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2011-11-05T19:04:00.000-04:00

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Your Chance to Weigh In on Ventilator Rationing for a Severe Flu Pandemic

2009-11-23T06:48:00.004-05:00

by Sheri Fink, ProPublica

On Monday, ordinary Americans get a rare opportunity to weigh in on a life-and-death issue: Who gets access to scarce, life-saving treatments during a disaster?

The public has been invited to participate in a teleconference (PDF) in which advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will discuss ethical guidance they have drawn up for rationing mechanical ventilators in a severe influenza pandemic.

The hourlong conference takes place at 3 p.m. EST and anyone can listen to the proceedings by calling (866) 919-3560 and entering passcode 4168828. According to the agenda, the committee is scheduled to vote on the guidance before it opens the meeting to public comments. The document will then go to the full advisory committee to the director of the CDC for approval.

The views of the advisory committee to the CDC director are not binding on states, which have ultimate authority over how to handle health emergencies. But the guidance is intended to serve as a "foundation for decision making" for health policymakers "at all levels -- federal, tribal, territorial, state, and local," according to the document.

Chances are, few people will phone in to join Monday's meeting. CDC officials have not advertised the session outside of a notice published late in the Federal Register. The draft guidance document (PDF) has not been widely released and was provided to ProPublica only after requests to several members of panel.

The document, dated Oct. 30, 2009, has some intriguing features. It parts company with several aspects of the guidelines drafted by states like New York and Florida, but it still envisions, at a time of extreme emergency, taking off of ventilators those patients who are not improving, to make way for others who may have better chances of surviving, even if family members do not agree. It says ethical guidance is particularly timely because shortages of mechanical ventilators could arise in the coming months if the H1N1 or "swine flu" virus becomes more widespread or severe.

According to a CDC spokesman, the guidelines were "developed independently" by an "independent group of experts on ethical principles" and are not CDC recommendations -- even though CDC employees made up two-thirds of the 18-member group that drafted the document.

Fewer than half of the group's members had substantial backgrounds in bioethics. Some helped write the allocation schemes analyzed in the document, putting them in the potentially uncomfortable position of assessing their own work.

The document, which makes few specific recommendations, offers what it terms an "ethical framework" for policymakers who are deciding who should receive ventilators:

New York, Utah, Florida and other states and groups of medical professionals have drafted pandemic triage guidelines that call for patients with certain pre-existing conditions (such as the elderly or those with advanced cancer, severe heart disease or severe neurological deficits) to be categorically excluded from access to ventilators or hospital admission in a severe pandemic. The panel suggested a different approach: All patients should be given a priority score calculated to reflect a variety of factors, such as the likelihood they would survive if given a ventilator, the number of years they are expected to live, or age. Guidelines should be based on evidence and revised on the basis of research, and no one should be summarily excluded.

The panel questioned whether it would be fair for policymakers to require certain people who have a comparatively lower but still reasonable chance of survival to give up ventilators to others with a better chance at survival, in an effort to increase the number of lives saved across a population. The document suggests that the goal of maximizing the "health of the public" in a disaster be weighed against giving all patients "a fair chance at survival."

The group advised against factoring an individual's perceived contributions to society into allocation decisions, writing: "In our morally pluralistic society, there has been widespread rejection of the idea that one individual is intrinsically more worthy of saving than another."

However, the committee accepted another controversial idea -- that mechanical ventilators could be disconnected from patients "whose prognosis has significantly worsened," regardless of their wishes, and provide those ventilators to "patients with a better prognosis." Patients, it said, "should be notified this will occur, given a chance to say good-byes and complete religious rituals, and provided compassionate palliative care."

Some doctors have questioned that last concept. The U.S. Supreme Court's acceptance of withdrawing life support hinges on the 14th Amendment's guarantees of a right to liberty. A patient or the patient's legal surrogate has a right to refuse treatment (or in rare cases a doctor can deem a treatment "futile" or not beneficial to the patient). Many of the states' triage plans for pandemics do not envision seeking consent before ventilators are withdrawn. Decisions would be made by clinicians using a clinical scoring system or exclusion criteria.

The draft document advises policymakers to include the public in "frank dialogue and genuine deliberation" about the various tradeoffs among the principles. "Most importantly," the report said, "the values and priorities of community members who will be impacted by decisions about allocation of scarce life-saving resources must be considered in the development of triage plans."

Thus far, the public has been little engaged. The ethics group spent two years drafting the document, and did not, as part of its deliberations, specifically reach out to the broader community.

Write to Sheri Fink at sheri.fink@propublica.org.

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2009-11-12T05:08:00.003-05:00

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In Chicago’s Nursing Homes, a Psychiatrist Delivers High-Risk Meds, Cut-Rate Care

2009-11-10T05:21:00.007-05:00

by Christina Jewett, ProPublica, and Sam Roe, Chicago Tribune

Inside Chicago's Maxwell Manor nursing home, Dr. Michael Reinstein's patients suffered from side effects so severe that they trembled, hallucinated or lost control of their bladders.

Staffers told state investigators that so many patients were clamoring to complain to Reinstein about their medications that a security guard was assigned to accompany him on his visits. In addition, staffers said Reinstein had induced patients to take powerful antipsychotic drugs with the promise of passes to leave the home.

Though state officials shut that facility in 2000 for inadequate care and wretched conditions, Reinstein, the home's lead psychiatrist, continued to practice. Today he is one of the most prolific providers of psychiatric care in Chicago-area nursing homes and mental health facilities, even as he is trailed by lawsuits and complaints like the ones at Maxwell Manor.

Neither state nor federal officials appear to have ever assembled a complete picture of Reinstein’s thriving practice, built in part within Illinois’ poorly regulated system of nursing homes serving the mentally ill. But an investigation by ProPublica and the Tribune found that Reinstein has compiled a worrisome record, providing assembly-line care with a highly risky drug.

Searching publicly available documents, reporters discovered that Reinstein, 66, has been accused of overmedicating his mentally ill patients. His unusually heavy reliance on the drug clozapine — a potent psychotropic medication that carries five "black box" warnings — has been linked to at least three deaths.

In 2007 he prescribed various medications to 4,141 Medicaid patients, including more prescriptions for clozapine than were written by all the doctors in Texas put together, Medicaid records show.

Records also show he is getting reimbursement for seeing an improbably large number of patients. Documents filled out by Reinstein suggest that if each of his patient visits lasts 10 minutes, he would have to work 21 hours a day, seven days a week. Research has found that the typical U.S. psychiatrist sees about 35 patients per week; Reinstein sees 60 each day, he wrote in an audit report in 2007.

Illinois provides some powerful incentives for cut-rate, high-volume care in nursing homes for the mentally ill, where Reinstein sees most of his patients.

The state Medicaid program pays psychiatrists as little as $22 per patient for some services, a rate drastically less than customary fees. State lawmakers recently failed to act on a bill that would have given psychiatrists the first Medicaid fee increase in years.

Working from a strip-mall office in Uptown, Reinstein says he is psychiatric medical director at 13 nursing facilities, seeing patients with chronic mental illness whom few doctors will accept.

Those include people with schizophrenia, who make up the bulk of his practice. His supporters say they admire the hard working doctor, who makes daily rounds in a car with 140,000 miles on the odometer. And Reinstein maintains that clozapine was not to blame for the patient deaths.

In written statements to ProPublica and the Tribune, Reinstein said he does work long hours seven days a week, as do his four partners, who separately also prescribe clozapine. State records overstate his workload, he said, because of a computer system that forces him to submit claims several times. He said he is trying to recruit more doctors to his practice, but it has been difficult because of low pay, high malpractice insurance rates and a perception that the work is dangerous.

He also strongly defended his reliance on clozapine, saying the medication is underprescribed and is the most effective in its class for schizophrenic patients. That view is supported by a prominent study that found clozapine helped patients more than similar, newer drugs. Clozapine can control psychotic episodes, reduce suicide risk and help patients live independently outside of institutions, Reinstein said.

"The most gratifying part of my day," he wrote, "(is) when patients reach this level and come to the office!!!"

See related story: One Psychiatrist, Many Prescriptions

Autopsy and court records show that three patients under Reinstein’s care died of clozapine intoxication. Alvin Essary died at age 50 inside at the Somerset Place nursing home on the North Side in 1999. Medical records show that when he died his blood contained five times the toxic level of clozapine.

The plaintiff’s expert in his family’s medical malpractice lawsuit contended that Reinstein was grossly negligent to give multiple medications to a man with only one kidney. Reinstein settled the claims against him for $85,000, but Essary’s sister, Shirley Palmer, said she can’t believe he is still practicing.

"There’s nothing that’s been done to this doctor who’s caused all these problems," Palmer said. "It makes me mad that this keeps going on."

Reinstein has a far different view of his career.

"I am grateful for the opportunity to be of service to the patients I treat and have treated for over 37 years," he wrote. "I take pride in the many people I have been able to help and feel badly about those patients who have not seen the benefits of treatment."

Potent pill, multiple warnings

Use of any medication carries risks, but clozapine stands out. It ranks just behind the more widely used painkiller oxycodone as the medication suspected in the most patient deaths, according to a study that examined reports to the Food and Drug Administration.

The "black box" warnings -- the FDA's strongest -- on clozapine’s label detail serious potential side effects, from enlargement of the heart to rapid drops in blood pressure to increased seizure risk. Doctors also are required to take regular blood samples to ensure patients’ immune systems aren’t shutting down.

The FDA approved the drug for only a sliver of the population: the actively suicidal or the quarter of schizophrenic patients who do not improve on medications with lesser side effects. Yet Reinstein last year said under oath that his practice once had more than 300 patients among 415 in one Chicago nursing home on clozapine.

Reinstein said he completes the FDA-mandated blood tests for patients on clozapine but calls them "excessive and severe." Although other psychiatrists said it is crucial to discuss the numerous risks of clozapine with patients, Reinstein said he gives them the product insert — and hopes they read it.

His use of clozapine is at the heart of separate lawsuits filed after the deaths of two patients he treated: Odell Spruell and Wendy Cureton.

Reinstein took over Spruell’s care in 2007 when the 54-year-old was transferred from a nursing home to a psychiatric ward after hitting other patients and staff, records show. A former steel mill worker, Spruell had been stable on a low dose of clozapine for about two years. Reinstein doubled his dose and returned him to the nursing home.

Spruell lived another two weeks under the care of a Reinstein partner. During that time, he grew increasingly lethargic and suffered other symptoms associated with overmedication. His hands shook, he drooled and he began sleeping all the time, said his sister, Irma Spruell.

"He was too weak to get up," she said. "He tried to talk, but he couldn’t."

Staff members at Spruell’s nursing home also noticed his lethargy. In response, they put him into physical therapy. Five days later, Spruell fell unconscious and could not be revived. An autopsy showed that said he died of clozapine intoxication. A lawsuit is pending in Cook County Circuit Court.

Reinstein declined to comment, citing a patient privacy law.

Cureton, 27, died four years before Spruell. In 2003, she was moved from a nursing home to the psychiatric ward at Kindred Hospital North on Chicago’s North Side.

She had grown increasingly aggressive after two of her family members died in a house fire. Reinstein, her supervising psychiatrist, and two partners repeatedly boosted Cureton’s clozapine dose — two times faster than the recommended pace, according to her medical records and guidelines published by the drug’s maker. Medical staff noted that she remained hostile and unpredictable, at times pounding on the wall or laughing at it.

On the 10th day in the psychiatric ward, Cureton had trouble breathing and was taken to the emergency room. The drug’s label explicitly warns of that adverse reaction and says doctors should not mix clozapine and certain sedatives, as the team under Reinstein’s supervision had done, medical records show.

Reinstein saw her after she returned from the emergency room and boosted her dose of another antipsychotic, her medical records show. Within days, Cureton collapsed next to her bed and could not be revived.

A medical malpractice suit is pending in Cook County Circuit Court. In a pretrial deposition, Reinstein defended boosting the dose of the clozapine, saying Cureton was obese and had tolerated a high amount in the past. He also said the autopsy finding that she died of clozapine intoxication was unreliable because research shows that clozapine levels spike after death.

The physician who performed the autopsy did not dispute that. But he said Cureton’s sudden collapse before death and the condition of her heart and lungs afterward led him to conclude that she died of clozapine intoxication.

‘He wouldn’t talk to them’

Reinstein has his supporters in the medical community. Nurse Bernadette Wright lavished him with praise, saying, "The man is a genius."

"He knows his patients," said Wright, head of nursing at Sacred Heart Home in Chicago, where Reinstein is psychiatric medical director. "He knows them by name and by face. When you tell him about a patient, he knows their history."

Reinstein "would never" give risky drugs without properly monitoring patients, she said.
But one nurse who worked with Reinstein said she worried that he was too busy to give his patients the time they needed.

Former Riveredge Hospital nurse Eileen "Cookie" Kempe said in an interview that when Reinstein visited, he went into a room and furiously wrote on stacks of medical records as his patients lined up in the hall. "He wouldn’t talk to them," said Kempe, who worked with Reinstein for a year until 2004. "I never saw him go in a patient room, ever. They got no therapeutic interaction with a doctor."

Riveredge is where Reinstein treated a 27-year-old pregnant patient, Tameka Williams, in 2007 after she had an acute schizophrenic episode. She never signed a required form agreeing to take clozapine; nor was her immediate family consulted, according to records and interviews.

Even though it has not been proved safe for use during pregnancy, Reinstein prescribed clozapine, Williams' medical records show. At some point, Williams had developed a blood clot -- a condition particularly threatening for a patient on clozapine. She died days after being admitted when the clot lodged in her heart. A lawsuit against Reinstein is pending in Cook County Circuit Court.

State regulators inspecting Westwood Manor, a Chicago nursing home, noted in 2003 that several of Reinstein’s patients were not properly monitored. Some showed apparent clozapine side effects. One trembled when he walked. Another kept a cigarette butt in her mouth to prevent her tongue from jutting out.

In a written response to the inspection, Reinstein cited a "lack of clinical sophistication on the part of the evaluator(s) … on medication effectiveness." He also said in a written response to reporters that tongue jutting and trembling "are not usual" side effects of clozapine.

Reinstein's troubles were perhaps most dramatic at Maxwell Manor, a South Side nursing home. The Illinois State Police and the U.S. Postal Service began investigating Reinstein in 2000 amid accusations of billing fraud, according to documents obtained through public records requests.

Included in those documents is the account of a Maxwell Manor psychiatric supervisor who said Reinstein heavily promoted Clozaril, the original brand name for clozapine. Deborah Grier told state police investigators that Reinstein had handed out glossy fliers to staff and prescribed the drug to nearly all of his patients.

Grier, who has since died, said Reinstein persuaded some patients to take the drug by offering passes to leave the home.

She said patients often complained of hallucinations from the drug and that she "had many conversations with Reinstein about how many patients … had bad reactions." But she said he "very seldom" reduced doses or switched drugs, investigators wrote.

Another Maxwell Manor worker, Engoyama Fela, told investigators that Reinstein "would not spend more than one minute" with a patient during his rounds, according to a summary of the interview. "Many patients became agitated and rebellious because they knew they needed care and they wanted to talk to Reinstein but were not allowed to," he said.

Fela said Maxwell Manor security staffers were assigned to guard Reinstein when he came to update their medical records.

Reinstein, in a written response to reporters, denied the workers’ allegations, saying he spends an appropriate amount of time treating patients in consultation with other medical staff. He agreed that security was present at Maxwell Manor but not specifically to protect him. "This facility had many violent and disruptive patients," he said.

Several years after regulators shut the home, the U.S. Justice Department, in a separate civil fraud case, alleged that residents had been routinely abused and medicated as punishment.

Reinstein, who said he saw a majority of the patients at the facility, was not a defendant in the federal civil case. Criminal prosecutors investigating possible billing fraud by Reinstein did not file charges against him.

Barry Miller, the prosecutor overseeing the criminal inquiry, declined to comment. Case records say the matter was referred to Medicare to recover any overpayments. Agency officials declined to comment. Reinstein said he was not sanctioned by Medicare and did not have to reimburse the agency.

Retired state investigator Ray Lewis was unhappy to see the criminal case closed. In a recent interview, he said that if there were one Medicaid fraud case he could revisit, Reinstein’s would be it. "I’d investigate it for free," Lewis said.

The agency responsible for investigating physician conduct, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, does not reveal to the public the number of complaints filed against doctors, only findings where there was formal disciplinary action. In 1997, the agency cited Reinstein for improperly admitting a patient for psychiatric care and ordered him to complete 50 hours of education.

Since then, the agency has received at least one other complaint about Reinstein.

In 2003, Chicago psychiatrist Dr. Mark Amdur, of the Thresholds mental health organization, became so concerned about Reinstein’s work at area nursing homes that he asked his staff to find out how many patients came under Reinstein’s care. The number — 2,300 — surprised him.

"I believe that the apparent concentration of care under a single practitioner should be a matter of concern ...," Amdur wrote state regulators.

When asked what happened to his complaint, the Illinois Department of Public Health said it could not be found, and the professional regulation agency could produce no evidence of follow-up.

Amdur said he never got a response. "There ought to be some outside review for the benefit of the people residing in these nursing homes," he said.

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Pennsylvania Tells Drilling Company to Clean Up Its Act

2009-11-06T18:48:00.003-05:00

by Sabrina Shankman, ProPublica

After a year of chemical spills, water well contamination and an explosion caused by leaking underground methane, Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. has been fined $120,000 and ordered to abide by a set of stricter-than-usual probationary regulations if it wants to continue its vast natural gas drilling operation in Pennsylvania.

The judgment is the latest chapter in a saga of drilling controversy and environmental contamination as a result of drilling for natural gas in northeastern Pennsylvania that we’ve been following since January, and is part of our ongoing investigation into the environmental consequences of gas drilling across the country.

The charges and conditions against Cabot were outlined by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in a 23-page document that lists each of Cabot’s offenses – from failure to properly cement wells to failure to maintain and submit proper records – and asks the company to acknowledge and address the findings. The fine is the largest issued by the Pennsylvania agency to a gas company.

Cabot signed the order Wednesday agreeing to the state’s conditions, but seemed to stop short of taking full responsibility. “The department made several findings, and we agreed with the basic facts as they were laid out,” said a Cabot spokesman, Ken Komoroski. “But Cabot did not agree to the legal conclusions of violations of laws and regulations.”

The DEP began investigating Cabot early this year, after residents in Dimock, Pa., started reporting methane bubbling out of their faucets – a sign that natural gas had contaminated their water supplies. Investigators found that some of Cabot’s well casings, which seal well pipes from water supplies, were faulty and had allowed natural gas to migrate into the groundwater.

The groundwater incidents were the first of several spills and accidents that followed. In at least two cases the company spilled diesel or drilling fluids that reached water supplies. And in September, the DEP ordered Cabot to stop its hydraulic fracturing operations in Susquehanna County after it allowed three hydraulic fracturing fluid spills in nine days. The ban was lifted on Oct. 16, after the company revised its pollution prevention and control plan.

Now the company has until March 31 to comply with parts of the DEP’s order and submit a plan outlining how it will permanently replace the water supplies for more than a dozen affected homes near the town of Dimock.

The most important requirements have to do with well construction. Cabot will have to submit well casing and cementing plans to the DEP, which will have to approve the well before Cabot can proceed with drilling or any hydraulic fracturing. The company will also have to submit a plan that specifically lays out how it will prove the integrity of the casing and cementing on existing wells and fix any that are defective. If the defective casing isn’t fixed by the March deadline, Cabot will be ordered to plug its defective wells.

“They’ve got to go back and fix all of those wells,” said DEP spokeswoman Teresa Candori.
Finally, the company will be required to tell the DEP who has contacted the company with concerns about the quantity or quality of their water supplies.

