Wing City: Skyfall

Academia Everia

(Post co-written by RedRaine, Arrow and Ylanne)


Lucas let out a long drawn breath as the platform of earth underneath him slowed to crawl; although the Everian mage had plenty of magical reserves to draw from, the extensive travel to and from the Academy was starting to show its effects on him. Reaching the massive gate that seperated Everia from the rest of the world, Lucas allowed his earthen method of travel to finally sink back into the ground as he pushed himself off the ground.

The guards at said gate, recognizing Lucas, waved him to pass on through. In response however, the young man raised his hand, revealing the note Van had given to him just an hour before.

"Have either of you seen Scarlet of Celestia? I have a message." He said loudly, addressing the pair of guards in question. With a mention that Scarlet should be in her main tent, Lucas nodded towards the guards and briskly walked over to her main tent.

Pushing aside one of the tent flaps, Lucas was slightly surprised to find Scarlet talking to a rather familiar looking girl. Despite closer inspection, he just wasn't able to pinpoint where he met her before.

Striding up to the main desk of it, Lucas stood before Scarlet with his arms crossed, the note clutched between his index and middle fingers.

"I've got a message for you." He spoke rather carefully, keeping an eye on the girl standing beside him.

Scarlet raised an eyebrow as Lucas swept into the tent unannounced, meeting his eyes quizzically as the young man folded his arms. "Lucas..?" she began before he spoke, shooting Amira - who was there in conversation with her - an apologetic glance.

When Lucas did speak, Scarlet's eyes fell on the note in his hand. "I trust this is important, considering you didn't knock." Knocking on tent flaps was hardly effective, but 'knocking' had become a pseudonym for the various methods the mages had developed for announcing their presence less feebly than flapping their hands against fabric, ranging from hanging little bells outside the tents to using magic to simulate a proper knocking noise.

"Can't promise that it is, but considering it was passed on in secret, I'm willing to bet on it." Lucas said as he places the note onto Scarlet's desk and sliding it towards her.

Scarlet glanced over the message with a furrowing brow, her eyes narrowing as she examined Van's crude drawing at the bottom. "I recognise that mark," she said, "It was on everything .. at the battle, shit."

Stuffing the note in her pocket, Scarlet grabbed her scepter from beside her desk, "Lucas, meet me at the front gates in five." she instructed, before turning to Amira, "Silviana told me you wanted to help us. Here's your chance. I'm going to round up any soldiers I can quickly, and head out. You with me?"

With a curt nod Lucas set out from the tent, sighing as soon as he felt the cool winter breeze hit him as he left. Clenching a small fist, Lucas made his way quickly to the front gates despite having a five minute window before he was needed.

Amira's hesitation lasted less than a second before she gave Scarlet a quick nod. "As long as you explain on the way," she said with a somber expression. "I'd rather not head into the unknown, if possible." Her fingers fumbled to find the familiar shape of her own wand beneath her clothing, and the tension in her shoulders lessened slightly upon resting her fingers over it.

Scarlet nodded, waving a hand to gesture for Amira to follow. She pointed to one of the mages outside, "You, get me Rose and Kiriel, and ask Kiriel to bring any of her troops she can spare. Tell them that it's an urgent matter of grave importance, and to meet me at the front gate. If you see any of our other new arrivals, let them know too. Quickly now!" she instructed sharply, sending the man running off at top speed.

As she and Amira made their way towards the gates, Scarlet explained the reason for their abrupt departure. "One of my ex-students, a young man named Van, sent a message with Lucas. Apparently they've found a young woman with the mark of the Orsa upon her body. He doesn't know what the mark is though, so he doesn't know the danger he's in. We need to get there as fast as we can to help him. Once again, I find myself the cavalry."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/tdYwtoN1bKU/viewtopic.php

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College football: Final AP Top 25 poll

Published: Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2012 12:20 a.m. MST

The Top 25 teams in The Associated Press college football poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, final records, total points based on 25 points for a first-place vote through one point for a 25th-place vote, and previous ranking:

