|
This is the category for Health. Refresh this list to see the latest articles.
You can also browse through all articles in this category alphabetically. |
From Wikinews, the free news source you can write. Sister projects
|
(previous page) ()(previous page) ()
Sunday, October 7, 2007
There are two things one can expect on a trip to see Michael Musto at the offices of the Village Voice: a 20-minute round-trip wait for the elevator and rapid fire answers from one of the most recognizable gossip columnists in the United States. Musto, in addition to his appearances on Countdown with Keith Olbermann and the E! network, has been writing his column for the Voice since 1984. He has recently compiled the best of them in a book released this year titled, La Dolce Musto: Writings by the World’s Most Outrageous Columnist. He was Carrie Bradshaw, replete with a prodigious use of puns, before Sex in the City was a thought. His column is a romp through his life, spats and opinions on socio-political issues. As David Thigpen of the Chicago Tribune wrote, Musto is “a funny and caustic satirist who masquerades as a gossip and nightlife columnist.”
Musto, a Columbia University graduate, is a rarity in today’s celebrity world: he is accessible. He often corresponds with his readers and his public functions are a mix of parties, nightclubs, academic lectures, university panels and film premieres.
He is friendly and frank, and he welcomes people to join him in his world (“I just got a message that Michael Lucas died!” he says staring wide-eyed at his phone; the message turned out to be false). Wikinews reporter David Shankbone spoke with Musto about his life and his relationship to the world of celebrity journalism. And he did not hold back.
By Adriana Noton
There are many choices when it comes to hand tools. A tool can be found for things such as woodworking and garden along with a variety of power tools. Hands tools have been used for thousands of years and have evolved over time into more useful items that helps get a particular job done.
Woodworking is usually done with specialized items such as planes and things of this type as well as standard items such as a hammer and saw. This type of project does not necessarily require specialized woodworking tools. However many items are made specifically for working with wood. When searching for a tool for woodworking you can usually find them at a craft shop or sometimes home improvement stores.
There is a wide variety of power tools available for hundreds of uses. Tools of this sort have many uses ranging from a power screwdriver to help out around the house to a very big construction tool such as a jack hammer as well as everything in between. There are also several different types of power supplies for these including electric, air and battery powered.
Garden tools are very useful and also offer a wide range of choices. Shovels, rakes and trowels are useful to help with the planting and weeding of the garden. For different types of gardens there are different types of tools available. Most of the items used in a garden are not powered by anything but a person. The use of power tools in the garden can cause damage to the plants.
Using a tool to help to complete a job has long been useful to man. Even in the beginning of time there were inventors who created a tool when the need arose. When a task came up that they couldn’t do on their own, they found something that would help them and created a tool for that specific purpose. In the beginning a tool may be something as simple as a sharpened stone or a rounded rock that would help to do the chore at hand.
Today we have developed more sophisticated tools that have more specialized uses. However, some of the same ideas that helped create a tool to help with tasks in the beginning are still used today.
For example, a hammer is one of the most commonly used pieces of equipment found today. The uses today are not different from the uses of yesterday, however the tool itself is very different. In the beginning a hammer was nothing more than a rounded rock used to force something together or apart. Today it is made from stainless steel and a variety of other materials with a handle to make it more useful.
Many different tasks can be made much easier through the use of a type of tool that is intended for that task. There are many different selections to choose from to make your job easier and faster. For example, a rake will help gather debris in a garden or gather leaves in the yard. Many years ago these tasks would need to be done by picking up the items individually and placing them in a bucket or something of that sort.
About the Author: Offering top quality hand tools, Your online source for tools and supplies.
Source: isnare.com
Permanent Link: isnare.com/?aid=761579&ca=Computers+and+Technology
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Journalist, counselor, painter, and US 2012 Presidential candidate Joe Schriner of Cleveland, Ohio took some time to discuss his campaign with Wikinews in an interview.
Schriner previously ran for president in 2000, 2004, and 2008, but failed to gain much traction in the races. He announced his candidacy for the 2012 race immediately following the 2008 election. Schriner refers to himself as the “Average Joe” candidate, and advocates a pro-life and pro-environmentalist platform. He has been the subject of numerous newspaper articles, and has published public policy papers exploring solutions to American issues.
Wikinews reporter William Saturn? talks with Schriner and discusses his campaign.
Wednesday, February 8, 2006
The H5N1 Avian Flu virus, also known as Bird Flu, has been found in Nigeria by Italian scientists. Tests done on samples in a laboratory confirm that the strain is the one that can kill people, although no human cases have been reported said the Paris-based United Nations body. This is the first time is has appeared on the continent.
