Bright Hall http://brighthall.aol.com Bright Hall http://brighthall.aol.com/media/feedlogo.gif Bright Hall http://brighthall.aol.com en-us Copyright 2009 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/Ex-Microsoft Programmer Becomes World's Most Frequent Space Touristhttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/04/08/ex-microsoft-programmer-becomes-worlds-most-frequent-space-tour/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/04/08/ex-microsoft-programmer-becomes-worlds-most-frequent-space-tour/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/04/08/ex-microsoft-programmer-becomes-worlds-most-frequent-space-tour/#commentsFiled under: ,

The world's most frequent intragalactic tourist returned to Earth on Wednesday.

Charles Simonyi (pictured, left), who became the fifth commercial passenger of a space flight in 2007, is the first commercial passenger to have taken two trips to the International Space Station.

Simonyi, 60, formerly a prominent software engineer who contributed to the development of Microsoft Word and Excel, paid $25 million for the roundtrip flights and 10 days he spent on the ISS in April of 2007 and $35 million for the roundtrip flights and his 11 days' visit this year from March 26 to April 8.

Simonyi, a native Hungarian who immigrated to the U.S. in 1968 at age 20, was a passenger on Russia's Roskosmos Soyuz spacecraft for both flights. Multimillion-dollar commercial passenger seats will be temporarily unavailable while flights will serve to increase the ISS's long-term crew from three to six astronauts and/or cosmonauts and/or other types of whatever-nauts.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>Adam Kirchner2009-04-08T23:32:00+00:00Fighting for Cheryl: How We Can Kill Cancerhttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/29/the-cancer-generation-finding-a-cure/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/29/the-cancer-generation-finding-a-cure/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/29/the-cancer-generation-finding-a-cure/#commentsFiled under: ,

Cancer may be one of the most powerful forces we have ever seen.

It has the power to take away loved ones, and bring them closer together. Cancer boggles the mind with its indiscriminate cruelty, but also distills our emotions to the simplest common denominator of unconditional love. Cancer wreaks devastation on its victims in many ways, but also unites a community of fighters, survivors and supporters on a level that others can never fully understand.

This month, I've been a little distracted thinking about the many implications of cancer. My aunt, Cheryl Mann, passed away on March 7, 2009, after battling breast cancer for nearly five years. Since being profiled in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a 2005 series, Cheryl, 47, had become a leader in the Atlanta area with the American Cancer Society, helping to raise nearly a million dollars for medical research and awareness. She leaves behind a husband, three young children, and her mother, father, brother and sister.

Throughout it all, Cheryl used her vibrant, spunky personality to help raise the dialogue about cancer, asking strangers in supermarkets if they had been checked recently. And as her body struggled through those final days, I was left wondering what the future holds for our generation.

Will we be the generation to see the worst effects of cancer continue, often from preventable causes? Or, will we be the generation to finally solve the puzzle, finding a full cure for the second-leading cause of death in America?

As it stands, nearly one in two males in the United States, and more than one in three females, will be afflicted by cancer at some point in their lifetime. Due to extraordinary developments in scientific research and public awareness, death rates are declining, according to the American Cancer Society's comprehensive report Cancer Facts & Figures 2008. But millions of deaths are still preventable.




As the report details, healthy eating habits and a physically active lifestyle are two of the simplest ways to reduce cancer risk. Regular check-ups and widespread awareness are also critically helpful tools in this fight.

Cheryl's battle is also a reminder that investments in cancer research and support are not in vain. In 2005, she participated in a groundbreaking clinical trial for the drug Herceptin, which has since been proven to cut breast cancer recurrence rates in half and has been approved by the FDA for wider use. Other life-extending therapies are being developed at an encouraging rate, propelled by public activism and government funding.

It is these resources -- public and private support, donations of time and money, and advocacy for the cause -- which will ultimately determine the survival chances of future cancer patients. The good news is that victory is within our reach.

Click here for a list of ways you can help

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>Joshua Sharp2009-03-29T00:07:00+00:00Volcano Monitoring Proves Useful One Month After Jindal's Speechhttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/24/volcano-monitoring-proves-useful-one-month-after-jindals-speech/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/24/volcano-monitoring-proves-useful-one-month-after-jindals-speech/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/03/24/volcano-monitoring-proves-useful-one-month-after-jindals-speech/#commentsFiled under: , ,



A volcano in southern Alaska erupted Sunday and Monday, spewing ash columns some 60,000 feet in the air and causing ash to fall in several communities west of Anchorage, CNN reported Monday.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal so did not see this coming back in February, when he mocked the part of the stimulus plan that allocated funding for volcanic activity monitoring.

