Good Morning All,
I am soooo tired! I came back from our company trip one day early, and am about to doze off to sleep...but before I do, let me introduce you to two interesting articles I posted below. :) First, I found the article about the special penguin wetsuit created for a 25 year old penguin who was losing his feathers, to be heart warming. Second, I would like to point out the article on how mother's hugs help even pre-term babies to recover faster. LOVE is such a powerful thing!!
Anyway, I hope you enjoy today's articles! I'll see you tomorrow!
Today's Top 5:
1. First-ever World Malaria Day Kicks Off April 25 (Voice of America)
2. Penguin's Wetsuit Puts Him Back in the Swim of Things (Yahoo News)
3. Mom's Hug Eases Preterm Baby's Pain (Times of India)
4. Hawaiian Isles Lowest in Gun Deaths (Honolulu Star Bulletin)
5. Researchers Say They Have Found Dark Matter (The Hindu)
Honorable Mentions:
1. Organic Farming: Early-Flowering, Winter-Hardy Hairy Vetch Released for Northern United States(Science Daily)
2. Rare Sea Snake Gets First Aid in New Zealand (Earth Times)
Today's Top 5:
1. First-ever World Malaria Day Kicks Off April 25
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-04-25-voa10.cfm?rss=topstories
By Lisa Schlein 25 April 2008
World Malaria Day will be celebrated for the first time April 25. It aims to focus public attention on a disease which every year kills more than one million people, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa. The World Health Organization says building up malaria control programs could save many lives. Lisa Schlein reports from WHO headquarters in Geneva.
Majtenyi mother and her baby wait for treatment for the babys severe malaria (file photo) Malaria is a global public health problem. The World Health Organization says up to one-half billion people contract malaria every year. While most of these cases are in developing tropical countries, the WHO says developed countries should not be complacent.
It says about 30,000 visitors to tropical countries are infected annually. And the WHO warns climate change will probably spread the disease to areas that currently are not affected.
A spokeswoman for the WHO's Roll Back Malaria Program, Katie Gates, says malaria breeds poverty and underdevelopment in vast regions of the world. And this, she says, contributes to issues of global concern such as illegal migration and security.
She says studies show that Africa alone loses $12 billion a year in economic growth.
"Health budgets in African countries contribute a huge chunk of their limited resources to fighting malaria," she said. "It also causes people to miss work... in agriculture, in manufacturing, in mining. It causes people to go off work, lowers productivity in these countries, contributes to school children missing out on large portions of their education."
The World Health Organization says malaria is preventable and treatable. It says available tools are able to make a big difference in controlling the disease.
Villagers at the Ndava health center north of the capital Bujumbura watch health care workers unravel and set up a bed net (file photo) For instance, Gates tells VOA the mass distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets and the use of artemisinin-based combination treatments are having a dramatic impact in reducing death and the incidence of malaria in a number of endemic countries, such as Rwanda and Ethiopia.
"And, that is two shining examples that if there is the commitment, the coordination that malaria interventions get to populations on a large-scale, that we can see significant drops in both the mortality and morbidity of malaria," she said.
The World Health Organization says investing in malaria treatments pays off. It says $2.2 billion a year for the next five years would save an additional 2.5 million lives. It says the money would prevent an additional 430 million malaria cases and generate $20 billion more in annual Gross Domestic Product in five years.
2. Penguin's Wetsuit Puts Him Back in the Swim of Things
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080425/ap_on_fe_st/odd_penguin_wetsuit
By MICHELLE LOCKE,
Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 26 minutes ago SAN FRANCISCO -
What's black and white and warm all over? A penguin in a wetsuit, naturally. Sounds like a joke, but it's quite serious for biologists at the California Academy of Sciences, who had a wetsuit created for an African penguin to help him get back in the swim of things. Pierre, a venerable 25 years old, was going bald, which left him with an embarrassingly exposed, pale pink behind.
Unlike marine mammals, which have a layer of blubber to keep them warm, penguins rely on their waterproof feathers. Without them, Pierre was unwilling to plunge into the academy's penguin tank and ended up shivering on the sidelines while his 19 peers played in the water.
"He was cold; he would shake," said Pam Schaller, a senior aquatic biologist at the academy.
