Face grinning, tail wagging and a taut leash behind her, Misty, a mixed-breed dog, led her owner, Vi Herring, down the hallway at a local retirement home amid calls seeking her attention.
"Dragged her owner" probably would be more accurate.
She's just so excited to see everyone," Herring, 68, said from over her shoulder.
Herring and Misty, who serves as a therapy dog, frequent Crawford Healthcare & Rehabilitation, 2010 Main St. in Van Buren, and visit with the elderly residents to break the monotony of their day. Even though Misty pulled Herring most of the time ? Herring was out of breath after a few laps around the retirement home ? the animal was only a command away from stopping and waiting for the Rudy resident.
The most striking thing about Misty is how polite she was. If a resident didn't want her near, then she would just move to the next person. The majority of the residents couldn't wait to pet her, and she would oblige by patiently sitting, looking at them with ice-blue eyes and putting her head within reach.
Opal Groman, a 76-year-old resident who has lived at the home for four years, said she grew up in the country, so dogs were a necessary part of her life.
"Dogs bring back all kinds of memories," she said while waiting for a game of bingo to begin.
Herring, who has also been a missionary in China, said she never planned to use Misty as a therapy dog. Her husband, Tim, is in charge of maintenance at the home, and he told everyone about Misty "and her beautiful blue eyes," Herring said. Then Toni Holderfield, the home's executive director, invited Herring to show Misty at one of the home's dog shows.
That's when Misty, who weighs about 85 pounds, approached a man with Parkinson's disease and showed how gentle she could be.
"He was in a wheelchair bed that was real high, and Misty jumped up on his bed and just loved that little guy so much," Herring said. ". I want you to know she was so incredibly gentle; it was unbelievable."
Holderfield said Misty is just one of many animals that frequent the home. Dogs of all sizes, cats and even Holderfield's Quaker parrot visit with the residents. There is also a bird aviary in one section of the home.
"I'm all for pet therapy, any pet therapy," Holderfield said from her office.
She has witnessed how a dog can help a resident in a retirement home. Near the end of 2010, Holderfield said, a family friend had just rescued a litter of Labrador puppies, and she and her husband adopted the litter's runt. The puppy had to be bottle fed, and she knew she couldn't care for the puppy and do her job effectively, so she allowed a resident, whom she described as "very sad," to care for it.
"It got to the point where that was her dog, and she just let me take it home," Holderfield said.
As it grew, the dog took to a habit of laying across the woman's legs; a fact that made a state surveyor nervous. The surveyor tried to explain to the woman that it wasn't in her best interest to have the now-large Labrador laying on her.
"She said, 'That dog is my best interest, and you can leave,'" Holderfield said. "So the surveyor came out and said, 'She just threw me out!'"
For residents like Groman, visits from the animals are priceless.
"It lifts them up," she said. "If a person's down and they come in, then they are a different person when the dogs leave. You can see it. . It'll lift them up."
Dogs have a way of connecting with people on an emotional level, Groman said.
"It's a love that they have for people that they'll bring out in people," Groman said. "When you're around a person that likes you and loves you, you see it. Same way with a dog."
Herring agreed.
"You take a good loyal dog, and they'll die for you. And I know Misty would die for me if I were ever attacked or hurt," Herring said.
Herring acquired Misty about two years ago when a friend fell on hard times. Herring said her friend told her Misty is a half-and-half mix between a wolf and a malamute. However, Misty is most likely several generations removed from her wolf ancestors, if she has any wolf in her at all, said Nancy Brown, who has worked with wolfdogs for more than 20 years and is the founder of Full Moon Farm, a nonprofit rescue and sanctuary for wolfdogs and other animals in North Carolina.
Brown made that comment after seeing photos of Misty.
No matter the breed, Misty's effect on the residents can be judged by the smiling faces she invoked.
"If Misty and I can come up here and bring these people good memories and a little joy and a smile, that's the best thing we can do," Herring said.
___
Information from: Southwest Times Record, http://www.swtimes.com/
Last year, Nick Paumgarten wrote an interesting article for The New Yorker that detailed the rise of online dating and the effects it's had on web culture. What struck me most were some of the eye-opening statistics he shared about the size and popularity of the industry, beginning with the fact that fee-based dating sites have become, collectively, a billion-dollar industry -- that ?one in six new marriages is the result of meetings on Internet dating site." What's more, online dating is now the third most common way for people to meet.
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]Under popular pressure, Chinese officials have begun to track the most pernicious measure of urban air pollution and promise to set new health standards and publish data on air pollution.
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FRIDAY, Jan. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Positive reinforcement, such as receiving small, unexpected gifts and introducing upbeat thoughts into daily routines, seems to help patients with high blood pressure take their medication as directed, according to a new study of black Americans.
The findings are significant because poor blood pressure control can lead to heart problems and death, the researchers from the Center for Healthful Behavior Change at NYU School of Medicine noted in the report published online Jan. 23 in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
For the study, Dr. Gbenga Ogedegbe and colleagues examined 256 black patients with high blood pressure (also called hypertension) to determine if positive reinforcement in addition to patient education would help them follow their treatment plans and take their medication correctly.
