Another day, another Idol contestant basks in the judges' good favor.
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Friday, May 3, 2013
Choreographer recreates 'Oklahoma!' at age 91
CHICAGO (AP) ? Gemze de Lappe first danced in "Oklahoma!" in 1943 as a member of the Broadway hit's first national touring company. Seventy years later, at age 91, she's still with it ? choreographing a production of the musical at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
De Lappe has traveled the world over the decades working on the Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers masterpiece in places across Europe, Japan, Canada and the United States. Now she's in Chicago, trying to help director Gary Griffin recreate a version of the original "Oklahoma!" production. It opens on Saturday and runs through May 19.
"If you remain true to the script and to the music it's not old fashioned at all," de Lappe said in an interview in the rehearsal room at the Lyric Opera in downtown Chicago. "It's new. It was new then and it's new now."
Griffin calls de Lappe a link to the original intent of the production, which is often considered a landmark of American musical theater. He encourages her to talk about every number, every idea that she has during rehearsals.
"This show begins and you can see she feels the depth of what's contained in all of it and recall it and gives it to all of us," Griffin said. "Having her being able to fill in those gaps and information is incredible."
The original dances from "Oklahoma!" were crafted by famed choreographer Agnes DeMille, who often used de Lappe as an inspiration. De Lappe, who lives in New York, has actively worked for years to save de Mille's work.
Rodgers, Hammerstein and DeMille would often check up on productions of "Oklahoma!" to see if directors were departing too far from the original show, de Lappe said.
"They'd clean it up again, simplify it, make it ours," de Lappe said. "That's what I've dedicated my life to."
De Lappe, who was awarded the Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre in 2007, knew Rodgers and Hammerstein well, she said, even sitting in on musical sessions with Rodgers in London.
"I really learned what he wanted with all those songs, the pronunciation, the enunciation, the tempos, phrasing," de Lappe said.
Ted Chapin, president of the company that owns the rights to the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, Rodgers and Hammerstein: An Imagem Company, said the Lyric chose to honor the original choreographic essence of "Oklahoma!" when it hired de Lappe.
"She's very, very straight forward about what she knows and what she demands," Chapin said. "She's not going to sit back and just take notes."
De Lappe's eyes dart from dancer to dancer when she's in those rehearsals, with an intense stare observing each number. She will stop the dancers, directing them about the need to swoop in a certain way or interact with each other differently. At times she will even demonstrate the steps.
"When I hear it with the performers and with the show I'm just as enthusiastic as I was the first time I saw the show," she said.
Modern audiences haven't seen a proper production of "Oklahoma!" for two generations, de Lappe said. She said that's why it's important for Lyric to recreate the show's original concept.
The production is the first of five classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals that the Lyric is staging as part of its American Musical Theater Initiative. "The Sound of Music" is planned for next year, followed by "Carousel" in 2015, "The King and I" in 2016 and "South Pacific" in 2017.
The Chicago production of "Oklahoma!" includes 37 members of the Lyric Opera Orchestra and a company of nearly 40 actors.
"The minute you walk into the rehearsal hall and you start, the energy is there no matter how tired you are," de Lappe said. "I find it happens to me every day."
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Online: http://www.lyricopera.org/oklahoma
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Follow Caryn Rousseau on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/carynrousseau
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/choreographer-recreates-oklahoma-age-91-154205610.html
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Shooting Challenge: Perfect Symmetry
They say symmetry is beauty, which makes a lot of sense. It's the balance of equal proportions. It's a sort of geometric perfection. And for this week's Shooting Challenge, you're going to capture it.
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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/YCoLSAyj6kw/shooting-challenge-perfect-symmetry-486208575
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Lead Poisoning Comes to the Remote Amazon
Children in the Amazon River basin learn to fish at young ages. Pictured: Sauce Lagoon, Tarapoto, Peru. Image: Flickr/H?ctor de Pereda
Inside the simple wood-frame house, a 6-year-old boy plays with a piece of malleable metal, biting it as his younger sister watches. In the background, piled against the wall, are two long strips of the metal ? lead sheathing from an electrical cable that the family sold for scrap.
Lead seems like an odd thing to find in an Achuar village deep in the Peruvian Amazon. But the metal is valuable here, since it is easily molded? to make perfect weights for fishing lines and nets.