In the GOP response to President Barack Obama's address to a joint session of Congress, Jindal criticized the Democrats for passing a bill "larded with wasteful spending," including "$140 million for something called 'volcano monitoring.'" [Correction: I wrote billion originally. $140 billion would probably be excessive.]

"Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.," Jindal said.

That line's a zinger...until a volcano actually erupts.

The Anchorage Daily News reported that Mount Redoubt erupted for a sixth time Monday evening. The aviation industry was affected by the eruptions, since the ash clouds prevent air traffic in the vicinity of the volcano. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters that approximately 20,000 passengers fly through the area each day, CNN reported.

A U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist told CNN that the eruptions could disrupt air travel to south central Alaska and Alaska as a whole for weeks to months. The Anchorage Daily News reported that Alaska Airlines canceled 19 flights in and out of Anchorage because of the ash.

In towns near the volcano, residents are wearing masks to go outside, since the ash is dangerous to breath. But luckily, experts have been warning of an eruption for some time, CNN said.

Thank goodness for volcano monitoring, right Gov. Jindal?The Daily Beast reported in their story about the Jindal goof-up that geologists say the area around Mt. Redoubt is likely to receive stimulus funds that will help its residents to prepare for future volcanic disasters.

Mount Redoubt, a 10,917-foot stratovolcano 100 miles south of Anchorage, last erupted during a four-month period in 1989-1990, the Anchorage Daily News said. The most recent period of volcanic unrest began Jan.25 and scientists reported heightened seismicity at Mount Redoubt for two hours prior to the eruption, so warned that there could be a quick escalation to eruptive activity.

What are the odds, Jiindal must be wondering. I have no idea. He should probably ask someone whose job description is "something called 'volcano monitoring.'"

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>Kaitlynn Riely2009-03-24T08:18:00+00:00Killer Peanut Butter - Is Nothing Safe?http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/12/company-distributes-salmonella-contaminated-peanut-products/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/12/company-distributes-salmonella-contaminated-peanut-products/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/12/company-distributes-salmonella-contaminated-peanut-products/#commentsFiled under: , ,



Peanut butter has a certain innocence to it. For all of grade school and all of high school, a peanut butter sandwich was what I had for lunch. It's still my meal of choice when I brown bag it.

The same is true for millions of people in this country, especially children. That's why it was upsetting to learn that a company allowed peanut butter products contaminated with salmonella bacteria to be shipped and distributed to the public.

We've had other serious recent recalls for salmonella contamination of items like tomatoes and spinach, but these are not consumed as widely as peanut butter.

The salmonella outbreak has sickened about 600 people and investigators believe it may be linked to nine deaths. The owner of Peanut Corp. of America, Stewart Parnell, pleaded the Fifth Wednesday before a Congressional panel. He refused to eat his recalled products when a member of the panel offered them to him.

A timeline attached to the MSNBC article reports that the salmonella outbreak began in early September, with most people sickened after Oct. 1.
By January 12, the outbreak had spread to 42 states. On Jan. 27, federal health officials reported that the Peanut Corporation of America has a history of problems, including shipping products that the company had found positive for salmonella.

I've never had salmonella poisoning, but a friend of mine has, and she told me she never felt so sick or so weak in her life - in the most literal sense, she could barely lift a finger.

E-mail records described at the House hearing showed that, in response to products that had once tested positive for salmonella, but were cleared in a second test, Parnell ordered his plant manager to "turn them lose." The general practice is to destroy food items contaminated with salmonella.

In 2009, in the United States of America, parents shouldn't have to be afraid to give their children peanut butter sandwiches.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>Kaitlynn Riely2009-02-12T08:32:00+00:00Google Maps Parts of Ocean; Al Gore Approveshttp://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/03/google-maps-parts-of-ocean-al-gore-approves/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/03/google-maps-parts-of-ocean-al-gore-approves/http://brighthall.aol.com/2009/02/03/google-maps-parts-of-ocean-al-gore-approves/#commentsFiled under: ,

Thanks to Google, now you, too, can be Jacques Cousteau. And you don't even need to put on a bathing suit.

