We do plan to appeal certain aspects of the ruling

A federal administrative judge ruled that pomegranate juice maker Pom Wonderful used deceptive advertising when it implied its products could treat or prevent shoes 2012 serious diseases and other medical conditions. Judge D. Michael Chappell upheld much of a 2010 Federal Trade Commission complaint against the Los Angeles company owned by Lynda and Stewart Resnick. The judge said in his decision issued Monday that Pom used "insufficient" evidence to back its claims that Pom products "treat, prevent or reduce the risk of heart disease, prostate cancer or erectile dysfunction." The judge did not find all Pom ads in the original complaint to be at fault. But one cited as deceptive described Pom juice as an "antioxidant superpower," and went on to say that antioxidants guard against agents that "can cause heart disease, premature aging, Alzheimer's disease, even cancer." Chappell, the chief administrative law judge at the FTC, ordered Pom to discontinue making "any representation" that a product "is effective in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of any disease." Violations of the order could be subject to a buy louis vuitton hoodie fine of $16,000 per incident. The 335-page ruling did not agree with the entire, original FTC complaint. The judge said the complaint went too far in requiring Pom to get pre-approval from the Food and Drug Administration for any claims made in future advertisements. He ruled that pre-approval "would constitute unnecessary overreaching." Also, the judge did not find all Pom ads challenged by the FTC to be deceptive. David C. Vladeck, director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection, issued a short statement saying that he was "pleased" the judge agreed deceptive advertising had been used. Pom issued a statement Monday focusing on the parts of the original complaint that were discarded. It said the ruling allows the company to "share the scientific evidence that highlights the value and power inherent in pomegranates and pomegranate juice with impunity." The judge's decision goes into effect in 30 latest louis vuitton handbag 2012 days unless Pom formally challenges it. "We do plan to appeal certain aspects of the ruling," Pom spokesman Corey Martin said. The appeal would be heard by the five-member FTC. If an appeal is not successful, Pom could take the matter to a federal appeals court.

In both studies researchers ruled out the possibility

Two new studies have found that people with sleep apnea, a common disorder that causes snoring, fatigue and dangerous pauses in breathing at night, have a higher risk of new shoes 2012 louis vuitton cancer. The new research marks the first time that sleep apnea has been linked to cancer in humans. About 28 million Americans have some form of sleep apnea, though many cases go undiagnosed. For sleep doctors, the condition is a top concern because it deprives the body of oxygen at night and often coincides with cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes. "This is really big news," said Joseph Golish, a professor of sleep medicine with the MetroHealth System in Cleveland who was not involved in the research. Golish, the former chief of sleep medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, said that the cancer link may not prove to be as strong as the well-documented relationship between sleep apnea and cardiovascular disease, "but until disproven, it would be one more reason to get your apnea treated or louis vuitton ladies tee shrits to get it diagnosed if you think you might have it" . In one of the new studies, researchers in Spain followed thousands of patients at sleep clinics and found that those with the most severe forms of sleep apnea had a 65% greater risk of developing cancer of any kind. The second study, of about 1,500 government workers in Wisconsin, showed that those with the most breathing abnormalities at night had five times the rate of dying from cancer as people without the sleep disorder. Both teams only looked at cancer diagnoses and outcomes in general, without focusing on any specific type of cancer. In both studies researchers ruled out the possibility that the usual risk factors for cancer, like age, smoking, alcohol use, physical activity and weight, could have played a role. The association between cancer and disordered breathing at night remained even after they adjusted these and other variables. Mitesh Borad, a cancer researcher and assistant professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic who was not involved with the studies, called the findings "provocative" but said more research was needed to confirm the association. Recent animal studies have suggested that sleep apnea might play a role in cancer . When mice with tumors were placed in low-oxygen environments that simulate the effects of sleep apnea, their cancers progressed more rapidly . Scientist speculate that depriving mice of oxygen may cause black suits for men 2012 their bodies to develop more blood vessels to compensate, an effect that could act as a kind of fertilizer for cancer tissue and cause tumors to grow and spread more quickly. Researchers wondered whether a similar relationship might exist in humans.

Those kinds of experiences might not raise flags

Canada has become the first country to greenlight the world’s first approved drug that has stem cells as its active ingredient, offering hope to children suffering cheap louis vuitton sunglasses for men from an extremely painful disease that kills up to 80 percent of children affected. "I am very proud of the leadership role Canada has taken in advancing stem cell therapy and particularly gratified that this historic decision benefits children who would otherwise have little hope," said Andrew Daly, M.D., Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Medicine and Oncology at the University of Calgary, Canada, according to a press release. As the National Institutes of Health explains, the immune system, as the body's tool to fight infection and disease, works by seeing harmful cells as “foreign” and attacking them. When children receive a donor's stem cells (the “graft”), their job is to recreate the donor's immune system in the child's body (the “host”). The New York Times says, graft versus host disease (GvHD), the leading cause of transplant related deaths, is the term used when immune cells contained within transplanted bone marrow see the recipient’s organs as foreign and attack them, causing potentially severe damage to the skin, liver and digestive tract. For the first time, the government is proposing that all baby boomers get tested for hepatitis C. Anyone born from 1945 to 1965 should get a one-time blood test to see if they have the liver-destroying virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in draft recommendations issued Friday. Baby boomers account for more than 2 million of the 3.2 million Americans infected with the blood-borne virus. It can take decades to cause liver damage, and many people don't know they're infected. CDC officials believe the new measure could lead 800,000 more baby boomers to get treatment and could save more than 120,000 lives. "The CDC views hepatitis C as an unrecognized health crisis for the country, and we believe the time is now for a bold response," said Dr. John W. Ward, the CDC's hepatitis chief. Several developments drove the CDC's push for wider testing, he said. Recent data has shown that from 1999 to 2007, the number of Americans dying from hepatitis C-related diseases nearly doubled. Also, two drugs hit the market last year that promise to cure many more people than was previously possible. The virus can gradually scar the liver and lead to cirrhosis or liver cancer, and is the leading cause of liver transplant. It can trigger damage in other parts of the body as well. All told, more than 15,000 Americans die each year from hepatitis C-related illnesses, according to the CDC. The hepatitis C virus is most commonly spread today through sharing needles to inject drugs. Before widespread screening of blood donations began in 1992, it was also spread through blood transfusions. Health officials believe hundreds of thousands of new hepatitis C infections were occurring each year in the 1970s and 1980s, most of them in the younger adults of the era — the baby boomers. The hepatitis C virus was first identified in 1989. Today, about 17,000 infections occur annually, according to CDC estimates. About 3 percent of baby boomers test positive for the lv bangles virus, the CDC estimates. Of those, some manage to clear the infection from their bodies without treatment, but still have lingering antibodies that give a positive initial test result. That's why confirmatory tests are needed. Still, only a quarter of infected people are that lucky. Most have active and dangerous infections, Ward said. The agency's current guidelines recommend testing people known to be at high risk, including current and past injection drug users. But as many as a quarter of infected baby boomers say they don't recall engaging in a risky behavior. It's possible some people were infected in ways other than injection drug use or long-ago blood transfusions. Some experts say tattoos, piercings, shared razor blades and toothbrushes, manicures and sniffed cocaine may have caused the virus to spread in some cases. Those kinds of experiences might not raise flags in the minds of many patients or their physicians, experts said. A recent Harris Interactive survey of 1,000 baby boomers found other forms of ignorance about hepatitis C. Fewer than 20 percent knew they belonged to the generation most likely to be infected, and only a similar percent were aware it can be cured in many patients. Also, only about 25 percent said they had been tested, according to the survey, done on behalf of the American Gastroenterological Association and Vertex Pharmaceuticals, which makes one of the hepatitis C medications. Currently, many baby boomers learn of their infection almost by accident, like when they donate blood or get a physical exam for a life insurance policy, said Dr. Ryan Ford, an Emory University physician specializing in hepatitis care. "It's a long awaited and very much hoped for development that I believe will save lives," said Dr. Ira Jacobson, a hepatitis expert at New York Presbyterian/Weill white sunglasses for men 2012 Cornell Medical Center The new testing recommendation is expected to become final later this year.

