News digest – alcohol guidelines, alarming obesity trends, e-cigarette medical license and… Tasmanian devils?

• If trends continue, by 2035 almost four in 10 adults will be obese, according to the worrying findings of our new report. The Guardian, BBC and Mail Online were among the many media outlets to cover the report, and we blogged about its findings.
• The chief medical officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, unveiled updated alcohol guidelines for the UK, reinforcing that drinking less reduces the risk of cancer. The story dominated the news, (here’s the BBC’s take), and we blogged about the guidelines and what they mean.
• The balance of harms and benefits for some types of cancer screening was discussed by US researchers. The Guardian has more.
• We had some fantastic news from the New Year Honours list as our chief executive, Harpal Kumar, received a knighthood. He blogged about what it was like to hear the news.
• An update to the world’s largest database for cancer drug discovery will help scientists be more effective in designing new drugs, according to our researchers. Read our press release for the details.

Number of the week

700,000

The number of new cancer cases that could be caused if obesity trends continue, according to our new report.

• We launched a new pilot study testing whether exercise could be used as a treatment for prostate cancer that hasn’t spread. The BBC and Independent covered this, and here’s a video showing how the study will work.
• The UK’s medicines licensing agency cleared the way for a brand of e-cigarette – made by a tobacco company – to be marketed as a quit-smoking aid. We covered this, as did the BBC.
• And following an article by our cancer prevention champion, Professor Linda Bauld, New Scientist explained why a study published at the end of last year didn’t show that ‘e-cigarettes are no safer than smoking tobacco’, despite the opinions of the lead researcher.
• Over at our UCL Health Behaviour Research Centre, the team discuss why some girls aren’t getting the HPV vaccine, or both doses.
• Our blog post featured in this great Buzzfeed roundup of the best science stories of 2015.
• A poll from the World Cancer Research Fund UK found that around four in 10 British people aren’t aware that being overweight increases the risk of cancer. Huffington Post has more on this.
• US scientists are developing an injectable probe that could help surgeons spot if cancer cells are left behind when a tumour is removed. The Mail Online covered this, but it’s still early days for the approach.
• One of our policy team wrote this for the BioMed Central blog on sharing and protecting patient data.

And finally

• The Tasmanian devil population is under threat from a cancer they can catch from biting each other’s faces. It’s a well-documented problem, but now there seems to be another catchable cancer threatening the devils. This fascinating article from The Atlantic investigates.

Nick

from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/22RqOmC

• If trends continue, by 2035 almost four in 10 adults will be obese, according to the worrying findings of our new report. The Guardian, BBC and Mail Online were among the many media outlets to cover the report, and we blogged about its findings.
• The chief medical officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, unveiled updated alcohol guidelines for the UK, reinforcing that drinking less reduces the risk of cancer. The story dominated the news, (here’s the BBC’s take), and we blogged about the guidelines and what they mean.
• The balance of harms and benefits for some types of cancer screening was discussed by US researchers. The Guardian has more.
• We had some fantastic news from the New Year Honours list as our chief executive, Harpal Kumar, received a knighthood. He blogged about what it was like to hear the news.
• An update to the world’s largest database for cancer drug discovery will help scientists be more effective in designing new drugs, according to our researchers. Read our press release for the details.

Number of the week

700,000

The number of new cancer cases that could be caused if obesity trends continue, according to our new report.

• We launched a new pilot study testing whether exercise could be used as a treatment for prostate cancer that hasn’t spread. The BBC and Independent covered this, and here’s a video showing how the study will work.
• The UK’s medicines licensing agency cleared the way for a brand of e-cigarette – made by a tobacco company – to be marketed as a quit-smoking aid. We covered this, as did the BBC.
• And following an article by our cancer prevention champion, Professor Linda Bauld, New Scientist explained why a study published at the end of last year didn’t show that ‘e-cigarettes are no safer than smoking tobacco’, despite the opinions of the lead researcher.
• Over at our UCL Health Behaviour Research Centre, the team discuss why some girls aren’t getting the HPV vaccine, or both doses.
• Our blog post featured in this great Buzzfeed roundup of the best science stories of 2015.
• A poll from the World Cancer Research Fund UK found that around four in 10 British people aren’t aware that being overweight increases the risk of cancer. Huffington Post has more on this.
• US scientists are developing an injectable probe that could help surgeons spot if cancer cells are left behind when a tumour is removed. The Mail Online covered this, but it’s still early days for the approach.
• One of our policy team wrote this for the BioMed Central blog on sharing and protecting patient data.

