Venture capitalists blurring green energy's red lines | Energy | News ...

It?s the kind of development that would leave environmentalists curled up in the fetal position: solar technology, funded by clean tech venture capitalists, being used to extract oil from aging wells. In the Middle East.

Instead of the perceived epic battle between renewables and fossil fuels, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs are discovering practical ways for traditional and alternative energy sectors to converge, collaborate and co-exist.

And its starkest example is California-based Glasspoint Solar Inc., backed by clean tech fund Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, which began working on old oilfields initially in California, and is now in Oman this month.

?We need to stop thinking about clean tech as a separate industry where a few tree-huggers are willing to pay a premium for a grid,? said Wal van Lierop, co-founder and CEO of Vancouver-based Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital. ?This is all about clean tech breaking through in the core business of very large companies.?

Mr. van Lierop?s $145-million fund was ranked among the world?s most active clean energy funds last year by Cleantech Group?s i3 Platform. But the fund is stretching the traditional boundaries of clean tech, which often ring-fenced itself from the oil and gas industry.

We need to stop thinking about clean tech as a separate industry where a few tree-huggers are willing to pay a premium for a grid

Not Chrysalix ? it even has an office in Calgary, and is funding Axine Water Technologies Inc., which hopes to solve Canadian oil and gas companies? wastewater issues via energy-efficient solutions.

Chrysalix?s occasional forays into fossil fuels could be because Mr. van Lierop was once the vice-president of a natural gas company in Canada or that the fund?s backers includes Royal Dutch Shell Plc. and Saudi petrochemicals giant Sabic Corp.

But the fund is certainly not alone in blurring the lines between traditional and renewable energy sources.

Private equity investors, who were previously insignificant players in U.S. oil and gas sector, poured about US$32-billion last year, from under US$10-billion for much of the past decade, according to management consultants PWC.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the world?s most active clean deal maker, has a stake in Chesapeake-backed Sundrop Fuels, which combines biomass with hydrogen from natural gas to create fuel, and in Luca Technologies Inc., which uses biotechnology to produce natural gas from hydrocarbon deposits.

Draper Fisher Jurvetson, another major clean tech investor, is an investor in Massachusetts-based CoalTek Inc., which claims to provide cleaner coal. Chyrsalix?s sister fund in Asia also features a coal company in its portfolio.

Khosla Ventures? ?sustainable? portfolio includes stakes in GreatPoint Energy, tasked with converting coal and other carbon-based feedstocks into pipeline quality natural gas, and Ciris Energy, which uses biotechnology to turn coal into natural gas.

Braemer Energy Ventures, another active clean tech VC, has investments in an Alberta-based company that offers bitumen-upgrading technology, apart from investments in Ciris and CoalTek.

?The lines are blurring?. There are those who say this is a justifiable thing to do because these fossil fields are a legitimate bridge fuel,? said Stephen Munro, a policy and international analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

?That?s the ideological fig leaf on the part of those who used to confine their investment to zero or low-carbon and now include oil and gas.?

There is also the need to make money.

?I don?t think that any of the large funds worldwide that have put money in clean tech has made significant money,? Mr. van?Lierop said.

The global clean tech sector saw US$40.6-billion in the first quarter of 2013, its weakest quarter since 2009, but Bloomberg?s Mr. Munro says the costs per unit of alternative energy have also fallen dramatically in recent years, which could skew the figures.

North American private sector and venture capitalists? changing perception is partially driven by the U.S. government?s ?all-of-the-above? energy policy, which happily juggles an oil-and-gas renaissance with focus on alternative energies.

Ernst Moinz, the newly inducted U.S. Energy Secretary, is seen as a supporter of nuclear energy and considers it an important part of the U.S. energy mix, which includes fracking-induced natural gas and renewables.

?We cannot be purists here,? Mr. van?Lierop said. ?I am very concerned about the environment. But I am also concerned about economic and social implications of the world that is developing over the next 20 years.?

Clean-tech growth and innovation is occurring ? but in traditional, larger companies.

?The reality is, oil and gas are here to stay. And if we can make them cleaner, I will give the world a significantly larger opportunity than if I invest in smart-metres in San Diego,??Mr. van?Lierop said.

Chrysalix will be visiting investors over the summer to raise anywhere between $150-million and $250-million. All said and done, the fund expects to generate three times the investment over a 10-year period.

The smart VC money is on to something. Bloomberg New Energy Finance data shows that even as overall investments fell, new venture capital and private equity investments in clean energy picked up to reach US$1.3-billion in the first quarter of 2013, compared to US$1.1-billion over the past few quarters.

Indeed, the clean tech industry is hardly doomed despite the high-profile collapses of flagship companies like Solyndra LLC and battery company A123 Systems Inc.

?A battery company going for an IPO ? are you kidding me? If that battery was doing wonderful things, players like Siemens, ABB and Panasonic would have bought it a long time ago.?

?We have seen in the past five years an arms race between large multinationals to pick up the best clean tech companies. And the ones that did an IPO were probably not good enough to be acquired.?

Despite technological advances that have re-enenergised the oil and gas industry in North America, the sector is not exactly off the hook.

Mr. van?Lierop recounts two separate, recent conversations with California Public Employees? Retirement System and California State teachers? Retirement ? two of California?s and the world?s largest pensions funds ? concerned about backing ?stranded assets? in traditional energy infrastructure such as pipelines, LNG plants and power plants.

?They said, ?We are getting very concerned about financing marginal projects in the traditional energy area, because in the next 20 years, way before the financing period ends, either through regulation or through innovation we may have to take a loss.??

The volatility is here to stay and so is the increasing convergence between clean tech and traditional energy.

?What we see is a phenomenal opportunity in clean tech ? in the traditional industries; be it all oil and gas, mining and forestry. As long as we can do it in a capital-light way,? Mr. van Lierop said.

Source: http://business.financialpost.com/2013/05/30/venture-capitalists-blurring-green-energys-red-lines/

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New single virus detection techniques for faster disease diagnosis

Public release date: 30-May-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Brielle Day
bday@osa.org
202-416-1435
The Optical Society

Researchers at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics describe optical techniques for counting individual viruses outside the lab

To test the severity of a viral infection, clinicians try to gauge how many viruses are packed into a certain volume of blood or other bodily fluid. This measurement, called viral load, helps doctors diagnose or monitor chronic viral diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis. However, the standard methods used for these tests are only able to estimate the number of viruses in a given volume of fluid. Now two independent teams have developed new optics-based methods for determining the exact viral load of a sample by counting individual virus particles. These new methods are faster and cheaper than standard tests and they offer the potential to conduct the measurements in a medical office or hospital instead of a laboratory. The teams will present their latest results at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO: 2013), to be held June 9-14, in San Jose, Calif.

One research group, led by electrical engineer and bioengineer Aydogan Ozcan of UCLA, is working to directly image single virus particles using holographic microscopy. The other, led by electrical engineer Holger Schmidt of the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), is detecting single particles tagged with fluorescent labels on a microfluidic chip. Both teams expect to use their work to develop commercial instruments useful for on-site diagnosis and monitoring with rapid results and fast turnaround.

Ozcan's UCLA team has demonstrated the ability to capture optical images of single viruses and nanoparticles over a comparatively large field of view about the size of a postage stamp using nanolenses that self-assemble around the virus particles like little magnifying glasses.