“It does add some additional requirements beyond the regulations but these are measures and procedures that Cabot agrees are appropriate for the area,” Cabot spokesman Komoroski said.
Cabot has been drilling in the Marcellus Shale of Pennsylvania since 2006. It drilled one well in 2006, and one in 2007, before ramping up in 2008 and drilling 20. The company will drill between 40 and 60 wells in 2009, and has plans to drill between 50 and 70 more in 2010.

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Public Gets More Time to Comment on New York’s Gas Drilling Plans

2009-11-04T19:14:00.002-05:00

by Sabrina Shankman, ProPublica

Responding to calls from politicians, environmentalists and concerned residents, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation announced Wednesday that it has extended the public comment period for an environmental review of natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale.

The comment period, which began Sept. 30 with the release of the draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement, now extends through Dec. 31. It was previously slated to end Nov. 30. Since the release of the technical, 800-plus page document, there have been complaints that the original 60-day comment period was insufficient for people to read and understand its findings.

"This is the biggest environmental issue of the decade in New York," Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said in a statement. "It’s good to see that the public’s demand for more time has been heard."

The DEC has also moved up the start time for the second public hearing on the environmental review, which will be held Nov. 10 at Stuyvesant High School in New York City. Doors for the hearing will now open at 5:30 p.m. for individual questions and speaker sign-up. The DEC staff will also be on hand to answer questions about the draft. The public comment period will begin at 6:30 p.m. (More info on the public hearings here.)

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Preparing for a Pandemic, State Health Departments Struggle With Rationing Decisions

2009-10-24T22:53:00.003-04:00

by Sheri Fink, ProPublica

New York state health officials recently laid out this wrenching scenario for a small group of medical professionals from New York-Presbyterian Hospital:

A 32-year-old man with cystic fibrosis is rushed to the hospital with appendicitis in the midst of a worsening pandemic caused by the H1N1 flu virus, which has mutated into a more deadly form. The man is awaiting a lung transplant and brought with him the mechanical ventilator that helps him breathe.

New York’s governor has declared a state of emergency and hospitals are following the state’s pandemic ventilator allocation plan -- actual guidelines drafted in 2007 that are now being revisited. The plan aims to direct ventilators to those with the best chances of survival in a severe, 1918-like flu pandemic where tens of thousands develop life-threatening pneumonia.

Because the man’s end-stage lung disease caused by his cystic fibrosis is among a list of medical conditions associated with high mortality, the guidelines would bar the man from using a ventilator in a hospital, even though he is, unlike many with his illness, stable, in good condition, and not close to death. If the hospital admits him, the guidelines call for the machine that keeps him alive to be given to someone else.

Would doctors and nurses follow such rules? Should they?

In recent years, officials in a host of states and localities, as well as the federal Veterans Health Administration, have been quietly addressing one of medicine’s most troubling questions: Who should get a chance to survive when the number of severely ill people far exceeds the resources needed to treat them all?

The draft plans vary. In some states, patients with Do Not Resuscitate orders, the elderly, those requiring dialysis, or those with severe neurological impairment would be refused ventilators, or admission to hospitals. Utah divides epidemics into phases. Initially, hospitals would apply triage rules to residents of mental institutions, nursing homes, prisons and facilities for the “handicapped.” If an epidemic worsened, the rules would apply to the general population.

Federal officials say the possibility that America’s already crowded intensive care units would be overwhelmed in the coming weeks by flu patients is small but they remain vigilant.

The triage plans have attracted little publicity. New York, for example, released its draft guidelines in 2007, offered a 45-day comment period, and has made no changes since. The Health Department made 90 pages of public comments public this week only after receiving a request under the state’s public records laws.

Mary Buckley-Davis, a respiratory therapist with 30 years experience, wrote to officials in 2007 that “there will be rioting in the streets” if hospitals begin disconnecting ventilators. “There won’t be enough public relations spin or appropriate media coverage in the world” to calm the family of a patient “terminally weaned” from a ventilator, she said.

State and federal officials defend formal rationing as the last in a series of steps that would be taken to stretch scarce resources and provide the best outcome for the public. They say it is better to plan for such decisions than leave them to besieged health workers battling a crisis.

“You change your perspective from thinking about the individual patient to thinking about the community of patients,” said Rear Adm. Ann Knebel of the Department of Health and Human Services.

But some health professionals question whether the draft guidelines are fair, effective, ethical, and even remotely feasible.

Most existing triage plans were designed for handling mass casualties. They sort injured victims into priority categories based on the urgency of their medical needs and their potential for survival given available resources. Much of the controversy over the state plans focuses on two additional features.

These are “exclusion criteria,” which bar certain categories of patients from standard hospital treatments in a severe health disaster, and “minimum qualifications for survival,” which limit the resources used for each patient. Once that limit is reached, patients who are not improving would be removed from essential treatment in favor of those with better chances.

A version of these concepts was outlined in a post-9/11 medical journal article that suggested ways to handle victims of a large-scale bioterrorist event. The author, Dr. Frederick Burkle Jr., said he based his ideas in part on his experiences as a triage officer in Vietnam and the gulf war and on a cold war-era British plan for coping with a nuclear strike. Dr. Burkle said that during the gulf war he once instructed surgeons to halt an operation and work on another patient who was more likely to survive. Surgeons later returned to the first patient.

Dr. Burkle’s ideas were key aspects of guidelines Ontario authorities drew up after SARS to plan for avian flu and other pandemics. This approach and one by a team of Minnesota doctors were modified by groups developing similar guidelines in the United States.

There were important distinctions. Dr. Burkle’s original paper did not anticipate withdrawing care from patients and stressed the need to reassess the level of supplies “sometimes on a daily or hourly basis” in a fluid effort to provide the best possible care.

Some states’ triage guidelines are rigid, with a single set of criteria intended to apply throughout the severe phase of a pandemic. That disturbs Dr. Burkle. “I have said to my wife, I think I developed a monster here,” he said.

Recent research highlights the problem of a one-size-fits-all approach to triage. Many state pandemic plans call for hospitals to remove patients from ventilators if they are not improving after two to five days. Studies show that people severely ill with H1N1 flu generally need a week to two weeks on ventilators to recover.

There is also controversy over what values and ethical principles should guide triage decisions, how to engage the public, and whether withdrawing life support in the hospital and withholding it at the hospital door are distinct.

Normally, removing viable patients from life support against their or their families’ will would be considered murder. The New York-Presbyterian Hospital employees who participated in the recent exercise said they would not comply unless given legal protection.

They also never figured out what to do with that hypothetical patient who had his own ventilator, said Dr. Kenneth Prager, a pulmonologist and ethicist. “The issue of removing patients from ventilators,” he said, “was so overwhelming that it precluded discussion of further case scenarios.”

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New York Drilling Study a Step Forward

2009-10-23T11:56:00.004-04:00

by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica

New York's recently released review of the environmental risks (PDF) posed by natural gas production in the Marcellus Shale offers the clearest picture yet of the chemicals used in the drilling process called hydraulic fracturing.

The document makes public the names of 260 chemicals, more than eight times as many as Pennsylvania state regulators have compiled. The list is the most complete released by any state or federal agency and could help answer concerns about hydraulic fracturing in Congress and in states where gas drilling has increased in recent years.

The review also takes another dramatic step by proposing that in certain situations companies that drill in New York be required to report the concentrations of the chemicals they use to state regulators, thereby creating a suite of information that environmental scientists say is essential to investigating water pollution from drilling. New York would be the first state to make such a demand.

The industry has been reluctant to release information about the chemicals it uses, because it considers them a proprietary trade secret. While New York has made the names of the chemicals public, it seems likely that the data about their concentration will be shared only with state officials.

The 800-page environmental impact assessment also proposes a slew of safeguards for well construction, waste disposal and water protection. If those rules are finalized after the ongoing public review period, New York's environmental protections for gas drilling would be among the strongest in the nation.

"In a number of areas these regulations are more stringent than in other states," said Kate Sinding, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "As commendable as that is, and wanting to give the department credit where credit is due, the bar set in most other states is so abysmally low, it still begs the question of whether stronger is strong enough."
Environmental scientists have long sought complete information about the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, saying they need it to thoroughly investigate water pollution.

Contamination can occur when the chemicals are pumped underground, held in waste pits or trucked to water treatment plants before being discharged back into rivers and drinking water supplies.

Colorado passed regulations last year requiring companies to disclose the names of chemicals, but they apply only to chemicals held in 50-gallons drums or larger. Now the industry is suing Colorado to repeal the group of regulations that includes that clause. In Pennsylvania, environment officials told ProPublica that their list of chemical products used for drilling there was complete, but it names just 39 products and 31 unique chemicals. Congress has been debating a bill to require disclosure, but the industry is fighting the legislation with millions of dollars in lobbying efforts.

New York obtained the names of the chemicals by surveying drilling companies, their contractors and the manufacturers of the chemicals. The Department of Environmental Conservation identified 152 trademarked products and obtained the complete list of their ingredients; it gathered a partial list of ingredients for an additional 45 products.

The review, which was released last month, leaves some environmental concerns unanswered. It offers few specific measures to protect New York City's watershed -- the unfiltered source of drinking water for nearly half the state's population. It says that wastewater will be treated by facilities in New York and Pennsylvania, but does not confirm whether those plants have the capacity to receive Marcellus Shale wastewater or the technology to make that water safe.

Critics also complain it does little to describe how several thousand new wells would cumulatively affect air and water quality, leaving the analysis to a per-well basis.

"The DEC's shocking refusal to assess cumulative impacts undermines the validity of the entire study and if implemented will lead to devastating, unanticipated outcomes," said Roger Downs, a conservation associate at the Sierra Club's Atlantic Chapter, which has called for a ban on drilling in New York despite the Sierra Club's general support for gas development in the United States.

The review does, however, deal directly with some of most critical problems that have led to contamination in other drilling states.

It suggests strict limits on the kind of open waste pits that have led to hundreds of cases of water contamination in other states; guarantees additional scientific review before drilling can happen near water supplies; and requires government inspectors to be more regularly involved at several stages of the drilling and fracturing processes. An environmental review, sometimes including public hearings, would be required each time a gas well is proposed within 150 feet of a private water well, stream or pond or within 300 feet of a reservoir. An additional environmental review would also be required before gas wells could be hydraulically fractured within 1,000 feet of water supply infrastructure, or within 2,000 feet of the surface. Private water wells within 1,000 feet of a gas well would be tested before drilling begins, to create a baseline for measuring any future pollution.

The review recommends requiring that chemical-laden wastewater from hydraulic fracturing be enclosed in steel tanks rather than pits at well sites, a practice that has been proven to reduce the risk of spills and prevent evaporation of chemicals into the air. Some waste could still be kept in open pits, but new rules would require that those pits be emptied after seven days, and that state inspectors check the pits and their liners before they can be used again.

The review also suggests strengthening structural requirements to prevent leaks from inside gas well pipes, and establishing an explicit chain of custody record to make sure drilling wastewater is delivered to treatment facilities that are capable of accepting it.

Yancey Roy, a spokesman for the DEC, declined to answer questions about the document.

Instead he cited passages in the environmental review. New York's industry group, the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York State, did not return calls for comment. Two prominent new natural gas industry associations -- America's Natural Gas Alliance and Energy In Depth -- also declined to comment on New York's rulemaking process.

The draft review, called the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement, updates the state's 1992 drilling study. It was ordered by Gov. David Paterson last summer after an investigation by ProPublica found that the state was not familiar with the chemical makeup of fracturing fluids and was unprepared to manage a boom of modern drilling in the Marcellus Shale.

The state has allowed for a 60-day comment period before the recommendations will be finalized and is holding four hearings across New York beginning later this month. Several state, city and federal lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., have said the comment period is too short and called for an extension from the Nov. 30 deadline. Comments can be submitted online or sent by e-mail.

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Reform of California Nursing Board’s Discipline System Shows Early Progress

2009-10-11T11:01:00.004-04:00

by Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber, ProPublica

After moving swiftly to replace the leadership of the Board of Registered Nursing, California officials are revamping practices that had allowed errant nurses to work for years after complaints were filed against them.

For the first time, the board is prioritizing complaints, moving first to investigate nurses who pose the greatest threat to the public.

In addition, top officials will this month get subpoena power to gather documents about nurses accused of wrongdoing. Before, some cases sat for months until outside investigators issued such orders.

The moves come after The Los Angeles Times and ProPublica disclosed in July that the board took more than three years on average to investigate and discipline even its most troubled nurses. Some were able to move from hospital to hospital despite accusations of assault, criminal activity or on-the-job drug use.

Within days, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced the majority of the board’s members and the board's longtime executive officer resigned.

Three months later, statistics show early progress on the governor's pledge to reform the system. In the first quarter of the fiscal year that started in July, the board filed formal accusations seeking disciplinary action against 159 nurses, compared with 68 during the same period a year earlier, officials said.

Also in the first quarter, the board obtained emergency orders to suspend the licenses of six nurses, compared with none in the same period last year. The Times and ProPublica had found that California used such orders to stop dangerous nurses far less often than several other states.

"One of the reasons we got ourselves into the position that we were in is that we were satisfied with the status quo," said Brian Stiger, director of the state Department of Consumer Affairs, which oversees the nursing board and other professional licensing agencies. "That has changed. We are no longer doing business the way that we used to."

State officials say they hope within two years to reduce by more than half the time it takes to discipline nurses, bringing the average to less than 17 months.

That goal would require many substantive changes to take place, changes that await action by the Legislature, permission from the governor or votes of the nursing board.

For example, the board says it needs dozens more staff members in order to clear its case backlog and speed the handling of incoming complaints, but the governor has yet to formally request those workers. The Legislature has yet to fully consider a bill that would, among other things, suspend the licenses of certain jailed health professionals, revoke those of sex offenders and authorize a new computer system to better track complaints. And the new board has yet to propose a requirement for hospitals to report nurses they have fired for misconduct.

Beyond that, the nursing board is still subject to budget cuts and state-mandated furloughs even though it is wholly funded by the fees paid by its licensees.

"The governor kind of engaged in this charade," said Bonnie Castillo, government relations director for the California Nurses Assn., the state's largest nurses' union. "You've put all of this in motion and yet you're expecting greater oversight and enforcement with less people-hours and less public accountability."

Stiger said officials need to prioritize their workloads. In part, that involves changing the practices of the board and other state agencies that help investigate and prosecute its cases.

To keep cases from stalling at the investigative stage, the consumer affairs department has given the board permission to hire several non-sworn investigators to handle less complex cases and those that won't result in criminal prosecution. Previously, the board had to rely solely on a pool of sworn consumer affairs investigators who were stretched thin serving a variety of boards.

The nursing board also is taking over some responsibilities previously handled by the attorney general's office, such as preparing default decisions when nurses don't respond to accusations against them.

The state attorney general's office said it will quickly schedule hearing dates for nurses who are contesting their discipline. In the past, state attorneys would wait until settlement talks broke down to schedule a hearing, then wait months for the first available date.

Beyond that, officials are addressing other roadblocks that were "unusual and extreme," Stiger said.

It used to take two weeks, for instance, for the consumer affairs department to photocopy a nurse's case file so it could be sent to expert witnesses or others. Proposed disciplinary actions were allowed to stack up for a month or two before being sent out to board members for a vote. And just one staffer was responsible for receiving and logging nearly all new complaints to the board -- more than 5,700 last year.

Now it takes two days to copy a case file. Proposed actions are immediately sent out to board members for a vote. And a team of eight is helping to processincoming complaints and wade through the backlog, officials said.

Ann Boynton, the nursing board's new president, said she was pleased with the progress but acknowledged, "It is not something that we're going to be able to do overnight."

Boynton said she has been "close to appalled sometimes" seeing the amount of time it has taken the board to act on problems. "It reinforces to me, every time I see that, the need to ensure that that never happens again," she said.

More has been done to speed up the pace of discipline than at any other time in more than a decade.

"It's remarkable what a little sunshine will do to stodgy agencies that are stuck in the past," said Julianne D'Angelo Fellmeth, administrative director of the Center for Public Interest Law at the University of San Diego.

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Gas Drilling Vs. Drinking Water: New York City Consultant’s Report Sets Stage for Fight With Albany

2009-10-08T20:50:00.002-04:00

by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica

A preliminary report from a consultant hired by New York City warns that "nearly every activity" associated with natural gas drilling could potentially harm the city’s drinking water supply and that while the risk can be reduced with strict regulations, "the likelihood of water quality impairment … cannot be eliminated."

That assessment contrasts sharply with the picture presented by an environmental review released by state officials last week. Aside from clauses that ban some waste pits and promise additional consideration for drilling within 1,000 feet of the city’s reservoirs and water infrastructure in upstate New York, the environmental review does little to respond to New York City’s long-standing concerns that the watershed deserves special environmental consideration and instead paves the way for drilling to proceed throughout the watershed.

The issue appears to be emerging as a point of controversy in New York City’s mayoral election.
City comptroller and mayoral candidate William Thompson criticized the state’s environmental review in a news release and said Mayor Michael Bloomberg should be more outspoken. "I am also concerned that the City and the Water Board have been extremely lax in responding to this threat," he said.

Marc LaVorgna, a spokesman for Bloomberg’s office, said the mayor will withhold judgment until he sees the final version of the report the city commissioned from Hazen and Sawyer, a New York City-based environmental engineering firm. The full report isn’t expected to be delivered until December, after the public comment period for the state environmental review has ended.

LaVorgna emphasized that the Bloomberg administration has invested heavily in the city’s water system and would not rule out a protracted fight to protect it.

"This is not a fringe issue for this administration," LaVorgna said. "This is a mayor that adamantly orders tap water every night he dines out."

In one of his few statements on the subject, Bloomberg, who has generally supported the idea of energy development, told WNYC radio Thursday that "if this has the danger of polluting, we will fight it."

The clashing reports seem poised to reignite long-standing tensions between upstate New York and New York City, which depends almost entirely on water delivered from rural, upstate areas.

"The stakes are very high based on the conclusions of this report," Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said in an interview with ProPublica. The report, he said, "suggests that city elected officials have a role to play here and a responsibility to step up and say, ‘What does frack drilling mean to New York City residents?’"

Last week Stringer announced he was launching a Kill the Drill campaign.

New York is one of four major cities in the United States with a special permit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allowing its drinking water to go unfiltered. That pristine water comes from a network of upstate reservoirs and rivers spread across 1,600 square miles in five upstate counties. Those reservoirs – which all lie west of the Hudson River – supply 90 percent of the drinking water for 9 million downstate residents, nearly half the state’s population. If the EPA were to rescind the city’s special permit, New York City would have to build a treatment facility that could cost between $10 billion and $30 billion, according to various estimates.

Hazen and Sawyer’s early findings were summarized at a city meeting last week and posted on the city Department of Environmental Protection’s Web site Tuesday evening, after repeated requests for the document by ProPublica over the past several days.

The report, and an accompanying summary PowerPoint presentation, lay out several areas of concern. The consultants found that drilling "introduces hazardous chemicals into the watershed" and that "the well bore, which acts as a conduit between geologic formations, can allow previously isolated contaminants to flow into shallow groundwater or surface water."

The research also warned of "enormous volumes" of wastewater and said there are no treatment plants in the region designed to treat these wastes. It said the disturbance from hydraulic fracturing could cause seismic shifts or otherwise damage the tunnels or aqueducts that bring the water to the city. Hydraulic fracturing shoots millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals underground with such force that it breaks rock and releases pockets of gas.

So far, New York City’s top officials have preferred a behind-the-scenes approach as the public debate over the state’s natural gas drilling policy unfurls in Albany. City DEP officials have protested to the state Department of Environmental Conservation in private letters, but have said little publicly.

