House cat nurses abandoned bobcats

Wild litter found after demolition of an abandoned house in S.C.

COLUMBIA, S.C. - In just a few months, three baby bobcats found in South Carolina could be a danger to a gray tabby named Zoe. But these days, the fuzzy felines are just members of the family for the nursing mother. The bobcats, orphaned after the abandoned house they were living under in Newberry County was demolished, are being nursed by Zoe at Carolina Wildlife Care near the Saluda River a few miles northwest of downtown Columbia.

The nursing is expected to last about four weeks and is intended to give the bobcats a feline on which to imprint, said Joanna Weitzel, executive director of the wildlife rescue group. "It's important they get that nurturing and care from a species similar to their own."

After five weeks, though, their razor-sharp teeth and claws could hurt Zoe and Zoe's kittens — an orange tabby and a calico that now dwarf the three bobcats in their kennel. The bobcats are expected to grow over the coming months to the size of large dogs — about 22 inches tall and up to 70 pounds — while their adoptive siblings will likely max out around 10 pounds.

Once the bobcats are weaned, they will be put in a specially built habitat. The goal is to minimize their contact with humans.

"If they lose their natural fear of humans, it's almost like a death sentence," Weitzel said.

Video   Cat nurses bobcat kittens April 29: A housecat living in a Tampa shelter is playing mom to three bobcats along with her own litter of kittens.

The habitat alone will cost about $2,000, not including the year's supply of live rodents the three will need to learn how to hunt and kill. Carolina Wildlife is hoping to raise enough money to provide the care the bobcats will need for up to 18 months when they should be ready to return to the wild.

The animals are being checked out by a veterinarian at nearby Riverbanks Zoo.

 

Shaken baby injuries rose in recession

Grim child abuse spiked; a third of kids older than 1

Cases of shaken baby syndrome have jumped sharply during the recession, researchers say, further fueling worries about the link between economic stress and the deadliest form of child abuse.

The number of babies and young children suffering abusive head trauma climbed by 55 percent in the months after the recession began in December 2007, according to a review of 511 cases at four children’s hospitals across the U.S.

The spike came during a period of rising unemployment, falling home prices and cuts to state and county budgets, including those that fund safety net programs to prevent child abuse. 

“We do know that poverty and stress are clearly risk factors for child abuse,” said Dr. Rachel P. Berger, a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center brain injury specialist who led the study. “Here, you had the perfect storm: increased stress, increased poverty and yet the social services were being cut.”

Equally startling, about a third of the cases involved children older than 1, including kids up to age 6, hinting at a level of caregiver frustration sparked by more than the stress of wailing newborns.

“I find this to be one of the most disturbing things,” said Berger, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. “These are not crying infants. These are walking, talking defiant toddlers.”

Bitten, beaten, shakenOne of those children was 19-month-old Leonard “L.J.” McIntire of Black Lick Township, Penn., who was bitten, beaten and shaken by his mother’s boyfriend in October 2008.

The boyfriend, Joshua Turner, 20, of Burrell Township, Penn., told police the toddler bit him and he decided to bite the baby back “to show him what pain felt like,” according to local news reports. He confessed to punching the boy as hard as he could and then shaking him violently. The child also had a broken left arm and ligature marks on his neck.

The baby's mother, Kimberly Shirley, 22, testifed that she left L.J. with Turner to go to the welfare office and then to the Salvation Army to add his name to a charity Christmas tree so he would receive a gift, according to reports.

L.J. McIntire spent five days on a ventilator at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh before he died as a result of blunt force head trauma. This week, Turner was sentenced to life in prison for the baby’s murder.

That fatal case and others sparked Berger’s concern after she noticed that more children died at her hospital in 2008 because of head injuries caused by abuse than from any non-inflicted cause.

“We thought maybe it was just something in our hospital,” she said.

But numbers of shaken baby cases also rose at children’s hospitals in Seattle and in Columbus, Ohio. Cincinnati Children's Hospital, the fourth included in the review, didn't see an increase.