RecordPtsPv
1. Alabama (55)12-11,4952
2. LSU (1)13-11,4251
3. Oklahoma St. (4)12-11,3993
4. Oregon12-21,2506
5. Arkansas11-21,1987
6. Southern Cal10-21,1815
7. Stanford11-21,1674
8. Boise St.12-11,1278
9. South Carolina11-21,01310
10. Wisconsin11-39059
11. Michigan St.11-387312
12. Michigan11-283913
13. Baylor10-378015
14. TCU11-265316
15. Kansas St.10-362111
16. Oklahoma10-357219
17. West Virginia10-354723
18. Houston13-151820
19. Georgia10-443918
20. Southern Miss.12-241122
21. Virginia Tech11-332917
22. Clemson10-418814
23. Florida St.9-415425
24. Nebraska9-414321
25. Cincinnati10-3103NR

Others receiving votes: BYU 51, Auburn 40, N. Illinois 33, Missouri 23, Texas 15, Rutgers 3, N. Dakota St. 2, Penn St. 2, Virginia 1.

Source: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700213921/College-football-Final-AP-Top-25-poll.html?s_cid=rss-38

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Marijuana doesn't harm lung function, study found (AP)

CHICAGO ? Smoking a joint once a week or a bit more apparently doesn't harm the lungs, suggests a 20-year study that bolsters evidence that marijuana doesn't do the kind of damage tobacco does.

The results, from one of the largest and longest studies on the health effects of marijuana, are hazier for heavy users ? those who smoke two or more joints daily for several years. The data suggest that using marijuana that often might cause a decline in lung function, but there weren't enough heavy users among the 5,000 young adults in the study to draw firm conclusions.

Still, the authors recommended "caution and moderation when marijuana use is considered."

Marijuana is an illegal drug under federal law although some states allow its use for medical purposes.

The study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham was released Tuesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The findings echo results in some smaller studies that showed while marijuana contains some of the same toxic chemicals as tobacco, it does not carry the same risks for lung disease.

It's not clear why that is so, but it's possible that the main active ingredient in marijuana, a chemical known as THC, makes the difference. THC causes the "high" that users feel. It also helps fight inflammation and may counteract the effects of more irritating chemicals in the drug, said Dr. Donald Tashkin, a marijuana researcher and an emeritus professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. Tashkin was not involved in the new study.

Study co-author Dr. Stefan Kertesz said there are other aspects of marijuana that may help explain the results.

Unlike cigarette smokers, marijuana users tend to breathe in deeply when they inhale a joint, which some researchers think might strengthen lung tissue. But the common lung function tests used in the study require the same kind of deep breathing that marijuana smokers are used to, so their good test results might partly reflect lots of practice, said Kertesz, a drug abuse researcher and preventive medicine specialist at the Alabama university.

The study authors analyzed data from participants in a 20-year federally funded health study in young adults that began in 1985. Their analysis was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The study randomly enrolled 5,115 men and women aged 18 through 30 in four cities: Birmingham, Chicago, Oakland, Calif., and Minneapolis. Roughly equal numbers of blacks and whites took part, but no other minorities. Participants were periodically asked about recent marijuana or cigarette use and had several lung function tests during the study.

Overall, about 37 percent reported at least occasional marijuana use, and most users also reported having smoked cigarettes; 17 percent of participants said they'd smoked cigarettes but not marijuana. Those results are similar to national estimates.

On average, cigarette users smoked about 9 cigarettes daily, while average marijuana use was only a joint or two a few times a month ? typical for U.S. marijuana users, Kertesz said.

The authors calculated the effects of tobacco and marijuana separately, both in people who used only one or the other, and in people who used both. They also considered other factors that could influence lung function, including air pollution in cities studied.

The analyses showed pot didn't appear to harm lung function, but cigarettes did. Cigarette smokers' test scores worsened steadily during the study. Smoking marijuana as often as one joint daily for seven years, or one joint weekly for 20 years was not linked with worse scores. Very few study participants smoked more often than that.

Like cigarette smokers, marijuana users can develop throat irritation and coughs, but the study didn't focus on those. It also didn't examine lung cancer, but other studies haven't found any definitive link between marijuana use and cancer.

___

Online:

JAMA: http://jama.ama-assn.org

National Institute on Drug Abuse: http://www.nida.nih.gov

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/health/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120110/ap_on_he_me/us_med_marijuana_lungs

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Parade of champions celebrates Lake Travis athletes

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It was a parade of champions in Texas Hill Country Saturday.

The City of Bee Cave hosted a parade for Lake Travis High School athletes. The Lake Travis football team?s recent 22-7 victory over Midway High School grabbed the school its fifth consecutive 4A Division I State Championship.

