US medical research chimps to retire to sanctuaries

IT IS good news for chimpanzees, but bad news for people with hepatitis C. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is likely to slash medical research on chimpanzees, and transfer most research chimps to sanctuaries. The plan is being hailed as a triumph for animal rights, but there is a snag: it could delay work on a hepatitis C vaccine.

Following a 2011 report concluding that most medical research on chimps was unnecessary, the NIH - which uses 360 of around 1000 research chimps in the US - set up an advisory committee. This body has now issued recommendations. Most of the NIH's chimps should retire to sanctuaries, but about 50 should be retained for future research, housed in environments that promote their natural behaviour: large groups, plenty of space and lots of activities.

"It's excellent news," says Barbara King of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. "These chimpanzees have served and suffered for us."

But some hepatitis C researchers are less happy. Chimps are the only non-human animal that the virus infects, so are used in the development of a vaccine.

"If there is no access to a chimpanzee model, it will likely slow vaccine development and put human lives at risk," says Stanley Lemon of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

This article appeared in print under the headline "US chimps retire"

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5 Business Insurance Resolutions for 2013 - texas associates blog ...

January is always a month for resolutions. It?s a time when we all swear to ourselves that we?ll make improvements in our lives. And we usually achieve that change in January. The problems arise in February and March.?Business owners?often treat insurance in the same way. It?s vital at renewal time, and then it drifts into the background.

But business insurance should always be at the forefront of your thinking, because your business? survival may rely on it one day. Here are five resolutions every business owner should make to ensure their business remains secure in 2013.

Talk About More than Business Insurance

A common trap a lot of business owners fall into when they talk to their agent is they focus on business insurance. They want to know about coverage, exclusions and deductibles and aren?t interested in discussing their wider business. When you deal with?your agent, you should tell them about your business as a whole. Talk about your goals and your strategy; that will give them more opportunities to assess risk and identify areas for improvement.

Focus on Risk not Premiums

With that in mind, it?s also important that you focus your?business insurance?conversations on risk. Reducing your insurance premiums will save you money, but it won?t protect you if you encounter an unexpected risk. In 2013, make sure you treat insurance as a part of the risk management process, not the target. That?s the way your agent will see it.

Beware Emerging Risks

It?s also important that you remain vigilant throughout the year. New risks emerge all the time and they won?t wait until your next renewal or your next meeting with your agent. You can?t afford to stop thinking about?risk.

Keep Monitoring Risk Procedure

And it?s not just new risks that can catch you out. Current risk management procedure needs to remain in place. Too often business owners sign off on?business insurance?portfolios and risk strategy and then put it aside. For risk management to be effective, it needs to be monitored. All it takes is one employee or department to stop enforcing it for the whole system to fail.

Train and Update Constantly

As well as monitoring your risk procedures, you need to keep your staff up to date on them. That means regular training and refresher courses. It?s your responsibility to ensure your employees have the required knowledge and skills to do their jobs, that includes managing risk.

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Source: http://txassocblog.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/5-business-insurance-resolutions-for-2013/

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The Marriage Plot

Illustration by Mike Norton

There is a lot of Steve Harvey in Suzanne Venker?s new book, How To Choose a Husband, a 12-step guide for women seeking a lasting union in a culture that prepares them for anything but. The comedian and Family Feud host is quoted as an expert on marital sex: ?Please?puhleeze?don?t hold out on the cookie. We don?t care about anything else.? Harvey on manhood: ?Everything [a man] does is filtered through his title (who he is), how he gets that title (what he does), and the reward he gets for the effort (how much he makes). These three things make up the basic DNA of manhood.? And Harvey on female power: ?Your power comes from one simple thing: you?re a woman....you?re the ultimate prize for us.?

Other supporting texts for Venker?s arguments for a return to female ?deference? in the face of our post-feminist ?You go, girl? world include He?s Just Not That Into You, Fifty Shades of Grey, and Mona Lisa Smile. Venker cites major research articles such as HuffPo?s ?How The Notebook Has Ruined Me,? E! Online?s ?Jennifer Lopez Talks Adoption, Life as a Single Mom, and Having More Kids,? and the classic ?Facebook comment a twentysomething male posted in response to a woman who said she felt honored to be the Other Woman in her man?s life because his wife was one of those ?submissive? types.? According to Venker, "The best example of male and female nature was depicted in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.?