Dr. Ken Feldman, medical director of the Children’s Protection Program at Seattle Children’s confirmed the grim trend. In 2006, the hospital logged 14 cases of shaken baby syndrome, and 16 in 2007. In 2008, the number jumped to 31, followed by 24 cases in 2009, he said.

“What happened in 2008 is the largest number in my memory,” said Feldman.

Shaken baby syndrome is the top cause of child abuse deaths in the U.S., where an estimated 1,200 to 1,400 cases are logged each year, according to Amy Wicks, a spokeswoman for the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome in Ogden, Utah.

Of nearly 3,300 cases of shaken baby syndrome in the U.S. logged between 1998 and 2008, fathers or boyfriends were the perpetrators in more than 700 incidents, and caregivers caused the injuries in more than 230 cases. Mothers caused the harm in nearly 115 cases where the relation to the the victim was known.

Nearly 2,000 of the victims, or about 60 percent, were 6 months old or younger. The peak age in the center's database is 2 months, with nearly 500 babies abused at that age.

Shaken baby syndrome occurs when someone forcefully shakes an infant or child, even for as little as 5 seconds, causing the child's head to rotate around the neck uncontrollably. The violent movement pitches the child's brain back and forth within the skull, sometimes rupturing blood vessels and nerves throughout the brain and tearing brain tissue. Blindness, brain damage, seizures and severe learning difficulties are common in children who survive.

Wicks said the new study, to be presented Saturday at the international Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, echoed anecdotal reports from child welfare workers across the United States.

“We have been hearing from the people in the trenches dealing with the cases that it is up,” Wicks said.

16 percent of victims diedBerger and the other researchers looked at 511 unequivocal cases of abusive head trauma during a six year period, from Jan. 1, 2004 through Dec. 31, 2009. The number of cases per month jumped 55 percent, from a mean of six per month before the recession began to more than nine per month after Dec. 1, 2007.

Sixty-three percent, or 322 children, were injured severely enough to be admitted to a pediatric intensive care unit, researchers said. Sixteen percent, or 82 children, died as a result of their injuries.

Researchers could not confirm a link between the rise in shaken baby cases and unemployment, which Berger attributed partly to gaps in data collection, which did not track the employment status of individual caregivers. However, nearly 90 percent of the injured children were enrolled in Medicaid, the federal program that provides health care to poor and disabled people.

Berger's research follows a new government report last month that said while the number of victims of child abuse in the U.S. dropped sharply in 2008, the number of deaths from abuse went up. Cases fell from 903,000 in 2006 to 772,000 in 2008, while deaths from child abuse or neglect rose to 1,740 in 2008, up from 1,330 in 2000, according to information from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System.

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Berger suspects that recession-linked cuts in social services meant that there were fewer child protection workers to collect and report overall abuse cases, but that deaths are still captured by other systems.

Most cases of shaken baby syndrome result in devastating injuries to the children and a life of constant monitoring for their families and caregivers, Berger said.

“There’s almost nobody who comes out of this unscathed,” she said. “These kids, they are never OK.”

 

Kids’ liquid cold, allergy drugs recalled

Versions of Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec and Benadryl are affected

WASHINGTON - More than 40 over-the-counter infant's and children's liquid medications are being recalled in the United States and 11 other countries because they don't meet quality standards.

McNeil Consumer Healthcare issued the recall for children's versions of Tylenol, Tylenol Plus, Motrin, Zyrtec and Benadryl after consulting with the Food and Drug Administration.

The company is recalling the products because some did not meet required quality standards, the company said in a statement Friday. Some of the products recalled may have a higher concentration of active ingredient than is specified on the bottle. Others may contain particles, while still others may contain inactive ingredients that do not meet internal testing requirements. 

The company is advising consumers to stop giving the products to their children as a precautionary measure. The recall was not undertaken because of any adverse effects, the company said.

The medicines were made and distributed in the United States, and exported to Canada, the Dominican Republic, Dubai, Fiji, Guam, Guatemala, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago and Kuwait.