Reports say tests of the virus closely resemble the virus in Asia. The virus has been discovered in poultry flocks in a large Nigerian farm. “It is the first report of the disease in Africa,” the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said on Wednesday.
“It’s going to be very difficult to mount an eradication campaign,” said Dr. Alex Thiermann, president of the OIE’s international animal health code, from Paris, France. “With what we have today, it is a highly pathogenic H5N1 – the same, or very closely related to the previous ones,” said Thiermann. He also added, “a full genetic analysis of sample viruses is expected to be completed by late Thursday.”
Maria Zampaglione of the Paris-based OIE said “An outbreak has been detected. A local poultry farm keeping 46,000 birds was affected, of which 42,000 were infected and 40,000 of those, died.” The farm is located in Jaji, which is a village in the northern state of Kaduna.
“The farm is located near the Niger Delta, one of the largest over-wintering areas for wild birds in Africa.” said Thiermann.
Quarantine measures on the control and movement of poultry have been taken, and the farm has been disinfected said Nigerian authorities.
“However, it is too early to say how serious the outbreak is and how big its spread could be,” said Ilaria Capua of the Italian bird flu centre in Padua. “We have to be cautious in evaluating the possible implications of these findings.”
In Rome, Samuel Jutzi, a director of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said, “if the situation in Nigeria gets out of control, it will have a devastating impact on the poultry population in the region. It will seriously damage the livelihoods of millions of people and it will increase the exposure of humans to the virus.”
“When you have 46,000 chickens in a house, usually you have some degree of biocontainment…So these (chickens) are not likely to be the ones to first encounter migratory waterfowl,” Thiermann said.
Wildlife circles have been debating on whether or not wild birds are spreading the virus around the globe. Experts believe they are playing a role but most believe poultry movement, poultry products and poultry manure is the main cause of the spreading of the virus.
“But probably not in this case,” said Thiermann. “While it’s too early to blame the wildlife, it’s very likely to be in an area that’s remote enough that it’s not likely to be associated with international trade.”
OIE spokeswoman Zampiglione also said, “Experts had been fearing an African outbreak for months. The conditions there are more likely to lead to contagion from birds to man.”
By Larry J. Reaves
Most of us have become accustomed to the comfort provided by our vehicles’ heating and air conditioning system. During the cold months, warm air keeps the chill at bay. During the warmer months, the A/C produces cool air to make the driving experience more comfortable.
Like most auto parts and systems, the heater and air conditioner work without our thinking about them. Unfortunately, they do suffer wear and tear. They can break down for a variety of reasons, and fail to perform their respective jobs.
The technology used to design your vehicle’s heater and A/C has evolved over the last several decades. But problems can still occur. In this article, you’ll discover how the various components work together to ensure your drive is as comfortable as possible. We’ll then take a look at a few issues you may experience down the road.
The Job Of The Compressor
Attached to the side of your car’s engine is a component called the compressor. It is a pump that is responsible for compressing refrigerant (e.g. R-134a, Freon, etc.) and sending it to another component called the condenser (described below). In order to fulfill this responsibility, the compressor intakes low-pressure gas from a part called the evaporator. The compressor pressurizes the gas – heating it in the process – before sending it through the system.
The Condenser And Expansion Valve
Your A/C system’s condenser appears similar to your cooling system’s radiator. Moreover, it works in a similar manner. Once the high-temperature, pressurized gas from the compressor reaches the condenser, it undergoes a process through which heat is removed from it. During this process, the refrigerant gas is turned into pressurized liquid before it leaves the condenser on its way to the expansion valve.
The expansion valve regulates the amount of refrigerant that reaches the evaporator (described below). When you modify the temperature control in your vehicle’s cabin, you are adjusting the setting of this component. The higher the temperature setting, the less refrigerant that is allowed to pass through to the evaporator.
Evaporator
Your air conditioner’s evaporator has a few responsibilities. First, it is tasked with removing heat from within the cabin of your car. Second, it removes moisture from the air that leaves it and passes through the vents.
By the time the liquid refrigerant arrives from the expansion valve, much of its pressure has dissipated. It enters the evaporator where it is dehumidified prior to its release. The refrigerant then leaves the evaporator and travels back to the compressor to start its journey over. Meanwhile, cold air is blown through your car’s vents with a blower motor.
Potential Problems That Can Develop
The most common problems drivers experience with their car’s heating and air conditioner system include a lack of cold air, intermittent cooling performance, and noise and odor. Lack of cold air is usually due to a lack of refrigerant. This implies there is a leak from the seals or hoses somewhere in the A/C system. Finding such leaks is best left to a trained mechanic who has the necessary equipment.