Saturday gave the players the chance to celebrate the historic win with the community, but the accolades were not reserved just for the football players. Lake Travis High School?s volleyball was also honored at the event. The volleyball team ended 50 ? 0 and earned its second state championship.

?We have the football players here with the volleyball team. We?ve got some tennis, we?ve got some golf, we?ve got some national merit scholars and so the whole Lake Travis community will be out here today and it?s a great day,? Hank Carter, Lake Travis head football coach, said.

Carter told YNN that Saturday was a day to celebrate, but starting Monday morning, focus will be set on winning the teams sixth state championship.

Source: http://austin.ynn.com/content/top_stories/282349/parade-of-champions-celebrates-lake-travis-athletes

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Gulf of Mexico topography played key role in bacterial consumption of Deepwater Horizon spill

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 9-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Cheryl Dybas
cdybas@nsf.gov
703-292-7734
National Science Foundation

Scientists document how geology, biology worked together after oil disaster

When scientist David Valentine and colleagues published results of a study in early 2011 reporting that bacterial blooms had consumed almost all the deepwater methane plumes after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon oil spill, some were skeptical.

How, they asked the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) geochemist, could almost all the gas emitted disappear?

In new results published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Valentine; Igor Mezic, a mechanical engineer at UCSB; and coauthors report that they used an innovative computer model to demonstrate the respective roles of underwater topography, currents and bacteria in the Gulf of Mexico.

This confluence led to the disappearance of methane and other chemicals that spewed from the well after it erupted on April 20, 2010.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the research.

"As scientists continue to peel apart the layers of the Deepwater Horizon microbial story," said Don Rice, director of NSF's chemical oceanography program, "we're learning a great deal about how the ocean's biogeochemical system interacts with petroleum--every day, everywhere, twenty-four/seven. "

The results are an extension of a 2011 study, also funded by NSF, in which Valentine and other researchers explained the role of bacteria in consuming more than 200,000 metric tons of dissolved methane.

"It seemed that we were putting together a lot of pieces," Valentine said. "We would go out, take some samples, and study what was happening in those samples, both during and after the spill.

"There was a transition of the microorganisms and a transition of the biodegradation, and it became clear that we needed to incorporate the movement of the water."

The scientists believed that there was an important component of the physics of the water motion--of where the water went.

Valentine turned to Mezic, who had published results in 2011 forecasting where the oil slick would spread.

"Our work was on the side of: here's where the oil leaked and here's where it went," Mezic said. "We agreed that it would be beautiful if we could put a detailed hydrodynamic model together with a detailed bacterial model."

The resulting computer model has data on the chemical composition of hydrocarbons flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, and is seeded with 52 types of bacteria that consumed the hydrocarbons.

The physical characteristics were based on the U.S. Navy's model of the gulf's ocean currents and on observations of water movements immediately after the spill and for several months after it ended.

The scientists then sought the help of Mezic's former colleagues--engineers at the University of Rijeka in Croatia.

"We needed somebody to build the software," Mezic said. "It was a big task, a mad rush, but they did it.

"The power behind this is a tour de force. A typical study of this kind would take a year, at least. We found a way that led us to answers in three or four months."

The model revealed that one of the key factors in the disappearance of the hydrocarbon plumes was the physical structure of the Gulf of Mexico.

"It's the geography of the gulf," Valentine said. "It's almost like a box canyon. As you go northward, it comes to a head.

"As a result, it's not a river down there; it's more of a bay. And the spill happened in a fairly enclosed area, particularly at the depths where hydrocarbons were dissolving."

When the hydrocarbons were released from the well, bacteria bloomed. In other locations outside the gulf, those blooms would be swept away by prevailing ocean currents.

But in the Gulf of Mexico, they swirled around as if they were in a washing machine, and often circled back over the leaking well, sometimes two or three times.

"What we see is that some of the water that already had been exposed to hydrocarbons at the well and had experienced bacterial blooms, then came back over the well," Valentine said.

"So these waters already had a bacterial community in them, then they got a second input of hydrocarbons."

As the water came back over, he explained, the organisms that had already bloomed and eaten their preferred hydrocarbons immediately attacked and went after certain compounds.

Then they were fed a new influx of hydrocarbons.