 

Plastic made from algae is crazy green

Car parts, bottles, containers, keyboards all could be created 

Just imagine if all the plastic around us was made from algae. We'd have thoroughly green car parts, bottles, containers, keyboards. In several years, this could be real. A California-based company is currently putting their algae plastic prototype to the test.

A few years ago, Frederic Scheer, the founder and CEO of bioplastic maker Cereplast noticed that algae was getting buzz for its potential as a fuel source. About 18 months ago, he got the dry biomass leftover once the oil had been extracted and got to work.

Cereplast dries the biomass even further until it becomes a powder. For this stage of development, they're making a hybrid prototype. Organic ingredients and polypropylene or another traditional resin is mixed with between 35 and 50 percent algae powder using a proprietary process. 

"It's exactly like a traditional material — fairly strong, presents strengths similar to the equivalent with starch-based materials," Scheer says.

He adds it also has a high heat tolerance. At first the algae plastic had a strong fishy smell, but the company has figured out how to get rid of that. Their goal is to bring the hybrid to the market by the end of the year, either November or December.

A version that's 100 percent algae — and entirely compostable — could be ready within three to five years. As it's developing the plastic, Cereplast is also determining how this plastic mix could be recycled effectively.

 

‘I hate that gender thing,’ female trainer says

Make Music for Me's Barba seeks historic Kentucky Derby victory Saturday

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The lone woman trainer at this weekend's Kentucky Derby is angered that her gender is an issue as she sets out to become the first female winner of the "Run for the Roses."

Alexis Barba, the trainer of Kentucky-bred Make Music for Me, will be the 14th woman to saddle a horse in the Derby, where none have made it to the winner's circle.

"We should be beyond that," Barba told Reuters on Friday. "I hate that gender thing. It's great for anyone — boy or girl — to be in the Derby." 

Trainer Shelley Riley's second place finish with Casual Lies in 1992 is the top Derby result for a woman, while Kristin Mulhall came third with Imperialism in 2004.

Make Music for Me became eligible for Saturday's race when Sunland Derby winner Endorsement broke an ankle after a workout and trainer Todd Pletcher opted not to run Interactif.

Barba, speaking at her Churchill Downs barn, said horse racing is a "male-dominated profession" but said it would be no more of an honor to win the race as a female than a male.

"Women are very interested in this business," said the 57-year-old Barba. "It's just a matter of getting a lucky break with an owner. The women who have gotten that lucky break have gone on to run horses in the Derby."

Make Music for Me, a bay son of Bernstein who will be ridden on Saturday by Derby newcomer Joel Rosario, is a 50-1 morning-line longshot.

Mine That Bird, however, was 50-1 a year ago but won by an eyebrow-raising 6-3/4 lengths in one of the Derby's greatest upsets.

If Make Music for Me wins the Derby and Barba becomes the first female trainer to win there, she fully expects her daily routine to remain the same.

"My life will change for a little while," said Barba, who runs a nine-horse stable in Southern California. "Then it all goes back to normal. Let's face it. I'm back to work on Monday regardless if he wins on Saturday or not."

 

Farmer attacks kids with hammer, burns self

Security tightened at Chinese schools after 3rd rampage in as many days

BEIJING - A farmer wielding a hammer attacked kindergarten students Friday, injuring five, before burning himself to death in the third horrific assault on Chinese schools in as many days, state media reported.

Wang Yonglai used a motorcycle to break down the gate of the Shangzhuang Primary School in the eastern city of Weifang and struck a teacher who tried to block him before hitting students with the hammer, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Wang then grabbed two children before pouring gasoline over his body and setting fire to himself. Teachers were able to pull the children away to safety, but Wang died. None of the five injured students had life-threatening injuries, Xinhua said.

The attack was confirmed by an employee at the Weifang Public Security news office in Shandong province, but the motive for Wang's rampage was unclear. Xinhua described him only as a local farmer.

Most of the recent school attacks have been blamed on people with personal grudges or suffering from mental illness — seen as a growing problem because of feelings of social injustice and alienation in the fast-changing country.

