Guns are used to kill two out of every three homicide victims in the United States, and new research shows that easy-access guns in the home make a difference. Homicide rates are highest in states where more households have guns, the national survey concludes. The finding held even after taking into account socioeconomic status and gender. The Top 5 States with with the most homes that have guns in them: Wyoming 59.7% Alaska 57.8% Montana 57.7% South Dakota 56.6% West Virginia 55.4% Source: BRFSS Survey Results 2001 for Nationwide Firearms ‘Our findings suggest that in the United States, household firearms may be an important source of guns used to kill children, women and men, both on the street and in their homes,’ said lead researcher Matthew Miller of the Harvard School of Public Health. Gun states To reach the findings that were released today, Miller and his colleagues examined survey data of household firearm ownership collected via a telephone survey of more than 200,000 respondents from all 50 states. The survey is part of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2001 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. They […]
It’s the babies’ hands, big and supple and jet black, that you notice first. Hands like a carpenter’s. Hands that already look like they have been long in the world. Hands that are called into active service from their first day. Because, when a baby gorilla is born, there is only one thing it absolutely must do to survive – hang on. These mitts belong to the newest arrivals in a remarkable group of gorillas in the Congo’s Lefini Reserve, collectively called ‘the Djekes’. The Djekes know how to hang on. Made up of nine Western Lowland Gorillas (properly, and rather eye-catchingly, named Gorilla gorilla gorilla), all orphans of the bushmeat trade that has ravaged central Africa’s ape population, the group was reintroduced into its natural habitat in 2004 by the Projet Protection des Gorilles (PPG), a project sponsored by Britain’s John Aspinall Foundation. In the past two months, something wonderful has happened: four gorillas have been born to four different mothers in the group. The babies were only the second, third, fourth and fifth gorillas ever to be born to reintroduced parents (the first, Teke, another Aspinall triumph who was born two years ago across the river, […]
JAKARTA — The deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza is making a seasonal resurgence in Asia and could easily spread to Europe again this year, the World Health Organisation warned on Sunday. The alarm follows four human deaths in Indonesia in the last five days, the first human case in China for six months (though the infected man has since recovered) and new poultry outbreaks in Vietnam – despite a huge campaign against it – and northern Nigeria. ‘We are convinced that we’re in a repeat of last year and the year before when the virus began to get very active again [in the northern hemisphere winter] and spread from Asia into the Middle East and beyond,’ said Peter Cordingley, the WHO spokesman for the western Pacific region. Indonesia, where 61 people have died since 2005, remained the ‘biggest flashpoint’ but nowhere in the region ‘has got it licked’. ‘Most countries are becoming better prepared and the countries that were caught out last year, especially wealthier ones in Europe and close to Europe, we hope are going to be better prepared,’ he said. ‘But we’re still losing more than we’re winning.’ The strain detected in Asia […]
Sweden has more blond beauties per capita, Italy and France have far better cuisine, and most of the free world can boast of better weather. But over the past 30 years, the citizens of Denmark have scored higher than any other Western country on measures of life satisfaction, and scientists think they know why. In a paper appearing in the Dec. 23 issue of the medical journal BMJ, researchers review six likely and unlikely explanations, and conclude that the country’s secret is a culture of low expectations. ‘It’s a David and Goliath thing,’ said the lead author, Kaare Christensen, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. ‘If you’re a big guy, you expect to be on the top all the time and you’re disappointed when things don’t go well. But when you’re down at the bottom like us, you hang on, you don’t expect much, and once in a while you win, and it’s that much better.’ The researchers arrived at their findings by a process of elimination and humor. Blonds may have more fun, they argue, but Sweden has a higher prevalence of them. As for climate, Danes ‘bask in a somewhat […]
The UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has decided to open the question of whether to allow animal-human hybrid embryos to be developed for research purposes to public debate. The HFEA licenses and monitors IVF and donor insemination clinics, and research centres that use embryos. They also regulate the storage of embryos, eggs and sperm. The HFEA has received two requests from scientists who want to use human cells and animal eggs to produce stem cells for research. Members of the authority met yesterday to decide whether it was in their remit to grant such a request, and if so, then how best to go about it. Chief Executive of the HFEA, Angela McNab, said earlier today that ‘the issues around hybrid and chimera research are unique and different from mainstream human embryo research.’ She adds that the law is not clear and that such research would lead to ‘a significant step change in UK science.’ The HFEA decided two things. First, that it is in their remit to regulate human-animal hybrid and chimera research, and secondly, that the public should be consulted to establish in principle, whether such research should be allowed in the […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