"Because viruses are very small--less than 100 billionths of a meter--compared to the wavelength of light, conventional light microscopy has difficulty producing an image due to weak scattering of sub-wavelength particles," Ozcan says. When lighted, the team's new nanolens-nanoparticle assembly projects a hologram that can be recorded using a CMOS imager chip (a type of semiconductor-based light detector) and digitally reconstructed to form an optical image of the particle. "The resulting image improves the field-of-view of a conventional optical microscope by two orders of magnitude," says Ozcan.

This wide field of view allows the device to form images of many nanoparticles in a single photograph and provides a high-throughput platform for a direct and accurate viral load count. The instrument can be made sufficiently compact and lightweight for field applications and, attached to a cell phone, could become useful even in remote locations.

The UCSC researchers will present the results of a collaborative effort between UCSC, Liquilume Diagnostics Inc., and the groups of infectious disease clinician and virologist Charles Chiu at University of California, San Francisco, and engineer Aaron Hawkins at Brigham Young. While Ozcan's group visually counts individual viruses, Schmidt's counts them by detecting their nucleic acids--the genetic makeup of the viruses. The nucleic acids are labeled with a fluorescent dye, and light from the fluorescence is detected as they pass through a channel in a microfluidic chip about the size of a thumbnail.

Current tests for determining viral load generally rely on a technique called polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which amplifies a small sample of nucleic acid, such as DNA, and makes it easier to detect. "The gold standard for viral load detection is PCR, due to its sensitivity and specificity," Schmidt says, but PCR is limited to merely estimating the number of viruses. In contrast, the new method counts real particles as they pass through the fluorescence detector on the chip. "We have demonstrated actual virus counts of specific nucleic acids in less than 30 minutes with minimal sample workup," Schmidt says. So far, the group has collected reliable data on samples diluted to a point well within the range required for clinical detection.

Unlike direct visualization techniques, Schmidt's chip-based method requires that the targeted virus particles be labeled. The labeling technique would allow clinicians to target specific viruses while ignoring unlabeled background material. This makes the process potentially useful in situations where clinicians already know what they are looking for often the case for viral load tests.

The chip is currently housed in an instrument about one foot square, making the device portable. Along with rapid analysis turnaround, this portability should make the technique useful for point-of-treatment tests. In addition to detecting viruses, the device may also find uses as a sensor for cancer biomarkers, for environmental analyses of chemicals, and even in industrial production monitoring.

###

CLEO: 2013 presentation AW1I.6. "High-throughput Imaging of Single Viruses using Self-assembled Nano-lenses and On-Chip Holography" by Aydogan Ozcan will take place Wednesday, June 12 at 12:15 p.m. in the San Jose Convention Center.

CLEO: 2013 presentation CM1M.7. "Clinical Detection of Viral Infection on an Optofluidic Chip" by Philip Measor will take place Monday, June 10 at 9:45 a.m. in the San Jose Convention Center.

EDITOR'S NOTE: High-resolution images are available upon request. Contact Brielle Day, bday@osa.org

Press Registration

A Press Room for credentialed press and analysts will be located on-site in the San Jose Convention Center, June 9 - 13. Media interested in attending the conference should register on the CLEO website or contact Brielle Day at 202.416.1435, bday@osa.org.

About CLEO

With a distinguished history as the industry's leading event on laser science, the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) is where laser technology was first introduced. CLEO unites the field of lasers and electro-optics by bringing together all aspects of laser technology, with content stemming from basic research to industry application. CLEO: Expo showcases the latest products and applications from more than 300 participating companies from around the world, providing hands-on demonstrations of the latest market innovations and applications. The Expo also offers valuable on-floor programming, including Market Focus and the Technology Transfer program.

Sponsored by the American Physical Society's (APS) Laser Science Division, the IEEE Photonics Society and the Optical Society (OSA), CLEO provides the full range of critical developments in the field, showcasing the most significant milestones from laboratory to marketplace. With an unparalleled breadth and depth of coverage, CLEO connects all of the critical vertical markets in lasers and electro-optics. For more information, visit the conference's website at http://www.cleoconference.org.

---

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?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 30-May-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Brielle Day
bday@osa.org
202-416-1435
The Optical Society

Researchers at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics describe optical techniques for counting individual viruses outside the lab

To test the severity of a viral infection, clinicians try to gauge how many viruses are packed into a certain volume of blood or other bodily fluid. This measurement, called viral load, helps doctors diagnose or monitor chronic viral diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis. However, the standard methods used for these tests are only able to estimate the number of viruses in a given volume of fluid. Now two independent teams have developed new optics-based methods for determining the exact viral load of a sample by counting individual virus particles. These new methods are faster and cheaper than standard tests and they offer the potential to conduct the measurements in a medical office or hospital instead of a laboratory. The teams will present their latest results at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO: 2013), to be held June 9-14, in San Jose, Calif.

One research group, led by electrical engineer and bioengineer Aydogan Ozcan of UCLA, is working to directly image single virus particles using holographic microscopy. The other, led by electrical engineer Holger Schmidt of the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), is detecting single particles tagged with fluorescent labels on a microfluidic chip. Both teams expect to use their work to develop commercial instruments useful for on-site diagnosis and monitoring with rapid results and fast turnaround.

Ozcan's UCLA team has demonstrated the ability to capture optical images of single viruses and nanoparticles over a comparatively large field of view about the size of a postage stamp using nanolenses that self-assemble around the virus particles like little magnifying glasses.

"Because viruses are very small--less than 100 billionths of a meter--compared to the wavelength of light, conventional light microscopy has difficulty producing an image due to weak scattering of sub-wavelength particles," Ozcan says. When lighted, the team's new nanolens-nanoparticle assembly projects a hologram that can be recorded using a CMOS imager chip (a type of semiconductor-based light detector) and digitally reconstructed to form an optical image of the particle. "The resulting image improves the field-of-view of a conventional optical microscope by two orders of magnitude," says Ozcan.

This wide field of view allows the device to form images of many nanoparticles in a single photograph and provides a high-throughput platform for a direct and accurate viral load count. The instrument can be made sufficiently compact and lightweight for field applications and, attached to a cell phone, could become useful even in remote locations.

The UCSC researchers will present the results of a collaborative effort between UCSC, Liquilume Diagnostics Inc., and the groups of infectious disease clinician and virologist Charles Chiu at University of California, San Francisco, and engineer Aaron Hawkins at Brigham Young. While Ozcan's group visually counts individual viruses, Schmidt's counts them by detecting their nucleic acids--the genetic makeup of the viruses. The nucleic acids are labeled with a fluorescent dye, and light from the fluorescence is detected as they pass through a channel in a microfluidic chip about the size of a thumbnail.

Current tests for determining viral load generally rely on a technique called polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which amplifies a small sample of nucleic acid, such as DNA, and makes it easier to detect. "The gold standard for viral load detection is PCR, due to its sensitivity and specificity," Schmidt says, but PCR is limited to merely estimating the number of viruses. In contrast, the new method counts real particles as they pass through the fluorescence detector on the chip. "We have demonstrated actual virus counts of specific nucleic acids in less than 30 minutes with minimal sample workup," Schmidt says. So far, the group has collected reliable data on samples diluted to a point well within the range required for clinical detection.