The researchers divided the patients into two groups: those who only received patient education; and those who received positive reinforcement as well as patient education.
Both groups received educational materials, including a self-management workbook, a behavioral contract and two phone calls each month.
However, patients who received additional positive reinforcement were given an extra chapter in their workbook that discussed how positive moments could be used to help them stick to their treatment plans.
In addition, during their semi-monthly phone calls, these patients were asked to remember positive moments in their lives and use those optimistic feelings to help them overcome any challenges that made it hard to take their medicine. This group was also given token, unexpected gifts in the mail before their phone calls.
The investigators found that medication adherence at one year was higher in the positive reinforcement plus education group (42 percent) than in the education-only group (36 percent).
"Our findings suggest that [patient education] enhanced with behavioral constructs drawn from positive psychology and designed to foster [self-affirmation] produced significantly greater medication adherence in hypertensive African Americans than [patient education] alone," the authors wrote in a journal news release.
The study authors noted that more research is needed to determine if incorporating positive reinforcement into treatment for high blood pressure would be cost-effective.
More information
The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about hypertension.
The pupils are the windows to the mindPublic release date: 27-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Divya Menon dmenon@psychologicalscience.org 202-293-9300 Association for Psychological Science
The eyes are the window into the soulor at least the mind, according to a new paper published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Measuring the diameter of the pupil, the part of the eye that changes size to let in more light, can show what a person is paying attention to. Pupillometry, as it's called, has been used in social psychology, clinical psychology, humans, animals, children, infantsand it should be used even more, the authors say.
The pupil is best known for changing size in reaction to light. In a dark room, your pupils open wide to let in more light; as soon as you step outside into the sunlight, the pupils shrink to pinpricks. This keeps the retina at the back of the eye from being overwhelmed by bright light. Something similar happens in response to psychological stimuli, says Bruno Laeng of the University of Oslo, who cowrote the paper with Sylvain Sirois of Universit du Qubec Trois-Rivires and Gustaf Gredebck of Uppsala University in Sweden. When someone sees something they want to pay closer attention to, the pupil enlarges. It's not clear why this happens, Laeng says. "One idea is that, by essentially enlarging the field of the visual input, it's beneficial to visual exploration," he says.
However it works, psychological scientists can use the fact that people's pupils widen when they see something they're interested in.
Laeng has used pupil size to study people who had damage to the hippocampus, which usually causes very severe amnesia. Normally, if you show one of these patients a series of pictures, then take a short break, then show them another series of pictures, they don't know which ones they've seen before and which ones are new. But Laeng measured patients' pupils while they did this test and found that the patients did actually respond differently to the pictures they had seen before. "In a way, this is good news, because it shows that some of the brains of these patients, unknown to themselves, is actually capable of making the distinction," he says.
Pupil measurement might also be useful for studying babies. Tiny infants can't tell you what they're paying attention to. "Developmental psychologists have used all kinds of methods to get this information without using language," Laeng says. Seeing what babies are interested in can give clues to what they're able to recognizedifferent shapes or sounds, for example. A researcher might show a child two images side by side and see which one they look at for longer. Measuring the size of a baby's pupils could do the same without needing a comparison.
The technology already exists for measuring pupilsmany modern psychology studies use eye-tracking technology, for example, to see what a subject is looking at, and Laeng and his coauthors hope to convince other psychological scientists to use this method.
###
For more information about this study, please contact: Bruno Laeng at bruno.laeng@psykologi.uio.no.
Perspectives on Psychological Science is ranked among the top 10 general psychology journals for impact by the Institute for Scientific Information. It publishes an eclectic mix of thought-provoking articles on the latest important advances in psychology. For a copy of the article "Pupillometry : A Window to the Preconscious?" and access to other Perspectives on Psychological Science research findings, please contact Divya Menon at 202-293-9300 or dmenon@psychologicalscience.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.
The pupils are the windows to the mindPublic release date: 27-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Divya Menon dmenon@psychologicalscience.org 202-293-9300 Association for Psychological Science
The eyes are the window into the soulor at least the mind, according to a new paper published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Measuring the diameter of the pupil, the part of the eye that changes size to let in more light, can show what a person is paying attention to. Pupillometry, as it's called, has been used in social psychology, clinical psychology, humans, animals, children, infantsand it should be used even more, the authors say.
The pupil is best known for changing size in reaction to light. In a dark room, your pupils open wide to let in more light; as soon as you step outside into the sunlight, the pupils shrink to pinpricks. This keeps the retina at the back of the eye from being overwhelmed by bright light. Something similar happens in response to psychological stimuli, says Bruno Laeng of the University of Oslo, who cowrote the paper with Sylvain Sirois of Universit du Qubec Trois-Rivires and Gustaf Gredebck of Uppsala University in Sweden. When someone sees something they want to pay closer attention to, the pupil enlarges. It's not clear why this happens, Laeng says. "One idea is that, by essentially enlarging the field of the visual input, it's beneficial to visual exploration," he says.
However it works, psychological scientists can use the fact that people's pupils widen when they see something they're interested in.