The popular search engine has updated its Google Earth software to include large parts of the ocean, so users can "dive" under the water and explore what lies beneath the surface.

According to a BBC article, Google hopes this new feature is just the first step towards mapping the entire ocean. The majority of the planet Earth is covered by water -- about 70 percent -- but only about five percent of it has been explored, so this will be no small feat.

The company's new application is pretty cool. Al Gore, the former vice president, Nobel Prize winner and all around go-to guy for things involving the environment, spoke at the launch event in San Francisco. He said the ocean exploring capability makes Google Earth a "magical experience."

Al Gore did the impossible by making PowerPoint presentations cool, so I figured he knows a good thing when he sees it.

And Google Earth's new ocean search feature is pretty magical. But it looks like Google needs to get some more oceanographers on staff, because the land exploration feature is still far, far advanced.

I did get to dive under water, however, without even leaving my dorm room.

The coolest feature I tried out was swimming through the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Francisco with a female white shark. Cousteau would have loved it.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>Kaitlynn Riely2009-02-03T08:30:00+00:00Palin Said Humans and Dinosaurs Coexisted?!http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/09/28/palin-said-humans-and-dinosaurs-coexisted/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/09/28/palin-said-humans-and-dinosaurs-coexisted/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/09/28/palin-said-humans-and-dinosaurs-coexisted/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,

No. No no no no no.

Sarah Palin apparently told a University of Alaska professor that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time, the LA Times reports.

According to college music teacher Philip Munger, the following scene went down soon after Palin was elected as Wasilla's mayor in 1997 (some lines paraphrased for continuity):

Munger: What are your religious views?

Palin: "Dinosaurs and humans walked the earth at the same time."

Munger: What about fossils and dino tracks dating back 65 million years?

Palin: I've seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks.

And that's why we do background checks, ladies and gentlemen.

First of all, a note to PBS's Gwen Ifill, who will be moderating Thursday's VP debates: You have got to follow up on this. (Also, be sure to check our live blog for the debate.)

This sort of news is so bizarre that I can't even find an appropriate place to talk about paleontology as opposed to "Palintology," a clever pun I thought of that will unfortunately go to waste.

Ugh. I'm sorry, readers. I'm mailing this one in. I seriously can't think of anything to say about this. AOL News, don't pay me for this blog post.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>Matt Negrin2008-09-28T17:52:00+00:00Prostate Cancer Treatment Questionedhttp://brighthall.aol.com/2008/09/25/prostate-cancer-treatment-questioned/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/09/25/prostate-cancer-treatment-questioned/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/09/25/prostate-cancer-treatment-questioned/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Hormone therapy is a mainstay for the treatment of prostate cancer. The therapy disrupts the growth of tumors by decreasing the levels of androgen, a hormone that, if left at normal levels, would increase the size of cancer cells. Such a procedure is generally a precursor to brachytherapy, a form of radiation treatment during which radioactive "seeds" are implanted into tumors to kill the cancer cells.

But the hormone therapy itself could have detrimental effects on the patient, according to a new study presented at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in Boston on Tuesday. Led by Amy Dosortez, a resident in the Harvard Radiation Oncology Program, researchers tracked the life course of 1700 men over the age of 70 after they underwent treatment for early-stage prostate cancer. The median length of hormone therapy was 3.5 months, while the length of time the men were tracked was 5 years. Results showed that the men given androgen-deprivation therapy prior to the brachytherapy were 20% more likely to die from any cause than those who only had brachytherapy. Dosoretz suggests that the hormone treatment could worsen the overall health of the patients, particularly given their ages, making them more susceptible to other issues, like heart disease.

Other studies on this topic have had mixed results, however, and did not show that hormone therapy had the same effect on the patients' mortality. Researchers are also unsure as to why exactly the hormone treatment poses this risk. Regardless, the study lends further credence to the idea that the standard prostate cancer treatment may not work for every patient, particularly older men facing the disease in its early stages.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>Emily Lasky2008-09-25T06:20:00+00:00Black Hole Could Engulf Earth Today; Eat Dessert Firsthttp://brighthall.aol.com/2008/09/10/black-hole-could-engulf-earth-today-eat-dessert-first/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/09/10/black-hole-could-engulf-earth-today-eat-dessert-first/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/09/10/black-hole-could-engulf-earth-today-eat-dessert-first/#commentsFiled under: ,

John McCain wants to give tax breaks to the richest Americans. Barack Obama wants to meet with the crazy anti-Semitic Iranian leader. And Sarah Palin wants us all to believe the Earth is 5,000 years old.