Unlike direct visualization techniques, Schmidt's chip-based method requires that the targeted virus particles be labeled. The labeling technique would allow clinicians to target specific viruses while ignoring unlabeled background material. This makes the process potentially useful in situations where clinicians already know what they are looking for often the case for viral load tests.

The chip is currently housed in an instrument about one foot square, making the device portable. Along with rapid analysis turnaround, this portability should make the technique useful for point-of-treatment tests. In addition to detecting viruses, the device may also find uses as a sensor for cancer biomarkers, for environmental analyses of chemicals, and even in industrial production monitoring.

###

CLEO: 2013 presentation AW1I.6. "High-throughput Imaging of Single Viruses using Self-assembled Nano-lenses and On-Chip Holography" by Aydogan Ozcan will take place Wednesday, June 12 at 12:15 p.m. in the San Jose Convention Center.

CLEO: 2013 presentation CM1M.7. "Clinical Detection of Viral Infection on an Optofluidic Chip" by Philip Measor will take place Monday, June 10 at 9:45 a.m. in the San Jose Convention Center.

EDITOR'S NOTE: High-resolution images are available upon request. Contact Brielle Day, bday@osa.org

Press Registration

A Press Room for credentialed press and analysts will be located on-site in the San Jose Convention Center, June 9 - 13. Media interested in attending the conference should register on the CLEO website or contact Brielle Day at 202.416.1435, bday@osa.org.

About CLEO

With a distinguished history as the industry's leading event on laser science, the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) is where laser technology was first introduced. CLEO unites the field of lasers and electro-optics by bringing together all aspects of laser technology, with content stemming from basic research to industry application. CLEO: Expo showcases the latest products and applications from more than 300 participating companies from around the world, providing hands-on demonstrations of the latest market innovations and applications. The Expo also offers valuable on-floor programming, including Market Focus and the Technology Transfer program.

Sponsored by the American Physical Society's (APS) Laser Science Division, the IEEE Photonics Society and the Optical Society (OSA), CLEO provides the full range of critical developments in the field, showcasing the most significant milestones from laboratory to marketplace. With an unparalleled breadth and depth of coverage, CLEO connects all of the critical vertical markets in lasers and electro-optics. For more information, visit the conference's website at http://www.cleoconference.org.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/tos-nsv053013.php

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Huge asteroid 2 miles wide to sails by Earth on Friday

A massive asteroid nearly 2 miles wide will zip by Earth on Friday (May 31), in a cosmic event that has grabbed the attention of stargazers, scientists and even White House officials. The asteroid poses no threat of hitting Earth during the flyby, NASA officials assure.

The huge asteroid 1998 QE2 is the size of nine cruise ships, about 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers) across, NASA scientists say. While the asteroid makes its closest approach to Earth on Friday, traveling within 3.6 million miles (5.8 million km), you don't have to wait that long to see it. NASA chief Charles Bolden will host live telescope views of the asteroid today (May 30) at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1739 GMT) during a one-hour broadcast from the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.?

You can watch the asteroid webcast live on SPACE.com courtesy of NASA. Later tonight, NASA will host a webchat about the asteroid with the agency's meteor expert William Cooke at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. That discussion begins at 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT) and can be accessed here:?http://www.nasa.gov/chat

Then on Friday (May 31), just hours before the asteroid flyby, the White House will host its own?asteroid-themed "We the Geeks" Google+ Hangout starting at 2 p.m. EDT.

The live video conference will bring together experts including Bill Nye the Science Guy, former astronaut Ed Lu, NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, and Peter Diamandis, co-founder of asteroid mining company Planetary Resources. To watch these experts talk about the identification, resource potential and threat of asteroids, you can visit the White House's Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/+whitehouse/

In its closest approach for at least the next two centuries, 1988 QE2 will whiz by at a harmless distance millions of miles from Earth.

The space rock was first discovered on Aug. 19, 1998, by MIT's Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) Program near Socorro, N.M. The moniker 1988 QE2 was assigned by the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., which names each newfound asteroid according to an established alphanumeric scheme that lays out when it was discovered.

Tempting as the connection may be, the space rock's name is not a nod to England's Queen Elizabeth II, or to the famous 12-deck ocean liner that was retired from service in 2008. But to give a sense of the asteroid's enormous scale, NASA officials pointed out that the QE2 asteroid is the size of nine QE2 cruise ships.

It's unlikely that an observer on the ground will be able to spot 1988 QE2 without the help of a telescope. Even from a location free of light pollution, the asteroid will be 100 times fainter than the dimmest star visible in the sky, according to the Slooh Space Telescope.

But there are several outlets where you can watch the flyby online.

Slooh, for one, will have a webcast of the approach starting at 4:30 p.m. EDT on Friday on its website Slooh.com. Starting at 4:00 p.m. EDT, astrophysicist Gianluca Masi will have a webcast from the Virtual Telescope in Italy: http://www.virtualtelescope.eu/webtv/. Both webcasts are also available to watch live on SPACE.com here.

NASA keeps a close watch on asteroids that could pose a potential threat to the planet, and President Barack Obama's 2014 federal budget request sought to ramp up those efforts by including funds to kick-start a new mission to capture a small asteroid and park it near the moon.

Earthlings were reminded of the danger of space rocks this past Feb. 15. On that day, skywatchers were waiting for an asteroid about half the size of a football field (2012 DA14) to pass by the planet at a distance of just 17,200 miles (27,000 kilometers). But hours before its closest approach, a different, 55-foot (17 m) object exploded without warning over Russia, damaging hundreds of buildings and injuring more than 1,000 people.

Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook?and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.?

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/huge-asteroid-1998-qe2-sails-earth-friday-133958512.html

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Are children who take Ritalin for ADHD at greater risk of future drug abuse?

May 29, 2013 ? UCLA research has shown that that children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder are far more likely than other kids to develop serious substance abuse problems as adolescents and adults. But do stimulant medications used to treat ADHD contribute to the risk?

UCLA psychologists have conducted the most comprehensive assessment ever on this question and have found that children with ADHD who take medications such as Ritalin and Adderall are at no greater risk of using alcohol, marijuana, nicotine or cocaine later in life than kids with ADHD who don't take these medications.

The psychologists analyzed 15 long-term studies, including data from three studies not yet published. These studies followed more than 2,500 children with ADHD from childhood into adolescence and young adulthood.

"We found the children were neither more likely nor less likely to develop alcohol and substance-use disorders as a result of being treated with stimulant medication," said Kathryn Humphreys, a doctoral candidate in UCLA's Department of Psychology and lead author of the study. "We found no association between the use of medication such as Ritalin and future abuse of alcohol, nicotine, marijuana and cocaine."

The children assessed in the studies, who had a mean age of 8 years old when the studies began and 20 at the most recent follow-up assessment, come from a broad geographical range, including California, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Germany and Canada. The research is published in the May 29 issue of the journal JAMA Psychiatry, a psychiatry research journal published by the American Medical Association.

What does this study mean for parents of children with ADHD?

"For any particular child, parents should consult with the prescribing physician about potential side effects and long-term risks," said Steve S. Lee, a UCLA associate professor of psychology and senior author of the study. "Saying that all parents need not be concerned about the use of stimulant medication for their children is an overstatement; parents should have the conversation with the physician. As with other medications, there are potential side effects, and the patient should be carefully evaluated to, for example, determine the proper dosage."

