) and also the phospholipids that form all cell membranes. Arsenic, which is chemically similar to phosphorus, is poisonous for most life on Earth. Arsenic disrupts metabolic pathways because chemically it behaves similarly to phosphate.

"We know that some microbes can breathe arsenic, but what we've found is a microbe doing something new -- building parts of itself out of arsenic," said Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a NASA Astrobiology Research Fellow in residence at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., and the research team's lead scientist. "If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven't seen yet?"

The newly discovered microbe, strain GFAJ-1, is a member of a common group of bacteria, the Gammaproteobacteria. In the laboratory, the researchers successfully grew microbes from the lake on a diet that was very lean on phosphorus, but included generous helpings of arsenic. When researchers removed the phosphorus and replaced it with arsenic the microbes continued to grow. Subsequent analyses indicated that the arsenic was being used to produce the building blocks of new GFAJ-1 cells.

The key issue the researchers investigated was when the microbe was grown on arsenic did the arsenic actually became incorporated into the organisms' vital biochemical machinery, such as DNA, proteins and the cell membranes. A variety of sophisticated laboratory techniques was used to determine where the arsenic was incorporated.

The team chose to explore Mono Lake because of its unusual chemistry, especially its high salinity, high alkalinity, and high levels of arsenic. This chemistry is in part a result of Mono Lake's isolation from its sources of fresh water for 50 years.

The results of this study will inform ongoing research in many areas, including the study of Earth's evolution, organic chemistry, biogeochemical cycles, disease mitigation and Earth system research. These findings also will open up new frontiers in microbiology and other areas of research.

"The idea of alternative biochemistries for life is common in science fiction," said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Until now a life form using arsenic as a building block was only theoretical, but now we know such life exists in Mono Lake."

The research team included scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Penn., and the Stanford Synchroton Radiation Lightsource in Menlo Park, Calif.

NASA's Astrobiology Program in Washington contributed funding for the research through its Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology program and the NASA Astrobiology Institute. NASA's Astrobiology Program supports research into the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life on Earth.

For more information about the finding and a complete list of researchers, visit:

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov

Oceans failing the acid test, U.N. says

2010-12-02T15:51:00.000-08:00

Oceans failing the acid test, U.N. says

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/12/02/ocean.acidification.threat.cancun/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

By Matthew Knight for CNN

December 2, 2010 2:34 p.m. EST

Acidification is is putting stress on ocean ecosystems, threatening biodiversity and food security says the U.N.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

New U.N. report highlights threat to marine organisms posed by ocean acidification
A quarter of CO2 emissions are absorbed by the oceans
Around three billion people worldwide rely on fish for key nutrients
Acidification risen by 30 percent since Industrial Revolution according to U.N.

(CNN) -- The chemistry of the world's oceans is changing at a rate not seen for 65 million years, with far-reaching implications for marine biodiversity and food security, according to a new United Nations study released Thursday.

"Environmental Consequences of Ocean Acidification," published by the U.N. Environmental Program (UNEP)," warns that some sea organisms including coral and shellfish will find it increasingly difficult to survive, as acidification shrinks the minerals needed to form their skeletons.

Lead author of the report Carol Turley, from the UK's Plymouth Marine Laboratory said in a statement: "We are seeing an overall negative impact from ocean acidification directly on organisms and on some key ecosystems that help provide food for billions. We need to start thinking about the risk to food security."

Tropical reefs provide shelter and food for around a quarter of all known marine fish species, according to the U.N. report, while over one billion people rely on fish as a key source of protein.

Ocean acidification is yet another red flag being raised, carrying planetary health warnings about the uncontrolled growth in greenhouse gas emissions
--Achim Steiner, UNEP executive director

RELATED TOPICS

Increasing acidification is likely to affect the growth and structural integrity of coral reef, the study says, and coupled with ocean warming could limit the habitats of crabs, mussels and other shellfish with knock-on effects up and down the food chain.

The report, unveiled during the latest round of U.N. climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, says that around a quarter of the world's CO2 emissions are currently being absorbed by the oceans, where they are turned into carbonic acid.

Overall, pH levels in seas and oceans worldwide have fallen by an average of 30 percent since the Industrial Revolution. The report predicts that by the end of this century ocean acidity will have increased 150 percent, if emissions continue to rise at the current rate.

But scientists say there may well be winners and losers as acidification doesn't affect all sea creatures in the same way.

Adult lobsters, for example, may increase their shell-building as pH levels fall, as might brittle stars -- a close relation of the starfish -- but at the cost of muscle formation.

"The ability, or inability, to build calcium-based skeletons may not be the only impact of acidification on the health and viability of an organism: brittle stars perhaps being a case in point," Turley said in a statement.

"It is clearly not enough to look at a species. Scientists will need to study all parts of the life-cycle to see whether certain forms are more or less vulnerable."

Scientists are more certain about the fate of photosynthetic organisms such as seagrasses, saying they are likely to benefit from rising acidification and that some creatures will simply adapt to the changing chemistry of the oceans.

The authors identify a range of measures which policymakers need to consider to stop pH levels falling further, including "rapid and substantial cuts" to CO2 emissions as well as assessing the vulnerability of communities which rely on marine resources.

"Ocean acidification is yet another red flag being raised, carrying planetary health warnings about the uncontrolled growth in greenhouse gas emissions. It is a new and emerging piece in the scientific jigsaw puzzle, but one that is triggering rising concern," Achim Steiner, UNEP executive director, said in a statement.

Ombudsman slams 'deceptive' Veterans Affairs

2010-08-17T19:32:00.001-07:00

Last Updated: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 | 5:15 PM ET

CBC News

Veterans ombudsman Pat Stogran expressed his fury at a news conference in Ottawa on Tuesday over the federal government's treatment of servicemen and women. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Canada's outgoing ombudsman for veterans expressed his fury Tuesday over the federal government's treatment of servicemen and women and the thwarting of his work by an obstructive bureaucracy.

Pat Stogran said at a news conference in Ottawa that he was not going to comment on the Conservative government's decision not to appoint him to a second term.

Veterans share their stories.

Stogran said it's the "government's prerogative" and that he will leave it to the government to defend its decision, though he said his non-renewal is likely a sign he was doing his job, and that he sees it as a mark of success.

Stogran said that as ombudsman, he was "impeded by a bureacracy that was deliberately obstructive and deceptive," and that information given to bureaucrats isn't reaching the minister of veterans affairs.

Stogran said he was speaking out in order to highlight how badly many veterans are treated and to ask Canadians to stand up for their "sons and daughters." He vowed to use his remaining three months as ombudsman to continue trying to get Canadians to take notice.

The ombudsman acts as the voice of veterans and their families, helping them access support services and benefits and fielding complaints.

Stogran was notified early last week that his appointment will not be renewed, according to federal government sources. Word of his anticipated removal leaked late Friday.

At Tuesday's news conference, Stogran was joined by a number of veterans representing those with physical and mental health issues, as well as those taking the government to court over pension clawbacks.

"If you're not willing to stand behind the troops, then feel free to stand in front of them," said Brian Dyck, a veteran who suffers from ALS and is fighting the government over denied health claims.

At a separate news conference, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that his government has invested money in programs for veterans.

"If the ombudsman has concerns or suggestions, the government remains open and is always open to hearing those suggestions and incorporating them into our future programs, but we are hoping that he can continue to work with the Department of Veterans Affairs," Harper said in French.

Joins list of departed watchdogs

Stogran met with Veterans Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn over the weekend, but has refused to comment about the outcome of their discussion. A spokeswoman for the minister also declined to comment.

Never one to mince words, Stogran has harshly criticized the federal bureaucracy's treatment of injured soldiers and policies, such as the replacement of pensions with lump-sum payments and disability stipends.

He has said Veterans Affairs has adopted a "penny-pinching, insurance-company mentality" toward its clients.

Liberal MP Marc Garneau said Stogran should be praised, not let go, for doing his job and making sure Canada's veterans are treated properly.

Garneau told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday that Stogran joins a long list of arm's-length advocates — including former military police complaints commissioner Peter Tinsley and ex-RCMP watchdog Paul Kennedy — who were "sacked because they are telling the government the truth, instead of parroting."

Blackburn sparked the ire of veterans groups and opposition critics in recent weeks by suggesting that the department he heads will get smaller as more Second World War vets, the department's biggest client base, die.

How to make grilling safer

2010-07-04T13:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/07/02/how.make.grilling.safe/index.html?hpt=C2

By Tammy Worth, Health.com

July 2, 2010 2:27 p.m. EDT

(Health.com) -- When the dog days hit Boston, Massachusetts, Stephanie Meyers starts cooking alfresco to keep things cool indoors.

Meyers grills--a lot--and as a nutritionist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, she's well aware that charring meat over an open flame produces cancer-causing substances (known as carcinogens) that may be harmful when eaten. So to make grilling healthier, she sticks to the same advice she gives her patients.

"I follow my own tips and grill a lot of veggies," she says. "I've been known to put all kinds of things on the grill just to see what happens." (She's not kidding: Plums, kale and Swiss chard are among some of her favorite past experiments.)

Unlike meat, vegetables don't create carcinogens when they char. But the small cancer risk associated with grilling meat isn't so great that you need to forgo hamburgers, hot dogs and steaks altogether. Taking a few precautions while barbecuing will minimize the health risks without sacrificing that delicious charcoal taste, experts say.

Health.com: 15 Healthy Grilled Chicken Recipes

Grilling protein-filled foods such as meat and fish creates two kinds of chemical compounds that may contribute to cancer: heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

HCAs form in meat when it's cooked at a high temperature. While frying and broiling produce these chemicals as well, those charred bits at the edges of barbecued meat contain HCAs in their purest state. HCAs, which are also found in cigarette smoke, have been shown to cause cancer in organs including the stomach, colon, liver and skin--but only in animal studies.

It's unclear whether HCAs cause the same problems in people. Still, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has stated that the chemicals are "reasonably anticipated to be human carcinogens."

Health.com: Ways to Breathe Easier When Eating

PAHs, the second type of compound, are formed when juices from meat drip onto coals or other hot surfaces and create smoke. The smoke contains these carcinogens, which are deposited onto the surface of meat as it swirls around the food.

Colleen Doyle, the director of nutrition and physical activity for the American Cancer Society, says the risks these two substances pose shouldn't make die-hard grillers put away their oversized utensils for good. "From our perspective, there has not been enough definitive research that would cause us to tell people not to grill at all," she says.

But there are ways to minimize your exposure to carcinogens when grilling, Doyle adds. She recommends cleaning the grill prior to cooking, which will remove any charred debris that may stick to food. And if some parts of the meat you're cooking get badly charred, cut those pieces off.

Health.com: The Best Healthy Burger Recipes

In addition, precooking food slightly before grilling will help cut down on PAHs. Meyers recommends placing meat in the microwave and zapping it for between 60 seconds (for leaner cuts) and 90 seconds (for thicker, fattier pieces). This reduces the amount of time the food is on the grill and allows some of the juices to drain beforehand.

Certain recipes can make grilling safer as well, according to Meyers. Marinades made with vinegar or lemon act as an "invisible shield" that changes the acidity of the meat and prevents PAHs from sticking, she says. (On the other hand, sugary marinades such as barbecue sauce that encourage charring should be used only during the last one to two minutes on the grill.)

And whenever possible, Meyers recommends grilling vegetables or fruits instead of meat.

The carcinogens in charred meat aren't the only health concern associated with barbecues. Though for many people the smell of a juicy steak wafting from the grill is synonymous with the onset of summer, the smoke that carries the aroma is less desirable.

Health.com: How to Pair Wine With Grilled Food

A 2003 report from researchers at Rice University, in Houston, Texas, found that grilling creates "ambient fine particulate matter"--air pollution, in other words. Although backyard barbecues add far less pollution to the atmosphere than cars and factories, this particulate matter can still cause problems. In concentrated amounts, the smoke from a grill can trigger respiratory trouble in people with lung diseases such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

"Anyone who is sensitive to smoke should avoid exposure to a grill--or fire, or trucks," says Paul Billings, the vice president of advocacy at the American Lung Association. "They should protect themselves by limiting their exposure to whatever the source is that irritates their lungs."