And finally

• The Tasmanian devil population is under threat from a cancer they can catch from biting each other’s faces. It’s a well-documented problem, but now there seems to be another catchable cancer threatening the devils. This fascinating article from The Atlantic investigates.

Nick

from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/22RqOmC

Orion the Hunter easy to spot in January

Tonight – or any January evening – look for the constellation Orion the Hunter. It’s probably the easiest to pick out of all the constellations in the winter sky. It’s identifiable by Orion’s Belt, three medium-bright stars in a short, straight row at the mid-section of the Hunter. See these stars? They are easy to spot on the sky’s dome. As seen from mid-northern latitudes, you’ll find Orion in the southeast at early evening and shining high in the south by late evening (around 10 to 11 p.m. local time). If you live at temperate latitudes to the south of the equator, you’ll see Orion high in your northern sky at this hour. Pick out Orion’s Belt and the nearby bright stars in that part of the sky, and you’ve probably found Orion.

Donate: Your support means the world to us

There’s plenty to see in Orion, too, and it’s easy to find.

Stars in distinct constellations like Orion look connected, perhaps even gravitationally bound, but usually they aren’t. Certainly Orion’s stars aren’t bound to each other by anything but their general location near one another along a single line of sight from Earth. The stars of Orion just happen to make an easy visual pattern on our sky’s dome.

Meanwhile, the stars in Orion and most other constellations are located at vastly different distances from each other. For example, notice the two brightest stars in Orion, Betelgeuse and Rigel. Betelgeuse is estimated to be located 522 light-years away, while Rigel’s distance is 773 light-years.

On the other hand, those prominent stars in Orion’s Belt are somewhat related. They are all giant stars in a nearby spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy. These stars’ names are Mintaka, Alnilam, and Alnitak.

Bottom line: At this time of year, the constellation Orion the Hunter takes center stage in the star-studded sky!

Why do stars seem brighter in winter?

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1DoNj6Y

Tonight – or any January evening – look for the constellation Orion the Hunter. It’s probably the easiest to pick out of all the constellations in the winter sky. It’s identifiable by Orion’s Belt, three medium-bright stars in a short, straight row at the mid-section of the Hunter. See these stars? They are easy to spot on the sky’s dome. As seen from mid-northern latitudes, you’ll find Orion in the southeast at early evening and shining high in the south by late evening (around 10 to 11 p.m. local time). If you live at temperate latitudes to the south of the equator, you’ll see Orion high in your northern sky at this hour. Pick out Orion’s Belt and the nearby bright stars in that part of the sky, and you’ve probably found Orion.

Donate: Your support means the world to us

There’s plenty to see in Orion, too, and it’s easy to find.

Stars in distinct constellations like Orion look connected, perhaps even gravitationally bound, but usually they aren’t. Certainly Orion’s stars aren’t bound to each other by anything but their general location near one another along a single line of sight from Earth. The stars of Orion just happen to make an easy visual pattern on our sky’s dome.

Meanwhile, the stars in Orion and most other constellations are located at vastly different distances from each other. For example, notice the two brightest stars in Orion, Betelgeuse and Rigel. Betelgeuse is estimated to be located 522 light-years away, while Rigel’s distance is 773 light-years.

On the other hand, those prominent stars in Orion’s Belt are somewhat related. They are all giant stars in a nearby spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy. These stars’ names are Mintaka, Alnilam, and Alnitak.

Bottom line: At this time of year, the constellation Orion the Hunter takes center stage in the star-studded sky!

Why do stars seem brighter in winter?

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1DoNj6Y

New CDC data on opioid abuse: ‘The opioid overdose epidemic is worsening’ [The Pump Handle]

These days, there’s a lot of attention on finding new and creative ways to turn around the nation’s opioid abuse and overdose problem. And it’s attention that’s very much needed because the problem is only getting worse.

On the first day of 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published new data on prescription drug and opioid overdose deaths, reporting that more people died from drug overdoses in the U.S. in 2014 than during any other year on record. In fact, during 2014, there were about one-and-a-half more drug overdose deaths than deaths from traffic crashes, with most of those overdose deaths related to prescription painkillers and heroin. Getting into the specific numbers: Opioids caused 61 percent of all drug overdose deaths in 2014 — in pure numbers, that’s 28,647 deaths. Between 2013 and 2014, rates of opioid overdose deaths increased 14 percent.

