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| A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page | |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Monday, May 19, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 97
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 A.M. Costa Rica/Michael
Krumholtz
Zarela Villanueva discusses the
caseCentral drug courts proposed
in wake of judge's detention By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The head of the Corte Suprema de Justicia said she wants to create specialized courts in San José that would handle organized crime and drug trafficking cases from all over the country. The proposal came on the same day that investigators took in to custody a judge in Limón on an allegation of rigging court cases in favor of drug traffickers. "I'm very satisfied with the ways we are combating drug trafficking in our organization," said Zarela Villanueva. "But we believe that to act more rapidly we should create a national court for organized crime and drug trafficking in order to make a system that is independent and effective." She is the president of the supreme court. The Limón judge suspected of rigging court cases in favor of drug traffickers is Rosa Elena Gamboa, She is under investigation for suspicious rulings relating to the freeing of drug suspects with whom she may have had prior agreements, said a Judicial Investigating Organization press representative. The representative said that the 62-year-old judge of the Primer Circuito Judicial de la Zona Atlántica was specifically detained for suspected crimes listed under Ley 8204, which covers influence peddling. Magistrate Villanueva, who ordered the initial investigation, said Friday that this raises an unfortunate cloud over the country's court system. The Judicial Investigating Organization has been working on this specific case for more than a year, according to the report. "It's been enough time in which our institution has used the appropriate mechanisms to detect and investigate," Ms. Villanueva said. "This is not a product of acting overnight. This action has taken time to develop." She confirmed that the Ministerio Público and the Judicial Investigating Organization are handling a joint investigation into Ms. Gamboa, who will pass through the normal judiciary process. "This is a criminal process that continues until any subsequent consequences are deemed necessary or unnecessary," she said. Ms. Villanueva said that this case is being treated as an isolated incident as of now and it should not cast doubt on other judges in Limón or throughout the country. She added that court officials are trying to improve individual responsibility profiles of judges that monitor their actions in trials. Agents brought the judge to San José for questioning, but she was released later. Friday they confiscated a computer, tablet, and documents from her house and office, an judicial representative said. U.S. and Texas university seek to fight coffee rust By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The Obama administration is joining forces with Texas A&M University in the fight against coffee rust, a fungus threatening to devastate the Latin American coffee crop. The orange-colored fungus has already caused more than $1 billion in damage. It is especially dangerous to Arabica beans used to brew gourmet coffees that are much in demand in U.S. coffee shops and elsewhere. Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama have been especially hard-hit. The disease is known as roya de café in Costa Rica and the other Spanish-speaking countries. U.S. officials say Latin bean production could drop as much as 40 percent in the coming years, putting about 500,000 farmers and others out of work and into poverty. The officials believe many would turn to the illegal drug trade to make a living. Most so-called mass-produced coffee sold in supermarkets come from Asian beans. Neighbor held in killing and incinerating woman By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Judicial agents have detained a 19-year-old neighbor in the robbery and murder of a 52-year-old woman in Las Palmiras de Siquirres. Agents said they recovered a bottle of alcohol and a DVD from the home of the suspect some 200 meters from where the woman and her vehicle were found destroyed by fire Saturday about 10:30 a.m. The arrest came about 6:30 p.m. Saturday. The woman was the owner of property in the area and also the owner of the vehicle, which is how judicial agents managed to identify her by the last name of Fernández. Cañas to embrace concept of genetically modified crops By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The canton of Cañas is infuriating opponents of Monsanto's genetically modified crops. The canton is about to declare itself in favor of the genetic approach. If the municipal council does so Tuesday, it will be the first in Costa Rica to take that action. Most of the country's municipalities, under prodding from Monsanto opponents, have declared themselves against the use of genetically modified seeds. Monsanto opponents are expected to show up at the meeting. The opponents also are lobbying for a national moratorium on genetically modified crops. Such a measure already has been introduced in the legislature. For the most part, the modified crops are resistant to Monsanto's herbicides, so farmers have to do much less cultivation. The most recent protest was sparked by a Monsanto proposal to grow modified corn on a small tract. Opponents feared that the pollen from the crops would enter the national gene pool of corn. Nearly all the corn products imported from the United States contain modified products. Four detained for moving valuable timber without permit By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Fuerza Pública officers said they detained four men after they found that their truck contained 12 cocobolo logs. The logs were being transported in an enclosed truck. Cocobolo is a beautiful wood but on the way to extinction in Costa Rica, police officers said. The men detained have records of illegal logging, officers said. The detention was in San Miguel de Cañas, Guanacaste.