Clearly Venker, a conservative writer who made a splash late last year with her trolling FoxNews.com essay, ?The War on Men,? has done her homework for this latest entry in the burgeoning academic field of "Marriage is Dying!!!!" So it?s a real shame to find that all of the hours she spent whittling down her Netflix queue, the bathroom time she devoted to reading celebrity magazines as she pooped out roses on her lady throne, and the minutes?all those minutes!?she passed Googling ?Marcia Cross and fertility? and surfing Facebook were in the service of this conclusion: The best way to bag a husband is to detox from feminism, ?return to femininity,? tune out your mom and friends, stay away from pop culture, don?t shack up without a ring, ?marry the accountant, not the artist.? And once you do find a man: Be sweet, give him lots of sex, and don?t talk too much.

That?s not to say Venker, the author of 7 Myths of Working Mothers and The Flipside of Feminism, never makes sense. She initially frames almost all of her chapters, or steps, in a very general way, with statements and lessons that I imagine appeal to almost everyone (though she seems to think they are radical). For instance, I nodded vigorously along to Step 10, ?Decide To Stay,? which is largely a plea not to give up on your marriage when things get tough. This is something I learned early from my own parents, who separated briefly when I was young. Their split was not a preamble to divorce but rather an attempt to get their marriage back on track. In therapy lingo, it?s called a ?trial separation,? and their marriage counselor built in strict parameters for their stint apart. They were back together in less than a year, and though I doubt it?s been bliss ever since, their 43-year marriage is strong.

So, yes, Venker would be pleased that Myra Benedikt gave it the old college try?though she would be shocked to learn that, while being the type of woman who ?decided to stay,? my mother also blasted the Venker-despised Free To Be ? You and Me on our record player and forced me to have a ?chic? pixie cut when all I wanted was long hair and a perm. (Venker, it should be noted, is honest about her own failings?she did not ?decide to stay? with her first husband, and writes about that divorce, and what led to it, with what feels like candor.)

Other places where I scribbled ?I AGREE!? in the margins: The beginning of Step 9, ?Accept It: You Can?t Have It All.? ?Making choices,? Venker writes, ?is part of life. You can?t go to every party. You can?t go on every vacation. You can?t go to every college. You have to choose.? Unfortunately, this chapter actually turns out to be ?Accept It: You Should Stay Home With Your Kids,? a case against day care, nannies, full-time work, Sheryl Sandberg and Oprah Winfrey. This argument is backed up by facts! Facts without citations, like: ?The vast majority of women choose to quit their jobs or cut back when they have children.? And: ?A baby who attends daycare five days a week for three hours a day is actually better off than the baby who attends daycare three days a week from eight to five.?

The directive Venker seems to feel most strongly about is Step 1, ?Live an Examined Life,? in which she implores young women to tune out the noise of media. Stop watching unrealistic romantic comedies, delete those ridiculous single-girl sitcoms from your DVR, put down the women?s magazines, avoid the Internet. Even if you agree that, say, the Channing Tatum movie in which Rachel McAdams has amnesia doesn?t exactly offer a realistic portrayal of marriage, Venker?s advice probably sounds extreme to you. But the intensity of her argument?mass-media-produced trends, for instance, aren?t just silly, they?re ?wicked??would be less offensive if she didn?t go on to make her entire case throughout the rest of the book based on pop culture references. (?Have you seen Pride and Prejudice? The one with Colin Firth? It must be the one with Colin Firth.?) There?s also this:

Unfortunately, even if you steer clear of pop culture, many of your friends will not?which means they?ll have a different take on how things should be. As a result, your friends may try to steer you in a direction you don?t want to go. That?s why trends are so powerful: even if you reject them, they affect you indirectly via your friends. And rejecting your friends, or at least their advice and opinions, is significantly harder than rejecting the media.