"For parents whose major concern about Ritalin and Adderall is about the future risk for substance abuse, this study may be helpful to them," Humphreys said. "We found that on average, their child is at no more or less at risk for later substance dependence. This does not apply to every child but does apply on average. However, later substance use is usually not the only factor parents think about when they are choosing treatment for their child's ADHD."

Ritalin is associated with certain side effects, such as suppressing appetite, disrupting sleep and changes in weight, Lee said.

Lee, Humphreys and their colleagues reported in 2011 that children with ADHD are two to three times more likely than children without the disorder to develop serious substance-abuse problems in adolescence and adulthood, including the use of nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and other drugs. This new study does not challenge that finding but finds that, on average, children who take stimulant medication for ADHD are not at additional risk for future substance abuse.

"The majority of children with ADHD -- at least two-thirds -- show significant problems academically, in social relationships, and with anxiety and depression when you follow them into adolescence," Lee said.

As the individuals in the studies get older, researchers will be able to study the rate at which they graduate from college, get married, have children and/or get divorced and to assess how well they function, Humphreys said.

ADHD occurs in approximately 5 percent to 10 percent of children in the U.S., and figures in many other industrialized countries with compulsory education are comparable, according to Lee. ADHD is about three to three-and-a-half more prevalent in boys than girls, he said.

Symptoms of the disorder include being easily distracted, fidgeting, being unable to complete a single task and being easily bored. However, to receive a diagnosis of ADHD by a child psychologist or psychiatrist, a child must have at least six of nine symptoms of either hyperactivity or inattention, the child's behavior must be causing problems in his or her life, and the symptoms must not be explainable by any medical condition or any other mental disorder.

Children can be hyperactive, distracted and inattentive for a variety of reasons, Lee said, not only because of ADHD but also because some of them are abused, malnourished, depressed or have impaired vision, Lee said.

Many more children meet the criteria for ADHD than are being treated for it, and many children may benefit from treatment who are not receiving it, Lee and Humphreys said.

Lee's laboratory is conducting a study of 230 children, both with and without ADHD, who were 6 to 9 years old at the beginning of the research and are now 10 to 13, to identify predictors of early and problematic alcohol use. That research is federally funded by the National Institutes of Health.

As children with ADHD enter adolescence and adulthood, they typically fall into three groups of roughly equal size, Lee said: one-third will have significant problems in school and socially; one-third will have moderate impairment; and one-third will exhibit only mild impairment.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/kKMdGxhW_5M/130529191039.htm

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First coronavirus sufferer in France dies in hospital

By Pierre Savary

LILLE, France (Reuters) - The first person to fall ill in France with the new SARS-like coronavirus, a 65-year-old man who had been travelling in Dubai, has died in hospital from the illness, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

Health Minister Marisol Touraine sent her condolences to the family of the man, whose death in the northern French city of Lille brings to 23 the number of people killed worldwide by the new virus.

The man was diagnosed with the new virus strain, known as nCoV, on May 8, after being admitted to hospital on April 23, shortly after his return from Dubai, with what seemed at first to be a severe stomach bug and breathing problems.

A second man, aged 50, is critically ill with the virus in the same hospital. The two men had shared a ward in April at a different hospital.

While there is little evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission of the novel virus, which can cause coughing, fever and pneumonia, health experts are concerned about clustering as it has spread from the Gulf to France, Britain and Germany.

The nCoV is from the same viral family that triggered the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that swept the world in late 2003 and killed 775 people.

French health officials have screened dozens of people who had come into contact with the two carriers in Lille.

(Writing by Catherine Bremer; Editing by Mark John)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-sufferer-dies-france-hospital-source-131535617.html

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Letters to Bloomberg test positive for ricin

Initial tests show letters sent to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his group Mayors Against Illegal Guns contained the lethal poison ricin. In addition to the ricin, the letters carried threats against the mayor and referenced the gun control debate.?

By Staff,?Reuters / May 29, 2013

In this file photo, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks at a gun violence summit at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. Two recent letters addressed to Bloomberg contained traces of the poison ricin and threats referencing the debate on gun laws.

AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File

Enlarge

Two anonymous letters addressed to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his gun control group contained material believed to be the deadly poison ricin, and referenced the debate on gun laws, police said on Wednesday.

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The New York Police Department said initial tests on the two letters, opened in New York on Friday and in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, indicated the presence of ricin.

"In both letters the content was identical," police spokesman Paul Browne said, adding that the packages contained "an oily substance" that was a pink or orange hue. "One letter was addressed to the mayor personally."

Emergency workers who came in contact with the letters initially showed minor symptoms of ricin?exposure, the police said. Those symptoms have since abated. Civilian personnel in New York and Washington who came in contact with the opened letters showed no symptoms of ricin?exposure.

The Washington letter was opened by Mark Glaze, the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group founded by Bloomberg that lobbies for stricter gun laws. The other letter was opened at a mail facility in Manhattan.

Both contained threats against Bloomberg and mentioned the gun debate, police said in a statement.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns was founded in 2006, but the group's profile has been raised since the Dec. 14 shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 20 children and six adults.

After that shooting, the group campaigned for bills that would expand the use of background checks for gun purchases and ban assault weapons, though both of those efforts were unsuccessful.

The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force and the NYPD Intelligence Division were investigating the incident.

The discovery of the letters comes just weeks after ricin-tainted letters were mailed to President Barack Obama and other government officials. James Everett Dutschke, 41, a martial arts instructor, was arrested in Tupelo, Mississippi, on April 27 on suspicion of mailing those letters.

Browne said previous letters sent to the mayor have tested positive for anthrax, though in most cases letters "with threats implying it was anthrax or ricin" contained only baking soda.

Ricin is a lethal poison found naturally in castor beans, but it takes a deliberate act to convert it into a biological weapon. Ricin?can cause death within 36 to 72 hours from exposure to an amount as small as a pinhead. No known antidote exists.

(Reporting by Edith Honan and Chris Francescani; Editing by Scott Malone, Paul Thomasch and Eric Beech)

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/IM52yO9tfm8/Letters-to-Bloomberg-test-positive-for-ricin

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Novel class of drugs for prostate cancers

May 28, 2013 ? A new study on prostate cancer describes a novel class of drugs developed by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers that interrupts critical signaling needed for prostate cancer cells to grow.

In men with advanced prostate cancer, growth of cancer cells depends on androgen receptor signaling, which is driven by androgens, such as testosterone. To thwart tumor growth, most patients with advanced prostate cancer receive drugs that block the production of androgen or block the receptor where the androgen binds. Unfortunately, such treatments invariably fail and patients die of prostate cancer with their androgen receptor signaling still active and still promoting tumor growth.

In the new study, available online at Nature Communications, a team of researchers led by Dr. Ganesh Raj, associate professor of urology at UT Southwestern, found that they could disrupt androgen receptor signaling using a novel class of drugs called peptidomimetics. This therapeutic agent consists of an engineered small protein-like chain designed to mimic peptides that are critical for androgen receptor function. The peptidomimetic agents block the activity of the androgen receptor even in the presence of androgen by attacking the protein in a different spot from where the androgen binds.

