Polish doctors carry out world’s first life-saving face transplant

"Polish doctors carried out the world’s first life-saving face transplant, the centre’s spokeswoman said Wednesday, weeks after a 33-year-old man was disfigured by a machine in a workplace accident. The man, an employee at a stonemason’s workshop and only identified as Grzegorz, was severely maimed on April 23, when a machine used to cut stone ripped out a large chunk of his face. With time of the essence, doctors were lucky to find a donor within two weeks, a man in his thirties whose family immediately agreed to the operation." Continue reading

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Walk-in clinics gaining popularity

"Nontraditional healthcare sites such as urgent care centers and retail clinics are gaining popularity with consumers looking to avoid the long waits and high prices of the doctor's office or emergency department. The trend is expected to continue as the Affordable Care Act's full implementation looms and concerns grow over a shortage of primary care physicians. Visits to the country's three largest retail clinics — CVS Caremark's MinuteClinic, Walgreen's Take Care Health and Kroger's Little Clinic — have skyrocketed in recent years. Their popularity, a report found, is due to their convenience, accessible hours and low cost. The average cost of a visit is about $78." Continue reading

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Police ignore Taser heart attack risk and keep firing at suspects’ chests

"British police have fired Tasers hundreds of times at suspects’ chests despite explicit warnings from the weapon’s manufacturer not to do so because of the dangers of causing a cardiac arrest, the Guardian can reveal. Following the death last Wednesday of a man in Manchester after police hit him with a Taser shot, figures obtained from 18 out of 45 UK forces show that out of a total of 884 Taser discharges since 2009 – the year when Taser International first started warning the weapon’s users not to aim for the chest – 57% of all shots (518) have hit the chest area." Continue reading

Continue ReadingPolice ignore Taser heart attack risk and keep firing at suspects’ chests

Sneak peek: US Mint’s gold & silver coins production facility

"The appetite for US American Eagle gold and silver bullion coins is still at unprecedentedly high levels almost two months after a historic sell-off in gold unleashed years of pent-up demand from retail investors. We take a look at Mint, one of the world's top producers of gold and silver coins' production facility." Continue reading

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Documentary producers sue music company over copyright to ‘Happy Birthday To You’

"'Happy Birthday to You' is the subject of a fresh US legal dispute, with a production firm claiming the tune’s copyright owner has no exclusive right to the most popular song in the English language. Good Morning to You Productions (GMTY) has filed suit in a federal court in New York against Warner/Chappell Music demanding that the government declare invalid its copyright over the song, saying it belongs in the public domain. The lawsuit also demands the return of 'millions of dollars of unlawful licensing fees collected by defendant Warner/Chappell pursuant to its wrongful assertion of copyright ownership of the song,' the 26-page suit says." Continue reading

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A ‘disposition matrix’ system is now generating Obama’s secret kill list

"Since the Obama administration largely shut down the CIA’s rendition programme, choosing instead to dispose of its enemies in drone attacks, those individuals who are being nominated for killing have been discussed at a weekly counter-terrorism meeting at the White House situation room that has become known as Terror Tuesday. Barack Obama, in the chair and wishing to be seen as a restraining influence, agrees the final schedule of names. Once details of these meetings began to emerge it was not long before the media began talking of 'kill lists'. Before long the term disposition matrix was born." Continue reading

Continue ReadingA ‘disposition matrix’ system is now generating Obama’s secret kill list

Are telegrams dead?

"In India, the telegram held on a bit longer because it was used for internal government communications. The peak year was 1985, when 60m telegrams were sent, according to BSNL. But since then the number has dropped, and the number of telegram offices in India has fallen from 45,000 to just 75. Yet telegrams survive in a few other countries, including Belgium, Japan and Sweden, where former telecoms monopolies maintain them as a nostalgic novelty service. And in many other countries private firms offer telegram-delivery services. So despite several recent reports to the contrary, the telegram is not quite dead, and will probably never die." Continue reading

Continue ReadingAre telegrams dead?

Simple vinegar test can prevent cervical cancer deaths

"A simple vinegar test could prevent 73,000 deaths from cervical cancer worldwide each year, the authors of a large-scale study of women in India said Sunday. A primary health care worker swabs the woman’s cervix with vinegar, which causes pre-cancerous tumors to turn white. The results are known a minute later when a bright light is used to visually inspect the cervix. The instantaneous results are a major advantage for women in rural areas who might otherwise have to travel for hours to see a doctor. The randomized study of 150,000 women over 15 years found that the vinegar test was able to reduce cervical cancer deaths by 31 percent." Continue reading

Continue ReadingSimple vinegar test can prevent cervical cancer deaths

Urine ‘scent’ test can detect bladder cancer

"The new device, called ODOREADER, contains a sensor that responds to chemicals in gas emitted from urine, said the study in the US scientific journal PLoS ONE. It analyzes the gas and reports on the chemicals contained in urine, which scientists can then read on a computer screen in order to diagnose cancer of the bladder. 'We looked at 98 samples of urine to develop the device, and tested it on 24 patient samples known to have cancer and 74 samples that have urological symptoms, but no cancer,' said Probert. 'The device correctly assigned 100 percent of cancer patients.' The next step is to expand trials to a wider sample of patients." Continue reading

Continue ReadingUrine ‘scent’ test can detect bladder cancer

Gene therapy promises to wipe out rare childhood diseases

"A new type of gene therapy has shown promise in wiping out two rare childhood diseases, apparently without the risks of causing cancer, international researchers said Thursday. The method used an HIV virus vector and the patients’ own blood stem cells to deliver a corrected version of a faulty gene, said the report in the US journal Science. As a result, six children are doing well, 18 to 32 months after their operations, said lead scientist Luigi Naldini of the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy in Milan." Continue reading

Continue ReadingGene therapy promises to wipe out rare childhood diseases