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, May 19, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 97 | |
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| Caribbean fishermen will use traps to catch invasive lionfish |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Fishermen on the Caribbean coast are considering the use of traps to catch lionfish, the predators that eat their weight in other species each day. The Asociación de Pescadores Artesanales del Caribe Sur said it has created a model of a trap that will be duplicated and distributed along the coast. The other alternative to getting rid of the lionfish is spearing by divers. The association notes that traps can operate at a depth where divers cannot go. And they operate 24 hours a day, the association said. This is the same group that runs the fish spearing contest every year. The association is expected to make a symbolic distribution of traps at the end of the month to some 70 fishermen. The project has the support of the U.N. Priogramme for Development and the central government, the association said. The Municipalidad de Talamanca and the Universidad de Costa Rica also are involved, the association said. The association said it still will run its annual sweep. This year it will be in Manzanillo Sept. 27. Prizes are awarded to the divers who bring in the most lionfish. Traps have proved to be effective elsewhere. A lobster fisherman in Florida was reported to be complaining that his traps become full of lionfish instead of lobster. The principal criticism is that the traps have to be maintained. However, the lionfish is edible and can be sold for human consumption. The lionfish is a beautiful creature, and the invasive species in the Atlantic may have come from aquariums. There are 10 species of the fish, and two, including Pterois volitans, are in the Atlantic. Invasive lionfish were first reported off Florida’s Atlantic coast in the mid-1980s, but did not become numerous in the region until 2000. Since then, the lionfish population has rapidly spread north |
 Oregon State University file photo
A University of Oregon
researcher studies the colorful lionfish.through the Atlantic Ocean and south throughout most of the Caribbean. The fish use their large fins to herd together mainly smaller fish so they can be eaten. Because they expand their fins they are vulnerable to traps because once they are inside, they cannot exit. |
| The first step in transparency is effective crisis management |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Perhaps one of the major failings of the Laura Chinchilla administration was the lack of crisis management. That also seems to be the case with state agencies and private firms. An example is the collapse of the Banco Nacional online banking Web site two weeks ago. There was no explanation from bank officials even after the problem was resolved. Customers were hung out to dry without any way to figure out if the Web site failure cost them any money. A lot of firms and agencies adopt the it's-not-my-fault approach when faced with unexpected crisis. The Banco Nacional fiasco is trivial when compared to the four years of the Chinchilla administration. The former president summed up her approach in her May 1 talk to legislators. An analysis of the news
The president blamed nature, the world economic situation, climate change, the hostile administration in Nicaragua, lawmakers and even the news media for her failures. There was not a hint of the buck-stops-here policy made famous by U.S. ex-president Harry Truman. Ms. Chinchilla faced a number of crises, many of her own making. She was not very forthcoming with the media, and when accused of taking rides in a plane owned by a suspicious character, she fired a minister and aides. Even when the administration knew that Intel Corp. was about to move its manufacturing arm out of the country to Vietnam, officials stayed silent and allowed rumors to spread the news. Luis Guillermo Solís promises transparency in his administration. And transparency gives a top manager an opportunity to define the situation. The classic example is the rapid and candid response by Johnson & Johnson to the 1982 Tylenol poisonings in Chicago. The company embarked on a major publicity campaign that probably prevented others from taking acetaminophen capsules that some mass killer had laced with cyanide. The company received universal praise and managed to recapture its market share. The contrast is the way Metropolitan Edison handled the 1979 accident at its nuclear power plant in Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania. In addition to continually understating the problem, the firm failed to acknowledge the release of some radioactivity. Both approaches can be found as examples in nearly any public relations text. Presumably Ms. Chinchilla did not have a copy of such a text. Apparently neither does Barack Obama. When a U.S. ambassador and others became the victims of terrorists in Libya, the U.S. administration tried to blame the deaths on a Benghazi crowd irate about an anti-Muslim video. |
 A.M.