Billings recommends cooking over natural gas or propane grills to reduce the pollution emitted. If you own a charcoal grill, using a chimney starter instead of lighter fluid will also keep you from inhaling harmful chemicals, he says.

Buying lean cuts of meat, trimming off most of the fat and wrapping foods like fish in a foil packet will all help cut down on smoke by reducing the amount of juices that drip onto the grill.

Health.com: 9 Mouthwatering Barbecue Recipes

Although at-home chefs should always try to grill as safely as possible, Meyers emphasizes that you shouldn't let the health risks of barbecuing spoil your appetite.

"Keep the risk in perspective," she says. "Grilled foods are not the greatest cancer risk--not wearing sunscreen while at the grill is a bigger deal. If you like to grill, put meat on the grill and use the safety tips."

Syncrude guilty in Alberta duck deaths

2010-06-25T15:38:00.000-07:00

Syncrude guilty in Alberta duck deaths

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2010/06/25/edmonton-syncrude-duck-trial-verdict-expected.html

Last Updated: Friday, June 25, 2010 | 3:23 PM MT

CBC News

Shown is one of more than 1,600 ducks that landed on a Syncrude tailings pond on April 28, 2008, in a photo taken by Alberta wildlife biologist Todd Powell. (Government of Alberta) Oilsands giant Syncrude was found guilty Friday on both environmental charges in the April 2008 deaths of 1,600 ducks in a northern Alberta tailings pond.

Syncrude was charged under the Alberta Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act and the federal Migratory Birds Convention Act with failing to protect migratory birds from a toxic tailings pond.

In a decision delivered to a packed courtroom in St. Albert, Alta., provincial court Judge Ken Tjosvold said Syncrude didn't exercise due diligence in preventing the birds from landing on the water.

He pointed to evidence presented during the trial that showed Syncrude made staffing cuts and actually scaled back its bird deterrent system before the ducks died.

While Tjosvold found Syncrude guilty on both counts, he did not enter convictions.

Legal arguments will take place later this summer about whether convictions should be entered on both counts, because the charges are similar in nature.

The ducks died April 28, 2008, on Syncrude's Aurora tailings pond in northern Alberta, about 75 kilometres north of Fort McMurray.

The trial, which started on March 1 and wrapped up on May 12, featured some dramatic evidence, including video and still images of ducks struggling in the bitumen that floated on top of the tailings pond.

The Crown argued that adequate deterrents to dissuade birds from using the pond, including air cannons and scarecrows, weren't in place when the ducks died.

Syncrude officials said a spring storm delayed installation of such equipment.

Defence lawyer Robert White argued the charges against Syncrude were intended for companies that dump toxic materials into lakes or rivers, not companies that have legal tailings ponds.

$250 million for abstinence education not evidence-based, groups say

2010-03-31T11:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/31/abstinence.education/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn

By Elizabeth Landau, CNN

March 31, 2010 10:21 a.m. EDT

Under federal guidelines, programs that get abstinence-only funding must "teach that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy."

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Health care bill has renewal of $50 million per year for abstinence education until 2014
States have the option of tapping into the $50 million or not
There's a separate funding stream for programs including contraception

RELATED TOPICS

(CNN) -- The health care reform legislation that President Obama signed recently isn't only about insurance coverage -- there's also a renewal of $50 million per year for five years for abstinence-focused education.

Programs that receive this funding must "teach that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems," according to the Department of Health and Human Services. To qualify, they must also teach that sex before marriage is "likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects." These are part of the "A-H definition," requirements for programs to receive abstinence funding under Title V of the Social Security Act.

"Title V is trying to make sure that kids are being given a message that saving sex and childbearing for marriage is the safest, healthiest, best choice," said Scott Phelps, executive director of Abstinence & Marriage Education Partnership. Public schools hire educators from this organization to teach abstinence, and may use Title V funding for it, he said.

In Phelps' experience -- he started his abstinence education work in Chicago, Illinois, 10 years ago -- the abstinence message is embraced by kids, even some who have already become sexually active. "They didn't realize they could stop," he said.

Organizations promoting evidence-based sex education say it's troubling that this $250 million will go to state programs that have not been shown to work.

"Just the fact that we continue to pour money into programs that have no evidence of effectiveness at all just doesn't seem to us to be good evidence-based health policy," said Heather Boonstra, senior public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit reproductive and sexual health research firm.

There have been numerous studies suggesting that it's not so easy for people to practice abstinence consistently. A congressionally mandated study in 2007 found that none of four abstinence programs showed a significant positive effect on sexual behavior among youth. A January 2009 study in Pediatrics found that religious teens who take virginity pledges are less likely to use condoms or birth control when they become sexually active, and just as likely to have sex before marriage as their peers who didn't take pledges.

Medical professional organizations also criticize abstinence education on ethical grounds, for leaving out potentially lifesaving information. Abstinence-only programs "are inherently coercive by withholding information needed to make informed choices," the American Public Health Association said in a statement.

Phelps' program doesn't teach that sex before marriage is wrong, but that waiting will enable teens to eliminate the risks of sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy. Students are taught that contraception, a "limited part of our conversation," reduces risk, but does not avoid it altogether, he said.

The law sets up a separate funding stream of $75 million for "personal responsibility education," which includes teaching about both abstinence and contraception. It sets aside an additional $25 million for untested but innovative programs.

Having separate funding for abstinence-focused and comprehensive programs "is a method that provides real choice for states and for communities, and we would like to see that model used across the board," said Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association.

But Huber's group is not happy that abstinence-focused programs get less funding per year than the other approaches. "We would like to see equitable funding," she said.

Abstinence programs have received federal funding through a program that grew out of welfare reform during the Clinton administration. The $50 million per year began in 1998 and expired in 2009, with restoration in the recent health care legislation from this year until 2014.

States have the option of tapping into the $50 million or not, but those who want it have to contribute also, Boonstra noted. For every $4 of federal money, states have to put up $3 of their own money, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

As of June 2009, 22 states, plus Washington D.C., had declined to apply for funds under the program, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

A study published in February in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found that an abstinence-based program was more effective than other initiatives at keeping sixth- and seventh-graders from having sex within a two-year period.

Rather than asking students to delay intercourse until marriage, however, the program told students to wait until they were ready. It also did not portray sex in a negative light.

For these reasons, it is unclear whether that program would qualify for funding from the $50 million allocated in the health care bill, because it does not fit the A-H definition, said Bill Albert of the nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. Boonstra agreed that it would likely not fit this category, as it differs from the programs that have received funding in the past. Huber said she thought it would qualify, although she has not seen the curriculum.

It's better to invest taxpayer dollars into what works, Albert said. Public opinion surveys reveal that Americans view abstinence and contraceptive education as complementary, not contradictory.

"There is great and very wide support among parents and among teens themselves that young people should be encouraged to delay sexual activity," Albert said. "But it is also clear that the American public wants young people to receive information about contraception."

9 Charged In Student's Bullying Death

2010-03-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/22987784/detail.html?hpt=T2

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. -- Nine teenagers have been charged in connection with the suicide death of South Hadley High School student Phoebe Prince, 15, who took her life after she was bullied by other students at her school, Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel said Monday.

Phoebe Prince

Two male teens, ages 17 and 18, were also both charged with statutory rape."The investigation revealed relentless activity directed at Phoebe," in the three months before her death, Scheibel said, until the situation became "intolerable" for the girl.Prince, a student at the school whose family had recently moved to the U.S. from Ireland, took her own life in January, authorities said, after she was bullied for three months both at school and online by other students."It appears that Phoebe's death on Jan. 14 followed a tortuous day for her in which she was subjected to verbal harassment and threatened physical abuse," Scheibel said.The district attorney said according to the investigation, which involved interviews with more than 50 people, on the day of her death Prince was harassed as she studied in the school library, and as she walked in the school hallways and later as she walked home.The bullying in the library was witnessed by a faculty member and other students but was not reported until after Prince's death, Scheibel said, adding that the bullying of Prince was "common knowledge" at the school."On the day of her death, primarily three individuals -- one male and two females -- were involved in this assaultive behavior, which appears to have been motivated by the group's displeasure with Phoebe's brief dating relationship with a male student which had ended some six weeks previous," Scheibel said."Their conduct far exceeded the limits of normal teenage relationship-related quarrels," Scheibel said.Six teens and three juveniles were charged in connection with the case, the charges including criminal harassment, violation of civil rights and disturbing a school assembly.

Click To Comment | 9 Charged In Student's Bullying Death | Video | Images: Phoebe Prince Case Timeline

Among those charged, three were teenaged girls, Scheibel said.The teens were identified as:

A 16-year-old from South Hadley was charged with violation of civil rights, as a youthful offender.

A 16-year-old from South Hadley was charged with violation of civil rights as a youthful offender, stalking as a youthful offender.

Sean Mulveyhill More

Sean Mulveyhill, 17, of South Hadley, charged with statutory rape, violation of civil rights, criminal harassment, disturbance of a school assembly.

Kayla Narey, 17, of South Hadley, charged with violation of civil rights, criminal harassment, disturbance of a school assembly.

Austin Renaud, 18, of Springfield, charged with statutory rape.

A 16-year-old from South Hadley was charged with violation of civil rights as a youthful offender, stalking as a youthful offender.

All of those charged will be summoned to court at a later date and more charges could follow, authorities said.The indictments were handed up Friday, Scheibel said.Three are still students at the school, and three were expelled in February, authorities said."These students' lives have also been dramatically altered, and they won't be graduating from South Hadley High School," Principal Daniel T. Smith said at the time the expulsion was announced.The district attorney said there were three months of intense harassment that ended when Prince hanged herself at her Newton Street home in South Hadley after school. Her younger sister found her in the staircase heading up to the family's second-floor apartment.The case, and the earlier bullying-related death of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, 11, of Springfield, sparked outrage across the commonwealth and prompted calls for strict anti-bullying legislation to be passed.Lawmakers approved an anti-bullying law earlier this month that requires schools to report incidents of bullying to local police if it's believed any laws may have been broken. The bill is in conference committee to settle differences between House and Senate versions.The district attorney said South Hadley school officials were aware of the Prince bullying but none were charged in connection with the case because officials said their actions did not rise to the level of a crime.She did, however, say that Prince's mother had spoken to at least two school staff members about the bullying, and some faculty had intervened and reported it, but administrators failed to intervene, which Scheibel called "troublesome.""A lack of understanding of harassment associated with teen dating relationships seems to have been prevalent at South Hadley High School. That in turn brought about an inconsistent interpretation and enforcement of the school's code of conduct when incidents were observed and reported," Scheibel said.

Previous Stories:

March 18, 2010: House Approves Anti-Bullying Bill
March 8, 2010: Mass. Lawmakers To Debate Anti-Bullying Bill
February 24, 2010: Students Expelled Following Teen's Suicide
February 17, 2010: Students Suspended After Bullying Incident
February 12, 2010: Parents Confront School Over Bullying
February 2, 2010: Parents Demand Answers On Bullying

Oxfam International report called "Fair Miles -- Recharting the Food Miles Map

2010-03-27T17:01:00.001-07:00

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/climate_change/downloads/fair_food_miles.pdf

Sorry, Canada, the U.S. has the better safety net Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/03/19/f-canada-us-pension-reform.html#ixzz0ixRlG1m1

2010-03-22T18:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/03/19/f-canada-us-pension-reform.html

Have you been watching the American health-care fight?

Then you know that their health insurance system is a mix of government guarantees, private options and employer-funded plans that offer complete coverage to some — the poor, the rich, seniors, government workers — but leave millions of others without a safety net.

Canadians may be surprised to know that, when it comes to pensions, Americans have a strong safety net. (iStockphoto)

And while many Americans have excellent health care through their employers, they're one layoff away from losing it. What's more, over the years employers have cut back on coverage so that many of today's jobs come with no health insurance at all. And that's not counting the growing ranks of the self-employed who have to fund health care on their own.

Ah, Americans. The more we watch them tearing themselves apart over health care, the more we want to give ourselves gold medals.

But before you get too smug, dear Canadian reader, consider this: The above isn't only a summary of American health care. It's also a pretty good description of Canada's imperfect retirement system.