The data was presented in a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) study. Authors Rose Rudd, Noah Aleshire, Jon Zibbell and Matthew Gladden write: “These findings indicated that the opioid overdose epidemic is worsening. There is a need for continued action to prevent opioid abuse, dependence and death, improve treatment capacity for opioid use disorders, and reduce the supply of illicit opioids, particularly heroin and illicit fentanyl.”

Back to the new data, CDC reports that from 2013 to 2014, the death rate involving natural and semisynthetic opioid pain relievers, heroin and synthetic opioids (not including methadone) increased 9 percent, 26 percent and 80 percent, respectively. The study noted that the sharp spike in synthetic opioid deaths aligned with police reports about increased availability of illegally manufactured fentanyl, a synthetic opioid painkiller that’s more powerful than morphine. Overall, more than 47,000 drug overdose deaths happened in the U.S. in 2014 — that’s a 6.5 percent increase from 2013. Rises in drug overdose deaths were documented among men and women; among whites and blacks; among those ages 25 to 44 and 55 to 64; and in the country’s Northeast, Midwest and Southern regions. States with the highest rates of drug overdose deaths are West Virginia, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Kentucky and Ohio.

Between 2013 and 2014, the largest increase in the rate of drug overdose deaths involved synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl and tramadol — that rate just about doubled. During the same time period, the rate of deaths from heroin overdose increased by 26 percent. Natural and semisynthetic opioids, such as morphine, oxycodone and hydrocodone, accounted for the highest rate of opioid overdose deaths in 2014.

The recent surge in heroin overdose deaths is particularly frightening, with that rate more than tripling in the last four years, reported CDC, which also noted that previous abuse of prescription opioids is “the strongest factor” for initiating heroin use. The agency recently reported that heroin use has increased among nearly every demographic group in the nation, and heroin-related overdose deaths have gone up 286 percent between 2002 and 2013.

The MMWR study calls for ramping up a number of efforts to curb the opioid abuse and overdose epidemic, including better prescribing practices. (Check out this recent study that found that more than 90 percent of people who overdosed on an opioid medication continued to receive a painkiller prescription.) In fact, CDC is now accepting comments on its draft guidance for prescribing opioids for chronic pain patients. You can read about the proposed guidelines here, and the comment period closes on Jan. 13.

To read the full MMWR study, visit CDC.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for nearly 15 years.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1ZbpOFd

These days, there’s a lot of attention on finding new and creative ways to turn around the nation’s opioid abuse and overdose problem. And it’s attention that’s very much needed because the problem is only getting worse.

On the first day of 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published new data on prescription drug and opioid overdose deaths, reporting that more people died from drug overdoses in the U.S. in 2014 than during any other year on record. In fact, during 2014, there were about one-and-a-half more drug overdose deaths than deaths from traffic crashes, with most of those overdose deaths related to prescription painkillers and heroin. Getting into the specific numbers: Opioids caused 61 percent of all drug overdose deaths in 2014 — in pure numbers, that’s 28,647 deaths. Between 2013 and 2014, rates of opioid overdose deaths increased 14 percent.

The data was presented in a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) study. Authors Rose Rudd, Noah Aleshire, Jon Zibbell and Matthew Gladden write: “These findings indicated that the opioid overdose epidemic is worsening. There is a need for continued action to prevent opioid abuse, dependence and death, improve treatment capacity for opioid use disorders, and reduce the supply of illicit opioids, particularly heroin and illicit fentanyl.”

Back to the new data, CDC reports that from 2013 to 2014, the death rate involving natural and semisynthetic opioid pain relievers, heroin and synthetic opioids (not including methadone) increased 9 percent, 26 percent and 80 percent, respectively. The study noted that the sharp spike in synthetic opioid deaths aligned with police reports about increased availability of illegally manufactured fentanyl, a synthetic opioid painkiller that’s more powerful than morphine. Overall, more than 47,000 drug overdose deaths happened in the U.S. in 2014 — that’s a 6.5 percent increase from 2013. Rises in drug overdose deaths were documented among men and women; among whites and blacks; among those ages 25 to 44 and 55 to 64; and in the country’s Northeast, Midwest and Southern regions. States with the highest rates of drug overdose deaths are West Virginia, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Kentucky and Ohio.

