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began that evening, motorists near downtown Dallas were asked to help report any debris discoveries. Tommy Peltier of Houston stood next to a piece of debris found near San Augustine, Texas, on Feb. 2, 2003, the day after the accident. A few days after the accident, then-President George W. Bush attended a memorial service at Johnson Space Center with the families of the seven |
astronauts. A week after the accident, a makeshift memorial had grown outside the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The American flag flew at half-staff at Kennedy Space Center on the morning after the accident. |
For more than two decades the Oregon Zoo has been working to restore a quiet, shy Northwestern species to its historic range. As a result, Western pond turtle numbers are on the rise. The Western pond turtle (Actinemys marmorata) was once common from Baja California to Puget Sound. - are 6 to 8 inches long and weigh 1 to 2.4 |
pounds - reach sexual maturity at approximately 10 years - live up to 70 years They live in and around streams, ponds, lakes and permanent wetlands. Turtles nest on land and feed, breed and bask in water. Turtle populations have declined due to: - water diversion - draining or filling of wetlands - invasive plants: reed canary grass and Himalayan |
blackberry - introduced predators: bullfrogs and largemouth bass - a slow development rate – hatchlings are extremely vulnerable to predation Western pond turtle populations are much reduced and concentrated in a few locations. They are listed as endangered in Washington and threatened in Oregon. Western pond turtle recovery In 1990, the Western pond turtle recovery plan began to bring the |
turtles back. A “head-starting” project was initiated, which accelerates turtles’ natural growth rates, and thus their ability to withstand predation. The Oregon Zoo collaborates with Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Wash. and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Other partners include Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Forest Service. What the recovery project looks like: - Spring: Conservation scientists |
head into the field to count, trap, mark and fit transmitters on adult females. - Summer: Females are monitored via transmitter every two hours during the nesting season, June to July, in order to identify nest sites. A female digs a vase-shaped nest in dry, densely packed soil, urinating on the soil to soften it. She deposits two to 11 |
eggs and covers the nest with mud and vegetation. Then she leaves the area. Conservation workers protect the nest with a wire enclosure – a cage to keep predators out. The eggs incubate naturally all summer. - Fall: Scientists and volunteers collect the quarter-sized hatchlings and bring them to the zoo, where they can grow safe from predators, with ample |
light, warmth and food. - Winter: In the wild, hatchlings become dormant in the cold. But the enhanced light and warmth at the zoo stimulates them to continue to eat and grow. - Spring: About 10 months after their summertime hatch, juvenile turtles are larger than if they had remained in the wild and survived. Now large enough to avoid |
being eaten by most predators, they are returned to the wild in areas designated by the recovery plan. Some juvenile turtles when released are equipped with radio transmitters so biologists can learn about post-release dispersal, habitat use during active and hibernation periods, and ultimately, survival rates. Successes and ongoing recovery work The Western pond turtle recovery plan requires: - at |
least five turtle populations be established in both the Puget Sound and Columbia River Gorge areas - each population to consist of at least 200 turtles, of which no more than 70 percent are adults - turtle release areas to be protected from development and free of major disturbances. Areas must allow for natural recruitment of juveniles, creating a self-sustaining |
population The first turtles released in 1991 in the Columbia River Gorge are reproducing and laying eggs in the wild. Over the past two decades, approximately 1,500 turtles have been released, and with good results: the gorge turtle population ranged from a low of 150 in 1990 to approximately 1,500 in 2011. Scientists tracking them estimate that 95 percent of |
Baby boomers, 78 million strong, are turning 65 at a rate of 4 million per year in the United States. The press, the government, and the medical community claim, often |
and loudly, that these numbers augur a mass dependency crisis. Such spokesmen envision a world of decrepit elders afflicted with chronic disease devouring the country’s resources. Still, amidst the alarmists, |
a few commentators acknowledge that aging itself has changed. Many boomers are working well into their 70s and 80s, staying in remarkably good health, and reinventing this final stage of |
life. In short, they are proving that chronological age is not biologically uniform. In the United States the so-called “geriatric crisis” is less related to age itself than to the |
relationship between old age and government support—such as the unequal distribution of health care dollars, via Medicare, across the age spectrum. Such policies assume that people over 65 are by |
definition in worse health, dependent, and in need of government support. Yet this is not always the case. A financially independent, healthy 70-year-old costs society less than an ill 40-year-old. |
Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, Americans argued over the proper relationship between the state and its elderly citizens. They tried to define “old age” and its problems, |