Just replace "health insurance" with "pension." Too many Americans can't get proper health care? Too many Canadians don't have a proper pension.

The fix for Canada's retirement system is going to come, in part, from borrowing from the American approach. Why? Because the American system of government-sponsored pensions, known as Social Security, offers retirees bigger pensions than Canada's equivalent program, the Canada Pension Plan.

That's right: Their government-run retirement safety net is wider than ours. What's more, and perhaps less surprisingly, the Americans also do a better job of fostering private retirement savings.

'Pension-care'

There's a growing realization that Canadians are not saving enough for retirement, collectively or individually, and a good number of us — at least a fifth by most estimates — run the risk of seeing our living standards drop when we hit retirement age.

In the coming days, Ottawa is expected to announce that it is starting public consultations on improving the pension and retirement system. The Harper government has been lukewarm to the idea of wholesale pension reform, but it is under growing pressure from the provinces, led by British Columbia and Alberta. Two years ago, they proposed the creation of a new supplemental national pension plan, and several other provinces have since signed on to the idea. (Full report - PDF)

This, remember, is how medicare came about in the 1960s. Keith Ambachtsheer, director of the International Centre for Pension Management at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, even calls his version of the reform plan "Pension-care." (More - PDF)

Provincial and federal experts agree that we don't need to reinvent the retirement wheel. The way forward is to build on what's best about the existing Canadian framework: the CPP's guaranteed pensions and low-cost money management, and the encouragment of private savings through registered retirement savings plans (RRSPs), company registered pension plans (RPPs) and tax free savings accounts (TFSAs).

To improve what we already have, we should borrow from the U.S. approach: by offering an expanded national pension plan, coupled with more room and better tax treatment for private pensions and individual savers.

The result would be the world's best retirement system. Oh, and the cost to taxpayers would be approximately zero.

That's because this is not about today's workers subsidizing the already-retired. This isn't generational warfare. It's about people saving more for their own retirements. That's how CPP already works — your pension tomorrow is funded by your pension deductions today.

Crunch

CPP is a well-funded, actuarially sound pension scheme. Polls show that Canadians worry about whether CPP will be there when they retire, but their concern is misplaced: it is the most solid of the retirement options.

It's also more solid than Social Security, in that it's a system where current workers fund their own future retirements, rather than relying on current workers to fund current retirees.

Under CPP (or Quebec's parallel QPP), employees have 4.95 per cent of their earnings deducted from their paychecks, up to the maximum insurable income of $47,200, which is the average full-time wage. Employers contribute an equivalent amount.

The more you contribute, up to the annual ceiling, the more of a pension you're entitled to.

If you've worked a full career earning the average wage or more, you can retire at 65 with a maximum CPP pension of $934 a month, an amount that rises each year with inflation.

You'll also get an Old Age Security payment of $517 a month, though it gets clawed back if you're in an upper-income bracket. The same goes for the Guaranteed Income Supplement, which is only paid to the poorest retirees.

As for U.S. Social Security, it has a higher payroll deduction rate (6.2 per cent of wages), a higher maximum insurable income ($107,000 US) and therefore offers considerably higher benefits.

For example, the top Social Security payout in the U.S. at age 65 is currently $26,292 a year whereas the CPP maxes out at $11,208.

Nest egg

The Canada-U.S. comparison exposes the CPP's only real flaw — it's great as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough.

Most experts say you'll need an annual income worth 60 to 70 per cent of your former working wage to maintain roughly the same standard of living. For most Canadians, CPP meets only a small fraction of that requirement.

Say you earn $85,000 a year. When you retire at 65, the maximum CPP and OAS pension you can receive is $17,400 a year. If you're aiming for 70 per cent of your pre-retirement income, you're short $42,000.

If you work in the public sector, you have nothing to worry about. Your pension is gold plated. If you work for one of the dwindling number of large companies that offer guaranteed, defined-benefit pension plans, you probably have nothing to worry about either, at least so long as you work there long enough (as in most of your career) to earn a full pension. And so long as your company doesn't end up like Nortel.

Everyone else? To guarantee a $42,000 retirement income stream, indexed to inflation for 25 or so years, you'll need a nest egg of about three quarters of a million dollars.

Very few of us are going to be able to save that much. Not many people are disciplined enough to sock away the maximum RRSP savings, month after month, year after year, decade after decade, in anticipation of a distant and uncertain reward.

So what to do?

The options

BC and Alberta are leading the call for the creation of a new, voluntary contribution national pension plan, what some are calling a supplementary CPP, or SCPP.

Employees, employers and the self-employed would all be able to contribute. The money would be managed at low cost by a professional board similar to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and, though the program would be voluntary, you would be automatically signed up.

You could choose to opt out, but the default position would be "in."

This is the reverse of the RRSP system, where you have to make a conscious effort to open an account, find an investment adviser and make regular contributions. Many Canadians never do.

Others are calling for an expansion of CPP payroll deductions and benefits. That's the U.S. approach and — oh, irony — the federal NDP proposal (PDF).

Others are proposing higher limits for both RRSPs and registered pension plans, as in the U.S..

Which choice is best? How about all of them.

Giving Canadians the option of contributing some of their savings to a government-sponsored, professionally managed supplemental CPP would not cost the public purse anything. Neither would increasing RRSP and RPP contribution limits, as in the long run every cent contributed to these tax-sheltered accounts would eventually be withdrawn and taxed. Higher ceilings would let people with upper-middle class incomes tax shelter enough for their retirements-as they can in the U.S. We should also let the self-employed pay into voluntary, group pensions plans. The self-employed can already buy dental insurance, why not pensions?

Raising CPP premiums and benefits is a little trickier, because half of the CPP premium is paid by the employer.

That means that from an employer's perspective it functions as a tax on jobs, effectively raising the cost of hiring, particularly the hiring of entry-level and low-wage workers. It's the kind of disincentive an economy in recession doesn't need.

As such, the NDP plan to double CPP premiums probably goes too far. But a gradual and lesser raising of CPP premiums to the U.S. level over the course of a decade or more could work. The cost to the taxpayers would be, once again, zero.

While we're at it, let's also raise the CPP contribution ceiling, from the average wage to one and a half times the average wage, or around $70,000. That's still well below the Social Security ceiling, and in any case raising the ceiling has no impact on hiring in lower-income jobs.

Taken together the changes would marry the best of the Canadian approach to the best of the American approach. The result? A novel retirement system, better than either of them.

PENSION REFORM

Tony Keller

Last Updated: Friday, March 19, 2010 | 3:42 PM ET

Education chief pitches No Child rewrite plan

2010-03-17T12:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/17/duncan.no.child/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn

Washington (CNN) -- Saying the United States is "falling behind" in education, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan worked Wednesday to persuade lawmakers that the Obama administration's plan to rewrite a federal education law is the right move for the nation's students and schools.

"A generation ago, we led the world, but we're falling behind. The global achievement gap is growing," he told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

"If we're serious about preparing our nation's young people to compete in a global economy, we must, we must do better than this."

He cited statistics that 27 percent of American high schoolers drop out and that only 40 percent of the country's "young people" earn a two-year or four-year college degree.

"I believe that education is the one true path out of poverty. It has to be the great equalizer in our society," Duncan said.

On Saturday, the Obama administration released its wide-ranging plan for overhauling the No Child Left Behind education law. It shifts the focus from singling out underperforming schools to fostering a "race to the top" to reward successful reforms.

The proposed revisions promise that low-performing schools that fail to improve will be asked to show "dramatic change," but states and school districts will be held accountable for those shortcomings as well.

It supports the expansion of public charter schools and calls for giving states and school districts additional flexibility in how they spend federal dollars "as long as they are continuing to focus on what matters most -- improving outcomes for students."

And it allows them to use federal grant funds to change the way teachers and principals are paid "to provide differentiated compensations and career advancement opportunities to educators who are effective in increasing student academic achievement," among other considerations.

The newly published "blueprint" has come under fire from teachers' unions.

The National Education Association's president, Dennis Van Roekel, said the union was expecting "more funding stability to enable states to meet higher expectations."

He said, "Instead, the 'blueprint' requires states to compete for critical resources, setting up another winners-and-losers scenario. We were expecting school turnaround efforts to be research-based and fully collaborative. Instead, we see too much top-down scapegoating of teachers and not enough collaboration."

The president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, said the plan puts all the responsibility on teachers but gives them no authority.

"For a law affecting millions of schoolchildren and their teachers, it just doesn't make sense to have teachers -- and teachers alone -- bear the responsibility for school and student success," she said in a statement. "Teachers are on the front lines, in the classroom and in the community, working day and night to help children learn. They should be empowered and supported -- not scapegoated."

The Obama administration's $50 billion proposed education budget adds $3 billion in funding to help schools meet these revised goals, with the possibility of an additional $1 billion if the overhaul plan passes Congress.

The 8-year-old No Child Left Behind law was one of the signature policies of the Bush administration. It set up a regimen of state reading and math tests for students in third through eighth grades, intended to identify failing schools. But critics have said that the Bush administration never properly funded the effort and that states needed more flexibility in meeting those goals.

Duncan said this week that the law was "too punitive."

He said, "It lowered the bar for students and too often narrowed the curriculum, and we have to flip all of that. We have to raise the bar: high standards for all students, meaningful college and career-ready standards."

Obama aide condemns 'destructive' Israeli homes plan

2010-03-14T15:52:00.000-07:00

Israel move seemed "calculated to undermine" - courtesy ABC News/This Week

Israel's announcement of plans to build 1,600 homes for Jews in East Jerusalem was "destructive" to peace efforts, a top aide to Barack Obama says.

David Axelrod said the move, which overshadowed a visit to Israel by US Vice-President Joe Biden, was also an "insult" to the United States.

Israel's prime minister has tried to play down the unusually bitter diplomatic row between the two allies.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week issued her own stern rebuke.

Mrs Clinton told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by telephone on Friday that the Israeli move was "deeply negative" for US-Israeli relations.

'Affront'

Under the Israeli plans, the new homes will be built in Ramat Shlomo in East Jerusalem.

The international community considers East Jerusalem occupied territory and says Israel's building there is illegal under international law. But Israel regards East Jerusalem - which it annexed in 1967 - as its territory.

The Palestinians are threatening to boycott newly agreed, indirect talks unless the Ramat Shlomo project is cancelled.

"This was an affront, it was an insult but most importantly it undermined this very fragile effort to bring peace to that region," David Axelrod, one of President Obama's closest aides, told NBC television.

"We have just started proximity talks, that is shuttle diplomacy, between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and for this announcement to come at that time was very destructive," he said.

At a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Mr Netanyahu began by giving a survey of media coverage of the spat with the Americans.

"I propose not to be carried away and to calm down," he said. "We know how to handle these situations, calmly, responsibly and seriously."

He went on to admit that the announcement of project during the vice-president's visit had been offensive, but it had been an accident.

Mr Netanyahu has now set up a committee of senior officials to vet the timing of such announcements.

However, the BBC's Paul Wood, in Jerusalem, says it is clear the Americans are not persuaded that this was all just a bureaucratic mix up.

The ill-timed announcement on settlements has allowed Mr Netanyahu to shore up his right-wing coalition, our correspondent says.

But Israel needs the US to deal with Iran's nuclear programme - and that is an issue which Mr Netanyahu himself has said is more important than any other facing Israel.

Close to 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

The Quartet of Middle East peace mediators - the US, Russia, the EU and the UN - has also condemned the Israeli housing announcement and said it would review the situation at its ministerial meeting scheduled for 19 March in Moscow.

