Sunday, May 5, 2013

Thousands attend breast cancer research event in Winston-Salem ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. ? The streets of Winston-Salem were filled with pink Saturday morning ? for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.

The event is a major fundraiser for the nation?s leading organization for breast cancer research.

FOX8?s Brad Jones found it is also a time to bring people together and celebrate their stories of survival.

Source: http://myfox8.com/2013/05/04/thousands-attend-breast-cancer-research-event-in-winston-salem/

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Friday, May 3, 2013

Oil drilling technology leaps, clean energy lags

NEW YORK (AP) ? Technology created an energy revolution over the past decade ? just not the one we expected.

By now, cars were supposed to be running on fuel made from plant waste or algae ? or powered by hydrogen or cheap batteries that burned nothing at all. Electricity would be generated with solar panels and wind turbines. When the sun didn't shine or the wind didn't blow, power would flow out of batteries the size of tractor-trailers.

Fossil fuels? They were going to be expensive and scarce, relics of an earlier, dirtier age.

But in the race to conquer energy technology, Old Energy is winning.

Oil companies big and small have used technology to find a bounty of oil and natural gas so large that worries about running out have melted away. New imaging technologies let drillers find oil and gas trapped miles underground and undersea. Oil rigs "walk" from one drill site to the next. And engineers in Houston use remote-controlled equipment to drill for gas in Pennsylvania.

The result is an abundance that has put the United States on track to become the world's largest producer of oil and gas in a few years. Just Thursday, the U.S. reported that oil imports have fallen to a 17-year low.

The gushers aren't limited to Texas, North Dakota and the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Overseas, enormous reserves have been found in East and West Africa, Australia, South America and the Mediterranean.

"Suddenly, out of nowhere, the world seems to be awash in hydrocarbons," says Michael Greenstone, an environmental economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The consequences are enormous. A looming energy crisis has turned into a boom. These additional fossil fuels are intensifying the threat to the earth's climate. And for renewable energy sources, the sunny forecast of last decade has turned overcast.

This is the story of how technological advances drove a revolution no one in the energy industry expected. One that is just beginning.

___

EXPLORING ENERGY FRONTIERS

The new century brought deep concerns the world's oil reserves were increasingly concentrated in the Middle East ? and beginning to run out. Energy prices rose to record highs. Climate scientists showed that reliance on fossil fuels was causing troubling changes to the environment.

"The general belief was that the end of the oil era was at hand," says Daniel Yergin, an energy historian and author of "The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World."

As a result, Wall Street, Silicon Valley and governments were pouring money into new companies developing alternative forms of energy that promised to supply the world's needs without polluting.

Even oil and gas companies got in the game. BP had adopted the slogan "beyond petroleum" in 2000 and threw millions into its solar division. Shell partnered with another company to fire up a plant to convert agricultural waste into ethanol.

So strong was the lure of alternative energy that veterans of the oil patch began fleeing for startups.

In 23 years at Shell, David Aldous helped develop projections that showed a booming world population and rising energy demand. He also saw how hard it was for big oil companies to find enough oil every year to replace all they sold. He left Shell to join Range Fuels, a company that promised to turn wood chips into ethanol, in 2008.

"I felt we needed faster innovation," he says.

___

THE RACE FOR NEW TECHNOLOGY

But while the national focus was on alternatives, the oil and gas industry was innovating too. New technology allowed drillers to do two crucial things: find more places where oil and gas is hidden and bring it to the surface economically.

Large oil companies such as Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP turned up huge discoveries offshore in ultra-deep water with the help of better sensors and faster computers that allowed them to see once-hidden oil deposits.

Onshore, small drillers learned how to pull oil and gas out of previously inaccessible underground rock formations.

For most of the oil age, drillers have looked for large underground pools of oil and gas that were easy to tap. These pools had grown over millions of years as oil and gas oozed out of what is known as source rock. Source rock is a wide, thin layer of sedimentary rock ? like frosting in the middle of a layer cake ? that is interspersed with oil and gas.

