NEW YORK ? Ashton Kutcher is handing over his Twitter account to his personal management after he tweeted several uninformed messages about Joe Paterno's exit from Penn State.
On Wednesday night, Kutcher defended the football coach on Twitter before learning the details of the alleged sex-abuse scandal swirling around former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. Kutcher then recanted and apologized on Twitter.
He followed with a blog post Thursday saying he would have Katalyst Media manage his feed as "a secondary editorial measure to ensure the quality of its content."
Kutcher, who has more than 8.2 million followers, said Twitter had grown beyond more than "a fun tool." The 33-year-old "Two and a Half Men" star said the platform has become "too big" for him to manage alone.
BANGKOK ? Every year when the moon is full and the rainy season draws to an end, Thailand's waterways fill with millions of floating lotus-shaped lanterns ? a symbolic, centuries-old gesture once meant to placate to the country's goddess of water.
Today, many Thais still believe the candlelit boats launched during Loy Krathong can carry misfortune away with them, allowing past sins to be cleansed and life to begin anew.
This year, flood-ravaged Thailand has plenty of reason to pray for rebirth ? and little reason to celebrate.
The festival, due Thursday, comes on the heels of a cataclysmic waterborne disaster that's drowned one-third of the country in three months, killing 529 people and wiping out rice fields and factories and livelihoods along the way. The flooding is the worst in Thailand since World War II, and it's not over yet. Damage so far is likely to exceed $6 billion. Recovery will take months.
"Most people don't feel like celebrating this year ? there's been too much sadness and suffering," said Saithong Sateankamsoragai, a Bangkok flower vendor who sells the tiny boats, called krathongs, that are an integral part of the annual festival.
Saithong fled her own home late last month after chest-level water engulfed it. Now she lives with her sister in a drier part of the capital, a refugee forced to flee by the water this Southeast Asian kingdom is ironically paying tribute to.
Tragedy in mind, the Tourism Authority of Thailand has canceled all official celebrations in Bangkok, including those along the Chao Phraya river ? the chocolate-colored waterway that snakes through the city of glittering condominiums and decrepit apartment blocks.
In recent weeks, the river's banks have brimmed to record levels, forcing a halt to dinner cruises and fueling fears the mighty waterway could swamp downtown.
Outside the capital, in cities floodwaters have spared, festivities are going ahead. They include the northern town of Sukhothai, where the tradition is believed to have been born. Revelers there have already begun setting off fireworks this week, filling the skies with the spellbinding spectacle of balloon-like lanterns.
The mood in Bangkok, where many neighborhoods remain submerged, is far more subdued. The Culture Ministry is calling for revelers to float just one boat per family, or float them online through websites on which you can light digital candles and incense and watch yours float on a full-screen rendering of lake.
The Bangkok Metropolitan Authority, meanwhile, is urging people in flooded zones not to launch any at all.
Close to a million krathongs are typically set adrift annually in the capital alone, and there is concern they could trigger fires in abandoned homes or clog drains and canals critical to helping ease the massive pools of runoff bearing down on the metropolis of 9 million people.
Most krathongs are made from hardened, painted bread or ornately curled banana leafs filled with yellow marigold flowers and metallic-purple globe thistles. Some are built from environmentally unfriendly non-biodegradable plastic foam.
Thais joke they won't have to go far from home to find water this year. "We probably can float the krathongs right in the house," tweeted one.
Bangkok authorities have designated a dozen parks where krathongs can safely be launched.
"Of course it's different than it has been in years' past," said Ladda Thangsupachai, a senior Culture Ministry official. "Can there be fun while there is suffering?"
Loy Krathong has its roots in a long ago era when most Thais lived in stilt houses made of wood, dependent on rivers and rain-fed agricultural land for their sustenance and survival.
That life is slowly being erased by mass urban development, which critics say has exacerbated the current crisis. Over the last few decades, canals that once allowed annual floodwaters to pass through the capital unheeded have been paved over to make room for roads, highways, shopping malls and housing estates.