That convenience comes at a cost. Three out of every four children in communities in the Corrientes River basin have blood lead levels higher than those considered excessive under U.S. health guidelines.
The lead strips found inside the homes solved a mystery that had long puzzled researchers.
Scientists had expected to find that water polluted by oil drilling upriver was responsible for the villagers? high lead levels. But to their shock, they discovered that children and teens were fashioning homemade fishing sinkers from scrap lead with their teeth.
"The results were really unexpected,? said Peruvian researcher Cynthia Anticona, who conducted the?study?as part of her doctoral research in public health at Ume? University in Sweden.
?When we did the fieldwork, I no longer had any doubt. I saw how 5- and 6-year-olds chewed pieces of lead,? she said. ?We?d been looking everywhere, when the answer was right there.?
Children exposed to lead, which can damage developing brains, have lower IQs and behavioral problems, including aggressiveness. Many experts say there is no safe level of lead for children.
Older children and teens?in the villages have the highest levels, especially boys, who fish more often than girls.
Such high lead levels in adolescents are surprising, according to Bruce Lanphear, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, who is a leading expert on effects of lead exposure on children.
?This would be the equivalent of adolescents working in a lead-related hobby or workplace,? he said. ?These are substantial exposures.?
Toddlers who crawl on the ground and put objects in their mouths are usually at the greatest risk of exposure, he said. Lead levels usually drop in adolescents, although by then the damage to their developing nervous systems has already been done. Little is known about the effects of exposure that occurs when a child is older, Lanphear said.
If the young fishermen replaced the lead with non-toxic sinkers, their blood lead levels should show a notable decline within a few months, he said.
But so far, nothing has changed in these Amazonian villages, which are so?remote that it takes several days by boat to reach the nearest city. Up to 40 families, with an average of three or four children each, live in wooden houses with palm-thatch roofs. They have little access to health care.
Unexpected source
When Anticona and her adviser, Miguel San Sebasti?n, who had studied the health impacts of oil pollution on indigenous communities in Ecuador in the 1990s, began their study in these villages, they were not thinking of fishing sinkers.
Several earlier studies had found lead and cadmium in water and in the blood of people along the Corrientes River, and a report published in 2006 by a Peruvian non-profit organization pointed to oil operations as the likely source of pollution in Achuar communities. In January, the Peruvian government fined Argentina-based Pluspetrol $11 million for pollution.
Anticona and San Sebasti?n had thought their investigation into sources of the lead would lead them to the oil fields.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=d38c02c8c465bc7f4c34853be5cddd4d
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WeatherBug refreshes user interface in latest update
Improved navigation, live updating and photos section all included
The popular WeatherBug app has just undergone quite a redesign in the Play Store today, bringing in a completely new interface. The overall experience better follows current Android design guidelines, with a tabbed interface that makes it easy to get between current weather, forecasts and detailed information with just a swipe. Further functions and navigation are handled behind a slide-in panel from the right, and the overflow bar at the top takes care of the rest.
On the content side there are "tiles" in the interface that stay up to date with the latest data, a new photos area where you can view shots of the area and different background themes for the whole app. It's a big visual refresh that certainly looks nice to our eyes, and drastically improves usability of the whole app. You can take a look at the free version of WeatherBug from the Play Store link above, or grab the paid version right here as well.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/XUfnSdjmtnM/story01.htm
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Persistent pain after stressful events may have a neurobiological basis
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tLnT28Jm2gdZpTsX-HoiXFSarwmgb9EfllWUwN2UwnQp-Kt8PnQXu8o7ExTcj6eIzo7baGnR_fqC7u09dcuRGfXxzIpT-kb2qpmb90vRw=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 2-May-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Tom Hughes
tahughes@unch.unc.edu
919-966-6047
University of North Carolina Health Care
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. A new study led by University of North Carolina School of Medicine researchers is the first to identify a genetic risk factor for persistent pain after traumatic events such as motor vehicle collision and sexual assault.
In addition, the study contributes further evidence that persistent pain after stressful events, including motor vehicle collisions and sexual assaults, has a specific biological basis. A manuscript of the study was published online ahead of print by the journal Pain on April 29.