An engineer named George Mitchell and his company, Mitchell Energy, spent years searching for a way to free natural gas from this source rock. He finally succeeded when he figured how to drill horizontally, into and then along a layer of source rock. That allowed him to access the gas throughout a layer of source rock with a single well. Then he used a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" to create tiny cracks in the rock that would allow natural gas to flow into and up the well.

The United States, which was facing a gas shortage five years ago, now has such enormous supplies it is looking to export the fuel in large volumes for the first time.

The common wisdom in the industry was that the process Mitchell had invented for natural gas wouldn't work for oil. Oil molecules are bigger and stickier than gas molecules, so petroleum engineers believed it would be impossible to get them to flow from source rock, even if the rock were cracked by fracking. But Mark Papa, the CEO of a small oil and gas company called EOG Resources, didn't accept that.

"The numbers were too intriguing, the prize was so big," he remembered.

He thought there could be as much as a billion barrels of oil within reach in Texas, North Dakota and elsewhere ? if only he could squeeze it out.

In 2003, he had a "eureka!" moment while poring over pictures of rock. Sections of a 40-foot-long column of source rock had been run through a CT scanner, the same type used to peer into the human body.

He saw something in the source rock sections the rest of the industry didn't know was there: a network of passageways big enough for oil molecules to pass through. Papa believed the passageways could act like rural roads for the oil to travel through. Fracking could then create superhighways for the oil to gather and feed into a pipe and up to the surface.

EOG began drilling test wells, and in 2005, Papa got some results from one in North Dakota that made him realize oil could flow fast enough to pay off.

"It was kind of like holy cow," he says. "My first thought was we need to replicate this, make sure it's not a freak result."

It wasn't. EOG snapped up land in a similar formation in South Texas known as the Eagle Ford Shale for $400 an acre when his competition thought it would never produce much oil. That land now goes for $30,000 per acre.

Papa thought the Eagle Ford might hold 500,000 barrels of oil. The Department of Energy now predicts it holds 3.4 billion. Some even expect 10 billion, which would make it the biggest oil field in U.S. history.

___

SMART DRILLS, RIGS THAT CAN WALK

But even after drillers figured out how to find oil and gas deep offshore and in onshore source rock, they still needed to develop technology that would make it economical.

At the tip of every oil or gas drill is a rotating mouth of sharp teeth that chews through rock. In the past, these drill bits could only dig straight down. Now they are agile enough to find and follow narrow horizontal seams of rock.

The drilling-services company Baker Hughes has designed a bit that can change directions underground, without having to be drawn back up to the surface, reducing drilling time by as much as 40 percent.

Behind the drill bit, attached to a long line of steel known as the "drill string," is an array of sensors. The sensors bombard rock with subatomic particles and measure the gamma radiation that bounces back. They assess how easily electricity flows through the rock and underground fluids. They analyze the magnetism of the rock and how it vibrates ? both up and down and side to side ? while drilling.

"To the layman, it looks like dumb iron, but you'd be shocked about what's inside," says Art Soucy, president of global products and services at Baker Hughes.

All this information is sent to engineers via fiber-optic cables. They run the information through supercomputers as powerful as 30,000 laptops to create a picture of the earth thousands of feet below the surface.

The people analyzing this data ? and even directing the drill bits ? are often sitting hundreds of miles away. Shell's Pennsylvania drilling operations are directed from a center in Houston, where experienced drillers monitor the progress at several sites across the country from a single room.

And when the drilling is done, the rig itself can "walk" a hundred feet or so to another location and start drilling again. In the past, rigs had to be taken down and reassembled, which could take days. New rigs are built on sliding "shoes" that allow hydraulic lifts to shuffle the rig forward in short steps.

"It has made possible things that were unthinkable 10 years ago," says Claudi Santiago, managing director at First Reserve Corp., a private-equity firm that invests in energy companies.