"We are hopeful that this novel class of drugs will shut down androgen receptor signaling and lead to added options and increased longevity for men with advanced prostate cancer," said Dr. Raj, the senior author of the study.

Dr. Raj compared the action that takes place to a lock and key mechanism. In prostate cancer, the androgen receptor (lock) is activated by the androgen (key) resulting in a signal that causes prostate cancer proliferation. In advanced prostate cancer, despite drugs targeting either the lock (androgen receptor) or the key (androgen production), there can be aberrant keys that open the lock or mutated locks that are always open, resulting in cancer cell proliferation. Instead of trying to block the lock or the key, peptidomimetics uncouple the lock and key mechanism from the proliferation signal. Thus, even with the androgen receptor activated, the prostate cancer cells do not receive the signal to proliferate and do not grow.

The researchers tested their drug in mouse and human tissue models. The novel drug proved non-toxic and prevented androgen receptor signaling in cancer cells. The response is highly promising and suggests that peptidomimetic targeting of prostate cancer may be a viable therapeutic approach for men with advanced disease.

Further testing is needed before a drug could move to Phase 1 clinical trials that involve human participants.

"Most drugs now available to treat advanced prostate cancer improve survival rates by three or four months," Dr. Raj said. "Our new agents may offer hope for men who fail with the current drugs."

These findings represent the development of a first-in-class agent targeting critical interactions between proteins. Other cellular and disease processes eventually could also be targeted with peptidomimetics, the scientists said.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/dhDY2E9EThE/130528122514.htm

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PFT: Raiders' Hayden in hospital with abdomen issue

Getty Images

Once, voluntary offseason workouts actually were voluntary.? At some point, however, these practices became ?voluntary? in name only.

But the NFL and its 32 teams still use the label.? Which makes it refreshing when a player chooses to take advantage of that outdated description.

In Philadelphia, newly-signed cornerback Cary Williams has opted not to show up for optional practices, arriving only recently.? And when he showed up, Williams ended up not in the starting lineup.

?That?s what Coach [Chip Kelly] wants, that?s what he?s doing, and that?s fine with me,? Williams said, via Zach Berman of the Philadelphia Inquirer.? ?It?s just one of those things where I missed a couple of weeks, guys have been here, and Coach has given them an opportunity.? And that?s fine.? OTAs are OTAs. ?When we get the pads on, it?s a different thing.?

Per Berman, Kelly attributed Williams? absence from the first week of OTAs to his wedding and honeymoon.? Williams, however, said he had other issues to deal with, including building a house and dental work.

?Just because it was OTAs doesn?t mean I need to derail my plans for a situation like that,? Williams said. ?Not being disrespectful.? Everybody has their own personal life and things to take care of.? And in my life, I have something to take care of, and I felt that was important. . . . As far as I?m concerned, I did what was more important to me at the time, and family is the most important thing.?

The problem for Williams and anyone else who misses offseason practice ? for whatever reason ? comes from the possible creation of a gap that may never be bridged.? Last year, for example, Rams second-round running back Isaiah Pead fell behind due to the outdated rule that prevents players from joining offseason workouts until their colleges complete final exams.? Pead landed behind seventh-rounder Daryl Richardson on the depth chart, and Pead never was able to pass him.

While Williams is confident that ?the cream will rise to the top? once padded practices begin in training camp, there are now fewer opportunities for that to happen, because there are fewer padded practices.? It can happen for Williams or anyone else who misses offseason workouts, but he?s taking a calculated risk that he won?t be able to unseat someone who chose to show up for voluntary practices.

That?s Williams? prerogative.? And as long as the NFL continues to try to call these practices ?voluntary,? we support anyone who chooses to stay home ? as long as he realizes that it could in some cases mean staying on the sidelines come September.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/05/28/d-j-hayden-had-scar-tissue-removed-from-abdomen/related/

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Derailment, blast near Baltimore rattles homes

A fire burns at the site of a CSX freight train derailment, Tuesday, May 28, 2013, in White Marsh, Md., where fire officials say the train crashed into a trash truck, causing an explosion that rattled homes at least a half-mile away and collapsed nearby buildings, setting them on fire. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

A fire burns at the site of a CSX freight train derailment, Tuesday, May 28, 2013, in White Marsh, Md., where fire officials say the train crashed into a trash truck, causing an explosion that rattled homes at least a half-mile away and collapsed nearby buildings, setting them on fire. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

This still taken from video provided by James LeBrun shows an explosion outside Baltimore on Tuesday, May, 28, 2013. Baltimore County fire officials say a train derailed in a Baltimore suburb on Tuesday and an explosion was heard in the area. A fire spokeswoman says the train derailed about 2 p.m. Tuesday in White Marsh, Md. (AP Photo/James LeBrun)

A fire burns at the site of a CSX freight train derailment, Tuesday, May 28, 2013, in White Marsh, Md., where fire officials say the train crashed into a trash truck, causing an explosion that rattled homes at least a half-mile away and collapsed nearby buildings, setting them on fire. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

A fire burns at the site of a CSX freight train derailment, Tuesday, May 28, 2013, in White Marsh, Md., where fire officials say the train crashed into a trash truck, causing an explosion that rattled homes at least a half-mile away and collapsed nearby buildings, setting them on fire. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

This image provided by WBAL-TV, shows a train derailment outside Baltimore on Tuesday, May, 28, 2013. A fire spokeswoman says the train derailed about 2 p.m. Tuesday in White Marsh, Md. (AP Photo/WBAL-TV) MANDATORY CREDIT

ROSEDALE, Md. (AP) ? A CSX freight train crashed into a trash truck, derailed and caught fire Tuesday in a Baltimore suburb, setting off an explosion that rattled homes at least a half-mile away and sent a plume of smoke into the air that could be seen for miles.

In the third serious derailment this month, the dozen or so rail cars, at least one carrying hazardous materials, went off the tracks at about 2 p.m. in Rosedale, a suburb east of Baltimore. A hazardous materials team responded, but Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz said at a news conference that no toxic inhalants were being released. Officials did not order an evacuation.

By nightfall, the hazmat team had left, meaning there was no more danger posed from the chemicals in the rail car, said Baltimore County police Capt. Bruce Schultz.

The truck driver, 50-year-old John J. Alban Jr., was in serious condition Tuesday night, a hospital spokeswoman said. Two CSX workers aboard weren't hurt.

Dale Walston said he lives about a half-mile away and that he thought he could smell chemicals.

"It shook my house pretty violently and knocked things off the shelves," he said in an email to The Associated Press.

The face of one warehouse near the train tracks was blown off.

Even hours after the blast, the thick plume of black smoke could be seen for miles and had drifted and covered the eastern part of Baltimore. Later, the smoke that was left had lightened considerably, changing from black to gray, though the fire wasn't yet extinguished as of 9 p.m.

CSX spokesman Gary Sease said in an email that one of the cars was carrying sodium chlorate, which the Department of Transportation classifies as a hazardous material. However, Baltimore County Fire Chief John Hohman said the chemical was not in any of the cars that were still burning into the evening. The bleaching agent is used in making paper.

Nick Materer, an Oklahoma State University chemist, said sodium chlorate, when combined with fuel, makes a more volatile mixture. "When you mix them together and add fire, they go boom," he said in a phone interview.