Pierre's species of penguin is accustomed to temperate climates, unlike many of their cousins. The birds are nicknamed Jackass penguins because they make sounds similar to braying donkeys, quite startling the first time you hear it in an aquarium.
Schaller first tried a heat lamp to keep Pierre warm. Then she got another idea: If wetsuits help humans frolic in the chilly Pacific, why not whip up one in a slightly smaller size?
Staff at Oceanic Worldwide, a supplier of dive gear based in San Leandro, were enthusiastic about making a real penguin suit.
"We were really excited to do it," said Teo Tertel, company marketing specialist. "We heard most of these penguins only live to 20, and our little buddy there was already 25. Anything we could do to help them, we were all for it."
Schaller conducted fittings to design the suit, which fastens with Velcro at the back, covers Pierre's torso and has small openings for his flippers.
"I would walk behind him and look at where there were any gaps, and cut and refit and cut and refit until it looked like it was extremely streamlined," she said.
One concern was that the other penguins would reject Pierre in his new duds, but in fact, they accepted his sleek new look.
Pierre was outfitted with the suit about six weeks ago. Since then, he has gained weight, grown back feathers on his hind parts and is again acting like his feisty, alpha-male self.
On a recent visit, Pierre waddled around the tank, taking brief dips and standing on a rock next to his mate. He blended in well, although he was the only penguin with a black tummy.
Schaller can't say for sure whether the wetsuit allowed Pierre to recover his fine feathers, but "certainly we were able to keep him comfortable during a period of time that would have been very difficult for him to stay comfortable."
With his plumage restored, Pierre is being weaned off the suit, taking more and more dips in the buff.
There are no plans to make him a matching surf board.
3. Mom's Hug Eases Preterm Baby's Pain
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/HealthSci/Moms_hug_eases_preterm_babys_pain/articleshow/2981573.cms
25 Apr 2008, 1112 hrs IST,PTI
NEW YORK- A gentle cuddle from mother can help tiny premature babies recover more quickly from the pain of being stuck with needles and other procedures, a new study has revealed. Earlier studies have shown that skin-to-skin contact known as kangaroo mother care eases the pain of the toddlers. But those involved older babies. Now, researchers at the University of McGill in Canada have found that kangaroo mother care or KMC could reduce pain and aid recovery in even younger preterm babies born at 28 to 31 weeks, the 'BioMed Central Pediatrics' journal reported. It was previously thought that such young babies were not developed enough to benefit from comfort strategies. But, the researchers carried out a randomised crossover trial to see whether such babies could bounce back from pain following a heel lance blood test which involves pricking the baby's heel to obtain a blood sample. They asked mothers to hold their babies for 15 minutes prior to and throughout a heel lance procedure. The researchers were able to assess the babies' pain based on the Premature Infant Pain Profile (PIPP) which takes into account facial expressions, heart rate, and blood oxygen levels. They measured the PIPP just before the heel lance and at 30-second intervals during and after the procedure. PIPP scores at 90 seconds after the lance procedure were found to be much lower in the kangaroo mother care babies than in those without skin-to-skin contact. The facial expression of pain was shown less than half the time in the babies treated with KMC. Babies receiving KMC also recovered from the pain within a couple of minutes, whereas the incubator babies were still suffering at more than three minutes. This delay could make all the difference to the health of a very preterm baby -- born before 32 weeks -- who needs constant incubator care. "The pain response in very preterm neonates appears to be reduced by skin-to-skin maternal contact. This response is not as powerful as it is in older preterm babies, but shorter recovery time using KMC is important in helping maintain the baby's health," lead author Celeste Johnston wrote.
4. Hawaiian Isles Lowest in Gun Deaths:
Strict laws bring fewer fatalities, the Violence Policy Center says
http://starbulletin.com/2008/04/25/news/story01.html
By Leila Fujimori
lfujimori@starbulletin.com
Hawaii ranks the lowest of 50 states in gun deaths per capita, which is attributable to its tough gun laws and low rates of gun ownership, according to the Violence Policy Center.
"That is a glowing endorsement of Hawaii's strict enforcement of strict gun laws, which I wholeheartedly endorse," said city Prosecutor Peter Carlisle. "This is very good news, and we should keep following the path we've been following for years, which is intolerance when guns are used criminally."