Now, drillers are finding oil faster than the world is using it. At the end of 2001, the industry had enough "proved oil reserves" to satisfy world demand for 45 years, according to BP's annual statistical review, a closely watched study. By the end of 2011 that had grown to 51 years ? even though a decade's worth of oil had been used and daily demand had grown 14 percent. And "proved reserves" refers to oil that can be economically tapped using today's technology. Tomorrow's methods could yield even more.

This is good news for a global economy that remains dependent on fossil fuels, but it's terrifying to climate scientists.

"If we're willing to go down this road of squeezing whatever petroleum we can out of the earth, we can easily get carbon dioxide levels up to unfathomable levels and put in motion what would be dramatic or catastrophic changes in our climate system," says Michael E. Mann, a geophysicist and director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University.

___

RENEWABLES PROGRESS, BUT NOT FAST ENOUGH

Renewable technologies have had their successes. The average cost of a solar power system has fallen by 31 percent in the last two years. Solar now generates six times more electricity in the U.S. than it did a decade ago, and wind produces 14 times more. Most major automakers offer some type of electric vehicle.

And this success has come despite the fact that renewable energy's major benefit ? that it doesn't pollute ? is given little or no value in the marketplace because most governments haven't adopted taxes or penalties for fossil fuel pollution.

But the outlook for wind, batteries and biofuels is as dim as it's been in a decade. Global greenhouse gas agreements have fizzled. Dazzling discoveries have been made in laboratories, and some of these may yet develop into transformative products, but alternative energy technologies haven't become cheaper or more useful than fossil fuels.

Solar, wind and geothermal sources together accounted for 4.8 percent of U.S. power generation last year. Ten percent of U.S. gasoline demand was satisfied with corn ethanol, but ethanol and other fuels made from non-food sources have yet to hit the market.

"In many cases, renewables aren't ready for primetime yet," says George Biltz, vice president for energy and climate change at Dow Chemical, which continues to work on a host of renewable technologies.

Likewise, electric cars have not enjoyed the success many expected. The battery alone in an electric car costs as much as a new gasoline-powered car, and electric vehicles are not selling nearly as fast as once projected. General Motors expected to sell 60,000 Chevy Volts globally last year, but sold just half that many. Sales of Nissan's all-electric Leaf grew 22 percent around the world last year to 26,000, short of Nissan's projected 50 percent growth.

The cost of wind and solar power has declined, but the price of electricity made with newly cheap fossil fuels has fallen too, making it harder for wind and solar to compete.

"Renewables are now under scrutiny. They haven't made the kinds of quantum leaps we have seen in the oil and gas industry," says First Reserve Corp.'s Santiago, who now shuns investments in alternatives.

David Aldous, the former Shell executive, learned that lesson while trying to turn wood chips into ethanol at Range Fuels. The system that fed the chips into a gasification chamber didn't work well, and the project failed.

"Things don't always scale from the petri dish to the demo plant and then to the commercial plant. It's just part of building up a new industry," Aldous says.

Range went out of business in 2011, and it was hardly alone. Dozens of biofuel, battery and solar companies failed even though federal and state governments supported alternatives with loans and grants, and mandated their use. Others are limping along.

Pacific Ethanol, which traded near $300 per share in 2006, now trades for 27 cents. Amyris, an advanced biofuels company, traded near $34 a share as recently as last year, but now trades at $2.65. The battery maker A123 was forced to file for bankruptcy protection last year, three years after going public. An index of clean energy companies that was first traded in March 2005 is down 70 percent since then. A similar index of traditional energy companies is up 73 percent over the same period.

___

THE NEXT 10 YEARS

This dark period for alternative energy could last for years. With government debt soaring and no more worries about running out of oil, many renewable subsidies are being scaled back.

"The world is completely different now," MIT's Greenstone says.

But there are still hundreds of companies, including fossil fuel giants, working on new renewable-energy projects. ExxonMobil is investing in Synthetic Genomics, a company started by the geneticist J. Craig Venter to try to create strains of algae that will produce fuels. BP and Shell continue to work on ways to turn plant waste into fuels.