while questioning the federal government’s obligation to offer a solution. In different measures, the Social Security Act in 1935 and the passage of Medicare in 1965 offered policy conclusions to |
these debates. The elderly would be defined as individuals over 65 years of age and the problem of old age would be characterized as illness and its related expenses. Neither |
of these conclusions was foregone; both were expedient answers to social and political pressures. Indeed, many analysts over the century did not believe that old age necessarily meant ill health |
or dependency if approached correctly. They opposed plans and policies to separate the elderly from the rest of the population, and advocated for preventative health spending throughout the lifespan. This |
article will return to the middle of the twentieth century to explore how 65 became a federal marker of old age and why health insurance came to be seen, in |
the years following the first National Conference on Aging (1950), as the best solution to the problems afflicting America’s elders. The “Problem” of Old Age On July 30, 1965, Lyndon |
Johnson, the 57-year-old President of the United States, honored 81-year-old former president Harry Truman by traveling to Independence, Missouri, to sign into law a bill that would give America’s elders |
federally funded health insurance. The passage of Medicare—a policy that Truman had reluctantly supported in the early 1950s—became Johnson’s political windfall. Johnson could now claim to have solved the “problem |
of old age.” The problem of old age started to attract public and political attention in the 1930s, when industrialization, urbanization, mass unemployment, and the Depression combined to leave many |
of the aged without jobs or support from their extended families. As a result, during this decade, the problem of old age was largely characterized as impoverishment due to unemployment. |
At the same time, the elderly were a group whose numbers were on the rise. Advances in public health had transformed life expectancy in America: from 1860 to 1930 the |
percentage of the American population over 65 had more than doubled. In ten years, from 1930 to 1940, there would be an additional 36.5 percent increase in this group, at |
a time when the entire population increased by only 7.2 percent. Within the decade, spokesmen across the United States pressed the government to enact more pension programs. By the time |
Franklin Roosevelt became president, some thirty states delivered pension programs, albeit unevenly; only 3% of those deemed aged were receiving state funds in 1935. The fight for pensions, or just |
cash, continued through the thirties in the popular Townsend Old Age Revolving Pension Plan, Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California (EPIC) plan, and Robert Noble’s Ham & Eggs movement. All |
of these groups argued that the government should give a stipend to those deemed too old to work, whether 50, 60, or 65. At its base, the philosophy of social |
insurance, or the social welfare tradition, maintained that governments should provide some measure of economic security. First enacted in 1889 by Otto Von Bismarck in Germany, social insurance programs spread |
quickly across Europe. American yearnings for such programs emerged with Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 and reached an apex during the Great Depression. In 1927, Abraham Epstein, a weathered state pension |
advocate, announced: “It’s time for a group that will do nothing but work to create old-age pensions.” Mindful of the sullied public reputation of the word pension, Epstein titled his |
organization the American Association for Old Age Security, later to be renamed the American Association for Social Security. Epstein’s rechristening worked. Quickly backed by such activist luminaries as Jane Addams |
and Florence Kelley, Epstein and his intellectual mentor, I.M. Rubinow, helped create a federal social security program. Ad campaigns exposing the horrors of the poorhouse bolstered the numbers of Epstein’s |
supporters and focused further attention on the plight of unemployed elders. By 1934, Epstein had succeeded in nurturing American empathy for the aged if not for his particular pension plan. |
In his proposal, the unemployed would receive money from a central pool funded by employee and employer alike. Conservatives skewered him and his supporters for advocating a redistributive scheme that |
reeked of communism. In 1934, President Roosevelt issued an executive order to create the Committee on Economic Security with the goal of studying and solving the problem of economic insecurity |
in America. Epstein along with other social insurance experts advocating redistributive programs were strategically left out of almost every planning meeting. Still, asserts historian Michael Katz, through Epstein and his |
cronies, “old-age security broke loose from its earlier association with poor-relief; forged ahead of every other kind of social insurance; and earned its privileged place as the only irreversible and |
untouchable welfare program in American history.” On August 14th, 1935, President Roosevelt signed into law the monumental Social Security Act. The Act failed, Epstein protested, to redistribute wealth or actually |
alleviate economic insecurity for the most needy (since it offered relatively equivalent support to all older Americans). Nonetheless, it fundamentally changed the relationship between the government and its older citizens, |
setting apart the elderly as a distinct social and political group that the government now took responsibility to assist and protect. How 65 came to be “Old” In 1935, the |
