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AnonTechie writes:

Florida health officials and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today announced the nation's first locally acquired chikungunya cases.

Symptoms: People infected with chikungunya virus typically develop fever and joint pain. Other symptoms can include muscle aches, headaches, joint swelling or rash. Infection with chikungunya virus is rarely fatal, but the joint pain can often be severe and debilitating.

A statement today from the CDC described the first of two local chikungunya cases reported in Florida, in a man who had not traveled outside the United States. The agency said it is working closely with the Florida Department of Health to explore how the patient got sick with the virus.

The Florida Department of Health (FDH) said today it has detected two locally acquired cases, one in Miami-Dade County and the other in Palm Beach County. The counties are on Florida's southern tip, about 70 miles apart: Palm Beach County to the west and Dade County to the east.

This is a notable, but not surprising, development given the rising number of infected travelers returning from the Caribbean outbreak region. In a related development, Puerto Rico health officials declared a chikungunya epidemic, due to a rapidly rising number of cases there.

See also:

• http://scienceblog.com/73414/us-reports-first-locally-acquired-chikungunya-cases/
• http://boingboing.net/2014/07/18/first-locally-acquired-cas.html
• For more information about preventing mosquito bites, visit: http://www.cdc.gov/chikungunya/prevention/index.html

[NOTE: updated to correct malformed links.]

AnonTechie writes:

Grow-your-own pacemakers are a step closer to reality, after pioneering experiments in pigs. Scientists turned heart cells into pacemaker cells by injecting a gene. The "biological pacemaker" was able to "effectively cure a disease", said scientists from the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles. The British Heart Foundation said applications of the research, published in Science Translational Medicine, were "a long way off".

The researchers injected a gene into pigs with a heart condition that causes a very slow heart rate. The gene therapy converted some of the billions of ordinary heart muscle cells into much rarer specialised cells that kept the heart beating in rhythm. The patch of cells the size of a peppercorn had acted as a pacemaker for two weeks, taking over the function of a conventional pacemaker, said the US team.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-28325370

lhsi writes:

The BBC reports that Spain is lifting an order for ISPs to block six file sharing sites as there is "insufficient grounds" to keep them in place.

All six sites were blocked in May after being accused of infringing copyright by the Spanish anti-piracy federation. The block meant mobile operators and internet service providers (ISPs) in Spain were told to stop letting customers get at the sites.

Now a court in Zaragoza has said there were "insufficient grounds" for maintaining the blocks and has called for them to be lifted.

The decision should mean that mobile companies and ISPs will lift the blocks in the next few days. The court was considering the blocks after those running some of the accused sites appealed.

Meronymous Coward writes:

The U.S. government is rapidly expanding the number of names it accepts for inclusion on its terrorist watch list, with more than 1.5 million added in the last five years, according to numbers divulged by the government in a civil lawsuit.

About 99 percent of the names submitted are accepted, leading to criticism that the government is "wildly loose" in its use of the list. From the article:

Those included in the Terrorist Screening Database could find themselves on the government's no-fly list or face additional scrutiny at airports, though only a small percentage of people in the database are actually on the list.

It has been known for years that the government became more aggressive in nominating people for the watch list following al-Qaida operative Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's failed effort to blow up an airplane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. But the numbers disclosed by the government show submissions have snowballed. In fiscal 2009, which ended Sept. 30, 2009, 227,932 names were nominated to the database. In fiscal 2010, which includes the months after the attempted Christmas bombing, nominations rose to 250,847. In fiscal 2012, they increased to 336,712, and in fiscal 2013 - the most recent year provided - nominations jumped to 468,749.

The government disclosed the figures in a civil lawsuit out of Virginia challenging the constitutionality of the no-fly list.

cafebabe writes:

The BBC news and RT reports that:

The arrest on obscenity allegations of a woman who makes art based on her vagina has sparked debate in Japan.

Tokyo-based artist Megumi Igarashi, 42, was arrested on Saturday for sending data that could be used to create 3D models of her vagina.

She had sent it to people who had donated money for a project to make a vagina-shaped kayak using a 3D printer.

The kayak in question seems quite inoffensive but concept has definitely riled people.

frojack writes:

University of Utah researchers and scientists from Norway have mapped the rising magma column under Mount Rainier that suggest the volcano may be getting ready for an eruption reasonably soon, (for volcanic values of soon).