Laeng has used pupil size to study people who had damage to the hippocampus, which usually causes very severe amnesia. Normally, if you show one of these patients a series of pictures, then take a short break, then show them another series of pictures, they don't know which ones they've seen before and which ones are new. But Laeng measured patients' pupils while they did this test and found that the patients did actually respond differently to the pictures they had seen before. "In a way, this is good news, because it shows that some of the brains of these patients, unknown to themselves, is actually capable of making the distinction," he says.
Pupil measurement might also be useful for studying babies. Tiny infants can't tell you what they're paying attention to. "Developmental psychologists have used all kinds of methods to get this information without using language," Laeng says. Seeing what babies are interested in can give clues to what they're able to recognizedifferent shapes or sounds, for example. A researcher might show a child two images side by side and see which one they look at for longer. Measuring the size of a baby's pupils could do the same without needing a comparison.
The technology already exists for measuring pupilsmany modern psychology studies use eye-tracking technology, for example, to see what a subject is looking at, and Laeng and his coauthors hope to convince other psychological scientists to use this method.
###
For more information about this study, please contact: Bruno Laeng at bruno.laeng@psykologi.uio.no.
Perspectives on Psychological Science is ranked among the top 10 general psychology journals for impact by the Institute for Scientific Information. It publishes an eclectic mix of thought-provoking articles on the latest important advances in psychology. For a copy of the article "Pupillometry : A Window to the Preconscious?" and access to other Perspectives on Psychological Science research findings, please contact Divya Menon at 202-293-9300 or dmenon@psychologicalscience.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
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.
FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 31, 2011 file photo, elephants are fed with fresh sugarcanes at the elephant camp in Ayutthaya province, central Thailand. Thailand's revered national symbol, the elephant, may face a new threat of extinction: being poached not just for their tusks, but for their meat. Two wild elephants were found slaughtered in December 2011 in a national park in western Thailand, alerting authorities to the new practice of consuming elephant meat. (AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong, File)
FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 31, 2011 file photo, elephants are fed with fresh sugarcanes at the elephant camp in Ayutthaya province, central Thailand. Thailand's revered national symbol, the elephant, may face a new threat of extinction: being poached not just for their tusks, but for their meat. Two wild elephants were found slaughtered in December 2011 in a national park in western Thailand, alerting authorities to the new practice of consuming elephant meat. (AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong, File)
BANGKOK (AP) ? A new taste for eating elephant meat ? everything from trunks to sex organs ? has emerged in Thailand and could pose a new threat to the survival of the species.
Wildlife officials told The Associated Press that they were alerted to the practice after finding two elephants slaughtered last month in a national park in western Thailand.
"The poachers took away the elephants' sex organs and trunks ... for human consumption," Damrong Phidet, director-general of Thailand's wildlife agency, said in a telephone interview. Some meat was to be consumed without cooking, like "elephant sashimi," he said.
Poachers typically just remove tusks, which are most commonly found on Asian male elephants and fetch thousands of dollars on the black market. A market for elephant meat, however, could lead to killing of the wider elephant population, Damrong said.
"If you keep hunting elephants for this, then they'll become extinct," he said.
Consuming elephant meat is not common in Thailand, but some Asian cultures believe consuming animals' reproductive organs can boost sexual prowess.
Damrong said the elephant meat was ordered by restaurants in Phuket, a popular travel destination in the country's south. It wasn't clear if the diners were foreigners.
The accusation drew a quick rebuttal from Phuket Governor Tri Akradecha, who told Thai media that he had never heard of such restaurants but ordered officials to look into the matter.
Poaching elephants is banned, and trafficking or possessing poached animal parts also is illegal. Elephant tusks are sought in the illegal ivory trade, and baby wild elephants are sometimes poached to be trained for talent shows.
"The situation has come to a crisis point. The longer we allow these cruel acts to happen, the sooner they will become extinct," Damrong said.
The quest for ivory remains the top reason poachers kill elephants in Thailand, other environmentalists say.
Soraida Salwala, the founder of Friends of the Asian Elephant foundation, said a full grown pair of tusks could be sold from 1 million to 2 million baht ($31,600 to $63,300), while the estimated value of an elephant's penis is more than 30,000 baht ($950).
"There's only a handful of people who like to eat elephant meat, but once there's demand, poachers will find it hard to resist the big money," she cautioned.
Thailand has fewer than 3,000 wild elephants and about 4,000 domesticated elephants, according to the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department.
The pachyderms were a mainstay of the logging industry in the northern and western parts of the country until logging contracts were revoked in the late 1980s.
Domesticated animals today are used mainly for heavy lifting and entertainment.
My friend M., who looked into getting a family dog when her children were 6 and 9, had a similarly vexing experience. After she and her husband decided rescue was the right thing to do, they looked online and found a mutt named Rusty. Rusty?s rescue group was having an adoption day and the family made the long drive to see him. Adopters were told not to mingle with the animals, but that specific dogs would be brought to them. While Rusty was otherwise engaged, M. asked if they could look at some of the other dogs but almost all were declared not suitable for children. As the family waited, the children sat on the ground and started writing in the dirt with sticks. A volunteer came over, alarmed. He reprimanded them, saying that if a dog sees a stick in a person?s hand it will expect that stick to be thrown, and it?s not fair to frustrate a dog.