aged—or “oldsters,” as they were often called—were not exclusively defined chronologically. In fact, numerous doctors and scientists working in the 1930s pushed for a biological, rather than chronological definition of |
old age, claiming that physical markers and not simply the passing of years best defined old age. They looked at the correlations between poverty, chronic disease, family history, and psychology |
to determine that the onset of senescence or old age was relative rather than uniform. These early gerontologists believed that employment and usefulness would stave off the markers of old |
age. Still, they had little control over industry policies that pushed workers out of jobs at the early age of 40. Some factories even retired women at 35. The Committee |
on Economic Security understood both the harsh economic reality of forced retirement and the absolute social necessity to keep the young employed. The Committee settled on 65 as the marker |
of old age for its economic feasibility. At the time, life expectancy at birth was 58. Taking their cues from existing state pension systems and the recently passed Railroad Retirement |
System, the committee recognized that 65 was a number that could be sustainably financed through payroll taxation. As historian Andrew Achenbaum reports, “As a result of the Social Security Act, |
old age—defined for administrative purposes as the attainment of age sixty-five—for the first time became a criterion for participation in several important programs at the federal level.” From 1935 on, |
the U.S. federal government committed itself to the well-being of its senior citizens, who hereby would be defined as individuals over 65 years of age. Wards of a Biomedical State |
By the 1940s, the pension movement of the 1920s and 1930s had largely collapsed. Having achieved the Social Security Act, popular participation in pension-oriented lobbying groups diminished and political organizers |
focused attention elsewhere. Then, just as the pension movement slowed to a halt, the field of biomedical research exploded. Science and war proved productive partners. The utilization of penicillin, skin |
Zambardi, T.; Poitrasson, F.; Quitte, G. and Anand, M. Silicon isotope variations in the Earth and meteorites. In: Challenges to Our Volatile Planet : Goldschmidt 2009, 21-26 June 2009, Davos, Switzerland. A fluorhydric acid-free sample preparation method derived from Georg et al. has been used to measure the natural variations of silicon isotope compositions in terrestrial (including 12 geological standard materials) and meteoritic All |
function of magma differentiation, as initially hinted by Douthitt . Terrestrial samples mean value (δ30SiEarth= -0.23‰) is heavier by about 0.24‰ in δ30Si compared to chondrites. This may be explained by silicon isotope fractionation during planetary accretion and/or differentiation. Actions (login may be required) |
Exploring the Future By exploring the dynamic interactions of systems we open a portal into future potentials. Understanding these connections allows us to see the connections between our history, the moment, and our future. The National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Board on Atmospheric Science and Climate Present: Climate Change – Lines of Evidence The Greenhouse Effect The History of Climate Science The |
Natural Cycle Arctic Ice Melt - The Leading Edge Reports - Global Warming Science - Global Warming Myths - Global Warming Images & Animations THE LEADING EDGE The 'Leading Edge' reports are now open for comments (as of Oct. 31, 2010). You can register via the registration link in the upper right hand corner. All reports have had commenting enabled. - Unless you have |
reasonable cause for anonymity, please use your real name as user ID. - Consider yourself a guest on the site and please act accordingly. - Use science to make your arguments and provide cites for claims. - Context and relevance provides the foundation of reason-ability. - Facts out of context are often irrelevant or less relevant. - Inappropriate comments may be deleted at the |
moderators discretion. Once more into the breach dear friends, once more...: Global Warming Stopped!?; In a related story..., ; Meet the new crew...; Another congressional round of testimony? 2012 Significant Climate Anomalies and Events; Chief of US Pacific Forces Calls Climate Biggest Worry; Retired NASA Scientists Misunderstanding Climate; 2012 Billion Dollar Disasters in the US NCDC Announces Warmest Year on Record for Contiguous U.S.; |
The Warm Globally, Freeze Locally Effect December saw the annual gathering of the Fall Meeting of the American Geological Union in San Francisco; the release of Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds from the Director on National Intelligence office of the United States of America. Level of Knowledge in our Political Leadership Senator Inhofe and Climate Science; West Nile Virus Outbreak It's Summer, It's Hot; |
Anomalies and Trends; Farmers are beginning to realize that it's too late to prevent Climate Change US and European Energy Supplies Vulnerable to Climate Change An Examination of Reasoning; NCDC: April Global Temperature Anomalies It's an election year... Top Ten Global Weather/Climate Events for 2011; State of the Climate Report; Global Precipitation The Wall Street Journal: Concerned Scientists Reply on Global Warming National Climate |
Data Center Billion Dollar Weather/Climate Disasters; Climate change skepticism seeps into science classrooms Rush Limbaugh – "It's a Hoax"; World's most-populous country to phase out energy-inefficient bulbs; National Climate Data Center - September Report; Billion Dollar Weather/Climate Disasters; Richard Somerville ABC Interview NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas; Summer 2011: Arctic sea ice near record lows, Conditions in context, September 2011 |