The nonprofit Violence Policy Center, which advocates gun control, issued its analysis yesterday of data for 2005 from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Hawaii had 2.2 gun deaths per 100,000 population, well below the national per capita gun death rate of 10.32. Hawaii's household gun ownership is at 9.7 percent of households. Hawaii was followed by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey and New York, in that order, for the lowest gun death rates.
The five states with the highest per capita gun death rates are Louisiana, No. 1, followed by Alaska, Montana, Tennessee and Alabama.
Maxwell Cooper, legislative co-chairman for the Hawaii Rifle Association, said, "I think that VPC has juggled the statistics to support themselves."
Cooper said, "Strict gun laws have no relationship to criminal abuse of firearms because criminals don't respond to laws."
He attributes Hawaii's low gun death rate to a law-abiding citizenry and its isolation, which he said makes it difficult for mainland criminals to infiltrate the state.
5. Researchers Say They Have Found Dark Matter http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/25/stories/2008042557192200.htm
Friday, Apr 25, 2008
Ian Sample
LONDON: Scientists hunting an invisible form of matter that pervades the universe and holds galaxies together claim to have found it underneath a mountain in Italy.
The discovery, at a laboratory built deep into the Gran Sasso mountain in Abruzzo, could end a 70-year race to find the elusive “dark matter” that physicists believe accounts for 90 per cent of the mass of the universe. Its existence was first postulated in 1933 by a Swiss astronomer who observed that distant galaxies must be held together by a huge gravitational pull caused by some apparently invisible form of matter. It gained the name “dark matter” because it does not shine or reflect light.
Researchers led by Rita Bernabei at the University of Rome claim that a giant detector inside the mountain laboratory has picked up signs of dark matter. The signal suggests that it could be made of theoretical particles known as axions. The discovery was announced at a physics conference in Venice. The experiment was designed to detect dark matter in space as the earth flies through it.
Honorable Mentions:
1. Organic Farming: Early-Flowering, Winter-Hardy Hairy Vetch Released for Northern United States
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080420112906.htm
ScienceDaily (Apr. 25, 2008)
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) geneticist and breeder Thomas Devine and collaborators have released "Purple Bounty," the first winter-hardy, early-flowering vetch for the northern United States.
Until now, hairy vetch--a cover crop and weed-suppressing mulch favored particularly by organic farmers--had limited use north of Maryland because it copes poorly with northern winters. But Purple Bounty has survived winters as far north as upstate New York.
Devine, with the ARS Sustainable Agricultural Systems Laboratory in Beltsville, Md., spent nine years breeding this variety. He used traditional breeding methods so that the variety would be acceptable to organic farmers. He started with several hairy vetch types from Auburn University in Auburn, Ala., and from the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System, then maintained in Georgia. There he found early-flowering types.
From these, Devine selected for improved winter hardiness while maintaining early flowering. He harvested seed from plants that survived winters at Beltsville and at the University of Maryland farm at Keedysville in northern Maryland. Purple Bounty emerged from nine cycles of selection, with the right blend of winterhardiness and early flowering.
It flowers two weeks earlier than a commonly used variety. This allows farmers to plant their main crop earlier in spring and use corn and tomato varieties that require a longer growing season.
Limited quantities of seed should be available for planting in 2008, with commercial quantities available in 2009.
Devine's collaborators on the release of Purple Bounty included the Rodale Institute near Kutztown, Penn.; the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station at Ithaca, N.Y.; and the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Station at University Park.
2. Rare Sea Snake Gets First Aid in New Zealand http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/201238,rare-sea-snake-gets-first-aid-in-new-zealand.html
Posted : Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:23:01
GMT Author : DPA
Category : Nature (Environment)
Wellington - A sick yellow-bellied sea snake that washed up in usually snake-free New Zealand will be allowed to recuperate over the winter before being released back into the sea, according to news reports on Friday. The snake, which lives in warmer waters of the Pacific, was found on a beach near Dargaville, in New Zealand's Northland, on Wednesday.
Dehydrated and cold, it is being treated at an aquarium in Auckland, where it will be allowed to recover, the New Zealand Herald reported.
A member of the cobra family, the yellow-bellied sea snake is thought to be 10 times more venomous than any land snake, the paper said. It uses two fangs to immobilise the small fish it feeds on and there is no known anti-venom for its bite.
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