Costa Rica file photo
'It's not my fault'"Wag the Dog" is a 1997 movie in which an expensive political manipulator played by Robert De Niro fakes a U.S. military action in Albania to distract the American public from a president's indiscretions with a young girl in the Oval Office. Unlike in the movie, such distractions have a short life. So the Obama administration just released a big report on global warming that some consider to be the second step in wagging the public. According to the public relations texts, the first step in crisis management is personal involvement by the CEO or, in this case, the president. And absolute candor. With that approach the public and the voters generally are very understanding. But lies, as Richard Nixon found out, are toxic. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, May 19, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 97 | |||||
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| Police
confiscate thousands of pounds of cocaine at two locations |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Fuerza Pública officers in the Quepos area uncovered 965 kilos of cocaine hidden in beach vegetation. Meanwhile the anti-drug police conducted a raid in Guácimo to find more than 731 kilos of suspected cocaine. The larger haul was at Playa Linda, Savegre de Aguirre. Police said a routine patrol turned up the hidden merchandise. Officers had to carry out the bales of cocaine. The merchandise was flown to San José. The raid in Barrio El Hogar in Guácimo turned up 1,069 packages of cocaine badly hidden in a home. The suspected drugs were in barrels partly buried in the back yard of the home. Officers detained a 77 year old and a 43 year old in the home. Both are Colombians. Also discovered in the home was a selection of firearms. The confiscations were over Friday night and Saturday morning. In another drug-related incident, Fuerza Pública officers and agents of the Policía de Control de Drogas detained two Canadians and a U.S. citizen after they stopped a car in the canton of Mora. The security ministry said that the officers found marijuana and 27 ampules of morphine. The Canadians were identified by the last names of Garrity and Brishke. The U.S. citizen was identified by the last name of Basset, said the ministry. Officers also said they found more than 24 million colons, about $64,000. and $54,920 in U.S. currency. |
 Ministerio de Gobernación,
Policía y Seguridad Pública photo
Police officers are hauling out
cocaine from a beach hiding place. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, May 19, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 97 | |||||
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| Bus fire in Colombia kills 31 home-bound children By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Emergency officials in Colombia say at least 31 children were burned to death when their bus caught fire near the city of Fundación. Officials said the bus burst into flames Sunday while transporting children home from a church service. At least 20 other people were seriously burned and taken to hospitals. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, speaking at a campaign rally in Bogota, said he would immediately travel to Fundación to console families of the victims. The accident is being investigated. Unconfirmed reports say the bus driver was handling a fuel container inside the cabin in an attempt to get the bus restarted when the fire broke out and spread quickly. New best seller highlights gap between rich and poor By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
It’s an unlikely best seller, catapulting a soft-spoken French economist into rock star status and possible Nobel Prize contention. "Capital in the 21st Century" by Thomas Piketty examines the history of income inequality in the U.S. and Europe since the 18th century. The book is number one in the non-fiction book category of The New York Times and sold out in its first week on Amazon. It presents a compelling case for something many have long suspected — that the rich are getting richer. “You know, if two-thirds of this growth goes to the top 1 percent, it’s not clear that this is a good deal for the rest of the population, Piketty said. Using charts and tax data going back to the start of the industrial age, Piketty’s grand theory is that, over time, capital or wealth grows faster than economic output. But the controversy centers on the author's policy solutions, among them a global tax on wealth. Critics say such punitive measures would hurt everyone. “I disagree with pretty much all of his policy recommendations, but, even beyond that, in the sort of purely analytical part, I think he exaggerates how much capital has grown over the last 100 years,” said Stan Veuger, a political economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Veuger argues much of the wealth accumulation in the U.S. has been due to the rise in home ownership; but, others say that does not account for the growing concentration of wealth among a privileged few. “Perhaps there’s something more general about a problem where inequality in a democracy is going to lead to the rich prevailing despite the rules that we have on the books that should normally prevent that from being the case,” said New York University's David Stasavage. And emerging economies are not immune. In China, Piketty says negative population growth will drive a wedge between rich and poor. “Already, you know, inheritance of assets is becoming a big issue and access to real estate property in larger Chinese cities where you have some people inherit from the property of their parents. And, you know, some migrants will be completely unable to access property." Piketty hopes the book sparks more discussion. That's a view shared by Yale professor Robert Shiller, who, after winning the Nobel prize for economics, said that rising income inequality is the biggest problem facing the world. “We should think now about a contingency plan for the possibility of much worse inequality and how do we stop that? Well, it has to be some form of taxation of the rich.” At nearly 700 pages, Piketty's book is not an easy read, but both fans and critics say it's bound to generate heated discussion in a U.S. election year likely to be dominated by economic issues. Right to delete bad news draws opposing reactions By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The so-called right to be forgotten is being debated after the European Court of Justice ruled that the Internet search engine