More than 26,000 working-age adults die prematurely in the United States each year because they lack health insurance

More than 26,000 working-age adults die prematurely in the United States each year because they lack health insurance


More than 26,000 working-age adults die prematurely in the United States each year because they lack health insurance, according to a study published ahead of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law.


The study, released on Wednesday by the consumer advocacy group Families USA, estimates that a record high of 26,100 people aged 25 to 64 died for lack of health coverage in 2010, up from 20,350 in 2005 and 18,000 in 2000.


That makes for a rate of about 72 deaths per day, or three per hour.


The nonprofit group based its findings on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a 2002 Institute of Medicine study that showed the uninsured face a 25 percent higher risk of death than those with coverage.


The findings are in line with a study by the Urban Institute think tank that estimated 22,000 deaths nationwide in 2006.


Families USA Executive Director Ron Pollack said the group released the study to illustrate the potential human toll behind a high court ruling that could overturn the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by the end of next week.


"Lives are truly on the line," said Pollack, who supports the reform law. "If the Affordable Care Act moves forward and we expand coverage for tens of millions of people, the number of avoidable deaths due to being uninsured will decrease significantly."


Read more -
http://www.cnbc.com/id/47892358

Ancient turtle sex fossilized - first known case of animals with backbones found copulating in fossils -

Ancient turtle sex fossilized - first known case of animals with backbones found copulating in fossils - 


Fossil turtles have been caught having sex, the first known case of animals with backbones found copulating in the fossil record, researchers say.
The mating turtles may have been caught in a death trap as they sank to deeper layers of the lake, where they were having sex nearly 50 million years ago, the researchers speculate. The lake's deep layers may have held deadly volcanic gases or other toxins.
Scientists made their discovery at the Messel Pit in Germany, which once was a deep volcanic crater lake in a wet, tropical environment. The pit was a quarry originally mined for the oil in the shale there; but over the years, it has become the richest site in the world for understanding the living environment of the Eocene, the epoch between 57 million and 36 million years ago when mammals began conquering the planet. Animals there included early horses, reptiles, primates, honeybees, giant ants and countless birds and bats.



Researchers focused on 47-million-year-old specimens of an extinct turtle (Allaeochelys crassesculpta) found at the pit. These were rather small turtles, about 20 centimeters (8 inches) long. "They would have looked very similar to their closest living relative, the pig-nosed turtle (Carettochelys insculpta) from New Guinea and Australia, just much smaller," said lead researcher Walter Joyce, a fossil turtle expert at the University of Tübingen in Germany.
"The turtles likely ate anything they found swimming near the surface of the lake — mostly insects, small crustaceans and fruit," Joyce added. "We do not have any evidence of predation of adult turtles, but it is likely that they had to look out for the crocodilians that lived in the same lake."
Past analysis suggested this ancient species and its vanished kin lost almost all the scales on their bodies. Like their closest living relatives, these extinct turtles may have been able to absorb oxygen from the water through their skin, helping them remain submerged for prolonged amounts of time.
Intriguingly, a number of these fossil turtles were found in pairs. Now Joyce and his colleagues found these reptiles were apparently couples that perished while having sex in a deadly abyss.
"We are finding animals that died while mating," Joyce told LiveScience.




Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/06/19/coitus-interruptus-ancient-turtle-sex-fossilized/

NHS kills off 130,000 elderly patients every year - because they are difficult to manage or to free up beds -

NHS kills off 130,000 elderly patients every year - because they are difficult to manage or to free up beds - 