In a letter obtained by ProPublica in July 2008, then New York City DEP commissioner Emily Lloyd asked the DEC commissioner to disclose the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing and to consider a partial ban on drilling near the reservoirs that supply New York City’s water.

Shortly afterward, and following an investigation by ProPublica, Gov. David Paterson ordered the environmental review that was released Sept. 30. Called the Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement, it supplements gas and oil drilling rules established in 1992.

New York City officials have since sent several additional letters to the state DEC voicing their ongoing concerns.

A spokesman for the state DEC did not return repeated calls for comment.

The state supplemental draft report discloses many of the drilling chemicals, as Lloyd had requested, and it also strengthens several other environmental protections. But it did not recommend a full or partial ban on drilling in the watershed.

The supplementary impact statement is now subject to a 60-day public comment period, after which final guidelines will be issued. But Stringer and others are pressing the state for a 30-day extension, which would allow the findings from the Hazen and Sawyer report to be included.

Read the "Rapid Impact Assessment Report" by consulting firm Hazen and Sawyer.

Read our full coverage of natural gas drilling.

ProPublica reporters Joaquin Sapien and Saprina Shankman contributed to this story.

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Add Security To Your Job Hunt

2009-10-04T16:31:00.002-04:00

Are you one of the millions today seeking a new job?

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Click on the links in this post to gain access to pdf software.

This was a sponsored post.

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With Natural Gas Drilling Boom, Pennsylvania Faces an Onslaught of Wastewater

2009-10-04T16:17:00.004-04:00

by Joaquin Sapien, ProPublica

Workers at a steel mill and a power plant were the first to notice something strange about the Monongahela River last summer. The water that U.S. Steel and Allegheny Energy used to power their plants contained so much salty sediment that it was corroding their machinery. Nearby residents saw something odd, too. Dishwashers were malfunctioning, and plates were coming out with spots that couldn’t easily be rinsed off.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection soon identified the likely cause and came up with a quick fix. The Monongahela, a drinking water source for 350,000 people, had apparently been contaminated by chemically tainted wastewater from the state’s growing natural gas industry. So the DEP reduced the amount of drilling wastewater that was being discharged into the river and unlocked dams upstream to dilute the contamination.
But questions raised by the incident on the Monongahela haven’t gone away.

In August, contamination levels in the river spiked again, and the DEP still doesn’t know exactly why. And this month the DEP began investigating whether drilling wastewater contributed to the death of 10,000 fish on a 33-mile stretch of Dunkard Creek, which winds through West Virginia and feeds into the Monongahela. A spate of other water contamination problems have also been linked to gas drilling in Pennsylvania, including methane leaks that have affected drinking water in at least seven counties.

2011: 19 million gallons, per day

Pennsylvania is at the forefront of the nation’s gas drilling boom, with at least 4,000 new oil and gas wells drilled here last year alone, more than in any other state except Texas. This rapid expansion has forced state regulators to confront a problem that has been overlooked as gas drilling accelerates nationwide: How will the industry dispose of the enormous amount of wastewater it produces?

Oil and gas wells disgorge about 9 million gallons of wastewater a day in Pennsylvania, according to industry estimates used by the DEP. By 2011 that figure is expected to rise to at least 19 million gallons, enough to fill almost 29 Olympic-sized swimming pools every day. That’s more than all the state’s waterways, combined, can safely absorb, DEP officials say.

"I don’t know that even our [water] program people had any idea about the volumes of water that would be used," said Dana Aunkst, who heads the DEP’s water program.

Much of the wastewater is the byproduct of a drilling process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which pumps at least a million gallons of water per well deep into the earth to break layers of rock and release gas. When the water is sucked back out, it contains natural toxins dredged up during drilling, including cadmium and benzene, which both carry cancer risks. It can also contain small amounts of chemicals added to enhance drilling.

But DEP officials say one of the most worrisome contaminants in the wastewater is a gritty substance called Total Dissolved Solids, or TDS, a mixture of salt and other minerals that lie deep underground. Drilling wastewater contains so much TDS that it can be five times as salty as sea water.

Large quantities of TDS can clog machinery and affect the color, taste and odor of drinking water – precisely the problems reported along the Monongahela. While TDS isn’t considered particularly harmful to people, it can damage freshwater streams, which is what happened when TDS levels spiked in Dunkard Creek this month. West Virginia’s DEP is investigating whether TDS-laden wastewater from a coal mine near the creek could be to blame. It is also investigating reports that wastewater from natural gas wells may have been illegally dumped into the stream.

Gas drilling companies currently dispose of their wastewater in Pennsylvania’s municipal sewage plants, which then discharge it into rivers and streams. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warns against this form of treatment, because the plants aren’t equipped to remove TDS or any of the chemicals the water may contain. Of even more concern, TDS can disrupt the plants’ treatment of ordinary sewage, including human waste.

A lack of capacity

When U.S. Steel and Allegheny Energy complained about the Monongahela’s water in 2008, the DEP found almost twice as much TDS as the agency considers safe. DEP officials blamed some of the problem on the river’s low flow last summer and on abandoned mines that have leaked TDS into the river for decades. What apparently tipped the balance, however, was the drilling wastewater that nine sewage plants were discharging into the river.

Steve Rhodes, president of the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Association, an industry trade group, argues that most of the TDS came from abandoned mines, not from drilling wastewater. A study prepared for a different trade group came to the same conclusion.

Rhodes also says Pennsylvania’s waterways "are not anywhere near" their capacity to handle TDS and that the DEP’s estimate of how much wastewater the industry produces is "completely exaggerated."

DEP chief John Hanger is confident his agency can control the wastewater problem. In April drilling companies began temporarily trucking their wastewater to other states or to sewage treatment plants in other parts of Pennsylvania: the idea is to dilute it by spreading it among more rivers. Hanger said a more permanent solution will begin on Jan. 1, 2011, when he has promised that new regulations will be in place requiring that the wastewater be treated by plants capable of removing TDS.

But an examination of public records, visits to sewage treatment plants, and extensive interviews with state officials by ProPublica reveal flaws in the DEP’s plans.

Currently, no plant in Pennsylvania has the technology to remove TDS, and it’s unlikely that new plants capable of doing so can be built by 2011. The company whose bid is furthest along in the permitting process says its plant won’t be ready until at least 2013. And at its peak that plant would be able to treat only 400,000 gallons of wastewater a day. The DEP would need 50 plants that size to process all the wastewater expected by 2011.

In the meantime, the DEP is allowing municipal sewage plants to continue taking drilling wastewater, even though none of them can remove TDS. "That’s not what these municipal plants are designed to handle – the DEP is inviting legal problems as well as environmental problems," said Bruce Baizel, a senior attorney for the Oil and Gas Accountability Project, a Colorado-based nonprofit that focuses on the environmental impact of natural gas drilling.

As the DEP’s responsibilities continue to grow, its operating budget could be slashed: The state legislature’s latest draft of Pennsylvania’s 2010 budget calls for a 25 percent cut in DEP funding.

Caught off guard

Hanger says Pennsylvania’s extensive experience with oil drilling – the first oil well in the country was drilled here in 1859—has prepared it to quickly deal with gas drilling problems.

But ProPublica found that the DEP was caught off guard by the amount of wastewater the industry would produce when drilling began in the Marcellus Shale, a deeply buried layer of rock that some analysts say holds enough gas to meet the nation’s natural gas needs for more than 20 years.

When energy prices spiked in 2008, drillers flocked to Pennsylvania, bringing sorely needed revenue and jobs. A recent Pennsylvania State University study touted the benefits drilling brought last year: 29,000 jobs and $240 million in state and local taxes.

Even the industry’s wastewater promised profits.

"Cha-ching!" is how Francis Geletko, financial director for the sewage plant in Clairton, described his first thought when he learned that drillers would pay five cents a gallon to get their wastewater processed at his plant. The 1960s-era facility is in such desperate need of modernization that workers still use shovels to remove solid waste from its traps and filters.

Many of the state’s plants are similarly outdated: A recent report commissioned by Gov. Ed Rendell concluded that Pennsylvania needs to spend $100 billion over the next 20 years to maintain its aging sewage plants and pipelines.

Plant operators say the DEP didn’t initially offer them much guidance about processing the water, a complaint the DEP doesn’t dispute.

Ed Golanka, who manages a sewage plant in Charleroi, said that when he checked with the DEP nobody told him that state and federal laws required his plant to get an amendment to its permit before accepting industrial wastewater. The amendment would require expensive modifications that Charleroi couldn’t afford, he said.

"At the time it was a new subject for all of us," Golanka said. "There was a limited amount of conversation [with the DEP] until the issue with TDS last summer."

Aunkst, the DEP’s director of water standards, said he didn’t know the plants along the Monongahela were accepting the water until the spring of 2008, when people complained about long lines of trucks idling at sewage treatment plants. But the agency was so short-staffed that it didn’t respond to the complaints immediately. Aunkst said many DEP regulators had left for more lucrative jobs with drilling companies.

"As the industry was ramping up, we were ramping down," he said. "In order for us to really catch these people we have to almost have an inspector coincidentally there on the day that these trucks pull up, because we have so many facilities and so few staff."

The DEP is supposed to inspect the plants once a year, but ProPublica found that most inspections are triggered by pollution violations or equipment failures.

A review of inspection records at the DEP’s Pittsburgh office showed that only three of the nine plants along the Monongahela were inspected in the year before Allegheny Energy and U.S. Steel complained. One plant hadn’t been inspected in five years. DEP officials warned that those records may not have been complete, because inspection reports aren’t filed electronically and pages from the files may have been sitting on an employee’s desk during the two days when ProPublica was there in March.

Inspections occur even less frequently at sites where wells are drilled. According to minutes taken at an October 2008 meeting of DEP officials, the agency has so few inspectors that they visit gas wells only once every 10 years.

After Aunkst heard about the trucks, he wrote a letter to all the state’s sewage plants, reminding them that they couldn’t take the wastewater without a special permit.

But before he sent it, TDS levels in the Monongahela skyrocketed, causing U.S. Steel and Allegheny Energy to complain. The chain of events made Aunkst remember two other peculiar incidents: Two creeks had been sucked dry, and DEP inspectors suspected that drilling companies had withdrawn the water to fracture nearby wells.

"We were trying to scramble, to put it bluntly, to get our act together to figure out how we were going to address these withdrawals as well as the disposal issues," Aunkst said.

The DEP did two things to quickly lower the Monongahela’s TDS level. It unlocked dams upriver to flush out some of the TDS. And it ordered nearby sewage treatment plants to reduce the amount of drilling wastewater they accepted to just 1 percent of the total amount of water that flowed through their plants each day.

The cut shocked the industry. Trucking water to distant sites is far more expensive than treating it locally, and some drillers threatened to take their rigs to other states if they couldn’t dispose of their water in Pennsylvania.

"Basically, it shuts us down," Lou D’Amico, executive director of the Independent Oil and Gas Association of Pennsylvania, told a local newspaper. "We can’t generate fluids we can’t dispose of."

The DEP issued a news release assuring the public that the TDS was "not considered a major human health risk… But under the circumstances, if consumers have concerns, DEP recommends consumers use bottled water for drinking and preparing food until the exceedance is eliminated."

Some sewage plant operators were so alarmed that they stopped taking any wastewater at all.
But by January, the uproar had subsided. TDS levels in the Monongahela were back to normal and plant operators began accepting the wastewater again, although in smaller quantities.

"We didn’t want to be the ones to stop the economy from growing in this area, and we felt that we were helping the country become energy independent," said Joe Rost, chief engineer at a sewage plant in McKeesport, 14 miles south of Pittsburgh.

Setting goals

Federal guidelines specifically recommend against sending drilling wastewater to ordinary sewage plants, as Pennsylvania is doing now, because it might damage the plants and taint drinking water supplies. But the EPA approved Pennsylvania’s plan, because the DEP promised to have more aggressive regulations in place by 2011.

"Every time you set an aggressive goal generally you have a transition period to get there," said Jon Capacasa, the EPA’s top mid-Atlantic water pollution enforcer.

To keep the water safe until then, the DEP has promised to add more TDS monitors along the Monongahela, although they haven’t been installed yet. And before the DEP allows a sewage plant to accept drilling wastewater, the agency will assess the current TDS level in the stream where the water will be discharged, to make sure it can handle the additional load.

The DEP also has promised to tighten TDS discharge standards by 2011, so that all drilling wastewater will be treated in plants capable of removing TDS. The agency has streamlined the permitting process for companies that want to build the new plants. But when ProPublica interviewed spokesmen for eight of the 17 plants that have been proposed, all of them said it will be impossible to begin operating by the 2011 deadline.

A spokesman for Larson Design Group, whose application is furthest along in the process, expects that after it gets its permit it will need at least 40 months to build the plant and begin operating.

Temporary lull

Drilling has slowed in Pennsylvania this year, because natural gas prices have dipped to about a third of what they were at the peak of the boom last summer. But the lull will almost certainly be temporary. The DEP expects to issue permits for approximately 700 wells in the Marcellus Shale in 2009, up from 450 in 2008.

"Companies are willing to get these permits now because they know that competition is going to heat up," said Raoul LeBlanc, a senior financial consultant at PFC Energy, which provides financial and political advice to energy companies and governments. "When prices rise they will want to be the first to drill more wells."

Congress is preparing for the expansion, too. A group of Democratic legislators have introduced a bill that would allow the federal government to regulate the hydraulic fracturing drilling process under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The bill prompted an immediate backlash from the oil and gas industry, which says state agencies like the DEP are doing a good job of regulating drilling.

Even if the bill is passed, however, it won’t directly address Pennsylvania’s most pressing drilling-related problem: protecting the state’s water supply against the coming onslaught of wastewater.

ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.

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Picower’s Madoff Take Now Estimated to Be $7.2 Billion

2009-10-03T13:31:00.002-04:00

by Jake Bernstein, ProPublica

As a man who cherishes his privacy, the attention Jeffry Picower received on Thursday must have made him wince. On the same day that Forbes revealed he had earned a coveted spot in the magazine’s list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, a new court filing added $2.1 billion to the $5.1 billion he is alleged to have earned from his participation in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

Forbes, which listed Picower at No. 371, placed his net worth at $1 billion, although the magazine acknowledged that the former lawyer and accountant is "likely worth billions more." Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee charged with recovering cash from Madoff’s scheme, wants to claw back Picower’s Ponzi profits. Picard contends that Picower is one of a select group that benefited from the Ponzi scheme and knew or should have known that they were participating in a fraud.

The trustee’s latest filing states categorically what ProPublica first reported in June ― Picower made more money than anyone else from the Madoff Ponzi. Picower was "the biggest beneficiary of Madoff’s scheme, having withdrawn either directly or through the entities he controlled more than $7.2 billion of other investors’ money," the filing said.

If Forbes had included all of Picower’s alleged Ponzi profits in this year’s total, it would have had to bump him up to the 32nd richest American. Instead, the media-shy investor is making his first appearance on the Forbes list. One reason for this may be that calculating Picower’s net worth has proven extremely difficult. In 2002, Forbes itself put Picower’s wealth at a little more than $300 million. That same year, according to court filings, Picower’s quarterly withdrawals from Madoff alone totaled $895 million.

The trustee’s latest judicial move is a response to a July 31 filing by Picower which urged the court to dismiss the Trustee’s complaint. (See, our "Picower: Charges of Complicity with Madoff 'Baseless."") In that filing, Picower argued that he himself was a victim of Madoff’s crime. He asserted that it would have been illogical for Madoff to have "compensated" Picower with such exorbitant sums because that would have undermined the scheme. Picower also noted that he still had half a billion dollars invested with Madoff when the now-convicted fraudster first confessed.

Although the trustee’s brief is heavy on legal citations, it nonetheless marshals plenty of outrage at Picower’s arguments. "Given that Picower withdrew more of other investors’ money than any other customer" of Madoff, "Picower’s repeated references to himself as a 'victim' ring hollow," the brief states. "Picower’s premise that making billions of dollars from a Ponzi scheme is a badge of innocence is dubious at best."

The trustee notes that Picower’s largest withdrawals were quarterly, allowing Madoff to plan ahead for them. The trustee also adds a new detail to the story. As early as 2003, Madoff was having trouble paying Picower the full amount the investor was demanding every quarter.

Madoff’s "failure to pay Picower sums that purportedly were in his accounts or otherwise available to him is further evidence that Picower knew or should have known of Madoff’s fraud," states the brief. "This evidence becomes more compelling given Picower’s apparent lack of complaint about his inability to access billions of dollars reported" on Madoff's account statements.

Picard summarizes his objection to the motion to dismiss with a flourish: "Picower’s motion is a concoction of irrelevant counter-facts, arguments that ignore both the allegations in the Complaint and the relevant legal standards, and factual challenges that are not properly before the Court on a motion to dismiss."

Not surprisingly, a statement from Picower's lawyer William Zabel takes issue with Picard’s latest brief: "Trustee continues to make false and outrageous claims about Mr. Picower based on a misreading of the purported 'facts.' When the true facts are known, the Court will see that Mr.
Picower was deceived by Bernard L. Madoff like the SEC and thousands of other investors, as many as half of whom took out more money than they put in."

In the statement, Zabel also leaves open the possibility that a settlement can be reached.

"The Picowers in good faith have initiated discussions with the Trustee to reach a settlement in order to avoid years of extensive litigation," Zabel said.

A hearing on the motion to dismiss before Judge Burton R. Lifland of U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has been scheduled for Oct. 27.

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Slow PC? Try This Scan

2009-09-30T05:11:00.003-04:00

My laptop runs very slowly. I've tried all manner of different scans and diagnostics, on the hard disk and other components -- with very little improvement.

I've been kind of at a loss, and have really just learned to live with it -- until now.

I've now learned about a free registry cleaner that starts with a quick scan to see if the problem could be that I need a clean registry on my computer. I know what you're asking yourself now, "What is my registry?"

Most of us have never heard of it, but the windows registry is part of the operating system that sits deep in Windows and basically is a database of all of the options and settings on your computer. Apparently, like your hard disk and other components, your registry needs occasion tidying up.

Want to know more? Click on these links here to learn more and start your scan.

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Pennsylvania Orders Cabot Oil and Gas to Stop Fracturing in Troubled County

2009-09-25T05:06:00.003-04:00

by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica

After three chemical spills in the past nine days, and following a history of environmental problems over the last year, Pennsylvania officials have ordered Cabot Oil and Gas, one of the most active natural gas companies in the state, to stop its hydraulic fracturing operations in Susquehanna County pending an intensive review.

"The department took this action because of our concern about Cabot's current fracking process and to ensure that the environment in Susquehanna County is properly protected," DEP north central regional Director Robert Yowell said in a news release distributed this morning.

The stop-work order, which was accompanied by new citations issued for the third spill, will interrupt development of seven new wells that Cabot is currently drilling, and intending to fracture, in Susquehanna County. The citations were similar to those levied earlier in the week, including a failure to contain fracturing fluids.

The state's order gives Cabot two weeks to re-submit an "accurate" Pollution Prevention and Contingency Plan and Control and Disposal Plan for its well pad sites in the county. It gives the company three weeks to complete an engineering study of the equipment and practices used for hydraulic fracturing.

“There were unique elements of the location that experienced the three incidents and it was not necessary to force a shutdown of all fracturing activities,” said Cabot spokesman Ken Komoroski, explaining that fluids were piped farther than usual at the well site in question. “However, Cabot understands the department has an important job to do.”

In interviews earlier this week, Komoroski underscored that the spills had happened under the watch of two of its contractors: Halliburton, one of the world’s largest drilling service companies, and Baker Tanks, a tank transport company.