Google must sometimes, on request, remove links to articles containing personal information. It's a debate about which is more important: the right to privacy or the freedom of information. According to Glenn Gabe, president of G-Squared Interactive, who has provided digital marketing services to executives and celebrities, many people have something in their past they would like to have removed from the Internet. "They went to prison, right? And maybe ten years ago everything happened, and everything's still showing up in Google on page one, even though they've paid their dues," he said. At the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, executive director Marc Rotenberg agrees with the court's ruling that privacy is a basic right. "When you talk about free expression, you have to consider the ability of individuals to control the dissemination of information about themselves," he said. "That is, in many respects, the core of free expression — how we choose to express ourselves or not to say things or do things. That's, you know, what makes us human." But a number of U.S. privacy advocates disagree with the European court's Google ruling. For Jules Polonetsky, executive director of Washington's Future of Privacy Forum, the decision sets a legal precedent that is likely to limit the freedom of information in general — both in terms of individual privacy and, in some cases, the right to a free press. "If someone can tell search engines, news aggregators or maybe bloggers, 'Sorry, that information tells us about some individual, that individual doesn't want to be found, you need to take it down,' the effects really could be dramatic," she said. "It breaks the Internet." While the right to a free press is specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the right to privacy is merely implied. "It's a real blow to transparency if legal, public information can be obscured simply because somebody decides that it's information that they would rather not be available," said Ms. Polonetsky. But Rotenberg says the European judges did a good job of balancing privacy with press freedom in this particular case, in which they ordered Google to delete links containing personal information about a Spanish lawyer's 1998 tax problems at the lawyer's request, because the information, the court said, was no longer relevant. "And what the European Court of Justice has done with this decision is to say, in effect, you know, search is an important service, but it has to be done in a way that protects privacy," he said. The ruling will be costly for Google and other search engines in Europe, but is not expected to immediately affect their U.S. operations. California's Brown blames global warming for fire By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
California Gov. Jerry Brown says his state is getting ready for what could be its worst wildfire season to date, even as better weather has allowed firefighters to take control over several blazes that broke out in the southern part of the state last week. Brown said Sunday that global warming is to blame for the worsening conditions. He also said people have to be more careful how they live, how they build their homes, and what kind of vegetation is allowed to grow. Extreme drought, low humidity and high winds led to a number of fires in San Diego County last week. Those fires destroyed dozens of homes and forced tens of thousands of people to flee with little notice. At least one death was reported. Damage is estimated at more than $20 million. Kepler goes back in service due to fix by engineers By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
After being declared inoperable last year, NASA’s planet-hunting space telescope Kepler has been given a second life. NASA said Friday that for the next two years, it will fund a mission for the telescope. The new mission is known as K2 and will let the telescope continue to search for new exoplanets and active galaxies. Last year, NASA said the telescope had been crippled by the failure of a second mechanical reaction wheel that helps keep it pointed. The telescope was launched with four wheels and needs at least three of them to keep it aimed precisely at distant stars. NASA engineers say they have found a way to use solar radiation pressure, together with the remaining functional wheels, to keep the spacecraft stable enough to continue observing distant stars. Kepler was launched in March 2009 and positioned in an orbit around the sun with a mission to look for Earth-like planets in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra. The $600 million spacecraft identified 130 planets with additional 2,740 candidates. Since the stars are thousands of light years from Earth, the precise pointing of the Kepler’s instruments is of critical importance. The planets cannot be seen, but their presence can be calculated from the dip in the light of their stars when other planets pass in front of them. After analyzing previously collected data, NASA scientists announced in April that the telescope found the first Earth-size planet orbiting a star in the so-called habitable zone. Virus therapy generates good results against cancer By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A new study has, for the first time, demonstrated that a specific kind of virotherapy can infect and kill cancer in humans, leaving healthy cells unharmed. The study, conducted by the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, involved just two patients, both of whom received a single intravenous dose of an engineered measles virus that is selectively toxic to myeloma plasma cells, researchers said. Multiple myeloma affects the plasma cells in the bone marrow and causes skeletal or soft tissue tumors. It is rarely cured. The therapy brought about a complete remission in one of the patients, while only improving the second patient. “This is the first study to establish the feasibility of systemic oncolytic virotherapy for disseminated cancer,” said Stephen Russell, a Mayo Clinic hematologist, and first author of the paper and co-developer of the therapy in a statement. “These patients were not responsive to other therapies and had experienced several recurrences of their disease.” In an interview, Russell called viruses “the last untapped bioresource as destructive bioagents against cancer.” The two patients in the trial were given enough measles virus to vaccinate 100 million people. In a video about the treatment, Mayo doctors say the modified measles virus makes cancer cells join together