California, meanwhile, set the nation's most ambitious renewable energy goals and is on track to meet them. One-fifth of the power delivered by the state's three biggest utilities now comes from renewables, not including large hydroelectric dams. By 2020, that portion will rise to one-third.

President Barack Obama in March proposed using $2 billion in federal oil and gas royalties to invest in clean energy technology research. Obama is also expected to promote renewables through pollution regulations, if not with new laws.

And for all the world's newfound oil, prices are still high because developing nations are consuming more.

"It's not time to write the epitaph yet," Aldous says. Eventually the global economy will fully recover, he says, and demand for energy of all kinds will increase.

"New sources of energy are going to be in vogue again," he says.

Experts didn't see the oil and gas boom coming five years ago. It's certainly possible the world will change direction again in the next five years.

But EOG's Papa says oil and gas companies will just invest in even more sophisticated technology. He estimates that current techniques pull only 6 percent of the oil trapped in source rock to the surface. Learning to double that would yield yet another enormous trove of hydrocarbons.

"Now we go into the next phase of technology," he says. "How are we going to get the rest of it out of the ground?"

____

Follow Jonathan Fahey on Twitter at http://twitter.com/JonathanFahey

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/oil-drilling-technology-leaps-clean-energy-lags-165901265.html

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Thursday, May 2, 2013

Hack Something Using LEDs

Hello, fellow Lifehackers! Time for another MacGyver Challenge. What's a MacGyver Challenge, you ask? Simple. We give you an object and you show us what cool things you can do with it. Our editors pick the best submissions and our favorite will win a copy of the Lifehacker book!

Ready? Then let's get started.

This Week's MacGyver Challenge: Hack Something Using LEDs

This week, we're asking you to make something using LEDs. You can use bulbs, strips, ropes?we're not picky. But we do want to see a little more creativity than just sticking them somewhere dark to brighten things up. For example, we've seen that you can build your own bike light with a spice jar, transform an LED flashlight into ice light, and even create your own DIY LED holiday greeting cards.

Now, it's your turn. Share your best hack using LEDs. Your hack can use other materials, of course, but the LEDs should be the defining element. Send us pictures and a description of your hack and feel free to annotate your photos if you need to. And don't be afraid to get creative!

How to Submit Your Entry

Make sure to follow these instructions when you submit your entry:

  • Post your entry below or send it to challenge@lifehacker.com with the subject MacGyver Challenge: LEDs. If you post your entry below and need to include more than one image, just reply to your own comment or host your extra pics on a free, quick image-hosting site like imgur and link out to your gallery.
  • We will accept entries up through Sunday night, May 5 at 11:59pm Pacific Standard Time
  • We will showcase the best submissions and announce our favorite on Tuesday, May 7.

So grab that leather flight jacket, comb your mullet, and start channeling those MacGyver vibes. Here's a little theme music to put you in the mood. And don't forget to check back every week for a new challenge. We'll be alternating between Hacker Challenges and MacGyver Challenges.

Standard Gawker contest rules apply, so be sure to check them out before submitting your entry.

Image by Jag_cz (Shutterstock) and Oleksiy Mark (Shutterstock).

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/p-ZDMLTYLcY/hack-something-using-leds-486181067

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Immigration debate gives life to annual rallies

SAN DIEGO (AP) ? Social media and text messaging have emerged as indispensable tools for advocates of a sweeping immigration overhaul, but street marches have an enduring allure.

Tens of thousands are expected to rally in dozens of cities from New York to Bozeman, Mont., on Wednesday in what has become an annual cry for easing the nation's immigration laws. The rallies carry a special sense of urgency this year, two weeks after a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill that would bring many of the estimated 11 million living in the U.S. illegally out of the shadows.

"The invisible become visible on May 1," said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, which is organizing what was expected to be the nation's largest rally.

The May Day crowds were not expected to approach the massive demonstrations of 2006 and 2007, during the last serious attempt to introduce major changes to the U.S. immigration system. Despite the large turnouts, many advocates of looser immigration laws felt they were outmaneuvered by opponents who flooded congressional offices with phone calls and faxes at the behest of conservative talk-radio hosts.