But none of that matters if the biggest science experiment since fire goes horribly awry in Geneva, where the world's top nerds have just activated some sort of super God microscope.

The idea is to find out what laws govern elemental particles under conditions similar to when a cosmic fireball exploded out of nothing a jillion years ago in what is comically referred to as "The Big Bang."

Oh, wait. That's what scientists actually call it.

As cool as that sounds, skeptics are warning that the ambitious $8 billion science project could have one small unintended consequence once a stream of particles are rammed together: the end of existence as we know it.

The result, according to the worried bloggers in their parents' basements, would be the creation of a black hole that would swallow the planet and effectively end all this nonsense about Sarah Palin's lipstick.

But that probably won't happen.

It's more likely that, after the scientists complete their tests of the 17-mile track that the protons zip around in opposite directions at nearly the speed of light, the dorks will discover a "God particle," the meaning of life and other juicy secrets the universe has been hiding for years, like who picks Jon Miller's outfits and what the hell the new Microsoft commercial is about.

But one discomforting part of this experiment is that it is just that -- an experiment, the consequences of which are unknown to even the brainiest of the brain wizards.

"That there are many theories means we don't have a clue," Fermilab director Pier Oddone told The New York Times outside Chicago as a bunch of eggheads watched the scientific breakthroughs. "That's what makes it so exciting."

Exciting?! You know what's exciting? A good game of Risk. You never know who's going to win, and there's a lot of chance involved. But at least you definitely know the world isn't going to implode when the game is over.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>Matt Negrin2008-09-10T12:27:00+00:00Alien Abductee Speaks Outhttp://brighthall.aol.com/2008/08/08/alien-abductee-speaks-out/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/08/08/alien-abductee-speaks-out/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/08/08/alien-abductee-speaks-out/#commentsFiled under: , , ,



When the tractor beam rudely snatched me from a pleasant slumber, it only took me a startling second to realize what was happening. At that point, the thought that kept reverberating through my brain was, "If they try any of that anal probe nonsense, I'll freaking kill them." Ha. Thinking back, I can't help but chuckle at the ignorance of my presumptions.

For one, did I actually think myself capable of harming the creatures in possession of technology which was presently lifting me out of my bed and into their spacecraft without so much as a whisper, let alone a broken window? And as Creblon remarked when I told him/her of my initial fears, "Why the hell would we even want to do that? I mean think about it. God, you male humans and your homoerotic paranoias."So with misunderstandings clarified, we had a good laugh, drank a couple of their local microbrews and ended the trip back at the time it began so I could still catch some sleep before the morning. Nice guys, those aliens. Lightweights, but nice guys nonetheless.

The only problem was telling people about my experience afterwards. Creblon was right, if it wasn't outright pity for my delusions, it was an endless succession of mostly unfunny anal probe jokes. Thankfully though, a recent string of alien related news has given me reason to hope for a more mature public understanding of my interstellar drinking buddies.

First, there's Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man on the moon, telling media outlets left and right that the Roswell incident was real, aliens come here all the time, and several government officials in the know let him in on it, on account of him going to the moon and whatnot. This guy is the man.

Then there was Nick Pope's New York Times op-ed piece on July 29th urging the U.S. government and aviation officials to take UFO sightings more seriously, if not out of sheer curiosity then at least for the sake of national security. Because what if those things aren't alien spacecraft but actually secret new Chinese/Russian/Iranian flying discs capable of breaching U.S. airspace at whim and delivering a devastating payload of General Tsao's chicken/ Stolichnaya/ kebabs in the heartland of America? Obviously we'd be screwed.

And finally, NASA officials announced last week, that yes, by Jove, there is water on Mars, making the notion of life on the planet, past or present, much more feasible. The movie Mars Attacks remains no less absurd, however.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>JJ Colao2008-08-08T15:25:00+00:00Scientists Rap to the Sounds of Particles Acceleratinghttp://brighthall.aol.com/2008/08/07/scientists-with-too-much-time-yo/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/08/07/scientists-with-too-much-time-yo/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/08/07/scientists-with-too-much-time-yo/#commentsFiled under: , ,

With the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) fully built and due to start firing its proton beams in just over a month, it seems that the researchers on site in Geneva have been looking for new ways to fill their time - rapping the details of their experiment.



CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

The LHC is the world's most powerful particle accelerator, producing beams seven times more energetic than any previous machine, and around 30 times more intense when it reaches design performance, probably by 2010. It spans two countries and is 27-kilometers long.

The collider is designed to create tiny black holes that will be in existence for fractions of a second in hopes of recreating the conditions present just before the big bang. Protesters say that the experiment is likely to end the world, though the coordinators of the experiment, the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN), say that is not going to happen.

Evidently, the rap is a product of the CERN press office and it is filmed with real, live scientists.

For the next several weeks - including this weekend - CERN will be preforming tests of the LHC's various components and will be working to ensure that each part is synchronized and up to the task of making tiny particles collide at just below the speed of light. Timing between the two parts of the accelerator must be accurate to within a fraction of a nanosecond.

Scientists hope that the scale of the LHC will help them to discover some of the secrets of the universe and help them to prove the existence of "dark matter" and other particles that scientists believe exist but have never observed.

If you're interested in a more, well, serious look at the LHC, check out these pictures from the Boston Globe.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>creneuropean center for nuclear researchEuropeanCenterForNuclearResearchlarge hadron colliderLargeHadronColliderlhcparticle acceleratorParticleAcceleratorrapscienceweird scientistsWeirdScientistsSam Guzik2008-08-07T17:10:00+00:00Viagra Can Help Women, toohttp://brighthall.aol.com/2008/08/06/viagra-can-help-women-too/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/08/06/viagra-can-help-women-too/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/08/06/viagra-can-help-women-too/#commentsFiled under: , ,

That little blue pill sure seems to work some serious magic, and it is working in more ways than one. Not only can it help men and babies born with weak lungs, it can also improve libido for women who are on anti-depressants.

Women and men taking antidepressants called serotonin reuptake inhibitors sometimes experience sexual issues. An estimated 30 to 70 percent of people taking these antidepressants have sex-related complaints at some point. (SRIs include Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Lexapro, Celexa and Anafranil.)

Pfizer stopped testing Viagra on women four years ago because they discovered it did not have the drastic effect on women as it did men. According to a new article in Science News, "Scientists have suggested that the drug didn't work on women because their cascade of arousal, desire and orgasm is more complicated than men's." (Ain't that the truth....)They did, however, research certain subgroups of women for whom the drug might still have potential, including those in the new study who were taking SRI antidepressants.

Scientists are not sure why Viagra would work for women taking anti-depressants, but not for other women. "The bottom line is we don't know for sure," says study coauthor Julia Heiman, a clinical psychologist who is director of the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington. But, Heiman says, these women might have been more motivated than women in previous studies, "we were giving this drug to women who wanted this to change."

This finding is not only going to save marriages, but sanity as well. According to the article, "women who experience sexual side effects while taking antidepressants are three times as likely to stop taking SRIs as are other women on these antidepressants, previous research showed. Women participating in the new trial continued to take SRI antidepressants during the eight-week test period."

At this rate, Pfizer could be up for a Nobel Prize anytime now.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>Megan Baker2008-08-06T17:13:00+00:00Former Google Employees Launch a Cuil Search Enginehttp://brighthall.aol.com/2008/07/28/former-google-employees-launch-a-cuil-search-engine/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/07/28/former-google-employees-launch-a-cuil-search-engine/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/07/28/former-google-employees-launch-a-cuil-search-engine/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Anna Patterson's last search engine innovation was so good, Google bought it from her in 2004. This time, she's keeping her technology to herself. Patterson left Google in 2006 to try to develop a better way of surfing the web. With the help of her husband, Tom Costello, and two other former Google engineers - Russell Power and Louis Monier, she developed Cuil.



Cuil (pronounced "cool") launched yesterday, calling itself "The World's Biggest Search Engine." Cuil is an old Irish word for knowledge and claims to search more pages on the web than anyone else...Google included. They believe in analyzing content over analyzing the user, which is a different approach for search engines. One of their major promises is that they don't log a user's search history, which is a concern for some search engine users.