"When you have these developed communities coming back over the wellhead, they consume the hydrocarbons much more quickly," Valentine said, "and the bacterial composition and hydrocarbon composition behaves differently. It changes at a different rate than when the waters were first exposed."

The model allowed the scientists to test this hypothesis and to look at some of the factors that had been measured: oxygen deficits and microbial community structure.

"What we found was very good agreement between the two," Valentine said.

"We have about a 70 percent success rate of hitting where those oxygen declines were. It means that not only is the physics model doing a good job of moving the water in the right place, but also that the biology and chemistry results are doing a good job, because you need those to get the oxygen declines. It's really a holistic view of what's going on."

There are valuable lessons to be learned from the study, the scientists believe.

"It tells us that the motion of the water is an important component in determining how rapidly different hydrocarbons are broken down," Valentine said. "It gives us concepts that we can now apply to other situations, if we understand the physics."

Mezic said that this should be a wake-up call for anyone thinking of drilling for oil.

"The general perspective is that we need to pay more attention to where the currents are flowing around the places where we have spills," he said.

"We don't have models for most of those. Why not mandate a model?

"This one worked--three-quarters of the predictions were correct. For almost everything, you can build a model. You build an airplane, you have a model. But you can drill without having a model. It's possible we can predict this. That's what a model is for."

###

The U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Office of Naval Research also supported the research.

In addition to Valentine and Mezic, co-authors of the paper are Senka Macesic, Nelida Crnjaric-Zic, and Stefan Ivic, of the University of Rijeka in Croatia; Patrick J. Hogan of the Naval Research Laboratory; Sophie Loire of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UCSB; and Vladimir A. Fonoberov of Aimdyn, Inc. of Santa Barbara.



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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.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 9-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Cheryl Dybas
cdybas@nsf.gov
703-292-7734
National Science Foundation

Scientists document how geology, biology worked together after oil disaster

When scientist David Valentine and colleagues published results of a study in early 2011 reporting that bacterial blooms had consumed almost all the deepwater methane plumes after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon oil spill, some were skeptical.

How, they asked the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) geochemist, could almost all the gas emitted disappear?

In new results published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Valentine; Igor Mezic, a mechanical engineer at UCSB; and coauthors report that they used an innovative computer model to demonstrate the respective roles of underwater topography, currents and bacteria in the Gulf of Mexico.

This confluence led to the disappearance of methane and other chemicals that spewed from the well after it erupted on April 20, 2010.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the research.

"As scientists continue to peel apart the layers of the Deepwater Horizon microbial story," said Don Rice, director of NSF's chemical oceanography program, "we're learning a great deal about how the ocean's biogeochemical system interacts with petroleum--every day, everywhere, twenty-four/seven. "

The results are an extension of a 2011 study, also funded by NSF, in which Valentine and other researchers explained the role of bacteria in consuming more than 200,000 metric tons of dissolved methane.

"It seemed that we were putting together a lot of pieces," Valentine said. "We would go out, take some samples, and study what was happening in those samples, both during and after the spill.

"There was a transition of the microorganisms and a transition of the biodegradation, and it became clear that we needed to incorporate the movement of the water."

The scientists believed that there was an important component of the physics of the water motion--of where the water went.

Valentine turned to Mezic, who had published results in 2011 forecasting where the oil slick would spread.

"Our work was on the side of: here's where the oil leaked and here's where it went," Mezic said. "We agreed that it would be beautiful if we could put a detailed hydrodynamic model together with a detailed bacterial model."

The resulting computer model has data on the chemical composition of hydrocarbons flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, and is seeded with 52 types of bacteria that consumed the hydrocarbons.

The physical characteristics were based on the U.S. Navy's model of the gulf's ocean currents and on observations of water movements immediately after the spill and for several months after it ended.

The scientists then sought the help of Mezic's former colleagues--engineers at the University of Rijeka in Croatia.

"We needed somebody to build the software," Mezic said. "It was a big task, a mad rush, but they did it.

"The power behind this is a tour de force. A typical study of this kind would take a year, at least. We found a way that led us to answers in three or four months."

The model revealed that one of the key factors in the disappearance of the hydrocarbon plumes was the physical structure of the Gulf of Mexico.

"It's the geography of the gulf," Valentine said. "It's almost like a box canyon. As you go northward, it comes to a head.