And yet, says Venker, this is what you must do because you, my dear, are in detox. ?Our post-feminist culture is toxic,? writes Venker. ?It celebrates women at the exclusion of men; it ignores the needs of children; and it glorifies the single life. ? Sadly, more women than not will allow this poison to invade their bodies and even ruin their lives.? But not you! You will find yourself a husband by boxing out your friends, or at least the friends who think differently than you do, and also your mother, who, along with all of her fellow man-hating moms of the ?70s and ?80s, ?did their daughters a great disservice. They were wrong to tell their daughters never to rely on a man.? Shut. Mom. Out.

Here is the portion of the review where I pull a Stephen Marche and just list a bunch of the crazy stuff Venker wrote that I couldn?t fit in above:

On feminists: ?These women hate America, for one thing.?

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=38bfca35d1ef297f678f9697279d273c

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Google moves closer to resolving EU investigation

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Google Inc has offered to change some of its business practices to appease European competition authorities and avoid billions of dollars in fines.

The European Commission said on Friday it had received detailed proposals from the world's most popular search engine, which has been under investigation for two years following complaints from more than a dozen companies, including Microsoft, that Google has used its market power to block rivals.

If the Commission accepts the proposals under its settlement procedure, it would mean no fine and no finding of wrongdoing against Google.

Companies found to be in breach of EU rules can be fined as much as 10 percent of global turnover, which could mean up to $4 billion if there is no resolution in Google's case.

EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia declined to give details of the proposal but told Reuters: "We are analyzing it".

Google spokesman Al Verney said the group continues to work cooperatively with the commission.

Google's offer includes labeling its own services in search results to make them stand out from rival services and also imposing fewer restrictions on advertisers, according to people familiar with the matter, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

They said the proposed deal does not mention the way Google enforces its patents against competitors as the company has already agreed with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that it would no longer seek sales bans when suing companies which infringe on key patents.

The FTC ended its investigation last month without any action, handing Google a major victory.

Google ranks first in Internet searching in Europe, with an 82 percent market share, versus 67 percent in the United States, according to research firm comScore.

Lobbying group ICOMP, whose members include complainants Microsoft, Foundem, Hot-map, Streetmap and Nextag, said any solution should include measures ensuring that rivals could compete on a level playing field with Google.

The FairSearch coalition, whose members include online travel agencies and complainants Expedia and TripAdvisor, said a third-party monitor should be appointed to ensure that Google lives up to any promises.

The Commission, which acts as competition regulator in the 27-member European Union, is now expected to seek feedback from Google's rivals and other interested parties, before launching an official market test.

The Commission has said Google may have favored its own search services over those of rivals, and copied travel and restaurant reviews from competing sites without permission.

The EU executive is also concerned the company may have put restrictions on advertisers and advertising to prevent them from moving their online campaigns to competing search engines.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Rex Merrifield and Elaine Hardcastle)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/eu-antitrust-regulator-says-received-google-proposals-090930738.html

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Friday Five: Ideas for Family Night | Simple Kids

Thanks for visiting Simple Kids. If you subscribe to the blog via RSS feed or via email, you'll get helpful tips and inspiration for simple parenting sent straight to you, for free!

Written by Kara Fleck, Simple Kids editor and Rockin? Granola mama.

I?m starting a new series here on Simple Kids:? the Friday Five.? Every Friday, I?ll take a topic related to kids and parenting and share five hints, tips, or my favorite things.

The first Friday Five of 2013 is dedicated to family night.

Our family has been having what we call a Friday Night Nest for years.? This tradition started when I was pregnant with my son and my husband was working second shift.? I was often exhausted at the end of the day, and with no husband coming home for ?back up? I needed a way to keep my child occupied and put my swollen feet up at the same time.? My oldest daughter, who was four at the time, and I used to make a ?nest? of every pillow and blanket in the house and then we would crawl into the nest and read stories or do puzzles or watch movies in the evenings.

Eventually the routine that evolved into our weekly family Friday Night Nest. Today we don?t often ?nest? but we do set aside Friday nights as our family together time and we hold it sacred on our calendar.