"Most people in Bangkok have lost their connection to water, it doesn't exist like it did in the past," said Siripan Nogsuan Sawasdee, Associate Professor of Political Science at Chulalongkorn University.
Loy Krathong, meanwhile, has morphed into a romantic evening for hand-holding lovers, a relaxing night for families and friends, a commercialized holiday in which beauty contests are held.
Thanking the water goddess ? Phra Mae Khongkha ? or asking her forgiveness for polluting the nation's life-sustaining rivers, "isn't on people's minds" any longer, Siripan said. "Most people don't believe in that anymore."
Still, as floodwaters approached Bangkok in early October, the city's governor held a special ceremony to pay tribute to the water goddess and beg for the crisis' swift end.
Floodwaters came anyway, and Bangkok's drowning outskirts are still reeling from the catastrophe.
Even at the city's unflooded flower market, vendors say business has been cut by half. Fewer people are buying krathongs, and the flowers used to decorate them are in short supply because fields have been submerged.
Saithong said she would launch her own float this year on the Chao Phraya out of respect for tradition.
"It gives us a little bit of inspiration," Saithong said. "It gives us hope that life will be better next year."
___
Associated Press writer Pailin Wedel contributed to this report.
Football players experience repeated head trauma throughout their careers, which results in short and long-term effects to their cognitive function, physical and mental health. University of Missouri researchers are investigating how other lifestyle factors, including diet and exercise, impact the late-life health of former collision-sport athletes.
The researchers found that former football players experience more late-life cognitive difficulties and worse physical and mental health than other former athletes and non-athletes. In addition, former football players who consumed high-fat diets had greater cognitive difficulties with recalling information, orientation and engaging and applying ideas. Frequent, vigorous exercise was associated with higher physical and mental health ratings.
"While the negative effects of repeated collisions can't be completely reversed, this study suggests that former athletes can alter their lifestyle behaviors to change the progression of cognitive decline," said Pam Hinton, associate professor of nutrition and exercise physiology. "Even years after they're done playing sports, athletes can improve their diet and exercise habits to improve their mental and physical health."
In the study, Hinton compared former collision sport (football) players to former non-collision- sport athletes and non-athletes. Participants were given questionnaires to assess their cognitive, mental and physical health. The researchers examined how players' current lifestyle habits negatively or positively affected their collision-related health problems. Former football players who consumed more total and saturated fat and cholesterol reported more cognitive difficulties than those who consumed less fat and had better dietary habits.
"Football will always be around, so it's impossible to eliminate head injuries; however, we can identify ways to reduce the detrimental health effects of repeated head trauma," Hinton said. "It's important to educate athletes and people who work with athletes about the benefits of low-fat and balanced diets to help players improve their health both while playing sports and later in life. It's a simple, but not an easy thing to do."
###
University of Missouri-Columbia: http://www.missouri.edu
Thanks to University of Missouri-Columbia for this article.
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10 November 2011Last updated at 17:00By Victoria GillScience reporter, BBC Nature
Lead researcher Zylinski from Duke University, describes how the animals respond to light
Scientists have discovered how two marine creatures are able to rapidly "switch" their colours - from transparent to reddish brown.
The species, an octopus and a squid, use their adaptable camouflage to cope with changing light conditions in the deep ocean.
The creatures' skins respond light that deep-sea predators produce to illuminate their prey.
The findings are reported in the journal Current Biology.
Sarah Zylinski and Sonke Johnsen from Duke University in North Carolina, US, carried out the research. They say this switchable camouflage allows the animals to hide more effectively in their uniquely gloomy marine environment.
When sunlight diffuses evenly through the water, it passes through transparent animals too, rendering them almost invisible. But, as Dr Zylinski explained, "transparent tissues are actually quite visible when you shine a light directly on them".
And this is exactly what many deep-ocean predators do.
Prof Michael Land, a biologist from the UK's University of Sussex explained that by a depth of 600m, sunlight fizzles out, and hiding becomes much trickier for prey animals. This is the depth at which the octopus Japetella heathi and the squid Onychoteuthis banksii live.