"Our study findings indicate that mechanisms influencing chronic pain development may be related to the stress response, rather than any specific injury caused by the traumatic event," said Samuel McLean, MD, MPH, senior author of the study and assistant professor of anesthesiology. "In other words, our results suggest that in some individuals something goes wrong with the body's 'fight or flight' response or the body's recovery from this response, and persistent pain results."
The study assessed the role of the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis, a physiologic system of central importance to the body's response to stressful events. The study evaluated whether the HPA axis influences musculoskeletal pain severity six weeks after motor vehicle collision (MVC) and sexual assault. Its findings revealed that variation in the gene encoding for the protein FKBP5, which plays an important role in regulating the HPA axis response to stress, was associated with a 20 percent higher risk of moderate to severe neck pain six weeks after a motor vehicle collision, as well as a greater extent of body pain. The same variant also predicted increased pain six weeks after sexual assault.
"Right now, if an someone comes to the emergency department after a car accident, we don't have any interventions to prevent chronic pain from developing," McLean said. Similarly, if a woman comes to the emergency department after sexual assault, we have medications to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease, but no treatments to prevent chronic pain. This is because we understand what causes pregnancy or infection, but we have no idea what the biologic mechanisms are that cause chronic pain. Chronic pain after these events is common and can cause great suffering, and there is an urgent need to understand what causes chronic pain so that we can start to develop interventions. This study is an important first step in developing this understanding."
"In addition, because we don't understand what causes these outcomes, individuals with chronic pain after traumatic events are often viewed with suspicion, as if they are making up their symptoms for financial gain or having a psychological reaction," McLean said. "An improved understanding of the biology helps with this stigma," McLean said.
###
The study was conducted by a multidisciplinary team of investigators from thirteen institutions. Co-lead authors on the study were Andrey Bortsov, MD, PhD, assistant research professor in the UNC Department of Anesthesiology, and Jennifer Smith, BS, a UNC medical student and former Doris Duke Fellow.
[ | 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.
Public release date: 2-May-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Tom Hughes
tahughes@unch.unc.edu
919-966-6047
University of North Carolina Health Care
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. A new study led by University of North Carolina School of Medicine researchers is the first to identify a genetic risk factor for persistent pain after traumatic events such as motor vehicle collision and sexual assault.
In addition, the study contributes further evidence that persistent pain after stressful events, including motor vehicle collisions and sexual assaults, has a specific biological basis. A manuscript of the study was published online ahead of print by the journal Pain on April 29.
"Our study findings indicate that mechanisms influencing chronic pain development may be related to the stress response, rather than any specific injury caused by the traumatic event," said Samuel McLean, MD, MPH, senior author of the study and assistant professor of anesthesiology. "In other words, our results suggest that in some individuals something goes wrong with the body's 'fight or flight' response or the body's recovery from this response, and persistent pain results."
The study assessed the role of the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis, a physiologic system of central importance to the body's response to stressful events. The study evaluated whether the HPA axis influences musculoskeletal pain severity six weeks after motor vehicle collision (MVC) and sexual assault. Its findings revealed that variation in the gene encoding for the protein FKBP5, which plays an important role in regulating the HPA axis response to stress, was associated with a 20 percent higher risk of moderate to severe neck pain six weeks after a motor vehicle collision, as well as a greater extent of body pain. The same variant also predicted increased pain six weeks after sexual assault.
"Right now, if an someone comes to the emergency department after a car accident, we don't have any interventions to prevent chronic pain from developing," McLean said. Similarly, if a woman comes to the emergency department after sexual assault, we have medications to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease, but no treatments to prevent chronic pain. This is because we understand what causes pregnancy or infection, but we have no idea what the biologic mechanisms are that cause chronic pain. Chronic pain after these events is common and can cause great suffering, and there is an urgent need to understand what causes chronic pain so that we can start to develop interventions. This study is an important first step in developing this understanding."
"In addition, because we don't understand what causes these outcomes, individuals with chronic pain after traumatic events are often viewed with suspicion, as if they are making up their symptoms for financial gain or having a psychological reaction," McLean said. "An improved understanding of the biology helps with this stigma," McLean said.
###
The study was conducted by a multidisciplinary team of investigators from thirteen institutions. Co-lead authors on the study were Andrey Bortsov, MD, PhD, assistant research professor in the UNC Department of Anesthesiology, and Jennifer Smith, BS, a UNC medical student and former Doris Duke Fellow.