POINTS OF TENSION IN JERUSALEM

1 Gilo: 850 homes approved for publication and planning objections in Nov 2009

2 Pisgat Zeev: 600 homes approved for publication and planning objections in Jan 2010

3 Sheikh Jarrah: Several Palestinian families evicted in past 18 months to make way for Jewish settlers after court ruled in ownership dispute

4 Ramat Shlomo: 1,600 homes approved for publication and planning objections in Mar 2010

5 Silwan: Demolition orders on 88 Palestinian homes built without difficult-to-get permits - Israel planning controversial renewal project

6. West Bank barrier: Making Palestinian movement between West Bank and Jerusalem harder - Israel says it's for security

Gay rights section nixed for immigrants' guide

2010-03-02T13:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/03/02/immigration-guide-gay-rights-kenney.html?ref=rss

Gay rights section nixed for immigrants' guide

Immigration minister a past opponent of same-sex marriage

Last Updated: Tuesday, March 2, 2010 | 3:28 PM ET Comments163 Recommend123

The Canadian Press

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney blocked any reference to gay rights in a new study guide for immigrants applying for Canadian citizenship, the Canadian Press has learned.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says his department tried to make an 'inclusive' immigration study guide, but couldn't fit in every government policy and legal decision. (CBC)

Internal documents show an early draft of the guide contained sections noting that homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969; that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation; and that same-sex marriage was legalized nationally in 2005.

But Kenney, who fought same-sex marriage when it was debated in Parliament, ordered those key sections removed when his office sent its comments to the department last June.

Senior department officials duly cut out the material — but made a last-ditch plea with Kenney in early August to have it reinstated.

"Recommend the re-insertion of the text boxes related to … the decriminalization of homosexual sex/recognition of same-sex marriage," says a memorandum to Kenney from deputy minister Neil Yeates.

"Recommend the addition of 'equality rights' under list of rights. Had noted earlier that this bullet should be reinserted into the list as a means of noting the equality of all based on race, gender, sexual orientation etc."

In the end, however, Kenney's view trumped that of the bureaucrats. The 63-page guide, titled Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship, was released with fanfare last November and contains no mention of gay and lesbian rights.

About 500,000 copies were printed and citizenship applicants will start being tested on its contents March 15.

The $400,000 project substantially updated an earlier edition of the guide created in 1995. The new version significantly expands sections on Canada's military past and on aboriginal people, drawing on the views of a panel of prominent Canadians.

The new guide got generally positive reviews when it was launched, though some immediately noted the absence of gay rights, including same-sex marriage.

The publication does include a picture of Olympic gold medal swimmer Mark Tewksbury, however, with a caption saying he is a "prominent activist for gay and lesbian Canadians."

Minister steadfastly opposed same-sex marriage

Drafts and other internal documents related to the guide were obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

"Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969 and more recently, civil marriage rights to same-sex couples was legalized nationwide in 2005," the earliest draft of the guide says under the section Towards a Modern Canada.

And in the section on citizenship rights, the early draft said: "Equality Rights — Canadians are protected against discrimination based on race, gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation or age."

Neither sentence survived the minister's red marker.

Kenney has steadfastly opposed same-sex marriage since his time as an opposition MP in the House of Commons.

He spoke against the Civil Marriage Act, or Bill C-38, when it was debated in the Commons in February 2005. And days earlier, Kenney told a session with Toronto-area Punjabi journalists that gays had every right to marry — as long as it wasn't someone of the same sex.

'Choices had to be made about content': Kenney spokesman

He reaffirmed his stand in 2006 when the newly elected Conservative government attempted without success to revoke the legislation.

And last year, Kenney appointed a longtime Conservative who opposes same-sex marriage to the Immigration and Refugee Board, which among other things makes decisions about whether gays can be given refugee status in Canada.

When the new guide was released Nov. 12, Kenney brushed off a reporter's question about why it lacked any reference to same-sex marriage.

"We can't mention every legal decision, every policy of the government of Canada," he said.

"We try to be inclusive and include a summary. I can tell you that if you were to read the old book, you wouldn't even know that there are gay and lesbian Canadians." He then noted the caption under Tewksbury's photo.

Kenney's spokesman reiterated that the 1995 guide "produced by the Liberals" did not mention gays and lesbians.

"We can endlessly debate what was included or not included," Alykhan Velshi said in an email last week. "Unavoidably, choices had to be made about content because we had to ensure the guide did not become encyclopedic."

Velshi also noted the new guide does not refer to marriage at all, whether opposite sex or same sex.

The gay-rights group Egale Canada met with the minister in early December after learning the booklet made no reference to gay and lesbian rights, and is negotiating with the department to have them included in the next printing, about a year away.

Kenney told the group that gay rights had been "overlooked" when the guide was being prepared, executive director Helen Kennedy said in an interview from Toronto.

"I'm hopeful and optimistic that we're going to get it fixed because we're not happy with it."

Kennedy expressed surprise when told draft versions of the guide did, in fact, contain references to gay rights and that they were ordered removed.

The Canadian Press previously reported that other sections of the draft version of the guide were excised at the suggestion of the panel of prominent Canadians.

The deleted sections included one reference that said Canadian churches ran Indian residential schools, where aboriginal children were abused.

Genes reveal 'biological ageing'

2010-02-08T08:34:00.001-08:00

Genes reveal 'biological ageing'

Telomeres at the end of chromosomes shorten with age

Gene variants that might show how fast people's bodies are actually ageing have been pinpointed by scientists.

Researchers from the University of Leicester and Kings College London say the finding could help spot people at higher risk of age-related illnesses.

People carrying the variant had differences in the "biological clock" within all their cells.

The British Heart Foundation said the findings could offer a clue to ways of preventing heart disease.

While doctors know that as people age they are more at risk from diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and heart disease, some people fall prey to these at an earlier age than expected.

Telomeres

One theory suggests that biological timers called "telomeres", part of the chromosomes in every cell that carry genetic code, may be a factor in this.

What our study suggests is that some people are genetically programmed to age at a faster rate

Professor Tim Spector, King's College London

From birth, every time a cell divides, the telomeres get shorter and there is some evidence that people with shorter telomeres, either because they diminish more quickly or because they were born with shorter versions, may be at higher risk from age-related illness.

The researchers say in the journal, Nature Genetics, that they looked at more than 500,000 genetic variations across the entire human genome to see which variants cropped up more frequently in people known to have shorter telomeres.

They eventually located a number of variants located near a gene called TERC which, in people carrying them, seemed to be equivalent to an extra three or four years of "biological ageing".

Bad lifestyles

Professor Tim Spector, from King's College London, said: "What our study suggests is that some people are genetically programmed to age at a faster rate.

"Alternatively, genetically susceptible people may age even faster when exposed to proven 'bad' environments for telomeres such as smoking, obesity or lack of exercise - and end up several years biologically older or succumbing to more age-related diseases."

Professor Jeremy Pearson, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, which part-funded the study, said it was not yet clear whether telomeres did contribute to an increased risk of disease.

He said: "Understanding how our cells age is an important step in our quest for better ways to prevent and treat heart disease.

"Perhaps in the future one of the ways we try to reduce the risk of, or treat, heart disease would be to use an 'anti-ageing' approach for our arteries."

The great global warming collapse

2010-02-07T22:46:00.000-08:00

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-great-global-warming-collapse/article1458206/

The great global warming collapse

As the science scandals keep coming, the air has gone out of the climate-change movement

Margaret Wente

Published on Friday, Feb. 05, 2010 6:45PM EST Last updated on Sunday, Feb. 07, 2010 9:14PM EST

In 2007, the most comprehensive report to date on global warming, issued by the respected United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made a shocking claim: The Himalayan glaciers could melt away as soon as 2035.

These glaciers provide the headwaters for Asia's nine largest rivers and lifelines for the more than one billion people who live downstream. Melting ice and snow would create mass flooding, followed by mass drought. The glacier story was reported around the world. Last December, a spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund, an environmental pressure group, warned, “The deal reached at Copenhagen will have huge ramifications for the lives of hundreds of millions of people who are already highly vulnerable due to widespread poverty.” To dramatize their country's plight, Nepal's top politicians strapped on oxygen tanks and held a cabinet meeting on Mount Everest.

But the claim was rubbish, and the world's top glaciologists knew it. It was based not on rigorously peer-reviewed science but on an anecdotal report by the WWF itself. When its background came to light on the eve of Copenhagen, Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, shrugged it off. But now, even leading scientists and environmental groups admit the IPCC is facing a crisis of credibility that makes the Climategate affair look like small change.

“The global warming movement as we have known it is dead,” the brilliant analyst Walter Russell Mead says in his blog on The American Interest. It was done in by a combination of bad science and bad politics.

The impetus for the Copenhagen conference was that the science makes it imperative for us to act. But even if that were true – and even if we knew what to do – a global deal was never in the cards. As Mr. Mead writes, “The global warming movement proposed a complex set of international agreements involving vast transfers of funds, intrusive regulations in national economies, and substantial changes to the domestic political economies of most countries on the planet.” Copenhagen was never going to produce a breakthrough. It was a dead end.

And now, the science scandals just keep on coming. First there was the vast cache of e-mails leaked from the University of East Anglia, home of a crucial research unit responsible for collecting temperature data. Although not fatal to the science, they revealed a snakepit of scheming to keep contradictory research from being published, make imperfect data look better, and withhold information from unfriendly third parties. If science is supposed to be open and transparent, these guys acted as if they had a lot to hide.

Despite widespread efforts to play down the Climategate e-mails, they were very damaging. An investigation by the British newspaper The Guardian – among the most aggressive advocates for action on climate change – has found that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed, and that documents relating to them could not be produced.

Meantime, the IPCC – the body widely regarded, until now, as the ultimate authority on climate science – is looking worse and worse. After it was forced to retract its claim about melting glaciers, Mr. Pachauri dismissed the error as a one-off. But other IPCC claims have turned out to be just as groundless.

For example, it warned that large tracts of the Amazon rain forest might be wiped out by global warming because they are extremely susceptible to even modest decreases in rainfall. The sole source for that claim, reports The Sunday Times of London, was a magazine article written by a pair of climate activists, one of whom worked for the WWF. One scientist contacted by the Times, a specialist in tropical forest ecology, called the article “a mess.”

Worse still, the Times has discovered that Mr. Pachauri's own Energy and Resources Unit, based in New Delhi, has collected millions in grants to study the effects of glacial melting – all on the strength of that bogus glacier claim, which happens to have been endorsed by the same scientist who now runs the unit that got the money. Even so, the IPCC chief is hanging tough. He insists the attacks on him are being orchestrated by companies facing lower profits.

Until now, anyone who questioned the credibility of the IPCC was labelled as a climate skeptic, or worse. But many climate scientists now sense a sinking ship, and they're bailing out. Among them is Andrew Weaver, a climatologist at the University of Victoria who acknowledges that the climate body has crossed the line into advocacy. Even Britain's Greenpeace has called for Mr. Pachauri's resignation. India says it will establish its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the IPCC.

None of this is to say that global warming isn't real, or that human activity doesn't play a role, or that the IPCC is entirely wrong, or that measures to curb greenhouse-gas emissions aren't valid. But the strategy pursued by activists (including scientists who have crossed the line into advocacy) has turned out to be fatally flawed.

By exaggerating the certainties, papering over the gaps, demonizing the skeptics and peddling tales of imminent catastrophe, they've discredited the entire climate-change movement. The political damage will be severe. As Mr. Mead succinctly puts it: “Skeptics up, Obama down, cap-and-trade dead.” That also goes for Canada, whose climate policies are inevitably tied to those of the United States.

“I don't think it's healthy to dismiss proper skepticism,” says John Beddington, the chief scientific adviser to the British government. He is a staunch believer in man-made climate change, but he also points out the complexity of climate science. “Science grows and improves in the light of criticism. There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can't be changed.” In his view, it's time to stop circling the wagons and throw open the doors. How much the public will keep caring is another matter.

Gay dating site's Super Bowl ad rejected by CBS

2010-01-30T03:21:00.000-08:00

ManCrunch says that CBS's decision to nix its ad is 'straight-up discrimination.'By Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com staff writerJanuary 29, 2010: 4:43 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Super Bowl network CBS rejected an ad Friday from ManCrunch.com, a gay dating Web site.

"After reviewing the ad, which is entirely commercial in nature, our standards and practices department decided not to accept this particular spot," said CBS spokeswoman Shannon Jacobs. "We are always open to working with a client on alternative submissions."

The ads for Super Bowl 2010 bring back some old faces as well as a few newcomers.

View photos

CBS (CBS, Fortune 500) said it turned down the ad partly for financial reasons, but ManCrunch believes that there's more to it than that.

"It's straight-up discrimination," said Elissa Buchter, spokeswoman for the Toronto-based dating site.