Only one freshwater turtle species is known to have grown larger

A team of paleontologists including scientists from N.C. State University has discovered the fossil remains of a new species of dining table-size freshwater turtle that apparently lived side-by-side with the 50-foot snakes and super-size crocodiles that they had found earlier in the designerburberyoutlet same Colombian coal mine. Carbonemys cofrinii, or “coal turtle,” was well over six feet long from nose to tail. It represents a rapid increase in size from the largest known to have lived just before it, which were about two feet long. That makes it an intriguing piece of the evolutionary puzzle. In part, said the scientists, that growth spurt may have been a Darwinian strategy to fight off the giant crocs by making the turtle simply too big for dinner. “It was so large that it may actually have been chomping on some of the smaller crocodiles itself,” said Dan Ksepka, an NCSU paleontologist and a research associate at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences. “Once it grew to its full size, nothing much was going to be able to eat it.” The shell of the turtle they found had bite marks from a couple of crocodile attacks, but none that came close to piercing the thick carapace. The head was equipped with surprisingly large and powerful jaws. Ksepka and NCSU doctoral student Edwin Cadena were among the authors of a research paper on the turtle published Thursday in the Journal of Systematic Paleontology. Cadena was scouting for fossils in 2007 in the Cerrejón mine in northern Colombia when he spied part of the turtle’s shell protruding from clay-based rock about 120 feet down in the pit. It took six days of painstaking labor with a hand www.designerburberyoutlet.com broom and a screwdriver to uncover the full remains of the shell. “It was only when I was finished do I see that it was something different than we had found before,” he said. The two NCSU scientists have a facility for discovering outsize species. Ksepka was part of a team that found the remains of giant penguins in New Zealand. Cadena, meanwhile, had discovered bones from the giant snake in 2005 in the same coal mine, though he initially believed it was a crocodile fossil. The snake – Titanoboa cerrejonensis – a water-dwelling constrictor, weighed an estimated 2,500 pounds and was more than a yard in diameter. The open-pit mine is among the world’s largest, at 30 miles long by five miles wide. The turtle, snake and two large species of crocodiles found there lived about 60 million years ago, in the late Paleocene period. The team of scientists, which includes representatives from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and the Florida Museum of Natural History, is interested in the flora and fauna that lived there during that time not just because of their size, but because they are part of an explosion of species in the tropics. “Maybe we can understand more about why the tropics are so diverse now if we can build a good record to help us understand what happened then,” Cadena said. It was an interesting time. The dinosaurs had just died off, and global temperatures rose to about 11 degrees warmer than today. The warmer temperature, Cadena said, almost certainly helped make the size of the turtle possible. Scientists have all kinds of questions about the plants louis vuitton shoes sale and animals of that time and place, but paleontology can be difficult in the region because so much is covered by jungle. That makes the outsize coal mine an extraordinary window into the tropical past: It offers both a deep look under the soil of the region and a broad one, too. “You can look at kilometers and kilometers of the same time layer,” Cadena said. The information that they hope to glean from the turtle and other species found there could help understanding not only of the evolution of that time and place, but also how different species react to changes in global temperature. That could be crucial in helping develop practical plans for dealing with the effects of global warming, he said, by helping understand which species are most likely to be affected. Only one freshwater turtle species is known to have grown larger, by a couple of feet. An example of that one was found in Venezuela; it lived just 5 million to 6 million years ago. The two are related, and Cadena said paleontologists are looking for others that lived in the tens of millions of years between them. That would close a massive gap in the understanding of turtle evolution and yield perhaps more information on how the turtles evolved as the climate cooled. The scientists also expect to find more examples louis vuitton t shirts for women of the species they’ve already discovered. “Probably,” said Cadena, “there are bigger ones waiting for us.”

The reigning offensive player of the year

That's what Drew Brees seems to be wondering as he continues to wait for a long-term deal from the New Orleans Saints. CAPTION By Derick E. Hingle, US Presswire The record-setting quarterback aired his feelings cheap lv sunglasses during an interview with WWL, a New Orleans radio station. "It's been extremely frustrating for me," Brees said. "The negotiation shouldn't have been this difficult." The reigning offensive player of the year -- he passed for an NFL-leading 46 TDs and a single-season record 5,476 yards in 2011 -- Brees is currently bearing a one-year, $14.4 million franchise tag, certainly good money but well shy of the megapacts averaging at least $18 million annually that were signed by Peyton Manning and Tom Brady in recent years. Brees says he's just seeking an arrangement that's "reasonable" and "appropriate." He seems to have no intention of signing the franchise tender, which is of the exclusive variety and prevents him from talking to other clubs. Brees still carries the painful memories of 2005 when the San Diego Chargers slapped him with the franchise tag, which is lucrative but offers no security to NFL players whose careers are only one bad hit from suddenly ending. Brees suffered a major shoulder injury in the 2005 regular-season finale and was later discarded by the Bolts. But he made a miraculous recovery, signed with the Saints in 2006, has set numerous passing records since and, most important, led the team to its only Super Bowl title while becoming a post-Katrina community beacon in New Orleans. It has him wondering why negotiations have moved so glacially, especially since the deadline for franchised players to get a long-term deal is July 16 -- not to mention louis vuitton jewelry the leadership void the team is experiencing without him and suspended head coach Sean Payton. "This is a big time for our team, especially when you look at what's happened in this offseason, missing our head coach, Sean Payton," Brees said. "There should be a sense of urgency and yet it seems like there's not."