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ScienceDaily (Jan. 23, 2012) ? Nurturing mothers have garnered accolades for rescuing skinned knees on the playground and coaxing their children to sleep with lullabies. Now they're gaining merit for their offspring's physical health in middle age.
In a recent study published in the journal Psychological Science, Brandeis psychologist Margie Lachman with Gregory Miller and colleagues at the University of British Columbia and the University of California, Los Angeles reveal that while children raised in families with low socioeconomic status (SES) frequently go on to have high rates of chronic illness in adulthood, a sizable minority remain healthy across the life course. The research sought to examine if parental nurturance could mitigate the effects of childhood disadvantage.
Lachman, the Minnie and Harold Fierman Professor of Psychology, and director of the Lifespan Initiative on Healthy Aging, says that her team is working to understand the sources of social disparities in health and what can be done to reduce them. Funded by the National Institute on Aging as part of the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study, this information will then be used to empower families through education.
"The literature is very clear that people who are low in socioeconomic status have worse health than their same age counterparts," says Lachman, a phenomenon called the social gradient in health. "Modifiable factors play an important role, and we are realizing that things can be done to try to minimize these health disparities."
Clearly money and health care access are part of it, she says, but numerous studies show they play a very small role, as countries with universal health care have the same social gradient.
While they have looked at income in other studies, the team has found that the level of educational attainment is a more reliable indicator of socioeconomic status; people who have a college education do well in many areas, such as physical health, psychological well-being and cognitive function. Her team is looking for ways to reduce the differences, as not all lower-socioeconomic status people fare the same -- some, Lachman says, are physically and cognitively active and have good social support, resources which seems to reduce their risks for poorer functioning.
The study is innovative in several ways. Other studies look at SES in adulthood and link it with self-reports of health. This study looked at SES during childhood and whether it predicted poor health many years later. The study also examined risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes within the context of a large survey.
More than 1,000 members of the nationally representative sample were brought to a medical clinic for an overnight stay and samples were taken to assess pre-clinical indicators of disease. To qualify for a metabolic syndrome diagnosis, which is a precursor to coronary artery disease, Type 2 diabetes and stroke, adults had to have central adiposity (large waist circumference) and at least two of the following: high blood pressure, raised triglycerides, raised fasting glucose levels, or low levels of high-density lipoprotein (a specific cholesterol reading).
Emerging literature reveals that many of the health problems in midlife, including metabolic syndrome, can be traced back to what happened in early childhood. The stresses of childhood can leave a biological residue that shows up in midlife, explains Lachman. Yet, among those at risk for poor health, adults who had nurturing mothers in childhood fared better in physical health in midlife.
"Perhaps it's a combination of empathy, the teaching of coping strategies or support for enrichment," says Lachman. "We want to understand what it is about having a nurturing mother that allows you to escape the vulnerabilities of being in a low socioeconomic status background and wind up healthier than your counterparts."
The study has followed the same 1,205 people for over a decade. Nurturance was assessed with data and included questions such as: How much did she understand your problems and worries and how much time and attention did she give you when you needed it?
"We would like to try to use this information to bolster vulnerable families who are at risk for not doing well," says Lachman. "Teaching them parenting skills to show children concern for their welfare, how to cope with stress, that they have some control over their destinies, and how to engage in health-promoting behaviors such as good diet and exercise -- the things that could protect against metabolic syndrome."
There still may be steps that can be taken later in life to reduce risk for those who are vulnerable, Lachman says.
Interestingly, in this study, paternal nurturing did not contribute to resilience.
"It could be that the results are tied to the particular cohort studied, and there may be generational differences," says Lachman. "With this cohort, people who are now in midlife, fathers weren't typically very involved. Paternal nurturance may play more of a role for the children of these midlife fathers who, in contrast, are more involved in the lives of their children and perhaps more nurturant."
As the study continues they will be able to look at new generations of middle-aged adults who have had different parenting experiences.
"The fact that we can see these long-term effects from childhood into midlife is pretty dramatic," says Lachman. "Yet this study is just one small piece of this overall puzzle. The more modifiable factors that can be identified, the more likely it is that we will be able to intervene successfully to optimize health."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Brandeis University. The original article was written by Susan Chaityn Lebovits.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
G. E. Miller, M. E. Lachman, E. Chen, T. L. Gruenewald, A. S. Karlamangla, T. E. Seeman. Pathways to Resilience: Maternal Nurturance as a Buffer Against the Effects of Childhood Poverty on Metabolic Syndrome at Midlife. Psychological Science, 2011; 22 (12): 1591 DOI: 10.1177/0956797611419170
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
An enzyme designed by players of the protein-folding game Foldit was better than anything scientists could come up with.Image: Foldit
Obsessive gamers' hours at the computer have now topped scientists' efforts to improve a model enzyme, in what researchers say is the first crowdsourced redesign of a protein.
The online game Foldit, developed by teams led by Zoran Popovic, director of the Center for Game Science, and?biochemist David Baker, both?at the University of Washington in Seattle, allows players to fiddle at folding proteins on their home computers in search of the best-scoring (lowest-energy) configurations.