Jacobs of CBS declined to comment on the charge of discrimination.

Buchter provided a copy of the CBS rejection letter to CNNMoney, which states that the ad "is not within the Network's broadcast standards for Super Bowl Sunday."

The letter also states that the CBS sales department "has had difficulty verifying [ManCrunch's] credit status."

Buchter said that basing the rejection on credit status doesn't make sense because "we offered to pay cash." But Jacobs said CBS has no record of any such offer.

CBS is charging up to $3 million for 30-second spots. Buchter said ManCrunch would have been charged $2.5 million for its ad and would have had no trouble paying it, since the newly formed company recently raised $40 million from investors.

Shortly before ManCrunch announced the rejection, Jacobs of CBS said her company was reviewing the ad and it was "just one of many."

Jacobs also said the spots were "virtually sold out. We have one, maybe two spots left."

ManCrunch's ad, which can be viewed on its Web site, shows two men watching the Super Bowl. Their hands brush each other in the potato chip bowl, which inspires a passionate, male-on-male make-out session.

ManCrunch is not alone. Godaddy, an online retailer of Web site domain names, is running an ad in the Super Bowl this year but it had another ad rejected by CBS in the process. The rejected ad features a man named Lola.

This year's Super Bowl, between the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints, will be played Feb. 7 at Sun Life Stadium near Miami. The facility in Miami Gardens, Fla., formerly called Dolphin Stadium, was recently renamed.

Liberals pledge tribunal independence

2010-01-26T14:23:00.000-08:00

Last Updated: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 | 5:15 PM ET Comments0 Recommend5

CBC News

http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/01/26/parliament-liberal-.html

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Tuesday his party would put limits on the government's influence over its tribunals.

"I'm willing to accept those limits, and we will put forward in the Liberal platform in the months ahead some clear definitions of how we would safeguard the independence of these tribunals ...," said Ignatieff.

Ignatieff spoke following a Liberal roundtable on governance, which heard from the former heads of three agencies who say they experienced interference from Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government.

The speakers were former nuclear safety commission head Linda Keen, former RCMP public complaints commission head Paul Kennedy, and Peter Tinsley, the former military police complaints commissioner.

Health of women, children

With Parliament prorogued until March 3, the Conservatives shifted their focus to discussing the health of women and children in poor countries.

Harper produced an opinion column for the Toronto Star and the French-language La Presse.

He said his government will focus on the health of women and children in the world's poorest countries at the upcoming G8 conference.

Bev Oda, the minister responsible for foreign aid, met with various groups on Parliament Hill to discuss how to deliver aid to the poor.

Wheelchair mobility at the tip of the tongue

2010-01-25T20:53:00.000-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/01/25/hm.wheelchair.tongue/index.html?hpt=C2

By Val Willingham, CNN Medical Producer

January 25, 2010 9:04 a.m. EST

The Tongue Drive system's technology was developed for individuals with paralysis caused by spinal cord injury, stroke or Lou Gehrig's disease.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Georgia Tech researchers test wheelchair that's guided by the tongue
Tongue is directly connected to the brain, does not go through spinal cord
Tongue Drive system could one day help individuals with high-level spinal injuries, ALS
Wheelchair tester Cruise Bogle: "It got easier as I went on"

Watch for "Health Minute" on HLN, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. ET weekdays.

(CNN) -- Cruise Bogle, 18, was skimboarding with friends in Delray Beach, Florida, when he took a wave that whipped his board out from under him. Bogle was thrown backward, and his head hit the ocean floor. When friends saw him lying still in the surf, they knew something was wrong and rushed him to the hospital.

"I broke my C4 vertebra and was left paralyzed from the neck down," says Bogle of that fateful day in December 2008. "I then spent two weeks in the ICU at Delray Medical Center and was flown to Shepherd Center on New Year's Eve."

According to the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, more than 11,000 Americans sustain spinal cord injuries each year. Although advances have been made in improving the quality of life for people such as Bogle, now a quadriplegic, innovators are always looking for something better.

Bogle became a part of this quest while at Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It's one of the largest rehabilitation centers on the East Coast. Bogle was tapped to test drive a new piece of technology.

Shepherd joined forces with scientists from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology to try out a new wheelchair, powered not by a keyboard, buttons or a wand in the mouth, but by the patient's own tongue.

Why the tongue?

"One of the major advantages of the tongue is that it's directly connected to the brain," says Maysam Ghovanloo, assistant professor at Georgia Tech and head of the project. "The tongue is unlike the rest of the body, which is connected to the brain through the spinal cord. A patient who has even the highest level of spinal cord injury can still move his or her tongue like me or you."

Watch more on the tongue-controlled wheelchair

Video: Tongue-controlled wheelchair

One of the major advantages of the tongue is that it's directly connected to the brain.
--Maysam Ghovanloo, assistant professor at Georgia Tech

The first clinical trials of the Tongue Drive system, as it is called, tested the ability of individuals with high-level spinal cord injuries to navigate the wheelchair using only tongue movements.

"I was offered the position while at Shepherd Center," explains Bogle. "I think I was the twelfth person who participated."

For the trial, Bogle first trained with a computer to learn how to move his tongue to generate the different commands for his chair, such as forward, backward, right and left.

Once he mastered the commands, researchers fitted his tongue with a small magnet, no bigger than a piece of rice. The magnet works like a mouse pad, with the tongue as the cursor. Move the tongue forward and it sends a wireless signal to six sensors in a special headset that cause the wheelchair to move forward. Move the tongue back, and the chair goes into reverse.

Bogle was then run through some paces with his chair, navigating an obstacle course of cones. By touching the tongue to certain parts of his mouth, he was able to make the chair move without any bulky attachments.

Ghovanloo says the beauty of the chair goes beyond mobility.

"The users like it because they don't look much different when using the chair, as opposed to other mobile units that use sip and puff methods [like the one used by the late Christopher Reeve] or keypads to get around," explains Ghovanloo. "These patients, the last thing they want is to look even more different when in a wheelchair. This design helps."

Although trial participants were patients with spinal cord injuries, Ghovanloo and doctors from Shepherd say patients with other conditions could also use the tongue wheelchair.

"The technology is developed for all individuals who are suffering from a high level of disability," says Ghovanloo. "It could help people who suffer from different types of strokes, as well as those who have ALS, [amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's Disease], which can paralyze the patient."

Other researchers are working on mouth-manipulation techniques to control wheelchairs, but Georgia Tech is the only group focusing on the tongue.

Since the clinical trials, Tech researchers have been looking for ways to improve the equipment, in the hopes of making it even smaller. While the original trial only worked with six commands, the Tongue Drive system in development now has the ability to capture a much larger number of tongue movements, each representing a different command.

For Bogle, now 20 and attending college in Florida, he believes good things will come from his participation in the trial.

"The wheelchair was pretty crazy," he says. "It was awkward at first to control a wheelchair with my tongue, but it got easier as I went on." And he adds enthusiastically, "It is amazing technology, and I can't imagine what else Georgia Tech will turn out in the coming years."

Scientists discover oldest footprints on Earth

2010-01-07T10:51:00.000-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/01/07/tetrapods.poland.evolution.discovery/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn

January 7, 2010 10:14 a.m. EST

A model representing what a tetrapod may have looked like.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Scientists discover fossilized footprints of 395 million-year-old four-legged creature
Discovery pushes the evolutionary scale back by nearly 20 million years
Compared in significance to discovery of the first miocene hominoids

RELATED TOPICS

(CNN) -- Scientists have found the oldest fossilized footprints made by a four-legged creature forcing a rethink on when fish first crawled out of water and onto land.

The discovery of the footprints in a former quarry in the Holy Cross Mountains in south-eastern Poland are thought to be 395-million years old -- 18 million years older than the earliest tetrapod (a vertebrate with limbs rather than fins) body fossils.

The report published Thursday in the science journal Nature says the footprints of the tetrapod measure up to 26 (10 inches) centimeters wide, which scientists say is indicative of an animal around 2.5 (7.5 feet) meters in length.

The footprints are also 10 million years earlier than the oldest known elpistostegids -- creatures which displayed some animal characteristics but retained fins.

Philippe Janvier from the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, and reviewer of the paper told CNN: "It is a really stunning discovery because it's the earliest evidence we have of tetrapods. These footprints are clear enough to attest that tetrapods were there 395 millions years ago."

The report's authors say their findings "force a radical reassessment of the timing, ecology and environmental setting of the fish-tetrapod transition, as well as the completeness of the body fossil record."

As well as finding fossilized footprints, Per Ahlberg, Professor of Evolutionary Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Sweden and his co-authors from the Polish Geological Institute in Warsaw also report finding several tracks of different sizes and characteristics.

The tracks, they say, have distinctive 'hand' and 'foot' prints and no evidence of a dragging body.

Ahlberg said in a video on the Nature Web site: "The trackway shows pairs of prints -- the sort of tracks a salamander would leave if it walked. In order to make tracks like the ones found you need to have front legs and back legs that are about the same size."

Ahlberg said the disused quarry where the fossils were discovered has yielded some of the most exciting finds he has encountered in his career as a paleontologist.

Although Janvier describes the lack of skeletal evidence as "frustrating" it doesn't undermine the importance of the discovery. "It changes what we thought about the evolutionary tree concerning the part dealing with transition from fish to land vertebrae." Janvier said.

"The divergence between the tetrapods and their closest fish relatives is much younger than previously thought and it obliges us to find actual evidence -- skeletons or complete fossils -- in much earlier strata that could enlighten us between this divergence."

Late-night teens 'face greater depression risk'

2010-01-02T01:12:00.001-08:00

Late-night teens 'face greater depression risk'

Teenagers need at least nine hours sleep a night, say experts

Going to bed earlier protects teenagers against depression and suicidal thoughts, research suggests.

A US study of 12 to 18-year-olds found those with bedtimes after midnight were 24% more likely to have depression than those who went to bed before 2200.

And those who slept fewer than five hours a night had a 71% higher risk of depression than those who slept eight hours, the journal Sleep reports.

It is estimated 80,000 UK children and young people have depression.

The researchers from Columbia University Medical Center in New York looked at data from 15,500 teenagers collected in the 1990s.

One in 15 of those studied were found to have depression.

As well as the higher risk of depression, those who were set a bedtime by their parents of after midnight were 20% more likely to think about suicide than those whose bedtime was 2200 or earlier.

Those who had less than five hours sleep a night were thought to have a 48% higher risk of suicidal thoughts compared with those who had eight hours of sleep.

Enough sleep, good food and regular exercise and all essential to stay emotionally healthy

Sarah Brennan, YoungMinds

Teenagers who reported they "usually get enough sleep" were 65% less likely to be depressed.

Depression and suicidal thoughts were also more likely in girls, older teenagers and in those who had a lower self-perception of how much parents care about them.

Most of the parents of the adolescents in the study set a bedtime of 2200 or earlier.

A quarter set a bedtime of 2400 or later.

On average the teenagers were having seven hours and 53 minutes sleep a night - less than the nine hours recommended at that age.

Study leader Dr James Gangwisch said although it it was possible that youngsters with depression struggle to sleep, the fact that parental set bedtimes were linked with depression suggests that a lack of sleep is somehow underpinning the development of the condition.

He said a lack of sleep could affect emotional brain responses and lead to moodiness that hindered the ability to cope with daily stresses.

This moodiness could affect judgment, concentration and impulse control.

Regular exercise

"Adequate quality sleep could therefore be a preventative measure against depression and a treatment for depression," he added.

Sarah Brennan, chief executive at the mental health charity YoungMinds, said: "Enough sleep, good food and regular exercise and all essential to stay emotionally healthy.

"Nearly 80,000 children and young people suffer with depression, yet we are still failing to provide our young people with the help and support to cope with it and prevent it.

"Providing parents with information about how to look after your body, for example by getting enough sleep, and how to get help if they are worried about their teenager, will ensure problems are tackled early and prevent serious mental health conditions such as depression."

Irish atheists challenge blasphemy law

2010-01-02T01:09:00.000-08:00

Irish atheists challenge blasphemy law

The words of Pope Benedict are among the quotations published

An atheist group in the Irish Republic has defied a new blasphemy law by publishing a series of anti-religious quotations on its website.