We usually combine an activity with some type of food, either a full meal or a snack.? What activity we pick may vary depending on how busy the rest of the week has been and what the budget looks like.

It can be a challenge to find something to do on Friday nights that appeals to the toddler, preschoolers, and the tween, but I think I?ve rounded up a good mix of ideas that are enjoyable for all ages, moms and dads included.

Here are five ideas for simple family night activities that have been successful at our house:

1. Homemade pizza and a movie

There?s a reason dinner and a movie is such a classic date night combination:? food + entertainment = fun.? It works for families, too.

Friday nights are pizza nights at our house.? Making homemade pizzas is a fun (and fairly frugal) way to spend some time in the kitchen together.? Plus, pizza making is awesome because it can double as a meal and an activity.

We like to make mini personal pizzas that everyone tops with their individual favorites.? Add a family friendly movie (we use our Netflix and our Amazon Prime memberships for this) and you?ve got fun evening of togetherness.

If pizza isn?t your family?s thing, or you?d prefer to make other dinner plans, why not popcorn and a movie?? One of our family?s best purchases of 2012 was a simple $20 counter-top popcorn popper.? We use it all the time and it makes watching a movie together an event.

2. Family art night

One of our favorite things to do as a family is to have family art sessions.? We began having these family art nights last fall and it really is a good time.? We grab an abundance of art supplies, gather around the kitchen table, play some music, and create.

Sometimes this happens the week we?ve gotten our Kiwi Crate in the mail, sometimes we all work on a planned art project together as a group, and sometimes we?re simply gathered around the kitchen table working on our own individual projects.

Either way, it is a messy, magical, and fun way to spend some time together.

If you?re looking for some art making inspiration, I highly suggest a visit over to Tinkerlab and, if you?re on Instagram, following Rachelle?s #CreativeTable hash tag.

3. Read aloud

Pop some popcorn, grab your favorite cozy blankets, and read out loud.? Choose a long chapter book, and return to it week after week, or work your way through a whole stack of picture books.

Let your kids pick their favorite books, inviting those who are reading to take a turn reading to everyone, or pick an audio book and you can all listen together.

Helpful Hint:? get the wiggles out first.? If you?ve got younger kids who might have a hard time settling in to listen, (ahem.? Note Lucy in the photo above) perhaps an activity that burns off some energy first might be a good idea.? Taking a walk around the neighborhood, playing a backyard game of tag or touch football, encouraging a wild living room pillow fight, or something active beforehand might help your little one to settle down and listen quietly.

4. Living room dance party

It?s time to move the coffee table out of the way, push the sofa up against the wall, and turn up the volume!?

Take turns being deejay and make sure that you play plenty of oldies (but goodies) from when mom and dad were young, too.? Do you have some musical talent in your family?? Break out the instruments and have a jam session!

One of the nice things about a living room dance party is that it is a great way to use up a lot of energy and then, as the night goes on and bedtime looms, change the tempo of the music to ease little ones into nighttime and the end of the day.

5. Board games and puzzles

If your kids are old enough to enjoy them, break out the board games and the puzzles.? We usually pick two or three games or puzzles geared toward the younger kids in our family first and then end the evening with a more challenging game that our tween enjoys after the littler ones have gone to bed.? This gives us a fun family night, but also gives my husband and I a chance to spend some quality time with our oldest, too.

And, remember, you don?t have to purchase a boxed game ? you can always make up your own board game or simply grab a pencil and a piece of paper and play hangman, tic tac toe, or the dots game.

How does your family do Family Night?

Source: http://simplekids.net/family-night/

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Amoxicillin?Humdrum? Or Miraculous?

Busy primary care doctors, especially those who see children, prescribe it ten times a day, sometimes more. For over thirty years it?s been our old steady friend, our go-to medication for bacterial ear infections, pneumonia, strep throat, and sinusitis. Evidence-based literature has its back.? It?s the ?pink medicine,? the yummy ?bubble gum medicine,? to which even obstinate toddlers will grudgingly capitulate.