Intermittent cooling is often attributable to an obstruction caused by moisture. Finding the obstruction, similar to locating a refrigerant leak, can be challenging unless you have access to the proper diagnostic equipment. The problem may also be triggered by an electrical failure that prevents the compressor clutch from engaging. If the clutch fails to engage, the compressor will not work.
If you hear your car’s A/C system making excess noise, have a mechanic check the compressor. There’s a high likelihood the component is about to fail, and will need to be replaced. If you smell a musty odor coming from the vents, mold has likely grown on the evaporator. This occurs because moisture collects on the evaporator’s surface (recall that the component dehumidifies the liquid refrigerant). Don’t ignore the odor. Have the mold cleared out.
The heating and air conditioning system of your vehicle should operate without incident for years. When problems occur, however, the repairs are best left to a mechanic.
About the Author: For all your auto body parts needs visit the leader in parts Everdrive.com. Click for the best place for Cheap Tires
Source: isnare.com
Permanent Link: isnare.com/?aid=554400&ca=Automotive
Saturday, July 2, 2005
Ujjal Dosanjh, Canada’s Minister of Health, has set out a plan to stop U.S. cities and states from purchasing drugs in bulk from Canadian suppliers. The plan is being criticized as potentially destroying a number of mail order and internet-based pharmacies operating in Canada that ship prescription drugs to the United States. It is said the result may simply cause orders to shift to suppliers in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, as well as possibly Mexico.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital have created laboratory-grown rat kidneys that function when transplanted into rats according to a study published online yesterday in the medical journal Nature Medicine.
The kidneys were capable of urine production and excretion without blood clots in both the laboratory and inside living rats. The researchers were able to create the functional kidneys by using a donor kidney and using a detergent to remove the rats’ kidney cells, then used new cells to cause the kidney to grow around the remaining “scaffolding,” the natural protein-based structure of the kidney that remained after washing the kidney.
These kidneys would also be of the patient’s tissue avoiding issues of organ rejection and would increase the pool of kidneys available for human transplant.
The researchers incubated the kidneys in a specialized oven for 12 days to mimic the insides of a rat. The researchers reported that these kidneys produced urine at 23% of the normal levels of properly working kidneys.
The lead researcher of the study published in Nature Medicine, Dr. Harald C. Ott, says this partial functionality is enough, saying, “If you’re on haemodialysis then kidney function of 10% to 15% would already make you independent of hemodialysis. It’s not that we have to go all the way.”
The techniques developed by Ott and the team of researchers still have to be further researched before it can be applied for use in humans. When it comes time for use in humans, Ott says that pigs’ kidneys would be used as the templates for making human-usable kidneys.
Ott said, “You’d take a kidney matrix off the shelf. Then in an ideal world, you’d take cells from that patient and create a kidney on demand.”
Roughly 100,000 patients in the United States need an immediate kidney transplant, with 500,000 more on dialysis.
Friday, November 20, 2009
On Thursday, ten of those on board British Airways Flight 38 launched a case against Boeing over the accident before a court in Illinois. They are suing over an alleged flawed design that allowed an ice buildup to bring the 777 jet down at London’s Heathrow Airport. Scottish advocate Peter Macdonald spoke to Wikinews, commenting on the case and explaining the surrounding legislation. He has experience of litigating aviation accidents.
Although investigations are ongoing, the United Kingdom’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) has issued interim reports indicating ice buildup on an engine component. As the jet passed over Siberia on its journey from Beijing, China it encountered significantly reduced temperatures. The AAIB has determined that the fuel was at a temperature below 0°C for an unusually long duration. This is believed to have caused water in the fuel — which met all relevant international standards — to have frozen into crystals.
A build-up of ice developed on a component called the fuel/oil heat exchanger. This restricted the flow of fuel to the engine, resulting in an “uncommanded engine rollback” — a loss of power — on approach for landing. Investigators initially struggled to produce enough ice under test conditions but later discovered that at high concentration, fuel can form ice at very low temperatures in enough quantity to seriously restrict fuel flow. This does not occur when fuel demand is lower, as the hot oil then becomes sufficient to entirely melt the ice. It was only when extra fuel was pumped in from the tanks for the landing that the crystals became a problem. The fuel/oil heat exchanger is a dual purpose part designed to simultaneously melt fuel ice and cool down engine oil by passing oil pipes through the fuel flow.
| If I am correct that it is a product liability suit, then the fact that this is the first such accident matters not | ||
The crew of the aircraft were praised for their handling of the emergency, avoiding the airport’s perimeter fence and nearby houses to crash land short of the runway. None of the 136 passengers and 16 crew were killed but some of those suffered serious injuries, including broken bones and facial injuries. Some were left unable to fly and there were cases of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
The crash was triggered by highly unusual circumstances; the first AAIB report noted that cold fuel behaving in this manner was an “apparently hitherto unknown phenomenon.” As part of the investigation, data of 141,000 flights of 777s equipped with the engine model involved — the Rolls-Royce Trent 800 — was reviewed without finding any relevant circumstance similar to the accident flight, although there was later a similar incident in the United States in which the aircraft continued safely after repowering one engine; the second did not lose power.