and essentially explode. The therapy also may boost the patient’s immune system, allowing it to mop up any remaining cancer, they said. Using re-engineered viruses to fight cancer, also known as oncolytic virotherapy, is nothing new, dating back to the 1950s, according to the Mayo Clinic. But, according to researchers, this study provides the “first well documented case of a patient with disseminated cancer having a complete remission at all disease sites after virus administration.” Good results with this kind of therapy have been seen with rodents, but this is the first time success has been reported in a human being. However, remission was only achieved in one of the two patients. The other patient did not respond as well. Nonetheless, by using a sophisticated imaging technique, doctors were able to tell that the virus had targeted cancerous cells. Russell said he and his colleagues found the difference in reaction between the two patients puzzling, but had some theories about why. He said the patient who’d gone into remission had less myeloma in her body and that the second patient’s cancer was in a very advanced state with“massive tumors in the legs and abdomen. Another theory was that the second patient had more tumors in the muscles. “If we’d treated her earlier, we’d have done better, Russell said, adding that they might also have seen better results at a higher dose. There were negative side effects, he said, such as severe flu-like symptoms almost immediately upon dosing. Despite that, one patient called the side effects trivial, compared to other treatments they’d received, according to Russell. William Phelps, director of the Preclinical and Translational Cancer Research Program at the American Cancer Society, said the study is exciting because it shows efficacy with humans. “Viruses are very good at disseminating throughout the body,” he said, adding that they’re also adept at hunting, detecting and infecting metastatic tumors. Another advantage of using viruses is that they’re mutable, said Phelps. “We can make a lot of changes to change what cells they infect,” he said. “We can change their payloads to specifically kill cancer.” According to an editorial accompanying the paper, John C. Bell of the Centre for Innovative Cancer Research in Ottawa, Canada, described the findings as a “benchmark to strive for and improve upon.” When asked if the study had implications for other types of cancer, Russell answered with an emphatic yes. “There’s no real reason why it can’t work on other cancers,” said Bell, adding that cancer provides the perfect substrate for viruses because they’re metabolically active, fast growing and, don’t know how to turn off. “Once the virus gets in there, it can just move,” he said. “There are a lot of reasons they’re happier growing in cancer.” “We want to take this virus and test it much more efficiently in a larger group to determine how often it works,” said Russell. According to the Mayo Clinic, more of the therapy is being manufactured for a larger, phase 2 clinical trial later this year. Phelps said his one concern about the study was that the two patients did not have any antibodies for measles, making them very rare because most people have been vaccinated against or had the measles. One possible next step is “trying to engineer the virus so that it wouldn’t be neutralized by your antibodies," said Phelps. “Intuitively, you should be able to do that." Russell believes that what this study has proved is valuable and can be built upon. “We recently have begun to think about the idea of a single shot cure for cancer, and that’s our goal with this therapy,” he said. Colombia and rebels agree on cocaine reduction By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Colombia's government and the rebel group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia say they have reached an agreement on ending the illegal drug trade. The deal calls for the rebels known as the FARC to cooperate with the government in convincing farmers to grow crops other than coca, which is used to make cocaine. The announcement was made Friday in Havana where the two sides have been negotiating an end to a 50-year-old insurgency. Colombia was the world's leading producer of cocaine until Perú recently overtook it in cultivation of coca. The cocaine industry has been the major source of funds for the Marxist rebel group and a cause of crime and instability in the South American country. With the agreement on ending the drug trade, the two sides have resolved three of the six points on their agenda. Previously FARC and the government had reached deals on agrarian reform and political participation. FARC has also announced a unilateral cease-fire for a week around Colombia's presidential election, scheduled for May 25. Scientists create matter from beams of light By
the Imperial College London news service
Imperial College London physicists have discovered how to create matter from light, a feat thought impossible when the idea was first theorized 80 years ago. In just one day over several cups of coffee in a tiny office in Imperial’s Blackett Physics Laboratory, three physicists worked out a relatively simple way to physically prove a theory first devised by scientists Breit and Wheeler in 1934. Gregory Breit and John Archibald Wheeler suggested that it should be possible to turn light into matter by smashing together only two particles of light (photons), to create an electron and a positron, the simplest method of turning light into matter ever predicted. The calculation was found to be theoretically sound but Breit and Wheeler said that they never expected anybody to physically demonstrate their prediction. It has never been observed in the laboratory, and past experiments to test it have required the addition of massive high-energy particles. The new research, published in Nature Photonics, shows for the first time how Breit and Wheeler’s theory could be proven in practice. This ‘photon-photon collider’, which would convert light directly into matter using technology that is already available, would be a new type of high-energy physics experiment. This experiment would recreate a process that was important in the first 100 seconds of the universe and that is also seen in gamma ray bursts, which are the biggest explosions in the universe and one of physics’ greatest unsolved mysteries. The scientists had been investigating unrelated problems in fusion energy when they realized what they were working on could be applied to the Breit-Wheeler theory. The