The researchers have previously reported successes by Foldit players in folding proteins, but the latest work moves into the realm of protein design, a more open-ended problem. By posing a series of puzzles to Foldit players and then testing variations on the players' best designs in the lab, researchers have created an enzyme with more than?18-fold higher activity than the original. The work was published January 22 in?Nature Biotechnology.
"I worked for two years to make these enzymes better and I couldn't do it," says Justin Siegel, a post-doctoral researcher working in biophysics?in Baker's group. "Foldit players were able to make a large jump in structural space and I still don't fully understand how they did it."
The project has progressed from volunteers donating their computers' spare processing power for protein-structure research, to actively predicting protein structures, and now to designing new proteins. The game has 240,000 registered players, 2,200 of whom were active last week.
The latest effort involved an enzyme that catalyses one of a family of workhorse reactions in synthetic chemistry called Diels-Alder reactions. Members of this huge family of reactions are used throughout industry to synthesize everything from drugs to pesticides, but enzymes that catalyze Diels-Alder reactions have been elusive. In 2010, Baker and his team?reported that they had designed a functional Diels?Alderase computationally from scratch3, but, says Baker, "it wasn't such a good enzyme".?The binding pocket for the pair of reactants was too open and activity was low. After their attempts to improve the enzyme plateaued, the team turned to Foldit.
In one puzzle, the researchers asked users to remodel one of four amino-acid loops on the enzyme to increase contact with the reactants.?In another puzzle, players were asked for a design that would stabilize the new loop. The researchers got back nearly 70,000 designs for the first puzzle and 110,000 for the second, then synthesized a number of test enzymes based on the best designs, ultimately resulting in the final, 18-fold-more-active enzyme.
Science by intuition
"It's a refreshing twist on enzyme engineering," says Stefan Lutz, a chemist?at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, who was not involved in the research. "Using the Foldit players allows the researchers to use human intuition at a scale that is unprecedented."
Foldit allows people to explore more drastic changes to the protein than are possible using standard methods such as directed evolution ? in which a large pool of randomly mutated enzymes is screened for mutants that improve the original. These mutations are typically just amino-acid substitutions, not the 13-amino-acid addition the players came up with. Systematically testing a change of that size?would require testing astronomical numbers of proteins.
FRIDAY, Jan. 20 (HealthDay News) -- In too many cases, doctors aren't doing a good job of informing American women with early stage breast cancer about the disease or their options in terms of surgery, a new study suggests.
In the study, researchers at the University of North Carolina surveyed breast cancer survivors on their knowledge of the disease. Respondents typically answered only about half of the questions correctly, and less than half said their surgeons had even asked them about their personal preference for surgery -- a full mastectomy vs. breast-conserving lumpectomy -- prior to treatment.
"We found that breast cancer survivors had fairly major gaps in their knowledge about their surgical options, including about the implications for recurrence and survival," said study lead author Dr. Clara Lee, an associate professor of surgery and director of surgical research at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill.
The paper was published in the January issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
For the study, Lee and her colleagues sent surveys to 746 women who had undergone surgery for stage one or stage two breast cancer at one of four medical centers: the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston; the University of California, San Francisco; and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Among the 440 patients who responded to the survey, less than half (about 46 percent) knew that local recurrence risk is higher after breast-conserving surgery (lumpectomy) than after mastectomy, and only about 56 percent of women knew that survival rates are equivalent for both options.
The study also revealed that women who said they preferred mastectomy were less likely to have treatment that was in accordance with their goals. Lee said this was probably because "patients reported that their doctors were more likely to discuss breast conservation therapy and its advantages than mastectomy. And many women did not recall being asked for their preference. We know from other studies that doctors don't always know their patients' personal preferences, so they may not be fully aware when a woman truly prefers mastectomy."
The fact that less than half (48.6 percent) of the patients recalled being asked their preference was particularly concerning to Lee.
"It would be one thing if we were talking about decisions for which there is clearly a superior treatment, such as treatment for an inflamed gallbladder," Lee said. "In this case, it's reasonable and actually better for the surgeon to make a recommendation. But here we're talking about a decision where there is no medically right answer, and it really depends on the patient's preference. In that situation, it makes sense to ask the patient what she prefers."
Another breast cancer surgeon cautioned that the retrospective nature of the study (asking women to recall past events) and the fact that the women filled out the surveys an average of two and a half years following surgery makes it hard to draw firm conclusions.
"Clearly there are deficits in knowledge, but what we don't know for sure is if that's because the surgeon failed to convey this information, or the surgeon failed to convey it in a way that the patient could understand, or the patient has simply forgotten," said Dr. Leslie Montgomery, chief of breast surgery at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.
"If anything, I'm actually surprised that the numbers were as good as they were," Montgomery added. "There's often a big difference between what a woman is told and what she actually absorbs at a time when she is so emotionally distressed."
Montgomery believes the study is valuable, however, because it "helps identify the scope of the problem" and will be useful for designing future prospective trials.
"As surgeons, we really need to make sure we convey the proper information to a woman at what is probably one of the most stressful times in her life," Montgomery said.
More information
Find out more about surgical options for treating breast cancer at the American Cancer Society.
In Hawaii on Thursday, Rihanna ditched the full-body wetsuit and hit the waves, surfboard in tow, while rocking a slinky black g-string bikini.