HTC Chief Executive Officer Peter Chou said HTC would not return

U.S. sales of two new smartphones from Taiwan's HTC Corp will be delayed due to a patent dispute with Apple Inc, a fresh blow to the company as it tries to turn cheap lv sunglasses around declining sales in what was once its largest market that knocked its shares down 5 percent. Apple scored a narrow victory against HTC in a patent lawsuit in December over technology in the smartphones, one of many such disputes in the fiercely competitive smartphone market. HTC said in a statement on Wednesday that "the U.S. availability of the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE has been delayed due to a standard U.S. Customs review of shipments that is required after an ITC (International Trade Commission) exclusion order". Under that ruling, HTC phones with the disputed technology would be banned from entering the U.S. from April 19. HTC has said that it has a workaround in its new phones lv jewelry to avoid the technology. The shipments still require inspection however. Some shipments of the One X model had reached the U.S. before the ban date, enabling the model's launch, but further shipments are being delayed, an HTC official in Taipei said. U.S. operator AT&T, which has been carrying the One X model in store since May 6, says the smartphone is "out of stock" on its website. The launch of the EVO 4G LTE by Sprint, originally scheduled for Friday, will be delayed. Sprint has been taking pre-orders on its website. In its statement, HTC said it believes it is "in compliance with the ruling and HTC is working closely with customs to secure approval". Sprint and AT&T both declined burberry handbags cheap to comment. As of 0405 GMT, HTC shares were down 4.6 percent in a broader market down 1.3 percent. "Previously, it was expected that general exclusion order from the patent infringement referred to only old models from HTC. However, the latest news suggest otherwise with all models (new and old) potentially at risk," Goldman Sachs said in a trading note to clients seen by Reuters. It said the U.S. market was expected to account for 15-20 percent of HTC's second-quarter shipments, and this delay might hit the company's earnings this quarter and possibly in the third quarter, depending on how quickly HTC could resolve the issue. Last month, HTC Chief Executive Officer Peter Chou said HTC would not return to the days when more than 50 percent of its revenue came from the United States, a market where it saw a big drop last year because of the fierce competition from Apple's iPhone 4S. Former contract maker HTC had a fairytale ride in 2010 and early 2011, when its shares more than tripled in the 14 months to April 2011. The company's sales grew four-fold in 1-1/2 years as consumers snapped up its innovative phones with their distinctive large clock numerals. But it suffered an equally rapid fall from grace as its phones failed to keep up with Apple's AAPL.O iPhones and Samsung's 005930.KS Galaxy range. In late February, HTC announced its One series cheap burberry handbags of models with fast graphic chips and advanced music and photography functions, to generally positive reviews from analysts and tech bloggers.

The company has indicated publicly that the losses could eventually double

In the years leading up to JPMorgan Chase’s $2 billion trading loss, risk managers and some senior investment bankers raised concerns that the bank was making louis vuitton shoes increasingly large investments involving complex trades that were hard to understand, the New York Times reports. But even as the size of the bets climbed steadily, these former employees say, their concerns about the dangers were ignored or dismissed. An increased appetite for such trades had the approval of the upper echelons of the bank, including Jamie Dimon, the chief executive, current and former employees said. Initially, this led to sharply higher investing profits, but they said it also contributed to the bank’s lowering its guard. "There was a lopsided situation, between really risky positions and relatively weaker risk managers,” said a former trader with the chief investment office, the JPMorgan unit that suffered the recent loss. The trader and other former employees spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of the investigations into the trading losses. Instead, the bank maintains that the losses were largely the fault of the chief investment office. Overall tolerance for risky trading did not increase, current executives said, just the scale of the office’s activities because of the bank’s acquisition of Washington Mutual in 2008 and its more risky credit portfolio. Despite Mr. Dimon’s recent apologies about the losses — which will most likely be repeated on Tuesday as JPMorgan shareholders gather for the company’s annual meeting in Tampa, Fla. — regulators will scrutinize risk management at the chief investment office. Top investment bank executives raised concerns about the growing size and complexity of the bets held by the bank’s chief investment office as early as 2007, according to interviews with half a dozen current and former bank officials. Within the investment office, led by Ina Drew, cheap LV sunglasses outlet 2012 new style sale online black who resigned on Monday, the bets were directed by the head of the Europe trading desk in London, Achilles Macris. Ina R. Drew has stepped down as chief investment officer at JPMorgan Chase. [JPM 35.79 -1.17 (-3.17%) ] Mr. Macris, who is also expected to resign, failed to heed concerns as early as 2009 from the unit’s own internal risk officer, said current and former members of the chief investment office. Mr. Macris and Ms. Drew were not available for comment. Under Mr. Dimon’s stewardship, JPMorgan Chase has long had a reputation for its strong risk-management abilities — indeed, it came through the 2008 financial crisis largely unscathed, unlike many big banks. For their part, senior bank officials on Monday disputed the assertions that the company weakened risk management in recent years while seeking higher trading profits. Risk managers were largely sidelined by Mr. Macris, who had wide latitude and also had Ms. Drew’s support, with only modest interference from her. At one point, after concerns were raised about positions assembled by Bruno Iksil, now known as the London Whale, Mr. Macris brought in a risk officer with whom he had worked closely in the past. Risk officers are empowered to halt trades deemed too dangerous, so the coziness of the arrangement generated talk in New York as well, according to the former trader within the chief investment office. Several bankers said that risk controls were not sufficiently strengthened by Doug Braunstein, who took over as chief financial officer in 2010, another reason the bolder trades continued. The bank disputes that Mr. Braunstein tolerated additional risk in any way, said Joe Evangelisti, a spokesman for the bank. David Olson, who headed up credit trading for the chief investment office until December, said that in his trading “the management was very involved and the risk controls were very strong.” Part of the breakdown in supervision, current executives said, was a fundamental disconnect between the chief investment office in London and the rest of the bank. Even within the chief investment office there were heightening concerns that the bets being made in London were incredibly complex and not fully understood by management in New York. Despite these concerns, the scope of the chief investment’s offices trades widened sharply following the acquisition of Washington Mutual at the height of the financial crisis in 2008. Not only did the bank bring with it hundreds of billions more in assets, it also owned riskier securities that needed to be hedged against. As a result, the business’s investment securities portfolio rapidly grew, more than quadrupling to $356 billion in 2011, from $76.5 billion in 2007, company filing show. Ms. Drew made presentations to the board about twice a year, one former executive recalled, “but it was just not talked about a lot,” he said. What is more, said another senior former executive, Mr. Dimon cheap burberry bags had other fires to put out, and the chief investment office wasn’t a “problem child” for either top managers or the board of directors, despite its rapid expansion. Gigantic losses were piling up from bad mortgages, and new regulations were threatening the profitability of traditional banking, among other pressing matters. All of these factors may explain why Mr. Dimon, an executive known for his ability to sense risk who also was familiar with the minutiae of his business, failed to heed the first alarm bells that were sounded in early April. Sirens had gone off after a series of erratic trading sessions in late March resulted in big gains one day, followed by even bigger losses the next on the London trading desk of the bank’s chief investment office. Mr. Dimon was convinced by Ms. Drew and her team that the turbulence was “manageable,” executives said. Nor did anyone on the operating committee, of which Ms. Drew is a member, question her conclusion — in fact the full operating committee wasn’t told of the scope of the problem till early last week, just days before Mr. Dimon went public. The alarm bells were silenced in early April, but days after first-quarter earnings were reported on April 13, the erratic trading pattern continued, except this time there were few gains to offset the losses, and the red ink was flowing faster by the day. Mr. Dimon convened a second round of checks, which soon concluded there was a ticking time bomb, but by then it was too late, a situation made worse as traders actually increased their bets instead of shrinking them, resulting in a loss that now totals more than $2 billion and threatens a management team that until now could seemingly do no wrong. The company has indicated publicly that the losses could eventually double, depending on market conditions. On Monday, the bank replaced Ms. Drew with Matthew burberry watches E. Zames and appointed a former chief financial officer, Mike Cavanagh, to head up the task of fixing what went wrong. One of the most respected senior executives at the bank, Mr. Cavanagh has been a loyal lieutenant of Mr. Dimon since before he took over JPMorgan Chase and has been discussed as a possible successor.

