CWDOD-BBTBR-MCLWP

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/////////////////////BHRMPUR PED DTH CRSS


//////////////////////Early Treatment With Oseltamivir Improves Influenza Outcomes in Children Expeditious treatment with oseltamivir (Tamiflu) can markedly reduce illness duration, symptom severity, and secondary complications in children with influenza, according to study findings presented earlier this month at the World Society for Pediatric Infectious Disease meeting in Bangkok.Reuters Health Information 2007



///////////////////////Most Cases of T-Cell Precursor ALL Appear to Develop After Birth A retrospective study of children diagnosed with T-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (TCP ALL) concludes, based on PCR studies of stored neonatal blood spots, that most cases of the disease develop after birth, not in utero.Reuters Health Information 2007



/////////////////////Obesity Common in Children With Heart Disease Among children with congenital or acquired heart disease, more than 1 in 4 is overweight or obese, according to results of a study published in the November issue of Pediatrics.Reuters Health Information 2007



////////////////////////////Fexofenadine Well Tolerated in Preschool-Aged Children With Allergic Rhinitis Results of a study published in the October issue of the Annals of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology suggest that fexofenadine hydrochloride is safe and well tolerated in children younger than 6 years with allergic rhinitis.Reuters Health Information 2007




/////////////////Gut-Directed Hypnotherapy Effective for Persistent IBS in Children Gut-directed hypnotherapy is "highly effective" for children with longstanding functional abdominal pain or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), clinicians from the Netherlands report in the November issue of Gastroenterology.Reuters Health Information 2007



////////////////////CX=EMPATHY+PLACEBO



///////////////////Rapid Auditory Processing Disrupted in Children With Dyslexia The neural response to rapid auditory stimuli is disrupted in children with developmental dyslexia, but it can be improved with training, according to a report in the October 16th issue of Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience.Reuters Health Information 2007



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In 2002, late-preterm infants were 3 times more likely than term infants to die before their first birthday and 6 times more likely to die in their first week of life. This difference in mortality remained relatively stable from 1995. Among late-preterm infants, 38% of all infant deaths occurred during the early-neonatal period (vs 22% for term infants).
Death caused by congenital malformations accounted for 42% of deaths for late-preterm infants and for 31% of deaths for term infants. During infancy, late-preterm infants were approximately 4 times more likely than term infants to die of congenital malformations; newborn bacterial sepsis; and complications of the placenta, cord, or membranes. Differences between cause-specific mortality rates in late-preterm vs term infants were most pronounced during the early neonatal period.



///////////////////New Budesonide Treatment Effective Against Eosinophilic Esophagitis in Children A new therapy that uses budesonide in an oral viscous preparation appears to be safe and effective for eosinophilic esophagitis in young children, according to a study published in the October issue of the American Journal of Gastroenterology.Reuters Health Information 2007




/////////////////////SHIRT BLOT CRSS=GUAMO=GV UP AND MV ON



/////////////////////New Virulent Adenovirus Type 14 Variant Emerging in US: CDC A rare strain of adenovirus (serotype 14) that can cause severe and sometimes fatal acute respiratory illness in people of all ages -- including healthy young adults -- is becoming more common in the United States, health officials warn in Thursday's edition of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Reuters Health Information 2007



////////////////////Specific Oral Tolerance Induction May Benefit Children With Food Allergy


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Information from Industry
Advertisement – For symptoms of allergic rhinitis Learn more about relieving symptoms of seasonal allergic rhinitis in patients 12 years and older: Nasal and ocular symptoms. Click here.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Nov 21 - Children with persistent food allergy may benefit from specific oral tolerance induction, according to results of a study published in the November issue of Allergy.
"The prevalence of food allergy is increasing," Dr. Bodo Niggemann, from the University Children's Hospital Charite, Berlin, and colleagues write. "Around 2% to 3% of adults and up to 6% of children suffer from food allergy. Specific oral tolerance induction (SOTI) achieved by oral exposure to increasing doses of the specific food allergen seems to be a promising causal approach to therapy, improving both quality of life and safety in the event of accidental ingestion of the offending food."