Between 2013 and 2014, the largest increase in the rate of drug overdose deaths involved synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl and tramadol — that rate just about doubled. During the same time period, the rate of deaths from heroin overdose increased by 26 percent. Natural and semisynthetic opioids, such as morphine, oxycodone and hydrocodone, accounted for the highest rate of opioid overdose deaths in 2014.

The recent surge in heroin overdose deaths is particularly frightening, with that rate more than tripling in the last four years, reported CDC, which also noted that previous abuse of prescription opioids is “the strongest factor” for initiating heroin use. The agency recently reported that heroin use has increased among nearly every demographic group in the nation, and heroin-related overdose deaths have gone up 286 percent between 2002 and 2013.

The MMWR study calls for ramping up a number of efforts to curb the opioid abuse and overdose epidemic, including better prescribing practices. (Check out this recent study that found that more than 90 percent of people who overdosed on an opioid medication continued to receive a painkiller prescription.) In fact, CDC is now accepting comments on its draft guidance for prescribing opioids for chronic pain patients. You can read about the proposed guidelines here, and the comment period closes on Jan. 13.

To read the full MMWR study, visit CDC.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for nearly 15 years.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1ZbpOFd

The First All-Sky Extreme Energy Map Reveals An Unknown Monster In Our Galaxy (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]

“I happen to have discovered a direct relation between magnetism and light, also electricity and light, and the field it opens is so large and I think rich.” -Michael Faraday

With the launch of the Fermi satellite in the late 2000s, we began observing the highest energy photons in the Universe — gamma rays — all over the sky, to unprecedented precision. Produced from cosmic ray showers in space when high energy protons run into other, stationary protons, these gamma rays locate point sources from supermassive black holes to supernova remnants to pulsars.

Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, of data from the Fermi LAT collaboration.

There is, additionally, a great correlation between the infrared sky and the gamma ray sky, since the great high-energy background scatters off of the diffuse infrared gas, producing gamma rays there as well. But while a great many sources can be correlated with known structures, Fermi reveals at least one unknown, intense behemoth that emits spectacularly in gamma rays.

Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA, for the WISE collaboration.

Go find out what my guess is as to its nature!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/22QGaHT

“I happen to have discovered a direct relation between magnetism and light, also electricity and light, and the field it opens is so large and I think rich.” -Michael Faraday

With the launch of the Fermi satellite in the late 2000s, we began observing the highest energy photons in the Universe — gamma rays — all over the sky, to unprecedented precision. Produced from cosmic ray showers in space when high energy protons run into other, stationary protons, these gamma rays locate point sources from supermassive black holes to supernova remnants to pulsars.

Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, of data from the Fermi LAT collaboration.

There is, additionally, a great correlation between the infrared sky and the gamma ray sky, since the great high-energy background scatters off of the diffuse infrared gas, producing gamma rays there as well. But while a great many sources can be correlated with known structures, Fermi reveals at least one unknown, intense behemoth that emits spectacularly in gamma rays.

Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA, for the WISE collaboration.

Go find out what my guess is as to its nature!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/22QGaHT

Who’s paying the cost of lung transplants for work-related lung diseases? [The Pump Handle]

A new paper by NIOSH researchers explores the use of lung transplants for individuals with work-related pneumoconiosis, including black lung disease. Using data from the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) for the period 1996-2014, Blackley and colleagues identified 47 lung-transplant cases in which the patient’s primary diagnosis was “coal workers’ pneumoconiosis” or pneumoconiosis unspecified.” Thirty four of the lung transplants (72%) were performed since 2008.

The medical costs for a bilateral lung transplant are substantial. In 2014, the average cost of treatment was $1.04 million for the period covering 30 days prior to the surgery through six months after the transplant surgery.

The authors conclude:

“These transplants reflect the use of a scarce resource for an entirely preventable disease, and highlight the need for enhanced efforts to reduce coal mine dust exposures.”

I couldn’t agree more.

One of the things that jumped out to me in the paper were a few sentences about the payers for these 47 lung transplants. The phrase “workers’ compensation insurance” is noticeably absent although these surgeries and related costs are clearly for a work-related disease. The authors report that 34 percent (n=16) were paid by private insurance and 30 percent (n=14) were paid by Medicare.

The authors write “other government insurance schemes” paid for 36 percent (n=17) of the lung transplants. I contacted the authors for clarification about this category of payer. They indicated that the dataset identified these other payers as “public insurance” or “US/State Govt Agency.”