The government on Friday issued an urgent directive to schools to tighten security.

The hammer attack follows a rampage Thursday by a 47-year-old unemployed man armed with an eight-inch knife at a kindergarten. Some 29 students, aged 4 or 5 years old, were wounded, five of them seriously at the school in Taixing city in neighboring Jiangsu province.

And on Wednesday, a 33-year-old former teacher broke into a primary school in the city of Leizhou in southern Guangdong province and wounded 15 students and a teacher with a knife. The attacker had been on sick leave from another school since 2006 for mental health problems.

In all, there have been five such attacks on schools in just over a month and many more in preceding months and years — although gun crime and other extreme violence in China is comparatively rare. Sociologists suspect the recent school rampages — usually by lone, male attackers — could be copycat actions.

The Education Ministry's directive Friday, posted on its website, called for schools and local education departments to "strengthen the security activities at schools to ensure the safety of students and teachers," particularly at particularly elementary and middle schools.

It urged "concrete actions" including strictly implementing a rule already on the books to register all visitors coming to school campuses and preventing unidentified people from entering.

Calls for beefing up security at schools are nothing new. They were initially ordered by the central government in 2004 following an attack that year that left nine students dead at a Beijing school. Since 2006, schools have been required to register or inspect all visitors.

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According to news reports, the latest attacks have prompted schools in various parts of the country to take action. In a district of southern Nanjing City, guards will be armed from Saturday with police batons and pepper spray. In Beijing's Xicheng district, guards at kindergarten, elementary and middle schools have been given long-handled metal restraint poles with a hook on the end. In eastern Jinan city, police posts are being built on elementary and middle schools campuses.

In an editorial Friday, the English-language China Daily said that security should be tightened at all schools nationwide, but stressed the need to prevent attacks in the first place.

Video   Man attacks children in China April 29: A 47-year-old man has been taken in to custody in Jiangsu province, China, after he reportedly stabbed 28 children, two teachers and a security guard. Today show

"It can be easy to put killers on trial and execute them but it is far more difficult to find out the deep-seated causes behind such horrifying acts. Our efforts should be focused on preventing these from happening," it said. "We should find out what propelled them to such extremes. What problems do they have? Could anyone have helped, especially the authorities?"

Accounts in China's state media have largely glossed over what motivates attackers, but experts say outbursts against the defenseless are frequently due to social pressures. An egalitarian society only a generation ago, China's headlong rush to prosperity has sharpened differences between the rich and poor, while the public health system has atrophied.

China likely has about 173 million adults with mental health disorders, and 158 million of them have never had professional help, according to a mental health survey in four provinces jointly done by Chinese and U.S. doctors that was published in the medical journal The Lancet in June.

 

Researchers embark on 'unprecedented' tornado study

An international team of researchers are embarking on what has been described as the most ambitious tornado study in history.

An array of instruments will be deployed across the US Great Plains, where violent twisters are more common than anywhere else on the planet.

It is hoped that the data gathered will improve tornado warnings and forecasts.

More than 100 scientists will be involved in the study, which will continue until the middle of June.

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"Tornadoes rank among the most destructive weather events on Earth," said Dr David Dowell, one of the project's principal investigators and a scientist for the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

"It is imperative that we learn more about how they develop and why some are so powerful."

The study, Vortex2, will use a range of enhanced mobile radars and other weather-sensing equipment in order to build up a comprehensive picture of the zones where tornadoes develop.

Researchers say that rapidly changing contrasts in wind and temperatures in an area just a few miles across can spawn a tornado in a matter of minutes.

But, they added, only a small percentage of "supercell storms" generate twisters, and standard observing networks and radars struggle to pick up the atmospheric conditions that lead to the formation of a tornado.

On the road

The radar fleet for the field project includes 10 mobile radars, which will track winds and precipitation in the tornadoes and the surrounding area.

The team will also be using more than 36 portable surface weather stations, weather balloons, and they hope to send an unmanned 12ft aircraft to the edge of severe storms to collect data.