The ostensible reason was to pay down public debt

The news that senior executives at Emera and its wholly owned, profit-protected subsidiary, Nova Scotia Power, topped their million-plus, louis vuitton sunglasses 2012 one-per-center-club-members-in-good-standing pay packets with raises from 20 to 30 per cent last year prompts all sorts of intriguing questions. For starters, how many of the companies’ secretaries sat on the compensation committee? The short answer: none. How many of Emera’s little old lady shareholders, clutching their 10-share legacies for their grandchildren, were invited to weigh in this larcenous largesse? Ditto. Given the usual corporate-speak soft-shoe routine about how such increases — Emera president and CEO Chris Huskilson now tops $2.99 million; executive vice president louis vuitton hoodie Nancy Tower, $1.4 million; and Nova Scotia Power president and CEO Rob Bennett, $1.15 million — simply reflect company performance, how likely is it that Emera’s 35 per cent drop in profits so far this year will show up in next year’s executive take-home pay? If you think it will, I have a Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project for sale. Cheap. And, since the company’s board of directors obviously believes its top executives are worth such dramatic pay increases, will it offer similar 20 to burberry handbags 30 per cent increases to its unionized workforce when the next contract is up for renewal? Or will it tout the flip-side arguments: increasing fuel costs — the need for new capital investment, the general state of the real-world work economy — to low-ball its waged workers? Two guesses. The first doesn’t count. There are other questions, too. How much better would Nova Scotia Power’s salt-fog, stiff-breeze, power’s-out-again response time be if it invested in hiring more linemen instead of underwriting the summer homes and sailboats of its top executives? And one more, larger question. Why did Donald Cameron’s short-lived Tory government peddle Nova Scotia Power, then a successfully publicly owned and operated public utility, to the private sector back in 1992? The ostensible reason was to pay down public debt. Our debt is higher now and still rising. And we no longer have a public utility burberry silk ties that reflects the public interest. Perhaps that was the real purpose.

The Clippers' pace is far different when Paul is at the point

In this picture from TV’s “Entertainment Tonight,” host George Clooney is all smiles as he welcomes President Obama to his Studio City, Calif., home at a celebrity-packed soiree this week that raised a record-breaking $15 million. Among others, Barbara Streisand, Salma Hayek louis vuitton sunglasses 2012 and Jack Black attended the event, ponying up $40,000 each for the party under a tent set up on Clooney’s backyard basketball court. But after a night of rubbing elbows with the stars, Obama woke up yesterday and traded elbows with Batman and Spider-Man on a public basketball court in LA. Entertainment Tonight Obama invited Clooney, star of a “Batman” flick, and Tobey Maguire, who starred in “Spider-Man,” to play a game of hoops, along with actor Don Cheadle and a few staffers. “Of course George and I won,” Obama said in response to a reporter’s shouted question after the game. “But we’re all winners because nobody got hurt.” Cheadle tweeted his own endorsement of the president: “Hail to the Chief’s jumper.” Mitt Romney topped President Obama in a new poll conducted in part before Obama this week came out in support of gay marriage. Many interested parties pondered exactly how injured Chris Paul was Friday, eyeballing the All-Star guard's every movement to see if a sprained hip was enough to slow down a player Memphis defenders had yet to control. When it turned out that Paul — yes, Chris Paul designer louis vuitton shoes for men black 2012 hot sale cheapest — was human and that he wouldn't be his usual dominant, unstoppable, clutch self, it meant another Clipper suddenly had some impossibly large sneakers to fill. Eric Bledsoe wasn't sure before the game if he would get that chance against Memphis in Game 6 at Staples Center. But Bledsoe learned in real time, watching Paul move in a much slower fashion because of the injury, that the chance was his. And despite the fact that the Grizzlies won, 90-88, Bledsoe responded with his most inspired performance of the postseason against a team whose entire postseason was at stake. He finished with 14 points, six assists and four rebounds in 24 minutes off the bench, many of them spent keeping the score close when Memphis threatened to pull away. The Grizzlies' victory tied the series at 3-3 and set up a Game 7 on Sunday in Memphis, but Bledsoe got good reviews. Said Paul: "EB was outstanding." Said Coach Vinny Del Negro: "Eric was great." Said DeAndre Jordan: "Even though Chris was a little banged up, Eric definitely stepped up." The question is now how much Bledsoe will have to step up in Game 7. That depends on how healthy Paul's hip will be by then, but regardless, Bledsoe's play will be an X factor in that game. "The momentum, everything he brought to the burberry handbags team, we're going to need that in Memphis," Paul said. Said Jordan: "If Chris isn't ready to go, we totally believe in Eric." Bledsoe is ready for whatever, as usual. "I'm just going to play," he said. "Whatever minutes I get, whatever I don't, I'm just going to play my best." Bledsoe looked exhausted near the end of the game, using his sweat-soaked jersey to wipe the sweat from his brow, with his chest heaving up and down. But he had earned every drop of perspiration after blazing down the court, pushing the tempo, and pressuring the ball on defense. "His all-around effort was big," guard Randy Foye said. The Clippers' pace is far different when Paul is at the point guard versus Bledsoe at that position. "Chris, he picks his spots and he's more of a scorer," Foye said. "Eric, he's more explosive, he's fast, he's strong, he's really fast up and down the floor." But in parts, Bledsoe handled point guard duties while Paul played the shooting guard position, which took some pressure off Paul and allowed Bledsoe to guard Memphis' Mike Conley. "I think it was a good combo," Bledsoe said. That combination might be more prevalent burberry kids sale in Game 7, just as Paul's hip might be feeling better. Bledsoe can't think about that. He can only stay ready.