compared to past years, Atmospheric conditions, Sea surface temperatures, Ice remains younger/thinner; The cost of 'wait & see'; Skeptic Richard Muller Funded in part of Koch Brothers finds Global Warming is Real; The Judith Curry Mistake Reuters/Stanford/Ipsos Environmental Poll Roy Spencer's Quest for Misunderstanding Global Highlights indicate continued anomalous warming over Russia; Revisiting historical ocean surface temperatures; Russian Temperature Anomaly; Is Sea-Level Rise Accelerating?; |
North Pole Cam 1 & 2; Arctic Sea Ice Extent Averaging Below 2007 Anomaly; Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change; UN Security Council Addresses Considers Global Security and Climate Change; New study details glacier ice loss following ice shelf collapse; Climate Change To Spawn More Wildfires; Gingrich Says 2006 Climate Change Ad He Starred In Was 'Misconstrued' Dengue Fever Creeps Back Into the U.S. |
— and Climate Change Isn't Helping; Climate Scientists in Australia Moved to Secure Facility; Rick Santorum: Man-made climate change is liberal 'junk science,' in sharp contrast to Mitt Romney; Australian climate scientists receive death threats; Stanford University study indicates 'Permanently Hotter Summers' if no action is taken to address human caused climate change; What's to Blame for Wild Weather? "La Nada"; Wandering gray whale |
points to climate change; Wallace Encourages Fox Viewers To Remain Misinformed On Climate Change; Transparency Maldives launches Global Corruption Report on climate change; Australia academics blast UK lord over Hitler jibe; Storm Warnings: Extreme Weather Is a Product of Climate Change; American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) AAAS Board: Attacks on Climate Researchers Inhibit Free Exchange of Scientific Ideas |
comes from the National Autism Resources Blog. I am including a few apps that can help with transitions with the tips: 5 Tips to Help Autistic Students with Transitions 1. Create a Schedule Create a schedule the student can refer to. This can be a simple written list of activities or a sequence of pictures or both. Schedules can prepare |
a student for a transition by allowing them to anticipate upcoming activities and understand the sequence of events that will occur. Using schedules can decrease transition time and lower anxiety and melt downs. First/ThenVisual Schedule app by Good Karma has been a very successful app used my many students at school. Its visual presentation with audio and ability to check |
it off as it is completed allows an interactive and visual schedule for students. (9.99, iPhone and iPad) You can also create a list or simple schedule of pictures that are stored in your Photo app if you are using the iOS 5 operating system. Open Photos, click Albums, New Album, then name the Album and select the pictures you |
want to add. The album can then be played like a slide slow or as a simple schedule. 2. Show Activities as Finished Marking activities as finished naturally prepares the student for the next activity. If using a picture schedule have a finished pocket for the student to place the picture of the completed activity in. For routine schedules, laminate |
the schedule with a box next to each picture that the student can check off as complete. Or simply use a piece of paper and write out the schedule and allow the student to cross each item off as it is completed. First Then Visual Schedule provides the ability to check off the task pictured in the picture list. 3. |
Use a Timer Time is an abstract concept that can be difficult for autistic students to understand. Using a timer gives students a visual of how much time is left before a transition. It can also help to keep some kids on task for projects they don’t like, because they can see it has an end. Some timers, like the |
Time Timer give an additional visual of the countdown of time. Kiddie Countdown Timer app is a favorite with therapists and early childhood teachers at our school. Free for iPhone and iPad. For an extensive listing of visual timers download the Autism App (free) and search the visual timer category. 4. Make sure there is ample time for transitions. Rushing |
to stay on schedule is stressful for anyone. Especially with new routines at school allow adequate time for autistic students to process the transition and move on to the next activity. If you have an iPod or iPad, a standard clock will typically have a countdown clock that can be used to help forewarn students of an end or a |
transition. 5. Give the student a transition item. Sometimes carrying a familiar item during a transition can add a sense of continuity and comfort. Some students keep an object with them throughout the day. For others it’s helpful if they get the item after they have completed a project. Allowing the student to get the transition item may help prepare |
them to move on to the next activity. Many of our younger students have had carrier items, necessary to help them transition through parts of their day. This can be any type of object, not necessarily electronic in nature. Hard copy pictures of where or whom they are transitioning to make a great transition item, keeping it visual and concrete |
Two simple trends are driving these concerns. The world has more people than ever, and more of those people than ever are breaking out of abject poverty and competing in a global market for goods and resources. The human population |
passed 7 billion last year, and the U.N. projects it will top 9.3 billion by 2050. Most of the growth is occurring in Asia, where the population is on track to balloon 40 percent, to 8 billion, by midcentury. An |