breakthrough was achieved in collaboration with a fellow theoretical physicist from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, who happened to be visiting Imperial. Demonstrating the Breit-Wheeler theory would provide the final jigsaw piece of a physics puzzle which describes the simplest ways in which light and matter interact. The six other pieces in that puzzle, including Dirac’s 1930 theory on the annihilation of electrons and positrons and Einstein’s 1905 theory on the photoelectric effect, are all associated with Nobel Prize-winning research. Steve Rose from the Department of Physics at Imperial College London said: “Despite all physicists accepting the theory to be true, when Breit and Wheeler first proposed the theory, they said that they never expected it to be shown in the laboratory. Today, nearly 80 years later, we prove them wrong. What was so surprising to us was the discovery of how we can create matter directly from light using the technology that we have today in the UK. As we are theorists we are now talking to others who can use our ideas to undertake this landmark experiment.” The collider experiment that the scientists have proposed involves two key steps. First, the scientists would use an extremely powerful high-intensity laser to speed up electrons to just below the speed of light. They would then fire these electrons into a slab of gold to create a beam of photons a billion times more energetic than visible light. The next stage of the experiment involves a tiny gold can called a hohlraum (German for ‘empty room’). Scientists would fire a high-energy laser at the inner surface of this gold can, to create a thermal radiation field, generating light similar to the light emitted by stars. They would then direct the photon beam from the first stage of the experiment through the centre of the can, causing the photons from the two sources to collide and form electrons and positrons. It would then be possible to detect the formation of the electrons and positrons when they exited the can. E-cigarettes need controls scientific study suggests By
the University of California at San Francisco
news staff In a major scientific review of research on e-cigarettes, scientists found that industry claims about the devices are unsupported by the evidence to date, including claims that e-cigarettes help smokers quit. The review marks the first comprehensive assessment of peer-reviewed published research into the relatively new phenomenon of electronic cigarettes. The devices, which are rapidly gaining a foothold in popular culture particularly among youth, are marketed as a healthier alternative to tobacco smoking, as an effective tool to stop smoking, and as a way to circumvent smoke-free laws by allowing users to smoke anywhere. Often the ads stress that e-cigarettes produce only harmless water vapor. But in their analysis of the marketing, health and behavioral effects of the products, which are unregulated, the University of California at San Francisco scientists found that e-cigarette use is associated with significantly lower odds of quitting cigarettes. They also found that while the data are still limited, e-cigarette emissions “are not merely harmless water vapor, as is frequently claimed, and can be a source of indoor air pollution. The long-term biological effects of use are still unknown, the authors said. In tackling the question of whether e-cigarette use is helping or harming the nation’s tobacco control efforts, the authors analyzed 84 research studies on e-cigarettes and other related scientific materials. They concluded that e-cigarettes should be prohibited wherever tobacco cigarettes are prohibited and should be subject to the same marketing restrictions as conventional cigarettes. The paper is published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation. E-cigarettes deliver a nicotine-containing aerosol popularly called vapor to users by heating a solution commonly consisting of glycerin, nicotine and flavoring agents. E-liquids are flavored, including tobacco, menthol, coffee, candy, fruit and alcohol flavorings. Despite many unanswered questions about e-cigarette safety, the impact on public health, and whether the products are effective at reducing tobacco smoking, e-cigarettes have swiftly penetrated the marketplace in the United States and abroad in both awareness and use. Sold by the major multinational tobacco and other companies, the devices are aggressively marketed in print, television and the Internet with messages similar to cigarette marketing in the 1950s and 1960s, even in the U.S. and other countries that have long banned advertising for cigarettes and other tobacco products. In one indication of the swiftness by which the devices have been embraced, in the U.S. youth ever use of the devices rose from 3.3 percent in 2011 to 6.8 percent the following year; in Korea, youth ever use of e-cigarettes rose from .5 percent in 2008 to 9.4 percent in 2011. Ever use means whether one has smoked the product even just once. Furthermore, most adults and youths who use e-cigarettes are engaging in dual use – smoking both e-cigarettes and conventional cigarettes. While most youth using e-cigarettes are dual users, up to a third of adolescent e-cigarette users have never smoked a conventional cigarette, indicating that some youth are starting use of the addictive drug nicotine with e-cigarettes. The report also tackles secondhand exposure. “E-cigarettes do not burn or smolder the way conventional cigarettes do, so they do not emit side-stream smoke. However, bystanders are exposed to aerosol exhaled by the user,” said the authors. Toxins and nicotine have been measured in that aerosol, such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acetic acid and other toxins emitted into the air, though at lower levels compared to conventional cigarette emissions. One study of e-cigarettes was conducted to resemble a smoky bar: the researchers found that markers of nicotine in nonsmokers who sat nearby was similar for both cigarette smoke and e-cigarette aerosol exposure. Short-term exposure studies of e-cigarette use show a negative impact on lung function and bystanders absorb nicotine from passive exposure to e-cigarette aerosol, the authors report. While early research found that e-cigarettes resulted in lower levels of plasma nicotine than conventional cigarettes, more recent research demonstrated that experienced users can attain nicotine absorption similar to that with conventional cigarettes. When scientists pooled the results of five population-based studies of smokers, they found that smokers who used e-cigarettes were about a third less likely to quit smoking than those who did not use e-cigarettes. Whether e-cigarette use prevents attempts to quit or whether people who choose to use e-cigarettes are more highly dependent and therefore have a harder time quitting remains to be determined. The scientists said their research illustrates the need for product regulation. Forest emissions are key in formation of clouds By