[ | 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/uonc-ppa050213.php
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Thursday, May 2, 2013
Decades-old question: Is anti-bacterial soap safe?
WASHINGTON (AP) ? It's a chemical that's been in U.S. households for more than 40 years, from the body wash in your bathroom shower to the knives on your kitchen counter to the bedding in your baby's basinet.
But federal health regulators are just now deciding whether triclosan ? the germ-killing ingredient found in an estimated 75 percent of anti-bacterial liquid soaps and body washes sold in the U.S. ? is ineffective, or worse, harmful.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is planning to deliver a review this year of whether triclosan is safe. The ruling, which will determine whether triclosan continues to be used in household cleaners, could have implications for a $1 billion industry that includes hundreds of anti-bacterial products from toothpaste to toys.
The agency's review comes amid growing pressure from lawmakers, consumer advocates and others who are concerned about the safety of triclosan. Recent studies of triclosan in animals have led scientists to worry that it could increase the risk of infertility, early puberty and other hormone-related problems in humans.
"To me it looks like the risks outweigh any benefit associated with these products right now," said Allison Aiello, professor at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health. "At this point, it's just looking like a superfluous chemical."
The concerns over triclosan offer a sobering glimpse at a little-known fact: Many chemicals used in everyday household products have never been formally approved by U.S. health regulators. That's because many germ-killing chemicals were developed decades ago before there were laws requiring scientific review of cleaning ingredients.
The controversy also highlights how long it can take the federal government to review the safety of such chemicals. It's not uncommon for the process to drag on for years, since regulators must review volumes of research and take comments from the public on each draft.
In the case of triclosan, Congress passed a law in 1972 requiring that the FDA set guidelines for dozens of common anti-bacterial chemicals found in over-the-counter soaps and scrubs. The guidelines function like a cookbook for manufacturers, detailing which chemicals can be used in what products, and in what amounts.
In 1978, the FDA published its first tentative guidelines for chemicals used in liquid hand soaps and washes. The draft stated that triclosan was "not generally recognized as safe and effective," because regulators could not find enough scientific research demonstrating its safety and effectiveness.
The FDA published several drafts of the guidelines over the years, but the agency never finalized the results. So, companies have not had to remove triclosan from their products.
Meanwhile, the agency did approve triclosan for use in Colgate's Total toothpaste in 1997, after Colgate-Palmolive Co. submitted data showing that the ingredient helped fight gingivitis.
Then, last summer, the FDA said its review of triclosan would be complete by late 2012. That target date then slipped to February, which has also come and gone. But pressure on the agency from outside critics didn't let up.
In March, a federal appeals court said a lawsuit by the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council aimed at forcing the FDA to complete its review could move forward. A three-judge panel reinstated the 2010 lawsuit, which had been tossed out by a lower court, saying the nonprofit group presented evidence that triclosan could potentially be dangerous.
Now, four decades after it was charged with reviewing triclosan, the FDA is planning to complete its review. FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Yao said evaluating triclosan and other anti-bacterial agents is "one of the highest priorities" for the agency, but did not offer an explanation for the delay.
The FDA's website currently states that "the agency does not have evidence that triclosan in antibacterial soaps and body washes provides any benefit over washing with regular soap and water."
The American Cleaning Institute, a soap and detergent trade organization, says it has provided reams of data to FDA showing that triclosan is both safe and effective.
"Triclosan is one of the most reviewed and researched ingredients used in consumer and health care products," says Brian Sansoni, a spokesman for the group, whose members include Colgate-Palmolive and Henkel Consumer Goods Inc., maker of Dial soap.
While it can take years for the government to make rules, members of Congress say there is little precedent for the FDA's four-decade review of triclosan.
"When FDA first started evaluating the rules governing triclosan's use, Richard Nixon was still president," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass, who asked the FDA to take a closer look at triclosan in 2010 after the European Union banned the chemical from products that come into contact with food.
"Science has evolved, and so should FDA's regulations guiding the use of this chemical in consumer products," he says.
U.S. scientists agree that the FDA's review is overdue. The Endocrine Society, a group of doctors and scientists who specialize in the hormone system, flagged triclosan four years ago as an ingredient that alters levels of thyroid hormones and reproductive hormones like testosterone and estrogen.