One of these “other government insurance schemes” might be the Federal Black Lung program which is managed by the US Department of Labor. In order for a lung transplant to be covered by the program, however, a coal miner must already have an approved claim. In other words, he must already be enrolled in the program. As we learned in the Pulitzer Prize winning series by the Center for Public Integrity, “Breathless and Burdened,” some mine operators go to extreme measures fighting coal miners’ claims for black lung benefits.

Under Medicare rules, the Federal Black Lung Benefits Program is supposed to be the first payer for any healthcare related to a miner’s black lung disease. NIOSH researchers found however that 30 percent of the lung transplants were paid for by Medicare. It’s not hard for me to imagine why a person with a gravely serious lung disease would prefer the Medicare payment route than the Federal Black Lung Benefits route. (An upside of coverage under the latter is that costs are covered 100%, while under Medicare the miner could have a 20% co-pay.)

Even if a coal miner is already approved for the Federal Black Lung program, he needs special pre-evaluation and approval for a lung transplant. This includes approval by his former employer. The same rigmarole and stumbling blocks the miner faced securing other black lung benefits may likely be even worse when the request is for a costly lung transplant. The Labor Department’s Division of Coal Mine Workers’ Compensation (DCMWC) may determine that a lung transplant is medically warranted and the miner meets the other eligibility requirements, but the transplant request may still be challenged by the coal company. In such a case, the Federal Black Lung program would pay the medical bills and then work to recoup the cost from the coal miner’s former employer(s).

“Lung Transplantation Is Increasingly Common Among Patients With Coal Workers’ Pneumoconiosis” makes an important contribution to the literature. I tip my hat to the NIOSH researchers for probing the UNOS data. Who pays for work-related injury and illness is an important policy issue. It’s one that’s been investigated (e.g., here) and a topic of interest to OSHA’s administrator David Michaels, PhD, MPH. These and other analyses indicate there is significant and inappropriate cost-shifting from workers’ compensation to other payers, including Medicare, Medicaid, and families. The paper by Blackley and colleagues peeks at that idea, but it was not explored further. An opportunity for a follow-up paper? On my end, I’ve submitted a FOIA request to the Labor Department for their data on lung transplant cases covered by the Black Lung benefits program.

A lung transplant has a $1 million price tag. Lungs for transplantation are a scarce resource, with more than 1,600 individuals in the US on the waiting list. We’ve know for decades how to prevent coal-dust related lung diseases—unlike other illnesses for which individuals need lung transplants—so much more should be done to make sure coal miners are protected from respirable coal dust. But coal mine operators are fighting those efforts.

In May 2014, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) issued a new regulation to address the problem of coal-dust related lung disease. The rule will take full effect later this year when coal mine operators will have to use continuous personal dust monitors to assess concentrations of respirable dust and to reduce these exposures from 2.0 mg/m3 to 1.5 mg/m3. The National Mining Association, Murray Energy and a slew of other coal companies filed a legal challenge against the rule, and just recently ask the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to halt a provision of the rule set to take effect next month.

I think their money would be better spent on controlling respirable coal mine dust than on lawyers’ fees. But if coal companies aren’t held accountable for the full cost of black lung disease, including $1 million lung transplants, why would they?

 

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1Re0aAh

A new paper by NIOSH researchers explores the use of lung transplants for individuals with work-related pneumoconiosis, including black lung disease. Using data from the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) for the period 1996-2014, Blackley and colleagues identified 47 lung-transplant cases in which the patient’s primary diagnosis was “coal workers’ pneumoconiosis” or pneumoconiosis unspecified.” Thirty four of the lung transplants (72%) were performed since 2008.

The medical costs for a bilateral lung transplant are substantial. In 2014, the average cost of treatment was $1.04 million for the period covering 30 days prior to the surgery through six months after the transplant surgery.

The authors conclude:

“These transplants reflect the use of a scarce resource for an entirely preventable disease, and highlight the need for enhanced efforts to reduce coal mine dust exposures.”

I couldn’t agree more.

One of the things that jumped out to me in the paper were a few sentences about the payers for these 47 lung transplants. The phrase “workers’ compensation insurance” is noticeably absent although these surgeries and related costs are clearly for a work-related disease. The authors report that 34 percent (n=16) were paid by private insurance and 30 percent (n=14) were paid by Medicare.