Atheist Ireland says it will fight any action taken against it in court.

The quotations include the words of writers such as Mark Twain and Salman Rushdie, but also Jesus Christ, the Prophet Muhammad and Pope Benedict XVI.

The new law makes blasphemy a crime punishable by a fine of up to 25,000 euros (£22,000; $35,000).

The government says it is needed because the republic's 1937 constitution only gives Christians legal protection of their beliefs.

The new law was passed in July 2009 but came into force on 1 January.

Atheist Ireland responded by publishing 25 quotes it considers anti-religious on its website.

The group said its aim is to have the law repealed and to attain a secular Irish constitution.

Chairman Michael Nugent said it would challenge the blasphemy law through the courts if it were charged, the London-based Guardian newspaper reported.

"This new law is both silly and dangerous," he said. "It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas."

Atheist Ireland says it will hold a series of public meetings around the country to launch its campaign.

Disinfectants 'train' superbugs to resist antibiotics

2009-12-28T04:02:00.000-08:00

Disinfectants 'train' superbugs to resist antibiotics

Disinfectant could teach bacteria methods of resistance

Disinfectants could effectively train bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics, research suggests.

Scientists know bacteria can become inured to disinfectant, but research increasingly shows the same process may make them resistant to certain drugs.

This can occur even with an antibiotic the bacteria have not been exposed to.

Writing in Microbiology, the National University of Ireland team, who focused on a common hospital bacterium, urges a rethink of how infections are managed.

Scientists in Galway found that by adding increasing amounts of disinfectant to cultures of pseudomonas aeruginosa in the lab, the bacteria learnt to resist not only the disinfectant but also ciprofloxacin - a commonly-prescribed antibiotic - even without being exposed to it.

The researchers report the bacteria had adapted to pump out anti-microbial agents - be they a disinfectant or an antibiotic - from their cells.

The adapted bacteria also had a mutation in their DNA that allowed them to resist ciprofloxacin-type antibiotics specifically.

Residue from incorrectly diluted disinfectants left on hospital surfaces could promote the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Dr Gerard Fleming

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a bacterium most likely to infect those who are already seriously ill.

It can cause a wide range of infections, particularly among those with weak immune systems such as HIV or cancer patients, as well as people with severe burns, diabetes or cystic fibrosis.

Surface disinfectants are used to prevent its spread - but if the bacteria manage to survive and go on to infect patients, antibiotics are used to treat them.

Bacteria that could resist both these control points could be a serious threat to hospital patients, the study said.

At the high concentration levels generally employed this was unlikely to be a problem - but "in principle this means that residue from incorrectly diluted disinfectants left on hospital surfaces could promote the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria", said study author Dr Gerard Fleming.

"What is more worrying is that bacteria seem to be able to adapt to resist antibiotics without even being exposed to them."

Disinfectants may not just be the problem, they may also be the cure

Dr Gerry McDonnell

There is an increasing body of research that raises concerns about the effects on antibiotic resistance of disinfectants and antiseptics.

An EU report published earlier this year stressed the importance of the "appropriate and prudent" use of disinfectants to minimise the risk that bacteria become resistant to both forms of defence.

It also emerged this year that treatments in hospitals in Brazil had been compromised by a bacterium, mycobacterium massiliense, which had developed resistance to a common sterilisation fluid and a number of antibiotics used to treat the subsequent infections.

"This was very significant because it was really the first incident related to resistance to a biocide which led to clinical failure, which is new," said Dr Gerry McDonnell, a researcher in the field.

"This really needs to be an area of active investigation and debate. But it's worth bearing in mind that disinfectants may not just be the problem, they may also be the cure."

Research was published this year showing that the disinfecting wipes used to protect against MRSA could in fact spread the bug, as the solution contained was often not sufficient to kill all the bacteria picked up, and hospital staff often used the same wipe to clean more than one surface.

Herschel space telescope captures birth of stars

2009-12-16T10:38:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8416263.stm

The European Space Agency (Esa) has released stunning new pictures from the recently launched Herschel telescope.

The pictures show star formation, and have been described as among the most important images obtained from space for decades.

Astronomers hope that, by analysing these images, they will be able to answer questions about how stars and galaxies are made.

Herschel is the largest astronomical telescope ever to be put into space.

It has captured images of previously invisible stardust. This is the stuff that galaxies, stars, planets and all life is made from, and scientists are studying it to follow the life cycle of the cosmos.

The vacuum of space is full of wispy clouds of stardust

Bruce Swinyard, from the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, is a member of the research team that designed Herschel's Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (Spire), one of the three scientific instruments that is providing the telescope's eyes.

These three detectors allow Herschel to see far-infrared and sub-millimetre (radio) wavelengths of light, allowing it to peer through clouds of dust and gas and to see stars as they are born.

This infrared capability also enables Herschel to look deep into space, to look at galaxies that thrived when the Universe was roughly a half to a fifth of its present age. This is a period in cosmic history when it is thought star formation was at its most prolific.

Professor Swinyard explained that by looking at "young galaxies", Herschel is able reveal some of the history of star formation.

He said that the thousands of galaxies the telescope had detected would allow researchers to test models of galaxy formation, and to uncover the chemical processes that make stardust.

One of the pictures shows that the vacuum of space is actually full of star dust.

Astronomers will continue to study the images, which have already shown that the mechanisms of the cosmos may be more diverse and complex than current theory suggests.

UN hits back at climate sceptics amid e-mails row

2009-12-05T17:18:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8397265.stm

UN hits back at climate sceptics amid e-mails row

The e-mails were posted on the internet last month

The UN's official panel on climate change has hit back at sceptics' claims that the case for human influence on global warming has been exaggerated.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said it was "firmly" standing by findings that a rise in the use of greenhouse gases was a factor.

It was responding to a row over the reliability of data from East Anglia University's Climatic Research Unit

Leaked e-mail exchanges prompted claims that data had been manipulated.

Last month, hundreds of messages between scientists at the unit and their peers around the world were put on the internet along with other documents.

Some observers alleged one of the e-mails suggested head of the unit Professor Phil Jones wanted certain papers excluded from the UN's next major assessment of climate science.

The body of evidence is the result of the careful and painstaking work of hundreds of scientists worldwide

Professor Thomas Stocker and Professor Qin Dahe, IPCC

Professor Jones, who denies this was his intention, has stood down from his post while an independent inquiry takes place.

In a statement, Professor Thomas Stocker and Professor Qin Dahe, co-chairmen of the IPCC's working group 1, condemned the act of posting the private e-mails on the internet, but avoided commenting on their content.

They went on to point to a key finding that states: "The warming in the climate system is unequivocal.

"[It] is based on measurements made by many independent institutions worldwide that demonstrate significant changes on land, in the atmosphere, the ocean and in the ice-covered areas of the Earth.

"Through further independent scientific work involving statistical methods and a range of different climate models, these changes have been detected as significant deviations from natural climate variability and have been attributed to the increase of greenhouse gases."

They added: "The body of evidence is the result of the careful and painstaking work of hundreds of scientists worldwide.

There is an anti-science group, there is a flat Earth group, if I may say so, over the scientific evidence for climate change

Gordon Brown, Prime Minister

"The internal consistency from multiple lines of evidence strongly supports the work of the scientific community, including those individuals singled out in these e-mail exchanges."

The row comes ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit which starts on Monday.

Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-chairman of the IPCC, said it was no coincidence the information was released in the run-up to the summit.

He claimed unnamed conspirators could have paid for Russian hackers to break into the university computers to steal the e-mails.

He said the theft was a scandal and was "probably ordered" to disrupt the confidence negotiators have in the science.

Earlier, Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband told the BBC he would be "very surprised" if there had been any wrongdoing on the part of the East Anglia University scientists.

"We're in a moment when the world is about to make some big political decisions," he said.

"And there will be people who don't want the world to make those big decisions and they are trying to use this in part to say somehow this is all in doubt and perhaps we should put the whole thing off.

"Well, I just think they're wrong about that."

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the scientific evidence was "very clear" and called doubters a "flat Earth group".

He said: "There is an anti-change group. There is an anti-reform group. There is an anti-science group, there is a flat Earth group, if I may say so, over the scientific evidence for climate change."

'Open and transparent'

Meanwhile, the Met Office said it would publish all the data from weather stations worldwide, which it said proved climate change was caused by humans.

Its database is a main source of analysis for the IPCC.

It has written to 188 countries for permission to publish the material, dating back 160 years from more than 1,000 weather stations.

John Mitchell, head of climate science at the Met Office, said the evidence for man-made global warming was overwhelming - and the data would show that.

"So this is not an issue of whether we are confident or not in the figures for the trend in global warming, it's more about being open and transparent," he told the BBC.

The Met Office said it had already planned to publish the material long before the row and denied reports that government ministers had tried to block the publication.

2009-11-20T15:23:00.001-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8371662.stm

Cern Large Hadron Collider machine restarts

By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News

The Atlas detector will join the hunt for the Higgs boson particle

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment has been restarted after a hiatus of 14 months.

Engineers working on the machine achieved a stable, circulating proton beam just after 2100 GMT on Friday.

The LHC is housed in a 27km-long circular tunnel about 100m beneath the French-Swiss border.

The experiment is designed to smash together beams of protons in a bid to shed light on the nature of the Universe.

The LHC has been shut down for repairs since an accident in September 2008.

Operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern), the LHC will create similar conditions to those which were present moments after the Big Bang.

"It's great to see beam circulating in the LHC again," said Cern's director-general Rolf Heuer.

Particle physicist Jim Virdee says that scientists are excited that the LHC is coming back online

"We've still got some way to go before physics can begin, but with this milestone we're well on the way."

Engineers sent their first beam all the way round the LHC's 27km circumference after 1930 GMT on Friday.

The beams themselves are made up of "packets" - each about a metre long - containing billions of protons. But they would disperse if left to their own devices.

Electrical forces had to be used to "capture" the protons. This keeps them tightly huddled in packets, for a stable, circulating beam.

There are some 1,200 "superconducting" magnets which form the LHC's main "ring".

These magnets bend proton beams in opposite directions around the main "ring" at close to the speed of light.

At allotted points around the tunnel, the proton beams cross paths, smashing into one another with enormous energy. Large "detector" machines located at the crossing points will scour the wreckage of these collisions for discoveries that should extend our knowledge of physics.

1 - 14 quadrupole magnets replaced

2 - 39 dipole magnets replaced

3 - More than 200 electrical connections repaired

4 - Over 4km of beam pipe cleaned

5 - New restraining system installed for some magnets

6 - Hundreds of new helium ports being installed around machine

7 - Thousands of detectors added to early warning system

Among other things, scientists will search for signs of the Higgs boson, a sub-atomic particle that is crucial to our current understanding of physics. Although it is predicted to exist, scientists have never found it.

Engineers first circulated a beam all the way around the LHC on 10 September 2008.

But just nine days later, an electrical fault in one of the connections between superconducting magnets caused a tonne of liquid helium to leak into the tunnel.

Liquid helium is used to cool the LHC to its operating temperature of 1.9 kelvin (-271C; -456F).

The machine has been shut down ever since the accident, to allow repairs to take place.

Professor Norman McCubbin from the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Didcot, added: "I'm sure every particle physicist has been feeling just a little bit impatient as the 're-start' of the LHC has drawn nearer. It's great to see beams circulating again."

The damage caused to the collider meant 53 superconducting magnets had to be replaced and about 200 electrical connections repaired.

Engineers have also been installing a new early warning system which could prevent incidents of the kind which shut down the experiment.

Cern has spent some 40m Swiss Francs (£24m) on repairs to the collider.

Duke Study: Homework Helps Students Succeed in School, As Long as There Isn't Too Much

2009-11-17T11:59:00.000-08:00

Duke Study: Homework Helps Students Succeed in School, As Long as There Isn't Too Much

The study, led by professor Harris Cooper, also shows that the positive correlation is much stronger for secondary students than elementary students

Tuesday, March 7, 2006

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Note to Editors: Harris Cooper can be reached for additional comment at (919) 660-3167 or cooperh@duke.edu.

Durham, N.C. -- It turns out that parents are right to nag: To succeed in school, kids should do their homework.