/////////////////////MISSION BAMBOO-JHARKHAND



////////////////////S DUTT=REC UFTOE



/////////////////PTB=How to Achieve the Creative State of Flow
Have you ever been so engaged in an activity that you lost track of time or even your surroundings? A bomb could of gone off (figuratively) and you wouldn’t have noticed?
That’s called “flow” – a state of consciousness where we experience a task so deeply that it truly becomes enjoyable and satisfying. For me this usually happens while I’m reading, writing, or developing software. For you, it could happen during any number of tasks — golfing, cooking, hiking, etc.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the architect of Flow and after decades of researching the characteristics of the “optimal experience” (a fancy word for enjoyment) he wrote Flow: The Psychology of the Optimal Experience. A guide that shows us how to add more enjoyment in our lives by increasing the time we spend in Flow.
The Conditions of Flow
Flow can be achieved by anyone with any task, as long as the conditions are right. I usually get into a state of Flow while writing. I listen to music through my headphones and after a few minutes I really get into my work I’m oblivious to my surroundings.
Sometimes I can’t type fast enough. Other times I type so s-l-o-w-l-y and the words don’t come easily. But, either way, I’m in a state of Flow. According to Mihaly there are eight characteristics to an optimal experience:
You’re challenged by the task at hand. This seems to be the ‘prime directive’ to achieving Flow and can actually prevent you from being in a state of Flow. The difficulty of your task has to be “just right”. If the task is to easy, you’ll get bored and eventually stop. If the task is to difficult, you’ll get frustrated and eventually stop. Either way, you loose.
The ability to concentrate is key. If there are to many interruptions or it’s noisy, you won’t be able to concentrate on your task. No concentration, no Flow.
You have clear goals to achieve. Goals establish a mechanism to measure your progress and provide a sense of achievement. People in Flow achieve their goals.
You receive immediate feedback. Either your ball landed in the cup or it didn’t. You know immediately if your goal was reached or not.
Your worries and frustrations of everyday life recede into the background. This perhaps is one of the greatest benefit of Flow. You’re busy concentrating on your task and the rest of your world just “goes away” for a short while. Even though you’re challenged, you end up relaxed, satisfied and you achieved something meaningful (all this, and it’s legal too).
Your sense of self disappears (only for a while). When it re-appears, you’re refreshed with an even stronger sense of self.
You have a level of control over your actions while performing your task.
You loose track of time and feel great when you’re done with your task.
The Paradox of Leisure Time
With all the “modern conveniences” available today, we have more free time than ever before. But, with all this free time, people rarely reported being in a Flow state.
What is the largest single pastime for Americans? Watching TV. It’s a national obsession – sports, soaps, reality TV, it doesn’t matter, we’ll watch anything. The interesting thing is this – Flow is rarely achieved while watching TV!
I wonder if it has anything to do with your brain being more active while you’re sleeping than when you’re watching TV? Even though we have plenty of free time, our single most leisure activity is producing the poorest quality of enjoyment. If you’re looking to take one small step to improve the quality of your life - then turn off your TV.
The State of Flow at Work
Engaging in a challenging activity is a primary condition to achieve Flow and for many of us, this occurs while at work. You’re given a task or you volunteer for a project that’s just beyond your current skill level. Deep down you know you can do it and maybe it’s a stretch. But it’s the challenge that intrigues you and ultimately expands your knowledge.
This is how one grows – expanding your skills by continuously challenging oneself and moving to that “next level”. It’s at work where the opportunity to grow occurs most frequently. There is nothing wrong with this. My point is that we need to find activities outside of work where we can achieve Flow.
Your Personal Plan for Flow
Find a challenging activity. This could be anything. Reading, suduko, learning a language, cooking, or even playing a video game. Whatever you decide to do, just do it.
Commit to yourself. Remember, you’re doing this for one person and one person only. Yourself. This is your chance to finally get on the road to happiness and accomplishment.
Set a series of realistic goals. By setting goals you automatically know the level of skills needed to accomplish those goals and you provide yourself a framework for achieving a sense of accomplishment. Just as a video game has levels that you try to achieve, so should your activity. Define the levels, work to achieve them and realize your goals.
Turn off the T.V. “Everything in moderation” is what my father used to tell me – so it goes for TV. Some is good, a lot is bad. Give yourself a chance to get into a Flow state by turning off the TV.
Remove any interruptions. It nearly impossible to be engrossed in an activity when you’re bombarded with interruptions. I tell my kids “Please don’t interrupt me unless you’re bleeding or a dinosaur is crashing through our house”. They usually giggle and give me the time I need.
Track your progress. Create a simple way to track your daily progress. Place a mark on a calendar, write a short entry in a journal or scratch a line in your bedroom wall.
Enjoy your experience. Achieving flow takes determination. But remember to enjoy your experience along the way. As they say “it’s the journey that’s important”.
Have you achieved a state of Flow today?