A Reuters article appearing in Business Insider suggest that the magma flow has reached a pool 5 miles below the peak of the mountain, (which is 2.7 miles high). The pool is roughly 5 to 10 miles wide and about the same depth.

When it does happen, the eruption is expected to be fairly large and sustained, due to the size of this magma pool. The eruption is not guaranteed to vent through Rainier's summit — it may find an easier path elsewhere.

The scientists have been mapping the volcano's plumbing for more than 8 years. But their measurements are showing increased urgency as they get a better picture of the sub-surface magma plume.

The rising magma in Washington's Mount Rainier has been proved beyond doubt according to the University of Utah researchers. They have worked on the project for quite some time and have succeeded in developing images of deep volcanic plumbing that is going to come out in the days to come (the images, not the magma). This is the first time that such a detailed picture of the molten rock of Mount Rainier has been developed. This is also going to give a precise idea to researchers as to where it will come out.

One of the researchers while talking about the development says that the latest image, "captures the melting process that feeds magma into a crustal reservoir that eventually is tapped for eruption. But it does not provide any information on the timing of future eruptions from Mount Rainier or other Cascade Range volcanoes". Their full report is paywalled in Nature.

Mount St. Helens is also getting increased scrutiny.

azrael writes:

The BBC reports on the largest ever four-winged dinosaur (abstract) which has recently been discovered in China.

Changyuraptor yangi was a gliding predator which lived in the Cretaceous period in what is now Liaoning, China.

Its remarkable tail feathers — measuring up to 30cm — are the longest in any non-avian dinosaur.

Measuring 132cm from its snout to the tip of its tail feathers, it is the largest four-winged dinosaur ever discovered — longer than an eagle or an albatross today.

While it is believed that these four-winged dinosaurs were a side-branch and did not evolve into birds as we currently know them, it still offers valuable insight into the origin of flight and evolution of birds.

frojack writes:

Two new studies indicate that talking on the phone while driving does not translate into more accidents in the real world.

Studies from Carnegie Mellon University and the London School of Economics (full text of study) as well as a separate analysis of different data by The University of Colorado and RAND Corporation both indicate that real world data indicates that talking is not the problem.

A third study, by Virginia Tech published in the New England Journal of Medicine, used in-car and exterior video cameras on 100 cars, and also found that talking on the phone wasn't a risk factor, but dialling was. (Uniquely, this study could also evaluate "near accidents" because they had video.)

In the CMU/LSE study, the researchers explain (quoted in the Daily Mail):

"Using a cellphone while driving may be distracting, but it does not lead to higher crash risk in the setting we examined".

"While our findings may strike many as counter-intuitive, our results are precise enough to statistically call into question the effects typically found in the academic literature. Our study differs from most prior work in that it leverages a naturally occurring experiment in a real-world context."

cafebabe writes:

ScienceDaily reports that:

In a population of initially well-functioning older adults, we found a significant correlation between strong adherence to the Mediterranean diet and a slower rate of cognitive decline among African American, but not white, older adults. Our study is the first to show a possible race-specific association between the Mediterranean diet and cognitive decline.

lhsi writes:

The RIAA have targeted non profit archival sites that have licensed music with a string of restrictions. From the article:

Earlier this week it was reported how the RIAA had decided to turn the licensing thumbscrews on a site offering decades-old radio archives for download. Now another archival site, one that pays thousands of dollars in license fees to BMI, ASCAP and SoundExchange yet makes not a cent, is now in the RIAA spotlight.

Around since 1996, ReelRadio is a service dedicated to streaming historical radio shows, specifically decades-old "aircheck" demo recordings which were often used to showcase radio announcers before being placed in the archives.

ReelRadio isn't some "rogue" site determined to avoid paying artists. The site does its bit by paying a proper license, but last week the RIAA decided that it needed to more strictly enforce its terms. Trouble is, those terms are so restrictive that not only will the site have to drastically reduce its user experience in order to comply, in some instances it may actually prove impossible to meet the terms.

cafebabe writes:

ScienceDaily reports that:

The phenomenon of 'boomerang employees' is not unique to professional athletes, says two recent studies. Organizations of all types are beginning to recognize and embrace the value of recruiting and welcoming back former employees. From infantry soldiers to chief executives, accountants and professional basketball players, many organizations proactively recruit and rehire former employees as a way to offset high turnover costs and hedge against the uncertain process of socializing replacement employees.