The consequences of sleep debt are enormous

People who have different sleep patterns on the weekends than they do during the work week may experience "social jet lag," and a new study shows this shift in sleep louis vuitton sunglasses 2012 schedule is linked to obesity. For every hour of social jet lag, the risk of being overweight or obese rises about 33%, says researcher Till Roenneberg, PhD, a professor at the Institute of Medical Psychology at the University of Munich. Roenneberg, who coined the term, says social jet lag is brought on by the shift in sleep schedule that many people experience on their days off, compared to work days. He estimates that it affects about two-thirds of the population. It goes like this: You don't have to get up for work so you don't bother setting the alarm. That means you get up an hour or two later than you might during the work week. You may also push your bedtime back so you can go out with friends. As a result, many people get more sleep on their days off than they do during the week, and they sleep on a slightly different schedule -- a schedule that is closer to their body's natural rhythms. Roenneberg explains that switching sleep schedules this way feels like changing time zones. "The behavior looks like if most people on a Friday evening fly from Paris to New York or Los Angeles to Tokyo and on Monday they fly back. Since this looks like almost a travel jet lag situation, we called it social jet lag," he says. A key difference between travel jet lag and social jet lag, however, is light. When you arrive in a different place, the sun is coming up and setting at a different time, and your body can reset its own clock to match. With social jet lag, the schedule disruption is chronic because a person stays in the same place. "They have to live a life almost in a different time zone in comparison to their biological clock," Roenneberg says. Roenneberg's previous research shows that social louis vuitton belts jet lag, although not usually as extreme as the sleep disruptions seen in shift workers, can still take a hefty toll on health. "The more social jetlag you have, the more likely it is that you are a smoker; the more alcohol you drink; the higher your caffeine consumption -- you're slightly more depressed than the rest of the population," he says. In his latest study, which is published in Current Biology, Roenneberg and his colleagues mined data from a large database, eventually gathering information on 65,000 people. He measured the average midpoint of a person's sleep on weekdays compared to weekends. The difference in those numbers gave him their social jet lag. For instance, Roenneberg's research shows that most of the population would naturally like to sleep between 1 a.m. and 9 a.m. These are the people most likely to experience social jet lag during the week, when they have to get up early for work. So, a person who goes to bed at 1 a.m. and gets up at 6 a.m. during the work week, for example, would have 1 1/2 hours of social jet lag, based on Roenneberg's formula. Roenneberg then matched these hours of social jet lag to a person's self-reported body mass index (BMI) -- a measure of body size that takes into account height and weight. He found that the more social jet lag a person experienced, the more likely they were to be overweight or obese. Social Jet Lag and Weight Gain So how could sleep that is out of sync with the body's clock potentially lead to weight gain? One way, says Orfeu Buxton, PhD, an assistant burberry handbags outlet professor of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School, is that sleeping against the biological clock is closely linked to not getting enough sleep. "To the extent that sleep duration and timing are up to us, our physiology is tuned to help us get enough," he says in an email to WebMD. "If our sleep is not up to us, we're much less likely to get enough to stay healthy. And whatever it is limiting our sleep may also limit time for exercise or preparing healthy meals." In a recent study, Buxton showed that people like shift workers who have to sleep on short, disrupted schedules burned fewer calories at rest. He estimated that the drop in metabolism could lead to a gain of 10 to 12 pounds in a year's time. So how can you counter the effects of social jet lag? It's not so easy. When asked, Roenneberg said trying to keep your work schedule on weekends might not really help because people keep those kinds of abnormal schedules (getting up at 6 a.m.) because they have to, not because they really want to. Trying to keep the same disrupted schedule on the weekend would just add to a person's sleep debt, which isn't a great solution. "The consequences of sleep debt are enormous," he says. In a perfect world, Roenneberg says, society's whole attitude toward sleep would change. For example, work schedules would be more aligned with the biological clock and start later so that people could go to sleep later. Sleep, he thinks, should get more respect. Still, daylight may help, Roenneberg says. Early risers who feel like they need help falling asleep earlier at night -- so that they can get more sleep -- may be helped burberry belts on sale by getting more sunlight in the morning and avoiding sunlight in the afternoon and evening. People who would like to stay up a little later should try to get more sunlight in the afternoon and evening, he says.

Vaccines are available to protect against human papillomavirus

When researchers, whose findings appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, combined trials of all types of the gut-healthy microbes, they http://www.designerburberyoutlet.com/ found that patients with a range of conditions - from ear infections to sepsis - were 42 percent less likely to get diarrhea from their antibiotic drugs if they were also taking a probiotic. One-quarter to one-third of people treated with an antibiotic typically get diarrhea as a result, the researchers said. It's often not more than an unpleasant side effect, but can be serious enough to send some patients to the hospital. "Antibiotics in doing their work actually kill off a lot of the normal flora that are supposed to exist in our gut, so things kind of go haywire," said Sydne Newberry from the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California, who worked on the study. Probiotics are strains of bacteria that research suggests can help replace some of the flora that antibiotics, especially so-called broad-spectrum antibiotics, wipe out. "More than likely, what they do is they start to designerburberyoutlet actually restore the normal bacteria in the gut, in the intestines," Newberry said. Probiotics can be bought over-the-counter as capsules, and are also present in some yogurt products. Newberry's team reviewed 63 trials in which researchers had randomly assigned a total of almost 12,000 patients needing antibiotic treatment to probiotics, a placebo pill, or nothing. Newberry and her colleagues calculated that 13 people being treated with antibiotics would need to take a probiotic for one case of diarrhea to be prevented. In a subset of 44 studies in which neither study participants nor the doctors treating them knew who was getting probiotics or placebo, the trials considered least prone to bias, patients on the probiotics were still 39 percent less likely to get diarrhea. The researchers couldn't tell whether one type of probiotic in particular was any better than others, especially since most of the studies used a combination of multiple bacteria strains. The most common probiotics used were from the genus Lactobacillus. Not being able to differentiate the benefits of different strains is a limitation, according to some researchers - because, as with antibiotics, each strain of probiotic can have very different effects. Other experts said that further questions involved the size of the dose and how long it should be given. Most of the studies were small and didn't report louis vuitton shoes on side effects from the probiotics, but those that did concluded that the supplements seemed safe. For that reason, while it's not clear that doctors should be giving out specific probiotics to all of their patients on antibiotic treatment - they may be harmful to small babies or very ill patients - it probably wouldn't hurt to try one, researchers said. One in six cancers - two million a year globally - are caused by largely treatable or preventable infections, new estimates suggest. The Lancet Infectious Diseases review, which looked at incidence rates for 27 cancers in 184 countries, found four main infections are responsible. These four - human papillomaviruses, Helicobacter pylori and hepatitis B and C viruses - account for 1.9m cases of cervical, gut and liver cancers. Most cases are in the developing world. The team from the International Agency for Research on Cancer in France says more efforts are needed to tackle these avoidable cases and recognise cancer as a communicable disease. The proportion of cancers related to infection is about three times higher in parts of the developing world, such as east Asia, than in developed countries like the UK - 22.9% versus 7.4%, respectively. Nearly a third of cases occur in people younger than 50 years. Among women, cancer of the cervix accounted for louis vuitton ring about half of the infection-related cancers. In men, more than 80% were liver and gastric cancers. Drs Catherine de Martel and Martyn Plummer, who led the research, said: "Infections with certain viruses, bacteria, and parasites are some of the biggest and preventable causes of cancer worldwide "Application of existing public-health methods for infection prevention, such as vaccination, safer injection practice, or antimicrobial treatments, could have a substantial effect on the future burden of cancer worldwide." Vaccines are available to protect against human papillomavirus (HPV) - which is linked to cancer of the cervix - and hepatitis B virus - an established cause of liver cancer. And experts know that stomach cancer can be avoided by clearing the bacterial infection H. pylori from the gut using a course of antibiotics. Commenting on the work, Dr Goodarz Danaei from Harvard School of Public Medicine in Boston, the US, said: "Since effective and relatively low-cost vaccines for HPV and HBV are available, increasing coverage should be a priority for health systems in high-burden countries." Jessica Harris of Cancer Research UK said: "It's important that authorities worldwide make every effort to reduce the number of infection-related cancers, especially when many of these infections can be prevented. In the UK, infections are thought to be responsible for 3% of cancers, or around 9,700 cases each year. "Vaccination against HPV, which causes cervical Designer louis vuitton women shoes 2012 style outlet black cancer, should go a long way towards reducing rates of this disease in the UK. But it's important that uptake of the vaccination remains high. At a global level, if the vaccine were available in more countries, many thousands more cases could be prevented."