Now, immigrant advocacy groups are focusing heavily on calling and writing members of Congress, sometimes targeting specific lawmakers at key moments in the debate. Reform Immigration for America, a network of groups, claims more than 1.2 million subscribers, including recipients of text messages and Facebook followers.

A text-message blast during a key vote in 2010 on legislation to provide legal status to many who came to the country as children resulted in 75,000 phone calls to members of Congress in two days, said Jeff Parcher, communications director for the Center for Community Change, which works on technology-driven advocacy for the network of groups.

A phone blitz targeting Sen. Orrin Hatch produced 100 calls a day to the Utah lawmaker's office last week, Parcher said. After Hatch was quoted Sunday in The Salt Lake Tribune saying immigration reform couldn't wait, a message went out to call his office with thanks.

Organizers are also reaching out by email and old-fashioned phone banks.

"The general rule is you keep people on the platform they're used to," Parcher said. "If they're on Facebook, we'll ask them to post something to Congress members' pages."

Gabriel Villalobos, a Spanish-language talk radio host in Phoenix, said many of his callers believe it is the wrong time for marches, fearful that that any unrest could sour public opinion on immigration reform. Those callers advocate instead for a low-key approach of calling members of Congress.

"The mood is much calmer," said Villalobos, who thinks the marches are still an important show of political force.

Salas, whose group is known as CHIRLA, dates the May Day rallies to a labor dispute with a restaurant in the city's Koreatown neighborhood that drew several hundred demonstrators in 2000. Crowds grew each year until the House of Representatives passed a tough bill against illegal immigration, sparking a wave of enormous, angry protests from coast to coast in 2006.

The rallies, which coincide with Labor Day in many countries outside the U.S., often have big showings from labor leaders and elected officials.

Aside from Los Angeles, big crowds were expected in New York, Chicago and Milwaukee. At a rally in Salem, Ore., Gov. John Kitzhaber planned to sign legislation to authorize drivers' licenses to people in the state illegally. With Congress in recess, there were no major demonstrations planned in the nation's capital.

Organizers were sending text-message blasts on Tuesday to remind subscribers of times and places for the marches.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-05-01-Immigration%20Marches/id-fc864ec7bf2b42d4888b3e4ec9a64162

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Boston bombing suspect's widow agrees to release body

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) ? The uncle of the deceased Boston Marathon bombing suspect says his family will claim his body now that his wife has agreed to release it.

Tamerlan Tsarneav's (TAM'-ehr-luhn tsahr-NEYE'-ehvs) body has been at the medical examiner's office since he died more than a week ago. Police said he ran out of ammunition before his brother, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-HAHR' tsahr-NEYE'-ehv), dragged his body under a vehicle while fleeing the scene. His cause of death will not be made public until his remains are claimed.

Tamerlan's widow, Katherine Russell, said Tuesday through her attorney that she wants his body released to the Tsarnaev family.

Tamerlan's uncle Ruslan Tsarni of Maryland told The Associated Press on Tuesday night that family members will take possession of the body, though he would not elaborate.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/boston-bombing-suspects-widow-wants-body-released-231216629.html

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Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Canada Launches Space Robot-Themed $5 Bill with Astronaut's Help

The Bank of Canada had appropriate help Tuesday (April 30) launching its new space-themed $5 bill ? the Canadian commander of the International Space Station (ISS).

"Let me show you an example of how we can reach new heights of innovation," Canadian Space Agency astronaut and Expedition 35 commander Chris Hadfield said, while revealing the astronaut- and robot-arm-adorned bank note from on board the orbiting complex.

Hadfield held up the new blue-color note and let it float in front of him during a live broadcast from the space station. [Chris Hadfield's Video Guide to Life in Space]

According to the Bank of Canada, the new $5 bill features "leading-edge security features" as already present in the $20, $50 and $100 polymer notes now in circulation. The bank also released its new $10 note today, which depicts a Canadian train.