Doctors use it so often (when medically indicated, of course) that we barely even think about it. The anesthetic of the routine has been induced. But if we allow that anesthetic to be lifted, for a bit, the lifted curtain reveals a medication with a momentous history, mind-numbing amount of human good, and probably doomed future.

Prior to the germ theory of disease, our concept of infection was as primitive as our ?cures.? The advent of modern science and enlightenment thought then changed medicine forever. ?When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn?t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world?s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer,? Alexander Fleming would later say, ?But I suppose that was exactly what I did.?

Fleming returned to his laboratory after vacationing with his family. He noticed that a bacterial culture he had been growing was contaminated with a fungus, and that the bacteria immediately surrounding the fungus had been destroyed. Fleming grew the mould and found that it produced a substance, which he named penicillin, that killed a number of disease-causing bacteria.

Decades later, with the assistance of other medical researchers and funds from the U.S. and British governments, penicillin was mass produced after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. When D-Day arrived, enough penicillin had been produced to treat all the wounded Allied forces.

Since then penicillin and its derivatives have been called the most efficacious life-saving medications in the world, conquering some of humankind?s most ancient scourges. Antibiotics as a whole have been estimated to have saved over 80 million lives.

Amoxicillin, a penicillin derivative, was synthesized by Beecham Research Laboratories in 1972. During cell wall synthesis, amoxicillin inhibits linear peptidoglycan polymer chains from being cross-linked, resulting in a defective bacterial cell wall and cell death. Compared to penicillin, amoxicillin offers a broader spectrum of bacteriocidal activity, greater duration, and, of course, better taste.

According to a report from the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, in 2010 52.3 million prescriptions were written for amoxicillin in the U.S., more than any other antibiotic except azithromycin at 52.6 million. (The most prescribed drug in any category? Hydrocodone/acetaminophen, 131.2 million).

Doctors can feel a deeper sense of meaning for what we do every day the more we appreciate the wider significance of our actions. At the turn of the century in 1900, rheumatic fever complications from strep throat infections were the number one cause of death in school-age children.? Now we hardly see rheumatic fever in this country anymore.? If you are a health care provider, the next time you prescribe amoxicillin pause for brief moment and think that you may have just saved a life.

Now, as is well known, the tide is turning in the evolutionary arms race, with bacterial resistance on the rise. This is in part due to antibiotic overuse, in humans and in livestock. Because of bacterial r?sistance, recommendations for treating appropriate bacterial infections are now trending towards higher routine amoxicillin doses or adding B-lactamase inhibitors. It is doubtful that ?the pink medicine? will be the first choice for the next generation of pediatricians.

So, amoxicillin ? humdrum or miraculous? Humdrum only in the sense that it is commonplace. Miraculous? Well, no. Antibiotics are the result of human genius, ingenuity, serendipity, industry, and good will. Like so many scientific advances, its blessings are many, and its risks, if we drive more recklessly than road conditions allow, are frightening.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=ec34302031cd3063414e7c2a0ed2ab29

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GHS championship parade and reception to be rescheduled

GAINESVILLE - Both the parade and the reception for the Gainesville High School state football championship team will be rescheduled, according to Gainesville School Superintendent Dr. Merriane Dyer.

In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, Dr. Dyer said that the school system is working with the Department of Transportation and the Gainesville Planning Office to reschedule the parade.

Also, the basketball games between GHS and Heritage High School set for tonight have been rescheduled for Thursday at 6 and 7:30 p.m., according to GHS Athletics Director Wayne Vickery.

Meanwhile, all Hall County after school practices have also been cancelled.

While you're waiting for the celebration to be rescheduled, you can relive the excitement of the historic 2012 season, including a magical night in the Class AAAAA championship game in Atlanta, by watching our Access North Georgia.com presentation of "Gainesville: The Championship."

To watch this special video, produced by Scott McIntyre and Access North Georgia sports editor Morgan Lee, simply scroll down and click "play."

Gainesville: The Championship from WDUN TV on Vimeo.

? Copyright 2013 AccessNorthGa.com

All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.

Source: http://www.accessnorthga.com/detail.php?n=257772

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