In a conference call with analysts last week

Federal regulators said Monday that an experimental pill being developed by Pfizer to treat rheumatoid arthritis raised “serious safety concerns” and was linked louis vuitton shoes to a higher risk for lymphoma, a form of cancer, and serious infections. Pfizer has identified the drug, known as tofacitinib, as one of the most promising and lucrative prospects in its drug pipeline. The company is struggling to regain lost sales after its best-selling cholesterol drug, Lipitor, lost patent protection last fall. An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration is scheduled to vote on whether to recommend approval of the drug on Wednesday. The agency is then expected to rule on the drug by August. In a statement Monday, the company said the drug’s benefits outweighed its risks, and “we look forward to discussing tofacitinib with the committee http://www.designerburberyoutlet.com/ on Wednesday.” The briefing documents, prepared by F.D.A. staff members and released Monday ahead of the meeting, also found that although tofacitinib did ease the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and the physical functioning of those who have it, the studies didn’t definitively show that the drug stopped the disease from progressing. “This is particularly important in determining the overall benefit-risk profile of tofacitinib, which is associated with serious safety concerns,” the report found. Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic autoimmune disease that attacks the body’s joints, causing painful swelling and difficulty moving. A handful of biologic drugs, like Humira and Enbrel, exist to treat the disease but they must be injected. Pfizer’s oral pill is to be used in designerburberyoutlet patients who don’t respond to other drugs. In a conference call with analysts last week, a Pfizer executive hinted that questions about safety would probably come up because the drug acted on the body in a new way. “On the risks side, this is a new mechanism of action, so there’ll be lots of interest in understanding the profile thoroughly,” said Geno J. Germano, who is in charge of specialty care and oncology at Pfizer. “The safety events are familiar to rheumatologists. They’re manageable in most cases.” Most of the rheumatoid arthritis drugs on the market carry similar risks, said Dr. John H. Klippel, a rheumatologist and president of the Arthritis Foundation. “People who have that disease, in general, are willing to accept the risk of even serious adverse effects from drugs if they can find drugs that are going to alter the course of the disease,” he said. If tofacitinib is ultimately approved, he said louis vuitton handbags it would represent a “huge advance” because it targets the disease in a new way and will be available as an oral pill. The drug inhibits production of an enzyme implicated in immunological diseases like arthritis. Les Funtleyder, a portfolio manager for Miller Tabak, cautioned against drawing too many conclusions from Monday’s report. “Briefing documents tend to accentuate the risks and it’s not until you get to see the whole panel discuss it that you really hear what people think is important,” said Mr. Funtleyder, whose fund owns Pfizer stock. The fact that the drug did not stop progression of Louis vuitton white sunglasses 2012 new style outlet the disease may not be a serious impediment to getting it approved, he said. If people who use the drug feel better and are able to walk, he added, “does it really matter?”

His immediate boss was so frustrated by him that she called up

He threw away tax documents, got a ticket for trying to pass an ambulance and bought stock in companies that were obviously in trouble. Once a good cook, he burned every sale vuiton pot in the house. He became withdrawn and silent, and no longer spoke to his wife over dinner. That same failure to communicate got him fired from his job at a consulting firm. By 2006, Michael French — a smart, good-natured, hardworking man — had become someone his wife, Ruth, felt she hardly knew. Infuriated, she considered divorce. But in 2007, she found out what was wrong. “I cried,” Mrs. French said. “I can’t tell you how much I cried, and how much I apologized to him for every perceived wrong or misunderstanding.” Mr. French, now 71, has frontotemporal dementia — a little-known, poorly understood and frequently misdiagnosed group of brain diseases that eat away at personality and language. Although it was first recognized more than 100 years ago, there is still no cure or treatment, and patients survive an average of only eight years after the diagnosis. But recently, researchers have been making important discoveries about the biochemical and genetic defects that cause some forms of the disease. And for the first time, they have identified drugs that may be able to treat one of those defects, the buildup of abnormal proteins in the brain. Tests in people, the first ever such drug trials in this disease, could begin as soon as early next year at the new lv shoes buy online University of California, San Francisco. “There’s really been an explosion related to the biology,” said Dr. Bruce L. Miller, a professor of neurology and psychiatry there. “I think at least some subtypes of frontotemporal dementia will be the first neurodegenerative diseases we find a cure for.” This disease is different from Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia. But it is perhaps even more devastating, because it strikes younger people, progresses faster and, unlike Alzheimer’s, does not attack memory at first but begins with silence, apathy or bizarre personality changes. It is thought to afflict at least 50,000 to 60,000 people in the United States. The scientific findings in frontotemporal dementia may also louis vuitton hair pin reshape thinking about the fundamental flaws involved in Alzheimer’s disease. “I think the way dementia is going in general now is to realize there are many different subtypes,” Dr. Miller said, adding that what is now labeled Alzheimer’s disease may actually turn out to include hundreds of different illnesses. Dementia is a formidable adversary, and the history of efforts to treat Alzheimer’s has to temper any excitement about potential medicines for frontotemporal disease. The drugs for Alzheimer’s have been a disappointment, with just temporary effects on symptoms at best. But even if treatments or cures for frontotemporal dementia do emerge, they will almost certainly come too late for people with advanced cases, like Mr. French or Richard Rainwater, a billionaire investor who learned in 2009 that he had progressive supranuclear palsy, which some http://www.designerburberyoutlet.com/ consider a form of frontotemporal dementia. Mr. Rainwater and his family have donated more than $20 million to a research consortium, but given that he has a rapidly progressive form, any advances from the consortium may be more likely to help others than to save him. Looking for Answers Looking back, Mrs. French, who is 66 and lives in Manhattan, recalled episodes of odd behavior over the years and realized that her husband’s mind had probably begun to slip while he was in his 50s, at least a decade before the disease was diagnosed. He had always changed jobs a lot. At the time she took it as a sign of a stubborn personality, not of illness — and it is still not clear which designerburberyoutlet it was. He always wanted to do things his own way, and that did not sit well with some bosses. “I thought it was just Michael being Michael,” she said. A friend described Mr. French as being unable to read the tea leaves, oblivious of corporate politics. At one point Mrs. French even bought him a self-help book. But he never changed. And he always found another job, better than the one before. But things went downhill in 2006. “His immediate boss was so frustrated by him that she called up, and we were at the dinner table, and I could hear her screaming,” Mrs. French said. He was fired, and this time he did not find another job. At 66, he retired. Soon after, because he had trouble speaking, he consulted a neurologist. When they got the diagnosis, Mrs. French asked the doctor, “How do we treat it?” “It’s brain atrophy,” he replied. Her thoughts of divorce evaporated. Instead, she told her husband: “Whatever happens, we will go through this together. I will be there.” From then on, the silence at the dinner table no longer troubled her. It did not seem personal anymore. He was not refusing to talk; he simply could not. Her anger yellow handbags 2012 melted into sadness. But sometimes she still blew her top. Once, she came home and found him at the stove, seemingly unaware that his oven mitt was smoldering. “I actually hit him a couple times out of frustration,” she said. What made her lose control, she said, was a toxic mix of frustration and fear — fear of what was happening to him, and fear that she would not know what to do, how to help. No amount of information from his doctors could put her at ease.