"After surveying and interviewing hundreds of employees, we were able to see that boomerang employees were more likely to originally leave an organization not because of dissatisfaction with the job, but because of some personal shock, such as a pregnancy, spousal relocation or an unexpected job offer," Harris said. "Somewhat unexpectedly, we also found that boomerang employees, compared to non-boomerang employees, typically had shorter original tenures with the focal organizations.

"The research found that re-employment performance was significantly predicted by the harmony of the original tenure, and their success during the time spent away from the focal organization and conditions of the return.

"Our latest research suggests that organizations should realize that not all boomerangs are created equal," Harris said. "When evaluating potential boomerang hires, organizations should first, and most obviously, consider their previous performance histories at the focal organization and at their most recent employer.

BradTheGeek writes:

Black holes might end their lives by transforming into their exact opposite - 'white holes' that explosively pour all the material they ever swallowed into space, say two physicists. The suggestion, based on a speculative quantum theory of gravity, could solve a long-standing conundrum about whether black holes destroy information.

The theory suggests that the transition from black hole to white hole would take place right after the initial formation of the black hole, but because gravity dilates time, outside observers would see the black hole lasting billions or trillions of years or more, depending on its size. If the authors are correct, tiny black holes that formed during the very early history of the Universe would now be ready to pop off like firecrackers and might be detected as high-energy cosmic rays or other radiation. In fact, they say, their work could imply that some of the dramatic flares commonly considered to be supernova explosions could in fact be the dying throes of tiny black holes that formed shortly after the Big Bang.

gewg_ writes:

The Center for American Progress reports:

On Thursday, major Indian solar manufacturer and developer Tata Power Solar announced plans for a new nationwide initiative that will help prospective residential solar users acquire interest-free loans for up to $4,000 for their products. Tata Power Solar, India's largest integrated solar company, is partnering with Bajaj Finance, to offer a new monthly installment payment plan to solar customers in an effort to make solar a more attractive and affordable option as well as a possibility for the approximately 400 million Indians without reliable power in the country.

The loan option, to be repaid in monthly installments, will be applicable to all Tata Power Solar products including solar lighting products, solar water heaters, and solar panels. The program will be rolled out across 20 cities first before being expanded across the entire country.

[...]

Deutsche Bank analyst Vishal Shah called the budget announcement positive for the Indian market, saying "the country has installed around 2.6GW of solar capacity as of May 2014, around two GW of which was installed in the last two years. We expect new installations to be around 1.5GW in 2014 and around 2GW in 2015."

A deficit discovered in reward-based learning, specific to food, among women with obesity highlights the behavioral aspects of the epidemic and holds potential for combating it, according to a report published in Current Biology.

"Women with obesity were impaired at learning which cues predict food and which do not, but had no trouble learning similar associations with money," Ifat Levy, PhD, of the Yale School of Medicine, told Endocrine Today.

The impairment was markedly different in women with obesity vs. those with normal weight, and not seen in men, in an appetitive reversal paradigm conducted by Zhihao Zhang, a PhD candidate at Yale University, and colleagues, including Levy.

"Although we do not know whether this impairment is a cause for obesity or its effect, this finding provides a link between reward learning and obesity, which can now be used to further probe these questions," Levy said.

The journal article is paywalled, but an abstract is available.

AnonTechie writes:

You've seen what a nuclear winter looks like, as imagined by filmmakers and novelists. Now you can take a look at what scientists have to say. In a new study, a team of four U.S. atmospheric and environmental scientists modelled what would happen after a "limited, regional nuclear war" (journal article).

To inexpert ears, the consequences sound pretty subtle - two or three degrees of global cooling, a nine percent reduction in yearly rainfall. Still, such changes could be enough to trigger crop failures and famines. After all, these would be cooler temperatures than the Earth has seen in 1,000 years.

In a separate study, published in 2013, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War estimated 2 billion people would starve in the wake of a 100-A-bomb war.