In recognition of those circumstances, Pennsylvania will require Cabot to post its new pollution prevention plan at each well site and make it available to all its contractors, something that is not normally required in the state.

You can read the full press release here (PDF).

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As The Cold Sets In, Keep Nature Indoors

2009-09-21T21:28:00.004-04:00

This time of year, the air becomes cooler, the leaves turn and nature begins a long wintry slumber.

But if you're like me, you'll miss all the green and color of abundant plant life of summer. Planters are a perfect solution to bring all that flora inside to appreciate even as the temperate dips outside.

Indoor Planters and and Decorative Planters not only keep your plants alive, but you can find a type of planter that also add to your current decor -- and even bring their own flair to your home.

Click on these links to browse planters available online, that can be delivered right to your home for your planting. That saves wear and tear on your back.

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Hummer Owners Claim Moral High Ground To Excuse Overconsumption

2009-09-21T21:22:00.004-04:00

Hummer drivers believe they are defending America's frontier lifestyle against anti-American critics, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

Authors Marius K. Luedicke (University of Innsbruck, Austria), Craig J. Thompson (University of Wisconsin–Madison), and Markus Giesler (York University, Toronto) researched attitudes toward owning and driving Hummers, which have become symbols to many of American greed and wastefulness.

The researchers first investigated anti-consumption sentiments expressed by people who oppose chains like Starbucks and believe they are making a moral choice by shunning consumerism. To these critics, Hummers represent the ills of contemporary society. As one extreme example, on www.fuh2.com, people have posted thousands of photographs of middle fingers directed at Hummer vehicles.

They investigated various Internet expressions of anti-Hummer sentiment, but they were equally interested in the ways Hummer owners framed themselves as "moral protagonists" in the ongoing debate over consumer values. They conducted in-depth interviews with twenty U.S.-born and raised Hummer owners and found among these consumers an equally strong current of moralism.

"As we studied American Hummer owners and their ideological beliefs, we found that they consider Hummer driving a highly moral consumption choice," write the authors. "For Hummer owners it is possible to claim the moral high ground."

The authors explain that Hummer owners employ the ideology of American foundational myths, such as the "rugged individual," and the "boundless frontier" to construct themselves as moral protagonists. They often believe they represent a bastion again anti-American discourses evoked by their critics.

"Our analysis of the underlying American identity discourses revealed that being under siege by (moral) critics is an historically established feature of being an American," write the authors. "The moralistic critique of their consumption choices readily inspired Hummer owners to adopt the role of the moral protagonist who defends American national ideals."

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An Exceptional Honeymoon In A Difficult Economy

2009-09-20T10:35:00.002-04:00

Are you struggling to put together an entire wedding experience for you and your loved one during this trying economic time?

Certainly weddings -- and honeymoons -- can become quite expensive, and this ongoing deep recession may not be the best time to go out and splurge. Maybe your job, or your mate's, may not be entirely secure, or you just want to save for all the things that will come in your new life together after the wedding and honeymoon are only a pleasant memory.

Regardless, there are services and resorts that cater to trying to save you money, such as when looking into cancun honeymoons.

Karisma Resorts (available through this link) specializes not only in the "inclusive" resort concept you may be familiar with, but what it calls "gourmet inclusive," which is to be a step above the average inclusive resort.

In all, Karisma offers stays at five resorts. Visit their website to plan your honeymoon at the one that suits you and your new spouse.

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Using Magnetism To Turn Drugs On, Off

2009-09-20T10:31:00.003-04:00

Many medical conditions, such as chronic pain, cancer and diabetes, require medications that cannot be taken orally, but must be dosed intermittently, on an as-needed basis, over a long period of time. A few delivery techniques have been developed, using an implanted heat source, an implanted electronic chip or other stimuli as an "on-off" switch to release the drugs into the body. But thus far, none of these methods can reliably do all that's needed: repeatedly turn dosing on and off, deliver consistent doses and adjust doses according to the patient's need.

Researchers led by Daniel Kohane, MD, of Children's Hospital Boston, funded by the National Institutes of Health, have devised a solution that combines magnetism with nanotechnology.

The team created a small implantable device, less than one-half inch in diameter, that encapsulates the drug in a specially engineered membrane, embedded with nanoparticles (approximately 1/100,000 the width of a human hair) composed of magnetite, a mineral with natural magnetic properties. When a magnetic field is switched on outside the body, near the device, the nanoparticles heat up, causing the gels in the membrane to warm and temporarily collapse. This opens up pores that allow the drug to pass through and into the body. When the magnetic force is turned off, the membranes cool and the gels re-expand, closing the pores back up and halting drug delivery. No implanted electronics are required.

The device, which Kohane's team is continuing to develop for clinical use, is described in the journal Nano Letters.

"A device of this kind would allow patients or their physicians to determine exactly when drugs are delivered, and in what quantities," says Kohane, who directs the Laboratory for Biomaterials and Drug Delivery in the Department of Anesthesiology at Children's.

In animal experiments, the membranes remained functional over multiple cycles. The size of the dose was controllable by the duration of the "on" pulse, and the rate of release remained steady, even 45 days after implantation.

Testing indicated that drug delivery could be turned on with only a 1 to 2 minute time lag before drug release, and turned off with a 5 to 10 minute time lag. The membranes remained mechanically stable under tensile and compression testing, indicating their durability, showed no toxicity to cells, and were not rejected by the animals' immune systems. They are activated by temperatures higher than normal body temperatures, so would not be affected by the heat of a patient's fever or inflammation.

"This novel approach to drug delivery using engineered 'smart' nanoparticles appears to overcome a number of limitations facing current methods of delivering medicines," says Alison Cole, who oversees anesthesia grants at the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). "While some distance away from use in humans, this technology has the potential to provide precise, repeated, long-term, on-demand delivery of drugs for a number of medical applications, including the management of pain."

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Professor Discovers New Way To Calculate Body's 'Maximum Weight Limit'

2009-09-20T10:12:00.004-04:00

Most of us are familiar with the term, Body Mass Index, or BMI, as an index to determine healthy body weight. But, calculating BMI involves a complex formula: weight in pounds is multiplied by 703, and then divided by height in inches squared. Charts or online calculators are then used to show a "healthy weight range" given an individual's height that corresponds to the "healthy range BMI." For example, a BMI chart indicates that a healthy range BMI of 19 to 24 translates to a "healthy weight range" of 120 to 150 pounds for a 5-foot, 6-inch individual.

If this sounds way too complicated to you, you're not alone. George Fernandez, a professor of applied statistics and director of the Center for Research Design and Analysis at the University of Nevada, Reno, set out to give people a simpler way of calculating their healthy weight, and one that wouldn't require charts or online calculators. In addition, he doesn't think the "range" approach sticks in individuals' minds.

"We need a "Maximum Weight Limit, or MWL," he says, "one number that we know we can't go over, just like a speed limit."

So, using SAS software and statistical procedures, he discovered a much simpler way of calculating a Maximum Weight Limit, which closely corresponds to weight recommendations listed on BMI charts. But, you don't need to calculate or know your BMI, nor do you need a chart or online calculator to figure out your Maximum Weight Limit.

"It's a very simple calculation that most of us can do in our heads," he says.

For men and women, there is a baseline height and weight. For men, the baseline is 5-feet, 9-inches tall and a Maximum Weight Limit of 175 pounds, meaning that a 5-foot, 9-inch tall man should weigh no more than 175 pounds. For women, the baseline is 5-feet tall and a Maximum Weight Limit of 125 pounds.

"These are nice round numbers that people can easily remember: 5-feet, 9-inches tall, 175 pounds for man; and 5-feet tall, 125 pounds for a woman," says Fernandez.

From that starting point, you simply calculate how much taller or shorter you are, in inches. Then, if you are man, you add or subtract 5 pounds for every inch you are taller or shorter than 5 feet, 9 inches. So, if you are 5-feet, 11-inches tall, you are 2 inches taller than the baseline of 5 feet, 9 inches. You add 5 pounds for each of those 2 inches, 10 pounds, to the baseline Maximum Weight Limit of 175. So, your Maximum Weight Limit is 185 (175 pounds plus 10 pounds). Women add or subtract 4.5 pounds for each inch they differ from the baseline height of 5-feet tall.

These Maximum Weight Limits correspond very closely to BMIs of 25.5 for men and 24.5 for women. A BMI of 18.5 to 25 BMI is diagnosed as the "healthy range." Fernandez used a slightly lower BMI base for women and a slightly higher one for men because, on average, women have less muscle mass than men. Although some have debated using BMI as a means for calculating healthy weight because it does not take into account factors such as muscle mass, for example, it has been shown to work as a basis for calculating a healthy weight for more than 90 percent of the population and is the most universally used index in weight management programs.

"Now people can calculate their own Maximum Weight Limit, based on the BMI index, but without any calculators or charts," Fernandez says. "And, all they have to remember is that one number, 185 pounds for example, which is easier for most people than retaining a weight range, such as 155 to 185 pounds."

Fernandez also says that this simple formula could be very useful in medically underserved areas of the world, and for individuals without access to technology and charts.

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Sports Equipment For Back To School

2009-09-19T08:46:00.003-04:00

Autumn means back to school, and the start of a whole new afterschool sports season for the kids.

That means we parents probably need to purchase new sporting equipment for kids, just like all the other back-to-school supplies we've been buying.

ShopWiki, though, could make it easier on you. It advertises itself as similar to Google for online shopping, so that it searches all the best deals on the Internet, not just the stores that pay for placement on the site. That means it's a source for a variety of sports gear, which includes what ShopWiki terms individual sports which covers such diverse activities as dance and inline skating.

The other thing I find really useful about ShopWiki is not only does it offer products, but it provides information on the different categories through its online buying guide.

And, of course, buying over the Web provides the convenience of anytime shopping, and having all of that gear delivered straight to your door.

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2009: A Year to Look at Death

2009-09-19T06:07:00.002-04:00

By Scott Nance

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like a lot more people are dying these days. Or, at least, that a lot more famous people are dying.

The news has become an endless parade of celebrity mortality, to the point where one death competes with another, a new demise overshadowing the last one. Ed McMahon passes away, then Farrah Fawcett dies days later (not to mention Michael Jackson's shocking demise just hours later on the same day).

And then celebrity pitchman Billy Mays dies just days after that.

There's been no let-up since, either, with Walter Cronkite, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and actor Patrick Swayze just a few of the other names recently boarding the express train away from this mortal coil.

Indeed, Swayze's end this week came just before news that Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary had also passed on.

It's to the point some days that newspaper and website editors find they're having multiple big-name obituaries jockeying for lead-story position.

They say these things come in threes, but this year that rule seems to have been expanded exponentially. It's enough to leave you wondering if Heaven will have to open a new wing.

Of course, all the dead have their own circumstances that brought them to their fate. Some, like Fawcett and Swayze, succumbed to illness. Others, like Jackson and Mays, died suddenly and unexpectedly. Still others, like Cronkite, who were major historical figures of the mid 20th century, simply passed on as that era becomes ever more distant from here in the 21st.

While there is nothing mystical in the surprising regularity with which we are brought face-to-face with death these days, there is a real opportunity for those of us left behind.

We may never be famous, our deaths may or may not even end up in a newspaper, but it is certain that sooner or later, each of us will die.

While we all know that on an intellectual level, in our culture we spend our lives not just ignoring that fact but actually keeping it hidden and distant. We all want to die peacefully when we are old, but we usually give it no more thought than that. But the sooner we face it as reality – and make peace with it – the better our lives will be.

But why, as a society, are we so afraid of death? Why, as author Eckhart Tolle has said, is death so hidden in our culture that it is illegal for most people to even see a dead body (outside a funeral home)?

To be sure, I'm not saying anyone should want to cut their lives short, or that we should rush our own deaths in any way. To the contrary, you may find that coming to true terms with your own mortality may actually make the days you spend on this earth that much sweeter.

I'm also not attempting to proselytize for any particular faith or form of spirituality – or even that you necessarily become a religious person if you are not. What I am saying is that we should all drop the stories of personal procrastination we all tell ourselves to avoid even thinking about our own demises.

Death may not come for 50 years – or it may come tomorrow (Michael Jackson and Billy Mays certainly were not expecting theirs either.) You just don't know.

Whenever it should come for you, come to a point within yourself where you are not terrified of it, or bitter about it. And remember that when your time comes – whenever that may be – you aren't the only one to die. Think of all those who went before you just this year.

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Website For Gold Investors

2009-09-18T07:53:00.002-04:00

The down economy has revived a lot of interest in those who want to purchase gold as an investment. Of course, there are many places online now for investors where they can purchase gold coins and purchase gold bullion.

What makes the website available through the links presented here interesting is that it is set up kind of as a "gold investment" portal site, of sorts.

For instance, you can check the status of the price of gold, as well silver and other precious metals. Also, you can see links at a glance for where gold has been in the news recently.

And, of course, the site offers investors the opportunity to purchase gold coin and purchase bullion.

Taken all together, the site works to provide information and service -- kind of a one stop site for the gold investor.

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President Obama Honors IBM Supercomputer With National Medal of Technology and Innovation

2009-09-18T05:13:00.001-04:00

President Obama recognized IBM and its Blue Gene family of supercomputers with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the country's most prestigious award given to leading innovators for technological achievement.

Obama will personally bestow the award at a special White House ceremony Oct. 7. IBM, which earned the National Medal of Technology and Innovation on eight other occasions, is the only company recognized with the award this year, the company says.

Blue Gene's speed and expandability have enabled business and science to address a wide range of complex problems and make more informed decisions -- not just in the life sciences, but also in astronomy, climate, simulations, modeling and many other areas, IBM says. Blue Gene systems have helped map the human genome, investigated medical therapies, safeguarded nuclear arsenals, simulated radioactive decay, replicated brain power, flown airplanes, pinpointed tumors, predicted climate trends, and identified fossil fuels -- all without the time and money that would have been required to physically complete these tasks, the company adds.

The system also reflects breakthroughs in energy efficiency. With the creation of Blue Gene, IBM dramatically shrank the physical size and energy needs of a computing system whose processing speed would have required a dedicated power plant capable of generating power to thousands of homes, IBM says.

The influence of the Blue Gene supercomputer's energy-efficient design and computing model can be seen today across the Information Technology industry. Today, 18 of the top 20 most energy efficient supercomputers in the world are built on IBM high performance computing technology, according to the latest Supercomputing 'Green500 List' announced by Green500.org in July, the firm says.

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So Many Courses, So Little Time

2009-09-16T23:00:00.002-04:00

Myrtle Beach Golf clearly is one of the top reasons to visit the resort town, with a large number of world-class courses to choose from.

You could look into arrangements at each of the different courses, or you could take advantage of a unique website that helps pull together Myrtle Beach Golf Vacations and Myrtle Beach Golf Packages. (You even can read golf news.)

The site lets you look over different Myrtle Beach courses (including maps), as well as accommodations. The site even helps you cap off your days on the links by presenting you ideas on nightlife, restaurants and other attractions.

Whether you are planning to Golf Myrtle Beach for the first time, or want some help to arrange a return trip, this website should save you time and help you get more out of your away time.

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Deficits in Brain's Reward System Observed in ADHD Patients

2009-09-16T22:49:00.003-04:00

A brain-imaging study conducted at Brookhaven National Laboratory provides the first definitive evidence that patients suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have lower-than-normal levels of certain proteins essential for experiencing reward
and motivation.

"These deficits in the brain's reward system may help explain clinical symptoms of ADHD, including inattention and reduced motivation, as well as the propensity for complications such as drug abuse and obesity among ADHD patients," says lead author Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and a long-time collaborator on neuroimaging research at Brookhaven Lab.

The study, published in the September 9, 2009, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, also has important implications for treatment. "Finding ways to address the underlying reward-system deficit could improve the direct clinical outcome of ADHD, and potentially reduce the likelihood of other negative consequences of this condition," says study co-author Gene-Jack Wang, chair of Brookhaven's medical department.

Prior to this study, it was not clear whether people with ADHD had abnormalities in the brain's dopamine-mediated motivation/reward system. Previous studies were relatively small and may have been complicated by the fact that some ADHD patients had undergone treatments, or had a history of drug abuse or other conditions that can affect the dopamine system.

To strengthen the statistics and control for these factors, the current study looked at 53 adult ADHD patients who had never received treatment and 44 healthy control subjects -- all of whom had been carefully screened to eliminate potentially confounding variables.

The scientists used positron emission tomography (PET) to measure two markers of the dopamine system -- dopamine receptors, to which the chemical messenger binds to propagate the "reward" signal, and dopamine transporters, which take up and recycle excess dopamine after the signal is sent.

Lying in a PET scanner, each patient was injected with a minute amount of a "radiotracer" compound -- a chemical labeled with a radioactive form of carbon and designed to bind specifically to one of the targets. Different tracers were used for each target, and patients were scanned for each at separate times. By detecting the signal from the radiotracers, the PET machine can measure the receptor and transporter locations and concentrations in various parts of the brain.

The results clearly showed that, relative to the healthy control subjects, the ADHD patients had lower levels of dopamine receptors and transporters in the accumbens and midbrain -- two key regions of the brain directly involved in processing motivation and reward. In addition, the measurements of dopamine markers correlated with measures of behavior and clinical observations of ADHD symptoms, such as reduced levels of attention as measured by standard
psychological tests.

"Our findings imply that these deficits in the dopamine reward pathway play a role in the symptoms of inattention in ADHD and could underlie these patients' abnormal responses to reward," Volkow says.

"This pathway plays a key role in reinforcement, motivation, and in learning how to associate various stimuli with rewards," she adds. "Its involvement in ADHD supports the use of interventions to enhance the appeal and relevance of school and work tasks to improve performance.

"Our results also support the continued use of stimulant medications - the most common pharmacological treatment for ADHD -- which have been shown to increase attention to cognitive tasks by elevating brain dopamine," she says.

The findings may also help explain why ADHD patients are more likely than control subjects to develop drug-abuse disorders and conditions such as obesity.

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Use The Web To Take Guesswork Out Of Car Repair

2009-09-15T23:07:00.000-04:00

For most of us, car repair might as well be brain surgery -- which is why we leave it to professionals.

But unlike brain surgery, we'll all end up paying for car repairs more often that we pay for a doctor to pick inside our skull.

Fortunately, though, there is a website that helps take the guesswork out of the process -- at least how much you have to pay. The site figures what you have to pay for various services like an oil change or tune up, and then localizes it for your specific area, such as Seattle auto repair.

So, say you have an Acura TL. Just put that into the website, and let it make the calculations so that you know what you should pay. That will help you plan your finances, and ensure you don't pay more than you should.

If you own a car, click on these links to learn more about how to use this service.

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Telescope Camera Debuts With Peek At Nest Of Black Holes

2009-09-15T19:58:00.004-04:00

Less than two months after they inaugurated the world’s largest telescope, University of Florida astronomers have used one of the world’s most advanced telescopic instruments to gather images of the heavens.

A team led by astronomy professor Stephen Eikenberry late last week captured the first images of the cosmos ever made with a UF-designed and built camera/spectrometer affixed to the Gemini South telescope in Chile. The handful of “first light” images include a yellow and blue orb-like structure that depicts our Milky Way galaxy, home to thousands of black holes – including, at its core, a “supermassive” black hole thought to be as massive as 4 million suns put together.

“We plan to use this instrument to provide the first accurate tracking of the growth and evolution of this black hole over the last 4 billion years,” Eikenberry says.

Installation of the instrument, called FLAMINGOS-2, caps a seven-year, $5 million effort involving 30 UF scientists, engineers, students and staff. Once the instrument is scientifically tested — a process expected to last around six months — it will support a range of new science. Astronomers will use FLAMINGOS-2 (FLAMINGOS is short for the Florida Array Multi-object Imaging Grism Spectrometer) to hunt the universe’s first galaxies, view stars as they are being born, reveal black holes and investigate other phenomena.