While Cuil may actually be a better search engine than Google, will it really matter?
Right now, not even giants Yahoo! or Microsoft can compete. Through May, Google held a 62% share of the U.S. search market with Yahoo at 21% and Microsoft at 8.5%, according to comScore Inc. Not only that, the name recognition of Google alone is enough for them to not have to worry.

TechCrunch tested out the two contenders to see which one really is better...so far, anyway. They found that "Cuil is an excellent search engine, particularly since it is all of an hour old. But it doesn't appear to have the depth of results that Google has, despite their claims. And the results are not nearly as relevant."

Patterson is not a disgruntled employee, just someone who didn't like how monotonous Google is. Google has looked pretty much the same for 10 years now," she said, "and I can guarantee it will look the same a year from now."

The thing is...why fix what isn't broken? Cuil is nice. It has a different look and a different feel, but many people have become so accustomed to Google that it won't matter just how great other search engines are. Personally, I won't be switching over anytime soon.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>Megan Baker2008-07-28T10:44:00+00:00Viagra...Now for Babieshttp://brighthall.aol.com/2008/07/25/viagra-now-for-babies/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/07/25/viagra-now-for-babies/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/07/25/viagra-now-for-babies/#commentsFiled under: ,


Not only can Viagra help...well, you know...but it has also been used as a life-saving medication for babies born with weak lungs.

In August of 2007, Lewis Goodfellow was born at 24 weeks, weighing only 1lb 8oz. One of his lungs failed, making it so he was not getting enough oxygen in his bloodstream.

Alan Fenton, consultant neonatologist at the hospital, said:"The problem we see in premature babies with breathing difficulties is although we can blow oxygen into their lungs to help them, there isn't enough blood supply to various areas of the lungs to take the oxygen around the rest of the body.What Sildenafil (Viagra) does is open up the blood vessels so they can capture the oxygen and take it around the body."

Goodfellow is not the only baby to benefit from the wonders of Viagra. Cherish Nero's son was recently saved by the drug, but she had some obvious concerns about the treatment.

"The first thought in my mind was, 'What else is it going to do for him besides work as a pulmonary dilator?" Cherish Nero said.

There have not been any long term studies on the effects of this treatment, but it has yielded good results thus far. All doctors really know that too high a dosage can cause a drop in blood pressure.

Dr. Gul Dadlani of All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla. said that Viagra therapy "relaxes those vessels and allows more blood flow to go to the lungs and improves the symptoms for the patient."

Looks like Viagra is more of a miracle drug than originally imagined...lets just hope these babies can keep their diapers on, huh?

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>Megan Baker2008-07-25T12:42:00+00:00Live from Mars: Clay and Speculation of Lifehttp://brighthall.aol.com/2008/07/20/live-from-mars-clay-and-speculation-of-life/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/07/20/live-from-mars-clay-and-speculation-of-life/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/07/20/live-from-mars-clay-and-speculation-of-life/#commentsFiled under: , ,

From more than 400-million miles away, the Phoenix Mars Lander has beamed back pictures of the red planet every day for almost two months.

The mission - a project of NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at CalTech, University of Arizona and many other scientists (including several from Washington University) - has confirmed that minerals in the soil of Mars show it was covered once by lakes, rivers and other bodies of water that could have supported life.

Though there has, so far, been no proof of life past or present on our planetary neighbor, Reuters reports that the clay found on Mars was likely formed at a much cooler temperature and at a time when water was abundantly available. The lander has analyzed soil from trenches it dug (shown at right) using on board equipment that includes an electron microscope.

The work of the Mars lander has gone largely unnoticed in the American press, though its findings challenge many of the understandings of Mars' history; specifically, the new data suggests that there was once much more water on Mars than ever before thought.

Scientists cannot determine whether the river flow was sporadic or sustained, but they do know it was intense and involved a lot of water.

"So not only was water active in this region to weather the rocks, but there was enough of it to run through the beds, transport the clays and run into the lake and form the delta," Professor Bethany Ehlmann told the Telegraph.

If there was ever life on Mars, the current landing site and the surrounding area likely hold evidence of that because the clays brought in from the watershed and deposited in the lake would have trapped any organisms, leaving a high concentration of microbes.

%Gallery-28141%

The mission is currently being timed according to the Martian day (or Sol), which is approximately 40 minutes longer than the earth's. For the mission team, that presents a unique challenge of inter-planetary jet lag.