the Carnegie Mellon University news service
Clouds play a critical role in Earth's climate. Clouds also are the largest source of uncertainty in present climate models, according to the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Much of the uncertainty surrounding clouds' effect on climate stems from the complexity of cloud formation. New research from scientists at the Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, including Carnegie Mellon University's Neil Donahue, sheds light on new-particle formation — the very first step of cloud formation and a critical component of climate models. The findings, published in the Friday issue of Science, closely match observations in the atmosphere and can help make climate prediction models more accurate. Cloud droplets form when water vapor in the atmosphere condenses onto tiny particles. These particles are emitted directly from natural sources or human activity, or they form from precursors emitted originally as gaseous pollutants. The transformation of gas molecules into clusters and then into particles, a process called nucleation, produces more than half of the particles that seed cloud formation around the world today. But the mechanisms underlying nucleation remain unclear. Although scientists have observed that the nucleation process nearly always involves sulfuric acid, sulfuric acid concentrations aren't high enough to explain the rate of new particle formation that occurs in the atmosphere. This new study uncovers an indispensable ingredient to the long sought-after cloud formation recipe — highly oxidized organic compounds. "Our measurements connect oxidized organics directly, and in detail, with the very first steps of new particle formation and growth," said Donahue, professor of chemistry, chemical engineering, engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. "We had no idea a year ago that this chemistry was happening. There's a whole branch of oxidation chemistry that we didn't really understand. It's an exciting time." The air we breathe is chock-full of organic compounds, tiny liquid or solid particles that come from hundreds of sources including trees, volcanoes, cars, trucks and wood fires. Once they enter the atmosphere, these so-called organics start to change. In research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2012, Donahue and colleagues showed conclusively that organic molecules given off by pine trees, called alpha-pinene, are chemically transformed multiple times in the highly oxidizing environment of the atmosphere. Additionally, other research, including from Donahue's lab, has suggested that such oxidized organics might take part in nucleation — both in new particle formation and in their subsequent growth. The project at the European center is a unique facility that allows scientists to reproduce a typical atmospheric setting inside of an essentially contaminant-free, stainless steel chamber. By performing experiments in the precisely controlled environment, the project's scientists can change the concentrations of chemicals involved in nucleation and then measure the rate at which new particles are created with extreme precision. In the current work, the team filled the chamber with sulfur dioxide and pinnanediol (an oxidation product of alpha-pinene) and then generated hydroxyl radicals (the dominant oxidant in Earth's atmosphere). Then they watched the oxidation chemistry unfold. Using very high-resolution mass spectrometry, the scientists were able to observe particles growing from single, gaseous molecules to clusters of up to 10 molecules stuck together, as they grew molecule by molecule. "It turns out that sulfuric acid and these oxidized organic compounds are unusually attracted to each other. This remarkably strong association may be a big part of why organics are really drawn to sulfuric acid under modern polluted conditions," Donahue said. After confirming that oxidized organics are involved in the formation and growth of particles under atmospheric conditions, the scientists incorporated their findings into a global particle formation model. The fine-tuned model not only predicted nucleation rates more accurately but also predicted the increases and decreases of nucleation observed in field experiments over the course of a year, especially for measurements near forests. This latter test is a strong confirmation of the fundamental role of emissions from forests in the very first stage of cloud formation, and that the new work may have succeeded in modeling that influence. Environmental study urges protection of the deep ocean By
the University of Southampton news service
A University of Southampton oceanographer is working with experts from around the globe to warn against lasting damage to the deep-ocean, caused by fishing, oil and gas development, industrial-scale mining, waste disposal and land-based pollution. The world's deep-ocean spans more than half the planet and holds vast quantities of untapped energy resources, precious metals and minerals. But as advancements in technology enable greater access to these treasures of the deep, experts are urging caution, highlighting the potentially irreversible damage that extracting such materials can cause. Writing in the research journal Science, the University of Southampton's Maria Baker and co-authors call for a balance to be struck between the wise use of resources and maintenance of the deep ocean's delicate ecological balance. The deep-ocean, below 200 meters, extends across national and international authorities and is managed separately by individual sectors. This means an area protected against trawler fishing, for example, could still be considered for mining operations and vice versa. The paper suggests this approach is not sufficient to ensure a balanced, sustainable use of resources and calls for further collaboration to manage the cumulative effects of these activities. "Currently, governance of our deep-ocean is fragmented," Dr. Baker says, "We need to achieve integrated thinking and