The authors write “other government insurance schemes” paid for 36 percent (n=17) of the lung transplants. I contacted the authors for clarification about this category of payer. They indicated that the dataset identified these other payers as “public insurance” or “US/State Govt Agency.”

One of these “other government insurance schemes” might be the Federal Black Lung program which is managed by the US Department of Labor. In order for a lung transplant to be covered by the program, however, a coal miner must already have an approved claim. In other words, he must already be enrolled in the program. As we learned in the Pulitzer Prize winning series by the Center for Public Integrity, “Breathless and Burdened,” some mine operators go to extreme measures fighting coal miners’ claims for black lung benefits.

Under Medicare rules, the Federal Black Lung Benefits Program is supposed to be the first payer for any healthcare related to a miner’s black lung disease. NIOSH researchers found however that 30 percent of the lung transplants were paid for by Medicare. It’s not hard for me to imagine why a person with a gravely serious lung disease would prefer the Medicare payment route than the Federal Black Lung Benefits route. (An upside of coverage under the latter is that costs are covered 100%, while under Medicare the miner could have a 20% co-pay.)

Even if a coal miner is already approved for the Federal Black Lung program, he needs special pre-evaluation and approval for a lung transplant. This includes approval by his former employer. The same rigmarole and stumbling blocks the miner faced securing other black lung benefits may likely be even worse when the request is for a costly lung transplant. The Labor Department’s Division of Coal Mine Workers’ Compensation (DCMWC) may determine that a lung transplant is medically warranted and the miner meets the other eligibility requirements, but the transplant request may still be challenged by the coal company. In such a case, the Federal Black Lung program would pay the medical bills and then work to recoup the cost from the coal miner’s former employer(s).

“Lung Transplantation Is Increasingly Common Among Patients With Coal Workers’ Pneumoconiosis” makes an important contribution to the literature. I tip my hat to the NIOSH researchers for probing the UNOS data. Who pays for work-related injury and illness is an important policy issue. It’s one that’s been investigated (e.g., here) and a topic of interest to OSHA’s administrator David Michaels, PhD, MPH. These and other analyses indicate there is significant and inappropriate cost-shifting from workers’ compensation to other payers, including Medicare, Medicaid, and families. The paper by Blackley and colleagues peeks at that idea, but it was not explored further. An opportunity for a follow-up paper? On my end, I’ve submitted a FOIA request to the Labor Department for their data on lung transplant cases covered by the Black Lung benefits program.

A lung transplant has a $1 million price tag. Lungs for transplantation are a scarce resource, with more than 1,600 individuals in the US on the waiting list. We’ve know for decades how to prevent coal-dust related lung diseases—unlike other illnesses for which individuals need lung transplants—so much more should be done to make sure coal miners are protected from respirable coal dust. But coal mine operators are fighting those efforts.

In May 2014, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) issued a new regulation to address the problem of coal-dust related lung disease. The rule will take full effect later this year when coal mine operators will have to use continuous personal dust monitors to assess concentrations of respirable dust and to reduce these exposures from 2.0 mg/m3 to 1.5 mg/m3. The National Mining Association, Murray Energy and a slew of other coal companies filed a legal challenge against the rule, and just recently ask the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to halt a provision of the rule set to take effect next month.

I think their money would be better spent on controlling respirable coal mine dust than on lawyers’ fees. But if coal companies aren’t held accountable for the full cost of black lung disease, including $1 million lung transplants, why would they?

 

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1Re0aAh

About That Satellite Data [Greg Laden's Blog]

Last December, the United States Senate subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness, headed by Ted Cruz, held a hearing to which they invited a gaggle of climate change deniers and one good guy to testify about how the science on climate change is all wrong. I wrote about it here. The strangest aspect of this hearing was probably shock jock Mark Steyn’s use of the venue to argue his case in a civil law suit pertaining to his apparently libelous behavior. But there was another feature of this hearing worth noting. Both the deniers, in particular Roy Spencer, and Senator Cruz focused on a set of data that they construed to indicated showed that global warming is not really happening.

The oceans are warming significantly. The Earth’s surface, as measured by thermometers as well as direct and indirect measurements of the sea surface, is warming significantly. The only people who doubt this are those who are either very badly misinformed or politically or financially motivated to deny reality.

But among the data are satellite based measurements of the troposphere. These data also show warming if properly analyzed, but some forms of these data can be used to make a graph that might give the impression that the warming we clearly see is not happening, or at least, not happening much.