////////////////////Neutron Star Seen Hurtling Out of the Milky Way
Like a baseball struck by a bat, there's a neutron star out there that's going, going, gone. Discovered using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the neutron star appears to be the result of a lopsided supernova explosion. It's now hurtling away from the Milky Way faster than 4.8 million km/h (3 million mph). And it's never coming back. (more…)



//////////////////////November 28, 2007
Three Revolutionary Alternative-Energy Sources
It's official: sucking dead-dinosaur juice out of the ground and burning it is officially uncool. Whether you object to the way you can't breathe the resulting fumes, or it's the thought of a hundred dollars a barrel that leaves you gasping for air, people from both ends of the political spectrum agree that it's time to find a new way to power our playthings. The mathematics of a fuel-based economy are a vast and complicated field but the simple summary is:
a) The number of people using energy continues to increaseb) The number of new dead animals turning into oil remains constant at zero
This compelling argument has led to increasingly odd research into alternative energy sources. And even if "the fate of modern society" doesn't motivate them, the idea that their oil-based business rivals use a unique "constantly increase the price of our product" strategy means they have a good chance of making money.
1) Wind based x 1000
Wind farms, while undeniably renewable, have run into a multitude of objections including cost, limited applicability, and people whining "They may eliminate the need for the local coal-burning plant but we think it ruins the view from our bay windows". While the latter can be rightly ignored, and maybe mocked a little bit for being extremely small-minded simpletons, the other problems remained valid - which is why a group of engineers said "Why don't we just make it a thousand times better?"
This kilo-improvement isn't a playground boast but exactly what Chinese developers at the Guangzhou Energy Research Institute claim to have achieved by using permanent magnets to float the turbines - making them much easier to turn and scale up in size. A single power plant could replace thousands of old-model windmills and utilise much lower wind speeds, increasing the areas over which they design can be applied. Big words need proof, of course, and we could have it soon - Zhongke Hengyuan Energy Technology is already building a factory to make this ecological and economic fantasy into a reality.
2) Handy home nuclear power plant
You want to know the real solution to the power problem? Nuclear Energy, and lots of it! That's the strategy of Hyperion Power Generation who, in a plan straight out of a 50s black and white movie reel, picture a safe and friendly nuclear reactor in every backyard! A hydrogen atmosphere surrounds a uranium hydride core, the whole thing is encased in concrete and then buried somewhere to power 25,000 homes for up to five years. Exactly what you're meant to do with the buried nuclear material in a container designed never to be opened, operated or ideally even approached by humans after the five years elapse is not exactly clear - doubtless Hyperion would suggest buying another reactor and burying it next door.
The makers say they prefer not to call it a "reactor", which is probably a good idea when you're talking about something you intend to drop in a hole and then leave unsupervised, but if they think changing the name will get people to overlook the problems inherent in running around the place randomly burying uranium then they need to hire a seriously upgraded PR team. Environmentalists are not reacting well to these plans, in the same way they wouldn't react well to plans to deploy whale blubber powered oil-derricks on top of a orphaned kitten hospital. Considering the efforts people have made to render nuclear waste grounds like Yucca mountain dangerous and scary looking even to aliens, future humans or even the descendants of ants, the odds of this scheme being approved are worse than Jack Thompson's of being voted "Video-game developer of the year: Swimsuit edition".
3) Taming tornadoes
In what can only be an attempt to get notice by COBRA's recruiting division, retired engineer Louis Michaud has filed a patent for a device that would generate tornadoes and then harness them for power generation. Think of it as the Xtreme version of wind power. Also, unless you're reading this on a holographic display generated by a cybernetic cheerleader in your secret mountain lair, you should really think of it as the coolest thing you've ever heard.
The principle is that you can set up the conditions that create the tornado, then harvest the energy after it has naturally grown from "pattern of hot and cold air" to "terrifying twisting column capable of scarring the earth like God's own drill bit". Mr Michaud suggests that we can be even more economical by using hot water generated by a nearby nuclear power plant to provide those initial conditions. Since this hot water is normally generated as a waste product, this is both an inventive and efficient use existing technology and a demonstration that - if sufficiently diabolical - a person can sit down and produce a complete design and patent application without ever realizing "Wait a minute, I'm telling people to create tornadoes right next to a nuclear reactor!"
Posted by Luke McKinney
Related Galaxy posts:



////////////////////Today is Nov 29, 2007.Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he's got it all.~James Brown~