The study area stretches from West Texas to south-west Minnesota, covering more than 900 miles (1,450km).

The researchers will not have a fixed base, spending the entire six weeks on the road following outbreaks of severe weather.

The project will build on the findings from the original Vortex study, which was conducted in 1994-95 and gathered data on supercells - long-lived thunderstorms that can spawn tornadoes.

The $12m (£8m) project is primarily funded by the US National Science Foundation, and will include researchers from Europe, Canada and Australia.

Frog genome holds out conservation promise

Scientists have published the first genome sequence from an amphibian.

Xenopus tropicalis, the western clawed frog, joins the list of sequenced organisms that includes chicken, horse, rat, yeast, platypus, and human being.

It has about 20,000 genes - about the same as a human - and scientists say it sheds new light on genetic evolution.

Conservationists say analysing the genes could lead to new ways of combating threats such as the often fatal fungal disease chytridiomycosis.

Presenting their results in the journal Science, the researchers also suggest it may lead to better understanding of the threat posed by endocrine-disrupting ("gender-bending") chemicals, to which amphibians are especially sensitive.

Filling the gap

Forty-eight scientists from 20 institutions collaborated on the study, led from the US Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (JGI) in Walnut Creek, California.

More detail on the genes that give resistance could have massive implications for captive breeding programmes

Robin Moore Conservation International

"When human genome work was wrapping up around 2002, we were discussing what should be next," JGI's Uffe Hellsten told BBC News.

"At that time there were a couple of furry mammals in the pipeline, and the chicken and at least two fish - but there seemed to be a gaping hole in the branch that constitutes the amphibians, and it seemed logical to fill that hole."

The species chosen - X tropicalis - is a close relative of a standard laboratory animal, the African clawed frog X laevis.

This animal has been a staple of pioneering research in fields such as cell differentiation, the role of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and cloning.

During the 1940s and 50s, their sensitivity to human hormones also led to their use in pregnancy tests.

For this project, X tropicalis was preferred because it reproduces much faster than its more famous cousin.

The chytrid fungus is devastating amphibians numbers around the world

Its genome is also roughly half the size.

That is because at some point in evolutionary history, the lineage leading to X laevis duplicated its DNA, meaning it now carries a double cargo of the double helix.

The team reports that certain regions of the genome, clustered around specific genes, are remarkably similar to equivalent regions in the genomes of chicken and Homo sapiens - despite the fact that their lineages diverged some 360 million years ago.

"When you look at segments of the Xenopus genome, you literally are looking at structures that are 360 million years old," said Dr Hellsten.

"They were part of the genome of the last common ancestor of all birds, frogs, dinosaurs and mammals that ever roamed the Earth."

Immune attack

However, it is the set of genes unique to amphibians that has excited conservationists.

For the last few decades, frogs and - to a lesser extent - salamanders have been hard hit by a water-borne fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis.

It is spreading across the world and has caused mass deaths in many species. It is implicated as the major factor in several species extinctions.

WHAT ARE AMPHIBIANS?

Continue reading the main story

• First true amphibians evolved about 250m years ago
• Adapted to many different aquatic and terrestrial habitats
• Present today on every continent except Antarctica
• Undergo metamorphosis, from larvae to adults

Recently, scientists in several institutions have been working on a conservation strategy that would take naturally-occurring anti-chytrid chemicals from species that are immune, and use them to protect others.

Xenopus appear to be immune themselves; and unravelling the genetic blueprint of its chemical defences could perhaps help to accelerate this line of research.

"Xenopus is the genus from which chytrid was first recorded, in [a museum specimen from] 1938, and they seem to be resistant," said Robin Moore, amphibian conservation officer with Conservation International.

"More detail on the genes that give resistance could also have massive implications for captive breeding programmes, helping us select animals that are resistant."

A valuable next step, he added, would be to compare variants of these genes between amphibian species - especially from those that are highly vulnerable to chytrid.