So what is going on here? Are these satellite data telling the Real Truth, contrary to what all the other data show, or is this just a bad data set, or are these data being abused by contrarians?

Most of the satellite data in question come from a set of birds that are deployed for use in weather prediction, but secondarily measure the temperature of the Troposphere. They have sensors that collect microwave energy emitted by Oxygen molecules to estimate temperature. This technique has certain advantages and certain disadvantages, and is fairly easy to deploy.

How one goes from these microwave signals to a temperature measurement is actually very complicated. This has been further complicated by the failure of some of the instruments, and the fact that over time the satellites, in a polar orbit, lose altitude over time, which changes how the readings must be calibrated. Also, the satellites are supposed to pass over the Earth at nearly noon and nearly midnight (on opposite sides of the planet) as the Earth rotates beneath. But this synchronization goes off over a period of time as well.

And that is the simple version.

There have been many studies of these data, and attempts to adjust for all of the problems in this methodology. The experts do not all agree on how to correct the data. There are two approaches commonly used to produce potentially usable data (known as RSS and UAH) and each has advantages and disadvantages.

Skeptical Science has a set of three discussions, couched in less or more technical terms, of how this all works. If this is of interest to you, check it out.

Tamino, at Open Mind, addressed Ted Cruz’s misuse of the satellite data and concludes,

When Ted Cruz said that both satellites and balloon data fail to show warming, he was just plain wrong. When he said these data sets were the best evidence of whether warming is occurring, he was just plain wrong. Together, those two claims make up point number 4 of the 7 things he called “facts” — but he was wrong about their being facts. They’re just claims, claims which are just plain wrong.

Ted Cruz also didn’t seem able to keep straight how many of his so-called “facts” he listed. There were 7, but he repeatedly referred to 8. I guess when it comes to counting anywhere near as high as 10, Ted Cruz is again likely to be just plain wrong.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1IUTqog

Last December, the United States Senate subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness, headed by Ted Cruz, held a hearing to which they invited a gaggle of climate change deniers and one good guy to testify about how the science on climate change is all wrong. I wrote about it here. The strangest aspect of this hearing was probably shock jock Mark Steyn’s use of the venue to argue his case in a civil law suit pertaining to his apparently libelous behavior. But there was another feature of this hearing worth noting. Both the deniers, in particular Roy Spencer, and Senator Cruz focused on a set of data that they construed to indicated showed that global warming is not really happening.

The oceans are warming significantly. The Earth’s surface, as measured by thermometers as well as direct and indirect measurements of the sea surface, is warming significantly. The only people who doubt this are those who are either very badly misinformed or politically or financially motivated to deny reality.

But among the data are satellite based measurements of the troposphere. These data also show warming if properly analyzed, but some forms of these data can be used to make a graph that might give the impression that the warming we clearly see is not happening, or at least, not happening much.

So what is going on here? Are these satellite data telling the Real Truth, contrary to what all the other data show, or is this just a bad data set, or are these data being abused by contrarians?

Most of the satellite data in question come from a set of birds that are deployed for use in weather prediction, but secondarily measure the temperature of the Troposphere. They have sensors that collect microwave energy emitted by Oxygen molecules to estimate temperature. This technique has certain advantages and certain disadvantages, and is fairly easy to deploy.

How one goes from these microwave signals to a temperature measurement is actually very complicated. This has been further complicated by the failure of some of the instruments, and the fact that over time the satellites, in a polar orbit, lose altitude over time, which changes how the readings must be calibrated. Also, the satellites are supposed to pass over the Earth at nearly noon and nearly midnight (on opposite sides of the planet) as the Earth rotates beneath. But this synchronization goes off over a period of time as well.

And that is the simple version.

There have been many studies of these data, and attempts to adjust for all of the problems in this methodology. The experts do not all agree on how to correct the data. There are two approaches commonly used to produce potentially usable data (known as RSS and UAH) and each has advantages and disadvantages.

Skeptical Science has a set of three discussions, couched in less or more technical terms, of how this all works. If this is of interest to you, check it out.

Tamino, at Open Mind, addressed Ted Cruz’s misuse of the satellite data and concludes,

When Ted Cruz said that both satellites and balloon data fail to show warming, he was just plain wrong. When he said these data sets were the best evidence of whether warming is occurring, he was just plain wrong. Together, those two claims make up point number 4 of the 7 things he called “facts” — but he was wrong about their being facts. They’re just claims, claims which are just plain wrong.