communication across all deep-sea stakeholders and across all jurisdictions. This is key to delivering the best possible solutions for future deep-ocean resource use and long-term environmental protection." Long term and possibly irreversible damage has already been caused to the deep-ocean by human actions. One fifth of the continental slope (an area of 4.4 million km2) has been trawled at least once and often multiple times by the fishing industry, leading to habitat loss and removal of slow to reproduce species. According to the paper, the underwater environment has also served as an international dumping ground for radioactive waste, sewage and toxic chemicals. Deep-ocean mining is an emerging industry and the International Seabed Authority has already developed regulations for mining exploration of the international seabed. In addition, many nations are in the process of leasing offshore mining. Dr. Baker said: "We require transparency and flexibility within all areas of governance to make this work. Management should be a dynamic process whereby strategies will evolve as we learn more about our deep-ocean ecosystems and their response and resilience to exploitation. We should not hesitate - we need to move forward at once. Future generations depend upon our actions." |
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 A.M. Costa Rica/Xochilt Quesada
Meet one of the participants in
a march Sunday in support of a bill that would punish mistreatment of
animals. The bill is now in a legislative committee. Hundreds of dog
owners walked on Avenida Segunda with their pets, and one man brought
his snake. There were no cats to be seen.Dengue threat in Brazil evaluated by its regions By
the Lancet news service
For the first time, scientists have developed an early warning system to predict the risk of dengue infections for the 553 microregions of Brazil during the football World Cup. The estimates, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, show that the chance of a dengue outbreak is enough of a possibility to warrant a high-alert warning in the three northeastern venues of Natal, Fortaleza, and Recife but is likely to be generally low in all 12 host cities. Dengue is a viral infection that is transmitted between humans by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. In some cases, it causes life-threatening illness. There are currently no licensed vaccines or treatments against dengue. So far this century, Brazil has recorded more cases of dengue fever than anywhere else in the world, with more than 7 million cases reported between 2000 and 2013. “Recent concerns about dengue fever in Brazil during the World Cup have made dramatic headlines, but these estimates have been based solely on averages of past dengue cases. The possibility of a large dengue fever outbreak during the World Cup, capable of infecting visitors and spreading dengue back to their country of origin, depends on a combination of many factors, including large numbers of mosquitoes, a susceptible population, and a high rate of mosquito-human contact,” explained lead author Rachel Lowe from the Catalan Institute of Climate Sciences in Barcelona, Spain. The researchers estimate little risk of dengue outbreaks during the forthcoming World Cup period in the southern and central capitals of Brasília, Cuiabá, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, and São Paulo. However, they predict that there is some chance of dengue risk exceeding medium levels in Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Salvador and Manaus. The three cities with the highest risk are Natal, Fortaleza, and Recife, although the risk still remains relatively low. |
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| From Page 7: Swiss voters reject $25-an-hour minimum wage By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Worried about upsetting Switzerland's strong economy or driving its high costs even higher, more than three-quarters of Swiss voters rejected a plan Sunday to create the world's highest minimum wage. About 76 percent of voters in the wealthy nation dismissed the proposal made by Swiss union SGB and backed by the Socialist and Green parties for a minimum wage of 22 Swiss francs ($25) per hour, final results showed. The clear rejection of the proposed minimum wage brings relief to business leaders worried the measure would have hurt competitiveness and damaged the Swiss workplace. "If the initiative had been accepted, without doubt that would have led to job cuts, particularly in remote and structurally weaker regions," Swiss Economy Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann said at a news conference. "The best remedy against poverty is work." Sunday's vote is the latest in a slew of initiatives being put to voters to try to address the widening income gap in the generally egalitarian country. Switzerland has some of the world's highest living costs and trade unions had sought in the balloting to require minimum salaries for workers that would total more than $53,000 annually. The median salary in the Alpine nation is now about $77,000, but pay is set by individual employment contracts or collective bargaining agreements. The minimum pay referendum was the third in Switzerland in the last 18 months to deal with the increasing gap between rich and poor people. Voters previously adopted restrictions on bonuses for corporate executives, but rejected controls that would have limited their salaries to no more 12 times that of the lowest paid workers. Switzerland's ruling Federal Council welcomed the defeat of the minimum wage plan sought by trade unions. Trade unions had proposed the higher minimum wage as a way of fighting poverty in a country that, by some measures, features the world's highest prices and most expensive cities. But opinion polls had indicated that most voters sided with the council and business leaders, who argued it would cost jobs and erode economic competitiveness, driving Switzerland's high costs even higher. The proposal would have eclipsed the existing highest minimum wages in force elsewhere in Europe. Switzerland has no minimum wage, but the median hourly wage is about 33 francs ($37) an hour. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which adjusts figures for spending power, lists the highest current minimum wage as Luxembourg's at $10.66 an hour, followed by France at $10.60, Australia at $10.21, Belgium at $9.97, and the Netherlands at $9.48. The U.S. wage, an adjusted $7.11 down from the actual $7.25 rate, came 10th on the list. |