Prof Land told BBC Nature: "[At that depth], you have all these nasty fish that are trying to illuminate you, so it's best to be a dark colour."
These "nasty" predatory fish are equipped with light-producing organs that function as biological headlamps.
To cope with this, the two creatures the scientists examined have evolved a clever way to hide.
Having already seen the two creatures in their two different colour states, Dr Zylinski and Dr Johnsen wanted find out how they switched between the two.
Continue reading the main story
?Start Quote
The really striking thing was the speed of their response?
End QuoteSarah ZylinskiDuke University
To do this, they had to examine the animals more closely, so they set out to capture them from deep-ocean trenches in the Pacific.
With special nets that held the animals in the cold water from the deep, the team managed to bring the two species on board their research vessel. To test the animals' camouflage, the scientists simply shone a blue light onto them and watched their reactions.
"The really striking thing was the speed of their response," said Dr Zylinski. "We shone a light on them and they would immediately switch from transparent to pigmented."
The animals' skins contain light-sensitive cells called chromatophores, which contain pigments. When these cells detected the blue light of a bioluminescent predator, they immediately expanded, "dyeing" the animal a deep brown colour.
Dr Zylinski said the this dramatic colour change showed just how important camouflage was "in a habitat where there is nowhere to hide".
Neither transparency nor pigmentation is a complete solution to the hunting strategies used by predators in the deep ocean, she explained.
"By switching between these two forms, these cephalopods are able to optimise their camouflage in response to the optical conditions at that moment in time."
Dr Zylinski said studying camouflage gave a wonderful insight into how animals perceive their world very differently from humans.
London police were authorized to fire plastic bullets to quell riots and dozens of letters were sent out to activists warning of arrest for "criminal or antisocial behavior" ahead of planned mass student protests on Wednesday.
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Some 4,000 officers will be on the streets during the march in central London, which authorities fear may be hijacked by anarchists and troublemakers.
The extra measures come after student protests last year descended into chaos. Rampaging demonstrators smashed Conservative Party headquarters on Nov. 10, and on Dec. 9 Prince Charles' limousine was surrounded and rocked in a student protest.
London officers told the Daily Mail online that they do not intend to deploy plastic bullets, and that they would only be used in an extreme case in which other tactics failed and officers' lives were at risk. Plastic bullets have never been used on Britain's mainland, though in the past have been linked to deaths in Northern Ireland.
The police officer in charge of the operation, Commander Simon Pountain, told the Mail that armored vehicles would also be on standby in the event protests escalated to violence.
The letter from Metropolitan Police to activist students, some as young as 17, arrived in student mailboxes on Tuesday, the Guardian reported.
"It is in the public and your own interest that you do not involve yourself in any type of criminal or antisocial behaviour," the one-page letter stated. "We have a responsibility to deliver a safe protest which protects residents, tourists, commuters, protesters and the wider community. Should you do so we will at the earliest opportunity arrest and place you before the court."
The mass protest was being organized by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, which said it expected 10,000 people to join in a march from Bloomsbury in central London to the center of the city.
Some activists from the anti-capitalist Occupy London Stock Exchange movement in London said they would join the march, according to local reports.
Grant will help bridge digital divide for people with disabilitiesPublic release date: 7-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: John Ascenzi ascenzi@email.chop.edu 267-426-6055 Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Inglis Foundation and WGBH partner to make personal health records accessible
Personal health records have been going electronic, and patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers are learning to navigate the new digital world of health information. Now three institutions are teaming up to discover how a large populationpeople with disabilitiescan best access this information.
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Inglis Foundation, also based in Philadelphia, are partnering with Boston public broadcaster WGBH's Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) on a joint project to explore how adaptive technology can make personal health records accessible to people with disabilities. NCAM is the project leader and principal recipient of the three-year, $600,000 grant, awarded by the U.S. Department of Education.
The grant, titled "Accessible Designs for Personal Health Records," is funded by the Department of Education's National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. The project began operations last month.