"As a result, it's not a river down there; it's more of a bay. And the spill happened in a fairly enclosed area, particularly at the depths where hydrocarbons were dissolving."

When the hydrocarbons were released from the well, bacteria bloomed. In other locations outside the gulf, those blooms would be swept away by prevailing ocean currents.

But in the Gulf of Mexico, they swirled around as if they were in a washing machine, and often circled back over the leaking well, sometimes two or three times.

"What we see is that some of the water that already had been exposed to hydrocarbons at the well and had experienced bacterial blooms, then came back over the well," Valentine said.

"So these waters already had a bacterial community in them, then they got a second input of hydrocarbons."

As the water came back over, he explained, the organisms that had already bloomed and eaten their preferred hydrocarbons immediately attacked and went after certain compounds.

Then they were fed a new influx of hydrocarbons.

"When you have these developed communities coming back over the wellhead, they consume the hydrocarbons much more quickly," Valentine said, "and the bacterial composition and hydrocarbon composition behaves differently. It changes at a different rate than when the waters were first exposed."

The model allowed the scientists to test this hypothesis and to look at some of the factors that had been measured: oxygen deficits and microbial community structure.

"What we found was very good agreement between the two," Valentine said.

"We have about a 70 percent success rate of hitting where those oxygen declines were. It means that not only is the physics model doing a good job of moving the water in the right place, but also that the biology and chemistry results are doing a good job, because you need those to get the oxygen declines. It's really a holistic view of what's going on."

There are valuable lessons to be learned from the study, the scientists believe.

"It tells us that the motion of the water is an important component in determining how rapidly different hydrocarbons are broken down," Valentine said. "It gives us concepts that we can now apply to other situations, if we understand the physics."

Mezic said that this should be a wake-up call for anyone thinking of drilling for oil.

"The general perspective is that we need to pay more attention to where the currents are flowing around the places where we have spills," he said.

"We don't have models for most of those. Why not mandate a model?

"This one worked--three-quarters of the predictions were correct. For almost everything, you can build a model. You build an airplane, you have a model. But you can drill without having a model. It's possible we can predict this. That's what a model is for."

###

The U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Office of Naval Research also supported the research.

In addition to Valentine and Mezic, co-authors of the paper are Senka Macesic, Nelida Crnjaric-Zic, and Stefan Ivic, of the University of Rijeka in Croatia; Patrick J. Hogan of the Naval Research Laboratory; Sophie Loire of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UCSB; and Vladimir A. Fonoberov of Aimdyn, Inc. of Santa Barbara.



[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/nsf-gom010912.php

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London 2012: Jeremy Hunt Unveils Plan For Schools To Host Community Sports Clubs

Every English secondary school will host a community sports club under a ?1 billion plan to get the nation active for life unveiled by culture secretary Jeremy Hunt today.

Expert coaches will be brought in to run sessions and each of the 4,000 projects will have links to at least one national sporting governing body.

The clubs will be set up under a five-year youth and community sport strategy, which will deliver on Lord Coe's 2012 Games bid promise to inspire a generation to get involved in sport, according to the government.

Most of the cash will come from Lottery funding with ?200 million of government money earmarked for the plans up to 2015.

Hunt said: "Despite huge investment of public funds since we won the right to host the Games, participation by young people in sport has been falling.

"We need a radical change in policy to address the deep-seated problem of people dropping out of sport when they leave school.

"Our bold approach will see money going to organisations that deliver on youth participation, but also withdrawn quickly from those which fail to meet agreed objectives."

Around ?450 million of the cash is going directly to sports governing bodies between 2013 and 2017 for their "whole sport plans", the government said.

Of that, 60% will be targeted at getting 14 to 25-year-olds into a sporting habit for life while the remaining 40% will be aimed at the rest of the population.

The governing bodies will have to prove they are getting results or will jeopardise their public funding, officials said.

Around ?100 million will be used to set up the school clubs and tackle the drop-off in sporting activity when youngsters leave school, including boosting provision at further education colleges and universities.

Schools will also have access to ?10 million to allow them to open up their sports facilities for public use.

Sport England chief executive Jennie Price said: "Changing the sporting behaviour of a generation is a major challenge, which has not been achieved by any other Olympic host nation. With a new focus on young people and an even tougher, Government-backed regime of payment by results, Sport England and its partners are determined to deliver."

