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Scientists are to begin revolutionary surgery trials that will help breast cancer victims to regrow their breasts after undergoing a mastectomy. The trial, to begin in Australia within the next six months, will involve implanting a device into a woman that enables fat tissue to grow by using a stem cell technique. The procedure, known as Neopec, could replace reconstructive surgery and breast implants within years. During the operation, which was developed by scientists at the Bernard O'Brien Institute of Microsurgery in Melbourne, a 5ml dose of the woman's own fat cells are implanted into an artificial, breast-shaped chamber in her chest. The container is attached to blood vessels under the arm enabling the cells to multiply and replace breast tissue. The scientists have developed the technique over the past decade and have successfully tested it on pigs, which grew new breasts within six weeks. However, they predict that the process could take up to eight months in women.
Scientists are to begin revolutionary surgery trials that will help breast cancer victims to regrow their breasts after undergoing a mastectomy.
The trial, to begin in Australia within the next six months, will involve implanting a device into a woman that enables fat tissue to grow by using a stem cell technique. The procedure, known as Neopec, could replace reconstructive surgery and breast implants within years.
During the operation, which was developed by scientists at the Bernard O'Brien Institute of Microsurgery in Melbourne, a 5ml dose of the woman's own fat cells are implanted into an artificial, breast-shaped chamber in her chest. The container is attached to blood vessels under the arm enabling the cells to multiply and replace breast tissue.
The scientists have developed the technique over the past decade and have successfully tested it on pigs, which grew new breasts within six weeks. However, they predict that the process could take up to eight months in women.
Dakar (AFP) Nov 10, 2009 The cereal crop will decline sharply in Chad, Niger and Mauritania in 2009-2010 because of drought, the permanent Inter-state Committee to Fight Drought in the Sahel (CILSS) announced Tuesday. "Compared with last year, drops in cereal production are expected in Chad (34 percent), Niger (36 percent), Mauritania (24 percent), Burkina Faso (10 percent) and Cape Verde (eight percent)," the CILSS said in a statement received in Dakar. The regional organisation, based in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, also anticipated a better crop than last year in "Benin (up by 45 percent), Ghana (44 percent), Gambia (18 percent), and Togo (13 percent)." From a regional point of view, "provisional cereal production in 2009/2010 in the countries of the Sahel and west Africa, with the exception of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Mali, is estimated at 48.2 million tonnes, a drop of four percent compared with 2008/2009," the organisation said.
"Compared with last year, drops in cereal production are expected in Chad (34 percent), Niger (36 percent), Mauritania (24 percent), Burkina Faso (10 percent) and Cape Verde (eight percent)," the CILSS said in a statement received in Dakar.
The regional organisation, based in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, also anticipated a better crop than last year in "Benin (up by 45 percent), Ghana (44 percent), Gambia (18 percent), and Togo (13 percent)."
From a regional point of view, "provisional cereal production in 2009/2010 in the countries of the Sahel and west Africa, with the exception of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Mali, is estimated at 48.2 million tonnes, a drop of four percent compared with 2008/2009," the organisation said.
Mexico City (AFP) Oct 29, 2009 As scientists race the clock to increase food production worldwide, new trials to plant genetically-modified maize have stoked anger in Mexico, the cradle of corn. Many here are sensitive about meddling with maize, which dates back to pre-Hispanic times, when mythologies held that people were created from corn. Some fear Mexico could one day lose the wealth of native varieties it still produces, including red and blue, to a few, tough breeds of GM maize, as well the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers. The government this month granted its first 22 permits to agribusinesses Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences and Pioneer to carry out tests on GM maize on farms in north and west Mexico. Mexico is the number one producer of white maize, which is used to make its famous flat tortillas, but it imports increasing amounts of yellow maize from the United States, mainly for cattle feed.
Many here are sensitive about meddling with maize, which dates back to pre-Hispanic times, when mythologies held that people were created from corn.
Some fear Mexico could one day lose the wealth of native varieties it still produces, including red and blue, to a few, tough breeds of GM maize, as well the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers.
The government this month granted its first 22 permits to agribusinesses Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences and Pioneer to carry out tests on GM maize on farms in north and west Mexico.
Mexico is the number one producer of white maize, which is used to make its famous flat tortillas, but it imports increasing amounts of yellow maize from the United States, mainly for cattle feed.
But my prize for the most shameless two fingers to the global community goes to New Zealand, a country that sells itself round the world as "clean and green". New Zealand secured a generous Kyoto target, which simply required it not to increase its emissions between 1990 and 2010. But the latest UN statistics show its emissions of greenhouse gases up by 22%, or a whopping 39% if you look at emissions from fuel burning alone. Some countries with big emissions growth started from a low figure in 1990. Arguably, they were playing catchup. There is no such excuse for New Zealand. Its emissions started high and went higher. They are today 60% higher than those of Britain, per head of population. Among industrialised nations, they are only exceeded by Canada, the US, Australia and Luxembourg. In recent years a lot of Brits have headed for Christchurch and Wellington in the hope of a green life in a country where they filmed the Lord of the Rings. But it's a green mirage.
