Globe Correspondent Jonathan Bloom spent some time surveying a forest in the Dominican Republic with a Harvard biology professor and came back with a good yarn about hopes to get every insect in the world into a catalog.
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Charlie Petit's Tracker
Globe Correspondent Jonathan Bloom spent some time surveying a forest in the Dominican Republic with a Harvard biology professor and came back with a good yarn about hopes to get every insect in the world into a catalog.
Canadian authorities confirmed Sunday that a British Columbia cow had mad cow disease, the fifth case of the disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, to be detected in the country. They say no part of the animal reached the butcher business so it poses no threat to meat-eating Canadians.
It's in:...
Canadian authorities confirmed Sunday that a British Columbia cow had mad cow disease, the fifth case of the disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, to be detected in the country. They say no part of the animal reached the butcher business so it poses no threat to meat-eating Canadians.
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Toronto Star Phinjo Bombu; Globe and Mail Rod Mickleburgh; London Free Press (Ontario) via CP (Canadian Press wire); Associated Press...
California Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata is pushing a bill to keep track of environmental toxins and other possibly dangerous contaminants building up in the tissues of Californians. "We monitor the pollution in our air, our water and even our fish - it's time to start looking at the pollution in our...
California Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata is pushing a bill to keep track of environmental toxins and other possibly dangerous contaminants building up in the tissues of Californians. "We monitor the pollution in our air, our water and even our fish - it's time to start looking at the pollution in our bodies," he said in a statement quoted by Sacramento Bee writer Jim Sanders, who rounds up a good list of pros and cons. Some enviros and public health advocates think it's a fine idea to keep people informed of such things. Critics, including some health professionals, think the raw figures would just scare people while giving them no real sense what to do about the inevitably ugly list of substances we carry around, some at significant levels and some that medically mean little or nothing. One expert he quotes worries that mothers will stop breast feeding, thus putting babies at greater risk than would a few stray molecules of foul-sounding stuff...
Rainmaking is an old and largely fruitless enterprise, many say. But seven states in the Colorado River's drainage are thinking about trying to seed clouds anyway and add some snow to the mountain that will plump...
Rainmaking is an old and largely fruitless enterprise, many say. But seven states in the Colorado River's drainage are thinking about trying to seed clouds anyway and add some snow to the mountain that will plump their big, overdrawn, drought-struck river. Writer Jerd Smith plays it down the middle and leads on water managers who think it's worth a shot. A bit deeper, however, both the two scientists he quotes say there is no strong evidence it works. One of the two helped write a National Academy of Sciences report, Smith tells readers, sharply critical of cloud seeding. That might be in the lede, one might think.
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Here is a tightly-focussed portrait of a couple's struggle to help two young sons with forms of autism and the frustrations the parents face when they learn that conventional scientific medicine has only limited ability to treat their boys. Inquirer writer Josh Goldstein uses the one case as a...
Here is a tightly-focussed portrait of a couple's struggle to help two young sons with forms of autism and the frustrations the parents face when they learn that conventional scientific medicine has only limited ability to treat their boys. Inquirer writer Josh Goldstein uses the one case as a springboard to provide useful information about both standard, and "alternative" treatments. He describes the sympathetic tolerance of many doctors for those alternatives as add-ons to conventional medicine, even when they believe them unproven at best and most likely useless. But the docs tend to draw the line, naturally, at alternatives such as chelation therapy that can be very dangerous and are backed by no solid data.
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This dramatic story lacks one important thing: any indication of the success rate of transplants of new organs in China. But it goes through other questions and their often murky answers: Are the organs screened? Are they gotten from condemned prisoners or political dissidents where consent is uncertain or...
This dramatic story lacks one important thing: any indication of the success rate of transplants of new organs in China. But it goes through other questions and their often murky answers: Are the organs screened? Are they gotten from condemned prisoners or political dissidents where consent is uncertain or meaningless? How much does it cost? Why go to China and not get a US transplant? Chronicle writer Vaness Hua personalizes it with a lede on one man who went to China after his American doctors said his liver cancer would probably just recur even with somebody else's liver in there. He's back with a liver switch and so far, so good. He has no regrets. Hua talked with the ever present ethicist Arthur Kaplan:Going to China for organ transplants, he said, is "reprehensible."
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This is one of those big, chewy Sunday reads that makes you just shake your head and marvel at, 1) How smart doctors and medical scientists are getting and, 2) How those same smart doctors...
This is one of those big, chewy Sunday reads that makes you just shake your head and marvel at, 1) How smart doctors and medical scientists are getting and, 2) How those same smart doctors just might not always have your well-being first in their minds, so 3) Watch the consent forms! It's about medical researchers who patent or otherwise commercialize products derived from human organs or cells, and the inattention many of them pay to cutting the tissue donors in on the action when the money flows. Writer Rebecca Skloot does it up big.