"The polymer series notes are at the frontier of bank note technology. The new $5 and $10 bank notes depict the frontiers of our country and our planet," Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney said. "It is fitting that we are today crossing the final frontier for a world first ? the unveiling of a bank note from space."

The new bills include transparent and holographic design elements, making them part of the most secure bank note series ever issued by the Bank of Canada. The polymer series is also described as more economical, lasting at least two and half times longer than cotton-based paper notes, and they will be recycled in Canada.

The Bank of Canada's new $5 bank note features a space-theme with the Canadarm2 robotic arm, Dextre manipulator and a spacewalking astronaut.
CREDIT: Bank of Canada/collectSPACE.com

The new $5 bill, as revealed by Hadfield, features images of the Canadian-built Canadarm2 and Dextre, robotic arms and manipulators that were used to build and now maintain the space station. They symbolize Canada's ongoing contribution to the international space program.

Hadfield, who in 2001 became the first Canadian to walk in space while helping to install the Canadarm2 outside the space station, said he tries to inspire young Canadians to aim high.

"This new $5 bill should do the same," he said. "By giving prominence to Canadian achievements in space, this bank note reminds us that not even the sky is the limit."

The note's design also includes a spacewalking astronaut, though the Bank of Canada did not specify if it was meant to be Hadfield. The astronaut can be identified though, as a Canadian by the country's red and white, maple-leaf flag appearing on the arm of the spacesuited figure.

The front of the new $5 bank note features a portrait of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Prime Minister of Canada from 1896 to 1911. The previous $5 bill, still in circulation, also features Laurier on one side. The reverse depicts children engaged in winter sports, including sledding and hockey.

The Bank of Canada's new space-themed $5 note is a safer kind of dollar. From left to right: David Saint-Jacques, Canadian Astronaut; the Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance; Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada; Paul G. Smith, Chairman of the Board of Directors of VIA Rail Canada.
CREDIT: Bank of Canada

The $5 bill is the lowest denomination bank note circulated in Canada. The new space-themed bill will be available to the public starting in November.

This is not the first time that Hadfield has been included in the release of Canadian money. The Royal Canadian Mint released coins in 2006 that featured the Canadarm2 and a portrait of the record-setting astronaut. The silver and gold coins carried a face value of $30 and $300, respectively.

In addition to the Canadarm2 and the two-armed Dextre (the latter also known as the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator), Canada's space achievements also include the Canadarm, the robotic arm flown on board the now-retired space shuttle.

The first Canadarm flown in space was returned by NASA to Canada last year to go on public display at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa.

Click through to collectSPACE.com to watch video of astronaut Chris Hadfield revealing the new Canadian $5 bank note from on board the International Space Station.

Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2013 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://www.space.com/20908-canada-launches-space-money-astronaut.html

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New Woody Allen Film to Star Emma Stone and Colin Firth

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/05/new-woody-allen-film-to-star-emma-stone-and-colin-firth/

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Google Now for iOS hands-on

Google Now for iOS handson

Google Now is, perhaps, one of the more compelling reasons to opt for an Android device over iOS. But, Mountain View is smart enough to realize that its big push to deliver information pre-emptively would be severely hampered if it was isolated to one platform. So, here we are, almost a year after Now debuted with the launch of Jelly Bean, and the (mis)labeled Siri competitor has finally landed on Apple's mobile OS. Obviously, to truly come to grips with a product like this, you'd need days or weeks to truly judge it, but we're familiar enough with the Android version to feel comfortable passing along our initial impressions. So head on after the break to see whether or not Google was able to replicate its virtual assistant magic on iOS.

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Comments

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/2MsIyT7febc/

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Mild iodine deficiency in womb associated with lower scores on children's literacy tests

Mild iodine deficiency in womb associated with lower scores on children's literacy tests [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 30-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Jenni Glenn Gingery
jgingery@endo-society.org
301-941-0240
The Endocrine Society

Changes in mother's diet, supplements may prevent long-term neurological impairment

Chevy Chase, MDChildren who did not receive enough iodine in the womb performed worse on literacy tests as 9-year-olds than their peers, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

Iodine is absorbed from food and plays a key role in brain development. Even mild deficiency during pregnancy can harm the baby's neurological development.