even bigger human accomplishment, and cause for worry, is the rise of the middle class. It's expected to nearly triple in the next two decades, to 4.9 billion people in 2030 from 1.8 billion today, according to the Organization for |
Economic Cooperation & Development. The Global Footprint Network, which developed a resource-accounting tool for countries, puts it this way: At current consumption rates, we'll need two Earths by 2030. For more, see Bloomberg |
Be Alert for Prescription Drug Mistakes If your stomach is upset over a period of time, your doctor might prescribe Zantac for you. It’s a drug that helps reduce stomach acid, and may even help heal a stomach ulcer. Suppose, instead, you have allergy-like symptoms. Your eyes itch, your nose is runny, and your chest is congested. Your doctor might |
prescribe Zyrtec, an antihistamine that may alleviate those symptoms. But take a look at those two drug names: Zantac and Zyrtec. When drug names are so similar, doctors and pharmacists may confuse them, and prescribe or dispense the wrong one. There are hundreds of cases of similar spellings and/or pronunciations being monitored by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for |
possible problems. Others include Aciphex (for stomach reflux) and Aricept (for memory), Allegra (for allergies) and Viagra (for erectile dysfunction) or Fosomax (for bone) and Flomax (for veins and arteries). It’s easy to see how they could be confused! There are other types of medication errors, too. Mistakes may stem from incorrect dosage, meaning too much or too little of |
the drug is provided. Bad interactions, when a patient already takes a drug that conflicts with a newly prescribed drug, cause problems, too. Or a patient might be given a drug he is allergic too, whether or not the doctor knows about the allergy. No doctor or pharmacist intentionally makes a mistake. But when medication errors are made, it’s we |
patients who suffer. In extreme cases, patients die. According to the Institute of Medicine, medication errors kill more than 400,000 Americans each year in hospitals alone. That doesn’t even account for errors made outside the hospital. Why so many mistakes? Usually it’s human error. Doctors, notorious for bad handwriting, may choose the right drug, but the pharmacist may read it |
incorrectly. Alternatively, the doctor may get two names mixed up, and the pharmacist dispenses what he reads, not knowing it’s the wrong drug. Or the pharmacist mixes up the names. Sometimes the prescription gets transferred by phone from the doctor’s office to the pharmacy, but the people making or receiving the phone calls make mistakes. How can you be sure |
you are getting the right prescription? It’s up to us as patients to be sure we get the right medicine in the right dosage. There are some simple steps you can take to make that confirmation. First, regardless of your doctor’s penmanship skills, when she writes you a prescription, plan to write down the information yourself, too. Ask her to |
spell the name of the drug and the manufacturer for you. Remind your doctor of the various medications you already take. Include any herbs, vitamins, and other over-the-counter preparations you take regularly since some interact negatively with prescribed drugs. Then ask your doctor the following questions. Recording their answers will help confirm you’re receiving the right drug in the right |
dose: - Why did your doctor prescribe that drug? - What form does the drug come in? (liquid? Tablets?) - Is there an acceptable generic version? - How much and how often should you take it? - Should it be taken with, or without, food? - Are there any foods or beverages you should avoid while taking the medication? (Some |
antibiotics are useless if taken with milk, and many drugs interact negatively with alcohol.) - Are there any activities you should avoid? (Driving can be dangerous if the drug makes you drowsy.) - How long should you take the drug? Finally, ask about side effects and when you should call the doctor instead of just coping with them. For example, |
a dry mouth may be a minor side effect, but dehydration would require a call to his office. Once given your prescription at the pharmacy, compare it to your notes, since some drug problems arise from the dispensing, not the prescribing. Check the container your medicine comes in to be sure it matches what your doctor ordered. Then, ask the |
pharmacist to verify that what’s inside the container matches its label. Once you have confirmed you have been given the right drug, make sure you follow your doctor’s dosage instructions closely. Not surprisingly, some medication errors come from the patient side of the equation. It’s our responsibility as patients to verify the treatments we receive. After all, we’re the ones |
By Barbara Scherokman, MD, FAAN, FACP Behind every successful neurology presentation lies solid research, thoughtful preparation . . . and well designed visual materials. Grabbing the audience’s attention with color, contrast, and good layout enhances the effect of your presentation. Your research might be compelling and your presence at the podium might be engaging, but poor visuals can turn off |
your audience in a matter of moments. An effective presentation offers a clear introduction of the topic (“what you are planning to say”), and underscores that topic in the body of the lecture--both with your spoken text and the visuals you present (“how you present what you want to say”). When planning a presentation, first determine the following: Keeping these |
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