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The Associated Press's Alicia Chang has a hed that says it all: Predicting Earthquakes Still Elusive. The story includes lots of links to experts.
The Associated Press's Alicia Chang has a hed that says it all: Predicting Earthquakes Still Elusive. The story includes lots of links to experts.
President Bush is expected to give the nod soon to a national response plan should Bird Flu become an easily-transmitted human disease. It identifies more than 300 specific tasks for federal agencies should the virus turn into a pandemic that, according to some estimates, could kill as many as 1.9 million Americans...
President Bush is expected to give the nod soon to a national response plan should Bird Flu become an easily-transmitted human disease. It identifies more than 300 specific tasks for federal agencies should the virus turn into a pandemic that, according to some estimates, could kill as many as 1.9 million Americans in an 18-month time span. Reporter Ceci Connolly runs down what is in the plan, and describes the many holes that many observers fear it still has.
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17Apr 2006
The Chicago Tribune's Jeremy Manier provides a Sunday update on the Midwest mumps outbreak as a "rare encore appearance of a disease that once was an ever-present fixture of childhood." Right on that score. The Tracker may have missed it, but his story is also the first to carry the...
The Chicago Tribune's Jeremy Manier provides a Sunday update on the Midwest mumps outbreak as a "rare encore appearance of a disease that once was an ever-present fixture of childhood." Right on that score. The Tracker may have missed it, but his story is also the first to carry the speculation that a traveler from Britain brought the virus to Iowa, where the epidemic took hold first. It's a story with needed perspective.
New regulations that could cost Wisconsin industry $1 billion but will make air healthier, fish safer to eat, and provide other benefits are making their way through the lawmaking process in the capitol, writer Lee Bergquis...
New regulations that could cost Wisconsin industry $1 billion but will make air healthier, fish safer to eat, and provide other benefits are making their way through the lawmaking process in the capitol, writer Lee Bergquist reports. One big target of the rulemaking is the state's fleet of coal-burning power plants, but it leaves Wisconsin's cars alone. State officials estimate that the long run savings to the economy are ten times the upfront cost to industry to change its equipment. The story is long yet makes no effort to put Wisconsin's efforts in context of what other states are doing or of what is happening at the federal level.
An office with a window might be more than a perk, it may help keep you healthy. Inquirer reporter Tom Avril reviews in fascinating detail some recent lines of research showing how some wavelengths of light, hitting one's retina, do more than contribute to images the brain sees. They also trigger...
An office with a window might be more than a perk, it may help keep you healthy. Inquirer reporter Tom Avril reviews in fascinating detail some recent lines of research showing how some wavelengths of light, hitting one's retina, do more than contribute to images the brain sees. They also trigger cascades of other changes in the body needed for optimal health. He does suggest that a few docs might be overselling "light therapy," but the basic theme is that proper balance of the right kind of light assists in health, particularly in helping keep depression at bay and sleep cycles in sync.
USA Today Health writer Kim Painter does not uncover any new science here, from the looks of it, but it's a responsible bundle of facts about bottled water consumption (a lot of us drink it)...
USA Today Health writer Kim Painter does not uncover any new science here, from the looks of it, but it's a responsible bundle of facts about bottled water consumption (a lot of us drink it) combined with some sensible talk about its health benefits. Which, in the judgment of the experts she consulted, add up to zilch compared to tap water. Plus, environmentalists say the extra trash from all those emptied bottles does nobody any good. USA Today's photo by Tim Dillon, right, of a trash can overflowing with discarded water bottles is super.
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The Tracker isn't sure repairs on 20+-year-old spaceships are science, but this story is heavy on urgent engineering. From Cape Canaveral reporters Todd Halverson and John Kelly...
The Tracker isn't sure repairs on 20+-year-old spaceships are science, but this story is heavy on urgent engineering. From Cape Canaveral reporters Todd Halverson and John Kelly describe NASA's wrestle with a risk that is low on the odds scale, but very high on consequences if it occurs. It seems there is some chance a space shuttle's steering jets could activate while it is docked to the space station. That might rip it away from the docking gadget, opening a massive air leak in both shuttle and station and threatening the lives of all aboard.
Fit is fine, but after fifty or so, people may be overdoing it. The Times's Bill Pennington finds a lot of doctors, orthopedists especially, are spending a lot of time...
Fit is fine, but after fifty or so, people may be overdoing it. The Times's Bill Pennington finds a lot of doctors, orthopedists especially, are spending a lot of time rebuilding joints and other parts in aging boomers. The generation now reaching retirement age is the first to be so convinced they can and should exercise and stay athletic into what was once considered old age. Some docs even have a name for the collection of resulting, achy conditions: boomeritis. The story is long on quotes and vignettes, but Pennington found some statistics to back it all up, too. He writes, "The can-do generation does not always react well to being told no."
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