"Sometimes we are working in the middle of the night and sleeping during the day. This makes for an interesting schedule, and it has been an adjustment," Washington University sophomore Kirsten Siebach told Student Life Newspaper. "Sometimes you feel like you're living on your own planet and it's hard to keep in touch with family and friends, but the mission goes on, and in a week or two we're on 'Earth time' again."

Siebach is one of many students who are assisting the scores of professors and engineers to analyze data and run the mission.

Even though NASA's budget has been shrinking for years, some scientists are now looking for ways to build on the success of the current mission.

One plan calls for an international team to send a lander to Mars with the intention of returning a sample to earth; such a mission could be underway by 2013, with a first launch by 2020 and Martian soil on earth as early as 2023.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>marsmars landerMarsLandernasaphoenix landerPhoenixLanderSam Guzik2008-07-20T10:02:00+00:00Debate Over Dementia Patients Continues in the UKhttp://brighthall.aol.com/2008/06/18/debate-over-dementia-patients-continues-in-the-uk/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/06/18/debate-over-dementia-patients-continues-in-the-uk/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/06/18/debate-over-dementia-patients-continues-in-the-uk/#commentsFiled under: , ,

The practice of using anti-psychotic drugs on patients suffering from dementia is being hotly contested in the United Kingdom. Patients there are being treated with these controversial drugs even though there is no proof that the drugs are beneficial. They may in fact have negative impacts.

Ministers have recently ordered a review of these drugs in efforts to improve the care of dementia patients in England, where 570,000 people suffer from the disease. If the problem is not further looked into, it is projected that dementia care will cost England £35bn a year within 20 years.

Edward Leigh, of the Public Accounts Committee, said that "Such is the fear of the condition, the belief among both the public and professionals that little can be done to help sufferers, and the lack of knowledge of many GPs, that dementia is never formally diagnosed in up to two-thirds of cases. Many sufferers are also not being diagnosed early enough and, when diagnosed, end up in hospital beds or care homes, deprived of the specialist care they need."

Dementia is not a financial burden on the government alone, but also that of the families supporting the patient. If not detected early enough, dementia patients end up having to live in costly assisted living facilities.

Neil Hunt of the Alzheimer's Society said that, "The public accounts committee is right: dementia needs to be given the same priority as heart disease and cancer in the NHS."

This problem is not unique to the United Kingdom. In the United States, about 4.5 million people suffer from Alzheimer's Disease and it costs America at least $100 billion per year. But it is not the financial burden that is most worrisome, it is the quality of life that these patients are forced to live with until they finally die.

My grandmother recently passed away from a combination of liver cancer and Pick's Disease which is a rare nuerodegenerative brain disease. When her condition became too much for my grandfather to handle, she was forced to live in a nursing home which cost over $7,000 per month.

While being cared for there, the doctors put her on different mixtures of drugs which reared many different reactions, some good, but mostly bad. Her last two years of life were extremely painful for both her and my family because she could not communicate with us and we were left wondering if she was in pain and feeling extremely helpless.

There is nothing worse than watching someone you love slowly degenerate into a painful and prolonged death. The United States government should make dementia prevention and care a top priority because more and more Americans are being diagnosed with such diseases, and the number of Alzheimer's patients alone is projected to double by 2040.

This is a growing threat facing people worldwide. People can live for some time with this disease, but are they really living or just existing?

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>Megan Baker2008-06-18T20:50:00+00:00Trial and Errorhttp://brighthall.aol.com/2008/06/12/trial-and-error/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/06/12/trial-and-error/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/06/12/trial-and-error/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

In the most ironic news item of the week, filmmaker Ira Issacs's obscenity trial, which would determine whether his films are obscene, has been suspended because it was discovered that presiding judge Alex Kozinski has posted obscene pictures and videos online. Oddly enough, though sexually explicit images can impede Kozinski from being a part of the trial, the trial is set to include extensive viewings of the director's fetish films, which are films of an extremely explicit nature, seeing as how they include things like defecation. Whether or not that last little piece is ironic is up to English teachers everywhere, but somewhere, Alanis Morissette is turning this whole thing into another song.