“Achieving first light is a great achievement and important milestone,” says Nancy Levenson, deputy director of the Gemini Observatory.

The 8-meter Gemini South telescope in the Chilean Andes is one of only about a dozen 8- to 10-meter telescopes worldwide. All require technologically sophisticated instruments to interpret the light they gather. FLAMINGOS-2 “sees” near-infrared or heat-generated light beyond the range of human vision. It can reveal objects invisible to the eye, such as stars obscured by cosmic dust, or objects so far away they have next to no visible light.

The instrument joins other near-infrared imagers installed on other large telescopes. But it is unusual in its ability to also act as a spectrometer, dividing the light into its component wavelengths. Astronomers analyze these wavelengths to figure out what distant objects are made of, how hot or cold they are, their distance from Earth, and other qualities.

Uniquely, FLAMINGOS-2 can take spectra of up to 80 different objects simultaneously, speeding astronomers’ hunt for old galaxies, black holes or newly forming stars and planets.

“At a cost of $1 per second for operating the Gemini telescope, it will make a huge gain in the scientific productivity and efficiency of the observatory,” Eikenberry says. “What would take an entire year previously can now be done in four nights. This is a real game changer.”

Astronomers compete heavily for time on the world’s largest telescopes, often waiting months or years for the opportunity to make observations. Eikenberry said his FLAMINGOS-2 agreement with Gemini South entitles him to at least 25 nights of observations. He will use the time to contribute to three large studies, or surveys, of the sky headed by UF astronomers.

The first is aimed at learning more about the thousands of black holes and neutron stars at the Milky Way’s center. The second will probe the formation and evolution of galaxies across time, while the third will investigate the birth of new stars.

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Don't Let Report Errors Hurt Your Credit

2009-09-14T07:28:00.003-04:00

Errors can, and do, occasionally end up on your credit report, which can result in you being reported as having bad credit.

A case in point: years ago I moved and returned my cable TV box to my local provider. A couple of years later, though, I was denied credit. When I checked my credit reports I found I had been reported to collection for never having returned that box. I had to make a lot of phone calls but finally someone at the cable provider found the box and said that the error would be fixed, resulting in credit repair.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, you can fix your credit. Often tracking down and proving the error is cumbersome and troublesome. You may not want the hassle of having to take all that on yourself.

Now, with Ovation Credit, you don't have to. Ovation and their attorneys will take on the calls and tasks to submit your error, get it fixed, removed from your report so that you improve credit.

If you are curious about what Ovation can do for you, click the links above for a free consultation.

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Information About Use, Accuracy Of Breast Cancer Tests Is Lacking, Study Finds

2009-09-14T05:23:00.002-04:00

A new study finds that there is little information available about the use of new testing technologies and targeted therapies in breast cancer, specifically the anti-cancer drug trastuzumab (Herceptin). Published in the November 15, 2009 issue of Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the review suggests that many breast cancer patients who may benefit from trastuzumab are not receiving it, and that some women receiving the drug have never been tested for the receptor it targets.

The study has been published online.

Standard care now dictates that women with early-stage breast cancer should be tested to see if they have tumors that express the HER2 protein. Those who test positive are candidates for treatment with trastuzumab, which is only effective in HER2-positive cancers.

Researchers at the UCSF Center for Translational and Policy Research on Personalized Medicine (TRANSPERS) and led by Kathryn A. Phillips, of the University of California-San Francisco, reviewed the medical literature to determine how HER2 testing is being used in routine clinical practice. The studies they found reported that up to two-thirds of patients eligible for HER2 testing had no documentation of a test in their health insurance records. About one in five women who received trastuzumab had no documentation of a positive HER2 test in their health insurance records. The studies also revealed that about one in five HER2 test results may be incorrect.

The authors also found that studies looking at the economic issues associated with prescribing trastuzumab often did not explicitly consider the role of HER2 testing, which can have a substantial impact on the cost-effectiveness of the therapy.

Given the increasing use of targeted therapies like trastuzumab, proper testing will become more important to ensure that medications are directed only to the patients who will benefit from them.

"Our review of the literature suggests that there are important knowledge gaps regarding the real-world use of HER2 testing and trastuzumab," says Dr. Elena Elkin, a researcher at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and one of the study's authors. "Filling these gaps may help optimize limited health care resources and improve care for women with breast cancer," she adds.

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Use Your Life Alert As Much As You Need

2009-09-13T10:41:00.005-04:00

You may be familiar with life alert systems for senior citizens. The system provides a 24/7 sense of safety and security so that those in their later years can enjoy a fuller sense of security.

You probably also know that a life alert system allows for its user to call for immediate help just with the push of a button.

But did you know that the seniors who have the life alert system available through these online links here should never feel shy about using it. In fact, the Brickhouse Alert system does not charge any additional fees for frequent calls on the system. They understand that it's not enough just to have a life alert system -- to get true value, a senior citizen must feel comfortable activating that system whenever he or she needs to, to provide a full sense of comfort and security.

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Early results From Clinical Trials Of 2009 H1N1 Influenza Vaccines In Healthy Adults

2009-09-13T10:16:00.002-04:00

We are encouraged by reports that are now emerging from various clinical trials of 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccines, conducted by various vaccine manufacturers. We expect additional companies to announce their preliminary trial results shortly. The early data from these trials indicate that 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccines are well tolerated and induce a strong immune response in most healthy adults when administered in a single unadjuvanted 15-microgram dose. We congratulate the companies on these trials, which are an important part of the ongoing worldwide effort to develop vaccines to protect the public from 2009 H1N1 influenza.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, also is conducting clinical trials of 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccines, produced by Sanofi Pasteur and CSL Limited. The NIAID trials are testing two different dosages (15 micrograms versus 30 micrograms) and evaluating the immune response to one and two doses of these vaccines. More than 2,800 people are participating in ongoing NIAID trials of these vaccines.

We are pleased to note that preliminary analyses of early data from the NIAID trials align with the recently announced findings and those to be announced imminently by other companies in that both vaccines studied induced what is likely to be a protective immune response in most adults following a single dose in the same amount (15 micrograms) used in seasonal flu vaccines. Specifically, in blood samples obtained 8 to 10 days after vaccination

Among healthy adults who received a single 15-microgram dose of the Sanofi Pasteur vaccine, a robust immune response was measured in 96 percent of adults aged 18 to 64 and in 56 percent of adults aged 65 and older.

Similarly, among healthy adults who received a single 15-microgram dose of the CSL Limited vaccine, a robust immune response was measured in 80 percent of adults aged 18 to 64 and in 60 percent of adults aged 65 and older.

Additional data from the NIAID trials are forthcoming. However, on the basis of these strong early data, our results are consonant with other reports that a single 15-microgram dose of unadjuvanted 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine is well tolerated and induces a robust immune response in healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 64. For adults aged 65 and older, the immune response to 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine is somewhat less robust, as is the case with seasonal influenza vaccines.

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Continue To Enjoy Warm Weather In Myrtle Beach

2009-09-12T11:07:00.002-04:00

Is it getting cooler now where you are?

It is here where we are, and looking around for some place to enjoy that is still warm has led to Myrtle Beach Resorts in sunny South Carolina.

I found a Myrtle Beach Resort that offers great spa getaways and other vacations large or small. These condos available through these links have more to offer than other Myrtle Beach Hotels in that you get more home-like amenities like a full kitchen.

In checking out the links to this resort, I even found children's programs that really make this a good family option for those of us looking for one last warm weather escape before the cold comes in for good.

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Health Journalists Utilize Audience, Other Media To Build News Agenda, Researchers Find

2009-09-12T05:23:00.003-04:00

Approximately one-fifth of Americans follow health news very closely, according to the Pew Research Center. To identify how the demand for health stories is met, University of Missouri researchers surveyed national health journalists about their development of story ideas and use of expert sources and public relations materials. The researchers found that health journalists determine what information is newsworthy by examining the work of their peers and the issues raised by their colleagues and audiences.

“What does this mean for health news consumers? It means that health journalists work together to filter information and select what they believe is most important for their audiences,” says Maria Len-Rios, assistant professor in the Missouri School of Journalism. “They try to provide readers with accurate information and evaluate sources so that there isn’t undue influence by those who have vested interests in the information. This is the value that health journalists add to their news that may not be present in information from non-journalistic sources.”

Len-Rios and Amanda Hinnant, assistant professor in the Missouri School of Journalism, and other MU researchers surveyed 774 health journalists. They found that health journalists used non-public relations resources (other news media, self-interests, news audiences) more frequently than medical journals or public relations sources.

“Health journalists utilize other media, news audiences and their personal interests as resources for story ideas,” Len-Rios says. “When journalists do use public relations sources, they are likely to rely on universities, nonprofits or government sources that are less likely to appear to have profit-based interests. The fact that journalists aren’t looking to medical journals for health stories ideas – perhaps the source that contains the most detailed information – suggests a greater need to look to these primary sources.”

According to the survey, journalists who used public relations sources more for story ideas tended to believe they should get information to the public quickly and advocate for their readers to improve their health. Conversely, other journalists view themselves as watchdogs of institutions and are wary of public relations sources, Len-Rios says.

“The reliance on other media for story ideas is worth more exploration because it brings up questions of content diversity,” Hinnant says. “How many stories are not making it into the intermedia agenda and for what reasons?”

The study, “Health News Agenda Building: Journalists’ Perceptions of the Role of Public Relations,” was published recently in the summer 2009 issue of Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. The research was funded by the Missouri Foundation for Health, Missouri Health Literacy Enhancement Priority Area Grant.

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Too Much Junk Mail?

2009-09-09T06:25:00.003-04:00

Even in this day and age -- when much of our mail is electronic and delivered on a video screen of some sort -- junk mail continues to fill our "real" Mailboxes unabated.

In fact, sometimes it seems that we have to become a slave to getting our mail. Miss even a day or two, and you return just to find your mailbox bursting nearly beyond capacity with all the circulars, flyers, coupon books and other assorted unsolicited junk that has been deposited there.

If you're like many people part of the problem might be the size of your mailbox. That's right. Just think about how junk mail has proliferated in the last 15 years or so. But if you are like a lot of folks, the mailbox you have is still the original one that came with your home, and might have been installed in an era that didn't know the problem of large amounts of unwanted deliveries.

Many people, in fact, rarely think about buying new Residential Mailboxes -- unless their old one is broken in some way.

But click on the links here, and you might just be surprised at the range of new mailboxes available to you. You may just find a larger mailbox that actually makes your junk mail problem just a little more managable.

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Children With Asthma More Vulnerable to H1N1 Virus

2009-09-09T05:56:00.001-04:00

Nearly a dozen 7th graders with asthma were welcomed along with other classmates back to school yesterday by a special guest who had a message for them about staying healthy -- Kathleen Sebelius, 21st secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Secretary Sebelius met with students and their parents at Thurgood Marshall Elementary, one of 16 schools in Philadelphia that partners with the Merck Childhood Asthma Network, Inc. (MCAN) program partners to help students better manage their asthma. She talked about the importance of education and creating healthy habits to avoid missing school.

"Nothing is more important than keeping our children healthy, in school and ready to learn as we start the new school year," says Dr. Floyd Malveaux, executive director of MCAN and former dean of the College of Medicine at Howard University. "We applaud Secretary Sebelius for recognizing that staying healthy can be a challenge for students with asthma -- a factor that is even further complicated with the possibility of being exposed to the H1N1 virus, which can increase the severity of asthma symptoms, leading to possible hospitalizations."

During the meeting, Sebelius highlighted the work of the Philadelphia MCAN project as a model for inner-city childhood asthma management. Launched in 2005, the Philadelphia MCAN project has improved asthma outcomes for children and reduced school absenteeism by using a community-based approach that integrates families, community agencies, schools and health care providers to implement scientifically proven asthma interventions.

The Philadelphia program brings hope into communities that shoulder a disproportionate share of the childhood asthma burden. Screening conducted with the Philadelphia MCAN project in partnership with The School District of Philadelphia found that one out of four students in the West, Southwest, Olney, Logan and Germantown communities - target communities for the program -- have been diagnosed with asthma or have been admitted to the hospital for wheezing, compared to one out of ten nationwide.

The Philadelphia program provides children with asthma and their families access to three key services: Community Asthma Prevention Program (CAPP) classes that educate parents, other caretakers and children with asthma; CAPP home visits where community health workers help families eliminate or control allergens and irritants within the home; and Health Promotion Council (HPC) Link Line services that connect families to asthma care coordinators.

"The unique structure of our program allows us to bring multiple stakeholders to the table to create a successful team that can get children to care and services for better long-term and immediate asthma management," says Dr. Michael Rosenthal of Thomas Jefferson University and co-lead investigator of the Philadelphia MCAN program. "By collaborating with specific schools to identify children that have asthma, the Philadelphia MCAN project has armed school nurses with essential information to assist students who are at higher risk for complications with H1N1 and seasonal flu virus, allowing them to be better prepared to manage these children at school."

Nationally, MCAN, a non-profit organization funded by the Merck Company Foundation, provides funding to four other local programs that target low-income, urban populations with high rates of pediatric asthma in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Puerto Rico. The goal is to evaluate the effectiveness of these programs and use the findings to develop model programs that can be replicated and tailored in communities across the country.

"The Philadelphia MCAN program has shown that we can help children manage their asthma and that means improved quality of life, significantly fewer trips to the ER or stays in the hospital, and best of all, more days in school," says Dr. Tyra Bryant-Stephens from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and co-lead investigator of the Philadelphia MCAN project. "Empowering caregivers and children with this knowledge has helped to greatly decrease the school days missed by children in Philadelphia, a segment of the nearly 13 million schools days missed each year by the millions of children nationwide that have been diagnosed with asthma."

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Autumn In New England

2009-09-08T06:15:00.002-04:00

Doesn't it seem each season brings a different type of vacation or getaway? Summertime is for the beach and camping. In winter, you want to escape some place warm and exotic.

As summer slips away, and fall approaches, what sort of excursion is best for autumn? Nothing says "fall" like New England, with the postcard-perfect scenery and, of course, the magnificent foliage bursting out everywhere.

Boothbay Harbor is just such a quintessential New England town, and Boothbay Harbor Maine is home to Brown's Wharf Inn, which is quintessential New England establishment. The Inn can take care of nearly all of your getaway needs, as it is an inn, marina and world-class seafood restaurant all under one roof.

Brown's Wharf Inn represents classic Boothbay Harbor Dining, with lobsters -- of course -- offered a variety of ways, and the warm-you-up favorite of New England Clam Chowder.

Click on these links to review the Inn's menu, or check out their entire vacation packages.

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Opinion: A Redskins Fan No More, Or How Dan Snyder Made A Grandma Cry

2009-09-03T20:51:00.002-04:00

By Scott Nance

We're not serious sports fans, but being as my wife's from Baltimore and I've lived most of the last 15 years around Washington, DC, a little friendly rivalry developed.

She'd root for the Orioles and Ravens; I'd side with the Nationals and Redskins. We'd rib each other, with our Baltimore-born daughter usually chiming in on her mother's side. It was all in good fun.

Today, though, I'm as committed a Ravens fan as you can find. The Washington Redskins — and owner Dan Snyder — can count me out.

Somehow I figure I'm not the only one, either. Most anyone who saw the same huge photo of a weeping Pat Hill on the front page of today's Washington Post likely feels the same way.

The Post reported how the Redskins filed suit against the 72-year-old Hill and others like her who could no longer afford the expensive tickets they had purchased in advance years earlier in better economic times.

But there Hill sat in that picture of her crying amid all of the Redskins memorabilia she'd collected over decades of being a serious fan.

Hill and others tried to work things out with team, but were served with lawsuits, instead. Hill, a real estate agent whose business went bust with the recession, couldn't even afford to hire an attorney to defend herself.

She didn't even try to fight the suit. In the end, a judge granted the Redskins a $66,364 default judgment against Hill. Today, Hill faces bankruptcy.

In an industry where it can be make or break for a team based on superior relations with its home community, this is the kind of support Snyder offers.

The lawsuits aren't even recouping the lost ticket revenue for the 'Skins — the team's attorney admits in the Post that "Getting a judgment is not getting paid."

The Post goes on to document where tickets forfeited by impoverished fans actually got resold to brokers and others anyway. So Snyder is still selling his tickets, so what's the point to sue?

The 'Skins lawyer claims that all teams sue in such circumstances. The Post proves otherwise, reporting that many NFL teams do not sue fans who can't pay for big-dollar tickets. (I'm proud to say my Ravens are on that do-not-sue list.)

Somebody in the Redskins' operation wasn't putting two and two together — that these lawsuits against fans facing hard times were just going to add up to enough bad publicity to fill FedEx Field.

Well, that's just what the 'Skins and Mr. Snyder have now. Where's the revenue upside in that?

If this is how the team treats its fans, would you really want to be a fan anymore?

Stay away. For that matter, stay away from Six Flags, too. (Snyder also owns the amusement park chain.) Give your business to those organizations that show a little more compassion during the worst recession we've seen since the Great Depression.

I could go on, but I've got to go find that Ravens jersey my wife bought me.

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Buying A Car After Cash For Clunkers

2009-08-31T05:44:00.003-04:00

We've all heard how successful the government's "cash for clunkers" car-buying rebate program was -- so much so, the government had to go back and put more money into it to keep it going.

Cash for clunkers, however, is now history.

Are you thinking of buying a new car, but did you miss it? Or did your particular "clunker" just not qualify for a rebate under the program?

Carmakers and their dealers are looking to keep interest in car-buying alive, even after the end of the federal rebates.

One of the major objective of cash for clunkers was for consumers to retire their older gas guzzlers in favor of new, more fuel efficient models.

You can still get in on this goal, as well, and there are resources on the Internet to help.

You can go online to compare makes and models, including gas mileage information for a variety of vehicles, including honda, the lexus rx, and infiniti brands.

Look them up and compare and contrast different vehicles. See how the different fuel efficiencies stack up versus the cost of the vehicle, as well as reliability, maintenance costs and other important factors.

Click on the links above to get a sense of the detail of the reviews at hand. This website features both snapshot details and more in-depth reviews --- depending on the information you need and your level of interest.

Of course, the "guts" of a car isn't everything. You may be primarily interested in style. That's okay, too, because these links will also present a variety of car photos, so you find the hottest ride you can afford!

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World's Smallest Semiconductor Laser Heralds New Era In Optical Science

2009-08-30T18:20:00.004-04:00

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have reached a new milestone in laser physics by creating the world's smallest semiconductor laser, capable of generating visible light in a space smaller than a single protein molecule.

This breakthrough, described in an advanced online publication of the journal Nature on Sunday, Aug. 30, breaks new ground in the field of optics. The UC Berkeley team not only successfully squeezed light into such a tight space, but found a novel way to keep that light energy from dissipating as it moved along, thereby achieving laser action.

"This work shatters traditional notions of laser limits, and makes a major advance toward applications in the biomedical, communications and computing fields," says Xiang Zhang, professor of mechanical engineering and director of UC Berkeley's Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, which is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and head of the research team behind this work.

The achievement helps enable the development of such innovations as nanolasers that can probe, manipulate and characterize DNA molecules; optics-based telecommunications many times faster than current technology; and optical computing in which light replaces electronic circuitry with a corresponding leap in speed and processing power.

While it is traditionally accepted that an electromagnetic wave -- including laser light -- cannot be focused beyond the size of half its wavelength, research teams around the world have found a way to compress light down to dozens of nanometers by binding it to the electrons that oscillate collectively at the surface of metals. This interaction between light and oscillating electrons is known as surface plasmons.