Dr Hellsten also suggested the sequences could shed light on the mechanism of endocrine-disrupting chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) - colloquially known as "gender-benders" - which impact many animals, but amphibians in particular because of their skin's high permeability.

"Understanding the effects of these hormone disruptors will help us preserve frog diversity and, since these chemicals also affect humans, could have a positive effect on human health," he said.

Prostate cancer vaccine wins US approval

A "vaccine" which harnesses the body's own immune system to fight prostate cancer has been approved for use by US drug regulators.

Provenge - which is designed to be used in men with advanced disease - is the first of its kind to be accepted by the Food and Drug Administration.

Each dose has to be individually tailored and it is an expensive treatment at $93,000 per patient.

It will add to, rather than replace, existing treatments, said experts.

Doctors have been working on therapies that prompt the immune system to fight tumours for decades.

Potential success stories include an experimental vaccine for melanoma which is in the late stages of development.

This latest therapy is made by collecting special blood cells from each patient that help the immune system recognise cancer as a threat.

These are then mixed with a protein found on most prostate cancer cells and a substance which kick-starts the immune response.

Advanced disease

The drug is not a "cure" but is used in advanced prostate cancer that has spread to other sites in the body and is no longer responding to standard hormone treatment.

Clinical trials showed that the treatment extended the lives of patients by four months.

This compares with an average of three months with chemotherapy.

Dr Phil Kantoff, an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who helped run the studies of Provenge said: "The big news here is that this is the first immunotherapy to win approval, and I suspect within five to ten years immunotherapies will be a big part of cancer therapy in general."

Prostate cancer accounts for about 12% of male deaths from cancer in the UK and is the second most common cause of cancer death in men.

In older men aged 85 and over, the disease is the most common cause of all deaths from cancer.

John Neate, chief executive of The Prostate Cancer Charity, said: "The news that this type of immunotherapy may offer additional survival benefit is promising."

But he added: "There are still questions to answer, even if the treatment fulfils its early promise.

"At present, we believe there are currently no laboratories in Europe equipped to undertake this treatment.

"Furthermore, this treatment is not currently approved in the UK and it will still be some years before doctors know enough about its long term effectiveness and side effects to be confident about its potential place in the armoury against advanced prostate cancer."

Dr Chris Parker, Cancer Research UK's prostate cancer expert said: "We hope this approval will open new avenues of research into using a patient's own immune system to treat cancer."

Home improvements add little value to homes - survey

Many of those surveyed had carried out major jobs on their homes

Seven out of 10 estate agents believe redecorating a home makes no difference to its asking price, a survey suggests.

The study for insurance firm LV of more than 200 estate agents also found 64% said the same about garden landscaping.

Putting in a new kitchen would have little impact on the value of a home, according to one in five estate agents.

They said competent structural work was most likely to boost a property's value - with a good loft conversion likely to increase the asking price by about 8%.

Gas repairs

However, they warned the increase in value was unlikely to cover the amount of money spent on having the work done.

The survey also polled more than 2,000 householders, with significant proportions admitting to carrying out major jobs on their homes without professional help.

One in four said they had undertaken electrical work, one in five had attempted plumbing, and nearly one in 10 had tried structural improvements such as removing walls.

Some 6% had had a go at major building work such as a loft conversion by themselves, and 3% attempted DIY gas repairs.

John O'Roarke, managing director of LV home insurance, warned that badly done work could reduce a property's value by as much as 5%.

'Bungling cost'

He said: "With house prices falling or stagnating in some parts of the UK, it's understandable that many homeowners should try to bump up the value of their properties through DIY home improvements.

"But although nine out of 10 people in our survey recognised that jobs like gas work should only be left to the professionals, nearly 500,000 Brits are still prepared to give it a go.

"Not only could bungling these jobs be dangerous, and costly to put right, but if they caused a serious problem with the property it could invalidate the home insurance cover."

In contrast to the views of the estate agents surveyed, a fifth of the householders thought redecorating would add most value to their home and 14% thought it would be refurbishing the kitchen.

Some 12% believed improving the garden would have the most impact and 6% said replacing the bathroom.