PHOTOS: Rihanna's sexiest, craziest outfits
But the 23-year-old clearly had no intention of catching some surf and instead, put her assets on full display while lounging on her stomach atop the surfboard, done up in a cherry red lipstick, large gold hoop earrings, layers of matching necklaces and bracelets, and her hair styled in a messy 'do.
PHOTOS: Rihanna, then and now!
The Barbados beauty has been showing some major skin since arriving on the island last Saturday. Case in point: the "We Found Love" singer proudly shared a Twitpic of her working out on an elliptical machine while wearing just a tiny white bikini.
Perhaps the scantily-clad singer is showing off her dangeous curves in hopes that her ex-beau Chris Brown, who she's been seretly seeing, will see them?
PHOTOS: Rihanna and Chris' controversial romance
In the latest issue of Us Weekly, on stands now, a confidant of Brown's tells Us that the two have been known to "meet up casually," adding, "She comes to see him anytime she's in L.A."
"Rihanna loves to live dangerously, and talking to and hooking up with Chris is all part of that," adds a Rihanna insider.
Get more Us! Follow us on Twitter, Friend us on Facebook, Subscribe to Us Weekly
ABSOLUTELY. Those that have nothing to hide, hide nothing.
51%
173872
NO. We're still individuals entitled to privacy and we trust each other.
49%
VoteTotal Votes: 1044
By Athima Chansanchai
Just how much do you trust your spouse or partner? Enough to share passwords? For some, passwords are the final frontier of privacy not only in financial matters, but in social media and email correspondence. But for others, there are no secrets when you're in a relationship?? even risking the potential payback should a break-up sever the happy union.
The New York Times tells us about an "intimate custom" writer Matt Ritchel says is happening between teens in love: "sharing their passwords to email,?Facebook?and other accounts." The desire to be one even extends, the article claims, to couples creating identical passwords and letting each other read private emails and texts.?
For some, it takes a court order to share so much.
But for others, it's imperative to know each other's passwords as part of an open, healthy and fully functioning relationship. Sometimes this comes after a loss of trust, as when one partner has cheated on the other. On the Surviving Infidelity website, where more than 34,000 members have exchanged stories of betrayal and support one another in the forums, there is a saying that becomes a mantra for many of them: "Those who have nothing to hide, hide nothing." To that end, nothing is private anymore in order to facilitate healing for the offended party.?
In this philosophy, those who have been unfaithful should share (or make open and available) not only passwords to their email accounts and Facebook, but also the contents of their text messages, phone logs, work and travel itineraries "without qualms."
Many in those forums mention how finding secret Facebook and email correspondences led to the big reveal of infidelity in their marriages and relationships, and we've seen surveys that attribute at least some fault in Facebook, though an informal poll we took at the end of year showed that nearly half of the 876 votes attributed the demise of their marriages with other factors. But 34 percent did blame Facebook.
Some of the teens in the New York Times article who opened themselves up were dealt a nasty lesson in human nature when their not-so-better halves decided to use the passwords in retaliation for perceived wrongs. The Times listed some examples:
The stories of fallout include a spurned boyfriend in junior high who tries to humiliate his ex-girlfriend by spreading her e-mail secrets; tensions between significant others over scouring each other?s private messages for clues of disloyalty or infidelity; or grabbing a cellphone from a former best friend, unlocking it with a password and sending threatening texts to someone else.
Take our poll and let us know if couples should share passwords.
More stories:
Check out Technolog on?Facebook, and on Twitter, follow?Athima Chansanchai, who is also trying to keep her head above water in the?Google+?stream.
As you know, preparation is the key to doing well on a job interview and hirers tend to ask the same kinds of questions. This job interview one-sheeter is like a CliffsNotes for getting your strategic answers together.
Shared by Jenny Blake of LifeAfterCollege, the Google Docs template covers seven key questions or topic areas for you to bullet-point your examples, including how you're suited for the position, what your weaknesses are, what excites you, challenges you've overcome, and goals you have in the future. There's an area for questions you have for the company (such as issues or challenges about the job) and other notes (perhaps personal sound bites would be good here).
Just filling out the sheet can help you prepare, but you can also bring it to your interview and quickly glance at it while waiting (nice to have on you just in case).
Job Interview One-Sheeter | Google Docs via Wise Bread
Mysterious flotsam in Gulf of Mexico came from Deepwater Horizon rig, WHOI study findsPublic release date: 19-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: WHOI Media Relations media@whoi.edu 508-289-3340 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Tracking debris from damaged oil rigs can help forecast coastal impacts in the future
Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, mysterious honeycomb material was found floating in the Gulf of Mexico and along coastal beaches. Using state-of-the-art chemical forensics and a bit of old-fashioned detective work, a research team led by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) confirmed that the flotsam were pieces of material used to maintain buoyancy of the pipe bringing up oil from the seafloor.
The researchers also affirmed that tracking debris from damaged offshore oil rigs could help forecast coastal pollution impacts in future oil spills and guide emergency response effortsmuch the way the Coast Guard has studied the speed and direction of various floating debris to guide search and rescue missions. The findings were published Jan. 19 in Environmental Research Letters.
