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National: White
House seeks sale of National Forest land for school funds
By JAMES W. BROSNAN - The Bush administration is proposing to
sell up to 307,000 acres of National Forest in 32 states to developers
to subsidize schools in timber country.
The Forest Service hopes to
generate $800 million over five years from the sale of isolated
parcels that are difficult for foresters to manage, said Mark
Rey, undersecretary of Agriculture for natural resources and
environment.
More than one-quarter of the
acres being considered for sale are in California, with 85,465
acres. Idaho is next with 26,194 acres followed by Colorado,
21,572 acres, and Missouri, 21,566 acres.
The Forest Service plans to
publish maps of the proposed sale areas on its Web site Feb.
28 and take comments on which ones to remove. - More...
Sunday - February 12, 2006
Science - Technology: Eel's
charge may be jolt to science of implants By SUE VORENBERG
- With its cells creating a living battery, the electric eel
has proved to be the perfect model for an experiment on how to
build tiny power sources for medical implants.
In the next five years, scientists
from New Mexico and other states hope to use the eel and other
creatures to help design a battery that could power such functions
as artificial retinas and kidneys.
"We're using nature as
a source of inspiration," said Susan Rempe, a scientist
at Sandia National Laboratories who is working on the project.
"We want to understand very carefully how nature accomplishes
these things." - More...
Sunday - February 12, 2006
Science - Technology: Do
iPod earbuds cause problems? By TIMOTHY MCNULTY - A federal
lawsuit filed against Apple Computer, paired with worries aired
by Who guitarist Pete Townshend and others, is once again raising
questions about permanent hearing damage from iPods and other
portable music devices.
The same hearing loss questions
sprouted after the Sony Walkman got big in the 1980s and before
that, portable boom boxes. The concerns have started again with
the iPod, due to its popularity (Apple sold an estimated 14 million
during the holiday shopping season) and because the white headphones
packaged with the device are "earbuds," which are inserted
directly into the ear. - More...
Sunday - February 12, 2006
National: Yahoo
reportedly supplid e-mails to authorities in 2003 By CARRIE
KIRBY - Chinese cyber-dissident in prison, according to advocacy
group Reporters Without Borders.
Li Zhi, a former civil servant,
began an eight-year sentence in 2003 after being convicted of
"inciting subversion" by posting online comments criticizing
local Chinese officials.
Yahoo's Hong Kong unit aided
in his conviction by providing Chinese authorities with copies
of e-mails Li had sent and information he provided when he registered
with Yahoo, according to a document published Sunday on Boxun.com,
a U.S. nonprofit group that posts Chinese news reports.
The document, which appears
to be a pleading entered by Li's attorney in an appeal on his
behalf in 2004, was submitted anonymously to Boxun.com, according
to Wei Shi, editor of the Web site. - More...
Sunday - February 12, 2006
Health - Fitness: Study:
Biopsies still key in detecting breast cancer By LEE BOWMAN
- Four common noninvasive follow-up tests for breast cancer are
not yet accurate enough to replace biopsies for women who have
abnormal results from a mammogram or physical exam, a new review
by government scientists concludes.
Health-care providers have
increasingly turned to the noninvasive tests - ultrasound, MRI,
PET scans and nuclear medicine scans - as an intermediate or
alternative screening technique when initial tests suggest the
possibility of breast cancer.
Only about one in five women
who currently get either a surgical or needle biopsy after an
abnormal mammogram or physical exam actually turns out to have
breast cancer, meaning that 80 percent go through those procedures
for what turns out to be no reason. - More...
Sunday - February 12, 2006
Health - Fitness: Cheeseburgers
or salads? The truth about fat By LEE BOWMAN - Aha, so a
low-fat diet is bunk and we can all just eat as we please again?
Well, not exactly.
Here are some questions and
answers about what the latest big diet study did and didn't tell
us, and why.
Q: Contradictory diet studies
always seem to be making news. One week something's good for
you, the next week it's bad. Is this study more significant than
most?
A: A lot of the buzz over the
data from the Women's Health Initiative studies published Wednesday
in The Journal of the American Medical Association came because
they were part of a big federal study that seems to contradict
conventional diet wisdom of the less fat, the better. - More...
Sunday - February 12, 2006
Health - Fitness: Low-fat
diet for older women: Less protection than assumed By LEE
BOWMAN - Older women who turn to a diet low in fats and high
in fruits, vegetables and grains don't generally lower the risk
of breast and colon cancers or heart disease, according to new
studies.
The three studies, published
Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association,
were done through the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), a 15-year
look at the causes and prevention of diseases affecting women
after menopause.
The studies included 48,835
American women, ages 50 to 79. Forty percent were randomly assigned
to go on a low-fat diet, with only 20 percent or less of their
daily calories coming from fat. The other women were not asked
to make any dietary changes. The dieting women were also asked
to eat five or more daily servings of fruits and vegetables and
six servings of grains. -
More...
Sunday - February 12, 2006
Business: The
office: Where romance reigns By MARY DEIBEL - Cupid is roaming
the cubicles in the 24/7 workplace without being roped in by
the boss, to judge by new surveys suggesting that most employers
don't forbid co-worker dating. Two Valentine's Day polls report
that:
- More than 70 percent of employers
don't have written policies against office dating on grounds
they see "no pressing need" and, among those who do,
just 9 percent ban office dating outright.
The e-mail survey of 493 employers
was taken by the Society of Human Resource Managers in conjunction
with an online worker survey by CareerJournal.com, the Wall Street
Journal workplace Web site.
Their poll also found 40 percent
of employees had an office romance sometime in their work lives.
- Fifty-four percent of men
and 40 percent of women are open to dating a co-worker, while
70 percent of men and 83 percent of women call dating the boss
a no-no, according to an Opinion Research Corp. poll of 4,000
singles for America Online. - More...
Sunday - February 12, 2006
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