Ted Cruz also didn’t seem able to keep straight how many of his so-called “facts” he listed. There were 7, but he repeatedly referred to 8. I guess when it comes to counting anywhere near as high as 10, Ted Cruz is again likely to be just plain wrong.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1IUTqog

This Week in EPA Science

By Kacey Fitzpatrick

Happy 2016! Here’s your first Research Recap of the New Year.

How Do You Fight The World’s ‘Largest Environmental Health Problem’?
More than 4 million people die prematurely every year from household air pollution—largely a result of indoor cooking with smoky stoves. Huffington Post recently featured a 2009 EPA People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) Student Design Competition winner’s project, a solar cookstove, as a possible solution.

Read more about the solar cookstove in the article How Do You Fight The World’s ‘Largest Environmental Health Problem’? Harness The Sun.

Small Business Innovation Research
EPA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is a source of early-stage capital for innovative small companies in the green tech arena. Are you an entrepreneur with an idea for green technology? EPA’s Small Business Innovation Research Program may be an opportunity to help advance your brilliant idea into the marketplace. And you’re in luck—the deadline has been extended to January 14.

Learn more about the program here.

StarTalk
Neil deGrasse Tyson recently interviewed EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on his show StarTalk. They discussed EPA’s efforts in keeping the Earth habitable for humans with co-host Maeve Higgins and guest Andrew Revkin, of Dot Earth, the science blog of The New York Times.

Watch the interview here.

Environmental Merit Awards
EPA is now accepting nominations for the 2016 Environmental Merit Awards, which recognize environmental achievements during the previous year. Do you know anyone deserving of the award? Categories are available for individuals, businesses, governmental entities, and other organizations.

Read more about the awards in the press release Nominations Open for EPA’s Annual Environmental Merit Awards in New England.

 

The Transform Tox Testing Challenge: Innovating for Metabolism
Out of thousands of chemicals in commerce today, very few have been fully evaluated for potential health effects. Today, EPA and partners announced a new challenge that will award up to $1 million to improve the relevance and predictivity of data generated from automated chemical screening technology used for toxicity testing.

Read more about the challenge in the press release Federal Agencies Partner to Launch the Transform Tox Testing Challenge to Improve Chemical Screening.

 

About the Author: Kacey Fitzpatrick is a student contractor and writer working with the science communication team in EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/1MXGid4

By Kacey Fitzpatrick

Happy 2016! Here’s your first Research Recap of the New Year.

How Do You Fight The World’s ‘Largest Environmental Health Problem’?
More than 4 million people die prematurely every year from household air pollution—largely a result of indoor cooking with smoky stoves. Huffington Post recently featured a 2009 EPA People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) Student Design Competition winner’s project, a solar cookstove, as a possible solution.

Read more about the solar cookstove in the article How Do You Fight The World’s ‘Largest Environmental Health Problem’? Harness The Sun.

Small Business Innovation Research
EPA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is a source of early-stage capital for innovative small companies in the green tech arena. Are you an entrepreneur with an idea for green technology? EPA’s Small Business Innovation Research Program may be an opportunity to help advance your brilliant idea into the marketplace. And you’re in luck—the deadline has been extended to January 14.

Learn more about the program here.

StarTalk
Neil deGrasse Tyson recently interviewed EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on his show StarTalk. They discussed EPA’s efforts in keeping the Earth habitable for humans with co-host Maeve Higgins and guest Andrew Revkin, of Dot Earth, the science blog of The New York Times.

Watch the interview here.

Environmental Merit Awards
EPA is now accepting nominations for the 2016 Environmental Merit Awards, which recognize environmental achievements during the previous year. Do you know anyone deserving of the award? Categories are available for individuals, businesses, governmental entities, and other organizations.

Read more about the awards in the press release Nominations Open for EPA’s Annual Environmental Merit Awards in New England.

 

The Transform Tox Testing Challenge: Innovating for Metabolism
Out of thousands of chemicals in commerce today, very few have been fully evaluated for potential health effects. Today, EPA and partners announced a new challenge that will award up to $1 million to improve the relevance and predictivity of data generated from automated chemical screening technology used for toxicity testing.

Read more about the challenge in the press release Federal Agencies Partner to Launch the Transform Tox Testing Challenge to Improve Chemical Screening.

 

About the Author: Kacey Fitzpatrick is a student contractor and writer working with the science communication team in EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/1MXGid4