There was the possibility that the Solomon Islanders

Men rarely get breast cancer, but those who do often don't survive as long as women, largely because they don't even realize they can get it and are slow to recognize louis vuitton online the warning signs, researchers say. On average, women with breast cancer lived two years longer than men in the biggest study yet of the disease in males. The study found that men's breast tumors were larger at diagnosis, more advanced and more likely to have spread to other parts of the body. Men were also diagnosed later in life; in the study, they were 63 on average, versus 59 for women. Many men have no idea that they can get breast cancer, and some doctors are in the dark, too, dismissing symptoms that would be an automatic red flag in women, said study leader Dr. Jon Greif, a breast cancer surgeon in Oakland, Calif. The American Cancer Society estimates 1 in 1,000 men will get breast cancer, versus 1 in 8 women. By comparison, 1 in 6 men will get prostate cancer, the most common cancer in men. Need some mood lighting for a romantic evening this weekend? Look no further than Saturday evening's dazzling moonbeams. The full moon is taking its closest pass by Earth tonight, making it a "super" moon. The super moon will appear about 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than normal full moons and will be the brightest of 2012. The source of the super moon's power: Its elliptical orbit. At 8:35 p.m., the full moon will reach the part of its path that is closest to Earth, called it's perigee. Because of slight variability in its orbit, this perigee is the closest of all the perigees this year for the Earth's satellite. The result is a grand, golden orb. To experience the gravity of its grandeur, NASA astronomers recommend viewing the super moon during moonrise, when the glowing disc emerges over mere terrestrial forms. Behind majestic trees or even towering skyscrapers, the super moon creates an inexplicable illusion that it's even larger than when it's hanging in the sky. The show starts about 8 p.m. Saturday. The super louis vuitton earrings moon rises at 7:59 p.m. amid clear skies while the sun sets at 8:01 p.m. Though super moons sometimes get a bad rap -- particularly from werewolves and headless horsemen -- they mostly only use their powers for good. Super moons only raise tidewaters an insignificant inch or so, and they don't lead to a spike in beastly attacks. But the super moon does have to share its spotlight with other celestial events this month. May 20 will host a new moon and a partial solar eclipse, and on May 21, Venus will be visible just north of the moon. We think of blond hair as a primarily European trait, but around the world there are people who have blond hair scattered throughout the population. Geneticists have gone to trying to solve this riddle, by studying these different populations. Is it a European influence that makes them blond? And if not, are their genes still the same? The most common blonds in the world are ones that come in a bottle. The second most common are the ones who come from Europe. Over there, a gene in the region of SLC24A4 and KITLG gives us blond hair instead of brown, and green eyes instead of blue eyes. Or, maybe they do. So far genetic blondness has mostly been studied in those of European ancestry. A new study changes that — by looking at blonds all the way over in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. There seem to be a fair amount of genetic blonds in the islands; between five and ten percent of the population. A team from Stanford University wanted to find out why. There was the possibility that the Solomon Islanders, while far removed from Europe, had genetically crossed over with Europeans over the years. Some genes just have a knack for spreading in the right conditions. If the genetic twist for blondness had originated in the Islands, though, researchers wanted to know if it was the same twist that gave some Europeans their light hair. Is there one or two genes for blondness? Using light-meter readings to quantify hair-color, scientists took height, weight, blood pressure, and saliva samples of forty-two dark-haired and forty-three blond islanders. They were not hopeful when they began analyzing genetic samples, since the confusing mix of genes that make up pigmentation usually result in inconclusive or weak results unless thousands of people participate. To their delight, however, a strong result came in right away, and they could narrow down the blondinating as coming from one gene: TYRP1. TYRP1 encodes an enzyme which has been shown to affect pigmentation in both mice and human tests. It has not, however, been shown to cause blondness in European populations. Solomon Island blonds popped up out of native black lv suits genetics, and not outside influences. And that, in turn, means that there's more than one kind of blond in the world.

The shrinking of the world’s glaciers in places like Alaska

The Cordyceps fungus has become a staple of "stranger than fiction" nature stories: Its complex and lethal parasitism of ants, causing the cheap louis vuitton sunglasses insects to climb as high as they can before the fungus bursts like a horn from their heads, is both bizarre and captivating. Now scientists report that the parasite is getting a dose of its own medicine, as it finds itself under attack from yet another parasitic fungus — one that targets Cordyceps. It's nature's way to pile weirdness upon weirdness. Researchers led by David Hughes at Penn State University were looking into how some groups of ants were able to survive a Cordyceps attack. The fungus is extremely virulent and can often wipe out an entire colony. Ants groom each other to remove potentially troublesome fungus and microbes, but that couldn't account for the survival rates they were occasionally seeing. What they found (and reported in PLoS One) was another fungus growing in and around the ant colonies — just as much a specialist as the first fungus. This newly discovered fungus attacked the "zombie-ant" fungi and effectively neutered them, sabotaging their spore-producing organs and preventing them from fruiting. Some ants would still be infected (the researchers described a "high density of zombie-ant cadavers in the graveyard"), but the spread of zombie-ism was largely stopped. Each species of Cordyceps fungus targets only one species; the ant-zombifying variety is just the best-known type. That there could be a fungus that was parasitic in such a fascinating way on a single species is amazing enough, but that a second fungus would specialize in attacking the first is almost beyond belief. It's an example of the density and biodiversity that one finds in, as Hughes puts it, "the exciting theater played out on the rainforest floor." Like so much of climate science, the latest insight from the frozen world of Greenland offers one of those good news/bad news outlooks for the future of the world’s new louis vuitton sunglasses 2012 oceanfront real estate. A decade-long, eye-in-the-sky study of nearly 200 major outlet glaciers found that they haven’t been tumbling into the ocean with the dramatic acceleration once feared -- and that means these colossal rivers of ice might not contribute as much to a catastrophic sea-level rise as predicted by some worst-case scenarios. Some climate studies had suggested that Greenland’s coastal glaciers were poised to produce enough fresh water to raise the global sea level by 2.5 to 6.5 feet over the next 90 years. But their tidewater meltdown -- if it doesn’t speed up beyond the rates seen during the past 10 years -- will likely deliver a sea level boost measured in inches rather than feet, according to a new study published this week in the journal of Science. “Our wide sampling of actual 2000 to 2010 changes shows that glacier acceleration across the ice sheet remains far below (the high-end) estimates, suggesting that sea level rise associated with Greenland glacier dynamics remains well below the low-end scenario (of about four to five inches by 2100) at present,” wrote lead researcher Twila Moon and three co-authors. Still, there’s enough uncertainty in the outlook -- 21st-Century Evolution of Greenland Outlet Glacier Velocities -- to put coastal denizens on alert. The many fast-moving outlet glaciers around the Greenland coast are constantly calving ice into the ocean, where the melting ice affects sea level. “A decade-long record of nearly all of Greenland's major glaciers suggests that Earth's sea level may not rise 2 full meters over the next century, as some recent studies have suggested,” the scientists added in a summary. “However, if ice loss in that region continues to accelerate, lv bracelet for women then sea level could rise 0.8 meters by 2100.” Moon, a graduate student and Greenland ice velocity specialist at the University of Washington, cautioned that much remains unknown about Greenland ice. "We don't have a really good handle on it and we need to have that if we're going to understand the effects of climate change," she said in a story about the work. "We are going to need to continue to look at all of the ice sheet to see how it's changing, and we are going to need to continue to work on some tough details to understand how individual glaciers change." The shrinking of the world’s glaciers in places like Alaska, as well as the mammoth ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, sends almost unfathomable volumes of fresh water into the ocean. Add it all up, and 21st century ice melt has the potential to directly raise the sea level enough to flood coastal zones and displace millions. As a result, estimating how fast the world’s terrestrial ice might transform into liquid water has become one of the most important and challenging tasks of climate science. Sea levels were hundreds of feet lower during the height of the last ice age, when continental glaciers locked up vast quantities of water. The disintegration of that ice beginning about 14,000 years ago released enough water to boost sea height to near the current levels over thousands of years. Since the 1800s, however, new climate warming has been melting what’s left of the world’s ice, and sea levels have continued to sneak higher -- maybe more than seven inches since 1900. Take into account all factors -- expansion of sea water as it warms, disintegrating mountain glaciers, the shrinking ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica -- and global black lv suits sea level may still surge another couple of feet by 2100, and possibly another 70 feet during coming centuries, according to a recent paper in the journal of Geology. Even if no one alive today will see it, a catastrophe appears to be looming unless global warming abates or something else changes, many researchers warn.

