For the first time in more than a decade, the nation’s teen pregnancy rate rose 3% in 2006, reflecting increases in teen birth and abortion rates of 4% and 1%, respectively. These new data from the Guttmacher Institute are especially noteworthy because they provide the first documentation of what experts have suspected for several years, based on trends in teens’ contraceptive use-that the overall teen pregnancy rate would increase in the mid-2000s following steep declines in the 1990s and a subsequent plateau in the early 2000s. The significant drop in teen pregnancy rates in the 1990s was overwhelmingly the result of more and better use of contraceptives among sexually active teens. However, this decline started to stall out in the early 2000s, at the same time that sex education programs aimed exclusively at promoting abstinence-and prohibited by law from discussing the benefits of contraception-became increasingly widespread and teens’ use of contraceptives declined. ‘After more than a decade of progress, this reversal is deeply troubling, says Heather Boonstra, Guttmacher Institute senior public policy associate. ‘It coincides with an increase in rigid abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, which received major funding boosts under the Bush administration. A strong body of research shows that […]
The sober, sprawling State of the Union address that President Obama delivered last week was marked by one extraordinary moment. It came when the president looked down at six robed members of the Supreme Court, seated directly in front of him, and criticized their recent 5 to 4 decision that he said ‘will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.’ While Democrats stood applauding his call on Congress to pass legislation narrowing the impact of the ruling, the TV cameras caught Justice Samuel Alito, one of the two George W. Bush appointees who made the reversal of precedent possible, apparently mouthing the words ‘Not true.’ Such direct confrontations between the branches of the federal government are almost unprecedented, and they set the stage for what ought to be a serious debate. The day after, much of the discussion was focused narrowly on the question of whether Obama was correct in saying that foreign corporations would be unleashed on American elections by the justices’ decision. The dissenting opinion of Justice John Paul Stevens had put the proposition more carefully. It said that the reasoning behind the majority opinion, […]
The Perseus, a 900kg (2,000lb) bomb made in Greece, incinerates almost everything in an area larger than a dozen football fields. Farther out, oxygen is sucked from the air and people may be crushed by a pressure wave. The inferno is similar to that caused by napalm-a jellied-petrol explosive heavily restricted by a United Nations weapons convention. Modified with new technologies, however, the Perseus is increasingly considered legitimate. Mark Hiznay, a bombs-control expert at Human Rights Watch, a humanitarian group based in New York, has gone so far as to say it has become a necessary weapon. With a stronger steel casing and backup shock-resistant triggering mechanisms, the Perseus can smash through several metres of reinforced concrete and detonate only after it has gone into a bunker. This makes the bomb a good way to destroy and sterilise germ- and chemical-warfare laboratories while limiting damage nearby, says Mr Hiznay. A new generation of advanced ordnance, including the Perseus, is making bombing campaigns safer for civilians. During the first Gulf war, in 1991, American warplanes had to drop an average of six 450kg satellite-guided bombs to destroy a tank or a small building. During the second war, 12 years […]
TIANJIN, China — China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year. China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants. These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China. ‘Most of the energy equipment will carry a brass plate, ‘Made in China,’ said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a private equity fund in Beijing that focuses on renewable energy. President Obama, in his State of the Union speech last week, sounded an alarm that the United States was falling behind other countries, especially China, on energy. ‘I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders - and […]
Only half of depressed individuals who take antidepressants actually get a mood lift. And now scientists think they know why: A study in mice found receptors on certain brain cells essentially block the effects of these medicines. If the same holds true in humans, the other 50 percent of depressed patients may have more effective treatment options. ‘The mouse model explains why someone may not respond to antidepressants,’ says Rene Hen, professor of pharmacology in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Columbia University. Antidepressants are designed to increase the levels of serotonin, so that when more of the serotonin neurotransmitter is sent to other parts of the brain, the person feels relief from depression. Hen identified a receptor, so he could replicate in mice what happens when antidepressants fail. Some of the genetically engineered mice were designed to have high levels of the receptor 1A, a type of receptor on nerve cells that produces serotonin. By watching their behavior, Hen determined how the mice responded to the drugs. Usually when mice take antidepressants, they act more daring. However, mice with high levels of certain serotonin receptors, did not act like they were on antidepressants. […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