NHS doctors are prematurely ending the lives of thousands of elderly hospital patients because they are difficult to manage or to free up beds, a senior consultant claimed yesterday.
Professor Patrick Pullicino said doctors had turned the use of a controversial ‘death pathway’ into the equivalent of euthanasia of the elderly.
He claimed there was often a lack of clear evidence for initiating the Liverpool Care Pathway, a method of looking after terminally ill patients that is used in hospitals across the country.
It is designed to come into force when doctors believe it is impossible for a patient to recover and death is imminent.
It can include withdrawal of treatment – including the provision of water and nourishment by tube – and on average brings a patient to death in 33 hours.
There are around 450,000 deaths in Britain each year of people who are in hospital or under NHS care. Around 29 per cent – 130,000 – are of patients who were on the LCP.
Professor Pullicino claimed that far too often elderly patients who could live longer are placed on the LCP and it had now become an ‘assisted death pathway rather than a care pathway’.
He cited ‘pressure on beds and difficulty with nursing confused or difficult-to-manage elderly patients’ as factors. 
Professor Pullicino revealed he had personally intervened to take a patient off the LCP who went on to be successfully treated.
He said this showed that claims they had hours or days left are ‘palpably false’. 
In the example he revealed a 71-year-old who was admitted to hospital suffering from pneumonia and epilepsy was put on the LCP by a covering doctor on a weekend shift.



Professor Pullicino said he had returned to work after a weekend to find the patient unresponsive and his family upset because they had not agreed to place him on the LCP.
‘I removed the patient from the LCP despite significant resistance,’ he said.
‘His seizures came under control and four weeks later he was discharged home to his family,’ he said.
Professor Pullicino, a consultant neurologist for East Kent Hospitals and Professor of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Kent, was speaking to the Royal Society of Medicine in London. 
He said: ‘The lack of evidence for initiating the Liverpool Care Pathway makes it an assisted death pathway rather than a care pathway.
‘Very likely many elderly patients who could live substantially longer are being killed by the LCP. 
‘Patients are frequently put on the pathway without a proper analysis of their condition. 
‘Predicting death in a time frame of three to four days, or even at any other specific time, is not possible scientifically. 
This determination in the LCP leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The personal views of the physician or other medical team members of perceived quality of life or low likelihood of a good outcome are probably central in putting a patient on the LCP.’
He added: ‘If we accept the Liverpool Care Pathway we accept that euthanasia is part of the standard way of dying as it is now associated with 29 per cent of NHS deaths.’
The LCP was developed in the North West during the 1990s and recommended to hospitals by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in 2004. 
Medical criticisms of the Liverpool Care Pathway were voiced nearly three years ago. 
Experts including Peter Millard, emeritus professor of geriatrics at the University of London, and Dr Peter Hargreaves, palliative care consultant at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, Surrey, warned of ‘backdoor euthanasia’ and the risk that economic factors were being brought into the treatment of vulnerable patients.
In the example of the 71-year-old, Professor Pullicino revealed he had given the patient another 14 months of life by demanding the man be removed from the LCP.




Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2161869/Top-doctors-chilling-claim-The-NHS-kills-130-000-elderly-patients-year.html#ixzz1yK7gbr7D

Picture of the day - Is that really just a fly? Swarms of cyborg insect drones are the future of military surveillance -

Picture of the day - Is that really just a fly? Swarms of cyborg insect drones are the future of military surveillance - 






The kinds of drones making the headlines daily are the heavily armed CIA and U.S. Army vehicles which routinely strike targets in Pakistan - killing terrorists and innocents alike.
But the real high-tech story of surveillance drones is going on at a much smaller level, as tiny remote controlled vehicles based on insects are already likely being deployed.
Over recent years a range of miniature drones, or micro air vehicles (MAVs), based on the same physics used by flying insects, have been presented to the public.
The fear kicked off in 2007 when reports of bizarre flying objects hovering above anti-war protests sparked accusations that the U.S. government was accused of secretly developing robotic insect spies.



Official denials and suggestions from entomologists that they were actually dragonflies failed to quell speculation, and Tom Ehrhard, a retired Air Force colonel and expert on unmanned aerial craft, told the Daily Telegraph at the time that 'America can be pretty sneaky.'
The following year, the US Air Force unveiled insect-sized spies 'as tiny as bumblebees' that could not be detected and would be able to fly into buildings to 'photograph, record, and even attack insurgents and terrorists.'
Around the same time the Air Force also unveiled what it called 'lethal mini-drones' based on Leonardo da Vinci's blueprints for his Ornithopter flying machine, and claimed they would be ready for roll out by 2015.
That announcement was five years ago and, since the U.S. military is usually pretty cagey about its technological capabilities, it raises the question as to what it is keeping under wraps.
The University of Pennsylvania GRASP Lab recently showed off drones that swarm, a network of 20 nano quadrotors flying in synchronized formations.
The SWARMS goal is to combine swarm technology with bio-inspired drones to operate 'with little or no direct human supervision' in 'dynamic, resource-constrained, adversarial environments.'




Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2161647/Is-really-just-fly-Swarms-cyborg-insect-drones-future-military-surveillance.html

Company to start private lunar expeditions -- by 2015 - £100m for a six-eight month journey -

Company to start private lunar expeditions -- by 2015 - £100m for a six-eight month journey - 




Britain could become the first country to fly a tourist around the moon, after an Isle of Man-based company announced that it would be ready to take passengers on private lunar expeditions by 2015.
Excalibur Almaz will charge wannabe astronauts an average of £100m for a six-eight month journey exploring deep space.

Three wealthy individuals, or astronauts from emerging powers will be crammed into a reusable capsule the size of a waste skip and launched by rocket to a space station. After the two vehicles link up, they will travel on to the Moon.

“It is like how private British companies led expeditions to the South Pacific in the 17th century,” said Art Dula, founder of Excalibur Almaz. “We’ve just gone from seafaring to spacefaring.”

The company, run by Americans, chose to be based in the Isle of Man because of the island government’s commitment to the space industry, which ministers forecast will soon make up more a third of its gross domestic product. The lack of corporation tax and proximity to the City are also advantages.

Unlike SpaceX, its US rival, Excalibur Almaz has not received any American government subsidies. Its biggest advantage is its second-hand Soviet spacecraft which have helped Excalibur Almaz avoid the laborious process of developing and testing new equipment.

Mr Dula, a long-time space enthusiast, bought the kit from Russia after working as a patent lawyer in the industry. He and his business partner are the only investors in the company, which started in 2005.

The entrepreneur says this should help the company take passengers deeper into space than competitors such as Virgin Galactic. Sir Richard Branson’s venture will only allow tourists to orbit the earth, though its price is also less stellar, at £200,000.

James Oberg, a space flight consultant, said there were other companies exploring lunar missions, including as yet anonymous players but that none could start sending people as early as 2015.

Read more - 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f5af9e2a-ba21-11e1-aa8d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1yKvcKXUm

Man Shoots Woman In The Head After Confusing Her Mohawk For A BIRD that had been harassing his cats -

Man Shoots Woman In The Head After Confusing Her Mohawk For A BIRD that had been harassing his cats - 


Derrill Rockwell, 49, confessed to police he shot a 23-year-old woman when he mistook her red mohawk for a bird that had been harassing his cats.


Talk about having a bad hair day huh?


A Colorado man was sentenced to five years’ probation after accidentally shooting a woman whose red mohawk he mistook for a fowl that had been harassing his cats.


Derrill Rockwell, 49, told police that he grabbed his .22-caliber rifle and set out from his home to fire at the bird after spotting it at the top of a hill about 90 feet away, the Daily Sentinel reported Friday.


“His intent was to spook it away,” Deputy District Attorney Jason Conley told District Judge Richard Gurley on Friday.


But after shooting at the bird, the man said he noticed it didn’t fly away and he reported hearing a woman moaning in pain.


Rockwell soon discovered that he had shot a 23-year-old woman in the head, mistaking her red mohawk for the menacing bird.


Conley reportedly told the judge that the woman may have passed out from alcohol before being shot. Police officers also found a bag of suspected methamphetamine near where she was shot.


The woman survived the shooting, but has since moved from Colorado and could not be reached for comment.


Rockwell was sentenced to serve five years probation after pleading guilty to felony possession of a weapon by a prior offender (wonder who he shot the last time)


Read more -
http://www.viciousnews.com/man-shoots-woman-in-the-head-after-confusing-her-mohawk-for-a-bird/