New Zealand secured a generous Kyoto target, which simply required it not to increase its emissions between 1990 and 2010. But the latest UN statistics show its emissions of greenhouse gases up by 22%, or a whopping 39% if you look at emissions from fuel burning alone.
Some countries with big emissions growth started from a low figure in 1990. Arguably, they were playing catchup. There is no such excuse for New Zealand. Its emissions started high and went higher.
They are today 60% higher than those of Britain, per head of population. Among industrialised nations, they are only exceeded by Canada, the US, Australia and Luxembourg. In recent years a lot of Brits have headed for Christchurch and Wellington in the hope of a green life in a country where they filmed the Lord of the Rings. But it's a green mirage.
And he hasn't seen the government's "modified" ETS, which gives farmers a free ride while directly subsidising pollution, yet...
Speakign as someone who wants to see NZ adopt real policy to reduce emissions, I'm glad. Democratic action has failed due to the power of the polluter lobby (of which our farmers are a key component). Maybe international blackmail will work better. So, please distribute widely - and don't buy NZ butter.
You might try unitising energy instead. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
...Energy Pools was the subject in Glasgow last night. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
(Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times) Low wooden bleachers grayed by the sun remain on a hill where people sat and watched atmospheric nuclear tests overlooking Frenchman Flat on the Nevada Test Site. Reporting from Yucca Flat, Nev. - A sea of ancient water tainted by the Cold War is creeping deep under the volcanic peaks, dry lake beds and pinyon pine forests covering a vast tract of Nevada. Over 41 years, the federal government detonated 921 nuclear warheads underground at the Nevada Test Site, 75 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Each explosion deposited a toxic load of radioactivity into the ground and in some cases, directly into aquifers. When testing ended in 1992, the Energy Department estimated that more than 300 million curies of radiation had been left behind, making the site one of the most radioactively contaminated places in the nation. During the era of weapons testing, Nevada embraced its role almost like a patriotic duty. There seemed to be no better use for an empty desert. But today, as Nevada faces a water crisis and a population boom, state officials are taking a new measure of the damage. They have successfully pressured federal officials for a fresh environmental assessment of the 1,375-square-mile test site, a step toward a potential demand for monetary compensation, replacement of the lost water or a massive cleanup. "It is one of the largest resource losses in the country," said Thomas S. Buqo, a Nevada hydrogeologist. "Nobody thought to say, 'You are destroying a natural resource.' " In a study for Nye County, where the nuclear test site lies, Buqo estimated that the underground tests polluted 1.6 trillion gallons of water. That is as much water as Nevada is allowed to withdraw from the Colorado River in 16 years -- enough to fill a lake 300 miles long, a mile wide and 25 feet deep. At today's prices, that water would be worth as much as $48 billion if it had not been fouled, Buqo said.
(Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times) Low wooden bleachers grayed by the sun remain on a hill where people sat and watched atmospheric nuclear tests overlooking Frenchman Flat on the Nevada Test Site.
Over 41 years, the federal government detonated 921 nuclear warheads underground at the Nevada Test Site, 75 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Each explosion deposited a toxic load of radioactivity into the ground and in some cases, directly into aquifers. When testing ended in 1992, the Energy Department estimated that more than 300 million curies of radiation had been left behind, making the site one of the most radioactively contaminated places in the nation.
During the era of weapons testing, Nevada embraced its role almost like a patriotic duty. There seemed to be no better use for an empty desert. But today, as Nevada faces a water crisis and a population boom, state officials are taking a new measure of the damage. They have successfully pressured federal officials for a fresh environmental assessment of the 1,375-square-mile test site, a step toward a potential demand for monetary compensation, replacement of the lost water or a massive cleanup.
"It is one of the largest resource losses in the country," said Thomas S. Buqo, a Nevada hydrogeologist. "Nobody thought to say, 'You are destroying a natural resource.' "
In a study for Nye County, where the nuclear test site lies, Buqo estimated that the underground tests polluted 1.6 trillion gallons of water. That is as much water as Nevada is allowed to withdraw from the Colorado River in 16 years -- enough to fill a lake 300 miles long, a mile wide and 25 feet deep. At today's prices, that water would be worth as much as $48 billion if it had not been fouled, Buqo said.
Now the rovin' gambler he was very bored He was tryin' to create a next world war He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before But yes I think it can be very easily done We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun And have it on Highway 61.
Well, give or take a couple of thousand miles.