Duke University researchers have reviewed more than 60 research studies on homework between 1987 and 2003 and concluded that homework does have a positive effect on student achievement.

Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology and director of Duke’s Program in Education, said the research synthesis that he led showed the positive correlation was much stronger for secondary students -– those in grades 7 through 12 -– than those in elementary school.

“With only rare exception, the relationship between the amount of homework students do and their achievement outcomes was found to be positive and statistically significant,” the researchers report in a paper that appears in the spring 2006 edition of “Review of Educational Research.”

Cooper is the lead author; Jorgianne Civey Robinson, a Ph.D. student in psychology, and Erika Patall, a graduate student in psychology, are co-authors. The research was supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

While it’s clear that homework is a critical part of the learning process, Cooper said the analysis also showed that too much homework can be counter-productive for students at all levels.

“Even for high school students, overloading them with homework is not associated with higher grades,” Cooper said.

Cooper said the research is consistent with the “10-minute rule” suggesting the optimum amount of homework that teachers ought to assign. The “10-minute rule,” Cooper said, is a commonly accepted practice in which teachers add 10 minutes of homework as students progress one grade. In other words, a fourth-grader would be assigned 40 minutes of homework a night, while a high school senior would be assigned about two hours. For upper high school students, after about two hours’ worth, more homework was not associated with higher achievement.

The authors suggest a number of reasons why older students benefit more from homework than younger students. First, the authors note, younger children are less able than older children to tune out distractions in their environment. Younger children also have less effective study habits.

But the reason also could have to do with why elementary teachers assign homework. Perhaps it is used more often to help young students develop better time management and study skills, not to immediately affect their achievement in particular subject areas.

“Kids burn out,” Cooper said. “The bottom line really is all kids should be doing homework, but the amount and type should vary according to their developmental level and home circumstances. Homework for young students should be short, lead to success without much struggle, occasionally involve parents and, when possible, use out-of-school activities that kids enjoy, such as their sports teams or high-interest reading.”

Cooper pointed out that there are limitations to current research on homework. For instance, little research has been done to assess whether a student’s race, socioeconomic status or ability level affects the importance of homework in his or her achievement.

This is Cooper’s second synthesis of homework research. His first was published in 1989 and covered nearly 120 studies in the 20 years before 1987. Cooper’s recent paper reconfirms many of the findings from the earlier study.

Cooper is the author of “The Battle over Homework: Common Ground for Administrators, Teachers, and Parents” (Corwin Press, 2001).

Kelly Gilmer

T: (919) 681-8065

Email: kelly.gilmer@duke.edu

Harper urges climate rules for all countries

2009-11-14T18:24:00.000-08:00

Harper urges climate rules for all countries
Last Updated: Saturday, November 14, 2009 | 9:05 PM ET Comments771Recommend81
CBC News

Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet at the APEC summit on Saturday.Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet at the APEC summit on Saturday. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)Full global participation in cutting greenhouse gases is necessary to tackle global warming, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said at an APEC summit in Singapore on Saturday.

Emerging economies already contribute close to half of all global emissions, and that proportion will rise to two-thirds in the future, he told reporters.

"If we don't control those, whatever we do in the developed world will have no impact on climate change," Harper said.

Prof. Tim Flannery of the Copenhagen Climate Council, also in Singapore for the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation countries, delivered a harsh assessment of Canada's record on reducing emissions.

Flannery told The Canadian Press that Canada faces an international credibility crisis because it is "by far the biggest defaulter" on previous Kyoto Protocol obligations.

He said even though Canada signed on 11 years ago, it has failed to meet its obligations.

"The people of Canada, through their government, made the commitment, and it needs to be honoured somehow or other, or it needs to be dealt with," the Australian climate-change expert said.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen chat with U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday.Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen chat with U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday. (PMO/Jason Ransom)

"Canada is by far the biggest defaulter on its Kyoto obligations on a tonnage basis. And as a result of that there is a lack of trust," he said.

The APEC summit comes less than a month before a United Nations climate change conference opens in Copenhagen, where leaders of almost 200 countries will gather to hash out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

Harper acknowledged there are "significant differences" over how to tackle climate change, but he said every leader he's spoken to at the summit agrees on the need for a long-term plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

When it comes to the economy, the prime minister is pushing for a reduction of trade barriers, in light of the global recession.

David Emerson, Canada's former minister for international trade, told CBC News that in the 21st century, environmental issues cannot be separated from economic and trade issues "because they're becoming increasingly intertwined."

Canada needs to get more pro-active on boosting trade with emerging economies, including having a physical presence in those countries, which direct investment, Emerson said.

"It means moving people into those markets… it means cultural knowledge and adaptation and fluency with language," he said in an interview on CBC's The National on Saturday.

"It's a much different game today and it's going to take a much broader, deeper, more comprehensive effort for Canada to get back in the game in the way we should be."

Before heading to Singapore for the summit, U.S. President Barack Obama said in a speech in Tokyo that China's growing economy doesn't have to be seen as a negative force for the United States.

"We look to rising powers with the view that in the 21st century, the national security and economic growth of one country need not come at the expense of another," he said.

"In an inter-connected world, power does not need to be a zero-sum game, and nations need not fear the success of another," Obama said. "Cultivating spheres of co-operation — not competing spheres of influence — will lead to progress in the Asia Pacific."

Heat pumps: hot air in from the cold

2009-11-14T17:48:00.000-08:00

Heat pumps: hot air in from the cold
Last Updated: Friday, November 13, 2009 | 9:19 AM ET Comments7Recommend2
Grant Buckler, Special to CBC News

It sounds like it shouldn't work. To warm your home on a cold day, you bring in heat from outside.

"What heat?" you ask. "This is Canada in winter. The heat went south in the fall with the migratory birds."
Is a heat pump really environmentally friendly? It depends on your location and how your electricity is generated. (iStock)Is a heat pump really environmentally friendly? It depends on your location and how your electricity is generated. (iStock)

Yet, in fact, heat is out there. Anything at a temperature above absolute zero (273 below zero Celsius) contains heat. Just as emptying a glass of water into a bathtub raises the level in the tub — though only slightly — transferring some heat from outside to inside will warm the house.

The problem is how. You can't just open the window, because of the second law of thermodynamics, which says heat won't move on its own from a colder place to a hotter one. But the law doesn't say you can't transfer heat from cold to hot — just that you have to work at it.
Like a refrigerator

That is what heat pumps do. A heat pump doesn't create heat as a furnace does, but rather moves existing heat around. Most of the time it takes less energy to move heat than to create it, and that's why heat pumps are more efficient.

A heat pump isn't the only machine that moves heat. You have at least one appliance that does it: your refrigerator. A refrigerator cools by removing heat from inside the fridge to outside — from a colder place to a hotter one, just like a heat pump.

In fact, a heat pump does almost exactly what a refrigerator does, only on a larger scale and with an opposite goal: to warm the place the heat goes to rather than to cool the place it comes from. Unless, of course, it's summer and the heat pump is operating in cooling mode, when it reverses and removes heat from the house to outdoors. Sounds like an air conditioner? That's just what it is — heat pumps, air conditioners and refrigerators all work on the same principle.

The key is that compressing a gas heats it, says Brian Killins, a senior standards engineer in Natural Resources Canada's Office of Energy Efficiency. "That's kind of the basis for why this works."
How it works

There are other kinds of heat pumps, but for this explanation let's assume we're talking about one that extracts heat from outdoor air — an air-source heat pump.

You start with a liquid that is colder than the outside air. You circulate this through pipes outside, blowing outdoor air over it. Because it's colder than the outside air, it absorbs heat from the air (even though that air might be at below-zero temperatures).

Then you compress the liquid, causing it to heat up and turn into a gas. Once it is warmer than the indoor air, it passes through another series of pipes, called a heat exchanger. A fan blows air over the heat exchanger, heating the air and blowing it through ducts to heat your house, while cooling the gas in the pipes, which condenses back into liquid.

Then the liquid passes through an expansion valve, which decompresses it and thus cools it to below the outdoor temperature so the cycle can begin again.

If the heat pump is ground-source instead of air-source, then instead of blowing outdoor air over a coil you have pipes buried in the ground and liquid circulates through these to pick up heat from the earth. Most designs use a separate antifreeze solution in the underground pipes that transfers its heat to the refrigerant that goes inside the building, Killins says, but in some designs the same liquid circulates through the whole system.

In a water-source heat pump, water is pumped from a well, lake or pond, heat is extracted from it using the same process as with other heat pumps, and then the water is discharged into a second well or body or water.
Costs and considerations

Ground-source heat pumps are most efficient because the ground stays warmer in winter than the air does. Some of the heat in the ground comes from within the earth, so these types of heat pumps are often called geothermal systems. But ground-source heat pumps are also expensive, because they require a well or trench to bury pipes.

The cost depends partly on location. Killins says quite a few are being installed around Winnipeg, where drilling is fairly easy.

An air-source heat pump costs less, because the outdoor portion is just a metal box containing a compressor and some piping. But if the outdoor temperature drops too low, it won't heat a house. Thus air-source heat pumps are popular in the warmer climate of southern British Columbia, says Jeff Zimmerman, technical co-ordinator for the Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Institute of Canada.

They can also be combined with other heat sources. A typical installation might have an air-source heat pump and a conventional furnace, with a programmable thermostat that chooses which to activate based on the outdoor temperature and the amount of heat being called for inside.

Most air-source heat pumps work at outdoor temperatures down to around –15 Celsius, but air-source heat pump technology is improving. Killins says some newer units are designed to be effective at outdoor temperatures as low as –30 Celsius.
Ask about the refrigerant

Is a heat pump really environmentally friendly? It depends on your location and how your electricity is generated.

A heat pump using electricity generated from fossil fuels may not ultimately be more efficient than a high-efficiency gas furnace, Killins says, but electricity from hydro plants is better.

Another possible environmental concern is the refrigerant in the heat pump. Like older air conditioners, early heat pumps used chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, that have been linked to depletion of the ozone layer and global warming. Other substances have since replaced these. One more recent refrigerant, a hydrochlorofluorcarbon (H-CFC) called R-22, has been widely used but will be banned as of next year.

Zimmerman says the market is largely moving to the safer hydrofluorocarbon R-410A. He recommends asking about the refrigerant when buying a heat pump.

Greenland ice loss 'accelerating'

2009-11-12T23:10:00.000-08:00

Greenland ice loss 'accelerating'
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

Ilulissat glacier (Image: BBC)
The Ilulissat glacier has retreated by approximately 15km over the past decade

The Greenland ice sheet is losing its mass faster than in previous years and making an increasing contribution to sea level rise, a study has confirmed.

Published in the journal Science, it has also given scientists a clearer view of why the sheet is shrinking.

The team used weather data, satellite readings and models of ice sheet behaviour to analyse the annual loss of 273 thousand million tonnes of ice.

Melting of the entire sheet would raise sea levels globally by about 7m (20ft).

For the period 2000-2008, melting Greenland ice raised sea levels by an average of about 0.46mm per year.

If you multiply these numbers up it puts us well beyond the IPCC estimates for 2100
Professor Roger Barry

Since 2006, that has increased to 0.75mm per year.

"Since 2000, there's clearly been an accelerating loss of mass [from the ice sheet]," said lead researcher Michiel van den Broeke from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

"But we've had three very warm summers, and that's enhanced the melt considerably.

"If this is going to continue, I cannot tell - but we do of course expect the climate to become warmer in the future."

In total, sea levels are rising by about 3mm per year, principally because seawater is expanding as it warms.

Sea change

Changes to the Greenland sheet and its much larger counterpart in Antarctica are subjects commanding a lot of interest within the scientific community because of the potential they have to raise sea levels to an extent that would flood many of the world's major cities.
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The 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report projected a sea level rise of 28-43cm during this century.

But it acknowledged this was almost certainly an underestimate because understanding of how ice behaves was not good enough to make reliable projections.

By combining different sources of data in the way it has, and by quantifying the causes of mass loss, the new study has taken a big step forwards, according to Roger Barry, director of the World Data Center for Glaciology at the University of Colorado in Boulder, US.