Materer said the chemical is usually shipped as a white powder but it can also be in a liquid solution. Either way, he said, the fumes can irritate the lungs if inhaled.

Exactly what triggered the explosion was being investigated, and Hohman said firefighters told residents of about 70 nearby homes that they could leave if they wanted to and shelter would be provided.

Two warehouses were heavily damaged by the explosion and other buildings were harmed, but none collapsed, as was thought earlier, Hohman said.

An Amtrak spokeswoman said its Northeast Corridor passenger service was not affected.

Kevin Lindemann, 29, a salesman for industrial pipe supplier Baltimore Windustrial near the tracks, said he and about 10 co-workers felt the ground shake, ran to a window and saw several cars on their sides and flames he estimated at 50 feet high.

"You could feel the heat as soon as you walked out the door," Lindemann said.

"We kind of panicked pretty quick," he said. "We didn't wait around to see what was happening. So as soon as we saw the flames I took a quick picture and got in my truck and drove away."

Everyone left the building and drove several blocks away. Then they heard the explosion, five to 10 minutes after the derailment, he said.

"Even like three blocks away, it was loud. I mean, it just about took you to your knees," Lindemann said.

Derailments have done great damage before in Baltimore, a city with countless train tracks. Twelve years ago was the derailment and chemical fire in Baltimore's Howard Street tunnel. Rail cars burned for five days underground in July 2001. Portions of downtown were closed and rail traffic across the U.S. was affected for days.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Railroad Administration were sending teams to investigate Tuesday's crash of the 45-car train en route from Selkirk, N.Y., to Waycross, Ga. It contained a variety of products from lumber to printing paper.

Police also planned to investigate the circumstances that led to the track collision, but it was not clear what, if any, charges the truck driver or anyone would face, said Baltimore County spokeswoman Elise Armacost. Police and fire officials said they were not sure how the truck got on the tracks or even whether it was at a crossing when it was hit.

Late Tuesday evening, Robert Sumwalt of the National Transportation Safety Board said the accident occurred at a private crossing where the only marking was a stop sign. He said it wasn't clear why the truck was crossing the tracks or whether it was authorized to be there.

Sumwalt said a team of 15 NTSB investigators was on the scene and would likely remain there for up to a week.

Photos showed at least a dozen rail cars off the tracks, including at least one tanker car. Sease said four of the cars believed derailed carried terephthalic acid, which is used in the production of plastics and polyester, among other things. He said it is not listed as a hazardous material.

Sumwalt said it was the chemical that exploded as a result of the derailment.

One of the cars still burning was carrying that acid, and another was carrying fluoroacetic acid, Hohman said.

Although county officials played down the health risks of the two acids, the National Institutes of Health website describes fluoroacetic acid as an "extremely toxic" constituent of many poisonous plants that is used to make products that kill rodents. It produces poisonous gases when burned, according to the NIH.

Materer said the gases contain chlorinated organics. He was less familiar with terephthalic acid but said it, too, contains chlorine.

"It just doesn't sound good," he said.

Hazardous materials moving through Baltimore and elsewhere in Maryland was the subject of an agreement a few years ago between the state and CSX. After a freight train with hazardous materials derailed in November 2007 near Camden Yards, CSX agreed to give officials real-time information about potential harmful cargo moving through the state. Railroads had previously guarded such details as proprietary information.

Also hit by a serious derailment this month was Bridgeport, Conn. On May 17, more than 70 people were injured when a commuter train went off the tracks. The eastbound train from New York City derailed during evening rush hour, came to a stop and was struck about 20 seconds later by a westbound train. In Rockview, Mo., on Saturday, a cargo train crash injured seven people and destroyed a highway overpass, which could take a year to repair.

Despite the high-profile railroad accidents, the overall number of such crashes has been declining industry wide and for CSX over the past decade.

Last year was the safest year on record for the railroad industry, according to the railroad administration. All train accidents are down 43 percent since 2003, and derailments have fallen 40 percent over the same period, according to data provided by the administration. Freight train derailments specifically are also down 40 percent.

In each of the past five years, CSX has reported more than 100 deaths in accidents and incidents involving the railroad.

CSX, based in Jacksonville, Fla., operates over 21,000 miles of track in 23 eastern states and two Canadian provinces.

Its shares traded higher Tuesday before the derailment was reported. The shares closed down 20 cents at $25.30.

Bertha Pressley and her husband Tom Brown said their townhome in Middle River, about 3 miles away, shook and they initially feared a bomb or natural disaster.

"I thought it was terrorism," Pressley said.

___

Associated Press writers Kasey Jones in Baltimore, David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Josh Funk in Omaha, Neb., and Joan Lowy in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-05-28-Train%20Derailment-Maryland/id-0737606efcf842ecaad8ba326be63a55

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Cancer drug underdosing report due out in summer

Hamilton Spectator
5/28/2013

In the wake of the underdosing controversy, the expert investigating the situation for the province says the need for oversight should extend beyond licensing. ?

Dr. Jake Thiessen was selected by the Health Minsitry to investigate the underdosing of chemotherapy drugs in Ontario. ?

He says there should be not only licensing standards, but also specific requirements for education and experience for the companies that pre mix drugs for hospitals.? ?

Marchese Hospital Solutions of Hamilton prepared the drug-and-saline mixture that was supplied to four hospitals in Ontario and one in New Brunswick.

The governing Ontario Liberals brought in rules May 15th to close the gap in oversight for companies that mix drugs for hospitals.

The institutions can only purchase drugs from accredited, licensed or otherwise approved suppliers.

Thiessen's full report will be presented to Health Minister Deb Matthews July 12th and she has promised to make it public.?

Source: http://www.900chml.com/Channels/Reg/NewsLocalGeneral/Story.aspx?ID=1970838

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Kenyan legislators vote to increase their own pay

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) ? Kenyan members of parliament voted Tuesday to overturn a directive that had reduced their pay, hoping it will force the government to pay the higher salaries earned by legislators in the previous parliament.

The legislators' pay was slashed from $126,000 to $78,000 earlier this year by a government commission which said the country's wage bill was too high.

The Salaries and Remuneration Commission had also argued that although Kenya was among the world's poorer economies its legislators were earning more than French legislators.

Kenya adopted a new constitution in 2010 which intended to remove the parliamentarians' powers to set their own pay, instead giving the remuneration commission power to determine pay for all public servants, including the president.

Earlier this year, the commission cut the president's annual pay from around $340,000 to $185,000.

The minimum wage in Nairobi is about $1,500 a year but many here live on even less.

But the parliamentarians got around the commission's cuts by voting to overrule the pay cut.

In a well-attended session of parliament Tuesday the MPs unanimously voted to remove the directive reducing their salaries and then many walked out following the vote, even though there were other important reports and motions to be discussed.

Eric Mutua, the chairman of the Law Society of Kenya, said his organization will challenge the legislators' attempts to disregard the commission's directive in court.

Mutua is seeking directives from the court on whether parliament has the power to overturn the directive by the salaries commission.

Mutua said that the new constitution prevents parliamentarians from passing legislation which affects their own interests.

He said even though parliament had voted to remove the directive it did mean the government was obliged to pay them their previous salaries.

