Discrimination on the basis of gender is nothing new. Women have been fighting for equal rights, equal pay, and equal treatment by employers and society alike since the dawn of time. But many people do not realize that insurance companies have been charging women higher coverage rates than men, and some members of the United States Senate have chosen to address the issue through the initial stages of drafting legislation to stop it. On Tuesday, May 5, the Senate Finance Committee met to discuss health care reform, specifically a closer federal regulation of the industry as a whole. Though a number of topics were brought to the floor, including single-payer health insurance plans and public versus private health care companies, it was a focus on gender parity and the need for action that seemed to resonate with most members of the committee. President of America’s Health Insurance Plans Karen Ignagni was present to testify at the hearing and discussed the need for an end to gender discrimination regarding health insurance policy rates. Since many lawmakers already agree that bias on the basis of health history is unethical and discriminatory, it is more than fair that insurance companies give […]
Huddled at the back of her shed, bleating under a magnificent winter coat and tearing cheerfully at a bale of hay, she is possibly the answer to Japan’s chronic national shortage of organ donors: a sheep with a revolutionary secret. Guided by one of the animal’s lab-coated creators, the visitor’s hand is led to the creature’s underbelly and towards a spot in the middle under eight inches of greasy wool. Lurking there is a spare pancreas. If the science that put it there can be pushed further forward, Japan may be spared an ethical and practical crisis that has split medical and political opinion. As the sheep-based chimera organ technology stands at the moment, says the man who is pioneering it, the only viable destination for the pancreas underneath his sheep would be a diabetic chimpanzee. The organ growing on the sheep was generated from monkey stem cells but the man behind the science, Yutaka Hanazono, believes that the technology could be developed eventually to make sheep into walking organ banks for human livers, hearts, pancreases and skin. It could happen within a decade, he guesses, perhaps two. ‘We have made some very big […]
Dressed in a suit, this person would not look out of place in a busy street in a modern city. The clay sculpture, however, portrays the face of the earliest known modern European – a man or woman who hunted deer and gathered fruit and herbs in ancient forests more than 35,000 years ago. It was created by Richard Neave, one of Britain’s leading forensic scientists, using fossilised fragments of skull and jawbone found in a cave seven years ago. Forensic Scientist Richard Neave reconstructed the face based on skull fragments from 35,000 years ago The first modern European: Forensic artist Richard Neave reconstructed the face based on skull fragments from 35,000 years ago His recreation offers a tantalising glimpse into life before the dawn of civilisation. It also shows the close links between the first European settlers and their immediate African ancestors. To sculpt the head, Mr Neave called on his years of experience recreating the appearance of murder victims as well as using careful measurements of bone. It was made for the BBC2 series The Incredible Human Journey. This will follow the evolution of humans from the cradle of Africa to the […]
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s government Monday ruled out allowing U.S. combat troops to remain in Iraqi cities after the June 30 deadline for their withdrawal, despite concern that Iraqi forces cannot cope with the security challenge following a resurgence of bombings in recent weeks. Asking U.S. forces to stay in the cities, including volatile Mosul in the north, would be embarrassing for Iraq’s prime minister, who has staked his political future on claims that the country has turned the corner in the war against Sunni and Shiite extremists. The departure of heavily armed combat troops from bases inside the cities is important psychologically to many Iraqis, who are eager to regain control of their country after six years of war and U.S. military occupation. U.S. officials played down the Iraqi decision, with Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman saying it’s up to the Iraqi government to request an extension of the U.S. presence in the cities and ‘we intend to fully abide by’ terms of the security agreement. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, told reporters Monday that violence had not risen to a level that would force a change in the withdrawal schedule. […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