Scientists have been racing to construct surface plasmon lasers that can sustain and utilize these tiny optical excitations. However, the resistance inherent in metals causes these surface plasmons to dissipate almost immediately after being generated, posing a critical challenge to achieving the buildup of the electromagnetic field necessary for lasing.

Zhang and his research team took a novel approach to stem the loss of light energy by pairing a cadmium sulfide nanowire -- 1,000 times thinner than a human hair -- with a silver surface separated by an insulating gap of only 5 nanometers, the size of a single protein molecule. In this structure, the gap region stores light within an area 20 times smaller than its wavelength. Because light energy is largely stored in this tiny non-metallic gap, loss is significantly diminished.

With the loss finally under control through this unique "hybrid" design, the researchers could then work on amplifying the light.

"When you are working at such small scales, you do not have much space to play around with," says Rupert Oulton, the research associate in Zhang's lab who first theorized this approach last year and the study's co-lead author. "In our design, the nanowire acts as both a confinement mechanism and an amplifier. It's pulling double duty."

Trapping and sustaining light in radically tight quarters creates such extreme conditions that the very interaction of light and matter is strongly altered, the study authors explained. An increase in the spontaneous emission rate of light is a telltale sign of this altered interaction; in this study, the researchers measured a six-fold increase in the spontaneous emission rate of light in a gap size of 5 nanometers.

Recently, researchers from Norfolk State University reported lasing action of gold spheres in a dye-filled, glasslike shell immersed in a solution. The dye coupled to the gold spheres could generate surface plasmons when exposed to light.

The UC Berkeley researchers used semiconductor materials and fabrication technologies that are commonly employed in modern electronics manufacturing. By engineering hybrid surface plasmons in the tiny gap between semiconductors and metals, they were able to sustain the strongly confined light long enough that its oscillations stabilized into the coherent state that is a key characteristic of a laser.

"What is particularly exciting about the plasmonic lasers we demonstrated here is that they are solid state and fully compatible with semiconductor manufacturing, so they can be electrically pumped and fully integrated at chip-scale," says Volker Sorger, a Ph.D. student in Zhang's lab and study co-lead author.

"Plasmon lasers represent an exciting class of coherent light sources capable of extremely small confinement," says Zhang. "This work can bridge the worlds of electronics and optics at truly molecular length scales."

Scientists hope to eventually shrink light down to the size of an electron's wavelength, which is about a nanometer, or one-billionth of a meter, so that the two can work together on equal footing.

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Video of the Day: Scientists find 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch'

2009-08-29T21:38:00.003-04:00

Researchers say a Texas-sized garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean is possibly killing marine life and birds that are ingesting the trash.
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History, Literature, And Creating A Truly Memorable Family Vacation

2009-08-29T21:25:00.005-04:00

Here is a great idea for family vacation that combines literature, history and camping.

Have you always wanted to visit Gettysburg?

Start by having your family read the novel The Killer Angels, the book that won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize. Written by Michael Shaara, this book takes you in the moment-by-moment events in the three days of battle in Pennsylvania from the perspectives of several different soldiers who were there, both North and South.

Read the book and then go visit the battlefield on a gettysburg camping vacation.

Taking this advice, as a family, you are reading one of the great pieces of 20th century literature, exploring history by actually being there, and then having some great family togetherness while saving money by taking advantage of pa rv camping and staying at one of the great pennsylvania RV Parks.

Reading the book will give your visit to Gettysburg added depth, background -- and enjoyment.

Click on these links here to find out just how nice these camping accommodations can be.

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Tropical Storm Danny Stars In GOES Satellite Movie

2009-08-29T14:11:00.003-04:00

NASA's GOES Project has been busy with animating satellite imagery of Tropical Storm Danny, and has created a movie of him from August 25-27.

The short movie includes still imagery from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) called GOES-12, monitors weather conditions over the U.S. east coast. NASA's GOES Project, located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. creates imagery and animations from GOES-12 data, and created the movie.

The movie begins with an image on August 25 when Danny was just a low pressure area, east of the Bahamas and not yet named. The movie continues through Danny's formation and classification as a tropical storm during the morning of August 26, to the beginning of its journey up the U.S. East Coast August 27 at 2:25 p.m. EDT.

Danny's maximum sustained winds at 11 a.m. EDT, August 27 were near 60 mph, and slow strengthening is expected. He was located near 27.5 north and 73.1 west, or 550 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Danny is moving northwest near 13 mph, and is expected to turn north. Danny had a minimum central pressure near 1006 millibars.

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Online Help For Playing Piano

2009-08-23T11:03:00.005-04:00

Piano Chords can be very hard to master...it can years of steady practice. There's help on the Internet now to take your skill on Piano Chords to the next level by learning the art of improvisation.

The best thing is the videos you can click and watch so you can see performance of the Piano Chords right up close.

The site is operated by a nationally certified piano teacher and promotes the idea of being able to play piano without the need of assistance from sheet music.

If you enjoy playing the piano and want to learn more, please click on these links for more information and details on a DVD-based course, including testimonials that praise the course.

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While Debt Mounts, Couple Chases BofA Loan Mod

2009-08-22T09:11:00.003-04:00

by Alexandra Andrews, ProPublica

Bank of America is the biggest mortgage servicer in the business. And judging by Treasury Department data, its customers searching for loan modifications are the most frustrated.

Through the end of July, it had modified just 4 percent of its most delinquent loans eligible for the government’s foreclosure-prevention program – roughly 28,000 out of the nearly 800,000 for which payments were at least 60 days late.

The saga of Ian and Megan Bearce of Glendale, Calif., puts a face to those numbers.

The Bearces have been waiting for a loan modification from Bank of America for three months.

Their deadline for a decision has been pushed back twice. Their financial information has gone missing. Their calls have gone unreturned.

“Adding insult to injury,” Megan said in June, “is a giant pullout from Money Magazine this month sponsored by Bank of America with advertising stating: ‘We’re going to work very hard for you to try and get those mortgage payments down to help you stay in your home. That’s a huge priority for us.’ Right.”

She added: “There’s all this propaganda, but when you try to work with them, nothing happens. We’re in a holding pattern.”

Ian, an executive at a company that produces commercials, called Bank of America on May 15, the day he found out that his salary was being slashed for the second time in two years. The Bearces had just had their second child and could barely afford their monthly expenses. They began eating away at their savings and putting thousands of dollars on credit cards every month, but they managed to keep up with their mortgage payments. They pay $2,866 a month on their first mortgage, including taxes and insurance, and $221 on their second. They also pay health insurance out of pocket; that’s another $768 a month.

It turns out they would have had a better chance of getting help early on if they had been less responsible. When Bank of America began modifying loans under the government’s Making Home Affordable program in April, it concentrated on borrowers who were already in default, spokesman Rick Simon said.

But when the Bearces called in May, they said, a Bank of America employee told them they weren’t eligible for the program because they hadn’t missed any payments and because their mortgage wasn’t held by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Both claims about the program are untrue (but not uncommon). Housing counselors have complained that employees at participating servicers often display an “alarming ignorance” of the program, as Diane Thompson of the National Consumer Law Center put it at a Senate panel hearing in June.

Simon disputed that account. What the employee probably told the Bearces, he said, was that their loan didn’t meet the criteria for loans being prioritized by the bank, but that they might be eligible in the future. (Ian said he had asked to record the call with Bank of America but was told he would be disconnected if he did.)

Megan said they were told in that first phone call that, even though they weren’t eligible for Making Home Affordable, “we could send in our financial info and a letter why we were requesting a mod and they maybe could do something.”

On May 17, they sent in tax returns, pay stubs, debt and income data, and a letter explaining why they needed help. “We had to send our financial information three different times before they could confirm they received it,” Megan said. Finally, on May 26, they were told that all of their paperwork was in order and it would take 30 to 60 days to decide whether to modify their loan.

One month later, the couple hadn’t heard. But an hour after ProPublica inquired about the status of their case, they got a phone call from Bank of America — their first — and were relieved to finally be assigned a case manager, Terri. Terri told them to wait another 30 days.
Thirty days went by, and Terri wasn’t returning their phone calls.

In the early days of August, they were assured by three separate employees that they would have a decision by Aug. 6. That day, too, came and went without any contact.

On Aug. 10, Ian called the bank’s 800 number and was given a new deadline: the end of the month. Two staffers offered to try to track down the elusive Terri, who called Ian later that day. She asked him to fax in their 2007 tax return and updated information concerning Megan’s income as a therapist, but she couldn’t give him a timeframe for a decision.

Terri called again on Aug. 18 and said she was meeting with “management” in the next few days to discuss their case. Megan asked if she thought Bank of America would work with them on any type of modification. Terri couldn’t say.

According to Simon, the company spokesman, the Bearce’s request is being “actively pursued.”

In the meantime, they’re still current on their mortgage, but their credit card debt is mounting. After paying their mortgage, health insurance and child care costs, “there’s not much left for diapers and groceries and gas,” Megan said. “Those go on the credit card.”

Not all servicers share Bank of America’s sluggish performance. JPMorgan Chase, another large servicer participating in the government’s program, has helped more homeowners than Bank of America has, despite having about half the number of eligible loans, according to the Treasury Department. It managed to modify 20 percent of its most delinquent eligible loans by the end of July. The average among participants was 9 percent, but that figure takes into account servicers that had signed up just 20 days before. Bank of America, meanwhile, has had four months to implement the program.

Both the media and the administration have publicly flogged the program’s laggards, of which Bank of America, which now includes Countrywide, is the largest.

“We think they could have ramped up better, faster, more consistently,” said Michael Barr, the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for financial institutions, on Aug. 4. “And we expect them to do more.”

ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.

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Need To Promote An Important Event? Try A Calendar

2009-08-21T05:54:00.004-04:00

These days it seems businesses of all types are jumping onto the social networking bandwagon to try to promote themselves -- especially to get out invites and updates to let potential customers know about significant upcoming events, promotions, or the like.

These tools certainly have a place, but you could always also try something a bit more low-tech, like a DRY ERASE CALENDAR. It almost seems too simple, too pedestrian. But a new website is selling large calendars, like a DRY ERASE CALENDAR, especially for the restaurant market.

Think about it: who better to market your wine tasting, televised sports event, fundraising night -- or other important occasion than the customers you already have? That's right. You could spend a lot of time trying new fancy ways to bring strangers in -- again, not discounting that -- but why not give attention to the customers who already come in and already have shown you some indication of business loyalty?

That's where a special, large calendar would come in, displayed prominently at your establishment to call attention for folks all of the things you want them to know. Give your customers a reason to come back again!

Click these links here to find out more about how a DRY ERASE CALENDAR could really help promote your business.

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No Comfort In Comfort Foods During Tough Economic Times, Study Finds

2009-08-18T06:31:00.006-04:00

Most of us can name our favorite "comfort foods" and believe that we are most prone to seek them out during times of stress and upheaval—like moving to a new town or starting (or ending!) a job. Contrary to this well-engrained belief, this research shows the surprising result that our choices of old favorites happen at the opposite times that we predict.

The data here show that when peoples' lives are characterized by high levels of change and upheaval, they are less likely to choose favorite "comfort" choices and more likely to choose new, unfamiliar products…even though they predict just the opposite! This common mis-prediction can lead to negative consequences for consumers in that it suggests people may choose the wrong timing for making positive new changes in one's life.

What are comfort foods and when do we choose them?

Comfort foods are often satisfyingly high-calorie fare, but typically our comfort foods reflect a deeper nostalgic familiarity—comfort foods are those that we have a long history with, whether it is an old family recipe for meatloaf or a long-time favorite treat from a particular restaurant. And one can argue that the comfort food practice goes far beyond food. Consumers may believe that they are more likely to rent favorite movies, listen to familiar music, and stick with engrained consumption habits (e.g., smoking, a daily latte) when they are otherwise surrounded by many new or changing environmental factors. In this research, this commonly held intuition or "lay theory" is examined, asking, "Do we really favor familiar things in times of change?"

Choice of comfort foods is opposite what we predict

Several studies investigated this question. In a prediction study, participants were told about a person who was described either as being in a very stable life situation or in the midst of many changes. Participants were then asked to predict whether this person would choose either a highly familiar or unfamiliar version of a similar snack (a very popular and well-like American potato chip in familiar flavors or an unknown British potato "crisp" in exotic flavors like Camembert and Plum).

Participants predicted that the stable person would choose the exotic unfamiliar crisp and the person in a state of change would choose the familiar chip. They explained their predictions by saying that the stable person would have more time and energy to try new things and the person experiencing change would be more interested in choosing a known or "sure thing" option. However, in a separate choice study, participants were asked to rate the level of change and upheaval in their own lives and then, in a later task, given the opportunity to choose either the familiar American chip or the unfamiliar British crisp.

Opposite to the predictions, participants who were experiencing more change were less likely to choose the old familiar favorite and more likely to choose the new and unfamiliar option. Thus, this result is called the "comfort food fallacy" effect. It does not say that comfort foods are not enjoyable, but rather that we don't seem to seek them out when we think we do. Contrary to our expectations, comfort foods appear to be chosen more often in comfortable times.

The result extends beyond food

This choice study was repeated with non-food options (such as downloading songs from favorite artists versus new artists or watching a favorite movie versus a new and not previously seen movie). The results again show the same comfort food fallacy effect—people experiencing more change were less likely to choose old favorites.

Choice of new options can be increased by increasing perceived change

A final study investigated whether it was possible to influence peoples' choices of familiar favorites versus new options. The results show that by manipulating the perceived level of change in a person's life, the likelihood of choosing a new option was also manipulated. Participants were asked to list either eight big changes in their lives or two big changes. Participants who listed more changes were subsequently more likely to choose the unfamiliar new option versus the old favorite option. Further, this study showed that the effect did not depend on whether the big changes listed by the participants were positive or negative—the effect happened in both cases.

Implications for consumer welfare

What does this mean for consumers? First, it suggests the fallacy of our "lay theory" of comfort food. When we actively choose comfort foods (or other comfortable things) they may indeed feel good. But this research shows that we are wrong when we think we always seek out old comfortable favorites in times of change and upheaval. Rather, the studies show that we are automatically more open to new options in times of change and upheaval. In states of change, we may find ourselves in a "change mindset," automatically more attuned to new options in our environment. It may be that this occurs for two reasons: first, big changes often necessitate new choices and we may, therefore, pay more attention to new options in general and, second, big changes often break the old habitual cues that tied us to familiar choices or actions.

If change begets change, as this research suggests, then one implication of this work is that it suggests when we will be most successful in adopting positive new changes. Many people believe that they shouldn't try too many new things at once. For example they may believe that a time of change is not a good time to start a new exercise program or try other new things, thinking instead to wait until they "settle in." This research suggests that a time of change (new job, new town, new situation) may be an ideal time to adopt desired changes because we are inherently more open to new options then. Times of change and upheaval may also be surprisingly good times to break away from unhealthy comforts like smoking or junk food. Recognizing the comfort food fallacy may help us better manage the positive new changes we make in our lives.

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Make Your 401k Golden

2009-08-18T06:16:00.003-04:00

That many folks have seen their 401k's and other retirement accounts shrink over the last year as the economy has gone into meltdown is not news.

But did you know that if you put $25,000 in a gold IRA or gold 401k in 2000, rather than come away with less in 2009 -- you would have accumulated a worth of $103,457?

That's because unlike stocks, gold usually flourishes in the hard times -- which is why gold has been called the "crisis commodity."

You are probably like me though, I didn't even know how to put gold in my IRA -- or even that I could. It's true. The federal government allows Gold American Eagle and Gold proof American Eagle coins in IRA accounts.

But click these links here to finally learn how to put gold in an IRA, even right alongside stocks, mutual funds and other more traditional investments for even more diversification.

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Putting Nanotechnology On The Map

2009-08-18T05:07:00.003-04:00

Every state can now lay claim to the nanotechnology revolution.

Data released today by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) highlights more than 1,200 companies, universities, government laboratories, and other organizations across all 50 U.S. states and in the District of Columbia that are involved in nanotechnology research, development, and commercialization. This number is up 50 percent from the 800 organizations identified just two years ago.

Nanotechnology is the ability to measure, see, manipulate and manufacture things usually between 1 and 100 nanometers. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter; a human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometers wide.

While many of the original "Nano Metro" clusters -- areas with the nation's highest concentration of nanotechnology companies, universities, research laboratories, and organizations -- have maintained their prominence in the field, areas such as Boston have moved up in the rankings, while others, such as Raleigh, N.C., have broken into the top-ranked locations for the first time.

This information is part of PEN's interactive map displaying the growing "Nano Metro" landscape, powered by Google Maps, and available online. The map's accompanying analysis ranks cities and states by numbers of companies, academic and government research centers, and organizations and technology focus by sector.

Nanotechnology Map Highlights:

The top 4 states overall (each with over 75 entries) are California, Massachusetts, New York, and Texas. These states have retained their lead since the first analysis was released in 2007. Ohio has moved up four spots as the state with the sixth most entries. North Carolina has broken into the top 10 states for the first time.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia have at least one company, university, government laboratory, or organization working in the field of nanotechnology.

The top 6 Nano Metros (each with 30 or more entries) are: Boston; San Francisco; San Jose, Calif.; Raleigh; Middlesex-Essex, Mass.; and Oakland, Calif. Boston and San Francisco have taken the lead from San Jose. Raleigh has moved into the top 5 Nano Metros (displacing Oakland).

The top 3 sectors for companies working in nanotechnology (each with over 200 entries) are: materials; tools and instruments; and medicine and health.

The number of universities and government laboratories working in nanotechnology is still substantial, as it was in 2007, with 182 identified.

"The rapid growth in nanotechnology activity across the United States illustrates the impact of continued and significant investments in nanoscience and nanoengineering by the federal government and private sector," says PEN Director David Rejeski. "There is now not a single state without organizations involved in this cutting-edge field."

The global market for goods based on nanotechnology is predicted to grow from $147 billion in 2007 to $3.1 trillion in 2015, according to the research and advisory firm Lux Research.

"Given this expected continuation in growth, the 'Nano Metro' map remains a work in progress and will be further updated as more data becomes available," says Rejeski.

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A Biker Bar That Serves Thai Food

2009-08-17T07:00:00.004-04:00

Yes, that would be Lu & Joe's, one of my local restaurants. From the outside, though, how would you ever know this place offers a Thai menu?

You probably wouldn't, except for the fact its included on Local.com, which is a local search tool, so that you can learn more about the restaurants and establishments you may pass by every day, but maybe wish you knew more about.

Local.com is like a local yellowpages, in that you can get business names, addresses and phone numbers. But unlike a phone directory, Local.com lets you in on more information, as well -- including customer reviews.

How else might you find out that the bar with all the bikes outside might also serve a mighty Pad Thai noodles dish?

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New Material For Nanoscale Computer Chips

2009-08-17T05:08:00.003-04:00

New data from a Chinese-Danish collaboration shows that organic nanoscale wires could be an alternative to silicon in computer chips. The discovery has just been published in the respected scientific journal, Advanced Materials.

Nanochemists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Nano-Science Center, Department of Chemistry, at the University of Copenhagen, have developed nanoscale electric contacts out of organic and inorganic nanowires. In the contact they have crossed the wires like Mikado sticks and coupled several contacts together in an electric circuit. In this way they have produced prototype computer electronics on the nanoscale.

Alternative to silicon computers

Today the foundation of our computers, mobile phones and other electronic apparatus is silicon transistors. A transistor is in principal an on- and off- contact and there are millions of tiny transistors on every computer chip. However, we are reaching the limit for how small we can make transistors out of silicon.