"Our research found children may continue to experience the effects of insufficient iodine for years after birth," said the study's lead author, Kristen L. Hynes, PhD, of the Menzies Research Institute at the University of Tasmania in Australia. "Although the participants' diet was fortified with iodine during childhood, later supplementation was not enough to reverse the impact of the deficiency during the mother's pregnancy."

The longitudinal study examined standardized test scores of 228 children whose mothers attended The Royal Hobart Hospital's antenatal clinics in Tasmania between 1999 and 2001. The children were born during a period of mild iodine deficiency in the population. Conditions were reversed when bread manufacturers began using iodized salt in October 2001 as part of a voluntary iodine fortification program.

The study found inadequate iodine exposure during pregnancy was associated with lasting effects. As 9-year-olds, the children who received insufficient iodine in the womb had lower scores on standardized literacy tests, particularly in spelling. However, inadequate iodine exposure was not associated with lower scores on math tests. Researchers theorize iodine deficiency may take more of a toll on the development of auditory pathways and, consequently, auditory working memory and so had more of an impact on students' spelling ability than their mathematical reasoning ability.

"Fortunately, iodine deficiency during pregnancy and the resulting neurological impact is preventable," Hynes said. "Pregnant women should follow public health guidelines and take daily dietary supplements containing iodine. Public health supplementation programs also can play a key role in monitoring how much iodine the population is receiving and acting to ensure at-risk groups receive enough iodine in the diet."

###

The Endocrine Society's clinical practice guidelines on managing thyroid dysfunction during pregnancy and postpartum, including iodine supplementation, are available at http://www.endo-society.org/guidelines/upload/Thyroid-Exec-Summ.pdf.

Other researchers working on the study include: P. Otahal, I. Hay and J. Burgess of the University of Tasmania.

The article, "Mild Iodine Deficiency During Pregnancy is Associated with Reduced Educational Outcomes in the Offspring: 9-Year Follow-Up of the Gestational Iodine Cohort," appears in the May 2013 issue of JCEM.

Founded in 1916, The Endocrine Society is the world's oldest, largest and most active organization devoted to research on hormones and the clinical practice of endocrinology. Today, The Endocrine Society's membership consists of over 16,000 scientists, physicians, educators, nurses and students in more than 100 countries. Society members represent all basic, applied and clinical interests in endocrinology. The Endocrine Society is based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. To learn more about the Society and the field of endocrinology, visit our site at http://www.endo-society.org. Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/EndoMedia.


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Mild iodine deficiency in womb associated with lower scores on children's literacy tests [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 30-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Jenni Glenn Gingery
jgingery@endo-society.org
301-941-0240
The Endocrine Society

Changes in mother's diet, supplements may prevent long-term neurological impairment

Chevy Chase, MDChildren who did not receive enough iodine in the womb performed worse on literacy tests as 9-year-olds than their peers, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

Iodine is absorbed from food and plays a key role in brain development. Even mild deficiency during pregnancy can harm the baby's neurological development.

"Our research found children may continue to experience the effects of insufficient iodine for years after birth," said the study's lead author, Kristen L. Hynes, PhD, of the Menzies Research Institute at the University of Tasmania in Australia. "Although the participants' diet was fortified with iodine during childhood, later supplementation was not enough to reverse the impact of the deficiency during the mother's pregnancy."

The longitudinal study examined standardized test scores of 228 children whose mothers attended The Royal Hobart Hospital's antenatal clinics in Tasmania between 1999 and 2001. The children were born during a period of mild iodine deficiency in the population. Conditions were reversed when bread manufacturers began using iodized salt in October 2001 as part of a voluntary iodine fortification program.

