Thirty years ago Forbes Hill of Brooklyn learned he had prostate cancer. At age 50, with a young wife and a fear of the common side effects of treatment - incontinence and impotence - he chose what oncologists call ‘watchful waiting.’ For 12 years, Mr. Hill was fine. Then in 1990 his PSA count, a measure of cancer activity, began to rise, and he had radiation therapy. That dropped the count to near zero. In 2000, with the count up again, he chose hormone therapy, which worked for a while. Three years ago, with his PSA level going through the roof, he learned that the cancer had spread to his bones and liver. It was time for chemotherapy, which Mr. Hill said he knew could not cure him but might slow the cancer’s progress and prolong his life. His oncologist was candid but not very specific. His doctor told him that with advanced metastatic hormone-resistant cancer like his, 90 percent of patients die within five years no matter what the doctors do, and about 10 percent survive six or more years. ‘I took that kind of hard,’ said Mr. Hill, an associate professor of media studies at […]
ACCRA, Ghana — Negotiators meet in Ghana this week to resume work on a new climate change treaty and discuss ways to prod developing countries to join the fight against global warming. But the latest round of talks comes at an awkward moment, with the world’s poor more worried about the immediate cost of food and fuel than the uncertain long-term effects of climate change. The weeklong U.N. climate conference opens Thursday, with nearly 1,600 delegates and environmental experts from more than 150 countries in attendance, to work on an agreement to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases. Scientists say the gases trap the earth’s heat and already have begun to cause more severe tropical storms, harsher droughts in arid areas and melting ice packs in the Arctic. U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said it was significant the latest round of talks were being held in Ghana, where climate change already is being felt. Rainfall has decreased 20 percent in the last 30 years, he said on the eve of the conference, and rising sea levels threatens to swamp up to 385 square miles in the Volta Delta. A report last year by the Nobel […]
Human-driven changes in the westerly winds are bringing hotter and drier springs to the American Southwest, according to new research from The University of Arizona in Tucson. Since the 1970s the winter storm track in the western U.S. has been shifting north, particularly in the late winter. As a result, fewer winter storms bring rain and snow to Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, western Colorado and western New Mexico. ‘We used to have this season from October to April where we had a chance for a storm,’ said Stephanie A. McAfee. ‘Now it’s from October to March.’ The finding is the first to link the poleward movement of the westerly winds to the changes observed in the West’s winter storm pattern. The change in the westerlies is driven by the atmospheric effects of global warming and the ozone hole combined. ‘When you pull the storm track north, it takes the storms with it,’ said McAfee, a doctoral candidate in the UA’s department of geosciences. ‘During the period it’s raining less, it also tends to be warmer than it used to be,’ McAfee said. ‘We’re starting to see the impacts of climate change in the late […]
Men with round faces tend to be more aggressive, a study of sportsmen has shown. The male sex hormone testosterone makes faces more circular and now scientists have studied whether this characteristic is also linked to behaviour. A Canadian team studied 90 ice hockey players and found the rounder the face, the more aggressive the players. For male varsity and professional hockey players, the facial ratio was linked in a statistically significant way with the number of penalty minutes per game, report Justin Carre and Prof Cheryl McCormick of Brock University, Ontario. The penalties were incurred by players for violent acts including slashing, elbowing, checking from behind, fighting and so on. However, there was not a link between facial shape and aggression in women. ‘The facial structure of a man provides an indication of how aggressive he will be in a competitive situation,’ says Prof McCormick. ‘Therefore, we are able to predict, with some accuracy, the behaviour of men on the basis of their facial features. advertisement ‘If men’s faces are providing cues as to their potential for aggression, then likely people are probably picking up on this cue, although likely on […]
The deepening toll from the global financial crisis could trigger the failure of a large US bank within months, a respected former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund claimed today, fuelling another battering for banking shares. Professor Kenneth Rogoff, a leading academic economist, said there was yet worse news to come from the worldwide credit crunch and financial turmoil, particularly in the United States, and that a high-profile casualty among American banks was highly likely. ‘The US is not out of the woods. I think the financial crisis is at the halfway point, perhaps. I would even go further to say the worst is to come,’ Prof Rogoff said at a conference in Singapore. In an ominous warning, he added: ‘We’re not just going to see mid-sized banks go under in the next few months, we’re going to see a whopper, we’re going to see a big one - one of the big investment banks or big banks,’ he said. Rising anxieties over ‘worse to come’ in the credit crisis sent shares tumbling in Europe and Asia. In London, the FTSE 100 index extended opening losses as widespread fears over the financial sector’s woes […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