//////////////////WAKING NIGHTMARE



//////////////////The Longevity Pill?
Drugs much more powerful than the resveratrol found in red wine will be tested to treat diabetes.
By Emily Singer
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Revving up resveratrol: A new class of drugs 1,000 times more potent than resveratrol, the compound thought to underlie the health benefits of red wine, shows promise in treating diabetes. Credit: Technology Review
Related Articles:
•
The Fountain of Health03/01/2006
•
A Life-Extending Pill for Fat Mice11/02/2006
•
The Enthusiast08/15/2007
A novel group of drugs that target a gene linked to longevity could provide a way to turn back the clock on the diseases of aging. The compounds are 1,000 times more potent than resveratrol, the molecule thought to underlie the health benefits of red wine, and have shown promise in treating rodent models of obesity and diabetes.
Human clinical trials to test the compounds in diabetes are slated to begin early next year, according to Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, based in Cambridge, MA, which developed the drugs. "As far as I'm aware, this is the first anti-aging molecule going into [testing in] man," says David Sinclair, a biologist at Harvard Medical School, in Boston, and cofounder of Sirtris. (See "The Enthusiast.") "From that standpoint, this is a major milestone in medicine."
The new drugs target an enzyme called SIRT1, which belongs to a class of proteins known as sirtuins that have been shown to lengthen life span in lower organisms. Sinclair and others theorize that activating these enzymes, which play a role in cell metabolism, mimics the effects of caloric restriction--a low-calorie but nutritionally complete diet that dampens disease and boosts longevity in both invertebrates and mammals.
For several years, scientists have been on the hunt for a drug that could bring the benefits of caloric restriction without the strict diet. (See "The Fountain of Health.") Last fall, Sinclair and his colleagues took a first step when they showed that mice given resveratrol, a molecule that activates SIRT1, stayed healthy when fed high-fat foods. (See "A Life-Extending Pill for Fat Mice.") But there was a catch: mice were dosed with the human equivalent of more than 1,000 wine bottles' worth of the compound, an amount not possible for humans to imbibe or take in pill form.
Now a team at Sirtris, led by CEO Christoph Westphal, has identified a group of compounds that activate SIRT1 1,000 times more potently than resveratrol does. According to findings published today in the journal Nature, the compounds bind to the enzyme and dramatically increase its activity. Because the new compounds are more powerful, much lower doses are likely needed to achieve the same beneficial effects. "We believe doses needed in humans for the novel compounds are probably on the order of hundreds of milligrams, similar to many marketed drugs," says Westphal.
The Sirtris team focused initial animal tests on type 2 diabetes, a disease that results from the impaired ability to use insulin, and whose risk increases with aging. They found that the drugs improved insulin sensitivity and blood glucose levels in three rodent models: diet-induced obese mice, genetically obese mice, and a rat model of type 2 diabetes. "Theoretically, this is a perfect drug," says Charles Burant, head of the Michigan Metabolomics and Obesity Center at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. "Animals seem to have no change in weight, yet they have improved metabolic status."



///////////////////Youthful Star Sprouts Planets Early Ann Arbor MI (SPX) Nov 29, 2007 - A stellar prodigy has been spotted about 450 light-years away in a system called UX Tau A by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Astronomers suspect this system's central sun-like star, which is just one million years old, may already be surrounded by young planets. Scientists hope the finding will provide insight into when planets began to form in our own solar system. "This result is excitin ... more



///////////////////Brain wiring link to paedophiliaScans have shown that paedophilia may be the result of faulty connections in the brain.


BBC



//////////////////Instead of chips eat baked tortillasWhen you are craving chips or need something for dip, bake tortillas in the oven, and then cut them up. They are the perfect substitute for chips - without the calories.


//////////////////FAMILY How to encourage kids to readI let my daughter stay up later and read. She'd do it because she was excited she didn't have to go to bed. It made reading seem like a privilege because to do it, she could stay up later. Now, she's in the reading habit and I let her read every night until she's tired. It helps her relax. She is 10 and has already read several classic novels.



///////////////////RELATIONSHIPS Do it now and do it foreverBe conscious of the things you do at the beginning of any relationship. These are the things you will be expected to do for the duration of the relationship. If you don't want to buy expensive gifts or cook gourmet meals for the rest of your life, don't make a habit of these things at the start. Still do them, just not so that they become expected. Don’t let them become routine. They will be taken for granted and you won’t enjoy doing them either.