Many Kenyans see their legislators as lazy and greedy in a country where hundreds of thousands live in slums. Legislators often argue that they need high salaries to give hand-outs to poor constituents for school fees and hospital bills.

The efforts by the members of parliament to raise their salaries have sparked public protests including one earlier this month in which pigs were released outside the main entrance of parliament to signify the parliamentarians' greed. Nearly three dozen piglets were released and animal blood spilled earlier this month at an entrance to Kenya's parliament as civil society activists protested what they called parliament's greedy salary demands.

About 250 people carrying placards and banners marched through Nairobi's city center and staged a sit-in at the legislators' entrance to parliament.

"Don't like the pay? Quit!" one of the placards read. Demonstrators repeatedly shouted "thieves."

The decision to reduce the pay for legislators came after a public outcry as the previous parliament whose term ended in January, attempted to raise their salaries to $175,000 annually and award themselves a $110,000 bonus at the end of their terms.

The salaries commission says Kenya can't afford the bill for government salaries, especially since the country elected 47 new governors and 67 new senators in March. The parliament expanded from 222 to 349 members.

When newly elected President Uhuru Kenyatta opened parliament mid-April he told legislators that the bill for government salaries came to 12 percent of GDP, above the internationally accepted level of 7 percent. Kenyatta said 50 percent of revenue collected by government went to pay government salaries.

Kenyatta recently urged the MPs to grow the economy before they demand salary hikes.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kenyan-legislators-vote-increase-own-pay-190012798.html

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?All of the Above? Energy Policy Must Be Weighted by Common Sense

An Oft-Used Energy Slogan

Last week, Real Clear Politics and API hosted an energy summit in Washington, DC entitled, ?Fueling America?s Future?. It was intended to provide a quick overview of most of the key technologies and issues associated with an all-of-the-above energy strategy for the United States. Going through the highlights of the webcast gives me an opportunity to introduce my point of view to a new audience at Energy Trends Insider. I?d sum that up as ?All of the Above?, with asterisks for the proportions and situations that make sense.

This slogan, at least in the manner in which it has been espoused by politicians in both parties, has attracted fair criticism for being overly bland and safe. I suspect that critique reflects a general sense that our energy mix has always been composed of all of the above, or all of the technologies that were sufficiently proven and economic to contribute at scale at any point in time. However, as both our technology options and choice criteria expand, our understanding of the evolving energy mix is hampered by metrics and assumptions that are overdue to be revisited.

The summit?s first panel examined the technologies of the mix, in a ?lightning-round? format of five minutes apiece. The panel covered oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear and renewables, led by wind power.

Wind Power Capacity vs. Generation

The interim CEO of the main US wind energy trade association, AWEA, cited his industry?s progress in reducing the technology?s cost, increasing the domestic content in its US value chain from 25% to 67%, and expanding its market penetration. Mr. Gramlich was also surprisingly forthright about wind power?s continued dependence on federal subsidies, a point to which I?ll return in future posts.

He began with a statistic that wind power was #1 in new US electric generation capacity last year. This is more than just a talking point, but it calls for some refinement if we?re to see an accurate picture of the changing US electricity mix. When most generating facilities operated within a narrow band of expected utilization, say 60%-80% of the time, comparing their nameplate capacities like this was satisfactory. Exceptions such as ?peaking? gas turbines that only operate a few dozen or hundred hours a year were never the recipients of targeted government incentives.

Now, however, our energy mix includes technologies with effective utilization rates, or ?capacity factors?, ranging from as low as 10% for solar photovoltaic (PV) installations in cloudy northern locations, to roughly 90% for nuclear power. Wind comes in around 20-35%, depending on site and turbine size. In terms of their likely annual power generation, new natural gas facilities actually led new wind farms by roughly 2:1 last year.

Natural Gas, Bridge Or Foundation?

Given the enormous and largely unanticipated natural gas renaissance in the US, that shouldn?t surprise anyone. In my first blog post over nine years ago I posed a series of questions, including whether we were on the verge of an energy technology breakthrough. I had in mind something involving renewable or nuclear energy, energy storage, or vehicle technology. The shale gas revolution?was already starting to emerge from obscurity, but I, along with most other energy experts at the time, remained oblivious to it.

The new head of the American Natural Gas Alliance described gas as clean, abundant and affordable. At least the last two points should be uncontroversial by now, backed up by market prices and resource assessments. We tend to think of gas as a bridge fuel to a lower emission future, but I think we?ll increasingly hear it called a ?foundation fuel,? as Mr. Durbin did.

Solar Power?s Growing Pains

The spokesman from the Solar Energy Industries Association accurately referred to solar as our fastest growing energy source, though he didn?t explain how it would grow from 0.1% of US generation last year to more than 1% by next year. He alluded to a plausible inflection point based on policy and innovation, but his enthusiasm that solar was expanding rapidly outside California and the Southwest ought to worry us.

Until PV prices fall much lower than they have, a surge of installations in places like Vermont and Wisconsin means that taxpayers and ratepayers are paying more than they should to make that happen. And the global competition and ?survival of the fittest? he touted has mainly resulted, not from capitalism, but from dueling government incentives for solar, especially in Europe and Asia. I?m much more positive about solar than the above might suggest, but like other renewables, it will cost less and achieve more for us in locations with high-quality resources.

Oil Output Expands But Loses Market Share

The discussion on oil was more globally focused, based on BP?s forecasts and annual Statistical Review. Contrary to the widespread view of oil?s continued dominance, it has been losing market share over the last 40 years ? including the last 13 years in a row ? and stands at its lowest market share in the US since at least World War II.

The representative from BP linked this performance to oil?s concentration in transportation fuel, where it has been squeezed out by efficiency, low economic growth (and to some extent biofuels, which got short shrift in the session). At the same time, the growth of North American production, another dividend of the shale revolution, puts increasing pressure on OPEC. I?ll come back to this dynamic in future posts.

The Forgotten Renewable

Wind and solar aren?t the only, or even the biggest, renewables, despite the attention they receive. I was glad to see hydropower?often the forgotten renewable?represented on the panel, though I was disappointed by the absence of geothermal power. Both are more geographically constrained, yet have features that wind and solar could only wish for.

Hydro generated nearly 7% of US electricity last year from just 3% of US dams, with significant potential for growth through retrofitting unpowered dams. The Executive Director of the National Hydropower Association quoted Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), the new chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, as saying, ?Hydro is back.? That could prompt some interesting discussions.

Coal: Decline Or Resilience?

I?m glad I wasn?t there representing coal, which must surely be the least loved energy source today. It continues to grow globally, with US coal exports playing a role, but the domestic US story is a ?decline narrative? as the VP of the National Mining Association described it. He managed to find a note of optimism in the more efficient coal power fleet that will remain after 68,000 MW of old capacity retires by 2020, under pressure from various regulations and competition from natural gas.

Unfortunately, efficiency alone isn?t sufficient. From my perspective, carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is the key to reconciling coal?s convenience and low energy cost with its high emissions. CCS wasn?t mentioned by name, but was only alluded to as ?technology that does not exist.? That dismisses it too lightly, as I?ll explain when time permits.

Nuclear

The head of government affairs for the Nuclear Energy Institute spoke last in the lightning round on technology. (The subsequent panel on energy issues is worth your time, too.) He emphasized nuclear?s anchor role in the US electricity mix, with 12% of US generating capacity contributing around 20% of the electricity supply at a cost of 2? per kilowatt-hour (kWh).