"Approximately 20 percent of the U.S. population has some type of disability, and three percent has a severe disability, but there has been little research on how people with disabilities access their own electronic health records," said Dean Karavite, lead human-computer interaction specialist at the Center for Biomedical Informatics (CBMi) at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "As with any patient, accessing such information gives someone more control over their own health care."
Project staff members will systematically observe consumers served by Inglis Foundation as they perform tasks and seek information in their own electronic health records (EHRs). Inglis serves over 900 adults with physical disabilities in the Philadelphia area through its skilled nursing facility, Inglis House, and for those living independently in the community, through its accessible apartments, care management, and employment and adult day services.
"As electronic medical records become commonplace, it is essential that persons with disabilities have full access to their medical records," said Gavin Kerr, President and CEO of the Inglis Foundation. "Today's systems have not been designed with accessibility in mind. As a result people living with disabilities cannot be fully engaged in their care, and employees with disabilities who work with electronic medical records can no longer be fully effective in their jobs."
For all patients, using computers and other electronic devices to manage their health care includes scheduling appointments, exchanging messages with their physicians or therapists, refilling prescriptions, and viewing lab results. For people with disabilities, more specific needs come into playfor people with visual impairments, getting non-visual information; for people with limited hand mobility, having adaptive technology to access computer keyboard, screens and mice; for those with cognitive impairments, having minimal distractions and perhaps simplified terminology.
In addition, other issues will be identified as project staff members evaluate how people with disabilities use the current systems and define what needs to improve.
After the project's initial assessment of the current EHR situation, the staff will develop guidelines and recommendations for better accessibility. Karavite said that making information systems more useable and accessible for people with disabilities will also benefit broader populations of users. "We can make analogies to curb cuts in sidewalks or ramps in buildings," he said. "These were originally designed for people in wheelchairs, but parents pushing strollers also benefit."
Karavite gave other examples of how improving accessibility has had broader impacts: "Captioning, which WGBH developed in the 1970s for people who are deaf, is used by everyone in noisy airports or waiting rooms. Word prediction, designed in the late 1980s to help people with physical disabilities type with fewer keystrokes, now is a standard feature for anyone using a smart phone. Universal design can benefit everyone."
###
For more details, see the project website at http://ncam.wgbh.org/invent_build/web_multimedia/healthitaccess
Note to reporters: Please contact either of the press contacts listed above to arrange for interviews with CHOP or Inglis Foundation staff members, or with Inglis consumers who can describe their own experiences in accessing personal health information.
About CBMi and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia:
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1855 as the nation's first pediatric hospital. The Center for Biomedical Informatics (CBMi) at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is the home for the development of innovative solutions to healthcare's immediate and long-term informatics needs. CBMi provides informatics-focused services, applications, and educational programs to Children's Hospital clinicians and researchers, and seeks to transform their craft with high-impact, low-cost solutions. For details, see http:cbmi.chop.edu
About the Inglis Foundation:
Inglis Foundation is a community-based foundation that is committed to using technology and healthcare information to empower people with severe physical disabilities to live life to the fullest. Inglis maintains a skilled-nursing care facility and independent-living facilities as well as care management, adult day and employment services for people with disabilities living in their own homes. http://www.inglis.org
About NCAM and WGBH:
WGBH Boston is America's public broadcasting powerhousePBS' largest producer of TV and Web content. The Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH is a research and development organization that works to make existing and emerging technologies accessible to all audiences. NCAM is part of the Media Access Group at WGBH, which has been providing captioning and video description services for people with disabilities since 1972. For more information, visit NCAM at http://ncam.wgbh.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Grant will help bridge digital divide for people with disabilitiesPublic release date: 7-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: John Ascenzi ascenzi@email.chop.edu 267-426-6055 Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Inglis Foundation and WGBH partner to make personal health records accessible
Personal health records have been going electronic, and patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers are learning to navigate the new digital world of health information. Now three institutions are teaming up to discover how a large populationpeople with disabilitiescan best access this information.