Football has pledged that 2,000 clubs will be linked to secondary schools by 2017, rugby union 1,300 clubs, cricket 1,250 clubs and rugby league and tennis 1,000 clubs each.

Alex Horne, general secretary of the Football Association, said: "A priority will be taking 2,000 local football clubs into secondary schools across the country, offering expert coaching and creating the strong ties that will help young people make the move from school sport to community sport."

Ian Drake, chief executive of British Cycling, said: "Looking ahead to the next funding cycle, we have ambitious plans to build further on the success we've achieved over the past few years, and to capitalise on the inspirational impact of London 2012 to increase participation."

David Collier, chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, said: "This very much mirrors cricket's own strategy to get more young people playing at school and in clubs and keep them involved in the game throughout their lives."

Paul Clark, chief executive of England Netball, said: "This age group is critical to our ambition of encouraging and enabling engagement in netball for life."

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/01/10/london-2012-jeremy-hunt-school-sports_n_1195747.html

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America hits the brakes on health care spending

Chart shows breakdown of healthcare spending

Chart shows breakdown of healthcare spending

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Is health-care relief finally in sight? Health spending stabilized as a share of the nation's economy in 2010 after two back-to-back years of historically low growth, the government reported Monday.

Experts debated whether it's a fleeting consequence of the sluggish economy, or a real sign that cost controls by private employers and government at all levels are starting to work.

The answers will be vital for Medicare's sustainability, as well as for workplace coverage.

U.S. health care spending grew by 3.9 percent in 2010, reaching $2.6 trillion, according to the report by the Health and Human Services department.

That's an average of $8,402 per person ? far more than any other economically advanced country.

Still, the increases for 2010 and 2009 were the lowest measured in 51 years. And health care as a share of the economy leveled off at 17.9 percent, the first time in a decade there's been no growth.

The main reason for the slowdown was that Americans were more frugal in their use of health care, from postponing elective surgery to using generic drugs and thinking twice about that late-night visit to the emergency room.

"Although medical goods and services are generally viewed as necessities, the latest recession has had a dramatic effect on their utilization," said the report published in the journal Health Affairs. "Though the recession officially ended in 2009, its impact on the health care sector appears to have continued into 2010."

Independent economists issued conflicting assessments.

"I think it could signal slower growth in the future," said Ken Thorpe, professor of health policy at Emory University in Atlanta. "Any discussion about reducing the deficit is going to focus on how we reduce the growth in health-care costs. And employers are adopting more effective tools to keep putting downward pressure on health-care cost increases."

But his counterpart Len Nichols at George Mason University in Virginia said people are getting less medical care because too many have lost jobs and insurance, and they just can't afford to pay.

"The slowdown is mostly due to postponement of care, due to anticipated inability to pay," said Nichols. If he's right, that could mean costs will spike once the economy is on solid footing.

The report provided relief for a jittery White House facing a 2012 reelection campaign in which President Barack Obama's health care overhaul is a top target for Republicans.

The nonpartisan number crunchers at HHS found that the health care law barely contributed to cost increases in 2010 ? just one-tenth of 1 percentage point. Major provisions expanding coverage to more than 30 million uninsured don't take effect until 2014, well after the presidential election.

The federal government's share of the total health care tab ? another issue in this year's political debate ? grew to 29 percent in 2010, up from 23 percent as recently as 2007. Counting state and local spending, the overall government share stood at 45 percent of the total.

Medicare spending grew by 5 percent in 2010. That was slower growth than in 2009, due mainly to reductions in what the government paid private Medicare Advantage insurance plans. Medicaid spending increased by 7.2 percent, less than the 2009 rate because of fewer people covered by the program.

However, the main finding of the report was a continued slowdown in the use of services across major health-care categories, one its authors termed "dramatic." Higher copayments for those with private insurance are part of the reason.

Hospital care, which accounts for just over 30 percent of what Americans spend, grew more slowly because of a decline in a key measure of inpatient admissions, and slower growth in emergency room visits, outpatient appointments, and outpatient surgery.

Spending on doctor visits and related care ? about 20 percent of the total ? grew at a historically low rate of 2.5 percent, due to an overall drop in visits and a milder 2010 flu season. But spending on dental care increased faster than in 2009.

Prescription drugs, about 10 percent of overall spending, also saw a slower increase ? just 1.2 percent in 2010. That was not only due to the continuing shift to generic drugs, but also slower growth in the overall volume of medications that Americans took.