We already use various organic materials in, for example, flat screens, such as OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode). The new results show how small and advanced devices made of organic materials can become. Thomas Bjørnholm, director of the Nano-Science Center, explains:

"We have succeeded in placing several transistors consisting of nanowires together on a nano device. It is a first step towards realisation of future electronic circuitry based on organic materials – a possible substitute for today’s silicon-based technologies. This offers the possibility of making computers in different ways in the future."

Danish-Chinese nanoelectronics

The researchers have used organic nanowires combined with the tin oxide nanowires in a so-called hybrid circuit. As in a Mikado game, the nanowires cross in a device consisting of 4-6 active transistor moieties. The devices have a low operational current, high mobility and good stability and that is essential in order for the material to be able to compete with silicon.

Professor Wenping Hu, Chinese Academy of Sciences is excited over the results, saying: "This work is the first significant result of our collaboration with the researchers from the Nano-Science Center. It is a good starting point for our new Danish-Chinese research centre for molecular nano-electronics and it underlines the fact that we can complement each other and that together we can achieve exciting and important results."

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Investment Opportunities

2009-08-16T10:12:00.004-04:00

Everyone is trying to guess how much longer this recession -- call it the "Great Recession -- will last. When will a recovery come? What will that recovery look like?

These all are questions for any investor who's engaged in Stock Trading today.

Despite the downturn, you may be able to spot some stocks already showing signs of recovery. Check quarterly earnings reports, do you see a company or sector performing well despite -- or even because of -- the current downturn? McDonald's restaurants, for instance, recently reported increases in same-store sales.

The newsletter offered by broker FirstTrade may provide you with some additional concrete information.

As you consider your market moves, think about Online Trading and whether using an Online Broker like FirstTrade will save you money as you build back your portfolio.

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Bank Failure Friday Costs FDIC Nearly $4 Billion

2009-08-15T19:51:00.003-04:00

by Jake Bernstein, ProPublica

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. shuttered five banks on Friday, bringing the total number of failures for the year to 77. The agency’s insurance fund took a hit of nearly $4 billion. In March, the FDIC reported that its fund was at a 16-year low of $13 billion. New assessments on member institutions are expected to help replenish the fund, but the recent failures will likely intensify speculation that the FDIC might need a taxpayer bailout at some point.

Two of the five institutions—Colonial Bank and Community Bank of Nevada—accounted for the bulk of the losses. Both institutions have been zombies for months, kept alive by regulators as they scrambled to find the least costly way to put them down. Outside events and a sputtering economy appear to have finally forced the FDIC’s hand.

The FDIC estimates that the failure of Alabama-based Colonial will cost the fund $2.8 billion. Colonial’s deposits will be assumed by Branch Banking and Trust (BB&T) of Winston-Salem, N.C. BB&T purchased approximately $22 billion of Colonial Bank’s assets, instantly making it the ninth-biggest U.S. bank by assets, according to Bloomberg News. Colonial had 346 branches spread out over Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Texas. Today, these opened as branches of BB&T. The North Carolina bank has also agreed to share a small portion of the losses with the FDIC.

Colonial’s passing was truly a death foretold. It reported a $606 million second-quarter loss, its fifth straight quarterly deficit, according to Bloomberg. The bank tried to get money from the TARP but didn’t meet the requirements. A deal for private investors to put $300 million into the bank fell apart. Early this month, Colonial reported that it was the target of a criminal investigation by federal authorities over its mortgage lending activities. The Securities and Exchange Commission also issued subpoenas for documents relating to its accounting procedures. And, it was under a cease and desist enforcement order with its regulators to halt its “unsafe and unsound” banking practices. Then, on Thursday, Bank of America won a restraining order against Colonial in an attempt to reclaim $1 billion it says it is owed.

The failure of Community Bank of Nevada is expected to cost the FDIC insurance fund $781.5 million. The bank has been in a free fall for at least a year. Its risky construction and development lending helped produce a $151.9 million loss last year. Non-performing assets, which include delinquent loans and repossessed real estate, made up 30 percent of total loans on June 30, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Despite assets of $1.5 billion, the bank had just $878,000 in reserves.

Try as it might, the FDIC could not find a buyer for this mess. It contacted 166 potential bidders to no avail, the FDIC told the Review-Journal. So instead, in a once-rare maneuver, the FDIC established a temporary bank—the Deposit Insurance National Bank of Las Vegas—to allow depositors time to open accounts at other insured institutions. This is the third time this year the FDIC has established a so-called “Bridge Bank,” because it couldn’t find buyers for a failed institution.

Community Bancorp, the Las Vegas-based holding company for the Nevada bank, also operated a similarly named bank in Arizona, which also failed. The Community Bank of Arizona cost the FDIC deposit fund only an estimated $25.5 million. Its deposits were assumed by MidFirst Bank of Oklahoma City. MidFirst also scooped up another small community bank that failed yesterday, Union Bank of Arizona, whose failure cost the FDIC an estimated $61 million.
The last to be mentioned but the first to fail on Friday was little Dwelling House Savings and Loan Association of Pittsburgh. The failure cost the FDIC a paltry $6.8 million. PNC Bank, also of Pittsburgh, got the deposits.

The collapse of Colonial and its $2.8 billion price tag for the FDIC is understandably dominating the headlines as it appears to be the third costliest bank failure for the FDIC since the economic crisis began.The Associated Press provides some perspective:

The May closing of struggling Florida thrift BankUnited FSB is expected to cost the insurance fund $4.9 billion, the second-largest hit since the financial crisis began. The costliest was the July 2008 seizure of big California lender IndyMac Bank, on which the insurance fund is estimated to have lost $10.7 billion.

The largest U.S. bank failure ever also came last year: Seattle-based thrift Washington Mutual Inc. fell in September, with about $307 billion in assets. It was acquired by JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 billion in a deal brokered by the FDIC.

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Surviving Mesothelioma

2009-08-15T09:16:00.003-04:00

All too often, a diagnosis of mesothelioma has meant a death sentence. Treatments like radiation or chemotherapy have been found to extend a patient's life perhaps five years. It's a form of cancer most associated with asbestos exposure.

Now consider the case of Paul Kraus. In 1997 Kraus was diagnosed with the disease and his mesothelioma prognosis was just a few months to live. Today, 12 years later, Kraus is alive and said to have a good quality of life.

How was it done? Click on these links to learn more about surviving pleural mesothelioma and related disease. In fact, right now through these web links, you can request a free copy of the book Surviving Mesothelioma, available for newly diagnosed mesothelioma patients.

If mesothlioma is now part of your life, you owe it to yourself to get the facts. Don't give up.

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How Did Organ Trafficking Scheme Stay Hidden?

2009-08-10T18:17:00.003-04:00

By Emily Witt, ProPublica

The arrest of Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, the Brooklyn resident charged last month with acting as a "matchmaker" for buyers and sellers of human organs, spotlights the issue of live donor organ trafficking in the United States. It also raises a question: How could Rosenbaum ply his trade for as long as a decade, according to statements in the criminal complaint filed against him, without being caught?

The 1984 National Organ Transplantation Act states clearly that the buying and selling of organs is illegal: Violators face up to five years in prison and a $50,000 fine. The prohibition is intended to prevent exploitation of the poor or others who might be tempted to sell an organ out of desperation.

When it comes to enforcing the law, however, transplant centers are essentially left to police themselves. The law doesn't offer guidelines about how transplant centers should proceed if they suspect a live donor has been paid.

"Other countries have mobilized the justice system around the traffic, and the U.S. has in my estimation turned a blind eye," said Nancy Scheper-Hughes, an anthropologist from the University of California, Berkeley, who has documented the international organ trafficking business for more than a decade. The Daily News in New York reported that Scheper-Hughes had informed the FBI about Rosenbaum's business seven years before he was finally arrested.

Some who follow the donation process aren't surprised by the lack of enforcement interest.
Alex Capron, a professor of health care law, policy and ethics at the University of Southern California, said reports of potentially illegal organ transactions are rare within the medical community because doctors feel bound by a confidential relationship with their patients.

"My guess is the doctor would simply drag his feet, and the patient would disappear rather than having the police swoop in," Capron said.

The United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit organization under contract with the Department of Health and Human Services, has established guidelines for members of its Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. To gain membership in the network, which is mandatory to receive Medicare payments, transplant centers must demonstrate that they make sure a recipient isn't purchasing the organ. They also must have an independent donor advocate on staff and conduct psychosocial assessments prior to surgery. The organization conducts occasional audits to make sure members comply.

But the network's guidelines don't specify how rigorous an investigation must be. They state only that the center should get "confirmation of the voluntary nature of proceeding with the evaluation and the donation."

A network spokesman acknowledged that the burden of proof can vary from center to center. He also said that tips about suspicious activity have been passed on to federal authorities in the past.

Dr. Gabriel Danovitch, medical director of the kidney transplant program at University of California, Los Angeles, said that the process of live organ donation is effectively governed by trust, and that more regulation could deter legal donors. Doctors and hospitals know their reputations would be destroyed if they broke the law, he said.

"We are not police, and we are not the FBI, and we do not do, for instance, Social Security background checks or identification checks — and we haven't found that necessary to do so because we use our best judgment," Danovitch said.

As an example, he recalled refusing a suspicious donation of a kidney by a gardener to his multimillionaire employer. "It didn't smell right," he said.

The charges against Rosenbaum go beyond a single illegal exchange. According to the criminal complaint, he claimed to have been in the business of brokering live organ sales for 10 years. He allegedly charged the kidney recipient $150,000 to find a donor.

To justify the cost, the complaint says, Rosenbaum cited the expense of medical examinations in Israel, visa fees and the donor's care in recovery. From the information available thus far in the case, it's unclear who else was involved. The only other person cited in the complaint is a lab worker whom Rosenbaum paid in cash to verify recipients' blood types.

Danovitch said there are three possible scenarios for how such a long-standing scheme could exist: The hospitals and the doctors were successfully hoodwinked into believing the emotional relationship between the donors and the recipients; they turned a blind eye to signs of impropriety; or they were complicit.

Danovitch said there's no evidence that doctors or hospitals have been complicit in such schemes. If the Rosenbaum case or others end up revealing systemic wrongdoing, he said he would support stricter rules and greater oversight.

The criminal complaint alleges that Rosenbaum helped coach a donor and a recipient to fool doctors and create a fictitious relationship. He called it "the easy part," the complaint says.

Scheper-Hughes said investigations by her and by various news investigations (such as this one from Newsweek) indicate that the sale of live organs isn't as widespread in the U.S. as it is in some other countries, but it does exist here.

"This has been known," Scheper-Hughes said. "It's not a secret."

She expressed frustration that the transplant community worked to keep oversight "inside the fold."

"That's just not the way justice works in the world," she said.

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Myrtle Beach Passes The 'Teenage Test'

2009-08-10T05:42:00.003-04:00

Planning a vacation that the whole family will enjoy is often difficult -- and teenagers can be particularly hard to please.

Myrtle Beach, however, passes the "teenage test." My 19-year-old stepson, who has grown bored with our more local beach towns, just returned from a trip to Myrtle Beach and loves it. So much so, in fact, he is already planning another trip this summer.

With that in mind, if you have an older teenager you are trying to convince to come along on a family vacation, you ought to check out this Myrtle Beach Resort. Actually, if you click on this one website, you'll actually be able to learn about seven different Myrtle Beach Resorts and Myrtle Beach Hotels.

If you have teenagers and thought the days of them being able to join in and really enjoy a family vacation were long since past, you ought to check out these links. For once, you might surprise your teenager -- instead of the other way around.

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Study: Higher Education Playing Bigger Role In Gender Wage Gap

2009-08-09T20:10:00.003-04:00

While higher education has helped women narrow their long-running wage gap with men, there is one college-related factor that has becoming increasingly important in perpetuating that gap, according to new research.

And that factor is college major.

Women are still segregated into college majors that will lead them to careers with less pay than men, says Donna Bobbitt-Zeher, author of the study and assistant professor of sociology at Ohio State University at Marion.

"Gender segregation in college is becoming more influential in how men and women are rewarded later in life," Bobbitt-Zeher says.

"If you really want to eliminate earnings inequality, college major segregation is a piece of the puzzle that really stands out."

The findings are especially important now because many people assume that, if anything, college helps women more than it helps men nowadays.

"A lot of people look at data showing that women are more likely to go to college than men, and that women get better grades in college than men, and assume that everything is all right," she says.

"But this research suggests there are still problems for women that relate to college."

Bobbitt-Zeher presented her research August 9 in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.

She used data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 and the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988. With these data sets, she was able to compare women who graduated from high school in 1972 and 1992. She compared the incomes of college graduates seven years after their high school graduations, in 1979 and 1999. Both samples included about 10,000 cases.

Findings showed the income gap between college-educated men and women declined significantly in 20 years – in 1979, women's earnings were 78 percent of their male counterparts, but by 1999 the women were earning 83 percent as much as men.

Using well-accepted statistical techniques, Bobbitt-Zeher estimates how much of that income difference between men and women was explained by various factors in 1979 versus 1999. Some of the factors she examined included occupations and industries that men and women work in; background, including socioeconomic status and race; how much individuals valued earning a lot of money; factors related to parental and martial status; SAT scores; the colleges that people attended and whether they earned graduate degrees; and, of course, the percentage of women in their college majors.

Findings showed that about 19 percent of the income gap between college-educated men and women in 1999 could be explained by their college major -– nearly twice as much as in 1979, when 10 percent of the gap was explained by college major.

Although work-related characteristics combine to explain a bigger share of the gap, no other single known factor was more important than college major in explaining the income gap in 1999.

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Less Painful Alternative To Veneers

2009-08-09T19:11:00.003-04:00

How come it always seems that whatever new tools they come up with to improve cosmetic dentistry has to become something that hurts and causes pain.

I know what they say about "no pain, no gain," but why do braces and other appliances have to be so painful to be successful?

I remember my braces could be extremely painful. Of course, that was decades ago, but from what I understand, dental veneers used today can be painful, too.

Lumineers, however, promise the benefits of veneers but without drilling, shots, or pain. Lumineers also promise to last up to 20 years.

If you are considering cosmetic dentistry work, you should click the the links above to learn more about Lumineers and see if they are right for you. With that information in hand, talk it over with your dentist, and see about how best to give you the smile you want.

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Video: Invention Uses Mountain Dew For Fuel

2009-08-08T17:37:00.002-04:00

An Albuquerque, New Mexico man has developed a device that helps engines run on soda, including the highly-caffeinated Mountain Dew.

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FBI Raids New Orleans Police Department

2009-08-08T17:29:00.002-04:00

by A.C. Thompson, ProPublica

Correction (8/8/2009): This post originally stated that five people were wounded during the Danziger Bridge incident. In fact, it was four people.

For anybody who has followed our reporting on the violence that followed Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Times-Picayune has an interesting story today.

According to the paper, FBI agents this week raided the New Orleans Police Department’s homicide unit, seizing files and computer drives connected to the so-called Danziger Bridge incident of September 4, 2005. The bureau is investigating the episode, during which NOPD officers loosed a fusillade of bullets on a group of civilians as they walked over the bridge, killing Ronald Madison and James Brissette, and wounding four others.

The police officers involved say they began shooting in response to gunfire from the civilians; that claim is vigorously disputed by the shooting victims.

The FBI raid focused on two NOPD officers tasked with carrying out the police department’s internal probe of the shooting. One of those detectives, Sergeant Gerard Dugue, has also been investigating the murder of Henry Glover.

As we’ve reported, Glover died after he was denied medical attention by a group of NOPD officers, according to witnesses. Federal agents are also scrutinizing his death — including the possibility that he was shot by police — and in recent months, federal prosecutors have called officers before a grand jury.

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Why Should Security Software Take Over Your PC?

2009-08-08T13:22:00.004-04:00

I'm really encouraged by hearing that Zsecurity internet security software promises anti virus protection, antispyware defense and other benefits -- without using so many of my computer's own resourses to do it.

I've become frustrated as my big brand-name computer security software slows down everything that I do. It just doesn't seem right that something like anti-virus protection should negatively impact me so much.

Computer performance is one of the benefits that Z security software promises as an advantage over those other better-known security packages.

Click on the links above to learn more, and for a free trial of the Z security software. You can try it for yourself to see if you see performance or other advantages over your other security solution.

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VIDEO: Hundreds Of 'Clunkers' Set For Shredding

2009-08-07T07:53:00.002-04:00

What happens to a clunker after it is traded in?

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Ceiling Fans: A Green, Eco-Friendly Choice

2009-08-07T05:39:00.006-04:00

Chances are that this summer you're running your air conditioning to keep cool -- but frustrated, and maybe even a little afraid, of the electric bill that results.

You could be cooling your home with Ceiling Fans instead. A typical ceiling fan draws less energy than a 100-watt light bulb.

An Energy Star-rated Ceiling Fan could save you even more -- they are more than 300 percent more energy efficient than other ceiling fans. Several well-known manufacturers, including Hunter Ceiling Fans, Casablanca Ceiling Fans and Emerson Ceiling Fans provide such Energy Star models.

Ceiling fans, including the Energy Star models, also represent a chance to "go green," as they say because the less energy you use, the smaller your carbon footprint, which means you are contributing less to climate change -- and the other environmental degredations that often come as a result of electricity production (such as coal).

Interested? Want to know more? Click on these links because the website for Hansen Wholesale Ceiling Fans not only provides a wide inventory of fans for sale, but offers an informative -- and actually interesting -- frequently asked questions page that provides much more detail on ceiling fans.

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Video Essay: Florida Bay Facing Ecological Ruin

2009-08-05T07:06:00.001-04:00

As Everglades restoration slows to a crawl, Florida Bay, at the state's southern tip, is feeling the pinch. Miles of canals aimed at draining the swamp for development and farms are depriving the bay of much-needed freshwater.

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Picower: Charges of Complicity With Madoff “Baseless”

2009-08-05T05:57:00.002-04:00

By Jake Bernstein, ProPublica

The man who Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme may have enriched the most responded in court filings today to allegations that he was complicit in the fraud. In a statement, a lawyer for Jeffry Picower called the charges by Madoff trustee Irving Picard "baseless," "inflammatory" and "riddled with significant factual errors."

"In the Trustee’s zeal to clawback money for other victims, he fails to recognize that the Picowers are honorable people who were deceived by the same fraud that for many years eluded thousands of other investors, financial professionals and regulators that had access to Madoff’s files," said Picower lawyer William Zabel.

A ProPublica report in June detailed the allegations in the trustee’s complaint and what is publicly known of Picower, a media-shy investor who has worked both as a certified public accountant and lawyer. The 68-page motion to dismiss filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York directly rebuts only a few of the factual charges detailed in the ProPublica story. The bulk of the brief is filled with challenges to the legal merits of Picard’s case.
Picower does not dispute in the brief that between 1995 and 2008 he and his family withdrew $5.1 billion more than they invested with Madoff. While Picard’s complaint states that the Picowers benefited from their association with Madoff for more than 20 years, the brief puts the time span at more than 30 years.

The motion to dismiss gives no explanation for the quarterly withdrawal patterns Picard revealed in an exhibit to his complaint. Nor does it explain why the Picowers’ withdrawals peaked in 2003, when they removed a combined $1 billion from their Madoff accounts.
The brief does posit that "[t]here is no rational reason why Madoff would have compensated Mr. Picower" for withdrawing money from the Ponzi scheme, thereby potentially undermining its growth. It also questions why Picower would have left more than half a billion dollars in the scheme if he knew a turn in the economy would be the Ponzi’s undoing.

One of the allegations detailed by ProPublica involved the elevated returns Picower allegedly received on his investments with Madoff. The motion to dismiss provides examples of non-Madoff investors who also received high returns during that time period, as evidence that the Madoff results were within the realm of possibility. Specifically, Picard alleged that one Picower account, Decisions #2, "purported to earn over 950% in 1999." The Picower motion states that the account only earned 37.6% in 1999.