"I think it's a very significant paper; the results in it are certainly very significant and new," he said.

"It does show that the [ice loss] trend has accelerated, and the reported contribution to sea level rise also shows a significant acceleration - so if you multiply these numbers up it puts us well beyond the IPCC estimates for 2100."

Professor Barry was an editor on the section of the IPCC report dealing with the polar regions.

On reflection

An ice sheet can lose mass because of increased melting on the surface, because glaciers flow more quickly into the ocean, or because there is less precipitation in the winter so less bulk is added inland.

The new research shows that in Greenland, about half the loss comes from faster flow to the oceans, and the other half from changes on the ice sheet itself - principally surface melting.
Artist's impression of Grace satellite in orbit
The Grace satellites provide a twin eye on gravity at the Earth's surface

Another analysis of satellite data, published in September, showed that of 111 fast-moving Greenland glaciers studied, 81 were thinning at twice the rate of the slow-moving ice beside them.

This indicates that the glaciers are accelerating and taking more ice into the surrounding sea.

Melting on the ice sheet's surface acts as a feedback mechanism, Dr van den Broeke explained, because the liquid water absorbs more and reflects less of the incoming solar radiation - resulting in a heating of the ice.

"Over the last 10 years, it's quite simple; warming over Greenland has caused the melting to increase, and that's set off this albedo feedback process," he told BBC News.

"Quite likely the oceans have also warmed, and it's likely that explains the [acceleration of] outlet glaciers because they're warmed from below."

Data provided over just the last few years by the Grace satellite mission - used in this study - is giving researchers a closer view of regional variations across the territory.

Grace's twin satellites map gravity at the Earth's surface in unprecedented detail; and it is now possible to tease out from the data that most of the mass is being lost in the southeast, southwest and northwest at low elevations where the air will generally be warmer than at high altitudes.

Professor Barry cautioned that the Grace mission, which has produced valuable data about Antarctica as well as Greenland, has only a further two years to run, and that no replacement is currently scheduled.

Greek Church acts on crucifix ban

2009-11-12T18:20:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8358027.stm

The Greek Orthodox Church is urging Christians across Europe to unite in an appeal against a ban on crucifixes in classrooms in Italy.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled last week that the presence of crucifixes violated a child's right to freedom of religion.

Greece's Orthodox Church fears the Italian case will set a precedent.

It has called an emergency Holy Synod meeting for next week to devise an action plan.

Although the Greek Orthodox Church has been at odds with Roman Catholicism for 1,000 years, the judicial threat to Christian symbols has acted as a unifying force.

The European Court of Human Rights found that the compulsory display of crucifixes violated parents' rights to educate their children as they saw fit and restricted the right of children to believe or not to believe.

'Worthy symbols'

The head of the Greek Church, Archbishop Ieronymos, shares Catholic complaints that the court is ignoring the role of Christianity in forming Europe's identity.

It is not only minorities that have rights but majorities as well, said the archbishop.

One of his subordinates, Bishop Nicholas from central Greece, lamented that at this rate youngsters will not have any worthy symbols at all to inspire and protect them.

The mayor of one Italian town displayed a 2m high crucifix in protest

Football and pop idols are very poor substitutes, he said.

The Greek Church has ostensibly intervened in this case in response to an appeal by a Greek mother whose son is studying in Italy.

But without doubt it is concerned that its omnipotence in Greece is under threat.

A human rights group called Helsinki Monitor is seeking to use the Italian case as a precedent.

It has demanded that Greek courts remove icons of Jesus Christ from above the judge's bench and that the gospel no longer be used for swearing oaths in the witness box.

Helsinki Monitor is urging trade unions to challenge the presence of religious symbols in Greek schools.

The socialist government here is also considering imposing new taxes on the Church's vast fortune, but at the same time is urging it to do more to help immigrants and poor Greeks.

Unions...

2009-11-09T21:05:00.000-08:00

http://www.martlet.ca/article/20214-cfs-q-receives-legal-threats

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21089026/CFSreformPackage-14October2009

Media: Point of View

2009-11-09T20:50:00.000-08:00

Read the difference between the two articles:

BBC.CO.UK ""Canadian rescued from Arctic ice" and CBC "Nunavut teen rescued from ice floe"

Africa Americas Asia-Pacific Europe Middle East South Asia UK Business Health Science & Environment Technology Entertainment Also in the news -------

2009-11-06T23:56:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8344969.stm

By Mark Kinver
Science and environment reporter, BBC News

Different models predicted differing outlooks for Alpine species

Some large-scale computer simulations may be overestimating the impact of climate change on biodiversity in some regions, researchers have suggested.

They said models that analyse vast areas often failed to take into account local variations, such as topography and microclimates.

Local-scale simulations, which did include these factors, often delivered a more optimistic outlook, they added.

The findings have been published in the journal, Science.

One of the studies cited in the paper looked at the fate of plant species in the Swiss Alps.

"A coarse European-scale model (with 16km by 16km grid cells) predicted a loss of all suitable habitats during the 21st Century," the researchers wrote.

"Whereas a model run using local-scale data (25m by 25m grid cells) predicted (the) persistence of suitable habitats for up to 100% of plant species."

Micro v macro

Co-author Shonil Bhagwat, a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford, UK, said when vegetation was looked at on a smaller scale, scientists saw a different picture.

"For example, smaller plots give data on microclimatic variations, whereas large-scale models predict (uniform) changes throughout the landscape."

Advances in computing power meant that more large-scale datasets were being made available to scientists, Dr Bhagwat explained.

"There is more interest in predicting widespread, large-scale effects," she told BBC News, "that is why coarser-scale models are normally used.

"However, the changes in communities of vegetation occur at a much smaller scale."

In the paper, Dr Bhagwat and co-author Professor Kathy Willis, wrote: "These studies highlight the complexities that we are faced with trying to model and predict the possible consequences of future climate change on biodiversity."

The researchers called for more micro-scale studies to be carried out that complement the overall picture presented by larger models.

However, they added that the overall picture for biodiversity loss was still bleak, especially once the rate of habitat loss and fragmentation was taken into account.

"Predicting the fate of biodiversity in response to climate change combined with habitat fragmentation is a serious undertaking fraught with caveats and complexities," they observed.

For example, Dr Bhagwat explained, the current system of having fixed nature reserves may need to be reconsidered.

"We have 12% of the Earth's land surface covered in protected areas, but climate change is likely to push species out of their home ranges and out of reserves," she added.

"So we need to look beyond reserves and create the conditions that allow the migration of species."

Large Hadron Collider Halted By Bird Crumbs

2009-11-06T23:08:00.001-08:00

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,572567,00.html?test=latestnews

The massive machine at the center of the world's biggest scientific experiment has malfunctioned again – derailed by a bit of bread dropped by a bird.

The Hadron Collider, buried 100m under the ground near Geneva, Switzerland, is supposed to recreate conditions seen after the Big Bang. Scientists hope the $7.3 billion machine will shed light on the event that many scientists believe gave birth to the universe around 14 billion years ago, but the project has suffered a series of setbacks.

The latest saw a "bit of baguette," thought to have been dropped by a bird, fall onto machinery, causing a fault.

SLIDESHOW: The world's largest atom smasher

Sections of the machine, which fires protons round a 17-mile-long tunnel at close to the speed of light in order to smash them in to each other, then overheated. Members of the public who had been looking at data published online noticed the temperature changes and contacted journalists at The Register.

They alerted those in charge of the project at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern). According to scientists, had the Collider been in operation at the time it would have shut down automatically, avoiding the damage of last September when a large amount of helium leaked into the tunnel.

But the difficulties faced by those working on the project have prompted some members of the scientific community to speculate, in all seriousness, that the machine is sabotaging itself — from the future.

The theory is that the particle that physicists hope to produce might be "abhorrent to nature," so that once created it would work backwards through time to put a stop to whatever created it. However Dr Mike Lamont, who works at the Cern control center, said that the nature of the experiment meant that glitches were inevitable.

"This thing is so complicated and so big, it's bound to have problems sometimes," he said.

H1N1 overplayed by media, public health: MDs

2009-11-06T17:52:00.000-08:00

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/11/06/h1n1-media.html

Public health officials and journalists have overstated the importance of the swine flu, a former Ontario chief medical officer of health says.

Dr. Richard Schabas, chief medical officer of health for Hastings and Prince Edward Counties in eastern Ontario, said the H1N1 influenza outbreak needs to be put into proper perspective.

About 200,000 people die in Canada every year from all causes combined, including about 4,000 from seasonal flu.

"By the time all the dust has settled on H1N1, somewhere between 200 and 300 people will have died in this country," Schabas said Thursday during a panel on media coverage of H1N1 on CBC-TV's The National.

Schabas criticized the media for not trying to put the story into perspective, and for being "a little too easy to spin sometimes" by public health officials.

"I'm not letting the media off the hook totally, but I think the real villains of the piece here have been those public health officials who have consistently overplayed and overstated the importance of what is happening," he said.

"By the time all is said and done, this is not a major public health event, but you'd never know that from what some people are saying."

13-year-old's death

The panel also looked at the front-page coverage given to the death of Evan Frustaglio, a 13-year-old hockey player from Toronto. Evan died on the eve of the H1N1 vaccine becoming available, and demand for the vaccine jumped overnight, catching health officials by surprise.

"It was very clear when we were reporting the lines that most of the people in there did say, 'We came because we saw the story about that little boy,' " CBC reporter Ioanna Roumeliotis said.

Evan's death and his grieving father's plea to parents to consider vaccinating their children was a tremendous human interest story, agreed Dr. Allison McGeer, an infectious disease specialist at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital.

But "I'm quite sure that the people who were reporting that didn't necessarily think about what the consequences of that would be or the context that was in," McGeer said. "What we saw afterwards was that it caused an enormous amount of fear and anxiety that we would all like not to have seen."

A healthy child in Canada is about 20 times more likely to be killed by a car than by the H1N1 virus, Schabas said, but that isn't going to make the national news.

"Children actually die of flu every year and a few more die of H1N1. This was not unexpected, and the way it was presented — as if this was a sudden bolt out of the blue, some change in our perspective of H1N1 — that's what created the anxiety. It was the way it was presented."

Obama gets personal, shares oldest daughter's test scores

2009-11-04T19:26:00.000-08:00

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/11/04/obama-gets-personal-shares-oldest-daughters-test-scores/

During a speech about education reform, the president got personal and shared his daughter's test scores.
Source: WISN | Added November 4, 2009

Did Schwarzenegger say f**k you to legislature?

2009-10-28T21:57:00.000-07:00

(CNN) - Was Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's message to state lawmakers unhappy - or obscene?

That's the current debate in California after the governor sent a letter directed to "Members of the California State Assembly" that appeared to have a subtle but pointed message hidden within the text.

The seven-line note in which the California Republican blasts the legislature for not advancing his administration's proposals on a host of issues appears innocuous enough at first glance.

But upon closer examination, the first letter of every line collectively spells 'f**k you'.

A spokesman for Schwarzenegger said the governor had no intent of hiding the message within his note, calling it a mere "coincidence."

–CNN's Carey Bodenheimer contributed to this story.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/28/did-schwarzenegger-say-fk-you-to-legislature/

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

2009-10-23T23:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

2009-10-21T00:05:00.001-07:00

We teach our children to be life long learners, "schooling for instruction," and yet we provide no guidance for this life, no "schooling for life." We raise a generation of cognitively proficient adults but no framework of morals to construct their actions. As Douglas Stewart emphasizes, we fail to humanize our students or as Nel Nodding wrote, we didn't teach them to "care."

Judith Sayers joins the University of Victoria

2009-10-19T00:16:00.000-07:00

Judith Sayers joins the University of Victoria

A former chief of the Port Alberni Hupacasath First Nation is sharing her expertise with the University of Victoria.

http://communications.uvic.ca/releases/release.php?display=release&id=1080

A hot debate about head of state

2009-10-18T23:39:00.001-07:00

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/a-hot-debate-about-head-of-state/article1319683/

Haper Said What?!

2009-09-30T15:11:00.001-07:00

2009-09-29T22:22:00.001-07:00

Things haven't changed!

http://archives.cbc.ca/economy_business/the_media/clips/6304/

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