Will less health care hurt consumers?

That remains to be seen, but current evidence suggests it won't. Americans are no healthier than their counterparts in other developed countries, which spend far less. And research suggests that as much as 30 percent of tests and treatments for U.S. patients may be of little or no benefit.

The HHS experts refused to speculate about the implications of the slowdown, although their report stressed the connection to a weak economy. More may be known by the summer, when another team in the same HHS unit will update projections for future health care spending.

___

Online:

HHS report in Health Affairs: http://tinyurl.com/6nyuzrr

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2012-01-09-US-Health-Care-Spending/id-a1cdba9562924f41a0e2b98ad33197af

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Backing out of the nanotunnel

ScienceDaily (Jan. 10, 2012) ? In the world of biomolecules such as proteins and the hereditary nucleic acids DNA and RNA, three-dimensional structure determines function. Analysis of the passage of such molecules through nanopores offers a relatively new, but highly promising, technique for obtaining information about their spatial conformations. However, interactions between the test molecules and the proteins used as pores have so far hindered quantitative analysis of the behavior of even simply structured molecules within nanopores.

This problem must be solved before the technique can be routinely used for structure determination. In a project carried out under the auspices of the Cluster of Excellence "Nanosystems Initiative Munich" (NIM), researchers led by LMU physicist Professor Ulrich Gerland and Professor Friedrich Simmel (Technical University of Munich) have developed a new method that depends on the analysis of reverse translocation through asymmetric pores, which minimizes the interference caused by interactions with the pore material itself. This approach has enabled the team to construct a theoretical model that allows them to predict the translocation dynamics of nucleic acids that differ in their nucleotide sequences.

The nucleic acids RNA and DNA both belong to the class of molecules known chemically as polynucleotides. Both are made up of strings of four basic types of building blocks called nucleotides, which fall into two complementary pairs. In their single-stranded forms, DNA and RNA can fold into what are called secondary structures, as complementary nucleotides in the sequence pair up, forcing the intervening segments to form loops. If the single-stranded loop is very short, the secondary structure is referred to as a hairpin. As in the case of proteins, the secondary structures of nucleic acids influence their biochemical functions. The elucidation of the secondary structure of nucleic acid sequences is therefore of great interest.

"Nanopores are increasingly being employed to investigate the secondary structures of RNA and DNA," Gerland points out. "Passage through narrow nanopores causes the sequence to unfold, and the dynamics of translocation provide insights into the structural features of the molecules, without the need to modify them by adding a fluorescent label. The technique is relatively new, and its potential has not yet been fully explored." In the new study, he and his collaborators used a new experimental procedure, which allowed them to quantitatively describe the passage of simply structured polynucleotide sequences through nanopores, and develop a theoretical model that accounts for their findings. This level of understanding has not been achieved previously, because complicating factors such as interactions between the protein nanopore and the polynucleotide have had a significant influence on the measurements and made it difficult to predict the behavior of the test molecules.

Thanks to a clever change in experimental design, the impact of these factors has now been minimized. The trick is to perform the measurements on molecules as they translocate through the pore in reverse. First, the polynucleotide of interest is forced through the conical orifice from one side under the influence of an electrical potential. This causes its secondary structure to unfold and, as it emerges, the molecule refolds. An anchor at the end of the polynucleotide chain prevents it from passing completely through the pore onto the other side.

For the return journey the potential is reversed, so that the process of unfolding now begins at the narrow end of the pore, and at this point the analysis is initiated. "In contrast to the situation during forward translocation, no significant interactions appear to take place during the reverse trip," says Simmel. On the basis of their experimental measurements, the researchers went on to construct a theoretical model that enabled them to predict the translocation dynamics of various hairpin structures with the aid of thermodynamic calculations of so-called "free-energy landscapes."

"This model could in the future provide the foundation of a procedure for the elucidation of the secondary structures of complex polynucleotides," says Gerland.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit?t M?nchen.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. Severin Schink, Stephan Renner, Karen Alim, Vera Arnaut, Friedrich?C. Simmel, Ulrich Gerland. Quantitative Analysis of the Nanopore Translocation Dynamics of Simple Structured Polynucleotides. Biophysical Journal, 2012; 102 (1): 85 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2011.11.4011

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120110114531.htm

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