In another instance, the trustee claimed that two other accounts earned more than 100% over a four-year period. The Picower motion alleges that neither account earned 100% in any of those years. Neither the trustee nor Picower provide evidence that could be used to check their respective claims.

Perhaps the most serious allegation by the trustee was that Picower or his associates engaged in backdating when they ordered up "returns." Picard cites faxes and notes between Madoff’s office and Picower representatives as proof of these claims. The motion to dismiss dispatches with these charges in a few sentences.

"As with the Trustee’s other unsupported fraud allegations, he pleads no facts to support his rank speculation that the Defendants believed those trades to be fictitious and concluded, based on those trades, that Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme. No facts have been alleged to support the Trustee’s groundless conclusions, and the Court need not, and should not, accept them as true."

Research Director Lisa Schwartz contributed to this report.

Picower's motion to dismiss.

Madoff Client Jeffry Picower Netted $5 Billion—Likely More Than Madoff Himself

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Video: Jesus Appears on Las Vegas Toilet

2009-08-04T22:28:00.003-04:00

A Las Vegas woman says an image of Jesus appeared to her while cleaning her toilet.

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Make PDF Files More Useful, Easy To Use

2009-08-03T07:52:00.002-04:00

Anyone who spends time working in an office today probably sends and receives their share of PDF files. The PDF format, by design, is very useful as it allows you to move documents easily without worrying about file formats.

However, once you have a PDF file, if you want to do more than just read it over or print it out, then you may become frustrated. I often use PDF files in my job, but to edit documents, or pull text from them, or do most other manipulation with them often leaves me a bit frustrated.

I've learned of some pdf software, however, that appears to make PDF documents much more versatile and easy to use. For instance, the software performs two-way pdf conversion, to create PDF documents but also convert convert pdf to word format. That alone would make editing and updating a PDF document much easier.

If you work with PDF documents, click the links above to check out this downloadable software to see if it will improve your productivity and make working with your PDFs much easier.

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Millions Of US Children Low In Vitamin D

2009-08-03T07:46:00.002-04:00

Seven out of 10 U.S. children have low levels of vitamin D, raising their risk of bone and heart disease, according to a study of over 6,000 children by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. The striking findings suggest that vitamin D deficiency could place millions of children at risk for high blood pressure and other risk factors for heart disease. The study is published today in the online version of Pediatrics.

Vitamin D deficiency was thought to be relatively rare in the U.S. However, recent studies have documented this growing problem in adults. With cases of rickets (a bone disease in infants caused by low vitamin D levels) on the rise, it became clear that many children were also not getting enough of this essential vitamin, which is needed for healthy bone growth, among other biological processes.

"Several small studies had found a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in specific populations of children, but no one had examined this issue nationwide," says study leader Dr. Michal Melamed, M.D., assistant professor of medicine and of epidemiology & population health at Einstein. Dr. Melamed has published extensively on the importance of vitamin D.

To learn more about the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency (defined as less than 15 ng/mL of blood) and vitamin D insufficiency (15 to 29 ng/mL), the researchers analyzed data on more than 6,000 children, ages one to 21, collected by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2001-2004.

The researchers found that 9 percent of the study sample, equivalent to 7.6 million children across the U.S., was vitamin D deficient, while another 61 percent, or 50.8 million, was vitamin D insufficient. Low vitamin D levels were especially common in children who were older, female, African-American, Mexican-American, obese, drank milk less than once a week, or spent more than four hours a day watching TV, playing videogames, or using computers.

The researchers also found that low levels of vitamin D deficiency were associated with higher parathyroid hormone levels, a marker of bone health, higher systolic blood pressure, and lower serum calcium and HDL (good) cholesterol levels, which are key risk factors for heart disease.

"We expected the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency would be high, but the magnitude of the problem nationwide was shocking," says lead author Dr. Juhi Kumar, M.D., a fellow in pediatrics at Children's Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center, The University Hospital and Academic Medical Center for Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Kumar will become an assistant professor of pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College in August.

"We know from earlier NHANES data that vitamin D levels have declined over the last 20 years," says Dr. Melamed. "Kids have more sedentary lifestyles today and are not spending as much time outdoors. The widespread use of sunscreens, which block UV-B rays, has only compounded the problem." The body uses UV-B sunlight to convert a form of cholesterol in the skin into vitamin D.

Dr. Melamed recommends that children should consume more foods rich in vitamin D, such as milk and fish. "But it's very hard to get enough vitamin D from dietary sources alone," she says.

Vitamin D supplementation can help. In the study, children who took vitamin D supplements (400 IU/day) were less likely to be deficient in the vitamin. However, only four percent of the study population actually used supplements. The American Academy of Pediatrics, which recently updated its vitamin D guidelines, now recommends that infants, children, and teens should take 400 IU per day in supplement form.

Supplements are especially important for those living in the country's northern regions where the sun may be too weak to maintain healthy vitamin D levels. Supplements are also critical for infants who are breast-fed, say the researchers. Breast milk contains relatively little vitamin D, while formula is fortified with the vitamin.

The authors recommend that pediatricians should routinely screen high-risk children for vitamin D deficiency, and that parents should ensure that their kids get adequate amounts of the vitamin through a combination of diet, supplements, and exposure to sunlight.

"The message for pediatricians is that vitamin D deficiency is a real problem with consequences not only for bone health but also potentially for long-term cardiovascular health. Pediatricians should be screening children for vitamin D levels, especially in the high-risk populations," says Dr. Kumar. A study co-led by Dr. Melamed and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in August 2008 reported that individuals with low levels of vitamin D may have an increased risk of death from all causes.

As for parents, says Dr. Melamed, "It would good for them to turn off the TV and send their kids outside. Just 15 to 20 minutes a day should be enough. And unless they burn easily, don't put sunscreen on them until they've been out in the sun for 10 minutes, so they get the good stuff but not sun damage."

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Switch to Digital Mammography Leads to Increased Cancer Detection Rates

2009-08-02T11:49:00.003-04:00

The use of digital mammography equipment alone is responsible for an increased number of breast cancers detected at a community-based mammography facility, according to a study performed at San Luis Diagnostic Center in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Researchers found that there was a significant increase in the number of breast cancers detected following the switch from film-screen to digital mammography. The number of cancers detected prior to the switch averaged between 4.1-4.5 cancers per 1,000 women imaged. Following the switch, the cancer detection rate increased to 7.9 cancers per 1,000 women imaged and has remained high. Breast cancer detection rates were evaluated using an auditing system.

“I would certainly encourage patients who are being screened to look for facilities that have digital technology because it is faster and has a higher cancer detection rate. There is a need for more studies like ours to confirm our findings,” says Dr. Vernacchia.

“Surprisingly, sixty to seventy percent of screening facilities in the United States are still using film-screen mammography. This is a disadvantage because digital mammography offers considerable advantages over film-screen mammography,” he says.

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For Music Students And More, A Virtual Orchestra

2009-08-01T11:48:00.005-04:00

Whether you're a dedicated music student or anyone who would like a quality performance of a piece of music, you now have a virtual orchestra at your disposal -- for a fraction of what an actual orchestra costs.

Unlike MIDI systems which still often still sounds like "computerized music," Ravel Virtual Studios uses the best of sample libraries to create a performance of any piece of music. Ravel's mission is to help musicians who don't have immediate access to live musicians.

It's services are aimed at students, educators, or any serious music composer, for that matter. You keep the rights to your music, and with student discounts and such, you'll find Ravel Virtual Studios' services to be more affordable than you might first think.

If you've ever wanted a serious, quality performance of a piece of music you've put your heart into, and traditional computerized performances never did it justice, click the links above to be pleasantly surprised what Ravel Virtual Studios could do for you.

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California Crime Lab Escapes Budget Cuts

2009-08-01T11:34:00.002-04:00

By Emily Witt, ProPublica, and Benjamin Protess, Huffington Post Investigative Fund

Good financial news out of California is rare these days, but one key crime-fighting agency has emerged from the state's recent budget slashing unscathed: the state crime lab.

In June, ProPublica and the Huffington Post Investigative Fund revealed how a proposed $20 million cut to the lab would be likely to halt or delay the testing of rape kits, DNA and other crucial crime scene evidence in many California counties. Advocates for crime victims worried that testing delays would allow violent criminals to remain on the streets.

Although the cut was small in the face of the state's $26 billion shortfall, it would have represented half the lab's budget.

But California's budget was finalized this week, and funds for the crime lab remained intact. The lab's budget also dodged the ink of Arnold Schwarzenegger's line-item veto pen.

Gail Abarbanel, who heads the rape treatment program at the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center, had called the cuts "a public safety emergency." Today, Arbabanel said she was "ecstatic and relieved."

The decision was unexpected. The proposed cut was approved by the state's budget committee in June and seemed a lock for inclusion in the finalized budget. But then law enforcement agencies lobbied lawmakers and state Assemblyman Ted Lieu intervened.

"It was a team effort," Lieu, a Democrat from Southern California, told us. He said he went to state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass "and said we need to restore this money because the cut goes against everything we stand for."

If it had passed, the lab would have had to charge law enforcement agencies in 47 of the state's 58 counties for evidence tests it has always provided for free, even though many of those agencies are facing budget cuts of their own.

As we've previously reported, the lab already has one of the largest backlogs of untested DNA evidence in any state lab. It hasn't tested more than 150 DNA samples from crime scenes and 60,000 from people arrested or convicted of crimes.

ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.

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Video: Baby girl, Ripped From Womb, Found Alive

2009-08-01T11:24:00.003-04:00

A baby girl who was cut from her mother's womb has been found alive and two people were arrested in the woman's killing. Police in Worcester, Mass., say that the baby girl is in fairly good health at a hospital in New Hampshire.

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Just 43 Days....

2009-07-31T21:33:00.002-04:00

That's how long it will be from the time this is written until the Washington Redskins kick off against the New York Giants in East Rutherford, N.J.

The Redskins' training camp has begun, and soon fall -- and football -- will be in the air.

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Water Problems From Drilling Are More Frequent Than PA Officials Said

2009-07-31T05:59:00.002-04:00

by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica

When methane began bubbling out of kitchen taps near a gas drilling site in Pennsylvania last winter, a state regulator described the problem as "an anomaly." But at the time he made that statement to ProPublica, that same official was investigating a similar case affecting more than a dozen homes near gas wells halfway across the state.

In fact, methane related to the natural gas industry has contaminated water wells in at least seven Pennsylvania counties since 2004 and is common enough that the state hired a full-time inspector dedicated to the issue in 2006. In one case, methane was detected in water sampled over 15 square miles. In another, a methane leak led to an explosion that killed a couple and their 17-month-old grandson.

Methane is the largest component of natural gas. Since it evaporates out of drinking water, it is not considered toxic, but in the air it can lead to explosions. When methane is found in water supplies, it can also signal that deeply drilled gas wells are linked with drinking water systems.

In many cases the methane seepage comes from thousands of old abandoned gas wells that riddle Pennsylvania's geology, state inspectors say. But other cases, including several this year and the 2004 disaster that left three people dead, were linked to problems with newly drilled, active natural gas wells.

The issue came to the forefront in January when methane was found in the water at 16 homes in the small town of Dimock, in northeastern Pennsylvania. State officials cited Cabot Oil & Gas for several violations they say allowed the gas to seep out of the well structures and into water supplies there. The Department of Environmental Protection asked the company to encase its lower well pipes completely in concrete — a process known in the industry as "cementing" — and assured the public that the contamination in Dimock was rare.

But according to a department spokeswoman, there have been at least 52 separate cases of what the state calls "methane migration" in the last five years. In two of the 2009 cases, regulators responded to complaints from more than 32 households and asked gas companies to supply clean water to at least a dozen homes with contaminated wells.

An undated report from the Pittsburgh Geological Society posted to the DEP's Web site makes it clear that old wells and new drilling can lead to stray gas problems. "Although it rarely makes headlines," the report reads, "damage or threats caused by gas migration is a common problem in Western Pennsylvania."

Craig Lobins, the DEP regional oil and gas manager who initially described the Dimock case as an anomaly in interviews with ProPublica, said he still believes the frequency of contamination incidents is statistically insignificant.

Records show there are roughly 58,000 active gas wells in Pennsylvania. "We are just dealing with a very small percentage," he said in a follow-up interview.

The case Lobins was investigating at the same time as the Dimock case concerned a string of problems in Bradford, a rural town 200 miles west of Dimock along the state's northern border.

Shortly after a contractor for Schreiner Oil and Gas drilled several dozen wells in the area last spring, residents began complaining of murky and foul-smelling tap water. When the DEP investigated, it found methane in three water wells and metals in six others. It asked Schreiner to supply water to eight homes, and the company has begun installing water treatment systems at each house. While no new gas wells have been drilled in the Bradford area, according to the DEP, the existing ones continue to operate.

Michael Schreiner, Schreiner's president, declined to comment for this article.

Lobins said the problems in Bradford — as in many of the contamination cases across the state — stem from a bad cement job around the core of the well. In most gas drilling, the well pipe is encased in layers of concrete to keep it isolated from surrounding groundwater. The concrete also contains the enormous pressure exerted on the system during the process of hydraulic fracturing, which pumps water, sand and chemicals to the well bottom to break up rock.
In Bradford, Lobins said, concrete was poured into the space around the wells but never filled the space — a sign of a possible leak. Because Pennsylvania does not have regulations that require inspections or testing of the concrete casing, the state didn't notice the problem until methane began showing up in water wells. By then, the suspected concrete error had been repeated in as many as 27 different places, Lobins said.

Controlling the quality of cementing and well casing is widely viewed as the most important factor in protecting water supplies and ensuring the integrity of a well. A recent federally funded study of state regulations across the country (PDF), published by the Ground Water Protection Council, a consortium of state oil and gas regulators, industry representatives, and some environmental consultants, said that proper concrete casing is critical to environmental protection. While 96 percent of states, including Pennsylvania, have standards specifying that concrete be used to protect aquifers, the report found that one in five, also including Pennsylvania, do not require testing to confirm that the concrete used is strong enough for the job. That means that until water problems arose as a result of the casing problems in Bradford, the state had little recourse.

"What they are doing is not a violation until the gas is leaving the borehole," Lobins said. "We don't know that until it manifests itself somewhere else."

Lobins said the state is reviewing its regulations and that changes are planned to address both well casing and methane migration issues. But when asked what specific changes were being discussed, Lobins said he did not know. Similar questions went unanswered by Ron Gilius, the DEP's oil and gas director, after they were submitted by ProPublica both in interviews and in writing.

For their part, Bradford residents were surprised to learn that their problems were not unique.
"They didn't say that there were other problems similar to this," said Lori Trumbull, who complained about her water but later found that it was OK. "They said that the odds of having water contamination from drilling operations is very rare."

Fred Baldassare, the state's dedicated methane migration investigator, said he has investigated water contaminated with drilling-related methane in numerous places across the state in recent years. In Bridgeville, two homes exploded when a well casing failed and methane seeped into their basements, he said. In Dayton, he said, residents were evacuated after a well casing failed and methane migrated into an adjacent abandoned well, blowing out its casing and travelling a third of a mile underground.

In Vandergrift, drillers stumbled across an old gas well that no one knew was there. Baldassare said that when the new well was hydraulically fractured, the intense pressure forced gas into the adjacent wells. It then percolated up through water and mud until it surfaced just feet from homes in a heavily populated neighborhood.

The most tragic Pennsylvania methane case began on March 5, 2004 in Jefferson County, about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. According to Baldassare, gas seeped into the home of 64-year-old Charles Harper and his 53-year-old wife, Dorothy, from one of several adjacent wells being drilled by Snyder Brothers. The gas collected until it exploded and, according to court records and news reports at the time, reduced the home to "a pile of rubble." Debris was found across the road, and insulation hung from trees 30 feet in the air. The bodies of the Harpers and their grandson, Baelee, were found buried in the debris.

Executives from Snyder Brothers did not return calls for comment. The company was sued in state court in Jefferson County and reached an undisclosed settlement with the Harper family.
State officials traced the methane's geochemical fingerprint and determined it had come from one of three Snyder wells nearby. The investigation, however, remains open in part because Snyder has yet to comply with state orders to conduct pressure tests on the wells — orders delivered in 2005, according to Baldassare. But that doesn't mean state officials aren't sure about what happened.

According to Baldassare, the Snyder methane caused the explosion.

"In my view," he said, "there was no uncertainty."

ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.

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Help For Struggling Sales Pros & Webmasters Seeking Profit

2009-07-30T07:06:00.006-04:00

If you're in the business of selling products and services in the mortgage, insurance and financial services industries, you don't need me to tell you how tough that job is right now. The recession and economic meltdown have hit most of these businesses the hardest.

It may seem your potential clients and customers have all dried up, but how are you going to meet your needed sales? There is a website and company that offers help by offering fresh sales needs over the Internet, collected through a network of Web affiliates and screened for quality.

Conversely, if you're a blogger or webmaster seeking to develop a new revenue stream, you now have the opportunity to join the Affiliate Program to sell mortgage leads and other financial sales leads to those professionals hungry to keep their businesses afloat.

Click the links above to learn more now to see how you can become part of what seems like a great win-win scenario -- all using the power of the Internet.

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Hospital Boosts Transplant Donations By Integrating Bereavement, Donor Services

2009-07-30T06:23:00.003-04:00

A UK hospital that combined its bereavement and donation services saw a forty-fold increase in tissue donations, such as corneas, in just five years, according to research in the August issue of Anaesthesia.

"We decided to address the problem of low organ and tissue donation rates by amalgamating the two services and introducing a trigger to automatically refer all potential organ donors to the regional transplant donor co-ordinators" explains Bereavement and Donor Co-ordinator Fiona Murphy from the Royal Bolton Hospital, UK.

"Between 2002 and 2007 the number of tissue donors rose from six to 246, while solid organ donation rates remained stable. The introduction of the automatic trigger in 2007 resulted in 31 referrals and 11 multi-organ donors.

"Our current service exceeds the aims of the 2008 Organ Donation Taskforce and offers us the potential to meet our organ donation targets without resorting to an 'opt out' system of presumed consent."

The gap between supply and demand of transplant organs in the developed world has led to a variety of initiatives to improve donation rates.

The UK has one of the lowest rates of organ donations in Western Europe and the number of donors has fallen by around 20 per cent over the last 10 years, while demand for transplants has grown.

"Two factors are known to mitigate against successfully increasing donor rates" says Fiona. "The first reason is the failure of staff to identify and refer potential donors. The second is the decrease in the number of brain stem dead patients – this is due to fewer catastrophic head injured patients being admitted to intensive care units because of medical advances and improved road safety.

"In mainland Europe and the USA, these problems have been addressed by introducing automatic referral of potential donors, initiating Non-Heart Beating Donation (NHBD) programmes and by legislation imposing presumed consent. NHBD is the retrieval of organs from patients who have suffered a heart attack and the blood supply to their brain has been cut off for sufficient time for brain death to have occurred. Before the 1970s all kidneys from deceased donors were retrieved using this criteria."

The Bolton initiative, which is run by a full-time Bereavement and Donor Co-ordinator supported by a critical care consultant, provides hospital staff with round-the-clock access to a Bereavement and Donation Officer.

"The aim of the service is to integrate donations as a normal part of end-of-life care and provide the same high level of care for patients and their families regardless of whether or not they donate" explains Fiona.

From 2002 to 2005 the service consisted of one fully funded nurse working with a critical care consultant. In 2005 a further four staff were employed part time to form part of a local corneal retrieval service and the 24-hour on-call service was established. A year later the organ donation and bereavement service was combined.

"The success of our integrated bereavement and donation service suggests that the Taskforce was right to promote donor identification and normalise donations in end-of-life care as a solution to the organ donor crisis."

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