On May 5, 2010, 15 days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, oceanographer William Graham and marine technicians from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab were working from a boat about 32 miles south of Dauphin Island, Ala., when they saw a 6-mile-long, east-west line containing more than 50 pieces of white material interspersed with sargassum weed. The porous material was uniformly embedded with black spheres about a centimeter in diameter. No oil slick was in sight, but there was a halo of oil sheen around the honeycomb clumps.
Two days later, the researchers also collected similar samples about 25 miles south of Dauphin Island. Nobody knew what the material was, with some hypothesizing at first that it could be coral or other substance made by marine plants or animals. Graham sent samples to WHOI chemist Chris Reddy, whose lab confirmed that the material was not biological. But the material's source remained unconfirmed.
In January 2011, Reddy and WHOI researcher Catherine Carmichael, lead author of the new study, collected a piece of the same unknown material of Elmer's Beach, Grand Isle, La. In April, 2011, they found several large pieces, ranging from 3 to 10 feet, of the honeycomb debris on the Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana.
Oil on all these samples was analyzed at WHOI using comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography. The technique identifies the thousands of individual chemical compounds that comprise different oils from different reservoirs. The chemistry of the oil on the debris matched that of oil sampled directly from the broken pipe from the Macondo well above the Deepwater Horizon rig.
In addition, one piece of debris from the Chandeleur Islands retained a weathered red sticker that read "Cuming" with the numbers 75-1059 below it. Reddy found a company called Cuming Corporation in Avon, Mass., which manufactures syntactic foam flotation equipment for the oil and gas industry. He e-mailed photos of the specimen to the company, and within hours, a Cuming engineer confirmed from the serial number that the foam came from a buoyancy module from Deepwater Horizon.
"We realized that the foam and the oil were released into the environment at the same time," Reddy said. "So we had a unique tracer that was independent of the oil itself to chronicle how oil and debris drifted out from the spill site."
The scientists overlaid the locations where they found honeycomb debris on May 5 and 7 with daily forecasts produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the trajectory of the spreading oil slick. NOAA used a model that incorporated currents and wind speeds, along with data from planes and satellites. On both days, the debris was about 6.2 miles ahead of the spreading slick.
The explanation, the scientists said, is the principle of leeway, a measure of how fast wind or waves push materials. The leeway for fresh oil is 3 to 3.3 percent, but the scientists suspected that "the protruding profile of the buoyant material" acted acting like a sail, allowing wind to drive it faster than and ahead of the floating oil.
In this case, the flotsam served as a harbinger for the oncoming slick, but because different materials can have different leeways, oil spill models may not accurately forecast where oiled debris will head. "Even a small deviation in leeway can, over time, results in significant differences in surface tracks because of typical wind fields," the scientists wrote.
The Coast Guard has a long history of calculating the leeway of various materials, from life jackets to bodies of various sizes and weights, to improve forecasts of where the materials would drift if a ship sank or a plane crashed into the sea. But calculating leeways has not been standard practice in oil spills.
"We never had solid data to make the case until this study," said Merv Fingas, who tracked oil spills for more than 38 years for Environment Canada, which is equivalent to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"These results," the study's authors wrote, "provide insights into the fate of debris fields deriving from damaged marine materials and should be incorporated into emergency response efforts and forecasting of coastal impacts during future offshore oil spills."
###
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the ocean's role in the changing global environment.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
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.
Mysterious flotsam in Gulf of Mexico came from Deepwater Horizon rig, WHOI study findsPublic release date: 19-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: WHOI Media Relations media@whoi.edu 508-289-3340 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Tracking debris from damaged oil rigs can help forecast coastal impacts in the future
Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, mysterious honeycomb material was found floating in the Gulf of Mexico and along coastal beaches. Using state-of-the-art chemical forensics and a bit of old-fashioned detective work, a research team led by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) confirmed that the flotsam were pieces of material used to maintain buoyancy of the pipe bringing up oil from the seafloor.
The researchers also affirmed that tracking debris from damaged offshore oil rigs could help forecast coastal pollution impacts in future oil spills and guide emergency response effortsmuch the way the Coast Guard has studied the speed and direction of various floating debris to guide search and rescue missions. The findings were published Jan. 19 in Environmental Research Letters.
On May 5, 2010, 15 days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, oceanographer William Graham and marine technicians from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab were working from a boat about 32 miles south of Dauphin Island, Ala., when they saw a 6-mile-long, east-west line containing more than 50 pieces of white material interspersed with sargassum weed. The porous material was uniformly embedded with black spheres about a centimeter in diameter. No oil slick was in sight, but there was a halo of oil sheen around the honeycomb clumps.
Two days later, the researchers also collected similar samples about 25 miles south of Dauphin Island. Nobody knew what the material was, with some hypothesizing at first that it could be coral or other substance made by marine plants or animals. Graham sent samples to WHOI chemist Chris Reddy, whose lab confirmed that the material was not biological. But the material's source remained unconfirmed.
In January 2011, Reddy and WHOI researcher Catherine Carmichael, lead author of the new study, collected a piece of the same unknown material of Elmer's Beach, Grand Isle, La. In April, 2011, they found several large pieces, ranging from 3 to 10 feet, of the honeycomb debris on the Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana.