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Inglis Foundation, also based in Philadelphia, are partnering with Boston public broadcaster WGBH's Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) on a joint project to explore how adaptive technology can make personal health records accessible to people with disabilities. NCAM is the project leader and principal recipient of the three-year, $600,000 grant, awarded by the U.S. Department of Education.
The grant, titled "Accessible Designs for Personal Health Records," is funded by the Department of Education's National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. The project began operations last month.
"Approximately 20 percent of the U.S. population has some type of disability, and three percent has a severe disability, but there has been little research on how people with disabilities access their own electronic health records," said Dean Karavite, lead human-computer interaction specialist at the Center for Biomedical Informatics (CBMi) at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "As with any patient, accessing such information gives someone more control over their own health care."
Project staff members will systematically observe consumers served by Inglis Foundation as they perform tasks and seek information in their own electronic health records (EHRs). Inglis serves over 900 adults with physical disabilities in the Philadelphia area through its skilled nursing facility, Inglis House, and for those living independently in the community, through its accessible apartments, care management, and employment and adult day services.
"As electronic medical records become commonplace, it is essential that persons with disabilities have full access to their medical records," said Gavin Kerr, President and CEO of the Inglis Foundation. "Today's systems have not been designed with accessibility in mind. As a result people living with disabilities cannot be fully engaged in their care, and employees with disabilities who work with electronic medical records can no longer be fully effective in their jobs."
For all patients, using computers and other electronic devices to manage their health care includes scheduling appointments, exchanging messages with their physicians or therapists, refilling prescriptions, and viewing lab results. For people with disabilities, more specific needs come into playfor people with visual impairments, getting non-visual information; for people with limited hand mobility, having adaptive technology to access computer keyboard, screens and mice; for those with cognitive impairments, having minimal distractions and perhaps simplified terminology.
In addition, other issues will be identified as project staff members evaluate how people with disabilities use the current systems and define what needs to improve.
After the project's initial assessment of the current EHR situation, the staff will develop guidelines and recommendations for better accessibility. Karavite said that making information systems more useable and accessible for people with disabilities will also benefit broader populations of users. "We can make analogies to curb cuts in sidewalks or ramps in buildings," he said. "These were originally designed for people in wheelchairs, but parents pushing strollers also benefit."
Karavite gave other examples of how improving accessibility has had broader impacts: "Captioning, which WGBH developed in the 1970s for people who are deaf, is used by everyone in noisy airports or waiting rooms. Word prediction, designed in the late 1980s to help people with physical disabilities type with fewer keystrokes, now is a standard feature for anyone using a smart phone. Universal design can benefit everyone."
###
For more details, see the project website at http://ncam.wgbh.org/invent_build/web_multimedia/healthitaccess
Note to reporters: Please contact either of the press contacts listed above to arrange for interviews with CHOP or Inglis Foundation staff members, or with Inglis consumers who can describe their own experiences in accessing personal health information.
About CBMi and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia:
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1855 as the nation's first pediatric hospital. The Center for Biomedical Informatics (CBMi) at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is the home for the development of innovative solutions to healthcare's immediate and long-term informatics needs. CBMi provides informatics-focused services, applications, and educational programs to Children's Hospital clinicians and researchers, and seeks to transform their craft with high-impact, low-cost solutions. For details, see http:cbmi.chop.edu
About the Inglis Foundation:
Inglis Foundation is a community-based foundation that is committed to using technology and healthcare information to empower people with severe physical disabilities to live life to the fullest. Inglis maintains a skilled-nursing care facility and independent-living facilities as well as care management, adult day and employment services for people with disabilities living in their own homes. http://www.inglis.org
About NCAM and WGBH:
WGBH Boston is America's public broadcasting powerhousePBS' largest producer of TV and Web content. The Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH is a research and development organization that works to make existing and emerging technologies accessible to all audiences. NCAM is part of the Media Access Group at WGBH, which has been providing captioning and video description services for people with disabilities since 1972. For more information, visit NCAM at http://ncam.wgbh.org.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 7-Nov-2011
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