Yet despite five new reactors under construction and a wave of license extensions, post-Fukushima the center of the nuclear industry is shifting to places like China and India. 66 reactors are under construction outside the US, mainly in the developing world, because that?s where demand is growing.

Conclusion

I?ve worked in various aspects of energy for more than 30 years, and for much of that time our energy mix and the forces that drive it have been in a state of flux. With that in mind, my recipe for ?all of the above? ?starts with what we have now, recognizes the?inertia of existing fleets and infrastructure, and evolves as costs shift and our emphasis on environmental consequences grows.

Wind and especially solar will grow, but will add the most value when used with, rather than against the grain of their limitations. Nor will energy storage turn them into reliable, baseload energy sources like nuclear and coal, at least until it is much cheaper.

The US natural gas opportunity looks transformative in a way that renewables don?t, yet, with value well beyond power generation. Coal will linger, but without effective CCS will remain vulnerable from many angles.

Meanwhile, oil remains the indispensable fuel for transportation, which is the cornerstone of our global economy. Yet its indispensability will erode in increments each year, as EVs eventually grow from novelty to significance and new biofuels start to emulate oil?s trump cards of convenience and energy density. It?s a great time to be talking about energy, as it has been for the last nine years.

Source: http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/2013/05/28/all-of-the-above-energy-policy-must-be-weighted-by-common-sense/

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Medical pot laws & treats may send more kids to ER

CHICAGO (AP) ? Increased use of medical marijuana may lead to more young children getting sick from accidentally eating food made with the drug, a Colorado study suggests.

Medical marijuana items include yummy-looking gummy candies, cookies and other treats that may entice young children. Fourteen children were treated at Colorado Children's Hospital in the two years after a 2009 federal policy change led to a surge in medical marijuana use, the study found. That's when federal authorities said they would not prosecute legal users.

Study cases were mostly mild, but parents should know about potential risks and keep the products out of reach, said lead author Dr. George Sam Wang, an emergency room physician at the hospital.

Unusual drowsiness and unsteady walking were among the symptoms. One child, a 5-year-old boy, had trouble breathing. Eight children were hospitalized, two in the intensive care unit, though all recovered within a few days, Wang said. By contrast, in four years preceding the policy change, the Denver-area hospital had no such cases.

Some children came in laughing, glassy-eyed or "acting a little goofy and 'off,'" Wang said. Many had eaten medical marijuana food items, although nonmedical marijuana was involved in at least three cases. The children were younger than 12 and included an 8-month-old boy.

The study was released Monday in JAMA Pediatrics.

Eighteen states and Washington, D.C., allow medical marijuana, though it remains illegal under federal law. Colorado's law dates to 2000 but the study notes that use there soared after the 2009 policy change on prosecution. Last year, Colorado and Washington state legalized adult possession of small amounts of nonmedical marijuana.

Some states, including Colorado, allow medical marijuana use by sick kids, with parents' supervision.

In a journal editorial, two Seattle poisoning specialists say that at least seven more states are considering legalizing medical marijuana and that laws that expand marijuana use likely will lead to more children sickened.

Also on Yahoo! News:?

___

Online:

JAMA Pediatrics: http://www.jamapeds.com

Medical marijuana: http://tinyurl.com/o2cu3be

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/medical-pot-laws-treats-may-send-more-kids-202405747.html

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McCain Meets With Rebels in Syria (ABC News)

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U.S. report says major weapons designs compromised by Chinese

WASHINGTON/CANBERRA (Reuters) - Designs for more than two dozen major U.S. weapons systems have been compromised by Chinese hackers, a U.S. report said on Monday, as a news report in Australia said Chinese hackers had stolen the blueprints for Australia's new spy headquarters.

Citing a report prepared for the Defense Department by the Defense Science Board, the Washington Post reported that compromised U.S. designs included combat aircraft and ships, as well as missile defenses vital for Europe, Asia and the Gulf.

Among the weapons listed in the report were the advanced Patriot missile system, the Navy's Aegis ballistic missile defense systems, the F/A-18 fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey, the Black Hawk helicopter and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The report did not specify the extent or time of the cyber-thefts or indicate if they involved computer networks of the U.S. government, contractors or subcontractors.

But the espionage would give China knowledge that could be exploited in a conflict, such as knocking out communications and corrupting data, the Post said. It also could speed Beijing's development of Chinese defense technology.

In a report to Congress earlier this month, the Pentagon said China was using espionage to modernize its military and that its hacking was a serious concern. It said the U.S. government had been the target of hacking that appeared to be "attributable directly to the Chinese government and military." China dismissed the report as groundless.

China has dismissed as groundless both the Pentagon report and a February report by the U.S. computer security company Mandiant, which said a secretive Chinese military unit was probably behind a series of hacking attacks targeting the United States that had stolen data from 100 companies.

AUSTRALIAN SPY HQ PLANS STOLEN

In Australia, a news report said hackers linked to China stole the floorplans of a A$630 million headquarters for the Australia Security Intelligence Organisation, the country's domestic spy agency.

The attack through the computers of a construction contractor exposed not only building layouts, but also the location of communication and computer networks.

Australia security analyst Des Ball told the ABC in the report that such information made the yet to be completed spy headquarters vulnerable to future cyber attacks.

"You can start constructing your own wiring diagrams, where the linkages are through telephone connections, through wi-fi connections, which rooms are likely to be the ones that are used for sensitive conversations, how to surreptitiously put devices into the walls of those rooms," said Ball.

The building is designed to be part of a global electronic intelligence gathering network which includes the United States and the UK, but its construction has been plagued by delays and cost blowouts, with some builders blaming late design changes on cyber attacks.

The ABC report said the Chinese hacking was part of a growing wave of cyber attacks against business and military targets in the close U.S. ally.

It said the hackers also stole confidential information from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which houses the overseas spy agency the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and had targeted local companies, including steel-manufacturer Bluescope Steel, and military and civilian communications manufacturer Codan Ltd.

The influential Greens party said the hacking was a "security blunder of epic proportions" and called for an inquiry, but the government refused to confirm the breach.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the reports were "inaccurate", but declined to say how.

Australian officials, like those in the United States and other Western nations, have made cyber attacks a security priority following a growing number of attacks of the resource rich country, mostly blamed on China.

Despite being one of Beijing's major trade partners, the country is seen by China as the southern fulcrum of the U.S. military pivot to the Asia-Pacific and in 2011 agreed to host thousands of U.S. Marines in near-permanent rotation.

Australia is a major buyer for U.S. weapons systems and is one of the largest overseas customers for the Lockheed Martin manufactured F-35, as well as for Boeing's F/A-18 Super Hornet and associated weapons systems.

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei was last year barred from bidding for construction contracts on a new Australian high-speed broadband network amid fears of cyber espionage.

The Reserve Bank of Australia said in March that it had been targeted by cyber attacks, but no data had been lost or systems compromised amid reports the hackers had tried to access intelligence on Group of 20 wealthy nations negotiations.

(Writing by Bill Trott in WASHINGTON and Rob Taylor in CANBERRA; Editing by Michael Perry)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-report-says-major-weapons-designs-compromised-chinese-033726944.html

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