"I think the FDA is behind the curb," said Dr. Andrea Gore of the University of Texas at Austin, who was the lead author of the Endocrine Society's statement on hormone disrupting chemicals. "At what point do you draw a line and say we need to take this out of products that are being applied to our skin? What is enough evidence?"
Some Americans are shocked that the FDA has taken so long. Mallory Smith is troubled to learn that the government has never confirmed the safety of anti-bacterial soap's key ingredient.
Smith, who works for the federal government, says she keeps antibacterial soap in the kitchen to clean her hands after she's handled raw meat.
"As a regular consumer I rely on the government to identify products that are safe for me to use," Smith said. "If something is brought to their attention, they should look into it, and ban the chemical if necessary."
Others are less surprised by the government's multi-decade review. "It sounds like a typical government agency to me: totally unproductive," said David Fisher, who sells restaurant equipment in Arizona.
Ironically, triclosan first became widely used because it was considered safer than an older antibacterial ingredient, hexachlorophene. That chemical was banned from household items in 1972 after FDA scientists discovered that toxic levels could be absorbed through the skin. Several infant deaths in France were connected to baby powder that contained unsafe levels of the chemical, due to a manufacturing error.
Triclosan was initially used in hospitals in the 1970s as a scrub for surgeons preparing to perform an operation. It was also used to coat the surfaces of catheters, stitches and other surgical instruments.
Beginning in the 1990s, triclosan began making its way into hundreds of anti-bacterial consumer goods, ranging from soap to socks to lunchboxes. The growth has in part been fueled by Americans who believe that anti-bacterial ingredients provide an added level of protection against germs.
As the use of triclosan has expanded, more scientists have questioned its effectiveness. In 2007, researchers at the University of Michigan and other universities compiled data from 30 studies looking at the use of antibacterial soaps. The results showed soaps with triclosan were no more effective at preventing illness or reducing bacteria on the hands than plain soap.
Other studies have shown that longer hand-washing improves results far more than adding antibacterial ingredients. The Centers for Disease Control recommends washing hands at least 20 seconds. The CDC also recommends using hand sanitizer ? most of which use alcohol or ethanol to kill germs, not chemicals like triclosan ? if soap and water are not available.
Troclosan's safety also has become a growing concern in recent years. To date, nearly all of the research on triclosan's health impact comes from animal studies ?which are not necessarily applicable to humans ? but the findings still have researchers concerned.
A 2009 study by scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency showed that triclosan decreases levels of testosterone and sperm production in male rats. Female rats exposed to triclosan showed signs of early puberty and altered levels of estrogen and thyroid hormones.
And 2010 study by University of Florida researchers found that triclosan interfered with the transfer of estrogen to growing fetuses in pregnant sheep. Estrogen is important in both male and female development because it promotes growth of organs like the lungs and liver.
Sansoni, the soap and detergent industry spokesman, says those animal studies can't be applied to humans and "make exaggerated claims about the damaging effects" of triclosan.
But safety concerns over triclosan don't just involve rats and other animals. Some experts argue that routine use of anti-bacterial chemicals like triclosan is contributing to a surge in drug-resistant germs, or superbugs, that are immune to antibiotics. Few studies have attempted to track antibiotic resistance tied to Triclosan in the real world. But laboratory studies have shown that antibiotic-resistant strains of E. coli and other bacteria can grow in cultures with high levels of triclosan.
As a result of the growing concerns, some leading medical societies, hospitals and companies have abandoned the chemical.
Kaiser Permanente pulled triclosan from its 37 hospitals across the country in 2010, switching to traditional soaps and alcohol-based hand sanitizers. Kathy Gerwig, Kaiser Permanente's vice president for workplace safety, said the hospital chain decided to phase out triclosan as part of its "precautionary approach" to safety issues.
"If there is credible evidence that a product we're using might have some disadvantages from a health or environmental standpoint, then it's our obligation to look for a safer alternative," Gerwig said.
Johnson & Johnson has pledged to remove triclosan from all of its adult products by the end of 2015. The company says none of its baby products currently contain the ingredient.
"We want people to have complete peace of mind when they use our products," Susan Nettesheim, vice president of product stewardship, said when the company made the announcement last summer.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/decades-old-anti-bacterial-soap-safe-163623053.html
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