In other watching-sexually-explicit-things-during-a-trial news, the jury is now deliberating in R. Kelly's child pornography case. Since both R. Kelly and the woman who is allegedly in the sex tape (she would have been 13 at the time) have both denied being on the tape, the case seems to hinge on Kelly's "mole defense" and whether or no the man on the tape actually has the same tiny mark.

Finally, in news that is only related if you squint really hard and allow me one of two segues ("speaking of tiny things" or "speaking of trial and error"), scientists have decided not to give up on Pluto just yet, at least in spirit. Dwarf planets similar in size to Pluto will now be referred to as "plutoids." The other plutoid is Eris, which is farther away than Pluto and a little bigger, but hey, guess scientists just felt bad for the little guy.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>Emily Lasky2008-06-12T23:03:00+00:00In Medicine, One Size Does Not Fit Allhttp://brighthall.aol.com/2008/06/10/in-medicine-one-size-does-not-fit-all/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/06/10/in-medicine-one-size-does-not-fit-all/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/06/10/in-medicine-one-size-does-not-fit-all/#commentsFiled under: , ,

A recent study of medical treatment among people of different races found that there is a racial disparity in the outcome of medical treatment, even when patients are treated by the same physician. The study focused on diabetes, an increasing epidemic in the United States.

The reason, however, may not be racial, it may in fact be a lack of discrimination.

According to the author Dr. Thomas D. Sequist, an assistant professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School, the study reflected the doctors "systemic failure to tailor treatments to patient's cultural norms."
For example, if a Latino person is suffering from diabetes and the doctor instructs the patient to lessen their carbohydrate intake, this may not be culturally reasonable seeing as rice is a main staple of a Latino diet. Instead, the doctors should make a more individualized approach and think harder about what would be a reasonable request to improve the health of the patient.

The only way to improve the health care for minorities is for doctors to make an honest effort to understand the cultural norms of different groups of people. Not all people will be able to follow the same diet plan (like those given to help alleviate the effects of diseases such as diabetes) because many minority groups have different lifestyles and cultures.

It does not seem feasible that one plan could work for any one person, and this concept must be understood in order to increase the quality of health care for minority groups.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>Megan Baker2008-06-10T22:46:00+00:00Why We Get Chandler Binghttp://brighthall.aol.com/2008/06/08/why-we-get-chandler-bing/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/06/08/why-we-get-chandler-bing/http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/06/08/why-we-get-chandler-bing/#commentsFiled under: ,

Scientists have come one step closer to identifying how we understand Chandler Bing, Murray Slaughter, and other sarcastically-inclined sitcom characters.

The right parahippocampal gyrus, an area thus far associated with recognizing changes in the visual field, is also involved in perceiving sarcasm. This is all the more surprising considering the fact that it is the left side of the brain that houses the regions that deal with language. Watch out left hemisphere; good ole righty's eying your turf.

Perhaps what is most interesting about this finding is the role of social cues, as opposed to linguistic cues, in detecting sarcasm. Understanding those of the sarcastic persuasion entails much more than speaking the same language. You have to understand facial expression, the actions of the speaker, and the social situation in order to register the meaning behind what people are saying.

For example, take the phrase, "Great job, genius," and imagine two situations in which you could say it. In the first situation, you are speaking with Dr. Katherine P. Rankin, who administered the Awareness of Social Inference Test to subjects afflicted with semantic dementia, which prevents people from remembering the meanings of words. She then examined MRI images of the subjects' brains to determine why they could not detect sarcasm. Dr. Rankin would be able to recognize that you aren't being sarcastic when you use this phrase, noting your smile, your thumbs up if you're into that sort of thing, and the other ways in which you appear earnest and happy.

Now say you're with a friend who has done something stupid. Thanks to the right parahippocampal gyrus and its ability to detect "social context," as Dr. Rankin calls it, the other person would recognize the pause before "genius" and the smirk you are probably displaying at the other party's aforementioned stupidity.

In addition to learning more about how humans can recognize the deeper meanings of language, this research will also hopefully lead to earlier diagnoses of frontotemporal dementia, which is harder to detect due to its effect on a person's awareness of words as opposed to more obvious memories. Unfortunately, no word yet on the scientific underpinnings of why people are sarcastic, so based on television case studies, sarcasm will continue to be considered a response to childhood, dealing with ridiculous people, and having a nubbin (go to 6:30 in the video below):

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

]]>Emily Lasky2008-06-08T20:19:00+00:00