Oil on all these samples was analyzed at WHOI using comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography. The technique identifies the thousands of individual chemical compounds that comprise different oils from different reservoirs. The chemistry of the oil on the debris matched that of oil sampled directly from the broken pipe from the Macondo well above the Deepwater Horizon rig.
In addition, one piece of debris from the Chandeleur Islands retained a weathered red sticker that read "Cuming" with the numbers 75-1059 below it. Reddy found a company called Cuming Corporation in Avon, Mass., which manufactures syntactic foam flotation equipment for the oil and gas industry. He e-mailed photos of the specimen to the company, and within hours, a Cuming engineer confirmed from the serial number that the foam came from a buoyancy module from Deepwater Horizon.
"We realized that the foam and the oil were released into the environment at the same time," Reddy said. "So we had a unique tracer that was independent of the oil itself to chronicle how oil and debris drifted out from the spill site."
The scientists overlaid the locations where they found honeycomb debris on May 5 and 7 with daily forecasts produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the trajectory of the spreading oil slick. NOAA used a model that incorporated currents and wind speeds, along with data from planes and satellites. On both days, the debris was about 6.2 miles ahead of the spreading slick.
The explanation, the scientists said, is the principle of leeway, a measure of how fast wind or waves push materials. The leeway for fresh oil is 3 to 3.3 percent, but the scientists suspected that "the protruding profile of the buoyant material" acted acting like a sail, allowing wind to drive it faster than and ahead of the floating oil.
In this case, the flotsam served as a harbinger for the oncoming slick, but because different materials can have different leeways, oil spill models may not accurately forecast where oiled debris will head. "Even a small deviation in leeway can, over time, results in significant differences in surface tracks because of typical wind fields," the scientists wrote.
The Coast Guard has a long history of calculating the leeway of various materials, from life jackets to bodies of various sizes and weights, to improve forecasts of where the materials would drift if a ship sank or a plane crashed into the sea. But calculating leeways has not been standard practice in oil spills.
"We never had solid data to make the case until this study," said Merv Fingas, who tracked oil spills for more than 38 years for Environment Canada, which is equivalent to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"These results," the study's authors wrote, "provide insights into the fate of debris fields deriving from damaged marine materials and should be incorporated into emergency response efforts and forecasting of coastal impacts during future offshore oil spills."
###
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the ocean's role in the changing global environment.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
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.
Original Oldboy helmer Chan-wook Park is making his U.S. directorial debut with Stoker, which is due to hit theaters before the end of 2012. He will also lend a helping hand to fellow Korean filmmaker Joon-ho Bong on the latter?s own first English-language project, titled Snow Piercer (which Park will produce).
Captain America himself, Chris Evans, is set to headline the movie, which is based on Bong?s screenplay. Evans looks to be in good company, seeing how the likes of award-winners Jamie Bell and Tilda Swinton are currently in the midst of negotiations to co-headline Bong?s latest cinematic tale.
Bong spoke to Collider (all the way back in 2009) about Snow Piercer, which he says is based on a French graphic novel titled ?Le Transperceneige.? Variety has also confirmed that the apocalyptic story takes place ?in a new ice age? and revolves around a pack of survivors who are forced to live together on a train. However, even with the world?s end upon them, differences in class and social standing still separate the main characters, making it all the more difficult for them to peacefully co-exist with their fellow passengers.
That sounds like the promising setup for a darker character study from Bong, who?s best known in the States for his tongue-in-cheek cult classic monster horror flick, The Host.?His status as a director has only improved since that 2006 release, thanks to his acclaimed 2009 crime drama Mother, so it?s no surprise that Bong?s first foray into U.S. filmmaking is attracting some big name talent (much like Park?s Stoker?has).
Bong's 'The Host' weaves together horror-comedy with social commentary
Evans, with this move, continues to balance out his Marvel comic book blockbuster roles with more personal indie titles, as he did in 2011 with appearances in The First Avenger and the drug drama Puncture ? and will do so again the near future, with roles in The Avengers, The Iceman, and now Snow Piercer. It?s a smart strategy, on Evan?s part ? one that should also allow him to avoid running in circles as an actor (re: end up being typecast).
Bell actually takes a similar approach to selecting his roles as Evans, seeing how the former also likes to balance out parts in big-budget fare such as King Kong and The Adventures of Tintin with roles in more personable productions like?Retreat and Jane Eyre. Swinton, of course, generally sticks to non-mainstream parts (her role in the Chronicles of Narnia movies aside) as evidenced by her much-buzzed-about recent turn in We Need to Talk About Kevin and an upcoming role in Wes Anderson?s Moonrise Kingdom.
That?s all to say: there?s an excellent cast being assembled for Bong?s?Snow Piercer, which is tentatively expected to begin principal photography by March 2012 ? so, dedicated movie geeks, you may want to keep an eye out for this one.
Last year, Nick Paumgarten 
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Public release date: 27-Jan-2012
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As you know, preparation is the key to doing well on a job interview and hirers tend to ask the same kinds of questions. This job interview one-sheeter is like a CliffsNotes for getting your strategic answers together. 