Given the circumstances surrounding the case, Wikinews asked Peter Macdonald if the plaintiffs intended to prove that Boeing knew or should have known the Rolls-Royce powerplant was dangerously defective by design. “I rather suspect that there may be product liability legislation in place in whichever US jurisdiction is being used,” Macdonald explained. “Such statutes normally do not require proof of fault, nor do they require proof of knowledge. All that you have to show is that there was a defect in the product which caused the losses concerned… If I am correct that it is a product liability suit, then the fact that this is the first such accident matters not.”
| [Rolls-Royce] would be liable for a defect in terms of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 | ||
Macdonald went on to discuss the international legislation and how it interacts to the plaintiffs and the three companies involved — Boeing, British Airways and Rolls-Royce. Only Boeing is currently named in an action over the case. “There are several reasons why the plaintiffs will wish to sue Boeing in the States,” he said. “Were the plaintiffs to seek redress in a court in the United Kingdom, it is unlikely that the relevant part of Boeing would be subject to jurisdiction here.” He also pointed out that “US damages are generally higher than English damages.”
“As to whether Boeing should settle, that all depends upon the basis of the action. If it is a fault [negligence] based action, they will be able to defend it. If fault is not needed, that is why they would want the action dismissed, forcing litigation in the UK.” In the UK, a product liability suit “would ordinarily be directed against the importers, i.e. British Airways… It would be a simple matter to sue BA here [the UK] for the physical injuries and their financial consequences,” said Macdonald. “That leaves RR [Rolls-Royce]. I assume that the engine was made in the UK. They would be liable for a defect in terms of the Consumer Protection Act 1987, Part I.” This piece of UK-wide legislation states that “where any damage is caused wholly or partly by a defect in a product [the manufacturer] shall be liable for the damage.” Damage includes injuries.
US courts decide international jurisdictional issues under the Jones Act, passed as a result of Bhopal litigation, “which makes it much more difficult for a foreigner to sue in the US if the accident did not happen there… My restricted understanding of that is that it is likely that it would be difficult to remove an action from a US court where the aircraft was made in the US.” He further pointed out that the court would require there to be an alternative court with jurisdiction over the issue. “It may well be that the relevant part of the Boeing group is not subject to the jurisdiction of the English courts… I have seen cases where it was made a condition of the grant of an order under the Jones Act that the defendants would submit to the jurisdiction of a court in Scotland and that they would not take a plea of time bar in the even that an action was raised within three months of the court order.”
He then addressed the international law with regards to what could be claimed for against air carriers such as BA. In a previous case against the same airline, Abnett v British Airways, the House of Lords ruled in 1997 “that the only remedy for an injured passenger on an international flight is to sue under the Warsaw Convention, Article 17, incorporated into our law by the Carriage by Air Act, 1961.” The Warsaw Convention governs liability for international commercial airlines. At the time, the House of Lords was the highest court of appeal in the UK, although it was recently replaced by the Supreme Court. The Abnett case referred to British Airways Flight 149, in which Iraq captured the aircraft and occupants when it landed in Kuwait hours after Iraq invaded in 1990. Peter Macdonald represented Abnett in this case.
The Convention “provides a remedy for “bodily injury”. Interestingly, the term only appeared in the final draft of the Warsaw Convention. There is no mention of the term in the minutes of the many sessions which lead up to the final draft. It was produced overnight and signed later that day.” This term creates difficulties in claiming for mental problems such as the fear of flying or PTSD, although Macdonald points out that “there is a large amount of medical literature which details physical and chemical changes in the brains of people who are suffering from PTSD.”
In King v Bristow Helicopters, heard before the House of Lords in 2002 “held that PTSD was not a “bodily injury”, but expressly left the door open for someone to try to prove that what is known as PTSD is the manifestation of physical changes in the brain which have been brought about by the trauma. Such a litigation is pending in Scotland.” Macdonald is acting in this case.
Actions against Boeing are not bound in this way, as the Warsaw Convention only applies to airlines, making the States an attractive place to sue due to the issues with demonstrating jurisdiction against the relevant part of the Boeing group in the UK. Another reason why the plaintiffs would prefer to sue in America is that in the UK “there would be liability [for BA], and that would be subject to a damages cap. An action in the US [against any defendant] would probably have the same cap, but is likely to award damages more generously in the event that the cap is not reached.”