The study found inadequate iodine exposure during pregnancy was associated with lasting effects. As 9-year-olds, the children who received insufficient iodine in the womb had lower scores on standardized literacy tests, particularly in spelling. However, inadequate iodine exposure was not associated with lower scores on math tests. Researchers theorize iodine deficiency may take more of a toll on the development of auditory pathways and, consequently, auditory working memory and so had more of an impact on students' spelling ability than their mathematical reasoning ability.

"Fortunately, iodine deficiency during pregnancy and the resulting neurological impact is preventable," Hynes said. "Pregnant women should follow public health guidelines and take daily dietary supplements containing iodine. Public health supplementation programs also can play a key role in monitoring how much iodine the population is receiving and acting to ensure at-risk groups receive enough iodine in the diet."

###

The Endocrine Society's clinical practice guidelines on managing thyroid dysfunction during pregnancy and postpartum, including iodine supplementation, are available at http://www.endo-society.org/guidelines/upload/Thyroid-Exec-Summ.pdf.

Other researchers working on the study include: P. Otahal, I. Hay and J. Burgess of the University of Tasmania.

The article, "Mild Iodine Deficiency During Pregnancy is Associated with Reduced Educational Outcomes in the Offspring: 9-Year Follow-Up of the Gestational Iodine Cohort," appears in the May 2013 issue of JCEM.

Founded in 1916, The Endocrine Society is the world's oldest, largest and most active organization devoted to research on hormones and the clinical practice of endocrinology. Today, The Endocrine Society's membership consists of over 16,000 scientists, physicians, educators, nurses and students in more than 100 countries. Society members represent all basic, applied and clinical interests in endocrinology. The Endocrine Society is based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. To learn more about the Society and the field of endocrinology, visit our site at http://www.endo-society.org. Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/EndoMedia.


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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/tes-mid042613.php

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Older is wiser: Study shows software developers' skills improve over time

Apr. 29, 2013 ? There is a perception in some tech circles that older programmers aren't able to keep pace with rapidly changing technology, and that they are discriminated against in the software field. But a new study from North Carolina State University indicates that the knowledge and skills of programmers actually improve over time -- and that older programmers know as much (or more) than their younger peers when it comes to recent software platforms.

"We wanted to explore these perceptions of veteran programmers as being out of step with emerging technologies and see if we could determine whether older programmers are actually keeping up with changes in the field," says Dr. Emerson Murphy-Hill, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State and co-author of a paper on the research. "And we found that, in some cases, veteran programmers even have a slight edge."

The researchers looked at the profiles of more than 80,000 programmers on a site called StackOverflow, which is an online community that allows users to ask and answer programming questions. The site also allows users to rate the usefulness of other users' questions and answers. Users who are rated as asking good questions and providing good answers receive points that are reflected in their "reputation score." The higher an individual's reputation score, the more likely it is that the user has a robust understanding of programming issues.

For the first part of the study, the researchers compared the age of users with their reputation scores. They found that an individual's reputation increases with age, at least into a user's 40s. There wasn't enough data to draw meaningful conclusions for older programmers.

The researchers then looked at the number of different subjects that users asked and answered questions about, which reflects the breadth of their programming interests. The researchers found that there is a sharp decline in the number of subjects users weighed in on between the ages of 15 and 30 -- but that the range of subjects increased steadily through the programmers' 30s and into their early 50s.

Finally, the researchers evaluated the knowledge of older programmers (ages 37 and older) compared to younger programmers (younger than 37) in regard to relatively recent technologies -- meaning technologies that have been around for less than 10 years.

For two smartphone operating systems, iOS and Windows Phone 7, the veteran programmers had a significant edge in knowledge over their younger counterparts. For every other technology, from Django to Silverlight, there was no statistically significant difference between older and younger programmers.

"The data doesn't support the bias against older programmers -- if anything, just the opposite," Murphy-Hill says.

The paper, "Is Programming Knowledge Related To Age?," will be presented May 18 at the 10th Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories, sponsored by IEEE and ACM in San Francisco, Calif. Lead author of the paper is Patrick Morrison, a Ph.D. student at NC State.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/computers_math/information_technology/~3/x83r5bdODrA/130429114826.htm

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