The journals agreed to delay publication and virologists

In a long-awaited study that helped prompt a contentious debate over the wisdom of conducting research that has the potential to help as well as harm, scientists louis vuitton sunglasses reported Wednesday that they had engineered a mutant strain of bird flu that can spread easily between ferrets — a laboratory animal that responds to flu viruses much as people do. That means that bird flu has "the potential to acquire the ability to transmit in mammals," said University of Wisconsin virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka, who led the study. Only a few mutations were necessary for the transformation, he added, which suggests that a more contagious strain of bird flu could emerge on its own without targeted prodding by scientists in the lab. Kawaoka's discovery, published online after a months-long delay by the journal Nature, dampens hopes that the deadly H5N1 virus simply wasn't capable of becoming a highly contagious bug in mammals, including humans. He and his team developed a hybrid bird flu virus that combined an H5 hemagglutinin gene — which helps viruses bind to host cells — with genes from 2009's pandemic H1N1 flu, also known as swine flu. Using a sort of selective breeding to favor flu strains whose H5 protein could bind with human rather than bird host cells, the researchers developed a version of the virus with four mutations in its H5 that sickened ferrets. The pathogen traveled in respiratory droplets through the air to infect ferrets in adjacent cages. It did not kill any of the animals used in the study. Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., said that the changes in the virus Kawaoka's team identified had all been seen before, but that scientists had not recognized that together they could make a flu virus spread more easily among mammals. "It's a great place to start looking for exactly what's going on," he said, noting that researchers still don't understand how changes in host organisms affect transmissibility. The publication of Kawaoka's paper comes after louis vuitton earrings months of debate over his research and experiments conducted in the lab of Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier, who has also developed strains of bird flu that can pass between ferrets. The worry, voiced by biosecurity experts, was that nefarious-minded people could use details provided in the papers to turn bird flu into a biological weapon of sorts and inflict widespread harm. In the last 15 years or so, the H5N1 virus has killed millions of chickens and ducks. Very few people — 602, according to the latest World Health Organization estimate — have been infected since the latest outbreak in 2003, but 355 of them died. That has fueled concerns that a contagious strain of the virus could spawn a pandemic, potentially causing millions of deaths around the world. Fear that a pandemic strain could emerge in nature prompted scientists to study its potential to mutate, so that they could monitor new variants as they arise and get a head start on developing a vaccine and treatment. The National Institutes of Health helped fund Kawaoka's and Fouchier's studies in high-security labs. When the scientists were ready to publish their results, critics said the research could be used as a recipe for bioterrorism — assuming a dangerous strain of the virus wasn't stolen directly from a laboratory. A U.S. government advisory panel recommended in November that Nature as well as Science, the journal that planned to publish Fouchier's research, remove sensitive details from the papers. It was an unprecedented step. The journals agreed to delay publication and virologists put their H5N1 research on hold while the scientific and security communities debated their next steps. Ultimately, the advisory panel decided the papers were safe to publish, but the release of Kawaoka's research — and the expected publication shortly of Fouchier's — won't mark the end of the conversation, scientists said. "There are still a lot of unknowns about how this will be dealt with going forward," Webby said. In the meantime, Kawaoka said he hoped his research would help public health workers trying to fight the spread of H5N1 by suggesting useful mutations to incorporate Louis vuitton shoes discount for women sale outlet in vaccines or to track as the virus spreads. One of the mutations his team identified is already circulating in viruses in the Middle East and Asia, he said.

The researchers said many pregnant women were legitimately

The number of babies born in the US showing louis vuitton sunglasses symptoms of opiate withdrawal increased threefold in the 10 years up to 2009, a medical study has found. The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, said one in every 1,000 newborns was affected in 2009. The number of pregnant women testing positive for illegal or legal opiates increased fivefold in the same period. The report says abuse of prescription painkillers is partly to blame. The study, the first of its kind in the US, was based on records from more than 4,000 hospitals across the country. It found that in 2009, about 13,500 babies were born with withdrawal symptoms - roughly one every hour. Not all babies born to women who used opiates during pregnancy showed the symptoms, the report said. But those that did were often born earlier and smaller, louis vuitton menswear suffered seizures, restlessness, breathing problems or difficulty feeding and often required treatment with the opiate-replacement drug methadone to help wean them off their dependency. "They appear uncomfortable, sometimes they breathe a little faster. They're scratching their faces," said Dr Stephen Patrick of the University of Michigan, who worked on the study. The babies were kept in hospital for an average of 16 days, compared to three for healthy babies. As most were born to mothers who were entitled to financial help with their medical costs, the study said this was placing a serious burden on health budgets. The researchers said many pregnant women were legitimately taking pain-relieving opiates on prescription, but warned that more must be done to find ways of protecting unborn babies from powerful drugs. Dr Patrick said the findings were "part of a bigger call to the fact that opiates are becoming a big problem in this country". An editorial in the journal accompanying the study said that while such opiate medications provide "superior pain control" they have been "overprescribed, diverted and sold illegally, creating a new opiate addiction pathway and a public health burden for maternal and child health". In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Fashion lv women shoes 2012 outlet discount white Prevention (CDC) warned that painkiller abuse in the US had reached "epidemic proportions". It said overdoses of pain relievers cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.